"'Jedge,' said Rastus, 'Ah'm obliged to ye. Ah got dat five spot right
here in mah left-hand vest-pocket.'
"'Well,' continued the judge, 'just dig down in your right-hand
vest-pocket, Rastus, and see if you can find thirty days.'"
Mamie had been naughty and her mother finally had recourse to the
time-honored remedy in such cases.
"Mamma," she sobbed, "did Gran'ma spank you when you was little?"
"Yes, dear," said her mother, "she did when I was naughty."
"And did her mother spank her?"
"Yes."
"An" was she spanked, too, when she was bad?"
"Yes."
"Well, who started this blamed thing anyhow?"
"Judge," said the man at the bar, "there's no use of you trying to
square this thing up. My wife and I fight just so often and just so
long, and we can't help it. So there you are."
"And about how long do you keep it up?" asked the judge.
"About two weeks, judge."
"All right. I'll give you fifteen days in jail; in other words, you
are interned for the duration of the war."
VISITOR (comforting Tommy, who has upset a bottle of ink on the new
carpet)--"Never mind, my boy; no use to cry over spilled milk."
TOMMY (indignantly)--"Any dunce would know that. If it's milk that's
spilled all you have to do is to call the cat an' she'll lick it up
cleaner'n anything. But this ain't milk, an' mother'll do the lickin',
is what ails me."
"Quite a good epigram, that," said the tramp, who had been convicted
for vagrancy.
"What did he say?" asked the tramp's pal.
"Seven days."
"How d'you make that out an epigram?"
"Why," said the tramp, "I once asked a parson what an epigram was, and
he said 'It's a short sentence that sounds light, but gives you plenty
to think about.'"
PARSON WHITE--"Brudder Lamkins, how did yer son come outen de trial?"
BRO. LAMKINS--"De Jedge done give 'im two mumfs in de jayul."
PARSON WHITE--"'Pears ter me like as if you outer be pow'ful thankful.
He got off mighty light, he did."
BRO. LAMKINS--"'Twan't 's light's you seem to think. Dey's agwinter
hang 'im when de two mumfs is up."
"Rastus," said the judge sternly, "you're plain no-account and
shiftless, and for this fight I'm going to send you away for a year at
hard labor."
"Please, Jedge," interrupted Mrs. Rastus from the rear of the court
room, "will yo' Honah jes' kinder split dat sentence? Don't send him
away from home, but let dat hard labor stand."
A German spy caught redhanded was on his way to be shot.
"I think you English are brutes," he growled, "to march me through
this rain and slush."
"Well," said the "Tommy" who was escorting him, "what about me? I have
to go back in it."
_See also_ Marriage.
PUNS
"Have you a little fairy in your home?"
"No, but I have a little miss in my engine."
SMALL SCOUT--"Dad, what are the silent watches of the night?"
INDULGENT FATHER--"They are the ones which their owners forgot to
wind, my son."
"Here, boy," said the man to the boy who was helping him drive a bunch
of cattle, "hold this bull a minute, will you?"
"No," answered the boy, "I don't mind bein' a director in this
company, but I'm darned if I want to be a stockholder."
MA--"You've been drinking. I smell it in your breath." PA--"Not a
drop. I've been eating frog's legs. What you smell is the hops."
PROF.--"What happened to Babylon?"
FRESH.--"It fell."
PROF.--"What happened to Tyre?"
FRESH.--"It was punctured."
That was a good, though rather a severe pun, which was made by a
student in one of our theological seminaries (and he was not one
of the brightest of the class, either), when he asked, "Why is
Professor---- the greatest revivalist of the age?" and on all "giving
it up," said, "Because at the close of every sermon there is a 'Great
Awakening.'"
PURGATORY
MARMADUKE ISOLATE (of Lonelyville).--"Pa, what is Purgatory?"
MR. ISOLATE (wearily).--"Purgatory? Why, Purgatory is a sort of suburb
of Heaven."
QUAKERS
After a long essay on the Quakers, taken largely from the
encyclopedia, a Western schoolboy finished off with this original
thought. "Quakers never quarrel, never get into fights, and never
scratch." Then, seeking for a demonstration of the fact and a final
touch, he added: "Pa is a Quaker, but I kinda think that Ma isn't."
QUESTIONS
"You understand your duties thoroughly, don't you?" she said to the
new footman.
"Yes, ma'am, certainly, ma'am."
"And you know your way to announce?"
"Well, ma'am, I shouldn't perhaps like to go quite so far as that, but
I think I know my weight to a pound or so."
"Father, is the zebra a black animal with white stripes or a white
animal with black stripes?"
