_The Old Cock_
Many years ago the only inn at Keswick was called the “Cock,” and was
much frequented by the visitors to the Lake district. But the late
excellent Bishop of Llandaff, Dr. Richard Watson, happening to reside in
the neighborhood, and being universally esteemed and loved, the
landlord, out of compliment to his lordship, changed his sign to the
“Bishop’s Head.” Another inn was shortly after opened in the village,
and the proprietor selected the “Cock” as his sign. The landlord of the
old inn, finding that the rival establishment, owing to its name,
threatened to deprive him of many of his customers, in consequence of
the guide-books recommending the “Cock” as the best inn, wrote under the
bishop’s head at his door, “This is the original Old Cock,” to the great
amusement of the bishop, who used to relate the story with much glee.
_Already had One_
The following story is told by General Harry Heth: “One day General
Gordon and I were ordered to attack General Grant’s lines near
Petersburg, and we accordingly moved out toward the front. Gordon, you
know, was a preacher, and a man of pious devotional habits. Just before
the action began, he said, ‘General, before we go into action, would it
not be well to engage in prayer?’ ‘Certainly,’ I replied, and he and his
staff retired into a little building by the roadside, and I and my staff
prepared to follow. Just then I caught sight of my brother, who was with
some artillery a little way down the road, and, thinking to have him
join us, I called out to him by name. ‘Come,’ said I, pointing to the
building we were just entering. ‘No, thank you,’ he answered, ‘I have
just had one.’”
_Ask Papa_
A stanza went the rounds among the public men of Washington, the
authorship of which, from the fact that it was first heard among
senators and cabinet officers, is credited to various statesmen.
Secretary Shaw recited it at a cabinet meeting, and was said to be its
author, but he disclaimed the honor. It is:
“‘Go ask papa,’ the maiden said,
The young man knew papa was dead;
He knew the life papa had led;
He understood when the maiden said,
‘Go ask papa.’”
_Too Mild_
When his friends secured for him a commission in the army they
confidently expected him to develop a military genius of the first
order.
Great was their chagrin, then, when, in the thick of his first battle, a
courier having dashed up and asked him how long he could hold his
position, he did not reply:
“Till hell freezes over!”
But merely:
“As long as may be necessary!”
Now, of course, there was nothing for his friends to do, in simple
justice to themselves, but advise him to resign and engage in trade.
_The Eye of the Fly_
Sydney Smith jokes have a delicate flavor of age, but an anecdote in
“Memories of Half a Century” has not been told so often as some of the
classic tales. Sydney was a guest at the dinner of an archdeacon, and a
fellow-guest, whose hobby was natural history, was a bore, if once
started on his subject. Smith promised to try to keep him in check. The
naturalist got his opening.
“Mr. Archdeacon,” said he, “have you seen the pamphlet written by my
friend, Professor Dickenson, on the remarkable size of the eye in a
common housefly?”
The archdeacon courteously said he had not. The bore pursued his
advantage.
“I can assure you it is a most interesting pamphlet, setting forth
particulars, hitherto unobserved, as to the unusual size of that eye.”
“I deny the fact!” said a voice from the other end of the table. All
smiled, save the bore.
“You deny the fact, sir?” said he. “May I ask on what authority you
condemn the investigations of my most learned friend?”
“I deny the fact,” replied Smith, “and I base my denial on evidence
wedded to immortal verse well known to every scholar, at least, at this
table.”
The emphasis laid on scholar nettled the naturalist by its implication.
“Well, sir,” he said, “will you have the kindness to quote your
authority?”
“I will, sir. The evidence is those well known, I may say immortal,
lines:
“‘Who saw him die?’
‘I,’ said the fly,
‘With my little eye!’”
The guests roared, and during the rest of the dinner nothing further was
heard on the subject of natural history.
_Yale’s Way_
Once when President Dwight was at the head of Yale he was asked to lead
in prayer at some religious gathering in Boston. Among his hearers was
President Eliot, of Harvard. President Dwight ended his supplication by
repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and spoke a certain part of it as follows:
“Thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth.” At the close of the
meeting President Eliot, of Harvard, was greeted by a friend, who said,
“Dwight seemed a little lame on the Lord’s Prayer. He put earth ahead of
heaven. Did you notice it?” “Yes,” replied Eliot, “but I didn’t pay any
attention to it. That’s the way they are taught to say it down at New
Haven.”
