36. HOW A WOMAN PROPOSED

[A variation of the old and always pleasing theme.]

They were dining off fowl in a restaurant. "You see," he explained, as he
showed her the wishbone, "you take hold here. Then we must both make a wish
and pull, and when it breaks the one who has the bigger part of it will
have his or her wish granted." "But I don't know what to wish for," she
protested. "Oh! you can think of something," he said. "No, I can't," she
replied; "I can't think of anything I want very much." "Well, I'll wish
for you," he exclaimed. "Will you, really?" she asked. "Yes." "Well, then,
there's no use fooling with the old wishbone," she interrupted, with a glad
smile, "you can have me."


37. LUCKY ANSWER

[Certainly Thompson would be a lawyer, ready for any emergency.]

In times past there was in a certain law school an aged and eccentric
professor. "General information" was the old gentleman's hobby. He held
it as incontrovertible that if a young lawyer possessed a large fund of
miscellaneous knowledge, combined with an equal amount of common sense,
he would be successful in life. So every year the professor put on his
examination papers a question very far removed from the subject of criminal
law. One year it was, "How many kinds of trees are there in the college
yard?" the next, "What is the make-up of the present English cabinet?"

Finally the professor thought he had invented the best question of his
life. It was, "Name twelve animals that inhabit the polar regions." The