A father once said to his son,"The next time you make up a pun,Go out in the yardAnd kick yourself hard,And I will begin when you've done."
A father once said to his son,"The next time you make up a pun,Go out in the yardAnd kick yourself hard,And I will begin when you've done."
A father once said to his son,
"The next time you make up a pun,
Go out in the yard
And kick yourself hard,
And I will begin when you've done."
Into a general store of a town in Arkansas there recently came a darky complaining that a ham which he had purchased there was not good.
"The ham is all right, Zeph," insisted the storekeeper.
"No, it ain't, boss," insisted the negro. "Dat ham's shore bad."
"How can that be," continued the storekeeper, "when it was cured only a week?"
The darky scratched his head reflectively, and finally suggested: "Den, mebbe it's had a relapse."
On a recent trip to Germany, Doctor Harvey Wiley, the pure-food expert, heard an allegory with reference to the subject of food adulteration which, he contends, should cause Americans to congratulate themselves that things are so well ordered in this respect in the United States.
The German allegory was substantially as follows:
Four flies, which had made their way into a certain pantry, determined to have a feast.
One flew to the sugar and ate heartily; but soon died, for the sugar was full of white lead.
The second chose the flour as his diet, but he fared no better, for the flour was loaded with plaster of Paris.
The third sampled the syrup, but his six legs were presently raised in the air, for the syrup was colored with aniline dyes.
The fourth fly, seeing all his friends dead, determined to end his life also, and drank deeply of the fly-poison which he found in a convenient saucer.
He is still alive and in good health. That, too, was adulterated.
"But why did you leave your last place?" the lady asked of the would-be cook.
"To tell the truth, mum, I just couldn't stand the way the master an' the missus used to quarrel, mum."
"Dear me! Do you mean to say that they actually used to quarrel?"
"Yis, mum, all the time. When it wasn't me an' him, it was me an' her."
"I hear ye had words with Casey."
"We had no words."
"Then nothing passed between ye?"
"Nothing but one brick."
There had been a wordy falling-out between Mrs. Halloran and Mrs. Donohue; there had been words; nay, more, there had been language. Mrs. Halloran had gone to church early in the morning, had fulfilled the duties of her religion, and was returning primly home, when Mrs. Donohue spied her, and, still smouldering with volcanic fire, sent a broadside of lava at Mrs. Halloran. The latter heard, flushed, opened her lips—and then suddenly checked herself. After a moment she spoke: "Mrs. Donohue, I've just been to church, and I'm in a state of grace. But, plaze Hivin, the next time I meet yez, I won't be, and thin I'll till yez what I think of yez!"
A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party: there is no battle unless there be two.—Seneca.
See alsoMarriage; Servants
The more questions a woman asks the fewer answers she remembers.—Wasp.
It was a very hot day and the fat drummer who wanted the twelve-twenty train got through the gate at just twelve-twenty-one. The ensuing handicap was watched with absorbed interest both from the train and the station platform. At its conclusion the breathless and perspiring knight of the road wearily took the back trail, and a vacant-faced "red-cap" came out to relieve him of his grip.
"Mister," he inquired, "was you tryin' to ketch that Pennsylvania train?"
"No, my son," replied the patient man. "No; I was merely chasing it out of the yard."
A party of young men were camping, and to avert annoying questions they made it a rule that the one who asked a question that he could not answer himself had to do the cooking.
One evening, while sitting around the fire, one of the boys asked: "Why is it that a ground-squirrel never leaves any dirt at the mouth of its burrow?"
They all guessed and missed. So he was asked to answer it himself.
"Why," he said, "because it always begins to dig at the other end of the hole."
"But," one asked, "how does it get to the other end of the hole?"
"Well," was the reply, "that's your question."
A browbeating lawyer was demanding that a witness answer a certain question either in the negative or affirmative.
"I cannot do it," said the witness. "There are some questions that cannot be answered by a 'yes' or a 'no,' as any one knows."
"I defy you to give an example to the court," thundered the lawyer.
The retort came like a flash: "Are you still beating your wife?"
Officers have a right to ask questions in the performance of their duty, but there are occasions when it seems as if they might curtail or forego the privilege. Not long ago an Irishman whose hand had been badly mangled in an accident entered the Boston City Hospital relief station in a great hurry. He stepped up to the man in charge and inquired:
"Is this the relief station, sor?"
"Yes. What is your name?"
"Patrick O'Connor, sor."
"Are you married?" questioned the officer.
"Yis, sor, but is this the relief station?" He was nursing his hand in agony.
"Of course it is. How many children have you?"
"Eight, sor. But sure, this is the relief station?"
"Yes, it is," replied the officer, a little angry at the man's persistence.
"Well," said Patrick, "sure, an' I was beginning to think that it might be the pumping station."
The sages say, Dame Truth delights to dwell(Strange Mansion!) in the bottom of a well:Questions are then the Windlass and the ropeThat pull the grave old Gentlewoman up.—John Wolcott.
The sages say, Dame Truth delights to dwell(Strange Mansion!) in the bottom of a well:Questions are then the Windlass and the ropeThat pull the grave old Gentlewoman up.
The sages say, Dame Truth delights to dwell
(Strange Mansion!) in the bottom of a well:
Questions are then the Windlass and the rope
That pull the grave old Gentlewoman up.
—John Wolcott.
—John Wolcott.
See alsoCuriosity.
Stanley Jordan, the well-known Episcopal minister, having cause to be anxious about his son's college examinations, told him to telegraph the result. The boy sent the following message to his parent: "Hymn 342, fifth verse, last two lines."
Looking it up the father found the words: "Sorrow vanquished, labor ended, Jordan passed."
A negro preacher in a southern town was edified on one occasion by the recital of a dream had by a member of the church.
"I was a-dreamin' all dis time," said the narrator, "dat I was in ole Satan's dominions. I tell you, pahson, dat was shore a bad dream!"
"Was dere any white men dere?" asked the dusky divine.
"Shore dere was—plenty of 'em," the other hastened to assure his minister "What was dey a-doin'?"
"Ebery one of 'em," was the answer, "was a-holdin' a cullud pusson between him an' de fire!"
Sam Jones, the evangelist, was leading a revival meeting in Huntsville, Texas, a number of years ago, and at the close of one of the services an old negro woman pushed her way up through the crowd to the edge of the pulpit platform. Sam took the perspiring black hand that was held out to him, and heard the old woman say: "Brudder Jones, you sho' is a finepreacher! Yes, suh; de Lord bless you. You's des everybody's preacher. You's de white folks' preacher, and de niggers' preacher, and everybody's preacher. Brudder Jones, yo' skin's white, but, thank de Lord, yo' heart's des as black as any nigger's!"
An Irishman and a Jew were discussing the great men who had belonged toeach race and, as may be expected, got into a heated argument. Finally the Irishman said:
"Ikey, listen. For ivery great Jew ye can name ye may pull out one of me whiskers, an' for ivery great Irishman I can name I'll pull one of yours. Is it a go?"
They consented, and Pat reached over, got hold of a whisker, said, "Robert Emmet,' and pulled.
"Moses!" said the Jew, and pulled one of Pat's tenderest.
"Dan O'Connell," said Pat and took another.
"Abraham," said Ikey, helping himself again.
"Patrick Henry," returned Pat with a vicious yank.
"The Twelve Apostles," said the Jew, taking a handful of whiskers.
Pat emitted a roar of pain, grasped the Jew's beard with both hands, and yelled, "The ancient Order of Hibernians!"
"Prisoner, why did you assault this landlord?"
"Your Honor, because I have several children he refused to rent me a flat."
"Well, that is his privilege."
"But, your Honor, he calls his apartment house 'The Roosevelt.'"
In answer to the question, "What are the five great races of mankind?" a Chinese student replied, "The 100 yards, the hurdles, the quartermile,the mile, and the three miles."
"Now, Thomas," said the foreman of the construction gang to a green handwho had just been put on the job, "keep your eyes open. When you see a train coming throw down your tools and jump off the track. Run like blazes."
"Sure!" said Thomas, and began to swing his pick. In a few moments the Empire State Express came whirling along. Thomas threw down his pick and started up the track ahead of the train as fast as he could run. The train overtook him and tossed him into a ditch. Badly shaken up he was taken to the hospital, where the foreman visited him.
"You blithering idiot," said the foreman, "didn't I tell you to get out of the road? Didn't I tell you to take care and get out of the way? Why didn't you run up the side of the hill?"
"Up the soide of the hill is it, sor?" said Thomas through the bandages on his face. "Up the soide of the hill? Be the powers, I couldn't bate it on the level, let alone runnin' uphill!"
"Talk 'bout railroads bein' a blessin'," said Brother Dickey, "des look at de loads an' loads er watermelons deys haulin' out de state, ter dem folks 'way up North what never done nuthin' ter deserve sich a dispensation!"
On one of the southern railroads there is a station-building that is commonly known by travelers as the smallest railroad station in America. It is of this station that the story is told that an old farmer was expecting a chicken-house to arrive there, and he sent one of his hands, a new-comer, to fetch it. Arriving there the man saw the house, loaded it on to his wagon and started for home. On the way he met a man in uniform with the words "Station Agent" on his cap.
"Say, hold on. What have you got on that wagon?" he asked.
"My chicken-house, of course," was the reply.
"Chicken-house be jiggered!" exploded the official. "That's thestation!"
"I read of the terrible vengeance inflicted upon one of their members by a band of robbers in Mississippi last week."
"What did they do? Shoot him?"
"No; they tied him upon the railroad tracks."
"Awful! And he was ground to pieces, I suppose?"
"Nothing like it. The poor fellow starved to death waiting for the nexttrain."—W. Dayton Wegefarth.
The reporter who had accompanied the special train to the scene of the wreck, hurried down the embankment and found a man who had one arm in a sling, a bandage over one eye, his front teeth gone, and his nose knocked four points to starboard, sitting on a piece of the locomotive and surveying the horrible ruin all about him.
"Can you give me some particulars of this accident?" asked the reporter, taking out his notebook.
"I haven't heard of any accident, young man," replied the disfigured party stiffly.
He was one of the directors of the railroad.
The Hon. John Sharp Williams had an engagement to speak in a small southern town. The train he was traveling on was not of the swiftest, and he lost no opportunity of keeping the conductor informed as to his opinions of that particular road.
"Well, if yer don't like it," the conductor finally blurted out, "why in thunder don't yer git out an' walk?"
"I would," Mr. Williams blandly replied, "but you see the committee doesn't expect me until this train gets in."
"We were bounding along," said a recent traveler on a local South African single-line railway, "at the rate of about seven miles an hour, and the whole train was shaking terribly. I expected every moment to see my bones protruding through my skin. Passengers were rolling from oneend of the car to the other. I held on firmly to the arms of the seat. Presently we settled down a bit quieter; at least, I could keep my hat on, and my teeth didn't chatter."There was a quiet looking man opposite me. I looked up with a ghastly smile, wishing to appear cheerful, and said:
"'We are going a bit smoother, I see.'
"'Yes,' he said, 'we're off the track now.'"
Three men were talking in rather a large way as to the excellent train service each had in his special locality: one was from the west, one from New England, and the other from New York. The former two had told of marvelous doings of trains, and it is distinctly "up" to the man from New York.
"Now in New York," he said, "we not only run our trains fast, but we also start them fast. I remember the case of a friend of mine whose wife went to see him off for the west on the Pennsylvania at Jersey City. As the train was about to start my friend said his final good-by to his wife, and leaned down from the car platform to kiss her. The train started, and, would you believe it, my friend found himself kissing a strange woman on the platform at Trenton!"
And the other men gave it up.
"Say, young man," asked an old lady at the ticket-office, "what time does the next train pull in here and how long does it stay?"
"From two to two to two-two," was the curt reply.
"Well, I declare! Be you the whistle?"
An express on the Long Island Railroad was tearing away at a wild and awe-inspiring rate of six miles an hour, when all of a sudden it stopped altogether. Most of the passengers did not notice the difference; but one of them happened to be somewhat anxious to reach his destination before old age claimed him for its own. He put his head through the window to find that the cause of the stop was a cow on the track. After a while they continued the journey for half an hour or so, and then—another stop.
