bicycle. The farmer was in town for the day, and had determined to see
everything.
"I'd rather spend my money on a cow," said he proudly.
"But think," said the salesman, "what a fool you'd look riding about
on a cow."
"Not half such a fool as I'd look trying to milk a bicycle," answered
the farmer.
"Hiram," said the farmer's wife, "what makes you say 'By gosh!' so
much and go round with a straw in your mouth?"
"I'm getting ready for them summer boarders that's comin' next week.
If some of us don't talk an' act that way, they'll think we ain't
country folks at all."
COURAGE
The swain and his swainess had just encountered a bulldog that looked
as if he might shake a mean lower jaw.
"Why, Percy," she exclaimed as he started a strategic retreat. "You
always swore you would face death for me."
"I would," he flung back over his shoulder, "but that darn dog ain't
dead."
"Who led the army in that recent expedition?"
"I did," replied General Tamale.
"I thought the attack was led by General Concarne."
"It was I who prevented great loss of life. He led them going forward,
but I led them coming back."
A man of courage is also full of faith.--_Cicero_.
Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it
and conquering it.--_Richter_.
Few persons have courage enough to appear as good as they really
are.--_Hare_.
Conscience in the soul is the root of all true courage. If a man would
be brave, let him learn to obey his conscience.--_Clarke_.
COURTESY
"How do you like your new music-master?"
"He is a very nice, polite young man. When I made a mistake yesterday
he said: 'Pray, mademoiselle, why do you take so much pains to improve
upon Beethoven?'"
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for
courtesy.--_Emerson_.
How sweet and gracious, even in common speech,
Is that fine sense which men call Courtesy!
Wholesome as air and genial as the light,
Welcome in every clime as breaths of flowers--
It transmutes aliens into trusting friends,
And gives its owner passport round the globe.
--_J.T. Fields_.
COURTS
A couple of old codgers got into a quarrel and landed before the local
magistrate. The loser, turning to his opponent in a combative frame of
mind, cried: "I'll law you to the Circuit Court."
"I'm willin'," said the other.
"An' I'll law you to the Supreme Court."
"I'll be thar."
"An' I'll law to 'ell!"
"My attorney'll be there," was the calm reply.
In the course of his examination these questions were put to an old
negro who was appearing as a witness:
"What is your name?"
"Calhoun Clay, sah."
"Can you sign your name?"
"Sah?"
"I ask if you can write your name?"
"Well, no, sah. Ab nebber writes mah name. Ah dictates it, sah."
MAGISTRATE (to prisoner)--"What is your name?"
PRISONER--"S-s-sam S-s-sissons, S-s-sir."
MAGISTRATE--"Where do you live?"
PRISONER--"S-s-seventy seven S-s-surrey street. S-s-sir."
MAGISTRATE (to policeman)--"Officer, what is this man charged with?"
OFFICER--"Begorry, yer honor. Oi think he must be charged with soda
wather."
In one of the Brooklyn courts a recent case required the testimony of
a young German immigrant.
"Now, Britzmann," said the lawyer for the plaintiff, "what do you do?"
"Ah vos pretty vell," replied the witness.
"I am not inquiring as to your health. I want to know what you do."
"Vork!"
"Where do you work?" continued the counsel.
"In a vactory."
"What kind of a factory?"
"It vos bretty big vactory?"
"Your honor," said the lawyer, turning to the judge, "if this goes on
we'll need an interpreter." Then he turned to the witness again.
"Now, Britzmann, what do you make in the factory?" he asked.
"You vant to know vot I make in der vactory?"
"Exactly! Tell us what you make."
"Eight dollars a veek."
Then the interpreter got a chance to earn his daily bread.
"Uncle Joe Cannon was asked today what he thought of the outlook for
the Republican party in 1916, and he answered with a story.
"A black man was arrested for horse-stealing while I was
prosecuting-attorney in Vermilion county," he said, "and was placed
on trial after being duly indicted. When his day in court came he
was taken before the judge and I solemnly read the charge in the
indictment to him.
"'Are you guilty or not?' I asked.
"The black man rolled uneasily in his chair. 'Well, boss,' he finally
said, 'ain't dat the very thing we're about to try?'"
JUDGE--"Officer, what's the matter with the prisoner--tell her to stop
that crying--she's been at it fifteen minutes" (more sobs).
OFFICER--"Please, sir, I'm a'thinking she wants to be bailed out."
_See also_ Jury; Witnesses.
COURTSHIP
If he is clean and vigorous, suitable for you and quite perfect in
your opinion; if he is the man you think he is and you want him, don't
put him on a pedestal and worship him as an idol.
Be sensible. Wrap him around your little finger and get a ring on the
next.
Mother was out, and Sister Sue was putting on her best blouse, so
six-year-old Bobby had to entertain Sue's young man. As is the way
with his kind, he began to ply the unfortunate caller with questions.
"Mr. Brown," he began, "what is a popinjay?"
"Why--er--a popinjay is a--eh--vain bird."
"Are you a bird, Mr. Brown?"
"No, of course not."
"Well, that's funny. Mother said you were a popinjay, and father said
there was no doubt about your being a jay, and Sue said there didn't
seem to be much chance of your poppin', and now you say you aren't a
bird at all."
Courtship is a bowknot that matrimony pulls into a hard knot.
IRATE PARENT--"No, siree. You can't have her. I won't have a
son-in-law who has no more brains than to want to marry a girl with
no more sense than my daughter has shown in allowing you to think you
could have her."--_Life_.
_The Lover's Farewell_
"Oh! fare you well, my dearest dear,
Oh! fare you well for a while,
I go away, but I'll come back again,
If I go ten thousand miles."
"But who will take me out," she sighed,
"And who will glove my hands,
And who will kiss my ruby lips
When you are in foreign lands?"
"Your brother will take you out," he said,
"Your mother will glove your hands,
And I will kiss your ruby lips
When I return again."
Will and Mary had been busy courting for over two years, meeting every
night in Hope Street, Glasgow. About a fortnight ago, Will, in parting
with his beloved, made the usual remark:
"I'll meet ye in Hope Street tomorrow nicht. Mind and be punctual."
"'Deed, aye, Will, lad," replied Meg, with a merry twinkle in her eye.
"We hae met noo a lang time in Hope Street, an' I was jist thinkin'
that it was high time we were shiftin' oor trystin'-place a street
farther along. Whit wad ye say to Union Street?"
MAUDE--"What makes you think his intentions are serious?"
MABEL--"When he first began to call he used to talk about the books I
like to read."
MAUDE--"And now?"
MABEL--"Now he talks about the things he likes to eat."--_Life_.
"Cheer up, old man! There's other fish in the sea."
REJECTED SUITOR-"Yes, but the last one took all my bait!"--_Life_.
NEIGHBOR--"Got much money in your bank, Bobby?"
BOBBY--"Gee, no! The depositors have fallen off somethin' fierce since
sister got engaged."
"So you want to marry my daughter, eh?" snorted the old man. "Do you
consider yourself financially able to do so?"
"Well," replied the suitor, "after a fellow has bought candy and
flowers for a girl for a year, and has taken her to the theater twice
a week and is still not broke, I guess he can afford to get married."
MR. GOODTHING--"How does your sister like the engagement ring I gave
her, Bobby?"
HER YOUNG BROTHER--"Well, it's a little too small;--she has an awful
hard time getting it off when the other fellows call!"
MR. SLOW (calling on girl)--"You seem rather--er--distant this
evening."
GIRL--"Well, your chair isn't nailed to the floor, is it?"
_See also_ Love; Proposals.
CREDIT
FIRST CREDIT MAN--"How about Jones of Pigville Center?"
SECOND CREDIT MAN--"He always pays cash, so we don't know how honest
he is!"
A little girl of eight entered a store in a small town and said:
"I want some cloth to make my dolly a dress."
The merchant selected some and handed the child the package.
"How much is it?" she asked.
"Just one kiss," was the reply.
"All right," said the child as she turned to go, "grandma said to tell
you she would pay you when she came in tomorrow."
"Them was nice folk you waited on, Mamie, ain't they?" "No, no, dear!
Appearances is deceitful. They didn't have no charge-account. Paid
cash for everything."--_Judge_.
Mr. Butterworth, the grocer, was looking over the credit sales-slips
one day. Suddenly he called to the new clerk:
"Did you give George Callahan credit?"
"Sure," said the clerk. "I--"
"Didn't I tell you to get a report on any and every man asking for
credit?"
"Why, I did," retorted the clerk, who was an earnest young fellow.
"I did get a report. The agency said he owed money to every grocer
in town, and, of course, if his credit was that good I knew that you
would like to have him open an account here!"
A well-known wholesale merchant, who has a wide patronage throughout
the Piedmont region of the South, received the following letter from
one of his customers a few weeks ago:
"I receive your letter about what I owes you. Now be pachent. I ain't
forgot you and soon as folks pay me I'll pay you, but if this was
judgment day and you were no more prepared to meet your Maker than I
am to meet your account then you sho going to hell."
The credit, it may be noted, was extended.
"Rufus, aren't you feeling well?"
"No, sah; I'se not feelin' well, sah."
"Have you consulted your doctor, Rufus?"
"No, sah; I ain't don' dat, sah."
"Why? Aren't you willing to trust your doctor, Rufus?"
"Oh, yes, sah; but de trubble is he's not so alt'gether willin' to
trus' me, sah."
"My son," said old man Reddit,
"Take this advice from me:
The less you use your credit
The better it will be."
CRIME
Lives of master crooks remind us
We may do a bit of time,
And, departing, leave behind us
Thumb-prints in the charts of crime.--_Life_.
Fear follows crime, and is its punishment.--_Voltaire_.
Responsibility prevents crimes.--_Burke_.
If poverty is the mother of crimes, want of sense is the father.--_La
Bruyère_.
But many a crime deemed innocent on earth
Is registered in heaven; and these no doubt
Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
--_Cowper_.
CRITICISM
A man must serve his time at ev'ry trade,
Save censure; critics all are ready-made.
--_Byron_.
Damn with faint praise, assent with evil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer:
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
--_Pope_.
THE ARTIST--"Dubbins, the art critic, has slated my pictures
unmercifully."
HIS FRIEND--"Oh, don't take any notice of that fellow; he has no
ideas of his own--he only repeats like a parrot what everybody else is
saying."
CULTURE
JIGGS--"Townsen can read three languages."
TRIGGS--"What are they?"
JIGGS--"Magazines, sporting pages and railroad time-tables."
HE--"Not quite a lady, is she?"
SHE--"No--but I should say her pearls are 'cultured,'"
That is true cultivation which gives us sympathy with every form
of human life, and enables us to work most successfully for its
advancement.--_Beecher_.
CURES
_A Testimonial_
DOCTOR--"Did that cure for deafness really help your brother?"
PAT--"Sure enough; he hadn't heard a sound for years and the day after
he took that medicine, he heard from a friend in America."
CURIOSITY
"My wife is mourning the loss of a ten-thousand-dollar diamond
necklace."
"Why don't you advertise a thousand reward and no questions asked?"
"Well, I could make good on the thousand, but I doubt my wife's
ability to fulfill the rest of that contract."
William E. Weber of the First National Bank says a woman came up to
his window the other day with a cashier's check for fifty dollars.
"What denomination," asked Mr. Weber in his pleasantest manner.
"Lutheran," replied the woman. "What are you?"
CURRENT EVENTS
MRS. BARR--"Henry, what are current events?"
MR. BARR--"Anything shocking, my dear"--_Life_.
CUSTOM
Foote, the comedian, dined one day at a country inn, and the landlord
asked how he liked his fare.
"I have dined as well as any man in England," said Foote.
"Except the mayor," cried the landlord.
"I except nobody," said he.
"But you must!" screamed the host.
"I won't!"
"You must!"
At length a petty magistrate took Foote before the mayor, who observed
that it had been customary in that town for a great number of years
always to "except the mayor," and accordingly fined him a shilling for
not conforming to ancient custom. Upon this decision, Foote paid the
shilling, at the same time observing that he thought the landlord the
greatest fool in Christendom--except the mayor.
To follow foolish precedents, and wink
With both our eyes, is easier than to think.
--_Cowper_.
Custom does often reason overrule,
And only serves for reason to the fool.
--_Rochester_.
DACHSHUNDS
An Englishman sat at a New York boarding-house table. One of the
boarders was telling a story in which a "dachshund" figured. She was
unable for a moment to think of the word.
"It was one of these--what do you call them?--one of these long German
dogs."
The Englishman dropped his fork: his face beamed. "Frankfurters!"
DAMAGES
The conversation turned to the subject of damage-suits, and this
anecdote was recalled by Senator George Sutherland, of Utah.
A man in a Western town was hurt in a railroad accident, and after
being confined to his home for several weeks he appeared on the street
walking with the aid of crutches.
"Hello, old fellow," greeted an acquaintance, rushing up to shake his
hand. "I am certainly glad to see you around again."
"Thanks," responded the injured one. "I am glad to be around again."
"I see you are hanging fast to your crutches," observed the
acquaintance. "Can't you do without them?"
"My doctor says I can," answered the injured party, "but my lawyer
says I can't."
"I have come here," said the angry man to the superintendent of the
street-car line, "to get justice; justice, sir. Yesterday, as my wife
was getting off one of your cars, the conductor stept on her dress and
tore a yard of frilling off the skirt."
The superintendent remained cool.
"Well, sir," he said, "I don't know that we are to blame for that.
What do you expect us to do? Get her a new dress?"
"No, sir. I do not intend to let you off so easily as that," the other
man replied gruffly. He brandished in his right hand a small piece of
silk.
"What I propose to have you do," he said, "is to match this silk."
DANCING
The minister was dining with the Fullers and he was denouncing the
new styles in dancing. Turning to the daughter of the house, he asked
sternly:
"Do you yourself, Miss Fuller, think the girls who dance these dances
are right?"
"They must be," was the answer, "because I notice the girls who don't
dance them are always left."
DAYLIGHT SAVING
"Is your husband in favor of daylight saving?"
"I think so. He stays out so much at night that I think he'd really
prefer not to use any daylight at all."
Young Hopeful, who lives in the suburbs, was very much interested in
the adjustment of the time, and on the morning when the clocks had
been set back an hour awoke his mother.
"Mother, mother," he called from his little bed, "listen to Mrs.
Jones' chickens! They must have forgotten to tell them to set their
crow back."
"Well, yes," admitted Gap Johnson, of Rumpus Ridge, Ark., "I've heerd
something or nuther about setting the clock for'ards or bac'ards for
some reason. I don't prezisely know what. But it don't make no special
difference at our house one way or tother for the clock runs about
as it pleases till some of us sorter climb up and set it b'guess and
b'gosh as you might say. And if we save or lose an hour or two what's
the odds? We've got all the time there is anyway."
Geordie Ryton, the village cobbler, bought two clocks, one a
grandfather's. He put it in a corner and placed a small nickel clock
on the mantel-shelf. The grandfather's clock has not been altered to
the Daylight Saving Bill's requirements. "Hoo is't, Geordie," asked
a customer, "ye've altered the smaal clock and not the gran'faither's
clock?"
"Wey," replied Geordie, "they said the gran'faither's clock's been
tellin' the truth for ower sixty year, an' Aa can't find it in me
heart te make a liar ov it noo. But the little begger wes made in
Jarmany, so it'll be aal reet, he's as reet as can be for that job."
"What is worrying you now?"
"Oh, nothing much," replied the man who is perpetually pensive. "I
am merely trying to figure out what has become of all the daylight I
saved since we set the clocks forward."
"Jonas," ordered the farmer, "all the clocks in the house have run
down. Wish you'd hitch up and ride down to the junction and find out
what time it is."
"I ain't got a watch. Will you lend me one?"
"Watch! Watch! What d'ye want a watch fer? Write it down on a piece of
paper."
DEAD BEATS
_See_ Bills; Collecting of accounts.
DEBTS
CREDITOR--"You couldn't go around in your fine automobile if you paid
your debts."
DEBTOR--"That's so! I'm glad you look at it in the same light that I
do."
HARDUPPE--"I really must apologize for looking so shabby."
FLUBDUBB--"Oh, clothes don't make the man."
HARDUPPE--"Still, many a man owes a lot to his tailor."
"Look 'ere--I asks yer for the last time for that 'arf-dollar yer owes
me."
"Thank 'evins!--that's the end of a silly question."
A floating debt is a poor life saver.
"Yes," said the world traveler, "the Chinese make it an invariable
rule to settle all their debts on New-year's day."
"So I understand," said the American host, "but, then, the Chinese
don't have a Christmas the week before."
OKE--"Would you be satisfied if you had all the money you wanted?"
OWENS--"I'd be satisfied if I had all the money my creditors wanted."
MR. THURSDAY--"Our friend, Dodge, tells me that he is doing settlement
work lately."
MR. FRIDAY--"Yes, his creditors finally cornered him."
"How did Cranbury ever manage to get so deeply in debt as he is?"
"I wish I knew. I can't even stand my grocer off for more than a week
at a time."
RASTUS--"How much, boss?"
DRUGGIST--"Sixty cents and three cents war tax."
RASTUS--"Boss, Ah done thought de wah was over."
DRUGGIST--"Sure, it is, but we have to pay the debts."
RASTUS--"Boss, Ah always thought de one whut lost paid de debts. Dat's
why I fight so hard."
"I was preparing to shave a chap the other afternoon," says a head
barber. "I had trimmed his hair, and from such talk as I had had with
him I judged him to be an easy-going, unexcitable sort of fellow. But
suddenly his manner changed. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen
a man enter whose appearance upset him."
"Hurry, George!" he muttered to me. "Lather to the eyes--quick, quick!
Here comes my tailor!"
IRATE FATHER--"It's astonishing, Richard, how much money you need."
SON--"I don't need it, father; it's the hotel-keepers, the tailors,
and the taxicab men."
_See also_ Bills; Collecting of accounts.
DEGREES
"You college men seem to take life pretty easy."
"Yes; even when we graduate we do it by degrees."
--_Boston Transcript_.
Our British cousins seem to think we have peculiar ways of getting our
D.D.'s over here. A London newspaper relates how the congregation of a
Southern church, being desirous of honoring their pastor, wrote to the
dean of a certain faculty: "We want to get our beloved pastor a D.D.
We enclose all the money we can raise at present. Be good enough to
send one D. now. We hope to raise sufficient for the other D. by and
by."
DEMAGOG
"Father," said the small boy, "what is a demagog?"
"A demagog, my son, is a man who can rock the boat himself and
persuade everybody that there's a terrible storm at sea."
DEMOCRACY
ADKINS--"Well, the world is at last safe for democracy."
WATKINS--"Just what is democracy, anyway?"
"A democracy is a form of government where one party doesn't do things
as they ought to be done, and the other party tells how much better
they would be done if it were in power."
