“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; sheuttered 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. Nowsay 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 headseemed 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?” “Doyouown it?” inquired the smoker. “No,” was the response. “Well, I do,” said the young man.
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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 ofpathos, 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 toWesterly 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 largeidea 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 saidshe 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 justhadto 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 lastweek.” “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 husbandhad 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 clappedher 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. Hemanaged 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 blowsquare 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-cansay 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 emptybottle 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 ofthis 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’smybusiness!”—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. Sowhen 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.
Thiswasthe 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 andlost 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 atthe 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 timehe 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 fairlylong 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 inflectionindicating 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 Roberthada sister Lucy, and shedidmarry 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. “TheNellie E. Williamsof 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.