He lifted his hat, stepped into the cab, and was whirled away.
The evening callers were chatting gaily with the Kinterbys when a patter of little feet was heard from the head of the stairs. Mrs. Kinterby raised her hand, warning the others to silence.
"Hush!" she said, softly. "The children are going to deliver their "good-night" message. It always gives me a feeling of reverence to hear them--they are so much nearer the Creator than we are, and they speak the love that is in their little hearts never so fully as when the dark has come. Listen!"
There was a moment of tense silence. Then--"Mama," came the message in a shrill whisper, "w.i.l.l.y found a bedbug!"
"I was in an awkward predicament yesterday morning," said a husband to another.
"How was that?"
"Why, I came home late, and my wife heard me and said, "John, what time is it?" and I said, "Only twelve, my dear," and just then that cuckoo clock of ours sang out three times."
"What did you do?"
"Why, I just had to stand there and cuckoo nine times more."
"Your husband will be all right now," said an English doctor to a woman whose husband was dangerously ill.
"What do you mean?" demanded the wife. "You told me "e couldn"t live a fortnight."
"Well, I"m going to cure him, after all," said the doctor. "Surely you are glad?"
The woman wrinkled her brows.
"Puts me in a bit of an "ole," she said. "I"ve bin an" sold all "is clothes to pay for "is funeral."
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES
"You want more money? Why, my boy, I worked three years for $11 a month right in this establishment, and now I"m owner of it."
"Well, you see what happened to your boss. No man who treats his help that way can hang on to his business."
EARNEST YOUNG MAN--"Have you any advice to a struggling young employee?"
FRANK OLD GENTLEMAN--"Yes. Don"t work."
EARNEST YOUNG MAN--"Don"t work?"
FRANK OLD GENTLEMAN--"No. Become an employer."
General Benjamin F. Butler built a house in Washington on the same plans as his home in Lowell, Ma.s.s., and his studies were furnished in exactly the same way. He and his secretary, M. W. Clancy, afterward City Clerk of Washington for many years, were constantly traveling between the two places.
One day a senator called upon General Butler in Lowell and the next day in Washington to find him and his secretary engaged upon the same work that had occupied them in Ma.s.sachusetts.
"Heavens, Clancy, don"t you ever stop?"
"No," interposed General Butler,
""Satan finds some michief still For idle hands to do.""
Clancy arose and bowed, saying:
"General, I never was sure until now what my employer was. I had heard the rumor, but I always discredited it."
W.J. ("Fingy") Conners, the New York politician, who is not precisely a Chesterfield, secured his first great freight-handling contract when he was a roustabout on the Buffalo docks. When the job was about to begin he called a thousand burly "dock-wallopers" to order, as narrated by one of his business friends:
"Now," roared Conners, "yez are to worruk for me, and I want ivery man here to understand what"s what. I kin lick anny man in the gang."
Nine hundred and ninety-nine swallowed the insult, but one huge, double-fisted warrior moved uneasily and stepping from the line he said "You can"t lick me, Jim Conners."
"I can"t, can"t I?" bellowed "Fingy."
"No, you can"t" was the determined response.
"Oh, well, thin, go to the office and git your money," said "Fingy."
"I"ll have no man in me gang that I can"t lick."
Outside his own cleverness there is nothing that so delights Mr. Wiggins as a game of baseball, and when he gets a chance to exploit the two, both at the same time, he may be said to be the happiest man in the world. Hence it was that the other day, when little red headed Willie Mulligan, his office boy, came sniffing into his presence to ask for the afternoon off that he might attend his grandfather"s funeral, Wiggins deemed it a masterly stroke to answer:
"Why, certainly, Willie. What"s more, my boy, if you"ll wait for me I"ll go with you."
"All right, sir," sniffed Willie as he returned to his desk and waited patiently.
And, lo and behold, poor little Willie had told the truth, and when he and Wiggins started out together the latter not only lost one of the best games of the season, but had to attend the obsequies of an old lady in whom he had no interest whatever as well.
CHIEF CLERK (to office boy)--"Why on earth don"t you laugh when the boss tells a joke?"
OFFICE BOY--"I don"t have to; I quit on Sat.u.r.day."--_Satire_.
James J. Hill, the Railway King, told the following amusing incident that happened on one of his roads:
"One of our division superintendents had received numerous complaints that freight trains were in the habit of stopping on a grade crossing in a certain small town, thereby blocking travel for long periods. He issued orders, but still the complaints came in. Finally he decided to investigate personally.
"A short man in size and very excitable, he went down to the crossing, and, sure enough, there stood, in defiance of his orders, a long freight train, anch.o.r.ed squarely across it. A brakeman who didn"t know him by sight sat complacently on the top of the car.