More Toasts Part 199

SYNONYMS

TEACHER--"Hawkins, what is a synonym?"

HAWKINS--"Please, sir, it's a word you use in place of another when you cannot spell the other one."

TACT

"I must say these are fine biscuits!" exclaimed the young husband.

"How could you say those are fine biscuits?" inquired the young wife's mother, in a private interview.

"I didn't say they were fine. I merely said I must say so."

Johnny liked ice-cream, but he drew the line at turning the freezer.

One day when his mother returned home she was agreeably surprized to find him working away at the crank as tho his life depended on it.

"I don't see how you got him to turn the freezer," she said to her husband; "I offered him a dime to do it."

"You didn't go at it in the right way, my dear," replied the husband.

"I bet him a nickel he couldn't turn it for half an hour."

MRS. X.--"Bothered with time-wasting callers, are you? Why don't you try my plan?"

MRS. Y.--"What is your plan?"

MRS. X.--"Why, when the bell rings, I put on my hat and gloves before I press the b.u.t.ton. If it proves to be some one I don't want to see, I simply say 'So sorry, but I'm just going out.'"

MRS. Y.--"But suppose it's some one you want to see?"

MRS. X.--"Oh, then I say, 'So fortunate, I've just come in.'"

WIFE--"But, my dear, you've forgotten again that today is my birthday."

HUSBAND--"Er--listen, love. I know I forgot it, but there isn't a thing about you to remind me that you are a day older than you were a year ago."

Little Charlotte accompanied her mother to the home of an acquaintance, where a dinner-dance was being given. When the dessert-course was reached the little girl was brought down and given a place next to her mother at the table.

The hostess was a woman much given to talking, and, in relating some interesting incidents, quite forgot to give little Charlotte anything to eat.

After some time had elapsed, Charlotte could bear it no longer. With the sobs rising in her throat, she held up her plate as high as she could and said:

"Does anybody want a clean plate?"

A Tommy on furlough entered a jeweler's shop and, placing a much-battered gold watch on the counter, said, "I want this 'ere mended."

After a careful survey the watchmaker said, "I'm afraid, sir, the cost of repairing will be double what you gave for it."

"I don't mind that," said the soldier. "Will you mend it?"

"Yes," said the jeweler, "at the price."

"Well," remarked Tommy, smiling, "I gave a German a punch on the nose for it, and I'm quite ready to give you two if you'll mend it."

An old lady who had been introduced to a doctor who was also a professor in a university, felt somewhat puzzled as to how she would address the great man.

"Shall I call you 'doctor' or 'professor'?" she asked.

"Oh! just as you wish," was the reply; "as a matter of fact, some people call me an old idiot."

"Indeed," she said, sweetly, "but then, they are people that know you."

The hostess had trouble in getting Mr. Harper to sing. After the song had been given, she came up with a smiling face to her guest, and made the ambiguous remark:

"Now, Mr. Harper, you must never tell me again that you can not sing--I know now!"

THE HOST--"It's beginning to rain; you'd better stay to dinner."

THE GUEST--"Oh, thanks very much; but it's not bad enough for that."

TALKERS

Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

--_Pope_.

"I have just heard of a woman who went to a hotel unaccompanied and discovered that the acoustic properties of her room were such that every time she spoke aloud there was an echo. She then made a bold attempt to get in a last word, and in so doing talked herself to death."

"A whole lot o' de talk dat goes 'round," said Uncle Eben, "ain' no mo' real help in movin' forward dan de squeak in an axle."

The school-teacher had punished Tommy so often for talking during school hours, and the punishment had been apparently without effect, that, as a last resort, she decided to notify Tommy's father of his son's fault. So, following the deportment word in his next report were these words, "Tommy talks a great deal."