Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 54

Four grinning urchins sat on the street curb eulogizing ex-President Roosevelt.

"Say, dat guy Roosevelt 'll fight at de drop of de hat!" declared one youngster. "I read dat durin' a talk at de White House one of de party said somethin' the President wouldn' stan' for an' he leans over an gets de guy's ear!"

"Have you ever had any experience in canva.s.sing for subscription books?" asked the man at the desk.

"No, sir," said the applicant for a job, "but I can put up a good talk."

"Well, take a copy of this work and go and see if you can get an order. I'll give you half a day to make the trial."

The applicant went away.

In an hour or two he returned.

"What luck?" inquired the man at the desk.

"I've got an order for this book in full morocco from your wife, sir."

"You'll do, young man."

In Alabama they tell this story to ill.u.s.trate Senator Morgan's ability as an advocate. A negro of well-known thieving proclivities was on trial for stealing a mule. Morgan defended and cleared him. As lawyer and client were walking out of the courtroom Mr. Morgan said: "Rastus, did you steal the mule?" "Well, Ma.r.s.e Morgan, it was jes like dis: I really thought I did steal dat mule, but after what you said to the jury I was convince' I didn't."

Uncle Walter, with his little niece Ruth in his lap, was about to telephone a message to a distant city. While waiting for the connection to be made little Ruth asked if she might talk over the open wire. The young lady operator heard the question and said, "Yes, please let her."

Ruth, taking the receiver, first told her name. Then the operator asked her where she was, and to this Ruth replied:

"I am in Uncle Walter's lap--don't you wish you were?"

Apropos of vanity, Senator Root told at Yale about a politician who, the day before he was to make a certain speech, sent a forty-one-page report of it to all the papers. On page 20 appeared this paragraph: "But the hour grows late, and I must close. (No, no! Go on! Go on!)"

Two women from the country were at the circus for the first time. They were greatly taken with the menagerie. At last they came to the hippopotamus, and stood for several minutes in silent wonder, then one turned to the other and said, "My, Mandy, ain't--he--_plain_?"

Senator Ingalls was always quick at retort, although he was himself a subject of some sharp shafts. Once he was attacked by Senator Eli Saulsbury, of Delaware, the second smallest State in the Union. He disposed of the whole matter by saying, "I thank the gentleman from that great State, which has three counties at low tide and two counties at high tide, for his advice."

A young and bashful professor was frequently embarra.s.sed by jokes his girl pupils would play on him. These jokes were so frequent that he decided to punish the next perpetrators, and the result of this decision was that two girls were detained an hour after school, and made to work some difficult problems, as punishment.

It was the custom to answer the roll-call with quotations, so the following morning, when Miss A's name was called, she rose, and, looking straight in the professor's eye, repeated: "With all thy faults I love thee still," while Miss B's quotation was: "The hours I spend with thee, dear heart, are as a string of pearls to me."

Archbishop Patrick J. Ryan, of Philadelphia, once received a call from Wayne McVeagh, in company with Mr. Roberts, president of the Pennsylvania system at the time that McVeagh was counsel for that railroad. "Your Grace," said Mr. McVeagh, "Mr. Roberts, who always travels with his counsel, will, undoubtedly, get you pa.s.ses over all the railroads in the United States, if in return you will get him a pa.s.s to Paradise." "I would do so gladly," flashed the archbishop, "if it were not for separating him from his counsel."

On one of his collecting trips through Scotland the eminent English geologist, Hugh Miller, at the end of the day gave to a servant his bag of specimen stones which he had labored all day to collect, to be carried some miles to his home. Later, while sitting un.o.bserved in a corner of the village inn, he heard the man communicating to a friend in Gaelic his experience with the "mad Englishman," as he called him, in the following manner:

"He gave me his bag to carry home by a short-cut across the hills while he walked by another road. I was wondering why it was so fearfully heavy, and when I got out of his sight I made up my mind to see what was in it. I opened it, and what do you think it was?

Stones!"

"Stones!" exclaimed his companion, opening his eyes. "Stones! Well, that beats all I ever heard or knew of one of them. And did you carry it?"

"Carry it! Do you think I was as mad as himself? No, no. I emptied them all out of the bag, but I filled it again from the stone-heap near the house, and gave him good measure for his money."

Former Representative Gibson, of Tennessee, had a voice that would play tricks with him. It would work all right for a few minutes, and then it would stop entirely, and Gibson would be left gasping for a moment or two, high and dry in the middle of his argument, until his voice came back again. He was making a tariff speech one day, sailing along in fine shape. "Why, Mr. Speaker," he shouted, "the tariff is like a pair of suspenders. Uncle Sam needs it to keep up his--"

Right there his voice broke. Gibson couldn't say a word.

"Trousers!" yelled one member.

"Pants!"

"Breeches!"

By that time the voice came back--"to keep up his revenues," said Gibson, glaring around at his tormentors.

Senator Tillman not long ago piloted a plain farmer-const.i.tuent around the Capitol for a while, and then, having some work to do on the floor, conducted him to the Senate gallery.

After an hour or so the visitor approached a gallery doorkeeper and said: "My name is Swate. I am a friend of Senator Tillman. He brought me here and I want to go out and look around a bit. I thought I would tell you so I can get back in."

"That's all right," said the doorkeeper, "but I may not be here when you return. In order to prevent any mistake I will give you the pa.s.sword so you can get your seat again."

Swate's eyes rather popped out at this. "What's the word?" he asked.

"Idiosyncrasy."

"What?"

"Idiosyncrasy."

"I guess I'll stay in," said Swate.