The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sheared cream o’ wit, by Carl J. Mittler.

Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

This little anthology is lovingly dedicated to Miss Jennie C. Benedict and Miss Salome E. Kerr, with respect and admiration.

The old adage “what is one man’s laughter may be another man’s dirge” is not inapplicable to the selections of wit and humor in your book.

The rare gift of originality is denied most of us, but a measure of compensation rests in the gift of appreciation which has been so freely bestowed, in some degree at least, upon nearly every one of the human race. As one who enjoys this blessing, the compiler of this little volume has counted it a labor of love, and hence a delight, to gather together during a period of forty years choice bits of humor and quaint verse, for his own amusement and the delectation of an inner circle of friends.

The growth of this collection, together with the care used in selection, seems now to warrant its stepping into a wider field. The same recognition of the finer things of wit and pathos which led to these gleanings will be met in other hearts and the smile of kindred spirits will broaden as this little book makes its new friends. Under the evening lamp, the family circle may have many a hearty laugh together; in the office or train, the tired business man may ease the strain of concentration; in the hospitals, weary convalescents may cheer the hours of waiting; the after-dinner speaker may find here some worth-while “I am reminded” stories; far and wide are scattered the multitudes of those who will welcome the coming of one whose mission it is to “scatter sunshine” along life’s weary way.

The gems contained in these pages have been gathered from the New York Graphic, Texas Siftings, Ram’s Horn, Life, Paris Figaro, Punch, London Tit Bits, Literary Digest, Ladies Home Journal, Fliegende Blätter, and from daily papers, living and dead. To all of these, due acknowledgment is made and confidence is expressed that one and all will endorse the propaganda for the spread of the gospel of laughter.

All of the foregoing is set down to emphasize the simple truth that I shall regard my labor as well rewarded, if a bit of new joy, a ray of new brightness, may enter the life of some one who needs it today.

The new long skirts may make the women appear taller, but there is no denying that the short skirts make the men look longer.

Village Constable (to villager who has been knocked down by passing motorist): You didn’t see the number, but could you swear to the man?

Messenger boy, with a telegram for Mr. Jenkins, rings the bell at half-past one in the morning: Does Mr. Jenkins live here—

Paw, said Tommy Tucker, am I descended from the monkey? Not on my side of the house, replied Mr. Tucker, with much positiveness.

A Yorkshireman recently entered an auction mart. Looking around and catching the auctioneer’s eye during a lull in the bidding, he shouted loudly enough to be heard by all: May I bid, sir?

Dearest, she murmured, trembling, now that we are married, I—I have a secret to tell you!

Can you ever forgive me for deceiving you? she sobbed. My—my left eye is made of glass!

Never mind, lovebird, he whispered, gently; so are the diamonds in your engagement ring!

Mrs. Smith presented her husband with triplets, and two weeks later she had twins.

An inebriated husband, who has returned after a night out, bringing with him nothing but a charlotte russe, finds his wife very angry. I sent you for fish last night and here you have come home with nothing but a charlotte russe.

An advertisement appeared in a newspaper lately praising a new make of infant’s feeding bottle. Here is the advice it gave relative to its use:

When the infant is done drinking, it must be unscrewed and put in cold place under a tap. If the baby does not thrive on raw milk, it should be boiled.

Jenkins’ mother-in-law was buried one day last week. Jenkins was visibly affected as he followed the hearse.

I can’t help it, sighed poor Jenkins. Poor woman! Do you know this is the very first time we have been out together without quarreling?

The stingiest man was scoring the hired man for his extravagance in wanting to carry a lantern in going to call on his best girl.

The idea! he scoffed. When I was courtin’ I never carried no lantern; I went in the dark.

A young lady was caressing a pretty spaniel, and murmuring, I do love a nice dog! Ah! sighed a dandy, standing near; I would I were a dog. Never mind, retorted the young lady, sharply, you’ll grow!

Mrs. Knicker—Weren’t you frightened when the bull bellowed at you on account of your new dress?

Mrs. Bocker—No, it was exactly the same way Henry behaved when he got the bill.

This is from a retail grocer, found (not the grocer) in a basket of Florida beans—

Dearest Sweet Pea—Do you carrot all for me? My heart beets for you. With your radish hair and turnip nose, you are the apple of my eye. Give me a date, if we cantaloupe. Lettuce marry anyway. I know we would make a happy pear.

Yes, dear, I was married last month. I’d like you to call on me and see the pretty little flat I have.

The girl was very pretty. Leaning her dimpled elbows on the table she said—And what is your lecture to be about, professor?

A pretty young lady went into a Fourth Avenue music shop the other day. She tripped up to the counter, where a new clerk was busy, and in her sweetest tones asked—

No! It must have been the man at the other counter. I’ve only been here a week.

That brown set in the window will do if it’s not too dear, replied the tall, strong man.

Miss Fleyme—Oh, Mr. Nocoyne, how lovely of you to bring me these beautiful roses! How sweet they are—and how fresh! I do believe there is a little dew on them yet!

Madam, I must request you to remove your hat, remarked the polite theater usher.

How’s this? sneered the jealous goose. How happens it you aren’t the leading attraction at some Thanksgiving dinner?

A drummer approached a girl in charge of a soda fountain and before giving his order asked—How is the milkmaid to-night?

Milk isn’t made; it comes from cows, you fool, was the retort. He was glad to close his mouth with some of it.

No man is as well known as he thinks he is, says Caruso. I was motoring on Long Island recently. My car broke down and I entered a farmhouse to get warm. The farmer and I chatted, and when he asked my name I told him modestly that it was Caruso. At that he threw up his hands.

Caruso! he exclaimed. Robinson Caruso, the great traveler! Little did I expect ever to see a man like yer in this here humble kitchen, sir!

I sometimes wonder, said an Englishman visiting New York, to a pretty girl sitting next to him at dinner, what becomes of all your peaches here in America.

Look here! angrily exclaimed the householder, pointing to a cigar-stump that lay on the floor of the back porch. That was in the lump of ice you left here yesterday morning! Well, belligerently replied the iceman, what did you expect to get for fifteen cents—a box of perfectos?

I, said the temperance man, strongly object to the custom of christening ships with champagne.

Well, immediately after the first bottle of wine the ship takes to water and sticks to it ever after.

A man “butted in” at a waiting line before the railroad ticket window at New York, and the men who were in a hurry glowered.

But, observed the fool man who had permitted his wife to take him along on her search for a spring bonnet, the hat doesn’t seem to fit. Now, I think a woman’s hat should conform to her head the same as a man’s.

Oh, tittered the merry milliner, there are no fits connected with spring hats. They generally develop in the men when the bill comes home.

A few days ago, says the “Newark Star,” Alderman Elmer A. Day was glancing over the register at one of the local hotels to see if a friend of his was registered there. Near him stood a man who was holding onto the desk for dear life in a semi-successful attempt to maintain his balance.

I s’pose you think I’m drunk? said the stranger, looking belligerently at Day.

No; not in the least, replied the Alderman, anxious to avoid the possibility of a row.

I visited Miss Marie Corelli when I was in Stratford, said a young woman. She lives in a quaint house of dull red brick. She is very pretty and very rich, and she likes Americans.

Miss Corelli was full of fun. She talked about woman’s over-regard for appearances. She said that she herself was too prone to think that, if appearances were all right, everything was right.

Once, in her childhood, Miss Corelli said she was yachting on the English coast.

Oh, well, said the young girl, what does it matter? It’s under water, and I’m sure nobody will notice it.

A sentimental novelist once wrote: Edwin then kissed Angelina under the silent stars.

Old Smith was busy in his back yard with saw and hatchet while his wife nursed a bad cold in the house, when a neighbor came to the fence.

Just about the same, old Smith replied. She didn’t sleep very well last night.

That’s too bad, the neighbor sympathized, and then, as a raucous sound came from the house, he added solicitously:

No, old Smith answered absent-mindedly, his eyes still on his work, it ain’t her coffin, it’s a new hen house.

The world has so long been at war with the hapless printer that it will be interesting to know that at least one compositor has been capable of following instructions. Once upon a time a printer brought to Booth for inspection proof of a new poster, which after the manner of its kind, announced the actor as the eminent tragedian, Edwin Booth.

I wish you’d leave out that eminent tragedian business. I’d much rather have it simple Edwin Booth, he said.

The next week the actor saw the first of his new bills in position. His request had been carried out to the letter. The poster announced the coming engagement of Simple Edwin Booth.

Now, continued the widow, I want you to add to the notice, “Gone to Rest,” in an appropriate place.

Yes, madam, replied the bright clerk, and the next morning she read: Gone to rest in an appropriate place.

Miss Frances Kellar, of the Woman’s Municipal League of New York, illustrated admirably at a dinner party a point which she wished to make.

Of course, Miss Kellar answered, I admit that women are vain and men are not. There are a thousand proofs that this is so. Why, the necktie of the handsomest man in the room is even now up the back of his collar.

There were six men present, and each of them put his hand gently behind his neck.

We recently heard of a man who attended a grand ball with his wife and had a grand time. While dancing a quadrille he noticed that his pants were ripping, and hurriedly retired to a room with his wife, who procured a needle and thread and began sewing up the rip. While the man was sitting there without any pants on he heard the rustling of skirts and it occurred to him that he had taken refuge in the ladies’ dressing-room. He appealed to his wife, and she shoved him to a door which opened, as she thought, into a closet. Opening the door quickly, she shoved him through and locked the door. Mary! he screamed, I’m in the ballroom! The door, instead of opening into the closet, opened into the ballroom.

The Morning Star announced the death of William B. Jones when he was not dead, writes Simeon Strunsky in the New York Evening Post.

Yesterday we were the first newspaper to publish the news of the death of William B. Jones. Today we are the first to deny the report. The Morning Star is always in the lead.

A matron of the most determined character was encountered by a young woman reporter on a country paper, who was sent out to interview leading citizens as to their politics. May I see Mr. ⸺? she asked of a stern-looking woman who opened the door at one house. No, you can’t, answered the matron decisively. But I want to know what party he belongs to, pleaded the girl. The woman drew up her tall figure. Well, take a good look at me, she said, I’m the party he belongs to!

Here is a singular incident showing how easy it is to mistranslate an overheard remark.

Said Mrs. A, one of the overhearers: They must have been to the zoo, because I heard her mention a trained deer.

Said Mrs. B: No, no. They were talking about going away and she said to him, find out about the train, dear.

Said Mrs. C: I think you are both wrong. It seemed to me they were discussing music, for she said, A trained ear, very distinctly.

A few minutes later the lady herself appeared and they told her of their disagreement.

Well, she laughed, that’s certainly funny. You are poor guessers, all of you. The fact is, I’d been out to the country overnight and I was asking my husband if it rained here last evening.

She was a pretty little widow, whose husband, after nine years of married life, had left her with four strapping boys and a generous provision of the world’s goods. Her financial affairs were in the hands of a trust company, the cashier of which, having an ambition to be thought something of a wit, often joked her when she called at the office. One day, in opening her hand bag for a check, she thoughtlessly dropped a pin of the variety known as safety.

Can you tell me, said the cool-looking young lady in white, confidentially approaching the young man at the soda fountain, the most agreeable way to take castor oil?

Oh, yes, indeed, replied the man, his eyes brightening. And while you are waiting, he added, won’t you have a glass of soda?

Oh, thank you, said the young lady, as he set it down before her. The day being hot, in a few moments she had drained the glass.

The young man’s eyes gleamed with benevolence. The prescription, he said, tapping the glass, was in here.

Do you mean to say I’ve drunk it? she screamed. But it wasn’t for me; it was for my little brother! And she swept from the drug store.

But she isn’t any more. Daily the soda fountain young man watches her enter the drug store across the way, where they look before they leap.

An employer, noted for his energy and lack of tolerance for loafing in any form, visited his stock room and found a boy leaning idly against a packing case, whistling cheerily, and with nothing at all on his mind. The chief stopped and stared. Such a thing was unheard of in his establishment.

As the boy philosophically pocketed the money and departed, the boss turned to the chief clerk and demanded:

Never that I know of, was the response. He just brought over a proof for us from the printer.

Henry was at college. He had been spending somewhat too freely, and he was short. It was near the holidays and he hated to write home for money. As a last resort he pawned his dress suit to tide him over.

When the time came to leave for home the suit was still unredeemed. He knew he would need it at home. He hurriedly redeemed it at the last moment, packed it in the grip and was off.

Why, mother, he replied, I went to a dance the other evening and had my coat checked.

She continued putting away his garments. Finally she lifted out the trousers. They, too, were ticketed.

Philip—My man, I think you are one of the most self-controlled men I have ever seen.

Philip—You seem to have an awful lot of trouble with your flivver. You get angry with it, and yet you never swear at it.

Morris—Well, you see it’s this way. I don’t think the flivver is worth a damn.

It was in one of the “ten, twent, thirt” vaudeville houses where moving pictures are shown. An Oriental act has been concluded and incense filled the house.

That’s all right, whispered the usher, confidently, just sit where you are, and I won’t put anyone near you.

Some time ago there lived a gentleman of indolent habits who spent his time visiting among his friends. After wearing out his welcome in his own neighborhood he thought he would visit an old Quaker friend some twenty miles distant.

On his arrival he was cordially received by the Quaker, who, thinking the visitor had taken much pains to come so far to see him, treated him with a great deal of attention and politeness for several days.

As the visitor showed no signs of leaving, the Quaker became uneasy, but bore it with patience until the eighth day, when he said to him—

Oh yes, I shall, said the visitor. I have enjoyed my visit very much, and shall certainly come again.

Prof. Starr, the famous ethnologist, was in his humorous and whimsical way accusing women of barbarism.

And she is not only barbarous—she is illogical and inconsistent, he exclaimed.

I was walking in the country one day with a young woman. In a grove we came upon a boy about to shin up a tree. There was a nest in the tree, and from a certain angle it was possible to see in it three eggs.

You wicked little boy, said my companion, are you going up there to rob that nest?

How can you, she exclaimed. Think how the mother will grieve over the loss of her eggs.

That Confederate money was never taken seriously is well illustrated in the following story told by the late General John B. Gordon, and which, as far as can be ascertained, has never appeared in print.

One day during a temporary cessation of hostilities between the opposing forces a tall, strapping Yankee rode into the Confederate camp on a sorry looking old horse to effect a trade for some tobacco.

Hullo, Yank! hailed one of a number of Confederate soldiers lolling about on the grass in front of a tent, that’s a right smart horse you all got there.

You go to blazes! indignantly returned the Yank; I’ve just paid $10,000 of your money to have him curried.

Two brothers were discussing which smelled the strongest, a goat or a tramp. They agreed to leave it to the judge.

They brought in the goat and the judge fainted. They then brought in the tramp and the goat fainted.

A party of traveling men in a Chicago hotel were one day boasting of the business done by their respective firms, when one of the drummers said:

No house in the country, I am proud to say, has more men and women pushing its line of goods than mine.

Mayor’s secretary, William P. Ryan, was commenting on the way in which many illiterate persons seem to get along in the world, says the Chicago Journal.

The late William J. Carrol used to tell a good story along this line, said Mr. Ryan. He had business connected with the collection of rents which used to take him to a certain place on the eastern shore at intervals. On one occasion he went into a store there, the proprietor of which could neither read nor write. While he was there a man came in who was evidently a regular customer.

That’s so, he said, it’s a grindstone; I didn’t see the dot in the middle.

Henry, where on earth have you been? asked Mrs. Jollykid when Henry got home at two bells.

He had been out late. When he reached his residence the church clock was chiming 5. Heavy, weary, disgusted, he opened the front door with some difficulty, and softly toiled up the stairs, entering his bedchamber with elaborate caution.

He dropped into a chair, and without taking off his coat or hat, began to remove his shoes. One he placed with great care upon the floor, but alas! as he took off the other it slipped out of his hand and fell with a loud noise.

She looked at him and then at the summer sunlight that streamed through the blinds.

Why, my dear, replied George, with the clearest enunciation of which he was capable. I found I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d get up and go out and take a walk.

And out the poor wretch went, dragging himself round wearily for an hour upon the verge of tears and torpor.

Do you think it healthy to keep your hogs in the house? a social investigator asked a native of Arkansas.

Waal, I donno, he drawled. But I been akeepin’ my hawgs there for fourteen years and I ain’t never lost one on ’em yet.

Why, I painted a picture of Abraham Lincoln which was so lifelike that I had to shave it every day, said the first artist.

Oh, that’s nothing, said the second. I once painted a picture of a piece of marble which was so like one that when I threw it in some water it splashed like real marble and sank.

Why, that’s nothing, said the third, I painted a picture of a hen, and, thinking it no good, threw it in the waste-basket, and it laid there.

Not a few people lose their wits in the midst of a fire. They will toss a costly vase out of the window, but carry the tongs carefully downstairs and out to a place of safety. They remind us of one of the anecdotes of Mark Twain when he was a Mississippi River pilot, as told in St. Nicholas.

Boys, said the great humorist to a group of his friends—I had great presence of mind once. It was at a fire. An old man leaned out of a four-story building calling for help. Everybody in the crowd below looked up, but nobody did anything. The ladders weren’t long enough. Nobody had any presence of mind—nobody but me. I came to the rescue. I yelled for a rope. When it came I threw the old man the end of it. He caught it, and I told him to tie it around his waist. He did so, and I pulled him down!

Native—Wa’al, I reckon I’ll have to wait a spell; I hain’t got but ’leven children at present!

Mark Twain, in his lecturing days, reached a small Eastern town one afternoon and went before dinner to a barber’s to be shaved.

We’re having a good lecture here to-night, sir, said the barber. A Mark Twain lecture. Are you going to it?

Dear me! Mr. Clemens exclaimed. It seems as if I always do have to stand when I hear that man Twain lecture.

Mrs. M.’s patience was much tried by a servant who had a habit of standing around with her mouth open. One day as the maid waited upon table, her mouth was open as usual, and her mistress giving her a severe look, said:

An English sailor was watching a Chinaman who was placing a dish of rice by a grave.

Same time as your frien’ come out to smelle flowers you fellow put, retorted Li.

Jones—Well, we had danced three times, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Francis Wilson tells an anecdote of Mark Twain’s aversion to barbers. It appears that a barber having kept Mr. Clemens in the chair for more than the usual period at length finished shaving him and said, Shall I go over it again?

You might as well admit your guilt, said the detective. The man whose house you broke into positively identifies you as the burglar.

How could he identify me when he had his head under the bedclothes all the time I was in his room?

Mark Twain once addressed an audience in the interest of his fellow townsman, General Joseph Hawley, who was a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate, and said, in the course of a droll address—General Hawley deserves your support, although he has about as much influence in purifying the Senate as a bunch of flowers would have in sweetening a glue factory. But he’s all right; he never would turn any poor beggar away from his door empty handed. He always gives them something—almost without exception a letter of introduction to me, urging me to help them.

Wallingford is entertaining a number of men at the hotel who have invested several thousands of dollars in his wildcat scheme. A newspaper man comes in and asks him:

On a suburban trolley car the other day a man got on who was badly under the influence of liquor. He got a seat and made himself quite offensive to an old lady who sat near him. When the conductor came around for his fare this old lady jumped up and said:

A good story is told of the troubles of an engaged couple. Not long ago there was a quarrel between the two which resulted in their not speaking to each other; but it became necessary, by reason of certain business questions, for the young man to call on her father at the house.

To the embarrassment of the lover the door was answered by the fair girl herself. Although the young man afterward confessed, his heart beat rapidly at the sight of his beloved, he managed to effect an air of indifference and coldness, and to ask:

The next day the bride bethought her to look up the word “model” in the dictionary, and this is what she found: MODEL—A small imitation of the real thing.

A man whose business troubled him greatly was advised to advertise for an Official Worrier. He did so, and among the applicants was a strong, serious, impressive man.

Are you prepared, asked the business man, to take over the burdens of the business?

Good; the job is yours. I am off for a week’s golfing. On his return he was confronted with this statement:

I have been through your books. I find that your assets are far below your liabilities; you have very little stock on hand; no orders; you owe a tremendous amount of money and you are heavily overdrawn at the bank. What I want to know is, where am I going to get my salary from?

You ask me? said the business man. I should worry about your salary. That is your job. What do you think you are hired for?

A curious inquirer wanted to know “What are the sister States?” and the brilliant country editor answered—

We are not quite sure, but we should judge that they are Miss Ouri, Ida Ho, Mary Land, Callie Fornia, Allie Bama, Louisa Anna, Delia Ware, Minnie Sota and Mrs. Sippi.

A German cobbler and his wife had two dogs—a St. Bernard, six months old, and a fox terrier, three years old. A friend, calling one day, said to the cobbler. Those are two fine dogs you have.

Yes, replied the cobbler, und de funny part of it iss dat de biggest dog is the littlest one.

His wife then spoke up and explained: You must mine husband egscuse; he spheaks not very goot English. He means de oldest dog is the youngest one.

There is a joke being told here at the expense of a modest young bookkeeper which is so good it ought to be true.

The young man in question, it appears, was recently invited to a party at a residence where the home had recently been blessed with an addition to the family.

Accompanied by his best girl he met his kind hostess at the door and after customary salutations asked after the welfare of the baby.

The lady was suffering from a severe cold, which made her slightly deaf, and she mistakenly supposed that the young man was inquiring about her cold.

She replied that she usually had one every winter but this was the worse she had ever had; it kept her awake at night a good deal at first and confined her to her bed.

Then noticing that the young bookkeeper was becoming pale and nervous, she said that she could see by his looks that he was going to have one just like hers and asked him if he wished to lie down.

The books were posted just the same next day but the young bookkeeper has given up inquiring about babies.

George, you may bring me two fried eggs, some ham, a pot of coffee and some rolls, said the man to the waiter.

In two minutes he came back once more, leaned confidently and penitently over the table and said—

We had a bad accident this morning, sir, an’ the limitator got busted off, right at the handle. Will you take them fried, same as this gentleman?

J. M. Carter, the well known architect of New York, once went into the country to look at an opera-house that was to be enlarged and altered. The owner of the place stood on the stage, and Carter walked about the auditorium. We talked in loud tones, but though I was only half way back I could hardly hear the man.

The husband arrived home much later than usual from the office. He took off his boots and stole into the bedroom. His wife began to stir. Quickly the panic-stricken man went to the cradle of his firstborn and began to rock it vigorously.

I’ve been sitting here for nearly two hours trying to get this baby to sleep, he growled.

Absalom Foote, an eccentric old man, who had grown tired of life in the city, decided to move to some smaller town, free from the roar of traffic, the bustle and confusion of the thronging multitude, where he could end his days tranquilly, as became a man of his age. In casting about for a location, his eyes chanced to light upon the advertisement in a village paper of one Thomas R. Foote, who wanted to dispose of his boot and shoe store at a bargain, having made up his mind to remove to the city.

That’s the very thing, he said, selling shoes is a very nice, easy occupation. It will give me just enough to do to keep me from stagnating, and it won’t wear me out with overwork. I’ll investigate it. It’s queer, though, that his name is Foote, my name is Foote, he wants to come to the city, and I want to go to the country.

A visit to the little town decided him. He liked its appearance and location. He was pleased, moreover, with Foote’s shoe store, and bought it good will and all, at a bargain.

Speaking of cold storage eggs, a correspondent sends in a story that may be new to some readers; at any rate it sounds plausible. A middle-aged bachelor was in a restaurant at breakfast, when he noticed this inscription on the egg—

To Whom it May Concern—Should this meet the eye of some young man who desires to marry a farmer’s daughter, 18 years of age, kindly communicate with ⸺, Sparta, N. J.

After reading this, he made haste to write to the girl, offering marriage, and in a few days received this note—

Mr. Ananias came home one night and was received very icily by his wife. He immediately assumed the defensive. It was not until after dinner that he dared ask his wife what the trouble was. Trouble, said she, why when I sent your suit to the tailor this morning I found this memorandum in your pocket, “Gwendolyn, Lenox 1020.”

Why, said Ananias, of course you know what that means. That is a racing tip. Gwendolyn is a horse, Lenox a jockey, and 1020 the racing odds. I am going to the races tomorrow and will play Gwendolyn at one to two.

The wife admitted her suspicions and begged forgiveness for doubting the fidelity of her beloved for one moment.

The next night Ananias came home very late from the races. Are you asleep, he whispered to his wife who was in bed with her face to the wall. No, she answered in distinct and hissing tones. You had better call up Lenox 1020, your horse wants to speak to you.

Two men were waiting for a train and one said—I will ask you a question, and if I can not answer my own question, I will buy the tickets. Then you ask a question, and if you can not answer your own, you buy the tickets. The other agreed to this. Well, the first man said, you see those rabbit-holes? How do they dig those holes without leaving any dirt around them? The other confessed—I don’t know. That’s your question, so answer it yourself. The first man winked and replied—They begin at the bottom and dig up! But, said the second man, how do they get at the bottom to begin? That’s your question, was the first man’s rejoinder. Answer it yourself. The other man bought the tickets.

Here is an incident that a Chanute man tells as having occurred in a certain Kansas town. He was in the ticket office and watched the proceedings.

A man came up to the window and asked for a ticket to Kansas City, inquiring the price.

The man dug down into a well-worn pocketbook and fished out a bill. It was a banknote for $2. It was also all the money he had.

The man hurried away. Soon he was back with three silver dollars, with which he bought a ticket.

Pardon my curiosity, said the ticket seller, but how did you get that money? It isn’t a loan, for I see you have disposed of the $2 bill.

That’s all right, said the man. No, I didn’t borrow. I went to a pawnshop and soaked the bill for $1.50. Then as I started back here I met an old acquaintance, to whom I sold the pawn for $1.50. I then had $3, and he has the pawn ticket for which the $2 bill stands as security.

An aged Jersey farmer, visiting a circus for the first time, stood before the dromedary’s cage, eyes popping and mouth agape at the strange beast within. The circus proper began and the crowds left for the main show, but still the old man stood before the cage in stunned silence, appraising every detail of the misshapen legs, the cloven hoofs, the pendulous upper lip, and the curiously moulded back of the sleepy-eyed beast. Fifteen minutes passed. Then the farmer turned away and spat disgustedly.

They were playing poker in a Western town. One of the players was a stranger, and was getting a nice trimming. Finally the sucker saw one of the players give himself three aces from the bottom of the pack.

Why, that fellow dealt himself three aces from the bottom of the deck, said the sucker.

At a dinner given by a political club in New York recently, a man who is unusually young for one who has attained to such prominence in his profession was for the first time in his life set down for a response to one of the toasts. When at last he was called on, his beardless face flushed and his manner was very embarrassed. Nevertheless he stood up and thus delivered himself: Gentlemen, before I entered this room, I had an excellent speech prepared. Only God and myself knew what I was going to say. Now God alone knows. And he sat down.

Yes. But we don’t want to do nothin’ in a way that ain’t legitimate an’ customary. You know he has political ambitions.

Yes, he has. An’ you an’ your relations want to stand back o’ me when I put the case up to our Congressman. We’ll git Buttles app’inted a revenue inspector, an’ then let nature take its course.

A writer says in regard to the Prussia of fifty years ago that it had a state lottery, and in every town, large or small, was a collector appointed to sell tickets. One day a servant-girl came to the collector in Hagen and asked if she could buy No. 23.

He did not have it in his possession, but as the girl seemed very much in earnest, and refused to be put off with any other number, he tried to obtain it from some of the other collectors in town, and finally succeeded.

The drawing took place, and Hagen rose to a state of feverish excitement when it was known that this girl had become a winner of a large sum of money. She found herself for a time the chief object of interest in the town.

She was, of course, asked how she came to fix upon No. 23. Thereupon she gave this simple and lucid explanation:

I dreamed one night No. 7, and the second night I dreamed No. 7, and a third night again. So I thought, Three times seven makes twenty-three, and I bought that number.

A short time since two young women entered a tramcar in Manchester, England, and found only standing room. One of them whispered to her companion, I am going to get a seat from one of these men. You just take notice.

My dear Mr. Green, how delighted I am to meet you! You are almost a stranger! Will I accept your seat? Well I do feel tired, I heartily admit! Thank you, so much!

The sedate man, a perfect stranger, of course, quietly gave her his seat, saying:

Sit down, Jane, my girl; don’t often see you out on washing day. How’s your mistress?

A number of years ago, when the present second Assistant Secretary of State, Alvey A. Adee, was third assistant, an employe of the State department was called to the phone.

Will you kindly give me the name of the Third Assistant Secretary of State? asked the voice at the other end of the wire.

We fell asleep in a chair at Grand Junction last Wednesday night on our way home from Memphis in our usual soaked condition and let our train leave us. The hotel clerk told us to go upstairs and take the room on the right side of the hall with the lamp burning low. He sed he was crowded and we would have to double up with a man. We went up and pulled off our things and went to bed without waking our bedfellow, who was sleeping sound with the sheet over his head to keep off the muskeeters. Before we fell into the arms of morphine we seen a young lady and a young gent come in and set down by the winder. At first they talked so low we could not hear what they sed. Finally we heard the little miss say: Wallie, ain’t you ashamed to try to kiss me right here where we air setting up with a dead person? We felt cureous. We slowly reached over and touched the nose of the man we wus in bed with, and seen at a glance that he was dead alright. We riz up instantly, and it was a race to a finish twixt us three fer the bottom of the steps. It is useless to say we was furst past the post by two lengths. We didn’t skeer that couple any wuse than the corpse skeered us. We walked through the country to Bolivar and wired for our clothes by express.

While a customer in one of our prominent stores on Fourth street, I saw an unusually amazing incident. A lady of stupendous dimensions, stylishly attired, entered the store and seated herself to be waited upon. Soon a bald-headed clerk came up to serve her. After rejecting this pair and that, she decided on some brown oxfords. The clerk knelt down to lace them, and she gazed about the room. Suddenly she looked down and saw the bald head. Thinking that it was her roller-topped knee, she modestly drew her skirt over it.

Colonel Phil Thompson tells of the trials experienced by a friend of his who recently acquired a new stenographer. The dear little thing is a trifle weak in orthography but Thompson’s friend has been loath to call her down, in view of the fact that she tries so hard to please. He is too big-hearted to discharge the girl, for she needs the money; so he corrects the spelling.

Recently, however, he was forced to call her attention to the fact that in a letter of some seventy-five words, she had committed eight errors, among which was “fourty”.

My, my! exclaimed the friend. This won’t do, you know; I can’t stand for forty spelt this way!

The willing worker looked over his shoulder at the offending word; Gracious! she exclaimed, how careless of me! I left out the “gh,” didn’t I?

This is the true story of a resourceful motorist. Of the ethics of it, there is no condoning. A traffic law in a New England city forbids the parking of cars on the principal business street. A citizen who understood this, was sure he could stop his car, deliver a message and be back in his seat all in a moment. But he was detained. Also he forgot. When he came out a policeman stood by his automobile. Did the man go to his car? He did not. He hurried to his office: He telephoned to police headquarters: My car (giving a detailed description) has been stolen. In a half hour this reply: An officer has found your car. It is here at headquarters. Come and get it. He did. Profuse thanks. Was it clever?

A certain young man wrote the following letter to a prominent business firm, ordering a razor.

Can any lady or gentleman in the audience lend me a ten dollar gold piece? asked the professor of magic.

You know in this city there are two telephone companies, he said, and in my office I have a telephone of each company. Last week I hired a new office boy, and one of his duties was to answer the telephone. The other day, when one of the bells rang, he answered the call and then came in and told me I was wanted on the ’phone by my wife.

William Blue was an engineer in the employ of one of the trunk railway lines in this State. One of his duties was to haul the through freight over the Western division, and his pet engine was No. 2. One night he had an accident. One of the flues in the boiler of his pet engine flew out and he was stalled, blocking the main line. He reported the matter to the division superintendent unwittingly as follows—

Then he sat down to wait instructions. This is what came over the wires from the superintendent’s office twenty minutes later.

Bill Blue—You plug that flue in engine two and pull her through in time to get out of the way of twenty-two.

At the luncheon to Nahum Sokolow, the Jewish journalist, attended by New York editors, Adolph Ochs, of the Times, told of a Jew who came to Bishop Potter, stating that he desired to embrace Christianity. The Bishop arranged for him to have a talk with one of the curates, but the applicant was insistent and said he wanted to join right away.

A dying man once sent for an Arkansas editor, who hastened to the death-bed with more alacrity, as he had no heirs. I’m glad you’ve come, said the old man in a deathly whisper. Come closer. The editor approached. You know I have worked hard, and that I have earned every cent I have got. Some time ago, you remember, I subscribed for your paper for six months. There is just one more number due me, and as I am dying and can’t wait until your next issue comes out, just give me a nickel and we’ll call it square.

The following missive was received by the forest ranger of the Pasadena district and read recently at the annual dinner of the Sierra Club in Los Angeles. Kind and Respected Cir—

I see in the paper that a man named J⸺ S⸺ was atacted and et up by a bare whose cubs he was trying to git when the she bare came up and stopt him by eatin him up in the mountains near your town. What i want to know is did it kill him or was he only partly et up am he from this place and all about the bare. I don’t know but what he is a distant husband of mine. My first husband was of that name and I supposed he was killed in the war but the name of the man the bare et being the same i thought it might be him after all and i thought to know if he wasn’t killed either in the war or by the bare for i have been married twice since and their ought to be divorce papers got out by him or me if the bare did not eat him all up. If it is him you will know it by him having six toes on the left foot. He also sings base and has a spread eagle tattoed on his front chest and a ankor on his right arm which you will know him if the bare did not eat up these parts of him. If alive don’t tell him I am married to J⸺ W⸺ for he never liked J⸺. Mebbe you had better let on as if i am ded but find out all you can about him without him knowing anything what it is for. That is if the bare did not eat him all up. If it did i don’t see you can do anything and you needn’t take any trouble. My respeks to your family and please ancer back.

