Best Short Stories Part 23

"Begorra, if I could shout any louder I wouldn't use your bloomin' ould telephone at all!"

EFFECTIVE

Some people are always optimists:

"Beanborough," said a friend of that gentleman, "always looks on the bright side of things."

"Why?"

"Well, the other day I went with him to buy a pair of shoes. He didn't try them on at the store, and when he got home he found that a nail was sticking right up through the heel of one."

"Did he take them back?"

"Not much. He said that he supposed the nail was put there intentionally to keep the foot from sliding forward in the shoe."

GERMAN ARITHMETIC

1 German equals 10 unkultured foreigners.

2 soldiers equal 10 civilians.

3 officers equal 12 privates.

4 treaties equal 8 sc.r.a.ps of paper.

5 poisoned wells equal 1 strategic retreat.

6 iron crosses equal 1 ruined cathedral.

7 Zeppelin raids equal 7 demonstrations of frightfulness.

8 eggs equal 8 hearty meals (common people).

9 eggs equal 1 appetizer (aristocracy).

10 deported Belgians equal 10 unmarked graves.

11 torpedoed neutrals equal 11 disavowals.

12 Gotts equal 1 Kaiser.

A DIFFICULT Pa.s.sAGE

"I thought you were preaching, Uncle Bob," said the Colonel, to whom the elderly Negro had applied for a job.

"Yessah, Ah wuz," replied Uncle; "but Ah guess Ah ain't smaht enough to expound de Scriptures. Ah almost stahved to deff tryin' to explain de true meanin' uv de line what says 'De Gospel am free,' Dem fool n.i.g.g.ahs thought dat it meant dat Ah wuzn't to git no salary."

WHERE VERMONT SCORED

A gentleman from Vermont was traveling west in a Pullman when a group of men from Topeka, Kansas, boarded the train and began to praise their city to the Vermonter, telling him of the wide streets and beautiful avenues. Finally the Vermonter became tired and said the only thing that would improve their city would be to make it a seaport.

The enthusiastic Westerners laughed at him and asked how they could make it a seaport being so far from the ocean.

The Vermonter replied that it would be a very easy task.

"The only thing that you will have to do," said he, "is to lay a two-inch pipe from your city to the Gulf of Mexico. Then if you fellows can suck as hard as you can blow you will have it a seaport inside half an hour."

DOING UNTO HIS NEIGHBOR

"Hey, kid!" yelled the game warden, appearing suddenly above the young fisherman. "You are fis.h.i.+ng for trout. Don't you know they ain't in season?"

"Sure," replied the youth, "but when it's the season for trout they ain't around, and when it ain't the season there's lots of 'em. If the fish ain't a-goin' to obey the rules, I ain't neither."

THE LIMIT

He was a very small boy. Paddy was his dog, and Paddy was nearer to his heart than anything on earth. When Paddy met swift and hideous death on the turnpike road his mother trembled to break the news. But it had to be, and when he came home from school she told him simply:

"Paddy has been run over and killed."

He took it very quietly; finished his dinner with appet.i.te and spirits unimpaired. All day it was the same. But five minutes after he had gone up to bed there echoed through the house a shrill and sudden lamentation. His mother rushed upstairs with solicitude and sympathy.

"Nurse says," he sobbed, "that Paddy has been run over and killed."

"But, dear, I told you that at dinner, and you didn't seem to trouble at all."

"No; but--but I didn't know you said Paddy. I--I thought you said daddy!"

NO TELLING

A rather patronizing individual from town was observing with considerable interest the operations of a farmer with whom he had put up for a while.

As he watched the old man sow the seed in his field the man from the city called out facetiously:

"Well done, old chap. You sow; I reap the fruits."

Whereupon the farmer grinned and replied:

"Maybe you will. I am sowing hemp."

A RECORD BREAKER