"Has Jobkins any money?" asked Hickenlooper.
"Oh, he must have," said Garroway.
"Oh, we all must have--but have we?" said Hickenlooper.
There is an elevator boy in a New York office building, who is among a
large number of public servants that resent needless questions.
One day there entered his car a rather fussy old lady, and garrulous
as well.
"Don't you ever feel sick going up and down in this elevator all day?"
she asked.
"Yes, ma'am," said the boy.
"Is it the motion going down?"
"No, ma'am."
"The motion going up?"
"No, ma'am."
"Is it the stopping that does it?"
"No, ma'am."
"Then what is it?"
"Answering questions, ma'am."
"My father and I know everything in the world," said a small boy to
his companion.
"All right," said the latter. "Where's Asia?"
It was a stiff question, but the little fellow answered coolly: "That
is one of the questions my father knows."
Owen Wister, the novelist, apropos of useless questions, once told of
a man who stood before a mirror in his room, his face lathered and an
open razor in his hand. His wife came in. She looked at him and said,
"Are you shaving?" The man, a foe to surplusage, replied fiercely,
"No; I am blacking the kitchen range. Where are you--out driving or at
a four-o'clock tea?"
_See also_ Curiosity.
RADICALS
A radical is a man without a sense of humor; a conservative is one
without a sense of the ridiculous.
RAILROADS
"Where's the president of this railroad?" asked the man who called at
the general offices.
"He's down in Washington, attendin' th' session o' some kind uv an
investigatin' committee," replied the office boy.
"Where is the general manager?"
"He's appearin' before th' Interstate Commerce Commission."
"Well, where's the general superintendent?"
"He's at th' meetin" of th' legislature, fightin' some bum new law."
"Where is the head of the legal department?"
"He's in court, tryin' a suit."
"Then where is the general passenger agent?"
"He's explainin' t' th' commercial travelers why we can't reduce th'
fare."
"Where is the general freight agent?"
"He's gone out in th' country t' attend a meeting o' th' grange an'
tell th' farmers why we ain't got no freight-cars."
"Who's running the blame railroad, anyway?"
"The newspapers and th' legislatures."
An old Cornish woman who had never before traveled by rail went to a
country station to catch a train. She sat herself down on a seat
in the station, and after sitting there for about two hours, the
station-master came up to her and asked where she was going. On her
telling him, he said:
"Why, my good woman, the train has just gone, and there isn't another
for a long time!"
"Why, lor'!" says the old lady, "I thought the whole consarn moved!"
"What good," asked the angry would-be passenger, "are the figures set
down in these railway time-tables?"
"Why," patiently explained the genial agent, "if it weren't for them
figures we'd have no way of findin' out how late the train is."
The American in the first-class carriage of an English train insisted
on smoking. An angry Englishman protested, and when about to appeal
to the guard the American got ahead of him with the remark: "Guard,
I think you will find that that gentleman is traveling with a
third-class ticket on him."
It proved to be true, and the sputtering Britisher was put out.
A spectator of the incident asked the American how he knew about the
ticket.
"Well," explained the composed stranger, "it was sticking out of his
pocket and I noticed that it was the same color as mine."
A new railroad through Louisiana strikes some of the towns about a
mile from the business center, so it is necessary to run a bus line.
A salesman stopping in one of the towns asked the old darky bus driver
about it:
"Say, uncle, why have they got the depot way down here?"
After a moment's hesitation the old darky replied: "Ah dunno, boss,
unless dey wanted to git it on de railroad."
Picking her way daintily through the locomotive plant, a young woman
visitor viewed the huge operations with awe. Finally, she turned to a
young man who was showing her through, and asked:
"What is that big thing over there?"
"That's a locomotive-boiler," he replied. She puckered her brows.
"And what do they boil locomotives for?"
"To make the locomotive tender," and the young man from the office
never smiled.
"What kind of a plant is the Virginia creeper?"
"It isn't a plant; it's a railroad."
The president of a certain railway in Kentucky which is only ten miles
long, was exchanging annual passes one year with officials of other
railways.
He enclosed an annual pass on his railway to Stuyvesant Fish, then
president of the Illinois Central Railway, for himself and family,
with the request that Fish reciprocate.
It seems that Fish had never heard of the Kentucky road, so he
instructed his secretary to look it up. As a result the pass was
returned with the following curt letter:
DEAR SIR:
I find that your railroad is only ten miles long, while my road is
eleven hundred miles long. I herewith return your pass made out in
favor of myself and family. Yours truly,
STUYVESANT FISH.
This was too much for the old Kentucky colonel, who made the following
notation on Fish's letter and sent it back:
"You go to hell--_my railroad is as_ WIDE _as yours_".
He received the Illinois Central pass by return mail.
"Conductor!" shouted a passenger on the back-country train.
"That was my station, sir! Why didn't you stop?"
"We don't stop there any longer," said the conductor. "You see, the
engineer is mad with the station agent!"
"Now will this train reach its destination on time?"
"We hope so, but we don't guarantee it."
"You mean you sell me a ticket to get to a certain place by a certain
time and then you give me no assurance I'll be there at that time?"
"That's about it."
"Well, I'll take the ticket. But I'll get even! I won't guarantee I'll
be here when your darned old unguaranteed train is ready to start, so
I won't!"
"We are twenty minutes late," remarked the passenger. "Will we make it
up before we reach New York?"
"No, sah; no, sah," answered the porter. "No, sah. The engineer and
fireman get time and a half for overtime."
READING
_See_ Books and reading
REAL ESTATE
"It is very strange that no one has ever been able to find Captain
Kidd's treasure."
"Oh, well, Captain Kidd isn't the only man who has put his money into
real estate and couldn't get it out."
REAL ESTATE AGENTS
STEVE--"That Smith guy of the Meadow Bottom Development Company has
got the fastest car in this neck of the country. He makes ninety miles
an hour."
HANK--"Some car! What's he want of such a speed demon?"
STEVE--"He's gotta have it when he's advertising his development as
being five minutes from the station."
A house-hunter, getting off a train at a suburban station, said to a
boy standing near:
"My boy, I am looking for Mr. Smith's new block of semi-detached
houses. How far are they from here?"
"About twenty minutes' walk," said the boy.
"Twenty minutes!" exclaimed the house-hunter. "Nonsense! The
advertisement said five."
"Well," replied the boy, "yer kin believe me or the advertisement,
whichever yer want. But I ain't tryin' to make no sale."
"Look here, you swindler!" roared the owner of the suburban property
to the real-estate man. "When you sold me this house, didn't you say
that in three months I wouldn't part with it for $10,000?"
"Certainly," said the real-estate dealer calmly, "and you haven't,
have you?"
REALISM
Things that are what they appear to be are so rare that one cannot
tell them when one sees them.
RECOMMENDATIONS
"Eh-yah! Young Doc. Purt is a pretty good doctor," admitted the
landlord of the Petunia tavern, in reply to the inquiry of a guest who
felt the need of a physician's advice. "In spite of all the money he's
spent for electrical apparatus and the fact that he wears one of
these 'ere three-cornered vanduct beards, there have been no unusually
distressing deaths in our midst during the six months he has been with
us."
The applicant for the job of office-boy presented his credentials in
a manner that bespoke his entire confidence that the position would be
his. The sour-looking old gentleman at the head of the establishment
read the paper carefully and then surveyed the boy searchingly.
"It is certainly a very nice thing for you to have these
recommendations from the minister of your church and your
Sunday-school teacher," said he, "and I must admit that you look
honest. All the same, I'd like to have a few words from someone that
knows you on week-days."--_Harper's_.
"You say you have good references?"
"Yes, ma'am. I have over a 'undred splendid references."
"And how long have you been in domestic service?"
"Two years, ma'am."
A prominent New England educator tells of a Chinese cook in Manila
who was innocently carrying about a reference, written by a saturnine
Englishman, with which he expected to secure a good position. The
reference read as follows:
"This man cooked for me six months; it seemed much longer. He left on
account of illness--my illness."
"Have you any references?" inquired the lady of the house.
"Yis, mum, lots of thim," answered the prospective maid.
"Then why did you not bring some of them with you?"
"Well, mum, to tell the troot, they're just loike my photygraphs. None
of thim don't do me justice."
Here is a letter of recommendation given by a butcher to a former
employee:
"Whomsoefer is de boss--
"Dear Sir--Dis is to testify dot Hans Snyder vorked for me von week.
Ven he left I was perfectly satisfied."
RECRUITING
POLICEMAN (rounding up draft suspects)--"Have you got a card?"
THE SUSPECTED ONE (with suitcase)--"A whole case of 'em! Which do you
want to see--draft, registration, meat, sugar, calling, milk, playing,
or postal-card?"--_Judge_.
"Before I left the United States," said Col. George Harvey recently in
London, "I agreed with a Columbia professor who said preponderant power
in men and money was bound to win the war; but now I have a stronger
argument--one which fell from the lips of a recruiting-sergeant in the
Strand yesterday.
"'Don't you want to be on the winning side?' said the soldier to a
group of civilians who he was suggesting should don khaki.
"'How do you know ours will be the winning side?' asked a prospective
recruit.
"'Well, my lad,' said the sergeant, 'you know the Germans have been
trying for more than a year and a half to win and have failed, don't
you?"
"'Yes,' replied the questioner.
"'Well, then, we've been trying to lose during the same period and we
couldn't.'"
United States Senator Howard Sutherland, of West Virginia, tells a
story about a mountain youth who visited a recruiting-office in the
Senator's State for the purpose of enlisting in the regular Army. The
examining physician found the young man as sound as a dollar, but that
he had flat feet.
"I'm sorry," said the physician, "but I'll have to turn you down.
You've got flat feet."
The mountaineer looked sorrowful. "No way for me to git in it, then?"
he inquired.
"I guess not. With those flat feet of yours you wouldn't be able to
march even five miles."
The youth from the mountains studied a moment. Finally he said: "I'll
tell you why I hate this so darned bad. You see, I walked nigh on
to one hundred and fifteen miles over the mountains to git here, and
gosh, how I hate to walk back!"
RECRUITING OFFICER--"What's the good of coming here and saying you're
only seventeen years old! Go and walk around that yard and come back
and see if you're not nineteen."--_Punch_.
_See also_ Conscription.
RED TAPE
America consumes more red dye than any other color. This, as you are
aware, is the color chosen for government tape in Washington.
REGRETS
_Who Am I?_
I am frequently most potent in the morning, but I am willing to abide
with you at any time.
I am what you feel if you get married or if you do not get married.
I am what the after-dinner speaker says he feels because he came
unprepared, and what the listeners show they feel without saying it.
I come to you when youth leaves you.
I am yours when that sarcastic person drops a remark which you cannot
fittingly answer, and I am doubled when you are later alone and think
of just the brilliant retort you should have given.
I am what overwhelms you when you suffer an overwhelming financial
loss.
I am the vainest of the vain.
I am regret!
MRS. EXE--"Here's an invitation from Mrs. Boreleigh to one of her
tiresome dinners. I hate them."
EXE--"Why not plead that you have a previous engagement?"
MRS. EXE--"That would be a lie. Edith dear, write Mrs. Boreleigh that
we accept with pleasure."
RELATIVES
"Have you any relatives living in the country?"
"No; whenever we take a vacation we have to pay our own board."
"Old Millyuns says that since he made his pile of money he feels like
a neutral nation."
"Why is that?"
"Because he has so many diplomatic relations."--_Judge_.
RELIGIONS
Rowland Hill, when some persons entered his chapel to avoid the rain
that was falling, quietly observed, "Many persons are to be blamed
for making their religion a cloak, but I do not think those are much
better who make it an umbrella."
A man in the threadbare coat and a week's beard came out of a downtown
mission where he had signed the pledge and joined the church, only to
be nabbed for theft a half hour later.
"Why did you make off with the pocketbook you saw this lady drop in
the street?" demanded the Judge in court.
"It's all the minister's fault," declared the thief in deprecation. "I
went to him discouraged and out of money, and he told me I must learn
to take things as I found them."
Dr. Lyman P. Powell gives some examples of the lengths to which petty
bitterness between sects will sometimes carry men. "A visitor in a
certain town which had four churches and adequately supported none,
asked a pillar of one poor dying church, 'How's your church getting
on?' 'Not very well,' was the reply, 'but, thank the Lord, the others
are not doing any better.'"
REMEDIES
A Chinaman was asked if there were good doctors in China.
"Good doctors!" he exclaimed, "China have best doctors in world. Hang
Chang one good doctor; he great; save life, to me."
"You don't say so! How was that?"
"Me velly bad," he said. "Me callee Doctor Han Kon. Give some
medicine. Get velly, velly ill. Me callee Doctor San Sing. Give more
medicine. Me glow worse--go die. Blimebly callee Doctor Hang Chang. He
got no time; no come. Save life."
The other day a negro went into a drug store and said:
"Ah wants one ob dem dere plasters you stick on yoah back."
"I understand," said the clerk, "You mean one of our porous plasters?"
"No, sab, I don't want none ob your porous plasters, I wants de bes'
one you got."
A Swedish farmer, who lived on his wheat farm in Minnesota, was taken
ill and his wife telephoned the doctor.
"If you have a thermometer," answered the physician, "take his
temperature. I will be out and see him presently."
An hour or so later when the doctor drove up, the woman met him at the
door.
"How is he?" asked the doctor.
