Rapid Fire
By HARRY L. NEWTONCOPYRIGHT MCMIII BY WILL ROSSITER
By HARRY L. NEWTONCOPYRIGHT MCMIII BY WILL ROSSITER
By HARRY L. NEWTON
COPYRIGHT MCMIII BY WILL ROSSITER
Tom (Comedian): Can you tell me where there’s a fire-insurance office?
Dick (Straight): Why, are you going to insure your property?
Tom: Well, not exactly; but my boss says he’s going to fire me, and I want to see if I can’t get protection from the fire.
Dick: Well, why don’t you attend to business? Get around bright and early in the morning.
Tom: I would, only my watch stopped this morning.
Dick: What was the matter with it?
Tom: A bedbug got between the ticks.
Dick: O, quit your kidding! I want to ask you something serious—
Tom: I don’t get paid until Saturday.
Dick: O, I don’t want money. I have a plenty of that.
Tom: My goodness! How long since?
Dick: I want you to understand that I am very well off.
Tom: Yes; you’re away off. (Taps forehead.)
Dick: That’ll do you!
Tom: But I knew the time when a bean sandwich looked like a week’s board to you.
Dick: Well, you needn’t tell everybody here about it—that’s my misfortune.
Tom: I won’t say a word. But if you don’t behave I’ll tell everybody here that I loaned you a shirt, till you get yours from the laundry—
Dick: Say, please keep—
Tom: O, I won’t breathe it, don’t worry; and I won’t say a word about you wearing my collar and tie, either—
Dick (angrily): See here—
Tom: O, shavings! Don’t get angry!
Dick: Well, then, listen and be serious. I have written a play—
Tom: Thirty days and costs.
Dick (sarcastically): I suppose you think you could write one.
Tom: I did write one; I wrote a melodrama.
Dick: A melodrama, eh? Was anybody killed?
Tom: No; the audience yelled for the author, but I wouldn’t come out.
Dick: Ha! Ha! It’s a good thing that you didn’t. Now in my first act—
Tom: Say, did you ever hear the story about my coal-bin?
Dick: No; is it a good one?
Tom: No; there’s nothing in it.
Dick: O, behave! In my first act I—
Tom: Say, a fellow asked me to-day if he would have to take a course in a barber-school before he could shave ice at a soda-water counter.
Dick: O, behave! In the first act I have introduced a—
Tom: A piece of cheese.
Dick: Yes; a piece of cheese—no; nothing of the sort. The idea!
Tom: What’s the best way to catch a rat?
Dick: I suppose there are several ways. What is the best way to catch a rat?
Tom: Crawl in a pantry and smell like a piece of cheese.
Dick: Will you behave? I heard you had been speculating on the board of trade?
Tom: Yes; I was a speculator.
Dick: What were you, a bull or a bear?
Tom: Neither. They made a monkey out of me.
Dick: Serves you right! In the first act—
Tom: Say, are you still in the first act?
Dick: Certainly. Why don’t you let me go on?
Tom: O, go on; I don’t care what happens.
Dick: Well, in the first act, I have written—
Tom: You have written home for money.
Dick: Yes, I have written home—no, nothing of the sort.
Tom: Not guilty?
Dick: Not guilty; my folks haven’t seen my face in four months.
Tom: My goodness! Why don’t you wash it?
Dick: Now, stop it, I tell you! In the first act—
Tom: Why is a cascaret?
Dick: Why is a cascaret what?
Tom: Because it works while you sleep.
Dick: For goodness sake! is that a joke?
Tom: I should say so. It’s one of the best I ever traveled with.
Dick: Then you don’t travel with much, do you?
Tom: No; I generally travel with you.
Dick: O, behave, you rascal!
Tom: Say, do you know what?
Dick: No; what?
Tom: What is worse than a giraffe with a sore throat?
Dick: Why, I can’t imagine anything worse. What is worse?
Tom: A centipede with the chilblains.
Dick: I wish you’d behave! I was going by your house yesterday, and I saw your sister looking out of the window; but I didn’t see any of the rest of the family—
Tom: Well, sister is the only one that’s working, and she looks out for us all.
Dick: Behave! Behave! Is your sister a blonde?
Tom: No, but she’s dyeing to be one. (Slaps himself on the wrist.) Behave! how dare you!
Dick: Say, are you going to listen to me?
Tom: Certainly.
Dick: Well, in the first act the villain comes on and strikes the heroine—
Tom: For ten cents to buy an automobile.
Dick: Yes, for ten cents to buy an auto—no, no, he strikes her—
Tom: Why, he must belong to the union, then?
Dick: Certainly, he does—no, he doesn’t either. The idea!
Tom: If two peaches make a date, and two dates make a pair, what do apples make?
Dick: Why, apples make cider, of course.
Tom: And Pears make soap, is it?
Dick: Is it! You talk like a cake of yeast.
Tom: Sure. You see I always rise when I talk. Ha, Ha!
Dick: What are you laughing at?
Tom: That joke. I thought of it so quick. It must be quick-rising yeast, are they?
Dick: Are they! There you go again.
Tom: Did you hear about it?
Dick: Hear about what?
Tom: My sister eloped yesterday.
Dick: Is that so?
Tom: Yes, a horse ran away with her.
Dick: O, behave! That reminds me. When are you going to get married?
Tom: Hush! Can you keep a secret?
