Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers, Vol. 1
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Title: Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers, Vol. 1
Editor: William Patten
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONG THE HUMORISTS AND AFTER DINNER SPEAKERS, VOL. 1 ***
[Illustration: OLIVER HERFORD]
AMONG THE HUMORISTS AND AFTER-DINNER SPEAKERS
A NEW COLLECTION OF HUMOROUS STORIES AND ANECDOTES
SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY WILLIAM PATTEN
Editor of American Short Story Classics,
Foreign Short Story Classics, etc.
VOL. I
P. F. COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT 1909 BY P. F. COLLIER & SON
PARTIAL LIST OF THE NAMES OF STORY-TELLERS IN THIS VOLUME
GEORGE ADE SIR WILFRID LAURIER
BRET HARTE OLIVER HERFORD
MARK TWAIN J. M. BARRIE
SEC. OF STATE P. C. KNOX RICHARD MANSFIELD
W. M. EVARTS JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS
DE WOLF HOPPER J. G. BLAINE
KING EDWARD OF ENGLAND PHILLIPS BROOKS
JOSEPH JEFFERSON DANIEL J. SULLY
LORD BEACONSFIELD BILL NYE
ABRAHAM LINCOLN JOHN C. SPOONER
ALVEY A. ADEE ROBERT EDESON
PATRICK A. COLLINS ANDREW LANG
HORACE T. EASTMAN BENJAMIN R. TILLMAN
D. G. ROSSETTI WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE
J. M. MACLAREN CHARLES LAMB
DEAN SWIFT EDWIN BOOTH
CLYDE FITCH WEEDON GROSSMITH
J. MCNEILL WHISTLER SENATOR W. A. CLARK
LEIGH HUNT FRANCIS WILSON
EDWARD EVERETT HALE CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
DEAN HOLE ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
IRVING BACHELLER BEERBOHM TREE
THOMAS B. REED HERBERT S. STONE
J. C. S. BLACKBURN FRANK R. STOCKTON
N. C. GOODWIN HENRY JAMES
BRANDER MATTHEWS WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
ANDREW CARNEGIE BISHOP BREWSTER
SPEAKER CANNON FREDERIC REMINGTON
WALTER DAMROSCH JULIAN RALPH
REV. ROBERT COLLYER SENATOR JOHN T. MORGAN
REV. SAM JONES J. J. INGALLS
DEAN KIRCHWEY ARCHBISHOP RYAN
JOHN WANAMAKER J. A. TAWNEY
HENRY GUY CARLETON THOS. BAILEY ALDRICH
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS ELIHU ROOT
_PREFACE_
_The collection of these humorous paragraphs has extended over a
number of years. Even a small beginning became a source of such
entertainment that the collection grew and grew, always without any
thought of publication._
_The man who can not laugh has yet to be found. Therein lies that
immediate appeal to a common ground which the sense of humor gives,
and it has been a conspicuous characteristic of those who look to the
public for appreciation and support. Lord Palmerston and Abraham
Lincoln were two notable examples of men for whom sympathy quickened
through their ready wit, and no political speaker drives home his
arguments half so well as he who can introduce a witty illustration.
The joke has ever been a potent factor in combating oppression and
corruption, in ridiculing shams. It has embalmed some reputations, and
has blasted others. It is the champion of the weak against the strong,
and has often illuminated for us, as in a flash, a glimpse of
character or custom that would otherwise have been lost to the world._
_There is only one similar collection of which I am aware, the “Jest
Book” by Mark Lemon, who was for twenty-nine years the editor of
“Punch.” Alas that there should be fashions in jokes as well as in
hats, for much of his book that we know must have been humorous
reading to his contemporaries, leaves us, of the present generation in
America, indifferent._
_I shall be glad if some of my readers are minded to do a graceful act
and send me, in return, some paragraphs to add to my collection._
_I wish to take this opportunity to thank the following publications
for the paragraphs borrowed from their columns:_
_Evening Sun, Lippincott’s, Pittsburg Dispatch, San Francisco
News-Letter, Ladies’ Home Journal, Washington Star, Mail and Express,
Youth’s Companion, Life, Good Housekeeping, Argonaut, Buffalo
Commercial, Tit-Bits, Punch, The Tattler, Harper’s Weekly, Harper’s
Monthly, Democratic Telegram, Cleveland Plaindealer, Harvard Lampoon,
Judge, Philadelphia Ledger, Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin, Boston Herald, Kansas City Star, Washington Post,
Success, Atchison Globe, New York Times, Woman’s Home Companion,
London Mail, Louisville Courier-Journal, Rochester Post-Express, New
York Tribune, New York Observer, Chicago Daily News, Pittsburg Post,
Pittsburg Observer, Philadelphia Public Ledger, New York World,
Pick-me-up, Harper’s Bazar, The Green Bag, Tacoma Ledger, Pittsburg
Dispatch, The Wasp, Cornell Widow, Washington Post, Kansas City
Independent, Short Stories._
_W. P._
AMONG THE HUMORISTS AND AFTER-DINNER SPEAKERS
There is a delicious flavor about this story of a Virginia lady,
married to a man who, though uniformly unsuccessful in his hunting
trips, boastingly spoke of his “killings.”
One day, returning from a trip, with the usual accompaniment of an
empty bag, it occurred to him that his wife would make fun of him if
he returned without even one proof of his oft-boasted skill. So he
purchased a brace of partridges to deceive his trusting spouse. As he
threw them on the table in front of her, he observed: “Well, my dear,
you see I am not so awkward with the gun after all.”
“Dick,” replied the wife, turning from the birds with a grimace, after
a brief examination, “you were quite right in shooting these birds
to-day; to-morrow it would have been too late.”
* * * * *
Uncle Toby was aghast at finding a strange darky with his arm around
Mandy’s waist.
“Mandy, tell dat niggah to take his ahm ’way from round yo’ waist,” he
indignantly commanded. “Tell him yo’self,” said Mandy haughtily. “He’s
a puffect stranger to me.”
* * * * *
A Cockney tourist was on a visit to a Highland town famous for its
golf-links. Through wearing a pair of stiff leather gaiters several
sizes too large for him, he was compelled to walk bow-legged. Being a
very slow player, others were forced to wait for him at every hole. At
the fourth hole a Highlander after watching the visitor miss the ball
three times was unable to wait any longer, and drove his ball clean
between the tourist’s legs. “What!” he of the gaitered legs yelled
furiously. “Do you call that golf?” “Mebbe no,” replied the Gael, “but
it’s very good croquet.”
* * * * *
After the sermon on Sunday morning the rector welcomed and shook hands
with a young German.
“And are you a regular communicant?” said the rector.
“Yes,” said the German, “I take the 7.45 every morning.”
* * * * *
Meeting a negro, a certain Southern gentleman asked him how he was
getting on.
The negro assumed a troubled look, and replied:
“Oh, so far’s physicality goes, I’m all right; but I sure do have ma
troubles wif ma wife.”
“Well, Sam, I’m sorry to hear that. What seems to be the matter?”
“She thinks money grows on trees, I reckon. All de time she keeps
pesterin’ me foh pinch o’ change. If it ain’t a dollah it’s half or a
quarter she wants.”
“What on earth does she do with the money?”
“I dunno. Ain’t nevah give her none yet.”
* * * * *
A mountaineer of one of the back counties of North Carolina was
arraigned with several others for illicit distilling. “Defendant,”
said the court, “what is your name?”
“Joshua,” was the reply.
“Are you the man who made the sun stand still?”
Quick as a flash came the answer, “No, sir; I am the man who made the
moonshine.”
* * * * *
“They thought more of the Legion of Honor in the time of the first
Napoleon than they do now,” said a well-known Frenchman. “The emperor
one day met an old one-armed veteran.
“‘How did you lose your arm?’ he asked.
“‘Sire, at Austerlitz.’
“‘And were you not decorated?’
“‘No, sire.’
“‘Then here is my own cross for you; I make you chevalier.’
“‘Your Majesty names me chevalier because I have lost one arm! What
would your Majesty have done had I lost both arms?’
“‘Oh, in that case I should have made you Officer of the Legion.’
“Whereupon the old soldier immediately drew his sword and cut off his
other arm.”
There is no particular reason to doubt this story. The only question
is, how did he do it?
* * * * *
A stranger in Boston was interested to discover, when dining with
friends once, that the dessert he would have classed as cream layer
cake at home was known in Boston as “Washington pie.” And the next
time he lunched at a restaurant, he ordered the same thing; but the
waiter put before him a rather heavy looking square of cake covered
with chocolate, instead of the cream cake the guest had made up his
mind to enjoy. A puzzled expression came over his face as he said
reprovingly, “I ordered _Washington_ pie, waiter.”
“That is Washington pie, sir.”
“Well,” expostulated the disappointed man, “I did not mean Booker
T.--I want _George!_“
* * * * *
George Ade, automobiling in Indiana, dined at a country hotel among a
roomful of ministers.
The ministers, who were holding a convention in the town, were much
amused when Mr. Ade’s identity was disclosed to them.
One of them said during dinner:
“How does a humorist of your stamp feel, sir, in such reverend company
as this?”
“I feel,” said Mr. Ade promptly, “like a lion in a den of Daniels.”
* * * * *
It was a crowded tram car. Among those who could not find seats was a
young lady. Close to where she stood an old man was sitting. He
struggled as if to rise. The young woman cast a glance of scorn at one
or two men hiding behind newspapers. “Please don’t get up,” she said
to the old man, “I beg you won’t.” The conductor rang the bell and the
car went on. The old man’s features worked convulsively and he mopped
his face with his handkerchief. At the next stopping place he again
tried to rise and again the young woman tried to stop him. “I would
much rather stand,” she said, continuing to block his way. “I don’t
care whether you would or not,” said the old man, crimson with fury,
“I want to get out. You’ve made me come half a mile too far already.
Here, you, stop the car.” But it was too late, the bell had already
rung and he had to wait until the next stopping place was reached.
* * * * *
“I want some cigars for my husband for Christmas.”
“What kind, madam?”
“Well, I don’t know, exactly; but he is a middle-aged man and always
dresses in black.”
* * * * *
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., tells a story of his father:
“Father tells many stories. Sometimes he tells a new one. Not long ago
he related one to me that concerned a man who had imbibed rather too
freely. The man, in this condition, fell into a watering trough. To
the officer who came to help him out as he wallowed in the water, he
said:
“‘Offzer, I ken save self. You save women an’ shildern.’”
* * * * *
“On Sunday, September 20, the wife of ---- of a daughter. Others
please copy.”
* * * * *
Bret Harte was so frequently complimented as the author of “Little
Breeches” that he was almost as sorry it was ever written as was
Colonel John Hay, who preferred his fame to rest on more ambitious
works. A gushing lady who prided herself upon her literary tastes,
said to him once: “My dear Mr. Harte, I am so delighted to meet you. I
have read everything you ever wrote, but of all your dialect verse
there is none that compares to your ‘Little Breeches.’”
“I quite agree with you, madam,” said Mr. Harte, “but you have put the
little breeches on the wrong man.”
* * * * *
Mr. Knox, the Secretary of State in Taft’s Cabinet, was formerly
engaged in the practise of law in Pittsburg.
One day, says a friend, Mr. Knox was much put out to find on his
arrival at his office that everything was topsy-turvy and that the
temperature of his rooms was much too low for comfort. Summoning his
office-boy, a lad but recently entered his employ, the lawyer asked
who had raised every window in the place on such a cold morning.
“Mr. Muldoon, sir,” was the answer.
“Who is Mr. Muldoon?” asked the attorney.
“The janitor, sir.”
“Who carried off my waste-basket?” was the next question.
“Mr. Reilly, sir.”
“And who is Mr. Reilly?”
“He’s the man that cleans the rooms.”
Mr. Knox looked sternly at the boy and said: “See here, Richard, we
call men by their first names here. We don’t ‘mister’ them in this
office. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” And the boy retired.
In a few minutes he reappeared and in a shrill, piping voice
announced:
“There’s a gentleman that wants to see you, Philander.”
* * * * *
A Scottish parson, still on the under side of forty, was driving home
from an outlying hamlet when he overtook a young woman. He recognized
her as the maid of all work at a farm which he would pass, so he
pulled up and offered her a lift. Mary gladly accepted his offer and
they chatted pleasantly all the way to the farm gate.
“Thank you, sir,” she said as she got down.
“Don’t mention it, Mary. Don’t mention it,” he told her politely.
“No, I won’t,” Mary obligingly assured him.
* * * * *
A little girl was shown her newly-arrived baby brother. Looking at him
lovingly she said, “When will he talk, mother?” “Oh not for a long
time yet,” said the mother. “Yes, but when?” persisted the child.
“Well, not for a year or so.” After thinking for minute the child
exclaimed, “How funny. Miss Clark read out of the Bible this morning
that Job cursed the hour he was born.”
* * * * *
W. A. Sponsler, when in the Pennsylvania State Legislature, was given
to the making of very elaborate and florid speeches, and one day
brought an address to a close with “_Vox populi, vox Dei_.”
“I’ll bet you don’t know the meaning of what Sponsler just said,” said
Al Crawford to Hugh E. Mackin.
“I don’t know!” replied Mackin, indignantly. “Of course, I know!”
“You don’t know for ten dollars!” suggested Crawford.
Mackin, still indignant, posted his part of the wager with another
member of the Legislature, and Crawford said tauntingly:
“Well, now, tell us, what does it mean?”
“_Vox populi, vox Dei_,” quoted Mackin, solemnly, “as everybody knows,
is French for ‘My God! why hast thou forsaken me?’”
“Give him the money,” said Crawford. “Darned if he don’t know after
all!”
* * * * *
There is an old lady living in a small town in southern Pennsylvania
who makes great efforts to keep abreast of the times. Her
opportunities, however, are circumscribed, and she is sometimes
compelled to resort to her imagination. She went to a church sociable
lately, and as she entered the room one of the attendants said:
“Good evening, auntie. I am glad you came. We are going to have
tableaux this evening.”
“Yes, I know,” replied the old lady; “I smelt ’em when I first came
in.”
* * * * *
Fifer was a dog of friendly and social habits, but when he wandered
into the lecture-tent at a well-known New Thought summer school and
went to sleep between the chairs, he did a very foolish thing. A woman
coming in poked him in the ribs with her parasol, startling him from
his peaceful dreams, and he sprang upon her with a savage bite. A man
grabbed him and he grabbed the man. The excitement was intense when an
earnest little woman standing on a chair cried, “Some one hold the
Thought!” “Hang the Thought!” shouted a man in the rear. “Some one
hold the dog!”
* * * * *
The boy was going away to school, full of high hope.
“I shall make the football team and color two pipes the first year!”
he said bravely.
His mother kissed him and wept. His father wrung his hand in silence.
They were too full for speech then.
But when he was gone, and they were calmer, they talked together of
him, and prayed his ambition might not carry him beyond his strength.
* * * * *
The car was entirely empty with the exception of one man, but as I
entered he rose, made me an unsteady but magnificent bow, and said:
“Madam, pleashe be kind ’nough to asshept thish plashe.”
There was nothing else for me to do, so I thanked him and sat down.
And for twenty blocks that idiot hung from a strap, swaying in the
breeze, with not a soul in the car but ourselves. Occasionally I have
been taken for other women; but I never before had any one think that
I was a carful.
* * * * *
Husband (after the theater)--“Well, how do you like the piece?”
Wife--“Very much. There’s only one improbable thing in it. The second
act takes place two years after the first, and they have the same
servant.”
* * * * *
Thomas Hill (the original “Paul Pry”) was endeavoring one evening to
cut up an orange in such a fashion as to represent a pig. After
strewing the table with about a dozen peels, he gave up the futile
experiment, saying, “Hang the pig! I can’t make him at all.”
“Nonsense, Hill,” said Theodore Hook, pointing to the table; “you have
done splendidly. Instead of a pig you have made a litter.”
* * * * *
An elderly churchwarden in shaving himself one Sunday before
church-time made a slight cut with the razor on the extreme end of his
nose. Quickly calling to his wife, he asked her if she had any
court-plaster in the house. “You will find some in my sewing basket,”
she said. The warden soon had the cut covered. At church in assisting
with the collection he noticed everyone smile as he passed the plate,
and some of the younger people laughed outright. Very much annoyed, he
asked a friend if there was anything wrong with his appearance.
“Well, I should think there is,” was the answer. “What is that on your
nose?” “Court-plaster.” “No,” said his friend, “it is the label from a
reel of cotton. It says, ‘Warranted 200 yd. long.’”
* * * * *
A man who stuttered very badly went to a specialist, and after ten
difficult lessons learned to say quite distinctly, “Peter Piper picked
a peck of pickled peppers.” His friends congratulated him upon this
splendid achievement.
“Yes,” said the man, doubtfully, “but it’s s-s-such a d-d-deucedly
d-d-d-difficult rem-mark to w-work into an ordin-n-nary
c-c-convers-s-sa-tion, y’ know.”
* * * * *
Toastmaster (to chairman of public dinner)--“Would you like to propose
your toast now, my lord, or should we let ’em enjoy themselves a bit
longer?”
* * * * *
A visitor to a Sunday-school was asked to address a few remarks to the
children. He took the familiar theme of the children who mocked Elisha
on his journey to Bethel--how the youngsters taunted the poor old
prophet and how they were punished when two she bears came out of the
wood and ate forty-and-two of them. “And now, children,” said he,
wishing to learn if his talk had produced any moral effect, “what does
this story show?” “Please, sir,” came from a little girl well down in
the front, “it shows how many children two she bears can hold.”
* * * * *
A curate who had left his parish on account of the attentions of his
lady parishioners, meeting his successor one day in the street asked
him how he got on in his new position. “Very well indeed,” returned
the other. “But are not the ladies rather pressing in their
attentions?” “Oh, my dear fellow, I manage that all right, I find
safety in Numbers.” “I see,” returned his companion, “well, I found
safety in Exodus.”
* * * * *
“I want some collars for my husband,” said a lady in a department
store, “but I am afraid I have forgotten the size.”
“Thirteen and a half, ma’am?” suggested the clerk.
“That’s it. How on earth did you know?”
“Gentlemen who let their wives buy their collars for ’em are almost
always about that size, ma’am,” explained the observant clerk.
* * * * *
On a recent occasion before leaving Marlborough House new clothes were
ordered for Prince Edward, and according to custom a tailoress was
sent to fit him at a time which would not interfere with his lessons.
The tailoress duly arrived and was ushered to the Prince’s
sitting-room, but on the door being opened she paused as she saw that
a gentleman, whose face was turned toward the fireplace, was sitting
smoking and chatting with the children. Prince Edward, whose manner is
most friendly, at once ran forward and told her to come in, and seeing
that she still hesitated added in a reassuring voice, “You needn’t
mind, it’s only grandpapa.”
* * * * *
A physician engaged a nurse, recently graduated, for a case of
delirium tremens. The physician succeeded in quieting his patient and
left some medicine, instructing the nurse to administer it to him if
he “began to see snakes again.” At the next call the physician found
the patient again raving. To his puzzled inquiry the nurse replied
that the man had been going on that way for several hours, and that
she had not given him any medicine.
“But didn’t I tell you to give it to him if he began to see snakes
again?” asked the physician.
“But he didn’t see snakes this time,” replied the nurse confidently.
“He saw red, white, and blue turkeys with straw hats on.”
* * * * *
Shortly after his entrance into political life Disraeli stood for a
certain Middlesex borough in the Conservative interest. It was a
“personally conducted” canvass, and, among others, the future Prime
Minister solicited the vote and interest of a well-to-do but somewhat
irascible farmer, who was supposed to be rather doubtful in his
political convictions.
“Vote for you!” he shouted when Mr. Disraeli made known the object of
his call. “Why, I’d vote for the devil sooner.”
“Ah, quite so!” said Mr. Disraeli, suavely, “but in event of your
friend not standing, may I hope for your interest?”
* * * * *
An ambitious youth once sent his first MS. to Dumas, asking the
distinguished novelist to become his _collaborateur_. The latter was
astounded at the impertinence. Angrily seizing his pen, he wrote: “How
dare you, sir, yoke together a noble horse and a contemptible ass?”
He received the following reply:
“How dare you sir, call me a horse?”
His anger vanished and he laughingly penned the following:
“Send on your MS., my friend; I gladly accept your proposition.”
* * * * *
An old farmer recently came into possession of a check for $200. He
finally summoned up nerve enough to go to the bank.
“What denomination?” said the teller, hastily, as the check was passed
in through the window.
“Luther’n, gol darn it. But what has that got to do with it?”
* * * * *
A young woman was in company with a university graduate, and naturally
the talk ran upon books. By and by there was a lull in the
conversation, broken presently by the young woman, who said: “What do
you think of Fielding, Mr. Smith?”
“Oh,” was the answer, “fielding is important, of course; but it isn’t
worth much unless you have good pitching and batting.”
* * * * *
General Frederick D. Grant said to his servant one morning: “James, I
have left my mess boots out. I want them soled.”
“Yes, sir,” the servant answered.
The general, dressing for dinner that night, said again:
“I suppose, James, that you did as I told you about those boots?”
James laid thirty-five cents on the bureau.
“Yes, sir,” said he, “and this is all I could get for them, though the
corporal who bought ’em said he’d have given half a dollar if pay day
hadn’t been so far off.”
* * * * *
President Lincoln once wrote to General McClellan, when the latter was
in command of the army. General McClellan, as is well known, conducted
a waiting campaign, being so careful not to make any mistakes that he
made very little headway. President Lincoln sent this brief but
exceedingly pertinent letter:
“_My dear McClellan_: If you don’t want to use the army I should like
to borrow it for a while.
“Yours respectfully,
“A. LINCOLN.”
* * * * *
It was at a children’s party in West Kensington. The youngsters had
just done more than justice to the luxurious spread provided by their
hostess, and games were now the order of the evening.
“Now, children,” said she, “we will play the zoo, and each of you must
represent a different animal.”
Then, going to a little girl, she asked:
“Now, Carrie, what are you going to be?”
“I’ll be an elephant.”
“And you, Reggie, what are you going to be?”
“I’m going to be a lion.”
“And what are you going to be, Hilda?”
“I’m going to be a tiger.”
Then, crossing to the other side of the room, the hostess, noticing a
youngster sitting all alone, asked:
“And what are you going to be, Tommy?”
“P-please,” was the halting reply, “p-please--I’m going--to be sick.”
* * * * *
A man who had been convicted of stealing was brought before a certain
“down East” judge, well known for his tender-heartedness, to be
sentenced.
“Have you ever been sentenced to imprisonment?” asked the judge, not
unkindly.
“Never!” exclaimed the prisoner, suddenly bursting into tears.
“Well, well, don’t cry, my man,” said his honor consolingly; “you’re
going to be now.”
* * * * *
The inventor of a new feeding bottle for infants sent out the
following among his directions for using:
“When the baby is done drinking it must be unscrewed and laid in a
cool place under the hydrant. If the baby does not thrive on fresh
milk, it should be boiled.”
* * * * *
A well-known New York clergyman was telling his Bible class the story
of the Prodigal Son at a recent session, and wishing to emphasize the
disagreeable attitude of the elder brother on that occasion, he laid
especial stress on this phase of the parable. After describing the
rejoicing of the household over the return of the wayward son, he
spoke of one who, in the midst of the festivities, failed to share in
the jubilant spirit of the occasion.
“Can anybody in the class,” he asked, “tell me who this was?”
A small boy, who had been listening sympathetically to the story, put
up his hand.
“I know,” he said, beamingly; “it was the fatted calf.”
* * * * *
“I understand,” said the old-time friend, “that you are gettin’ right
exclusive.”
“Well,” answered Mr. Cumrox, “that’s what mother an’ the girls call
it.”
“What do you call it?”
“Plain ‘lonesome’.”
* * * * *
“Tommy,” said the hostess, “you appear to be in deep thought.”
“Yes’m,” replied Tommy; “ma told me somethin’ to say if you should ask
me to have some cake or anything, an’ I bin here so long now I forgit
what it was.”
* * * * *
A Boston minister once noticed a crowd of urchins clustered around a
dog of doubtful pedigree.
“What are you doing, my little men?” he asked with fatherly interest.
“Swappin’ lies,” volunteered one of the boys. “The feller that tells
the biggest one gets the purp.”
“Shocking!” exclaimed the minister. “Why, when I was your age I never
even _thought_ of telling an untruth.”
“Youse win,” chorused the urchins. “The dog’s yours, mister.”
* * * * *
A Brooklyn Sunday-school teacher once had occasion to catechise a new
pupil whose ignorance of his Testament would have been amusing had it
not been so appalling. One Sunday she asked the little fellow how many
commandments there were.
To her surprise, the lad answered, glibly enough: “Ten, ma’am.”
“And now, Sammy,” pleasantly asked the teacher, “what would the result
be if you should break one of them?”
“Then there’d be nine!” triumphantly answered the youngster.
* * * * *
William J. Carr, of the State Department, had occasion to call at the
house of a neighbor late at night. He rang the door-bell. After a long
wait a head was poked out of a second-floor window.
“Who’s there?” asked a voice.
“Mr. Carr,” was the reply.
“Well,” said the voice as the window banged shut, “what do I care if
you missed a car? Why don’t you walk, and not wake up people to tell
them about it?”
* * * * *
A clever veterinary has a system all his own. When he received an
overfed toy dog he would consign him to a disused brick oven, with a
crust of bread, an onion and an old boot. When the dog began to gnaw
the bread, the anxious mistress was informed that her darling was
“doing nicely.” When it commenced operation on the onion, word was
sent that the pet was “decidedly better”; but when the animal tackled
the boot, my lady was gratified to hear that her precious pet was
“ready to be removed.”
* * * * *
A lady while going downstairs to dinner had the misfortune to step
slightly on the dress of a lady in front of her. The man on whose arm
the former was leaning rudely said aloud so that the couple in front
might hear, “Always getting in the way like Balaam’s ass!” Upon which
the lady whose gown had been trodden on, turning round, replied with a
sweet smile, “Pardon me, it was the angel who stood in the way and the
ass which spoke.”
* * * * *
A number of years ago, when the former Second Assistant Secretary of
State, Alvey A. Adee, was Third Assistant, an employee of the State
Department was called to the ’phone.
“Will you kindly give me the name of the Third Assistant Secretary of
State?” asked the voice at the other end of the wire.
“Adee.”
“A. D. what?”
“A. A. Adee.”
“Spell it, please.”
“A.”
“Yes.”
“A.”
“Yes.”
“A----”
“You go to the d----!” and the receiver was indignantly hung up.
* * * * *
Smith and Jones, talking about the Kaiser:
Jones--“They tell me that unfortunately he is very bellicose.”
Smith--“Dear me! You surprise me! I always understood he was rather
tall and slim.”
* * * * *
“I will be your valentine,” said the young man.
A shadow passed across the fair face of the girl. “I was so in hopes
that I would not get any comics this year,” she said.
* * * * *
One of the favorite stories of Mayor Collins of Boston was about a man
who, accompanied by his little boy, had occasion to cross a lot where
a good-sized goat was feeding.
The father was a Christian Scientist and always carried a copy of Mrs.
Eddy’s works in his pocket. As they approached the goat the boy showed
fear, whereat his father told him to think it not possible for the
animal to harm them, but the boy, remembering a previous encounter
with a goat, in which he came out second best, did not grow any
braver.
“Papa, you’re a Christian Scientist, all right,” he said, “and so am
I; but the goat doesn’t know it.”
* * * * *
Horace T. Eastman, the inventor of the locomotive pilot, said the
other day:
“This morning I was sitting in a drug store waiting to get a
prescription filled when a young Irishman entered.
“The Irishman pointed to a stack of green Castile soap and said:
“‘Oi want a lump o’ thot.’
“‘Very well, sir,’ said the clerk. ‘Will you have it scented or
unscented?’
“‘Oi’ll take ut with me,’ said the Irishman.”
* * * * *
Robert Smith, brother of Sydney Smith, and an ex-Advocate-General, on
one occasion engaged in an argument with a physician over the relative
merits of their respective professions.
“I don’t say that all lawyers are crooks,” said the doctor, “but
you’ll have to admit that your profession doesn’t make angels of men.”
“No,” retorted Smith; “you doctors certainly have the best of us
there.”
* * * * *
Small chap--“Say, papa, what is the race problem?”
Papa--“Picking winners.”
* * * * *
The temperance society was to meet that afternoon. Mrs. Philpots
dressed in a hurry and came panting downstairs. She was a short, plump
woman.
“Addie, run up to my room and get my blue ribbon rosette, the
temperance badge,” she directed her maid. “I have forgotten it. You
will know it, Addie--blue ribbon and gold lettering.”
“Yas’m, I knows it right well.” Addie could not read, but she knew a
blue ribbon with gold lettering when she saw it, and therefore had no
trouble in finding it and fastening it properly on the dress of her
mistress.
Mrs. Philpots was too busy greeting her friends or giving close
attention to the speakers at the meeting to note that they smiled when
they shook hands with her.
When she reached home, supper was served, so she went directly to the
dining-room, where the other members of the family were seated.
“Gracious me, mother!” exclaimed her son. “That blue ribbon--have you
been wearing that at the temperance meeting?”
A loud laugh went up on all sides.
“Why, what is it, Harry?” asked the good woman, clutching at the
ribbon in surprise.
“Why, mother, dear, didn’t you know that was the ribbon I wore at the
show?”
The gold lettering on the ribbon read:
Atlanta Poultry Show.
First Prize. Bantam.
* * * * *
At a dinner party recently given the subject of regular hours and
plain diet was discussed. Several had spoken when one of the guests
remarked, “You may not believe it, but for ten years I rose on the
stroke of six, half an hour later was at breakfast, at seven was at
work, dined at one, had supper at six, and was in bed at 9.30. In all
that time I ate the plainest food and did not have a day’s sickness.”
The silence that followed was awful, but finally another guest asked,
“Will you permit a question?” “Certainly,” was the reply; “what do you
wish to know?” “Well, just out of curiosity,” said the other, “I would
like to know what you were in prison for?”
* * * * *
Watch--“Eight bells, and all’s well!”
Mrs. Pohunk (feebly)--“I guess, Josiah, he hasn’t looked on this side
of the boat lately or he’d know better.”
* * * * *
When the minister, who was a bachelor, had been helped to Mrs.
Porter’s biscuits for the third time, he looked across the table at
Rhoda, staring at him with round, wondering eyes.
“I don’t often have such a good supper as this, my dear,” he said, in
his most propitiatory tone, and Rhoda’s face dimpled.
“We don’t, always,” she said, in her clear little voice. “I’m awful
glad you came.”
* * * * *
The late Charles Matthews now and then failed, like some of the rest
of us, in meeting his bills as promptly as the tradespeople concerned
could desire.
On one occasion a brisk young tailor, named Berry, lately succeeded to
his father’s business, sent in his account somewhat ahead of time.
Whereupon Matthews, with virtuous rage, seized his pen and wrote him
the following note:
“You must be a goose--Berry, to send me your bill--Berry, before it is
due--Berry.
“Your father, the elder--Berry, would have had more sense.
“You may look very black--Berry, and feel very blue--Berry, but I
don’t care a straw--Berry, for you and your bill--Berry.”
* * * * *
A clergyman in a Lawrence church on a recent occasion discovered,
after beginning the service, that he had forgotten his notes. As it
was too late to send for them, he said to his audience, by way of
apology, that this morning he should have to depend upon the Lord for
what he might say, but in the afternoon he would come better prepared.
* * * * *
An American visiting London for the first time, goaded to desperation
by the incessant necessity for tips, finally entered the wash-room of
his hotel, only to be faced with a large sign which read: “Please tip
the basin after using.” “I’m hanged if I will!” said the Yankee,
turning on his heel, “I’ll go dirty first!”
* * * * *
Mother could not attend church one Sunday. “But what a shame that
little Mabel should have to lose the day’s lesson, and she _such_ a
bright child,” she sadly reflected. Accordingly, Mabel was sent alone.
When she returned, in reply to her mother’s interrogation as to the
subject of the text, she replied, “Oh, yes, mother, I know; it was
_‘Don’t get scared: You’ll get the quilt.’_“ Questioning failed to
throw any light on the matter. Some days later the mother met the
pastor, who, in answer to her request for the subject of his last
sermon, replied, “It was, madam, ‘Fear not: Ye shall have the
Comforter.’”
* * * * *
Mark Twain in his lecturing days, reached a small Eastern town one
afternoon and went before dinner to a barber’s to be shaved.
“You are a stranger in town, sir?” the barber asked.
“Yes, I am a stranger here,” was the reply.
“We’re having a good lecture here to-night, sir,” said the barber, “a
‘Mark Twain’ lecture. Are you going to it?”
“Yes, I think I will,” said Mr. Clemens.
“Have you got your ticket yet?” the barber asked.
“No, not yet,” said the other.
“Then, sir, you’ll have to stand.”
“Dear me!” Mr. Clemens exclaimed. “It seems as if I always do have to
stand when I hear that man Twain lecture.”
* * * * *
During the visit of the Shah Nasr-ed-Din to England he dined one night
with the then Prince of Wales, now King Edward. Among the courses was
one of asparagus, a delicacy unknown to the Shah. He considered it for
a time, discovered that the head alone was nice to eat, ate it
accordingly and flung the rest of the stalk over his shoulder. The
other diners were somewhat flabbergasted, but the tactful Prince, not
wishing his Persian guest to feel that he had done anything
ridiculous, promptly followed his example, throwing his own stalks
over his shoulder. Naturally all the courtiers imitated him in turn,
and the amazement of the royal servants was extreme to see the air
suddenly full of flying asparagus stalks from one end of the lengthy
room to the other.
* * * * *
On one of his frequent trips to the other side, the weather being more
than ordinarily rough, and the passengers on deck but few, the late
Bishop Potter saw a lady reclining on one of the benches, and the
unearthly pallor on her face and the hapless languidity of her manner
indicated that she had reached that state of collapse which marks the
limit of sea-sickness. “Touched by this piteous spectacle and
approaching the poor creature, in my most compassionate tone I asked,
‘Madam, can I be of any service to you?’
“She did not open her eyes, but I heard her murmur faintly: ‘Thank
you, sir, but there is nothing you can do--nothing at all.’ ‘At least,
madam,’ said I tenderly, ‘permit me to bring you a glass of water.’
She moved her head feebly and answered: ‘No, I thank you--nothing at
all.’ ‘But your husband, madam,’ said I, ‘the gentleman lying there
with his head in your lap--shall I not bring something to revive him?’
The lady again moved her head feebly, and again she murmured faintly
between gasps: ‘Thank you, sir, but--he--is--not--my--husband.
I--don’t--know--who he is!’”
* * * * *
“Well, Bobby, how do you like church?” asked his father, as they
walked homeward from the sanctuary, to which Bobby had just paid his
first visit.
“It’s fine,” ejaculated the young man. “How much did you get, father?”
“How much did I get? Why, what do you mean? How much what?” asked the
parent, astonished at this evident irreverence.
“Why, don’t you remember when the funny old man passed the money
around? I only got ten cents.”
* * * * *
One day a fussy fellow met Father Healy of Dublin by the seashore and
thus accosted him: “Father Healy, I am undergoing a cure, and I take a
tumbler of sea water three times a day. Now, I’ve had my full
allowance to-day, but do you think I might have one, just one, tumbler
more?”
Father Healy put his head on one side and looked at the ocean, lost in
thought. “Well,” he said, at last, with a gravely judicial air, “I
don’t think it would be missed.”
* * * * *
Wm. M. Evarts asked by a lady if he did not think that woman was the
best judge of woman, he replied: “Not only the best judge, madam, but
the best executioner.”
* * * * *
De Wolf Hopper was calling down a speaking-tube to the janitor of his
apartment in New York. Mr. Hopper, unable to get the information he
desired, finally blurted out, “Say, is there a blithering idiot at
the end of this tube?” The reply came back with startling rapidity,
“Not at this end, sir.”
* * * * *
Mrs. S.--“Surely, John, you haven’t brought anyone home to dinner?”
Mr. S.--“Sure I have. Haven’t you got anything for them?”
“Why no, you told me you’d bring home a couple of lobsters for
dinner.”
“So I have, they’re in the parlor.”
* * * * *
One of his grandma’s maids of honor tells the following story of
Prince Eddie when he was a few years younger:
Just after King Edward’s coronation, when he underwent an operation
for appendicitis and was lying convalescent, he sent for his
grandchildren.
The little ones trooped into the room, cautioned by their nurse that
they must keep very quiet, and stood about their grandfather’s bed. He
talked with them for a few minutes and they replied in awed whispers.
Then when the nurse told them they must go, Prince Eddie said:
“But, grandpa, can’t we see the baby?”
* * * * *
Rossetti’s fondness for humorous stories and his interest in a
particular soldier of fortune, or rather of misfortune, are shown in
Hall Caine’s autobiography. Beginning life as the secretary of Ruskin,
the man ultimately lived on his cleverness and audacity and made
Rossetti in particular his conscious and delighted victim. Feeble as
Rossetti was, the visits of this man did him good, and he laughed all
the evening and told droll stories himself. One of the latter was of a
man near to death to whom the clergyman came and said: “Dear friend,
do you know who died to save you?” “Oh, meenister, meenister,” said
the dying man, “is this a time for conundrums?”
* * * * *
It is interesting to recall, apropos of the recent Milton celebration,
an anecdote of Milton that was told in an old family letter written in
1762, recently quoted in the columns of the London “Spectator”:
“Possibly you may not have heard this anecdote concerning him. John
Vallack--who, I believe, died after you came to Tavistock--told me it,
and he lived in London in 1696. Milton, as you know, was blind.
Charles the Second had the curiosity to see him, and said: ‘God hath
punished you for your malice, etc., to my father by taking away your
eyesight.’
“‘Aye,’ says Milton, ‘but before I lost my eyes he lost his head.’”
* * * * *
In writing a sketch of Washington a pupil ended her essay by saying:
“Washington married a famous belle, Martha Custis, and in due time
became the father of his country.”
* * * * *
A certain regiment was on the march from Philadelphia to Gettysburg
and the companies were ordered to move with a few minutes’ interval
between them and to keep each other in sight, the band and drums
leading.
The band soon got a long way ahead, and on reaching a bend, halted for
a few minutes’ rest. Presently up galloped a mounted officer in hot
haste and shouted for the band sergeant.
“What do you mean,” he said, “by getting out of sight of the leading
company?”
“We were not out of sight, sir,” answered the sergeant.
“What do you mean by telling me that!” exclaimed the officer in a
rage. “You were out of sight, I saw you myself.”
* * * * *
Several ladies sat after a card party at the University Club a few
mornings ago, discussing the virtues of their husbands. “Mr.
Bingleton,” said one of them, referring to her life partner, “never
drinks and never swears--indeed, he has no bad habits.” “Does he ever
smoke?” some one asked. “Yes; he likes a cigar just after he has eaten
a good meal. But, I suppose, on an average, he doesn’t smoke more than
once a month.”
* * * * *
Ian Maclaren was talking to a group of literary beginners in New York.
“Begin your stories well,” he said emphatically. “There’s nothing like
a good beginning. Indeed, it’s half the battle.” Then with a smile
this excellent beginner of stories added: “Always bear in mind the
case of the young man who, desiring to marry, secured a favorable
hearing from his sweetheart’s irascible father by opening the
interview with the words: ‘I know a way, sir, whereby you can save
money.’”
* * * * *
Benevolent gentleman--“My little boy, have you no better way to spend
this beautiful afternoon than by standing in front of the gate, idling
away your time?”
Boy--“I ain’t idling away my time. There’s a chump inside with my
sister, who is paying me ten cents an hour to watch for pa.”
* * * * *
That famous Scotch physician, Dr. George Fordyce, was unfortunately
somewhat given to drink, and though he never was known to be dead
drunk, yet he was often in a state which rendered him unfit for
professional duties. One night when he was in such a condition, he was
suddenly sent for to attend a lady of title who was very ill. He went,
sat down, listened to her story, and felt her pulse. He found he was
not up to his work. He lost his wits and in a moment of forgetfulness
exclaimed, “Drunk, by Jove!” Still he managed to write out a mild
prescription. Early next morning he received a message from the noble
patient to call on her at once. Dr. Fordyce felt very uncomfortable.
The lady evidently intended to upbraid him either for giving an
improper prescription or for his disgraceful condition, but to his
surprise and relief she thanked him for his prompt compliance with her
pressing summons, and then confessed that he had rightly diagnosed her
case. That unfortunately she occasionally indulged too freely in
drink, but that she hoped he would preserve inviolable secrecy as to
the condition in which he had found her. Fordyce listened to her as
grave as a judge, then said:
“Madam, you may depend on me. I shall be as silent as the grave.”
* * * * *
A friend of Dean Swift one day sent him a turbot as a present by a
servant lad who had frequently been on similar errands but had never
received anything from the dean for his trouble. Having gained
admission he opened the study door, and putting down the fish on the
floor cried out rudely, “Master has sent you a turbot.” “Young man,”
said the dean rising from the chair, “is that the way you deliver a
message? Let me teach you better manners. Sit down in my chair; we
will change places, and I will show you how to behave in future.” The
boy sat down, and the dean going out came up to the door, and making a
low bow said, “Sir, master presents his kind compliments, hopes you
are well, and requests your acceptance of a small present.” “Does he?”
replied the boy. “Return him my best thanks, and there’s half-a-crown
for yourself.” The dean thus caught in his own trap laughed heartily
and gave the boy a crown for his ready wit.
* * * * *
A spunky little mule was trying to throw his darky rider and in
kicking about caught his hoof in a stirrup, upon which the darky cried
out in frightened tones, “Say, if you’se gwine to git on, I’se gwine
to git off.”
* * * * *
“I ought not to be surprised by anything at my time of life,” said a
well-known minister, “but one of my flock did manage to take my breath
away. I was preaching about the Father’s tender wisdom in caring for
us all,” he said. “I illustrated by saying that the Father knows which
of us grows best in sunlight and which of us must have shade. ‘You
know you plant roses in the sunshine,’ I said, ‘and heliotrope and
geraniums; but if you want your fuchsias to grow they must be kept in
a shady nook.’ After the sermon, which I hoped would be a comforting
one, a woman came up to me, her face glowing with pleasure that was
evidently deep and true. ‘O, Dr. ----, I am so grateful for that
sermon,’ she said, clasping my hand and shaking it warmly. My heart
glowed for a moment, while I wondered what tender place in her heart
and life I had touched. Only for a moment, though. ‘Yes,’ she went on,
fervently, ‘I never knew before what was the matter with my
fuchsias.’”
* * * * *
There are some singular discounts allowed in the book trade. They were
happily illustrated on one occasion by Mark Twain. One day while the
humorist was connected with a publishing house he went into a book
store and picking up a volume asked the price. He then suggested that
as a publisher he was entitled to 50 per cent discount. To this the
clerk assented.
“As I am also an author,” said Mark, “it would appear that I am again
entitled to 50 per cent discount.”
Again the clerk bowed.
“And as a personal friend of the proprietor,” he modestly continued,
“I presume that you will allow me the usual 25 per cent. discount.”
Another bow from the salesman.
“Well,” drawled the unblushing humorist, “under these conditions I
think I may as well take the book. What’s the tax?”
The clerk took out his pencil and figured industriously. Then he said
with the greatest obsequiousness:
“As near as I can calculate we owe you the book and about 37-1/2
cents.”
* * * * *
Clyde Fitch tells a new story of Whistler. The artist was in Paris at
the time of the coronation of King Edward, and at a reception one
evening a duchess said to him: “I believe you know King Edward, Mr.
Whistler.”
“No, madame,” replied Whistler.
“Why, that’s odd,” she murmured; “I met the King at a dinner-party
last year, and he said that he knew you.”
“Oh,” said the painter, “that was just his brag.”
* * * * *
A London friend who was a member of the same club as Mr. Whistler
writes me this, which I have not seen before in print. It seems that
the gentle artist in making enemies had not paid his dues and was
dunned for them in vain. He either took no notice of requests for a
settlement, or replied to them with his usual airy mockery. Finally
the secretary wrote to him:
_“Dear Mr. Whistler_--It is not a Nocturne in Purple, or a Symphony in
Blue and Gray, that we are after, but An Arrangement in Gold and
Silver.”
This drew forth the required pounds and shillings.
* * * * *
Here is another story typical of the great maker of enemies:
Whistler had a French poodle of which he was extravagantly fond. The
poodle was seized with an affection of the throat, and Whistler had
the audacity to send for the great throat specialist Mackenzie.
Sir Morell, when he saw that he had been called in to treat a dog,
didn’t like it much, it was plain. But he said nothing. He prescribed,
pocketed a big fee, and drove away.
The next day he sent post-haste for Whistler; and Whistler, thinking
he was summoned on some matter connected with his beloved dog, dropped
his work and rushed like the wind to Mackenzie’s.
On his arrival Sir Morell said gravely:
“How do you do, Mr. Whistler? I wanted to see you about having my
front door painted.”
* * * * *
A story is told of a very popular cavalry officer. He was being tried
for drunkenness, and among other witnesses was his Irish orderly. The
court, anxious to give the officer every chance, put several questions
to this witness with a view of eliciting any facts that might be in
his master’s favor. When the orderly said that his master, on going to
bed, had expressed a wish to be called early, the members of the
court-martial were distinctly pleased.
A man who gave special instructions to be called early could not,
surely--they argued to themselves--have been drunk. Hoping to get
favorable particulars, the judge advocate put a further question.
“And why did the major wish to be called early?” he asked.
“Faith, an’ he tould me it was because he was to be Queen of the May,”
came the answer.
That settled it.
* * * * *
A college professor, noted for his concentration of thought, returned
home from a scientific meeting one night, still pondering deeply upon
the subject that had been discussed. As he entered his room he heard a
noise that seemed to come from under the bed.
“Is there some one there?” he asked absently.
“No, professor,” answered the intruder, who knew of his peculiarities.
“That’s strange,” muttered the professor. “I was almost sure I heard
some one under the bed.”
* * * * *
Fond Mother--“Jane, has Johnny come home from school yet?”
Jane--“I think so. I haven’t seen him, but the cat is hiding under the
stove.”
* * * * *
Somebody told Mr. Jenks that red flannel worn next to the skin would
cure the rheumatism from which he suffered. So he purchased several
sets of red flannel undergarments. The clerk assured him that the firm
guaranteed the goods in every particular. About two months later, says
the New York “Times,” Mr. Jenks revisited the shop, sought out the
proprietor and told his woful story.
“The goods are the best in the house,” declared the proprietor. “Of
course,” he said, in a reasonable tone used on unreasonable persons,
“of course the shirts may have shrunk or faded a little--”
“Shrunk! Faded!” bellowed Mr. Jenks. “What do you think my wife said
to me, when I came down to breakfast yesterday with one of them on?”
The proprietor looked bored.
“Well, sir,” said the aggrieved Jenks, “she looked at me a minute, and
then said, ‘What is that little red line round your neck John? It
isn’t the baby’s string of coral beads, is it?’”
* * * * *
“Now, Tommy,” said Mrs. Bull, “I want you to be good while I’m out.”
“I’ll be good for a nickel,” replied Tommy.
“Tommy,” she said, “I want you to remember that you can not be a son
of mine unless you are good for nothing.”
* * * * *
Bill Jones is a country storekeeper down in Louisiana, and last spring
he went to New Orleans to purchase a stock of goods. The goods were
shipped immediately and reached home before he did. When the boxes of
goods were delivered at his store by the drayman his wife happened to
look at the largest; she uttered a loud cry and called for a hammer.
A neighbor, hearing the screams, rushed to her assistance and asked
what was the matter. The wife, pale and faint, pointed to an
inscription on the box which read as follows:
“Bill inside.”
* * * * *
Customer--“Are these five or six wedding rings all you have in stock?
Why, you’ve got a whole trayful of engagement rings.”
Jeweler--“Yes, sir, and it will take that whole trayful of engagement
rings to work off those five or six wedding rings.”
* * * * *
They were newly married and on a honeymoon trip. They put up at a
skyscraper hotel. The bridegroom felt indisposed, and the bride said
she would slip out and do a little shopping.
In due time she returned and tripped blithely up to her room, a little
awed by the number of doors that looked all alike. But she was sure of
her own and tapped gently on the panel.
“I’m back, honey; let me in,” she whispered.
No answer.
“Honey, honey, let me in!” she called again, rapping louder. Still no
answer.
“Honey, honey, it’s Mabel. Let me in.”
There was silence for several seconds; then a man’s voice, cold and
full of dignity, came from the other side of the door:
“Madame, this is not a beehive; it’s a bathroom.”
* * * * *
Leigh Hunt was asked by a lady at dessert if he would not venture on
an orange. “Madam,” he replied, “I should be happy to do so, but I am
afraid I should tumble off.”
* * * * *
Mrs. Prattle looked at her visitor with reproach in her wide blue
eyes. “Talk,” she said eagerly, “our baby talk? Well, I guess he can.
He’s three months younger than my cousin’s boy and he’s a year ahead
of him in language. You know often people tell you their children can
say things, and when you hear them you have to work hard with your
imagination to tell what they’re saying.
“Now, there’s my cousin’s baby--the one I spoke of. They declare that
child has a vocabulary of fifteen words, but, my dear, if you could
hear him. He says ‘bay’ for bread, and ‘flis’ for fish, and ‘cang’ for
candle, and ‘hort’ for horse, and ‘apa’ for father. Now I’ll try
Harold with those very words, and you’ll see the difference.
“Say bread, Harold--bread--bre-e-ad.”
“Wed,” said the baby.
“Now say fish, fi-sh.”
“Whish,” said the baby.
“And now horse,” said Harold’s mother. “Horse--ho-orse, ho-r-se.”
“Woss,” said the baby.
“And now will precious say father, fa-ather, fa-a-ar-ther?”
“Wahwah,” said the baby.
“There, you see!” cried Mrs. Prattle in triumph. “He seems to catch
the sound of every word. Now say good-by, darling, and then nurse
will take you upstairs. Good-by--goo-ood-by-y-y.”
“Wy wy,” said the baby.
* * * * *
The superintendent of a Sunday-school class in Philadelphia recently
called upon a visitor to “say a few words” to the class, the members
of which are mostly children of tender age.
The visitor, a speaker well known for his verbose and circumlocutory
mode of speech, began his address as follows:
“This morning, children, I purpose to offer you an epitome of the life
of St. Paul. It may be perhaps that there are among you some too young
to grasp the meaning of the word ‘epitome.’
“‘Epitome,’ children, is in its signification synonymous with
synopsis.”
* * * * *
A milliner endeavored to sell to a colored woman one of the last
season’s hats at a very moderate price. It was a big white
picture-hat.
“Law, no, honey!” exclaimed the woman. “I could nevah wear that. I’d
look jes’ like a blueberry in a pan of milk.”
* * * * *
A few years ago the celebrated Potter family, of which Bishop Potter
was a member, held a reunion the chief feature of which was a banquet.
During the banquet the various heads of the different families of
Potters arose and gave a short account of the pedigrees and deeds of
their ancestors and each head seemed to be able to demonstrate that
their branch was the oldest and most renowned. After all the speakers
had finished, Honorable William M. Evarts, who was present as the
legal adviser of the New York branch, was called upon for a speech and
responded by saying that he felt there was little left for him to say,
but after listening to the ancestry and history of the family he felt
he could cast his eyes toward heaven and say, “Oh, Lord! thou art the
clay and we are the Potters.”
* * * * *
A Massachusetts minister was making his first visit to Kentucky
several years ago. He had to spend the night in a small mountain town
where feuds and moonshine still abounded. Engaging in conversation
with one of the natives, he said:
“My friend, this is a very bibulous State, I hear.”
“Lord!” replied the man, “there hain’t twenty-five Bibles in all
Kentucky.”
* * * * *
An elderly gentleman opposed to the use of tobacco approached a young
man who stood on a street corner smoking a cigar, and asked him
severely, “How many cigars a day do you smoke?” “Three,” was the
reply. “How much do you pay for them?” he went on. “Fifteen cents
each,” replied the young man patiently. “Do you realize,” went on his
inquisitor, “that if you would save that money, by the time you are as
old as I am you would own that big building on the corner?” “Do _you_
own it?” inquired the smoker. “No,” was the response. “Well, I do,”
said the young man.
* * * * *
EVERYBODY’S FRIEND IN NOVA SCOTIA
J. R. FULLER,
Dealer in
Soft and Hard Coal, Ice Cream,
Wood, Lime, Cement, Perfumery, Nails,
Putty, Spectacles, and Horse Radish.
Chocolate Caramels and Tar Roofing,
Gas-Fitting and Undertaking in all
its Branches.
Hides, Tallow, and Maple Sirup, Fine Gold
Jewelry, Silverware, and Salt, Glue,
Codfish, and Gents’ Neckwear.
Undertaker and Confectioner.
Diseases of Horses and Children a
Specialty.
Five Islands, N. S.
* * * * *
A Lady going out for the day locked everything up carefully, and for
the grocer’s benefit left a card on the back door.
“All out. Don’t leave anything,” it read.
On her return she found her house ransacked and all her choicest
possessions gone. To the card on the door was added, “Thanks. We
haven’t left much.”
* * * * *
“Edward Everett Hale,” said a lawyer, “was one of the guests at a
millionaire’s dinner.
“The millionaire was a free spender, but he wanted full credit for
every dollar put out.
“And as the dinner progressed, he told his guests what the more
expensive dishes had cost.
“‘This terrapin,’ he would say, ‘was shipped direct from Baltimore. A
Baltimore cook came on to prepare it. The dish actually cost one
dollar a teaspoonful.’
“So he talked of the fresh peas, the hot-house asparagus, the Covent
Garden peaches, and the other courses. He dwelt especially on the
expense of the large and beautiful grapes, each bunch a foot long,
each grape bigger than a plum. He told down to a penny what he had
figured it out that the grapes had cost him apiece.
“The guests looked annoyed. They ate the expensive grapes charily. But
Dr. Hale, smiling, extended his plate and said:
“‘Would you mind cutting me off about $1.87 worth more, please?’”
* * * * *
Joe Jefferson had but one person with him who did not reverence the
man and the name.
This individual, one Bagley by name, was the property man and annoyed
the great comedian with undue familiarity. He had called Mr. Jefferson
“Joey” during his entire thirty years’ service.
Just previous to an auspicious opening in one of the big cities, Mr.
Jefferson discharged Bagley for humiliating him before a number of
friends. Bagley got drunk right away, and that night paid his way to
the gallery to see Mr. Jefferson present “Rip Van Winkle.” The angry
Frau has just driven poor, destitute Rip from the cottage when Rip
turns and, with a world of pathos, asks: “Den haf I no interest in
dis house?” The house is deathly still, the audience half in tears,
when Bagley’s cracked voice responds: “Only eighty per cent,
Joey--only eighty per cent.”
* * * * *
Dean Hole, the noted English clergyman who died recently, was the
leading figure in many humorous stories. On one occasion he was
crossing the Channel after a visit to the Continent, the voyage being
very stormy.
The Dean was a bad sailor and had suffered a great deal on the trip.
At Dover he was looking over the railway company’s rules on the
station wall as a passenger came up. Said the Dean: “After that stormy
voyage we have at least one advantage in making the subsequent trip to
London. I see the company carries returning empties at reduced rates.”
* * * * *
Gilbert Stuart, though a celebrated artist, was likewise a great
braggart. On one occasion a great public dinner was given to Isaac
Hull by the town of Boston, and he was asked to sit for his picture to
the artist.
When Hull visited the studio Stuart took great delight in entertaining
him with anecdotes of his English success, stories of the marquis of
this and the baroness of that, which showed how elegant was the
society to which he had been accustomed.
Unfortunately, in the midst of this grandeur, Mrs. Stuart, who did not
know that there was a sitter, came in with apron on and her head tied
up with some handkerchiefs, from the kitchen, and cried out: “Do you
mean to have that leg of mutton boiled or roasted?” to which Stuart
replied, with great presence of mind, “Ask your mistress.”
* * * * *
This story is related of an old-time Judge in Sullivan County, N. Y.:
During a session of court there was so much talking and laughter going
on that the Judge, becoming angry and confused, shouted in great
wrath:
“Silence, here! We have decided half a dozen cases this morning, and I
have not heard a word of one of them.”
* * * * *
Irving Bacheller, the author of “Eben Holden,” went a little farther
north than usual one summer while on his vacation, and penetrated
Newfoundland. He caught a good many fish, but this did not prevent his
keeping an eye on the natives. He was particularly impressed by the
men who spent the day lounging about the village stores.
“What do you fellows do when you sit around the store like this?” he
asked of the crowd arranged in a circle of tilted chairs and empty
boxes and maintaining a profound silence.
“Well,” drawled one of the oldest, “sometimes we set and think, and
then again other times we jest set.”
* * * * *
Not long before his death Thomas B. Reed visited some friends at their
summer residence at Watch Hill, R. I. Late in the afternoon he was
driven up to Westerly to take the 7 o’clock train for Boston. It was
a warm evening, the horses lagged and he missed the train, the last
Boston-bound train stopping at Westerly that night.
As Mr. Reed had an important engagement in Boston early the next day,
he seemed worried until he learned that there was a Boston express
which passed Westerly at 9 o’clock. Then he smiled.
Going to the telegraph office, he directed a telegram to the
superintendent of the road in Boston, and sent the following message:
“Will you stop the 9 o’clock express at Westerly to-night for a large
party for Boston.”
The answer came: “Yes. Will stop train.”
Mr. Reed read the message, and smiled. When the train pulled in Mr.
Reed quietly started to board it, when the conductor said: “Where is
that large party we were to stop for?”
“I am the large party,” replied Mr. Reed, and he boarded the train.
* * * * *
Wilfred was sitting upon his father’s knee watching his mother
arranging her hair.
“Papa hasn’t any Marcel waves like that,” said the father, laughingly.
Wilfred, looking up at his father’s bald pate, replied, “Nope; no
waves; it’s all beach.”
* * * * *
The Prince of Wales is fond of telling a good story to his friends in
connection with his visit to Ottawa some few years ago. The
Prince--then Duke of York--stole away for a quiet bicycle spin early
one morning, and in his ramblings met a farmer, heading marketward,
his wagon temporarily stalled by the loss of a nut belonging to the
whiffletree bolt. His Royal Highness, with his usual democratic
kindness, assisted him in putting things right. On parting, the farmer
expressed his rough thanks and asked if he might know the name of the
person to whom he was indebted. The royal cyclist replied modestly: “I
am the Duke of York. And may I ask whom I have the pleasure of
addressing?” A broad, amused smile beamed from the farmer’s face as he
said: “Me! Me! Why, I’m your uncle, the Czar of Russia!”
* * * * *
“All right on behind there?” called the conductor from the front of
the car.
“Hold on,” cried a shrill voice. “Wait till I get my clothes on!”
The passengers craned their necks expectantly. A small boy was
struggling to get a basket of laundry aboard.
* * * * *
One of the jokes of which Kentuckians never grow weary concerns
Senator Blackburn and his loyal appreciation of the liquid products of
his native State. The Senator had gone to pay a visit to a friend of
his who lived many miles distant. His friend met the Senator as he
alighted at the station.
“How are you Joe?” his friend asked.
“I’m up against it,” was the reply. “I lost the best part of my
baggage en route.”
“Did you misplace it, or was it stolen?” his friend inquired
solicitously.
“Neither,” said the Senator. “The cork came out.”
* * * * *
Kentucky Tailor--“What size shall I make your hip pockets, Colonel,
pint or quart?”
* * * * *
Once, during his second term, Grover Cleveland was asked to speak at a
function in a certain town, and when he arrived at the depot the wind
was blowing a gale, sleet was driving, and hailstones nearly as large
as marbles were fiercely falling. Of course, the inevitable brass band
was there, and at the sight of the President the performers struck up
with all the strenuosity at their command.
“That is the most realistic music I ever heard,” remarked Cleveland.
“What are they trying to play?” asked Secretary Olney, who accompanied
him.
“‘Hail to the Chief’!” replied the President, with a cheerful smile.
* * * * *
The chaplain of one of his Majesty’s ships was giving a magic-lantern
lecture, the subject of which was “Scenes from the Bible.” He arranged
with a sailor who possessed a gramophone to discourse appropriate
music between the slides. The first picture shown was Adam and Eve in
the Garden of Eden. The sailor cudgeled his brain but could think of
nothing suitable. “Play up,” whispered the chaplain. Suddenly a large
idea struck the jolly tar and to the great consternation of the
chaplain and the delight of the audience the gramophone burst forth
with the strains of “There’s only one girl in the world for me.”
* * * * *
The craze for giving and accepting coupons for purchases of
merchandise, to be redeemed by prizes, was given a more or less
merited rebuke by Nat C. Goodwin. He bought a bill of goods, and the
salesman offered him the coupons that the amount of the purchase
called for. Mr. Goodwin shook his head. “I don’t want ’em,” he said.
“You had better take them, sir,” persisted the clerk; “we redeem them
with very handsome prizes. If you can save up a thousand coupons we
give a grand piano.”
“Say, look here,” replied Mr. Goodwin, “if I ever drank enough of your
whisky or smoked enough of your cigars to get a thousand of those
coupons I wouldn’t want a piano. I’d want a harp.”
* * * * *
He--“You’ve got to have a pull to get ahead.”
She--“Yes, and you’ve got to have a head to get a pull.”
* * * * *
A Southern lawyer tells of a case that came to him at the outset of
his career, wherein his principal witness was a darky named Jackson,
supposed to have knowledge of certain transactions not at all to the
credit of his employer, the defendant.
“Now, Jackson,” said the lawyer, “I want you to understand the
importance of telling the truth when you are put on the stand. You
know what will happen, don’t you, if you don’t tell the truth?”
“Yassir,” was Jackson’s reply; “in dat case I expects our side will
win de case.”
* * * * *
The Suitor--“They say that Love is blind.”
The Heiress--“But nowadays he has a marvelous sense of touch.”
* * * * *
A small boy who had recently passed his fifth birthday was riding in a
suburban car with his mother, when they were asked the customary
question, “How old is the boy?” After being told the correct age,
which did not require a fare, the conductor passed on to the next
person.
The boy sat quite still as if pondering over some question, and then,
concluding that full information had not been given, called loudly to
the conductor, then at the other end of the car: “And mother’s
thirty-one!”
* * * * *
One of the uptown banks, on a conspicuous corner, gained a bad name
with the daily crowd of New York pedestrians. Its financial standing
was of course beyond question, but its clock ran on a very eccentric
and confusing system. The timepiece stood in a spot easily observable
and was consulted for years in spite of its tendency to wander from
strict accuracy. A woman excusing her lateness for luncheon said she
thought she was on time by the clock in the bank.
“Oh, nobody can go by that,” said her companion contemptuously. “We
call that the bank where the wild time grows.”
* * * * *
In a certain home where the stork recently visited there is a
six-year-old son of inquiring mind. When he was first taken in to see
the new arrival he exclaimed: “Oh, mamma, it hasn’t any teeth! And no
hair!” Then, clasping his hands in despair, he cried: “Somebody has
done us! It’s an old baby.”
* * * * *
A prominent railroad man hurried down the lobby of a Binghamton hotel
and up to the desk. He had just ten minutes in which to pay his bill
and reach the station. Suddenly it occurred to him that he had
forgotten something.
“Here, boy,” he called to a negro bellboy, “run up to 48 and see if I
left a box on the bureau. And be quick about it, will you?”
The boy rushed up the stairs. The ten minutes dwindled to seven and
the railroad man paced the office. At length the boy appeared.
“Yas, suh,” he panted breathlessly. “Yas, suh, yo’ left it, suh!”
* * * * *
A Boston minister tells of a little girl friend of his who, one day,
proudly displayed for his admiration a candy cat.
“Are you going to eat it?” the minister asked.
“No, sir; it’s too pretty to eat. I’m going to keep it,” the little
girl replied, as she stroked it with a moist little hand.
Several days later the minister saw her again, and inquired about the
cat.
A regretful look came into her eyes.
“It’s gone,” she sighed. “You see, I saved it and saved it, till it
got so dirty that I just _had_ to eat it.”
* * * * *
“Only fools are certain, Tommy; wise men hesitate.”
“Are you sure, uncle?”
“Yes, my boy; certain of it.”
* * * * *
“My rubber,” said Nat Goodwin, describing a Turkish bath that he once
had in Mexico, “was a very strong man. He laid me on a slab and
kneaded me and punched me and banged me in a most emphatic way. When
it was over and I had gotten up, he came up behind me before my sheet
was adjusted, and gave me three resounding slaps on the bare back with
the palm of his enormous hand.
“‘What in blazes are you doing?’ I gasped, staggering.
“‘No offense, sir,’ said the man. ‘It was only to let the office know
that I was ready for the next bather. You see, sir, the bell’s out of
order in this room.’”
* * * * *
“I want to know,” said the irate matron, “how much money my husband
drew out of this bank last week.” “I can’t give you that information,
ma’am,” answered the man in the cage. “You’re the paying teller,
aren’t you?” “Yes, but I’m not the telling payer.”
* * * * *
A lady once showed her little girl a beautiful new silk dress which
had just arrived from the dressmaker, and by way of improving the
occasion she said: “You know, dear, all this was given us by a poor
worm.” The little girl looked puzzled for a minute or two and then
said: “Do you mean dad, mama?”
* * * * *
When Blaine was a young lawyer, and cases were few, he was asked to
defend a poverty-stricken tramp accused of stealing a watch. He
pleaded with all the ardor at his command, drawing so pathetic a
picture with such convincing energy that at the close of his argument
the court was in tears and even the tramp wept. The jury deliberated
but a few minutes and returned the verdict “not guilty.” Then the
tramp drew himself up, tears streaming down his face as he looked at
the future “Plumed Knight,” and said: “Sir, I have never heard so
grand a plea, I have not cried before since I was a child. I have no
money with which to reward you, but (drawing a package from the depths
of his ragged clothes), here’s that watch; take it and welcome.”
* * * * *
The other day an ingenious-looking person called with the message to
the housewife that her husband had sent him for his dress suit, which
was to be pressed and redone by the tailor.
“Dear me,” said the housewife, “he said nothing to me about it. Did he
look quite well?”
“Yes, mum; he wuz in good health and spirits.”
“And he seemed quite as if he knew what he was about?”
“He did that, mum.”
“And did he look as if he were quite content with things about him?”
“He was all that, mum.”
“Well,” said the lady, “it seems strange that he should only think of
that dress suit now, because it’s ten years since he’s dead and
buried, and I’ve often wondered how he’s been getting on.”
* * * * *
Two friends were walking down Bond Street, London. A man came up and
saluted the elder: “How do you do, Lord ----?”
“Ah! how-do? Glad to see you. How’s the old complaint?”
The stranger’s face clouded over and he shook his head. “No better.”
“Dear me; so sorry. Glad to have met you. Good-by.”
“Who’s your friend?” asked the other, when the stranger was gone.
“No idea.”
“Why, you asked him about his old complaint!”
“Pooh, pooh!” replied the nobleman, unconcernedly. “The old fellow’s
well over sixty; bound to have something the matter with him.”
* * * * *
“Did you tip the waiter?”
“Yes, so to speak. I turned him down.”
* * * * *
Dr. Jowett of Oxford was a formidable wit. At a gathering at which he
was present the talk ran upon the comparative gifts of two Balliol men
who had been made respectively a judge and a bishop. Prof. Henry
Smith, famous in his day for his brilliancy, pronounced the bishop to
be the greater man of the two for this reason: “A judge, at the most,
can only say, ‘You be hanged,’ whereas a bishop can say, ‘You be
damned!’”
“Yes,” said Dr. Jowett, but if the judge says, “‘You be hanged,’ you
_are_ hanged.”
* * * * *
“I’m so glad you’ve come. We’re going to have a young married couple
for dinner.”
“I’m glad too. They ought to be tender.”
* * * * *
“I pay as I go,” declared the pompous citizen.
“Not while I’m running these apartments,” declared the janitor.
“You’ll pay as you move in.”
* * * * *
Among seven distinguished men who were to speak at the opening
exercises of a new school was a professor well known for his lapses of
memory. But his speech was clear that night, and as he seated himself
his loving wife felt that he had fully earned the burst of applause
that followed, and she clapped her little hands enthusiastically.
Then her cheeks crimsoned.
“Did you see anything amusing about the close of my address, my dear?”
asked the Professor as they started for home. “It seemed as if I heard
sounds suggestive of merriment about me.”
“Well, dear,” said she, “of all the people who applauded your address,
you clapped the loudest and longest.”
* * * * *
Teacher--“What is the Hague tribunal?”
Willie--“The Hague tribunal ar--”
Teacher--“Don’t say ‘The Hague tribunal are,’ Willie; use is.”
Willie--“The Hague tribunal isbitrates national controversies.”
* * * * *
Sir Wilfrid Laurier was once on an electioneering tour in Ontario and,
as the elections were bitterly contested, every effort was made to
stir up race and religious prejudice. One day a Quebec Liberal sent
this telegram to Sir Wilfrid: “Report in circulation in this country
that your children have not been baptized. Telegraph denial.” To this
the Premier replied: “Sorry to say report is correct. I have no
children.”
* * * * *
The teacher of one of the rooms in a school in the suburbs of
Cleveland had been training her pupils in anticipation of a visit from
the school commissioner. At last he came, and the classes were called
out to show their attainments.
The arithmetic class was the first called, and in order to make a good
impression the teacher put the first question to Johnny Smith, the
star pupil.
“Johnny, if coal is selling at $6 per ton, and you pay the coal dealer
$24, how many tons of coal will he bring you?”
“Three,” was the prompt reply from Johnny.
The teacher, much embarrassed, said, “Why, Johnny, that isn’t right.”
“Oh, I know it ain’t, but they do it anyhow.”
* * * * *
A publisher who occupied a loft in New York directed one of his clerks
to hang out a “Boy wanted” sign at the entrance. The card had been
swaying in the breeze only a few minutes when a red-headed little tad
climbed to the publisher’s office with the sign under his arm.
“Say, mister,” he demanded of the publisher, “did youse hang out this
here ‘Boy Wanted’ sign?”
“I did,” replied the publisher sternly. “Why did you tear it down?”
“Hully gee!” he blurted. “Why, I’m the boy!” And he was.
* * * * *
A distinguished surgeon, Dr. Abernethy by name, famed for his laconic
speech as well as for his professional skill, met one day his equal in
a woman of few words, who came to him with a hand badly swollen and
inflamed.
“Burn?” asked the doctor.
“Bruise.”
“Poultice.”
The next day the patient returned and the dialogue was resumed.
“Better?”
“Worse.”
“More poultice.”
Two days later the woman called again, and this was the conversation:
“Better?”
“Well. Fee?”
“Nothing!” exclaimed the doctor. “Most sensible woman I ever met!”
* * * * *
Visitor--“Well, Harold, what are you going to be when you grow up?”
Harold--“Oh, I’m going to be a sailor; but baby’s only going to be
just an ordinary father.”
* * * * *
No amount of persuasion or punishment could keep Johnnie from running
away. The excitement of being pursued and of being brought back to a
tearful family appealed to his sense of the dramatic and offset the
slight discomfort that sometimes followed.
Finally his mother determined upon a new method. She decided, after
many misgivings, that the next time Johnnie ran away no notice
whatever should be taken of it. He should stay away as long as he
pleased and return when he saw fit.
In a few days the youngster again disappeared. His mother was firm in
her resolve and no search was made. Great was poor Johnnie’s
disappointment. He managed to stay away all day, but when it began to
grow dark his courage failed and he started for home. He sneaked
ignominiously into the kitchen. Nobody spoke to him. Apparently his
absence had not been noticed. This was too much. As soon as
opportunity offered he remarked casually, “Well, I see you’ve got the
same old cat.”
* * * * *
A gentleman who happened to come in rather late at a dinner found that
the guests had finished soup and were on with the next course. When he
had sat down a waiter came up and said, “Soup, sir?” “No, thanks,” he
replied, whereupon the waiter went away. Another waiter, seeing he had
nothing, said to him, “Soup, sir?” He replied rather testily, “No,
thank you.” A third waiter, who saw him come in and took compassion on
him, placed the soup in front of him. “Look here, my man, is this
compulsory?” “No, sir; it’s mulligatawny,” replied the waiter.
* * * * *
A big, burly, fierce-looking man and a meek, inoffensive-looking
little chap were sawing timber with a cross-cut saw. A strapping
Irishman, passing that way, stopped to watch them. Back and forth,
back and forth, they pulled at the saw. Finally the Irishman could
stand it no longer. With a whoop and a yell he rushed at the big man
and brought him to the ground, burying his knees deep into the
sawyer’s chest.
Biff! Bang! Thump! Biff!
“There,” he said, letting him have one parting blow square on the
nose, “now m’bbe ye’ll let the little felly hev it!”
* * * * *
Oliver Herford once entered a doubtful-looking restaurant in a small
New York town and ordered a lamb-chop. After a long delay the waiter
returned, bearing a plate on which reposed a dab of mashed potatoes
and a much overdone chop of microscopical proportions with a
remarkably long and slender rib attached. This the waiter set down
before him and then hurried away.
“See here,” called Herford, “I ordered a chop.”
“Yessir,” replied the man, “there it is.”
“Ah, so it is,” replied Herford, peering at it closely. “I thought it
was a crack in the plate.”
* * * * *
In one of the elevators of a city skyscraper, as the elevator shot
toward the zenith, a stout man began to sputter. “Bub-but,
rt-st-st-b’r’r’r,” he said, as the veins stood out upon his neck. At
the twenty-third story the stout man’s eyes were nearly starting from
his head, and as he grasped the arm of the elevator man the latter
nervously pulled the lever, and the lift started for the bottom at a
terrific rate. The solitary passenger danced about, gurgling
spasmodically. As the car struck bottom, however, he rushed through
the door and up to an important individual, whose cap bore the screed
“Starter.” “S-s-s-say,” he sputtered, “t-t-this is the th-th-third
trip I-I-I’ve t-t-taken in the elevator, ’n’ I-I-I-I w-w-wanter
g-g-g-get off at the sev-sev-seventh fl-fl-fl-floor. Before I-I-I
c-c-c-can say sev-sev-seven I-I-I-I’m up to the t-t-top, ’n’
be-be-before I-I-I can cat-cat-catch my br-br-breath I-I-I’m down
h-h-here again, ’n’ I-I-I-I’m in a de-de-vil of a hurry.”
* * * * *
Nervous player (deprecatingly playing card)--“I really don’t know what
to play. I’m afraid I’ve made a fool of myself.”
Partner (reassuringly)--“That all right. I don’t see what else you
could have done!”
* * * * *
Some of Darwin’s boy friends once plotted a surprise for the
naturalist. They slew a centipede, glued on it a beetle’s head, and
also added to its body the wings of a butterfly and the long legs of a
grasshopper. Then they put the new insect in a box and knocked at the
great man’s door. “We found this in the fields,” they cried with eager
voices. “Do tell us what it can be.” Darwin looked at the strange
compound and then at the boys’ innocent faces. “Did it hum when you
caught it?” he asked. “Oh yes, sir,” they answered quickly, nudging
one another, “it hummed like anything.” “Then,” said the philosopher,
“it is a humbug.”
* * * * *
A man had been sent by the house-agents to take an inventory of the
drawing-room furniture. He was so long about his task that at last the
mistress of the house went to see what was taking place. She found the
man slumbering sweetly on the sofa with an empty bottle beside him;
it was evident, however, that he had made a pathetic though solitary
attempt to do his work, for in the inventory book was written, “One
revolving carpet.”
* * * * *
The customs of military service require officers to visit the kitchens
during cooking hours to see that the soldiers’ food is properly
prepared. One old colonel, who let it be pretty generally known that
his orders must be obeyed without question or explanation, once
stopped two soldiers who were carrying a soup-kettle out of a kitchen.
“Here, you,” he growled, “give me a taste of that.”
One of the soldiers ran and fetched a ladle and gave the colonel the
desired taste. The colonel spat and spluttered.
“Good heavens, man! You don’t call that stuff soup, do you?”
“No, sir,” replied the soldier meekly, “it’s dishwater we was
emptyin’, sir.”
* * * * *
The ship upon clearing the harbor ran into a half-pitching,
half-rolling sea, that became particularly noticeable about the time
the twenty-five passengers at the captain’s table sat down to dinner.
“I hope that all twenty-five of you will have a pleasant trip,” the
captain told them as the soup appeared, “and that this little
assemblage of twenty-four will reach port much benefited by the
voyage. I look upon these twenty-two smiling faces much as a father
does upon his family, for I am responsible for the safety of this
group of seventeen. I hope that all thirteen of you will join me later
in drinking to a merry trip. I believe that we seven fellow passengers
are most congenial and I applaud the judgment which chose from the
passenger list these three persons for my table. You and I, my dear,
sir, are--Here, steward! Bring on the fish and clear away these
dishes.”
* * * * *
“Extra Billy” Smith, the Confederate General, was one of the most
irascible as well as one of the most patriotic of men. Upon one
occasion he was leading a regiment on a long and difficult march.
Weary and exhausted they halted for a rest by the wayside. When it
became necessary to move on, the General gave the order, but the tired
men remained stretched upon the ground. The order was repeated
peremptorily. Still no motion. By this time the temper of the General
was at white heat. He thundered out:
“If you don’t get up and start at once I’ll march the regiment off and
leave every d----d one of you behind.”
They started.
* * * * *
A Boston lawyer, who brought his wit from his native Dublin, while
cross-examining the plaintiff in a divorce trial, brought forth the
following:
“You wish to divorce this woman because she drinks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you drink yourself?”
“That’s _my_ business!”--angrily.
Whereupon the unmoved lawyer asked:
“Have you any other business?”
* * * * *
One rainy afternoon Aunt Sue was explaining the meaning of various
words to her young nephew. “Now, an heirloom, my dear, means something
that has been handed down from father to son,” she said.
“Well,” replied the boy thoughtfully, “that’s a queer name for my
pants.”
* * * * *
“The easiest money that I ever made,” said a shipping man the other
day, “was handed to me in New York not long ago. I was visiting there
and had a little time to myself, so I bought a paper and went down to
the river front. I saw an advertisement in the paper saying that a tug
was to be auctioned off that day, so I went to the place and stood
around examining the tug. After a while a man who had been watching me
came over and began asking questions. I told him I was interested in
boats and was from Philadelphia. Then he asked: ‘What are you doing
down here?’ ‘I came down to this auction sale,’ I said. ‘Well,’ said
the man, ‘if you want to keep on the right side of the boys you’ll do
something for me. Here’s $100; do not bid on the tug.’ I took the
money and departed. I had not the slightest intention of bidding.”
* * * * *
A bride and groom had been much troubled by the stares of people at
hotels wherever they went. So when they arrived at the next hotel the
groom called the colored head-waiter.
“Now, George,” he said, “we have been bothered to death by people
staring at us because we are just married. We want to be free from
that sort of thing here. Now, here’s two dollars, and remember I trust
you not to tell people that we are just married, if they ask you.
Understand?”
“Yas, sah!” said George; “I un’stand.”
All went well that day. But the following morning when the couple came
down to breakfast the staring was worse than ever. Chambermaids in the
hall snickered; the clerks behind the desk nudged each other;
everybody in the dining-room stared. When the couple returned to their
room it was only to see a head sticking out of nearly every room down
the long hall.
This was too much.
This _was_ the limit!
Angered beyond control, the groom went to the desk and called for the
head-waiter.
“Look here, you old fool,” said the groom, “didn’t I give you two
dollars to protect my wife and myself from the staring business?”
“Yas, sah, you did,” said George. “’Pon me soul, I didn’t tell, sah.”
“Then how about this staring?” asked the irate groom. “It’s worse here
than anywhere. Did anybody ask if we were married?”
“Yas, sah; several folks did,” replied George.
“Well, what did you tell them?”
“I tole ’em, sah,” replied the honest negro, “you wuzn’t married at
all.”
* * * * *
A witty priest was once visiting a “self-made” millionaire, who took
him to see his seldom-used library.
“There,” said the millionaire, pointing to a table covered with books,
“there are my best friends.”
“Ah,” replied the wit, as he glanced at the leaves, “I’m glad you
don’t cut them!”
* * * * *
Mrs. Maloney was before the Judge, charged with assault on Policeman
Casey. She had been unusually attentive throughout the proceedings,
and now the Judge was summing up the evidence.
“The evidence shows, Mrs. Maloney,” he began, “that you threw a stone
at Policeman Casey.”
“It shows more than that, yer Honor,” interrupted Mrs. Maloney; “it
shows that Oi hit him.”
* * * * *
When Mark Twain was a young and struggling newspaper writer, in San
Francisco, a lady of his acquaintance saw him one day with a cigar-box
under his arm looking in a shop window.
“Mr. Clemens,” she said, “I always see you with a cigar-box under your
arm. I am afraid you are smoking too much.”
“It isn’t that,” said Mark. “I’m moving again.”
* * * * *
A thunderstorm overtook the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria when out
shooting in 1873 with old Emperor William of Germany and Victor
Emmanuel. The three monarchs got separated from their party and lost
their way. They were drenched to the skin, and, in search of shelter,
hailed a peasant driving a covered cart drawn by oxen along the high
road. The peasant took up the royal trio and drove on.
“And who may you be, for you are a stranger in these parts?” he asked,
after a while, of Emperor William.
“I am the Emperor of Germany,” replied his Teutonic majesty.
“Ha, very good,” said the peasant, and then, addressing Victor
Emmanuel, “and you, my friend?”
“Why, I am the King of Italy,” came the prompt reply.
“Ha, ha, very good, indeed! And who are you?” addressing Francis
Joseph.
“I am the Emperor of Austria,” said the latter.
The peasant then scratched his head and said with a knowing wink:
“Very good, and who do you suppose I am?”
Their majesties replied they would like very much to know.
“Why, I am his Holiness the Pope.”
* * * * *
In a cemetery at Middlebury, Vt., is a stone, erected by a widow to
her loving husband, bearing this inscription:
“Rest in peace--until we meet again.”
* * * * *
Mrs. Gilroy, prominent in the church work of her small city, had
acquired a new servant, willing but ignorant.
“Bridget,” she said, “I am going to lie down and do not wish to be
disturbed. If any one calls, do not say I am not at home, but give an
evasive answer.”
“What’s that, mum?” said Bridget.
Having explained as well as she could, the good lady retired and later
appeared below stairs, much refreshed.
“Did any one call?” she asked.
“Yes, mum; the new minister, from your church.”
“Oh, Bridget. What did you tell him?”
“Well,” sez he, “is Mrs. Gilroy at home?” and I sez nuthin’, and sez
he a little louder, “Is Mrs. Gilroy at home?” and sez I, “Was your
grandmother a monkey?”
* * * * *
A young kindergarten teacher, of Manhattan, who is made much of by her
pupils--frequently meeting their parents--has a very affable manner,
and, on entering a Broadway car recently, exclaimed in her most
cordial way to one of the passengers: “Why, how do you do, Mr. Brown!”
As the man addressed evidently did not know her and looked rather
dazed, she saw her mistake and hurriedly apologized, saying: “Oh, I
beg your pardon-I thought you were the father of one of my children.”
Then every one within hearing looked so amused that the young lady
left the car at the next stop.
* * * * *
A Mr. Johnson, of Boston, was the owner of a small yacht, in which he
took much pleasure during the summer, cruising along the coast.
He had for a cook a young fellow from Denmark whose English was not
always perfect, but who made himself so generally useful that Mr.
Johnson kept him for several years at good wages. One summer they
landed at a place where a camp-meeting was in full blast. Our friend,
the Dane, was greatly interested and took a front seat.
Near the close of the meeting one of the brethren went about among the
people exhorting them to “go forward.” Coming to the Dane, he said,
“My friend, don’t you want to work for Jesus?”
“No,” said the Dane, “I’ve got a good yob with Yohnson.”
* * * * *
Johnny--“Pa, did Moses have the dyspepsia like you?”
Father--“How on earth do I know? What makes you ask such a question?”
“Why, our Sunday-school teacher says the Lord gave Moses two tablets.”
* * * * *
Elderly Aunt--“I suppose you wondered, dear little Hans, why I left
you so abruptly in the lane. I saw a man, and oh, how I ran!”
Hans--“Did you get him?”
* * * * *
A man returned home late one night after having partaken rather freely
of the “cup that cheers.” All might have been well had not one tree
intercepted between him and his destination--one solitary tree at the
foot of his own steps; but Mr. B---- suddenly came into such forcible
contact with that tree that he was almost stunned. After recovering
his senses, he wandered about, but repeatedly bumped into the same
inoffensive barrier. At length he sank down on the ground and muttered
helplessly:
“Lost! Lost! in an impenetrable forest!”
* * * * *
The intoxicated individual who, after bumping into the same tree
thirteen times, bemoaned the fact that he was lost in an impenetrable
forest, is no greater disgrace to modern civilization than the hero of
this story:
A citizen of Seattle who had looked upon the wine when he was no
longer sure what color it was, in the course of his journey home
encountered a tree protected by an iron tree-guard. Grasping the bars,
he cautiously felt his way around it twice.
“Curse it!” he moaned, sinking to the ground in despair. “Locked in!”
* * * * *
Stanley, aged four, was one of a large family. Besides numerous
sisters and brothers, there were aunts and uncles galore and many
cousins. The only very young people, however, were those in his
immediate household.
One Thanksgiving dinner Stanley gazed solemnly around the table for a
while, and then announced, oracularly:
“My mother and the cat seem to be the only people in this whole family
that have any children!”
* * * * *
A clergyman was being shaved by a barber, who had evidently become
unnerved by the previous night’s dissipation. Finally he cut the
clergyman’s chin. The latter looked up at the artist reproachfully,
and said:
“You see, my man, what comes of hard drinking.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the barber consolingly, “it makes the skin
tender.”
* * * * *
Mistress--“Did the mustard plaster do you any good, Bridget?”
Maid--“Yes; but, begorry, mum, ut do bite the tongue!”
* * * * *
They had just met; conversation was somewhat fitful. Finally he
decided to guide it into literary channels, where he was more at home,
and, turning to his companion, asked:
“Are you fond of literature?”
“Passionately,” she replied. “I love books dearly.”
“Then you must admire Sir Walter Scott,” he exclaimed with sudden
animation. “Is not his ‘Lady of the Lake’ exquisite in its flowing
grace and poetic imagery? Is it not--”
“It is perfectly lovely,” she assented, clasping her hands in ecstasy.
“I suppose I have read it a dozen times.”
“And Scott’s ‘Marmion,’” he continued, “with its rugged simplicity and
marvelous description--one can almost smell the heather on the heath
while perusing its splendid pages.”
“It is perfectly grand,” she murmured.
“And Scott’s ‘Peveril of the Peak’ and his noble ‘Bride of
Lammermoor’--where in the English language will you find anything more
heroic than his grand auld Scottish characters and his graphic,
forceful pictures of feudal times and customs? You like them, I am
sure.”
“I just dote upon them,” she replied.
“And Scott’s Emulsion,” he continued hastily, for a faint suspicion
was beginning to dawn upon him.
“I think,” she interrupted rashly, “that it’s the best thing he ever
wrote.”
* * * * *
“Why is Jones growing a beard?”
“Oh, I believe his wife made him a present of some ties.”
* * * * *
Wife--“Do come over to Mrs. Barker’s with me, John. She’ll make you
feel just as if you were at home.”
Her Husband--“Then what’s the use of going?”
* * * * *
About forty years ago, walking down Market street, in this city, I
heard a darky commenting on a sign he had just spelt out, stretched
across the sidewalk in front of a livery stable:
“Jist like ’em. Aftah dars no moh slabry dey stick up signs foh me:
‘Man-ure Free’!”
* * * * *
In the audience at a lecture on China there was a very pious old lady
who was slightly deaf. She thought the lecturer was preaching, and
every time he came to a period she would say “Amen!” or some other
pious exclamation. The people in the audience, which was composed
mostly of the village church members, knew she was being reverent and
did not even smile when she exclaimed, until finally the lecturer
mentioned some far-off city in China, saying, “I live there.” At this
point clearly and distinctly could be heard the old lady, saying,
“Thank God for that.”
* * * * *
A pushing young actor who was playing understudy in one of Mr.
Barrie’s plays found his opportunity one night through the illness of
his principal. He accordingly flooded his managerial and influential
acquaintances with telegrams announcing: “I play So-and-So’s part
to-night.” Except that the theater was comparatively empty this
breathless disclosure produced no result, except a telegram in reply
from Mr. Barrie, to this effect: “Thanks for the warning.”
* * * * *
It was a busy day in the butcher-shop. The butcher yelled to the boy
who helped him out in the shop: “Hurry up, John, and don’t forget to
cut off Mrs. Murphy’s leg, and break Mrs. Jones’s bones, and don’t
forget to slice Mrs. Johnson’s tongue.”
* * * * *
Ralph Waldo Emerson, like other men of genius, was absent-minded, and,
when a fit of inspiration seized him, he was oblivious to the things
of earth to a ludicrous extent. A story that is vouched for as true
illustrates this.
The old-fashioned matches, in use in New England in Emerson’s time,
were made in cards, or flat slabs, the matches being joined at the
foot, and separating at the top, like the teeth of a deep comb.
Emerson was accustomed, in the midnight watches, to lie awake
communing with his own thoughts, and, if any especial inspiration
developed itself, he would get up and write it down, lighting the lamp
for that purpose.
One night, Mrs. Emerson was awakened by her gifted husband’s voice, as
he called to her plaintively:
“What is the matter with the matches, my dear? I have struck seven,
and not one will light. Where can I get some good ones?”
Mrs. Emerson got out of bed at once, and found the matches in their
accustomed place. Her husband had not touched them.
“Why, what can you have been striking, in mistake for matches?” she
asked, anxiously, and beheld her best carved tortoise-shell comb,
which the absorbed philosopher, had broken up, tooth by tooth, in
mistake for the card of matches.
* * * * *
Instructor in Public Speaking--“What is the matter with you, Mr.
Jones; can’t you speak any louder? Be more enthusiastic. Open your
mouth and throw yourself into it.”
* * * * *
“I confess that the subject of psychical research makes no great
appeal to me,” Sir William Henry Perkin, the inventor of coal-tar
dyes, told some friends in New York. “Personally, in the course of a
fairly long career, I have heard at first hand but one ghost story.
Its hero was a man whom I may as well call Snooks.
“Snooks, visiting at a country house, was put in the haunted chamber
for the night. He said that he did not feel the slightest uneasiness,
but nevertheless, just as a matter of precaution, he took to bed with
him a revolver of the latest American pattern.
“He slept peacefully enough until the clock struck two, when he awoke
with an unpleasant feeling of oppression. He raised his head and
peered about him. The room was wanly illumined by the full moon, and
in that weird, bluish light he thought he discerned a small, white
hand clasping the rail at the foot of the bed.
“‘Who’s there?’ he asked tremulously.
“There was no reply. The small, white hand did not move.
“‘Who’s there?’ he repeated. ‘Answer me or I’ll shoot.’
“Again there was no reply.
“Snooks cautiously raised himself, took careful aim and fired.
“From that night on he’s limped. Shot off two of his own toes.”
* * * * *
When the Rev. Dr. Henson, then of Chicago, came to the New York
Chautauqua to lecture on “Fools,” Bishop Vincent introduced him thus:
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now to have a lecture on ‘Fools’ by one
of the most distinguished----”
Here there was a long pause, the Bishop’s inflection indicating that
he had finished. The audience roared with delight, and roared again,
so that it was some time before the sentence was concluded--“men of
Chicago.”
Dr. Henson, who is a man of ready wit, stepped to the front of the
platform, and said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am not so great a fool as Bishop Vincent----”
and then he paused as if he had finished, and the audience went fairly
wild over the situation. When quiet was restored, Dr. Henson
concluded--“would have you think.”
* * * * *
Doctor (feeling Sandy’s pulse in bed)--“What do you drink?”
Sandy (with brightening face)--“Oh, I’m nae particular, doctor!
Anything you’ve got with ye.”
* * * * *
Every employee of the Bank of England is required to sign his name in
a book on his arrival in the morning, and, if late, must give the
reason therefor. The chief cause of tardiness is usually fog, and the
first man to arrive writes “fog” opposite his name, and those who
follow write “ditto.” One day, however, the first late man gave as the
reason, “wife had twins,” and twenty other late men mechanically
signed “ditto” underneath.
* * * * *
At a dinner in Washington there was told a Scotch story of a
parishioner who had strayed from his own kirk.
“Why weren’t you at the kirk on Sunday?” asked the preacher of the
culprit on meeting him a day or two later.
“I was at Mr. McClellan’s kirk,” said the other.
“I don’t like you running about to strange kirks like that,” continued
the minister. “Not that I object to your hearing Mr. McClellan, but
I’m sure you widna like your sheep straying into strange pastures.”
“I widna care a grain, sir, if it was better grass,” responded the
parishioner.
* * * * *
Tommy, very sleepy, was saying his prayers. “Now I lay me down to
sleep,” he began. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
“‘If,’” his mother prompted.
“If he hollers let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, mo!”
* * * * *
Perish the thought that the novelist or playwright should be tied down
to historical accuracy! Lady Dorothy Neville quotes an amusing
correspondence between Bulwer Lytton and her brother, Horace Walpole.
“My dear Walpole: Here I am at Bath--bored to death. I am thinking of
writing a play about your great ancestor Sir Robert. Had he not a
sister Lucy, and did she not marry a Jacobite?”
Walpole promptly replied:
“My dear Lytton: I care little for my family, and less still for Sir
Robert, but I know that he never had a sister Lucy, so she could not
have married a Jacobite.”
However, this mattered little to Lord Lytton, for his answer ran:
“My dear Walpole: You are too late! Sir Robert _had_ a sister Lucy,
and she _did_ marry a Jacobite.”
So in defiance of history, the play “Walpole” was written.
* * * * *
“Here’s a curious item, Joshua!” exclaimed Mrs. Lemington, spreading
out the Billeville “Mirror” in her ample lap. “The _Nellie E.
Williams_ of Gloucester reports that she saw two whales, a cow and a
calf, floating off Cape Cod the day before yesterday.”
“Well, ma,” replied old Mr. Lemington, “what’s the matter with that?”
“Why, it’s all right about the two whales, Joshua, but what bothers me
is how the cow and the calf got way out there.”
* * * * *
A Congressman once declared in an address to the House:
“As Daniel Webster says in his great dictionary--”
“It was Noah who wrote the dictionary,” whispered a colleague, who sat
at the next desk.
“Noah, nothing,” replied the speaker. “Noah built the ark.”
* * * * *
Father (who has been called upon in the city and asked for his
daughter’s hand)--“Louise, do you know what a solemn thing it is to be
married?”
Louise--“Oh, yes, pa; but it is a good deal more solemn being
single.”
* * * * *
Captain Roald Amundsen, Norway’s famous explorer, told this story
about a National Guard encampment:
“A new volunteer, who had not quite learned his business, was on
sentry duty, one night, when a friend brought him a pie from the
canteen.
“As he sat on the grass eating pie, the major sauntered up in undress
uniform. The sentry, not recognizing him, did not salute, and the
major stopped and said:
“‘What’s that you have there?’
“‘Pie,’ said the sentry, good-naturedly. ‘Apple pie. Have a bite?’
“The major frowned.
“‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked.
“‘No,’ said the sentry, ‘unless you’re the major’s groom.’
“The major shook his head.
“‘Guess again,’ he growled.
“‘The barber from the village?’
“‘No.’
“‘Maybe--’ here the sentry laughed--‘maybe you’re the major himself?’
“‘That’s right. I am the major,’ was the stern reply.
“The sentry scrambled to his feet.
“‘Good gracious!’ he exclaimed. ‘Hold the pie, will you, while I
present arms!’”
* * * * *
A player for many years associated with the late Richard Mansfield
relates that one day in Philadelphia, as he was standing by a huge
poster in front of the theater a poster that represented Mansfield in
the character of “Henry V.,” a man who was strolling by stopped to
gaze at the bill. Finally, with a snort of disgust, he muttered as he
turned to go:
“_‘Henry V.--_’ what?”
* * * * *
“There is an old negro down in my town,” said John Sharp Williams, the
former Democratic leader of the House, “who did me a service. I wanted
to reward him, so I said:
“‘Uncle, which shall I give you--a ton of coal or a bottle of whisky?’
“‘Foh de Lo’d, Massa John,’ he replied, ‘you-all shorely knows I buhn
wood.’”
* * * * *
“No,” remarked a determined lady to an indignant cabman who had
received his legal fare, “you can not cheat me, my man. I haven’t
ridden in cabs for the last twenty-five years for nothing.”
“Haven’t you, mum?” replied the cabman, bitterly, gathering up the
reins. “Well, you’ve done your best!”
* * * * *
On the mighty deep.
The great ocean liner rolled and pitched.
“Henry,” faltered the young bride, “do you still love me?”
“More than ever, darling!” was Henry’s fervent answer.
Then there was eloquent silence.
“Henry,” she gasped, turning her pale, ghastly face away. “I thought
that would make me feel better, but it doesn’t!”
* * * * *
Once in Nice an Englishman and a Frenchman were about to separate on
the Promenade des Anglais.
The Englishman, as he started toward the Cercle Mediterranee, called
back:
“Au reservoir!”
And the Frenchman waved his hand and answered:
“Tanks.”
* * * * *
During a Baptist convention held in Charleston the Rev. Dr. Greene of
Washington strolled down to the Battery one morning to take a look
across the harbor at Fort Sumter. An old negro was sitting on the
seawall fishing. Dr. Greene watched the lone fisherman, and finally
saw him pull up an odd-looking fish, a cross between a toad and a
catfish.
“What kind of a fish is that, old man?” inquired Dr. Greene.
“Dey calls it de Baptist fish,” replied the fisherman, as he tossed it
away in deep disgust.
“Why do they call it the Baptist fish?” asked the minister.
“Because dey spoil so soon after dey comes outen de water,” answered
the fisherman.
* * * * *
Blanche, Wilbur, and Thomas were in the garden playing, and making a
great deal of noise, but small Jack sat in a corner very quietly,
which for Jack was an unusual proceeding. After watching them for
some time, the mother’s curiosity prompted her to ask:
“What are you playing?”
“We are playing house,” answered Wilbur. “Blanche and I are the mother
and father, and Thomas is the child.”
“And what does Jack do?”
“Sh, sh! he isn’t born yet.”
* * * * *
Governor Chamberlain of Connecticut used to tell of an old friend who,
because of his deafness, made some ludicrous and at times embarrassing
mistakes. Once he was at a dinner party where the lady seated next to
him tried to help him along in conversation. As the fruit was being
passed, she asked him: “Do you like bananas?”
“No,” said the old gentleman, with a look of mild surprise. “The fact
is,” he added in a confidential tone which could be heard in the next
room, “I find the old-fashioned nightshirt is good enough for me.”
* * * * *
An Atchison woman with a little baby tells the following story. She
says that a woman caller said: “What a dear little baby; how old is
it?” “Sixteen months,” replied the Atchison woman. “Well, dear me, it
looks older,” said the caller, and then went on and talked and talked
and finally turned again to the baby, and said: “That precious baby,
how old is it?” “Sixteen months,” replied the mother. “Well, dear me,”
smilingly said the caller. “Oh, such a big baby for its age,” and went
on talking and talking. Again turning to the baby the caller said:
“What a darling angel the baby is; how old is it?” “Eighteen months,”
said the exasperated mother. “Well, I declare, it looks two years
old,” said the caller, and then talked and talked. Just as she was
leaving the caller stooped and kissed the baby and said: “Bless its
little heart; how old is it?” “Ten months,” shrieked the outraged
mother, but the caller tripped gaily away; she had not noticed the
replies to her questions, and had no idea and did not care how old the
baby was.
* * * * *
A boy went into a confectioner’s shop and asked for a glass of
lemonade. When it was given him he took it, looked at it, and said he
would have a bun instead. The bun was given him; he ate it and was
walking out of the shop when the confectioner called after him, “Hi,
you haven’t paid for your bun.” “No,” said the boy, “I gave you back
the lemonade for that.” “But,” said the man, “you did not pay for the
lemonade.” “I didn’t drink it,” said the boy, and walked out of the
shop leaving the confectioner calculating.
* * * * *
Two women overheard talking in a poor district of London: “Did ye ever
’ear tell of Lot’s wife?” “Well, no, Mrs. Brown, I can’t say I ever
did. Why?” “Well, I don’t know very much about ’er myself, but I ’ave
’eard tell of ’er that she turned into a pillar of salt.” “Lord, did
she? What funny things one does ’ear nowadays. It was only this
morning I was out with my ’usband and ’e turned into a public-house.”
* * * * *
Willie Green was not only chewing gum, but had his feet sprawled out
in the aisle in a most unbecoming manner.
“Willie,” said the teacher, “take that gum out of your mouth this
instant, and put in your feet.”
* * * * *
William was considered the brightest boy in his grade; upon hearing a
lesson recited in class once or twice he knew it quite well. Thus,
while the other fellows were compelled to study hard he scarcely found
it necessary to open a book. At the expiration of the term one of the
questions in the written geography was, “What is the equator?”
William, always to be depended upon, wrote without delay:
“The equator is a menagerie lion running around the center of the
earth.”
* * * * *
He was an earnest minister, and one Sunday, in the course of a sermon
on the significance of little things, he said:
“The hand which made the mighty heavens made a grain of sand; which
made the lofty mountains made a drop of water; which made you made the
grass of the field; which made me made a daisy!”
* * * * *
A young Scotchman, bashful but desperately in love, finding no notice
was taken of his visits to the house of his sweetheart, summoned up
sufficient courage to address the fair one thus:
“Jean, I was here on Monday nicht.”
“Ay, ye were that,” replied she.
“An’ I was here on Tuesday nicht.”
“So ye were.”
“An’ I was here on Wednesday,” continued the ardent youth.
“Ay, an’ ye were on Thursday nicht an’ a’.”
“An’ I was here last nicht.”
“Weel,” she says, “what if ye were?”
“An’ I am here the nicht again.”
“An’ what about it even if ye came every nicht?”
“What about it, did ye say? Did ye no’ begin to smell a rat?”
* * * * *
Rustic--“Well, Miss, I be fair mazed wi’ the ways o’ that ’ere
fisherman--that I be!”
Parson’s Daughter--“Why is that, Carver?”
Rustic--“The owd fool has been sittin’ there for the last six hours
and hasn’t caught nothin’.”
Parson’s Daughter--“How do you know that?”
Rustic--“I’ve been a-watchin’ o’ he the whole time!”
* * * * *
A stately and venerable professor one morning, being unable to attend
to his class on account of a cold, wrote on the blackboard:
“Dr. Dash, through indisposition, is unable to attend to his classes
to-day.”
The students erased one letter in this notice, making it read:
“Dr. Dash, through indisposition, is unable to attend to his lasses
to-day.”
But it happened a few minutes later that the professor returned for a
box he had forgotten. Amid a roar of laughter he detected the change
in his notice, and, approaching the blackboard, calmly erased one
letter in his turn.
Now the notice read:
“Dr. Dash, through indisposition, is unable to attend to his asses
to-day.”
* * * * *
The man in the smoker was boasting of his unerring ability to tell
from a man’s looks exactly what city he came from. “You, for example,”
he said to the man next to him, “you are from New Orleans?” He was
right.
“You, my friend,” turning to the man on the other side of him, “I
should say you are from Chicago?” Again he was right.
The other two men got interested.
“And you are from Boston?” he asked the third man.
“That’s right, too,” said the New Englander.
“And you from Philadelphia, I should say?” to the last man.
“No, sir,” answered the man with considerable warmth; “I’ve been sick
for three months: that’s what makes me look that way!”
* * * * *
Five-year-old Nellie had been naughty all day. Finally her mama, a
very portly woman, sat down and drew the little culprit across her
ample lap to administer the long-delayed punishment. Nellie’s face was
fairly buried in the folds of her mother’s dress. Before the maternal
hand could descend Nellie turned her face to say, “Well, if I’m going
to be spanked _I must have air_.”
* * * * *
“John,” said the woman with nine chapeaux, “I got another new hat
to-day.” “My dear!” expostulated her husband, “that is the last
straw.” “I know it,” she said; “just from Paris.”
* * * * *
A prominent Bostonian inquired of a London shopkeeper for Hare’s
“Walks in London.”
The shopkeeper, after much search, found it on his shelves, but in two
volumes.
“Ah,” said the Bostonian, “you have your Hare parted in the middle
over here.”
“What!” exclaimed the Englishman, blankly, passing his hands over his
head.
* * * * *
Mr. Blaine used to tell this story: Once, in Dublin, toward the end of
the opera, Mephistopheles was conducting Faust through a trap-door
which represented the gates of hell. His majesty got through all
right--he was used to going below--but Faust was quite stout, got
half-way in, and no squeezing would get him any farther. Suddenly an
Irishman in the gallery exclaimed devoutly: “Thank God! hell’s full.”
* * * * *
An Ohio man who was recently elected to Congress, went to Washington
to look around and see what his duties were. He was hospitably
received, and was wined and dined a great many times by his
colleagues. Before he went home he said to his friends: “By George, I
have had a good time! I have had dinners and breakfasts and suppers
galore given to me. In fact, I haven’t had my knife out of my mouth
since I struck town.”
* * * * *
When Commissioner Allen had charge of the Patent Office in Washington
he was very punctilious about the respect due him and his position,
and demanded full tribute from everybody.
One day, as he was sitting at his desk, two men came in without
knocking or announcement and without removing their hats.
Allen looked up and impaled the intruders with his glittering eye.
“Gentlemen,” he said severely, “who are visitors to this office to see
me are always announced, and always remove their hats.”
“Huh,” replied one of the men, “we ain’t visitors, and we don’t give a
hoot about seeing you. We came in to fix the steam pipes.”
* * * * *
One time there was a fire in a small town. It was being discussed in
the hearing of several of the citizens. One man said he believed it
was incendiary. Another replied: “Incendiary, nonsense! It was set on
fire!”
* * * * *
Addressing a political gathering the other day a speaker gave his
hearers a touch of the pathetic. “I miss,” he said, brushing away a
not unmanly tear, “I miss many of the old faces I used to shake hands
with.”
* * * * *
The Rev. Moses Jackson was holding services in a small country church,
and at the conclusion lent his hat to a member (as was the custom) to
pass around for contributions. The brother canvassed the congregation
thoroughly, but the hat was returned empty to its owner.
Bre’r Jackson looked into it, turned it upside down, and shook it
vigorously, but not a copper was forthcoming. He sniffed audibly.
“Brederen,” he said, “I sho’ is glad dat I got my hat back ergin.”
* * * * *
Pattern for all beneath the sun,
To Taft award the palm and bun!
They told him what they wanted done--
He done it.
