The burly man spoke lucidly to his gangling adversary:
"You're a nincompoop, a liar and hoss-thief."
The other man protested, with a whine in his voice:
"Sech talk ain't nice—and, anyhow, 'tain't fair twittin' on facts."
After years of endeavor in poverty, the inventor made a success, and came running home with pockets bulging real money. He joyously strewed thousand-dollar bills in his wife's lap, crying:
"Now, at last, my dear, you will be able to buy you some decent clothes."
"I'll do nothing of the kind," was the sharp retort. "I'll get the same kind the other women are wearing."
* * *
At the village store, the young farmer complained bitterly.
"Old Si Durfee wants me to be one of the pall-bearers once more at his wife's funeral. An' it's like this. Si had me fer pall-bearer when his first wife was buried. An' then agin fer his second. An' when Eliza died, she as was his third, he up an' axed me agin. An' now, I snum, it's the fourth time. An' ye know, a feller can't be the hull time a-takin' favors, an' not payin' 'em back."
The boy hurried home to his father with an announcement:
"Me and Joe Peck had a fight to-day."
The father nodded gravely.
"Mr. Peck has already called to see me about it."
The little boy's face brightened.
"Gee, pop! I hope you made out 's well 's I did!"
A very black little girl made her way into the presence of the lady of the house, and with much embarrassment, but very clearly, explained who she was, and what her mission:
"Please, mum, I'se Ophelia. I'se de washerwoman's little girl, an' mama, she sent me to say, would you please to len' her a dime. She got to pay some bills."
* * *
The successful financier snorted contemptuously.
"Money! pooh! there are a million ways of making money."
"But only one honest way," a listener declared.
"What way is that?" the financier demanded.
"Naturally, you wouldn't know," was the answer.
* * *
The eminent financier was discoursing.
"The true secret of success," he said, "is to find out what the people want."
"And the next thing," someone suggested, "is to give it to them."
The financier shook his head contemptuously.
"No—to corner it."
* * *
The eminent banker explained just how he started in business:
"I had nothing to do, and I rented an empty store, and put up a sign, Bank. As soon as I opened for business, a man dropped in, and made a deposit of two hundred dollars. The next day another man dropped in and deposited three hundred dollars. And so, sir, the third day, my confidence in the enterprise reached such a point that I put in fifty dollars of my own money."
"My pa, he's a financier," boasted one small boy to another.
"'Tain't much to brag of," the other sneered. "My pa an' uncle Jack are in jail, too."
The congressman from California was telling at dinner in the hotel of tuna fishing.
"Just run out in a small motor boat," he explained, "and anything less than a hundred pounds is poor sport."
The colored waiter was so excited that he interrupted:
"You say you go after hundred-pound fish in a little motor boat, suh?"
The congressman nodded.
"But," the darky protested, "ain't you scairt fer fear you'll ketch one?"
An eminent statesman was being driven rapidly by his chauffeur, when the car struck and killed a dog that leaped in front of it. At the statesman's order, the chauffeur stopped the car, and the great man got out and hurried back to where a woman was standing by the remains. The dead dog's mistress was deeply grieved, and more deeply angered. As the statesman attempted to address her placatingly, she turned on him wrathfully, and told him just what she thought, which was considerable and by no means agreeable. When, at last, she paused for breath, the culprit tried again to soothe her, saying:
"Madam, I shall be glad to replace your dog."
The woman drew herself up haughtily, surveyed the statesman with supreme scorn, and hissed:
"Sir, you flatter yourself!"
The debutante was alarmed over the prospect of being taken in to dinner by the distinguished statesman.
"Whatever can we talk about?" she demanded anxiously of her mother.
Afterward, in the drawing-room, she came to her mother with a radiant smile.
"He's fine," she exclaimed. "We weren't half way through the soup before we were chatting cozily about the fleas in Italian hotels."
The gentleman at the party, who was old enough to know better, turned to another guest, who had just paused beside him:
"Women are fickle. See that pretty woman by the window? She was smiling at me flirtatiously a few minutes ago and now she looks cold as an iceberg."
"I have only just arrived," the other man said. "She is my wife."
The breakfaster in the cheap restaurant tried to make conversation with the man beside him at the counter.
"Awful rainy spell—like the flood."
"The flood?" The tone was polite, but inquiring.
"The flood—Noah, the Ark, Mount Ararat."
The other bit off half a slice of bread, shook his head, and mumbled thickly:
"Hain't read to-day's paper yit."
Gilbert wrote a couplet concerning—
Such suggestion is all very well in a humorous ballad, but we do not look for anything of the sort in a serious romance of real life. Nevertheless, a Welsh newspaper of recent date carried the following paragraph:
"At —— Church, on Monday last, a very interesting wedding was solemnized, the contracting parties being Mr. Richard ——, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. ——, and a bouquet of pink carnations."
The old gentleman was lost in a London fog, so thick that he could hardly see his hand before his face. He became seriously alarmed when he found himself in a slimy alley. Then he heard footsteps approaching through the obscurity, and sighed with relief.
"Where am I going to?" he cried anxiously.
A voice replied weirdly from the darkness beyond:
"Into the river—I've just come out!"
A wise old Quaker woman once said that men were guilty of three most astonishing follies. The first was the climbing of trees to shake down the fruit, when if they would but wait, the fruit would fall of itself. The second was the going to war to kill one another, when if they would only wait, they must surely die naturally. The third was that they should run after women, when, if they did not do so, the women would surely run after them.
The Arctic explorer at a reception on his return gave an informal talk concerning his experiences. He explained that a point further north would have been reached, if the dogs had not given out at a critical time.
A lady, who had followed the explorer's remarks carefully, ventured a comment as the speaker paused:
"But I thought those Esquimaux dogs were actually tireless."
The explorer hesitated, and cleared his throat before answering.
"I spoke," he elucidated, "in a—er—culinary sense."
* * *
The young mother asked the man who supplied her with milk if he kept any calves, and smiled pleasedly when he said that he did.
"Then," she continued brightly, "bring me a pint of calf's milk every day. I think cow's milk is too strong for baby."
The highly efficient housewife bragged that she always rose early, and had every bed in the house made before anybody else in the house was up.
The master directed that the picture should be hung on the east wall; the mistress preferred the west wall.
The servant drove the nail where his master directed, but when he was left alone in the room he drove a nail in the other wall.
"That," he said to himself, "will save my lugging the steps up here again to-morrow, when he has come around to agreeing with her."
The foreman of a Southern mill, who was much troubled by the shiftlessness of his colored workers, called sharply to two of the men slouching past him.
"Hi, you! where are you going?"
"Well, suh, boss," one of them answered, "we is goin' to de mill wid dis-heah plank."
"Plank? What plank? Where's the plank?" the foreman demanded.
The colored spokesman looked inquiringly and somewhat surprisedly at his own empty hands and those of his companion, whom he addressed good-naturedly:
"Now, if dat don't beat all, George! If we hain't gone an' clean forgitted dat plank!"
* * *
Two men met on the city street in the evening, and had a number of drinks together. The one who lived in the suburbs became confidential, and exhibited a string tied around a finger.
"I don't dare to go home," he explained. "There's something my wife told me to do, without fail, and to make sure I wouldn't forget, she tied that string around my finger. But for the life of me I can't remember what the thing was I am to do. And I don't dare to go home!"
A few days later the two men met again, this time in the afternoon.
"Well," the one asked, "did you finally remember what that string was to remind you of?"
The other showed great gloom in his expression, as he replied:
"I didn't go home until the next night, just because I was scared, and then my wife told me what the string was for all right—she certainly did!" There was a note of pain in his voice. "The string was to remind me to be sure to come home early."
* * *
The clergyman drew near to the baptismal font, and directed that the candidates for baptism should now be presented. A woman in the congregation gave a gasp of dismay and turned to her husband, whom she addressed in a strenuous whisper:
"There! I just knew we'd forget something. John, you run right home as fast as you can, and fetch the baby."
The traveler wrote an indignant letter to the officials of the railroad company, giving full details as to why he had sat up in the smoking-room all night, instead of sleeping in his berth. He received in reply a letter from the company, which was so courteous and logical that he was greatly soothed. His mood changed for the worse, however, when he happened to glance at his own letter, which had been enclosed through error. On the margin was jotted in pencil:
"Send this guy the bed-bug letter."
* * *
A worker in the steel mills applied direct to Mr. Carnegie for a holiday in which to get married. The magnate inquired interestedly concerning the bride:
"Is she tall or short, slender or plump?"
The prospective bridegroom answered seriously:
"Well, sir, I'm free to say, that if I'd had the rollin' of her, I sure would have given her three or four more passes."
The hired man on a New England farm went on his first trip to the city. He returned wearing a scarf pin set with at least four carats bulk of radiance. The jewelry dazzled the rural belles, and excited the envy of the other young men. His employer bluntly asked if it was a real diamond.
"If it ain't," was the answer, "I was skun out o' half a dollar."
The kindly lady accosted the little boy on the beach, who stood with downcast head, and grinding his toes into the sand and looking very miserable and lonely indeed.
"Haven't you anybody to play with?" she inquired sympathetically.
The boy shook his head forlornly, as he explained:
"I have one friend—but I hate him!"
* * *
The clergyman on his vacation wrote a long letter concerning his traveling experiences to be circulated among the members of the congregation. The letter opened in this form:
"Dear Friends:
"I will not address you as ladies and gentlemen, because I know you so well."
An American tourist in France found that he had a two hours' wait for his train at a junction, and set out to explore the neighborhood. He discovered at last that he was lost, and could not find his way back to the station. He therefore addressed a passer-by in the best French he could recollect from his college days, mispronouncing it with great emphasis. He voiced his request for information as follows:
"Pardonnez-moi. J'ai quitté ma train et maintenant je ne sais pas où le trouver encore. Est-ce que vous pouvez me montrer le route à la train?"
"Let's look for it together," said the stranger genially. "I don't speak French, either."
The traveler in the Blue Ridge Mountains made his toilet as best he could with the aid of the hand basin on its bench by the cabin door and the roller towel. He made use of his own comb and brush, tooth-brush, nail-file and whiskbroom. The small son of the cabin regarded his operations with rounded eyes, and at last broke forth:
"By cricky, mister, I wantta know! Be ye allus thet much trouble to yerself?"
