Page:Scot's piper's queries, or, John Falkirk's cariches.pdf/14

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A. Soldiers and butchers are bloody near relations, for they both live by killing and slaughtering.

Q What is the two hardest things to be found and yet they are both good in their kind?

A. Good women, and good small beer.

Q. Who is likest to a waterman in his boat?

A An hypocrite; for he also, like the boatman, looks one way, and rows another in all his transactions.

Q. What are the five greatest rarities to be found in the world?

A. A black Swan, a Phœnix, an Unicorn, the Philosopher’s Stone, and a maid at sixteen.

Q. What is the greatest folly that sensible people can be guilty of?

A. To go to law about trifles, when their families have scarce food to eat.

Q. Who has the honestest trade in the world?

A. Ballad-singers; for they always deal with ready-money.—And it is as ancient as the Siege of Troy, for Homer was a ballad-singer.