More Toasts Part 103

A teacher was trying to explain the dangers of overwork to one of the smaller pupils.

"Now, Tommy," she pursued, "if your father were busy all day and said he would have to go back to the office at night, what would he be doing?"

"That's what ma wants to know."

HE--"If I were to die you'd never get another husband like me."

SHE--"What makes you imagine I should ever want another like you?"

MRS. BLANK (to laundress)--"And how is your newly married daughter getting on, Mrs. Brown?"

MRS. BROWN--"Oh, nicely, thank you, ma'am. She finds her husband a bit dull; but then, as I tells her, the good ones are dull."

JUNKMAN--"Any rags, paper, old iron to sell?"

HEAD OF HOUSE (irately)--"No--go away--my wife's away for the summer."

JUNKMAN (smiling)--"Any empty bottles?"

_Situation: Buglar, caught red-handed, arraigned in court_

WOMAN--"The sorce o' the feller! 'E pretended to be my 'usband and called out, 'It's all right, darlin'--it's only me.' It was the word 'darlin' wot give 'im away."--_Punch (London)_.

"Henry," said his father-in-law, as he called his daughter's spouse into the library and locked the door, "you have lived with me now for over two years."

"Yes, father."

"In all that time I haven't asked you a penny for board."

"No, sir." (Wonderingly.)

"In all your little family quarrels I have always taken your part."

"Always, sir."

"I have even paid some of your bills."

"A good many, father."

"Then the small favor I am about to ask you will no doubt be granted?"

"Most certainly, sir."

"Thanks. Then I want you to tell your mother-in-law that those tickets for the supper-club dance which she picked up in my room this morning must have accidentally fallen out of your pocket, and we'll call it square!"

One morning, Mollie, the colored maid, appeared before her mistress, carrying, folded in a handkerchief, a five-dollar gold piece and all her earthly possessions in the way of jewelry.

This package she proferred her mistress, with the request that Miss Sallie take it for safe keeping.

"Why, Mollie!" exclaimed the mistress in surprise. "Are you going away?"

"Naw'm, I ain' goin' nowheres," Mollie declared. "But me an' Jim Harris we wuz married this mawnin'. Yas.'m, Jim, he's a new n.i.g.g.e.r in town. You don' know nothin' 'bout him, Miss Sallie. I don' know nothin' 'bout him myself he's er stranger to me."

Miss Sallie glanced severely at the little package of jewelry.

"But, Mollie," she demanded, "don't you trust him?"

"Yas'm," replied Mollie, unruffled. "Cose I trus' him, personally--but not wid ma valuables."

It is necessary to be almost a genius to make a good husband.--_Balzac_.

Jennie, the colored maid, arrived one morning with her head swathed in bandages--the result of an argument with her hot-tempered spouse.

"Jennie," said her mistress, "your husband treats you outrageously.

Why don't you leave him?"

"Well, I don' 'zactly wants to leave him."

"Hasn't he dragged you the length of the room by your hair?" demanded her mistress.

"Yas'm he has done dat."

"Hasn't he choked you into insensibility?"

"Yas'm he sho has choked me."

"And now doesn't he threaten to split your head with an ax?"

"Yas'm he has done all dat," agreed Jennie, "but he ain' done nothin'

yet so bad I couldn't live wid him."

_See also_ Carelessness; Domestic finance.

HYPOCRISY

Hypocrisy will serve as well To propagate a church, as zeal; As persecution and promotion Do equally advance devotion: So round white stones will serve, they say, As well as eggs to make hens lay.