A well-dressed party, who was far overtaken in alcoholic stimulant, stumbled into a restaurant, slumped into a handy chair at a table and gave unmistakable evidence that he was about to enjoy a refreshing slumber. A waitress shook him by the arm.

“What is it you want?” she asked.

“Dearie,” he said drowsily, “what have you?”

“Almost anything in the food line.”

“Ver’ well, then,” he said, “bring me almost anything in the food line.”

“How about a nice salad?” she asked, on a venture.

“That’d be lovely, dearie,” he assented. “Glad you thought of it—shows you got a good mind—quick thinker, everything like that. Bring me nice salad.”

“What sort of a salad?”

“That, dearie, I leave to your superior judgment,” he said. “You been here longer than I have.”

The girl went away, returning presently with a bowl of hearts of lettuce and sliced tomatoes, with an abundance of Russian dressing poured over the combination. The patron was now sound asleep. She slipped the order past his elbow and left it there where his eyes would fall upon it when he opened them.

Presently he did open his eyes. As though spellbound he contemplated that which confronted him. He took a fork and gently he stirred the contents of the bowl. Then with his free hand he beckoned the young woman to his side.

“Dearie,” he said, “drunk or sober or drinking, as is the case at present, my aim is ever to be a gen’man. Far be it from me to do anythin’ which would bring reproach upon me as a gen’man or upon the fair and unsullied name of thish noble ’stablishment. But, dearie, in justish to all concerned, it becomes nes’ary for me to ash you a queshun.”

“What’s your question?” she said snappily.

“Well,” he said, “I drift off in slumber. I wake up, and right here under my nose I find thish.” And again with his fork he daintily agitated a frond of dressing-soaked lettuce. “So, therefore, dearie, the queshun is as follows: Do I eat this—or DID I?”

It was an irate Iowa farmer of the old-fashioned type who sat him down, pen in hand, and wrote an indignant letter to a concern which made a specialty of selling plumbing supplies to rural patrons.

“I have got a kick to make,”—thus the farmer wrote. “Early last spring your agent came through this district taking orders for your patent porcelain bath tub. Some of the neighbors give him their names and so nothing would do but that my wife and daughter should have one for our house and they kept after me until I give your man my name too and told him to send me one of his tubs.

“Well, that was in the early part of April. April passed and also May and no sign of that bath tub. So I wrote to you telling you to hurry on up and deliver me that there tub. Nothing was done and so June went by and July and then August.

“And now here, when it’s the middle of September and the bathing season practically over for the year, you people are trying to make me take that dern tub.”

On the occasion of a local election in a small Tennessee town an old colored man was the only member of his race who voted the Democratic ticket. It was felt that this devotion to the cause of the Caucasian—as it prevailed in that vicinity—was deserving of recognition.

Accordingly the incoming administration promptly created a department of street cleaning—something of which the municipality had never seriously felt the need before. This department was to consist of two members, namely, a foreman or superintendent and a staff of one. Naturally, to a white man went the job of foreman but upon the worthy old black man was conferred the honor of being the staff.

Now he had the idea, which is not uncommon among other political appointees, that holding a public office meant regular wages and considerable glory and no appreciable amount of manual exertion. Nevertheless on the Monday morning when he reported for duty, as a concession to the conventionalities, he did bring a shovel along with him.

But the white man who had been selected as superintendent had a very different idea of the obligations which he owed the municipality. No sooner had the old negro shoveled up one of the accumulated piles of vintage rubbish of the years from the public thoroughfare than the vigilant eye of the boss spied out at least half a dozen more similar mounds which to his way of thinking seemed to require immediate attention.

As a consequence it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon before the surprised and chagrined and pained old man had time to blow on the plump, new formed blisters in the palm of his hands or to rub the cricks out of his back. Finally in a lull in the operations he straightened his spine with an almost audible creak, and as he wrung the dew of unwonted toil from his forehead he inquired of his superior:

“Look here, mister, ain’t you got nothin’ to do ’ceptin’ jes’ to think up things fur me to do?”

“Yep,” said the white man briskly, “that’s all my job—just to keep you busy.”

“Well, suh,” said the old man softly, “in dat case you’ll prob’ly be pleased to know dat you ain’t goin’ be workin’ tomorrer.”

An auctioneer’s man had been sent to a household to list its contents. Nothing of especial interest, either to himself or to others, marked the course of his labors until he had progressed so far as the dining room. Here, following his routine, he proceeded to enumerate the furnishings in proper order, item by item.

In his flowing professional script he set down the tally in his book:

One mahogany dining room table.

Six mahogany dining chairs.

One mahogany sideboard.

One bottle Scotch whiskey, full.

Seemingly, then, ensued a period when the appraiser was otherwise engaged and made no entries whatsoever. Then, in a somewhat struggling and uncertain handwriting, he scratched out the last item and concluded his labors for the day with the following notations:

One bottle Scotch whiskey, partially full.

One revolving Turkish rug.

In the early summer of 1918 three of us made a long trip by automobile to pay a visit to a colored regiment at the front in France. The results more than repaid us for the time and trouble. One of the main compensations was First Class Private Cooksey, who, because he had been an elevator attendant in a Harlem apartment house, gave his occupation in his enlistment blank as “indoor chauffeur.” It was to First Class Private Cooksey that the Colonel of the regiment, seeing the expression on the others’ faces when a shell from a German mortar fell near by on the day the command moved up to the front, put this question:

“Cooksey, if one of those things drops right here alongside of us and goes off, are you going to stay by me?”

