Toaster's Handbook Part 16

BACCALAUREATE SERMONS

PROUD FATHER--"Rick, my boy, if you live up to your oration you'll be an honor to the family."

VALEDICTORIAN-"I expect to do better than that, father. I am going to try to live up to the baccalaureate sermon."

BACTERIA

There once were some learned M.D.'s, Who captured some germs of disease, And infected a train Which, without causing pain, Allowed one to catch it with ease.

Two doctors met in the hall of the hospital.

"Well," said the first, "what's new this morning?"

"I've got a most curious case. Woman, cross-eyed; in fact, so cross-eyed that when she cries the tears run down her back."

"What are you doing for her?"

"Just now," was the answer, "we're treating her for bacteria."

BADGES

Mrs. Philpots came panting downstairs on her way to the temperance society meeting. She was a short, plump woman. "Addie, run up to my room and get my blue ribbon rosette, the temperance badge," she directed her maid. "I have forgotten it. You will know it, Addie--blue ribbon and gold lettering."

"Yas'm, I knows it right well." Addie could not read, but she knew a blue ribbon with gold lettering when she saw it, and therefore had not trouble in finding it and fastening it properly on the dress of her mistress.

At the meeting Mrs. Philpots was too busy greeting her friends to note that they smiled when they shook hands with her. When she reached home supper was served, so she went directly to the dining-room, where the other members of the family were seated.

"Gracious me, Mother!" exclaimed her son: "that blue ribbon--you haven't been wearing that at the temperance meeting?"

A loud laugh went up on all sides.

"Why, what is it, Harry?" asked the good woman, clutching at the ribbon in surprise.

"Why, Mother dear, didn't you know that was the ribbon I won at the show?"

The gold lettering on the ribbon read:

INTERSTATE POULTRY SHOW First Prize Bantam

BAGGAGE

An Aberdonian went to spend a few days in London with his son, who had done exceptionally well in the great metropolis. After their first greetings at King's Cross Station, the young fellow remarked: "Feyther, you are not lookin' weel. Is there anything the matter?" The old man replied, "Aye, lad, I have had quite an accident." "What was that, feyther?" "Mon," he said, "on this journey frae bonnie Scotland I lost my luggage." "Dear, dear, that's too bad; 'oo did it happen?" "Aweel"

replied the Aberdonian, "the cork cam' oot."

Johnnie Poe, one of the famous Princeton football family, and incidentally a great-nephew of Edgar Allan Poe, was a general in the army of Honduras in one of their recent wars. Finally, when things began to look black with peace and the American general discovered that his princely pay when translated into United States money was about sixty cents a day, he struck for the coast. There he found a United States wars.h.i.+p and asked transportation home.

"Sure," the commander told him. "We'll be glad to have you. Come aboard whenever you like and bring your luggage."

"Thanks," said Poe warmly. "I'll sure do that. I only have fifty-four pieces."

"What!" exclaimed the commander. "What do you think I'm running? A freighter?"

"Oh, well, you needn't get excited about it," purred Poe. "My fifty-four pieces consist of one pair of socks and a pack of playing cards."

BALDNESS

One mother who still considers Marcel waves as the most fas.h.i.+onable way of dressing the hair was at work on the job.

Her little eight-year-old girl was crouched on her father's lap, watching her mother. Every once in a while the baby fingers would slide over the smooth and glossy pate which is Father's.

"No waves for you, Father," remarked the little one. "You're all beach."

"Were any of your boyish ambitions ever realized?" asked the sentimentalist.

"Yes," replied the practical person. "When my mother used to cut my hair I often wished I might be bald-headed."

Congressman Longworth is not gifted with much hair, his head being about as s.h.i.+ny as a billiard ball.

One day ex-president Taft, then Secretary of War, and Congressman Longworth sallied into a barbershop.

"Hair cut?" asked the barber of Longworth.

"Yes," answered the Congressman.

"Oh, no, Nick," commented the Secretary of War from the next chair, "you don't want a hair cut; you want a s.h.i.+ne."

"O, Mother, why are the men in the front baldheaded?"