Chapter 23

One day, in the spring of '74, Cap Smith's freight outfit pulled into Helena, Montana. After unloading the freight, the "mule-skinners," to a man, repaired to the Combination Gambling House and proceeded to load themselves. Late in the afternoon, Zeb White, Smith's oldest skinner, having exchanged all of his hard coin for liquid refreshment, zigzagged into the corral, crawled under a wagon, and went to sleep. After supper, Smith, making his nightly rounds, happened on the sleeping Zeb.

"Kinder chilly, ain't it?" he asked, after earnestly prodding Zeb with a convenient stick.

"I reckon 'tis," Zeb drowsily mumbled.

"Ain't yer 'fraid ye'll freeze?"

'"Tis cold, ain't it? Say, Cap, jest throw on another wagon, will yer?"

PAINTING

_See_ Art.

PAINTINGS

She had engaged a maid recently from the country, and was now employed in showing her newly acquired treasure over the house and enlightening her in regard to various duties, etc. At last they reached the best room. "These," said the mistress of the house, pausing before an extensive row of masculine portraits, "are very valuable, and you must be very careful when dusting. They are old masters." Mary's jaw dropped, and a look of intense wonder overspread her rubicund face.

"Lor', mum," she gasped, gazing with bulging eyes on the face of her new employer, "lor', mum, who'd ever 'ave thought you'd been married all these times!"

A picture is a poem without words.--_Cornificus_.

PANICS

One night at a theatre some scenery took fire, and a very perceptible odor of burning alarmed the spectators. A panic seemed to be imminent, when an actor appeared on the stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "compose yourselves. There is no danger."

The audience did not seem reassured.

"Ladies and gentlemen," continued the comedian, rising to the necessity of the occasion, "confound it all--do you think if there was any danger I'd be here?"

The panic collapsed.

PARENTS

William, aged five, had been reprimanded by his father for interrupting while his father was telling his mother about the new telephone for their house. He sulked awhile, then went to his mother, and, patting her on the cheeks, said, "Mother dear, I love you."

"Don't you love me too?" asked his father.

Without glancing at him, William said disdainfully, "The wire's busy."

"What does your mother say when you tell her those dreadful lies?"

"She says I take after father."

"A little lad was desperately ill, but refused to take the medicine the doctor had left. At last his mother gave him up.

"Oh, my boy will die; my boy will die," she sobbed.

But a voice spoke from the bed, "Don't cry, mother. Father'll be home soon and he'll make me take it."

Mrs. White was undoubtedly the disciplinarian of the family. The master of the house, a professor, and consequently a very busy man, was regarded by the children as one of themselves, subject to the laws of "Mother."

Mrs. White had been ill for some weeks and although the father felt that the children were showing evidence of running wild, he seemed powerless to correct the fault. One evening at dinner, however, he felt obliged to reprimand Marion severely.

"Marion," he said, sternly, "stop that at once, or I shall take you from the table and punish you soundly."

He experienced a feeling of profound satisfaction in being able to thus reprove when it was necessary and glanced across the table expecting to see a very demure little miss. Instead, Marion and her little brother exchanged glances and then simultaneously a grin overspread their faces, while Marion said in a mirthful tone:

"Oh, Francis, hear father trying to talk like mother!"

Robert has lately acquired a stepmother. Hoping to win his affection this new parent has been very lenient with him, while his father, feeling his responsibility, has been unusually strict. The boys of the neighborhood, who had taken pains to warn Robert of the terrible character of stepmothers in general, recently waited on him in a body, and the following conversation was overheard:

"How do you like your stepmother, Bob?"

"Like her! Why fellers, I just love her. All I wish is I had a stepfather, too."

"Well, Bobby, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

BOBBY (remembering private seance in the wood-shed)--"A orphan."

Little Eleanor's mother was an American, while her father was a German.

One day, after Eleanor had been subjected to rather severe disciplinary measures at the hands of her father, she called her mother into another room, closed the door significantly, and said: "Mother, I don't want to meddle in your business, but I wish you'd send that husband of yours back to Germany."

The lawyer was sitting at his desk absorbed in the preparation of a brief. So bent was he on his work that he did not hear the door as it was pushed gently open, nor see the curly head that was thrust into his office. A little sob attracted his notice, and, turning he saw a face that was streaked with tears and told plainly that feelings had been hurt.

"Well, my little man, did you want to see me?"

"Are you a lawyer?"

"Yes. What do you want?"

"I want"--and there was resolute ring in his voice--"I want a divorce from my papa and mama."

PARROTS

Pat had but a limited knowledge of the bird kingdom. One day, walking down the street, he noticed a green bird in a cage, talking and singing. Thinking to pet it he stroked its head. The bird turned quickly, screaming, "Hello! What do you want?" Pat shied off like a frightened horse, lifting his hat and bowing politely as he stuttered out: "Ex-excuse me s-sir, I thought you was a burrd!"

PARTNERSHIP

A West Virginia darky, a blacksmith, recently announced a change in his business as follows: "Notice--De co-pardnership heretofore resisting between me and Mose Skinner is hereby resolved. Dem what owe de firm will settle wid me, and dem what de firm owes will settle wid Mose."

PASSWORDS

"I want to change my password," said the man who had for two years rented a safety-deposit box.

"Very well," replied the man in charge. "What is the old one?"

"Gladys."

"And what do you wish the new one to be?"

"Mabel. Gladys has gone to Reno."

Senator Tillman not long ago piloted a plain farmer-constituent around the Capitol for a while, and then, having some work to do on the floor, conducted him to the Senate gallery.

After an hour or so the visitor approached a gallery door-keeper and said: "My name is Swate. I am a friend of Senator Tillman. He brought me here and I want to go out and look around a bit. I though I would tell you so I can get back in."

"That's all right," said the doorkeeper, "but I may not be here when you return. In order to prevent any mistake I will give you the password so you can get your seat again."

Swate's eyes rather popped out at this. "What's the word?" he asked.

"Idiosyncrasy."

"What?"

"Idiosyncrasy."

"I guess I'll stay in," said Swate.

PATIENCE

"Your husband seems to be very impatient lately."

"Yes, he is, very."

"What is the matter with him?"

"He is getting tired waiting for a chance to get out where he can sit patiently hour after hour waiting for a fish to nibble at his bait."

PATRIOTISM

General Gordon, the Confederate commander, used to tell the following story: He was sitting by the roadside one blazing hot day when a dilapidated soldier, his clothing in rags, a shoe lacking, his head bandaged, and his arm in a sling, passed him. He was soliloquizing in this manner:

"I love my country. I'd fight for my country. I'd starve and go thirsty for my country. I'd die for my country. But if ever this damn war is over I'll never love another country!"

A snobbish young Englishman visiting Washington's home at Mount Vernon was so patronizing as to arouse the wrath of guards and caretakers; but it remained for "Shep" Wright, an aged gardener and one of the first scouts of the Confederate army, to settle the gentleman. Approaching "Shep," the Englishman said:

"Ah--er--my man, the hedge! Yes, I see, George got this hedge from dear old England."

"Reckon he did," replied "Shep". "He got this whole blooming country from England."

Speaking of the policy of the Government of the United States with respect to its troublesome neighbors in Central and South America, "Uncle Joe" Cannon told of a Missouri congressman who is decidedly opposed to any interference in this regard by our country. It seems that this spring the Missourian met an Englishman at Washington with whom he conversed touching affairs in the localities mentioned. The westerner asserted his usual views with considerable forcefulness, winding up with this observation:

"The whole trouble is that we Americans need a ---- good licking!"

"You do, indeed!" promptly asserted the Britisher, as if pleased by the admission. But his exultation was of brief duration, for the Missouri man immediately concluded with:

"But there ain't nobody can do it!"

A number of Confederate prisoners, during the Civil War, were detained at one of the western military posts under conditions much less unpleasant than those to be found in the ordinary military prison. Most of them appreciated their comparatively good fortune. One young fellow, though, could not be reconciled to association with Yankees under any circumstances, and took advantage of every opportunity to express his feelings. He was continually rubbing it in about the battle of Chickamauga, which had just been fought with such disastrous results for the Union forces.

"Maybe we didn't eat you up at Chickamauga!" was the way he generally greeted a bluecoat.

The Union men, when they could stand it no longer, reported the matter to General Grant. Grant summoned the prisoner.

"See here," said Grant, "I understand that you are continually insulting the men here with reference to the battle of Chickamauga. They have borne with you long enough, and I'm going to give you your choice of two things. You will either take the oath of allegiance to the United States, or be sent to a Northern prison. Choose."

The prisoner was silent for some time. "Well," he said at last, in a resigned tone, "I reckon, General, I'll take the oath."

The oath was duly administered. Turning to Grant, the fellow then asked, very penitently, if he might speak.

"Yes," said the general indifferently. "What is it?"

"Why, I was just thinkin', General," he drawled, "they certainly did give us hell at Chickamauga."

Historical controversies are creeping into the schools. In a New York public institution attended by many races, during an examination in history the teacher asked a little chap who discovered America.

He was evidently thrown into a panic and hesitated, much to the teacher's surprise, to make any reply.

"Oh, please, ma'am," he finally stammered, "ask me somethin' else."

"Something else, Jimmy? Why should I do that?"

"The fellers was talkin' 'bout it yesterday," replied Jimmy, "Pat McGee said it was discovered by an Irish saint. Olaf, he said it was a sailor from Norway, and Giovanni said it was Columbus, an' if you'd a-seen what happened you wouldn't ask a little feller like me."

Our country! When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right!--_Carl Schurz_.

Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.--_Stephen Decatur_.

There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism.--_Robert C. Winthrop_.

Patriotic exercises and flag worship will avail nothing unless the states give to their people of the kind of government that arouses patriotism.--_Franklin Pierce II_.

PENSIONS

WILLIS--"I wonder if there will ever be universal peace."

GILLIS--"Sure. All they've got to do is to get the nations to agree that in case of war the winner pays the pensions."--_Puck_.

"Why was it you never married again, Aunt Sallie?" inquired Mrs. McClane of an old colored woman in West Virginia.

"'Deed, Miss Ellie," replied the old woman earnestly, "dat daid nigger's wuth moah to me dan a live one. I gits a pension."--_Edith Howell Armor_.

If England had a system of pensions like ours, we should see that "all that was left of the Noble Six Hundred" was six thousand pensioners.

PESSIMISM

A pessimist is a man who lives with an optimist.--_Francis Wilson_.

How happy are the Pessimists! A bliss without alloy Is theirs when they have proved to us There's no such thing as joy!

--_Harold Susman_.

A pessimist is one who, of two evils, chooses them both.

"I had a mighty queer surprise this morning," remarked a local stock broker. "I put on my last summer's thin suit on account of this extraordinary hot weather, and in one of the trousers pockets I found a big roll of bills which I had entirely forgotten."

"Were any of them receipted?" asked a pessimist.

To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.--_Fronde_.

With earth's first clay they did the last man knead, And there of the last harvest sowed the seed: And the first morning of creation wrote What the last dawn of reckoning shall read.

Yesterday this day's madness did prepare; Tomorrow's silence, triumph, or despair. Drink! For you know not whence you came, nor why; Drink! For you know not why you go, nor where.

--_Omar Khayyam_

PHILADELPHIA

A Staten Island man, when the mosquitoes began to get busy in the borough across the bay, has been in the habit every summer of transplanting his family to the Delaware Water Gap for a few weeks. They were discussing their plans the other day, when the oldest boy, aged eight, looked up from his geography and said:

"Pop, Philadelphia is on the Delaware River, isn't it?"

Pop replied that such was the case.

"I wonder if that's what makes the Delaware Water Gap?" insinuated the youngster.--_S.S. Stinson_.

Among the guests at an informal dinner in New York was a bright Philadelphia girl.

"These are snails," said a gentleman next to her, when the dainty was served. "I suppose Philadelphia people don't eat them for fear of cannibalism."

"Oh, no," was her instant reply; "it isn't that. We couldn't catch them."

PHILANTHROPISTS

Little grains of short weight, Little crooked twists, Fill the land with magnates And philanthropists.

_See also_ Charity.

PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy is finding out how many things there are in the world which you can't have if you want them, and don't want if you can have them.--_Puck_.

PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS

The eight-year-old son of a Baltimore physician, together with a friend, was playing in his father's office, during the absence of the doctor, when suddenly the first lad threw open a closet door and disclosed to the terrified gaze of his little friend an articulated skeleton.

When the visitor had sufficiently recovered from his shock to stand the announcement the doctor's son explained that his father was extremely proud of that skeleton.

"Is he?" asked the other. "Why?"

"I don't know," was the answer; "maybe it was his first patient."

The doctor stood by the bedside, and looked gravely down at the sick man.

"I can not hide from you the fact that you are very ill," he said. "Is there any one you would like to see?"

"Yes," said the sufferer faintly.

"Who is it?"

"Another doctor."--_Judge_.

"Doctor, I want you to look after my office while I'm on my vacation."

"But I've just graduated, doctor. Have had no experience." "That's all right, my boy. My practice is strictly fashionable. Tell the men to play golf and ship the lady patients off to Europe."

An old darky once lay seriously ill of fever and was treated for a long time by one doctor, and then another doctor, for some reason, came and took the first one's place. The second physician made a thorough examination of the patient. At the end he said, "Did the other doctor take your temperature?"

"Ah dunno, sah," the patient answered. "Ah hain't missed nuthin' so far but mah watch."

There had been an epidemic of colds in the town, and one physician who had had scarcely any sleep for two days called upon a patient--an Irishman--who was suffering from pneumonia, and as he leaned over to hear the patient's respiration he called upon Pat to count.

The doctor was so fatigued that he fell asleep, with his ear on the sick man's chest. It seemed but a minute when he suddenly awoke to hear Pat still counting: "Tin thousand an' sivinty-six, tin thousand an' sivinty-sivin--"

FIRST DOCTOR--"I operated on him for appendicitis."

SECOND DOCTOR--"What was the matter with him?"--_Life_.

FUSSY LADY PATIENT--"I was suffering so much, doctor, that I wanted to die."

DOCTOR--"You did right to call me in, dear lady."

MEDICAL STUDENT--"What did you operate on that man for?"

EMINENT SURGEON--"Two hundred dollars."

MEDICAL STUDENT--"I mean what did he have?"

EMINENT SURGEON--"Two hundred dollars."

The three degrees in medical treatment--Positive, ill; comparative, pill; superlative, bill.

"What caused the coolness between you and that young doctor? I thought you were engaged."

"His writing is rather illegible. He sent me a note calling for 10,000 kisses."

"Well?"

"I thought it was a prescription, and took it to the druggist to be filled."

A tourist while traveling in the north of Scotland, far away from anywhere, exclaimed to one of the natives: "Why, what do you do when any of you are ill? You can never get a doctor."

"Nae, sir," replied Sandy. "We've jist to dee a naitural death."

When the physician gives you medicine and tells you to take it, you take it. "Yours not to reason why; yours but to do and die."

Physicians, of all men, are most happy: whatever good success soever they have, the world proclaimeth; and what faults they commit, the earth covereth.--_Quarles_.

This is the way that physicians mend or end us, Secundum artem: but although we sneer In health--when ill, we call them to attend us, Without the least propensity to jeer.

--_Byron_.

_See also_ Bills.

PICKPOCKETS

_See_ Thieves; Wives.

PINS

"Oh, dear!" sighed the wife as she was dressing for a dinner-party, "I can't find a pin anywhere. I wonder where all the pins go to, anyway?"

"That's a difficult question to answer," replied her husband, "because they are always pointed in one direction and headed in another."

PITTSBURG

"How about that airship?"

"It went up in smoke."

"Burned, eh?"

"Oh, no. Made an ascension at Pittsburg."

SKYBOUGH--"Why have you put that vacuum cleaner in front of your airship?"

KLOUDLEIGH--"To clear a path. I have an engagement to sail over Pittsburg."

A man just back from South America was describing a volcanic disturbance.

"I was smoking a cigar before the door of my hotel," said he, "when I was startled by a rather violent earthquake. The next instant the sun was obscured and darkness settled over the city. Looking in the direction of the distant volcano, I saw heavy clouds of smoke rolling from it, with an occasional tongue of flame flashing against the dark sky.

"Some of the natives about me were on their knees praying; others darted aimlessly about, crazed with terror and shouting for mercy. The landlord of the hotel rushed out and seized me by the arm.

"'To the harbor!' he cried in my ear.

"Together we hurried down the narrow street. As we panted along, the dark smoke whirled in our faces, and a dangerous shower of red-hot cinders sizzled about us. Do you know, I don't believe I was ever so homesick in all my life!"

"Homesick?" gasped the listener. "Homesick at a time like that?"

"Sure. I live in Pittsburg, you know."

PLAY

The mother heard a great commotion, as of cyclones mixed up with battering-rams, and she hurried upstairs to discover what was the matter. There she found Tommie sitting in the middle of the floor with a broad smile on his face.

"Oh, Mama," said he delightedly, "I've locked Grandpa and Uncle George in the cupboard, and when they get a little angrier I am going to play Daniel in the lion's den."

PLEASURE

BILLY--"Huh! I bet you didn't have a good time at your birthday party yesterday."

WILLIE--"I bet I did."

BILLY--"Then why ain't you sick today?"

Winnie had been very naughty, and her mamma said: "Don't you know you will never go to Heaven if you are so naughty?"

After thinking a moment she said: "Oh, well, I have been to the circus once and 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' twice. I can't expect to go everywhere."

In Concord, New Hampshire, they tell of an old chap who made his wife keep a cash account. Each week he would go over it, growling and grumbling. On one such occasion he delivered himself of the following:

"Look here, Sarah, mustard-plasters, fifty cents; three teeth extracted, two dollars! There's two dollars and a half in one week spent for your own private pleasure. Do you think I am made of money?"

Here's to beauty, wit and wine and to a full stomach, a full purse and a light heart.

A dinner, coffee and cigars, Of friends, a half a score. Each favorite vintage in its turn,-- What man could wish for more?

The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him who plucks them; for they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.--_Hannah More_.

_See also_ Amusements.

POETRY

Poetry is a gift we are told, but most editors won't take it even at that.

POETS

EDITOR--"Have you submitted this poem anywhere else?"

JOKESMITH--"No, sir."

EDITOR--"Then where did you get that black eye?"--_Satire_.

"Why is it," asked the persistent poetess, "that you always insist that we write on one side of the paper only? Why not on both?"

In that moment the editor experienced an access of courage--courage to protest against the accumulated wrongs of his kind.

"One side of the paper, madame," he made answer, "is in the nature of a compromise."

"A compromise?"

"A compromise. What we really desire, if we could have our way, is not one, or both, but neither."

Sir Lewis Morris was complaining to Oscar Wilde about the neglect of his poems by the press. "It is a complete conspiracy of silence against me, a conspiracy of silence. What ought I to do, Oscar?" "Join it," replied Wilde.

God's prophets of the Beautiful, These Poets were.

--_E.B. Browning_.

We call those poets who are first to mark Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,-- Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, While others only note that day is gone.

--_O.W. Holmes_.

POLICE

A man who was "wanted" in Russia had been photographed in six different positions, and the pictures duly circulated among the police department. A few days later the chief of police wrote to headquarters: "Sir, I have duly received the portraits of the six miscreants. I have arrested five of them, and the sixth will be secured shortly."

"I had a message from the Black Hand," said the resident of Graftburg. "They told me to leave $2,000 in a vacant house in a certain street."

"Did you tell the police?"

"Right away."

"What did they do?"

"They said that while I was about it I might leave them a couple of thousand in the same place."

Recipe for a policeman:

To a quart of boiling temper add a pint of Irish stew Together with cracked nuts, long beats and slugs; Serve hot with mangled citizens who ask the time of day-- The receipt is much the same for making thugs.

--_Life_.

_See also_ Servants.

POLITENESS

_See_ Courtesy; Etiquet.

POLITICAL PARTIES

ZOO SUPERINTENDENT--"What was all the rumpus out there this morning?"

ATTENDANT--"The bull moose and the elephant were fighting over their feed."

"What happened?"

"The donkey ate it."--_Life_.

POLITICIANS

Politicians always belong to the opposite party.

The man who goes into politics as a business has no business to go into politics.--_Life_.

A political orator, evidently better acquainted with western geography than with the language of the Greeks, recently exclaimed with fervor that his principles should prevail "from Alpha to Omaha."