The Sunny Side of the Street

The difference between good luck and bad luck amounts generally to the difference between the men who are said to have the one or the other. Some men are always waiting for something to turn up: others make sure of it by taking something—anything—from a spade to their wits, and digging it up. Anywhere in the country one may see holding down chairs in the store, or in the city lounging at tables in bar-rooms, a knot of men who were born with average brains, yet they will drone dismally of successful men whom they know or have heard of:

“Smith became a preacher at twelve thousand a year.”

“Jones dropped into a Supreme Court Judgeship.”

“Brown stumbled on a business chance that made him a millionaire.”

“Well, there’s nothing like luck”—and they go on sitting still waiting for it, and can’t imagine why it never comes their way. I once chanced to mention Chauncey Depew’s name in the hearing of a crowd of this kind, and a voice replied:

“There’s a lucky man for you! Why, whenever he hears of anything, it is just his luck to have a story that goes to the spot as quick as a bullet from a gun.”

This sort of “luck,” like the other instances referred to, is the inevitable outcome of the man and his ways. There are jokes for every situation, as there are keys for every lock; but the man who lets a good joke go in one ear and out of the other is like him who puts his keys into a pocket with a hole in it, and then grumbles that he can’t unlock his doors. Jokes are like dollars: when you have some that are not needed at the time, it is better to stow them away for future use than to drop them where they can’t be found in case of need.

I can recall from my own experience but one case of sheer luck in story-telling. While dining at an Englishman’s magnificent place one summer, some peaches were served. As the English climate is too cool to ripen peaches, these had been grown on the side of a wall and under glass. They were superb in size and color yet they had small stones and little flavor. When my host told me of the care that had been lavished on them—they must have cost him a dollar each—my mind went back to the peach season at home, so I said to him:

“Peaches that would make your mouth water and send tears of joy chasing one another down your cheeks are to-day piled high on barges beside the wharves of New York and selling at a dollar a basket, with from one to two hundred peaches in each basket.”

I made this truthful statement in a matter-of-fact way, which was all it called for; but my host looked at me in amazement, then laughed heartily and said:

“Well, you Americans have always been remarkable for the stories you tell.”

To revert to Mr. Depew, he can tell a new story every day of the year, and add two or three by way of good measure; but their newness is generally in the patness of their application. He is so able at this sort of thing that he can turn a story against the man who tells it. But he confesses gleefully to having been caught once in the same manner. He was billed to make a speech somewhere up the state, and when he arrived the editor of the local paper called at his hotel to argue politics with him. The editor quoted newspaper statements frequently to support his arguments, but Depew replied:

“Oh, you can’t believe everything the newspapers say.”

After the speech-making ended, the editor and Mr. Depew met again, in the centre of a crowd of listeners.

“Well, my friend,” the genial Chauncey asked, “what did you think of my speech?”

The editor hesitated a moment before he inquired solemnly: “Are you the genuine Chauncey M. Depew?”

“Certainly! Do you doubt it?”

Again the editor hesitated. He regarded the speaker as if he was sizing him up, and asked: “Are you the man all the newspapers have been saying is the finest speaker, the greatest talker, the sharpest stumper and the brightest wit before the public?”

Depew modestly blushed at this array of compliments; but replied: “I guess I am he. But why do you ask?”

“Oh, because one can’t believe everything the newspapers say.”

And Depew made haste to shake hands with the editor and call it square.

Mr. Depew’s humorous speeches read so well that nobody misses one of them if he can help it; but it is impossible for cold type to suggest the inimitable manner with which they are given. A mature maiden woman once called upon him at an hour when his time was worth about a dollar a second and asked his advice about buying a certain bit of real estate. He evasively answered that there were two things of which he knew absolutely nothing: they were women and real estate.

This amused her so greatly that she lingered instead of going away, and to prolong her stay she asked about a mutual acquaintance: “Where is Mr. Blank, Mr. Depew?”

“He is still in the city.”

“Does he stammer as much as he did?”

“Oh, yes; worse, I believe.”

“Strange he never married.”

“No, it was not strange, my dear madam. Blank courted a lovely girl—he told me of it years afterward—and this is the way he proposed.” Then Mr. Depew looked soulfully at his visitor and stammered: “‘D-d-d-dear a-a-angel, I l-l-l-love y-y-you!’ And the woman replied: ‘You need not proceed further, Mr. Blank. I do not care to be wooed on the instalment plan.’” But the visitor had fled too rapidly to get the benefit of the joke.

Bandmaster Sousa is one of the “lucky” story-tellers, for he can always cap an improbable story with a bigger one. After listening to an extraordinary yarn about some man’s appetite, and another about unquestioning confidence in another man’s directions, he “covered” both with the following, which he attributed to a Southern negro:

“Down on our fahm we’ze got a man by de name o’ Jim. Now, Jim’s de champion ham-eater of all de country roun. Unc’ Henry hed cha’ge o’ de fahm, an’ ev’ybody ’spected Unc’ Henry, an’ when Unc’ Henry tol’ any of us to do anythin’ we jus’ done it, ’ithout stoppin’ to ask any questions, ’cause we had conf’dence in him. We knowed he wouldn’t ever tell us to do anythin’ dat we hadn’t orter.

“But dat Jim—w’y, folks come f’om all de country roun’, jes’ to see Jim eat ham, fo’ de way he could tuck ham away was amazin’; it suttinly was. How you would laugh to see Jim a-settin’ by de fence one day, a-eatin’ one ham after another, like ez ef dey was cakes or biscuits! ’Twas ’ez easy to him as pickin’ teeth, an’ he’d got down eight hams, an’ de ninth was a follerin’, but I reckon it wuz f’om a middlin’ old hawg, for some gris’le got in his throat, an’ choked him an’ stopped his breath, so we wuz a-feared dat we wuz a-goin’ to lose Jim.

“But up got Unc’ Henry sort o’ easy-like, an’ he went over to de fence—dey was a lot o’ slabs on top o’ de fence—and he tuk a slab, an’ he walk t’ward Jim, an’ he sez: ‘Jim, git down on all fours!’ Dat slab looked mighty big, it did, an’ right in front o’ Jim was a big pile o’ stones; but Jim had conf’dence in Unc’ Henry, like ev’ybody did, so he got down on all fours an’ waited, an’ de gris’le in his throat, why, dat waited too. An’ Unc’ Henry pahted Jim’s coat-tails, an’ histed de slab, an’ fetched it down wid a mighty swish, an’ give Jim a hit, an’ Jim went head first onto dat pile o’ stones; but he had conf’dence in Unc’ Henry so he knowed he wouldn’t be knocked through de stones, but would stop ez soon ez he hit ’em—his conf’dence in Unc’ Henry was dat great. An’ when he struck dem stones dat piece o’ gris’le ’lowed it had bizness somewhar else. An’ Jim riz up an’ hollered ‘Gimme anudder ham!’”

It will amaze millions of John Wanamaker’s customers to know that the man who is so busy that they can never get a glimpse of him unless they attend his church is an industrious teller of stories and always has the “luck”—though that is not his name for it—to have the right story for any situation. That most of his yarns are spun in Sunday-school does not make them any the less good. I wish Sunday-school teachers had told stories when I was a boy, and I will bet Bibles to buttons that if teachers were practically instructed in story-telling, all the Sunday-school rooms would have to be enlarged to hold the increase of attendants.

But I was speaking of John Wanamaker. While reproving some of his Sunday-school pupils for laughing at a deaf boy’s wrong answers to misunderstood questions, he said:

“Boys, it isn’t right to laugh at any one’s affliction. Besides, you never know when your own words may be turned against you. I once knew a deaf man—let us call him Brown—who was disposed to stinginess and to getting every dollar he could out of everybody and everything. He never married; but he was very fond of society, so one day he felt compelled to give a banquet to the many ladies and gentlemen whose guest he had been.

“They were amazed that his purse-strings had been unloosed so far, and they thought he deserved encouragement, so it was arranged that he should be toasted. One of the most daring young men of the company was selected, for it took a lot of nerve to frame and propose a toast to so unpopular a man as Miser Brown. But the young man rose, and Brown, who had been notified of what was to occur, fixed his face in the customary manner of a man about to be toasted. And this was what was heard by every one except Brown, who never heard anything that was not roared into his ear:

“‘Here’s to you, Miser Brown. You are no better than a tramp, and it is suspected that you got most of your money dishonestly. We trust that you may get your just deserts yet, and land in the penitentiary.’

“Visible evidences of applause made Brown smile with gratification. He got upon his feet, raised his glass to his lips, and said: ‘The same to you, sir.’”

General Horace Porter is another of the men whose stories always fit. It is said that he accepted the post of American Ambassador to France for the sole purpose of taking a rest from making after-dinner speeches. He can even use a pun in a manner to compel admiration, in which respect he differs from almost every one. On one occasion he said:

“New England speakers have said that the Puritans were always missionaries among the people with whom they came in contact. I saw recently a newspaper paragraph that indicated the disposition of the Puritan to busy himself with the great hereafter, and to get as close to it as possible. The paragraph announced that the Puritan had collided in Hell Gate. (The Puritan last-named was a steamboat.)

“But when the wooden Puritan—the New Englander, gets a man on the perilous edge, so that one or other must topple over into the pit, he takes care that he shall not be the unfortunate. He is as cautious in this respect as was the night-cab driver in front of a house where there had been a bibulous dinner party. A man emerged from the house, staggered across the sidewalk, laying out more zigzags than did our patriot sires at the siege of Yorktown, opened the door of the cab and threw himself on the seat.

“The driver asked: ‘Where will I go, sor?’

“‘To hell!’ was the unexpected reply.

“The cabby drove about for some moments to take a think, for though he had heard of many sure roads to the torrid destination mentioned he was not ‘up’ on the conveniences at the entrance, and he didn’t want to scorch the paint on his cab. Soon he asked again: ‘Where am I to take you, sor?’

“‘To hell,’ was again the reply. Cabby scratched his head, studied the situation, and asked: ‘Beg pardon, sor, but can I back up when I land you?’”

To an interviewer who expected to get a good article on the difference between the English Parliament and our Congress (this was at a time when many Congressmen were tobacco-chewers) he said:

“In Parliament the men sit with their hats on and cough; in Congress they sit with their hats off and spit.”