Toaster's Handbook Part 19

There was an old man with a beard, Who said, "It is just as I feared!-- Two owls and a hen, Four larks and a wren, Have all built their nests in my beard."

BEAUTY

If eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being.

--Emerson.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever; Its loveliness increases; it will never Pa.s.s into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

BEAUTY, PERSONAL

In good looks I am not a star.

There are others more lovely by far.

But my face--I don't mind it, Because I'm behind it-- It's the people in front that I jar.

"s.h.i.+ne yer boots, sir?"

"No," snapped the man.

"s.h.i.+ne 'em so's yer can see yer face in 'em?" urged the bootblack.

"No, I tell you!"

"Coward," hissed the bootblack.

A farmer returning home late at night, found a man standing beside the house with a lighted lantern in his hand. "What are you doing here?" he asked, savagely, suspecting he had caught a criminal. For answer came a chuckle, and--"It's only mee, zur."

The farmer recognized John, his shepherd.

"It's you, John, is it? What on earth are you doing here this time o'

night?"

Another chuckle. "I'm a-coortin' Ann, zur."

"And so you've come courting with a lantern, you fool. Why I never took a lantern when I courted your mistress."

"No, zur, you didn't, zur," John chuckled. "We can all zee you didn't, zur."

The senator and the major were walking up the avenue. The senator was more than middle-aged and considerably more than fat, and, dearly as the major loved him, he also loved his joke.

The senator turned with a pleased expression on his benign countenance and said, "Major, did you see that pretty girl smile at me?"

"Oh, that's nothing," replied his friend. "The first time I saw you I laughed out loud!"--_Harper's Magazine_.

Pat, thinking to enliven the party, stated, with watch in hand: "I'll presint a box of candy to the loidy that makes the homeliest face within the next three minutes."

The time expired, Pat announced: "Ah, Mrs. McGuire, you get the prize."

"But," protested Mrs. McGuire, "go way wid ye! I wasn't playin' at all."

ARTHUR--"They say dear, that people who live together get to look alike."

KATE--"Then you must consider my refusal as final."

In the negro car of a railway train in one of the gulf states a bridal couple were riding--a very light, rather good looking colored girl and a typical full blooded negro of possibly a reverted type, with receding forehead, protruding eyes, broad, flat nose very thick lips and almost no chin. He was positively and aggressively ugly.

They had been married just before boarding the train and, like a good many of their white brothers and sisters, were very much interested in each other, regardless of the amus.e.m.e.nt of their neighbors. After various "billings and cooings" the man sank down in the seat and, resting his head on the lady's shoulder, looked soulfully up into her eyes.

She looked fondly down upon him and after a few minutes murmured gently, "Laws, honey, ain't yo' shamed to be so han'some?"

Little dabs of powder, Little specks of paint, Make my lady's freckles Look as if they ain't.

--_Mary A. Fairchild_.

He kissed her on the cheek, It seemed a harmless frolic; He's been laid up a week They say, with painter's colic.

--_The Christian Register_.

MOTHER (to inquisitive child)--"Stand aside. Don't you see the gentleman wants to take the lady's picture?"

"Why does he want to?"--_Life_.

One day, while walking with a friend in San Francisco, a professor and his companion became involved in an argument as to which was the handsomer man of the two. Not being able to arrive at a settlement of the question, they agreed, in a spirit of fun, to leave it to the decision of a Chinaman who was seen approaching them. The matter being laid before him, the Oriental considered long and carefully; then he announced in a tone of finality, "Both are worse."

"What a homely woman!"

"Sir, that is my wife. I'll have you understand it is a woman's privilege to be homely."

"Gee, then she abused the privilege."