_Canard_
A canard, meaning in French, a duck, has come to mean in English a hoax
or fabricated newspaper story. Its origin is amusing. About fifty years
ago a French journalist contributed to the French press an experiment,
of which he declared himself to have been the author. Twenty ducks were
placed together, and one of them, having been cut up into very small
pieces, was gluttonously gobbled up by the other nineteen. Another bird
was then sacrificed for the remainder, and so on, until one duck was
left, which thus contained in its inside the other nineteen! This the
journalist ate. The story caught on, and was copied into all the
newspapers of Europe.
_Sothern’s Practical Joke_
A Dublin paper relates, as follows, one of the practical jokes of Edward
A. Sothern, the comedian: He called upon an undertaker one day, and
ordered, on a most elaborate scale, all that was necessary for a
funeral. Before the preparations could have gone far, he reappeared with
great solicitude to ask how they were progressing. Again, at a brief
interval, he presented himself, with an anxious face, to inquire when he
could count upon possession of the body—a question which naturally
amazed the undertaker, who was at a loss to discover his meaning. “Of
course, you provide the body,” said Sothern. “The body?” cried the
undertaker. “Why, do you not say,” exclaimed the actor, exhibiting a
card of the shop, “‘All things necessary for funerals promptly
supplied?’ Is not a body the first necessity?”
_High Art Advertising_
That German tradesmen are rapidly rising to the higher flights of the
advertising art is shown by the following ingenious paragraphs from the
advertisements in the _Berliner Tageblatt_ and the _Wiener
Vorstadt-Zeitung_: “A German Knightly landowner wishes to find a female
life-companion who resembles, externally as well as in character, the
heroine of Sacher-Masoch’s novel, ‘Frau von Soldan,’ published in the
April number of _Auf der Höhe_, by E. L. Morgenstern, Leipzig. Address
Karl Egger, Beiderwiese, near Passau.” An enterprising Viennese tailor
has hit upon this: “How to become a houseowner: Quite lately a gentleman
made his fortune on the Weiden in an astonishing and absolutely original
manner. At my shop he purchased a morning suit for ten florins, a dress
suit for nineteen florins, a pair of summer trousers for three florins,
and a complete costume for his little son at the low figure of three
florins and a half. Having reflected that, had he bought these articles
in any other shop, he would have been obliged to pay at least twenty
florins more for them, he resolved to invest his savings to that amount
in a ticket for the Crown Prince Rudolph Lottery. At the next drawing
his number came out the first prize of twenty thousand florins, which
sum this lucky person forthwith invested in a comfortable mansion. Thus,
through dealing at my establishment, he became a houseowner and a
wealthy man.”
_An Admissible Explanation_
The late Dr. Yandell was fond of telling the following joke: A lady
patient one morning greeted him with the remark, “Doctor, I had such a
singular dream about you last night.” “Indeed. What was it?” “Why, I
dreamed that I died and went to heaven. I knocked at the Golden Gate,
and was answered by Peter, who asked my name and address and told the
recording angel to bring his book. He had considerable difficulty in
finding my name, and hesitated so long over the entry when he did find
it, that I was terribly afraid something was wrong; but he suddenly
looked up and asked, ‘What did you say your name was?’ I told him again.
‘Why,’ said he, ‘you have no business here. You’re not due these ten or
fifteen years yet.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘Dr. Yandell said——’ ‘Oh, you’re one
of Yandell’s patients, are you? That accounts for it. Come right in!
Come right in! That man’s always upsetting our calculations in some
way.’”
_Second- or Third-Rate_
Bishop Lawrence, of Massachusetts, tells this joke on himself with keen
relish. It was at the time when there was a vacancy in the bishopric,
and Dr. Brooks was the most prominent candidate. Mr. Lawrence, then the
Dean of the Theological School, in Cambridge, was walking with President
Eliot of Harvard University, and the two were discussing the situation.
“Don’t you hope Brooks will be elected?” asked the Dean. “No,” said Dr.
Eliot; “a second- or third-rate man would do just as well; and we need
Brooks in Boston and Cambridge.” Phillips Brooks was elected, and a
little later Dr. Eliot and Mr. Lawrence again discussed the matter.
“Aren’t you glad Brooks was elected?” queried the Dean. “Yes, I suppose
so,” said Dr. Eliot, “if he wanted it; but, to tell the truth, Lawrence,
you were my man.”
_The Wounded Amazon_
Gibson’s Wounded Amazon is a poem in marble, but how many of its
admirers would ever suspect the grotesque suggestiveness of which it was
the outgrowth? “Yes,” said Gibson to a friend who went to his studio to
see the statue in clay, “I call it a Wounded Amazon, but that statue is
a proof of how useful it is for an artist to keep his eyes open. Now,
how do you think I found that pose? I was going along the street, and I
found a girl catching a flea. Yes, I did; she was catching a flea! I
stopped and said to myself, ‘That’s a pretty pose—a very pretty pose
indeed,’ and I took it down. Then I thought it over; I sat up and worked
it out, and there it stands now as my Wounded Amazon. But it is the very
pose of the girl catching the flea, nevertheless. A very pretty pose it
is, you see; and, as I said, it shows that an artist must not fail to
keep his eyes always open.”
_Mr. Evarts’s Jocularity_
A friend read to Mr. William M. Evarts the statement of a newspaper
that, in reply to the question “What part of the turkey will you have?”
Mr. Evarts answered that it was “quite inconsequential to one of his
recognized abstemiousness and supersensitive stomachic nervation whether
he be tendered an infinitesimal portion of the opaque nutriment of the
nether extremities, the superior fraction of a pinion, or a snowy
cleavage from the cardiac region.” Mr. Evarts said that this was an
attempt at condensing one of his despatches protesting against the
dismemberment of Turkey. It was founded on an incident which occurred at
one of his Thanksgiving dinners at home. “I had a roasted New England
goose, well stuffed with sage, with plenty of apple-sauce and the usual
accompaniments. At the close of the meal I said, ‘My children, you now
see the difference between the condition of affairs before and after
dinner. You then saw a goose stuffed with sage; now you see a sage
stuffed with goose.’”
_Worse than Worst_
Two comedians having laid a wager as to which of them sang the best,
they agreed to refer it to an arbitrator. A day was accordingly set, and
both parties executed to the best of their abilities. When they had
finished, he proceeded to give judgment in the following manner: “As for
you, sir,” addressing himself to the first, “you are the worst singer I
ever heard in all my life.” “Ah,” said the other, “I knew I should win
the wager.” “Stop, sir,” said the arbitrator; “I have a word to say to
you before you go, which is this, that as for you, you cannot sing at
all.”
_A Poet-farmer in a Fix_
Long Island has a poet named Bloodgood H. Cutter, who, when an infant,
“lisped in numbers.” He is a member of the agricultural profession, a
practical farmer, and alternates between cultivation of his extensive
family manor and his favorite muse monthly. One day the Long Island
Byron, when on the way to the New York market, had the misfortune to
break his tackling through the antics of his spirited team, that was
drawing a big load.
Just at this moment, as the poet was in the road lugubriously viewing
his ruptured tackling and broken traces, there appeared on the spot a
wagon-load of his neighbors on their way home. “By Jove!” said S.,
“there is our rhyming neighbor Cutter, broke down; bet you the dinners
all round at Tony’s that when we stop he will tell his trouble in good
rhythm.” “Done,” said B. “I take that bet. Drive up and decide it.”
Bloodgood looked around, saw a chance of relief, and his countenance
radiating like an Edison lamp, opened his lips thusly:
“Glad to see your smiling faces;
I’ve broke down and want relief;
Come and help me mend these traces,
Or my trip will come to grief.
I’ve a load of pink-eyed beauties,
Rare potatoes—sure to sell—
Don’t forget your Christian duties,
Pious work, you know, pays well.”
A roar went up that could have been heard a mile. “All right, Bloodgood,
that Christian duty shall be ‘did.’” They fixed him up and he went on
his way rejoicing. In due time Tony Miller’s elegant dinner for four was
partaken of, and B. footed the bill.
_A Venerable Joke_
The framework of jokes is handed down from one generation to another,
like andirons and spinning-wheels. For instance, a Hartford paper,
learning that there is a coin in Southern Russia so small that it takes
two hundred and fifty of them to be worth one dollar, remarks that they
must be very convenient for charitable purposes. The joke appears in
every age, without much alteration. It is first noticed in English
literature after the ascension of James I. to the throne had brought in
a horde of hungry Scotch place-hunters, to the great disgust of the
English, who wanted all the places themselves. Jokes at the expense of
the Scotch, of course, became very popular, and this was one of the most
popular: “Why are they coining farthings again?” “To give Scotchmen an
opportunity to subscribe to benevolent objects.”
_The Graduate_
He could quote from musty pages, delve in geologic ages, and relax
himself in synthesis and such;
Could construct an exegesis, startle with a subtle Thesis, and involve a
tortured subject overmuch.
He was great in mathematics, as applied to hydrostatics, or eternal
revolution of the spheres;
His chronology was reckoned from the minimum of second to the
undiscovered maximum of years.
He was constantly amazing with philology and phrasing, with vocabulistic
plenitude and ease;
He was by his fellows quoted, as a lexicon is noted, his attainments
were superlative degrees.
On Commencement his oration was received with an ovation, oh, his
temporary glory was immense;
While the complimenting flowers fell around in fragrant showers, and the
fever of the moment was intense.
But behold the fellow later from his sheltering Alma Mater reach his
educated fingers for some necessary cash;
All the wisdom he may utter doesn’t turn to bread and butter, and his
Theses do not count for daily hash.
_Coldblooded Criticism_
Mr. Longfellow sent this little verse to the Columbus, Ohio, school
children, who celebrated his birthday:
“If any thought of mine, e’er sung or told,
Has ever given delight or consolation,
Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold
By every friendly sign and salutation.
With the compliments and good wishes of
H. W. LONGFELLOW.”
Whereupon a Cincinnati paper chaffed the poet in this fashion:
“Certainly, Mr. Longfellow; but if you sung it you told it, didn’t you?
It is rather your point to tell a thing in singing it! Why, then, ‘sung
_or_ told?’ And why the _back_ in the third line? Break that back. Could
one repay you forward? And is not a sign also a salutation?”
_Mock Heroics_
Out rode from his wild, dark castle
The terrible Heinz von Stein;
He came to the door of a tavern,
And gazed on the swinging sign.
He sat himself down at a table,
And growled for a bottle of wine;
Up came with a flask and a corkscrew
A maiden of beauty divine.
Then, seized with a deep love-longing,
He uttered, “O damosel mine,
Suppose you just give a few kisses
To the valorous Ritter von Stein!”
But she answered: “The kissing business
Is entirely out of my line;
And I certainly will not begin it
On a countenance ugly as thine!”
Oh, then the bold knight was angry,
And cursed both coarse and fine;
And asked, “How much is the swindle
For your sour and nasty wine?”
And fiercely he rode to the castle,
And set himself down to dine:
And this is the dreadful legend
Of the terrible Heinz von Stein.
CHARLES G. LELAND.
_Unwilling Willingness_
Dr. Guernsey, in an article on faith cure, in the _Medical Times_, cites
a case in which will power appears to have successfully supplied the
place of faith. Among the parishioners of the Rev. Dr. Taylor, of New
Haven, was an invalid lady, who finally took to her bed, where she
continued to receive her pastor’s visits. One bitter cold night she sent
for him to console her dying moments, and declared herself ready to
depart in peace. “If it is His will,” she said, “that I shall go to
hell, I can still say, ‘Thy will be done.’” The physician who was
present became a little impatient. “Well,” said he, “if that is God’s
will, and both you and your family are reconciled to it, I do not know
that I ought to object.” In a moment the woman was on her feet shouting,
“I won’t die and I won’t go to hell!” She afterward enjoyed comfortable
health for years.
_Companion Pictures_
The Rev. Dr. John Hall once suggested that an artist might paint
“Enchantment” as “a bright young girl, on the deck of an ocean steamer
at the wharf, chattering to the friends around her, grandly directing
her bouquets to be sent to her room, full of the joys of the voyage and
her first trip to Europe.” He adds that a companion picture might be
called “Disenchanted,” representing the same girl, “like Jonah, gone
down to the sides of the ship, not like him, asleep, but with great
inward trouble, like that in the venerable sea story, ‘The first hour I
feared I would die; the second hour I feared I would not.’ The faded
bouquets, disordered garments, and a very crowded foreground would
complete the scene.”
_Juxtaposition_
Dr. Henry Gibbons describes a kiss as “the anatomical juxtaposition of
two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction.” Upon this, a
newspaper editor remarked, “A kiss may be one of those things, but it
doesn’t taste like it. We once heard a young man describe a kiss as
‘bully,’ and he had quite as much experience in the osculatory business
as Dr. Gibbons, but he didn’t have so much education.”
_Niagara_
An American tourist was visiting Naples and saw Vesuvius during an
eruption. “Have you anything like that in the New World?” was the
question of an Italian spectator. “No,” replied Jonathan; “but I guess
we have a mill-dam that would put it out in five minutes.”
_Compliant Courts_