A Soldier's Wife

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The late Duchess of York having desired her housekeeper
to seek out for a new laundress, a decent-looking woman was recommended to
the situation. "But, (said the housekeeper) I am afraid that she will not
suit your royal highness, as she is a soldier's wife, and these people are
generally loose characters." "What is that you say, said the duke, who had
just entered the room. A soldier's wife! Pray, madam, _what is your
mistress?_ If that is all her fault, I desire that the woman may be
immediately engaged."

A Scotch Innkeeper, who had determined on adopting the sign of Flodden
Well, was much puzzled for a suitable inscription. At length he waited on
Sir Walter Scott, and asked his aid, observing, that "as he had written so
much about it in _Marmion_, he might know something that would do for an
inscription." The poet immediately replied, "Why, man, I think ye cannot do
better than take a verse from the poem itself." The innkeeper expressed his
willingness to do this, when Sir Walter said to him, "Well, then, you have
nothing to do, but just to leave out one letter from the line

'Drink, weary traveller--drink and pray;'

and say instead

'Drink, weary traveller--drink and pay!'"

Dean Swift's barber one day told him that he had taken a public-house. "And
what's your sign?" said the dean. "Oh, the pole and bason; and if your
worship would just write me a few lines to put upon it, by way of motto, I
have no doubt but it would draw me plenty of customers." The dean took out
his pencil, and wrote the following couplet, which long graced the barber's
sign:

"Rove not from _pole_ to _pole_, but step in here,
Where nought excels the _shaving_, but the _beer_."

Next: Equality in Danger
Previous: The Schoolmaster Abroad

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