Why They Stared At Him

Mr. Jones went home the other af ternoon in a very complacent frame of mind, and as he opened the hall door and let himself in his face was wreathed in smiles at the thoughts that had taken possession of him. When Mrs. Jone3 saw him he was still smiling. She looked at him, gave a suelden scream and then began to laugh. "What's the matter, Maria?" he asked sharply. "N-o-o-thing," answered his wife in a convulsivo tone of voice; "dinner is ready, Jeptha." They sat down to the tabls alone, the children not being in. Mr. Jones took advantage of their absence to become quite sociable. "How do I look, Maria?" he asked confidentially, with that smirk of complacency still on his face. "S-s-plendid!" answered Mana, with her mouth full of mashed potatoes. "The reason I asked is that as I carne Qome i waiKea up tne avenue ana met everybody I knew, and they atared at me so I didn't know but that I looked pale or something." "You never looked better," mumbled Mrs. Jones, burying her face in her plate. "People acquire a habit of staring in the city," pursued Jones. "I've often told you so, Jeptha, bu you always said it was my fault - that I must do something to attract their attention," said Mrs. Jones. ''Well, it is the gentlemen who stare at you, Maria. That is quite different. Now it was the ladies wno looked at me," observed Jones, loftily. "You're such a flne-looking man, you know, dear," said his wife, nearly smothered with laughter. "A-hem," murmured the lost man, 'it shows your sex kas good taste, my dear. Why, some of them lovely young ladies actually smiled upon me. I shall never dare to walk again." At this moment the thildren came whooping in. Willie looked at his father, bent nearly doublé and gave a loud guffaw. "Well, yoü are a side-show, pal" he shovted. "What do you mean, William? Why this rudeness ?" began Jones, but his hopeful was not to be squelched. "Ain't he a menagerie, though?" he conunuea. "öay, pai WDy are you hko me?" Jones only glared. "Because you're a little shaverl Say, pa, want a hand glass, coz I'll sell you one cheap!" Jones rushed to the hat rack intending to get his cane for Willie's ediflcation, but as he glanced in the oval mirror in the center and saw one side of his face denuded of his Burnside whisker, while the other was ornamented with its full appendage, he stopped and tfaen went slowly and sadly up stairs. He had asked the barber to take off half his whiskers and that functionary obliged Mm literally. Poor Jones, when anybody looks at him now he has an attack of chills.