P. S.—Was the bare killed. Also was he married again and did he leave any property worth me laying claim to?

An advertisement in a newspaper calling for a “first-class bookkeeper at $3 a week” drew forth the following answer, the only one attracted by the munificent salary.

I am a young man, thirty-seven years of age, having had a business experience of twenty-three years, being connected with the United States Embassy at Madagascar, and feel confident if you will give me a trial I can prove my worth to you. I am not only an expert bookkeeper, proficient stenographer and typewriter, excellent operator and erudite college graduate, but have several other accomplishments which might make me desirable. I am an experienced snow shoveler, a first-class peanut roaster, have some knowledge of removing superfluous hair and clipping puppy dogs’ ears, have a medal for reciting “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight.” Am a skilled chiropodist and practical farmer, can also cook, take care of horses, crease trousers, open oysters and repair umbrellas. Being possessed of great physical beauty, I would not only be useful, but would be ornamental as well, lending to the sacred precincts of your office that delightful artistic charm that a Satsuma vase or stuffed billy-goat would. As to salary, I would feel I was robbing the widow and swiping the sponge cake from the orphan if I was to take advantage of your munificence by accepting the too fabulous sum of $3 per week, and I would be entirely willing to give you my services for less, and by accepting $1.37 per week would give you an opportunity of not only increasing your donation to the church, pay your butcher and keep up your life insurance, but also to found a home for indigent fly-paper salesmen and endow a free bed in the cat home.

Private John Allen takes a deep interest in the advertising business. Advertisements that he deems exceptionally good he clips out and pastes in a scrap-book. As he was showing this scrap-book to a guest one day, he said:

But the best ad I know of is not in here. For it wasn’t written, but spoken. It earned its originator some thousands of dollars, yet I can never show it. I can only describe it, and description fails to do it justice.

It was the work of a clothier in Nashville. He had, with his partner, the first establishment in town, and the business of the firm was considered very prosperous. The two men had married sisters, and their relationship was more than friendly. Hence the greatest surprise overtook Nashville when the junior partner suddenly took out a summons and hauled his senior into court.

The senior partner is ruining the business, gossip said. He is getting softening of the brain, or paresis, or something of that sort. Now is the height of the spring season, when they ought to be making money hand over fist, but the senior’s cracked methods are spoiling everything.

So all Nashville took a tremendous interest in the case, and on the morning it was called, the courtroom was crowded as in a murder trial.

The junior partner’s complaint was presented strongly and directly. He showed that goods were being sacrificed at a fraction of their value, and he asked that this ruinous trading be stopped, lest ruin ensue.

The defendant’s lawyer, an able fellow, secured an adjournment for three weeks.

On the announcement of this adjournment, the junior partner gave a loud groan. He leaped to his feet, and rushed out like one demented, shouting as he went:

I don’t need to tell you how much business that firm did in the next three weeks.

Man, born of woman, is of a few days and no teeth. And, indeed, it would be money in his pocket sometimes if he had less of either. As for his days, he wasteth one-third of them, and as for his teeth, he has convulsions when he cuts them, and as the last one comes through, lo, the dentist is twisting the first one out, and the last end of that man’s jaw is worse than the first, being full of porcelain and a roof-plate built to hold blackberry seeds.

Stone bruises line his pathway to manhood; his father boxes his ears at home, the big boys cuff him in the play ground, and the teacher whips him in the school-room. He buyeth Northwestern at 110, when he hath sold short at 96, and his neighbor unloadeth upon him Iron Mountain at 65⅝, and it straightway breaketh down to 52¼. He riseth early and sitteth up late that he may fill his barns and store-houses, and lo! his children’s lawyers divide the spoil among themselves and say, Ha, ha! He growleth and is sore distressed because it raineth, and he beateth upon his breast and sayeth, My crop is lost! because it raineth not. The late rains blight his wheat and the frost biteth his peaches. If it be so that the sun shineth, even among the nineties, he sayeth, Woe is me, for I perish, and if the northwest wind[45] sigheth down in forty-two below he crieth, would that I were dead! If he wear sackcloth and blue jeans men say he is a tramp, and if he goeth forth shaven and clad in purple and fine linen all the people cry, shoot the dude!

He carrieth insurance for twenty-five years, until he hath paid thrice over for all his goods, and then he letteth his policy lapse one day, and that same night fire destroyeth his store. He buildeth him a house in Jersey, and his first born is devoured by mosquitoes; he pitcheth his tent in New York, and tramps devour his substance. He moveth to Kansas, and a cyclone carrieth his house away over into Missouri, while a prairie fire and ten million acres of grasshoppers fight for his crop. He settleth himself in Kentucky, and is shot the next day by a gentleman, a colonel and a statesman, because, sah, he resembles, sah, a man, sah, he did not like, sah. Verily, there is no rest for the sole of his feet, and if he had it all to do over again he would not be born at all, for “the day of death is better than the day of one’s birth.”

This bit of brightness is said to have cropped out in a conversation between two misses not old enough to go to school.

It is this way—Horses is used to seein’ other horses pull wagons, and they don’t know what to think of ’em goin’ along without a horse. Guess if you saw a pair of pants walkin’ down the street without a man in ’em you’d be scared, too.

The passionate rhythms of “The Merry Widow” waltz floated through the office, and the boss looked up from his desk impatiently.

I ain’t workin’, sir, the office boy replied calmly. I’m only just whistlin’.

After a teacher had recited “The Landing of the Pilgrims,” she requested each pupil to try to draw from his or her imagination, a picture of Plymouth Rock.

Most of them went to work at once, but one little fellow hesitated, and at length raised his hand.

Here is Jimmie’s essay on pants: Pants are made for men and not for women. Women are made for men and not for pants. When a man pants for a woman and a woman pants for a man they are a pair of pants. Such pants don’t last. Pants are like molasses—they are thinner in hot weather and thicker in cold. Men are often mistaken in pants; such mistakes are breaches of promise. There has been much discussion whether pants is singular or plural. Seems to me when men wear pants it is plural, and when they don’t wear pants it is singular. Men go on a tear in their pants and it is all right, but when the pants go on a tear it is all wrong. If you want to make pants last, make the coat first.

The pupils of a certain school were asked to write original compositions on “kings.” The prize was carried off by the youth who handed in the following:

The most powerful king on earth, is Wor-king; the laziest, Shir-king; one of the worst kings, Smo-king; the wittiest, Jo-king; the quietest, Thin-king; the thirstiest, Drin-king; the slyest, Win-king; the noisiest, Tal-king.

At a public school the children were training for the annual flag day celebration. One boy, in order to show good reason why he should take a prominent part in the ceremonies, said that he had a real gun; another had a pistol; a small girl had a flag, and so on.

Finally, one tow-haired lad of six came up to the teacher, and stood waiting for her to see him.

Now in order to subtract, explained a teacher to the class in mathematics, things always have to be of the same denomination. For instance, we couldn’t take three apples from four years, nor six horses from nine dogs.

Please, ma’am! shouted the boy, can’t you take four quarts of milk from three cows?

Little Elizabeth and her mother were having luncheon together, and the mother, who always tried to impress facts upon her young daughter, said—

A teacher had been telling her class of boys recently that worms had become so numerous that they destroyed the crops, and it was necessary to import the sparrow to exterminate them. The sparrows multiplied very fast and were gradually driving away our native birds.

Johnny was apparently very inattentive, and the teacher, thinking to catch him napping, said—

George, George, mind; your hat will be blown off if you lean so far out of the window! exclaimed a fond father to his little son, who was traveling with him in a railway carriage. Quickly snatching the hat from the head of the refractory youngster, papa hid it behind his back.

There, now, the hat has gone! he cried, pretending to be angry. And George immediately set up a howl. After a time the father remarked—

Then he whistled and replaced the hat on the boy’s head. There, it’s back again, you see. Afterward, while papa was talking to mamma, a small, shrill voice was heard saying—

The woman was red-headed, and she got red-headed in a minute. She said: Oh, yes, you do. I don’t need anyone to identify me. I’m the red-headed hen next door to you whose “imps of boys” are always running across your garden. When you started to town this morning your wife said: Now, Henry, if you want a dinner fit to eat this evening, you’ll have to leave me a little money. I can’t keep this house on Christian Science.

In order that his wife might become better acquainted with business methods, Mr. Ferguson handed $100 to her, and instructed her to deposit it in bank in her own name and pay her bills thereafter with checks.

George, she said, the other day those people down at the bank wrote me a note and told me I had overdrawn my account—whatever that is—and that I would have to send them $4.75 to balance it. I sent it to them right away, but it didn’t satisfy them. They’re bothering me about it again.

Some few days ago a Louisville banker was approached by an impecunious farmer for a loan. Now at times this banker is deaf for commercial purposes. The farmer was chronically wanting to borrow, and his security was getting shaky. I’d like to borrow five thousand, pleaded the farmer. The banker cupped his hand to his ear and said: Speak a little louder and cut down the amount.

Thousands of girls are sent out into the world with what is called finished educations, who cannot even give a proper receipt for money, to say nothing of drawing a promissory note, a draft or a bill, or understanding the significance and importance of business contracts.

Such a woman presented a check for payment to the paying teller of her bank. He passed it back to her with the request that she be kind enough to indorse it. The lady wrote on the back of the check, I have done business with this bank for many years, and I believe it to be all right. Mrs. James B. Brown.

Another society woman in New York presented a check for payment at the bank, and the teller told her that it was not signed. Oh, do they have to be signed? she replied. What an awful lot of red tape there is about a banking business.

I know of a lady whose husband made a deposit for her in a bank and gave her a check book so that she could pay her bills without annoying him. One day she received a notice from the bank that her account was overdrawn. She went to the bank and told the teller that there must be some mistake about it, because she still had a lot of checks left in her book. She knew so little about business that she thought she could keep drawing any amount until the checks were all gone.

Among the more recent stories of feminine banking is one of a young lady who in a fit of abstraction signed a check, Your loving Susie. A still later anecdote is this, from one of our exchanges:

A fund was being raised in New York for the benefit of sufferers by a great disaster, and a certain rich but illiterate woman was approached upon the subject.

Oh, I shouldn’t mind sending the money, she said, but I do hate to have my name in all the papers.

But that could be easily arranged, said the gentleman who had opened the subject.

Why, yes, of course, remarked the woman, I could send an anonymous check. Why didn’t I think of that before?

Why, began one of the visitors, we are taking up a subscription and we knew you wouldn’t like it if we didn’t give you an opportunity to subscribe.

The banker bowed graciously and asked: And the object? Of course it is a worthy one, or you would not be interested in it.

Yes, sir, replied the spokeswoman, we think it a very worthy object. It is to build a home for aged and indigent widows.

Oh, how lovely of you! exclaimed the spokeswoman when she received the bit of paper and read the amount—one hundred pounds. Oh, we didn’t[53] expect to get that much from you. We are ever so much obliged.

So good of him! and similar exclamations were heard as the check was passed around for the admiration of the party.

That is because I do not wish my benefactions known to the world, said the banker modestly. I wish to give the check anonymously. And he bowed the ladies out with great dignity.

In a banking office in New Orleans is an aged bookkeeper who began his connection with the business the day it was established. As the years went by, the proprietor, who had started with little, but was extremely close, amassed an enormous fortune. The bookkeeper piled up but a small amount of savings.

At last the twenty-fifth anniversary of the firm and of the bookkeeper’s services came along. He remembered it, but thought no one else would. To his surprise, the proprietor spoke of it at once.