"What's wrong now?" asked the impatient passenger of the conductor.
"A cow on the track."
"But I thought you drove it off."
"So we did," said the conductor, "but we caught up with it again."
The president of one great southern railway pulled into a southern city in his private car. It was also the terminal of a competing road, and the private car of the president of the other line was on a side track. There was great rivalry between these two lines, which extended from the president of each down to the most humble employe. In the evening the colored cook from one of the cars wandered over to pass the time of day with the cook on the other car.
One of these roads had recently had an appalling list of accidents, and the death-toll was exceptionally high. The cook from this road sauntered up to the back platform of the private car, and after an interchange of courtesies said:
"Well, how am youh ole jerkwatah railroad these days? Am you habbing prosper's times?"
"Man," said the other, "we-all am so prosperous that if we was any moah prosperous we just naturally couldn't stand hit."
"Hough!" said the other, "we-all am moah prosperous than you-all."
"Man," said the other, "we dun carry moah'n a million passengers last month."
"Foah de Lord's sake!" ejaculated the first negro. "You-all carried moah'n a million passengers? Go on with you, nigger; we dun kill moah passengers than you carry."
It was on a little branch railway in a southern state that the New England woman ventured to refer to the high rates.
"It seems to me five cents a mile is extortion," she said, with frankness, to her southern cousin.
"It's a big lot of money to pay if you think of it by the mile," said the southerner, in her soft drawl; "but you just think how cheap it is by the hour, Cousin Annie—only about thirty-five cents."—Youth'sCompanion.
One cold, wintry morning a man of tall and angular build was walking down a steep hill at a quick pace. A treacherous piece of ice under the snow caused him to lose control of his feet; he began to slide and was unable to stop.
At a cross-street half-way down the decline he encountered a large, heavy woman, with her arms full of bundles. The meeting was sudden, and before either realized it a collision ensued and both were sliding down hill, a grand ensemble—the thin man underneath, the fat woman and bundles on top. When the bottom was reached and the woman was trying in vain to recover her breath and her feet, these faint words were borne to her ear:
"Pardon me, madam, but you will have to get off here. This is as far as I go."
SeeBooks and Reading.
Little Nelly told little Anita what she termed a "little fib."
ANITA—"A fib is the same as a story, and a story is the same as a lie."
NELLY—"No, it is not."
ANITA—"Yes, it is, because my father said so, and my father is a professor at the university."
NELLY—"I don't care if he is. My father is a real estate man, and he knows more about lying than your father does."
The storekeeper at Yount, Idaho, tells the following tale of Ole Olson, who later became the little town's mayor.
"One night, just before closin' up time, Ole, hatless, coatless, and breathless, come rushin' into the store, an' droppin' on his knees yelled, 'Yon, Yon, hide me, hide me! Ye sheriff's after me!'
"'I've no place to hide you here, Ole,' said I.
"'You moost, you moost!' screamed Ole.
"'Crawl into that gunny-sack then,' said I.
"He'd no more'n gotten hid when in runs the sheriff.
"'Seen Ole?' said he.
"'Don't see him here,' said I, without lyin'.
"Then the sheriff went a-nosin' round an' pretty soon he spotted the gunny-sack over in the corner.
"'What's in here?' said he.
"'Oh, just some old harness and sleigh-bells,' said I.
"With that he gives it an awful boot.
"'Yingle, yingle, yingle!' moaned Ole."
MOTHER—"Tommy, if you're pretending to be an automobile, I wish you'd run over to the store and get me some butter."
TOMMY—"I'm awful sorry, Mother, but I'm all out of gasoline."—Judge.
"Children," said the teacher, instructing the class in composition, "you should not attempt any flights of fancy; simply be yourselves and write what is in you. Do not imitate any other person's writings or draw inspiration from outside sources."
As a result of this advice Tommy Wise turned out the following composition: "We should not attempt any flights of fancy, but write what is in us. In me there is my stummick, lungs, hart, liver, two apples, one piece of pie, one stick of lemon candy and my dinner."
