Toaster's Handbook Part 46

"New York's cafes are singular enough," said Mr. Lazansky, "without the addition of such a queerly named inst.i.tution as the h.e.l.l."

He smiled and added:

"Is there anything quite so queerly cosmopolitan as a New York cafe? In the last one I visited, I saw a Portuguese, a German and an Italian, dressed in English clothes and seated at a table of Spanish walnut, lunching on Russian caviar, French rolls, Scotch salmon, Welsh rabbit, Swiss cheese, Dutch cake and Malaga raisins. They drank China tea and Irish whisky."

COST OF LIVING

"Did you punish our son for throwing a lump of coal at Willie Smiggs?"

asked the careful mother.

"I did," replied the busy father. "I don't care so much for the Smiggs boy, but I can't have anybody in this family throwing coal around like that."

"Live within your income," was a maxim uttered by Mr. Carnegie on his seventy-sixth birthday. This is easy; the difficulty is to live without it.--_Satire_.

"You say your jewels were stolen while the family was at dinner?"

"No, no! This is an important robbery. Our dinner was stolen while we were putting on our jewels."

A grouchy butcher, who had watched the price of porterhouse steak climb the ladder of fame, was deep in the throes of an unusually bad grouch when a would-be customer, eight years old, approached him and handed him a penny.

"Please, mister, I want a cent's worth of sausage."

Turning on the youngster with a growl, he let forth this burst of good salesmans.h.i.+p:

"Go smell o' the hook!"

TOM--"My pa is very religious. He always bows his head and says something before meals."

d.i.c.k--"Mine always says something when he sits down to eat, but he don't bow his head."

TOM--"What does he say?"

d.i.c.k--"Go easy on the b.u.t.ter, kids, it's forty cents a pound."

COUNTRY LIFE

BILTER (at servants' agency)--"Have you got a cook who will go to the country?"

MANAGER (calling out to girls in next room)--"Is there any one here who would like to spend a day in the country?"--_Life_.

VISITOR--"You have a fine road leading from the station."

SUBUBS--"That's the path worn by servant-girls."

_See also_ Commuters; Servants.

COURAGE

AUNT ETHEL--"Well, Beatrice, were you very brave at the dentist's?"

BEATRICE--"Yes, auntie, I was."

AUNT ETHEL--"Then, there's the half crown I promised you. And now tell me what he did to you."

BEATRICE--"He pulled out two of Willie's teeth!"--_Punch_.

He was the small son of a bishop, and his mother was teaching him the meaning of courage.

"Supposing," she said, "there were twelve boys in one bedroom, and eleven got into bed at once, while the other knelt down to say his prayers, that boy would show true courage."

"Oh!" said the young hopeful. "I know something that would be more courageous than that! Supposing there were twelve bishops in one bedroom, and one got into bed without saying his prayers!"

Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend To mean devices for a sordid end.

Courage--an independent spark from Heaven's bright throne, By which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone.

Great in itself, not praises of the crowd, Above all vice, it stoops not to be proud.

Courage, the mighty attribute of powers above, By which those great in war, are great in love.

The spring of all brave acts is seated here, As falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.

--_Farquhar_.

COURTESY

The mayor of a French town had, in accordance with the regulations, to make out a pa.s.sport for a rich and highly respectable lady of his acquaintance, who, in spite of a slight disfigurement, was very vain of her personal appearance. His native politeness prompted him to gloss over the defect, and, after a moment's reflection, he wrote among the items of personal description: "Eyes dark, beautiful, tender, expressive, but one of them missing."