Best Short Stories Part 26

"Well, I thought I left you to take care of the store," said the storekeeper.

"You did," answered the clerk, "But you didn't tell me I had to look after your women folks as well as the store. I stood it as long as I could and then I said to myself: 'Look here, if you've got to fight, you might as well go and fight someone that you can hit.'"

SOME SPEED

It was a dull day in the trenches, and a bunch of Tommies had gathered and were discussing events. After a while the talk turned on a big Boche who had been captured the night before.

"He was scared stiff," said one Tommy.

"Did he run?" asked another.

"Run?" replied the first. "Why, if that Boche had had jest one feather in his hand he'd 'a' flew."

A DEEP-LAID PLAN

"Would you mind letting me off fifteen minutes early after this, sir?"

asked the bookkeeper. "You see, I've moved into the suburbs and I can't catch my train unless I leave at a quarter before five o'clock."

"I suppose I'll have to," grumbled the boss; "but you should have thought of that before you moved."

"I did," confided the bookkeeper to the stenographer a little later, "and that's the reason I moved."

ONLY ONE THING FOR HIM

A three-hundred-pound man stood gazing longingly at the nice things displayed in a haberdasher's window for a marked-down sale. A friend stopped to inquire if he was thinking of buying shirts or pyjamas.

"Gosh, no!" replied the fat man wistfully. "The only thing that fits me ready-made is a handkerchief."

A TEST OF FRIENDSHIP

Andy Foster, a well-known character in his native city, had recently shuffled off this mortal soil in dest.i.tute circ.u.mstances, although in his earlier days he enjoyed financial prosperity.

A prominent merchant, an old friend of the family, attended the funeral and was visibly affected as he gazed for the last time on his old friend and a.s.sociate.

The mourners were conspicuously few in number and some attention was attracted by the sorrowing merchant. "The old gentleman was very dear to you?" ventured one of the bearers after the funeral was over.

"Indeed, he was," answered the mourner. "Andy was one true friend. He never asked me to lend him a cent, though I knew that he was practically starving to death."

BLISSFUL IGNORANCE

It was during the nerve-racking period of waiting for the signal to go over the top that a seasoned old sergeant noticed a young soldier fresh from home visibly affected by the nearness of the coming fight. His face was pale, his teeth chattering, and his knees tried to touch each other.

It was sheer nervousness, but the sergeant thought it was sheer funk.

"Tompkins," he whispered, "is it trembling you are for your dirty skin?"

"No, no, sergeant," said he, making a brave attempt to still his limbs.

"I'm trembling for the Germans; they don't know I'm here."

GRATEFUL TO THE DOCTOR

A Chinaman was asked if there were good doctors in China.

"Good doctors!" he exclaimed. "China have best doctors in world. Hang Chang one good doctor; he great; save life, to me."

"You don't say so! How was that?"

"Me velly bad," he said. "Me callee Doctor Han Kon. Give some medicine.

Get velly, velly ill. Me callee Doctor San Sing. Give more medicine. Me glow worse--go die. Blimebly callee Doctor Hang Chang. He got no time; no come. Save life."

HE MIGHT BE, BUT SHE WASN'T

Dinah had been troubled with a toothache for some time before she got up enough courage to go to a dentist. The moment he touched her tooth she screamed.

"What are you making such a noise for?" he demanded. "Don't you know I'm a 'painless dentist'?"

"Well, sah," retorted Dinah, "mebbe yo' is painless, but Ah isn't."

A SPORTING PROPOSITION

An Arkansas man who intended to take up a homestead claim in a neighboring state sought information in the matter from a friend.

"I don't remember the exact wording of the law," said the latter, "but I can give ye the meanin' of it all right. It's like this: The government of the United States is willin' to bet one hundred and sixty acres of land against fourteen dollars that ye can't live on it five years without starvin' to death."

THE PROPOSAL

He was a morbid youth and a nervous lover. Often had he wished to tell the maiden how he longed to make her all his own. Again and again had his nerve failed him. But to-night there was a "do-or-die" look in his eye.

They started for their usual walk, and rested awhile upon his favorite seat--a gravestone in the village churchyard. A happy inspiration seized him. "Maria," he said in trembling accents--"Maria! When you die--how should you like to be buried here with my name on the stone over you?"

KNEW MORE ABOUT HENS THAN HISTORY

After reading the famous poem, "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," to the cla.s.s, the teacher said: "As a drawing exercise suppose you each draw, according to your imagination, a picture of Plymouth Rock."

All but one little fellow set to work. He paused and finally raised his hand.

"What is it, Edgar?" the teacher asked.

"Please, ma'am," Edgar piped out, "do you want us to draw a hen or a rooster?"