“God bless papa,God bless mama,God bless Willie;Rah! Rah! Rah!”
“God bless papa,God bless mama,God bless Willie;Rah! Rah! Rah!”
“God bless papa,
God bless mama,
God bless Willie;
Rah! Rah! Rah!”
A suburban minister during his discourse one Sabbath morning said: “In each blade of grass there is a sermon.” The following day one of his flock discovered the good man pushing a lawn mower about his garden and paused to say: “Well, parson, I’m glad to see you engaged in cutting your sermons short.”
“Now, Bobby,” instructed the Fond Maternal Parent of the prodigy in velveteens, bound for a children’s party, “the weather looks rather threatening. Here is half a dollar for you, and if it rains come back by cab.”
Two hours later it came down cats and dogs, and F. M. P. (Fond Maternal Parent) returned devout thanks for her forethought.
But when little Bobby Velveteens returned he was wet to the skin.
“Why, Bobby,” cried the F. M. P., “didn’t you come back by cab, as I told you?”
“Oh, yes, ma!” answered Bobby. “And it was simply splendid! I rode on the box beside the driver!”
A Bishop of the Episcopal Church lived all his life unwed. A friend mentioned that one of the Stateswas imposing a tax on bachelors, to be increased a certain percentage every ten years of bachelorhood, and added: “Why, Bishop, at your age you would have to pay a hundred dollars a year.”
“Well,” said the Bishop quietly, “it’s worth it.”
Two old women, on their way home from church, in a country district of Scotland, were speaking of Napoleon’s overthrow, by the allied troops at Waterloo. The minister had been pointing a moral by aid of the Corsican hero’s defeat.
“Hoo is it,” said one, in her narrow way, “the Scotch aye win their battles?”
“Weel, ye ken, it’s because they aye pray afore they go in the fecht,” replied the other.
“Ay! But mercy, wuman, canna the French pray, as weel?”
“Nae doobt, they dae; but wha could understan’ they jabberin’ bodies?” snapped the interrogated one, in peremptory answer.
Curiously worded advertisements that are funny without intent are common in the London papers. Here are a few examples:
“A boy wanted who can open oysters with references.”
“Bulldog for sale; will eat anything, very fond of children.”
“Wanted an organist and a boy to blow the same.”
“Wanted, a boy to be partly outside and partly inside the counter.”
“Lost, near Highgate Archway, an umbrella belonging to a gentleman with a bent rib and a bone handle.”
“To be disposed of, a mail phaeton, the property of a gentleman with a movable headpiece as good as new.”
A tall young man stalked with stately stride into the office of a small hotel in a remote part of the White Mountains. Behind him came a severe valet carrying bags and a gun-case, and on a wagon at the door were two prosperous trunks. In an armchair behind the hotel counter sat a spare old man placidly chewing tobacco and reading the “Weekly Recorder.”
“Ah-h-h! Hm!” the tall young man began. “Is this Mr. Silas P. Meacham, proprietor of this hotel?”
“Yaas,” replied the old one, glancing up over his paper.
“I am Mr. Hanningford Wattster van Derventer, of the Metropolis Club, of New York,” said the visitor, impressively. “My friend, Mr. Vandergilt, told me you would take excellent care of me here.”
“Ya-as,” replied Silas, still buried in his paper.
“Iam Mr. Hanningford Wattster van Derventer, of New York,” the visitor repeated. “My friend, Mr. Vandergilt, told me you would take excellent care of me here.”
“Ya-a-as,” said Silas, still chewing and reading his paper.
“Iam Mr. Hanningford Wattster van Derventer, of New York,” the young man reiterated with the air of one who tells great news, also with rising indignation.“My friend, Mr.Vandergilt, told me you would take excellent care of me—show me every attention.”
“Wa-al,” exclaimed Silas P. Meacham, throwing down the paper and revealing his few yellow teeth in a mocking grin—“wa-al, what d’ye want me t’ do—kiss ye?”
Court—(to prosecutor)—“Then you recognize this handkerchief as the one which was stolen?”
Prosecutor—“Yes, your honor.”
Court—“And yet it isn’t the only handkerchief of the sort in the world. See, this one I have in my pocket is exactly like it.”
Prosecutor—“Very likely, your honor; there were two stolen.”
The company of soldiers had been receiving a lesson in minor tactics, and among other subjects was the method of patrols in getting information. The book said that information could be obtained from “mayors, postmasters, livery-stable keepers, doctors, peasants, etc.”
The lieutenant turned to Finnegan and said: “Do you know what a peasant is, Finnegan?”
He answered promptly, “Yes, sor.”
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s a bird, sor,” said Finnegan with evident pride.
Senator Pettus, of Alabama, was writing with a noisy, spluttering pen. Laying it down, he smiled and said: “Once I was spending the evening with afriend of mine in Selma. We sat in the dining-room and from the kitchen came a dreadful scratching sound. ‘Martha,’ said my friend to the maid, ‘what is that scratching? it must be the dog trying to get in.’ ‘Huh!’ said Martha, ‘Dat ain’ no dog, dat’s cook writin’ a love-letter to heh honeysuckle.’”
“No smoking in this coach, sir,” said the conductor of a passenger train. “I’m not smokin’,” answered the passenger with an injured air from the depths of his seat.
“You’ve got your pipe in your mouth,” declared the conductor with emphasis, sharply confident. “I hov,” retorted the Hibernian, “and I hov me fut in me shoe, too, but I’m not walkin’.”
Little Alice is old for her years. One evening after she had gone to bed she heard mama and papa laughing in much enjoyment over a game of flinch; she longed to get up and join them, but knew she must not. The next morning at breakfast she was very quiet. Presently she drew a deep sigh, and said, “What a good time you and papa had last night. Oh, I feel the need of a husband, mama, Idofeel it!”
A teacher in one of the primary schools of New York recently read to her pupils “The Old Oaken Bucket.”
After explaining the song to them very carefully, she asked the class to copy the first stanza from theblackboard, where she had written it, and try to illustrate the verse by drawings in the same way a story is illustrated.
In a short while one little girl handed up her paper with several little dots between two lines, a circle, half a dozen dots, and three buckets.
“I do not quite understand this, Mamie,” said the teacher, kindly. “What is that circle?”
“Oh, that’s the well,” Mamie replied.
“And why do you have three buckets?” again asked the teacher.
“One,” answered the child, “is the oaken bucket, one is the iron-bound bucket, and the other is the moss-covered bucket that hung in the well.”
“But, Mamie, what are all these little dots for?”
“Why those are the spots which my infancy knew,” earnestly replied Mamie.
Four gentlemen went out to dine. They were Arthur Balfour, Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Charles Beresford, and the Japanese Minister. Mr. Arthur Balfour was standing treat and said to Joey, “What will you take?” “Oh, thanks, I’ll take Scotch, Arthur.” “And what will you take, Lord Charles?” “Oh, thanks, I’ll take Irish, Arthur.” “And now, what will you take?” addressing the Japanese Minister. “I’ll take Port Arthur, thanks.”
Not long after the great Chelsea fire some children in Newton, Massachusetts, held a Charity Fair by which eighteen dollars were realized. This they forwardedto the rector of a certain Boston church who had taken a prominent part in the relief work, with a letter which read somewhat as follows:
“We have had a fair and made eighteen dollars. We are sending it to you. Please give it to the Chelsea sufferers.
“Yours truly, etc.
“P. S. We hope the suffering is not all over.”
A story is told of a certain committee meeting in which the proceedings commenced with noise and gradually became uproarious. At last one of the disputants, losing all control over his emotions, exclaimed to his opponent: “Sir, you are, I think, the biggest ass that I ever had the misfortune to set eyes upon!” “Order! order!” said the chairman, gravely; “you seem to forget that I am in the room.”
An Irish priest had labored hard with one of his flock to induce him to give up whisky. “I tell you, Michael,” said the priest, “whisky is your worst enemy, and you should keep as far away from it as you can.” “The enemy is it, father?” responded Michael, “and it was your riverence’s self that was telling us in the pulpit last Sunday to love our enemies.” “So I was, Michael,” rejoined the priest, “but I didn’t tell you to swallow them.”
A Sabbath-school worker was visiting a Sabbath-school some distance from home. Being called uponto address the school, he commenced by asking, “Who can tell me something about Peter?” (the lesson was about Peter that day). Having received no answer from either large or small pupils, he again made the request. This time a little girl put up her hand. He called the little girl to him and placed her upon a chair. After complimenting her on her bravery and brightness, he asked her to tell him all she knew about Peter. In return came the following:
“Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater,Had a wife and couldn’t keep her;Put her in a pumpkin shellWhere he kept her very well.”
“Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater,Had a wife and couldn’t keep her;Put her in a pumpkin shellWhere he kept her very well.”
“Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater,
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her;
Put her in a pumpkin shell
Where he kept her very well.”
Senator Beveridge, in recommending broad and generous views to the graduating class of a medical school, told this story:
“I once saw two famous physicians introduced at a reception. They were deservedly famous, but they were of opposing schools; and the regular, as he shook the other by the hand, said loudly:
“‘I am glad to meet you as a gentleman, sir, though I can’t admit that you are a physician.’
“‘And I,’ said the homeopathist, smiling faintly, ’am glad to meet you as a physician, though I can’t admit you are a gentleman.’”
At a recent dinner in London the conversation turned to the subject of lynching in the United States. It was the general opinion that a large percentage of Americans met death at the end of a rope. Finallythe hostess turned to an American, who had taken no part in the conversation, and said:
“You, sir, must have often seen these affairs.”
“Yes,” he replied, “we take a kind of municipal pride in seeing which city can show the greatest number of lynchings yearly.”
“Oh, do tell us about a lynching you have seen yourself,” broke in half a dozen voices at once.
“The night before I sailed for England,” said Eugene Field, “I was giving a dinner at a hotel to a party of intimate friends when a colored waiter spilled a plate of soup over the gown of a lady at an adjoining table. The gown was utterly ruined, and the gentlemen of her party at once seized the waiter, tied a rope around his neck, and at a signal from the injured lady swung him into the air.”
“Horrible,” said the hostess with a shudder. “And did you actually see this yourself?”
“Well, no,” admitted the American apologetically. “Just at that moment I happened to be downstairs killing the chef for putting mustard in the blanc mange.”
Mrs. Jones recently spent a few days at a farm, and in a moment of originality bought some poultry from the farmer with a view to their providing fresh eggs for breakfast every morning. She sent them to town per the local carrier, despatching a note at the same time to her husband telling him to look out for the consignment. When Jones reached home from his office he inquired if the poultry had arrived. The servant told him they had, but the man had carelesslyput them in the back yard, leaving the door open, and they had all escaped. Thereupon a fowl hunt was immediately organized. The next day Jones saw the carrier. “Nice trick you played me yesterday,” said he; “spent three hours hunting those fowls and only found ten.” “Then think yourself blessed lucky,” replied the man. “I only brought six.”
A patronizing young lord was seated opposite the late James McNeill Whistler at dinner one evening. During a lull in the conversation he adjusted his monocle and leaned forward toward the artist.
“Aw, y’ know, Mr. Whistler,” he drawled, “I pahssed your house this mawning.”
“Thank you,” said Whistler quietly. “Thank you very much.”
The new minister in a Georgia church was delivering his first sermon. The darky janitor was a critical listener from a back corner of the church. The minister’s sermon was eloquent, and his prayers seemed to cover the whole category of human wants.
After the services one of the deacons asked the old darky what he thought of the new minister. “Don’t you think he offers up a good prayer, Joe?”
“Ah mos’ suhtainly does, boss. Why, dat man axed de good Lord fo’ things dat de odder preacher didn’t even know He had!”
For weeks the kindergarten had been deluged with nature verses, and the process of absorption was faradvanced. Sufficiently to admit of a little squeezing with results, thought the teacher.
“Now, children,” she said, “I want you each to bring in a little verse that you have made yourselves about the buds, or the trees, or the flowers, or anything that pleases you.”
Various specimens were produced next day, but the gem of the collection was little May Flynn’s. With appropriate gestures she recited:
“See the pretty gold fish swimming in the globe!See the pretty robin singing in the tree!Who teached these two to fly together?Who stucked the fur upon their breasts?’Twas God. ’Twas God. He done it.”
“See the pretty gold fish swimming in the globe!See the pretty robin singing in the tree!Who teached these two to fly together?Who stucked the fur upon their breasts?’Twas God. ’Twas God. He done it.”
“See the pretty gold fish swimming in the globe!
See the pretty robin singing in the tree!
Who teached these two to fly together?
Who stucked the fur upon their breasts?
’Twas God. ’Twas God. He done it.”
A story about King Edward is worth repeating. Just before the illness which caused the postponement of the coronation, he was racing down one of the country roads in his motor-car at a speed which was away beyond the legal limit.
“Hi! Hi!” called a policeman. “Stop there, in the name of the law!”
His Majesty is said to have slackened speed and called out: “But I’m the king!”
“Jest you come aht o’ that,” was the reply; “yer the third king wot’s come along this morning.”
In order to play “Rosemary” some years ago, John Drew shaved off his mustache, thereby greatly changing his appearance. Shortly afterward he met Max Beerbohm in the lobby of a London theater, but couldnot just then recall who the latter was. Mr. Beerbohm’s memory was better.
“Oh, Mr. Drew,” he said, “I’m afraid you don’t know me without your mustache.”
A truly eloquent parson had been preaching for an hour or so on the immortality of the soul.
“I looked at the mountains,” he declaimed, “and could not help thinking, ‘Beautiful as you are, you will be destroyed, while my soul will not.’ I gazed upon the ocean and cried, ‘Mighty as you are you will eventually dry up, but not I.’”
“Now if I don’t git rid o’ dis cold soon,” complained Jimmy, the jockey, “I’ll be a dead one.”
“Did you go to Dr. Goodman, as I told you?” asked his friend.
“Naw! De sign on his door said ’10 to 1’ an’ I wouldn’t monkey wid no long shot like dat.”
Herbert S. Stone, the publisher, described at a dinner in Washington the amusing methods of a newspaper writer who used to write articles at a set rate a column.
He was once commissioned to do a serial story for a Chicago paper. The story, as it proceeded from week to week, was interesting, but it contained many passages like the following:
“Did you hear him?”
“I did.”
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
“Where?”
“By the well.”
“When?”
“To-day.”
“Then he lives?”
“He does.”
“Ah.”
The editor, sending for the man, said:
“Hereafter we will pay you by the letters in your serial. We will pay you so much a thousand letters.”
The young man, looking crestfallen, went away, but in the very next instalment of his story he introduced a character who stuttered, and all through the chapter were scattered passages like this:
“B-b-b-b-believe me, s-s-s-sir, I am n-n-not g-g-g-guilty. M-m-m-my m-m-m-mother c-c-c-committed this c-c-c-crime.”
A man with a soft, low voice had just completed his purchases in a department store of the City of Churches.
“What is the name?” asked the clerk.
“Jepson,” replied the man.
“Chipson?”
“No, Jepson.”
“Oh, yes, Jefferson.”
“No, Jepson; J-e-p-s-o-n.”
“Jepson?”
“That’s it. You have it. Sixteen eighty-two—”
“Your first name, initial, please.”
“Oh, K.”
“O. K. Jepson.”
“Excuse me, it isn’t O. K. You did not understand me. I said ‘Oh.’”
“O. Jepson.”
“No; rub out the O and let the K stand.”
The clerk looked annoyed. “Will you please give me your initials again?”
“I said K.”
“I beg your pardon, you said O. K. Perhaps you had better write it yourself.”
“I said ‘Oh’—”
“Just now you said K.”
“Allow me to finish what I started to say. I said ‘Oh,’ because I did not understand what you were asking me. I did not mean that it was my initial. My name is Kirby Jepson.”
“Oh!”
“No, not O., but K.,” said the man. “Give me the pencil, and I’ll write it down for you myself. There, I guess it’s O. K. now.”
The furnishing of the new house had gone on vociferously. All the family told stories of the beautiful and rare articles picked up at auctions, usually at such bargains as only amateurs in such matters are able to find. There was naturally much curiosity to see how the house looked. The first visitor who had the opportunity to inspect it was eagerly questioned by her friends.
“I can’t describe it myself,” she explained. “All I can say is that auctions speak louder than words.”
When Frank R. Stockton started out with his Rudder Grange experiences he undertook to keep chickens. One old motherly Plymouth Rock brought out a brood late in the fall, and Stockton named each of the chicks after some literary friend, among the rest Mary Mapes Dodge. Mrs. Dodge was visiting the farm some time later, and, happening to think of her namesake, she said: “By the way, Frank, how does little Mary Mapes Dodge get along?” “The funny thing about little Mary Mapes Dodge,” said he, “is, she turns out to be Thomas Bailey Aldrich.”
A short time ago a lady with an only child (aged seven) was entertaining the bishop of the diocese to afternoon tea. The small girl was allowed to come to tea, but her mother had instilled into her mind the necessity of speaking reverently to the bishop. Tea came and with it the pangs of hunger, but at the same time her mother’s warning, “speak reverently,” was always before her. After sitting for about ten minutes gazing at the good things and repeating over and over again, “speak reverently,” she exclaimed, “For God’s sake pass me the bread and butter.”
Hiram Hardscrabble and his load of hay, two horses, and a perfectly good wagon were pitched so high and so far by a reckless railroad train that when they came down they weren’t—any of ’em—good for much. The local Congressman took the case, and after some months advised Hiram to accept the railroad company’s offer of lifelong employment at $15 aweek. Hiram accepted. They put him out as a flagman on a crossing near his native village.
Cassidy, the section boss, stopped his handcar before the flag-shanty, and after a searching look at Hiram advised as follows:
“So you’re the new flagman, are ye? And ye’ve niver railroaded before. No harm. We’ll make a man iv ye. See, now, there’s yer red flag and yer green flag and yer white flag, and yer thrain schedule within on the wall. All ye have to do is dhrop the gates befoor the thrains do come, so that they’ll have a clear thrack. D’ye mind, now?
“But there’s wan thing above all others—th’ Impire Shtate Express! Putt yer gates down two minyits before she comes and keep them down till she’s pasht. Mind now, she must niver be late on this section. Niver wan minyit late. I won’t sthand f’r it. Remimber—th’ Impire Shtate Express. She must niver be late here.”
Hiram promised. At 2p.m., when the Empire State Express was due in two minutes, he dropped the crossing gates and stood by with the white flag to wave her along. Three minutes passed, four, five—and still no train. As a matter of fact, she had lost half an hour at an open draw on the Harlem River in the morning, and was laboring mightily to regain lost time in spite of her fast schedule.
Seven minutes late, and then Hiram heard a wild shriek a mile away and saw the express coming. He darted into the shanty, grabbed a red flag, and leaped out upon the track, waving it furiously. The engineer shut off, threw over the reverse lever, gave her sand and the air; and the mighty train stopped short, in awhirl of sand, cinders, and sparks, brakes creaking and passengers pitchpoling everywhere.
“What’s the matter now?” roared the engineer, thrusting half his body out of the cab and glaring down at Hiram.
“Be yeou th’ ingineer?” asked the flagman, peering at him with suspicion.
“Yes, yes! Whad-do-you want?”
“I want t’ know whut’s made ye so goldinged late? Cassidy says he wun’t stand f’r it.”
During a match at St. Andrews, Scotland, a rustic was struck in the eye accidentally by a golf ball. Running up to his assailant, he yelled:
“This’ll cost ye five pounds—five pounds!”
“But I called out ‘fore’ as loudly as I could,” explained the golfer.
“Did ye, sir?” replied the troubled one, much appeased. “Weel, I didna hear; I’ll take fower.”
Mark Twain observed once at a public dinner that he had written a friendly letter to Queen Victoria protesting against a tax being levied in England on his head, on the ground that it was a gas-works. “I don’t know you,” he wrote, “but I’ve met your son. He was at the head of a procession in the Strand, and I was on a ’bus.” Years afterward he met the King at Homburg, and they had a long talk. At parting the King said: “I am glad to have met you again.” That last word troubled Mark, who asked whether the King had not mistaken him for some one else. The reply—“Why, don’t you remember meeting me in the Strand when I was at the head of a procession and you were on a ’bus?” revealed the strength of Royal memories.
An Irishman and an Englishman were recounting feats of physical prowess. The Englishman, by way of showing his strength, said that he was accustomed to swim across the Thames three times before breakfast every morning.
“Well,” said the Irishman, “that may be all right, but it do seem to me that your clothes would be on the wrong side of the river all the time.”
An excess luggage porter at a large railway station said to a “commercial,” “I see your luggage is overweight, sir.” “Ah! your visionary powers are far too acute for me, my friend.” “What did you say, sir?” “I say you can see too well for me.” “Ah! to be sure, sir. I take you——” “Could you see as well now if you had sixpence over one eye?” “Well, I don’t know, sir, but I’m darned well sure I couldn’t see at all if I’d another over t’other one.”
Henry James, the American novelist, lives at Rye, one of the Cinque Ports, but recently he left Rye for a time and took a house in the country near the estate of a millionaire jam manufacturer, retired. This man, having married an earl’s daughter, was ashamed of the trade whereby he had piled up his fortune.
The jam manufacturer one day wrote Mr. James animpudent letter, vowing that it was outrageous the way the James servants were trespassing on his grounds. Mr. James wrote back:
“Dear Sir: I am very sorry to hear that my servants have been poaching on your preserves.
“P.S.—You’ll excuse my mentioning your preserves, won’t you?”
An Omaha man was taking an automobile trip through the ranching section of the State, and to save time took a short cut over a bad stretch of road, full of jolts and bumps. During the afternoon his machine broke down, and, as the monkey wrench was missing from his tool kit, he started on foot for the nearest ranch house to borrow one. On arriving he found the farmer repairing his fence.
“Have you a monkey wrench about here that I can use?” he asked.
“Ay tank not,” replied the farmer. “Yonson in nax saction ha kape cattle ranch, Svenson down har ha kape sheep ranch. Faller bane big fool to make monkey ranch in dese place.”
Andrew Carnegie is fond of the Scots’ national instrument, the bagpipe, and when he is at home at Skibo Castle usually has his pet piper to play for him at dinner. Particularly is the musician in attendance when the great philanthropist has guests.
On one occasion a big company of men sat down to table, and the piper pranced up and down the room as he played.
The whole thing was new to a French literary man, who politely asked the guest on his right, “Why does he walk up and down when he does this thing? Does it add to the volume of the sound, or does it make a cadence?”
“No,” said the other, “I don’t think it’s that. I fancy it’s to prevent the listeners getting his range with a knife or a water bottle.”
Some time ago Professor Brander Matthews went to dine at a certain dramatic club in New York. Going to the club letter box he picked up and perused a letter which seemed to be addressed to him. It was a request from a tailor for the settlement of his little bill. As the man’s name was quite strange to him he made a careful examination, and finding that he had been mistaken, put the missive back into its place. Immediately afterward he saw the real owner take possession of it, walk into the reading-room, read it carefully, and tear it into shreds. Then, assured of an audience, the man whose clothes were still unpaid for, assumed the weary smile of an accomplished ladykiller and remarked audibly, “Poor, silly, little girl!”
A street-car “masher” tried in every way to attract the attention of the pretty young girl opposite him. Just as he had about given up, the girl, entirely unconscious of what had been going on, happened to glance in his direction. The “masher” immediately took fresh courage.
“It’s cold out to-day, isn’t it?” he ventured.
The girl smiled and nodded assent, but had nothing to say.
“My name is Specknoodle,” he volunteered.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” she said sympathetically, as she left the car.
A Jew crossing the Brooklyn Bridge met a friend who said, “Abe, I’ll bet you ten dollars that I can tell you exactly what you’re thinking about.”
“Vell,” agreed Abe, producing a greasy bill, “I’ll haf to take dot bet. Put up your money.”
The friend produced two fives. “Abe,” he said, “you are thinking of going over to Brooklyn, buying a small stock of goods, renting a small store, taking out all the fire-insurance that you can possibly get, and then burning out. Do I win my bet?”
“Vell,” replied Abe, “you don’t egsactly vin, but the idea is worth de money. Take id.”
Andrew Carnegie tells a good story illustrating the canniness of the Scot.
An Irish friend had insisted that a Scotchman should stay at his house, instead of at a hotel, and kept him there for a month, playing the host in detail, even to treating him to sundry visits to the theater, paying the cab fares and the rest. When the visitor was returning home, the Irishman saw him to the station, and they went together to have a last cigar.
“Now, look here,” said the Scot, “I’ll hae nae mair o’ this. Here ye’ve been keepin’ me at your hoose for a month, an’ payin’ for a’ the amusements and cabsand so on—I tell you I’ll stan’ nae mair o’ it! We’ll just hae a toss for this one!”
“Uncle Joe” Cannon has a way of speaking his mind that is sometimes embarrassing to others. On one occasion an inexperienced young fellow was called upon to make a speech at a banquet at which Speaker Cannon was also present.
“Gentlemen,” began the young fellow, “my opinion is that the generality of mankind in general is disposed to take advantage of the generality of ——”
“Sit down, son,” interrupted “Uncle Joe.” “You are coming out of the same hole you went in at.”
It is a well-established fact that the average school-teacher experiences a great deal of difficulty when she attempts to enforce the clear pronunciation of the terminal “g” of each present participle.
“Robert,” said the teacher of one of the lower classes during the progress of a reading exercise, “please read the first sentence.”
A diminutive lad rose to his feet and, amid a series of labored gasps, breathed forth the following:
“See the horse runnin’.”
“Don’t forget the ‘g,’ Robert,” admonished the teacher.
“Gee! See the horse runnin’.”
Miss Jeannette Gilder was one of the ardent enthusiasts at the début of Tetrazzini. After the firstact she rushed to the back of the house to greet one of her friends. “Don’t you think she is a wonder?” she asked excitedly.
“She is a great singer unquestionably,” responded her more phlegmatic friend, “but the registers of her voice are not so even as, for instance, Melba’s.”
“Oh, bother Melba,” said Miss Gilder. “Tetrazzini gives infinitely more heat from her registers.”
Walter Damrosch tells of a matron in Chicago who, in company with her young nephew, was attending a musical entertainment.
The selections were apparently entirely unfamiliar to the youth; but when the “Wedding March” of Mendelssohn was begun he began to evince more interest.
“That sounds familiar,” he said. “I’m not strong on these classical pieces, but that’s a good one. What is it?”
“That,” gravely explained the matron, “is the ‘Maiden’s Prayer.’”
A messenger came tearing up to the White House in ’63, and hurriedly gaining admission to Mr. Lincoln, informed him in great excitement that a large wagon train had been surprised a short way across the Potomac and a brigadier-general taken prisoner.
“Did they capture the train?” inquired Old Abe.
“No, sir, the regiment came up and saved it,” answered the messenger, “but the general, Mr. President, is a prisoner.”
“Oh, never mind that,” said Lincoln. “I can make a dozen generals in a day, but mules cost $300 apiece.”
Two men were riding together one day through Paris. One was exceedingly bright and clever, while the other was correspondingly dull. As is usually the case, the latter monopolized the conversation. The talk of the dullard had become almost unendurable, when his companion saw a man on the street far ahead yawning.
“Look,” he exclaimed, “we are overheard!”
One afternoon Mrs. Murphy appeared at the settlement house, all dressed up in her best bonnet and shawl. A huge black and blue spot disfigured one side of her face, however, and one eye was nearly closed. “Why, Mrs. Murphy, what is the matter?” cried one of the teachers; and then, realizing that she might have asked a tactless question, she hastily turned it off, by saying, “Well, cheer up, you might be worse off.” “Sure an’ I might,” responded the indignant Mrs. Murphy. “I might not be married at all!”
A young woman in Central Park overheard an old negress call to a piccaninny: “Come heah, Exy, Exy!”
“Excuse me, but that’s a queer name for a baby, aunty?”
“Dat ain’t her full name,” explained the old woman with pride; “dat’s jes’ de pet name I calls for short. Dat chile got a mighty grand name. Her ma pickedit out in a medicine book—yessum, de child’s full name is Eczema.”
Sir Richard Bethell, afterward Lord Westbury, with a suave voice and a stately manner, nevertheless had a way of bearing down the foe with almost savage wit. Once, in court, he had to follow a barrister who had delivered his remarks in very loud tones. “Now that the noise in court has subsided,” murmured Bethell, “I will tell your Honor in two sentences the gist of the case.”
The resemblance of the Rev. Robert Collyer to Henry Ward Beecher was often remarked. One day, when walking through Central Park, hat in hand, as the day was hot, at a sharp turn in the path he came upon an old lady seated on one of the park benches. At sight of him she jumped to her feet, exclaiming:
“Goodness me! This is not Mr. Beecher?”
“No, madam,” Dr. Collyer answered, “it is not. I hope Mr. Beecher is in a cooler place.”
