Chapter 25

"Only if you had been bitten by a snake," said the drummer. "They have only one snake in town, and when I got to it the other day after standing in line for nearly half a day it was too tired to bite."

It was prohibition country. As soon as the train pulled up, a seedy little man with a covered basket on his arm hurried to the open windows of the smoker and exhibited a quart bottle filled with rich, dark fluid.

"Want to buy some nice cold tea?" he asked, with just the suspicion of a wink.

Two thirsty-looking cattlemen brightened visibly, and each paid a dollar for a bottle.

"Wait until you get outer the station before you take a drink," the little man cautioned them. "I don't wanter get in trouble."

He found three other customers before the train pulled out, in each case repeating his warning.

"You seem to be doing a pretty good business," remarked a man who had watched it all. "But I don't see why you'd run any more risk of getting in trouble if they took a drink before the train started."

"Ye don't, hey? Well, what them bottles had in 'em, pardner, was real cold tea."

PROMOTING

Mr. Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, at the British North Borneo dinner, said that a City friend of his was approached with a view to floating a rubber company. His friend was quite ready. "How many trees have you?" he asked. "We have not got any trees," was the answer. "How much land have you?" "We have no land." "What then have you got?" "I have a bag of seeds!"

There are many tales about the caution of Russell Sage and the cleverness with which he outwitted those who sought to get some of his money from him. Two brilliant promoters went to him one time and presented a scheme. The financier listened for an hour, and when they departed they were told that Mr. Sage's decision would be mailed to them in a few days.

"I think we have got Uncle Russell," said one of the promoters. "I really believe we have won his confidence."

"I fear not," observed the other doubtfully. "He is too suspicious."

"Suspicious? I didn't observe any sign of it."

"Didn't you notice that he counted his fingers after I had shaken hands with him and we were coming away?"

PROMOTION

Promotion cometh neither from the east nor the west, but from the cemetery.--_Edward Sanford Martin_.

PROMPTNESS

"Are you first in anything at school, Earlie?"

"First out of the building when the bell rings."

The head of a large business house bought a number of those "Do it now" signs and hung them up around his offices. When, after the first few days of those signs, the business man counted up the results, he found that the cashier had skipped out with $20,000, the head bookkeeper had eloped with the stenographer, three clerks had asked for a raise in salary, and the office boy had lit out for the west to become a highwayman.

"Are you waiting for me, dear?" she said, coming downstairs at last, after spending half an hour fixing her hat.

"Waiting," exclaimed the impatient man. "Oh no, not waiting--sojourning."

PRONUNCIATION

A tale is told of a Kansas minister, a great precisionist in the use of words, whose exactness sometimes destroyed the force of what he was saying. On one occasion, in the course of an eloquent prayer, he pleaded:

"O Lord! waken thy cause in the hearts of this congregation and give them new eyes to see and new impulse to do. Send down Thy lev-er or lee-ver, according to Webster's or Worcester's dictionary, whichever Thou usest, and pry them into activity."

"I'm at the head of my class, pa," said Willie.

"Dear me, son, how did that happen?" cried his father.

"Why, the teacher asked us this morning how to pronounce C-h-i-h-u-a-h-u-a, and nobody knew," said Willie, "but when she got down to me I sneezed and she said that was right."

_See also_ Liars.

PROPORTION

A middle-aged colored woman in a Georgia village, hearing a commotion in a neighbor's cabin, looked in at the door. On the floor lay a small boy writhing in great distress while his mother bent solicitously over him.

"What-all's de matter wif de chile?" asked the visitor sympathetically.

"I spec's hit's too much watermillion," responded the mother.

"Ho! go 'long wif you," protested the visitor scornfully. "Dey cyan't never be too much watermillion. Hit mus' be dat dere ain't enough boy."

PROPOSALS

A love-smitten youth who was studying the approved method of proposal asked one of his bachelor friends if he thought that a young man should propose to a girl on his knees.

"If he doesn't," replied his friend, "the girl should get off."

A gentleman who had been in Chicago only three days, but who had been paying attention to a prominent Chicago belle, wanted to propose, but was afraid he would be thought too hasty. He delicately broached the subject as follows: "If I were to speak to you of marriage, after having only made your acquaintance three days ago, what would you say of it?"

"Well, I should say, never put off till tomorrow that which should have been done the day before yesterday."

There was a young man from the West, Who proposed to the girl he loved best, But so closely he pressed her To make her say, yes, sir, That he broke two cigars in his vest.

--_The Tobacconist_.

They were dining on fowl in a restaurant. "You see," he explained, as he showed her the wishbone, "you take hold here. Then we must both make a wish and pull, and when it breaks the one who has the bigger part of it will have his or her wish granted." "But I don't know what to wish for," she protested. "Oh! you can think of something," he said. "No, I can't," she replied; "I can't think of anything I want very much." "Well, I'll wish for you," he explained. "Will you, really?" she asked. "Yes." "Well, then there's no use fooling with the old wishbone," she interrupted with a glad smile, "you can have me."

"Dear May," wrote the young man, "pardon me, but I'm getting so forgetful. I proposed to you last night, but really forget whether you said yes or no."

"Dear Will," she replied by note, "so glad to hear from you. I know I said 'no' to some one last night, but I had forgotten just who it was."

The four Gerton girls were all good-looking; indeed, the three younger ones were beautiful; while Annie, the oldest, easily made up in capability and horse sense what she lacked in looks.

A young chap, very eligible, called on the girls frequently, but seemed unable to decide which to marry. So Annie put on her thinking cap, and, one evening when the young chap called, she appeared with her pretty arms bare to the elbow and her hands white with flour.

"Oh, you must excuse my appearance," she said. "I have been working in the kitchen all day. I baked bread and pies and cake this morning, and afterward, as the cook was ill, I prepared dinner."

"Miss Annie, is that so?" said the young man. He looked at her, deeply impressed. Then, after a moment's thought, he said:

"Miss Annie, there is a question I wish to ask you, and on your answer will depend much of my life's happiness."

"Yes?" she said, with a blush, and she drew a little nearer. "Yes? What is it?"

"Miss Annie," said the young man, in deep earnest tones, "I am thinking of proposing to your sister Kate--will you make your home with us?"

It was at Christmas, and he had been calling on her twice a week for six months, but had not proposed.

"Ethel," he said, "I--er--am going to ask you an important question."

"Oh, George," she exclaimed, "this is so sudden! Why, I--"

"No, excuse me," he interrupted; "what I want to ask is this: What date have you and your mother decided upon for our wedding?"

A Scotch beadle led the maiden of his choice to a churchyard and, pointing to the various headstones, said:

"My folks are all buried there, Jennie. Wad ye like to be buried there too?"

IMPECUNIOUS LOVER--"Be mine, Amanda, and you will be treated like an angel."

WEALTHY MAIDEN--"Yes, I suppose so. Nothing to eat, and less to wear. No, thank you."

The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.--_Douglas Jerrold_.

PROPRIETY

There was a young lady of Wilts, Who walked up to Scotland on stilts; When they said it was shocking To show so much stocking, She answered: "Then what about kilts?"

--_Gilbert K. Chesterton_.

PROSPERITY

May bad fortune follow you all your days And never catch up with you.

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH

One of our popular New England lecturers tells this amusing story.

A street boy of diminutive stature was trying to sell some very young kittens to passers-by. One day he accosted the late Reverend Phillips Brooks, asking him to purchase, and recommending them as good Episcopal kittens. Dr. Brooks laughingly refused, thinking them too small to be taken from their mother. A few days later a Presbyterian minister who had witnessed this episode was asked by the same boy to buy the same kittens. This time the lad announced that they were faithful Presbyterians.

"Didn't you tell Dr. Brooks last week that they were Episcopal kittens?" the minister asked sternly.

"Yes sir," replied the boy quickly, "but they's had their eyes opened since then, sir."

An Episcopal clergyman who was passing his vacation in a remote country district met an old farmer who declared that he was a "'Piscopal."

"To what parish do you belong?" asked the clergyman.

"Don't know nawthin' 'bout enny parish," was the answer.

"Who confirmed you, then?" was the next question.

"Nobody," answered the farmer.

"Then how are you an Episcopalian?" asked the clergyman.

"Well," was the reply, "you see it's this way: Last winter I went to church, an' it was called 'Piscopal, an' I heerd them say that they left undone the things what they'd oughter done and they'd done some things what they oughtenter done, and I says to myself says I: 'That's my fix exac'ly,' and ever sence then I've been a 'Piscopalian."

PROTESTANTS

A Protestant mission meeting had been held in an Irish town and this was the gardener's contribution to the controversy that ensued: "Pratestants!" he said with lofty scorn, "'Twas mighty little St. Paul thought of the Pratestants. You've all heard tell of the 'pistle he wrote to the Romans, but I'd ax ye this, did any of yez iver hear of his writing a 'pistle to the Pratestants?"

PROVIDENCE

"Why did papa have appendicitis and have to pay the doctor a thousand dollars, Mama?"

"It was God's will, dear."

"And was it because God was mad at papa or pleased with the doctor?"--_Life_.

There's a certain minister whose duties sometimes call him out of the city. He has always arranged for some one of his parishioners to keep company with his wife and little daughter during these absences. Recently, however, he was called away so suddenly that he had no opportunity of providing a guardian.

The wife was very brave during the early evening, but after dark had fallen her courage began to fail. She stayed up with her little girl till there was no excuse for staying any longer and then took her upstairs to bed.

"Now go to sleep, Dearie," she said. "Don't be afraid. God will protect you."

"Yes, Mother," answered the little girl, "that'll be all right tonight, but next time let's make better arrangements."

PROVINCIALISM

Some time ago an English friend of Colonel W.J. Lampton's living in New York and having never visited the South, went to Virginia to spend a month with friends. After a fortnight of it, he wrote back:

"Oh, I say, old top, you never told me that the South was anything like I have found it, and so different to the North. Why, man, it's God's country."

The Colonel, who gets his title from Kentucky, answered promptly by postal.

"Of course it is," he wrote. "You didn't suppose God was a Yankee, did you?"

A southerner, with the intense love for his own district, attended a banquet. The next day a friend asked him who was present. With a reminiscent smile he replied: "An elegant gentleman from Virginia, a gentleman from Kentucky, a man from Ohio, a bounder from Chicago, a fellow from New York, and a galoot from Maine."

They had driven fourteen miles to the lake, and then rowed six miles across the lake to get to the railroad station, when the Chicago man asked:

"How in the world do you get your mail and newspapers here in the winter when the storms are on?"

"Wa-al, we don't sometimes. I've seen this lake thick up so that it was three weeks before we got a Chicago paper," answered the man from "nowhere."

"Well, you were cut off," said the Chicago man.

"Ya-as, we were so," was the reply. "Still, the Chicago folks were just as badly off."

"How so?"

"Wa-al," drawled the man, "we didn't know what was going on in Chicago, of course. But then, neither did Chicago folks know what was going on down here."

PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATIONS

The attorney demanded to know how many secret societies the witness belonged to, whereupon the witness objected and appealed to the court.

"The court sees no harm in the question," answered the judge. "You may answer."

"Well, I belong to three."

"What are they?"

"The Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, and the gas company."

"Yes, he had some rare trouble with his eyes," said the celebrated oculist. "Every time he went to read he would read double."

"Poor fellow," remarked the sympathetic person. "I suppose that interfered with his holding a good position?"

"Not at all. The gas company gobbled him up and gave him a lucrative job reading gas-meters."

PUBLIC SPEAKERS

ORATOR--"I thought your paper was friendly to me?"

EDITOR--"So it is. What's the matter?"

ORATOR--"I made a speech at the dinner last night, and you didn't print a line of it."

EDITOR--"Well, what further proof do you want?"

TRAVELING LECTURER FOR SOCIETY (to the remaining listener)--"I should like to thank you, sir, for so attentively hearing me to the end of a rather too long speech."

LOCAL MEMBER OF SOCIETY--"Not at all, sir. I'm the second speaker."

Ex-senator Spooner of Wisconsin says the best speech of introduction he ever heard was delivered by the German mayor of a small town in Wisconsin, where Spooner had been engaged to speak.

The mayor said:

"Ladies und shentlemens, I haf been asked to indrotoose you to the Honorable Senator Spooner, who vill make to you a speech, yes. I haf now done so; he vill now do so."

"When I arose to speak," related a martyred statesman, "some one hurled a base, cowardly egg at me and it struck me in the chest."

"And what kind of an egg might that be?" asked a fresh young man.

"A base, cowardly egg," explained the statesman, "is one that hits you and then runs."

"Uncle Joe" Cannon has a way of speaking his mind that is sometimes embarrassing to others. On one occasion an inexperienced young fellow was called upon to make a speech at a banquet at which ex-speaker Cannon was also present.

"Gentlemen," began the young fellow, "my opinion is that the generality of mankind in general is disposed to take advantage of the generality of--"

"Sit down, son," interrupted "Uncle Joe." "You are coming out of the same hole you went in at."

A South African tribe has an effective method of dealing with bores, which might be adopted by Western peoples. This simple tribe considers long speeches injurious to the orator and his hearers; so to protect both there is an unwritten law that every public orator must stand on only one leg when he is addressing an audience. As soon as he has to place the other leg on the ground his oration is brought to a close, by main force, if necessary.

A rather turgid orator, noted for his verbosity and heaviness, was once assigned to do some campaigning in a mining camp in the mountains. There were about fifty miners present when he began; but when, at the end of a couple of hours, he gave no sign of finishing, his listeners dropped away.

Some went back to work, but the majority sought places to quench their thirst, which had been aggravated by the dryness of the discourse.

Finally there was only one auditor left, a dilapidated, weary-looking old fellow. Fixing his gaze on him, the orator pulled out a large six-shooter and laid it on the table. The old fellow rose slowly and drawled out:

"Be you going to shoot if I go?"

"You bet I am," replied the speaker. "I'm bound to finish my speech, even if I have to shoot to keep an audience."

The old fellow sighed in a tired manner, and edged slowly away, saying as he did so:

"Well, shoot if you want to. I may jest as well be shot as talked to death."

The self-made millionaire who had endowed the school had been invited to make the opening speech at the commencement exercises. He had not often had a chance of speaking before the public and he was resolved to make the most of it. He dragged his address out most tiresomely, repeating the same thought over and over. Unable to stand it any longer a couple of boys in the rear of the room slipped out. A coachman who was waiting outside asked them if the millionaire had finished his speech.

"Gee, yes!" replied the boys, "but he won't stop."

Mark Twain once told this story:

"Some years ago in Hartford, we all went to church one hot, sweltering night to hear the annual report of Mr. Hawley, a city missionary who went around finding people who needed help and didn't want to ask for it. He told of the life in cellars, where poverty resided; he gave instances of the heroism and devotion of the poor. When a man with millions gives, he said, we make a great deal of noise. It's a noise in the wrong place, for it's the widow's mite that counts. Well, Hawley worked me up to a great pitch. I could hardly wait for him to get through. I had $400 in my pocket. I wanted to give that and borrow more to give. You could see greenbacks in every eye. But instead of passing the plate then, he kept on talking and talking and talking, and as he talked it grew hotter and hotter and hotter, and we grew sleepier and sleepier and sleepier. My enthusiasm went down, down, down, down--$100 at a clip--until finally, when the plate did come around, I stole ten cents out of it. It all goes to show how a little thing like this can lead to crime."

_See also_ After dinner speeches; Candidates; Politicians.

PUNISHMENT

A parent who evidently disapproved of corporal punishment wrote the teacher:

"Dear Miss: Don't hit our Johnnie. We never do it at home except in self-defense."

"No, sirree!" ejaculated Bunkerton. "There wasn't any of that nonsense in my family. My father never thrashed me in all his life."

"Too bad, too bad," sighed Hickenlooper. "Another wreck due to a misplaced switch."

James the Second, when Duke of York, made a visit to Milton, the poet, and asked him among other things, if he did not think the loss of his sight a judgment upon him for what he had writen against his father, Charles the First. Milton answered: "If your Highness think my loss of sight a _judgment_ upon me, what do you think of your father's losing his head."--_Life_.

A white man during reconstruction times was arraigned before a colored justice of the peace for killing a man and stealing his mule. It was in Arkansas, near the Texas border, and there was some rivalry between the states, but the colored justice tried to preserve an impartial frame of mind.

"We's got two kinds ob law in dis yer co't," he said: "Texas law an' Arkansas law. Which will you hab?"

The prisoner thought a minute and then guessed that he would take the Arkansas law.

"Den I discharge you fo' stealin' de mule, an' hang you fo' killin' de man."

"Hold on a minute, Judge," said the prisoner. "Better make that Texas law."

"All right. Den I fin' you fo' killin' de man, an' hang you fo' stealin' de mule."

A lawyer was defending a man accused of housebreaking, and said to the court:

"Your Honor, I submit that my client did not break into the house at all. He found the parlor window open and merely inserted his right arm and removed a few trifling articles. Now, my client's arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offense committed by only one of his limbs."

"That argument," said the judge, "is very well put. Following it logically, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he chooses."

The defendant smiled, and with his lawyer's assistance unscrewed his cork arm, and, leaving it in the dock, walked out.

Muriel, a five-year-old subject of King George, has been thought by her parents too young to feel the weight of the rod, and has been ruled by moral suasion alone. But when, the other day, she achieved disobedience three times in five minutes, more vigorous measures were called for, and her mother took an ivory paper-knife from the table and struck her smartly across her little bare legs. Muriel looked astounded. Her mother explained the reason for the blow. Muriel thought deeply for a moment. Then, turning toward the door with a grave and disapproving countenance, she announced in her clear little English voice:

"I'm going up-stairs to tell God about that paper-knife. And then I shall tell Jesus. And if _that_ doesn't do, I shall put flannel on my legs!"

During the reconstruction days of Virginia, a negro was convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to be hanged. On the morning of the execution he mounted the scaffold with reasonable calmness. Just before the noose was to be placed around his neck the sheriff asked him if he had anything to say. He studied a moment and said:

"No, suh, boss, thankee, suh, 'ceptin' dis is sho gwine to be a lesson to me."

"What punishment did that defaulting banker get?" "I understand his lawyer charged him $40,000."

An Indian in Washington County once sized up Maine's game laws thus: "Kill cow moose, pay $100; kill man, too bad!"

TEACHER--"Willie, did your father cane you for what you did in school yesterday?"

PUPIL--"No, ma'am; he said the licking would hurt him more than it would me."

TEACHER--"What rot! Your father is too sympathetic."

PUPIL--"No, ma'am; but he's got the rheumatism in both arms."

"Boohoo! Boohoo!" wailed little Johnny.

"Why, what's the matter, dear?" his mother asked comfortingly.

"Boohoo--er--p-picture fell on papa's toes."

"Well, dear, that's too bad, but you mustn't cry about it, you know."

"I d-d-didn't. I laughed. Boohoo! Boohoo!"

The fact that corporal punishment is discouraged in the public schools of Chicago is what led Bobby's teacher to address this note to the boy's mother:

DEAR MADAM:--I regret very much to have to tell you that your son, Robert, idles away his time, is disobedient, quarrelsome, and disturbs the pupils who are trying to study their lessons. He needs a good whipping and I strongly recommend that you give him one.

Yours truly,

Miss Blank.

To this Bobby's mother responded as follows:

Dear Miss Blanks--Lick him yourself. I ain't mad at him.

Yours truly,

Mrs. Dash.

A little fellow who was being subjected to a whipping pinched his father under the knee. "Willie, you bad boy! How dare you do that?" asked the parent wrathfully.

A pause. Then Willie answered between sobs: "Well, Father, who started this war, anyway?"

A little girl about three years old was sent upstairs and told to sit on a certain chair that was in the corner of her room, as a punishment for something she had done but a few minutes before.

Soon the silence was broken by the little one's question: "Mother, may I come down now?"

"No, you sit right where you are."

"All right, 'cause I'm sittin' on your best hat."

It is less to suffer punishment than to deserve it.--_Ovid_.

If Jupiter hurled his thunderbolt as often as men sinned, he would soon be out of thunderbolts.--_Ovid_.

_See also_ Church discipline; Future life; Marriage.

PUNS

A father once said to his son, "The next time you make up a pun, Go out in the yard And kick yourself hard, And I will begin when you've done."

PURE FOOD