Chapter 20

"What's become ob dat little chameleon Mandy had?" inquired Rufus.

"Oh, de fool chile done lost him," replied Zeke. "She wuz playin' wif him one day, puttin' him on red to see him turn red, an' on blue to see him turn blue, an' on green to see him turn green, an' so on. Den de fool gal, not satisfied wif lettin' well enough alone, went an' put him on a plaid, an' de poor little thing went an' bust himself tryin' to make good."

_See also_ Success.

MALARIA

The physician had taken his patient's pulse and temperature, and proceeded to ask the usual questions.

"It--er--seems," said he, regarding the unfortunate with scientific interest, "that the attacks of fever and the chills appear on alternate days. Do you think--is it your opinion--that they have, so to speak, decreased in violence, if I may use that word?"

The patient smiled feebly. "Doc," said he, "on fever days my head's so hot I can't think, and on ague days I shake so I can't hold an opinion."

MARKS(WO)MANSHIP

An Irishman who, with his wife, is employed on a truck-farm in New Jersey, recently found himself in a bad predicament, when, in attempting to evade the onslaughts of a savage dog, assistance came in the shape of his wife.

When the woman came up, the dog had fastened his teeth in the calf of her husband's leg and was holding on for dear life. Seizing a stone in the road, the Irishman's wife was about to hurl it, when the husband, with wonderful presence of mind, shouted:

"Mary! Mary! Don't throw the stone at the dog! throw it at me!"

Mary had a little lamb, It's fleece was gone in spots, For Mary fired her father's gun, And lamby caught the shots!

--_Columbia Jester_.

MARRIAGE

MRS. QUACKENNESS--"Am yo' daughtar happily mar'd, Sistah Sagg?"

MRS. SAGG--"She sho' is! Bless goodness she's done got a husband dat's skeered to death of her!"

"Where am I?" the invalid exclaimed, waking from the long delirium of fever and feeling the comfort that loving hands had supplied. "Where am I--in heaven?"

"No, dear," cooed his wife; "I am still with you."

Archbishop Ryan was visiting a small parish in a mining district one day for the purpose of administering confirmation, and asked one nervous little girl what matrimony is.

"It is a state of terrible torment which those who enter are compelled to undergo for a time to prepare them for a brighter and better world," she said.

"No, no," remonstrated her rector; "that isn't matrimony: that's the definition of purgatory."

"Leave her alone," said the Archbishop; "maybe she is right. What do you and I know about it?"

"Was Helen's marriage a success?"

"Goodness, yes. Why, she is going to marry a nobleman on the alimony."--_Judge_.

JENNIE--"What makes George such a pessimist?"

JACK--"Well, he's been married three times--once for love, once for money and the last time for a home."

Matrimony is the root of all evil.

One day Mary, the charwoman, reported for service with a black eye.

"Why, Mary," said her sympathetic mistress, "what a bad eye you have!"

"Yes'm."

"Well, there's one consolation. It might have been worse."

"Yes'm."

"You might have had both of them hurt."

"Yes'm. Or worse'n that: I might not ha' been married at all."

A wife placed upon her husband's tombstone: "He had been married forty years and was prepared to die."

"I can take a hundred words a minute," said the stenographer.

"I often take more than that," said the prospective employer; "but then I have to, I'm married."

A man and his wife were airing their troubles on the sidewalk one Saturday evening when a good Samaritan intervened.

"See here, my man," he protested, "this sort of thing won't do."

"What business is it of yours, I'd like to know," snarled the man, turning from his wife.

"It's only my business in so far as I can be of help in settling this dispute," answered the Samaritan mildly.

"This ain't no dispute," growled the man.

"No dispute! But, my dear friend--"

"I tell you it ain't no dispute," insisted the man. "She"--jerking his thumb toward the woman--"thinks she ain't goin to get my week's wages, and I know darn well she ain't. Where's the dispute in that?"

HIS BETTER HALF--"I think it's time we got Lizzie married and settled down, Alfred. She will be twenty-eight next week you know."

HER LESSER HALF--"Oh, don't hurry, my dear. Better wait till the right sort of man comes along."

HIS BETTER HALF--"But why wait? I didn't!"

O'Flanagan came home one night with a deep band of black crape around his hat.

