ye’ve been keepin’ me at your hoose for a month, an’ payin’ for a’ the
amusements and cabs and so on--I tell you I’ll stan’ nae mair o’ it!
We’ll just hae a toss for this one!”
* * * * *
“Uncle Joe” Cannon has a way of speaking his mind that is sometimes
embarrassing to others. On one occasion an inexperienced young fellow
was called upon to make a speech at a banquet at which Speaker Cannon
was also present.
“Gentlemen,” began the young fellow, “my opinion is that the
generality of mankind in general is disposed to take advantage of the
generality of ----”
“Sit down, son,” interrupted “Uncle Joe.” “You are coming out of the
same hole you went in at.”
* * * * *
It is a well-established fact that the average school-teacher
experiences a great deal of difficulty when she attempts to enforce
the clear pronunciation of the terminal “g” of each present
participle.
“Robert,” said the teacher of one of the lower classes during the
progress of a reading exercise, “please read the first sentence.”
A diminutive lad rose to his feet and, amid a series of labored gasps,
breathed forth the following:
“See the horse runnin’.”
“Don’t forget the ‘g,’ Robert,” admonished the teacher.
“Gee! See the horse runnin’.”
* * * * *
Miss Jeannette Gilder was one of the ardent enthusiasts at the début
of Tetrazzini. After the first act she rushed to the back of the
house to greet one of her friends. “Don’t you think she is a wonder?”
she asked excitedly.
“She is a great singer unquestionably,” responded her more phlegmatic
friend, “but the registers of her voice are not so even as, for
instance, Melba’s.”
“Oh, bother Melba,” said Miss Gilder. “Tetrazzini gives infinitely
more heat from her registers.”
* * * * *
Walter Damrosch tells of a matron in Chicago who, in company with her
young nephew, was attending a musical entertainment.
The selections were apparently entirely unfamiliar to the youth; but
when the “Wedding March” of Mendelssohn was begun he began to evince
more interest.
“That sounds familiar,” he said. “I’m not strong on these classical
pieces, but that’s a good one. What is it?”
“That,” gravely explained the matron, “is the ‘Maiden’s Prayer.’”
* * * * *
A messenger came tearing up to the White House in ’63, and hurriedly
gaining admission to Mr. Lincoln, informed him in great excitement
that a large wagon train had been surprised a short way across the
Potomac and a brigadier-general taken prisoner.
“Did they capture the train?” inquired Old Abe.
“No, sir, the regiment came up and saved it,” answered the messenger,
“but the general, Mr. President, is a prisoner.”
“Oh, never mind that,” said Lincoln. “I can make a dozen generals in a
day, but mules cost $300 apiece.”
* * * * *
Two men were riding together one day through Paris. One was
exceedingly bright and clever, while the other was correspondingly
dull. As is usually the case, the latter monopolized the conversation.
The talk of the dullard had become almost unendurable, when his
companion saw a man on the street far ahead yawning.
“Look,” he exclaimed, “we are overheard!”
* * * * *
One afternoon Mrs. Murphy appeared at the settlement house, all
dressed up in her best bonnet and shawl. A huge black and blue spot
disfigured one side of her face, however, and one eye was nearly
closed. “Why, Mrs. Murphy, what is the matter?” cried one of the
teachers; and then, realizing that she might have asked a tactless
question, she hastily turned it off, by saying, “Well, cheer up, you
might be worse off.” “Sure an’ I might,” responded the indignant Mrs.
Murphy. “I might not be married at all!”
* * * * *
A young woman in Central Park overheard an old negress call to a
piccaninny: “Come heah, Exy, Exy!”
“Excuse me, but that’s a queer name for a baby, aunty?”
“Dat ain’t her full name,” explained the old woman with pride; “dat’s
jes’ de pet name I calls for short. Dat chile got a mighty grand name.
Her ma picked it out in a medicine book--yessum, de child’s full name
is Eczema.”
* * * * *
Sir Richard Bethell, afterward Lord Westbury, with a suave voice and a
stately manner, nevertheless had a way of bearing down the foe with
almost savage wit. Once, in court, he had to follow a barrister who
had delivered his remarks in very loud tones. “Now that the noise in
court has subsided,” murmured Bethell, “I will tell your Honor in two
sentences the gist of the case.”
* * * * *
The resemblance of the Rev. Robert Collyer to Henry Ward Beecher was
often remarked. One day, when walking through Central Park, hat in
hand, as the day was hot, at a sharp turn in the path he came upon an
old lady seated on one of the park benches. At sight of him she jumped
to her feet, exclaiming:
“Goodness me! This is not Mr. Beecher?”
