A little girl four years old was alone in the nursery with the door closed and fastened when her little brother arrived and expressed a desire to come in. The following was the dialogue:
"I wants to tum in, Sissy."
"But you tan't tum in, Tom."
"But I wants to."
"Well, I'se in my nightie gown an' nurse says little boys mus'n't see little girls in their nightie gowns."
There was a period of silence during which the astonished little boy reflected on the mystery. It was ended by Sissy's calling out:
"You tan tum in now, Tom—I tooked it off."
* * *
The very young clergyman made his first parochial call. He tried to admire the baby, and asked how old it was.
"Just ten weeks old," the proud mother replied.
And the very young clergyman inquired interestedly:
"And is it your youngest?"
In the smoking car, one of the passengers had an empty coatsleeve. The sharer of his seat was of an inquisitive turn, and after a vain effort to restrain his curiosity, finally hemmed and hawed, and said:
"I beg pardon, sir, but I see you've lost an arm."
The one-armed man picked up the empty sleeve in his remaining hand, and felt of it with every evidence of astonishment.
"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "I do believe you're right."
* * *
The curiosity of the passenger was excited by the fact that his seatmate had his right arm in a sling, and the following dialogue occurred:
"You broke your arm, didn't you?"
"Well, yes, I did."
"Had an accident, I suppose?"
"Not exactly. I did it in trying to pat myself on the back."
"My land! On the back! Now, whatever did you want to pat yourself on the back for?"
"Just for minding my own business."
The man suffering from insomnia quite often makes a mistake in calling the doctor, when what he needs is the preacher.
The young wife greeted her husband tearfully on his return from the day's work.
"Oh, Willie, darling," she gasped, "I have been so insulted!"
"Insulted!" Willie exclaimed wrathfully. "Insulted by whom?"
"By your mother!" the wife declared, and sobbed aloud.
The husband was aghast, but inclined to be skeptical.
"By my mother, Ella? Why, dearest, that's nonsense. She's a hundred miles away."
"But she did," the wife insisted. "A letter came to you this morning, and it was addressed in your mother's writing, so, of course, I opened it."
"Oh, yes, of course," Willie agreed, without any enthusiasm.
"And it was written to you all the whole way through, every word of it, except——"
"Except what?"
"Except the postscript," the wife flared. "That was the insult—that was to me." The tears flowed again. "It said: 'P. S.—Dear Ella, don't fail to give this letter to Willie. I want him to read it.'"
* * *
Tom Corwin was remarkable for the size of his mouth. He claimed that he had been insulted by a deacon of his church.
"When I stood up in the class meeting, to relate my experience," Corwin explained, "and opened my mouth, the Deacon rose up in front and said, 'Will some brother please close that window, and keep it closed!'"
The woman at the insurance office inquired as to the costs, amounts paid, etc.
"So," she concluded, "if I pay five dollars, you pay me a thousand if my house burns down. But do you ask questions about how the fire came to start?"
"We make careful investigation, of course," the agent replied.
The woman flounced toward the door disgustedly.
"Just as I thought," she called over her shoulder. "I knew there was a catch in it."
During a lecture, Artemas Ward once startled the crowd of listeners by announcing a fifteen-minute intermission. After contemplating the audience for a few minutes, he relieved their bewilderment by saying:
"Meanwhile, in order to pass the time, we will proceed with the lecture."
The profiteer, skimming over the advertisements in his morning paper, looked across the damask and silver and cut glass at his wife, and remarked enviously:
"These inventors make the money. Take cleaners, now, I'll bet that feller Vacuum has cleared millions."
The painter was required to render an itemized bill for his repairs on various pictures in a convent. The statement was as follows:
The joke maker's association had a feast. They exploited their humorous abilities, and all made merry, save one glum guest. At last, they insisted that this melancholy person should contribute to the entertainment. He consented, in response to much urging, to offer a conundrum:
"What is the difference between me and a turkey?"
When none could guess the answer, the glum individual explained:
"I am alive. They stuff turkeys with chestnuts after they are dead."
The urchin was highly excited, and well he might be when we consider his explanation:
"They got twins up to sisters. One twin, he's a boy, an' one twin, she's a girl, an' so I'm a uncle an' a aunt."
* * *
The Southern lady interrogated her colored cook, Matilda, concerning a raid made on the chicken-house during the night.
"You sleep right close to the chicken-house, Matilda, and it seems to me you must have heard the noise when those thieves were stealing the chickens."
"Yes, ma'am," Matilda admitted, with an expression of grief on her dusky features. "I heerd de chickens holler, an' I heerd the voices ob de men."
"Then why didn't you go out and stop them?" the mistress demanded.
Matilda wept.
"Case, ma'am," she exclaimed, "I know'd my old fadder was dar, an' I wouldn't hab him know I'se los' confidence in him foh all de chickens in de world. If I had gone out dar an' kotched him, it would have broke his ole heart, an', besides, he would hab made me tote de chickens home foh him."
