The little lad sat on the curb howling l.u.s.tily. A pa.s.ser-by halted to ask what was the matter. The boy explained between howls that his father had given him a licking. The sympathizer attempted consolation:
"But you must be a little man, and not cry about it. All fathers have to punish their children sometimes."
The lad ceased howling long enough to snort contemptuously, and to explain:
"Huh! my paw ain"t like other boys" paws. He plays the ba.s.s drum in the band!"
PUNS
"What is your name?" demanded the judge of the prisoner in the Munic.i.p.al Court.
"Locke Smith," was the answer, and the man made a bolt for the door.
He was seized by an officer and hauled back.
"Ten dollars or ten days," said the magistrate.
"I"ll take the ten dollars," announced the prisoner.
Finally, he paid the fine, but he added explicit information as to his opinion of the judge. Then he leaped for the door again, only to be caught and brought back a second time.
The judge, after fining the prisoner another ten dollars, admonished him severely, in these words:
"If your language had been more chaste and refined, you would not have been chased and refined."
A member of the Lambs" Club had a reputation for lack of hospitality in the matter of buying drinks for others. On one occasion, two actors entered the bar, and found this fellow alone at the rail. They invited him to drink, and, as he accepted, he announced proudly:
"I"m writing my autobiography."
"With the accent on the "bi"?" One of the newcomers suggested sarcastically.
"No," his friend corrected, "with the accent on the "auto"."
The stallion that had been driven in from the plains was a magnificent creature, but so fierce that no man dared approach closely. Then the amiable lunatic appeared on the scene. He took a halter, and went toward the dangerous beast. And as he went, he muttered softly:
"So, bossy; so bossy; so bossy."
The stallion stood quietly and allowed the halter to be slipped over his head without offering any resistance.
The horse was cowed.
When Mr. Choate was amba.s.sador to the Court of St. James, he was present at a function where his plain evening dress contrasted sharply with the uniforms of the other men. At a late hour, an Austrian diplomat approach him, as he stood near the door, obviously taking him for a servant, and said:
"Call me a cab."
Choate answered affably:
"You"re a cab, sir."
The diplomat indignantly went to the host and explained that a servant had insulted him. He pointed to Choate. Explanations ensued, and the diplomat was introduced to the American, to whom he apologized.
"That"s all right," declared Choate, smiling. "If you had been better-looking, I"d have called you a hansom cab."
PUZZLE
The humorist offered his latest invention in the way of a puzzle to the a.s.sembly of guests in the drawing-room:
"Can you name an animal that has eyes and cannot see; legs and cannot walk, but can jump as high as the Woolworth Building?"
Everybody racked his brains during a period of deep silence, and racked in vain. Finally, they gave it up and demanded the solution. The inventor of the puzzle beamed.
"The answer," he said, "is a wooden horse. It has eyes and cannot see, and legs and cannot walk."
"Yes," the company agreed. "But how does it jump as high as the Woolworth Building?"
"The Woolworth Building," the humorist explained, "can"t jump."
QUARRELSOME
The applicant for the position of cook explained to the lady why she had left her last place:
"To tell the truth, mum, I just couldn"t stand the way the master and the mistress was always quarreling."
"That must have been unpleasant," the lady agreed.
"Yis, mum," the cook declared, "they was at it all the time. When it wasn"t me an" him, it was me an" her."
QUESTIONS
It was a rule of the club that anyone asking a question which he himself could not answer must pay a fine. One of the members presented a question as to why a ground-squirrel in digging left no dirt around the entrance to its hole. He was finally called on for the answer, and explained that of course the squirrel began at the bottom and dug upward.
"Excellent!" a listener laughed. "But how does the squirrel manage to reach the bottom?"
"That," said the other with a grin, "is your question."
RAILROAD
A railroad was opened through a remote region, and on the first run over the line, the engineer overtook a country boy riding his horse along the road bed. The engineer whistled, and the boy whipped. The train was forced to a crawl with the cowcatcher fairly nipping at the horse"s heels. Finally, the engineer leaned from the cab window and shouted: