Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 26

The little girl came home in high glee, and the mother asked her all about the luncheon.

"Were you a very polite little girl? and did you remember to do all I told you at the table?" asked the proud mama.

"Oh, yes. I was polite," said the little one, "but the Queen wasn't."

"The Queen wasn't!" said the mother. "Why, what did she do?"

"She took her chicken bone up in her fingers, and I just shook my finger at her like you did at me, and said, 'Piggy, piggy, piggy!'"

A young girl once asked Mark Twain if he liked books for Christmas gifts.

"Well, that depends," drawled the great humorist. "If a book has a leather cover it is really valuable as a razor strop. If it is a brief, concise work, such as the French write, it is useful to put under the short leg of a wabbly table. An old-fas.h.i.+oned book with a clasp can't be beat as a missile to hurl at a dog, and a large book like a geography is as good as a piece of tin to nail over a broken pane of gla.s.s."

One of the most candid tributes the late Edwin Booth ever received was rendered to him on his last Southern tour by one who knew neither of his presence nor of his ident.i.ty in the play. Mr. Booth told the story to his friend, Dr. John H. Girdner.

"We opened our engagement in Atlanta, Ga., with 'Oth.e.l.lo,'" said Mr.

Booth, "and I played Oth.e.l.lo. After the performance my friend, Mr.

Malone, and I went to the Kimball House for some refreshment. The long bar was so crowded that we had to go around the corner of it before we could find a vacant s.p.a.ce. While we were waiting to be served we couldn't help hearing the conversation of two fine-looking old boys, splendid old fellows with soft hats, flowing mustaches, and chin tufts, black string ties and all the other paraphernalia.

"'I didn't see you at the theater this evening, Cunnel,' said one.

"'No,' replied the other. 'I didn't buy seats till this mawnin', and the best we could get were six rows back in the balcony. I presume, suh, you were in the orchestra.'

"'Yes, Cunnel, I was in the orchestra,' said the first man. 'Madam and the girls were with me. We all agreed that we nevuh attended a mo'

thrillin' play. The company was good, too, excellent company. And do you know, Gunnel, in my opinion that d--d nigguh did about as well as any of 'em!'"

A Southern colonel had a colored valet by the name of George. George received nearly all of the colonel's cast-off clothing. He had his eyes on a certain pair of light trousers which were not wearing out fast enough to suit him, so he thought he would hasten matters somewhat by rubbing grease on one knee. When the colonel saw the spot, he called George and asked if he had noticed it. George said, "Yes, sah, Colonel, I noticed dat spot and tried mighty hard to git it out, but I couldn't."

"Have you tried gasoline?" the colonel asked.

"Yes, sah, Colonel, but it didn't do no good."

"Have you tried brown paper and a hot iron?"

"Yes, sah, Colonel, I'se done tried 'mos' everything I knows of, but dat spot wouldn't come out."

"Well, George, have you tried ammonia?" the colonel asked as a last resort.

"No, sah, Colonel, I ain't tried 'em on yet, but I knows dey'll fit."

It was the first vaudeville performance the old colored lady had ever seen, and she was particularly excited over the marvelous feats of the magician. But when he covered a newspaper with a heavy flannel cloth and read the print through it, she grew a little nervous. He then doubled the cloth and again read the letters accurately.

This was more than she could stand, and rising in her seat, she said:

"I'm goin' home. This ain't no place for a lady in a thin calico dress!"

At a certain railway junction the train divides, one portion going to Edinburgh, the other to Glasgow. The guard put his head in at one of the carriage windows and asked, "All here for Edinburgh?" All replied in the affirmative except one old woman, who after the train had started remarked with a smile, "I was just goin' to Glesca masel' but I wasna goin' to tell yon inquisitive deevil."

A pompous Bishop of Oxford was once stopped on a London street by a ragged urchin.

"Well, my little man, what can I do for you?" inquired the churchman.

"The time o' day, please, your lords.h.i.+p."

With considerable difficulty the portly Bishop extracted his watch.

"It is exactly half-past five, my lad."

"Well," said the boy, setting his feet for a good start, "at 'alf-past six you go to 'ell!" and he was off like a flash and around the corner. The Bishop, flushed and furious, his watch dangling from its chain, floundered wildly after him. But as he rounded the corner he ran plump into the outstretched arms of the venerable Bishop of London.

"Oxford, Oxford," remonstrated that surprised dignitary, "why this unseemly haste?"

Puffing, blowing, spluttering, the outraged Bishop gasped out: "That young ragam.u.f.fin--I told him it was half-past five--and--he--er--told me to go to h.e.l.l at half-past six."

"Yes, yes," said the Bishop of London with a twinkle in his kindly old eyes, "but why such haste? You've got almost an hour."

A lady entered a railway station not a hundred miles from Edinburgh and said she wanted a ticket for London. The pale-looking clerk asked:

"Single?"

"It ain't any of your business," she replied. "I might have been married a dozen times if I'd felt like providin' for some poor s.h.i.+ftless wreck of a man like you."

"M-my dear," said the muddled citizen, "I 'sure you I wouldn't been s'late, but footpad stopped me."

"And you were so scared your tongue clove to the roof of your mouth."

"How'd you know that?"

"I smell the clove."

A man addicted to walking in his sleep went to bed all right one night, but when he awoke he found himself on the street in the grasp of a policeman. "Hold on," he cried, "you mustn't arrest me. I'm a somnambulist." To which the policeman replied: "I don't care what your religion is--yer can't walk the streets in yer nights.h.i.+rt."