Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 28

Mrs. Rogers, happy in the belief that her maid was comfortable, slept soundly. In the morning she visited the kitchen.

"Well, Huldah, how did you get along with the flatiron?"

Huldah breathed a deep sigh of recollection.

"Vell, ma'am, I got it 'most warm before morning."

Many children are so crammed with everything that they really know nothing.

In proof of this, read these veritable specimens of definitions, written by public-school children:

"Stability is taking care of a stable."

"A mosquito is the child of black and white parents."

"Monastery is the place for monsters."

"Tocsin is something to do with getting drunk."

"Expostulation is to have the smallpox."

"Cannibal is two brothers who killed each other in the Bible."

"Anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, the head, the chist, and the stummick. The head contains the eyes and brains, if any. The chist contains the lungs and a piece of the liver. The stummick is devoted to the bowels, of which there are five, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y."

Little Polly, coming in from her walk one morning, informed her mother that she had seen a lion in the park. No amount of persuasion or reasoning could make her vary her statement one hairbreadth. That night, when she slipped down on her knees to say her prayers, her mother said, "Polly, ask G.o.d to forgive you for that fib."

Polly hid her face for a moment. Then she looked straight into her mother's eyes, her own eyes s.h.i.+ning like stars, and said, "I did ask him, mama, dearest, and he said, 'Don't mention it, Miss Polly; that big yellow dog has often fooled me.'"

"Boohoo! Boohoo!" wailed little Johnny.

"Why, what's the matter, dear?" his mother asked comfortingly.

"Boohoo--er--p-picture fell on papa's toes."

"Well, dear, that's too bad, but you mustn't cry about it, you know."

"I d-d-didn't. I l-laughed. Boohoo! Boohoo!"

Two candidates for office in Missouri were stumping the northern part of the State. In one town their appearance was almost simultaneous.

The candidate last arriving stopped at a house for a drink of water.

To the little girl who answered his knock at the door he said--when she had given him the desired drink and he had offered her some candy in recompense:

"Did the man ahead of me give you anything?"

"Oh, yes," replied the girl. "He gave me candy."

"Ah!" exclaimed the candidate. "Here's five cents for you. I don't suppose that _he_ gave you any money?"

The youngster laughed. "Yes, he did, too! He gave me ten cents!"

Not to be outdone, the candidate gave the little one another nickel and picking her up in his arms, kissed her.

"Did he kiss you, too?" he asked genially.

"Yes, he did, sir," responded the little girl, "and he kissed ma, too."

The owner of a dry-goods store heard a new clerk say to a customer, "No, madam, we have not had any for a long time."

With a fierce glance at the clerk the smart employer rushed up to the woman and said: "We have plenty of everything in reserve ma'am; plenty upstairs."

The customer and the clerk looked dazed. Then the proprietor, seeing that something was wrong, said to the customer: "Excuse me, what did you ask for?"

The woman simply replied, "Why, I said to your clerk that we hadn't had any rain lately."

Senator W. A. Clark detests nothing more than to be interrupted when busy. One day he was in his office engaged in a business conversation when a pet.i.te woman, carrying a black bag, entered. With a compelling smile and an insinuating manner she approached the surly millionaire.

Utterly insensible to his repellent mood and indifferent to his abrupt manner she drew from the depths of a bag a handsomely bound volume, the merits and beauty of which she began eloquently to descant upon.

Failing to embarra.s.s her with arctic frigidity and impatient at her persistency under rebuffs all but vulgar, he turned suddenly upon the chattering woman and asked:

"Madam, do you know what my time is worth?"

She confessed it was a conundrum.

"Well," he said, petulantly, "it's worth $30 an hour!"

He turned away with the air of one who had settled the matter definitely beyond any further controversy. But he didn't know the woman.

"Oh, I'm so grateful to you, Mr. Clark," she replied, with a tone of pathos in her voice. "Thirty dollars an hour, did you say?"

"Yes; that's what I said, and it's cheap at that," and he smiled cynically.

"Oh, I know it's dirt cheap," she chirped with winsome blitheness. "I am so glad you told me"--rummaging in her reticule, from which she quickly flashed out a purse gorged with currency. Moving near to the astonished millionaire, who now regarded her movements with unfeigned curiosity, she counted two bills, a ten and a five, off the roll.

These she pushed along the top of the sloping desk toward him and said: "Yes, I'm glad you told me, because I hadn't expected to get it so cheap. There is $15. Now, I want a half hour of your uninterrupted attention while I talk to you about this book."

Clark pushed the money back and subscribed and paid for two copies of the book.