More Toasts Part 167

GUEST--"Who is the next speaker?"

CHAIRMAN--"Before telling you who he is, I would rather wait until you come back."--_Life_.

William Lyon Phelps, professor of English Literature at Yale, declares he gets credit for only 25 per cent of the after-dinner speeches he actually makes. "Every time I accept an invitation to speak, I really make four addresses. First, is the speech I prepare in advance. That is pretty good. Second, is the speech I really make. Third, is the speech I make on the way home, which is the best of all; and fourth, is the speech the newspapers next morning say I made, which bears no relation to any of the others."

"What would be a good way to raise revenue and still benefit the people?"

"Tax every speech made in this country."

"Many's de speech I has listened to," said Uncle Eben, "dat left me wonderin' whether I was gettin' infohmation or entertainment."

A noted Frenchman, on visiting England was asked to speak at a banquet. Being interested in his subject he spoke at great length.

Suddenly realizing another speaker was to follow him he closed his remarks with an apology, saying "I am very sorry but there is another speaker and I am afraid I have c.o.c.kroached on his time."

A burst of laughter greeted this remark and in much confusion he turned to the Englishman next to him and asked what break he had made.

The Englishman, in a rea.s.suring manner, said "It wasn't exactly a break only here in England we don't say c.o.c.kroach, we say 'h--encroach.'"

A political meeting was on in a certain Iowa town and Thomas R.

Marshall, Vice-President of the United States, was to speak. The hall was packed and the air was stifling. For some reason, it was impossible to open the windows, and one had to be broken.

It was feared that the noise would startle the audience and perhaps throw them into a panic. The mayor of the town stepped forward to give warning. The audience, however, had not a.s.sembled to listen to the mayor, and overwhelmed him with cries of "Marshall! Marshall!"

Silence was not restored till the infuriated official yelled at the top of his voice:

"I'm not going to make a speech! I have something to say!"

"Do you know what it is to go before an audience?"

"No. I spoke before an audience once, but most of it went before I did."

A lank, disconsolate-looking farmer, stood on the steps of the town hall during the progress of a political meeting.

"Do you know who's talking in there now?" demanded a stranger, briskly, pausing for a moment beside the farmer. "Or are you just going in?"

"No, sir; I've just come out," said the farmer, decidedly.

"Congressman Smiffkins is talking in there."

"What about?" asked the stranger.

"Well," continued the countryman, pa.s.sing a knotted hand across his forehead, "he didn't say."

"You haven't had much to say lately," commented the old friend.

"True," replied Senator Sorghum. "But you must give me credit for one thing--I realized the fact and kept still."

Captain "Ian Hay," on one of his war lecture tours, entered a barber's shop in a small town to have his hair cut.

"Stranger in the town, sir?" the barber asked.

"Yes, I am," Ian Hay replied. "Anything going on here tonight?"

"There's a war lecture by an English fighter named Hay," said the barber: "but if you go you'll have to stand, for every seat in the hall is sold out."

"Well, now," said Ian Hay, "isn't that provoking? It's always my luck to have to stand when that Hay chap lectures."

_See also_ Politicians.

PUBLISHERS

He was a typical gamin, so diminutive in stature that I had to stoop to interrogate him, which I did in this way:

"Where do you get your papers, my little man?"

"Oh, I buy 'em in the Times alley."

"What do you pay for them?"

"Fi' cents."

"What do you sell them for?"

"Fi' cents."

"You don't make anything at that?"

"Nope."

"Then what do you sell them for?"

"Oh, just to get a chance to holler."