The Board of Councilmen in a Mississippi town voted the following resolutions at one of their meetings:
“First—Resolved by this council, that we build a new jail.
“Second—Resolved that the new jail be built out of the materials of the old jail.
“Third—Resolved that the old jail be used till the new jail is finished.”
This is something like the account an Irish sailor once gave of the execution of a negro on the west coast of Africa. He told how the negro’s hands were tied behind his back, and how the executioner cut the man’s head off atone clip, and how the headless man stooped down, seized his bloody head and set it up on his neck where it was before! When some bystander remarked that such a thing was impossible, for “How could the man pick up his head from the ground when his hands were tied behind his back?” “Begorry,” was the answer, “he done it wid his teeth!”
It occurred years ago in the mountain regions in Eastern Tennessee. Some of the natives had been gambling in a tobacco barn, and one of the neighbors, in the interest of good morals, had them up “afore the justice” for it. The squire had a lank specimen of humanity before him and was examining him.
“Now, Zeke, you tell us what you know about this here gamblin’.”
“Wot gamblin’?”
“Why, this here gamblin’ at Jamison’s barn.”
“At Jamison’s barn?”
“Yes, at Jamison’s barn. You was there. Now, what do you know about this gamblin’?”
“Gamblin’ at Jamison’s barn? Who said there was any gamblin’?”
“Was you at Jamison’s?”
“Was I?”
“Yes. Was you there?”
“Where?”
“At Jamison’s barn.”
“Ye—s. I wuz thar off an’ on ever sence it wuz built.”
“Was you there last week?”
“Wot—in the barn?”
“I don’t know. Was they a-gamblin’ there?”
“Wuz who a-gamblin’?”
“That’s what I want to know. Was anybody a-gamblin’?”
“A-gamblin’—where?”
“At Jamison’s barn. Did you see them gamblin’?”
“Did I see them gamblin’, d’ye say?”
“Yes. Was you in close proximity to them a-gamblin’?”
“Zimmity—Zimmity. See here, square, what’s this here ye’re a-givin’ me. Don’t you go to projeckin around me that a way. I’m amountain man, I am, an’ I ain’t to be fooled with nohow.”
“I asked, Zeke, did you see anybody a-gamblin’ or not a-gamblin’?”
“Where?”
“At Jamison’s barn last week.”
“Did I see anybody a-gamblin’ last week——“
“Yes, now; that’s it.”
“Yes. I see some a-gamblin’ last week.”
“Ah! now we’re comin’ to it. Who was it you saw a-gamblin’ last week?”
“Why, don’t you know, you an’ me an’ Bill was playin’ keerds at the mill——“
“Oh—pshaw! I don’t mean that. Was anybody gamblin’ at Jamison’s?”
“Wot—at Jamison’s?”
This went on for a full hour, and it all came to one thing. Nobody knew anything about it, and after some talk a weazen-faced, dried-up old man, who had been whittling a piece of bark, said:
“Square, there ain’t been nothin’ a-proved, and this here case must be stopped. I’ll pay the costs.”
“Well,” said the magistrate, “there ain’t been nothin’ proved up, an’ if you’ll pay the costs of one sixty, I’ll call this here case a Nolly Prossy.”
And then the old man said, “All right, square. Here’s yer money fer the costs. I don’t mind about payin’ ’em seein’ as how I won the whole pot anyways.”
Let a vote be taken for the wisest man, and every fool will vote for himself.
Andrew Carnegie, in the smoke-room of the Baltic, talked about Scotch whisky.
“It is a pure but a powerful spirit,” he said, smiling. “In Peebles the other day they told me a good story about it.
“It seems that a Peebles lawyer and his clerk had been to a wedding of the real, old-fashioned sort. On the way home the lawyer said, as they were crossing the famous Peebles iron bridge:
“‘Noo, Saunders, mon, I’ll juist gang onahead a meenit, an’ ye’ll tell me if I’m walkin’ straucht.’
“So the lawyer walked ahead, and then called back:
“‘Straucht, Saunders?’
“‘Straucht’s a die,’ Saunders answered; ‘but—hic—wha’s that wi’ ye?’”
“The old teacher in one of the smaller schools near my native town of Peekskill,” said Senator Depew, “had drilled a number of his brightest scholars in the history of contemporary politics, and to test their faith and their knowledge he called upon three of them one day and demanded a declaration of personal political principles.
“You are a Republican, Tom, are you not?” inquired he of the first. “Yes, sir,” was the answer. “And, Bill, you are a Prohibitionist, I believe?” “Yes, sir,” said Bill. “And, Jim, you are a Democrat?” “Yes, sir,” said Jim.
“Well, now,” continued the teacher, “the one of you that gives the best reason why he belongs to his party can have this live woodchuck which I caught on my way to school this morning.”
“I am a Republican,” said the first boy, “because the Republican party saved the country in the war and abolished slavery.”
“And I am a Prohibitionist,” rattled off the second youth, “because rum is our country’s greatest enemy, and the cause of our over-crowded prisons and poorhouses.”
“Very excellent reasons, boys, very excellent reasons,” observed the teacher encouragingly. “And, now, Jim, why are you a Democrat?”
“Well, sir,” was the slow reply, “I am a Democrat because I want that woodchuck!”
