TOASTER'S HANDBOOK (continued 7)

May bad fortune follow you all your days And never catch up with you.

A father once said to his son, "The next time you make up a pun, Go out in the yard And kick yourself hard, And I will begin when you've done."

The sages say, Dame Truth delights to dwell (Strange Mansion!) in the bottom of a well: Questions are then the Windlass and the rope That pull the grave old Gentlewoman up. —John Wolcott.

REHEARSALS The funeral procession was moving along the village street when Uncle Abe stepped out of a store. He hadn't heard the news. "Sho," said Uncle Abe, "who they buryin' today?" "Pore old Tite Harrison," said the storekeeper. "Sho," said Uncle Abe. "Tite Harrison, hey? Is Tite dead?" "You don't think we're rehearsin' with him, do you?" snapped the storekeeper. RELATIVES "It is hard, indeed," said the melancholy gentleman, "to lose one's relatives." "Hard?" snorted the gentleman of wealth. "Hard? It is impossible!" RELIGIONS When Bishop Phillips Brooks sailed from America on his last trip to Europe, a friend jokingly remarked that while abroad he might discover some new religion to bring home with him. "But be careful of it, Bishop Brooks," remarked a listening friend; "it may be difficult to get your new religion through the Custom House." "I guess not," replied the Bishop, laughingly, "for we may take it for granted that any new religion popular enough to import will have no duties attached to it." At a recent conference of Baptists, Methodists, and English Friends, in the city of Chengtu, China, two Chinamen were heard discussing the three denominations. One of them said to the other: "They say these denominations have different beliefs. Just what is the difference between them?" "Oh," said the other, "Not much! Big washee, little washee, no washee, that is all." A recent book on Russia relates the story of the anger of the Apostle John because a certain peasant burned no tapers to his ikon, but honored, instead, the ikon of Apostle Peter in St. John's own church. The two apostles talked it over as they walked the fields near Kieff, and Apostle John decided to send a terrible storm to destroy the just ripe corn of the peasant. His decision was carried out, and the next day he met Apostle Peter and boasted of his punishing wrath. And Apostle Peter only laughed. "Ai, yi, yi, Apostle John," he said, "what a mess you've made of it. I stepped around, saw my friend, and told him what you were going to do, so he sold his corn to the priest of your church." The priest of a New York parish met one of his parishioners, who had long been out of work, and asked him whether he had found anything to do. The man grinned with infinite satisfaction, and replied: "Yiss indade, ycr Riverince, an' a foine job too! Oi'm gettin' three dollars a day fur pullin' down a Prodesant church!" A man addicted to walking in his sleep went to bed all right one night, but when he awoke he found himself on the street in the grasp of a policeman. "Hold on," he cried, "you mustn't arrest me. I'm a somnambulist." To which the policeman replied: "I don't care what your religion is—yer can't walk the streets in yer nightshirt." The friendship existing between Father Kelly and Rabbi Levi is proof against differences in race and religion. Each distinguished for his learning, his eloquence and his wit; and they delight in chaffing each other. They were seated opposite each other at a banquet where some delicious roast ham was served and Father Kelly made comments upon its flavor. Presently he leaned forward and in a voice that carried far, he addressed his friend: "Rabbi Levi, when are you going to become liberal enough to eat ham?" "At your wedding, Father Kelly," retorted the rabbi. The broad-minded see the truth in different religions; the narrow-minded see only their differences.—Chinese Proverb. REMEDIES MISTRESS—"Did the mustard plaster do you any good, Bridget?" MAID—"Yes; but, begorry, mum, it do bite the tongue!" SUFFERER—"I have a terrible toothache and want something to cure it." FRIEND—"Now, you don't need any medicine. I had a toothache yesterday and I went home and my loving wife kissed me and so consoled me that the pain soon passed away. Why don't you try the same?" SUFFERER—"I think I will. Is your wife at home now?" For every ill beneath the sun There is some remedy or none; If there be one, resolve to find it; If not, submit, and never mind it. REMINDERS The wife of an overworked promoter said at breakfast: "Will you post this letter for me, dear? It's to the furrier, countermanding my order for that $900 sable and ermine stole. You'll be sure to remember?" The tired eyes of the harassed, shabby promoter lit up with joy. He seized a skipping rope that lay with a heap of dolls and toys in a corner, and going to his wife, he said: "Here, tie my right hand to my left foot so I won't forget!" REPARTEE Repartee is saying on the instant what you didn't say until the next morning. Among the members of a working gang on a certain railroad was an Irishman who claimed to be very good at figures. The boss, thinking that he would get ahead of Pat, said: "Say, Pat, how many shirts can you get out of a yard?" "That depends," answered Pat, "on whose yard you get into." A middle-aged farmer accosted a serious-faced youth outside the Grand Central Station in New York the other day. "Young man," he said, plucking his sleeve, "I wanter go to Central Park." The youth seemed lost in consideration for a moment. "Well," he said finally, "you may just this once. But I don't want you ever, ever to ask me again." SEEDY VISITOR— "Do you have many wrecks about here, boatman?" BOATMAN—"Not very many, sir. You're the first I've seen this season." HER DAD—"No, sir; I won't have my daughter tied for life to a stupid fool." HER SUITOR—"Then don't you think you'd better let me take her off your hands?" Wendell Phillips was traveling through Ohio once when he fell in with a car full of ministers returning from a convention. One of the ministers, a southerner from Kentucky, was naturally not very cordial to the opinions of the great abolitionist and set out to embarrass Mr. Phillips. So, before the group of ministers, he said: "You are Wendell Phillips, are you not?" "Yes," answered the great abolitionist. "And you are trying to free the niggers, aren't you?" "Yes, sir; I am." "Well, why do you preach your doctrines up here? Why don't you go over into Kentucky?" "Excuse me, are you a preacher?" "I am, sir." "Are you trying to save souls from hell?" "Yes, sir; that is my business." "Well, why don't you go there then?" asked Mr. Phillips. SOLEMN SENIOR—"So your efforts to get on the team were fruitless, were they?" FOOLISH FRESHMAN—"Oh, no! Not at all. They gave me a lemon."—Harvard Lampoon. A benevolent person watched a workman laboriously windlassing rock from a shaft while the broiling sun was beating down on his bare head. "My dear man," observed the onlooker, "are you not afraid that your brain will be affected in the hot sun?" The laborer contemplated him for a moment and then replied: "Do you think a man with any brains would be working at this kind of a job?" Winston Churchill, the young English statesman, recently began to raise a mustache, and while it was still in the budding stage he was asked at a dinner party to take in to dinner an English girl who had decided opposing political views. "I am sorry," said Mr. Churchill, "we cannot agree on politics." "No, we can't," rejoined the girl, "for to be frank with you I like your politics about as little as I do your mustache." "Well," replied Mr. Churchill, "remember that you are not likely to come into contact with either." Strickland Gillilan, the lecturer and the man who pole-vaulted into fame by his "Off Ag'in, On Ag'in, Finnigin" verses, was about to deliver a lecture in a small Missouri town. He asked the chairman of the committee whether he might have a small pitcher of ice-water on the platform table. "To drink?" queried the committeeman. "No," answered Gillilan. "I do a high-diving act." TRAVELER—"Say, boy, your corn looks kind of yellow." BOY—"Yes, sir. That's the kind we planted." TRAVELER—"Looks as though you will only have half a crop." BOY—"Don't expect any more. The landlord gets the other half." TRAVELER (after a moment's thought)—"Say, there is not much difference between you and a fool." BOY—"No, sir. Only the fence." President Lincoln was busily engaged in his office when an attendant, a young man of sixteen, unceremoniously entered and gave him a card. Without rising, the President glanced at the card. "Pshaw. She here again? I told her last week that I could not interfere in her case. I cannot see her," he said impatiently. "Get rid of her any way you can. Tell her I am asleep, or anything you like." Quickly returning to the lady in an adjacent room, this exceedingly bright boy said to her, "The President told me to tell you that he is asleep." The lady's eyes sparkled as she responded, "Ah, he says he is asleep, eh? Well, will you be kind enough to return and ask him when he intends to wake up?" The garrulous old lady in the stern of the boat had pestered the guide with her comments and questions ever since they had started. Her meek little husband, who was hunched toad-like in the bow, fished in silence. The old lady had seemingly exhausted every possible point in fish and animal life, woodcraft, and personal history when she suddenly espied one of those curious paths of oily, unbroken water frequently seen on small lakes which are ruffled by a light breeze. "Oh, guide, guide," she exclaimed, "what makes that funny streak in the water—No, there—Right over there!" The guide was busy re-baiting the old gentleman's hook and merely mumbled "U-m-mm." "Guide," repeated the old lady in tones that were not to be denied, "look right over there where I'm pointing and tell me what makes that funny streak in the water." The guide looked up from his baiting with a sigh. "That? Oh, that's where the road went across the ice last winter." Nothing more clearly expresses the sentiments of Harvard men in seasons of athletic rivalry than the time-honored "To hell with Yale!" Once when Dean Briggs, of Harvard, and Edward Everett Hale were on their way to a game at Soldiers' Field a friend asked: "Where are you going, Dean?" "To yell with Hale," answered Briggs with a meaning smile. John Kendrick Bangs one day called up his wife on the telephone. The maid at the other end did not recognize her "master's voice," and after Bangs had told her whom he wanted the maid asked: "Do you wish to speak with Mrs. Bangs?" "No, indeed," replied the humorist; "I want to kiss her." A boy took a position in an office where two different telephones were installed. "Your wife would like to speak to you on the 'phone, sir," he said to his employer. "Which one?" inquired the boss, starting toward the two booths. "Please, sir, she didn't say, and I didn't know that you had more than one." An Englishman was being shown the sights along the Potomac. "Here," remarked the American, "is where George Washington threw a dollar across the river." "Well," replied the Englishman, "that is not very remarkable, for a dollar went much further in those days than it does now." The American would not be worsted, so, after a short pause, he said: "But Washington accomplished a greater feat than that. He once chucked a sovereign across the Atlantic." Pat was busy on a road working with his coat off. There were two Englishmen laboring on the same road, so they decided to have a joke with the Irishman. They painted a donkey's head on the back of Pat's coat, and watched to see him put it on. Pat, of course, saw the donkey's head on his coat, and, turning to the Englishmen, said: "Which of yez wiped your face on me coat?" A district leader went to Sea Girt, in 1912, to see the Democratic candidate for President. In the course of an animated conversation, the leader, noticing that Governor Wilson's eyeglasses were perched perilously near the tip of his nose remarked: "Your glasses, Governor, are almost on your mouth." "That's all right," was the quick response. "I want to see what I'm talking about." According to the London Globe two Germans were halted at the French frontier by the customs officers. "We have each to declare three bottles of red wine," said one of the Germans to the douaniers. "How much to pay?" "Where are the bottles?" asked the customs man. "They are within!" laughed the Teuton making a gesture. The French douanier, unruffled, took down his tariff book and read, or pretended to read: "Wines imported in bottles pay so much, wines imported in barrels pay so much, and wines en peaux d'âne pay no duty. You can pass, gentlemen." A small boy was hoeing corn in a sterile field by the roadside, when a passer-by stopped and said: "'Pears to me your corn is rather small." "Certainly," said the boy; "it's dwarf corn." "But it looks yaller." "Certainly; we planted the yaller kind." "But it looks as if you wouldn't get more than half a crop." "Of course not; we planted it on halves." REPORTING See Journalism; Newspapers. REPUBLICAN PARTY The morning after a banquet, during the Democratic convention in Baltimore, a prominent Republican thus greeted an equally well-known Democrat: "I understand there were some Republicans at the banquet last night." "Oh, yes," said the Democrat genially, "one waited on me." REPUTATION Popularity is when people like you; and reputation is when they ought to, but really can't.—Frank Richardson. RESEMBLANCES Senator Blackburn is a thorough Kentuckian, and has all the local pride of one born in the blue-grass section of his State. He also has the prejudice against being taken for an Indianian which seems inherent in all native-born Kentuckians. While coming to Congress, several sessions ago, he was approached in the Pullman coach by a New Yorker, who, after bowing politely to him, said: "Is not this Senator Blackburn of Indiana?" The Kentuckian sprang from his seat, and glaring at his interlocutor exclaimed angrily: "No, sir, by ——. The reason I look so bad is I have been sick!" "Every time the baby looks into my face he smiles," said Mr. Meekins. "Well," answered his wife, "it may not be exactly polite, but it shows he has a sense of humor." Mark Twain constantly received letters and photographs from men who had been told that they looked like him. One was from Florida, and the likeness, as shown by the man's picture, was really remarkable so remarkable, indeed, that Mr. Clemens sent the following acknowledgment: "My Dear Sir: I thank you very much for your letter and the photograph. In my opinion you are certainly more like me than any other of my doubles. In fact, I am sure that if you stood before me in a mirrorless frame I could shave by you." NEIGHBOR: "Johnny, I think in looks you favor your mother a great deal." JOHNNY: "Well. I may look like her, but do you tink dat's a favor?" RESIGNATION "Then you don't think I practice what I preach, eh?" queried the minister in talking with one of the deacons at a meeting. "No, sir, I don't," replied the deacon "You've been preachin' on the subject of resignation for two years an' ye haven't resigned yet." RESPECTABILITY "Is he respectable?"' "Eminently so. He's never been indicted for anything less than stealing a railroad."—Wasp. REST CURE A weather-beaten damsel somewhat over six feet in height and with a pair of shoulders proportionately broad appeared at a back door in Wyoming and asked for light housework. She said that her name was Lizzie, and explained that she had been ill with typhoid and was convalescing. "Where did you come from, Lizzie?" inquired the woman of the house. "Where have you been?" "I've been workin' out on Howell's ranch," replied Lizzie, "diggin' post-holes while I was gittin' my strength back." RETALIATION You know that fellow, Jim McGroiarty, the lad that's always comin' up and thumpin' ye on the chest and yellin', 'How are ye?'" "I know him." "I'll bet he's smashed twinty cigars for me—some of them clear Havanny—but I'll get even with him now." "How will you do it?" "I'll tell ye. Jim always hits me over the vest pocket where I carry my cigars. He'll hit me just once more. There's no cigar in me vest pocket this mornin'. Instead of it, there's a stick of dynamite, d'ye mind!" Once when Henry Ward Beecher was in the midst of an eloquent political speech some wag in the audience crowed like a cock. It was done to perfection and the audience was convulsed with laughter. The great orator's friends felt uneasy as to his reception of the interruption. But Mr. Beecher stood perfectly calm. He stopped speaking, listened till the crowing ceased, and while the audience was laughing he pulled out his watch. Then he said: "That's strange. My watch says it is only ten o'clock. But there can't be any mistake about it. It must be morning, for the instincts of the lower animals are absolutely infallible." An Episcopal clergyman, rector of a fashionable church in one of Boston's most exclusive suburbs, so as not to be bothered with the innumerable telephone calls that fall to one in his profession, had his name left out of the telephone book. A prominent merchant of the same name, living in the same suburb, was continually annoyed by requests to officiate at funerals and baptisms. He went to the rector, told his troubles in a kindly way, and asked the parson to have his name put in the directory. But without success. The merchant then determined to complain to the telephone company. As he was writing the letter, one Saturday evening, the telephone rang and the timid voice of a young man asked if the Rev. Mr. Blank would marry him at once. A happy thought came to the merchant: "No, I'm too damn busy writing my sermon," he replied. REVOLUTIONS Haiti was in the midst of a revolution. As a phase of it two armed bodies were approaching each other so that a third was about to be caught between them. The commander of the third party saw the predicament. On the right government troops, on the left insurgents. "General, why do you not give the order to fire?" asked an aide, dashing up on a lame mule. "I would like to," responded the general, "but, Great Scott! I can't remember which side we're fighting for." REWARDS Said a great Congregational preacher To a hen, "You're a beautiful creature." And the hen, just for that, Laid an egg in his hat, And thus did the Hen reward Beecher. RHEUMATISM FARMER BARNES—"I've bought a barometer, Hannah, to tell when it's going to rain, ye know." MRS. BARNES—"To tell when it's goin' to rain! Why, I never heard o' such extravagance. What do ye s'pose th' Lord has given ye th' rheumatis for?"—Tit-Bits. ROADS A Yankee just returning to the states was dining with an Englishman, and the latter complained of the mud in America. "Yes," said the American, "but it's nothing to the mud over here." "Nonsense!" said the Englishman. "Fact," the American replied. "Why, this afternoon I had a remarkable adventure—came near getting into trouble with an old gentleman—all through your confounded mud." "Some of the streets are a little greasy at this season, I admit," said the Englishman. "What was your adventure, though?" "Well," said the American, "as I was walking along I noticed that the mud was very thick, and presently I saw a high hat afloat on a large puddle of very rich ooze. Thinking to do some one a kindness, I gave the hat a poke with my stick, when an old gentleman looked up from beneath, surprised and frowning. 'Hello!' I said. 'You're in pretty deep!' 'Deeper than you think,' he said. 'I'm on the top of an omnibus!'" ROASTS As William Faversham was having his luncheon in a Birmingham hotel he was much annoyed by another visitor, who, during the whole of the meal, stood with his back to the fire warming himself and watching Faversham eat. At length, unable to endure it any longer, Mr. Faversham rang the bell and said: "Waiter, kindly turn that gentleman around. I think he is done on that side." ROOSEVELT, THEODORE A delegation from Kansas visited Theodore Roosevelt at Oyster Bay some years ago, while he was president. The host met them with coat and collar off, mopping his brow. "Ah, gentlemen," he said, "dee-lighted to see you. Dee-lighted. But I'm very busy putting in my hay just now. Come down to the barn with me and we'll talk things over while I work." Down to the barn hustled President and delegation. Mr. Roosevelt seized a pitchfork and—but where was the hay? "John!" shouted the President. "John! where's all the hay?" "Sorry, sir," came John's voice from the loft, "but I ain't had time to throw it back since you threw it up for yesterday's delegation." SALARIES A country school-teacher was cashing her monthly check at the bank. The teller apologized for the filthy condition of the bills, saying, "I hope you're not afraid of microbes." "Not a bit of it," the schoolma'am replied. "I'm sure no microbe could live on my salary!"—Frances Kirkland. SALESMEN AND SALESMANSHIP A darky fruit-dealer in Georgia has a sign above his wares that reads: Watermelons Our choice . . . . . . . . . . 25 cents. Your choice. . . . . . . . . . 35 cents. —Elgin Burroughs. The quick wit of a traveling salesman who has since become a well-known merchant was severely tested one day. He sent in his card by the office-boy to the manager of a large concern, whose inner office was separated from the waiting-room by a ground-glass partition. When the boy handed his card to the manager the salesman saw him impatiently tear it in half and throw it in the waste-basket; the boy came out and told the caller that he could not see the chief. The salesman told the boy to go back and get him his card; the boy brought out five cents, with the message that his card was torn up. Then the salesman took out another card and sent the boy back, saying: "Tell your boss I sell two cards for five cents." He got his interview and sold a large bill of goods. A young man entered a hat store and asked to see the latest styles in derbies. He was evidently hard to please, for soon the counter was covered with hats that he had tried on and found wanting. At last the salesman picked up a brown derby, brushed it off on his sleeve, and extended it admiringly. "These are being very much worn this season, sir," he said. "Won't you try it on?" The customer put the hat on and surveyed himself critically in the mirror. "You're sure it's in style?" "The most fashionable thing we have in the shop, sir. And it suits you to perfection—if the fit's right." "Yes, it fits very well. So you think I had better have it?" "I don't think you could do better." "No, I don't think I could. So I guess I won't buy a new one after all." The salesman had been boosting the customer's old hat, which had become mixed among the many new ones. VISITOR—"Can I see that motorist who was brought here an hour ago?" NURSE—"He hasn't come to his senses yet." VISITOR—"Oh, that's all right. I only want to sell him another car."—Judge. "That fellow is too slick for me. Sold me a lot that was two feet under water. I went around to demand my money back." "Get it?" "Get nothing! Then he sold me a second-hand gasoline launch and a copy of 'Venetian Life,' by W.D. Howells." In a small South Carolina town that was "finished" before the war, two men were playing checkers in the back of a store. A traveling man who was making his first trip to the town was watching the game, and, not being acquainted with the business methods of the citizens, he called the attention of the owner of the store to some customers who had just entered the front door. "Sh! Sh!" answered the storekeeper, making another move on the checkerboard. "Keep perfectly quiet and they'll go out." He who finds he has something to sell, And goes and whispers it down a well, Is not so apt to collar the dollars, As he who climbs a tree and hollers. —The Advertiser SALOONS "Where can I get a drink in this town?" asked a traveling man who landed at a little town in the oil region of Oklahoma, of the 'bus driver. "See that millinery shop over there?" asked the driver, pointing to a building near the depot. "You don't mean to say they sell whiskey in a millinery store?" exclaimed the drummer. "No, I mean that's the only place here they don't sell it," said the 'bus man. SALVATION WILLIS—"Some of these rich fellows seem to think that they can buy their way into heaven by leaving a million dollars to a church when they die." GILLIS—"I don't know but that they stand as much chance as some of these other rich fellows who are trying to get in on the instalment plan of ten cents a Sunday while they're living."—Lauren S. Hamilton. An Italian noble at church one day gave a priest who begged for the souls in purgatory, a piece of gold. "Ah, my lord," said the good father, "you have now delivered a soul." The count threw another piece upon the plate. "Here is another soul delivered," said the priest. "Are you positive of it?" replied the count. "Yes, my lord," replied the priest; "I am certain they are now in heaven." "Then," said the count, "I'll take back my money, for it signifies nothing to you now, seeing the souls have already got to heaven." An Episcopal missionary in Wyoming visited one of the outlying districts in his territory for the purpose of conducting prayer in the home of a large family not conspicuous for its piety. He made known his intentions to the woman of the house, and she murmured vaguely that "she'd go out and see." She was long in returning, and after a tiresome wait the missionary went to the door and called with some impatience: "Aren't you coming in? Don't you care anything about your souls?" "Souls?" yelled the head of the family from the orchard. "We haven't got time to fool with our souls when the bees are swarmin'." Edith was light-hearted and merry over everything. Nothing appealed to her seriously. So, one day, her mother decided to invite a very serious young parson to dinner, and he was placed next the light-hearted girl. Everything went well until she asked him: "You speak of everybody having a mission. What is yours?" "My mission," said the parson, "is to save young men." "Good," replied the girl, "I'm glad to meet you. I wish you'd save one for me." SAVING Take care of the pennies and the dollars will be blown in by your heirs.—Puck. "Do you save up money for a rainy day, dear?" "Oh, no! I never shop when it rains." JOHNNY—"Papa, would you be glad if I saved a dollar for you?" PAPA—"Certainly, my son." JOHNNY—"Well, I saved it for you, all right. You said if I brought a first-class report from my teacher this week you would give me a dollar, and I didn't bring it." According to the following story, economy has its pains as well as its pleasures, even after the saving is done. One spring, for some reason, old Eli was going round town with the face of dissatisfaction, and, when questioned, poured forth his voluble tale of woe thus: "Marse Geo'ge, he come to me last fall an' he say, 'Eli, dis gwine ter be a hard winter, so yo' be keerful, an' save yo' wages fas' an' tight.' "An' I b'lieve Marse Geo'ge, yas, sah, I b'lieve him, an' I save an' I save, an' when de winter come it ain't got no hardship, an' dere was I wid all dat money jes' frown on mah hands!" "Robert dear," said the coy little maiden to her sweetheart, "I'm sure you love me; but give me some proof of it, darling. We can't marry on fifteen dollars a week, you know." "Well, what do you want me to do?" said he, with a grieved air. "Why, save up a thousand dollars, and have it safe in the bank, and then I'll marry you." About two months later she cuddled up close to him on the sofa one evening, and said: "Robert dear, have you saved up that thousand yet?" "Why, no, my love," he replied; "not all of it." "How much have you saved, darling?" "Just two dollars and thirty-five cents, dear." "Oh, well," said the sweet young thing as she snuggled a little closer, "don't let's wait any longer, darling. I guess that'll do."—R.M. Winans. See also Economy; Thrift. SCANDAL An ill wind that blows nobody good. SCHOLARSHIP There is in Washington an old "grouch' whose son was graduated from Yale. When the young man came home at the end of his first term, he exulted in the fact that he stood next to the head of his class. But the old gentleman was not satisfied. "Next to the head!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean? I'd like to know what you think I'm sending you to college for? Next to the head! Why aren't you at the head, where you ought to be?" At this the son was much crestfallen; but upon his return, he went about his work with such ambition that at the end of the term he found himself in the coveted place. When he went home that year he felt very proud. It would be great news for the old man. When the announcement was made, the father contemplated his son for a few minutes in silence; then, with a shrug, he remarked: "At the head of the class, eh? Well, that's a fine commentary on Yale University!"—Howard Morse. "Well, there were only three boys in school to-day who could answer one question that the teacher asked us," said a proud boy of eight. "And I hope my boy was one of the three," said the proud mother. "Well, I was," answered Young Hopeful, "and Sam Harris and Harry Stone were the other two." "I am very glad you proved yourself so good a scholar, my son; it makes your mother proud of you. What question did the teacher ask, Johnnie?" "'Who broke the glass in the back window?'" Sammy's mother was greatly distressed because he had such poor marks in his school work. She scolded, coaxed, even promised him a dime if he would do better. The next day he came running home. "Oh, mother," he shouted, "I got a hundred!" "And what did you get a hundred in?" "In two things," replied Sammy without hesitation. "I got forty in readin' and sixty in spellin'." Who ceases to be a student has never been one.—George Iles. See also College students. SCHOOLS "Mamma," complained little Elsie, "I don't feel very well." "That's too bad, dear," said mother sympathetically. "Where do you feel worst?" "In school, mamma." SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT The late Sylvanus Miller, civil engineer, who was engaged in railroad enterprise in Central America, was seeking local support for a road and attempted to give the matter point. He asked a native: "How long does it take you to carry your goods to market by muleback?" "Three days," was the reply. "There's the point," said Miller. "With our road in operation you could take your goods to market and be back home in one day." "Very good, senor," answered the native. "But what would we do with the other two days?" A visitor from New York to the suburbs said to his host during the afternoon: "By the way, your front gate needs repairing. It was all I could do to get it open. You ought to have it trimmed or greased or something." "Oh, no," replied the owner "Oh, no, that's all right." "Why is it?" asked the visitor. "Because," was the reply, "every one who comes through that gate pumps two buckets of water into the tank on the roof." SCOTCH, THE A Scotsman is one who prays on his knees on Sunday and preys on his neighbors on week days. It being the southerner's turn, he told about a county in Missouri so divided in sentiment that year after year the vote of a single man prohibits the sale of liquor there. "And what," he asked, "do you suppose is the name of the chap who keeps a whole county dry?" Nobody had an idea. "Mackintosh, as I'm alive!" declared the southerner. Everybody laughed except the Englishman. "It's just like a Scotsman to be so obstinate!" he sniffed, and was much astonished when the rest of the party laughed more than ever. A Scottish minister, taking his walk early in the morning, found one of his parishioners recumbent in a ditch. "Where hae you been the nicht, Andrew?" asked the minister. "Weel, I dinna richtly ken," answered the prostrate one, "whether it was a wedding' or a funeral, but whichever it was it was a most extraordinary success." See also Thrift. SEASICKNESS A Philadelphian, on his way to Europe, was experiencing seasickness for the first time. Calling his wife to his bedside, he said in a weak voice: "Jennie, my will is in the Commercial Trust Company's care. Everything is left to you, dear. My various stocks you will find in my safe-deposit box." Then he said fervently: "And, Jenny, bury me on the other side. I can't stand this trip again, alive or dead."—Joe King. Motto for the dining saloon of an ocean steamship: "Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long." On the steamer the little bride was very much concerned about her husband, who was troubled with dyspepsia. "My husband is peculiarly liable to seasickness, Captain," remarked the bride. "Could you tell him what to do in case of an attack?" "That won't be necessary, Madam," replied the Captain; "he'll do it." A clergyman who was holding a children's service at a Continental winter resort had occasion to catechize his hearers on the parable, of the unjust steward. "What is a steward?" he asked. A little boy who had arrived from England a few days before held up his hand. "He is a man, sir," he replied, with a reminiscent look on his face, "who brings you a basin." "The first day out was perfectly lovely," said the young lady just back from abroad. "The water was as smooth as glass, and it was simply gorgeous. But the second day was rough and—er—decidedly disgorgeous." The great ocean liner rolled and pitched. "Henry," faltered the young bride, "do you still love me?" "More than ever, darling!" was Henry's fervent answer. Then there was an eloquent silence. "Henry," she gasped, turning her pale, ghastly face away, "I thought that would make me feel better, but it doesn't!" There was a young man from Ostend, Who vowed he'd hold out to the end; But when half way over From Calais to Dover, He did what he didn't intend. SEASONS There was a young fellow named Hall, Who fell in the spring in the fall; 'Twould have been a sad thing If he'd died in the spring, But he didn't—he died in the fall. SENATORS A Senator is very often a man who has risen from obscurity to something worse. "You have been conspicuous in the halls of legislation, have you not?" said the young woman who asks all sorts of questions. "Yes, miss," answered Senator Sorghum, blandly; "I think I have participated in some of the richest hauls that legislation ever made." An aviator alighted on a field and said to a rather well-dressed individual: "Here, mind my machine a minute, will you?" "What?" the well-dressed individual snarled. "Me mind your machine? Why, I'm a United States Senator!" "Well, what of it?" said the aviator. "I'll trust you." SENSE OF HUMOR "What of his sense of humor?" "Well, he has to see a joke twice before he sees it once." —Richard Kirk. "A sense of humor is a help and a blessing through life," says Rear Admiral Buhler. "But even a sense of humor may exist in excess. I have in mind the case of a British soldier who was sentenced to be flogged. During the flogging he laughed continually. The harder the lash was laid on, the harder the soldier laughed. "'Wot's so funny about bein' flogged?' demanded the sergeant. "'Why,' the soldier chuckled, 'I'm the wrong man.'" Mark Twain once approached a friend, a business man, and confided to him that he needed the assistance of a stenographer. "I can send you one, a fine young fellow," the friend said, "He came to my office yesterday in search of a position, but I didn't have an opening." "Has he a sense of humor?" Mark asked cautiously. "A sense of humor? He has—in fact, he got off one or two pretty witty things himself yesterday," the friend hastened to assure him. "Sorry, but he won't do, then," Mark said. "Won't do? Why?" "No," said Mark. "I had one once before with a sense of humor, and it interfered too much with the work. I cannot afford to pay a man two dollars a day for laughing." The perception of the ludicrous is a pledge of sanity.—Emerson. SENTRIES See Armies. SERMONS See Preaching. SERVANTS TOMMY—"Pop, what is it that the Bible says is here to-day and gone to-morrow?" POP—"Probably the cook, my son." As usual, they began discussing the play after the theater. "Well, how did you like the piece, my dear?" asked the fond husband who had always found his wife a good critic. "Very much. There's only one improbable thing in it: the second act takes place two years after the first, and they have the same servant." SMITH—"We are certainly in luck with our new cook—soup, meat, vegetables and dessert, everything perfect!" MRS. S.—"Yes, but the dessert was made by her successor." THE NEW GIRL—"An' may me intended visit me every Sunday afternoon, ma'am?" MISTRESS—"Who is your intended, Delia?" THE NEW GIRL—"I don't know yet, ma'am. I'm a stranger in town." "And do you have to be called in the morning?" asked the lady who was about to engage a new girl. "I don't has to be, mum," replied the applicant, "unless you happens to need me." A maid dropped and broke a beautiful platter at a dinner recently. The host did not permit a trifle like this to ruffle him in the least. "These little accidents happen 'most every day," he said apologetically. "You see, she isn't a trained waitress. She was a dairymaid originally, but she had to abandon that occupation on account of her inability to handle the cows without breaking their horns." Young housewives obliged to practice strict economy will sympathize with the sad experience of a Washington woman. When her husband returned home one evening he found her dissolved in tears, and careful questioning elicited the reason for her grief. "Dan," said she, "every day this week I have stopped to look at a perfect love of a hat in Mme. Louise's window. Such a hat, Dan, such a beautiful hat! But the price—well, I wanted it the worst way, but just couldn't afford to buy it." "Well, dear," began the husband recklessly, "we might manage to—" "Thank you, Dan," interrupted the wife, "but there isn't any 'might' about it. I paid the cook this noon, and what do you think? She marched right down herself and bought that hat!"—Edwin Tarrisse. It is probable that many queens of the kitchen share the sentiment good-naturedly expressed by a Scandinavian servant, recently taken into the service of a young matron of Chicago. The youthful assumer of household cares was disposed to be a trifle patronizing. "Now, Lena," she asked earnestly, "are you a good cook?" "Ya-as, 'm, I tank so," said the girl, with perfect naiveté, "if you vill not try to help me."—Elgin Burroughs. "Have you a good cook now?" "I don't know. I haven't been home since breakfast!" MRS. LITTLETOWN—"This magazine looks rather the worse for wear." MRS. NEARTOWN—"Yes, it's the one I sometimes lend to the servant on Sundays." MRS. LITTLETOWN—"Doesn't she get tired of always reading the same one?" MRS. NEARTOWN—"Oh, no. You see, it's the same book, but it's always a different servant."—Suburban Life. MRS. HOUSEN HOHM—"What is your name?" APPLICANT FOR COOKSHIP—"Miss Arlington." MRS. HOUSEN HOHM—"Do you expect to be called Miss Arlington?" APPLICANT—-"No, ma'am; not if you have an alarm clock in my room." MISTRESS—"Nora, I saw a policeman in the park to-day kiss a baby. I hope you will remember my objection to such things." NORA—"Sure, ma'am, no policeman would ever think iv kissin' yer baby whin I'm around." See also Gratitude; Recommendations. SHOPPING CLERK—"Can you let me off to-morrow afternoon? My wife wants me to go shopping with her." EMPLOYER—"Certainly not. We are much too busy." CLERK—"Thank you very much, sir. You are very kind!" SHYNESS The late "lan Maclaren" (Dr. John Watson) once told this story on himself to some friends: "I was coming over on the steamer to America, when one day I went into the library to do some literary work. I was very busy and looked so, I suppose. I had no sooner started to write than a diffident-looking young man plumped into the chair opposite me, began twirling his cap and stared at me. I let him sit there. An hour or more passed, and he was still there, returning my occasional and discouraging glances at him with a foolish, ingratiating smile. I was inclined to be annoyed. I had a suspicion that he was a reader of my books, perhaps an admirer—or an autograph-hunter. He could wait. But at last he rose, and still twirling his cap, he spoke: "'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. "Well, I'll tell thee what we'll do," said she. "If folks know that it's thee as has given me up I shanna be able to get another chap; but if they think I've given thee up then I can get all I want. So we'll have banns published and when the wedding day comes the parson will say to thee, 'Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife?' and thou must say, 'I will.' And when he says to me, 'Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband?' I shall say, 'I winna.'" The day came, and when the minister asked the important question the man answered: "I will." Then the parson said to the woman: "Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband?" and she said: "I will." "Why," said the young man furiously, "you said you would say 'I winna.'" "I know that," said the young woman, "but I've changed my mind since." Charles Stuart, formerly senator from Michigan, was traveling by stage through his own state. The weather was bitter cold, the snow deep, and the roads practically unbroken. The stage was nearly an hour late at the dinner station and everybody was cross and hungry. In spite of the warning, "Ten minutes only for refreshments," Senator Stuart sat down to dinner with his usual deliberation. When he had finished his first cup of coffee the other passengers were leaving the table. By the time his second cup arrived the stage was at the door. "All aboard!" shouted the driver. The senator lingered and called for a third cup of coffee. While the household, as was the custom, assembled at the door to see the stage oft, the senator calmly continued his meal. Suddenly, just as the stage was starting, he pounded violently on the dining-room table. The landlord hurried in. The senator wanted a dish of rice-pudding. When it came he called for a spoon. There wasn't a spoon to be found. "That shock-headed fellow took 'em!" exclaimed the landlady. "I knew him for a thief the minute I laid eyes on him." The landlord jumped to the same conclusion. "Hustle after that stage!" he shouted to the sheriff, who was untying his horse from the rail in front of the tavern. "Bring 'em all back. They've taken the silver!" A few minutes later the stage, in charge of the sheriff, swung around in front of the house. The driver was in a fury. "Search them passengers!" insisted the landlord. But before the officer could move, the senator opened the stage door, stepped inside, then leaned out, touched the sheriff's arm and whispered: "Tell the landlord he'll find his spoons in the coffee-pot." SUBWAYS Any one who has ever traveled on the New York subway in rush hours can easily appreciate the following: A little man, wedged into the middle of a car, suddenly thought of pickpockets, and quite as suddenly remembered that he had some money in his overcoat. He plunged his hand into his pocket and was somewhat shocked upon encountering the fist of a fat fellow-passenger. "Aha!" snorted the latter. "I caught you that time!" "Leggo!" snarled the little man. "Leggo my hand!" "Pickpocket!" hissed the fat man. "Scoundrel!" retorted the little one. Just then a tall man in their vicinity glanced up from his paper. "I'd like to get off here," he drawled, "if you fellows don't mind taking your hands out of my pocket." SUCCESS Nothing succeeds like excess.—Life. Nothing succeeds like looking successful.—Henriette Corkland. Success in life often consists in knowing just when to disagree with one's employer. A New Orleans lawyer was asked to address the boys of a business school. He commenced: "My young friends, as I approached the entrance to this room I noticed on the panel of the door a word eminently appropriate to an institution of this kind. It expresses the one thing most useful to the average man when he steps into the arena of life. It was—" "Pull," shouted the boys, in a roar of laughter, and the lawyer felt that he had taken his text from the wrong side of the door. I'd rather be a Could Be If I could not be an Are; For a Could Be is a May Be, With a chance of touching par. I'd rather be a Has Been Than a Might Have Been, by far; For a Might Have Been has never been, But a Has was once an Are. 'Tis not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more, Sempronius,— We'll deserve it. —Addison. There are two ways of rising in the world: either by one's own industry or profiting by the foolishness of others.—La Bruyère. Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. —Emily Dickinson. See also Making good. SUFFRAGETTES When a married woman goes out to look after her rights, her husband is usually left at home to look after his wrongs.—Child Harold. "'Ullo, Bill, 'ow's things with yer?" "Lookin' up, Tom, lookin' up." "Igh cost o' livin' not 'ittin' yer, Bill?" "Not so 'ard, Tom—not so 'ard. The missus 'as went 'orf on a hunger stroike and me butcher's bills is cut in arf!" I'd hate t' be married t' a suffragette an' have t' eat Battle Creek breakfasts.—Abe Martin. FIRST ENGLISHMAN—"Why do you allow your wife to be a militant suffragette?" SECOND ENGLISHMAN—"When she's busy wrecking things outside we have comparative peace at home."—Life. Recipe for a suffragette: To the power that already lies in her hands You add equal rights with the gents; You'll find votes that used to bring two or three plunks, Marked down to ninety-eight cents. When Mrs. Pankhurst, the English suffragette, was in America she met and became very much attached to Mrs. Lee Preston, a New York woman of singular cleverness of mind and personal attraction. After the acquaintance had ripened somewhat Mrs. Pankhurst ventured to say: "I do hope, Mrs. Preston, that you are a suffragette." "Oh, dear no!" replied Mrs. Preston; "you know, Mrs. Pankhurst, I am happily married." BILL—"Jake said he was going to break up the suffragette meeting the other night. Were his plans carried out?" DILL—"No, Jake was."—Life. SLASHER—"Been in a fight?" MASHER—"No. I tried to flirt with a pretty suffragette."—Judge. "What sort of a ticket does your suffragette club favor?" "Well," replied young Mrs. Torkins, "if we owned right up, I think most of us would prefer matinée tickets." See also Woman suffrage. SUICIDE The Chinese Consul at San Francisco, at a recent dinner, discussed his country's customs. "There is one custom," said a young girl, "that I can't understand—and that is the Chinese custom of committing suicide by eating gold-leaf. I can't understand how gold-leaf can kill." "The partaker, no doubt," smiled the Consul, "succumbs from a consciousness of inward gilt." SUMMER RESORTS GABE—"What are you going back to that place for this summer? Why, last year it was all mosquitoes and no fishing." STEVE—"The owner tells me that he has crossed the mosquitoes with the fish, and guarantees a bite every second." "I suppose," said the city man, "there are some queer characters around an old village like this." "You'll find a good many," admitted the native, "when the hotels fill up." SUNDAY Albert was a solemn-eyed, spiritual-looking child. "Nurse," he said one day, leaving his blocks and laying his hand on her knee, "nurse, is this God's day?" "No, dear," said the nurse, "this is not Sunday; it is Thursday." "I'm so sorry," he said, sadly, and went back to his blocks. The next day and the next in his serious manner he asked the same question, and the nurse tearfully said to the cook: "That child is too good for this world." On Sunday the question was repeated, and the nurse, with a sob in her voice, said: "Yes, lambie, this is God's day." "Then where is the funny paper?" he demanded. TEACHER—"Good little boys do not skate on Sunday, Corky. Don't you think that is very nice of them?" CORKY—"Sure t'ing!" TEACHER—"And why is it nice of them, Corky?" CORKY—"Aw, it leaves more room on de ice! See?" Of all the days that's in the week, I dearly love but one day, And that's the day that comes betwixt A Saturday and Monday. —Henry Carey. O day of rest! How beautiful, how fair, How welcome to the weary and the old! Day of the Lord! and truce to earthly care! Day of the Lord, as all our days should be! —Longfellow. SUNDAY SCHOOLS "Now, Willie," said the superintendent's little boy, addressing the blacksmith's little boy, who had come over for a frolic, "we'll play 'Sabbath School.' You give me a nickel every Sunday for six months, and then at Christmas I'll give you a ten-cent bag of candy." When Lottie returned from her first visit to Sunday-school, she was asked what she had learned. "God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh day," was her version of the lesson imparted. The teacher asked: "When did Moses live?" After the silence had become painful she ordered: "Open your Old Testaments. What does it say there?" A boy answered: "Moses, 4000." "Now," said the teacher, "why didn't you know when Moses lived?" "Well," replied the boy, "I thought it was his telephone number,"—Suburban Life. "How many of you boys," asked the Sunday-school superintendent, "can bring two other boys next Sunday?" There was no response until a new recruit raised his hand hesitatingly. "Well, William?" "I can't bring two, but there's one little feller I can lick, and I'll do my damnedest to bring him." SUPERSTITION Superstition is a premature explanation overstaying its time.—George Iles. SURPRISE "Where are you goin', ma?" asked the youngest of five children. "I'm going to a surprise party, my dear," answered the mother. "Are we all goin', too?" "No, dear. You weren't invited." After a few moments' deep thought: "Say, ma, then don't you think they'd be lots more surprised if you did take us all?" SWIMMERS Two negro roustabouts at New Orleans were continually bragging about their ability as long distance swimmers and a steamboat man got up a match. The man who swam the longest distance was to receive $5. The Alabama Whale immediately stripped on the dock, but the Human Steamboat said he had some business and would return in a few minutes. The Whale swam the river four or five times for exercise and by that time the Human Steamboat returned. He wore a pair of swimming trunks and had a sheet iron cook stove strapped on his back. Tied around his neck were a dozen packages containing bread, flour, bacon and other eatables. The Whale gazed at his opponent in amazement. "Whar yo' vittles?" demanded the Human Steamboat. "Vittles fo' what?" asked the Whale. "Don't yo' ask me fo' nothin' on the way ovah," warned the Steamboat. "Mah fust stop is New York an' mah next stop is London." SYMPATHY A sympathizer is a fellow that's for you as long as it don't cost anything. Dwight L. Moody was riding in a car one day when it was hailed by a man much the worse for liquor, who presently staggered along the car between two rows of well-dressed people, regardless of tender feet. Murmurs and complaints arose on all sides and demands were heard that the offender should be ejected at once. But amid the storm of abuse one friendly voice was raised. Mr. Moody rose from his seat, saying: "No, no, friends! Let the man sit down and be quiet." The drunken one turned, and, seizing the famous evangelist by the hand, exclaimed: "Thank ye, sir—thank ye! I see you know what it is to be drunk." The man rushed excitedly into the smoking car. "A lady has fainted in the next car! Has anybody got any whiskey?" he asked. Instantly a half-dozen flasks were thrust out to him. Taking the nearest one, he turned the bottle up and took a big drink, then, handing the flask back, said, "Thank you. It always did make me feel sick to see a lady faint." A tramp went to a farmhouse, and sitting down in the front yard began to eat the grass. The housewife's heart went out to him: "Poor man, you must indeed be hungry. Come around to the back." The tramp beamed and winked at the hired man. "There," said the housewife, when the tramp hove in sight, pointing to a circle of green grass, "try that: you will find that grass so much longer." Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength, not my weakness.—Amos Bronson Alcott. SYNONYMS "I don't believe any two words in the English language are synonymous." "Oh, I don't know. What's the matter with 'raise' and 'lift'?" "There's a big difference. I 'raise' chickens and have a neighbor who has been known to 'lift' them." TABLE MANNERS See Dining. TACT It was at the private theatricals, and the young man wished to compliment his hostess, saying: "Madam, you played your part splendidly. It fits you to perfection." "I'm afraid not. A young and pretty woman is needed for that part," said the smiling hostess. "But, madam, you have positively proved the contrary." TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD When Mr. Taft was on his campaigning tour in the west, before he had been elected President, he stopped at the home of an old friend. It was a small house, not well built, and as he walked about in his room the unsubstantial little house fairly shook with his tread. When he got into bed that receptacle, unused to so much weight, gave way, precipitating Taft on the floor. His friend hurried to his door. "What's the matter, Bill?" "Oh, I'm all right, I guess," Taft called out to his friend good-naturedly; "but say, Joe, if you don't find me here in the morning look in the cellar." One morning a few summers ago President Taft, wearing the largest bathing suit known to modern times, threw his substantial form into the cooling waves of Beverly Bay. Shortly afterward one neighbor said to another: "Let's go bathing." "How can we?" was the response. "The President is using the ocean." TALENT See Actors and actresses. TALKERS Some years ago, Mark Twain was a guest of honor at an opera box-party given by a prominent member of New York society. The hostess had been particularly talkative all during the performance—to Mr. Clemens's increasing irritation. Toward the end of the opera, she turned to him and said gushingly: "Oh, my dear Mr. Clemens, I do so want you to be with us next Friday evening. I'm certain you will like it the opera will be 'Tosca.'" "Charmed, I'm sure," replied Clemens. "I've never heard you in that." It was a beautiful evening and Ole, who had screwed up courage to take Mary for a ride, was carried away by the magic of the night. "Mary," he asked, "will you marry me?" "Yes, Ole," she answered softly. Ole lapsed into a silence that at last became painful to his fiancée. "Ole," she said desperately, "why don't you say something?" "Ay tank," Ole replied, "they bane too much said already." "Sir," said the sleek-looking agent, approaching the desk of the meek, meaching-looking man and opening one of those folding thingumjigs showing styles of binding, "I believe I can interest you in this massive set of books containing the speeches of the world's greatest orators. Seventy volumes, one dollar down and one dollar a month until the price, six hundred and eighty dollars has been paid. This set of books gives you the most celebrated speeches of the greatest talkers the world has ever known and—" "Let me see the index," said the meek man. The agent handed it to him and he looked through it carefully and methodically, running his finger along the list of names. Reaching the end he handed the index back to the agent and said: "It isn't what you claim it is. I happen to know the greatest talker in the world, and you haven't her in the index." A guest was expected for dinner and Bobby had received five cents as the price of his silence during the meal. He was as quiet as a mouse until, discovering that his favorite dessert was being served, he could no longer curb his enthusiasm. He drew the coin from his pocket, and rolling it across the table, exclaimed: "Here's your nickel, Mamma. I'd rather talk." A belated voyager in search of hilarity stumbled home after one o'clock and found his wife waiting for him. The curtain lecture that followed was of unusual virulence, and in the midst of it he fell asleep. Awakening a few hours later he found his wife still pouring forth a regular cascade of denunciation. Eyeing her sleepily he said curiously, "Say, are you talking yet or again?" "You must not talk all the time, Ethel," said the mother who had been interrupted. "When will I be old enough to, Mama?" asked the little girl. While the late Justice Brewer was judge in a minor court he was presiding at the trial of a wife's suit for separation and alimony. The defendant acknowledged that he hadn't spoken to his wife in five years, and Judge Brewer put in a question. "What explanation have you," he asked severely, "for not speaking to your wife in five years?" "Your Honor," replied the husband, "I didn't like to interrupt the lady." She was in an imaginative mood. "Henry, dear," she said after talking two hours without a recess, "I sometimes wish I were a mermaid." "It would be fatal," snapped her weary hubby. "Fatal! In what way?" "Why, you couldn't keep your mouth closed long enough to keep from drowning." And after that, Henry did not get any supper. "Here comes Blinkers. He's got a new baby, and he'll talk us to death." "Well, here comes a neighbor of mine who has a new setter dog. Let's introduce them and leave them to their fate."—Life. A street-car was getting under way when two women, rushing from opposite sides of the street to greet each other, met right in the middle of the car-track and in front of the car. There the two stopped and began to talk. The car stopped, too, but the women did not appear to realize that it was there. Certain of the passengers, whose heads were immediately thrust out of the windows to ascertain what the trouble was, began to make sarcastic remarks, but the two women heeded them not. Finally the motorman showed that he had a saving sense of humor. Leaning over the dash-board, he inquired, in the gentlest of tones: "Pardon me, ladies, but shall I get you a couple of chairs?" A—"I used a word in speaking to my wife which offended her sorely a week ago. She has not spoken a syllable to me since." B—"Would you mind telling me what it was?" In general those who have nothing to say Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.—Lowell. See also Wives. TARDINESS "You'll be late for supper, sonny," said the merchant, in passing a small boy who was carrying a package. "No, I won't," was the reply. "I've dot de meat."—Mabel Long. "How does it happen that you are five minutes late at school this morning?" the teacher asked severely. "Please, ma'am," said Ethel, "I must have overwashed myself." TARIFF Why not have an illuminated sign on the statue of Liberty saying, "America expects every man to pay his duty?"