Chapter XV: Part 15

A well-known society performer volunteered to entertain a roomful of patients of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, and made up a very successful little monologue show, entirely humorous. The audience in the main gave symptoms of being slightly bored, but one highly intelligent maniac saw the whole thing in the proper light, and, clapping the talented actor on the shoulder, said: "Glad you've come old fellow. You and I will get along fine. The other dippies here are so dashed dignified. What I say is if a man is mad, he needn't put on airs about it."

SOCIALISTS

"What's the difference between a socialist and a plutocrat?"

"There are many; but the leading one is that the former fights for his principle and the latter for his interest."

SOCIETY

"Dad, what's a social scale?"

"Well, generally speaking old man, it's a place where money is weighed."

REGULAR CUSTOMER--"I shall want a large quantity of flowers from you next week for my daughter's coming out."

FLOWER WOMAN--"Yes, mum. You shall 'ave the very best for 'er, pore dear. Wot were she put in for?"--_Punch_.

WILLIS--"What makes you think it is easier for a rich man to land in Society than for an immigrant to land in America?"

GILLIS--"In the former case the literacy test isn't as strict."

AUNT--"You'll be late for the party, won't you, dear?"

NIECE--"Oh, no, auntie. In our set nobody goes to a party until everybody else gets there."

Man it attracted to society by a desire to improve himself; and leaves it for the same reason.

SOCIOLOGY

Catalog Class: "300 is the number for sociology. Now what does that word mean to you, children?" One little girl stands up, smooths out her frock, straightens her bow, folds her hands, and, being properly adjusted to recite, exclaims: "Sociology is a science that teaches you how to sew."

SOLDIERS

Noah would have saved future soldiers a lot of trouble if he had swatted those two cooties when they marched up the gang plank of the ark.

SOUND

Sound travels at the rate of 400 yards per second.

Exceptions to this rule:

Scandal: 1,000 yards.

Flattery: 500 yards.

Truth: 2-1/2 yards.

Alarm-clock:----?

SOUVENIRS

Secretary of State Lansing slipped out of the council chamber and went souvenir hunting in the palace. Luck was with him, he said, for he found a remarkable piece of antique wall-paper.

Next day a frantic Japanese stenographer was looking for his shorthand notes.

SPECULATION

"My wife watches the sugar market closely."

"Speculating?"

"In a small way. She borrows when it's high and pays back when it's low."

The old millionaire and his beautiful bride, after their quiet wedding, had a quiet wedding breakfast _a deux_. Astrakhan caviar, eggs pompadour, a truffled chicken, fresh California peas, champagne--so the quiet breakfast ran.

"My dear," said the old millionaire, as the fruit course, a superb Florida melon, came on, "tell me, dear"--and he laid his withered hand on her young one--"do you love me for what I am or for what I was?"

The beautiful girl smiled down from the window into the admiring eyes of a young clubman who was passing; then she bent her clear, considering gaze on the gray ruin opposite and replied:

"I love you, George, for what you will be."

HARPER--"Foozle has a great scheme and he invited me 'to get in on the ground floor.'"

CARPER--"Don't forget that that is where the trap-doors are."

HEWITT--"Don't you think I stand a good chance of making a fortune out of that mine?"

JEWITT--"Out of it, yes. In it, no."

SPEED

Spurr, the keeper of the livery stable, would never allow a horse out of his sight without giving the hirer strict injunctions not to drive fast.

One day a caller asked for a horse to attend a funeral.

"Certainly," said Spurr, and then, forgetting the solemn purpose for which his customer wanted the horse, he added, as usual, "Don't drive fast!"

"Look here, old man," was the reply, "I would like you to understand that I shall keep up with the procession if it kills the horse!"

INQUIRER (at South Station)--"Where does this train go?"

BRAKEMAN--"This train goes to New York in ten minutes."

INQUIRER--"Goodness! That's going some!"

With but three minutes to catch his train, the traveling salesman inquired of the street-car conductor, "Can't you go faster than this?"

"Yes," the bell-ringer replied, "but I have to stay with my car."

"I was out over the speedway today, and in thirty seconds I did a mile in four laps."

"That's nothing. I know a young lady who did thirty miles in one lap, and she would have done more if I hadn't got a cramp in my knees."--_Puck_.

A negro was on the stand in an Alabama courthouse testifying to the details of a shooting scrape. The witness told how the prisoner at the bar drew a revolver and began firing at one George Henry, and how Henry ran to save himself.

"You say Henry ran?" interjected the lawyer for the defense.

"Dat's whut I said."

"You are sure he ran?"

"Sho" is!"

"Well, did he run fast?"

"Did he run fa--Say, boss, ef dat nigger had o' had one feather in his hand he'd o' flew."

SPELLING

If an S and an I, and an O and a U,
With an X at the end spell "su,"
And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
Pray what is a speller to do?
Then if an S and an I and a G
And an H E D spell "side,"
There's nothing much for a speller to do
But go commit siouxeyesighed.

A Chicago man was walking through a foreign quarter of his city when, with an amused smile, he stopped in front of a small eating-place, on the window of which was painted in white, "Lam Stew."

Now the proprietor happened to be standing in the doorway, and when he saw the smile of the gentleman who had stopped in front of his place he asked to be favored with an explanation of the joke.

Whereupon the other explained about the missing "b" in "lamb," and the proprietor accepted the correction in good part, at the same time expressing his thanks.

When next the Chicago man passed that restaurant he found that the menu had been changed, but that the lesson in orthography had not been forgotten. The proprietor was now offering "Clamb Chowder." --_Harper's_.

"The spelling-book's all wrong, mama! It don't look right for a little thing like a kitten to have six letters and a big cat to only have three."

"What did you learn at the school?" the boss asked the fair young applicant for the stenographer's job.

"I learned," she replied, "that spelling is essential to a stenographer."

The boss chuckled,

"Good. Now let me hear you spell 'essential.'"

The fair girl hesitated for the fraction of a second.

"There are three ways," she replied. "Which do you prefer?"

And she got the job.

JONES--"'Ow is your 'ealth today, Mr. 'Arrison?"

HARRISON--"My name is not 'Arrison."

JONES--"Well, if a haitch, a hay, two hars, a hi, a hes, a ho and a hen don't spell 'Arrison, then what does it spell?"

A sailor was taken ill with a bad attack of rheumatism while mine-sweeping on a trawler.

The sick man was promptly ordered to hospital, but later on the doctor found out, quite by accident, that he was still on board ship.

Angrily he asked why his order had not been obeyed.

"Well," replied the captain, we tried to send him ashore, but a sergeant of police hailed us and said that on no account was he to be landed or we'd be fined L100, so we just kept him on board."

"But did you not signal to the depot, as I said."

"Yes, we did; but neither me nor the signalman knew how to spell rheumatism, so we called it smallpox."

_O-U-G-H_

_A Fresh Hack at an Old Knot_

I'm taught p-l-o-u-g-h
S'all be pronounce "plow."
"Zat's easy w'en you know," I say,
"Mon Anglais, I'll get through!"

My teacher say zat in zat case,
O-u-g-h is "oo"
And zen I laugh and say to him,
"Zees Anglaiz make me cough."

He say "Not coo," but in zat word,
O-u-g-h is 'off'
Oh, Sacre bleu! such varied sounds
Of words makes me hiccough!

He say "Again mon frien' ees wrong;
O-u-g-h is 'up'
In hiccough." Zen I cry, "No more,
You make my t'roat feel rough."

"Non, non!" he cry, "you are hot right;
O-u-g-h is 'uff.'"
I say, "I try to spik your words,
I cannot spik zem though!"

"In time you'll learn, but now you're wrong!
O-u-g-h is 'owe.'"
"I'll try no more, I s'all go mad,
I'll drown me in ze lough!"

"But ere you drown yourself," said he,
"O-u-g-h is 'ock'."
He taught no more, I held him fast,
And killed him wiz a rough.

--_Charles Battell Loomis_.

"Pa, what's phonetic spelling?"

"It's a way of spelling that I often got whipped for when I was your age."

"I say, Hodge, why do you always put 'dictated' on your letters? You don't keep a stenographer."

"No; but to tell the truth, old chap, my spelling's exceedingly rocky."

"And what did my little son learn about this morning?"

"Oh, a mouse. Miss Wilcox told us all about mouses."

"That's the boy! Now, how do you spell 'mouse'?"

It was then that Arthur gave promise of being an artful dodger. He paused meditatively for a moment, then said:

"Father, I guess I was wrong. It wasn't a mouse teacher was telling us about. It was a rat."

What does Ghoughphteightteau spell? Give it up?

Well, "gh" stands for "p" as in "hiccough"; "ough" stands for "o" as in "dough"; "phth" stands for "t" as in "phthisis"; "eigh" stands for "a" as in "neigh"; "tte" stands for "t" as in "gusitte," and "eau" stands for "o" as in "beau." Put them together and you have "P-O-T-A-T-O."

Easy, isn't it?

SPINSTERS

"Helen," said the teacher, "can you tell me what a 'myth' is?" "Yeth, ma'am," lisped Helen; "it ith a woman that hath not got any huthband."

WILLIS--"Going to the party?"

GILLIS--"No. I haven't any lady."

WILLIS--"Come with me. I've got two extras."

GILLIS--"Who are they?"

WILLIS--"Miss Oldbud and Miss Passe."

GILLIS--"They're not extras. They're early editions."

"I'm glad Billy had the sense to marry an old maid," said grandma at the wedding.

"Why, grandma?" asked the son.

"Well, gals is highty-tighty, and widders is kinder overrulin' and upsettin'. But old maids is thankful and willin' to please."

CHARLES--"Girls wish they were men."

HERBERT--"Why do you say that?"

"Because spinsters like to call themselves 'bachelor girls,' but no bachelor ever calls himself an 'old-maid man.'"

There is nothing like a good definition, as the teacher thought when he explained the meaning of "old maid," as a woman who had been made a long time.

STAMMERING

They were going home from school.

"Teacher said that that that that that girl used was superfluous."

"Here's the first pupil for my stammering school," said the business man as he introduced himself.

STAMPS

At the post-office a little girl deposited a dime in front of the clerk and said: "Please, I forgot the name of the stamp mama told me to get, but it's the kind that makes a letter hurry up."

STATISTICS

"If a man had put a hundred dollars in a savings bank twenty years ago," said the statistician after dinner, "it would amount to over two hundred now, and he could buy almost as much for it now as he could have got for the original hundred at the time he began to save."

STENOGRAPHERS

"How many stenographers have you?"

"Two."

"I've seen only one of them."

"Well, I've got a worse looking one to show my wife."

"I met your husband today and he was telling me that he is in love with his work."

"Was he, indeed? I must take a look in at the office."

_A Long-Merited Toast_

I used to toast the royal queens
And queens of beauty rare;
I drained my glass to lovely lass
And to her eyes and hair;
But in these day of sober drinks
There's one whose health to me
Means vastly more than beauty or
The blood of royalty:

Here's to my stenographer!
Long faithful to her duty.
She'd win no prize for vampish eyes;
Her freckles mar her beauty.
Here's to her! Her specs! Her brain!
I pledge her health in water!
Cool, sober, staid, a precious maid;
I love her--like a daughter!

She keeps my creditors at bay,
Admitting only debtors;
Collects the rent when she is sent,
Or writes dry business letters;
She always puts her fingers on
The paper I require;
Sums I can't add she's always glad
To do, and doesn't tire.

Here's to her bonny, busy hands!
They never are erratic.
I hope that they will type away
For years, nor grow rheumatic!
Here's to her modest salary!
(I'd blush if I should tell it!)
But for her grit I'd have to quit
My business--couldn't sell it.

_--Stanley R. Hofflund_.

A Chicago banker dictating a letter to his stenographer. "Tell Mr. Soandso," he ordered, "that I will meet him in Schenectady."

"How do you spell Schenectady?" asked the stenographer.

"S-c, S-c--er--er--er--- Tell him I'll meet him in Albany."

Stenographers can nod sometimes, even with the accuracy of the dictating machine. Recently a merchant dictating into one of these machines said:

"The gentleman in question has sold our products in Hayti for a period of over two years, and we have always found him satisfactory in every detail."

All came out all right in the transcription except one word, and that word was the change from Hayti to Hades! And the letter, being "dictated but not read," went!

"I seem to remember that girl. Who is she?"

"She was my typewriter last year."

"She's charming! Why did she leave you?"

"She was too conscientious for me. One day I proposed marriage to her, and what do you think she did? She took all that I said down in shorthand and brought it, nicely type-written, for me to sign!"

STOCK EXCHANGE

AUNT JANE (at the Stock Exchange)--"With seats selling at $60,000, no wonder they are all standing up."

FOOTLIGHT--"I see another seat at the Stock Exchange has been sold for $55,000."

Miss SUE BEETTE--"Wouldn't it be awful if the man who paid for it found it was right behind a post!"

STRATEGY

WILLIE WILLIS--"Pa, what's strategy?"

PAPA WILLIS--"Usually darn poor judgment that happens to work out all right."

A young lady took down the receiver and discovered that the telephone was in use. "I just put on a pan of beans for dinner," she heard one woman complacently informing another.

She hung up the receiver, and waited. Three times she waited, and then, exasperated, she broke into the conversation.

"Madam, I smell your beans burning," she announced crisply. A horrified scream greeted the remark, and the young lady was able to put in her call.

A lady entered a railroad-car and took a seat in front of a newly married couple. She was hardly seated before they began making remarks about her.

Her last year's bonnet and coat were fully criticised with more or less giggling on the bride's part, and there is no telling what might have come next if the lady had not put a sudden stop to the conversation by a bit of strategy.

She turned her head, noticed that the bride was considerably older than the groom, and, in the smoothest of tones, said:

"Madam, will you please ask your son to close the window?"

The "son" closed his mouth, and the bride no longer giggled.

"Fore!" shouted the golfer, ready to play.

But the woman on the course paid no attention.

"Fore!" he repeated, with not a bit more effect than the first time.

"Try her with 'Three ninety-eight,'" suggested his partner. "She may be one of those bargain-counter fiends."

Hans and Fritz, two small boys, had gone to the rink to skate. Hans's overcoat hampered him and he wanted to get rid of it. The German coat-room person does not check your coat unless you pay your fee. The fee was only a penny, but Hans did not have the penny. He was at a loss.

"Huh! it's dead easy," spoke up Fritz. "Give me your overcoat. I'll take it to the man at the checking place and say I found it. He'll put it away. When you are ready to go home you go to him and ask if anybody has turned a lost overcoat in to him. Then, of course, you'll get yours."

STREET-CARS

A very pretty but extremely slender girl entered a street car and managed to seat herself in a narrow space between two men. Presently a portly colored mammy entered the car, and the pretty miss, thinking to humiliate the men for lack of gallantry, arose.

"Aunty," she said, with a wave of her hand toward the place she had just vacated, "take my seat."

"Thank you, missy," replied the colored woman, smiling broadly, "but which gen'man's lap was you sittin' on?"

"Madam," said the man in the street-car, "I know I ought to get up and give you my seat, but unfortunately I've recently joined the Sit Still Club."

"That's all right, sir," replied the woman. "And you must excuse me for staring at you so hard: I am a member of the Stand and Stare Club."

She proved herself so active and conscientious a member that the man began to feel uncomfortable under her gaze. Finally he rose and said: "Take my seat, madam; I guess I'll resign from my club and join yours."

STRIKES

TEACHER--"Now, if I paid one man two dollars a day for seven days, another three dollars and fifty cents for ten days, and another four dollars and seventy-five cents for six days--"

REDDY BACKROW (whose father belongs to the union)--"You'd have the durndest strike on your hands you ever saw, teacher."

"Everybody's striking,"
Said the Old Clock on the shelf;
"It seems to be the fashion.
So I think I'll strike myself.

"But striking is my business--
Did you ever see such luck
I'll have to give up striking
Just to show folks that I've struck!"

THE LADY-"So you're really one of the strikers?"

THE LOAFER-"Yus, lidy. I'm wot they call one o' the pioneers o' the movement. I went on strike twenty-three years ago, lidy, and I ain't never give in yet."

A strike is not a "brake on industry." It's a displaced switch.

THE FATHER--"But have you enough money to marry my daughter?"

THE SUITOR--"Well, sir, at the moment I only get 300 francs a month, but by going on strike every other month for higher wages, I shall be getting 1,000 francs by the end of the year."

EMPLOYER--"There's a spirit of unrest among my men."

VISITOR--"What about?"

EMPLOYER--"Because they can not find any excuse to go out on a strike."--_Judge_.

SUBSTITUTES

Speaking of substitutes for gasoline, there is the street-car ticket.

"Neurasthenia," said Mrs. Biggums to her cook, "I think we will have some chicken croquettes today out of that leftover pork and calves' liver."

"Yes'm," said Neurasthenia, called Teeny for short. "An' we got a little bread dressin' what went wid the pork, mum. Shall I make some apple sauce out'n hit, mum?"

A very pretty young woman had been asked to dinner by the mother of a young man who admired her very much.

While waiting for dinner to be announced the four-year-old niece of the young man came into the room and climbed into the lap of her uncle, of whom she seemed very fond.

The young lady said coaxingly: "Come, Mary, give me a kiss"; but the child hid her face on her uncle's arm. The young woman urged the child to come to her, saying again: "Won't you give me a kiss?"

The little girl said: "No, I don't want to." Then she brightened up and said: "Uncle Fred, you do it."

"Your honor," said the prosecuting attorney, "your bull pup has went and chawed up the court Bible."

"Well," grumbled the Court, "make the witness kiss the pup; we can't adjourn court to get a new Bible."

MR. NEWLYWED--"Did you sew the button on my coat, darling?"

MRS. NEWLYWED--"No, love; I couldn't find the button, and so I just sewed up the buttonhole."--_Judge_.

TOURIST (in village notion-store)--"Whaddya got in the shape of automobile-tires?"

SALESLADY--"Funeral wreaths, life-preservers, invalid cushions, and doughnuts."--_Judge_.

SUBURBS

"Pa, what is a suburb, anyhow?"

"A place which has lost the joy of the country and lacks the feverish delight of the city."

SUBWAYS

"There's no danger in riding in these subways, is there?"

"I should say so. The last time I tried them I found myself in Brooklyn."

FIRST SUBWAY DIRECTOR--"We may have to provide more seats."

SECOND SUBWAY DIRECTOR-"Nonsense! Simply have 'The Star-Spangled Banner' played on all cars."--_Life_.

SUCCESS

Success in any line is no more an accident than the ball player's batting average is a streak of luck. It is putting the right hits in the right place and keeping the good work up--it's head work.

_He Must Dig_

He wanted a job, and, like every one else,
He wanted a good one, you know;
Where his clothes would not soil and his hands would keep clean,
And the salary must'nt be low.
He asked for a pen; but they gave him a spade,
And he half turned away with a shrug.
But he altered his mind, and seizing the spade--he dug.

He worked with a will that is bound to succeed,
And the months and the years went along.
The way it was rough and the labor was hard,
But his heart he kept filled with a song.
Some jeered him and sneered at the task; but he plugged
Just as hard as he ever could plug;
Their words never seemed to disturb him a bit--as he dug.

The day came at last when they called for the spade,
And gave him a pen in its place.
The joy of achievement was sweet to his taste,
And victory shone in his face.
We can't always get what we hope for at first--
Success cuts many queer jigs--
But one thing is sure, a boy will succeed--if he digs.

--_Pleasant Hours_.

There is no open door to the Temple of Success. Every man who enters forges his own key and cannot effect an entrance for anyone else. Not even his own children can pass this door. Remember that the key that will unlock your greatest opportunities must be forged by yourself. No outside Power, no help from friends or relations can do as much for you as you can do for yourself.

It's doing your job the best you can
And being just to your fellowman;
It's making money, but holding friends,
And staying true to your aims and ends;
It's figuring how and learning why,
And looking forward and thinking high,
And dreaming a little and doing much;
It's always keeping in closest touch,
With what is finest in word and deed;
It's being thorough, yet making speed;
It's struggling on with a will to win,
But taking loss with a cheerful grin;
It's sharing sorrow and work and mirth
And making better this good old earth;
It's serving, striving through strain and stress,
It's doing your noblest--that's Success.

_Six Suggestions for Success_

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievement of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times, and to have a smile for every living creature you meet.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you will have no time to criticize others.

To be too big for worry, too noble for anger and too strong for fear.

To think well of your self and to proclaim this fact to the world--not in loud words, but in great deeds.

To live in the faith that the world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you.

The world knows but little of failures, and cares less. The world only watches the successes.

Stop worrying over things that can't be helped and go and do things that can be done.

Few people care a continental for your failure. Few, if any, will help.

You may sit and magnify your mistakes, mourn and go mad over your blunders, but men will only smile that cynical smile and say of you, "He's no good."

Self-pity, sympathy soliciting, wishing and wailing will only let you down lower. Brace up. Brush up. Think up. And you will get up. Think down. Look down. Act down. And you will stay down.

Paint your face with a smile. Advertise that you are a success. Then think and work for it.

Whatever you think you are is the price they will pay.

In every contest of life, remember the shell must fit the gun.

_It Couldn't Be Done_

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.
So he buckled right in, with a trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done--and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that--
At least, no one ever has done it";
But he took off his coat, and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done--and he did it.

There are thousands who'll tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands who prophecy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Then take off your coat and go to it.
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done"--and you'll do it.

--_Edgar A. Guest_.

A sea captain was talking about the English admiral, Lord Fisher.

"I once asked Lord Fisher," he said, "what he attributed his rapid rise to.

"'To power of initiative,' Lord Fisher answered promptly.

"'Power of initiative, my lord?' And I scratched my head. 'How would you define power of initiative?"

"'Disobeying orders,' said Lord Fisher."

It has been well said if you are doing anything exceptionally well, "though you build your home in the heart of the forest the world will make a beaten track to your door."

While you are flirting with success
And making plans to nab it,
Some other chap, who fusses less,
May rush right up and grab it.

The two keys to success are luck and pluck--luck in finding some one to pluck.--_Life_.

"The road to success is apt to be a long, hard one, my boy."

"Are there no short cuts, father?"

"Yes, my son. Our penitentiaries are full of men who took the short cuts."

"How is your little brother, Johnny?"

"Sick abed. He hurt himself."

"That's too bad. How did he do it?"

"We were playing who could lean furthest out of the window, and he won."

_See also_ Determination.

SUITORS

The one who brings candy and eats most of it himself.

The nice beau with the little automobile.

The not-so-nice one with the big automobile.

The handsome suitor who talks about himself.

The man who likes theaters and tea.

The man who would make a better uncle than husband.

The one who means well.

The right man.

"My dear," said the proud father, "I can not understand your objection to young Prudely as a suitor for your hand. I am sure that he is a model young man."

"There is no question about his being a model," replied the bewitching beauty; "but, father, dear, the trouble is that he is a 1912 model."

HER MOTHER--"My daughter sings, plays the piano, paints, understands botany, zoology, French, Italian--in fact is accomplished in every way. And you, sir?"

PROSPECTIVE SON-IN-LAW--"Well, in an emergency I suppose I could cook a little and mend the socks."

SUMMER RESORTS

"We are taking in boarders this summer."

"Have they found it out yet?"

SUNDAY

The solemn Sabbath air was wracked by strident cries from "de gang," engaged in a game of one-eyed cat. Finally the good lady of the house ventured a protest and suggestion.

"Boys," she said, "don't you know that it is Sunday and you mustn't play ball in the front-yard? Go in the back-yard and play, if you must."

"Hey, youse!" yelled the leader to his followers. "Come on in the back-yard. It ain't Sunday there."

_Sunday the Thirteenth_

Must the new morn
Be a Blue morn?
Must we backward turn to find
The kind of day
To while away
The stalwart modern mind?

Must the Sun day
Be the one day
When the sun is banned to all?
Must our play day
Be a gray day
Locked behind a prison wall?

Must the rest day
Be a pest day?
Must we bore ourselves to death
By boding ill
From sitting still
To curb each merry breath?

Must the feast day
Be the least day,
Robbed of all the things we'd seek?
Must our proud day
Be a shroud day
With rehearsals once a week?

--_Mabel Haughton Collyer_.

_Keeping Calm_

I have my share of grief and care,
Beyond the slightest doubt;
I have enough of dreadful stuff
Each day to fret about.
So when I see prepared for me
A line of stuff like this:
"The Sabbath gang now want to hang
The man who steals a kiss!
They'd kill the joy of man and boy,
Who'd spend the Sabbath day
By motoring where song birds sing,
And put all fun away!"
I do not fret and get upset,
And let that frighten me;
Let others storm--that's one reform
That's never going to be!

--_Edgar A. Guest_.

Recent clerical utterances against Sunday amusements raise the question of whether a clergyman, with six days for outdoor recreation, is the one best qualified to pass on a Sabbath schedule of toilers who work from sun to sun six days a week.

LADY (to small boy who is fishing)--"I wonder what your father would say if he caught you fishing on Sunday?"

BOY--"I don't know. You'd better ask him. That's him a little farther up the stream."

FOND MOTHER--"Oh, Reginald! Reginald! I thought I told you not to play with your soldiers on Sunday."

REGINALD--"But I call them the Salvation Army on Sunday."

"Helen, I really cannot permit you to read novels on the Sabbath."

"But, grandma, this one is all right; it tells about a girl who was engaged to three Episcopal clergymen all at once."

Enforcement of the blue laws would make Sunday not a day of resting but of arresting.

When the New York National League ball club was playing in Boston, a local clergyman called at the hotel where the players were stopping one Sunday to congratulate Mathewson on his stand against playing on the Sabbath.

The clerk made a few mysterious inquiries and then said: "Sorry, sir, but Mr. Mathewson is out playing golf."--_Everybody's_.

SUNDAY SCHOOLS

"Ef yo' had your choice, Liza, which would yo' rather do--live, or die an' go to heaven?"

"Ah'd rather live."

"Why, Liza White, yo' scan'lous chile! Sunday-school hain't done yo' no good'tall!"--_Life_.

JIMMIE AND BOBBIE--"Mother I don't mind going to Sunday school any other day, but it just spoils Sunday."

Little Raymond returned home from Sunday school in a very joyous mood. "Oh, mother," he exclaimed as he entered the house, "the superintendent said something awfully nice about me in his prayer this morning!"

"Isn't that lovely! What did he say, pet?" questioned the mother.

"He said, 'O Lord, we thank thee for our food and Raymond.'"

SUPERSTITION

MRS. WIGGS--"Is Billy sick, Mrs. Skinner?"

MRS. SKINNER--"Well, 'e ain't exactly sick, but no stummick can stand thirteen buns! It's an unlucky number."-_Puck_.

"And you wouldn't begin a journey on Friday?"

"Not I."

"I can't understand how you can have faith in such a silly superstition."

"No superstition about it. Saturday's my pay day."

SURPRISE

"Do you think Gladys was surprised when I proposed to her?" inquired the happy youth.

"About as surprised," answered Miss Cayenne, "as a candidate who has received formal notification that he has been nominated."

Boss entering his factory caught two of his employees shooting craps during working hours. "Oh! what is the matter with you?"

"Well boss, I can't help it, you see you got rubber heels."

SYMPATHY

BEGGAR--"I haven't tasted food for a month."

DYSPEPTIC--"You ain't missing much. It's the same old taste."

Every seat was occupied, when a group of women got in. The conductor noticed a man who he thought was asleep.

"Wake up!" shouted the conductor.

"I wasn't asleep," said the passenger.

"Not asleep! Then what did you have your eyes closed for?"

"It was because of the crowded condition of the car," explained the passenger. "I hate to see the women standing."

SYNONYMS

TEACHER--"Hawkins, what is a synonym?"

HAWKINS--"Please, sir, it's a word you use in place of another when you cannot spell the other one."

TACT

"I must say these are fine biscuits!" exclaimed the young husband.

"How could you say those are fine biscuits?" inquired the young wife's mother, in a private interview.

"I didn't say they were fine. I merely said I must say so."

Johnny liked ice-cream, but he drew the line at turning the freezer. One day when his mother returned home she was agreeably surprized to find him working away at the crank as tho his life depended on it. "I don't see how you got him to turn the freezer," she said to her husband; "I offered him a dime to do it."

"You didn't go at it in the right way, my dear," replied the husband. "I bet him a nickel he couldn't turn it for half an hour."

MRS. X.--"Bothered with time-wasting callers, are you? Why don't you try my plan?"

MRS. Y.--"What is your plan?"

MRS. X.--"Why, when the bell rings, I put on my hat and gloves before I press the button. If it proves to be some one I don't want to see, I simply say 'So sorry, but I'm just going out.'"

MRS. Y.--"But suppose it's some one you want to see?"

MRS. X.--"Oh, then I say, 'So fortunate, I've just come in.'"

WIFE--"But, my dear, you've forgotten again that today is my birthday."

HUSBAND--"Er--listen, love. I know I forgot it, but there isn't a thing about you to remind me that you are a day older than you were a year ago."

Little Charlotte accompanied her mother to the home of an acquaintance, where a dinner-dance was being given. When the dessert-course was reached the little girl was brought down and given a place next to her mother at the table.

The hostess was a woman much given to talking, and, in relating some interesting incidents, quite forgot to give little Charlotte anything to eat.

After some time had elapsed, Charlotte could bear it no longer. With the sobs rising in her throat, she held up her plate as high as she could and said:

"Does anybody want a clean plate?"

A Tommy on furlough entered a jeweler's shop and, placing a much-battered gold watch on the counter, said, "I want this 'ere mended."

After a careful survey the watchmaker said, "I'm afraid, sir, the cost of repairing will be double what you gave for it."

"I don't mind that," said the soldier. "Will you mend it?"

"Yes," said the jeweler, "at the price."

"Well," remarked Tommy, smiling, "I gave a German a punch on the nose for it, and I'm quite ready to give you two if you'll mend it."

An old lady who had been introduced to a doctor who was also a professor in a university, felt somewhat puzzled as to how she would address the great man.

"Shall I call you 'doctor' or 'professor'?" she asked.

"Oh! just as you wish," was the reply; "as a matter of fact, some people call me an old idiot."

"Indeed," she said, sweetly, "but then, they are people that know you."

The hostess had trouble in getting Mr. Harper to sing. After the song had been given, she came up with a smiling face to her guest, and made the ambiguous remark:

"Now, Mr. Harper, you must never tell me again that you can not sing--I know now!"

THE HOST--"It's beginning to rain; you'd better stay to dinner."

THE GUEST--"Oh, thanks very much; but it's not bad enough for that."

TALKERS

Words are like leaves, and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

--_Pope_.

"I have just heard of a woman who went to a hotel unaccompanied and discovered that the acoustic properties of her room were such that every time she spoke aloud there was an echo. She then made a bold attempt to get in a last word, and in so doing talked herself to death."

"A whole lot o' de talk dat goes 'round," said Uncle Eben, "ain' no mo' real help in movin' forward dan de squeak in an axle."

The school-teacher had punished Tommy so often for talking during school hours, and the punishment had been apparently without effect, that, as a last resort, she decided to notify Tommy's father of his son's fault. So, following the deportment word in his next report were these words, "Tommy talks a great deal."

In due time the report was returned with these words after the father's signature, "You ought to hear his mother."

_Just Suppose_

If all that we say
In a single day,
With never a word left out,
Were printed each night
In clear black and white,
'Twould prove queer reading, no doubt.

And then just suppose
Ere one's eyes he could close.
He must read the day's record through,
Then wouldn't one sigh,
And wouldn't he try
A great deal less talking to do?

And I more than half think
That many a kink
Would be smoother in life's tangled thread,
If one-half that we say
In a single day
Were left forever unsaid.

Mrs. Jenkins, a regular visitor in the doctor's consulting room, started on the long story of her troubles. The doctor endured it patiently and gave her another bottle. At last she started out, and the doctor was congratulating himself, when she stopped and exclaimed: "Why, doctor, you didn't look to see if my tongue was coated."

"I know it isn't," wearily replied the medical man. "You don't find grass on a race track."

Another one of our patrons finds her husband a trifle too studious. She called for a volume of Blackstone he had ordered and when she saw the ominous size of the volume sighed deeply, "That means I'll have to go out nights. He says I talk too much!"

_See also_ Wives; Woman.

TARDINESS

MR. PECK--"Would you mind compelling me to move on, officer? I've been waiting on this corner three hours for my wife!"--_Puck_.

"Why is it you never get to the office on time in the morning?" demanded the boss angrily.

"It's like this, boss," explained the tardy one, "you kept telling me not to watch the clock during office hours, and I got so I didn't watch it at home either."

"This is the fourth morning you've been late, Rufus," said the man to his colored chauffeur.

"Yes, sah," replied Rufus. "I did oversleep myself, sah."

"Where is that clock I gave you?"

"In my room, sah."

"Don't you wind it up?"

"Oh, yes, sah. I winds it up, sah."

"And do you set the alarm?"

"Ev'ry night, sah, I set de alarm, sah."

"But don't you hear the alarm in the morning, Rufus?"

"No, sah, dere's de trouble, sah. Yer see de blame thing goes off while I'm asleep, sah."

Professor Copeland, of Harvard, as the story goes, reproved his students for coming late to class.

"This is a class in English composition," he remarked with sarcasm, "not an afternoon tea."

At the next meeting one girl was twenty minutes late. Professor Copeland waited until she had taken her seat. Then he remarked bitingly:

"How will you have your tea, Miss Brown?"

"Without the lemon, please," Miss Brown answered quite gently.

TAX

The most successful statesman is going to be the statesman who can devise a tax nobody will be able to detect.

MACPHERSON (at the box office)--"Will ye kindly return me the amount I paid for amusement tax?"

CLERK--"Why, sir?"

MACPHERSON--"We wasna amused."

The man who ran the elevator of the sky-scraper was talking to a passenger.

"The judge certainly did soak him," he said. "He sentenced him to three years and ten days. Now I understand the three years all right; but what the ten days were for I'd like to know?"

"That was the war-tax," said a quiet citizen who got abroad at the tenth floor.

MRS. CASEY--"An' phwat are yez doin' wid thot incoom-tax paper, Casey?"

CASEY--"Oi'm thryin' to figger out how much money Oi save by not havin' anny."--_Life_.

The Tax? No wonder Men abhor it!

You raise a Crop, they fine you for it!

TEACHERS

FATHER (meaningly)--"Who is the laziest member of your class, Tommy?"

TOMMY--"I don't know, pa."

FATHER--"I should think you should know. When all the others are industriously studying or writing their lessons, who is it sits idly in his seat and watches the rest, instead of working himself?"

TOMMY--"The teacher."

The Literary Digest offers each week a prize of fifty dollars for the best argument in compact form for better salaries for teachers. The editor of The Reporter humbly submits to the editor of The Digest this bit of pathos:

"What shape, madam, was the pocketbook you lost?"

"Flat. I'm a teacher."

The kindergarten had been studying the wind all week--its power, effects, etc.--until the subject had been pretty well exhausted. To stimulate interest, the kindergartner said, in her most enthusiastic manner: "Children, as I came to school today in the trolley-car, the door opened and something came softly in and kissed me on the cheek. What do you think it was?"

And the children joyfully answered, "The conductor!"--_Harper's_.

"We have just learned of a teacher who started poor twenty years ago and has retired with the comfortable fortune of fifty thousand dollars. This was acquired through industry, economy, conscientious effort, indomitable perseverance, and the death of an uncle who left her an estate valued at $49,999.50."

"Pa," inquired a seven-year-old seeker after the truth, "is it true that school-teachers get paid?"

"Certainly it is," said the father.

"Well, then," said the youth indignantly, "that ain't right. Why should the teachers get paid when us kids do all the work?"

While the school teacher was away at the annual meeting of the state association she sent all of her little pupils a postcard greeting. Little Edgar replied in kind and on his card wrote: "I hope you are enjoying our vacation."

_See also_ Fords.

TEACHING

About the most hopeful element in any human being's character I should reckon to be teachableness.

Wherever you meet a man who knows--and knows he knows--and wards off any proof of reasoning of yours with the impenetrable shield of a superior smile or the dull hostility of a determined eye, you feel that between you and him there can be no real dealings.

The wisest minds I find are the most teachable. The wider one's experience, the more thorough his study, the braver his heart, and the stronger his intelligence, the more willing he is to hear what you or any man may have to offer.

Stubbornness is usually the instinctive self-defense of conscious weakness. When one can do nothing else to show his strength he imitates the mule--the most despised of animals.

Spinoza's maxim was that the two great banes of humanity are self-conceit and the laziness coming from self-conceit.--_Dr. Frank Crane_.

TEARS

_See_ Woman.

TELEGRAPH

"Why did you strike the telegraph operator?" asked the magistrate of the man who was summoned for assault.

"Well, sir, I gives him a telegram to send to my gal, and he starts readin' it. So, of course, I ups and gives him one."

"Pap," said the colored youth, "Ah'd like you to expatiate on de way dat de telegraph works."

"Dat's easy 'nuf, Rastus," said the old man. "Hit am like dis. Ef dere was a dawg big 'nuf so his head could be in Bosting an' his tail in New Yo'k, den ef you tromp on his tail in New Yo'k he'd bark in Bosting. Understan', Rastus?"

"Yes, pap! But how am de wireless telegraph?"

For a moment the old man was stumped. Then he answered easily: "Jess prezactly de same, Rastus, wid de exception dat de dawg am 'maginary."

An Irishman and a Scot were arguing as to the merits of their respective countries.

"Ah, weel," said Sandy, "they tore down an auld castle in Scotland and found many wires under it, which shows that the telegraph was knoon there hoondreds o' years ago."

"Well," said Pat, "they tore down an ould castle in Oireland, and there was no wires found undher it, which shows that they knew all about wireless telegraphy in Oireland hundreds av years ago."

Soon after the instalment of the telegraph in Fredericksburg, Virginia, a little darky, the son of my father's mammy, saw a piece of newspaper that had blown up on one of the telegraph wires and caught there. Running to my grandmother in a great state of excitement, he cried, "Miss Liza, come quick! Dem wires done buss and done let all the news out!"

TELEPHONE

The editor of The Japan Times says the telephone service in Japan is utterly bad. He wonders "what Job would have done had he lived in Tokyo and wanted to telephone to the specialist on boils." He concludes with the following incident: "A lady in Karuiwaza called up her house in Tokyo, left by the next train, got the call, and talked to herself in Karuiwaza six hours after she arrived in Tokyo."

A suburban housewife relates overhearing this conversation between her Cape girl and the one next door:

"How are you, Katje?"

"I'm well; I like my yob. We got cremated cellar, cemetery plumbing, elastic lights and a hoosit."

"What's a 'hoosit,' Katje?"

"Oh, a bell rings. You put a thing to your ear and say 'Hello,' and then some one says 'Hello,' and you say 'Hoosit.'"

"There's a story in this paper of a woman that used a telephone for the first time in eighty-three years."

"She must be on a party line."

The girl at the exchange, after you have waited fully ten minutes:

"They don't answer. What number was it you wanted?"

EXCITABLE PARTY (at telephone)--"Hello? Who is this? Who is this, I say?"

MAN AT OTHER END--"Haven't got time to guess riddles. Tell me yourself who you are."

"I believe," said the impatient man, as he put aside the telephone, "that I'll go fishing."

"Didn't know you cared for fishing."

"I don't ordinarily. But it's the only chance I have of finding myself at the end of a line that isn't busy."

"Has the line been busy?" asked the man with a nickel poised between his thumb and forefinger.

"No," answered the precise operator. "The line wasn't busy. I was."

"What name are you calling?" asked the telephone-girl over the wire.

"McCohan," the customer answered.

"I beg pardon?" asked the girl.

The man repeated it.

The wire was silent for a moment, then the girl said: "Wait a moment, please. I think the wires are crossed."

"I once knew an eccentric man," stated old Festus Pester, "who when he had got the desired number on the telephone did not demand fiercely, 'Whizz ziss?' Instead he invariably said civilly, 'This is John J. Poppendick, wishing to speak to Mr. Buckover.' His funeral was the largest ever held in the neighborhood where he had resided, and thereat strong men broke down and wept like children, being convinced that they would never again see his like."--_Judge_.

Pat walked into the post-office. After getting into the telephone-box he called a wrong number. As there was no such number, the switch-attendant did not answer him. Pat shouted again, but received no answer.

The lady of the post-office opened the door and told him to shout a little louder, which he did, but still no answer.

Again she said he would have to speak louder.

Pat got angry at this, and turning to the lady said:

"Begorra, if I could shout any louder I wouldn't use your bloomin' ould telephone at all!"

_See also_ Strategy.

TEMPER

Little Molly had been very trying all day. That evening, when her grown-up sister was putting her to bed, she said she hoped the child would be a better girl tomorrow, and not make everybody unhappy with her naughty temper.

Molly listened in silence, thought hard for a few moments, and then said, wisely:

"Yes, when it's me it's temper; when it's you it's nerves."

TEMPERANCE

THE MAN (to a New York waiter)--"--and a glass of good beer!"

THE WAITER--"Sorry, sir. We only serve temperance beverages."

THE MAN--"Why, I got beer in Rhode Island."

THE WAITER--"Maybe you did, sir. But that was only by an act of Providence."

A temperance lecturer was enthusiastically denouncing the use of all intoxicants.

"I wish all the beer, all the wine, all the whiskey in the world was at the bottom of the ocean," he said.

Hastily Pat arose to his feet.

"Sure, and so do I, sor," he shouted. "I wish every bit of it was at the bottom of the sea."

As they were leaving the hall the lecturer encountered Pat.

"I certainly am proud of you," he said. "It was a brave thing for you to rise and say what you did. Are you a teetotaler?"

"No, indade, sor," answered Pat. "I'm a diver."

Mayor Fitzgerald of Boston, at a recent temperance banquet was discussing a drink cure of little efficacy.

"When I think of this cure." he said "I recall a poor old man with a red nose, who entered a magistrate's office and said:

"I'd like to take the pledge if you please."

"Very good," said the polite clerk, "and how long did you wish to take it for?"

"In the past," said the old man, "I've always took it for life."

TEMPTATION

Most of us keep at least one eye on the temptation we pray not to be led into.

TEN COMMANDMENTS

The Ten Commandments seem to be off on a vacation. Or have they gone in search of the Fourteen Points?

THEATER

Reynold Wolf tells this one of Nora Bayes:

Once Miss Bayes was appearing in a breakfast scene where eggs were being served, and a child sitting in a box made manifest his interest in the food. Stepping down to the footlights she tendered the youngster an egg, but his mother drew back her child with a sign of annoyance.

"You should let the young man take it," said Miss Bayes, quietly. "It is unique for eggs to be passed from this side of the footlights."

A big fat man at the theater sat on his overcoat. Thus the little man behind him could not see at all.

"I can't see anything, mister," said the little man plaintively, touching the big man on the shoulder.

"Can't see anything, hey?"

"No, sir, I can't see a thing."

"Well, then, I'll fix you up. Just keep your eye on me, and laugh when I do."

A vast and determined-looking woman wore a very large hat one evening at the theater.

"Madam," said the attendant politely, "I must request you to remove your hat. It is annoying this gentleman behind you."

The massive lady turned and haughtily surveyed the complainant. "Do you mean that little weedy, undersized creature?" she asked.

"This gentleman behind you," the attendant corrected her.

The lady settled herself down in her place. "You will find it easier and pleasanter," she said, decisively, "to remove him!"

A Clergyman once wrote to Edwin Booth, the famous tragedian, asking if he might be admitted to Booth's theater by a private door, because, though he very much wished to see Booth act, he didn't like the idea of being seen entering a theater. Booth wrote back, "Sir, there is no door into my theater through which God can not see."

AUNT MARY (visiting in the city)--"I want to hear at least one of your famous grand-opera singers and then see some of your leading actors."

NEPHEW (to office boy)--"Jimmy, get us some tickets for the vaudeville and movies."--_Life_.

THERMOMETER

Hotel men cannot be niggardly. They must not imitate old Cornelius Husk. Old Corn Husk, you know, saw his boy the other day carrying the thermometer from the kitchen out into the yard.

"Watcha doin' wi' thet thar thermometer, boy?" he asked.

"I wanter git the difference in temperacher, pop, betwixt inside and outside," the son answered.

"Wall, quit it," snapped old Corn Husk, "Keepin' the mercury runnin' up and down the tube like that, fust thing ye know the durn thing'll be worn out, and long'll go twenty-five cents for another thermometer."

THIEVES