The Best American Humorous Short Stories

“Pete!” commanded Mr. Jacobus, “put back them trunks. These folks stays here’s long’s they wants ter. Mr. Brede”—he held out a large, hard hand—“I’d orter’ve known better,” he s...

The Superintendent led us up some dark stairs to a corridor, then along a narrow passage, then down a broad flight of steps into another passageway, and opened a large door whic...

The idea that he would think of buying a boat made Mr. Podington laugh. The information that it would be impossible to upset the little vessel had greatly cheered him, and he co...

Never had the deputy been more gracious and witty. He talked and talked, outtalking even Mr. Fluker; he was the only man in town who could do that. He winked at Marann as he put...

“You must take us as you find us, ma’am,” continued Mrs. Watkinson. “We use no ceremony with anybody; and our rule is never to put ourselves out of the way. We do not give parti...

“Yassir, yassir,”—the old man’s face stretched with a delighted grin—“dat’s him, dat’s it. Newbraska. Dat’s me—Mose Mitchell. Old Uncle Mose Mitchell, dey calls me now. Old mars...

“When I stole these furtive glances at my grandmother, half fearing that they were wrong, I saw only a calm lake, whose shores were low, and over which the sky hung unbroken, so...

When, sore and weary, the elder entered the city, the electric lights shone above it like jewels in a crown. The city slept; that is, the better portion of it did. Here and ther...

“No, I don’t often wear them. I am not very fond of looking through them. But sometimes an irresistible necessity compels me to put them on, and I cannot help seeing.” Titbottom...

Crazed by this duality of life, I first read Dr. Wigan on the _Duality of the Brain_, hoping that I could train one side of my head to do these outside jobs, and the other to do...

In his turn Ross showed no resentment. “What I’m worried about is my mother,” he confessed. “She’s so sharp about finding out things. She wouldn’t tease me—she’d just be sorry f...

“I think not, thank you,” she replied, compressing her lips to keep back the intolerable pain, and half-closing her eyes to show the fine lashes. Declining the proffered help, s...

“Why, no!” exclaimed his father in pleased surprise. “It is a most agreeable coincidence. Mr. Van Kamp, allow me to introduce my son, Ralph. Mr. Van Kamp and myself, Ralph, have...

A doleful exhibition was this last one of our thrice approved and most worthy teacher! Stern necessity and the power of habit enabled him to go through with most of his part, bu...

It was a chilly November afternoon. I had just consummated an unusually hearty dinner, of which the dyspeptic _truffe_ formed not the least important item, and was sitting alone...

“I reckoned I’d bring Hiram round with me,” said the young lady, lifting her searching eyes, after a pause, to the Colonel’s, “though he was awful shy, and allowed that you didn...

Let it not be supposed that Master Horner was of a cruel and ogrish nature—a babe-eater—a Herod—one who delighted in torturing the helpless. Such souls there may be, among those...

Gideon had grown to be to vaudeville much what _Uncle Remus_ is to literature: there was virtue in his very simplicity. His artistry itself was native and natural. He loved a go...

I know, indeed, that public men of the highest rank have resorted to this expedient long ago. Dumas’s novel of _The Iron Mask_ turns on the brutal imprisonment of Louis the Four...

Elder Brown was not, however, a man for tears. He was a man of action. The sudden vision which met his wandering gaze, the donkey calmly chewing scrub buds, with the green juice...

A day or two later it was known throughout the town that Zaidee Hooker had sued Adoniram Hotchkiss for breach of promise, and that the damages were laid at five thousand dollars...

A slight flush crossed the Colonel’s cheek as he returned quickly and a little stiffly, “On the contrary—er—it may make it impossible for me to—er—act in this matter.”

William James Lampton (?–1917), who was known to many of his admirers as Will Lampton or as W.J.L. merely, was one of the most unique and interesting characters of literary and...

This volume does not aim to contain all “the best American humorous short stories”; there are many other stories equally as good, I suppose, in much the same vein, scattered thr...

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910), who achieved fame as “Mark Twain,” is only incidentally a short story writer, although he wrote many short pieces of fiction. His humorous...

Once he awoke. The moon had risen, and a little breeze waved the hanging moss, and whispered in the glossy foliage of orange and palmetto with a sound like falling rain. Gideon...