Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 31

"Oh! sir," said he "the king is no subject."

Ill.u.s.trative of "that troublesome Henglish haitch" an American traveler relates the following:

Once I dined with an English farmer. We had ham--very delicious baked ham. The farmer's son soon finished his portion and pa.s.sed his plate again.

"More 'am, father," he said.

The farmer frowned.

"Don't say 'am, son. Say _'am_."

"I did say 'am," the lad protested in an injured tone.

"You said _'am_," cried the father fiercely. "'Am's what it should be.

'Am, not _'am_."

In the middle of the squabble the farmer's wife turned to me and, with a deprecatory little laugh, explained:

"They both think they're sayin' 'am, sir."

Pa.s.sing along Princes Street, Edinburgh, one day a herculean Scots Grey stopped at the post-office and called on a street arab to polish his boots. The feet of the dragoon were in proportion to his height and, looking at the tremendous boots before him, the arab knelt down on the pavement and shouted out to his chum across the road, "Jamie, come ower an' gie's a hand, I've got an army contract."

The younger man had been complaining that he could not get his wife to mend his clothes.

"I asked her to sew a b.u.t.ton on this vest last night, and she hasn't touched it," he said. At this the older man a.s.sumed the air of a patriarch.

"Never ask a woman to mend anything," he said. "You haven't been married very long, and I think I can give you some serviceable suggestions. When I want a s.h.i.+rt mended I take it to my wife, flourish it around a little and say, 'Where's that rag-bag?'

"'What do you want of the rag-bag?' asks my wife. Her suspicions are roused at once.

"'I want to throw this s.h.i.+rt away; it's worn out,' I say, with a few more flourishes.

"'Let me see that s.h.i.+rt,' my wife says then. 'Now, John, hand it to me at once.'

"Of course, I pa.s.s it over, and she examines it. 'Why, John Taylor,'

she is sure to say, 'I never knew such extravagance! This is a perfectly good s.h.i.+rt. All it needs is----' And then she mends it."

A browbeating counsel asked a witness how far he had been from a certain place. "Just four yards, two feet, and six inches," was the reply. "How come you to be so exact, my friend?" "I expected some fool or other would ask me, so I measured it."

"Now, see here, porter," said the drummer briskly, "I want you to put me off at Syracuse. You know we get in there about six o'clock in the morning, and I may over-sleep myself. But it is important that I should get out. Here's a five-dollar gold piece. Now, I may wake up hard. Don't mind if I kick. Pay no attention if I'm ugly. I want you to put me off the train no matter how hard I fight. Understand?"

"Yes, sah," answered the st.u.r.dy Nubian. "It shall be did, sah!"

The next morning the coin-giver was awakened by a stentorian voice calling: "Rochester!"

"Rochester!" he exclaimed, sitting up. "Where's that porter?"

Hastily slipping on his trousers, he went in search of the negro, and found him in the porter's closet, huddled up, with his head in a bandage, his clothes torn, and his arm in a sling.

"Well," said the drummer, "you are a sight. Why didn't you put me off at Syracuse?"

"Wha-at!" gasped the porter, jumping up, as his eyes bulged from his head. "Was you de gemman dat give me a five-dollah gold piece?"

"Of course I was, you idiot!"

"Well, den, befoah de Lawd, who was dat gemman I put off at Syracuse?"

A right reverend prelate, himself a man of extreme good-nature, was frequently much vexed in spirit by the proud, froward, perverse, and untractable temper of his next vicar. The latter, after an absence much longer than usual, one day paid a visit to the bishop, who kindly inquired the cause of his absence, and was answered by the vicar that he had been confined to his house for some time past by an obstinate stiffness in his knee. "I am glad of that," replied the prelate; "'tis a good symptom that the disorder has changed place, for I had a long time thought it immovably settled in your neck."

Bride--"George, dear, when we reach our destination let us try to avoid giving the impression that we are newly married."

George--"All right, Maud; you can carry the suitcase and umbrellas."

Francis Wilson was speaking at the Players Club of New York City, not long ago, of the all too prevalent ignorance of dramatic literature in the country to-day.

"Why," said Mr. Wilson, "a company was playing 'She Stoops to Conquer' in a small Western town last winter when a man without any money, wis.h.i.+ng to see the show, stepped up to the box office and said:

"'Pa.s.s me in, please.'

"The box office man gave a loud, harsh laugh.

"'Pa.s.s you in? What for?' he asked.

"The applicant drew himself up and answered, haughtily: 'What for?

Why, because I am Oliver Goldsmith, author of the play.'

"'Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,' replied the other in a meek voice, as he hurriedly wrote an order for a box."

Lady Bountiful--"All I can say is, Jenkins, that if these people insist on building these horrid little villas near my gates, I shall leave the place."

Jenkins--"Exactly what I told them at the meeting, your ladys.h.i.+p. I said, 'Do you want to drive away the goose that lays the golden eggs?'"