Chapter XI: Part 11

"Oh, nothing much," replied the reporter, without looking up. "He was walking along the street when he suddenly clasped his hands to his heart and said, 'I'm going to die!' Then he leaned up against a fence and made good."

Enraged over something the local newspaper had printed about him, a subscriber burst into the editor's office in search of the responsible reporter. "Who are you?" he demanded, glaring at the editor, who was also the main stockholder.

"I'm the newspaper," was the calm reply.

"And who are you?" he next inquired, turning his resentful gaze on the chocolate-colored office-devil clearing out the waste basket.

"Me?" rejoined the darky, grinning from ear to ear. "Ah guess ah's de cul'ud supplement."

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.--_Napoleon I_.

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.--_Charles Lamb_.

OBESITY

_See_ Corpulence.

OBITUARIES

If you have frequent fainting spells, accompanied by chills, cramps, corns, bunions, chilblains, epilepsy and jaundice, it is a sign that you are not well, but liable to die any minute. Pay your subscription in advance and thus make yourself solid for a good obituary notice.--_Mountain Echo_.

_See_ also Epitaphs.

OBSERVATION

In his daily half hour confidential talk with his boy an ambitious father tried to give some good advice.

"Be observing, my son," said the father on one occasion. "Cultivate the habit of seeing, and you will be a successful man. Study things and remember them. Don't go through the world blindly. Learn to use your eyes. Boys who are observing know a great deal more than those who are not."

Willie listened in silence.

Several days later when the entire family, consisting of his mother, aunt and uncle, were present, his father said:

"Well, Willie, have you kept using your eyes as I advised you to do?"

Willie nodded, and after a moment's hesitation said:

"I've seen a few things right around the house. Uncle Jim's got a bottle of hair dye hid under his trunk, Aunt Jennie's got an extra set of teeth in her dresser, Ma's got some curls in her hat, and Pa's got a deck of cards and a box of chips behind the books in the secretary."

OCCUPATIONS

Mrs. Hennessey, who was a late arrival in the neighborhood, was entertaining a neighbor one afternoon, when the latter inquired:

"An' what does your old man do, Mrs. Hennessey?"

"Sure, he's a di'mond-cuttter."

"Ye don't mane it!"

"Yis; he cuts th' grass off th' baseball grounds."--_L.F. Clarke_.

All business men are apt to use the technical terms of their daily labors in situations outside of working hours. One time a railroad man was entertaining his pastor at dinner and his sons, who had to wait until their elders had finished got into mischief. At the end of the meal, their father excused himself for a moment saying he had to "switch some empties."

"Professor," said Miss Skylight, "I want you to suggest a course in life for me. I have thought of journalism--"

"What are your own inclinations?"

"Oh, my soul yearns and throbs and pulsates with an ambition to give the world a life-work that shall be marvelous in its scope, and weirdly entrancing in the vastness of its structural beauty!"

"Woman, you're born to be a milliner."

A woman, when asked her husband's occupation, said he was a mixologist. The city directory called him a bartender.

"A good turkey dinner and mince pie," said a well-known after-dinner orator, "always puts us in a lethargic mood--makes us feel, in fact, like the natives of Nola Chucky. In Nola Chucky one day I said to a man:

"'What is the principal occupation of this town?'

"'Wall, boss,' the man answered, yawning, 'in winter they mostly sets on the east side of the house and follers the sun around to the west, and in summer they sets on the west side and follers the shade around to the east.'"

JONES--"How'd this happen? The last time I was here you were running a fish-market, and now you've got a cheese-shop."

SMITH--"Yes. Well, you see the doctor said I needed a change of air."

The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment--_Douglas Jerrold_.

OCEAN

A resident of Nahant tells this one on a new servant his wife took down from Boston.

"Did you sleep well, Mary?" the girl was asked the following morning.

"Sure, I did not, ma'am," was the reply; "the snorin' of the ocean kept me awake all night."

Love the sea? I dote upon it--from the beach.--_Douglas Jerrold_.

I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more.

--_Barry Cornwall_.

OFFICE BOYS

"Have you had any experience as an office-boy?"

"I should say I had, mister; why, I'm a dummy director in three mining-companies now."

OFFICE-SEEKERS

A gentleman, not at all wealthy, who had at one time represented in Congress, through a couple of terms a district not far from the national capitol, moved to California where in a year or so he rose to be sufficiently prominent to become a congressional subject, and he was visited by the central committee of his district to be talked to.

"We want you," said the spokesman, "to accept the nomination for Congress."

"I can't do it, gentlemen," he responded promptly.

"You must," the spokesman demanded.

"But I can't," he insisted. "I'm too poor."

"Oh, that will be all right; we've got plenty of money for the campaign."

"But that is nothing," contended the gentleman; "it's the expense in Washington. I've been there, and know all about it."

"Well you didn't lose by it, and it doesn't cost any more because you come from California."

The gentleman became very earnest.

"Doesn't it?" he exclaimed in a business-like tone. "Why my dear sirs, I used to have to send home every month about half a dozen busted office-seeker constituents, and the fare was only $3 apiece, and I could stand it, but it would cost me over $100 a head to send them out here, and I'm no millionaire; therefore, as much as I regret it, I must insist on declining."

"On a trip to Washington," said Col. W.F. Cody. "I had for a companion Sousa, the band leader. We had berths opposite each other. Early one morning as we approached the capital I thought I would have a little fun. I got a morning paper, and, after rustling it a few minutes, I said to Sousa:

"'That's the greatest order Cleveland has just issued!'

"'What's that?' came from the opposite berth.

"'Why he's ordered all the office-seekers rounded up at the depot and sent home.'

"You should have seen the general consternation that ensued. From almost every berth on the car a head came out from between the curtains, and with one accord nearly every man shouted:

'What's that?'"

OLD AGE

_See_ Age.

OLD MASTERS

_See_ Paintings.

ONIONS

Can the Burbanks of the glorious West
Either make or buy or sell
An onion with an onion's taste
But with a violet's smell?

SHE--"They say that an apple a day will keep the doctor away."

HE--"Why stop there? An onion a day will keep everybody away."

OPERA

"Which do you consider the most melodious Wagnerian opera?" asked Mrs. Cumrox.

"There are several I haven't heard, aren't there?" rejoined her husband.

"Yes."

"Then I guess it's one of them."

OPPORTUNITY

Many a man creates his own lack of opportunities.--_Life_.

Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,
Shall never find it more.

--_Shakespeare_.

In life's small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscles trained; know'st thou when fate
Thy measure takes? or when she'll say to thee,
"I find thee worthy, do this thing for me!"

--_Emerson_.

OPTIMISM

Optimism is Worry on a spree.--_Judge_.

An optimist is a man who doesn't care what happens just so is doesn't happen to him.

An optimist is the fellow who doesn't know what's coming to him.--_J.J. O'Connell_.

An optimist is a woman who thinks that everything is for the best, and that she is the best.-_Judge_.

A political optimist is a fellow who can make sweet, pink lemonade out of the bitter yellow fruit which his opponents hand him.

Mayor William S. Jordan, at a Democratic banquet in Jacksonville, said of optimism:

"Let us cultivate optimism and hopefulness. There is nothing like it. The optimistic man can see a bright side to everything--everything.

"A missionary in a slum once laid his hand on a man's shoulder and said:

"'Friend, do you hear the solemn ticking of that clock? Tick-tack; tick-tack. And oh, friend, do you know what day it inexorably and relentlessly brings nearer?"

"'Yes-pay day,' the other, an honest, optimistic workingman, replied."

A Scotsman who has a keen appreciation of the strong characteristics of his countrymen delights in the story of a druggist known both for his thrift and his philosophy.

Once he was aroused from a deep sleep by the ringing of his night bell. He went down to his little shop and sold a dose of rather nauseous medicine to a distressed customer.

"What profit do you make out of that?" grumbled his wife.

"A ha'penny," was the cheerful answer.

"And for that bit of money you'll lie awake maybe an hour," she said impatiently.

"Never grumble o'er that, woman," was his placid answer. "The dose will keep him awake all night. We must thank heaven we ha' the profit and none o' the pain o' this transaction."

A German shoemaker left the gas turned on in his shop one night and upon arriving in the morning struck a match to light it.

There was a terrific explosion, and the shoemaker was blown out through the door almost to the middle of the street.

A passer-by rushed to his assistance, and, after helping him to rise, inquired if he was injured.

The little German gazed at his place of business, which was now burning quite briskly, and said:

"No, I ain't hurt. But I got out shust in time, eh?"

My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Tho' a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't prove worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accursed.

--_Browning_.

ORATORS

It is narrated that Colonel Breckenridge, meeting Majah Buffo'd on the streets of Lexington one day asked: "What's the meaning, suh, of the conco's befor' the co't house?"

To which the majah replied:

"General Buckneh is making a speech. General Buckneh suh, is a bo'n oratah."

"What do you mean by bo'n oratah?"

"If you or I, suh, were asked how much two and two make, we would reply 'foh.' When this is asked of a bo'n oratah, he replies: 'When in the co'se of human events it becomes necessary to take an integah of the second denomination and add it, suh, to an integah of the same denomination, the result, suh--and I have the science of mathematics to back me up in my judgment--the result, suh, and I say it without feah of successful contradiction, suh-the result is fo'' That's a bo'n oratah."

When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of Oratory, he answered, "Action," and which was the second, he replied, "Action," and which was the third, he still answered "Action."--_Plutarch_.

OUTDOOR LIFE

One day, in the spring of '74, Cap Smith's freight outfit pulled into Helena, Montana. After unloading the freight, the "mule-skinners," to a man, repaired to the Combination Gambling House and proceeded to load themselves. Late in the afternoon, Zeb White, Smith's oldest skinner, having exchanged all of his hard coin for liquid refreshment, zigzagged into the corral, crawled under a wagon, and went to sleep. After supper, Smith, making his nightly rounds, happened on the sleeping Zeb.

"Kinder chilly, ain't it?" he asked, after earnestly prodding Zeb with a convenient stick.

"I reckon 'tis," Zeb drowsily mumbled.

"Ain't yer 'fraid ye'll freeze?"

'"Tis cold, ain't it? Say, Cap, jest throw on another wagon, will yer?"

PAINTING

_See_ Art.

PAINTINGS

She had engaged a maid recently from the country, and was now employed in showing her newly acquired treasure over the house and enlightening her in regard to various duties, etc. At last they reached the best room. "These," said the mistress of the house, pausing before an extensive row of masculine portraits, "are very valuable, and you must be very careful when dusting. They are old masters." Mary's jaw dropped, and a look of intense wonder overspread her rubicund face.

"Lor', mum," she gasped, gazing with bulging eyes on the face of her new employer, "lor', mum, who'd ever 'ave thought you'd been married all these times!"

A picture is a poem without words.--_Cornificus_.

PANICS

One night at a theatre some scenery took fire, and a very perceptible odor of burning alarmed the spectators. A panic seemed to be imminent, when an actor appeared on the stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "compose yourselves. There is no danger."

The audience did not seem reassured.

"Ladies and gentlemen," continued the comedian, rising to the necessity of the occasion, "confound it all--do you think if there was any danger I'd be here?"

The panic collapsed.

PARENTS

William, aged five, had been reprimanded by his father for interrupting while his father was telling his mother about the new telephone for their house. He sulked awhile, then went to his mother, and, patting her on the cheeks, said, "Mother dear, I love you."

"Don't you love me too?" asked his father.

Without glancing at him, William said disdainfully, "The wire's busy."

"What does your mother say when you tell her those dreadful lies?"

"She says I take after father."

"A little lad was desperately ill, but refused to take the medicine the doctor had left. At last his mother gave him up.

"Oh, my boy will die; my boy will die," she sobbed.

But a voice spoke from the bed, "Don't cry, mother. Father'll be home soon and he'll make me take it."

Mrs. White was undoubtedly the disciplinarian of the family. The master of the house, a professor, and consequently a very busy man, was regarded by the children as one of themselves, subject to the laws of "Mother."

Mrs. White had been ill for some weeks and although the father felt that the children were showing evidence of running wild, he seemed powerless to correct the fault. One evening at dinner, however, he felt obliged to reprimand Marion severely.

"Marion," he said, sternly, "stop that at once, or I shall take you from the table and punish you soundly."

He experienced a feeling of profound satisfaction in being able to thus reprove when it was necessary and glanced across the table expecting to see a very demure little miss. Instead, Marion and her little brother exchanged glances and then simultaneously a grin overspread their faces, while Marion said in a mirthful tone:

"Oh, Francis, hear father trying to talk like mother!"

Robert has lately acquired a stepmother. Hoping to win his affection this new parent has been very lenient with him, while his father, feeling his responsibility, has been unusually strict. The boys of the neighborhood, who had taken pains to warn Robert of the terrible character of stepmothers in general, recently waited on him in a body, and the following conversation was overheard:

"How do you like your stepmother, Bob?"

"Like her! Why fellers, I just love her. All I wish is I had a stepfather, too."

"Well, Bobby, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

BOBBY (remembering private seance in the wood-shed)--"A orphan."

Little Eleanor's mother was an American, while her father was a German.

One day, after Eleanor had been subjected to rather severe disciplinary measures at the hands of her father, she called her mother into another room, closed the door significantly, and said: "Mother, I don't want to meddle in your business, but I wish you'd send that husband of yours back to Germany."

The lawyer was sitting at his desk absorbed in the preparation of a brief. So bent was he on his work that he did not hear the door as it was pushed gently open, nor see the curly head that was thrust into his office. A little sob attracted his notice, and, turning he saw a face that was streaked with tears and told plainly that feelings had been hurt.

"Well, my little man, did you want to see me?"

"Are you a lawyer?"

"Yes. What do you want?"

"I want"--and there was resolute ring in his voice--"I want a divorce from my papa and mama."

PARROTS

Pat had but a limited knowledge of the bird kingdom. One day, walking down the street, he noticed a green bird in a cage, talking and singing. Thinking to pet it he stroked its head. The bird turned quickly, screaming, "Hello! What do you want?" Pat shied off like a frightened horse, lifting his hat and bowing politely as he stuttered out: "Ex-excuse me s-sir, I thought you was a burrd!"

PARTNERSHIP

A West Virginia darky, a blacksmith, recently announced a change in his business as follows: "Notice--De co-pardnership heretofore resisting between me and Mose Skinner is hereby resolved. Dem what owe de firm will settle wid me, and dem what de firm owes will settle wid Mose."

PASSWORDS

"I want to change my password," said the man who had for two years rented a safety-deposit box.

"Very well," replied the man in charge. "What is the old one?"

"Gladys."

"And what do you wish the new one to be?"

"Mabel. Gladys has gone to Reno."

Senator Tillman not long ago piloted a plain farmer-constituent around the Capitol for a while, and then, having some work to do on the floor, conducted him to the Senate gallery.

After an hour or so the visitor approached a gallery door-keeper and said: "My name is Swate. I am a friend of Senator Tillman. He brought me here and I want to go out and look around a bit. I though I would tell you so I can get back in."

"That's all right," said the doorkeeper, "but I may not be here when you return. In order to prevent any mistake I will give you the password so you can get your seat again."

Swate's eyes rather popped out at this. "What's the word?" he asked.

"Idiosyncrasy."

"What?"

"Idiosyncrasy."

"I guess I'll stay in," said Swate.

PATIENCE

"Your husband seems to be very impatient lately."

"Yes, he is, very."

"What is the matter with him?"

"He is getting tired waiting for a chance to get out where he can sit patiently hour after hour waiting for a fish to nibble at his bait."

PATRIOTISM

General Gordon, the Confederate commander, used to tell the following story: He was sitting by the roadside one blazing hot day when a dilapidated soldier, his clothing in rags, a shoe lacking, his head bandaged, and his arm in a sling, passed him. He was soliloquizing in this manner:

"I love my country. I'd fight for my country. I'd starve and go thirsty for my country. I'd die for my country. But if ever this damn war is over I'll never love another country!"

A snobbish young Englishman visiting Washington's home at Mount Vernon was so patronizing as to arouse the wrath of guards and caretakers; but it remained for "Shep" Wright, an aged gardener and one of the first scouts of the Confederate army, to settle the gentleman. Approaching "Shep," the Englishman said:

"Ah--er--my man, the hedge! Yes, I see, George got this hedge from dear old England."

"Reckon he did," replied "Shep". "He got this whole blooming country from England."

