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There, there, there! Don't make such a racket or you'll make me nervous.
The manager said to me this morning: "Just give 'em a little nonsense,
Mr. Niblo. You know a little nonsense, now and then, is relished by the
best of men."
That's the reason he engaged me; said I was the most nonsensical man he
ever knew. That's right. Laugh at me. Oh, I dearly love to see people's
faces wreathed in smiles.
I've always been a seeker after fun myself.
Why, would you believe it, I once walked twenty miles to thrash a
fellow--just for fun.
What's that--twenty more miles back again? Well, to tell you the truth,
that didn't bother me.
You see, they carried me back in an ambulance.
I was thinking of telling you a ridiculous story about the dirty
window, but I guess I'd better not.
You wouldn't see through it, anyway.
Instead of that let me relate a few amusing things that happened to me
while I was on the road last summer.
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I always start in a Pullman, and generally come back--well, what's the
use telling family secrets?
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While I was doing the Ohio theatres I spent some little time with an
old friend.
He is engaged in a country school, and for five days in the week
wrestles with the task of teaching the young idea how to shoot. I went
to see him at work, and of course the scholars were more backward than
ordinary. Just as the baby will never be cunning when strangers are
around.
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It was a lesson in geography that quite broke me up.
"What is a cataract?" asked the pedagogue.
There was a complete frost.
No one had any idea apparently.
"Well, what is meant by a cape?" said my friend.
This was better. One of the children knew it was a point of land
jutting out into the water.
"What is a strait?"
Over in the corner a hand went up.
"I know, teacher," said a small boy.
"Well, what is it?"
"It beats three of a kind," was the triumphant answer.
Feeling a little indisposed while at Sandusky, I sauntered into an
apothecary shop, intending to purchase some mild drug, to the use of
which I am addicted, and which usually comes to us from Havana.
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As I stood a moment after getting my light, an old country-man came
shuffling in.
He was a character, I'm telling you; why, it stuck out all over his
furrowed face just like the tracks of a lost hen in the mud.
I saw him pull out a red bandanna handkerchief and frown as he surveyed
the big knot in the end.
You needn't smile--that old codger wasn't the first man to forget why
he had tied a knot in his handkerchief or a string around his finger.
"Well, uncle, what is it?" asked the clerk.
"I'll get around to it pretty quick. Now, what place is it down yonder
on the lake?"
"Do you mean Put-in-Bay?"
"Yep, that's it. Now, who was it that put in there?"
"Perhaps you mean Commodore Perry?"
"The very man. And I want a bottle o' Perrygoric."