—Kent Packard. TASTE "It isn't wise for a painter to be too frank in his criticisms," said Robert Henri at a luncheon. "I know a very outspoken painter whose little daughter called at a friend's house and said: 'Show me your new parlor rug, won't you, please?'" So, with great pride, the hostess led the little girl into the drawing-room, and raised all the blinds, so that the light might stream in abundantly upon the gorgeous colors of an expensive Kirmanshah. The little girl stared down at the rug in silence. Then, as she turned away, she said in a rather disappointed voice: "'It doesn't make me sick!'" TEACHERS A rural school has a pretty girl as its teacher, but she was much troubled because many of her pupils were late every morning. At last she made the announcement that she would kiss the first pupil to arrive at the schoolhouse the next morning. At sunrise the largest three boys of her class were sitting on the doorstep of the schoolhouse, and by six o'clock every boy in the school and four of the directors were waiting for her to arrive. "Why did you break your engagement with that school teacher?" "If I failed to show up at her house every evening, she expected me to bring a written excuse signed by my mother." Among the youngsters belonging to a colege settlement in a New England city was one little girl who returned to her humble home with glowing accounts of the new teacher. "She's a perfect lady," exclaimed the enthusiastic youngster. The child's mother gave her a doubtful look. "How do you know?" she said. "You've only known her two days." "It's easy enough tellin'," continued the child. "I know she's a perfect lady, because she makes you feel polite all the time." MOTHER—"The teacher complains you have not had a correct lesson for a month; why is it?" SON—"She always kisses me when I get them right." There was a meeting of the new teachers and the old. It was a sort of love feast, reception or whatever you call it. Anyhow all the teachers got together and pretended they didn't have a care in the world. After the eats were et the symposiarch proposed a toast: "Long Live Our Teachers!" It was drunk enthusiastically. One of the new teachers was called on to respond. He modestly accepted. His answer was: "What On?" TEACHER—"Now, Willie, where did you get that chewing gum? I want the truth." WILLIE—"You don't want the truth, teacher, an' I'd ruther not tell a lie." TEACHER—"How dare you say I don't want the truth! Tell me at once where you got that chewing-gum." WILLIE—"Under your desk." Grave is the Master's look; his forehead wears Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares: Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule, His worst of all whose kingdom is a school. —0.W. Holmes. TEARS Two Irishmen who had just landed were eating their dinner in a hotel, when Pat spied a bottle of horseradish. Not knowing what it was he partook of a big mouthful, which brought tears to his eyes. Mike, seeing Pat crying, exclaimed: "Phat be ye cryin' fer?" Pat, wishing to have Mike fooled also, exclaimed: "I'm crying fer me poor ould mother, who's dead way over in Ireland." By and by Mike took some of the radish, whereupon tears filled his eyes. Pat, seeing them, asked his friend what he was crying for. Mike replied: "Because ye didn't die at the same time yer poor ould mother did." TEETH There was an old man of Tarentum, Who gnashed his false teeth till he bent 'em: And when asked for the cost Of what he had lost, Said, "I really can't tell for I rent 'em!" —Gilbert K. Chesterton. Pat came to the office with his jaw very much swollen from a tooth he desired to have pulled. But when the suffering son of Erin got into the dentist's chair and saw the gleaming pair of forceps approaching his face, he positively refused to open his mouth. The dentist quietly told his office boy to prick his patient with a pin, and when Pat opened his mouth to yell the dentist seized the tooth, and out it came. "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. FATHER (firmly)—"You are going to be spanked. You may choose your own time. When shall it be?" MILDRED (five years old, thoughtfully)—"Yesterday." A northerner passing a rundown looking place in the South, stopped to chat with the farmer. He noticed the hogs running wild and explained that in the North the farmers fattened their hogs much faster by shutting them in and feeding them well. "Hell!" replied the southerner, "What's time to a hog." Dost thou love life? Then waste not time; for time is the stuff that life is made of.—Benjamin Franklin. Time fleeth on, Youth soon is gone, Naught earthly may abide; Life seemeth fast, But may not last It runs as runs the tide. —Leland. See also Scientific management. TIPS American travelers in Europe experience a great deal of trouble from the omnipresent need of tipping those from whom they expect any service, however slight. They are very apt to carry it much too far, or else attempt to resist it altogether. There is a story told of a wealthy and ostentatious American in a Parisian restaurant. As the waiter placed the order before him he said in a loud voice: "Waiter, what is largest tip you ever received?" "One thousand francs, monsieur." "Eh bien! But I will give you two thousand," answered the upholder of American honor; and then in a moment he added: "May I ask who gave you the thousand francs?" "It was yourself, monsieur," said the obsequious waiter. Of quite an opposite mode of thought was another American visiting London for the first time. Goaded to desperation by the incessant necessity for tips, he finally entered the washroom of his hotel, only to be faced with a large sign which read: "Please tip the basin after using." "I'm hanged if I will!" said the Yankee, turning on his heel, "I'll go dirty first!" Grant Alien relates that he was sitting one day under the shade of the Sphinx, turning for some petty point of detail to his Baedeker. A sheik looked at him sadly, and shook his head. "Murray good," he said in a solemn voice of warning; "Baedeker no good. What for you see Baedeker?" "No, no; Baedeker is best," answered Mr. Alien. "Why do you object to Baedeker?" The shick crossed his hands, and looked down at him with the pitying eyes of Islam. "Baedeker bad book," he repeated; "Murray very, very good. Murray say, 'Give the sheik half a crown'; Baedeker say, 'Give the sheik a shilling.'" "What do you consider the most important event in the history of Paris?" "Well," replied the tourist, who had grown weary of distributing tips, "so far as financial prosperity is concerned, I should say the discovery of America was the making of this town." In telling this one, Miss Glaser always states that she does not want it understood that she considers the Scotch people at all stingy; but they are a very careful and thrifty race. An intimate friend of her's was very anxious to have a well known Scotchman meet Miss Glaser, and gave her a letter of introduction to him. Miss Glaser, wishing to show him all the attention possible, invited him to a dinner which she was giving in London and after rather an elaborate repast the bill was paid, the waiter returning five shillings. She let it lie, intending, of course, to give it to the waiter. The Scotchman glanced at the money very frequently, and finally he said, his natural thrift getting the best of him: "Are you going to give all that to the waiter?" In a inimitable way, Miss Glaser quietly replied: "No, take some." "A tip is a small sum of money you give to somebody because you're afraid he won't like not being paid for something you haven't asked him to do."—The Bailie, Glasgow. TITLES OF HONOR AND NOBILITY An English lord was traveling through this country with a small party of friends. At a farmhouse the owner invited the party in to supper. The good housewife, while preparing the table, discovering she was entertaining nobility, was nearly overcome with surprise and elation. While seated at the table scarcely a moment's peace did she grant her distinguished guest in her endeavor to serve and please him. It was "My Lord, will you have some of this?" and "My Lord, do try that," "Take a piece of this, my Lord," until the meal was nearly finished. The little four-year-old son of the family, heretofore unnoticed, during a moment of supreme quiet saw his lordship trying to reach the pickle-dish, which was just out of his reach, and turning to his mother said: "Say, Ma, God wants a pickle." Dean Stanley was once visiting a friend who gave one of the pages strict orders that in the morning he was to go and knock at the Dean's door, and when the Dean inquired who was knocking he was to say: "The boy, my Lord." According to directions he knocked and the Dean asked: "Who is there?" Embarrassed by the voice of the great man the page answered: "The Lord, my boy." "How did he get his title of colonel?" "He got it to distinguish him from his wife's first husband, who was a captain, and his wife's second husband, who was a major." For titles do not reflect honor on men, but rather men on their titles.—Machiavelli. I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an "Honest Man."—George Washington. TOASTS See Drinking; Good fellowship; Woman. TOBACCO "Tobaccy wanst saved my life," said Paddy Blake, an inveterate smoker. "How was that?" inquired his companion. "Ye see, I was diggin' a well, and came up for a good smoke, and while I was up the well caved in." See also Smoking. TOURISTS See Liars; Travelers. TRADE UNIONS CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE—"Is this the place where you are happy all the time?" ST. PETER (proudly)—"It is, sir." "Well, I represent the union, and if we come in we can only agree to be happy eight hours a day." TRAMPS LADY—"Can't you find work?" TRAMP—"Yessum; but everyone wants a reference from my last employer." LADY—"And can't you get one?" TRAMP—"No, mum. Yer see, he's been dead twenty-eight years." TRANSMUTATION Fred Stone, of Montgomery and Stone fame, and Eugene Wood, whose stories and essays are well known, met on Broadway recently. They stopped for a moment to exchange a few cheerful views, when a woman in a particularly noticeable sheath-gown passed. Simultaneously, Wood turned to Stone; Stone turned to Wood; then both turned to rubber. TRAVELERS An American tourist, who was stopping in Tokio had visited every point of interest and had seen everything to be seen except a Shinto funeral. Finally she appealed to the Japanese clerk of the hotel, asking him to instruct her guide to take her to one. The clerk was politeness itself. He bowed gravely and replied: "I am very sorry, Madam, but this is not the season for funerals." A gentleman whose travel-talks are known throughout the world tells the following on himself: "I was booked for a lecture one night at a little place in Scotland four miles from a railway station. "The 'chairman' of the occasion, after introducing me as 'the mon wha's coom here tae broaden oor intellects,' said that he felt a wee bit of prayer would not be out of place. "'O Lord,' he continued, 'put it intae the heart of this mon tae speak the truth, the hale truth, and naething but the truth, and gie us grace tae understan' him.' "Then, with a glance at me, the chairman said, 'I've been a traveler meself!'"—Fenimore Marlin. Two young Americans touring Italy for the first time stopped off one night at Pisa, where they fell in with a convivial party at a cafe. Going hilariously home one pushed the other against a building and held him there. "Great heavens!" cried the man next the wall, suddenly glancing up at the structure above him. "See what we're doing!" Both roisterers fled. They left town on an early morning train, not thinking it safe to stay over and see the famous leaning tower. Mr. Hiram Jones had just returned from a personally conducted tour of Europe. "I suppose," commented a friend, "that when you were in England you did as the English do and dropped your H's." "No," moodily responded the returned traveller; "I didn't. I did as the Americans do. I dropped my V's and X's." Then he slowly meandered down to the bank to see if he couldn't get the mortgage extended.—W. Hanny. A number of tourists were recently looking down the crater of Vesuvius. An American gentleman said to his companion. "That looks a good deal like the infernal regions." An English lady, overhearing the remark, said to another: "Good gracious! How these Americans do travel." An American tourist hailing from the west was out sight-seeing in London. They took him aboard the old battle-ship Victory, which was Lord Nelson's flagship in several of his most famous naval triumphs. An English sailor escorted the American over the vessel, and coming to a raised brass tablet on the deck he said, as he reverently removed his hat: "'Ere, sir, is the spot where Lord Nelson fell." "Oh, is it?" replied the American, blankly. "Well, that ain't nothin'. I nearly tripped on the blame thing myself." On one of the famous scenic routes of the west there is a brakeman who has lost the forefinger of his right hand. His present assignment as rear-end brakeman on a passenger train places him in the observation car, where he is the target for an almost unceasing fusillade of questions from tourists who insist upon having the name, and, if possible, the history, of all the mountain cañons and points of interest along the route. One especially enthusiastic lady tourist had kept up her Gattling fire of questions until she had thoroughly mastered the geography of the country. Then she ventured to ask the brakeman how he had lost his finger: "Cut off in making a coupling between cars, I suppose?" "No, madam; I wore that finger off pointing out scenery to tourists." Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof.—Fuller. When I was at home, I was in a better place; but travelers must be content.—Shakespeare. As the Spanish proverb says, "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." So it is in traveling: a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.—Samuel Johnson. TREASON It was during the Parnell agitation in Ireland that an anti-Parnellite, criticising the ways of tenants in treating absentee landlords, exclaimed to Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia: "Why, it looks very much like treason." Instantly came the answer in the Archbishop's best brogue: "Sure, treason is reason when there's an absent 't'." Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason. TREES CURIOUS CHARLEY—"Do nuts grow on trees, father?" FATHER—"They do, my son." CURIOUS CHARLEY—"Then what tree does the doughnut grow on?" FATHER—"The pantry, my son." TRIGONOMETRY A prisoner was brought before a police magistrate. He looked around and discovered that his clerk was absent. "Here, officer," he said, "what's this man charged with?" "Bigotry, your Honor," replied the policeman. "He's got three wives." The magistrate looked at the officer as though astounded at such ignorance. "Why, officer," he said, "that's not bigotry—that's trigonometry." TROUBLE "What is the trouble, wifey?" "Nothing." "Yes, there is. What are you crying about, something that happened at home or something that happened in a novel?" It was married men's night at the revival meeting. "Let all you husbands who have troubles on your minds stand up!" shouted the preacher at the height of his spasm. Instantly every man in the church arose except one. "Ah!" exclaimed the preacher, peering out at this lone individual, who occupied a chair near the door. "You are one in a million." "It ain't that," piped back this one helplessly as the rest of the congregation gazed suspiciously at him: "I can't get up—I'm paralyzed!" JUDGE—"Your innocence is proved. You are acquitted." PRISONER (to the jury)—"Very sorry, indeed, gentlemen, to have given you all this trouble for nothing." A friend of mine, returning to his home in Virginia after several years' absence, met one of the old negroes, a former servant of his family. "Uncle Moses," he said, "I hear you got married." "Yes, Marse Tom, I is, and I's having a moughty troublesome time, Marse Tom, moughty troublesome." "What's the trouble?" said my friend. "Why, dat yaller woman, Marse Tom. She all de time axin' me fer money. She don't give me no peace." "How long have you been married, Uncle Moses?" "Nigh on ter two years, come dis spring." "And how much money have you given her?" "Well, I ain't done gin her none yit."—Sue M.M. Halsey. If you want to forget all your other troubles, wear tight shoes. Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three—all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.—Edward Everett Hale. TRUSTS A trust is known by the companies it keeps.—Ellis O. Jones. TOMPKINS—"Ventley has received a million dollars for his patent egg dating machine. You know it is absolutely interference-proof, and dates correctly and indelibly as the egg is being laid." DEWLEY—"Is the machine on the market yet?" TOMKINS—"Oh, my no! and it won't be on the market. The patent was bought by the Cold Storage Trust." TRUTH There was a young lady named Ruth, Who had a great passion for truth. She said she would die Before she would lie, And she died in the prime of her youth. Women do not really like to deceive their husbands, but they are too tender-hearted to make them unhappy by telling them the truth. Nature ... has buried truth deep in the bottom of the sea.—Democritus. "Tis strange—but true; for truth is always strange, Stranger than fiction."—Byron. TURKEYS "Ah," says the Christmas guest. "How I wish I could sit down to a Christmas dinner with one of those turkeys we raised on the farm, when I was a boy, as the central figure!" "Well," says the host, "you never can tell. This may be one of them."—Life. TUTORS A tutor who tooted a flute Tried to teach two young tooters to toot. Said the two to the tutor, "Is it harder to toot, or To tutor two tutors to toot?" —Carolyn Wells. TWINS "Faith, Mrs. O'Hara, how d' ye till thim twins aparrt?" "Aw, 't is aisy—I sticks me finger in Dinnis's mouth, an' if he bites I know it's Moike."—Harvard Lampoon. UMBRELLAS A man left his umbrella in the stand in a hotel recently, with a card bearing the following inscription attached to it: "This umbrella belongs to a man who can deal a blow of 250 pounds weight. I shall be back in ten minutes." On returning to seek his property he found in its place a card thus inscribed: "This card was left here by a man who can run twelve miles an hour. I shall not be back." A reputable citizen had left four umbrellas to be repaired. At noon he had luncheon in a restaurant, and as he was departing he absent-mindedly started to take an umbrella from a hook near his hat. "That's mine, sir," said a woman at the next table. He apologized and went out. When he was going home in a street car with his four repaired umbrellas, the woman he had seen in the restaurant got in. She glanced from him to his umbrellas and said: "I see you had a good day." "That's a swell umbrella you carry." "Isn't it?" "Did you come by it honestly?" "I haven't quite figured out. It started to rain the other day and I stepped into a doorway to wait till it stopped. Then I saw a young fellow coming along with a nice large umbrella, and I thought if he was going as far as my house I would beg the shelter of his timbershoot. So I stepped out and asked: 'Where are you going with that umbrella, young fellow?' and he dropped the umbrella and ran." One day a man exhibited a handsome umbrella. "It's wonderful how I make things last," he exclaimed. "Look at this umbrella, now. I bought it eleven years ago. Since then I had it recovered twice. I had new ribs put in in 1910, and last month I exchanged it for a new one in a restaurant. And here it is—as good as new." VALUE "The trouble with father," said the gilded youth, "is that he has no idea of the value of money." "You don't mean to imply that he is a spendthrift?" "Not at all. But he puts his money away and doesn't appear to have any appreciation of all the things he might buy with it." VANITY MCGORRY—"I'll buy yez no new hat, d' yez moind thot? Ye are vain enough ahlriddy." MRS. MCGORRY—"Me vain? Oi'm not! Shure, Oi don't t'ink mesilf half as good lookin' as Oi am." "Of course," said a suffragette lecturer, "I admit that women are vain and men are not. There are a thousand proofs that this is so. Why, the necktie of the handsomest man in the room is even now up the back of his collar." There were six men present and each of them put his hand gently behind his neck. A New York woman of great beauty called one day upon a friend, bringing with her her eleven-year-old daughter, who gives promise of becoming as great a beauty as her mother. It chanced that the callers were shown into a room where the friend had been receiving a milliner, and there were several beautiful hats lying about. During the conversation the little girl amused herself by examining the milliner's creations. Of the number that she tried on, she seemed particularly pleased with a large black affair which set off her light hair charmingly. Turning to her mother, the little girl said: "I look just like you now, Mother, don't I?" "Sh!" cautioned the mother, with uplifted finger. "Don't be vain, dear." That which makes the vanity of others unbearable to us is that which wounds our own.—La Rochefoucauld. VERSATILITY A clergyman who advertised for an organist received this reply: "Dear Sir: "I notice you have a vacancy for an organist and music teacher, either lady or gentleman. Having been both for several years I beg to apply for the position." VOICE A lanky country youth entered the crossroads general store to order some groceries. He was seventeen years old and was passing through that stage of adolescence during which a boy seems all hands and feet, and his vocal organs, rapidly developing, are wont to cause his voice to undergo sudden and involuntary changes from high treble to low bass. In an authoritative rumbling bass voice he demanded of the busy clerk, "Give me a can of corn" (then, his voice suddenly changing to a shrill falsetto, he continued) "and a sack of flour." "Well, don't be in a hurry. I can't wait on both of you at once," snapped the clerk. ASPIRING VOCALIST—"Professor, do you think I will ever be able to do anything with my voice?" PERSPIRING TEACHER—"Well it might come in handy in case of fire or shipwreck."—Cornell Widow. The devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice, An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice. —Byron. WAGES "Me gotta da good job," said Pictro, as he gave the monkey a little more line after grinding out on his organ a selection from "Santa Lucia." "Getta forty dollar da month and eata myself; thirty da month if da boss eata me." Commenting on the comparatively small salaries allowed by Congress for services rendered in the executive branch of the Government and the more liberal pay of some of the officials, a man in public life said: "It reminds me of the way a gang of laborers used to be paid down my way. The money was thrown at a ladder, and what stuck to the rungs went to the workers, while that which fell through went to the bosses." A certain prominent lawyer of Toronto is in the habit of lecturing his office staff from the junior partner down, and Tommy, the office boy, comes in for his full share of the admonition. That his words were appreciated was made evident to the lawyer by a conversation between Tommy and another office boy on the same floor which he recently overheard. "Wotcher wages?" asked the other boy. "Ten thousand a year," replied Tommy. "Aw, g'wan!" "Sure," insisted Tommy, unabashed. "Four dollars a week in cash, an' de rest in legal advice." While an Irishman was gazing in the window of a Washington bookstore the following sign caught his eye: DICKENS' WORKS ALL THIS WEEK FOR ONLY $4.OO "The divvle he does!" exclaimed Pat in disgust. "The dirty scab!" The difference between wages and salary is—when you receive wages you save two dollars a month, when you receive salary you borrow two dollars a month. He is well paid that is well satisfied.—Shakespeare. The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock.—Henry George. WAITERS Recipe for a waiter: Stuff a hired dress-suit case with an effort to please, Add a half-dozen stumbles and trips; Remove his right thumb from the cranberry sauce, Roll in crumbs, melted butter and tips. —Life. WAR "Flag of truce, Excellency." "Well, what do the revolutionists want?" "They would like to exchange a couple of Generals for a can of condensed milk." If you favor war, dig a trench in your backyard, fill it half full of water, crawl into it, and stay there for a day or two without anything to eat, get a lunatic to shoot at you with a brace of revolvers and a machine gun, and you will have something just as good, and you will save your country a great deal of expense. "Who are those people who are cheering?" asked the recruit as the soldiers marched to the train. "Those," replied the veteran, "are the people who are not going."—Puck. He who did well in war, just earns the right To begin doing well in peace. —Robert Browning. A great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle [patriotism] alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward.—George Washington. See also Arbitration, International; European War. WARNINGS Pietro had drifted down to Florida and was working with a gang at railroad construction. He had been told to beware of rattlesnakes, but assured that they would always give the warning rattle before striking. One hot day he was eating his noon luncheon on a pine log when he saw a big rattler coiled a few feet in front of him. He eyed the serpent and began to lift his legs over the log. He had barely got them out of the way when the snake's fangs hit the bark beneath him. "Son of a guna!" yelled Pietro. "Why you no ringa da bell?" WASHINGTON, GEORGE A Barnegat schoolma'am had been telling her pupils something about George Washington, and finally she asked: "Can any one now tell me which Washington was—a great general or a great admiral?" The small son of a fisherman raised his hand, and she signaled him to speak. "He was a great general," said the boy. "I seen a picture of him crossing the Delaware, and no great admiral would put out from shore standing up in a skiff." A Scotsman visiting America stood gazing at a fine statue of George Washington, when an American approached. "That was a great and good man, Sandy," said the American; "a lie never passed his lips." "Weel," said the Scot, "I praysume he talked through his nose like the rest of ye." WASPS The wasp cannot speak, but when he says "Drop it," in his own inimitable way, neither boy nor man shows any remarkable desire to hold on. WASTE The automobile rushed down the road—huge, gigantic, sublime. Over the fence hung the woman who works hard and long-her husband is at the cafe and she has thirteen little ones. (An unlucky number.) Suddenly upon the thirteenth came the auto, unseeing, slew him, and hummed on, unknowing. The woman who works hard and long rushed forward with hands, hands made rough by toil, upraised. She paused and stood inarticulate—a goddess, a giantess. Then she hurled forth these words of derision, of despair: "Mon Dieu! And I'd just washed him!"—Literally translated from Le Sport of Paris. A Boston physician tells of the case of a ten-year-old boy, who, by reason of an attack of fever, became deaf. The physician could afford the lad but little relief, so the boy applied himself to the task of learning the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. The other members of his family, too, acquired a working knowledge of the alphabet, in order that they might converse with the unfortunate youngster. During the course of the next few months, however, Tommy's hearing suddenly returned to him, assisted no doubt by a slight operation performed by the physician. Every one was, of course, delighted, particularly the boy's mother, who one day exclaimed: "Oh, Tommy, isn't it delightful to talk to and hear us again?" "Yes," assented Tommy, but with a degree of hesitation; "but here we've all learned the sign language, and we can't find any more use for it!" WEALTH If you want to make a living you have to work for it, while if you want to get rich you must go about it in some other way. The traditional fool and his money are lucky ever to have got together in the first place.—Puck. He that is proud of riches is a fool. For if he be exalted above his neighbors because he hath more gold, how much inferior is he to a gold mine!—Jeremy Taylor. WEATHER "How did you find the weather in London?" asked the friend of the returned traveler. "You don't have to find the weather in London," replied the traveler. "It bumps into you at every corner." An American and a Scotsman were discussing the cold experienced in winter in the North of Scotland. "Why, it's nothing at all compared to the cold we have in the States," said the American. "I can recollect one winter when a sheep, jumping from a hillock into a field, became suddenly frozen on the way, and stuck in the air like a mass of ice." "But, man," exclaimed the Scotsman, "the law of gravity wouldn't allow that." "I know that," replied the tale-pitcher. "But the law of gravity was frozen, too!" Two commercial travelers, one from London and one from New York, were discussing the weather in their respective countries. The Englishman said that English weather had one great fault—its sudden changes. "A person may take a walk one day," he said, "attired in a light summer suit, and still feel quite warm. Next day he needs an overcoat." "That's nothing," said the American. "My two friends, Johnson and Jones, were once having an argument. There were eight or nine inches of snow on the ground. The argument got heated, and Johnson picked up a snowball and threw it at Jones from a distance of not more than five yards. During the transit of that snowball, believe me or not, as you like, the weather changed and became hot and summer like, and Jones, instead of being hit with a snowball, was—er—scalded with hot water!" Ex-President Taft on one of his trips was playing golf on a western links when he noticed that he had a particularly good caddie, an old man of some sixty years, as they have on the Scottish links. "And what do you do in winter?" asked the President. "Such odd jobs as I can pick up, sir," replied the man. "Not much chance for caddying then, I suppose?" asked the President. "No, sir, there is not," replied the man with a great deal of warmth. "When there's no frost there's sure to be snow, and when there's no snow there's frost, and when there's neither there's sure to be rain. And the few days when it's fine they're always Sundays." On the way to the office of his publishers one crisp fall morning, James Whitcomb Riley met an unusually large number of acquaintances who commented conventionally upon the fine weather. This unremitting applause amused him. When greeted at the office with "Nice day, Mr. Riley," he smiled broadly. "Yes," he agreed. "Yes, I've heard it very highly spoken of." The darky in question had simmered in the heat of St. Augustine all his life, and was decoyed by the report that colored men could make as much as $4 a day in Duluth. He headed North in a seersucker suit and into a hard winter. At Chicago, while waiting for a train, he shivered in an engine room, and on the way to Duluth sped by miles of snow fields. On arriving he found the mercury at 18 below and promptly lost the use of his hands. Then his feet stiffened and he lost all sensation. They picked him up and took him to a crematory for unknown dead. After he had been in the oven for awhile somebody opened the door for inspection. Rastus came to and shouted: "Shut dat do' and close dat draff!" There was a small boy in Quebec, Who was buried in snow to his neck; When they said, "Are you friz?" He replied, "Yes, I is— But we don't call this cold in Quebec." —Rudyard Kipling. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.—Ruskin. WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES Uncle Ephraim had put on a clean collar and his best coat, and was walking majestically up and down the street. "Aren't you working to-day, Uncle?" asked somebody. "No, suh. I'se celebrating' mah golden weddin' suh." "You were married fifty years ago to-day, then!" "Yes, suh." "Well, why isn't your wife helping you to celebrate?" "Mah present wife, suh," replied Uncle Ephraim with dignity, "ain't got nothin' to do with it." WEDDING PRESENTS Among the presents lately showered upon a dusky bride in a rural section of Virginia, was one that was a gift of an old woman with whom both bride and groom were great favorites. Some time ago, it appears, the old woman accumulated a supply of cardboard mottoes, which she worked and had framed as occasion arose. So it happened that in a neat combination of blues and reds, suspended by a cord of orange, there hung over the table whereon the other presents were displayed for the delectation of the wedding guests, this motto: FIGHT ON; FIGHT EVER. WEDDINGS An actor who was married recently for the third time, and whose bride had been married once before, wrote across the bottom of the wedding invitations: "Be sure and come; this is no amateur performance." A wealthy young woman from the west was recently wedded to a member of the nobility of England, and the ceremony occurred in the most fashionable of London churches—St. George's. Among the guests was a cousin of the bride, as sturdy an American as can be imagined. He gave an interesting summary of the wedding when asked by a girl friend whether the marriage was a happy one. "Happy? I should say it was," said the cousin. "The bride was happy, her mother was overjoyed, Lord Stickleigh, the groom, was in ecstasies, and his creditors, I understand, were in a state of absolute bliss."—Edwun Tarrisse. The best man noticed that one of the wedding guests, a gloomy-looking young man, did not seem to be enjoying himself. He was wandering about as though he had lost his last friend. The best man took it upon himself to cheer him up. "Er—have you kissed the bride?" he asked by way of introduction. "Not lately," replied the gloomy one with a far-away expression. The curate of a large and fashionable church was endeavoring to teach the significance of white to a Sunday-school class. "Why," said he, "does a bride invariably desire to be clothed in white at her marriage?" As no one answered, he explained. "White," said he, "stands for joy, and the wedding-day is the most joyous occasion of a woman's life." A small boy queried, "Why do the men all wear black?"—M.J. Moor. Lilly May came to her mistress. "Ah would like a week's vacation, Miss Annie," she said, in her soft negro accent; "Ah wants to be married." Lillie had been a good girl, so her mistress gave her the week's vacation, a white dress, a veil and a plum-cake. Promptly at the end of the week Lillie returned, radiant. "Oh, Miss Annie!" she exclaimed, "Ah was the mos' lovely bride! Ma dress was pcrfec', ma veil mos' lovely, the cake mos' good! An' oh, the dancin' an' the eatin'!" "Well, Lillie, this sounds delightful," said her mistress, "but you have left out the point of your story—I hope you have a good husband." Lillie's tone changed to indignation: "Now, Miss Annie, what yo' think? Tha' darn nigger nebber turn up!" There is living in Illinois a solemn man who is often funny without meaning to be. At the time of his wedding, he lived in a town some distance from the home of the bride. The wedding was to be at her house. On the eventful day the solemn man started for the station, but on the way met the village grocer, who talked so entertainingly that the bridegroom missed his train. Naturally he was in a "state." Something must be done, and done quickly. So he sent the following telegram: Don't marry till I come.—HENRY. —Howard, Morse. In all the wedding cake, hope is the sweetest of the plums.—Douglas Jerrold. WEIGHTS AND MEASURES "Didn't I tell ye to feed that cat a pound of meat every day until ye had her fat?" demanded an Irish shopkeeper, nodding toward a sickly, emaciated cat that was slinking through the store. "Ye did thot," replied the assistant, "an" I've just been after feedin' her a pound of meat this very minute." "Faith, an' I don't believe ye. Bring me the scales." The poor cat was lifted into the scales. Thy balancd at exactly one pound. "There!" exclaimed the assistant triumphantly. "Didn't I tell ye she'd had her pound of meat?" "That's right," admitted the boss, scratching his head. "That's yer pound of meat all right. But"—suddenly looking up—"where the divvil is the cat?" WELCOMES When Ex-President Taft was on his transcontinental tour, American flags and Taft pictures were in evidence everywhere. Usually the Taft pictures contained a word of welcome under them. Those who heard the President's laugh ring out will not soon forget the western city which, directly under the barred window of the city lockup, displayed a Taft picture with the legend "Welcome" on it.—Hugh Morist. Come in the evening, or come in the morning, Come when you're looked for, or come without warning, Kisses and welcome you'll find here before you, And the oftener you come here the more I'll adore you. —Thomas O. Davis. WEST, THE EASTERN LADY (traveling in Montana)—"The idea of calling this the 'Wild-West'! Why, I never saw such politeness anywhere." COWBOY—"We're allers perlite to ladies, ma'am." EASTERN LADY—"Oh, as for that, there is plenty of politeness everywhere. But I refer to the men. Why, in New York the men behave horribly towards one another; but here they treat one another as delicately as gentlemen in a drawing-room." COWBOY—"Yes, ma'am; it's safer."—Abbie C. Dixon. WHISKY This is from an Irish priest's sermon, as quoted in Samuel M. Hussey's "Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent": "'It's whisky makes you bate your wives; it's whisky makes your homes desolate; it's whisky makes you shoot your landlords, and'—with emphasis, as he thumped the pulpit—'it's whisky makes you miss them.'" In a recent trial of a "bootlegger" in western Kentucky a witness testified that he had purchased some "squirrel" whisky from the defendant. "Squirrel whisky?" questioned the court. "Yes, you know: the kind that makes you talk nutty and want to climb trees." General Carter, who went to Texas in command of the regulars sent south for maneuvers along the Mexican border, tells this story of an old Irish soldier: The march had been a long and tiresome one, and as the bivouac was being made for the night, the captain noticed that Pat was looking very much fatigued. Thinking that a small drop of whisky might do him good, the captain called Pat aside and said, "Pat, will you have a wee drink of whisky?" Pat made no answer, but folded his arms in a reverential manner and gazed upward. The captain repeated the question several times, but no answer from Pat, who stood silent and motionless, gazing devoutly into the sky. Finally the captain, taking him by the shoulder and giving him a vigorous shake said: "Pat, why don't you answer? I said, 'Pat, will you have a drink of whisky?'" After looking around in considerable astonishment Pat replied: "And is it yez, captain? Begorrah and I thought it was an angel spakin' to me." See also Drinking. WHISKY BREATH See Breath. WIDOWS During the course of conversation between two ladies in a hotel parlor one said to the other: "Are you married?" "No, I am not," replied the other. "Are you?" "No," was the reply, "I, too, am on the single list," adding: "Strange that two such estimable women as ourselves should have been overlooked in the great matrimonial market! Now that lady," pointing to another who was passing, "has been widowed four times, two of her husbands having been cremated. The woman," she continued, "is plain and uninteresting, and yet she has them to burn." WIND VISITOR—"What became of that other windmill that was here last year?" NATIVE—"There was only enough wind for one, so we took it down." Whichever way the wind doth blow Some heart is glad to have it so; Then blow it east, or blow it west, The wind that blows, that wind is best. —Caroline A. Mason. WINDFALLS A Nebraska man was carried forty miles by a cyclone and dropped in a widow's front yard. He married the widow and returned home worth about $30,000 more than when he started. WINE When our thirsty souls we steep, Every sorrow's lull'd to sleep. Talk of monarchs! we are then Richest, happiest, first of men. When I drink, my heart refines And rises as the cup declines; Rises in the genial flow, That none but social spirits know. To-day we'll haste to quaff our wine, As if to-morrow ne'er should shine; But if to-morrow comes, why then— We'll haste to quaff our wine again. Let me, oh, my budding vine, Spill no other blood than thine. Yonder brimming goblet see, That alone shall vanquish me. I pray thee, by the gods above, Give me the mighty howl I love, And let me sing, in wild delight. "I will—I will be mad to-night!" When Father Time swings round his scythe, Intomb me 'neath the bounteous vine, So that its juices red and blythe, May cheer these thirsty bones of mine. —Eugene Field. See also Drinking. WISHES George Washington drew a long sigh and said: "Ah wish Ah had a hundred watermillions." Dixie's eyes lighted. "Hum! Dat would suttenly be fine! An' ef yo' had a hundred watermillions would yo' gib me fifty?" "No, Ah wouldn't." "Wouldn't yo' give me twenty-five?" "No, Ah wouldn't gib yo' no twenty-five." Dixie gaxed with reproachful eyes at his close-fisted friend. "Seems to me, you's powahful stingy, George Washington," he said, and then continued in a heartbroken voice. "Wouldn't yo' gib me one?" "No, Ah wouldn't gib yo' one. Look a' heah, nigger! Are yo' so good for nuffen lazy dat yo' cahn't wish fo' yo' own watermillions?" "Man wants but little here below Nor wants that little long," 'Tis not with me exactly so; But'tis so in the song. My wants are many, and, if told, Would muster many a score; And were each a mint of gold, I still should long for more. —John Quincy Adams. WITNESSES "The trouble is," said Wilkins as he talked the matter over with his counsel, "that in the excitement of the moment I admitted that I had been going too fast, and wasn't paying any attention to the road just before the collision. I'm afraid that admission is going to prove costly." "Don't wory about that," said his lawyer. "I'll bring seven witnesses to testify that they wouldn't believe you under oath." On his eighty-fourth birthday, Paul Smith, the veteran Adirondock hotel-keeper, who started life as a guide and died owning a million dollars' worth of forest land, was talking about boundary disputes with an old friend. "Didn't you hear of the lawsuit over a title that I had with Jones down in Malone last summer?" asked Paul. The friend had not heard. "Well," said Paul, "it was this way. I sat in the court room before the case opened with my witnesses around me. Jones busted in, stopped, looked my witnesses over carefully, and said: 'Paul, are those your witnesses?' 'They are,' said I. 'Then you win,' said he. 'I've had them witnesses twice myself.'" WIVES "Father," said a little boy, "had Solomon seven hundred wives?" "I believe so, my son," said the father. "Well, father, was he the man who said, 'Give me liberty or give me death?'"—Town Topics. A charitable lady was reading the Old Testament to an aged woman who lived at the home for old people, and chanced upon the passage concerning Solomon's household. "Had Solomon really seven hundred wives?" inquired the old woman, after reflection. "Oh, yes, Mary! It is so stated in the Bible." "Lor', mum!" was the comment. "What privileges them early Christians had!" CASEY—"Now, phwat wu'u'd ye do in a case loike thot?" CLANCY—"Loike phwat?" CASEY—"Th' walkin' diligate tils me to stroike, an' me ould woman orders me to ke-ape on wurrkin'." Governor Vardaman, of Mississippi, was taken to task because he had made a certain appointment, a friend maintaining that another man should have received the place. The governor listened quietly and then said: "Did I ever tell you about Mose Williams? One day Mose sought his employer, an acquaintance of mine, and inquired: "'Say, boss, is yo' gwine to town t'morrer?' "'I think so. Why?' "'Well, hit's dishaway. Me an' Easter Johnson's gwine to git mahred, an' Ah 'lowed to ax yo' ter git a pair of licenses fo' me." "I shall be delighted to oblige you, Mose, and I hope you will be very happy." "The next day when the gentleman rode up to his house the old man was waiting for him. "'Did you git 'em, boss?" he inquired eagerly. "'Yes, here they are.' "Mose looked at them ruefully, shaking his head. 'Ah'm po'ful sorry yo' got 'em, boss!' "'Whats the matter? Has Easter gone back on you?' "'It ain't dat, boss. Ah done changed mah min.' Ah'm gwine to mahry Sophie Coleman, dat freckled-faced yaller girl what works up to Mis' Mason's, for she sholy can cook!' "Well, I'll try and have the name changed for you, but it will cost you fifty cents more.' "Mose assented, somewhat dubiously, and the gentleman had the change made. Again he found Mose waiting for him. "'Wouldn't change hit, boss, would he?' "'Certainly he changed it. I simply had to pay him the fifty cents.' "'Ah was hopin' he wouldn't do it. Mah min's made up to mahry Easter Johnson after all.' "'You crazy nigger, you don't know what you do want. What made you change your mind again?' "'Well, boss, Ah been thinkin' it over an' Ah jes' 'lowed dar wasn't fifty cents wuth ob diff'runce in dem two niggers.'" A wife is a woman who is expected to purchase without means, and sew on buttons before they come off. "What are you cutting out of the paper?" "About a California man securing a divorce because his wife went through his pockets." "What are you going to do with it?" "Put it in my pocket." A woman missionary in China was taking tea with a mandarin's eight wives. The Chinese ladies examined her clothing, her hair, her teeth, and so on, but her feet especially amazed them. "Why," cried one, "you can walk or run as well as a man!" "Yes, to be sure," said the missionary. "Can you ride a horse and swim, too?" "Yes." "Then you must be as strong as a man!" "I am." "And you wouldn't let a man beat you—not even if he was your husband—would you?" "Indeed I wouldn't," the missionary said. The mandarin's eight wives looked at one another, nodding their heads. Then the oldest said softly: "Now I understand why the foreign devil never has more than one wife. He is afraid!"—Western Christian Advocate. PAT—"I hear your woife is sick, Moike." MIKE—"She is thot." PAT—"Is it dangerous she is?" MIKE—"Divil a bit. She's too weak to be dangerous any more!" SON—"Say, mama, father broke this vase before he went out." MOTHER—"My beautiful majolica vase! Wait till he comes back, that's all." SON—"May I stay up till he does?" "Because a fellow has six talking machines," said the boarder who wants to be an end man, "it doesn't follow that he is a Mormon." It was a wizened little man who appeared before the judge and charged his wife with cruel and abusive treatment. His better half was a big, square-jawed woman with a determined eye. "In the first place, where did you meet this woman who, according to your story, has treated you so dreadfully?" asked the judge. "Well," replied the little man, making a brave attempt to glare defiantly at his wife, "I never did meet her. She just kind of overtook me." "Harry, love," exclaimed Mrs. Knowall to her husband, on his return one evening from the office, "I have b-been d-dreadfully insulted!" "Insulted?" exclaimed Harry, love. "By whom?" "B-by your m-mother," answered the young wife, bursting into tears. "My mother, Flora? Nonsense! She's miles away!" Flora dried her tears. "I'll tell you all about it, Harry, love," she said. "A letter came to you this morning, addressed in your mother's writing, so, of course, I—I opened it." "Of course," repeated Harry, love, dryly. "It—it was written to you all the way through. Do you understand?" "I understand. But where does the insult to you come in?" "It—it came in the p-p-postscript," cried the wife, bursting into fresh floods of briny. "It s-said: 'P-P-P. S.—D-dear Flora, d-don't f-fail to give this l-letter to Harry. I w-want him to have it.'" "'Did you git 'em, boss?" he inquired eagerly. "'Yes, here they are.' "Mose looked at them ruefully, shaking his head. 'Ah'm po'ful sorry yo' got 'em, boss!' "'Whats the matter? Has Easter gone back on you?' "'It ain't dat, boss. Ah done changed mah min.' Ah'm gwine to mahry Sophie Coleman, dat freckled-faced yaller girl what works up to Mis' Mason's, for she sholy can cook!' "Well, I'll try and have the name changed for you, but it will cost you fifty cents more.' "Mose assented, somewhat dubiously, and the gentleman had the change made. Again he found Mose waiting for him. "'Wouldn't change hit, boss, would he?' "'Certainly he changed it. I simply had to pay him the fifty cents.' "'Ah was hopin' he wouldn't do it. Mah min's made up to mahry Easter Johnson after all.' "'You crazy nigger, you don't know what you do want. What made you change your mind again?' "'Well, boss, Ah been thinkin' it over an' Ah jes' 'lowed dar wasn't fifty cents wuth ob diff'runce in dem two niggers.'" A wife is a woman who is expected to purchase without means, and sew on buttons before they come off. "What are you cutting out of the paper?" "About a California man securing a divorce because his wife went through his pockets." "What are you going to do with it?" "Put it in my pocket." A woman missionary in China was taking tea with a mandarin's eight wives. The Chinese ladies examined her clothing, her hair, her teeth, and so on, but her feet especially amazed them. "Why," cried one, "you can walk or run as well as a man!" "Yes, to be sure," said the missionary. "Can you ride a horse and swim, too?" "Yes." "Then you must be as strong as a man!" "I am." "And you wouldn't let a man beat you—not even if he was your husband—would you?" "Indeed I wouldn't," the missionary said. The mandarin's eight wives looked at one another, nodding their heads. Then the oldest said softly: "Now I understand why the foreign devil never has more than one wife. He is afraid!"—Western Christian Advocate. PAT—"I hear your woife is sick, Moike." MIKE—"She is thot." PAT—"Is it dangerous she is?" MIKE—"Divil a bit. She's too weak to be dangerous any more!" SON—"Say, mama, father broke this vase before he went out." MOTHER—"My beautiful majolica vase! Wait till he comes back, that's all." SON—"May I stay up till he does?" "Because a fellow has six talking machines," said the boarder who wants to be an end man, "it doesn't follow that he is a Mormon." It was a wizened little man who appeared before the judge and charged his wife with cruel and abusive treatment. His better half was a big, square-jawed woman with a determined eye. "In the first place, where did you meet this woman who, according to your story, has treated you so dreadfully?" asked the judge. "Well," replied the little man, making a brave attempt to glare defiantly at his wife, "I never did meet her. She just kind of overtook me." "Harry, love," exclaimed Mrs. Knowall to her husband, on his return one evening from the office, "I have b-been d-dreadfully insulted!" "Insulted?" exclaimed Harry, love. "By whom?" "B-by your m-mother," answered the young wife, bursting into tears. "My mother, Flora? Nonsense! She's miles away!" Flora dried her tears. "I'll tell you all about it, Harry, love," she said. "A letter came to you this morning, addressed in your mother's writing, so, of course, I—I opened it." "Of course," repeated Harry, love, dryly. "It—it was written to you all the way through. Do you understand?" "I understand. But where does the insult to you come in?" "It—it came in the p-p-postscript," cried the wife, bursting into fresh floods of briny. "It s-said: 'P-P-P. S.—D-dear Flora, d-don't f-fail to give this l-letter to Harry. I w-want him to have it.'" "By jove, I left my purse under the pillow!" "Oh, well, your servant is honest, isn't she?" "That's just it. She'll take it to my wife." There swims no goose so gray, but soon or late She finds some honest gander for her mate. —Pope. A clerk showed forty patterns of ginghams to a man whose wife had sent him to buy some for her for Christmas, and at every pattern the man said: "My wife said she didn't want anything like that." The clerk put the last piece back on the shelf. "Sir," he said, "you don't want gingham. What you want is a divorce." Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.—Shakespeare. In the election of a wife, as in A project of war, to err but once is To be undone forever. —Thomas Middleton. Of earthly goods, the best is a good wife; A bad, the bitterest curse of human life. —Simonides. See also Domestic finance; Suffragettes; Talkers; Temper; Woman suffrage. WOMAN Woman—the only sex which attaches more importance to what's on its head than to what's in it. "How very few statues there are of real women." "Yes! it's hard to get them to look right." "How so?" "A woman remaining still and saying nothing doesn't seem true to life." "Oh, woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please"— So wrote Sir Walter long ago. But how, pray, could he really know? If woman fair he strove to please, Where did he get his "hours of ease"? —George B. Morewood. MISS SCRIBBLE-"The heroine of my next story is to be one of those modern advanced girls who have ideas of their own and don't want to get married." THE COLONEL (politely)-"Ah, indeed, I don't think I ever met that type."—Life. You are a dear, sweet girl, God bless you and keep you— Wish I could afford to do so. Here's to man—he can afford anything he can get. Here's to woman—she can afford anything that she can get a man to get for her.—George Ade. Here's to the soldier and his arms, Fall in, men, fall in; Here's to woman and her arms, Fall in, men, fall in! Most Southerners are gallant. An exception is the Georgian who gave his son this advice: "My boy, never run after a woman or a street car—there will be another one along in a minute or two." Here's to the maid of bashful fifteen; Here's to the widow of fifty; Here's to the flaunting, extravagant queen; And here's to the housewife that's thrifty. Chorus: Let the toast pass,— Drink to the lass, I'll warrant she'll prove an excuse for the glass. —Sheridan. Here's to the ladies, the good, young ladies; But not too good, for the good die young, And we want no dead ones. And here's to the good old ladies, But not too old, for we want no dyed ones. When a woman repulses, beware. When a woman beckons, bewarer.—Henriette Corkland. The young woman had spent a busy day. She had browbeaten fourteen salespeople, bullyragged a floor-walker, argued victoriously with a milliner, laid down the law to a modiste, nipped in the bud a taxi chauffeur's attempt to overcharge her, made a street car conductor stop the car in the middle of a block for her, discharged her maid and engaged another, and otherwise refused to allow herself to be imposed upon. Yet she did not smile that evening when a young man begged: "Let me be your protector through life!" I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.—Samuel Johnson. Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears Her noblest work she classes, O: Her 'prentice hand she tried on man, An' then she made the lasses, O. —Burns. Not from his head was woman took, As made her husband to o'erlook; Not from his feet, as one designed The footstool of the stronger kind; But fashioned for himself, a bride; An equal, taken from his side. —Charles Wesley. See also Mice; Mothers; Smoking; Suffragettes; Wives; Woman suffrage. WOMAN SUFFRAGE WOMAN VOTER—"Now, I may as well be frank with you. I absolutely refuse to vote the same ticket as that horrid Jones woman." Kate Douglas Wiggin was asked recently how she stood on the vote for women question. She replied she didn't "stand at all," and told a story about a New England farmer's wife who had no very romantic ideas about the opposite sex, and who, hurrying from churn to sink, from sink to shed, and back to the kitchen stove, was asked if she wanted to vote. "No, I certainly don't! I say if there's one little thing that the men folks can do alone, for goodness sakes let 'em do it!" she replied. MR. E.N. QUIRE—"What are those women mauling that man for?" MRS. HENBALLOT—"He insulted us by saying that the suffrage movement destroyed our naturally timid sweetness and robbed us of all our gentleness." "Did you cast your vote, Aunty?" "Oh, yes! Isn't it grand? A real nice gentleman with a beautiful moustache and yellow spats marked my ballot for me. I know I should have marked it myself, but it seemed to please him greatly." "Does your wife want to vote?" "No. She wants a larger town house, a villa on the sea coast and a new limousine car every six months. I'd be pleased most to death if she could fix her attention on a smaller matter like the vote." "What you want, I suppose, is to vote, just like the men do." "Certainly not," replied Mrs. Baring-Banners. "If we couldn't do any better than that there would be no use of our voting." "There's only one thing I can think of to head off this suffrage movement," said the mere man. "What is that?" asked his wife. "Make the legal age for voting thirty-five instead of twenty-one."—Catholic Universe. MAMIE—"I believe in woman's rights." GERTIE—"Then you think every woman should have a vote?" MAMIE—"No; but I think every woman should have a voter."—The Woman's Journal. During the Presidential campaign the question of woman suffrage was much discussed among women pro and con, and at an afternoon tea the conversation turned that way between the women guests. "Are you a woman suffragist?" asked the one who was most interested. "Indeed, I am not," replied the other most emphatically. "Oh, that's too bad, but just supposing you were, whom would you support in the present campaign?" "The same man I've always supported, of course," was the apt reply—"my husband." See also Suffragettes. WOMEN'S CLUBS See Clubs. WORDS See Authors. WORK All work and no play Makes Jack surreptitiously gay. "Wot cheer, Alf? Yer lookin' sick; wot is it?" "Work! nuffink but work, work, work, from mornin' till night!" '"Ow long 'ave yer been at it?" "Start tomorrow."—Punch. Several men were discussing the relative importance and difficulty of mental and physical work, and one of them told the following experience: "Several years ago, a tramp, one of the finest specimens of physical manhood that I have ever seen, dropped into my yard and asked me for work. The first day I put him to work helping to move some heavy rocks, and he easily did as much work as any two other men, and yet was as fresh as could be at the end of the day. "The next morning, having no further use for him, I told him he could go; but he begged so hard to remain that I let him go into the cellar and empty some apple barrels, putting the good apples into one barrel and throwing away the rotten ones—about a half hour's work. "At the end of two hours he was still in the cellar, and I went down to see what the trouble was. I found him only half through, but almost exhausted, beads of perspiration on his brow. "'What's the matter?' I asked. 'Surely that work isn't hard.' "'No not hard,' he replied. 'But the strain on the judgment is awful.'" See also Rest cure. WORMS A country girl was home from college for the Christmas holidays and the old folks were having a reception in her honor. During the event she brought out some of her new gowns to show to the guests. Picking up a beautiful silk creation she held it up before the admiring crowd. "Isn't this perfectly gorgeous!" she exclaimed. "Just think, it came from a poor little insignificant worm!" Her hard-working father looked a moment, then he turned and said: "Yes, darn it, an' I'm that worm!" YALE UNIVERSITY The new cook, who had come into the household during the holidays, asked her mistress: "Where ban your son? I not seeing him round no more." "My son," replied the mistress pridefully. "Oh, he has gone back to Yale. He could only get away long enough to stay until New Year's day, you see. I miss him dreadfully, tho." "Yas, I knowing yoost how you feel. My broder, he ban in yail sax times since Tanksgiving." YONKERS An American took an Englishman to a theater. An actor in the farce, about to die, exclaimed: "Please, dear wife, don't bury me in Yonkers!" The Englishman turned to his friend and said: "I say, old chap, what are yonkers?" "YOU" Here's to the world, the merry old world, To its days both bright and blue; Here's to our future, be it what it may, And here's to my best—that's you! ZONES TEACHER—"How many zones has the earth?" PUPIL—"Five." TEACHER—"Correct. Name them." PUPIL—"Temperate zone, intemperate, canal, horrid, and o."—Life.