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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-03-03 18:54:33 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-03-03 18:54:33 -0800 |
| commit | 03acfe126d9ef15a3d44b05774e25b44af4ad993 (patch) | |
| tree | c0d84ef385ccd0522731414cd1aae50a7eea9973 | |
| parent | 44444d27a15a90fbcb6611b43d7ec0a1e7445524 (diff) | |
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diff --git a/44643-h.zip b/44643-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..11460be --- /dev/null +++ b/44643-h.zip diff --git a/44643-h/44643-h.htm b/44643-h/44643-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2850b87 --- /dev/null +++ b/44643-h/44643-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5808 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Funny Bone, by Various Authors. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:4%;} + +h2.b {font-size:175%;} + +.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold;} + +.r {text-align:right;margin-right: 5%;} + +small {font-size: 80%;} + + h1 {margin-top:5%;text-align:center;clear:both;} + + h2 {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:1%;text-align:center;clear:both; + font-size:105%;} + + @media print, handheld +{h2 +{page-break-before: always;} +} + + hr {width:10%;margin:2em auto 2em auto;clear:both;color:black;} + + hr.full {width: 50%;margin:5% auto 5% auto;border:4px double gray;} + + table {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;text-align:left;} + + body{margin-left:2%;margin-right:2%;background:#fdfdfd;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:100%;} + + img {border:none;} + +.figcenter {margin-top:3%;margin-bottom:3%; +margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +div.poetry {text-align:center;} +div.poem {font-size:90%;margin:auto auto;text-indent:0%; +display: inline-block; text-align: left;} +.poem .stanza {margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom:1em;} +.poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: .45em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 3em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i5 {display: block; margin-left: 5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + +</style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Funny Bone, edited by Henry Martyn Kieffer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: The Funny Bone + Short Stories and Amusing Anecdotes for a Dull Hour + +Editor: Henry Martyn Kieffer + +Release Date: January 11, 2014 [EBook #44643] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FUNNY BONE *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="426" height="550" alt="bookcover" title="bookcover" /></a> +</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/header.png" width="450" height="59" alt="The Funny Bone" title="" /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/titlepagea.png" width="450" height="159" alt="The Funny Bone" title="THE FUNNY BONE" /> +</p> + +<p class="cb">SHORT STORIES AND AMUSING<br /> +ANECDOTES FOR A DULL HOUR<br /> +<br /> +EDITED AND ARRANGED BY<br /> +HENRY MARTYN KIEFFER<br /> +<br /> +<small>Author of “The Recollections of a<br /> +Drummer Boy,” “It is to Laugh,” etc.</small><br /> +<br /> +<img src="images/titlepageb.png" width="40" height="57" alt="colophon" title="" /> +<br /><br /> +NEW YORK : : : DODGE<br /> +PUBLISHING COMPANY<br /> +214-220 East 23d Street<br /> +<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a><br /> +Copyright, 1910, by<br /> +DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/header.png" width="450" height="59" alt="The Funny Bone" title="" /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr><td align="right" colspan="2"><small>Page</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#GOOD_AFTER-DINNER_SPEECH">A good after-dinner speech</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_016">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#AFTERNOON_TEAS">Afternoon teas</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_174">174</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ALEXANDER">Alexander</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_046">46</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ALMOST_WON_THE_BET">Almost won the bet</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_023">23</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ANY_PORT_IN_A_STORM">Any port in a storm</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_034">34</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ARTEMUS_WARD_AT_THE_THEATRE">Artemus Ward at the theatre</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_159">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#AWFUL_LOT_OF_PRACTICE">Awful lot of practice, an</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_135">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#AXIOMS">Axioms</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_014">14</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#BASHFUL_BRIDEGROOM">Bashful bridegroom, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_084">84</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#BOO">Boo!</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_096">96</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#BOOMERANG_STORIES">Boomerang stories</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_113">113</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#BRANDIED_PEACHES">Brandied peaches</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_063">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PROMISING_BUSINESS_BOY">Business boy, a promising</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHIEF_END_OF_MAN">Chief end of man, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_173">173</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CLERICAL_CORKSCREW">Clerical corkscrew, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_172">172</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#COLLEGE_TRICK">College trick, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_031">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#COLORED_APOSTLES">Colored apostles</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_094">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#COSTLY_DODGE">Costly dodge, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_164">164</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HE_COULDNT_CATCH_UP">Couldn’t catch up</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_047">47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#COULDNT_HELP_CRYING">Couldn’t help crying</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_164">164</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CRANKY_COUPLE">Cranky couple, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_069">69</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SURE_CURE_FOR_SNORING">Cure for snoring, sure</a><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_078">78</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#DEACON_BALKED">Deacon balked, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_180">180</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#DELIRIOUS">Delirious</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#DIFFERENCE_WITHOUT_A_DISTINCTION">Difference without distinction, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_176">176</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#DISTURBING_THE_SOLEMNITY">Disturbing the solemnity</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_049">49</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#DOING_THE_DONS">Doing the dons</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_187">187</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#DOLLARS">“Dollars to doughnuts”</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_066">66</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#DUTCH_CONUNDRUM">Dutch conundrum, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_091">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ECCENTRIC_GREAT_MAN">Eccentric great man, an</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_138">138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ECHO">Echo, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_054">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#INTERESTING_EPITAPHS">Epitaphs, interesting</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_170">170</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#EXEUNT_OMNES">Exeunt omnes</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_187">187</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#EXTREMES_MEET">Extremes meet</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_060">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FARM_ACCIDENTS">Farm accidents</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_098">98</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FAST_TRAIN">Fast train, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_167">167</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FINALLY_THE_WORM_TURNED">Finally the worm turned</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_126">126</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FIRE_SCREEN">Fire screen, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_062">62</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FIRST_CLASS">First class</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_144">144</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FLANK_MOVEMENT">Flank movement, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_102">102</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FOOL_ACCORDING_TO_HIS_FOLLY">Fool according to his folly, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_047">47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#FORBIDDEN_FRUIT">Forbidden fruit, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_107">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#GETTING_A_WIFE">Getting a wife</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_155">155</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#GOD_BLESS_OUR_HOME">“God bless our home”</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_026">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#GO_TO_FATHER">Go to father</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_169">169</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#GOOD_EAR">Good ear, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_178">178</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#GREAT_COUNTRY">Great country, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_097">97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HARD_WITNESS">Hard witness, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HE_CUT_IT_SHORT">He cut it short</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_100">100</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HE_DIDNT_GET_IT_IN_THE_NECK">He didn’t get it in the neck</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HE_WARNED_HER">He warned her</a><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_090">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HOW_THE_YOUNG_IDEA_SHOOTS">How the young idea shoots</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_058">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HOW_TO_CATCH_A_MULE">How to catch a mule</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_058">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ILL-ASSORTED_COUPLE">Ill-assorted couple</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_041">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IMPOSSIBLE_BUT_FUNNY">Impossible, but funny</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#INCORRIGIBLE">Incorrigible</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_091">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#INQUISITIVE_BOY">Inquisitive boy, an</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_026">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IN_SEARCH_OF_A_RESTAURANT">In search of a restaurant</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_076">76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IN_THE_CLASS-ROOM">In the class-room</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_074">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IN_THE_WAY_THEY_SHOULD_GO">In the way they should go</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_147">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#IT_WOULDNT_WORK">It wouldn’t work</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_151">151</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#KEEN_CUTTERS">Keen cutters</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_108">108</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#KEEPING_A_SECRET">Keeping a secret</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#KICKIN">Kickin’, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_085">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#KNIGHT_ERRANT">Knight errant, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_165">165</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#KNIGHTLY_CONUNDRUM">Knightly conundrum, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_176">176</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LAUGHED_IT_OUT_OF_COURT">Laughed it out of court</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_057">57</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LEFT-HANDED_COMPLIMENTS">Left-handed compliments</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_139">139</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LINCOLN_STORY">Lincoln story, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_018">18</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ANOTHER_LINCOLN_STORY">Lincoln story, another</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_019">19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LIONIZED">Lionized</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_056">56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LITERATURE_MADE_EASY">Literature made easy</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_077">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LOGIC_IS_LOGIC">Logic is logic</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_055">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LOGIC_OF_GRAMMAR">Logic of grammar, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_135">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LONELY_PLACE">Lonely place, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_103">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#LOUDER">Louder</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_029">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#MEAN_COMPANY">Mean company, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_131">131</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#MICHAEL_MALONEYS">Michael Maloney’s serenade</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_015">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#MILLINERYMANIA">Millinerymania</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#MOUNTED">“Mounted?”</a><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_064">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#NAMES_FOR_THE_TWINS">Names for the twins</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_059">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#NAMING_THE_APOSTLES">Naming the apostles</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#NEAR_THE_END_OF_HIS_JOURNEY">Near the end of his journey</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_095">95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#NOT_GOOD_LOOKING">Not good looking</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#NO_THOROUGHFARE">No thoroughfare</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_148">148</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#NO_WATER_IN_HIS">No water in his</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#OLD_HOSS">“Old Hoss!”</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_048">48</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#OLD_MAN_SNUCKLES">Old Man Snuckles</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_075">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ON_THE_POINT_OF_A_NEEDLE">On the point of a needle</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_154">154</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ONE_PLACE_OR_THE_OTHER">One place or the other</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_028">28</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#OTHER_EYE">Other eye, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#HIS_PART_IN_THE_PLAY">Part in the play, his</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_172">172</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PEPPER-SAUCE">Pepper-sauce</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_027">27</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#POOR_BUSINESS_LOCATION">Poor business location, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_081">81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#POOR">Poor, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_036">36</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PRAYER_THAT_WAS_ANSWERED">Prayer that was answered, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_025">25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PRICE_OF_A_DOG">Price of a dog, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_104">104</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PROTECTING_THE_MINISTER">Protecting the minister</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_182">182</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PUNISHMENT_MADE_SURE">Punishment made sure</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_083">83</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#PURE_SCOTCH">Pure Scotch</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_124">124</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#RABBITS_ENOUGH">Rabbits enough</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_094">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#RAISING_CAIN">Raising Cain</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_129">129</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#REAR_GUARD">Rear guard, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_112">112</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#REST_AND_A_CHANGE">Rest and a change, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_140">140</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#RIGHT-OF-WAY">Right-of-way, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_179">179</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#ROUGH_ON_THE_DEACON">Rough on the deacon</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_093">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#RURAL_JUSTICE">Rural justice</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_121">121</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SAME_OLD_KIND">Same old kind, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_141">141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SANCTUM">Sanctum, the</a><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_156">156</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SHARP_REPROOF">Sharp reproof, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_150">150</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SHARPENING_THEIR_WITS">Sharpening their wits</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_041">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SHE_CAME_TO_HIS_AID">She came to his aid</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_161">161</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SHE_DRIED_UP">She dried up</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_020">20</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SHREWD_SELECTION">Shrewd selection, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_177">177</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SHY_BOARDER">Shy boarder, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_176">176</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SLOW_COACH">Slow coach, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_168">168</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SNOLLIGOSTER">Snolligoster, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_039">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SO_MANY_BALD_HEADS">So many bald heads</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_070">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SHE_SPOILED_THE_POETRY">She spoiled the poetry</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_171">171</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#STRONGEST_MAN">Strongest man, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_042">42</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#STUTTERERS">Stutterers, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_044">44</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SUDDEN_RISE">Sudden rise, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_048">48</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#SURE_THING">Sure thing, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_133">133</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TACT_AND_NO_TACT">Tact and no tact</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_052">52</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TALE_OF_A_SAUSAGE">Tale of a sausage, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_082">82</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TECHNIQUE">Technique</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_051">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TEMPERANCE_A_HUNDRED_YEARS">Temperance a hundred years ago</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_037">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THACKERAY_AND_THE_OYSTER">Thackeray and the oyster</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_166">166</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THAT_TERRIBLE_INFANT">That terrible infant</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_022">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#THREE_ASSES">Three asses, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_073">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TIMELY_ANSWER">Timely answer, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_021">21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TOO_YOUNG">Too young</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_080">80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TOUGH_GOOSE-YARN">Tough goose-yarn, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_142">142</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TURKEY_WAS_TAME">Turkey was tame, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_112">112</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#TWO_POLITE_AND_SPUNKY_BOYS">Two polite and spunky boys</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_067">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#UNANIMOUS_ACTION">Unanimous action</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_174">174</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#USE_OF_RICHES">Use of riches</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_024">24</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#VERY_GOOD_INVESTMENT">Very good investment, a</a><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_034">34</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WALLA_WALLA">Walla Walla!</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_183">183</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WHAT_THE_STATUTE_DID_NOT_SAY">What the statute did not say</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_017">17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WHOD_A_BIN_ER">“Who’d ’a’ bin ’er?”</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_147">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WHY_HE_WAS_A_DEMOCRAT">Why he was a democrat</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_125">125</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WHY_THE_HAWKEYE_MAN_COULDNT_PAY">Why the Hawkeye man couldn’t pay</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_105">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WHY_THEY_MARRIED">Why they married</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_042">42</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WICKED_PARROT">Wicked parrot, the</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_185">185</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WIND_AND_WATER">Wind and water</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_072">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#WONDERFUL_CLIMATE">Wonderful climate, a</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_099">99</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#YANKEES">Yankees, the—</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_038">38</a></td></tr> + +</table> + +<p><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a></p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Laugh and grow fat is a saying of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whether or no ’tis a cause of obesity,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">This much I know that the physical man<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Laughter demands as a kind of necessity.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Laughter demands as a kind of necessity.”<br /></span> +<span class="i8">—<i>Old Song.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="AXIOMS" id="AXIOMS"></a>AXIOMS</h2> + +<p>Tew brake a mule—commence at his head.</p> + +<p>In shooting at a deer that looks like a calf, +always aim so as to miss it if it iz a calf, and to +hit it if it iz a deer.</p> + +<p>Tew git rid of cock-roaches—sell yure house, +and lot, and flee tew the mountains.</p> + +<p>Tew pick out a good husband—shut up both +eyes, grab hard, and trust in the Lord.</p> + +<p>There ain’t nothing that iz a sure kure for +laziness, but i hav known a second wife tew +hurry it sum.</p> + +<p class="r"> +<i>Josh Billings Allminax.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a></p> + +<h2 class="b"><a name="MICHAEL_MALONEYS" id="MICHAEL_MALONEYS"></a>Michael Maloney’s<br /> +Serenade</h2> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, Nora McCune!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Is it draimin’ ye are?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is it wakin’ or shleepin’ ye be?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">’Tis the dark of the moon<br /></span> +<span class="i1">An’ there’s niver a star<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To watch if ye’re peepin’ at me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Throw opin yer blind, shweet love, if ye’re there;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">An’ if ye are not, plaze be shpakin’;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An’ if ye’re inclined, ye might bring yer guitah,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">An’ help me, me darlint to wakin’.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I am lonely! Ahone!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">An’ I’m Michael Maloney,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Awakin’ shweet Nora McCune.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For, love, I’m alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">An’ here’s Larrie Mahoney,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An’ Dinnis O’Rouk an’ Muldoon.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I’ve brought them to jine in the song I’ll be singin’;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For, Nora, shweet Nora McCune,<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ye’ve shtarted me heart-strings so loudly to ringin’,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">One person can’t carry the chune!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">But don’t be unaisy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Me darlint, for fear<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Our saicrit of love should be tould.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mahoney is crazy,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">An’ Dinnis can’t hear;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Muldoon is struck dum wid a could.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their backs are all facin’ the window, me dear;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">An’ they’ve shworn by the horn of the moon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That niver a note of me song will they hear<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That refers to shweet Nora McCune.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<h2><a name="GOOD_AFTER-DINNER_SPEECH" id="GOOD_AFTER-DINNER_SPEECH"></a>A GOOD AFTER-DINNER SPEECH</h2> + +<p>It was his first banquet, and they were making +speeches. Everybody was being called on +for a speech, and he was in mortal terror, for +he had never made a speech in his life. An old-timer +at his side cruelly suggested that he “get +under the table—or say a prayer.” His name +was called and he got up with fear and trembling, +and said:</p> + +<p>“My friends, I never made a speech in all my<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> +life, and I’m just scared nearly to death. A +friend here beside me has suggested two +things for me to do—to get under the table, or +to pray. Well, I couldn’t get under the table +without observation, and now that I am on my +feet, I can’t think of any other prayer to say +except one that I used to hear my sister Mary +say in the morning when mother called us—‘O +Lord, how I do hate to get up!’”</p> + +<h2><a name="WHAT_THE_STATUTE_DID_NOT_SAY" id="WHAT_THE_STATUTE_DID_NOT_SAY"></a>WHAT THE STATUTE DID NOT SAY</h2> + +<p>When Benjamin F. Butler lived in Lowell, +Massachusetts, he had a little black-and-tan +dog. One morning, as he was coming down +the street, followed by the dog, a policeman +stopped him and told him that, in accordance +with an ordinance just passed, he must muzzle +the dog.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said Butler.</p> + +<p>Next morning he came along with the dog, +and the policeman again told him of the muzzling +ordinance and requested him to muzzle +the dog.</p> + +<p>“All right,” snorted Butler. “It is a fool<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> +ordinance, but I’ll muzzle him. Let me +pass.”</p> + +<p>Next morning the policeman was on the +lookout. “I beg your pardon, General,” he +said, “but I must arrest you. Your dog is not +muzzled.”</p> + +<p>“Not muzzled?” shouted Butler. “Not muzzled? +Well, look at him.”</p> + +<p>The policeman looked more carefully at the +dog and found a tiny, toy muzzle tied to its +tail.</p> + +<p>“General,” he expostulated, “this dog is not +properly muzzled.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he is, sir,” asserted Butler. “Yes, he +is. I have examined that idiotic statute and I +find it says that every dog must wear a muzzle. +It doesn’t say where the dog shall wear the +muzzle, and I choose to decorate the tail of +my dog instead of the head with this infernal +contraption.”</p> + +<h2><a name="LINCOLN_STORY" id="LINCOLN_STORY"></a>A LINCOLN STORY</h2> + +<p>“One day,” said General Howard, “Mr. Lincoln +saw Senator Fessenden coming toward +his office room. Mr. Fessenden had received<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> +the promise of some appointment in Maine for +one of his constituents. The case had been +overlooked. As soon as Mr. Lincoln caught +sight of the Senator he saw he was angry, and +called out: ‘Say, Fessenden, aren’t you an +Episcopalian?’ Mr. Fessenden, somewhat +taken aback, answered, ‘Yes, I belong to that +persuasion, Mr. President.’ Mr. Lincoln then +said, ‘I thought so. You swear so much like +Seward. Seward is an Episcopalian. But, you +ought to hear Stanton swear. He can beat you +both. He is a Presbyterian.’”</p> + +<h2><a name="ANOTHER_LINCOLN_STORY" id="ANOTHER_LINCOLN_STORY"></a>ANOTHER LINCOLN STORY</h2> + +<p>Some one once called on President Lincoln +during the war to suggest some change of +command for General B——, who did not seem +to do well as a commander anywhere. “Well,” +said Mr. Lincoln, “that’s so. General B—— +doesn’t fit in well anywhere. He reminds me +of an experience I once had with a piece of +iron I found while at work in the woods. I +thought it would make a good axe-head, and +took it to a blacksmith. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘it’ll<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> +make a good axe.’ So he put it into the fire, +made it red-hot and pounded away on it on his +anvil. After hammering it a good while, he +stopped and said, ‘No, it won’t make an axe, +but I tell you, it’ll make a mighty good clevis.’ +So I told him to make a clevis out of it. Then +he heated it again, and again pounded away +at it a great while, and then stopped and looked +at it and said, ‘No, it won’t make a clevis +neither. But,’ said he, holding it red-hot in his +pincers over his tub of water, ‘I’ll tell you what +it will make. It will make a blame’ good fizzle.’ +And here he dropped it into the tub—and it +fizzled.”</p> + +<h2><a name="SHE_DRIED_UP" id="SHE_DRIED_UP"></a>SHE DRIED UP</h2> + +<p>The occupants of a Pullman sleeper were +diligently trying to get some rest, but could +not. There was a very thirsty woman in one +of the berths who kept the whole car awake by +her perpetual song of—“Oh, I am so dry. I +am so dry. My, but I am dry. Dear me, what +shall I do? I am so dry.”</p> + +<p>“Hello, Porter!” at last sang out a gentleman +across the way, “For Heaven’s sake give<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> +that woman some ice water, and plenty of it. +I want to get some sleep.”</p> + +<p>The Porter brought a glass of water. He +brought a second glass. She drank them both—and +took up her song afresh—</p> + +<p>“My, but I was dry. I was so dry. I never +was so dry in all my life. Dear me, but I was +dry.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Great Scott, woman,” sang out the man +across the way, “dry up, and let me sleep!”</p> + +<h2><a name="TIMELY_ANSWER" id="TIMELY_ANSWER"></a>A TIMELY ANSWER</h2> + +<p>In the good old days of the rod of birch a +Philadelphia school teacher was very partial to +one of his boys, and very severe to another. +One day they were both tardy. Rod in hand +he called them both up on the floor. “James, +my boy,” said he to the favorite regretfully, but +kindly, “why were you late to-day?” “You +see, sir,” replied James, “I was asleep, sir, and +I dreamed I was going to California, and I was +down on the wharf, and I thought the school-bell +was the bell of the steamboat.” “That +will do, my boy,” said the teacher, glad of an +excuse to shield his favorite, “always tell the<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> +truth, my boy. And now, sir,” said he to the +other sternly, “and where were you?” “You, +see, sir,” said the other candidly, “I was down +on the wharf waitin’ to see Jim off!”</p> + +<h2><a name="THAT_TERRIBLE_INFANT" id="THAT_TERRIBLE_INFANT"></a>THAT TERRIBLE INFANT</h2> + +<p>Annie had a beau. She also had a small +brother of the proverbially troublesome age of +five. One day at the dinner table they were +teasing Annie about Mr. Lovejoy—that was +the beau’s name—and Annie declared that she +didn’t like him one bit, and said moreover that +Mr. Lovejoy “had a soft spot in his head.” +That called off the dogs, for a time at least, but +her brother Bobbie took note.</p> + +<p>The next evening Mr. Lovejoy called to see +Annie. They were both in the parlor. He was +sitting on the sofa, and she occupied a chair on +the other side of the room. Bobbie strolled +into the room, climbed up on the sofa and began +a very diligent examination of Mr. Lovejoy’s +head. He felt all over it, and looked puzzled. +Mr. Lovejoy was puzzled likewise, and +at length said, “Why, Bobbie, what are you ex<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a>amining +my head for? Are you studying +phrenology?” “No,” said the boy, “Sister Annie +says you have a soft spot on your head +somewhere, and I was just trying to find it!”</p> + +<p>They made it up somehow, and Mr. Lovejoy +began to call again, evidently with better results. +For, one rainy day the father of the +household was looking everywhere in the hall +for his umbrella. “Where’s my umbrella, Annie?” +asked he. “I believe somebody has carried +it off.” And Bobbie said, “Annie’s beau +stole it.” And Annie said, “Bobbie! how dare +you say such a thing of Mr. Lovejoy?” And +Bobbie said, “I know he did, because when he +was giving you good-night at the hat-rack last +night, I heard him say as plain as could be, +‘I’m going to steal just one!’”</p> + +<h2><a name="ALMOST_WON_THE_BET" id="ALMOST_WON_THE_BET"></a>ALMOST WON THE BET</h2> + +<p>Two Irish hod-carriers were arguing about +their ability to carry their hods safely to the +top of a high building. One said he could carry +a tumbler of water on top of his load without +spilling a drop. And Pat said, “Ach! a tumbler<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> +of water! Why, Mike, I could carry you in my +hod to the top of this ten-story buildin’ without +spillin’ you.” And Mike said, “I bet you +tin dollars you can’t.” “Done!” said Pat. “Get +into my hod.”</p> + +<p>Mike got in, and up Pat went quickly and +safely until he came to the sixth floor, when +all of a sudden his foot slipped off the rung of +the ladder and his hod pitched, threatening to +deposit its cargo on the sidewalk seventy-five +feet below. But with a mighty effort he +steadied himself, grasped his hod tight and +proceeded to the top safely, where he deposited +Mike on the floor of the scaffolding with, +“There, Mike, I’ve won the bet. Out wid yer +tin dollars.” “Sure, ye did, Pat,” said Mike, +“the tin is yours, but whin ye got to the sixth +flure, an’ stoombled—be gob, I thought I had +ye!”</p> + +<h2><a name="USE_OF_RICHES" id="USE_OF_RICHES"></a>THE USE OF RICHES</h2> + +<p>In a sleeping car one morning not long ago a +Vermont man was accosted by his neighbor +opposite, who was putting on his shoes, with +the inquiry: “My friend, allow me to inquire,<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> +are you a rich man?” The Vermonter +looked astonished, but answered the pleasant-faced, +tired-looking gentleman with a “Yes, I +am tolerably rich.” A pause occurred, and +then came another question, “How rich are +you?” He answered, “Oh—about seven or +eight hundred thousand. Why?” “Well,” said +the weary-looking old man, “if I were as rich +as you say you are, and went traveling, and +snored as loud as I know you do, I’d hire a +whole sleeper all for myself every time I went +traveling.”</p> + +<h2><a name="PRAYER_THAT_WAS_ANSWERED" id="PRAYER_THAT_WAS_ANSWERED"></a>A PRAYER THAT WAS ANSWERED</h2> + +<p>An old darkey who was asked if in his experience +prayer was ever answered, replied: +“Well, sah, some pra’rs is ansud an’ some isn’t—’pends +on what yo’ asks fo’? Jest arter de +wah, w’en it was mighty hard scratchin’ fo’ de +cullud brudren, I ’bsarved dat w’enebber I +pway de Lo’d to sen’ one o’ Massa Peyton’s +fat turkeys fo’ de ole man, dere was no notice +took o’ de partition; but—w’en I pway dat he +would sen’ de ole man fo’ de turkey, de ting<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> +was ’tended to befo’ sunup nex’ mornin’ dead +sartain.”</p> + +<h2><a name="GOD_BLESS_OUR_HOME" id="GOD_BLESS_OUR_HOME"></a>GOD BLESS OUR HOME</h2> + +<p>A lonely traveler on horseback, riding +through a dreary section of the far West, +eagerly scanned the horizon for some signs of +a human habitation. At last away in the distance +he spied a cabin, put his horse to a trot, +only to find the house deserted. Nailed on the +front door was a sheet of paper on which he +read the following pathetic story:</p> + +<p>Five miles from water.</p> + +<p>Ten miles from timber.</p> + +<p>A hundred miles from a neighbor.</p> + +<p>A hundred and fifty miles from a post office.</p> + +<p>Two hundred and fifty from a railroad.</p> + +<p>God bless our home!</p> + +<p>We have gone East to spend the winter with +my wife’s folks.</p> + +<h2><a name="INQUISITIVE_BOY" id="INQUISITIVE_BOY"></a>AN INQUISITIVE BOY</h2> + +<p>Bobbie was taken to church for the first +time, and his dear Aunt Lou, who took him +there, “just wondered how he would behave.<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a>” +She soon discovered, for Bobbie was no sooner +seated in the pew than he observed a very +bald-headed man two seats to the front, and +exclaimed in a loud whisper which set everybody +smiling, “Oh, Aunt Lou! there’s a man +with a skinned head!” Aunt Lou’s face was +crimson, and she shook him, but it did little +good, for when the minister took his place in +the chancel, the boy remarked, “Another man +with a skinned head!” Things were getting +uncomfortable, and reached their climax when +the boy, seeing the choir up in the gallery, +called out, “Oh, Aunt Lou! what are all those +people doing up there on the mantel-piece?”</p> + +<h2><a name="PEPPER-SAUCE" id="PEPPER-SAUCE"></a>PEPPER-SAUCE</h2> + +<p>Once upon a time there was a minister, a +very orthodox man, and he was very fond of +pepper-sauce, and he liked it piping hot, the +very strongest kind on the market. Distrusting +that furnished by the hotels, he always +carried with him on his travels a bottle of his +favorite brand. One day as he was seated at +the dinner table of a hotel, a man on the other<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> +side of the table asked him to “please pass the +pepper-sauce.” “Certainly,” said he, “with +pleasure. This bottle is my own private property, +I always carry it with me. I think you +will find it very good.” The man helped himself +freely, and when he had got done coughing +and had recovered enough breath to enable +him to speak, he said: “Pardon me, sir. I believe +you are a preacher?” “Yes, that is my calling +in life.” “An orthodox preacher, I presume?” +“Yes, sir.” “And you really believe in hell-fire?” +“Yes—I feel it my duty to warn the inpenitent +of their danger.” “And you do preach +and believe in a literal hell-fire?” “I cannot +do otherwise with the Scriptures before me.” +“Well”—said the man, “I have met a good +many preachers in my time who believe and +preach just as you do, sir, but I must say I +never before met a man who carries his samples +with him.”</p> + +<h2><a name="ONE_PLACE_OR_THE_OTHER" id="ONE_PLACE_OR_THE_OTHER"></a>ONE PLACE OR THE OTHER</h2> + +<p>“When I get to heaven,” said Brown, as he +laid down the book he had been reading<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a>—“when +I get to heaven, the very first person +I want to see will be Shakespeare.”</p> + +<p>“And what do you want to see Shakespeare +for?” inquired his wife.</p> + +<p>“Why, I just want to ask him whether he +wrote his own plays, or whether he got some +one else to write them for him, and have this +question settled.”</p> + +<p>“Well, but”—objected his wife, “how do you +know he’ll be there? Not all people will get to +heaven.”</p> + +<p>“That’s so, that’s so,” said Brown meditatively. +“Well, I’ll tell you what we’ll do—if +he isn’t there, then suppose you ask him?”</p> + +<h2><a name="LOUDER" id="LOUDER"></a>“LOUDER!”</h2> + +<p>At a criminal trial both judge and counsel +had a deal of trouble to make the timid witnesses +speak loud enough to be heard by the +jury, and it is possible that the temper of the +counsel may thereby have been turned from +the even tenor of its way. After this gentleman +had gone through the various stages of +bar pleading, and had coaxed, threatened and<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> +even bullied the witnesses, there was called +into the box a young hostler who appeared to +be simplicity itself.</p> + +<p>“Now, sir,” said the counsel, in a tone that +would at any other time have been denounced +as vulgarly loud, “I hope we shall have no difficulty +in making you speak out.”</p> + +<p>“I hope not, sir,” was shouted, or rather bellowed +out, by the witness in tones which almost +shook the building, and would certainly +have alarmed any timid or nervous person.</p> + +<p>“How dare you speak in that way, sir?” demanded +the counsel.</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, I can’t speak no louder,” roared +the perplexed witness, evidently thinking that +fault was found with him for speaking too +softly.</p> + +<p>“Pray, have you been drinking this +morning?” shouted the counsel, who had +now thoroughly lost the last remnant of his +temper.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” was the stentorian reply.</p> + +<p>“And what have you been drinking?”</p> + +<p>“Corfee, sir.”</p> + +<p>“And what did you have in your coffee?<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a>”</p> + +<p>“A spune, sir,” bawled the witness in his +highest key amidst the roars of the court.</p> + +<h2><a name="COLLEGE_TRICK" id="COLLEGE_TRICK"></a>A COLLEGE TRICK</h2> + +<p>It occurred in an Ohio college, in the early +days when the small college was struggling +for an existence, and the students were struggling +for an education. Many of the boys were +very poor, and had to board themselves, doing +all their cooking, sleeping and studying in the +same room. To economize space they were +used to keep their little store of groceries and +provisions under the bed, and the bed was of +the old bed-cord kind. The two particular +boys of whom we write, for some reason or +other, at this particular time, had a pan full of +molasses under the bed.</p> + +<p>Boys will be boys, poor as well as rich, and +college boys the world over are full of all manner +of tricks. These two chaps had concocted +a very neat little scheme for getting on to the +nerves of Professor John, who had charge of +the building in which they were domiciled. +For days and days they had been secretly carrying +a lot of stones up into their room and<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> +depositing them in an empty barrel. When +the barrel was full, the trick was ready to be +pulled off just at bedtime, the trick consisting +of simply rolling the barrel to the top of the +corkscrew staircase, and letting her go Gallagher, +when the perpetrators would skip to +their room hard by, dive into bed and be sound +asleep before Professor John could say Jack +Robinson.</p> + +<p>But—Professor John knew about all the possible +combinations of the college boy, and +could smell a hatching trick a mile away. +Knowing that something was in the air, he had +quietly stationed himself in a dark niche in the +wall at the head of the staircase, and was +watching the two night-begowned boys as they +tugged with all their strength at the heavy +barrel of stones, gently rolling it to the top of +the stairs. “Don’t make a noise,” hoarsely +whispered the one who was bossing the job, “and don’t let her go till all is ready and I give +the word.”</p> + +<p>When all was about ready to heave away, +out stepped Professor John with a terrible +“What’s—all—this!<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a>”</p> + +<p>Away went the boys pell-mell to their room. +They tried to slam the door shut, but the Professor’s +foot got there first, and they dived into +bed.</p> + +<p>But alas! there had been a trick within a +trick. Some one had cut the bed-cords! And +as the two went down to the floor, one pitifully +called out “Oh—we’re in the molasses!”</p> + +<p>Professor John knew what that meant. He +leaned up against the wall and laughed till he +cried. “Let them go, poor fellows,” he said, +as he went to his room, “they have been punished +enough.”</p> + +<h2><a name="ANY_PORT_IN_A_STORM" id="ANY_PORT_IN_A_STORM"></a>ANY PORT IN A STORM</h2> + +<p>In a lecture on Carlyle, Moncure D. Conway +related how the great writer was interviewed +one morning by a very rough man in his +neighborhood. A great revival being in progress +in the vicinity, this man, well known as a +very rough and profane fellow, had been attending +the meetings and was “under conviction,” +as the phrase went. Thinking that perhaps +Mr. Carlyle might be able to give him<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> +some good and godly advice, he made a morning +call on the celebrated writer, who unfortunately +was just then enduring a most grievous +attack of dyspepsia.</p> + +<p>“Good morning, Mr. Carlyle,” said the man.</p> + +<p>“Morning,” growled Carlyle.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Carlyle,” said he, “I have come to see +you this morning about my soul——“</p> + +<p>“And what has gone wrong with your soul, +then?” interrupted the man of letters.</p> + +<p>“Why, Mr. Carlyle, I’ve been such an awful +bad man that I’m afraid, if I were to die, I’d go +straight to hell.”</p> + +<p>“Very likely,” was the prompt answer. +“Very likely indeed. And, what is more—you +may be very thankful you have a hell to go to, +too.”</p> + +<h2><a name="VERY_GOOD_INVESTMENT" id="VERY_GOOD_INVESTMENT"></a>A VERY GOOD INVESTMENT</h2> + +<p>“Now, James,” said a business man to his +ten-year-old boy, “you are going to be a business +man, and it is time that we should begin +to give you some practical lessons in the art +and science of investing money. Here’s a half<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> +dollar. You take it and go down town and +invest it on your own hook and to the best +advantage. I don’t care where you put it in, +only so you put it where it will be safe and +where you will get a good interest for your +money.”</p> + +<p>The boy took the silver and started off. In +an hour he returned, reporting that he had +made a good investment, and was going to +get a hundred per cent. interest.</p> + +<p>“Splendid!” said the admiring father. +“Where did you put it in?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the boy, “I went down town +and walked around a while, wondering where +I should find a good place, and by and by I +came by a church, and there was a meeting, and +they were singing, and I went in. It was a +missionary meeting, and the man was begging +money for Missions, and he said if you gave +him your money why the Lord would send it +back to you doubled—He would pay you a +hundred per cent.”</p> + +<p>“I hope,” expostulated his father, “you didn’t +put that half dollar on the collection plate?” +“Yes, I did, father,” said the boy, “and the<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> +man he said that the Lord is a good paymaster +and that He’d send it back doubled.”</p> + +<p>“And you believed him! O pshaw, I’m utterly +disappointed in you, James. You’ll never +make a business man. The idea of your believing +such stuff like that. Why, that half +dollar—you’ll never see it again, and that man—why, +he’s nothing but a fakir. O well—pshaw! +I’ll give you another chance, and see +that you do better this time. Here’s a dollar. +Now you steer clear of all churches and missionary +meetings this time——“</p> + +<p>“Why, father!” exclaimed the boy as he took +the dollar, “why, that man was right after all. +The Lord did send my half dollar back, and +sooner than I looked for it—and doubled, too!”</p> + +<h2><a name="POOR" id="POOR"></a>THE POOR</h2> + +<p>Josh Billings concluded his celebrated lecture +on “Milk” with these memorable words—“Remember +the poor. It costs nothing.”</p> + +<p>A town meeting had been called to devise +ways and means to provide for the poor of the +community. After many speeches had been<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> +made, and many recommendations offered, and +much time wasted and nothing done, a benevolent +German arose in the back part of the hall +and said:</p> + +<p>“Mister Chairman, I move, before we adjourn, +we all shtand oop undt gif three cheers +for de poor!”</p> + +<h2><a name="TEMPERANCE_A_HUNDRED_YEARS" id="TEMPERANCE_A_HUNDRED_YEARS"></a>TEMPERANCE A HUNDRED YEARS +AGO</h2> + +<p>The first Temperance Society organized in +this country, in the year 1808, provided that +“No member shall be intoxicated under a penalty +of fifty cents, and no member shall ask +another person to take a drink under a penalty +of twenty-five cents.”</p> + +<p>There was a Temperance Society in the +State of Maine, prior to the year 1825, which +had the following remarkable plank in its platform: +“If any member of this Society shall +get drunk, he shall be obliged to stand treat +for the whole Society all round!”</p> + +<p>A hundred years ago the virtues of rum were +set forth in an English publication after the +following fashion:<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a></p> + +<p>“It sloweth age, it strengthened youth, it +helpeth digestion, it cutteth phlegme, it abandoneth +melancholy, it relisheth the heart, it +lighteneth the mind, it quickeneth the spirits, +it cureth the hydupsia, it healeth the strangurie, +it pounceth the stone, it expelleth the +gravel, it puffeth away ventosity; it keepeth +and preserveth the head from whirling, the +tongue from lisping, the mouth from snaffling, +the teeth from chattering and the throat from +rattling. It keepeth the weasen from stiffling, +the stomach from wambling and the heart +from swelling. It keepeth the hands from +shivering, the sinews from shrinking, the veins +from crumbling, the bones from aching, and +the marrow from soaking.”</p> + +<h2><a name="YANKEES" id="YANKEES"></a>“THE —— YANKEES”</h2> + +<p>When Sherman’s army was making its great +march through Georgia the colored people +were, of course, very much excited over the +news of the approach of the Northern army. +They had very little idea of what Northern soldiers +looked like, but had commonly heard +them spoken of as “the dam Yankees.” In a<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> +certain part of Georgia, when they heard of the +approach of the great army, the darkies held +a prayer-meeting, and one old fellow prayed—“O +Lawd, bress Massa Linkum, an’ bress +Gin’l Sherman. O Lawd, he’s one o’ us. He +got a white skin, but he got a black heart, he +one o’ us. An’, O Lawd, bress all dem dam +Yankees!”</p> + +<h2><a name="SNOLLIGOSTER" id="SNOLLIGOSTER"></a>THE SNOLLIGOSTER</h2> + +<p>A circus came to town down in Kentucky. +The tents were set up and the cages put in, and +the people gathered about to look. “There, +ladies and gentlemen,” shouted the barker, “is +the Royal Lion, the king of beasts. He can +whip any other animal in the world.”</p> + +<p>“He kin, kin he?” queried a gawky Kentuckian. +“I’ll bet you five dollars I have an +animal at home that’ll lick him the very first +round.”</p> + +<p>“Can’t take your bet,” said the barker. “Too +little money. Couldn’t think of letting him +fight for five dollars, but I’ll take a bet of +twenty-five dollars.<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a>”</p> + +<p>“I ain’t got that much,” said Kentuck, “but +I’ll borrow it of my friends, an’ we’ll have a +fight.”</p> + +<p>The bystanders made up the money, and +the stakes were duly put up. Kentuck went to +his home, and by and by returned with a bag +over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“What you got in that bag?” asked the +showman.</p> + +<p>“A snolligoster,” answered Kentuck.</p> + +<p>“A snolligoster? What’s that? Let’s see it.”</p> + +<p>“No, you don’t,” answered Kentuck. “You +open the top of your cage and I’ll put my animile +in, the money’s put up, you know.”</p> + +<p>So the cage was opened and Kentuck +climbed up to the hole in the top and, opening +his bag, shook out of it a big snapping turtle. +The turtle stood on the defensive. The lion +came up to smell him. He took only one smell, +gave a yell of pain and retired to his corner to +howl the snapper loose if he could.</p> + +<p>“Take him off,” yelled the showman.</p> + +<p>“Take him off yerself, if ye want to,” said +Kentuck. “The fightin’s just commenced. +First blood for my snolligoster.<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a>”</p> + +<h2><a name="SHARPENING_THEIR_WITS" id="SHARPENING_THEIR_WITS"></a>SHARPENING THEIR WITS</h2> + +<p>Two human Whetstones met on the street.</p> + +<p>“Queer, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“What’s queer?”</p> + +<p>“The night falls——“</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“——but it doesn’t break.”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“And the day breaks——“</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“But it doesn’t fall?”</p> + +<p>“No—but it’s getting very warm.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is.”</p> + +<p>“There would be a big thaw but for one +thing——“</p> + +<p>“And what’s that?”</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing froze.”</p> + +<p>And they parted.</p> + +<h2><a name="ILL-ASSORTED_COUPLE" id="ILL-ASSORTED_COUPLE"></a>AN ILL-ASSORTED COUPLE</h2> + +<p>A missionary in the Far West, residing near +an Indian reservation, relates how one day +there came to his house an Indian and a squaw +wishing to “get married white man’s way.<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a>” +Everything being in order they were duly +made man and wife according to the service of +the Church. “I was a little apprehensive,” said +the minister, laughing, “that it might not turn +out well with them. They had such queer +names. His name was ‘Little Red Horse,’ and +hers was ‘Jane-kick-a-hole-in-the-sky.”</p> + +<h2><a name="STRONGEST_MAN" id="STRONGEST_MAN"></a>THE STRONGEST MAN</h2> + +<p>“Who was the strongest man?” asked the +Sunday-school teacher. One boy said “Samson, +cause he choked a lion to death.” “Naw,” +said another boy, “g’wan, it wasn’t Samson. +It was Jonah, ’cause a whale couldn’t keep him +down.”</p> + +<h2><a name="WHY_THEY_MARRIED" id="WHY_THEY_MARRIED"></a>WHY THEY MARRIED</h2> + +<p>Postal cards having been sent out to all the +married men in a certain town in Western +New York carrying the question, “Why did +you marry?” the following are some of the answers +returned:</p> + +<p>“That’s what I’ve been trying for eleven +years to find out.<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Married to get even with her mother—but +never have.”</p> + +<p>“Was freckle-faced and thought it was my +last chance. I’ve found out, however, that +freckles ain’t near as bad as henspeck.”</p> + +<p>“Because I was too lazy to work.”</p> + +<p>“Because Sarah told me that five other +young fellows had proposed to her. Lucky +dogs!”</p> + +<p>“The old man thought eight years courtin’ +was long enough.”</p> + +<p>“I was lonesome and melancholy, and +wanted some one to make me lively. N. B. +She makes me lively, you bet!”</p> + +<p>“I was tired of buying ice cream and candies +and going to theatres and church, and wanted +a rest. Have saved money.”</p> + +<p>“Please don’t stir me up!”</p> + +<p>“Because I thought she was one among a +thousand; now I sometimes think she is a +thousand among one.”</p> + +<p>“Because I did not then have the experience +I now have.”</p> + +<p>“The Governor was going to give me his +foot, so I took his daughter’s hand.<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a>”</p> + +<p>“I thought it would be cheaper than a +breach-of-promise suit.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the same fool question all my friends +and neighbors ask.”</p> + +<p>“Because I had more money than I knew +what to do with. And now I have more to do +with than I have money.”</p> + +<p>“I wanted a companion of the opposite sex. +P. S. She is still opposite.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t mention it!”</p> + +<p>“Had difficulty in unlocking the door at +night, and wanted somebody in the house to +let me in.”</p> + +<p>“Because it is just my luck.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t intend to go and do it.”</p> + +<p>“I yearned for company. We now have +company all the time—her folks.”</p> + +<p>“I married to get the best wife in the world.”</p> + +<p>“Because I asked her if she’d have me. She +said she would. I think she’s got me!”</p> + +<h2><a name="STUTTERERS" id="STUTTERERS"></a>THE STUTTERERS</h2> + +<p>It is related of the late William Travers of +New York City, who was used at times to<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> +make merry of his own incurable and distressing +infirmity, that he was on one occasion +asked by a woman in a street car, “Would he +be so good as to tell her whether it was nine +o’clock yet?” Pulling his timepiece out of his +pocket and looking at it a moment, he began, +“N—n—no, M—m—madam, it isn’t n—n—nine +oc—oc—o’clock yet, b—b—but it will be +by—by—by the time I can g—g—get it out.”</p> + +<p>On another occasion he was asked some +question by an entire stranger on the street, +who stammered quite as painfully as he himself +did, and when he stuttered out a laborious +answer, the man thinking Travers was mocking +him, grew angry and exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“How d—dare y—y—you m—make sport of +m—m—m—my inf—infirmity?”</p> + +<p>And Travers replied, “I wasn’t m—m—making +f—f—fun of your in—inf—infirmity. I +stut—tut—tut—tutter myself. W—w—why +don’t you go to Doctor B—B—Brown? He—cu—cuc—cured +me!”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Two men once went squirrel shooting. One +of them was a notorious stammerer. He had<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> +no load in his gun when he saw a squirrel running +up a tree, and wishing to call the attention +of his companion to it he began:</p> + +<p>“J—J—James! I see a—a—a—a sq—sq—sq—Oh, +by George he’s gone into his hole!”</p> + +<h2><a name="ALEXANDER" id="ALEXANDER"></a>ALEXANDER</h2> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was a chap who kept a store,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And though there might be grander,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sold his goods nor asked for more,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And his name was Alexander.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He mixed his goods with cunning hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He was a skillful brander;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And since his sugar half was sand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They called him Alex-Sander.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He had his dear one, to her came,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then lovingly he scanned her;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He asked her would she change her name?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then a ring did Alex-hand-her.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Oh, yes,” she said, with smiling lip,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">“If I can be commander!”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so they framed a partnership<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And called it Alex-and-her.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FOOL_ACCORDING_TO_HIS_FOLLY" id="FOOL_ACCORDING_TO_HIS_FOLLY"></a>A FOOL ACCORDING TO HIS FOLLY</h2> + +<p>Once in traveling the Rev. Dr. Bledsoe was +exceedingly annoyed by a pedantic bore who +forced himself upon him, and made a great +parade of his shallow learning. The doctor endured +it as long as he could, but at length, +looking at the man, said: “My friend, you and +I know all that is to be known.” “Why, how is +that?” asked the man, much pleased with what +he thought a very complimentary association. +“Why,” blandly replied the doctor, “you know +everything in this world, except that you are +a fool—and I know that.”</p> + +<h2><a name="HE_COULDNT_CATCH_UP" id="HE_COULDNT_CATCH_UP"></a>HE COULDN’T CATCH UP</h2> + +<p>When the pious deacon, riding a very poor +horse, pulled up at the cross-roads and asked +a farmer’s boy to tell him which road to take, +the boy asked him who he was and where it +was he was going?</p> + +<p>“My boy,” replied the deacon with a pious +gaze heavenward, “I am a follower of the +Lord.”</p> + +<p>“A follower of the Lord!” exclaimed the lad.<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> +“I reckon, mister, you’d better buy another nag, +for you’ll never catch up to him on that old +horse of yourn!”</p> + +<h2><a name="SUDDEN_RISE" id="SUDDEN_RISE"></a>A SUDDEN RISE</h2> + +<p>Stooping down to wash his hands in a creek, +the darkey couldn’t, of course, observe the peculiar +motions of a goat right behind him. +When he scrambled out of the water and was +asked how it happened, he answered: “I dunno +zacktly. ’Peared as if de shore kinder histed +an’ frowed me.”</p> + +<h2><a name="OLD_HOSS" id="OLD_HOSS"></a>“OLD HOSS”</h2> + +<p>During the trying days of drafting in Civil +War times, a farmer from away out West +called on President Lincoln. As soon as he got +near enough to the President he slapped him +familiarly on the back and said, “Hello, old +hoss, how are ye?”</p> + +<p>“You call me an old hoss,” said Mr. Lincoln; +“may I inquire what kind of a hoss I am?” +“Why—an old Draft hoss, to be sure. Ha, +ha!<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a>”</p> + +<h2><a name="DISTURBING_THE_SOLEMNITY" id="DISTURBING_THE_SOLEMNITY"></a>DISTURBING THE SOLEMNITY</h2> + +<p>Somehow or other there were many more +queer things happening in church in the olden +time than occur in these sober and decorous +days. In old St. Paul’s, Newburyport, for example, +some very amusing things are recorded +to have happened during the hours of service. +Uncle Nat Bailey was the sexton, and it was +his duty to attend to the new stove which had +just been put in. But one Sunday morning +Uncle Nat was engaged in ringing the bell, and +the last comers were hurrying in, and the clerk, +Harvey, perceived that the stove needed attention. +Taking the sexton’s duty, he poked the +fire, chucked in more wood, shut the door and +returned to his place at his desk. Unfortunately +he had got his hand all black with soot, +and unwittingly he had smeared the soot all +over his face. The congregation broadly +smiled a few minutes later when he solemnly +rose at his desk and gave out the first hymn, +“Behold the beauties of my face.”</p> + +<p>Lighting as well as heating gave trouble in +those days. Candles guttered, or went out, +and kept the attentive sextons busy tiptoeing<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> +about, snuffing or relighting them. Sexton +Currier—pronounced in country speech +“Kiah”—of Parson Milton’s church in the same +old town, once neglected this duty during an +evening service.</p> + +<p>Parson Milton, from his tremendous, booming +voice nicknamed “Thundering Milton,” was +an excellent pastor, but very singular and abrupt +in his ways. Observing the condition of +the lights, he quite upset the congregation by +proclaiming at the top of his voice, without the +slightest break between the sentences:</p> + +<p>“The Lord said unto Moses, Kiah, snuff the +candles.”</p> + +<p>He it was, too, who, when a worthy parishioner +whose Christian name was Mark once +dropped off into a doze in his pew, recalled him +to his duty in a marvelous fashion. Leaning +forward in the middle of the sermon, and apparently +addressing himself directly to the offender, +he exclaimed in quick, sharp tones, +“Mark!”</p> + +<p>At the sound of his name, the man opened +his eyes and sat hastily erect, while the +preacher, resuming his normal voice, con<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a>cluded +the sentence—“the perfect man, and behold +the upright.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>On a very cold day, when the church was +inadequately warmed, another minister +preached from a very hot text. At the conclusion +of the service he leaned over the pulpit +and said, in a tone audible to all the congregation:</p> + +<p>“Deacon Craig, do, I pray you, see to it that +this church is properly warmed this afternoon. +What’s the use of my preaching to a parcel of +sinners about the danger of hell-fire when the +church is as cold as a barn?”</p> + +<h2><a name="TECHNIQUE" id="TECHNIQUE"></a>TECHNIQUE</h2> + +<p>They were both musical, and of course became +engaged. One evening the young man +was late in paying his visit. The young lady +was anxious and getting nervous. The whole +family sympathized with the poor girl as she +waited for the bell to ring. Suddenly the bell +rang, and the calm blue sky of peace reappeared +in the young girl’s eyes as she ex<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a>claimed +rapturously even if ungrammatically, +“That’s him! How exquisite his technique is +on the bell-pull, and oh! the breadth and compass +of his ring!”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Three street boys were brought by the city +missionary into a downtown Sunday-school, +and placed in Mr. B——’s class. “What is +your first name?” he asked of one. “Lem,” was +the reply. “Ah, Lemuel,” corrected the teacher. +“And yours, my boy?” he asked of the next. +“Sam,” yelled the urchin. “Ah, Samuel,” rejoined +Mr. B——. “And what may I call you?” +he kindly asked of the third. “My name is—Jimuel,” +said he.</p> + +<h2><a name="TACT_AND_NO_TACT" id="TACT_AND_NO_TACT"></a>TACT—AND NO TACT</h2> + +<p>That English clergyman had no tact who vehemently +declared his parishioners to be “a +set of unmitigated asses.” One of the Long-Eared +standing by ventured to inquire whether +that was the reason his reverence addressed +them every Sunday morning as “Dearly beloved +Brethren?<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a>”</p> + +<p>But here was another English clergyman +who had tact. On one occasion he was traveling +in a stage-coach in company with a noisy +talker who persisted in thrusting upon his fellow-passengers +the fact that he did not believe +in the Bible. In particular he was severe upon +the writer who had alleged that Joshua had +commanded the sun to stand still and look on +while he wiped out the heathen. The clergyman +had been measuring up his companion, +and at this point he spoke out——</p> + +<p>“Did you ever read the further explanation of +that great miracle as given in the First Book +of Zorobbabel?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have,” snapped the learned infidel, +“and that doesn’t throw any light on it either. +In fact, it makes it worse——“</p> + +<p>The general roar of laughter which followed +this confession of ignorance ended the controversy, +and bottled up the agnostic.</p> + +<p>On another occasion this same clergyman +was annoyed by a bustling preacher who +walked up to him in public, and, in a voice that +arrested the attention of all within hearing, +challenged him to a controversy on Apostolic<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> +Succession. The challenged man turned +sharply and said: “Can you repeat the Lord’s +Prayer, sir?” “But—“ stammered the man, “I +want to discuss—“ “Sir,” said the other, “I repeat, +say the Lord’s Prayer, if you can.” The +man was so taken aback by this unexpected +flank movement that, if he ever knew the Lord’s +Prayer, every petition of it had vanished from +his memory, and he became red-faced and +silent. Then his dignified antagonist turned in +a stately way to the group of amused auditors, +and said, “Sir, I will leave it to this intelligent +assemblage to decide whether a man who is +unable to repeat the Lord’s Prayer is competent +to discuss Apostolic Succession.”</p> + +<h2><a name="ECHO" id="ECHO"></a>THE ECHO</h2> + +<p>A tourist was told by a guide that the echo +on a Killarney lake was very fine. So, off +went the tourist to hear it, and hired two men +to row him out, accomplishing the transaction +so swiftly that there was no time for them to +arrange for the usual echo to be in attendance. +The echo wasn’t working. What was to be<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> +done? In despair of a better expedient, the +men that were rowing broke an oar, and one +swam ashore to fetch another—and while he +was gone, the echo began to work!</p> + +<p>“Good morning,” cried the tourist.</p> + +<p>“Good marning,” said the echo, with a +charming brogue.</p> + +<p>“Fine day, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Foine day, sir,” improved the echo.</p> + +<p>“Will you take a drink?” cried the tourist.</p> + +<p>“Begorra, an’ that I will!” roared the echo.</p> + +<h2><a name="LOGIC_IS_LOGIC" id="LOGIC_IS_LOGIC"></a>“LOGIC IS LOGIC”</h2> + +<p>Jack and his friend Mickey were walking uptown +one morning and Jack said, “Mickey, I +bet you a dollar I can prove to you that you +are on the other side of the street.”</p> + +<p>“Done,” said Mickey, “I’m the man for your +money.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” continued Jack, pointing to the opposite +side of the street, “that is one side of the +street, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mickey.</p> + +<p>“And this side is the other side, isn’t it?<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> +And you are on the other side. And I’ll take +your dollar, please.”</p> + +<p>Mickey passed out the dollar, but scratched +his head. He resolved to win that dollar back, +and later in the day waylaid a man with, “I +say—I bet you a dollar I can prove to you that +you are on the other side of the street.” +“Done,” said the man. “I’d as soon make a dollar +easy as not.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mickey, “this is one side of the +street, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that can’t be disputed.”</p> + +<p>“And over there is the other side, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes—but I ain’t on that side—and I’ll take +your dollar, please.”</p> + +<p>And Mickey walked home scratching his +head and wondering how it came that “the +dang thing didn’t work?”</p> + +<h2><a name="LIONIZED" id="LIONIZED"></a>LIONIZED</h2> + +<p>This is how the colonel and the lieutenant-colonel +of a French regiment in Algeria were +lionized. The major of the regiment one day +came across a lion suffering grievous pain from<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> +a thorn in his paw. Pitying the poor animal, +the major extracted the thorn. Considering +what he could do in return for the kindness, +the grateful lion secured a copy of the army +register, ran his eye over the list of officers in +the gentle major’s regiment, and waylaid and +devoured both the colonel and the lieutenant-colonel, +so that his friend, the major, could be +promoted.</p> + +<h2><a name="LAUGHED_IT_OUT_OF_COURT" id="LAUGHED_IT_OUT_OF_COURT"></a>LAUGHED IT OUT OF COURT</h2> + +<p>In the course of a sermon on “The Soul,” a +certain minister once said: “They are saying +these days that the soul is nothing but electricity. +Now, brethren, just to show you how +utterly ridiculous this modern conceit is, suppose +we substitute the word ‘electricity’ for +the words ‘the soul’ wherever they occur in +the Bible, and see how it will read. For instance: +‘What shall it profit a man if he gain +the whole world, and lose his—electricity. Or +what shall a man give in exchange for his—electricity.’ +Ridiculous, perfectly ridiculous!<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a>”</p> + +<h2><a name="HOW_TO_CATCH_A_MULE" id="HOW_TO_CATCH_A_MULE"></a>HOW TO CATCH A MULE</h2> + +<p>There was a farmer who had a balky mule +and he couldn’t make the mule go. A stranger +came along and offered to help, and the farmer +told him to go right ahead. The stranger had +a bottle of turpentine, and he opened the mule’s +mouth and pushed back his head and poured +about half of the bottle into the mule’s stomach. +The mule gave one startled gasp and +struck out across the prairie, and was lost to +sight. The surprised farmer stood for a while +immersed in deep thought, and then he said, +“Stranger, please give me the rest of that turpentine; +I’ve got to catch my mule.”</p> + +<h2><a name="HOW_THE_YOUNG_IDEA_SHOOTS" id="HOW_THE_YOUNG_IDEA_SHOOTS"></a>HOW THE YOUNG IDEA SHOOTS</h2> + +<p>Many children are so crammed with everything +that they really know nothing.</p> + +<p>In proof of this, read these veritable specimens +of definitions, written by public school +children:</p> + +<p>“Stability is taking care of a stable.”</p> + +<p>“A mosquito is the child of black and white +parents.<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Tocsin is something to do with getting +drunk.”</p> + +<p>“Expostulation is to have the smallpox.”</p> + +<p>“Monastery is the place for monsters.”</p> + +<p>“Cannibal is two brothers who killed each +other in the Bible.”</p> + +<p>“Anatomy is the human body, which consists +of three parts, the head, the chist and the +stummick. The head contains the eyes and +brains, if any. The chist contains the lungs and +a piece of the liver. The stummick is devoted +to the bowels, of which there are five, a, e, i, o, +u, and sometimes w and y.”</p> + +<h2><a name="NAMES_FOR_THE_TWINS" id="NAMES_FOR_THE_TWINS"></a>NAMES FOR THE TWINS</h2> + +<p>Some amusing “baptismal experiences” of a +“well-known clergyman” are printed in the +columns of an exchange. A boy born on January +3, 1863, was dubbed Emancipation Proclamation +Baxter. Another he christened +Perseverance Jones. When the minister endeavored +to dissuade the father he replied that +the child’s mother was named Patience, and he +saw no reason why the boy should not be<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> +called Perseverance, because the two always +went together. But the richest of his reminiscences +had to do with twins:</p> + +<p>“What names will you call them?” I inquired.</p> + +<p>“Cherubim and Seraphim,” replied their +mother.</p> + +<p>“Why?” I asked, in astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Because,” she replied, “de pra’er book says, +‘De cherubim and seraphim continually do cry,’ +an’ dese yere chil’en do nuffin’ else.”</p> + +<h2><a name="EXTREMES_MEET" id="EXTREMES_MEET"></a>EXTREMES MEET</h2> + +<p>As the newspaper man put it: “A late invoice +from Boston to Africa included three +missionaries and eighty-three casks of rum—salvation +in the cabin, damnation in the hold, +and Old Glory floating over both.”</p> + +<p>This fine bit of ecclesiastical sarcasm is +further illustrated by a fact concerning a +church in the city of Edinburgh, which city is +noted for its Scottish brand of “religion and +whiskey,” and of which wits have spoken as +being “the most spiritually minded city in the<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> +Kingdom.” Well—there is said to be a church +there, so built as to include a spacious basement +adapted for storage purposes, which the +pious elders, with a business eye to revenue, +did not scruple to rent for the storage of casks +of wine and other spirits in considerable bulk. +Well—along comes some clever wit with a +facile pen and writes on the door of the basement +of that Edinburgh church the following +lines. The authorship is unknown, but Macready +is suspected:</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“There’s a spirit above<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And a spirit below,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The spirit of love<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the spirit of woe.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“The spirit above<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is the spirit of love,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And the spirit below<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is the spirit of woe.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“The spirit above<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is a spirit divine,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And the spirit below<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is the spirit of wine.”<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="FIRE_SCREEN" id="FIRE_SCREEN"></a>A FIRE SCREEN</h2> + +<p>A Southern politician, in rehearsing some of +the stories with which he made many Democratic +votes during a campaign, related the +following as having probably been the most effective:</p> + +<p>A darkey had a dream and thought he went +to the bad place. The next day he told his +friends what he had dreamed, and they asked +him a great many questions.</p> + +<p>“Did you see ole Satan down dar?” one of +them asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes; I seed ole Satan dar, an’ Belzybub, +an’ Pollyun an’ de hull lot. Dey was jist +standin’ roun’ an’ tendin’ to de bisniss, pokin’ +de fires an’ makin’ it hot fer de folks.”</p> + +<p>“Was dey—was dey any niggahs down +dar?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, dey was lots an’ lots o’ niggahs, +heaps on ’em.”</p> + +<p>“An’ white folks?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, lots o’ white folks, too; scores an’ +scores on ’em.”</p> + +<p>“Democrats?<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, plenty Democrats.”</p> + +<p>“An’ ’Publicans?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. De ’Publicans dey was in one pen +by deyselves, an’ de Democrats dey was all in +a pen, too.”</p> + +<p>“Was de white an’ de black ’Publicans in de +same pen?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dey was all togedder in de same pen.”</p> + +<p>“What was dey all a-doin’?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I ’clar to goodness, w’en I looked in +dat ar pen an’ seed ’em, it peered like ebbery +blame white ’Publikin had a niggah in his +arms a-holdin’ him up ’twixt him an’ de fire to +cotch de heft o’ de heat.”</p> + +<p>“I estimate that this story,” said the politician, +“was good for at least twelve hundred +colored votes on our side in this campaign.”</p> + +<h2><a name="BRANDIED_PEACHES" id="BRANDIED_PEACHES"></a>BRANDIED PEACHES</h2> + +<p>The guests were all gathered in the parlor +laughing and talking, when the host was suddenly +summoned by his wife for a brief consultation +in the dining-room before dinner was +served.<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a></p> + +<p>“Tom,” said she, in evident alarm, “what +shall I do? I have nothing for dessert but +brandied peaches, and there’s Dr. Brown, the +Methodist minister, in the company. I never +thought about him—you know he’s such a +strict temperance person.”</p> + +<p>Tom said he was sorry, but it was evidently +too late to change the schedule, and that they +would just have to trust to luck.</p> + +<p>They did—and luck did not fail them. For +when it came to the dessert, the Rev. Mr. +Brown evidently enjoyed the peaches very +much, very much. Dear innocent soul! he +thought he had never tasted anything half so +good. And when the hostess sweetly asked +him, “Could she not have the pleasure of serving +him with another peach?” he hesitatingly +replied, “No—thank you—thank you—but I +believe I will take a little more of the juice!”</p> + +<h2><a name="MOUNTED" id="MOUNTED"></a>“MOUNTED?”</h2> + +<p>Another darkey relates a dream he had during +an exciting political campaign down in +Kentucky, only in this case his dream took an<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> +opposite direction. “I dreamed,” said he, “dat +I died an’ went up to de big gate o’ hebbin an’ +wanted to git in, an’ Sent Petah he says to me, +says he, ‘Is you mounted?’ an’ I says, ‘No.’ +An’ he says, ‘Den you can’t come in.’ So I +kum away, an’ on de way down I met Kunnel +White, de man wat’s runnin’ fo’ Congress, an’ +I told him ’twant no use: he couldn’t git in if +he wasn’t mounted. ‘Better go back,’ says I, +‘an’ mount de bay mare.’ But he says, ‘No, +I tell you, Sam, what we’ll do. You’ll be my +hoss. I’ll git on your back, an’ we’ll ride +up to de gate an’ when Petah says, “Is you +mounted?” I’ll say, “Yaas,” an’ I’ll ride you +right in.’</p> + +<p>“So I got down on my han’s an’ feet an’ he +got up on my back, an’ we trotted up to de big +gate, and de kunnel he knocked on de doo’, an’ +Sent Petah he open de gate a crack an’ says, +‘Who’s dar?’ an’ de kunnel says, ‘Kunnel +White o’ Kentucky, sah.’ An’ Petah says, ‘Is +you mounted?’ an’ de kunnel says, ‘Yaas, I is, +sah.’ An’ Sent Petah he says, ‘Mighty glad to +see you, kunnel. Jist tie your hoss on de outside +de gate an’ come right in!<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a>’”</p> + +<h2><a name="DOLLARS" id="DOLLARS"></a>“DOLLARS TO DOUGHNUTS”</h2> + +<p>They say that the difference between an optimist +and a pessimist is this: The optimist +looks on the doughnut, the pessimist looks on +the hole. Well, there once was a man up in a +certain town in Eastern Pennsylvania who did +a very good business at the baker-trade. +Everybody knew and patronized the good German +baker, Hans Kitzeldorfer. Hans was industrious, +frugal and thrifty, and was making +money, until one unfortunate day he turned +pessimist and began to look on the hole in the +doughnut. The longer he looked at that hole +the more he became persuaded that he could +make money much more rapidly by making the +holes in his celebrated brand of doughnuts +larger than they had been. This happy suggestion +he at once proceeded to act on, and for +two years he was immensely tickled over his +discovery. But by and by it seemed to him +that his receipts were not as large as formerly, +especially in the Doughnut Department, and +he ordered an investigation, the result of which +Was that he discovered that by making the<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> +holes larger he had unwittingly used more +dough to go around the holes than when the +holes were less in diameter, whereupon he at +once restored his earlier and more profitable +system—and Prosperity returned.</p> + +<h2><a name="TWO_POLITE_AND_SPUNKY_BOYS" id="TWO_POLITE_AND_SPUNKY_BOYS"></a>TWO POLITE AND SPUNKY BOYS</h2> + +<p>A German, meeting a friend on the street, +asked him to come up to his house some day, +he wanted to show him his two boys. “I haf,” +said he, “two of de finest poys vot ever vas; +two very fine, polite undt spunky poys.”</p> + +<p>His friend went up to the house one day, and +the two friends were sitting on the porch talking +and smoking their pipes, while the two +boys were playing in front of the house in the +street.</p> + +<p>“Now I vill show you,” said the proud +father, “vat two very fine poys I haf.” And +with that he called, “Poys!”</p> + +<p>One of the little fellows looked up and +promptly answered, “Sir?”</p> + +<p>“See,” said the father, “how polite. Two +very polite undt spunky poys.<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a>”</p> + +<p>By and by he called out again, “Poys!” and +the other little chap looked up from his play +and responded, “Sir?”</p> + +<p>Again the father proudly commended them +to his companion, saying, “How polite, how +polite.”</p> + +<p>A third time he ventured to put them to the +test, as he said, “Just to show you vat two +polite undt spunky poys I haf,” and called out, +“poys!”</p> + +<p>One of the little fellows straightened himself +up at this, and shaking his fist at the old +man, called out:</p> + +<p>“Look here, old man, if you don’t stop your +blame hollerin’ at us, I’ll come in there an’ bust +your head with a brick.”</p> + +<p>“See!” exclaimed the delighted father, +“spunky, spunky! Two very polite undt +spunky poys.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Passing by a mill-pond in winter time, and +observing a parcel of boys skating right under +and around a DANGER sign which had been +erected there, a gentleman looked up the miller +and expostulated with him for allowing it.<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a></p> + +<p>The miller smiled and said, “You just rest +easy, my friend. It’s all right. I put that danger +sign there on purpose to attract the boys +to that part of the pond. You see the water is +only a foot deep there, but away on the other +side it’s twenty feet deep. If I’d a put the +danger sign over there, then they’d all gone +over there. So I put it over here. Catch on?”</p> + +<h2><a name="CRANKY_COUPLE" id="CRANKY_COUPLE"></a>A CRANKY COUPLE</h2> + +<p>On the way to the minister’s house to be +married a couple had a fall-out, and when the +woman was asked: “Would she take this man +for her wedded husband?” she said, “No!” +And the man said, “Why—what’s the matter +with you?” and she said, “Well, I’ve taken a +sudden dislike to you.”</p> + +<p>They went away without being married, but +they made it all up in a few days’ time and +went to the minister’s house again. But, when +the man was asked, “Would he have this +woman for his wedded wife?” he, to get even, +answered, “No!” and then she said, “What’s +the matter with you, now?” and he said, “Oh,<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> +nothin’, only I’ve tuk a sudden dislike to +you.”</p> + +<p>They went away again, again made it up, +and again came to the minister’s house, rang +the bell, and when the minister appeared, the +man said, “Well, parson, here we are again. +We’ll make it good this time, sure; third time +proves, you know.” And the minister said +“No—he guessed he didn’t care to marry +them.” And then they both said, “Why, what’s +the matter with you, now?” and he said, +“Well, I’ve taken a sudden dislike to both of +you!”</p> + +<h2><a name="SO_MANY_BALD_HEADS" id="SO_MANY_BALD_HEADS"></a>SO MANY BALD HEADS</h2> + +<p>Thirty-six years after the date of the battle of +Gettysburg, the veteran survivors of a Pennsylvania +regiment were holding their first reunion +in that celebrated town. In the forenoon they +dedicated their monument on the field of “The +First Day’s Fight,” and in the afternoon they +were to hold a business meeting in the Post +Room of the local G. A. R. On that day accommodations +were quite inadequate in +Gettysburg, and the Post Room was in conse<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a>quence +occupied nearly every hour of the day +by some of the various organizations there assembled, +so that when it came the turn of this +particular regiment to occupy the room, the +Seventh Pennsylvania Cavalry was still in session. +They waited outside until the cavalrymen +were through, and then filed in. One who +was there says:</p> + +<p>“As we went in, I noticed a man going in beside +me, tall, well-formed, with a very fine +head of coal-black hair, and rather the worse +for drink. I wondered who he was, for I knew +nearly every man in the regiment, but I +couldn’t place that man.</p> + +<p>“Well, when we were all seated, and General +Wister took the gavel in hand to rap to order, +this black-haired man arose slowly and somewhat +uncertainly, saluted and said:</p> + +<p>“‘Cap’n, before you read the minutes and +proceed to business, I’d like to ask a question. +What, hic, regiment is this that’s holding a reunion +here?’</p> + +<p>“‘The One Hundred and Fiftieth Pennsylvania, +Bucktails,’ answered the general with a +smile.<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a></p> + +<p>“‘Then, ’tain’t the Seventh Cavalry?’</p> + +<p>“‘No. It’s the One Hundred and Fiftieth.’</p> + +<p>“The Man seemed dazed, repeated the number +over and over to himself and said: ‘Then +I’m in the wrong box, cap’n—got left. Ever get +left yourself, cap’n? Great Scott, got in the +wrong box.”</p> + +<p>“Then he sat down, chuckling to himself over +his adventure and muttering, ‘Wrong box,’ and +‘Got left.’</p> + +<p>“By and by he arose again, courteously +saluted, and said:</p> + +<p>“‘Cap’n, ’scuze me—but what regiment did +you say this was? How much was it?”</p> + +<p>“‘The One Hundred and Fiftieth.’</p> + +<p>“‘The One Hundred and Fiftieth—’m hic, +Great Scott,’ looking carefully around the +room, ’a fellow’d think it was the Three Hundred +and Forty-Ninth by the bald heads a-settin’ +around here!’ And then he left, amidst +roars of laughter.”</p> + +<h2><a name="WIND_AND_WATER" id="WIND_AND_WATER"></a>WIND AND WATER</h2> + +<p>When a political stump speaker, from the +wild and windy West, after a very high-falutin<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> +flight of oratory paused to gulp down two +tumblers of ice-water, old Hayseed arose in +one of the front benches and called out: “Well, +I’ll be durned if this hain’t the fust time I ever +see a windmill run by water.”</p> + +<p>Which goes well with what we read of a +newly elected senator. He was pounding his +desk and waving his arms in an impassioned +appeal to the Senate.</p> + +<p>“What do you think of him?” whispered +Senator K——, of New Jersey, to the impassive +Senator K——, of Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he can’t help it,” answered K——. +“It’s a birth mark.”</p> + +<p>“A—what?”</p> + +<p>“A birth mark,” repeated K——. “His +mother was scared by a windmill.”</p> + +<h2><a name="THREE_ASSES" id="THREE_ASSES"></a>THE THREE ASSES</h2> + +<p>In his “Scotch Reminiscences” Dean Ramsay +relates that a certain ruling elder, by the +name of David, was well known in the district +as a very shrewd and ready-witted man. He +received visits from many people who liked a<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> +banter or were fond of a good joke. One day +three young theological students called on the +old man, intending to sharpen their wits upon +him and have some fun at his expense.</p> + +<p>Said the first, “Well, Father Abraham, how +are you to-day?”</p> + +<p>“You are wrong,” said the second. “This is +not Father Abraham. This is Father Isaac.”</p> + +<p>“Tut,” said the third, “you are both wrong. +This is only Father Jacob, the originator of +the twelve tribes of Israel.”</p> + +<p>The old man looked at the young chaps a +moment and then said: “I am neither old +Father Abraham, nor old Father Isaac, nor old +Father Jacob; but I am Saul, the son of Kish, +seeking his father’s asses, and lo! I have found +three of them!”</p> + +<h2><a name="IN_THE_CLASS-ROOM" id="IN_THE_CLASS-ROOM"></a>IN THE CLASS-ROOM</h2> + +<p>Said the professor to a student, “What is the +effect of heat, and what the effect of cold?” +“Heat expands, sir, and cold contracts.”</p> + +<p>“Correct. Give some illustrations.” “Well,” +said the boy, “in the summer, when it is hot,<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> +the days are long; and in the winter, when it is +cold, the days are short.”</p> + +<p>“How many sides has a circle?” “Two—the +inside and the outside.”</p> + +<p>“Does an effect ever go before a cause?” +“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Give an illustration.” “When a man pushes +a wheelbarrow——“</p> + +<p>“That will do, sir. Next—Mr. Johnson.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>A man who was very cross-eyed happened to +put his hand into another man’s pocket, and +took out his watch. He told the judge that he +“only wanted to know the time.” And the +judge said it was “Three years.”</p> + +<h2><a name="OLD_MAN_SNUCKLES" id="OLD_MAN_SNUCKLES"></a>OLD MAN SNUCKLES</h2> + +<p>One night after saying her prayers before +going to bed, a nine-year-old girl astonished +her mother by innocently asking:</p> + +<p>“Mother, who is Old Man Snuckles?”</p> + +<p>“Why, my child, I never heard of a man by +that name.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, mother,” said the child, “there<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> +must be some such man, for I pray for him +every night.”</p> + +<p>“Pray for Old Man Snuckles, my child? +Why, what do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes, mother. You know I pray for +God to bless father and mother, brother and +sister and ‘Old Man Snuckles.’ Who is he?”</p> + +<p>Her mother saw by and by that it meant +“All my aunts and uncles!”</p> + +<h2><a name="IN_SEARCH_OF_A_RESTAURANT" id="IN_SEARCH_OF_A_RESTAURANT"></a>IN SEARCH OF A RESTAURANT</h2> + +<p>Many interesting and amusing stories have +been told of the late Judge Jeremiah Black, an +eminent jurist and a very prominent member +of President Buchanan’s Cabinet. On one occasion +the judge and a legal friend were coming +out of the Capitol at Harrisburg, Pa. The judge +was busy discussing a certain case at law in +which he was interested, and his friend was +very hungry. “Say, judge,” said he, “let’s get +something to eat. I’m awful hungry.” “Well,” +said the judge, “come on. Right down this +street is a good place. I know it well.” And +they walked on arm in arm, the judge laying<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> +down the law as they proceeded. To the +amazement of the judge they pulled up in +front of an engine house!</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” said the judge, laughing, “I’ve +made a mistake. This isn’t the place. Oh—I +see. It’s right up this street around the corner.” +Around the corner they went, walked +three blocks and halted in front of a church!</p> + +<p>Again the judge looked foolish and said: +“Oh, no. This isn’t the place either. Let me +see. Oh—now I have it. The place I was +thinking of is in—Baltimore!”</p> + +<p>His companion groaned and made a break +for the nearest hotel.</p> + +<h2><a name="LITERATURE_MADE_EASY" id="LITERATURE_MADE_EASY"></a>LITERATURE MADE EASY</h2> + +<p>A man wrote to the editor of a small weekly +newspaper asking a very simple question: +“How can I get an article into your esteemed +paper?” and the cruel editor wrote in reply: +“It all depends on the kind of article you want +to get into our paper. If it is small in bulk, +like a hair-brush or a tea-caddy, for instance, +spread the paper out on the floor nice and<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> +smooth, place the article exactly in the center, +neatly fold the edges over it, and tie with +a string. This will keep the article from slipping +out. If, on the other hand, the article is +an English bath-tub or a clothes-horse, you +will find one of the New York Sunday papers +better suited to your purpose.”</p> + +<h2><a name="SURE_CURE_FOR_SNORING" id="SURE_CURE_FOR_SNORING"></a>SURE CURE FOR SNORING</h2> + +<p>I was visiting my friend Nicholas von +Spoopendyke over in New York. He has a +splendid mansion away uptown, very handsomely +furnished. One day he took me all +over the house. His bedroom was beautiful indeed, +all furnished with rich old mahogany +polished like a looking-glass. I was admiring +the bed. It was a very old “Napoleon,” +most finely veneered and carved, and the bed +was faultlessly made up, with a spotless white +counterpane, level as a board and not a wrinkle +in sight. Beautiful!</p> + +<p>“That’s my white elephant,” said Spoopendyke. +“I always walk round it and keep my +distance. When I was first married and before<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> +I knew the rules of the house, I sat down on +the side of the bed to take off my shoes—once. +I’ve never done that since. Say—that’s a +mighty fine bed, ain’t it? For one thing, it always +tells me when I’m sick. If I lay down +on that bed in the day-time, and pull the white +cover over me, and my wife doesn’t say nothing—then +I know I’m a sick man, and the doctor’ll +be there in twenty minutes.”</p> + +<p>“Say ——“ continued Spoopendyke, growing +quite confidential, “I had a queer experience +the other night. My wife she says I +snore. Well, mebby I do. Most men do. But +women snore, too, and you can’t never get ’em +to confess it. Well, I was lying wide awake +thinking of some bills I had to pay—and had +no money to pay ’em with—and beside me lay +my wife snoring like all creation. She got +higher and louder and louder and higher, till +she waked herself up with a tremendous +whoop. Then she kicked me—thinking it was +me that was making the racket. I said nothing, +and she sailed in again—up, up, up she +went, higher and higher till she woke up again +at the top and said, ‘Nick—stop your blame<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> +snoring.’ I said nothing, and she went to +work at once again blowing her bugle-horn till +she waked up again. This time she was mad. +She got up and said something about ‘getting +the fire-extinguisher and turning it loose on +him,’ and went off to bed in the next room. I +lay still listening and laughing, as I heard her +blowing the fog-horn again. I laughed till I +forgot all about those bills and went to sleep. +And the next morning at the breakfast table +when she told me how I kept her awake all +night with my awful snoring—and how even +in the next room she couldn’t sleep for the +racket I kept up—I just laughed. Tell her? +Not a bit of it. What’s the use? She wouldn’t +believe me, and I couldn’t prove it.”</p> + +<h2><a name="TOO_YOUNG" id="TOO_YOUNG"></a>TOO YOUNG</h2> + +<p>“Say, Isaacstein, don’t you vant to git married?”</p> + +<p>“For vy shall I hitch me fast mit a wife?”</p> + +<p>“Well, here’s an unusually good chance, a +clean snap if you look sharp. You know Levy +the banker? Well, he has three daughters, the<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> +youngest is eighteen years old, the next +twenty-five and the next thirty. I have just +learned that he will give $10,000 to the man +that marries the youngest, $15,000 to the man +that marries the next one, and $20,000 with the +oldest. Why don’t you sail in, old man?”</p> + +<p>“Dey are all too young fer me. I vill vait +till dey get older. I vant one about fifty.”</p> + +<h2><a name="POOR_BUSINESS_LOCATION" id="POOR_BUSINESS_LOCATION"></a>A POOR BUSINESS LOCATION</h2> + +<p>“How iss business?” “Very poor. Noding’s +doing.” “Vell—vy don’t you?” “Mein himmel, +how kin I—mit a fire-goompany on von side, +a fire-goompany on de odder side, undt a +schwmmin-school on top? I shall haf to +move.”</p> + +<h2><a name="TALE_OF_A_SAUSAGE" id="TALE_OF_A_SAUSAGE"></a>A TALE OF A SAUSAGE</h2> + +<p>On the way to attend a funeral a country +parson stopped to make a call on one of his +members who had the day before done some +butchering, after the old fashion. Before he +took his leave the good woman of the house +made him a present of some three yards of<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> +newly made sausage, which, when he came to +the church where the service was to be held, +he bestowed for safe-keeping in the pocket of +his long-tailed coat. While he was reading the +burial service at the grave, a good-for-nothing +dog, scenting the savory meat, made repeated +efforts to dislodge the treasure, and the +preacher was obliged in a very awkward and +undignified manner to punctuate his reading of +the service with sundry and numerous kicks to +the rear to save his bacon and chase the dog +away.</p> + +<p>After the interment there was a full service +in the church, the minister preaching the sermon +in one of those old-fashioned pulpits, +stuck against the wall like a swallow’s nest, +the approach to the pulpit being by a corkscrew +staircase winding solemnly upward +from the chancel. Here the minister was safe +from the assaults of that miserable dog. At +least he thought he was. But—at the conclusion +of the service, while he was standing in +the pulpit and looking another way, one of his +deacons, wishing him to make an announcement, +quietly and softly tiptoed across the<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> +chancel and slipped up the winding stairway +and pulled the parson’s coat-tail to attract his +attention. He, supposing it was the dog after +his sausage again, let fly a most vigorous kick, +which caught the poor deacon in the middle of +the forehead and knocked him rattling down +into the chancel, the preacher, still looking the +other way, and saying, “My friends, I am +sorry for this disturbance, but—I have some +sausage in my pocket and that miserable dog +has been following me all this morning trying +to steal it!”</p> + +<h2><a name="PUNISHMENT_MADE_SURE" id="PUNISHMENT_MADE_SURE"></a>PUNISHMENT MADE SURE</h2> + +<p>It is an old story, but a good one—that of +the two Germans who went into Delmonico’s +to get something to eat. They ordered a very +simple supper. They had a good beefsteak, +fried potatoes, bread and butter, and coffee, +and were astounded when the waiter handed +them a bill for four dollars and a half. They +paid the bill, and when they reached the street +one of them began to swear at “Dot man Delmonico. +He is a robber and a thief.” His companion,<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> +however, gently laying a hand on his +shoulder, said, “Hermann, do not schwear. It +iss wicked to schwear. Pesides, Gott has +ponished dat man Delmonico alretty.” “Wie?” +was the response. “How has Gott ponished +him?” “Hermann,” said the other with quiet +assurance, “Gott has ponished him. I have my +pockets full mit his spoons!”</p> + +<h2><a name="BASHFUL_BRIDEGROOM" id="BASHFUL_BRIDEGROOM"></a>A BASHFUL BRIDEGROOM</h2> + +<p>He was a clerk in a hardware store, and she +was a chambermaid in a hotel. When they +came to the parsonage one afternoon to be +married, they were very kindly received. The +minister’s wife took the bride upstairs to take +off her things, and the minister took the groom +into the parlor.</p> + +<p>The groom was very nervous—and suddenly +asked the minister whether he couldn’t “marry +him while the bride was upstairs, and then +marry her when she came down?” But the +minister assured him that it was necessary that +the bride should be present, and that they +should both be married at the same time. And +so they were married.<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a></p> + +<p>Two hours later, while making a call at the +hotel, he found the bride at her work, and when +he asked her how that was, and whether her +husband had also gone back to his work at the +store, she replied:</p> + +<p>“Oh, bless you, no, sir; he’s gone off on his +honeymoon!”</p> + +<h2><a name="KICKIN" id="KICKIN"></a>A KICKIN’</h2> + +<p>A newspaper correspondent, writing to his +paper from the mountain region of Eastern +Tennessee about twenty-five years ago, had +the following to say:</p> + +<p>“These mountain people have some occasional +times of recreation. I was at one recently. +A few days ago I received an invitation +to ‘a Kickin’.’ In this neighborhood every +well-regulated family has a clumsy, old-fashioned +loom to weave the wool of the +mountain sheep into fabrics for home consumption. +Some of this material requires to +be fulled, and to do this ‘a Kickin’’ is instituted, +and it was to one of these gatherings that your +correspondent was invited. It was held at one<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> +of the houses, common in this section, with a +big fireplace and no windows, located on the +banks of the Spillcorn Branch. The envoy with +the invitation was diplomatic. ‘Hev ye ever +bin to a Kickin’ afore?’ queried he. I told him +I had, and I had, too, in Pennsylvania at that, +and the only one I ever saw before. ‘Would ye +like to go to one of our Kickin’s down yere?’ +I responded that it would certainly afford me +great pleasure. ‘Then,’ said the mountaineer, +‘they’re a-goin’ to hev a Kickin’ over in Spillcorn +to-night, an’ you kin come over.’</p> + +<p>“Not wanting to miss the overture, I went +early. The house was unusually large and had +one room, with a bed in each corner. Quite a +number of strapping boys and girls had collected, +and everything bore the aspect of a +funeral. The Kickers were ranged around on +chairs with that owlish silence that goes with +awkwardness and having nothing to say. +Presently one of the girls whispered something +to another girl near by her, and they slipped +out by the back door, and then every girl in the +house broke for the door like a lot of sheep +going through a gap in the fence. Then the<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> +masculine tongue broke loose and Babel +reigned, until a few minutes later, when the +girls came in, and the funeral was resumed. I +sat in one corner with my chair tilted back, +taking observations, when not engaged in +fighting off a human gad-fly who was pestering +me with questions of national politics.</p> + +<p>“Presently the old woman said they might +as well begin. If there was silence before, +pandemonium broke loose now, and everybody +was electrified. The old man went out on the +porch and rolled in a web of coarse woolen +fabric, containing a hundred yards or more, and +unrolled it in a loose pile on the floor. Then +the boys and girls took off their shoes and +stockings. The boys rolled up their pantaloons +as far as they could get them, while they arranged +fourteen chairs in a circle in the middle +of the floor, with the pile of goods in the center. +The old woman, who looked for all the world +like one of the witches in Macbeth, poured +gourdfull after gourdfull of hot water on the +material, until it was soaking wet, and then +daubed soft soap with a liberal hand over the +whole.<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a></p> + +<p>“Then the Kickers sat down, boys and girls +alternating. The girls gathered up their skirts +and sat down on them. They had a bed-cord, +with the ends tied so that when the Kickers +were seated they could grasp this rope, which +was passed around from hand to hand, and hold +on while they kicked.</p> + +<p>“Everybody now was talking at once, and +the confusion was that of a madhouse. The +gad-fly yelled at me that if ‘Pennsylvany went +Dimmycratic it was all gone to the dogs’—and +the kicking began.</p> + +<p>“It will be seen that it required constant and +vigorous attention to business, pounding that +sloppy mass of woolen with bare feet, until +everything rattled, to keep it from being kicked +over on those who were disposed to be slow. +Twenty-eight naked feet would be kicking into +the pile with all the rapidity and strength their +owners possessed, while the soapsuds flew up +to the rafters.</p> + +<p>“Everybody laughed, and yelled, and +screamed, and kicked till their faces grew red +and their eyes fairly stood out in their heads. +The floor grew as slippery as soap and water<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a> +could make it, and every now and then some +chair would slip and its occupant sit down suddenly +on the floor, and, holding on to the rope, +would pull the whole crowd over in a floundering, +laughing, yelling pile.</p> + +<p>“Then everybody would pant and take a rest +and sit down again. The girls would hitch up +their impedimenta to a safer distance, and the +performance would begin all over again, and +thus with relays for two hours. Only one accident +occurred. There was one big fat girl they +called Loweezy, who looked like a human +featherbed with a string tied around it. Louisa +was doing her level best to kick the pile over +on her opposite, and had gathered both feet +and let fly like a pile-driver, and was about to +repeat the operation, when, at the critical moment, +her chair shot out backward and Louisa +sat down in a puddle of soapsuds, with what +Augusta Evans in one of her novels calls a +sound like the wreck of matter and the crash of +worlds. What little breath was in her was +knocked out, and it was unknown for a brief +space whether it would ever get back. But she +got up, and was duly escorted by her female<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> +companions to the back porch for needed repairs. +The old man threw a few more pine-knots +on the fire, and Louisa returned and +spread herself before the cheerful blaze in a +manner calculated to do the most good. Then +when everybody was tired out the work was +pronounced completed, the wreck was cleaned +off the floor, and supper prepared.”</p> + +<h2><a name="HE_WARNED_HER" id="HE_WARNED_HER"></a>HE WARNED HER</h2> + +<p>Last summer the congregation of a little kirk +in the highlands of Scotland was greatly disturbed +and mystified by the appearance in its +midst of an old English lady, who made use of +an ear trumpet during the sermon, such an instrument +being entirely unknown in those +simple parts. There was much discussion of +the matter, and it was finally decided that one +of the elders, who had great local reputation as +a man of parts, should be deputed to settle the +question. On the next Sabbath the unconscious +offender again made her appearance and +again produced the trumpet, whereupon the +chosen elder rose from his seat and marched<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> +down the aisle to where the old lady sat, and, +entreating her with an upraised finger, said +sternly: “The first toot an’ ye’re oot!”</p> + +<h2><a name="INCORRIGIBLE" id="INCORRIGIBLE"></a>INCORRIGIBLE</h2> + +<p>The teacher in a public school had an incorrigible +girl to deal with, and for the twentieth +time had taken her aside for a little heart-to-heart +talk on the subject of conduct, and +was apparently making a good impression on +the child’s mind, for she was attentive and +observant as she never had been before, not +taking her eyes off the teacher’s face while she +was talking, so that the teacher was inwardly +congratulating herself, until the scholar broke +in with:</p> + +<p>“Why, Miss Mary Jane, when you talk your +upper jaw doesn’t move a bit!”</p> + +<h2><a name="DUTCH_CONUNDRUM" id="DUTCH_CONUNDRUM"></a>A DUTCH CONUNDRUM</h2> + +<p>A number of gentlemen from different parts +of the country were lodging at one of the +hotels in Atlantic City. It was their custom to +amuse themselves at table by relating anec<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a>dotes +and conundrums. One of the men, a +Pennsylvania Dutchman, was always greatly +delighted at these jokes and laughed louder +than the rest, but never related anything himself. +He couldn’t think of anything to say, and +being so much rallied for his standing failure +to contribute to the general fund, he determined +that the next time he was called on he +would have something to relate. So he went +to one of the waiters and asked him if he knew +any good jokes or conundrums. The waiter +said he did, and gave him the following:</p> + +<p>“It is my father’s child, and my mother’s +child, and yet it is not my sister or my +brother,” telling him at the same time that it +was himself.</p> + +<p>Hans bore it well in mind, and the next day +at dinner he suddenly burst out with, “I’ve got +a conundrum for you!” “Let’s have it!” exclaimed +his companions.</p> + +<p>“Vell—here it iss. It iss my fader’s child, +and it iss my mudder’s child, and yet it wass +not my sister nor my brudder. Now, vat wass +dot?”</p> + +<p>“Then it must be yourself,” said one of the<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> +company. And they all said the same. But +Hans laughed them all to scorn, saying, “Diss +time I cotched you. I got you now. You wass +all wrong. It wass der waiter.”</p> + +<h2><a name="ROUGH_ON_THE_DEACON" id="ROUGH_ON_THE_DEACON"></a>ROUGH ON THE DEACON</h2> + +<p>The Reverend Dr. John was a country minister +and was very fond of hunting rabbits. +One fall day he was out in a field along the +public road at his favorite pastime, and had +located a rabbit. Just then he spied one of +his deacons coming down the road. Thinking +to play a trick on the deacon, he pulled up the +collar of the old coat he was wearing, drew +down the rim of his slouch hat, humped together +and made himself as unrecognizable as +possible. He then turned his back to the road +and began to take a very deliberate aim. The +deacon was interested. He stopped in the road. +He walked over to the fence, and leaning on +the top rail, he called out, “Give him h——l!” +The Reverend gentleman shot the rabbit, and +then turned around—but the deacon was off +on a run, nor could the minister get anywhere +near him for six weeks.<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="RABBITS_ENOUGH" id="RABBITS_ENOUGH"></a>RABBITS ENOUGH</h2> + +<p>The same Reverend Dr. John was fond of +telling a good story about a neighboring minister +who served a people living up “along the +blue mountain.” Rabbits were very plentiful +up in that section, and in the fall of the year +when this minister went on a round of pastoral +visitation amongst his people, they fed him on +rabbits wherever he came. It was rabbits in +the morning, rabbits at noon, rabbits at night—fried +rabbit, stewed rabbit, roasted rabbit—till +the poor parson was so utterly sick of the +fare that he composed a special grace at table, +which ran somewhat after this fashion:</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Rabbits young and rabbits old,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rabbits hot and rabbits cold,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rabbits tender and rabbits tough—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I thank Thee, O Lord, I’ve had rabbits enough!”<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<h2><a name="COLORED_APOSTLES" id="COLORED_APOSTLES"></a>COLORED APOSTLES</h2> + +<p>The darkey preacher and one of his deacons +fell to discussing the color-line amongst the<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> +apostles. The deacon maintained that “all de +’postles was cullud pussons, ’cause don’t you +see, Bruddah, dat de Holy Lan’ is ’bout de +same latitude as Africa, an’ dey all jist muss a +bin cullud.” But the parson was of a contrary +opinion, declaring that while “O’ co’se some +on ’em mout a bin cullud, dey wa’n’t all dat a +way. Dar, fer ’sample, was Saint Paul—he +mout a bin cullud, but den dar war Saint +Petah, he wa’n’t. I know he wa’n’t.” “An’ +how you know dat, Bruddah?” queried the +deacon. “Wa’ll, deacon,” said the preacher, +“Saint Petah nevah was a cullud pusson, ’case +if he had a bin cullud dat dar rooster wouldn’t +a crowed more’n onct.”</p> + +<h2><a name="NEAR_THE_END_OF_HIS_JOURNEY" id="NEAR_THE_END_OF_HIS_JOURNEY"></a>NEAR THE END OF HIS JOURNEY</h2> + +<p>A distinguished lawyer and politician was +traveling with a pass on a train, when an Irish +woman came into the car lugging along a big +basket and a bundle, and sat down near him. +When the conductor came in to collect the +fares, the woman paid her money, and the conductor +passed by the lawyer without collecting<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> +anything. The good woman looked at him +and said, “An’ faith, an’ why is it that the conductor +takes the money of a poor Irishwoman, +an’ don’t ask ye for anything, an’ ye seem to +be a rich mon?” The lawyer replied, “My good +woman, I am traveling on my beauty.” The +woman looked at him more carefully for a +moment, and said, “An’ is that so? An’ then, +sure, you must be near your journey’s end.”</p> + +<h2><a name="BOO" id="BOO"></a>BOO!</h2> + +<p>A Virginia farmer was trying to train a small +horse for a saddle-horse for his daughter, and +was riding the animal up and down the road +past a haystack. In order to accustom the +horse to sudden fright, he directed his son to +hide behind the haystack and jump out as he +rode by and say, “Boo!” The boy did so, and +the horse reared and plunged till he had +thrown the rider on the roadside and ran away. +The old man picked himself up, cut a switch +from a handy hedge, and was about to chastise +the boy. When the boy expostulated, declaring +that he had only done what he had been di<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a>rected +to do, the old man said, “Yes, I know +you did, but you let out altogether too big a +Boo for such a small horse!”</p> + +<h2><a name="GREAT_COUNTRY" id="GREAT_COUNTRY"></a>A GREAT COUNTRY</h2> + +<p>They tried hard, but they couldn’t get the +Yankee tourist to admit that he saw anything +in Europe that could beat things at home. +When he passed from Italy to Switzerland, +they asked him whether he had noticed the +magnificence of the Alps, and he acknowledged, +“Waal, now, come to think of it, I guess +I did pass some risin’ ground.” And before +this they had showed him Vesuvius, and asked +him what he thought of that, and whether there +was anything in his country could equal it. +And he said, “Pooh! Why, we’ve got a waterfall +in my country so big that if you had it +here and turned it into your burning mountain, +it would put out all that fire in just six +seconds.”</p> + +<p>An American-born Irishman paid a visit to +the home of his ancestors, and they proudly +showed him the lakes of Killarney. “Killarney,<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> +is it?” said he. “We’ve got lakes in +America so big that you could take all the lakes +in Ireland an’ throw ’em in, and it wouldn’t +raise the water an inch. An’ as fer yer city o’ +Dublin—let me tell ye, me friend, we’ve got +States over there so big that ye could put +Dublin away in one corner of ’em, an’ ye’d +never know it was there, except for the smell +o’ the whiskey.”</p> + +<p>These honored citizens could well appreciate +the toast—“The United States: bounded on the +east by primeval chaos; on the north by the +Aurora borealis; on the west by the precession +of the equinoxes, and on the south by the Day +of Judgment!”</p> + +<h2><a name="FARM_ACCIDENTS" id="FARM_ACCIDENTS"></a>FARM ACCIDENTS</h2> + +<p>A Larimer County farmer lost a valuable +cow in a very unusual and distressing manner. +The animal, in rummaging through a summer +kitchen, found and swallowed an old umbrella +and a cake of yeast. The yeast, fermenting in +the poor beast’s stomach, raised the umbrella +and she died in great agony.</p> + +<p>The same day another accident happened.<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> +A pan of cream had been left standing in the +spring house, and a frog had fallen in and +couldn’t get out. He swam and swam around +and around, but could get no foothold to climb +out. So he stopped swimming and took to +kicking instead. He kicked and he kicked till +he had kicked the cream into butter, and then +climbed out readily.</p> + +<h2><a name="WONDERFUL_CLIMATE" id="WONDERFUL_CLIMATE"></a>A WONDERFUL CLIMATE</h2> + +<p>Dan Marble was once strolling along the +wharves in Boston, when he met a tall, gaunt +man, a digger from California, and got into +conversation with him about that wonderful +State.</p> + +<p>“Healthy climate, I suppose?” inquired Dan.</p> + +<p>“Healthy? Well, I reckon I should say so, +stranger. Why, d’ye know, out there you can +choose any kind o’ climate you like, hot or +cold or mejum, an’ that, too, without traveling +more’n fifteen minutes. They’ve got weather +on tap out there, so to speak, sizz or frizz, accordin’ +to taste an’ preference. There’s a +mountain there—the Sary Nevady, they call<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> +it—one side hot an’ one side cold. Well—get +up on top o’ that mountain with a double-barrel +gun, an’ you can, without movin’, kill either +winter or summer game, jest as you wish.”</p> + +<p>“What! And have you tried it?”</p> + +<p>“Tried it often, an’ would have done some +remarkable shootin’, but jest for one thing.”</p> + +<p>“And what was that?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I wanted a dog, you see, that could +stand both climates. The last dog I had froze +his tail off pintin’ on the summer side. He +was on the Great Divide, you see, nose on the +summer side, tail on the winter side, an’ his +tail froze right off before I could shoot.”</p> + +<h2><a name="HE_CUT_IT_SHORT" id="HE_CUT_IT_SHORT"></a>HE CUT IT SHORT</h2> + +<p>Garrigan was the name of the new station +agent. He was an Irishman, of course, and +magnified his office by sending in to headquarters +very lengthy telegraphic despatches +giving very minute details of the many accidents +that happened to the trains at his station. +Headquarters, at length wearying of the man’s +unnecessary prolixity, instructed him to cut out<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> +all superfluous particulars and to confine himself +to essentials only. “Cut it out?” said he, +“an’ sure that I will the very next time an accident +happens, or me name isn’t Garrigan.” The +next day some cars went off the track—they +were always going off the track at his station—and +as soon as they were made all right, he +wired headquarters a laconic despatch, in the +very rhythm of which one can hear the rumble +of the car-wheels: “Off again; on again; gone +again. Garrigan!”</p> + +<h2><a name="NOT_GOOD_LOOKING" id="NOT_GOOD_LOOKING"></a>NOT GOOD LOOKING</h2> + +<p>A man was buying a horse of a French +Canadian. He looked the animal over carefully. +The Frenchman said, “He not look ver’ +goot, but he is a goot horse.” The purchaser, +not setting much store by the man’s judgment +of good looks in a horse, and saying that he +didn’t care for appearance provided other +things were all right, bought the animal. Next +day he brought the horse back, saying that he +was blind of an eye, and demanded his money +back, but the Frenchman said, “Non! Vot I +tell you? Did I not say zat he not look goot?<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>”</p> + +<p>One day when Mrs. Van Auken installed a +Chinaman in her kitchen, the following conversation +took place: “What is your name, +sir?” asked Mrs. Van Auken. “Oh, my namee +Ah Sin Foo!” “But I can’t remember all that +lingo, my man. I’ll call you Jimmy.” “Velly +welle. Now whachee namee I callee you?” +“Well, my name is Mrs. Van Auken. Call me +that.” “Oh, me can no membel Missee Yanne +Auken. Too big piecee namee. I callee you +Tommy—Missee Tommy.”</p> + +<h2><a name="FLANK_MOVEMENT" id="FLANK_MOVEMENT"></a>A FLANK MOVEMENT</h2> + +<p>At a Camp Fire of the Grand Army of the +Republic a comrade, being called on for a +speech, got up and said, “Now, boys, you all +know I can’t make a speech; I never could. +And the Commander shouldn’t have called on +me to get up. I feel now like my brother Sam +felt, one summer night, when he hadn’t anything +particular to do. He wandered into a +Methodist prayer-meeting and sat down near +the door in one of those high-backed old-fashioned<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> +pews. He had no idea that he’d be +called on to say anything, or he wouldn’t have +gone near, but what did the blame preacher do +when he spied Sam but call on him to pray! +Sam was nearly scared to death. He didn’t +know what to do; but when he saw all the congregation +getting down on their hunkers between +the pews where they couldn’t see him, +and the door was open, he heard the bugle call +to “Retreat,” got down on all fours and turned +turtle, and crawled out of that church on a +double quick, and skipped for Home, sweet +Home.”</p> + +<h2><a name="LONELY_PLACE" id="LONELY_PLACE"></a>A LONELY PLACE</h2> + +<p>“Mamma,” said a little girl, “George Washington +never told a lie, did he?” Being so +assured, she continued: “And I guess pretty +nearly everybody else did?” This being likewise +admitted as probable, she went on, “I +guess even father sometimes tells a fib, doesn’t +he?” It was hard to admit that, but it had to +be. “And, mamma, you tell some once in a +while? I know I do.” When this was also +reluctantly confessed, the child drew a sigh<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> +and said, “Oh, mamma! What a lonely place +Heaven will be, with nobody in it but God and +George Washington!”</p> + +<h2><a name="PRICE_OF_A_DOG" id="PRICE_OF_A_DOG"></a>THE PRICE OF A DOG</h2> + +<p>A man had a dog, and the dog was such a +poor, miserable cur that everybody wondered +at the attachment of the man to such a beast. +One day in the barroom of a tavern a number +of young men were rallying him on his dog, +and wanted to know how much he’d take for +his pet. The man said that he loved that dog +so much that he couldn’t think of parting with +him—he “wouldn’t take twenty dollars for that +dog.” His tormentors, knowing him to be +thoroughly conscientious, although poor, and +that when he had given his word he would +never go back on it, got together forty silver +half-dollars, piled them up on the bar, and +called on him to decide whether he would +rather have that miserable dog or all that pile +of silver? “No, gentlemen,” said he, walking +up to the bar and counting the money carefully, +“I stick to what I said. I won’t take<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> +twenty dollars for Pete. It’s too much. Nineteen +dollars and a half is every cent he’s worth. +The dog is yours.” Leaving one half-dollar on +the bar, he scooped the other thirty-nine into +his hat.</p> + +<h2><a name="WHY_THE_HAWKEYE_MAN_COULDNT_PAY" id="WHY_THE_HAWKEYE_MAN_COULDNT_PAY"></a>WHY THE HAWKEYE MAN COULDN’T PAY</h2> + +<p class="r"> +Iowa, 12, 3, ’06.<br /> +</p> + +<p>Dear Sir:—Your sumptuous letter received, +and in reply will say that they come frequently, +and it would have afforded the boys much +amusement had not the melancholy thought +come with it that you had no better sense than +to abuse, slander and dun a gentleman.</p> + +<p>You speak of honor, if you are honorable you +know not whereof you speak. You also speak +of causing me much trouble, my land, I have +already trouble enough to send a whole +brigade of you wise boys over the road fifty +times. I will give you a history of this case, +and if you are surprised at my actions in regard +to your claim for 10.00 you are undoubtedly +the worst set of misers on earth.</p> + +<p>To begin with in 1891 I bought a restaurant<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> +on credit. In 1892 I bought an OX team, a timber +cart, a pair of Texas ponies, a gold watch, +a breech-loading shotgun, A repeating rifle, A +milk cow, A pair of fine hogs, and a set of books +all on the instalment plan, and hired hands to +dig a fish pond. In 1905 my restaurant burned +flat to the ground and never left me a thing, +one of my ponies died and I hired the other +one to an infernal, insignificant drummer. He +killed him driving him too hard. Then I +joined the farmers alliance and Methodist +church, and took advantage of the homestead +exemption and honest debtors’ relief law, and +then had my applycation wrote out to join the +masons. In the latter part of 1905 my father +died and my mother married a Mexican. And +my brother Bud was lynched for horse stealing. +My sister choked to death on a button +and I had to pay her funeral expenses.</p> + +<p>In 1905 I got burned out again, and I took +to drink and soon went through with the interest +on what I owed, which was all I had +left. My wife run away and left me all the children +to take care of. I don’t care for anybody +and nothing surprises me any more. Now if<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> +you feel like tackeling me pitch in, I’ll have to +stand it, I suppose. But let me give you a gentle +tip, getting money out of me is like stuffing +butter in a keyhole with a hot awl.</p> + +<p>You speak of making no effort to adjust this +bill; what is the use? If steam boats were +worth two cents apiece I couldn’t buy a gang +plank. You ask if I thought it would of been +more manly to of acknowledged the truth. I +answer no, by the way, I don’t expect anything +but to be pestered by lawyers, collection +sharks and other humbugs and grafters, until +this pestilence relieves me from their clutches. +Be for I die I am going to Petition heigh +heaven for a shower of fire and destruction on +the whole bunch. And I will particular pray +that the storm spend most of its fury on that +southern hamlet where you claim to get your +mail.</p> + +<p>Maliciously and disrespectfully yours,</p> + +<p class="r"> +----.<br /> +</p> + +<h2><a name="FORBIDDEN_FRUIT" id="FORBIDDEN_FRUIT"></a>THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT</h2> + +<p>Father had bought and planted a number of +dwarf pear trees in the yard around the house.<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> +He watched their growth and development +with great interest for several years, and when +at last one of the trees produced just one pear, +all the children in the house were straitly and +strictly forbidden to pull that pear off the tree. +“Whoever pulls that pear off the tree will get +a whipping, and a good one.”</p> + +<p>The pear grew larger daily, and riper and +more lusciously tempting. How the sight of it +made our mouths water—especially as it was +forbidden to pull it off! However, some one +of the children, carefully reasoning that it was +not forbidden to touch the pear, nor even to +eat it, only that it must not be “pulled off”—bent +down the limb that bore it, ate the juicy +fruit, and left the core hanging on the tree!</p> + +<h2><a name="KEEN_CUTTERS" id="KEEN_CUTTERS"></a>KEEN CUTTERS</h2> + +<p>They were sitting opposite me in the smoking +car, two traveling salesmen, having a quiet +game of cards and sharpening their wits between +deals with quips, quirks and conundrums.</p> + +<p>“You come from Kalamazoo, I believe?” +queried the one.<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a></p> + +<p>“Yep,” said the other, “best old town on the +earth.”</p> + +<p>“D’ye know,” drawled the Boston man, +“what we Boston people call the people that +live in your town?”</p> + +<p>“Nope, an’ we don’t care much, neither. But, +just by way of conversation, may I inquire +what you call ’em?”</p> + +<p>“We call ’em a zoo. See?”</p> + +<p>“Yep, I see,” said the Kalamazoo man. “And +do you know and can you tell me what kind o’ +people live in your town of Boston?”</p> + +<p>“Best and smartest people on earth,” was +the emphatic answer.</p> + +<p>“Well,” was the response, “out my way we +say that people that live in Boston are nothing +but human beans. See? Cut for a new deal.”</p> + +<h2><a name="NAMING_THE_APOSTLES" id="NAMING_THE_APOSTLES"></a>NAMING THE APOSTLES</h2> + +<p>After a dinner in one of the most hospitable +residences in Washington, a party of very distinguished +men—Cabinet ministers, senators, +diplomats, scientists and soldiers—sat in the +smoking-room, and the conversation drifted<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> +from politics to religious questions. Somebody +remarked that he once sat in the Union +League Club in New York, with Roscoe Conkling, +Chester A. Arthur and several other distinguished +gentlemen who had been carefully +educated in religious families, and that none of +them was able to name the Twelve Apostles.</p> + +<p>“That’s easy,” said a senator brashly, beginning: +“Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, +bless the bed that I lie on, Paul, the two +Jameses, Jude, Barnabas—“ and there he +stopped with some embarrassment.</p> + +<p>“Timothy,” suggested a major-general, who +was a vestryman in an Episcopal Church.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” answered a senator. “Timothy +was a disciple of Paul’s. He wasn’t one of the +Twelve Apostles.”</p> + +<p>“Nicodemus,” added one of the company.</p> + +<p>“Jeremiah,” suggested another.</p> + +<p>“Judas was one of the apostles,” meekly +came from a voice in a corner.</p> + +<p>“I’ll be blamed if he was. He was a disciple, +so far I’ll go, but no farther,” was the curt reply.</p> + +<p>“Weren’t the disciples and the apostles the<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> +same thing?” inquired the meek voice, getting +a little bolder.</p> + +<p>Bartholomew was next suggested, and accepted +by several.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with Peter?” exclaimed +a modest young member of the Diplomatic +Corps who had hitherto been silent.</p> + +<p>“How many does that make?” somebody +asked, and they counted up eleven for sure, +with as many more doubtful.</p> + +<p>“Lets look in the Bible,” some one suggested, +and the Good Book was overhauled in +vain. Nobody could find the place, some insisting +it was in Chronicles somewhere, while +other authorities were equally certain of +Corinthians. Then an encyclopedia was appealed +to, but it was not entirely satisfactory, +for it included Thomas and Andrew +in the list, and that would make one too +many—thirteen, an unlucky number. Besides, +the justice of the Supreme Court and two +senators were positive that Andrew was +not an apostle—all of which teaches the great +usefulness and the pressing need of Sunday-schools.<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="REAR_GUARD" id="REAR_GUARD"></a>THE REAR GUARD</h2> + +<p>Artemus Ward was traveling on a slow-going +southern road soon after the war. While +the conductor was punching his ticket, Artemus +remarked: “Does this railroad company +allow passengers to give it advice, if they do +so in a respectful manner?” The conductor replied +in gruff tones that he guessed so. “Well,” +Artemus went on, “it has occurred to me that +it would be well, perhaps, to detach the cow-catcher +from the front of the engine and hitch +it to the rear of the train. For, you see, we +are not likely to overtake a cow; but what’s to +prevent a cow strolling into this car and biting +the passengers?”</p> + +<h2><a name="TURKEY_WAS_TAME" id="TURKEY_WAS_TAME"></a>THE TURKEY WAS TAME</h2> + +<p>A gentleman who was buying a turkey from +old Uncle Ephraim asked him, in making the +purchase, if it was a tame turkey.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yais, sir; it’s a tame tu’key all right.”</p> + +<p>“Now, Ephraim, are you sure it’s a tame turkey?<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yais, sir; dere’s no so’t o’ doubt ’bout +dat. It’s a tame tu’key all right.”</p> + +<p>He consequently bought the turkey, and a +day or two later, when eating it, came across +several shot. Later on, when he met old +Ephraim on the street, he said:</p> + +<p>“Well, Ephraim, you told me that was a +tame turkey, but I found some shot in it when +I was eating it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dat war a tame tu’key all right,” was +Uncle Ephraim’s reiterated rejoinder, “but de +fac’ is, boss, I’s gwine to tell yer in confidence, +dat dem ’ere shot was intended for me.”</p> + +<h2><a name="BOOMERANG_STORIES" id="BOOMERANG_STORIES"></a>BOOMERANG STORIES</h2> + +<p>During the Civil War a German cavalryman, +Hans von Gelder by name, on coming +into camp saw at a distance a squad of men +who were apparently greatly interested or excited +about something.</p> + +<p>“Vat’s der matter oud dere?” asked Hans.</p> + +<p>“Shelling,” was the laconic answer.</p> + +<p>“Shellin’? Who was giffin’ us fits now? +Whose gommand is makin’ dot shellin’?<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a>”</p> + +<p>“It’s General R——’s command shelling +corn for the horses.” When Hans finally +grasped the idea, he laughed long and loud and +determined to make some one else the victim +of the jest. Upon returning to his tent he wakened +his sleeping comrade and exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“Say, I haf got von goot shoke.”</p> + +<p>“You couldn’t get off a joke, Hans, to save +your soul.”</p> + +<p>“Vell, now, you ask me vat dem fellers are +doin’ ofer dere, undt I vill tell you dot shoke.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what air they doin’ over there?”</p> + +<p>“Dey vas shellin’ corn for dere hosses. Haw! +haw! haw!”</p> + +<p>“But that hain’t no joke.”</p> + +<p>“Dond id?” asked Hans in surprise. “Vell, +if id dond now, it used to pe.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Sam Ward was once seated opposite a well-known +senator at a dinner in Washington. +The senator was very bald, and the light shining +brilliantly on the breadth of his scalp attracted +Ward’s attention.</p> + +<p>“Can you tell me,” said he to his neighbor, +“why that senator’s head is like Alaska?<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a>”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I don’t know,” was the answer.</p> + +<p>“Because it is a great white bear place.”</p> + +<p>The man was immensely tickled and he at +once hailed the senator across the table:</p> + +<p>“Say, senator, Ward’s just got off a good +thing about you.”</p> + +<p>“What is it? Let’s have it.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know why your bald head is like +Alaska?”</p> + +<p>“No. Give it up.”</p> + +<p>“Because it is a great place for white bears.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The following, gentle reader, is given place +here purely for the benefit of the next generation:</p> + +<p>In a certain court in the good State of Maine, +once upon a time, the proceedings were delayed +by the failure of a witness by the name +of Sarah Mony to arrive. After waiting a long +time for Sarah, the court concluded to wait no +longer, and his Honor, wishing to crack his +little joke, remarked:</p> + +<p>“The Court will adjourn without Sarah—Mony.”</p> + +<p>Everybody laughed except one man who sat<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> +in solemn meditation for five full minutes, and +then burst out into a hearty guffaw, “I see it! +I see it!”</p> + +<p>He laughed all the way home, and when he +arrived there he tried to tell the joke to his +wife, saying that he had been down in the +court-house, and they were trying a case, and +there was a witness wanted who didn’t turn +up, and her name was Mary Mony, and so the +judge said, “We’ll adjourn without Mary +Mony—“ Ha, ha, ha!</p> + +<p>And then his wife said she didn’t see anything +funny in that, and he said, “I know it, I +know it. I didn’t at first either. But you will +in about five minutes.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>“Say, Jenks, old boy,” said one man to another +on the street, “here’s a good one: What’s +the difference between me and a donkey?”</p> + +<p>“Well—what is the difference?”</p> + +<p>“Measuring by my eye, I should say it was +about three feet.”</p> + +<p>Jenks, thinking that too good to be lost, carried +it home to his wife. “Say, Maria,” said +he, “what’s the difference between me and a<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> +donkey?” And the cruel woman with a merry +laugh answered, “Not a particle of difference!”</p> + +<h2><a name="PROMISING_BUSINESS_BOY" id="PROMISING_BUSINESS_BOY"></a>A PROMISING BUSINESS BOY</h2> + +<p>That was certainly a very enterprising Chicago +lad who was found selling tickets to the +children in his neighborhood, at a nickel apiece, +the tickets entitling the holder to view the +eclipse from his mother’s back yard.</p> + +<h2><a name="HE_DIDNT_GET_IT_IN_THE_NECK" id="HE_DIDNT_GET_IT_IN_THE_NECK"></a>HE DIDN’T GET IT IN THE NECK</h2> + +<p>Among the visitors at a Dog Show at Atlantic +City, N. J., was a very tall man who complained +to an exhibitor that his dog, a very +diminutive specimen, had bitten him on the +ankle. The exhibitor looked the man over, and +then said with a charming down-East drawl:</p> + +<p>“Well, stranger, I reckon you are about six +feet tall. This here dog o’ mine ain’t more’n +six inches high. He bit you on the ankle, did +he? Well, I’m sorry, but you couldn’t naturally +expect so small a dog to bite you on the +neck.<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a>”</p> + +<h2><a name="HARD_WITNESS" id="HARD_WITNESS"></a>A HARD WITNESS</h2> + +<p>“Do you know the prisoner well?” asked the +attorney.</p> + +<p>“Never knew him sick,” replied the witness.</p> + +<p>“Come—no levity,” said the lawyer sternly. +“Now, sir, did you ever see the prisoner at the +bar?”</p> + +<p>“Took many a drink with him at the bar.”</p> + +<p>“Answer my question,” yelled the lawyer. +“How long have you known the prisoner?”</p> + +<p>“From two feet up to five feet ten inches.”</p> + +<p>“Will the Court please make the——“</p> + +<p>“I have, Jedge,” said the witness, anticipating +the lawyer. “I have answered his question. +I knowed the prisoner when he was a +boy two feet long and a man five feet ten.”</p> + +<p>“Your Honor——“</p> + +<p>“It’s a fact, Jedge, and I’m under oath,” persisted +the witness. The lawyer arose, placed +both hands on the table in front of him, spread +his legs apart, leaned his body over the table +and said:</p> + +<p>“Will you tell the Court what you know +about this case?<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>”</p> + +<p>“That ain’t his name,” answered the witness.</p> + +<p>“What ain’t his name?”</p> + +<p>“Why, Case.”</p> + +<p>“Who said it was?”</p> + +<p>“You did, just now. You wanted to know +what I knew about this Case. His name is +Smith.”</p> + +<p>“Your Honor,” howled the lawyer, pulling +his beard, “will you make the witness answer +my questions?”</p> + +<p>“Witness,” said the judge, “you must answer +the questions put to you.”</p> + +<p>“Land o’ Goshen! Hain’t I been doin’ it, +Jedge? Let the blame cuss fire away, I’m +ready.”</p> + +<p>“Then,” said the lawyer, “don’t beat about +the bush any more. You and the prisoner have +been friends?”</p> + +<p>“Never.”</p> + +<p>“What! wasn’t you summoned here as a +friend?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir. I was summoned here as a Presbyterian. +Nary one of us ever was friends. He’s +a old-line Baptist without a drop o’ Quaker +blood in him.<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Stand down,” yelled the lawyer in disgust.</p> + +<p>“Hey?”</p> + +<p>“Stand down!”</p> + +<p>“Can’t do it. I kin set down, ef ye want me +to, or I kin stand up, but I can’t stand down.”</p> + +<p>“Sheriff—remove this man from the box.”</p> + +<p>Witness retires muttering: “Well, if he ain’t +the thick-headedest cuss I ever laid eyes on.”</p> + +<h2><a name="IMPOSSIBLE_BUT_FUNNY" id="IMPOSSIBLE_BUT_FUNNY"></a>IMPOSSIBLE—BUT FUNNY</h2> + +<p>The Board of Councilmen in a Mississippi +town voted the following resolutions at one of +their meetings:</p> + +<p>“First—Resolved by this council, that we +build a new jail.</p> + +<p>“Second—Resolved that the new jail be built +out of the materials of the old jail.</p> + +<p>“Third—Resolved that the old jail be used +till the new jail is finished.”</p> + +<p>This is something like the account an Irish +sailor once gave of the execution of a negro on +the west coast of Africa. He told how the +negro’s hands were tied behind his back, and +how the executioner cut the man’s head off at<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> +one clip, and how the headless man stooped +down, seized his bloody head and set it up on +his neck where it was before! When some bystander +remarked that such a thing was impossible, +for “How could the man pick up his +head from the ground when his hands were +tied behind his back?” “Begorry,” was the answer, +“he done it wid his teeth!”</p> + +<h2><a name="RURAL_JUSTICE" id="RURAL_JUSTICE"></a>RURAL JUSTICE</h2> + +<p>It occurred years ago in the mountain regions +in Eastern Tennessee. Some of the natives +had been gambling in a tobacco barn, and +one of the neighbors, in the interest of good +morals, had them up “afore the justice” for it. +The squire had a lank specimen of humanity +before him and was examining him.</p> + +<p>“Now, Zeke, you tell us what you know +about this here gamblin’.”</p> + +<p>“Wot gamblin’?”</p> + +<p>“Why, this here gamblin’ at Jamison’s barn.”</p> + +<p>“At Jamison’s barn?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, at Jamison’s barn. You was there. +Now, what do you know about this gamblin’?<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Gamblin’ at Jamison’s barn? Who said +there was any gamblin’?”</p> + +<p>“Was you at Jamison’s?”</p> + +<p>“Was I?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Was you there?”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“At Jamison’s barn.”</p> + +<p>“Ye—s. I wuz thar off an’ on ever sence it +wuz built.”</p> + +<p>“Was you there last week?”</p> + +<p>“Wot—in the barn?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Was they a-gamblin’ +there?”</p> + +<p>“Wuz who a-gamblin’?”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I want to know. Was anybody +a-gamblin’?”</p> + +<p>“A-gamblin’—where?”</p> + +<p>“At Jamison’s barn. Did you see them gamblin’?”</p> + +<p>“Did I see them gamblin’, d’ye say?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Was you in close proximity to them +a-gamblin’?”</p> + +<p>“Zimmity—Zimmity. See here, square, +what’s this here ye’re a-givin’ me. Don’t you +go to projeckin around me that a way. I’m a<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> +mountain man, I am, an’ I ain’t to be fooled +with nohow.”</p> + +<p>“I asked, Zeke, did you see anybody a-gamblin’ +or not a-gamblin’?”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“At Jamison’s barn last week.”</p> + +<p>“Did I see anybody a-gamblin’ last +week——“</p> + +<p>“Yes, now; that’s it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I see some a-gamblin’ last week.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! now we’re comin’ to it. Who was it +you saw a-gamblin’ last week?”</p> + +<p>“Why, don’t you know, you an’ me an’ Bill +was playin’ keerds at the mill——“</p> + +<p>“Oh—pshaw! I don’t mean that. Was anybody +gamblin’ at Jamison’s?”</p> + +<p>“Wot—at Jamison’s?”</p> + +<p>This went on for a full hour, and it all came +to one thing. Nobody knew anything about +it, and after some talk a weazen-faced, dried-up +old man, who had been whittling a piece of +bark, said:</p> + +<p>“Square, there ain’t been nothin’ a-proved, +and this here case must be stopped. I’ll pay +the costs.<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the magistrate, “there ain’t +been nothin’ proved up, an’ if you’ll pay the +costs of one sixty, I’ll call this here case a +Nolly Prossy.”</p> + +<p>And then the old man said, “All right, +square. Here’s yer money fer the costs. I +don’t mind about payin’ ’em seein’ as how I +won the whole pot anyways.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Let a vote be taken for the wisest man, and +every fool will vote for himself.</p> + +<h2><a name="PURE_SCOTCH" id="PURE_SCOTCH"></a>PURE SCOTCH</h2> + +<p>Andrew Carnegie, in the smoke-room of the +Baltic, talked about Scotch whisky.</p> + +<p>“It is a pure but a powerful spirit,” he said, +smiling. “In Peebles the other day they told +me a good story about it.</p> + +<p>“It seems that a Peebles lawyer and his +clerk had been to a wedding of the real, old-fashioned +sort. On the way home the lawyer +said, as they were crossing the famous Peebles +iron bridge:</p> + +<p>“‘Noo, Saunders, mon, I’ll juist gang on<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> +ahead a meenit, an’ ye’ll tell me if I’m walkin’ +straucht.’</p> + +<p>“So the lawyer walked ahead, and then called +back:</p> + +<p>“‘Straucht, Saunders?’</p> + +<p>“‘Straucht’s a die,’ Saunders answered; ‘but—hic—wha’s +that wi’ ye?’”</p> + +<h2><a name="WHY_HE_WAS_A_DEMOCRAT" id="WHY_HE_WAS_A_DEMOCRAT"></a>WHY HE WAS A DEMOCRAT</h2> + +<p>“The old teacher in one of the smaller +schools near my native town of Peekskill,” said +Senator Depew, “had drilled a number of his +brightest scholars in the history of contemporary +politics, and to test their faith and their +knowledge he called upon three of them one +day and demanded a declaration of personal +political principles.</p> + +<p>“You are a Republican, Tom, are you not?” +inquired he of the first. “Yes, sir,” was the +answer. “And, Bill, you are a Prohibitionist, +I believe?” “Yes, sir,” said Bill. “And, Jim, +you are a Democrat?” “Yes, sir,” said Jim.</p> + +<p>“Well, now,” continued the teacher, “the one +of you that gives the best reason why he be<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>longs +to his party can have this live woodchuck +which I caught on my way to school this +morning.”</p> + +<p>“I am a Republican,” said the first boy, “because +the Republican party saved the country +in the war and abolished slavery.”</p> + +<p>“And I am a Prohibitionist,” rattled off the +second youth, “because rum is our country’s +greatest enemy, and the cause of our over-crowded +prisons and poorhouses.”</p> + +<p>“Very excellent reasons, boys, very excellent +reasons,” observed the teacher encouragingly. +“And, now, Jim, why are you a Democrat?”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir,” was the slow reply, “I am a +Democrat because I want that woodchuck!”</p> + +<h2><a name="FINALLY_THE_WORM_TURNED" id="FINALLY_THE_WORM_TURNED"></a>FINALLY THE WORM TURNED</h2> + +<p>A muscular Irishman strolled into the Civil +Service examination-room where candidates +for the police force are put to a physical test.</p> + +<p>“Strip,” ordered the police surgeon.</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” demanded the uninitiated.</p> + +<p>“Get your clothes off, and be quick about it,” +said the doctor.<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a></p> + +<p>The Irishman disrobed, and permitted the +doctor to measure his chest and legs and to +pound his back.</p> + +<p>“Hop over this bar,” ordered the doctor.</p> + +<p>The man did his best, landing on his back.</p> + +<p>“Now double up your knees and touch the +floor with your hands.”</p> + +<p>He sprawled, face downward, on the floor. +He was indignant but silent.</p> + +<p>“Jump under this cold shower,” ordered the +doctor.</p> + +<p>“Sure, that’s funny!” muttered the applicant.</p> + +<p>“Now run around the room ten times to test +your heart and wind,” directed the doctor.</p> + +<p>The candidate rebelled. “I’ll not. I’ll sthay +single.”</p> + +<p>“Single?” asked the doctor, surprised.</p> + +<p>“Sure,” said the Irishman, “what’s all this +fussing got to do with a marriage license!”</p> + +<p>He had strayed into the wrong bureau.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>A number of mischievous boys on their way +to drive the cows home from pasture one evening, +passing by the low and lonely cabin occupied +by a poor old woman, hearing some one<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> +talking within, peeped through the window +and saw the poor old body on her knees before +the wide old-fashioned chimney. She was pitifully +beseeching God to send her bread. The +boys thinking it would be a good joke, ran +back home and got some loaves of bread. The +old lady was praying still for bread when they +returned, all out of breath. They climbed up +on the roof quietly and threw the loaves down +the chimney, scrambled down to the door and +listened to the poor old soul pouring her heart +out in thanksgiving to God for sending her +bread from heaven. Then they opened the +door, and burst in on her with:</p> + +<p>“Why, granny! Did you think God sent you +that bread? We tumbled it down the chimbley!”</p> + +<p>And she said, “Well, boys, God did send it +even if the devil did bring it.”</p> + +<h2><a name="NO_WATER_IN_HIS" id="NO_WATER_IN_HIS"></a>NO WATER IN HIS</h2> + +<p>During a great temperance agitation out in +Kansas a man was lecturing in a public school +building on chemistry. An interested auditor,<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> +a farmer, couldn’t at all get the hang of the +lecturer’s remarks, and asked his neighbor in +the next seat: “Say, what does the lecturer +mean by oxy-gin and hydro-gin, and what is +the difference?” “Well,” was the answer, +“they come to ’bout the same thing. There +ain’t enough difference betwixt them to +amount to much. You see, by oxy-gin the lecturer +means pure gin, and by hydro-gin he +means gin and water.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sir,” replied Hayseed, “I reckon +I’ll take oxy-gin. It goes further.”</p> + +<h2><a name="RAISING_CAIN" id="RAISING_CAIN"></a>RAISING CAIN</h2> + +<p>Robert Burdette, in one of his lectures, thus +describes scientific education in primeval +times: “When a placid but exceedingly unanimous-looking +animal went rolling by, producing +the general effect of an eclipse, Cain +would shout:</p> + +<p>“Oh, lookee, lookee, pa! What’s that?”</p> + +<p>“Then the patient Adam, trying to saw +enough kitchen wood to last over Sunday, with +a piece of flint for a saw, would have to pause +and gather up enough words to say:<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a></p> + +<p>“That, my son? That is only a mastodon giganteus; +he has a bad look but a Christian +temper.”</p> + +<p>And then presently:</p> + +<p>“Oh, pa! pa! What’s that over yon?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, bother,” Adam would reply; “it’s only +a paleotherium, mammalia pachydermata.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes; theliocomeafterus. Oh, lookee, +lookee at this ’un!”</p> + +<p>“Where, Cainny? Oh, that in the mud? +That’s only an acephala lamelli branchiata. It +won’t bite you, but you mustn’t eat it. It’s +poison as politics.”</p> + +<p>“Whee! See there! See, see, see! What’s +him?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that? Looks like a pleiosaurus; keep +out of his way; he has a jaw like your mother.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes; a plenosserus. And what’s that +fellow, poppy?”</p> + +<p>“That’s a silurus malapterous. Don’t you +go near him, for he has the disposition of a +Georgia mule.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes; a slapterus. And what’s this little +one?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s nothing but an aristolochioid.<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> +Where did you get it? There, now, quit +throwing stones at the acanthopterygian; do +you want to be kicked? And you keep away +from the nothodenatrichomanoides. My stars, +Eve! where did he get that anonaceo-hydro-charideo-nymphaeoid? +Do you never look after +him at all? Here, you Cain, get right away +from down there, and chase that megalosaurius +out of the melon-patch, or I’ll set the mono-pleuro +brachian on you!”</p> + +<h2><a name="MEAN_COMPANY" id="MEAN_COMPANY"></a>A MEAN COMPANY</h2> + +<p>Mark Twain is credited with telling a good +story about the meanest corporation on earth. +A man was working for this company, drilling +holes for blasting rock. He got to work on a +place where there was a charge that had not +gone off. So, as he sat there quietly drilling +away, there was an explosion. He went up and +up till he didn’t look any bigger than a hat; +and then up and up till he didn’t look any bigger +than a walnut; and then up and up till he +went out of sight. Then he began to come +down and down till he looked as big as a walnut;<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> +and then down and down till he looked as +big as a hat; and then down and down till he +sat right in the place he had left, and went on +drilling away as if nothing had happened. He +was absent just sixteen minutes and forty-two +seconds—and the company was so mean that +they docked him for loss of time!</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>“Say, boy, say!” exclaimed a hot looking +man with a big valise, “what’s the quickest +way to the cars?” “Run!” yelled the boy as he +dodged into an alley. The man was very sorry +the boy had so suddenly disappeared, for he +was so pleased with the kind information that +if he could only have come near enough to the +boy, he would certainly have given him something +to remember him by.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>When the preacher went into politics and +suffered in his professional character in consequence, +he thought well to make an humble +confession to his conference to the effect that +“the muddy pool of politics was the rock on +which I split.”</p> + +<p>He mixed his figures about as badly as a<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> +famous Irishman, Sir Boyle Roche, who, suspecting +the opposition of some sort of underhand +intentions, revealed his acuteness and his +purpose to head off the enemy in the following +terms: “I smell a rat; I feel it in the air; and +I will nip it in the bud!”</p> + +<h2><a name="SURE_THING" id="SURE_THING"></a>A SURE THING</h2> + +<p>The colonel and a friend were sitting on the +back porch of the house smoking and talking. +They fell to discussing the intoxicating properties +of beer. The colonel maintained that a +man couldn’t possibly drink enough beer to +make him drunk, but his friend was of a contrary +mind. The colonel went into his kitchen +and brought out a two-gallon tin bucket, and +said, “See this bucket? Well, I have a German +sawing wood down in my barn at the end of +the lot. I’ll bet you ten dollars that he can +drink all the beer that bucket will hold at one +sitting, and not be the worse for it.” The bet +was taken, and the colonel called the man from +his work, and said, “Diedrich, you see that +bucket? If I were to fill that bucket with beer,<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> +do you think you could drink it all at one sitting?”</p> + +<p>The German smiled broadly, and said he +guessed he could—he could try. “But I want +you to be certain,” said the colonel. “Vell,” +said Diedrich, “I guess I could, but maybe I +couldn’t.” With this he was dismissed and +the subject was dropped.</p> + +<p>At the end of a half hour, Diedrich appeared +on the scene and said that if that bucket was +filled with beer he could drink it all without +stopping. He was certain he could. Accordingly +he was sent with the bucket to a neighboring +brewery and promptly returned with +the vessel full to the brim. He placed it on a +table, drew up a chair, tilted the bucket and +set to work. In a very short time he had finished, +arose, thanked the colonel and was making +for the wood-pile.</p> + +<p>“Hold on,” called the colonel, “I want to ask +you a question. When I called you up the first +time you were uncertain whether you could +drink that bucket of beer or not, and then after +a while you came back and said you were certain +you could. How do you explain that?<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a>”</p> + +<p>Diedrich drew the back of his hand across his +mouth, and said, “Vy, colonel, dot is easy to +explain. Der first time ven you ask me, I did +not know for sure. So ven I vent away, I vent +over to der brewery undt got me a bucket +about so big as yours undt tried if I could—undt +I found I could, I could; undt so I coom +back here sure, sure dat I could drink your +bucket full mit beer. See?”</p> + +<h2><a name="LOGIC_OF_GRAMMAR" id="LOGIC_OF_GRAMMAR"></a>THE LOGIC OF GRAMMAR</h2> + +<p>While instructing his pupils in grammar, a +country school-teacher gave out this sentence +to be parsed: “Mary milks the cow.” Each +word had been parsed except the last, which +fell to Bob, a sixteen-year-old boy, near the +foot of the class, who began thus:</p> + +<p>“Cow is a noun, feminine gender, singular +number, third person, and stands for Mary.”</p> + +<p>“Stands for Mary!” said the astonished +teacher. “And, pray, Robert, how do you make +that out?”</p> + +<p>“Because,” answered the hopeful pupil, “if +the cow didn’t stand for Mary, how could +Mary milk the cow?<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a>”</p> + +<h2><a name="DELIRIOUS" id="DELIRIOUS"></a>DELIRIOUS</h2> + +<p>“Say—how much do you think I had to pay +the milliner for my wife’s last spring bonnet? +Thirty-six dollars and seventeen cents.”</p> + +<p>“Rather steep, isn’t it? What are you going +to do about it?”</p> + +<p>“Do about it? Nothing. Because, don’t you +see, old man, I daren’t say beans to it. My +wife has the delirium trimmins.”</p> + +<p>Mr. W. J. Lampton in the New York Times +thus discourses on the tender topic:</p> + +<h2><a name="MILLINERYMANIA" id="MILLINERYMANIA"></a>Millinerymania</h2> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Did you ever see such sights?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such frizzly, frazzly frights<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As now the lovely fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Insist that they must wear?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did you ever, in your feeble way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Attempt to calculate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What it must be to keep one on straight?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heavens to Betsy, no slob<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could get away with such a job!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That’s why no man<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could wear the hat a woman can<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And does, and thinks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She’s not at all gezinx.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ain’t they the dowdydow?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hats, not the women.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Autumn Lid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deliriously displayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has got the Merry Wid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Screaming screams for aid.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Police! Police!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Call out the cops<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To save the ladies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From their tops.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, woman, in your hours of ease,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uncertain, coy and hard to please,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who ever gave you lids like these?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who is it has designed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such cover for your mind?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This framework in a rag?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This millinery jag?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who done it? Who<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should get the fearful due?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">However, it’s no matter<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who is the women’s hatter,<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">They wear the goods!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the level,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Don’t they<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look like the dickens?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gee whiz,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why look pazziz,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When a woman’s as pretty as a woman is?<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<h2><a name="ECCENTRIC_GREAT_MAN" id="ECCENTRIC_GREAT_MAN"></a>AN ECCENTRIC GREAT MAN</h2> + +<p>The handwriting of Horace Greely, the great +editor, was remarkable for its illegibility. +Very few people could read what he wrote, +and sometimes it puzzled Mr. Greely himself. +He wrote a hurried note one day, addressed it +to the editor of one of the other great New +York papers, and sent it by a messenger boy. +The boy duly delivered it, but the man +couldn’t make it out, and sent it back. When +the boy handed his own note to Mr. Greely, +he, supposing it to be a reply to his own communication, +and being unable to read it, looked +it over carefully and said: “Why, what does +the old fool mean?” “Yes,” said the boy, +“that’s just what the other man said!<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a>”</p> + +<p>In addition to writing a poor hand Mr. +Greely was very absent-minded. Leaving his +office in a great hurry one day to go an errand +downtown, he wrote on a card, “Back in 20 +minutes,” pinned it on the outside of his office +door and rushed out. Having changed his mind, +he came back in five minutes and, seeing the +notice on the door, took a seat nearby, and +actually waited twenty minutes for himself to +come back!