Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 59

A young lady at a summer hotel asked an artist friend, who was spending his vacation there, if he would mind doing a small favor for her.

"Certainly not," he said eagerly; "what is it?"

"Thank you so much," she exclaimed gratefully. "I wish you would stop at Mrs. Gannon's little shop and get three large bone b.u.t.tons, the kind with two small holes in them. They're for my new bathing suit, you know. Just tell her who I am and it will be all right. You needn't pay for them."

Now the artist was a bachelor, and had never bought anything but collar b.u.t.tons before. So on the way to the store he kept repeating the instructions that he had received. Eager to relieve his mind he rushed up to Mrs. Gannon and reeled off this surprising speech: "I want three bone b.u.t.tons for a small bathing suit with two large holes in it. Just tell me who I am and it will be all right."

There was not even standing room in the six-o'clock crowded car, but one more pa.s.senger, a young woman, wedged her way along just inside the doorway. Each time the car took a sudden lurch forward she fell helplessly back, and three times she landed in the arms of a large, comfortable man on the back platform. The third time it happened he said quietly: "Hadn't you better stay here now?"

The princ.i.p.al of one of Was.h.i.+ngton's high schools relates an incident in connection with the last commencement day. A clever girl had taken one of the princ.i.p.al prizes. At the close of the exercises her friends crowded about her to offer congratulations.

"Weren't you awfully afraid you wouldn't get it, Hattie?" asked one, "when there were so many contestants?"

"Oh, no!" cheerily exclaimed Hattie. "Because I knew when it came to English composition I had 'em all skinned."

The Guards' Band was playing on the terrace at Windsor Castle during luncheon, and the Queen was so pleased with a lively march that she sent a maid of honor to inquire what it was. The maid of honor blushed deeply as she answered on her return: "'Come where the Booze is Cheaper,' your Majesty."

Mark Twain once wrote to Andrew Carnegie as follows:

"_My dear Mr. Carnegie:_ I see by the papers that you are very prosperous. I want to get a hymn-book. It costs two dollars. I will bless you, G.o.d will bless you, and it will do a great deal of good.

Yours truly, Mark Twain."

"P. S.--Don't send the hymn-book; send me the two dollars."

A physician started a model insane asylum, says the New York "Sun,"

and set apart one ward especially for crazy motorists and chauffeurs.

Taking a friend through the building he pointed out with particular pride the automobile ward and called attention to its elegant furnis.h.i.+ngs and equipment.

"But," said the friend, "the place is empty; I don't see any patients."

"Oh, they are all under the cots fixing the slats," explained the physician.

An aged, gray-haired and very wrinkled old woman, arrayed in the outlandish calico costume of the mountains, was summoned as a witness in court to tell what she knew about a fight in her house. She took the witness-stand with evidences of backwardness and proverbial Bourbon verdancy. The Judge asked her in a kindly voice what took place. She insisted it did not amount to much, but the Judge by his persistency finally got her to tell the story of the b.l.o.o.d.y fracas.

"Now, I tell ye, Jedge, it didn't amount to nuthn'. The fust I knowed about it was when Bill Saunder called Tom Smith a liar, en Tom knocked him down with a stick o' wood. One o' Bill's friends then cut Tom with a knife, slicin' a big chunk out o' him. Then Sam Jones, who was a friend of Tom's, shot the other feller and two more shot him, en three or four others got cut right smart by somebody. That nachly caused some excitement, Jedge, en then they commenced fightin'."

One morning, as Mr. Clemens returned from a neighborhood call, sans necktie, his wife met him at the door with the exclamation: "There, Sam, you have been over to the Stowes's again without a necktie! It's really disgraceful the way you neglect your dress!"

Her husband said nothing, but went up to his room.

A few minutes later his neighbor--Mrs. S.--was summoned to the door by a messenger, who presented her with a small box neatly done up. She opened it and found a black silk necktie, accompanied by the following note: "Here is a necktie. Take it out and look at it. I think I stayed half an hour this morning. At the end of that time will you kindly return it, as it is the only one I have?--MARK TWAIN."

The teacher was teaching a cla.s.s in the infant Sabbath-school room and was making her pupils finish each sentence to show that they understood her.

"The idol had eyes," the teacher said, "but it could not--"

"See," cried the children.

"It had ears, but it could not--"

"Hear," was the answer.

"It had lips," she said, "but it could not--"

"Speak," once more replied the children.

"It had a nose, but it could not--"

"Wipe it," shouted the children; and the lesson had to stop a moment.

She was the dearest and most affectionate little woman in the world, and so thoughtful of her husband's comfort and his needs. One evening, when company was expected, she inquired solicitously:

"Aren't you going to wear that necktie I gave you on Christmas, dearie?"

"Of course I am, Henrietta," responded dearie. "I was saving it up. I am going to wear that red necktie, and my Nile-green smoking-jacket, and my purple and yellow socks, and open that box of cigars you gave me, all at once--to-night."

When J. M. Barrie addressed an audience of one thousand girls at Smith College during an American visit, a friend asked him how he had found the experience.

"Well," replied Mr. Barrie, "to tell you the truth I'd much rather talk one thousand times to one girl than to talk one time to a thousand girls."

The Rev. Mr. Goodman (inspecting himself in mirror)--"Caroline, I don't really believe I ought to wear this wig. It looks like living a lie."

"Bless your heart, Avery," said his better half, "don't let that trouble you. That wig will never fool anybody for one moment."

A young man had been calling now and then on a young lady, when one night as he sat in the parlor waiting for her to come down, her mother entered the room instead and asked in a grave, stern way what his intentions were. He was about to stammer a reply, when suddenly the young lady called down from the head of the stairs, "Oh, mama, that isn't the one."