A Soldier's Wife

: Soldiers.

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

mistre
s?_ 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_."



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