The burly man spoke lucidly to his gangling adversary:
"You're a nincompoop, a liar and hoss-thief."
The other man protested, with a whine in his voice:
"Sech talk ain't nice—and, anyhow, 'tain't fair twittin' on facts."
Great collection of joke of the day, favorite joke of the day, clean joke of the day, funniest joke of the day.
The burly man spoke lucidly to his gangling adversary:
"You're a nincompoop, a liar and hoss-thief."
The other man protested, with a whine in his voice:
"Sech talk ain't nice—and, anyhow, 'tain't fair twittin' on facts."
A rich and listless lady patron examined the handbags in a leading jeweler's shop in New York City. The clerk exhibited one bag five inches square, made of platinum and with one side almost covered with a setting of diamonds. This was offered at a price of $9,000.
But the lady surveyed the expensive bauble without enthusiasm. She turned it from side to side and over and over, regarding it with a critical eye and frowning disapprovingly. At last she voiced her comment:
"Rather pretty, but I don't like this side without diamonds. Honestly, the thing looks skimpy—decidedly skimpy!"
For $7,000 additional, the objectional skimpiness was corrected.
On her return home after an absence of a few hours, the mother was displeased to find that little Emma, who was ailing, had not taken her pill at the appointed time, although she had been carefully directed to do so.
"You were very naughty, Emma," the mother chided. "I told you to be sure and take that pill."
"But, mamma," the child pleaded in extenuation, "you didn't tell me where to take it to."
There was a chicken-stealing case before the court. The colored culprit pleaded guilty and was duly sentenced. But the circumstances of the case had provoked the curiosity of the judge, so that he questioned the darky as to how he had managed to take those chickens and carry them off from right under the window of the owner's house, and that with a savage dog loose in the yard. But the thief was not minded to explain. He said:
"Hit wouldn't be of no use, jedge, to try to 'splain dis ting to you-all. Ef you was to try it you more'n like as not would git yer hide full o' shot an' git no chickens, nuther. Ef you want to engage in any rascality, jedge, you better stick to de bench, whar you am familiar."
The baby pulled brother's hair until he yelled from the pain of it. The mother soothed the weeping boy:
"Of course, she doesn't know how badly it hurts." Then she left the room.
She hurried back presently on hearing frantic squalling from baby.
"What in the world is the matter with her?" she questioned anxiously.
"Nothin' 'tall," brother replied contentedly. "Only now she knows."
The woman wrote a reference for her discharged cook as follows:
"Maggie Flynn has been employed by me for a month. She is an excellent cook, but I could not afford to make use of her services longer."
The husband, who was present, afterward expressed his surprise at the final clause.
"But it's true," the wife answered. "The dishes she smashed cost double her wages."
An Irishman on a scaffolding four stories high heard the noon whistle. But when he would have descended, he found that the ladder had been removed. One of his fellow workmen on the pavement below, to whom he called, explained that the foreman had carried off the ladder for another job.
"But how'll I get down?" Pat demanded.
Mike, on the pavement, suggested jumping as the only means. Pat's lunch was below, he was hungry, and he accepted the suggestion seriously.
"Will yez kitch me?" he demanded.
"Sure, an' I'll do that," Mike agreed.
Pat clapped his arms in imitation of a rooster, and crowed, to bolster up his courage, and leaped. He regained consciousness after a short interval, and feebly sat up on the pavement. He regarded Mike reproachfully.
"For why did yez not kitch me?" he asked, and the pain in bones sounded in his voice.
"Begorry," Mike replied sympathetically, "I was waiting for yez to bounce!"
One of the New York churches is notorious for its exclusiveness. A colored man took a fancy to the church, and promptly told the minister that he wished to join. The clergyman sought to evade the issue by suggesting to the man that he reflect more carefully on the matter, and make it the subject of prayers for guidance. The following day, the darky encountered the minister.
"Ah done prayed, sah," he declared, beaming, "an' de Lawd he done sent me an answer las' night."
"And what was it?" queried the clergyman, somewhat at a loss. "What did the Lord say?"
"Well, sah, He done axed me what chu'ch Ah wanted to jine, an' Ah tole Him it was yourn. An' He says: 'Ho, ho, dat chu'ch!' says he. 'You can't git in dere. Ah know you can't—'cause Ah been tryin' to git in dat chu'ch fer ten years mahself an' Ah couldn't!'"
"Shall I leave the hall light burning, ma'am?" the servant asked.
"No," her mistress replied. "I think my husband won't get home until daylight. He kissed me goodbye before he went, and gave me twenty dollars for a new hat."
The smug satisfaction of the rustic in his clear perception and shrewd reasoning is illustrated by the dialogue between two farmers meeting on the road.
"Did you hear that old man Jones's house burned down last night?"
"I ain't a mite surprised. I was goin' past there in the evenin', an' when I saw the smoke a-comin' out all round under the eaves, I sez to myself, sez I, 'Where there's smoke there must be fire.' An' so it was!"
The prisoner, a darky, explained how it came about that he had been arrested for chicken-stealing:
"I didn't hab no trouble wiv de constable ner nobody. It would ab been all right if it hadn't been fer the women's love o' dress. My women folks, dey wasn't satisfied jes' to eat mos' all o' them chickens. Dey had to put de feathers in der hats, an' parade 'em as circumstantial evidence."
The darky's clothes were in the last stages of dilapidation, and he wore open work shoes, but his face was radiant, and he whistled merrily as he slouched along the street. A householder called from his porch:
"Sam, I have a job for you, if you want to earn a quarter."
The tattered colored man grinned happily as he shook his head.
"No, suh, thank yoh all de same, boss—I done got a quarter."
Some months after the elopement, an old friend met the bridegroom, and asked eagerly for details.
"What about her father? Did he catch you?"
"Just that!" quoth the bridegroom grimly. "Incidentally, I may add that the old boy is living with us still."
A circus man was scouring the countryside in search of an elephant that had escaped from the menagerie and wandered off. He inquired of an Irishman working in a field to learn if the fellow had seen any strange animal thereabouts.
"Begorra, Oi hev thot!" was the vigorous answer. "There was an inju-rubber bull around here, pullin' carrots with its tail."
The pessimist spoke mournfully to his friend:
"It is only to me that such misfortunes happen."
"What's the matter now?"
The pessimist answered dolefully:
"Don't you see that it is raining?"
The farmer decided to give special attention to the development of his poultry yard, and he undertook the work carefully and systematically. His hired man, who had been with him for a number of years, was instructed, among other things, to write on each egg the date laid and the breed of the hen. After a month, the hired man resigned.
"I can't understand," the farmer declared, surprised and pained, "why you should want to leave."
"I'm through," the hired man asserted. "I've done the nastiest jobs, an' never kicked. But I draw the line on bein' secretary to a bunch o' hens."
An engineer, who was engaged on railroad construction in Central America, explained to one of the natives living alongside the right of way the advantages that would come from realization of the projected line. To illustrate his point, he put the question:
"How long does it take you to carry your produce to market by muleback?"
"Three days, señor," was the answer.
"Then," said the engineer, "you can understand the benefit the road will be to you. You will be able to take your produce to market, and to return home on the same day."
"Very good, señor," the native agreed courteously.
"But, señor, what shall we do with the other two days?"
The undertaker regarded the deceased in the coffin with severe disapproval, for the wig persisted in slipping back and revealing a perfectly bald pate. He addressed the widow in that cheerfully melancholy tone which is characteristic of undertakers during their professional public performance.
"Have you any glue?"
The widow wiped her eyes perfunctorily, and said that she had.
"Shall I heat it?" she asked. The undertaker nodded gloomily, and the relic departed on her errand. Presently, she returned with the glue-pot.
But the undertaker shook his head, and regarded her with the gently sad smile to which undertakers are addicted, as he whispered solemnly:
"I found a tack."
In these days of difficulty in securing domestic servants, mistresses will accept almost any sort of help, but there are limits. A woman interrogated a husky girl in an employment office, who was a recent importation from Lapland. The dialogue was as follows:
"Can you do fancy cooking?"
"Naw."
"Can you do plain cooking?"
"Naw."
"Can you sew?"
"Naw."
"Can you do general housework?"
"Naw."
"Make the beds, wash the dishes?"
"Naw."
"Well," cried the woman in puzzled exasperation, "what can you do?"
"I milk reindeer."
Wife:—"Women are not extravagant. A woman can dress smartly on a sum that would keep a man looking shabby."
Husband:—"That's right. What you dress on keeps me looking shabby."
One Japanese bragged to another that he made a fan last twenty years by opening only a fourth section, and using this for five years, then the next section, and so on.
The other Japanese registered scorn.
"Wasteful!" he ejaculated. "I was better taught. I make a fan last a lifetime. I open it wide, and hold it under my nose quite motionless. Then I wave my head."