“No, madam,” Dr. Collyer answered, “it is not. I hope Mr. Beecher is
in a cooler place.”
* * * * *
It is not necessary that a lawyer should be eloquent to win verdicts,
but he must have the tact which turns an apparent defeat to his own
advantage. One of the most successful of verdict winners was Sir James
Scarlett. His skill in turning a failure into a success was wonderful.
In a breach-of-promise case the defendant, Scarlett’s client, was
alleged to have been cajoled into an engagement by the plaintiff’s
mother. She was a witness in behalf of her daughter, and completely
baffled Scarlett, who cross-examined her. But in his argument he
exhibited his tact by this happy stroke of advocacy: “You saw,
gentlemen of the jury, that I was but a child in her hands. What must
my client have been?”
* * * * *
He was a young man--a candidate for an agricultural constituency--and
he was sketching in glowing colors to an audience of rural voters the
happy life the laborer would lead under an administration for the
propagation of sweetness and light. “We have not yet three acres and a
cow, but it will come. Old-age pensions are still of the future, but
they will come.” Similarly every item of his comprehensive program was
endorsed by the same parrot cry. Then he went on to talk of prison
reforms. “I have not yet personally,” he said, “been inside a criminal
lunatic asylum.” Then there was a voice from the back of the hall,
“But it will come.”
* * * * *
The judge had had his patience sorely tried by lawyers who wished to
talk and by men who wished to evade jury service.
“Shudge!” cried a little German in the jury box.
“What is it?” demanded the judge.
“I t’ink I like to go home to my wife,” said the German.
“You can’t,” retorted the judge. “Sit down.”
“But, shudge,” persisted the German, “I don’t t’ink I make a good
shuror.”
“You’re the best in the box,” said the judge. “Sit down.”
“What box?” said the German.
“Jury box,” said the judge.
“But, shudge,” persisted the little German, “I don’t speak good
English.”
“You don’t have to speak any at all,” said the judge. “Sit down.”
The little German pointed at the lawyers to make his last desperate
plea.
“Shudge,” he said, “I don’t make noddings of what these fellers say.”
It was the judge’s chance to get even for many annoyances.
“Neither can any one else,” he said. “Sit down.”
* * * * *
A parson, diminutive in size and his head covered with hair of the
most fiery hue, officiated one Sunday for a friend in a colliery
village near Nottingham. The old-fashioned pulpit had a high desk over
which the parson’s red head was hardly visible. This was too much for
a burly collier seated immediately under the pulpit, who when he heard
the text, “I am the Light of the World,” exclaimed to the clerk, “Push
him up a bit higher, mate; don’t let him burn in the socket.”
* * * * *
“Biddy,” said Pat timidly, “did ye iver think o’ marryin’?”’
“Shure, now,” said Biddy, looking demurely at her shoe--“shure, now,
the subject has niver entered me mind at all, at all.”
“It’s sorry Oi am,” said Pat, and he turned away.
“Wan minute, Pat,” said Biddy softly. “Ye’ve set me thinkin’.”
* * * * *
From a French journal comes this little anecdote of a tutor and his
royal pupil.
The lesson was in Roman history, and the prince was unprepared.
“We come now to the Emperor Caligula. What do you know about him,
prince?”
The question was followed by a silence that was becoming awkward when
it was broken by the diplomatic tutor. “Your highness is right,” he
said, “perfectly right. The less said about this emperor the better.”
* * * * *
The following copies of queer advertisements have been collected and
printed by club women:
“Bulldog for sale; will eat anything; is very fond of children.”
“Lost--Near Highgate Archway, an umbrella belonging to a gentleman
with a bent rib and a bone handle.”
“Mr. Brown, furrier, begs to announce that he will make up gowns,
capes and so forth, for ladies out of their own skin.”
“Wanted, a herder for 500 sheep that can speak Spanish fluently.”
“For Sale--House in good neighborhood, by an invalid lady three
stories high and heated with furnace.”
A contemporary contains the startling news that “A carload of brick
came in for a walk through the park.”
* * * * *
An error for which nervousness may have been responsible was that made
by the boy who was told to take the Bishop’s shaving water to him one
morning and cautioned to answer the Bishop’s inquiry “Who’s there?” by
saying, “The boy, my Lord.” Whether from nervousness or not, the boy
managed to transpose the words of this sentence with ludicrous effect,
and the Bishop was surprised and perhaps alarmed to hear in response
to his inquiry the answer, “The Lord, my boy.”
* * * * *
Tailor--“Do you want padded shoulders, my little man?”
Willie--“Naw; pad de pants! Dat’s where I need it most.”
* * * * *
Dr. Tupper does not hesitate to take examples from his own profession,
as witness his curious story of the young clergyman who, after
preaching a funeral sermon, wished to invite the mourners to view the
remains, but became confused and exclaimed:
“We will now pass around the bier.”
* * * * *
“Wossatchoogot?”
“Afnoonnoos. Lassdition.”
“Enthinkinnut?”
“Naw. Nothninnut ’cept lasspeechrosefelt’s. Lottarot.”
“Donsayso? Wosswetherpredickshun?”
“Sesrain. Donbleevetho. Funthingthiswethernevkintellwossgunnado.”
“Thasright!”
* * * * *
President Eliot of Harvard recently visited a hotel in New York, and
when he left the dining-room the colored man in charge of the hats
picked up his tile without hesitation and handed it to him.
“How did you know that was my hat when you have a hundred there?”
asked Mr. Eliot.
“I didn’t know it, sah,” said the negro.
“Didn’t know it was mine? Then why did you give it to me?”
“Because you gave it to me, sah.”
* * * * *
“How small have you felt?” she asked anxiously.
“Well,” he replied, “I have felt as small as a man in the presence of
the head plumber.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“I have felt as small as the Prohibition nominee for Vice-President.”
She shook her head.
“Or as a man when his wife catches him in a lie.”
“That isn’t anything.”
“I have felt as small as the man who made a righteous complaint to the
president of a trolley line.”
She shook her head again sadly.
“That isn’t anything to the way I feel,” she said. “You know I have
never been to Europe, and I’ve been talking with a girl who has just
returned.”
* * * * *
In one of the Atlanta Sunday-schools recently the lesson for the day
had to do with Mammon and the corrupting influences of great riches.
Toward the close of the exercises the superintendent called upon the
infant class to repeat the Golden Text, which had special reference to
man’s inability to serve his Creator and the money-god at one and the
same time. The class failed to respond as it should, when the
superintendent, noticing his own young hopeful in the ranks, who had
that very morning been drilled thoroughly on the text, called on him.
The response was immediate, though a slight departure from the
original, for in a voice that was distinctly heard in all parts of the
room there came the following modification:
“Ye can not serve God and mama!”
* * * * *
“Any complaints, corporal?” said the colonel, making one morning a
personal inspection.
“Yes, sir. Taste that, sir,” said the corporal promptly.
The colonel put the liquid to his lips. “Why,” he said, “that’s the
best soup I ever tasted!”
“Yes, sir,” said the corporal, “and the cook wants to call it coffee.”
* * * * *
Reporter--“To what do you attribute your great age?”
Oldest Inhabitant--“I hain’t sure yet, sir. There be several o’ them
patent-medicine companies as is bargainin’ with me.”
* * * * *
Mr. Choate, ex-Ambassador of the United States at London, tells of the
address made by an Irish officer to his men who had just returned from
a fruitless expedition.
Rising to his feet with the utmost solemnity and seriousness, the
officer said:
“My men, I am fully aware of the fact that many of you brave fellows
are disappointed because in this campaign you were afforded little
opportunity to fight; but, my brave boys, reflect upon this: that had
there been any fighting, there would have been many absent faces here
to-day!”
* * * * *
“Young man (23) with five years’ experience in leading publishers,
desires to better his position.”
But what better position could there be than that of leading our
publishers?
* * * * *
From Children’s Chat, by “Grandma” in the “Times” of Natal:
“I want you, my dears, to write me a short snake story, something that
really happened to some one you know; and if you can tell me of a
child being really bitten I shall be glad to hear about it.”
Truly it is said that a child’s best friend is his grandma.
* * * * *
Wandering over Salisbury Plain on Whit Monday, a correspondent came
across a large stone inscribed: “Turn me over.” After much difficulty
he succeeded in turning it over, and found on the under side of the
stone the words: “Now turn me back again, so that I can catch some
other idiot.”
* * * * *
He--“Dearest, if I had known this tunnel was so long, I’d have given
you a jolly hug.”
She--“Didn’t you? Why--why--”
* * * * *
Timid Lady (going up the Washington Monument elevator).--“Conductor,
what if the rope breaks that holds us?”
Conductor--“Oh, there are a number more attached as safety ropes.”
Timid Lady--“But if they all break, where shall we go?”
Conductor--“Oh, well, m’m, that all depends upon what kind of a life
you have been living before.”
* * * * *
Elmer, though only a little boy, was the oldest child of an already
numerous family. He was invited to go in and see a little baby sister.
Asked by his mother what he thought of the baby, he said, “W’y, mama,
it’s real nice. But do you think we needed it?”
* * * * *
Time: 2 A.M.
“Ma, I want a drink!”
“Hush, darling; turn over and go to sleep.”
“I want a drink!”
“No, you are restless. Turn over, dear, and go to sleep.”
(After five minutes.) “Ma, I want a drink.”
“Lie still, Ethel, and go to sleep.”
“But I want a drink!”
“No, you don’t want a drink; you had a drink just before you went to
bed. Now be still and go right to sleep.”
(After five minutes.) “Ma, won’t you please give me a drink?”
“If you say another word I’ll get up and spank you. Now go to sleep.
You are a naughty girl.”
(After two minutes.) “Ma, when you get up to spank me will you give me
a drink?”
* * * * *
Once upon a time there was a young married man who had some slight
bickerings with the woman of his choice. These having occurred with
great frequency, he went to his father, who was older and much more
married.
“Father,” he said, “is it not meet that I should be the ringmaster in
my own wickiup? Or must I kowtow to the old lady?”
Whereat the old man smiled wisely and said:
“My son, yonder are a hundred chickens and here a fine team of horses.
Do you place the feathered tribe on this wagon, hitch up the team, and
start out. Wherever you find a man and his wife living together, make
diligent investigation to find out who the commanding officer is, and
where it is the woman give her a chicken. If you find a man running a
house give him one of the horses.”
So the young man loaded up the fowls and started out upon his
pilgrimage of self-education. And when he had but seven chickens
left, he approached a habitation with his forlorn inquiry, to which
the man replied:
“I’m the ace-high cockalorum of this outfit.”
And the wife, without fear or favor, corroborated the statement. Then
the young man said:
“Take your choice of the horses. Either one you fancy is yours.” And
after the man had walked around the team several times and looked in
their mouths, he said, “Well, I’ll take the bay.”
Now, the wife didn’t like bay horses, and she called John aside, and
after whispering in his ear she allowed him to return.
“I guess I’ll take the black horse,” he said.
“Not a bit of it,” said the pilgrim. “You’ll take a chicken.”
* * * * *
They were talking over the engagement of one of the daughters of the
family when the negro servant came in. One of the girls asked: “Cindy,
have you seen Edith’s fiancé?” “No’m, honey, hit ain’t been in de wash
yit.”
* * * * *
In the late financial stringency a clerk in one of the New York banks
was trying to explain to a stolid old Dutchman why the bank could not
pay cash to depositors as formerly, and was insisting that he be
satisfied with Clearing House checks. But the old man could not grasp
the situation, and finally the president of the bank was called upon
to enlighten the dissatisfied customer. After a detailed explanation
of the financial situation the president concluded, “Now, my good
man, you understand, don’t you?”
“Yes,” dubiously replied the Dutchman, “I tinks I understand. It’s
just like this; ven my baby vakes up in der night und cries for milk,
I give her a milk ticket.”
* * * * *
Levinsky, despairing of his life, made an appointment with a famous
specialist. He was surprised to find fifteen or twenty people in the
waiting-room.
After a few minutes he leaned over to a gentleman near him and
whispered, “Say, mine frient, this must be a pretty goot doctor, ain’t
he?”
“One of the best,” the gentleman told him.
Levinsky seemed to be worrying over something.
“Vell, say,” he whispered again, “he must be pretty exbensive, then,
ain’t he? Vat does he charge?”
The stranger was annoyed by Levinsky’s questions and answered rather
shortly: “Fifty dollars for the first consultation and twenty-five
dollars for each visit thereafter.”
“Mine Gott!” gasped Levinsky. “Fifty tollars the first time und
twenty-five tollars each time afterwards!”
For several minutes he seemed undecided whether to go or to wait. “Und
twenty-five tollars each time afterward,” he kept muttering. Finally,
just as he was called into the office, he was seized with a brilliant
inspiration. He rushed toward the doctor with outstretched hands.
“Hello, doctor,” he said effusively. “Vell, here I am again.”
* * * * *
A clergyman who was holding a children’s service at a Continental
winter resort had occasion to catechize his hearers on the parable of
the unjust steward. “What is a steward?” he asked. A little boy who
had arrived from England a few days before held up his hand. “He is a
man, sir,” he replied, “who brings you a basin.”
* * * * *
A teacher giving a lecture on the rhinoceros found his class was not
giving him all the attention it should. “Now, gentlemen,” he said, “if
you want to realize the true hideous nature of this animal you must
keep your eyes fixed on me.”
* * * * *
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?”
* * * * *
He was a big, black, good-hearted, old negro, stranded near Boston,
and he had decided, after considerable “cogitation,” to work his way
back to, the South, where he would feel more at home. In Boston, in
Springfield, in Hartford, in New Haven, it was always the same. When
he rang a bell and asked for work and a bite to eat the answer
usually was, “I’m very sorry, but there’s not a thing to be done here
to-day.” There were occasional exceptions, of course, or uncle could
never have got on, but the thing most to be counted upon was pleasing
politeness coupled with nothing else.
At last the old man left New York and then Philadelphia behind, and
one day found himself in Baltimore. His knowledge of geography was
_nil_, but he thought he ought soon to be getting into “de Souf,” and
with that hope at heart rang the bell of a fine house on Charles
Street. The door was opened by the host himself, who, after an
instant’s survey of the figure before him, blurted out:
“Why, yo’ ---- black rascal! How dare yo’ ring this bell? Get off mah
steps this secon’, befo’ I brek yo’ haid!”
“’Deed I will, boss; ’deed I will,” came the hurried answer. “I wuz
on’y lookin’ fer a bite to eat, boss.”
“A bite to eat!” repeated the other. “An’ don’t yo’ know whar to go
for all yo’ want? Get yo’self round back, an’ they’ll feed yo’
full--but cyart yo’ good-for-nuthin’ black carcass off these steps, I
say.”
And as uncle went around to the side door he raised his hands to
heaven, and with tears of rejoicing running down his furrowed cheeks,
said:
“Bress de Lord! I’s back agin among mah own folks!”
* * * * *
A little boy who had just joined Sunday-school was asked by his mother
how he liked it.
“Why!” exclaimed Charlie disgustedly, “they don’t know much. The
teacher asked what was the collec’, and I was the only one who knew.”
“And what did you say, dear?”
“Why, I told them pretty quick that it was a pain in the stomach.”
* * * * *
Travelers’ tales which often add charm to the conversation of an
agreeable person frequently render a bore more tiresome than ever, a
fact that was amusingly illustrated by an occurrence in a Baltimore
clubhouse not long ago.
“There I stood, gentlemen,” the long-winded narrator was saying,
after droning on for an hour with reference to his trip to
Switzerland--“there I stood, with the abyss yawning in front of me.”
“Pardon me,” hastily interjected one of the unfortunate men who had
been obliged to listen to the story, “but was that abyss yawning
before you got there?”
* * * * *
After a lesson on digestion the teacher, anxious to know how much her
instruction had been understood, questioned the class. The first
answer was rather discouraging, as the girl called upon made this
startling statement:
“Digestion begins in the mouth and ends in the big and little
testament.”
It was the same teacher who received the following note:
“Pleas teacher do not tel Mary any more about her incides it makes her
so proud.”
* * * * *
When Sam Jones was holding his meetings in Dallas, on one occasion he
said: “There’s no such thing as a perfect man. Anybody present who has
ever known a perfect man stand up.”
Nobody stood up.
“Those who have ever known a perfect woman, stand up.”
One demure little woman stood up.
“Did you ever know an absolutely perfect woman?” asked Sam, somewhat
amazed.
“I didn’t know her personally,” replied the little old woman, “but I
have heard a great deal about her. She was my husband’s first wife.”
* * * * *
Former President Scott, of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, was
greatly annoyed, when he first took hold of the road, by the claims
for horses and cattle killed by trains on their way through Kentucky.
It seemed as though it were not possible for a train to run north or
south through Kentucky without killing either a horse or a cow. And
every animal killed, however scrawny, scrubby, or miserable it may
have been before the accident, always figured in the claims
subsequently presented as of the best blood in Kentucky. “Well,” said
Scott one day, after examining a claim, “I don’t know anything that
improves stock in Kentucky like crossing it with a locomotive.”
* * * * *
One of a loving couple (watching a pile-driver at work)--“Dear, I feel
so sorry for those poor men. They have been trying for the last half
hour to lift that thing out, and every time they get it almost to the
top, it falls back again.”
* * * * *
Sentinel (on guard)--“Halt! Who comes there?”
The Colonel--“Fool!”
Sentinel--“Advance, fool, and give the countersign.”
* * * * *
“Oh, I’m so sorry I could not come to your ‘At Home’ yesterday.”
“Dear me, weren’t you there?”
“Why of course I was--how very silly of me--I quite forgot.”
* * * * *
A theological student was sent one Sunday to supply a vacant pulpit in
a Connecticut valley town. A few days after he received a copy of the
weekly paper of that place with the following item marked: