Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 35

After explaining the song to them very carefully, she asked the cla.s.s to copy the first stanza from the blackboard, where she had written it, and try to ill.u.s.trate the verse by drawings in the same way a story is ill.u.s.trated.

In a short while one little girl handed up her paper with several little dots between two lines, a circle, half a dozen dots, and three buckets.

"I do not quite understand this, Mamie," said the teacher, kindly.

"What is that circle?"

"Oh, that's the well," Mamie replied.

"And why do you have three buckets?" again asked the teacher.

"One," answered the child, "is the oaken bucket, one is the iron-bound bucket, and the other is the moss-covered bucket that hung in the well."

"But, Mamie, what are all these little dots for?"

"Why those are the spots which my infancy knew," earnestly replied Mamie.

Four gentlemen went out to dine. They were Arthur Balfour, Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Charles Beresford, and the j.a.panese Minister. Mr.

Arthur Balfour was standing treat and said to Joey, "What will you take?" "Oh, thanks, I'll take Scotch, Arthur." "And what will you take, Lord Charles?" "Oh, thanks, I'll take Irish, Arthur." "And now, what will you take?" addressing the j.a.panese Minister. "I'll take Port Arthur, thanks."

Not long after the great Chelsea fire some children in Newton, Ma.s.sachusetts, held a Charity Fair by which eighteen dollars were realized. This they forwarded to the rector of a certain Boston church who had taken a prominent part in the relief work, with a letter which read somewhat as follows:

"We have had a fair and made eighteen dollars. We are sending it to you. Please give it to the Chelsea sufferers.

"Yours truly, etc.

"P. S. We hope the suffering is not all over."

A story is told of a certain committee meeting in which the proceedings commenced with noise and gradually became uproarious. At last one of the disputants, losing all control over his emotions, exclaimed to his opponent: "Sir, you are, I think, the biggest a.s.s that I ever had the misfortune to set eyes upon!" "Order! order!" said the chairman, gravely; "you seem to forget that I am in the room."

An Irish priest had labored hard with one of his flock to induce him to give up whisky. "I tell you, Michael," said the priest, "whisky is your worst enemy, and you should keep as far away from it as you can."

"The enemy is it, father?" responded Michael, "and it was your riverence's self that was telling us in the pulpit last Sunday to love our enemies." "So I was, Michael," rejoined the priest, "but I didn't tell you to swallow them."

A Sabbath-school worker was visiting a Sabbath-school some distance from home. Being called upon to address the school, he commenced by asking, "Who can tell me something about Peter?" (the lesson was about Peter that day). Having received no answer from either large or small pupils, he again made the request. This time a little girl put up her hand. He called the little girl to him and placed her upon a chair.

After complimenting her on her bravery and brightness, he asked her to tell him all she knew about Peter. In return came the following:

"Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater, Had a wife and couldn't keep her; Put her in a pumpkin sh.e.l.l Where he kept her very well."

Senator Beveridge, in recommending broad and generous views to the graduating cla.s.s of a medical school, told this story:

"I once saw two famous physicians introduced at a reception. They were deservedly famous, but they were of opposing schools; and the regular, as he shook the other by the hand, said loudly:

"'I am glad to meet you as a gentleman, sir, though I can't admit that you are a physician.'

"'And I,' said the homeopathist, smiling faintly, 'am glad to meet you as a physician, though I can't admit you are a gentleman.'"

At a recent dinner in London the conversation turned to the subject of lynching in the United States. It was the general opinion that a large percentage of Americans met death at the end of a rope. Finally the hostess turned to an American, who had taken no part in the conversation, and said:

"You, sir, must have often seen these affairs."

"Yes," he replied, "we take a kind of munic.i.p.al pride in seeing which city can show the greatest number of lynchings yearly."

"Oh, do tell us about a lynching you have seen yourself," broke in half a dozen voices at once.

"The night before I sailed for England," said Eugene Field, "I was giving a dinner at a hotel to a party of intimate friends when a colored waiter spilled a plate of soup over the gown of a lady at an adjoining table. The gown was utterly ruined, and the gentlemen of her party at once seized the waiter, tied a rope around his neck, and at a signal from the injured lady swung him into the air."

"Horrible," said the hostess with a shudder. "And did you actually see this yourself?"

"Well, no," admitted the American apologetically. "Just at that moment I happened to be downstairs killing the chef for putting mustard in the blanc mange."

Mrs. Jones recently spent a few days at a farm, and in a moment of originality bought some poultry from the farmer with a view to their providing fresh eggs for breakfast every morning. She sent them to town per the local carrier, despatching a note at the same time to her husband telling him to look out for the consignment. When Jones reached home from his office he inquired if the poultry had arrived.

The servant told him they had, but the man had carelessly put them in the back yard, leaving the door open, and they had all escaped.

Thereupon a fowl hunt was immediately organized. The next day Jones saw the carrier. "Nice trick you played me yesterday," said he; "spent three hours hunting those fowls and only found ten." "Then think yourself blessed lucky," replied the man. "I only brought six."

A patronizing young lord was seated opposite the late James McNeill Whistler at dinner one evening. During a lull in the conversation he adjusted his monocle and leaned forward toward the artist.

"Aw, y' know, Mr. Whistler," he drawled, "I pahssed your house this mawning."

"Thank you," said Whistler quietly. "Thank you very much."

The new minister in a Georgia church was delivering his first sermon.

The darky janitor was a critical listener from a back corner of the church. The minister's sermon was eloquent, and his prayers seemed to cover the whole category of human wants.

After the services one of the deacons asked the old darky what he thought of the new minister. "Don't you think he offers up a good prayer, Joe?"

"Ah mos' suhtainly does, boss. Why, dat man axed de good Lord fo'

things dat de odder preacher didn't even know He had!"