importance.
His mother, who was sewing in the room, got up to see what he was
doing.
“What is it you’re drawing, dear?” she said, as she stood behind him.
Robbie was embarrassed. Struggling to cover his nervousness, he
answered with an air of great nonchalance:
“Oh, it’s papa I’m drawing, but I don’t care anything about it. Guess
I’ll put a tail to it, and have it for a dog.”
* * * * *
It is told of Charles Lamb, that one afternoon, returning from a
dinner-party, having taken a seat in a crowded omnibus, a stout
gentleman subsequently looked in, and politely asked, “All full
inside?” “I don’t know how it may be with the _other_ passengers,”
answered Lamb, “but that last piece of oyster-pie did the business for
_me_.”
* * * * *
One of the ladies-in-waiting to the late Queen Victoria had a very
bright little daughter about four years old of whom the Queen was very
fond.
The Queen invited the child to have lunch with her.
Of course the mother was highly pleased, and charged the little girl
to be very careful about her table manners, and to be very polite and
careful before the Queen.
The little girl came home in high glee, and the mother asked her all
about the luncheon.
“Were you a very polite little girl? and did you remember to do all I
told you at the table?” asked the proud mama.
“Oh, yes. I was polite,” said the little one, “but the Queen wasn’t.”
“The Queen wasn’t!” said the mother. “Why, what did she do?”
“She took her chicken bone up in her fingers, and I just shook my
finger at her like you did at me, and said, ‘Piggy, piggy, piggy!’”
* * * * *
A young girl once asked Mark Twain if he liked books for Christmas
gifts.
“Well, that depends,” drawled the great humorist. “If a book has a
leather cover it is really valuable as a razor strop. If it is a
brief, concise work, such as the French write, it is useful to put
under the short leg of a wabbly table. An old-fashioned book with a
clasp can’t be beat as a missile to hurl at a dog, and a large book
like a geography is as good as a piece of tin to nail over a broken
pane of glass.”
* * * * *
One of the most candid tributes the late Edwin Booth ever received was
rendered to him on his last Southern tour by one who knew neither of
his presence nor of his identity in the play. Mr. Booth told the
story to his friend, Dr. John H. Girdner.
“We opened our engagement in Atlanta, Ga., with ‘Othello,’” said Mr.
Booth, “and I played Othello. After the performance my friend, Mr.
Malone, and I went to the Kimball House for some refreshment. The long
bar was so crowded that we had to go around the corner of it before we
could find a vacant space. While we were waiting to be served we
couldn’t help hearing the conversation of two fine-looking old boys,
splendid old fellows with soft hats, flowing mustaches, and chin
tufts, black string ties and all the other paraphernalia.
“‘I didn’t see you at the theater this evening, Cunnel,’ said one.
“‘No,’ replied the other. ‘I didn’t buy seats till this mawnin’, and
the best we could get were six rows back in the balcony. I presume,
suh, you were in the orchestra.’
“‘Yes, Cunnel, I was in the orchestra,’ said the first man. ‘Madam and
the girls were with me. We all agreed that we nevuh attended a mo’
thrillin’ play. The company was good, too, excellent company. And do
you know, Gunnel, in my opinion that d--d nigguh did about as well as
any of ’em!’”
* * * * *
A Southern colonel had a colored valet by the name of George. George
received nearly all of the colonel’s cast-off clothing. He had his
eyes on a certain pair of light trousers which were not wearing out
fast enough to suit him, so he thought he would hasten matters
somewhat by rubbing grease on one knee. When the colonel saw the
spot, he called George and asked if he had noticed it. George said,
“Yes, sah, Colonel, I noticed dat spot and tried mighty hard to git it
out, but I couldn’t.”
“Have you tried gasoline?” the colonel asked.
“Yes, sah, Colonel, but it didn’t do no good.”
“Have you tried brown paper and a hot iron?”
“Yes, sah, Colonel, I’se done tried ’mos’ everything I knows of, but
dat spot wouldn’t come out.”
“Well, George, have you tried ammonia?” the colonel asked as a last
resort.
“No, sah, Colonel, I ain’t tried ’em on yet, but I knows dey’ll fit.”
* * * * *
It was the first vaudeville performance the old colored lady had ever
seen, and she was particularly excited over the marvelous feats of the
magician. But when he covered a newspaper with a heavy flannel cloth
and read the print through it, she grew a little nervous. He then
doubled the cloth and again read the letters accurately.
This was more than she could stand, and rising in her seat, she said:
“I’m goin’ home. This ain’t no place for a lady in a thin calico
dress!”
