Toaster's Handbook Part 8

AMBITION

Oliver Herford sat next to a soulful poetess at dinner one night, and that dreamy one turned her sad eyes upon him. "Have you no other ambition, Mr. Herford," she demanded, "than to force people to degrade themselves by laughter?"

Yes, Herford had an ambition. A whale of an ambition. Some day he hoped to gratify it.

The woman rested her elbows on the table and propped her face in her long, sad hands, and glowed into Mr. Herford's eyes. "Oh, Mr. Herford,"

she said, "Oliver! Tell me about it."

"I want to throw an egg into an electric fan," said Herford, simply.

"Hubby," said the observant wife, "the janitor of these flats is a bachelor."

"What of it?"

"I really think he is becoming interested in our oldest daughter."

"There you go again with your pipe dreams! Last week it was a duke."

The chief end of a man in New York is dissipation; in Boston, conversation.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.--_Cicero_.

The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one, May hope to achieve it before life be done; But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes, Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows A harvest of barren regrets.

--_Owen Meredith_

AMERICAN GIRL

Here's to the dearest Of all things on earth.

(Dearest precisely-- And yet of full worth.) One who lays siege to Susceptible hearts.

(Pocket-books also-- That's one of her arts!) Drink to her, toast her, Your banner unfurl-- Here's to the _priceless_ American Girl!

--_Walter Pulitzer_.

AMERICANS

Eugene Field was at a dinner in London when the conversation turned to the subject of lynching in the United States.

It was the general opinion that a large percentage of Americans met death at the end of a rope. Finally the hostess turned to Field and asked:

"You, sir, must have often seen these affairs?"

"Yes," replied Field, "hundreds of them."

"Oh, do tell us about a lynching you have seen yourself," broke in half a dozen voices at once.

"Well, the night before I sailed for England," said Field, "I was giving a dinner at a hotel to a party of intimate friends when a colored waiter spilled a plate of soup over the gown of a lady at an adjoining table.

The gown was utterly ruined, and the gentlemen of her party at once seized the waiter, tied a rope around his neck, and at a signal from the injured lady swung him into the air."

"Horrible!" said the hostess with a shudder. "And did you actually see this yourself?"

"Well, no," admitted Field apologetically. "Just at that moment I happened to be downstairs killing the chef for putting mustard in the blanc mange."

You can always tell the English, You can always tell the Dutch, You can always tell the Yankees-- But you can't tell them _much!_

AMUs.e.m.e.nTS

A newspaper thus defined amus.e.m.e.nts:

The Friends' picnic this year was not as well attended as it has been for some years. This can be laid to three causes, viz.: the change of place in holding it, deaths in families, and other amus.e.m.e.nts.

I wish that my room had a floor; I don't so much care for a door; But this crawling around Without touching the ground Is getting to be quite a bore.

I am a great friend to public amus.e.m.e.nts; for they keep people from vice.--_Samuel Johnson_.

ANATOMY

TOMMY--"My gran'pa wuz in th' civil war, an' he lost a leg or a arm in every battle he fit in!"

JOHNNY--"Gee! How many battles was he in?"

TOMMY--"About forty."