The Southerner in the North, while somewhat mellow, discoursed eloquently of conditions in his home state. He concluded in a burst of feeling:
"In that smiling land, suh, no gentleman is compelled to soil his hands with vulgar work. The preparing of the soil for the crops is done by our niggers, suh, and the sowing of the crops, and the reaping of the crops—all done by the niggers.... And the selling is done by the sheriff."
The traveler was indignant at the slow speed of the train. He appealed to the conductor:
"Can't you go any faster than this?"
"Yes," was the serene reply, "but I have to stay aboard."
The police physician was called to examine an unconscious prisoner, who had been arrested and brought to the station-house for drunkenness. After a short examination, the physician addressed the policeman who had made the arrest.
"This fellow is not suffering from the effects of alcohol. He has been drugged."
The policeman was greatly disturbed, and spoke falteringly:
"I'm thinkin', ye're right, sor. I drugged him all the way to the station."
The Irish gentleman encountered the lady who had been ill, and made gallant inquiries.
"I almost died," she explained. "I had ptomaine-poisoning."
"And is it so?" the Irishman gushed. And he added in a burst of confidence: "What with that, ma'am, and delirium tremens, a body these days don't know what he dare eat or drink."
When the Kentucky colonel was in the North, some one asked him if the Kentuckians were in fact very bibulous.
"No, suh," the colonel declared. "I don't reckon they're mo' than a dozen Bibles in the whole state."
In the days before prohibition, a bibulous person issued from a saloon in a state of melancholy intoxication, and outside the door he encountered a teetotaler friend.
The friend exclaimed mournfully:
"Oh, John, I am so sorry to see you come out of such a place as that!"
The bibulous one wept sympathetically.
"Then," he declared huskily, "I'll go right back!" And he did.
Mrs. Smith addressed her neighbor, whose husband was notoriously brutal, and she spoke with a purr that was catty:
"You know, my dear, my husband is so indulgent!"
And the other woman retorted, quite as purringly:
"Oh, everybody knows that. What a pity he sometimes indulges too much!"
The old farmer was driving home from town, after having imbibed rather freely. In descending a hill, the horse stumbled and fell, and either could not, or would not, get to its feet again. At last, the farmer spoke savagely:
"Dang yer hide, git up thar—or I'll drive smack over ye!"
The owner of a hunting lodge in Scotland presented his gamekeeper with a fur cap, of the sort having ear flaps. When at the lodge the following year, the gentleman asked the gamekeeper how he liked the cap. The old man shook his head dolefully.
"I've nae worn it since the accident."
"What accident was that?" his employer demanded. "I've heard of none."
"A mon offered me a dram, and I heard naething of it."
A mouse chanced on a pool of whiskey that was the result of a raid by prohibition-enforcement agents. The mouse had had no previous acquaintance with liquor, but now, being thirsty, it took a sip of the strange fluid, and then retired into its hole to think. After some thought, it returned to the pool, and took a second sip of the whiskey. It then withdrew again to its hole, and thought. Presently, it issued and drew near the pool for the third time. Now, it took a big drink. Nor did it retreat to its hole. Instead, it climbed on a soap box, stood on its hind legs, bristled its whiskers, and squeaked:
"Now, bring on your cat!"
A farmer, who indulged in sprees, was observed in his Sunday clothes throwing five bushels of corn on the ear into the pen where he kept half a dozen hogs, and he was heard to mutter:
"Thar, blast ye! if ye're prudent, that orter last ye."
The old toper was asked if he had ever met a certain gentleman, also notorious for his bibulous habits.
"Know him!" was the reply. "I should say I do! Why, I got him so drunk one night it took three hotel porters to put me to bed."
Two Southern gentlemen, who were of very convivial habits, chanced to meet on the street at nine o'clock in the morning after an evening's revel together. The major addressed the colonel with decorous solemnity:
"Colonel, how do you feel, suh?"
The colonel left nothing doubtful in the nature of his reply:
"Major," he declared tartly, "I feel like thunder, suh, as any Southern gentleman should, suh, at this hour of the morning!"
The proprietor of the general store at the cross-roads had his place overrun by rats, and the damage was such that he offered a hundred dollars reward to anyone who would rid him of the pests. A disreputable-appearing person turned up one morning, and announced that he was a professional rat-killer.
"Get to work," the store-keeper urged.
"I must have a pound of cheese," the killer declared.
