"A blockhead, bit by fleas, put out the light,
And, chuckling, cried, 'Now you can't see to bite!'"

This ancient jest has been somewhat improved in later times. Two
Irishmen in the East Indies, being sorely pestered with mosquitoes, kept
their light burning in hopes of scaring them off, but finding this did
not answer, one suggested they should extinguish the light and thus
puzzle their tormentors to find them, which was done. Presently the
other, observing the light of a firefly in the room, called to his
bedfellow, "Arrah, Mike, sure your plan's no good, for, bedad, here's
one of them looking for us wid a lantern!"

Our specimens may be now concluded with what is probably the best of the
old Greek jokes. The father of a man of Cumæ having died at Alexandria,
the son dutifully took the body to the embalmers. When he returned at
the appointed time to fetch it away, there happened to be a number of
bodies in the same place, so he was asked if his father had any
peculiarity by which his body might be recognised, and the wittol
replied, "He had a cough."

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Etienne Tabourot, the author of this amusing little book,
who was born at Dijon in 1549 and died in 1590, is said to have written
the tales in ridicule of the inhabitants of Franche Comte, who were then
the subjects of Spain, and reputed to be stupid and illiterate. From a
manuscript translation, entitled _Bizarrures; or, The Pleasant and
Witlesse and Simple Speeches of the Lord Gaulard of Burgundy_,