</p> + +<h2><a name="LEFT-HANDED_COMPLIMENTS" id="LEFT-HANDED_COMPLIMENTS"></a>LEFT-HANDED COMPLIMENTS</h2> + +<p>A good-looking young minister was driving +to the county town of B—— in a buggy. On +the way he overtook a very comely young +woman going the same direction afoot. He +courteously stopped and suggested that he give +her a lift, an offer which she gladly accepted, +riding beside him several miles to her destination +at a country farm-house. On descending +from the vehicle she thanked him for his kindness, +and he very politely said, “Don’t mention +it—don’t mention it.” And she said, “No, I +won’t. I won’t tell. I’m as much ashamed of +it as you are!<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a>”</p> + +<p>When he was within two miles of the town +he overtook a young lawyer who was returning +afoot from a visit to a country client, and took +him aboard, and the two had some sharp passages +as they rode along. Now, it chanced +that a man was to be hanged for murder the +next day in the town, and the carpenters were +busy erecting the gallows in the yard of the +jail. When the two came to the hill which +overlooks the town of B——, they could +plainly see the top of the gallows above the +wall of the jail. Pointing then to the jail the +minister said:</p> + +<p>“If the gallows had its due, where would you +be?”</p> + +<p>“I’d be riding into town alone, I reckon,” +was the answer.</p> + +<h2><a name="REST_AND_A_CHANGE" id="REST_AND_A_CHANGE"></a>A REST AND A CHANGE</h2> + +<p>“My friend Dickinson,” said the colonel, “is +a very witty fellow. He made a very witty reply +lately. He had been sent down to a certain +celebrated seaside resort by his physician +for a rest and a change, and it was understood<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> +that he was to spend at least a month there, +but at the end of a week he turned up again in +his home town, and when people asked him +why he had come back so soon, his reply was:</p> + +<p>“Well, you see, the doctor sent me down +there for a rest and a change, and I went down +and tried it; but by the end of a week I found +that the waiters at the hotel were getting all +the change, and the man that kept the hotel +got all the rest, and so I just had to come home +to recopperate, you know.”</p> + +<h2><a name="SAME_OLD_KIND" id="SAME_OLD_KIND"></a>THE SAME OLD KIND</h2> + +<p>“When I was down there in Atlantic City,” +said Dickinson with that delightful drawl of +his, “I went one day into a shoe store on ‘The +Avenue,’ as they call the business street of the +town, and looked around. The clerk came up +smiling and asked could he wait on me, and I +said he could if he had any ‘crochetted overshoes.’ +That made him scratch his head. +‘Must be a new kind,’ said he. ‘Oh, no,’ said +I. ‘They’ve been in use some years.’ ‘But,’ +said he, ‘I can’t see what use crochet work<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> +would be on overshoes. Why, the rain and +mud would spoil it all in a short time.’ ‘Oh, +no,’ said I. ‘You don’t catch on. I am not +looking for overshoes with crochet work on +them, but for crochetted overshoes—overshoes +that are crow-shade; black ones, you understand?’”</p> + +<h2><a name="TOUGH_GOOSE-YARN" id="TOUGH_GOOSE-YARN"></a>A TOUGH GOOSE-YARN</h2> + +<p>It is hard to tell whether the biggest liars +live by the sea or on the mountain, but certainly +the sailor folk will have a time of it to +match one Bob Sempers, one of the most elastic +of all the prevaricators on the Pocono +Mountain. Here is a story Bob told a party of +gentlemen hunters not long ago:</p> + +<p>“You know where I live. About three mile +from the Big Lake. Well—one evenin’ last +spring when I was goin’ home, I see a flock o’ +geese a-settlin’ on the lake. I got up bright +an’ early next mornin’, took down my shootin’ +iron an’ started for the lake to try my luck. +When I got there I found they were out o’ gun +shot, an’ I knowed ’twan’t no use to shoot at +that distance. I’d jist skeer ’em away if I did.<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> +So, I stood there thinkin’ what best to do. I +see a fox come down to the water edge and +stand there a minnit or so a-snuffin’ the air. I’d +a mind to shoot him, but I thought I’d wait an’ +see what he’d do. Well, sir, he just plumped +into the water an’ made for them geese. They +were all huddled together about a half a mile +from the shore. After swimmin’ up to within a +few yards of ’em, he suddenly disappeared, +and in a few minnits a goose was drawn under +water. Then the fox swum ashore an’ laid the +dead goose on the bank, and went back fer another +snap, an’ so he kep on till he got the +whole flock, an’ I waited till he brought in the +last one, an’ then I shot him.</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, I found when I come to count +’em, that I had just fifty nice fat geese, which +I lugged home together with my gun an’ the +dead fox. An’ when I got home I found my +old woman hadn’t the breakfast quite ready +yet.”</p> + +<p>“‘But, Bob,’ said some one, ‘the fox had to +swim a mile for each goose—half a mile each +way—consequently he had to swim just fifty +miles. And the geese averaged, say, six<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> +pounds; so that you had three hundred pounds +of goose-flesh to carry three miles, to say nothing +of the dead fox and your gun—impossible!’</p> + +<p>“‘Impossible or not,’ maintained Bob, +‘every word is truth, and I can prove it, too, +by more than a dozen of my neighbors, to each +of whom I sold enough feathers to fill a +feather-bed.’”</p> + +<h2><a name="FIRST_CLASS" id="FIRST_CLASS"></a>FIRST CLASS</h2> + +<p>A company of tourists were traveling in +Switzerland, and they went to buy tickets for +the coach-ride up the mountain. The American +man of course bought a first-class ticket, +but he noticed that all the rest got second and +third class, and they all got into the wagon +with him. He said to the driver, “What advantage +is there in paying for a first class +ticket when holders of second and third class +tickets have precisely the same accommodations?” +The driver said, “You just wait a +while and you will see.” So by and by they +came to a steep hill, and the driver called out, +“First class passengers will keep their seats;<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> +second class passengers will get out and walk; +third class passengers will get out and push.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>They have a new brand of whiskey down in +Kentucky known as “The Horn of Plenty,” because +it will corn-you-copiously.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>“In the Blue Grass section of Kentucky was +I born, where all the corn is full of kernels—and +all the colonels full of corn.”</p> + +<h2><a name="AWFUL_LOT_OF_PRACTICE" id="AWFUL_LOT_OF_PRACTICE"></a>AN AWFUL LOT OF PRACTICE</h2> + +<p>Chauncey Depew spoke one evening during +a political campaign at a town in the interior +of New York State, which it is not necessary +to name. The next morning the chairman of +the local committee took him in his carriage +for a ride about the place. They had reached +the suburbs and were admiring a bit of scenery +when a man wearing a blue shirt and carrying +a long whip on his shoulder approached from +where he had been piloting an ox-team along +the middle of the street and said:<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a></p> + +<p>“You’re the man that made the rattlin’ +speech up at the hall last night, I guess?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Depew modestly admitted that he had +indulged in some talk at the time and place +specified.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you have what you said writ out?” +went on the man.</p> + +<p>“No,” replied the orator.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean to say you made that all up +as you went along?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Jess hopped right up there, took a drink o’ +water out of the pitcher, hit the table a whack +and waded in without no thinkin’ nor nothing?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose you might put it that +way.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that beats me. You’ll excuse me for +stoppin’ you, but what I wanted to say was that +your speech convinced me, though I knowed +all the time it was the peskiest lie that was +ever told. I made up my mind to vote your +ticket, but I’d ’a’ been willin’ to bet a peck o’ +red apples that no man could stand up and tell +such blamed convincin’ lies without havin<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a>’ ’em +writ out. You must ’a’ had an awful lot o’ +practice.”</p> + +<h2><a name="WHOD_A_BIN_ER" id="WHOD_A_BIN_ER"></a>“WHO’D ’A’ BIN ’ER?”</h2> + +<p>A lady living in Ohio is the mother of six +boys. One day a friend called on her, and during +the conversation said: “What a pity that +one of your boys had not been a girl.” One of +the boys, about eight years old, overheard the +remark, and promptly interposed, “I’d like to +know who’d ’a’ bin ’er. Ed wouldn’t ’a’ bin ’er, +Joe wouldn’t ’a’ bin ’er, Pete wouldn’t ‘a’ bin +’er, I wouldn’t ’a’ bin ’er, blame ef I would, an’ +I’d like to know who’d ’a’ bin ’er?”</p> + +<h2><a name="IN_THE_WAY_THEY_SHOULD_GO" id="IN_THE_WAY_THEY_SHOULD_GO"></a>“IN THE WAY THEY SHOULD GO”</h2> + +<p>Mrs. Hobbs was the parent of an infant terror +and several half-grown terrors besides. One +day at table she said, “Well, Mr. Hobbs, since +you are so dissatisfied with the way I am +bringing up our darling Willie, maybe you will +condescend to inform me how you would +bring up boys?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” said Hobbs. “Every boy ought<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> +to be kept in a hogshead, and fed through the +bung-hole until he is twelve years of age.”</p> + +<p>“And when he reaches the age of twelve?”</p> + +<p>“Stop up the bung-hole.”</p> + +<h2><a name="NO_THOROUGHFARE" id="NO_THOROUGHFARE"></a>“NO THOROUGHFARE”</h2> + +<p>A toll-gate was recently established on a +road leading to Little Rock, Ark.; and an old +negro who came along with an ox-team was +much astonished. “Wall, ef dis doan cap de +climax,” said he. “Ain satisfied wid chargin’ +folks fur ridin’ on de train and steamboat, but +wanster to charge him fur ridin’ in his own +waggin!” “That’s the law of the corporation, +old man.” “Wat’s de corporation got to do wid +my waggin?” “Got nothing to do with your +wagon, but they have a right to make you pay +for riding over their road.” “Ain dis er a free +country?” “Yes. But this is not a free road.” +“But de road’s in the country. What does yer +law say yer may charge?” “One horse, five +cents; a horse and buggy, ten cents; two +horses and a wagon, twenty cents.” “Well, +dese here ain’t horses, ’case da’s steers. De<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> +law doan say nuthin’ about dem. Whoa, dar! +Come ’ere!” And to the astonishment of the +gate-keeper, the old fellow drove away.</p> + +<h2><a name="OTHER_EYE" id="OTHER_EYE"></a>THE OTHER EYE</h2> + +<p>Standing outside his club one afternoon Mr. +Gilbert was approached by a stranger who +asked, “I beg pardon, sir, but do you happen +to know a gentleman, a member of this club, +a man with one eye called ‘Matthews’?” “No, +I don’t think I do,” replied Mr. Gilbert. Then +after a pause he quickly added, “What’s the +name of his other eye?”</p> + +<h2><a name="KEEPING_A_SECRET" id="KEEPING_A_SECRET"></a>KEEPING A SECRET</h2> + +<p>The Confederate general, Stonewall Jackson, +had been on one occasion most hospitably +entertained in the house and by the family of +an old Virginia friend. It was known at the +time that some very important movement of +the Confederate army was afoot, and just as +the great general was about to take his departure +from the house in which he had been so +royally received, the host, eager with curiosity<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> +and presuming on old friendship, took the general +aside, and begged him for some information +as to the coming demonstrations. Passing +his arm affectionately around his old friend +General Jackson said in a whisper, “My dear +friend, can you keep a secret?” “Yes—Yes!” +was the eager reply. “And so can I,” was the +response, as the general mounted his horse.</p> + +<h2><a name="SHARP_REPROOF" id="SHARP_REPROOF"></a>A SHARP REPROOF</h2> + +<p>A preacher was much annoyed by the whispering +and laughing of some young folks in +the rear of the church. Stopping in the midst +of his discourse and looking intently at them +until all had become still, he said:</p> + +<p>“I hesitate to reprove those who are inattentive +and noisy. I will tell you why. Some +years since, as I was preaching, a young man +sat before me who was constantly laughing +and making queer faces. It annoyed me very +much, and I gave him a very severe rebuke. +After the close of the services a gentleman +said to one, ‘Sir, you made a great mistake; +that young man is an idiot.’ Since that time<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> +I always hesitate to reprove those who misbehave +in church, lest I should again find myself +in the error of rebuking an idiot.” There +was order during the rest of the service.</p> + +<h2><a name="IT_WOULDNT_WORK" id="IT_WOULDNT_WORK"></a>IT WOULDN’T WORK</h2> + +<p>Lazily sauntering along on the gay boardwalk, +enjoying the stiff salt breeze and paying +due attention to the merry throng always +passing up and down, my attention was called +to a certain rolling chair whose occupant I +thought I knew. Wasn’t that Barney Schmitt? +Barney, you must know, keeps one of the very +best cafés in existence, up in one of the most +flourishing towns in Eastern Pennsylvania. I +knew he had been suffering greatly from rheumatism +for a year past, but had lost track of +him recently and supposed him to be in the +doctor’s hands at some Water Cure up in New +York State—and here he was, fat and puffy, +all covered up with a big steamer rug in a rolling +chair. I stopped the chair and said, “Hello, +Barney, that you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said he, “diss iss me. I vish to Himmel +it wass somepody else.<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Well, how are you? Better I hope?”</p> + +<p>Barney shook his head with a rueful +countenance. “No, I’m no petter. I’ve tried +everything in all greation from a lemon to +Gristian Ziance, undt it all does no good.”</p> + +<p>“Christian Science? So you tried that, did +you? How did it work?”</p> + +<p>“Let me tell you,” said the suffering Barney +with a smile that might have been mistaken +for a wince. “You know I went up to der +Wasser-Cure, up dere in New York. I had +plasters undt pads all ofer my pody, undt +walked mit a pair of grutches. De first evening +I got dere, I wass settin’ in der parlor +tryin’ hard to keep from hollerin’ mit der pain, +undt a woman come up to me—one of dese +here Gristian Ziance women, you know, a +mighty purty, sweet-faced woman she wass, +too—undt she says to me, says she:</p> + +<p>“‘Vat iss der matter mit you, Mr. Schmitt?’ +Undt I toldt her apoudt my rheumatism, undt +den she says:</p> + +<p>“‘Mr. Schmitt, dere iss nodings der matter +mit you. You only think dere iss. It iss all +in your mindt. It issn’t in your pody. Your<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> +pody can’t feel noding. It iss your mindt vat +feels. Your rheumatism iss all in your mindt. +All you have got to do iss to get your +mindt changed, you see, undt you vill be all +right.</p> + +<p>“‘Now, Mr. Schmitt, I tell you vat to do +undt you vill soon be vell. Ven you go to bed +to-night, you make your mindt nice undt quiet +like, fill your heart full mit good thoughts of +peace undt joy; say a nice little prayer, undt +go to sleep. Den, in de morning, ven you get +avake, you compose your mindt mit peaceful +thoughts, you say a nice little prayer to yourself, +and you yusht say: “Mr. Schmitt! Dere +iss nodings der matter mit you—you are vell +undt shtrong!” Undt you jump out of de bed, +undt dere you are!’”</p> + +<p>“All right. I did all vat she said. I vent to +bed. I said a nice leetle prayer, vat my mudder +taught me, in der German language, undt +I vent to sleep.</p> + +<p>“In der morning I get awake. I haf very +peaceful undt peautiful thoughts, undt I say to +myself:</p> + +<p>“‘Barney Schmitt, you are a tam fool. Dere<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> +iss nodings der matter mit you. You are all +right.’</p> + +<p>“Undt mit dot, I just jump out in der mittle +of der floor, undt lit on my pack mit a mighty +doonder-knock vat shook der vinders. I fell +all in a heap, undt mine Himmel! didn’t I holler! +Der bell poy, der hotel clerk, der doctor +undt two nurses coom on der double quick, pick +me up undt put me in der bed. Undt dere I +vas for two weeks, all right. Dat’s vat I know +about Gristian Ziance. Undt now here I am +in Atlantic City in a rollin’ chair. Pray for me, +colonel, for my prayers doesn’t seem to do me +much goot!”</p> + +<h2><a name="ON_THE_POINT_OF_A_NEEDLE" id="ON_THE_POINT_OF_A_NEEDLE"></a>ON THE POINT OF A NEEDLE</h2> + +<p>The late Dr. Talmage was once in the company +of some theological students. They were +fresh from the study of church history, and +were laughing over the old question so much +discussed by the schoolmen in the Middle +Ages, “How many angels can stand on, or be +supported by, the point of a needle?”</p> + +<p>They put the question to Dr. Talmage,<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> +“How many angels can be supported by the +point of a needle?” and Dr. Talmage promptly +answered, “Five.” When they wanted to know +how he knew, he told them the following +story:</p> + +<p>“One very stormy night I was coming home +late, and noticed a light in the window of a +room where I knew a poor woman lived whose +husband was lost at sea. I wondered what kept +her up so late and I thought I would go and see. +I found her hard at work sewing at her lamp, +while her five rosy children were sound asleep +beside her. And that is how I happen to know +that five angels can be supported by the point +of a needle.”</p> + +<h2><a name="GETTING_A_WIFE" id="GETTING_A_WIFE"></a>GETTING A WIFE</h2> + +<p>The family had returned from church one +Sunday, and as they had company to dinner, +and dinner was a little later than usual, the +six-year-old Robert was very hungry and could +hardly wait any longer. He had been very +much interested in the sermon, which was a +very graphic account of the creation of woman.<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> +He had listened wide-eyed while the minister +told how God had put Adam to sleep and had +taken a rib out of his side and made it into a +wife for the lonely man. But just now he was +more interested in the dinner, especially in its +conclusion, mince pie and cakes.</p> + +<p>An hour later he was missed from the company, +and being searched for was found sitting +in a corner of another room, groaning softly, +with his hands pressed against his side and +an air of solemn anxiety on his face.</p> + +<p>“Why, Robert, what in the world is the matter?” +asked his mother in alarm.</p> + +<p>“Mamma, dear,” said he, “I’m afraid I’m getting +a wife.”</p> + +<h2><a name="SANCTUM" id="SANCTUM"></a>THE SANCTUM</h2> + +<p>He opened the door cautiously, and poking +his head in, in a suggestive sort of way, as if +there might be more to follow later on provided +the way was clear, inquired, “Is this the +editorial rinktum?” “The—what, my friend?” +“Is this the rinktum, sinktum, or some such +place, where the editors live?” “Yes, sir.<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> +This is the editorial room. Come right in.” +“No, I guess I won’t come in. Just wanted to +see what a rinktum was like, that’s all. Looks +like our garret, only wuss. Good day!”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>It is related that two Presbyterians, two +Baptists, two Universalists and an active Jew +recently met and discussed theology together +without quarreling in Boston. The reason +they did not quarrel in Boston was because +they were in New York.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Going home from a party late one night a +man ran against the same tree seventeen times. +He then concluded that he was lost in an interminable +forest, and began to call out, “A +lost man! A lost man!” But nobody responding +to his pitiful call, he made one more effort +to escape, and had the luck to run into the next +tree, which chanced to be surrounded by iron +rods for its protection. He caught hold of the +rods and felt them. He walked round and +round the tree trying in vain to find some +opening to pass through, and at last gave it<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> +up in despair, saying, “Just my luck. In the +lock-up again.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>A negro prayed that his brethren might be +preserved from their “upsettin’ sins.” “Brudder,” +said one of his friends, “you hain’t got de +hang o’ dat ar word. It’s be-settin’, not upsettin’.” +“Brudder,” replied the other, “if dat’s +so, den it’s so. But—I was prayin’ de Lawd +to save us from de sin o’ ’toxication, for dar +dey jest set-em-up fust and den dey gits upset, +an’ if dat ain’t an upsettin’ sin, I dunno what +am.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>There are very few men who can handle a +red-hot lamp-chimney and at the same time +say, “There is no place like Home,” without +getting—confused.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>That was a truly human tombstone that +bore the inscription, “I expected this, but not +just yet.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>A youth was heard to remark to a jolly, fat<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> +Teutonian, “Haven’t I seen you before? Your +face certainly looks familiar?” “Iss dot so?” +answered Hans. “An’ ven you get so oldt as +me, your face vill look fermiliar, too.”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>A young lady complained to her male companion +that she didn’t like arithmetic. She +couldn’t understand it, and didn’t see the use +of it. The young man said he would teach her. +“Now,” said he, “I kiss you three times on one +cheek and four times on the other. How many +does that make?”</p> + +<p>“Seven,” whispered the girl, disengaging +herself to breathe more freely.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said he, “that is Arithmetic.”</p> + +<p>“Dear me,” said she, “I did not think it ever +could be made such a very pleasant study.”</p> + +<h2><a name="ARTEMUS_WARD_AT_THE_THEATRE" id="ARTEMUS_WARD_AT_THE_THEATRE"></a>ARTEMUS WARD AT THE THEATRE</h2> + +<p>Artemus Ward records that he once went to +the theatre, “Niblo’s Garding,” New York, to +hear Edwin Forrest in Othello. “I sot down +in the Pit,” says he, “took out my spectacles +& commenced peroosin’ the evenin’s bill.<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> +The awjince was all-fired large & the Boxes +was full of the Elitty of New York. Several +opery glasses was leveld at me by Gothum’s +fairest darters, but I didn’t let on as tho I noticed +it, tho mebby I did take out my sixteen-dollar +silver watch & brandish it round more +than was necessary. But, the best of us has +our weaknesses, and if a man has gewelry, let +him show it.</p> + +<p>“As I was peroosin’ the bill, a grave young +man who sot near me axed me if I’d ever seen +Forrest dance ‘The Essence of Old Virginny? +He’s immense in that,’ said the young man. ‘He +also does a fair champion jig,’ the young man +continued, ‘but his Big Thing is the Essence of +Old Virginny.’</p> + +<p>“Sez I—‘Fair youth, do you know what I’d +do with you, if you was my sun?’</p> + +<p>“‘No,’ sez he.</p> + +<p>“‘Wall,’ sez I, ‘if you was my sun, I’d appint +your funeral for tomorrow arternoon, at +two o’clock—and the Korps would be reddy. +You’re too smart to live on this here yearth.’ +That youth didn’t try any more of his doggone +capers on me.<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Teacher,” said a boy in a New York City +school, “my sister’s got the measles.” “Well, +then, my boy, you go home and you stay +home till your sister has entirely got over +them.” After the boy was gone, another boy +raised his hand and said, “Teacher, that boy’s +sister what’s got the measles lives in Omaha!”</p> + +<h2><a name="SHE_CAME_TO_HIS_AID" id="SHE_CAME_TO_HIS_AID"></a>SHE CAME TO HIS AID</h2> + +<p>The late Horace Leland, who for many years +kept the Leland Hotel at Springfield, Ill., was +an exceedingly generous man and an especial +lover of children. One day he and Judge A. C. +Matthews, then Speaker of the Illinois House +of Representatives, and afterward the First +Controller of the Treasury, were walking out +together when they met a man with a cluster +of toy balloons. School was just out and hundreds +of boys and girls came pouring from a +building near at hand and formed in groups +around the balloon man.</p> + +<p>“Hold on, Ace,” said Mr. Leland, “there’s a +joyous sight,” and the two stopped and +watched the children gaze longingly at the balloons.<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a></p> + +<p>“I can make some of them happy, anyway,” +said Mr. Leland, and he asked the man the +price of the balloons.</p> + +<p>“Fi’ cent apiece.”</p> + +<p>“How much for the lot?” asked the philanthropist.</p> + +<p>The man counted them over. There were +twenty-one.</p> + +<p>“One dol’ for de lot.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Leland took them all and distributed +them among the children with as much fairness +as possible, and away the little codgers +ran with them.</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Leland put his hand in his pocket +and said:</p> + +<p>“By George, Ace, I ain’t got a cent. Lend +me a dollar.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” said Judge Matthews, seriously; +“you can’t play philanthropist at my expense. +Not much.”</p> + +<p>“Well, my man,” said Mr. Leland, “I guess +you’ll have to call at my hotel for your +money.”</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” said the man, “you give me my +money or you give me back my balloons.<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a>”</p> + +<p>“But don’t you see I can do neither? Come +to the Leland House and ask for Mr. Leland, +and I will pay you.”</p> + +<p>“No, sir,” persisted the man, “you pay me +my money or give me back my balloons. I haf +seen dat hotel trick before.”</p> + +<p>“Come, Ace,” said Mr. Leland, from the +depth of his troubled soul, “give me a dollar.”</p> + +<p>“Not a cent,” said the Judge. “I wouldn’t +trust you with a dime.”</p> + +<p>“See,” said the man, “your own friend no +will trust you. You give me my money or I +will call de policeman.”</p> + +<p>Just then there happened along an old beggar +woman who had lived upon the bounty of +the good people of Springfield for many a year. +She stopped and heard enough of the conversation +to know what it was about.</p> + +<p>“Hould on, Misther Layland,” said she, “if +yer foine frind there won’t lave ye the loan av +a dollar, begorra O’im the frind that will,” and +as she lectured Judge Matthews for the “stingiest +ould thing out o’ jail,” she unrolled the +money from a dirty rag and gave it to the +philanthropist.<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a></p> + +<p>Judge Matthews says he never tried to play +just that kind of a joke on Horace Leland +again.</p> + +<h2><a name="COSTLY_DODGE" id="COSTLY_DODGE"></a>A COSTLY DODGE</h2> + +<p>The town of M—— in Pennsylvania had just +elected a new Justice of the Peace. He was, of +course, a Pennsylvania German, and the first +cause that came before him for adjudication +was a peculiar one. A man had attempted to +shoot another man in the street of the business +part of the town, but the man that was shot at +dodged, and the bullet smashed a plate-glass +window in a store. The owner of the store +sued the man with the gun for damages, but +the Justice, after hearing the evidence, decided +that the man that was shot at and dodged the +bullet must pay, “because,” said he, “don’t you +see, if that man hadn’t dodged, the window +wouldn’t have been broken.”</p> + +<h2><a name="COULDNT_HELP_CRYING" id="COULDNT_HELP_CRYING"></a>COULDN’T HELP CRYING</h2> + +<p>Two Irishmen who had just landed were +eating their dinner in a hotel, when Pat spied<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> +a bottle of horseradish. Not knowing what +it was he took a mouthful, which brought tears +to his eyes.</p> + +<p>Mike, seeing Pat crying, exclaimed, “Phat +be ye cryin’ fer?”</p> + +<p>Pat, wishing to have Mike sample the hot +stuff also, replied, “Oim cryin’ fer me poor +ould mither who’s dead away over in ould Ireland.”</p> + +<p>By and by Mike took some of the radish, and +immediately tears filled his eyes. “An’ phat be +you cryin’ fer, now?” queried Pat. “Ach,” says +Mike, “I’m cryin’ because you didn’t die at the +same time your ould mither did in ould Ireland.”</p> + +<h2><a name="KNIGHT_ERRANT" id="KNIGHT_ERRANT"></a>A KNIGHT ERRANT</h2> + +<p>He was a very decided English type, and as +he stopped an Irishman and asked for a light +he volunteered to say:</p> + +<p>“Excuse me, my man, for stopping you as an +entire stranger. But at home I’m a person of +some importance. I’m Sir James B——, +Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Double +Eagle, Knight of the Golden Fleece, Knight of<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> +the Iron Cross. And your name is—what, my +man?”</p> + +<p>“My name,” was the ready reply, “is Michael +Murphy. Night before last, last night, to-night +an’ every night, Michael Murphy.”</p> + +<h2><a name="THACKERAY_AND_THE_OYSTER" id="THACKERAY_AND_THE_OYSTER"></a>THACKERAY AND THE OYSTER</h2> + +<p>When Thackeray, the great English novelist, +visited this country, his literary friends in +Boston gave a banquet in his honor. The committee +of arrangements, learning that Mr. +Thackeray had made some comments on the +general tendency of Americans to magnify +things, thought they would give their distinguished +guest a demonstration of the greatness +of the American oyster, at least, the more +so as the oyster does not attain a great size in +the British Isles. They accordingly ransacked +the market for the very largest bivalves that +could be found, and a half dozen of these were +placed at Thackeray’s plate. The gentleman +next to him apologized for the small size of the +oysters, but Thackeray looked at them in +amazement, and asked, “What am I to do with<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> +them?” “Swallow them, of course,” was the +answer. “Well,” said he, taking a huge one +on his fork, “here goes.” He gave a gulp and +down it went. “How do you feel on it?” asked +his friend. “Feel?” said he—“I feel as if I had +swallowed a baby!”</p> + +<h2><a name="FAST_TRAIN" id="FAST_TRAIN"></a>A FAST TRAIN</h2> + +<p>Three men were talking in rather a large +way of the excellent train-service each had in +his special locality. One was from the West, +one from New England and one from New +York. The former two men had told their +tales, and it was New York’s turn.</p> + +<p>“Now in New York,” said he, “we not only +run trains fast, but we start them fast, too, +very fast. I recall the case of a friend of mine +whose wife went to the station at Jersey City +to see him off for the West. As the train was +about to start, my friend said his final good-bye +to his wife and leaned down from the car +platform to kiss her. The train started, and +started with such a rush that, would you believe +it, my friend found himself kissing a +strange woman on the platform at Trenton!<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>”</p> + +<p>At a dinner one day some gentlemen were +discussing the merits of different species of +game. One preferred canvasback duck, another +woodcock, another quail. The dinner +and the discussion ended, one of the men said +to the waiter, who was a good listener, “Well, +Frank, what kind of game do you like best?”</p> + +<p>“Well, gemmen, to tell you de trufe,” said +he, “‘mos any kind o’ game ’ll suit me, but +what I likes best is an American Eagle served +on a silvah dollah!”</p> + +<h2><a name="SLOW_COACH" id="SLOW_COACH"></a>A SLOW COACH</h2> + +<p>In the early days of railroading in this +country, an elderly gentleman was asked by +the conductor for his ticket. The train had +stopped at every little station, town and hamlet +on the way, and was two hours late. “Your +ticket, please,” said the conductor. The man +fumbled a great while in his vest pocket and +finally presented a half-fare cardboard.</p> + +<p>“Come,” said the conductor, “this won’t do, +not for a man with hair as gray as yours, any +way—this is a child’s ticket.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” responded the weary traveller, “I<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> +was a child when this train started, and I guess +I’ll be as old as Methusaleh by the time it gets +me to where I want to go.”</p> + +<h2><a name="GO_TO_FATHER" id="GO_TO_FATHER"></a>GO TO FATHER</h2> + +<p>A schoolboy one day picked up a piece of +poetry at school and carried it home and gave +it to his grandmother to read. When she had +read it she said:</p> + +<p>“Kit, you ought never repeat that, because +that is just the same as telling people to go to +the bad place.” The poetry was as follows:</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“When I asked my girl to marry me, she said,<br /></span> +<span class="i5">‘Go to father.’<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She knew that I knew her father was dead;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She knew that I knew what a life he had led;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She knew that I knew what she meant when she said,<br /></span> +<span class="i5">‘Go to father.’”<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p>The chaplain of a large private asylum asked +a brother clergyman to preach to the inmates +on a Sunday during his absence. Before going +away, he said: “Preach your best, for, though<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> +insane on some points, they are very intelligent.” +So he talked to them of India, and of +heathen mothers who threw their dear little +babies into the sacred river Ganges as offerings +to their false gods. Tears streamed down the +face of one listener, evidently deeply affected. +When asked by the preacher afterward what +part of the sermon had touched his heart with +grief, the lunatic replied: “I was thinking it +was a pity your mother didn’t throw you into +the Ganges.”</p> + +<h2><a name="INTERESTING_EPITAPHS" id="INTERESTING_EPITAPHS"></a>INTERESTING EPITAPHS</h2> + +<p>The poet of the Pine Tree State is said to +have shown decided poetic proclivities from +his earliest days. When a boy of eight or nine, +he had two kittens which he had named Myrtle +and Ann Eliza. Myrtle died. He buried her +in the orchard and planted a shingle headstone +on the grave, on which his smiling parents +read:</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Here Myrtle lies—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Gone to fertilize.”<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>In a short time Ann Eliza passed from this<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> +earthly scene of caterwauling, and was buried +beside Myrtle, with a shingle headstone duly +erected and inscribed. His parents, wondering +what would be the epitaph, were delighted to +read:</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Here lies Ann Eliza—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">More fertilizer.”<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<h2><a name="SHE_SPOILED_THE_POETRY" id="SHE_SPOILED_THE_POETRY"></a>SHE SPOILED THE POETRY</h2> + +<p>Two lovers were taking a walk along a +country road. The day was fine, the sun was +shining and a good breeze was blowing across +the hills and fields. The young man was of +an idealistic temperament and of good poetic +taste, but the young lady was quite matter-of-fact +and altogether practical, their differing +dispositions being illustrated by their conversation +by the way. They had paused in their +walk and sat down to rest a while under the +outspreading branches of an apple-tree laden +with green fruit.</p> + +<p>“Ah, my dear,” said he as he looked around, +“how grand and glorious all this is—the bright +day, the glorious sunlight, the wind blowing<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> +fresh and full, and the limbs of this grand old +tree moaning a sweet and tuneful melody in +response to it all——“</p> + +<p>“Yes,” interrupted she, “I guess you’d be +groaning, too, if you were as full of green +apples as that old apple-tree is!”</p> + +<h2><a name="HIS_PART_IN_THE_PLAY" id="HIS_PART_IN_THE_PLAY"></a>HIS PART IN THE PLAY</h2> + +<p>A man who had been playing the part of +the Lamb in the Great Wall Street Theatre, +was complaining that he had invested a large +sum of money in that institution and had lost +every cent of it. A sympathizing friend asked +him whether he had been a Bull or a Bear, and +the Lamb replied, “Neither. I was a Jackass!”</p> + +<h2><a name="CLERICAL_CORKSCREW" id="CLERICAL_CORKSCREW"></a>A CLERICAL CORKSCREW</h2> + +<p>The minister was a very genial man and a +very witty man. He had great difficulty in +getting his salary promptly. Of late it was +much in arrears, and he did not know what to +do. One day he entered the hardware store +kept by his leading deacon, and asked to look<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> +at corkscrews. He looked over the assortment +very carefully, saying that he wanted quite a +large one, one that was very strong, too. And +when the deacon asked him what he wanted +with a corkscrew, the minister replied, “I want +it to draw my salary with.” He got it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>A negro exhorter shouted to his audience, +“Come up an’ jine de army ob de Lord!”</p> + +<p>“I’se done jined,” replied one woman.</p> + +<p>“Whar’d yo’ jine?” asked the exhorter.</p> + +<p>“In de Baptis’ Church.”</p> + +<p>“Why, chile,” said the exhorter, “yo’ ain’t in +de army ob de Lord; yo’s in de navy.”</p> + +<h2><a name="CHIEF_END_OF_MAN" id="CHIEF_END_OF_MAN"></a>THE CHIEF END OF MAN</h2> + +<p>When Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler once put the +question, “What is the chief end of man?” to +a gathering of Sunday-school scholars, he received +for an answer, “To glorify God and +annoy Him forever.” Another minister relates +that he once asked this famous question of a +very much neglected boy, “What is the chief +end of man?” and the boy promptly replied, +“Why, I guess the end that has the hat on!<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a>”</p> + +<h2><a name="AFTERNOON_TEAS" id="AFTERNOON_TEAS"></a>AFTERNOON TEAS</h2> + +<p>Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was once invited +by a lady friend to a social afternoon tea. The +hostess had invited and had present the cream +of her acquaintance and expected some expression +of admiration from the great man. As he +was taking his leave, the lady said to him, +“Well, Doctor, what is your opinion of an +afternoon tea?” And the witty but cruel man +replied, “My dear friend, it is all giggle—gabble—gobble—and +git!”</p> + +<h2><a name="UNANIMOUS_ACTION" id="UNANIMOUS_ACTION"></a>UNANIMOUS ACTION</h2> + +<p>Davies Herkimer, the noted political economist, +said of modern politics in an address on +reform that he recently delivered:</p> + +<p>“Modern politics are entirely too tricky. The +average candidate when he enters the political +struggle lets plain dealing go by the board. +What, then, is the result? The result is something +altogether worthless, something that reminds +me of a Western clergyman.</p> + +<p>“This clergyman was very fond of cider. His<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> +congregation, meeting secretly last autumn, decided +that it would surprise him with a hogshead +of the beverage he loved and arranged to +hold a surprise party at the manse, each guest +to bring a demijohn of cider and to empty it +into a huge hogshead in the garden. The party +duly came off. The guests brought their demijohns, +emptied them into the hogshead and +feasted afterward in the manse on apples, nuts +and gingerbread.</p> + +<p>“At the height of the feasting the clergyman +host was told of the full hogshead that +stood without the door, and, overjoyed, the +good man said to his servant:</p> + +<p>“‘Jane, take a pitcher, fill it at the hogshead, +and bring it in that we may sample it.’</p> + +<p>“The maid withdrew into the darkness and +soon returned with a pitcher brimming with—clear +water!</p> + +<p>“Each tricky guest had filled his demijohn +at the pump, thinking that amid so much cider +his aqueous contribution would escape unnoticed. +But this trickery, like the trickery of +modern politics, had been a little too unanimous.<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a>”</p> + +<h2><a name="DIFFERENCE_WITHOUT_A_DISTINCTION" id="DIFFERENCE_WITHOUT_A_DISTINCTION"></a>A DIFFERENCE WITHOUT A DISTINCTION</h2> + +<p>It was a Pennsylvania German farmer’s wife +who having baked a large number of very fine +pies, some mince and some apple, marked the +crust of each with two letters—T. M. Being +asked by a neighbor what these letters stood +for, she said:</p> + +<p>“Vy, T. M. on this pie means ‘’Tis mince,’ +and on that pie it means ‘’Tain’t mince.”</p> + +<h2><a name="SHY_BOARDER" id="SHY_BOARDER"></a>THE SHY BOARDER</h2> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If landladies served flying-fish,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I believe, by jing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That every time they passed the dish<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I’d get a wing.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<h2><a name="KNIGHTLY_CONUNDRUM" id="KNIGHTLY_CONUNDRUM"></a>A KNIGHTLY CONUNDRUM</h2> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Query—A Knight to Jerusalem did repair,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And had the colic, when? and where?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Answer—In the middle of the Knight.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="SHREWD_SELECTION" id="SHREWD_SELECTION"></a>A SHREWD SELECTION</h2> + +<p>A lawyer advertised for a clerk. The next +morning the office was crowded with applicants—all +bright and many suitable. He bade +them wait until all should arrive and then arranged +them all in a row and said he would tell +them a story, note their comments and judge +from that whom he would choose.</p> + +<p>“A certain farmer,” began the lawyer, “was +troubled with a red squirrel that got in through +a hole in his barn and stole his seed corn. He +resolved to kill the squirrel at the first opportunity. +Seeing him go in at the hole one noon +he took his shotgun and fired away. The first +shot set the barn on fire.”</p> + +<p>“Did the barn burn?” said one of the boys.</p> + +<p>The lawyer, without answer, continued:</p> + +<p>“And seeing the barn on fire the farmer +seized a pail of water and ran to put it out.”</p> + +<p>“Did he put it out?” said another.</p> + +<p>“As he passed inside the door shut to and +the barn was soon in flames. When the hired +girl rushed out with more water——“</p> + +<p>“Did they all burn up?” said another boy.<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a></p> + +<p>The lawyer went on without answer: “Then +the old lady came out, and all was noise and +confusion and everybody was trying to put out +the fire.”</p> + +<p>“Did any one burn up?” said another.</p> + +<p>The lawyer said: “There, that will do; you +have all shown great interest in the story.”</p> + +<p>But observing one little bright-eyed fellow +in deep silence, he said: “Now, my little man, +what have you to say?”</p> + +<p>The little fellow blushed, grew uneasy and +stammered out: “I want to know what became +of that squirrel; that’s what I want to +know.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll do,” said the lawyer; “you are my +man; you have not been switched off by a confusion +and barn burning, and the hired girls +and water pails. You have kept your eye on +the squirrel.”</p> + +<h2><a name="GOOD_EAR" id="GOOD_EAR"></a>A GOOD EAR</h2> + +<p>“Charley,” remarked Jones, “you were born +to be a writer.” “Ha!” replied Charley, flushing +at the compliment, “you have seen some +of the things I have turned off?” “No,” said<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> +Jones, “I wasn’t referring to what you have +written. I was simply thinking what a splendid +ear you have for carrying a pen. Immense, +Charley, simply immense!”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>When some one was complaining of insomnia, +an Irishman recommended a sure cure for +it. “Go to bed,” said he, “an’ schlape it off!”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Said an Englishman to an American tourist, +as he drew out of his pocket an old English +silver coin, “Do you see the image on that +coin? That’s the picture of the old English +king that made my great grandfather a Duke.”</p> + +<p>“Pooh!” said the Yankee. “That’s nothin’. +Here, do you see this United States coin? We +call it a cent. And you will observe the picture +of an Indian on the cent. Well, sir, that’s +the picture of the Indian that made my grandfather +an Angel!”</p> + +<h2><a name="RIGHT-OF-WAY" id="RIGHT-OF-WAY"></a>THE RIGHT-OF-WAY</h2> + +<p>In driving out into the country on a by-road +a few days ago, a lawyer encountered a horse +and buggy driven by a woman. As she was<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> +driving on the wrong side of the road, he made +up his mind not to give up his rights. As a +consequence, the two horses finally came to a +standstill, with their noses rubbing each other. +The lawyer stared at the woman and the +woman stared back. Then he pulled a newspaper +from his pocket, and began reading. In +a minute, she had her knitting out and was industriously +at work. Ten long minutes in a +broiling sun passed away, and the lawyer +looked up and asked: “How long are you going +to stay here?” “How long are you?” “All +day.” “And I’ll stay here a whole week.” He +read and she knit for about ten minutes, and +then the lawyer cried out: “Do you know that +I’m a lawyer?” “I don’t care for that,” she replied; +“I’m the wife of a Justice of the Peace.” +“Oh—ah—excuse me, madam. Really, but if +I’d known you belonged to the purfesh, this +would not have happened. Take this side, +madam, take the whole road!”</p> + +<h2><a name="DEACON_BALKED" id="DEACON_BALKED"></a>THE DEACON BALKED</h2> + +<p>Deacon Broadbent, an honest and pious man, +was conducting a Christmas revival with great<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> +success. In a word, his powerful exhortations +had brought Calhoun White, the town’s worst +sinner, weeping to the mourner’s bench.</p> + +<p>The deacon, gratified by this proof of his +evangelical prowess, hastened to Calhoun’s +side.</p> + +<p>“Deacon,” sobbed Calhoun, “‘tain’t no use +in mah comin’ up. I’se sinned away de day o’ +grace.”</p> + +<p>“No, you hain’t, brudder Cal,” said the deacon. +“All yo’ got to do is to gib up sin an’ all +will be forgibben.”</p> + +<p>“I’se done gib it up, deacon, but dar hain’t +no salvation fo’ me.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dey is, honey. Dey hain’t no sin so +black but it kin be washed whiter’n de snow.”</p> + +<p>“But I don stole fo’ young turkeys last +week,” said the penitent.</p> + +<p>“Dat’s all forgibben, Cal.”</p> + +<p>“An’ free de week befo’.”</p> + +<p>“Dat’s forgibben, too.”</p> + +<p>“An’ six fat Christmas geese——“</p> + +<p>“—— six fat Christmas geese outer yore own +yard, deacon—dem fat geese wot yo’ ’lowed to +set so much store by.<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a>”</p> + +<p>“Wot’s dat yo’ say?” the deacon hissed furiously.</p> + +<p>“It wuz me wot stole yo’ Christmas geese, +sah.”</p> + +<p>“I reckon, Calhoun,” he said slowly, “I +reckon I’se spoke too hasty. Dis case o’ yourn +needs advisement. I ain’t sho’ dat we’s justified +in clutterin’ up de Kingdom o’ Heben wid +chicken thieves.”</p> + +<h2><a name="PROTECTING_THE_MINISTER" id="PROTECTING_THE_MINISTER"></a>PROTECTING THE MINISTER</h2> + +<p>One day a village parson was summoned in +haste by Mrs. Johnson, who had been taken +seriously ill. He went in some wonder at the +summons, because the woman was not of his +parish, and was known to be devoted to her +own minister, the Rev. Mr. Hopkins.</p> + +<p>While he was waiting in the parlor before +seeing the sick woman, he passed the time +talking with her daughter.</p> + +<p>“I am very pleased your mother thought of +me in her illness,” he said. “Is Mr. Hopkins +away?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear no,” she replied, “but we are<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> +afraid mother has something contagious, like +small-pox, and we couldn’t think of letting dear +Mr. Hopkins run any risk!”</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>“If yu trade horses with a jockey, you kan’t +git cheated but once. But—if yu trade with +a deakon yu may git cheated twice—once in +the horse, and once in the deakon” ... “Go +in when it rains.”</p> + +<p class="r"> +<i>Josh Billings</i><br /> +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>“Now, my man,” said the minister to the +happy bridegroom after the marriage ceremony, +“you have come to the end of all your +troubles.” The man came back to the minister +a week later and said: “You told me I had +come to the end of all my troubles when I got +married, and I find they are just beginning.” +“Ah, my dear brother,” was the response, “all +troubles have two ends, and I didn’t say which +end, did I?”</p> + +<h2><a name="WALLA_WALLA" id="WALLA_WALLA"></a>WALLA WALLA!</h2> + +<p>It is related that once upon a time the President +paid an important visit to an Indian res<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a>ervation +in the Far and Distant West. In +honor of the great occasion the great chiefs of +the tribe were all gathered together, arrayed +in their best bib and tucker, all war-paint +and feathers, and sat cross-legged in a great +circle listening to the words of wisdom from +the Great Father.</p> + +<p>“Noble Red Men of the Forest,” began the +President, “Primeval and Original Proprietors +of the Soil of the Land of the Free and the +Home of the Brave! I am delighted to see +you!”</p> + +<p>And all the Indians round the circle exclaimed: +“Walla Walla!” This evidently being +Indian for “Hear! Hear!”</p> + +<p>“You have indeed been greatly wronged,” +continued the speaker, “and I take your wrongs +to my own heart, and I shall take immediate +measures for their redress, and shall demand +that hereafter justice shall be done to the noble +Red Men, the Original Proprietors of the Free +Soil of America.”</p> + +<p>And the Indians again shouted approval, +“Walla Walla!”</p> + +<p>“Aye,” he continued, “on my return to<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> +Washington I shall personally see to it that +your wrongs are righted, and shall direct that +the Indian Appropriation be greatly increased, +so that you may spend your lives in comfort +and plenty.”</p> + +<p>Again in deep and guttural tones the Indians +applauded, “Walla Walla!”</p> + +<p>After it was all over, the President expressed +his delight at the hearty interest and +evident appreciation of his warlike auditors, +being particularly impressed with the fact that +they had so well understood his remarks, as +was sufficiently manifest by the fact that they +applauded every time just at the right place. +And then the Interpreter asked him whether +he knew what Walla Walla meant? And he +not knowing the meaning thereof, the cruel Interpreter +disillusioned him by telling him that +Walla Walla was Indian for “Hot Air!”</p> + +<h2><a name="WICKED_PARROT" id="WICKED_PARROT"></a>THE WICKED PARROT</h2> + +<p>A gentleman who spent part of a summer +recently in England relates an incident which +very sadly disturbed the religious peace of a +parish in Penzance.<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a></p> + +<p>A gentleman, his wife and his mother-in-law +lived together. They had a parrot. And +the parrot had somehow and somewhere—they +could not imagine how or where—picked up +the very disagreeable habit of remarking at +frequent intervals:</p> + +<p>“Wisht the old woman were dead. Wisht +the old woman were dead.” This annoyed the +good people of the house very much, and they +at last ventured to speak to the curate about it.</p> + +<p>“I think we can rectify the matter,” replied +the good man. “I also have a parrot, and he is +a very righteous bird, having been brought up +in the way he should go. I will lend you my +parrot, and I trust his good influence will soon +reform that depraved bird of yours.”</p> + +<p>The curate’s parrot was placed in the same +room with the wicked one, and as soon as the +two had become accustomed to each other, the +bad bird remarked:</p> + +<p>“Wisht the old woman were dead.”</p> + +<p>Whereupon the clergyman’s bird rolled up +his eyes, and in solemn accents responded:</p> + +<p>“We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.”</p> + +<p>The story got out in the parish, and for sev<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a>eral +Sundays it was thought expedient to omit +the Litany at the church services.</p> + +<h2><a name="DOING_THE_DONS" id="DOING_THE_DONS"></a>DOING THE DONS</h2> + +<p>Dr. Jowett was a warm friend of University +extension. When the question came up at Oxford +of entertaining the students during the +summer, he found the Dons very much opposed +to giving up even temporarily their +quarters, claiming their vested rights even in +vacation. The Master, however, controlled the +buttery, and also the chapel exercises. He accordingly +cut down the commissariat and +lengthened out the prayers, until the Dons +yielded and quietly moved out. As a party of +them, portmanteaus in hand, were walking to +the railway station one day, he chuckled to a +friend, “This kind goeth not out but by prayer +and fasting.”</p> + +<h2><a name="EXEUNT_OMNES" id="EXEUNT_OMNES"></a>EXEUNT OMNES</h2> + +<p>Barnum, the great showman, once upon a +time lit upon a very happy expedient to get a +great company of people to move on. They<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> +were packed together in the great tent, and +every one of them was anxious to see all that +was to be seen, and determined not to miss +anything. It was necessary to clear the room, +but the crowd couldn’t be shoved and wouldn’t +go out. At the direction of the great showman +a man appeared with a brush and a kettle of +red paint. He painted just one word, in big +letters, on a door leading out into a side street. +The word was EGRESS. “Come on,” said +the crowd, “let’s go in and see The Egress.” +They went in, and they went out, and they +saw</p> + +<p class="cb">THE EGRESS</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/endpage.png" width="175" height="" alt="·EGRESS·" title="" /> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Funny Bone, edited by Henry Martyn Kieffer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FUNNY BONE *** + +***** This file should be named 44643-h.htm or 44643-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/6/4/44643/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Chuck Greif and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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