A laugh a day keeps the doctor away

A Northern man was stopping at a small hotel in Alabama. One night after he had retired there came a knocking at his door.

“Who is it?” he asked, sitting up in bed.

“Hit’s me, boss,” came the somewhat cryptic answer.

“Who’s ‘me’?”

“One of de bell-boys.”

“What do you want at this time of night?”

“Got a telegram fur you, boss.”

“Oh, that’s it? Well, it’s not very important, I guess. I’ll read it when I get up in the morning. Just shove it under the door.”

There was a pause. Then, in a voice made sharp by the fear of losing a tip, the darky spoke:

“I can’t—hit’s on a plate!”

Any Scot will tell you that, while as a race the Scotch are thrifty, it is in Aberdeen that thrift becomes an exact science.

And it was in Aberdeen, so the story runs, that an especially frugal citizen entered an apothecary’s shop or, as we would say in America, a drug store. He told the proprietor that he wished to purchase three-pence worth of morphine.

The chemist pondered over a request so unusual. Customarily he sold the drug only on a physician’s prescription; but this customer was known to him as reputable and responsible. Nevertheless, he must make sure the purpose was proper.

“Thr-pence worth of morphine, eh?” he said. “What would ye be wantin’ it for?”

The native thought a moment.

“Tuppence,” he said.

Let us not forget the story of the young woman who had a tooth which must come out. She agreed with the practitioner that it should be drawn, but each time he brought the forceps into view she clenched her jaws tightly together and refused to open them until he put down the shining instrument to argue with her.

Finally he had an inspiration. He bade his woman assistant get a long hatpin from her hat and station herself just behind where the obdurate patient sat.

“Now, then,” he counseled her, “when I get the forceps right close to her lips I’ll give you the signal and you jab the hatpin clear up through the seat of the chair. Naturally, she’ll open her mouth to say ‘Ouch!’ and then I’ll get that tooth. It’s very loose—it’ll come out in a jiffy.”

The artifice worked. As the dentist held up the ousted tooth he said soothingly:

“Now, then, that wasn’t so bad after all, was it?”

“No,” said the relieved sufferer; “only one sharp, darting pain. But oh, doctor, I had no idea that the roots of a tooth went down so deep!”

The funeral was over. The elderly widower, having returned from the cemetery, sat on the front porch of his small New Hampshire cottage whistling to himself. A neighbor passed, and saw the solitary figure in the shadow of the porch, and halted his team.

“Well, Uncle Gil,” he said, striving to put sympathy into his tones, “how air you bearin’ up?”

“Fust-rate, Eph,” said the supposedly bereaved one, cheerfully. “Dun’t know ez I ever felt better.”

“I thought mebbe you’d be missin’ her,” said the neighbor. “She was a good wife—tuck keer of your home and raised your children and always done mighty well by you durin’ all the thutty years you lived together.”

“Yas; I know that,” stated the widower. “She done all them things and I lived with her thutty years, jest ez you was sayin’. But, gol-dern her, I never did like her!”

When I hear of medical experts disagreeing in a consultation I think of a diagnosis which was made once by a colored person from down South who came North to drive a car for a friend of mine.

This was in the days when automobiles were more prone to functional disorders than at present. The darky was a fair-enough chauffeur and he professed to be a good mechanic, but as subsequent events proved, no reasonably prudent person would entrust him with a nutpick.

One bright Sunday he took his master for a spin over on Long Island. Suddenly, on a lonely road, the car developed a racking cough and a hectic flush and after panting along for a few rods came to a dead stop.

The chauffeur descended from his seat, selected an armload of wrenches and other utensils from the tool-box and wriggled his way under the balking auto. There he hammered and tinkered for twenty minutes. Eventually he crawled out, covered with dust and streaked with grease, and delivered his opinion to his employer.

“Mr. Miner,” he said, “I reckon you’ll have to find yore way back to town the bes’ way you kin. They’s fo’ sep’rit things de matter wid dis yere cyar—an’ I dunno whut nary one of ’em is.”

“Vaiter, vaiter, here vaiter—gif me some addension, uf you blease!”

The gentleman rapped with impatient knuckles on the table top. At his call, a servitor came hurrying to his side.

The scene was a Yiddish restaurant in Grand Street on New York’s East Side. The hour was the luncheon hour. The speaker was a heavily bearded person who had just made his entrance. All about him conveyed the idea that here was a business man in a rush.

“Vaiter,” he said, “you should right avay bring me a knife und a fork und a napkin und a blate; ulso ein glass water. Und make it snappy!”

The waiter, somewhat puzzled, produced the articles called for, then stood by awaiting the order. To his surprise the patron waved him back and then before his astounded eyes drew from one coat-pocket a knuckle of rye bread and from the other a pickled herring and proceeded to make a light but satisfying meal.

Ablaze with indignation the waiter spun on his heel and dashed away to find the proprietor.

“See that guy yonder?” he said, pointing toward the bewhiskered one. “Well, of all the scalded nerve ever I seen in my life—say, you know what that guy done, boss? He come in here a minute ago and made me fetch him a set of feedin’ tools and then, be gee, he hauled out his own chow and started eatin’. Ain’t you goin’ to give him a call-down?”

“I certainly am,” stated the owner. He ranged up alongside the offender.

“Say,” he demanded with terrific sarcasm, “wot kind of a place do you think I’m runnin’ here, anyway?”

The stranger looked up from his repast:

“Vell,” he said calmly, “since you ask me, I got to dell you—der service here iss rotten! Ulso, for why ain’t der orchestra playing?”

The newly organized Ku Klux Klan, having had its first parade, was now in session behind locked doors for the purpose of conferring the secret work upon a batch of new members. A stranger tried to shove his way into the hall. The keeper of the outer portals shooed him away. Presently the persistent intruder returned.

“Say, look here,” said the warden, “you don’t belong in here.” He took a closer look at the stranger. “I’m sure of it. Ain’t you Jewish?”

“Shure, I’m Jewish,” answered the other, with an ingratiating smile.

“Well, don’t you know the Ku Klux Klan don’t let no Jews join it?”

“I don’t vant to join.”

“Well, what do you want then?”

“I vant to see the feller vot buys the bed-sheetings.”

A young negress visited a dentist of her own race late one afternoon to have an aching molar removed.

“Does you want gas?” inquired the dentist.

“Suttinly I wants gas,” she answered. “Does you think I crave to have a strange man foolin’ ’round me in de dark?”

If you have for a friend a clergyman who is slightly deaf, it is proper to tell this story on him, adding that you were present when it happened. As a matter of fact, it has been attributed to every distinguished churchman in this country who is hard of hearing. However, it goes better, I think, when you make the central character a bishop—by preference a very dignified bishop—who is attending a dinner-party.

Seated next to him, on his deafer side, is a young lady who, being naturally diffident, is now deeply awed by her proximity to so famous a man. She hesitates to address him, preferring to wait for what she regards as a favorable opportunity; yet she craves conversation with him.

Toward the end of the meal, fruit is passed about. The nervous guest seizes on this for her cue. Gently she joggles her great neighbor’s elbow.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” she says, “but are you fond of bananas?”

His Reverence inclines a stately head in her direction, at the same time cupping his hand behind his ear.

“What did you say?” he asks.

Blushing, the young woman raises her voice:

“It’s really of no consequence,” she says; “I merely asked you whether you liked bananas.”

By now, all the others at the table are listening. The bishop considers for a moment and then replies:

“Well, my dear, if you wish my honest opinion, I have always preferred the old-fashioned night-shirt.”

For years Mrs. Grauman, wife of the wealthy retired shirt-waist manufacturer, had been ailing. Or anyhow, she thought she was ailing. She tried one specialist after another, patronized a succession of sanitariums, took the cure here, there and elsewhere. Yet nothing seemed to help her. She remained a chronic complainer.

The husband’s patience sorely was tested. Also there was a constant drain upon his checkbook. Mr. Grauman didn’t so much mind the latter. Always he had been a generous provider for his family. What secretly irked him was a conviction that the lady’s trouble was more or less imaginary; an unspoken but none-the-less sincere belief that his money was being spent to gratify a neurotic whim. Had Mr. Grauman known the words “malingerer” and “hypochondriac” these undoubtedly were the words he would have applied in his own private diagnosis of the case.

Nevertheless, the invalid, after long months of treatment, succumbed to her mysterious malady. She became no more.

On the night before the funeral the mourning widower sat alone by the bier. For long hours he communed with himself. Finally he reached forth a caressing hand and softly patted the casket.

“Vell,” he said, “maybe Mommer vas sick!”

There is an actor in New York who is distinguished among other qualities for his frugality. There have been other frugal actors from time to time, but probably none quite so much so as this gentleman is. His passion for personal economy has come to be proverbial. Let us for convenience call him Jones, which isn’t his name at all.

One day in the early part of December of last year a gentleman of a waggish turn of mind came, with a look of concern on his face, into the Lambs Club. He approached a card table where four brother members were playing bridge.

“Did you hear about the accident to Jones?” he asked.

“No,” they chorused. “What was it?”

“Well, it just happened over on the East Side. While Jones was doing his Christmas shopping he got crushed between two push-carts.”

The transcontinental flier had pulled out from Chicago for the long run to the Coast and the conductor had made his rounds, when the passengers in one of the coaches became aware of signs of concern on the part of a fellow traveler. This was an elderly bearded man in old-fashioned garb and of fatherly aspect. He sat with his head in his hands muttering to himself in Yiddish and at intervals uttering low moaning sounds.

They sympathized with his grief and among themselves wondered what ailed him. The common theory was that the poor old fellow must be on his way across country, hoping to reach the bedside of some dear one who was in sore affliction. Or, possibly, he was going west to attend a funeral.

Next morning, as the train entered Kansas, his grief seemed greater even than it had been the night before. He groaned almost continuously, beating himself gently on the breast and at intervals exclaiming:

“Oi! Oi!”

This continued all through that day and the day following. The patriarch seemed so alone in his sorrow; so completely desolated. Kindly eyes regarded him and all on the train wished they might do something to soothe him and comfort him. But he was a stranger and, after all, there wasn’t anything really they could do; besides, they felt it was not proper that they, who never before had seen him, should intrude upon his distress.

Finally, though, on the next afternoon when they were crossing Southern California and were within a few score miles of Los Angeles, one big-hearted man could contain himself no longer. He approached the seat where the old man sat in a huddle of misery and extending a cordial hand, he said:

“Sir, I do not know you. I do not wish you to think that I am inquisitive, but I have been sorely moved by your grief and perhaps now that we are approaching our destination I can be of some small assistance to you. Is there anything I can do?”

Tears gushed from the old man’s eyes as mutely he shook his head.

“I’m so sorry. Pardon me for asking, but have you suffered a personal bereavement?”

The ancient shook his head in the negative.

“Is it worse than that even?”

A nod.

“Well, then, what is the matter?”

“Listen, Meester: T’ree days already I am on der wrong train!”

The steamer was calling at the principal port of one of those remote South Sea islands regarding which so much romance has been written these last few years by gifted fictionists and imaginative travelers. In canoes the natives paddled out to welcome the strangers from other climes. At the head of the volunteer reception committee came the ruling monarch, King Some-thing-or-Other, a huge brown man with an air of heavy dignity and a battered high hat upon his head. He was accompanied by the Imperial staff and also by his household retinue, the party including all of his wives, many of his children and his prime minister. The latter was a Cockney beach-comber who had been stranded here years before and who, having been adopted into the tribe had risen to a place of high favor in the eyes of the copper-colored potentate.

The king, his premier, and his body-guard were welcomed aboard ship. The subjects remained alongside, in broken English begging the passengers to throw pennies down to them. Whenever a coin struck the water, half a dozen islanders at once dived for it.

One of the visitors was generously inclined. When he had emptied his pockets of coppers he began flinging out small bits of silver and correspondingly, the excitement among the amphibious natives increased. In the hope of moving them to an even more spirited exhibition of their powers, the white benefactor fished about until he found a silver dollar. He was in the act of hurling it over the side when the prime minister caught his arm.

“Please, sir,” begged the Cockney, “don’t do that, sir. Hi ask you to restrain yourself, sir. You’ll be ’aving ’Is Royal ’Ighness overboard next!”

A country girl went to Charleston, South Carolina, to have some work done on her teeth. The operator was cleansing a cavity with a small blow-pipe. The patient flinched.

“Do you feel that air?” asked the dentist.

“That air whut?” said the young lady.

The gentleman who entered the popular-price restaurant must have had a great night the night before. Because he felt so miserable this morning. And looked it! He was disheveled; his eyes were wan and bloodshot; his hand trembled. In short, it was plain to any eye that he suffered from what, technically, is known as a hang-over.

He fell into a chair at the table, took one look at the breakfast menu and gagged. To him, all affability, came a colored waiter.

“Well, boss,” began the servitor genially, “whut’s it goin’ to be this mawnin’?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the sufferer. He sniffed the close air of the little place and turned slightly paler. “I feel like the devil. About all I want, I guess, is two fried eggs and a few kind words.”

“Lemme see ef I got that right?” said the waiter. “You is feelin’ kind of puny so all w’ich you craves frum me is two fried aigs an’ a few kind words.”

“That’s it.”

The colored man hurried to the kitchen. Presently he returned balancing a small platter. On the cloth before the nervous patron he placed a dish containing two eggs.

“Boss, here’s part of yore awder.” He sank his voice to a discreet whisper. “An’ yere’s the rest of it:

“Don’t eat ’em!”

The eminent Dr. Blank, specialist in bone and muscular diseases, was a busy man. The routine in his offices was devised with a view to facilitating the handling of cases. He had a full staff of nurses, clerks and attendants.

On a certain morning a neatly dressed and diffident-appearing youth entered the outer room and told the nurse in charge that he wished to see Dr. Blank.

“Have you an appointment?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” he said.

“Then this must be your first visit?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Very well, then. Go to that dressing-room down the hall, second door on the left, and remove all your clothing, including your shoes. Presently a bell will ring and you may then enter the adjoining room where Dr. Blank will be waiting to see you.”

Blushingly, the young man started to say that he didn’t think all this was necessary. With an authoritative gesture the nurse checked him.

“If you really desire to see Dr. Blank you must do exactly as I tell you,” she stated. “This is the invariable rule for all who call upon him for the first time.”

Still protesting, the stranger repaired to the disrobing chamber. Sure enough, within a few minutes a bell tinkled, and, wearing nothing at all except his embarrassment, the youth stepped timorously across a threshold into an inner room where the distinguished specialist sat at a desk.

“Well sir,” snapped the expert with professional brusqueness, “what seems to be the matter with you?”

“There ain’t nothin’ the matter with me,” said the newcomer.

“Well, then, what do you want? What did you come here for?”

“I came,” said the youth, “to see if you didn’t want to renew your subscription to the Ladies Home Journal.”

Some years ago the editor of a popular publication had an inspiration. He made up a list of men and women distinguished in art, religion, literature, commerce, politics, and other lines, and to each he sent a telegram containing this question: “If you had but forty-eight hours more to live, how would you spend them?” his purpose being to embody the replies in a symposium in a subsequent issue of his periodical.