It is indeed, Williams. And now I have thought to commemorate the event, and I have put in this envelope for you a small gift to express my appreciation of your faithful service.

The bookkeeper, his hopes raised high, took the envelope from his employer and opened it. The token was a photograph of the employer.

Well? demanded the donor, as the other hesitated. What do you want to say about it?

Aren’t you pretty young to be a practicing physician? asked the severe-looking female person sternly.

Doctor, are you sure my husband has pneumonia? I have heard of doctors treating patients for pneumonia who finally died of typhoid fever.

Well, madam, I don’t make such blunders. If I treat a patient for pneumonia, he dies of pneumonia.

Patient—Doctor, it hurts me to breathe. In fact, the only trouble now seems to be with my breath.

A young doctor in a country district was called one night by an old farmer to his first case. The patient was the farmer’s son, who was lying on the bed in much pain. The young medico threw out his chest and said: This should cause you no alarm. It is nothing but a corrustified exegesis antispasmodically emanating from the physical refrigerator, producing a prolific source of irritability in the pericranial epidermis.

The farmer looked at him and replied, just what I said, but his mother thought it was the stomachache.

Merchant Prince—Send him away and fetch the undertaker! You know I never deal with middlemen.

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 gayly 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 zigzagging 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 that he had just written and dropped the pieces on the floor.

He had just hung out his shingle. That morning a stranger entered. The doctor asked to be excused as he hurried to the phone.

Taking down the receiver, he said: Yes, this is Dr. Whoosit. Yes, will be ready for you at two-ten this afternoon. But please be prompt, for I am very busy. Two hundred dollars? Yes, that was the estimate I gave you.

Hanging up the receiver, he turned to the stranger and rubbing his hands asked: Now, sir, what can I do for you?

Nothing, replied the stranger quietly. I only came in to connect up the telephone.

The following item is taken from a county officer’s health report: The patient died of blood poison from a broken ankle contracted in an automobile accident, which was a very strange occurrence, since he was struck between the lamp post and the radiator.

Herr Doctor, my wife and I are possessed! Can’t you cure us? What sort of a demon is it possesses you? Peasant: The fighting demon; it forces us to come to blows, and we are both sorry for it afterward. Doctor (making three times the sign of the cross): Begone, foul demon of discord, begone! So that was only the preliminary cure, now I will write a prescription for you. When the fit comes on again, the one who is not yet begun to scold and fight is to take the medicine bottle and a spoon and go out of the room, while the other remains inside. After ten minutes the first one is to come in again, count twenty-seven drops into the spoon, and give them to the other; then the latter is to take the spoon and count twenty-seven drops and give them to the first one, after which you shake hands together. Not a word to be spoken the whole time. Three months later the peasant came again with his wife: Herr Doctor, we have come to make you a present of this ham for having cured us so thoroughly! This is a true story, and occurred in Holstein.

Yours is certainly an unusual case, said the lawyer, and it will be necessary to consult a number of books.

He had finished his speech at a dinner party, and on seating himself a lawyer rose, shoved his hands deep into his trousers pockets, as was his habit, and laughingly inquired of those present:

Doesn’t it strike this company as a little unusual that a professional humorist should be funny!

When the laughter that greeted this sally had subsided, Mark Twain drawled out—Doesn’t it strike this company as a little unusual that a lawyer should have his hands in his own pockets?

As a prisoner was brought before the judge for sentence the clerk happened to be absent. The judge asked the officer in charge of the prisoner what the offence was with which he was charged.

There was an old man who was charged with illicit distilling and was brought up before the court. The Judge, who was a witty fellow, asked the prisoner what was his Christian name. The prisoner replied, Joshua, and the Judge answered, Are you the man that made the sun shine? and the prisoner replied, No, sir, your honor; I’m the one that made the moonshine.

A jury recently met to inquire into a case of suicide. After sitting through the evidence the twelve men retired, and, after deliberating, returned with the following verdict—

In a lawsuit in Pennsylvania not long ago the question was put to a miner on the witness stand.

Now tell the court whether you were injured at any other time, continued the cross-examiner.

Your Honor, smilingly interjected counsel for the other side, I object to this man’s testimony.

On the ground that, having been half killed twice, he is a dead man and therefore incompetent as a witness.

In a suit recently tried in a Virginia town a young lawyer of limited experience was addressing the jury on a point of law, when good-naturedly he turned to opposing counsel, a man of much more experience than himself, and asked—

Sir, I have an office in Richmond wherein I shall be delighted to enlighten you on any point of law for a consideration.

The youthful attorney, not in the least abashed, took from his pocket a half-dollar piece, which he offered Col. Hopkins with this remark—

No time like the present. Take this, sir, tell us what you know and give me the change.

They are humane men, he said. I could tell you many moving stories of the pain that they have suffered in the infliction of severe sentences. It is not altogether pleasant to be a judge.

That is why I can not credit a story that was told me the other day about a judge in the West. A criminal on trial before this man had been found guilty. He was told to rise, and the judge said to him—

This story of the election expenses of a Georgia lawyer who was defeated for county commissioner in the recent primary, reaches us by way of the Newark Ledger in a dispatch from Atlanta. His sworn statement runs—

Lost 1,349 hours’ sleep thinking about the election. Lost two front teeth and a whole lot of hair in a personal encounter with an opponent. Donated one beef, four shoats, and five sheep to a county barbecue. Gave away two pairs of suspenders, four calico dresses, $5 cash, and thirteen baby rattles. Kissed 126 babies. Kindled fourteen kitchen fires. Put up four stoves. Walked 4,076 miles. Shook hands with 9,508 persons. Told 10,101 lies, and talked enough to make, in print, 1,000 volumes. Attended sixteen revival meetings, and was baptized four different times by immersion, and twice some other way. Contributed $50 to foreign missions, and made love to nine grass widows. Hugged forty-nine old maids. Got dog-bit thirty-nine times, and was defeated.

Sam Kalleton, a member of the Arkansas Legislature, was very fond of offering amendments to bills introduced. That was the limit of his legislative capacity. One morning, after a night’s hilarity, he entered the legislative hall just as the chaplain was asking divine aid. The old man took a chew of tobacco, and listened attentively until the chaplain closed his petition with an effective recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Mr. Speaker, said the old man, arising, I move to strike out the words daily bread, and insert as much bread as may be found necessary for twenty days. We have already done enough for the flood sufferers.

A prominent lawyer of New York says that many years ago he went West, but as he got no clients, and stood a good chance of starving, he decided to come East again. Without any money he boarded a train for Nashville, Tenn., intending to seek employment as reporter on one of the daily newspapers, says the New York Telegraph. When the conductor called for his ticket, he said—

The editor of that paper is in the smoker; come with me; if he identifies you, all right.

He followed the conductor into the smoker; the situation was explained. Mr. Editor said—

I’m not the editor either. I’m traveling on his pass, and was scared to death lest you should give me away.

Judge Ben. B. Lindsey, the noted reformer of Denver, was lunching one day—it was very warm—when a politician paused beside his table.

Judge, said the politician, I see you’re drinkin’ hot cawfee. That’s a heatin’ drink.

Oh, yes. In this weather you want iced drinks, judge—sharp, iced drinks. Did you ever try gin and ginger ale?

Harry Bulger has recently added to his repertoire of stories a new character vignette which has been received with laughter in the South. As Mr. Bulger will be the guest of the Forty Club in Chicago during the “Woodland” engagement in that city, he is reserving this story for the post-prandial gossip.

It relates largely to a lawyer and a Jewish client during a civil action. The attorney, watching the evidence and the countenance of the Judge, whose reputation for severity was well known in the district, whispered to his Hebrew client.

It looks very bad. We are going to lose the case. Whereupon the client responded.

The following day much to the surprise of the plaintiff’s attorney, the decision was rendered for his client. Meeting his Jewish friend later the lawyer exclaimed—

By Jove, I cannot understand this decision. Beats anything I ever heard. Tell me, did you send the Judge a box of cigars?

The blessed man that preached for us last Sunday, said Mr. Partington, served the Lord for thirty years—first as a circus rider, and then as a locust-preacher, and last as an exhauster.

Patrice—I should say so! Why, he preached a sermon last Sunday and he took for his subject, It’s hard to keep a good man down. Well? Oh, it was all about Jonah and the whale.

A series of revival services were being held recently in a Missouri city, and placards giving notice of the services were posted in conspicuous places. One day the following notice was posted:

Hell, Its Location and Absolute Certainty. Thomas Jones, barytone soloist, will sing, Tell Mother I’ll Be There.

There was once a clergyman’s son, who was educated for the ministry. He finished his theological course at Oxford and returned home with the Oxford accent. On the following Sunday he was invited to fill his father’s pulpit for the morning service. The young preacher announced his text as follows: And they wequiahed of him Bawabbas. Now Bawabbas was a wobbah. At the evening service the old man resumed his pulpit and preached an eloquent sermon from the text, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for this my son is lunatic and we are sore distressed.

Clergyman—examining a Sunday School, Now, can any of you tell me what are the sins of omission?

Small Scholar—Yes, sir, they’re the sins you ought to have committed, and haven’t.

Rev. Goodman—Mr. Slick, our Sunday-school superintendent is a tried and trusted employe of yours, is he not?

Banker—He was trusted, and he’ll be tried if we’re only fortunate enough to catch him.

It is reported that Pope Gregory XVI offered his snuff-box to a Cardinal, who declined it, saying: No, your holiness, I have not that vice. To which the Pope replied in thoroughly human way, if it had been a vice you would have had it.

Well, said the mother, thoughtfully, some men do go to heaven, but they get there by a close shave.

The Bishop, addressing the little folks at the children’s service, became impressive. Only think, children, he said, in Africa, there are 10,000,000 square miles of territory without a single Sunday school where little girls and boys can spend their Sunday afternoons. Now, what should we all try to save up our money for?

At a sewing circle all the women were talking, and some of the subjects got hopelessly confused. For instance, the subject of crickets and church choirs. I never heard such a horrid noise as they made last Sunday, said one woman, referring to the choir. Nor I, said another, thinking she referred to the fall crickets. They say they make that noise with their hind legs.

An evangelist who was conducting nightly services announced that on the following evening he would speak on the subject of Liars. He advised his hearers to read in advance the seventeenth chapter of Mark.

The next night he arose and said: I am going to preach on Liars tonight, and I would like to know how many read the chapter I suggested. A hundred hands were upraised.

Now, he said, you are the very persons I want to talk to—there isn’t any seventeenth chapter of Mark.

A Baltimore man tells us of attending a church on one occasion when the minister delivered a sermon of but ten minutes’ duration—a most unusual thing for him.

Upon the conclusion of his remarks the minister had added: I regret to inform you, brethren that my dog, who appears to be particularly fond of paper, this morning ate that portion of my sermon that I have not delivered.

After the service, the clergyman was met at the door by a man who, as a rule, attended divine service in another parish. Shaking the good man by the hand, he said:

Doctor, I should like to know whether that dog of yours has pups. If so, I want to get one to give to my minister.

A clergyman preached a rather long sermon from the text, Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting. After the congregation had listened about an hour, some began to get weary and went out; others soon followed, greatly to the annoyance of the minister. Another person started, whereupon the preacher stopped his sermon and said: That is right gentlemen; as fast as you are weighed, pass out! He continued his sermon some time after that, but no one disturbed him by leaving.

