Part 13

"There's efficiency for you," said the American admirably. "There's German efficiency for you. No matter what breaks, there's always a stock at hand from which to supply the needed part."

And praising the remarkable instance of German efficiency he had just witnessed, the tourist returned to the village and ordered up his car. But he couldn't use it. The axle was missing.

A curious little man sat next an elderly, prosperous looking man in a smoking car.

"How many people work in your office?" he asked.

"Oh," responded the elderly man, getting up and throwing away his cigar, "I should say, at a rough guess, about two-thirds of them."

EGOTISM

In the Chicago schools a boy refused to sew, thinking it below the dignity of a man of ten years.

"Why," said the teacher, "George Washington did his own sewing in the wars, and do you think you are better than George Washington?"

"I don't know," replied the boy seriously. "Only time can tell that."

John D. Rockefeller tells this story on himself:

"Golfing one bright winter day I had for caddie a boy who didn't know me.

"An unfortunate stroke landed me in clump of high grass.

"'My, my,' I said, 'what am I to do now?'

"'See that there tree?' said the boy, pointing to a tall tree a mile away. 'Well, drive straight for that.'

"I lofted vigorously, and, fortunately, my ball soared up into the air; it landed, and it rolled right on to the putting green.

"'How's that, my boy?' I cried.

"The caddie stared at me with envious eyes.

"'Gee, boss,' he said, 'if I had your strength and you had my brains what a pair we'd make!'"

The late Marshall Field had a very small office-boy who came to the great merchant one day with a request for an increase in wages.

"Huh!" said Mr. Field, looking at him as if through a magnifying-glass. "Want a raise, do you? How much are you getting?"

"Three dollars a week," chirped the little chap.

"Three dollars a week!" exclaimed his employer. "Why, when I was your age I only got two dollars."

"Oh, well, that's different," piped the youngster. "I guess you weren't worth any more."

Here's to the man who is wisest and best, Here's to the man who with judgment is blest. Here's to the man who's as smart as can be-- I mean the man who agrees with me.

ELECTIONS

In St. Louis there is one ward that is full of breweries and Germans. In a recent election a local option question was up.

After the election some Germans were counting the votes. One German was calling off and another taking down the option votes. The first German, running rapidly through the ballots, said: "Vet, vet, vet, vet,..." Suddenly he stopped. "_Mein Gott_!" he cried: "_Dry_!"

Then he went on--"Vet, vet, vet, vet,..."

Presently he stopped again and mopped his brow. "_Himmel_!" he said. "Der son of a gun repeated!"

WILLIS--"What's the election today for? Anybody happen to know?"

GILLIS--"It is to determine whether we shall have a convention to nominate delegates who will be voted on as to whether they will attend a caucus which will decide whether we shall have a primary to determine whether the people want to vote on this same question again next year."--_Puck_.

One year, when the youngsters of a certain Illinois village met for the purpose of electing a captain of their baseball team for the coming season, it appeared that there were an excessive number of candidates for the post, with more than the usual wrangling.

Youngster after youngster presented his qualifications for the post; and the matter was still undecided when the son of the owner of the ball-field stood up. He was a small, snub-nosed lad, with a plentiful supply of freckles, but he glanced about him with a dignified air of controlling the situation.

"I'm going to be captain this year," he announced convincingly, "or else Father's old bull is going to be turned into the field."

He was elected unanimously.--_Fenimore Martin_.

I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober second thought of the people shall be law.--_Fisher Ames_.

ELECTRICITY

In school a boy was asked this question in physics: "What is the difference between lightning and electricity?"

And he answered: "Well, you don't have to pay for lightning."

EMBARRASSING SITUATIONS

A young gentleman was spending the week-end at little Willie's cottage at Atlantic City, and on Sunday evening after dinner, there being a scarcity of chairs on the crowded piazza, the young gentleman took Willie on his lap.

Then, during a pause in the conversation, little Willie looked up at the young gentleman and piped:

"Am I as heavy as sister Mabel?"

The late Charles Coghlan was a man of great wit and resource. When he was living in London, his wife started for an out-of-town visit. For some reason she found it necessary to return home, and on her way thither she saw her husband step out of a cab and hand a lady from it. Mrs. Coghlan confronted the pair. The actor was equal to the situation.

"My dear," he said to his wife, "allow me to present Miss Blank. Mrs. Coghlan, Miss Blank."

The two bowed coldly while Coghlan quickly added:

"I know you ladies have ever so many things you want to say to each other, so I will ask to be excused."

He lifted his hat, stepped into the cab, and was whirled away.

The evening callers were chatting gaily with the Kinterbys when a patter of little feet was heard from the head of the stairs. Mrs. Kinterby raised her hand, warning the others to silence.

"Hush!" she said, softly. "The children are going to deliver their 'good-night' message. It always gives me a feeling of reverence to hear them--they are so much nearer the Creator than we are, and they speak the love that is in their little hearts never so fully as when the dark has come. Listen!"

There was a moment of tense silence. Then--"Mama," came the message in a shrill whisper, "Willy found a bedbug!"

"I was in an awkward predicament yesterday morning," said a husband to another.

"How was that?"

"Why, I came home late, and my wife heard me and said, 'John, what time is it?' and I said, 'Only twelve, my dear,' and just then that cuckoo clock of ours sang out three times."

"What did you do?"

"Why, I just had to stand there and cuckoo nine times more."

"Your husband will be all right now," said an English doctor to a woman whose husband was dangerously ill.

"What do you mean?" demanded the wife. "You told me 'e couldn't live a fortnight."

"Well, I'm going to cure him, after all," said the doctor. "Surely you are glad?"

The woman wrinkled her brows.

"Puts me in a bit of an 'ole," she said. "I've bin an' sold all 'is clothes to pay for 'is funeral."

EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES

"You want more money? Why, my boy, I worked three years for $11 a month right in this establishment, and now I'm owner of it."

"Well, you see what happened to your boss. No man who treats his help that way can hang on to his business."

EARNEST YOUNG MAN--"Have you any advice to a struggling young employee?"

FRANK OLD GENTLEMAN--"Yes. Don't work."

EARNEST YOUNG MAN--"Don't work?"

FRANK OLD GENTLEMAN--"No. Become an employer."

General Benjamin F. Butler built a house in Washington on the same plans as his home in Lowell, Mass., and his studies were furnished in exactly the same way. He and his secretary, M. W. Clancy, afterward City Clerk of Washington for many years, were constantly traveling between the two places.

One day a senator called upon General Butler in Lowell and the next day in Washington to find him and his secretary engaged upon the same work that had occupied them in Massachusetts.

"Heavens, Clancy, don't you ever stop?"

"No," interposed General Butler,

"'Satan finds some michief still For idle hands to do.'"

Clancy arose and bowed, saying:

"General, I never was sure until now what my employer was. I had heard the rumor, but I always discredited it."

W.J. ("Fingy") Conners, the New York politician, who is not precisely a Chesterfield, secured his first great freight-handling contract when he was a roustabout on the Buffalo docks. When the job was about to begin he called a thousand burly "dock-wallopers" to order, as narrated by one of his business friends:

"Now," roared Conners, "yez are to worruk for me, and I want ivery man here to understand what's what. I kin lick anny man in the gang."

Nine hundred and ninety-nine swallowed the insult, but one huge, double-fisted warrior moved uneasily and stepping from the line he said "You can't lick me, Jim Conners."

"I can't, can't I?" bellowed "Fingy."

"No, you can't" was the determined response.

"Oh, well, thin, go to the office and git your money," said "Fingy." "I'll have no man in me gang that I can't lick."

Outside his own cleverness there is nothing that so delights Mr. Wiggins as a game of baseball, and when he gets a chance to exploit the two, both at the same time, he may be said to be the happiest man in the world. Hence it was that the other day, when little red headed Willie Mulligan, his office boy, came sniffing into his presence to ask for the afternoon off that he might attend his grandfather's funeral, Wiggins deemed it a masterly stroke to answer:

"Why, certainly, Willie. What's more, my boy, if you'll wait for me I'll go with you."

"All right, sir," sniffed Willie as he returned to his desk and waited patiently.

And, lo and behold, poor little Willie had told the truth, and when he and Wiggins started out together the latter not only lost one of the best games of the season, but had to attend the obsequies of an old lady in whom he had no interest whatever as well.

CHIEF CLERK (to office boy)--"Why on earth don't you laugh when the boss tells a joke?"

OFFICE BOY--"I don't have to; I quit on Saturday."--_Satire_.

James J. Hill, the Railway King, told the following amusing incident that happened on one of his roads:

"One of our division superintendents had received numerous complaints that freight trains were in the habit of stopping on a grade crossing in a certain small town, thereby blocking travel for long periods. He issued orders, but still the complaints came in. Finally he decided to investigate personally.

"A short man in size and very excitable, he went down to the crossing, and, sure enough, there stood, in defiance of his orders, a long freight train, anchored squarely across it. A brakeman who didn't know him by sight sat complacently on the top of the car.

"'Move that train on!' sputtered the little 'super.' 'Get it off the crossing so people can pass. Move on, I say!'

"The brakeman surveyed the tempestuous little man from head to foot. 'You go to the deuce, you little shrimp,' he replied. 'You're small enough to crawl under.'"

ENEMIES

An old man who had led a sinful life was dying, and his wife sent for a near-by preacher to pray with him.

The preacher spent some time praying and talking, and finally the old man said: "What do you want me to do, Parson?"

"Renounce the Devil, renounce the Devil," replied the preacher.

"Well, but, Parson," protested the dying man, "I ain't in position to make any enemies."

It is better to decide a difference between enemies than friends, for one of our friends will certainly become an enemy and one of our enemies a friend.--_Bias_.

The world is large when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide; But the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side.

--_John Boyle O'Reilly_.

ENGLAND

_See_ Great Britain.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

A popular hotel in Rome has a sign in the elevator reading: "Please do not touch the Lift at your own risk."

The class at Heidelberg was studying English conjugations, and each verb considered was used in a model sentence, so that the students would gain the benefit of pronouncing the connected series of words, as well as learning the varying forms of the verb. This morning it was the verb "to have" in the sentence, "I have a gold mine."

Herr Schmitz was called to his feet by Professor Wulff.

"Conjugate 'do haff' in der sentence, 'I haff a golt mine," the professor ordered.

"I haff a golt mine, du hast a golt dein, he hass a golt hiss. Ve, you or dey haff a golt ours, yours or deirs, as de case may be."

Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language.--_Noah Webster_.

ENGLISHMEN

He who laughs last is an Englishman.--_Princeton Tiger_.

Nat Goodwill was at the club with an English friend and became the center of an appreciative group. A cigar man offered the comedian a cigar, saying that it was a new production.

"With each cigar, you understand," the promoter said, "I will give a coupon, and when you have smoked three thousand of them you may bring the coupons to me and exchange them for a grand piano."

Nat sniffed the cigar, pinched it gently, and then replied: "If I smoked three thousand of these cigars I think I would need a harp instead of a grand piano."

There was a burst of laughter in which the Englishman did not join, but presently he exploded with merriment. "I see the point" he exclaimed. "Being an actor, you have to travel around the country a great deal and a harp would be so much more convenient to carry."

ENTHUSIASM

Theodore Watts, says Charles Rowley in his book "Fifty Years of Work Without Wages," tells a good story against himself. A nature enthusiast, he was climbing Snowdon, and overtook an old gypsy woman. He began to dilate upon the sublimity of the scenery, in somewhat gushing phrases. The woman paid no attention to him. Provoked by her irresponsiveness, he said, "You don't seem to care for this magnificent scenery?" She took the pipe from her mouth and delivered this settler: "I enjies it; I don't jabber."

EPITAPHS

LITTLE CLARENCE--"Pa!"

HIS FATHER--"Well, my son?"

LITTLE CLARENCE--"I took a walk through the cemetery to-day and read the inscriptions on the tombstones."

HIS FATHER--"And what were your thoughts after you had done so?"

LITTLE CLARENCE--"Why, pa, I wondered where all the wicked people were buried."--_Judge_.

The widower had just taken his fourth wife and was showing her around the village. Among the places visited was the churchyard, and the bride paused before a very elaborate tombstone that had been erected by the bridegroom. Being a little nearsighted she asked him to read the inscription, and in reverent tones he read:

"Here lies Susan, beloved wife of John Smith; also Jane, beloved wife of John Smith; also Mary, beloved wife of John Smith--"

He paused abruptly, and the bride, leaning forward to see the bottom line, read, to her horror:

"Be Ye Also Ready."

A man wished to have something original on his wife's headstone and hit upon, "Lord, she was Thine." He had his own ideas of the size of the letters and the space between words, and gave instructions to the stonemason. The latter carried them out all right, except that he could not get in the "E" in Thine.

In a cemetery at Middlebury, Vt., is a stone, erected by a widow to her loving husband, bearing this inscription: "Rest in peace--until we meet again."

An epitaph in an old Moravian cemetery reads thus:

Remember, friend, as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I; As I am now thus you must be, So be prepared to follow me.

There had been written underneath in pencil, presumably by some wag:

To follow you I'm not content Till I find out which way you went.

I expected it, but I didn't expect it quite so soon.--_Life_.

After Life's scarlet fever I sleep well.

Here lies the body of Sarah Sexton, Who never did aught to vex one. (Not like the woman under the next stone.)

As a general thing, the writer of epitaphs is a monumental liar.--_John E. Rosser_.

Maria Brown, Wife of Timothy Brown, aged 80 years. She lived with her husband fifty years, and died in the confident hope of a better life.

Here lies the body of Enoch Holden, who died suddenly and unexpectedly by being kicked to death by a cow. Well done, good and faithful servant!

A bereaved husband feeling his loss very keenly found it desirable to divert his mind by traveling abroad. Before his departure, however, he left orders for a tombstone with the inscription:

"The light of my life has gone out."

Travel brought unexpected and speedy relief, and before the time for his return he had taken another wife. It was then that he remembered the inscription, and thinking it would not be pleasing to his new wife, he wrote to the stone-cutter, asking that he exercise his ingenuity in adapting it to the new conditions. After his return he took his new wife to see the tombstone and found that the inscription had been made to read:

"The light of my life has gone out, But I have struck another match."

Here lies Bernard Lightfoot, Who was accidentally killed in the forty-fifth year of his age. This monument was erected by his grateful family.

I thought it mushroom when I found It in the woods, forsaken; But since I sleep beneath this mound, I must have been mistaken.

On the tombstone of a Mr. Box appears this inscription: Here lies one Box within another. The one of wood was very good, We cannot say so much for t'other.

Nobles and heralds by your leave, Here lies what once was Matthew Prior; The son of Adam and of Eve; Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?

--_Prior_.

Kind reader! take your choice to cry or laugh; Here Harold lies-but where's his Epitaph? If such you seek, try Westminster, and view Ten thousand, just as fit for him as you.

--_Byron_.

I conceive disgust at these impertinent and misbecoming familiarities inscribed upon your ordinary tombstone.--_Charles Lamb_.

EPITHETS

John Fiske, the historian, was once interrupted by his wife, who complained that their son had been very disrespectful to some neighbors. Mr. Fiske called the youngster into his study.

"My boy, is it true that you called Mrs. Jones a fool?"

The boy hung his head. "Yes, father." "And did you call Mr. Jones a worse fool?"

"Yes, father."

Mr. Fiske frowned and pondered for a minute. Then he said:

"Well, my son, that is just about the distinction I should make."

"See that man over there. He is a bombastic mutt, a windjammer nonentity, a false alarm, and an encumberer of the earth!"

"Would you mind writing all that down for me?"

"Why in the world--"

"He's my husband, and I should like to use it on him some time."

EQUALITY

As one of the White Star steamships came up New York harbor the other day, a grimy coal barge floated immediately in front of her. "Clear out of the way with that old mud scow!" shouted an officer on the bridge.

A round, sun-browned face appeared over the cabin hatchway. "Are ye the captain of that vessel?"

"No," answered the officer.

"Then spake to yer equals. I'm the captain o' this!" came from the barge.

ERMINE

Said an envious, erudite ermine: "There's one thing I cannot determine: When a man wears my coat, He's a person of note, While I'm but a species of vermin!"

ESCAPES

There was once a chap who went skating too early and all of a sudden that afternoon loud cries for help began to echo among the bleak hills that surrounded the skating pond.

A farmer, cobbling his boots before his kitchen fire heard the shouts and yells, and ran to the pond at break-neck speed. He saw a large black hole in the ice, and a pale young fellow stood with chattering teeth shoulder-deep in the cold water.

The farmer laid a board on the thin ice and crawled out on it to the edge of the hole. Then, extending his hand, he said:

"Here, come over this way, and I'll lift you out."

"No, I can't swim," was the impatient reply. "Throw a rope to me. Hurry up. It's cold in here."

"I ain't got no rope," said the farmer; and he added angrily. "What if you can't swim you can wade, I guess! The water's only up to your shoulders."

"Up to my shoulders?" said the young fellow. "It's eight feet deep if it's an inch. I'm standing on the blasted fat man who broke the ice!"

ETHICS

My ethical state, Were I wealthy and great, Is a subject you wish I'd reply on. Now who can foresee What his morals _might_ be? What would yours be if you were a lion?

--_Martial; tr. by Paul Nixon_.

ETIQUET

A Boston girl the other day said to a southern friend who was visiting her, as two men rose in a car to give them seats: "Oh, I wish they would not do it."

"Why not? I think it is very nice of them," said her friend, settling herself comfortably.

"Yes, but one can't thank them, you know, and it is so awkward."

"Can't thank them! Why not?"

"Why, you would not speak to a strange man, would you?" said the Boston maiden, to the astonishment of her southern friend.

A little girl on the train to Pittsburgh was chewing gum. Not only that, but she insisted on pulling it out in long strings and letting it fall back into her mouth again.

"Mabel!" said her mother in a horrified whisper. "Mabel, don't do that. Chew your gum like a little lady."

LITTLE BROTHER--"What's etiquet?"

LITTLE BIGGER BROTHER--"It's saying 'No, thank you,' when you want to holler 'Gimme!'"--_Judge_.

A Lady there was of Antigua, Who said to her spouse, "What a pig you are!" He answered, "My queen, Is it manners you mean, Or do you refer to my figure?"

--_Gilbert K. Chesterton_.

They were at dinner and the dainties were on the table.

"Will you take tart or pudding?" asked Papa of Tommy.

"Tart," said Tommy promptly.

His father sighed as he recalled the many lessons on manners he had given the boy.

"Tart, what?" he queried kindly.

But Tommy's eyes were glued on the pastry.

"Tart, what?" asked the father again, sharply this time.

"Tart, first," answered Tommy triumphantly.

TOMMY'S AUNT--"Won't you have another piece of cake, Tommy?"

TOMMY (on a visit)--"No, I thank you."

TOMMY'S AUNT--"You seem to be suffering from loss of appetite."

TOMMY--"That ain't loss of appetite. What I'm sufferin' from is politeness."

There was a young man so benighted, He never knew when he was slighted; He would go to a party, And eat just as hearty, As if he'd been really invited.

EUROPEAN WAR

OFFICER (as Private Atkins worms his way toward the enemy)--"You fool! Come back at once!"

TOMMY--"No bally fear, sir! There's a hornet in the trench."--_Punch_.

"You can tell an Englishman nowadays by the way he holds his head up."

"Pride, eh?"

"No, Zeppelin neck."

LITTLE GIRL (who has been sitting very still with a seraphic expression)--"I wish I was an angel, mother!"

MOTHER--"What makes you say that, darling?"

LITTLE GIRL--"Because then I could drop bombs on the Germans!"--_Punch_.

From a sailor's letter to his wife: