“‘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 frontof 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 wasan 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. Againturning 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 spankedI 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 waswined 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.
Pattern for all beneath the sun,To Taft award the palm and bun!They told him what they wanted done—He done it.
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,” respondedthe 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 boyfrom 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, wouldyou 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 asplendidtime!”
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. Hewouldn’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 asshe 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 havefivechildren—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 makemesick!”
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 andwith 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 thebaptism 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, thepolitician 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, frequentlybring 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 sayingemphatically: “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 theotherpassengers,” answered Lamb, “but that last piece of oyster-pie did the business forme.”
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 presencenor 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, “Iwas 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 splendorof 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.