The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun Part 15

A KENTUCKIAN visited a merchant at New York, with whom, after dinner, he drank wine and smoked cigars, spitting on the carpet, much to the annoyance of his host, who desired a spittoon to be brought for his troublesome visitor; he, however, pushed it away with his foot, and when it was replaced, he kicked it away again, quite unaware of its use. When it had been thrice replaced, the Kentuckian drawled out to the servant who had brought it: "I tell you what; you've been pretty considerable troublesome with that ere thing, I guess; if you put it there again, I'm hung if I don't spit in it."

LANDSEER AND SIDNEY SMITH.

MR. LANDSEER, the best living animal painter, once asked the late Rev.

Sydney Smith if he would grant him a sitting, whereupon the Rev. Canon biblically replied--"Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?"

SPECKLED b.u.t.tER.

"DO you want to buy a real lot of b.u.t.ter?" said a Yankee notion dealer, who had picked up a load at fifty different places, to a Boston merchant.

"What kind of b.u.t.ter is it?" asked the buyer.

"The clean quill; all made by my wife; a dairy of forty cows, only two churnings."

"But what makes it so many different colors?" said the merchant.

"Darnation! hear that, now. I guess you wouldn't ax that question if you'd see my cows, for they are a darned sight speckleder than the b.u.t.ter is."

A LOGICAL BAGGAGE MASTER.

THE post of baggage master on a railroad train is not an enviable one.

There is often a wide difference between the company's regulations, and the pa.s.senger's opinion of what articles, and what amount of them, properly come under the denomination of baggage; and this frequently subjects the unlucky official of the trunks and bandbox department to animated discussions with a certain cla.s.s of the traveling public. We heard lately an anecdote of George, the affable B. M. on Capt. Cobb's train on the Virginia and Tennessee road, which is too good to be lost.

A pa.s.senger presented himself at a way station on the road, with two trunks and a saddle for which he requested checks. The baggage master promptly checked the trunks, but demanded the extra charge of twenty-five cents for the saddle. To this the pa.s.senger demurred, and losing his temper, peremptorily asked:--

"Will you check my baggage, sir?"

"Are you a horse?" quietly inquired George.

"What do you mean, sir?" exclaimed the irritated traveler.

"You claim to have this saddle checked as baggage?"

"Certainly--it is baggage," positively returned the pa.s.senger.

"Well," said the imperturbable George, "by the company's regulations nothing but wearing apparel is admitted to be baggage, and if the saddle is your wearing apparel, of course you must be a horse! Now, sir, just allow me to strap it on your back, and it shall go to the end of the road without any extra charge whatever."

The traveller paid his quarter and offered George his hat.--_Bristol News._

A PHYSICIAN'S LIFE.

NOTHING vexes a physician so much as to be sent for in great haste, and to find, after his arrival, that nothing, or next to nothing, is the matter with his patient. We remember an "urgent case" of this kind, recorded of an eminent English surgeon.

He had been sent for by a gentleman who had just received a slight wound, and gave his servant orders to go home with all haste imaginable, and fetch a certain plaster. The patient turning a little pale, said:

"Heavens, sir! I hope there is no danger!"

"Indeed there is!" answered the surgeon: "for if the fellow doesn't run there like a cart horse, the wound will be healed before he can possibly get back."

A CONSTELLATION.

THE following conversation occurred between a theatrical manager and an aspirant for Thespian honors:

"What is your pleasure?" asked the manager.

"An engagement at your theatre," said the applicant.

"But you stammer."

"Like Hatterton."

"You are very small."

"Like Kean."

"You speak monotonously."

"Like Macready."

"And through the nose."

"Like Booth."

"And you make faces."

"Like Burton."

"You have badly shaped legs."