Part 5

Hans--“Did you get him?”

* * * * *

A man returned home late one night after having partaken rather freely of the “cup that cheers.” All might have been well had not one tree intercepted between him and his destination--one solitary tree at the foot of his own steps; but Mr. B---- suddenly came into such forcible contact with that tree that he was almost stunned. After recovering his senses, he wandered about, but repeatedly bumped into the same inoffensive barrier. At length he sank down on the ground and muttered helplessly:

“Lost! Lost! in an impenetrable forest!”

* * * * *

The intoxicated individual who, after bumping into the same tree thirteen times, bemoaned the fact that he was lost in an impenetrable forest, is no greater disgrace to modern civilization than the hero of this story:

A citizen of Seattle who had looked upon the wine when he was no longer sure what color it was, in the course of his journey home encountered a tree protected by an iron tree-guard. Grasping the bars, he cautiously felt his way around it twice.

“Curse it!” he moaned, sinking to the ground in despair. “Locked in!”

* * * * *

Stanley, aged four, was one of a large family. Besides numerous sisters and brothers, there were aunts and uncles galore and many cousins. The only very young people, however, were those in his immediate household.

One Thanksgiving dinner Stanley gazed solemnly around the table for a while, and then announced, oracularly:

“My mother and the cat seem to be the only people in this whole family that have any children!”

* * * * *

A clergyman was being shaved by a barber, who had evidently become unnerved by the previous night’s dissipation. Finally he cut the clergyman’s chin. The latter looked up at the artist reproachfully, and said:

“You see, my man, what comes of hard drinking.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the barber consolingly, “it makes the skin tender.”

* * * * *

Mistress--“Did the mustard plaster do you any good, Bridget?”

Maid--“Yes; but, begorry, mum, ut do bite the tongue!”

* * * * *

They had just met; conversation was somewhat fitful. Finally he decided to guide it into literary channels, where he was more at home, and, turning to his companion, asked:

“Are you fond of literature?”

“Passionately,” she replied. “I love books dearly.”

“Then you must admire Sir Walter Scott,” he exclaimed with sudden animation. “Is not his ‘Lady of the Lake’ exquisite in its flowing grace and poetic imagery? Is it not--”

“It is perfectly lovely,” she assented, clasping her hands in ecstasy. “I suppose I have read it a dozen times.”

“And Scott’s ‘Marmion,’” he continued, “with its rugged simplicity and marvelous description--one can almost smell the heather on the heath while perusing its splendid pages.”

“It is perfectly grand,” she murmured.

“And Scott’s ‘Peveril of the Peak’ and his noble ‘Bride of Lammermoor’--where in the English language will you find anything more heroic than his grand auld Scottish characters and his graphic, forceful pictures of feudal times and customs? You like them, I am sure.”

“I just dote upon them,” she replied.

“And Scott’s Emulsion,” he continued hastily, for a faint suspicion was beginning to dawn upon him.

“I think,” she interrupted rashly, “that it’s the best thing he ever wrote.”

* * * * *

“Why is Jones growing a beard?”

“Oh, I believe his wife made him a present of some ties.”

* * * * *

Wife--“Do come over to Mrs. Barker’s with me, John. She’ll make you feel just as if you were at home.”

Her Husband--“Then what’s the use of going?”

* * * * *

About forty years ago, walking down Market street, in this city, I heard a darky commenting on a sign he had just spelt out, stretched across the sidewalk in front of a livery stable:

“Jist like ’em. Aftah dars no moh slabry dey stick up signs foh me: ‘Man-ure Free’!”

* * * * *

In the audience at a lecture on China there was a very pious old lady who was slightly deaf. She thought the lecturer was preaching, and every time he came to a period she would say “Amen!” or some other pious exclamation. The people in the audience, which was composed mostly of the village church members, knew she was being reverent and did not even smile when she exclaimed, until finally the lecturer mentioned some far-off city in China, saying, “I live there.” At this point clearly and distinctly could be heard the old lady, saying, “Thank God for that.”

* * * * *

A pushing young actor who was playing understudy in one of Mr. Barrie’s plays found his opportunity one night through the illness of his principal. He accordingly flooded his managerial and influential acquaintances with telegrams announcing: “I play So-and-So’s part to-night.” Except that the theater was comparatively empty this breathless disclosure produced no result, except a telegram in reply from Mr. Barrie, to this effect: “Thanks for the warning.”

