“Not while I’m running these apartments,” declared the janitor.
“You’ll pay as you move in.”
* * * * *
Among seven distinguished men who were to speak at the opening
exercises of a new school was a professor well known for his lapses of
memory. But his speech was clear that night, and as he seated himself
his loving wife felt that he had fully earned the burst of applause
that followed, and she clapped her little hands enthusiastically.
Then her cheeks crimsoned.
“Did you see anything amusing about the close of my address, my dear?”
asked the Professor as they started for home. “It seemed as if I heard
sounds suggestive of merriment about me.”
“Well, dear,” said she, “of all the people who applauded your address,
you clapped the loudest and longest.”
* * * * *
Teacher--“What is the Hague tribunal?”
Willie--“The Hague tribunal ar--”
Teacher--“Don’t say ‘The Hague tribunal are,’ Willie; use is.”
Willie--“The Hague tribunal isbitrates national controversies.”
* * * * *
Sir Wilfrid Laurier was once on an electioneering tour in Ontario and,
as the elections were bitterly contested, every effort was made to
stir up race and religious prejudice. One day a Quebec Liberal sent
this telegram to Sir Wilfrid: “Report in circulation in this country
that your children have not been baptized. Telegraph denial.” To this
the Premier replied: “Sorry to say report is correct. I have no
children.”
* * * * *
The teacher of one of the rooms in a school in the suburbs of
Cleveland had been training her pupils in anticipation of a visit from
the school commissioner. At last he came, and the classes were called
out to show their attainments.
The arithmetic class was the first called, and in order to make a good
impression the teacher put the first question to Johnny Smith, the
star pupil.
“Johnny, if coal is selling at $6 per ton, and you pay the coal dealer
$24, how many tons of coal will he bring you?”
“Three,” was the prompt reply from Johnny.
The teacher, much embarrassed, said, “Why, Johnny, that isn’t right.”
“Oh, I know it ain’t, but they do it anyhow.”
* * * * *
A publisher who occupied a loft in New York directed one of his clerks
to hang out a “Boy wanted” sign at the entrance. The card had been
swaying in the breeze only a few minutes when a red-headed little tad
climbed to the publisher’s office with the sign under his arm.
“Say, mister,” he demanded of the publisher, “did youse hang out this
here ‘Boy Wanted’ sign?”
“I did,” replied the publisher sternly. “Why did you tear it down?”
“Hully gee!” he blurted. “Why, I’m the boy!” And he was.
* * * * *
A distinguished surgeon, Dr. Abernethy by name, famed for his laconic
speech as well as for his professional skill, met one day his equal in
a woman of few words, who came to him with a hand badly swollen and
inflamed.
“Burn?” asked the doctor.
“Bruise.”
“Poultice.”
The next day the patient returned and the dialogue was resumed.
“Better?”
“Worse.”
“More poultice.”
Two days later the woman called again, and this was the conversation:
“Better?”
“Well. Fee?”
“Nothing!” exclaimed the doctor. “Most sensible woman I ever met!”
* * * * *
Visitor--“Well, Harold, what are you going to be when you grow up?”
Harold--“Oh, I’m going to be a sailor; but baby’s only going to be
just an ordinary father.”
* * * * *
No amount of persuasion or punishment could keep Johnnie from running
away. The excitement of being pursued and of being brought back to a
tearful family appealed to his sense of the dramatic and offset the
slight discomfort that sometimes followed.
Finally his mother determined upon a new method. She decided, after
many misgivings, that the next time Johnnie ran away no notice
whatever should be taken of it. He should stay away as long as he
pleased and return when he saw fit.
In a few days the youngster again disappeared. His mother was firm in
her resolve and no search was made. Great was poor Johnnie’s
disappointment. He managed to stay away all day, but when it began to
grow dark his courage failed and he started for home. He sneaked
ignominiously into the kitchen. Nobody spoke to him. Apparently his
absence had not been noticed. This was too much. As soon as
opportunity offered he remarked casually, “Well, I see you’ve got the
same old cat.”
* * * * *
A gentleman who happened to come in rather late at a dinner found that
the guests had finished soup and were on with the next course. When he
had sat down a waiter came up and said, “Soup, sir?” “No, thanks,” he
replied, whereupon the waiter went away. Another waiter, seeing he had
nothing, said to him, “Soup, sir?” He replied rather testily, “No,
thank you.” A third waiter, who saw him come in and took compassion on
him, placed the soup in front of him. “Look here, my man, is this
compulsory?” “No, sir; it’s mulligatawny,” replied the waiter.
* * * * *
A big, burly, fierce-looking man and a meek, inoffensive-looking
little chap were sawing timber with a cross-cut saw. A strapping
Irishman, passing that way, stopped to watch them. Back and forth,
back and forth, they pulled at the saw. Finally the Irishman could
stand it no longer. With a whoop and a yell he rushed at the big man
and brought him to the ground, burying his knees deep into the
sawyer’s chest.
Biff! Bang! Thump! Biff!
“There,” he said, letting him have one parting blow square on the
nose, “now m’bbe ye’ll let the little felly hev it!”
* * * * *
Oliver Herford once entered a doubtful-looking restaurant in a small
New York town and ordered a lamb-chop. After a long delay the waiter
returned, bearing a plate on which reposed a dab of mashed potatoes
and a much overdone chop of microscopical proportions with a
remarkably long and slender rib attached. This the waiter set down
before him and then hurried away.
“See here,” called Herford, “I ordered a chop.”
“Yessir,” replied the man, “there it is.”
“Ah, so it is,” replied Herford, peering at it closely. “I thought it
was a crack in the plate.”
* * * * *
In one of the elevators of a city skyscraper, as the elevator shot
toward the zenith, a stout man began to sputter. “Bub-but,
rt-st-st-b’r’r’r,” he said, as the veins stood out upon his neck. At
the twenty-third story the stout man’s eyes were nearly starting from
his head, and as he grasped the arm of the elevator man the latter
nervously pulled the lever, and the lift started for the bottom at a
terrific rate. The solitary passenger danced about, gurgling
spasmodically. As the car struck bottom, however, he rushed through
the door and up to an important individual, whose cap bore the screed
“Starter.” “S-s-s-say,” he sputtered, “t-t-this is the th-th-third
trip I-I-I’ve t-t-taken in the elevator, ’n’ I-I-I-I w-w-wanter
g-g-g-get off at the sev-sev-seventh fl-fl-fl-floor. Before I-I-I
c-c-c-can say sev-sev-seven I-I-I-I’m up to the t-t-top, ’n’
be-be-before I-I-I can cat-cat-catch my br-br-breath I-I-I’m down
h-h-here again, ’n’ I-I-I-I’m in a de-de-vil of a hurry.”
* * * * *
Nervous player (deprecatingly playing card)--“I really don’t know what
to play. I’m afraid I’ve made a fool of myself.”
Partner (reassuringly)--“That all right. I don’t see what else you
could have done!”
* * * * *
Some of Darwin’s boy friends once plotted a surprise for the
naturalist. They slew a centipede, glued on it a beetle’s head, and
also added to its body the wings of a butterfly and the long legs of a
grasshopper. Then they put the new insect in a box and knocked at the
great man’s door. “We found this in the fields,” they cried with eager
voices. “Do tell us what it can be.” Darwin looked at the strange
compound and then at the boys’ innocent faces. “Did it hum when you
caught it?” he asked. “Oh yes, sir,” they answered quickly, nudging
one another, “it hummed like anything.” “Then,” said the philosopher,
“it is a humbug.”
* * * * *
A man had been sent by the house-agents to take an inventory of the
drawing-room furniture. He was so long about his task that at last the
mistress of the house went to see what was taking place. She found the
man slumbering sweetly on the sofa with an empty bottle beside him;
it was evident, however, that he had made a pathetic though solitary
attempt to do his work, for in the inventory book was written, “One
revolving carpet.”
* * * * *
The customs of military service require officers to visit the kitchens
during cooking hours to see that the soldiers’ food is properly
prepared. One old colonel, who let it be pretty generally known that
his orders must be obeyed without question or explanation, once
stopped two soldiers who were carrying a soup-kettle out of a kitchen.
“Here, you,” he growled, “give me a taste of that.”
One of the soldiers ran and fetched a ladle and gave the colonel the
desired taste. The colonel spat and spluttered.
“Good heavens, man! You don’t call that stuff soup, do you?”
“No, sir,” replied the soldier meekly, “it’s dishwater we was
emptyin’, sir.”
* * * * *
The ship upon clearing the harbor ran into a half-pitching,
half-rolling sea, that became particularly noticeable about the time
the twenty-five passengers at the captain’s table sat down to dinner.
“I hope that all twenty-five of you will have a pleasant trip,” the
captain told them as the soup appeared, “and that this little
assemblage of twenty-four will reach port much benefited by the
voyage. I look upon these twenty-two smiling faces much as a father
does upon his family, for I am responsible for the safety of this
group of seventeen. I hope that all thirteen of you will join me later
in drinking to a merry trip. I believe that we seven fellow passengers
are most congenial and I applaud the judgment which chose from the
passenger list these three persons for my table. You and I, my dear,
sir, are--Here, steward! Bring on the fish and clear away these
dishes.”
* * * * *
“Extra Billy” Smith, the Confederate General, was one of the most
irascible as well as one of the most patriotic of men. Upon one
occasion he was leading a regiment on a long and difficult march.
Weary and exhausted they halted for a rest by the wayside. When it
became necessary to move on, the General gave the order, but the tired
men remained stretched upon the ground. The order was repeated
peremptorily. Still no motion. By this time the temper of the General
was at white heat. He thundered out:
“If you don’t get up and start at once I’ll march the regiment off and
leave every d----d one of you behind.”
They started.
* * * * *
A Boston lawyer, who brought his wit from his native Dublin, while
cross-examining the plaintiff in a divorce trial, brought forth the
following:
“You wish to divorce this woman because she drinks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you drink yourself?”
“That’s _my_ business!”--angrily.
Whereupon the unmoved lawyer asked:
“Have you any other business?”
* * * * *
One rainy afternoon Aunt Sue was explaining the meaning of various
words to her young nephew. “Now, an heirloom, my dear, means something
that has been handed down from father to son,” she said.
“Well,” replied the boy thoughtfully, “that’s a queer name for my
pants.”
* * * * *
“The easiest money that I ever made,” said a shipping man the other
day, “was handed to me in New York not long ago. I was visiting there
and had a little time to myself, so I bought a paper and went down to
the river front. I saw an advertisement in the paper saying that a tug
was to be auctioned off that day, so I went to the place and stood
around examining the tug. After a while a man who had been watching me
came over and began asking questions. I told him I was interested in
boats and was from Philadelphia. Then he asked: ‘What are you doing
down here?’ ‘I came down to this auction sale,’ I said. ‘Well,’ said
the man, ‘if you want to keep on the right side of the boys you’ll do
something for me. Here’s $100; do not bid on the tug.’ I took the
money and departed. I had not the slightest intention of bidding.”
* * * * *
A bride and groom had been much troubled by the stares of people at
hotels wherever they went. So when they arrived at the next hotel the
groom called the colored head-waiter.
“Now, George,” he said, “we have been bothered to death by people
staring at us because we are just married. We want to be free from
that sort of thing here. Now, here’s two dollars, and remember I trust
you not to tell people that we are just married, if they ask you.
Understand?”
“Yas, sah!” said George; “I un’stand.”
All went well that day. But the following morning when the couple came
down to breakfast the staring was worse than ever. Chambermaids in the
hall snickered; the clerks behind the desk nudged each other;
everybody in the dining-room stared. When the couple returned to their
room it was only to see a head sticking out of nearly every room down
the long hall.
This was too much.
This _was_ the limit!
Angered beyond control, the groom went to the desk and called for the
head-waiter.
“Look here, you old fool,” said the groom, “didn’t I give you two
dollars to protect my wife and myself from the staring business?”
“Yas, sah, you did,” said George. “’Pon me soul, I didn’t tell, sah.”
“Then how about this staring?” asked the irate groom. “It’s worse here
than anywhere. Did anybody ask if we were married?”
“Yas, sah; several folks did,” replied George.
“Well, what did you tell them?”
“I tole ’em, sah,” replied the honest negro, “you wuzn’t married at
all.”
* * * * *
A witty priest was once visiting a “self-made” millionaire, who took
him to see his seldom-used library.
“There,” said the millionaire, pointing to a table covered with books,
“there are my best friends.”
“Ah,” replied the wit, as he glanced at the leaves, “I’m glad you
don’t cut them!”
* * * * *
Mrs. Maloney was before the Judge, charged with assault on Policeman
Casey. She had been unusually attentive throughout the proceedings,
and now the Judge was summing up the evidence.
“The evidence shows, Mrs. Maloney,” he began, “that you threw a stone
at Policeman Casey.”
“It shows more than that, yer Honor,” interrupted Mrs. Maloney; “it
shows that Oi hit him.”
* * * * *
When Mark Twain was a young and struggling newspaper writer, in San
Francisco, a lady of his acquaintance saw him one day with a cigar-box
under his arm looking in a shop window.
“Mr. Clemens,” she said, “I always see you with a cigar-box under your
arm. I am afraid you are smoking too much.”
“It isn’t that,” said Mark. “I’m moving again.”
* * * * *
A thunderstorm overtook the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria when out
shooting in 1873 with old Emperor William of Germany and Victor
Emmanuel. The three monarchs got separated from their party and lost
their way. They were drenched to the skin, and, in search of shelter,
hailed a peasant driving a covered cart drawn by oxen along the high
road. The peasant took up the royal trio and drove on.
“And who may you be, for you are a stranger in these parts?” he asked,
after a while, of Emperor William.
“I am the Emperor of Germany,” replied his Teutonic majesty.
“Ha, very good,” said the peasant, and then, addressing Victor
Emmanuel, “and you, my friend?”
“Why, I am the King of Italy,” came the prompt reply.
“Ha, ha, very good, indeed! And who are you?” addressing Francis
Joseph.
“I am the Emperor of Austria,” said the latter.
The peasant then scratched his head and said with a knowing wink:
“Very good, and who do you suppose I am?”
Their majesties replied they would like very much to know.
“Why, I am his Holiness the Pope.”
* * * * *
In a cemetery at Middlebury, Vt., is a stone, erected by a widow to
her loving husband, bearing this inscription:
“Rest in peace--until we meet again.”
* * * * *
Mrs. Gilroy, prominent in the church work of her small city, had
acquired a new servant, willing but ignorant.
“Bridget,” she said, “I am going to lie down and do not wish to be
disturbed. If any one calls, do not say I am not at home, but give an
evasive answer.”
“What’s that, mum?” said Bridget.
Having explained as well as she could, the good lady retired and later
appeared below stairs, much refreshed.
“Did any one call?” she asked.
“Yes, mum; the new minister, from your church.”
“Oh, Bridget. What did you tell him?”
“Well,” sez he, “is Mrs. Gilroy at home?” and I sez nuthin’, and sez
he a little louder, “Is Mrs. Gilroy at home?” and sez I, “Was your
grandmother a monkey?”
* * * * *
A young kindergarten teacher, of Manhattan, who is made much of by her
pupils--frequently meeting their parents--has a very affable manner,
and, on entering a Broadway car recently, exclaimed in her most
cordial way to one of the passengers: “Why, how do you do, Mr. Brown!”
As the man addressed evidently did not know her and looked rather
dazed, she saw her mistake and hurriedly apologized, saying: “Oh, I
beg your pardon-I thought you were the father of one of my children.”
Then every one within hearing looked so amused that the young lady
left the car at the next stop.
* * * * *
A Mr. Johnson, of Boston, was the owner of a small yacht, in which he
took much pleasure during the summer, cruising along the coast.
He had for a cook a young fellow from Denmark whose English was not
always perfect, but who made himself so generally useful that Mr.
Johnson kept him for several years at good wages. One summer they
landed at a place where a camp-meeting was in full blast. Our friend,
the Dane, was greatly interested and took a front seat.
Near the close of the meeting one of the brethren went about among the
people exhorting them to “go forward.” Coming to the Dane, he said,
“My friend, don’t you want to work for Jesus?”
“No,” said the Dane, “I’ve got a good yob with Yohnson.”
* * * * *
Johnny--“Pa, did Moses have the dyspepsia like you?”
Father--“How on earth do I know? What makes you ask such a question?”
“Why, our Sunday-school teacher says the Lord gave Moses two tablets.”
* * * * *
Elderly Aunt--“I suppose you wondered, dear little Hans, why I left
you so abruptly in the lane. I saw a man, and oh, how I ran!”
Hans--“Did you get him?”
* * * * *
A man returned home late one night after having partaken rather freely
of the “cup that cheers.” All might have been well had not one tree
intercepted between him and his destination--one solitary tree at the
foot of his own steps; but Mr. B---- suddenly came into such forcible
contact with that tree that he was almost stunned. After recovering
his senses, he wandered about, but repeatedly bumped into the same
inoffensive barrier. At length he sank down on the ground and muttered
helplessly:
“Lost! Lost! in an impenetrable forest!”
* * * * *
The intoxicated individual who, after bumping into the same tree
thirteen times, bemoaned the fact that he was lost in an impenetrable
forest, is no greater disgrace to modern civilization than the hero of
this story:
A citizen of Seattle who had looked upon the wine when he was no
longer sure what color it was, in the course of his journey home
encountered a tree protected by an iron tree-guard. Grasping the bars,
he cautiously felt his way around it twice.
“Curse it!” he moaned, sinking to the ground in despair. “Locked in!”
* * * * *
Stanley, aged four, was one of a large family. Besides numerous
sisters and brothers, there were aunts and uncles galore and many
cousins. The only very young people, however, were those in his
immediate household.
One Thanksgiving dinner Stanley gazed solemnly around the table for a
while, and then announced, oracularly:
“My mother and the cat seem to be the only people in this whole family
that have any children!”
