Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 6

Whereupon Matthews, with virtuous rage, seized his pen and wrote him the following note:

"You must be a goose--Berry, to send me your bill--Berry, before it is due--Berry.

"Your father, the elder--Berry, would have had more sense.

"You may look very black--Berry, and feel very blue--Berry, but I don't care a straw--Berry, for you and your bill--Berry."

A clergyman in a Lawrence church on a recent occasion discovered, after beginning the service, that he had forgotten his notes. As it was too late to send for them, he said to his audience, by way of apology, that this morning he should have to depend upon the Lord for what he might say, but in the afternoon he would come better prepared.

An American visiting London for the first time, goaded to desperation by the incessant necessity for tips, finally entered the wash-room of his hotel, only to be faced with a large sign which read: "Please tip the basin after using." "I'm hanged if I will!" said the Yankee, turning on his heel, "I'll go dirty first!"

Mother could not attend church one Sunday. "But what a shame that little Mabel should have to lose the day's lesson, and she _such_ a bright child," she sadly reflected. Accordingly, Mabel was sent alone.

When she returned, in reply to her mother's interrogation as to the subject of the text, she replied, "Oh, yes, mother, I know; it was _'Don't get scared: You'll get the quilt.'_" Questioning failed to throw any light on the matter. Some days later the mother met the pastor, who, in answer to her request for the subject of his last sermon, replied, "It was, madam, 'Fear not: Ye shall have the Comforter.'"

Mark Twain in his lecturing days, reached a small Eastern town one afternoon and went before dinner to a barber's to be shaved.

"You are a stranger in town, sir?" the barber asked.

"Yes, I am a stranger here," was the reply.

"We're having a good lecture here to-night, sir," said the barber, "a 'Mark Twain' lecture. Are you going to it?"

"Yes, I think I will," said Mr. Clemens.

"Have you got your ticket yet?" the barber asked.

"No, not yet," said the other.

"Then, sir, you'll have to stand."

"Dear me!" Mr. Clemens exclaimed. "It seems as if I always do have to stand when I hear that man Twain lecture."

During the visit of the Shah Nasr-ed-Din to England he dined one night with the then Prince of Wales, now King Edward. Among the courses was one of asparagus, a delicacy unknown to the Shah. He considered it for a time, discovered that the head alone was nice to eat, ate it accordingly and flung the rest of the stalk over his shoulder. The other diners were somewhat flabbergasted, but the tactful Prince, not wishing his Persian guest to feel that he had done anything ridiculous, promptly followed his example, throwing his own stalks over his shoulder. Naturally all the courtiers imitated him in turn, and the amazement of the royal servants was extreme to see the air suddenly full of flying asparagus stalks from one end of the lengthy room to the other.

On one of his frequent trips to the other side, the weather being more than ordinarily rough, and the pa.s.sengers on deck but few, the late Bishop Potter saw a lady reclining on one of the benches, and the unearthly pallor on her face and the hapless languidity of her manner indicated that she had reached that state of collapse which marks the limit of sea-sickness. "Touched by this piteous spectacle and approaching the poor creature, in my most compa.s.sionate tone I asked, 'Madam, can I be of any service to you?'

"She did not open her eyes, but I heard her murmur faintly: 'Thank you, sir, but there is nothing you can do--nothing at all.' 'At least, madam,' said I tenderly, 'permit me to bring you a gla.s.s of water.'

She moved her head feebly and answered: 'No, I thank you--nothing at all.' 'But your husband, madam,' said I, 'the gentleman lying there with his head in your lap--shall I not bring something to revive him?'

The lady again moved her head feebly, and again she murmured faintly between gasps: 'Thank you, sir, but--he--is--not--my--husband.

I--don't--know--who he is!'"

"Well, Bobby, how do you like church?" asked his father, as they walked homeward from the sanctuary, to which Bobby had just paid his first visit.

"It's fine," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the young man. "How much did you get, father?"

"How much did I get? Why, what do you mean? How much what?" asked the parent, astonished at this evident irreverence.

"Why, don't you remember when the funny old man pa.s.sed the money around? I only got ten cents."

One day a fussy fellow met Father Healy of Dublin by the seash.o.r.e and thus accosted him: "Father Healy, I am undergoing a cure, and I take a tumbler of sea water three times a day. Now, I've had my full allowance to-day, but do you think I might have one, just one, tumbler more?"

Father Healy put his head on one side and looked at the ocean, lost in thought. "Well," he said, at last, with a gravely judicial air, "I don't think it would be missed."

Wm. M. Evarts asked by a lady if he did not think that woman was the best judge of woman, he replied: "Not only the best judge, madam, but the best executioner."

De Wolf Hopper was calling down a speaking-tube to the janitor of his apartment in New York. Mr. Hopper, unable to get the information he desired, finally blurted out, "Say, is there a blithering idiot at the end of this tube?" The reply came back with startling rapidity, "Not at this end, sir."

Mrs. S.--"Surely, John, you haven't brought anyone home to dinner?"

Mr. S.--"Sure I have. Haven't you got anything for them?"

"Why no, you told me you'd bring home a couple of lobsters for dinner."

"So I have, they're in the parlor."

One of his grandma's maids of honor tells the following story of Prince Eddie when he was a few years younger:

Just after King Edward's coronation, when he underwent an operation for appendicitis and was lying convalescent, he sent for his grandchildren.

The little ones trooped into the room, cautioned by their nurse that they must keep very quiet, and stood about their grandfather's bed. He talked with them for a few minutes and they replied in awed whispers.

Then when the nurse told them they must go, Prince Eddie said:

"But, grandpa, can't we see the baby?"