ANECDOTES.
Anastute Gallegan one day presented himself with the most candid air at the shop of a tailor, telling him he had come to draw the fifty reals he had deposited with him two years ago.
The tailor was thunderstruck, and replied that he had no money of his, whereupon the Gallegan began to cry out and complain loudly and bitterly, which soon drew a crowd round the shop door.
The tailor was sure of his fact, since there was no document to attest the imaginary deposit, but fearing the scandal might damage his business, yet unable to confess to the debt after denying it, had recourse to a neighbouring tradesman, who promised to settle the affair.
“Look you here, yokel, why are you making such a fuss about a mistake? Don’t you remember that it was to my shop you brought the fifty reals?”
“Oh, yes,” slyly replied the Gallegan; “but that was another fifty.”
While ascending a steep hill the mayoral opens the door, of the diligence every now and then, to shut it with a loud bang, without a word to the passengers.
“Oh, mayoral!” cries one, “why do you open and shut the door like that, we are freezing.”
“Hush! it’s for the mules; every time the door slams they think somebody has got out, and pull better.”
A countryman wrote the following letter to his son, a student in the capital:—
“My Dear Son,—This is to tell you that I am very displeased with the bad conduct which I have been told you observe in Madrid. If a good thrashing could be sent by post, you would have had several from me. As for your mother, the good woman spoils you as usual. Enclosed you will find an order for seventy reals, which she sends you without my knowledge,
“Your father,John.”
Horse-dealer, exhibiting a superb animal to probable customer:—
“Take this one, sir. He’s a splendid trotter. Mount him at four in the morning at Madrid, and you’ll be at Alcalá at five.”
“He won’t suit me.”
“Why not?”
“What should I do at five o’clock in the morning at Alcalá where I know nobody?”
“The deuce! I do feel bad.”
“What’s the matter.”
“I ate a steak of horse-flesh and it’s going round and round in my inside.”
“My dear fellow! It must have been a circus-horse!”
A young girl was taken to see a bull-fight for the first time, and one of the matadors was furiously attacked by a bull.
“Don’t be afraid, dear, don’t be afraid!” exclaimed her father, while the matador was flying through the air with the impetus of the beast’s horns.
“Oh, no, papa, it’s the bull-fighter who’ll be afraid.”
At a Station.
“A peseta for a cup of chocolate! It’s very dear. It would be better to lower the price, though it should be of an inferior quality.”
“To please you, señor, I will make it three reals, but I can’t make it of inferior quality.”
In School.
“Now, Pepito, ishuevo[egg] masculine or feminine?”
(Pepito, thoughtfully) “It’s very difficult to tell.”
“Difficult? What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, how can one know until the chicken’s hatched?”
An Aragonese carman was unmercifully beating a mule who had fallen down in one of the chief streets of the capital. The passers-by stopped to censure the carman’s conduct, exclaiming—
“How cruel!”
“Poor mule!”
“What a beast the man is!”
The carman stopped his blows and going to the mule’s head, said—
“Caramba! Jocky; what a lot of friends you’ve made in Madrid!”
In the porch of a church a beggar’s stool, on the stool a hat, in the hat a cardboard with the inscription—
“Ladies and gentlemen, do not forget a poor blind man, who has gone to his breakfast.”
A dying courtier said to the priest that the only favour he asked of God was to let him live till he had paid his debts.
“That is a good motive, my son, and it is to be hoped that your prayer will be heard.”
“Alas, father! If it were, I should be sure never to die.”
An Arab of Tetuan asked a Jew, which of the three religions was the best: the Jewish, the Christian, or the Mahometan?
The Jew replied—“If Messiah really came, the Christian is the best; if He did not, mine is the best; but whether or no, yours, Mahomet, is always bad.”