The bridegroom, who was in a horribly nervous condition, appealed to the clergyman in a loud whisper, at the close of the ceremony:
"Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?"
The clergyman might have replied:
"Not yet, but soon."
* * *
The young man addressed the old grouch:
"When a fellow has taken a girl to a show, and fed her candy, and given her supper, and taken her home in a taxi, shouldn't she let a fellow kiss her good-night?"
The old grouch snorted.
"Humph! He's already done more than enough for her."
The subject of kissing was debated with much earnestness for a half hour between the girl and her young man caller. The fellow insisted that it was always possible for a man to kiss a girl at will, whether she chose to permit it or not. The maiden was firm in maintaining that such was not the case. Finally, it was decided that the only solution of the question must be by a practical demonstration one way or the other. So, they tried it. They clinched, and the battle was on. After a lively tussle, they broke away. The girl had been kissed—ardently for a period of minutes. Her comment showed an undaunted spirit:
"Oh, well, you really didn't win fair. My foot slipped ... Let's try it again."
* * *
The tiny boy fell down and bumped his head. His Uncle Bill picked the child up, with the remark:
"Now I'll kiss it, and the pain will all be gone."
The youngster recovered his smiles under the treatment, and then, as he was set down, addressed his uncle eagerly:
"Come down in the kitchen—the cook has the toothache."
* * *
Some Scottish deacons were famous, if not notorious, for the readiness with which they could expound any passage of Scripture. It is recorded of a certain elder that as he read and commented on the thirty-fourth Psalm, he misread the sentence, "Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile." He carelessly read the last two words: "squeaking girls." But the astonishing phrase did not dismay him in the least, or cause him to hesitate in his exegesis. He expounded instantly and solemnly:
"It is evident from this passage, my brethren, that the Scripture does not absolutely forbid kissing, but, as in Christianity everything is to be done decently and in order, we are here encouraged by this passage to choose rather those girls that take it quietly, in preference to those that squeak under the operation."
Josh Billings said:
"Laff every time yu pheel tickled—and laff once in a while enny how."
The lawyer explained to the client his scale of prices:
"I charge five dollars for advising you as to just what the law permits you to do. For giving you advice as to the way you can safely do what the law forbids, my minimum fee is one hundred dollars."
There was a town jail, and there was a county jail. The fact was worth forty dollars to the lawyer who was approached by an old darky in behalf of a son languishing in duress. The lawyer surveyed the tattered client as he listened, and decided that he would be lucky to obtain a ten-dollar fee. He named that amount as necessary to secure the prisoner's release. Thereupon, the old colored man drew forth a large roll of bills, and peeled off a ten. The lawyer's greedy eyes popped.
"What jail is your son in?" he inquired craftily.
"In the county jail."
"In the county jail!" was the exclamation in a tone of dismay. "That's bad—very bad. It will cost you at least fifty dollars."
* * *
Some physicians direct their patients to lie always on the right side, declaring that it is injurious to the health to lie on both sides. Yet, lawyers as a class enjoy good health.
"What did you do last night?"
"I went to a slight-of-hand performance. Called on Laura Sears, and offered her my hand, and she slighted it."
LENT
"Did you give up anything during Lent?" one man asked another.
"Yes," was the reply, uttered with a heavy sigh. "I gave up fifty dollars for a new Easter bonnet."
The World War has incited veterans of the Civil War to new reminiscences of old happenings. One of these is based on the fact that furloughs were especially difficult to obtain when the Union army was in front of Petersburg, Virginia. But a certain Irishman was resolved to get a furlough in spite of the ban. He went to the colonel's tent, and was permitted to enter. He saluted, and delivered himself thus:
"Colonel, I've come to ax you to allow me the pleasure of a furlough for a visit home. I've been in the field now three years, an' never home yet to see me family. An' I jest had a letter from me wife wantin' av me to come home to see her an' the children."
The colonel shook his head decisively.
"No, Mike," he replied. "I'm sorry, but to tell the truth, I don't think you ought to go home. I've jest had a letter from your wife myself. She doesn't want you to come home. She writes me that you'd only get drunk, and disgrace her and the children. So you'd better stay right here until your term of service expires."
"All right, sir," Mike answered, quite cheerfully. He saluted and went to the door of the tent. Then he faced about.
"Colonel dear," he inquired in a wheedling voice, "would ye be after pardonin' me for a brief remark jist at this toime?"
"Yes, certainly," the officer assented.
"Ye won't git mad an' put me in the guard house for freein' me mind, so to spake?"
"No, indeed! Say what you wish to."
"Well, thin, Colonel darlint, I'm afther thinkin' thar are at the prisint moment in this tint two of the biggest liars in all the Army of the Potomic, an' sure I'm one av thim—I have no wife."
