MAN MARRIES BITCH

Mark Shed wanted a bride with the right pedigree. So he married a dog saying, 'She is a bitch, but I love her. People marry people they love and l love my dog.” 

Mark, 21, wore top hat and tails. His dog, Hexe, looked lovely in her white veil. After the ceremony attended by sixty 

guests, the happy groom stroked his new wife and said, ” I love you forever." Turning to the guests he said, ”I'm deadly serious. i am devoted to Hexe as much as any man to his wife."  

The wedding was held in a park in Mark's home town of Wickford, Essex. His mum Irene, 43, was there in her old wedding dress. Mark's sisters Leah, 12, and Sharma, 9, were bridesmaids and seven year old brother Jodie was pageboy. 

Hexe-the name in German for bitch-was not the only one in a dog collar. Mark's pal David Crawford, 21, wore one to conduct the service after local clergymen refused to have anything to do with the marriage. 

David asked the bride, “Do you take this man as your husband?" Hexe pawed the ground in reply. Then the guests sang-

"All things bright and beautiful...all creatures great and small." 

At the reception, Hexe opened her wedding presents-a rubber bone and a new food bowl . 

David said,’ 'Mark is a student of art and design. He and Hexe got engaged at Christmas and are now living happily together." 

The Rector of Wickford, the Rev. David Lowman said it was blasphemous to use words from the marriage service at the bizarre ceremony.  

The newlyweds were blissfully unaware of the objections as they honeymooned at an undisclosed destination-possibly Barking. 

People were wondering what sort of children this odd couple would produce or whether they would produce any children at all! 

THREE TRUSTED FRIENDS

Ben Pinto was a businessman who rose from rags to riches. He was of a miserly type and amassed a lot of wealth "A fool and his money are easily parted,” he used to say often to indicate that he was not of that type 

Eventually Pinto reached old age and in his dotage he contacted a dreadful disease. He was worried that his end was near and had to leave all his wealth soon. He had no children as he was a confirmed bachelor. On the other hand he was not on good terms with any of his relatives because of his tightfistedness.

He sold all his properties and put the money realized into three bags. When he was seriously ill, he sent for three of his most trusted friends-on was his own parish priest, another his doctor and the third his lawyer-and gave each a bag of money asking them to put the three bags into his grave when he died. 

Senile decay was such that Pinto's condition became worse and worse and he died downhearted that nobody except his confidants came to see him. Those three made all arrangements for the funeral, and at the grave-side each was watching the other two to see what they would do. However they managed to put the three bags of money into the grave surreptitiously before it was closed up with sand, in accordance with the instructions of the dead man. 

After the funeral, the priest and the lawyer got into the doctor's car to be taken home and on the way the doctor 'sotto voce' told the other two, "You know I don't want to tell you a lie. I am not a rich man and I don't have any private property. My family and I depend entirely on my earnings as a doctor, but I charge no excessive fees. Out of Pinto's money I kept back something as my charges for having treated him and the balance to treat poor patients free of charge. 

Then the priest whispered, "Don't tell this to anybody. I also kept a little to repair my church building, which is badly in a state of disrepair. Otherwise all Pinto’s money will be going waste.” 

Hearing all that, the lawyer said. “As far as I am concerned. I didn't want to keep back anything. I put the whole amount into the grave by cheque." 

MAT PETER

Peter was a village lad who attended a prestigious English school. His parents, though poor, said even if they were to starve, they would give their son a good education. 

Peter was not only intelligent, but also persevering. When he could not afford to buy a book, he borrowed it from a friend and copied down notes from it during the holidays. In position, he was not below the third in any term test. 

One day during the Hygiene period his class teacher was discussing the advantage of going early to bed and rising up early rather than the other way about, and casually turning towards Peter he asked, “Peter, at what time do you go to bed?" 

"l don't go to bed, sir," replied Peter. "I go to the mat," and the whole class laughed in derision. Not only that, his classmates and even his teacher (the latter only in a joking way) nicknamed him “Mat Peter." But Peter did not care two hoots. On the contrary he was proud that a poor boy like him could rub shoulders so far as studies were concerned with his rich class-mates. 

During the Catechism class, the teacher made the lessons very popular by relating exciting stories from the Bible. That day the story was about Moses. How Moses led the Israelite's out of bondage, how he crossed the Red Sea, how manna rained from heaven, and how the excess manna stocked by greedy people turned to gall. But Peter was not interested in all that. He allowed his thoughts to go astray. In fact he was wondering why he was so poor when many of his class-mates were so affluent, and why God has kept such an imbalance. 

At this point the teacher noticed that Peter was in a world of his own. So she asked Peter to repeat what she said last. The astonished Peter said, "As Moses was refused heaven in Manner, he turned to Galle l” 

One day ”Mat Peter" met with an accident-he fell from his bicycle and sprained the ankle of his right leg This made him a stay at bed for about a week. Even after one week he could not go to school He could, however, get out of bed as the pan was not so much then. Nevertheless, he could not walk without limping. His mother told him that there was no sugar it the house to prepare tea and asked him whether he could go b the nearest boutique and bring some sugar. While Peter was going on limping on the road, he saw a cripple going limping ahead of him. The latter turned round, stood for a while, all the time gazing and staring at Peter, and began scolding him saying, "You damned rascal, owing to my ”karma‘ l have become a cripple from birth. Instead of sympathizing with me, you imitate me in order to ridicule an unfortunate being. 'Nahadichcha kolla( ill-bred boy )!" 

Poor Peter tried to explain but the man would listen to nothing of the sort. He was so furious that he even raised his hand to assault Peter! Peter could do nothing except to run away from the scene and that too limping, which made the man more angry ! 

Peter went on studying hard and eventually he got a place in the University and became entitled to the Mahapola scholarship too. After leaving the University he took up the competitive Administrative Service Examination, passed it with flying colours and became a staff officer in Government Service. Although his jealous enemies still call him Mr. Mat Peter, in the case of Peter it is a matter of "T he dogs bark; the caravan passes on."