enough in America practically to have recovered from it. One fall a
friend sent him two tickets for one of the World’s Series ball games at
the Polo Grounds, and he took with him to the game a newly arrived
Englishman, a distant kinsman.
The stranger sat patiently enough through seven innings. The riotous
proceeding was a puzzle to him but he was too polite to mention it.
Then, when the mighty crowd, following the baseball custom, stood up to
stretch, he rose, too, and started for the aisle.
“Hold on!” said Beresford. “It isn’t over yet.”
“I was only going to get a cup of tea, old chap,” explained his guest.
“You can’t get tea now,” said Beresford; “the game goes right on.”
“You mean to say there is no tea being served?” demanded the Englishman
in amazement.
“Certainly not!” said Beresford.
“Well,” demanded the other, “what, then, is the purpose of the damned
game?”
§ 185 The Withdrawal of the Candidate
When Miss Annie Oakley, the famous rifle shot, was traveling through the
country giving exhibitions of her skill at theatres, she reached a small
town in Texas; and her manager inserted an advertisement in the home
paper for a smart colored boy to assist in the performance. Applicants
were instructed to apply at the stage door of the local opera house at
one P. M. sharp.
When the manager arrived he found the passageway congested with little
negroes, each eager to testify to his smartness. He made a selection,
picking out a spry boy of about twelve. He took his applicant inside and
stationed him near the wings.
“You will stand right here and not move,” he said. “When the curtain
goes up, Miss Oakley will come out and talk to the audience for a few
moments. Then I will balance a small apple on your forehead and the lady
will go over on the other side of the stage yonder and shoot it off.”
The candidate grabbed for his hat, his eyes wildly rolling in search of
the nearest path to safety.
“Mistah,” he demanded, “who’s goin’ to shoot whut apple offer whose
haid? Me, w’y I wouldn’t let mah own mammy shoot no apple offer mah
haid, let alone it’s some stranger!”
And he was gone.
§ 186 A Peacemaker Who Blessed Himself
The proprietor of a drug store in a small Indiana town was issuing from
the front door of his place when a small boy came tearing ’round the
corner at top gait with his head down and butted squarely into him.
“Hey, kid!” demanded the druggist. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m tryin’ to keep two boys from gittin’ into a fight,” panted the
youngster.
“Who are the boys?” asked the druggist.
“I’m one of ’em.”
§ 187 The Long Wait at Burlington
Included in my list of acquaintances is a gentleman who promotes
sporting events. Originally he promoted foot-races, later he conducted
balloon ascensions and parachute drops at county fairs and carnivals.
Still later, he turned aviator himself and bought an early model
aeroplane with which, in the period when flying was more of a novelty
than it is at present, he gave exhibitions.
The members of a Catholic congregation in a suburb of New York City were
striving to raise funds for a new rectory. They rented an old
driving-park and gave a fair. For the crowning attraction on the final
afternoon my friend was engaged to make a flight.
Now, the weather was lowering and the winds were capricious. Feeling a
natural reluctance to trusting himself aloft under such circumstances
the performer had recourse to an expedient he had employed on similar
occasions. He sparred for time in the hope that darkness would come and
so save him from taking the risk. He tinkered with his engine. He
fiddled with the planes. He unscrewed this bolt and he screwed up that
one.
The assembled crowd, grew impatient over the delay. Finally the parish
priest, who was acting as master of ceremonies, approached the aeronaut
and to him he said:
“My son, can’t you go ahead and give us the exhibition you promised us
and for which we already have paid you in advance? These people have
already been waiting more than an hour and a half for you to go up.”
“Father,” said my friend, “there’s a bunch of folks out in Burlington,
Iowa, that have been waiting more’n eighteen months for me to go up.”
§ 188 Where Jimmy’s Education Really Was Shy
After a twenty years’ absence a gentleman returned to the little New
England town where he had been born and where he spent his boyhood. In
the neighborhood in which he had been reared he found but one of the
original residents remaining, an elderly Irish lady. She welcomed him
back home again, and they fell to talking of the boys and girls with
whom he had grown up. Finally he asked:
“Tell me, Mrs. Daly, what ever became of poor little Jimmy McKenna who
used to live in the shanty right down the street here?”
“Poor, is it?” echoed Mrs. Daly. “Poor nothin’! Jimmy McKenna had no
schoolin’, as you may remember, but when he grew up he got into the
truckin’ business and from that he turned to contractin’, and though he
couldn’t read and write, he made a million.”
“Bully!” said the returned one. “And where is he now?”
“As to that,” said Mrs. Daly, “I couldn’t say. I hope, though, he’s in
Heaven. You see, sor, here about two years ago, Jimmy went down to the
gravel pit where some of the byes was in swimmin’, an’ it bein’ a warm
day he took off his clothes and waded in, and he waded out too far and
he got over his head and was drownded.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” said the visitor. “To think of a boy who had no
better start than Jim McKenna had doing so well in the world, and then
meeting an end like that! And he made a million, you say? And yet he
couldn’t read nor write.”
“No,” said Mrs. Daly, “nor swim.”
§ 189 The Made-in-England Substitute
An American actor with a reputation for wit went to a luncheon given by
a famous actress to several members of her supporting company. Among the
guests of honor was an English leading man, who rather fancied
himself—and showed it. He monopolized the conversation, speaking
copiously and feelingly of himself, his personality and his merits.
From his place across the table the American eyed him with an enhancing
disfavor. At length he turned to the man sitting next him on the right.
“Our British friend over there is by way of being a regular ass, isn’t
he?” he asked in a whisper.
“Oh I’d hardly go so far as to say that,” answered his neighbor.
“Well, he’ll do, won’t he, till one comes?” said the American.
§ 190 Practically Destitute
Tilted back in his chair on the boatstore porch overlooking the river
sat Cap’n Joe Fowler, as typical a Kentuckian as the fag end of the last
century produced. A packet bound from Cincinnati to New Orleans, landed.
Up the steep slope of the wharf came a tourist lady from up North
somewhere. In the crook of her arm this lady bore the first Mexican
hairless dog Cap’n Joe had ever seen. The animal was no larger than a
full grown rat; in fact it rather resembled a rat. It seemed a
miserable, naked, sickly little thing which shivered even though the air
was balmy and flinched with vague uneasiness at every sound.
As the lady drew close Cap’n Joe stood up and made a low bow to her.
“I beg your pardon, madam,” he said in his best company drawl, “but
might a total stranger so far intrude upon you as to ask you a
question?”
“You might” she said, her sharp accents in strong contrast to his deeper
yet softer tones.
“Thank you, madam,” he said. “The question, madam, relates to the dog
you air carrying. Is that your own dog?”
“It is,” she said.
“Is that the only dog you’ve got?”
“It is.”
“Madam,” said Cap’n Joe, “ain’t you mighty nigh out of dog?”
§ 191 Assigning G. B. S. to His Place
When George Bernard Shaw, as a young man, emerged from his native
Ireland and moved to England he began writing a column for a London
weekly publication.
At that time Oscar Wilde was enjoying his vogue as a wit and an
epigram-maker. One evening an acquaintance, calling upon Wilde, happened
upon a copy of the paper to which Shaw was a contributor and reading
therein one of Shaw’s characteristic articles which was signed with the
author’s initials, said to his host:
“I say, Wilde, who is this chap G. B. S. who’s doing a department for
this sheet?”
“He’s a young Irishman named Shaw,” said Wilde. “Rather forceful, isn’t
he?”
“Forceful,” echoed the other, “well, rather! My word, how he does cut
and slash! He doesn’t seem to spare any one he knows. I should say he’s
in a fair way to make himself a lot of enemies.”
“Well,” said Wilde, “as yet he hasn’t become prominent enough to have
any enemies. But none of his friends like him.”
§ 192 A Voice from the Void
A group of big leaguers on their spring training trip were marooned by
rain one morning so that they could not go to the ball field for
practice. They sat under the portico of the Texas hotel where they were
quartered and swapped small talk. An admiring ring of villagers
surrounded them.
A languid, ragged negro drew near, anchoring himself at the outer edge
of the audience. He laughed with loud appreciation at every sally from
this or that visiting notable. He had the look about him of one seeking
a suitable opportunity to solicit the gift of a small sum from some
generous white stranger. But hour after hour passed with no proper
opening until the forenoon was spent.
Suddenly the whistle on the canning factory across the street from the
hotel let go with a blast and the hands came trooping out, bearing their
lunch pails.
“Uh uh, dar she goes,” said the darky, as the siren voice died away.
“Hit’s dinner time fur some folks—but jes’ twelve o’clock fur me.”
§ 193 Taking Nothing from Nothing
It was a striking coincidence that the new clerk at the soda-fountain
was locally regarded as being a half-wit, and that the individual who
approached him also happened to be the possessor of one of those
fractional intellects.
“What’ll it be?” inquired semi-idiot number one.
“A glass of plain soda without flavor.”
“Without what flavor?”
The customer pondered this for a brief space.
“Without chocolate flavor,” he said.
“You can’t have it without chocolate flavor,” answered the soda-jerker.
“Because we ain’t got no chocolate. You’ll have to take it without
vanilly!”
§ 194 The Fate of Poor Harry
A cockney music-hall performer, to a congenial group of performers in
London, was describing what had happened the night before to a brother
actor whom he spoke of affectionately as “’Arry.”
“Poor old ’Arry, ’e ’ad a most awful time. They wouldn’t even let ’im
finish. Before ’e was ’arf through with the first verse of ’is opening
song they began giving ’im the rarsberry proper. And w’en ’e quit, them
blokes in the gallery ’issed ’im right off the stage. They ’issed and
’issed and kept on ’issing even after ’e was out of sight. Right after
’im I ’ad to go on.”
“How did your act go?” inquired one of the listeners.
“’Ow, I got over fine,” said the modest vaudevillian. “But right in the
middle of my act they starts ’issing ’Arry again.”
§ 195 A Wholesale Order
The late Sam Davis, editor of the Carson _Appeal_, was known as the
Oracle of the Nevada sage-brush. Once upon a time he was instructed by
the San Francisco _Examiner_ to meet Mme. Sarah Bernhardt at Reno and
bring her over the mountains of California on her first tour of the
Western Slope.
Davis was a most likable person. The great French actress became so fond
of him that thereafter she declined to be interviewed by any other
newspaperman during her sojourn on the Coast. If she had anything to say
for publication, he said it for her.
The day came when the train bearing her private car was about to start
on the long journey back East. As the locomotive bell was ringing, she
put her hands upon his shoulders, kissed him upon either cheek, and then
squarely upon the mouth, remarking, as she did so,
“The right cheek for the Carson _Appeal_, the left for the _Examiner_,
the lips, my friend, for yourself.”
“Madam,” said Davis, without the slightest sign of bashfulness, “I also
represent the Associated Press, which serves 380 papers west of the
Mississippi River.”
§ 196 This “Yes” and That “Yes”
A distinguished French diplomat lately put into a few words what I think
is the best possible explanation yet offered as a reason for the failure
of his countrymen to perceive what our national attitude is, touching on
the post-war issues which so deeply concern France and, by the same
token, the failure of our countrymen to make out what the people of
France want and what they are striving for.
“To begin with,” said the distinguished visitor, “the two races speak
separate languages—always a bar to the adjustment of contrary points of
view. But even where you find a Frenchman who speaks your tongue or an
American who speaks mine, there still remains an obstacle.
“For example:
“When you set forth a proposition to an American and he says ‘Yes,’ he
means, ‘I’ll do it.’
“But when you state the same thing to a Frenchman and he answers ‘Yes,’
what he really means is ‘I understand what you are saying.’”
§ 197 Satisfactory in Every Respect
A Jewish friend of mine told me of a co-religionist of his who had
acquired a fortune. This gentleman had a daughter of whose talents he
was tremendously proud. The young woman sang. The father sent her to
Europe to study voice culture under the best Continental teachers. Upon
her return home he arranged that she should give a recital at Carnegie
Hall. To the recital all his friends were invited.
In celebration of the event he decided also to give a banquet to a
chosen group of some ten or fifteen at the Waldorf. But even in the
heights of his parental enthusiasm prudence guided him. He summoned the
prospective guests together and to them he said this:
“If Miriam should make a big hit I gif you fellows all vot you can eat
und drink—the very best of everything, disregardless of expense. But of
course there’s a chance maybe she vont make a hit. She iss young und
berhaps she gets scared ven she sees so many beeple all vaiting to
lissen at her und, possibly, in that case, she might not go so vell. So,
if she should fall down, ve vouldn’t feel like a celebration, und there
vould be no dinner, understand?”
At Carnegie Hall the father’s fears were justified. The young woman
immediately on her entrance was seized with a terrific attack of
stage-fright. She uttered plaintive bleating sounds, then burst into
tears and fled into the wings.
Almost before she vanished, her father had seized his hat, had dashed
from the box where the family were seated, and, in a taxi-cab was
hurrying down town to countermand the order for the spread. He reached
the hotel, ascended in the elevator to the floor where he had engaged a
private dining-room and ran through the hall to notify the head-waiter
that there would be no feast.
But as he neared the door the sounds of brisk knife-and-fork play gave
him added speed. He burst open the door and stood transfixed on the
threshold. Only the place which had been reserved for him at the head of
the table was vacant. At every other place sat one of his friends,
stowing away expensive victuals and costly wines at tremendous speed.
“Vait!” shouted the agonized father. “Vait! Didn’t I say only ve should
have a dinner if Miriam was a success?”
A spokesman for the others raised his face from the terrapin stew.
“Vell,” he said, “ve liked her!”
And went right on eating.
§ 198 Precisely the Right Word
Sometimes a speaker, casting about for exactly the right word, hits on
the wrong word and yet, paradoxically, the wrong word seems exactly to
sum up the situation which the orator has sought to describe.
Down at Whitehall, which is in the state of Virginia not many miles from
Richmond, a negro farm-hand, whose first name was Levi, met a violent
and sudden death. He was ploughing a corn patch when a thunder shower
came up. In the midst of the storm, a bolt of lightning struck the tree
under which he had taken shelter and scarcely enough of him was left for
purposes of burial.
Nevertheless, his family and friends did give him an elaborate funeral.
A colored minister, with a reputation for eloquence, was imported at
considerable cost to preach the sermon.
The preacher very soon got into his swing while the congregation swayed
and moaned and gave vent to muffled hallelujahs and amens. He came to
his climax:
“De call fur our pore brother wuz swift an’ suddin. He did not linger
fur long months on de bed of pain an’ affliction. He did not suffer an’
waste away. No suh, de Lawd jest teched an electric button in de skies
an’ summarized Levi!”
§ 199 Touching on London Weather
The other day _Punch_ had a picture of an old gentleman about to climb
into a taxi to escape a terrific snowstorm.
“Cabby,” he says, “it’s a miserable winter day, isn’t it?”
“Guvinor,” answers the frost-bitten taxi driver, “I pass you my word
I’ve been out since early mornin’ and I ain’t seen a single butterfly.”
But, off-hand, I’d say the prize under this heading goes to Fred Greig,
the New York art critic, for his telling of a personal experience.
At the age of twelve he was riding on the front seat of a Fleet Street
bus. Although the month was July, rain had been coming down, practically
without cessation, for more than a week. An East Indian, garbed all in
white, went past, slopping along the sidewalk under an umbrella.
The driver aimed his whip at the dark stranger.
“Wot’s that?” he asked.
“That,” said Young Greig, who at school had been studying up on Oriental
history and customs, “is a Parsee.”
“And wot’s a Parsee?”
“A sun-worshipper.”
“Well,” said the driver, “’e must be ’ere on a blinkin’ vacation.”
§ 200 The Detour in the Bridal Path
A young couple, on their honeymoon, spent two days in a small Southern
city. When they got off the train an old negro man, who served as
porter, runner, chief bell-boy and general factotum for the hotel
greeted them at the depot. He took charge of their hand-baggage and led
the way for them to an ancient vehicle.
As he drove them along the street the young husband took him into their
confidence:
“Now, look here, Uncle,” he said, “we don’t want anybody here to know
that we’ve just been married. Probably some of the other guests will
speak to you about us and we count on you to throw them off the track.”
“Boss,” said the old man, “don’t you an’ the young lady worry. Jest
trust me. ’Taint nobody goin’ fin’ out by axin’ me questions.”
But when the pair came down from their room that evening for supper,
they found themselves a target for the interested stares of everyone
else in the dining room. All eyes were turned in their direction. At the
conclusion of a somewhat hurried and decidedly embarrassed meal, the
young man hunted up the old negro.
“Say,” he demanded, “I thought you promised not to give us away, and yet
everybody around this hotel is looking at us and grinning.”
“Boss,” said the old negro fervently, “ef dey’s learned the truff, dey
didn’t none of ’em learn it frum me—naw, suh!”
“Well, did anybody speak to you about us after we registered?”
“Yas, suh, sevr’l.”
“Did any of them want to know whether we were on our wedding trip?”
“Yas, suh, they did.”
“Well, what did you say to them?”
“I sez to ’em: ‘Naw, indeedy, them young folks ain’t no bridal
couple—they’s jest a couple of chums.’”
§ 201 Tuesday May Have Been Worse
Out in Australia two Cockneys were sentenced to die for an atrocious
murder. As the date for execution drew nearer the nerves of both of them
became more and more shaken. Dawn of the fatal morning found them in a
state of terrific funk.
As they sat in the condemned cell waiting the summons to march to the
gallows one of the pair said:
“Me mind’s all in a whirl. I carn’t seem to remember anything. I carn’t
even remember what dye of the week it is.”
“It’s a Monday,” stated his companion in misfortune.
“Ow!” said the first one, “wot a rotten wye to start the week!”
§ 202 A Touch of Summer Complaint
A small negro boy went to a physician in Natchez to be treated for a
painful sensation in one of his ears. The doctor examined and found the
ear was full of water.
“How did this happen,” he asked after he had drained the ear—“been
going in swimming?”
“Naw, suh,” said the little darky—“been eatin’ watermelon!”
§ 203 He Never Went There Anyhow
A chronic imbiber in a New England city was clinging to a lamp-post one
Sunday morning when a stranger came along and addressed him.
“Sir,” inquired the stranger, “can you tell me where the Second
Presbyterian Church is?”
“Mister,” answered the weary one, “I don’t even know where the first one
is!”
§ 204 Where Republicans Are Scarce
That famous wit, the late Private John Allen of Mississippi, while a
member of Congress used to tell a story illustrative of political
conditions in his home state.
According to Allen, there was a man in his county who hankered to hold
public office. “Every time we had a Democratic primary,” said Allen,
“this fellow turned up, seeking the nomination for one job or another.
But always he was turned down—he never made the grade.
“Finally, he just naturally abandoned the Democratic party. He said the
Democrats didn’t appreciate true worth; that they didn’t know real merit
when they saw it. So he turned Republican.
“At the next election he entered himself as a candidate for sheriff on
the Republican ticket. Well, sir, that fellow certainly made a spirited
campaign. If ever a man worked to bring out the full strength of the
white Republican vote he was the man. He canvassed the county from end
to end. He spoke at every cross-roads blacksmith shop and every country
schoolhouse. He left no stone unturned.
“Well, election day came. He got exactly two votes—and was arrested
that night for repeating!”
§ 205 The Sole Drawback to Utter Success
Probably there are a dozen differing versions of this story but the one
I like best of all is the one I heard some twenty-five years ago. Mandy,
the cook, left her employer’s kitchen early one afternoon to attend a
marriage ceremony in the colored quarter of the town.
The high contracting parties to the union were to be distinguished
members of local Afro-American Society, and Mandy, as one of the invited
guests, anticipated an enjoyable evening. Nor, as it would appear, was
she disappointed. For, when she appeared at 8 o’clock next morning she
gave her mistress an enthusiastic account of the affair.
“Miss May,” she declared, “dat suttinly wuz a scrumptious weddin’! I
reckin very few w’ite folks an’ no niggers at all in dis town ever did
have a weddin’ dat wuz de beat of dish yere one. I only wisht you mout
a’ seen de bride yore own se’f. My! My! Dat gal suttinly wuz got up
regardless. Her weddin’ gown wuz all hollered out at de top an’ ’twuz
trimmed ’round de aidges wid rows of w’ite vermin. An’ her hair wuz done
up high on her haid in a pampydo, an’ right in de middle of it wuz stuck
one of dese yere w’ite regrets. And de contras’ betwixt dat black pamp
and dat w’ite regret—_Ump huh!_
“Dat wuz only jest de beginnin’. De parlor wuz all trimmed wid smileaxes
an’ de ushers dey all wore w’ite gloves an’ swaller-tail coats. An’ they
wuz a string band of eight pieces to play de weddin’ march.
“Miss May, you sho’ly also an’ likewise should a’ seen de table whar de
bridal feast wuz spread. Dey had chicken croquettes at ever’ plate an’
ice-cream ’twell you couldn’t rest, an’ punch made out of gin an’ a
whole soup-syringe full of simon salad.
“De weddin’ feast lasted all night an’ tain’t finished ’till yit. Dem
niggers is still over dere dancin’. I jest stole away to cook you up a
lil’ breakfust an’ den, befo’ I washes de dishes, I aims to run on back
fur to tek a hand in de las’ quodrille.”
“But Mandy,” said her mistress, “you haven’t said anything about the
bridegroom?”
“Nome, I lef’ him out a-puppos. He wuz de only drawback dey wuz to dat
weddin’.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Was he drunk?”
“I don’t know ef he wuz or ef he wuzn’t; but Miss May, wid dat gal got
up de way she wuz an’ wid all dat music an’ all dem vittles, dat nasty,
low-flung, kinky-haided nigger, he never did come.”
§ 206 Sure Damnation for Somebody
As a boy, I had this one from my father. I seem to recall that he said
it actually had happened before the Civil War in the remote Southern
settlement where my forbears lived for upwards of a hundred years.