Chapter XIII: Part 13

"Why, it's one o' them forty-one hour, ninety-five dollar a week labor guys that thinks a farmer is goin' to sell him food cheap."

Old Omar doubtless had us in mind when he spoke of the profit's paradise to come.

Another reason why pickpockets seem to be on the increase may be because profiteering isn't what it was a few months ago.

PROGRESS

I was explaining the other day, to a member of our organization, that there was no such thing as "standing still" in this world--that we lost ground immediately we ceased to make progress. Quick as a flash he put my thought in a few words when he remarked, "We're either coming or going." That's it exactly. When we do not improve, learn, develop old ideas or find new ones--we go backwards. And you and I know how fast we go, when there's no driving power to keep us going forward.--_E. M. Statler_.

"No, sah, Ah doan't neber ride on dem things," said an old colored lady looking in on the merry-go-round. "Why, de other day I seen dat Rastus Johnson git on an' ride as much as a dollah's worth an' git off at the very same place he got on at, an' I sez to him, 'Rastus,' I sez, 'yo' spent yo' money, but whar yo' been?'"

Beneath this starry arch,
Naught resteth or is still;
But all things hold their march
As if by one great will.
Move one, move all:
Hark to the footfall!
On, on, forever.

--_Harriet Martineau_.

PROHIBITION

A bone-dry nation means a life full of sorrows without any chance of drowning them.

_Classic Thoughts on Prohibition_

I love fools' experiments.--_Darwin_.
The rising world of waters dark and deep.--_Milton_.
Earth a failure, God-forsaken,
Ante-room of Hell!--_Kingsley_.
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.--_Shakespeare_.
The law is a ass, a idiot.--_Dickens_.
Lean, hungry, savage anti-everythings.--_Holmes_.
The remedy is worse than the disease.--_Bacon_.
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts.
And men have lost their reason.--_Shakespeare_.
Drink today, and drown all sorrow;
You shall perhaps not do't tomorrow.--_Fletcher_.
The Hell of waters!--_Byron_.
The frigid theories of a generalizing age.--_Disraeli_.
O, happy, happy Liver!--_Wordsworth_.

--_E.H._

"Do you think there's a chance of prohibition's being repealed, after all?"

"I hope not," answered Uncle Bill Bottletop; "anyhow, not soon."

"I thought you didn't quite approve of prohibition."

"I don't, quite. But for years folks have been talking about a lot o' chaps that 'ud be such wonders if they didn't drink, an' I want to see 'em get a little more time to make good."

"It is indeed a pleasure," remarked the man who approves of prohibition, "to be able to walk the streets without seeing a saloon on every corner."

"And yet," returned the unregenerate one, "it's a great comfort to know they are there, even if you don't see them."

Prohibition doesn't prohibit; it just provokes.

"Mamma, what does it mean when you're wined and dined?"

"That's an obsolete term, Harold. Now you are only grape-juiced and cornbreaded."

"This Prohibition outlook is a trifle expensive."

"How so?"

"Why, I've just had to build an addition to my wine cellar."

"Well," said the first clubman, "we may have to drink water pretty soon."

"Water?"

"Yes, that's the stuff the waiter brings you with your napkin."

_When It Comes_
_We Shall Miss_

That appointment with an old business acquaintance.
Calendars from our favorite brewery.
Blotters from same.
Reunion dinners.
(a) College.
(b) Fraternity.
Scientific dissertations on the only non-refillable bottle.
Stories about how Broadway spent New Year's eve.
The real mint julep.
The 5:15--without being unjustly accused.

_We Shall Not Miss_

Sermons against rum.
Sermons against Prohibition.
The free lunch.
The Southern gentleman who says he's the only man who can make the
real mint julep.
German beer gardens.
The man who never drinks without offering a toast.
New Year's eve on Broadway.
Comic-opera drinking songs.
A vote on the next Constitutional amendment.

BLUCK--"Why do vessels leaving New York make the greatest speed the first three miles?"

BLYNK--"The bartenders help stoke."

"Do you find that prohibition has deprest Crimson Gulch?"

"No," answered Cactus Joe. "We're more cheerful than usual. Everybody seems to think it's a great joke on all the rest of the boys."

"_Going Up_"

SMITH--"Do you realize that we are beholding the completion of a great cycle in history?"

JONES--"Explain."

"Three hundred and six years ago the island of Manhattan was bought from the Indians for six quarts of whisky."

"Well?"

"Well?--Within six months, maybe, the descendants of those Indians will be able to buy it back for the same price."

I, U.S. Boose, realizing that the jag is up, declare this to be my last will and testament: To my beloved Cocktail I bequeath three-fourths of my evil estate, and to my faithful Highball I leave a large share of the blame. To my sister, Wine, I give the family grapevine and kitchen still. To my cousin, Cider, I bequeath the old apple orchard and enough wormy fruit to keep the country moist and my memory green.

"So you're a moonshiner?" remarked the interested tourist. The lanky mountaineer drew himself up haughtily.

"Mister, you got me wrong," he asserted. "Since prohibition come in we-uns call ourselves irrigation engineers."

_Discovery_

I met a man
Who knows a woman
Who has a sister
Who is married to a man
Who is related to a girl
Who knows a man
Who knows a man
Who has never pulled a prohibition joke.
I shall try to trace him.

And when the nations disarm, some statesman will slip in a joker permitting the building of battleships for medicinal purposes.

A drunkard of long standing has been reformed by an operation which removed a bone that pressed against the brain. The Detroit News also reports a number of cures effected by the removal of a brass rail that was pressing against the foot.

"Having any success with your garden?"

"The best ever," replied Mr. Jagsby.

"What are you raising?"

"Nothing. But if I hadn't had a row with one of my new neighbors over his chickens and then a reconciliation I might not have discovered that he had a well-stocked cellar."

