Yesterday this day"s madness did prepare; Tomorrow"s silence, triumph, or despair.
Drink! For you know not whence you came, nor why; Drink! For you know not why you go, nor where.
--_Omar Khayyam_
PHILADELPHIA
A Staten Island man, when the mosquitoes began to get busy in the borough across the bay, has been in the habit every summer of transplanting his family to the Delaware Water Gap for a few weeks. They were discussing their plans the other day, when the oldest boy, aged eight, looked up from his geography and said:
"Pop, Philadelphia is on the Delaware River, isn"t it?"
Pop replied that such was the case.
"I wonder if that"s what makes the Delaware Water Gap?" insinuated the youngster.--_S.S. Stinson_.
Among the guests at an informal dinner in New York was a bright Philadelphia girl.
"These are snails," said a gentleman next to her, when the dainty was served. "I suppose Philadelphia people don"t eat them for fear of cannibalism."
"Oh, no," was her instant reply; "it isn"t that. We couldn"t catch them."
PHILANTHROPISTS
Little grains of short weight, Little crooked twists, Fill the land with magnates And philanthropists.
_See also_ Charity.
PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy is finding out how many things there are in the world which you can"t have if you want them, and don"t want if you can have them.--_Puck_.
PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS
The eight-year-old son of a Baltimore physician, together with a friend, was playing in his father"s office, during the absence of the doctor, when suddenly the first lad threw open a closet door and disclosed to the terrified gaze of his little friend an articulated skeleton.
When the visitor had sufficiently recovered from his shock to stand the announcement the doctor"s son explained that his father was extremely proud of that skeleton.
"Is he?" asked the other. "Why?"
"I don"t know," was the answer; "maybe it was his first patient."
The doctor stood by the bedside, and looked gravely down at the sick man.
"I can not hide from you the fact that you are very ill," he said. "Is there any one you would like to see?"
"Yes," said the sufferer faintly.
"Who is it?"
"Another doctor."--_Judge_.
"Doctor, I want you to look after my office while I"m on my vacation."
"But I"ve just graduated, doctor. Have had no experience." "That"s all right, my boy. My practice is strictly fashionable. Tell the men to play golf and ship the lady patients off to Europe."
An old darky once lay seriously ill of fever and was treated for a long time by one doctor, and then another doctor, for some reason, came and took the first one"s place. The second physician made a thorough examination of the patient. At the end he said, "Did the other doctor take your temperature?"
"Ah dunno, sah," the patient answered. "Ah hain"t missed nuthin" so far but mah watch."
There had been an epidemic of colds in the town, and one physician who had had scarcely any sleep for two days called upon a patient--an Irishman--who was suffering from pneumonia, and as he leaned over to hear the patient"s respiration he called upon Pat to count.
The doctor was so fatigued that he fell asleep, with his ear on the sick man"s chest. It seemed but a minute when he suddenly awoke to hear Pat still counting: "Tin thousand an" sivinty-six, tin thousand an"
sivinty-sivin--"
FIRST DOCTOR--"I operated on him for appendicitis."
SECOND DOCTOR--"What was the matter with him?"--_Life_.
FUSSY LADY PATIENT--"I was suffering so much, doctor, that I wanted to die."
DOCTOR--"You did right to call me in, dear lady."
MEDICAL STUDENT--"What did you operate on that man for?"