Toaster's Handbook Part 74

The father of the family hurried to the telephone and called up the family physician. "Our little boy is sick, Doctor," he said, "so please come at once."

"I can't get over much under an hour," said the doctor.

"Oh please do, Doctor. You see, my wife has a book on 'What to Do Before the Doctor Comes,' and I'm so afraid she'll do it before you get here!"

NURSE GIRL--"Oh, ma'am, what shall I do? The twins have fallen down the well!"

FOND PARENT--"Dear me! how annoying! Just go into the library and get the last number of _The Modern Mother's Magazine_; it contains an article on 'How to Bring Up Children.'"

SURGEON AT NEW YORK HOSPITAL--"What brought you to this dreadful condition? Were you run over by a street-car?"

PATIENT--"No, sir; I fainted, and was brought to by a member of the Society of First Aid to the Injured."--_Life_.

A prominent physician was recently called to his telephone by a colored woman formerly in the service of his wife. In great agitation the woman advised the physician that her youngest child was in a bad way.

"What seems to be the trouble?" asked the doctor.

"Doc, she done swallered a bottle of ink!"

"I'll be over there in a short while to see her," said the doctor. "Have you done anything for her?"

"I done give her three pieces o' blottin'-paper, Doc," said the colored woman doubtfully.

FISH

A man went into a restaurant recently and said, "Give me a half dozen fried oysters."

"Sorry, sah," answered the waiter, "but we's all out o' sh.e.l.l fish, sah, 'ceptin' eggs."

Little Elizabeth and her mother were having luncheon together, and the mother, who always tried to impress facts upon her young daughter, said:

"These little sardines, Elizabeth, are sometimes eaten by the larger fish."

Elizabeth gazed at the sardines in wonder, and then asked:

"But, mother, how do the large fish get the cans open?"

FISHERMEN

At the birth of President Cleveland's second child no scales could be found to weigh the baby. Finally the scales that the President always used to weigh the fish he caught on his trips were brought up from the cellar, and the child was found to weigh twenty-five pounds.

"Doin' any good?" asked the curious individual on the bridge.

"Any good?" answered the fisherman, in the creek below. "Why I caught forty ba.s.s out o' here yesterday."

"Say, do you know who I am?" asked the man on the bridge.

The fisherman replied that he did not.

"Well, I am the county fish and game warden."

The angler, after a moment's thought, exclaimed, "Say, do you know who I am?"

"No," the officer replied.

"Well, I'm the biggest liar in eastern Indiana," said the crafty angler, with a grin.

A young lady who had returned from a tour through Italy with her father informed a friend that he liked all the Italian cities, but most of all he loved Venice.

"Ah, Venice, to be sure!" said the friend. "I can readily understand that your father would like Venice, with its gondolas, and St. Markses and Michelangelos."

"Oh, no," the young lady interrupted, "it wasn't that. He liked it because he could sit in the hotel and fish from the window."

Smith the other day went fis.h.i.+ng. He caught nothing, so on his way back home he telephoned to his provision dealer to send a dozen of ba.s.s around to his house.

He got home late himself. His wife said to him on his arrival:

"Well, what luck?"

"Why, splendid luck, of course," he replied. "Didn't the boy bring that dozen ba.s.s I gave him?"

Mrs. Smith started. Then she smiled.

"Well, yes, I suppose he did," she said. "There they are."

And she showed poor Smith a dozen bottles of Ba.s.s's ale.

"You'll be a man like one of us some day," said the patronizing sportsman to a lad who was throwing his line into the same stream.

"Yes, sir," he answered, "I s'pose I will some day, but I b'lieve I'd rather stay small and ketch a few fish."

The more worthless a man, the more fish he can catch.