"Why, Mike!" exclaimed his wife. "What are ye wearin' thot mournful thing for?"

"I'm wearin' it for yer first husband," replied Mike firmly. "I'm sorry he's dead."

"What a strangely interesting face your friend the poet has," gurgled the maiden of forty. "It seems to possess all the elements of happiness and sorrow, each struggling for supremacy."

"Yes, he looks to me like a man who was married and didn't know it," growled the Cynical Bachelor.

The not especially sweet-tempered young wife of a Kaslo B.C., man one day approached her lord concerning the matter of one hundred dollars or so.

"I'd like to let you have it, my dear," began the husband, "but the fact is I haven't that amount in the bank this morning--that is to say, I haven't that amount to spare, inasmuch as I must take up a note for two hundred dollars this afternoon."

"Oh, very well, James!" said the wife, with an ominous calmness, "If you think the man who holds the note can make things any hotter for you than I can--why, do as you say, James!"

A young lady entered a book store and inquired of the gentlemanly clerk--a married man, by-the-way--if he had a book suitable for an old gentleman who had been married fifty years.

Without the least hesitation the clerk reached for a copy of Parkman's "A Half Century of Conflict."

Smith and Jones were discussing the question of who should be head of the house--the man or the woman.

"I am the head of my establishment," said Jones. "I am the bread-winner. Why shouldn't I be?"

"Well," replied Smith, "before my wife and I were married we made an agreement that I should make the rulings in all major things, my wife in all the minor."

"How has it worked?" queried Jones.

Smith smiled. "So far," he replied, "no major matters have come up."

A poor lady the other day hastened to the nursery and said to her little daughter:

"Minnie, what do you mean by shouting and screaming? Play quietly, like Tommy. See, he doesn't make a sound."

"Of course he doesn't," said the little girl. "That is our game. He is papa coming home late, and I am you."

The stranger advanced toward the door. Mrs. O'Toole stood in the doorway with a rough stick in her left hand and a frown on her brow.

"Good morning," said the stranger politely. "I'm looking for Mr. O'Toole."

"So'm I," said Mrs. O'Toole, shifting her club over to her other hand.

TIM--"Sarer Smith (you know 'er--Bill's missus), she throwed herself horf the end uv the wharf larst night."

TOM--"Poor Sarer!"

TIM--"An' a cop fished 'er out again."

TOM--"Poor Bill!"

The cooing stops with the honeymoon, but the billing goes on forever.

"Well, old man, how did you get along after I left you at midnight. Get home all right?"

"No; a confounded nosey policeman haled me to the station, where I spent the rest of the night."

"Lucky dog! I reached home."

STRANGER--"What's the fight about?"

NATIVE--"The feller on top is Hank Hill wot married the widder Strong, an' th' other's Joel Jenks, wot interdooced him to her."--_Life_.

A colored man had been arrested on a charge of beating and cruelly misusing his wife. After hearing the charge against the prisoner, the justice turned to the first witness.

"Madam," he said, "if this man were your husband and had given you a beating, would you call in the police?"

The woman addressed, a veritable Amazon in size and aggressiveness, turned a smiling countenance towards the justice and answered: "No, jedge. If he was mah husban', and he treated me lak he did 'is wife, Ah wouldn't call no p'liceman. No, sah, Ah'd call de undertaker."

We admire the strict impartiality of the judge who recently fined his wife twenty-five dollars for contempt of court, but we would hate to have been in the judge's shoes when he got home that night.

"How many children have you?" asked the census-taker.

The man addressed removed the pipe from his mouth, scratched his head, thought it over a moment, and then replied:

"Five--four living and one married."

SHE--"How did they ever come to marry?"

HE--"Oh, it's the same old story. Started out to be good friends, you know, and later on changed their minds."--_Puck_.

Nat Goodwin and a friend were walking along Fifth Avenue one afternoon when they stopped to look into a florist's window, in which there was an artistic arrangement of exquisite roses.

"What wonderful American Beauties those are, Nat!" said the friend delightedly.

"They are, indeed," replied Nat.

"You see, I am very fond of that flower," continued the friend. "In fact, I might say it is my favorite. You know, Nat, I married an American beauty."

"Well," said Nat dryly, "you haven't got anything on me. I married a cluster."

"Are you quite sure that was a marriage license you gave me last month?"

