Chapter 32

JUDGE--"Your innocence is proved. You are acquitted."

PRISONER (to the jury)--"Very sorry, indeed, gentlemen, to have given you all this trouble for nothing."

A friend of mine, returning to his home in Virginia after several years' absence, met one of the old negroes, a former servant of his family. "Uncle Moses," he said, "I hear you got married."

"Yes, Marse Tom, I is, and I's having a moughty troublesome time, Marse Tom, moughty troublesome."

"What's the trouble?" said my friend.

"Why, dat yaller woman, Marse Tom. She all de time axin' me fer money. She don't give me no peace."

"How long have you been married, Uncle Moses?"

"Nigh on ter two years, come dis spring."

"And how much money have you given her?"

"Well, I ain't done gin her none yit."--_Sue M.M. Halsey_.

If you want to forget all your other troubles, wear tight shoes.

Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three--all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.--_Edward Everett Hale_.

TRUSTS

A trust is known by the companies it keeps.--_Ellis O. Jones_.

TOMPKINS--"Ventley has received a million dollars for his patent egg dating machine. You know it is absolutely interference-proof, and dates correctly and indelibly as the egg is being laid."

DEWLEY--"Is the machine on the market yet?"

TOMKINS--"Oh, my no! and it won't be on the market. The patent was bought by the Cold Storage Trust."

TRUTH

There was a young lady named Ruth, Who had a great passion for truth. She said she would die Before she would lie, And she died in the prime of her youth.

Women do not really like to deceive their husbands, but they are too tender-hearted to make them unhappy by telling them the truth.

Nature ... has buried truth deep in the bottom of the sea.--_Democritus_.

"Tis strange--but true; for truth is always strange, Stranger than fiction."--_Byron_.

TURKEYS

"Ah," says the Christmas guest. "How I wish I could sit down to a Christmas dinner with one of those turkeys we raised on the farm, when I was a boy, as the central figure!"

"Well," says the host, "you never can tell. This may be one of them."--_Life_.

TUTORS

A tutor who tooted a flute Tried to teach two young tooters to toot. Said the two to the tutor, "Is it harder to toot, or To tutor two tutors to toot?"

--_Carolyn Wells_.

TWINS

"Faith, Mrs. O'Hara, how d' ye till thim twins aparrt?"

"Aw, 't is aisy--I sticks me finger in Dinnis's mouth, an' if he bites I know it's Moike."--_Harvard Lampoon_.

UMBRELLAS

A man left his umbrella in the stand in a hotel recently, with a card bearing the following inscription attached to it: "This umbrella belongs to a man who can deal a blow of 250 pounds weight. I shall be back in ten minutes." On returning to seek his property he found in its place a card thus inscribed: "This card was left here by a man who can run twelve miles an hour. I shall not be back."

A reputable citizen had left four umbrellas to be repaired. At noon he had luncheon in a restaurant, and as he was departing he absent-mindedly started to take an umbrella from a hook near his hat.

"That's mine, sir," said a woman at the next table.

He apologized and went out. When he was going home in a street car with his four repaired umbrellas, the woman he had seen in the restaurant got in. She glanced from him to his umbrellas and said:

"I see you had a good day."

"That's a swell umbrella you carry."

"Isn't it?"

"Did you come by it honestly?"

"I haven't quite figured out. It started to rain the other day and I stepped into a doorway to wait till it stopped. Then I saw a young fellow coming along with a nice large umbrella, and I thought if he was going as far as my house I would beg the shelter of his timbershoot. So I stepped out and asked: 'Where are you going with that umbrella, young fellow?' and he dropped the umbrella and ran."

One day a man exhibited a handsome umbrella. "It's wonderful how I make things last," he exclaimed. "Look at this umbrella, now. I bought it eleven years ago. Since then I had it recovered twice. I had new ribs put in in 1910, and last month I exchanged it for a new one in a restaurant. And here it is--as good as new."

VALUE

"The trouble with father," said the gilded youth, "is that he has no idea of the value of money."

"You don't mean to imply that he is a spendthrift?"

"Not at all. But he puts his money away and doesn't appear to have any appreciation of all the things he might buy with it."

VANITY

MCGORRY--"I'll buy yez no new hat, d' yez moind thot? Ye are vain enough ahlriddy."

MRS. MCGORRY--"Me vain? Oi'm not! Shure, Oi don't t'ink mesilf half as good lookin' as Oi am."

"Of course," said a suffragette lecturer, "I admit that women are vain and men are not. There are a thousand proofs that this is so. Why, the necktie of the handsomest man in the room is even now up the back of his collar." There were six men present and each of them put his hand gently behind his neck.

A New York woman of great beauty called one day upon a friend, bringing with her her eleven-year-old daughter, who gives promise of becoming as great a beauty as her mother.

It chanced that the callers were shown into a room where the friend had been receiving a milliner, and there were several beautiful hats lying about. During the conversation the little girl amused herself by examining the milliner's creations. Of the number that she tried on, she seemed particularly pleased with a large black affair which set off her light hair charmingly. Turning to her mother, the little girl said:

"I look just like you now, Mother, don't I?"

"Sh!" cautioned the mother, with uplifted finger. "Don't be vain, dear."

That which makes the vanity of others unbearable to us is that which wounds our own.--_La Rochefoucauld_.

VERSATILITY

A clergyman who advertised for an organist received this reply:

"_Dear Sir_:

"I notice you have a vacancy for an organist and music teacher, either lady or gentleman. Having been both for several years I beg to apply for the position."

VOICE

A lanky country youth entered the crossroads general store to order some groceries. He was seventeen years old and was passing through that stage of adolescence during which a boy seems all hands and feet, and his vocal organs, rapidly developing, are wont to cause his voice to undergo sudden and involuntary changes from high treble to low bass.

In an authoritative rumbling bass voice he demanded of the busy clerk, "Give me a can of corn" (then, his voice suddenly changing to a shrill falsetto, he continued) "and a sack of flour."

"Well, don't be in a hurry. I can't wait on both of you at once," snapped the clerk.

ASPIRING VOCALIST--"Professor, do you think I will ever be able to do anything with my voice?"

PERSPIRING TEACHER--"Well it might come in handy in case of fire or shipwreck."--_Cornell Widow_.

The devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice, An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.

--_Byron_.

WAGES

"Me gotta da good job," said Pictro, as he gave the monkey a little more line after grinding out on his organ a selection from "Santa Lucia." "Getta forty dollar da month and eata myself; thirty da month if da boss eata me."

Commenting on the comparatively small salaries allowed by Congress for services rendered in the executive branch of the Government and the more liberal pay of some of the officials, a man in public life said:

"It reminds me of the way a gang of laborers used to be paid down my way. The money was thrown at a ladder, and what stuck to the rungs went to the workers, while that which fell through went to the bosses."

A certain prominent lawyer of Toronto is in the habit of lecturing his office staff from the junior partner down, and Tommy, the office boy, comes in for his full share of the admonition. That his words were appreciated was made evident to the lawyer by a conversation between Tommy and another office boy on the same floor which he recently overheard.

"Wotcher wages?" asked the other boy.

"Ten thousand a year," replied Tommy.

"Aw, g'wan!"

"Sure," insisted Tommy, unabashed. "Four dollars a week in cash, an' de rest in legal advice."

While an Irishman was gazing in the window of a Washington bookstore the following sign caught his eye:

DICKENS' WORKS ALL THIS WEEK FOR ONLY $4.OO

"The divvle he does!" exclaimed Pat in disgust. "The dirty scab!"

The difference between wages and salary is--when you receive wages you save two dollars a month, when you receive salary you borrow two dollars a month.

He is well paid that is well satisfied.--_Shakespeare_.

The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock.--_Henry George_.

WAITERS

Recipe for a waiter:

Stuff a hired dress-suit case with an effort to please, Add a half-dozen stumbles and trips; Remove his right thumb from the cranberry sauce, Roll in crumbs, melted butter and tips.

--_Life_.

WAR

"Flag of truce, Excellency."

"Well, what do the revolutionists want?"

"They would like to exchange a couple of Generals for a can of condensed milk."

If you favor war, dig a trench in your backyard, fill it half full of water, crawl into it, and stay there for a day or two without anything to eat, get a lunatic to shoot at you with a brace of revolvers and a machine gun, and you will have something just as good, and you will save your country a great deal of expense.

"Who are those people who are cheering?" asked the recruit as the soldiers marched to the train.

"Those," replied the veteran, "are the people who are not going."--_Puck_.

He who did well in war, just earns the right To begin doing well in peace.

--_Robert Browning_.

A great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle [patriotism] alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward.--_George Washington_.

_See also_ Arbitration, International; European War.

WARNINGS

Pietro had drifted down to Florida and was working with a gang at railroad construction. He had been told to beware of rattlesnakes, but assured that they would always give the warning rattle before striking.

One hot day he was eating his noon luncheon on a pine log when he saw a big rattler coiled a few feet in front of him. He eyed the serpent and began to lift his legs over the log. He had barely got them out of the way when the snake's fangs hit the bark beneath him.

"Son of a guna!" yelled Pietro. "Why you no ringa da bell?"

WASHINGTON, GEORGE

A Barnegat schoolma'am had been telling her pupils something about George Washington, and finally she asked:

"Can any one now tell me which Washington was--a great general or a great admiral?"

The small son of a fisherman raised his hand, and she signaled him to speak.

"He was a great general," said the boy. "I seen a picture of him crossing the Delaware, and no great admiral would put out from shore standing up in a skiff."

A Scotsman visiting America stood gazing at a fine statue of George Washington, when an American approached.

"That was a great and good man, Sandy," said the American; "a lie never passed his lips."

"Weel," said the Scot, "I praysume he talked through his nose like the rest of ye."

WASPS

The wasp cannot speak, but when he says "Drop it," in his own inimitable way, neither boy nor man shows any remarkable desire to hold on.

WASTE

The automobile rushed down the road--huge, gigantic, sublime. Over the fence hung the woman who works hard and long-her husband is at the cafe and she has thirteen little ones. (An unlucky number.) Suddenly upon the thirteenth came the auto, unseeing, slew him, and hummed on, unknowing. The woman who works hard and long rushed forward with hands, hands made rough by toil, upraised. She paused and stood inarticulate--a goddess, a giantess. Then she hurled forth these words of derision, of despair: "Mon Dieu! And I'd just washed him!"--_Literally translated from Le Sport of Paris_.

A Boston physician tells of the case of a ten-year-old boy, who, by reason of an attack of fever, became deaf. The physician could afford the lad but little relief, so the boy applied himself to the task of learning the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. The other members of his family, too, acquired a working knowledge of the alphabet, in order that they might converse with the unfortunate youngster.

During the course of the next few months, however, Tommy's hearing suddenly returned to him, assisted no doubt by a slight operation performed by the physician.

Every one was, of course, delighted, particularly the boy's mother, who one day exclaimed:

"Oh, Tommy, isn't it delightful to talk to and hear us again?"

"Yes," assented Tommy, but with a degree of hesitation; "but here we've all learned the sign language, and we can't find any more use for it!"

WEALTH

If you want to make a living you have to work for it, while if you want to get rich you must go about it in some other way.

The traditional fool and his money are lucky ever to have got together in the first place.--_Puck_.

He that is proud of riches is a fool. For if he be exalted above his neighbors because he hath more gold, how much inferior is he to a gold mine!--_Jeremy Taylor_.

WEATHER

"How did you find the weather in London?" asked the friend of the returned traveler.

"You don't have to find the weather in London," replied the traveler. "It bumps into you at every corner."

An American and a Scotsman were discussing the cold experienced in winter in the North of Scotland.

"Why, it's nothing at all compared to the cold we have in the States," said the American. "I can recollect one winter when a sheep, jumping from a hillock into a field, became suddenly frozen on the way, and stuck in the air like a mass of ice."

"But, man," exclaimed the Scotsman, "the law of gravity wouldn't allow that."

"I know that," replied the tale-pitcher. "But the law of gravity was frozen, too!"

Two commercial travelers, one from London and one from New York, were discussing the weather in their respective countries.

The Englishman said that English weather had one great fault--its sudden changes.

"A person may take a walk one day," he said, "attired in a light summer suit, and still feel quite warm. Next day he needs an overcoat."

"That's nothing," said the American. "My two friends, Johnson and Jones, were once having an argument. There were eight or nine inches of snow on the ground. The argument got heated, and Johnson picked up a snowball and threw it at Jones from a distance of not more than five yards. During the transit of that snowball, believe me or not, as you like, the weather changed and became hot and summer like, and Jones, instead of being hit with a snowball, was--er--scalded with hot water!"

Ex-President Taft on one of his trips was playing golf on a western links when he noticed that he had a particularly good caddie, an old man of some sixty years, as they have on the Scottish links.

"And what do you do in winter?" asked the President.

"Such odd jobs as I can pick up, sir," replied the man.

"Not much chance for caddying then, I suppose?" asked the President.

"No, sir, there is not," replied the man with a great deal of warmth. "When there's no frost there's sure to be snow, and when there's no snow there's frost, and when there's neither there's sure to be rain. And the few days when it's fine they're always Sundays."

On the way to the office of his publishers one crisp fall morning, James Whitcomb Riley met an unusually large number of acquaintances who commented conventionally upon the fine weather. This unremitting applause amused him. When greeted at the office with "Nice day, Mr. Riley," he smiled broadly.

"Yes," he agreed. "Yes, I've heard it very highly spoken of."

The darky in question had simmered in the heat of St. Augustine all his life, and was decoyed by the report that colored men could make as much as $4 a day in Duluth.

He headed North in a seersucker suit and into a hard winter. At Chicago, while waiting for a train, he shivered in an engine room, and on the way to Duluth sped by miles of snow fields.

On arriving he found the mercury at 18 below and promptly lost the use of his hands. Then his feet stiffened and he lost all sensation.

They picked him up and took him to a crematory for unknown dead. After he had been in the oven for awhile somebody opened the door for inspection. Rastus came to and shouted:

"Shut dat do' and close dat draff!"

There was a small boy in Quebec, Who was buried in snow to his neck; When they said, "Are you friz?" He replied, "Yes, I is-- But we don't call this cold in Quebec."

--_Rudyard Kipling_.

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.--_Ruskin_.

WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES

Uncle Ephraim had put on a clean collar and his best coat, and was walking majestically up and down the street.

"Aren't you working to-day, Uncle?" asked somebody.

"No, suh. I'se celebrating' mah golden weddin' suh."

"You were married fifty years ago to-day, then!"

"Yes, suh."

"Well, why isn't your wife helping you to celebrate?"

"Mah present wife, suh," replied Uncle Ephraim with dignity, "ain't got nothin' to do with it."

WEDDING PRESENTS

Among the presents lately showered upon a dusky bride in a rural section of Virginia, was one that was a gift of an old woman with whom both bride and groom were great favorites.

Some time ago, it appears, the old woman accumulated a supply of cardboard mottoes, which she worked and had framed as occasion arose.

So it happened that in a neat combination of blues and reds, suspended by a cord of orange, there hung over the table whereon the other presents were displayed for the delectation of the wedding guests, this motto:

FIGHT ON; FIGHT EVER.

WEDDINGS

An actor who was married recently for the third time, and whose bride had been married once before, wrote across the bottom of the wedding invitations: "Be sure and come; this is no amateur performance."

A wealthy young woman from the west was recently wedded to a member of the nobility of England, and the ceremony occurred in the most fashionable of London churches--St. George's.

Among the guests was a cousin of the bride, as sturdy an American as can be imagined. He gave an interesting summary of the wedding when asked by a girl friend whether the marriage was a happy one.

"Happy? I should say it was," said the cousin. "The bride was happy, her mother was overjoyed, Lord Stickleigh, the groom, was in ecstasies, and his creditors, I understand, were in a state of absolute bliss."--_Edwun Tarrisse_.

The best man noticed that one of the wedding guests, a gloomy-looking young man, did not seem to be enjoying himself. He was wandering about as though he had lost his last friend. The best man took it upon himself to cheer him up.

