"FridayVizer, you is gone. We hope you is gone whar we spects you ain't!"
* * * * *
A New Yorker who does his bit of "globe trotting" tells of two oddentries that he saw in the visitors' book of a fashionable resort onthe Rhine.
A few years ago one of the Paris members of the Rothschild family hadregistered as follows:
"R. de Paris."
It chanced that the next visitor to inscribe his name in the book wasBaron Oppenheim, the banker of Cologne, and he wrote beneathRothschild's:
"O. de Cologne."
* * * * *
The Stranger--"And who are the Murphys' ancestors?"
Mr. M.--"Ancestors? What's that?"
The Stranger--"I mean who do the Murphys spring from?"
Mr. M.--"The Murphys spring from no one. They spring _at_ thim!"
* * * * *
At a wedding-feast recently the bridegroom was called upon, as usual,to respond to the given toast, in spite of the fact that he hadpreviously pleaded to be excused. Blushing to the roots of his hair,he rose to his feet. He intended to imply that he was unprepared forspeechmaking, but he unfortunately placed his hand upon his bride'sshoulder, and looked down at her as he stammered out his opening andconcluding words:
"This--er--thing has been forced upon me."
* * * * *
Very much excited and out of breath, a young man who could not havebeen married very long rushed up to an attendant at one of the cityhospitals and inquired after Mrs. Brown, explaining between breathsthat it was his wife whom he felt anxious about.
The attendant looked at the register and replied that there was noMrs. Brown in the hospital.
"My God! Don't keep me waiting in this manner," said the excited youngman. "I must know how she is."
"Well, she isn't here," again said the attendant.
"She must be," broke in the visitor, "for here is a note I found onthe kitchen-table when I came home from work."
The note read:
"_Dear Jack_--Have gone to have my kimono cut out. ANNIE."
* * * * *
While an Irishman was gazing in the window of a Washington bookstorethe following sign caught his eye:
DICKENS' WORKS ALL THIS WEEK FOR ONLY $4.00.
"The divvle he does!" exclaimed Pat in disgust. "The dirty scab!"
* * * * *
A dear old New England spinster, the embodiment of the timid andshrinking, passed away at Carlsbad, where she had gone for her health.Her nearest kinsman, a nephew, ordered her body sent back to beburied--as was her last wish--in the quiet little country churchyard.His surprise can be imagined, when on opening the casket, he beheld,instead of the placid features of his aunt Mary, the majestic port ofan English General in full regimentals, whom he remembered had chancedto die at the same time and place as his aunt.
At once he cabled to the General's heirs explaining the situation andrequesting instructions.
They came back as follows: "Give the General quiet funeral. Aunt Maryinterred to-day with full military honors, six brass bands, salutingguns."
* * * * *
Early in the morning session, when the pupils were feeling bright andhappy, the teacher thought it a good plan to give them sentences tocorrect, both as to grammar and sense. She accordingly wrote on theblackboard: "The hen has four legs. He done it." Thoughtful littleIgnatius, at the foot of the class, pondered deeply, and at the end ofthe fifteen minutes' time allowed for correction he wrote: "_He_didn't done it: God done it."
* * * * *
The late John Stetson, famous in his day as a theatrical manager, washaving a yacht built, and a friend, meeting him on the street, askedhim what he was going to name the boat. "I haven't decided yet,"replied John, "but it will be some name commencing with S, probablyeither 'Psyche' or 'Cinch.'"
* * * * *
A clergyman was on board a steamer which was caught in a severe gale.The rolling was constant and seemed to get worse as time went on. Atlast the good man got thoroughly frightened. He believed they weredestined for a watery grave, so he went to the captain and asked if hemight have prayers. The captain took him by the arm and led him to theforecastle, where the tars were singing and swearing. "There," saidhe, "when you hear the men swearing you may know there is no danger."The clergyman went back feeling better, but still the storm increasedand his alarm also. Disconsolate, he managed to stagger to theforecastle again, where he heard the sailors swearing as hard as ever."Mary," he said to his sympathetic wife as he crawled back to hisberth, "Mary, thank God, they're swearing yet."
* * * * *
"Hawaiian servants," said a woman with some experience of them, "arethe best in the world, but they are strangely unsophisticated,strangely naive. They insist on calling you by your first name. Ourswere always saying to my husband, 'Yes, John,' or 'all right, John,'and to me 'very well, Ann,' or 'Ann, I am going out.' At last I gottired of this and to John, when we got a new cook, I said: Don't evercall me by my first name in the cook's presence. Then, perhaps, notknowing my name, he'll have to say 'Mrs.' to me. So John was carefulto address me as 'dearie,' or 'sweetheart,' the watchful chap gave meno title at all. One day we had some English officers to dine. I toldthem how I had overcome, in my new cook's case, the native servants'abuse of their employer's Christian names, and I said, By thisservant, at least, you won't hear me called 'Ann.'" Just then the newcook entered the room. He bowed to me respectfully and said:
"'Sweetheart, dinner is served!'
"'What?' I stammered.
"'Dinner is served, dearie!' answered the cook."
* * * * *
Early one morning, on the second day out, a terribly seasickpassenger, pale and hollow-eyed, came out of his stateroom and raninto a lady, who was coming along the passageway, clad in thescantiest raiment. She screamed and started to run. "Don't bealarmed," groaned the man. "Don't be alarmed, madam; I shall neverlive to tell it."
* * * * *
Mike and Pat worked for a wealthy farmer. They planned to turnburglars and steal the money which the farmer had hid in one of therooms of his house. They waited until midnight, then started to do thejob.
In order to get the money they had to pass the farmer's bedroom. Mikesaid, "I'll go first, and if it's all right you can follow and do justthe same as I."
Mike started to pass the room. Just as he got opposite the door thefloor creaked. This awoke the farmer, who called out, "Who's there?"
Mike answered with a "meaow!" (imitating a cat). The farmer's wifebeing awake, too, said, "Oh, John, it's the cat," and all was quiet.
Now Pat started to pass the door, and as he got opposite it the floorcreaked again. The farmer called out again, louder than before, "Who'sthere?"
Pat answered, "Another cat."
* * * * *
Softleigh--"Good evening, Mrs. Moran. I came to see if your daughter,Miss Mabel, would go for a walk with me."
Miss Mabel--"How do you do, Mr. Softleigh? I shall be delighted.Mama, do I look fit to go to a restaurant?"
* * * * *
They were on their honeymoon. He had bought a catboat and had takenher out to show her how well he could handle a boat, putting her totend the sheet. A puff of wind came, and he shouted in no uncertaintones, "Let go the sheet." No response. Then again, "Let go thatsheet, quick." Still no movement. A few minutes later, when both wereclinging to the bottom of the overturned boat, he said:
"Why didn't you let go that sheet when I told you to, dear?"
"I would have," said the bride, "if you had not been so rough aboutit. You ought to speak more kindly to your wife."
* * * * *
Madam--"Put plenty of
nuts in the cake."
Cook--"I'll crack no more nuts to-day, me jaw hurts me already."
* * * * *
Mother--"Alice, it is bedtime. All the little chickens have gone tobed."
Alice--"Yes, mama, and so has the hen."
* * * * *
Few men have ever been so ready and witty as Mark Twain in introducingothers to public audiences. At Hartford, December 12, 1877, hepresented Mr. Howells, and, after a word or two as to his literarywork, said, "But I am
Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers, Vol. 1 Page 16
