the whole country!"
"That," returned the traveler, "is very interesting. I now know whence
the straw came that broke the camel's back."
ARCHITECT (enthusiastically showing plans of hotel)--"On the first
floor, next to the dining-room, is the ladies' smoking-room; over here
is the men's writing-room; here is the blue lecture-room where the
suffrage meetings are to be held; next to it is the pink tea-room.
Directly over it, on the second floor, is the music-room, where the
Tuesday recitals will be given; behind it is the little theater for
the Saturday tableaux. The ballroom is on the third floor, and on the
fourth--"
HOTEL PROPRIETOR (interrupting)--"That's all very nice. But where are
the guests' rooms?"
ARCHITECT--"Bless my soul! I forgot all about them!"
"John, dear," wrote a lady from the Capital, "I enclose the hotel
bill."
"Dear Jane, I enclose a check," wrote John in reply; "but please don't
buy any more hotels at this price--they are robbing you!"
A traveler who alighted from the train in a small Southern town was
greeted by a colored porter, who shouted at him, "Palace hotel, boss!"
and grabbed the traveler's baggage, and the latter said, "Wait a
minute, Rastus. Is this hotel American or European?" and Rastus
replied, "I dunno, boss, but I thinks they'se Irish."
"Where's that hotel that used to advertise, 'All the Comforts of Home
for One Dollar'?"
"Busted up. The hotel opposite put up a sign: 'None of the Discomforts
of Home for Two Dollars.'"
Miss Muffit had recently joined the "Band of Sisters for Befriending
Burglars" and was being shown over a prison for the first time.
One prisoner, evidently a man of education, interested her more
than the others. He rose and bowed to her when she entered his cell,
apologizing for the poorness of his apartment.
Miss Muffit could not help wondering how this refined man came within
the clutches of the law. In fact, as she was leaving his cell she
said:
"May I ask you why you are in this distressing place?"
"Madam," he replied, "I am here for robbery at a seaside hotel!"
"How very interesting!" said Miss Muffit. "Were you--er--the
proprietor?"
"Would you like some views of the hotel to send to your friends?"
"Sir," said the disgruntled guest, "I presume it will be better for me
to keep my views to myself."
"We will do our best, Mr. Sprawl, to make you feel at home here,"
smiled the hotel clerk, who had acquired the idea that it pays to be
good and kind to all.
"You needn't to mind, sir," replied Sanford Sprawl, of Puxico. "That's
just what I came away from home to get a change from. What I want is
to feel like I'm at a hotel."
HOUSING PROBLEM
After trying in vain for months to get a house, Brown set out one day
with a find-a-house-or-die look on his face. He wandered about all day
without being successful, till at last his steps led him to the river.
"Ah!" he said in utter despair, "how tempting it looks!" He was almost
inclined to plunge in and end it all.
All of a sudden he heard a splash and, looking around, he saw his
friend Green struggling in the water. Without attempting to save him
he rushed off to the local house agent.
"Quick!" he gasped. "Green has fallen in the river. Can I have his
house?"
"Sorry," said the house agent. "I've already let it to the man who
pushed him in."
The difficulty of finding a house is not exclusively an eastern
problem. Out in Kansas, for instance, a native observed a stranger
looking around and ventured to say, "Good morning, sir, House
hunting?"
"Yes," replied the stranger. "I wonder if it could have blown this
far."
JUDGE--"You are accused of speeding. What have you to say in your
defense?"
PRISONER--"I heard of a house for rent and was trying to get there
first."
"The case is dismissed."
The taxi-driver turned at the end of the second hour and eyed his
client suspiciously.
"Are you taking me by the hour or by the day?" he asked.
"By the year," responded the haggard passenger. "I'm looking for a
home!"
VISITOR--"What's that new building on the hill yonder?"
FARMER--"Well, if I find a tenant for it, it's a bungalow; if I don't,
it's a barn."
OWENS--"My landlord has ordered me out because I can't pay my rent."
BOWENS--"Glad I met you. So has mine. Let's change quarters."
MR. MCNAB (after having his lease read over to him)--"I will not sign
that: I havena' been able tae keep Ten Commandments for a mansion in
Heaven, an' I'm no' guan tae tackle aboot a hundred for twa rooms in
the High Street!"
_See also_ Apartments.
HUNGER
OLD LADY (to mendicant)--"But--my good man, your story has such a
hollow ring."
"Yes, missis--that's the natural result of speaking with an empty
stummick."
Hunger is the teacher of the arts and the bestower of
invention.--_Persius_.
HUNTING
As the camper was cleaning his gun, along came a woodsman.
"Been hunting today?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Shot anything?"
"I don't know yet. I'm waiting for the rest of the party to get into
camp so we can call the roll."
FIRST SIMPLE NIMROD--"Hey, don't shoot. Your gun isn't loaded."
HIS PARTNER--"Can't help that; the bird won't wait."
The very small boy with the very large gun was standing in a country
road.
"What are you hunting, bub?" asked a passer-by.
"I dunno," he replied, frankly. "I ain't seen it yet."
HURRY
_See_ Haste.
HUSBANDS
To say of a man that he will make a good husband is much the same sort
of a compliment as to say of a horse that he is perfectly safe for a
woman to drive.--_Puck_.
If you marry a widow it is safe to take one whose first trial served
a term in jail, then you won't have the perfect example always held up
before you.
"Mother," asked Tommy, "do fairy tales always begin with 'Once upon a
time'?"
"No, dear, not always; they sometimes begin with 'My love, I have been
detained at the office tonight'"
"William," snapped the dear lady, viciously, "didn't I hear the clock
strike two as you came in?" "You did, my dear. It started to strike
ten, but I stopped it to keep it from waking you up."
"I hear you are going to marry Archie Blueblood?" said one society
woman to another. "Is it true?"
"Marry him?" exclaimed the other. "Not likely. What on earth could I
do with him? He's rejected from the Army, he can't ride, he can't play
tennis, golf, nor, for that matter, can he even drive a motor-car!"
"Oh!" said the friend, "but he can swim beautifully, you know."
"Swim, indeed! Now, I ask you, would you like a husband you had to
keep in an aquarium?"
To observe Washington's birthday, in a fitting manner, a teacher in a
Yonkers school told in detail the life of the first President of the
United States. She emphasized his honesty, sincerity, bravery and
self-reliance. At the close of her discourse, she put this question to
the class:
"What high office in a nation could such a wonderful man fill?"
A flaxen-haired boy of ten, sitting in a rear seat, raised his hand
and blushingly replied: "He'd make a nice husband."
"How's your husband getting along, Mrs. Fogarty?"
"Well, sometimes he's better an' sometimes he's worse, but from the
way he growls an' takes on whin he's better, Oi think he's better whin
he's worse."
SHE--"I wonder why men lie so?"
HE--"Because their wives are so inquisitive."
HUBBY--"I don't believe in parading my virtues."
WIFE--"You couldn't, anyway. It takes quite a number to make a
parade."
"Why do you feed every tramp who comes along? They never do any work
for you."
"No," said his wife, "but it is quite a satisfaction to me to see a
man eat a meal without finding fault with the cooking."
The husband arrived home much later than usual "from the office." He
took off his boots and stole into the bedroom. His wife began to stir.
Quickly the panic-stricken man went to the cradle of his first-born
and began to rock it vigorously.
"What are you doing there, Robert?" queried his wife.
"I've been sitting here for nearly two hours trying to get this baby
to sleep," he growled.
"Why, Robert, I've got him here in bed with me," replied his wife.
A teacher was trying to explain the dangers of overwork to one of the
smaller pupils.
"Now, Tommy," she pursued, "if your father were busy all day and said
he would have to go back to the office at night, what would he be
doing?"
"That's what ma wants to know."
HE--"If I were to die you'd never get another husband like me."
SHE--"What makes you imagine I should ever want another like you?"
MRS. BLANK (to laundress)--"And how is your newly married daughter
getting on, Mrs. Brown?"
MRS. BROWN--"Oh, nicely, thank you, ma'am. She finds her husband a bit
dull; but then, as I tells her, the good ones are dull."
JUNKMAN--"Any rags, paper, old iron to sell?"
HEAD OF HOUSE (irately)--"No--go away--my wife's away for the summer."
JUNKMAN (smiling)--"Any empty bottles?"
_Situation: Buglar, caught red-handed, arraigned in court_
WOMAN--"The sorce o' the feller! 'E pretended to be my 'usband and
called out, 'It's all right, darlin'--it's only me.' It was the word
'darlin' wot give 'im away."--_Punch (London)_.
"Henry," said his father-in-law, as he called his daughter's spouse
into the library and locked the door, "you have lived with me now for
over two years."
"Yes, father."
"In all that time I haven't asked you a penny for board."
"No, sir." (Wonderingly.)
"In all your little family quarrels I have always taken your part."
"Always, sir."
"I have even paid some of your bills."
"A good many, father."
"Then the small favor I am about to ask you will no doubt be granted?"
"Most certainly, sir."
"Thanks. Then I want you to tell your mother-in-law that those tickets
for the supper-club dance which she picked up in my room this morning
must have accidentally fallen out of your pocket, and we'll call it
square!"
One morning, Mollie, the colored maid, appeared before her mistress,
carrying, folded in a handkerchief, a five-dollar gold piece and all
her earthly possessions in the way of jewelry.
This package she proferred her mistress, with the request that Miss
Sallie take it for safe keeping.
"Why, Mollie!" exclaimed the mistress in surprise. "Are you going
away?"
"Naw'm, I ain' goin' nowheres," Mollie declared. "But me an' Jim
Harris we wuz married this mawnin'. Yas.'m, Jim, he's a new nigger
in town. You don' know nothin' 'bout him, Miss Sallie. I don' know
nothin' 'bout him myself he's er stranger to me."
Miss Sallie glanced severely at the little package of jewelry.
"But, Mollie," she demanded, "don't you trust him?"
"Yas'm," replied Mollie, unruffled. "Cose I trus' him, personally--but
not wid ma valuables."
It is necessary to be almost a genius to make a good
husband.--_Balzac_.
Jennie, the colored maid, arrived one morning with her head swathed in
bandages--the result of an argument with her hot-tempered spouse.
"Jennie," said her mistress, "your husband treats you outrageously.
Why don't you leave him?"
"Well, I don' 'zactly wants to leave him."
"Hasn't he dragged you the length of the room by your hair?" demanded
her mistress.
"Yas'm he has done dat."
"Hasn't he choked you into insensibility?"
"Yas'm he sho has choked me."
"And now doesn't he threaten to split your head with an ax?"
"Yas'm he has done all dat," agreed Jennie, "but he ain' done nothin'
yet so bad I couldn't live wid him."
_See also_ Carelessness; Domestic finance.
HYPOCRISY
Hypocrisy will serve as well
To propagate a church, as zeal;
As persecution and promotion
Do equally advance devotion:
So round white stones will serve, they say,
As well as eggs to make hens lay.
--_Samuel Butler_.
There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
--_Shakespeare_.
Thus 'tis with all--their chief and constant care
Is to seem everything but what they are.
--_Goldsmith_.
Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.
--_Herbert_.
HYSTERICS
Father, teaching his six-year-old son arithmetic by giving a problem
to his wife, begs his son to listen:
FATHER--"Mother, if you had a dollar and I gave you five more, what
would you have?"
MOTHER (replying absently)--"Hysterics."
"IF"
_See_ Fords.
IGNORANCE
A professor noted among his students for the caustic wit had in one
of his classes, one year, a young man who was both ignorant and
conceited. One morning he made a specially self-satisfied display of
both these characteristics, and the professor said he would like to
see him at the end of the hour.
When he came up after the lecture, the professor asked: "You are Mr.
Junkins?"
"Yes, sir."
"Have you a visiting card?"
"I--I--yes, sir," stammered the puzzled student.
"Then, Mr. Junkins," the professor said dryly, "write down on your
visiting card all that you know, and bring it to me tomorrow."
ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS
Returning home from a scientific meeting one night, a college
professor, who was noted for his concentration of thought, was still
pondering deeply on the subject that had been under discussion. Upon
entering his room he heard a noise that appeared to come from under
the bed.
"Is there any one there?" he asked, absently.
"No, professor," answered the intruder, knowing his peculiarities.
"That's strange," murmured the professor. "I was almost sure I heard
some one under the bed."
IMITATION
Imitation is a confession of limitation.
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.--_Colton_.
IMMIGRANTS
_See_ Board of health.
IMPUDENCE
_Put in the Bill_
When in Canada last, Mr. Kipling was so dissatisfied with the hotel
accommodations that he gave the landlord a severe call-down. Said he:
"Of all the hotels under the shining sun, I have never been in one
that for unmitigated, all-round, unendurable discomfort could equal
yours."
After the landlord had withdrawn in great indignation, Kipling
asked for his bill, and he discovered that the last item was, "To
impudence--three dollars."
He that has but impudence,
To all things has a fair pretence;
And puts among his wants but shame,
To all the world may lay his claim.
--_Butler_.
There is no better provision for life than impudence and a brazen
face.--_Menander_.
INCOME TAX
We saw Diogenes the other day with his lantern.
"Still looking for an honest man?" we asked.
He shook his head mournfully.
"No. I gave that up long ago. I wish I'd stuck to it. It wasn't half
so hopeless as what I'm doing now."
He certainly did look despondent, and our hearts went out to him.
"What are you looking for now, then?" we asked.
He sighed. "I'm looking for a congressman who made out his income tax
without anybody's help."