* * * * *
A clergyman was being shaved by a barber, who had evidently become
unnerved by the previous night’s dissipation. Finally he cut the
clergyman’s chin. The latter looked up at the artist reproachfully,
and said:
“You see, my man, what comes of hard drinking.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the barber consolingly, “it makes the skin
tender.”
* * * * *
Mistress--“Did the mustard plaster do you any good, Bridget?”
Maid--“Yes; but, begorry, mum, ut do bite the tongue!”
* * * * *
They had just met; conversation was somewhat fitful. Finally he
decided to guide it into literary channels, where he was more at home,
and, turning to his companion, asked:
“Are you fond of literature?”
“Passionately,” she replied. “I love books dearly.”
“Then you must admire Sir Walter Scott,” he exclaimed with sudden
animation. “Is not his ‘Lady of the Lake’ exquisite in its flowing
grace and poetic imagery? Is it not--”
“It is perfectly lovely,” she assented, clasping her hands in ecstasy.
“I suppose I have read it a dozen times.”
“And Scott’s ‘Marmion,’” he continued, “with its rugged simplicity and
marvelous description--one can almost smell the heather on the heath
while perusing its splendid pages.”
“It is perfectly grand,” she murmured.
“And Scott’s ‘Peveril of the Peak’ and his noble ‘Bride of
Lammermoor’--where in the English language will you find anything more
heroic than his grand auld Scottish characters and his graphic,
forceful pictures of feudal times and customs? You like them, I am
sure.”
“I just dote upon them,” she replied.
“And Scott’s Emulsion,” he continued hastily, for a faint suspicion
was beginning to dawn upon him.
“I think,” she interrupted rashly, “that it’s the best thing he ever
wrote.”
* * * * *
“Why is Jones growing a beard?”
“Oh, I believe his wife made him a present of some ties.”
* * * * *
Wife--“Do come over to Mrs. Barker’s with me, John. She’ll make you
feel just as if you were at home.”
Her Husband--“Then what’s the use of going?”
* * * * *
About forty years ago, walking down Market street, in this city, I
heard a darky commenting on a sign he had just spelt out, stretched
across the sidewalk in front of a livery stable:
“Jist like ’em. Aftah dars no moh slabry dey stick up signs foh me:
‘Man-ure Free’!”
* * * * *
In the audience at a lecture on China there was a very pious old lady
who was slightly deaf. She thought the lecturer was preaching, and
every time he came to a period she would say “Amen!” or some other
pious exclamation. The people in the audience, which was composed
mostly of the village church members, knew she was being reverent and
did not even smile when she exclaimed, until finally the lecturer
mentioned some far-off city in China, saying, “I live there.” At this
point clearly and distinctly could be heard the old lady, saying,
“Thank God for that.”
* * * * *
A pushing young actor who was playing understudy in one of Mr.
Barrie’s plays found his opportunity one night through the illness of
his principal. He accordingly flooded his managerial and influential
acquaintances with telegrams announcing: “I play So-and-So’s part
to-night.” Except that the theater was comparatively empty this
breathless disclosure produced no result, except a telegram in reply
from Mr. Barrie, to this effect: “Thanks for the warning.”
* * * * *
It was a busy day in the butcher-shop. The butcher yelled to the boy
who helped him out in the shop: “Hurry up, John, and don’t forget to
cut off Mrs. Murphy’s leg, and break Mrs. Jones’s bones, and don’t
forget to slice Mrs. Johnson’s tongue.”
* * * * *
Ralph Waldo Emerson, like other men of genius, was absent-minded, and,
when a fit of inspiration seized him, he was oblivious to the things
of earth to a ludicrous extent. A story that is vouched for as true
illustrates this.
The old-fashioned matches, in use in New England in Emerson’s time,
were made in cards, or flat slabs, the matches being joined at the
foot, and separating at the top, like the teeth of a deep comb.
Emerson was accustomed, in the midnight watches, to lie awake
communing with his own thoughts, and, if any especial inspiration
developed itself, he would get up and write it down, lighting the lamp
for that purpose.
One night, Mrs. Emerson was awakened by her gifted husband’s voice, as
he called to her plaintively:
“What is the matter with the matches, my dear? I have struck seven,
and not one will light. Where can I get some good ones?”
Mrs. Emerson got out of bed at once, and found the matches in their
accustomed place. Her husband had not touched them.
“Why, what can you have been striking, in mistake for matches?” she
asked, anxiously, and beheld her best carved tortoise-shell comb,
which the absorbed philosopher, had broken up, tooth by tooth, in
mistake for the card of matches.
* * * * *