A certain famous preacher when preaching one Sunday in the summer time observed that many among the congregation ware drowsing. Suddenly, then, he paused, and afterward continued in a loud voice, relating an incident that had no connection whatever with his sermon. This was to the following effect:
"I was once riding along a country road. I came to the house of a farmer, and halted to observe one of the most remarkable sights I have ever seen. There was a sow with a litter of ten little pigs. This sow and each of her offspring had a long curved horn growing out of the forehead between the ears."
The clergyman again paused, and ran his eye over the congregation. Everybody was now wide-awake. He thereupon remarked:
"Behold how strange! A few minutes since, when I was telling you the truth, you went to sleep. But now when you have heard a whopping lie, you are all wide-awake."
The woman was strong-minded, and she was religious, and she was also afflicted with a very feminine fear of thunder storms. She was delivering an address at a religious convention when a tempest suddenly broke with din of thunder and flare of lightning. Above the noise of the elements, her voice was heard in shrill supplication:
"O Lord, take us under Thy protecting wings, for Thou knowest that feathers are splendid non-conductors."
The kindergarten teacher questioned her tiny pupil:
"Do you know, Jennie, what a panther is?"
"Yeth, ma'am," Jennie replied, beaming. "A panther ith a man who makes panth."
The class had been told by the teacher to write compositions in which they must not attempt any flights of fancy, but should only state what was really in them. The star production from this command was a composition written by a boy who was both sincere and painstaking. It ran as follows:
"I shall not attempt any flites of fancy, but wright just what is really in me. In me there is my stommick, lungs, liver, two apples, two cakes and my dinner."
The visitor from the city stopped in at the general store of the village, and inquired:
"Have you anything in the shape of automobile tires?"
"Yep," the store-keeper answered briskly, "life-preservers, invalid cushions, funeral wreaths, doughnuts, an' sich."
The mother came on her little son who was standing thoughtfully before the gooseberry bush in the garden. She noted that his expression was both puzzled and distressed.
"Why, what's the matter, little lamb?" she asked tenderly.
"I'm finkin, muvver," the boy answered.
"What about, little man?"
"Have gooseberries any legs, muvver?"
"Why, no! Of course not, dear."
The perplexity passed from the little boy's face, but the expression of trouble deepened, as he spoke again:
"Then, muvver, I fink I've swallowed a catapillar."
The two old Scotchmen played a round of seventeen holes without a word exchanged between them. As they came to the eighteenth green, Sandy surveyed the lie, and muttered:
"Dormie."
Quoth Tammas, with a snarl:
"Chatter-r-rbox!"
The philosopher calmly defined the exact difference between life and love:
"Life is just one fool thing after another: love is just two fool things after each other."
The little girl came in tears to her mother.
"God doesn't love me," she sobbed.
"Of course, God loves you," the mother declared. "How did you ever come to get such an idea?"
"No," the child persisted, "He doesn't love me. I know—I tried Him with a daisy."
The pessimist quoted from his own experience at poker in illustration of the general cussedness of things:
"Frequent, I have sot in a poker game, and it sure is queer how things will turn out. I've sot hour after hour in them games, without ever takin' a pot. And then, 'long about four o'clock in the mornin', the luck'd turn—it'd take a turn for the worse."
* * *
"How did you find your steak?" asked the waiter of a patron in the very expensive restaurant.
"Just luck," the hungry man replied, sadly. "I happened to move that small piece of potato, and there it was!"
* * *
The new reporter wrote his concluding paragraph concerning the murder as follows:
"Fortunately for the deceased, he had deposited all of his money in the bank the day before. He lost practically nothing but his life."
* * *
The editor of the country paper went home to supper, smiling radiantly.
"Have you had some good luck?" his wife questioned.
"Luck! I should say so. Deacon Tracey, who hasn't paid his subscription for ten years, came in and stopped his paper."
The lunatic peered over the asylum wall, and saw a man fishing from the bank of the river that ran close by. It was raining hard, which cooled the fevered brow of the lunatic and enabled him to think with great clearness. In consequence, he called down to the drenched fisherman:
"Caught anything?"
The man on the bank looked up, and shook his head glumly.
"How long you been there?" the lunatic next demanded.
"Three hours," was the answer.
The lunatic grinned hospitably, and called down an invitation:
"Come inside!"
The retired colonel, who had seen forty years of active service, gave his body servant, long his orderly, explicit instructions:
"Every morning, at five sharp, Sam, you are to wake me up, and say, 'Time for the parade, sir.'
"Then, I'll say, 'Damn the parade!' and turn over and go to sleep again."
The juryman petitioned the court to be excused, declaring:
"I owe a man twenty-five dollars that I borrowed, and as he is leaving town to-day for some years I want to catch him before he gets to the train and pay him the money."
