In his second race for president W. J. Bryan was beaten. In fact, it will be recalled that in all his races for the presidency Mr. Bryan has been beaten. But in the 1900 campaign, while Democracy lost nationally, certain local triumphs were here and there achieved. A city in northern New York which usually went Republican by an overwhelming majority reversed itself and elected for Mayor a German flour miller.

It was felt that the victory deserved suitable celebration. The local Democrats organized a monster rally. The Great Commoner accepted an invitation to attend the jubilation and deliver the principal address. It was deemed fitting that the newly chosen Mayor should sponsor the distinguished guest. Now, the Mayor was a good citizen and his flour was above reproach, but he was no orator; indeed, until this occasion came, he had never in all his life formally addressed a public assemblage.

The great evening came and a great host gathered. Side by side on the platform sat Bryan and the Mayor-elect. The latter’s secretary had written a suitable speech for His Honor’s use, and His Honor laboriously had memorized it. But as he waited the cue to launch himself in his new rôle it was plain to be seen that the gentleman was in a distressful state. He was deathly pale. Perspiration rolled down his face in streams, wilting his collar; and when finally he stood up, all present could tell from his expression that the last shreds and remnants of the carefully rehearsed oration treacherously had departed from him.

He choked and gulped. Then, seizing inspiration out of sheer desperation he made what Mr. Bryan subsequently declared to be the most complete speech of introduction that Bryan in all his long career on the stump and the rostrum ever has heard or ever expects to hear.

“Ladies und chentelmen,” said the Mayor, “I haf been asked to bresent to you Mister Vilhelm Chenninks Bryne, who vill speak. I haf now done so! He vill now do so!”

Just before he started on that famous Arctic expedition of his which was crowned with success, the late Admiral Robert E. Peary boarded a train at New Orleans. He settled down in the smoking compartment to enjoy a cigar. Presently there entered a rather self-sufficient young man who took the seat adjoining and engaged Peary in conversation.

“Well,” he began, “I’m off on a long hard trip.”

“Yes? Is that so?” said Peary, politely.

“Yep. I go clear through to Louisville. Traveling far yourself?”

“Yes, a fair distance,” said Peary.

“Well, I’m bound clear through to Louisville, as I was saying. Pretty tiresome trip, too—all the way through from New Orleans to Louisville.”

“Probably so,” agreed Peary.

“By the way,” said the young chap, “you didn’t tell me where you were going?”

“No,” said Peary, “that’s a fact, I didn’t.”

“Well, I don’t suppose you’re as used to traveling as I am,” said the young fellow. “Whereabouts are you headed for, anyhow?”

“Me?” said Peary. “Oh, I’m only going to the North Pole.”

“About three months ago,” so a friend of mine said, “fourteen of us were waiting in a line at the Grand Central Station to purchase fares on outgoing trains. Some among us had but a few minutes to spare. All of us, naturally, were in a hurry to transact the business and get ourselves and our luggage aboard the cars.

“All of a sudden an inebriated person burst like an alcoholic bombshell among us. Ignoring the rules of procedure, he shoved his way to the front, elbowing and jostling those already in line, until he reached the ticket window. Upon the shelf he slammed down a quarter and a nickle and in a loud voice stated his wishes.

“ ‘Gimme a ticket for San Francisco,’ he said.

“ ‘You can’t go to San Francisco for thirty cents,’ stated the ticket-seller.

“ ‘Well, where can I go, then?’ he asked.

“And with one voice, all fourteen of us told him.”

Jimmie and Arthur, aged respectively six and ten, were spending a week with their grandmother, who was wealthy and generous, while their parents were away from home on a visit.

A few nights before Christmas the youngsters were getting ready for bed. Their grandmother was in an adjoining room waiting for them to retire so she might turn out the light.

Arthur said his prayers and crawled under the covers. Jimmie, still on his knees, proceeded to petition Heaven for an extensive line of Christmas presents. As he progressed, his voice rose louder and louder. Also he began to repeat himself. He spoke somewhat after this fashion:

“And, Oh, Lord, please send me a soldier-suit, and a tool-chest—a big tool-chest, Lord—and a watch and a drum and a horn and a toy wagon and——”

Annoyed, the older brother raised up and interrupted:

“Say,” he demanded, “you needn’t be praying so loud; the Lord ain’t deaf.”

“I know he ain’t,” said Jimmie, “but Grandma is.”

There was a Scotchman who had a wife and she had strong views upon the subject of strong drink. One night he came home late and badly befuddled. He managed to get inside the house without awakening her, but, in order to reach his own sleeping quarters, it was necessary for him to pass through her room.

On its threshold he had an inspiration. He got down on his hands and knees and started to crawl across the intervening floor-space. But when he was just alongside of her bed he chanced to brush against the coverlids and the lady was aroused.

In the darkness, mistaking the dark bulk that was in arm’s reach of her for the family house-dog, she said, “Come, Jocko, Jocko!”

“Whereupon, at that verra moment,” said the husband next day when recounting the event to a crony, “I had the rare intelligence to lick her hand.”

When a Frenchman goes hunting he takes the sport rather seriously. In certain districts there isn’t much in the way of game for him to kill. So the native makes up for this by wearing a most elaborate and fanciful costume.

An American, visiting in the château country, was invited by his host to go for a rabbit hunt. With a borrowed gun in his hands and wearing his oldest clothes, the American went. Alongside him, as they trudged through the cover, walked the Frenchman, gorgeous in gaiters and belted jacket, with a pheasant’s feather curling from the brim of his hat.

Presently a bunny darted from a thicket. The American raised his fowling-piece.

“Don’t shoot!” cried out his host. “That’s Armand, a great pet of ours. We never shoot at Armand.”

A little further along a second rabbit hopped into view. Again the visitor made ready to fire and again his host detained him with:

“That one is Pierre. We never shoot at Pierre, either.”

Almost immediately, a third rabbit, a long rangy animal, came bouncing into sight.

“Shoot! Shoot!” cried the Frenchman, throwing his own gun to his shoulder. “That is Fanchon. We always shoot at Fanchon.”

Dr. Jones, a young physician with a growing practice, had been going night and day for the better part of a week. If it wasn’t the stork busy in one part of the town it was the malaria microbe busy in another. He kept up his round of visits until exhausted nature demanded a respite.

He staggered into his house in the evening completely fagged out, and tumbled into bed, telling his wife that, excepting upon a matter of life and death, he was not to be called.

At two o’clock in the morning she came to his bedside, shook him, pinched him, slapped him in the face with a wet washrag and finally roused him to a state of semi-consciousness. Mrs. Smith, physically the biggest woman in town, had been seized with a heart attack at her home on the next street and he was wanted immediately.

He struggled to his feet, threw a few garments on over his night-clothes, caught up his emergency kit and in a sort of walking trance made his way to the Smith residence. A frightened member of the household led him to the sick-room. There the patient lay, a great mountain of flesh, her features congested and her breath coming in laborious panting. Dr. Jones took her pulse and her temperature and examined her eyes, her lips and her tongue. Then he perched himself in a half recumbent attitude upon the side of the bed, put his right ear against her left breast and said:

“Madam, will you kindly start counting very slowly? Now then, one-two-three and so on. Go on until I tell you to stop.”

Obediently the sufferer began.

The next thing Dr. Jones knew was when a shaft of bright morning sunlight fell upon his face, and, drowsily, he heard a faint, weak female voice saying:

“Nine-thousand-seven-hundred and one, nine-thousand-seven-hundred and two——!”

A gentleman who resided in the heart of the Corn Belt paid his first visit to Chicago. With him came two friends. The three of them occupied one large room in a Loop hotel.

On the second day of sight-seeing the Corn Belter’s feet gave out on him. Leaving his companions to finish out the evening at a theatre, he returned to the hotel and went to bed. When the other two arrived, shortly before midnight, they found the door of their room locked. They pounded on the panels until the sleeper awakened.

“Let us in, Zach!” said one of them impatiently.

“Let yourself in,” he answered. “The key is outside there in the hall.”

“How does it come to be outside when you’re inside?” demanded one of them.

“Oh, after I got undressed I throwed it over the transom so’s you fellers could git in without no trouble. It must be layin’ on the floor.”

They found the key and admitted themselves. As they entered one of them asked:

“Say, Zach, what would you have done, locked in here this way, if there’d been a fire?”

“Why, I wouldn’t have went.”

In the ninth inning the score was a tie, with two men on bases for the home team and one out. Naturally the excitement was intense—for this game was for blood money and the Afro-American championship of the county. The umpire, a small, dapper man, a barber by profession and naturally mild-mannered, was filled with regret that the opportunity for prominence had lured him into taking this job. He had a sincere conviction that, no matter what decision he made next, somebody would feel aggrieved.

The manager of the side at bat sent in, as an emergency hitter, a large, broad-shouldered person with a reputation for being very touchy on matters affecting his personal interests or his personal honor. As this individual moistened the bat after the approved manner he cast a glowering look upon the umpire who crouched back of the catcher.

“Jedge ’em an’ jedge ’em right, lil’ nigger,” he growled, “else six of yore friends ’ll be wearin’ w’ite gloves ’bout dis time day after to-mor’.”

The pitcher wound up and sped the ball across.

“Strike one!” shrilled the umpire.

As the batter turned his head to scowl at the referee the pitcher shot another across—a perfect one, waist high and right over the center of the plate. Plunk! it landed in the catcher’s mitt.

“Two!” chanted the umpire.

The big darky dropped his bat. He fixed both brawny hands on the throat of the umpire and squeezed hard. There was murder in his eyes.

“Two whut?” he demanded as though he could not believe his outraged ears.

“Too high fur a strike!” quavered the umpire with magnificent presence of mind. “Yas, suh, entirely too high fur a strike.”

When Millie came on a Saturday night to bring the week’s washing her comely, pleasant brown face was disfigured by a swollen black contusion which began at her left eye and extended downward until it covered her cheek.

“Oh, Millie,” said her distressed employer, “what a dreadful bruise! How did it ever happen?”

“A nigger man hit me,” explained Millie simply.

“Oh, that’s terrible!” exclaimed the white lady. “I hope—I hope it wasn’t your husband that struck you?”

“No’m, Mizz Harrison, ’twuzn’t him. Gawge, he don’t never hit me. He treats me mo’ lak a friend than a husband.”

Everybody does know—or should know—the ancient wheeze of the theatre manager who posted a sign in his house: “Don’t Smoke—Remember the Iroquois Fire,” and of the wag who wrote under this the added warning: “Don’t Spit—Remember the Johnstown Flood.” A half-brother to this yarn, of somewhat newer vintage, however, comes from a regular army post.

