Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 63

William Bourke Cochran took his seat in Congress on the day that the House went into turmoil over the special report on post-office affairs. "I suppose it looks like old times to you, Cochran," said a friend, who, with others, had crowded around to welcome him back. Just then such epithets as "coward," "knave," "scoundrel," and "liar,"

hurtled across the chamber. "Well, I can't say it looks much like old times," replied Cochran, "too many new faces for that. But it certainly sounds like old times."

This happened in Scotland: The last edition of the newspapers had been sold out and the newsboys were calculating their takings. "Hallo,"

said Jimmy, in alarm, "I'm a 'a'penny short!" "Well, wats the use of 'arpin' on it?" growled d.i.c.k, as he calmly cracked a nut; "you don't think I took it, do you?" "I don't say you 'ave. But there it is, I'm a 'a'penny short, and you're eatin' nuts."

In _the_ "Diary of a Frenchman" by Flandrau, he makes a student say to his chum: "I've an idea that we're going to have 'je suis bon' in French to-day. I wish you would write out a few tenses for me."

Whereupon his friend wrote:

"Je suis bon.

Tu es bones, Il est beans, Nous sommes bon bons, Vous etes bonbonnieres, Ils sont bon-ton."

Tolstoy told Isabel Habgard, who has translated many of his books, a good story of one of his ancestors, an army officer, who was an excellent mimic. One day he was impersonating the Emperor Paul to a group of his friends, when Paul himself entered, and for some moments looked on, unperceived, at the antics of the young man. Tolstoy finally turned, and beholding the emperor, bowed his head and was silent. "Go on, sir," said Paul; "continue the performance." The young man hesitated a moment, and then, folding his arms and imitating every gesture and intonation of his sovereign, he said: "Tolstoy, you deserve to be degraded, but I remember the thoughtlessness of youth, and you are pardoned." The czar smiling, said, "Well, be it so."

When President Nicholas Murray Butler was at college, certain freshmen of his time made no scruple of stealing a pail of milk which a dairyman daily placed outside the door of Mr. Butler's room while the occupant was in cla.s.s. In order to foil the boys, Mr. Butler printed a sign in big letters, "I have poisoned this milk with a.r.s.enic." Upon his return he found the milk intact, but added to the notice were these words: "So have we."

There is an amusing story told of a clergyman, who, upon one of his trips through the West, observed that almost every man he met and spoke with used profanity. Finally he found one man who talked to him for twenty minutes without using an oath. The clergyman shook hands with him at parting and said: "You don't know how glad I am to have a chance to have a talk with a man like you. You are the first man I have met for three days who could talk for five minutes without swearing." The stranger, shocked, instantly and innocently e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed: "Well, I'll be d----d!"

The other day, while shopping, a lady accidentally picked up another lady's umbrella from the counter, and had the mistake pointed out to her in a rather frigid manner. She returned the umbrella with apologies, and then remembered that she had no umbrella with her.

As it had begun to rain, she bought one, as well as one for a birthday present for a friend. With the two umbrellas in her hand, she boarded a car and, as luck would have it, sat down opposite the lady whose umbrella she had picked up earlier in the store. As the latter swept out of the car she smiled again frigidly, and remarked to the lady of the umbrellas, "I see you have had a successful day."

"If a fairy should appear to you and offer you three wishes," said the imaginative young woman, "what would you do?" "I'd sign the pledge,"

answered the matter-of-fact young man.

A summer tourist was pa.s.sing through a German village in the West recently, when a stout German girl came to the front door and called to a small girl playing in front. "Gusty! Gusty!" she said, "come in and eat yourself. Ma's on the table, and pa's half et!"

A university of Illinois professor is very popular among the students.

He was entertaining a group of them at his residence one night. Taking down a magnificent sword that hung over the fireplace, he brandished it about, exclaiming, "Never will I forget the day I drew this blade for the first time." "Where did you draw it, sir?" an awe-struck freshman asked. "At a raffle," said the professor.

In the vicinity of Germantown there lived a worthy old lady and her son John, who were once called upon to entertain a number of ladies at dinner during Quarterly meeting. As John began to carve the broiled chickens, he entered upon a flowery speech of welcome, but in the midst of his flattering utterances his mother, who was somewhat deaf, piped up from the other end of the table: "You needn't be praisin' of 'em up, John, I'm afraid they're a lot of tough old hens, every one of 'em."

One of Pere Ollivier's flock, a very beautiful and handsomely dressed woman, coming very late to church one Sunday morning, caused some disturbance and stir among the wors.h.i.+pers by her entrance and interrupted the flow of eloquence of the worthy father, who, very irritable and easily put out, said: "Madame perhaps waited to take her chocolate before coming to church?" To this, madame, unabashed, graciously replied: "Yes, mon pere; and two rolls with it."

Of late years the House of Commons has seen some lively times. Many of them have been brought about by the irascible but delightful Irish member, Dr. Tanner. On one occasion, when he had been indulging rather freely and his ever ready tongue being loosened, he met Sir Ellis Ashmead Bartlett in the lobby, and taking him to one side he said, in the greatest confidence, and without the slightest tinge of anger, but with a world of meaning: "Bartlett, you are a fool." "You are drunk,"

retorted the knight. "That's all right," replied Dr. Tanner.

"To-morrow I shall be sober, but you will still be a fool."

A reader for a New York publis.h.i.+ng house gives the following, quoted from a story submitted by an Indiana auth.o.r.ess, as being about the choicest bit he has come across in many years:

"Reginald was bewitched. Never had the baroness seemed to him so beautiful as at this moment, when, in her dumb grief, she hid her face."

An old negro living in Carrollton was taken ill recently, and called in a physician of his race to prescribe for him. But the old man did not seem to be getting any better, and finally a white physician was called. Soon after arriving Dr. S---- felt the darky's pulse for a moment, and then examined his tongue. "Did your other doctor take your temperature?" he asked. "I don't know, sah," he answered, feebly; "I haint missed nuthin' but mah watch yit, boss."