Testimony


Paul Smith, the famous hotel-keeper in the Adirondacks, told of a law

suit that he had with a man named Jones in Malone.



"It was this way: I sat in the courtroom before the case opened with my

witnesses around me. Then Jones bustled in. He stopped abruptly, and

looked my witnesses over carefully. Presently he turned to me.



"'Paul,' he asked, 'are those your witnesses?'



"'They a
e,' I replied.



"'Then you win,' he exclaimed. 'I've had them witnesses twice myself.'"



* * *



The grateful woman on the farm in Arkansas wrote to the vendors of the

patent medicine:



"Four weeks ago I was so run down that I could not spank the baby. After

taking three bottles of your Elegant Elixir I am now able to thrash my

husband in addition to my other housework. God bless you!"



* * *



In one of the most desolate areas of Montana, a claim was taken by a man

from Iowa. The nearest neighbor, from twenty miles away, visited the

homesteader's shack, and introduced himself.



"Where did you come from?" the visitor inquired presently, and when he

had been told:



"I can't understand why anybody should want to get out of that civilized

country to come and live in this lonesomeness."



"Fact was," the man from Iowa explained somberly, "I didn't exactly like

it down there any more. You see, it was this way. They got to telling

things about me. Why, they even said I was a liar and hoss thief, and no

better than I ought to be. And, by Jemima, I jest pulled out and went

right away from them scandalous folks."



"Well, I swan!" the visitor exclaimed indignantly. "You can bet I

wouldn't leave a place for any reason like that. I'd make them prove

what they said."



The homesteader sighed dismally as he answered:



"That's jest the trouble--they did prove it!"



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