"You are excused," the judge announced in a very cold voice. "I don't want anybody on the jury who can lie like you."
* * *
The tender young mother detected her baby boy in a deliberate lie. With tears in her eyes, and a catch in her voice, she sought to impress upon him the enormity of his offense.
"Do you know," she questioned severely, "what happens to little boys who tell falsehoods?"
The culprit shook his head in great distress, and the mother explained carefully:
"Why, a great big black man, with horns on his head and one eye in the center of his forehead, comes along and grabs the little boy who has told a falsehood, and flies with him up to the moon, and keeps him there sifting ashes all the rest of his life. You won't ever tell another falsehood, will you, darling? It's wicked!"
Mother's baby boy regarded the speaker with round-eyed admiration.
"Oh, ma," he gurgled, "what a whopper!"
"I wish I could know how many men will be made wretched when I get married," said the languishing coquette to her most intimate confidante.
"I'll tell you," came the catty answer, "if you'll tell me how many men you're going to marry."
The unhappy man explained the cause of his wretchedness:
"I've never made a speech in my life. But last night at the dinner at the club they insisted on my making some remarks, and I got up, and began like this:
"As I was sitting on my thought, a seat struck me."
It is told of Prince Herbert Bismarck that at a reception in the Royal Palace in Berlin he rudely jostled a high dignitary of the Italian church. In answer to the prelate's expression of annoyance, the Prince drew himself haughtily erect, and said, "I am Herbert Bismarck."
"Ah," replied the churchman, "that fact is perhaps an apology; certainly, it is a complete explanation."
* * *
The tenderfoot in the Western town asked for coffee and rolls at the lunch counter. He was served by the waitress, and there was no saucer for the cup.
"What about the saucer?" he asked.
The girl explained:
"We don't hand out saucers no more. We found, if we did, like's not, some low-brow would drift in an' drink out of the saucer, an' that ain't good fer trade. This here is a swell dump."
* * *
After treading rather heavily on her foot, the man in the street car made humble apology to the woman. She listened in grim silence, and, when he had made an end, spoke very much to the point:
"That's it! Walk all over a body's feet, an' then blat about how sorry you be. Well, I jest want you to understand that if I wasn't a puffick lady, I'd slap your dirty face!"
During the Saturday night revels in a frontier town, the scrawniest and skinniest beanpole-type citizen got shot in the leg. The only doctor in the town had done celebrating and gone to bed. A posse of citizens pounded on the doctor's door, until he thrust his head out of a window.
"Whazzamazzer?" he called down.
"Comea-runnin', Doc. Joe Jinks's been shot."
"Whereabouts shot?"
"In the laig."
"Some shootin'!" And the doctor slammed the window shut.
Love is blind, but marriage is an eye-opener.
* * *
The mild little husband was appealing to the court for protection from the large, bony belligerent and baleful female who was his wife.
"Let us begin at the beginning," said the judge. "Where did you first meet this woman who has thus abused you?"
The little man shuddered, and looked everywhere except at his wife as he replied:
"I never did, so to say, meet up with her. She jest naturally overtook me."
* * *
An African newspaper recently carried the following advertisement:
Wanted
Small nicely furnished house, nice
locality, from August 1st, for
nearly married couple.
* * *
The solemn ceremony of marriage was being performed for the blushing young bride and the elderly gentleman who had been thrice widowed. There was a sound of loud sobs from the next room. The guests were startled, but a member of the bridegroom's family explained:
"That's only our Jane. She always cries when Pa is gettin' married."
* * *
The mistress was annoyed by the repeated calls of a certain negro on her colored cook.
"You told me," she protested to the cook, "that you had no man friends. But this fellow is in the kitchen all the time."
"Dat nigger, he hain't no friend o' mine," the cook declared scornfully. "Him, he's jes' my 'usban'."
* * *
Deacon Gibbs explained why he had at last decided to move into town in spite of the fact that he had always declared himself a lover of life in the country. But his explanation was clear and conclusive.
"My third wife, Mirandy, she don't like the country, an' what Mirandy she don't like, I jist nacherly hev to hate."
* * *
The wife suggested to her husband that he should pay back to her the dollar he had borrowed the week before.
"But," the husband protested indignantly, "I've already paid that dollar back to you twice! You can't expect me to pay it again!"
"Oh, very well," the wife retorted with a contemptuous sniff, "never mind, since you are as mean as that."
* * *
The very youthful son of a henpecked father was in a gloomy mood, rebellious against the conditions of his life. He announced a desperate purpose:
"I'm going to get married. I'm bossed by pa an ma, an' teacher, an' I ain't going to stan' for it. I'm going to get married right smack off. A married man ain't bossed by nobody 'cept his wife."
* * *
The woman was six feet tall and broad and brawny in proportion. The man was a short five feet, anemic and wobegone. The woman haled him before the justice of the peace with a demand that he marry her or go to jail.