A muscular Irishman strolled into the Civil Service examination-room where candidates for the police force are put to a physical test.
“Strip,” ordered the police surgeon.
“What’s that?” demanded the uninitiated.
“Get your clothes off, and be quick about it,” said the doctor.
The Irishman disrobed, and permitted the doctor to measure his chest and legs and to pound his back.
“Hop over this bar,” ordered the doctor.
The man did his best, landing on his back.
“Now double up your knees and touch the floor with your hands.”
He sprawled, face downward, on the floor. He was indignant but silent.
“Jump under this cold shower,” ordered the doctor.
“Sure, that’s funny!” muttered the applicant.
“Now run around the room ten times to test your heart and wind,” directed the doctor.
The candidate rebelled. “I’ll not. I’ll sthay single.”
“Single?” asked the doctor, surprised.
“Sure,” said the Irishman, “what’s all this fussing got to do with a marriage license!”
He had strayed into the wrong bureau.
A number of mischievous boys on their way to drive the cows home from pasture one evening, passing by the low and lonely cabin occupied by a poor old woman, hearing some onetalking within, peeped through the window and saw the poor old body on her knees before the wide old-fashioned chimney. She was pitifully beseeching God to send her bread. The boys thinking it would be a good joke, ran back home and got some loaves of bread. The old lady was praying still for bread when they returned, all out of breath. They climbed up on the roof quietly and threw the loaves down the chimney, scrambled down to the door and listened to the poor old soul pouring her heart out in thanksgiving to God for sending her bread from heaven. Then they opened the door, and burst in on her with:
“Why, granny! Did you think God sent you that bread? We tumbled it down the chimbley!”
And she said, “Well, boys, God did send it even if the devil did bring it.”
During a great temperance agitation out in Kansas a man was lecturing in a public school building on chemistry. An interested auditor,a farmer, couldn’t at all get the hang of the lecturer’s remarks, and asked his neighbor in the next seat: “Say, what does the lecturer mean by oxy-gin and hydro-gin, and what is the difference?” “Well,” was the answer, “they come to ’bout the same thing. There ain’t enough difference betwixt them to amount to much. You see, by oxy-gin the lecturer means pure gin, and by hydro-gin he means gin and water.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Hayseed, “I reckon I’ll take oxy-gin. It goes further.”
Robert Burdette, in one of his lectures, thus describes scientific education in primeval times: “When a placid but exceedingly unanimous-looking animal went rolling by, producing the general effect of an eclipse, Cain would shout:
“Oh, lookee, lookee, pa! What’s that?”
“Then the patient Adam, trying to saw enough kitchen wood to last over Sunday, with a piece of flint for a saw, would have to pause and gather up enough words to say:
“That, my son? That is only a mastodon giganteus; he has a bad look but a Christian temper.”
And then presently:
“Oh, pa! pa! What’s that over yon?”
“Oh, bother,” Adam would reply; “it’s only a paleotherium, mammalia pachydermata.”
“Oh, yes; theliocomeafterus. Oh, lookee, lookee at this ’un!”
“Where, Cainny? Oh, that in the mud? That’s only an acephala lamelli branchiata. It won’t bite you, but you mustn’t eat it. It’s poison as politics.”
“Whee! See there! See, see, see! What’s him?”
“Oh, that? Looks like a pleiosaurus; keep out of his way; he has a jaw like your mother.”
“Oh, yes; a plenosserus. And what’s that fellow, poppy?”
“That’s a silurus malapterous. Don’t you go near him, for he has the disposition of a Georgia mule.”
“Oh, yes; a slapterus. And what’s this little one?”
“Oh, it’s nothing but an aristolochioid.Where did you get it? There, now, quit throwing stones at the acanthopterygian; do you want to be kicked? And you keep away from the nothodenatrichomanoides. My stars, Eve! where did he get that anonaceo-hydro-charideo-nymphaeoid? Do you never look after him at all? Here, you Cain, get right away from down there, and chase that megalosaurius out of the melon-patch, or I’ll set the mono-pleuro brachian on you!”
Mark Twain is credited with telling a good story about the meanest corporation on earth. A man was working for this company, drilling holes for blasting rock. He got to work on a place where there was a charge that had not gone off. So, as he sat there quietly drilling away, there was an explosion. He went up and up till he didn’t look any bigger than a hat; and then up and up till he didn’t look any bigger than a walnut; and then up and up till he went out of sight. Then he began to come down and down till he looked as big as a walnut;and then down and down till he looked as big as a hat; and then down and down till he sat right in the place he had left, and went on drilling away as if nothing had happened. He was absent just sixteen minutes and forty-two seconds—and the company was so mean that they docked him for loss of time!
“Say, boy, say!” exclaimed a hot looking man with a big valise, “what’s the quickest way to the cars?” “Run!” yelled the boy as he dodged into an alley. The man was very sorry the boy had so suddenly disappeared, for he was so pleased with the kind information that if he could only have come near enough to the boy, he would certainly have given him something to remember him by.
When the preacher went into politics and suffered in his professional character in consequence, he thought well to make an humble confession to his conference to the effect that “the muddy pool of politics was the rock on which I split.”
He mixed his figures about as badly as afamous Irishman, Sir Boyle Roche, who, suspecting the opposition of some sort of underhand intentions, revealed his acuteness and his purpose to head off the enemy in the following terms: “I smell a rat; I feel it in the air; and I will nip it in the bud!”
The colonel and a friend were sitting on the back porch of the house smoking and talking. They fell to discussing the intoxicating properties of beer. The colonel maintained that a man couldn’t possibly drink enough beer to make him drunk, but his friend was of a contrary mind. The colonel went into his kitchen and brought out a two-gallon tin bucket, and said, “See this bucket? Well, I have a German sawing wood down in my barn at the end of the lot. I’ll bet you ten dollars that he can drink all the beer that bucket will hold at one sitting, and not be the worse for it.” The bet was taken, and the colonel called the man from his work, and said, “Diedrich, you see that bucket? If I were to fill that bucket with beer,do you think you could drink it all at one sitting?”
The German smiled broadly, and said he guessed he could—he could try. “But I want you to be certain,” said the colonel. “Vell,” said Diedrich, “I guess I could, but maybe I couldn’t.” With this he was dismissed and the subject was dropped.
At the end of a half hour, Diedrich appeared on the scene and said that if that bucket was filled with beer he could drink it all without stopping. He was certain he could. Accordingly he was sent with the bucket to a neighboring brewery and promptly returned with the vessel full to the brim. He placed it on a table, drew up a chair, tilted the bucket and set to work. In a very short time he had finished, arose, thanked the colonel and was making for the wood-pile.
“Hold on,” called the colonel, “I want to ask you a question. When I called you up the first time you were uncertain whether you could drink that bucket of beer or not, and then after a while you came back and said you were certain you could. How do you explain that?”
Diedrich drew the back of his hand across his mouth, and said, “Vy, colonel, dot is easy to explain. Der first time ven you ask me, I did not know for sure. So ven I vent away, I vent over to der brewery undt got me a bucket about so big as yours undt tried if I could—undt I found I could, I could; undt so I coom back here sure, sure dat I could drink your bucket full mit beer. See?”
While instructing his pupils in grammar, a country school-teacher gave out this sentence to be parsed: “Mary milks the cow.” Each word had been parsed except the last, which fell to Bob, a sixteen-year-old boy, near the foot of the class, who began thus:
“Cow is a noun, feminine gender, singular number, third person, and stands for Mary.”
“Stands for Mary!” said the astonished teacher. “And, pray, Robert, how do you make that out?”
“Because,” answered the hopeful pupil, “if the cow didn’t stand for Mary, how could Mary milk the cow?”
“Say—how much do you think I had to pay the milliner for my wife’s last spring bonnet? Thirty-six dollars and seventeen cents.”
“Rather steep, isn’t it? What are you going to do about it?”
“Do about it? Nothing. Because, don’t you see, old man, I daren’t say beans to it. My wife has the delirium trimmins.”
Mr. W. J. Lampton in the New York Times thus discourses on the tender topic:
Did you ever see such sights?Such frizzly, frazzly frightsAs now the lovely fairInsist that they must wear?And, say,Did you ever, in your feeble way,Attempt to calculateWhat it must be to keep one on straight?Heavens to Betsy, no slobCould get away with such a job!That’s why no manCould wear the hat a woman canAnd does, and thinksShe’s not at all gezinx.Wow,Ain’t they the dowdydow?The hats, not the women.The Autumn Lid,Deliriously displayed,Has got the Merry WidScreaming screams for aid.Police! Police!Call out the copsTo save the ladiesFrom their tops.Oh, woman, in your hours of ease,Uncertain, coy and hard to please,Who ever gave you lids like these?Who is it has designedSuch cover for your mind?This framework in a rag?This millinery jag?Who done it? WhoShould get the fearful due?However, it’s no matterWho is the women’s hatter,They wear the goods!And say,On the level,Don’t theyLook like the dickens?Gee whiz,Why look pazziz,When a woman’s as pretty as a woman is?
Did you ever see such sights?Such frizzly, frazzly frightsAs now the lovely fairInsist that they must wear?And, say,Did you ever, in your feeble way,Attempt to calculateWhat it must be to keep one on straight?Heavens to Betsy, no slobCould get away with such a job!That’s why no manCould wear the hat a woman canAnd does, and thinksShe’s not at all gezinx.Wow,Ain’t they the dowdydow?The hats, not the women.The Autumn Lid,Deliriously displayed,Has got the Merry WidScreaming screams for aid.Police! Police!Call out the copsTo save the ladiesFrom their tops.Oh, woman, in your hours of ease,Uncertain, coy and hard to please,Who ever gave you lids like these?Who is it has designedSuch cover for your mind?This framework in a rag?This millinery jag?Who done it? WhoShould get the fearful due?However, it’s no matterWho is the women’s hatter,They wear the goods!And say,On the level,Don’t theyLook like the dickens?Gee whiz,Why look pazziz,When a woman’s as pretty as a woman is?
Did you ever see such sights?Such frizzly, frazzly frightsAs now the lovely fairInsist that they must wear?And, say,Did you ever, in your feeble way,Attempt to calculateWhat it must be to keep one on straight?Heavens to Betsy, no slobCould get away with such a job!That’s why no manCould wear the hat a woman canAnd does, and thinksShe’s not at all gezinx.Wow,Ain’t they the dowdydow?The hats, not the women.The Autumn Lid,Deliriously displayed,Has got the Merry WidScreaming screams for aid.Police! Police!Call out the copsTo save the ladiesFrom their tops.Oh, woman, in your hours of ease,Uncertain, coy and hard to please,Who ever gave you lids like these?Who is it has designedSuch cover for your mind?This framework in a rag?This millinery jag?Who done it? WhoShould get the fearful due?However, it’s no matterWho is the women’s hatter,They wear the goods!And say,On the level,Don’t theyLook like the dickens?Gee whiz,Why look pazziz,When a woman’s as pretty as a woman is?
The handwriting of Horace Greely, the great editor, was remarkable for its illegibility. Very few people could read what he wrote, and sometimes it puzzled Mr. Greely himself. He wrote a hurried note one day, addressed it to the editor of one of the other great New York papers, and sent it by a messenger boy. The boy duly delivered it, but the man couldn’t make it out, and sent it back. When the boy handed his own note to Mr. Greely, he, supposing it to be a reply to his own communication, and being unable to read it, looked it over carefully and said: “Why, what does the old fool mean?” “Yes,” said the boy, “that’s just what the other man said!”
In addition to writing a poor hand Mr. Greely was very absent-minded. Leaving his office in a great hurry one day to go an errand downtown, he wrote on a card, “Back in 20 minutes,” pinned it on the outside of his office door and rushed out. Having changed his mind, he came back in five minutes and, seeing the notice on the door, took a seat nearby, and actually waited twenty minutes for himself to come back!
A good-looking young minister was driving to the county town of B—— in a buggy. On the way he overtook a very comely young woman going the same direction afoot. He courteously stopped and suggested that he give her a lift, an offer which she gladly accepted, riding beside him several miles to her destination at a country farm-house. On descending from the vehicle she thanked him for his kindness, and he very politely said, “Don’t mention it—don’t mention it.” And she said, “No, I won’t. I won’t tell. I’m as much ashamed of it as you are!”
When he was within two miles of the town he overtook a young lawyer who was returning afoot from a visit to a country client, and took him aboard, and the two had some sharp passages as they rode along. Now, it chanced that a man was to be hanged for murder the next day in the town, and the carpenters were busy erecting the gallows in the yard of the jail. When the two came to the hill which overlooks the town of B——, they could plainly see the top of the gallows above the wall of the jail. Pointing then to the jail the minister said:
“If the gallows had its due, where would you be?”
“I’d be riding into town alone, I reckon,” was the answer.
“My friend Dickinson,” said the colonel, “is a very witty fellow. He made a very witty reply lately. He had been sent down to a certain celebrated seaside resort by his physician for a rest and a change, and it was understoodthat he was to spend at least a month there, but at the end of a week he turned up again in his home town, and when people asked him why he had come back so soon, his reply was:
“Well, you see, the doctor sent me down there for a rest and a change, and I went down and tried it; but by the end of a week I found that the waiters at the hotel were getting all the change, and the man that kept the hotel got all the rest, and so I just had to come home to recopperate, you know.”
“When I was down there in Atlantic City,” said Dickinson with that delightful drawl of his, “I went one day into a shoe store on ‘The Avenue,’ as they call the business street of the town, and looked around. The clerk came up smiling and asked could he wait on me, and I said he could if he had any ‘crochetted overshoes.’ That made him scratch his head. ‘Must be a new kind,’ said he. ‘Oh, no,’ said I. ‘They’ve been in use some years.’ ‘But,’ said he, ‘I can’t see what use crochet workwould be on overshoes. Why, the rain and mud would spoil it all in a short time.’ ‘Oh, no,’ said I. ‘You don’t catch on. I am not looking for overshoes with crochet work on them, but for crochetted overshoes—overshoes that are crow-shade; black ones, you understand?’”
It is hard to tell whether the biggest liars live by the sea or on the mountain, but certainly the sailor folk will have a time of it to match one Bob Sempers, one of the most elastic of all the prevaricators on the Pocono Mountain. Here is a story Bob told a party of gentlemen hunters not long ago:
“You know where I live. About three mile from the Big Lake. Well—one evenin’ last spring when I was goin’ home, I see a flock o’ geese a-settlin’ on the lake. I got up bright an’ early next mornin’, took down my shootin’ iron an’ started for the lake to try my luck. When I got there I found they were out o’ gun shot, an’ I knowed ’twan’t no use to shoot at that distance. I’d jist skeer ’em away if I did.So, I stood there thinkin’ what best to do. I see a fox come down to the water edge and stand there a minnit or so a-snuffin’ the air. I’d a mind to shoot him, but I thought I’d wait an’ see what he’d do. Well, sir, he just plumped into the water an’ made for them geese. They were all huddled together about a half a mile from the shore. After swimmin’ up to within a few yards of ’em, he suddenly disappeared, and in a few minnits a goose was drawn under water. Then the fox swum ashore an’ laid the dead goose on the bank, and went back fer another snap, an’ so he kep on till he got the whole flock, an’ I waited till he brought in the last one, an’ then I shot him.
“Well, sir, I found when I come to count ’em, that I had just fifty nice fat geese, which I lugged home together with my gun an’ the dead fox. An’ when I got home I found my old woman hadn’t the breakfast quite ready yet.”
“‘But, Bob,’ said some one, ‘the fox had to swim a mile for each goose—half a mile each way—consequently he had to swim just fifty miles. And the geese averaged, say, sixpounds; so that you had three hundred pounds of goose-flesh to carry three miles, to say nothing of the dead fox and your gun—impossible!’
“‘Impossible or not,’ maintained Bob, ‘every word is truth, and I can prove it, too, by more than a dozen of my neighbors, to each of whom I sold enough feathers to fill a feather-bed.’”
A company of tourists were traveling in Switzerland, and they went to buy tickets for the coach-ride up the mountain. The American man of course bought a first-class ticket, but he noticed that all the rest got second and third class, and they all got into the wagon with him. He said to the driver, “What advantage is there in paying for a first class ticket when holders of second and third class tickets have precisely the same accommodations?” The driver said, “You just wait a while and you will see.” So by and by they came to a steep hill, and the driver called out, “First class passengers will keep their seats;second class passengers will get out and walk; third class passengers will get out and push.”
They have a new brand of whiskey down in Kentucky known as “The Horn of Plenty,” because it will corn-you-copiously.
“In the Blue Grass section of Kentucky was I born, where all the corn is full of kernels—and all the colonels full of corn.”
Chauncey Depew spoke one evening during a political campaign at a town in the interior of New York State, which it is not necessary to name. The next morning the chairman of the local committee took him in his carriage for a ride about the place. They had reached the suburbs and were admiring a bit of scenery when a man wearing a blue shirt and carrying a long whip on his shoulder approached from where he had been piloting an ox-team along the middle of the street and said:
“You’re the man that made the rattlin’ speech up at the hall last night, I guess?”
Mr. Depew modestly admitted that he had indulged in some talk at the time and place specified.
“Didn’t you have what you said writ out?” went on the man.
“No,” replied the orator.
“You don’t mean to say you made that all up as you went along?”
“Yes.”
“Jess hopped right up there, took a drink o’ water out of the pitcher, hit the table a whack and waded in without no thinkin’ nor nothing?”
“Well, I suppose you might put it that way.”
“Well, that beats me. You’ll excuse me for stoppin’ you, but what I wanted to say was that your speech convinced me, though I knowed all the time it was the peskiest lie that was ever told. I made up my mind to vote your ticket, but I’d ’a’ been willin’ to bet a peck o’ red apples that no man could stand up and tell such blamed convincin’ lies without havin’ ’em writ out. You must ’a’ had an awful lot o’ practice.”
A lady living in Ohio is the mother of six boys. One day a friend called on her, and during the conversation said: “What a pity that one of your boys had not been a girl.” One of the boys, about eight years old, overheard the remark, and promptly interposed, “I’d like to know who’d ’a’ bin ’er. Ed wouldn’t ’a’ bin ’er, Joe wouldn’t ’a’ bin ’er, Pete wouldn’t ‘a’ bin ’er, I wouldn’t ’a’ bin ’er, blame ef I would, an’ I’d like to know who’d ’a’ bin ’er?”
Mrs. Hobbs was the parent of an infant terror and several half-grown terrors besides. One day at table she said, “Well, Mr. Hobbs, since you are so dissatisfied with the way I am bringing up our darling Willie, maybe you will condescend to inform me how you would bring up boys?”
“Certainly,” said Hobbs. “Every boy oughtto be kept in a hogshead, and fed through the bung-hole until he is twelve years of age.”
“And when he reaches the age of twelve?”
“Stop up the bung-hole.”
A toll-gate was recently established on a road leading to Little Rock, Ark.; and an old negro who came along with an ox-team was much astonished. “Wall, ef dis doan cap de climax,” said he. “Ain satisfied wid chargin’ folks fur ridin’ on de train and steamboat, but wanster to charge him fur ridin’ in his own waggin!” “That’s the law of the corporation, old man.” “Wat’s de corporation got to do wid my waggin?” “Got nothing to do with your wagon, but they have a right to make you pay for riding over their road.” “Ain dis er a free country?” “Yes. But this is not a free road.” “But de road’s in the country. What does yer law say yer may charge?” “One horse, five cents; a horse and buggy, ten cents; two horses and a wagon, twenty cents.” “Well, dese here ain’t horses, ’case da’s steers. Delaw doan say nuthin’ about dem. Whoa, dar! Come ’ere!” And to the astonishment of the gate-keeper, the old fellow drove away.
Standing outside his club one afternoon Mr. Gilbert was approached by a stranger who asked, “I beg pardon, sir, but do you happen to know a gentleman, a member of this club, a man with one eye called ‘Matthews’?” “No, I don’t think I do,” replied Mr. Gilbert. Then after a pause he quickly added, “What’s the name of his other eye?”
The Confederate general, Stonewall Jackson, had been on one occasion most hospitably entertained in the house and by the family of an old Virginia friend. It was known at the time that some very important movement of the Confederate army was afoot, and just as the great general was about to take his departure from the house in which he had been so royally received, the host, eager with curiosityand presuming on old friendship, took the general aside, and begged him for some information as to the coming demonstrations. Passing his arm affectionately around his old friend General Jackson said in a whisper, “My dear friend, can you keep a secret?” “Yes—Yes!” was the eager reply. “And so can I,” was the response, as the general mounted his horse.
A preacher was much annoyed by the whispering and laughing of some young folks in the rear of the church. Stopping in the midst of his discourse and looking intently at them until all had become still, he said:
“I hesitate to reprove those who are inattentive and noisy. I will tell you why. Some years since, as I was preaching, a young man sat before me who was constantly laughing and making queer faces. It annoyed me very much, and I gave him a very severe rebuke. After the close of the services a gentleman said to one, ‘Sir, you made a great mistake; that young man is an idiot.’ Since that timeI always hesitate to reprove those who misbehave in church, lest I should again find myself in the error of rebuking an idiot.” There was order during the rest of the service.
Lazily sauntering along on the gay boardwalk, enjoying the stiff salt breeze and paying due attention to the merry throng always passing up and down, my attention was called to a certain rolling chair whose occupant I thought I knew. Wasn’t that Barney Schmitt? Barney, you must know, keeps one of the very best cafés in existence, up in one of the most flourishing towns in Eastern Pennsylvania. I knew he had been suffering greatly from rheumatism for a year past, but had lost track of him recently and supposed him to be in the doctor’s hands at some Water Cure up in New York State—and here he was, fat and puffy, all covered up with a big steamer rug in a rolling chair. I stopped the chair and said, “Hello, Barney, that you?”
“Yes,” said he, “diss iss me. I vish to Himmel it wass somepody else.”
“Well, how are you? Better I hope?”
Barney shook his head with a rueful countenance. “No, I’m no petter. I’ve tried everything in all greation from a lemon to Gristian Ziance, undt it all does no good.”
“Christian Science? So you tried that, did you? How did it work?”
“Let me tell you,” said the suffering Barney with a smile that might have been mistaken for a wince. “You know I went up to der Wasser-Cure, up dere in New York. I had plasters undt pads all ofer my pody, undt walked mit a pair of grutches. De first evening I got dere, I wass settin’ in der parlor tryin’ hard to keep from hollerin’ mit der pain, undt a woman come up to me—one of dese here Gristian Ziance women, you know, a mighty purty, sweet-faced woman she wass, too—undt she says to me, says she:
“‘Vat iss der matter mit you, Mr. Schmitt?’ Undt I toldt her apoudt my rheumatism, undt den she says:
“‘Mr. Schmitt, dere iss nodings der matter mit you. You only think dere iss. It iss all in your mindt. It issn’t in your pody. Yourpody can’t feel noding. It iss your mindt vat feels. Your rheumatism iss all in your mindt. All you have got to do iss to get your mindt changed, you see, undt you vill be all right.
“‘Now, Mr. Schmitt, I tell you vat to do undt you vill soon be vell. Ven you go to bed to-night, you make your mindt nice undt quiet like, fill your heart full mit good thoughts of peace undt joy; say a nice little prayer, undt go to sleep. Den, in de morning, ven you get avake, you compose your mindt mit peaceful thoughts, you say a nice little prayer to yourself, and you yusht say: “Mr. Schmitt! Dere iss nodings der matter mit you—you are vell undt shtrong!” Undt you jump out of de bed, undt dere you are!’”
“All right. I did all vat she said. I vent to bed. I said a nice leetle prayer, vat my mudder taught me, in der German language, undt I vent to sleep.
“In der morning I get awake. I haf very peaceful undt peautiful thoughts, undt I say to myself:
“‘Barney Schmitt, you are a tam fool. Dereiss nodings der matter mit you. You are all right.’
“Undt mit dot, I just jump out in der mittle of der floor, undt lit on my pack mit a mighty doonder-knock vat shook der vinders. I fell all in a heap, undt mine Himmel! didn’t I holler! Der bell poy, der hotel clerk, der doctor undt two nurses coom on der double quick, pick me up undt put me in der bed. Undt dere I vas for two weeks, all right. Dat’s vat I know about Gristian Ziance. Undt now here I am in Atlantic City in a rollin’ chair. Pray for me, colonel, for my prayers doesn’t seem to do me much goot!”
The late Dr. Talmage was once in the company of some theological students. They were fresh from the study of church history, and were laughing over the old question so much discussed by the schoolmen in the Middle Ages, “How many angels can stand on, or be supported by, the point of a needle?”
They put the question to Dr. Talmage,“How many angels can be supported by the point of a needle?” and Dr. Talmage promptly answered, “Five.” When they wanted to know how he knew, he told them the following story:
“One very stormy night I was coming home late, and noticed a light in the window of a room where I knew a poor woman lived whose husband was lost at sea. I wondered what kept her up so late and I thought I would go and see. I found her hard at work sewing at her lamp, while her five rosy children were sound asleep beside her. And that is how I happen to know that five angels can be supported by the point of a needle.”
The family had returned from church one Sunday, and as they had company to dinner, and dinner was a little later than usual, the six-year-old Robert was very hungry and could hardly wait any longer. He had been very much interested in the sermon, which was a very graphic account of the creation of woman.He had listened wide-eyed while the minister told how God had put Adam to sleep and had taken a rib out of his side and made it into a wife for the lonely man. But just now he was more interested in the dinner, especially in its conclusion, mince pie and cakes.
An hour later he was missed from the company, and being searched for was found sitting in a corner of another room, groaning softly, with his hands pressed against his side and an air of solemn anxiety on his face.
“Why, Robert, what in the world is the matter?” asked his mother in alarm.
“Mamma, dear,” said he, “I’m afraid I’m getting a wife.”
He opened the door cautiously, and poking his head in, in a suggestive sort of way, as if there might be more to follow later on provided the way was clear, inquired, “Is this the editorial rinktum?” “The—what, my friend?” “Is this the rinktum, sinktum, or some such place, where the editors live?” “Yes, sir.This is the editorial room. Come right in.” “No, I guess I won’t come in. Just wanted to see what a rinktum was like, that’s all. Looks like our garret, only wuss. Good day!”
It is related that two Presbyterians, two Baptists, two Universalists and an active Jew recently met and discussed theology together without quarreling in Boston. The reason they did not quarrel in Boston was because they were in New York.
Going home from a party late one night a man ran against the same tree seventeen times. He then concluded that he was lost in an interminable forest, and began to call out, “A lost man! A lost man!” But nobody responding to his pitiful call, he made one more effort to escape, and had the luck to run into the next tree, which chanced to be surrounded by iron rods for its protection. He caught hold of the rods and felt them. He walked round and round the tree trying in vain to find some opening to pass through, and at last gave itup in despair, saying, “Just my luck. In the lock-up again.”
A negro prayed that his brethren might be preserved from their “upsettin’ sins.” “Brudder,” said one of his friends, “you hain’t got de hang o’ dat ar word. It’s be-settin’, not upsettin’.” “Brudder,” replied the other, “if dat’s so, den it’s so. But—I was prayin’ de Lawd to save us from de sin o’ ’toxication, for dar dey jest set-em-up fust and den dey gits upset, an’ if dat ain’t an upsettin’ sin, I dunno what am.”
There are very few men who can handle a red-hot lamp-chimney and at the same time say, “There is no place like Home,” without getting—confused.
That was a truly human tombstone that bore the inscription, “I expected this, but not just yet.”
A youth was heard to remark to a jolly, fatTeutonian, “Haven’t I seen you before? Your face certainly looks familiar?” “Iss dot so?” answered Hans. “An’ ven you get so oldt as me, your face vill look fermiliar, too.”
A young lady complained to her male companion that she didn’t like arithmetic. She couldn’t understand it, and didn’t see the use of it. The young man said he would teach her. “Now,” said he, “I kiss you three times on one cheek and four times on the other. How many does that make?”
“Seven,” whispered the girl, disengaging herself to breathe more freely.
“Well,” said he, “that is Arithmetic.”
“Dear me,” said she, “I did not think it ever could be made such a very pleasant study.”
Artemus Ward records that he once went to the theatre, “Niblo’s Garding,” New York, to hear Edwin Forrest in Othello. “I sot down in the Pit,” says he, “took out my spectacles & commenced peroosin’ the evenin’s bill.The awjince was all-fired large & the Boxes was full of the Elitty of New York. Several opery glasses was leveld at me by Gothum’s fairest darters, but I didn’t let on as tho I noticed it, tho mebby I did take out my sixteen-dollar silver watch & brandish it round more than was necessary. But, the best of us has our weaknesses, and if a man has gewelry, let him show it.
“As I was peroosin’ the bill, a grave young man who sot near me axed me if I’d ever seen Forrest dance ‘The Essence of Old Virginny? He’s immense in that,’ said the young man. ‘He also does a fair champion jig,’ the young man continued, ‘but his Big Thing is the Essence of Old Virginny.’
“Sez I—‘Fair youth, do you know what I’d do with you, if you was my sun?’
“‘No,’ sez he.
“‘Wall,’ sez I, ‘if you was my sun, I’d appint your funeral for tomorrow arternoon, at two o’clock—and the Korps would be reddy. You’re too smart to live on this here yearth.’ That youth didn’t try any more of his doggone capers on me.”
“Teacher,” said a boy in a New York City school, “my sister’s got the measles.” “Well, then, my boy, you go home and you stay home till your sister has entirely got over them.” After the boy was gone, another boy raised his hand and said, “Teacher, that boy’s sister what’s got the measles lives in Omaha!”
The late Horace Leland, who for many years kept the Leland Hotel at Springfield, Ill., was an exceedingly generous man and an especial lover of children. One day he and Judge A. C. Matthews, then Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, and afterward the First Controller of the Treasury, were walking out together when they met a man with a cluster of toy balloons. School was just out and hundreds of boys and girls came pouring from a building near at hand and formed in groups around the balloon man.
“Hold on, Ace,” said Mr. Leland, “there’s a joyous sight,” and the two stopped and watched the children gaze longingly at the balloons.
“I can make some of them happy, anyway,” said Mr. Leland, and he asked the man the price of the balloons.
“Fi’ cent apiece.”
“How much for the lot?” asked the philanthropist.
The man counted them over. There were twenty-one.
“One dol’ for de lot.”
Mr. Leland took them all and distributed them among the children with as much fairness as possible, and away the little codgers ran with them.
Then Mr. Leland put his hand in his pocket and said:
“By George, Ace, I ain’t got a cent. Lend me a dollar.”
“Oh, no,” said Judge Matthews, seriously; “you can’t play philanthropist at my expense. Not much.”
“Well, my man,” said Mr. Leland, “I guess you’ll have to call at my hotel for your money.”
“No, sir,” said the man, “you give me my money or you give me back my balloons.”
“But don’t you see I can do neither? Come to the Leland House and ask for Mr. Leland, and I will pay you.”
“No, sir,” persisted the man, “you pay me my money or give me back my balloons. I haf seen dat hotel trick before.”
“Come, Ace,” said Mr. Leland, from the depth of his troubled soul, “give me a dollar.”
“Not a cent,” said the Judge. “I wouldn’t trust you with a dime.”
“See,” said the man, “your own friend no will trust you. You give me my money or I will call de policeman.”
Just then there happened along an old beggar woman who had lived upon the bounty of the good people of Springfield for many a year. She stopped and heard enough of the conversation to know what it was about.
“Hould on, Misther Layland,” said she, “if yer foine frind there won’t lave ye the loan av a dollar, begorra O’im the frind that will,” and as she lectured Judge Matthews for the “stingiest ould thing out o’ jail,” she unrolled the money from a dirty rag and gave it to the philanthropist.
Judge Matthews says he never tried to play just that kind of a joke on Horace Leland again.
The town of M—— in Pennsylvania had just elected a new Justice of the Peace. He was, of course, a Pennsylvania German, and the first cause that came before him for adjudication was a peculiar one. A man had attempted to shoot another man in the street of the business part of the town, but the man that was shot at dodged, and the bullet smashed a plate-glass window in a store. The owner of the store sued the man with the gun for damages, but the Justice, after hearing the evidence, decided that the man that was shot at and dodged the bullet must pay, “because,” said he, “don’t you see, if that man hadn’t dodged, the window wouldn’t have been broken.”
Two Irishmen who had just landed were eating their dinner in a hotel, when Pat spieda bottle of horseradish. Not knowing what it was he took a mouthful, which brought tears to his eyes.
Mike, seeing Pat crying, exclaimed, “Phat be ye cryin’ fer?”
Pat, wishing to have Mike sample the hot stuff also, replied, “Oim cryin’ fer me poor ould mither who’s dead away over in ould Ireland.”
By and by Mike took some of the radish, and immediately tears filled his eyes. “An’ phat be you cryin’ fer, now?” queried Pat. “Ach,” says Mike, “I’m cryin’ because you didn’t die at the same time your ould mither did in ould Ireland.”
He was a very decided English type, and as he stopped an Irishman and asked for a light he volunteered to say:
“Excuse me, my man, for stopping you as an entire stranger. But at home I’m a person of some importance. I’m Sir James B——, Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Double Eagle, Knight of the Golden Fleece, Knight ofthe Iron Cross. And your name is—what, my man?”
“My name,” was the ready reply, “is Michael Murphy. Night before last, last night, to-night an’ every night, Michael Murphy.”
When Thackeray, the great English novelist, visited this country, his literary friends in Boston gave a banquet in his honor. The committee of arrangements, learning that Mr. Thackeray had made some comments on the general tendency of Americans to magnify things, thought they would give their distinguished guest a demonstration of the greatness of the American oyster, at least, the more so as the oyster does not attain a great size in the British Isles. They accordingly ransacked the market for the very largest bivalves that could be found, and a half dozen of these were placed at Thackeray’s plate. The gentleman next to him apologized for the small size of the oysters, but Thackeray looked at them in amazement, and asked, “What am I to do withthem?” “Swallow them, of course,” was the answer. “Well,” said he, taking a huge one on his fork, “here goes.” He gave a gulp and down it went. “How do you feel on it?” asked his friend. “Feel?” said he—“I feel as if I had swallowed a baby!”
Three men were talking in rather a large way of the excellent train-service each had in his special locality. One was from the West, one from New England and one from New York. The former two men had told their tales, and it was New York’s turn.
“Now in New York,” said he, “we not only run trains fast, but we start them fast, too, very fast. I recall the case of a friend of mine whose wife went to the station at Jersey City to see him off for the West. As the train was about to start, my friend said his final good-bye to his wife and leaned down from the car platform to kiss her. The train started, and started with such a rush that, would you believe it, my friend found himself kissing a strange woman on the platform at Trenton!”
At a dinner one day some gentlemen were discussing the merits of different species of game. One preferred canvasback duck, another woodcock, another quail. The dinner and the discussion ended, one of the men said to the waiter, who was a good listener, “Well, Frank, what kind of game do you like best?”
“Well, gemmen, to tell you de trufe,” said he, “‘mos any kind o’ game ’ll suit me, but what I likes best is an American Eagle served on a silvah dollah!”
In the early days of railroading in this country, an elderly gentleman was asked by the conductor for his ticket. The train had stopped at every little station, town and hamlet on the way, and was two hours late. “Your ticket, please,” said the conductor. The man fumbled a great while in his vest pocket and finally presented a half-fare cardboard.
“Come,” said the conductor, “this won’t do, not for a man with hair as gray as yours, any way—this is a child’s ticket.”
“Well,” responded the weary traveller, “Iwas a child when this train started, and I guess I’ll be as old as Methusaleh by the time it gets me to where I want to go.”
A schoolboy one day picked up a piece of poetry at school and carried it home and gave it to his grandmother to read. When she had read it she said:
“Kit, you ought never repeat that, because that is just the same as telling people to go to the bad place.” The poetry was as follows: