"Eight, sir," replied the grocer.
"T-t-t-tough or t-t-tender?"
"Some are tender and some tough," was the reply.
"I k-keep b-b-b-boarders," said the new customer. "P-pick out the four t-toughest t-t-turkeys, if you p-p-please."
The delighted grocer very willingly complied with the unusual request, and said in his politest tones:
"These are the tough ones, sir."
Upon which the customer coolly put his hand on the remaining four, and exclaimed:
"I"ll t--t--take th--th--th--these!"
SIGHT SEEING
The motor-bus stopped, and the conductor looked earnestly up the steps, but no one descended, and at last he stalked up impatiently.
""Ere, you," he said to a man on top, "don"t you want Westminster Abbey?"
"Yes," was the reply.
"Well," retorted the conductor, "come down for it. I can"t bring it on the bus for you."
SIGNS
Eva S----, twenty-four years old, a maid employed in Jersey City, was locked up last night in the West Thirtieth Street Police Station, charged with grand larceny. She is alleged to have stolen $160 worth of articles from a Sixth Avenue department-store.
The explanation she gave was that she saw a sign in the store which read: "Customers, please take small packages home."
"Why do you have an apple as your trade-mark?" asked a client of the cash tailor.
"Well, well," replied the man, rubbing his hands, "if it hadn"t been for an apple where would the clothing business be today?"
In a large park in one of the Eastern cities there are seats about the bandstand with this notice posted on them:
"The seats in the vicinity of the bandstand are for the use of ladies.
Gentlemen should make use of them only after the former are seated."
A farmer hitched his team to a telephone-pole.
"Here," exclaimed a policeman, "you can"t hitch there!"
"Can"t hitch!" shouted the irate farmer, "Well, why does the sign say, "Fine for Hitching"?""
You have heard perhaps, of the Englishman in the South Station, Boston, who read over a door "Inside Baggage," and chuckled with glee: "You Americans are so droll! Now we should say "Refreshment Room.""
Somebody ought to call attention to the public-library sign, "Only low talk is permitted here."
The small boy"s parents had distinct ideas of discipline. The walls of the sitting-room were lined with tracts, and the cane was always kept behind "Love one another."
One day everything went wrong, and the little boy was whipped eight times.
After the eighth caning he said, between his sobs, "D-d-don"t you think it"s t-time to take the cane from behind "L-love one another"
and put it behind "I n-n-need Thee every hour"?"
Little Jane had long desired a baby sister, and one day she came rushing home in high excitement.
"Oh, mother; come downtown quickly!" she exclaimed. "There are splendid bargains in babies and you can get one while they are cheap."
"What in the world are you talking about, my dear?" the mother asked in astonishment. "Somebody must have been playing a joke on you."
"Truly, truly!" the little girl declared, jumping up and down in her eagerness. "Great big sign about it, on the top of the skating rink.
It says, "This week only, children half price.""
In Davenport: "We"ve given a service to our patrons that compels them to think of Crooks when there"s any laundry work to be done." On a parsonage door in Trinidad, Colo.: "The last man who tried to work me is in jail." On a tombstone in Batavia: "If we must part let us go together." On State Street: "Open all night. Latest moving pictures."
In a Morton Park dance-hall: "Use checkroom. Absolutely no clothes allowed in this room." (Attention of Mayor Harrison.) On Franklin Street: "Reign Umbrella Co." In the Spencer Hotel, Marion, Ind.: "Discourteous treatment, by the waiters, if reported to the proprietor, will be greatly appreciated."
Out in New Mexico even public signs come direct to the point. They do not waste any time in wondering how the reader will feel about it.
In a garage at Albuquerque is posted:
"Don"t smoke round the tank! If your life isn"t worth anything, gasoline is!"
Another home problem is solved by a firm of cleaners in Grinnell, Iowa, which advertises: "Notice--ladies--why worry about your dirty kids when we clean them for fifteen cents?"
"Our readers," says the Boston Transcript, "often go into movie theaters to laugh, but did you ever realize that you can get many a good laugh by reading the funny wording of some of the signs out in front and in the lobby? We have noticed how audiences enjoy these funny signs which have been shown on the screen in The Literary Digest "Topics of the Day." Here are some of the most laughable ones mentioned: