The paying teller told mournfully of his experience with a strange woman who appeared at his wicket to have a check cashed.
"But, madam," he advised her, "you will have to get some one to introduce you before I can pay you the money on this check."
The woman stared at him disdainfully.
"Sir!" she said haughtily. "I wish you to understand that I am here strictly on business. I am not making a social call. I do not care to know you."
The foreigner, who prided himself on his mastery of colloquial expressions in English, was speaking of the serious illness of a distinguished statesman.
"It would be a great pity," he declared, "if such a splendid man should kick the ghost."
* * *
The old man told how his brother made a hazardous descent into a well by standing in the bucket while those above operated the windlass.
"And what happened?" one of the listeners asked as the aged narrator paused.
The old man stroked his beard, and spoke softly, in a tone of sorrowing reminiscence:
"He kicked the bucket."
Pat was set to work with the circular saw during his first day at the saw mill. The foreman gave careful instructions how to guard against injury, but no sooner was his back turned than he heard a howl from the novice, and, on turning, he saw that Pat had already lost a finger.
"Now, how did that happen?" the foreman demanded.
"Sure," was the explanation, "I was jist doin' like this when,—bejabers, there's another gone!"
An acquaintance encountered in the village inquired of Farmer Jones concerning his wife, who was seriously ill. That worthy scowled and spat, and finally answered in a tone of fretful dejection:
"Seems like Elmiry's falin' drefful slow. Dinged if I don't wish as how she'd git well, or somethin'."
The ice on the river was in perfect condition. A small boy, with his skates on his arm, knocked at the door of the Civil War veteran, who had lost a leg at Antietam. When the door was opened by the old man, the boy asked:
"Are you going out to-day, sir?"
"Well, no, I guess not, sonny," was the answer. "Why?"
"If you ain't," the boy suggested, "I thought I might like to borrow your wooden leg to play hockey."
The bashful suitor finally nerved himself to the supreme effort:
"Er—Jenny, do you—think—er—your mother might—er—seriously consider—er—becoming my—er-mother-in-law?"
A lawyer made his way to the edge of the excavation where a gang was working, and called the name of Timothy O'Toole.
"Who's wantin' me?" inquired a heavy voice.
"Mr. O'Toole," the lawyer asked, "did you come from Castlebar, County Mayo?"
"I did that."
"And your mother was named Bridget and your father Michael?"
"They was."
"It is my duty, then," said the lawyer, "to inform you, Mr. O'Toole, that your Aunt Mary has died in Iowa, leaving you an estate of sixty thousand dollars."
There was a short silence below, and then a lively commotion.
"Are you coming, Mr. O'Toole?" the lawyer called down.
"In wan minute," was bellowed in answer. "I've just stopped to lick the foreman."
It required just six months of extremely riotous living for O'Toole to expend all of the sixty thousand dollars. His chief endeavor was to satisfy a huge inherited thirst.
Then he went back to his job. And there, presently, the lawyer sought him out again.
"It's your Uncle Patrick, this time, Mr. O'Toole," the lawyer explained. "He has died in Texas, and left you forty thousand dollars."
O'Toole leaned heavily on his pick, and shook his head in great weariness.
"I don't think I can take it," he declared. "I'm not as strong as I wance was, and I misdoubt me that I could go through all that money and live."
* * *
In a London theatre, a tragedy was being played. The aged king tottered to and fro on the stage as he declaimed:
"On which one of my two sons shall I bestow the crown?"
A voice came down from the gallery:
"Hi saye, guv'nor, myke it 'arf a crown apiece."
* * *
Said one Tommy to another:
"That's a snortin' pipe, Bill. Where'd you happen on it?"
"It was pussonal property of a Boche what tried to take me prisoner," was the answer. "Inherited it from him."
The sweet little girl had a violent tussle with her particular chum. Her mother reprimanded her, and concluded by saying:
"It was Satan who suggested to you the pulling of Jenny's hair."
"I shouldn't be surprised," the child replied musingly. "But," she added proudly, "kicking her in the shins was entirely my own idea."
The child sat by the road bawling loudly. A passer-by asked him what was the matter.
"My ma, she's gone and drowned the kittens," the boy wailed.