Speaking of the policy of the Government of the United States with respect to its troublesome neighbors in Central and South America, "Uncle Joe" Cannon told of a Missouri congressman who is decidedly opposed to any interference in this regard by our country. It seems that this spring the Missourian met an Englishman at Washington with whom he conversed touching affairs in the localities mentioned. The westerner asserted his usual views with considerable forcefulness, winding up with this observation:

"The whole trouble is that we Americans need a ---- good licking!"

"You do, indeed!" promptly asserted the Britisher, as if pleased by the admission. But his exultation was of brief duration, for the Missouri man immediately concluded with:

"But there ain't nobody can do it!"

A number of Confederate prisoners, during the Civil War, were detained at one of the western military posts under conditions much less unpleasant than those to be found in the ordinary military prison. Most of them appreciated their comparatively good fortune. One young fellow, though, could not be reconciled to association with Yankees under any circumstances, and took advantage of every opportunity to express his feelings. He was continually rubbing it in about the battle of Chickamauga, which had just been fought with such disastrous results for the Union forces.

"Maybe we didn't eat you up at Chickamauga!" was the way he generally greeted a bluecoat.

The Union men, when they could stand it no longer, reported the matter to General Grant. Grant summoned the prisoner.

"See here," said Grant, "I understand that you are continually insulting the men here with reference to the battle of Chickamauga. They have borne with you long enough, and I'm going to give you your choice of two things. You will either take the oath of allegiance to the United States, or be sent to a Northern prison. Choose."

The prisoner was silent for some time. "Well," he said at last, in a resigned tone, "I reckon, General, I'll take the oath."

The oath was duly administered. Turning to Grant, the fellow then asked, very penitently, if he might speak.

"Yes," said the general indifferently. "What is it?"

"Why, I was just thinkin', General," he drawled, "they certainly did give us hell at Chickamauga."

Historical controversies are creeping into the schools. In a New York public institution attended by many races, during an examination in history the teacher asked a little chap who discovered America.

He was evidently thrown into a panic and hesitated, much to the teacher's surprise, to make any reply.

"Oh, please, ma'am," he finally stammered, "ask me somethin' else."

"Something else, Jimmy? Why should I do that?"

"The fellers was talkin' 'bout it yesterday," replied Jimmy, "Pat McGee said it was discovered by an Irish saint. Olaf, he said it was a sailor from Norway, and Giovanni said it was Columbus, an' if you'd a-seen what happened you wouldn't ask a little feller like me."

Our country! When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right!--_Carl Schurz_.

Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.--_Stephen Decatur_.

There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism.--_Robert C. Winthrop_.

Patriotic exercises and flag worship will avail nothing unless the states give to their people of the kind of government that arouses patriotism.--_Franklin Pierce II_.

PENSIONS

WILLIS--"I wonder if there will ever be universal peace."

GILLIS--"Sure. All they've got to do is to get the nations to agree that in case of war the winner pays the pensions."--_Puck_.

"Why was it you never married again, Aunt Sallie?" inquired Mrs. McClane of an old colored woman in West Virginia.

"'Deed, Miss Ellie," replied the old woman earnestly, "dat daid nigger's wuth moah to me dan a live one. I gits a pension."--_Edith Howell Armor_.

If England had a system of pensions like ours, we should see that "all that was left of the Noble Six Hundred" was six thousand pensioners.

PESSIMISM

A pessimist is a man who lives with an optimist.--_Francis Wilson_.

How happy are the Pessimists!
A bliss without alloy
Is theirs when they have proved to us
There's no such thing as joy!

--_Harold Susman_.

A pessimist is one who, of two evils, chooses them both.

"I had a mighty queer surprise this morning," remarked a local stock broker. "I put on my last summer's thin suit on account of this extraordinary hot weather, and in one of the trousers pockets I found a big roll of bills which I had entirely forgotten."

"Were any of them receipted?" asked a pessimist.

To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.--_Fronde_.

With earth's first clay they did the last man knead,
And there of the last harvest sowed the seed:
And the first morning of creation wrote
What the last dawn of reckoning shall read.

Yesterday this day's madness did prepare;
Tomorrow's silence, triumph, or despair.
Drink! For you know not whence you came, nor why;
Drink! For you know not why you go, nor where.

--_Omar Khayyam_

PHILADELPHIA

A Staten Island man, when the mosquitoes began to get busy in the borough across the bay, has been in the habit every summer of transplanting his family to the Delaware Water Gap for a few weeks. They were discussing their plans the other day, when the oldest boy, aged eight, looked up from his geography and said:

"Pop, Philadelphia is on the Delaware River, isn't it?"

Pop replied that such was the case.

"I wonder if that's what makes the Delaware Water Gap?" insinuated the youngster.--_S.S. Stinson_.

Among the guests at an informal dinner in New York was a bright Philadelphia girl.

"These are snails," said a gentleman next to her, when the dainty was served. "I suppose Philadelphia people don't eat them for fear of cannibalism."

"Oh, no," was her instant reply; "it isn't that. We couldn't catch them."

PHILANTHROPISTS

Little grains of short weight,
Little crooked twists,
Fill the land with magnates
And philanthropists.

_See also_ Charity.

PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy is finding out how many things there are in the world which you can't have if you want them, and don't want if you can have them.--_Puck_.

PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS

The eight-year-old son of a Baltimore physician, together with a friend, was playing in his father's office, during the absence of the doctor, when suddenly the first lad threw open a closet door and disclosed to the terrified gaze of his little friend an articulated skeleton.

When the visitor had sufficiently recovered from his shock to stand the announcement the doctor's son explained that his father was extremely proud of that skeleton.