“Kurnel,” stated Cooksey with sincerity, “I ain’t aimin’ to tell you no lie. Ef one of them things busts clost to me I’ll jest natchelly be obliged to go away frum here. But please, suh, don’t you set me down as no deserter. Jest put it in de book as ‘Absent without leave,’ ’cause I’ll be back jest ez soon ez I kin git my brakes to work.”

“But what if the enemy suddenly appears in force without any preliminary bombardment?” pressed the Colonel. “What do you think you and the rest of the boys will do then?”

“Kurnel,” said Cooksey, earnestly, “we may not stick by you, but we’ll shore render one service, anyway: we’ll spread de news all over France ’at de Germans is comin’!”

There was a so-called financial wizard who advertised to give lessons by mail which would enable patrons to prosper in their speculations.

A subscriber down in the Southwest found himself in difficulties as a result of following the directions for playing the grain market as laid down by the expert. He wrote a letter to this effect:

“You told me if I got into trouble I was to communicate with you and you would tell me how to act. Well, I done just what you said about buying winter wheat and I am now busted. How shall I act? Please wire.”

By wire promptly came back the answer:

“Act like you are busted!”

Speaking of carrier pigeons—although no one has done so—reminds me of a yarn that was related at the front in 1918. A half company of a regiment in the Rainbow Division, on going forward early one morning in a heavy fog for a raid across No Man’s Land, carried along with the rest of the customary equipment a homing pigeon. The pigeon in its wicker cage swung on the arm of a private, who likewise was burdened with his rifle, his extra rounds of ammunition, his trenching tool, his pair of wire cutters, his steel helmet, his gas mask, his emergency ration and quite a number of other more or less cumbersome items.

It was to be a surprise attack behind a cloak of the fog, so there was no artillery preparation as the squads climbed over the top and advanced into the mist-hidden beyond. Behind, in the posts of observation and in the post of command, the Colonel and his aides and his intelligence officers waited for the sound of firing. When after some minutes the distant rattle of the rifle fire came to their ears they began calculating how long reasonably it might be before word reached them by one or another medium of communication touching on the results of the foray. But the ground telephone remained mute, and no runner returned through the fog with tidings. The suspense increased as time passed.

Suddenly a pigeon sped into view, flying close to the earth. While eager eyes followed it in its course the winged messenger circled until it located its portable cote just behind the Colonel’s position and fluttering down it entered its familiar shelter.

An athletic member of the staff hustled up the ladder. In half a minute he was tumbling down again, clutching in one hand the little scroll of paper that he had found fastened about the pigeon’s leg. With fingers that trembled in anxiety the Colonel unrolled the paper and read aloud what was written upon it.

What he read, in the hurried chirography of a kid private, was the following succinct statement: “I’m tired of carrying this damn bird.”

For the first time in the history of the State—it was a Southern State—an electrocution took place within the walls of the State prison. The Legislature, keeping step with the march of progress and civilization, had ordered the installation of an electric chair to take the honored place of the old-fashioned slip-noose under the left ears of the fathers.

A negro “trusty” was an unwilling witness to the first performance under the new arrangement. The warden had detailed him as helper to the paid executioner. He issued forth from the lethal chamber with popped eyes and ashen face.

A group of his fellow convicts knotted about him, anxious to hear the grisly details. He proceeded to elucidate:

“Well, suhs,” he said, with a shiver, “they teks an’ strops you down, hand an’ foot, in a big cheer. An’ den they clamps some lil’ things onto yo’ haid an’ yo’ laigs. An’ den one of de w’ite men he step over to whar they’s a little jigger set in de wall an’ he give it a lil’ yank—zzz—like dat!”

Here he paused and fetched a deep breath.

“Whut den? whut den?” came the chorus.

“Nothin’ but ruin—jes’ absolute ruin!”

The colonel of one of our negro regiments serving in France during the world war impressed it upon the rank and file of his command that in the field a soldier addressing his superior officer invariably should have regard for correct military procedure and for correct military language. The lesson must have gone home, because now among the treasured possessions of that colonel is a certain document sent by runner from a forward trench to company headquarters back of the second line of defense.

On a scrap of paper, with a stub of pencil, the author of the communication, a much-harried black corporal then undergoing his baptism of shelling, wrote as follows:

Mr. Campbell, who was a lawyer, felt somewhat irritated on reaching his office at 8:30 in the morning to find the fire in the grate unkindled and the floor unswept and the place generally in a state of disorder. It was nearly 9 o’clock before Ike, his black office servant, appeared.

“Good Lord, Ike,” said Mr. Campbell petulantly. “What’s detained you?”

“Mist’ Campbell,” apologized Ike, “you must please, suh, ’scuse me fur bein’ late dis one time. I sort of overslept myse’f. De truth of de matter is dat I wuz kept up de best part of de night on ’count of j’inin’ a lodge.”

“It surely didn’t take you all night to join a lodge, did it?”

“Naw, suh, not perzac’ly. De fust part of de evenin’ they wuz ’niciatin’ me into de membership an’ de rest of de time dey wuz ’onductin’ me into office.”

“Isn’t it rather unusual to confer an office on a member immediately after taking him in?”

“Naw suh, dat’s de standin’ rule in dat lodge—jes’ soon ez you is ’niciated you gits a office.”

“What office did they confer upon you?”

“Imperial Supreme King.”

“What?”

“Dat’s whut dey calls it—Imperial Supreme King of de Universe.”

“Isn’t that rather a high office for a brand new member?”

“Why, naw, suh, Mist’ Campbell, dat’s de lowes’ office dey is in dat lodge. W’en I’s been in a spell longer dey is goin’ give me somethin’ really wuth while.”

Years ago, when I earned my daily bread and occasional beer on Park Row, one Andy Horn ran a cozy bar in the shadow of Brooklyn Bridge. A grubby person known as Smitty was a fixture at Andy’s. He cut up food for the free lunch counter, did odd jobs and in rush hours helped to serve the trade.

He had been born on Cherry Hill, right around the corner; he had been reared on the Bowery and he had never ranged farther than Coney Island or Far Rockaway. Greater New York city was all the world he knew or cared to know.

His sister married a market gardener over in New Jersey, and when his summertime vacation came Smitty went to visit her for two weeks. His new brother-in-law had bought a car and had promised to tour Smitty about the State and show him the sights.

At the end of a week Smitty was back at work. One of the regular patrons hailed him:

“Hey, Smitty, I thought you were going to stay longer. Didn’t you care for country life?”

“Nix on dat stuff fur me,” said Smitty. “I’m offen it fur life. Say, dat Joisey soitinly is one funny place. Why, all dem towns over there is got different names!”

Sam Blythe claims this is a true one. Maybe he is right; Sam generally is.

He says a Washington wholesaler wished to learn the relative qualities of two brands of mucilage. He handed one bottle of each brand to his negro janitor.

“Henry,” he said, “take these and test them and see which one is the stickier.”

Hours passed before Henry reappeared. Wearing a somewhat unhappy, not to say distressed, expression, he entered his employer’s office and placed the two bottles on the latter’s desk.

“Well, Henry,” said the jobber, “what’s the result of your experiments?”

“Boss,” stated Henry, “it’s lak dis: Dis yere one gummed up my mouth the most; but dis yere other one, the taste lasted the longest.”

As I heard the tale it had to do with a small community in Texas where the railroad ran through the main street and on either side of the track stood a short order restaurant owned and operated by a colored man.

One night the official bad man of the vicinity came lurching into one of these rival establishments. The visitor was under the influence of strong drink—a circumstance calculated to make him slightly more dangerous than rattlesnakes.

While the uneasy proprietor made pretense at being glad to see him the bully flopped his long frame into a chair and demanded:

“Nigger, have you got a nice tender sirloin steak here?”

“Yas, suh!”

“All right, then; you cook it fur me and don’t you cook it too long else I’ll cook you. And along with it you better bring me some fried onions and fried potatoes and some celery and a mess of hot biscuits and green peas and roasting ears and pie and coffee and anything else tasty that you’ve got around this dump. Now jump before I start jumpin’ you.”

The black man jumped. In a miraculously short time, considering the magnitude of the order, he staggered in from his cubby-hole of a kitchen at the rear bearing a waiter tray piled high with dishes. He ranged the array of food in a half moon effect before his patron and then fluttered back a few paces.

When the bad man had eaten he leaned back in his chair, drew a spring-back dirk knife out of his pocket, flipped its five-inch blade out with a nudge of a practiced thumb and leisurely picked his teeth with its needle-like point. His caterer watched him as a fascinated bird watches a coiled serpent.

Suddenly he spoke and the negro jumped.

“What sort of a dump does that other nigger over acrost the tracks run?” he asked.

“Oh, you wouldn’t lak dat place a-tall,” stated the colored man. “Dat nigger natchelly thinks a fly is somethin’ you cooks wid. He ain’t sanitatious, lak I aims to be.”

“Yes,” said the bully, “and whut’s more, he’s a robber—he’s a regular pirate.”

“Is dat so, suh?”

“Well, judge for yourself. Last night I went into that nigger’s joint and ordered just about what I’ve had here to-night—maybe a little more, maybe a little less. When I got through I asked him what the damage was and, do you know, that black scoundrel had the gall to ask me for a dollar and a quarter? Of course I oughter killed him. In fact, I got up intendin’ to kill him. But something sort of stayed my hand. All I done to him was just to cut off both his ears with this here frog-sticker and feed ’em to him. By the way, what do I owe you for this mess of vittles?”

“Boss,” said the darky, “I reckon a dime would be ample.”

The late “Tiny” Maxwell was a sporting writer in Philadelphia. He was called “Tiny” because he weighed nearly three hundred pounds. He had a ready wit.

Because he was an expert at football and also because back in his college days he was a gridiron star of magnitude, Mr. Maxwell frequently was called upon to referee games along the Eastern Seaboard.

One afternoon he was officiating at a match between Georgetown, which, as everybody knows, is a Catholic institution, and a team representing a Southern university. In an interval one of the Southern players limped up to Maxwell.

“Mr. Referee,” he said, “I want to make a protest. There’s one of those Georgetown men that seems to have a private grudge against me. Every time we two get in a scrimmage together he bites me. Yes, sir, he just hauls off and bites me. I don’t want to start any rough house stuff, but I’m getting good and tired of having that big Irishman biting on me. What had I better do?”

“I should advise,” said Maxwell, “that you play him only on Fridays.”

I rather guess they have been telling this one ever since the War between the States. Indeed, for all I know to the contrary it may date back as far as the first and second Punic wars. For a good story never really dies. It merely goes into retirement for a season or a decade or a century and rises up again when occasion suits, with its youth miraculously restored.

The narrative runs that in the last days of the war a ragged, wornout, hungry, half-crippled, half-dead Confederate straggler was limping along a Virginia highway striving to catch up with his command. Where there was a puddle in the ruts he stopped to bathe his bruised and bleeding feet. As he sat at the roadside dabbling his swollen toes in the water a Union skirmisher, well fed and lusty, stepped from behind a tree with his musket raised to his shoulder and yelled out exultantly:

“Now I got you!”

“Yas,” drawled the Southerner, “an’ a hell of a git you got!”

The revivalist was the mouthpiece of a new cult. In his interpretations of the Scriptures he saw no possible hope for any member of the human family who refused to accept his particular brand of religion.

Before an awe-struck congregation he was describing what would come to pass with regard to those stiff-necked and perverse non-believers who were found outside the fold on the day of judgment.

“My brethren,” he clarioned, “there is no middle course. By the word of the Holy Writ I have proved to you that mankind either must take the true doctrine as it has been expounded here or accept the awful consequences. I can close my eyes and see the picture right now.

“Over there in shining robes stand the little group of the elect and the saved. And down below in the fiery pits of perdition millions of the unregenerate are roasting in the undying fires through all eternity while the minions of the Devil heap hot coals upon their heads and give them molten lead when they beg for water to cool their parched tongues. That, my brethren, is what will come to pass.”

From the body of the house a small elderly gentleman rose up.

“Excuse me for interruptin’,” he said, “but there ain’t no chance fur sich a thing to happen. Why, the people jest natchelly wouldn’t stand fur it.”

Mose Morris used to live near Frankfort, Ky. He was a small, meek person of color who cultivated a truck patch for a living, and was generally liked by the white population. He remained a bachelor until he was nearing middle age.

Then, in an unthoughted hour, he suffered himself to be shackled in the holy bonds of wedlock with a large, truculent, overbearing black woman nearly twice his size. He led his bride away to his little house seven miles from town.

Within two weeks’ time he came driving into Frankfort in a two-mule wagon, which was piled high with household effects. As he crossed the bridge over the Kentucky River a white gentleman hailed him.

“Why, hello, Mose! Where are you going with all that plunder?”

“I’se movin’, Mist’ Bob,” answered Mose.

“Movin’ where?”

“Movin’ into town—done rented a lil’ house down back behint de L. and N. depot.”

“Why, I thought you liked the country?” said the white man.

“I used to lak it,” said Mose. “I used to lak it powerful. But my wife she don’t lak the country. An’ yere lately I’ve tuck notice, Mist’ Bob, dat w’en my wife don’t lak a thing I jest natchelly hates it.”

In the days when Frank A. Munsey was in active editorial charge of his various publications he had a serious-minded office boy who took things literally—and with due deliberation.

One day Congressman Thomas B. Reed, then Speaker of the House, came from Washington to New York and dropped into the office of Munsey’s Magazine to see its proprietor. Between the famous publisher and the famous statesman a close bond of friendship existed—they were both sons of Maine, and they had been intimate associates for years.

The bulky Reed stepped into the anteroom and without giving his name said he wished to see Mr. Munsey. The office boy told him Mr. Munsey was in conference and invited the caller to have a seat. More than half an hour passed before the caller was admitted to the inner room. Then he told Mr. Munsey how he had been kept waiting.

Indignantly the latter issued forth and descended upon the youthful keeper of the outer gates.

“Do you know who that gentleman is that you’ve kept dawdling about here?” he demanded. “That is the Hon. Thomas B. Reed of Maine!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Munsey,” said the youth. “I thought all the time it was Dr. John Hall.”

“But don’t you know that Dr. Hall is dead?” said Mr. Munsey.

“Yes, sir,” said Truthful James, “that was what made it seem so strange to me that he should be calling.”

A colored man, on appearing for work one morning, wore a countenance so battered that almost one might have been pardoned for assuming that its owner had made a more or less successful effort to run it through a meat chopper. The white man for whom the scarred and bruised victim worked took one look at that disfigured face and threw up both hands in horror and sympathy.

“Great heavens, boy,” he cried, “what have you been doing to yourself?”

“Me? I ain’t been doin’ nothin’ to myse’f,” explained the darky. “But somethin’ is done been did to me, Mr. Watkins. It’s lak dis, suh: Yistiddy evenin’ I got into a kind of an argymint wid another nigger an’ one word led to another, ez it will. An’ purty soon I up an’ hauled off an’ hit at him wid my fist.

“Well, seemed lak that irritated him. So he took an’ split my lip wide open wid a pair of brass knucks, an’ he blacked dis eye of mine clear down to my armpit an’ he tore one ear moughty nigh loose frum de side of my haid, an’ den, to cap all, he knocked me down and stomped up an’ down ’pun my stomach wid his feet. . . . Honest to Gawd, Mr. Watkins, I never did git so sick of a nigger in all my life!”

In Owen county, Ky., there formerly resided a self-ordained oracle on all questions pertaining to subjects of farming, horse raising and hog guessing. To him one day, as he sat on a horse block facing the public square at Owenton, came a pestered young husbandman from the knobs along the Kentucky River with this question:

“Uncle Hamp, how am I going to get shet of sassafras sprouts? The pesky dern things have jest about took an old field of mine. I’ve tried choppin’ em out and plowin’ ’em under and burnin’ ’em over, but they keep on gittin’ thicker and thicker all the time. It seems I can’t git rid of ’em noway. Whut would you advise?”

“My son,” said the wise man, “I don’t want to brag, but I reckon you ain’t made no mistake in comin’ to me—you’ve struck on to one man that’s fitten to advise you in this here matter ef anybody on this earth is. Man and boy, I’ve been givin’ the subject of sassafras sprouts my earnest attention fur goin’ on sixty years. And it’s my deliberatic judgment that when sassafras sprouts starts to takin’ a farm the only way you kin git rid of ’em is jest to pack up and move off and leave ’em.”

I once knew a colored child called “Exey” for short, whose real name was Eczema. The mother of the pickaninny had found the word in a patent medicine almanac and had fallen in love with its poetic sound. I also included in my acquaintance at one time a negro youth who answered to the title of Hallowed Harris.

“Yas, suh,” stated his father on being pressed for his reason for choosing so unusual a baptismal prefix for his offspring, “I got dat name outen de Holy Bible. Don’t you ’member, boss, whar it say in de Lawd’s Prayer, ‘Hallowed be Thy name’?”

But the Testamental name which struck me as being most interesting of all was worn by a dog—a mangy appearing, breedless, nondescript rabbit dog which trailed an old darky on a road in the piny woods of South Georgia. The dog ranged off into the thickets and his owner ordered him back.

“Did I hear you calling that dog ‘Rover,’ Uncle?” asked a white man.

“Naw, suh, I called him ‘Over,’ w’ich is short for ‘Mo’over,’ w’ich it is de dawg’s right name.”

“Where did you get that name and why?”

“Fur good reasons, boss,” said the old man, with a chuckle. “W’en I gits dat dawg he’s jest little scabby pup an’ alluz ’nointin’ of hisse’f wid his tongue. So I ’members whar de Good Book say, ‘An’ de dawg, Mo’over, licked his sores.’ So I knowed den I had done hit on de right name fur dat pup of mine.”

The white man was named Ferguson. He owned a string of two-room frame cottages and his tenants exclusively were colored. Very great was his chagrin when a negro man in a fit of pique cut a woman’s throat in one of his houses so that she bled to death, leaving a large dark stain on the floor, because immediately the word spread among the black population that the building was haunted and thereafter nobody would rent it, even at reduced rates. For months the cottage stood empty. Then the owner had a bright idea. He went one evening and hunted up a large dark individual named George, upon whom, by way of beginning, he conferred a drink out of a bottle of corn spirits.

“George,” said he, “these darkies tell me you know quite a lot about h’ants and ghosts and such things?”

“Well, suh, Mist’ Ferguson,” replied George modestly, “I does know a right smart ’bout sich.”

“That’s good,” said the wily white man. “I’m rather an authority myself on such matters. Now, then, speaking as one expert to another, I want to tell you that shack of mine out here on Clay street, where that woman was killed, is not haunted. She died in a state of grace and her spirit rests in peace.

“But the trouble is that these colored people around this town don’t know it and they’ve given the place a bad name. What I want to do is to prove to them that it’s not ha’nted. And here’s the way we’re going to do it—you and me. I’m going to hire you to spend to-night in the room where the killing took place. Then, when you come out to-morrow morning and tell your people that nothing happened there during the night, I’ll be able to rent the house again. I’m going to give you the rest of this bottle of liquor now and a fresh bottle besides. And to-morrow morning I’ll hand you a ten-dollar bill. How about it?”

That slug of corn whisky already was working. It made George valiant. Besides, a white man had appealed to him for professional aid. He consented—after another lusty pull at the flask.

The crafty Ferguson took no chances. He escorted his newly enlisted aid to the house of tragedy, provided him with a pallet on the floor and left him there in the gathering darkness. But before departing he took the precaution of barring the two windows from the outside and securely locking the front and rear doors.

Next morning bright and early he came to release his brother expert. The windows still were shuttered, the doors still fastened tight; but the house was empty. Also it was in a damaged state. At one side the thin clapboards were burst through, as though a blunt projectile traveling at great speed had struck them with terrific force from within. The shattered ends of planking stood forth, encircling the jagged aperture in a sort of sunburst effect.

Upon a splintered tip of one of the boards was a wisp of kinky wool. Upon a paling of the yard fence was a rag, evidently ripped from a shirt sleeve. Otherwise there were no signs of George. He was utterly gone, with only that yawning orifice in the cottage wall to give a clue as to the manner of his departure.

Mr. Ferguson waited all through the day for the missing one to turn up. On the second day the white man gave the alarm. A search party was organized—men on horseback with dogs. Bloodhounds took the trail. They followed it from early morning until late that evening.

Just before dusk, in a swamp thirty miles away the lead-dog bayed exultantly. The pursuing posse, with Ferguson in the lead, spurred forward.

Here came the missing George. His face was set toward home. It was a face streaked with dust and dried sweat, torn by briers, wet, drawn, gray with fatigue. His garments were in shreds; his hat was gone. His weary legs tottered under him as he dragged one sore foot after the other.

Yet in the heart of Mr. Ferguson indignation was stronger than compassion. He rode up alongside the spent and wavering pedestrian.

“Well, by heck, you certainly are the most unreliable nigger in this State!” he said. “Here night before last I make a contract with you for a certain job. I leave you in one of my houses. I come there the next morning and not only are you gone without leaving any word, but one side of my house is busted out. And then I have to leave my business to come hunting for you. And after riding all over the country I find you here, thirty miles from home, in a swamp. Where in thunder have you been since I last saw you, forty-eight hours ago?”

“Boss,” said George, “I’ve been comin’ back.”

When the weather gets unseasonably warm I deem the time suitable for reviving a story which I first heard at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in 1920. As may be recalled by those who attended that convention, the entire country from coast to coast sweltered through the week under a blanket of terrific heat.

A delegate from California, in a half fluid state, fell off of a transcontinental train. A Chicago friend met him at the station.

“Say, old man,” said the friend when greetings had been exchanged, “is it as hot out West as it is here on the lake?”

“Is it as hot out West?” repeated the newly arrived one. “Say, don’t make me laugh. You people here in the Corn Belt don’t know what heat it. Listen, I’ll illustrate to you just how hot it is on the other side of the Rockies. Coming across the Arizona desert day before yesterday I looked out of the car window and I saw a coyote chasing a jack rabbit—and they were both walking!”

One of the surest tests of the excellence of a story is whether or not it speedily reaches the stage. Some stories no doubt originate there—born in the minds of patter-comedians or monologists; but the majority I think are built up on a foundation of fact elsewhere and then by adoption go into the theater.

Here is a sample. It had to do with a couple of darkies in Memphis.

One of them, who posed as bad, had just announced his intention of breaking into a chitterling supper where his presence was not desired. His companion followed him to the door.

“I’ll be waitin’ fur you outside yere,” he stated.

“Ef you ain’t gwine in wid me tain’t no use fur you to be hangin’ ’bout,” said the truculent one.

“Oh, yas, dey is,” said the friend. “I’ll wait ’round to carry you to yo’ home after dem niggers in dere gits through wukkin’ on you.”

“Not a chancet!” proclaimed the first negro, vaingloriously; “ ’sides w’ich I ain’t got no home.”

“Oh, dat’s all right,” murmured his friend softly. “I’m gwine dig you one.”

Two men, strangers to each other, but having something in common in that they had been indulging in potent home brews, fell into a hiccoughy conversation on the back platform of a suburban trolley car whizzing across the New Jersey landscape.

“Shay,” inquired Number One, “whuz time is it?”

Number Two with difficulty extracted from his fob pocket a watch; but a temporary defect of vision prevented him from making out the position of the two hands. Nevertheless he did his best to oblige.

“It’s izactly Thurshday afternoon,” he said.

Number One gave a start.

“Iz tha’s so?” he murmured in surprised tones. “Well, then, thish is where I hafter get off.”

Down in southern Alabama a person of color was fetched into court to be arraigned for his preliminary hearing on a charge of wilful murder.

“Mose Tupper,” said the judge, “you are accused here of one of the most serious crimes known to our laws—to wit, the taking of a human life. Are you properly represented by counsel?”

“Naw, suh,” said the darky cheerfully.

“Well, have you talked to any one about your defense since your arrest?”

“I told de sheruff ’bout de shootin’ when he come to my cabin to bring me heah,” said the prisoner.

“And have you taken no steps whatever to engage a lawyer?”

“Naw, suh,” said Mose. “I ain’t got no money to be wastin’ on lawyers. Dey tell me lawyers is mighty costive.”

“If you have no funds,” insisted the judge, “it lies within the power of the court to appoint an attorney to represent you without expense on your part.”

“You needn’t be botherin’ yo’se’f, jedge,” answered Mose.

“Well, what do you propose to do about this case?” demanded his Honor. “You must be properly defended—the law so provides.”

“Jedge,” said Mose, “ez fur ez I’se concerned you kin jest let de matter drap!”

Here is one which at intervals I have been hearing for years. It seems to me it gets better with each time of telling. I wonder if the reader will agree with me that its antiquity does not affect its excellence.

The thing is supposed to have happened in a remote court house of Missouri. A resident of the Ozark Mountains whose reputation was none the best, had been on trial on the charge of horse stealing. The jury returned a verdict of guilty. Taking into consideration the past record of the offender, his Honor on the bench said:

“It is my intention to sentence you to at least eight years at hard labor in State’s prison. Now, then, before sentence is formally pronounced, I shall listen to anything you may have to say in your behalf.”

After a moment of consideration the offender spoke:

“Well,” he said, “I don’t know ez I’ve got ary thing to say only this—it strikes me that you folks ’round this here cote house air purty toler’ble dam’ liberal with other people’s time.”

A comely colored girl was preparing for her marriage. Before the ceremony she hoarded her wages; but immediately after the wedding she hunted up her mistress and asked her to take charge of the fund.

“I’ll take it, of course,” said the puzzled lady; “but, Mandy, won’t you be needing your money to spend on your honeymoon?”

“Miss May,” said the bride, “does you think I’se goin’ to trust myse’f wid a strange nigger an’ all dat money on me?”

A New Yorker had a bad attack of grippe and went South to recuperate. He stopped a few days in a small town in South Carolina. When he got ready to leave for the North he found the official bus had vanished; probably the driver had gone joy riding. There was no conveyance, public or private, to be had; in order to catch his train the Northerner was compelled to labor afoot over a mile and a half of dusty road, with a valise in either hand.

When he staggered up to the tiny station there was no one in sight except an old darky who was sitting on the platform.

“Uncle,” inquired the New Yorker, “why in the name of goodness did they build this depot so far from town?”

The old man scratched his head.

“I don’t know, boss,” he said—“onless it wuz because dey wanted to git it closer to de railroad.”

The tourist was one of that type which for some mysterious reason are more numerously encountered abroad than at home. He was doing the cathedral towns of England, not because he particularly was interested in English towns, or in cathedrals either, but because the guide book advised him to do so.

Near the close of a glorious spring afternoon he stood on the greensward facing Canterbury cathedral with his legs planted far apart, his cap on the back of his head, his hands rammed deep into his trousers pockets, his cigar stuck into one corner of his mouth, and on his face an expression betokening profound boredom.

The celebrated Canterbury chimes were ringing for vespers, filling all the air with silver melody, when a side door of the cathedral opened and there issued forth a little, plump, pink-cheeked, benevolent clergyman. He approached the visiting stranger and in cultured tones said to him:

“I take it, sir, that you are a stranger?”

“Hey?” inquired the American, cupping one hand about his ear.

The clergyman raised his voice:

“I assume, sir, that you are not a resident of these parts?”

“Nope,” said the American. “I hail from Wyoming. It’s durned good State, too—best in the Union. You ought to come out there some time, Elder, and give us the once-over.”

“Eh—quite so,” said the reverend gentleman. “Then,” he continued, “since you are newly-come to this place it must seem to you, even as it does to those of us who dwell in these cloistered and holy precincts, that the music of our glorious bells comes floating down to one almost like the voice of the Almighty Himself, seeking through the medium of their old brazen throats to communicate the message of peace on earth, goodwill to man, to us His children here below.”

“Which?” inquired the visitor, inclining his head somewhat.

“Er—what I meant to say,” stated the clergyman, “was that one must carry away from here, after hearing our chimes, the conviction in his soul that really he has been in communication with Deity itself—that the voices of the angels have cried out to him. Er—is it not so, my friend?”

The American shook his head.

“I’m sorry, parson,” he said regretfully, “but them damn bells is makin’ so much noise I can’t hear a word you say!”

The editor of a New York evening newspaper has a little niece who, on her sixth birthday, received as presents a wrist-watch and a large bottle of perfumery. Having strapped on the watch, and copiously scented herself, the youngster spent the entire day proudly parading the apartment directing the attention of all and sundry to her new possessions. Eventually she became somewhat of a bore. For the evening some friends of her parents were coming in.

“Honey,” said her mother, “I can understand why you should be proud of your birthday gifts, but grown people are not interested in such things. You may come to dinner to-night on condition that you do not once mention your wrist-watch or your bottle of perfumery.”

The little one promised. At the table she sat, saying not a word, but from time to time sniffing audibly, and at frequent intervals raising her left wrist to her ear to catch the sound of the ticking. These tactics failed to attract attention. Toward the end of the meal, in a lull in the conversation, little Miss Helen spoke:

“Listen, everybody,” she said. “If anybody hears anything or smells anything, it’s me.”

The dining car waiter was one of those persons who feel a sense of personal proprietorship in the institutions they serve—a type not at all uncommon among members of his race. His manner, his voice, all about him, subtly conveyed the idea that here was one who took a deep pride in the undertaking of feeding people on a transcontinental train, and was determined that no blot ever should besmirch the fair name of the system.

So when the gentleman who was going to California gave a breakfast order of grapefruit, toast, coffee and soft-boiled eggs, he bent over the patron and in confidential tones whispered:

“Boss, I would not keer to reccermend the aigs this mawnin’! Naw, suh, I would suggest you tuck somethin’ else on the bill.”

“What’s the matter with the eggs—aren’t they fresh?” asked the customer.

The waiter’s voice sank still lower.

“I don’t know ef they’s fresh or ef they ain’t,” he said; “but to tell you the truth, we ain’t got none.”

In the last months of the fighting in 1918, a draft regiment of colored troops from the Gulf States went in near the Flanders line, where the British held, to help mop up the retreating Germans. One morning three of my fellow-correspondents borrowed a staff car and rode up to an abandoned village where there had been sharp fighting, seeking for a forward dressing-station with intent to get stories from wounded men.

At an entrance to an improvised hospital in a dugout one of the group came upon a coal-black infantryman who, while not seriously injured, bore unmistakable signs of having come into abrupt contact with some form of high and violent explosive. He was wearing, for the moment, his belt and his boots and a part of his collar. The correspondent said to him:

“Soldier, how did you get hurt?”

“Well, mister,” stated the victim, “it ain’t altogether clear in my own mind yit, but I could mebbe tell you some of de things w’ich hez occurred.”

“I should be very pleased to hear them.”

“Well, suh, at daylight this mawnin’ we fell into one of these yere lil’ towns up yere jest ’bout the time dem Bush Germans wuz fallin’ out of it. But even ef we did have de scoundrels on de run, dey didn’t fergit to shoot at us ez dey went away. Dem big shells wuz whistlin’ past over my haid, talkin’ to demselves, an’ ever’ now an’ then one of ’em would come by w’ich, it seemed lak, t’wuz speakin’ to me pussonally. I could hear it say jest ez plain: ‘You ain’t never gwine see-e-e-e-e-e yore home in Ala-bam!’

“So I sez to myse’f, I sez: ‘Seein’ ez dese Germans is all daid an’ scattered an’ ever’thing, ’twon’t be any real harm ef I gets under cover myse’f!’

“So I looks ’round fur a place to git at. ’Co’se, most of de houses in dat town hez done been shot down flat. But I sees one still standin’, wid de roof on it, too—a lil’ place called a Taverne. Dat’s whut a Frenchman say, boss, w’en he means saloon.

“Natchelly, dey ain’t nobody livin’ thar no mo’. So I walks up an’ I teks hold of de doorknob an’ I’se jest fixin’ to turn de knob an’ shove open de do’ an’ step in w’en BAM! right ’long side of me one of dem German shells went off an’ tuk dat saloon right out of my hand!”

Gabe Thompson was a person of unrelieved color, the color being black. Always, until he reached middle age he had enjoyed perfect health. Suddenly he was stricken down with what seemingly was a grievous affliction. His complexion turned the color of wet wood-ashes and he moaned with pain. His wife, in alarm, summoned a friend from a near-by cabin.

“Gabe,” said the neighbor, “You ’pears lak to me that you is powerful porely. S’posin’ I hitches up an’ goes to town fur the doctor?”

“All right,” said Gabe, “but let de doctor w’ich you gits be a hoss doctor.”

“Whu’ fur you wants a hoss doctor?” asked the other in astonishment. “You ain’t no hoss. Chances is you ain’t got no hoss disease.”

“Nummine,” replied Gabe between gasps of agony, “you jest do lak I tells you. Ef I knowed whut ailed me ’twould be diffe’nt, but I ain’t knowin’.”

“Whut diffe’nce does dat make?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Gabe. “Ef a regulation doctor comes to see you he kin talk wid you. He kin ax you whar de pain is an’ whut you been eatin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ you kin tell him. But a hoss doctor he can’t talk wid his patients kaze de patients can’t talk back. He’s jest natchelly ’bleedged to know whut ails ’em.

“Nigger, you go git me de bes’ hoss doctor you kin find!”

An ambitious Chinaman secured a long time lease on a tiny island on the California coast. Here he built himself a simple shack and here he raised garden-truck. Because of the climate, which was generally damp, and because of the soil and most of all because of the tenant’s industry, the venture prospered. Naturally, when a gentleman in uniform came along one day and suggested him that he should vacate the property and turn it over to the government, the Oriental protested. He wanted to know why Uncle Sam should covet his tiny possession.

The visitor said to him:

“Well, you see, John, it’s like this: There’s a lot of fog along this coast and Uncle Sam wants to put up a lighthouse here for the benefit of ships. Savee?”

The Chinaman shook his head.

“No glood,” he said. “Lighthouse no glood for flog.”

“What makes you think so?” asked the government agent.

“Listlen,” said the Chinaman, “ ’fore I clumb here I live long-time in Oakland, acloss Bay from San F’lisco. Muchee flog there. Uncle Slam plut up lighthouse and flog-whistle and flog-bell. Lighthouse he shine, flog-whistle he blow, flog-bell he ling—an’ damn flog he come just same!”

Being seized with the fever for modern improvement, the legislature of a certain state in the South some years ago voted for the installation of the electric chair. At the same time the lawgivers tacked on a provision to the effect that no newspaper might publish the details of an electrocution but, on the contrary, should go no farther than to state that on such a date, at such and such an hour, the execution of the law was carried out upon the body of John Doe or Richard Roe, as the case might be, the purpose of this being to invest the entire proceeding with a mystery in the minds of those individuals most likely to come within the scope of its operations.

The first candidate for these lethal attentions in a remote county chanced to be a large, brawny negro. In passing sentence upon him the judge followed, in the main, the old and time-honored formula, merely altering it somewhat to conform to the new conditions. After reviewing the crime and the trial, His Honor spoke substantially as follows:

“It is the duty, therefore, of this court to charge that the warden of the state penitentiary shall closely hold you in confinement until the twenty-first day of August, next, when between the hours of sunrise and sunset he shall put you to death by the electric chair—and may God have mercy on your soul! Mr. Sheriff, remove the prisoner.”

The sheriff took the condemned man away. Overnight, pending his removal to the place of execution, he was lodged in his old cell in the county jail. He sent a message to the commonwealth’s attorney who had prosecuted him, asking that he might see that official immediately. The commonwealth’s attorney went to the jail. The doomed darky was sitting on his cot with his face in his hands rocking himself back and forth while the tears trickled through his fingers.

“Mr. Corbett,” he said, “I craves to ax a dyin’ favor of you, please suh?”

“Well, Jake,” said the attorney, “I’d do anything in my power, almost, to ease your mind. But if you are after a pardon or a reprieve I can’t see my way clear to helping you. You killed that man in cold blood and you had a fair trial and you’ve got to die and, what’s more, you’ve got to die on the date this judge has named.”

“ ’Tain’t dat, suh,” bewailed Jake, “I ain’t got no quarrel wid de date. I kin git all my worldly affairs settled up ’twixt now an’ den an’ mek my peace wid de Lawd, lakwise. But, Mr. Corbett,”—and here his voice broke sharply—“I p’intedly does hate to be settin’ in dat dere cheer f’um sunrise plum’ till sunset.”

There was a homicide trial going on in the mountains of West Virginia. A lanky native took the stand to testify to the good character and peaceful disposition of the prisoner at the bar. When he had given the accused a glowing testimonial the prosecuting attorney took him in hand for cross-examination.

“Look here,” he demanded: “isn’t that the mark of an old knife cut you’ve got across the lobe of your left ear?”

“Yas, suh; it is.”

“Well, who inflicted that wound?”

“Bill, thar, he done it, one time.”

“By ‘Bill’ you mean the defendant here?”

“Yep.”

“I see you also have the scar of a bullet wound in your right cheek. Who made that?”

“Bill.”

“On still another occasion didn’t Bill, as you call him, gouge one of your eyes almost out?”

“That’s a fact, too.”

“Now, then, in view of the injuries you yourself admit having sustained at his hands, how do you reconcile your sworn statements of a minute ago that the defendant is an individual of peaceable and law-abiding nature, and a good neighbor?”

“Well, suh,” said the witness, “Bill is one of the nicest fellers ever you seen in your life; but I must say this—he’s a powerful onlikely pusson to prank with!”