Chapter X: Part 10

"No, Colonel, I don't mean to call you a liar. On the contrary, I say you are the only man in town who tells the truth all the time, but I'm offering a reward of $25 and a chromo to any other man who will say he believes me when I say you never lie," was the response.

"Well, I'm glad you took it back," replied the other party, as they shook.--_A. E. Sweet_.

_See also_ Husband; Real estate agents; Regrets.

LIBERTY BONDS

"We accept Liberty Bonds at their full value for all goods."

Thus reads a placard in the window of a wholesale liquor house. We have often wondered what the height of damphoolishness might be, having tried various things, but there it is: Exchanging a Liberty Bond for booze.

LIBRARIANS

_The Reference Librarian_

At times behind a desk he sits,
At times about the room he flits--
Folks interrupt his perfect ease
By asking questions such as these:
"How tall was prehistoric man?"
"How old, I pray, was Sister Ann?"

"Perhaps," commented her husband's bookish friend, "you should be thankful you did not find him with his nose in 'The Inside of the Cup!'"

"What should one do if cats have fits?"
"What woman first invented mitts?"
"Who said 'To labor is to pray?'"
"How much did Daniel Lambert weigh?"
"Don't you admire E. P. Roe?"
"What is the fare to Kokomo?"
"Have you a life of Sairy Gamp?"
"Can you lend me a postage-stamp?"
"Have you the rimes of Edward Lear?"
"What wages do they give you here?"
"What dictionary is the best?"
"Did Brummell wear a satin vest?"
"How do you spell 'anemic,' please?"
"What is a Gorgonzola cheese?"
"Who ferried souls across the Styx?"
"What is the square of 96?"
"Are oysters good to eat in March?"
"Are green bananas full of starch?"
"Where is that book I used to see?"
"I guess you don't remember me?"
"Haf you Der Hohenzollernspiel?"
"Where shall I put this apple peel?"
"Ou est, m'sie, la grand Larousse?"
"Do you say 'two-spot,' or 'the deuce'?"
"Come, find my book--why make a row?"
"A _red_ one--can't you find it _now_?"
"Please, which is right? to 'lend' or 'loan'?"
"Say, mister, where's the telephone?"
"How _do_ you use this catalog?"
"Oh, hear that noise! Is that my dog?"
"Have you a book called 'Shapes of Fear'?"
"You mind if I leave baby here?"

--_Edmund Lester Pearson_

It was at the public library. A small shaver clutched a well-worn, dirty volume. At last it came his turn to place his volume for the inspection of the librarian. The suspense was great, but finally the librarian leaned forward. Taking in the size of the boy and then glancing back at the book she remarked, "This is rather technical, isn't it?"

Planting his feet firmly on the floor, the boy, half-defiant, half-apologetic, retorted, "It was that way when I got it, ma'am."

"My husband is a most inveterate reader," exclaimed Mrs. Knox with a slight tone of ennui. "He reads until dawn every morning. Why, last night I found him asleep with his nose in 'V.V.'s Eyes!'"

_Toast to Librarians_

Said the "maker of books" to the "keeper of books,"
Yours is the task to hold
The choice of the changeable minds of men
To that which is pure gold.

Yours to watch at the ebb and flow
The tides of the public thought--
Flotsam or jetsam floating in
With the treasure genius brought.

For the unperishable dream of the soul lives on,
As the dream of genius must,
When the brain which wrought and the hand that wrote
Are one with the "daisied dust."

And so with reverent hands may you give
To the minds of men in their need,
The written word that's the word worth while,
So keepers of books--God speed!

_Do You Believe In Fairies?_

The world is full of people
Who are under the impression
That libr'ry work in general
Is the easiest profession.

"Such nice clean work!" says So-and-So,
"And such nice hours too!"
"Why, really now," exclaims a girl,
"I don't see what you do."
"Just sitting reading all the books
'Most all the livelong day.
Don't tell me now that just for this
The city gives you pay!"

And no one ever stops to think
Why it's so quiet there.
While they're just sitting at their ease
In some nice easy chair.
And how the books got on the shelves
In just the right, right place,
Nor how the "chief" keeps track of each,
And with a smiling face.

Oh, mercy no, they seem to think
Some fairy passed that way
With books from many publishers
And when she'd said, "Good day,"
She catalogued them in a night,
And with a bit of glue,
Stuck in the pages that were loose,
And mended old ones too.

And that she dusted all the shelves,
And kept the records straight;
So when the year came to an end,
She would not be too late
In handing in a full report
Of just what had been done.
(And "full" comprises everything
That's underneath the sun).

Oh yes, you'll find them everywhere,
Deluded as can be
In thinking libr'ry work's a "cinch,"
And looking longingly
At someone's "easy libr'ry job"
"With not a thing to do!"
But tell me, do you libr'yites
Believe in fairies too?

--_H.I.B. in the Use of Print_.

A certain woman who came in to take out a card, upon being told she must give the name of a friend as reference said, "Why, I have no friends. I was a librarian."

_See also_ Books and reading.

LIBRARIES

_The Power-House_

Every day I go past the Library on Ludlow Street

I look in the open windows and see the great dynamos.

They have power enough to jazz the earth and throw the planets out of step, but they make no sound.

I saw a girl with shell goggles dusting some of them,

Unterrified by her proximity to such dangerous engines.

Look out, child, look out, don't get too near the Bernard Shaw rheostat or the Walt Whitman fly-wheel.--_Christopher Morley_.

"May I take this book home please, or isn't it a _running_ book? Oh, I'm so glad, I thought it might be 'for reference only.'"

MAN--"I'd like a book on dramatic expression."

LIBRARIAN--"Oral, of course?"

MAN--"Yes, I don't like poetry."

LIES

Sin has many tools but a lie is the handle that fits them all.--_O.W. Holmes_.

LIFE

As viewed by the

OPTIMIST PESSIMIST

Love Lies Independence Ingratitude Fun Foolishness Endeavor Exertion

In traveling along a road in a motor car, there will be several cars ahead of you going your way, and there will be several cars coming toward you. Also ahead of you, going your way, there may be a hay wagon or a farmer in a buggy. As you speed along, you look ahead and declare to yourself that there is no logical way in which you can get through the spaces thus created. Yet the vehicles always form themselves into the right combination, and you pass through easily. This is the way with life. There are always obstacles that you do not see how you can pass without a smash-up. But you always get by.

"Stop, look, listen!"

The reflective man stopped to read the railroad warning.

"Those three words illustrate the whole scheme of life," said he.

"How?"

"You see a pretty girl; you stop; you look; after you marry her, and for the rest of your life, you listen."

_The Magician_

Life has such a subtle way
Of forming roses out of clay;

Of taking tears that seemed in vain
And making of them April rain;

Of getting from a heedless rafter
Echoes of dead bits of laughter;

Of welding in a sunset sea
Lost loveliness and imagery;

Of making out of crawling things
Butterflies with airy wings.

Life has such a subtle way
Of turning darkness into day;

Of bringing music, ocean-old,
To newness of a tale untold;

And then, grown jealous of its trust,
Of changing roses back to dust.

--_Vivian Yeiser Laramore_.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.--_Emerson_.

_Life Is No Problem_

Life is no problem to the heart
That understands itself,
That does not sit above, apart
Upon some higher shelf.

And moralize on destiny
And other things obscure,
But has no more philosophy
Than changeless love and pure.

Life is no problem to the mind
That knows the way to live
The habit just of being kind,
The joy of just to give.

Life is no mystery at all
To those who do not doubt
But take this life as life befall
And smile and live it out.

Do not with theories concern
Yourself as on you go;
There is but little we can learn,
But little we can know.

Life is to live, to take the sweet
The hidden fates have sent,
To live each day the day you meet
And try to be content.

So do not seek to tear the veil
And read the heart of God.
Enough that He is in the gale
And in the velvet sod.

Enough that He has given you
The boon of days and years,
The world of green, the sky of blue,
And sunshine after tears.

--_Douglas Mallock_.

_The Match Box_

Life is a Match Box, and the Matches
Ambitions, and unstruck desires;
Youth the material that catches
And kindles in the darkness fires.

And Love is like an idle fellow
Who sets the match box in a blaze,
And sees the blue flames and the yellow
Shoot up and die beneath his gaze.

But Age is like a man returning
Late homeward. Creeping in his socks
He tries to get a candle burning,
And finds he has an empty box.

The seven ages of man have been well tabulated by somebody or other on an acquisitive basis. Thus:

First age--Sees the earth.

Second age--Wants it.

Third age--Hustles to get it.

Fourth age--Decides to be satisfied with only half of it.

Fifth age--Becomes still more moderate.

Sixth age--Now content to possess a six-by-two strip of it.

Seventh age--Gets the strip.

_Wisdom_

When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I can look life in the eyes
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth
And taken in exchange--My Youth.

--_Sara Teasdale_.

LISPING

A young lady who lisped very badly was treated by a specialist, and learned to say the sentence: "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers."

She repeated it to her friends, and was praised upon her masterly performance.

"Yeth, but ith thuth an ectheedingly difficult remark to work into a converthathion--ethpethially when you conthider that I have no thither Thuthie."

LOGIC

"Sedentary work," said the college lecturer, "tends to lessen the endurance."

"In other words," butted in the smart student, "the more one sits the less one can stand."

"Exactly," retorted the lecturer; "and if one lies a great deal one's standing is lost completely."

Two men were hotly discussing the merits of a book. Finally, one of them, himself an author, said to the other: "No, John, you can't appreciate it. You never wrote a book yourself."

"No," retorted John, "and I never laid an egg, but I'm a better judge of an omelet than any hen."

LONDON

A teacher asked her class to write an essay on London. She was surprised to read the following in one attempt:

"The people of London are noted for their stupidity."

The young author was asked how he got that idea.

"Please, miss," was the reply, "it says in the text-books the population of London is very dense."

"Hiram writes that the first day he was in London he lost L12."

"Great Caesar's ghost! Ain't they got any health laws in that town?"

LOST AND FOUND

OLD GENTLEMAN (in street car)--"Has anyone here dropped a roll of bills, with a rubber elastic around them?"

"Yes, I have!" cried a dozen at once.

OLD GENTLEMAN (calmly)--"Well, I've just picked up the elastic."

"Cohn, I've lost my pocketbook."

"Have you looked by your pockets?"

"Sure, all but der left-hand hip pocket."

"Vell, vy don't you look in dot?"

"Because if it ain't dere I'll drop dead!"

The following exchange of courtesy was recently chronicled in a German paper's advertisements:

"The gentleman who found a brown purse, containing a sum of money, in the Blumenstrasse, is requested to forward it to the address of the loser, as he is recognized."

A couple of days later appeared the response, which, altho courteous, had an elusive air, to say the least:

"The recognized gentleman who picked up a brown purse in the Blumenstrasse requests the loser to call at his house at a convenient day."

A small boy came hurriedly down the street, and halted breathlessly in front of a stranger going in the same direction.

"Have you lost half a crown?" he asked with his hand in his pocket.

"Y-es, yes, I believe I have!" said the stranger feeling in his pockets. "Have you found one?"

"Oh, no," said the small boy. "I just want to see how many have been lost today. Yours makes fifty-four!"

The young lady from New York was inclined to belittle things.

"Why," she remarked, "I could find my way up this mountain path alone."

"Wal," responded the native, "a young couple went up this path last year and never came back."

"Oh, my! Were they lost?"

"Nope," was the reply, "they went down the other side!"

The other day when the beach was crowded, a small boy, looking rather bewildered, approached a police officer and said, "Please, sir, have you seen anything of a lady around here?"

"Why, yes," answered the officer, "I've seen several."

"Well, have you seen any without a little boy?"

"Yes."

"Well," said the little chap, as a relieved look crossed his face, "I'm the little boy. Where's the lady?"

One does not mean to be personal, but, if the young man who sat in the chair where a lady had left a dish of maple sugar to cool at the festival the other evening, will return the saucer, he will save himself further trouble.

LOVE

_Outwitted_

He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win,
We drew a circle that took him in.

--_Edwin Markham_.

DAUGHTER--"Oh, father, how grand it is to be alive! The world is too good for anything. Why isn't every one happy?"

FATHER--"Who is he this time?"

EDITH--"How does Fred make love?"

MARIE--"Well, I should define it as unskilled labor."

MAG.--"Wot is 'platonic affection,' Liz? Is it love?"

LIZ.--"Well, no;--it ain't _true_ love! Dere ain't no quarreling in it, ner no fighting, ner worrying, ner hocking, ner drinking, ner getting arrested fer non-support, ner _nuthin'_ wot's really passionate!"

_Why_

Do you know why the rabbits are caught in the snare
Or the tabby cat's shot on the tiles?
Why the tigers and lions creep out of their lair?
Why an ostrich will travel for miles?
Do you know why a sane man will whimper and cry
And weep o'er a ribbon or glove?
Why a cook will put sugar for salt in a pie?
Do you know? Well, I'll tell you--it's Love.

--_H.P. Stevens_.

PAPA--"Why, hang it, girl, that fellow only earns nine dollars a week!"

PLEADING DAUGHTER--"Yes; but, daddy, dear, a week passes so quickly when you're fond of one another."--_Judge_.

"Love makes the world go 'round," quoted the Parlor Philosopher.

"Yes, but it has to be cranked," replied the Mere Man. "It isn't a self-starter."

_Cupid_

Why was Cupid a boy,
And why a boy was he?
He should have been a girl,
For aught that I can see.

For he shoots with his bow,
And a girl shoots with her eye;
And they both are merry and glad,
And laugh when we do cry.

Then to make Cupid a boy
Was surely a woman's plan,
For a boy never learns so much
Till he has become a man.

And then he's so pierced with cares,
And wounded with arrowy smarts,
That the whole business of his life
Is to pick out the heads of the darts.

--_William Blake_.

Partake of love as a temperate man partakes of wine: do not become intoxicated.--_A. de Musset_.

LUCK

VICAR--"Nothing to be thankful for! Why, think of poor old Hodge losing his wife through the flu!"

GILES--"Well, that don't do me no good. I ain't Hodge."

Good luck is the gayest of all gay girls;
Long in one place she will not stay:
Back from your brow she strokes the curls,
Kisses you quick and flies away.

But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes
And stays--no fancy has she for flitting;
Snatches of true-love songs she hums,
And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting.

--_John Hay_.

YOUNG SON--"What is luck, father?"

FATHER--"Luck, my son, is something that enables another fellow to succeed where we have failed."

MAGAZINES

_History of the Magazine Story_

July 27, 1914--Author finishes it.

Aug. 3, 1914--Rewrites, giving incidental war slant.

May 9, 1915--Rewrites; hero rescues heroine from torpedoed liner.

Apr. 7, 1917--Rewrites; hero enlists; villain, German spy.

Nov. 13, 1918--Rewrites; denouement, allied entrance into Berlin; heroine, Red Cross nurse.

Nov. 13, 1918--Rewrites; climax, homecoming from overseas.

Aug. 15, 1919--War fiction going stale; goes back to original story, retaining only German villain.

Jan. 1, 1923--Rewrites; takes out German villain.

Apr. 1, 1934--Author in old people's home; sells original story to Cozy Hearth; editor features it as "charming romance of life before the war."

EDITOR (surveying summer landscape)--"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun!"

FRIEND--"But, I say, that was written about autumn, wasn't it?"

EDITOR--"Yes, yes, I know--but you must remember that we always go to press four months in advance!"

It was the first of January when a stranger entered the offices of Pushup's Monthly Magazine.

"Gracious, but it is hot in here!" he remarked to a man in his shirt sleeves, who was mopping his face with a handkerchief.

"Some," was the terse reply of the man, who was no other than the famous editor himself.

"What are all those flowers, straw hats and palm-leaf fans scattered about for?"

"Oh, to give a touch of realism;--we are now preparing our great Midsummer Fiction Number," was the great editor's kindly reply.--_E.C.H_.

MAJORITY

"You don't mean to tell me you ever doubt the wisdom of the majority?"

"Well," responded Senator Sorghum with deliberation, "what is a majority? In many instances it is only a large number of people who have got tired out trying to think for themselves and have decided to accept somebody else's opinion."

MARKSMANSHIP

"Why do you compare my marksmanship with lightning?" asked the recruit.

"Because," replied the instructor, "it never hits twice in the same place."

OFFICER (to recruit)--"Goodness gracious, man, where are all your shots going? Every one has missed the target."

SOLDIER (nervously)--"I don't know, sir. They left here all right."

MARRIAGE

"Hubby, if I were to die would you marry again?"

"That question is hardly fair, my dear."

"Why not?"

"If I were to say yes you wouldn't like it, and to say never again wouldn't sound nice."

THE PHRENOLOGIST--"Yes, sir, by feeling the bumps on your head I can tell exactly what sort of man you are."

MR. DOOLAN--"Oi belave it will give ye more ov an oidea wot sort ov a woman me woife is."--_Jack Canuck_.

Private Nelson got his leave, and made what he conceived to be the best use of his holiday by getting married.

On the journey back at the station he gave the gateman his marriage certificate in mistake for his return railway ticket.

The official studied it carefully, and then said:

"Yes, my boy, you've got a ticket for a long journey, but not on this road."

NORTH--"I see they're reviving the talk about trial marriages. Do you believe in them?"

WEST--"Well, mine is quite a trial, but I can't say I believe in it especially."

A young fellow took his elderly father to a football match.

"Father," he said as they took their seats, "you'll see more excitement for your five dollars than you ever saw before."

"Oh, I don't know," grunted the old man; "five dollars was all I paid for my marriage license."

George Washington Jones, colored, was trying to enlist in Uncle Sam's army, and the following conversation ensued with the recruiting officer:

"Name?"

"George Washington Jones, sah."

"Age?"

"I'se twenty-seven years old, sah."

"Married?"

"No, sah. Dat scar on mah haid is whar a mule done kicked me."

If marriage is a lottery,
As saw smiths often say,
The lucky gambler is, of course,
The one who doesn't play.

--_Tennyson J. Daft_.

At the wedding reception the young man remarked: "Wasn't it annoying the way that baby cried during the whole ceremony?"

"It was simply dreadful," replied the prim little maid of honor; "and when I get married I'm going to have engraved right in the corner of the invitations: 'No babies expected.'"

"The man who gives in when he is wrong," said the street orator, "is a wise man; but he who gives in when he is right is--"

"Married!" said a meek voice in the crowd.

Mrs. Killifer desired that the picture be hung to the right of the door; Mr. Killifer wanted it hung to the left. For once the husband proved to be the more insistent of the two, and Henry, the colored man, was summoned to hang the picture according to Mr. Killifer's order.

Henry drove in a nail on the left. This done, he also drove one in the wall on the right.

"Why are you driving that second nail?" asked Mr. Killifer.

"Why, boss, dat's to save me de trouble of bringin' de ladder tomorrow when you come round to de missus's way of thinkin'," said Henry.

Mr. Brown met Mr. Jones on the street.

"Any news, Brown?" asked Jones.

"Nothing special. I've just been reading the Sunday paper. And I find one peculiar thing in it that may be news to you."

"What is it?"

"The Sunday paper says that women in ancient Egypt used to act as they pleased, live as they pleased, and dress as they pleased, without regard to what the men thought. Lucky we don't live in those times, what?"

"Mr. Brown, are you married?"

"What has that got to do with it? As a matter of fact, I'm not."

"I thought not."

"She calls her dog and her husband by the same pet name. It must cause frequent confusion."

"Not at all. She always speaks gently to the dog."

"Pa, a man's wife is his better half, isn't she?"

"We are told so, my son."

"Then if a man marries twice there isn't anything left of him, is there?"

_How the Row Started_

MR. BROWN--"I had a queer dream last night, my dear. I thought I saw another man running off with you."

MRS. BROWN--"And what did you say to him?"

MR. BROWN--"I asked him what he was running for."

Uncle Josh was comfortably lighting his pipe in the living-room one evening when Aunt Maria glanced up from her knitting.

"John," she remarked, "do you know that next Sunday will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of our wedding?"

"You don't say so, Maria!" responded Uncle Josh, pulling vigorously on his corncob pipe. "What about it?"

"Nothing," answered Aunt Maria, "only I thought maybe we ought to kill them two Rhode Island Red chickens."

"But, Maria," demanded Uncle Josh, "how can you blame them two Rhode Island Reds for what happened twenty-five years ago?"

GARDENER--"I am going to leave, sir. I can't stand the Missus!"

EMPLOYER--"Too strict, is she?"

GARDENER--"Yes, sir. She keeps forgetting that I can leave any time, and bosses me about just as if I was you!"

"Get away from here or I'll call my husband," threatened the hard-faced woman who had just refused the tramp some food.

"Oh, no, you won't," replied the tramp, "because he ain't home."

"How do you know?" asked the woman.

"Because," answered the man as he sidled toward the gate, "a man who marries a woman like you is only home at meal times."

FRIENDLY CONSTABLE--"Come, come, sir, pull yourself together; your wife's calling you."

CONVIVIAL GENT--"Wha' she call-calling me; Billy or William?"

CONSTABLE--"William, sir."

CONVIVIAL GENT--"Then I'm not going home."

HUSBAND (angrily)--"What! no supper ready? This is the limit! I'm going to a restaurant."

WIFE--"Wait just five minutes."

HUSBAND--"Will it be ready then?"

WIFE--"No, but then I'll go with you."

"Why have I never married?" the old bachelor said in reply to a leading question. "Well, once upon a time, in a crowd, I trod on a lady's gown. She turned furiously, beginning, 'You clumsy brute!' Then she smiled sweetly and said, 'Oh, I beg pardon! I thought you were my husband! No; it really doesn't matter in the least.'

"And when I came to think it over, I decided that maybe I'd just as well let marriage alone."

"I hear the sea captain is in hard luck. He married a girl and she ran away from him."

"Yes; he took her for a mate, but she was a skipper."

FORTUNE-TELLER--"You wish to know about your future husband?"

CUSTOMER--"No; I wish to know about the past of my present husband for future use."

"Do you act toward your wife as you did before you married her?"

"Exactly. I remember just how I used to act when I first fell in love with her. I used to lean over the fence in front of her house and gaze at her shadow on the curtain, afraid to go in. And I act just the same way now when I get home late."

"Marriage is a lottery."

"Not exactly," commented Miss Cayenne. "When you lose in a lottery it's an easy matter to tear up the ticket and forget it."

Lightning knocked over three men who were sitting on boxes in front of Sawyer's store yesterday. One of them was knocked senseless; the other two exclaimed, "Leggo! I'm comin' right home."

TEACHER--"In what part of the Bible is it taught that a man should have only one wife?"

LITTLE BOY--"I guess it's the part that says that no man can serve more than one master."

The trouble with most marriages is that a man always makes the mistake of marrying the woman who carries him off his feet--instead of trying to find one who will keep him on them.

CONDUCTOR (to passenger of Pullman)--"Excuse me, sir. Is this lady your wife?"

PASSENGER--"I don't know. It depends upon what State we are passing through."--_Life_.

"I'm thinking of getting married, pa. What's it like?"

"You had a job as janitor once, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And you had a position as watchman once, didn't you?"

"And you worked a while as a caretaker, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's a combination of all three jobs--and then some."

The archbishop had preached a fine sermon on married life and its beauties. Two old Irishwomen were heard coming out of church commenting on the address.

"'Tis a fine sermon his Riverence would be after giving us," said one to the other.

"It is, indade," was the quick reply, "and I wish I knew as little about the matter as he does."--_Life_.

A young Swede appeared at the county judge's office and asked for a license.

"What kind of a license?" asked the judge. "A hunting license?"

"No," was the answer. "Aye tank aye bane hunting long enough. Aye want marriage license."

The young man sidled into the jeweler's shop with a furtive air. He handed the jeweler a ring with the stammered statement that he wished it marked "with some names."

"What names do you wish?" inquired the jeweler in a sympathetic tone.

"From Henry to Clara," the young man blushingly whispered.

The jeweler looked from the ring to the young man, and said in a fatherly manner: "Take my advice, young man, and have it engraved simply, 'From Henry.'"

JUDGE--"The police say that you and your wife had some words."

PRISONER--"I had some, but didn't get a chance to use them."--_Puck_.

At the end of three weeks of married life, a Southern darky returned to the minister who had performed the ceremony and asked for a divorce. After explaining that he could not grant divorces, the minister tried to dissuade his visitor from carrying out his intention of getting one saying:

"You must remember, Sam, that you promised to take Liza for better or for worse."

"Yassir, I knows dat, boss," rejoined the darky; "but--but she's wuss dan I took her for."

In one of the big base hospitals of the Army not long ago a new librarian was set to work by the American Library Association. She was a very charming young woman, and very anxious to please all of her "customers," tho some of them didn't even wish to look at a book. In her rounds she approached one of the patients and he declined to be interested in her wares. At the next cot she stopped and offered its occupant a book.

"What's it about?" the patient asked.

"Oh, this is 'Bambi,'" said the librarian. "It's about a girl who married a man without his having anything to say about it."

"Hold on there," shouted the man who had declined all books. He raised himself up on his elbow and reached out his hand. "Give me that book. It's my autobiography."

Miss SNOWFLAKE--"What did Jim Jackson git married for?"

Miss WASHTUBB--"Lawd only knows;--he keeps right on workin'!"

The beautiful young woman interviewed a fortune-teller on the usual subjects.

"Lady," said the clairvoyant, "you will visit foreign lands, and the courts of kings and queens. You will conquer all rivals and marry the man of your choice. He will be tall and dark and aristocratic looking."

"And young?" interrupted the lady.

"Yes, and very rich."

The beautiful lady grasped the fortune teller's hands and pressed them hard.

"Thank you," she said. "Now tell me one thing more. How shall I get rid of my present husband?"

Miss Milly was rather a talkative young lady. Her bosom friend, having missed her for some time, called to find out the reason.

"No, mum, Miss Milly is not in," the maid informed her.

"She has gone to the class."

"Why, what class?" inquired the caller in surprize.

"Well, mum, you know Miss Milly is getting married soon, so she's taking a course of lessons in domestic silence."

Mrs. Peavish says that if it were to do over again, no man need ever ask for her hand until he had shown his.

In London they tell of a certain distinguished statesman who is an optimist on all points save marriage.

One afternoon this statesman was proceeding along a country road when he saw a cottager eating his supper alone in the road before his dwelling.

"Why, Henry," asked the statesman, "why are you eating out here alone?"

"Well, sir, er--" the man stammered, "the--er--chimney smokes."

"That's too bad," said the statesman, his philanthropic sentiments at once being aroused. "I'll have it fixed for you. Let's have a look at it."

And before the cottager could stay him the statesman proceeded to enter the cottage. As soon as he had opened the door a broomstick fell upon his shoulders and a woman's voice shrieked:

"Back here again, are you, you old rascal! Clear out with you, or I'll--"

The statesman retired precipitately. The cottager sat in the road shaking his head in sorrow and embarrassment. The statesman bent over him, and laid his hand in kindly fashion on his arm.

"Never mind, Henry," said he, consolingly, "my chimney smokes sometimes, too."--_Harper's_.

NODD--"Are you sure your wife knows I'm going home to dinner with you?"

TODD--"Knows! Well, rather! Why, my dear fellow, I argued with her about it this morning for nearly half an hour."--_Life_.

A recent experience of a Virginia clergyman throws light on the old English law requiring that marriages should be celebrated before noon. A colored couple appeared before him, asking to be married, the man in a considerably muddled state. The minister said to the woman, "I won't perform this ceremony."

"Why is dat, boss?" she queried. "Ain't de license all right? An' we is of age."

"Yes, but the man is drunk. Take him away and come back again." Several days later the couple again presented themselves, the man once more obviously intoxicated. "See here, I told you I wouldn't marry you when this man was drunk," the minister said testily. "Don't you come back here till he's sober."

"Well, you see, suh," the woman replied apologetically, "de trufe is dat he won't come less'n he's lit up."

"Well," cried Mrs. Henpeck, "our son is engaged to be married. We will write to the dear lad and congratulate him."

Mr. Henpeck agreed (he dare not do otherwise), and his wife picked up the pen.

"My darling boy," read the son; "what glorious news! Your father and I rejoice in your happiness. It has long been our greatest wish that you should marry some good woman. A good woman is Heaven's most precious gift to man. She brings out all the best in him and helps him to suppress all that is evil."

Then there was a postscript in a different handwriting:

"Your mother has gone for a stamp. Keep single, you young noodle."--_Judge_.

"Women always have and always will keep men guessing," declares the Wathena (Kan.) Times. "A Wathena merchant employed a homely girl because he thought he could keep her. Within a few months a young man married her for the same reason."

A prominent New York debutante recently ordered "four seats on the aisle" at the theater. When her party arrived at the performance, they were surprised to find themselves arranged in a column instead of a row. Nothing daunted, the debutante turned to a bored, middle-aged man next to her. Surely he would not mind changing with her friend in front.

"I beg your pardon," she said politely.

No reply. He must be deaf.

"I beg your pardon," she repeated louder.

Still no reply.

"I beg your pardon," she said, bumping his elbow.

He took out a pencil and wrote on his program:

"That's my wife on the other side of me. Safety first."

Man puts up with marriage in order to get a certain girl--a girl puts up with a certain man in order to get married.

In the old days man used to marry woman for a dot--now he marries her for a period.

Marriage may be likened to a subscription to a favorite magazine--it is something that should be renewed each year if it is not to expire.

A married woman said to her husband: "You have never taken me to the cemetery."

"No, dear," replied he; "that is a pleasure I have yet in anticipation."

A man of perhaps 55, wearing a rough peajacket, showing glimpses of a soiled pink silk shirt, with a rubber collar, approached and in confiding tones asked for a book for a "widow past 50 who is thinking of getting married." The assistant proceeded to inquire as to what kind of a story he thought she might like. "Oh," he said, "what I want is a story that will kind o' cheer her up."

_See also_ Domestic finance; Husbands; Leap year.

MASCOTS

"Does a rabbit's foot really bring good luck?"

"I should say so. My wife felt one in my money pocket once and thought it was a mouse."

MATHEMATICS

_See_ Arithmetic.

MATRIMONY

_See_ Marriage.

MEASURING INSTRUMENTS

A two-foot rule was given to a laborer in a Clyde boat-yard to measure an iron plate. The laborer not being well up in the use of the rule, after spending considerable time, returned.

"Now, Mick," asked the plater, "what size is the plate?"

"Well," replied Mick, with a grin of satisfaction, "it's the length of your rule and two thumbs over, with this piece of brick and the breadth of my hand and my arm from here to there, bar a finger."--_Everybody's_.

MEDALS

A well-known admiral--a stickler for uniform--stopped opposite a very portly sailor whose medal-ribbon was an inch or so too low down. Fixing the man with his eye, the admiral asked: "Did you get that medal for eating, my man?"

On the man replying "No, sir," the admiral rapped out: "Then why the deuce do you wear it on your stomach?"

MEDICAL ETHICS

Not so very long ago a certain attorney was quite ill. A doctor was summoned, but directly he arrived and got one look at his patient he said, "Sorry, but you'll have to call another doctor."

"Am I as sick as all that?" gasped the attorney.

"No, but you're the lawyer that cross-examined me when I was called to give expert testimony in a certain case. Now my conscience won't permit me to kill you, but I'm darned if I care to cure you. Good day."

MEDICINE

DOCTOR--"What? Troubled with sleeplessness? Eat something before going to bed."

PATIENT--"Why doctor, you once told me never to eat anything before going to bed."

DOCTOR (with dignity)--"Pooh, pooh! That was last January. Science has made enormous strides since then."

GIRL (to druggist)--"Could you fix me a dose of castor oil so as the oil won't taste?"

DRUGGIST--"Certainly! Won't you have a glass of soda while waiting?" (She drinks the soda.)

DRUGGIST--"Something else, miss?"

GIRL--"No, just the oil."

DRUGGIST--"But you have just drank it."

GIRL--"Oh! It was for my mother."

"Are you of the opinion, James," asked a slim-looking man of his companion, "that Dr. Smith's medicine does any good?"

"Not unless you follow the directions."

"What are the directions?"

"Keep the bottle tightly corked."

MEMORY

Most of us forget to remember; it is harder, far, to remember to forget. And the more one endeavors to forget, the more memory insists.

"So you really think your memory is improving under treatment. You remember things now?"

"Well, not exactly, but I have progressed so far that I can frequently remember that I have forgotten something, if I could only remember what it is."

A school-teacher who had been telling a class of small pupils the story of discovery of America by Columbus, ended it with: "And all this happened more than six hundred years ago."

A little boy, his eyes wide open with wonder, said, after a moment's thought: "Gee, what a memory you've got!"

_A Thing Forgotten_

White owl is not gloomy;
Black bat is not sad.
It is only that each has forgotten
Something he used to remember:
Black bat goes searching ... searching....
White owl says over and over
Who? What? Where?

WALTER--"Mr. Smith's left his umbrella again. I do believe he would leave his head if it were loose."

ROBINSON--"I dare say you're right. I heard him say only yesterday he was going to Switzerland for his lungs."

Rose, the garrulous domestic, can give you facts of history--international, dramatic, scandalous--right off the bat without a moment's hesitation.

"How do you manage to remember all these things, Rose?" inquired her employer the other day.

Then Rose came back with the infallible rule for memory training.

"I'll tell ye, ma'am," says she. "All me life never a lie I've told. And when ye don't have to be taxin' yer memory to be rememberin' what ye told this one or that one, or how ye explained this or that, ye don't overwork it and it lasts ye, good as new, forever."

"What brought you here, my man?" asked the prison visitor.

"Just plain absent-mindedness," replied the prisoner.

"Why, how could that be?"

"I forgot to change the engine number of the car before I sold it."

MEN

"Daughter," said the father, "your young man, Rawlings, stays until a very late hour. Has not your mother said something to you about this habit of his?"

"Yes, father," replied the daughter sweetly. "Mother says men haven't altered a bit."

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.--_Arabian proverb_.

For every woman who makes a fool out of a man there is another woman who makes a man out of a fool.

The ideal man is as numerous as there are women to describe him.

If a woman is an hour late in returning home, and her husband is worried, she is flattered. If a man is three hours late he is angry if anyone is worried.

He was fond of playing jokes on his wife, and this time he thought he had a winner.

"My dear," he said, as they sat at supper, "I just heard such a sad story of a young girl today. They thought she was going blind, and so a surgeon operated on her and found--"

"Yes?" gasped the wife breathlessly.

"That she'd got a young man in her eye!" ended the husband, with a chuckle.

For a moment there was silence. Then the lady remarked, slowly:

"Well, it would all depend on what sort of a man it was. Some of them she could have seen through easily enough."

A little girl wrote the following composition on men:

"Men are what women marry. They drink and smoke and swear, but don't go to church. Perhaps if they wore bonnets they would. They are more logical than women, also more zoological. Both men and women sprang from monkeys, but the women sprang farther than the men."

_Essay on Man_

At ten, a child; at twenty, wild;
At thirty, tame, if ever;
At forty, wise; at fifty, rich;
At sixty, good, or never!

_See also_ Husbands.

METHODISTS

He came of good Methodist stock and they were telling him about the disciples. They told him quite a lot about them, and somehow he didn't seem quite satisfied.

At last he voiced his trouble:

"But were they all Disciples? Weren't there _any_ Methodists?"

MIDDLEMAN

"The first shall be last and the last shall be first," quoted the devout citizen.

"It makes no difference to me how you arrange 'em," replied the expert commercialist. "I'll get mine either way. I'm the middleman."

"Pop!"

"Yes, my son."

"What is a gardener?"

"A gardener is a man who raises a few things, my boy."

"And what is a farmer?"

"A man who raises a lot of things."

"Well, what is a middleman, Pop?"

"Why, he's a fellow who raises everything, my son."

MILITARISM

VILLAGE PACIFIST (as the Salvation Army passes)--"Oh, it's all right. I ain't sayin' 'taint. But it's fosterin' th' martial speerit jes' th' same."--_Judge_.

MILITARY DISCIPLINE

A colored gentleman was walking post for the first time in his life. A dark form approached him.

"Halt!" he cried in a threatening tone. "Who are you?"

"The officer of the day."

"Advance!"

The O.D. advanced, but before he had proceeded half a dozen steps the dusky sentinel again cried, "Halt!"

"This is the second time you have halted me," observed the O.D. "What are you going to do next?"

"Never you mind what Ah's gonna do. Mah orders are to call 'Halt!' three times, den shoot."

At twelve the other night one of our aviators who had liberty until ten-thirty was "hot-footin'" it back from a hop harbor in a neighboring ville. He passed the tracks, the "Y," and then started on the double past the sentry at the gate.

"Halt!" commanded the sentry.

"Halt nothin'," yelled the gob; "I'm two hours late now."

The railings of a big transport on its way to France were lined with very new soldiers when a massive gob hurried by, bent upon some urgent duty.

"Gangway! Gangway!" he shouted as he passed along the deck.

"Gee, that guy'll catch hell when they find him," murmured one of the recruits. "They been hollerin' for him all mornin.'"

"Hollerin' for who?"

"Why, that guy Gangway."

FRIEND--"How's your boy getting on in the army, Mr. Johnson?"

JOHNSON--"Wonderful! I feel a sense of great security. An army that can make my boy get up early, work hard all day, and go to bed early can do anything!"

He was a very young officer, who looked as if he should be wearing knee breeches.

One day when his company was up for inspection at the training camp, one of the men remarked in a tone of deep sarcasm. "And a little child shall lead them."

"The man who said that, step forward," was the immediate command. The entire company stepped out and repeated the quotation.

The lieutenant looked up and down the line. "Dismissed," he announced shortly.

The men thought they had gotten the better of him, but not for long, for that night at retreat when the orders for the following day were read they heard: "There will be a twenty-five-mile hike tomorrow with full equipment, and a little child shall lead them--on a damned good horse."

HE--"Have the car ready at the Admiralty at 4:30."

CHAUFFEUSE--"Very well."

HE--"I am accustomed to being addressed as 'My Lord!'"

SHE--"I am accustomed to being addressed as 'My Lady!'"

Aunt Nancy was visiting an army camp and as she approached some rookies were sitting on their heels and then rising to a standing position in perfect unison.

"What are the boys doing now?" she asked.

"Why, those are the setting-up exercises," explained an obliging sergeant.

"Humph," remarked auntie. "Looks to me more like settin' down exercises."

Passing a hand over his forehead, the worried drill-sergeant paused for breath as he surveyed the knock-kneed recruit. Then he pointed a scornful finger. "No," he declared, "you're hopeless. You'll never make a soldier. Look at you now. The top 'alf of your legs is standin' to attention, an' the bottom 'alf is standin' at ease!"

A sergeant was trying to drill a lot of raw recruits, and after working hard for three hours he thought they seemed to be getting into some sort of shape, so decided to test them.

"Right turn!" he cried. Then, before they had ceased to move, came another order, "Left turn!"

One hoodlum left the ranks and started off toward the barracks-room.

"Here, you!" yelled the angry sergeant. "Where are you going?"

"I've had enough," replied the recruit in a disgusted tone. "You don't know your own mind for two minutes runnin'!"

The day after the second draft quota had reached Camp Devens a rookie strolled into camp after dark. As he was going past a sentry, he was challenged.

"Who goes there?"

"Machine gun 301," answered the rookie.

"Advance to be recognized."

"Aw, you don't know me. I've only been here a coupla days."

"How did that private ever get in here?" asked a corporal of a captain as he looked at a boy who seemed to be a physical weakling.

"Walked in backward," said the captain, "and the guard thought he was going out."

"Remember, my son," said his mother as she bade him good-by, "when you get to camp try to be punctual in the mornings, so as not to keep breakfast waiting."--_Life_.

A young American artist who has just returned from a six-months' job of driving a British ambulance on the war-front in Belgium brings this back, straight from the trenches:

"One cold morning a sign was pushed up above the German trench facing ours, only about fifty yards away, which bore in large letters the words:

"'GOTT MIT UNS!'

"One of our cockney lads, more of a patriot than a linguist, looked at this for a moment and then lampblacked a big sign of his own, which he raised on a stick. It read:

"'WE GOT MITTENS, TOO!'"

"Who goes there?" the sentry challenged.

"Lord Roberts," answered the tipsy recruit.

Again the sentry put the question and received a like answer, whereupon he knocked the offender down. When the latter came to, the sergeant was bending over him. "See here!" said the sergeant, "why didn't you answer right when the sentry challenged you?"

"Holy St. Patrick!" replied the recruit; "if he'd do that to Lord Roberts, what would he do to plain Mike Flanagan?"

A mud-spattered dough-boy slouched into the "Y" hut where an entertainment was in progress and slumped into a front seat.

Firm, kindly, and efficient, a Y.M.C.A. man approached him, saying: "Sorry, buddy, but the entire front section is reserved for officers."

Wearily the youth rose.

"All right," he drawled, "but the one I just got back from wasn't."

A well-dressed stranger strolled up to a colored prisoner, who was taking a long interval of rest between two heaves of a pick.

"Well, Sam, what crime did you commit to be put in those overalls and set under guard?"

"Ah went on a furlong, sah."

"Went on a furlong? You mean you went on a furlough."

"No, boss, it was a sho' nuff furlong. Ah went too fur, and Ah stayed too long."

An officer of the A.E.F. relates the following: "We had a bunch of negro troops on board and it was a terrible experience to them, as most of them had never been away from home before. They were very religious and used to pray all over the ship. One big buck held a prayer right outside my window, thus: 'O Lord, if Thou doesn't do another thing on this trip, call this ocean to attention.'"

CAPTAIN (speaking to raw recruit trying to drill)--"What was your occupation before entering the army?"

ROOKIE--"Traveling salesman, sir."

CAPTAIN--"Stick around; you'll get plenty of orders here."

MILK

"You are charged with selling adulterated milk," said the judge.

"Your Honor, I plead not guilty."

"But the testimony shows that it is 25 per cent water."

"Then it must be high-grade milk," returned the plaintiff. "If your Honor will look up the word 'milk' in your dictionary you will find that it contains from 80 to 90 per cent water. I should have sold it for cream!"

The morning milk delivered at the parsonage was certainly weak, and the head of the household considered it necessary to remonstrate. "Are you aware," he remarked to the milkman, "that we require this milk for the hitherto recognized purposes?"

"I hope so, sir," replied the tradesman.

"That's all right, then," returned the parson gently; "I merely mentioned it in case you may have thought we wanted it for the font."

On the outskirts of Philadelphia is an admirable stock farm. One day last summer some poor children were permitted to go over this farm, and when their inspection was done, to each of them was given a glass of milk. The milk was excellent.

"Well, boys, how do you like it?" the farmer said, when they had drained their glasses.

"Fine," said one little fellow. Then after a pause, he added, "I wisht our milkman kept a cow."

MILLENNIUM

_What Will We Do?_

What will we do when the good days come--
When the prima donna's lips are dumb,
And the man who reads us his "little things"
Has lost his voice like the girl who sings;
When stilled is the breath of the cornet-man,
And the shrilling chords of the quartette clan;
When our neighbors' children have lost their drums
Oh, what will we do when the good time comes?
Oh, what will we do in that good blithe time,
When the tramp will work--oh, thing sublime!
And the scornful dame who stands on your feet
Will "Thank you, sir," for the profered seat;
And the man you hire to work by the day,
Will allow you to do his work your way;
And the cook who trieth your appetite
Will steal no more than she thinks is right;
When the boy you hire will call you "Sir,"
Instead of "Say" and "Guverner";
When the funny man is humorsome--
How can we stand the millennium?

--_Robert J. Burdette_.

MILLINERS

"Madam," announced the new maid, "your husband is lying unconscious in the reception hall, with a large box beside him and crushing a paper in his hand."

"Ah," cried her mistress in ecstacy, "my new hat has come."

MILLIONAIRES

_The Idle Rich_

The teacher asked his pupils to write an essay, telling what they would do if they had five million dollars.

Every pupil except little William Powers began writing immediately. William sat idle, twiddling his fingers and watching the flies on the ceiling.

Teacher collected the papers, and William handed in a blank sheet.

"How is this, William?" asked teacher. "Is this your essay? Every other pupil has written two sheets or more, while you have done nothing!"

"Well," replied William, "that's what I would do if I were a millionaire!"

"WILLIE," asked a New York teacher of one of her pupils, "how many make a million?"

"Not many," said Willie with a grin.

MINISTERS

_See_ Clergy.

MISERS

Amos Whittaker, a miserly millionaire, was approached by a friend who used his most persuasive powers to have him dress more in accordance with his station in life.

"I am surprised, Amos," said the friend "that you should allow yourself to become shabby."

"But I'm not shabby," firmly interposed the millionaire miser.

"Oh, but you are," returned his old friend. "Remember your father. He was always neatly, even elaborately, dressed. His clothes were always finely tailored and of the best material."