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BOOKS OF JOKES, STORIES
AND QUOTATIONS
TOASTER'S HANDBOOK. Peggy Edmond and
Harold Workman Williams. 501p. $1.80
MORE TOASTS. Marion D. Mosher. 552p. $1.80
MORE TOASTS
JOKES, STORIES AND
QUOTATIONS
COMPILED BY
MARION DIX MOSHER
Librarian, Genesee Branch, Rochester (N.Y.) Public Library
NEW YORK
THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY
LONDON: GRAFTON & CO.
1922
Contents
[AUTOMOBILES AND AUTOMOBILING]
[ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS]
PREFACE
The success of the Toaster's Handbook has encouraged its publishers to compile another that will supplement it and bring it up-to-date. New subjects keep coming to the front, and the up-to-date toaster needs up-to-date stories to fit the up-to-date subjects. No public occasion of today is complete without its joke on the nineteenth amendment, the allied debts, the income tax, etc.
In offering the toasts, jokes, quotations and stories in this second volume, the editor has endeavored to bring further aid to the distracted toastmaster, to the professional after-dinner speaker who must change his stories often, and to individuals inexperienced in public speaking and so unfortunate as to have public addresses forced upon them. He views the product with much the same feeling as did Alexander Pope, who said, "O'er his books his eyes began to roll, in pleasing memory of all he stole."
Paolo Bellezze expressed the same feelings in the introduction to his work "Humor" when he said "Of this work of mine, I must confess it is a great lot of stuff gathered from everywhere except from my brain.... It is a necklace of pearls strung upon a slender cord; that, I have put there; the pearls have been furnished me by the most famous jewelers, native and foreign. This said, I can—without being accused of pride—recommend it to my respectable customers as an article of great value and of absolute novelty."
In making this collection, files of such magazines as Life, Judge, Puck and Punch were drawn on extensively; also magazines having humorous pages or columns, such as the Literary Digest, Ladies' Home Journal, Everybody's, Harper's; also Bindery Talk and various other house organs. According to Samuel Johnson "A man will turn over half a library to make one book," and the compiler of this one makes humble acknowledgment to a whole library of books and periodicals where most of these jokes have already appeared. It has been impossible to give credit unless the place of first publication was definitely known.
The compiling of "More Toasts" was in large measure cooperative. The test of the humor of a story or joke is in its efficacy when applied to normal people under ordinary circumstances. With this philosophy in mind the editor made it a rule to include nothing until it had first been "tried on the dog." The original material was first graded into three classes and, before being accepted, each joke had to stand the test of appealing to the sense of humor of several persons. The result is a collection of very carefully selected jokes and stories, only about fifty per cent of the material originally chosen being used. If any over-critical reader fails to find them humorous, may not the fault possibly be due to his own imperfect sense of humor?
There is also much truth in the statement that the point of a jest lies in the telling of it and often much of the subtle humor is lost in the reading. The personality of the speaker is a necessary factor and is frequently more important in the effect produced by the story than the story itself. Elbert Hubbard once said "Next in importance to the man who first voices a great thought is the man who quotes it."
The clever compiler, like a good chef, must not only know what to select but in what order to present it. Knowledge consists in being able to find a thing when you want it and accordingly an attempt has been made to pigeonhole each joke where it would be most useful. Such a classification is at best a difficult and debatable question, and numerous cross references have been placed wherever it was thought they might direct the reader to the subject wanted.
With these few explanatory words, the editor presents this little volume, sincerely hoping that it may prove a friend in need to all who seek the relaxation of humor, and a lifesaver to that legion of humble men whose knees tremble when the chairman speaks those fateful words—"The next speaker of the evening...."
M.D.M.
November, 1922.
INTRODUCTION
What can be more fitting than that a compiled book should have a compiled introduction? Why should one with great pains and poor prospects of success attempt to do what has already been well done? Knowing that all readers of this book have a sense of humor and that they will approve our decision we begin with a quotation from an article[1] by Mr. E. Lyttelton.
The Divine Gift of Humor
The subject of humor has an attraction peculiarly its own, because it deals with a mystery which yet is pleasantly interwoven with the daily life of each one of us. We often say of one of our neighbors that he has no sense of humour. But he often laughs; he never spends a day without at least trying to laugh, tho it remains but an attempt, an effort, an aspiration after something which he seems to have lost but wishes to recover. Either, that is, he remains grave when others laugh, or he laughs, as Horace says, "with alien jaws," by constraint rather than because he cannot help it. He has a confused idea that it is expected of him. Such laughter is apparently the outcome of an uneasy sense of duty, a dismal travesty of the real thing....
Certainly humour is a singularly elusive thing, and I doubt if anyone alive can explain it; but its elusiveness gives it something of its charm; and, moreover, the illustrations which are necessary to an inquiry into its nature, its scope and meaning, are apt to be amusing without being irrelevant.
Humour has often been roughly described as a sense of the incongruous. More satisfying, however, is the following, which has been ascribed to Dean Inge: It is a sense of incongruous emotions. As soon as we think of the emotions being stirred we see that the strange difference between humourous and unhumourous people is not an intellectual matter, but follows the general law of emotional susceptibility, viz., that it is independent of the reason and varies within wide limits with each individual, and obviously with each nationality. Moreover, it appears that, as it is compounded of two emotions, one man may feel one of the emotions but be dull to the other, according to his temperament. It is a matter of sensitiveness, and in sensitiveness no two of us are alike.
Crudely judged, then, humour may be described as a blessing of nature bestowed on all, but in widely varying measure, so that in the case of some of our acquaintance we deplore its non-existence, but never in ourselves. Nobody really believes that he is wholly without it, partly because, in proportion as the sense is really defective, the defect must be in its own nature unperceived, but also because the gift is so precious, so winsome, that no one could bear to believe that it has been denied him. By a merciful law of nature, the delusion is unsuspected, for assuredly, if any wholly unhumorous person once realised the full extent of his privation, nothing could save him from "wretchlessness" and despair.
I prefer to believe that, like the sense of beauty, the love of music, the thrill of admiration for uncalculating heroism, we have here a wondrous aid to us in our life's pilgrimage, but that if we trace it to a sense of our self-interest, we not only vulgarize it, but we turn it into a caricature. For there is in humour this singular property; its aroma is so subtle, delicate and undefinable that the effort to buttress it upon coarse, common utility is doomed to fail, and in the mere attempt humour vanishes. There is something deliciously contagious about laughter that is quite sincere and unthinking; whereas the only people who contrive to be always absurd, but never amusing, are those who laugh from a sense of duty.
Humour, then, in the young is restricted in scope, their experience of life being small; in women it is quicker than in men, but shallower; in the Scotch it is reticent, in the Irish voluble and refined, but cold. But wherever it is found free from counterfeit, wholesome and contagious, it is the offspring of man's heaven-bestowed power of seeing in the meannesses of earth the true presence of the Divine.
Darwin says the causes of humor are legion and exceedingly complex and various disquisitions upon humor and laughter would seem to support him. Its social nature is emphasized by Edwin Paxton Hood:
The sources of all laughter and merriment are in the cordial sympathies of our nature. Laughter is very nearly related to the highest and most instinctive wisdom; it stands at no distant remove from Judgment on the one hand, and Imagination on the other; and it is a proof of a healthy nature, for both thinking and acting.
C.S. Evans in his article "On Humor in Literature" gives a hint of the evolutionary process of its mechanism and its higher refinement:
On the lower plane of humor you get a laugh by the most unimaginative means—merely conceive a recognized humorous situation, or bring several things together according to a recipe, and the thing is done. Every practised comedian, in literature or on the stage, is an adept at it. But the creation of character, the expression—in terms of the words and actions of men and women—of that "social gesture" which is laughter's source, is a much greater thing, for there we touch the symbolism which is the soul of art.
The Function of Humor
In an article entitled "Why Do We Laugh?" William McDougall discusses scientifically the value of laughter:
Laughter of man presents a problem with which philosophers have wrestled in all ages with little success. Man is the only animal that laughs. And, if laughter may properly be called an instinctive reaction, the instinct of laughter is the only one peculiar to the human species....
We are saved from this multitude of small sympathetic pains and depressions by laughter, which, as we have seen, breaks up our train of mental activity and prevents our dwelling upon the distressing situation, and which also provides an antidote to the depressing influence in the form of physiological stimulation that raises the blood-pressure and promotes the circulation of the blood. This, then, is the biological function of laughter, one of the most delicate and beautiful of all nature's adjustments. In order that man should reap the full benefits of life in the social group, it was necessary that his primitive sympathetic tendencies should be strong and delicately adjusted. For without this, there could be little mutual understanding, and only imperfect cooperation and mutual aid in the more serious difficulties and embarrassments of life. But, in endowing man with delicately responsive sympathetic tendencies, nature rendered him liable to suffer a thousand pains and depressions upon a thousand occasions of mishap to his fellows, occasions so trivial as to call for no effort of support or assistance. Here was a dilemma—whether to leave man so little sympathetic that he would be incapable of effective social life; or to render him effectively sympathetic and leave him subject to the perpetually renewed pains of sympathy, which, if not counteracted, would seriously depress his vitality and perhaps destroy the species. Nature, confronted with this problem, solved it by the invention of laughter. She endowed man with the instinct to laugh on contemplation of these minor mishaps of his fellow men; and so made them occasions of actual benefit to the beholder; all those things which, apart from laughter, would have been mildly displeasing and depressing, became objects and occasions of stimulating beneficial laughter....
For laughter is no exception to the law of primitive sympathy; but rather illustrates it most clearly and familiarly; the infectiousness of laughter is notorious and as irresistible as the infection of fear itself.... The great laugher is the person of delicately responsive sympathetic reactions; and his laughter quickly gives place to pity and comforting support, if our misfortune waxes more severe. Such persons are in little danger of giving offense by their laughter; for we detect their ready sympathy and easily laugh with them; they teach us to be humorous.
H. Merian Allen in his essay "Little Laughs in History" says "The relaxation of a full laugh clears the brain, restores fit contact with one's fellows, and so smoothes the way for the solving of knotty problems."
Linus W. Kline, Ph.D., further elucidates the psychical office of humor as follows:
The psychical function of humor is to delicately cut the surface tension of consciousness and disarrange its structure that it may begin again from a new and strengthened base. It permits our mental forces to reform under cover, as it were, while the battle is still on. Then, too, it clarifies the field and reveals the strategetic points, or, to change the figure, it pulls off the mask and exposes the real man. No stimulus, perhaps more mercifully and effectually breaks the surface tension of consciousness, thereby conditioning the mind for a stronger forward movement, than that of humor. It is the one universal dispensary for human kind: a medicine for the poor, a tonic for the rich, a recreation for the fatigued and a beneficient check to the strenuous. It acts as a shield to the reformer, as an entering wedge to the recluse and as a decoy for barter and trade.
Humor is as necessary to our mental and spiritual life as are vitamins to our physical well-being. Ruskin has called our attention to the tendency of rivers to lean a little to one side, to have "One shingly shore upon which they can be shallow and foolish and childlike, and another steep shore under which they can pause and purify themselves and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasions," and has likened them to great men who must have one side of their life for work and another for play. Action and reaction must be balanced: seriousness and lightness. "Men who work prodigously must play with equal energy," says one commentator. "Humor is the gift of the deeply serious man," remarks another. "There have been very few solemn men, but their solemnity was evidence, not of their gifts, but of their defects; as a rule greatness is accompanied by the overflow of the fountain of life in play." "The richly furnished mind overflows with vitality and deals with ideas and life freely, daringly, often audaciously."
The function of the catalyst in chemical reactions is to help other bodies to get on together, but in doing this it only lends its presence.
CATALYST. A chemical body which by its presence, is capable of inducing chemical changes in other bodies while itself remaining unchanged.
In quite the same way humor, by its mere presence, serves to smooth the way in all human relations. It contributes a socializing touch. "Humor makes the whole world akin."
Importance of Humor
Not only the toastmaster needs to have a sense of humor and a collection of funny stories, and not only the preacher, the public speaker and entertainer, but everyone, as well, who must influence others. The "voice with a smile" wins because behind the voice is a sense of humor. We have more confidence in those who have a sense of humor. The following is quoted from a persuasive advertisement entitled "The Gentle Art of Telling a Humorous Story Well":
The most successful men and women are those who know how to get along with their fellow-beings, who know how to win and hold good will. In fact, the biggest problem in business and society today is the human problem, the problem of making people like you and making people feel kindly towards each other.
And nothing oils the wheels of human relationship so nicely as humor. Abraham Lincoln understood this when he saved many a critical situation by the introduction of one of his famous anecdotes. Humor has its place in serious business life, and in social life it is the universal passport to popularity.
The importance of humor in our daily life, often emphasized by scientists and philosophers, has been well summarized by Justin McCarthy in an article "Humor as an Element of Success":
I am strongly of the opinion that the quick and abiding sense of humour is a great element of success in every department of life. I do not speak merely of success in the more strictly artistic fields of human work, but am willing to maintain that even in the prosaic and practical concerns of human existence, the sense of humour is an exciting and sustaining influence to carry a man successfully thru to the full development of his capacity and the attainment of his purpose....
In the stories of great events and great enterprises we are constantly told of some heaven-born leader who kept alive, thru the most trying hours of what otherwise might have been utter and enfeebling depression, the energies, the courage and the hope of his comrades and his followers.
During thousands of years nature has developed in the human body many "safety first" signal systems. For example, when the body becomes chilled this signal system causes us to shiver and tickles the throat making us cough and in this way thru exercise stimulates the blood circulation.
Perhaps in ages to come nature will find a way to tickle our sense of humor when we are angry, discouraged, or otherwise mentally discomfitted and will thus help us thru laughter to throw off the soul chill and to regain spiritual poise.
Footnote 1: [(return)]
The Nineteenth Century. July, 1922.
MORE TOASTS
ABSENT-MINDEDNESS
This story is told of an absent-minded professor at Drew Theological Seminary. One evening while studying he had need of a book-mark. Seeing nothing else handy, he used his wife's scissors, which lay on the sewing-table. A few minutes later the wife wanted the scissors, but a diligent search failed to reveal them.
The next day the professor appeared before his class and opened his book. There lay the scissors. He picked them up and, holding them above his head, shouted:
"Here they are, dear!"
Yes, the class got it.
Deep in a ponderous calculation, the professor leaned over his desk. One hand held his massive brow; the other guided the pencil.
Suddenly the library door was flung open, and a nurse entered, smiling broadly.
"There's a little stranger upstairs, professor," she announced, of course referring to the very latest arrival.
"Eh?" grunted the man of learning, poring deeply over his problem.
"It's a little boy," remarked the nurse, still smiling.
"Little boy," mused the professor. "Little boy-eh? Well ask him what he wants."
A story is current concerning a professor who is reputed to be slightly absent-minded. The learned man had arranged to escort his wife one evening to the theater. "I don't like the tie you have on. I wish you would go up and put on another," said his wife.
The professor tranquilly obeyed. Moment after moment elapsed, until finally the impatient wife went upstairs to learn the cause of the delay. In his room she found her husband undressed and getting into bed.
"How will you have your roast beef?" asked the waiter.
"Well done, good and faithful servant," murmured the clerical-looking diner absent-mindedly.
See also Habit; Memory.
ACCIDENTS
Hearing a crash of glassware one morning, Mrs. Blank called to her maid in the adjoining room, "Norah, what on earth are you doing?"
"I ain't doin' nothin', mum," replied Norah; "it's done."
A big Irishman, while carrying a ladder through a crowded street had the misfortune to break a plate-glass window in a store. He immediately dropped his ladder and broke into a run, but he had been seen by the shopkeeper, who dashed after him in company with several salesmen, and was soon caught.
"Here you big loafer!" shouted the angry shopkeeper, when he had regained his breath. "You have broken my window!"
"I sure have," admitted the Celt, "and didn't you see me running home to get the money to pay for it?"
There was a man who fancied that by driving good and fast
He'd get his car across the track before the train came past;
He'd miss the engine by an inch, and make the train-hands sore.
There was a man who fancied this; there isn't any more.
ACCURACY
In one of the industrial towns in South Wales a workman met with a serious accident. The doctor was sent for, and came and examined him, had him bandaged and carried home on a stretcher, seemingly unconscious.
After he was put to bed the doctor told his wife to give him sixpennyworth of brandy when he came to himself. After the doctor had left the wife told the daughter to run and fetch threepennyworth of brandy for her father.
The old chap opened his eyes and said, in a loud voice: "Sixpenn'orth, the doctor said."
An editor had a notice stuck up above his desk on which was printed: "Accuracy! Accuracy! Accuracy!" and this notice he always pointed out to the new reporters.
One day the youngest member of the staff came in with his report of a public meeting. The editor read it through and came to the sentence: "Three thousand nine hundred ninety-nine eyes were fixed upon the speaker."
"What do you mean by making a silly blunder like that?" he demanded, wrathfully.
"But it's not a blunder," protested the youngster. "There was a one-eyed man in the audience!"
ACTORS AND ACTRESSES
FIRST ACTRESS (behind the scenes)—"Did you hear the way the public wept during my death scene?"
SECOND ACTRESS—"Yes, it must have been because they realized that it was only acted!"
"These love scenes are rotten. Can't the leading man act as if he were in love with the star?"
"Can't act at all," said the director. "Trouble is, he is in love with her."
The teacher was giving the class a natural history lecture on Australia. "There is one animal," she said, "none of you have mentioned. It does not stand up on its legs all the time. It does not walk like other animals, but takes funny little skips. What is it?" And the class yelled with one voice, "Charlie Chaplin!"
Eight-year-old Robert had been ill for nearly a month with tonsilitis, and nothing kept him contented but pictures of his favorite, Charlie Chaplin, clipped from the pages of the motion-picture pictorials.
One morning, as his mother sat beside his bed, he studied earnestly a full-page drawing of the million-dollar comedian.
"Mother," he asked, "will Charlie Chaplin go to heaven?"
"Why, yes—I hope so," answered the somewhat astonished parent.
"Gee! won't the Lord have some fun then!" was Robert's comment.
Sweeping his long hair back with an impressive gesture the visitor faced the proprietor of the film studio. "I would like to secure a place in your moving-picture company," he said.
"You are an actor?" asked the film man.
"Yes."
"Had any experience acting without audiences?"
A flicker of sadness shone in the visitor's eyes as he replied:
"Acting without audiences is what brought me here!"
It was a death-bed scene, but the director was not satisfied with the hero's acting.
"Come on!" he cried. "Put more life in your dying!"
"Pa, what's an actor?"
"An actor, my boy, is a person who can walk to the side of a stage, peer into the wings at a group of other actors waiting for their cues, a number of bored stage hands and a lot of theatrical odds and ends and exclaim, 'What a lovely view there is from this window!'"
"There were two actresses in an early play of mine," said an author, "both very beautiful; but the leading actress was thin. She quarreled one day at rehearsal with the other lady, and she ended the quarrel by saying, haughtily: 'Remember, please, that I am the star.'
"'Yes, I know you're the star,' the other retorted, eyeing with an amused smile the leading actress's long, slim figure, 'but you'd look better, my dear, if you were a little meteor!'"
INTERVIEWER—"What is your wife's favorite dish?"
HUSBAND OF FAMOUS MOVIE ACTRESS—"In the magazines it is peach-bloom fudge-cake with orangewisp salad, but at home it is tripe and cabbage."—Puck.
