Best Short Stories Part 46

He resumed: "Now Johial took unto himself a wife," etc. (_Leaf turned._) "She was eighteen cubits in height and ten cubits in breadth, and was pitched within and without--" (_Painful pause and sounds of subdued mirth._) "Prexy" turns back again in perplexity.

"Young gentlemen, I can only add that 'Man is fearfully and wonderfully made'--and woman also."

THE FACT WAS

Saying is one thing and doing is another. In Montana a railway bridge had been destroyed by fire, and it was necessary to replace it. The bridge engineer and his staff were ordered in haste to the place. Two days later came the superintendent of the division. Alighting from his private car, he encountered the old master bridge-builder.

"Bill," said the superintendent--and the words quivered with energy--"I want this job rushed. Every hour's delay costs the company money. Have you got the engineer's plans for the new bridge?"

"I don't know," said the bridge-builder, "whether the engineer has the picture drawed yet or not, but the bridge is up and the trains is pa.s.sin' over it."

THE LAST WORD, AS USUAL

The ways of a woman are supposed to be past finding out, but after all there are times when her logic is irresistible as in the case of a certain wife who had spent her husband's money, had compromised him more than once, had neglected her children and her household duties, and had done everything that woman can do to make his life a failure.

And then, as they were both confronted by the miserable end of it all, and realized that there was no way out of it, he said:

"Perhaps I ought not to appear to be too trivially curious, but I confess to a desire to know why you have done all this. You must have known, if you kept on, just what the end would be. Of course, n.o.body expects a woman to use her reason. But didn't you have, even in a dim way, some idea of what you were doing?"

She gazed at him with her usual defiance, a habit not to be broken even by the inevitable.

"Certainly I did. It was your fault."

"My fault! How do you make that out?"

"Because I have never had the slightest respect for you."

"Why not?"

She actually laughed.

"How could you expect me to have any respect for a man who could not succeed in preventing me from doing the things I did?"

FRUGAL TO THE END

Not long ago a certain publication had an idea. Its editor made up a list of thirty men and women distinguished in art, religion, literature, commerce, politics, and other lines, and to each he sent a letter or a telegram containing this question: "If you had but forty-eight hours more to live, how would you spend them?" his purpose being to embody the replies in a symposium in a subsequent issue of his periodical.

Among those who received copies of the inquiry was a New York writer. He thought the proposition over for a spell, and then sent back the truthful answer by wire, collect:

"One at a time."

NOT MUCH TO TALK ABOUT

There was an explosion of one of the big guns on a battles.h.i.+p not long ago. Shortly afterward one of the sailors who was injured was asked by a reporter to give an account of it.

"Well, sir," rejoined the jacky, "it was like this: You see, I was standin' with me back to the gun, a-facin' the port side. All of a sudden I hears a h.e.l.l of a noise; then, sir, the s.h.i.+p physician, he says, 'Set up an' take this,'"

FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS

YOUTH (_with tie of the Stars and Stripes_): I sent you some suggestions telling you how to make your paper more interesting. Have you carried out any of my ideas?

EDITOR: Did you meet the office boy with the waste-paper basket as you came upstairs?

YOUTH: Yes, yes, I did.

EDITOR: Well, he was carrying out your ideas.

NO PLACE FOR HIM

On the western plains the sheepman goes out with several thousand head and one human companion. The natural result is that the pair, forced on one another when they least want it, form the habit of hating each other.

An ex-sheepman while in a narrative mood one evening was telling a party of friends of a fellow he once rode with. "Not a word had pa.s.sed between us for more than a week, and that night when we rolled up in our blankets he suddenly asked:

"'Hear that cow beller?'

"'Sounds to me like a bull,' I replied.

"No answer, but the following morning I noticed him packing up.

"'Going to leave?' I questioned.

"'Yes,' he replied.

"'What for?'

"Too much argument,'"

IN THE OLD DAYS

Lord Northcliffe at a Was.h.i.+ngton luncheon was talking about the British Premier.

"Mr. Lloyd George is the idol of the nation," he said. "It is hard to believe how unpopular he was, at least among the Unionists, once. Among the many stories circulated about Mr. Lloyd George's unpopularity at that time there was one which concerned a rescue from drowning. The heroic rescuer, when a gold medal was presented to him for his brave deed, modestly declared:

"'I don't deserve this medal. I did nothing but my duty. I saw our friend here struggling in the water. I knew he must drown unless someone saved him. So I plunged in, swam out to him, turned him over to make sure it wasn't Lloyd George, and then lugged him to safety on my back.'"

TAKING NO CHANCES

A big darky was being registered.