"Of course! What's the matter?"

"Well, I thought there might be some mistake, seeing that I've lived a dog's life ever since."

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in.--_Emerson_.

HOUSEHOLDER--"Here, drop that coat and clear out!"

BURGLAR--"You be quiet, or I'll wake your wife and give her this letter I found in your pocket."

The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.--_Swift_.

_See also_ Church discipline; Domestic finance; Trouble.

MARRIAGE FEES

A poor couple who went to the priest to be wedded were met with a demand for the marriage fee. It was not forth-coming. Both the consenting parties were rich in love and in their prospects, but destitute of financial resources. The father was obdurate. "No money, no marriage."

"Give me l'ave, your riverence," said the blushing bride, "to go and get the money."

It was given, and she sped forth on the delicate mission of raising a marriage fee out of pure nothing. After a short interval she returned with the sum of money, and the ceremony was completed to the satisfaction of all. When the parting was taking place the newly-made wife seemed a little uneasy.

"Anything on your mind, Catherine?" said the father.

"Well, your riverence, I would like to know if this marriage could not be spoiled now."

"Certainly not, Catherine. No man can put you asunder."

"Could you not do it yourself, father? Could you not spoil the marriage?"

"No, no, Catherine. You are past me now. I have nothing more to do with your marriage."

"That aises me mind," said Catherine, "and God bless your riverence. There's the ticket for your hat. I picked it up in the lobby and pawned it."

MANDY--"What foh yo' been goin'to de post-office so reg'lar? Are yo' corresponding wif some other female?"

RASTUS--"Nope; but since ah been a-readin' in de papers 'bout dese 'conscience funds' ah kind of thought ah might possibly git a lettah from dat ministah what married us."--_Life_.

The knot was tied; the pair were wed, And then the smiling bridegroom said Unto the preacher, "Shall I pay To you the usual fee today. Or would you have me wait a year And give you then a hundred clear, If I should find the marriage state As happy as I estimate?" The preacher lost no time in thought, To his reply no study brought, There were no wrinkles on his brow: Said he, "I'll take three dollars now."

MATHEMATICS

_See_ Arithmetic.

MATRIMONY

_See_ Marriage.

MEASURING INSTRUMENTS

"Golly, but I's tired!" exclaimed a tall and thin negro, meeting a short and stout friend on Washington Street.

"What you been doin' to get tired?" demanded the other.

"Well," explained the thin one, drawing a deep breath, "over to Brother Smith's dey are measurin' de house for some new carpets. Dey haven't got no yawdstick, and I's just ezactly six feet tall. So to oblige Brother Smith, I's been a-layin' down and a-gettin' up all over deir house."

MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS

PASSER-BY--"What's the fuss in the schoolyard, boy?"

THE BOY--"Why, the doctor has just been around examinin' us an' one of the deficient boys is knockin' th' everlastin' stuffin's out of a perfect kid."

MEDICINE

The farmer's mule had just balked in the road when the country doctor came by. The farmer asked the physician if he could give him something to start the mule. The doctor said he could, and, reaching down into his medicine case, gave the animal some powders. The mule switched his tail, tossed his head and started on a mad gallop down the road. The farmer looked first at the flying animal and then at the doctor.

"How much did that medicine cost, Doc?" he asked.

"Oh, about fifteen cents," said the physician.

"Well, give me a quarter's worth, quick!" And he swallowed it. "I've got to catch that mule."

"I hope you are following my instructions carefully, Sandy--the pills three times a day and a drop of whisky at bedtime."

"Weeel, sir, I may be a wee bit behind wi' the pills, but I'm about six weeks in front wi' the whusky."

Rarely has a double meaning turned with more deadly effect upon an innocent perpetrator than in an advertisement lately appearing in a western newspaper. He wrote: "Wanted--a gentleman to undertake the sale of a patent medicine. The advertiser guarantees it will be profitable to the undertaker."

I firmly believe that if the whole _materia medico_ could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes.--_O.W. Holmes_.

A man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.--_Bacon_.

MEEKNESS

One evening just before dinner a wife, who had been playing bridge all the afternoon, came in to find her husband and a strange man (afterward ascertained to be a lawyer) engaged in some mysterious business over the library table, upon which were spread several sheets of paper.

"What are you going to do with all that paper, Henry?" demanded the wife.

"I am making a wish," meekly responded the husband.

"A wish?"

"Yes, my dear. In your presence I shall not presume to call it a will."

MEMORIALS

Two negroes were talking about a recent funeral of a member of their race, at which funeral there had been a profusion of floral tributes. Said the cook:

"Dat's all very well, Mandy; but when I dies I don't want no flowers on my grave. Jes' plant a good old watermelon-vine; an' when she gits ripe, you come dar, an' don't you eat it, but jes' bus' it on de grave, an' let de good old juice dribble down thro' de ground!"

"That's rather a handsome mantelpiece you have there, Mr. Binkston," said the visitor.

"Yes," replied Mr. Binkston, proudly. "That is a memorial to my wife."

"Why--I was not aware that Mrs. Binkston had passed away," said the visitor sympathetically.

"Oh no, indeed, she hasn't," smiled Mr. Binkston. "She is serving her thirtieth sojourn in jail. That mantelpiece is built of the bricks she was convicted of throwing."

MEMORY

"Uncle Mose," said a drummer, addressing an old colored man seated on a drygoods box in front of the village store, "they tell me that you remember seeing George Washington--am I mistaken?"

"No, sah," said Uncle Mose. "I uster 'member seein' him, but I done fo'got sence I jined de chu'ch."

A noted college president, attending a banquet in Boston, was surprised to see that the darky who took the hats at the door gave no checks in return.

"He has a most wonderful memory," a fellow diner explained. "He's been doing that for years and prides himself upon never having made a mistake."

As the college president was leaving, the darky passed him his hat.

"How do you know that this one is mine?"

"I don't know it, suh," admitted the darky.

"Then why do you give it to me?"

"'Cause yo' gave it to me, suh."

"Tommy," said his mother reprovingly, "what did I say I'd do to you if I ever caught you stealing jam again?"

Tommy thoughtfully scratched his head with his sticky fingers.

"Why, that's funny, ma, that you should forget it, too. Hanged if I can remember." Smith is a young New York lawyer, clever in many ways, but very forgetful. He was recently sent to St. Louis to interview an important client in regard to a case then pending in the Missouri courts. Later the head of his firm received this telegram from St. Louis:

"Have forgotten name of client. Please wire at once."

This was the reply sent from New York:

"Client's name Jenkins. Your name Smith."

When time who steals our years away Shall steal our pleasures too, The mem'ry of the past will stay And half our joys renew.

--_Moore_.

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, And in it are enshrined The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought The giver's loving thought.

--_Longfellow_.

MEN

Here's to the men! God bless them! Worst of me sins, I confess them! In loving them all; be they great or small, So here's to the boys! God bless them!

May all single men be married, And all married men be happy.

"What is your ideal man?"

"One who is clever enough to make money and foolish enough to spend it!"

I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.--_Shakespeare_.

Men are four: He who knows and knows not that he knows,-- He is asleep--wake him; He who knows not and knows not that he knows not,-- He is a fool--shun him; He who knows not and knows that he knows not,-- He is a child--teach him; He who knows and knows that He knows,-- He is a king--follow him.

_See also_ Dogs; Husbands.

MESSAGES

"Have you the rent ready?"

"No, sir; mother's gone out washing and forgot to put it out for you."

"Did she tell you she'd forgotten?"

"Yes, sir."

One of the passengers on a wreck was an exceedingly nervous man, who, while floating in the water, imagined how his friends would acquaint his wife of his fate. Saved at last, he rushed to the telegraph office and sent this message: "Dear Pat, I am saved. Break it gently to my wife."

METAPHOR

It was a Washington woman, angry because the authorities had closed the woman's rest-room in the Senate office building, who burst out:

"It is almost as if the Senate had hurled its glove into the teeth of the advancing wave that is sounding the clarion of equal rights."

A water consumer in Los Angeles, California, whose supply had been turned off because he wouldn't pay, wrote to the department as follows:

"In the matter of shutting off the water on unpaid bills, your company is fast becoming a regular crystallized Russian bureaucracy, running in a groove and deaf to the appeals of reform. There is no use of your trying to impugn the verity of this indictment by shaking your official heads in the teeth of your own deeds.