"Is he?" asked the other. "Why?"

"I don't know," was the answer; "maybe it was his first patient."

The doctor stood by the bedside, and looked gravely down at the sick man.

"I can not hide from you the fact that you are very ill," he said. "Is there any one you would like to see?"

"Yes," said the sufferer faintly.

"Who is it?"

"Another doctor."--_Judge_.

"Doctor, I want you to look after my office while I'm on my vacation."

"But I've just graduated, doctor. Have had no experience." "That's all right, my boy. My practice is strictly fashionable. Tell the men to play golf and ship the lady patients off to Europe."

An old darky once lay seriously ill of fever and was treated for a long time by one doctor, and then another doctor, for some reason, came and took the first one's place. The second physician made a thorough examination of the patient. At the end he said, "Did the other doctor take your temperature?"

"Ah dunno, sah," the patient answered. "Ah hain't missed nuthin' so far but mah watch."

There had been an epidemic of colds in the town, and one physician who had had scarcely any sleep for two days called upon a patient--an Irishman--who was suffering from pneumonia, and as he leaned over to hear the patient's respiration he called upon Pat to count.

The doctor was so fatigued that he fell asleep, with his ear on the sick man's chest. It seemed but a minute when he suddenly awoke to hear Pat still counting: "Tin thousand an' sivinty-six, tin thousand an' sivinty-sivin--"

FIRST DOCTOR--"I operated on him for appendicitis."

SECOND DOCTOR--"What was the matter with him?"--_Life_.

FUSSY LADY PATIENT--"I was suffering so much, doctor, that I wanted to die."

DOCTOR--"You did right to call me in, dear lady."

MEDICAL STUDENT--"What did you operate on that man for?"

EMINENT SURGEON--"Two hundred dollars."

MEDICAL STUDENT--"I mean what did he have?"

EMINENT SURGEON--"Two hundred dollars."

The three degrees in medical treatment--Positive, ill; comparative, pill; superlative, bill.

"What caused the coolness between you and that young doctor? I thought you were engaged."

"His writing is rather illegible. He sent me a note calling for 10,000 kisses."

"Well?"

"I thought it was a prescription, and took it to the druggist to be filled."

A tourist while traveling in the north of Scotland, far away from anywhere, exclaimed to one of the natives: "Why, what do you do when any of you are ill? You can never get a doctor."

"Nae, sir," replied Sandy. "We've jist to dee a naitural death."

When the physician gives you medicine and tells you to take it, you take it. "Yours not to reason why; yours but to do and die."

Physicians, of all men, are most happy: whatever good success soever they have, the world proclaimeth; and what faults they commit, the earth covereth.--_Quarles_.

This is the way that physicians mend or end us,
Secundum artem: but although we sneer
In health--when ill, we call them to attend us,
Without the least propensity to jeer.

--_Byron_.

_See also_ Bills.

PICKPOCKETS

_See_ Thieves; Wives.

PINS

"Oh, dear!" sighed the wife as she was dressing for a dinner-party, "I can't find a pin anywhere. I wonder where all the pins go to, anyway?"

"That's a difficult question to answer," replied her husband, "because they are always pointed in one direction and headed in another."

PITTSBURG

"How about that airship?"

"It went up in smoke."

"Burned, eh?"

"Oh, no. Made an ascension at Pittsburg."

SKYBOUGH--"Why have you put that vacuum cleaner in front of your airship?"

KLOUDLEIGH--"To clear a path. I have an engagement to sail over Pittsburg."

A man just back from South America was describing a volcanic disturbance.

"I was smoking a cigar before the door of my hotel," said he, "when I was startled by a rather violent earthquake. The next instant the sun was obscured and darkness settled over the city. Looking in the direction of the distant volcano, I saw heavy clouds of smoke rolling from it, with an occasional tongue of flame flashing against the dark sky.

"Some of the natives about me were on their knees praying; others darted aimlessly about, crazed with terror and shouting for mercy. The landlord of the hotel rushed out and seized me by the arm.

"'To the harbor!' he cried in my ear.

"Together we hurried down the narrow street. As we panted along, the dark smoke whirled in our faces, and a dangerous shower of red-hot cinders sizzled about us. Do you know, I don't believe I was ever so homesick in all my life!"

"Homesick?" gasped the listener. "Homesick at a time like that?"

"Sure. I live in Pittsburg, you know."

PLAY

The mother heard a great commotion, as of cyclones mixed up with battering-rams, and she hurried upstairs to discover what was the matter. There she found Tommie sitting in the middle of the floor with a broad smile on his face.

"Oh, Mama," said he delightedly, "I've locked Grandpa and Uncle George in the cupboard, and when they get a little angrier I am going to play Daniel in the lion's den."

PLEASURE

BILLY--"Huh! I bet you didn't have a good time at your birthday party yesterday."

WILLIE--"I bet I did."

BILLY--"Then why ain't you sick today?"

Winnie had been very naughty, and her mamma said: "Don't you know you will never go to Heaven if you are so naughty?"

After thinking a moment she said: "Oh, well, I have been to the circus once and 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' twice. I can't expect to go everywhere."

In Concord, New Hampshire, they tell of an old chap who made his wife keep a cash account. Each week he would go over it, growling and grumbling. On one such occasion he delivered himself of the following:

"Look here, Sarah, mustard-plasters, fifty cents; three teeth extracted, two dollars! There's two dollars and a half in one week spent for your own private pleasure. Do you think I am made of money?"

Here's to beauty, wit and wine and to a full stomach, a full purse and a light heart.

A dinner, coffee and cigars,
Of friends, a half a score.
Each favorite vintage in its turn,--
What man could wish for more?

The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him who plucks them; for they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.--_Hannah More_.

_See also_ Amusements.

POETRY

Poetry is a gift we are told, but most editors won't take it even at that.

POETS

EDITOR--"Have you submitted this poem anywhere else?"

JOKESMITH--"No, sir."

EDITOR--"Then where did you get that black eye?"--_Satire_.

"Why is it," asked the persistent poetess, "that you always insist that we write on one side of the paper only? Why not on both?"

In that moment the editor experienced an access of courage--courage to protest against the accumulated wrongs of his kind.

"One side of the paper, madame," he made answer, "is in the nature of a compromise."

"A compromise?"

"A compromise. What we really desire, if we could have our way, is not one, or both, but neither."

Sir Lewis Morris was complaining to Oscar Wilde about the neglect of his poems by the press. "It is a complete conspiracy of silence against me, a conspiracy of silence. What ought I to do, Oscar?" "Join it," replied Wilde.

God's prophets of the Beautiful,
These Poets were.

--_E.B. Browning_.

We call those poets who are first to mark
Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,--
Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark,
While others only note that day is gone.

--_O.W. Holmes_.

POLICE

A man who was "wanted" in Russia had been photographed in six different positions, and the pictures duly circulated among the police department. A few days later the chief of police wrote to headquarters: "Sir, I have duly received the portraits of the six miscreants. I have arrested five of them, and the sixth will be secured shortly."

"I had a message from the Black Hand," said the resident of Graftburg. "They told me to leave $2,000 in a vacant house in a certain street."

"Did you tell the police?"

"Right away."

"What did they do?"

"They said that while I was about it I might leave them a couple of thousand in the same place."

Recipe for a policeman:

To a quart of boiling temper add a pint of Irish stew
Together with cracked nuts, long beats and slugs;
Serve hot with mangled citizens who ask the time of day--
The receipt is much the same for making thugs.

--_Life_.

_See also_ Servants.

POLITENESS

_See_ Courtesy; Etiquet.

POLITICAL PARTIES

ZOO SUPERINTENDENT--"What was all the rumpus out there this morning?"

ATTENDANT--"The bull moose and the elephant were fighting over their feed."

"What happened?"

"The donkey ate it."--_Life_.

POLITICIANS

Politicians always belong to the opposite party.

The man who goes into politics as a business has no business to go into politics.--_Life_.

A political orator, evidently better acquainted with western geography than with the language of the Greeks, recently exclaimed with fervor that his principles should prevail "from Alpha to Omaha."

POLITICIAN--"Congratulate me, my dear, I've won the nomination."

HIS WIFE (in surprise)--"Honestly?"

POLITICIAN--"Now what in thunder did you want to bring up that point for?"

"What makes you think the baby is going to be a great politician?" asked the young mother, anxiously.

"I'll tell you," answered the young father, confidently; "he can say more things that sound well and mean nothing at all than any kid I ever saw."

"The mere proposal to set the politician to watch the capitalist has been disturbed by the rather disconcerting discovery that they are both the same man. We are past the point where being a capitalist is the only way of becoming a politician, and we are dangerously near the point where being a politician is much the quickest way of becoming a capitalist."--_G.K. Chesterton_.

At a political meeting the speakers and the audience were much annoyed and disturbed by a man who constantly called out: "Mr. Henry! Henry, Henry, Henry! I call for Mr. Henry!" After several interruptions of this kind during each speech, a young man ascended the platform, and began an eloquent and impassioned speech in which he handled the issues of the day with easy familiarity. He was in the midst of a glowing period when suddenly the old cry echoed through the hall: "Mr. Henry! Henry, Henry, Henry! I call for Mr. Henry!" With a word to the speaker, the chairman stepped to the front of the platform and remarked that it would oblige the audience very much if the gentleman in the rear of the hall would refrain from any further calls for Mr. Henry, as that gentleman was then addressing the meeting.

"Mr. Henry? Is that Mr. Henry?" came in astonished tones from the rear. "Thunder! that can't be him. Why, that's the young man that asked me to call for Mr. Henry."

A political speaker, while making a speech, paused in the midst of it and exclaimed: "Now gentlemen, what do you think?"

A man rose in the assembly, and with one eye partially closed, replied modestly, with a strong Scotch brogue: "I think, sir, I do, indeed, sir--I think if you and I were to stump the country together we could tell more lies than any other two men in the country, sir, and I'd not say a word myself during the whole time, sir."

The Rev. Dr. Biddell tells a lively story about a Presbyterian minister who had a young son, a lad about ten years of age. He was endeavoring to bring him up in the way he should go, and was one day asked by a friend what he intended to make of him. In reply he said:

"I am watching the indications. I have a plan which I propose trying with the boy. It is this: I am going to place in my parlor a Bible, an apple and a silver dollar. Then I am going to leave the room and call in the boy. I am going to watch him from some convenient place without letting him know that he is seen. Then, if he chooses the Bible, I shall make a preacher of him; if he takes the apple, a farmer he shall be; but if he chooses the dollar, I will make him a business man."

The plan was carried out. The arrangements were made and the boy called in from his play. After a little while the preacher and his wife softly entered the room. There was the youngster. He was seated on the Bible, in one hand was the apple, from which he was just taking a bite, and in the other he clasped the silver dollar. The good man turned to his consort. "Wife," he said, "the boy is a hog. I shall make a politician of him."

Senator Mark Hanna was walking through his mill one day when he heard a boy say:

"I wish I had Hanna's money and he was in the poorhouse."

