Part 14
"Dear Jane,--I am sending you a postal order for 10s., which I hope you may get--but you may not--as this letter has to pass the Censor."
--_Punch_.
Two country darkies listened, awe-struck, while some planters discussed the tremendous range of the new German guns.
"Dar now," exclaimed one negro, when his master had finished expatiating on the hideous havoc wrought by a forty-two-centimeter shell, "jes' lak I bin tellin' yo' niggehs all de time! Don' le's have no guns lak dem roun' heah! Why, us niggehs could start runnin' erway, run all day, git almos' home free, an' den git kilt jus' befo' suppeh!"
"Dat's de trufe," assented his companion, "an' lemme tell yo' sumpin' else, Bo. All dem guns needs is jus' yo' _ad_-dress, dat's all; jes' giv' em de _ad_-dress an' they'll git yo'."
_See also_ War.
EVIDENCE
From a crowd of rah-rah college boys celebrating a crew victory, a policeman had managed to extract two prisoners.
"What is the charge against these young men?" asked the magistrate before whom they were arraigned.
"Disturbin' the peace, yer honor," said the policeman. "They were givin' their college yells in the street an' makin' trouble generally."
"What is your name?" the judge asked one of the prisoners.
"Ro-ro-robert Ro-ro-rollins," stuttered the youth.
"I asked for your name, sir, not the evidence."
Maud Muller, on a summer night, Turned down the only parlor light.
The judge, beside her, whispered things Of wedding bells and diamond rings.
He spoke his love in burning phrase, And acted foolish forty ways.
When he had gone Maud gave a laugh And then turned off the dictagraph.
--_Milwaukee Sentinel_.
One day a hostess asked a well known Parisian judge: "Your Honor, which do you prefer, Burgundy or Bordeaux?"
"Madame, that is a case in which I have so much pleasure in taking the evidence that I always postpone judgment," was the wily jurist's reply.
_See also_ Courts; Witnesses.
EXAMINATIONS
An instructor in a church school where much attention was paid to sacred history, dwelt particularly on the phrase "And Enoch was not, for God took him." So many times was this repeated in connection with the death of Enoch that he thought even the dullest pupil would answer correctly when asked in examination: State in the exact language of the Bible what is said of Enoch's death.
But this was the answer he got:
"Enoch was not what God took him for."
A member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin tells of some amusing replies made by a pupil undergoing an examination in English. The candidate had been instructed to write out examples of the indicative, the subjunctive, the potential and the exclamatory moods. His efforts resulted as follows:
"I am endeavoring to pass an English examination. If I answer twenty questions I shall pass. If I answer twelve questions I may pass. God help me!"
The following selection of mistakes in examinations may convince almost any one that there are some peaks of ignorance which he has yet to climb:
Magna Charta said that the King had no right to bring soldiers into a lady's house and tell her to mind them.
Panama is a town of Colombo, where they are trying to make an isthmus.
The three highest mountains in Scotland are Ben Nevis, Ben Lomond and Ben Jonson.
Wolsey saved his life by dying on the way from York to London.
Bigamy is when a man tries to serve two masters.
"Those melodious bursts that fill the spacious days of great Elizabeth" refers to the songs that Queen Elizabeth used to write in her spare time.
Tennyson wrote a poem called Grave's Energy.
The Rump Parliament consisted entirely of Cromwell's stalactites.
The plural of spouse is spice.
Queen Elizabeth rode a white horse from Kenilworth through Coventry with nothing on, and Raleigh offered her his cloak.
The law allowing only one wife is called monotony.
When England was placed under an Interdict the Pope stopped all births, marriages and deaths for a year.
The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.
The gods of the Indians are chiefly Mahommed and Buddha, and in their spare time they do lots of carving.
Every one needs a holiday from one year's end to another.
The Seven Great Powers of Europe are gravity, electricity, steam, gas, fly-wheels, and motors, and Mr. Lloyd George.
The hydra was married to Henry VIII. When he cut off her head another sprung up.
Liberty of conscience means doing wrong and not worrying about it afterward.
The Habeas Corpus act was that no one need stay in prison longer than he liked.
Becket put on a camel-air shirt and his life at once became dangerous.
The two races living in the north of Europe are Esquimaux and Archangels.
Skeleton is what you have left when you take a man's insides out and his outsides off.
Ellipsis is when you forget to kiss.
A bishop without a diocese is called a suffragette.
Artificial perspiration is the way to make a person alive when they are only just dead.
A night watchman is a man employed to sleep in the open air.
The tides are caused by the sun drawing the water out and the moon drawing it in again.
The liver is an infernal organ of the body.
A circle is a line which meets its other end without ending.
Triangles are of three kinds, the equilateral or three-sided, the quadrilateral or four-sided, and the multilateral or polyglot.
General Braddock was killed in the Revolutionary War. He had three horses shot under him and a fourth went through his clothes.
A buttress is the wife of a butler.
The young Pretender was so called because it was pretended that he was born in a frying-pan.
A verb is a word which is used in order to make an exertion.
A Passive Verb is when the subject is the sufferer, e.g., I am loved.
Lord Raleigh was the first man to see the invisible Armada.
A schoolmaster is called a pedigree.
The South of the U. S. A. grows oranges, figs, melons and a great quantity of preserved fruits, especially tinned meats.
The wife of a Prime Minister is called a Primate.
The Greeks were too thickly populated to be comfortable.
The American war was started because the people would persist in sending their parcels thru the post without stamps.
Prince William was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine; he never laughed again.
The heart is located on the west side of the body.
Richard II is said to have been murdered by some historians; his real fate is uncertain.
Subjects have a right to partition the king.
A kaiser is a stream of hot water springin' up an' distubin' the earth.
He had nothing left to live for but to die.
Franklin's education was got by himself. He worked himself up to be a great literal man. He was also able to invent electricity. Franklin's father was a tallow chandelier.
Monastery is the place for monsters.
Sir Walter Raleigh was put out once when his servant found him with fire in his head. And one day after there had been a lot of rain, he threw his cloak in a puddle and the queen stepped dryly over.
The Greeks planted colonists for their food supplies.
Nicotine is so deadly a poison that a drop on the end of a dog's tail will kill a man.
A mosquito is the child of black and white parents.
An author is a queer animal because his tales (tails) come from his head.
Wind is air in a hurry.
The people that come to America found Indians, but no people.
Shadows are rays of darkness.
Lincoln wrote the address while riding from Washington to Gettysburg on an envelope.
Queen Elizabeth was tall and thin, but she was a stout protestant.
An equinox is a man who lives near the north pole.
An abstract noun is something we can think of but cannot feel--as a red hot poker.
The population of New England is too dry for farming.
Anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, the head, the chist, and the stummick. The head contains the eyes and brains, if any. The chist contains the lungs and a piece of the liver. The stummick is devoted to the bowels, of which there are five, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y.
Filigree means a list of your descendants.
"The Complete Angler" was written by Euclid because he knew all about angles.
The imperfect tense in French is used to express a future action in past time which does not take place at all.
Arabia has many syphoons and very bad ones; It gets into your hair even with your mouth shut.
The modern name for Gaul is vinegar.
Some of the West India Islands are subject to torpedoes.
The Crusaders were a wild and savage people until Peter the Hermit preached to them.
On the low coast plains of Mexico yellow fever is very popular.
Louis XVI was gelatined during the French Revolution.
Gender shows whether a man is masculine, feminine, or neuter.
An angle is a triangle with only two sides.
Geometry teaches us how to bisex angels.
Gravitation is that which if there were none we should all fly away.
A vacuum is a large empty space where the Pope lives.
A deacon is the lowest kind of Christian.
Vapor is dried water.
The Salic law is that you must take everything with a grain of salt.
The Zodiac is the Zoo of the sky, where lions, goats and other animals go after they are dead.
The Pharisees were people who like to show off their goodness by praying in synonyms.
An abstract noun is something you can't see when you are looking at it.
EXCUSES
The children had been reminded that they must not appear at school the following week without their application blanks properly filled out as to names of parents, addresses, dates and place of birth. On Monday morning Katie Barnes arrived, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "What is the trouble?" Miss Green inquired, seeking to comfort her. "Oh," sobbed the little girl, "I forgot my excuse for being born."
O. Henry always retained the whimsical sense of humor which made him quickly famous. Shortly before his death he called on the cashier of a New York publishing house, after vainly writing several times for a check which had been promised as an advance on his royalties.
"I'm sorry," explained the cashier, "but Mr. Blank, who signs the checks, is laid up with a sprained ankle."
"But, my dear sir," expostulated the author, "does he sign them with his feet?"
Strolling along the boardwalk at Atlantic City, Mr. Mulligan, the wealthy retired contractor, dropped a quarter through a crack in the planking. A friend came along a minute later and found him squatted down, industriously poking a two dollar bill through the treacherous cranny with his forefinger.
"Mulligan, what the divvil ar-re ye doin'?" inquired the friend.
"Sh-h," said Mr. Mulligan, "I'm tryin' to make it wort' me while to tear up this board."
A captain, inspecting his company one morning, came to an Irishman who evidently had not shaved for several days.
"Doyle," he asked, "how is it that you haven't shaved this morning?"
"But Oi did, sor."
"How dare you tell me that with the beard you have on your face?"
"Well, ye see, sor," stammered Doyle, "there wus nine of us to one small bit uv a lookin'-glass, an' it must be thot in th' gineral confusion Oi shaved some other man's face."
"Is that you, dear?" said a young husband over the telephone. "I just called up to say that I'm afraid I won't be able to get home to dinner to-night, as I am detained at the office."
"You poor dear," answered the wife sympathetically. "I don't wonder. I don't see how you manage to get anything done at all with that orchestra playing in your office. Good-by."
"What is the matter, dearest?" asked the mother of a small girl who had been discovered crying in the hall.
"Somfing awful's happened, Mother."
"Well, what is it, sweetheart?"
"My d'doll-baby got away from me and broked a plate in the pantry."
A poor casual laborer, working on a scaffolding, fell five stories to the ground. As his horrified mates rushed down pell-mell to his aid, he picked himself up, uninjured, from a great, soft pile of sand.
"Say, fellers," he murmured anxiously, "is the boss mad? Tell him I had to come down anyway for a ball of twine."
Cephas is a darky come up from Maryland to a border town in Pennsylvania, where he has established himself as a handy man to do odd jobs. He is a good worker, and sober, but there are certain proclivities of his which necessitate a pretty close watch on him. Not long ago he was caught with a chicken under his coat, and was haled to court to explain its presence there.
"Now, Cephas," said the judge very kindly, "you have got into a new place, and you ought to have new habits. We have been good to you and helped you, and while we like you as a sober and industrious worker, this other business cannot be tolerated. Why did you take Mrs. Gilkie's chicken?"
Cephas was stumped, and he stood before the majesty of the law, rubbing his head and looking ashamed of himself. Finally he answered:
"Deed, I dunno, Jedge," he explained, "ceptin' 't is dat chickens is chickens and niggers is niggers."
GRANDMA--"Johnny, I have discovered that you have taken more maple-sugar than I gave you."
JOHNNY--"Yes, Grandma, I've been making believe there was another little boy spending the day with me."
Mr. X was a prominent member of the B.P.O.E. At the breakfast table the other morning he was relating to his wife an incident that occurred at the lodge the previous night. The president of the order offered a silk hat to the brother who could stand up and truthfully say that during his married life he had never kissed any woman but his own wife. "And, would you believe it, Mary?--not a one stood up." "George," his wife said, "why didn't you stand up?" "Well," he replied, "I was going to, but I know I look like hell in a silk hat."
And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse, As patches set upon a little breach, Discredit more in hiding of the fault Than did the fault before it was so patched.
--_Shakespeare_.
EXPOSURE
TRAMP--"Lady, I'm dying from exposure."
WOMAN--"Are you a tramp, politician or financier?"--_Judge_.
EXTORTION
_See_ Dressmakers.
EXTRAVAGANCE
There was a young girl named O'Neill, Who went up in the great Ferris wheel; But when half way around She looked at the ground, And it cost her an eighty-cent meal.
Everybody knew that John Polkinhorn was the carelessest man in town, but nobody ever thought he was careless enough to marry Susan Rankin, seeing that he had known her for years. For awhile they got along fairly well but one day after five years of it John hung himself in the attic, where Susan used to dry the wash on rainy days, and a carpenter, who went up to the roof to do some repairs, found him there. He told Susan, and Susan hurried up to see about it, and, sure enough, the carpenter was right. She stood looking at her late husband for about a minute--kind of dazed, the carpenter thought--then she spoke.
"Well, I declare!" she exclaimed. "If he hasn't used my new clothes-line, and the old would have done every bit as well! But, of course, that's just like John Polkinhorn."
"The editor of my paper," declared the newspaper business manager to a little coterie of friends, "is a peculiar genius. Why, would you believe it, when he draws his weekly salary he keeps out only one dollar for spending money and sends the rest to his wife in Indianapolis!"
His listeners--with one exception, who sat silent and reflective--gave vent to loud murmurs of wonder and admiration.
"Now, it may sound thin," added the speaker, "but it is true, nevertheless."
"Oh, I don't doubt it at all!" quickly rejoined the quiet one; "I was only wondering what he does with the dollar!"
An Irish soldier was recently given leave of absence the morning after pay day. When his leave expired he didn't appear. He was brought at last before the commandant for sentence, and the following dialogue is recorded:
"Well, Murphy, you look as if you had had a severe engagement."
"Yes, sur."
"Have you any money left?"
"No, sur."
"You had $35 when you left the fort, didn't you?"
"Yes, sur."
"What did you do with it?"
"Well, sur, I was walking along and I met a friend, and we went into a place and spint $8. Thin we came out and I met another friend and we spint $8 more, and thin I come out and we met another friend and we spint $8 more, and thin we come out and we met another bunch of friends, and I spint $8 more--and thin I come home."
"But, Murphy, that makes only $32. What did you do with the other $3?" Murphy thought. Then he shook his head slowly and said:
"I dunno, colonel, I reckon I must have squandered that money foolishly."
FAILURES
Little Ikey came up to his father with a very solemn face. "Is it true, father," he asked, "that marriage is a failure?"
His father surveyed him thoughtfully for a moment. "Well, Ikey," he finally replied, "If you get a rich wife, it's almost as good as a failure."
FAITH
Faith is that quality which leads a man to expect that his flowers and garden will resemble the views shown on the seed packets.--_Country Life in America_.
"What is faith, Johnny?" asks the Sunday school teacher.
"Pa says," answers Johnny, "that it's readin' in the papers that the price o' things has come down, an expectin' to find it true when the bills comes in."
Faith is believing the dentist when he says it isn't going to hurt.
"As I understand it, Doctor, if I believe I'm well, I'll be well. Is that the idea?"
"It is."
"Then, if you believe you are paid, I suppose you'll be paid."
"Not necessarily."
"But why shouldn't faith work as well in one case as in the other?"
"Why, you see, there is considerable difference between having faith in Providence and having faith in you."--_Horace Zimmerman_.
Mother had been having considerable argument with her infant daughter as to whether the latter was going to be left alone in a dark room to go to sleep. As a clincher, the mother said: "There is no reason at all why you should be afraid. Remember that God is here all the time, and, besides, you have your dolly. Now go to sleep like a good little girl." Twenty minutes later a wail came from upstairs, and mother went to the foot of the stairs to pacify her daughter. "Don't cry," she said; "remember what I told you--God is there with you and you have your dolly." "But I don't want them," wailed the baby; "I want you, muvver; I want somebody here that has got a skin face on them."
Faith is a fine invention For gentlemen who see; But Microscopes are prudent In an emergency.
--_Emily Dickinson_.
FAITHFULNESS
A wizened little Irishman applied for a job loading a ship. At first they said he was too small, but he finally persuaded them to give him a trial. He seemed to be making good, and they gradually increased the size of his load until on the last trip he was carrying a 300-pound anvil under each arm. When he was half-way across the gangplank it broke and the Irishman fell in. With a great splashing and spluttering he came to the surface.
"T'row me a rope, I say!" he shouted again. Once more he sank. A third time he rose struggling.
"Say!" he spluttered angrily, "if one uv you shpalpeens don't hurry up an' t'row me a rope I'm goin' to drop one uv these damn t'ings!"
FAME
Fame is the feeling that you are the constant subject of admiration on the part of people who are not thinking of you.
Many a man thinks he has become famous when he has merely happened to meet an editor who was hard up for material.
Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit.--_Addison_.
FAMILIES
"Yes, sir, our household represents the United Kingdom of Great Britain," said the proud father of number one to the rector. "I am English, my wife's Irish, the nurse is Scotch and the baby wails."
Mrs. O'Flarity is a scrub lady, and she had been absent from her duties for several days. Upon her return her employer asked her the reason for her absence.
"Sure, I've been carin' for wan of me sick children," she replied.
"And how many children have you, Mrs. O'Flarity?" he asked.
"Siven in all," she replied. "Four by the third wife of me second husband; three by the second wife of me furst."
A man descended from an excursion train and was wearily making his way to the street-car, followed by his wife and fourteen children, when a policeman touched him on the shoulder and said:
"Come along wid me."
"What for?"
"Blamed if I know; but when ye're locked up I'll go back and find out why that crowd was following ye."
FAREWELLS
Happy are we met, Happy have we been, Happy may we part, and Happy meet again.
A dear old citizen went to the cars the other day to see his daughter off on a journey. Securing her a seat he passed out of the car and went around to the car window to say a last parting word. While he was leaving the car the daughter crossed the aisle to speak to a friend, and at the same time a grim old maid took the seat and moved up to the window.
Unaware of the change the old gentleman hurriedly put his head up to the window and said: "One more kiss, pet."
In another instant the point of a cotton umbrella was thrust from the window, followed by the wrathful injunction: "Scat, you gray-headed wretch!"
"I am going to make my farewell tour in Shakespeare. What shall be the play? Hamlet? Macbeth?"
"This is your sixth farewell tour, I believe."
"Well, yes."
"I would suggest 'Much Adieu About Nothing'."
"Farewell!" For in that word--that fatal word--howe'er We promise--hope--believe--there breathes despair.
--_Byron_.
FASHION
There are two kinds of women: The fashionable ones and those who are comfortable.--_Tom P. Morgan_.
There had been a dressmaker in the house and Minnie had listened to long discussions about the very latest fashions. That night when she said her prayers, she added a new petition, uttered with unwonted fervency:
"And, dear Lord, please make us all very stylish."
Nothing is thought rare Which is not new, and follow'd; yet we know That what was worn some twenty years ago Comes into grace again.
--_Beaumont and Fletcher_.
As good be out of the World as out of the Fashion.--_Colley Cibber_.
FATE
Fate hit me very hard one day. I cried: "What is my fault? What have I done? What causes, pray, This unprovoked assault?" She paused, then said: "Darned if I know; I really can't explain." Then just before she turned to go She whacked me once again!
--_La Touche Hancock_.