Among the Humorists and After Dinner Speakers Part 30

"Hawaiian servants," said a woman with some experience of them, "are the best in the world, but they are strangely unsophisticated, strangely naive. They insist on calling you by your first name. Ours were always saying to my husband, 'Yes, John,' or 'all right, John,'

and to me 'very well, Ann,' or 'Ann, I am going out.' At last I got tired of this and to John, when we got a new cook, I said: Don't ever call me by my first name in the cook's presence. Then, perhaps, not knowing my name, he'll have to say 'Mrs.' to me. So John was careful to address me as 'dearie,' or 'sweetheart,' the watchful chap gave me no t.i.tle at all. One day we had some English officers to dine. I told them how I had overcome, in my new cook's case, the native servants'

abuse of their employer's Christian names, and I said, By this servant, at least, you won't hear me called 'Ann.'" Just then the new cook entered the room. He bowed to me respectfully and said:

"'Sweetheart, dinner is served!'

"'What?' I stammered.

"'Dinner is served, dearie!' answered the cook."

Early one morning, on the second day out, a terribly seasick pa.s.senger, pale and hollow-eyed, came out of his stateroom and ran into a lady, who was coming along the pa.s.sageway, clad in the scantiest raiment. She screamed and started to run. "Don't be alarmed," groaned the man. "Don't be alarmed, madam; I shall never live to tell it."

Mike and Pat worked for a wealthy farmer. They planned to turn burglars and steal the money which the farmer had hid in one of the rooms of his house. They waited until midnight, then started to do the job.

In order to get the money they had to pa.s.s the farmer's bedroom. Mike said, "I'll go first, and if it's all right you can follow and do just the same as I."

Mike started to pa.s.s the room. Just as he got opposite the door the floor creaked. This awoke the farmer, who called out, "Who's there?"

Mike answered with a "meaow!" (imitating a cat). The farmer's wife being awake, too, said, "Oh, John, it's the cat," and all was quiet.

Now Pat started to pa.s.s the door, and as he got opposite it the floor creaked again. The farmer called out again, louder than before, "Who's there?"

Pat answered, "Another cat."

Softleigh--"Good evening, Mrs. Moran. I came to see if your daughter, Miss Mabel, would go for a walk with me."

Miss Mabel--"How do you do, Mr. Softleigh? I shall be delighted.

Mama, do I look fit to go to a restaurant?"

They were on their honeymoon. He had bought a catboat and had taken her out to show her how well he could handle a boat, putting her to tend the sheet. A puff of wind came, and he shouted in no uncertain tones, "Let go the sheet." No response. Then again, "Let go that sheet, quick." Still no movement. A few minutes later, when both were clinging to the bottom of the overturned boat, he said:

"Why didn't you let go that sheet when I told you to, dear?"

"I would have," said the bride, "if you had not been so rough about it. You ought to speak more kindly to your wife."

Madam--"Put plenty of nuts in the cake."

Cook--"I'll crack no more nuts to-day, me jaw hurts me already."

Mother--"Alice, it is bedtime. All the little chickens have gone to bed."

Alice--"Yes, mama, and so has the hen."

Few men have ever been so ready and witty as Mark Twain in introducing others to public audiences. At Hartford, December 12, 1877, he presented Mr. Howells, and, after a word or two as to his literary work, said, "But I am not here to speak of his literary reputation, but simply to (a long pause) back up his moral character."

A Lancas.h.i.+re vicar was asked by the choir to call upon old Betty, who was deaf, but who insisted in joining in the solo of the anthem, and to ask her only to sing in the hymns. He shouted into her ear: "Betty!

I've been requested to speak to you about your singing." At last she caught the word "singing," and replied: "Not to me be the praise, sir; it's a gift."

The proprietor of a large drug store recently received this curt and haughty note written in an angular, feminine hand: "I do not want vasioline, but glisserine. Is that plain enough? I persoom you can spell."

It was in a Maine Sunday-school that a teacher recently asked a Chinese pupil she was teaching to read if he understood the meaning of the words "an old cow."

"Been cow a long time," was the prompt answer.

Upon moving into a new neighborhood the small boy of the family was cautioned not to fight with his new acquaintances. One day Willie came home with a black eye and very much spattered with dirt.

"Why, Willie," said mama, "I thought I told you to count a hundred before you fought!"

"I did, mama," said Willie, "and look what Tommy Smith did while I was counting!"

"The rolling stone gathers no moss," quoted the man who had never been outside his home county.

"True," rejoined the globe-trotter, "but it acquires an enviable polish."

Curate (who is going to describe his little holiday in Lucerne)--"My dear friends--I will not call you ladies and gentlemen, since I know you too well."

Daniel Purcell, the famous punster, was desired to make a pun extempore.

"Upon what subject?" said Daniel.

"The king," answered the other.