"Tart, what?" he queried kindly.
But Tommy"s eyes were glued on the pastry.
"Tart, what?" asked the father again, sharply this time.
"Tart, first," answered Tommy triumphantly.
TOMMY"S AUNT--"Won"t you have another piece of cake, Tommy?"
TOMMY (on a visit)--"No, I thank you."
TOMMY"S AUNT--"You seem to be suffering from loss of appet.i.te."
TOMMY--"That ain"t loss of appet.i.te. What I"m sufferin" from is politeness."
There was a young man so benighted, He never knew when he was slighted; He would go to a party, And eat just as hearty, As if he"d been really invited.
EUROPEAN WAR
OFFICER (as Private Atkins worms his way toward the enemy)--"You fool!
Come back at once!"
TOMMY--"No bally fear, sir! There"s a hornet in the trench."--_Punch_.
"You can tell an Englishman nowadays by the way he holds his head up."
"Pride, eh?"
"No, Zeppelin neck."
LITTLE GIRL (who has been sitting very still with a seraphic expression)--"I wish I was an angel, mother!"
MOTHER--"What makes you say that, darling?"
LITTLE GIRL--"Because then I could drop bombs on the Germans!"--_Punch_.
From a sailor"s letter to his wife:
"Dear Jane,--I am sending you a postal order for 10s., which I hope you may get--but you may not--as this letter has to pa.s.s the Censor."
--_Punch_.
Two country darkies listened, awe-struck, while some planters discussed the tremendous range of the new German guns.
"Dar now," exclaimed one negro, when his master had finished expatiating on the hideous havoc wrought by a forty-two-centimeter sh.e.l.l, "jes" lak I bin tellin" yo" niggehs all de time! Don" le"s have no guns lak dem roun" heah! Why, us niggehs could start runnin" erway, run all day, git almos" home free, an" den git kilt jus" befo" suppeh!"
"Dat"s de trufe," a.s.sented his companion, "an" lemme tell yo" sumpin"
else, Bo. All dem guns needs is jus" yo" _ad_-dress, dat"s all; jes"
giv" em de _ad_-dress an" they"ll git yo"."
_See also_ War.
EVIDENCE
From a crowd of rah-rah college boys celebrating a crew victory, a policeman had managed to extract two prisoners.
"What is the charge against these young men?" asked the magistrate before whom they were arraigned.
"Disturbin" the peace, yer honor," said the policeman. "They were givin"
their college yells in the street an" makin" trouble generally."
"What is your name?" the judge asked one of the prisoners.
"Ro-ro-robert Ro-ro-rollins," stuttered the youth.
"I asked for your name, sir, not the evidence."
Maud Muller, on a summer night, Turned down the only parlor light.
The judge, beside her, whispered things Of wedding bells and diamond rings.
He spoke his love in burning phrase, And acted foolish forty ways.
When he had gone Maud gave a laugh And then turned off the dictagraph.
--_Milwaukee Sentinel_.
One day a hostess asked a well known Parisian judge: "Your Honor, which do you prefer, Burgundy or Bordeaux?"
"Madame, that is a case in which I have so much pleasure in taking the evidence that I always postpone judgment," was the wily jurist"s reply.