* * * * *
Secretary Knox tells a good story of the last fight the late Senator
Quay, of Pennsylvania, made in the Senate. Quay was working hard on
the Oklahoma Statehood Bill, obstructing legislation, when a scheme
was fixed up to get him away from the Senate for a time. Quay was very
fond of tarpon fishing and had a winter place in Florida. One
afternoon he received this telegram from a friend who thought the
Senator might be in better business than pottering around about new
States:
“Fishing never so good. Tarpon biting everywhere, sport magnificent;
come.”
Quay read the telegram and smiled a little smile. Then he answered:
“Tarpon may be biting, but I am not.--M. S. Quay.”
* * * * *
“Now, children,” said the teacher, “I want each of you to think of
some animal or bird and try for the moment to be like the particular
one you are thinking about, and make the same kind of noises they are
in the habit of making.”
Instantly the schoolroom became a menagerie. Lions roaring, dogs
barking, birds singing and twittering, cows lowing, calves bleating,
cats meowing, etc., all in an uproar and excitement--all with one
exception, off in a remote corner a little fellow was sitting
perfectly still, apparently indifferent and unmindful of the rest. The
teacher observing him, approached and said: “Waldo, why are you not
taking part with the other children?”
Waving her off with a deprecating hand and rebuking eyes he whispered:
“Sh-sh-sh, teacher! I’m a rooster, and I’m a-layin’ a aig!”
* * * * *
Bishop Brewster, of Connecticut, while visiting some friends not long
ago, tucked his napkin in his collar to avoid the juice of the
grapefruit at breakfast. He laughed as he did it, and said it reminded
him of a man he once knew who rushed into a restaurant and, seating
himself at a table, proceeded to tuck his napkin under his chin. He
then called a waiter and said, “Can I get lunch here?” “Yes,”
responded the waiter in a dignified manner, “but not a shampoo.”
* * * * *
A man and his wife were once staying at a hotel, when in the night
they were aroused from their slumbers by the cry that the hotel was
afire.
“Now, my dear,” said the husband, “I will put into practise what I
have preached. Put on all your indispensable apparel and keep cool.”
Then he slipped his watch into his vest pocket and walked with his
wife out of the hotel. When all danger was past, he said, “Now you see
how necessary it is to keep cool.”
The wife for the first time glanced at her husband.
“Yes, William,” she said, “it is a grand thing, but if I were you I
would have put on my trousers.”
* * * * *
One evening as the mother of the little niece of Phillips Brooks was
tucking her snugly in bed the maid stepped in and said there was a
caller waiting in the parlor. The mother told the child to say her
prayers and promised that she would be back in a few minutes.
The caller remained only a short time, and when the mother went
upstairs again she asked the little girl if she had done as she was
bidden.
“Yes, mama, I did and I didn’t,” she said.
“What do you mean by that, dear?”
“Well, mama, I was awfully sleepy, so I just asked God if he wouldn’t
excuse me to-night and He said, ‘Oh, don’t mention it, Miss Brooks.’”
* * * * *
“Would you mind walking the other w’y and not passing the ’orse?” said
a London cabman with exaggerated politeness to the fat lady who had
just paid a minimum fare.
“Why?” she inquired.
“Because if ’e sees wot ’e’s been carryin’ for a shilling ’e’ll ’ave a
fit.”
* * * * *
One afternoon during a recent sea voyage of Ex-Ambassador Choate the
waves were unpleasantly high, and the ship was rolling a bit, to the
discomfiture of some passengers.
Mr. Choate remarked: “’Tis better to have lunched and lost than never
to have lunched at all.”
* * * * *
A certain minister was deeply impressed by an address on the evils of
smoking given at a recent synod. He rose from his seat, went over to a
fellow minister, and said:
“Brother, this morning I received a present of 100 good cigars. I have
smoked one of them, but now I’m going home to burn the remainder in
the fire.”
The other minister arose, and said it was his intention to accompany
his reverend brother.
“I mean to rescue the ninety and nine,” he added.
* * * * *
Expecting a visit from the superintendent of an adjacent Sunday-school
one Sunday afternoon, one enterprising teacher, anticipating the line
of questions which would be asked of the scholars selected a boy from
her class to answer each question. As she had figured it out, the
visitor would first ask the pupils the question, “Who made you?” and
the first pupil was, of course, to answer “God.” The next question was
to be “Of what?” to which the answer was to be “Of the dust of the
earth.” Unfortunately between the time that Sunday-school was called
to order and the visiting superintendent took the floor, the first
pupil was taken sick and obliged to go home. The teacher did not have
the opportunity to readjust her forces, and when the first question
was asked, the second boy thought it a good opportunity for him to get
in his answer and have it off his mind; so to the question, “Who made
you?” he answered, “Of the dust of the earth.”
“Oh, no,” said the visitor. “God made you.”
“No, sir; He did not,” said the youngster. “The little boy that God
made has gone home sick, and I am the dust of the earth.”
* * * * *
When General Grant was in London on his trip around the world he was
invited to Windsor Castle by Queen Victoria. The queen received the
party in one of the private audience chambers and chatted with General
Grant for a few moments before dinner was served.
Jesse Grant, then a small boy, was with the general, and stood just
behind him. As the general was talking, Jesse pulled impatiently at
his coat-tails a number of times. Finally, the general turned
half-way, and Jesse whispered:
“Pa, can’t I be introduced?”
“Your Majesty,” said the general, “I should like to present my son,
Master Jesse.”
The queen shook Jesse’s hand cordially, and that young man, thinking
it incumbent on him to say something, glanced approvingly around the
room and said: “Fine house you have here, ma’am.”
* * * * *
Daniel J. Sully, the former Cotton King, made a trip through the South
one winter, and when he came back he told a story of an old negro who
had been working for a cotton planter time out of mind. One morning he
came to his employer and said:
“I’se gwineter quit, boss.”
“What’s the matter, Mose?”
“Well, sah, yer manager, Mistah Winter, ain’t kicked me in de las’
free mumfs.”
“I ordered him not to kick you any more. I don’t want anything like
that around my place. I don’t want any one to hurt your feelings,
Mose.”
“Ef I don’t git any more kicks I’se goin’ to quit. Ebery time Mistah
Winter used ter kick and cuff me when he wuz mad he always git ’shamed
of hisself and gimme a quarter. I’se done los’ enuff money a’ready wid
dis heah foolishness ’bout hurtin’ ma feelin’s.”
* * * * *
A Chicago mistress had given the butcher her daily order over the
telephone. Later in the day she decided to change it a little, and
countermanded an order she had given for some liver.
Calling up the butcher, she said:
“You remember that I gave you an order this morning for a pound of
liver?”
“Yes,” answered the butcher.
“Well, I find that I can get along without it, and you need not send
it.”
Before she could put down the receiver she heard the butcher say to
some one in the store:
“Cut out Mrs. Blank’s liver. She says she can get along without it.”
* * * * *
Tommy--“Ma, I met the minister on my way to Sunday-school and he asked
me if I ever went fishing on Sunday.”
Mother--“And what did you say, darling?”
Tommy--“I said, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ and ran right away from
him.”
* * * * *
“My hair is falling out,” admitted the timid man in the chemist’s.
“Can you recommend something to keep it in?”
“Certainly,” replied the obliging assistant. “Here is a nice cardboard
box.”
* * * * *
An eloquent evangelist who was holding a series of protracted meetings
had been interrupted on several occasions by the departure of some one
of the audience. He determined to prevent further annoyance by making
an example of the next one so doing. Therefore, when a young man arose
to depart in the middle of a discourse, he said: “Young man, would
you rather go to hell than listen to this sermon?” The individual
addressed stopped midway up the aisle and, turning slowly about,
answered: “Well, to tell the truth, I don’t know but I would.”
* * * * *
Mr. Seabury and his wife were on the point of moving to another flat.
Both of them were anxious that the transfer should be made at the
least possible expense, and the nearness of the new home promised
materially to further this aim.
“I can carry loads of little things over in my brown bag,” announced
Mrs. Seabury. “And you can take books and so on in your big satchel.”
In discussing further the matter of transportation, Mrs. Seabury
remarked that, notwithstanding the heat, she could wear her winter
coat over, and leave it, and return for her spring coat. The idea
charmed her impractical husband.
“Why, I can do the same thing!” he said. “I’ll wear over one suit and
then come back for another!”
* * * * *
The ghost of Noah Webster came to a spiritual medium in Alabama, not
long ago, and wrote on a slip of paper: “It is tite times.” Noah was
right, but we are sorry to see he has gone back on his dictionary.
* * * * *
Sydney Smith wrote to Jeffrey: “Tell Murray that I was much struck
with the politeness of Miss Markham the day after he went. In carving
a partridge I splashed her with gravy from head to foot; and, though
I saw three distinct brown rills of juice trickling down her cheek,
she had the complaisance to swear that not a drop had reached her.
Such circumstances are the triumphs of civilized life.”
* * * * *
During a certain battle the colonel of an Irish regiment noticed that
one of his men was extremely devoted to him, and followed him
everywhere. At length he remarked, “Well, my man, you have stuck by me
well to-day.”
“Yis, sorr,” replied Pat. “Shure me mither said to me, said she, just
stick to the colonel, Patrick, me bhoy, and you’ll be all roight. Them
colonels never gets hurted.”
* * * * *
Miss Frances Keller, of the Woman’s Municipal League of New York,
illustrated admirably at a recent dinner party a point which she
wished to make in reply to a man who had said, “Women are vainer than
men.”
“Of course,” Miss Keller answered, “I admit that women are vain and
men are not. There are a thousand proofs that this is so. Why, the
necktie of the handsomest man in the room is even now up the back of
his collar.”
There were six men present and each of them put his hand gently behind
his neck.
* * * * *
As father was leaving the house one morning he looked in vain for his
umbrella.
“I expect sister’s beau took it last night,” ventured six-year-old
Willie.
“Oh, you naughty boy,” said Sister Mabel; “how can you say that?”
“Why, it’s so,” Willie insisted. “When he was saying good night I
heard him say, ‘I am going to steal just one!’”
* * * * *
During a conversation with a young lady Mark Twain had occasion to
mention the word drydock.
“What is a drydock, Mr. Clemens?” she asked.
“A thirsty physician,” replied the humorist.
* * * * *
Some officer had disobeyed or failed to comprehend an order. “I
believe I’ll sit down,” said Secretary Stanton, “and give that man a
piece of my mind.”
“Do so,” said Lincoln, “write him now while you have it on your mind.
Make it sharp. Cut him all up.” Stanton did not need a second
invitation. It was a bone crusher that he read to the President.
“That’s right,” said Lincoln; “that’s a good one.”
“Whom can I send it by?” mused the Secretary.
“Send it!” replied Lincoln. “Why, don’t send it at all. Tear it up.
You have freed your mind on the subject, and that is all that is
necessary. Tear it up. You never want to send such letters, I never
do.”
* * * * *
A certain old gentleman’s lack of “polish” is a sad trial to his
eldest daughter. Not long ago the family were gathered in the library,
one of the windows of which was open.
“That air--” the father began, but was quickly interrupted.
“Father, dear, don’t say ‘that air’--say ‘that there,’” the daughter
admonished.
“Well, this ear--” he again attempted, but was as quickly brought to a
halt.
“Nor ‘this ’ere’; ‘this here’ is correct,” he was told.
The old gentleman rose with an angry snort. “Look here, Mary,” he
said. “Of course I know you have been to school and all that, but I
reckon I know what I want to say, an’ I am going to say it. I believe
I feel cold in this ear from that air, and I’m going to shut the
window!”
* * * * *
“If you please, sir?”
“Well, Jimmy?”
“Me grandmother, sir--”
“Aha, your grandmother! Go on, Jimmy.”
“Me grandmother an’ me mother--”
“What, and your mother, too! Both very ill, eh?”
“No, sir. Me grandmother an’ me mother are goin’ to the baseball game
this afternoon an’ they want me to stay home an’ take care of me
little brudder.”
* * * * *
Office-boy--“Please, Mr. Jones, my grandmother is dead, and so I must
get off early to go to the funeral match--I mean the baseball
ceremonies--that is--”
* * * * *
“That makes a difference,” said Willie, snipping off the left ear of
one of the twins.
* * * * *
Bill Nye, when a young man, made an engagement with a lady to take her
driving. The appointed day came, but at the livery stable all the
horses were taken save one old, shaky, exceedingly gaunt beast. Mr.
Nye hired it and drove to his friend’s residence. The lady kept him
waiting over an hour before she was ready and then, viewing the shabby
outfit, flatly refused to accompany Mr. Nye. “Why,” she exclaimed,
“that horse may die of old age any moment!”
“Madam,” Mr. Nye replied, “when I arrived that horse was a prancing
young colt.”
* * * * *
In “Some Reminiscences” by William Rossetti is the following anecdote
of Tennyson: “The witness was Allingham, to whom the incident
happened. He was at breakfast at the house of the poet laureate, who,
in a rather feeble moment of facetiousness, asked: ‘Will you have a
hegg?’ ‘Yes, thank you,’ replied Allingham, who had scarcely
appropriated the proffered viand when Tennyson added, ‘I suppose you
understand I was only joking when I said hegg?’”
* * * * *
“Long introductions when a man has a speech to make are a bore,” said
former Senator John C. Spooner, one of the great Senate leaders. “I
have had all kinds, but the most satisfactory one in my career was
that of a German mayor of a small town in my State, Wisconsin.
“I was to make a political address, and the opera-house was crowded.
When it came time to begin, the mayor got up.
“‘Mine friends,’ he said, ‘I hafe asked been to introduce Senator
Spooner, who is to make a speech, yes. Veil, I haf dit so, und he vill
now do so.’”
* * * * *
The “Outlook,” of New York, tells a story of two church workers from a
small town who came to New York on a slum hunt, and were more than
satisfied. One of them was asked by a friend, on her return, where she
and her husband had been. “In the slums of New York for a day and a
night,” she answered, enthusiastically. “My dear, it was hell upon
earth. We had a _splendid_ time!”
* * * * *
On one occasion a schoolmaster was very much annoyed by the conduct of
a certain boy in his class. At last, finding the culprit giggling for
no apparent reason, he cried indignantly, “Now, then, W., what are you
laughing at? Are you laughing at me?” “No, sir,” replied the
astonished boy. “Then I don’t see what else there is to laugh at,”
came the reply.
* * * * *
“Good by, Jessie!”
“Good by, Auntie May. I hope I’ll be a great, big girl before you come
to make us another visit.”
* * * * *
The star pupil arose at the school entertainment to declaim his piece.
“Lend me your ears!” he bawled. “Ha,” sneered the mother of the
opposition but defeated pupil, “that’s Sarah Jane Doran’s boy. He
wouldn’t be his mother’s son if he didn’t want to borrow something.”
* * * * *
“While walking in one of the business thoroughfares of Pittsburg one
year,” says Robert Edeson, “my attention was arrested by a display of
shirts in a haberdasher’s window, which for variety of sunset colors
far excelled a Turner landscape when the sun is red and low, and there
in the window in glaring green type a large sign read, ‘Listen!’”
* * * * *
One of a party of gentlemen left his corner seat in an already crowded
railway car to go in search of something to eat, leaving a rug to
reserve his place. On returning he found that in spite of the rug and
the protests of his fellow passengers, the seat had been usurped by a
woman clad in handsome clothes. With flashing eyes she turned upon
him: “Do you know, sir, that I am one of the directors’ wives?”
“Madam,” he replied, “were you the director’s only wife I should still
protest.”
* * * * *
Mr. C., a distinguished lawyer of Boston, was on his way to Denver to
transact some important business. During the afternoon he noticed, in
the opposite section of the Pullman, a sweet-faced, tired-appearing
woman traveling with four small children. Being fond of children and
feeling sorry for the mother, he soon made friends with the little
ones.
Early the next morning he heard their eager questions and the patient
“Yes, dear,” of the mother as she tried to dress them, and looking
out he saw a small white foot protruding beyond the opposite curtain.
Reaching across the aisle, he took hold of the large toe and began to
recite: “This little pig went to market; this little pig stayed at
home; this little pig had roast beef; this little pig had none; this
little pig cried wee wee all the way home.” The foot was suddenly
withdrawn and a cold, quiet voice said: “That is quite sufficient,
thank you.”
Mr. C. hastily withdrew to the smoker, where he remained until the
train arrived in Denver.
* * * * *
“’Deed I am going to get married,” said little Winnie, the bright
daughter of a tenant on a quiet farm in a quiet county in “The
Northern Neck” of Virginia.
“I don’t believe anybody will have you,” said Miss Mabel, the
landlord’s daughter, teasingly.
“Yes, they will; I’ll make ’em,” said Winnie. “I’m going to get
married and have _five_ children--two of ’em colored,” thoughtfully,
“to do my work.”
* * * * *
A reverend gentleman was addressing a Sunday-school class not long
ago, and was trying to enforce the doctrine that when people’s hearts
were sinful they needed regulating. Taking out his watch, and holding
it up, he said:
“Now, here is my watch; suppose it doesn’t keep good time--now goes
too fast, and now too slow--what shall I do with it?”
“Sell it,” promptly replied a boy.
* * * * *
The high-born dame was breaking in a new footman--stupid but honest.
In her brougham, about to make a round of visits, she found she had
forgotten her bits of pasteboard. So she sent the lout back with
orders to bring some of her cards that were on the mantelpiece in her
boudoir, and put them in his pocket.
Here and there she dropped one and sometimes a couple, until at last
she told Jeames to leave three.
“Can’t do it, mum.”
“How’s that?”
“I’ve only got two left--the ace of spades and the seven of clubs!”
* * * * *
The small son of a certain university professor, whose parents are
deservedly popular for their tact and courteous speech, appeared at
the home of a fellow professor and hesitatingly asked Mrs. X. if he
might look at the parlor rug. Permission was, of course, granted, and
Mrs. X. felt some surprise to see the little fellow stoop over the rug
and stare silently for some half-minute. He straightened himself up
and, meeting her wondering expression, said triumphantly:
“It doesn’t make _me_ sick!”
* * * * *
Uncle Harry was a bachelor and not fond of babies. Even winsome
four-year-old Helen failed to win his heart. Every one made too much
fuss over the youngster, Uncle Harry declared.
One day Helen’s mother was called downstairs and with fear and
trembling asked Uncle Harry, who was stretched out on a sofa, if he
would keep his eye on Helen. Uncle Harry grunted “Yes,” but never
stirred from his position--in truth his eyes were tight shut.
By-and-by wee Helen tiptoed over to the sofa and leaning over Uncle
Harry softly inquired:
“Feepy?”
“No,” growled Uncle Harry.
“Tired?” ventured Helen.
“No,” said her uncle.
“Sick?” further inquired Helen, with real sympathy in her voice.
“No,” still insisted Uncle Harry.
“Dus’ feel bum, hey?”
And that won the uncle!
* * * * *
A member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin tells of some
amusing replies made by a pupil undergoing an examination in English.
The candidate had been instructed to write out examples of the
indicative, the subjunctive, the potential, and the exclamatory moods.
His effort resulted as follows:
“I am endeavoring to pass an English examination. If I answer twenty
questions I shall pass. If I answer twelve questions I may pass. God
help me!”
* * * * *
A clergyman was very anxious to introduce some hymn-books into the
church, and arranged with his clerk that the latter was to give out
the notice immediately after the sermon. The clerk, however, had a
notice of his own to give out with reference to the baptism of
infants. Accordingly, at the close of the sermon he arose and
announced that “All those who have children whom they wish to have
baptized please send in their names at once to the clerk.” The
clergyman, who was stone deaf, assumed that the clerk was giving out
the hymn-book notice, and immediately rose and said: “And I should
say, for the benefit of those who haven’t any, that they may obtain
some from the ushers any day from three to four o’clock; the ordinary
little ones at twenty-five cents each, and special ones at fifty
cents.”
* * * * *
Clyde Fitch, the brilliant playwright, said of a jeweled watch that
had been sent him by a Scotch admirer in Peebles:
“A jeweled watch from Peebles. How strangely unexpected! It reminds me
of an open-air performance of ‘As You Like It’ that I once rehearsed.
“I rehearsed this amateur performance in a garden that was overlooked
by a building operation. As my amateurs postured and chanted the
bard’s beautiful lines, bricklayers above us laid bricks, carpenters
planed boards, and masons chipped stones.
“And one afternoon, during a silent pause in our rehearsal, we heard a
voice from the building operation say gravely:
“‘I prithee, malapert, pass me yonder brick.’”
* * * * *
A clergyman who was very popular with his congregation saw a lady
about to call whom he was anxious not to meet. So he said to his
wife:
“I’ll run upstairs, my dear, and escape till she goes away.”
After about an hour he quietly tiptoed to the stair landing and
listened. All was quiet below. Reassured, he began to descend, and
called out over the balustrade:
“Well, my dear, you got rid of that old bore at last?”
The next instant a voice from below rooted him to the spot. It was the
voice of the caller! Then came a response which sounded inexpressibly
sweet to him. It was the voice of his wife:
“Yes, dear, she went away over an hour ago; but here is our good
friend, Mrs. Blank, whom I am sure you want to meet.”
* * * * *
A lady and her little daughter were walking through a fashionable
street when they came to a portion of the street strewn with straw, so
as to deaden the noise of vehicles passing a certain house.
“What’s that for, ma?” said the child, to which the mother replied,
“The lady who lives in that house, my dear, has had a little baby girl
sent her.” The child thought a moment, looked at the quantity of
straw, and said: “Awfully well packed, wasn’t she, ma?”
* * * * *
A politician, upon his arrival at one of the small towns in North
Dakota, where he was to make a speech the following day, found that
the two so-called hotels were crowded to the doors.
Not having telegraphed for accommodations, the politician discovered
that he would have to make shift as best he could.
He was compelled for that night to sleep on a wire cot which had only
some blankets and a sheet on it. As the statesman is a fat man, he
found his improvised bed anything but comfortable.
“Well,” asked a friend, when the politician appeared in the
dining-room in the morning, “how did you sleep?”
“Oh, fairly well,” replied the statesman, nonchalantly, “but I looked
like a waffle when I got up.”
* * * * *
William Waldorf Astor, before he set out for his English home, said,
apropos of the Russo-Japanese War: “Nations engaged in war not only
harm each other, but they lay themselves open to harm at the hands of
all sorts of other nations. In fact, two nations at war are in the
defenseless and gullible position of a certain English married couple.
“This couple will fall out and cease to speak to one another for a
year or more at a time. They have a beautiful country house, and there
is a certain elderly matron, a great bore, who visits them
continually. Some one asked this matron which of the pair was always
inviting her. She answered, frankly, ‘Neither invites me ever, but
since they don’t speak to each other, each always thinks I am the
other’s guest.’”
* * * * *
They were talking over the carelessness of well-to-do people who, by
overlooking their small bills, frequently bring disaster upon the
tradesmen who are trying to do business on a small capital.
“It sometimes happens that these poor devils have two or three times
the amount of their capital out in bills that if paid promptly would
make their commercial ways a path of roses,” said the economist.
“Little bills of three, four, and five dollars, not much in
themselves, mount up high in the aggregate, and it sometimes happens
that a seeming prosperity, through the failure of a lot of customers
to pay their bills within a reasonable time, results in ruin.
“And yet,” said the reminiscencer, “it sometimes works the other way.
I heard a story in England once of a harness dealer who on entering
his shop one afternoon, after an absence of several hours, noticed
that a rather handsome saddle that he had had in stock had
disappeared. He made immediate inquiry of his salesmen, and one of
them informed him that he had sold it to a gentleman who had come to
the shop with his trap, that the purchaser had thrown it into his
wagon and driven off, after telling him to charge it. Unfortunately,
however, he had forgotten to ask the gentleman’s name, and all effort
to identify him by description failed.
“‘Well,’ said the shopkeeper, who was an ingenious man, ‘there is only
one thing left to be done. We will charge the saddle up on all our
outstanding accounts. Those who did not buy the saddle will, of
course, call our attention to our error, and the man who did take it
will, of course, pay.”
“This method was adopted, and at the beginning of the next month the
bills were sent out accordingly. Two weeks later the saddler
approached his cashier, and asked if he had heard as yet about the
matter. ‘How about that missing saddle, Marcus?’ he asked. ‘We are
doing very well, sir,’ replied the cashier. ‘Forty of our customers
have paid for it, and only two have discovered the mistake.’”
* * * * *
The story is told of a young Oregon girl, a favorite in society, but
who was poor and had to take care not to get her evening gowns soiled,
as their number was limited. At a dance not long ago a great, big,
red-faced, perspiring man came in and asked her to dance. He wore no
gloves. She looked at the well-meaning moist hands despairingly, and
thought of the immaculate back of her waist. She hesitated a bit, and
then she said, with a winning smile:
“Of course I will dance with you, but if you don’t mind, won’t you
please use your handkerchief?”
The man looked at her blankly a moment or two. Then a light broke over
his face.
“Why, certainly,” he said.
And he pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
* * * * *
Willie finally persuaded his aunt to play train with him. The chairs
were arranged in line and then he said:
“Now, you be engineer and I’ll be the conductor. Lend me your watch
and get up into your cab.” He then hurried down the platform,
timepiece in hand.
“Pull out there, you red-headed, pie-faced jay,” he shouted to the
astonished young woman.
“Why, Willie,” she exclaimed in amazement.
“That’s right, chew the rag,” he retorted. “Pull out. We’re five
minutes late already.”
They have had to forbid his playing down by the tracks.
* * * * *
Andrew Lang once wrote to Israel Zangwill to ask him to take part in
an author’s reading for the benefit of a charity, and received in
reply the following laconic message: “If A. Lang will--I. Zangwill.”
* * * * *
Mr. Peet, a rather diffident man, was unable to prevent himself from
being introduced one evening to a fascinating young lady, who,
misunderstanding his name, constantly addressed him as Mr. Peters,
much to the gentleman’s distress. Finally, summoning courage, he
bashfully but earnestly remonstrated:
“Oh, don’t call me Peters; call me Peet!”
“Ah, but I don’t know you well enough, Mr. Peters,” said the young
lady, blushing as she playfully withdrew behind her fan.
* * * * *
Senator Tillman, of South Carolina, tells of a little girl whose
statements were always exaggerated until she became known in school
and Sunday-school as a “little liar.” Her parents were dreadfully
worried about her, and made strenuous efforts to correct the bad
habit. One afternoon her mother overheard an argument with her
playmate. Willie Bangs, who seemed to finish the discussion by saying
emphatically: “I’m older than you, ’cause my birthday comes first, in
May, and yours don’t come until September.”
“Oh, of course your birthday comes first,” sneeringly answered little
Nellie; “but that is ’cause you came down first. I remember looking at
the angels when they were making you.”
“Come here, Nellie; come here instantly,” cried her mother. “It is
breaking mother’s heart,” said she, “to hear you tell such awful
stories. Remember what happened to Ananias and Sapphira, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes, mama, I know. They were struck dead for lying. I saw them
carried into the corner drugstore.”
* * * * *
The relationship between Mr. Gladstone and his wife was one of the
most beautiful the world has known, and of all the millions who looked
up to him, she was his greatest admirer. On one occasion when Mrs.
Gladstone was entertaining visitors, conversation turned on the Bible,
and there was a lively argument on the meaning of a certain passage.
Presently one of the callers, hoping to end the discussion, remarked
devoutly:
“There is One alone who knows all.”
The cloud vanished from Mrs. Gladstone’s face and she smiled sunnily
as she said:
“Yes, and William will be down in a few minutes.”
* * * * *
Mabel (testing the wisdom of the grown-ups).--“Well, how did Martin
Luther die?”
Uncle Jim.--“Die? Oh, in the ordinary way, I suppose.”
Mabel.--“Oh, Uncle! you really don’t know anything. He was
excommunicated by a bull.”
* * * * *
Small Robbie was laboring over a drawing which was obviously of great
importance.
His mother, who was sewing in the room, got up to see what he was
doing.
“What is it you’re drawing, dear?” she said, as she stood behind him.
Robbie was embarrassed. Struggling to cover his nervousness, he
answered with an air of great nonchalance:
“Oh, it’s papa I’m drawing, but I don’t care anything about it. Guess
I’ll put a tail to it, and have it for a dog.”
* * * * *
It is told of Charles Lamb, that one afternoon, returning from a
dinner-party, having taken a seat in a crowded omnibus, a stout
gentleman subsequently looked in, and politely asked, “All full
inside?” “I don’t know how it may be with the _other_ passengers,”
answered Lamb, “but that last piece of oyster-pie did the business for
_me_.”
* * * * *
One of the ladies-in-waiting to the late Queen Victoria had a very
bright little daughter about four years old of whom the Queen was very
fond.
The Queen invited the child to have lunch with her.
Of course the mother was highly pleased, and charged the little girl
to be very careful about her table manners, and to be very polite and
careful before the Queen.
The little girl came home in high glee, and the mother asked her all
about the luncheon.
“Were you a very polite little girl? and did you remember to do all I
told you at the table?” asked the proud mama.
“Oh, yes. I was polite,” said the little one, “but the Queen wasn’t.”
“The Queen wasn’t!” said the mother. “Why, what did she do?”
“She took her chicken bone up in her fingers, and I just shook my
finger at her like you did at me, and said, ‘Piggy, piggy, piggy!’”
* * * * *
A young girl once asked Mark Twain if he liked books for Christmas
gifts.
“Well, that depends,” drawled the great humorist. “If a book has a
leather cover it is really valuable as a razor strop. If it is a
brief, concise work, such as the French write, it is useful to put
under the short leg of a wabbly table. An old-fashioned book with a
clasp can’t be beat as a missile to hurl at a dog, and a large book
like a geography is as good as a piece of tin to nail over a broken
pane of glass.”
* * * * *
One of the most candid tributes the late Edwin Booth ever received was
rendered to him on his last Southern tour by one who knew neither of
his presence nor of his identity in the play. Mr. Booth told the
story to his friend, Dr. John H. Girdner.
“We opened our engagement in Atlanta, Ga., with ‘Othello,’” said Mr.
Booth, “and I played Othello. After the performance my friend, Mr.
Malone, and I went to the Kimball House for some refreshment. The long
bar was so crowded that we had to go around the corner of it before we
could find a vacant space. While we were waiting to be served we
couldn’t help hearing the conversation of two fine-looking old boys,
splendid old fellows with soft hats, flowing mustaches, and chin
tufts, black string ties and all the other paraphernalia.
“‘I didn’t see you at the theater this evening, Cunnel,’ said one.
“‘No,’ replied the other. ‘I didn’t buy seats till this mawnin’, and
the best we could get were six rows back in the balcony. I presume,
suh, you were in the orchestra.’
“‘Yes, Cunnel, I was in the orchestra,’ said the first man. ‘Madam and
the girls were with me. We all agreed that we nevuh attended a mo’
thrillin’ play. The company was good, too, excellent company. And do
you know, Gunnel, in my opinion that d--d nigguh did about as well as
any of ’em!’”
* * * * *
A Southern colonel had a colored valet by the name of George. George
received nearly all of the colonel’s cast-off clothing. He had his
eyes on a certain pair of light trousers which were not wearing out
fast enough to suit him, so he thought he would hasten matters
somewhat by rubbing grease on one knee. When the colonel saw the
spot, he called George and asked if he had noticed it. George said,
“Yes, sah, Colonel, I noticed dat spot and tried mighty hard to git it
out, but I couldn’t.”
“Have you tried gasoline?” the colonel asked.
“Yes, sah, Colonel, but it didn’t do no good.”
“Have you tried brown paper and a hot iron?”
“Yes, sah, Colonel, I’se done tried ’mos’ everything I knows of, but
dat spot wouldn’t come out.”
“Well, George, have you tried ammonia?” the colonel asked as a last
resort.
“No, sah, Colonel, I ain’t tried ’em on yet, but I knows dey’ll fit.”
* * * * *
It was the first vaudeville performance the old colored lady had ever
seen, and she was particularly excited over the marvelous feats of the
magician. But when he covered a newspaper with a heavy flannel cloth
and read the print through it, she grew a little nervous. He then
doubled the cloth and again read the letters accurately.
This was more than she could stand, and rising in her seat, she said:
“I’m goin’ home. This ain’t no place for a lady in a thin calico
dress!”
* * * * *
At a certain railway junction the train divides, one portion going to
Edinburgh, the other to Glasgow. The guard put his head in at one of
the carriage windows and asked, “All here for Edinburgh?” All replied
in the affirmative except one old woman, who after the train had
started remarked with a smile, “I was just goin’ to Glesca masel’ but
I wasna goin’ to tell yon inquisitive deevil.”
* * * * *
A pompous Bishop of Oxford was once stopped on a London street by a
ragged urchin.
“Well, my little man, what can I do for you?” inquired the churchman.
“The time o’ day, please, your lordship.”
With considerable difficulty the portly Bishop extracted his watch.
“It is exactly half-past five, my lad.”
“Well,” said the boy, setting his feet for a good start, “at ’alf-past
six you go to ’ell!” and he was off like a flash and around the
corner. The Bishop, flushed and furious, his watch dangling from its
chain, floundered wildly after him. But as he rounded the corner he
ran plump into the outstretched arms of the venerable Bishop of
London.
“Oxford, Oxford,” remonstrated that surprised dignitary, “why this
unseemly haste?”
Puffing, blowing, spluttering, the outraged Bishop gasped out: “That
young ragamuffin--I told him it was half-past five--and--he--er--told
me to go to hell at half-past six.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Bishop of London with a twinkle in his kindly old
eyes, “but why such haste? You’ve got almost an hour.”
* * * * *
A lady entered a railway station not a hundred miles from Edinburgh
and said she wanted a ticket for London. The pale-looking clerk
asked:
“Single?”
“It ain’t any of your business,” she replied. “I might have been
married a dozen times if I’d felt like providin’ for some poor
shiftless wreck of a man like you.”
* * * * *
“M-my dear,” said the muddled citizen, “I ’sure you I wouldn’t been
s’late, but footpad stopped me.”
“And you were so scared your tongue clove to the roof of your mouth.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I smell the clove.”
* * * * *
A man addicted to walking in his sleep went to bed all right one
night, but when he awoke he found himself on the street in the grasp
of a policeman. “Hold on,” he cried, “you mustn’t arrest me. I’m a
somnambulist.” To which the policeman replied: “I don’t care what your
religion is--yer can’t walk the streets in yer nightshirt.”
* * * * *
“I can’t keep the visitors from coming up,” said the office-boy
dejectedly to the editor. “When I say you’re out they don’t believe
me. They say they must see you.”
“Well,” said the editor, “just tell them that’s what they all say. I
don’t care if you ‘cheek’ them, but I must have quietness.”
That afternoon there called at the office a lady. She wanted to see
the editor, and the boy assured her that it was impossible.
“But I must see him!” she protested. “I’m his wife!”
“That’s what they all say,” replied the boy. And forthwith a new boy
was wanted there.
* * * * *
Mr. Weedon Grossmith used to tell a good story about a play by Mr.
Robert Ganthony, which that gentleman asked him to read. Mr. Grossmith
took the comedy, but lost it on his way home. “Night after night,” he
said, “I would meet Ganthony and he would ask me how I liked his play.
It was awful; the perspiration used to come out on my forehead as I’d
say sometimes, ‘I haven’t had time to look at it yet!’ or again, ‘The
first act was good, but I can’t stop to explain,’ etc., ‘must catch a
train.’ That play was the bane of my existence, and haunted me even in
my dreams.” Some months passed, and Ganthony, a merry wag, still
pursued him without mercy. At last it occurred to Mr. Grossmith that
he might have left the comedy in the cab on the night it was given to
him. He inquired at Scotland Yard.
“Oh! yes,” was the reply. “Play marked with Mr. Ganthony’s name, sent
back to owner four months ago, as soon as found.”
* * * * *
Some years ago when Head Consul Book, of the Western Jurisdiction,
Woodmen of the World, was traveling through the South, the train
stopped for some time in a small town, and Mr. Book alighted to make a
purchase. The storekeeper could not make the correct change for the
bill which was presented, so Mr. Book started in search of some one
who could.
Sitting beside the door, whittling a stick, was an old darky.
“Uncle,” said Mr. Book, “can you change a ten-dollar bill?” The old
fellow looked up in surprise; then he touched his cap, and replied:
“’Deed, an’ Ah can’t, boss, but Ah’ ’preciates de honah, jest de
same.”
* * * * *
A gentleman riding with an Irishman came within sight of an old
gallows and, to display his wit, said:
“Pat, do you see that?”
“To be sure Oi do,” replied Pat.
“And where would you be to-day if the gallows had its due?”
“Oi’d be riding alone,” replied Pat.
* * * * *
Jerry O’Rafferty came from the north of Ireland. During all his life
there and later in Chicago he had never been inside a Catholic Church.
He was something of a scoffer at religious ceremonies, although he
knew little about them. His good friend, Michael O’Brien, was troubled
at this, and always used his influence to get Jerry into the church.
At last he was successful. Jerry grudgingly consented to go to church
Easter Sunday because of the importance of the occasion.
The two sat together, Jerry an interested spectator, while Mike
entered into the services like the devout man he was.
Jerry was soon evidently impressed by the splendor of his
surroundings and the grandeur of the services. He watched the lighting
of the candles and listened attentively to the glorious burst of
Easter music. Then he could refrain from commenting no longer.
“Mike,” he whispered, leaning over to his companion, “this bates
h--l.”
“Whist,” replied Mike, in a loud whisper, “sich is the intintion.”
* * * * *
Bishop Wilmer of Alabama, famous as a story-teller, told of one of his
friends who had lost a dearly beloved wife and, in his sorrow, caused
these words to be inscribed on her tombstone: “The light of mine eyes
has gone out.” The bereaved married within a year. Shortly afterward
the Bishop was walking through the graveyard with another gentleman.
When they arrived at the tomb, the latter asked the Bishop what he
would say of the present state of affairs, in view of the words on the
tombstone. “I think,” said the Bishop, “the words ‘But I have struck
another match’ should be added.”
* * * * *
A man of letters who visited Washington recently appeared at but one
dinner-party during his stay. Then he sat next to the daughter of a
noted naval officer. Her vocabulary is of a kind peculiar to very
young girls, but she rattled away at the famous man without a moment’s
respite. It was during a pause in the general conversation that she
said to him: “I’m awfully stuck on Shakespeare. Don’t you think he’s
terribly interesting?” Everybody listened to hear the great man’s
brilliant reply, for as a Shakespearian scholar he has few peers.
“Yes,” he said, solemnly, “I do think he is interesting. I think he is
more than that. I think Shakespeare is just simply too cute for
anything.”
* * * * *
A well-known Scotch professor was occasionally called up to Balmoral
to attend the late Queen Victoria, and was extremely proud of the
honor. One day a notice appeared in the university which stated that
Professor ---- could not attend his classes that day as he had been
called up to Balmoral to see the Queen. A waggish student who saw the
notice wrote underneath it, “God save the Queen.”
* * * * *
“The other day,” said a man passenger in a street-car, “I saw a woman
in a street-car open a satchel and take out a purse, close the satchel
and open the purse, take out a dime and close the purse, open the
satchel and put in the purse. Then she gave the dime to the conductor
and took a nickel in exchange. Then she opened the satchel and took
out the purse, closed the satchel and opened the purse, put in the
nickel and closed the purse, opened the satchel and put in the purse,
closed the satchel and locked both ends. Then she felt to see if her
back hair was all right, and it was all right, and she was all right.
That was a woman.”
* * * * *
As a couple of callers were in the parlor of a friend who is a firm
Christian Scientist, the voice of five-year-old Florence could be
heard from an upper room, fretting. Upon their inquiries about her
the mother replied simply she was suffering from a “belief” in a boil.
One of the visitors was a rather grim great-aunt of the family who
possesses a most lively scorn of Mrs. Eddy’s so-called science as well
as a deep-rooted affection for little Florence. She immediately
demanded what had been applied for her relief and as naturally the
answer was, “Nothing.” She assumed her most decided expression, drew
off her gloves and started upstairs.
“Aunt Molly, what are you going to do? I must repeat it is only a
belief in a boil,” expostulated the mother.
“Very well,” retorted Aunt Molly, continuing her march upstairs, “I am
merely going to put on a dream of a poultice.”
And she did.
* * * * *
Mistress--“Did the fisherman who stopped here this morning have frog’s
legs?”
Nora--“Sure, mum, I dinnaw. He wore pants.”
* * * * *
When the thermometer dropped below zero Mrs. Rogers was much disturbed
by the thought that Huldah, the new kitchen maid, slept in an unheated
room.
“Huldah,” she said, remembering the good old custom of her girlhood,
“it’s going to be pretty cold to-night. I think you had better take a
flatiron to bed with you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” assented Huldah without enthusiasm.
Mrs. Rogers, happy in the belief that her maid was comfortable, slept
soundly. In the morning she visited the kitchen.
“Well, Huldah, how did you get along with the flatiron?”
Huldah breathed a deep sigh of recollection.
“Vell, ma’am, I got it ’most warm before morning.”
* * * * *
Many children are so crammed with everything that they really know
nothing.
In proof of this, read these veritable specimens of definitions,
written by public-school children:
“Stability is taking care of a stable.”
“A mosquito is the child of black and white parents.”
“Monastery is the place for monsters.”
“Tocsin is something to do with getting drunk.”
“Expostulation is to have the smallpox.”
“Cannibal is two brothers who killed each other in the Bible.”
“Anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, the head,
the chist, and the stummick. The head contains the eyes and brains, if
any. The chist contains the lungs and a piece of the liver. The
stummick is devoted to the bowels, of which there are five, a, e, i,
o, u, and sometimes w and y.”
* * * * *
Little Polly, coming in from her walk one morning, informed her mother
that she had seen a lion in the park. No amount of persuasion or
reasoning could make her vary her statement one hairbreadth. That
night, when she slipped down on her knees to say her prayers, her
mother said, “Polly, ask God to forgive you for that fib.”
Polly hid her face for a moment. Then she looked straight into her
mother’s eyes, her own eyes shining like stars, and said, “I did ask
him, mama, dearest, and he said, ‘Don’t mention it, Miss Polly; that
big yellow dog has often fooled me.’”
* * * * *
“Boohoo! Boohoo!” wailed little Johnny.
“Why, what’s the matter, dear?” his mother asked comfortingly.
“Boohoo--er--p-picture fell on papa’s toes.”
“Well, dear, that’s too bad, but you mustn’t cry about it, you know.”
“I d-d-didn’t. I l-laughed. Boohoo! Boohoo!”
* * * * *
Two candidates for office in Missouri were stumping the northern part
of the State. In one town their appearance was almost simultaneous.
The candidate last arriving stopped at a house for a drink of water.
To the little girl who answered his knock at the door he said--when
she had given him the desired drink and he had offered her some candy
in recompense:
“Did the man ahead of me give you anything?”
“Oh, yes,” replied the girl. “He gave me candy.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the candidate. “Here’s five cents for you. I don’t
suppose that _he_ gave you any money?”
The youngster laughed. “Yes, he did, too! He gave me ten cents!”
Not to be outdone, the candidate gave the little one another nickel
and picking her up in his arms, kissed her.
“Did he kiss you, too?” he asked genially.
“Yes, he did, sir,” responded the little girl, “and he kissed ma,
too.”
* * * * *
The owner of a dry-goods store heard a new clerk say to a customer,
“No, madam, we have not had any for a long time.”
With a fierce glance at the clerk the smart employer rushed up to the
woman and said: “We have plenty of everything in reserve ma’am; plenty
upstairs.”
The customer and the clerk looked dazed. Then the proprietor, seeing
that something was wrong, said to the customer: “Excuse me, what did
you ask for?”
The woman simply replied, “Why, I said to your clerk that we hadn’t
had any rain lately.”
* * * * *
Senator W. A. Clark detests nothing more than to be interrupted when
busy. One day he was in his office engaged in a business conversation
when a petite woman, carrying a black bag, entered. With a compelling
smile and an insinuating manner she approached the surly millionaire.
Utterly insensible to his repellent mood and indifferent to his abrupt
manner she drew from the depths of a bag a handsomely bound volume,
the merits and beauty of which she began eloquently to descant upon.
Failing to embarrass her with arctic frigidity and impatient at her
persistency under rebuffs all but vulgar, he turned suddenly upon the
chattering woman and asked:
“Madam, do you know what my time is worth?”
She confessed it was a conundrum.
“Well,” he said, petulantly, “it’s worth $30 an hour!”
He turned away with the air of one who had settled the matter
definitely beyond any further controversy. But he didn’t know the
woman.
“Oh, I’m so grateful to you, Mr. Clark,” she replied, with a tone of
pathos in her voice. “Thirty dollars an hour, did you say?”
“Yes; that’s what I said, and it’s cheap at that,” and he smiled
cynically.
“Oh, I know it’s dirt cheap,” she chirped with winsome blitheness. “I
am so glad you told me”--rummaging in her reticule, from which she
quickly flashed out a purse gorged with currency. Moving near to the
astonished millionaire, who now regarded her movements with unfeigned
curiosity, she counted two bills, a ten and a five, off the roll.
These she pushed along the top of the sloping desk toward him and
said: “Yes, I’m glad you told me, because I hadn’t expected to get it
so cheap. There is $15. Now, I want a half hour of your uninterrupted
attention while I talk to you about this book.”
Clark pushed the money back and subscribed and paid for two copies of
the book.
* * * * *
The following bit from a letter of thanks is cherished by its
recipient: “The beautiful clock you sent us came in perfect
condition, and is now in the parlor on top of the book-shelves, where
we hope to see you soon, and your husband, also, if he can make it
convenient.”
* * * * *
Tourist (in French restaurant)--“This is awful! I’ve ordered three
dishes from this menu and they are all potatoes!”
* * * * *
“Mistah Brown,” said the old colored woman, coming into the
cross-roads store, “you ain’t got no spool-cotton number thirty, is
you?”
“Why, aunt Sally, I didn’t say I didn’t have it, did I?”
“You go long, Mistah Brown. I didn’t ax you ’aint you got it?’ I axed
you ‘is you’?--ain’t you?”
* * * * *
An old “befo-de-wah” darky was called upon to make a few remarks over
the grave of a friend. He removed his hat and stepped reverently and
sadly toward the open grave and in solemn funereal tones said: “Friday
Vizer, you is gone. We hope you is gone whar we spects you ain’t!”
* * * * *
A New Yorker who does his bit of “globe trotting” tells of two odd
entries that he saw in the visitors’ book of a fashionable resort on
the Rhine.
A few years ago one of the Paris members of the Rothschild family had
registered as follows:
“R. de Paris.”
It chanced that the next visitor to inscribe his name in the book was
Baron Oppenheim, the banker of Cologne, and he wrote beneath
Rothschild’s:
“O. de Cologne.”
* * * * *
The Stranger--“And who are the Murphys’ ancestors?”
Mr. M.--“Ancestors? What’s that?”
The Stranger--“I mean who do the Murphys spring from?”
Mr. M.--“The Murphys spring from no one. They spring _at_ thim!”
* * * * *
At a wedding-feast recently the bridegroom was called upon, as usual,
to respond to the given toast, in spite of the fact that he had
previously pleaded to be excused. Blushing to the roots of his hair,
he rose to his feet. He intended to imply that he was unprepared for
speechmaking, but he unfortunately placed his hand upon his bride’s
shoulder, and looked down at her as he stammered out his opening and
concluding words:
“This--er--thing has been forced upon me.”
* * * * *
Very much excited and out of breath, a young man who could not have
been married very long rushed up to an attendant at one of the city
hospitals and inquired after Mrs. Brown, explaining between breaths
that it was his wife whom he felt anxious about.
The attendant looked at the register and replied that there was no
Mrs. Brown in the hospital.
“My God! Don’t keep me waiting in this manner,” said the excited young
man. “I must know how she is.”
“Well, she isn’t here,” again said the attendant.
“She must be,” broke in the visitor, “for here is a note I found on
the kitchen-table when I came home from work.”
The note read:
“_Dear Jack_--Have gone to have my kimono cut out. ANNIE.”
* * * * *
While an Irishman was gazing in the window of a Washington bookstore
the following sign caught his eye:
DICKENS’ WORKS
ALL THIS WEEK FOR
ONLY $4.00.
“The divvle he does!” exclaimed Pat in disgust. “The dirty scab!”
* * * * *
A dear old New England spinster, the embodiment of the timid and
shrinking, passed away at Carlsbad, where she had gone for her health.
Her nearest kinsman, a nephew, ordered her body sent back to be
buried--as was her last wish--in the quiet little country churchyard.
His surprise can be imagined, when on opening the casket, he beheld,
instead of the placid features of his aunt Mary, the majestic port of
an English General in full regimentals, whom he remembered had chanced
to die at the same time and place as his aunt.
At once he cabled to the General’s heirs explaining the situation and
requesting instructions.
They came back as follows: “Give the General quiet funeral. Aunt Mary
interred to-day with full military honors, six brass bands, saluting
guns.”
* * * * *
Early in the morning session, when the pupils were feeling bright and
happy, the teacher thought it a good plan to give them sentences to
correct, both as to grammar and sense. She accordingly wrote on the
blackboard: “The hen has four legs. He done it.” Thoughtful little
Ignatius, at the foot of the class, pondered deeply, and at the end of
the fifteen minutes’ time allowed for correction he wrote: “_He_
didn’t done it: God done it.”
* * * * *
The late John Stetson, famous in his day as a theatrical manager, was
having a yacht built, and a friend, meeting him on the street, asked
him what he was going to name the boat. “I haven’t decided yet,”
replied John, “but it will be some name commencing with S, probably
either ‘Psyche’ or ‘Cinch.’”
* * * * *
A clergyman was on board a steamer which was caught in a severe gale.
The rolling was constant and seemed to get worse as time went on. At
last the good man got thoroughly frightened. He believed they were
destined for a watery grave, so he went to the captain and asked if he
might have prayers. The captain took him by the arm and led him to the
forecastle, where the tars were singing and swearing. “There,” said
he, “when you hear the men swearing you may know there is no danger.”
The clergyman went back feeling better, but still the storm increased
and his alarm also. Disconsolate, he managed to stagger to the
forecastle again, where he heard the sailors swearing as hard as ever.
“Mary,” he said to his sympathetic wife as he crawled back to his
berth, “Mary, thank God, they’re swearing yet.”
* * * * *
“Hawaiian servants,” said a woman with some experience of them, “are
the best in the world, but they are strangely unsophisticated,
strangely naive. They insist on calling you by your first name. Ours
were always saying to my husband, ‘Yes, John,’ or ‘all right, John,’
and to me ‘very well, Ann,’ or ‘Ann, I am going out.’ At last I got
tired of this and to John, when we got a new cook, I said: Don’t ever
call me by my first name in the cook’s presence. Then, perhaps, not
knowing my name, he’ll have to say ‘Mrs.’ to me. So John was careful
to address me as ‘dearie,’ or ‘sweetheart,’ the watchful chap gave me
no title at all. One day we had some English officers to dine. I told
them how I had overcome, in my new cook’s case, the native servants’
abuse of their employer’s Christian names, and I said, By this
servant, at least, you won’t hear me called ‘Ann.’” Just then the new
cook entered the room. He bowed to me respectfully and said:
“‘Sweetheart, dinner is served!’
“‘What?’ I stammered.
“‘Dinner is served, dearie!’ answered the cook.”
* * * * *
Early one morning, on the second day out, a terribly seasick
passenger, pale and hollow-eyed, came out of his stateroom and ran
into a lady, who was coming along the passageway, clad in the
scantiest raiment. She screamed and started to run. “Don’t be
alarmed,” groaned the man. “Don’t be alarmed, madam; I shall never
live to tell it.”
* * * * *
Mike and Pat worked for a wealthy farmer. They planned to turn
burglars and steal the money which the farmer had hid in one of the
rooms of his house. They waited until midnight, then started to do the
job.
In order to get the money they had to pass the farmer’s bedroom. Mike
said, “I’ll go first, and if it’s all right you can follow and do just
the same as I.”
Mike started to pass the room. Just as he got opposite the door the
floor creaked. This awoke the farmer, who called out, “Who’s there?”
Mike answered with a “meaow!” (imitating a cat). The farmer’s wife
being awake, too, said, “Oh, John, it’s the cat,” and all was quiet.
Now Pat started to pass the door, and as he got opposite it the floor
creaked again. The farmer called out again, louder than before, “Who’s
there?”
Pat answered, “Another cat.”
* * * * *
Softleigh--“Good evening, Mrs. Moran. I came to see if your daughter,
Miss Mabel, would go for a walk with me.”
Miss Mabel--“How do you do, Mr. Softleigh? I shall be delighted.
Mama, do I look fit to go to a restaurant?”
* * * * *
They were on their honeymoon. He had bought a catboat and had taken
her out to show her how well he could handle a boat, putting her to
tend the sheet. A puff of wind came, and he shouted in no uncertain
tones, “Let go the sheet.” No response. Then again, “Let go that
sheet, quick.” Still no movement. A few minutes later, when both were
clinging to the bottom of the overturned boat, he said:
“Why didn’t you let go that sheet when I told you to, dear?”
“I would have,” said the bride, “if you had not been so rough about
it. You ought to speak more kindly to your wife.”
* * * * *
Madam--“Put plenty of nuts in the cake.”
Cook--“I’ll crack no more nuts to-day, me jaw hurts me already.”
* * * * *
Mother--“Alice, it is bedtime. All the little chickens have gone to
bed.”
Alice--“Yes, mama, and so has the hen.”
* * * * *
Few men have ever been so ready and witty as Mark Twain in introducing
others to public audiences. At Hartford, December 12, 1877, he
presented Mr. Howells, and, after a word or two as to his literary
work, said, “But I am not here to speak of his literary reputation,
but simply to (a long pause) back up his moral character.”
* * * * *
A Lancashire vicar was asked by the choir to call upon old Betty, who
was deaf, but who insisted in joining in the solo of the anthem, and
to ask her only to sing in the hymns. He shouted into her ear: “Betty!
I’ve been requested to speak to you about your singing.” At last she
caught the word “singing,” and replied: “Not to me be the praise, sir;
it’s a gift.”
* * * * *
The proprietor of a large drug store recently received this curt and
haughty note written in an angular, feminine hand: “I do not want
vasioline, but glisserine. Is that plain enough? I persoom you can
spell.”
* * * * *
It was in a Maine Sunday-school that a teacher recently asked a
Chinese pupil she was teaching to read if he understood the meaning of
the words “an old cow.”
“Been cow a long time,” was the prompt answer.
* * * * *
Upon moving into a new neighborhood the small boy of the family was
cautioned not to fight with his new acquaintances. One day Willie came
home with a black eye and very much spattered with dirt.
“Why, Willie,” said mama, “I thought I told you to count a hundred
before you fought!”
“I did, mama,” said Willie, “and look what Tommy Smith did while I was
counting!”
* * * * *
“The rolling stone gathers no moss,” quoted the man who had never been
outside his home county.
“True,” rejoined the globe-trotter, “but it acquires an enviable
polish.”
* * * * *
Curate (who is going to describe his little holiday in Lucerne)--“My
dear friends--I will not call you ladies and gentlemen, since I know
you too well.”
* * * * *
Daniel Purcell, the famous punster, was desired to make a pun
extempore.
“Upon what subject?” said Daniel.
“The king,” answered the other.
“Oh! sir,” said he “the king is no subject.”
* * * * *
Illustrative of “that troublesome Henglish haitch” an American
traveler relates the following:
Once I dined with an English farmer. We had ham--very delicious baked
ham. The farmer’s son soon finished his portion and passed his plate
again.
“More ’am, father,” he said.
The farmer frowned.
“Don’t say ’am, son. Say _‘am_.”
“I did say ’am,” the lad protested in an injured tone.
“You said _‘am_,” cried the father fiercely. “’Am’s what it should be.
’Am, not _‘am_.”
In the middle of the squabble the farmer’s wife turned to me and, with
a deprecatory little laugh, explained:
“They both think they’re sayin’ ’am, sir.”
* * * * *
Passing along Princes Street, Edinburgh, one day a herculean Scots
Grey stopped at the post-office and called on a street arab to polish
his boots. The feet of the dragoon were in proportion to his height
and, looking at the tremendous boots before him, the arab knelt down
on the pavement and shouted out to his chum across the road, “Jamie,
come ower an’ gie’s a hand, I’ve got an army contract.”
* * * * *
The younger man had been complaining that he could not get his wife to
mend his clothes.
“I asked her to sew a button on this vest last night, and she hasn’t
touched it,” he said. At this the older man assumed the air of a
patriarch.
“Never ask a woman to mend anything,” he said. “You haven’t been
married very long, and I think I can give you some serviceable
suggestions. When I want a shirt mended I take it to my wife, flourish
it around a little and say, ‘Where’s that rag-bag?’
“‘What do you want of the rag-bag?’ asks my wife. Her suspicions are
roused at once.
“‘I want to throw this shirt away; it’s worn out,’ I say, with a few
more flourishes.
“‘Let me see that shirt,’ my wife says then. ‘Now, John, hand it to me
at once.’
“Of course, I pass it over, and she examines it. ‘Why, John Taylor,’
she is sure to say, ‘I never knew such extravagance! This is a
perfectly good shirt. All it needs is----’ And then she mends it.”
* * * * *
A browbeating counsel asked a witness how far he had been from a
certain place. “Just four yards, two feet, and six inches,” was the
reply. “How come you to be so exact, my friend?” “I expected some fool
or other would ask me, so I measured it.”
* * * * *
“Now, see here, porter,” said the drummer briskly, “I want you to put
me off at Syracuse. You know we get in there about six o’clock in the
morning, and I may over-sleep myself. But it is important that I
should get out. Here’s a five-dollar gold piece. Now, I may wake up
hard. Don’t mind if I kick. Pay no attention if I’m ugly. I want you
to put me off the train no matter how hard I fight. Understand?”
“Yes, sah,” answered the sturdy Nubian. “It shall be did, sah!”
The next morning the coin-giver was awakened by a stentorian voice
calling: “Rochester!”
“Rochester!” he exclaimed, sitting up. “Where’s that porter?”
Hastily slipping on his trousers, he went in search of the negro, and
found him in the porter’s closet, huddled up, with his head in a
bandage, his clothes torn, and his arm in a sling.
“Well,” said the drummer, “you are a sight. Why didn’t you put me off
at Syracuse?”
“Wha-at!” gasped the porter, jumping up, as his eyes bulged from his
head. “Was you de gemman dat give me a five-dollah gold piece?”
“Of course I was, you idiot!”
“Well, den, befoah de Lawd, who was dat gemman I put off at Syracuse?”
* * * * *
A right reverend prelate, himself a man of extreme good-nature, was
frequently much vexed in spirit by the proud, froward, perverse, and
untractable temper of his next vicar. The latter, after an absence
much longer than usual, one day paid a visit to the bishop, who kindly
inquired the cause of his absence, and was answered by the vicar that
he had been confined to his house for some time past by an obstinate
stiffness in his knee. “I am glad of that,” replied the prelate; “’tis
a good symptom that the disorder has changed place, for I had a long
time thought it immovably settled in your neck.”
* * * * *
Bride--“George, dear, when we reach our destination let us try to
avoid giving the impression that we are newly married.”
George--“All right, Maud; you can carry the suitcase and umbrellas.”
* * * * *
Francis Wilson was speaking at the Players Club of New York City, not
long ago, of the all too prevalent ignorance of dramatic literature in
the country to-day.
“Why,” said Mr. Wilson, “a company was playing ‘She Stoops to
Conquer’ in a small Western town last winter when a man without any
money, wishing to see the show, stepped up to the box office and said:
“‘Pass me in, please.’
“The box office man gave a loud, harsh laugh.
“‘Pass you in? What for?’ he asked.
“The applicant drew himself up and answered, haughtily: ‘What for?
Why, because I am Oliver Goldsmith, author of the play.’
“‘Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,’ replied the other in a meek voice, as
he hurriedly wrote an order for a box.”
* * * * *
Lady Bountiful--“All I can say is, Jenkins, that if these people
insist on building these horrid little villas near my gates, I shall
leave the place.”
Jenkins--“Exactly what I told them at the meeting, your ladyship. I
said, ‘Do you want to drive away the goose that lays the golden
eggs?’”
* * * * *
Old Lady (to conductor--her first drive on an electric tram).--“Would
it be dangerous, conductor, if I was to put my foot on the rail?”
Conductor (an Edison manqué).--“No, mum, not unless you was to put the
other one on the overhead wire!”
* * * * *
After a few weeks at boarding-school Alice wrote home as follows:
“_Dear Father_--Though I was homesick at first, now that I am getting
acquainted, I like the school very much. Last evening Grayce and
Kathryn (my roommates) and I had a nice little chafing-dish party,
and we invited three other girls, Mayme and Carrye Miller and Edyth
Kent. I hope you are all well at home. I can’t write any more now for
I have a lot of studying to do. With lots of love to all.
“Your affectionate daughter,
“ALYSS.”
To this she received the following reply:
“_My dear Daughter Alyss_--I was glad to receive your letter and to
know that you are enjoying yourself. Uncle Jaymes came the other day,
bringing Charls and Albyrt with him. Your brother Henrie was
delighted, for he has been lonely without you. I have bought a new
gray horse whose name is Byllye. He matches nicely with old Fredde.
With much love from us all, I am,
“Your affectionate father,
“WYLLYAM JONES.”
The next letter from the absent daughter was signed “Alice.”
* * * * *
While Chauncey M. Depew was at the Omaha Exposition, he and President
Callaway of the New York Central chanced to go into a booth on the
Midway Plaisance.
It was a tame entertainment and there was only a meager attendance
when Mr. Depew and Mr. Callaway entered. Their stay would have been
very brief except for the fact that they had scarcely taken their
seats before there began a steady inpouring of people, which continued
until the small auditorium was crowded.
Taking this extraordinary increase of spectators as an indication that
something of an interesting nature was about to be disclosed, the two
New Yorkers concluded to sit it out. Half an hour’s waiting failed to
reward their patient expectancy, however, and Mr. Callaway suggested
that they move on.
Just then ex-Secretary of Agriculture J. Sterling Morton pushed his
way through the crowd, and, extending his hand to Mr. Depew,
exclaimed:
“Well, Doctor Depew, so you are really here! I thought that ‘barker’
was lying.”
“What do you mean?” inquired Mr. Depew.
“Why, the ‘barker’ for this show is standing outside and inviting the
crowd to ‘step up lively’ and pay ten cents for the privilege of
seeing the ‘great and only Chauncey M. Depew.’”
* * * * *
That the royal road to learning is full of strange pitfalls is
shown by some of the definitions and statements given by
school-children--some of whom are well along the way. The following
are _bona fide_ samples coming under the knowledge of one teacher:
“About this time Columbus was cursing around among the West Indies.”
“Jackson’s campaign in the Valley was the greatest piece of
millinery-work ever known.”
“The Valkyrie were the Choosers of the Slain, and the Valhalla the
Haulers of the Slain.”
“The eldest son of the King of France is called The Dolphin.”
“The Duke of Clarence, according to his usual custom, was killed in
battle.”
“Heathen are paragons (pagans) that wash up idle things.”
“The Indians call their women squabs.”
* * * * *
A certain curate in the course of conversation at a dinner party some
time ago remarked to a friend, “I had a curious dream last night, but
as it was about my vicar I hardly like to tell it.” On being pressed,
however, he began: “I dreamt I was dead and was on my way to Heaven,
which was reached by a very long ladder. At the foot I was met by an
angel, who pressed a piece of chalk into my hand and said, ‘If you
climb long enough you will reach Heaven, but for every sin you are
conscious of having committed you must mark a rung of the ladder with
the chalk as you go up.’ I took the chalk and started. I had climbed
up very, very far and was feeling very tired when I suddenly met my
vicar coming down. ‘Hullo!’ I said, ‘what are you going down for?’
‘More chalk.’”
* * * * *
Mrs. McKinley used to tell of a colored widow whose children she had
helped educate. The widow, rather late in life, married.
“How are you getting on?” Mrs. McKinley asked her a few months after
her marriage.
“Fine, thank yo’, ma’am,” the bride answered.
“And is your husband a good provider?”
“’Deed he am a good providah, ma’am,” was the enthusiastic reply.
“Why, jes’ dis las’ week he got me five new places to wash at.”
* * * * *
A certain curate was of a painfully nervous temperament, and in
consequence was constantly making awkward remarks--intended as
compliments--to the bishop and others. Having distinguished himself in
an unusual degree during a gathering of clergy to an afternoon
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