Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 23

"What, and your mother, too! Both very ill, eh?"

"No, sir. Me grandmother an' me mother are goin' to the baseball game this afternoon an' they want me to stay home an' take care of me little brudder."

Office-boy--"Please, Mr. Jones, my grandmother is dead, and so I must get off early to go to the funeral match--I mean the baseball ceremonies--that is--"

"That makes a difference," said Willie, snipping off the left ear of one of the twins.

Bill Nye, when a young man, made an engagement with a lady to take her driving. The appointed day came, but at the livery stable all the horses were taken save one old, shaky, exceedingly gaunt beast. Mr.

Nye hired it and drove to his friend's residence. The lady kept him waiting over an hour before she was ready and then, viewing the shabby outfit, flatly refused to accompany Mr. Nye. "Why," she exclaimed, "that horse may die of old age any moment!"

"Madam," Mr. Nye replied, "when I arrived that horse was a prancing young colt."

In "Some Reminiscences" by William Rossetti is the following anecdote of Tennyson: "The witness was Allingham, to whom the incident happened. He was at breakfast at the house of the poet laureate, who, in a rather feeble moment of facetiousness, asked: 'Will you have a hegg?' 'Yes, thank you,' replied Allingham, who had scarcely appropriated the proffered viand when Tennyson added, 'I suppose you understand I was only joking when I said hegg?'"

"Long introductions when a man has a speech to make are a bore," said former Senator John C. Spooner, one of the great Senate leaders. "I have had all kinds, but the most satisfactory one in my career was that of a German mayor of a small town in my State, Wisconsin.

"I was to make a political address, and the opera-house was crowded.

When it came time to begin, the mayor got up.

"'Mine friends,' he said, 'I hafe asked been to introduce Senator Spooner, who is to make a speech, yes. Veil, I haf dit so, und he vill now do so.'"

The "Outlook," of New York, tells a story of two church workers from a small town who came to New York on a slum hunt, and were more than satisfied. One of them was asked by a friend, on her return, where she and her husband had been. "In the slums of New York for a day and a night," she answered, enthusiastically. "My dear, it was h.e.l.l upon earth. We had a _splendid_ time!"

On one occasion a schoolmaster was very much annoyed by the conduct of a certain boy in his cla.s.s. At last, finding the culprit giggling for no apparent reason, he cried indignantly, "Now, then, W., what are you laughing at? Are you laughing at me?" "No, sir," replied the astonished boy. "Then I don't see what else there is to laugh at,"

came the reply.

"Good by, Jessie!"

"Good by, Auntie May. I hope I'll be a great, big girl before you come to make us another visit."

The star pupil arose at the school entertainment to declaim his piece.

"Lend me your ears!" he bawled. "Ha," sneered the mother of the opposition but defeated pupil, "that's Sarah Jane Doran's boy. He wouldn't be his mother's son if he didn't want to borrow something."

"While walking in one of the business thoroughfares of Pittsburg one year," says Robert Edeson, "my attention was arrested by a display of s.h.i.+rts in a haberdasher's window, which for variety of sunset colors far excelled a Turner landscape when the sun is red and low, and there in the window in glaring green type a large sign read, 'Listen!'"

One of a party of gentlemen left his corner seat in an already crowded railway car to go in search of something to eat, leaving a rug to reserve his place. On returning he found that in spite of the rug and the protests of his fellow pa.s.sengers, the seat had been usurped by a woman clad in handsome clothes. With flas.h.i.+ng eyes she turned upon him: "Do you know, sir, that I am one of the directors' wives?"

"Madam," he replied, "were you the director's only wife I should still protest."

Mr. C., a distinguished lawyer of Boston, was on his way to Denver to transact some important business. During the afternoon he noticed, in the opposite section of the Pullman, a sweet-faced, tired-appearing woman traveling with four small children. Being fond of children and feeling sorry for the mother, he soon made friends with the little ones.

Early the next morning he heard their eager questions and the patient "Yes, dear," of the mother as she tried to dress them, and looking out he saw a small white foot protruding beyond the opposite curtain.

Reaching across the aisle, he took hold of the large toe and began to recite: "This little pig went to market; this little pig stayed at home; this little pig had roast beef; this little pig had none; this little pig cried wee wee all the way home." The foot was suddenly withdrawn and a cold, quiet voice said: "That is quite sufficient, thank you."

Mr. C. hastily withdrew to the smoker, where he remained until the train arrived in Denver.

"'Deed I am going to get married," said little Winnie, the bright daughter of a tenant on a quiet farm in a quiet county in "The Northern Neck" of Virginia.

"I don't believe anybody will have you," said Miss Mabel, the landlord's daughter, teasingly.

"Yes, they will; I'll make 'em," said Winnie. "I'm going to get married and have _five_ children--two of 'em colored," thoughtfully, "to do my work."

A reverend gentleman was addressing a Sunday-school cla.s.s not long ago, and was trying to enforce the doctrine that when people's hearts were sinful they needed regulating. Taking out his watch, and holding it up, he said:

"Now, here is my watch; suppose it doesn't keep good time--now goes too fast, and now too slow--what shall I do with it?"

"Sell it," promptly replied a boy.

The high-born dame was breaking in a new footman--stupid but honest.

In her brougham, about to make a round of visits, she found she had forgotten her bits of pasteboard. So she sent the lout back with orders to bring some of her cards that were on the mantelpiece in her boudoir, and put them in his pocket.

Here and there she dropped one and sometimes a couple, until at last she told Jeames to leave three.

"Can't do it, mum."

"How's that?"

"I've only got two left--the ace of spades and the seven of clubs!"