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95. A SPEECH FROM THE REAR PLATFORM
An Irish street-car conductor called out shrilly to the passengers standing in the aisle:
"Will thim in front plaze to move up, so that thim behind can take the places of thim in front, an' lave room for thim who are nayther in front nor behind?"
96. A WAY OUT OF IT
"What's the matter with you," asked a gentleman of a friend whom he met. "You looked puzzled and worried."
"I am," said the friend. "Maybe you can help me out"
"Well, what is it?"
"I am subject at intervals," said the friend, "to the wildest craving for beefsteak and onions. It has all the characteristics of a confirmed drunkard's craving for rum. This desire came upon me a few minutes ago, and I determined to gratify it. Then suddenly I remembered that I had promised to call this evening on some ladies, and I must keep that promise. Yet my stomach is shouting for beefsteak and onions, and I am wavering between duty and appetite."
"Can't you wait until after the call?" asked the gentleman, solicitously.
"Never," said the friend, earnestly.
"Can't you postpone the call?"
"Impossible," declared the friend.
"Well," said the gentleman, "I'll tell you what to do: go to John Chamberlin's cafe; order your beefsteak and onions, and eat them. When you get your bill it will be so big that it will _quite take your breath away_."
97. THE EXTENT OF SCIENCE
"And now," said the learned lecturer on geology who had addressed a small but deeply attentive audience at the village hall, "I have tried to make these problems, abstruse as they may appear, and involving in their solution the best thoughts, the closest analysis, and the most profound investigations of our noblest scientific men for many years; I have tried, I say, to make them seem comparatively simple and easily understood, in the light of modern knowledge. Before I close this lecture I shall be glad to answer any questions that may occur to you as to points that appear to need clearing up or that may have been overlooked."
There was a silence of a few moments, and then an anxious-looking man in the rear of the hall rose up.
"I would take it as a favor," he said, "if you could tell me whether science has produced as yet any reliable and certain cure for warts."
98. WHAT'S IN A NAME?
One of the managers of a home for destitute colored children tells a funny story about the institution. She went out there to see how things were getting along, and found a youngster as black as the inside of a coal mine tied to a bed-post, with his hands behind him.
"What is that boy tied up there for?" she demanded of the attendant.
"For lying, ma'am. He is the worstist, lyingest nigger I ever seen."
"What's his name?
"George Washington, ma'am," was the paralyzing reply.
99. STILL ROOM FOR RESEARCH
"What is this new substance I hear so much about?" asked the eminent scientist's wife.
"What new substance, my dear?"
"The element in the air that has just been detected."
"Oh! that, my dear," he answered, beaming over his spectacles with the good nature of superior wisdom, "is known as argon!"
"Oh!"
"Yes; its discovery is one of the most remarkable triumphs of the age. It has revolutionized some of the old theories, or at least it will revolutionize them before it gets through."
"What is it?"
"It's--er--a--did you say, what is it?"
"I said that."
"Well--ahem--you see, we haven't as yet discovered much about it except its name."
100. HE WAS "'PISCOPAL"
An Episcopal clergyman passing his vacation in Indiana met an old farmer who declared that he was a "'Piscopal."
"To what parish do you belong?" asked the clergyman.
"Don't know nawthin' 'bout enny parish," was the answer.
"Well, then," continued the clergyman, "what diocese do you belong to?"
"They ain't nawthin' like that 'round here," said the farmer.
"Who confirmed you, then?" was the next question.
"Nobody," answered the farmer.
"Then how are you an Episcopalian?" asked the clergyman.
"Well," was the reply, "you see it's this way: Last winter I went down to Arkansas visitin', and while I was there I went to church, and it was called 'Piscopal, and I he'rd them say 'that they left undone the things what they'd oughter done and they had done some things what they oughten done,' and I says to myself, says I: 'That's my fix exac'ly, and ever since I considered myself a 'Piscopalian."
The clergyman shook the old fellow's hand, and laughingly said:
"Now I understand, my friend, why the membership of our church is so large."
101. JOHNNY'S EXCUSE
A little girl brought a note to her school-teacher one morning, which read as follows. "Dear teacher, please excuse Johnny for not coming to school today. He is dead." Johnny was excused.
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