Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers, Vol. 1
Page 29
client's name. He telegraphed his partner, "What is our client'sname?" The answer read, "Brown, Walter E. Yours is Allen, William B."
* * * * *
A traveling man stopped at an Indiana hotel. The proprietor told himhe had not a room in the house. The man said he must have a room.Finally the proprietor told him there was a room, a little roomseparated by a thin partition from a nervous man who had lived in thehouse for ten years.
"He is so nervous," said the landlord, "I don't dare put any one inthat room. The least noise might give him a nervous spell that wouldendanger his life."
"Oh, give me a room," said the traveler. "I'll be so quiet he'll notknow I'm there."
The room was given the traveler. He slipped in noiselessly and beganto disrobe. He took off one article of clothing after another asquietly as a burglar. At last he came to his shoes. He unlaced a shoeand dropped it.
The shoe fell to the floor with a great noise. The offending traveler,horrified at what he had done, waited to hear from the nervous man.Not a sound. He took off the second shoe and placed it noiselesslyupon the floor; then in absolute silence finished undressing andcrawled between the sheets.
Half an hour went by. He had dropped into a doze when there came atremendous knocking on the partition.
The traveler sat up in bed trembling and dismayed. "Wh-wha-what's thematter?" he asked.
Then came the voice of the nervous man:
"Hang you! Drop that other shoe, will you?"
* * * * *
There was once an Irishman, who sought employment as a diver, bringingwith him his native enthusiasm and a certain amount of experience.Although he had never been beneath the water, he had crossed an oceanof one variety and swallowed nearly an ocean of another. But he hadthe Hibernian smile, which is convincing, and the firm chanced to needa new man. And so on the following Monday morning Pat hid his smilefor the first time in a diving helmet.
Now, the job upon which the crew to which Pat had attached himself wasworking in comparatively shallow water, and Pat was provided with apick and told to use it on a ledge below in a manner with which he wasalready familiar.
Down he went with his pick, and for about fifteen minutes nothing washeard from him. Then came a strong, determined, deliberate pull on thesignal rope, indicating that Pat had a very decided wish to come tothe top. The assistants pulled him hastily to the raft and removed hishelmet.
"Take off the rest of it," said Pat.
"Take off the rest of it?"
"Yis," said Pat, "Oi'll worruk no longer in a dark place where Oican't spit on me hands."
* * * * *
On the first day that a young man began his duties as reporter on apopular paper a report came from a near-by town that there was aterrible fire raging. The editor of the paper immediately sent thenew reporter to the place, and, upon arriving there, he found that thefiremen were unable to get control of the fire, so he sent thistelegram to the editor: "Fire still raging. What shall I do?" Theeditor was so mad that he wired back at once: "Find out where the fireis the hottest and jump in."
* * * * *
"One day," related Denny to his friend Jerry, "when Oi had wanderedtoo far inland on me shore leave Oi suddenly found thot there was agreat big haythen, tin feet tall, chasin' me wid a knife as long asyer ar-rm. Oi took to me heels an' for fifty miles along the road wehad it nip an' tuck. Thin Oi turned into the woods an' we run for onehundhred an' twinty miles more, wid him gainin' on me steadily, owin'to his knowledge of the counthry. Finally, just as Oi could feel hishot breath burnin' on the back of me neck, we came to a big lake. Widone great leap Oi landed safe on the opposite shore, leavin' mepursuer confounded and impotent wid rage."
"Faith an' thot was no great jump," commented Jerry, "considerin' therunnin' sthart ye had."
* * * * *
Quite recently an old friend of the Browns went to see them at theirnew country home. As he approached the house a large dog ran out tothe gate and began barking at him through the fence.
As he hesitated about opening the gate, Brown's wife came to the doorand exclaimed: "How do you do! Come right in. Don't mind the dog."
"But won't he bite?" exclaimed the friend, not anxious to meet thecanine without some assurance of his personal safety.
"That's just what I want to find out," exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "I justbought him this morning."
* * * * *
The late Julian Ralph, one of the most gifted newspaper men of hisgeneration, while being shaved one day, was forced to listen to manyof the barber's anecdotes.
Stopping to strop his razor, and prepared, with brush in hand torecommence, he said, "Shall I go over it again?"
"No, thanks," drawled Ralph, "It's hardly necessary. I think I canremember every word."
* * * * *
The following is a typical Ian Maclaren story:
"Who had this place last year?" asked a Southern shooting tenant ofhis keeper.
"Well," said Donald, "I'm not denyin' that he wass an Englishman, buthe wass a good man whatever. Oh, yess, he went to kirk and he shotvery well, but he wass narrow, very narrow."
"Narrow," said the other in amazement, for he supposed he meantbigoted, and the charge was generally the other way about. "What washe narrow in?"
"Well," said Donald, "I will be tellin' you, and it wass this way. Thetwelfth [the beginning of the grouse shooting] wass a very good day,and we had fifty-two brace. But it wass warm, oh! yess, very warm, andwhen we came back to the Lodge, the gentleman will say to me, 'It iswarm.' and I will not be contradicting him. Then he will be saying,'Maybe you are thirsty,' and I will not be contradicting him.Afterwards he will take out his flask and be speaking about a dram. Iwill not be contradicting him, but will just say, 'Toots, toots.' Thenhe will be pouring it out, and when the glass wass maybe half-full Iwill say, just for politeness, 'Stop.' And he stopped. Oh! yess, avery narrow man."
* * * * *
Mark Twain as a humorist is no respecter of persons, and a story istold of him and Bishop Doane which is worth repeating. It occurredwhen Mark Twain was living in Hartford, where Mr. Doane was thenrector of an Episcopal church. Twain had listened to one of thedoctor's best sermons, on Sunday morning, when he approached him andsaid politely: "I have enjoyed your sermon this morning. I welcomed itas I would an old friend. I have a book in my library that containsevery word of it." "Impossible, sir," replied the rector, indignantly."Not at all. I assure you it is true," said Twain. "Then I shalltrouble you to send me that book," rejoined the rector with dignity.The next morning Dr. Doane received, with Mark Twain's compliments, adictionary.
* * * * *
A friend of Mark Twain's tells of an amusing incident in connectionwith the first meeting between the humorist and the late James McNeilWhistler, the artist.
The friend having facetiously warned Clemens that the painter was aconfirmed joker, Mark solemnly averred that he would get the better ofWhistler should the latter attempt "any funny business." Furthermore,Twain determined to anticipate Whistler, if possible.
So, when the two had been introduced, which event took place inWhistler's studio, Clemens, assuming an air of hopeless stupidity,approached a just-completed painting, and said:
"Not at all bad, Mr. Whistler, not at all bad. Only," he added,reflectively, with a motion as if to rub out a cloud effect, "if Iwere you I'd do away with that cloud."
"Great Heavens, sir!" exclaimed Whistler, almost beside himself. "Dobe careful not to touch that; the paint is not yet dry!"
"Oh, I don't mind that," responded Twain, with an air of perfectnonchalance; "I am wearing gloves."
* * * * *
This is a story of Italian revenge. A vender of plaster statuettes sawa chance for a sale in a well-dressed, bibulous man who was tackingdown the str
eet.
"You buy-a de statuette?" he asked, alluringly holding out hischoicest offering. "Gar-r-ribaldi--I sell-a him verra cheep. Degr-reat-a Gar-r-ribaldi--only thirta cents!"
"Oh, t'ell with Garibaldi," said the bibulous one, making a swipe withhis arm that sent Garibaldi crashing to the sidewalk.
For a moment the Italian regarded the fragments. Then, his eyesflashing fire, he seized from his stock a statuette of GeorgeWashington. "You t'ell-a with my Gar-r-ribaldi?" he hissed between histeeth. "So." He raised the immortal George