"Veil," said she, "I bane put the barometer on him like you tell me,
and it say 'Very dry,' so I give him a pitcher of water to drink, and
now he ban gone back to vork."
BESSIE--"The doctor says mamma must take a constitutional every
morning. What's that mean?"
BOBBY--"That means walking."
BESSIE--"Then why didn't he say walk?"
BOBBY--"I don't know, but I guess maybe if he called it that he
couldn't charge for it."
REMINDERS
HE (to wife who is off for the beach)--"Now, don't forget me, dear."
SHE--"As if I could, Jack. The surf at night sounds just like you
snoring."
The late Horace Hutton used to say that having to take a little
trouble would impress a fact on any one's memory so that he would
never be able to forget it. In illustration he would tell this story:
"Our waitress, Maggie, could never remember to put salt on the table,
and time after time Mrs. Hutton would remind her to do it. One
morning it was absent, as usual, and I said, 'Maggie, where is the
stepladder?'
"'It's in the pantry, sir!'
"'Please bring it in, Maggie,' I said kindly.
"Maggie brought it in with a look of wonder on her face.
"'Put it right beside the table,' I commanded, and when she had done
so I added: 'Now, I want you to climb up to the top of it, look all
over the table and see if there is any salt there.'
"Maggie never forgot the salt again."
"What's that piece of cord tied around your finger for?"
"My wife put it there to remind me to post a letter."
"And did you post it?"
"No; she forgot to give it to me."
CONDUCTOR--"Do you mind if I put your bag out of the way, sir? People
coming in are falling over it."
TRAVELER--"You leave it where it is. If nobody falls over it I shall
forget it's there."
REPARTEE
"Pa, what is repartee?"
"Oh, merely an insult with its dress-suit on, my son."--_Puck_.
FIRST STUDENT--"The idea; my napkin is damp!"
SECOND STUDENT--"Perhaps that's because there is so much due on your
board."
The big man with the I-know-it-all expression sneeringly watched the
little man who was eating from a sack of peanuts.
"Down where I come from we use peanuts to fatten hogs," remarked the
big man.
"That so?" asked the little man. "Here, have some."
EINSTEIN--"I hear you already, and I dinks you vas talking to
yourself."
ROSENBERG--"You vas a liar and a scoundrel! Do you hear dot?"
"What would you say," began the voluble prophet, "if I were to tell
you that in a very short space of time all the rivers will dry up?"
"I would say," replied the patient man, "go thou and do likewise."
"I'm tired of always being the goat!"
"Then, why don't you stop butting in?"
"Oh, say, who was here to see you last night?"
"Only Myrtle, father."
"Well, tell Myrtle that she left her pipe on the piano."
"Willie, your master's report of your work is very bad. Do you know
that when Woodrow Wilson was your age he was head of the school?"
"Yes, pa; and when he was your age he was President of the United
States."
"You are an angel."
"I guess that's right. An angel has but one gown and for her the
styles never change."
A stern old preacher had issued to his people a command against
dancing, believing it to be a device of the devil.
A few of the young people disobeyed and attended a dance given at a
neighboring town. Finally it reached the ears of the preacher, and,
meeting one of the culprits on the street one morning, he said in a
stern voice:
"Good morning, child of the devil!"
"Good morning, father!" smilingly answered the pretty miss.
CUSTOMER--"The price of these shoes seems high. Wasn't there something
said about a movement to have it reduced?"
CLERK--"Yes--but it's not on foot yet."
UNCLE SILAS (visiting city relatives who use electrical appliances for
cooking at the table)--"Well, I swan! You make fun of us for eatin' in
the kitchen. I don't see as it makes much difference whether you eat
in the kitchen or cook in the dining-room."--_Life_.
There had been a quarrel. "You're no lidy," remarked the party of the
first part "Ah!" replied the other. "If it wasn't that I _was_ a lidy,
p'raps I'd be able to tell _you_ wot kind of a lidy _you_ ain't."
FIRST TRAVELER (cheerily)--"Fine day, isn't it?"
SECOND DITTO (haughtily)--"Sir! You have the advantage of me. I don't
know you."
FIRST DITTO--"Humph! I fail to see the advantage."
"We need brains in this business, sir."
"I know you do. The business shows it."
"Well! well!" exclaimed Mrs. Talker, looking up from the morning
paper. "Boots and shoes should be getting much cheaper now. Here's
a paragraph that states that they are being made from all sorts of
skins, even rat skins"; and then, trying to be funny, she added, "I
wonder what they do with banana and orange skins?"
"Oh, my dear," replied her husband, "they make slippers!"