Chapter 31

"And what did he say?" asked the diplomat.

"Sh-h," cautioned the host, glancing anxiously about him. "He doesn't know that I have got it back."

Senator "Bob" Taylor, of Tennessee, tells a story of how, when he was "Fiddling Bob," governor of that state, an old negress came to him and said:

"Massa Gov'na, we's mighty po' this winter, and Ah wish you would pardon mah old man. He is a fiddler same as you is, and he's in the pen'tentry."

"What was he put in for?" asked the governor.

"Stead of workin' fo' it that good-fo'-nothin' nigger done stole some bacon."

"If he is good for nothing what do you want him back for?"

"Well, yo' see, we's all out of bacon ag'in," said the old negress innocently.

"Did ye see as Jim got ten years' penal for stealing that 'oss?"

"Serve 'im right, too. Why didn't 'e buy the 'oss and not pay for 'im like any other gentleman?"

Some time ago a crowd of Bowery sports went over to Philadelphia to see a prize fight. One "wise guy," who, among other things, is something of a pickpocket, was so sure of the result that he was willing to bet on it.

"The Kid's goin' t' win. It's a pipe," he told a friend.

The friend expressed doubts.

"Sure he'll win," the pickpocket persisted. "I'll bet you a gold watch he wins."

Still the friend doubted.

"Why," exclaimed the pickpocket, "I'm willin' to bet you a good gold watch he wins! Y' know what I'll do? Come through the train with me now, an' y' can pick out any old watch y' like."

In vain we call old notions fudge And bend our conscience to our dealing.

The Ten Commandments will not budge And stealing will continue stealing.

--_Motto of American Copyright League_.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

--_Shakespeare_.

_See also_ Chicken stealing; Lawyers; Lost and found.

THIN PEOPLE

There was an old fellow named Green, Who grew so abnormally lean, And flat, and compressed, That his back touched his chest, And sideways he couldn't be seen.

There was a young lady of Lynn, Who was so excessively thin, That when she essayed To drink lemonade She slipped through the straw and fell in.

THRIFT

It was said of a certain village "innocent" or fool in Scotland that if he were offered a silver sixpence or copper penny he would invariably choose the larger coin of smaller value. One day a stranger asked him:

"Why do you always take the penny? Don't you know the difference in value?

"Aye," answered the fool, "I ken the difference in value. But if I took the saxpence they would never try me again."

The Mrs. never misses Any bargain sale, For the female of the species Is more thrifty than the male.

MCANDREWS (the chemist, at two A.M.)--"Two penn'orth of bicarbonate of soda for indigestion at this time o' night, when a glass of hot water does just as well!"

SANDY (hastily)--"Well, well! Thanks for the advice. I'll not bother ye, after all. Gude nicht!"

The foreman and his crew of bridgemen were striving hard to make an impression on the select board provided by Mrs. Rooney at her Arkansas eating establishment.

"The old man sure made a funny deal down at Piney yesterday," observed the foreman, with a wink at the man to his right.

"What'd he do?" asked the new man at the other end of the table.

"Well, a year or so ago there used to be a water tank there, but they took down the tub and brought it up to Cabin Creek. The well went dry and they covered it over. It was four or five feet round, ninety feet deep, and plumb in the right of way. Didn't know what to do with it until along comes an old lollypop yesterday and gives the Old Man five dollars for it."

"Five dollars for what?" asked the new man.

"Well," continued the foreman, ignoring the interruption, "that old lollypop borrowed two jacks from the trackmen and jacked her up out of there and carried her home on wheels.'

"What'd he do with it?" persisted the new man.

"Say that old lollypop must've been a Yank. Nobody else could have figured it out. The ground on his place is hard and he needed some more fence. So he calc'lated 'twould be easier and cheaper to saw that old well up into post-holes than 'twould be to dig 'em."

A certain workman, notorious for his sponging proclivities, met a friend one morning, and opened the conversation by saying:

"Can ye len' us a match, John?"

John having supplied him with the match, the first speaker began to feel his pockets ostentatiously, and then remarked dolefully, "Man, I seem to have left my tobacco pouch at hame."

John, however, was equal to the occasion, and holding out his hand, remarked:

"Aweel, ye'll no be needin' that match then."

A Highlander was summoned to the bedside of his dying father. When he arrived the old man was fast nearing his end. For a while he remained unconscious of his son's presence. Then at last the old man's eyes opened, and he began to murmur. The son bent eagerly to listen.

"Dugald," whispered the parent, "Luckie Simpson owes me five shilling."

"Ay, man, ay," said the son eagerly.

"An" Dugal More owes me seven shillins."

"Ay," assented the son.

"An' Hamish McCraw owes me ten shillins."

"Sensible tae the last," muttered the delighted heir. "Sensible tae the last."

Once more the voice from the bed took up the tale.

"An', Dugald, I owe Calum Beg two pounds."

Dugald shook his head sadly.

"Wanderin' again, wanderin' again," he sighed. "It's a peety."

The canny Scot wandered into the pharmacy.

"I'm wanting threepenn'orth o' laudanum," he announced.

"What for?" asked the chemist suspiciously.

"For twopence," responded the Scot at once.

A Scotsman wishing to know his fate at once, telegraphed a proposal of marriage to the lady of his choice. After spending the entire day at the telegraph office he was finally rewarded late in the evening by an affirmative answer.

"If I were you," suggested the operator when he delivered the message, "I'd think twice before I'd marry a girl that kept me waiting all day for my answer."

"Na, na," retorted the Scot. "The lass who waits for the night rates is the lass for me."

"Well, yes," said Old Uncle Lazzenberry, who was intimately acquainted with most of the happenstances of the village, "Almira Stang has broken off her engagement with Charles Henry Tootwiler. They'd be goin' together for about eight years, durin' which time she had been inculcatin' into him, as you might call it, the beauties of economy; but when she discovered, just lately, that he had learnt his lesson so well that he had saved up two hundred and seventeen pairs of socks for her to darn immediately after the wedding, she 'peared to conclude that he had taken her advice a little too literally, and broke off the match."--_Puck_.

They sat each at an extreme end of the horsehair sofa. They had been courting now for something like two years, but the wide gap between had always been respectfully preserved.

"A penny for your thochts, Sandy," murmured Maggie, after a silence of an hour and a half.

"Weel," replied Sandy slowly, with surprising boldness, "tae tell ye the truth, I was jist thinkin' how fine it wad be if ye were tae gie me a wee bit kissie."

"I've nae objection," simpered Maggie, slithering over, and kissed him plumply on the tip of his left ear.

Sandy relapsed into a brown study once more, and the clock ticked twenty-seven minutes.

"An' what are ye thinkin' about noo--anither, eh?"

"Nae, nae, lassie; it's mair serious the noo."

"Is it, laddie?" asked Maggie softly. Her heart was going pit-a-pat with expectation. "An' what micht it be?"

"I was jist thinkin'," answered Sandy, "that it was aboot time ye were paying me that penny!"

The coward calls himself cautious, the miser thrifty.--_Syrus_.

There are but two ways of paying debt: increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.--_Carlyle_.

_See also_ Economy; Saving.

TIDES

A Kansan sat on the beach at Atlantic City watching a fair and very fat bather disporting herself in the surf. He knew nothing of tides, and he did not notice that each succeeding wave came a little closer to his feet. At last an extra big wave washed over his shoe tops.

"Hey, there!" he yelled at the fair, fat bather. "Quit yer jumpin' up and down! D'ye want to drown me?"

At a recent Confederate reunion in Charleston, S.C., two Kentuckians were viewing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

"Say, cap'n," said one of them, "what ought I to carry home to the children for a souvenir?"

"Why, colonel, it strikes me that some of this here ocean water would be right interestin'."

"Just the thing!" exclaimed the colonel delightedly. From a rear pocket he produced a flask, and, with the aid of the captain, soon emptied it. Then, picking his way down to the water's edge, he filled it to the neck and replaced the cork.

"Hi, there! Don't do that!" cried the captain in great alarm. "Pour out about a third of that water. If you don't, when the tide rises she'll bust sure."

Nae man can tether time or tide.--_Burns_.

TIME

Mrs. Hooligan was suffering from the common complaint of having more to do than there was time to do it in. She looked up at the clock and then slapped the iron she had lifted from the stove back on the lid with a clatter. "Talk about toime and toide waitin' fer no man," she muttered as she hurried into the pantry; "there's toimes they waits, an' toimes they don't. Yistherday at this blessed minit 'twas but tin o'clock an' to-day it's a quarther to twilve."

MRS. MURPHY--"Oi hear yer brother-in-law, Pat Keegan, is pretty bad off."

MRS. CASEY--"Shure, he's good for a year yit."

MRS. MURPHY--"As long as thot?"

MRS. CASEY--"Yis; he's had four different doctors, and each one av thim give him three months to live."--_Puck_.

A long-winded attorney was arguing a technical case before one of the judges of the superior court in a western state. He had rambled on in such a desultory way that it became very difficult to follow his line of thought, and the judge had just yawned very suggestively.

With just a trace of sarcasm in his voice, the tiresome attorney ventured to observe: "I sincerely trust that I am not unduly trespassing on the time of this court."

"My friend," returned his honor, "there is a considerable difference between trespassing on time and encroaching upon eternity."--_Edwin Tarrisse_.

A traveler, finding that he had a couple of hours in Dublin, called a cab and told the driver to drive him around for two hours. At first all went well, but soon the driver began to whip up his horse so that they narrowly escaped several collisions.

"What's the matter?" demanded the passenger. "Why are you driving so recklessly? I'm in no hurry."

"Ah, g'wan wid yez," retorted the cabby. "D'ye think thot I'm goin' to put in me whole day drivin' ye around for two hours? Gitap!"

Frank comes into the house in a sorry plight.

"Mercy on us!" exclaims his father. "How you look! You are soaked."

"Please, papa, I fell into the canal."

"What! with your new trousers on?"

"Yes, papa, I didn't have time to take them off."

A well-known Bishop, while visiting at a bride's new home for the first time, was awakened quite early by the soft tones of a soprano voice singing "Nearer, My God, to Thee." As the Bishop lay in bed he meditated upon the piety which his young hostess must possess to enable her to begin her day's work in such a beautiful frame of mind.

At breakfast he spoke to her about it, and told her how pleased he was.

"Oh," she replied, "that's the hymn I boil the eggs by; three verses for soft and five for hard."

There was a young woman named Sue, Who wanted to catch the 2:02; Said the trainman, "Don't hurry Or flurry or worry; It's a minute or two to 2:02."

FATHER--"Mildred, if you disobey again I will surely spank you."

On father's return home that evening, Mildred once more acknowledged that she had again disobeyed.

FATHER (firmly)--"You are going to be spanked. You may choose your own time. When shall it be?"

MILDRED (five years old, thoughtfully)--"Yesterday."

A northerner passing a rundown looking place in the South, stopped to chat with the farmer. He noticed the hogs running wild and explained that in the North the farmers fattened their hogs much faster by shutting them in and feeding them well.

"Hell!" replied the southerner, "What's time to a hog."

Dost thou love life? Then waste not time; for time is the stuff that life is made of.--_Benjamin Franklin_.

Time fleeth on, Youth soon is gone, Naught earthly may abide; Life seemeth fast, But may not last It runs as runs the tide.

--_Leland_.

_See also_ Scientific management.

TIPS

American travelers in Europe experience a great deal of trouble from the omnipresent need of tipping those from whom they expect any service, however slight. They are very apt to carry it much too far, or else attempt to resist it altogether. There is a story told of a wealthy and ostentatious American in a Parisian restaurant. As the waiter placed the order before him he said in a loud voice:

"Waiter, what is largest tip you ever received?"

"One thousand francs, monsieur."

"_Eh bien_! But I will give you two thousand," answered the upholder of American honor; and then in a moment he added: "May I ask who gave you the thousand francs?"

"It was yourself, monsieur," said the obsequious waiter.

Of quite an opposite mode of thought was another American visiting London for the first time. Goaded to desperation by the incessant necessity for tips, he finally entered the washroom of his hotel, only to be faced with a large sign which read: "Please tip the basin after using." "I'm hanged if I will!" said the Yankee, turning on his heel, "I'll go dirty first!"

Grant Alien relates that he was sitting one day under the shade of the Sphinx, turning for some petty point of detail to his Baedeker.

A sheik looked at him sadly, and shook his head. "Murray good," he said in a solemn voice of warning; "Baedeker no good. What for you see Baedeker?"

"No, no; Baedeker is best," answered Mr. Alien. "Why do you object to Baedeker?"

The shick crossed his hands, and looked down at him with the pitying eyes of Islam. "Baedeker bad book," he repeated; "Murray very, very good. Murray say, 'Give the sheik half a crown'; Baedeker say, 'Give the sheik a shilling.'"

"What do you consider the most important event in the history of Paris?"

"Well," replied the tourist, who had grown weary of distributing tips, "so far as financial prosperity is concerned, I should say the discovery of America was the making of this town."

In telling this one, Miss Glaser always states that she does not want it understood that she considers the Scotch people at all stingy; but they are a very careful and thrifty race.

An intimate friend of her's was very anxious to have a well known Scotchman meet Miss Glaser, and gave her a letter of introduction to him. Miss Glaser, wishing to show him all the attention possible, invited him to a dinner which she was giving in London and after rather an elaborate repast the bill was paid, the waiter returning five shillings. She let it lie, intending, of course, to give it to the waiter. The Scotchman glanced at the money very frequently, and finally he said, his natural thrift getting the best of him:

"Are you going to give all that to the waiter?"

In a inimitable way, Miss Glaser quietly replied:

"No, take some."

"A tip is a small sum of money you give to somebody because you're afraid he won't like not being paid for something you haven't asked him to do."--_The Bailie, Glasgow_.

TITLES OF HONOR AND NOBILITY

An English lord was traveling through this country with a small party of friends. At a farmhouse the owner invited the party in to supper. The good housewife, while preparing the table, discovering she was entertaining nobility, was nearly overcome with surprise and elation.

While seated at the table scarcely a moment's peace did she grant her distinguished guest in her endeavor to serve and please him. It was "My Lord, will you have some of this?" and "My Lord, do try that," "Take a piece of this, my Lord," until the meal was nearly finished.

The little four-year-old son of the family, heretofore unnoticed, during a moment of supreme quiet saw his lordship trying to reach the pickle-dish, which was just out of his reach, and turning to his mother said:

"Say, Ma, God wants a pickle."

Dean Stanley was once visiting a friend who gave one of the pages strict orders that in the morning he was to go and knock at the Dean's door, and when the Dean inquired who was knocking he was to say: "The boy, my Lord." According to directions he knocked and the Dean asked: "Who is there?" Embarrassed by the voice of the great man the page answered: "The Lord, my boy."

"How did he get his title of colonel?"

"He got it to distinguish him from his wife's first husband, who was a captain, and his wife's second husband, who was a major."

For titles do not reflect honor on men, but rather men on their titles.--_Machiavelli_.

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an "Honest Man."--_George Washington_.

TOASTS

_See_ Drinking; Good fellowship; Woman.

TOBACCO

"Tobaccy wanst saved my life," said Paddy Blake, an inveterate smoker. "How was that?" inquired his companion. "Ye see, I was diggin' a well, and came up for a good smoke, and while I was up the well caved in."

_See also_ Smoking.

TOURISTS

_See_ Liars; Travelers.

TRADE UNIONS

CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE--"Is this the place where you are happy all the time?"

ST. PETER (proudly)--"It is, sir."

"Well, I represent the union, and if we come in we can only agree to be happy eight hours a day."

TRAMPS

LADY--"Can't you find work?"

TRAMP--"Yessum; but everyone wants a reference from my last employer."

LADY--"And can't you get one?"

TRAMP--"No, mum. Yer see, he's been dead twenty-eight years."

TRANSMUTATION

Fred Stone, of Montgomery and Stone fame, and Eugene Wood, whose stories and essays are well known, met on Broadway recently. They stopped for a moment to exchange a few cheerful views, when a woman in a particularly noticeable sheath-gown passed. Simultaneously, Wood turned to Stone; Stone turned to Wood; then both turned to rubber.

TRAVELERS

An American tourist, who was stopping in Tokio had visited every point of interest and had seen everything to be seen except a Shinto funeral. Finally she appealed to the Japanese clerk of the hotel, asking him to instruct her guide to take her to one. The clerk was politeness itself. He bowed gravely and replied: "I am very sorry, Madam, but this is not the season for funerals."

A gentleman whose travel-talks are known throughout the world tells the following on himself:

"I was booked for a lecture one night at a little place in Scotland four miles from a railway station.