When he returned to the office the senator sent for the lad, who was plainly mystified by the summons.

"So you wish you had my money and I was in the poorhouse," said the great man grimly. "Now supposing you had your wish, what would you do?"

"Well," said the boy quickly, his droll grin showing his appreciation of the situation, "I guess I'd get you out of the poorhouse the first thing."

Mr. Hanna roared with laughter and dismissed the youth.

"You might as well push that boy along," he said to one of his assistants; "he's too good a politician to be kept down."

_See also_ Candidates; Public Speakers.

POLITICS

Politics consists of two sides and a fence.

If I were asked to define politics in relation to the British public, I should define it as a spasm of pain recurring once in every four or five years.--_A.E.W. Mason_.

LITTLE CLARENCE (who has an inquiring mind)--"Papa, the Forty Thieves--"

MR. CALLIPERS--"Now, my son, you are too young to talk politics."--_Puck_.

"Many a man," remarked the milk toast philosopher, "has gone into politics with a fine future, and come out with a terrible past." Lord Dufferin delivered an address before the Greek class of the McGill University about which a reporter wrote:

"His lordship spoke to the class in the purest ancient Greek, without mispronouncing a word or making the slightest grammatical solecism."

"Good heavens!" remarked Sir Hector Langevin to the late Sir John A. Macdonald, "how did the reporter know that!"

"I told him," was the Conservative statesman's answer.

"But you don't know Greek."

"True; but I know a little about politics."

Little Millie's father and grandfather were Republicans; and, as election drew near, they spoke of their opponents with increasing warmth, never heeding Millie's attentive ears and wondering eyes.

One night, however, as the little maid was preparing for bed, she whispered in a frightened voice: "Oh, mamma, I don't dare to go upstairs. I'm afraid there's a Democrat under the bed."

"The shortest after-dinner speech I ever heard," said Cy Warman, the poet, "was at a dinner in Providence."

"A man was assigned to the topic, 'The Christian in Politics.' When he was called upon he arose, bowed and said: 'Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: The Christian in Politics--he ain't.'"

Politics is but the common pulse-beat of which revolution is the fever spasm.--_Wendell Phillips_.

POVERTY

Poverty is no disgrace, but that's about all that can be said in its favor.

A traveler passing through the Broad Top Mountain district in northern Bedford County, Pennsylvania, last summer, came across a lad of sixteen cultivating a patch of miserable potatoes. He remarked upon their unpromising appearance and expressed pity for anyone who had to dig a living out of such soil.

"I don't need no pity," said the boy resentfully.

The traveler hastened to soothe his wounded pride. But in the offended tone of one who has been misjudged the boy added; "I ain't as poor as you think. I'm only _workin'_ here. I don't _own_ this place."

One day an inspector of a New York tenement-house found four families living in one room, chalk lines being drawn across in such manner as to mark out a quarter for each family.

"How do you get along here?" inquired the inspector.

"Very well," was the reply. "Only the man in the farthest corner keeps boarders."

There is no man so poor but that he can afford to keep one dog, and I hev seen them so poor that they could afford to keep three.--_Josh Billings_.

May poverty be always a day's march behind us.

Not he who has little, but he who wishes for more, is poor.--_Seneca_.

PRAISE

WIFE (complainingly)--"You never praise me up to any one."

HUB--"I don't, eh! You should hear me describe you at the intelligence office when I'm trying to hire a cook."

"What sort of a man is he?"

"Well, he's just what I've been looking for--a generous soul, with a limousine body."--_Life_.

PRAYER MEETINGS

A foreigner who attended a prayer meeting in Indiana was asked what the assistants did. "Not very much," he said, "only they sin and bray."

PRAYERS

During the winter the village preacher was taken sick, and several of his children were also afflicted with the mumps. One day a number of the devout church members called to pray for the family. While they were about it a boy, the son of a member living in the country, knocked at the preacher's door. He had his arms full of things. "What have you there?" a deacon asked him.

"Pa's prayers for a happy Thanksgiving," the boy answered, as he proceeded to unload potatoes, bacon, flour and other provisions for the afflicted family.

A little girl in Washington surprised her mother the other day by closing her evening prayers in these words: "Amen; good bye; ring off."

TEACHER--"Now, Tommy, suppose a man gave you $100 to keep for him and then died, what would you do? Would you pray for him?"

TOMMY--"No, sir; but I would pray for another like him."

A well-known revivalist whose work has been principally among the negroes of a certain section of the South remembers one service conducted by him that was not entirely successful. He had had very poor attendance, and spent much time in questioning the darkies as to their reason for not attending.

"Why were you not at our revival?" he asked one old man, whom he encountered on the road.

"Oh, I dunno," said the backward one.

"Don't you ever pray?" demanded the preacher.

The old man shook his head. "No," said he; "I carries a rabbit's foot."--_Taylor Edwards_.

A little girl attending an Episcopal church for the first time, was amazed to see all kneel suddenly. She asked her mother what they were going to do. Her mother replied, "Hush, they're going to say their prayers."

"What with all their clothes on?"

The new minister in a Georgia church was delivering his first sermon. The darky janitor was a critical listener from a back corner of the church. The minister's sermon was eloquent, and his prayers seemed to cover the whole category of human wants.

After the services one of the deacons asked the old darky what he thought of the new minister. "Don't you think he offers up a good prayer, Joe?"

"Ah mos' suhtainly does, boss. Why, dat man axed de good Lord fo' things dat de odder preacher didn't even know He had!"

Hilma was always glad to say her prayers, but she wanted to be sure that she was heard in the heavens above as well as on the earth beneath.

One night, after the usual "Amen," she dropped her head upon her pillow and closed her eyes. After a moment she lifted her hand and, waving it aloft, said, "Oh, Lord! this prayer comes from 203 Selden Avenue."

Willie's mother had told him that if he went to the river to play he should go to bed. One day she was away, and on coming home about two o'clock in the afternoon found Willie in bed.

"What are you in bed for?" asked his mother.

"I went to the river to play, and I knew you would put me in bed, so I didn't wait for you to come."

"Did you say your prayers before you went to bed?" asked his mother.

"No," said Willie. "You don't suppose God would be loafing around here this time of day, do you? He's at the office."

Little Polly, coming in from her walk one morning, informed her mother that she had seen a lion in the park. No amount of persuasion or reasoning could make her vary her statement one hairbreadth. That night, when she slipped down on her knees to say her prayers, her mother said, "Polly, ask God to forgive you for that fib."

Polly hid her face for a moment. Then she looked straight into her mother's eyes, her own eyes shining like stars, and said, "I did ask him, mamma, dearest, and he said, 'Don't mention it, Miss Polly; that big yellow dog has often fooled me.'"

Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.--_Bailey_.

Pray to be perfect, though material leaven
Forbid the spirit so on earth to be;
But if for any wish thou darest not pray,
Then pray to God to cast that wish away.

--_Hartley Coleridge_.

_See also_ Courage.

PREACHING

The services in the chapel of a certain western university are from time to time conducted by eminent clergymen of many denominations and from many cities.

On one occasion, when one of these visiting divines asked the president how long he should speak, that witty officer replied:

"There is no limit, Doctor, upon the time you may preach; but I may tell you that there is a tradition here that the most souls are saved during the first twenty-five minutes."

One Sunday morning a certain young pastor in his first charge announced nervously:

"I will take for my text the words, 'And they fed five men with five thousand loaves of bread and two thousand fishes.'"

At this misquotation an old parishioner from his seat in the amen corner said audibly:

"That's no miracle--I could do it myself."

The young preacher said nothing at the time, but the next Sunday he announced the same text again. This time he got it right:

"And they fed five thousand men on five loaves of bread and two fishes."

He waited a moment, and then, leaning over the pulpit and looking at the amen corner, he said:

"And could you do that, too, Mr. Smith?"

"Of course I could," Mr. Smith replied.

"And how would you do it?" said the preacher.

"With what was left over from last Sunday," said Mr. Smith.

The late Bishop Foss once visited a Philadelphia physician for some trifling ailment. "Do you, sir," the doctor asked, in the course of his examination, "talk in your sleep?"

"No sir," answered the bishop. "I talk in other people's. Aren't you aware that I am a divine?"

"Yes, sir," said the irate man, "I got even with that clergyman. I slurred him. Why, I hired one hundred people to attend his church and go to sleep before he had preached five minutes."

A noted eastern Judge when visiting in the west went to church on Sunday; which isn't so remarkable as the fact that he knew beforehand that the preacher was exceedingly tedious and long winded to the last degree. After the service the preacher met the Judge in the vestibule and said: "Well, your Honor, how did you like the sermon?"

"Oh, most wonderfully," replied the Judge. "It was like the peace of God; for it passed all understanding, and, like His mercy, I thought it would have endured forever."

The preacher's evening discourse was dry and long, and the congregation gradually melted away. The sexton tiptoed up to the pulpit and slipped a note under one corner of the Bible. It read:

"When you are through, will you please turn off the lights, lock the door, and put the key under the mat?"

The new minister's first sermon was very touching and created much favorable comment among the members of the church. One morning, a few days later, his nine-year-old son happened to be alone in the pastor's study and with childish curiosity started to read through some papers on the desk. They happened to be this identical sermon, but he was most interested in the marginal notes. In one place in the margin were written the words, "Cry a little." Further on in the discourse appeared another marginal remark, "Cry a little more." On the next to the last sheet the boy found his good father had penned another remark, "Cry like thunder."

A young preacher, who was staying at a clergy-house, was in the habit of retiring to his room for an hour or more each day to practice pulpit oratory. At such times he filled the house with sounds of fervor and pathos, and emptied it of almost everything else. Phillips Brooks chanced to be visiting a friend in this house one day when the budding orator was holding forth.

"Gracious me!" exclaimed the Bishop, starting up in assumed terror, "pray, what might that be?"

"Sit down, Bishop," his friend replied. "That's only young D---- practising what he preaches."

A distinguished theologian was invited to make an address before a Sunday-school. The divine spoke for over an hour and his remarks were of too deep a character for the average juvenile mind to comprehend. At the conclusion, the superintendent, according to custom, requested some one in the school to name an appropriate hymn to be sung.

"Sing 'Revive Us Again,'" shouted a boy in the rear of the room.

A clergyman was once sent for in the middle of the night by one of his woman parishioners.

"Well, my good woman," said he, "so you are ill and require the consolations of religion? What can I do for you?"

"No," replied the old lady, "I am only nervous and can't sleep!"

"But how can I help that?" said the parson.

"Oh, sir, you always put me to sleep so nicely when I go to church that I thought if you would only preach a little for me!"

I never see my rector's eyes;
He hides their light divine;
For when he prays, he shuts his own,
And when he preaches, mine.

A stranger entered the church in the middle of the sermon and seated himself in the back pew. After a while he began to fidget. Leaning over to the white-haired man at his side, evidently an old member of the congregation, he whispered:

"How long has he been preaching?"

"Thirty or forty years, I think," the old man answered.

"I'll stay then," decided the stranger. "He must be nearly done."