Sure, but I fool him. I told him the gas meter was a little bank I bought
him.
* * * * *
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.
Why are you in such a hurry? inquired the Bishop.
Well, my family done me dirt and I want to disgrace them.
* * * * *
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:
Merciful heavens, then the sacrifice must still go on!
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 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.”
_Juvenile Jests_
Teacher—Who can make a sentence with gruesome in it?
Ikey—The man stopped shaving and grew some whiskers.
* * * * *
Visitor—How’s your brother, Tommy?
Tommy—He’s in bed; he hurt himself.
Visitor—How did he do it?
Tommy—We were playing who could lean furthest out of a window, and he won.
* * * * *
A lad sat on the floor playing. Suddenly he set up a howl.
Henry, what is the matter? asked the mother.
The cat scratched me.
Why, the cat is not here. When did she scratch you?
Yesterday.
Well, why are you crying now?
’Cause I forgot it then.
* * * * *
This bit of brightness is said to have cropped out in a conversation
between two misses not old enough to go to school.
What makes a horse act naughty when he sees an auto?
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.
* * * * *
Little Elsie—Brother Johnny can’t come to school; he has diphtheria.
Teacher—Indeed! Where did he get it?
Little Elsie—In the neck.
* * * * *
The passionate rhythms of “The Merry Widow” waltz floated through the
office, and the boss looked up from his desk impatiently.
Frederic, he said, I wish you wouldn’t whistle at your work.
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.
Well, Willie, what is it? asked the teacher.
Please, ma’am, do you want us to draw a hen or a rooster?
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
Pop, I got in trouble at school today and it’s all your fault.
How’s that my son?
Well, you remember when I asked you how much a million dollars was?
Yes, I remember.
Well, teacher asked me today, and “helluva lot” isn’t the right answer.
* * * * *
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.
Well, what is it? she asked.