in Nashville. The street was crowded with Negroes, who were forming in
a line for a parade.
"What's the occasion for the parade, Tom?" she asked of a boy.
The boy looked at her with a grin.
"La, Miss Daviess," he replied, "don' you-all know colored folks well
'nough to know dat dey don' need no 'casion foh a p'rade?"
An old doctor was making a call on a colored family. While talking to
the patient he was continually interrupted by a crying baby, which sat
on the floor and grumbled and whined continually. Finally, the mother
picked the child up.
"Auntie," said the doctor, "your baby seems badly spoiled."
"No, suh! No, suh!" remonstrated the mother. "All little cullud babies
smell dat way!"
_See also_ Chicken stealing.
NEIGHBORS
"But I don't know you, madam," the bank cashier said to the woman who
had presented a check.
The woman, however, instead of saying haughtily, "I do not wish your
acquaintance, sir," merely replied, with an engaging smile:
"Oh, yes, you do, I think. I'm the 'red-headed old virago' next door
to you, whose scoundrelly little boys are always reaching through the
fence and picking your flowers. When you started for town this morning
your wife said: 'Now, Henry, if you want a dinner fit to eat this
evening you'll have to leave me a little money. I can't keep this
house on plain water and sixpence a day.'"
Christianity teaches us to love our neighbor as ourself; modern
society acknowledges no neighbor.--_Beaconsfield_.
"I'm quite a near neighbor of yours now," said Mr. Bore.
"I'm living just across the river."
"Indeed," replied Miss Smart. "I hope you'll drop in some day."
NEW JERSEY
Misunderstandings with New Jersey people are sure to result if
visitors mistake chicken wire for mosquito netting.
NEW YORK CITY
Mr. Edmund Hornung was in New York several days over Sunday.
That's where they travel fast, I'm telling you.
SILAS (in a whisper)--"Did you git a peep at the underworld at all
while you wuz in New York, Ezry?"
EZRA--"Three times! Subway twice an' ratscellar once."
"I see New York did considerable begging for one of those reserve
banks."
"What of it?"
"Oh, nothing, New York used to dictate."
CUBIST TEACHER--"Can anyone give an impressionistic definition of New
York?"
BRIGHT PUPIL--"A small body of limousines almost entirely surrounded
by Fords."
FIRST SOUTHERNER--"Were you in New York long enough to feel at home?"
SECOND SOUTHERNER--"Yes, sir; why, I got so I could keep my seat in
the cars with a lady standing and not even think about it."
An Ohio newspaper editor spent a few days in New York, and while there
somebody asked him how he liked the big town.
"I care for it very little," replied the editor. "Did you ever think
of this: Suppose you lived in New York and wanted to go fishing. Where
would you go to dig a can of worms?"
"I hear you want a room clerk."
"No, we never have any rooms. What we want is a clerk who can satisfy
people in assigning them to billiard tables, telephone booths and cots
in the halls."
The surging crowd along Broadway
Was stirred so strangely yesterday.
It stood on tiptoe, eyes aglow,
It stared, and turned to whisper low
Of wonders such as seldom pass
That way. What swayed the living mass?
What marvel from the fabled isles
That drew the eye from Paris styles?
A street car left the track perhaps?
Two bootblacks nabbed for shooting craps?
A fire to call the engines out?
A skidding auto turned about?
A homebrew Bacchus' raisin dance?
At these perhaps the crowd would glance
But never act like this at all.
Amazed, I asked a copper tall
And broad, and heard at last;
A horse and buggy just went past.
--_Roland D. Johnson_.
An English novelist took his first look at Broadway aflame with
light. He read the flashing and leaping signs and said: "How much more
wonderful it would be for a man who couldn't read."
UNCLE EZRA--"Eph Hoskins must have had some time down in New York."
UNCLE EBEN--"Yep. Reckon he traveled a mighty swift pace. Eph's wife
said that when Eph got back and went into his room he looked at the
bed, kicked it, and said, 'What's that darn thing for?"--_Judge_.
After Mark Twain had been in New York for five years, he wrote to his
folks back home that he was the loneliest man in the world!
"What!" exclaimed his people, "in New York _and lonely_!"
"Yes," wrote Mark; "I'm the only man in this town that doesn't touch a
drop."
TEACHER--"Do you know the population of New York?"
MAMIE BACKROW--"Not all of them, ma'am, but then, we've only lived
here two years."--_Puck_.
NEWSBOYS
NEWSBOY--"Great mystery! Fifty victims! Paper, mister?"
PASSER-BY--"Here, boy, I'll take one." (After reading a moment.) "Say,
boy, there's nothing of the kind in this paper. Where is it?"
NEWSBOY--"That's the mystery, guvnor. You're the fifty-first victim."
NEWSPAPERS
APPLICANT--"I'm ready to begin at the bottom, sir."
NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR--"Well, what's your idea?"
"To start first with the leading editorials and gradually work myself
up to the sporting page."
"Never state as a fact anything you are not certain about," the great
editor warned the new reporter, "or you will get us into libel
suits. In such cases use the words, 'alleged,' 'claimed,' 'reputed,'
'rumored,' and so on."
And then this paragraph appeared in the society notes of the paper:
"It is rumored that a card party was given yesterday by a number of
reputed ladies. Mrs. Smith, gossip says, was hostess. It is alleged
that the guests with the exception of Mrs. Bellinger, who says she
hails from Leavitt's Junction, were all from here. Mrs. Smith claims
to be the wife of Archibald Smith, the so-called 'Honest Man' trading
on Key Street."
And when the editor had read the report a whirling mass claiming to
be the reporter was projected through the window and struck the street
with a dull thud.
REPORTER--"Madam, you may recollect that we printed yesterday
your denial of having retracted the contradiction of your original
statement. Would you care to have us say that you were misquoted in
regard to it."--_Life_.
As any reporter will tell you, the only place in a newspaper office
where real toil is done is the city room. Imagine our pleasure when
we overheard one of the office boys saying: "When I first came here I
thought it was called the 'sitting room.' I said something about the
sitting room one day to the city editor, and I thought he was going to
throw me down the elevator shaft."
"Can you make anything out of the news from Europe?"
"Easiest thing in the world. I only read the newspapers every other
day. In this way I get a connected story of our side or the other and
avoid the denials."--_Puck_.
ENGLISH NEWSIE (selling extras)--"Better 'ave one and read about it
now, sir; it might be contradicted in the morning."--_Punch_.
The reporter was sent to write up a charity ball. His copy came in
late and it was careless. The editor reproved him the next day by
quoting an extract:
"Look here, Scribbler, what do you mean by this, 'Among the most
beautiful girls was Alderman Horatio Dingley'? Old Dingley ain't a
girl, you idiot! He's one of our principal shareholders."
"I can't help that," returned the realistic reporter, "that's where he
was."
When Earth's last paper is finished and the type is scrambled and
pied,
When the roar of the press becomes fainter and sheets are folded
and dried;
We shall rest, and Faith, we shall need it, for the way has been
weary and long,
And oft have we heard that chestnut, "Young man, you have quoted
me wrong."
The cub reporter was grinding out a marriage notice. Finally he
brought it up and laid it on the city editor's desk:
"Mr. and Mrs. Blank announce today the marriage of their daughter to
take place next Monday--"
"Huh," grunted the editor, "you can't say they announced a marriage
yet to take place."
Again the cub jabbed away at his typewriter. And when he brought it
back this time it read:
"Mr. and Mrs. Blank predicted today the marriage of their daughter."
"How many revolutions does the earth make in a day? It's your turn,
Willie Smith."
"You can't tell, teacher, till you see the morning paper."
_See also_ Editors.
"NO"
No is one of the smallest words in the English language, and yet--
It has brought about more heartaches than the war.
It has caused more children to shed tears than all the spankings in
the world put together.
It has saved more money for individuals with backbone than a year's
output of padlocks.
It has made itself Prohibition's greatest aid.
It has killed genius and thwarted ambition. It has turned love into
hate and success into failure.
It has kept kings off thrones and poets out of Arcadia.
It has caused good men to tremble and scoundrels to rejoice.
Will it ever make a change for the better?
No.
NOTHING
Mysterious Nothing! how shall I define
Thy shapeless, baseless, placeless emptiness?
Nor form, nor colour, sound, nor size is thine,
Nor words nor fingers can thy voice express;
But though we cannot thee to aught compare,
A thousand things to thee may likened be,
And though thou art with nobody nowhere,
Yet half mankind devote themselves to thee.
How many books thy history contain;
How many heads thy mighty plans pursue;
What labouring hands thy portion only gain;
What busy bodies thy doings only do!
To thee the great, the proud, the giddy bend,
And--like my sonnet--all in nothing end.
--_Richard Parson_.
NURSES
FREDDIE--"Are you the trained nurse mama said was coming?"
NURSE--"Yes, dear; I'm the trained nurse."
FREDDIE--"Let's see some of your tricks, then!"
OBEDIENCE
A certain woman demands instant and unquestioning obedience from her
children. One afternoon a storm came up and she sent her little son
John to close the trap leading to the flat roof of the house.
"But mother," began John.
"John, I told you to shut the trap."
"Yes, but mother--"
"John, shut that trap."
"All right, mother, if you say so--but--"
"John!"
Whereupon John slowly climbed the stairs and shut the trap. Two hours
later the family gathered for dinner, but Aunt Mary, who was staying
with the mother, did not appear. The mother, quite anxious, exclaimed,
"Where can Aunt Mary be?"
"I know," John answered triumphantly, "she is on the roof."
OBESITY
_See_ Corpulence.
OBITUARIES
Upon the recent death in a Western town of a politician, who, at one
time, served his country in a very high legislative place, a number of
newspaper men were collaborating on an obituary notice.
"What shall we say of the former Senator?" asked one of the men.
"Oh, just put down that he was always faithful to his trust."
"And," queried a cynical member of the group, "shall we mention the
name of the trust?"--_Puck_.
_See also_ Epitaphs.
OCCUPATIONS
PAPA--"But hasn't your fiancé got a job?"
DAUGHTER--"Not yet, but he's going to get one at $25,000 a year."
PAPA--"Indeed! Glad to hear of it! What is he doing?"
DAUGHTER--"Well, he read in the paper of some man who is paid $50,000
a year by the Bankers' Association not to forge checks, and George is
going to do it for half that."
THE COP--"The driver of a hearse asked me just now which was the way
to the cemetery, and I told him."
THE CAPTAIN--"Don't do it again. You're being paid as a policeman, not
as a funeral director."
"What are you going to make of your son Charley?" I asked.
"Well," replied Charley's father, "I made a doctor of Bob, a lawyer of
Ralph, and a minister of Bert; and Joe is a literary man. I think I'll
make a laboring man of Charley. I want one of them to have a little
money."--_Life_.
_The Other Fellow's Job_
I seldom quarrel with the universe;
Things could be better, could be better far.
But, on the other hand, they could be worse--
And so I rather leave them as they are.
But one thing though, could easily be done:
If Bill could only make a trade with Bob
The world would be so glad--if everyone
Could only have the other fellow's job!
The other fellow surely has a snap!
If at a desk he works, he needn't roam,
He needn't wander up and down the map--
He knows the joy and comfort of a home.
Or if the other fellow something sells
Upon the road, a lucky man is he--
To see the country, live at good hotels,
And have a job with some variety.
The other fellow!--luckiest of men!--
Here's where creation surely made a slip:
The fellow on the road should push a pen,
The fellow at a desk should tote a grip.