Among those who received copies of the inquiry was a humorous writer. He thought the proposition over for a spell, and then by wire, collect, sent back this answer:

“One at a time.”

A negro in Sunflower County, Mississippi, was tried and convicted of murder and sentenced for a certain date. After he had been returned to his cell to await the time of execution it would appear that he practically was forgotten. The lawyer, who had been appointed by the court to defend him, lost interest in the case. He neither moved for a new trial nor did he take an appeal from the verdict.

Time slipped by until, finally, it dawned upon the condemned darky that, unless he took steps in his own behalf, something of a highly unpleasant nature shortly would be happening. So he sat down and himself wrote a letter to the governor of the state, reading as follows:

“Dere Guvnor:

“The w’ite folks is got me in the jail here at this place and I is in the middle of a right bad fix. So I teks my pen in hand to ax you please, Mister Guvner, to do something fur me right away?

“Because dey is fixin’ to hang me on Friday. And here ’tis Wednesday already!”

A certain distinguished English actor whom we will call Walker-Smith plays a persistent but terrible game of golf. During a visit to this country he visited the links of a country club in Westchester County, New York State.

After an especially miserable showing one morning, he flung down his niblick in disgust.

“Caddy,” he said, addressing the youth who stood alongside, “that was awful, wasn’t it?”

“Purty bad, sir.”

“I’ll have to confess that I am the worst golfer in the world,” continued the actor.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, sir,” purred the caddy, soothingly.

“Did you ever see a worse player than I am?”

“No, sir, I never did,” confessed the boy truthfully; “but some of the other boys was tellin’ me yistiddy about a gentleman that must be a worse player than what you are. They said his name was Walker-Smith.”

I am reliably informed that this one really happened down in Winston-Salem, which is the only town in North Carolina that parts its name with a hyphen. A lady who lives there was my informant. She heard it from her pantry window one summer afternoon.

Her cook, Aunt Cilly, was sitting in the kitchen door. The organizer of a new lodge was entreating Aunt Cilly to become a charter member. At length and with eloquence he painted the advantages of belonging to the society. He pointed out its manifold advantages. To begin with, it had a beautiful name made up of noble long words. Its ritual was impressive, its uniform dazzling. Practically every member would hold office, and so forth and so on.

In silence Aunt Cilly harkened until the solicitor ran dry. Then she spoke:

“Tell me dis, Br’er Sawyer, befo’ you goes any fu’ther—do dis yere lodge of your’n fune’lize de daid?”

“To tell you de truth, Sista’, we ain’t quite got ’round to dat part yit,” confessed the orator. “Dey’s been so much else to do. But in due time we aims to ’range ’bout de sick benefits an’ de buryin’ fund an’ all dat.”

“Br’er Sawyer, bresh by,” commanded the sagacious Aunt Cilly. “Yo’ new lodge done lose its taste fur me already. I ’members whut happen’ to dat shiftless flight-haided Fanny Meriwether whut lived jest a little piece up dis same street. Yere two years ago she took an’ up an’ j’ined one of dese yere new-fangled lodges w’ich a strange nigger got up in dis town, same ez whut you’s aimin’ to do now. An’ dat lodge didn’t specify ’bout no buryin’ money, neither. Well, Fanny Meriwether hauled off one day an’ died widout ary cent of money laid by fur to fune’lize her. An’ whut wuz de upshot? W’y, she laid ’round de house daid fur goin’ on three days an’ den dat pore gal had to git to de cemetery de best way she could.”

Back in those old sinful wet days, two gentlemen, both far overtaken in alcoholic stimulant, were seen under a lamp-post on a street corner in Newark, clinging to each other for support.

As a spectator passed them he overheard the following dialogue carried on in somewhat fuzzy accents:

Said Souse Number One:

“Do you know Bill Talbot?”

Said Souse Number Two after a moment of reflection:

“No; whuzziz name?”

Said Souse Number One:

“Who?”

On their bridal tour the young couple went, as many young couples do on their bridal tours, to Washington. They stopped at one of the larger hotels. For two days they did the usual sight-seeing stunts. They visited the Capitol and the White House and they crossed over to Arlington and they ascended the Monument.

Early on the morning of the third day the husband remained in the room to write some letters. The bride ran out to do a little shopping. Half an hour later she returned. She had left the elevator at her floor and was passing through the long hallway when she discovered that she had forgotten her own room number. She was sure, though, she knew which was the right door, but, when she turned the knob and tried to enter, she found it locked.

She rapped on the panel.

“Let me in, honey,” she said. “I’m back.”

There was no reply.

She rapped again.

“Honey, oh, honey!” she called, “I want to get in.”

From the other side of the door came the voice of a strange man—a dignified and an austere voice:

“Madam, this is not a beehive; it is a bathroom.”

This yarn, which is of English origin, requires quite a bit of stage-setting. We are expected to imagine a village green in the morning. The official village drunkard is revealed in the foreground. It is evident that he has had a hard night. He leans against the village pump, pressing his throbbing temples to the cool iron work. Ambling up to him with a smile of gratification on his chubby cheeks, comes the curate of the parish.

