At the bedside of a patient who was a noted humorist, five doctors were in consultation as to the best means of producing a perspiration.
The sick man overheard the discussion, and, after listening for a few moments, he turned his head toward the group and whispered with a dry chuckle:
"Just send in your bills, gentlemen; that will bring it on at once."
"Thank Heaven, those bills are got rid of," said Bilkins, fervently, as he tore up a bundle of statements of account dated October 1st.
"All paid, eh?" said Mrs. Bilkins.
"Oh, no," said Bilkins. "The duplicates dated November 1st have come in and I don"t have to keep these any longer."
BIRTHDAYS
When a man has a birthday he takes a day off, but when a woman has a birthday she takes a year off.
BLUFFING
Francis Wilson, the comedian, says that many years ago when he was a member of a company playing "She Stoops to Conquer," a man without any money, wishing to see the show, stepped up to the box-office in a small town and said:
"Pa.s.s me in, please."
The box-office man gave a loud, harsh laugh.
"Pa.s.s you in? What for?" he asked.
The applicant drew himself up and answered haughtily:
"What for? Why, because I am Oliver Goldsmith, author of the play."
"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir," replied the box-office man, as he hurriedly wrote out an order for a box.
BLUNDERS
An early morning customer in an optician"s shop was a young woman with a determined air. She addressed the first salesman she saw. "I want to look at a pair of eyegla.s.ses, sir, of extra magnifying power."
"Yes, ma"am," replied the salesman; "something very strong?"
"Yes, sir. While visiting in the country I made a very painful blunder which I never want to repeat."
"Indeed! Mistook a stranger for an acquaintance?"
"No, not exactly that; I mistook a b.u.mblebee for a black-berry."
The ship doctor of an English liner notified the death watch steward, an Irishman, that a man had died in stateroom 45. The usual instructions to bury the body were given. Some hours later the doctor peeked into the room and found that the body was still there. He called the Irishman"s attention to the matter and the latter replied:
"I thought you said room 46. I wint to that room and noticed wan of thim in a bunk. "Are ye dead?" says I. "No," says he, "but I"m pretty near dead."
"So I buried him."
Telephone girls sometimes glory in their mistakes if there is a joke in consequence. The story is told by a telephone operator in one of the Boston exchanges about a man who asked her for the number of a local theater.
He got the wrong number and, without asking to whom he was talking, he said, "Can I get a box for two to-night?"
A startled voice answered him at the other end of the line, "We don"t have boxes for two."
"Isn"t this the ---- Theater?" he called crossly.
"Why, no," was the answer, "this is an undertaking shop."
He canceled his order for a "box for two."
A good Samaritan, pa.s.sing an apartment house in the small hours of the morning, noticed a man leaning limply against the doorway.
"What"s the matter?" he asked, "Drunk?"
"Yep."
"Do you live in this house?"
"Yep."
"Do you want me to help you upstairs?"
"Yep."
With much difficulty he half dragged, half carried the drooping figure up the stairway to the second floor.
"What floor do you live on?" he asked. "Is this it?"
"Yep."
Rather than face an irate wife who might, perhaps, take him for a companion more at fault than her spouse, he opened the first door he came to and pushed the limp figure in.