"Did you promise to marry this lady?" the justice asked.
"Guilty, your honor," was the answer.
The justice turned to the woman: "Are you determined to marry this man?"
"I am!" she snapped.
"Join hands," the justice commended. When they had done so he raised his own right hand impressively and spoke solemnly:
"I pronounce you twain woman and husband."
* * *
A lady received a visit from a former maid three months after the girl had left to be married.
"And how do you like being married?" the lady inquired.
The bride replied with happy enthusiasm:
"Oh, it's fine, ma'am—getting married is! Yes'm, it's fine! but, land's sake, ma'am," she added suddenly, "ain't it tedious!"
* * *
The negro, after obtaining a marriage license, returned a week later to the bureau, and asked to have another name substituted for that of the lady.
"I done changed mah mind," he announced. The clerk remarked that the change would cost him another dollar and a half for a new license.
"Is that the law?" the colored man demanded in distress. The clerk nodded, and the applicant thought hard for a full minute:
"Gee!" he said at last. "Never mind, boss, this ole one will do. There ain't a dollar and a half difference in them niggers no how."
* * *
The New England widower was speaking to a friend confidentially a week after the burial of his deceased helpmate.
"I'm feelin' right pert," he admitted; "pearter'n I've felt afore in years. You see, she was a good wife. She was a good-lookin' woman, an' smart as they make 'em, an' a fine housekeeper, an' she always done her duty by me an' the children, an' she warn't sickly, an' I never hearn a cross word out o' her in all the thutty year we lived together. But dang it all! Somehow, I never did like Maria.... Yes, I'm feelin' pretty peart."
* * *
There were elaborate preparations in colored society for a certain wedding. The prospective bride had been maid to a lady who met the girl on the street a week after the time set for the ceremony and inquired concerning it:
"Did you have a big wedding, Martha?"
"'Deed ah did, missus, 'deed ah did, de most splendiferous occasion ob de season."
"Did you receive handsome presents?"
"Yes'm, yes'm, de hull house was jes' crowded wiv de gifts."
"And was your house nicely decorated?"
"Yes'm, yes'm. An' everybody done wear der very best, look jes' lak a white-folks' weddin', yes'm."
"And yourself, Martha, how did you look?"
"Ah was sutinly some scrumptious, yes'm. Ah done wore mah white bridal dress an' orange blossoms, yes'm. Ah was some kid."
"And the bridegroom, how did he appear?"
"De bridegroom? Aw, dat triflin', low-down houn' dawg, he didn't show up at all, but we had a magnificious occasion wivout him, jes' de same!"
Mrs. Rafferty stopped to address Mrs. Flannagan, who was standing at ease in the door of the tenement. She spoke with an air of fine pride:
"I'm afther havin' a letter from me boy. He tells me that fer meritorious condooct, his sintince will be reduced six months."
Mrs. Flannagan beamed appreciatively on hearing the glad tidings.
"Sure, now, an' what a comfort it must be t' yez, havin' a son what does ye such credit."
The raw recruit was on sentry duty. He had a piece of pie, which he had brought from the canteen, and proceeded to enjoy it. Just then, the colonel happened along, and scowled at the sentry, who paid no attention to him whatever.
"Do you know who I am?" the officer demanded.
The sentry shook his head. "Mebby, the veterinarian, or the barber, or mebby the colonel himself." The sentry laughed loudly at his own wit. But he wiltered as the officer sternly declared his identity.
"Oh good land!" the recruit cried out in consternation. "Please, hold this pie while I present arms."
It is related concerning a sofa, belonging to a man blessed (?) with seven daughters, all unmarried, which was sent to the upholsterer to be repaired, that, when taken apart, the following articles were discovered:
Forty-seven hairpins, three mustache combs, nineteen suspender buttons, thirteen needles, eight cigarettes, four photographs, two hundred and seventeen pins, some grains of coffee, a number of cloves, twenty-seven cuff-buttons, six pocket-knives, fifteen poker-chips, a vial of homeopathic medicine for the nerves, thirty-four lumps of chewing-gum, fifty-nine toothpicks, twenty-eight matches, fourteen button-hooks, two switches, a transformation and two plates of false teeth, which apparently had bitten each other.
The raw Irishman was told by the farmer for whom he worked that the pumpkins in the corn patch were mule's eggs, which only needed someone to sit on them to hatch. Pat was ambitious to own a mule, and, selecting a large pumpkin, he sat on it industriously every moment he could steal from his work. Came a day when he grew impatient, and determined to hasten the hatching. He stamped on the pumpkin. As it broke open, a startled rabbit broke from its cover in an adjacent corn shock and scurried across the field. Pat chased it, shouting:
"Hi, thar! Stop! don't yez know your own father?"