* * * * *

It was a busy day in the butcher-shop. The butcher yelled to the boy who helped him out in the shop: “Hurry up, John, and don’t forget to cut off Mrs. Murphy’s leg, and break Mrs. Jones’s bones, and don’t forget to slice Mrs. Johnson’s tongue.”

* * * * *

Ralph Waldo Emerson, like other men of genius, was absent-minded, and, when a fit of inspiration seized him, he was oblivious to the things of earth to a ludicrous extent. A story that is vouched for as true illustrates this.

The old-fashioned matches, in use in New England in Emerson’s time, were made in cards, or flat slabs, the matches being joined at the foot, and separating at the top, like the teeth of a deep comb. Emerson was accustomed, in the midnight watches, to lie awake communing with his own thoughts, and, if any especial inspiration developed itself, he would get up and write it down, lighting the lamp for that purpose.

One night, Mrs. Emerson was awakened by her gifted husband’s voice, as he called to her plaintively:

“What is the matter with the matches, my dear? I have struck seven, and not one will light. Where can I get some good ones?”

Mrs. Emerson got out of bed at once, and found the matches in their accustomed place. Her husband had not touched them.

“Why, what can you have been striking, in mistake for matches?” she asked, anxiously, and beheld her best carved tortoise-shell comb, which the absorbed philosopher, had broken up, tooth by tooth, in mistake for the card of matches.

* * * * *

Instructor in Public Speaking--“What is the matter with you, Mr. Jones; can’t you speak any louder? Be more enthusiastic. Open your mouth and throw yourself into it.”

* * * * *

“I confess that the subject of psychical research makes no great appeal to me,” Sir William Henry Perkin, the inventor of coal-tar dyes, told some friends in New York. “Personally, in the course of a fairly long career, I have heard at first hand but one ghost story. Its hero was a man whom I may as well call Snooks.

“Snooks, visiting at a country house, was put in the haunted chamber for the night. He said that he did not feel the slightest uneasiness, but nevertheless, just as a matter of precaution, he took to bed with him a revolver of the latest American pattern.

“He slept peacefully enough until the clock struck two, when he awoke with an unpleasant feeling of oppression. He raised his head and peered about him. The room was wanly illumined by the full moon, and in that weird, bluish light he thought he discerned a small, white hand clasping the rail at the foot of the bed.

“‘Who’s there?’ he asked tremulously.

“There was no reply. The small, white hand did not move.

“‘Who’s there?’ he repeated. ‘Answer me or I’ll shoot.’

“Again there was no reply.

“Snooks cautiously raised himself, took careful aim and fired.

“From that night on he’s limped. Shot off two of his own toes.”

* * * * *

When the Rev. Dr. Henson, then of Chicago, came to the New York Chautauqua to lecture on “Fools,” Bishop Vincent introduced him thus:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now to have a lecture on ‘Fools’ by one of the most distinguished----”

Here there was a long pause, the Bishop’s inflection indicating that he had finished. The audience roared with delight, and roared again, so that it was some time before the sentence was concluded--“men of Chicago.”

Dr. Henson, who is a man of ready wit, stepped to the front of the platform, and said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am not so great a fool as Bishop Vincent----” and then he paused as if he had finished, and the audience went fairly wild over the situation. When quiet was restored, Dr. Henson concluded--“would have you think.”

* * * * *

Doctor (feeling Sandy’s pulse in bed)--“What do you drink?”

Sandy (with brightening face)--“Oh, I’m nae particular, doctor! Anything you’ve got with ye.”

* * * * *

Every employee of the Bank of England is required to sign his name in a book on his arrival in the morning, and, if late, must give the reason therefor. The chief cause of tardiness is usually fog, and the first man to arrive writes “fog” opposite his name, and those who follow write “ditto.” One day, however, the first late man gave as the reason, “wife had twins,” and twenty other late men mechanically signed “ditto” underneath.

* * * * *

At a dinner in Washington there was told a Scotch story of a parishioner who had strayed from his own kirk.

“Why weren’t you at the kirk on Sunday?” asked the preacher of the culprit on meeting him a day or two later.

“I was at Mr. McClellan’s kirk,” said the other.