PROMOTERS

The man who was selling oil stock was asked if there were any indications of oil where his company was drilling.

"Indications!" he said. "Why, I should say so. We have three thousand acres leased, have a standard rig up, have three hundred feet of casing on the ground and more ordered, have our company organized and incorporated and a million shares of stock printed, have opened offices in three cities, have two hundred people selling stock, are only forty miles from a pipe line, and there was no oil found in those other wells about there, so it must be in our well. Oh, we have plenty of indications. How many shares do you want?"

"Pop, what is a promoter?"

"A promoter, my son, is a man who can make either a dollar or a penny look like thirty cents."--_Life_.

PROMPTNESS

On the occasion of the death of a chief of one of the department bureaus in Washington, a clerk in that bureau was dashing madly down the street when he was stopped by a friend, who asked: "Why the deuce are you in such a tearing hurry?"

"I am going," explained the clerk, "to the funeral of my chief, and there is nothing he hates like unpunctuality."

"I'm sorry to find the baroness out. Don't forget to tell her I called, will you?"

"No, sir, I'll tell her at once."

PRONUNCIATION

"Wasn't it _fearful_ about the Reims cathedral?"

"Don't say Reems; it sounds _horribly_ ignorant."

"Well, how do you pronounce it?"

"Why, _Hranss_."

_"How?"_

"Hn--Hranhss! Just as if you were clearing your throat. See? Hranss!"

"Well, _you_ sound as if you had a dreadful influenza, threatened with grip!"

"Well, that's right, anyhow. H--hn--hnh--_hrahnhss_!"

"You'd better go to Arizona! You'll _never_ get well here! I don't believe you, anyway. Everybody says _Reems_."

"They don't, either!"

"They do so!"

"Oh, well, it depends on the sort of people you associate with--"

"Well, I _don't_ go with a lot of fake highbrows, anxious to show off the French they learned in a course of lessons by mail--"

"Better than a lot of country junks who don't know how to pronounce--"

"Oh, well, the church wasn't hurt much, anyhow."

"No, they say it can be repaired. How do you like my hat?"

"Heavenly! What do you think of mine?"

"Adorable! Let's go in and have soda."

"Let's."--_Carolyn Wells_.

PROPERTY

"Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."--_Abraham Lincoln_.

PROPOSALS

"No," said the positive girl, "I will never tie myself down to one man."

"Perhaps," he replied sarcastically, "if I organize a syndicate you will consider our offer."

MERCHANT (to applicant for job)--"Sorry, but I only employ married men."

APPLICANT-"Do you happen to have a daughter, sir?"

"I love you! I love you!" he murmured for the nineteenth time. "Speak! Answer me!"

The maiden coyly hung her head.

"I--oh, Tom, this is so sudden!" she pleaded.

He drew her close to him.

"Don't be afraid, darling!" he said gently. "Would you like me to ask your mother first?"

With a sudden cry of alarm she threw her arms around his neck.

"No, no!" she gasped. "Mother is a widow. I want you myself!"

"Yes, she rejected me, but she did it in a most encouraging way."

"How was that?"

"As I went away, she pointed to the footprints that I had made on the carpet, and said: 'The next time you come to propose to me, I want you to wipe your shoes clean!'"

Long had he worshipped her at a distance, but his shyness prevented him from proposing. Then, one evening, for the sake of sweet charity, a theatrical performance took place, in which the charmer was leading lady and more adorable than ever. Afterward the shy admirer drew near, his love made valiant by the sight of her beauty. "You are the star of the evening," he said as they stood alone in a corner.

"You are the first to tell me so," said the damsel with a happy blush.

"Then," he retorted promptly, "may I not claim my reward as an astronomer?"

The lady looked puzzled. "What reward?" she asked.

"Why, the right to give my name to the star I have discovered!"

"So you want to marry Alice, do you?" asked the girl's father of her young man.

"Very much indeed," replied the youth.

"Can you support a family?"

The young man reflected a moment, and then asked, "How many are there of you, sir?"

FRANK--"When you proposed to her I suppose she said: 'This is so sudden?'"

ERNEST--"No, she was honest and said: 'This suspense has been terrible.'"

One evening some time since John Henry called on the darling of his heart, and while talking to the fair one he casually referred to some of the hardships of the present day.

"I see, Gladys," he remarked, "that the price of coal has gone up again, and that it is hard to get at any price."

"Has it?" responded Gladys, without showing any great concern.

"Yes," answered John Henry, "and they say they are also advancing house rents, while sugar--"

"Look here, John Henry!" suddenly interjected the fair one, with a withering expression. "If you want to break off our engagement, say so, but don't try to beat around the bush in such a cowardly way."

"Will you have me for your wife?" said the leap-year maiden, sweetly.

"Since you have suggested it, I will," he replied. "But just remember, Mame, if I don't turn out to be all you expect you have only yourself to blame."

The pretty girl of the party was bantering the genial bachelor on his reasons for remaining single.

"No-o-o, I never was exactly disappointed in love," he meditated. "I was more what you might call discouraged. You see, when I was very young I became very much enamored of a young lady of my acquaintance; I was mortally afraid to tell her of my feeling, but at last I screwed up my courage to the proposing point. I said, 'Let's get married.'

"And she said, 'Good Lord! Who'd have us!'"--_Everybody's_.

HE (cautiously)--"Would you say 'Yes' if I asked you to marry me?"

SHE (still more cautiously)--"Would you ask me to marry you if I said I would say 'Yes' if you asked me to marry you?"

"Congratulate me, Freddy. Last night your sister promised to marry me."

"Oh, she promised mother she'd marry you long ago."--_Life_.

HE-"I called to see your father this afternoon."

SHE (fluttering visibly)-"Oh, did you?"

HE--"Yes; he has been owing our firm a little bill for some time."

"So you want to marry my daughter," said Mr. Cumrox.

"Yes," replied the young man. "I hope to hear you say take her and be happy!"

"No, sir. I'm not going to shoulder any implied responsibilities. All I am going to say is 'take her.'"

HARRY--"Marry me and your smallest wishes will always be fulfilled."

CARRIE--"I am able to do that myself. What I want is a man who will gratify my biggest wishes."

"I was speaking with your father last night," he said at last, somewhat inanely.

"Oh, were you?" answered the sweet young thing, lowering her eyes. "Er--what were you--er--talking about?"

"About the war in Europe. Your father said that he hoped the fighting would soon be over."

The sweet young thing smiled.

"Yes," she remarked. "I know he's very much opposed to long engagements."

PROSPERITY

For some people half the battle consists in looking prosperous; the other half, in getting credit on the strength of such prosperity.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT

We all "ketch" 'em at the psychological moment:

The doctor, when they think they are going to die.

The lawyer, when they think they are going to be sent to jail.

The dentist, when they think a tooth is going to blow off their heads.

The tax collector, when they think they are going to be sold out.

The garage man, when they think they are going to have a blow-out.

The captain, when they think the major is on their trail.

The undertaker, when they don't think any more!

PSYCHOLOGY

"Father," said the small boy, "what is psychology?"

"Psychology, my son, is a word of four syllables that you ring in to distract attention when the explaining gets difficult."

A small boy seated on the curb by a telephone-pole, with a tin can by his side, attracted the attention of an old gentleman who happened to be passing.

"Going fishing?" he inquired, good-naturedly.

"Nope," the youngster replied. "Take a peek in there."

An investigation showed the can to be partly filled with caterpillars of the tussock moth.

"What in the world are you doing with them?"

"They crawl up trees and eat off the leaves."

"So I understand."

"Well, I'm fooling a few of them."

"How?"

"Sending 'em up this telephone-pole."--_Judge_.

PUBLIC, THE

What the country needs is not a phonographic record to preserve a candidate's voice, but something to preserve what's left of the voice of the people.

_The Ultimate Victim_

When capital wants extra gains.
On profits tightens all the reins,
Who has to suffer all the pains?
The public.

When labor gets dissatisfied,
And would conditions override,
Who gets submerged beneath the tide?
The public.

When strikes put up the price of food,
And each side holds firm attitude,
Who always has to make loss good?
The public.

When street-cars cease to run, and balk
At all conciliation talk,
Who has to pay the freight and walk?
The public.

When managers and actors fight
And theaters are closed at night,
Who sees amusement out of sight?
The public.

Who in disputes which rise each day,
Is not permitted any say,
But always loses either way?
The public.

The public! the public! How many fools does it take to make up a public?--_Chamfort_.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

At a teachers' institute in an Eastern city a speaker said that, in his opinion, "the trouble with the public-school system of today is: The teachers are afraid of the principals, the principals are afraid of the superintendent, he is afraid of the school committee, they are afraid of the parents, the parents are afraid of the children, and the children are afraid of nobody!"

PUBLIC SPEAKERS

A captain in the merchant marine who received much commendation for his wonderful courage and endurance during the war was asked to address a meeting in the West. Ex-President Taft spoke first and at considerable length, and when he had finished the audience rose, almost to a man, to leave the building. The chairman sprang to his feet, rushed to the edge of the platform, and called excitedly: "Come back and take your seats. Come back, every one of you! This man went through hell for us during the war, and it is up to us now to do the same for him."

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the chairman of the evening, "in a few minutes I shall introduce the gentleman who is to address you. It is not my function to deliver a speech at this time, but I shall just use up five or ten minutes so that you may know how good a speech you would have had to listen to were I the speaker and he the chairman."

"Have you ever taken a tail-spin in an airplane?"

"No, but I've been called upon unexpectedly to make a speech, and I guess the sensation is about the same."

"It must break the theme of your lecture to be interrupted by your audience."

"The secret of success for a lecturer, my boy," replied the foreign visitor, "is not to have a theme."

"That speaker certainly made a hit."

"What did he talk about?"

"About ten minutes."

EMPLOYER (coming upon colored porter looking through the dictionary)--"What are you doing, Sam; looking up some more big words for another speech?"

"No, sah. 'Tain't that. Ah's jes' translatin' the speech ah made las' night."

CHAIRMAN (of public banquet)--"Gentlemen, before I introduce the next speaker, there will be a short recess, giving you all a chance to go out and stretch your legs."

GUEST--"Who is the next speaker?"

CHAIRMAN--"Before telling you who he is, I would rather wait until you come back."--_Life_.

William Lyon Phelps, professor of English Literature at Yale, declares he gets credit for only 25 per cent of the after-dinner speeches he actually makes. "Every time I accept an invitation to speak, I really make four addresses. First, is the speech I prepare in advance. That is pretty good. Second, is the speech I really make. Third, is the speech I make on the way home, which is the best of all; and fourth, is the speech the newspapers next morning say I made, which bears no relation to any of the others."

"What would be a good way to raise revenue and still benefit the people?"

"Tax every speech made in this country."

"Many's de speech I has listened to," said Uncle Eben, "dat left me wonderin' whether I was gettin' infohmation or entertainment."

A noted Frenchman, on visiting England was asked to speak at a banquet. Being interested in his subject he spoke at great length. Suddenly realizing another speaker was to follow him he closed his remarks with an apology, saying "I am very sorry but there is another speaker and I am afraid I have cockroached on his time."

A burst of laughter greeted this remark and in much confusion he turned to the Englishman next to him and asked what break he had made.

The Englishman, in a reassuring manner, said "It wasn't exactly a break only here in England we don't say cockroach, we say 'h--encroach.'"

A political meeting was on in a certain Iowa town and Thomas R. Marshall, Vice-President of the United States, was to speak. The hall was packed and the air was stifling. For some reason, it was impossible to open the windows, and one had to be broken.

It was feared that the noise would startle the audience and perhaps throw them into a panic. The mayor of the town stepped forward to give warning. The audience, however, had not assembled to listen to the mayor, and overwhelmed him with cries of "Marshall! Marshall!"

Silence was not restored till the infuriated official yelled at the top of his voice:

"I'm not going to make a speech! I have something to say!"

"Do you know what it is to go before an audience?"

"No. I spoke before an audience once, but most of it went before I did."

A lank, disconsolate-looking farmer, stood on the steps of the town hall during the progress of a political meeting.

"Do you know who's talking in there now?" demanded a stranger, briskly, pausing for a moment beside the farmer. "Or are you just going in?"

"No, sir; I've just come out," said the farmer, decidedly. "Congressman Smiffkins is talking in there."

"What about?" asked the stranger.

"Well," continued the countryman, passing a knotted hand across his forehead, "he didn't say."

"You haven't had much to say lately," commented the old friend.

"True," replied Senator Sorghum. "But you must give me credit for one thing--I realized the fact and kept still."

Captain "Ian Hay," on one of his war lecture tours, entered a barber's shop in a small town to have his hair cut.

"Stranger in the town, sir?" the barber asked.

"Yes, I am," Ian Hay replied. "Anything going on here tonight?"

"There's a war lecture by an English fighter named Hay," said the barber: "but if you go you'll have to stand, for every seat in the hall is sold out."

"Well, now," said Ian Hay, "isn't that provoking? It's always my luck to have to stand when that Hay chap lectures."

_See also_ Politicians.

PUBLISHERS

He was a typical gamin, so diminutive in stature that I had to stoop to interrogate him, which I did in this way:

"Where do you get your papers, my little man?"

"Oh, I buy 'em in the Times alley."

"What do you pay for them?"

"Fi' cents."

"What do you sell them for?"

"Fi' cents."

"You don't make anything at that?"

"Nope."

"Then what do you sell them for?"

"Oh, just to get a chance to holler."

PUNCTUALITY

_Epitaph for Any New Yorker_

I, who all my life had hurried,
Came to Peter's crowded gate;
And, as usual, was worried,
Fearing that I might be late

So, when I began to jostle
(I forgot that I was dead)
Patient smiled the old Apostle:
"Take your Eternity," he said.

--_Christopher Morley_.

_See also_ Alarm clocks.

PUNCTUATION

"Can't you stretch a point?"

"Certainly," said the period. And thus was born the comma.

A high-school girl said to her father the other night:

"Daddy, I've got a sentence here I'd like you to punctuate. You know something about punctuation, don't you?"

"A little," said her cautious parent, as he took the slip of paper she handed him.

This is what he read:

"A five-dollar bill flew around the corner"

He studied it carefully.

"Well," he finally said, "I'd simply put a period after it, like this."

"I wouldn't," said the high-school girl; "I'd make a dash after it!"

PUNISHMENT

In one of the many navy schools a young instructor was attempting to teach English to a gruff old sailor. "What is a complete sentence?" he said.

"Solitary confinement, bread and water," was the grim reply.

Among the Monday morning culprits haled before a Baltimore police magistrate was a darky with no visible means of support.

"What occupation have you here in Baltimore?" asked his Honor.

"Well, jedge," said the darky, "I ain't doin' much at present--jest circulatin' round, suh."

His Honor turned to the clerk of the court and said:

"Please enter the fact that this gentleman has been retired from circulation for sixty days."

"Germany is going to be badly surprised when the Allies' peace terms are read to her. The peace terms are very severe--just, but very severe."

The speaker was Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt. He went on:

"Germany is going to feel like Rastus Rosin, who was convicted of stealing a hog.

"'Rastus,' the judge said to him, 'you are fined $5.'

"'Jedge,' said Rastus, 'Ah'm obliged to ye. Ah got dat five spot right here in mah left-hand vest-pocket.'

"'Well,' continued the judge, 'just dig down in your right-hand vest-pocket, Rastus, and see if you can find thirty days.'"

Mamie had been naughty and her mother finally had recourse to the time-honored remedy in such cases.

"Mamma," she sobbed, "did Gran'ma spank you when you was little?"

"Yes, dear," said her mother, "she did when I was naughty."

"And did her mother spank her?"

"Yes."

"An" was she spanked, too, when she was bad?"

"Yes."

"Well, who started this blamed thing anyhow?"

"Judge," said the man at the bar, "there's no use of you trying to square this thing up. My wife and I fight just so often and just so long, and we can't help it. So there you are."

"And about how long do you keep it up?" asked the judge.

"About two weeks, judge."

"All right. I'll give you fifteen days in jail; in other words, you are interned for the duration of the war."

VISITOR (comforting Tommy, who has upset a bottle of ink on the new carpet)--"Never mind, my boy; no use to cry over spilled milk."

TOMMY (indignantly)--"Any dunce would know that. If it's milk that's spilled all you have to do is to call the cat an' she'll lick it up cleaner'n anything. But this ain't milk, an' mother'll do the lickin', is what ails me."

"Quite a good epigram, that," said the tramp, who had been convicted for vagrancy.

"What did he say?" asked the tramp's pal.

"Seven days."

"How d'you make that out an epigram?"

"Why," said the tramp, "I once asked a parson what an epigram was, and he said 'It's a short sentence that sounds light, but gives you plenty to think about.'"

PARSON WHITE--"Brudder Lamkins, how did yer son come outen de trial?"

BRO. LAMKINS--"De Jedge done give 'im two mumfs in de jayul."

PARSON WHITE--"'Pears ter me like as if you outer be pow'ful thankful. He got off mighty light, he did."

BRO. LAMKINS--"'Twan't 's light's you seem to think. Dey's agwinter hang 'im when de two mumfs is up."

"Rastus," said the judge sternly, "you're plain no-account and shiftless, and for this fight I'm going to send you away for a year at hard labor."

"Please, Jedge," interrupted Mrs. Rastus from the rear of the court room, "will yo' Honah jes' kinder split dat sentence? Don't send him away from home, but let dat hard labor stand."

A German spy caught redhanded was on his way to be shot.

"I think you English are brutes," he growled, "to march me through this rain and slush."

"Well," said the "Tommy" who was escorting him, "what about me? I have to go back in it."

_See also_ Marriage.

PUNS

"Have you a little fairy in your home?"

"No, but I have a little miss in my engine."

SMALL SCOUT--"Dad, what are the silent watches of the night?"

INDULGENT FATHER--"They are the ones which their owners forgot to wind, my son."

"Here, boy," said the man to the boy who was helping him drive a bunch of cattle, "hold this bull a minute, will you?"

"No," answered the boy, "I don't mind bein' a director in this company, but I'm darned if I want to be a stockholder."

MA--"You've been drinking. I smell it in your breath." PA--"Not a drop. I've been eating frog's legs. What you smell is the hops."

PROF.--"What happened to Babylon?"

FRESH.--"It fell."

PROF.--"What happened to Tyre?"

FRESH.--"It was punctured."

That was a good, though rather a severe pun, which was made by a student in one of our theological seminaries (and he was not one of the brightest of the class, either), when he asked, "Why is Professor---- the greatest revivalist of the age?" and on all "giving it up," said, "Because at the close of every sermon there is a 'Great Awakening.'"

PURGATORY

MARMADUKE ISOLATE (of Lonelyville).--"Pa, what is Purgatory?"

MR. ISOLATE (wearily).--"Purgatory? Why, Purgatory is a sort of suburb of Heaven."

QUAKERS

After a long essay on the Quakers, taken largely from the encyclopedia, a Western schoolboy finished off with this original thought. "Quakers never quarrel, never get into fights, and never scratch." Then, seeking for a demonstration of the fact and a final touch, he added: "Pa is a Quaker, but I kinda think that Ma isn't."

QUESTIONS

"You understand your duties thoroughly, don't you?" she said to the new footman.

"Yes, ma'am, certainly, ma'am."

"And you know your way to announce?"

"Well, ma'am, I shouldn't perhaps like to go quite so far as that, but I think I know my weight to a pound or so."

"Father, is the zebra a black animal with white stripes or a white animal with black stripes?"

"Has Jobkins any money?" asked Hickenlooper.

"Oh, he must have," said Garroway.

"Oh, we all must have--but have we?" said Hickenlooper.

There is an elevator boy in a New York office building, who is among a large number of public servants that resent needless questions.

One day there entered his car a rather fussy old lady, and garrulous as well.

"Don't you ever feel sick going up and down in this elevator all day?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," said the boy.

"Is it the motion going down?"

"No, ma'am."

"The motion going up?"

"No, ma'am."

"Is it the stopping that does it?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then what is it?"

"Answering questions, ma'am."

"My father and I know everything in the world," said a small boy to his companion.

"All right," said the latter. "Where's Asia?"

It was a stiff question, but the little fellow answered coolly: "That is one of the questions my father knows."

Owen Wister, the novelist, apropos of useless questions, once told of a man who stood before a mirror in his room, his face lathered and an open razor in his hand. His wife came in. She looked at him and said, "Are you shaving?" The man, a foe to surplusage, replied fiercely, "No; I am blacking the kitchen range. Where are you--out driving or at a four-o'clock tea?"

_See also_ Curiosity.

RADICALS

A radical is a man without a sense of humor; a conservative is one without a sense of the ridiculous.

RAILROADS

"Where's the president of this railroad?" asked the man who called at the general offices.

"He's down in Washington, attendin' th' session o' some kind uv an investigatin' committee," replied the office boy.

"Where is the general manager?"

"He's appearin' before th' Interstate Commerce Commission."

"Well, where's the general superintendent?"

"He's at th' meetin" of th' legislature, fightin' some bum new law."

"Where is the head of the legal department?"

"He's in court, tryin' a suit."

"Then where is the general passenger agent?"

"He's explainin' t' th' commercial travelers why we can't reduce th' fare."

"Where is the general freight agent?"

"He's gone out in th' country t' attend a meeting o' th' grange an' tell th' farmers why we ain't got no freight-cars."

"Who's running the blame railroad, anyway?"

"The newspapers and th' legislatures."

An old Cornish woman who had never before traveled by rail went to a country station to catch a train. She sat herself down on a seat in the station, and after sitting there for about two hours, the station-master came up to her and asked where she was going. On her telling him, he said:

"Why, my good woman, the train has just gone, and there isn't another for a long time!"

"Why, lor'!" says the old lady, "I thought the whole consarn moved!"

"What good," asked the angry would-be passenger, "are the figures set down in these railway time-tables?"

"Why," patiently explained the genial agent, "if it weren't for them figures we'd have no way of findin' out how late the train is."

The American in the first-class carriage of an English train insisted on smoking. An angry Englishman protested, and when about to appeal to the guard the American got ahead of him with the remark: "Guard, I think you will find that that gentleman is traveling with a third-class ticket on him."

It proved to be true, and the sputtering Britisher was put out.

A spectator of the incident asked the American how he knew about the ticket.

"Well," explained the composed stranger, "it was sticking out of his pocket and I noticed that it was the same color as mine."

A new railroad through Louisiana strikes some of the towns about a mile from the business center, so it is necessary to run a bus line. A salesman stopping in one of the towns asked the old darky bus driver about it:

"Say, uncle, why have they got the depot way down here?"

After a moment's hesitation the old darky replied: "Ah dunno, boss, unless dey wanted to git it on de railroad."

Picking her way daintily through the locomotive plant, a young woman visitor viewed the huge operations with awe. Finally, she turned to a young man who was showing her through, and asked:

"What is that big thing over there?"

"That's a locomotive-boiler," he replied. She puckered her brows.

"And what do they boil locomotives for?"

"To make the locomotive tender," and the young man from the office never smiled.

"What kind of a plant is the Virginia creeper?"

"It isn't a plant; it's a railroad."

The president of a certain railway in Kentucky which is only ten miles long, was exchanging annual passes one year with officials of other railways.

He enclosed an annual pass on his railway to Stuyvesant Fish, then president of the Illinois Central Railway, for himself and family, with the request that Fish reciprocate.

It seems that Fish had never heard of the Kentucky road, so he instructed his secretary to look it up. As a result the pass was returned with the following curt letter:

DEAR SIR:

I find that your railroad is only ten miles long, while my road is
eleven hundred miles long. I herewith return your pass made out in
favor of myself and family. Yours truly,
STUYVESANT FISH.

This was too much for the old Kentucky colonel, who made the following notation on Fish's letter and sent it back:

"You go to hell--_my railroad is as_ WIDE _as yours_".

He received the Illinois Central pass by return mail.

"Conductor!" shouted a passenger on the back-country train.

"That was my station, sir! Why didn't you stop?"

"We don't stop there any longer," said the conductor. "You see, the engineer is mad with the station agent!"

"Now will this train reach its destination on time?"

"We hope so, but we don't guarantee it."

"You mean you sell me a ticket to get to a certain place by a certain time and then you give me no assurance I'll be there at that time?"

"That's about it."

"Well, I'll take the ticket. But I'll get even! I won't guarantee I'll be here when your darned old unguaranteed train is ready to start, so I won't!"

"We are twenty minutes late," remarked the passenger. "Will we make it up before we reach New York?"

"No, sah; no, sah," answered the porter. "No, sah. The engineer and fireman get time and a half for overtime."

READING

_See_ Books and reading

REAL ESTATE

"It is very strange that no one has ever been able to find Captain Kidd's treasure."

"Oh, well, Captain Kidd isn't the only man who has put his money into real estate and couldn't get it out."

REAL ESTATE AGENTS

STEVE--"That Smith guy of the Meadow Bottom Development Company has got the fastest car in this neck of the country. He makes ninety miles an hour."

HANK--"Some car! What's he want of such a speed demon?"

STEVE--"He's gotta have it when he's advertising his development as being five minutes from the station."

A house-hunter, getting off a train at a suburban station, said to a boy standing near:

"My boy, I am looking for Mr. Smith's new block of semi-detached houses. How far are they from here?"

"About twenty minutes' walk," said the boy.

"Twenty minutes!" exclaimed the house-hunter. "Nonsense! The advertisement said five."

"Well," replied the boy, "yer kin believe me or the advertisement, whichever yer want. But I ain't tryin' to make no sale."

"Look here, you swindler!" roared the owner of the suburban property to the real-estate man. "When you sold me this house, didn't you say that in three months I wouldn't part with it for $10,000?"

"Certainly," said the real-estate dealer calmly, "and you haven't, have you?"

REALISM

Things that are what they appear to be are so rare that one cannot tell them when one sees them.

RECOMMENDATIONS

"Eh-yah! Young Doc. Purt is a pretty good doctor," admitted the landlord of the Petunia tavern, in reply to the inquiry of a guest who felt the need of a physician's advice. "In spite of all the money he's spent for electrical apparatus and the fact that he wears one of these 'ere three-cornered vanduct beards, there have been no unusually distressing deaths in our midst during the six months he has been with us."

The applicant for the job of office-boy presented his credentials in a manner that bespoke his entire confidence that the position would be his. The sour-looking old gentleman at the head of the establishment read the paper carefully and then surveyed the boy searchingly.

"It is certainly a very nice thing for you to have these recommendations from the minister of your church and your Sunday-school teacher," said he, "and I must admit that you look honest. All the same, I'd like to have a few words from someone that knows you on week-days."--_Harper's_.

"You say you have good references?"

"Yes, ma'am. I have over a 'undred splendid references."

"And how long have you been in domestic service?"

"Two years, ma'am."

A prominent New England educator tells of a Chinese cook in Manila who was innocently carrying about a reference, written by a saturnine Englishman, with which he expected to secure a good position. The reference read as follows:

"This man cooked for me six months; it seemed much longer. He left on account of illness--my illness."

"Have you any references?" inquired the lady of the house.

"Yis, mum, lots of thim," answered the prospective maid.

"Then why did you not bring some of them with you?"

"Well, mum, to tell the troot, they're just loike my photygraphs. None of thim don't do me justice."

Here is a letter of recommendation given by a butcher to a former employee:

"Whomsoefer is de boss--

"Dear Sir--Dis is to testify dot Hans Snyder vorked for me von week. Ven he left I was perfectly satisfied."

RECRUITING

POLICEMAN (rounding up draft suspects)--"Have you got a card?"

THE SUSPECTED ONE (with suitcase)--"A whole case of 'em! Which do you want to see--draft, registration, meat, sugar, calling, milk, playing, or postal-card?"--_Judge_.

"Before I left the United States," said Col. George Harvey recently in London, "I agreed with a Columbia professor who said preponderant power in men and money was bound to win the war; but now I have a stronger argument--one which fell from the lips of a recruiting-sergeant in the Strand yesterday.

"'Don't you want to be on the winning side?' said the soldier to a group of civilians who he was suggesting should don khaki.

"'How do you know ours will be the winning side?' asked a prospective recruit.

"'Well, my lad,' said the sergeant, 'you know the Germans have been trying for more than a year and a half to win and have failed, don't you?"

"'Yes,' replied the questioner.

"'Well, then, we've been trying to lose during the same period and we couldn't.'"

United States Senator Howard Sutherland, of West Virginia, tells a story about a mountain youth who visited a recruiting-office in the Senator's State for the purpose of enlisting in the regular Army. The examining physician found the young man as sound as a dollar, but that he had flat feet.

"I'm sorry," said the physician, "but I'll have to turn you down. You've got flat feet."

The mountaineer looked sorrowful. "No way for me to git in it, then?" he inquired.

"I guess not. With those flat feet of yours you wouldn't be able to march even five miles."

The youth from the mountains studied a moment. Finally he said: "I'll tell you why I hate this so darned bad. You see, I walked nigh on to one hundred and fifteen miles over the mountains to git here, and gosh, how I hate to walk back!"

RECRUITING OFFICER--"What's the good of coming here and saying you're only seventeen years old! Go and walk around that yard and come back and see if you're not nineteen."--_Punch_.

_See also_ Conscription.

RED TAPE

America consumes more red dye than any other color. This, as you are aware, is the color chosen for government tape in Washington.

REGRETS

_Who Am I?_

I am frequently most potent in the morning, but I am willing to abide with you at any time.

I am what you feel if you get married or if you do not get married.

I am what the after-dinner speaker says he feels because he came unprepared, and what the listeners show they feel without saying it.

I come to you when youth leaves you.

I am yours when that sarcastic person drops a remark which you cannot fittingly answer, and I am doubled when you are later alone and think of just the brilliant retort you should have given.

I am what overwhelms you when you suffer an overwhelming financial loss.

I am the vainest of the vain.

I am regret!

MRS. EXE--"Here's an invitation from Mrs. Boreleigh to one of her tiresome dinners. I hate them."

EXE--"Why not plead that you have a previous engagement?"

MRS. EXE--"That would be a lie. Edith dear, write Mrs. Boreleigh that we accept with pleasure."

RELATIVES

"Have you any relatives living in the country?"

"No; whenever we take a vacation we have to pay our own board."

"Old Millyuns says that since he made his pile of money he feels like a neutral nation."

"Why is that?"

"Because he has so many diplomatic relations."--_Judge_.

RELIGIONS

Rowland Hill, when some persons entered his chapel to avoid the rain that was falling, quietly observed, "Many persons are to be blamed for making their religion a cloak, but I do not think those are much better who make it an umbrella."

A man in the threadbare coat and a week's beard came out of a downtown mission where he had signed the pledge and joined the church, only to be nabbed for theft a half hour later.

"Why did you make off with the pocketbook you saw this lady drop in the street?" demanded the Judge in court.

"It's all the minister's fault," declared the thief in deprecation. "I went to him discouraged and out of money, and he told me I must learn to take things as I found them."

Dr. Lyman P. Powell gives some examples of the lengths to which petty bitterness between sects will sometimes carry men. "A visitor in a certain town which had four churches and adequately supported none, asked a pillar of one poor dying church, 'How's your church getting on?' 'Not very well,' was the reply, 'but, thank the Lord, the others are not doing any better.'"

REMEDIES

A Chinaman was asked if there were good doctors in China.

"Good doctors!" he exclaimed, "China have best doctors in world. Hang Chang one good doctor; he great; save life, to me."

"You don't say so! How was that?"

"Me velly bad," he said. "Me callee Doctor Han Kon. Give some medicine. Get velly, velly ill. Me callee Doctor San Sing. Give more medicine. Me glow worse--go die. Blimebly callee Doctor Hang Chang. He got no time; no come. Save life."

The other day a negro went into a drug store and said:

"Ah wants one ob dem dere plasters you stick on yoah back."

"I understand," said the clerk, "You mean one of our porous plasters?"

"No, sab, I don't want none ob your porous plasters, I wants de bes' one you got."

A Swedish farmer, who lived on his wheat farm in Minnesota, was taken ill and his wife telephoned the doctor.

"If you have a thermometer," answered the physician, "take his temperature. I will be out and see him presently."

An hour or so later when the doctor drove up, the woman met him at the door.

"How is he?" asked the doctor.

"Veil," said she, "I bane put the barometer on him like you tell me, and it say 'Very dry,' so I give him a pitcher of water to drink, and now he ban gone back to vork."

BESSIE--"The doctor says mamma must take a constitutional every morning. What's that mean?"

BOBBY--"That means walking."

BESSIE--"Then why didn't he say walk?"

BOBBY--"I don't know, but I guess maybe if he called it that he couldn't charge for it."

REMINDERS

HE (to wife who is off for the beach)--"Now, don't forget me, dear."

SHE--"As if I could, Jack. The surf at night sounds just like you snoring."

The late Horace Hutton used to say that having to take a little trouble would impress a fact on any one's memory so that he would never be able to forget it. In illustration he would tell this story:

"Our waitress, Maggie, could never remember to put salt on the table, and time after time Mrs. Hutton would remind her to do it. One morning it was absent, as usual, and I said, 'Maggie, where is the stepladder?'

"'It's in the pantry, sir!'

"'Please bring it in, Maggie,' I said kindly.

"Maggie brought it in with a look of wonder on her face.

"'Put it right beside the table,' I commanded, and when she had done so I added: 'Now, I want you to climb up to the top of it, look all over the table and see if there is any salt there.'

"Maggie never forgot the salt again."

"What's that piece of cord tied around your finger for?"

"My wife put it there to remind me to post a letter."

"And did you post it?"

"No; she forgot to give it to me."

CONDUCTOR--"Do you mind if I put your bag out of the way, sir? People coming in are falling over it."

TRAVELER--"You leave it where it is. If nobody falls over it I shall forget it's there."

REPARTEE

"Pa, what is repartee?"

"Oh, merely an insult with its dress-suit on, my son."--_Puck_.

FIRST STUDENT--"The idea; my napkin is damp!"

SECOND STUDENT--"Perhaps that's because there is so much due on your board."

The big man with the I-know-it-all expression sneeringly watched the little man who was eating from a sack of peanuts.

"Down where I come from we use peanuts to fatten hogs," remarked the big man.

"That so?" asked the little man. "Here, have some."

EINSTEIN--"I hear you already, and I dinks you vas talking to yourself."

ROSENBERG--"You vas a liar and a scoundrel! Do you hear dot?"

"What would you say," began the voluble prophet, "if I were to tell you that in a very short space of time all the rivers will dry up?"

"I would say," replied the patient man, "go thou and do likewise."

"I'm tired of always being the goat!"

"Then, why don't you stop butting in?"

"Oh, say, who was here to see you last night?"

"Only Myrtle, father."

"Well, tell Myrtle that she left her pipe on the piano."

"Willie, your master's report of your work is very bad. Do you know that when Woodrow Wilson was your age he was head of the school?"

"Yes, pa; and when he was your age he was President of the United States."

"You are an angel."

"I guess that's right. An angel has but one gown and for her the styles never change."

A stern old preacher had issued to his people a command against dancing, believing it to be a device of the devil.

A few of the young people disobeyed and attended a dance given at a neighboring town. Finally it reached the ears of the preacher, and, meeting one of the culprits on the street one morning, he said in a stern voice:

"Good morning, child of the devil!"

"Good morning, father!" smilingly answered the pretty miss.

CUSTOMER--"The price of these shoes seems high. Wasn't there something said about a movement to have it reduced?"

CLERK--"Yes--but it's not on foot yet."

UNCLE SILAS (visiting city relatives who use electrical appliances for cooking at the table)--"Well, I swan! You make fun of us for eatin' in the kitchen. I don't see as it makes much difference whether you eat in the kitchen or cook in the dining-room."--_Life_.

There had been a quarrel. "You're no lidy," remarked the party of the first part "Ah!" replied the other. "If it wasn't that I _was_ a lidy, p'raps I'd be able to tell _you_ wot kind of a lidy _you_ ain't."

FIRST TRAVELER (cheerily)--"Fine day, isn't it?"

SECOND DITTO (haughtily)--"Sir! You have the advantage of me. I don't know you."

FIRST DITTO--"Humph! I fail to see the advantage."

"We need brains in this business, sir."

"I know you do. The business shows it."

"Well! well!" exclaimed Mrs. Talker, looking up from the morning paper. "Boots and shoes should be getting much cheaper now. Here's a paragraph that states that they are being made from all sorts of skins, even rat skins"; and then, trying to be funny, she added, "I wonder what they do with banana and orange skins?"

"Oh, my dear," replied her husband, "they make slippers!"

The usual large crowd was gathered at the New York end of the Brooklyn Bridge waiting for trolley-cars. An elderly lady, red in the face, flustered and fussy, dug her elbows into convenient ribs irrespective of owners.

A fat man on her left was the recipient of a particularly vicious jab. She yelled at him, "Say!"

He winced slightly and moved to one side.

She, too, sidestepped and thumped him vigorously on the back.

"Say!" she persisted, "does it make any difference which of these cars I take to Greenwood Cemetery?"

"Not to me, madam," he answered, slipping through an opening in the crowd.

AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER (to American)--"You Yanks think you've done a lot, but you forget we Australians have been at the game for four years."

"Well, what have you done, anyway?"

"Done? We've been at Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, the plains of Bethlehem, and--"

"The plains of Bethlehem?"

"Yes; I slept a week there myself."

"Well, I guess that was a busy week for the shepherds watching their flocks!"

Once in a while the choirs do get back at the minister, as, for example, in a Connecticut church the other Sunday morning. The minister announced, just after the choir had sung its anthem, as his text, "Now when the uproar had ceased." But the singers bided their time patiently, and when the sermon was over, rose and rendered in most melodious fashion another anthem beginning, "Now it is high time to awake after sleep."

REPORTING

A noted artist was recently visited by an interviewer, who fired at him from a question-sheet questions such as these:

"Were your parents artistic? Which of your paintings do you consider your best work? When, where, and why did you paint it? How much did it bring you in? Who is your favorite dead master? Favorite living master? What is your income from art? How much--"

But at this point the artist seized the interviewer by the arm and began in his turn:

"Just a moment, please. What is your name, age, and salary? Is journalism with you a life-work or merely a means to a higher literary end? How do you like your editor? State his faults and salary. What was the best interview you ever wrote? Give a brief summary of same. Have you ever been fired? How does it feel? Where--"

But here the interviewer, jerking his arm from the painter's grasp, fled from the studio, and the artist cheerfully resumed his work.

A "cub" reporter on a New York newspaper was sent to Paterson to write the story of the murder by thieves, of a rich manufacturer. He spread himself on the details and naively concluded his account with this sentence:

"Fortunately for the deceased, he had deposited all of his money in the bank the day before, so he lost practically nothing but his life."--_Harper's_.

_See also_ Journalism; Newspapers.

REPUTATION

"So you come from New York," said an English lady to a traveling American. "I supposed, of course, you came from Boston."

"Why did you think that?" inquired the New York lady.

"Because I supposed all cultivated, intelligent Americans came from Boston."

"But what in the world made you think that?" was the natural question.

"Oh, I don't know, exactly. I think it was a Boston lady who told me."