"If you will persist in this kind of thing, a widespread conflagration of the populace will be so imminent that it will require only a spark to let loose the dogs of war in our midst. Will you persist in hurling the corner stone of our personal liberty to your wolfish hounds of collectors, thirsting for its blood? If you persist, the first thing you know you will have the chariot of a justly indignant revolution rolling along in our midst and gnashing its teeth as it rolls.

"If your rascally collectors are permitted to continue coming to our doors with unblushing footsteps, with cloaks of hypocritical compunction in their mouths, and compel payment from your patrons, this policy will result in cutting the wool off the sheep that lays the golden egg, until you have pumped it dry--and then farewell, a long farewell, to our vaunted prosperity."

MICE

"What's the matter with Briggs?"

"He was getting shaved by a lady barber when a mouse ran across the floor."--_Life_.

MIDDLE CLASSES

WILLIE--"Paw, what is the middle class?"

PAW--"The middle class consists of people who are not poor enough to accept charity and not rich enough to donate anything."

MILITANTS

_See_ Suffragettes.

MILITARY DISCIPLINE

Murphy was a new recruit in the cavalry. He could not ride at all, and by ill luck was given one of the most vicious horses in the troop.

"Remember," said the sergeant, "no one is allowed to dismount without orders."

Murphy was no sooner in the saddle than he was thrown to the ground.

"Murphy!" yelled the sergeant, when he discovered him lying breathless on the ground, "you dismounted!"

"I did."

"Did you have orders?"

"I did."

"From headquarters, I suppose?"

"No, sor; from hintquarters."

"How dare you come on parade," exclaimed an Irish sergeant to a recruit, "before a respictible man loike mysilf smothered from head to foot in graise an' poipe clay? Tell me now--answer me when I spake to yez!"

The recruit was about to excuse himself for his condition when the sergeant stopped him.

"Dare yez to answer me when I puts a question to yez?" he cried. "Hould yer lyin' tongue, and open your face at yer peril! Tell me now, what have ye been doin' wid yer uniform an' arms an' bills? Not a word, or I'll clap yez in the guardroom. When I axes yez anything an' yez spakes I'll have yez tried for insolence to yer superior officer, but if yez don't answer when I questions yez, I'll have yez punished for disobedience of orders! So, yez see, I have yez both ways!"

Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance.--_Channing_.

MILLINERS

Recipe for a milliner:

To a presence that's much more than queenly, Add a manner that's quite Vere de Vere; You feel like a worm in her sight when she says, "Only $300, my dear!"

--_Life_.

MILLIONAIRES

Recipe for a multi-millionaire:

Take a boy with bare feet as a starter Add thrift and sobriety, mixed-- Flavor with quarts of religion, And see that the tariff is fixed.

--_Life_.

MILLIONAIRE (to a beggar)--"Be off with you this minute!"

BEGGAR--"Look 'ere, mister; the only difference between you and me is that you are makin' your second million, while I am still workin' at my first."

"Now that you have made $50,000,000, I suppose you are going to keep right on for the purpose of trying to get a hundred millions?"

"No, sir. You do me an injustice. I'm going to put in the rest of my time trying to get my conscience into a satisfactory condition."

"When I was a young man," said Mr. Cumrox, "I thought nothing of working twelve or fourteen hours a day."

"Father," replied the young man with sporty clothes, "I wish you wouldn't mention it. Those non-union sentiments are liable to make you unpopular."

No good man ever became suddenly rich.--_Syrus_.

And all to leave what with his toil he won, To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son.

--_Dryden_.

_See also_ Capitalists.

MINORITIES

Stepping out between the acts at the first production of one of his plays, Bernard Shaw said to the audience:

"What do you think of it?"

This startled everybody for the time being, but presently a man in the pit assembled his scattered wits and cried:

"Rotten!"

Shaw made a curtsey and melted the house with one of his Irish smiles.

"My friend," he said, shrugging his shoulders and indicating the crowd in front, "I quite agree with you, but what are we two against so many?"

MISERS

There was an old man of Nantucket Who kept all his cash in a bucket; But his daughter, named Nan, Ran away with a man-- And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

A mere madness, to live like a wretch, and die rich.--_Robert Burton_.

MISSIONARIES

SHE--"Poor cousin Jack! And to be eaten by those wretched cannibals!"