Best Short Stories Part 15

IN MEMORIAM

Availing herself of her ecclesiastical privileges, the clergyman's wife asked questions which, coming from anybody else, would have been thought impertinent.

"I presume you carry a memento of some kind in that locket you wear?"

she said.

"Yes, ma'am," said the paris.h.i.+oner. "It is a lock of my husband's hair."

"But your husband is still alive!" the lady exclaimed.

"Yes, ma'am, but his hair is gone."

A DISADVANTAGE

The Germans will be immensely hated after this war. They will be the pariahs of the future.

Already we see signs of German hatred everywhere. At a reception the other night in a neutral city, the guest of honor said to a man who had just been presented to her:

"You are a foreigner, are you not? Where do you come from?"

"From Berlin, ma'am," he answered.

The lady stared at him through her lorgnette.

"Dear me!" she said. "Couldn't you go back and come from somewhere else?"

THE LIFE

They were two sweet young American girls, able, beautiful, versatile, patriotic to the core, rushed to death. And one of them said breathlessly:

"What have you been doing?"

And the other one as breathlessly replied:

"Doing! My dear, I hate to tell you. I got up at six. I drove a car forty miles to camp. I knitted a sweater and a pair of socks in between.

I went to a Red Cross meeting. I acted as bridesmaid. I read a book on the war. I took a last lesson in first aid. I canned eighty cans of vegetables and, oh--!"

"Do tell me!"

"Why, will you believe me, I have been so busy all day that I almost forgot to get married!"

WELCOMING THE ACTOR

A well-known society performer volunteered to entertain a roomful of patients of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, and made up a very successful little monologue show, entirely humorous. The audience in the main gave symptoms of being slightly bored, but one highly intelligent maniac saw the whole thing in the proper light, and, clapping the talented actor on the shoulder, said: "Glad you've come, old fellow. You and I will get along fine. The other dippies here are so dashed dignified. What I say is if a man is mad, he needn't put on airs about it."

COULDN'T BE BOTHERED

Mose approached the registration booth hesitatingly, and being accosted by the official in charge, a.s.sured that dignitary that he had just walked ten miles to register.

"Well, Mose, what branch of the service would you like to be placed in?" inquired the official.

"How about the cavalry?"

"What will Ah have ter do in de calvary?"

"Oh, you won't have to do anything but ride a horse all the time."

Mose scratched his woolly noggin in perplexity for a few moments, and finally said: "Nawssur, Ah don't believe Ah wants ter jine the calvary."

"What's the matter with the cavalry, Mose?"

"Well, yer see, boss, hit's jest like dis: When y'awl blow dem bugles ter retreet, Ah don't want ter be troubled wid no hoss."

THEIR "BIT"

Jimmie, very proud of his first job and weekly salary of $6.83, purchased a Liberty Bond on the installment plan. That evening he saw in the newspaper that John D. Rockefeller had invested in Liberty Bonds to the extent of $10,000,000.

Turning to his mother, Jimmie said proudly, "Well, ma, two of us Americans have done our duty, anyhow."

MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN

A woman doctor of Philadelphia was calling on a young sister, recently married, who was in distress. In response to the doctor's inquiry the newly-wed said:

"I cooked a meal for the first time yesterday, and I made an awful mess of it."

"Never mind, dearie," said the doctor, cheerfully; "it's nothing to worry about. I lost my first patient."

DANGER SIGNALS

An ingenious American has invented a device to prevent such motoring accidents as arise from over-speeding. He describes his contrivance as follows:

"While the car is running fifteen miles an hour a white bulb shows on the radiator, at twenty-five miles a green bulb appears, at forty a red bulb, and, when the driver begins to bat 'em out around sixty per, a music-box under the seat begins to play 'Nearer, My G.o.d, to Thee.'"

VULNERABLE

A visiting minister, preaching in a town famous for its horse races, vigorously denounced the sport. The princ.i.p.al patron of the church always attended the races, and of this the clergyman was later informed.

"I am afraid I touched one of your weaknesses," said the pastor, not wis.h.i.+ng to offend the wealthy one, "but it was quite unintentional, I a.s.sure you."