THRIFT


It was said of a certain village "innocent" or fool in Scotland that if

he were offered a silver sixpence or copper penny he would invariably

choose the larger coin of smaller value. One day a stranger asked him:



"Why do you always take the penny? Don't you know the difference in

value?



"Aye," answered the fool, "I ken the difference in value. But if I took

the saxpence they would never try
e again."





The Mrs. never misses

Any bargain sale,

For the female of the species

Is more thrifty than the male.





MCANDREWS (the chemist, at two A.M.)--"Two penn'orth of bicarbonate of

soda for indigestion at this time o' night, when a glass of hot water

does just as well!"



SANDY (hastily)--"Well, well! Thanks for the advice. I'll not bother ye,

after all. Gude nicht!"





The foreman and his crew of bridgemen were striving hard to make an

impression on the select board provided by Mrs. Rooney at her Arkansas

eating establishment.



"The old man sure made a funny deal down at Piney yesterday," observed

the foreman, with a wink at the man to his right.



"What'd he do?" asked the new man at the other end of the table.



"Well, a year or so ago there used to be a water tank there, but they

took down the tub and brought it up to Cabin Creek. The well went dry

and they covered it over. It was four or five feet round, ninety feet

deep, and plumb in the right of way. Didn't know what to do with it

until along comes an old lollypop yesterday and gives the Old Man five

dollars for it."



"Five dollars for what?" asked the new man.



"Well," continued the foreman, ignoring the interruption, "that old

lollypop borrowed two jacks from the trackmen and jacked her up out of

there and carried her home on wheels.'



"What'd he do with it?" persisted the new man.



"Say that old lollypop must've been a Yank. Nobody else could have

figured it out. The ground on his place is hard and he needed some more

fence. So he calc'lated 'twould be easier and cheaper to saw that old

well up into post-holes than 'twould be to dig 'em."





A certain workman, notorious for his sponging proclivities, met a friend

one morning, and opened the conversation by saying:



"Can ye len' us a match, John?"



John having supplied him with the match, the first speaker began to feel

his pockets ostentatiously, and then remarked dolefully, "Man, I seem to

have left my tobacco pouch at hame."



John, however, was equal to the occasion, and holding out his hand,

remarked:



"Aweel, ye'll no be needin' that match then."





A Highlander was summoned to the bedside of his dying father. When he

arrived the old man was fast nearing his end. For a while he remained

unconscious of his son's presence. Then at last the old man's eyes

opened, and he began to murmur. The son bent eagerly to listen.



"Dugald," whispered the parent, "Luckie Simpson owes me five shilling."



"Ay, man, ay," said the son eagerly.



"An" Dugal More owes me seven shillins."



"Ay," assented the son.



"An' Hamish McCraw owes me ten shillins."



"Sensible tae the last," muttered the delighted heir. "Sensible tae the

last."



Once more the voice from the bed took up the tale.



"An', Dugald, I owe Calum Beg two pounds."



Dugald shook his head sadly.



"Wanderin' again, wanderin' again," he sighed. "It's a peety."





The canny Scot wandered into the pharmacy.



"I'm wanting threepenn'orth o' laudanum," he announced.



"What for?" asked the chemist suspiciously.



"For twopence," responded the Scot at once.





A Scotsman wishing to know his fate at once, telegraphed a proposal of

marriage to the lady of his choice. After spending the entire day at the

telegraph office he was finally rewarded late in the evening by an

affirmative answer.



"If I were you," suggested the operator when he delivered the message,

"I'd think twice before I'd marry a girl that kept me waiting all day

for my answer."



"Na, na," retorted the Scot. "The lass who waits for the night rates is

the lass for me."





"Well, yes," said Old Uncle Lazzenberry, who was intimately acquainted

with most of the happenstances of the village, "Almira Stang has broken

off her engagement with Charles Henry Tootwiler. They'd be goin'

together for about eight years, durin' which time she had been

inculcatin' into him, as you might call it, the beauties of economy;

but when she discovered, just lately, that he had learnt his lesson so

well that he had saved up two hundred and seventeen pairs of socks for

her to darn immediately after the wedding, she 'peared to conclude that

he had taken her advice a little too literally, and broke off the

match."--_Puck_.





They sat each at an extreme end of the horsehair sofa. They had been

courting now for something like two years, but the wide gap between had

always been respectfully preserved.



"A penny for your thochts, Sandy," murmured Maggie, after a silence of

an hour and a half.



"Weel," replied Sandy slowly, with surprising boldness, "tae tell ye the

truth, I was jist thinkin' how fine it wad be if ye were tae gie me a

wee bit kissie."



"I've nae objection," simpered Maggie, slithering over, and kissed him

plumply on the tip of his left ear.



Sandy relapsed into a brown study once more, and the clock ticked

twenty-seven minutes.



"An' what are ye thinkin' about noo--anither, eh?"



"Nae, nae, lassie; it's mair serious the noo."



"Is it, laddie?" asked Maggie softly. Her heart was going pit-a-pat with

expectation. "An' what micht it be?"



"I was jist thinkin'," answered Sandy, "that it was aboot time ye were

paying me that penny!"





The coward calls himself cautious, the miser thrifty.--_Syrus_.



There are but two ways of paying debt: increase of industry in raising

income, increase of thrift in laying out.--_Carlyle_.





_See also_ Economy; Saving.



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