"Er--have you kissed the bride?" he asked by way of introduction.

"Not lately," replied the gloomy one with a far-away expression.

The curate of a large and fashionable church was endeavoring to teach the significance of white to a Sunday-school class.

"Why," said he, "does a bride invariably desire to be clothed in white at her marriage?"

As no one answered, he explained. "White," said he, "stands for joy, and the wedding-day is the most joyous occasion of a woman's life."

A small boy queried, "Why do the men all wear black?"--_M.J. Moor_.

Lilly May came to her mistress. "Ah would like a week's vacation, Miss Annie," she said, in her soft negro accent; "Ah wants to be married."

Lillie had been a good girl, so her mistress gave her the week's vacation, a white dress, a veil and a plum-cake.

Promptly at the end of the week Lillie returned, radiant. "Oh, Miss Annie!" she exclaimed, "Ah was the mos' lovely bride! Ma dress was pcrfec', ma veil mos' lovely, the cake mos' good! An' oh, the dancin' an' the eatin'!"

"Well, Lillie, this sounds delightful," said her mistress, "but you have left out the point of your story--I hope you have a good husband."

Lillie's tone changed to indignation: "Now, Miss Annie, what yo' think? Tha' darn nigger nebber turn up!"

There is living in Illinois a solemn man who is often funny without meaning to be. At the time of his wedding, he lived in a town some distance from the home of the bride. The wedding was to be at her house. On the eventful day the solemn man started for the station, but on the way met the village grocer, who talked so entertainingly that the bridegroom missed his train.

Naturally he was in a "state." Something must be done, and done quickly. So he sent the following telegram:

Don't marry till I come.--HENRY.

--_Howard, Morse_.

In all the wedding cake, hope is the sweetest of the plums.--_Douglas Jerrold_.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

"Didn't I tell ye to feed that cat a pound of meat every day until ye had her fat?" demanded an Irish shopkeeper, nodding toward a sickly, emaciated cat that was slinking through the store.

"Ye did thot," replied the assistant, "an" I've just been after feedin' her a pound of meat this very minute."

"Faith, an' I don't believe ye. Bring me the scales."

The poor cat was lifted into the scales. Thy balancd at exactly one pound.

"There!" exclaimed the assistant triumphantly. "Didn't I tell ye she'd had her pound of meat?"

"That's right," admitted the boss, scratching his head. "That's yer pound of meat all right. But"--suddenly looking up--"where the divvil is the cat?"

WELCOMES

When Ex-President Taft was on his transcontinental tour, American flags and Taft pictures were in evidence everywhere. Usually the Taft pictures contained a word of welcome under them. Those who heard the President's laugh ring out will not soon forget the western city which, directly under the barred window of the city lockup, displayed a Taft picture with the legend "Welcome" on it.--_Hugh Morist_.

Come in the evening, or come in the morning, Come when you're looked for, or come without warning, Kisses and welcome you'll find here before you, And the oftener you come here the more I'll adore you.

--_Thomas O. Davis_.

WEST, THE

EASTERN LADY (traveling in Montana)--"The idea of calling this the 'Wild-West'! Why, I never saw such politeness anywhere."

COWBOY--"We're allers perlite to ladies, ma'am."

EASTERN LADY--"Oh, as for that, there is plenty of politeness everywhere. But I refer to the men. Why, in New York the men behave horribly towards one another; but here they treat one another as delicately as gentlemen in a drawing-room."

COWBOY--"Yes, ma'am; it's safer."--_Abbie C. Dixon_.

WHISKY

This is from an Irish priest's sermon, as quoted in Samuel M. Hussey's "Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent": "'It's whisky makes you bate your wives; it's whisky makes your homes desolate; it's whisky makes you shoot your landlords, and'--with emphasis, as he thumped the pulpit--'it's whisky makes you miss them.'"

In a recent trial of a "bootlegger" in western Kentucky a witness testified that he had purchased some "squirrel" whisky from the defendant.

"Squirrel whisky?" questioned the court.

"Yes, you know: the kind that makes you talk nutty and want to climb trees."