Dick: Sure.
Tom: I’m married.
Dick: Why, that’s news to me. How long have you been married?
Tom: Six months.
Dick: Six months, eh? And I suppose you think your wife is an angel?
Tom: No, not quite—but I have hopes.
Dick: O, behave! You know in the first act—
Tom: You know when I asked my wife’s father to marry his daughter, I said: “I love your daughter and I can’t live without her.”
Dick: Very noble of you. And what did the old gentleman say?
Tom: He says: “Take her, young man; I can’t live with her.”
Dick: Ha, ha! And you took her?
Tom: I did. I took her for better or worse, and got the worst of it.
Dick: Too bad! But who gave the bride away?
Tom: Her little brother.
Dick: Her little brother? I never heard of such a thing. The father usually gives the bride away.
Tom: The old man never said a word. It was her little angel-faced brother. He told everybody that she had a cork leg. It was an awful case of give away.
Dick: Then I suppose you took a bridal tour?
Tom: No; I felt more like taking an ax to her.
Dick: Why, that, wouldn’t be very nice—to take an ax to her.
Tom: I would, only she began to sing “O, Woodman, Spare that Tree.”
Dick: O, behave!
Tom: You know my wife used to be a “summer girl.”
Dick: And what is a “summer girl?”
Tom: A “summer girl” is a rack to stretch shirt-waists on; inside is a compartment for lobster salad, chop suey and ice cream; while outside is an attachment for diamond rings.
Dick: A very good definition, my boy. Isuppose you hung a diamond ring on the outside?
Tom: No; I hung up my watch on the inside of a pawnshop.
Dick: Well, don’t worry—a man should be satisfied with what he has.
Tom: O, I’m satisfied with what I have. It’s what I haven’t got that causes most of my dissatisfaction.
Dick: You look well. That ought to help some.
Tom: I just returned from taking a water cure.
Dick: Did you derive any benefit from the water?
Tom: I don’t know. You see the water was in a well, and I think the exercise I got going to the well helped me.
Dick: Why, was the well a long way off?
Tom: Yes; you see I was far from well.
Dick: O, behave! In the first act—
Tom: Is your play funny?
Dick: Yes; every hearty laugh adds a day to a person’s life, you know.
Tom: I don’t believe it.
Dick: Why not?
Tom: I laughed yesterday when a guy slipped on a banana peel, and I’ll bet he kicked ten days off of my life, all right.
Dick: Well, you only got what was coming to you. Now the first act—
Tom: Here’s a funny thing.
Dick: What’s that?
Tom: Why, night falls but it doesn’t break.
Dick: Well, what, of it?
Tom: O, nothing, except that day breaks but it doesn’t fall.
Dick: O, behave!
Tom: My landlady forgot this morning and helped me to a second piece of steak.
Dick: That was luck.
Tom: Yes, tough luck.
Dick: O, behave! I see that Kid McCoy says he’s willing to meet any man in the world for any amount of money.
Tom: So am I.
Dick: So are you? Why, the idea! Ha, ha! That makes me laugh.
Tom: Laugh away; but I’ll meet any man in the world for any amount of money, any old time.
Dick: You will?
Tom: Yes, I will. J. P. Morgan preferred.
Dick: Good! You’re all right. Well, in the first act the heroine is discovered asleep in a snow-bank.
Tom: Then she must have cold feet.
Dick: Yes, she has cold—no, she hasn’t got cold feet.
Tom: O, she has a hot-water bag on her feet?
Dick: Yes, she has, of course—no, she hasn’t either. The heroine is discovered asleep in a snow-bank and the villain comes on and—
Tom: And she wakes up and gives him the “frozen face.”
Dick: Yes, now you’ve got it—O, behave!
Tom: Say, my old maid sister found a man under her bed last night.
Dick: Is that so? What did she do, send for a policeman?
Tom: No; she sent for a minister.
Dick: O, behave!
Tom: I ain’t going to church any more.
Dick: Not going to church? Why, what’s the reason?
Tom: I’m sore at the minister.
Dick: What about?
Tom: When my brother died the minister said he had gone to join the great majority.
Dick: Well, what’s wrong with that? That’s simply an expression: “Gone to join the great majority.”
Tom: Yes, but two weeks ago he said that more people went down below than there were up above. Wouldn’t that jingle your small change?
Dick: I understand your brother was a hard drinker?
Tom: Yes; his habits were a little moist.
Dick: Moist?
Tom: Yes, he kept pretty well soaked.
Dick: The idea! In the first—
Tom: Gee! but my father was late in getting home last night.
Dick: What made him late?
Tom: The trolley-car kept stopping every two minutes.
Dick: Every two minutes?
Tom: Yes, it would stop every two minutesand then wait one minute before starting again.
Dick: Wasn’t your father angry at the waits?
Tom: No, they were only short waits and he’s used to short weights—he’s in the coal business.
Dick: O, behave!
Tom: If you ever do what you did last night I’ll never speak to you again.
Dick: What did I do?
Tom: I met you last night just as I was coming in the hotel.
Dick: Yes; what of it?
Tom: You were going out of the hotel when I was coming in, and you insulted me.
Dick: Insulted you? How did I insult you?
Tom: You were singing a song.
Dick: Well, what of it? There’s no harm in that. What song was I singing?
Tom: “All Going Out; Nothin’ comin’ in.”
Dick: O, behave!