Part 30

"'Excuse me, Doctor Watson; I'm getting deathly sick in here and I'm real sorry to disturb you, but I thought you'd like to know that just as soon as you left her Mrs. Watson fell down the companionway stairs, and I guess she hurt herself pretty badly.'"

SIGNS

When the late Senator Wolcott first went to Colorado he and his brother opened a law office at Idaho Springs under the firm name of "Ed. Wolcott & Bro." Later the partnership was dissolved. The future senator packed his few assets, including the sign that had hung outside of his office, upon a burro and started for Georgetown, a mining town farther up in the hills. Upon his arrival he was greeted by a crowd of miners who critically surveyed him and his outfit. One of them, looking first at the sign that hung over the pack, then at Wolcott, and finally at the donkey, ventured:

"Say, stranger, which of you is Ed?"

"Buck" Kilgore, of Texas, who once kicked open the door of the House of Representatives when Speaker Reed had all doors locked to prevent the minority from leaving the floor and thus escaping a vote, was noted for his indifference to forms and rules. Speaker Reed, annoyed by members bringing lighted cigars upon the floor of the House just before opening time, had signs conspicuously posted as follows: "No smoking on the floor of the House." One day just before convening the House his eagle eye detected Kilgore nonchalantly puffing away at a fat cigar. Calling a page, he told him to give his compliments to the gentleman from Texas and ask him if he had not seen the signs. After a while the page returned and seated himself without reporting to the Speaker, and Mr. Reed was irritated to see the gentleman from Texas continue his smoke. With a frown he summoned the page and asked:

"Did you tell the gentleman from Texas what I said?"

"I did," replied the page.

"What did he say?" asked Reed.

"Well--er," stammered the page, "he said to give his compliments to you and tell you he did not believe in signs."

SILENCE

A conversation with an Englishman.--_Heine_.

BALL-"What is silence?"

HALL-"The college yell of the school of experience."

The other day upon the links a distinguished clergyman was playing a closely contested game of golf. He carefully teed up his ball and addressed it with the most aproved grace; he raised his driver and hit the ball a tremendous clip, but instead of soaring into the azure it perversely went about twelve feet to the right and then buzzed around in a circle. The clerical gentleman frowned, scowled, pursed up his mouth and bit his lips, but said nothing, and a friend who stood by him said: "Doctor, that is the most profane silence I ever witnessed."

SIN

Man-like is it to fall into sin, Fiend-like is it to dwell therein, Christ-like is it for sin to grieve, God-like is it all sin to leave.

--_Friedrich von Logan_.

"Now," said the clergyman to the Sunday-school class, "can any of you tell me what are sins of omission?"

"Yes, sir," said the small boy. "They are the sins we ought to have done and haven't."

SINGERS

As the celebrated soprano began to sing, little Johnnie became greatly exercised over the gesticulations of the orchestra conductor.

"What's that man shaking his stick at her for?" he demanded indignantly.

"Sh-h! He's not shaking his stick at her."

But Johnny was not convinced.

"Then what in thunder's she hollering for?"

A visiting clergyman was occupying a pulpit in St. Louis one Sunday when it was the turn of the bass to sing a solo, which he did very badly, to the annoyance of the preacher, a lover of music. When the singer fell back in his seat, red of face and exhausted, the clergyman arose, placed his hands on the unopened Bible, deliberately surveyed the faces of the congregation, and announced the text:

"And the wind ceased and there was a great calm."

It wasn't the text he had chosen, but it fitted his sermon as well as the occasion.

One cold, wet, and windy night he came upon a negro shivering in the doorway of an Atlanta store. Wondering what the darky could be doing, standing on a cold, wet night in such a draughty position, the proprietor of the shop said:

"Jim, what are you doing here?"

"'Sense me, sir," said Jim, "but I'm gwine to sing bass tomorrow mornin' at church, an' I am tryin' to ketch a cold."--_Howard Morse_.

"The man who sings all day at work is a happy man."

"Yes, but how about the man who works and has to listen to him?" Miss Jeanette Gilder was one of the ardent enthusiasts at the debut of Tetrazzini. After the first act she rushed to the back of the house to greet one of her friends. "Don't you think she is a wonder?" she asked excitedly.

"She is a great singer unquestionably," responded her more phlegmatic friend, "but the registers of her voice are not so even as, for instance, Melba's."

"Oh, bother Melba," said Miss Gilder. "Tetrazzini gives infinitely more heat from her registers."

At a certain Scottish dinner it was found that every one had contributed to the evening's entertainment but a certain Doctor MacDonald.

"Come, come, Doctor MacDonald," said the chairman, "we cannot let you escape."

The doctor protested that he could not sing.

"My voice is altogether unmusical, and resembles the sound caused by the act of rubbing a brick along the panels of a door."

The company attributed this to the doctor's modesty. Good singers, he was reminded, always needed a lot of pressing.

"Very well," said the doctor, "if you can stand it I will sing."

Long before he had finished his audience was uneasy.

There was a painful silence as the doctor sat down, broken at length by the voice of a braw Scot at the end of the table.

"Mon," he exclaimed, "your singin's no up to much, but your veracity's just awful. You're richt aboot that brick."

She smiles, my darling smiles, and all The world is filled with light; She laughs--'tis like the bird's sweet call, In meadows fair and bright. She weeps--the world is cold and gray, Rain-clouds shut out the view; She sings--I softly steal away And wait till she gets through.

God sent his singers upon earth With songs of gladness and of mirth, That they might touch the hearts of men, And bring them back to heaven again.

--_Longfellow_.

SKATING

A young lady entered a crowded car with a pair of skates slung over her arm. An elderly gentleman arose to give her his seat.

"Thank you very much, sir," she said, "but I've been skating all afternoon, and I'm tired of sitting down."

SKY-SCRAPERS

_See_ Buildings.

SLEEP

Recently a friend who had heard that I sometimes suffer from insomnia told me of a sure cure. "Eat a pint of peanuts and drink two or three glasses of milk before going to bed," said he, "and I'll warrant you'll be asleep within half an hour." I did as he suggested, and now for the benefit of others who may be afflicted with insomnia, I feel it my duty to report what happened, so far as I am able to recall the details.

First, let me say my friend was right. I did go to sleep very soon after my retirement. Then a friend with his head under his arm came along and asked me if I wanted to buy his feet. I was negotiating with him, when the dragon on which I was riding slipped out of his skin and left me floating in mid-air. While I was considering how I should get down, a bull with two heads peered over the edge of the wall and said he would haul me up if I would first climb up and rig a windlass for him. So as I was sliding down the mountainside the brakeman came in, and I asked him when the train would reach my station.

"We passed your station four hundred years ago," he said, calmly folding the train up and slipping it into his vest pocket.

At this juncture the clown bounded into the ring and pulled the center-pole out of the ground, lifting the tent and all the people in it up, up, while I stood on the earth below watching myself go out of sight among the clouds above. Then I awoke, and found I had been asleep almost ten minutes.--_The Good Health Clinic_.

SMILES

There was a young lady of Niger, Who went for a ride on a tiger; They returned from the ride With the lady inside, And a smile on the face of the tiger.

--_Gilbert K. Chesterton_.

SMOKING

A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.--_Rudyard Kipling_.

AUNT MARY--(horrified) "Good gracious. Harold, what would your mother say if she saw you smoking cigarets?" HAROLD (calmly)--"She'd have a fit. They're her cigarets."

An Irish soldier on sentry duty had orders to allow no one to smoke near his post. An officer with a lighted cigar approached whereupon Pat boldly challenged him and ordered him to put it out at once.

The officer with a gesture of disgust threw away his cigar, but no sooner was his back turned than Pat picked it up and quietly retired to the sentry box.

The officer happening to look around, observed a beautiful cloud of smoke issuing from the box. He at once challenged Pat for smoking on duty.

"Smoking, is it, sor? Bedad, and I'm only keeping it lit to show the corporal when he comes as evidence agin you."

SNEEZING

While campaigning in Iowa Speaker Cannon was once inveigled into visiting the public schools of a town where he was billed to speak. In one of the lower grades an ambitious teacher called upon a youthful Demosthenes to entertain the distinguished visitor with an exhibition of amateur oratory. The selection attempted was Byron's "Battle of Waterloo," and just as the boy reached the end of the first paragraph Speaker Cannon gave vent to a violent sneeze. "But, hush! hark!" declaimed the youngster; "a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! Did ye not hear it?"

The visitors smiled and a moment later the second sneeze--which the Speaker was vainly trying to hold back--came with increased violence.

"But, hark!" bawled the boy, "that heavy sound breaks in once more, and nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!"

This was too much, and the laugh that broke from the party swelled to a roar when "Uncle Joe" chuckled: "Put up yout weapons, children; I won't shoot any more."

SNOBBERY

Snobbery is the pride of those who are not sure of their position.

SNORING

Snore--An unfavorable report from headquarters.--_Foolish Dictionary_.

SOCIALISTS

Among the stories told of the late Baron de Rothschild is one which details how a "change of heart" once came to his valet--an excellent fellow, albeit a violent "red."

Alphonse was as good a servant as one would wish to employ, and as his socialism never got farther than attending a weekly meeting, the baron never objected to his political faith. After a few months of these permissions to absent himself from duty, his employer noticed one week that he did not ask to go. The baron thought Alphonse might have forgotten the night, but when the next week he stayed at home, he inquired what was up.

"Sir," said the valet, with the utmost dignity, "some of my former colleagues have worked out a calculation that if all the wealth in France were divided equally per capita, each individual would be the possessor of two thousand francs."

Then he stopped as if that told the whole story, so said the baron, "What of that?"

"Sir," came back from the enlightened Alphonse, "I have five thousand francs now."--_Warwick James Price_.

SOCIETY

Smart Society is made up of the worldly, the fleshy, and the devilish.--_Harold Melbourne_.

"What are her days at home?"

"Oh, a society leader has no days at home anymore. Nowadays she has her telephone hours."

Society consists of two classes, the upper and the lower. The latter cultivates the dignity of labor, the former the labor of dignity.--_Punch_.

There was a young person called Smarty, Who sent out his cards for a party; So exclusive and few Were the friends that he knew That no one was present but Smarty.

SOLECISMS

A New York firm recently hung the following sign at the entrance of a large building: "Wanted: Sixty girls to sew buttons on the sixth floor."

Reporters are obliged to write their descriptions of accidents hastily and often from meager data, and in the attempt to make them vivid they sometimes make them ridiculous; for example, a New York City paper a few days ago, in describing a collision between a train and a motor bus, said: "The train, too, was filled with passengers. Their shrieks mingled with the _cries of the dead_ and the dying of the bus!"

SONS

"I thought your father looked very handsome with his gray hairs."

"Yes, dear old chap. I gave him those."

SOUVENIRS

"A friend of mine, traveling in Ireland, stopped for a drink of milk at a white cottage with a thatched roof, and, as he sipped his refreshment, he noted, on a center table under a glass dome, a brick with a faded rose upon the top of it.

"'Why do you cherish in this way,' my friend said to his host, 'that common brick and that dead rose?'

"'Shure, sir,' was the reply, 'there's certain memories attachin' to them. Do ye see this big dent in my head? Well, it was made by that brick.'

"'But the rose?' said my friend.

His host smiled quietly. "'The rose,' he explained, 'is off the grave of the man that threw the brick.'"

SPECULATION

There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.--_Mark Twain_.

SPEED

"I always said old Cornelius Husk was slow," said one Quag man to another.

"Why, what's he been doin' now?" the other asked.

"Got himself run over by a hearse!"

"So you heard the bullet whiz past you?" asked the lawyer of the darky.

"Yes, sah, heard it twict."

"How's that?"

"Heard it whiz when it passed me, and heard it again when I passed it."

A near race riot happened in a southern town. The negroes gathered in one crowd and the whites in another. The whites fired their revolvers into the air, and the negroes took to their heels. Next day a plantation owner said to one of his men: "Sam, were you in that crowd that gathered last night?" "Yassir." "Did you run like the wind, Sam?" "No, sir. I didn't run like the wind,'deed I didn't. But I passed two niggers that was running like the wind."

A guest in a Cincinnati hotel was shot and killed. The negro porter who heard the shooting was a witness at the trial.

"How many shots did you hear?" asked the lawyer.

"Two shots, sah," he replied.

"How far apart were they?"

'"Bout like dis way," explained the negro, clapping his hands with an interval of about a second between claps.

"Where were you when the first shot was fired?"

"Shinin' a gemman's shoe in the basement of de hotel."

"Where were you when the second shot was fired?"

"Ah was passin' de Big Fo' depot."

SPINSTERS

"Is there anyone present who wishes the prayers of the congregation for a relative or friend?" asks the minister.

"I do," says the angular lady arising from the rear pew. "I want the congregation to pray for my husband."

"Why, sister Abigail!" replies the minister. "You have no husband as yet."

"Yes, but I want you all to pitch in an' pray for one for me!" Some time ago the wife of an assisstant state officer gave a party to a lot of old maids of her town. She asked each one to bring a photograph of the man who had tried to woo and wed her. Each of the old maids brought a photograph and they were all pictures of the same man, the hostess's husband.

Maude Adams was one day discussing with her old negro "mammy" the approaching marriage of a friend.

"When is you gwine to git married, Miss Maudie?" asked the mammy, who took a deep interest in her talented young mistress.

"I don't know, mammy," answered the star. "I don't think I'll ever get married."

"Well," sighed mammy, in an attempt to be philosophical, "they do say ole maids is the happies' kind after they quits strugglin'."

Here's to the Bachelor, so lonely and gay, For it's not his fault, he was born that way; And here's to the Spinster, so lonely and good; For it's not her fault, she hath done what she could.

An old maid on the wintry side of fifty, hearing of the marriage of a pretty young lady, her friend, observed with a deep and sentimental sigh: "Well, I suppose it is what we must all come to."

A famous spinster, known throughout the country for her charities, was entertaining a number of little girls from a charitable institution. After the luncheon, the children were shown through the place, in order that they might enjoy the many beautiful things it contained.

"This," said the spinster, indicating a statue, "is Minerva."

"Was Minerva married?" asked one of the little girls.

"No, my child," said the spinster, with a smile; "Minerva was the Goddess of Wisdom."--_E.T_.

There once was a lonesome, lorn spinster, And luck had for years been ag'inst her; When a man came to burgle She shrieked, with a gurgle, "Stop thief, while I call in a min'ster!"

SPITE

Think twice before you speak, and then you may be able to say something more aggraviting than if you spoke right out at once.

A man had for years employed a steady German workman. One day Jake came to him and asked to be excused from work the next day.

"Certainly, Jake," beamed the employer. "What are you going to do?"

"Vall," said Jake slowly. "I tink I must go by mein wife's funeral. She dies yesterday."

After the lapse of a few weeks Jake again approached his boss for a day off.

"All right, Jake, but what are you going to do this time?"

"Aber," said Jake, "I go to make me, mit mein fräulein, a wedding."

"What? So soon? Why, it's only been three weeks since you buried your wife."

"Ach!" replied Jake, "I don't hold spite long."

SPRING

In the spring the housemaid's fancy Lightly turns from pot and pan To the greater necromancy Of a young unmarried man. You can hold her through the winter, And she'll work around and sing, But it's just as good as certain She will marry in the spring.

It is easy enough to look pleasant, When the spring comes along with a rush; But the fellow worth-while Is the one who can smile When he slips and sits down in the slush.

--_Leslie Van Every_.

STAMMERING

One of the ushers approached a man who appeared to be annoying those about him.

"Don't you like the show?"

"Yes, indeed!"

"Then why do you persist in hissing the performers?"

"Why, m-man alive, I w-was-n't h-hissing! I w-was s-s-im-ply s-s-s-saying to S-s-s-sammie that the s-s-s-singing is s-s-s-superb."

A man who stuttered badly went to a specialist and after ten difficult lessons learned to say quite distinctly, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." His friends congratulated him upon this splendid achievement.

"Yes," said the man doubtfully, "but it's s-s-such a d-d-deucedly d-d-d-difficult rem-mark to w-w-work into an ordin-n-nary c-c-convers-s-sa-tion, y' know."

STATESMEN

A statesman is a deal politician.--_Mr. Dooley_.

A statesman is a man who finds out which way the crowd is going, then jumps in front and yells like blazes.

STATISTICS

An earnest preacher in Georgia, who has a custom of telling the Lord all the news in his prayers, recently began a petition for help against the progress of wickedness in his town, with the statement:

"Oh, Thou great Jehovah, crime is on the increase. It is becoming more prevalent daily. I can prove it to you by statistics."

PATIENT--"Tell me candidly, Doc, do you think I'll pull through?"

DOCTOR--"Oh, you're bound to get well--you can't help yourself. _The Medical Record_ shows that out of one hundred cases like yours, one per cent invariably recovers. I've treated ninety-nine cases, and every one of them died. Why, man alive, you can't die if you try! There's no humbug in statistics."

STEAK

"Can I get a steak here and catch the one o'clock train?"

"It depends on your teeth, sir."

STEAM

"Can you tell what steam is?" asked the examiner.

"Why, sure, sir," replied Patrick confidently. "Steam is--Why--er--it's wather thos's gone crazy wid the heat."

STEAMSHIPS AND STEAMBOATS

"That new steamer they're building is a whopper," says the man with the shoe button nose.

"Yes," agrees the man with the recalcitrant hair, "but my uncle is going to build one so long that when a passenger gets seasick in one end of it he can go to the other end and be clear away from the storm."

STENOGRAPHERS

A beautiful statuesque blond had left New York to act as stenographer to a dignified Philadelphian of Quaker descent. On the morning of her first appearance she went straight to the desk of her employer.

"I presume," she remarked, "that you begin the day over here the same as they do in New York?"

"Oh, yes," replied the employer, without glancing up from a letter he was reading.

"Well, hurry up and kiss me, then," was the startling rejoinder, "I want to get to work."

STOCK BROKERS

A grain broker in New Boston, Maine, Said, "That market gives me a pain; I can hardly bear it, To bull--I don't dare it, For it's going against the grain."

--_Minnesota Minne-Ha-Ha_.

STRATEGY

A bird dog belonging to a man in Mulvane disappeared last week. The owner put this "ad" in the paper and insisted that it be printed exactly as he wrote it:

LOST OR RUN AWAY--One livver culered burd dog called Jim. Will show signs of hyderfobby in about three days. The dog came home the following day.

"Boy, take these flowers to Miss Bertie Bohoo, Room 12."

"My, sir, you're the fourth gentleman wot's sent her flowers to-day."

"What's that? What the deuce? W--who sent the others?"

"Oh, they didn't send any names. They all said, 'She'll know where they come from.'"

"Well, here, take my card, and tell her these are from the same one who sent the other three boxes."

The little girl was having a great deal of trouble pronouncing some of the words she met with. "Vinegar" had given her the most trouble, and she was duly grieved to know that the village was being entertained by her efforts in this direction.

She was sent one day to the store with the vinegar-jug, to get it filled, and had no intention of amusing the people who were gathered in the store. So she handed the jug to the clerk with:

"Smell the mouth of it and give me a quart."

A young couple had been courting for several years, and the young man seemed to be in no hurry to marry. Finally, one day, he said:

"Sall, I canna marry thee."

"How's that?" asked she.

"I've changed my mind," said he.