The actress stood before her mirror, in doublet and hose, and regarded her thin legs anxiously.
"I'm not exactly a poem," said she, "but I may pass for heroic verse."
ADVERTISING
The Question is How Much More?
TO RENT—In private home, a large, handsomely furnished front room; also a medium-sized one; every convenience; centrally and very choicely located; rent more than reasonable. Address, etc.—
Advertising is the test of integrity; the proof of integrity; that transmits an ever-increasing confidence to both producer and purchaser.
"I won't pay one cent for my advertising this week," declared the store-keeper angrily to the editor of the country paper. "You told me you'd put the notice of my shoe-polish in with the reading-matter."
"And didn't I do it?" inquired the editor.
"No, sir!" roared the advertiser. "No, sir, you did not! You put it in the column with a mess of poetry, that's where you put it!"
"Paw, what is an advertisement?"
"An advertisement is the picture of a pretty girl eating, wearing, holding or driving something that somebody wants to sell."
A violinist was bitterly disappointed with the account of his recital printed in the paper of a small town.
"I told your man three or four times," complained the musician to the owner of the paper, "that the instrument I used was a genuine Stradivarius, and in his story there was not a word about it, not a word."
Whereupon the owner said with a laugh:
"That is as it should be. When Mr. Stradivarius gets his fiddles advertised in my paper under ten cents a line, you come around and let me know."
"Oh, we called about the flat advertised."
"Well, I did mean to let it, but since I've read the house-agent's description of it, I really feel I can't part with it."
CLASSIFIED AD MANAGER—"Your advertisement begins: 'Wanted: Silent Partner.'"
ADVERTISER—"Yes, that's right."
CLASSIFIED AD MANAGER—"Do you want this placed under Business Opportunities or Matrimony?"
"Say, Jim," said the friend of the taxicab-driver, standing in front of the vehicle, "there's a purse lying on the floor of your car."
The driver looked carefully around and then whispered: "Sometimes when business is bad I put it there and leave the door open. It's empty, but you've no idea how many people'll jump in for a short drive when they see it."
Recently the L. P. Ross Shoe Company inserted an advertisement in a Rochester paper for vampers and closers-up. Among the answers received was one from a young lady who signed herself Miss Mabelle Jones and gave her address as General Delivery, Rochester. The letter said in part:
"Gentlemen: I have seen your ad for vampires and close-ups and I would like the job. I have been studying to vamp for several years and have been practising eye work for a long while. My gentlemen friends tell me that I have the other movie vamps backed off the map. I have made a particular study of Theda Bara. I don't know much about close-ups, but suppose I could learn. I have a good form, swell brown eyes, and a fine complexion."
"If you would like, I will call and show you what I can do. I have been looking for a vampire job, but never saw no ads in the papers before."
"Yours,"
"MABELLE JONES."
"P. S.—Do you furnish clothes for your vampires? I have just come to Rochester and so I haven't got many clothes."—Rochester Herald.
His Little Ad
There was a man in our town
And he was wondrous wise;
He swore (it was his policy)
He would not advertise.
But one day he did advertise,
And thereby hangs a tail,
The "ad" was set in quite small type,
And headed "Sheriff's Sale."
Burton Holmes, the lecturer, had an interesting experience, while in London. He told some Washington friends a day or two ago that when he visited the theater where he was to deliver his travelogue he decided that the entrance to the theater was rather dingy and that there should be more display of his attraction.
Accordingly, he suggested to the manager of the house that the front be brightened up at night by electrical signs, one row of lights spelling his name "Burton" and another row of lights spelling the name "Holmes."
The manager told him it was too much of an innovation for him to authorize and referred him to the owner of the theater. Mr. Holmes traveled several hours into the country to consult with the owner, who referred him to his agent in the city. The agent in turn sent Mr. Holmes to the janitor of the theater.
"I talked with the janitor and explained my plan to him for about an hour," Mr. Holmes said. "Finally, after we had gone into every detail of the cost and everything else, the janitor told me that the theater was a very exclusive and high class theater, and that he would not put up the sign. I asked him why?"
"Because it would attract too much attention to the theater," the janitor replied.
"What's your time?" asked the old farmer of the brisk salesman. "Twenty minutes after five. What can I do for you?" "I want them pants," said the old farmer, leading the way to the window and pointing to a ticket marked, "Given away at 5.20."
See also Authorship; Beauty, Personal; Salesmen and salesmanship.
ADVICE
The most unfair person is the one who asks you for advice and doesn't let you know what advice he wants.
Another thing that we sometimes take when nobody's looking is advice.
It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.—Shakespeare.
Advice is the most worthless commodity in the world. Those who might profit by it don't need it, and those who do need it won't profit by it—if they could, they wouldn't need it.
How often have my kindly friends,
(When Fate has dealt me some shrewd blow),
Recalling random odds and ends
Of counsel, cried: "I told you so!"
But when 'twas I who warned, and they
Who heeded not, and came to woe,
I wonder why they'd never say:
"That's right, old chap, you told me so!"
AFTER DINNER SPEECHES
Recipe for an After-dinner Speech
Three long breaths.
Compliment to the audience.
Funny Story.
Outline of what speaker is not going to say.
Points that he will touch on later.
Two Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
Outline of what speaker is going to say.
Points that he has not time to touch on now.
Reference to what he said first.
Funny Story.
Compliment to the audience.
Ditto to our City, State and Country.
Applause.
N. B. For an oration, use same formula, repeating each sentence three times in slightly different words.
—Mary Eleanor Roberts.
"You wrote this report of last night's banquet, did you?" asked the editor with the copy in his hand.
"Yes, sir," replied the reporter.
"And this expression, 'The banquet-table groaned'—do you think that is proper?"
"Oh, yes, sir. The funny stories the after-dinner speakers told would make any table groan."
See also Politicians; Public speakers.
AGE
HE—"How old are you?"
SHE—"I've just turned twenty-three."
HE—"Oh, I see—thirty-two."
A judge asked a woman her age.
"Thirty," she replied.
"You've given that age in this court for the last three years."
"Yes. I'm not one of those who says one thing today and another thing tomorrow."
"Willie," said his mother. "I wish you would run across the street and see how old Mrs. Brown is this morning."
"Yes'm," replied Willie, and a few minutes later he returned and reported:
"Mrs. Brown says it's none of your business how old she is."
"Well, auntie, have you got your photographs yet?"
"Yes, and I sent them back in disgust."
"Gracious! How was that?"
"Why, on the back of every photo was written this, 'The original of this is carefully preserved.'"
Answering the question, "When is a woman old?" a famous tragedienne wrote: "The conceited never; the unhappy too soon, and the wise at the right time."
When saving for your old age, don't neglect to lay up a few pleasant thoughts.
"To what do you attribute your long life, Uncle Mose?" asked a newspaper interviewer of a colored centenarian.
"Becuz Ah was bo'n a long time back," the old gentleman replied.
MURIEL—"I don't intend to be married until after I'm thirty."
MABEL—"And I don't intend to be thirty until after I'm married!"—Life.
My first gray hair!
I never knew that you were there,
Nor least expected you would come so soon—
But you are there;
From whence you came or where
I know not, but I care.
You make me stop and wonder
Why I find you there to-night,
Is it some worry or some fright
That leaves you colorless, and oh, so white?
You'll not be seen, oh, no, not yet.
On that your fondest curls you bet,
For just as long as you are there
I'll hide you very neatly—there!
And none will wonder—only I, at you—
My first gray hair.
—Wells Hawks.
One great advantage of really being old is that one is beyond being told he is getting old.
Twenty-One Plus
FIRST SUFFRAGIST—"How old do you think Mabel is?"
SECOND SUFFRAGIST—"Well, I should say she had lost about seventeen votes."
A maiden lady of uncertain age became very indignant when the census taker asked how old she was. "Did you see the girls next door," she asked—"The Hill twins?"
"Certainly," replied the census man.
"And did they tell you their age?"
"Yes."
"Well," she snapped, "I'm just as old as they are."
"Oh, very well," said the census man; and he wrote in his book, "Sarah Stokes, as old as the Hills."
I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky;
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
PHYSICIAN—"Tell your wife not to worry about that slight deafness, as it is merely an indication of advancing years."
MR. MEEK—"Doctor would you mind telling her yourself?"
"Ma, is Mr. Jones an awfully old man?"
"No, dear, I don't believe so. What makes you ask?"
"Well, I think he must be, because I heard Pa say last night that Mr. Jones raised his ante."
AGRICULTURE
"Crop failures?" asked the old timer.
"Yes, I've seen a few in my day. In 1854 the corn crop was almost nothing. We cooked some for dinner, and my father ate fourteen acres of corn at one meal!"—Life.
See also Farming; Laws.
ALARM CLOCKS
To-day I bought an alarm-clock,
It has a very loud ring.
I think I will call it the Star-Spangled Banner,
For every time I hear it I have to get up.
A Swede was working for a farmer, who demanded punctuality above everything else. The farmer told him that he must be at work every morning at 4 o'clock sharp. The "hand" failed to get up in time, and the farmer threatened to discharge him. Then the "hand" bought an alarm-clock, and for some time everything went along smoothly. But one morning he got to the field fifteen minutes late. The farmer immediately discharged him, in spite of his protestations that his alarm-clock was to blame.
Sadly returning to his room, the discharged employee determined to find out the cause of his downfall. He took the alarm-clock to pieces, and discovered a dead cockroach among the works.
"Well," he soliloquized, "Ay tank it bane no wonder the clock wouldn't run—the engineer bane daid."
"I heard something this morning that opened my eyes."
"So did I—an alarm clock."
"Have you any alarm-clocks?" inquired the customer. "What I want is one that will arouse the girl without waking the whole family."
"I don't know of any such alarm-clock as that, madam," said the man behind the counter; "we keep just the ordinary kind—the kind that will wake the whole family without disturbing the girl."
See also Philadelphia; Tardiness.
ALIBI
TEACHER—"What is an alibi?"
BRIGHT Boy—"Being somewhere where you ain't."
ALIMONY
Or Go to Jail
"Is there any way a man can avoid paying alimony?" asked the Friend who was seeking free advice.
"Sure," replied the Lawyer. "He can stay single or stay married."
ALPHABET
MOTHER (who is teaching her child the alphabet)—"Now, dearie, what comes after 'g'?"
THE CHILD—"Whiz!"—Judge.
ALTERNATIVES
See Choices.
AMBITION
Every normal man has two great ambitions. First, to own his home. Second, to own a car to get away from his home.
Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.—Colton.
To wish is of little account; to succeed thou must earnestly desire; and this desire must shorten thy sleep.—Ovid.
The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.—Cicero.
When once ambition has passed its natural limits, its progress is boundless.—Seneca.
AMERICANS
A French magazine claims to have discovered in a New York paper an advertisement to this effect: "A gentleman who has lost his right leg is desirous of making the acquaintance of some one who has lost his left leg, in order to become associated with him in the purchase of boots and shoes, size 8." The very observant French editor very politely comments: "An American may occasionally lose a leg, but he never loses his head."
"That's the Goddess of Liberty," explained the New Yorker. "Fine attitude, eh?"
"Yes, and typically American," replied the Western visitor. "Hanging to a strap."
"William," asked the teacher of a rosy-faced lad, "can you tell me who George Washington was?"
"Yes, ma'am," was the quick reply. "He was an American gen'ral."
"Quite right," replied the teacher. "And can you tell us what George Washington was remarkable for?"
"Yes, ma'am," replied the little boy. "He was remarkable because he was an American and told the truth."
A party of tourists were looking at Vesuvius in full eruption. "Ain't this just like hell!" exclaimed an American. "Ah, the Americans," said a Frenchman standing by, "Where have they not been?"