Part 4

"Is it true that since you came up here you've got engaged to Billy, Ed, George and Harry, as well as me?"

The young lady assumed an air of disdain.

"What is that to you?" she demanded.

"Just this," he replied gently. "If it's so, and you have no objection, we fellows will all chip in together to buy an engagement ring."

COMPENSATION

Isaac and Moses dined in a restaurant that was new to them, and were pained seriously by the amount of the check. Moses began to expostulate in a loud voice, but Isaac hushed him with a whisper:

"'Sh! I haf the spoons in my pocket."

COMPLIMENTS

"Would you like a lock of my hair?" asked the gallant old bachelor of the spinster who had been a belle a few decades past.

"Why don't you offer me the whole wig?" the maiden lady gibed, with a titter.

The bachelor retorted with icy disdain:

"You are very biting, madam, considering that your teeth are porcelain."

The young man, dancing with the girl to whom he had just been introduced, remarked with the best of intentions, but rather unfortunately:

"That's the new waltz. My sister was raving about it. I think it's pretty bad. I expect she danced it with somebody rather nice."

In former times, when royalties were more important, a lady at a court ball was intensely gratified when a prince selected her as a partner. She was almost overwhelmed with pride when he danced a second measure with her.

"Oh," she gushed, as she reposed blissfully in his arms, "your highness does me too great honor."

The prince answered coldly:

"But no, madam. Merely, my physician has directed me to perspire."

CONCEALMENT

The widow was deep in suds over the family wash, when she saw her pastor coming up the path to the door. She gave directions to her young son to answer the bell, and to tell the clergyman that his mother had just gone down the street on an errand. Since the single ground floor room of the cottage offered no better hiding place against observation from the door, she crouched behind a clothes-horse hung with drying garments. When the boy had opened the door to the minister, and had duly delivered the message concerning his mother's absence, the reverend gentleman cast a sharp look toward the screen of drying clothes, and addressed the boy thus:

"Well, my lad, just tell your mother I called. And you might say to her that the next time she goes down the street, she should take her feet along."

CONCEIT

"I suppose I must admit that I do have my faults," the husband remarked in a tone that was far from humble.

"Yes," the wife snapped, "and in your opinion your faults are better than other folks' virtues."

CONSCIENCE

The child had been greatly impressed by her first experience in Sunday school. She pressed her hands to her breast, and said solemnly to her sister, two years older:

"When you hear something wite here, it is conscience whispering to you."

"It's no such thing," the sister jeered. "That's just wind on your tummie."

CONSTANCY

His companion bent over the dying man, to catch the last faintly whispered words. The utterance came with pitiful feebleness, yet with sufficient clearness:

"I am dying—yes. Go to Fannie. Tell her—I died—with her name—on my lips, that I—loved her—her alone—always.... And Jennie—tell Jennie—the same thing."

CONVERSION

A zealous church member in a Kentucky village made an earnest effort to convert a particularly vicious old mountaineer named Jim, who was locally notorious for his godlessness. But the old man was hard-headed and stubborn, firmly rooted in his evil courses, so that he resisted the pious efforts in his behalf.

"Jim," the exhorter questioned sadly at last, "ain't you teched by the story of the Lord what died to save yer soul?"

"Humph!" Jim retorted contemptuously. "Air ye aimin' to tell me the Lord died to save me, when He ain't never seed me, ner knowed me?"

"Jim," the missionary explained with fervor, "it was a darn sight easier for the Lord to die fer ye jest because He never seed ye than if He knowed ye as well as we-alls do!"

COOKERY

The housewife gave the tramp a large piece of pie on condition that he should saw some wood. The tramp retired to the woodshed, but presently he reappeared at the back door of the house with the piece of pie still intact save for one mouthful bitten from the end.

"Madam," he said respectfully to the wondering woman, "if it's all the same to you, I'll eat the wood, and saw the pie."

COURTESY

The witness was obviously a rustic and quite new to the ways of a court-room. So, the judge directed him:

"Speak to the jury, sir—the men sitting behind you on the benches."

The witness turned, bowed clumsily and said:

"Good-morning, gentlemen."

COWARDICE

The old farmer and his wife visited the menagerie. When they halted before the hippopotamus cage, he remarked admiringly:

"Darn'd curi's fish, ain't it, ma?"

"That ain't a fish," the wife announced. "That's a rep-tile."

It was thus that the argument began. It progressed to a point of such violence that the old lady began belaboring the husband with her umbrella. The old man dodged and ran, with the wife in pursuit. The trainer had just opened the door of the lions' cage, and the farmer popped in. He crowded in behind the largest lion and peered over its shoulder fearfully at his wife, who, on the other side of the bars, shook her umbrella furiously.

"Coward!" she shouted. "Coward!"

CURIOSITY

The colored man, passing through the market, saw a turtle for the first time, and surveyed it with great interest. The creature's head was withdrawn, but as the investigator fumbled about the shell, it shot forward and nipped his finger. With a howl of pain he stuck his finger in his mouth, and sucked it.

"What's the matter?" the fishmonger asked with a grin.

"Nothin'—jest nothin' a tall," the colored man answered thickly. "Ah was only wonderin' whether Ah had been bit or stung."

DAMAGES

The child came to his mother in tears.

"Oh, mama," he confessed, "I broke a tile in the hearth."

"Never mind, dear," the mother consoled. "But how ever did you come to do it?"

"I was pounding it with father's watch?"

DANGER

One foot in the grave, and the other slipping.

DEAD CERTAINTY

On Tuesday, a colored maid asked her mistress for permission to be absent on the coming Friday. She explained that she wished to attend the funeral of her fiance. The mistress gave the required permission sympathetically.

"But you're not wearing mourning, Jenny," she remarked.

"Oh, no, ma'am," the girl replied. "You see, ma'am, he ain't dead yet. The hanging ain't till Friday."

DEAD MEN'S SHOES

When a certain officer of the governor's staff died, there were many applicants for the post, and some were indecently impatient. While the dead colonel was awaiting burial, one aspirant buttonholed the governor, asking:

"Would you object to my taking the place of the colonel?"

"Not at all," the governor replied tartly. "See the undertaker."

DEAFNESS

In the smoking-room of a theatre, between the acts, an amiable young man addressed an elderly gentleman who was seated beside him:

"The show is very good, don't you think?"

The old gentleman nodded approvingly, as he replied:

"Me, I always take the surface cars. Them elevated an' subway stairs ketches my breath."

"I said the show was a good one," exclaimed the young man, raising his voice.

Again, the elderly person nodded agreeably.

"They jump about a good deal," was his comment, "but they're on the ground, which the others ain't."

Now, the young man shouted:

"You're a little deaf, ain't you?"

At last the other understood.

"Yes, sir!" he announced proudly. "I'm as deef as a post." He chuckled contentedly. "Some folks thinks as that's a terrible affliction, but I don't. I kin always hear what I'm sayin' myself, an' that's interestin' enough for me."

An excellent old gentleman grew hard of hearing, and was beset with apprehension lest he become totally deaf. One day, as he rested on a park bench, another elderly citizen seated himself alongside. The apprehensive old gentleman saw that the new comer was talking rapidly, but his ears caught no faintest sound of the other's voice. He listened intently—in vain. He cupped a hand to his ear, but there was only silence. At last, in despair, he spoke his thought aloud:

"It's come at last! I know you've been talking all this while, but I haven't heard a single word."

The answer, given with a grin, was explicit and satisfying to the worried deaf man:

"I hain't been talkin'—jest a-chewin'."

DEDICATION

The visitor to the poet's wife expressed her surprise that the man of genius had failed to dedicate any one of his volumes to the said wife. Whereupon, said wife became flustered, and declared tartly:

"I never thought of that. As soon as you are gone, I'll look through all his books, and if that's so, I never will forgive him!"

DEFINITION

The schoolboy, after profound thought, wrote this definition of the word "spine," at his teacher's request.

"A spine is a long, limber bone. Your head sets on one end and you set on the other."

DEGREES IN DEGRADATION

Phil May, the artist, when once down on his luck in Australia, took a job as waiter in a very low-class restaurant. An acquaintance came into the place to dine, and was aghast when he discovered the artist in his waiter.

"My God!" he whispered. "To find you in such a place as this."

Phil May smiled, as he retorted:

"Oh, but, you see, I don't eat here."

DELAY

A woman in the mountains of Tennessee was seated in the doorway of the cabin, busily eating some pig's feet. A neighbor hurried up to tell of how her husband had become engaged in a saloon brawl and had been shot to death. The widow continued munching on a pig's foot in silence while she listened to the harrowing news. As the narrator paused, she spoke thickly from her crowded mouth:

"Jest wait till I finish this-here pig's trotter, an' ye'll hear some hollerin' as is hollerin'."

DEVIL

Some wasps built their nests during the week in a Scotch clergyman's best breeches. On the Sabbath as he warmed up to his preaching, the wasps, too, warmed up, with the result that presently the minister was leaping about like a jack in the box, and slapping his lower anatomy with great vigor, to the amazement of the congregation.

"Be calm, brethren," he shouted. "The word of God is in my mouth, but the De'il's in my breeches!"

DIET

The young lady, who was something of a food fadist, was on a visit to a coast fishing village. She questioned her host as to the general diet of the natives, and was told that they subsisted almost entirely on fish. The girl protested:

"But fish is a brain food, and these folks are really the most unintelligent-looking that I ever saw."

"Mebbe so," the host agreed. "And just think what they'd look like if they didn't eat fish!"

DIGESTION

In an English school, the examiner asked one of the children to name the products of the Indian Empire. The child was well prepared, but very nervous.

"Please, sir," the answer ran, "India produces curries and pepper and rice and citron and chutney and—and—"

There was a long pause. Then, as the first child remained silent, a little girl raised her hand. The examiner nodded.

"Yes, you may name any other products of India."

"Please, sir," the child announced proudly, "India-gestion."

DIPLOMACY

"Now, let me see," the impecunious man demanded as he buttonholed an acquaintance, "do I owe you anything?"

"Not a penny, my dear sir," was the genial reply. "You are going about paying your little debts?"

"No, I'm going about to see if I've overlooked anybody? Lend me ten till Saturday."

Ted had a habit of dropping in at the house next door on baking day, for the woman of that house had a deft way in the making of cookies, and Ted had no hesitation in enjoying her hospitality, even to the extent of asking for cookies if they were not promptly forthcoming.

When the boy's father learned of this, he gave Ted a lecture and a strict order never to ask for cookies at the neighbor's kitchen. So, when a few days later the father saw his son munching a cookie as he came away from the next house, he spoke sternly:

"Have you been begging cookies again?"

"Oh, no, I didn't beg any," Ted answered cheerfully. "I just said, this house smells as if it was full of cookies. But what's that to me?"

Sometimes the use of a diplomatic method defeats its own purpose, as in the case of the old fellow who was enthusiastic in praise of the busy lawyer from whose office he had just come, after a purely social call.

"That feller, for a busy man," he declared earnestly, "is one of the pleasantest chaps I ever did meet. Why, I dropped in on him jest to pass the time o' day this mornin', an' I hadn't been chattin' with 'im more'n five minutes before he'd told me three times to come and see 'im agin."

The lady of uncertain age simpered at the gentleman of about the same age who had offered her his seat in the car.

"Why should you be so kind to me?" she gurgled.

"My dear madam, because I myself have a mother and a wife and a daughter."

Diplomacy is shown inversely by the remark of the professor to the lady in this story.

At a reception the woman chatted for some time with the distinguished man of learning, and displayed such intelligence that one of the listeners complimented her.

"Oh, really," she said with a smile, "I've just been concealing my ignorance."

The professor spoke gallantly.

"Not at all, not at all, my dear madam! Quite the contrary, I do assure you."

DIRT

We are more particular nowadays about cleanliness than were those of a past generation. Charles Lamb, during a whist game, remarked to his partner:

"Martin, if dirt were trumps, what a hand you'd have!"

The French aristocrats were not always conspicuously careful in their personal habits. A visitor to a Parisian grande dame remarked to her hostess:

"But how dirty your hands are."

The great lady regarded her hands doubtfully, as she replied:

"Oh, do you think so? Why, you ought to see my feet!"

DISCIPLINE

Jimmy found much to criticise in his small sister. He felt forced to remonstrate with his mother.

"Don't you want Jenny to be a good wife like you when she grows up?" he demanded. His mother nodded assent.

"Then you better get busy, ma. You make me give into her all the time 'cause I'm bigger 'en she is. You're smaller 'en pa, but when he comes in, you bring him his slippers, and hand him the paper." Jimmie yanked his go-cart from baby Jennie, and disregarded her wail of anger as he continued:

"Got to dis'pline her, or she'll make an awful wife!"

DISCRETION

The kindly and inquisitive old gentleman was interested in the messenger boy who sat on the steps of a house, and toyed delicately with a sandwich taken from its wrapper. With the top piece of bread carefully removed, the boy picked out and ate a few small pieces of the chicken. The puzzled observer questioned the lad:

"Now, sonny, why don't you eat your sandwich right down, instead of fussing with it like that?"

The answer was explicit:

"Dasn't! 'Tain't mine."

DIVORCE

The court was listening to the testimony of the wife who sought a divorce.

"Tell me explicitly," the judge directed the woman, "what fault you have to find with your husband."

And the wife was explicit:

"He is a liar, a brute, a thief and a brainless fool!"

"Tut, tut!" the judge remonstrated. "I suspect you would find difficulty in proving all your assertions."

"Prove it!" was the retort. "Why, everybody knows it."

"If you knew it," his honor demanded sarcastically, "why did you marry him?"

"I didn't know it before I married him."

The husband interrupted angrily:

"Yes, she did, too," he shouted. "She did so!"

DOCTORS

A victim of chronic bronchitis called on a well-known physician to be examined. The doctor, after careful questioning, assured the patient that the ailment would respond readily to treatment.

"You're so sure," the sufferer inquired, "I suppose you must have had a great deal of experience with this disease."

The physician smiled wisely, and answered in a most confidential manner:

"Why, my dear sir, I've had bronchitis myself for more than fifteen years."

A well-to-do colored man suffered a serious illness, and showed no signs of improvement under treatment by a physician of his own race. So, presently, he dismissed this doctor and summoned a white man. The new physician made a careful examination of the patient, and then asked:

"Did that other doctor take your temperature?"

The sick man shook his head doubtfully.

"I dunno, suh," he declared, "I sartinly dunno. All I've missed so far is my watch."

A member of the faculty in a London medical college was appointed an honorary physician to the king. He proudly wrote a notice, on the blackboard in his class-room:

"Professor Jennings informs his students that he has been appointed honorary physician to His Majesty, King George."

When he returned to the class-room in the afternoon he found written below his notice this line:

"God save the King."

The Chinaman expressed his gratitude to that mighty physician Sing Lee, as follows:

"Me velly sick man. Me get Doctor Yuan Sin. Takee him medicine. Velly more sick. Me get Doctor Hang Shi. Takee him medicine. Velly bad—think me go die. Me callee Doctor Kai Kon. Him busy—no can come. Me get well."

The instructor in the Medical College exhibited a diagram.

"The subject here limps," he explained, "because one leg is shorter than the other." He addressed one of the students:

"Now, Mr. Snead, what would you do in such a case?"

Young Snead pondered earnestly and replied with conviction:

"I fancy, sir, that I should limp, too."

The physician turned from the telephone to his wife:

"I must hurry to Mrs. Jones' boy—he's sick."

"Is it serious?"

"Yes. I don't know what's the matter with him, but she has a book on what to do before the doctor comes. So I must hurry. Whatever it is, she mustn't do it."

DOCTRINE

In a former generation, when elaborate doctrines were deemed more important by Christian clergymen than they are to-day, they were prone to apply every utterance of the Bible to the demonstration of their own particular tenets. For example, one distinguished minister announced his text and introduced his sermon as follows:

"'So, Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he did eat at the King's table, and he was lame on both his feet.'

"My brethren, we are here taught the doctrine of human depravity.—Mephibosheth was lame. Also the doctrine of total depravity—he was lame on both his feet. Also the doctrine of justification—for he dwelt in Jerusalem. Fourth, the doctrine of adoption—'he did eat at the King's table.' Fifth, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints—for we read that 'he did eat at the King's table continually.'"

DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

During the worst of the spy-scare period in London a man was brought into the police station, who declared indignantly that he was a well-known American citizen. But his captor denounced him as a German, and offered as proof the hotel register, which he had brought along. He pointed to the signature of the accused. It read:

"V. Gates."

DOGS

The tramp was sitting with his back to a hedge by the wayside, munching at some scraps wrapped in a newspaper. A lady, out walking with her pet Pomeranian, strolled past. The little dog ran to the tramp, and tried to muzzle the food. The tramp smiled expansively on the lady.

"Shall I throw the leetle dog a bit, mum?" he asked.

The lady was gratified by this appearance of kindly interest in her pet, and murmured an assent. The tramp caught the dog by the nape of the neck and tossed it over the hedge, remarking:

"And if he comes back, mum, I might throw him a bit more."

Many a great man has been given credit as originator of this cynical sentiment:

"The more I see of men, the more I respect dogs."

The fox terrier regarded with curious interest the knot tied in the tail of the dachshund.

"What's the big idea?" he inquired.

"That," the dachshund answered, "is a knot my wife tied to make me remember an errand."