“Good morning, Walker,” says the curate briskly.

“Mornin’,” says Walker, opening one eye wanly but not shifting his position.

“Walker,” continues the curate, “I want to tell you that I was most pleased—although, I must confess, a bit surprised as well—to see you among those present at vesper services last evening.”

“Ow,” says Walker; “so that’s where I was, was I?”

A literal and simple-minded man, by birth a German, sent his wife to the hospital for an operation. The operation was performed in the forenoon. In the afternoon, when he quit work, the husband called to inquire how the patient had stood the ordeal. The nurse told him that she seemed to be improving.

Early the next morning he was on hand asking for the latest tidings from the sick-room, and again he was informed that his wife still appeared to be improving. Twice daily all through the week he received similar reports.

But one morning when he called he was met with the distressing news that she had passed away. In a daze the widower started down the street to find an undertaking establishment. On the way he met an acquaintance and the latter said:

“Well, how’s your wife to-day?”

“She iss dead,” answered the bereft one.

“Ach!” said his friend. “That’s too bad. I thought she was getting along first rate. What did she die of?”

“Improvements.”

Three patricians of the coal yards fared forth on mercy bent, each in his great black chariot. Their overlord, the yard superintendent, had bade them deliver to seven families a total of twenty-eight tons of coal equally divided.

Well out of the yards, each with his first load, Kelly and Burke and Shea paused to discuss the problem of equal distribution—how much coal should each family get?

“ ’Tis this way,” argued Burke. “ ’Tis but a bit of mathematics. If there are 7 families an’ 28 tons o’ coal ye divide 28 by 7, which is done as follows: Seven into 8 is 1, 7 into 21 is 3, which makes 13.”

He triumphantly exhibited his figures made with a stubby pencil on a bit of grimy paper:

The figures were impressive but Shea was not wholly convinced. “There’s a easy way o’ provin’ that,” he declared. “Ye add 13 seven times,” and he made his column of figures according to his own formula. Then, starting from the bottom of the 3 column, he reached the top with a total of 21 and climbed down the column of 1’s, thus: “3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28.” “Burke is right,” he announced with finality.

This was Shea’s exhibit:

“There is still some doubt in me mind,” said Kelly. “Let me demonstrate in me own way. If ye multiply the 13 by 7 and get 28, then 13 is right.” He produced a bit of stubby pencil and a sheet of paper. “ ’Tis done in this way,” he said. “Seven times 3 is 21; 7 times 1 is 7, which makes 28. ’Tis thus shown that 13 is the right figure and ye’re both right. Would ye see the figures?”

Kelly’s feat in mathematics was displayed as follows:

“There is no more argyment,” the three agreed, so they delivered thirteen tons of coal to each family.

Little Willie came running into the house stuttering in his excitement.

“Mommer,” he panted, “do you know Archie Sloan’s neck?”

“Do I know what?” asked his mother.

“Do you know Archie Sloan’s neck?”

“I know Archie Sloan,” answered the puzzled parent; “so I suppose I know his neck. Why?”

“Well,” said Willie, “he just now fell into the back-water up to it.”

This story naturally resolves itself into two parts. Thus:

Part 1

Two midgets, members of a traveling troupe, are waiting at the Atlanta station for a train to New Orleans. The train is due at midnight but it is late. The dwarfs go into the lunch room for a bite. One of them drinks two large cups of black coffee, then immediately begins to lament his indiscretion.

“I had no business doing that,” he pipes to his companion. “Now I know I won’t sleep a wink till broad daylight.”

The train arrives and the little men get on. The coffee-drinker has a sleeper ticket calling for Upper Eleven. The other little man holds a reservation for Upper Twelve.

The porter boosts the diminutive passengers into their respective berths and the train moves on.

Part 2

On the following morning two traveling-men meet in the washroom of the Pullman.

“Hello, old chap,” says the first, “I didn’t know you were aboard. What space did you have last night?”

“I was in Lower Eleven,” said the second man.

“How did you rest?” asks number one.

“Rotten! I guess it must have been a fancy, but I had the feeling that all night long somebody was walking up and down just over my head.”

Over the alley fence the colored grass widow was calling her small black offspring.

“Morphy!” she shouted. “Oh, you Morphy! Come yere to me.”

The passing white man was moved by curiosity to halt and ask questions:

“ ‘Morphy’?—isn’t that rather a curious name for a boy, Aunty?”

“Dat ain’t his full name,” she explained. “Dat’s jest whut I calls ’im fur short. Dat chile’s full name is Morphine.”

“Well, then, why Morphine?”

“Ain’t you never heered de word ‘Morphine’?”

“Certainly; but never in this connection. Would you mind telling me why you chose it when you were christening this child?”

“I chose it ’cause it wuz de mos’ suitable one dey wuz. ’Bout de time he wuz bawn, I heerd one of de w’ite folks readin’ out of a book dat Morphine wuz de product of a wild poppy.

“An’, Mista, ef evah a chile had a wild poppy, dis is de chile!”

Among gamblers there is a saying, and a true one, that no matter how wise a guy may be in his own line he’s always a sucker at some other fellow’s game. The expert confidence man goes against the crooked roulette wheel. The promoter of fixed foot-races blows his loot on faro.

It has remained for a sporting person whose specialty is poker to explain why, in his own case, he fails to garner any profits when he invades a kindred field of endeavor. He went to Belmont track one day to play the races. When he returned home in the evening he was penniless. The hand book-makers had stripped him of his last dollar.

His wife took him to task.

“You certainly are a boob,” she said. “Every time you go to the track you come home cleaned out. Why is it you always lose there when you always can win at cards?”

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about that very thing myself, and I guess the answer is that I don’t shuffle the horses.”

Several versions of this story are current but the one I like best of all goes like this:

There was a colored preacher who served a term in state’s prison in West Virginia for horse-stealing. After his release he changed his name and moved to Alabama. There he became the pastor of a prosperous flock. He figured that his past life was entirely buried. None of the congregation had the slightest suspicion that he was an ex-convict, and he hoped to go on until the end of his days enjoying the confidence of the community.

But one Sunday as he entered the pulpit, he suffered a distressing shock. Sitting in a front pew was a black man he instantly recognized as a former cell-mate in the penitentiary. That wasn’t the worst of it. He could tell by the expression on the other’s face that the latter also had recognized him. He had a feeling either that he must submit to blackmail or suffer exposure and lose his present charge. The distracted parson did some quick thinking. Then he opened the Good Book, fixed his eyes meaningly upon the countenance of the interloper, cleared his throat and began as follows:

“Brethren an’ Sistren. I had figgered to disco’se to you-all dis Sabbath mawnin’ ’pun de subjec’ of de parable of de Prodigal Son; but sence steppin’ into dis holy place I has changed my mind an’ I shall preach frum de fo’teenth Chapter of Ezekiel, nineteenth Verse, w’ich sez: ‘Ef thou seest me an’ thinkest thou knowest me, don’t say nothin’, fur verily I say unto you, I’ll see you later.’ ”

Two of Broadway’s typical products were invited to spend an evening at the Fifth Avenue home of a wealthy patron. The guests knew a great deal about musical shows and about picking winners at the tracks and, when it came to rolling a sucker for his money, they acknowledged no superiors. But in certain other departments of knowledge both of them were just a trifle shy.

Observing that they seemed somewhat self-conscious, their host undertook to make them feel more at home. He made the mistake, though, of picking on literature as a topic. Across the dinner-table he said to one of them:

“How do you like Omar Khayyam?”

“Oh, pretty good,” said the person addressed; “but a bottle of this here red Chianti suits me better.”

On the way home the second Broadwayite took his friend to task for his ignorance.

“Bo,” he said, “when you don’t understand a thing why don’t you keep your mouth shut? Why, you big stiff, this here Omar Khayyam ain’t no wine. It’s a cheese.”

There once was a clerk of the hotel in a small Maine town who had a unique way of keeping a diary. Each evening he wrote on the bottom lines of the page of the register for the current date a brief account of the principal daily doings in the community, usually coupled with a summary of his own personal reactions to them. Sometimes his phraseology was unusual but always it was amply descriptive.

A friend of mine was stopping at the hotel, having gone up to Maine on a fishing trip. He fell into the habit of glancing through the back pages of the register, more for the enjoyment he got from the quaint language of the entries than because he was interested in bygone neighborhood history.

On succeeding pages of the book for a week of the early spring of the year previous, he found these progressive records of a local tragedy:

Tuesday: “While fishing through the ice yesterday, Henry Whippet fell in the Saco River up to his neck. He was drawed out and took home.”

Wednesday: “Henry Whippet is in bed with a powerful bad cold. His folks are thinking some about calling in a doctor.”

Thursday: “Henry Whippet is rapidly continuing to get no better. It now looks like he is fixing to break out with the pneumonia.”

Friday: “Henry Whippet is sinking rapidly.”

Saturday: “At nine o’clock this morning our esteemed fellow-citizen, Henry J. Whippet, Esq., went to his Maker entirely uncalled for.”

Carried away by a spirit of patriotism, a New York song-writer, of indolent habits, signed up for a citizens’ training-camp. On his arrival he was assigned to an awkward squad under charge of a sergeant of the regular army.

Bearing a dummy musket, our hero lined up with the rest of the green hands. Facing them, the drill-master proceeded to rattle off the manual.

“Attention!” he shouted. “Carry arms—present arms—shoulder arms—parade arms!”

The song-writer flung his wooden rifle down.

“I quit!” he declared. “I’m through, right now.”

“What’s the matter?” demanded the astonished sergeant.

“The trouble with you is you change your mind too darned often!”

Either the mule which drew the decrepit wagon along the sandy road through the pine-barrens, was balky or else perhaps he merely was conservative by nature. Despite prayers, pleas, curses and commands from the lanky Georgian who drove him, each being accompanied by a terrific blow with a long heavy club, the obstinate animal merely blinked its eyes and continued to amble at the slowest of all possible gaits. The city man, who came along just now in his automobile, drew up to watch the spectacle. Ordinarily the passer-by was a humane man and believed in treating the dumb brutes with all possible kindliness. But the sight of this long-eared malingerer made him forget his sentiments.

“My friend,” he said, “I marvel at your patience. Is that beast, by any chance, sick?”

The Cracker shook his head:

“Naw, suh,” he answered, “there ain’t nothin’ ailin’ him. This is jest the way he acts all the time. Even down here on this flat land I have to keep beatin’ him all the time this a-way to make him move a-tall.”

“Why don’t you climb down out of that wagon and kick him in the stomach?”

“Naw, I reckin not. You see, I’m savin’ that up fur the hill yonder.”

In the Pinenut mining region of Nevada during the early nineties, rich gold-bearing veins were discovered in the foothills. Coincident with this discovery came the development of placer claims in the beds of the valley streams. There was a tremendous rush of prospectors from neighboring mining towns, and Pinenut became the center of much activity. Unfortunately, it proved to be a superficial bonanza and petered out in a short time. A few fanatics still lingered on, hoping that a sharp pick in hopeful hands would open a new Golconda at an unexpected moment.

As Robert H. Davis tells the story, one of the hangers-on had the bad taste to die. It was the custom in new mining camps for the District Recorder to perform the services of the church and to lay to rest those who expired with or without their boots on. The ceremony was the same for both. This particular funeral took place in the dry bed of the creek. A hole six by two by three had been scooped from the gravel. The deceased reposed in a rude coffin.

The Recorder, from the Book of Common Prayer, read the service in a solemn voice:

“Ye brought nothing into this world and ye shall take nothing out.”

The coffin was lowered by horny hands.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Dust to dust!”

Reaching down he gathered a handful of dirt and gravel which sifted through his fingers and fell with a rattaplan upon the wooden box.

“Ashes to ashes!” But instead of either dust or ashes the gleam of a nugget flashed back from the coffin lid. There it lay, resurrected from eternity while the lamented was being returned to the mould.

Without a moment’s hesitation the Recorder dropped his prayer-book, jumped into the grave, heaved the deceased out of the property and exclaiming in a loud voice:

“I claim everything seven hundred and fifty feet North and South and six hundred feet East and West. Everybody get off the premises.”

He pulled out two six-shooters, cleaned his estate of spectators and put up his location notices without delay.

The interment took place the following day in a vegetable garden.

Holbrook Blinn, the actor, was playing an engagement in London several years ago. One afternoon he went out to Epsom Downs for the racing. In the crush at the paddock he was addressed by a Cockney of a slinky appearance:

“Sye, Guv’ner,” said the stranger, “wouldn’t you like to buy a diamond scarf-pin hat a bargain?”

Blinn shook his head and started to move off, but the importuning stranger detained him:

“Wyte a bit please, Guv’ner,” he pleaded, in an eager half-whisper; “don’t go yet, you’ll never get another chance like this. Hy pledge you me word of ’onor you won’t regret it if you buys this ’ere pin. Pure w’ite stone and a nobby settin’. Worth twenty quid, if hit’s worth a penny. And yours for four pound cash.”

Interested in spite of himself by the insistent one’s eloquence, Blinn said:

“Well, let me have a look at it.”

“Hi ain’t got it wiv me—yet. But I can give you a look hat it.”

“How can you give me a look at it if you aren’t carrying it with you?” asked the puzzled American.

“Turn your ’ead slow, Guv’ner,” said the Cockney, dropping his voice. “See that fat bloke yonder wiv the gray coat on?” He pointed a cautious finger and sank his voice still lower. “Hit’s in ’is necktie.”

Mr. Pincus, the delicatessen dealer, was visiting Mr. Rabinowitz, the retailer in second-hand garments at the latter’s flat in Allen Street. To the host came his little son, Isadore, aged six.

“Popper,” he asked, “vould you gif me a quarter?”

“Shure,” said the parent. He hauled a coin from his pocket, dropped it with a generous gesture into the outstretched hand of his offspring and, as the child trotted away, made as if to resume his interrupted conversation with the caller. But Mr. Pincus, who had been observing the byplay with distended eyes was the first to speak:

“Rabinowitz, have you gone crazy or something? Your boy asks you for a whole quarter und right avay you give it to him. What an extravagance!”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Rabinowitz, with a proud smile. “Every night comes my little Isadore und asks me for a quarter, und alvays I gif it to him.”

“But ain’t it teachin’ him bad habits, having all that money to spend on himself?” insisted Mr. Pincus.

“Pincus,” said his friend, “I tell you a secret: he ain’t spendin’ it on himself; alvays he goes und puts it in his savings bank, only, it ain’t a savings bank—that’s what he thinks it is. It’s the gas meter.”

The late Alf T. Ringling, of Ringling Brothers, loved the lore of the circus. In his library he had shelves of books and pictures and documents and ancient posters pertaining to life under the big tops. Also he knew hundreds of anecdotes, humorous and otherwise, modern and ancient, which related to some aspect or another of the business he all his active life had followed. A year or two before his death he told me this one, which he vouched for as having been an actual occurrence:

It was back in the days before the Ringling Show had attained large proportions, when Barnum and Bailey’s circus was, as its billing proclaimed, The Greatest Show on Earth.

The aggregation, with its menagerie, its three rings and its elevated stages and hippodrome track, and all, was touring the South. A day or two earlier, an acrobat who just had closed a season with a traveling burlesque troupe—by special request of its manager—applied for a job with the circus and was given it. His act did not give full satisfaction to the director of performances, who so reported to Mr. Barnum, and the latter sent for the new performer, and told him that his work fell short of the desired standard.

“You recommended yourself pretty highly when you came around the other day,” said Mr. Barnum. “In fact, as I recall, you told me you were the best man in your line anywhere. Now I hear that you haven’t made good.”

Being an artiste, the young man naturally had his share of temperament.

“Is that so?” he answered with heavy sarcasm. “Well, lemme tell you somethin’—there ain’t nobody can reflect on my abilities without answerin’ to me. If I hear any more of this sort of talk I’ll quit!”

“All right, then, quit,” said the famous showman.

“You said it,” answered the indignant trouper. “I’ve quit. I’ve resigned. Do you know what that means, Mr. Barnum?”

“I think so,” said the older man. “It means you’ve quit.”

“Think again. Do you happen to know what town this is?”

“Certainly I do—Pine Bluff.”

“That’s it. Now you’ve got it. Here right in the middle of the season I’m leavin’ Barnum and Bailey’s circus flat on its back in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.”

An Englishman was visiting on a big ranch in the southern part of Texas. The country abounded in game and the visitor, who had done very little shooting in his life, became filled with an ambition to kill a deer.

His host fitted him out with a rifle and sent him on a still hunt under the guidance of a negro hand who had considerable experience at stalking. The darky led the greenhorn to a likely place on the edge of a thicket. Before the pair had traveled very far the keen eyes of the negro spied out a handsome buck feeding in the thickets and by slow degrees moving in their direction. He drew the Englishman down into a handy clump of chaparral; but when the buck almost was within easy gunshot of them he suddenly quit feeding, raised his head, sniffed, snorted, and instantly was gone. The disappointed amateur turned to his guide:

“Surely the brute didn’t see us? I did not move, I know,” he said.

“Naw suh, he ain’t see you—dat I’m sho’,” said the negro, “but I think, boss, he must a’ smell’ you.”

“But that couldn’t be,” said the still puzzled Englishman. “Why, I had a barth only this morning!”

The late Charles E. Van Loan, a splendid story-teller in his own right and equally adept as a story-writer, used to love to tell this one:

An ambitious promoter undertook to stage a prize-fight between two heavy-weights at a little town just over the international boundary between Mexico and California. The fight was advertised to go for twenty rounds.

From both sides of the line a great crowd gathered, the majority of those present being Mexicans.

A somewhat inexperienced but quick-witted Texan acted as referee. It subsequently developed that, contrary to the ethics, the referee had a private bet on one of the scrappers. Midway of the fight, it appeared highly probable that his favorite would shortly be knocked out and so, to save his money, the referee, at the end of the tenth round, declared the bout a draw, and ended it right there.

Enraged and disappointed, the audience rose up, shouting threats. The native contingent was especially vociferous. A first-class riot was threatened.

But the imperiled referee had a smart notion in reserve. By waving his arms and shouting that he had a statement to make, he secured comparative silence. Then he made his announcement and it proved eminently satisfactory. The Americans present saw the point of the joke; the Mexicans were appeased because the explanation seemed to them perfectly sound.

“Gentlemen,” the referee said, “this was advertised as a twenty-round fight and that’s exactly what it is—twenty rounds Mex. or ten rounds American.”

Years ago, when I was a reporter for a New York evening paper, and covered trials at the Criminal Courts Building, there was an elderly and very devout Irishman who had a job in Part Two of General Sessions. It was his duty to keep order and to act as door-keeper, on occasion, and sometimes as a sort of usher. But he particularly shone on those occasions when he was called upon to aid in taking the so-called pedigree of a newly convicted defendant.

In this matter a certain routine invariably was followed. The prisoner would be arraigned at the bar. The old Irishman would range alongside him and in an undertone ask of him certain questions, then call out the answers to the clerk sitting fifteen feet away, who duly recorded them on the back of the indictment. This ceremony was more or less automatic, since from long experience the old man knew exactly what facts regarding the prisoner’s past life he must ascertain. As the convicted man usually made his responses in an undertone, only the functionary’s voice would be heard as he chanted his own version of the disclosures just made to him.

One day a youth of a most forbidding appearance, who had been found guilty of attempted highway robbery, was brought up. The old Irishman edged up to him and in a friendly confidential half-whisper asked him for his right name.

“Henry Smith,” returned the youth, in a surly grumble out of one corner of his mouth.

“He says Henry Smith, Mr. Penney,” called out the Irishman. Then he turned again to the malefactor:

“Born in the United States?”

“Sure—Brooklyn.”

“Native-born, Mr. Penney.”

“Any religious instruction in your youth, young man?”

“No,” shortly.

“PROTESTANT, Mr. Penney.”