In China when the subscriber rings up exchange the operator may be expected to ask:
"What number does the honorable son of the moon and stars desire?"
"Hohi, two-three."
Silence. Then the exchange resumes.
"Will the honorable person graciously forgive the inadequacy of the insignificant service and permit this humbled slave of the wire to inform him that the never-to-be-sufficiently censured line is busy?"
Recipe for a telephone operator:
To fearful and wonderful rolling of "r"s,"
And a voice cold as thirty below, Add a dash of red pepper, some ginger and sa.s.s If you leave out the "o" in "h.e.l.lo"!
TEMPER
Hearing the crash of china Dinah"s mistress arrived in time to see her favorite coffee-set in pieces. The sight was too much for her mercurial temper. "Dinah," she said, "I cannot stand it any longer. I want you to go. I want you to go soon, I want you to go right now."
"Lawzee," replied Dinah, "this surely am a co-instence. I was this very minute cogitatin" that same thought in my own mind--I want to go, I thank the good Lawd I kin go, and I pity your husband, ma"am, that he can"t go."
TEMPERANCE
A Boston deacon who was a zealous advocate for the cause of temperance employed a carpenter to make some alterations in his home. In repairing a corner near the fireplace, it was found necessary to remove the wainscot, when some things were brought to light which greatly astonished the workman. A brace of decanters, sundry bottles containing "something to take," a pitcher, and tumblers were cosily reposing in their snug quarters. The joiner ran to the proprietor with the intelligence.
"Well, I declare!" exclaimed the deacon. "That is curious, sure enough.
It must be old Captain Bunce that left those things there when he occupied the premises thirty years since."
"Perhaps he did, returned the discoverer, but, Deacon, that ice in the pitcher must have been well frozen to remain solid."--_Abbie C. Dixon_.
Here"s to a temperance supper, With water in gla.s.ses tall, And coffee and tea to end with And me not there at all.
The best prohibition story of the season comes from Kansas where, it is said, a local candidate stored a lot of printed prohibition literature in his barn, but accidentally left the door open and a herd of milch cows came in and ate all the pamphlets. As a result every cow in the herd went dry.--_Adrian Times_.
A Michigan citizen recently received a letter from a Kentucky whisky house, requesting him to send them the names of a dozen or more persons who would like to get some fine whisky shipped to them at a very low price. The letter wound up by saying:
"We will give you a commission on all the orders sent in by parties whose names you send us."
The Michigan man belonged to a practical joke cla.s.s, and filled in the names of some of his prohibition friends on the blank s.p.a.ces left for that purpose.
He had forgotten all about his supposed practical joke when Monday he received another letter from the same house. He supposed it was a request for some more names, and was just about to throw the communication in the waste basket when it occurred to him to send the name of another old friend to the whisky house. He accordingly tore open the envelope, and came near collapsing when he found a check for $4.80, representing his commission on the sale of whisky to the parties whose names he had sent in about three weeks before.
Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.--_Samuel Johnson_.
TEXAS
The bigness of Texas is evident from a cursory examination of the map.
But its effect upon the people of that state is not generally known. It is about six hundred miles from Brownsville, at the bottom of the map, to Dallas, which is several hundreds of miles from the top of the map.
Hence the following conversation in Brownsville recently between two of the old-time residents:
"Where have you been lately, Bob? I ain"t seen much of you."
"Been on a trip north."
"Where"d you go?"
"Went to Dallas."
"Have a good time?"
"Naw; I never did like them d.a.m.n Yankees, anyway."
TEXTS
In the Tennessee mountains a mountaineer preacher, who had declared colleges "the works of the devil," was preaching without previous meditation an inspirational sermon from the text, "The voice of the turtle shall be heard in the land." Not noting that the margin read "turtle-dove," he proceeded in this manner:
"This text, my hearers, strikes me as one of the most peculiar texts in the whole book, because we all know that a turtle ain"t got no voice.
But by the inward enlightenment I begin to see the meaning and will expose it to you. Down in the hollers by the streams and ponds you have gone in the springtime, my brethren, and observed the little turtles, a-sleeping on the logs. But at the sound of the approach of a human being, they went _kerflop-kerplunk_, down into the water. This I say, then, is the meaning of the prophet: he, speakinging figgeratively, referred to the _kerflop_ of the turtle as the _voice_ of the turtle, and hence we see that in those early times the prophet, looking down at the ages to come, clearly taught and prophesied the doctrine I have always preached to this congregation--_that immersion is the only form of baptism."_
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., once asked a clergyman to give him an appropriate Bible verse on which to base an address which he was to make at the latter"s church.
"I was thinking," said young Rockefeller, "that I would take the verse from the Twenty-third Psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd." Would that seem appropriate?"
"Quite," said the clergyman; "but do you really want an appropriate verse?"