curiously at the Panama hat he wore, "I'se always afeared. You see,
sah, you look like you was always ready to start somewheres."
During revival meetings in a Western city placards giving notices
of the various meetings, subjects, etc., were posted in conspicuous
places. One day the following was displayed:
"Subject--'Hell: Its Location and Its Absolute Certainty.'
"Thomas Jones, barytone, will sing 'Tell Mother I'll Be There.'"
SILENCE
I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches
nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even tho' he is in the
right.--_Cato_.
Nothing at times is more expressive than silence.--_George Eliot_.
SIMPLIFIED SPELLING
_See_ Spelling.
SIN
NEW CURATE--"What did you think of the sermon on Sunday, Mrs. Jones?"
PARISHIONER--"Very good indeed, sir. So instructive. We really didn't
know what sin was till you came here."
Know'st thou not all germs of evil
In thy heart await their time?
Not thyself, but God's restraining,
Stays their growth of crime.
--_Whittier_.
'Tis fearful building upon any sin;
One mischief enter'd, brings another in:
The second pulls a third, the third draws more,
And they for all the rest set ope the door:
Till custom take away the judging sense,
That to offend we think it no offence.
--_Smith_.
_See also_ Lies.
SINGERS
A quartette is where all four think the other three can't sing.
SKEPTICS
The heavy black clouds had massed in the east and west, the lightning
was flashing fiercely between the heavy incessant rolling of the
thunder.
Francis was terribly frightened, and his fond mother had gathered her
young hopeful and tried logically to calm his fears.
"Don't be afraid, darling. There's nothing to fear. God sends the
thunderstorm to clear the air, water the flowers, and make it cooler
for us. Now, don't cry, dear; it won't harm you, and everything will
be better when it's over."
The little fellow listened intently, and as his mother finished he
looked up at her gravely and said: "No, no, mother; you talk exactly
the way you did last week when you took me to the dentist to have the
tooth pulled."
This a sacred rule we find
Among the nicest of mankind,--
To doubt of facts, however true,
Unless they know the causes too.
--_Churchill_.
SLANG
A Franklin professor says slang has its place, and he might have added
that the place seems to be everywhere.
"Do Englishmen understand American slang?"
"Some of them do. Why?"
"My daughter is to be married in London, and the earl has cabled me to
come across."
SMILES
Smile! Never let your face look like a funeral; look like a search
warrant. The bud that cannot blossom dries up in the stock. Smile, if
you have to force it.
When your voice sounds like a benediction, when your face looks like
an old lemon, folks are sure to sidestep you.
What you give out you are reasonably sure to take in.
Look for a fight and someone will put a black circle round your left
eye.
Remember this: The face is more legible than an open book. You can
read the face at a distance and get it all at a glance. The book
compels you to thumb the leaves.
Smile, you son-of-a-gun, smile!
_If I Knew_
If I knew the box where the smiles are kept,
No matter how large the key,
Or strong the bolt, I would try so hard
'Twould open, I know, for me.
Then over the land and sea, broadcast,
I'd scatter the smiles to play,
That the children's faces might hold them fast
For many and many a day.
If I knew a box that was large enough
To hold all the frowns I meet,
I would like to gather them, every one,
From nursery, school and street.
Then, folding and holding, I'd pack them in,
And, turning the monster key,
I'd hire a giant to drop the box
To the depths of the deep, deep sea.
"Can you tell me what a smile is?" asked a gentleman of a little girl.
"Yes, sir; it's the whisper of a laugh."
SMOKING
"Have a cigar?"
"No--don't smoke now."
"Sworn off?"
"Nope; stopped entirely."
"Your wife doesn't kick about your smoking up the curtains."
"Nope, she can't have both curtains and coupons."
It was on a passenger train. The conductor in passing through observed
a man with a cigar in his mouth. "Hey, you can't smoke in here," he
bawled out.
"I'm not smoking," quietly replied the passenger.
"Well, you've got a cigar in your face," shot back the conductor.
"Suppose I have," continued the other good naturedly. "I've got feet
in my shoes and I'm not walking."
_Mark Twain: A Pipe Dream_
Well I recall how first I met
Mark Twain--an infant barely three
Rolling a tiny cigarette
While cooing on his nurse's knee.
Since then in every sort of place
I've met with Mark and heard him joke,
Yet how can I describe his face?
I never saw it for the smoke.
At school he won a smokership,
At Harvard College (Cambridge, Mass.)
His name was soon on every lip,
They made him "smoker" of his class.
Who will forget his smoking bout
With Mount Vesuvius--our cheers--
When Mount Vesuvius went out
And didn't smoke again for years?
The news was flashed to England's King,
Who begged Mark Twain to come and stay,
Offered his dukedoms--anything
To smoke the London fog away.
But Mark was firm. "I bow," said he,
"To no imperial command,
No ducal coronet for me,
My smoke is for my native land!"
For Mark there waits a brighter crown!
When Peter comes his card to read--
He'll take the sign "No smoking" down,
Then Heaven will be Heaven indeed.
--_Oliver Herford_.
SNOBBERY
A well-known society performer volunteered to entertain a roomful
of patients of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, and made up a very
successful little monologue show, entirely humorous. The audience
in the main gave symptoms of being slightly bored, but one highly
intelligent maniac saw the whole thing in the proper light, and,
clapping the talented actor on the shoulder, said: "Glad you've come
old fellow. You and I will get along fine. The other dippies here are
so dashed dignified. What I say is if a man is mad, he needn't put on
airs about it."
SOCIALISTS
"What's the difference between a socialist and a plutocrat?"
"There are many; but the leading one is that the former fights for his
principle and the latter for his interest."
SOCIETY
"Dad, what's a social scale?"
"Well, generally speaking old man, it's a place where money is
weighed."
REGULAR CUSTOMER--"I shall want a large quantity of flowers from you
next week for my daughter's coming out."
FLOWER WOMAN--"Yes, mum. You shall 'ave the very best for 'er, pore
dear. Wot were she put in for?"--_Punch_.
WILLIS--"What makes you think it is easier for a rich man to land in
Society than for an immigrant to land in America?"
GILLIS--"In the former case the literacy test isn't as strict."
AUNT--"You'll be late for the party, won't you, dear?"
NIECE--"Oh, no, auntie. In our set nobody goes to a party until
everybody else gets there."
Man it attracted to society by a desire to improve himself; and leaves
it for the same reason.
SOCIOLOGY
Catalog Class: "300 is the number for sociology. Now what does that
word mean to you, children?" One little girl stands up, smooths out
her frock, straightens her bow, folds her hands, and, being properly
adjusted to recite, exclaims: "Sociology is a science that teaches you
how to sew."
SOLDIERS
Noah would have saved future soldiers a lot of trouble if he had
swatted those two cooties when they marched up the gang plank of the
ark.
SOUND
Sound travels at the rate of 400 yards per second.
Exceptions to this rule:
Scandal: 1,000 yards.
Flattery: 500 yards.
Truth: 2-1/2 yards.
Alarm-clock:----?
SOUVENIRS
Secretary of State Lansing slipped out of the council chamber and went
souvenir hunting in the palace. Luck was with him, he said, for he
found a remarkable piece of antique wall-paper.
Next day a frantic Japanese stenographer was looking for his shorthand
notes.
SPECULATION
"My wife watches the sugar market closely."
"Speculating?"
"In a small way. She borrows when it's high and pays back when it's
low."
The old millionaire and his beautiful bride, after their quiet
wedding, had a quiet wedding breakfast _a deux_. Astrakhan
caviar, eggs pompadour, a truffled chicken, fresh California peas,
champagne--so the quiet breakfast ran.
"My dear," said the old millionaire, as the fruit course, a superb
Florida melon, came on, "tell me, dear"--and he laid his withered hand
on her young one--"do you love me for what I am or for what I was?"
The beautiful girl smiled down from the window into the admiring
eyes of a young clubman who was passing; then she bent her clear,
considering gaze on the gray ruin opposite and replied:
"I love you, George, for what you will be."
HARPER--"Foozle has a great scheme and he invited me 'to get in on the
ground floor.'"
CARPER--"Don't forget that that is where the trap-doors are."
HEWITT--"Don't you think I stand a good chance of making a fortune out
of that mine?"
JEWITT--"Out of it, yes. In it, no."
SPEED
Spurr, the keeper of the livery stable, would never allow a horse out
of his sight without giving the hirer strict injunctions not to drive
fast.
One day a caller asked for a horse to attend a funeral.
"Certainly," said Spurr, and then, forgetting the solemn purpose for
which his customer wanted the horse, he added, as usual, "Don't drive
fast!"
"Look here, old man," was the reply, "I would like you to understand
that I shall keep up with the procession if it kills the horse!"
INQUIRER (at South Station)--"Where does this train go?"
BRAKEMAN--"This train goes to New York in ten minutes."
INQUIRER--"Goodness! That's going some!"
With but three minutes to catch his train, the traveling salesman
inquired of the street-car conductor, "Can't you go faster than this?"
"Yes," the bell-ringer replied, "but I have to stay with my car."
"I was out over the speedway today, and in thirty seconds I did a mile
in four laps."
"That's nothing. I know a young lady who did thirty miles in one
lap, and she would have done more if I hadn't got a cramp in my
knees."--_Puck_.
A negro was on the stand in an Alabama courthouse testifying to the
details of a shooting scrape. The witness told how the prisoner at
the bar drew a revolver and began firing at one George Henry, and how
Henry ran to save himself.
"You say Henry ran?" interjected the lawyer for the defense.
"Dat's whut I said."
"You are sure he ran?"
"Sho" is!"
"Well, did he run fast?"
"Did he run fa--Say, boss, ef dat nigger had o' had one feather in his
hand he'd o' flew."
SPELLING
If an S and an I, and an O and a U,
With an X at the end spell "su,"
And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
Pray what is a speller to do?
Then if an S and an I and a G
And an H E D spell "side,"
There's nothing much for a speller to do
But go commit siouxeyesighed.
A Chicago man was walking through a foreign quarter of his city when,
with an amused smile, he stopped in front of a small eating-place, on
the window of which was painted in white, "Lam Stew."
Now the proprietor happened to be standing in the doorway, and when he
saw the smile of the gentleman who had stopped in front of his place
he asked to be favored with an explanation of the joke.
Whereupon the other explained about the missing "b" in "lamb," and
the proprietor accepted the correction in good part, at the same time
expressing his thanks.
When next the Chicago man passed that restaurant he found that the
menu had been changed, but that the lesson in orthography had not
been forgotten. The proprietor was now offering "Clamb Chowder."
--_Harper's_.
"The spelling-book's all wrong, mama! It don't look right for a little
thing like a kitten to have six letters and a big cat to only have
three."
"What did you learn at the school?" the boss asked the fair young
applicant for the stenographer's job.
"I learned," she replied, "that spelling is essential to a
stenographer."
The boss chuckled,
"Good. Now let me hear you spell 'essential.'"
The fair girl hesitated for the fraction of a second.
"There are three ways," she replied. "Which do you prefer?"
And she got the job.
JONES--"'Ow is your 'ealth today, Mr. 'Arrison?"
HARRISON--"My name is not 'Arrison."
JONES--"Well, if a haitch, a hay, two hars, a hi, a hes, a ho and a
hen don't spell 'Arrison, then what does it spell?"
A sailor was taken ill with a bad attack of rheumatism while
mine-sweeping on a trawler.
The sick man was promptly ordered to hospital, but later on the doctor
found out, quite by accident, that he was still on board ship.
Angrily he asked why his order had not been obeyed.