A newly enlisted private, still unskilled in military etiquette, flung a lighted cigarette end on the parade ground. The first sergeant of his company saw the crime committed. He made the offender pick up the smouldering butt and then stand at attention while being scolded at length.

When mess call sounded, the new hand was tardy for his meal.

“What made you late?” demanded the sergeant.

“Oh,” said the private, “I walked down to the river to spit.”

Little Florence was inclined to over-exaggeration; also she was overly timid in some regards. Her mother was striving to rid her of both faults.

One afternoon Florence was playing in the front yard. A fox-terrier, belonging to a neighbor, darted at her playfully. With a shriek of fright Florence fled indoors and never stopped running until she had reached the room upstairs where her mother sat.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Marshall.

“Mamma,” said Florence, “a great big bear came through a crack in the fence and chased me in the house; he almost caught me, too.”

“Florence,” said the mother sternly, “aren’t you ashamed of yourself to be so frightened of Mr. James’ little pet dog and then to tell a deliberate falsehood? I was sitting here at the window and I saw the whole thing. Now I’m going to punish you. You go in your own room and get down on your knees and confess to the Lord that you’re a naughty little girl and that you told your mother a deliberate lie. I want you to stay there, too, until you feel sure that you have obtained forgiveness for your sin.”

The sunshine outside was alluring and there was a mud-pie in a half finished state in the yard. Florence reluctantly withdrew herself to the privacy of the nursery. In a surprisingly short time she opened the door and poked her head out.

“It’s all right, mother,” she said. “I told God all about it and He says He didn’t blame me a bit. He thought it was a bear, too, when He first saw it.”

In those wicked days before the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act put an end to all liquor-drinking in America there were two actors in New York who sometimes carried their social inclinations to an extreme. To put the matter brutally, they occasionally had attacks of what were known in the vernacular as the “willies.” While recuperating from these seizures they customarily patronized the same sanitarium. Let us, for convenience’s sake, call them A. and B.

It befell one day that A. felt himself to be acutely in need of a period devoted to rest and restoration. As he approached the door of the sanitarium he met his friend, B., rather white and drawn-looking, just coming out.

“ ’Lo, old man,” said A. somewhat thickly, and with difficulty repressing a hiccup, “whaz mazzer wiz you? Same ol’ complaint, eh?”

“I’m all right now,” said B., “but I’ve had an awful time. Never again for me—I’m through. You may think I’m a little bit shaky and nervous now, but you should have seen me last week before I began to get over it. Why, man, for ten days, little red lizards with green eyes and purple tails were crawling all over me.”

With his horrified eyes starting from his head, A. aimed a tremulous forefinger at B.’s coat collar.

“My God, man!” he cried. “You—you ain’t well yet! There’s one of ’em on you now!”

I venture to present here and now the famous and deservedly immortal tale of the Educated Flea. At a theatrical hotel a vaudeville performer was stopping. He was the owner of a troupe of performing fleas. One evening, at dinner, he was telling his fellow-lodgers how he went about the job of training his tiny pets. To demonstrate, he cleared a space on the table, took one of his fleas, an especially intelligent and gifted insect, out of a small box, and proceeded to put the lively little chap through his paces.

“Hop East!” he commanded, and the flea hopped.

“Hop West!” The flea obeyed.

“Forward!” The flea marched.

“Face about!” And the flea whirled into the air to execute the command. But one of the lady boarders, in the intensity of her interest, was bending close and the flea landed in her hair and was instantly lost from view.

Confusion followed. After much searching the lady produced the truant and the performance was resumed.

“Hop East!” the man commanded, but the flea refused to move.

“Hop West, then!” The flea remained stationary. Surprised, the owner leaned over and scrutinized the performer more closely. Then, sitting up with a start and staring at the lady, he said in a stern, accusing voice:

“Madam, there has been a mistake—this is not my flea!”

There was once a boy who grew up in the village of Weeping Willow, Nebraska, with the persisting idea in his head that railroading offered the best career for an ambitious and energetic youth. When he was eighteen his opportunity came. He got a job as helper to the local station agent at forty dollars a month.

Years passed. The youth was a youth no longer; he was nearing his fortieth birthday but still he served the railroad at Weeping Willow. So well and so truly had he served it that, step by step, the management had widened the scope of his duties until now he was the entire resident staff of the great transcontinental system which passed through Weeping Willow. He was station agent, dispatcher, ticket-seller, train-caller, express-agent, baggage-handler, janitor and porter, all rolled into one. As a further mark of the esteem in which it held him and of the confidence it reposed in him, the railroad had never seen fit to reduce his wages by a single penny. He still drew down his forty a month just as regularly as pay-day came around.

Yet there were people in Weeping Willow who could not understand why it was that, holding so many responsible positions and receiving so steady an income, the man sometimes should show signs of broodiness and irritation verging upon outright melancholy. But such was the case. At times his peevishness was most marked.

On a broiling July day he sat in his small cubby-hole of an inner sanctum manipulating the key of his telegraph instrument. It was one of his gloomy days. As he sat with the perspiration coursing down his nose and his black calico sleeve protectors growing damp and soggy upon his wrists, the local Baptist minister, whom he disliked excessively, poked his head through the ticket window and in his best pulpit voice said:

“Brother, what tidings of the noon train?”

Without lifting his head the dripping misanthrope made answer:

“Not a gol darn tiding!” he said.

There was an Englishman who made a tour of this continent. The tourist was a fit type of a certain group of Englishmen who think that nothing is worth while unless it is to be found on British soil, or at least under the protecting shadow of the Union Jack.

When he got back to New York after his swing across the land, an American asked him what he thought of our country.

“Oh, on the whole, rather tiresome,” said the visitor.

“Didn’t you see anything out of the ordinary?” asked the American.

“Cahn’t say that I was especially impressed.”

“Well,” said the American, “you astonish me. We rather thought there were a few interesting sights over here. Did you, by any chance, see Niagara Falls?”

“Oh, yes. Spent half a day there.”

“Well, isn’t Niagara Falls worth looking at?”

“From the Canadian side—yes!”

Before prohibition the bar in the Lambs’ Club—now given over to soft drinks, confectionery and vain regrets—was a famous place. I think more quick humor originated there than on any other spot of similar size on this hemisphere.

I remember one night when a distinguished comedian in a groggy condition was clinging to the rail. Only a few days before, he had announced that he was off the stuff forever. A fellow-actor entered.

“Why, Jack,” he said, “I thought you’d taken the pledge and now here you are with a bun on. How did you get it?”

The inebriated one raised his head, revealing a happy, dreamy smile.

“Drink by drink,” he murmured softly. “Drink by drink.”

But, to my way of thinking, the honors for repartee at the Lambs’ bar should go to Hap Ward, of the old team of Ward and Vokes. Hap, one day, was acting as host to a group of thirsty Lambs. A newcomer joined the party, bringing with him as a guest a gentleman of a serious aspect. When introductions had been completed, Hap addressed the stranger.

“What will you have, sir?”

The visitor drew himself up.

“I have never indulged in the habit of imbibing strong drink in my life,” he said.

“My friend,” said Ward, “I can teach you in three easy lessons.”

Messrs. Cohen and Shapinsky retired from the white-goods business to devote themselves to lives of leisure. They took up golf.

Mr. Shapinsky sliced his drive and the ball, flying off at a tangent, descended in a bunker. Over the parapet of the bunker there came to the ears of the waiting Mr. Cohen muffled sounds as Mr. Shapinsky with his niblick dug into the sand. Finally he emerged.

“Vell,” he said, “not so bad, huh? It only took me three strokes to get out of that pit.”

“Vat do you mean three strokes?” demanded Mr. Cohen. “Myself I stood here und counted und I distinctly heard you hit the ground mit your iron nine times.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Shapinsky, “I vas killing a snake.”

A gentleman of social habits came home one evening to be confronted by a wife bristling with indignation. No sooner had he opened the front door of the apartment than she fired a blast at him.

“Why, my dear,” he said, “what’s the matter?”

“Matter enough,” she answered. “I thought you told me that you were going down to Belmont track yesterday afternoon with a party of men!”

“That’s right,” he said, “what of it?”

“Then perhaps you can explain this,” she said. “This morning I sent the suit you wore yesterday out to be pressed. But first I went through the pockets and in one of the pockets I found a card and on the card was written in your handwriting: ‘Evelyn, 2161 Fitzroy.’ Now then, what does this mean?”

Without a moment’s hesitation the husband answered.

“My dear child,” he said soothingly, “the thing is simplicity itself. ‘Evelyn’ is the name of a racehorse—a friend gave me a tip on her. And ‘2161’ were the odds on her for first and second place. ‘Fitzroy’ is the name of the jockey. Surely you’ve heard of Fitzroy, the famous jockey? Now then, aren’t you ashamed that you suspected me?”

The lady admitted that she might have been a bit hasty in jumping at conclusions. She dried her tears and peace descended upon the household.

On the following evening the husband entered the flat at peace with the world and whistling a merry catch. An ominous silence greeted him.

“Hello, dearie!” he hailed. “How do you feel?”

“I’m quite all right, considering,” answered his wife frigidly.

“Any mail here for me?”

“You might look and see.”

“Anybody drop in to-day?”

“No.”

“Has anything happened at all?”

“Well,” she said, “about three o’clock this afternoon your racehorse called up and asked for you.”

Our country was enjoying one of its regular Japanese war-scares. I forget, now, whether it was the fifteenth or the sixteenth Japanese war-scare. A Congressman, representing a Kansas district, felt that a crisis impended.

On the floor of the House he made a speech pointing out the need of preparedness, and having done this, he took the train for his district with a view to sounding out his constituents upon the advisability and wisdom of the measures he so strenuously had advocated.

However, upon his arrival home, he was pained to note that the voters seemed strangely apathetic as regarded the prospect of an invasion by the Mikado’s armed forces. By a personal campaign the Representative undertook to arouse his people to the seriousness of the situation.

The first prospective convert he encountered was an elderly farmer, who listened as the statesman expounded his views and then slowly shook his head, in seeming dissent.

“But look here, John,” protested the Congressman. “If this war comes it may be necessary to call every able-bodied man in America to arms. You even may be called. Wouldn’t you fight the Japs if they set foot on the soil of this country?”

“I reckon I wouldn’t do that,” said the farmer. “From what I kin understand, most every Japanese is what they call a fatalist.”

“What has their fatalism got to do with your duty as a patriot?” asked the Congressman.

“Well,” said the honest Kansan, “it looks to me like I couldn’t derive much nourishment from fightin’ with a lot of fellows that think you’re doing ’em a personal favor every time you kill one of ’em.”

Egbert, aged seven, went to the Sunday-school picnic. For days he had been looking forward to the event; but, as in the case of so many other things, realization hardly measured up to anticipation.

In the wagon on the way to the picnic ground, Egbert had a personal difference with a fellow-passenger. He came out of the altercation second best. Shortly after his arrival at the scene of festivities he sat down on a bumble-bee, with the result that he was painfully stung. Then he fell in the creek. A little girl took offence at a perfectly innocent pleasantry on his part and smacked his face and pulled his hair. He got badly sunburnt.

Late in the afternoon Egbert, in a disheveled state, reached home. As he limped up the front steps his father, glancing up from the evening paper, said:

“Well, son, what sort of a time did you have at the picnic?”

“Papa,” said Egbert, “I’m so glad I’m back I’m glad I went.”

This story may or may not be true, but in view of the drops in the currencies of certain European countries which suffered heavily in the Great War, I am inclined to think it at least has a plausible sound to it.

It is said that a Swiss hotel-keeper made an announcement which was calculated to bring him the patronage of refugee notables from other lands. He gave it out that at current rates of exchange, he would accept money of any Continental nation in settlement of accounts. As a consequence, his establishment was at once filled up with distinguished exiles.

An Austrian asked for his bill. He glanced at the figures and then heaved a heavy suitcase upon the desk of the proprietor.

“You will find enough money in this bag to pay you,” he said.

Next to come was a German nobleman. Upon learning the amount of his indebtedness he produced a yellow slip and put it into the hand of the Swiss.

“This,” he said, “is the bill of lading for a carload of marks which arrived yesterday, consigned to me. The car is now at the station. Go there and get as many bales as you need.”

The third patron was a Russian prince. After a glance at his bill he drew from an inner pocket a flat thin heavy package which gave off a metallic sound as he deposited it upon the desk-top.

“What’s this?” asked the hotel-keeper.

“These,” said the Russian, “are the engraver’s plates. Kindly take them and print as many million-ruble notes as may be required.”

It would seem that a person named George customarily patronized a certain bar wherein gathered nightly a group of men whose highest ambition was to be on their feet when all the others were under the table, and whose proudest boast was that they had never been known to “pass out of the picture.” To these ambitions George subscribed.

One night they missed George. Nor did he come the next evening, nor the next, nor the next. It was a month before he reappeared; and then he was so swathed in bandages, so painfully hopping on crutches, that they swarmed around him with excited questionings.

“How did I get this way?” said George. “Well, I’ll tell you. Y’ remember that las’ night I was here? Drinkin’ pretty heavy that night, but you know how it is with me. . . . When I left, the ol’ bean was as clear as a bell. Actually, I might just as well not a’ had anything. Well, somehow I knew the Brooklyn Boys were going to show up that night: I sort of felt it. And when I turned out the light an’ hopped into the ol’ bed, sure enough there was two of them—one on each corner, down by my feet.”

“The Brooklyn Boys?” somebody queried.

“Yeh, sure,” said George. “You know ’em, don’t you? Little men about so high”—with his hands he indicated a span of four or five inches—“in bright yellow shirts.

“Well, as I said, there they were, two of ’em. I laid still for awhile, pretendin’ I was asleep, an’ watched ’em lookin’ at me and then at each other, and noddin’ their heads an’ sayin’: ‘That’s him. That’s the guy.’ Then all of a sudden I made a spring at them. But they got away . . . one hopped over the transom and one oozed out through the keyhole.

“ ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘that settles ’em for to-night.’ An’ I got back in bed.

“D’ye know, I hadn’t been there a minute when I looked around and saw, there in the middle of the floor, seven of those Brooklyn Boys, all lookin’ up at me and noddin’ among themselves and sayin’: ‘That’s the guy there—that’s him.’

“Well, I jumped out of bed like a flash but they were too quick for me. They all scooted—under the door, over the door, through the keyhole an’ everywheres.

“Well, I thought I’d sure finished ’em for a while. But I’d no sooner got back in bed when I heard a sound and I looked around and there was sixty Brooklyn Boys! I knew they was up to something because they’d look up at me and then nod among themselves and whisper: ‘That’s him, all right. Uh-huh, that’s him.’

“All this time, y’understand, the ol’ head was clear as a bell. I knew perfectly well what I was doing.

“So I jumped right at them—because that’s the best way to get rid of the Brooklyn Boys, y’know. But they all got away, every single one, and I got back in bed again, thinkin’ I was safe now for sure. Well, d’ye know what?”

“What?” asked somebody.

“Why, I hadn’t but barely got back in bed when I looked down and there on the floor was thirty-five thousand Brooklyn Boys! And this time each one had a little musket over his shoulder. Well, the leader he lines them all up and waved his sword up toward me in the bed and yelled: ‘That’s him, boys! That’s the guy, up there!’

“Then he yelled: ‘Ready!’ . . .

“Then he yelled: ‘Aim!’ . . .

“Well, now, as I said, all this time the ol’ bean was workin’ beautifully. I saw just what they was up to and before that Brooklyn Boy that had the sword could yell, ‘Fire!’ I’d jumped clean out of bed and through the window.”

George paused, and wetted his throat with an appropriate liquid.

“Of course,” he added, “my room is on the third floor an’ I got sort o’ banged up—as you fellas notice. But just think what might have happened if I’d been drunk and couldn’t a’ made that jump in time!”

Bob Davis of Munsey’s Magazine, who has a mania for bringing celebrities together just to see how they react on each other, was strolling along Broadway with O. Henry in the latter hours of the nineteenth century, when Captain Jack Crawford, the poet scout, his hair waving in the wind, came sailing across Madison Square. Davis introduced the pair and dragged them off to lunch.

Captain Jack, like most poets, having memorized all his own verse, never let a chance go by to hold the willing or unwilling listener spellbound. He opened up on the Bagdad Scribe before the oysters arrived. He spilled frontier poetry all over the premises, shook his hair out in a burst of blank verse, wedded the Pecos River to the Rocky Mountains, swept through the Yellowstone, tramped the plains, shot Indians, broke horses and piled the rhythmic dust of pioneer days all over O. Henry.

Captain Jack did all the talking and all the reciting that was done at that luncheon, which lasted two hours. About 3.30 P. M. the party broke up and O. Henry staggered out into the fresh air waving Davis and Crawford a mute farewell.

In the morrow’s mail Bob received the following note:

A candidate for citizenship came to a naturalization bureau in New York to take out his first papers. The applicant was a Russian who spoke badly broken English. With him was a friend and sponsor from the East Side.

Under examination the candidate betrayed a tremendous lack of knowledge of national history and institutions and public men. Finally the examiner turned to the alien’s companion:

“Here,” he said testily, “this man’s ignorance is appalling. Take him away and explain something to him about the Constitution and the government of the United States. Don’t bring him back until he is better qualified.”

The East Sider led his crestfallen fellow-countryman away. Within an hour they both returned.

“Here,” said the Examiner, “what brings you here again?”

“Everything is all right,” stated the East Sider. “I took my friend out and read to him out of the Constitution, and he says he likes it first-rate.”

A gentleman named Goldstein graduated out of the buttonhole-making line into practical politics. He gave his allegiance to the Republican party.

That year the Republicans carried New York state. They also carried Mr. Goldstein’s election district which was an even more notable victory inasmuch as it was in a heavily Democratic section. At that time Chauncey Depew was U. S. Senator from New York; also head of the New York Central Railroad and likewise Republican state chairman.

Bright and early on the morning after election day Mr. Goldstein was at the outer doors of Mr. Depew’s offices in the old Grand Central terminal building. He sent word in that Mr. Goldstein, the politicianer, desired to see the head of the line.

Being admitted, he directed Mr. Depew’s attention to the result of the voting in his neighborhood and claimed credit for the showing. Mr. Depew agreed with him that he had done well and that his labors in behalf of the party entitled him to recognition and reward. He desired to know how he personally or the G.O.P. might serve his friend.

At this Mr. Goldstein confessed to an ambition. He straightway desired, he said, to become a dispatcher for the railroad.

Depew directed his caller’s attention to the fact that a dispatcher, among other essential qualifications, must have more or less knowledge of telegraphy. It then developed, that Mr. Goldstein thought a dispatcher was one of those functionaries in blue uniform who, through megaphones, called incoming and outgoing trains in the station.

Behold, then, Mr. Goldstein on a night, one week later, arrayed, in blue and brass, proudly pacing the main waiting-room, a megaphone under his arm and conscious dignity, conscious power and conscious pomp in his manner. Presently his chance comes. He lifts his voice and this statement comes from him:

“Say, efferbody, listen. It gifs me the outmost bleasure to announce that a lofely train, mit cushioned seats und a conductor und ef’rything pleasant—say, you’d like that train—is now aboud leafing on track Number Fife for Albany, Uticcer, Ro-chester, Syracuse, Buffaler und points on the Vest. Who would like to go in a nice train for some points on the Vest?”

Plainly pained at the failure of the populace to leap forward and avail itself of this opportunity he is about to repeat the announcement when he feels a tug at his coat tail. He turns impatiently to find a person of lowly aspect, who is burdened with hand baggage.

“Vell,” he demands, “vot is idt?”

“When does the last train go to Cleveland?” inquires the stranger.

Into Mr. Goldstein’s tones comes pity for such ignorance.

“Ven, on the Noo Yawk Central, does the last train go for Cleveland?” he repeats as though he scarcely can believe his ears. “Mine friendt, you should live so long!”

A barn-storming troupe, specializing in Shakespearean repertoire, was fighting its difficult way through the middle west. For a month salaries had not been paid. One constable and two hotel-keepers were now traveling with the company, hoping to collect their claims.

On Tuesday morning of a certain week the leading man approached the manager.

“Let me have half a dollar, will you?” he said.

The manager gave him a hurt look.

“Say, what’s the matter with this gang, anyhow?” he demanded; “always wanting money. What do you think I am—a National bank, or something? It’s only yesterday that the heavy man kept nagging after me for two dollars. Said he wanted to get his laundry out. What does he need with laundry? Am I bothering about my laundry? No. Here I am working like a tiger to dig up railroad fares for you people and square up hotel-keepers and keep this show moving across the country until we run into some good territory. And now you come yelling for dough. What do you want with a half dollar, anyhow?”

“I’ll tell you what I need with it,” said the leading man. “You announced ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for the bill to-night, didn’t you?”

“Yes. What of it?”

“Well, you’re expecting me to play Romeo, ain’t you?”

“Sure I am.”

“Well, how in thunder do you figure I’m going to play Romeo with a three days’ beard? I’ve got to have a shave—so Romeo won’t come on with a quarter of an inch of black whiskers on his face.”

The manager considered the thick dark stubble on his star’s chops and saw the force of the argument. Slowly, he rammed a reluctant hand into his pocket, then, as a smile of relief broke over his face, brought it out empty.

“Tell you what we’ll do,” he said briskly, “we’ll change the bill to ‘Othello’!”

A young Irishman whose family was scattered pretty well over the English-speaking portions of the globe emigrated to America. Soon after his arrival in New York he paid a visit to the Bronx Zoo. He halted in front of a cage containing one of the largest kangaroos in captivity. After watching the curious creature for some time in an awed silence, he hailed a keeper.

“What’s that thing?” he asked.

“That,” said the keeper in his best professional manner, “is a marsupial, a mammal that carries its young in a pouch on its breast, lives on roots and herbs, can jump twenty feet at one leap, is able to knock a human being down with a kick from either hind leg, and is a native of Australia.”

“For the love of Hiven!” cried the Irishman, bursting into tears. “Me sisther’s married to wan of thim!”

The late Charlie Case, for many years a headliner in vaudeville, was, I think, one of the funniest men and certainly one of the most original that the American stage has produced. He used to come sidling out of the wings in a diffident, apologetic sort of way and while twisting a string in and out of his fingers, tell side-splitting stories of what a mythical father of his had been saying and doing. The one I loved best had to do with Father’s famous lapse from sobriety. As nearly as I recall Case’s own rendition it ran as follows:

“Father came mighty near getting into some serious trouble here the other day. A lot of folks wanted to have him arrested for obtaining money under false pretences; but he got out of it all right.

“Here’s the way the thing happened: A fellow up in the mountains made some moonshine whiskey and he gave Father a quart of it. So Father took three drinks of it and then, he went down town and rented a vacant store and began charging people ten cents apiece to come in and see the animals and the snakes. Right away they raised a row. Father could see the snakes and animals all right but they couldn’t see anything but just an empty store.

“So some of them got mad and they went away and found the sheriff and swore out a warrant and told the sheriff that they wanted to have Father locked up in jail until he’d given them their money back. The sheriff put on his badge and came around to arrest Father.

“But Father gave the sheriff one drink out of the bottle and sold him a half-interest in the show for three hundred dollars.”

Ever since I first heard it—and that must be fully ten years ago now—I have treasured the story of the gentleman, living at Number 5 Half Moon Street, who inserted the advertisement in the Agony Column of the London Times.

The advertisement stated, in effect, that a person of scientific attainments, living at Number 5 Half Moon Street, was preparing to go on a journey of exploration into Equatorial Africa, and desired, as a paid companion, a young man who was a good rifle-shot, experienced in the tropics and acquainted with the languages of the native tribes.

The same evening a youth-about-town was sitting in his club. He picked up a copy of that morning’s Times and his eye fell upon this advertisement. He read it through and then he said to himself what an Englishman always says when confronted by anything which seems to him striking or interesting.

“Most ’straordinary! Most remarkably ’straordinary that any Johnnie living in Half Moon Street should wish to leave his diggings and go to Africa and take a strange Johnnie with him!”

The impression of what he had read lingered in his mind all through the evening. Pondering it over, he drank more perhaps than was good for him. At least, what he drank was not good for his speech—it made it thick and hiccuppy. Also it tangled his legs.

At 1 A. M. he arose and, leaving the club, set out for his lodgings. He rambled off his route and presently he found himself in Half Moon Street. By another coincidence he was directly in front of Number 5. Groggily, he stood for a space trying to couple these facts with some foggy recollections which lurked in the back of his brain. Then he remembered.

He made his fumbling way up the steps to the door and rang the bell and rang it again and again. At length footsteps sounded in the passage within and the door was opened by an individual who, despite his state of partial undress, plainly was a butler.

“Well, sir?” he asked.

“I desire (hic) to shee your master,” said the inebriate. “Mush shee him at once.”

“But the hour is very late, sir,” remonstrated the servant. “The master has retired. He is in bed asleep. Can’t I take the message, sir, and deliver it in the morning?”

“Not at all,” said the clubman. “Thish is mosh pressing and imperative. Businish is strictly between your master (hic) and myself.”

So the butler went away, leaving him there, and eventually there appeared in the doorway, a middle-aged gentleman of an irritable aspect, in dressing-gown and slippers who plainly had just been aroused from slumber.

“Well, sir, well, sir,” he snapped, “what is it you wish to say to me?”

“Are you the gen’l’m who inserted (hic) advertishment in Times stating you wished engage servishes of a young man ’company you to Africa?”

“I am. What of it?”

“Well, (hic) I jus’ happened to be passing and I dropped in to tell you that, pershonally, I can’t shee my way clear to going.”

This is one of those post-war stories. However, it is said to have the advantage on its side of being true. It seems there was an English nobleman whose estate shrunk frightfully between 1914 and 1918. He decided, in order to replenish the family fortune, to go into business. But neither nature nor experience had qualified him for a commercial career and he made a frightful hash of the venture.

Eventually, a receiver took over his affairs. The receiver engaged an expert accountant who went over the books and struck a trial balance.

His Lordship scanned the document and exclaimed:

“What a remarkable coincidence! What an extraordinary coincidence! Why, the totals on both sides are identical!”

In the year after the Great War started there was a German who ran a saloon in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Close by was a munition factory where explosives were being manufactured for the Allies. As one who had a sympathy for the cause of his Father-land, the German nursed a deep grudge against the neighboring industry. He included the operatives in the plant among his enemies.

One day, as he sat behind his bar, a husky Irishman in overalls entered.

“Say,” he began, “I’d like to open a small account with you. I’d like to come in here for me drinks and on Saturday night whin I get paid off I’ll come over and settle. I’m a square guy and I always pay me debts. How about it?”

“Vell,” said the German, “for my regular gustomers sometimes I put it on der slate; only, you are a stranger to me. Where you work?”

“Right across the street here,” said the Irishman.

“In der munitions factory? Nutt’n doin’!”

“Well, they told me,” said the Irishman, “that you was kinda sore on us fellers over there but I was thinkin’ that if you knew we was makin’ shells for the Germans now maybe you’d act different.”

The Teuton’s face broke into a broad smile.

“For the Chermans now you make ’em, eh? Say, dot’s fine—dot’s pully. Have someding on me. We drink togeder, huh?”

They drank together. Three times more, as rapidly as the Irishman emptied his beer-glass the German replenished it, each time stating that for this festive occasion, at least, there would be no charge for the refreshment. The hospitable rites having been concluded the new patron was moving toward the door when the German was moved to put a question. Until now, in his exuberance, he had forgotten to ask for details:

“Say,” he said, “how you get dose shells over to der Chermans?”

“Well,” said the Irishman, edging a little nearer toward the door, “we don’t exactly send ’em to the Germans direct, you understand.”

“No? Then how you do it?”

“Oh, we sell ’em to the English and they shoot ’em over.”

Soon after the Civil War ended a former trooper of Morgan’s cavalry moved from his home in the Bluegrass region to California. He was a gentleman of genial habits and a natural orator. It was almost inevitable, therefore, that sooner or later he should enter politics. He was announced as a candidate for the legislature on the Democratic ticket. He made a spirited campaign, but when the primary returns were in, of three candidates the ex-Confederate had finished third.

He called a meeting of his friends and made a speech. It was short but complete.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I’m going to quit this cussed country. I’m going back to Kentucky—the only fit place for a gentleman to live—where the niggers make your crop for you and the sheriff sells it.”

An amateur pugilist in a small town in Ohio accepted the invitation of a visiting professional who announced that he was ready to meet all comers.

The local prodigy mounted the stage, climbed through the ropes and gave his name to the announcer. As the announcer was introducing him the amateur tugged at his sleeve and whispered something in his ear.

“Kid Binks desires me to state,” said the announcer, “that this is his first appearance in any ring.”

He stepped back and the two men squared off. The professional ducked a wild swing, led with his right and knocked the amateur down with such violence that he fairly splashed when he hit the floor.

The master of ceremonies stood over the fallen one, counting him out. At eight the dazed youth got upon his knees. At nine he spoke in a husky whisper.

The announcer raised his hand for silence.

“Kid Binks also desires me to state,” he said, “that this is his last appearance in any ring.”

Two sympathetic friends called at a house of mourning in the Bronx. Mrs. Levinsky, wife of a wealthy white-goods importer, had passed away, following upon her return from a Southern trip.

The callers were shown into the parlor where the bereft husband sat alongside the casket. They advanced and looked upon the face of the deceased.

“Don’t she look wonderful?” said one of them.

The widower raised his head.

“Why shouldn’t she look wonderful?” he asked. “Didn’t she spend the whole winter at Palm Beach?”

The infusion of Russian and Polish stocks into New York has been responsible for some curious additions to the language of the Manhattan Cockney. Most of us are familiar with the story of the small East-Side boy who told his father that what he liked best about the arithmetic he studied at school was Gozinta.

“What do you mean, Gozinta?” asked his parent.

“Why, 2 gozinta 4, 4 gozinta 8, 8 gozinta 16.”

Of somewhat more recent coinage is the one which recites how a teacher asked if any member of her class knew the meaning of the word “Stoic.”

Up rose a small second-generation American from Rivington Street.

“Sure, teacher, I know what is a stoic,” he said.

“Well then, Sidney, suppose you tell us what a stoic is.”

“A stoic is the boid wot brings the babies.”

But of all such yarns I believe I like best the tale of the transplanted Pole who had made a fortune by building cheap apartment-houses. He had just completed the erection of a flat-building near Riverside Drive, whereas theretofore all his operations had been confined to the more crowded down-town districts. A friend said to him:

“Meyer, that’s a mighty nice-looking flat-building you’ve just put up. Have you got a name for it yet?”

“Soitinly,” said the capitalist. “I’ve decided I should call it the Cloister Apartments.”

“Strikes me as a rather curious name. Why call it that?”

“Because,” said Meyer, “it’s cloister the subway, it’s cloister Central Park and its cloister the river.”