Jokes Book Collection Part Iv Part 1

PART IV.

JOKES FOR ALL OCCASIONS.

ABSENTMINDEDNESS.

The man of the house finally took all the disabled umbrellas to the repairer's. Next morning on his way to his office, when he got up to leave the street car, he absentmindedly laid hold of the umbrella belonging to a woman beside him, for he was in the habit of carrying one. The woman cried "Stop thief!" rescued her umbrella and covered the man with shame and confusion.

That same day, he stopped at the repairer's, and received all eight of his umbrellas duly restored. As he entered a street car, with the unwrapped umbrellas tucked under his arm, he was horrified to behold glaring at him the lady of his morning adventure. Her voice came to him charged with a withering scorn: "Huh! Had a good day, didn't you!"

The absentminded inventor perfected a parachute device. He was taken up in a balloon to make a test of the apparatus. Arrived at a height of a thousand feet, he climbed over the edge of the basket, and dropped out. He had fallen two hundred yards when he remarked to himself, in a tone of deep regret: "Dear me! I've gone and forgotten my umbrella."

The professor, who was famous for the wool-gathering of his wits, returned home, and had his ring at the door answered by a new maid. The girl looked at him inquiringly: "Um-ah-is Professor Johnson at home?" he asked, naming himself.

"No, sir," the maid replied, "but he is expected any moment now."

The professor turned away, the girl closed the door. Then the poor man sat down on the steps to wait for himself.

The clergyman, absorbed in thinking out a sermon, rounded a turn in the path and b.u.mped into a cow. He swept off his hat with a flourish, exclaiming: "I beg your pardon, madam."

Then he observed his error, and was greatly chagrined. Soon, however, again engaged with thoughts of the sermon, he collided with a lady at another bend of the path.

"Get out of the way, you brute!" he said.

The most absent-minded of clergymen was a Methodist minister who served several churches each Sunday, riding from one to another on horseback. One Sunday morning he went to the stable while still meditating on his sermon and attempted to saddle the horse. After a long period of toil, he aroused to the fact that he had put the saddle on himself, and had spent a full half hour in vain efforts to climb on his own back.

ACQUAINTANCE.

The Scotchman who ran a livery was asked by a tourist as to how many the carryall would hold.

"Fower generally," was the answer. "Likely sax, if they're weel aquaint."

ACTORS The tragedian had just signed a contract to tour South Africa. He told a friend of it at the club. The friend shook his head dismally.

"The ostrich," he explained in a pitying tone, "lays an egg weighing anywhere from two to four pounds."

ADVERTISING.

The editor of the local paper was unable to secure advertising from one of the business men of the town, who a.s.serted stoutly that he himself never read ads., and didn't believe anyone else did.

"Will you advertise if I can convince you that folks read the ads.?" the editor asked.

"If you can show me!" was the sarcastic answer. "But you can't."

In the next issue of the paper, the editor ran a line of small type in an obscure corner. It read: "What is Jenkins going to do about it?"

The business man, Jenkins, hastened to seek out the editor next day. He admitted that he was being pestered out of his wits by the curious. He agreed to stand by the editor's explanation in the forthcoming issue, and this was: "Jenkins is going to advertise, of course."

Having once advertised, Jenkins advertises still.

AFFECTION.

There are as many aspects of grief as there are persons to mourn. A quality of pathetic and rather grisly humor is to be found in the incident of an English laborer, whose little son died. The vicar on calling to condole with the parents found the father pacing to and fro in the living-room with the tiny body in his arms. As the clergyman spoke phrases of sympathy, the father, with tears streaming down his cheeks, interrupted loudly: "Oh, sir, you don't know how I loved that li'll faller. Yus, sir, if it worn't agin the law, I'd keep him,

an' have him stuffed, that I would!"

AGE.

The woman confessed to her crony: "I'm growing old, and I know it. Nowadays, the policeman never takes me by the arm when he escorts me through the traffic."

ALIBI.

The mother called in vain for her young son. Then she searched the ground floor, the first story, the second, and the attic-all in vain. Finally, she climbed to the trap door in the roof, pushed it open, and cried: "John Henry, are you out there?"

An answer came clearly: "No, mother. Have you looked in the cellar?"

AMNESTY.

The nurse at the front regarded the wounded soldier with a puzzled frown.

"Your face is perfectly familiar to me," she said, musingly. "But I can't quite place you somehow."

"Let bygones be bygones, mum," the soldier said weakly. "Yes, mum, I was a policeman."

ANATOMY.

The little boy, sent to the butcher shop, delivered himself of his message in these words: "Ma says to send her another ox-tail, please, an' ma says the last one was very nice, an' ma says she wants another off the same ox!"

APPEARANCE.

Little Willie came home in a sad state. He had a black eye and numerous scratches and contusions, and his clothes were a sight. His mother was horrified at the spectacle presented by her darling.

There were tears in her eyes as she addressed him rebukingly: "Oh, Willie, Willie! How often have I told you not to play with that naughty Peck boy!"

Little Willie regarded his mother with an expression of deepest disgust.

"Say, ma," he objected, "do I look as if I had been playing with anybody?"

The cross-eyed man at the ball bowed with courtly grace, and said: "May I have the pleasure of this dance?"

Two wallflowers answered as with one voice: "With pleasure."

APPEt.i.tE.

The young man applied to the manager of the entertainment museum for employment as a freak, and the following dialogue occurred: "Who are you?"

"I am Enoch, the egg king."

"What is your specialty?"

"I eat three dozen hen's eggs, two dozen duck eggs, and one dozen goose eggs, at a single setting."

"Do you know our program?"

"What is it?"

"We give four shows every day."

"Oh, yes, I understand that."

"And do you think you can do it?"

"I know I can."

"On Sat.u.r.days we give six shows."

"All right."

"On holidays we usually give a performance every hour."

And now, at last, the young man showed signs of doubt.

"In that case, I must have one thing understood before I'd be willing to sign a contract."

"What?"

"No matter what the rush of business is in the show, you've got to give me time to go to the hotel to eat my regular meals."

Daniel Webster was the guest at dinner of a solicitous hostess who insisted rather annoyingly that he was eating nothing at all, that he had no appet.i.te, that he was not making out a meal. Finally, Webster wearied of her hospitable chatter, and addressed her in his most ponderous senatorial manner: "Madam, permit me to a.s.sure you that I sometimes eat more than at other times, but never less."

It was shortly after Thanksgiving Day that someone asked the little boy to define the word appet.i.te.

His reply was prompt and enthusiastic: "When you're eating you're 'appy; and when you get through you're tight-that's appet.i.te!"

APPRECIATION.