Chapter VII: Part 7

"Morris," he said, "your oldest daughter was married about five years ago, wasn't she? Would you mind telling me about how much the wedding cost you?"

"Not at all, Sam," was the answer. "Altogether, about five thousand dollars a year."

Here is a story of the late Lord Haversham's schooldays. Glancing through his pocket book his mother saw a number of entries of small sums, ranging from 2s. 6d. to 5s., against which were the letters "P.G." Thinking this must mean the Propagation of the Gospel, she asked her son why he did not give a lump sum and a larger amount to so deserving a cause.

"That is not for the Propagation of the Gospel," he replied. "When I cannot remember exactly on what I spend the money I put 'P.G.,' which means 'Probably grub.'"

"Don't you find it hard these times to meet expenses?"

"Hard? Man alive! I meet expenses at every turn."

EXPERIENCE

"Did you ever realize anything on that investment?"

"Oh, yes."

"What did you realize on it?"

"What a fool I had been."

It is as easy to buy experience as it is difficult to sell it.

"Have you ever had any experience in handling high-class ware?" asked a dealer in bric-a-brac of an applicant for work.

"No, sir," was the reply, "but I think I can do it."

"Suppose," said the dealer, "you accidentally broke a very valuable porcelain vase, what would you do?"

"I should put it carefully together," replied the man, "and set it where a wealthy customer would be sure to knock it over again."

"Consider yourself engaged," said the dealer. "Now, tell me where you learned that trick of the trade."

"A few years ago," answered the other, "I was one of the 'wealthy-customer' class."

Experience is a dead loss if you can't sell it for more than it cost.

Experience converts us to ourselves when books fail us.--_A. Bronson Alcott_.

I know
The past and thence I will essay to glean
A warning for the future, so that man
May profit by his errors, and derive
Experience from his folly;
For, when the power of imparting joy
Is equal to the will, the human soul
Requires no other heaven.

--_Shelley_.

EXTRAVAGANCE

"What made you a multi-millionaire?"

"My wife."

"Ah, her tactful help--"

"Nothing like that. I was simply curious to know if there was any income she couldn't live beyond."

The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay,
Provides a home from which to run away.

--_Young_.

FAILURES

BROWN--"Back to town again? I thought you were a farmer."

GREEN--"You made the same mistake I did."--_Judge_.

There are people who fail because they are afraid to make a beginning. Who are too honest to steal, but will borrow and never pay back. Who go to bed tired because they spend the day in looking for an easy place. Who can play a tune on one string, but it never makes anybody want to dance. Who would like to reform the world, but have a front gate that won't stay shut. Who cannot tell what they think about anything until they see what the papers have to say about it.

A first failure is often a blessing.--_A. L. Brown_.

To fail at all is to fail utterly.--_Lowell_.

He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.--_Whately_.

FAME

After an absence of four years a certain man went back to visit his old home town. The first four people he met didn't remember him and the next three didn't know he had been away.

"That antagonist of yours says he is going to leave footprints in the sands of time."

"He won't," replied Senator Sorghum. "His mind is in the clouds. He is an intellectual aviator. When he comes down he will leave a dent, not a footprint."

Nor fame I slight, nor for her favors call:
She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.

--_Pope_.

For what is fame, but the benignant strength of one, transformed to joy of many?--_George Eliot_.

Fame is the fragrance of heroic deeds.--_Longfellow_.

FAMILIES

A Kansas man is reported to be the father of thirty-two children. It is not known whether he will apply for admission to the League of Nations or just let America represent him for the present.--_Punch (London)_.

A census-taker was working in lower New York on the East Side, and came to a tenement that was literally crowded with children. To the woman who was bending over the washtub he said:

"Madam, I am the census-taker; how many children have you?"

"Well, lemme see," replied the woman, as she straightened up and wiped her hands on her apron. "There's Mary and Ellen and Delia and Susie and Emma and Tommy and Albert and Eddie and Charlie and Frank and--"

"Madam," interrupted the census man, "if you could just give me the number--"

"Number!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "I want you to understand that we ain't got to numberin' 'em yet. We ain't run out o' names!"

The census man when taking the census in a certain Canadian town asked of the head of the family the usual questions, one being, "How many children have you?"

The man answered, "Oh, I don't know, ten, twelve, fourteen or so. I know a barrel of flour lasts pretty damn quick."

_See also_ Bluffing.

FARMING

"It used to be said that anybody could farm--that about all that was required was a strong back and a weak mind," mused the gaunt Missourian. "But now'-days, to be a successful farmer a feller must have a good head and a wide education in order to understand the advice ladled out to him from all sides by city men and to select for use that which will do him the least damage."

PROFESSOR AT AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL--"What kinds of farming are there?"

NEW STUDENT--"Extensive, intensive, and pretensive."

They were having an argument as to whether it was correct to say of a hen she is "setting" or "sitting," and, not being able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, they decided to submit the problem to Farmer Giles.

"My friends," said he, "that don't interest me at all. What I wants to know when I hear a hen cackle is whether she be laying or lying."

"How many head o' live stock you got on the place?"

"Live stock?" echoed the somewhat puzzled farmer. "What d' ye mean by live stock? I got four steam-tractors and sevenautomobiles."--_Judge_.

The city youth secured a job with Farmer Jones. The morning after his arrival, promptly at 4 o'clock, the farmer rapped on his door and told him to get up. The youth protested.

"What for?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Why, we're going to cut oats," replied the farmer.

"Are they wild oats," queried the youth, "that you've got to sneak up on 'em in the dark?"

"Aren't you afraid America will become isolated?"

"Not if us farmers keep raisin' things the world needs," answered Farmer Corntossel, "The feller that rings the dinner-bell never runs much risk of bein' lonesome."

"How'd that city hired man of yours pan out?"

"Well, he started in Monday morning plowing corn. At 10 o'clock he struck for a helper to lift the gangs out at the ends, and I sent the kid out to do that. At noon he struck for two pieces of strawberry shortcake instead of one, so I gave him my piece. At 1:15 he struck for a sunshade on the corn plow. I says, 'Young man, this job is just like a baseball game. Three strikes and you're out, Good-bye.'"

A rather patronizing individual from town was observing with considerable interest the operations of a farmer with whom he had put up for a while.

As he watched the old man sow the seed in his field the man from the city called out facetiously:

"Well done, old chap. You sow; I reap the fruits."

Whereupon the farmer grinned and replied:

"Maybe you will. I am sowing hemp."

_See also_ Failures.

FASHION

"Isn't your wife dogmatic?"

"She was when Pomeranian pups were the style, but now she's auto-matic."

The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.--_Shakespeare_.

"Women have queer ways."

"How now?"

"The styles call for mannish hats. So my wife bought a mannish hat for eighteen dollars."

"Well?"

"She could have bought a man's hat for four dollars."

Women's fashions seem to be working around to the point where the voice with the smile will have to be listed among the latest spring styles.

The intrepid general was rallying her wavering female troops.

"Women," she cried, "will you give way to mannish fears?"

A muffled murmur of indecision ran through the ranks.

"Shall it be said we are clothed in male armor?" shrieked the general.

The murmur became a mumble.

"Will you," fiercely demanded the general, "show the white feather in a season when feathers are not worn?"

The effect was electrical.

"Never!" roared the soldiers. And, forming into battle array, they once more hurled themselves upon the enemy.

"You criticize us," said the Chinese visitor, "yet I see all your women have their feet bandaged."

"That is an epidemic," it was explained to him, gently, "which broke out in 1914. Those are called spats."

Little Tommy at the "movies" saw a tribe of Indians painting their faces, and asked his mother the significance of this.

"Indians," his mother answered, "always paint their faces before going on the war-path--before scalping and tomahawking and murdering."

The next evening after dinner, as the mother entertained in the parlor her daughter's young man, Tommy rushed downstairs, wide-eyed with fright.

"Come on, mother!" he cried. "Let's get out of this quick! Sister is going on the war-path!"

Mrs. Will Irwin said at a Washington Square tea:

"The more immodest fashions would disappear if men would resolutely oppose them.

"I know a woman whose dressmaker sent home the other day a skirt that was, really, too short altogether. The woman put it on. It was becoming enough, dear knows, but it made her feel ashamed. She entered the library, and her husband looked up from his work with a dark frown.

"'I wonder,' she said, with an embarrassed laugh, 'if these ultra-short skirts will ever go out?'

"'They'll never go out with me,' he answered in decided tones."

Those reform preachers who designed the moral gown for women did a good job. Now to design a woman who will wear it.

FAIR CUSTOMER (to salesman displaying modern bathing suit)--"And you're sure this bathing suit won't shrink?"

SALESMAN--"No, miss; it has nowhere to shrink to."

POLICEMAN--"Lost yer mammy, 'ave yer? Why didn't yer keep hold of her skirt?"

LITTLE ALFRED--"I cou--cou--couldn't reach it."

When ladies wore their dresses very low and very short, a wit observed that "they began too late and ended too soon."

FAIR CUSTOMER--"I'd like to try on that one over there."

SALESMAN--"I'm sorry, madam, but that is the lampshade."

The Fifth Avenue Bus having stopped, the lady at the top of the stairs was slow in descending. "Come on down, lady," said the conductor in a bored tone, "legs ain't no treat to me."

FATE

All human things are subject to decay,
And when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

--_Dryden_.

All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time:
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.

--_Longfellow_.

Fate holds the strings, and Men like Children, move
But as they're led: Success is from above.

--_Lord Lansdowne_.

One ship drives east, and another west
With the self-same winds that blow;
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which decide the way to go.

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life;
'Tis the will of the soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

FATHERS

"Dad," said a Bartlesville, Okla., kid to his father the other night, "I want to go to the show tonight."

"A show at night is no place for a kid like you. You should be at home in bed."

"But I peddled bills and have two tickets," said the kid, as he began to sniffle.

"All right then," answered dad. "I will go with you to see that you don't get into trouble."

Johnnie Jones was doing penance in the corner. Presently he thought aloud pensively:

"I can't help it if I am not perfect," he sighed. "I have only heard of one perfect boy in my whole life."

"Who was that?" his father asked, thinking to point out a moral.

"You," came the reply, plaintively, "when you were little."

_His Example_

There are little eyes upon you, and they're watching night and day;
There are little ears that quickly take in every word you say;
There are little hands all eager to do everything you do,
And a little boy that's dreaming of the day he'll be like you.

You're the little fellow's idol, you're the wisest of the wise;
In his little mind about you no suspicions ever rise;
He believes in you devoutly, holds that all you say and do
He will say and do in your way when he's grown up just like you.

Oh, it sometimes makes me shudder when I hear my boy repeat
Some careless phrase I've uttered in the language of the street;
And it sets my heart to grieving when some little fault I see
And I know beyond all doubting that he picked it up from me.

There's a wide-eyed little fellow who believes you're always right,
And his ears are always open and he watches day and night.
You are setting an example every day in all you do
For the little boy who's waiting to grow up to be like you.

"Now, there's some talk of a Father's Day."

"Oh, father doesn't want a day. Give him a night off."

"I was never so tired in my life. I've had a perfectly awful day. But I got Father home safely, and that's something. It was his annual day to be a boy again, to be a regular pal to me, as he likes to express it. So I have been out in the woods with him.

"I inferred from his remarks when he invited me to go that he intended to win my confidence and help me in my troubles. But by noon he had broken his glasses, worn blisters on both heels, scraped his shins, lost his new fishing reel, sunk a rowboat, scalded his mouth, burned his bald spot in the sun and torn the seat out of his trousers, so I think he must have postponed whatever he had to say of an intimate nature.

"If writers and lecturers only knew the suffering they bring to impressionable parents by goading them into trying to be their boys' chums they certainly would cease their efforts out of sheer pity."

FAULTS

"Everybody has his faults," said Uncle Eben. "De principal difference in folks is whether dey's sorry for 'em or proud of 'em."

It is so easy to find fault that self-respecting persons ought to be ashamed to waste their energies in that way.

It only takes a few minutes to find in others the faults we can't discover in ourselves in a lifetime.

A widely known Highland drover sold a horse to an Englishman.

A few days afterward the buyer returned to him.

"You said that horse had no faults."

"Well, no mair had he."

"He's nearly blind!" said the indignant Englishman.

"Why, mon, that's no' his fau't--that's his misfortune."

FEES

_See_ Tips.

FICTION

The husband was seeing his beloved wife off for a holiday. "Maggie, dear," he said, "hadn't you better take some fiction with you to while away the time?"

"Oh, no, George," she said, "you'll be sending me some letters."

FIGHTING

"Brudder Perkins, yo' been fightin', I heah," said the colored minister.

"Yaas, Ah wuz."

"Doan yo' 'membeh whut de good book sez 'bout turnin' de odder cheek?"

"Yaas, pahson, but he hit me on mah nose, an' I'se only got one."

"Why do you look so sorrowful, Dennis?" asked one man of another.

"I just hear-r-d wan man call another man a liar, and the man that was called a liar said the other man would have to apologize, or there would be a fight."

"And why should that make you so sad?"

"The other man apologized."

"Johnny, it was very wrong for you and the boy next door to fight."

"We couldn't help it, father."

"Could you not have settled your differences by a peaceful discussion of the matter, calling in the assistance of unprejudiced opinion, if need be?"

"No, father. He was sure he could whip me and I was sure I could whip him, and there was only one way to find out."

"So you've been fighting again! Didn't you stop and spell your names, as I told you?"

"Y-yes; we did--but my name's Algernon Percival, an' his is Jim!"--_Judge_.

FINANCE

"Dad," said little Reginald, "what is a bucket-shop?"

"A bucket-shop, my son," said the father, feelingly, "a bucket-shop is a modern cooperage establishment to which a man takes a barrel and brings back the bung-hole."--_Puck_.

"Dad," said the financier's son, running into his father's office, "lend me six hundred."

"What for, my boy?"

"I've got a sure tip on the market."

"How much shall we make out of it?" asked the old man cautiously.

"A couple of hundred sure," replied the boy eagerly. "That's a hundred each."

"Here's your hundred," said his father. "Let's consider that we have made this deal and that it has succeeded. You make a hundred dollars and I save five hundred."

_Higher Authority_

"Mr. Brown is outside," said the new office-boy. "Shall I show him in?".

"Not on your life!" exclaimed the junior partner. "I owe him ten dollars."

"Show him in," calmly said the senior member of the firm. "He owes me twenty-five."

BUSINESS MAN (explaining)--"When they say 'money is easy,' they mean simply that the supply is greater than the demand."

HIS WIFE--"Goodness! I shouldn't think such a thing possible."

SMITHSON--"Do you know that Noah was the greatest financier that ever lived?"

DIBBS--"How do you make that out?"

SMITHSON--"Well, he was able to float a company when the whole world was in liquidation."

"This car cost me thirty-five hundred dollars, Blathers, but I'll let you have it for two thousand, eh? It's a clean gift of fifteen hundred," said Bolivar. "Eh, what do you say?"

"No," said Blathers, "I can't do that; but suppose you give me five hundred dollars and keep the car, eh? Clean saving of a thousand, eh? What?"

The present financial situation gives the lie to the old adage that Exchange is no robbery.

The man who had made a huge fortune was speaking a few words to a number of students at a business class. Of course, the main theme of his address was himself.

"All my success in life, all my tremendous financial prestige," he said proudly, "I owe to one thing alone--pluck, pluck, pluck!"

He made an impressive pause here but the effect was ruined by one student, who asked impressively:

"Yes, sir; but how are we to find the right people to pluck?"

A young New Haven man, returning home from a health trip to Colorado, told his father about buying a silver mine for $3,000. "I knew they'd rope you in!" exclaimed the old man. "So you were ass enough to buy a humbug mine."

"Yes, but I didn't lose anything. I formed a company, and sold half the stock to a Connecticut man for $7,000."

"Y-you did," gasped the old man as he turned white, "I'll bet I'm the one who bought it."

"I know you are," coolly observed the young man as he crossed his legs and tried to appear very much at home.

FISH

The teacher asked, "Who can tell me what an oyster is?"

A small hand, gesticulating violently, shot up into the air, and a shrill voice called out. "I know; I can tell, teacher!"

"Well, Bobby," said the teacher, "you may tell us what an oyster is."

"An oyster," triumphantly answered Bobby, "is a fish built like a nut!"

"Dinah, did you wash the fish before you baked it?"

"Law, ma'am, what's de use ob washin' er fish what's lived all his life in de water?"

"Ma'am, here's a man at the door with a parcel for you."

"What is it, Bridget?"

"It's a fish, ma'am, and it's marked C.O.D."

"Then make the man take it back to the dealer. I ordered trout."

FISHERMEN

"I say, Gadsby," said Mr. Smith, as he entered a fishmonger's with a lot of tackle in his hand, "I want you to give me some fish to take home with me. Put them up to look as if they'd been caught today, will you?"

"Certainly, sir. How many?"

"Oh, you'd better give me three or four--mackerel. Make it look decent in quantity without appearing to exaggerate, you know."

"Yes, sir. You'd better take salmon, tho."

"Why? What makes you think so?"

"Oh, nothing, except that your wife was here early this morning and said if you dropped in with your fishing-tackle I was to persuade you to take salmon, if possible, as she liked that kind better than any other."

BELLEVILLE--"Is Glenshaw getting ready for the fishing season?"

BUTLER--"Well, I saw him buying an enlarging device for his camera."

A returned vacationist tells us that he was fishing in a pond one day when a country boy who had been watching him from a distance approached him and asked. "How many fish yer got, mister?"

"None yet," he was told.

"Well, yer ain't doin' so bad," said the youngster. "I know a feller what fished here for two weeks an' he didn't get any more than you got in half an hour."

Jock MacTavish and two English friends went out on the loch on a fishing-trip, and it was agreed that the first man to catch a fish should later stand treat at the inn. As MacTavish was known to be the best fisherman thereabouts, his friends took considerable delight in assuring him that he had as good as lost already.

"An', d'ye ken," said Jock, in speaking of it afterward, "baith o' them had a guid bite, an' wis sae mean they wadna' pu in."

"Then you lost?" asked the listener.

"Oh, no. I didna' pit ony bait on my hook."

FISHING

UNLUCKY FISHERMAN--"Boy, will you sell that big string of fish you are carrying?"

BOY--"No, but I'll take yer pitcher holdin' it fer fifty cents."--_Judge_.

Two small boys went fishing and while one of them was having good luck, the other didn't even get a bite. The unlucky lad silently began to make preparation for departure. "Aw, wait a while," urged the other. "You might be lucky if you keep at it."

"There ain't no use," was the disgusted reply, "my darned worm ain't tryin'."

"Some men," said Uncle Eben, "goes fishin' not so much foh de sake of de fish as foh de chance to loaf without bein' noticed."

FLATTERY

The man who is not injured by flattery is as hard to find as the one who is improved by criticism.

Flattery is a sort of moral peroxide--it turns many a woman's head.

"Oi hate flattery," said O'Brien the other day. "Flattery makes ye think ye are betther than ye are, an' no man livin' can iver be that."

THE CONVERSATIONALIST (to well-known author)--"I'm so delighted to meet you! It was only the other day I saw something of yours, about something or other, in some magazine."

WILBUR (indicating a couple in the background)--"Funny that such a stunning-looking woman should marry such a dub as that."

FLATTE--"Well, I don't know. No accounting for those things. Now, you take your wife--she's a ripper."--_Life_.

The admiration which Bob felt for his Aunt Margaret included all her attributes.

"I don't care much for plain teeth like mine, Aunt Margaret," said Bob, one day, after a long silence, during which he had watched her in laughing conversation with his mother. "I wish I had some copper-toed ones like yours."

A gentleman who discovered that he was standing on a lady's train had the presence of mind to remark:

"Tho I may not have the power to draw an angel from the skies, I have pinned one to the earth." The lady excused him.

"Sir," said the angry woman, "I understand you said I had a face that would stop a street-car in the middle of the block."

"Yes, that's what I said," calmly answered the mere man.

"It takes an unusually handsome face to induce a motorman to make a stop like that."

FOOD

DINER--"See here, where are those oysters I ordered on the half shell?"

WAITER--"Don't get impatient, sah. We're dreffle short on shells; but you're next, sah."

During a particularly nasty dust-storm at one of the camps a recruit ventured to seek shelter in the sacred precincts of the cook's domain.

After a time he broke an awkward silence by saying to the cook:

"If you'd put the lid on that camp-kettle you would not get so much of the dust in your soup."

The irate cook glared at the intruder, and then broke out: "See here, me lad. Your business is to serve your country."

"Yes," interrupted the recruit, "but not to eat it."

It was a small cafe and the customer overheard this from the waiter:

"Don't throw that toast into the alley, chef. I gotta customer for a club sandwich."

WAITER--"And will you take the macaroni au gratin, sir?"

OFFICER--"No macaroni-by gad! It's too doocid difficult to mobilize."

The second course of the table d'hote was being served.

"What is this leathery stuff?" demanded the diner.

"That, sir, is filet of sole," replied the waiter.

"Take it away," said the diner, "and see if you can't get me a nice, tender piece from the upper part of the boot."

The new boarder sniffed at the contents of his coffee-cup and set it down.

"Well," queried the landlady in a peevish tone, "have you anything to say against the coffee?"

"Not a word," he answered. "I never speak ill of the absent."

An attendant entered carrying a thin red object.

"Did any patient order a postage stamp?"

"Maybe," said one feebly, "that's my mutton chop rare."

"Are caterpillars good to eat?" asked little Tommy at the dinner table.

"No," said his father; "what makes you ask a question like that while we are eating?"

"You had one on your lettuce, but it's gone now," replied Tommy.

FOOD CONSERVATION

"Well, Ezri, how'd jer make out with yer boarders this year?"

"Fine! Best season I ever had. There was seven, all told--three couples in love an' a dyspeptic."--_Life_.

The boarders were dropping hints as to the kind of dinner they'd like to have on Christmas Day. But the landlady was astute. "What's the difference," she asked the solemn man at the end of the table, "between a turkey dinner and a mess of stewed prunes?"

"I don't know," he answered, suspicious of some entangling conundrum.

"Does nobody know?" she asked, looking round the table.

They all professed ignorance. "In that case," she said, "I may as well serve prunes at Christmas and save money."

FOOLS

"Did you really call this gentleman an old fool last night?" asked the judge.

The prisoner tried hard to collect his thoughts.

"Well, the more I look at him, the more likely it seems that I did," he replied.

A fool must now and then be right by chance.--_Cowper_.

Fools, to talking ever prone,
Are sure to make their follies known.

--_Gay_.

He explained it clearly to her: "Wise men hesitate, you see. None but fools will say they're certain."

"Are you sure of that?" said she.

"Yes," he answered, "I am certain--certain as can be of that"

Then he wondered just what she was laughing at.

Two Hebrews went in business together in a small town, and one went to New York to buy the goods, while the other stayed at home. The one that stayed at home got the bills a few days after his partner was in New York. The bills came as follows: "24 doz. neckwear and 8 doz. ditto; 24 suits and 4 ditto; 18 pants and 12 ditto." This ditto part bothered the one at home and he telegraphed his brother to come home. When his brother arrived he showed him the bills and said:

"Vat do it mean you shall buy ditto for a closing (clothing) business?"

His brother said: "I buy ditto?"

"Yes, here's de bills."

"Vell, dey stuck me in New York."

So he returned to New York and found that ditto meant the same. He came back home, and his brother meeting him at the depot said:

"Vell, Abie, did you find out vat ditto is?"

And Abie said: "Yes, I find out vat a ditto is--I'm a d--m fool and you're a ditto."

RAYMOND--"What the deuce do you mean by telling Joan that I am a fool?"

GEORGE--"Heavens! I'm sorry--was it a secret?"

Fools never understand people of wit.--_Vauvenargues_.

LEA--"I wonder if Professor Kidder meant anything by it?"

PERKINS--"By what?"

LEA--"He advertised a lecture on 'Fools,' and when I bought a ticket it was marked 'Admit one.'"

FORDS

"So you bought one of those automobiles they tell so many funny stories about?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Chuggins. "And it is saving me a lot of trouble and wear and tear. When your friends tell you jokes about your car they don't expect you to ask them to ride in it."

_If--With Apologies to Kipling_

If you can keep your Ford when those about you are selling theirs and buying Cadillacs; if you can just be tickled all to pieces when notified to pay your license-tax; if you can feel a quiet sense of pleasure when driving on a rough and hilly road, and never move a muscle of your visage when underneath you hear a tire explode; if you can plan a pleasant week-end journey and tinker at your car a day or so, then thrill with joy on that eventful morning to find no skill of yours can make it go; if you can gather up your wife and children, put on your glad rags, and start off for church, then have to wade around in greasy gearings and spoil the best of all your stock of shirts, yet through it all maintain that sweet composure, that gentle calm befitting such events; if you can sound a bugle-note of triumph when steering straight against a picket-fence; if you can keep your temper, tongue, and balance when on your back beneath your car you pose, and, struggling there to fix a balky cog-wheel, you drop a monkey-wrench across your nose; if you can smile as gasoline goes higher, and sing a song because your motor faints--your place is not with common erring mortals; your home is over there among the saints!--_J. Edward Tufft_.

It is admittedly difficult to recover a lost flivver. But the best suggestion comes from our own Mrs. Eckstrom, who advises an ad.: "Lizzie, come home; all is forgiven."

"Why are school-teachers like Ford cars?"

"Because they give the most service for the least money."--_Life_.

"Yes, indeed," argues the Ford salesman, "this little car is a great investment. You put a few dollars into a Ford and right away it runs into thousands."

A flivver in Newton, Kan., broke the arms of four persons who attempted to crank it in less than a week. That's what comes of crossing a bicycle with a mule.

Lew McCall says that motorists who come through Columbus en route for Kansas City have about the following conversations when they stop at the filling station here:

If it's a Cadillac, the driver says: "How far is it to Kansas City?" "One hundred forty miles," is the reply. "Gimme twenty gallons of gas and a gallon of oil," says the driver. Then comes a Buick and the chauffeur says: "How far is it to Kansas City?" "One hundred forty miles." "Gimme ten gallons of gas and a half-gallon of oil." and he drives on. Along comes a flivver and the driver uncranks himself, gets out and stretches, and asks: "How far is it to Kansas City?" "Oh, about one hundred forty miles." "Is that all? Gimme two quarts of water and a bottle of 3 in 1, and hold this son-of-a-gun until I get in."

Possibly the apex of sarcasm or something was reached the other day when Jones took his flivver to a repair shop and asked the man there what was the best thing to do with it.

The repair-man looked the car over in silence for several minutes, after which he grasped the horn and tooted it. "You've a good horn there," he remarked, quietly. "Suppose you jack it up and run a new car under it?"

A Gentleman who was visiting his lawyer for the purpose of making his will, insisted that a final request be attached to the document. The request was, that his Ford car be buried with him after he died. His lawyer tried to make him see how absurd this was, but failed, so he asked the gentleman's wife to use her influence with him. She did the best she could, but she also failed.

"Well, John," she said finally, "tell me _why_ you want your Ford car buried with you?"

"Because I have never gotten into a hole yet but what my Ford could pull me out," was the reply.

Young lady on a country road in a Ford car which has bucked and refuses to move, asks a farmer who is plowing in an adjoining field--"Do you know anything about a Ford?"

"Nope--nuthin' except a lot of stories, ma'am--giddap."

FOREIGNERS

TEACHER--"Who was the first man?"

HEAD SCHOLAR--"Washington; he was first in war, first in--"

TEACHER--"No, no; Adam was the first man."

HEAD SCHOLAR-"Oh! if you're talking of foreigners, I s'pose he was."

FORESIGHT

"Are you going to pay any attention to these epithets that are being hurled at you?"

"Yes, indeed," answered Senator Sorghum. "I'm having them all carefully copied and filed away. I may need them when it comes my turn to call names."

"Now, then, my hearties," said the gallant captain, "you have a tough battle before you. Fight like heroes till your powder is gone; then run. I'm a little lame, and I'll start now."

FORGETFULNESS

_See_ Memory.

FORTUNE HUNTERS

"This bill was innocent on its face, but beneath there lurked a most sinister significance."

The speaker, Senator Clarke, was discussing in Little Rock a measure of which he disapproved.

"The bill reminded me, in fact," he said, "of a Little Rock, urchin's question. His question, innocent enough in appearance, dear knows, was this:

"'Would you mind making a noise like a frog, uncle?'"

"'And why,' said the uncle, with an amused smile, 'why, Tommy, do you desire me to make a noise like a frog?'"

"'Because,' replied the urchin, 'whenever I ask daddy to buy me anything he always says, 'Wait till your uncle croaks.'"

"Here's poetic justice for you. One of these oil-stock promoters married a woman for her money."

"Yes?"

"Only to discover that she had invested it all in his oil stock."

"I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and munched like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy--I fought it;
I hurled my youth into the grave.

"I wanted the gold and I got it--
Came out with a fortune last fall--
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn't all."

--_George Matthew Adams_.

"Mamma," said the Young Thing, "I want you to stop forcing me into Mr. Gottit's company all the time. People are talking."

"But, my dear," protested the Solicitous Lady, "he is a wonderful catch!"

"He may be, Mamma, but if you keep on thinking you are pitcher, he'll get onto your curves and throw the game."

EDITH--"I think Jack is horrid. I asked him if he had to choose between me and a million which he would take, and he said the million."

MARIE--"That's all right. He knew if he had the million you'd be easy,"

FOUNTAIN PENS

"Why do they call 'em fountain pens? I should say reservoir pen would be the better name. A reservoir contains liquids; a fountain throws 'em around."

"I think fountain pen is the proper name," said the party of the second part.

FRANKLIN

Franklin, when ambassador to France, being at a meeting of a literary society, and not well understanding French when declaimed, determined to applaud when he saw a lady of his acquaintance express satisfaction. When they had ceased, a little child, who understood French, said to him, "But, grand-papa, you always applauded the loudest when they were praising you!" Franklin laughed heartily and explained the matter.

FREAKS

'Tis well to seek to be unique,
But being too odd makes a freak.

FREE VERSE

YOUNG THING--"I wonder why they call it free verse?"

THE POET--"That's simple. Did you ever try to sell any?"

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Dean Jones of Yale is credited with this definition of freedom of speech: "The liberty to say what you think without thinking what you say."

"I believe in free speech!" exclaimed the vociferous man.

"So do I," rejoined Uncle Bill Bottletop; "so do I. But in one respect free speech reminds me of the free lunch in the old days. You hate to see a man making a pig of himself just because something's free."

Words can be just as dangerous as acts. There is a common notion that the right of free speech implies the right to say anything we please and relieves a man of all responsibility for his words. Every man should recognize that hard words are just as dangerous as brickbats, and if he gets to throwing them around promiscuously he is liable for the damage he does. Almost any opinion we have could be stated in terms that would not cause offense. Hard words are caused by our consciousness of the weakness of our position. They are symptoms of impotence. They arise from the feeling that a single statement of our case is not sufficient, and that the only way to make an impression is by insult or abuse. A man who is satisfied with the justice of his position is content to state it in simple and inoffensive terms.--_Dr. Frank Crane_.

"Sir," screeched the wild-haired man, "are you opposed to free speech?"

"Not unless I am compelled to listen to it," replied old Festus Pester.

FRENCH LANGUAGE

"Does your son who is abroad with the troops understand French?"

"Oh, yes, but he says the people he meets there don't seem to."

FRIENDS

"A fellah come to me today
And slapped me on the back
And started makin', right away,
The us'al sort of crack
About how good a friend he was,
How strong he was for me--
But friends don't need to tell you so,
There's other ways to tell you so,"
Says Charlie Cherokee.

"When makin' up my list of friends
I try to git 'em all;
The folks who give me recommends,
Or loans, however small;
I try to think of all they done
A friend of mine to be.
I find a rainy day is what
Will tell you who's a friend or not,"
Says Charlie Cherokee.

"I've never added to the list
A man, like this one did,
Who slapped my back and grabbed my fist
And started in to kid.
For friends don't need to say a word,
Their friendship you can see,
Can see it in a fellah's eyes--
For friends don't need to advertise,"
Says Charlie Cherokee.

--_Douglas Malloch_.

A day for toil, an hour for sport,
But for a friend life is too short.

--_Emerson_.

It's a pretty safe guess that if you have no friends you have done something to deserve the fix you are in.

A friend who is not in need is a friend indeed.

_Friends_

Around the corner I had a friend,
In this great city, that has no end.
Yet days go by and weeks rush on
And before I know it, a year has gone,
And I never see my old friend's face,
For life is a swift and terrible race.
He knows I like him just as well
As in the days when I rang his bell,
And he rang mine, we were younger then
And now we are busy, tired men,
Tired of playing the foolish game,
Tired with trying to make a name.
"Tomorrow" I say, "I'll call on Jim
Just to show him that I think of him,"
But tomorrow comes, and tomorrow goes,
And the distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner--yet miles away
"Here's a telegram, sir" Jim died today.
And that's what we get and deserve in the end,
Around the corner, a vanished friend.

--_C. Hanson Towne_.

_See also_ Borrowers.

FRIENDSHIP

"Friendship," said Uncle Eben, "don't mean no mo' to some folk dan a license to borrow money."

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals.--_Goldsmith_.

So long as we love we serve;
So long as we are loved by others
I would almost say that we are indispensable;
And no man is useless while he has a friend.

He removes the greatest ornament of friendship who takes away from it respect.--_Cicero_.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go,
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,--
There are none to decline your nectar'd wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

--_Ella Wheeler Wilcox_.

FUTURE

Youth measures the future with the straight, new ruler of the present; Old Age, by the frayed and patched plumb-line of the past.

I announce myself unblushingly and with perfect confidence. Nobody has anything on me.

Nobody can ever supplant me in the affections and desires of men. I am supreme mogul of the universe.

Everybody is working for me. Asking nothing for myself, all men expect everything of me. I withhold nothing and grant as little as I like. Men may doubt fire and the stars, but not me.

Nobody ever saw me, yet I am the one reality. Nobody knows anything about me. So long as time shall last my secret is safe. Yet I am ever on the lips of men. My name is lisped by the toddling infant and chortled by hoary-headed sages.

I am the one that you will eventually disown.

I am _tomorrow_.

_Tomorrow Never Arrives_

Always lookin' forward to an easy-goin' time,
When the world seems movin' careless like a bit of idle rime;
A day when there is nothin' that kin make you sigh or fret;
Always lookin' forward--but I haven't seen it yet.

FUTURE LIFE

Mr. Tarzon Jones was sitting down to breakfast one morning when he was astounded to see in the paper an announcement of his own death.

He rang up his friend Howard Smith at once. "Halloa, Smith!" he said. "Have you seen the announcement of my death in the paper?"

"Yes," replied Smith. "Where are you speaking from?"

TEACHER--"And what was Nelson's farewell address?"

BRIGHT BOY--"Heaven, ma'am."

At the grave of the departed the old darky pastor stood, hat in hand. Looking into the abyss he delivered himself of the funeral oration.

"Samuel Johnson," he said sorrowfully, "you is gone. An' we hopes you is gone where we 'specks you ain't."

POST--"A man can die but once."

PARKER--"Once used to be enough, until these psychic experts got busy."

A French biologist declares that by a freezing process, somewhat similar to that used in preserving fish, the span of human life can be indefinitely extended. By going into cold storage here, we can postpone a hot time hereafter.

"Well, Bill," asked a neighbor. "Hear the boss has had a fever? How's his temperature today?"

The hired man scratched his head and decided not to commit himself.

"'Tain't fer me to say," he replied. "He died last night."

A park orator returning home flushed with his oratorical efforts, and also from other causes, found a mild curate seated opposite in the tram-car. "It may interest you to know," he said truculently, "that I don't believe in the existence of a 'eaven." The curate merely nodded, and went on reading his newspaper. "You don't quite realize," said the park orator, "what I'm trying to make clear. I want you to understand that I don't believe for a single, solitary moment that such a place as 'eaven exists." "All right, all right," answered the curate pleasantly, "go to hell, only don't make quite so much fuss about it."

A Massachusetts Senator was back home, looking after his political fences, and was asking the minister about some of his old acquaintances.

"How's old Mr. Jones?" he inquired. "Will I be likely to see him again?"

"You'll never see Mr. Jones again," said the minister. "Mr Jones has gone to heaven."

"Now, boys," said the teacher in the juvenile Sunday-school class, "our lesson today teaches us that if we are good while here on earth, when we die we will go to a place of everlasting bliss. But suppose we are bad, then what will become of us?"

"We'll go to a place of everlasting blister," promptly answered the small boy at the pedal extremity of the class.

"I wish, reverend father," said Curran to Father O'Leary, "that you were St. Peter, and had the keys of heaven, because then you could let me in."

"By my honor and conscience," replied O'Leary, "it would be better for you that I had the keys of the other place, for then I could let you out."

FUTURIST ART

_Futurist Art_

Which one might worship--if he should wish--without breaking the second commandment because truly there is nothing like it "in the heavens above, in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth."

A painter of the "impressionist" school is now confined in a lunatic asylum. To all persons who visit him he says, "Look here; this is the latest masterpiece of my composition." They look, and see nothing but an expanse of bare canvas. They ask, "What does that represent?"

"That? Why, that represents the passage of the Jews through the Red Sea."

"Beg pardon, but where is the sea?"

"It has been driven back."

"And where are the Jews?"

"They have crossed over."

"And the Egyptians?"

"Will be here soon. That's the sort of painting I like; simple, suggestive, and unpretentious."

The artist dipped his brush in a bucket of paint and wiped it across the canvas several times horizontally. When he had done this he took his labor in hand and carefully placed it in an elaborate frame.

"What's the idea?" his boon companion inquired.

"Impressionistic study."

"Do you mean to tell me that is a finished painting?"

"Certainly."

"What are you going to call it?"

"A village street as seen from the rear seat of a motorcycle."

GAMBLING

"Look, mother," said Bobbie, exhibiting a handful of marbles, "I won all those from Willie Smith."

"Why, Bobbie!" exclaimed his mother; "don't you know it's wicked to play marbles for 'keeps'? Go right over to his house and give back every one."

"Yes, mother," said the boy obediently; "and shall I take that vase you won at Mrs. Jones' whist party, and give it back to her?"

"It's just as wrong to gamble when you win as when you lose."

"Yassuh," asserted Mr. Erastus Pinkley. "De immorality is jes' as great, but de inconvenience ain't."

PROFESSOR--"Now I put the number seven on the board. What number immediately comes into your mind?"

CLASS (in unison)--"Eleven!"--_Burr_.

SAM--"Ah done heard dat dey fine' Columbus's bones."

EZRA--"Lawd! Ah never knew dat he wuz a gamblin' man."

GARAGES

"What do they sell in that last garage besides gasoline, father?"

"'Besides,' my son? You mean 'instead of.'"--_Life_.

GARDENING

"I suppose you are going to raise potatoes in your garden?"

"I was, but when I read the directions for planting I found that it would be impossible. They should be planted in hills, and my yard is perfectly level."

WHAT HE SAID TO HIS WIFE--"If you want a garden this year you had better hire somebody to make it. I'm not going to try it again. I've figured it out; and if I would spend on my business the time I put in on that garden I would make enough money to keep us in vegetables for fifty years. I am off it for life."

WHAT HE SAID TO HIS NEIGHBOR--"I don't think I'll bother with a garden this year. It doesn't pay; I may do a little; but the digging and the labor--I'm off that for life."

WHAT HE SAID TO HIS PARTNER--"Well, how's the garden coming along? I'm not doing much with mine this year. What? How high did you say? Already? What seed did you use?"

WHAT HE SAID TO HIS WIFE WHEN HE GOT HOME AN HOUR EARLY THAT DAY--"Call me when dinner's ready. I've got to get the garden started today or I'll never raise a thing."

GAS

DISSATISFIED HOUSEHOLDER--"Do you mean to say that this meter measures the amount of gas we burn?"

GAS COLLECTOR--"I will enter into no controversy, sir; but I may say that the meter measures the amount of gas you will have to pay for."

GENEROSITY

SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER--"Now, Jimmy, I want you to memorize today's motto, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

JIMMY--"Yes'm, but I know it now. My father says he has always used that as his motto in his business."

TEACHER--"Oh, how noble of him! And what is his business?"

JIMMY--"He's a prize-fighter, ma'am."--_Life_.

Let us proportion our alms to our ability, lest we provoke God to proportion His blessings to our alms.--_Beveridge_.

In this world, it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.--_Beecher_.

GENIUS

WILLIE--"Paw, what is the difference between genius and talent?"

PAW--"Talent gets paid every Saturday, my son."

Time, place, and action, may with pains be wrought,
But genius must be born, and never can be taught.

--_Dryden_.

Who in the same given time can produce more than many others, has vigor; who can produce more and better, has talents; who can produce what none else can, has genius.--_Lavater_.

And genius hath electric power,
Which earth can never tame;
Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower--
Its flash is still the same.

--_Lydia M. Child_.

Taste consists in the power of judging; genius in the power of executing.--_Blair_.

GEOGRAPHY

Edgar, aged five, was driving from the station on his first visit to Maine. His mother, noticing a troubled look on his face as he looked about, said:

"What's the matter, dear? Don't you like the beautiful country?"

"Yes, mother, but on _my_ map Maine is _red_!"

FATHER--"Now James, get ready. I'm going to hear your geography lesson. What have the various expeditions to the North Pole accomplished?"

JIMMY--"Nothin' 'cept to make the geography lessons harder."

The geography lesson was about to begin, and the subject of it was France.

Accordingly, the teacher started off with the question: "Now in this present terrible war, who is our principal ally?"

"France," came the answer from a chorus of voices.

"Quite right," said the teacher, beaming. "Now can any of you give me the name of a town in France?"

A small boy at the back of the class almost fell over in his eagerness to tell; "Somewhere," he said, breathlessly.

GERMANY

"Germany's claim that she imports nothing, buys only of herself, and so is growing rich from the war, is a dreadful fallacy."

The speaker was Herbert C. Hoover, chairman of the American Food Board.

"Germany," he went on, "is like the young man who wisely thought he'd grow his own garden-stuff. This young man had been digging for about an hour when his spade turned up a quarter. Ten minutes later he found another quarter. Then he found a dime. Then he found a quarter again.

"'By gosh!' he said, 'I've struck a silver mine,' and, straightening up, he felt something cold slide down his leg. Another quarter lay at his feet. He grasped the truth: There was a hole in his pocket."

GERMS

"You don't seem to pay any attention to these germs."

"I don't talk about 'em any more than is necessary," answered Doc Braney. "I take all possible precautions and then try to ignore 'em. The meanest thing about a germ is that if he can't attack you anywhere else, he tries to get on your mind."

Daddy was confined to the house with Spanish influenza, and mother was busy sterilizing the dishes which had come from the sick-room.

"Why do you do that?" asked four-year-old Donald.

"Because, dear, poor daddy has germs, and the germs get on the dishes, so then I boil them, and that kills all the horrid germs."

Donald turned this over in his little mind for several minutes. Then:

"Mother, why don't you boil daddy?"

"She is simply mad on the subject of germs, and sterilizes or filters everything in the house."

"How does she get along with her family?"

"Oh, even her relations are strained."

Mrs. Robinson was an extremely careful mother and had repeatedly cautioned her six-year-old daughter against handling any object that might contain germs. One day the little girl came in and said:

"Mother, I am never going to play with my puppy any more, because he has germs on him."