“I don’t like you running about to strange kirks like that,” continued the minister. “Not that I object to your hearing Mr. McClellan, but I’m sure you widna like your sheep straying into strange pastures.”

“I widna care a grain, sir, if it was better grass,” responded the parishioner.

* * * * *

Tommy, very sleepy, was saying his prayers. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” he began. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

“‘If,’” his mother prompted.

“If he hollers let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, mo!”

* * * * *

Perish the thought that the novelist or playwright should be tied down to historical accuracy! Lady Dorothy Neville quotes an amusing correspondence between Bulwer Lytton and her brother, Horace Walpole.

“My dear Walpole: Here I am at Bath--bored to death. I am thinking of writing a play about your great ancestor Sir Robert. Had he not a sister Lucy, and did she not marry a Jacobite?”

Walpole promptly replied:

“My dear Lytton: I care little for my family, and less still for Sir Robert, but I know that he never had a sister Lucy, so she could not have married a Jacobite.”

However, this mattered little to Lord Lytton, for his answer ran:

“My dear Walpole: You are too late! Sir Robert _had_ a sister Lucy, and she _did_ marry a Jacobite.”

So in defiance of history, the play “Walpole” was written.

* * * * *

“Here’s a curious item, Joshua!” exclaimed Mrs. Lemington, spreading out the Billeville “Mirror” in her ample lap. “The _Nellie E. Williams_ of Gloucester reports that she saw two whales, a cow and a calf, floating off Cape Cod the day before yesterday.”

“Well, ma,” replied old Mr. Lemington, “what’s the matter with that?”

“Why, it’s all right about the two whales, Joshua, but what bothers me is how the cow and the calf got way out there.”

* * * * *

A Congressman once declared in an address to the House:

“As Daniel Webster says in his great dictionary--”

“It was Noah who wrote the dictionary,” whispered a colleague, who sat at the next desk.

“Noah, nothing,” replied the speaker. “Noah built the ark.”

* * * * *

Father (who has been called upon in the city and asked for his daughter’s hand)--“Louise, do you know what a solemn thing it is to be married?”

Louise--“Oh, yes, pa; but it is a good deal more solemn being single.”

* * * * *

Captain Roald Amundsen, Norway’s famous explorer, told this story about a National Guard encampment:

“A new volunteer, who had not quite learned his business, was on sentry duty, one night, when a friend brought him a pie from the canteen.

“As he sat on the grass eating pie, the major sauntered up in undress uniform. The sentry, not recognizing him, did not salute, and the major stopped and said:

“‘What’s that you have there?’

“‘Pie,’ said the sentry, good-naturedly. ‘Apple pie. Have a bite?’

“The major frowned.

“‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked.

“‘No,’ said the sentry, ‘unless you’re the major’s groom.’

“The major shook his head.

“‘Guess again,’ he growled.

“‘The barber from the village?’

“‘No.’

“‘Maybe--’ here the sentry laughed--‘maybe you’re the major himself?’

“‘That’s right. I am the major,’ was the stern reply.

“The sentry scrambled to his feet.

“‘Good gracious!’ he exclaimed. ‘Hold the pie, will you, while I present arms!’”

* * * * *

A player for many years associated with the late Richard Mansfield relates that one day in Philadelphia, as he was standing by a huge poster in front of the theater a poster that represented Mansfield in the character of “Henry V.,” a man who was strolling by stopped to gaze at the bill. Finally, with a snort of disgust, he muttered as he turned to go:

“_‘Henry V.--_’ what?”

* * * * *

“There is an old negro down in my town,” said John Sharp Williams, the former Democratic leader of the House, “who did me a service. I wanted to reward him, so I said:

“‘Uncle, which shall I give you--a ton of coal or a bottle of whisky?’

“‘Foh de Lo’d, Massa John,’ he replied, ‘you-all shorely knows I buhn wood.’”

* * * * *

“No,” remarked a determined lady to an indignant cabman who had received his legal fare, “you can not cheat me, my man. I haven’t ridden in cabs for the last twenty-five years for nothing.”

“Haven’t you, mum?” replied the cabman, bitterly, gathering up the reins. “Well, you’ve done your best!”

* * * * *

On the mighty deep.

The great ocean liner rolled and pitched.

“Henry,” faltered the young bride, “do you still love me?”

