The man about to take a train was worried by the station clocks. There was twenty minutes difference between the one in the office and the one in the waiting-room. Finally, he questioned a porter. That worthy made a careful survey of the two clocks, and shook his head doubtfully. Then, he brightened suddenly, and said: "It don"t make a single mite of difference about the clocks. The train goes at four-ten, no matter what."
SEASICKNESS.
On the first morning of the voyage, the vessel ran into a nasty choppy sea, which steadily grew worse. There were twenty-five pa.s.sengers at the captain"s table for dinner, and he addressed them in an amiable welcoming speech: "I hope that all twenty-five of you will have a pleasant trip." The soup appeared, and he continued: "I sincerely hope that this little a.s.sembly of twenty-four will thoroughly enjoy the voyage. I look upon these twenty-two smiling faces as a father upon his family, for I am responsible for the safety of this group of seventeen. And now I ask that all fourteen of you join me in drinking to a merry trip. Indeed, I believe that we eight are most congenial, and I applaud the good fortune that brought these three persons to my table. You and I, my dear sir, are-- Here, steward, clear away all those dishes, and bring me the fish."
The pair on their honeymoon were crossing the Channel, and the movement of the waves seemed to be going on right inside the bride. In a fleeting moment of internal calm she murmured pathetically
to the bridegroom in whose arms she was clasped: "Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, do you love me?"
"My darling!" he affirmed. "You know I love you with all my heart and soul-I worship you, I adore you, my precious oontsy-woontsy!"
The boat reeled, and a sickening pang thrilled through all the foundations of the bride"s being.
"O dear, O dear!" she gasped. "I hoped that might help a little, but it didn"t-not a bit!"
The seasick voyager on the ocean bowed humbly over the rail and made libation to Neptune. The kindly old gentleman who stood near remarked sympathetically: "You have a weak stomach."
The victim paused in his distressing occupation to snort indignantly: "Weak? Humph! I guess I can throw as far as anybody on this ship."
The wife of the seasick pa.s.senger was about to leave the stateroom for dinner. She inquired of her husband solicitously: "George, shall I have the steward bring some dinner to you here?"
"No," was the reply, haltingly given between groans.
"But I wish, my dear, you would ask him to take it on deck and throw it over the rail for me."
The moralizing gentleman at the club remarked ponderously: "If there is anything in a man, travel will bring it out."
One who had just landed from a rough crossing agreed bitterly: "Especially ocean travel."
SECTARIAN.
Once upon a time a coach was held up by a road-agent. The driver explained to the robber that his only pa.s.senger was a man, who was asleep inside. The highwayman insisted that the traveler be awakened. "I want to go through his pockets!" he declared fiercely, with an oath.
The bishop, when aroused, made gentle protests.
"You surely would not rob a poor bishop!" he exclaimed. "I have no money worth your attention, and I am engaged on my duties as a bishop."
The robber hesitated.
"A bishop, eh?" he said thoughtfully. "Of what church?"
"The Episcopal."
"The h.e.l.l you are! That"s the church I belong to! So long!... Driver, larrup them mules!"
A Scotch Presbyterian clergyman tells the story of a parishioner who formed a secession with a few others unable to accept the doctrines of the church. But when the clergyman asked this man if he and the others worshiped together, the answer was: "No. The fact is, I found that they accepted certain points to which I could not agree, so I withdrew from communion with them."
"So, then," the clergyman continued, "I suppose you and your wife carry on your devotions together at home."
"No, not exactly," the man admitted. "I found that our views on certain doctrines are not in harmony. So, there has been a division between us. Now, she worships in the northeast corner of the room and I in the southwest."
SELF-BETRAYAL.
The old lady was very aristocratic, but somewhat prim and precise. Nevertheless, when the company had been telling of college pranks, she relaxed slightly, and told of a lark that had caused excitement in Cambridge when she was a girl there. This was to the effect that two maidens of social standing were smuggled into the second-story room of a Harvard student for a gay supper.
The affair was wholly innocent, but secrecy was imperative, to avoid scandal. The meal was hardly begun when a thunderous knock of authority came on the door. The young men acted swiftly in the emergency. Silently, one of the girls was lowered to the ground from the window by a rope knotted under her arms. The second girl was then lowered, but the rope broke when the descent was hardly half completed.
The old lady had related the incident with increasing animation, and at this critical point in the narrative she burst forth: "And I declare, when that rope broke, I just knew I was going to be killed, sure!"
SERMON.
The aged colored clergyman, who made up in enthusiasm what he lacked in education, preached a sermon on the verse of the Psalm, "Awake, Psaltery and Harp! I myself will awake right early." The explanation of the words, which preceded the exhortation, was as follows: "Awake, Peasel Tree an" Ha"ap, I myself will awake airly. Dis yere Sam was wrote by de prophet Moses. Moses was mighty fond o" playin" on de ha"ap all de day long, an" at night when he went to
bed he"d hang up de ha"ap on de limb ob a Peasel tree what grew on de outside o" de window, an" in de mawnin", when de sun would get up an" shine in his face, he"d jump out o" bed, an" exclaim, "Wake, Peasel Tree an" Ha"ap! I myself will awake airly!""
SCAPEGOAT.
Cousin Willie, aged ten, came for a visit to Johnnie, aged twelve. Johnnie"s mother directed him to take the visitor out to play with his boy friends in the neighborhood.
"And be sure to have lots of fun," she added.
On the return of the boys, Willie, the guest, appeared somewhat downcast, but Johnnie was radiant.
"Did you have a good time?" his mother asked.
"Bully!" Johnnie answered.
"And lots of fun?"
"Oh, yes!"
"But Willie doesn"t look very happy," Johnnie"s mother said doubtfully.
"Well, you see," Johnnie answered, beaming, "the rest of us, we had our fun with Willie."
SHEEP AND GOATS.
The little girl was deeply impressed by the clergyman"s sermon as to the separation of the sheep and the goats. That night after she had gone to bed, she was heard sobbing, and the mother went to her, to ask what was the matter.
"It"s about the goats!" Jenny confessed at last. "I"m so afraid I am a goat, and so I"ll never go to heaven. Oh, I"m so afraid I"m a goat!"
"My dear," the mother a.s.sured her weeping child. "You"re a sweet little lamb. If you were to die to- night, you would go straight to heaven." Her words were successful in quieting the little girl, and she slept.
But the following night Jenny was found crying again in her bed, and when her mother appeared she wailed: "I"m afraid about the goats."
"But mother has told you that you are a little lamb, and that you must never worry over being a goat."
Jenny, however, was by no means comforted, and continued her sobs.
"Yes, mamma," she declared sadly, "I know that. But I"m afraid-awful afraid you"re a goat!"
SHIFTLESSNESS.
The shiftless man, who preferred reading to labor, closed the book on French history, which he had been perusing with great interest, and addressed his wife.
"Do you know, Mary," he asked impressively, "what I would have done if I had been in Napoleon"s place?"
"Certainly!" the wife snapped. "You"d have settled right down on a farm in Corsica, and let it run itself."
SHIPWRECK.
The new member of the club listened with solemn interest to the various stories that were told in the smoking room. They were good stories, and obviously lies, and each of them was a bigger lie than any that had gone before. Finally, the company insisted that the new member should relate a tale. He refused at first, but under pressure yielded, and gave a vivid account of a shipwreck at sea during one of his voyages. He described the stress of the terrible situation with such power that his hearers were deeply impressed. He reached the point in his account where only the captain and himself and half a dozen others were left aboard the doomed vessel, after the last of the boats had been lowered.
"And then," he concluded, "a vast wave came hurtling down on us. It was so huge that it shut out all the sky. It crashed over the already sinking ship in a torrent of irresistible force. Under that dreadful blow the laboring vessel sank, and all those left on board of her were drowned."
The narrator paused and there was a period of tense silence. But presently someone asked: "And you-what became of you?"
"Oh, I," was the reply, "why I was drowned with the rest of them."
SLANDER.
The business man"s wife, who had called at his office, regarded the pretty young stenographer with a baleful eye.
"You told me that your typewriter was an old maid," she accused.
The husband, at a loss, faltered in his reply, but at last contrived: "Yes, but she"s sick to-day, and sent her grandchild in her place."
SLAVERY.
A traveler in the South chatted with an aged negro, whom he met in the road.
"And I suppose you were once a slave?" he remarked.
"Yes, suh," the old colored man answered.
"And, so, after the war, you gained your freedom," the gentleman continued.
But the ancient one shook his head sadly.