* * * * *
At a certain railway junction the train divides, one portion going to
Edinburgh, the other to Glasgow. The guard put his head in at one of
the carriage windows and asked, “All here for Edinburgh?” All replied
in the affirmative except one old woman, who after the train had
started remarked with a smile, “I was just goin’ to Glesca masel’ but
I wasna goin’ to tell yon inquisitive deevil.”
* * * * *
A pompous Bishop of Oxford was once stopped on a London street by a
ragged urchin.
“Well, my little man, what can I do for you?” inquired the churchman.
“The time o’ day, please, your lordship.”
With considerable difficulty the portly Bishop extracted his watch.
“It is exactly half-past five, my lad.”
“Well,” said the boy, setting his feet for a good start, “at ’alf-past
six you go to ’ell!” and he was off like a flash and around the
corner. The Bishop, flushed and furious, his watch dangling from its
chain, floundered wildly after him. But as he rounded the corner he
ran plump into the outstretched arms of the venerable Bishop of
London.
“Oxford, Oxford,” remonstrated that surprised dignitary, “why this
unseemly haste?”
Puffing, blowing, spluttering, the outraged Bishop gasped out: “That
young ragamuffin--I told him it was half-past five--and--he--er--told
me to go to hell at half-past six.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Bishop of London with a twinkle in his kindly old
eyes, “but why such haste? You’ve got almost an hour.”
* * * * *
A lady entered a railway station not a hundred miles from Edinburgh
and said she wanted a ticket for London. The pale-looking clerk
asked:
“Single?”
“It ain’t any of your business,” she replied. “I might have been
married a dozen times if I’d felt like providin’ for some poor
shiftless wreck of a man like you.”
* * * * *
“M-my dear,” said the muddled citizen, “I ’sure you I wouldn’t been
s’late, but footpad stopped me.”
“And you were so scared your tongue clove to the roof of your mouth.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I smell the clove.”
* * * * *
A man addicted to walking in his sleep went to bed all right one
night, but when he awoke he found himself on the street in the grasp
of a policeman. “Hold on,” he cried, “you mustn’t arrest me. I’m a
somnambulist.” To which the policeman replied: “I don’t care what your
religion is--yer can’t walk the streets in yer nightshirt.”
* * * * *
“I can’t keep the visitors from coming up,” said the office-boy
dejectedly to the editor. “When I say you’re out they don’t believe
me. They say they must see you.”
“Well,” said the editor, “just tell them that’s what they all say. I
don’t care if you ‘cheek’ them, but I must have quietness.”
That afternoon there called at the office a lady. She wanted to see
the editor, and the boy assured her that it was impossible.
“But I must see him!” she protested. “I’m his wife!”
“That’s what they all say,” replied the boy. And forthwith a new boy
was wanted there.
* * * * *
Mr. Weedon Grossmith used to tell a good story about a play by Mr.
Robert Ganthony, which that gentleman asked him to read. Mr. Grossmith
took the comedy, but lost it on his way home. “Night after night,” he
said, “I would meet Ganthony and he would ask me how I liked his play.
It was awful; the perspiration used to come out on my forehead as I’d
say sometimes, ‘I haven’t had time to look at it yet!’ or again, ‘The
first act was good, but I can’t stop to explain,’ etc., ‘must catch a
train.’ That play was the bane of my existence, and haunted me even in
my dreams.” Some months passed, and Ganthony, a merry wag, still
pursued him without mercy. At last it occurred to Mr. Grossmith that
he might have left the comedy in the cab on the night it was given to
him. He inquired at Scotland Yard.
“Oh! yes,” was the reply. “Play marked with Mr. Ganthony’s name, sent
back to owner four months ago, as soon as found.”
* * * * *
Some years ago when Head Consul Book, of the Western Jurisdiction,
Woodmen of the World, was traveling through the South, the train
stopped for some time in a small town, and Mr. Book alighted to make a
purchase. The storekeeper could not make the correct change for the
bill which was presented, so Mr. Book started in search of some one
who could.
Sitting beside the door, whittling a stick, was an old darky.
“Uncle,” said Mr. Book, “can you change a ten-dollar bill?” The old
fellow looked up in surprise; then he touched his cap, and replied:
“’Deed, an’ Ah can’t, boss, but Ah’ ’preciates de honah, jest de
same.”
* * * * *
A gentleman riding with an Irishman came within sight of an old
gallows and, to display his wit, said:
“Pat, do you see that?”
“To be sure Oi do,” replied Pat.
“And where would you be to-day if the gallows had its due?”