Not a few preachers would be glad to be the victims of such a practical joke as was recently played upon the Rev. Mr. Hageman, of Oxford, Mich. At the annual meeting of the church of which he is pastor the question of hiring a preacher comes up for discussion.

At the last meeting of this society, when the subject was brought up, a good deacon arose and said: All those in favor of retaining Brother Hageman for another year—at the same salary—will please rise.

Not a person rose, and the minister, who was present, felt as uncomfortable as possible, and heartily wished himself anywhere else. Then the good deacon who had put the question arose again and said, with a twinkle of the eye:

I see not one favors that motion, so I will put it again in this way: All those in favor of keeping the Rev. Mr. Hageman—at an increased salary—will please rise.

Everyone got upon his feet. Then it dawned upon Mr. Hageman that he had been the victim of a joke, and a smile lighted his eye, and the color returned to his cheeks. Some of his best friends had planned the surprise, and the little scheme had worked to perfection.

The deacons and other officers of a church had met to discuss the best method of getting rid of a pastor who had worn out his usefulness. After various methods had been suggested without any of them seeming feasible, one brother, who was a good deal of a wag, said:

I tell you what to do. Let’s pay him all his salary in arrears and raise him to a thousand a year and he will drop dead.

A certain Duluth clergyman was a rather prosy speaker, but occasionally he proved that he had ready wit. One evening he was addressing his congregation on the beauty of leading an upright life, when he suddenly paused and beckoned to the sexton. Brown, said he, in a clear, distinct tone of voice, open a couple of windows on each side of the church, please. Beg your pardon, sir! exclaimed the sexton, with a look of great surprise. Did I understand you to say, open the windows? It is a very bitter cold night, sir. Yes, I am well aware of that, Brown, was the cold, hard reply of the clergyman, as he gazed around the church, but it is not healthy to sleep with the windows shut! We refrain from going any deeper into personalities.

The late Bishop Beckwith, of Georgia, was fond of his gun, and spent much of his time hunting, says Representative Adamson. One day the Bishop was out with his dog and gun, and met a member of his parish, whom he reproved for his inattention to his religious duties. You should attend church and read your Bible, said Bishop. I do read my Bible, Bishop, was the answer, and I don’t find any mention of the Apostles going a-shooting. No, replied the Bishop, the shooting was very bad in Palestine, so they went fishing instead.

A preacher who went to a Kentucky parish where the parishioners bred horses was asked to invite the prayers of the congregation for Lucy Grey. He did so. They prayed three Sundays for Lucy Grey. On the fourth he was told he need not do it any more.

The Rev. Mr. Spicer had for three days enjoyed the telephone, which had been his last gift from an admiring parishioner. He had been using it immediately before going to church.

When the time came for him to announce the hymn he rose and with his usual impressive manner read the words. Then in a crisp, firm tone he said, Let us all unite in hymn six double o; sing three.

That Henry Ward Beecher was spared much embarrassment by his quickness at repartee is illustrated by the following story:

One evening as he was in the midst of an impassioned speech some one attempted to interrupt him by suddenly crowing like a rooster. It was done to perfection; a number of people laughed in spite of themselves, and the speaker’s friends felt that in a moment the whole effect of the meeting, and of Mr. Beecher’s thrilling appeals might be lost. The orator, however, was equal to the occasion. He stopped, listened till the crowing ceased, and then, with a look of surprise, pulled out his watch.

Morning already, he said; my watch is only at 10. But there can be no mistake about it. The instincts of the lower animals are infallible.

There was a roar of laughter. The lower animal in the gallery collapsed, and Mr. Beecher was able to resume as if nothing had occurred.

The maid had been using surreptitiously the bathtub of her employer, an elderly bishop. He was a bachelor, very fastidious about his toilet, and desired the exclusive use of his tub.

A certain minister in a certain flock took permanent leave of his congregation in the following manner:

Brothers and Sisters: I come to say good-bye. I don’t think God loves this church, because none of you ever die. I don’t think you love each other, because I never marry any of you. I don’t think you love me, because you have not paid my salary. Your donations are moldy fruit and wormy apples, and by their fruits ye shall know them. Brothers, I am going to a better place. I have been called to be chaplain of a penitentiary. Where I go ye cannot come, but I go to prepare a place for you, and may the Lord have mercy on your souls. Good-bye.

I observe that on your sideboard you have several cut-glass decanters, and that each of them is half filled with what appears to be ardent spirits.

Well, now, Deacon, it isn’t anything of the kind. The bottles look so pretty on the sideboard that I just filled them half way with some floor stain and furniture polish, just for appearances.

That’s why I am cautioning you, sister, replied the Deacon. Feeling a trifle weak and faint, I helped myself to a dose from the big bottle in the middle.

An archdeacon engaged as new footman a well-recommended youth who served as stable boy. The first duty which the youth was called upon to perform was to accompany the archdeacon on a series of formal calls.

Bring the cards, Thomas, and leave one at each house, ordered his master. After two hours of visiting from house to house the archdeacon’s list was exhausted. This is the last house, Thomas, he said; leave two cards here.

Beggin’ yor pardon, sir, was the deferential reply, I can’t; I’ve only the ace of spades left.

Senator Gore, of Oklahoma, is given credit for this story, told on his recent visit to a Methodist convention at St. Joseph. It is related by the Rev. Mr. Williams, pastor of the Baptist Church of Pleasant Hill, who happened to hear it.

According to Senator Gore, there was an accomplished hen with a brood of chickens—five roosters and five pullets. The chicks matured and went their various ways, while the mother hen busied herself with a new brood. In course of time Methodist ministers came into the vicinity of Chickenville to hold a conference, and, as might be suspected, the five young roosters, fat, yellow-legged and extremely tender, were feasted upon by various and sundry preachers. The young pullets, left behind, were met by the mother hen a few days later. My children, she asked, where are your brothers?

Bracing herself from the shock of disclosure, a look of resignation spread over Biddy’s countenance as she replied:

Well, my dears, perhaps it is all for the best. They would not have made very good lay members, anyway.

A Philadelphia clergyman, visiting an old schoolmate in Montana, was called upon to speak during revival services in a large camp of Swedish miners.

Looking straight at a powerful looking man who sat in front of him, the minister asked:

A short time ago a somewhat laughable incident took place in a northern church. The minister, after proclaiming the banns of matrimony between a young couple, concluded by saying, If there be any objections, they can now be stated. A fashionable youth, an old admirer of the intended bride, noticing the eyes of a portion of the congregation fixed upon him, rose up and exclaimed, I have no objection for my own part, to the astonishment of all about him, and resumed his seat, as if he had done a mere formal piece of business.

Each Sunday the parson rode three miles to church. On this particular Sunday it was raining very hard. He rode the distance on horseback and, when he reached the church, was soaking wet.

Several of the good old sisters who were there early placed a chair before the fire for him and hung his wet coat up to dry.

Oh, said one of the sisters, when you get in the pulpit and start preaching, you will be dry enough.

Whenever a Sunday school teacher comes to Louisville invariably a good story is in order. Last night one of them was at a local hotel, and he brought along his story. Morrison R. Kendrick is his name, and Chicago is his town. The story is told by Mr. Kendrick as follows:

Sunday School Superintendent—Who led the children of Israel into Canaan? Will one of the smaller boys answer?

Superintendent (sternly)—Can no one tell? You little fellow on that seat next to the aisle, who led the children of Israel into Canaan?

Little Boy (badly frightened)—It wasn’t me. I—I just moved here last week from Missouri.

An amusing incident occurred at the close of Sam Jones’ sermon at Pulaski. Stepping down from the pulpit, folding his hands across his breast, and looking solemnly over the audience, the great revivalist said—

I want all the women in this crowd who have not spoken a harsh word or harbored an unkind thought toward their husbands for a month past to stand up.

Now turn around and let this audience see the best-looking woman in the country.

Now I want all the men in this crowd who have not spoken a harsh word or harbored an unkind[72] thought toward their wives for a month past to stand up.

Twenty-seven great big strapping fellows hopped out of the audience with all the alacrity of champagne corks.

Jones gave each one a vigorous shake, after which he ranged all of them side by side in front of the pulpit and facing the audience. He looked them over carefully and solemnly, and then, turning around to the audience, he said—

I want you all to take a good look at the twenty-seven biggest liars in the State of Tennessee.

Captain (examining uniforms which are expected to be marked with the owner’s name)—What does this mean, my man? Your name seems to be obliterated.

Dear Father—Kindly send me fifty pounds at once. Lost another leg in a stiff engagement, and am in hospital without means.

My Dear Son—As this is the fourth leg you have lost (according to your letters), you ought to be accustomed to it by this time. Try and hobble along on any others you may have left.

She had been hoping against hope that Bill would get leave of absence so they could spend their wedding anniversary together. But, alas! he was unsuccessful in his application. Knowing how disappointed his wife would be he sent an order to a local store for a treadle sewing machine, knowing that would be her choice of a present.

The crate arrived before Bill’s letter of explanation, and on examining it the good lady gave a loud scream, and seizing a hatchet, proceeded to open it.

Why, what’s the matter, Mrs. Smith? cried a neighbor, who happened to be present.

Rear Admiral Osterhaus, at a luncheon in New York, said of a naval disappointment.

Ibsen, you know, ran absent-mindedly one Christmas night into the restaurant of a railway station and asked—

Look here, waiter, did you say I had twenty minutes to wait or that it was twenty minutes to eight?

I said nayther. I said ye had twenty minutes to ate, but that was nineteen minutes ago. There’s yer train whistlin’ fur ye now.

Isaac had been drafted and sent to France. Jacob, his partner, distracted, had begged Isaac to cable when he got over. Three weeks elapse. No cable.

Jacob cables Isaac—Isaac! Woe is us! Our factory burned down ten days ago. Why don’t you cable or write?

Jacob cables again—Isaac! Woe is us! Our storage warehouse burned down last week. Total loss. Settled for $75,000. I am nearly crazy from grief. Why don’t you cable? Are you dead?

Jacob cables again—Isaac! Woe is us! Our main office burned last week. Settled insurance for $90,000. I will die if you don’t cable. Haven’t heard from you at all. Where are you? Are you alive?

Answer comes next day—Jacob, stop that nonsense, spending all our money for cables! I’m all right. You just keep the home fires burning!

The French soldier found as much cause to complain about English as she is spoken as our lads did with the lingo over there. One of the tri-color veterans chirped up one day by letting out—Ze English spoken, pas bon. Here ze sentence—What color is ze blackberry when it is green? and I find out he is red!

General W. W. Blackmar was talking to a group of soldiers in Boston when a fakir came up and held out for inspection a rusty old sword.

Look at it, gents, he said, examine it close. It is the sword what Lee surrendered to Grant. You can have it for $5.

Go along with you, said one of the soldiers sternly. Go along with you. You can’t fool us.

That was, indeed, an impudent fraud, wasn’t it? It reminds me of the frauds that were practiced in the old relic shows that used to be a feature of country fairs.

At a country fair in my youth there was a show devoted almost to biblical relics. I wish you could have seen the faded cloth, the rusty nails, and the brass jewels that did duty severally for a piece of Solomon’s robe, an earring of the Queen of Sheba, Absalom’s hairpin, David’s sling, and so on. In the place of honor hung a sword, and the showman said—

But, I interposed, I thought that Balaam had no sword. I thought he only wished for one.

Wuss you ever see! Los’ one arm whilst he waz a-tryin’ ter surrender en broke two legs a runnin’!

