"Yes, sir," said the trust magnate, proudly, "I am the architect of my own fortune."
"Well," rejoined the friendly critic, "all I"ve got to say is that it"s a lucky thing for you there were no building inspectors around when you were constructing it."
SENATE
FORWARDLOOKER--"The Senate has a plan to settle labor disputes."
CYNIC--"If labor would devise a plan for settling Senate disputes, we might have peace."
The more we read about the Senate the more we understand the word "jazz."
SENATORS
"What is your position on this great question?"
"My position," replied Senator Sorghum, "is somewhat like that of a tight-rope walker. I don"t want to stop to argue or show off. What I want to do is to get across to solid ground."
"The interrogation "Where did you get it?" causes me much less apprehension," confessed Senator Smugg, "than the feeling that some day the public may learn the answer to the question "Where did you put it?""--_Puck_.
SENSE OF HUMOR
SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT (cross-questioning the terrified cla.s.s)--"And now I want you boys to tell me who wrote "Hamlet.""
FRIGHTENED BOY--"P-p-please, sir, it-it wasn"t me."
That same evening the superintendent was talking to his host, the squire of the village. The superintendent said:
"Most amusing thing happened today. I was questioning the cla.s.s over at the school, and I asked a boy who wrote "Hamlet." He answered tearfully, "P-p-please, sir, it wasn"t me.""
After loud and prolonged laughter, the squire said:
"That"s pretty good, and I suppose the little rascal had done it all the time!"
_British and American Humor_
Having observed in a London omnibus a notice warning pa.s.sengers to be careful as they alight, which is couched in these terms: "Cinema actors risk their lives for pay! Don"t do it for nothing!" a New York journalist remarks that "an American advertis.e.m.e.nt on that subject would be serious; the British are more flippant in their seriousness than the Americans."
It seems as if this critic (writes a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian) never saw the notices posted in the trains used for conveying American troops in France during the last six months of the war. Tho drawn up at American headquarters, these notices are quite as "flippant in their seriousness" as the one he quotes. One of them ran:
THREE KINDS OF FOOLS
1. Fools.
2. d.a.m.ned fools.
3. SOLDIERS WHO RIDE ON TOPS AND SIDES OF CARS.
A great many American soldiers have already been killed as a result of riding on tops of cars.
There is only six inches clearance between tops and sides of cars and tunnel arches.
There is only six inches clearance between tops and sides of cars and bridge superstructures.
There is only a slight clearance between sides of cars and signal-towers.
IF YOU EXPECT TO SEE THE NEXT BLOCK KEEP YOURS INSIDE.
There was another one worded as follows:
YOUR HEAD MAY BE HARD
But not so hard as Bridges and Tunnel Arches.
Railway company will hold you responsible for damages to bridges and tunnels and signal-towers--they are not insured.
KEEP YOUR BLOCK INSIDE
And yet another:
Huns are waiting.
Trenches ahead.
Speed up.
You won"t if you ride on top of or stick your head out of cars.
KEEP YOUR IVORY IN!
HEALTH OFFICER MOONEY--"Y"r Honor, Oi think that humorist should be prohibited from givin" his lecture in the opera house tomorrow night, sor!"
MAYOR OF TOWN--"Why so, Mooney? Is it immoral?"
HEALTH OFFICER MOONEY--"Not immoral, sor; but they say his humor is contagious!"