"A great deal of fun has been poked at the realistic school of art," says a New York artist, "and it must be confessed that some ground has been given to the enemy. Why, there recently came to my notice a picture of an Assyrian bath, done by a Chicago man, and so careful was he of all the details that the towels hanging up were all marked 'Nebuchadnezzar' in the corner, in cuneiform characters."
SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER—"Johnny, what is the text from Judges?"
JOHNNY-"I don't believe in recalling the judiciary, mum."
"Senator, why don't you unpack your trunk? You'll be in Washington for six years."
"I don't know about that. My state has the recall."
A firm of shady outside London brokers was prosecuted for swindling. In acquitting them the court, with great severity, said:
"There is not sufficient evidence to convict you, but if anyone wishes to know my opinion of you I hope that they will refer to me."
Next day the firm's advertisement appeared in every available medium with the following, well displayed: "Reference as to probity, by special permission, the Lord Chief Justice of England."
MISTRESS—"Have you a reference?"
BRIDGET—"Foine; Oi held the poker over her till Oi got it."
There is a story of a Scotch gentleman who had to dismiss his gardener for dishonesty. For the sake of the man's wife and family, however, he gave him a "character," and framed it in this way: "I hereby certify that A. B. has been my gardener for over two years, and that during that time he got more out of the garden than any man I ever employed."
The buxom maid had been hinting that she did not think much of working out, and this in conjunction with the nightly appearance of a rather sheepish young man caused her mistress much apprehension.
"Martha, is it possible that you are thinking of getting married?"
"Yes'm," admitted Martha, blushing.
"Not that young fellow who has been calling on you lately?"
"Yes'm he's the one."
"But you have only known him a few days."
"Three weeks come Thursday," corrected Martha.
"Do you think that is long enough to know a man before taking such an important step?"
"Well," answered Martha with spirit, "'tain't 's if he was some new feller. He's well recommended; a perfectly lovely girl I know was engaged to him for a long while."
An Englishman and an Irishman went to the captain of a ship bound for America and asked permission to work their passage over. The captain consented, but asked the Irishman for references and let the Englishman go on without them. This made the Irishman angry and he planned to get even.
One day when they were washing off the deck, the Englishman leaned far over the rail, dropped the bucket, and was just about to haul it up when a huge wave came and pulled him overboard. The Irishman stopped scrubbing, went over to the rail and, seeing the Englishman had disappeared, went to the Captain and said: "Perhaps yez remember whin I shipped aboard this vessel ye asked me for riferences and let the Englishman come on widout thim?"
The Captain said: "Yes, I remember."
"Well, ye've been decaved," said the Irishman; "he's gone off wid yer pail!"
"Yes, I quarreled with my wife about nothing."
"Why don't you make up?"
"I'm going to. All I'm worried about now is the indemnity."
LOUISE—"The man that Edith married is a reformer."
JULIA—"How did he lose his money?"—Judge.
He was earnestly but prosily orating at the audience. "I want land reform," he wound up, "I want housing reform, I want educational reform, I want—"
And said a bored voice in the audience: "Chloroform."
The young woman sat before her glass and gazed long and earnestly at the reflection there. She screwed up her face in many ways. She fluffed her hair and then smoothed it down again; she raised her eyes and lowered them; she showed her teeth and she pressed her lips tightly together. At last she got up, with a weary sigh, and said:
"It's no use. I'll be some kind of reformer."
A Newport man who was invited to a house party at Bar Harbor, telegraphed to the hostess: "Regret I can't come. Lie follows by post."
After the death of Lord Houghton, there was found in his correspondence the following reply to a dinner invitation: "Mrs. —— presents her compliments to Lord Houghton. Her husband died on Tuesday, otherwise he would have been delighted to dine with Lord Houghton on Thursday next."
A young woman prominent in the social set of an Ohio town tells of a young man there who had not familiarized himself with the forms of polite correspondence to the fullest extent. When, on one occasion, he found it necessary to decline an invitation, he did so in the following terms:
"Mr. Henry Blank declines with pleasure Mrs. Wood's invitation for the nineteenth, and thanks her extremely for having given him the opportunity of doing so."