“Worse on Friday,Died on Saturday,Buried on Sunday,And that was the endOf Solomon Grundy.”
“Worse on Friday,Died on Saturday,Buried on Sunday,And that was the endOf Solomon Grundy.”
“Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday,
And that was the end
Of Solomon Grundy.”
Jack took his thumb out of his mouth, looked reprovingly at his mother and said:
“Don’t laugh, mama: that’sawful.”
“I’m a terror, I be,” announced the new arrival in Frozen Dog to one of the men behind the bar.
“Be ye?”
“Take three men to handle me, once I get started,” he went on.
“Oh, well,” he remarked, as he arose painfully and dusted off his clothes, “of course, if ye’re short-handed, I suppose two kin do it on a pinch.”
David B. Hill, former Governor of and Senator from New York, has a secluded hatter somewhere in the State who makes his high hats after elaborate plans drawn by Mr. Hill many years ago, and not changed since.
One night Governor Odell, of New York, was giving a reception in Albany, and President Roosevelt, then elected Vice-President, met Mr. Hill on the steps of the New York Executive mansion.
Roosevelt wore a black rough-rider hat and Hill had one of his peculiar sky-pieces.
“Senator,” said Roosevelt, “you should wear a hat like this one that I have on. They are much easier on the head, preserve the hair and are altogether better than silk ones.”
Mr. Hill looked at the coming Vice-President. “My dear sir,” he said, “I haven’t worn a hat like that since I went out of the show business.”
A negress was brought before a magistrate charged with cruelly treating her child. Evidence was clear that she had severely beaten the youngster, who was in court to exhibit his marks and bruises. Before imposing sentence the magistrate asked the woman if she had anything to say. “Kin Ah ask yo’ honah a question?” His honor nodded. “Well, yo’ honah, I’d like to ask yo’ whether yo’ was ever the father of a puffectly wuthless culled chile?”
A member of an eminent St. Louis law firm went to Chicago to consult a client. When he arrived hefound that he had unaccountably forgotten the client’s name. He telegraphed his partner, “What is our client’s name?” The answer read, “Brown, Walter E. Yours is Allen, William B.”
A traveling man stopped at an Indiana hotel. The proprietor told him he had not a room in the house. The man said he must have a room. Finally the proprietor told him there was a room, a little room separated by a thin partition from a nervous man who had lived in the house for ten years.
“He is so nervous,” said the landlord, “I don’t dare put any one in that room. The least noise might give him a nervous spell that would endanger his life.”
“Oh, give me a room,” said the traveler. “I’ll be so quiet he’ll not know I’m there.”
The room was given the traveler. He slipped in noiselessly and began to disrobe. He took off one article of clothing after another as quietly as a burglar. At last he came to his shoes. He unlaced a shoe and dropped it.
The shoe fell to the floor with a great noise. The offending traveler, horrified at what he had done, waited to hear from the nervous man. Not a sound. He took off the second shoe and placed it noiselessly upon the floor; then in absolute silence finished undressing and crawled between the sheets.
Half an hour went by. He had dropped into a doze when there came a tremendous knocking on the partition.
The traveler sat up in bed trembling and dismayed. “Wh-wha-what’s the matter?” he asked.
Then came the voice of the nervous man:
“Hang you! Drop that other shoe, will you?”
There was once an Irishman, who sought employment as a diver, bringing with him his native enthusiasm and a certain amount of experience. Although he had never been beneath the water, he had crossed an ocean of one variety and swallowed nearly an ocean of another. But he had the Hibernian smile, which is convincing, and the firm chanced to need a new man. And so on the following Monday morning Pat hid his smile for the first time in a diving helmet.
Now, the job upon which the crew to which Pat had attached himself was working in comparatively shallow water, and Pat was provided with a pick and told to use it on a ledge below in a manner with which he was already familiar.
Down he went with his pick, and for about fifteen minutes nothing was heard from him. Then came a strong, determined, deliberate pull on the signal rope, indicating that Pat had a very decided wish to come to the top. The assistants pulled him hastily to the raft and removed his helmet.
“Take off the rest of it,” said Pat.
“Take off the rest of it?”
“Yis,” said Pat, “Oi’ll worruk no longer in a dark place where Oi can’t spit on me hands.”
On the first day that a young man began his duties as reporter on a popular paper a report came from a near-by town that there was a terrible fire raging. Theeditor of the paper immediately sent the new reporter to the place, and, upon arriving there, he found that the firemen were unable to get control of the fire, so he sent this telegram to the editor: “Fire still raging. What shall I do?” The editor was so mad that he wired back at once: “Find out where the fire is the hottest and jump in.”
“One day,” related Denny to his friend Jerry, “when Oi had wandered too far inland on me shore leave Oi suddenly found thot there was a great big haythen, tin feet tall, chasin’ me wid a knife as long as yer ar-rm. Oi took to me heels an’ for fifty miles along the road we had it nip an’ tuck. Thin Oi turned into the woods an’ we run for one hundhred an’ twinty miles more, wid him gainin’ on me steadily, owin’ to his knowledge of the counthry. Finally, just as Oi could feel his hot breath burnin’ on the back of me neck, we came to a big lake. Wid one great leap Oi landed safe on the opposite shore, leavin’ me pursuer confounded and impotent wid rage.”
“Faith an’ thot was no great jump,” commented Jerry, “considerin’ the runnin’ sthart ye had.”
Quite recently an old friend of the Browns went to see them at their new country home. As he approached the house a large dog ran out to the gate and began barking at him through the fence.
As he hesitated about opening the gate, Brown’s wife came to the door and exclaimed: “How do you do! Come right in. Don’t mind the dog.”
“But won’t he bite?” exclaimed the friend, not anxious to meet the canine without some assurance of his personal safety.
“That’s just what I want to find out,” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. “I just bought him this morning.”
The late Julian Ralph, one of the most gifted newspaper men of his generation, while being shaved one day, was forced to listen to many of the barber’s anecdotes.
Stopping to strop his razor, and prepared, with brush in hand to recommence, he said, “Shall I go over it again?”
“No, thanks,” drawled Ralph, “It’s hardly necessary. I think I can remember every word.”
The following is a typical Ian Maclaren story:
“Who had this place last year?” asked a Southern shooting tenant of his keeper.
“Well,” said Donald, “I’m not denyin’ that he wass an Englishman, but he wass a good man whatever. Oh, yess, he went to kirk and he shot very well, but he wass narrow, very narrow.”
“Narrow,” said the other in amazement, for he supposed he meant bigoted, and the charge was generally the other way about. “What was he narrow in?”
“Well,” said Donald, “I will be tellin’ you, and it wass this way. The twelfth [the beginning of the grouse shooting] wass a very good day, and we had fifty-two brace. But it wass warm, oh! yess, very warm, and when we came back to the Lodge, the gentlemanwill say to me, ‘It is warm.’ and I will not be contradicting him. Then he will be saying, ‘Maybe you are thirsty,’ and I will not be contradicting him. Afterwards he will take out his flask and be speaking about a dram. I will not be contradicting him, but will just say, ‘Toots, toots.’ Then he will be pouring it out, and when the glass wass maybe half-full I will say, just for politeness, ‘Stop.’ And he stopped. Oh! yess, a very narrow man.”
Mark Twain as a humorist is no respecter of persons, and a story is told of him and Bishop Doane which is worth repeating. It occurred when Mark Twain was living in Hartford, where Mr. Doane was then rector of an Episcopal church. Twain had listened to one of the doctor’s best sermons, on Sunday morning, when he approached him and said politely: “I have enjoyed your sermon this morning. I welcomed it as I would an old friend. I have a book in my library that contains every word of it.” “Impossible, sir,” replied the rector, indignantly. “Not at all. I assure you it is true,” said Twain. “Then I shall trouble you to send me that book,” rejoined the rector with dignity. The next morning Dr. Doane received, with Mark Twain’s compliments, a dictionary.
A friend of Mark Twain’s tells of an amusing incident in connection with the first meeting between the humorist and the late James McNeil Whistler, the artist.
The friend having facetiously warned Clemens thatthe painter was a confirmed joker, Mark solemnly averred that he would get the better of Whistler should the latter attempt “any funny business.” Furthermore, Twain determined to anticipate Whistler, if possible.
So, when the two had been introduced, which event took place in Whistler’s studio, Clemens, assuming an air of hopeless stupidity, approached a just-completed painting, and said:
“Not at all bad, Mr. Whistler, not at all bad. Only,” he added, reflectively, with a motion as if to rub out a cloud effect, “if I were you I’d do away with that cloud.”
“Great Heavens, sir!” exclaimed Whistler, almost beside himself. “Do be careful not to touch that; the paint is not yet dry!”
“Oh, I don’t mind that,” responded Twain, with an air of perfect nonchalance; “I am wearing gloves.”
This is a story of Italian revenge. A vender of plaster statuettes saw a chance for a sale in a well-dressed, bibulous man who was tacking down the street.
“You buy-a de statuette?” he asked, alluringly holding out his choicest offering. “Gar-r-ribaldi—I sell-a him verra cheep. De gr-reat-a Gar-r-ribaldi—only thirta cents!”
“Oh, t’ell with Garibaldi,” said the bibulous one, making a swipe with his arm that sent Garibaldi crashing to the sidewalk.
For a moment the Italian regarded the fragments. Then, his eyes flashing fire, he seized from his stocka statuette of George Washington. “You t’ell-a with my Gar-r-ribaldi?” he hissed between his teeth. “So.” He raised the immortal George high above his head and—crash! it flew into fragments alongside of the ill-fated Garibaldi. “Ha! I to hell-a wid your George-a Wash! Ha, ha!”
Patrick arrived home much the worse for wear. One eye was closed, his nose was broken, and his face looked as though it had been stung by bees.
“Glory be!” exclaimed his wife.
“Thot Dutchman Schwartzheimer—’twas him,” explained Patrick.
“Shame on ye!” exploded his wife without sympathy. “A big shpalpeen the loikes of you to get bate up by a little omadhoun of a Dootchman the size of him! Why—”
“Whist, Nora,” said Patrick, “don’t spake disrespectfully of the dead!”
One day a teacher in a kindergarten school in New York, preparatory to giving out an exercise said, “Now children I want you all to be very quiet, so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.” Everything had quieted down nicely and the teacher was about to speak when a little voice in the rear of the room said, “Go ahead, teacher, and let her drop.”
It appears that the late Senator John T. Morgan, who was quite near-sighted, while at dessert one eveningin a hotel at Hot Springs, Virginia, experienced considerable difficulty in separating from the plate passed him by the colored waiter what he thought was a chocolate eclair. It stuck fast, so Senator Morgan pushed his fork quite under it, and tried again and again to pry it up.
Suddenly he became aware that his friends at the table were convulsed with laughter, which much mystified him. But his surprise was even greater when the waiter quietly remarked:
“Pardon me, Senator, but that’s my thumb!”
A doctor named Brown had been the adorer for many years of a Miss White. Unluckily his ardent love was not reciprocated. He had a reputation for ready wit and did not allow even his unfortunate love affair to stand in the way of his exercising it. One night over a glass of wine in the club the good doctor frequented a wag remarked, “What do you say, doctor, to my giving the toast of Miss White, your old flame?” “You may, and you’ll not do any harm either to her or to me by toasting her as often as you please, for I’ve toasted her all these years and there are still no symptoms of her turning Brown.”
Minister (who struggles to exist on $600 a year with wife and six children)—“We are giving up meat as a little experiment, Mrs. Dasher.”
Wealthy parishioner—“Oh, yes! One can live so well on fish, poultry, game, and plenty of nourishing wines.”
A woman who traveled a great deal in the West was known as the most inveterate “kicker” a certain hotel had ever known.
One evening after she had been served with dessert this lady, who was always complaining, asked the waiter why the dish served her was called “ice-cream pudding.”
“If you don’t like it, ma’am, I’ll bring you something else,” suggested the polite negro.
“Oh, it’s very nice,” responded the lady. “What I object to is that it should be called ice-cream pudding. It’s wrongly named. There should be ice cream served with it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the waiter, “but that’s jest our name for it. Lots o’ dishes that way. Dey don’t bring you a cottage with cottage pudding, you know.”
During a certain cruise the first mate of a ship got to drinking to excess and was intoxicated for several days. One day, after having come out of this state, he examined the log book to see what had passed during his period of semi-forgetfulness. He was horrified to find entered in the book for the three days consecutively, “The first mate is drunk to-day.” He did not want this to stand as it would hardly be a good recommendation for him to the ship owners and asked the captain to remove the entries.
The captain replied, “It is the truth, is it not?” “Yes, but—” replied the mate. The captain interrupted him, “If it is the truth, the truth must stand. It is written in ink and can not be removed without injuring the book.”
A short time afterward the captain was taken ill and remained so for a week, and it devolved upon the mate to keep the log book. The captain on recovering from his illness got the book to examine it to see how the mate had done his duty. Imagine his consternation when he read in each of the seven days’ entries, “The captain is sober to-day.”
The captain immediately called the mate and indignantly questioned him in regard to these entries. The mate replied, “It is the truth, is it not?” “Yes, but—” replied the captain. The mate interrupted him, “If it is the truth, the truth must stand, must it not? I have your word that the writing in ink can not be erased.”
“It was the first week of his honeymoon,” said the hotel barber, “and he came in and sat down near the door to wait his turn. I yelled ‘Next’ at him two or three times when my chair was vacant, but he was dreaming and didn’t hear me. Finally I touched him on the shoulder and told him I was ready for him.
“‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.
“‘Why, get in the chair if you want anything,’ I replied. ‘This is a barber shop.’
“‘Oh, yes,’ he said, and then he got into the chair. He leaned back, so I let the chair down and shaved him. He didn’t have a word to say. When I finished him up he got out of the chair and took the check over to the cashier. He paid and started out. When halfway through the door he stopped.
“‘Say,’ he said to me, ‘what did you do to me?’
“‘I shaved you,’ I said.
“‘Darn the luck,’ he replied, ‘I wanted a haircut.’”
The little daughter of a homeopathic physician received a ring with a pearl in it on the Christmas tree. Two days later she poked her head tearfully in at the door of her father’s office.
“Papa,” she sobbed, “Papa, I’ve lost the little pill out of my ring.”
He was from Pittsburg, Pa., and was stopping at the Manhattan Hotel. He wanted to telephone to a town about thirty miles away. He asked the girl on the switchboard to get him long-distance, and followed it up with asking the price.
“It will cost you 50 cents for three minutes,” she said sweetly.
“Fifty cents! Ye gods!” cried the man. “I don’t want to buy stock in the telephone company. I only want to talk a minute or so. Why—why—out in Pittsburg we can call up all Hades for 50 cents!”
“Yes, I know, sir,” replied the girl, “but isn’t that within your city limits?”
General St. Clair Mulholland, veteran and historian of the civil war, tells an incident showing the utter worthlessness of Confederate paper money at the close of the war. “Shortly after Lee’s surrender,” says the General, “I was a short distance from Richmond. The Confederate soldiers were going home to become men of peace again and were thinking about their farms. One had a lame, broken-down horse which he viewed with pride. ‘Wish I had him, Jim,’ said the other. ‘What’ll you take for him? I’ll giveyou $20,000 for him.’ ‘No,’ said Jim. ‘Give you $50,000.’ ‘No,’ said Jim. ‘Give you $100,000,’ his friend said. ‘Not much,’ replied Jim, ‘I just gave $120,000 to have him shod.’”
The Magistrate—“You seem to have committed a very grave assault on the defendant just because he differed from you in an argument.”
The Defendant—“There was no help for it, your worship. The man is a perfect idiot.”
The Magistrate—“Well, you must pay a fine of 50 francs and costs, and in future you should try and understand that idiots are human beings, the same as you and I.”
Sentimental Young Lady—“Ah Professor! what would this old oak say if it could talk?”
Professor—“It would say, ‘I am an elm.’”
“You needn’t begin jollying me,” said the gruff man to the man who had land to sell. “I’m not a man that can be affected by flattery. When I—”
“That’s just what I said to my boss,” interrupted the agent. “I told him, when he suggested your name to me, that it was a relief to call on a man who did not expect to be praised and flattered to his face all the time. I tell you, Mr. Grump, this city has mighty few men such as you. Nine men out of ten are simply dying to have some one tell them how great they are, but you are above such weakness. Any one can see that at a glance. I’m glad of it. It’s helpful to me tomeet a man who rises superior to the petty tactics of the average solicitor. It’s a real and lasting benefit, and an instructive experience.”
Ten minutes later, after a few more such comments on the part of the agent, the man who could not be flattered into signing the contract was asking which line his name should be written upon.
Billy Martin, aged four, came to his mother and in great ecstasy exclaimed, “Oh, mother! Louise and Carberry found such a nice dead cat, and they are going to have a funeral, and can I go?” Permission was given, and when Billy returned he was questioned as to the outcome of the funeral.
“They did not have it at all.”
“And why not?”
“Mother,” was the answer, “the cat was too dead.”
The late H. C. Bunner when editor of “Puck,” once received a letter accompanying a number of would-be jokes in which the writer asked: “What will you give me for these?” “Ten yards start,” was Bunner’s generous offer, written beneath the query.
One day Riley was riding on top of a ’bus in London with his friend Casey. He was nearly worn out with several hours’ sight-seeing and the bustle and excitement of the London street, the hoi polloi, the Billingsgate and the din and rattle were becoming almost unbearable when they came in sight of WestminsterAbbey. Just as they did so, the chimes burst forth in joyous melody, and he said to Casey, “Isn’t it sublime? Isn’t it glorious to hear those chimes pealing and doesn’t it inspire one with renewed vigor?” Casey leaned over, with hand to his ear, and said, “You’ll have to speak a little louder, Riley; I can’t hear you.” Riley continued, “Those magnificent chimes. Do you not hear them pealing? Do they not imbue you with a feeling of almost reverence? Do they not awaken tender memories of the past?” Casey again leaned forward and said, “I can’t hear you. You’ll have to speak louder.” Riley got as close to him as possible and said, “Do you not hear the melodious pealing of the chimes? Do they not recall the salutation of old Trinity on a Sabbath morning? Do they not take you back into the dim vistas of the past when the world was young, and touch your heart with a feeling of pathos?” Casey put his mouth close to Riley’s ear and said, “Those d— bells are making such a racket, Riley, that I can’t hear you.”
Four grinning urchins sat on the street curb eulogizing ex-President Roosevelt.
“Say, dat guy Roosevelt ’ll fight at de drop of de hat!” declared one youngster. “I read dat durin’ a talk at de White House one of de party said somethin’ the President wouldn’ stan’ for an’ he leans over an gets de guy’s ear!”
“Have you ever had any experience in canvassing for subscription books?” asked the man at the desk.
“No, sir,” said the applicant for a job, “but I can put up a good talk.”
“Well, take a copy of this work and go and see if you can get an order. I’ll give you half a day to make the trial.”
The applicant went away.
In an hour or two he returned.
“What luck?” inquired the man at the desk.
“I’ve got an order for this book in full morocco from your wife, sir.”
“You’ll do, young man.”
In Alabama they tell this story to illustrate Senator Morgan’s ability as an advocate. A negro of well-known thieving proclivities was on trial for stealing a mule. Morgan defended and cleared him. As lawyer and client were walking out of the courtroom Mr. Morgan said: “Rastus, did you steal the mule?” “Well, Marse Morgan, it was jes like dis: I really thought I did steal dat mule, but after what you said to the jury I was convince’ I didn’t.”
Uncle Walter, with his little niece Ruth in his lap, was about to telephone a message to a distant city. While waiting for the connection to be made little Ruth asked if she might talk over the open wire. The young lady operator heard the question and said, “Yes, please let her.”
Ruth, taking the receiver, first told her name. Then the operator asked her where she was, and to this Ruth replied:
“I am in Uncle Walter’s lap—don’t you wish you were?”
Apropos of vanity, Senator Root told at Yale about a politician who, the day before he was to make a certain speech, sent a forty-one-page report of it to all the papers. On page 20 appeared this paragraph: “But the hour grows late, and I must close. (No, no! Go on! Go on!)”
Two women from the country were at the circus for the first time. They were greatly taken with the menagerie. At last they came to the hippopotamus, and stood for several minutes in silent wonder, then one turned to the other and said, “My, Mandy, ain’t—he—plain?”
Senator Ingalls was always quick at retort, although he was himself a subject of some sharp shafts. Once he was attacked by Senator Eli Saulsbury, of Delaware, the second smallest State in the Union. He disposed of the whole matter by saying, “I thank the gentleman from that great State, which has three counties at low tide and two counties at high tide, for his advice.”
A young and bashful professor was frequently embarrassed by jokes his girl pupils would play on him. These jokes were so frequent that he decided to punish the next perpetrators, and the result of thisdecision was that two girls were detained an hour after school, and made to work some difficult problems, as punishment.
It was the custom to answer the roll-call with quotations, so the following morning, when Miss A’s name was called, she rose, and, looking straight in the professor’s eye, repeated: “With all thy faults I love thee still,” while Miss B’s quotation was: “The hours I spend with thee, dear heart, are as a string of pearls to me.”
Archbishop Patrick J. Ryan, of Philadelphia, once received a call from Wayne McVeagh, in company with Mr. Roberts, president of the Pennsylvania system at the time that McVeagh was counsel for that railroad. “Your Grace,” said Mr. McVeagh, “Mr. Roberts, who always travels with his counsel, will, undoubtedly, get you passes over all the railroads in the United States, if in return you will get him a pass to Paradise.” “I would do so gladly,” flashed the archbishop, “if it were not for separating him from his counsel.”
On one of his collecting trips through Scotland the eminent English geologist, Hugh Miller, at the end of the day gave to a servant his bag of specimen stones which he had labored all day to collect, to be carried some miles to his home. Later, while sitting unobserved in a corner of the village inn, he heard the man communicating to a friend in Gaelic his experience with the “mad Englishman,” as he called him, in the following manner:
“He gave me his bag to carry home by a short-cut across the hills while he walked by another road. I was wondering why it was so fearfully heavy, and when I got out of his sight I made up my mind to see what was in it. I opened it, and what do you think it was? Stones!”
“Stones!” exclaimed his companion, opening his eyes. “Stones! Well, that beats all I ever heard or knew of one of them. And did you carry it?”
“Carry it! Do you think I was as mad as himself? No, no. I emptied them all out of the bag, but I filled it again from the stone-heap near the house, and gave him good measure for his money.”
Former Representative Gibson, of Tennessee, had a voice that would play tricks with him. It would work all right for a few minutes, and then it would stop entirely, and Gibson would be left gasping for a moment or two, high and dry in the middle of his argument, until his voice came back again. He was making a tariff speech one day, sailing along in fine shape. “Why, Mr. Speaker,” he shouted, “the tariff is like a pair of suspenders. Uncle Sam needs it to keep up his—”
Right there his voice broke. Gibson couldn’t say a word.
“Trousers!” yelled one member.
“Pants!”
“Breeches!”
By that time the voice came back—“to keep up his revenues,” said Gibson, glaring around at his tormentors.
Senator Tillman not long ago piloted a plain farmer-constituent around the Capitol for a while, and then, having some work to do on the floor, conducted him to the Senate gallery.
After an hour or so the visitor approached a gallery doorkeeper and said: “My name is Swate. I am a friend of Senator Tillman. He brought me here and I want to go out and look around a bit. I thought I would tell you so I can get back in.”
“That’s all right,” said the doorkeeper, “but I may not be here when you return. In order to prevent any mistake I will give you the password so you can get your seat again.”
Swate’s eyes rather popped out at this. “What’s the word?” he asked.
“Idiosyncrasy.”
“What?”
“Idiosyncrasy.”
“I guess I’ll stay in,” said Swate.
The Willoughbys had said good-by to Mrs. Kent. Then Mr. Willoughby spoke thoughtfully:
“It was pleasant of her to say that about wishing she could see more of people like us, who are interested in real things, instead of the foolish round of gaiety that takes up so much of her time and gives her so little satisfaction, wasn’t it?”
His wife stole a sidewise glance at his gratified face and a satirical smile crossed her own countenance.
“Very pleasant, George,” she said clearly. “But what I knew she meant, and what she knew that I knew she meant, was that my walking-skirt is an inchtoo long and my sleeves are old style, and your coat, poor dear, is beginning to look shiny in the back.”
“Why—what—how—” began Mr. Willoughby helplessly; then he shook his head and gave it up.
Mrs. Wharton, the novelist, has never described any blunder of the so-called smart set quite as pathetic as one that actually happened to herself. A young man of a particularly old family, who sat next to her at dinner, said: “I’m terribly frightened to meet you, Mrs. Wharton,” and when asked the origin of his terrors, explained: “I’ve always heard you’re such a frightful blackleg.”
Rosenthal, the pianist, speaks eight or ten languages. But his knowledge of idiomatic English has not always been sufficient to enable him to follow all the critics have said about his pyrotechnic playing. The other day, reading over the latest batch of clippings in the manager’s office, he suddenly asked: “Vat iss ‘Fourt’ of July interpretation?”
“Fourth of July?” was the reply, “Don’t you know the Fourth of July? Why, the national holiday—everything noble and patriotic—George Washington—Battle of Bunker Hill—the Declaration of Independence—” “Ah! I see,” said the pianist, “Un grand compliment!”
Representative Cushman, of Washington, once came to Speaker Cannon with a letter written by the speaker himself.
“Mr. Speaker,” he said, “I got this letter from you yesterday and I couldn’t read it. I showed it to twenty or thirty fellows in the House and, between us, we have spelled out all but the last three words.” Uncle Joe took the letter and studied it, “The last three words,” he said, “are ‘Personal and Confidential.’”
At a banquet held in a room the walls of which were adorned with many beautiful paintings, a well-known college president was called upon to respond to a toast. In the course of his remarks, wishing to pay a compliment to the ladies present, and designating the paintings with one of his characteristic gestures, he said: “What need is there of these painted beauties when we have so many with us at this table?”
The late Charles Eliot Norton was wont to deplore the modern youth’s preference of brawn to brain. He used to tell of a football game he once witnessed: “Princeton had a splendid player in Poe—you will remember little Poe?” and Professor Norton, thinking of “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee,” said to the lad at his side: “He plays well, that Poe!”
“Doesn’t he?” the youth cried. “Is he,” said Professor Norton, “any relation to the great Poe?”
“Any relation?” said the youth. “Why, he is the great Poe.”
A fire broke out one day in Francis Wilson’s dressing-room at the theater where he was playing.
He had some of his books around him, and in an agony of despair asked himself:
“Which shall I save?” He glanced at his precious Chaucer, at some Shakespearean volumes, when:
“Come, Mr. Wilson,” broke in at the door from a fireman, “you have not a moment to lose.”
“Yes, yes. Coming,” replied Wilson absently.
He was looking for a special illuminated volume very dear to him.
“Come, Wilson,” cried his manager; “come, get out!”
“All right, all right,” said Wilson, and, grabbing some clothes in one hand, he snatched with the other the nearest volume and ran to the street. There he looked at the huge volume in his arms. It was the city directory.
A city gentleman was recently invited down to the country for “a day with the birds.” His aim was not remarkable for its accuracy, to the great disgust of the man in attendance, whose tip was generally regulated by the size of the bag.
“Dear me!” at last exclaimed the sportsman, “but the birds seem exceptionally strong on the wing this year.”
“Not all of ’em, sir,” was the answer. “You’ve shot at the same bird about a dozen times. ’E’s a-follerin’ you about, sir.”