"Well," replied the captain, we tried to send him ashore, but a
sergeant of police hailed us and said that on no account was he to be
landed or we'd be fined £100, so we just kept him on board."
"But did you not signal to the depot, as I said."
"Yes, we did; but neither me nor the signalman knew how to spell
rheumatism, so we called it smallpox."
_O-U-G-H_
_A Fresh Hack at an Old Knot_
I'm taught p-l-o-u-g-h
S'all be pronounce "plow."
"Zat's easy w'en you know," I say,
"Mon Anglais, I'll get through!"
My teacher say zat in zat case,
O-u-g-h is "oo"
And zen I laugh and say to him,
"Zees Anglaiz make me cough."
He say "Not coo," but in zat word,
O-u-g-h is 'off'
Oh, Sacre bleu! such varied sounds
Of words makes me hiccough!
He say "Again mon frien' ees wrong;
O-u-g-h is 'up'
In hiccough." Zen I cry, "No more,
You make my t'roat feel rough."
"Non, non!" he cry, "you are hot right;
O-u-g-h is 'uff.'"
I say, "I try to spik your words,
I cannot spik zem though!"
"In time you'll learn, but now you're wrong!
O-u-g-h is 'owe.'"
"I'll try no more, I s'all go mad,
I'll drown me in ze lough!"
"But ere you drown yourself," said he,
"O-u-g-h is 'ock'."
He taught no more, I held him fast,
And killed him wiz a rough.
--_Charles Battell Loomis_.
"Pa, what's phonetic spelling?"
"It's a way of spelling that I often got whipped for when I was your
age."
"I say, Hodge, why do you always put 'dictated' on your letters? You
don't keep a stenographer."
"No; but to tell the truth, old chap, my spelling's exceedingly
rocky."
"And what did my little son learn about this morning?"
"Oh, a mouse. Miss Wilcox told us all about mouses."
"That's the boy! Now, how do you spell 'mouse'?"
It was then that Arthur gave promise of being an artful dodger. He
paused meditatively for a moment, then said:
"Father, I guess I was wrong. It wasn't a mouse teacher was telling us
about. It was a rat."
What does Ghoughphteightteau spell? Give it up?
Well, "gh" stands for "p" as in "hiccough"; "ough" stands for "o" as
in "dough"; "phth" stands for "t" as in "phthisis"; "eigh" stands for
"a" as in "neigh"; "tte" stands for "t" as in "gusitte," and
"eau" stands for "o" as in "beau." Put them together and you have
"P-O-T-A-T-O."
Easy, isn't it?
SPINSTERS
"Helen," said the teacher, "can you tell me what a 'myth' is?" "Yeth,
ma'am," lisped Helen; "it ith a woman that hath not got any huthband."
WILLIS--"Going to the party?"
GILLIS--"No. I haven't any lady."
WILLIS--"Come with me. I've got two extras."
GILLIS--"Who are they?"
WILLIS--"Miss Oldbud and Miss Passé."
GILLIS--"They're not extras. They're early editions."
"I'm glad Billy had the sense to marry an old maid," said grandma at
the wedding.
"Why, grandma?" asked the son.
"Well, gals is highty-tighty, and widders is kinder overrulin' and
upsettin'. But old maids is thankful and willin' to please."
CHARLES--"Girls wish they were men."
HERBERT--"Why do you say that?"
"Because spinsters like to call themselves 'bachelor girls,' but no
bachelor ever calls himself an 'old-maid man.'"
There is nothing like a good definition, as the teacher thought when
he explained the meaning of "old maid," as a woman who had been made a
long time.
STAMMERING
They were going home from school.
"Teacher said that that that that that girl used was superfluous."
"Here's the first pupil for my stammering school," said the business
man as he introduced himself.
STAMPS
At the post-office a little girl deposited a dime in front of the
clerk and said: "Please, I forgot the name of the stamp mama told me
to get, but it's the kind that makes a letter hurry up."
STATISTICS
"If a man had put a hundred dollars in a savings bank twenty years
ago," said the statistician after dinner, "it would amount to over two
hundred now, and he could buy almost as much for it now as he could
have got for the original hundred at the time he began to save."
STENOGRAPHERS
"How many stenographers have you?"
"Two."
"I've seen only one of them."
"Well, I've got a worse looking one to show my wife."
"I met your husband today and he was telling me that he is in love
with his work."
"Was he, indeed? I must take a look in at the office."
_A Long-Merited Toast_
I used to toast the royal queens
And queens of beauty rare;
I drained my glass to lovely lass
And to her eyes and hair;
But in these day of sober drinks
There's one whose health to me
Means vastly more than beauty or
The blood of royalty:
Here's to my stenographer!
Long faithful to her duty.
She'd win no prize for vampish eyes;
Her freckles mar her beauty.
Here's to her! Her specs! Her brain!
I pledge her health in water!
Cool, sober, staid, a precious maid;
I love her--like a daughter!
She keeps my creditors at bay,
Admitting only debtors;
Collects the rent when she is sent,
Or writes dry business letters;
She always puts her fingers on
The paper I require;
Sums I can't add she's always glad
To do, and doesn't tire.
Here's to her bonny, busy hands!
They never are erratic.
I hope that they will type away
For years, nor grow rheumatic!
Here's to her modest salary!
(I'd blush if I should tell it!)
But for her grit I'd have to quit
My business--couldn't sell it.
_--Stanley R. Hofflund_.
A Chicago banker dictating a letter to his stenographer. "Tell Mr.
Soandso," he ordered, "that I will meet him in Schenectady."
"How do you spell Schenectady?" asked the stenographer.
"S-c, S-c--er--er--er--- Tell him I'll meet him in Albany."
Stenographers can nod sometimes, even with the accuracy of the
dictating machine. Recently a merchant dictating into one of these
machines said:
"The gentleman in question has sold our products in Hayti for a period
of over two years, and we have always found him satisfactory in every
detail."
All came out all right in the transcription except one word, and
that word was the change from Hayti to Hades! And the letter, being
"dictated but not read," went!
"I seem to remember that girl. Who is she?"
"She was my typewriter last year."
"She's charming! Why did she leave you?"
"She was too conscientious for me. One day I proposed marriage to
her, and what do you think she did? She took all that I said down in
shorthand and brought it, nicely type-written, for me to sign!"
STOCK EXCHANGE
AUNT JANE (at the Stock Exchange)--"With seats selling at $60,000, no
wonder they are all standing up."
FOOTLIGHT--"I see another seat at the Stock Exchange has been sold for
$55,000."
Miss SUE BEETTE--"Wouldn't it be awful if the man who paid for it
found it was right behind a post!"
STRATEGY
WILLIE WILLIS--"Pa, what's strategy?"
PAPA WILLIS--"Usually darn poor judgment that happens to work out all
right."
A young lady took down the receiver and discovered that the telephone
was in use. "I just put on a pan of beans for dinner," she heard one
woman complacently informing another.
She hung up the receiver, and waited. Three times she waited, and
then, exasperated, she broke into the conversation.
"Madam, I smell your beans burning," she announced crisply. A
horrified scream greeted the remark, and the young lady was able to
put in her call.
A lady entered a railroad-car and took a seat in front of a newly
married couple. She was hardly seated before they began making remarks
about her.
Her last year's bonnet and coat were fully criticised with more or
less giggling on the bride's part, and there is no telling what
might have come next if the lady had not put a sudden stop to the
conversation by a bit of strategy.
She turned her head, noticed that the bride was considerably older
than the groom, and, in the smoothest of tones, said:
"Madam, will you please ask your son to close the window?"
The "son" closed his mouth, and the bride no longer giggled.
"Fore!" shouted the golfer, ready to play.
But the woman on the course paid no attention.
"Fore!" he repeated, with not a bit more effect than the first time.
"Try her with 'Three ninety-eight,'" suggested his partner. "She may
be one of those bargain-counter fiends."
Hans and Fritz, two small boys, had gone to the rink to skate. Hans's
overcoat hampered him and he wanted to get rid of it. The German
coat-room person does not check your coat unless you pay your fee.
The fee was only a penny, but Hans did not have the penny. He was at a
loss.
"Huh! it's dead easy," spoke up Fritz. "Give me your overcoat. I'll
take it to the man at the checking place and say I found it. He'll
put it away. When you are ready to go home you go to him and ask if
anybody has turned a lost overcoat in to him. Then, of course, you'll
get yours."
STREET-CARS
A very pretty but extremely slender girl entered a street car and
managed to seat herself in a narrow space between two men. Presently a
portly colored mammy entered the car, and the pretty miss, thinking to
humiliate the men for lack of gallantry, arose.
"Aunty," she said, with a wave of her hand toward the place she had
just vacated, "take my seat."
"Thank you, missy," replied the colored woman, smiling broadly, "but
which gen'man's lap was you sittin' on?"
"Madam," said the man in the street-car, "I know I ought to get up and
give you my seat, but unfortunately I've recently joined the Sit Still
Club."
"That's all right, sir," replied the woman. "And you must excuse
me for staring at you so hard: I am a member of the Stand and Stare
Club."
She proved herself so active and conscientious a member that the man
began to feel uncomfortable under her gaze. Finally he rose and
said: "Take my seat, madam; I guess I'll resign from my club and join
yours."
STRIKES
TEACHER--"Now, if I paid one man two dollars a day for seven days,
another three dollars and fifty cents for ten days, and another four
dollars and seventy-five cents for six days--"
REDDY BACKROW (whose father belongs to the union)--"You'd have the
durndest strike on your hands you ever saw, teacher."
"Everybody's striking,"
Said the Old Clock on the shelf;
"It seems to be the fashion.
So I think I'll strike myself.
"But striking is my business--
Did you ever see such luck
I'll have to give up striking
Just to show folks that I've struck!"
THE LADY-"So you're really one of the strikers?"
THE LOAFER-"Yus, lidy. I'm wot they call one o' the pioneers o' the
movement. I went on strike twenty-three years ago, lidy, and I ain't
never give in yet."
A strike is not a "brake on industry." It's a displaced switch.
THE FATHER--"But have you enough money to marry my daughter?"
THE SUITOR--"Well, sir, at the moment I only get 300 francs a month,
but by going on strike every other month for higher wages, I shall be
getting 1,000 francs by the end of the year."
EMPLOYER--"There's a spirit of unrest among my men."
VISITOR--"What about?"
EMPLOYER--"Because they can not find any excuse to go out on a
strike."--_Judge_.
SUBSTITUTES
Speaking of substitutes for gasoline, there is the street-car ticket.
"Neurasthenia," said Mrs. Biggums to her cook, "I think we will have
some chicken croquettes today out of that leftover pork and calves'
liver."
"Yes'm," said Neurasthenia, called Teeny for short. "An' we got a
little bread dressin' what went wid the pork, mum. Shall I make some
apple sauce out'n hit, mum?"
A very pretty young woman had been asked to dinner by the mother of a
young man who admired her very much.
While waiting for dinner to be announced the four-year-old niece
of the young man came into the room and climbed into the lap of her
uncle, of whom she seemed very fond.
The young lady said coaxingly: "Come, Mary, give me a kiss"; but the
child hid her face on her uncle's arm. The young woman urged the child
to come to her, saying again: "Won't you give me a kiss?"
The little girl said: "No, I don't want to." Then she brightened up
and said: "Uncle Fred, you do it."
"Your honor," said the prosecuting attorney, "your bull pup has went
and chawed up the court Bible."
"Well," grumbled the Court, "make the witness kiss the pup; we can't
adjourn court to get a new Bible."
MR. NEWLYWED--"Did you sew the button on my coat, darling?"