When I was a little child, the sergeant sweetly addressed his men at the end of an hour’s exhaustive drill, I had a set of wooden soldiers. There was a poor little boy in the neighborhood and after I had been to Sunday school one day and listened to a stirring talk on the beauties of charity I was softened enough to give them to him. Then I wanted them back and cried, but mother said, Don’t cry, Bertie, some day you will get your wooden soldiers back, and believe me, you lob-sided, mutton-headed, goofus-brained set of certified rolling pins, that day has come.

A firm in Liverpool, delighted that one of its employes was called upon to join the reserves, volunteered to pay half his wages to his wife in his absence. At the end of the month the woman appeared, and the moiety was given her. What? she said; four pound? Yes, replied the senior partner, that is exactly half, sorry you are not satisfied. It isn’t that I’m not satisfied. Why, for years he has told me he only got 16 shillings altogether, and—and—if the Boers don’t kill him, I will.

A recruiting sergeant stationed in the south of Ireland met Pat and asked him to join the army. The latter refused, whereupon the sergeant asked his reason for refusing.

Well, said Pat, begorra I once interfered in a family squabble, and I’m not going to do so again.

Two British soldiers went into a restaurant at Saloniki and asked for Turkey with Greece. The waiter said—

I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I can’t Servia, whereupon the Tommies cried—Fetch the Bosphorus!

The Baron Speck von Sternberg, the newly appointed charge d’affaires from Berlin, was at a dinner where, in a purely humorous spirit the courage of the various nations of the world was being impugned. The German’s courage was pretty severely attacked by an Englishman. Baron von Sternberg took revenge on him with this brief story—

An Englishman and a German were to fight a duel. They were locked in a pitch dark room together with cocked pistols. All was still, and neither could tell where the other was. Finally the German, not wishing to have murder on his soul, tiptoed to the chimney and fired up it. There was a shriek, and the Englishman, badly wounded, came tumbling down.

Two officers once appeared before Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden to ask his permission to fight a duel, as one had grievously insulted the other. Certainly, my friends, said the king. I will be present myself at the encounter. On the day appointed Gustavus Adolphus appeared on the scene, accompanied by a sinister looking person, who proved to be the public executioner. Pointing to the two combatants, the king said—

You see those two men? Immediately after their duel you will behead the survivor.

Corporal James Tanner lost both his legs at the second battle of Bull Run. Later, when in a hospital, he and other wounded soldiers were visited by charitably inclined women.

One day an elderly female carrying a neat basket sat down beside Tanner and talked religion to him while he thought of the delicacies in the basket. At length she lifted the lid and took therefrom a tract on the evils of dancing, which she handed to the patient. Tanner looked it over and then said earnestly—

I give you my word of honor, madam, that I’ll never dance again as long as I live. The elderly lady departed with great satisfaction, fully believing she had made a convert.

He had reached heaven in good time. Hello, St. Peter, said he. ’Tis a foine job you have.

Right, sir. ’Tis a great place here. We count a million years as a minute and a million dollars as a cent.

Is that so, said he, wonderingly. Well, it’s money I need. Will you lend me a cent, St. Peter?

Pat came to the wake. He walked up to the bier and looking at the remains of his buddie, Mike, he burst out laughing. He was prompt-hustled out of the room by many strong hands and when he got his breath he explained: Well, you see, the last time I talked with Mike he argied with me that there wasn’t no heaven and there wasn’t no hell, and I couldn’t kape from laffin’ when I see him lyin’ there all dressed up and no where to go.

Two Irishmen were on a ship coming over to America. One night Mike awoke Pat and said, Pat, get up quick, the ship is sinking. Pat said, what do we care? It’s not ours.

The little Irishman was being examined for admission to the army. He seemed all right in every way except one. The doctor said, you’re a little stiff. Quickly the Irish blood mounted as the applicant replied, You’re a big stiff!

R. Hinton Perry, the sculptor, is responsible for the following story of the scrublady who cares for his studio.

It’s siven I have, sir, she replied. Four be the third wife of my second husband, three be the second wife of me furst.

Is that so? Och, worra, worra! What a pity, said he, taking out some money and giving to each a quarter.

Och, I know yez don’t; but ’twas a custom in the old country to give the orphans something when their father died.

An Irishman who was signing articles on board a ship began to write his name with his right hand, then, changing the pen to his left hand, finished it.

Yis, sor, replied Pat. Whin I was a boy me father (rist his soul) always said to me Pat, learn to cut yer finger nails wid your left hand, for some day ye might lose your right.

A good old Irish pastor was thanking his congregation for the many Easter offerings, and his tremulous voice told how great was his pleasure.

I want to thank the congregation, he said, for the many beautiful gifts from my people this glorious Easter Sunday. The plate donations were far in excess of my expectations, the candles were many and freely contributed, and the flowers were simply beautiful; but I want to say right here and now that the thing that touched my heart the most was whin little Mar-r-y Killy walked oop the aisle an’ laid an egg on the altar.

Two Irishmen, long enemies, met one day. Said one: What’s the sinse of two intilligint min goin’ along year after year like a couple of wildcats spittin’ at each other? Here we live in the same tinimint, and ’tis a burnin’ shame that we do be actin’ like a couple of boobies. Come along wid yer and shake hands, and we’ll make up and be friends. Which they did, and went to an adjacent public house to cement their friendship with a glass of grog. Both stood at the bar in silence. One looked at the other and said:

The frequent and unsuccessful candidacy of certain men in this town for public office reminded George (Scotty) Dore of a story of his friend Hogan.

Hogan was raffling a clock, said Mr. Dore. He was fairly successful in disposing of tickets in the shop where he worked, but he ran up against trouble when he canvassed his neighbors.

It’s a fine timepiece, and it’ll luk foine on yer what-not er mantel, says Hogan, cajolingly.

Well, drawled Hogan, changing front completely, well perhaps yez won’t win it, and then ye’ll have the laugh on the fellow who does.

Street cleaning commissioner Paul Inglehart, of Baltimore, returned recently from a gunning trip in Anne Arundel county and brought with him a supply of new stories told in the historic old South River Club.

The one that particularly took Mr. Inglehart’s fancy was that of the Irish servant girl who one day asked her mistress what was the meaning of the word “kismet”. After thinking a little while the mistress said:

A day or so afterward the mistress discovered Bridget hobbling down the stairs evidently in great pain and walking very lame.

How is this? the detective inquired, with a jerk of his thumb toward the interior of the car.

Is that so, responded the conductor, with a look of innocent surprise. He cautiously counted the fares on the large dial. The spotter was waiting. Begorra, yer right. Wan of thim has got to git off.

Thomas Patrick Gallagher, typical Irish traffic copper, was stationed on Madison street in Chicago at the point intersected by the river.

One bustling Saturday afternoon, Gallagher held up his hand to halt traffic for the draw bridge. In front of him was a new handsome limousine motor car.

While waiting for the bridge to close, a runabout flivver crashed into the rear end of the handsome car.

Gallagher was on the job promptly and hustled over to the driver of the flivver.

Phwat in hal does yez mane by smashing into this handsome car? Haven’t you got any eyes? he bellowed at the meek and humble driver. Are you crazy? I’ve a good mind to take you down to the headquarters, you blithering idiot. What’s your name? continued Gallagher, as he extracted a pencil and notebook from his pocket, what is the number of your car?

Clancy, replied Gallagher. Clancy, what part of Ireland are you from, what county—

County Mayo, continued the traffic officer, County Mayo, say Clancy, stay here just a minute till I go head to that big car and see why in the devil he backed into you.

The following anecdote is illustrative of eviction days in Ireland. Pat had served part of his time as a bricklayer in the old country. On arrival in America, he was watching some bricklayers at work when the foreman observed him:

Do you know, said the foreman, that we start a house here in the morning and it’s finished and a tenant in it before evening.

That’s all you can do, is it? Well, said Pat, in Ireland we start a house in the morning and the landlord is evicting the tenant for back rent before evening.

Strange as it may seem, there is a public man in this city who is blessed or cursed with a tender conscience that worries him in small matters as well as in great. Among the things that he cannot justify to himself is the bidding a servant to say he is not at home when, in reality, he is inside his house. At the same time he is not able to receive the many visitors who call upon him, and his only recourse was to give instructions that polite excuses should be given to a maid, an Irish girl, gifted with the readiness and good-will of her nation.

No, Mary, no! was the reply; that would not be true. If anyone should ask for me, you must just put him off—give him some evasive answer, you know.

I’ll do it, sir, never fear, was the maid’s reply. Mary was as good as her word.

That afternoon a person of importance made his appearance, and was duly sent away. The faithful maid reported the circumstance to her employer.

Oh, sure, he axed me if the boss was at home, and I said to him, was his grandmother a monkey?

There were some deficiencies in the early education of Mrs. Donahoe, but she never mentioned them or admitted their existence.

Will you sign your name here? said the young lawyer whom Mrs. Donahoe had asked to draw up a deed transferring a parcel of land to her daughter.

You sign it yoursilf an I’ll make me mark, said the old woman, quickly. Since me eyes gave out I’m not able to write a wurrd, young man.

Spell it what iver way you plaze, said Mrs. Donahoe, recklessly. Since I lost me teeth there’s not a wurrd in the wurrld I can spell.

A story is going the rounds in the court house of an Irishman who recently went before Judge Stephens to be naturalized.

Y-yes; we’re slightly acquainted. In fact, she’s a sort of distant relation. She was the first wife of my second wife’s first husband.

Do you want the court to understand, he said, that you refuse to renew your dog license?

We want no buts. You must renew the license or be fined. You know that it expired January 1, don’t you?

That’s a nice-looking dog, remarked the kindly old gentleman, who takes an interest in everything.

Yes, suh. He looks all right, replied the colored man who was leading him with a piece of rope.

Yes, suh. Dat’s what he look like. But dat ain’ what he is. He’s a disappointer.

A colored parson, calling upon one of his flock, found the object of his visit out in the back yard working among his hen-coops. He noticed with surprise that there were no chickens.

Huh, grunted Brother Brown, without looking up, some fool nigger lef de do’ open and dey all went home.

Rev. Mr. Heavyweight (who has just read Peter’s denial of Christ)—What are you so thoughtful about, Uncle ’Rastus?

Uncle ’Rastus—I was thinking’, massa parsin, dat if de Apostle Peter had only been a cullud gemman, dat rooster wouldn’t have crowed more’n once.

Don’t lose your temper. I had to look in de dictionary myself befo’ I found out dat procrastinate means put off.

A southern planter was asking one of his colored servants about her wedding. Yes, suh, she said, it was jes the finest weddin’ you ever see—six bridesmaids, flowers everywhere, hundreds ev guests, music, an’ er heap er praying.

Indeed, commented her master. And I suppose Sambo looked as handsome as any of them?

An embarrassed pause. Well no—not exactly, suh. Would you believe it, dat fool nigger neber showed up.

Aunt Mary Wells is one of the few befo-de-wah darkies left in a little Kentucky town. Recently she was discussing with her employer the merry-go-round that was running up on the corner.

Nawsuh, Mr. Malcolm, she said, nawsuh, I don’ ride on none o’ dem things. Why, Mr. Malcolm, I’ve seen some o’ these here fool niggers git on that thing and ride as much as a dollar’s worth, and git off at the very same place they gits on at; an’ I sez to em, Now you spent yo’ money, nigger, whah yo’ been?

Mandy was a good-looking young colored girl and had many admirers. Her mistress often lectured her on behaving with propriety. One evening the mistress, going into the kitchen, was surprised to find a strange darky with his arm around Mandy’s waist.

Why, Mandy, said the mistress indignantly, tell that man to take his arm from around your waist.

A negro was discovered carrying a large armful of books, which brought forth the inquiry—

No, sah; dey’s mu brudder’s. I’se ignorant kinder nigger side him, boss. Yer jest oughter see dat nigger figgerin’. He done gone ciphered clean through addition, partition, subtraction, distraction, abomination, creation, justification, amputation and adoption.

Uncle Ephraim had put on a clean collar and his best coat, says the Chicago Tribune, and was walking majestically up and down the street.

My present wife, suh, replied Uncle Ephraim, with dignity, ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. She’s de fourth, suh.

Sambo—You know, Rastus, dat every time ah kiss mah wife she closes her eyes an’ holler.

Lord Babbington was instructing the new colored servant in his duties, adding—Now, Zeke, when I ring for you, you must answer me by saying—My lord, what will you have?

A few hours afterward, having occasion to summon the servant, his lordship was astonished with the following—

A negro had made several ineffectual efforts to propose to the object of his affections, but on each occasion his courage failed him at the last moment. After thinking the matter over he finally decided to telephone, which he did. Is that you, Samantha? he inquired upon being given the proper number. Yes, it’s me, returned the lady. Will you marry me, Samantha, and marry me quick? Yes, I will, was the reply, who’s speaking?

They installed a new furnace, or some sort of a heating apparatus, at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington this winter.

The Charge went down to look it over. He picked up the shaker. It was large and heavy.

Here, James, he said to the negro butler, you call up that furnace man and tell him this shaker is too heavy. Why, none but a modern Ajax could use it.

Yassir, said the butler, and went to the telephone. Heah, yo’ furnace man, he said, this yere shaker yo’ done put in the Brazilian Embassy is too heavy. Why, nobody short of a modern jackass could use it.

Two darkies engaged in a horse trade. After the sale was made one darky had the other darky’s horse, for which he parted with $30.00. A few days later the buyer of the horse came across the other darky and complained bitterly of being robbed. Why, Rastus, that horse ain’t no good at all. He can’t see. He’s blind.

Why, the other day I turned him out in the field and he run into the fence, then he stumbled over a great big rock and then he run plumb into a tree.

One morning, while visiting in Richmond, a New York lady overheard the following conversation between the hostess and the cook—

Please, Mis’ Gawdon, may I git off nex’ Sunday to go to the fun’ral of a friend of mine?

Next Sunday? Why, Eliza, this is only Monday! They wouldn’t put a funeral off for a week.

Not dead! I am positively ashamed of you. How can you be so heartless as to arrange to attend the funeral of a man who is still living? Why, he may not die at all.

It is impossible to say that, Eliza; the best doctors are often mistaken. But even if they do know a case to be hopeless, they cannot predict the exact time of a man’s death with such a certainty that the funeral can be arranged so long beforehand.

Yas’m, with calm assurance; but he will be buried nex’ Sunday, for all dat, ’cause he’s gwin’ to be hung on Friday.

When General John Corson Smith was lieutenant governor of Illinois, one of the colored janitors of the state house at Springfield came into his office one morning and related the following incident, which he said occurred the previous evening in the negro lodge of which he was a member—

The ballot box had been passed and the worshipful master asked—How is the ballot in the south, Brother Junior Warden? Clar in the south, worshipful. How is the ballot in the west, Brother Senior Warden? Clar in the west, worshipful. The W. M. then inspected the box and said—And clar in the east. I therefore declar Mr. Josephus Johnson duly elected to take the degrees in this lodge. Up jumped a big coon, as black as the ace of spades, and cried, That’s a ’fernal lie,’ worshipful master. I put in four black balls myself.

A negro boy walked into a drug store and asked permission to use the telephone. Then the following conversation took place—

Well, Mistah Jones, I saw your ad in de paper the other day and yo’ wanted a cullud boy. Did yo’ get one?

Well, Mistah Jones, providen dis cullud boy don’t give perfect satisfaction, you call me at 54.

The boy turned and started out, and the druggist, who had overheard, remarked—You didn’t do any good, did you?

Yes, sah, came the reply. I’s dat cullud boy what’s workin’ down there. I’se jest checkin’ up to see how I stand.

Edward M. Flesh, of the United States Food Commission, was talking in St. Louis about snobbishness.

I know of an old darky who got religion last month and decided to join the church. He selected, of course, the richest and handsomest church in town, the church with the finest music and the best preaching. Then he called on the pastor and stated his design.

But the pastor hemmed and hawed. He felt that his fashionable flock wouldn’t welcome such an addition as the old darky. He didn’t want to hurt the old fellow’s feelings, however, and finally he said—

Go home, Uncle Rooster. Go home and pray over it. This is an important matter, and it should be made a subject of prayer.

Ah prayed an’ Ah prayed, said Uncle Rooster, an’ de good Lawd He say to me, Rooster, mah son, Ah wouldn’t bothah mah haid about dat mattah no mo.’ Ah’ve been a-tryin’ to git into dat chu’ch mahself fo’ de last twenty-nine yeahs an’ Ah ain’t had no luck, nuther.

At the end of the first six months of his pastorate in Kentucky the Rev. Silas Johns had learned the ways of his flock so thoroughly that he knew exactly how to deal with them. One Sunday the collection was deplorably small. The next week he made a short and telling speech at the close of his sermon. I don’t want any man to gib more dan his share, bredren, he said, gently, bending toward the congregation,[93] but we must all gib according as we are favored and according to what we rightly hab. I say rightly hab, bredren, he went on, after a short pause, because we don’t want any tainted money in de box. Squire Blinks told me dat he’d missed some chickens dis week. Now, if any one ob my pore benighted bredren has fallen by de way in connection wid does chickens, let him stay his hand from de box when it comes to him. Brudder Mose, will you pass de box while I watch de signs and see if dere’s one in de congregation dat needs me to wrestle in prayer for him?

An excellent story is told by Kate Douglas Wiggin, the popular writer. A negro servant, wishing to get married, asked his master to buy him a license in the neighboring town. The master, being in haste, did not ask the name of the happy woman, but as he drove along he reflected on the many tender attentions that he had seen John lavish upon Euphemia Wilson, the cook, and, concluding that there could be no mistake, had the license made out in her name.

There’s your license to marry Euphemia, he said to the servant that night. You’re as good as married already, and you owe me only two dollars.

But, Mas’ Tom, Euphemia Wilson ain’t de lady I’se gwine to marry. Dat wan’t nothin’ mo’n a little flirtation. Georgiana Thompson, the la’ndress, is the one I’se gwine to marry.

Oh, well, John, said the master, amused and irritated at the same time, there’s no great harm done. I’ll get you another license to-morrow, but it will cost you two dollars more, of course.

The next morning the darky came out to the carriage as it was starting for town, and leaning[94] confidentially over the wheel, said—Mas’ Tom, you needn’t git me no udder license; I’ll use the one I’se got. I’se been t’inkin’ it over in de night, an’ to tell you de troof, Mas’ Tom, de conclusion o’ my jedgment is dat dar ain’t two dollars’ worth o’ diff’rence between dem two ladies.

Until recently there was a partnership existing between two darky blacksmiths in an Alabama town. The dissolution of this association was made known by a notice nailed upon the door of the smithy, which notice ran as follows—

The kopardnershipp heretofor resisting between me and Mose Jenkins is heerby resolved. All perrsons owing the firm will settel with me, and all perrsons that the firm owes to will settel with Mose.

I wonder if you know that Betty Botter baked a bit of batter, but her batter was so bitter that to make her bitter batter better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter, and with this bit of better butter Betty Botter made her bitter batter better.

In reply to the question, How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood? I would say, if a woodchuck would chuck all the wood that a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood, a woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

When the tramp begged for somthun to do for a bite o’ bread, the lady of the house said—Did you happen to notice that pile of wood in the yard?

An old farmer of Arkansas, whose sons had all grown up and left him, hired a young man by the name of Esau Buck to help him on his farm. On the evening of the first day they hauled up a small load of poles for wood, and unloaded them. The next morning the old man said to the hired man—

Esau, I’m going to town today, and while I am gone you may saw wood and keep the old ram out of the garden.

When the old man had gone, Esau went out to saw the wood, but when he saw the saw he wouldn’t saw. When Esau saw the saw he couldn’t saw with that saw. Esau looked around for another saw, but that was the only saw he saw, so he didn’t saw. When the old man came home he said to Esau—

The old man went out to see the saw, and when he saw the saw he saw that Esau couldn’t saw with that saw. When Esau saw that the old man saw that he couldn’t saw with the saw, Esau picked up the ax and chopped up the wood and made a seesaw.

The next day the old man went to town and bought a new buck-saw for Esau Buck, and when he came home he hung the buck-saw for Esau Buck on the saw-buck by the seesaw.

Just at that time Esau Buck saw the old buck in the garden eating cabbage, and when driving him from the garden to the barn-yard Esau Buck saw the buck-saw on the saw-buck by the seesaw.

When the old buck saw Esau Buck looking at the new buck-saw on the saw-buck by the seesaw, he made a dive for Esau, hit the seesaw, knocked the seesaw against Esau Buck, who fell on the buck-saw on the saw-buck by the seesaw.

When the old man saw the old buck dive at Esau Buck, and miss Esau and hit the seesaw and knock the seesaw against Esau, and Esau Buck fall on the buck-saw on the saw-buck by the seesaw, he picked up an ax to kill the old buck. But the buck saw him coming and dodged the blow and countered on the old man’s stomach, knocked the old man over the seesaw onto Esau Buck, who was getting the seesaw, crippled Esau Buck, broke the buck-saw and the saw-buck and the seesaw.

Bill had a billboard. Bill also had a board bill. The board bill bored Bill so that Bill sold the bill board to pay the board bill. So after Bill sold the bill board to pay his board bill the board bill no longer bored Bill.

It is said that with little practice on either exercise a salesman will so loosen his tongue and grease his vocal organs that he can sell Russian bonds to a Japanese.

IN KENTUCKY.

A TIME IN THE KITCHEN.

JUST NONSENSE.

8 2 MUCH.

ANTHEM FOR A HAS-BEEN.

IF I SHOULD DIE TONIGHT.

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Sheared Cream
o’ Wit

By the Way

Foreword

Random Smiles

Juvenile Jests

Frenzied Finance

Disciples of Hippocrates

Legal Luminaries

Clerical Comicalities

Khaki Klad

Emeralds

Shadowgraphs

Alliterations

Poet’s Corner

IN KENTUCKY.

A TIME IN THE KITCHEN.

JUST NONSENSE.

8 2 MUCH.

ANTHEM FOR A HAS-BEEN.

IF I SHOULD DIE TONIGHT.

Limericks

Sheared Cream o’ Wit

By the Way

Foreword

Random Smiles

Juvenile Jests

Frenzied Finance

Disciples of Hippocrates

Legal Luminaries

Clerical Comicalities

Khaki Klad

Emeralds

Shadowgraphs

Alliterations

Poet’s Corner

IN KENTUCKY.

A TIME IN THE KITCHEN.

JUST NONSENSE.

8 2 MUCH.

ANTHEM FOR A HAS-BEEN.

IF I SHOULD DIE TONIGHT.

Limericks

Sheared Cream
o’ Wit