“More than ever, darling!” was Henry’s fervent answer.

Then there was eloquent silence.

“Henry,” she gasped, turning her pale, ghastly face away. “I thought that would make me feel better, but it doesn’t!”

* * * * *

Once in Nice an Englishman and a Frenchman were about to separate on the Promenade des Anglais.

The Englishman, as he started toward the Cercle Mediterranee, called back:

“Au reservoir!”

And the Frenchman waved his hand and answered:

“Tanks.”

* * * * *

During a Baptist convention held in Charleston the Rev. Dr. Greene of Washington strolled down to the Battery one morning to take a look across the harbor at Fort Sumter. An old negro was sitting on the seawall fishing. Dr. Greene watched the lone fisherman, and finally saw him pull up an odd-looking fish, a cross between a toad and a catfish.

“What kind of a fish is that, old man?” inquired Dr. Greene.

“Dey calls it de Baptist fish,” replied the fisherman, as he tossed it away in deep disgust.

“Why do they call it the Baptist fish?” asked the minister.

“Because dey spoil so soon after dey comes outen de water,” answered the fisherman.

* * * * *

Blanche, Wilbur, and Thomas were in the garden playing, and making a great deal of noise, but small Jack sat in a corner very quietly, which for Jack was an unusual proceeding. After watching them for some time, the mother’s curiosity prompted her to ask:

“What are you playing?”

“We are playing house,” answered Wilbur. “Blanche and I are the mother and father, and Thomas is the child.”

“And what does Jack do?”

“Sh, sh! he isn’t born yet.”

* * * * *

Governor Chamberlain of Connecticut used to tell of an old friend who, because of his deafness, made some ludicrous and at times embarrassing mistakes. Once he was at a dinner party where the lady seated next to him tried to help him along in conversation. As the fruit was being passed, she asked him: “Do you like bananas?”

“No,” said the old gentleman, with a look of mild surprise. “The fact is,” he added in a confidential tone which could be heard in the next room, “I find the old-fashioned nightshirt is good enough for me.”

* * * * *

An Atchison woman with a little baby tells the following story. She says that a woman caller said: “What a dear little baby; how old is it?” “Sixteen months,” replied the Atchison woman. “Well, dear me, it looks older,” said the caller, and then went on and talked and talked and finally turned again to the baby, and said: “That precious baby, how old is it?” “Sixteen months,” replied the mother. “Well, dear me,” smilingly said the caller. “Oh, such a big baby for its age,” and went on talking and talking. Again turning to the baby the caller said: “What a darling angel the baby is; how old is it?” “Eighteen months,” said the exasperated mother. “Well, I declare, it looks two years old,” said the caller, and then talked and talked. Just as she was leaving the caller stooped and kissed the baby and said: “Bless its little heart; how old is it?” “Ten months,” shrieked the outraged mother, but the caller tripped gaily away; she had not noticed the replies to her questions, and had no idea and did not care how old the baby was.

* * * * *

A boy went into a confectioner’s shop and asked for a glass of lemonade. When it was given him he took it, looked at it, and said he would have a bun instead. The bun was given him; he ate it and was walking out of the shop when the confectioner called after him, “Hi, you haven’t paid for your bun.” “No,” said the boy, “I gave you back the lemonade for that.” “But,” said the man, “you did not pay for the lemonade.” “I didn’t drink it,” said the boy, and walked out of the shop leaving the confectioner calculating.

* * * * *

Two women overheard talking in a poor district of London: “Did ye ever ’ear tell of Lot’s wife?” “Well, no, Mrs. Brown, I can’t say I ever did. Why?” “Well, I don’t know very much about ’er myself, but I ’ave ’eard tell of ’er that she turned into a pillar of salt.” “Lord, did she? What funny things one does ’ear nowadays. It was only this morning I was out with my ’usband and ’e turned into a public-house.”

* * * * *

Willie Green was not only chewing gum, but had his feet sprawled out in the aisle in a most unbecoming manner.

“Willie,” said the teacher, “take that gum out of your mouth this instant, and put in your feet.”

* * * * *

William was considered the brightest boy in his grade; upon hearing a lesson recited in class once or twice he knew it quite well. Thus, while the other fellows were compelled to study hard he scarcely found it necessary to open a book. At the expiration of the term one of the questions in the written geography was, “What is the equator?”

William, always to be depended upon, wrote without delay:

“The equator is a menagerie lion running around the center of the earth.”

* * * * *

He was an earnest minister, and one Sunday, in the course of a sermon on the significance of little things, he said:

“The hand which made the mighty heavens made a grain of sand; which made the lofty mountains made a drop of water; which made you made the grass of the field; which made me made a daisy!”

* * * * *

A young Scotchman, bashful but desperately in love, finding no notice was taken of his visits to the house of his sweetheart, summoned up sufficient courage to address the fair one thus:

“Jean, I was here on Monday nicht.”

“Ay, ye were that,” replied she.

“An’ I was here on Tuesday nicht.”

“So ye were.”

“An’ I was here on Wednesday,” continued the ardent youth.

“Ay, an’ ye were on Thursday nicht an’ a’.”

“An’ I was here last nicht.”

“Weel,” she says, “what if ye were?”

“An’ I am here the nicht again.”

“An’ what about it even if ye came every nicht?”

“What about it, did ye say? Did ye no’ begin to smell a rat?”

* * * * *

Rustic--“Well, Miss, I be fair mazed wi’ the ways o’ that ’ere fisherman--that I be!”

Parson’s Daughter--“Why is that, Carver?”

Rustic--“The owd fool has been sittin’ there for the last six hours and hasn’t caught nothin’.”

Parson’s Daughter--“How do you know that?”

Rustic--“I’ve been a-watchin’ o’ he the whole time!”

* * * * *

A stately and venerable professor one morning, being unable to attend to his class on account of a cold, wrote on the blackboard:

“Dr. Dash, through indisposition, is unable to attend to his classes to-day.”

The students erased one letter in this notice, making it read:

“Dr. Dash, through indisposition, is unable to attend to his lasses to-day.”

But it happened a few minutes later that the professor returned for a box he had forgotten. Amid a roar of laughter he detected the change in his notice, and, approaching the blackboard, calmly erased one letter in his turn.

Now the notice read:

“Dr. Dash, through indisposition, is unable to attend to his asses to-day.”

* * * * *

The man in the smoker was boasting of his unerring ability to tell from a man’s looks exactly what city he came from. “You, for example,” he said to the man next to him, “you are from New Orleans?” He was right.

“You, my friend,” turning to the man on the other side of him, “I should say you are from Chicago?” Again he was right.

The other two men got interested.

“And you are from Boston?” he asked the third man.

“That’s right, too,” said the New Englander.

“And you from Philadelphia, I should say?” to the last man.

“No, sir,” answered the man with considerable warmth; “I’ve been sick for three months: that’s what makes me look that way!”

* * * * *

Five-year-old Nellie had been naughty all day. Finally her mama, a very portly woman, sat down and drew the little culprit across her ample lap to administer the long-delayed punishment. Nellie’s face was fairly buried in the folds of her mother’s dress. Before the maternal hand could descend Nellie turned her face to say, “Well, if I’m going to be spanked _I must have air_.”

* * * * *

“John,” said the woman with nine chapeaux, “I got another new hat to-day.” “My dear!” expostulated her husband, “that is the last straw.” “I know it,” she said; “just from Paris.”

* * * * *

A prominent Bostonian inquired of a London shopkeeper for Hare’s “Walks in London.”

The shopkeeper, after much search, found it on his shelves, but in two volumes.

“Ah,” said the Bostonian, “you have your Hare parted in the middle over here.”

“What!” exclaimed the Englishman, blankly, passing his hands over his head.

* * * * *

Mr. Blaine used to tell this story: Once, in Dublin, toward the end of the opera, Mephistopheles was conducting Faust through a trap-door which represented the gates of hell. His majesty got through all right--he was used to going below--but Faust was quite stout, got half-way in, and no squeezing would get him any farther. Suddenly an Irishman in the gallery exclaimed devoutly: “Thank God! hell’s full.”

* * * * *

An Ohio man who was recently elected to Congress, went to Washington to look around and see what his duties were. He was hospitably received, and was wined and dined a great many times by his colleagues. Before he went home he said to his friends: “By George, I have had a good time! I have had dinners and breakfasts and suppers galore given to me. In fact, I haven’t had my knife out of my mouth since I struck town.”

* * * * *