Part 32

"It didn't hurt as much as you expected it would, did it?" the dentist asked smiling.

"Well, no," replied Pat hesitatingly, as if doubting the truthfulness of his admission. "But," he added, placing his hand on the spot where the boy jabbed him with the pin, "begorra, little did I think the roots would reach down like that."

An Irishman with one side of his face badly swollen stepped into Dr. Wicten's office and inquired if the dentist was in. "I am the dentist," said the doctor.

"Well, then, I want ye to see what's the matter wid me tooth."

The doctor examined the offending molar, and explained: "The nerve is dead; that's what's the matter."

"Thin, be the powers," the Irishman exclaimed, "the other teeth must be houldin' a wake over it!"

For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently.

--_Shakespeare_.

TELEPHONE

Two girls were talking over the wire. Both were discussing what they should wear to the Christmas party. In the midst of this important conversation a masculine voice interrupted, asking humbly for a number. One of the girls became indignant and scornfully asked:

"What line do you think you are on, anyhow?"

"Well," said the man, "I am not sure, but, judging from what I have heard, I should say I was on a clothesline."

When Grover Cleveland's little girl was quite young her father once telephoned to the White House from Chicago and asked Mrs. Cleveland to bring the child to the 'phone. Lifting the little one up to the instrument, Mrs. Cleveland watched her expression change from bewilderment to wonder and then to fear. It was surely her father's voice--yet she looked at the telephone incredulously. After examining the tiny opening in the receiver the little girl burst into tears. "Oh, Mamma!" she sobbed. "How can we ever get Papa out of that little hole?"

New York Elks are having a lot of fun with a member of their lodge, a Fifteenth Street jeweler. The other day his wife was in the jewelry store when the 'phone rang. She answered it.

"I want to speak to Mr. H----," said a woman's voice.

"Who is this?' demanded the jeweler's wife.

"Elizabeth."

"Well, Elizabeth, this is his wife. Now, madam, what do you want?"

"I want to talk to Mr. H----."

"You'll talk to me."

"Please let me speak to Mr. H----."

The jeweler's wife grew angry. "Look here, young lady," she said, "who are you that calls my husband and insists on talking to him?"

"I'm the telephone operator at Elizabeth, N.J.," came the reply.

And now the Elks take turns calling the jeweler up and telling him it's Elizabeth.

OPERATOR--"Number, please."

SUBSCRIBER--"I vas talking mit my husband und now I don't hear him any more. You must of pushed him off de vire."

A German woman called up Central and instructed her as follows:

"Ist dis de mittle? Veil dis is Lena. Hang my hustband on dis line. I vant to speak mit him."

In China when the subscriber rings up exchange the operator may be expected to ask:

"What number does the honorable son of the moon and stars desire?"

"Hohi, two-three."

Silence. Then the exchange resumes.

"Will the honorable person graciously forgive the inadequacy of the insignificant service and permit this humbled slave of the wire to inform him that the never-to-be-sufficiently censured line is busy?"

Recipe for a telephone operator:

To fearful and wonderful rolling of "r's," And a voice cold as thirty below, Add a dash of red pepper, some ginger and sass If you leave out the "o" in "hello"!

TEMPER

Hearing the crash of china Dinah's mistress arrived in time to see her favorite coffee-set in pieces. The sight was too much for her mercurial temper. "Dinah," she said, "I cannot stand it any longer. I want you to go. I want you to go soon, I want you to go right now."

"Lawzee," replied Dinah, "this surely am a co-instence. I was this very minute cogitatin' that same thought in my own mind--I want to go, I thank the good Lawd I kin go, and I pity your husband, ma'am, that he can't go."

TEMPERANCE

A Boston deacon who was a zealous advocate for the cause of temperance employed a carpenter to make some alterations in his home. In repairing a corner near the fireplace, it was found necessary to remove the wainscot, when some things were brought to light which greatly astonished the workman. A brace of decanters, sundry bottles containing "something to take," a pitcher, and tumblers were cosily reposing in their snug quarters. The joiner ran to the proprietor with the intelligence.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed the deacon. "That is curious, sure enough. It must be old Captain Bunce that left those things there when he occupied the premises thirty years since."

"Perhaps he did, returned the discoverer, but, Deacon, that ice in the pitcher must have been well frozen to remain solid."--_Abbie C. Dixon_.

Here's to a temperance supper, With water in glasses tall, And coffee and tea to end with And me not there at all.

The best prohibition story of the season comes from Kansas where, it is said, a local candidate stored a lot of printed prohibition literature in his barn, but accidentally left the door open and a herd of milch cows came in and ate all the pamphlets. As a result every cow in the herd went dry.--_Adrian Times_.

A Michigan citizen recently received a letter from a Kentucky whisky house, requesting him to send them the names of a dozen or more persons who would like to get some fine whisky shipped to them at a very low price. The letter wound up by saying:

"We will give you a commission on all the orders sent in by parties whose names you send us."

The Michigan man belonged to a practical joke class, and filled in the names of some of his prohibition friends on the blank spaces left for that purpose.

He had forgotten all about his supposed practical joke when Monday he received another letter from the same house. He supposed it was a request for some more names, and was just about to throw the communication in the waste basket when it occurred to him to send the name of another old friend to the whisky house. He accordingly tore open the envelope, and came near collapsing when he found a check for $4.80, representing his commission on the sale of whisky to the parties whose names he had sent in about three weeks before.

Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.--_Samuel Johnson_.

TEXAS

The bigness of Texas is evident from a cursory examination of the map. But its effect upon the people of that state is not generally known. It is about six hundred miles from Brownsville, at the bottom of the map, to Dallas, which is several hundreds of miles from the top of the map. Hence the following conversation in Brownsville recently between two of the old-time residents:

"Where have you been lately, Bob? I ain't seen much of you."

"Been on a trip north."

"Where'd you go?"

"Went to Dallas."

"Have a good time?"

"Naw; I never did like them damn Yankees, anyway."

TEXTS

In the Tennessee mountains a mountaineer preacher, who had declared colleges "the works of the devil," was preaching without previous meditation an inspirational sermon from the text, "The voice of the turtle shall be heard in the land." Not noting that the margin read "turtle-dove," he proceeded in this manner:

"This text, my hearers, strikes me as one of the most peculiar texts in the whole book, because we all know that a turtle ain't got no voice. But by the inward enlightenment I begin to see the meaning and will expose it to you. Down in the hollers by the streams and ponds you have gone in the springtime, my brethren, and observed the little turtles, a-sleeping on the logs. But at the sound of the approach of a human being, they went _kerflop-kerplunk_, down into the water. This I say, then, is the meaning of the prophet: he, speakinging figgeratively, referred to the _kerflop_ of the turtle as the _voice_ of the turtle, and hence we see that in those early times the prophet, looking down at the ages to come, clearly taught and prophesied the doctrine I have always preached to this congregation--_that immersion is the only form of baptism."_

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., once asked a clergyman to give him an appropriate Bible verse on which to base an address which he was to make at the latter's church.

"I was thinking," said young Rockefeller, "that I would take the verse from the Twenty-third Psalm: 'The Lord is my shepherd.' Would that seem appropriate?"

"Quite," said the clergyman; "but do you really want an appropriate verse?"

"I certainly do," was the reply.

"Well, then," said the clergyman, with a twinkle in his eye, "I would select the verse in the same Psalm: 'Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.'"

THEATER

"Say, old man," chattered the press-agent, who had cornered a producer of motion-picture plays, "I've got a grand idea for a film-drama. Listen to the impromptu scenario: Scene one, exterior of a Broadway theater, with the ticket-speculators getting the coin in handfuls, and--"

"You're out!" interrupted the producer. "Why, don't you know that the law don't permit us to show an actual robbery on the screen?"--_P.H. Carey_.

"Why don't women have the same sense of humor that men possess?" asked Mr. Torkins.

"Perhaps," answered his wife gently, "it's because we don't attend the same theaters."

It appears that at the rehearsal of a play, a wonderful climax had been reached, which was to be heightened by the effective use of the usual thunder and lightning. The stage-carpenter was given the order. The words were spoken, and instantly a noise which resembled a succession of pistol-shots was heard off the wings.

"What on earth are you doing, man?" shouted the manager, rushing behind the scenes. "Do you call that thunder? It's not a bit like it."

"Awfully sorry, sir," responded the carpenter; "but the fact is, sir, I couldn't hear you because of the storm. That was real thunder, sir!"

Everybody has his own theater, in which he is manager, actor, prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, boxkeeper, doorkeeper, all in one, and audience into the bargain.--_J.C. and A.W. Hare_.

THIEVES

GEORGIA LAWYER (to colored prisoner)--"Well, Ras, so you want me to defend you. Have you any money?"

RASTUS--"No; but I'se got a mule, and a few chickens, and a hog or two."

LAWYER--"Those will do very nicely. Now, let's see; what do they accuse you of stealing?"

RASTUS--"Oh, a mule, and a few chickens, and a hog or two."

At a dinner given by the prime minister of a little kingdom on the Balkan Peninsula, a distinguished diplomat complained to his host that the minister of justice, who had been sitting on his left, had stolen his watch.

"Ah, he shouldn't have done that," said the prime minister, in tones of annoyance. "I will get it back for you."

Sure enough, toward the end of the evening the watch was returned to its owner.

"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.