We don't know who it was who wrote the income-tax blank, but we are
certain that he stole his style either from Robert Browning or Henry
James.
_Income Tax Tips_
(_All replies to questions in this column given free of tax._)
PUZZLED--Don't be bluffed. Simply put all extra leaves in dining-room
table, grasp tax return firmly with both hands, and throw it flat on
its back. When you have it down brand it on first page with hot ink.
C.H.--Yes, algebra may be used in figuring your return. Personally
we employ trigonometry, altho many prefer calculus and a couple of
lawyers.
TAXPAYER--Your problem is as clear as a Chinese laundryticket. Simply
deduct the net profit of losses (plus inventories at end of year)
and add income from salaries, wages, bonuses, director's fees, and
pensions. Nothing to it!
J.J.C.--Refer to Table 113 on Page 11, Section 28, Part IV of return.
Then if Item 86, Schedule V, line 7, exceeds the sum stated in Item
21, Page 9, Schedule Z, get another blank form.
CONFUSED--No, you should have figured the amounts in Items 34, 60,
and 69 as net losses from Wear and Tear, Obsolescense and Depletion
Charged Off (see K (2) on Page 8 of Instructions) before entering
total in Item 94, Schedule O. It's perfectly simple.
L.F.--Don't worry about your next year's tax. You may not have any
income.
_See also_ Profiteers.
INDUSTRY
Andrew Carnegie was once asked which he considered to be the most
important factor in industry--labor, capital, or brains? The canny
Scot replied with a merry twinkle in his eye, "Which is the most
important leg of a three-legged stool?"
Industry is not only the instrument of improvement, but the foundation
of pleasure. He who is a stranger to it may possess, but cannot
enjoy; for it is labor only which gives relish to pleasure. It is
the appointed vehicle of every good to man. It is the indispensable
condition of possessing a sound mind in a sound body.--_Blair_.
Protected industry, careering far,
Detects the cause and cures the rage of war,
And sweeps, with forceful arm; to their last graves,
Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves.
--_Joel Barlow_.
In every rank, or great or small,
'Tis industry supports us all.
--_Gay_.
The great end of all human industry is the attainment of
happiness.--_Hume_.
"From what you tell me, Sam, you have been a busy man all your life."
"Yes, sah; yes, sah."
"You've done a great deal in your time and day, Sam, I guess."
"Yes, sah. Dat is, I's done a good lot in mah day, but it was in de
boss's time, sah."
INFANTS
A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bank-roll
smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the
future worth living for.
A small boy was taken to see the new baby, whom he eyed very
critically. "Why, he's got no hair, father," was his first remark.
The fact was admitted. "And he's got no teeth, father," was the next
comment. The circumstances could not be denied. "I tell you what,
father," was the final observation, "you've been swindled; he's an old
one."
THE VISITOR--"Does your new baby brother cry much, Ethel?"
LITTLE ETHEL--"He cries when you stick pins in him or make faces
at him or bounce him up and down. But what can you expect? He's too
little to swear."
Maggie had a new baby brother, which everybody agreed was such a baby
as had never been seen before. One day the baby was being weighed, and
Maggie asked what that was for.
"Oh," said her father, "Uncle George has taken a great fancy to baby,
and he's offered to buy him for a shilling an ounce."
Maggie looked startled. "You're not going to sell him, are you,
daddy?"
"Of course not, precious," answered daddy, proud to see his little
girl loved her brother so.
"No. Keep him till he gets a bit bigger," the child went on; "he'll
fetch more money then."
INFLUENZA
A hospital doctor writes in the Ontario Post that one of his patients
had had the flu. He was seen walking around wearily. When he was asked
what was wrong, he said: "Ah done had de Spanish flu." "That so?" he
was asked; "what is the Spanish flu like, Sam?" "The flu?" said Sam;
"don't you all know what de flu is? Why, it's a disease dat makes you
sick six months after you gets well."
"Were you very sick with the 'flu,' Rastus?"
"Sick, sick! Man, Ah was so sick mos' ebery night Ah look in dat er
casualty list for mah name."
INHERITANCE
During the battle of Paschendaele a seriously wounded Gordon
Highlander was brought into one of the Canadian dressing stations. The
surgeon noticed he was wearing a fine gold wrist watch. "Where did you
get that, Scotty?" he asked.
Scotty merely smiled at the time, but, on being told that the chances
were against him, he later confided the story to the doctor.
"I took a Heine prisoner who was wearin' yon watch. 'Wull ye gie me
it?' I eskit him. He shookit his heed. I eskit him the second time.
He shookit his heed again. 'For the third and last time, as a
gentlemaun,' I sez, 'will ye gie me thot watch?' Heine shookit his
head."
"But you got it?"
"Weel efter thot I simply inherited it."
INITIATIVE
_Not Self-Starters_
FIRST CITIZEN--"You can't stop a man from thinking!"
SECOND DITTO--"No, but the difficulty is to start him!"
INSOMNIA
BARK--"So you have been cured of your insomnia? It must be an immense
relief."
CARR--"You've said it. Why, I lie awake half the night thinking how I
used to suffer from it."
INSTALMENT PLAN
"I wonder will Smithers always allude to his wife so lovingly as 'my
own'?"
"Well, she is his own. Everything else in his home he is paying for on
the instalment plan."
LADY VISITOR--"Oh, Tommy, you have a nice new suit!"
TOMMY--"Yes, I think the man pa bought it from is sorry he sold it.
He's always calling."
INSURANCE, FIRE
THE MAN OF LAW--"But, my dear madam, there is no insurance money for
you to draw. Your late husband never insured his life; he only had a
policy against fire."
THE WONDERFUL WIDOW--"Precisely. That is the very reason I had him
cremated!"
A woman, wearing an anxious expression, called at an insurance office
one morning.
"I understand," she said, "that for five dollars I can insure my house
for a thousand dollars."
"Yes," replied the agent, "that is right."
"And," continued the woman anxiously, "do you make any inquiries as to
the origin of the fire?"
"Certainly," was the prompt reply.
"Oh!" and she turned to leave the office, "I thought there was a catch
in it somewhere."
"I say, Jones, I want to insure my coal-yards against fire. What would
a policy for $20,000 cost?"
"What coal is it? Same kind as you sent me last?"
"Yes."
"I wouldn't bother insuring it if I were you. It won't burn."
When the agent brought Mrs. Tarley her fire-insurance policy he
remarked that it would be well for her to make her first payment at
once.
"How much will it be?" she asked.
"About $100. Wait a minute and I'll find the exact amount."
"Oh, how tiresome!" she exclaimed. "Tell the company to let it stand
and deduct it from what they will owe me when the house burns down."
INSURANCE, LIFE
"I wish you would tell me," said the agent, who had been a long time
on Mr. Snaggs' trail, "what is your objection to having your life
insured?"
"Well, I don't mind telling you," replied Snaggs. "The idea of being
more valuable dead than alive is distasteful to me."
"What's the matter, old man? You look worried."
"Well, to be honest with you, I am. You know, I took out some life
insurance last Thursday."
"Yes," replied the sympathetic friend, "but what has that to do with
the wobegone expression on your face?"
"Well, the very next day after I had it written my wife bought a
new cook-book. Possibly it's all right, but it certainly looks
suspicious."
MR. MANLEY--"Well, my dear, I've had my life insured for five thousand
dollars."
MRS. MANLEY--"How very sensible of you! Now I sha'n't have to keep
telling you to be so careful every place you go."
"How much life insurance do you think a man ought to carry?"
"Enough to keep his family from want, but not so much as to make them
utterly impervious to grief."
HEWITT--"My wife is a cheerful sort of companion."
JEWETT--"How is that?"
HEWITT--"I told her that I had taken out a twenty-year endowment on my
life, and she said, that she hoped I wouldn't mature before the policy
did."
Two insurance agents--a Yankee and an Englishman--were bragging about
their rival methods. The Britisher was holding forth on the system
of prompt payment carried out by his people--no trouble, no fuss, no
attempt to wriggle out of settlement.
"If the man died tonight," he continued, "his widow would receive her
money by the first post tomorrow morning."
"You don't say?" drawled the Yankee. "See here, now, you talk of
prompt payment! Waal, our office is on the third floor of a building
forty-nine stories high. One of our clients lived in that forty-ninth
story, and he fell out of the window. We handed him his check as he
passed."
A colored recruit said he intended to take out the full limit of
Government insurance, $10,000. On being told by a fellow soldier that
he would be foolish to pay on so much when he was likely to be shot
in the trenches, he replied: "Huh! I reckon I knows what I's doin.'
You-all don't s'pose Uncle Sam is gwine to put a $10,000 man in the
first-line trenches, do you?"
_See also_ Salesmen and salesmanship.
INTERVIEWS
A Boston business man has the following schedule of time for
interviews hung over his desk:
Book agents--three seconds.
Unclassified bores--thirty ditto.
Golf associates--one hour.
Friends to make a touch (It takes time to explain why you are
broke)--five minutes.
People to pay bills--no limit.
Employees wanting increase of salary--one minute.
My wife--never too busy.
Poor relations--always out.