“Oi’d be riding alone,” replied Pat.
* * * * *
Jerry O’Rafferty came from the north of Ireland. During all his life
there and later in Chicago he had never been inside a Catholic Church.
He was something of a scoffer at religious ceremonies, although he
knew little about them. His good friend, Michael O’Brien, was troubled
at this, and always used his influence to get Jerry into the church.
At last he was successful. Jerry grudgingly consented to go to church
Easter Sunday because of the importance of the occasion.
The two sat together, Jerry an interested spectator, while Mike
entered into the services like the devout man he was.
Jerry was soon evidently impressed by the splendor of his
surroundings and the grandeur of the services. He watched the lighting
of the candles and listened attentively to the glorious burst of
Easter music. Then he could refrain from commenting no longer.
“Mike,” he whispered, leaning over to his companion, “this bates
h--l.”
“Whist,” replied Mike, in a loud whisper, “sich is the intintion.”
* * * * *
Bishop Wilmer of Alabama, famous as a story-teller, told of one of his
friends who had lost a dearly beloved wife and, in his sorrow, caused
these words to be inscribed on her tombstone: “The light of mine eyes
has gone out.” The bereaved married within a year. Shortly afterward
the Bishop was walking through the graveyard with another gentleman.
When they arrived at the tomb, the latter asked the Bishop what he
would say of the present state of affairs, in view of the words on the
tombstone. “I think,” said the Bishop, “the words ‘But I have struck
another match’ should be added.”
* * * * *
A man of letters who visited Washington recently appeared at but one
dinner-party during his stay. Then he sat next to the daughter of a
noted naval officer. Her vocabulary is of a kind peculiar to very
young girls, but she rattled away at the famous man without a moment’s
respite. It was during a pause in the general conversation that she
said to him: “I’m awfully stuck on Shakespeare. Don’t you think he’s
terribly interesting?” Everybody listened to hear the great man’s
brilliant reply, for as a Shakespearian scholar he has few peers.
“Yes,” he said, solemnly, “I do think he is interesting. I think he is
more than that. I think Shakespeare is just simply too cute for
anything.”
* * * * *
A well-known Scotch professor was occasionally called up to Balmoral
to attend the late Queen Victoria, and was extremely proud of the
honor. One day a notice appeared in the university which stated that
Professor ---- could not attend his classes that day as he had been
called up to Balmoral to see the Queen. A waggish student who saw the
notice wrote underneath it, “God save the Queen.”
* * * * *
“The other day,” said a man passenger in a street-car, “I saw a woman
in a street-car open a satchel and take out a purse, close the satchel
and open the purse, take out a dime and close the purse, open the
satchel and put in the purse. Then she gave the dime to the conductor
and took a nickel in exchange. Then she opened the satchel and took
out the purse, closed the satchel and opened the purse, put in the
nickel and closed the purse, opened the satchel and put in the purse,
closed the satchel and locked both ends. Then she felt to see if her
back hair was all right, and it was all right, and she was all right.
That was a woman.”
* * * * *
As a couple of callers were in the parlor of a friend who is a firm
Christian Scientist, the voice of five-year-old Florence could be
heard from an upper room, fretting. Upon their inquiries about her
the mother replied simply she was suffering from a “belief” in a boil.
One of the visitors was a rather grim great-aunt of the family who
possesses a most lively scorn of Mrs. Eddy’s so-called science as well
as a deep-rooted affection for little Florence. She immediately
demanded what had been applied for her relief and as naturally the
answer was, “Nothing.” She assumed her most decided expression, drew
off her gloves and started upstairs.
“Aunt Molly, what are you going to do? I must repeat it is only a
belief in a boil,” expostulated the mother.
“Very well,” retorted Aunt Molly, continuing her march upstairs, “I am
merely going to put on a dream of a poultice.”
And she did.
* * * * *
Mistress--“Did the fisherman who stopped here this morning have frog’s
legs?”
Nora--“Sure, mum, I dinnaw. He wore pants.”
* * * * *
When the thermometer dropped below zero Mrs. Rogers was much disturbed
by the thought that Huldah, the new kitchen maid, slept in an unheated
room.
“Huldah,” she said, remembering the good old custom of her girlhood,
“it’s going to be pretty cold to-night. I think you had better take a
flatiron to bed with you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” assented Huldah without enthusiasm.
Mrs. Rogers, happy in the belief that her maid was comfortable, slept
soundly. In the morning she visited the kitchen.
“Well, Huldah, how did you get along with the flatiron?”
Huldah breathed a deep sigh of recollection.
“Vell, ma’am, I got it ’most warm before morning.”
* * * * *
Many children are so crammed with everything that they really know
nothing.
In proof of this, read these veritable specimens of definitions,
written by public-school children:
“Stability is taking care of a stable.”
“A mosquito is the child of black and white parents.”
“Monastery is the place for monsters.”
“Tocsin is something to do with getting drunk.”
“Expostulation is to have the smallpox.”
“Cannibal is two brothers who killed each other in the Bible.”
“Anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, the head,
the chist, and the stummick. The head contains the eyes and brains, if
any. The chist contains the lungs and a piece of the liver. The
stummick is devoted to the bowels, of which there are five, a, e, i,
o, u, and sometimes w and y.”
* * * * *
Little Polly, coming in from her walk one morning, informed her mother
that she had seen a lion in the park. No amount of persuasion or
reasoning could make her vary her statement one hairbreadth. That
night, when she slipped down on her knees to say her prayers, her
mother said, “Polly, ask God to forgive you for that fib.”
Polly hid her face for a moment. Then she looked straight into her
mother’s eyes, her own eyes shining like stars, and said, “I did ask
him, mama, dearest, and he said, ‘Don’t mention it, Miss Polly; that
big yellow dog has often fooled me.’”
* * * * *
“Boohoo! Boohoo!” wailed little Johnny.
“Why, what’s the matter, dear?” his mother asked comfortingly.
“Boohoo--er--p-picture fell on papa’s toes.”
“Well, dear, that’s too bad, but you mustn’t cry about it, you know.”
“I d-d-didn’t. I l-laughed. Boohoo! Boohoo!”
* * * * *
Two candidates for office in Missouri were stumping the northern part
of the State. In one town their appearance was almost simultaneous.
The candidate last arriving stopped at a house for a drink of water.
To the little girl who answered his knock at the door he said--when
she had given him the desired drink and he had offered her some candy
in recompense:
“Did the man ahead of me give you anything?”
“Oh, yes,” replied the girl. “He gave me candy.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the candidate. “Here’s five cents for you. I don’t
suppose that _he_ gave you any money?”
The youngster laughed. “Yes, he did, too! He gave me ten cents!”
Not to be outdone, the candidate gave the little one another nickel
and picking her up in his arms, kissed her.
“Did he kiss you, too?” he asked genially.
“Yes, he did, sir,” responded the little girl, “and he kissed ma,
too.”
* * * * *
The owner of a dry-goods store heard a new clerk say to a customer,
“No, madam, we have not had any for a long time.”
With a fierce glance at the clerk the smart employer rushed up to the
woman and said: “We have plenty of everything in reserve ma’am; plenty
upstairs.”
The customer and the clerk looked dazed. Then the proprietor, seeing
that something was wrong, said to the customer: “Excuse me, what did
you ask for?”
The woman simply replied, “Why, I said to your clerk that we hadn’t
had any rain lately.”
* * * * *
Senator W. A. Clark detests nothing more than to be interrupted when
busy. One day he was in his office engaged in a business conversation
when a petite woman, carrying a black bag, entered. With a compelling
smile and an insinuating manner she approached the surly millionaire.
Utterly insensible to his repellent mood and indifferent to his abrupt
manner she drew from the depths of a bag a handsomely bound volume,
the merits and beauty of which she began eloquently to descant upon.
Failing to embarrass her with arctic frigidity and impatient at her
persistency under rebuffs all but vulgar, he turned suddenly upon the
chattering woman and asked:
“Madam, do you know what my time is worth?”
She confessed it was a conundrum.
“Well,” he said, petulantly, “it’s worth $30 an hour!”
He turned away with the air of one who had settled the matter
definitely beyond any further controversy. But he didn’t know the
woman.
“Oh, I’m so grateful to you, Mr. Clark,” she replied, with a tone of
pathos in her voice. “Thirty dollars an hour, did you say?”
“Yes; that’s what I said, and it’s cheap at that,” and he smiled
cynically.
“Oh, I know it’s dirt cheap,” she chirped with winsome blitheness. “I
am so glad you told me”--rummaging in her reticule, from which she
quickly flashed out a purse gorged with currency. Moving near to the
astonished millionaire, who now regarded her movements with unfeigned
curiosity, she counted two bills, a ten and a five, off the roll.
These she pushed along the top of the sloping desk toward him and
said: “Yes, I’m glad you told me, because I hadn’t expected to get it
so cheap. There is $15. Now, I want a half hour of your uninterrupted
attention while I talk to you about this book.”
Clark pushed the money back and subscribed and paid for two copies of
the book.
* * * * *
The following bit from a letter of thanks is cherished by its
recipient: “The beautiful clock you sent us came in perfect
condition, and is now in the parlor on top of the book-shelves, where
we hope to see you soon, and your husband, also, if he can make it
convenient.”
* * * * *
Tourist (in French restaurant)--“This is awful! I’ve ordered three
dishes from this menu and they are all potatoes!”
* * * * *
“Mistah Brown,” said the old colored woman, coming into the
cross-roads store, “you ain’t got no spool-cotton number thirty, is
you?”
“Why, aunt Sally, I didn’t say I didn’t have it, did I?”
“You go long, Mistah Brown. I didn’t ax you ’aint you got it?’ I axed
you ‘is you’?--ain’t you?”
* * * * *
An old “befo-de-wah” darky was called upon to make a few remarks over
the grave of a friend. He removed his hat and stepped reverently and
sadly toward the open grave and in solemn funereal tones said: “Friday
Vizer, you is gone. We hope you is gone whar we spects you ain’t!”
* * * * *
A New Yorker who does his bit of “globe trotting” tells of two odd
entries that he saw in the visitors’ book of a fashionable resort on
the Rhine.
A few years ago one of the Paris members of the Rothschild family had
registered as follows:
“R. de Paris.”
It chanced that the next visitor to inscribe his name in the book was
Baron Oppenheim, the banker of Cologne, and he wrote beneath
Rothschild’s:
“O. de Cologne.”
* * * * *
The Stranger--“And who are the Murphys’ ancestors?”
Mr. M.--“Ancestors? What’s that?”
The Stranger--“I mean who do the Murphys spring from?”
Mr. M.--“The Murphys spring from no one. They spring _at_ thim!”
* * * * *
At a wedding-feast recently the bridegroom was called upon, as usual,
to respond to the given toast, in spite of the fact that he had
previously pleaded to be excused. Blushing to the roots of his hair,
he rose to his feet. He intended to imply that he was unprepared for
speechmaking, but he unfortunately placed his hand upon his bride’s
shoulder, and looked down at her as he stammered out his opening and
concluding words:
“This--er--thing has been forced upon me.”
* * * * *
Very much excited and out of breath, a young man who could not have
been married very long rushed up to an attendant at one of the city
hospitals and inquired after Mrs. Brown, explaining between breaths
that it was his wife whom he felt anxious about.
The attendant looked at the register and replied that there was no
Mrs. Brown in the hospital.
“My God! Don’t keep me waiting in this manner,” said the excited young
man. “I must know how she is.”
“Well, she isn’t here,” again said the attendant.
“She must be,” broke in the visitor, “for here is a note I found on
the kitchen-table when I came home from work.”
The note read:
“_Dear Jack_--Have gone to have my kimono cut out. ANNIE.”
* * * * *
While an Irishman was gazing in the window of a Washington bookstore
the following sign caught his eye:
DICKENS’ WORKS
ALL THIS WEEK FOR
ONLY $4.00.
“The divvle he does!” exclaimed Pat in disgust. “The dirty scab!”
* * * * *
A dear old New England spinster, the embodiment of the timid and
shrinking, passed away at Carlsbad, where she had gone for her health.
Her nearest kinsman, a nephew, ordered her body sent back to be
buried--as was her last wish--in the quiet little country churchyard.
His surprise can be imagined, when on opening the casket, he beheld,
instead of the placid features of his aunt Mary, the majestic port of
an English General in full regimentals, whom he remembered had chanced
to die at the same time and place as his aunt.
At once he cabled to the General’s heirs explaining the situation and
requesting instructions.
They came back as follows: “Give the General quiet funeral. Aunt Mary
interred to-day with full military honors, six brass bands, saluting
guns.”
* * * * *
Early in the morning session, when the pupils were feeling bright and
happy, the teacher thought it a good plan to give them sentences to
correct, both as to grammar and sense. She accordingly wrote on the
blackboard: “The hen has four legs. He done it.” Thoughtful little
Ignatius, at the foot of the class, pondered deeply, and at the end of
the fifteen minutes’ time allowed for correction he wrote: “_He_
didn’t done it: God done it.”
* * * * *
The late John Stetson, famous in his day as a theatrical manager, was
having a yacht built, and a friend, meeting him on the street, asked
him what he was going to name the boat. “I haven’t decided yet,”
replied John, “but it will be some name commencing with S, probably
either ‘Psyche’ or ‘Cinch.’”
* * * * *