CLUBS
Belle and Ben had just announced their engagement.
"When we are married," said Belle, "I shall expect you to shave every morning. It"s one of the rules of the club I belong to that none of its members shall marry a man who won"t shave every morning."
"Oh, that"s all right," replied Ben; "but what about the mornings I don"t get home in time? I belong to a club, too."--_M.A. Hitchc.o.c.k_.
The guest landing at the yacht club float with his host, both of them wearing oilskins and sou"-westers to protect them from the drenching rain, inquired:
"And who are those gentlemen seated on the veranda, looking so spick and span in their white duck yachting caps and trousers, and keeping the waiters running all the time?"
"They"re the rocking-chair members. They never go outside, and they"re waterproof inside."
One afternoon thirty ladies met at the home of Mrs. Lyons to form a woman"s club. The hostess was unanimously elected president. The next day the following ad appeared in the newspaper:
"Wanted--a reliable woman to take care of a baby. Apply to Mrs. J. W.
Lyons."
COAL DEALERS
In a Kansas town where two brothers are engaged in the retail coal business a revival was recently held and the elder of the brothers was converted. For weeks he tried to persuade his brother to join the church. One day he asked:
"Why can"t you join the church like I did?"
"It"s a fine thing for you to belong to the church," replied the younger brother, "If I join the church who"ll weigh the coal?"
COEDUCATION
The speaker was waxing eloquent, and after his peroration on woman"s rights he said: "When they take our girls, as they threaten, away from the coeducational colleges, what will follow? What will follow, I repeat?"
And a loud, masculine voice in the audience replied: "I will!"
COFFEE
Among the coffee-drinkers a high place must be given to Bismarck. He liked coffee unadulterated. While with the Prussian Army in France he one day entered a country inn and asked the host if he had any chicory in the house. He had. Bismarck said--"Well, bring it to me; all you have." The man obeyed and handed Bismarck a canister full of chicory.
"Are you sure this is all you have?" demanded the Chancellor. "Yes, my lord, every grain." "Then," said Bismarck, keeping the canister by him, "go now and make me a pot of coffee."
COINS
He had just returned from Paris and said to his old aunt in the country: "Here, Aunt, is a silver franc piece I brought you from Paris as a souvenir."
"Thanks, Herman," said the old lady. "I wish you"d thought to have brought me home one of them Latin quarters I read so much about."
COLLECTING OF ACCOUNTS
An enterprising firm advertised: "All persons indebted to our store are requested to call and settle. All those indebted to our store and not knowing it are requested to call and find out. Those knowing themselves indebted and not wishing to call, are requested to stay in one place long enough for us to catch them."
"Sir," said the haughty American to his adhesive tailor, "I object to this boorish dunning. I would have you know that my great-great-grandfather was one of the early settlers."
"And yet," sighed the anxious tradesman, "there are people who believe in heredity."
A retail dealer in buggies doing business in one of the large towns in northern Indiana wrote to a firm in the east ordering a carload of buggies. The firm wired him:
"Cannot ship buggies until you pay for your last consignment."
"Unable to wait so long," wired back the buggy dealer, "cancel order."
The saddest words of tongue or pen May be perhaps, "It might have been,"
The sweetest words we know, by heck, Are only these "Enclosed find check!"
--_Minne-Ha-Ha_.
COLLECTORS AND COLLECTING
Sir Walter Raleigh had called to take a cup of tea with Queen Elizabeth.
"It was very good of you, Sir Walter," said her Majesty, smiling sweetly upon the gallant Knight, "to ruin your cloak the other day so that my feet should not be wet by that horrid puddle. May I not instruct my Lord High Treasurer to reimburse you for it?"