Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 29

The following bit from a letter of thanks is cherished by its recipient: "The beautiful clock you sent us came in perfect condition, and is now in the parlor on top of the book-shelves, where we hope to see you soon, and your husband, also, if he can make it convenient."

Tourist (in French restaurant)--"This is awful! I've ordered three dishes from this menu and they are all potatoes!"

"Mistah Brown," said the old colored woman, coming into the cross-roads store, "you ain't got no spool-cotton number thirty, is you?"

"Why, aunt Sally, I didn't say I didn't have it, did I?"

"You go long, Mistah Brown. I didn't ax you 'aint you got it?' I axed you 'is you'?--ain't you?"

An old "befo-de-wah" darky was called upon to make a few remarks over the grave of a friend. He removed his hat and stepped reverently and sadly toward the open grave and in solemn funereal tones said: "Friday Vizer, you is gone. We hope you is gone whar we spects you ain't!"

A New Yorker who does his bit of "globe trotting" tells of two odd entries that he saw in the visitors' book of a fas.h.i.+onable resort on the Rhine.

A few years ago one of the Paris members of the Rothschild family had registered as follows:

"R. de Paris."

It chanced that the next visitor to inscribe his name in the book was Baron Oppenheim, the banker of Cologne, and he wrote beneath Rothschild's:

"O. de Cologne."

The Stranger--"And who are the Murphys' ancestors?"

Mr. M.--"Ancestors? What's that?"

The Stranger--"I mean who do the Murphys spring from?"

Mr. M.--"The Murphys spring from no one. They spring _at_ thim!"

At a wedding-feast recently the bridegroom was called upon, as usual, to respond to the given toast, in spite of the fact that he had previously pleaded to be excused. Blus.h.i.+ng to the roots of his hair, he rose to his feet. He intended to imply that he was unprepared for speechmaking, but he unfortunately placed his hand upon his bride's shoulder, and looked down at her as he stammered out his opening and concluding words:

"This--er--thing has been forced upon me."

Very much excited and out of breath, a young man who could not have been married very long rushed up to an attendant at one of the city hospitals and inquired after Mrs. Brown, explaining between breaths that it was his wife whom he felt anxious about.

The attendant looked at the register and replied that there was no Mrs. Brown in the hospital.

"My G.o.d! Don't keep me waiting in this manner," said the excited young man. "I must know how she is."

"Well, she isn't here," again said the attendant.

"She must be," broke in the visitor, "for here is a note I found on the kitchen-table when I came home from work."

The note read:

"_Dear Jack_--Have gone to have my kimono cut out. ANNIE."

While an Irishman was gazing in the window of a Was.h.i.+ngton bookstore the following sign caught his eye:

d.i.c.kENS' WORKS ALL THIS WEEK FOR ONLY $4.00.

"The divvle he does!" exclaimed Pat in disgust. "The dirty scab!"

A dear old New England spinster, the embodiment of the timid and shrinking, pa.s.sed away at Carlsbad, where she had gone for her health.

Her nearest kinsman, a nephew, ordered her body sent back to be buried--as was her last wish--in the quiet little country churchyard.

His surprise can be imagined, when on opening the casket, he beheld, instead of the placid features of his aunt Mary, the majestic port of an English General in full regimentals, whom he remembered had chanced to die at the same time and place as his aunt.

At once he cabled to the General's heirs explaining the situation and requesting instructions.

They came back as follows: "Give the General quiet funeral. Aunt Mary interred to-day with full military honors, six bra.s.s bands, saluting guns."

Early in the morning session, when the pupils were feeling bright and happy, the teacher thought it a good plan to give them sentences to correct, both as to grammar and sense. She accordingly wrote on the blackboard: "The hen has four legs. He done it." Thoughtful little Ignatius, at the foot of the cla.s.s, pondered deeply, and at the end of the fifteen minutes' time allowed for correction he wrote: "_He_ didn't done it: G.o.d done it."

The late John Stetson, famous in his day as a theatrical manager, was having a yacht built, and a friend, meeting him on the street, asked him what he was going to name the boat. "I haven't decided yet,"

replied John, "but it will be some name commencing with S, probably either 'Psyche' or 'Cinch.'"

A clergyman was on board a steamer which was caught in a severe gale.

The rolling was constant and seemed to get worse as time went on. At last the good man got thoroughly frightened. He believed they were destined for a watery grave, so he went to the captain and asked if he might have prayers. The captain took him by the arm and led him to the forecastle, where the tars were singing and swearing. "There," said he, "when you hear the men swearing you may know there is no danger."

The clergyman went back feeling better, but still the storm increased and his alarm also. Disconsolate, he managed to stagger to the forecastle again, where he heard the sailors swearing as hard as ever.

"Mary," he said to his sympathetic wife as he crawled back to his berth, "Mary, thank G.o.d, they're swearing yet."