Toaster's Handbook Part 95

A pretty school teacher, noticing one of her little charges idle, said sharply: "John, the devil always finds something for idle hands to do.

Come up here and let me give you some work."

A college professor, noted for strict discipline, entered the cla.s.sroom one day and noticed a girl student sitting with her feet in the aisle and chewing gum.

"Mary," exclaimed the indignant professor, "take that gum out of your mouth and put your feet in."

MAGISTRATE--"You admit you stole the pig?"

PRISONER--"I 'ave to."

MAGISTRATE--"Very well, then. There has been a lot of pig-stealing going on lately, and I am going to make an example of you, or none of us will be safe."--_M.L. Hayward_.

"In choosing his men," said the Sabbath-school superintendent, "Gideon did not select those who laid aside their arms and threw themselves down to drink; but he took those who watched with one eye and drank with the other."--_Joe King_.

"If you want to put that song over you must sing louder."

"I'm singing as loud as I can. What more can I do?"

"Be more enthusiastic. Open your mouth, and throw yourself into it."

A little old Irishman was trying to see the Hudson-Fulton procession from Grant's Tomb. He stood up on a bench, but was jerked down by a policeman. Then he tried the stone bal.u.s.trade and being removed from that vantage point, climbed the railing of Li Hung Chang's gingko-tree.

Pulled off that, he remarked: "Ye can't look at annything frum where ye can see it frum."

MRS. JENKINS--"Mrs. Smith, we shall be neighbors now. I have bought a house next you, with a water frontage."

MRS. SMITH--"So glad! I hope you will drop in some time."

In the hall of a Philharmonic society the following notice was posted:

"The seats in this hall are for the use of the ladies. Gentlemen are requested to make use of them only after the former are seated."

Sir Boyle Roche is credited with saying that "no man can be in two places at the same time, barring he is a bird."

A certain high-school professor, who at times is rather blunt in speech, remarked to his cla.s.s of boys at the beginning of a lesson. "I don't know why it is--every time I get up to speak, some fool talks." Then he wondered why the boys burst out into a roar of laughter.--_Grub S.

Arts_.

Once, at a criminal court, a young chap from Connemara was being tried for an agrarian murder. Needless to say, he had the gallery on his side, and the men and women began to express their admiration by stamping, not loudly, but like m.u.f.fled drums. A big policeman came up to the gallery, scowled at the disturbers then, when that had no effect, called out in a stage whisper:

"Wud ye howld yer tongues there! Howld yer tongues wid yer feet!"

The ways in which application forms for insurance are filled up are often more amusing than enlightening, as The British Medical Journal shows in the following excellent selection of examples:

Mother died in infancy.

Father went to bed feeling well, and the next morning woke up dead.

Grandmother died suddenly at the age of 103. Up to this time she bade fair to reach a ripe old age.

Applicant does not know anything about maternal posterity, except that they died at an advanced age.

Applicant does not know cause of mother's death, but states that she fully recovered from her last illness.

Applicant has never been fatally sick.

Applicant's brother who was an infant died when he was a mere child.

Mother's last illness was caused from chronic rheumatism, but she was cured before death.

IRISHMEN

A Peoria merchant deals in "Irish confetti." We take it that he runs a brick-yard.--_Chicago Tribune_.

Here are some words, concerning the Hibernian spoken by a New England preacher, Nathaniel Ward, in the sober year of sixteen hundred--a spark of humor struck from flint. "These Irish, anciently called 'Anthropophagi,' man-eaters, have a tradition among them that when the devil showed Our Savior all the kingdoms of the earth and their glory, he would not show Him Ireland, but reserved it for himself; it is probably true, for he hath kept it ever since for his own peculiar."

An Irishman once lined up his family of seven giant-like sons and invited his caller to take a look at them.

"Ain't they fine boys?" inquired the father.

"They are," agreed the visitor.

"The finest in the world!" exclaimed the father. "An' I nivver laid violent hands on any one of 'em except in silf-difince."--_Popular Magazine_.

_See also_ Fighting; Irish bulls.

IRREVERENCE