It is not necessary that a lawyer should be eloquent to win verdicts, but he must have the tact which turns an apparent defeat to his own advantage. One of the most successful of verdict winners was Sir James Scarlett. His skill in turning a failure into a success was wonderful. In a breach-of-promise case the defendant, Scarlett’s client, was alleged to have been cajoled into an engagement by the plaintiff’s mother.She was a witness in behalf of her daughter, and completely baffled Scarlett, who cross-examined her. But in his argument he exhibited his tact by this happy stroke of advocacy: “You saw, gentlemen of the jury, that I was but a child in her hands. What must my client have been?”
He was a young man—a candidate for an agricultural constituency—and he was sketching in glowing colors to an audience of rural voters the happy life the laborer would lead under an administration for the propagation of sweetness and light. “We have not yet three acres and a cow, but it will come. Old-age pensions are still of the future, but they will come.” Similarly every item of his comprehensive program was endorsed by the same parrot cry. Then he went on to talk of prison reforms. “I have not yet personally,” he said, “been inside a criminal lunatic asylum.” Then there was a voice from the back of the hall, “But it will come.”
The judge had had his patience sorely tried by lawyers who wished to talk and by men who wished to evade jury service.
“Shudge!” cried a little German in the jury box.
“What is it?” demanded the judge.
“I t’ink I like to go home to my wife,” said the German.
“You can’t,” retorted the judge. “Sit down.”
“But, shudge,” persisted the German, “I don’t t’ink I make a good shuror.”
“You’re the best in the box,” said the judge. “Sit down.”
“What box?” said the German.
“Jury box,” said the judge.
“But, shudge,” persisted the little German, “I don’t speak good English.”
“You don’t have to speak any at all,” said the judge. “Sit down.”
The little German pointed at the lawyers to make his last desperate plea.
“Shudge,” he said, “I don’t make noddings of what these fellers say.”
It was the judge’s chance to get even for many annoyances.
“Neither can any one else,” he said. “Sit down.”
A parson, diminutive in size and his head covered with hair of the most fiery hue, officiated one Sunday for a friend in a colliery village near Nottingham. The old-fashioned pulpit had a high desk over which the parson’s red head was hardly visible. This was too much for a burly collier seated immediately under the pulpit, who when he heard the text, “I am the Light of the World,” exclaimed to the clerk, “Push him up a bit higher, mate; don’t let him burn in the socket.”
“Biddy,” said Pat timidly, “did ye iver think o’ marryin’?”’
“Shure, now,” said Biddy, looking demurely at her shoe—“shure, now, the subject has niver entered me mind at all, at all.”
“It’s sorry Oi am,” said Pat, and he turned away.
“Wan minute, Pat,” said Biddy softly. “Ye’ve set me thinkin’.”
From a French journal comes this little anecdote of a tutor and his royal pupil.
The lesson was in Roman history, and the prince was unprepared.
“We come now to the Emperor Caligula. What do you know about him, prince?”
The question was followed by a silence that was becoming awkward when it was broken by the diplomatic tutor. “Your highness is right,” he said, “perfectly right. The less said about this emperor the better.”
The following copies of queer advertisements have been collected and printed by club women:
“Bulldog for sale; will eat anything; is very fond of children.”
“Lost—Near Highgate Archway, an umbrella belonging to a gentleman with a bent rib and a bone handle.”
“Mr. Brown, furrier, begs to announce that he will make up gowns, capes and so forth, for ladies out of their own skin.”
“Wanted, a herder for 500 sheep that can speak Spanish fluently.”
“For Sale—House in good neighborhood, by an invalid lady three stories high and heated with furnace.”
A contemporary contains the startling news that “A carload of brick came in for a walk through the park.”
An error for which nervousness may have been responsible was that made by the boy who was told to take the Bishop’s shaving water to him one morning and cautioned to answer the Bishop’s inquiry “Who’s there?” by saying, “The boy, my Lord.” Whether from nervousness or not, the boy managed to transpose the words of this sentence with ludicrous effect, and the Bishop was surprised and perhaps alarmed to hear in response to his inquiry the answer, “The Lord, my boy.”
Tailor—“Do you want padded shoulders, my little man?”
Willie—“Naw; pad de pants! Dat’s where I need it most.”
Dr. Tupper does not hesitate to take examples from his own profession, as witness his curious story of the young clergyman who, after preaching a funeral sermon, wished to invite the mourners to view the remains, but became confused and exclaimed:
“We will now pass around the bier.”
“Wossatchoogot?”
“Afnoonnoos. Lassdition.”
“Enthinkinnut?”
“Naw. Nothninnut ’cept lasspeechrosefelt’s. Lottarot.”
“Donsayso? Wosswetherpredickshun?”
“Sesrain. Donbleevetho. Funthingthiswethernevkintellwossgunnado.”
“Thasright!”
President Eliot of Harvard recently visited a hotel in New York, and when he left the dining-room the colored man in charge of the hats picked up his tile without hesitation and handed it to him.
“How did you know that was my hat when you have a hundred there?” asked Mr. Eliot.
“I didn’t know it, sah,” said the negro.
“Didn’t know it was mine? Then why did you give it to me?”
“Because you gave it to me, sah.”
“How small have you felt?” she asked anxiously.
“Well,” he replied, “I have felt as small as a man in the presence of the head plumber.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“I have felt as small as the Prohibition nominee for Vice-President.”
She shook her head.
“Or as a man when his wife catches him in a lie.”
“That isn’t anything.”
“I have felt as small as the man who made a righteous complaint to the president of a trolley line.”
She shook her head again sadly.
“That isn’t anything to the way I feel,” she said. “You know I have never been to Europe, and I’ve been talking with a girl who has just returned.”
In one of the Atlanta Sunday-schools recently the lesson for the day had to do with Mammon and the corrupting influences of great riches.
Toward the close of the exercises the superintendent called upon the infant class to repeat the Golden Text, which had special reference to man’s inability to serve his Creator and the money-god at one and the same time. The class failed to respond as it should, when the superintendent, noticing his own young hopeful in the ranks, who had that very morning been drilled thoroughly on the text, called on him. The response was immediate, though a slight departure from the original, for in a voice that was distinctly heard in all parts of the room there came the following modification:
“Ye can not serve God and mama!”
“Any complaints, corporal?” said the colonel, making one morning a personal inspection.
“Yes, sir. Taste that, sir,” said the corporal promptly.
The colonel put the liquid to his lips. “Why,” he said, “that’s the best soup I ever tasted!”
“Yes, sir,” said the corporal, “and the cook wants to call it coffee.”
Reporter—“To what do you attribute your great age?”
Oldest Inhabitant—“I hain’t sure yet, sir. There be several o’ them patent-medicine companies as is bargainin’ with me.”
Mr. Choate, ex-Ambassador of the United States at London, tells of the address made by an Irish officer to his men who had just returned from a fruitless expedition.
Rising to his feet with the utmost solemnity and seriousness, the officer said:
“My men, I am fully aware of the fact that many of you brave fellows are disappointed because in this campaign you were afforded little opportunity to fight; but, my brave boys, reflect upon this: that had there been any fighting, there would have been many absent faces here to-day!”
“Young man (23) with five years’ experience in leading publishers, desires to better his position.”
But what better position could there be than that of leading our publishers?
From Children’s Chat, by “Grandma” in the “Times” of Natal:
“I want you, my dears, to write me a short snake story, something that really happened to some one you know; and if you can tell me of a child being really bitten I shall be glad to hear about it.”
Truly it is said that a child’s best friend is his grandma.
Wandering over Salisbury Plain on Whit Monday, a correspondent came across a large stone inscribed: “Turn me over.” After much difficulty he succeeded in turning it over, and found on the underside of the stone the words: “Now turn me back again, so that I can catch some other idiot.”
He—“Dearest, if I had known this tunnel was so long, I’d have given you a jolly hug.”
She—“Didn’t you? Why—why—”
Timid Lady (going up the Washington Monument elevator).—“Conductor, what if the rope breaks that holds us?”
Conductor—“Oh, there are a number more attached as safety ropes.”
Timid Lady—“But if they all break, where shall we go?”
Conductor—“Oh, well, m’m, that all depends upon what kind of a life you have been living before.”
Elmer, though only a little boy, was the oldest child of an already numerous family. He was invited to go in and see a little baby sister. Asked by his mother what he thought of the baby, he said, “W’y, mama, it’s real nice. But do you think we needed it?”
Time: 2a.m.
“Ma, I want a drink!”
“Hush, darling; turn over and go to sleep.”
“I want a drink!”
“No, you are restless. Turn over, dear, and go to sleep.”
(After five minutes.) “Ma, I want a drink.”
“Lie still, Ethel, and go to sleep.”
“But I want a drink!”
“No, you don’t want a drink; you had a drink just before you went to bed. Now be still and go right to sleep.”
(After five minutes.) “Ma, won’t you please give me a drink?”
“If you say another word I’ll get up and spank you. Now go to sleep. You are a naughty girl.”
(After two minutes.) “Ma, when you get up to spank me will you give me a drink?”
Once upon a time there was a young married man who had some slight bickerings with the woman of his choice. These having occurred with great frequency, he went to his father, who was older and much more married.
“Father,” he said, “is it not meet that I should be the ringmaster in my own wickiup? Or must I kowtow to the old lady?”
Whereat the old man smiled wisely and said:
“My son, yonder are a hundred chickens and here a fine team of horses. Do you place the feathered tribe on this wagon, hitch up the team, and start out. Wherever you find a man and his wife living together, make diligent investigation to find out who the commanding officer is, and where it is the woman give her a chicken. If you find a man running a house give him one of the horses.”
So the young man loaded up the fowls and started out upon his pilgrimage of self-education. And whenhe had but seven chickens left, he approached a habitation with his forlorn inquiry, to which the man replied:
“I’m the ace-high cockalorum of this outfit.”
And the wife, without fear or favor, corroborated the statement. Then the young man said:
“Take your choice of the horses. Either one you fancy is yours.” And after the man had walked around the team several times and looked in their mouths, he said, “Well, I’ll take the bay.”
Now, the wife didn’t like bay horses, and she called John aside, and after whispering in his ear she allowed him to return.
“I guess I’ll take the black horse,” he said.
“Not a bit of it,” said the pilgrim. “You’ll take a chicken.”
They were talking over the engagement of one of the daughters of the family when the negro servant came in. One of the girls asked: “Cindy, have you seen Edith’s fiancé?” “No’m, honey, hit ain’t been in de wash yit.”
In the late financial stringency a clerk in one of the New York banks was trying to explain to a stolid old Dutchman why the bank could not pay cash to depositors as formerly, and was insisting that he be satisfied with Clearing House checks. But the old man could not grasp the situation, and finally the president of the bank was called upon to enlighten the dissatisfied customer. After a detailed explanation of thefinancial situation the president concluded, “Now, my good man, you understand, don’t you?”
“Yes,” dubiously replied the Dutchman, “I tinks I understand. It’s just like this; ven my baby vakes up in der night und cries for milk, I give her a milk ticket.”
Levinsky, despairing of his life, made an appointment with a famous specialist. He was surprised to find fifteen or twenty people in the waiting-room.
After a few minutes he leaned over to a gentleman near him and whispered, “Say, mine frient, this must be a pretty goot doctor, ain’t he?”
“One of the best,” the gentleman told him.
Levinsky seemed to be worrying over something.
“Vell, say,” he whispered again, “he must be pretty exbensive, then, ain’t he? Vat does he charge?”
The stranger was annoyed by Levinsky’s questions and answered rather shortly: “Fifty dollars for the first consultation and twenty-five dollars for each visit thereafter.”
“Mine Gott!” gasped Levinsky. “Fifty tollars the first time und twenty-five tollars each time afterwards!”
For several minutes he seemed undecided whether to go or to wait. “Und twenty-five tollars each time afterward,” he kept muttering. Finally, just as he was called into the office, he was seized with a brilliant inspiration. He rushed toward the doctor with outstretched hands.