"The 'chairman' of the occasion, after introducing me as 'the mon wha's coom here tae broaden oor intellects,' said that he felt a wee bit of prayer would not be out of place.

"'O Lord,' he continued, 'put it intae the heart of this mon tae speak the truth, the hale truth, and naething but the truth, and gie us grace tae understan' him.'

"Then, with a glance at me, the chairman said, 'I've been a traveler meself!'"--_Fenimore Marlin_.

Two young Americans touring Italy for the first time stopped off one night at Pisa, where they fell in with a convivial party at a cafe. Going hilariously home one pushed the other against a building and held him there.

"Great heavens!" cried the man next the wall, suddenly glancing up at the structure above him. "See what we're doing!" Both roisterers fled.

They left town on an early morning train, not thinking it safe to stay over and see the famous leaning tower.

Mr. Hiram Jones had just returned from a personally conducted tour of Europe.

"I suppose," commented a friend, "that when you were in England you did as the English do and dropped your H's."

"No," moodily responded the returned traveller; "I didn't. I did as the Americans do. I dropped my V's and X's."

Then he slowly meandered down to the bank to see if he couldn't get the mortgage extended.--_W. Hanny_.

A number of tourists were recently looking down the crater of Vesuvius. An American gentleman said to his companion.

"That looks a good deal like the infernal regions."

An English lady, overhearing the remark, said to another:

"Good gracious! How these Americans do travel."

An American tourist hailing from the west was out sight-seeing in London. They took him aboard the old battle-ship _Victory_, which was Lord Nelson's flagship in several of his most famous naval triumphs. An English sailor escorted the American over the vessel, and coming to a raised brass tablet on the deck he said, as he reverently removed his hat:

"'Ere, sir, is the spot where Lord Nelson fell."

"Oh, is it?" replied the American, blankly. "Well, that ain't nothin'. I nearly tripped on the blame thing myself."

On one of the famous scenic routes of the west there is a brakeman who has lost the forefinger of his right hand.

His present assignment as rear-end brakeman on a passenger train places him in the observation car, where he is the target for an almost unceasing fusillade of questions from tourists who insist upon having the name, and, if possible, the history, of all the mountain cañons and points of interest along the route.

One especially enthusiastic lady tourist had kept up her Gattling fire of questions until she had thoroughly mastered the geography of the country. Then she ventured to ask the brakeman how he had lost his finger:

"Cut off in making a coupling between cars, I suppose?"

"No, madam; I wore that finger off pointing out scenery to tourists."

Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof.--_Fuller_.

When I was at home, I was in a better place; but travelers must be content.--_Shakespeare_.

As the Spanish proverb says, "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." So it is in traveling: a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.--_Samuel Johnson_.

TREASON

It was during the Parnell agitation in Ireland that an anti-Parnellite, criticising the ways of tenants in treating absentee landlords, exclaimed to Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia: "Why, it looks very much like treason."

Instantly came the answer in the Archbishop's best brogue: "Sure, treason is reason when there's an absent 't'."

Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

TREES

CURIOUS CHARLEY--"Do nuts grow on trees, father?"

FATHER--"They do, my son."

CURIOUS CHARLEY--"Then what tree does the doughnut grow on?"

FATHER--"The pantry, my son."

TRIGONOMETRY

A prisoner was brought before a police magistrate. He looked around and discovered that his clerk was absent. "Here, officer," he said, "what's this man charged with?"

"Bigotry, your Honor," replied the policeman. "He's got three wives."

The magistrate looked at the officer as though astounded at such ignorance. "Why, officer," he said, "that's not bigotry--that's trigonometry."

TROUBLE

"What is the trouble, wifey?"

"Nothing."

"Yes, there is. What are you crying about, something that happened at home or something that happened in a novel?"

It was married men's night at the revival meeting.

"Let all you husbands who have troubles on your minds stand up!" shouted the preacher at the height of his spasm.

Instantly every man in the church arose except one.

"Ah!" exclaimed the preacher, peering out at this lone individual, who occupied a chair near the door. "You are one in a million."

"It ain't that," piped back this one helplessly as the rest of the congregation gazed suspiciously at him: "I can't get up--I'm paralyzed!"