More Toasts

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

MORE TOASTS

The success of the Toaster's Handbook has encouraged its publishers to compile another that will supplement it and bring it up-to-date. New subjects keep coming to the front, and the up-to-date toaster needs up-to-date stories to fit the up-to-date subjects. No public occasion of today is complete without its joke on the nineteenth amendment, the allied debts, the income tax, etc.

In offering the toasts, jokes, quotations and stories in this second volume, the editor has endeavored to bring further aid to the distracted toastmaster, to the professional after-dinner speaker who must change his stories often, and to individuals inexperienced in public speaking and so unfortunate as to have public addresses forced upon them. He views the product with much the same feeling as did Alexander Pope, who said, "O'er his books his eyes began to roll, in pleasing memory of all he stole."

Paolo Bellezze expressed the same feelings in the introduction to his work "Humor" when he said "Of this work of mine, I must confess it is a great lot of stuff gathered from everywhere except from my brain.... It is a necklace of pearls strung upon a slender cord; that, I have put there; the pearls have been furnished me by the most famous jewelers, native and foreign. This said, I can—without being accused of pride—recommend it to my respectable customers as an article of great value and of absolute novelty."

In making this collection, files of such magazines as Life, Judge, Puck and Punch were drawn on extensively; also magazines having humorous pages or columns, such as the Literary Digest, Ladies' Home Journal, Everybody's, Harper's; also Bindery Talk and various other house organs. According to Samuel Johnson "A man will turn over half a library to make one book," and the compiler of this one makes humble acknowledgment to a whole library of books and periodicals where most of these jokes have already appeared. It has been impossible to give credit unless the place of first publication was definitely known.

The compiling of "More Toasts" was in large measure cooperative. The test of the humor of a story or joke is in its efficacy when applied to normal people under ordinary circumstances. With this philosophy in mind the editor made it a rule to include nothing until it had first been "tried on the dog." The original material was first graded into three classes and, before being accepted, each joke had to stand the test of appealing to the sense of humor of several persons. The result is a collection of very carefully selected jokes and stories, only about fifty per cent of the material originally chosen being used. If any over-critical reader fails to find them humorous, may not the fault possibly be due to his own imperfect sense of humor?

There is also much truth in the statement that the point of a jest lies in the telling of it and often much of the subtle humor is lost in the reading. The personality of the speaker is a necessary factor and is frequently more important in the effect produced by the story than the story itself. Elbert Hubbard once said "Next in importance to the man who first voices a great thought is the man who quotes it."

The clever compiler, like a good chef, must not only know what to select but in what order to present it. Knowledge consists in being able to find a thing when you want it and accordingly an attempt has been made to pigeonhole each joke where it would be most useful. Such a classification is at best a difficult and debatable question, and numerous cross references have been placed wherever it was thought they might direct the reader to the subject wanted.

With these few explanatory words, the editor presents this little volume, sincerely hoping that it may prove a friend in need to all who seek the relaxation of humor, and a lifesaver to that legion of humble men whose knees tremble when the chairman speaks those fateful words—"The next speaker of the evening...."

M.D.M.

November, 1922.

What can be more fitting than that a compiled book should have a compiled introduction? Why should one with great pains and poor prospects of success attempt to do what has already been well done? Knowing that all readers of this book have a sense of humor and that they will approve our decision we begin with a quotation from an article¹ by Mr. E. Lyttelton.

The subject of humor has an attraction peculiarly its own, because it deals with a mystery which yet is pleasantly interwoven with the daily life of each one of us. We often say of one of our neighbors that he has no sense of humour. But he often laughs; he never spends a day without at least trying to laugh, tho it remains but an attempt, an effort, an aspiration after something which he seems to have lost but wishes to recover. Either, that is, he remains grave when others laugh, or he laughs, as Horace says, "with alien jaws," by constraint rather than because he cannot help it. He has a confused idea that it is expected of him. Such laughter is apparently the outcome of an uneasy sense of duty, a dismal travesty of the real thing....

Certainly humour is a singularly elusive thing, and I doubt if anyone alive can explain it; but its elusiveness gives it something of its charm; and, moreover, the illustrations which are necessary to an inquiry into its nature, its scope and meaning, are apt to be amusing without being irrelevant.

Humour has often been roughly described as a sense of the incongruous. More satisfying, however, is the following, which has been ascribed to Dean Inge: It is a sense of incongruous emotions. As soon as we think of the emotions being stirred we see that the strange difference between humourous and unhumourous people is not an intellectual matter, but follows the general law of emotional susceptibility, viz., that it is independent of the reason and varies within wide limits with each individual, and obviously with each nationality. Moreover, it appears that, as it is compounded of two emotions, one man may feel one of the emotions but be dull to the other, according to his temperament. It is a matter of sensitiveness, and in sensitiveness no two of us are alike.

Crudely judged, then, humour may be described as a blessing of nature bestowed on all, but in widely varying measure, so that in the case of some of our acquaintance we deplore its non-existence, but never in ourselves. Nobody really believes that he is wholly without it, partly because, in proportion as the sense is really defective, the defect must be in its own nature unperceived, but also because the gift is so precious, so winsome, that no one could bear to believe that it has been denied him. By a merciful law of nature, the delusion is unsuspected, for assuredly, if any wholly unhumorous person once realised the full extent of his privation, nothing could save him from "wretchlessness" and despair.

I prefer to believe that, like the sense of beauty, the love of music, the thrill of admiration for uncalculating heroism, we have here a wondrous aid to us in our life's pilgrimage, but that if we trace it to a sense of our self-interest, we not only vulgarize it, but we turn it into a caricature. For there is in humour this singular property; its aroma is so subtle, delicate and undefinable that the effort to buttress it upon coarse, common utility is doomed to fail, and in the mere attempt humour vanishes. There is something deliciously contagious about laughter that is quite sincere and unthinking; whereas the only people who contrive to be always absurd, but never amusing, are those who laugh from a sense of duty.

Humour, then, in the young is restricted in scope, their experience of life being small; in women it is quicker than in men, but shallower; in the Scotch it is reticent, in the Irish voluble and refined, but cold. But wherever it is found free from counterfeit, wholesome and contagious, it is the offspring of man's heaven-bestowed power of seeing in the meannesses of earth the true presence of the Divine.

Darwin says the causes of humor are legion and exceedingly complex and various disquisitions upon humor and laughter would seem to support him. Its social nature is emphasized by Edwin Paxton Hood:

The sources of all laughter and merriment are in the cordial sympathies of our nature. Laughter is very nearly related to the highest and most instinctive wisdom; it stands at no distant remove from Judgment on the one hand, and Imagination on the other; and it is a proof of a healthy nature, for both thinking and acting.

C.S. Evans in his article "On Humor in Literature" gives a hint of the evolutionary process of its mechanism and its higher refinement:

On the lower plane of humor you get a laugh by the most unimaginative means—merely conceive a recognized humorous situation, or bring several things together according to a recipe, and the thing is done. Every practised comedian, in literature or on the stage, is an adept at it. But the creation of character, the expression—in terms of the words and actions of men and women—of that "social gesture" which is laughter's source, is a much greater thing, for there we touch the symbolism which is the soul of art.

In an article entitled "Why Do We Laugh?" William McDougall discusses scientifically the value of laughter:

Laughter of man presents a problem with which philosophers have wrestled in all ages with little success. Man is the only animal that laughs. And, if laughter may properly be called an instinctive reaction, the instinct of laughter is the only one peculiar to the human species....

We are saved from this multitude of small sympathetic pains and depressions by laughter, which, as we have seen, breaks up our train of mental activity and prevents our dwelling upon the distressing situation, and which also provides an antidote to the depressing influence in the form of physiological stimulation that raises the blood-pressure and promotes the circulation of the blood. This, then, is the biological function of laughter, one of the most delicate and beautiful of all nature's adjustments. In order that man should reap the full benefits of life in the social group, it was necessary that his primitive sympathetic tendencies should be strong and delicately adjusted. For without this, there could be little mutual understanding, and only imperfect cooperation and mutual aid in the more serious difficulties and embarrassments of life. But, in endowing man with delicately responsive sympathetic tendencies, nature rendered him liable to suffer a thousand pains and depressions upon a thousand occasions of mishap to his fellows, occasions so trivial as to call for no effort of support or assistance. Here was a dilemma—whether to leave man so little sympathetic that he would be incapable of effective social life; or to render him effectively sympathetic and leave him subject to the perpetually renewed pains of sympathy, which, if not counteracted, would seriously depress his vitality and perhaps destroy the species. Nature, confronted with this problem, solved it by the invention of laughter. She endowed man with the instinct to laugh on contemplation of these minor mishaps of his fellow men; and so made them occasions of actual benefit to the beholder; all those things which, apart from laughter, would have been mildly displeasing and depressing, became objects and occasions of stimulating beneficial laughter....

For laughter is no exception to the law of primitive sympathy; but rather illustrates it most clearly and familiarly; the infectiousness of laughter is notorious and as irresistible as the infection of fear itself.... The great laugher is the person of delicately responsive sympathetic reactions; and his laughter quickly gives place to pity and comforting support, if our misfortune waxes more severe. Such persons are in little danger of giving offense by their laughter; for we detect their ready sympathy and easily laugh with them; they teach us to be humorous.

H. Merian Allen in his essay "Little Laughs in History" says "The relaxation of a full laugh clears the brain, restores fit contact with one's fellows, and so smoothes the way for the solving of knotty problems."

Linus W. Kline, Ph.D., further elucidates the psychical office of humor as follows:

The psychical function of humor is to delicately cut the surface tension of consciousness and disarrange its structure that it may begin again from a new and strengthened base. It permits our mental forces to reform under cover, as it were, while the battle is still on. Then, too, it clarifies the field and reveals the strategetic points, or, to change the figure, it pulls off the mask and exposes the real man. No stimulus, perhaps more mercifully and effectually breaks the surface tension of consciousness, thereby conditioning the mind for a stronger forward movement, than that of humor. It is the one universal dispensary for human kind: a medicine for the poor, a tonic for the rich, a recreation for the fatigued and a beneficient check to the strenuous. It acts as a shield to the reformer, as an entering wedge to the recluse and as a decoy for barter and trade.

Humor is as necessary to our mental and spiritual life as are vitamins to our physical well-being. Ruskin has called our attention to the tendency of rivers to lean a little to one side, to have "One shingly shore upon which they can be shallow and foolish and childlike, and another steep shore under which they can pause and purify themselves and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasions," and has likened them to great men who must have one side of their life for work and another for play. Action and reaction must be balanced: seriousness and lightness. "Men who work prodigously must play with equal energy," says one commentator. "Humor is the gift of the deeply serious man," remarks another. "There have been very few solemn men, but their solemnity was evidence, not of their gifts, but of their defects; as a rule greatness is accompanied by the overflow of the fountain of life in play." "The richly furnished mind overflows with vitality and deals with ideas and life freely, daringly, often audaciously."

The function of the catalyst in chemical reactions is to help other bodies to get on together, but in doing this it only lends its presence.

CATALYST. A chemical body which by its presence, is capable of inducing chemical changes in other bodies while itself remaining unchanged.

In quite the same way humor, by its mere presence, serves to smooth the way in all human relations. It contributes a socializing touch. "Humor makes the whole world akin."

Not only the toastmaster needs to have a sense of humor and a collection of funny stories, and not only the preacher, the public speaker and entertainer, but everyone, as well, who must influence others. The "voice with a smile" wins because behind the voice is a sense of humor. We have more confidence in those who have a sense of humor. The following is quoted from a persuasive advertisement entitled "The Gentle Art of Telling a Humorous Story Well":

The most successful men and women are those who know how to get along with their fellow-beings, who know how to win and hold good will. In fact, the biggest problem in business and society today is the human problem, the problem of making people like you and making people feel kindly towards each other.

And nothing oils the wheels of human relationship so nicely as humor. Abraham Lincoln understood this when he saved many a critical situation by the introduction of one of his famous anecdotes. Humor has its place in serious business life, and in social life it is the universal passport to popularity.

The importance of humor in our daily life, often emphasized by scientists and philosophers, has been well summarized by Justin McCarthy in an article "Humor as an Element of Success":

I am strongly of the opinion that the quick and abiding sense of humour is a great element of success in every department of life. I do not speak merely of success in the more strictly artistic fields of human work, but am willing to maintain that even in the prosaic and practical concerns of human existence, the sense of humour is an exciting and sustaining influence to carry a man successfully thru to the full development of his capacity and the attainment of his purpose....

In the stories of great events and great enterprises we are constantly told of some heaven-born leader who kept alive, thru the most trying hours of what otherwise might have been utter and enfeebling depression, the energies, the courage and the hope of his comrades and his followers.

During thousands of years nature has developed in the human body many "safety first" signal systems. For example, when the body becomes chilled this signal system causes us to shiver and tickles the throat making us cough and in this way thru exercise stimulates the blood circulation.

Perhaps in ages to come nature will find a way to tickle our sense of humor when we are angry, discouraged, or otherwise mentally discomfitted and will thus help us thru laughter to throw off the soul chill and to regain spiritual poise.

Footnote 1: (return)

The Nineteenth Century. July, 1922.

This story is told of an absent-minded professor at Drew Theological Seminary. One evening while studying he had need of a book-mark. Seeing nothing else handy, he used his wife's scissors, which lay on the sewing-table. A few minutes later the wife wanted the scissors, but a diligent search failed to reveal them.

The next day the professor appeared before his class and opened his book. There lay the scissors. He picked them up and, holding them above his head, shouted:

"Here they are, dear!"

Yes, the class got it.

Deep in a ponderous calculation, the professor leaned over his desk. One hand held his massive brow; the other guided the pencil.

Suddenly the library door was flung open, and a nurse entered, smiling broadly.

"There's a little stranger upstairs, professor," she announced, of course referring to the very latest arrival.

"Eh?" grunted the man of learning, poring deeply over his problem.

"It's a little boy," remarked the nurse, still smiling.

"Little boy," mused the professor. "Little boy-eh? Well ask him what he wants."

A story is current concerning a professor who is reputed to be slightly absent-minded. The learned man had arranged to escort his wife one evening to the theater. "I don't like the tie you have on. I wish you would go up and put on another," said his wife.

The professor tranquilly obeyed. Moment after moment elapsed, until finally the impatient wife went upstairs to learn the cause of the delay. In his room she found her husband undressed and getting into bed.

"How will you have your roast beef?" asked the waiter.

"Well done, good and faithful servant," murmured the clerical-looking diner absent-mindedly.

See also Habit; Memory.

Hearing a crash of glassware one morning, Mrs. Blank called to her maid in the adjoining room, "Norah, what on earth are you doing?"

"I ain't doin' nothin', mum," replied Norah; "it's done."

A big Irishman, while carrying a ladder through a crowded street had the misfortune to break a plate-glass window in a store. He immediately dropped his ladder and broke into a run, but he had been seen by the shopkeeper, who dashed after him in company with several salesmen, and was soon caught.

"Here you big loafer!" shouted the angry shopkeeper, when he had regained his breath. "You have broken my window!"

"I sure have," admitted the Celt, "and didn't you see me running home to get the money to pay for it?"

In one of the industrial towns in South Wales a workman met with a serious accident. The doctor was sent for, and came and examined him, had him bandaged and carried home on a stretcher, seemingly unconscious.

After he was put to bed the doctor told his wife to give him sixpennyworth of brandy when he came to himself. After the doctor had left the wife told the daughter to run and fetch threepennyworth of brandy for her father.

The old chap opened his eyes and said, in a loud voice: "Sixpenn'orth, the doctor said."

An editor had a notice stuck up above his desk on which was printed: "Accuracy! Accuracy! Accuracy!" and this notice he always pointed out to the new reporters.

One day the youngest member of the staff came in with his report of a public meeting. The editor read it through and came to the sentence: "Three thousand nine hundred ninety-nine eyes were fixed upon the speaker."

"What do you mean by making a silly blunder like that?" he demanded, wrathfully.

"But it's not a blunder," protested the youngster. "There was a one-eyed man in the audience!"

FIRST ACTRESS (behind the scenes)—"Did you hear the way the public wept during my death scene?"

SECOND ACTRESS—"Yes, it must have been because they realized that it was only acted!"

"These love scenes are rotten. Can't the leading man act as if he were in love with the star?"

"Can't act at all," said the director. "Trouble is, he is in love with her."

The teacher was giving the class a natural history lecture on Australia. "There is one animal," she said, "none of you have mentioned. It does not stand up on its legs all the time. It does not walk like other animals, but takes funny little skips. What is it?" And the class yelled with one voice, "Charlie Chaplin!"

Eight-year-old Robert had been ill for nearly a month with tonsilitis, and nothing kept him contented but pictures of his favorite, Charlie Chaplin, clipped from the pages of the motion-picture pictorials.

One morning, as his mother sat beside his bed, he studied earnestly a full-page drawing of the million-dollar comedian.

"Mother," he asked, "will Charlie Chaplin go to heaven?"

"Why, yes—I hope so," answered the somewhat astonished parent.

"Gee! won't the Lord have some fun then!" was Robert's comment.

Sweeping his long hair back with an impressive gesture the visitor faced the proprietor of the film studio. "I would like to secure a place in your moving-picture company," he said.

"You are an actor?" asked the film man.

"Yes."

"Had any experience acting without audiences?"

A flicker of sadness shone in the visitor's eyes as he replied:

"Acting without audiences is what brought me here!"

It was a death-bed scene, but the director was not satisfied with the hero's acting.

"Come on!" he cried. "Put more life in your dying!"

"Pa, what's an actor?"

"An actor, my boy, is a person who can walk to the side of a stage, peer into the wings at a group of other actors waiting for their cues, a number of bored stage hands and a lot of theatrical odds and ends and exclaim, 'What a lovely view there is from this window!'"

"There were two actresses in an early play of mine," said an author, "both very beautiful; but the leading actress was thin. She quarreled one day at rehearsal with the other lady, and she ended the quarrel by saying, haughtily: 'Remember, please, that I am the star.'

"'Yes, I know you're the star,' the other retorted, eyeing with an amused smile the leading actress's long, slim figure, 'but you'd look better, my dear, if you were a little meteor!'"

INTERVIEWER—"What is your wife's favorite dish?"

HUSBAND OF FAMOUS MOVIE ACTRESS—"In the magazines it is peach-bloom fudge-cake with orangewisp salad, but at home it is tripe and cabbage."—Puck.

The actress stood before her mirror, in doublet and hose, and regarded her thin legs anxiously.

"I'm not exactly a poem," said she, "but I may pass for heroic verse."

The Question is How Much More?

TO RENT—In private home, a large, handsomely furnished front room; also a medium-sized one; every convenience; centrally and very choicely located; rent more than reasonable. Address, etc.—

Advertising is the test of integrity; the proof of integrity; that transmits an ever-increasing confidence to both producer and purchaser.

"I won't pay one cent for my advertising this week," declared the store-keeper angrily to the editor of the country paper. "You told me you'd put the notice of my shoe-polish in with the reading-matter."

"And didn't I do it?" inquired the editor.

"No, sir!" roared the advertiser. "No, sir, you did not! You put it in the column with a mess of poetry, that's where you put it!"

"Paw, what is an advertisement?"

"An advertisement is the picture of a pretty girl eating, wearing, holding or driving something that somebody wants to sell."

A violinist was bitterly disappointed with the account of his recital printed in the paper of a small town.

"I told your man three or four times," complained the musician to the owner of the paper, "that the instrument I used was a genuine Stradivarius, and in his story there was not a word about it, not a word."

Whereupon the owner said with a laugh:

"That is as it should be. When Mr. Stradivarius gets his fiddles advertised in my paper under ten cents a line, you come around and let me know."

"Oh, we called about the flat advertised."

"Well, I did mean to let it, but since I've read the house-agent's description of it, I really feel I can't part with it."

CLASSIFIED AD MANAGER—"Your advertisement begins: 'Wanted: Silent Partner.'"

ADVERTISER—"Yes, that's right."

CLASSIFIED AD MANAGER—"Do you want this placed under Business Opportunities or Matrimony?"

"Say, Jim," said the friend of the taxicab-driver, standing in front of the vehicle, "there's a purse lying on the floor of your car."

The driver looked carefully around and then whispered: "Sometimes when business is bad I put it there and leave the door open. It's empty, but you've no idea how many people'll jump in for a short drive when they see it."

Recently the L. P. Ross Shoe Company inserted an advertisement in a Rochester paper for vampers and closers-up. Among the answers received was one from a young lady who signed herself Miss Mabelle Jones and gave her address as General Delivery, Rochester. The letter said in part:

"Gentlemen: I have seen your ad for vampires and close-ups and I would like the job. I have been studying to vamp for several years and have been practising eye work for a long while. My gentlemen friends tell me that I have the other movie vamps backed off the map. I have made a particular study of Theda Bara. I don't know much about close-ups, but suppose I could learn. I have a good form, swell brown eyes, and a fine complexion."

"If you would like, I will call and show you what I can do. I have been looking for a vampire job, but never saw no ads in the papers before."

"Yours,"

"MABELLE JONES."

"P. S.—Do you furnish clothes for your vampires? I have just come to Rochester and so I haven't got many clothes."—Rochester Herald.

Burton Holmes, the lecturer, had an interesting experience, while in London. He told some Washington friends a day or two ago that when he visited the theater where he was to deliver his travelogue he decided that the entrance to the theater was rather dingy and that there should be more display of his attraction.

Accordingly, he suggested to the manager of the house that the front be brightened up at night by electrical signs, one row of lights spelling his name "Burton" and another row of lights spelling the name "Holmes."

The manager told him it was too much of an innovation for him to authorize and referred him to the owner of the theater. Mr. Holmes traveled several hours into the country to consult with the owner, who referred him to his agent in the city. The agent in turn sent Mr. Holmes to the janitor of the theater.

"I talked with the janitor and explained my plan to him for about an hour," Mr. Holmes said. "Finally, after we had gone into every detail of the cost and everything else, the janitor told me that the theater was a very exclusive and high class theater, and that he would not put up the sign. I asked him why?"

"Because it would attract too much attention to the theater," the janitor replied.

"What's your time?" asked the old farmer of the brisk salesman. "Twenty minutes after five. What can I do for you?" "I want them pants," said the old farmer, leading the way to the window and pointing to a ticket marked, "Given away at 5.20."

See also Authorship; Beauty, Personal; Salesmen and salesmanship.

The most unfair person is the one who asks you for advice and doesn't let you know what advice he wants.

Another thing that we sometimes take when nobody's looking is advice.

It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.—Shakespeare.

Advice is the most worthless commodity in the world. Those who might profit by it don't need it, and those who do need it won't profit by it—if they could, they wouldn't need it.

"You wrote this report of last night's banquet, did you?" asked the editor with the copy in his hand.

"Yes, sir," replied the reporter.

"And this expression, 'The banquet-table groaned'—do you think that is proper?"

"Oh, yes, sir. The funny stories the after-dinner speakers told would make any table groan."

See also Politicians; Public speakers.

HE—"How old are you?"

SHE—"I've just turned twenty-three."

HE—"Oh, I see—thirty-two."

A judge asked a woman her age.

"Thirty," she replied.

"You've given that age in this court for the last three years."

"Yes. I'm not one of those who says one thing today and another thing tomorrow."

"Willie," said his mother. "I wish you would run across the street and see how old Mrs. Brown is this morning."

"Yes'm," replied Willie, and a few minutes later he returned and reported:

"Mrs. Brown says it's none of your business how old she is."

"Well, auntie, have you got your photographs yet?"

"Yes, and I sent them back in disgust."

"Gracious! How was that?"

"Why, on the back of every photo was written this, 'The original of this is carefully preserved.'"

Answering the question, "When is a woman old?" a famous tragedienne wrote: "The conceited never; the unhappy too soon, and the wise at the right time."

When saving for your old age, don't neglect to lay up a few pleasant thoughts.

"To what do you attribute your long life, Uncle Mose?" asked a newspaper interviewer of a colored centenarian.

"Becuz Ah was bo'n a long time back," the old gentleman replied.

MURIEL—"I don't intend to be married until after I'm thirty."

MABEL—"And I don't intend to be thirty until after I'm married!"—Life.

One great advantage of really being old is that one is beyond being told he is getting old.

Twenty-One Plus

FIRST SUFFRAGIST—"How old do you think Mabel is?"

SECOND SUFFRAGIST—"Well, I should say she had lost about seventeen votes."

A maiden lady of uncertain age became very indignant when the census taker asked how old she was. "Did you see the girls next door," she asked—"The Hill twins?"

"Certainly," replied the census man.

"And did they tell you their age?"

"Yes."

"Well," she snapped, "I'm just as old as they are."

"Oh, very well," said the census man; and he wrote in his book, "Sarah Stokes, as old as the Hills."

PHYSICIAN—"Tell your wife not to worry about that slight deafness, as it is merely an indication of advancing years."

MR. MEEK—"Doctor would you mind telling her yourself?"

"Ma, is Mr. Jones an awfully old man?"

"No, dear, I don't believe so. What makes you ask?"

"Well, I think he must be, because I heard Pa say last night that Mr. Jones raised his ante."

"Crop failures?" asked the old timer.

"Yes, I've seen a few in my day. In 1854 the corn crop was almost nothing. We cooked some for dinner, and my father ate fourteen acres of corn at one meal!"—Life.

See also Farming; Laws.

A Swede was working for a farmer, who demanded punctuality above everything else. The farmer told him that he must be at work every morning at 4 o'clock sharp. The "hand" failed to get up in time, and the farmer threatened to discharge him. Then the "hand" bought an alarm-clock, and for some time everything went along smoothly. But one morning he got to the field fifteen minutes late. The farmer immediately discharged him, in spite of his protestations that his alarm-clock was to blame.

Sadly returning to his room, the discharged employee determined to find out the cause of his downfall. He took the alarm-clock to pieces, and discovered a dead cockroach among the works.

"Well," he soliloquized, "Ay tank it bane no wonder the clock wouldn't run—the engineer bane daid."

"I heard something this morning that opened my eyes."

"So did I—an alarm clock."

"Have you any alarm-clocks?" inquired the customer. "What I want is one that will arouse the girl without waking the whole family."

"I don't know of any such alarm-clock as that, madam," said the man behind the counter; "we keep just the ordinary kind—the kind that will wake the whole family without disturbing the girl."

See also Philadelphia; Tardiness.

TEACHER—"What is an alibi?"

BRIGHT Boy—"Being somewhere where you ain't."

Or Go to Jail

"Is there any way a man can avoid paying alimony?" asked the Friend who was seeking free advice.

"Sure," replied the Lawyer. "He can stay single or stay married."

MOTHER (who is teaching her child the alphabet)—"Now, dearie, what comes after 'g'?"

THE CHILD—"Whiz!"—Judge.

See Choices.

Every normal man has two great ambitions. First, to own his home. Second, to own a car to get away from his home.

Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.—Colton.

To wish is of little account; to succeed thou must earnestly desire; and this desire must shorten thy sleep.—Ovid.

The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.—Cicero.

When once ambition has passed its natural limits, its progress is boundless.—Seneca.

A French magazine claims to have discovered in a New York paper an advertisement to this effect: "A gentleman who has lost his right leg is desirous of making the acquaintance of some one who has lost his left leg, in order to become associated with him in the purchase of boots and shoes, size 8." The very observant French editor very politely comments: "An American may occasionally lose a leg, but he never loses his head."

"That's the Goddess of Liberty," explained the New Yorker. "Fine attitude, eh?"

"Yes, and typically American," replied the Western visitor. "Hanging to a strap."

"William," asked the teacher of a rosy-faced lad, "can you tell me who George Washington was?"

"Yes, ma'am," was the quick reply. "He was an American gen'ral."

"Quite right," replied the teacher. "And can you tell us what George Washington was remarkable for?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied the little boy. "He was remarkable because he was an American and told the truth."

A party of tourists were looking at Vesuvius in full eruption. "Ain't this just like hell!" exclaimed an American. "Ah, the Americans," said a Frenchman standing by, "Where have they not been?"

It was a sweet, sad play, and there was hardly a dry handkerchief in the house. But one man in the first balcony irritated his neighbors excessively by refusing to take the performance in the proper spirit. Instead of weeping, he laughed. While others were mopping their eyes and endeavoring to stifle their sobs, his face beamed with merriment and he burst into inappropriate guffaws.

At last a lady by his side turned upon him indignantly.

"I d-don't know what brought y-you here," she sobbed, with streaming eyes, and pressing her hand against her aching heart; "but if y-you don't like the p-play you might l-let other p-people enjoy it!"

HAMPTON—"Dinwiddow told me his family is a very old one. They were one of the first to come across."

RHODES—"The grocer told me yesterday that now they are the last to come across."—Judge.

"Pa, what are ancestors?"

"Well, my son, I'm one of yours. Your grandpa is another."

"Oh! Then why is it people brag about them?"

HE—"My ancestors came over in the Mayflower."

SHE—"It's lucky they did; the immigration laws are a little stricter now."

It was Robert's first visit to the Zoo.

"What do you think of the animals?" inquired Uncle Ben.

After a critical inspection of the exhibit the boy replied: "I think the kangaroo and the elephant should change tails."

"Mr. Blinks," said she, "do you think that anticipation is greater than realization?"

"Well," replied Mr. Blinks, "anticipation is broader and higher, but realization is longer and flatter."

"Gee, whiz! Isn't that Smithson who just went by in his automobile? When I knew him a few years ago he had a junk-shop."

"He still has. Only he moved in to a fashionable street and labeled the same stock 'Antiques.'"

CUSTOMER—"What! Five hundred dollars for that antique? Why, I priced it last week and you said three hundred and fifty."

DEALER—"Yes, I know; but the cost of labor and materials has gone up so!"

AD WRITER—"When do you want me to prepare that copy for the sale of antiques you have been planning?"

BOSS—"We'll have to hold back on those awhile. The wormhole borers are on strike in Grand Rapids."

MR. LONGSUFFER—"Say, janitor, it's down to zero in my flat."

JANITOR—"Down to zero, is it? That's nothing."

Necessarily So

"I wonder if they take children in these apartments."

"They must. Some of the rooms aren't big enough for a grown person."

"How do the Joneses seem to like their little two-room kitchenette apartment?"

"Oh, they have no room for complaint!"—Judge.

A man's appearance indicates how his business is prospering, and his wife's appearance shows how much he is spending.

In civilized society external advantages make us more respected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one. You may analyze this and say, what is there in it? But that will avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system.—Johnson.

A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.—Shenstone.

Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.—Chesterfield.

In all professions every one affects a particular look and exterior, in order to appear what he wishes to be thought; so that it may be said the world's made up of appearances.—La Rochefoucauld.

"Josh," said Farmer Corntossel to his son, "I wish, if you don't mind, you'd eat off to yourself instead of with the summer boarders."

"Isn't my society good enough for them?"

"Your society is fine. But your appetite sets a terrible example."

TEACHER—"You remember the story of Daniel in the lion's den, Robbie?"

ROBBIE—"Yes, ma'am."

TEACHER—"What lesson do we learn from it?"

ROBBIE—"That we shouldn't eat everything we see."

"You don't attach much importance to the applause an orator receives."

"Not much," admitted Senator Sorghum. "There is bound to be applause. You can't expect an audience to sit still all evening and do absolutely nothing."

"The train pulled out before you had finished your speech."

"Yes," replied Senator Sorghum. "As I heard the shouts of the crowd fading in the distance I couldn't be sure whether they were applauding me or the engineer."

A slowness to applaud betrays a cold temper or an envious spirit.—Hannah More.

The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.—Emerson.

"Waiter," he suggested mildly, "I want three eggs, and boil them four minutes."

But the cook, having only one in the place, boiled it twelve minutes.

Which proves the value of higher mathematics.

SCHOOL-TEACHER (to little boy)—"If a farmer raises 3,700 bushels of wheat and sells it for $2.50 per bushel, what will he get?"

LITTLE BOY—"An automobile."

"Now, then, Johnny," said his teacher, "if your father gave you seven cents and your mother gave you six and your uncle gave you four more, what would you have?"

Johnny wrinkled up his forehead and went into silence for the space of several minutes.

"Come, come," said the teacher impatiently. "Surely you can solve a simple little problem like that."

"It ain't a simple problem at all," replied the boy. "I can't make up my mind whether I'd have an ice-cream soda or go to the movies."

In Missouri, where they raise more mules and children than in any other place in the world, a certain resident died possessed of seventeen mules and three sons. In his will he disposed of the mules as follows: One-half to the eldest son, one-third to the next, and one-ninth to the youngest.

The administrator who went to divide the property drove a span of mules out to the farm, but when he went to divide the seventeen into halves, thirds, and ninths he found it was impossible with live mules; mules not being very valuable, he unhitched one of his own, putting it with the other seventeen, making eighteen, when he proceeded to divide as follows: One-half, or nine to the eldest, one third, or six, to the next son, and one-ninth, or two, to the youngest. Adding up nine, six, two, he found that it made seventeen, so he hitched up his mule and went home rejoicing.—Ladies Home Journal.

"Now, Harold," said the teacher, "if there were eleven sheep in a field and six jumped the fence how many would there be left?"

"None," replied Harold.

"Why, but there would," said she.

"No, ma'am, there wouldn't," persisted he. "You may know arithmetic, but you don't know sheep."

One day, as Pat halted at the top of the river-bank, a man famous for his inquisitive mind stopped and asked:

"How long have you hauled water for the village, my good man?"

"Tin years, sor."

"Ah, how many loads do you take in a day?"

"From tin to fifteen, sor."

"Ah, yes! Now I have a problem for you. How much water at this rate have you hauled in all?"

The driver of the watering-cart jerked his thumb backward toward the river and replied:

"All the water yez don't see there now, sor."

A sentry was giving close attention to his post in the neighborhood of a British army camp in England, challenging returning stragglers late after dark. The following is reported as an incident to his vigil:

"Who goes there?" called the sentry at the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Coldstream Guards!" was the response.

"Pass, Coldstream Guards!" rejoined the sentry.

"Who goes there?" again challenged the sentry.

"Forty-ninth Highlanders!" returned the unseen pedestrian.

"Pass, Forty-ninth Highlanders!"

"Who goes there?" sounded a third challenge.

"None of your d—n business!" was the husky reply.

"Pass, Canadians!" acquiesced the sentry.

A few soldiers belonging to part of a Swiss regiment in garrison at Basel went to a certain cafe for refreshments. One of them sat down alone at a table. Later a civilian, a German, joined him and the two began to talk war politics. "Would you shoot on the Germans if they invaded Switzerland?" asked the German.

"Oh, no, never!" exclaimed the soldier.

"Waiter, a pint of beer and a beefsteak with potatoes for this brave man," ordered the civilian.

"And your pals sitting at the next table—would they also not shoot the Germans if they tried to invade this country?"

"Oh, no, never," retorted the Swiss.

"Waiter, a glass of beer for each of the soldiers at the next table!" ordered the civilian.

And addressing again the soldier, he asked: "Is this generally the view held in the Swiss Army in regard to a possible German invasion? Are all the Swiss soldiers so Germanophil?"

"I don't know," replied the soldier.

"But why would you not shoot the Germans?"

"Because we belong to the band."

OFFICER (to private)—"What are you doing down in that shell-hole? Didn't you hear me say we were out against four to one?"

GEORDIE (a trade-unionist)—"Ay. Aa heard you; but aa've killed ma fower."—Punch.

"The army must be a terrible place," said Aunt Samanthy, looking up from the evening paper.

"What makes you think so, Samanthy?" asked her dutiful spouse.

"Why, jest think what it must be where beds is bunk and meals is a mess."

Said the colored lad as he was being mustered out, on being asked what train he was going to take for home: "Boss, I ain't gonna take no train. I lives two hundred miles away, and I'se gonna run the first eighteen, just to make sure they don't change their minds befo' I leave camp."

A factory foreman who had some 300 hands under him went into the army, became a captain of a company and could not get into the habit of calling his soldiers men, but invariably referred to them as my "hands." Imagine, therefore, the surprise of his commanding officer when the captain turned in a report of an engagement, in which he said he "had the very good fortune to have only one of my 'hands' shot through the nose."

"Were you happy when you started for France?"

"Happy? We were in transports."

See also Conscription; Military discipline.

HENRY—"He may be a great artist, but he has a peculiar way of doing things."

HAPPY—"How's that?"

HENRY—"He says he painted his greatest masterpiece on an empty stomach."

Impressionistic

Whistler once undertook to get a fellow artist's work into the autumn salon. He succeeded, and the picture was hung. But the painter, going to see his masterpiece with Whistler on varnishing day, uttered an exclamation of dismay.

"Good Heavens!" he cried, "you're exhibiting my picture upside down."

"Hush!" said Whistler. "The committee refused it the other way."

"If you do good work, your work will grow after you are gone."

"That's a fact. Rubens left only some 2,000 pictures, but there are 10,000 of his pictures in circulation now."

"Luxurious tastes Richleigh has. He has a Corot in his office."

"That's nothing! I have a whistler in mine."

Two ladies, each with her child, visited the Chicago Art Museum. As they passed the "Winged Victory" the little boy exclaimed: "Huh! She ain't got no head." "Sh!" the horrified little girl replied, "That's art; she don't need none!"

One of those country gentlemen who owns a farm in Brown County, but lives in Indianapolis and only spends his weekends on the farm, asked one of his neighbors down in Brown county: "Did you know that T. C. Steele sold the picture that he painted on your farm?" The farmer made no reply to this, and then the country gentleman told him the price Mr. Steele got for the canvas. "I just wish I had known the feller liked the place well enough to pay that for a picture of it," the farmer said. "I'd a' sold him the farm for $200 less than that."

ARTIST—"Now, here's a picture—one of my best, too—I've just finished. When I started out I had no idea what it was going to be."

FRIEND—"After you got through, how did you find out what it was?"

Bessie is a bright one. The other day her teacher set her and her schoolmates to drawing, letting them choose their own subjects. After the teacher had examined what the other children had drawn, she took up Bessie's sheet.

"Why, what's this?" she said. "You haven't drawn anything at all, child."

"Please, teacher, yes, I have," returned Bessie. "It's a war-picture-a long line of ammunition-wagons at the front. You can't see 'em 'cause they're camouflaged."

"Mark Twain was visiting H.H. Rogers," said a New York editor. "Mr. Rogers led the humorist into his library.

"'There,' he said as he pointed to a bust of white marble. 'What do you think of that?' It was a bust of a young woman coiling her hair-a graceful example of Italian sculpture. Mr. Clemens looked and then he said:

"'It isn't true to nature."

"'Why not?' Mr. Rogers asked.

"'She ought to have her mouth full of hairpins,' said the humorist."

See also Futurist art.

FINNEGAN—"Oh, yis, Oi can undershtand how thim astronomers can calkilate th' distance av a shtarr, its weight, and dinsity and color and all thot—but th' thing thot gets me is, how th' divvle do they know its name."

A clever author is one who never asks what they are saying when he is told that everybody is talking about his latest book.

The wife of a successful young literary man had hired a buxom Dutch girl to do the housework. Several weeks passed and from seeing her master constantly about the house, the girl received an erroneous impression.

"Ogscuse me, Mrs. Blank," she said to her mistress one day, "but I like to say somedings."

"Well, Rena?"

The girl blushed, fumbled with her apron, and then replied, "Veil, you pay me four tollars a veek—"

"Yes, and I really can't pay you any more."

"It's not dot," responded the girl; "but I be villing to take tree tollars till—till your husband gets vork."

Kate Douglas Wiggin's choicest possession, she says, is a letter which she once received from the superintendent of a home for the feeble-minded. He spoke in glowing terms of the pleasure with which the "inmates" had read her little book, "Marm Lisa," and ended thus superbly:

"In fact, madam, I think I may safely say that you are the favorite author of the feeble-minded!"

Harold Jenks, a syndicate editor of Denver, was talking about the low rates paid by the magazines.

"They who write for newspaper syndicates, where their work appears simultaneously in forty or fifty newspapers all over the country," said Mr. Jenks, "make a good deal of money. Of course, the magazine writer, beside such men, isn't one, two, three.

"A seedy magazine writer dropped in on me this morning to borrow a quarter. As he left, he said:

"'Jenks, old man, the difference between a hen and a magazine writer is this—while they both scratch for a living, the hen gets hers.'"

Consolation

"How did your novel come out?"

"Well," replied the self-confident man, "it proved beyond all doubt that it isn't one of these trashy best-sellers."

The late Ambassador Walter Hines Page was formerly editor of The World's Work and, like all editors, was obliged to refuse a great many stories. A lady once wrote him:

"Sir: you sent back last week a story of mine. I know that you did not read the story, for as a test I had pasted together pages 18, 19, and 20, and the story came back with these pages still pasted; and so I know you are a fraud and turn down stories without reading same."

Mr. Page wrote back:

"Madame: At breakfast when I open an egg I don't have to eat the whole egg to discover it is bad."

The great novelist summoned his publisher to his luxurious home.

"Have your salesmen," he asked, "prepared for their semi-annual trip among the down-trodden booksellers?"

"They have."

"Has your publicity man written the usual biographical notices and arranged for a series of dinners in my honor?"

"He has."

"Have your great minds selected a title for my forthcoming work?"

"Indeed, yes."

"Then what do you want me to write about?"

The publisher drew from his pocket a paper.

"Here is a wonderful plot," he replied. "It has every element—maudlin sentiment, mystery, touches of your characteristic humor, profound insight—everything."

The great author was conservative. He had had experience.

"I haven't time to read it just now," he said. "But are you sure? How do you know that it is any good?"

"Good!" exclaimed the publisher. "Of course it is good. Why, my dear sir, it has met with the unqualified approval of every member of our motion-picture department."

THE PUBLISHER—"How are you going to introduce accurate local color in your new story of life in Thibet? You've never been there."

THE EMINENT AUTHOR—"Neither has any of my public."—Judge.

"So you got your poem printed?"

"Yes," replied the author. "I sent the first stanza to the editor of the Correspondence Column with the inquiry, 'Can anyone give me the rest of this poem?' Then I sent in the complete poem over another name!"

"Ye think a fine lot of Shakespeare?"

"I do, sir," was the reply.

"An' ye think he was mair clever than Rabbie Burns?"

"Why, there's no comparison between them."

"Maybe, no; but ye tell us it was Shakespeare who wrote 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.' Now, Rabbie would never hae sic nonsense as that."

"Nonsense, sir!" thundered the other.

"Ay, just nonsense. Rabbie would hae kent fine that a king or queen either disna ganga to bed wi' a croon on their head. He'd hae kent they hang it over the back o' a chair."

HOSTESS—"I sometimes wonder, Mr. Highbrow, if there is anything vainer than you authors about the things you write."

HIGHBROW—"There is, madam; our efforts to sell them."

"No," said the honest man, "I was never strong at literature. To save my life I could not tell you who wrote 'Gray's Elegy.'"

HENLEY—"How are you getting on with your writing for the magazines?"

PENLEY—"Just holding my own. They send me back as much as I send them."

Wouldn't it be pleasant if so many authors didn't:

Let their characters converse for hours without any identification tags, so that you have to turn back three pages and number off odd speeches in order to find out who's talking.

Overwork the "smart" atmosphere, the suspension points and the seasonal epidemics of such words as "gripping," "virile," "intrigue," "gesture," etc.

Stick up a periscope every now and then, like, "Little did he think how dearly this trifling error was to cost him," or "She was to meet this man again, under strange circumstances."

Apply a large hunk of propaganda, like an ice bag, just where the plot ought to rush ahead.

EDITOR—"Historically, this story is incorrect."

AUTHOR—"But hysterically it is one of the best things I have ever done."

A man who was a great admirer of Mark Twain was visiting in Hannibal, Mo. He asked the darkey who was driving him about if he knew where Huckleberry Finn lived. "No sah, I never heard of the gemmen." Then he said "Then perhaps you knew Tom Sawyer?" "No, sah, I never met the gemmen." "But surely you have heard of Puddin'head Wilson?" "Yes, sah, I've never met him, but I've voted for him twice."

TED—"I was tempted to read his book by the advertisements, but I was disappointed."

NED—"That's only natural. The advertisements are better written than the book."

"Why do you turn out for every road hog that comes along?" said the missus, rather crossly. "The right of way is ours, isn't it?"

"Oh, undoubtedly!" answered he, calmly. "As for our turning out, the reason is plainly suggested in this epitaph which appeared in a newspaper recently:

A motorist had been haled into court, and when his name was called the judge asked what the charges were against the prisoner.

"Suspicious actions, your Honor," answered the policeman who had made the arrest.

"Suspicious actions?" queried his Honor "What was he doing that seemed suspicious?"

"Well," replied the officer, "he was running within the speed limit, sounding his horn properly, and trying to keep on the right side of the street, so I arrested him."

"What kind of a time is he having on his motor-trip?"

"Guess he's having a pretty lively time. He sent me a picture post-card of a hospital."

A tourist was just emerging from a corn-field by the roadside, bearing in his arms a dozen handsome roasting ears. A second car approached and stopped, whereon the tourist reached for his pocketbook and asked in an embarrassed manner, "How much?"

"One dollar," said the newcomer, and then, after receiving payment, remarked, "This is a fine field of corn. Wonder who it belongs to?"

"Has this car got a speedometer?" asked an old gentleman to the auctioneer, at one of the Disposal Board sales. The auctioneer was equal to the occasion and replied: "At thirty miles an hour it exhibits a white flag, at forty miles a red flag, and at fifty miles a gramophone begins to play, 'I'm going to be an angel, and with the angels dwell'"

"Remember, son, Garfield drove mules on a tow-path and Lincoln split rails."

"I know, dad; but say, did any of these Presidents ever crank a cold motor in a blizzard for half an hour before he discovered that he didn't have any gasoline?"

The time to buy a used car is just before you move, so people in the new neighborhood will think you were the one who used it.

"I understand that you have a new motor-car."

"Yes."

"Do you drive it yourself?"

"Nobody drives it. We coax it."

"We deny ourselves much. I am saving to build a house."

"Is your wife cheerful about it?"

"Oh, yes. She thinks we're saving for an automobile."

SHE—"Tell me, is an F.O.B. Detroit a reliable car?"

"I have never owned any automobiles," said the man who hadn't yet paid for his home, "but I can say one thing in praise of them."

"What is that?" inquired Henderson.

"They have made mortgages respectable."—Judge.

"I see Smith is building a garage. When did he get a car?"

"He hasn't got one yet, but he's got an option on ten gallons of gasoline."

An irate customer complained to her butcher about finding pieces of rubber in the sausage meat and demanded an explanation. The butcher said, "It is only another proof of how the automobile is taking the place of the horse."

"Hello, old top. New car?"

"No! Old car, new top."

A farmer was recently arguing with a French chauffeur, who had slackened up at an inn, regarding the merits of the horse and the motor-car.

"Give me a 'orse," remarked the farmer; "them traveling oil-shops is too uncertain fer my likin'."

"Eet is prejudice, my friend." the chauffeur replied; "you Engleesh are behind ze times; you will think deefairent some day."

"Behind the times be blowed!" came the retort; "p'r'aps nex' time the Proosians are round Paris and you have to git your dinner off a steak from the 'ind wheel of a motor-car, you Frenshmen'll wish you wasn't so bloomin' well up-to-date!"

"What does autosuggestion mean?" asked Pringle.

"That's when your wife begins to figure out how much you would save in car-fare, and all that, if you had your own machine," replied Teggard, who had been worked just that way.

An automobile show is a place to which car owners go to hear the exhibitors confirm their judgment.

"I've stopped riding horseback and got a second-hand car."

"Need more exercise?"

"I suppose you think I'm foolish enough to buy that broken-down old automobile!"

"Broken-down nothing! With the exception of a busted drive-shaft, a cracked crank-case, a loose steering-wheel, a bum battery, a dilapidated differential and faulty ignition, it is just as good as new. Outside of buying four sets of tires, three new springs, a new top, two rear axles, a couple of batteries, having the valves ground sixteen times, the clutch tightened every week and the self-starter repaired now and then, I have never spent one cent for repairs. The old boat hasn't been run a mile over one hundred thousand, will average fourteen gallons to the mile, and absolutely will not exceed twenty-five miles an hour. It has an extra-fine new coat of paint, and is fully equipped with a hand pump and switch-key. Because of the difficulty in shifting gears, I absolutely guarantee your wife will never be able to drive it, and—"

"Never mind the rest. I'll take it!"

"I thought you owned an automobile."

"I do, but I taught the wife to drive it, and now I'm back to the street-cars."

"Say, Rastus, I done see de funniest thing t'day."

"How come, niggah?"

"I seed an ottermobile with its reah license B—4."

"Say, bo, doan hand me no truck lak that."—Judge.

The only trouble with a 60-horse-power motor is that every darned horse balks at the same time.

BILL—"Just happened to run into an old friend down-town."

PHIL—"Was he glad to see you?"

BILL—"You bet not. I smashed his whole right fender."

"My brother bought a motor here last week," said an angry man to the salesman that stepped up to greet him, "and he said if anything broke you would supply him with new parts."

"Certainly," said the salesman. "What does he want?"

"He wants two deltoid muscles, a couple of kneecaps, one elbow, and about half a yard of cuticle," said the man, "and he wants them at once."

An elderly lady of very prim and severe aspect was seated next a young couple, who were discussing the merits of their motor-cars.

"What color is your body?" asked the young man of the girl at his side, meaning of course, the body of her motor.

"Oh, mine is pink. What is yours?"

"Mine," replied the man, "is brown with wide yellow stripes."

This was too much for the old lady. Rising from the table, she exclaimed:

"When young people come to asking each other the color of their bodies at a dinner-party, it is time I left the room."

"Why didn't you stop when I signaled you?" inquired the officer.

"Well," replied Mr. Chuggins, "it had taken me two hours to get this old flivver started, and it seemed a shame to stop her merely to avoid a little thing like being arrested."

See also Fords; Garages; Horses; Reputation.

TOMMY (to Aviator)—"What is the most deadly poison known?"

AVIATOR—"Aviation poison."

TOMMY—"How much does it take to kill a person?"

AVIATOR—"One drop!"

ENTHUSIASTIC AVIATOR (after long explanation of principle and workings of his biplane)—"Now, you understand it, don't you?"

YOUNG LADY—"All but one thing."

AVIATOR—"And that is—?"

YOUNG LADY—"What makes it stay up?"

ENTHUSIAST—"Don't the spectators tire you with the questions they ask?"

AVIATOR—"Yes. What else do you want to know?"

MANDY—"Rastus, you all knows dat yo' remind me of dem dere flyin' machines?"

RASTUS—"No, Mandy, how's dat?"

MANDY—"Why becays youse no good on earth."

It is a safe guess that the man who pokes fun at a woman for shopping all day and not buying anything isn't married.

MADGE—"You shouldn't say he's a confirmed bachelor unless you know."

MARJORIE—"But I do know; I confirmed him."

It is admitted that married men have better halves but it is claimed that bachellors generally have better quarters.

TOMMY (just off train, with considerable luggage)—"Cabby, how much is it for me to Latchford?"

CABBY—"Two shillings, sir."

TOMMY—"How much for my luggage?"

CABBY—"Free, sir."

TOMMY—"Take the luggage, I'll walk."

BALD HEADED GUEST—"Well, sonny, what is it that amuses you?"

YOUNG HOPEFUL—"Nothing; only mother has put a brush and comb in your bedroom."

SCEPTIC—"If you have such an infallible remedy for baldness, why don't you use it?"

SUBTLE BARBER (very bald)—"Ah, sir, I sacrifice my appearance to bring 'ome to clients the 'orror of 'airlessness."—Punch.

"That bald-headed man who just went out is the greatest optimist I ever met," said the druggist.

"That so?" asked the customer.

"Yes," replied the druggist. "When I guaranteed my hair restorer he bought a bottle, and bought a comb and brush because he felt sure he'd need them in a few days."

Two traveling men, who had not met in several years, were condoling with each other on their increasing baldness.

"Well," said Jones, "one comfort is that it's only brain workers who lose their hair."

"Yes," Smith answered, "only thinkers ever become bald. Isn't that so, Sam?" appealing to the porter.

"Well, I dunno 'bout dat," the darky replied. "My granddad said dat an empty bahn doan need no cover."

Before the passage of the present strict banking laws in Wisconsin, starting a bank was a comparatively simple proposition. The surprizingly small amount of capital needed is well illustrated by the story a prosperous country-town banker told on himself, when asked how he happened to enter the banking business:

"Well," he said, "I didn't have much else to do, so I rented an empty store building and painted BANK on the window. The first day I was open for business a man came in and deposited a hundred dollars with me; the second day another man dropped in and deposited two hundred and fifty; and so, by George, along about the third day I got confidence enough in the bank to put in a hundred myself!"

A negro bank was opened in a small town in Georgia, and Sam deposited ten dollars. Several weeks later he returned to draw out his money. When he presented his check the colored cashier looked at it doubtfully and said: "Sam, you ain't got any money in dis here bank, but I'll look on de books an' make sure." In a minute he came back and said: "Yes, you did have ten dollars; but, nigger, de interes' done eat up dat money."

"Father," said Nellie, "that bank in which you told me to put my money is in a bad way."

"In a bad way?" returned her father. "Why, my child, that's one of the strongest banks in the country. What in the world gives you that idea?"

"Well," said Nellie, "it returned one of my checks today for $30 marked 'No funds.'"

A Buffalo man stopped a newsboy in New York saying: "See here, son, I want to find the Blank National Bank. I'll give you half a dollar if you direct me to it."

With a grin, the boy replied: "All right, come along," and he led the man to a building a half-block away.

The man paid the promised fee, remarking, however, "That was a half-dollar easily earned."

"Sure!" responded the lad. "But you mustn't fergit that bank-directors is paid high in Noo Yawk."

HE—"We'll have to give up our intended summer trip. My account at the bank is already overdrawn."

SHE—"Oh, John, you are such a wretched financier. Why don't you keep your account in a bank that has plenty of money?"

A Hebrew by the name of Cohen went into a bank one day and asked the cashier to discount his note. The bank cashier said:

"Mr. Cohen, I can't discount that note unless you get some one you know, a responsible man, to indorse it."

Cohen said to the cashier: "You know me, und you're responsible; you indorse it."

"You don't know me, do you, Bobby?" asked a lady who had recently been baptized.

"Sure I do," piped the youth. "You're the lady that went in swimming with the preacher last Sunday."

Little Edward's twin sisters were being christened. All went well until Edward saw the water in the font. Then he anxiously turned to his mother and exclaimed: "Ma, which one are you going to keep?"

Throughout the christening ceremony the baby smiled up beautifully into the clergyman's face.

"Well, madam," said he to the young wife, "I must congratulate you on your little one's behavior. I have christened more than 2,000 babies, but I never before christened one that behaved so well as yours."

The young mother smiled demurely, and said:

"His father and I, with a pail of water, have been practising on him for the last ten days."

"Tommy," said the Sunday-school teacher, who had been giving a lesson on the baptismal covenant, "can you tell me the two things necessary to baptism?"

"Yes'm," said Tommy, "water and a baby."

In a small country church, not long since a little child was brought forward for baptism. The young minister, taking the little one in his arms, spoke as follows:

"Beloved hearers, no one can foretell the future of this little child. He may grow up to be a great astronomer, like Sir Isaac Newton, or a great labor leader like John Burns; and it is possible he might become the prime minister of England."

Turning to the mother, he inquired, "What is the name of the child?"

"Mary Ann," was the reply.

The mayor of a tough border town is about to engage a preacher for the new church.

"Parson, you aren't by any chance a Baptist, are you?"

"Why, no, not necessarily. Why?"

"Well, I was just agoin' to say we have to haul our water twelve miles."

A thin, anemic woman was accosted by her friend on the street: "Why, Mary, how pale and thin you look! I thought you were going south for your health."

"I was," said Mary, "but my doctor has offered me such a lovely bargain in operations—a major operation for one thousand dollars—and of course I can't resist that."

"How much vas dose collars?"

"Two for a quarter."

"How much for vun?"

"Fifteen cents."

"Giff me de odder vun."

"Ikey," said the teacher, "can you give me a definition for 'a bargain'?"

"Sure I can," smiled Ikey. "A bargain's when you get the best of them."

Dad was not greatly pleased by the school report brought to him by his hopeful.

"How is it?" he demanded, "that you stand so much lower in your studies for the month of January than for December?"

Samuel was equal to the emergency. "Why, dad," said he, in an injured tone, "don't you know that everything is marked down after the holidays?"

Swapping dollars enriches nobody but swapping ideas enriches both parties to the trade.

A noted wag met an Irishman in the street one day, and thought he would be funny at his expense.

"Hello, Pat!" he said. "I'll give you eight (in) pence for a shilling."

"Will ye, now?" said Pat.

"Yes," he replied.

The Irishman handed over the shilling, and his friend put eight pence into his palm in return.

"Eight in pence," he explained. "Not bad, is it?"

"No," answered Pat; "but the shilling is!"

"Baseball," says a Big League magnate, "is the public's luxury." The small boy will disagree with him, a luxury being something you can do without.-Puck.

At a ball game between a South Carolina negro team and a visiting team of similar color a negro preacher was acting as umpire. The pitcher had gone rather wild, and had permitted all the bases to fill. Another man came to the bat, and the nervous pitcher shot one over.

"Ball one," yelled the ump.

The pitcher tried again.

"Ball two," was the decision.

Another effort by the hurler.

"Ball three," said the umpire.

The pitcher saw his predicament, and made one master effort to save the day.

"Ball four," yelled the ump, "and the man's out."

"How come, I'se out?" inquired the enraged batter.

"I'se repelled to put you out, nigger. Don't you see dar's nowhere else to put you?" reasoned the umpire.

They were getting up a ball game in a small town and lacked one player. They finally persuaded an old fellow to fill in, although he said he had never played before. He went to the bat and the first ball pitched he knocked over the fence. Every one stood and watched the ball, even the batter. Excitedly they told him to run. "Shucks!" he said, "what's the use of running, I'll buy you another ball."

An Englishman was seeing his first game of baseball, and the "fan" was explaining the different plays as they were being made.

"Don't you think it's great?" enthusiastically asked the "fan."

"Well," replied the Englishman, "I think it's very exciting, but also a very dangerous game."

"Dangerous nothing," replied the fan.

Just then a runner was put out at second base.

"What has happened now?" asked the Englishman.

"Chick Smith has died at second," laconically replied the fan.

"Died at second?" replied the astonished Briton. "I knew it was a dangerous game."

They arrived at the fifth inning.

"What's the score, Jim?" he asked a fan.

"Nothing to nothing," was the reply.

"Oh, goody!" she exclaimed. "We haven't missed a thing!"

At the base ball game.

SHE—"What's the man running for?"

HE—"He hit the ball."

SHE—"I know. But is he required to chase it, too?"

An Englishman was once persuaded to see a game of baseball, and during the play, when he happened to look away for a moment, a foul tip caught him on the ear and knocked him senseless. On coming to himself, he asked faintly, "What was it?"

"A foul—only a foul!"

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "A fowl? I thought it was a mule."

"S-s-s-s-sus-say, ma," stammered Bobby, through the suds, as his mother scrubbed and scrubbed him, "I guess you want to get rid o' me, don't you?"

"Why, no, Bobby dear," replied his mother. "Whatever put such an idea into your mind?"

"Oh, nuthin'," said Bobby, "only it seems to me you're tryin' to rub me out."

PA—"At last I've found a way to make that young scamp of ours stop winking his eyes."

MA—"Really?"

PA—"Yes; I'll show him the article in this science magazine where it says that every time we wink we give the eye a bath."

"Is she very pretty?"

"Pretty? Say! when she gets on a street-car the advertising is a total loss."

"I don't like these photos at all," he said, "I look like an ape."

The photographer favored him with a glance of lofty disdain.

"You should have thought of that before you had them taken," was his reply as he turned back to work.

"We're giving Baxby a farewell dinner and I'm to respond to the toast, 'None but the brave deserves the fair.'"

"Sorry for you, old top. You'll have to prove that Baxby is an utter coward, or that he isn't getting what is his due."

The Chinese are not given to flattery. A gentleman called at a Chinese laundry for his clothes. On receiving the package he noticed some Chinese characters marked upon it. He asked, pointing to the lettering:

"That's my name, I suppose?"

"No; 'scliption," was the Chinaman's bland reply. "'Lil ol' man, closs-eyed, no teeth.'"—Everybody's.

"Some men have no hearts," said the tramp. "I've been a-tellin' that feller I am so dead broke that I have to sleep outdoors."

"Didn't that fetch him?" asked the other.

"Naw. He tol' me he was a-doin' the same thing, and had to pay the doctor for tellin' him to do it."

DEAF-AND-DUMB BEGGAR—"Do you think it looks like rain, Bill?"

BLIND BEGGAR—"I dasn't look up to see—here comes one o' my best customers!"—Puck.

He who begs timidly courts a refusal.—Seneca.

The matron passed a handout to the disreputable hobo, remarking curtly, "If you don't mind, eat it outside."

"Bless yer, I'm used to it," he answered. "When I was at home and in clover, as it were, it was me daily custom, when donnin' me dress suit, to announce to me valet, 'Parkins, don't await dinner fer me tonight. I'm dinin' out.'"

"There's a story connected with this diamond," said Heinie, pointing to a big, handsome stone which sparkled in his shirt front. "A friend of mine by the name of Meyer lay sick in bed. I being his best friend, he sent for me and said:

"'Heinie, I'm a very sick man. I ain't got long to live. I'm worth a lot of money, and I'm going to leave it all to you and my other friends. But I want you to do me one favor. Take this money and when I'm dead and laid away buy me a nice stone.'

"Those were Meyer's last words, and the day of the funeral I bought this stone. But how can I give it to him when he's dead?"

"Charley, dear," said young Mrs. Torkins, "I am glad to see you taking as much interest in politics as you formerly took in racing."

"It is the duty of every man and woman to take an interest in politics."

"Do you wish me to vote for the same candidate that you do?"

"Why shouldn't you?"

"I thought it might be a good idea for me to vote for the other one. It would be a satisfaction to feel that one or the other of us has at last succeeded in picking a winner."

A Scottish gentleman on a trip to New Orleans went to see his first horse-race. He was feeling very reckless, and decided to risk one dollar, choosing a forty-to-one shot, as that looked like the largest percentage of gain. By a miracle his horse won, and upon handing his ticket to the bookmaker, he received forty dollars.

"Do I get all this for my dollar?" he asked. Upon being assured that he did, he exclaimed. "Hoots! how long has this been going on?"

Little Pat and big Mike had had a dispute, when Mike in contempt said: "Ye little runt, Oi bet I could carry yez up to the fifth story in me hod."

Pat immediately took up the bet, saying: "I'd loike to see ye thry thot same. I'll bet yez fifty cints on it."

Before he knew it Mike had him in his hod and was going up the ladder. When he got to the fourth story his foot slipped and he almost fell. He regained his footing, however, and reached the fifth story in triumph.

"Oi won!" he said.

"Yez did thot," said Pat, "but Oi had high hopes when yer foot slipped."

Senator Simmons was discussing the proposed war-tax on automobile-owners. "Making war-taxes," he said, "isn't pleasant work. It puts one in the position of the facetious minister at Ocean Grove who took a little girl on his knee, and said:

"'I don't love you, Nellie.'"

All the ladies on the breeze-swept veranda laughed, but little Nellie frowned and said:

"'You've got to love me. You've got to.'"

"'Got to? How so?'" laughed the divine.

"'Because,' said Nellie stoutly, 'you've got to love them that hate you—and I hate you, goodness knows!'"

"The Bible tells us we should love our neighbors," said the good deacon.

"Yes, but the Bible was written before our neighbors lived so close," replied the mere man.

WILLIE—"Paw, why is the way of the transgressor hard?"

PAW—"Because so many people have tramped on it, my son."

Little Marie was sitting on her grandfather's knee one day, and after looking at him intently for a time she said:

"Grandpa, were you in the ark?"

"Certainly not, my dear," answered the astonished old man.

"Then why weren't you drowned?"

A bashful curate found the young ladies in the parish too helpful. At last it became so embarrassing that he left.

Not long afterward—he met the curate who had succeeded him.

"Well," he asked, "how do you get on with the ladies?"

"Oh, very well indeed," said the other. "There is safety in numbers, you know."

"Ah!" was the instant reply. "I only found it in Exodus."

Bishop Hoss said at a Nashville picnic:

"The religious knowledge of too many adults resembles, I am afraid, the religious knowledge of little Eve.

"'So you attend Sunday-school regularly?' the minister said to little Eve."

"'Oh, yes, sir.'"

"'And you know your Bible?'"

"'Oh, yes, sir.'"

"'Could you perhaps tell me something that is in it?'"

"'I could tell you everything that's in it.'"

"'Indeed,' and the minister smiled. 'Do tell me, then.'"

"'Sister's beau's photo is in it,' said little Eve, promptly, 'and ma's recipe for vanishin' cream is in it, and a lock of my hair cut off when I was a baby is in it, and the ticket for pa's watch is in it.'"

"Bobby, do you know you've deliberately broken the eighth commandment by stealing James's candy?"

"Well, I thought I might as well break the eighth commandment and have the candy as to break the tenth and only 'covet' it."—Life.

"I thought you were preaching, Uncle Bob," said the Colonel, to whom the elderly negro had applied for a job.

"Yessah, Ah wuz," replied Uncle; "but Ah guess Ah ain't smaht enough to expound de Scriptures. Ah almost stahved to deff tryin' to explain de true meanin' uv de line what says 'De Gospel am free.' Dem fool niggahs thought dat it meant dat Ah wuzn't to git no salary."

The college boys played a mean trick on "Prexy" by pasting some of the leaves of his Bible together. He rose to read the morning lesson, which might have been as follows:

"Now Johial took unto himself a wife of the daughters of Belial." (He turned a leaf.) "She was eighteen cubits in height and ten cubits in breadth." (A pause and careful scrutiny of the former page.)

He resumed: "Now Johial took unto himself a wife," etc. (Leaf turned.) "She was eighteen cubits in height and ten cubits in breadth, and was pitched within and without—" (Painful pause and sounds of subdued mirth.) "Prexy" turns back again in perplexity.

"Young gentlemen, I can only add that 'Man is fearfully and wonderfully made'—and woman also."

See also Drinking.

A tariff expert of Kansas City said in a recent address:

"The average tariff argument is amusing in its ignorance. It reminds me of a certain Kansas City police court.

"A policeman rose in this court to testify against a prisoner.

"'Wot's this here feller charged with?' the magistrate demanded.

"'Bigotry, judge,' the police answered. 'He's got three wives.'

"'Three!' cried the magistrate. 'Why, you ignoramus, that ain't bigotry. That's trigonometry!'"

"I left my money at home," said the lady on the train to the conductor. "You will have to trust me. I am one of the directors' wives."

"I am sorry, madam," replied the conductor. "I can't do that, even if you were the director's only wife."

COLLECTOR—"Did you look at that little bill I left yesterday, sir?"

HOUSE MEMBER—"Yes; it has passed the first reading."

Daniel Webster was once sued by his butcher for a bill of long standing. Before his suit was settled he met the butcher on the street and, to the man's great embarrassment, stopped to ask why he had ceased sending around for his order.

"Why, Mr. Webster," said the tradesman, "I did not think you would want to deal with me when I've brought suit against you."

"Tut! tut!" said Mr. Webster, "sue me all you wish, but for heaven's sake don't try to starve me to death!"

"My doctor told me I would have to quit eating so much meat."

"Did you laugh him to scorn?'"

"I did at first; but when he sent in his bill, I found he was right."

TOMMY—"Why do the ducks dive?"

HARP—"Guess they must want to liquidate their bills."

Bill Sprague kept a general store at Croyden Four Corners. One day he set off for New York to buy a lot of goods. The goods were shipped immediately; and as Bill had lingered in New York sightseeing, they reached Croyden Four Corners before him. The goods in an enormous packing-case were driven to the general store by the local teamster. Mrs. Sprague came out to see what had arrived and, with a shriek, tottered and fell.

"Oh, what's the matter, ma'am?" cried the hired girl.

Mrs Sprague, her eyes blinded with tears, pointed to the packing-case, whereon was stenciled in large black letters: "BILL INSIDE."

When you do not intend to pay a bill there is nothing like being decisive in your refusal. The other day a bookseller had an "account rendered" returned to him with the following reply scrawled across the billhead: "Dear Sir—I never ordered this beastly book. If I did, you didn't send it. If you sent it, I never got it. If I got it, I paid for it. If I didn't, I won't. Now go and hang yourself, you fathead.—Yours very respectfully, John Jones."

PATIENT—"Doctor, what I need is something to stir me up—something to put me in fighting-trim. Did you put anything like that in this prescription?"

DOCTOR—"No. You will find that in the bill."—Judge.

See also Debts; Collecting of accounts.

VISITOR (at private hospital)—"Can I see Lieutenant Barker, please?"

MATRON—"We do not allow ordinary visiting. May I ask if you're a relative?"

VISITOR (boldly)—"Oh, yes! I'm his sister."

MATRON—"Dear me! I'm very glad to meet you. I'm his mother."—Punch.

Yes, life's like poker sure enough. It pays to know just when to bluff.

Half-way up the steep hill the stage-coach stopped. For the seventh time the driver climbed down from his seat and opened and slammed the rear door.

"What do you do that for?" asked a passenger, whose curiosity had got the better of him.

"Sh-h; spake aisy. Don't let th' mare 'ear yer," cautioned the driver. "Every toime she 'ears th' door shut she thinks some one has got down, and it starrts 'er up quicker loike."

Ollie James is a big man personally and politically. He is a United States senator from Kentucky, and he weighs a trifle more than three hundred and fifty pounds.

On one occasion, in traveling from New York to Washington, he barely caught the midnight train, and discovered that the only berth left was an upper. Having learned from experience that the process of coiling up his three hundred and fifty pounds and his six feet three inches in an upper berth was tough stuff, he was indignant. He was particularly enraged when he noticed that the lower directly under his berth was occupied by a small man who tipped the scales at not more than a hundred and twenty.

Ollie grasped the curtains of the berth, shook them vigorously, growled once or twice, and remarked vindictively to the porter:

"So I've got to sleep in an upper, have I? The last time I did that it was on a trip from Frankfort to Washington, and the blamed thing broke down and mashed the man under me. Throw that grip up there, and I hope to Heaven the berth will hold me."

Then he went back to the smoker and had a cigar.

When he returned, the little man was in the upper.

A successful old lawyer tells the following story anent the beginning of his professional life: "I had just installed myself in my office," he said, "had put in a phone and had preened myself for my first client who might come along when, through the glass of my door I saw a shadow. Yes, it was doubtless some one to see me. Picture me, then, grabbing the nice, shiny receiver of my new phone and plunging into an imaginary conversation. It ran something like this: 'Yes, Mr. S.,' I was saying as the stranger entered the office, 'I'll attend to that corporation matter for you. Mr. J. had me on the phone this morning and wanted me to settle a damage suit, but I had to put him off, as I was too busy with other cases. But I'll manage to sandwich your case in between the others somehow. Yes. Yes. All right. Goodby.' Being sure, then, that I had duly impressed my prospective client, I hung up the receiver and turned to him. 'Excuse me, sir,' the man said, 'but I'm from the telephone company. I've come to connect your instrument.'"

Strolling along the quays of New York harbor, an Irishman came across the wooden barricade which is placed around the inclosure where immigrants suspected of suffering from contagious diseases are isolated.

"Phwat's this fince for?" he inquired of a bystander.

"Oh," was the reply; "that's to keep out fever and things like that, you know."

"Indade!" said Pat. "Oi've often heard of the board of health, but bejabers, it's the first time Oi've seen it!"

The fare at a certain boarding-house was very poor. A boarder who had been there for some time, because he could not get away, was standing in the hall when the landlord rang the dinner-bell. Whereupon an old dog that was lying outside on a rug commenced to howl mournfully.

The boarder watched him a little while and then said: "What on earth are you howling for? You don't have to eat it!"

In the soft firelight even the boarding-house sitting-room looked cozy and attractive. The warmth and comfort thawed the heart of the "star" boarder. He turned to the landlady and murmured. "Will you be my wife?"

"Let me see," replied the landlady, "you have been here four years. You have never once grumbled at the food or failed to pay my bill promptly and without question. No, sir, I'm sorry. You're too good a boarder to be put on the free list!"

The engineer had become tired of the boastful talk he heard from the other engine drivers at his boarding-house. One evening he began:

"This morning I went over to see a new machine we've got at our place, and it's astonishing how it works."

"And how does it work?" asked one.

"Well," was the reply, "by means of a pedal attachment a fulcrumed lever concerts a vertical reciprocating motion into a circular movement. The principal part of the machine is a huge disk that revolves in a vertical plane. Power is applied through the axis of the disk, and work is done on the periphery, and the hardest steel by mere impact may be reduced to any shape."

"What is this wonderful machine?" was asked.

"A grindstone," was the reply.

Senator Tillman was arguing the tariff with an opponent.

"You know I never boast," the opponent began.

"Never boast? Splendid!" said Senator Tillman, and he added quietly, "No wonder you brag about it."

They are mighty proud of their one sky-scraper up in Seattle.

It is a long, skinny building that stands on one leg like a stork and blinks down disdainfully from its thousand windows on ordinary fifteen-story shacks.

A San Francisco man recently in that city was incautious enough to express surprise.

"What are those posts sticking out all the way up?" he asked a Seattleite.

"Those are mile-posts," said the Seattle man.

A gentleman from Vermont was traveling west in a Pullman when a group of men from Topeka, Kansas, boarded the train and began to praise their city to the Vermonter, telling him of its wide streets and beautiful avenues. Finally the Vermonter became tired and said the only thing that would improve their city would be to make it a seaport.

The enthusiastic Westerners laughed at him and asked how they could make it a seaport, being so far from the ocean.

The Vermonter replied that it would be a very easy task.

"The only thing that you will have to do," said he, "is to lay a two-inch pipe from your city to the Gulf of Mexico. Then if you fellows can suck as hard as you can blow you will have it a seaport inside half an hour."

"The reason you disapprove of Bolshevism is that you don't understand it."

"Probably. Every time I get with Bolshevists and think I am beginning to understand, they start a riot and take my mind off the subject."

There's just one thing the Bolshevik in America can do well—he can dampen the fire under the Melting Pot!

Bolshevism—A blow-out on the tire of world-politics.

A student assistant, engaged in reading the shelves at the public library, was accosted by a primly dressed middle-aged woman who said that she had finished reading the last of Laura Jean Libby's writings, and that she should like something just as good.

The young assistant, unable for the moment to think of Laura Jean Libby's equal, hastily scanned the shelf on which she was working and, choosing a book, offered it to the applicant, saying, "Perhaps you would like this, 'A Kentucky Cardinal.'"

"No," was the reply, "I don't care for theological works."

"But," explained the kindly assistant, with needless enthusiasm, "this cardinal was a bird!"

"That would not recommend him to me," said the woman, as she moved away in search of a librarian who should be a better judge of character as well as of Laura Jean Libby's peers.

Books are the legacies that genius leaves to mankind, to be delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those that are yet unborn.—Addison.

"Are you interested in a loose-leaf encyclopedia?"

"Nope, got one."

"Indeed! Whose?"

"The Britannica."

"Didn't know they published a loose-leaf edition."

"Huh! You ought to see mine after the children had used the volumes as building blocks a few years."

A dressy lady asked one of the assistants for an up-to-date story such as "Women men love" or the "Adventures of Anne." The assistant selected a story which she thought this type of reader would appreciate. After a few minutes the dressy lady again appeared with the book open, and pointing to a quotation on the title page said "I would like this book or any other by Proverbs." The astonished assistant read the quotation which was, "who can find a virtuous woman, her price is far above rubies." Proverbs 31:10.

"How far have you studied, Johnny?" inquired the teacher. "Just as far as the book is dirty, ma'am."

Our youngest borrower is a little boy of three who reads surprisingly well for one so young and selects his own books from the children's room. The other day, however, his mother complained that lately he has become "lazy" and refuses to read. As we stood talking the little chap ran joyfully toward her waving a picture book that had been made at the branch and said, "No words Mother, no words."

When I consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing, how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life to those whose hours are cold and hard, bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down Truth from heaven; I give eternal blessings for this gift and thank God for books.

Mr. Dooley says "Books is f'r thim that can't inj'ye thimsilves in anny other way. If ye're in good health, an ar-re atin' three squares a day, an' not ayether sad or very much in love with ye'er lot, but just lookin' on an' not carin' a rush, ye don't need books," he says.

"But if ye're a down-spirited thing an' want to get away an' can't, ye need books."

1921—"Did you see that movie called 'Oliver Twist'?" FROSH—"Yes, and say, wouldn't that make a peach of a book?"

Young Isaac stood in line at the library to draw out a book. When his turn came he asked, respectfully, "Please give me Miss Alcott's Jew book."

The young lady looked puzzled. "A book by Miss Louisa M. Alcott?" she queried.

"Yes," reiterated Isaac, "her Jew book."

"Can you remember the title?"

"No; but it's her Jew book," he insisted.

"Well, I'll read over some of the titles of her books to you, and perhaps you can tell me the one you want when you hear it read." Patiently she began, "Little Women, Little Men, Under the Lilacs, Rose in Bloom—"

"That's it, that's it!" cried Isaac—"Rosenbloom."

A MAID (handing up two books to a library assistant)—"Will you change these two books, please, for Mrs. Crawley-Smith?"

ASSISTANT—"Are there any others you wish for?"

MAID—"No. Mrs. Crawley-Smith doesn't mind what they are so long as they have big print and a happy ending."

Hard to Find

LIBRARIAN—"What kind of book do you want—fictional, historical, philosophical—?"

PATRON—"Oh, any kind that H.G. Wells hasn't written."

LIBRARIAN—"We have none!"

William Dean Howells, at a dinner in Boston, said of modern American letters:

"The average popular novel shows on the novelist's part an ignorance of his trade which reminds me of a New England clerk.

"In a New England village I entered the main street department-store one afternoon and said to the clerk at the book-counter:

"'Let me have, please, the letters of Charles Lamb.'

"'Post-office right across the street, Mr. Lamb,' said the clerk, with a naive, brisk smile."

"You never can tell," said a traveling salesman. "Now you'd think that a little New England village, chock full of church influence and higher education, would be just the place to sell a book like 'David Harum,' wouldn't you? Well, I know a man who took a stock up there and couldn't unload one of 'em. He'd have been stuck for fair if he hadn't had a brilliant idea and got the town printer to doctor up the title for him. As it was, he managed to unload the whole lot and get out of town before the first purchaser discovered that 'David's Harum' wasn't quite what he had led himself to suppose."

Remember what Roger Mifflin says: "When you sell a man a book, you don't sell him just three ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour, and ships at sea by night—there's all heaven and earth in a book."

PENFIELD—"What do you know about Bestseller's new book?"

CRABSHAW—"Nothing at all. I've merely read all the reviews of it."—Life.

MANAGER—"Can't you find some way to make yourself busy around here?"

BOOKISH NEW SALESMAN—"Milton, in his 'Sonnet on Blindness,' says: 'They also serve who only stand and wait.'"

MANAGER—"Yes, but you must keep in mind that Milton's most famous book was about a fellow that lost his job and went to hades."

"What do you think of my library?"

"I was just looking it over and I notice that you were visited by the same book agents who landed me."

CANVASSER—"May I have a few minutes of your time?"

PROSPECT—"Yes, if you will be brief. What can I do for you; I'm a man of few words."

CANVASSER—"Just the man I'm looking for, my specialty is dictionaries."

See Repartee; Retaliation.

It takes no more time to boost a man than it does to knock him—and think how much pleasanter for everybody.

Mr. Tucker had unexpectedly come face to face with Mr. Cutting, from whom he had frequently borrowed money.

"Er—aw—what was the denomination of the bill you loaned me?" he asked nervously.

"Episcopalian, I guess," said Mr. Cutting. "At any rate, it keeps Lent very well."

"There's a friend in the outer office waiting for you, sir."

"Here, James, take this $10 and keep it till I come back."

ED—"Have you forgotten you owe me five dollars?"

NED—"No, not yet. Give me time, and I will."

Jenkins was always trying to borrow money, and his friends had begun to avoid him.

One morning he tackled an acquaintance in the street before the latter had a chance to escape.

"I say, old man," began Jenkins, "I'm in a terrible fix. I want some money badly, and I haven't the slightest idea where on earth I'm going to get it from."

"Glad to hear it, my boy," returned the other promptly. "I was afraid that you might have an idea you could borrow it from me."

One of the shrewd lairds of Lanarkshire had evidently experienced the difficulties of collecting money lent to friends.

"Laird," a neighbor accosted him one morning, "I need twenty poonds. If ye'll be guid enough to tak ma note, ye'll hae yere money back agin in three months frae the day."

"Nae, Donald," replied the laird, "I canna do it."

"But, laird, ye hae often done the like fer yere friends."

"Nae, mon, I canna obleege ye."

"But, laird—"

"Will ye listen to me, Donald? As soon as I took yere note ye'd draw the twenty poonds, would ye no?"

Donald could not deny that he would.

"I ken ye weel, Donald," the laird continued, "and I ken that in three months ye'd nae be ready to pay me ma money. Then, ye ken, we'd quarrel. But if we're to quarrel, Donald, I'd rather do it noo, when I hae ma twenty poonds in ma pocket."

ASKER—"Could you lend me a V?"

TELLIT—"No, I couldn't."

ASKER—"Have you a friend that would lend me a V?"

TELLIT—"No. I have not a friend to spare."

"Has Owens ever paid back that $10 you loaned him a year ago?"

"Oh, yes; he borrowed $25 more from me last week and only took $15."

An Oriental story tells us of a man who was asked to lend a rope to a neighbor. His reply was that he was in need of the rope just then.

"Shall you need it a long time?" asked the neighbor.

"I think I shall," replied the owner, "as I am going to tie up some sand with it."

"Tie up sand!" exclaimed the would-be borrower. "I do not see how you can do that!"

"Oh, you can do almost anything with a rope when you do not want to lend it," was the reply.

MISS PRITTIKID—"But, father, he is a man you can trust."

HER PA—"Gracious, girl; what I want is one I can borrow from."

MR. PENN—"They say the streets in Boston are frightfully crooked."

MR. HUBB—"They are. Why, do you know, when I first went there I could hardly find my way around."

"That must be embarrassing."

"It is. The first week I was there I wanted to get rid of an old cat we had, and my wife got me to take it to the river a mile away."

"And you lost the cat all right?"

"Lost nothing! I never would have found my way home if I hadn't followed the cat!"

Owing to the war a distinguished Boston man, deprived of his summer trip to Europe, went to the Pacific coast instead. Stopping off at Salt Lake City, he strolled about the city and made the acquaintance of a little Mormon girl.

"I'm from Boston," he said to her. "I suppose you do not know where Boston is?"

"Oh, yes, I do," answered the little girl eagerly. "Our Sunday-school has a missionary there."

The motorist was a stranger in Boston's streets. It was evening. A man approached.

"Sir," said he, "your beacon has ceased its functions."

"What?" gasped the astonished driver.

"Your illuminator, I say, is shrouded in unmitigated oblivion."

"I don't quite—"

"The effulgence of your irradiator has evanesced."

"My dear fellow, I—"

"The transversal ether oscillations in your incandenser have been discontinued."

Just then a little newsboy came over and said:

"Say, mister, yer lamp's out!"

Senator Hoar used to tell with glee of a Southerner just home from New England who said to his friend, "You know those little white round beans?"

"Yes," replied the friend; "the kind we feed to our horses?"

"The very same. Well, do you know, sir, that in Boston the enlightened citizens take those little white round beans, boil them with molasses and I know not what other ingredients, bake them, and then—what do you suppose they do with the beans?"

"They—"

"They eat 'em, sir," interrupted the first Southerner impressively; "bless me, sir, they eat 'em!"

The newly married couple had gone West to live, and as the Christmas season drew nigh she became homesick.

"Even the owls are different here," she sighed.

"And how is that?" he asked.

"Here they say 'To-hoot-to-who,' and in Boston they say 'To-hoot-to-whom.'"

"Lay down, pup. Lay down. That's a good doggie. Lay down, I tell you."

"Mister, you'll have to say, 'Lie down.' He's a Boston terrier."

"Well, the Red Sox won the world's series."

"Yes," said the Boston girl, "we feel very proud of the Red—er—the Red Hose."

A Boy Scout's Will

I, John W. Bradshaw, pioneer scout of the Wolf Patrol, having attained the age of maturity and realizing that my Boy Scout days are numbered, do hereby give, devise and bequeath my scout assets, tangible and intangible, as follows, to wit:

My uniform, pack and equipment, to Larry O'Toole, the son of my mother's laundress, to be preserved for him until he is old enough to use them;

My scout's manual, axe and compass, to George Washington Jackson, 3d, son of my father's handy man, with the admonition that he organize, if possible, a troop of scouts among the colored boys of the village;

My strap watch with the "see by night" dial, to Roscoe, my small brother, who has wanted it ever since he learned to tell time;

My waterproof match box and hunting knife, to James Fanning, to be held in trust until he can repeat the Scout Oath;

To all boys in general I bequeath the knowledge that the Boy Scout organization teaches obedience, bravery, loyalty, self-respect, kindness, thrift, cleanliness and reverence; that it makes men of its members, and that no boy can possibly go wrong by joining it.

"I see they are making shingles out of cement now."

"Then I recall my wish to be a boy again."

One of Theodore Roosevelt's sons, when small, was playing in the Washington streets when a woman recognized him and said she didn't think his father would like his playing with so many "common boys."

"My father says there are no common boys," replied the young Roosevelt.

"He says there are only tall boys and short boys, and good boys and bad boys, and that's all the kinds of boys there are."

Johnny stood beside his mother as she made her selection from the green grocer's cart, and the latter told the boy to take a handful of nuts, but the child shook his head.

"What's the matter, don't you like nuts?" asked the green grocer.

"Yes," replied Johnny.

"Then go ahead and take some."

Johnny hesitated, whereupon the green grocer put a generous handful in Johnny's cap.

After the man had driven on the mother asked: "Why didn't you take the nuts when he told you to?"

Johnny winked as he said: "'Cause his hand was bigger'n mine."

William's uncle was a very tall, fine-looking man, while his father was very small. William admired his uncle, and wished to grow up like him. One day he said to his mother:

"Mama, how did uncle grow so big and tall?"

His mother said: "Well, when uncle was a small boy he was always a very good boy, and tried to do what was right at all times; so God let him grow up big and tall."

William thought this over seriously for a few minutes, then said: "Mama, what kind of a boy was papa?"

See also Office boys.

And men relate that Mrs. Newlywed went to the grocery store to do her morning marketing. And she was determined that the grocer should not take advantage of her youth and inexperience.

"These eggs are dreadfully small," she criticized.

"I know it," he answered. "But that's the kind the farmer brings me. They are just fresh from the country this morning."

"Yes," said the bride, "and that's the trouble with those farmers. They are so anxious to get their eggs sold that they take them off the nest too soon!"

"Hello! Is this you, mother, dear?"

"Yes, Sue? What is it? Something awful must have happened for you to call me up at this—"

"It's not so awful. But, John, dear, hasn't been feeling well and the doctor gave him pills to take every four hours. I've been sitting up to give them to him, and now it's about time for the medicine, and John has fallen asleep. Should I wake him?"

"I wouldn't if I were you. What is he suffering from?"

"Insomnia."

WIFE—"Oh, George, do order a rat-trap to be sent home today."

GEORGE—"But you bought one last week."

WIFE—"Yes, dear, but there's a rat in that."

"What kind of coal do you wish, mum?"

"Dear me, I am so inexperienced in these things. Are there various kinds?"

"Oh, yes. We have egg coal, chestnut—"

"I think I'll take egg coal. We have eggs oftener than we have chestnuts."

"Where can I find a map of Brooklyn, old man?"

"There ain't any such thing. No one has ever been able to make one."

The brotherhood of man begins with the manhood of the brother.

To live is not to live for one's self alone; let us help one another.—Menander.

We must love men, ere to us they will seem worthy of our love.—Shakespeare.

One day Luther Burbank was walking in his garden when he was accosted by an officious acquaintance who said:

"Well, what are you working on now?"

"Trying to cross an eggplant and milk-weed," said Mr. Burbank.

"And what under heaven do you expect from that?"

Mr. Burbank calmly resumed his walk.

"Custard pie," he said.

There are two reasons why some people don't mind their own business. One is that they haven't any mind, the other that they haven't any business.

"I'm a very busy man, sir. What is your proposition?"

"I want to make you rich."

"Just so. Leave your recipe with me and I'll look it over later. Just now I'm engaged in closing up a little deal by which I expect to make $3.50 in real money."

A teacher asked those pupils who wanted to go to heaven to raise their hands. All except little Ikey's hands went up. The teacher asked him if he didn't want to go to heaven and Ikey replied that he had heard his father tell his mother that 'Business had all gone to hell' and Ikey wanted to go where the business had gone.

The vicar's appeal had been a most eloquent one, and had even penetrated the depths of Mr. Blackleigh's granite organ. The latter came forward and offered £50 for the fund.

The worthy cleric was overjoyed.

"I don't know your name, sir," he cried; "but I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I thank you! May your business prosper, sir!"

Then there was a solemn hush, and the committee looked askance at their vicar.

"What's the matter?" whispered the clergyman, turning to the chairman.

"Well—er—that donor is an undertaker!"

"There is one respect in which a live business man isn't like a tree."

"What is that?"

"If he remains rooted to the spot, he can't branch out."

During a campaign preceding the election of a Missouri Congressman it was suggested that, since he posed as a good business man, he might be willing to tell just what a good business man is.

"That's easy," he explained. "A good business man is one who can buy goods from a Scotchman and sell them to a Jew—at a profit!"

EDITH—"Dick, dear, your office is in State street, isn't it?"

DICKEY—"Yes; why?"

EDITH—"That's what I told papa. He made such a funny mistake about you yesterday. He said he'd been looking you up in Bradstreet."

FIRST MERCHANT (as reported in the New York "Trade Record")—"How's business?"

SECOND MERCHANT—"Picking up a little. One of our men got a $5,000 order yesterday."

"Go away. I don't believe that."

"Honest he did—I'll show you the cancellation."

The story of the rival boot-makers, which appeared recently, is matched by a correspondent of an English paper with another story, equally old but equally worth repeating. It concerns two rival sausage-makers. Again, they lived on opposite sides of a certain street, and, one day, one of them placed over his shop the legend:

"We sell sausages to the gentry and nobility of the country."

The next day, over the way, appeared the sign:

"We sell sausages to the gentry and nobility of the whole country."

Not to be outdone, the rival put up what he evidently regarded as a final statement, namely:

"We sell sausages to the King."

Next day there appeared over the door of the first sausage-maker the simple expression of loyalty:

"God save the King."

"Biddy," remarked the newly wed Irishman, "go down and feed the pigs."

"Faith and I will not," replied the bride.

"Don't be after contradicting me, Biddy," retorted the husband. "Haven't I just endowed you with all my worldly goods, and if you can not feed your own property, then it's ashamed of you I am."

This was a new point of view, so off Biddy went.

Presently she returned.

"Have you fed the pigs, Biddy?" demanded her husband, sternly.

"Faith, and I have not," she answered. "I have done a great deal better. As they were my property I have sold them, and shall not be bothered with them again."

A business man advertised for an office boy. The next morning there were some fifty boys in line. He was about to begin examining the applicants when his stenographer handed him a card on which was scribbled:

"Don't do anything until you see me. I'm the last kid in line, but I'm telling you I'm there with the goods."

In one of the back streets in Philadelphia is a little jewelry store which is making progress—witness this incident:

"What's the price of nickel alarm clocks?"

"Dwenty-fife cends."

"What! Why, how's that? Last week you told my son they were a dollar."

"Yaw, dat is so. Listen: You are a good frien', so I tol' you. Ven I hat some I sells him for von tollar. Now I ain'd got none I sells him for dwendy-fife cents. Dot makes me a rebutation for cheabness, und I don't lose noddings!"

Commercialomania

PROFITEER—"One million is the price of a gram of radium!"

HIS PARTNER—"And we never thought of trying to sell any!"

An enterprising young florist, in order to increase his trade, displayed this sign in his window:

"We give a packet of flower seeds with every plant."

His competitor across the street promptly sought to meet the competition by placing in his window the following announcement:

"We give the earth with every plant."

A very small but live boy applied to a great merchant for a job.

The great man sized him up with twinkling eyes, for the one situation open needed a bigger parcel of human experience, and asked what position he wanted.

"A chance to grow up in the business, Mister."

"Well, we are more or less being depopulated by the drafts. What is your motto, my son?"

"The same as yours," was the ready answer.

"What do you mean?" asked the puzzled merchant.

"Why, on the door there—'Push.'"

He got the job of keeper of that very door.

The proprietors of two rival livery-stables, situated alongside each other in a busy street, have been having a lively advertising duel lately.

The other week one of them stuck up on his office window a long strip of paper, bearing the words:

"Our horses need no whip to make them go."

This bit of sarcasm naturally caused some amusement at the expense of the rival proprietor, but in less than an hour he neatly turned the tables by pasting the following retort on his own window:

"True. The wind blows them along!"

A group of farmers were complaining of the potato bugs' ravages.

"The pests ate my whole potato crop in two weeks," said one farmer.

"They ate my crop in two days," said a second farmer, "and then they roosted on the trees to see if I'd plant more."

A drummer for a seed house cleared his throat.

"Gents," he said, "all that's very remarkable. Let me tell you, though, what I saw in our own store. I saw a couple of potato bugs examining the books about a week before planting time to see who had bought seed."

UNFORTUNATE PEDESTRIAN (who has been knocked down and dazed)—"Where am I? Where am I?"

ENTERPRISING HAWKER—"'Ere y'are, sir—map of London, one penny."—Punch.

Johnny was at the grocery store.

"I hear you have a little sister at your house," said the grocer.

"Yes, sir," said Johnny.

"Do you like that?" was queried.

"I wish it was a boy," said Johnny, "so I could play marbles with him, and baseball."

"Well," said the storekeeper, "why don't you exchange your little sister for a boy?"

Johnny reflected for a minute; then he said sorrowfully:

"We can't now; it's too late. We've used her four weeks."

A Priest in Ireland went to Rome, and a number of his parishioners asked him to buy things for them. Some gave him the cash; others did not. When he returned, he brought the articles for those who paid for them in advance. When the others complained, he said, with a wink:

"While I was at sea I got out all the commissions and spread them on the deck. On the papers of those who had given me the coin I put the money. The others had nothing to weight them down. A squall of wind came up. It blew all the unweighted papers into the sea! So the ones who gave me the money got what they asked me to get. The others must ask Father Neptune for theirs."

A New York lawyer had in his employ an office-boy who was addicted to the bad habit of telling in other offices what happened in that of his employer. The lawyer found it necessary to discharge him, but, thinking to restrain him from a similar fault in the future, he counseled the boy, on his departure, in this wise:

"Tommy, you must never hear anything that is said in the office. Do what you are told, but turn a deaf ear to conversation that does not include you."

This struck the boss as such a happy inspiration that, to the end that his stenographer might learn the same lesson, he turned to her and said:

"Miss Jones, did you hear what I said to Tommy?"

"No, sir," she returned, promptly.

The firm of Hansen & Fransen was started in wartime and did very well for a couple of years. But last year things were on the down grade, and the other day, when the two partners had finished making up their none-too-good record for the year, Hansen said: "This would make anyone thoughtful. Now that the good times are over, how about a little honest business?"

"No, thanks," said Fransen. "I never indulge in experiments."

"There are no more enterprising young men. Why, I remember when it was a common thing for a young man to start out as a clerk and in a few years own the business."

"Yes, but cash-registers have been invented since."

The junior partner was harried.

"I shall have to get another typist," he lamented. "Miss Take is continually interrupting my dictation to ask how to spell a word."

"Dear, dear!" said the senior partner. "That seems a great waste of time."

"It's not that I mind," responded the other. "But it's so bad for discipline to keep on saying, 'I don't know'!"

How Business Men Keep Their Spirits Up

"Cancel my order at once," came the telegram to the factory. The owner perpetrated the only new joke in the millennium. His telegram in reply read: "Your order cannot be cancelled at once. You must take your turn."

CUSTOMER—"Gee, this is a rotten cigar!"

SHOPKEEPER—"Well, don't complain. You've only got one of them—I've got ten thousand of the darn things."—Life.

EMPLOYEE—"I don't like your methods of doing business, Mr. Grafton. I resign."

"PRACTICAL" BUSINESS MAN (sneeringly)—"You're a holier-than-thou guy, eh?"

EMPLOYEE—"No; merely a square peg in a crooked hole."—Puck.

A New York lawyer tells of a conversation that occurred in his presence between a bank president and his son who was about to leave for the West, there to engage in business on his own account.

"Son," said the father, "on this, the threshold of your business life, I desire to impress one thought upon your mind: Honesty, ever and always, is the policy that is best."

"Yes, father," said the young man.

"And, by the way," added the gray-beard, "I would advise you to read up a little on corporation law. It will amaze you to discover how many things you can do in a business way and still be honest."

"Dod-burn the luck!" snarled old Gideon Cronk, glaring at the clock. "That confounded bank is closed! That's a thunderin' pretty howdy-do!"

"Well, you've set round the stove here foolin' with the checkerboard all the afternoon and let the bank close on you," returned the landlord of the tavern, "What you kickin' about anyhow?"

"I demand that a public institution shall accommodate its patrons; that's what!"

"Can't you cash your check in the mornin'?"

"I ain't got no check. But if I had one I'd want to cash it when I wanted to, wouldn't I? Well, it's the principle of the thing I'm talkin' about!"

See Public Speakers.

TED—"So you think I'm wasting my time making love to that rich girl?"

NED—"You have about as much chance of winning as a landlord running for office on a dry ticket."

THE HEELER—"Well, I see that Jimpson, them reformers' candidate f'r Mayor, is goin' t' have all his meetin's opened with prayer."

THE BOSS—"Good! That means he knows he's licked!"

"What do you think of the candidates?"

"Well the more I think of them the more pleased I am that only one of them can get in."

See also Politicians.

"How is your wife this morning, Uncle Henry?"

"Well, I dunno. She's failin, dretful slow. I do wish she'd git well, or somethin'."—Puck.

Candor may be considered as a compound of justice and the love of truth.—J. Abercrombie.

Candor is the seal of a noble mind, the ornament and pride of man, the sweetest charm of woman, the scorn of rascals and the rarest virtue of sociability.—Bentsel-Sternau.

STATISTICIAN (on the platform)—"These are not my figures, ladies and gentlemen; they are the figures of a man who knows what he is talking about."

WILLIE—"Paw, what is the difference between capital and labor?"

PAW—"Well, the money you lend represents capital, and getting it back represents labor, my son."

If you divorce capital from labor, capital is hoarded, and labor starves.—Daniel Webster.

MINING-STOCK PROMOTER—"Where can I hide? The police are coming!"

CHIEF CLERK—"Get into the card-index case. I defy any one to find anything in there."—Judge.

Care may kill people, but don't care kills more.

The editor in charge of the Personal Inquiry column opened his seventieth letter with a groan.

"I have lost three husbands," a lady reader had written, confidentially, "and now have the offer of a fourth. Shall I accept him?"

The editor dipped his pen in the ink. This was the last straw.

"If you've lost three husbands," he wrote, "I should say you are much too careless to be trusted with a fourth."

One of the best examples of the humors of cataloging comes in Sonnenschein's "Best Books," volume one, page 121, where Prof. Henry Preserved Smith's well-known Old Testament History appears thus:

Smith, Prf. Hy. "Preserved O.T. History."

It was in one of the social settlements conducted by persons of a philanthropic turn of mind. The young kindergarten teacher, having finished the morning's talk on hygiene and sanitation, wished to make a practical application of the lesson. Turning to one little youngster whose face, hands and whole appearance bespoke the crying need of soap and water, she asked:

"Izzy, when the house gets all mussed up and dirty, what does mother do?"

"We move."

LITTLE BOY—"A penn'orth each of liniment and liquid cement, please."

CHEMIST—"Are they both for the same person, or shall I wrap them up separately?"

LITTLE BOY—"Well, I dunno. Muvver's broke 'er teapot, so she wants the cement, but farver wants the liniment. 'E's what muvver broke 'er teapot on."

An old farmer and his wife drove to market one very wet day when large pools of water had formed in the roadway between the farm and the town. On the return journey he met an old friend.

"And how are you today?" was the friendly greeting.

"Very well, thank you," answered the farmer.

"How is the missus?" continued the friend.

"Fine," answered the farmer. "She's behind there"—jerking his thumb toward the back of the wagon.

"She's not there!" exclaimed the astonished friend.

The old farmer turned and looked over his shoulder. Then he coolly replied:

"Humph! That accounts for the splash."

A small boy, who was sitting next to a very haughty woman in crowded car, kept sniffling in a most annoying way, until the woman could stand it no longer.

"Boy, have you got a handkerchief?" she demanded.

The small boy looked at her for a few seconds, and then in a dignified tone, came the answer.

"Yes, I 'ave, but I don't lend it to strangers."

Do not tell me the books you have read; let me glean it from your conversation. Do not tell me of the people you associate with; let me observe it by your manners.—Emerson.

HOWELL—"What sort of a fellow is he?"

POWELL—"He can make two lemons grow where only one grew before and then hand them both to you when you are not looking."—Judge.

To those who know thee not, no words can paint! And those who know thee, know all words are faint!—Hannah More.

BORLEIGH—"Some men, you know, are born great, some achieve greatness—"

Miss KEEN—"Exactly! And some just grate upon you."

A tradesman in a certain town put a box outside his shop one day, labeled "For the Blind." A few weeks afterward the box disappeared.

"Halloa! What's happened to your box for the blind?" he was asked.

"Oh, I got enough money," he replied. "And," pointing upward to the new canvas blind that sheltered his shop-window, "there's the blind. Not bad, is it?"

At a Chamber of Commerce dinner a speaker dwelt at great length upon the suffering people of China. He suggested that all present should give something for them. A small dry-goods merchant arose and said:

"You have made for me a feeling already that something should be given. I move that we give three cheers for China."

"I'm sorry that my engagements prevent my attending your charity concert, but I shall be with you in spirit."

"Splendid! And where would you like your spirit to sit? I have tickets here for half a dollar, a dollar and two dollars."

A physician whose sole fee is the consciousness of doing good.

HE—"There's nothing like cheerfulness. I admire anyone who sings at his work."

SHE—"How you must love a mosquito!"

An old negro was charged with chicken-stealing, and the judge said:

"Where's your lawyer, uncle?"

"Ain't got none, jedge."

"But you ought to have one," returned the Court. "I'll assign one to defend you."

"No, sah, no, sah, please don't do dat," begged the defendant.

"Why not?" persisted the judge. "It won't cost you anything. Why don't you want a lawyer?"

"Well, Ah'll tell yo', jedge," said the old man confidentially. "Ah wants ter enj'y dem chickens mahself."

"Is your husband a good provider, Dinah?"

"Yessum, he's a good providah all right, but I'se allus skeered dat niggah's gwine er git caught at it."

"Is dem you-all's chickens?"

"Cohse dey's my-all's chickens. Who's chickens did you 'spose dey was?"

"I wasn' s'posen' nuffin about 'em. But I will say dat it's mighty lucky dat a chicken won' come a runnin' an' a waggin' its tail when its regular owner whistles, same as a dog."

Rastus had caught Sambo red-handed.

"Ah'm gwine hab yo' arrested foh stealin' mah chickens, yo' Sambo Washin'ton-dat's jess what ah'm gwine to do," said Rastus.

"Go ahead, nigguh," retorted Sambo. "Go ahead and hab me arrested. Ah'll mek yo' prove whar yo' got dem chickens yo'seff!"

JUDGE-"I'm going to fine you five dollars for the chickens you stole the last two weeks."

RASTUS-"How'll it be if Ah pays seben-fifty, Jedge? Dat'll pay fob up to an' includin' next Saturday night."—Life.

A negro soldier was brought up before his superior officer, who said: "Sam, you are charged with stealing a chicken from this Frenchwoman's farm. Now, how about it? Have you any witnesses to stand for you?"

"Witnesses?" echoed Sam in surprise. "No, suh, I ain't hab no witnesses. When I goes chicken stealing I never hab no witnesses aroun'."

An old colored uncle was found by the preacher prowling in his barnyard late one night.

"Uncle Calhoun," said the preacher sternly, "it can't be good for your rheumatism to be prowling round here in the rain and cold."

"Doctor's orders, sah," the old man answered.

"Doctor's orders?" asked the preacher. "Did he tell you to go prowling round all night?"

"No, sah, not exactly, sah," said Uncle Cal; "but he done ordered me chicken broth."

In times of peace Smith might have been an author who had drifted into some useful occupation, such as that of a blacksmith, but just now he is cook to the Blankshire officers' mess. Smith sent Murphy into the village to bring home some chickens ordered for the mess.

"Murphy," said Smith, the next day, "when you fetch me chickens again, see that they are fastened up properly. That lot you fetched yesterday all got loose, and tho I scoured the village I only managed to secure ten of them."

"Sh!" said Murphy. "I only brought six."

SOUTHERNER—"Why are you Northerners always harping on the children employed in Southern factories?"

NORTHERNER—"Well, for one thing, it detracts people's attention from the children employed in ours."—Life.

JOHNNY—"What makes the new baby at your house cry so much, Tommy?"

TOMMY—"It don't cry so very much—and, anyway, if all your teeth were out, your hair off, and your legs so weak you couldn't stand on them, guess you'd feel like crying yourself."

A little girl was entertaining the visitors while her mother added the finishing touches to her toilet. One of the ladies said with a significant look: "Not very p-r-e-t-t-y," spelling the last word.

"No," said the child quickly; "but awful s-m-a-r-t."

It was time for "baby girl" to be in bed, but no amount of coaxing could get her there. At last her father offered to lie on the bed till the "sandman" arrived. Off she went "pick-a-back," and the tired mother leaned back in her chair with a sigh of content, ready for a hard-earned rest.

Ten minutes—twenty—half an hour, and she was wondering when her husband would be down, when all at once she heard a soft, stealthy pit-a-pat. Nearer came the steps, and then a little white-robed form, with a tiny finger on her lip, stood in the doorway.

"Hush, hush, muvver," she said. "I'se got farver to sleep."

Taking a Chance

Junior was in the habit of coming to the table with a dirty face and, of course, had to be sent away to wash.

One time his mother, nearly losing patience, said: "Junior, why do you persist in coming to the table without washing? You know I always send you away."

"Well," said Junior, meekly, "once you forgot."

TOMMY (after a thumping)—"You're awful hard on me, ma."

MOTHER—"That's because you've been very naughty and wicked."

TOMMY—"Well, gee! You should remember that you didn't die young yourself."

"Can your little baby brother talk yet?" a kindly neighbor inquired of a small lad.

"No, he can't talk, and there ain't no reason why he should talk," was the disgusted reply. "What does he want to talk for when all he has to do is yell a while to get everything in the house that's worth having?"

Mrs. Jones was getting dinner ready when in came little Fred with a happy smile on his face.

"What has mamma's darling been doing this morning?" asked his mother.

"I have been playing Postman," replied little Fred.

"Postman?" exclaimed his mother. "How could you do that when you had no letters?"

"Oh, but I had," replied Fred. "I was looking in your trunk up in your room and I found a packet of letters tied 'round with a ribbon, and I posted one under every door in the street."

A little girl who had visited an Episcopalian church for the first time described the service as follows:

"When we went in they were standing up, singing, but pretty soon they sat down and played hide-and-seek."

"Did what?" asked her mother.

"Well, of course no one went and hid, but they all covered up their faces and counted to themselves."

Tom, the country six-year-old, presenting himself one day in even more than his usual state of dust and disorder, was asked by his mother if he would not like to be a little city boy, and always be nice and clean in white suits and shoes and stockings. Tom answered scornfully: "They're not children; they're pets."

Up-to-date

KIND STRANGER—"How old is your baby brother, little girl?"

LITTLE GIRL—"He's a this year's model."

The lawyer was sitting at his desk absorbed in the preparation of a brief. So intent was he on his work that he did not hear the door as it was pushed gently open, nor see the curly head that was thrust into his office. A little sob attracted his notice, and turning, he saw a face that was streaked with tears and told plainly that feelings had been hurt.

"Well, my little man, did you want to see me?"

"Are you a lawyer?"

"Yes. What do you want?"

"I want"—and there was a resolute ring in his voice—"I want a divorce from my papa and mamma."

"Well," mused six-year-old Harry, as he was being buttoned into a clean white suit, "this has been an exciting week, hasn't it, mother? Monday we went to the Zoo, Wednesday I lost a tooth, Thursday was Lily's birthday party, Friday I was sick, yesterday I had my hair cut, and now here I am rushing off to Sunday-school."

A little saying from a seven-year-old girl.

NEIGHBOR—"How is your mother this morning?"

LITTLE GIRL—"My mother is at the hospital."

NEIGHBOR—"Why! I did not know your mother was ill."

LITTLE GIRL—"No, it is my aunt who is ill."

NEIGHBOR—"What is the matter with your aunt?"

LITTLE GIRL—"She has a bad headache."

NEIGHBOR—"Why! I did not know any one went to the hospital for a bad headache!"

LITTLE GIRL (looking up quickly with a very interested, bright look on her face)—"That is not the real reason, I think; they are spelling things on me."

A little boy of seven was being scolded in a room adjoining one in which his grandma lay ill. He motioned toward grandma's room and quietly said, "Sh—! it's too much for her; it'll wear her out."

Later, grandma thanked him for his consideration, whereupon he replied, "Don't mention it, gran; that was fifty-fifty—part for you and part for me."

George was hampered by a mother whose idea of godliness was cleanliness. Notwithstanding the frequent baths to which he was condemned George thrived exceedingly. One day a neighbor remarked on his rapid growth.

"Yes," said George, "that's ma's fault—she waters me so much."

See also Boys.

The Czar was recently complimenting a soldier, and asked him if he would rather have 100 rubles or the Iron Cross.

"Would your Majesty deign to tell me the value of the cross?" inquired the private.

"Oh, it is not worth much intrinsically, perhaps two rubles."

"Then, your Majesty, I will take the cross and ninety-eight rubles."

This is an interesting episode, and the most interesting thing about it is that it also happened during the Franco-Prussian War, the Crimean War, the Seven Years' War, and the Marlborough campaigns.

Eyeball or Highball

An old Scotsman was threatened with blindness if he did not give up drinking.

"Now, McTavish," said the doctor, "it's like this: You've either to stop the whisky or lose your eyesight, and you must choose."

"Ay, weel, doctor," said McTavish, "I'm an auld man noo, an' I was thinkin' I ha'e seen about everything worth seein'."

OFFICER-"Hang it! you've brought the wrong boots. Can't you see one is black and the other brown?"

BATMAN-"Sure, but the other pair is just the same."

"Let me see! How does that old saying go: 'Of two evils always choose—?"

"Always choose the one you haven't indulged in before."

Dorothy, who is six, has a playmate younger than herself whose parents are Christian Scientists. One day she said:

"Mother, do you know that it is better to be a Christian Scientist than anything else?"

Mother asked "Why?" and Dorothy said:

"Well, Julia has 'splained it to me. If you get cross with another little girl, and you knock her down, if you are a Christian Scientist you won't have to apologize to her, because it won't hurt her any."

A Mental Error

The tram-car was hopelessly overcrowded, and several people, who had achieved the upper deck, were transgressing all regulations by standing.

"Now, then," called out the girl conductor, with emphasis, "you can't stand on top."

"Well," said one literalist, smiling blandly as he peered down the steps, "we are standing, whether we can or not."

The girl answered nothing, but promptly pressed a button. The car jumped forward, and the literalist involuntarily took a seat on the floor.

"There," said the girl apparently in complete good humor, quoting the barrister in a famous play, "you think you can, but you can't."

A Christian Scientist while walking about the plant met a man doubled up with pain.

"My man," he said, "What is the matter?"

"I was out to a banquet last night," moaned the man, "And oh, how I ache!"

"You don't ache," answered the apostle of Mrs. Eddy. "Your pain is imagination. It is all in your mind."

The man looked up in grave astonishment at such a statement and then replied in a most positive manner:

"That's all right; you may think so, but I've got inside information."

"Isn't this too absurd?" said the hostess, as she read a letter the maid had handed to her. "I sent Marie Burns the loveliest of bags for Christmas. It had been given to me, I knew, and I had so many I saved it to give away. I suppose we all do those things."

The guest nodded.

"Well, here's her letter of thanks, and listen to what she says:

"'Dear Grace: When I gave you that bag three years ago on Christmas I was so fond of it I could hardly bear to part with it. So I thank you most heartily for remembering me this Christmas with my own gift, which I parted with so unselfishly. Cordially yours, Marie Burns.'"

BILL—"I hear that Jones always saves the Christmas presents people give him and gives them back the following year."

PHIL—"I hope he does that to me. I gave him a quart of brandy in 1918."

Instead of the usual just-before-Christmas letter to Santa Claus, Robbie wrote a prayer letter to God. After enumerating the many and varied presents he wanted very much, he concluded with: "Remember, God, the Lord loveth a cheerful giver."

SCOTT—"What is your notion of an ideal church?"

JACKSON—"One that meddles with neither politics nor religion."

He had been around from church to church trying to find a congenial congregation, and finally he stopped in a little church just as the congregation read with the minister:

"We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done."

The man dropped into a pew with a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness," he said, "I've found my crowd at last."

HIX—"I understand your Church has sent the minister to Michigan for a month."

DIX—"Yes, that's right."

HIX—"For a vacation, I suppose?"

DIX—"Yes; the congregation decided that we were entitled to one."

"What's the idea of free pews?"

"Well, it gives everyone a chance to stay away from church at a minimum expense."

Why They Went to Church

Mrs. Clogg went to find out where the missionary meeting would be held.

Willie Jones went because his mother made him.

His sister went because she had her hair up for the first time.

Sadie Williams went to flirt with the Scott boy.

The Scott boy went to flirt with Sadie Williams.

James B. Jenkins went because he had done so for fourteen years.

The sexton went because he had to pump the organ.

One of the girl ushers in a Flatbush theater had a problem offered her the other evening. She was showing two women to their seats.

"Is the show this evening fit for church women to see?" asked one of the pillaresses of a Flatbush congregation.

"I—I don't know," responded the girl. Then she brightened. "You see," she said, "I don't have no time to go to church."

Mr. Dickson, a colored barber in a large New England town, was shaving one of his customers, a respectable citizen, one morning, when a conversation occurred between them respecting Mr. Dickson's former connection with a colored church in that place:—

"I believe you are connected with the church in Elm Street, are you not, Mr. Dickson?" said his customer.

"No, sah, not at all."

"What! are you not a member of the African Church?"

"Not this year, sah."

"Why did you leave their communion, Mr. Dickson, if I may be permitted to ask?"

"Well, I'll tell you sah," said Mr. Dickson, stropping a concave razor on the palm of his hand, "it war just like dis. I jined the church in good fait; I give ten dollars toward de stated gospill de fus' year, and de church people call me 'Brudder Dickson'; the second year my business not so good, and I gib only five dollars. Dat year the people call me 'Mr. Dickson.' Dis razor hurt you, sah?"

"No, the razor goes tolerably well."

"Well, sah, the third year I feel berry poor; had sickness in my family; and I didn't gib noffin' for preachin'. Well, sah, arter dat dey call me 'dat old nigger Dickson'—and I left 'em."

Two Methodist preachers, one white and the other colored, served rural charges in Mississippi which were conterminous. The negro received a considerably larger salary than his white brother, who asked him if it was not his custom to expel his members who failed to pay. "No, boss," he replied, "we would not like to put the gospel on a money basis. We gets them to subscribe, and if they don't pay we turns them out for lying."

All the talk of hypenated citizenship has evidently had its effect upon a San Francisco youngster, American born, who recently rebelled fiercely when his Italian father whipped him for some misdemeanor.

"But, Tomaso," said one of the family, "your father has a right to whip you when you are bad."

Tomaso's eyes flashed. "I am a citizen of the United States," he declared. "Do you think that I am going to let any foreigner lick me?"

See Country life.

Mrs. Profiteer was very proud of the stunts they were doing at the smart private school to which she had sent her daughter.

"My dear," she said to her friend, "she's learning civics if you please."

"What's civics?" asked the friend.

"Civics? My dear, don't you know? Why, it's the science of interfering in public affairs."

Nations, like individuals, live and die; but civilization cannot die.—Mazzini.

The truest test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops; no, but the kind of man the country turns out.—Emerson.

Secretary Hoover said at a banquet: "One difference between Europe and America is that over there they like to keep you in your place—stationary, you know, while here we like to see a man rise.

"The European idea is pretty well illustrated by the remarks of Muggins. Muggins on his return from the pub one Saturday night, said to his wife:

"'I believe in manly pride and reasonable ambition, but when Sergeant Todd with his cork leg takes to carryin' a cane besides, it looks to me as if he was tryin' to climb out of the station what Divine Providence sunk him into.'"

"Ma, do I have to wash my face?"

"Certainly!"

"Aw, why can't I just powder it like you do yours?"

General Sherman once stopped at a country home where a tin basin and roller-towel sufficed for the family's ablutions. For two mornings the small boy of the household watched in silence the visitor's toilet. When on the third day the tooth-brush, nail-file, whisk-broom, etc., had been duly used, he asked: "Say, mister, air you always that much trouble to you'se'f?"

See also Baths and bathing.

Some time ago a dinner was given in New York at which a well-known actor, who is something of a freethinker along theological lines, sat at the guest-table. When the hour for starting the feast arrived the toastmaster, a very religious man, discovered that no minister of the Gospel was present, tho several had been invited. In this emergency he turned to the actor and asked him to say grace.

The actor rose, bowed his head, and in the midst of a deep hush said fervently:

"There being no clergyman present, let us thank God!"

Horse-power Misrated

The new minister drove his two-horse rig up to the mountain ranch of one of his congregation. There had been some difference of opinion as to his qualifications. At the gate he was met by a small boy of the family, who was evidently cogitating a matter of deep perplexity.

"Be you our preacher?"

"I am."

The boy eyed first the preacher and then the horses, his brow puckered with growing perplexity.

"That's queer," he drawled. "I hern Dad tell the neighbors you was a one-hoss preacher."

Ting-a-ling-a-ling!

The Rev. George C. Abbitt took down the receiver and placed it to his ear.

"Is that the Dickel Liquor Company?" a woman asked.

Mr. Abbitt recognized the voice as that of one of his parishioners.

"No," he replied in stern reproof; "it is your rector."

Was there a dull thud?

No.

"Indeed," said the lady, quick as a flash, "and pray what are you doing there?"

TEARFUL PARISHIONER (saying farewell to departing minister)—"I don't know what we will do when you are gone, Dr. Blank."

MINISTER—"Oh, the church will soon get a better man than I am."

TEARFUL PARISHIONER—"That's what they all say, but they keep getting worse and worse."

A clergyman was accustomed to use scientific terms which the people did not understand. A deputation waited on him with the request that in the future, whenever he used such terms, he would explain them.

On the following Sunday he used the word "hyperbole," and added:

"As agreed on, I beg to explain this word. Were I to say that at this moment the whole of my congregation are sound asleep, it would be hyperbole; but if I say that one-half are asleep, that is not hyperbole, but the truth."

The next day the deputation again called to say that the minister need not explain technical terms; they'd learn their meaning from a dictionary.

A minister came to the Episcopal church, at Williamsport, Pa., to speak.

"Do you wish to wear a surplice?" asked the rector.

"Surplice!" cried the visitor. "Surplice! I am a Methodist. What do I know about surplices? All I know about is a deficit!"

The Scotch minister rose and cleared his throat, but remained silent, while the congregation awaited the sermon in puzzled expectancy. At last he spoke:

"There's a laddie awa' there in the gallery a-kissin' a lassie," he said. "When he's done ah'll begin."

A clergyman famous for his begging abilities was once catechizing a Sunday-school. When comparing himself as pastor of the church to a shepherd, and his congregation to the sheep, he put the following question to the children: "What does the shepherd do for the sheep?"

To the confusion of the minister a small boy in the front row piped out: "Shears them!"

A small town boasts a female preacher. One day when working in her study she heard a timid knock at her door. Answering the summons she found a bashful young German on the step.

"Good-afternoon," the preacheress remarked. "What do you wish?"

"Do der minister lif in dis house?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yess? Veil, I vant to kit merriet."

"All right; I can marry you."

The lady's hair is beginning to silver and the German glanced at it. Then without comment he jammed his hat on his head and hurried down the walk.

"Will you be back?" she called.

"You gits no chance mit me," he answered. "I don't want you; I haf got me a girl alreaty."

A clergyman was spending the afternoon at a house in the English village where he had preached. After tea he was sitting in the garden with his hostess. Out rushed her little boy holding a rat above his head. "Don't be afraid, mother," he cried; "he's dead. We beat him and bashed him and thumped him until"—catching sight of the clergyman, he added, in a lowered voice—"until God called him home."

Two Irish women in the market place of Cork were talking of the new curate.

"Arrah, Biddy," said one, "did ye hear him last Sunday when he preached on 'Hell'?"

"Faith an' I did that same, and shure he might have been born and reared there, so well did he know all about it."

An Episcopal rector and a Roman Catholic priest had neighboring churches and didn't get along very well. After some time, however, they got together and decided to bury the hatchet.

"For, after all," said he of the Episcopal faith, "we are both doing the Lord's work."

"That is true," said the priest. "Let us therefore do his work to the best of our ability: you in your way," concluded the priest, and then added with a twinkle, "and I in his!"

See also Contribution box; Preaching.

"I simply can't understand the combination of my wife's clothes."

"What puzzles you?"

"Well, when she wants to hide anything, she pokes it down her neck, but when she wants to get it again it's always in her stocking."

Why They Don't Wear Old Clothes

Father—Because he never can tell when he might be detained at the office on business.

Brother Bill—Because he has got to look his best in case he meets (a) a certain young lady, (b) her father, (c) her mother, (d) any other near relative of (a).

Sister May—Because everybody would know it if she put on one of last year's dresses.

Angela, aged five—Because she has outgrown everything she ever wore.

Tommy, aged seven—Because he has outworn everything he hasn't outgrown.

The Richest Man in Town—Because he can't afford to look shabby.

The Poorest Man in Town—Same reason.

The Mayor—Because he is mayor.

His Chief Rival—Because he hopes to become mayor.

The President of the Ladies' Federation—Because the newspapers are forever sending photographers after her.

Mother—Because there's no fun playing the game alone.

"I'm afraid these Louis XV heels are much too high for me. Perhaps you have lower ones—say about Louis X would do, I think."

"Is this the hosiery department?" said the voice over the phone.

"Yes," replied the weary saleslady.

"Have you any flesh-colored stockings in stock?" asked the voice.

"Yes," replied the weary saleslady. "Whaddy ya want—pink, yellow, or black?"

They had been poor all their lives. Then one day Uncle Oscar died, leaving Henry a large sum of money. He cashed the check, hurried home, and threw the whole amount in his wife's lap. "At last, my dear," he said, "You will be able to buy yourself some decent clothes."

"I'll do nothing of the sort," sezz she. "I'll get the same kind that other women wear."

"A lady, you know, rang up the club the other evening.

"'Please call my husband to—,' she began, but she was interrupted.

"'Your husband ain't here, ma'am,' said the attendant, blandly.

"'My goodness gracious me!' the lady exclaimed, 'You're mighty sure about it, aren't you? And I haven't told you my name yet, either. Look here, mister, how do you know my husband isn't at the club when I haven't told you my name?'

"The attendant answered more blandly than ever:

"'Nobody's husband ain't never at the club, ma'am.'"

There is a New York scientist who is greatly interested in coal mining. He decided to subscribe to a press-clipping bureau, to get every new slant on coal. He said to the clipping bureau: "I want everything you can find about coal." The first clipping he got was an article about a man who was suing his wife for a separation because she hit him on the head with a lump of coal.

Senator Stone, of Missouri, is a lover of coffee, and unless it is both strong and good the waiter at restaurant or hotel soon hears from him. Recently he took a little trip to Baton Rouge and went into a restaurant for dinner. On raising his cup to his lips he made a wry face and then beckoned to the proprietor.

"What do you call this stuff?" he asked.

"Coffee," meekly replied the man, somewhat surprised.

"Coffee!" repeated Stone with scorn. "I could put a coffee bean into my mouth, dive into the Mississippi River from the end of this street, swim 'way up to Vicksburg, and I'll guarantee that any one could bail up much better coffee than this over the entire route!"

DRESSMAKER—"I have come to see you sir, about Mrs. Brown's account."

BROWN (angrily)—"Why don't you see my wife about it and not come to me?"

DRESSMAKER—"I have, several times, but every time I call she does nothing but order a new gown."

A young Swede in South Dakota, who had been sent out to collect bills for the general store, returned with this report:

"Yon Brown, he say he pay when he sell his wheat; Ole Oleson, he say he pay when he sell his oats; and Yon Yonson, he say he pay in Yanuary."

"In January?" repeated the proprietor, surprised. "Why, he never set a date before. Are you sure he said in January?"

"Veil, Ay tank it bane Yanuary. He say it bane dam cold day when you get your money."

During an epidemic in a small Southern town every infected house was put under quarantine. After the disease had been checked, an old negress protested vigorously when the health officers started to take down the sign on her house.

"Why, Auntie," exclaimed the officer, "why don't you want me to take it down?"

"Well, sah," she answered, "dey ain' be'n a bill collectah neah dis house sence dat sign went up. You-all let it alone!"

Little Andrew was playing in the yard, in which there is a coop for his pigeons. All pigeons were inside with the exception of one which was walking up and down in front of the door. Andrew ran up to his mother in great excitement and said:

"Mamma, is that one a collector?"

Whereat his mother asked him why. Then Andrew said:

"Well, he can't get in."

"Hello Millett," called out a neighbor one morning "I saw you starting away yesterday morning very early on your fishing trip. Did you have any luck?"

"Great!" was the reply. "While I was away three collectors called."

"I wish to see Mr. Jones about a bill."

"He's away on vacation, sir."

"Did he leave any address?"

"Yes, sir. For bill collectors it's 'Somewhere in America.'"

MERCHANT: "They say you are very successful with old bills and seldom have to dun them twice. What's the secret?"

BAD-BILL COLLECTOR: "I am afflicted with insomnia and do my collecting nights."

A Texas tradesman has this pertinent sign in a conspicuous place in his store:

"Norah," said Mrs. Dedbeat, from the top of the stairs, "tell that man who is ringing the doorbell that I am not receiving today!"

The servant girl went to the door and said something to the man; then she stepped into the hall and called upstairs:

"I told him you were not receivin' today, ma'am! But he says he ain't deliverin', he's collectin'!"

He was running a small provision-store in a newly developed district, and the big wholesale dealers found him very backward in payment of his accounts.

They sent him letter after letter, each more politely threatening than the last. Finally they sent their representative down to give him a sporting chance.

"Now," said the caller, "we must have a settlement. Why haven't you sent us anything? Are things going badly?"

"No. Everything's going splendidly. You needn't worry. My bankers will guarantee me all right."

"Then why haven't you paid up?"

"Well, you see, those threatening letters of yours were so well done that I've been copying them and sending them round to a few customers of my own who won't pay up, and I've collected nearly all outstanding debts. I was only holding back because I felt sure there must be a final letter, and I wanted to get the series complete."

Probably Meant Florida

"So the doctor told you to go to a warmer climate. What was the nature of the trouble you consulted him about?"

"I went there to collect a bill."

"Why don't you pay your bills?" angrily demanded the collector, after his tenth fruitless call.

"What?" exclaimed Mr. Dedbete. "Do you imagine I could be so hard-hearted as to deprive you poor fellows of your employment?"

ARTIST—"I'm awfully sorry I can't pay you this month."

LANDLORD—"But that's what you said last month."

ARTIST—"You see I keep my word; you can have confidence in me."

See also Bills; Debts.

See Contribution box.

"There's a college graduate at the door. He wants a job."

"What can he do?" asked the self-made man.

"He says he's pretty good in Greek."

"Umph! Tell him I haven't sold $1 worth of goods to Greece since I've been in the export business."

"I am delighted to meet you," said the father of the college student, shaking hands warmly with the professor. "My son took algebra from you last year, you know."

"Pardon me," said the professor, "he was exposed to it, but he did not take it."

RUPERT—"What did you do with the cuffs I left on the table last night?"

ROLAND—"They were so soiled I sent them to the laundry."

RUPERT—"Ye gods, the entire history of England was on them."

'07—"You are always behind in your studies."

'23—"Well, you see, sir, it gives me a chance to pursue them."

STUDENT (writing home)—"How do you spell 'financially'?"

OTHER—"F-i-n-a-n-c-i-a-l-l-y, and there are two R's in 'embarrassed.'"—Harper's.

See also Degrees.

SOPH.—"How does it happen you came to Harvard? I thought your father was a Yale man."

FRESH.—"He was. He wanted me to go to Yale; I wanted to go to Princeton. We had an argument and he finally told me to go to H——."—Yale Record.

BOBBIE—"What is a committee, pa?"

FATHER—"A committee, my son, is something which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour."

A farmer, just arrived in town, was walking across the street and happened to notice a sign on a hardware store, "Cast Iron Sinks."

He stood for a minute and then said, "Any fool knows that."

Common sense is in spite of, not because of age.—Lord Thurlow.

Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.—H. W. Shaw.

We were talking to our friend O'Doul about politics, and he was calm enough until somebody announced himself "a violent radical."

"I can stand for Socialism—a little of it, anyway," said O'Doul fiercely; "but it's this Communism that makes me mad; I'm not going to stand for any form of government under which a man can come up to me and say, 'O'Doul, there are too many men just like you in New York. You go out and live in Columbus.'"

A—"Your communism is stupid. If everything were divided today, in a very short time your portion would be gone. What then?"

B—"Divide again!"

Stationed at the Mont Sec observation post, near St. Mihiel, a French soldier was showing the scenery to a doughboy.

"I have been in this section ever since the beginning of the war," he said. "Back there is Commercy, where my home is."

"I suppose you get home once in a while?" said the doughboy.

"Nearly every week," was the response.

"Hell," said the doughboy, thinking of his own home in South Bend, Ind. Then, calling to a comrade, he added: "Hey, buddie; here's a guy what commutes to the war!"

FIRST COMMUTER—"Do you have to take such an early train as this?"

SECOND COMMUTER—"No. But I find the earlier the train the less everybody cares to talk."

MR. JOHNSON (indignantly)—"Now see here, yo'! Dat's twice yo' called me Jackson! If yo' don't know no moah dan to confuse me wif dat wall-eyed, knock-kneed, bandy-legged, fiat-footed, paraletic nigger Jackson, we'll call dis game right here!"

MR. PERSIMMONS—"'Scuse me, Johnson-'scuse me! Don't draw a razor on me like Jackson did de other night wen I called him Johnson. Yo' two fellahs ain't such a much alike 'cept in youah looks an general characteristics. Dat's all."

It is said that Mr. Asquith has only once been known to laugh outright when on a public platform. The record-making occasion was at a political meeting in Scotland. The Premier was constantly being interrupted, one of the chief hecklers being a farmer wearing a large straw hat. Suddenly from someone in the hall came a very personal remark concerning Mr. Asquith.

"Who said that?" he demanded, quickly.

There was sudden silence. Then a man in the audience stood up, and, pointing to the farmer with the straw hat, shouted:

"It was him wi' the coo's breakfast on his head!"

The reply was altogether too much for Mr. Asquith, and he had to join in the general roar of laughter.

"There's a bright side to everything."

"To those high food prices?"

"Certainly. Think of the cases of indigestion they have cured."

A little girl who had been out walking with her aunt heard the latter complaining that her feet were tired. "My feet get tired too, when I go out walking," said the small maiden, "but I always think what a nice ride my stomach has been having."

"Anyhow, there's one advantage in having a wooden leg," said the veteran.

"What's that?" asked his friend.

"You can hold your socks up with thumb-tacks."

The clergyman's eloquence may have been at fault, still he felt annoyed to find that an old gentleman fell asleep during the sermon on two consecutive Sundays. So, after service on the second week, he told the boy who accompanied the sleeper that he wished to speak to him in the vestry.

"My boy," said the minister, when they were closeted together, "who is that elderly gentleman you attend church with?"

"Grandpa," was the reply.

"Well," said the clergyman, "if you will only keep him awake during my sermon, I'll give you a nickel each week."

The boy fell in with the arrangement, and for the next two weeks the old gentleman listened attentively to the sermon. The third week, however, found him soundly asleep.

The vexed clergyman sent for the boy and said: "I am very angry with you. Your grandpa was asleep again today. Didn't I promise you a nickel a week to keep him awake?"

"Yes," replied the boy, "but grandpa now gives me a dime not to disturb him."

"Yes," said the specialist, as he stood at the bedside of the sick purchasing agent, "I can cure you."

"What will it cost?" asked the sick man, faintly.

"Ninety-five dollars."

"You'll have to shade your price a little," replied the purchasing agent, "I have a better bid from the undertaker."

A rector in South London was visiting one of his poorer parishioners, an old woman, afflicted with deafness. She expressed her great regret at not being able to hear his sermons. Desiring to be sympathetic and to say something consoling, he replied, with unnecessary self-depreciation, "You don't miss much."

"So they tell me," was the disconcerting reply.

"You don't seem to enjoy being referred to as a good loser."

"No," replied Cactus Joe. "In the course of time a good loser comes to be regarded merely as a poor performer."

See also Tact.

The small girl was at the table drawing, and her mother asked her what the picture was to be.

"God," replied the child simply.

"But you can't draw God," protested the mother, "because you have never seen Him; no one has ever seen Him and no one knows what He looks like."

The small girl licked her pencil and put in another touch. "They'll all know when I finish this," she said.

A young lady once asked Oscar Wilde to give her a list of the one hundred greatest books ever written.

"Impossible, my dear," replied Oscar; "I have only written five."

Half the joy of life is in "letting go" every once in a while, and, if you let go twice every once in awhile, it seems that you have just that much more fun.

When days go wrong, remember they aren't self-starters.

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.

To look on the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and to have a smile ready for every living creature you meet.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticise others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world—not in loud words, but in great deeds.

To live in the faith that the world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you.

Open Confession is Good for the Soul

Surgeon's instrument case lost in some saloon. Reward. Dr. H.E. Lebel. 1227 Hennepin.

A certain rector, just before the service, was called to the vestibule to meet a couple who wanted to be married. He explained that there wasn't time for the ceremony then. "But," said he, "if you will be seated I will give you an opportunity at the end of the service to come forward, and I will then perform the ceremony."

The couple agreed, and at the proper moment the clergyman said: "Will those who wish to be united in the holy bond of matrimony please come forward?"

Thereupon thirteen women and one man proceeded to the altar.

The Irish lad and the Yiddish boy were engaged in verbal combat. Finally the subject came down to their respective churches.

"I guess I know that Father Harrity knows more than your Rabbi," the little Irish boy insisted.

"Shure, he does; vy not?" replied the Jewish boy. "You tell him everything."

A man got in a cab at a Southern railway station and said: "Drive me to a haberdasher's."

"Yaas, suh," said the driver, whipped up his horse and drove a block; then he leaned over to address his passenger: "'Scuse me, boss; whar d' you say you wanter go?"

"To a haberdasher's."

"Yaas, suh; yaas, suh." After another block there was the same performance: "'Scuse me, boss, but whar d' you say you wanter go?"

"To a haberdasher's," was the somewhat impatient reply.

Then came the final appeal: "Now, look-a-here, boss, I be'n drivin' in dis town twenty year', an' I ain't never give nobody away yit. Now, you jes tell dis nigger whar't is you wanter go."

"How is the law made?" asked the instructor in United States history.

"Oh," replied the maiden, cheerfully, "the Senate has to ratify it; and then the President has to—has to veto it; and then the House of Representatives has to"—she hesitated for a moment, and knit her pretty forehead.

"Oh, yes! I remember now," she said. "The House of Representatives has to adjourn until the next session!"

"Has this bill been endorsed by the Prohibition party?"

"Yes."

"And met with the approval of the I.W.W. and the Bolsheviki?"

"Yes."

"And O.K.'d by Mr. Hearst?"

"Certainly."

"Then instruct Congress to pass it as another great measure restoring the rights of the people."

Wilson and Wilton were discussing the moralities when the first put this question: "Well, what is conscience, anyhow?"

"Conscience," said Wilton, who prides himself upon being a bit of a pessimist, "is the thing we always believe should bother the other fellow."

A young fellow who was the crack sprinter of his town—somewhere in the South—was unfortunate enough to have a very dilatory laundress. One evening, when he was out for a practice run in his rather airy and abbreviated track costume, he chanced to dash past the house of that dusky lady, who at the time was a couple of weeks in arrears with his washing.

He had scarcely reached home again when the bell rang furiously and an excited voice was wafted in from the porch:

"Foh de Lawd's sake! won't you-all tell Marse Bob please not to go out no moh till I kin git his clo'es round to him?"

Many a man feels that he could be quite comfortable if his conscience would meet him halfway.

He was a homesick colored soldier in a labor battalion, and he saw no chance of a discharge.

"De nex' wah dey has," he announced to a friend, "dey's two men dat ain't goin'—me an' de man dey sends to git me."

A negro registrant from a farming district was called to service. Arriving in town, he found the local board had moved to another street. At the new address another negro languished in the doorway.

"Is dis whar de redemtion bo'd is at?" queried the newcomer.

"Sho' is," answered the second. "But de blessed redeemer done gone out fo' lunch."

Zeb Smith was a drafted man. He saw heavy fighting in France and was wounded. On his return to the United States he was interviewed by one whose duty it was to interest himself in the men.

"Smith, what do you intend to do when you are released from the service?"

"Get me some dependents," was the instantaneous reply.

The called-up one volubly explained that there was no need in his case for a medical examination.

"I'm fit and I want to fight. I want to go over on the first boat. I want to go right into the front trenches, but I want to have a hospital close, so that if I get hit no time will be wasted in taking me where I can get mended right away, so that I can get back to fighting without losing a minute. Pass me in, doctor. Don't waste any time on me. I want to fight, and keep fighting!"

The doctor, however, insisted, and, when he got through, reported a perfect physical specimen.

"You don't find nothing wrong with me, doctor?"

"Nothing."

"But, doctor, don't you think I'm a bit crazy?"

See also Judgment.

See Radicals.

FIRST WALL STREET BROKER—"Anything to do today?"

SECOND WALL STREET BROKER—"Certainly not."

"Come to a funeral with me. It will cheer you up a bit."—Life.

Contentment is merely the knack of not wanting the things we know we can't have.

Contentment consisteth not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.—Fuller.

Contentment travels rarely with fortune; but follows virtue even in misfortune.—Leszczinski.

To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches.—Cicero.

"I can na' get ower it," a Scottish farmer remarked to his wife. "I put a twa-shillin' piece in the plate at the kirk this morning instead o' ma usual penny."

The beadle had noticed the mistake, and in silence he allowed the farmer to miss the plate for twenty-three consecutive Sundays.

On the twenty-fourth Sunday the farmer again ignored the plate, but the old beadle stretched the ladle in front of him and, in a loud, tragic whisper, hoarsely said:

"Your time's up noo, Sandy."

An old colored minister announced that he had invented an automatic collection basket, which would be passed around by the deacons of his church. "It is so arranged, my brethren," said he, "dat if you drop in a quatah or half dollah it falls noiselessly on a red plush cushion; if you drop a nickel it will ring a bell dat can be distinctly heard by de entiah congregation; but if you let fall a suspender button, my brethren, it will fiah off a pistol."

"Father," said the minister's son, "my teacher says that 'collect' and 'congregate' mean the same thing. Do they?"

"Perhaps they do, my son," said the venerable clergyman; "but you may tell your teacher that there is a vast difference between a congregation and a collection."

"My sermon on thrift made a tremendous impression on the congregation."

"How do you know?"

"I could tell when I counted the collection."

"Rastus, how is it you have given up going to church?" asked Pastor Brown.

"Well, sah," replied Rastus. "it's dis way. I likes to take an active part, an' I used to pass de collection-basket, but dey's give de job to Brothah Green, who jest returned from ovah thai-ah."

"In recognition of his heroic service, I suppose?"

"No, sah. I reckon he got dat job in reco'nition o' his having lost one o' his hands."

BESS—"Somebody passed a counterfeit dime on Bob a year ago, and he hasn't been able to get rid of it since."

MAIDEN AUNT (horrified)—"What! Does that young man never go to church, then?"

A Scotch minister in need of funds thus conveyed his intentions to his congregation:

"Weel, friends, the kirk is urgently in need of siller, and as we have failed to get money honestly we will have to see what a bazaar can do for us."

It is said that the farthing was coined in response to a demand from Scotchmen for a satisfactory coin for the collection box. It's value is a fourth of a cent.

A minister was on his vacation in the country. A neighboring church heard of it and asked him to preach while their own pastor was away. He consented and, on the Sunday when he was to supply, he and his boy walked across the fields to the church. In the vestibule there was a box for voluntary contributions and the minister after feeling around in his pocket found fifty cents which he dropped in. After the sermon, the elders came up to express their appreciation for his fine sermon and then remembered they hadn't yet paid him. They generously decided to give him all the collection for that Sunday and on opening the contribution box they found exactly fifty cents. The minister accepted it and went on his way home. After walking some distance the boy noticed his father was very silent evidently pondering over something, so he said, "Father, how much did you get?"

The father replied "Fifty cents, son."

"Why father, that's just what you put in, wasn't it?" asked the boy.

"Yes, son."

Both walked along in silence for some distance further, then the boy spoke up and said: "Father, if you had put more in, you'd have got more out, wouldn't you?"

Tight, who had money to burn but was apparently afraid of fire, happened in a church one day when a collection was being taken for foreign missions. Eventually the collector reached Tight, but Tight didn't make any motions like producing beautiful coin.

"Pardon me," said the collector, placing the box before Tight, "we are taking a collection for foreign missions. Wouldn't you like to add a little to the amount?"

"No, sir!" was the decisive rejoinder of Tight. "I never give to foreign missions."

"Then take a little out of the box," softly responded the collector. "The money is for the benefit of the heathen."

A church in Kansas was raising funds for a new church and the minister was calling on members for subscriptions. One of the pillars of the church rose and said: "I subscribe five dollars." Just at that instant a piece of plaster fell on his head. Half stunned he mumbled "f-f-five hundred dollars" and the minister prayed "Oh Lord, hit him again."

A party of young people were amusing themselves by guessing the answers to conundrums. One of them asked, "Why is the pancake like the sun?"

"Because it rises in der yeast and sets behind der vest," was the answer given by a brilliant young Swede.

They were discussing that joke about getting down off an elephant.

"How do you get down?" asked the jokesmith for the fourth time.

"You climb down."

"Wrong!"

"You grease his sides and slide down."

"Wrong!!"

"You take a ladder and get down."

"Wrong!!!"

"Well, you take the trunk line down."

"No, not quite. You don't get down off an elephant; you get it off a goose."

"So your husband kept house and cooked his own meals while you were away. Did he enjoy it?"

"He says he did; but I notice that the parrot has learned to swear during my absence."

"My husband has had indigestion for the past month."

"Really! I'm so sorry! I had no idea you were without a cook."

OFFICER—"Is that soup ready, Jones?"

OFFICER'S SERVANT—"No, sir, the stove went out, sir."

OFFICER—"Went out! Then why don't you light it again?"

OFFICER'S SERVANT—"'Cos it went out by the roof, sir."

"How do you like my pound cake, dearie?" asked Mrs. Newlywed.

"Why, er-er-er," stammered Mr. Newlywed, "I don't think you pounded it enough, did you?"

She had not been married long. She made a pie for dinner. During the meal she hesitatingly remarked to her husband:

"I think I left out something and the pie isn't very good."

After taking a bite he sadly replied:

"You are wrong, my dear! Nothing you left out could make a pie taste like this. It's something you put in."

See Servants

A very fat old lady who got stuck in the door of a car could get neither out nor in.

"Sideways, ma'am. Try sideways," the conductor shouted helpfully.

"Oh, drat the feller," panted the old lady. "I ain't got no sideways."

"Excuse me, madam, would you mind walking the other way and not passing the horse?" said an English cabman, with exaggerated politeness, to the fat woman who had just paid a minimum fare, with no fee.

"Why?" she inquired.

"Because if 'e sees wot 'e's been carrying for so little money 'e'll 'ave a fit," was the freezing answer.

The Stamp of Learning

"Pa, what's a postgraduate?"

"A fellow who graduates from one of those correspondence schools, I suppose."

JOE—"'Ere, Curly! You know everything-what's a cosmopolitan?"

CURLY—"Well, it's like this-suppose you was a Russian Jew livin' in England married to a black woman an' you'd just finished a bit of Irish stew an' was smokin' an Egyptian cigaret, while a German band outside was playin' the Blue Bells o' Scotland—you'd be a cosmopolitan."

"He has got the first dollar that he ever earned!"

"What a bally ass! Think how much more he could have bought with it had he spent it then!"

"She says she prefers to do her shopping by telephone."

"Why so?"

"Says she can't bear to see how little she is getting for the money."

"How's business?"

"Not too good—thanks to some dishonest rascals who are selling goods at reasonable prices."

"Did you try the simple plan of counting sheep for your insomnia?"

"Yes, doctor, but I made a mess of it. I counted ten thousand sheep, put 'em on the train, and shipped 'em to market. And when I'd got through counting the money I got for them at present prices it was time to get up."

"Father, I need a new riding habit."

"Can't afford it," he growled.

"But, father, what am I to do without a riding habit?"

"Get the walking habit."

In these days of the high cost of living the following story has a decided point:

The teacher of a primary class was trying to show the children the difference between the natural and man-made wonders, and was finding it hard.

"What," she asked, "do you think is the most wonderful thing man ever made?"

A little girl, whose parents were obviously harassed by the question of ways and means, replied as solemnly as the proverbial judge:

"A living for a family."

"Why don't you move into more comfortable quarters, old man?"

"I can't even pay the rent on this miserable hole."

"Well, since you don't pay rent, why not get something better?"

MRS. HOMESPUN—"What'll we contribute to the minister's donation-party?"

FARMER HOMESPUN—"Wal, I dunno, Hannar! Taters is 'way up, pork is 'way up, fowl is 'way up—we'll save money by giving him money."

A farmer, the other day, took a plowshare to the blacksmith's to be sharpened, and while the blacksmith worked the farmer chuckled and bragged about a sale of hogs he had just made.

"Them hogs was only eight months old," he said, "and none too fat, nuther; but I seen that the buyer was at his wits' end, and by skilful jugglin' I boosted up the price on him just 300 per cent. Yes, by gum, I got three times more for them hogs than I uster get before the war."

The plowshare being done, the farmer handed the smith 50 cents.

"Hold on," said the smith, "I charge $1.50 for that job now."

"You scandalous rascal!" yelled the farmer. "What do you mean by treblin' your price on me? What have you done it for?"

"I've done it," said the blacksmith, "so's I'll be able to eat some of that high-priced pork of yours this winter."

OLD DAME—"You've had two penn'orth of sweets, my little man, but you've only given me a penny."

THE LITTLE MAN—"Yes, but farver says one penny's got to do the work of two in war-time."—Punch.

"Of course you have your little theory about the cause of the high cost of living?"

"I have," replied Mr. Growcher: "too many people are trying to make political economy take the place of domestic economy."

HE—"Yes, I certainly like good food, and always look forward to the next meal."

SHE—"Why don't you talk of higher things once in a while?"

HE—"But, my dear, what is higher than food?"—Life.

A certain judge, after passing sentence, always gave advice to prisoners. Having before him a man found guilty of stealing, he started thus:

"It you want to succeed in this world you must keep straight. Now, do you understand?"

"Well, not quite," said the prisoner; "but if your lordship will tell me how a man is to keep straight when he is trying to make boths ends meet, I might."

And another trouble with the country is that too many are trying to satisfy a bricklayer's appetite on a school-teacher's salary.

SMALL BOY (much interested in shopman's reason for high price of eggs)—"But, mummy, how do the hens know we're at war with Germany?"—Punch.

"Don't you object to all this talk about the high cost of everything?"

"Not at all," replied the profiteer. "It prepares the mind of a customer for what he may expect and saves argument."

"How's this, waiter? You've charged me two dollars and a half for planked steak!"

"Sorry sir, but lumber's gone up again."

Our Government does not profess to live within its income, but only within ours.

"Farm products cost more than they used to."

"Yes," replied Mr. Corntossel. "When a farmer is supposed to know the botanical name of what he's raisin' an' the zoological name of the insect that eats it, and the chemical name of what will kill it, somebody's got to pay."

Its Friendly Way

"How are we to meet the high cost of living?"

"You don't have to meet it," answered the irritating person. "It overtakes you."

"What are the luxuries of life?"

"Things that were necessities two years ago."

A couple of Philadelphia youths, who had not met in a long while, met and fell to discussing their affairs in general.

"I understand," said one, "that you broke your engagement with Clarice Collines."

"No, I didn't break it."

"Oh, she broke it?"

"No, she didn't break it."

"But it is broken?"

"Yes. She told me what her raiment cost, and I told her what my income was. Then our engagement sagged in the middle and gently dissolved."

UNCLE EZRA—"So ye just got back from New York! What's the difference between the city and the country?"

UNCLE EBEN—"Wal, in the country you go to bed feeling all in and get up feeling fine, and in the city you go to bed feeling fine and get up feeling all in."—Life.

Little Mary was visiting her grandmother in the country. Walking in the garden, she chanced to see a peacock, a bird she had never seen before. After gazing in silent admiration, she ran quickly into the house and cried out: "Oh, granny, come and see! One of your chickens is in bloom."

A man living in the heart of London has recently bought a cow, which he keeps in his back-yard. Thirty milkmen have already been noticed looking over the wall to see what a cow looks like.

Little Betty had been greatly interested in watching the men in her grandfather's orchard putting bands round the fruit trees and asked many questions.

Some weeks later, when in the city with her mother, she noticed a gentleman with a mourning band round his left sleeve.

"Mamma," she asked, "what's to keep them from crawling up his other arm?"

A minister, spending a holiday in the North of Ireland, was out walking, and, feeling very thirsty, called at a farmhouse for a drink of milk. The farmer's wife gave him a large bowl of milk, and while he was quenching his thirst a number of pigs got round about him. The minister noticed that the pigs were very strange in their manner, so he said:

"My good lady, why are the pigs so excited?"

The farmer's wife replied, "Sure, it's no wonder they are excited, sir; it's their own little bowl you are drinking out of!"

An enterprising salesman was trying to persuade a farmer to buy a bicycle. The farmer was in town for the day, and had determined to see everything.

"I'd rather spend my money on a cow," said he proudly.

"But think," said the salesman, "what a fool you'd look riding about on a cow."

"Not half such a fool as I'd look trying to milk a bicycle," answered the farmer.

"Hiram," said the farmer's wife, "what makes you say 'By gosh!' so much and go round with a straw in your mouth?"

"I'm getting ready for them summer boarders that's comin' next week. If some of us don't talk an' act that way, they'll think we ain't country folks at all."

The swain and his swainess had just encountered a bulldog that looked as if he might shake a mean lower jaw.

"Why, Percy," she exclaimed as he started a strategic retreat. "You always swore you would face death for me."

"I would," he flung back over his shoulder, "but that darn dog ain't dead."

"Who led the army in that recent expedition?"

"I did," replied General Tamale.

"I thought the attack was led by General Concarne."

"It was I who prevented great loss of life. He led them going forward, but I led them coming back."

A man of courage is also full of faith.—Cicero.

Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it and conquering it.—Richter.

Few persons have courage enough to appear as good as they really are.—Hare.

Conscience in the soul is the root of all true courage. If a man would be brave, let him learn to obey his conscience.—Clarke.

"How do you like your new music-master?"

"He is a very nice, polite young man. When I made a mistake yesterday he said: 'Pray, mademoiselle, why do you take so much pains to improve upon Beethoven?'"

Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.—Emerson.

A couple of old codgers got into a quarrel and landed before the local magistrate. The loser, turning to his opponent in a combative frame of mind, cried: "I'll law you to the Circuit Court."

"I'm willin'," said the other.

"An' I'll law you to the Supreme Court."

"I'll be thar."

"An' I'll law to 'ell!"

"My attorney'll be there," was the calm reply.

In the course of his examination these questions were put to an old negro who was appearing as a witness:

"What is your name?"

"Calhoun Clay, sah."

"Can you sign your name?"

"Sah?"

"I ask if you can write your name?"

"Well, no, sah. Ab nebber writes mah name. Ah dictates it, sah."

MAGISTRATE (to prisoner)—"What is your name?"

PRISONER—"S-s-sam S-s-sissons, S-s-sir."

MAGISTRATE—"Where do you live?"

PRISONER—"S-s-seventy seven S-s-surrey street. S-s-sir."

MAGISTRATE (to policeman)—"Officer, what is this man charged with?"

OFFICER—"Begorry, yer honor. Oi think he must be charged with soda wather."

In one of the Brooklyn courts a recent case required the testimony of a young German immigrant.

"Now, Britzmann," said the lawyer for the plaintiff, "what do you do?"

"Ah vos pretty vell," replied the witness.

"I am not inquiring as to your health. I want to know what you do."

"Vork!"

"Where do you work?" continued the counsel.

"In a vactory."

"What kind of a factory?"

"It vos bretty big vactory?"

"Your honor," said the lawyer, turning to the judge, "if this goes on we'll need an interpreter." Then he turned to the witness again.

"Now, Britzmann, what do you make in the factory?" he asked.

"You vant to know vot I make in der vactory?"

"Exactly! Tell us what you make."

"Eight dollars a veek."

Then the interpreter got a chance to earn his daily bread.

"Uncle Joe Cannon was asked today what he thought of the outlook for the Republican party in 1916, and he answered with a story.

"A black man was arrested for horse-stealing while I was prosecuting-attorney in Vermilion county," he said, "and was placed on trial after being duly indicted. When his day in court came he was taken before the judge and I solemnly read the charge in the indictment to him.

"'Are you guilty or not?' I asked.

"The black man rolled uneasily in his chair. 'Well, boss,' he finally said, 'ain't dat the very thing we're about to try?'"

JUDGE—"Officer, what's the matter with the prisoner—tell her to stop that crying—she's been at it fifteen minutes" (more sobs).

OFFICER—"Please, sir, I'm a'thinking she wants to be bailed out."

See also Jury; Witnesses.

If he is clean and vigorous, suitable for you and quite perfect in your opinion; if he is the man you think he is and you want him, don't put him on a pedestal and worship him as an idol.

Be sensible. Wrap him around your little finger and get a ring on the next.

Mother was out, and Sister Sue was putting on her best blouse, so six-year-old Bobby had to entertain Sue's young man. As is the way with his kind, he began to ply the unfortunate caller with questions.

"Mr. Brown," he began, "what is a popinjay?"

"Why—er—a popinjay is a—eh—vain bird."

"Are you a bird, Mr. Brown?"

"No, of course not."

"Well, that's funny. Mother said you were a popinjay, and father said there was no doubt about your being a jay, and Sue said there didn't seem to be much chance of your poppin', and now you say you aren't a bird at all."

Courtship is a bowknot that matrimony pulls into a hard knot.

IRATE PARENT—"No, siree. You can't have her. I won't have a son-in-law who has no more brains than to want to marry a girl with no more sense than my daughter has shown in allowing you to think you could have her."—Life.

Will and Mary had been busy courting for over two years, meeting every night in Hope Street, Glasgow. About a fortnight ago, Will, in parting with his beloved, made the usual remark:

"I'll meet ye in Hope Street tomorrow nicht. Mind and be punctual."

"'Deed, aye, Will, lad," replied Meg, with a merry twinkle in her eye. "We hae met noo a lang time in Hope Street, an' I was jist thinkin' that it was high time we were shiftin' oor trystin'-place a street farther along. Whit wad ye say to Union Street?"

MAUDE—"What makes you think his intentions are serious?"

MABEL—"When he first began to call he used to talk about the books I like to read."

MAUDE—"And now?"

MABEL—"Now he talks about the things he likes to eat."—Life.

"Cheer up, old man! There's other fish in the sea."

REJECTED SUITOR-"Yes, but the last one took all my bait!"—Life.

NEIGHBOR—"Got much money in your bank, Bobby?"

BOBBY—"Gee, no! The depositors have fallen off somethin' fierce since sister got engaged."

"So you want to marry my daughter, eh?" snorted the old man. "Do you consider yourself financially able to do so?"

"Well," replied the suitor, "after a fellow has bought candy and flowers for a girl for a year, and has taken her to the theater twice a week and is still not broke, I guess he can afford to get married."

MR. GOODTHING—"How does your sister like the engagement ring I gave her, Bobby?"

HER YOUNG BROTHER—"Well, it's a little too small;—she has an awful hard time getting it off when the other fellows call!"

MR. SLOW (calling on girl)—"You seem rather—er—distant this evening."

GIRL—"Well, your chair isn't nailed to the floor, is it?"

See also Love; Proposals.

FIRST CREDIT MAN—"How about Jones of Pigville Center?"

SECOND CREDIT MAN—"He always pays cash, so we don't know how honest he is!"

A little girl of eight entered a store in a small town and said:

"I want some cloth to make my dolly a dress."

The merchant selected some and handed the child the package.

"How much is it?" she asked.

"Just one kiss," was the reply.

"All right," said the child as she turned to go, "grandma said to tell you she would pay you when she came in tomorrow."

"Them was nice folk you waited on, Mamie, ain't they?" "No, no, dear! Appearances is deceitful. They didn't have no charge-account. Paid cash for everything."—Judge.

Mr. Butterworth, the grocer, was looking over the credit sales-slips one day. Suddenly he called to the new clerk:

"Did you give George Callahan credit?"

"Sure," said the clerk. "I—"

"Didn't I tell you to get a report on any and every man asking for credit?"

"Why, I did," retorted the clerk, who was an earnest young fellow. "I did get a report. The agency said he owed money to every grocer in town, and, of course, if his credit was that good I knew that you would like to have him open an account here!"

A well-known wholesale merchant, who has a wide patronage throughout the Piedmont region of the South, received the following letter from one of his customers a few weeks ago:

"I receive your letter about what I owes you. Now be pachent. I ain't forgot you and soon as folks pay me I'll pay you, but if this was judgment day and you were no more prepared to meet your Maker than I am to meet your account then you sho going to hell."

The credit, it may be noted, was extended.

"Rufus, aren't you feeling well?"

"No, sah; I'se not feelin' well, sah."

"Have you consulted your doctor, Rufus?"

"No, sah; I ain't don' dat, sah."

"Why? Aren't you willing to trust your doctor, Rufus?"

"Oh, yes, sah; but de trubble is he's not so alt'gether willin' to trus' me, sah."

Fear follows crime, and is its punishment.—Voltaire.

Responsibility prevents crimes.—Burke.

If poverty is the mother of crimes, want of sense is the father.—La Bruyère.

THE ARTIST—"Dubbins, the art critic, has slated my pictures unmercifully."

HIS FRIEND—"Oh, don't take any notice of that fellow; he has no ideas of his own—he only repeats like a parrot what everybody else is saying."

JIGGS—"Townsen can read three languages."

TRIGGS—"What are they?"

JIGGS—"Magazines, sporting pages and railroad time-tables."

HE—"Not quite a lady, is she?"

SHE—"No—but I should say her pearls are 'cultured,'"

That is true cultivation which gives us sympathy with every form of human life, and enables us to work most successfully for its advancement.—Beecher.

A Testimonial

DOCTOR—"Did that cure for deafness really help your brother?"

PAT—"Sure enough; he hadn't heard a sound for years and the day after he took that medicine, he heard from a friend in America."

"My wife is mourning the loss of a ten-thousand-dollar diamond necklace."

"Why don't you advertise a thousand reward and no questions asked?"

"Well, I could make good on the thousand, but I doubt my wife's ability to fulfill the rest of that contract."

William E. Weber of the First National Bank says a woman came up to his window the other day with a cashier's check for fifty dollars.

"What denomination," asked Mr. Weber in his pleasantest manner.

"Lutheran," replied the woman. "What are you?"

MRS. BARR—"Henry, what are current events?"

MR. BARR—"Anything shocking, my dear"—Life.

Foote, the comedian, dined one day at a country inn, and the landlord asked how he liked his fare.

"I have dined as well as any man in England," said Foote.

"Except the mayor," cried the landlord.

"I except nobody," said he.

"But you must!" screamed the host.

"I won't!"

"You must!"

At length a petty magistrate took Foote before the mayor, who observed that it had been customary in that town for a great number of years always to "except the mayor," and accordingly fined him a shilling for not conforming to ancient custom. Upon this decision, Foote paid the shilling, at the same time observing that he thought the landlord the greatest fool in Christendom—except the mayor.

An Englishman sat at a New York boarding-house table. One of the boarders was telling a story in which a "dachshund" figured. She was unable for a moment to think of the word.

"It was one of these—what do you call them?—one of these long German dogs."

The Englishman dropped his fork: his face beamed. "Frankfurters!"

The conversation turned to the subject of damage-suits, and this anecdote was recalled by Senator George Sutherland, of Utah.

A man in a Western town was hurt in a railroad accident, and after being confined to his home for several weeks he appeared on the street walking with the aid of crutches.

"Hello, old fellow," greeted an acquaintance, rushing up to shake his hand. "I am certainly glad to see you around again."

"Thanks," responded the injured one. "I am glad to be around again."

"I see you are hanging fast to your crutches," observed the acquaintance. "Can't you do without them?"

"My doctor says I can," answered the injured party, "but my lawyer says I can't."

"I have come here," said the angry man to the superintendent of the street-car line, "to get justice; justice, sir. Yesterday, as my wife was getting off one of your cars, the conductor stept on her dress and tore a yard of frilling off the skirt."

The superintendent remained cool.

"Well, sir," he said, "I don't know that we are to blame for that. What do you expect us to do? Get her a new dress?"

"No, sir. I do not intend to let you off so easily as that," the other man replied gruffly. He brandished in his right hand a small piece of silk.

"What I propose to have you do," he said, "is to match this silk."

The minister was dining with the Fullers and he was denouncing the new styles in dancing. Turning to the daughter of the house, he asked sternly:

"Do you yourself, Miss Fuller, think the girls who dance these dances are right?"

"They must be," was the answer, "because I notice the girls who don't dance them are always left."

"Is your husband in favor of daylight saving?"

"I think so. He stays out so much at night that I think he'd really prefer not to use any daylight at all."

Young Hopeful, who lives in the suburbs, was very much interested in the adjustment of the time, and on the morning when the clocks had been set back an hour awoke his mother.

"Mother, mother," he called from his little bed, "listen to Mrs. Jones' chickens! They must have forgotten to tell them to set their crow back."

"Well, yes," admitted Gap Johnson, of Rumpus Ridge, Ark., "I've heerd something or nuther about setting the clock for'ards or bac'ards for some reason. I don't prezisely know what. But it don't make no special difference at our house one way or tother for the clock runs about as it pleases till some of us sorter climb up and set it b'guess and b'gosh as you might say. And if we save or lose an hour or two what's the odds? We've got all the time there is anyway."

Geordie Ryton, the village cobbler, bought two clocks, one a grandfather's. He put it in a corner and placed a small nickel clock on the mantel-shelf. The grandfather's clock has not been altered to the Daylight Saving Bill's requirements. "Hoo is't, Geordie," asked a customer, "ye've altered the smaal clock and not the gran'faither's clock?"

"Wey," replied Geordie, "they said the gran'faither's clock's been tellin' the truth for ower sixty year, an' Aa can't find it in me heart te make a liar ov it noo. But the little begger wes made in Jarmany, so it'll be aal reet, he's as reet as can be for that job."

"What is worrying you now?"

"Oh, nothing much," replied the man who is perpetually pensive. "I am merely trying to figure out what has become of all the daylight I saved since we set the clocks forward."

"Jonas," ordered the farmer, "all the clocks in the house have run down. Wish you'd hitch up and ride down to the junction and find out what time it is."

"I ain't got a watch. Will you lend me one?"

"Watch! Watch! What d'ye want a watch fer? Write it down on a piece of paper."

See Bills; Collecting of accounts.

CREDITOR—"You couldn't go around in your fine automobile if you paid your debts."

DEBTOR—"That's so! I'm glad you look at it in the same light that I do."

HARDUPPE—"I really must apologize for looking so shabby."

FLUBDUBB—"Oh, clothes don't make the man."

HARDUPPE—"Still, many a man owes a lot to his tailor."

"Look 'ere—I asks yer for the last time for that 'arf-dollar yer owes me."

"Thank 'evins!—that's the end of a silly question."

A floating debt is a poor life saver.

"Yes," said the world traveler, "the Chinese make it an invariable rule to settle all their debts on New-year's day."

"So I understand," said the American host, "but, then, the Chinese don't have a Christmas the week before."

OKE—"Would you be satisfied if you had all the money you wanted?"

OWENS—"I'd be satisfied if I had all the money my creditors wanted."

MR. THURSDAY—"Our friend, Dodge, tells me that he is doing settlement work lately."

MR. FRIDAY—"Yes, his creditors finally cornered him."

"How did Cranbury ever manage to get so deeply in debt as he is?"

"I wish I knew. I can't even stand my grocer off for more than a week at a time."

RASTUS—"How much, boss?"

DRUGGIST—"Sixty cents and three cents war tax."

RASTUS—"Boss, Ah done thought de wah was over."

DRUGGIST—"Sure, it is, but we have to pay the debts."

RASTUS—"Boss, Ah always thought de one whut lost paid de debts. Dat's why I fight so hard."

"I was preparing to shave a chap the other afternoon," says a head barber. "I had trimmed his hair, and from such talk as I had had with him I judged him to be an easy-going, unexcitable sort of fellow. But suddenly his manner changed. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen a man enter whose appearance upset him."

"Hurry, George!" he muttered to me. "Lather to the eyes—quick, quick! Here comes my tailor!"

IRATE FATHER—"It's astonishing, Richard, how much money you need."

SON—"I don't need it, father; it's the hotel-keepers, the tailors, and the taxicab men."

See also Bills; Collecting of accounts.

Our British cousins seem to think we have peculiar ways of getting our D.D.'s over here. A London newspaper relates how the congregation of a Southern church, being desirous of honoring their pastor, wrote to the dean of a certain faculty: "We want to get our beloved pastor a D.D. We enclose all the money we can raise at present. Be good enough to send one D. now. We hope to raise sufficient for the other D. by and by."

"Father," said the small boy, "what is a demagog?"

"A demagog, my son, is a man who can rock the boat himself and persuade everybody that there's a terrible storm at sea."

ADKINS—"Well, the world is at last safe for democracy."

WATKINS—"Just what is democracy, anyway?"

"A democracy is a form of government where one party doesn't do things as they ought to be done, and the other party tells how much better they would be done if it were in power."

In his first lecture in New York the visiting English writer and wit, G.K. Chesterton, protested against prohibition and other limitations on American freedom. He quoted the phrase from Patrick Henry's address, "Give me liberty or give me death." Then he said:

"If Patrick Henry could arise from the dead and revisit the land of the living and see the vast system and social organization and social science which now controls, he would probably simplify his observation and say: 'Give me death!'"

Democracy means not "I am as good as you are," but "you are as good as I am."—Theodore Parker.

"Pardon me for a moment, please," said the dentist to the victim, "but before beginning this work I must have my drill."

"Good heavens, man!" exclaimed the patient irritably. "Can't you pull a tooth without a rehearsal?"

Dinah had been troubled with a toothache for some time before she got up enough courage to go to a dentist. The moment he touched her tooth she screamed.

"What are you making such a noise for?" he demanded. "Don't you know I'm a 'painless dentist'?"

"Well, sah," retorted Dinah, "mebbe yo' is painless, but Ah isn't."

DENTIST—"Open wider, please—wider."

PATIENT—"A—A—A—Ah."

DENTIST (inserting rubber gag, towel, and sponge)—"How's your family?"

A young man who needed false teeth wrote to a dentist ordering a set as follows:

"My mouth is three inches acrost, five-eighths inches threw the jaw. Some hummocky on the edge. Shaped like a hoss-shew, toe forward. If you want me to be more particular, I shall have to come thar."

Dentist, speaking to patient about to have a tooth extracted—"Have you heard the latest song hit?"

Patient—"No. What is the title of it?"

Dentist—"The Yanks are Coming."

Returning home from the dentist's, where he had gone to have a loose tooth drawn, little Raymond reported as follows:

"The doctor told me 'fore he began that if I cried or screamed it would cost me a dollar, but if I was a good boy it would be only fifty cents."

"Did you scream?" his mother asked.

"How could I?" answered Raymond. "You only gave me fifty cents."

Mr. Harkins had taken his boy, aged ten, to have an offending molar tooth drawn. When the job had been accomplished, the dentist said: "I am sorry, sir, but I shall have to charge you five dollars for pulling that tooth."

"Five dollars!" exclaimed Mr. Harkins, in dismay. "Why, I understood you to say that you charged only one dollar for such work!"

"Yes," replied the dentist, "but this youngster yelled so terribly that he scared four other patients out of the office."—Harper's.

"I want some shoe-strings, some hairpins, a pair of gloves, and a tooth-brush," the woman said. "I have to catch a train, and have but a few minutes."

"Yes, madam!" the floorwalker replied briskly. "That's the beauty of a department store-get anything you want, right under the one roof! Take elevator to eleventh floor, shoe department, eight aisles to the right from the main passageway, for shoe-strings; hairpins in notions department, east side of basement, three aisles beyond hardware; gloves in women's wear, fifth floor of annex, reached by passageway over street; toothbrush in drugs and toilet-articles department, on balcony, reached by moving stairway, which you will find on your right as you pass the fountain in the florist shop in the center of the main floor."

The new guard was not familiar with a certain railway run in Wales. Came to a station which rejoiced in the name Llanfairfechanpwllgogerych. For a few minutes he stood looking at the signboard in mute helplessness. Then pointing to the board, and waving his other arm toward the carriages, he called, "If there's anybody there for here, this is it!"

HOKUS—"How does Sleuthpup rank as a detective?"

POKUS—"Great. You know, he used to work in the repair department of an umbrella factory."

"What has that got to do with being a detective?"

"Why, that fellow can recover an umbrella that has never been stolen."

"Thirty years ago," said the man who had traveled to the end of the earth and most of the way back, "I started out, alone, unaided, without friends to help me along, with the intention of making the world pay me the living that it owes me. My only allies were a dollar bill and a determination to make a million more. Today (and he threw out his chest proudly) I still have the determination and fifty cents in change."

FRIEND—"What is the first thing you do when a man presents himself to you for consultation?"

DOCTOR—"I ask him if he has a car."

FRIEND—"What do you learn from that?"

DOCTOR—"If he has one, I know he is wealthy—and if he hasn't, I know he is healthy."

Starting with a wonderful burst of oratory, the great evangelist had, after two hours' steady preaching, become rather hoarse.

A little boy's mother in the congregation whispered to her son, "Isn't it wonderful? What do you think of him?"

"He needs a new needle," returned the boy sleepily.

The telephone rang and the bookkeeper answered it.

"Yes, madam, this is Wilkins's market."

"This is Mrs. Blank. I want you to know that the liver you sent me is most unsatisfactory. It is not calf's liver at all; calf's liver is tender and——"

"Just a moment, madam, and I'll call the proprietor."

"What is it?" Wilkins asked.

The bookkeeper surrendered the phone.

"Mrs. Blank," he said. "Liver Complaint."

Axel, a Swede in an outfit at Fort Jay, woke up one morning with a desire to loaf. He got put on sick-call, thinking it was worth trying, anyway. At the dispensary the "doc." looked him over, felt his pulse, and took his temperature. Then he said:

"I can't find anything wrong with you."

No answer.

"See here, what's wrong with you anyway?"

"Doc," replied Axel. "That bane your yob."

"Some un sick at yo' house, Mis' Carter?" inquired Lila. "Ah seed de doctah's kyar eroun 'dar yestiddy."

"It was for my brother, Lila."

"Sho! What's he done got de matter of'm?"

"Nobody seems to know what the disease is. He can eat and sleep as well as ever, he stays out all day long on the veranda in the sun, and seems as well as any one; but he can't do any work at all."

"Law, Mis' Carter, dat ain't no disease what you brothe' got! Dat's a gif!"—Everybody's.

The house doctor of a Cincinnati theater sometimes tires of his office; hence the following:

One evening an excited usher rushed to the doctor's seat and whispered a brief message. The occupant rose at once and both men left the orchestra hastily and made for the dressing-rooms.

"It's the leading lady," wailed one of the actresses, meeting them; "come this way."

"Have you poured water on her head?" inquired the doctor, solemnly.

"Yes, from the fire-bucket."

"The fire bucket!—what a fearful blunder! Here," and he scribbled a line on a card, "take this to the drug-store and get it filled."

When the leading lady found herself alone with the doctor, she opened her eyes.

"Doctor," she gasped, "you're a good fellow, aren't you? I know you are aware that there's nothing the matter with me. I want a day off, and I don't want to go on in this act. Can you fix it?"

"You bet I can," said the doctor, wringing her hand, sympathetically. "I ain't no doctor. I came in on this ticket."

A lady's leather handbag was left in my car while parked on Park avenue two weeks ago. Owner can have same by calling at my office, proving the property and paying for this ad. If she will explain to my wife that I had nothing to do with its being there, I will pay for the ad.

"Mamma, if a bear should swallow me, I should die, shouldn't I?"

"Yes, dear."

"And should I go to heaven?"

"Yes, dear. Why do you ask that question?"

"And would the bear have to go too?"

A new regulation in a certain coal-mine required that each man mark with chalk the number on every car of coal mined.

One man named Ole, having filled the eleventh car, marked it with a number one and, after pondering a while, let it go at that.

Another miner, happening to notice what he thought was a mistake, called Ole's attention to the fact that he had marked the car number one instead of eleven.

"Yes, I know," said Ole; "but I can't tank which side de odder wan go on."

Dinah Snow was a colored cook in the home of the Smiths. One morning on going to the kitchen Mrs. Smith noticed that Dinah looked as if she had been tangled up with a road-roller.

"Why, Dinah!" exclaimed she, "what in the world has happened to you?"

"Was me husban,'" explained Dinah. "He done went an' beat me ag'in, an' jes' fo' nothin', too!"

"Again!" cried Mrs. Smith, with increasing wonder. "Is he in the habit of beating you? Why don't you have him arrested?"

"Been thinkin' ob it several times, missy," was the rejoinder of Dinah, "but I hain't nebah had no money to pay his fine."

"Yes," said the storekeeper, "I want a good, bright boy to be partly indoors and partly outdoors."

"That's all right," said the applicant, "but what becomes of me when the door slams shut?"—Judge.

"Has Bobbie been eating between meals?"

"Bobbie has no between meals."—Life.

A farmer who went to a large city to see the sights engaged a room at a hotel, and before retiring asked the clerk about the hours for dining.

"We have breakfast from six to eleven, dinner from eleven to three, and supper from three to eight," explained the clerk.

"Wa-al, say," inquired the farmer in surprise, "what time air I goin' ter git ter see the town?"

"Mama, I want a dark breakfast."

"Dark breakfast? What do you mean, child?"

"Why, last night you told Mary to give me a light supper, and I didn't like it."

MOTHER (at the breakfast-table)—"You always ought to use your napkin, Georgie."

GEORGIE—"I am usin' it, mother; I've got the dog tied to the leg of the table with it."

"Father," said the small boy, "what is an overt act?"

"My son, an overt act is something that either compels you to be so rude as to fight or so polite as to pretend you didn't notice it."

"Now, sir," said the persuasive philanthropist, "we want you to be the chairman of the big meeting which we are to hold."

"How much?" inquired Mr. Cassius Chex, wearily.

"I don't quite follow you."

"How much is the deficit that you expect my subscription to meet?"

Uncle Mose owns and operates an "exclusive shoe-shining parlor" in a little Northwestern town, and, as customers are rather scarce thereabouts, he can't afford to offend any of them. But his "parlor" has to be run on a strict cash basis. So when a man a little too well known to Uncle Mose as "slow pay" about town came in to have his shoes shined and suggested to the old negro a desire to pay at a later date, Uncle Mose did some quick thinking.

"I'se sorry, boss; I sure is," he replied with diplomatic suavity; "but I jes' cain't do it. You see, de banker on de nex' cohner an' me—we done made a 'greement dat ef I didn't loan money he wouldn't shine shoes, an' I jes' cain't break dat 'greement."

Diplomacy has been defined as the art of letting someone else have your way.

"What do you think of this disarmament idea?"

"I'm for it. If those people next door will sell their player piano, I'll agree to have my daughter stop taking singing lessons."

COMMANDING OFFICER—"Snathy, here is your honorable discharge, you ought to be proud of it."

SNATHY—"Deed ah am Cap. Why in civil life when ah was discharged ah was jest fired."

The principal of a certain school for girls had occasion to speak sharply to one of the pupils.

"Marion," he said, "you've neglected your work shamefully, and you must remain with me an hour after school."

Marion shrugged her thin little shoulders. "Well," she said, "if your wife doesn't mind it, I'm sure I don't."

In a certain public school very advanced ideas are put into practice. No pupil is ever punished in any way, for the individuality of every child is considered too sacred for repression.

One day, soon after her enrollment at this school, little Grace arrived home, her face streaked with tears and her mouth covered with blood.

"My precious! What happened?" cried her mother.

The little girl was soon pouring out her story in her mother's arms. Sammy Gates, it appeared, had struck her and knocked out two teeth.

When Grace had been kissed, comforted, and washed, her father wanted to know how the teacher had dealt with Sammy.

"She didn't do anything," said Grace.

"Well, what did she say?"

"She called Sammy up to the desk and said, 'Sammy, don't you know that was very anti-social?'"

HUSBAND—"You'll never get that new dog of yours to mind you."

WIFE—"Oh, yes, I will.—You were just as troublesome yourself at first."

See also Children; Parents.

SPOKESMAN OF CREDITORS—"Veil, Cohen, we've decided to accept five cents on a tollar—cash."

COHEN, THE DEBTOR—"Cash, you say? Den, of course, I get der regular cash discount?"—Puck.

WILLIE—"Pa, what is discretion?"

FATHER—"Oh, that's only another name for lack of nerve, my son."

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to win all the duties of life.—Addison.

"Allow me to congratulate you."

"What for?"

"Oh, for just anything—the sunshine, the blue skies, the fact that you are up and about. Isn't that something?"

"No!"

"Then congratulate me for not having a disposition like yours."

"Have you heard my last joke?" asked the Pest, as he stopped the Grouch on the street.

"I hope so," replied the Grouch, as he kept on traveling.

"Why is it, Bob," asked George of a very stout friend, "that you fat fellows are always good natured?"

"We have to be," answered Bob. "You see, we can't either fight or run."

"What a cheerful woman Mrs. Smiley is!"

"Isn't she? Why, do you know, that woman can have a good time thinking what a good time she would have if she were having it."

The German officer who confiscated a map of Cripple Creek belonging to an American traveler, and remarked that "the German Army might get there some time," should be classed with the London banker who said to a solicitous mother seeking to send cash to San Antonio, Texas, for her wandering son: "We haven't any correspondent in San Antonio, but I'll give you a draft on New York, and he can ride in and cash it any fine afternoon."

At Sadieville, Ky., a tourist called to an old colored man: "Hey uncle! How far is it to Lexington?"

"I don't know, suh; hit used to be 'bout twenty-five mile, but ev'ything's gone up so I speck hit's 'bout fohty now, suh."

"Where do you live in the city—close in?"

"Fairly so—thirty minutes on foot, fifteen by motor-car, twenty-five by street-car, and forty-five by telephone."

"Binks has married again."

"I knew he didn't deserve that divorce!"

At the present terrific rate of divorce cases, we shall soon need a new reference-book—"Who's Whose."

SOLICITOR (whose client is thinking of getting a divorce)—"Well, you can get it for about twenty pounds; everything done quietly and no publicity."

CLIENT—"And how much will the real thing cost, with lots of publicity and everything?"

WIFE (trying to think of The Hague)—"Let's see, what is the name of the place where so much was done toward promoting peace in the world?"

HUB—"Reno, my dear."

"And are the divorce laws so very liberal in your section?"

"Liberal? Say! They are so liberal that nobody ever heard of a woman crying at a wedding out there."

A divorce suit would not appeal so much to a jury if it was cleaned before it was pressed.

"What are you cutting out of the paper?"

"An item about a California man securing a divorce because his wife went through his pockets."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Put it in my pocket."—Everybody's.

"Scotsman, married, desires change."—Weekly Paper.

We ought to warn him that the Divorce Court is very congested just now.

To matrimonial speedsters, divorce is just a detour.

"What is your greatest wish, Doctor, now that you have successfully passed for your degree?"

YOUNG DOCTOR—"To put 'Dr.' before my own name, and 'Dr.' after the name of other people."—Life.

"Who is your family doctor?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why not? Don't you know his name?"

"Yes. Dr. Johnson used to be our family doctor but nowadays mother goes to an eye specialist; father to a stomach specialist; my sister goes to a throat specialist; my brother is in the care of a lung specialist, and I'm taking treatments from an osteopath."

A young suburban doctor whose practice was not very great sat in his study reading away a lazy afternoon in early summer. His man servant appeared at the door.

"Doctor, them boys is stealin' your green peaches again. Shall I chase them away?"

The doctor looked thoughtful for a moment, then leveled his eyes at the servant.

"No," he said.

Once an old darky visited a doctor and was given definite instructions as to what he should do. Shaking his head he started to leave the office, when the doctor said:

"Here, Rastus, you forgot to pay me."

"Pay yo for what, boss?"

"For my advice," replied the doctor.

"Naw, suh; naw, suh; I ain't gwine take it," and Rastus shuffled out.

M.D.—"Would you have the price if I said you needed an operation?"

MANNING—"Would you say I needed an operation if you thought I didn't have the price?"—Life.

"How do you pronounce 'pneumonia'?" asked the French boy, who had come to England to learn the language.

His only chum told him.

"That's odd," replied the young Gaul. "It says in this story I am reading that the doctor pronounced it fatal."

Mr. Roger W. Babson says that in looking up appendicitis cases he learned that in 17 per cent. of the operations for that disease the post-mortem examinations showed that the appendix was in perfect condition.

"The whole subject," he adds, "reminds me of a true story I heard in London recently. In the hospitals there, the ailment of the patient, when he is admitted, is denoted by certain letters, such as 'T. B.' for tuberculosis. An American doctor was examining these history slips when his curiosity was aroused by the number on which the letters 'G.O.K.' appeared. He said to the physician who was showing him around:

"'There seems to be a severe epidemic of this G.O.K. in London. What is it, anyhow?'

"Oh, that means 'God only knows,'" replied the English physician.

The fashionable physician walked in, in his breezy way, and nodded smilingly at his patient.

"Well, here I am, Mrs. Adams," he announced. "What do you think is the matter with you this morning?"

"Doctor, I hardly know," murmured the fashionable patient languidly. "What is new?"

"When I was a boy," said the gray-haired physician, who happened to be in a reminiscent mood, "I wanted to be a soldier; but my parents persuaded me to study medicine."

"Oh, well," rejoined the sympathetic druggist, "such is life. Many a man with wholesale aspirations has to content himself with a retail business."

The eminent physicians had been called in consultation. They had retired to another room to discuss the patient's condition. In the closet of that room a small boy had been concealed by the patient's directions to listen to what the consultation decided and to tell the patient who desired genuine information.

"Well, Jimmy," said the patient, when the boy came to report, "what did they say?"

"I couldn't tell you that," said the boy. "I listened as hard as I could, but they used such big words I couldn't remember much of it. All I could catch was when one doctor said:

"'Well, we'll find that out at the autopsy.'"

YOUNG WOMAN (to be neighbor at dinner)—"Guess whom I met today, doctor?"

DOCTOR—"I'm afraid I'm not a good guesser."

"You're too modest. Aren't you at the top of your profession?"—Life.

DOCTOR—"My dear sir, it's a good thing you came to me when you did."

"Why, Doc? Are you broke?"—Life.

"It's a little hard for young doctors to get a start."

"I know. I'm raising whiskers."

"They will help. And I'll loan you some of my magazines for 1876 to put in your anteroom."

PATIENT—"I want to see doctor. Be this the place?"

DOCTOR—"This is where I practice."

PATIENT—"Don't want no person for to practice on me; I want a doctor for to cure me."

FRIEND—"To what do you attribute your rapid rise in your profession?"

SURGEON—"It has been my rule all along never to perform an operation unless I was sure it would be a success either way."

A doctor who had a custom of cultivating the lawn and walk in front of his home every spring engaged O'Brien to do the job. He went away for three days and when he returned found O'Brien waiting for his money. The doctor was not satisfied with his work and said: "O'Brien, the walk is covered with gravel and dirt, and in my estimation it's a bad job."

O'Brien looked at him in surprise for a moment and replied: "Shure, Doc, there's many a bad job of yours covered with gravel and dirt."

"You say this doctor has a large practice?"

"It's so large that when a patient has nothing the matter with him he tells him so."

Why She Objected

An old woman's son was seriously ill and the attending surgeon advised an operation. But the mother bitterly objected.

"I don't believe in operations!" she exclaimed. "Even the Scriptures is agin it. Don't the Bible say plain and flat: 'What God hath j'ined togither, let not man put asunder'?"

REDD—"The doctor said he'd have me on my feet in a fortnight."

GREENE—"And did he?"

"Sure. I've had to sell my automobile."

SPECIALIST—"You are suffering from nerve exhaustion. I can cure you for the small sum of $2,000."

PATIENT—"And will my nerve be as good as yours then?"

In a confidential little talk to a group of medical students an eminent physician took up the extremely important matter of correct diagnosis of the maximum fee.

"The best rewards," he said, "come, of course, to the established specialist. For instance, I charge twenty-five dollars a call at the residence, ten dollars for an office consultation, and five dollars for a telephone consultation."

There was an appreciative and envious silence, and then a voice from the back of the theater, slightly thickened, spoke:

"Doc," it asked, "how much do you charge a fellow for passing you on the street?"

An insurance agent was filling out an application blank.

"Have you ever had appendicitis?" he asked.

"Well," answered the applicant, "I was operated on but I have never felt quite sure whether it was appendicitis or professional curiosity."

"Oh, doctor, I have sent for you, certainly; still, I must confess that I have not the slightest faith in modern medical science."

"Well," said the doctor, "that doesn't matter in the least. You see, a mule has no faith in the veterinary surgeon, and yet he cures him all the same."

A Great Difference

A noted physician, particularly expeditious in examining and prescribing for his patients, was sought out by an army man whom he "polished off" in almost less than no time. As the patient was leaving, he shook hands heartily with the doctor and said:

"I am especially glad to have met you, as I have often heard my father, Colonel Blank, speak of you."

"What!" exclaimed the physician, "are you old Tom's son?"

"Certainly."

"My dear fellow," cried the doctor, "fling that infernal prescription in the fire and sit down and tell me what is the matter with you."

"Father, what is a convalescent?"

"A patient who is still alive, son."

Young M.D.—"Well, Dad, I'm hanging out my shingle; can't you give me some rules for success?"

"Always write your prescriptions illegibly and your bills very plainly."

MOTHER (after visitor had gone)—"Bobby, what on earth made you stick out your tongue at our pastor? Oh, dear!..."

BOBBY—"Why, muvver, I just showed it to him. He said, 'Littul man, how do you feel?'—and I thort he was a doctor!"

An Irishman coming out of ether in the ward after an operation, exclaimed audibly: "Thank God! That's over!" "Don't be too sure," said the man in the next bed, "they left a sponge in me and had to cut me open again." And the patient on the other side said, "Why they had to open me, too, to find one of their instruments." Just then the surgeon who had operated on the Irishman, stuck his head in the door and yelled, "Has anybody seen my hat!" Pat fainted.

Dr. A., physician at Newcastle, being summoned to a vestry, in order to reprimand the sexton for drunkenness, dwelt so long on the sexton's misconduct as to draw from him this expression: "Sir, I thought you would have been the last man alive to appear against me, as I have covered so many blunders of yours!"

DOCTOR (to patient)—"You've had a pretty close call. It's only your strong constitution that pulled you through."

PATIENT—"Well, doctor, remember that when you make out your bill."

A quack doctor was holding forth about his "medicines" to a rural audience.

"Yes, gentlemen," he said, "I have sold these pills for over twenty-five years and never heard a word of complaint. Now, what does that prove?"

From a voice in the crowd came: "That dead men tell no tales."

See also Bills; Remedies.

Frederick was sitting on the curb, crying, when Billy came along and asked him what was the matter.

"Oh, I feel so bad 'cause Major's dead—my nice old collie!" sobbed Frederick.

"Shucks!" said Billy. "My grandmother's been dead a week, and you don't catch me crying."

Frederick gave his eyes and nose a swipe with his hand, and, looking up at Billy, sobbed, despairingly:

"Yes, but you didn't raise your grandmother from a pup."

He was a very small boy. Paddy was his dog, and Paddy was nearer to his heart than anything on earth. When Paddy met swift and hideous death on the turnpike road the boy's mother trembled to break the news. But it had to be, and when he came home from school she told him simply:

"Paddy has been run over and killed."

He took it very quietly. All day it was the same. But five minutes after he had gone to bed there echoed through the house a shrill and sudden lamentation. His mother rushed upstairs with solicitude and pity.

"Nurse says," he sobbed, "that Paddy has been run over and killed."

"But, dear, I told you that at dinner, and you didn't seem to be troubled at all."

"No; but—but I didn't know you said Paddy. I—I thought you said daddy!"

PUP—"Great cats; That's a nerve! Somebody has put up a building right where I buried a bone!"—Puck.

See also Dachshunds.

LITTLE TOMMY—"What does 'close quarters' mean, Ma?"

WEARY MOTHER—"It's a definition of my trying to get twenty-five cents from your father."

"Ma, what does the 'home-stretch' mean?"

"Making a fifteen-dollar-a-week allowance go around, my son."

WIFE—"Ta-ta, dearie; I'll write before the end of the week."

HUSBAND—"Good gracious, Alice, you must make that check last longer than that!"

"Dearie," said the young married man, "I have to go to New York on business. It will only take a day or so and I hope you won't miss me too much while I'm gone, but—"

"I won't," answered his young wife, positively, "because I'm going with you."

"I wish you could, dear, but it won't be convenient this time. What would you want to go for, anyhow? I'm going to be too busy to be with you, and—"

"I have to go. I need clothes."

"But, darling—you can get all the clothes you want right here on Euclid Avenue."

"Thank you. That's all I wanted."

"I'm just waiting for my husband to complain about my extravagance this month."

"Ready to give him an argument, eh?"

"You bet I am. By mistake his golf-club checks came to the house, and I've got 'em."

"You are not economical," said the infuriated husband.

"Well," flashed his wife, "if you don't call a woman economical who saves her wedding dress for a possible second marriage, I'd love to know just what you do call economy."

"But your fiancé has such a small salary, how are you going to live?"

"Oh, we're going to economize. We're going to do without such a lot of things that Jack needs."

"Are you an expert accountant," asked the prospective employer.

"Yes, sir," said the applicant.

"Your written references seem to be all right, but tell me more about yourself."

"Well, my wife kept a household account for thirty days. One night after supper I sat down and in less than an hour found out how much we owed our grocer."

"Hang up your hat and coat," said the employer with a glad smile. "The job is yours."

HE—"My dear, I've warned you before, and now I must insist that we try to live within our income."

SHE—"Oh, very well, if you want to be considered eccentric by everybody in our set."

"Now," said the bridegroom to the bride, when they returned from their honeymoon trip, "let us have a clear understanding before we settle down to married life. Are you the president or the vice-president of the society?"

"I want to be neither president nor vice-president," she answered. "I will be content with a subordinate position."

"What position is that, my dear?"

"Treasurer."

SHE—"When we go anywhere now we have to take the street-car. Before our marriage you always called a taxi."

HE—"Exactly. And that's the reason we have to go in the street-car now."

"My wife certainly makes my salary go a long way."

"So does mine—so far that none of it ever comes back."

"I'm having trouble in supporting my wife."

"You don't know what trouble is. Try not supporting her."

WILLIS—"The Highfliers are going to give up their big house this winter."

MRS. WILLIS—"You must be mistaken. I was talking with Mrs. Highflier only yesterday."

WILLIS—"Well. I was talking with the mortgagee only this morning."—Puck.

In a certain home-missionary movement every participant was to contribute a dollar that she had earned herself by hard work. The night of the collection of the dollars came, and various and droll were the stories of earning the money. One woman had shampooed hair, another had made doughnuts, another had secured newspaper subscriptions, and so on.

The chairman turned to a handsome woman in the front row.

"Now, madam, it is your turn," he said. "How did you earn your dollar?"

"I got it from my husband," she answered.

"Oh!" said he. "From your husband? There was no hard work about that."

The woman smiled faintly.

"You don't know my husband," she said.

"Before we were married, you used to send around a dozen roses every week," said she.

"Roses are easy," replied he. "This week I'm going to send around two tons of coal and a rib-roast."

LANDLADY—"That new boarder is either a married man or a widower."

PRETTY DAUGHTER—"Why, ma, he says he is a bachelor."

LANDLADY—"Well, I don't believe it. When he opens his pocketbook to pay his board he always turns his back to me."

"Hicks promised to give his wife a dime for every one he spends for cigars."

"How does it work?"

"First rate. You see we meet every day and he buys me the drinks and I buy him the cigars."

HUSBAND (newly married)—"Don't you think, love, if I were to smoke, it would spoil the curtains?"

WIFE—"Ah, you are the most unselfish and thoughtful husband in the world; certainly it would."

HUSBAND—"Well, then, take the curtains down."

Willie's grandmother had come to visit them.

"Are you mamma's mother?" asked Willie by way of conversation.

"No, dear. I'm your grandmother on your father's side."

"Well," said Willie decidedly (he was an observing little fellow), "all I got to say is you're on the wrong side."

SHE—"Just think of it! A few words mumbled by the minister and people are married."

HE—"Yes, and, by George, a few words mumbled by a sleeping husband and people are divorced."

Two friends met in the Strand the morning after an airplane raid.

"Any damage done your way?" the first asked.

"Damage! Rather!" answered the other. "Father and mother were blown clean out of the window. The neighbors say it's the first time they've been seen to leave the house together in seventeen years."

See also Families; Marriage.

"Mother, wasn't that a funny dream I had last night?" said a little boy who was busily engaged with his breakfast cereal.

"Why, I'm sure I don't know!" replied his mother. "I haven't the slightest idea what your dream was about."

"Why, mother, of course you know!" said the boy reproachfully. "You were in it."

Maybe one swallow doesn't make a summer, but it would brighten it up considerably.

Dangerous Advice

CURATE—"You should be careful! Don't you know that drink is mankind's worst enemy?"

JEEMS—"Yes; but don't you teach us to love our enemies?"

"Pussyfoot" Johnson, whose effort to prohibitionize Scotland failed recently, was discussing his failure with a New York editor.

"Yes, I failed," he ended, "and I'm very sorry. Conditions in Scotland are very bad."

"Did you ever hear the story of the deacon's daughter? This story illustrates Scottish conditions very well.

"The wife of a Peebles deacon took a bath one evening, and as it was rainy, chill November weather, she swallowed a teaspoonful or two of whisky after her bath to keep herself from catching cold. Then in her dressing-gown she went to bid her little daughter good night. She stooped over the child's cot and a kiss was exchanged. After the kiss the little girl drew back sharply, sniffed and said:

"'Why, mamma, you've been using father's perfume, haven't you?'"—Detroit Free Press.

"Now, Sam," said the speaker, "I want you to be present when I deliver this speech."

"Yassuh."

"I want you to start the laughter and applause. Every time I take a drink of water, you applaud; and every time I wipe my forehead with my handkerchief, you laugh."

"You better switch dem signals, boss. It's a heap mo' liable to make me laugh to see you standin' up dar deliberately takin' a drink o' water."

A Washington business man, says the Saturday Evening Post, desiring to test the relative efficiency of two makes of mucilage, handed the bottles one morning to his shiny-faced negro messenger.

"Here, John," he said; "try these and see which is the stickiest."

John did not show up at the office again until about noon-time. He approached his employer's desk somewhat cautiously and gingerly deposited thereon the two bottles of mucilage.

"Well, John," asked the boss, "which did you find the stickiest?"

"It wuz lak dis, boss," was the reply: "Dis one gummed up ma mouf de most; but de other one, de taste lasted de longest."

UNABLE SEAMAN—"When I come around again the surgeon, he says to me, 'I'm blooming sorry, mate, I don't know what I was thinking about,' he says, 'but there's a sponge missin', and I believe it's sewed up inside yer!' 'What's the odds,' I says, 'let it be.' An there it is to this day."

GULLIBLE OLD GENTLEMAN—"Bless my soul! Don't it trouble you?"

UNABLE SEAMAN—"I don't feel no particular pain from it, but I do get most uncommonly thirsty at times, sir."

See also Drunkards; Temperance.

The Lord Mayor of London had been dining pretty well, and Mr. Choate, Ambassador to England, was seeing his Lordship to the door.

"Now, your Lordship, if you will allow me to advise you," said Mr. Choate, "when you get to the sidewalk curb you will see two hansoms. Take the one to the right: the one to the left doesn't exist."

An intoxicated man hailed a cab.

After he had climbed in, the cabby leaned over and asked, "What street do you want?"

"What streets have you?" he inquired.

"Lots of 'em," smiled the cabby, humoring him.

"Gimme 'em all," he said, waving his arm grandly.

After they had been driving for several hours, the man in the cab ordered a stop.

"How mush do I owe you?"

"Seven dollars and fifty cents."

"Well—you better drive back till you get to thirty-fi' shents, 'cause thashall I got."

WIFEY—"I heard a noise when you came in last night."

HUBBY—"Perhaps it was the night falling."

WIFEY (coldly)—"No, it wasn't, it was the day breaking."

BIX—"I see there's a report from Holland that concrete bases for German cannon have been found there."

DIX—"Don't believe a word you hear from Holland. The geography says it is a low, lying country."

Joy of Eating

A well-known banker in a down-town restaurant was eating mush and milk.

"What's the matter?" inquired a friend.

"Got dyspepsia."

"Don't you enjoy your meals?"

"Enjoy my meals?" snorted the indignant dyspeptic. "My meals are merely guide-posts to take medicine before or after."

"Dyspepsia seldom kills anyone," said Akinside, "but—"

"No," returned old Festus Pester. "It makes them so talkative that everybody else wants to kill them."

TOM—"I've seen the girl I want to marry. I stood behind her at the ticket window this morning and she took seven minutes to buy a five-cent elevated ticket."

ALICE—"Did that make you want to marry her?"

TOM—"Yes, I figured out that she could never spend my income at that rate."

BOOK AGENT—"This book will teach you the way to economize."

THE VICTIM—"That's no good to me. What I need is a book to teach me how to live without economizing."

Little June's father had just returned from the store and was opening up some sheets of sticky fly-paper and placing it about the room. June watched a minute and then burst out with:

"Oh, papa, down at the corner grocery you can get the paper with the flies already caught. They have lots of it in the window."

"Well, Albert, I've been acting on your advice. I put a hundred dollars in the bank this month."

"Fine! It isn't so hard, is it?"

"No; I simply tore up all the bills."—Life.

See also Domestic finance; Thrift.

"An editor is a man who puts things in the paper, isn't he?"

"Oh, no, my son; an editor keeps things out of the paper."

The editor of the newspaper in a certain small southern town was given an article to print, praising in very elegant language the life and works of a certain southern colonel.

The colonel and the editor were not the best of friends.

The article came out, but in spelling "scarred," in that very important phrase "battle scarred veteran," one "r" was omitted.

The colonel threatened violence but the editor promised to admit his error in the next issue.

In the following issue, in large type, appeared: "The editor of this paper regrets very much an error in spelling in our last issue. In describing our most worthy colonel, instead of 'battle scared veteran' it should read, 'bottle scarred veteran.'"

That day the editor ceased to edit. His wife was a widow.

A country editor wrote: "Brother, don't stop your paper just because you don't agree with the editor. The last cabbage you sent us didn't agree with us either, but we didn't drop you from our subscription list on that account."

The girl reporter accepted the editor's invitation to dinner and when asked how she enjoyed it, said:

"Oh, fine, but I'll never go to dinner with an editor again."

"Why not?"

"Well, the dinner was fine, but he blue-penciled about three-quarters of my order."

You may know the trade classic about the exchange editor. The new owner of the newspaper asked who that man was in the corner. "The exchange editor," he was informed. "Well, fire him," said he. "All he seems to do is sit there and read all day."

A little boy was given the stunt by his father to write an essay on editors and here is the result:

"If an editor makes a mistake folks say he ought to be hung; but if a doctor makes a mistake he buries it and people dassent say nothing because doctors can read and write Latin. When the editor makes a mistake there is lawsuits and a big fuss; but if a doctor makes one there is a funeral, cut flowers and perfek silence. A doctor can use a word a yard long without anyone knowing what it means; but if the editor uses one he has to spell it. If the doctor goes to see another man's wife he charges for the visit but if the editor goes he gets a charge of buckshot. When the doctor gets drunk it's a case of being overcome by the heat and if he dies it's from heart trouble; when an editor gets drunk it's a case of too much booze and if he dies it's the jim-jams. Any college can make a doctor; an editor has to be born."

Wanted, an editor, who can read, write and argue politics, and at the same time be religious, funny, scientific and historical at will, write to please everybody, know everything, without asking or being told, always having something good to say of everything and everybody else, live on wind and make more money than enemies. For such a man, a good opening will be made in the "graveyard." He is too good to live.

Life in a newspaper office is one compliment after another. "You look so funny when you think," observed the blandishing Miss Harriette Underbill as she passed the given point known as our desk late yesterday afternoon.

COUNTRY EDITOR (to new assistant)—"I shall expect you to write all the editorials, do the religious and sporting departments and turn out a joke column."

ASSISTANT—"What are you going to do?"

"Edit your copy."

Education—the sum total of all the things we haven't been taught.

WILLIE (doing his homework)—"What is the distance to the nearest star, Auntie?"

"I'm sure I don't know, Willie."

"Well, I hope, then, you'll feel sorry tomorrow when I'm getting punished for your ignorance."

Henry was the neighborhood magistrate. He had been settling a dispute between two blockaders. The one in whose favor the verdict was cast was filled with admiration for the facility with which Henry made out the papers.

"You are one of those 'read' men, ain't you Henry?"

"Yes, I kin read right smart," modestly admitted Henry.

"You been to school, ain't you?" With just pride Henry nodded his head.

"I reckon you been through algebra!"

"Yes, I have," said Henry, "but it was night and I didn't see nothing."

EMPLOYER—"For this job you've got to know French and Spanish, and the pay is eighteen dollars a week."

"Lord, Mister! I ain't got no edication; I'm after a job in the yards."

"See the yard-boss. We'll start you in at forty."—Life.

When James A. Garfield was president of Oberlin College, a man brought for entrance as a student his son, for whom he wished a shorter course than the regular one.

"The boy can never take all that in," said the father. "He wants to get through quicker. Can you arrange it for him?"

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Garfield. "He can take a short course; it all depends on what you want to make of him. When God wants to make an oak he takes a hundred years, but he takes only two months to make a squash."

Doubtless the old woman in this story from the London Post will now be able to enlighten her husband on a troublesome subject.

"Doctor," she inquired of a country physician, "can you tell me how it is that some folks be born dumb?"

"Why—hem!—why, certainly, ma'am," replied the doctor. "It is because they come into the world without power of speech."

"Dear me," remarked the woman, "just see what it is to have a physical edication! I'm right glad I axed you. I've axed my old man a hundred times that there same question, and all he would ever say was, 'Cause they be.'"

PROFESSOR—"So, sir, you said that I was a learned jackass, did you?"

FRESHIE—"No, sir, I merely remarked that you were a burro of information."

After many trials and tribulations Mrs. Timson had managed to get a "maid" of sorts.

"Now, Thurza," said she, "be careful about the water. We only use the well water for drinking, as we have to pay a man to pump it. The rain water is good enough for washing up and so on."

After tea Mrs. Timson asked:

"Did you remember about the water, Thurza?"

"Oh, yes, mum!" said Thurza. "I filled the kettle half full of water from the butt and the other half with water from the well. I thought the bottom half might as well be getting hot at the same time for washing up after tea."

An elderly rancher took some fine Kentucky horses to the West in the early sixties. He was proud of them, and justly so. The old gentleman's son had once seen a teamster lock one of his wagon-wheels in going down a declivity. This precaution appealed to the young fellow's idea of "safety first." He duly reported the occurrence to his father, and begged him to get a, lock-chain.

"My son," said the old gentleman, "if I ever send you out with a team that can't outrun the wagon, let 'em go to hell."

SOLICITOR (to business man absorbed in detail)—"I have here a most marvelous system of efficiency, condensed into one small volume. It will save you fully 50 per cent of your time, and so—"

BUSINESS MAN (interrupting irritably)—"I already have a system by which I can save 100 per cent of my time and yours. I'll demonstrate it now—Good-day!"

"But," he adds, "as in everything else, there are exceptions. There was Boggins, for instance. Boggins was a great efficiency man in the office, but even more so at home. Why, every time Boggins Junior was naughty his father laid him on the floor and spread a rug over him, so that the beating would kill two birds with one stone, as you might say."

A worm won't turn if you step on it right.

Efficiency is an admirable quality, but it can be overdone, according to Representative M. Clyde Kelly, of Pennsylvania.

"Last election day," Mr. Kelly explains, "the city editor of my newspaper in Braddock sent his best reporter out to learn if the saloons were open in defiance of the law. Four days later he returned and reported, 'They were.'"

"Sambo, I don't understand how you can do all your work so quickly, and so well."

"I'll tell yuh how 'tis, boss. I sticks de match ob enthusiasm to de fuse ob yenergy—and jes natchurally explodes, I does."

"Don't be so long-winded in your reports as you have been in the past," said the manager of the "Wild West" railway to his overseer. "Just report the condition of the track as ye find it, and don't put in a lot of needless words that ain't to the point. Write a business letter, not a love-letter."

A few days later the railway line was badly flooded, and the overseer wrote his report to the manager in one line: "Sir—Where the railway was the river is.—Yours faithfully, ——."

In Montana a railway-bridge had been destroyed by fire, and it was necessary to replace it. The bridge-engineer and his staff were ordered in haste to the place. Two days later came the superintendent of the division. Alighting from his private car, he encountered the old master bridge-builder.

"Bill," said the superintendent—and the words quivered with energy—"I want this job rushed. Every hour's delay costs the company money. Have you got the engineer's plans for the new bridge?"

"I don't know," said the bridge-builder, "whether the engineer has the picture drawed yet or not, but the bridge is up and the trains is passin' over it."—Harper's.

"Better consider my course in efficiency training. I can show you how to earn more money than you are getting."

"I do that now."

The boy was very small and the load he was pushing in the wheelbarrow was very, very big.

A benevolent old gentleman, putting down his bundles, lent him a helping hand.

"Really, my boy," he puffed, "I don't see how you manage to get that barrow up the gutters alone."

"I don't," replied the appreciative kid. "Dere's always some jay a-standin' round as takes it up for me."—Puck.

MRS. CASEY—"Me sister writes me that every bottle in that box we sent her was broken. Are you sure yez printed 'This side up, with care' on it!"

CASEY—"Oi am. An' for fear they shouldn't see it on the top, Oi printed it on the bottom, as well."

COW—"Can you beat it? There's so much system around here now that they file me in the barn under the letter C."

HEN—"Yes, I have my troubles with efficiency too. They've put a rubber stamp in my nest so I can date my eggs two weeks ahead."

SMITH—"You seldom see such beautiful golf as that man plays. His drives were corking, his approaches superb and he never missed a putt."

JONES—"How much were you beaten by?"

SMITH—"Why, I won!"

Many a man thinks he is anxious to please others, when the truth is that he is only anxious that others be pleased with what he does.

"Max has sent me an interesting book, 'Relativity,' by Einstein. Have you read it?"

"No. I am waiting for it to be filmed."

The wife of a Dorchester man who had the traditional failing—he forgot to mail letters—has cured him. The mail is delivered at their home before the breakfast hour—which is comparatively late. One morning she said to her husband:

"Did you have any mail this morning, dear?"

"Only a circular," he answered as he bit into a fine brown slice of toast.

"Huh," said the wife. "By the way, did you mail the letters I gave you yesterday?"

"Sure I did," was the righteously indignant reply.

"Well," answered wifie, with an eloquent smile, "it's funny, then, you had no letters this morning, because one of those I gave you to mail was addressed to you—just as a sort of key."

Callers were at the door and Bobbie was told to show them into the parlor. He did so, and while his mother was fixing herself up, he sat there rather embarrassed. Presently, seeing the visitors glancing around the room, he said:

"Well, what do you think of our stuff, anyway?"

KIND FRIEND (to composer who has just played his newly written revue masterpiece)—"Yes, I've always liked that little thing. Now play one of your own, won't you?"

Evelyn is very cowardly, and her father decided to have a serious talk with his little daughter.

"Father," she said at the close of his lecture, "when you see a cow, ain't you 'fraid?"

"No, certainly not, Evelyn."

"When you see a bumblebee, ain't you 'fraid?"

"No!" with scorn.

"Ain't you 'fraid when it thunders?"

"No," with laughter. "Oh, you silly, silly child!"

"Papa," said Evelyn, solemnly, "ain't you 'fraid of nothing in the world but mama?"

Afraid to breathe, almost, the returned reveller crept quietly into his bedchamber as the gray dawn was breaking. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he cautiously undid his boots. But, with all his care, his wife stirred in bed, and he presently was all too well aware of a pair of sleepy eyes regarding him over the edge of the sheet.

"Why, Tom," yawned the little woman, "how early you are this morning!"

"Yes, my dear," replied Tom, stifling a groan, "I've got to go to Montreal for the firm today."

And replacing his footgear the wretched man dragged his aching limbs out again into the cold and heartless streets.

A philanthropic New York woman was entertaining, in the spacious grounds of her suburban residence, a large number of East-Side children. On her rounds of hospitality she was impressed with one strikingly beautiful little girl. She could not have been more than nine years old, but her coal-black eyes flashed with intelligence. The hostess introduced herself and began a conversation.

"Does what you see here today please you?" she asked. The child eyed her host in silence.

"Talk away," said the lady. "Don't be afraid."

"Tell me," then said the child, "how many children have you got?"

Astonished at the question, the lady hesitated for a moment, and then entered into the fun of the situation.

"Ten," she replied.

"Dear me," answered the child, "that is a very large family, I hope you are careful and look after them. Do you keep them all clean?"

"Well, I do my best."

"And is your husband at work?"

"My husband does not do any kind of work. He never has."

"That is very dreadful," replied the little girl earnestly, "but I hope you keep out of debt."

The game had gone too far for Lady Bountiful's enjoyment of it.

"You are a very rude and impertinent child," she burst out, "to speak like that, and to me."

The child became apologetic. "I'm sure I didn't mean to be, ma'am," she explained. "But mother told me before I came that I was to be sure to speak to you like a lady, and when any ladies call on us, they always ask us those questions."

A gentleman who had married his cook was giving a dinner party and between the courses the good lady sat with her hands spread on the tablecloth.

Suddenly the burr of conversation ceased and in the silence that followed a young man on the right of his hostess said, pleasantly:

"Awful pause!"

"Yes, they may be," said the old-time cook, with heightened color; "and yours would be like them if you had done half my work."

His relatives telephoned to the nearest florist's. The ribbon must be extra wide, with "Rest in Peace" on both sides, and if there was room, "We Shall Meet in Heaven."

The florist was away and his new assistant handled the job. There was a sensation when the flowers turned up at the funeral. The ribbon was extra wide, indeed, and on it was the inscription:

"Rest in peace on both sides, and, if there is room, we shall meet in heaven."

See also Bluffing.

An Employer's Dream

EMPLOYER (to clerk)—"If that bore, Smithers, comes in, tell him I'm out—and don't be working or he'll know you're lying."

The Ten Commandments
(By A Wise Employer)

—The Rotarian.

One of the bosses at Baldwin's Locomotive Works had to lay off an argumentative Irishman named Pat, so he saved discussion by putting the discharge in writing. The next day Pat was missing, but a week later the boss was passing through the shop and he saw him again at his lathe. Then, the following colloquy occurred:

"Didn't you get my letter?"

"Yis, sur, Oi did," said Pat.

"Did you read it?"

"Sure, sur, Oi read it inside and Oi read it outside," said Pat, "and on the inside yez said I was fired and on the outside yez said: 'Return to Baldwin Locomotive Works in five days.'"

"Well, George," said the president of the company to old George, "how goes it?"

"Fair to middlin', sir," George answered. And he continued to currycomb a bay horse.

"Me an' this here boss," George said, suddenly, "has worked for your firm sixteen year."

"Well, well," said the president, thinking a little guiltily of George's salary. "And I suppose you are both pretty highly valued, George, eh?"

"H'm," said George, "the both of us was took sick last week, and they got a doctor for the hoss, but they just docked my pay."

A plumber and a painter were working in the same house. The painter arrived late and the plumber said to him, "You're late this morning."

"Yes," said the painter, "I had to stop and have my hair cut."

"You didn't do it on your employer's time, did you?" said the plumber.

"Sure, I did," said the painter; "It grew on his time."

POSSIBLE EMPLOYER—"H'm! so you want a job, eh? Do you ever tell lies?"

APPLICANT—"No, sir, but I kin learn."

A man named Dodgin was recently appointed foreman at the gas works, but his name was not known to all the employees. One day while on his rounds he came across two men sitting in a corner, smoking, and stopped near them.

"Who are you?" said one of the men.

"I'm Dodgin, the new foreman," he replied.

"So are we," replied the other workers, "sit down and have a smoke."

Speak well of your enemies. Remember you made them.

By way of enlarging the children's vocabulary, our village school-teacher is in the habit of giving them a certain word and asking them to form a sentence in which that word occurs. The other day she gave the class the word "notwithstanding." There was a pause, and then a bright-faced youngster held up his hand.

"Well, what is your sentence, Tommy?" asked the teacher.

"Father wore his trousers out, but notwithstanding."

TILDA—"Pass the 'lasses."

LIZZIE (who has attended school)—"Don't say ''lasses.' Say molasses."

TILDA—"How come I say mo' 'lasses when I ain't had none yet?"

"Now, boys," said the schoolmaster, "I want you to bear in mind that the word 'stan' at the end of a word means 'the place of.' Thus we have Afghanistan—the place of the Afghans; also Hindustan—the place of the Hindus. Can any one give me another example?"

Nobody appeared very anxious to do so, until little Johnny Snaggs, the joy of his mother and the terror of the cats, said proudly—

"Yes, sir, I can. Umbrellastan—the place for umbrellas."

He went into a shop to buy a comb. He was a man careful of other people's grammar, and believed himself to be careful of his own.

"Do you want a narrow man's comb?" asked the assistant.

"No," answered the careful grammarian, "I want a comb for a stout man with tortoiseshell teeth."

TEACHER—"Thomas, will you tell me what a conjunction is, and compose a sentence containing one?"

THOMAS (after reflection)—"A conjunction is a word connecting anything, such as 'The horse is hitched to the fence by his halter.' 'Halter' is a conjunction, because it connects the horse and the fence."

A young man poured out a long story of adventure to a Boston girl. Surprised, she asked:

"Did you really do that?"

"I done it," answered the proud young man. He began another narrative, more startling than the first.

When she again expressed her surprise, he said, with inflated chest, "I done it."

"Do you know," remarked the girl, "you remind me strongly of Banquo's Ghost?"

"Why?"

"Don't you remember that Macbeth said to him, 'Thou canst not say, "I did it"'?" and the young man wondered why everybody laughed.

An English professor, traveling through the hills, noted various quaint expressions. For instance, after a long ride the professor sought provisions at a mountain hut.

"What d' yo'-all want?" called out a woman.

"Madam," said the professor, "can we get corn bread here? We'd like to buy some of you."

"Corn bread? Corn bread, did yo' say?" Then she chuckled to herself, and her manner grew amiable. "Why, if corn bread's all yo' want, come right in, for that's just what I hain't got nothing else on hand but."

Charles B. Towns, the antidrug champion, spent some time in China several years ago with Samuel Merwin, the writer. In a Hongkong shop-window they noticed some Chinese house-coats of particularly striking designs and stepped in to purchase one. Mr. Towns asked Mr. Merwin to do the bargaining.

"Wantum coatee," said Mr. Merwin to the sleepy-eyed Oriental who shuffled up with a grunt. He placed several of the coats before them.

"How muchee Melican monee?" inquired Mr. Merwin.

"It would aid me in transacting this sale," said the Chinaman, "if you would confine your language to your mother tongue. The coat is seven dollars."

Mr. Merwin took it.

Grace's uncle met her on the street one spring day and asked her whether she was going out with a picnic party from her school.

"No," replied his eight-year-old niece, "I ain't going."

"My dear," said the uncle, "you must not say, 'I ain't going.' You must say, 'I am not going.'" And he proceeded to give her a little lesson in grammar: "'You are not going. He is not going. We are not going. You are not going. They are not going.' Now, can you say all that?"

"Sure I can," responded Grace quite heartily. "There ain't nobody going."—Harper's.

"What is the plural of man, Willie?" asked the teacher of a small pupil.

"Men," answered Willie.

"And, the plural of child?"

"Twins," was the unexpected reply.

A colored woman one day visited the court-house in a Tennessee town and said to the judge:

"Is you-all the reperbate judge?"

"I am the judge of probate, mammy."

"I'se come to you-all 'cause I'se in trubble. Mah man—he's done died detested and I'se got t'ree little infidels so I'se cum to be appointed der execootioner."

At a dinner in New York an Englishman heard for the first time and, probably after due explanation, was much amused by that "toasted" chestnut:

"Here's to the happiest hours of my life,

"Spent in the arms of another man's wife:

"My mother."

Shortly after his return to England he was present at a banquet, and thought he would get off the New York toast he had considered so clever. At the proper time he rose and said:

"Here's to the happiest hours of my life,

"Spent in the arms of another man's wife:

"Spent in the arms of another man's wife—

"Another man's wife. Excuse me, I really cawn't recall the lady's name, but it doesn't matter."

A Soldier of color, recently "over there," had proposed to, and been accepted by his dusky sweetheart. During the marriage ceremony he showed such signs of nervousness that the minister, noticing it, whispered to him, in a voice which could have been heard half a mile:

"What's de mattah wif you Rastus, is yo dun los' yo' ring or sumpin?"

"N-no sah, Mr. Preacher," answered the ex-hero, "but I sho nuff dun los' mah 'thusiasm."

If a man lacks enthusiasm it takes him twice as long to accomplish a task.

A man who allows himself to be carried away with enthusiasm often has to walk back.

An epigram is a twinkle in the eye of Truth.

Many a woman is blamed for making a fool of a man when he is really self-made.

Some men are like rusty needles; the best way to clean and brighten them is with work.

When one reaches the end of his rope, he should tie a knot in it and hang on.

Mrs. Whann, the weeping widow of a well-known man, requested that the words "My sorrow is greater than I can bear" be placed upon the marble slab of her dear departed.

A few months later the lady returned and asked how much it would cost her to have the inscription effaced and another substituted.

"No need of that, marm," replied the man, soothingly; "you see, I left jes' enough room to add 'alone.'"

THE TOMBSTONE MAN (after several abortive suggestions)—"How would simply, 'Gone Home' do?"

MRS. NEWWEEDS—"I guess that would be all right. It was always the last place he ever thought of going."—Puck.

"Did you hear about the defacement of Mr. Skinner's tombstone?" asked Mr. Brown a few days after the funeral of that eminent captain of industry.

"No, what was it?" inquired his neighbor curiously.

"Someone added the word 'friends' to the epitaph."

"What was the epitaph?"

"He did his best."

In a mood for companionship with none at hand, a New Yorker was making her way through a quiet down town cross street to an East Side subway. As she approached a team of horses standing by the curb, the nearer of the pair looked her straight in the eye man-to-man like. No driver being in sight she took from her pocket some lumps of sugar (reserved as a tip for the ice-horse) and fed and fondled and talked foolishly to her friend of the curb. Looking up before turning to the second horse, she was confused and startled to find a brisk young driver, reins in hand, looking ready to tear up the pavements in a mad rush to Jersey or somewhere. She hurried off to escape his wrath at being delayed. The angry words flung after her were: "The other one ain't no stepchild."

And the horses galloped off equally sugared.

"Frances," said the little girl's mamma, who was entertaining callers in the parlor, "you came downstairs so noisily that you could be heard all over the house. Now go back and come down stairs like a lady."

Frances retired and after a few moments re-entered the parlor.

"Did you hear me come downstairs this time, mamma?"

"No dear; I am glad you came down quietly. Now, don't ever let me have to tell you again not to come down noisily. Now tell these ladies how you managed to come down like a lady the second time, when the first time you made so much noise."

"The last time I slid down the banisters," explained Frances.

Unseen, Unheard

TEACHER—"What does a well-bred child do when a visitor calls to see her mother?"

CHILD—"Me—I go play in the street."

HOSTESS (at party)—"Does your mother allow you to have two pieces of pie when you are at home, Willie?"

WILLIE (who has asked for a second piece)—"No, ma'am."

"Well, do you think she'd like you to have two pieces here?"

"Oh," confidentially, "she wouldn't care. This isn't her pie!"

"I can't understand this code of ethics."

"What code is that?"

"The one which makes it all right to take a man's last dollar, but a breach of etiquette to take his last cigaret."

Tom Johnson claims that the oldest joke is the one about the Irish soldier who saw a shell coming and made a low bow. The shell missed him and took off the head of the man behind him. "Sure," said Pat, "ye never knew a man to lose anything by being polite."

War is evidently a losing game when it takes a country forty-two years to pay for what she destroyed in a little more than four.

A dusky doughboy, burdened under tons of medals and miles and miles of ribbons, service and wound chevrons, stars et al., encountered a 27th Division scrapper in Le Mans a few days prior to the division's departure for the States.

"Whar yo' all ben scrappin' in dis yar war, boss?" meekly inquired the colored soldier.

"Why, we've been fighting up in Belgium and Flanders with the British," replied the New Yorker, proudly.

"Well, we ben down in dem woods—watcha call 'em woods 'way down south."

"The Argonne?" suggested young Knickerbocker.

"Yas, yas, dem's de woods—d'Argonne."

"You know our division was the first to break the Hindenburg line, colored boy," explained the 27th man.

"Was it you wot did dat trick? Y' know boss, we felt dat ol' line sag 'way down in d'Argonne."

WILLIS—"Did the war do anything for you?"

GILLIS—"Sure did. It taught me to save peach-stones, tin-foil, newspapers and all kinds of junk. In fact, I can now save anything except money."

Just before the St. Mihiel show the Germans blew up an ammunition dump near a company of Yanks. It was reported that there was a large quantity of gas shells in the dump, and as soon as the explosions began the Americans immediately made themselves scarce with great rapidity.

When the danger had passed all started drifting back with the exception of one man who did not appear till the next day.

"Well, where you been?" demanded the top kick, eyeing him coldly.

"Sergeant," replied the other earnestly, "I don't know where I been, but I give you my word I been all day gettin' back."

"Who won the war?" asked the bright young goof behind the soda-counter.

"Huh," ejaculated the ex-sergeant gruffly as he dug up the war-tax, "I think we bought it."

A librarian confides to us that she was visited by a young lady who wished to see a large map of France. She was writing a paper on the battle-fields of France for a culture club, and she just couldn't find Flanders Fields and No Man's Land on any of the maps in her books.

The trouble with the peace table is that the Allies want it à la carte, and Wilson wants it American plan—table d'hôte.

See also Exaggeration; Heroes; Soldiers; War.

An attorney was defending a man charged by his wife with desertion. For a time it looked as tho it were a cinch for the prosecution, but at the psychological moment the attorney called the defendant to the stand. "Take off that bandage," he cried, and the man did it, exposing a black eye. "Your honor," said the attorney, "our defense is that this man is not a deserter. He's a refugee."

The London police-sergeant raised his eyes from the blotter as two policemen propelled the resisting victim before him.

"A German spy, sir!" gasped the first bobby.

"I'm an American, and can prove it," denied the victim.

"That's what he says, but here's the evidence," interrupted the second bobby, triumphantly producing a bulky hotel-register from beneath his arm, and pointing to an entry.

"V. Gates," written in a flowing hand, was the record that met the astonished sergeant's gaze.

It happened in the court-room during the trial of a husky young man who was charged with assault and battery. Throughout an especially severe cross-examination the defendant stoutly maintained that he had merely pushed the plaintiff "a little bit."

"Well, about how hard?" queried the prosecutor.

"Oh, just a little bit," responded the defendant.

"Now," said the attorney, "for the benefit of the judge and the jury, you will please step down here and, with me for the subject, illustrate just how hard you mean."

Owing to the unmerciful badgering which the witness had just been through, the prosecutor thought that the young man would perhaps overdo the matter to get back at him, and thus incriminate himself.

The defendant descended as per schedule, and approached the waiting attorney. When he reached him the spectators were astonished to see him slap the lawyer in the face, kick him in the shins, seize him bodily, and, finally, with a supreme effort, lift him from the floor and hurl him prostrate across a table.

Turning from the bewildered prosecutor, he faced the court and explained mildly:

"Your honor and gentlemen, about one-tenth that hard!"

An aged negro was crossing-tender at a spot where an express train made quick work of a buggy and its occupants. Naturally he was the chief witness, and the entire case hinged upon the energy with which he had displayed his warning signal.

A gruelling cross-examination left Rastus unshaken in this story: The night was dark, and he had waved his lantern frantically, but the driver of the carriage paid no attention to it.

Later, the division superintendent called the flagman to his office to compliment him on the steadfastness with which he stuck to his story.

"You did wonderfully, Rastus," he said. "I was afraid at first you might waver in your testimony."

"Nossir, nossir," Rastus exclaimed, "but I done feared ev'ry minute that 'ere durn lawyer was gwine ter ask me if mah lantern was lit."—Puck.

During a suit to recover damages following an automobile collision in the Adirondacks, the complainant's attorney, a city lawyer, constantly hectored the defendant's principal witness, a rough old guide, but was unable to shake his testimony.

During cross-examination the guide mentioned "havin' come across the trail of a Ford." The city lawyer jumped at this chance to discredit the guide's evidence.

"Do you mean to tell this court," he demanded, "that you can determine the make of a car by studying its track? How did you know it was a Ford?"

"Well, sir," drawled the guide, "I followed its trail about a hundred yards and found a Ford at the end of it."

The magistrate looked severely at the small, red-faced man who had been summoned before him, and who returned his gaze without flinching.

"So you kicked your landlord downstairs?" queried the magistrate. "Did you imagine that was within the right of a tenant?"

"I'll bring my lease in and show it to you," said the little man, growing redder, "and I'll wager you'll agree with me that anything they've forgotten to prohibit in that lease I had a right to do the very first chance I got."

"As a matter of fact," said the lawyer for the defendant, trying to be sarcastic, "you were scared half to death, and don't know whether it was a motor-car or something resembling a motor-car that hit you."

"It resembled one all right," the plaintiff made answer. "I was forcibly struck by the resemblance."

A religious worker was visiting a Southern penitentiary, when one prisoner in some way took his fancy. This prisoner was a negro, who evinced a religious fervour as deep as it was gratifying to the caller.

"Of what were you accused?" the prisoner was asked.

"Dey says I took a watch," answered the negro. "I made a good fight. I had a dandy lawyer, an' he done prove an alibi wif ten witnesses. Den my lawyer he shore made a strong speech to de jury. But it wa'n't no use, sah; I gets ten years."

"I don't see why you were not acquitted," said the religious worker.

"Well, sah," explained the prisoner, "dere was shore one weak spot 'bout my defence—dey found de watch in my pocket."

Some time ago an elderly gentleman walking along the street saw a little girl crying bitterly. Instantly his heart softened and he stopped to soothe her.

"What is the matter, little girl," he kindly asked; "are you hurt?"

"No, sir," responded the child as her sobbing increased in volume, "I lost my nickel!"

"There! There!" gently returned the kind-hearted citizen, digging into his pocket. "Don't cry any more. Here is your nickel."

"Why, you wicked man!" exclaimed the little girl, seizing the coin and glaring at the donor with flashing eyes. "You had it all the time!"

GRAMERCY—"Why don't you have your old car repainted?"

PARK—"Wouldn't think of such a thing. It's been stolen a dozen times and has the finest collection of fingerprints you ever saw."

A witness in a railroad case at Fort Worth, asked to tell in his own way how the accident happened, said:

"Well, Ole and I was walking down the track, and I heard a whistle, and I got off the track, and the train went by, and I got back on the track, and I didn't see Ole; but I walked along, and pretty soon I seen Ole's hat, and I walked on, and seen one of Ole's legs, and then I seen one of Ole's arms, and then another leg, and then over one side Ole's head, and I says, 'My God! Something muster happen to Ole!'"

Facts are stubborn things.—Smollett.

See also Witnesses.

A War Lexicon

In a letter to the editor of the New York Sun an anonymous writer gives the following important interpretations of various phrases of "Desperanto," or the language indulged in by frantic telegraph editors on American newspapers:

A man with a look of business on his face came to a hotel-keeper, and asked him if he would buy two carloads of frogs' legs.

"Two carloads!" said the man in amazement. "Why, I could not use them in twenty years!"

"Well, will you buy a carload?"

"No."

"Twenty or thirty bushels?"

"No."

"Twenty or thirty dozens?"

"No."

"Two dozen?"

"Yes."

A few days later the man returned with three pairs of legs. "Is that all?" asked the landlord.

"Yes; the fact is that I live near a pond, and the frogs made so much noise that I thought there were millions of them. But I dragged the pond with a seine, drained it and raked it, and there were only three frogs in the whole place."—Life.

A certain young society man was much given to telling exaggerated stories and was rapidly gaining a reputation for untruthfulness which worried his friends and particularly his chum, who remonstrated with him and threatened to disown him if he did not mend his ways.

"Charlie," said he, "you must stop this big story business of yours or you are going to lose me as a friend. Nobody believes a word you say, and you are getting to be a laughing-stock."

Charlie admitted that he was aware of the fact but complained that he could not overcome his fault, try as he would. He suggested that had he but somebody beside him when he started to elaborate upon his tale, to tread on his foot, he was sure he could break the habit.

A few days later they were invited to a dinner party and his chum agreed to sit next to Charlie and step on his toe if he went too far. All went well until the subject of travel was brought up. One of the company told of an immense building that he had seen when on a trip up the Nile. This started Charlie, who at once began to describe a remarkable building he had seen while on a hunting trip on the northern border of India.

"It was one of the most remarkable buildings, I presume, in the world," said he. "Its dimensions we found to be three miles in length, two miles in height, and"—as his watchful friend trod on his toe—"two feet wide."

The old sea captain was smoking comfortably by his fireside when Jack, his sailor son, burst in upon him.

"Weather too rough," explained the son, "so we've put in for the day."

"Too rough!" exclaimed Mr. Tar, with visions of his own days at sea. "Why, sir, I was once sailing round the Cape when a storm came on, and it blew down the main-mast and the mizzen-mast was swept away, but we didn't even think of putting in."

"Well, you see," exclaimed the son, "this storm was so bad that it blew the anchors off the captain's buttons, took the paint off the ship's bows and—"

"Stop!" cried the old man. "You do me credit, Jack—you do me credit!"

PROF—"A fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer."

STUDE—"No wonder so many of us flunk in our exams!"

In a Canadian camp somewhere in England a second George Washington has been found. He, in company with several others, had been granted four days' leave, and, as usual, wired for extension. But no hackneyed excuse was his. In fact, it was so original that it has been framed and now hangs in a prominent spot in the battalion orderly-room. It ran as follows:

"Nobody dead, nobody ill; still going strong, having a good time, and got plenty of money. Please grant extension."

And he got it!

FIRST OFFICER—"Did you get that fellow's number?"

SECOND OFFICER—"No; he was going too fast."

FIRST OFFICER—"Say, that was a fine-looking dame in the car."

SECOND OFFICER—"Wasn't she?"—Puck.

TED—"Pity the rain spoiled the game today."

NED—"But you got a check didn't you?"

TED—"Yes, but to get off I had to use up the best excuse I ever had in my life."—Judge.

Johnny B——, who has seen eight summers go by, not very long ago developed a fondness for playing hooky from school. After two or three offenses of this kind he was taken to task by his teacher.

"Johnny," she said, "the next time you are absent I want you to bring me an excuse from your father telling me why you were not here."

"I don't want to bring an excuse from my father," protested the boy.

"Why not?" asked the teacher, her suspicion plain.

"'Cause father isn't any good at making excuses."

In his Savannah camp Bill Donovan, baseball manager, had a dusky-hued waiter at the hotel by the name of Sutton. Bill had to reproach Sutton more than once for a lack of agility in arriving with the food. Sutton promised to improve. One morning he brought in a consignment of griddle-cakes that had gone cold.

"What do you mean," said Bill, "by bringing me in cold cakes?"

"Well, I'll tell you, boss," said Sutton. "I brung them cakes in so fast that I guess they hit a draft."

A country school-master had two pupils, to one of whom he was partial, and to the other severe. One morning it happened that these two boys were late, and were called up to account for it.

"You must have heard the bell, boys; why did you not come?"

"Please, sir," said the favorite, "I was dreaming that I was going to Margate, and I thought the school-bell was the steam-boat-bell."

"Very well," said the master, glad of any pretext to excuse his favorite. "And now, sir," turning to the other, "What have you to say?"

"Please, sir," said the puzzled boy, "I—I—was waiting to see Tom off!"

"Waiter, bring me two fried eggs, some ham, a cup of coffee, and a roll," said the first "commercial."

"Bring me the same," said his friend, "but eliminate the eggs."

"Yessir."

In a moment the waiter came back, leaned confidentially and penitently over the table, and whispered:

"We 'ad a bad accident just before we opened this mornin', sir, and the 'andle of the 'liminator got busted off. Will you take yer heggs fried, same as this 'ere gentleman?"

Executive ability has been variously defined, but the following from an executive with a sense of humor seems to cover the whole subject. He said: "Executive ability is the ability to hire someone to do work for which you will get the credit, and, if there is a slip-up, having someone at whose door to lay the blame."

Qualifications for an Executive

To do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way. To do some things better than they were done before. To eliminate errors. To know both sides of a question. To be courteous. To set an example. To work for the love of work. To anticipate requirements. To develop resources. To master circumstances. To act from reason rather than from rule. To be satisfied with nothing short of perfection.—H. Gordon Selfridge.

A story is told about a citizen whose daughter is about to be married, and who has been trying to get a line on what the expense of the rather elaborate ceremony will be. He approached a friend of his, seeking information.

"Morris," he said, "your oldest daughter was married about five years ago, wasn't she? Would you mind telling me about how much the wedding cost you?"

"Not at all, Sam," was the answer. "Altogether, about five thousand dollars a year."

Here is a story of the late Lord Haversham's schooldays. Glancing through his pocket book his mother saw a number of entries of small sums, ranging from 2s. 6d. to 5s., against which were the letters "P.G." Thinking this must mean the Propagation of the Gospel, she asked her son why he did not give a lump sum and a larger amount to so deserving a cause.

"That is not for the Propagation of the Gospel," he replied. "When I cannot remember exactly on what I spend the money I put 'P.G.,' which means 'Probably grub.'"

"Don't you find it hard these times to meet expenses?"

"Hard? Man alive! I meet expenses at every turn."

"Did you ever realize anything on that investment?"

"Oh, yes."

"What did you realize on it?"

"What a fool I had been."

It is as easy to buy experience as it is difficult to sell it.

"Have you ever had any experience in handling high-class ware?" asked a dealer in bric-à-brac of an applicant for work.

"No, sir," was the reply, "but I think I can do it."

"Suppose," said the dealer, "you accidentally broke a very valuable porcelain vase, what would you do?"

"I should put it carefully together," replied the man, "and set it where a wealthy customer would be sure to knock it over again."

"Consider yourself engaged," said the dealer. "Now, tell me where you learned that trick of the trade."

"A few years ago," answered the other, "I was one of the 'wealthy-customer' class."

Experience is a dead loss if you can't sell it for more than it cost.

Experience converts us to ourselves when books fail us.—A. Bronson Alcott.

"What made you a multi-millionaire?"

"My wife."

"Ah, her tactful help—"

"Nothing like that. I was simply curious to know if there was any income she couldn't live beyond."

BROWN—"Back to town again? I thought you were a farmer."

GREEN—"You made the same mistake I did."—Judge.

There are people who fail because they are afraid to make a beginning. Who are too honest to steal, but will borrow and never pay back. Who go to bed tired because they spend the day in looking for an easy place. Who can play a tune on one string, but it never makes anybody want to dance. Who would like to reform the world, but have a front gate that won't stay shut. Who cannot tell what they think about anything until they see what the papers have to say about it.

A first failure is often a blessing.—A. L. Brown.

To fail at all is to fail utterly.—Lowell.

He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.—Whately.

After an absence of four years a certain man went back to visit his old home town. The first four people he met didn't remember him and the next three didn't know he had been away.

"That antagonist of yours says he is going to leave footprints in the sands of time."

"He won't," replied Senator Sorghum. "His mind is in the clouds. He is an intellectual aviator. When he comes down he will leave a dent, not a footprint."

For what is fame, but the benignant strength of one, transformed to joy of many?—George Eliot.

Fame is the fragrance of heroic deeds.—Longfellow.

A Kansas man is reported to be the father of thirty-two children. It is not known whether he will apply for admission to the League of Nations or just let America represent him for the present.—Punch (London).

A census-taker was working in lower New York on the East Side, and came to a tenement that was literally crowded with children. To the woman who was bending over the washtub he said:

"Madam, I am the census-taker; how many children have you?"

"Well, lemme see," replied the woman, as she straightened up and wiped her hands on her apron. "There's Mary and Ellen and Delia and Susie and Emma and Tommy and Albert and Eddie and Charlie and Frank and—"

"Madam," interrupted the census man, "if you could just give me the number—"

"Number!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "I want you to understand that we ain't got to numberin' 'em yet. We ain't run out o' names!"

The census man when taking the census in a certain Canadian town asked of the head of the family the usual questions, one being, "How many children have you?"

The man answered, "Oh, I don't know, ten, twelve, fourteen or so. I know a barrel of flour lasts pretty damn quick."

See also Bluffing.

"It used to be said that anybody could farm—that about all that was required was a strong back and a weak mind," mused the gaunt Missourian. "But now'-days, to be a successful farmer a feller must have a good head and a wide education in order to understand the advice ladled out to him from all sides by city men and to select for use that which will do him the least damage."

PROFESSOR AT AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL—"What kinds of farming are there?"

NEW STUDENT—"Extensive, intensive, and pretensive."

They were having an argument as to whether it was correct to say of a hen she is "setting" or "sitting," and, not being able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, they decided to submit the problem to Farmer Giles.

"My friends," said he, "that don't interest me at all. What I wants to know when I hear a hen cackle is whether she be laying or lying."

"How many head o' live stock you got on the place?"

"Live stock?" echoed the somewhat puzzled farmer. "What d' ye mean by live stock? I got four steam-tractors and seven automobiles."—Judge.

The city youth secured a job with Farmer Jones. The morning after his arrival, promptly at 4 o'clock, the farmer rapped on his door and told him to get up. The youth protested.

"What for?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Why, we're going to cut oats," replied the farmer.

"Are they wild oats," queried the youth, "that you've got to sneak up on 'em in the dark?"

"Aren't you afraid America will become isolated?"

"Not if us farmers keep raisin' things the world needs," answered Farmer Corntossel, "The feller that rings the dinner-bell never runs much risk of bein' lonesome."

"How'd that city hired man of yours pan out?"

"Well, he started in Monday morning plowing corn. At 10 o'clock he struck for a helper to lift the gangs out at the ends, and I sent the kid out to do that. At noon he struck for two pieces of strawberry shortcake instead of one, so I gave him my piece. At 1:15 he struck for a sunshade on the corn plow. I says, 'Young man, this job is just like a baseball game. Three strikes and you're out, Good-bye.'"

A rather patronizing individual from town was observing with considerable interest the operations of a farmer with whom he had put up for a while.

As he watched the old man sow the seed in his field the man from the city called out facetiously:

"Well done, old chap. You sow; I reap the fruits."

Whereupon the farmer grinned and replied:

"Maybe you will. I am sowing hemp."

See also Failures.

"Isn't your wife dogmatic?"

"She was when Pomeranian pups were the style, but now she's auto-matic."

The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.—Shakespeare.

"Women have queer ways."

"How now?"

"The styles call for mannish hats. So my wife bought a mannish hat for eighteen dollars."

"Well?"

"She could have bought a man's hat for four dollars."

Women's fashions seem to be working around to the point where the voice with the smile will have to be listed among the latest spring styles.

The intrepid general was rallying her wavering female troops.

"Women," she cried, "will you give way to mannish fears?"

A muffled murmur of indecision ran through the ranks.

"Shall it be said we are clothed in male armor?" shrieked the general.

The murmur became a mumble.

"Will you," fiercely demanded the general, "show the white feather in a season when feathers are not worn?"

The effect was electrical.

"Never!" roared the soldiers. And, forming into battle array, they once more hurled themselves upon the enemy.

"You criticize us," said the Chinese visitor, "yet I see all your women have their feet bandaged."

"That is an epidemic," it was explained to him, gently, "which broke out in 1914. Those are called spats."

Little Tommy at the "movies" saw a tribe of Indians painting their faces, and asked his mother the significance of this.

"Indians," his mother answered, "always paint their faces before going on the war-path—before scalping and tomahawking and murdering."

The next evening after dinner, as the mother entertained in the parlor her daughter's young man, Tommy rushed downstairs, wide-eyed with fright.

"Come on, mother!" he cried. "Let's get out of this quick! Sister is going on the war-path!"

Mrs. Will Irwin said at a Washington Square tea:

"The more immodest fashions would disappear if men would resolutely oppose them.

"I know a woman whose dressmaker sent home the other day a skirt that was, really, too short altogether. The woman put it on. It was becoming enough, dear knows, but it made her feel ashamed. She entered the library, and her husband looked up from his work with a dark frown.

"'I wonder,' she said, with an embarrassed laugh, 'if these ultra-short skirts will ever go out?'

"'They'll never go out with me,' he answered in decided tones."

Those reform preachers who designed the moral gown for women did a good job. Now to design a woman who will wear it.

FAIR CUSTOMER (to salesman displaying modern bathing suit)—"And you're sure this bathing suit won't shrink?"

SALESMAN—"No, miss; it has nowhere to shrink to."

POLICEMAN—"Lost yer mammy, 'ave yer? Why didn't yer keep hold of her skirt?"

LITTLE ALFRED—"I cou—cou—couldn't reach it."

When ladies wore their dresses very low and very short, a wit observed that "they began too late and ended too soon."

FAIR CUSTOMER—"I'd like to try on that one over there."

SALESMAN—"I'm sorry, madam, but that is the lampshade."

The Fifth Avenue Bus having stopped, the lady at the top of the stairs was slow in descending. "Come on down, lady," said the conductor in a bored tone, "legs ain't no treat to me."

"Dad," said a Bartlesville, Okla., kid to his father the other night, "I want to go to the show tonight."

"A show at night is no place for a kid like you. You should be at home in bed."

"But I peddled bills and have two tickets," said the kid, as he began to sniffle.

"All right then," answered dad. "I will go with you to see that you don't get into trouble."

Johnnie Jones was doing penance in the corner. Presently he thought aloud pensively:

"I can't help it if I am not perfect," he sighed. "I have only heard of one perfect boy in my whole life."

"Who was that?" his father asked, thinking to point out a moral.

"You," came the reply, plaintively, "when you were little."

"Now, there's some talk of a Father's Day."

"Oh, father doesn't want a day. Give him a night off."

"I was never so tired in my life. I've had a perfectly awful day. But I got Father home safely, and that's something. It was his annual day to be a boy again, to be a regular pal to me, as he likes to express it. So I have been out in the woods with him.

"I inferred from his remarks when he invited me to go that he intended to win my confidence and help me in my troubles. But by noon he had broken his glasses, worn blisters on both heels, scraped his shins, lost his new fishing reel, sunk a rowboat, scalded his mouth, burned his bald spot in the sun and torn the seat out of his trousers, so I think he must have postponed whatever he had to say of an intimate nature.

"If writers and lecturers only knew the suffering they bring to impressionable parents by goading them into trying to be their boys' chums they certainly would cease their efforts out of sheer pity."

"Everybody has his faults," said Uncle Eben. "De principal difference in folks is whether dey's sorry for 'em or proud of 'em."

It is so easy to find fault that self-respecting persons ought to be ashamed to waste their energies in that way.

It only takes a few minutes to find in others the faults we can't discover in ourselves in a lifetime.

A widely known Highland drover sold a horse to an Englishman.

A few days afterward the buyer returned to him.

"You said that horse had no faults."

"Well, no mair had he."

"He's nearly blind!" said the indignant Englishman.

"Why, mon, that's no' his fau't—that's his misfortune."

See Tips.

The husband was seeing his beloved wife off for a holiday. "Maggie, dear," he said, "hadn't you better take some fiction with you to while away the time?"

"Oh, no, George," she said, "you'll be sending me some letters."

"Brudder Perkins, yo' been fightin', I heah," said the colored minister.

"Yaas, Ah wuz."

"Doan yo' 'membeh whut de good book sez 'bout turnin' de odder cheek?"

"Yaas, pahson, but he hit me on mah nose, an' I'se only got one."

"Why do you look so sorrowful, Dennis?" asked one man of another.

"I just hear-r-d wan man call another man a liar, and the man that was called a liar said the other man would have to apologize, or there would be a fight."

"And why should that make you so sad?"

"The other man apologized."

"Johnny, it was very wrong for you and the boy next door to fight."

"We couldn't help it, father."

"Could you not have settled your differences by a peaceful discussion of the matter, calling in the assistance of unprejudiced opinion, if need be?"

"No, father. He was sure he could whip me and I was sure I could whip him, and there was only one way to find out."

"So you've been fighting again! Didn't you stop and spell your names, as I told you?"

"Y-yes; we did—but my name's Algernon Percival, an' his is Jim!"—Judge.

"Dad," said little Reginald, "what is a bucket-shop?"

"A bucket-shop, my son," said the father, feelingly, "a bucket-shop is a modern cooperage establishment to which a man takes a barrel and brings back the bung-hole."—Puck.

"Dad," said the financier's son, running into his father's office, "lend me six hundred."

"What for, my boy?"

"I've got a sure tip on the market."

"How much shall we make out of it?" asked the old man cautiously.

"A couple of hundred sure," replied the boy eagerly. "That's a hundred each."

"Here's your hundred," said his father. "Let's consider that we have made this deal and that it has succeeded. You make a hundred dollars and I save five hundred."

Higher Authority

"Mr. Brown is outside," said the new office-boy. "Shall I show him in?".

"Not on your life!" exclaimed the junior partner. "I owe him ten dollars."

"Show him in," calmly said the senior member of the firm. "He owes me twenty-five."

BUSINESS MAN (explaining)—"When they say 'money is easy,' they mean simply that the supply is greater than the demand."

HIS WIFE—"Goodness! I shouldn't think such a thing possible."

SMITHSON—"Do you know that Noah was the greatest financier that ever lived?"

DIBBS—"How do you make that out?"

SMITHSON—"Well, he was able to float a company when the whole world was in liquidation."

"This car cost me thirty-five hundred dollars, Blathers, but I'll let you have it for two thousand, eh? It's a clean gift of fifteen hundred," said Bolivar. "Eh, what do you say?"

"No," said Blathers, "I can't do that; but suppose you give me five hundred dollars and keep the car, eh? Clean saving of a thousand, eh? What?"

The present financial situation gives the lie to the old adage that Exchange is no robbery.

The man who had made a huge fortune was speaking a few words to a number of students at a business class. Of course, the main theme of his address was himself.

"All my success in life, all my tremendous financial prestige," he said proudly, "I owe to one thing alone—pluck, pluck, pluck!"

He made an impressive pause here but the effect was ruined by one student, who asked impressively:

"Yes, sir; but how are we to find the right people to pluck?"

A young New Haven man, returning home from a health trip to Colorado, told his father about buying a silver mine for $3,000. "I knew they'd rope you in!" exclaimed the old man. "So you were ass enough to buy a humbug mine."

"Yes, but I didn't lose anything. I formed a company, and sold half the stock to a Connecticut man for $7,000."

"Y-you did," gasped the old man as he turned white, "I'll bet I'm the one who bought it."

"I know you are," coolly observed the young man as he crossed his legs and tried to appear very much at home.

The teacher asked, "Who can tell me what an oyster is?"

A small hand, gesticulating violently, shot up into the air, and a shrill voice called out. "I know; I can tell, teacher!"

"Well, Bobby," said the teacher, "you may tell us what an oyster is."

"An oyster," triumphantly answered Bobby, "is a fish built like a nut!"

"Dinah, did you wash the fish before you baked it?"

"Law, ma'am, what's de use ob washin' er fish what's lived all his life in de water?"

"Ma'am, here's a man at the door with a parcel for you."

"What is it, Bridget?"

"It's a fish, ma'am, and it's marked C.O.D."

"Then make the man take it back to the dealer. I ordered trout."

"I say, Gadsby," said Mr. Smith, as he entered a fishmonger's with a lot of tackle in his hand, "I want you to give me some fish to take home with me. Put them up to look as if they'd been caught today, will you?"

"Certainly, sir. How many?"

"Oh, you'd better give me three or four—mackerel. Make it look decent in quantity without appearing to exaggerate, you know."

"Yes, sir. You'd better take salmon, tho."

"Why? What makes you think so?"

"Oh, nothing, except that your wife was here early this morning and said if you dropped in with your fishing-tackle I was to persuade you to take salmon, if possible, as she liked that kind better than any other."

BELLEVILLE—"Is Glenshaw getting ready for the fishing season?"

BUTLER—"Well, I saw him buying an enlarging device for his camera."

A returned vacationist tells us that he was fishing in a pond one day when a country boy who had been watching him from a distance approached him and asked. "How many fish yer got, mister?"

"None yet," he was told.

"Well, yer ain't doin' so bad," said the youngster. "I know a feller what fished here for two weeks an' he didn't get any more than you got in half an hour."

Jock MacTavish and two English friends went out on the loch on a fishing-trip, and it was agreed that the first man to catch a fish should later stand treat at the inn. As MacTavish was known to be the best fisherman thereabouts, his friends took considerable delight in assuring him that he had as good as lost already.

"An', d'ye ken," said Jock, in speaking of it afterward, "baith o' them had a guid bite, an' wis sae mean they wadna' pu in."

"Then you lost?" asked the listener.

"Oh, no. I didna' pit ony bait on my hook."

UNLUCKY FISHERMAN—"Boy, will you sell that big string of fish you are carrying?"

BOY—"No, but I'll take yer pitcher holdin' it fer fifty cents."—Judge.

Two small boys went fishing and while one of them was having good luck, the other didn't even get a bite. The unlucky lad silently began to make preparation for departure. "Aw, wait a while," urged the other. "You might be lucky if you keep at it."

"There ain't no use," was the disgusted reply, "my darned worm ain't tryin'."

"Some men," said Uncle Eben, "goes fishin' not so much foh de sake of de fish as foh de chance to loaf without bein' noticed."

The man who is not injured by flattery is as hard to find as the one who is improved by criticism.

Flattery is a sort of moral peroxide—it turns many a woman's head.

"Oi hate flattery," said O'Brien the other day. "Flattery makes ye think ye are betther than ye are, an' no man livin' can iver be that."

THE CONVERSATIONALIST (to well-known author)—"I'm so delighted to meet you! It was only the other day I saw something of yours, about something or other, in some magazine."

WILBUR (indicating a couple in the background)—"Funny that such a stunning-looking woman should marry such a dub as that."

FLATTE—"Well, I don't know. No accounting for those things. Now, you take your wife—she's a ripper."—Life.

The admiration which Bob felt for his Aunt Margaret included all her attributes.

"I don't care much for plain teeth like mine, Aunt Margaret," said Bob, one day, after a long silence, during which he had watched her in laughing conversation with his mother. "I wish I had some copper-toed ones like yours."

A gentleman who discovered that he was standing on a lady's train had the presence of mind to remark:

"Tho I may not have the power to draw an angel from the skies, I have pinned one to the earth." The lady excused him.

"Sir," said the angry woman, "I understand you said I had a face that would stop a street-car in the middle of the block."

"Yes, that's what I said," calmly answered the mere man.

"It takes an unusually handsome face to induce a motorman to make a stop like that."

DINER—"See here, where are those oysters I ordered on the half shell?"

WAITER—"Don't get impatient, sah. We're dreffle short on shells; but you're next, sah."

During a particularly nasty dust-storm at one of the camps a recruit ventured to seek shelter in the sacred precincts of the cook's domain.

After a time he broke an awkward silence by saying to the cook:

"If you'd put the lid on that camp-kettle you would not get so much of the dust in your soup."

The irate cook glared at the intruder, and then broke out: "See here, me lad. Your business is to serve your country."

"Yes," interrupted the recruit, "but not to eat it."

It was a small café and the customer overheard this from the waiter:

"Don't throw that toast into the alley, chef. I gotta customer for a club sandwich."

WAITER—"And will you take the macaroni au gratin, sir?"

OFFICER—"No macaroni-by gad! It's too doocid difficult to mobilize."

The second course of the table d'hote was being served.

"What is this leathery stuff?" demanded the diner.

"That, sir, is filet of sole," replied the waiter.

"Take it away," said the diner, "and see if you can't get me a nice, tender piece from the upper part of the boot."

The new boarder sniffed at the contents of his coffee-cup and set it down.

"Well," queried the landlady in a peevish tone, "have you anything to say against the coffee?"

"Not a word," he answered. "I never speak ill of the absent."

An attendant entered carrying a thin red object.

"Did any patient order a postage stamp?"

"Maybe," said one feebly, "that's my mutton chop rare."

"Are caterpillars good to eat?" asked little Tommy at the dinner table.

"No," said his father; "what makes you ask a question like that while we are eating?"

"You had one on your lettuce, but it's gone now," replied Tommy.

"Well, Ezri, how'd jer make out with yer boarders this year?"

"Fine! Best season I ever had. There was seven, all told—three couples in love an' a dyspeptic."—Life.

The boarders were dropping hints as to the kind of dinner they'd like to have on Christmas Day. But the landlady was astute. "What's the difference," she asked the solemn man at the end of the table, "between a turkey dinner and a mess of stewed prunes?"

"I don't know," he answered, suspicious of some entangling conundrum.

"Does nobody know?" she asked, looking round the table.

They all professed ignorance. "In that case," she said, "I may as well serve prunes at Christmas and save money."

"Did you really call this gentleman an old fool last night?" asked the judge.

The prisoner tried hard to collect his thoughts.

"Well, the more I look at him, the more likely it seems that I did," he replied.

A fool must now and then be right by chance.—Cowper.

He explained it clearly to her: "Wise men hesitate, you see. None but fools will say they're certain."

"Are you sure of that?" said she.

"Yes," he answered, "I am certain—certain as can be of that"

Then he wondered just what she was laughing at.

Two Hebrews went in business together in a small town, and one went to New York to buy the goods, while the other stayed at home. The one that stayed at home got the bills a few days after his partner was in New York. The bills came as follows: "24 doz. neckwear and 8 doz. ditto; 24 suits and 4 ditto; 18 pants and 12 ditto." This ditto part bothered the one at home and he telegraphed his brother to come home. When his brother arrived he showed him the bills and said:

"Vat do it mean you shall buy ditto for a closing (clothing) business?"

His brother said: "I buy ditto?"

"Yes, here's de bills."

"Vell, dey stuck me in New York."

So he returned to New York and found that ditto meant the same. He came back home, and his brother meeting him at the depot said:

"Vell, Abie, did you find out vat ditto is?"

And Abie said: "Yes, I find out vat a ditto is—I'm a d—m fool and you're a ditto."

RAYMOND—"What the deuce do you mean by telling Joan that I am a fool?"

GEORGE—"Heavens! I'm sorry—was it a secret?"

Fools never understand people of wit.—Vauvenargues.

LEA—"I wonder if Professor Kidder meant anything by it?"

PERKINS—"By what?"

LEA—"He advertised a lecture on 'Fools,' and when I bought a ticket it was marked 'Admit one.'"

"So you bought one of those automobiles they tell so many funny stories about?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Chuggins. "And it is saving me a lot of trouble and wear and tear. When your friends tell you jokes about your car they don't expect you to ask them to ride in it."

If—With Apologies to Kipling

If you can keep your Ford when those about you are selling theirs and buying Cadillacs; if you can just be tickled all to pieces when notified to pay your license-tax; if you can feel a quiet sense of pleasure when driving on a rough and hilly road, and never move a muscle of your visage when underneath you hear a tire explode; if you can plan a pleasant week-end journey and tinker at your car a day or so, then thrill with joy on that eventful morning to find no skill of yours can make it go; if you can gather up your wife and children, put on your glad rags, and start off for church, then have to wade around in greasy gearings and spoil the best of all your stock of shirts, yet through it all maintain that sweet composure, that gentle calm befitting such events; if you can sound a bugle-note of triumph when steering straight against a picket-fence; if you can keep your temper, tongue, and balance when on your back beneath your car you pose, and, struggling there to fix a balky cog-wheel, you drop a monkey-wrench across your nose; if you can smile as gasoline goes higher, and sing a song because your motor faints—your place is not with common erring mortals; your home is over there among the saints!—J. Edward Tufft.

It is admittedly difficult to recover a lost flivver. But the best suggestion comes from our own Mrs. Eckstrom, who advises an ad.: "Lizzie, come home; all is forgiven."

"Why are school-teachers like Ford cars?"

"Because they give the most service for the least money."—Life.

"Yes, indeed," argues the Ford salesman, "this little car is a great investment. You put a few dollars into a Ford and right away it runs into thousands."

A flivver in Newton, Kan., broke the arms of four persons who attempted to crank it in less than a week. That's what comes of crossing a bicycle with a mule.

Lew McCall says that motorists who come through Columbus en route for Kansas City have about the following conversations when they stop at the filling station here:

If it's a Cadillac, the driver says: "How far is it to Kansas City?" "One hundred forty miles," is the reply. "Gimme twenty gallons of gas and a gallon of oil," says the driver. Then comes a Buick and the chauffeur says: "How far is it to Kansas City?" "One hundred forty miles." "Gimme ten gallons of gas and a half-gallon of oil." and he drives on. Along comes a flivver and the driver uncranks himself, gets out and stretches, and asks: "How far is it to Kansas City?" "Oh, about one hundred forty miles." "Is that all? Gimme two quarts of water and a bottle of 3 in 1, and hold this son-of-a-gun until I get in."

Possibly the apex of sarcasm or something was reached the other day when Jones took his flivver to a repair shop and asked the man there what was the best thing to do with it.

The repair-man looked the car over in silence for several minutes, after which he grasped the horn and tooted it. "You've a good horn there," he remarked, quietly. "Suppose you jack it up and run a new car under it?"

A Gentleman who was visiting his lawyer for the purpose of making his will, insisted that a final request be attached to the document. The request was, that his Ford car be buried with him after he died. His lawyer tried to make him see how absurd this was, but failed, so he asked the gentleman's wife to use her influence with him. She did the best she could, but she also failed.

"Well, John," she said finally, "tell me why you want your Ford car buried with you?"

"Because I have never gotten into a hole yet but what my Ford could pull me out," was the reply.

Young lady on a country road in a Ford car which has bucked and refuses to move, asks a farmer who is plowing in an adjoining field—"Do you know anything about a Ford?"

"Nope—nuthin' except a lot of stories, ma'am—giddap."

TEACHER—"Who was the first man?"

HEAD SCHOLAR—"Washington; he was first in war, first in—"

TEACHER—"No, no; Adam was the first man."

HEAD SCHOLAR-"Oh! if you're talking of foreigners, I s'pose he was."

"Are you going to pay any attention to these epithets that are being hurled at you?"

"Yes, indeed," answered Senator Sorghum. "I'm having them all carefully copied and filed away. I may need them when it comes my turn to call names."

"Now, then, my hearties," said the gallant captain, "you have a tough battle before you. Fight like heroes till your powder is gone; then run. I'm a little lame, and I'll start now."

See Memory.

"This bill was innocent on its face, but beneath there lurked a most sinister significance."

The speaker, Senator Clarke, was discussing in Little Rock a measure of which he disapproved.

"The bill reminded me, in fact," he said, "of a Little Rock, urchin's question. His question, innocent enough in appearance, dear knows, was this:

"'Would you mind making a noise like a frog, uncle?'"

"'And why,' said the uncle, with an amused smile, 'why, Tommy, do you desire me to make a noise like a frog?'"

"'Because,' replied the urchin, 'whenever I ask daddy to buy me anything he always says, 'Wait till your uncle croaks.'"

"Here's poetic justice for you. One of these oil-stock promoters married a woman for her money."

"Yes?"

"Only to discover that she had invested it all in his oil stock."

"Mamma," said the Young Thing, "I want you to stop forcing me into Mr. Gottit's company all the time. People are talking."

"But, my dear," protested the Solicitous Lady, "he is a wonderful catch!"

"He may be, Mamma, but if you keep on thinking you are pitcher, he'll get onto your curves and throw the game."

EDITH—"I think Jack is horrid. I asked him if he had to choose between me and a million which he would take, and he said the million."

MARIE—"That's all right. He knew if he had the million you'd be easy,"

"Why do they call 'em fountain pens? I should say reservoir pen would be the better name. A reservoir contains liquids; a fountain throws 'em around."

"I think fountain pen is the proper name," said the party of the second part.

Franklin, when ambassador to France, being at a meeting of a literary society, and not well understanding French when declaimed, determined to applaud when he saw a lady of his acquaintance express satisfaction. When they had ceased, a little child, who understood French, said to him, "But, grand-papa, you always applauded the loudest when they were praising you!" Franklin laughed heartily and explained the matter.

YOUNG THING—"I wonder why they call it free verse?"

THE POET—"That's simple. Did you ever try to sell any?"

Dean Jones of Yale is credited with this definition of freedom of speech: "The liberty to say what you think without thinking what you say."

"I believe in free speech!" exclaimed the vociferous man.

"So do I," rejoined Uncle Bill Bottletop; "so do I. But in one respect free speech reminds me of the free lunch in the old days. You hate to see a man making a pig of himself just because something's free."

Words can be just as dangerous as acts. There is a common notion that the right of free speech implies the right to say anything we please and relieves a man of all responsibility for his words. Every man should recognize that hard words are just as dangerous as brickbats, and if he gets to throwing them around promiscuously he is liable for the damage he does. Almost any opinion we have could be stated in terms that would not cause offense. Hard words are caused by our consciousness of the weakness of our position. They are symptoms of impotence. They arise from the feeling that a single statement of our case is not sufficient, and that the only way to make an impression is by insult or abuse. A man who is satisfied with the justice of his position is content to state it in simple and inoffensive terms.—Dr. Frank Crane.

"Sir," screeched the wild-haired man, "are you opposed to free speech?"

"Not unless I am compelled to listen to it," replied old Festus Pester.

"Does your son who is abroad with the troops understand French?"

"Oh, yes, but he says the people he meets there don't seem to."

It's a pretty safe guess that if you have no friends you have done something to deserve the fix you are in.

A friend who is not in need is a friend indeed.

See also Borrowers.

"Friendship," said Uncle Eben, "don't mean no mo' to some folk dan a license to borrow money."

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals.—Goldsmith.

He removes the greatest ornament of friendship who takes away from it respect.—Cicero.

Youth measures the future with the straight, new ruler of the present; Old Age, by the frayed and patched plumb-line of the past.

I announce myself unblushingly and with perfect confidence. Nobody has anything on me.

Nobody can ever supplant me in the affections and desires of men. I am supreme mogul of the universe.

Everybody is working for me. Asking nothing for myself, all men expect everything of me. I withhold nothing and grant as little as I like. Men may doubt fire and the stars, but not me.

Nobody ever saw me, yet I am the one reality. Nobody knows anything about me. So long as time shall last my secret is safe. Yet I am ever on the lips of men. My name is lisped by the toddling infant and chortled by hoary-headed sages.

I am the one that you will eventually disown.

I am tomorrow.

Mr. Tarzon Jones was sitting down to breakfast one morning when he was astounded to see in the paper an announcement of his own death.

He rang up his friend Howard Smith at once. "Halloa, Smith!" he said. "Have you seen the announcement of my death in the paper?"

"Yes," replied Smith. "Where are you speaking from?"

TEACHER—"And what was Nelson's farewell address?"

BRIGHT BOY—"Heaven, ma'am."

At the grave of the departed the old darky pastor stood, hat in hand. Looking into the abyss he delivered himself of the funeral oration.

"Samuel Johnson," he said sorrowfully, "you is gone. An' we hopes you is gone where we 'specks you ain't."

POST—"A man can die but once."

PARKER—"Once used to be enough, until these psychic experts got busy."

A French biologist declares that by a freezing process, somewhat similar to that used in preserving fish, the span of human life can be indefinitely extended. By going into cold storage here, we can postpone a hot time hereafter.

"Well, Bill," asked a neighbor. "Hear the boss has had a fever? How's his temperature today?"

The hired man scratched his head and decided not to commit himself.

"'Tain't fer me to say," he replied. "He died last night."

A park orator returning home flushed with his oratorical efforts, and also from other causes, found a mild curate seated opposite in the tram-car. "It may interest you to know," he said truculently, "that I don't believe in the existence of a 'eaven." The curate merely nodded, and went on reading his newspaper. "You don't quite realize," said the park orator, "what I'm trying to make clear. I want you to understand that I don't believe for a single, solitary moment that such a place as 'eaven exists." "All right, all right," answered the curate pleasantly, "go to hell, only don't make quite so much fuss about it."

A Massachusetts Senator was back home, looking after his political fences, and was asking the minister about some of his old acquaintances.

"How's old Mr. Jones?" he inquired. "Will I be likely to see him again?"

"You'll never see Mr. Jones again," said the minister. "Mr Jones has gone to heaven."

"Now, boys," said the teacher in the juvenile Sunday-school class, "our lesson today teaches us that if we are good while here on earth, when we die we will go to a place of everlasting bliss. But suppose we are bad, then what will become of us?"

"We'll go to a place of everlasting blister," promptly answered the small boy at the pedal extremity of the class.

"I wish, reverend father," said Curran to Father O'Leary, "that you were St. Peter, and had the keys of heaven, because then you could let me in."

"By my honor and conscience," replied O'Leary, "it would be better for you that I had the keys of the other place, for then I could let you out."

Futurist Art

Which one might worship—if he should wish—without breaking the second commandment because truly there is nothing like it "in the heavens above, in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth."

A painter of the "impressionist" school is now confined in a lunatic asylum. To all persons who visit him he says, "Look here; this is the latest masterpiece of my composition." They look, and see nothing but an expanse of bare canvas. They ask, "What does that represent?"

"That? Why, that represents the passage of the Jews through the Red Sea."

"Beg pardon, but where is the sea?"

"It has been driven back."

"And where are the Jews?"

"They have crossed over."

"And the Egyptians?"

"Will be here soon. That's the sort of painting I like; simple, suggestive, and unpretentious."

The artist dipped his brush in a bucket of paint and wiped it across the canvas several times horizontally. When he had done this he took his labor in hand and carefully placed it in an elaborate frame.

"What's the idea?" his boon companion inquired.

"Impressionistic study."

"Do you mean to tell me that is a finished painting?"

"Certainly."

"What are you going to call it?"

"A village street as seen from the rear seat of a motorcycle."

"Look, mother," said Bobbie, exhibiting a handful of marbles, "I won all those from Willie Smith."

"Why, Bobbie!" exclaimed his mother; "don't you know it's wicked to play marbles for 'keeps'? Go right over to his house and give back every one."

"Yes, mother," said the boy obediently; "and shall I take that vase you won at Mrs. Jones' whist party, and give it back to her?"

"It's just as wrong to gamble when you win as when you lose."

"Yassuh," asserted Mr. Erastus Pinkley. "De immorality is jes' as great, but de inconvenience ain't."

PROFESSOR—"Now I put the number seven on the board. What number immediately comes into your mind?"

CLASS (in unison)—"Eleven!"—Burr.

SAM—"Ah done heard dat dey fine' Columbus's bones."

EZRA—"Lawd! Ah never knew dat he wuz a gamblin' man."

"What do they sell in that last garage besides gasoline, father?"

"'Besides,' my son? You mean 'instead of.'"—Life.

"I suppose you are going to raise potatoes in your garden?"

"I was, but when I read the directions for planting I found that it would be impossible. They should be planted in hills, and my yard is perfectly level."

WHAT HE SAID TO HIS WIFE—"If you want a garden this year you had better hire somebody to make it. I'm not going to try it again. I've figured it out; and if I would spend on my business the time I put in on that garden I would make enough money to keep us in vegetables for fifty years. I am off it for life."

WHAT HE SAID TO HIS NEIGHBOR—"I don't think I'll bother with a garden this year. It doesn't pay; I may do a little; but the digging and the labor—I'm off that for life."