Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 2

"I'll bet you don't know the meaning of what Sponsler just said," said Al Crawford to Hugh E. Mackin.

"I don't know!" replied Mackin, indignantly. "Of course, I know!"

"You don't know for ten dollars!" suggested Crawford.

Mackin, still indignant, posted his part of the wager with another member of the Legislature, and Crawford said tauntingly:

"Well, now, tell us, what does it mean?"

"_Vox populi, vox Dei_," quoted Mackin, solemnly, "as everybody knows, is French for 'My G.o.d! why hast thou forsaken me?'"

"Give him the money," said Crawford. "Darned if he don't know after all!"

There is an old lady living in a small town in southern Pennsylvania who makes great efforts to keep abreast of the times. Her opportunities, however, are circ.u.mscribed, and she is sometimes compelled to resort to her imagination. She went to a church sociable lately, and as she entered the room one of the attendants said:

"Good evening, auntie. I am glad you came. We are going to have tableaux this evening."

"Yes, I know," replied the old lady; "I smelt 'em when I first came in."

Fifer was a dog of friendly and social habits, but when he wandered into the lecture-tent at a well-known New Thought summer school and went to sleep between the chairs, he did a very foolish thing. A woman coming in poked him in the ribs with her parasol, startling him from his peaceful dreams, and he sprang upon her with a savage bite. A man grabbed him and he grabbed the man. The excitement was intense when an earnest little woman standing on a chair cried, "Some one hold the Thought!" "Hang the Thought!" shouted a man in the rear. "Some one hold the dog!"

The boy was going away to school, full of high hope.

"I shall make the football team and color two pipes the first year!"

he said bravely.

His mother kissed him and wept. His father wrung his hand in silence.

They were too full for speech then.

But when he was gone, and they were calmer, they talked together of him, and prayed his ambition might not carry him beyond his strength.

The car was entirely empty with the exception of one man, but as I entered he rose, made me an unsteady but magnificent bow, and said: "Madam, pleashe be kind 'nough to a.s.shept thish plashe."

There was nothing else for me to do, so I thanked him and sat down.

And for twenty blocks that idiot hung from a strap, swaying in the breeze, with not a soul in the car but ourselves. Occasionally I have been taken for other women; but I never before had any one think that I was a carful.

Husband (after the theater)--"Well, how do you like the piece?"

Wife--"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."

Thomas Hill (the original "Paul Pry") was endeavoring one evening to cut up an orange in such a fas.h.i.+on as to represent a pig. After strewing the table with about a dozen peels, he gave up the futile experiment, saying, "Hang the pig! I can't make him at all."

"Nonsense, Hill," said Theodore Hook, pointing to the table; "you have done splendidly. Instead of a pig you have made a litter."

An elderly churchwarden in shaving himself one Sunday before church-time made a slight cut with the razor on the extreme end of his nose. Quickly calling to his wife, he asked her if she had any court-plaster in the house. "You will find some in my sewing basket,"

she said. The warden soon had the cut covered. At church in a.s.sisting with the collection he noticed everyone smile as he pa.s.sed the plate, and some of the younger people laughed outright. Very much annoyed, he asked a friend if there was anything wrong with his appearance.

"Well, I should think there is," was the answer. "What is that on your nose?" "Court-plaster." "No," said his friend, "it is the label from a reel of cotton. It says, 'Warranted 200 yd. long.'"

A man who stuttered very 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-work into an ordin-n-nary c-c-convers-s-sa-tion, y' know."

Toastmaster (to chairman of public dinner)--"Would you like to propose your toast now, my lord, or should we let 'em enjoy themselves a bit longer?"

A visitor to a Sunday-school was asked to address a few remarks to the children. He took the familiar theme of the children who mocked Elisha on his journey to Bethel--how the youngsters taunted the poor old prophet and how they were punished when two she bears came out of the wood and ate forty-and-two of them. "And now, children," said he, wis.h.i.+ng to learn if his talk had produced any moral effect, "what does this story show?" "Please, sir," came from a little girl well down in the front, "it shows how many children two she bears can hold."

A curate who had left his parish on account of the attentions of his lady paris.h.i.+oners, meeting his successor one day in the street asked him how he got on in his new position. "Very well indeed," returned the other. "But are not the ladies rather pressing in their attentions?" "Oh, my dear fellow, I manage that all right, I find safety in Numbers." "I see," returned his companion, "well, I found safety in Exodus."

"I want some collars for my husband," said a lady in a department store, "but I am afraid I have forgotten the size."

"Thirteen and a half, ma'am?" suggested the clerk.

"That's it. How on earth did you know?"

"Gentlemen who let their wives buy their collars for 'em are almost always about that size, ma'am," explained the observant clerk.

On a recent occasion before leaving Marlborough House new clothes were ordered for Prince Edward, and according to custom a tailoress was sent to fit him at a time which would not interfere with his lessons.

The tailoress duly arrived and was ushered to the Prince's sitting-room, but on the door being opened she paused as she saw that a gentleman, whose face was turned toward the fireplace, was sitting smoking and chatting with the children. Prince Edward, whose manner is most friendly, at once ran forward and told her to come in, and seeing that she still hesitated added in a rea.s.suring voice, "You needn't mind, it's only grandpapa."