Toaster's Handbook Part 158

_See_ Buildings.

SLEEP

Recently a friend who had heard that I sometimes suffer from insomnia told me of a sure cure. "Eat a pint of peanuts and drink two or three gla.s.ses of milk before going to bed," said he, "and I'll warrant you'll be asleep within half an hour." I did as he suggested, and now for the benefit of others who may be afflicted with insomnia, I feel it my duty to report what happened, so far as I am able to recall the details.

First, let me say my friend was right. I did go to sleep very soon after my retirement. Then a friend with his head under his arm came along and asked me if I wanted to buy his feet. I was negotiating with him, when the dragon on which I was riding slipped out of his skin and left me floating in mid-air. While I was considering how I should get down, a bull with two heads peered over the edge of the wall and said he would haul me up if I would first climb up and rig a windla.s.s for him. So as I was sliding down the mountainside the brakeman came in, and I asked him when the train would reach my station.

"We pa.s.sed your station four hundred years ago," he said, calmly folding the train up and slipping it into his vest pocket.

At this juncture the clown bounded into the ring and pulled the center-pole out of the ground, lifting the tent and all the people in it up, up, while I stood on the earth below watching myself go out of sight among the clouds above. Then I awoke, and found I had been asleep almost ten minutes.--_The Good Health Clinic_.

SMILES

There was a young lady of Niger, Who went for a ride on a tiger; They returned from the ride With the lady inside, And a smile on the face of the tiger.

--_Gilbert K. Chesterton_.

SMOKING

A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.--_Rudyard Kipling_.

AUNT MARY--(horrified) "Good gracious. Harold, what would your mother say if she saw you smoking cigarets?" HAROLD (calmly)--"She'd have a fit. They're her cigarets."

An Irish soldier on sentry duty had orders to allow no one to smoke near his post. An officer with a lighted cigar approached whereupon Pat boldly challenged him and ordered him to put it out at once.

The officer with a gesture of disgust threw away his cigar, but no sooner was his back turned than Pat picked it up and quietly retired to the sentry box.

The officer happening to look around, observed a beautiful cloud of smoke issuing from the box. He at once challenged Pat for smoking on duty.

"Smoking, is it, sor? Bedad, and I'm only keeping it lit to show the corporal when he comes as evidence agin you."

SNEEZING

While campaigning in Iowa Speaker Cannon was once inveigled into visiting the public schools of a town where he was billed to speak. In one of the lower grades an ambitious teacher called upon a youthful Demosthenes to entertain the distinguished visitor with an exhibition of amateur oratory. The selection attempted was Byron's "Battle of Waterloo," and just as the boy reached the end of the first paragraph Speaker Cannon gave vent to a violent sneeze. "But, hus.h.!.+ hark!"

declaimed the youngster; "a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! Did ye not hear it?"

The visitors smiled and a moment later the second sneeze--which the Speaker was vainly trying to hold back--came with increased violence.

"But, hark!" bawled the boy, "that heavy sound breaks in once more, and nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!"

This was too much, and the laugh that broke from the party swelled to a roar when "Uncle Joe" chuckled: "Put up yout weapons, children; I won't shoot any more."

Sn.o.bBERY

Sn.o.bbery is the pride of those who are not sure of their position.

SNORING

Snore--An unfavorable report from headquarters.--_Foolish Dictionary_.

SOCIALISTS

Among the stories told of the late Baron de Rothschild is one which details how a "change of heart" once came to his valet--an excellent fellow, albeit a violent "red."

Alphonse was as good a servant as one would wish to employ, and as his socialism never got farther than attending a weekly meeting, the baron never objected to his political faith. After a few months of these permissions to absent himself from duty, his employer noticed one week that he did not ask to go. The baron thought Alphonse might have forgotten the night, but when the next week he stayed at home, he inquired what was up.

"Sir," said the valet, with the utmost dignity, "some of my former colleagues have worked out a calculation that if all the wealth in France were divided equally per capita, each individual would be the possessor of two thousand francs."

Then he stopped as if that told the whole story, so said the baron, "What of that?"

"Sir," came back from the enlightened Alphonse, "I have five thousand francs now."--_Warwick James Price_.

SOCIETY

Smart Society is made up of the worldly, the fleshy, and the devilish.--_Harold Melbourne_.