We never shall be happy, truly glad,
We never shall be really comforted,
Until we trade the job we've always had
And get the other fellow's job instead.
I see no other way to do--unless
We might do this: Forget a little while
The easy jobs that other men possess,
Get busy with your own, and with a smile.
For after all, they're not so different:
Each has its time of laughter and of sob,
But each the joy of service. Be content--
Your job's as good as any fellow's job.
MISTRESS (to butler)--"Why is it, John, every time I come home I find
you sleeping?"
"Well, ma'am, it's this way: I don't like to be a-doing _nothing_."
LAZY MIKE--"I have a new position with the railroad company."
WEARY RHODES--"What ja gona do?"
LAZY MIKE--"You know the fellow that goes alongside the train and taps
the axles to see if everything's all right? Well, I help him listen."
OCEAN TRAVEL
"Terribly rough, isn't it?" said the stranger on the ocean liner.
"Wal," replied the man from the farm, "'twouldn't be so rough if the
cap'n would only keep in the furrows!"
The storm was increasing in violence and some of the deck fittings
had already been swept overboard when the captain decided to send up a
signal of distress. But hardly had the rocket burst over the ship when
a solemn-faced passenger stepped on to the bridge. "Captain," he said,
"I'd be the last man on earth to cast a damper on any man, but it
seems to me that this is no time for letting off fireworks."
PASSENGER (after first night on board ship)--"I say, where have all my
clothes vanished to?"
STEWARD--"Where did you put them last night?"
PASSENGER--"I folded them up carefully and put them in that cupboard
over there."
STEWARD--"I see no cupboard, sir."
PASSENGER--"Are you blind, man? I mean that one with the round glass
door to it."
STEWARD--"Lor' bless me, sir; that ain't no cupboard. That's the
porthole."
OFFICE BOYS
Boss--"Can't you find something to do?"
OFFICE BOY--"Gee whiz: Am I expected to do the work and find it, too?"
A certain prominent lawyer of Toronto is in the habit of lecturing his
office staff from the junior partner down, and Tommy, the office boy,
comes in for his full share of the admonition. That his words were
appreciated was made evident to the lawyer by a conversation between
Tommy and another office boy on the same floor, which he recently
overheard.
"Wotcher wages?" asked the other boy.
"Ten thousand a year," replied Tommy.
"Aw, g'wan!"
"Sure," insisted Tommy, unabashed. "Four dollars a week in cash an' de
rest in legal advice."
"I can't keep the visitors from coming up," said the office boy,
dejectedly, to the president. "When I say you're out they simply say
they must see you."
"Well," said the president, "just tell them that's what they all say."
That afternoon there called at the office a young lady. The boy
assured her it was impossible to see the president.
"But I'm his wife," said the lady.
"Oh, that's what they all say," said the boy.
Into the office of a business man rushed a bright faced lad. For three
minutes he waited and then began, to show signs of impatience.
"Excuse me, sir," he said at length, "I'm in a hurry."
"Well, what do you want?" asked the business man.
"A job!"
"But why the hurry?"
"Got to hurry," replied the lad briefly. "Left school yesterday, and
haven't struck anything suitable yet. The only place where I can stay
long is where they pay me for it."
"How much do you want?"
"Fifteen dollars a week for a start."
"And when can you come?"
"Don't need to come; I'm here. I could have been at work five minutes
ago if you'd only said so."
BOSS (to new boy)--"You're the slowest youngster we've ever had.
Aren't you quick at anything?"
BOY--"Yes, sir; nobody can get tired as quickly as I can."
A small boy went into a business office that displayed a sign, "Boy
Wanted."
"What kind of a boy does youse want?" he asked of the manager.
"Why, a decent boy," said the manager. "One who is quick, doesn't
swear, smoke cigarettes, whistle round the office, shoot craps--"
"Aw, gee, boss," interrupted the boy, "youse don't want a boy; youse
wants a girl."
"How does your boy Josh like his job in the city?"
"First-rate," replied the father. "He knows more about the business
than the man that owns it."
"Who told you that?"
"Josh did. All he's got to do now is to convince the boss of it, an'
git promoted."
"Why, look here," said the merchant who was in need of a boy, "aren't
you the same boy who was in here a week ago?"
"Yes, sir," said the applicant.
"I thought so. And didn't I tell you then that I wanted an older boy?"
"Yes, sir. That's why I'm back. I'm older now."
OFFICE-SEEKERS
Mayor Mitchel of New York was talking at a dinner about
office-seekers.
"A good man had just died," he said, "and with unseemly haste an
office-seeker came after his job.
"Yes, sir, tho the dead man hadn't been buried, yet this office-seeker
came to me and said, breathlessly:
"'Mr. Mayor, do you see any objection to my being put in poor Tom
Smith's place?'
"'Why, no,' said I. 'Why, no, I see no objection, if the undertaker
doesn't.'"
No matter how hard a man runs for office he is perfectly satisfied to
win in a walk.
There is seldom a collision between the office seeking the man and the
man seeking the office.
"There goes a fellow who chased around for years trying to land a
political job."
"Well, what does he do now?"
"Nothing--he's got the job."
Uncle Mose aspired to the elective office of justice of the peace in
the "black bottom" part of town. One bar there was to his preferment:
he could neither read nor write. His master advised him to go to the
commissioner of elections and ask whether he was eligible. Mose went
and returned.
"What did he tell you, Mose?" inquired the master.
"It's all right, sah," answered Mose; "dat gen'lemun suttinly was
kind, yas, suh. He tole me Ah was illegible fo' dat office."
OFFICERS
OFFICER--"I ketched this here mut pinchin' bananas off a fruit-stand."
MAGISTRATE--"Aha! 'personating an officer! Two years."--_Life_.
COMMANDER--"What's his character apart from this leave-breaking?"
PETTY OFFICER--"Well, sir, this man 'e goes ashore when 'e likes; 'e
comes off when 'e likes; 'e uses 'orrible language when 'e's
spoken to; in fact, from 'is general be'avior, 'e might be a
orficer!"--_Punch_.
PROFESSOR--"What! Forgotten your pencil again, Jones! What would you
think of a soldier without a gun?"
JONES (an ex-service man)--"I'd think he was an officer."
OLD AGE
_See_ Age.
OLD CLOTHES
_See_ Clothing.
OPPORTUNITY
"But didn't Opportunity ever knock at your door?"
"Probably."
"And you didn't answer it?"
"I? Of course not. What do you think the servants are for?"
Lazyman, Contentedman, and Busyman lived together in the same house.
One day, when only Lazyman and Contentedman were at home, Opportunity
knocked.
As Lazyman made not the slightest move to go to the door, Contentedman
went and opened it.
"I am Opportunity," said the visitor, "and I have something very
wonderful for you."
Lazyman yawned and said nothing.
Contentedman courteously explained that he was not interested, for the
very good reason that he had everything he wanted.
"I believe Busyman also lives here," said Opportunity. "Where is he? I
know he would be glad to see me."
"Indeed he would, but he's out. He's always busy running around.
You're not the first Opportunity that he's missed. Opportunities have
been knocking here regularly for years, but he's never at home. I tell
him it doesn't pay to be so busy."
Opportunity walked away with dejected mien.--_Life_.
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
Makes ill deeds done!
--_Shakespeare_.
OPTIMISM
A part of what we might term the optimist's philosophy is--If you
can mend a situation mend it; if you can't mend it forget it.--_Ralph
Waldo Trine_.
If your confidence needs buttressing, just stop for a moment and
consider that this old world in which we have found such happiness has
throughout the past ages been visited by every catastrophe of which
the human mind can conceive, and from each of these dark periods it
has emerged always and eternally a progressive world.
Finally, I say, cheer up. Let's look on the bright side rather than
the dark side, and above all let us understand that there are no
insurmountable obstacles standing in the path of our progress, that we
are competent to solve the things that confront us, that they will
be solved, and that humankind will be benefited by the virtue of
our assuming an optimism in which we are fully justified.--_Lewis L.
Clark_.
LANDLADY--"Just when are you going to pay your arrears of room rent?"
HARD-UP AUTHOR--"As soon as I receive the check which the publisher
will send me if he accepts the novel I am about to commence when I
have found a suitable subject and the necessary inspiration."
An optimist is anybody who thinks he can write a new humorous
definition of an optimist or a pessimist. A pessimist is the same
person after he has made a serious attempt to do so.
An optimist looks at an oyster and expects a pearl. A pessimist looks
at an oyster and expects ptomaine poisoning.
THE OPTIMIST (who has just been struck by a passing motor-car)--"Glory
be! If this isn't a piece o' luck! Sure, 'tis the docther himself
that's in ut."--_Punch_.
"What's an optimist?"
"An optimist is a person who'll go into a restaurant without a cent in
his pocket and figure on paying for the meal with the pearl he hopes
to find in the oyster."
"An optimist is a man who cherishes vain hopes, and a pessimist a man
who nurses vain regrets."
"And what is a man who does both?"
"Oh, he's just a plain ordinary human."
ORIGINALITY
A certain little girl was discovered by her mother engaged in a
spirited encounter with a small friend who had got considerably
worsted in the engagement.
"Don't you know, dear," said the mother, "that it is very wicked to
behave so? It was Satan that put it into your head to pull Elsie's
hair."
"Well, perhaps it was," the child admitted, "but kicking her shins was
entirely my own idea."
OSTRICH
The ostrich is a foolish bird,
With scarcely any mind,
He often runs away so fast,
He leaves himself behind.
And when he gets there, has to stand
And wait around till night,
Without a single thing to do,
Until he comes in sight.
--_Mary Wilkins Freeman_.
OUIJA BOARD
"Do you think Mrs. Spinnix cheated at the ouija board?"
"I wouldn't go so far as to say she cheated," replied Miss Cayenne,
"But I couldn't help noticing that it mispelled some of its words the
same way she does."
Harry came home about five o'clock and his face and hands were
very clean and his hair stood on end. His mother took one look and
exclaimed: "Harry, I told you not to go swimmin' with Bob Ross."
"How do you know that I have been swimmin'?" asked Harry.
"Never mind who told me, but I know that you have been swimmin',"
replied his mother.
After a while Harry said: "I'll just bet you anything that Mrs. Ross
was over here this afternoon, and you and Mrs. Ross had that ouija
board out."--_Judge_.
Breathlessly the spiritualistically inclined lady bent over the ouija
spelling out the communications from her departed spouse.
"John, are you happy there?" she asked.
"Yes, d-e-a-r."
"Are you happier than you were on the earth."
"Yes, d-e-a-r."
"Ah," she breathed. "Heaven must be a wonderful place."
"I g-u-e-s-s s-o, b-u-t I-m n-o-t t-h-e-r-e y-e-t."
"Well," said Farmer Corntossel, "I reckon I've done a pretty good
afternoon's work."
"But all you did," commented Jud Tunkins, contemptuously, "was to sit
on the fence and whittle."
"Yes; but what I whittled up was the family ouija board."
PARENTS
_When Ma Is Sick_
When Ma is sick she pegs away;
She's quiet, though; not much t' say.
She goes right on a-doin' things,
An' sometimes laughs and even sings.
She says she don't feel extra well.
But then it's just a kind o' spell.
She'll be all right tomorrow sure,
A good old sleep will be the cure.
An' Pa he sniffs an' makes no kick,
For women folks is always sick,
An' Ma, she smiles, lets on she's glad--
When Ma is sick it ain't so bad.