Toaster's Handbook Part 58

A well-known Scottish architect was traveling in Palestine recently, when news reached him of an addition to his family circle. The happy father immediately provided himself with some water from the Jordan to carry home for the christening of the infant, and returned to Scotland.

On the Sunday appointed for the ceremony he duly presented himself at the church, and sought out the beadle in order to hand over the precious water to his care. He pulled the flask from his pocket, but the beadle held up a warning hand, and came nearer to whisper:

"No the noo, sir; no the noo! Maybe after the kirk's oot!"

When President Eliot of Harvard was in active service as head of the university, reports came to him that one of his young charges was in the habit of absorbing more liquor than was good for him, and President Eliot determined to do his duty and look into the matter.

Meeting the young man under suspicion in the yard shortly after breakfast one day the president marched up to him and demanded, "Young man, do you drink?"

"Why, why, why," stammered the young man, "why, President Eliot, not so early in the morning, thank you."

WIFE (on auto tour)--"That fellow back there said there is a road-house a few miles down the road. Shall we stop there?"

HUSBAND--"Did he whisper it or say it out loud?"

A priest went to a barber shop conducted by one of his Irish paris.h.i.+oners to get a shave. He observed the barber was suffering from a recent celebration, but decided to take a chance. In a few moments the barber's razor had nicked the father's cheek. "There, Pat, you have cut me," said the priest as he raised his hand and caressed the wound. "Yis, y'r riv'rance," answered the barber. "That shows you," continued the priest, in a tone of censure, "what the use of liquor will do." "Yis, y'r riv'rance," replied the barber, humbly, "it makes the skin tender."

Ex-congressman Asher G. Caruth, of Kentucky, tells this story of an experience he once had on a visit to a little Ohio town.

"I went up there on legal business," he says, "and, knowing that I should have to stay all night, I proceeded directly to the only hotel.

The landlord stood behind the desk and regarded me with a kindly air as I registered. It seems that he was a little hard of hearing, a fact of which I was not aware. As I jabbed the pen back into the dish of bird shot, I said:

"'Can you direct me to the bank?'

"He looked at me blankly for a second, then swinging the register around, he glanced down swiftly, caught the 'Louisville' after my name, and an expression of complete understanding lighting up his countenance, he said:

"'Certainly, sir. You will find the bar right through that door at the left.'"

_See also_ Drunkards; Good fellows.h.i.+p; Temperance; Wine.

DROUGHTS

Governor Gla.s.sc.o.c.k of West Virginia, while traveling through Arizona, noticed the dry, dusty appearance of the country.

"Doesn't it ever rain around here?" he asked one of the natives.

"Rain?" The native spat. "Rain? Why say pardner, there's bullfrogs in this yere town over five years old that hain't learned to swim yet!"

DRUNKARDS

Sing a song of sick gents, Pockets full of rye, Four and twenty highb.a.l.l.s, We wish that we might die.

Two booze-fiends were ambling homeward at an early hour, after being out nearly all night.

"Don't your wife miss you on these occasions?" asked one.

"Not often," replied the other; "she throws pretty straight."

"Where's old Four-Fingered Pete?" asked Alkali Ike. "I ain't seen him around here since I got back."

"Pete?" said the bartender. "Oh, he went up to Hyena Tongue and got jagged. Went up to a hotel winder, stuck his head in and hollered 'Fire!' and everybody did."

The Irish talent for repartee has an amusing ill.u.s.tration in Lord Rossmore's recent book "Things I Can Tell." While acting as magistrate at an Irish village, Lord Rossmore said to an old offender brought before him: "You here again?" "Yes, your honor." "What's brought you here?" "Two policemen, your honor." "Come, come, I know that--drunk again, I suppose?" "Yes, your honor, both of them."

The colonel came down to breakfast New Year's morning with a bandaged hand.

"Why, colonel, what's the matter?" they asked.

"Confound it all!" the colonel answered, "we had a little party last night, and one of the younger men got intoxicated and stepped on my hand."

MAGISTRATE--"And what was the prisoner doing?"

CONSTABLE--"E were 'avin' a very 'eated argument with a cab driver, yer wors.h.i.+p."

MAGISTRATE--"But that doesn't prove he was drunk."

CONSTABLE--"Ah, but there worn't no cab driver there, yer wors.h.i.+p."

A Scotch minister and his servant, who were coming home from a wedding, began to consider the state into which their potations at the wedding feast had left them.

"Sandy," said the minister, "just stop a minute here till I go ahead.

Maybe I don't walk very steady and the good wife might remark something not just right."

He walked ahead of the servant for a short distance and then asked:

"How is it? Am I walking straight?"

"Oh, ay," answered Sandy thickly, "ye're a' recht--but who's that who's with ye."