RASTUS--"How much, boss?"
DRUGGIST--"Sixty cents and three cents war tax."
RASTUS--"Boss, Ah done thought de wah was over."
DRUGGIST--"Sure, it is, but we have to pay the debts."
RASTUS--"Boss, Ah always thought de one whut lost paid de debts. Dat'swhy I fight so hard."
"I was preparing to shave a chap the other afternoon," says a headbarber. "I had trimmed his hair, and from such talk as I had had withhim I judged him to be an easy-going, unexcitable sort of fellow. Butsuddenly his manner changed. Out of the corner of his eye he had seena man enter whose appearance upset him."
"Hurry, George!" he muttered to me. "Lather to the eyes--quick, quick!Here comes my tailor!"
IRATE FATHER--"It's astonishing, Richard, how much money you need."
SON--"I don't need it, father; it's the hotel-keepers, the tailors,and the taxicab men."
_See also_ Bills; Collecting of accounts.
DEGREES
"You college men seem to take life pretty easy." "Yes; even when we graduate we do it by degrees."
--_Boston Transcript_.
Our British cousins seem to think we have peculiar ways of getting ourD.D.'s over here. A London newspaper relates how the congregation of aSouthern church, being desirous of honoring their pastor, wrote to thedean of a certain faculty: "We want to get our beloved pastor a D.D.We enclose all the money we can raise at present. Be good enough tosend one D. now. We hope to raise sufficient for the other D. by andby."
DEMAGOG
"Father," said the small boy, "what is a demagog?"
"A demagog, my son, is a man who can rock the boat himself andpersuade everybody that there's a terrible storm at sea."
DEMOCRACY
ADKINS--"Well, the world is at last safe for democracy."
WATKINS--"Just what is democracy, anyway?"
"A democracy is a form of government where one party doesn't do thingsas they ought to be done, and the other party tells how much betterthey would be done if it were in power."
In his first lecture in New York the visiting English writer and wit,G.K. Chesterton, protested against prohibition and other limitationson American freedom. He quoted the phrase from Patrick Henry'saddress, "Give me liberty or give me death." Then he said:
"If Patrick Henry could arise from the dead and revisit the land ofthe living and see the vast system and social organization and socialscience which now controls, he would probably simplify his observationand say: 'Give me death!'"
Democracy means not "I am as good as you are," but "you are as good asI am."--_Theodore Parker_.
DENTISTS
"Pardon me for a moment, please," said the dentist to the victim, "butbefore beginning this work I must have my drill."
"Good heavens, man!" exclaimed the patient irritably. "Can't you pulla tooth without a rehearsal?"
Dinah had been troubled with a toothache for some time before she gotup enough courage to go to a dentist. The moment he touched her toothshe screamed.
"What are you making such a noise for?" he demanded. "Don't you knowI'm a 'painless dentist'?"
"Well, sah," retorted Dinah, "mebbe yo' is painless, but Ah isn't."
DENTIST--"Open wider, please--wider."
PATIENT--"A--A--A--Ah."
DENTIST (inserting rubber gag, towel, and sponge)--"How's yourfamily?"
A young man who needed false teeth wrote to a dentist ordering a setas follows:
"My mouth is three inches acrost, five-eighths inches threw the jaw.Some hummocky on the edge. Shaped like a hoss-shew, toe forward. Ifyou want me to be more particular, I shall have to come thar."
Dentist, speaking to patient about to have a tooth extracted--"Haveyou heard the latest song hit?"
Patient--"No. What is the title of it?"
Dentist--"The Yanks are Coming."
Returning home from the dentist's, where he had gone to have a loosetooth drawn, little Raymond reported as follows:
"The doctor told me 'fore he began that if I cried or screamed itwould cost me a dollar, but if I was a good boy it would be only fiftycents."
"Did you scream?" his mother asked.
"How could I?" answered Raymond. "You only gave me fifty cents."
Mr. Harkins had taken his boy, aged ten, to have an offending molartooth drawn. When the job had been accomplished, the dentist said: "Iam sorry, sir, but I shall have to charge you five dollars for pullingthat tooth."
"Five dollars!" exclaimed Mr. Harkins, in dismay. "Why, I understoodyou to say that you charged only one dollar for such work!"
"Yes," replied the dentist, "but this youngster yelled so terriblythat he scared four other patients out of the office."--_Harper's_.
DEPARTMENT STORES
"I want some shoe-strings, some hairpins, a pair of gloves, and atooth-brush," the woman said. "I have to catch a train, and have but afew minutes."
"Yes, madam!" the floorwalker replied briskly. "That's the beauty of adepartment store-get anything you want, right under the one roof! Takeelevator to eleventh floor, shoe department, eight aisles to theright from the main passageway, for shoe-strings; hairpins in notionsdepartment, east side of basement, three aisles beyond hardware;gloves in women's wear, fifth floor of annex, reached by passagewayover street; toothbrush in drugs and toilet-articles department, onbalcony, reached by moving stairway, which you will find on your rightas you pass the fountain in the florist shop in the center of the mainfloor."
DESTINATION
Where'er I go, in this far land, The people wish to understand Where I am going. If I knew They would not think my answer true; And if I said I did not know They would advise me not to go.
The new guard was not familiar with a certain railway run in Wales. Cameto a station which rejoiced in the name Llanfairfechanpwllgogerych. Fora few minutes he stood looking at the signboard in mute helplessness.Then pointing to the board, and waving his other arm toward thecarriages, he called, "If there's anybody there for here, this is it!"
DETECTIVES
HOKUS--"How does Sleuthpup rank as a detective?"
POKUS--"Great. You know, he used to work in the repair department ofan umbrella factory."
"What has that got to do with being a detective?"
"Why, that fellow can recover an umbrella that has never been stolen."
DETERMINATION
"Thirty years ago," said the man who had traveled to the end ofthe earth and most of the way back, "I started out, alone, unaided,without friends to help me along, with the intention of making theworld pay me the living that it owes me. My only allies were a dollarbill and a determination to make a million more. Today (and he threwout his chest proudly) I still have the determination and fifty centsin change."
When hope seems dim And the worst's in sight, When you've lost your vim, Just hang on tight; Give blow for a blow, And don't give in, Till you've let 'em all know That you tried to win.
DIAGNOSIS
FRIEND--"What is the first thing you do when a man presents himself toyou for consultation?"
DOCTOR--"I ask him if he has a car."
FRIEND--"What do you learn from that?"
DOCTOR--"If he has one, I know he is wealthy--and if he hasn't, I knowhe is healthy."
Starting with a wonderful burst of oratory, the great evangelist had,after two hours' steady preaching, become rather hoarse.
A little boy's mother in the congregation whispered to her son, "Isn'tit wonderful? What do you think of him?"
"He needs a new needle," returned the boy sleepily.
The telephone rang and the bookkeeper answered it.
"Yes, madam, this is Wilkins's market."
"This is Mrs. Blank. I want you to know that the liver you sent me ismost unsatisfactory. It is not calf's liver at all; calf's liver istender and----"
"Just a moment, madam, and I'll call the proprietor."
"What is it?" Wilkins asked.
The bookkeeper surrendered the phone.
"Mrs. Blank," he said. "Liver Complaint."
Axel, a Swede in an outfit at Fort Jay, woke up one morning with adesire to loaf. He got put on sick-call, thinking it was worth trying,anyway. At the dispensary the "doc." looked him over, felt his pulse,and took his temperature. Then he said:
"I can't find anything wrong with you."
No answer.
"See here, what's wrong with you anyway?"
"Doc," replied Axel. "That bane your yob."
"Some un sick at yo' house, Mis' Carter?" inquired Lila. "Ah seed dedoctah's kyar eroun 'dar yestiddy."
"It was for my brother, Lila."
"Sho! What's he done got de matter of'm?"
"Nobody seems to know what the disease is. He can eat and sleep aswell as ever, he stays out all day long on the veranda in the sun, andseems as well as any one; but he can't do any work at all."
"Law, Mis' Carter, dat ain't no disease what you brothe' got! Dat's agif!"--_Everybody's_.
DILEMMAS
The house doctor of a Cincinnati theater sometimes tires of hisoffice; hence the following:
One evening an excited usher rushed to the doctor's seat and whispereda brief message. The occupant rose at once and both men left theorchestra hastily and made for the dressing-rooms.
"It's the leading lady," wailed one of the actresses, meeting them;"come this way."
"Have you poured water on her head?" inquired the doctor, solemnly.
"Yes, from the fire-bucket."
"The fire bucket!--what a fearful blunder! Here," and he scribbled aline on a card, "take this to the drug-store and get it filled."
When the leading lady found herself alone with the doctor, she openedher eyes.
"Doctor," she gasped, "you're a good fellow, aren't you? I know youare aware that there's nothing the matter with me. I want a day off,and I don't want to go on in this act. Can you fix it?"
"You bet I can," said the doctor, wringing her hand, sympathetically."I ain't no doctor. I came in on this ticket."
A lady's leather handbag was left in my car while parked on Parkavenue two weeks ago. Owner can have same by calling at my office,proving the property and paying for this ad. If she will explain to mywife that I had nothing to do with its being there, I will pay for thead.
"Mamma, if a bear should swallow me, I should die, shouldn't I?"
"Yes, dear."
"And should I go to heaven?"
"Yes, dear. Why do you ask that question?"
"And would the bear have to go too?"
A new regulation in a certain coal-mine required that each man markwith chalk the number on every car of coal mined.
One man named Ole, having filled the eleventh car, marked it with anumber one and, after pondering a while, let it go at that.
Another miner, happening to notice what he thought was a mistake,called Ole's attention to the fact that he had marked the car numberone instead of eleven.
"Yes, I know," said Ole; "but I can't tank which side de odder wan goon."
Dinah Snow was a colored cook in the home of the Smiths. One morningon going to the kitchen Mrs. Smith noticed that Dinah looked as if shehad been tangled up with a road-roller.
"Why, Dinah!" exclaimed she, "what in the world has happened to you?"
"Was me husban,'" explained Dinah. "He done went an' beat me ag'in,an' jes' fo' nothin', too!"
"Again!" cried Mrs. Smith, with increasing wonder. "Is he in the habitof beating you? Why don't you have him arrested?"
"Been thinkin' ob it several times, missy," was the rejoinder ofDinah, "but I hain't nebah had no money to pay his fine."
"Yes," said the storekeeper, "I want a good, bright boy to be partlyindoors and partly outdoors."
"That's all right," said the applicant, "but what becomes of me whenthe door slams shut?"--_Judge_.
DINING
_Nocturne_
The hour grows late, And hungrily I wait To hear her say Three words--three little words, Yet great Enough to bring completeness to the day.
At last she comes, Cassandra tall and dark-- Oh, very dark! A careless tune she hums, And pauses shamelessly to mark How her delay has angered or unnerved The weak among us. Then she snuffles--Hark! _"Dinnah am served!"_ --E.W.B.
"Has Bobbie been eating between meals?"
"Bobbie has no between meals."--_Life_.
A farmer who went to a large city to see the sights engaged a roomat a hotel, and before retiring asked the clerk about the hours fordining.
"We have breakfast from six to eleven, dinner from eleven to three,and supper from three to eight," explained the clerk.
"Wa-al, say," inquired the farmer in surprise, "what time air I goin'ter git ter see the town?"
"Mama, I want a dark breakfast."
"Dark breakfast? What do you mean, child?"
"Why, last night you told Mary to give me a light supper, and I didn'tlike it."
MOTHER (at the breakfast-table)--"You always ought to use your napkin,Georgie."
GEORGIE--"I am usin' it, mother; I've got the dog tied to the leg ofthe table with it."
DIPLOMACY
"Father," said the small boy, "what is an overt act?"
"My son, an overt act is something that either compels you to be sorude as to fight or so polite as to pretend you didn't notice it."
"Now, sir," said the persuasive philanthropist, "we want you to be thechairman of the big meeting which we are to hold."
"How much?" inquired Mr. Cassius Chex, wearily.
"I don't quite follow you."
"How much is the deficit that you expect my subscription to meet?"
Uncle Mose owns and operates an "exclusive shoe-shining parlor" ina little Northwestern town, and, as customers are rather scarcethereabouts, he can't afford to offend any of them. But his "parlor"has to be run on a strict cash basis. So when a man a little too wellknown to Uncle Mose as "slow pay" about town came in to have his shoesshined and suggested to the old negro a desire to pay at a later date,Uncle Mose did some quick thinking.
"I'se sorry, boss; I sure is," he replied with diplomatic suavity;"but I jes' cain't do it. You see, de banker on de nex' cohner an'me--we done made a 'greement dat ef I didn't loan money he wouldn'tshine shoes, an' I jes' cain't break dat 'greement."
Diplomacy has been defined as the art of letting someone else haveyour way.
DISARMAMENT
Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts Given to redeem the human mind from ERROR, There were no need of arsenals and forts.
--_Longfellow_.
"What do you think of this disarmament idea?"
"I'm for it. If those people next door will sell their player piano,I'll agree to have my daughter stop taking singing lessons."
DISCHARGE
COMMANDING OFFICER--"Snathy, here is your honorable discharge, youought to be proud of it."
SNATHY--"Deed ah am Cap. Why in civil life when ah was discharged ahwas jest fired."
DISCIPLINE
The principal of a certain school for girls had occasion to speaksharply to one of the pupils.
"Marion," he said, "you've neglected your work shamefully, and youmust remain with me an hour after school."
Marion shrugged her thin little shoulders. "Well," she said, "if yourwife doesn't mind it, I'm sure I don't."
In a certain public school very advanced ideas are put into practice.No pupil is ever punished in any way, for the individuality of everychild is considered too sacred for repression.
One day, soon after her enrollment at this school, little Gracearrived home, her face streaked with tears and her mouth covered withblood.
"My precious! What happened?" cried her mother.
The little girl was soon pouring out her story in her mother's arms.Sammy Gates, it appeared, had struck her and knocked out two teeth.
When Grace had been kissed, comforted, and washed, her father wantedto kn
ow how the teacher had dealt with Sammy.
"She didn't do anything," said Grace.
"Well, what did she say?"
"She called Sammy up to the desk and said, 'Sammy, don't you know thatwas very anti-social?'"
HUSBAND--"You'll never get that new dog of yours to mind you."
WIFE--"Oh, yes, I will.--You were just as troublesome yourself atfirst."
_See also_ Children; Parents.
DISCOUNTS
SPOKESMAN OF CREDITORS--"Veil, Cohen, we've decided to accept fivecents on a tollar--cash."
COHEN, THE DEBTOR--"Cash, you say? Den, of course, I get der regularcash discount?"--_Puck_.
DISCRETION
WILLIE--"Pa, what is discretion?"
FATHER--"Oh, that's only another name for lack of nerve, my son."
Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to win all theduties of life.--_Addison_.
DISPOSITION
"Allow me to congratulate you."
"What for?"
"Oh, for just anything--the sunshine, the blue skies, the fact thatyou are up and about. Isn't that something?"