In his first lecture in New York the visiting English writer and wit,
G.K. Chesterton, protested against prohibition and other limitations
on American freedom. He quoted the phrase from Patrick Henry's
address, "Give me liberty or give me death." Then he said:
"If Patrick Henry could arise from the dead and revisit the land of
the living and see the vast system and social organization and social
science which now controls, he would probably simplify his observation
and say: 'Give me death!'"
Democracy means not "I am as good as you are," but "you are as good as
I am."--_Theodore Parker_.
DENTISTS
"Pardon me for a moment, please," said the dentist to the victim, "but
before beginning this work I must have my drill."
"Good heavens, man!" exclaimed the patient irritably. "Can't you pull
a tooth without a rehearsal?"
Dinah had been troubled with a toothache for some time before she got
up enough courage to go to a dentist. The moment he touched her tooth
she screamed.
"What are you making such a noise for?" he demanded. "Don't you know
I'm a 'painless dentist'?"
"Well, sah," retorted Dinah, "mebbe yo' is painless, but Ah isn't."
DENTIST--"Open wider, please--wider."
PATIENT--"A--A--A--Ah."
DENTIST (inserting rubber gag, towel, and sponge)--"How's your
family?"
A young man who needed false teeth wrote to a dentist ordering a set
as follows:
"My mouth is three inches acrost, five-eighths inches threw the jaw.
Some hummocky on the edge. Shaped like a hoss-shew, toe forward. If
you want me to be more particular, I shall have to come thar."
Dentist, speaking to patient about to have a tooth extracted--"Have
you heard the latest song hit?"
Patient--"No. What is the title of it?"
Dentist--"The Yanks are Coming."
Returning home from the dentist's, where he had gone to have a loose
tooth drawn, little Raymond reported as follows:
"The doctor told me 'fore he began that if I cried or screamed it
would cost me a dollar, but if I was a good boy it would be only fifty
cents."
"Did you scream?" his mother asked.
"How could I?" answered Raymond. "You only gave me fifty cents."
Mr. Harkins had taken his boy, aged ten, to have an offending molar
tooth drawn. When the job had been accomplished, the dentist said: "I
am sorry, sir, but I shall have to charge you five dollars for pulling
that tooth."
"Five dollars!" exclaimed Mr. Harkins, in dismay. "Why, I understood
you to say that you charged only one dollar for such work!"
"Yes," replied the dentist, "but this youngster yelled so terribly
that he scared four other patients out of the office."--_Harper's_.
DEPARTMENT STORES
"I want some shoe-strings, some hairpins, a pair of gloves, and a
tooth-brush," the woman said. "I have to catch a train, and have but a
few minutes."
"Yes, madam!" the floorwalker replied briskly. "That's the beauty of a
department store-get anything you want, right under the one roof! Take
elevator to eleventh floor, shoe department, eight aisles to the
right from the main passageway, for shoe-strings; hairpins in notions
department, east side of basement, three aisles beyond hardware;
gloves in women's wear, fifth floor of annex, reached by passageway
over street; toothbrush in drugs and toilet-articles department, on
balcony, reached by moving stairway, which you will find on your right
as you pass the fountain in the florist shop in the center of the main
floor."
DESTINATION
Where'er I go, in this far land,
The people wish to understand
Where I am going. If I knew
They would not think my answer true;
And if I said I did not know
They would advise me not to go.
The new guard was not familiar with a certain railway run in Wales. Came
to a station which rejoiced in the name Llanfairfechanpwllgogerych. For
a few minutes he stood looking at the signboard in mute helplessness.
Then pointing to the board, and waving his other arm toward the
carriages, he called, "If there's anybody there for here, this is it!"
DETECTIVES
HOKUS--"How does Sleuthpup rank as a detective?"
POKUS--"Great. You know, he used to work in the repair department of
an umbrella factory."
"What has that got to do with being a detective?"
"Why, that fellow can recover an umbrella that has never been stolen."
DETERMINATION