"Oh, isn't that too bad!" was the sympathetic response.
The child bawled the louder.
"An' ma she promised me that I could drown 'em."
A little girl four years old was alone in the nursery with the door closed and fastened when her little brother arrived and expressed a desire to come in. The following was the dialogue:
"I wants to tum in, Sissy."
"But you tan't tum in, Tom."
"But I wants to."
"Well, I'se in my nightie gown an' nurse says little boys mus'n't see little girls in their nightie gowns."
There was a period of silence during which the astonished little boy reflected on the mystery. It was ended by Sissy's calling out:
"You tan tum in now, Tom—I tooked it off."
* * *
The very young clergyman made his first parochial call. He tried to admire the baby, and asked how old it was.
"Just ten weeks old," the proud mother replied.
And the very young clergyman inquired interestedly:
"And is it your youngest?"
In the smoking car, one of the passengers had an empty coatsleeve. The sharer of his seat was of an inquisitive turn, and after a vain effort to restrain his curiosity, finally hemmed and hawed, and said:
"I beg pardon, sir, but I see you've lost an arm."
The one-armed man picked up the empty sleeve in his remaining hand, and felt of it with every evidence of astonishment.
"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "I do believe you're right."
* * *
The curiosity of the passenger was excited by the fact that his seatmate had his right arm in a sling, and the following dialogue occurred:
"You broke your arm, didn't you?"
"Well, yes, I did."
"Had an accident, I suppose?"
"Not exactly. I did it in trying to pat myself on the back."
"My land! On the back! Now, whatever did you want to pat yourself on the back for?"
"Just for minding my own business."
The man suffering from insomnia quite often makes a mistake in calling the doctor, when what he needs is the preacher.
The young wife greeted her husband tearfully on his return from the day's work.
"Oh, Willie, darling," she gasped, "I have been so insulted!"
"Insulted!" Willie exclaimed wrathfully. "Insulted by whom?"
"By your mother!" the wife declared, and sobbed aloud.
The husband was aghast, but inclined to be skeptical.
"By my mother, Ella? Why, dearest, that's nonsense. She's a hundred miles away."
"But she did," the wife insisted. "A letter came to you this morning, and it was addressed in your mother's writing, so, of course, I opened it."
"Oh, yes, of course," Willie agreed, without any enthusiasm.
"And it was written to you all the whole way through, every word of it, except——"
"Except what?"
"Except the postscript," the wife flared. "That was the insult—that was to me." The tears flowed again. "It said: 'P. S.—Dear Ella, don't fail to give this letter to Willie. I want him to read it.'"
* * *
Tom Corwin was remarkable for the size of his mouth. He claimed that he had been insulted by a deacon of his church.
"When I stood up in the class meeting, to relate my experience," Corwin explained, "and opened my mouth, the Deacon rose up in front and said, 'Will some brother please close that window, and keep it closed!'"
The woman at the insurance office inquired as to the costs, amounts paid, etc.
"So," she concluded, "if I pay five dollars, you pay me a thousand if my house burns down. But do you ask questions about how the fire came to start?"
"We make careful investigation, of course," the agent replied.
The woman flounced toward the door disgustedly.
"Just as I thought," she called over her shoulder. "I knew there was a catch in it."
During a lecture, Artemas Ward once startled the crowd of listeners by announcing a fifteen-minute intermission. After contemplating the audience for a few minutes, he relieved their bewilderment by saying:
"Meanwhile, in order to pass the time, we will proceed with the lecture."
The profiteer, skimming over the advertisements in his morning paper, looked across the damask and silver and cut glass at his wife, and remarked enviously:
"These inventors make the money. Take cleaners, now, I'll bet that feller Vacuum has cleared millions."
The painter was required to render an itemized bill for his repairs on various pictures in a convent. The statement was as follows:
| Corrected and renewed the Ten Commandments | 6.00 |
| Embellished Pontius Pilate and put a new ribbon on his bonnet | 3.06 |
| Put a new tail on the rooster of St. Peter and mended his bill | 4.08 |
| Put a new nose on St. John the Baptist and straightened his eye | 2.06 |
| Replumed and gilded the left wing of the Guardian Angel | 5.06 |
| Washed the servant of the High Priest and put carmine on his cheeks | 2.04 |
| Renewed Heaven, adjusted ten stars, gilded the sun and cleaned the moon | 8.02 |
| Reanimated the flames of Purgatory and restored some souls | 3.06 |
| Revived the flames of Hell, put a new tail on the devil, mended his left hoof and did several odd jobs for the damned | 4.10 |
| Put new spatter-dashes on the son of Tobias and dressing on his sack | 2.00 |
| Rebordered the robe of Herod and readjusted his wig | 3.07 |
| Cleaned the ears of Balaam's ass, and shod him | 2.08 |
| Put earrings in the ears of Sarah | 5.00 |
| Put a new stone in David's sling, enlarged Goliath's hand and extended his legs | 2.00 |
| Decorated Noah's Ark | 1.20 |
| Mended the shirt of the Prodigal Son, and cleaned the | 1.00 |
| ——— | |
| 53.83 |
The joke maker's association had a feast. They exploited their humorous abilities, and all made merry, save one glum guest. At last, they insisted that this melancholy person should contribute to the entertainment. He consented, in response to much urging, to offer a conundrum:
"What is the difference between me and a turkey?"
When none could guess the answer, the glum individual explained:
"I am alive. They stuff turkeys with chestnuts after they are dead."
The urchin was highly excited, and well he might be when we consider his explanation:
"They got twins up to sisters. One twin, he's a boy, an' one twin, she's a girl, an' so I'm a uncle an' a aunt."
* * *
The Southern lady interrogated her colored cook, Matilda, concerning a raid made on the chicken-house during the night.
"You sleep right close to the chicken-house, Matilda, and it seems to me you must have heard the noise when those thieves were stealing the chickens."
"Yes, ma'am," Matilda admitted, with an expression of grief on her dusky features. "I heerd de chickens holler, an' I heerd the voices ob de men."
"Then why didn't you go out and stop them?" the mistress demanded.
Matilda wept.
"Case, ma'am," she exclaimed, "I know'd my old fadder was dar, an' I wouldn't hab him know I'se los' confidence in him foh all de chickens in de world. If I had gone out dar an' kotched him, it would have broke his ole heart, an', besides, he would hab made me tote de chickens home foh him."
The bridegroom, who was in a horribly nervous condition, appealed to the clergyman in a loud whisper, at the close of the ceremony:
"Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?"
The clergyman might have replied:
"Not yet, but soon."
* * *
The young man addressed the old grouch:
"When a fellow has taken a girl to a show, and fed her candy, and given her supper, and taken her home in a taxi, shouldn't she let a fellow kiss her good-night?"
The old grouch snorted.
"Humph! He's already done more than enough for her."
The subject of kissing was debated with much earnestness for a half hour between the girl and her young man caller. The fellow insisted that it was always possible for a man to kiss a girl at will, whether she chose to permit it or not. The maiden was firm in maintaining that such was not the case. Finally, it was decided that the only solution of the question must be by a practical demonstration one way or the other. So, they tried it. They clinched, and the battle was on. After a lively tussle, they broke away. The girl had been kissed—ardently for a period of minutes. Her comment showed an undaunted spirit:
"Oh, well, you really didn't win fair. My foot slipped ... Let's try it again."
* * *
The tiny boy fell down and bumped his head. His Uncle Bill picked the child up, with the remark:
"Now I'll kiss it, and the pain will all be gone."
The youngster recovered his smiles under the treatment, and then, as he was set down, addressed his uncle eagerly:
"Come down in the kitchen—the cook has the toothache."
* * *
Some Scottish deacons were famous, if not notorious, for the readiness with which they could expound any passage of Scripture. It is recorded of a certain elder that as he read and commented on the thirty-fourth Psalm, he misread the sentence, "Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile." He carelessly read the last two words: "squeaking girls." But the astonishing phrase did not dismay him in the least, or cause him to hesitate in his exegesis. He expounded instantly and solemnly:
"It is evident from this passage, my brethren, that the Scripture does not absolutely forbid kissing, but, as in Christianity everything is to be done decently and in order, we are here encouraged by this passage to choose rather those girls that take it quietly, in preference to those that squeak under the operation."