* * *
The meek-looking gentleman arose hastily and offered his seat in the car to the self-assertive woman who had entered and glared at him. She gave him no thanks as she seated herself, but she spoke in a heavy voice that filled the whole car:
"What are you standing up there for? Come here, and sit on my lap."
The modest man turned scarlet as he huskily faltered:
"I fear, madam, that I am not worthy of such an honor."
"How dare you!" the woman boomed. "You know perfectly well I was speaking to my niece behind you."
* * *
The little man was perfectly harmless, but the lady sitting next to him in the car was a spinster, and suspicious of all males. So, since they were somewhat crowded on the seat, she pushed the umbrella between her knee and his and held it firmly as a barrier. A shower came up, and the woman when she left the car, put up the umbrella. As she did so, she perceived that the little man had followed her. She had guessed that he was a masher, now she knew it. She walked quickly down the side street, and the man pursued through the driving rain. She ran up the steps of her home, and rang the bell. When she heard the servant coming to the door, feeling herself safe at last, she faced about and addressed her pursuer angrily:
"How dare you follow me! How dare you! What do you want, anyhow?"
The drenched little man at the foot of the steps spoke pleadingly:
"If you please, ma'am, I want my umbrella."
* * *
The traveling salesman instructed the porter that he must leave the train at Cleveland, where he was due at three o'clock in the morning. He explained that violence might be necessary because he did not wake easily. He emphasized his instructions with a generous tip.
The drummer awoke at six in the morning, with Cleveland far behind. In a rage, he sought the porter. The colored man was in a highly disheveled state and his face was bruised badly. His eyes popped at sight of the furious traveling man, who allowed no opportunity for explanations or excuses. He did all the talking, and did it forcibly. When at last the outraged salesman went away, the porter shook his head dismally, and muttered:
"Now, Ah shohly wonder who-all Ah done put off at Cleveland."
* * *
The assistant minister announced to the congregation that a special baptismal service would be held the following Sunday at three o'clock in the afternoon, and that any infants to receive the rite should be brought to the church at that time.
The old clergyman, who was deaf, thought that his assistant was speaking of the new hymnals, and he added a bit of information:
"Anyone not already provided can obtain them in the vestry for a dollar, or with red backs and speckled edges for one dollar and a half."
* * *
The child went with her mother on a visit in New Jersey. At bedtime, the little girl was nervous over the strangeness of her surroundings, but the mother comforted her, saying:
"Remember, dear, God's angels are all about you."
A little later, a cry from the child called the mother back into the room.
"The angels are buzzing all around just dreadful, mama, and they bite!"
* * *
The new clergyman was coming to call, and the mother gave Emma some instructions:
"If he asks your name, say Emma Jane; if he asks how old you are, say you are eight years old; if he asks who made you, say God made me."
It is a fact that the clergyman did ask just those three questions in that order, to the first two of which Emma replied correctly. But it is also a fact that when the minister propounded the third query, as to her origin, the child hesitated, and then said:
"Mama did tell me the man's name, but I've gone and forgotten it."
* * *
The editor of a country newspaper betook himself to a party at the house of a neighbor, where, only a few weeks earlier, a baby had been added to the family. On the editor's arrival at the house, he was met at the door by his hostess, a woman who suffered to some extent from deafness. After the usual exchange of greetings, the editor inquired concerning the health of the baby. The hostess had a severe cold, and she now misunderstood the visitor's inquiry concerning the baby, thinking that he was solicitous on her account. So she explained to the aghast editor who had asked about the baby that, although she usually had one every winter, this was the very worst one she had ever had, it kept her awake at night a great deal, and at first confined her to her bed. Having explained thus far, the good lady noticed the flabbergasted air of her guest. She continued sympathetically; saying that she could tell by his looks and the way he acted that he was going to have one just like hers. Then she insisted that, as a precautionary measure for the sake of his condition, he should come in out of the draft and sit down and stay quiet.
A Texas lad, lacking a team of horses or oxen or mules for his ploughing, engaged his sister to direct the plough, while he yoked himself to a steer for the pulling. The steer promptly ran away, and the lad had no choice but to run too. They came shortly into the village and went tearing down the street. And as he raced wildly, the young man shouted:
"Here we come—darn our fool souls! Somebody head us off!"
A babu, or native clerk, in India, who prided himself on his mastery of the English tongue and skill in its idioms, sent the following telegram in announcement of his mother's death:
"Regret to announce that hand which rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket."
A British journalist, in an article on Sir Henry Irving for a London weekly wrote:
"I was his guest regularly at all Lyceum first nights for a whole quarter of a century.... He delighted in the company of third-rate people."
The disreputable-looking panhandler picked out an elderly gentleman of most benevolent aspect and made a plea for a small financial contribution. When he had finished his narrative of misery and woe the elderly gentleman replied benignantly:
"My good friend, I have no money, but I can give you some good advice."
The tramp spat contemptuously, and uttered an oath of disgust.
"If you hain't got no money," he jeered, "I reckon your advice ain't worth hearin'."
A well-known millionaire entertained Edward Everett Hale with other guests at a dinner. The host was not only hospitable, but wished every one to know his liberality. During the meal, he extolled the various viands, and did not hesitate to give their value in dollars and cents. In speaking of some very beautiful grapes served, which had been grown on his estate, he wearied the company by a careful calculation as to just how much a stem of them had cost him. Doctor Hale grinned pleasantly as he extended his empty plate, with the request:
"I'll thank you to cut me off about $1.87 worth more, please."
The wives of the savage chief questioned the wife of the missionary:
"And you never let your husband beat you?"
"Certainly not," the Christian lady replied. "Why, he wouldn't dare to try such a thing!"
The oldest wife nodded understandingly.
"It is plain enough why the foreign devil has only one wife."
The son of the house addressed his mother wistfully.
"I'm going to have a little sister some day, ain't I?"
"Why, dear, do you want one?"
The child nodded seriously.
"Yes, mama, I do. It gets kin' o' tiresome teasin' the cat."
The more-or-less-religious woman was deeply shocked when the new neighbors sent over on Sunday morning to borrow her lawn-mower.
"The very idea," she exclaimed to her maid, "of cutting grass on the Sabbath! Shameful! Certainly, they can't have it. Tell them we haven't any lawn-mower."
The visitor from another state talked so much concerning the size and fierceness of New Jersey mosquitoes that his host became somewhat peeved.
"Funny!" the guest remarked. "You haven't your porch screened."
"No," the host snapped; "we're using mouse-traps."
* * *
A visitor in the South complained bitterly concerning the plague of mosquitoes. An aged negro who listened respectfully explained a method by which the pests might be endured. But this was in the days before prohibition.
"My old Marse George, suh, he done managed them animiles sholy splendiferous. Always when he come home nights, he so completely intoxicated he don't care a cuss foh all the skeeters in the hull creation. In the mawnin, when Marse George done git up, the skeeters so completely intoxicated they don't care a cuss foh Marse George, ner nobody!"
Two men walking along Avenue A in New York City observed a dingy saloon, in the window of which was a framed sign, reading:
"Ici on parle français."
"I don't believe anybody talks French in that dump," one of the observers remarked.
To settle the matter, they entered, and ordered ginger ale of a red-headed barkeeper who was unmistakably Irish.
One of the men addressed the barkeeper:
"Fait beau temps, monsieur."
The barkeeper scowled.
"Come agin!" he demanded.
It was soon demonstrated that French was a language unknown to the establishment.
The visitor then inquired as to the reason for the sign in the window, explaining that it meant, "French is spoken here."
The Irish barkeeper cursed heartily.
"I bought it off a sheeny," he explained, "for six bits. He tould me it was Latin for, 'God Bless Our Home.'"
Artemas Ward said:
"When I am sad, I sing, and then others are sad with me."
* * *
The optimistic pessimist explained why he always dined in restaurants where music was provided.
"Because it works two ways: sometimes the music helps to make me forget the food, and sometimes the food helps to make me forget the music."
* * *
The young man, who was interested in natural history, was sitting on the porch one June evening with his best girl, who was interested in music. The rhythmic shrilling of the insects pulsed on the air, and from the village church down the street came the sounds of choir practise. The young man gave his attention to the former, the girl to the latter; and presently she spoke eagerly:
"Oh, don't it sound grand!"
The young man nodded, and answered:
"Yes, indeed! and it's interesting to think that they do it all with their hind legs."
* * *
The boy violinist, played at a private musical, rendering a difficult concerto, which contained some particularly long rests for the soloist: During one of these intervals, a kindly dowager leaned toward the performer, and whispered loudly:
"Why don't you play something that you know, my boy?"
* * *
The apoplectic and grumpy old gentleman in the crowded restaurant was compelled to sit, much against his will, next to the orchestra. His stare at the leader as the jazz selection came to an end. The annoyed patron snorted, and then asked:
"Would you be so kind as to play something by request?"
The leader bowed again and beamed.
"Certainly," he replied; "anything you like, sir."
"Then," snapped the patron, "please be good enough to play a game of checkers while I finish my meal."
The Japanese are remarkably tidy in the matter of floors. They even remove their shoes at the doorway. A Japanese student in New York was continually distressed by the dirty hallways of the building in which he lived. In the autumn, the janitor placed a notice at the entrance, which read:
"Please wipe your feet."
The Japanese wrote beneath in pencil:
"On going out."
It was a late hour when the hostess at the reception requested the eminent basso to sing.
"It is too late, madam," he protested. "I should disturb your neighbors."
"Not at all," declared the lady, beaming. "Besides, they poisoned our dog last week."
The older sister rebuked the younger when putting her to bed for being cross and ill tempered throughout the day. After she had been neatly tucked in, the little one commented:
"It's temper when it's me an' nerves when it's you."
"And you say you have the same nightmare every night," the doctor inquired. "What is it?"
The suffering man answered:
"I dream that I'm married."
"Ah, hum!" the physician grunted perfunctorily. "To whom?"
"To my wife," the patient explained. "That's what makes it a nightmare."
The inn-keeper was inclined to take advantage of a particular guest who did not scrutinize the bills rendered. When the clerk mentioned the fact that this guest had complained of a nightmare, the host brightened, and marked down an item of ten dollars charge for livery.
The young son of a mountaineer family in North Carolina had visited for the first time in the town twelve miles from home, and had eaten his mid-day meal there. Questioned on his return as to the repast, he described it with enthusiasm, except in one particular:
"They done had something they called gravee. But hit looked like sop, an' hit tasted like sop, an' I believe in my soul 'twar sop!"
* * *
When his daughter returned from the girls' college, the farmer regarded her critically, and then demanded:
"Ain't you a lot fatter than you was?"
"Yes, dad," the girl admitted. "I weigh one hundred and forty pounds stripped for 'gym.'"
The father stared for a moment in horrified amazement, then shouted:
"Who in thunder is Jim?"
* * *
On an occasion when a distinguished critic was to deliver a lecture on the poet Keats in a small town, the president of the local literary society was prevented by illness from introducing the speaker, and the mayor, who was more popular than learned, was asked to officiate. The amiable gentleman introduced the stranger with his accustomed eloquence, and concluded a few happy remarks of a general character with this observation:
"And now, my friends, we shall soon all know what I personally have often wondered—what are Keats!"
* * *
During the scarcity of labor, a new clerk, who knew nothing of the business, was taken on by a furniture house. His mistakes were so bad that the proprietor was compelled to watch him closely, and to fire him after the following episode.
A lady customer asked to see some chiffoniers. The clerk led her to the display of bassinettes, which was an unfortunate error since the lady was an old maid. She accepted his apology, however, and then remarked:
"Where are your sideboards?"
The clerk blushed furiously, as he replied:
"Why—er—I shaved them off last week."
* * *
The lady who had some culture, but not too much, was describing the adventure of her husband, who had been in Messina at the time of the earthquake.
"It was awful," she declared, in tense tones. "When Jim went to bed, everything was perfectly quiet. And then, when he woke up, all of a sudden, there beside him was a yawning abbess!"
* * *
One of the two girls in the subway was glancing at a newspaper.
"I see," she remarked presently to her companion, "that Mr. So and so, the octogenarian, is dead. Now, what on earth is an octogenarian anyhow?"
"I'm sure I haven't the faintest idea," the other girl replied. "But they're an awful sickly lot. You never hear of one but he's dying."
* * *
A story is told of an office-seeker in Washington who asserted to an inquirer that he had never heard of Mark Twain.
"What? Never heard of Tom Sawyer?"
"Nope, never heard of him."
"Nor Huck Finn?"
"Nope, never heard of him neither."
"Nor Puddin'head Wilson?"
"Oh, Lord, yes!" the office-seeker exclaimed. "Why, I voted for him."
And then he added sadly:
"An' that's all the good it done me."
* * *
The aged caretaker of the Episcopal church confided to a crony that he was uncertain as to just what he was:
"I used to be the janitor, years ago. Then we had a parson who named me the sextant. And Doctor Smith, he called me a virgin. And our young man, he says I'm the sacrilege."
The old mountaineer and his wife arrived at a railway station, and for the first time in their lives beheld a train of cars, which was standing there. The husband looked the engine over very carefully, and shook his head.
"Well, what do you think of it, father?" asked the old lady.
"She'll never start," was the firm answer: "she'll never start."
The conductor waved, the bell rang, the locomotive puffed, the train moved slowly at first, then faster. It was disappearing in the distance when the wife inquired slyly:
"Well, pa, what do you think of it now?"
The old man shook his head more violently than before.
"She'll never stop," he asserted; "she'll never stop!"
The great pugilist was superstitious and fond of lobster. When the waiter served one with a claw missing, he protested. The waiter explained that this lobster had been worsted in a fight with another in the kitchen. The great pugilist pushed back his plate.
"Carry him off," he commanded, "and bring me the winner."
The sergeant rebuked the private angrily:
"Jenkins, why haven't you shaved this morning?"
"Why, ain't I shaved?" the private exclaimed, apparently greatly surprised.
"No, you ain't," the sergeant snapped. "And I want to know the reason why."
"Well, now, I guess it must be this way," Jenkins suggested. "There was a dozen of us usin' the same bit of lookin' glass, an' I swan I must have shaved somebody else."