When this had been provided:
"Now give me a quart of whiskey."
Equipped with the whiskey, the professional spoke briskly:
"Now show me the cellar."
An hour elapsed, and then the rat-catcher galloped up the cellar stairs and leaped into the store. His face was red, the eyes glaring, and he shook his fists in defiance of the world at large, as he jumped high in air and shouted:
"Whoopee! I'm ready! bring on your rats!"
The highly inebriated individual halted before a solitary tree, and regarded it as intently as he could, with the result that he saw two trees. His attempt to pass between these resulted in a near-concussion of the brain. He reeled back, but presently sighted carefully, and tried again, with the like result. When this had happened a half-dozen times, the unhappy man lifted up his voice and wept.
"Lost—Lost!" he sobbed. "Hopelessly lost in an impenetrable forest!"
The very convivial gentleman left his club happy, but somewhat dazed. On his homeward journey, made tackingly, he ran against the vertical iron rods that formed a circle of protection for the trunk of a tree growing by the curb. He made a tour around the barrier four times, carefully holding to one rod until he had a firm grasp on the next. Then, at last, he halted and leaned despairingly against the rock to which he held, and called aloud for succor:
"Hellup! hellup! Somebody let me out!"
It was nine o'clock in the morning, but this particular passenger on the platform of the trolley car still wore a much crumpled evening suit.
As the car swung swiftly around a curve this riotous liver was jolted off, and fell heavily on the cobble stones. The car stopped, and the conductor, running back, helped the unfortunate man to scramble to his feet. The bibulous passenger was severely shaken, but very dignified.
"Collision?" he demanded.
"No," the conductor answered.
"Off the track?" was the second inquiry.
"No," said the conductor again.
"Well!" was the indignant rejoinder. "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have got off."
The son of the house had been reading of an escaped lunatic.
"How do they catch lunatics?" he asked.
The father, who had just paid a number of bills, waxed sarcastic:
"With enormous straw hats, with little bits of ones, with silks and laces and feathers and jewelry, and so on and so on."
"I recall now," the mother spoke up, "I used to wear things of that sort until I married you."
"Oh, have you heard? Mrs. Blaunt died to-day while trying on a new dress."
"How sad! What was it trimmed with?"
The group of dwellers at the seaside was discussing the subject of dreams and their significance. During a pause, one of the party turned to a little girl who had sat listening intently, and asked:
"Do you believe that dreams come true?"
"Of course, they do," the child replied firmly. "Last night I dreamed that I went paddling—and I had!"
The new play was a failure. After the first act, many left the theatre; at the end of the second, most of the others started out. A cynical critic as he rose from his aisle seat raised a restraining hand.
"Wait!" he commanded loudly. "Women and children first!"
Ability to look on two sides of a question is usually a virtue, but it may degenerate into a vice. Thus, a visitor found his bachelor friend glumly studying an evening waistcoat. When inquiry was made, this explanation was forthcoming:
"It's quite too soiled to wear, but really, it's not dirty enough to go to the laundry. I can't make up my mind just what I should do about it."
Small Jimmie discussed with his chief crony the minister's sermon which had dealt with the sheep and the goats.
"Me," he concluded, "I don't know which I am. Mother calls me her lamb, and father calls me kid."
Jimmy found much to criticise in his small sister. He felt forced to remonstrate with his mother.
"Don't you want Jenny to be a good wife like you when she grows up?" he demanded. His mother nodded assent.
"Then you better get busy, ma. You make me give into her all the time 'cause I'm bigger 'en she is. You're smaller 'en pa, but when he comes in, you bring him his slippers, and hand him the paper." Jimmie yanked his go-cart from baby Jennie, and disregarded her wail of anger as he continued:
"Got to dis'pline her, or she'll make an awful wife!"
We are more particular nowadays about cleanliness than were those of a past generation. Charles Lamb, during a whist game, remarked to his partner:
"Martin, if dirt were trumps, what a hand you'd have!"
* * *
The French aristocrats were not always conspicuously careful in their personal habits. A visitor to a Parisian grande dame remarked to her hostess:
"But how dirty your hands are."
The great lady regarded her hands doubtfully, as she replied:
"Oh, do you think so? Why, you ought to see my feet!"
Diplomacy is shown inversely by the remark of the professor to the lady in this story.
At a reception the woman chatted for some time with the distinguished man of learning, and displayed such intelligence that one of the listeners complimented her.
"Oh, really," she said with a smile, "I've just been concealing my ignorance."
The professor spoke gallantly.
"Not at all, not at all, my dear madam! Quite the contrary, I do assure you."
The lady of uncertain age simpered at the gentleman of about the same age who had offered her his seat in the car.
"Why should you be so kind to me?" she gurgled.
"My dear madam, because I myself have a mother and a wife and a daughter."
Sometimes the use of a diplomatic method defeats its own purpose, as in the case of the old fellow who was enthusiastic in praise of the busy lawyer from whose office he had just come, after a purely social call.
"That feller, for a busy man," he declared earnestly, "is one of the pleasantest chaps I ever did meet. Why, I dropped in on him jest to pass the time o' day this mornin', an' I hadn't been chattin' with 'im more'n five minutes before he'd told me three times to come and see 'im agin."
Ted had a habit of dropping in at the house next door on baking day, for the woman of that house had a deft way in the making of cookies, and Ted had no hesitation in enjoying her hospitality, even to the extent of asking for cookies if they were not promptly forthcoming.
When the boy's father learned of this, he gave Ted a lecture and a strict order never to ask for cookies at the neighbor's kitchen. So, when a few days later the father saw his son munching a cookie as he came away from the next house, he spoke sternly:
"Have you been begging cookies again?"
"Oh, no, I didn't beg any," Ted answered cheerfully. "I just said, this house smells as if it was full of cookies. But what's that to me?"
"Now, let me see," the impecunious man demanded as he buttonholed an acquaintance, "do I owe you anything?"
"Not a penny, my dear sir," was the genial reply. "You are going about paying your little debts?"
"No, I'm going about to see if I've overlooked anybody? Lend me ten till Saturday."
In an English school, the examiner asked one of the children to name the products of the Indian Empire. The child was well prepared, but very nervous.
"Please, sir," the answer ran, "India produces curries and pepper and rice and citron and chutney and—and——"
There was a long pause. Then, as the first child remained silent, a little girl raised her hand. The examiner nodded.
"Yes, you may name any other products of India."
"Please, sir," the child announced proudly, "India-gestion."
The young lady, who was something of a food fadist, was on a visit to a coast fishing village. She questioned her host as to the general diet of the natives, and was told that they subsisted almost entirely on fish. The girl protested:
"But fish is a brain food, and these folks are really the most unintelligent-looking that I ever saw."
"Mebbe so," the host agreed. "And just think what they'd look like if they didn't eat fish!"
Some wasps built their nests during the week in a Scotch clergyman's best breeches. On the Sabbath as he warmed up to his preaching, the wasps, too, warmed up, with the result that presently the minister was leaping about like a jack in the box, and slapping his lower anatomy with great vigor, to the amazement of the congregation.
"Be calm, brethren," he shouted. "The word of God is in my mouth, but the De'il's in my breeches!"
A woman in the mountains of Tennessee was seated in the doorway of the cabin, busily eating some pig's feet. A neighbor hurried up to tell of how her husband had become engaged in a saloon brawl and had been shot to death. The widow continued munching on a pig's foot in silence while she listened to the harrowing news. As the narrator paused, she spoke thickly from her crowded mouth:
"Jest wait till I finish this-here pig's trotter, an' ye'll hear some hollerin' as is hollerin'."
Phil May, the artist, when once down on his luck in Australia, took a job as waiter in a very low-class restaurant. An acquaintance came into the place to dine, and was aghast when he discovered the artist in his waiter.
"My God!" he whispered. "To find you in such a place as this."
Phil May smiled, as he retorted:
"Oh, but, you see, I don't eat here."
The schoolboy, after profound thought, wrote this definition of the word "spine," at his teacher's request.
"A spine is a long, limber bone. Your head sets on one end and you set on the other."
The visitor to the poet's wife expressed her surprise that the man of genius had failed to dedicate any one of his volumes to the said wife. Whereupon, said wife became flustered, and declared tartly:
"I never thought of that. As soon as you are gone, I'll look through all his books, and if that's so, I never will forgive him!"
An excellent old gentleman grew hard of hearing, and was beset with apprehension lest he become totally deaf. One day, as he rested on a park bench, another elderly citizen seated himself alongside. The apprehensive old gentleman saw that the new comer was talking rapidly, but his ears caught no faintest sound of the other's voice. He listened intently—in vain. He cupped a hand to his ear, but there was only silence. At last, in despair, he spoke his thought aloud:
"It's come at last! I know you've been talking all this while, but I haven't heard a single word."
The answer, given with a grin, was explicit and satisfying to the worried deaf man:
"I hain't been talkin'—jest a-chewin'."
In the smoking-room of a theatre, between the acts, an amiable young man addressed an elderly gentleman who was seated beside him:
"The show is very good, don't you think?"
The old gentleman nodded approvingly, as he replied:
"Me, I always take the surface cars. Them elevated an' subway stairs ketches my breath."
"I said the show was a good one," exclaimed the young man, raising his voice.
Again, the elderly person nodded agreeably.
"They jump about a good deal," was his comment, "but they're on the ground, which the others ain't."
Now, the young man shouted:
"You're a little deaf, ain't you?"
At last the other understood.
"Yes, sir!" he announced proudly. "I'm as deef as a post." He chuckled contentedly. "Some folks thinks as that's a terrible affliction, but I don't. I kin always hear what I'm sayin' myself, an' that's interestin' enough for me."
When a certain officer of the governor's staff died, there were many applicants for the post, and some were indecently impatient. While the dead colonel was awaiting burial, one aspirant buttonholed the governor, asking:
"Would you object to my taking the place of the colonel?"
"Not at all," the governor replied tartly. "See the undertaker."
On Tuesday, a colored maid asked her mistress for permission to be absent on the coming Friday. She explained that she wished to attend the funeral of her fiancé. The mistress gave the required permission sympathetically.
"But you're not wearing mourning, Jenny," she remarked.
"Oh, no, ma'am," the girl replied. "You see, ma'am, he ain't dead yet. The hanging ain't till Friday."
The child came to his mother in tears.
"Oh, mama," he confessed, "I broke a tile in the hearth."
"Never mind, dear," the mother consoled. "But how ever did you come to do it?"
"I was pounding it with father's watch?"
The little boy was clad in an immaculate white suit for the lawn party, and his mother cautioned him strictly against soiling it. He was scrupulous in his obedience, but at last he approached her timidly, and said:
"Please, mother, may I sit on my pants?"
* * *
The mother catechised her young son just before the hour for the arrival of the music teacher.
"Have you washed your hands very carefully?"
"Yes, mother."
"And have you washed your face thoroughly?"
"Yes, mother."
"And were you particular to wash behind your ears?"
The young members of the family had been taught to be punctilious in contributing to the collection at church. One Sunday morning, when the boxes were being passed, James, aged six, ran his eye over those in the pew, and noticed that a guest of his sister had no coin in her hand. "Where is your money?" he whispered. She answered that she hadn't any. But James was equal to the emergency:
"Here, take mine," he directed. "That'll pay for you. I'll get under the seat."
Which he did.
* * *
The old negro attended a service in the Episcopal Church for the first time in his life. Someone asked him afterward how he had enjoyed the experience.
"Not much, shohly not much," he declared, shaking his head. "Dat ain't no church for me. No' suh! Dey wastes too much time readin' the minutes ob the previous meetin'."
A political boss wished to show his appreciation of the services of a colored man who possessed considerable influence. He suggested to the darky for a Christmas present the choice between a ton of coal and a jug of the best whiskey.
The colored man spoke to the point:
"Ah burns wood."
* * *
Santa Claus inserted an upright piano, a fur dolman, a Ford, and a few like knick-knacks in the Chicago girl's stocking. When he saw that it was not yet half filled, he withdrew to the roof, plumped down on the snow, and wept bitterly.
A shipwrecked traveler was washed up on a small island. He was terrified at thought of cannibals, and explored with the utmost stealth. Discovering a thin wisp of smoke above the scrub, he crawled toward it fearfully, in apprehension that it might be from the campfire of savages. But as he came close, a voice rang out sharply:
"Why in hell did you play that card?" The castaway, already on his knees, raised his hands in devout thanksgiving.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed brokenly. "They are Christians!"
The Southern planter heard a commotion in his poultry house late at night. With shot gun in hand, he made his way to the door, flung it open and curtly ordered:
"Come out of there, you ornery thief!"
There was silence for a few seconds, except for the startled clucking of the fowls. Then a heavy bass voice boomed out of the darkness:
"Please, Colonel, dey ain't nobody here 'cept jes' us chickens!"
"Oh, mamma," questioned the child, "who's that?" He pointed to a nun who was passing.
"A Sister of Charity," was the answer.
"Which one," the boy persisted, "Faith or Hope?"