In due time the report was returned with these words after the father"s signature, "You ought to hear his mother."
_Just Suppose_
If all that we say In a single day, With never a word left out, Were printed each night In clear black and white, "Twould prove queer reading, no doubt.
And then just suppose Ere one"s eyes he could close.
He must read the day"s record through, Then wouldn"t one sigh, And wouldn"t he try A great deal less talking to do?
And I more than half think That many a kink Would be smoother in life"s tangled thread, If one-half that we say In a single day Were left forever unsaid.
Mrs. Jenkins, a regular visitor in the doctor"s consulting room, started on the long story of her troubles. The doctor endured it patiently and gave her another bottle. At last she started out, and the doctor was congratulating himself, when she stopped and exclaimed: "Why, doctor, you didn"t look to see if my tongue was coated."
"I know it isn"t," wearily replied the medical man. "You don"t find gra.s.s on a race track."
Another one of our patrons finds her husband a trifle too studious.
She called for a volume of Blackstone he had ordered and when she saw the ominous size of the volume sighed deeply, "That means I"ll have to go out nights. He says I talk too much!"
_See also_ Wives; Woman.
TARDINESS
MR. PECK--"Would you mind compelling me to move on, officer? I"ve been waiting on this corner three hours for my wife!"--_Puck_.
"Why is it you never get to the office on time in the morning?"
demanded the boss angrily.
"It"s like this, boss," explained the tardy one, "you kept telling me not to watch the clock during office hours, and I got so I didn"t watch it at home either."
"This is the fourth morning you"ve been late, Rufus," said the man to his colored chauffeur.
"Yes, sah," replied Rufus. "I did oversleep myself, sah."
"Where is that clock I gave you?"
"In my room, sah."
"Don"t you wind it up?"
"Oh, yes, sah. I winds it up, sah."
"And do you set the alarm?"
"Ev"ry night, sah, I set de alarm, sah."
"But don"t you hear the alarm in the morning, Rufus?"
"No, sah, dere"s de trouble, sah. Yer see de blame thing goes off while I"m asleep, sah."
Professor Copeland, of Harvard, as the story goes, reproved his students for coming late to cla.s.s.
"This is a cla.s.s in English composition," he remarked with sarcasm, "not an afternoon tea."
At the next meeting one girl was twenty minutes late. Professor Copeland waited until she had taken her seat. Then he remarked bitingly:
"How will you have your tea, Miss Brown?"
"Without the lemon, please," Miss Brown answered quite gently.
TAX
The most successful statesman is going to be the statesman who can devise a tax n.o.body will be able to detect.
MACPHERSON (at the box office)--"Will ye kindly return me the amount I paid for amus.e.m.e.nt tax?"
CLERK--"Why, sir?"
MACPHERSON--"We wasna amused."
The man who ran the elevator of the sky-sc.r.a.per was talking to a pa.s.senger.
"The judge certainly did soak him," he said. "He sentenced him to three years and ten days. Now I understand the three years all right; but what the ten days were for I"d like to know?"
"That was the war-tax," said a quiet citizen who got abroad at the tenth floor.
MRS. CASEY--"An" phwat are yez doin" wid thot incoom-tax paper, Casey?"
CASEY--"Oi"m thryin" to figger out how much money Oi save by not havin" anny."--_Life_.
The Tax? No wonder Men abhor it!