Volume 2 — Jest Jokes and Jingles
Reading edition
“If you can’t laugh at the jokes of this age, Laugh at the age of these jokes.”
He Didn’t Write So Very Often
Mr. Ever Sharp of Lead, S. Dak., had the nerve to write that his most embarrassing moment happened when he asked a young lady clerk in a stationery store for some lead. I’m glad I use a fountain pen.
* * *
Isn’t the X-ray wonderful? A Chicago dispatch says with the X-ray it is now possible to have pictures taken of your “diverticula of the sigmoid” for the loved ones at home.
* * *
A Domestic Disaster
“Isn’t it awful! My husband has run off with our cook.”
“Terrible, and cooks are so scarce!”
* * *
No Chance
“There, what was I telling you—figures never lie!”
“No, they can’t—not with the dresses the girls are wearing nowadays.”
* * *
A “Major” Operation
“What’s the matter, old top? You look sick.”
“I’ve just undergone a serious operation.”
“Appendicitis?”
“Worse than that. I had my allowance cut off.”
* * *
How often, oh how often, As drunk as a son of a gun, Two moons rose over the city Where there should have been but one.
* * *
Modern Methods
Kindly gentleman to little girl: “My, but your folks must take good care of you.”
Little girl: “Well, they ought to—I’ve got enough of ’em.”
“What do you mean, little girlie?”
“Well, mister, I’ve got three mamas by my first papa and two papas by my last mama.”
“Can that really be so?”
“Yes, sir, and my last papa just told me that I had a little baby brother at home and I’m going home now and tell mama.”
* * *
She flaunts a skirt cut rather high, And quite a length of hose, The city girl is never shy, However, shy of clothes.
* * *
Beware of a Skunk, Dead or Alive
Men, take warning and never go fur-shopping until you are entirely familiar with the vernacular of the fur store. Listen to my tale of woe. My wife requested that I buy a vermin fur piece for a Christmas present. Later, when I asked the pretty blonde fur clerk if she’d show me her vermin, she gave a look that made me feel like a spare tire on a decootieized tin lizzie. Then I asked for some skunk and she called the floor-walker. I asked him if he had charge of the skunk and he promptly asked me out of the store. But the fresh air felt so refreshing and Mrs. Bill still wears her cloth coat of the vintage of pre-war prices.
* * *
Our Monthly Motto
“Keep your feet on the ground and your mind on Heaven.”
* * *
Especially in Cold Weather
The new housemaid was, in most respects, quite satisfactory, but the mistress had observed that Bridget in her dusting operations, always appeared to miss a beautiful model of Venus. “Bridget,” cried the mistress at last, “why don’t you dust this figure? See”—and she touched it with her fingers—“she is quite covered with dust.” “Bejabers,” replied Bridget, “I hev been t’inking fer a long time, mem, that she should be covered with something.”
* * *
A mirage is a marriage that never happens.
* * *
Authenticated Military Message
Three soldiers—an American, an Englishman and an Irishman—from a trench watched a German airplane overhead. A piece of paper fluttered down and landed in a shell hole a few feet away.
Thinking it might be of value, the American crawled out after it. It proved to be a crumpled bit torn from a piece of wrapping paper. Thinking to have some fun with his comrades, he returned and said: “It looks as though it has been of value, all right, but I can’t make it out.”
The Englishman said he would try, and after he had investigated he took his cue from the American and admitted that he also was unable to read it.
“Faith,” said the Irishman, “I’ll bet I can dissect it,” and he started for the shell hole. In a few minutes he was back.
“Did you read it?” he was asked.
“Sure and I read it,” he replied, “but all I could make out was that the Germans are badly frightened and their entire rearguard has been wiped out.”
* * *
The Irish lad and Yiddish boy were engaged in verbal combat. First one would insist that his father or mother were better than the other’s. Then it was their pet bulldogs and their teachers. Finally the subject came down to respective churches.
“I guess I know that Father Harrity knows more than your Rabbi,” the little Irish boy insisted.
“Shure, he does; vy not?” replied the Jew boy. “You tell him everything.”