“Hello, doctor,” he said effusively. “Vell, here I am again.”
A clergyman who was holding a children’s service at a Continental winter resort had occasion to catechize his hearers on the parable of the unjust steward. “What is a steward?” he asked. A little boy who had arrived from England a few days before held up his hand. “He is a man, sir,” he replied, “who brings you a basin.”
A teacher giving a lecture on the rhinoceros found his class was not giving him all the attention it should. “Now, gentlemen,” he said, “if you want to realize the true hideous nature of this animal you must keep your eyes fixed on me.”
A negro had made several ineffectual efforts to propose to the object of his affections, but on each occasion his courage failed him at the last moment. After thinking the matter over he finally decided to telephone, which he did. “Is that you, Samantha?” he inquired upon being given the proper number. “Yes, it’s me,” returned the lady. “Will you marry me, Samantha, and marry me quick?” “Yes, I will,” was the reply; “who’s speaking?”
He was a big, black, good-hearted, old negro, stranded near Boston, and he had decided, after considerable “cogitation,” to work his way back to, the South, where he would feel more at home. In Boston, in Springfield, in Hartford, in New Haven, it was always the same. When he rang a bell and asked forwork and a bite to eat the answer usually was, “I’m very sorry, but there’s not a thing to be done here to-day.” There were occasional exceptions, of course, or uncle could never have got on, but the thing most to be counted upon was pleasing politeness coupled with nothing else.
At last the old man left New York and then Philadelphia behind, and one day found himself in Baltimore. His knowledge of geography wasnil, but he thought he ought soon to be getting into “de Souf,” and with that hope at heart rang the bell of a fine house on Charles Street. The door was opened by the host himself, who, after an instant’s survey of the figure before him, blurted out:
“Why, yo’ —— black rascal! How dare yo’ ring this bell? Get off mah steps this secon’, befo’ I brek yo’ haid!”
“’Deed I will, boss; ’deed I will,” came the hurried answer. “I wuz on’y lookin’ fer a bite to eat, boss.”
“A bite to eat!” repeated the other. “An’ don’t yo’ know whar to go for all yo’ want? Get yo’self round back, an’ they’ll feed yo’ full—but cyart yo’ good-for-nuthin’ black carcass off these steps, I say.”
And as uncle went around to the side door he raised his hands to heaven, and with tears of rejoicing running down his furrowed cheeks, said:
“Bress de Lord! I’s back agin among mah own folks!”
A little boy who had just joined Sunday-school was asked by his mother how he liked it.
“Why!” exclaimed Charlie disgustedly, “they don’tknow much. The teacher asked what was the collec’, and I was the only one who knew.”
“And what did you say, dear?”
“Why, I told them pretty quick that it was a pain in the stomach.”
Travelers’ tales which often add charm to the conversation of an agreeable person frequently render a bore more tiresome than ever, a fact that was amusingly illustrated by an occurrence in a Baltimore clubhouse not long ago.
“There I stood, gentlemen,” the long-winded narrator was saying, after droning on for an hour with reference to his trip to Switzerland—“there I stood, with the abyss yawning in front of me.”
“Pardon me,” hastily interjected one of the unfortunate men who had been obliged to listen to the story, “but was that abyss yawning before you got there?”
After a lesson on digestion the teacher, anxious to know how much her instruction had been understood, questioned the class. The first answer was rather discouraging, as the girl called upon made this startling statement:
“Digestion begins in the mouth and ends in the big and little testament.”
It was the same teacher who received the following note:
“Pleas teacher do not tel Mary any more about her incides it makes her so proud.”
When Sam Jones was holding his meetings in Dallas, on one occasion he said: “There’s no such thing as a perfect man. Anybody present who has ever known a perfect man stand up.”
Nobody stood up.
“Those who have ever known a perfect woman, stand up.”
One demure little woman stood up.
“Did you ever know an absolutely perfect woman?” asked Sam, somewhat amazed.
“I didn’t know her personally,” replied the little old woman, “but I have heard a great deal about her. She was my husband’s first wife.”
Former President Scott, of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, was greatly annoyed, when he first took hold of the road, by the claims for horses and cattle killed by trains on their way through Kentucky. It seemed as though it were not possible for a train to run north or south through Kentucky without killing either a horse or a cow. And every animal killed, however scrawny, scrubby, or miserable it may have been before the accident, always figured in the claims subsequently presented as of the best blood in Kentucky. “Well,” said Scott one day, after examining a claim, “I don’t know anything that improves stock in Kentucky like crossing it with a locomotive.”
One of a loving couple (watching a pile-driver at work)—“Dear, I feel so sorry for those poor men. They have been trying for the last half hour to liftthat thing out, and every time they get it almost to the top, it falls back again.”
Sentinel (on guard)—“Halt! Who comes there?”
The Colonel—“Fool!”
Sentinel—“Advance, fool, and give the countersign.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry I could not come to your ‘At Home’ yesterday.”
“Dear me, weren’t you there?”
“Why of course I was—how very silly of me—I quite forgot.”
A theological student was sent one Sunday to supply a vacant pulpit in a Connecticut valley town. A few days after he received a copy of the weekly paper of that place with the following item marked:
“Rev. —— of the senior class at Yale Seminary supplied the pulpit at the Congregational Church last Sunday, and the church will now be closed three weeks for repairs.”
A Certain Ohio lady with a large sense of religious duty was recently importuned by a tramp. The good religionist, after considerable hesitation, produced a piece of dry bread which she delivered with the following formula, evidently prepared for such occasion:
“Now, sir, not for your sake, nor for my sake, but for God’s sake, I give you this bread.”
The tramp accepted the offering and had got as far as the gate when he suddenly turned and came back where his benefactress was waiting to see him safely out.
“Say, miss,” he drawled, “not for your sake, nor for my sake, but for God’s sake put some butter on it.”