"Willie," said the teacher sternly, "what did I whip you for yesterday?"

"Fer lyin'," promptly answered Willie; "an' I was jest wonderin' who was goin' to whip you."

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes, for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain one.—Pope.

A Boston minister once noticed a crowd of urchins clustered around a dog of doubtful pedigree.

"What are you doing, my little men?" he asked, with fatherly interest.

"Swappin' lies," volunteered one of the boys. "The feller that tells the biggest one gets the purp."

"Shocking!" exclaimed the minister. "Why, when I was your age I never thought of telling an untruth."

"Youse win," chorused the urchins. "The dog's yours, mister."

A man may tell the same lie about the same thing to the same man seven times seven, and be accounted truthful. Let him vary in but the merest detail and he is a liar. Such is the patent gullibility of a too conscientious world.

An evangelist who was conducting services announced that on the following evening he would speak on the subject of "Liars." He advised his hearers to read in advance the seventeenth chapter of Mark.

The next night he arose and said: "I am going to preach on 'Liars' tonight and I would like to know how many read the chapter I suggested." A hundred hands were upraised.

"Now," he said, "you are the very persons I want to talk to—there isn't any seventeenth chapter of Mark."

A Sunday school teacher asked a small girl the other day why Ananias was so severely punished. The little one thought a minute, then answered: "Please, teacher, they weren't so used to lying in those days."

"Does your husband ever lie to you?"

"Never."

"How do you know?"

"He tells me that I do not look a day older than I did when he married me, and if he doesn't lie about that, I don't think he would about less important matters."

"Do you really mean to call me a liar?" asked one rival railroad man of another railroad man, during a dispute on business they had on Austin Avenue yesterday.

"No, Colonel, I don't mean to call you a liar. On the contrary, I say you are the only man in town who tells the truth all the time, but I'm offering a reward of $25 and a chromo to any other man who will say he believes me when I say you never lie," was the response.

"Well, I'm glad you took it back," replied the other party, as they shook.—A. E. Sweet.

See also Husband; Real estate agents; Regrets.



LIBERTY BONDS

"We accept Liberty Bonds at their full value for all goods."

Thus reads a placard in the window of a wholesale liquor house. We have often wondered what the height of damphoolishness might be, having tried various things, but there it is: Exchanging a Liberty Bond for booze.



LIBRARIANS

The Reference Librarian

At times behind a desk he sits, At times about the room he flits— Folks interrupt his perfect ease By asking questions such as these: "How tall was prehistoric man?" "How old, I pray, was Sister Ann?"

"Perhaps," commented her husband's bookish friend, "you should be thankful you did not find him with his nose in 'The Inside of the Cup!'"

"What should one do if cats have fits?" "What woman first invented mitts?" "Who said 'To labor is to pray?'" "How much did Daniel Lambert weigh?" "Don't you admire E. P. Roe?" "What is the fare to Kokomo?" "Have you a life of Sairy Gamp?" "Can you lend me a postage-stamp?" "Have you the rimes of Edward Lear?" "What wages do they give you here?" "What dictionary is the best?" "Did Brummell wear a satin vest?" "How do you spell 'anemic,' please?" "What is a Gorgonzola cheese?" "Who ferried souls across the Styx?" "What is the square of 96?" "Are oysters good to eat in March?" "Are green bananas full of starch?" "Where is that book I used to see?" "I guess you don't remember me?" "Haf you Der Hohenzollernspiel?" "Where shall I put this apple peel?" "Ou est, m'sie, la grand Larousse?" "Do you say 'two-spot,' or 'the deuce'?" "Come, find my book—why make a row?" "A red one—can't you find it now?" "Please, which is right? to 'lend' or 'loan'?" "Say, mister, where's the telephone?" "How do you use this catalog?" "Oh, hear that noise! Is that my dog?" "Have you a book called 'Shapes of Fear'?" "You mind if I leave baby here?"

—Edmund Lester Pearson

It was at the public library. A small shaver clutched a well-worn, dirty volume. At last it came his turn to place his volume for the inspection of the librarian. The suspense was great, but finally the librarian leaned forward. Taking in the size of the boy and then glancing back at the book she remarked, "This is rather technical, isn't it?"

Planting his feet firmly on the floor, the boy, half-defiant, half-apologetic, retorted, "It was that way when I got it, ma'am."

"My husband is a most inveterate reader," exclaimed Mrs. Knox with a slight tone of ennui. "He reads until dawn every morning. Why, last night I found him asleep with his nose in 'V.V.'s Eyes!'"

Toast to Librarians

Said the "maker of books" to the "keeper of books," Yours is the task to hold The choice of the changeable minds of men To that which is pure gold.

Yours to watch at the ebb and flow The tides of the public thought— Flotsam or jetsam floating in With the treasure genius brought.

For the unperishable dream of the soul lives on, As the dream of genius must, When the brain which wrought and the hand that wrote Are one with the "daisied dust."

And so with reverent hands may you give To the minds of men in their need, The written word that's the word worth while, So keepers of books—God speed!

Do You Believe In Fairies?

The world is full of people Who are under the impression That libr'ry work in general Is the easiest profession.

"Such nice clean work!" says So-and-So, "And such nice hours too!" "Why, really now," exclaims a girl, "I don't see what you do." "Just sitting reading all the books 'Most all the livelong day. Don't tell me now that just for this The city gives you pay!"

And no one ever stops to think Why it's so quiet there. While they're just sitting at their ease In some nice easy chair. And how the books got on the shelves In just the right, right place, Nor how the "chief" keeps track of each, And with a smiling face.

Oh, mercy no, they seem to think Some fairy passed that way With books from many publishers And when she'd said, "Good day," She catalogued them in a night, And with a bit of glue, Stuck in the pages that were loose, And mended old ones too.

And that she dusted all the shelves, And kept the records straight; So when the year came to an end, She would not be too late In handing in a full report Of just what had been done. (And "full" comprises everything That's underneath the sun).

Oh yes, you'll find them everywhere, Deluded as can be In thinking libr'ry work's a "cinch," And looking longingly At someone's "easy libr'ry job" "With not a thing to do!" But tell me, do you libr'yites Believe in fairies too?

—H.I.B. in the Use of Print.

A certain woman who came in to take out a card, upon being told she must give the name of a friend as reference said, "Why, I have no friends. I was a librarian."

See also Books and reading.



LIBRARIES

The Power-House

Every day I go past the Library on Ludlow Street

I look in the open windows and see the great dynamos.

They have power enough to jazz the earth and throw the planets out of step, but they make no sound.

I saw a girl with shell goggles dusting some of them,

Unterrified by her proximity to such dangerous engines.

Look out, child, look out, don't get too near the Bernard Shaw rheostat or the Walt Whitman fly-wheel.—Christopher Morley.



"May I take this book home please, or isn't it a running book? Oh, I'm so glad, I thought it might be 'for reference only.'"

MAN—"I'd like a book on dramatic expression."

LIBRARIAN—"Oral, of course?"

MAN—"Yes, I don't like poetry."



LIES

Sin has many tools but a lie is the handle that fits them all.—O.W. Holmes.



LIFE

As viewed by the

OPTIMIST PESSIMIST

Love Lies Independence Ingratitude Fun Foolishness Endeavor Exertion

In traveling along a road in a motor car, there will be several cars ahead of you going your way, and there will be several cars coming toward you. Also ahead of you, going your way, there may be a hay wagon or a farmer in a buggy. As you speed along, you look ahead and declare to yourself that there is no logical way in which you can get through the spaces thus created. Yet the vehicles always form themselves into the right combination, and you pass through easily. This is the way with life. There are always obstacles that you do not see how you can pass without a smash-up. But you always get by.

"Stop, look, listen!"

The reflective man stopped to read the railroad warning.

"Those three words illustrate the whole scheme of life," said he.

"How?"

"You see a pretty girl; you stop; you look; after you marry her, and for the rest of your life, you listen."

The Magician

Life has such a subtle way Of forming roses out of clay;

Of taking tears that seemed in vain And making of them April rain;

Of getting from a heedless rafter Echoes of dead bits of laughter;

Of welding in a sunset sea Lost loveliness and imagery;

Of making out of crawling things Butterflies with airy wings.

Life has such a subtle way Of turning darkness into day;

Of bringing music, ocean-old, To newness of a tale untold;

And then, grown jealous of its trust, Of changing roses back to dust.

—Vivian Yeiser Laramore.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.—Emerson.

Life Is No Problem

Life is no problem to the heart That understands itself, That does not sit above, apart Upon some higher shelf.

And moralize on destiny And other things obscure, But has no more philosophy Than changeless love and pure.

Life is no problem to the mind That knows the way to live The habit just of being kind, The joy of just to give.

Life is no mystery at all To those who do not doubt But take this life as life befall And smile and live it out.

Do not with theories concern Yourself as on you go; There is but little we can learn, But little we can know.

Life is to live, to take the sweet The hidden fates have sent, To live each day the day you meet And try to be content.

So do not seek to tear the veil And read the heart of God. Enough that He is in the gale And in the velvet sod.

Enough that He has given you The boon of days and years, The world of green, the sky of blue, And sunshine after tears.

—Douglas Mallock.

The Match Box

Life is a Match Box, and the Matches Ambitions, and unstruck desires; Youth the material that catches And kindles in the darkness fires.

And Love is like an idle fellow Who sets the match box in a blaze, And sees the blue flames and the yellow Shoot up and die beneath his gaze.

But Age is like a man returning Late homeward. Creeping in his socks He tries to get a candle burning, And finds he has an empty box.

The seven ages of man have been well tabulated by somebody or other on an acquisitive basis. Thus:

First age—Sees the earth.

Second age—Wants it.

Third age—Hustles to get it.

Fourth age—Decides to be satisfied with only half of it.

Fifth age—Becomes still more moderate.

Sixth age—Now content to possess a six-by-two strip of it.

Seventh age—Gets the strip.

Wisdom

When I have ceased to break my wings Against the faultiness of things, And learned that compromises wait Behind each hardly opened gate, When I can look life in the eyes Grown calm and very coldly wise, Life will have given me the Truth And taken in exchange—My Youth.

—Sara Teasdale.



LISPING

A young lady who lisped very badly was treated by a specialist, and learned to say the sentence: "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers."

She repeated it to her friends, and was praised upon her masterly performance.

"Yeth, but ith thuth an ectheedingly difficult remark to work into a converthathion—ethpethially when you conthider that I have no thither Thuthie."



LOGIC

"Sedentary work," said the college lecturer, "tends to lessen the endurance."

"In other words," butted in the smart student, "the more one sits the less one can stand."

"Exactly," retorted the lecturer; "and if one lies a great deal one's standing is lost completely."

Two men were hotly discussing the merits of a book. Finally, one of them, himself an author, said to the other: "No, John, you can't appreciate it. You never wrote a book yourself."

"No," retorted John, "and I never laid an egg, but I'm a better judge of an omelet than any hen."



LONDON

A teacher asked her class to write an essay on London. She was surprised to read the following in one attempt:

"The people of London are noted for their stupidity."

The young author was asked how he got that idea.

"Please, miss," was the reply, "it says in the text-books the population of London is very dense."

"Hiram writes that the first day he was in London he lost L12."

"Great Caesar's ghost! Ain't they got any health laws in that town?"



LOST AND FOUND

OLD GENTLEMAN (in street car)—"Has anyone here dropped a roll of bills, with a rubber elastic around them?"

"Yes, I have!" cried a dozen at once.

OLD GENTLEMAN (calmly)—"Well, I've just picked up the elastic."

"Cohn, I've lost my pocketbook."

"Have you looked by your pockets?"

"Sure, all but der left-hand hip pocket."

"Vell, vy don't you look in dot?"

"Because if it ain't dere I'll drop dead!"

The following exchange of courtesy was recently chronicled in a German paper's advertisements:

"The gentleman who found a brown purse, containing a sum of money, in the Blumenstrasse, is requested to forward it to the address of the loser, as he is recognized."

A couple of days later appeared the response, which, altho courteous, had an elusive air, to say the least:

"The recognized gentleman who picked up a brown purse in the Blumenstrasse requests the loser to call at his house at a convenient day."

A small boy came hurriedly down the street, and halted breathlessly in front of a stranger going in the same direction.

"Have you lost half a crown?" he asked with his hand in his pocket.

"Y-es, yes, I believe I have!" said the stranger feeling in his pockets. "Have you found one?"

"Oh, no," said the small boy. "I just want to see how many have been lost today. Yours makes fifty-four!"

The young lady from New York was inclined to belittle things.

"Why," she remarked, "I could find my way up this mountain path alone."

"Wal," responded the native, "a young couple went up this path last year and never came back."

"Oh, my! Were they lost?"

"Nope," was the reply, "they went down the other side!"

The other day when the beach was crowded, a small boy, looking rather bewildered, approached a police officer and said, "Please, sir, have you seen anything of a lady around here?"

"Why, yes," answered the officer, "I've seen several."

"Well, have you seen any without a little boy?"

"Yes."

"Well," said the little chap, as a relieved look crossed his face, "I'm the little boy. Where's the lady?"

One does not mean to be personal, but, if the young man who sat in the chair where a lady had left a dish of maple sugar to cool at the festival the other evening, will return the saucer, he will save himself further trouble.



LOVE

Outwitted

He drew a circle that shut me out Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win, We drew a circle that took him in.

—Edwin Markham.

DAUGHTER—"Oh, father, how grand it is to be alive! The world is too good for anything. Why isn't every one happy?"

FATHER—"Who is he this time?"

EDITH—"How does Fred make love?"

MARIE—"Well, I should define it as unskilled labor."

MAG.—"Wot is 'platonic affection,' Liz? Is it love?"

LIZ.—"Well, no;—it ain't true love! Dere ain't no quarreling in it, ner no fighting, ner worrying, ner hocking, ner drinking, ner getting arrested fer non-support, ner nuthin' wot's really passionate!"

Why

Do you know why the rabbits are caught in the snare Or the tabby cat's shot on the tiles? Why the tigers and lions creep out of their lair? Why an ostrich will travel for miles? Do you know why a sane man will whimper and cry And weep o'er a ribbon or glove? Why a cook will put sugar for salt in a pie? Do you know? Well, I'll tell you—it's Love.

—H.P. Stevens.

PAPA—"Why, hang it, girl, that fellow only earns nine dollars a week!"

PLEADING DAUGHTER—"Yes; but, daddy, dear, a week passes so quickly when you're fond of one another."—Judge.

"Love makes the world go 'round," quoted the Parlor Philosopher.

"Yes, but it has to be cranked," replied the Mere Man. "It isn't a self-starter."

Cupid

Why was Cupid a boy, And why a boy was he? He should have been a girl, For aught that I can see.

For he shoots with his bow, And a girl shoots with her eye; And they both are merry and glad, And laugh when we do cry.

Then to make Cupid a boy Was surely a woman's plan, For a boy never learns so much Till he has become a man.

And then he's so pierced with cares, And wounded with arrowy smarts, That the whole business of his life Is to pick out the heads of the darts.

—William Blake.

Partake of love as a temperate man partakes of wine: do not become intoxicated.—A. de Musset.



LUCK

VICAR—"Nothing to be thankful for! Why, think of poor old Hodge losing his wife through the flu!"

GILES—"Well, that don't do me no good. I ain't Hodge."

Good luck is the gayest of all gay girls; Long in one place she will not stay: Back from your brow she strokes the curls, Kisses you quick and flies away.

But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes And stays—no fancy has she for flitting; Snatches of true-love songs she hums, And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting.

—John Hay.

YOUNG SON—"What is luck, father?"

FATHER—"Luck, my son, is something that enables another fellow to succeed where we have failed."



MAGAZINES

History of the Magazine Story

July 27, 1914—Author finishes it.

Aug. 3, 1914—Rewrites, giving incidental war slant.

May 9, 1915—Rewrites; hero rescues heroine from torpedoed liner.

Apr. 7, 1917—Rewrites; hero enlists; villain, German spy.

Nov. 13, 1918—Rewrites; denouement, allied entrance into Berlin; heroine, Red Cross nurse.

Nov. 13, 1918—Rewrites; climax, homecoming from overseas.

Aug. 15, 1919—War fiction going stale; goes back to original story, retaining only German villain.

Jan. 1, 1923—Rewrites; takes out German villain.

Apr. 1, 1934—Author in old people's home; sells original story to Cozy Hearth; editor features it as "charming romance of life before the war."

EDITOR (surveying summer landscape)—"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun!"

FRIEND—"But, I say, that was written about autumn, wasn't it?"

EDITOR—"Yes, yes, I know—but you must remember that we always go to press four months in advance!"

It was the first of January when a stranger entered the offices of Pushup's Monthly Magazine.

"Gracious, but it is hot in here!" he remarked to a man in his shirt sleeves, who was mopping his face with a handkerchief.

"Some," was the terse reply of the man, who was no other than the famous editor himself.

"What are all those flowers, straw hats and palm-leaf fans scattered about for?"

"Oh, to give a touch of realism;—we are now preparing our great Midsummer Fiction Number," was the great editor's kindly reply.—E.C.H.



MAJORITY

"You don't mean to tell me you ever doubt the wisdom of the majority?"

"Well," responded Senator Sorghum with deliberation, "what is a majority? In many instances it is only a large number of people who have got tired out trying to think for themselves and have decided to accept somebody else's opinion."



MARKSMANSHIP

"Why do you compare my marksmanship with lightning?" asked the recruit.

"Because," replied the instructor, "it never hits twice in the same place."

OFFICER (to recruit)—"Goodness gracious, man, where are all your shots going? Every one has missed the target."

SOLDIER (nervously)—"I don't know, sir. They left here all right."



MARRIAGE

"Hubby, if I were to die would you marry again?"

"That question is hardly fair, my dear."

"Why not?"

"If I were to say yes you wouldn't like it, and to say never again wouldn't sound nice."

THE PHRENOLOGIST—"Yes, sir, by feeling the bumps on your head I can tell exactly what sort of man you are."

MR. DOOLAN—"Oi belave it will give ye more ov an oidea wot sort ov a woman me woife is."—Jack Canuck.

Private Nelson got his leave, and made what he conceived to be the best use of his holiday by getting married.

On the journey back at the station he gave the gateman his marriage certificate in mistake for his return railway ticket.

The official studied it carefully, and then said:

"Yes, my boy, you've got a ticket for a long journey, but not on this road."

NORTH—"I see they're reviving the talk about trial marriages. Do you believe in them?"

WEST—"Well, mine is quite a trial, but I can't say I believe in it especially."

A young fellow took his elderly father to a football match.

"Father," he said as they took their seats, "you'll see more excitement for your five dollars than you ever saw before."

"Oh, I don't know," grunted the old man; "five dollars was all I paid for my marriage license."

George Washington Jones, colored, was trying to enlist in Uncle Sam's army, and the following conversation ensued with the recruiting officer:

"Name?"

"George Washington Jones, sah."

"Age?"

"I'se twenty-seven years old, sah."

"Married?"

"No, sah. Dat scar on mah haid is whar a mule done kicked me."

If marriage is a lottery, As saw smiths often say, The lucky gambler is, of course, The one who doesn't play.

—Tennyson J. Daft.

At the wedding reception the young man remarked: "Wasn't it annoying the way that baby cried during the whole ceremony?"

"It was simply dreadful," replied the prim little maid of honor; "and when I get married I'm going to have engraved right in the corner of the invitations: 'No babies expected.'"

"The man who gives in when he is wrong," said the street orator, "is a wise man; but he who gives in when he is right is—"

"Married!" said a meek voice in the crowd.

Mrs. Killifer desired that the picture be hung to the right of the door; Mr. Killifer wanted it hung to the left. For once the husband proved to be the more insistent of the two, and Henry, the colored man, was summoned to hang the picture according to Mr. Killifer's order.

Henry drove in a nail on the left. This done, he also drove one in the wall on the right.

"Why are you driving that second nail?" asked Mr. Killifer.

"Why, boss, dat's to save me de trouble of bringin' de ladder tomorrow when you come round to de missus's way of thinkin'," said Henry.

Mr. Brown met Mr. Jones on the street.

"Any news, Brown?" asked Jones.

"Nothing special. I've just been reading the Sunday paper. And I find one peculiar thing in it that may be news to you."

"What is it?"

"The Sunday paper says that women in ancient Egypt used to act as they pleased, live as they pleased, and dress as they pleased, without regard to what the men thought. Lucky we don't live in those times, what?"

"Mr. Brown, are you married?"

"What has that got to do with it? As a matter of fact, I'm not."

"I thought not."

"She calls her dog and her husband by the same pet name. It must cause frequent confusion."

"Not at all. She always speaks gently to the dog."

"Pa, a man's wife is his better half, isn't she?"

"We are told so, my son."

"Then if a man marries twice there isn't anything left of him, is there?"

How the Row Started

MR. BROWN—"I had a queer dream last night, my dear. I thought I saw another man running off with you."

MRS. BROWN—"And what did you say to him?"

MR. BROWN—"I asked him what he was running for."

Uncle Josh was comfortably lighting his pipe in the living-room one evening when Aunt Maria glanced up from her knitting.

"John," she remarked, "do you know that next Sunday will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of our wedding?"

"You don't say so, Maria!" responded Uncle Josh, pulling vigorously on his corncob pipe. "What about it?"

"Nothing," answered Aunt Maria, "only I thought maybe we ought to kill them two Rhode Island Red chickens."

"But, Maria," demanded Uncle Josh, "how can you blame them two Rhode Island Reds for what happened twenty-five years ago?"

GARDENER—"I am going to leave, sir. I can't stand the Missus!"

EMPLOYER—"Too strict, is she?"

GARDENER—"Yes, sir. She keeps forgetting that I can leave any time, and bosses me about just as if I was you!"

"Get away from here or I'll call my husband," threatened the hard-faced woman who had just refused the tramp some food.

"Oh, no, you won't," replied the tramp, "because he ain't home."

"How do you know?" asked the woman.

"Because," answered the man as he sidled toward the gate, "a man who marries a woman like you is only home at meal times."

FRIENDLY CONSTABLE—"Come, come, sir, pull yourself together; your wife's calling you."

CONVIVIAL GENT—"Wha' she call-calling me; Billy or William?"

CONSTABLE—"William, sir."

CONVIVIAL GENT—"Then I'm not going home."

HUSBAND (angrily)—"What! no supper ready? This is the limit! I'm going to a restaurant."

WIFE—"Wait just five minutes."

HUSBAND—"Will it be ready then?"

WIFE—"No, but then I'll go with you."

"Why have I never married?" the old bachelor said in reply to a leading question. "Well, once upon a time, in a crowd, I trod on a lady's gown. She turned furiously, beginning, 'You clumsy brute!' Then she smiled sweetly and said, 'Oh, I beg pardon! I thought you were my husband! No; it really doesn't matter in the least.'

"And when I came to think it over, I decided that maybe I'd just as well let marriage alone."

"I hear the sea captain is in hard luck. He married a girl and she ran away from him."

"Yes; he took her for a mate, but she was a skipper."

FORTUNE-TELLER—"You wish to know about your future husband?"

CUSTOMER—"No; I wish to know about the past of my present husband for future use."

"Do you act toward your wife as you did before you married her?"

"Exactly. I remember just how I used to act when I first fell in love with her. I used to lean over the fence in front of her house and gaze at her shadow on the curtain, afraid to go in. And I act just the same way now when I get home late."

"Marriage is a lottery."

"Not exactly," commented Miss Cayenne. "When you lose in a lottery it's an easy matter to tear up the ticket and forget it."

Lightning knocked over three men who were sitting on boxes in front of Sawyer's store yesterday. One of them was knocked senseless; the other two exclaimed, "Leggo! I'm comin' right home."

TEACHER—"In what part of the Bible is it taught that a man should have only one wife?"

LITTLE BOY—"I guess it's the part that says that no man can serve more than one master."

The trouble with most marriages is that a man always makes the mistake of marrying the woman who carries him off his feet—instead of trying to find one who will keep him on them.

CONDUCTOR (to passenger of Pullman)—"Excuse me, sir. Is this lady your wife?"

PASSENGER—"I don't know. It depends upon what State we are passing through."—Life.

"I'm thinking of getting married, pa. What's it like?"

"You had a job as janitor once, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And you had a position as watchman once, didn't you?"

"And you worked a while as a caretaker, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's a combination of all three jobs—and then some."

The archbishop had preached a fine sermon on married life and its beauties. Two old Irishwomen were heard coming out of church commenting on the address.

"'Tis a fine sermon his Riverence would be after giving us," said one to the other.

"It is, indade," was the quick reply, "and I wish I knew as little about the matter as he does."—Life.

A young Swede appeared at the county judge's office and asked for a license.

"What kind of a license?" asked the judge. "A hunting license?"

"No," was the answer. "Aye tank aye bane hunting long enough. Aye want marriage license."

The young man sidled into the jeweler's shop with a furtive air. He handed the jeweler a ring with the stammered statement that he wished it marked "with some names."

"What names do you wish?" inquired the jeweler in a sympathetic tone.

"From Henry to Clara," the young man blushingly whispered.

The jeweler looked from the ring to the young man, and said in a fatherly manner: "Take my advice, young man, and have it engraved simply, 'From Henry.'"

JUDGE—"The police say that you and your wife had some words."

PRISONER—"I had some, but didn't get a chance to use them."—Puck.

At the end of three weeks of married life, a Southern darky returned to the minister who had performed the ceremony and asked for a divorce. After explaining that he could not grant divorces, the minister tried to dissuade his visitor from carrying out his intention of getting one saying:

"You must remember, Sam, that you promised to take Liza for better or for worse."

"Yassir, I knows dat, boss," rejoined the darky; "but—but she's wuss dan I took her for."

In one of the big base hospitals of the Army not long ago a new librarian was set to work by the American Library Association. She was a very charming young woman, and very anxious to please all of her "customers," tho some of them didn't even wish to look at a book. In her rounds she approached one of the patients and he declined to be interested in her wares. At the next cot she stopped and offered its occupant a book.

"What's it about?" the patient asked.

"Oh, this is 'Bambi,'" said the librarian. "It's about a girl who married a man without his having anything to say about it."

"Hold on there," shouted the man who had declined all books. He raised himself up on his elbow and reached out his hand. "Give me that book. It's my autobiography."

Miss SNOWFLAKE—"What did Jim Jackson git married for?"

Miss WASHTUBB—"Lawd only knows;—he keeps right on workin'!"

The beautiful young woman interviewed a fortune-teller on the usual subjects.

"Lady," said the clairvoyant, "you will visit foreign lands, and the courts of kings and queens. You will conquer all rivals and marry the man of your choice. He will be tall and dark and aristocratic looking."

"And young?" interrupted the lady.

"Yes, and very rich."

The beautiful lady grasped the fortune teller's hands and pressed them hard.

"Thank you," she said. "Now tell me one thing more. How shall I get rid of my present husband?"

Miss Milly was rather a talkative young lady. Her bosom friend, having missed her for some time, called to find out the reason.

"No, mum, Miss Milly is not in," the maid informed her.

"She has gone to the class."

"Why, what class?" inquired the caller in surprize.

"Well, mum, you know Miss Milly is getting married soon, so she's taking a course of lessons in domestic silence."

Mrs. Peavish says that if it were to do over again, no man need ever ask for her hand until he had shown his.

In London they tell of a certain distinguished statesman who is an optimist on all points save marriage.

One afternoon this statesman was proceeding along a country road when he saw a cottager eating his supper alone in the road before his dwelling.

"Why, Henry," asked the statesman, "why are you eating out here alone?"

"Well, sir, er—" the man stammered, "the—er—chimney smokes."

"That's too bad," said the statesman, his philanthropic sentiments at once being aroused. "I'll have it fixed for you. Let's have a look at it."

And before the cottager could stay him the statesman proceeded to enter the cottage. As soon as he had opened the door a broomstick fell upon his shoulders and a woman's voice shrieked:

"Back here again, are you, you old rascal! Clear out with you, or I'll—"

The statesman retired precipitately. The cottager sat in the road shaking his head in sorrow and embarrassment. The statesman bent over him, and laid his hand in kindly fashion on his arm.

"Never mind, Henry," said he, consolingly, "my chimney smokes sometimes, too."—Harper's.

NODD—"Are you sure your wife knows I'm going home to dinner with you?"

TODD—"Knows! Well, rather! Why, my dear fellow, I argued with her about it this morning for nearly half an hour."—Life.

A recent experience of a Virginia clergyman throws light on the old English law requiring that marriages should be celebrated before noon. A colored couple appeared before him, asking to be married, the man in a considerably muddled state. The minister said to the woman, "I won't perform this ceremony."

"Why is dat, boss?" she queried. "Ain't de license all right? An' we is of age."

"Yes, but the man is drunk. Take him away and come back again." Several days later the couple again presented themselves, the man once more obviously intoxicated. "See here, I told you I wouldn't marry you when this man was drunk," the minister said testily. "Don't you come back here till he's sober."

"Well, you see, suh," the woman replied apologetically, "de trufe is dat he won't come less'n he's lit up."

"Well," cried Mrs. Henpeck, "our son is engaged to be married. We will write to the dear lad and congratulate him."

Mr. Henpeck agreed (he dare not do otherwise), and his wife picked up the pen.

"My darling boy," read the son; "what glorious news! Your father and I rejoice in your happiness. It has long been our greatest wish that you should marry some good woman. A good woman is Heaven's most precious gift to man. She brings out all the best in him and helps him to suppress all that is evil."

Then there was a postscript in a different handwriting:

"Your mother has gone for a stamp. Keep single, you young noodle."—Judge.

"Women always have and always will keep men guessing," declares the Wathena (Kan.) Times. "A Wathena merchant employed a homely girl because he thought he could keep her. Within a few months a young man married her for the same reason."

A prominent New York debutante recently ordered "four seats on the aisle" at the theater. When her party arrived at the performance, they were surprised to find themselves arranged in a column instead of a row. Nothing daunted, the debutante turned to a bored, middle-aged man next to her. Surely he would not mind changing with her friend in front.

"I beg your pardon," she said politely.

No reply. He must be deaf.

"I beg your pardon," she repeated louder.

Still no reply.

"I beg your pardon," she said, bumping his elbow.

He took out a pencil and wrote on his program:

"That's my wife on the other side of me. Safety first."

Man puts up with marriage in order to get a certain girl—a girl puts up with a certain man in order to get married.

In the old days man used to marry woman for a dot—now he marries her for a period.

Marriage may be likened to a subscription to a favorite magazine—it is something that should be renewed each year if it is not to expire.

A married woman said to her husband: "You have never taken me to the cemetery."

"No, dear," replied he; "that is a pleasure I have yet in anticipation."

A man of perhaps 55, wearing a rough peajacket, showing glimpses of a soiled pink silk shirt, with a rubber collar, approached and in confiding tones asked for a book for a "widow past 50 who is thinking of getting married." The assistant proceeded to inquire as to what kind of a story he thought she might like. "Oh," he said, "what I want is a story that will kind o' cheer her up."

See also Domestic finance; Husbands; Leap year.



MASCOTS

"Does a rabbit's foot really bring good luck?"

"I should say so. My wife felt one in my money pocket once and thought it was a mouse."



MATHEMATICS

See Arithmetic.



MATRIMONY

See Marriage.



MEASURING INSTRUMENTS

A two-foot rule was given to a laborer in a Clyde boat-yard to measure an iron plate. The laborer not being well up in the use of the rule, after spending considerable time, returned.

"Now, Mick," asked the plater, "what size is the plate?"

"Well," replied Mick, with a grin of satisfaction, "it's the length of your rule and two thumbs over, with this piece of brick and the breadth of my hand and my arm from here to there, bar a finger."—Everybody's.



MEDALS

A well-known admiral—a stickler for uniform—stopped opposite a very portly sailor whose medal-ribbon was an inch or so too low down. Fixing the man with his eye, the admiral asked: "Did you get that medal for eating, my man?"

On the man replying "No, sir," the admiral rapped out: "Then why the deuce do you wear it on your stomach?"



MEDICAL ETHICS

Not so very long ago a certain attorney was quite ill. A doctor was summoned, but directly he arrived and got one look at his patient he said, "Sorry, but you'll have to call another doctor."

"Am I as sick as all that?" gasped the attorney.

"No, but you're the lawyer that cross-examined me when I was called to give expert testimony in a certain case. Now my conscience won't permit me to kill you, but I'm darned if I care to cure you. Good day."



MEDICINE

DOCTOR—"What? Troubled with sleeplessness? Eat something before going to bed."

PATIENT—"Why doctor, you once told me never to eat anything before going to bed."

DOCTOR (with dignity)—"Pooh, pooh! That was last January. Science has made enormous strides since then."

GIRL (to druggist)—"Could you fix me a dose of castor oil so as the oil won't taste?"

DRUGGIST—"Certainly! Won't you have a glass of soda while waiting?" (She drinks the soda.)

DRUGGIST—"Something else, miss?"

GIRL—"No, just the oil."

DRUGGIST—"But you have just drank it."

GIRL—"Oh! It was for my mother."

"Are you of the opinion, James," asked a slim-looking man of his companion, "that Dr. Smith's medicine does any good?"

"Not unless you follow the directions."

"What are the directions?"

"Keep the bottle tightly corked."



MEMORY

Most of us forget to remember; it is harder, far, to remember to forget. And the more one endeavors to forget, the more memory insists.

"So you really think your memory is improving under treatment. You remember things now?"

"Well, not exactly, but I have progressed so far that I can frequently remember that I have forgotten something, if I could only remember what it is."

A school-teacher who had been telling a class of small pupils the story of discovery of America by Columbus, ended it with: "And all this happened more than six hundred years ago."

A little boy, his eyes wide open with wonder, said, after a moment's thought: "Gee, what a memory you've got!"

A Thing Forgotten

White owl is not gloomy; Black bat is not sad. It is only that each has forgotten Something he used to remember: Black bat goes searching ... searching.... White owl says over and over Who? What? Where?

WALTER—"Mr. Smith's left his umbrella again. I do believe he would leave his head if it were loose."

ROBINSON—"I dare say you're right. I heard him say only yesterday he was going to Switzerland for his lungs."

Rose, the garrulous domestic, can give you facts of history—international, dramatic, scandalous—right off the bat without a moment's hesitation.

"How do you manage to remember all these things, Rose?" inquired her employer the other day.

Then Rose came back with the infallible rule for memory training.

"I'll tell ye, ma'am," says she. "All me life never a lie I've told. And when ye don't have to be taxin' yer memory to be rememberin' what ye told this one or that one, or how ye explained this or that, ye don't overwork it and it lasts ye, good as new, forever."

"What brought you here, my man?" asked the prison visitor.

"Just plain absent-mindedness," replied the prisoner.

"Why, how could that be?"

"I forgot to change the engine number of the car before I sold it."



MEN

"Daughter," said the father, "your young man, Rawlings, stays until a very late hour. Has not your mother said something to you about this habit of his?"

"Yes, father," replied the daughter sweetly. "Mother says men haven't altered a bit."

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.—Arabian proverb.

For every woman who makes a fool out of a man there is another woman who makes a man out of a fool.

The ideal man is as numerous as there are women to describe him.

If a woman is an hour late in returning home, and her husband is worried, she is flattered. If a man is three hours late he is angry if anyone is worried.

He was fond of playing jokes on his wife, and this time he thought he had a winner.

"My dear," he said, as they sat at supper, "I just heard such a sad story of a young girl today. They thought she was going blind, and so a surgeon operated on her and found—"

"Yes?" gasped the wife breathlessly.

"That she'd got a young man in her eye!" ended the husband, with a chuckle.

For a moment there was silence. Then the lady remarked, slowly:

"Well, it would all depend on what sort of a man it was. Some of them she could have seen through easily enough."

A little girl wrote the following composition on men:

"Men are what women marry. They drink and smoke and swear, but don't go to church. Perhaps if they wore bonnets they would. They are more logical than women, also more zoological. Both men and women sprang from monkeys, but the women sprang farther than the men."

Essay on Man

At ten, a child; at twenty, wild; At thirty, tame, if ever; At forty, wise; at fifty, rich; At sixty, good, or never!

See also Husbands.



METHODISTS

He came of good Methodist stock and they were telling him about the disciples. They told him quite a lot about them, and somehow he didn't seem quite satisfied.

At last he voiced his trouble:

"But were they all Disciples? Weren't there any Methodists?"



MIDDLEMAN

"The first shall be last and the last shall be first," quoted the devout citizen.

"It makes no difference to me how you arrange 'em," replied the expert commercialist. "I'll get mine either way. I'm the middleman."

"Pop!"

"Yes, my son."

"What is a gardener?"

"A gardener is a man who raises a few things, my boy."

"And what is a farmer?"

"A man who raises a lot of things."

"Well, what is a middleman, Pop?"

"Why, he's a fellow who raises everything, my son."



MILITARISM

VILLAGE PACIFIST (as the Salvation Army passes)—"Oh, it's all right. I ain't sayin' 'taint. But it's fosterin' th' martial speerit jes' th' same."—Judge.



MILITARY DISCIPLINE

A colored gentleman was walking post for the first time in his life. A dark form approached him.

"Halt!" he cried in a threatening tone. "Who are you?"

"The officer of the day."

"Advance!"

The O.D. advanced, but before he had proceeded half a dozen steps the dusky sentinel again cried, "Halt!"

"This is the second time you have halted me," observed the O.D. "What are you going to do next?"

"Never you mind what Ah's gonna do. Mah orders are to call 'Halt!' three times, den shoot."

At twelve the other night one of our aviators who had liberty until ten-thirty was "hot-footin'" it back from a hop harbor in a neighboring ville. He passed the tracks, the "Y," and then started on the double past the sentry at the gate.

"Halt!" commanded the sentry.

"Halt nothin'," yelled the gob; "I'm two hours late now."

The railings of a big transport on its way to France were lined with very new soldiers when a massive gob hurried by, bent upon some urgent duty.

"Gangway! Gangway!" he shouted as he passed along the deck.

"Gee, that guy'll catch hell when they find him," murmured one of the recruits. "They been hollerin' for him all mornin.'"

"Hollerin' for who?"

"Why, that guy Gangway."

FRIEND—"How's your boy getting on in the army, Mr. Johnson?"

JOHNSON—"Wonderful! I feel a sense of great security. An army that can make my boy get up early, work hard all day, and go to bed early can do anything!"

He was a very young officer, who looked as if he should be wearing knee breeches.

One day when his company was up for inspection at the training camp, one of the men remarked in a tone of deep sarcasm. "And a little child shall lead them."

"The man who said that, step forward," was the immediate command. The entire company stepped out and repeated the quotation.

The lieutenant looked up and down the line. "Dismissed," he announced shortly.

The men thought they had gotten the better of him, but not for long, for that night at retreat when the orders for the following day were read they heard: "There will be a twenty-five-mile hike tomorrow with full equipment, and a little child shall lead them—on a damned good horse."

HE—"Have the car ready at the Admiralty at 4:30."

CHAUFFEUSE—"Very well."

HE—"I am accustomed to being addressed as 'My Lord!'"

SHE—"I am accustomed to being addressed as 'My Lady!'"

Aunt Nancy was visiting an army camp and as she approached some rookies were sitting on their heels and then rising to a standing position in perfect unison.

"What are the boys doing now?" she asked.

"Why, those are the setting-up exercises," explained an obliging sergeant.

"Humph," remarked auntie. "Looks to me more like settin' down exercises."

Passing a hand over his forehead, the worried drill-sergeant paused for breath as he surveyed the knock-kneed recruit. Then he pointed a scornful finger. "No," he declared, "you're hopeless. You'll never make a soldier. Look at you now. The top 'alf of your legs is standin' to attention, an' the bottom 'alf is standin' at ease!"

A sergeant was trying to drill a lot of raw recruits, and after working hard for three hours he thought they seemed to be getting into some sort of shape, so decided to test them.

"Right turn!" he cried. Then, before they had ceased to move, came another order, "Left turn!"

One hoodlum left the ranks and started off toward the barracks-room.

"Here, you!" yelled the angry sergeant. "Where are you going?"

"I've had enough," replied the recruit in a disgusted tone. "You don't know your own mind for two minutes runnin'!"

The day after the second draft quota had reached Camp Devens a rookie strolled into camp after dark. As he was going past a sentry, he was challenged.

"Who goes there?"

"Machine gun 301," answered the rookie.

"Advance to be recognized."

"Aw, you don't know me. I've only been here a coupla days."

"How did that private ever get in here?" asked a corporal of a captain as he looked at a boy who seemed to be a physical weakling.

"Walked in backward," said the captain, "and the guard thought he was going out."

"Remember, my son," said his mother as she bade him good-by, "when you get to camp try to be punctual in the mornings, so as not to keep breakfast waiting."—Life.

A young American artist who has just returned from a six-months' job of driving a British ambulance on the war-front in Belgium brings this back, straight from the trenches:

"One cold morning a sign was pushed up above the German trench facing ours, only about fifty yards away, which bore in large letters the words:

"'GOTT MIT UNS!'

"One of our cockney lads, more of a patriot than a linguist, looked at this for a moment and then lampblacked a big sign of his own, which he raised on a stick. It read:

"'WE GOT MITTENS, TOO!'"

"Who goes there?" the sentry challenged.

"Lord Roberts," answered the tipsy recruit.

Again the sentry put the question and received a like answer, whereupon he knocked the offender down. When the latter came to, the sergeant was bending over him. "See here!" said the sergeant, "why didn't you answer right when the sentry challenged you?"

"Holy St. Patrick!" replied the recruit; "if he'd do that to Lord Roberts, what would he do to plain Mike Flanagan?"

A mud-spattered dough-boy slouched into the "Y" hut where an entertainment was in progress and slumped into a front seat.

Firm, kindly, and efficient, a Y.M.C.A. man approached him, saying: "Sorry, buddy, but the entire front section is reserved for officers."

Wearily the youth rose.

"All right," he drawled, "but the one I just got back from wasn't."

A well-dressed stranger strolled up to a colored prisoner, who was taking a long interval of rest between two heaves of a pick.

"Well, Sam, what crime did you commit to be put in those overalls and set under guard?"

"Ah went on a furlong, sah."

"Went on a furlong? You mean you went on a furlough."

"No, boss, it was a sho' nuff furlong. Ah went too fur, and Ah stayed too long."

An officer of the A.E.F. relates the following: "We had a bunch of negro troops on board and it was a terrible experience to them, as most of them had never been away from home before. They were very religious and used to pray all over the ship. One big buck held a prayer right outside my window, thus: 'O Lord, if Thou doesn't do another thing on this trip, call this ocean to attention.'"

CAPTAIN (speaking to raw recruit trying to drill)—"What was your occupation before entering the army?"

ROOKIE—"Traveling salesman, sir."

CAPTAIN—"Stick around; you'll get plenty of orders here."



MILK

"You are charged with selling adulterated milk," said the judge.

"Your Honor, I plead not guilty."

"But the testimony shows that it is 25 per cent water."

"Then it must be high-grade milk," returned the plaintiff. "If your Honor will look up the word 'milk' in your dictionary you will find that it contains from 80 to 90 per cent water. I should have sold it for cream!"

The morning milk delivered at the parsonage was certainly weak, and the head of the household considered it necessary to remonstrate. "Are you aware," he remarked to the milkman, "that we require this milk for the hitherto recognized purposes?"

"I hope so, sir," replied the tradesman.

"That's all right, then," returned the parson gently; "I merely mentioned it in case you may have thought we wanted it for the font."

On the outskirts of Philadelphia is an admirable stock farm. One day last summer some poor children were permitted to go over this farm, and when their inspection was done, to each of them was given a glass of milk. The milk was excellent.

"Well, boys, how do you like it?" the farmer said, when they had drained their glasses.

"Fine," said one little fellow. Then after a pause, he added, "I wisht our milkman kept a cow."



MILLENNIUM

What Will We Do?

What will we do when the good days come— When the prima donna's lips are dumb, And the man who reads us his "little things" Has lost his voice like the girl who sings; When stilled is the breath of the cornet-man, And the shrilling chords of the quartette clan; When our neighbors' children have lost their drums Oh, what will we do when the good time comes? Oh, what will we do in that good blithe time, When the tramp will work—oh, thing sublime! And the scornful dame who stands on your feet Will "Thank you, sir," for the profered seat; And the man you hire to work by the day, Will allow you to do his work your way; And the cook who trieth your appetite Will steal no more than she thinks is right; When the boy you hire will call you "Sir," Instead of "Say" and "Guverner"; When the funny man is humorsome— How can we stand the millennium?

—Robert J. Burdette.



MILLINERS

"Madam," announced the new maid, "your husband is lying unconscious in the reception hall, with a large box beside him and crushing a paper in his hand."

"Ah," cried her mistress in ecstacy, "my new hat has come."



MILLIONAIRES

The Idle Rich

The teacher asked his pupils to write an essay, telling what they would do if they had five million dollars.

Every pupil except little William Powers began writing immediately. William sat idle, twiddling his fingers and watching the flies on the ceiling.

Teacher collected the papers, and William handed in a blank sheet.

"How is this, William?" asked teacher. "Is this your essay? Every other pupil has written two sheets or more, while you have done nothing!"

"Well," replied William, "that's what I would do if I were a millionaire!"

"WILLIE," asked a New York teacher of one of her pupils, "how many make a million?"

"Not many," said Willie with a grin.



MINISTERS

See Clergy.



MISERS

Amos Whittaker, a miserly millionaire, was approached by a friend who used his most persuasive powers to have him dress more in accordance with his station in life.

"I am surprised, Amos," said the friend "that you should allow yourself to become shabby."

"But I'm not shabby," firmly interposed the millionaire miser.

"Oh, but you are," returned his old friend. "Remember your father. He was always neatly, even elaborately, dressed. His clothes were always finely tailored and of the best material."

"Why," shouted the miser, triumphantly, "these clothes I've got on were father's!"



MISTAKEN IDENTITY

"No man is as well known as he thinks he is," said Caruso. "I was motoring on Long Island recently. My car broke down, and I entered a farmhouse to get warm. The farmer and I chatted, and when he asked my name I told him modestly that it was Caruso. At that name he threw up his hands.

"'Caruso!' he exclaimed. 'Robinson Caruso, the great traveler! Little did I expect ever to see a man like yer in this here humble kitchen, sir!'"

CUSTOMER (trying on dress suit, jokingly)—"I hope I'll never be mistaken for a waiter."

TAILOR—"When in doubt, keep your hands in your pockets!"—Judge.

An Irishman, an Englishman and a Hebrew were telling of their strange experiences and how they were mistaken for great men.

"Would you baylave it," the Irishman said, "I was mistaken for ex-President Roosevelt."

The Englishman turned to his fellow countryman, "That's nothing," he said, "I was once mistaken for President Wilson."

"Huh?" the Hebrew said. "I vas standing on the street corner the other day and a cop came along and said to me, 'Holy Moses, are you here again?'"



MISTAKES

When a plumber makes a mistake, he charges time for it.

When a lawyer makes a mistake, it's just what he wanted.

When a carpenter makes a mistake, it's just what he expected, because the chances are ten to one he never learned his business.

When an electrician makes a mistake, he blames it on induction, because nobody knows what that is.

When a doctor makes a mistake, he buries it.

When a judge makes a mistake, it becomes the law of the land.

When a preacher makes a mistake, nobody knows the difference.

But a salesman—he is different; he has to be careful; he cannot turn his mistakes into profit or blame them on a profession.

You've got to go some to be a real salesman.



MONEY

If you save all you earn, you're a miser. If you spend all you earn, you're a fool. If you lose it, you're out. If you find it, you're in. If you owe it, they're always after you. If you lend it, you're always after them. It's the cause of evil. It's the cause of good. It's the cause of happiness. It's the cause of sorrow. If the government makes it, it's all right. If you make it, it's all wrong. As a rule it's hard to get. But it's pretty soft when you get it. It talks! To some it says, "I've come to stay." To others it whispers, "Good-bye." Some people get it at a bank. Others go to jail for it. The Mint makes it first. It's up to you to make it last.

—Ben S. Kearns.

GIBES—"A man's best friend, they say, is a full pocketbook."

DIBBS—"An empty one is his most constant friend, because while others may grow cold, he will find no change in his purse."

"I gave that beggar a penny, and he didn't thank me."

"No. You can't get anything for a penny now."

TODAY—"What do we care for prices? We've got the money!"

TOMORROW—"What do we care for prices? We haven't any money!"

"You know," Biggs, the confirmed alarmist, declared impressively, "it's getting so that it is positively dangerous for a man to carry around a good-sized roll of money."

"Difficult, rather than dangerous, I find," Diggs sighed.

"'S funny."

"Shoot!"

"Bills are rectangular, and yet they come rolling in!"

The Old Silver Dollar

How dear to my heart is the mem'ry that lingers Of the days that, alas! we shall never see more, When clutching a large silver coin in my fingers, I hurried along to the grocery store,

And there purchased flour and bacon and coffee. And prunes in a package, and apricots canned, Two gallons of coal-oil, a half pound of toffee, And still held some change, when I left, in my hand.

The big iron dollar The good, honest dollar, The hundred-cent dollar I clutched in my hand.

But now, though accustomed to buying far closer, Whenever in markets or stores I appear To lay in provisions, the butcher or grocer Will glance at my dollar and quietly sneer.

At the tail of a line of more affluent buyers Awaiting my turn I must patiently stand, For no one, as far as I gather, desires The pitiful dollar I hold in my hand.

The poor little dollar, The cheap, little dollar, The fifty-cent dollar, I hold in my hand!

"The amount of money a fellow's father has doesn't seem to cut much figure here."

"No, it's the amount of the father's money the son has."

"They say money talks."

"Well?"

"I wonder how that idea originated?"

"Have you never noticed the lady on the dollar?"

A medical paper advances the theory that "man is slightly taller in the morning than he is in the evening." We have never tested this, but we have certainly noticed a tendency to become "short" toward the end of the month.

See also Domestic finance.



MONEY LENDER

A teacher of English in one of our colleges describes a money-lender as follows:

"He serves you in the present tense, lends in the conditional mood, keeps you in the subjective, and ruins you in the future."



MORAL EDUCATION

The kindergarten teacher recited to her pupils the story of the wolf and the lamb. As she completed it she said:

"Now, children, you see that the lamb would not have been eaten by the wolf if he had been good and sensible."

One little boy raised his hand.

"Well, John," asked the teacher, "what is it?"

"If the lamb had been good and sensible," said the little boy, gravely, "we should have had him to eat, wouldn't we?"



MOSQUITOES

"You told me you hadn't any mosquitoes," said the summer boarder, reproachfully.

"I hadn't," replied Farmer Corntossel. "Them you see floatin' around come from Si Perkins's place. They ain't mine."

Two Irishmen, on a sultry night, took refuge under the bedclothes from a party of mosquitoes. At last one of them, gasping from heat, ventured to peep beyond the bulwarks, and espied a fire-fly which had strayed into the room. Arousing his companion with a punch, he said: "Furgus! Furgus! it's no use; you might as well come out; here's one of the craythers searching for us wid a lantern."



MOTHERS

Answers to the question "what is Mother?" given by supposedly feeble-minded school children of New York:

She's what you chop wood for.

She's what feeds you.

She's what put clothes and shoes on you.

She keeps care of you.

She's who's good to you.

She's your creator.

She's what's dead on to me.

Best composite portrait of a mother ever painted.

Mother

She loves me in spite of my faults; She overlooks my mistakes; She rejoices at my success; She weeps over my failure; She urges me on to higher endeavor, And her confidence in my ability Brings out the best that is in me. Her love has been the crowning blessing of my life; Here's to MOTHER.

—Hathaway.—

The mother, in her office, holds the key Of the soul; and she it is who stamps the coin Of character, and makes the being who would be a savage, But for her gentle cares, a Christian man, Then crown her Queen o' the world.



"An ounce of mother," says the Spanish proverb, "is worth a pound of clergy."—T. W. Higginson.

Mother is the name of God in the lips and hearts of little children.—Thackeray.



MOTHERS' DAY

These "days" for doing things that you ought to do any day are getting so numerous as to lead to curious ethical conflicts. A boy in Sabetha, Kansas, was taken to task for missing Sunday school one Sunday. "I wanted to come," he said, "but Sunday was Mothers' Day and mother wanted me to go fishing with her, so I went."



MOTHERS-IN-LAW

The lady bather had got into a hole and she couldn't swim. Nor could the young man on the end of the pier; but when she came up for the first time and he caught sight of her face, he could shriek, and he did. He shrieked:

"Help!"

A burly fisherman sauntered to his side.

"Wot's up?" he asked.

"There!" hoarsely cried the young man. "My wife! Drowning! I can't swim! A hundred dollars for you if you can save her."

In a moment the burly fisherman was in the sea. In another he was out of it, with the rescued lady bather. Thanking his lucky stars, he approached the young man again.

"Well, what about the hundred bones?" he asked.

But if the young man's face had been ashen gray before, now it was dead white, as he gazed upon the features of the recovered dame.

"Y-e-s, I know!" he gasped. "But when I made the offer I thought it was my wife who was drowning; and now—now it turns out it was my wife's mother!"

The burly fisherman pulled a long face. "Just my luck!" he muttered, thrusting his hand into his trousers pocket. "How much do I owe you?"

"Is your wife's mother enjoying her trip to the mountains?" "I'm afraid not. She's found something at last that she can't walk over."



MOVING PICTURES

A recent movie comedy showed on the screen a bevy of shapely girls disrobing for a plunge in the "old swimming-pool." They had just taken off shoes, hats, coats and were beginning on—a passing freight-train dashed across the screen and obscured the view. When it had passed, the girls were frolicking in the water.

An old railroader sat through the show again and again. At length an usher tapped him on the shoulder.

"Aren't you ever going home?" he asked.

"Oh, I'll wait a while," was the answer. "One of these times that train's going to be late."

"Didn't anybody criticise you for filming an automobile in ancient Babylon?"

"No. But I had a dozen letters calling my attention to the fact that the car showed a California license tag."

Moving day comes on May 1st, but every day in the year is movie day.

SLAPSTICK DIRECTOR—"Can't you suggest a novel from which we could adapt a comedy?"

COMEDIAN—"My memory isn't very accurate, but isn't there a book called 'Alice Threw the Looking-glass'?"

MOVIE OPERATOR—"What shall I do with this film? There is a tear in it that cuts right through the hero's nose!"

CLEVER MANAGER—"Ha! just the thing! Bill it as a feature in two parts."

PROMOTER—"I have here a scheme for revamping old films."

MANAGER—"Beat it! I'm too busy refilming old vamps."

An old couple from the country wandered into a moving picture show in town. As they entered a cow-boy picture was being shown.

The old lady laid a restraining hand on her husband's arm.

"Bill," she said, "let's not go too far down in front; the dust those horses are kickin' up is somethin' awful. My clothes'll be ruined!"

"Here's another book on How to Get into the Movies."

"Why on earth doesn't somebody write a book on how to get a seat after you do get in?"

Mr. and Mrs. Todd were debating whether the movie they had just seen was a new or old production.

"The leading woman wore two or three gowns that are very much in vogue," Mrs. Todd reminded her husband.

He remained firm, however.

"There wasn't any excitement when the cocktails were served," he said.

"I can," said the bashful young man to the director of the film company, "swim, dive, run an auto, fly an aeroplane, fence, box, shoot, ride a horse, run a motor-boat, play golf, fight, make love, fall off cliffs, rescue heroines, play football, die naturally, and kiss a girl."

"But," interrupted the famous director, "can you act?"

"Alas!" muttered the would-be screen hero, "I never thought of that."

"Engaged," growled the director, and another screen star was born.—Life.

See also Actors and actresses; Advertising; Signs.



MULES

"Is you gwine ter let dat mewel do as he pleases?" asked Uncle Ephraim's wife.

"Wha's you will-power?"

"My will-power's all right" he answered "You jes' want ter come out hyar an' measure dis mewel's won't power."

Somewhere in France a tall negro dough-boy was trying to pull to his feet a mule who persisted obstinately in sitting down. The darkey tugged and strained but the mule remained obdurate. Finally the man desisted and glaring at the mule, remarked "As you were, mule, as you were."

"What's become of your chauffeur?"

"Oh, he was with the regiment down in Texas and crawled under an army mule to see why it wouldn't go."

"Some men," said Uncle Eben, "put in der lives kickin' at nothin'. Bar's dis much to be said foh de mule. If he's interested enough to kick, he's willin' to go to de trouble of takin' aim."

"Love's Labor Lost"

Luke had been sent to the store with the mule and wagon. What happened is told in Luke's end of the conversation over the telephone from the store.

"Gimme seb'n-'leben.

"Gimme dat number quick, please 'm.

"Dis yer's Luke, suh.

"Dis yer's Luke, I say, suh.

"I tuk de wagon to de sto' fo dat truck.

"Yas, suh, I'm at de sto'.

"Dat mule, she balk, suh.

"She's balkin' in de big road, near de sto'.

"No, suh, she ain' move.

"No, suh, I don' think she's gwine move.

"Yas, suh, I beat 'er.

"I did beat 'er good.

"She's jes' r'ar a li'l bit, suh.

"Yas, suh, she kick, too.

"She jes' bus' de whiffletree li'l bit, suh.

"No, suh, dat mule won't lead.

"Yas, suh, I tried it.

"No, suh, jes' bit at me.

"No, suh, I ain't tickle de laigs.

"I tickle um las' year, suh, once.

"Yas, suh, we twis' 'er tail.

"No, suh, I ain' done it.

"Who done it?

"I t'ink he's li'l travelin' man f'um Boston, suh. He twis' 'er tail.

"Yas, suh! She sho' did!

"Right spang in de face, suh.

"Dey's got 'im at de sto'.

"Dey say he's comin' to, suh.

"I don' know—he do look mighty sleepy to me, suh.

"Yas, suh, we tried dat.

"Yas, suh, we built a fire under 'er.

"No, suh, dat ain' make 'er go.

"She jes' move up li'l bit, suh.

"Yas, suh, de wagon bu'n right up. Dat's whut I'm telephonin' yu 'bout—to ast yu please sen' a wagon to hitch up to dis yer mule. She ain' gwine budge lessen she's hitched up. Good-by, suh."

Ephum Johnson was up before Judge Shimmerplate on a cruelty to animals charge.

"Deed Ah wasn't abusing dat mule, judge," the old man demurred.

"Did you not strike it repeatedly with a club?"

"Yassah."

"And do you not know that you can accomplish more with animals by speaking to them?"

"Yassah; but this critter am different. He am so deef he can't hear me when Ah speaks to him in de usual way, so Ah has to communicate wid him in de sign language."

On mules we find two legs behind And two we find before; We stand behind before we find What the two behind stand for!

A teacher was instructing a class in English and called on a small boy named Jimmy Brown.

"James," she said, "write on the board, 'Richard can ride the mule if he wants to.'"

"Now," continued the teacher when Jimmy had finished writing, "can you find a better form for that sentence?"

"Yes, ma'am, I think I can," was the prompt answer. "'Richard can ride the mule if the mule wants him to.'"

A mule-skinner in France was trying to drive a mule, with a wagon load, through a hospital gate. The mule would do anything but pass through the gate.

"Want any 'elp, chum?" shouted one of the hospital orderlies.

"No," replied the driver; "but I'd like to know how Noah got two of these blighters into the Ark!"

"Why don't you get rid of that mule?" asked one Virginia darky of another.

"Well, yo' see, Jim," replied the other, "I hates to give in. Ef I was to trade dat mule off he'd regard it as a pussunal victory. He's been tryin' fo' de last six weeks to get rid of me."



MUSHROOMS

Johnny Jones, you know, was studying botany, and he declared that he had an infallible way to tell the difference between mushrooms and toadstools.

"When you git vi'lent spasms," said little Johnny, "with cramps, swelling of the feet and partial loss of vision ending in insanity and death—then it ain't mushrooms."



MUSIC

HE—"Most girls, I have found, don't appreciate real music."

SECOND HE—"Why do you say that?"

HE—"Well, you may pick beautiful strains on a mandolin for an hour, and she won't even look out of the window, but just one honk of a horn and—out she comes!"

Music is the language of the soul; jazz is its profanity.

"How do you sell your music?"

"We sell piano music by the pound and organ music by the choir."

"Samantha, what's thet chune the orchestry's a-playin' now?"

"The program says its 'Choppin', Hiram."

"Waal—mebbe—but ter me it sounds a deal more like sawin'."

While Chopin probably did not time his "Minute Waltz" to exactly sixty seconds, some auditors insist that it lives up to its name. Mme. Theodora Surkow-Ryder on one of her tours played the "Minute Waltz" as an encore, first telling her audience what it was. Thereupon a huge man in a large riding suit took out an immense silver watch, held it open almost under her nose, and gravely proceeded to time her. The pianist's fingers flew along the keys, and her anxiety was rewarded when the man closed the watch with a loud slap and said in a booming voice: "Gosh! She's done it."

MRS. NEWRICHE—"I believe our next-door neighbors on the right are as poor as church mice, Hiram."

MR. NEWRICHE—"What makes you think so?"

MRS. NEWRICHE—"Why, they can't afford one of them mechanical piano-players; the daughter is taking lessons by hand."—Puck.



MUSICIANS

"Excuse me," said the detective as he presented himself at the door of the music academy, "but I hope you'll give me what information you have, and not make any fuss."

"What do you mean?" was the indignant inquiry.

"Why, you see, we got a tip from the house next door that somebody was murdering Wagner, and the chief sent me down here to work on the case."

Pianist Rachmaninoff told in his New York flat the other day a story about his boyhood.

"When I was a very little fellow," he said, "I played at a reception at a Russian count's, and, for an urchin of seven, I flatter myself that I swung through Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata' pretty successfully.

"The 'Kreutzer,' you know, has in it several long and impressive rests. Well, in one of these rests the count's wife, a motherly old lady, leaned forward, patted me on the shoulder, and said:

"'Play us something you know, dear.'"

There was nobody who could play the violin like Smifkins—at least so he thought—and he was delighted when he was asked to play at a local function.

"Sir," he said to the host, "the instrument I shall use at your gathering is over two hundred years old."

"Oh, that's all right! Never mind," returned the host; "no one will ever know the difference."

MUSICAL STUDENT—"That piece you just played is by Mozart, isn't it?"

HURDY-GURDY MAN—"No, by Handel."

When Paderewski was on his last visit to America he was in a Boston suburb, when he was approached by a bootblack who called:

"Shine?"

The great pianist looked down at the youth whose face was streaked with grime and said:

"No, my lad, but if you will wash your face I will give you a quarter."

"All right!" exclaimed the youth, who forthwith ran to a neighboring trough and made his ablutions.

When he returned Paderewski held out the quarter, which the boy took but immediately handed back, saying:

"Here, Mister, you take it yourself and get your hair cut."



NAMES, PERSONAL

"Why do you call the baby Bill?"

"He was born on the first of the month."

In an Ohio town is a colored man whose last name is Washington.

Heaven has blest him with three sons.

When the first son arrived the father named him George Washington. In due time the second son came. Naturally he was christened Booker Washington. When the third man child was born his parent was at a loss, at first, for a name for him. Finally tho, he hit on a suitable selection.

The third son, if he lives, will go through life as Spokane Washington.

Aunt Lindy had brought around her three grandchildren for her mistress to see. The three little darkies, in calico smocks, stood squirming in line while Lindy proudly surveyed them.

"What are their names, Lindy?" her mistress asked.

"Dey's name' after flowers, ma'am. Ah name' 'em. De bigges' one's name' Gladiola. De nex' one, she name' Heliotrope."

"Those are very pretty," her mistress said. "What is the littlest one named?"

"She name' Artuhficial, ma'am."

William Williams hated nicknames. He used to say that most fine given names were ruined by abbreviations, which was a sin and a shame. "I myself," he said, "am one of six brothers. We were all given good, old-fashioned Christian names, but all those names were shortened into meaningless or feeble monosyllables by our friends. I shall name my children so that it will be impracticable to curtail their names."

The Williams family, in the course of time, was blessed with five children, all boys. The eldest was named after the father—William. Of course, that would be shortened to "Will" or enfeebled to "Willie"—but wait! A second son came and was christened Willard. "Aha!" chuckled Mr. Williams. "Now everybody will have to speak the full names of each of these boys in order to distinguish them."

In pursuance of this scheme the next three sons were named Wilbert, Wilfred, and Wilmont.

They are all big boys now. And they are respectively known to their intimates as Bill, Skinny, Butch, Chuck, and Kid.

Aunt Liza's former mistress was talking to her one morning, when suddenly she discovered a little pickaninny standing shyly behind his mother's skirts. "Is this your little boy, Aunt Liza?" she asked.

"Yes, miss; dat's Prescription."

"Goodness, what a funny name, auntie, for a child! How in the world did you happen to call him that?"

"Ah simply calls him dat becuz Ah has sech hahd wuk gettin' him filled."

BREATHLESS VISITOR—"Doctor, can you help me? My name is Jones—"

DOCTOR—"No, I'm sorry; I simply can't do anything for that."

A chauffeur had applied for a position with a new-rich family which aspired to be considered "top-notch" socially, and was being interviewed by the mistress of the house.

"We call all our servants by their last names," she announced. "What is your last name?"

"You had best call me Thomas, ma'am," replied the applicant.

"No, we insist that you be willing to be called by your last name. Otherwise you won't do at all."

"Oh, I'm willing, ma'am, but I don't think the family would like to use it."

"What is your last name then?" said his prospective employer, somewhat coldly and as though she expected a revelation of international scandal.

"Darling, ma'am—Thomas Darling."

A little colored girl, a newcomer in Sunday-school, gave her name to the teacher as "Fertilizer Johnson." Later the teacher asked the child's mother if that was right.

"Yes, ma'am, dat's her name," said the fond parent. "You see, she was named fer me and her father. Her father's name am Ferdinand and my name is Liza. So we named her Fertilizer."

LITTLE JOHNNY—"Dad, there's a girl at our school whom we call Postscript."

DAD—"Postscript? What do you call her Postscript for?"

LITTLE JOHNNY—"Cos her name is Adeline Moore."

GRIGGS—"When I don't catch the name of the person I've been introduced to, I ask if it's spelled with an 'e' or an 'i.' It generally works, too."

BRIGGS—"I used to try that dodge myself until I was introduced to a young lady at a party. When I put the question about the 'e' or 'i,' she flushed angrily and wouldn't speak to me the whole evening."

"What was her name?"

"I found out later it was—Hill."

FIRST LITTLE GIRL—"What's your last name, Annie?"

SECOND LITTLE GIRL—"Don't know yet; I ain't married."

"Spell your name!" said the court clerk sharply. The witness began: "O double T, I, double U, E, double L, double—"

"Begin again! begin again!" ordered the clerk.

The witness repeated: "O, double T, I, double U, E, double L, double U, double O—"

"Your honor," roared the clerk, "I beg that this man be committed for contempt of court!"

"What is your name?" asked the judge.

"My name, your honor, is Ottiwell Wood, and I spell it O, double T, I, double U, E, double L, double U, double O, D."—Literary Digest.

"Is Mr. Smith in the audience?" broke forth the presiding officer. "I am informed that his house is afire."

Forty men sprang to their feet.

"It is the house of Mr. John Smith," added the chairman.

"Thank goodness!" fervently exclaimed one man, resuming his seat.—Everybody's.



NATIONALITY

"But are you an American citizen?" angrily demanded the official at the passport office.

"My mother was American"—began the applicant.

"Yes, yes"—

"But she married a Frenchman"—

"Yes."

"In Italy."

"Yes; but where were you born?"

"I was born on a ship flying Spanish colors while she was lying at anchor in Honolulu Harbor, but my parents died in Brazil when I was only four years old and I was adopted by a Chinaman, who brought me up in Russia"—

"Well, he's"—began an official.

"He's a bloomin' League of Nations!" exploded the official who had first spoken.



NATURAL LAWS

CHARLIE—"What you say just goes in one ear and out the other."

JOHNNY—"Impossible!"

"Why?"

"Sound can't cross a vacuum, you know, old fellow."

"Say, dad, what keeps us from falling off the earth when we are upside down?"

"Why, the law of gravity, of course."

"Well, how did folks stay on before the law was passed?"



NEGROES

Miss Annette Benton, on returning from a visit, brought a gift to each of her mother's colored servants. It was the "day out" for Lily, the housemaid, so Annette distributed her gifts, reserving for Lily a scarlet-silk blouse.

"That won't do," said Mrs. Benton. "Lily's in mourning."

"Mourning?"

"Yes, for her husband; he died in jail, and Lily's wearing a long crape veil."

When Lily returned, her young mistress expressed regret. "I'll give the blouse to Lizzie," she said, "and get you something else."

Lily looked at the blouse, then she swallowed. "Don't you give that blouse to no Lizzie, Miss Annette, cos nex' mont' I'se gwine outa mournin' from the waist up."—Harper's.

"G'wan, nigger, you-all ain't got no sense nohow."

"Ain't got no sense? Whut's dis yere haid for?"

"Dat thing? Dat ain't no haid, nigger; dat's jes er button on top er yo body ter keep yer backbone from unravelin'."

OLD DARKY (to shiftless son)—"I hearn tell you is married. Is you?"

SON (ingratiatingly)—"I ain't sayin' I ain't."

OLD DARKY (severely)—"I ain't ask you is you ain't; I ask you ain't you is."

PARSON BLACK (sternly)—"Did you come by dat watehmelyun honestly, Bruddeh Bingy?"

THE MELON TOTER—"'Deed I did, pahson; ebry day fo' nigh on two weeks!"—Puck.

A Minneapolis laundress, a negro woman, patriotic supporter of the Red Cross, was among the thousands who witnessed a recent Red Cross parade in the Mill City in which fifteen thousand white-clad women participated. In telling a Red Cross worker how she liked it, she said:

"Lawdy, missus, it suttinly was a gran' spectacle. Nevah in mah whole life did I see so much washin' at one time."

"Why is it, Sam, that one never hears of a darky committing suicide?" inquired the Northerner.

"Well, you see, it's disaway, boss: When a white pusson has any trouble he sets down an' gits to studyin' 'bout it an' a-worryin'. Then firs' thing you know he's done killed hisse'f. But when a nigger sets down to think 'bout his troubles, why, he jes' natcherly goes to sleep!"—Life.

"No, sah," said the aged colored man to the reporter who'd asked if he had ever seen President Lincoln. "Ah used to 'member seein' Massa Linkum, but since Ah j'ined de church Ah doan 'member seein' him no mo'."

A Psychiatric Board was testing the mentality of a thick-lipped, weak-faced Negro soldier. Among other questions, the specialist asked, "Do you ever hear voices without being able to tell who is speaking, or where the sound comes from?"

"Yes, suh," answered the negro.

"When does this occur?"

"When I'se talkin' over de telephone."

An Alabama darky, who prided himself on being able to play any tune on the banjo after he had heard it once, perched himself on the side of a hill one Sunday morning and began to pick the strings in a workman-like manner.

It chanced that the minister came along. Going up to Moses, he demanded harshly, "Moses, do you know the Ten Commandments?"

Moses scratched his chin for a moment, and then, in an equally harsh voice, said:

"Parson, yo' don't think yo' kin beat me do yo'? Jest yo' whistle the first three or four bars, an' I'll have a try at it."—Harper's.

One day Miss Maria Thompson Daviess, the author, walked down a street in Nashville. The street was crowded with Negroes, who were forming in a line for a parade.

"What's the occasion for the parade, Tom?" she asked of a boy.

The boy looked at her with a grin.

"La, Miss Daviess," he replied, "don' you-all know colored folks well 'nough to know dat dey don' need no 'casion foh a p'rade?"

An old doctor was making a call on a colored family. While talking to the patient he was continually interrupted by a crying baby, which sat on the floor and grumbled and whined continually. Finally, the mother picked the child up.

"Auntie," said the doctor, "your baby seems badly spoiled."

"No, suh! No, suh!" remonstrated the mother. "All little cullud babies smell dat way!"

See also Chicken stealing.



NEIGHBORS

"But I don't know you, madam," the bank cashier said to the woman who had presented a check.

The woman, however, instead of saying haughtily, "I do not wish your acquaintance, sir," merely replied, with an engaging smile:

"Oh, yes, you do, I think. I'm the 'red-headed old virago' next door to you, whose scoundrelly little boys are always reaching through the fence and picking your flowers. When you started for town this morning your wife said: 'Now, Henry, if you want a dinner fit to eat this evening you'll have to leave me a little money. I can't keep this house on plain water and sixpence a day.'"

Christianity teaches us to love our neighbor as ourself; modern society acknowledges no neighbor.—Beaconsfield.

"I'm quite a near neighbor of yours now," said Mr. Bore.

"I'm living just across the river."

"Indeed," replied Miss Smart. "I hope you'll drop in some day."



NEW JERSEY

Misunderstandings with New Jersey people are sure to result if visitors mistake chicken wire for mosquito netting.



NEW YORK CITY

Mr. Edmund Hornung was in New York several days over Sunday.

That's where they travel fast, I'm telling you.

SILAS (in a whisper)—"Did you git a peep at the underworld at all while you wuz in New York, Ezry?"

EZRA—"Three times! Subway twice an' ratscellar once."

"I see New York did considerable begging for one of those reserve banks."

"What of it?"

"Oh, nothing, New York used to dictate."

CUBIST TEACHER—"Can anyone give an impressionistic definition of New York?"

BRIGHT PUPIL—"A small body of limousines almost entirely surrounded by Fords."

FIRST SOUTHERNER—"Were you in New York long enough to feel at home?"

SECOND SOUTHERNER—"Yes, sir; why, I got so I could keep my seat in the cars with a lady standing and not even think about it."

An Ohio newspaper editor spent a few days in New York, and while there somebody asked him how he liked the big town.

"I care for it very little," replied the editor. "Did you ever think of this: Suppose you lived in New York and wanted to go fishing. Where would you go to dig a can of worms?"

"I hear you want a room clerk."

"No, we never have any rooms. What we want is a clerk who can satisfy people in assigning them to billiard tables, telephone booths and cots in the halls."

The surging crowd along Broadway Was stirred so strangely yesterday. It stood on tiptoe, eyes aglow, It stared, and turned to whisper low Of wonders such as seldom pass That way. What swayed the living mass? What marvel from the fabled isles That drew the eye from Paris styles? A street car left the track perhaps? Two bootblacks nabbed for shooting craps? A fire to call the engines out? A skidding auto turned about? A homebrew Bacchus' raisin dance? At these perhaps the crowd would glance But never act like this at all. Amazed, I asked a copper tall And broad, and heard at last; A horse and buggy just went past.

—Roland D. Johnson.

An English novelist took his first look at Broadway aflame with light. He read the flashing and leaping signs and said: "How much more wonderful it would be for a man who couldn't read."

UNCLE EZRA—"Eph Hoskins must have had some time down in New York."

UNCLE EBEN—"Yep. Reckon he traveled a mighty swift pace. Eph's wife said that when Eph got back and went into his room he looked at the bed, kicked it, and said, 'What's that darn thing for?"—Judge.

After Mark Twain had been in New York for five years, he wrote to his folks back home that he was the loneliest man in the world!

"What!" exclaimed his people, "in New York and lonely!"

"Yes," wrote Mark; "I'm the only man in this town that doesn't touch a drop."

TEACHER—"Do you know the population of New York?"

MAMIE BACKROW—"Not all of them, ma'am, but then, we've only lived here two years."—Puck.



NEWSBOYS

NEWSBOY—"Great mystery! Fifty victims! Paper, mister?"

PASSER-BY—"Here, boy, I'll take one." (After reading a moment.) "Say, boy, there's nothing of the kind in this paper. Where is it?"

NEWSBOY—"That's the mystery, guvnor. You're the fifty-first victim."



NEWSPAPERS

APPLICANT—"I'm ready to begin at the bottom, sir."

NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR—"Well, what's your idea?"

"To start first with the leading editorials and gradually work myself up to the sporting page."

"Never state as a fact anything you are not certain about," the great editor warned the new reporter, "or you will get us into libel suits. In such cases use the words, 'alleged,' 'claimed,' 'reputed,' 'rumored,' and so on."

And then this paragraph appeared in the society notes of the paper:

"It is rumored that a card party was given yesterday by a number of reputed ladies. Mrs. Smith, gossip says, was hostess. It is alleged that the guests with the exception of Mrs. Bellinger, who says she hails from Leavitt's Junction, were all from here. Mrs. Smith claims to be the wife of Archibald Smith, the so-called 'Honest Man' trading on Key Street."

And when the editor had read the report a whirling mass claiming to be the reporter was projected through the window and struck the street with a dull thud.

REPORTER—"Madam, you may recollect that we printed yesterday your denial of having retracted the contradiction of your original statement. Would you care to have us say that you were misquoted in regard to it."—Life.

As any reporter will tell you, the only place in a newspaper office where real toil is done is the city room. Imagine our pleasure when we overheard one of the office boys saying: "When I first came here I thought it was called the 'sitting room.' I said something about the sitting room one day to the city editor, and I thought he was going to throw me down the elevator shaft."

"Can you make anything out of the news from Europe?"

"Easiest thing in the world. I only read the newspapers every other day. In this way I get a connected story of our side or the other and avoid the denials."—Puck.

ENGLISH NEWSIE (selling extras)—"Better 'ave one and read about it now, sir; it might be contradicted in the morning."—Punch.

The reporter was sent to write up a charity ball. His copy came in late and it was careless. The editor reproved him the next day by quoting an extract:

"Look here, Scribbler, what do you mean by this, 'Among the most beautiful girls was Alderman Horatio Dingley'? Old Dingley ain't a girl, you idiot! He's one of our principal shareholders."

"I can't help that," returned the realistic reporter, "that's where he was."

When Earth's last paper is finished and the type is scrambled and pied, When the roar of the press becomes fainter and sheets are folded and dried; We shall rest, and Faith, we shall need it, for the way has been weary and long, And oft have we heard that chestnut, "Young man, you have quoted me wrong."

The cub reporter was grinding out a marriage notice. Finally he brought it up and laid it on the city editor's desk:

"Mr. and Mrs. Blank announce today the marriage of their daughter to take place next Monday—"

"Huh," grunted the editor, "you can't say they announced a marriage yet to take place."

Again the cub jabbed away at his typewriter. And when he brought it back this time it read:

"Mr. and Mrs. Blank predicted today the marriage of their daughter."

"How many revolutions does the earth make in a day? It's your turn, Willie Smith."

"You can't tell, teacher, till you see the morning paper."

See also Editors.



"NO"

No is one of the smallest words in the English language, and yet—

It has brought about more heartaches than the war.

It has caused more children to shed tears than all the spankings in the world put together.

It has saved more money for individuals with backbone than a year's output of padlocks.

It has made itself Prohibition's greatest aid.

It has killed genius and thwarted ambition. It has turned love into hate and success into failure.

It has kept kings off thrones and poets out of Arcadia.

It has caused good men to tremble and scoundrels to rejoice.

Will it ever make a change for the better?

No.



NOTHING

Mysterious Nothing! how shall I define Thy shapeless, baseless, placeless emptiness? Nor form, nor colour, sound, nor size is thine, Nor words nor fingers can thy voice express; But though we cannot thee to aught compare, A thousand things to thee may likened be, And though thou art with nobody nowhere, Yet half mankind devote themselves to thee. How many books thy history contain; How many heads thy mighty plans pursue; What labouring hands thy portion only gain; What busy bodies thy doings only do! To thee the great, the proud, the giddy bend, And—like my sonnet—all in nothing end.

—Richard Parson.



NURSES

FREDDIE—"Are you the trained nurse mama said was coming?"

NURSE—"Yes, dear; I'm the trained nurse."

FREDDIE—"Let's see some of your tricks, then!"



OBEDIENCE

A certain woman demands instant and unquestioning obedience from her children. One afternoon a storm came up and she sent her little son John to close the trap leading to the flat roof of the house.

"But mother," began John.

"John, I told you to shut the trap."

"Yes, but mother—"

"John, shut that trap."

"All right, mother, if you say so—but—"

"John!"

Whereupon John slowly climbed the stairs and shut the trap. Two hours later the family gathered for dinner, but Aunt Mary, who was staying with the mother, did not appear. The mother, quite anxious, exclaimed, "Where can Aunt Mary be?"

"I know," John answered triumphantly, "she is on the roof."



OBESITY

See Corpulence.



OBITUARIES

Upon the recent death in a Western town of a politician, who, at one time, served his country in a very high legislative place, a number of newspaper men were collaborating on an obituary notice.

"What shall we say of the former Senator?" asked one of the men.

"Oh, just put down that he was always faithful to his trust."

"And," queried a cynical member of the group, "shall we mention the name of the trust?"—Puck.

See also Epitaphs.



OCCUPATIONS

PAPA—"But hasn't your fiance got a job?"

DAUGHTER—"Not yet, but he's going to get one at $25,000 a year."

PAPA—"Indeed! Glad to hear of it! What is he doing?"

DAUGHTER—"Well, he read in the paper of some man who is paid $50,000 a year by the Bankers' Association not to forge checks, and George is going to do it for half that."

THE COP—"The driver of a hearse asked me just now which was the way to the cemetery, and I told him."

THE CAPTAIN—"Don't do it again. You're being paid as a policeman, not as a funeral director."

"What are you going to make of your son Charley?" I asked.

"Well," replied Charley's father, "I made a doctor of Bob, a lawyer of Ralph, and a minister of Bert; and Joe is a literary man. I think I'll make a laboring man of Charley. I want one of them to have a little money."—Life.

The Other Fellow's Job

I seldom quarrel with the universe; Things could be better, could be better far. But, on the other hand, they could be worse— And so I rather leave them as they are.

But one thing though, could easily be done: If Bill could only make a trade with Bob The world would be so glad—if everyone Could only have the other fellow's job!

The other fellow surely has a snap! If at a desk he works, he needn't roam, He needn't wander up and down the map— He knows the joy and comfort of a home.

Or if the other fellow something sells Upon the road, a lucky man is he— To see the country, live at good hotels, And have a job with some variety.

The other fellow!—luckiest of men!— Here's where creation surely made a slip: The fellow on the road should push a pen, The fellow at a desk should tote a grip.

We never shall be happy, truly glad, We never shall be really comforted, Until we trade the job we've always had And get the other fellow's job instead.

I see no other way to do—unless We might do this: Forget a little while The easy jobs that other men possess, Get busy with your own, and with a smile.

For after all, they're not so different: Each has its time of laughter and of sob, But each the joy of service. Be content— Your job's as good as any fellow's job.

MISTRESS (to butler)—"Why is it, John, every time I come home I find you sleeping?"

"Well, ma'am, it's this way: I don't like to be a-doing nothing."

LAZY MIKE—"I have a new position with the railroad company."

WEARY RHODES—"What ja gona do?"

LAZY MIKE—"You know the fellow that goes alongside the train and taps the axles to see if everything's all right? Well, I help him listen."



OCEAN TRAVEL

"Terribly rough, isn't it?" said the stranger on the ocean liner.

"Wal," replied the man from the farm, "'twouldn't be so rough if the cap'n would only keep in the furrows!"

The storm was increasing in violence and some of the deck fittings had already been swept overboard when the captain decided to send up a signal of distress. But hardly had the rocket burst over the ship when a solemn-faced passenger stepped on to the bridge. "Captain," he said, "I'd be the last man on earth to cast a damper on any man, but it seems to me that this is no time for letting off fireworks."

PASSENGER (after first night on board ship)—"I say, where have all my clothes vanished to?"

STEWARD—"Where did you put them last night?"

PASSENGER—"I folded them up carefully and put them in that cupboard over there."

STEWARD—"I see no cupboard, sir."

PASSENGER—"Are you blind, man? I mean that one with the round glass door to it."

STEWARD—"Lor' bless me, sir; that ain't no cupboard. That's the porthole."



OFFICE BOYS

Boss—"Can't you find something to do?"

OFFICE BOY—"Gee whiz: Am I expected to do the work and find it, too?"

A certain prominent lawyer of Toronto is in the habit of lecturing his office staff from the junior partner down, and Tommy, the office boy, comes in for his full share of the admonition. That his words were appreciated was made evident to the lawyer by a conversation between Tommy and another office boy on the same floor, which he recently overheard.

"Wotcher wages?" asked the other boy.

"Ten thousand a year," replied Tommy.

"Aw, g'wan!"

"Sure," insisted Tommy, unabashed. "Four dollars a week in cash an' de rest in legal advice."

"I can't keep the visitors from coming up," said the office boy, dejectedly, to the president. "When I say you're out they simply say they must see you."

"Well," said the president, "just tell them that's what they all say."

That afternoon there called at the office a young lady. The boy assured her it was impossible to see the president.

"But I'm his wife," said the lady.

"Oh, that's what they all say," said the boy.

Into the office of a business man rushed a bright faced lad. For three minutes he waited and then began, to show signs of impatience.