Best Short Stories Part 29

"Yes, sir," answered the waiter, "one ha.s.sock."

A moment later the waiter, apparently puzzled, approached the man, and leaning over him, said:

"Excuse me, sir, but I have only been here two days and do not want to make any mistakes. Will the lady have the ha.s.sock broiled or fried?"

A LITERAL CENSOR

Joe T. Marshall, formerly of Kansas, recently became the father of an eight-pound boy, and wished to cable the news to his family in America.

The censor refused to allow the message to go through.

"What's the matter?" Marshall asked indignantly.

"We aren't permitted to announce the arrival of Americans in France!"

UP TO HIM

David Belasco was smiling at the extravagant attentions that are lavished by the rich upon pet dogs. He spoke of the canine operations for appendicitis, the canine tooth crownings, the canine wardrobes, and then he said:

"How servants hate these pampered curs! At a house where I was calling one cold day the fat and pompous butler entered the drawing-room and said:

"'Did you ring, madam?'

"'Yes, Harrison, I wish you to take Fido out walking for two hours.'

"Harrison frowned slightly. 'But Fido won't follow me, madam,' he said.

"'Then, Harrison, you must follow Fido.'"

NOT IN THE TACTICS

A company of very new soldiers were out on a wide heath, practising the art of taking cover. The officer in charge of them turned to one of the rawest of his men.

"Get down behind that hillock there," he ordered, sternly, "and mind, not a move or a sound!"

A few minutes later he looked around to see if they were all concealed, and, to his despair, observed something wriggling behind the small mound. Even as he watched the movements became more frantic.

"I say, you there!" he shouted, angrily, "do you know you are giving our position away to the enemy?"

"Yes, sir," said the recruit, in a voice of cool desperation, "and do you know that this is an anthill?"

A GUILTY CONSCIENCE

A young fellow who was the crack sprinter of his town--somewhere in the South--was unfortunate enough to have a very dilatory laundress. One evening, when he was out for a practice run in his rather airy and abbreviated track costume, he chanced to dash past the house of that dusky lady, who at the time was a couple of weeks in arrears with his was.h.i.+ng.

He had scarcely reached home again when the bell rang furiously and an excited voice was wafted in from the porch:

"Foh de Lawd's sake! won't you-all tell Ma.r.s.e Bob please not to go out no moh till I kin git his clo'es round to him?'"

MAKING IT FIT

"Did you hear about the defacement of Mr. Skinner's tombstone?" asked Mr. Brown a few days after the funeral of that eminent captain of industry.

"No, what was it?" inquired his neighbor curiously.

"Someone added the word 'friends' to the epitaph."

"What was the epitaph?"

"'He did his best.'"

A LESSON IN MANNERS

This is the way the agent got a lesson in manners. He called at a business office, and saw n.o.body but a prepossessing though capable-appearing young woman.

"Where's the boss?" he asked abruptly.

"What is your business?" she asked politely.

"None of yours!" he snapped. "I got a proposition to lay before this firm, and I want to talk to somebody about it."

"And you would rather talk to a gentleman?"

"Yes."

"Well," answered the lady, smiling sweetly, "so would I. But it seems that it's impossible for either one of us to have our wish, so we'll have to make the best of it. State your business, please!"

AN UNFORTUNATE AFFAIR

"Look here," yelled the infuriated bridegroom of a day, das.h.i.+ng wildly into the editor's room of the country weekly; "what do you mean by such an infernal libel on me in your account of our wedding?"

"What's the matter?" asked the editor calmly. "Didn't we say that after your wedding tour you would make your home at the Old Manse?"

"Yes," howled the newly made benedict, "and just see how you've spelled it."

And the editor looked and read:

After their wedding tour the newly married couple will make their home at the Old Man's.

CURIOSITY