Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
Now she"s at rest, and so am I.
--_John Dryden_.
"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."
EQUALITY
In a mood for companionship with none at hand, a New Yorker was making her way through a quiet down town cross street to an East Side subway.
As she approached a team of horses standing by the curb, the nearer of the pair looked her straight in the eye man-to-man like. No driver being in sight she took from her pocket some lumps of sugar (reserved as a tip for the ice-horse) and fed and fondled and talked foolishly to her friend of the curb. Looking up before turning to the second horse, she was confused and startled to find a brisk young driver, reins in hand, looking ready to tear up the pavements in a mad rush to Jersey or somewhere. She hurried off to escape his wrath at being delayed. The angry words flung after her were: "The other one ain"t no stepchild."
And the horses galloped off equally sugared.
ETIQUET
"Frances," said the little girl"s mamma, who was entertaining callers in the parlor, "you came downstairs so noisily that you could be heard all over the house. Now go back and come down stairs like a lady."
Frances retired and after a few moments re-entered the parlor.
"Did you hear me come downstairs this time, mamma?"
"No dear; I am glad you came down quietly. Now, don"t ever let me have to tell you again not to come down noisily. Now tell these ladies how you managed to come down like a lady the second time, when the first time you made so much noise."
"The last time I slid down the banisters," explained Frances.
Hearts, like doors, can ope with ease To very, very little keys, And don"t forget that they are these "I thank you, Sir"; and, "If you please."
_Unseen, Unheard_
TEACHER--"What does a well-bred child do when a visitor calls to see her mother?"
CHILD--"Me--I go play in the street."
HOSTESS (at party)--"Does your mother allow you to have two pieces of pie when you are at home, Willie?"
WILLIE (who has asked for a second piece)--"No, ma"am."
"Well, do you think she"d like you to have two pieces here?"
"Oh," confidentially, "she wouldn"t care. This isn"t her pie!"
"I can"t understand this code of ethics."
"What code is that?"
"The one which makes it all right to take a man"s last dollar, but a breach of etiquette to take his last cigaret."
Tom Johnson claims that the oldest joke is the one about the Irish soldier who saw a sh.e.l.l coming and made a low bow. The sh.e.l.l missed him and took off the head of the man behind him. "Sure," said Pat, "ye never knew a man to lose anything by being polite."
EUROPEAN WAR
War is evidently a losing game when it takes a country forty-two years to pay for what she destroyed in a little more than four.
A dusky doughboy, burdened under tons of medals and miles and miles of ribbons, service and wound chevrons, stars et al., encountered a 27th Division sc.r.a.pper in Le Mans a few days prior to the division"s departure for the States.
"Whar yo" all ben sc.r.a.ppin" in dis yar war, boss?" meekly inquired the colored soldier.
"Why, we"ve been fighting up in Belgium and Flanders with the British," replied the New Yorker, proudly.
"Well, we ben down in dem woods--watcha call "em woods "way down south."
"The Argonne?" suggested young Knickerbocker.
"Yas, yas, dem"s de woods--d"Argonne."
"You know our division was the first to break the Hindenburg line, colored boy," explained the 27th man.
"Was it you wot did dat trick? Y" know boss, we felt dat ol" line sag "way down in d"Argonne."
WILLIS--"Did the war do anything for you?"