“Following me about? Nonsense! Why should a bird do that?”
“Well, sir,” came the reply. “I dunno, I’m sure, unless ’e’s ’angin’ ’round you for safety.”
A lady was calling on some friends one summer afternoon. The talk buzzed along briskly, fans waved and the daughter of the house kept twitching uncomfortably, frowning and making little smothered exclamations of annoyance. Finally, with a sigh, she rose and left the room.
“Your daughter,” said the visitor, “seems to be suffering from the heat.”
“No,” said the hostess. “She is just back home from college and she is suffering from the family grammar.”
“It ain’t everybody I’d put to sleep in this room,” said old Mrs. Jinks to the fastidious and extremely nervous young minister who was spending a night at her house.
“This here room is full of sacred associations to me,” she went on, as she bustled around opening shutters and arranging the curtains. “My first husband died in that bed with his head on these very pillers, and poor Mr. Jinks died settin’ right in that corner. Sometimes when I come into the room in the dark I think I see him settin’ there still.
“My own father died layin’ right on that lounge under the winder. Poor pa! He was a Speeritualist, and he allus said he’d appear in this room after he died, and sometimes I’m foolish enough to look for him. If you should see anything of him to-night you’d better not tell me; for it’d be a sign to me that there was something in Speeritualism, and I’d hate to think that.
“My son by my first man fell dead of heart diseaseright where you stand. He was a doctor, and there’s two skeletons in that closet that belonged to him, and half a dozen skulls in that lower drawer.
“There, I guess you’ll be comfortable.
“Well, good night, and pleasant dreams.”
A woman suffrage lecturer brought down the house with the following argument: “I have no vote, but my groom has, but I am sure if I were to go to him and say, ‘John, will you exercise the franchise?’ he would reply, ‘Please, mum, which horse be that?’”
“Maude was afraid the girls wouldn’t notice her engagement ring.” “Did they?” “Didthey? Six of them recognized it at once.”
Mr. George Broadhurst, author of the play, “The Man of the Hour,” is an Englishman, and recently made a visit to his native country. After having lived a week at one of the large hotels in London, he was surprised on the evening of his departure, although at a very late hour, to see an endless procession of waiters, maids, porters, and pages come forward with the expectant smile and empty hand. When each and all had been well bestowed, even boots and under-boots and then another boots, he dashed for the four-wheeler that was to carry him safely away.
Settling himself with a sigh of relief, he was about to be off when a page popped his head into the window and breathlessly exclaimed:
“I beg pardon, sir, but the night-lift man says he’s waiting for a message from you, sir.”
“A message from me?”
“Yes, sir; he says he cawn’t go to sleep without a message from you, sir.”
“Really, he can’t go to sleep without a message from me?”
“No, sir.”
“How touching. Then tell him, ‘Pleasant dreams.’”
Representative Tawney, of Minnesota, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, sent out some of his quota of garden seeds to his constituents not long ago. One man in Winona wrote to Tawney: “Dear Jim: I received your seeds, but I don’t care much for them. If you really want to do something for me, please send me up a suit of union underwear.”
In his younger days Thomas Bailey Aldrich was not a little of a dandy. This foible led an unusually energetic Boston bluestocking to refer to him in a caustic style on one occasion as “effeminate.”
When a friend told the poet of her remark he smiled grimly.
“So I am,” he assented, “compared with her.”
Tennyson’s customary manner toward women was one of grave and stately courtesy. One evening at Aldworth, Sir Edward Hamley, the soldier and expertwriter on the art of war, who had been visiting through the day, rose to take leave. Tennyson pressed him to stay over night, adding: “There are three ladies who wish it,” meaning Mrs. Tennyson and the two guests who were in the house.
“There are three other ladies who oppose it,” Sir Edward answered.
“Who are they?” Tennyson asked.
“The Fates,” Sir Edward replied.
“The Fates may be on one side,” Tennyson rejoined, “but the Graces are on the other.”
Douglas Jerrold’s genius for repartee is perhaps best shown in his most famous reply to Albert Smith, whom he disliked and frequently abused. Smith grew tired of being made the butt of the other’s wit, and one day plaintively remarked: “After all, Jerrold, we row in the same boat.” “Yes,” came the answer, “but not with the same skulls.”
Mr. Brown, a Kansas gentleman, is the proprietor of a boarding-house. Around his table at a recent dinner sat his wife, Mrs. Brown; the village milliner, Mrs. Andrews; Mr. Black, the baker; Mr. Jordan, a carpenter; and Mr. Hadley, a flour, feed, and lumber merchant. Mr. Brown took a ten-dollar bill out of his pocketbook and handed it to Mrs. Brown, with the remark that there was ten dollars toward the twenty he had promised her. Mrs. Brown handed the bill to Mrs. Andrews, the milliner, saying, “That pays for my new bonnet.” Mrs. Andrews, in turn,passed it on to Mr. Jordan, remarking that it would pay for the carpentry work he had done for her. Mr. Jordan handed it to Mr. Hadley, requesting his receipted bill for flour, feed, and lumber. Mr. Hadley gave the bill back to Mr. Brown, saying, “That pays ten dollars on my board.” Mr. Brown again passed it to Mrs. Brown, remarking that he had now paid her the twenty dollars he had promised her. She, in turn, paid it to Mr. Black to settle her bread and pastry account. Mr. Black handed it to Mr. Hadley, asking credit for the amount on his flour bill, Mr. Hadley again returning it to Mr. Brown, with the remark that it settled for that month’s board; whereupon Brown put it back into his pocketbook, observing that he had not supposed a greenback would go so far.
A doctor came up to a patient in an insane asylum, slapped him on the back, and said: “Well, old man, you’re all right, you can run along and write your folks that you’ll be back home in two weeks as good as new.” The patient went off gaily to write his letter. He had it finished and sealed, but when he was licking the stamp it slipped through his fingers to the floor, lighted on the back of a cockroach that was passing and stuck. The patient hadn’t seen the cockroach—what he did see was his escaped postage stamp zig-zagging aimlessly across the floor to the baseboard, wavering up over the baseboard and following a crooked track up the wall and across the ceiling. In depressed silence he tore up the letter and dropped the pieces on the floor. “Two weeks! Hell!” he said. “I won’t be out of here in three years.”
A Bostonian, arriving at the gate of Heaven, asked for admittance.
“Where are you from?” inquired the genial Saint.
“Boston.”
“Well, you can come in, but you won’t like it.”
A well-known bishop, after a long journey to conduct a service in a distant village, was asked by the spokesman of the reception committee if he would like a whisky and soda to keep out the cold. “No,” he replied, “for three reasons. First, because I am chairman of the Temperance Society; secondly, I am just going to enter a church; and—thirdly, because—I have just had one.”
A frivolous young English girl, with no love for the Stars and Stripes, once exclaimed at a celebration where the American flag was very much in evidence: “Oh, what a silly-looking thing the American flag is! It suggests nothing but checker-berry candy.”
“Yes,” replied a bystander, “the kind of candy that has made everybody sick who ever tried to lick it.”
A hungry Irishman went into a restaurant on Friday and said to the waiter:
“Have yez any whale?”
“No.”
“Have yez any shark?”
“No.”
“Have yez any swordfish?”
“No.”
“Have yez any jellyfish?”
“No.”
“All right,” said the Irishman. “Then bring me ham and eggs and a beefsteak smothered wid onions. The Lord knows I asked for fish.”
Mr. Halloran returned from a political meeting with his interest aroused. “There’s eight nations represented in this ward of ours,” he said, as he began to count them off on his fingers. “There’s Irish, Frinch, Eyetalians, Poles, Germans, Rooshians, Greeks, an’—” Mr. Halloran stopped and began again: “There’s Irish, Frinch, Eyetalians, Poles, Germans, Rooshians, Greeks, an’—I can’t seem to remember the other wan. There’s Irish, Frinch—” “Maybe ’twas Americans,” suggested Mrs. Halloran. “Sure, that’s it, I couldn’t think.”
The solemnity of the meeting was somewhat disturbed when the eloquent young theologian pictured in glowing words the selfishness of men who spend their evenings at the club, leaving their wives in loneliness at home at the holiday season. “Think, my hearers,” said he, “of a poor, neglected wife, all alone in the great, dreary house, rocking the cradle of her sleeping babe with one foot and wiping away her tears with the other!”
Two charming girls with Mr. Danvers, who was very shy, were watching the dancing waves. Conversationwas carried on with difficulty. Finally Maude ventured the remark:
“Don’t you hate the seaside, Mr. Danvers, with its glare and noise and general vulgarity?”
Mr. Danvers replied fervently with a smile and downcast eyes: “Oh, d-d-d-don’t I, that’s all!”
Then Miss Lilian followed up the subject and said: “What, hate the seaside, Mr. Danvers?—with the fresh air and blue waves, and the delightful lounge after bathing, and the lawn-tennis and the Cinderella dances! I dote on it, and I should have thought you did, too!”
Whereupon Mr. Danvers stammered still more fervently: “Oh—I-I-I should think I did!”
And the waves kept on splashing merrily.
Just before the collection was taken up one Sunday morning a negro clergyman announced that he regretted to state that a certain brother had forgotten to lock the door of his chicken-house the night before, and as a result in the morning he found that most of the fowls had disappeared. “I doan’ want to be pussonal, bredr’n,” he added, “but I hab my s’picions as to who stole dem chickens. I also hab reason fo’ b’lievin’ dat if I am right in dose s’picions dat pusson won’t put any money in de plate which will now be passed around.”
The result was a fine collection; not a single member of the congregation feigned sleep. After it was counted the old parson came forward.
“Now, bredr’n,” he said, “I doan’ want your dinners to be spoilt by wonderin’ where dat brudder liveswho doan’ lock his chickens up at night. Dat brudder doan’ exist, mah friends. He was a parable gotten up fo’ purpose of finances.”
A minister in a Western town was called upon one afternoon to perform the marriage ceremony between a negro couple—the negro preacher of the town being absent from home.
After the ceremony the groom asked the price of the service.
“Oh, well,” said the minister, “you can pay me whatever you think it is worth to you.”
The negro turned and silently looked his bride over from head to foot, then slowly rolling up the whites of his eyes, said:
“Lawd, sah, you has done ruined me for life, you has, for shuah.”
A professor of sciences, well known for his absent-mindedness, was engaged in a deep controversy one day with a fellow-student when his wife hurriedly entered the room. “Oh, my dear,” she cried, “I’ve swallowed a pin.”
The Professor smiled. “Don’t worry about it, my dear,” he said in a soothing tone. “It is of no consequence. Here”—he fumbled at his lapel—“Here is another pin.”
The late Theodore Thomas was rehearsing the Chicago Orchestra on the stage of the Auditorium Theater. He was disturbed by the whistling of Burridge,the well-known scene painter, who was at work in the loft above the stage. A few minutes later Mr. Thomas’s librarian appeared on the “bridge,” where Mr. Burridge, merrily whistling, was at work. “Mr. Thomas’s compliments,” said the librarian, “and he requests me to say that if Mr. Burridge wishes to whistle he will be glad to discontinue his rehearsal.” To which Mr. Burridge replied suavely: “Mr. Burridge’s compliments to Mr. Thomas; and please inform Mr. Thomas that, if Mr. Burridge can not whistle with the orchestra, he won’t whistle at all.”
When trouble was more general and more destructive in Ireland than at present, an Irish priest, a very good man, was disturbed by the inroads which strong drink was making on his flock. He preached a strong sermon against it. “What is it,” he cried, “that keeps you poor? It’s the drink. What is it keeps your children half-starved? The drink. What is it keeps your children half-clothed? The drink! The drink. What is it causes you to shoot at your landlords—and miss them? The drink.”
Goff, the famous London barrister, has a humor peculiarly his own. He looks at the world in a half-amused, half-indulgent manner sometimes very annoying to his friends. One day, when in town, he dropped into a restaurant for lunch. It was a tidy, although not a pretentious establishment. After a good meal he called to the waitress and inquired what kind of pie could be had.
“Apple pie mince pie raisin pie blueberry pie custard pie peach pie and strawberry shortcake,” the young woman repeated glibly.
“Will you please say that again?” he asked, leaning a trifle forward.
The girl went through the list at lightning rate. “And strawberry shortcake,” she concluded with emphasis.
“Would you mind doing it once more?” he said.
The waitress looked her disgust, and started in a third time pronouncing the words in a defiantly clear tone.
“Thank you,” he remarked when she had finished. “For the life of me I can not see how you do it. But I like to hear it. It’s very interesting, very. Give me apple pie, please, and thank you very much.”
An elderly Bishop, a bachelor, who was very fastidious about his toilet, was especially fond of his bath, and requested particular care of his tub from the maid.
When about to leave town one day he gave strict orders to the housemaid about his “bawth-tub” and said that no one was to be allowed the use of it.
Alas! the temptation grew on the girl and she took a plunge.
The Bishop returned unexpectedly, and finding traces of the recent stolen bath, questioned the maid so closely that she had to confess she was the culprit, and was very sorry.
“I hope you do not think it a sin, Bishop?” asked Mary in tears.
Eying her sternly, he said: “Mary your using my tub is not a sin, but what distresses me most is that you would do anything behind my back that you would not do before my face.”
Senator Dawes, in his young manhood, was a very poor speaker. One time he was in an important law case, and for his opponent he had an older attorney whose eloquence attracted a crowd that packed the courtroom.
The day was very hot and the judge on the bench was freely perspiring. Finally the judge, drawing off his coat in the midst of the lawyer’s eloquent address, said:
“Mr. Attorney, excuse me, but suppose you sit down and let Dawes begin to speak. I want to thin out this crowd.”
A doctor spending a rare and somewhat dull night at his own fireside received the following message from three fellow practitioners:
“Please step over to the club and join us at a rubber of whist.”
“Jane, dear,” he said to his wife, “I am called away again. It appears to be a difficult case—there are three other doctors on the spot already.”
George, the four-year-old grandson of an extremely pious and devout grandfather, came rushing into the house in a state of wild excitement. “Grandpa!Grandpa!” he called. “Mr. Barton’s cow is dead! God called her home!”
Philander C. Knox tells this story of Roosevelt: “Roosevelt,” he said, “was surprised by a Kansas delegation at Oyster Bay one summer. The President appeared with his coat and collar off, trousers hitched by belt, and mopping his forehead. ‘Ah, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘delighted to see you,delighted. But I am very busy putting in my hay, you know. Just come down to the barn with me and we’ll talk it over while I work.’ Down to the barn hustled the delegation and Mr. Roosevelt seized a pitchfork. But, behold there was no hay on the floor! ‘John,’ shouted the President to sounds in the hayloft; ‘where’s all the hay?’ ‘I ain’t had time to throw it back since you threw it up yesterday, sir.’”
Before the President of a certain Western college had attained his present high position, a boy entering college was recommended to his consideration.
“Try to draw the boy out, Professor; criticise him, and tell us what you think,” the parents said.
To facilitate acquaintance the Professor took the boy for a walk. After ten minutes’ silence the youth ventured: “Fine day, Professor.”
“Yes,” with a far-away look.
Ten minutes more, and the young man, squirming uncomfortably, said: “This is a pleasant walk, Professor.”
“Yes.”
Another silence, and then the young man blurted out that he thought they might have rain.
“Yes,” and this time the Professor went on saying, “Young man, we have been walking together for half an hour, and you have said nothing which was not commonplace and stupid.”
“Yes,” said the boy, his irritation getting the better of his modesty, “and you endorsed every word I said.”
Word from the Professor to the parents was to the effect that the boy was all right.
A dear old citizen went to the cars the other day to see his daughter off on a journey. Securing her a seat he passed out of the car and went around to the car window to say a last parting word. While he was leaving the car the daughter crossed the aisle to speak to a friend, and at the same time a grim old maid took the seat and moved up to the window.
Unaware of the change the old gentleman hurriedly put his head up to the window and said: “One more kiss, pet.”
In another instant the point of a cotton umbrella was thrust from the window, followed by the wrathful injunction: “Scat, you gray-headed wretch!”
There is a young physician who has never been able to smoke a cigar. “Just one poisons me,” says the youthful doctor.
Recently the doctor was invited to a large dinner-party. When the women had left the table cigars were accepted by all the men except the physician.Seeing his friend refuse the cigar the host in astonishment exclaimed:
“What, not smoking? Why, my dear fellow, you lose half your dinner!”
“Yes, I know I do,” meekly replied the doctor, “but if I smoked one I should lose the whole of it!”
Once, when Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was at a charitable fair, he was asked to furnish a letter for the “post-office.” So he placed a one-dollar note inside a sheet of paper and wrote on the first page: