More Toasts Part 54

A floating debt is a poor life saver.

"Yes," said the world traveler, "the Chinese make it an invariable rule to settle all their debts on New-year's day."

"So I understand," said the American host, "but, then, the Chinese don't have a Christmas the week before."

OKE--"Would you be satisfied if you had all the money you wanted?"

OWENS--"I'd be satisfied if I had all the money my creditors wanted."

MR. THURSDAY--"Our friend, Dodge, tells me that he is doing settlement work lately."

MR. FRIDAY--"Yes, his creditors finally cornered him."

"How did Cranbury ever manage to get so deeply in debt as he is?"

"I wish I knew. I can't even stand my grocer off for more than a week at a time."

RASTUS--"How much, boss?"

DRUGGIST--"Sixty cents and three cents war tax."

RASTUS--"Boss, Ah done thought de wah was over."

DRUGGIST--"Sure, it is, but we have to pay the debts."

RASTUS--"Boss, Ah always thought de one whut lost paid de debts. Dat's why I fight so hard."

"I was preparing to shave a chap the other afternoon," says a head barber. "I had trimmed his hair, and from such talk as I had had with him I judged him to be an easy-going, unexcitable sort of fellow. But suddenly his manner changed. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen a man enter whose appearance upset him."

"Hurry, George!" he muttered to me. "Lather to the eyes--quick, quick!

Here comes my tailor!"

IRATE FATHER--"It's astonis.h.i.+ng, Richard, how much money you need."

SON--"I don't need it, father; it's the hotel-keepers, the tailors, and the taxicab men."

_See also_ Bills; Collecting of accounts.

DEGREES

"You college men seem to take life pretty easy."

"Yes; even when we graduate we do it by degrees."

--_Boston Transcript_.

Our British cousins seem to think we have peculiar ways of getting our D.D.'s over here. A London newspaper relates how the congregation of a Southern church, being desirous of honoring their pastor, wrote to the dean of a certain faculty: "We want to get our beloved pastor a D.D.

We enclose all the money we can raise at present. Be good enough to send one D. now. We hope to raise sufficient for the other D. by and by."

DEMAGOG

"Father," said the small boy, "what is a demagog?"

"A demagog, my son, is a man who can rock the boat himself and persuade everybody that there's a terrible storm at sea."

DEMOCRACY

ADKINS--"Well, the world is at last safe for democracy."

WATKINS--"Just what is democracy, anyway?"

"A democracy is a form of government where one party doesn't do things as they ought to be done, and the other party tells how much better they would be done if it were in power."

In his first lecture in New York the visiting English writer and wit, G.K. Chesterton, protested against prohibition and other limitations on American freedom. He quoted the phrase from Patrick Henry's address, "Give me liberty or give me death." Then he said:

"If Patrick Henry could arise from the dead and revisit the land of the living and see the vast system and social organization and social science which now controls, he would probably simplify his observation and say: 'Give me death!'"

Democracy means not "I am as good as you are," but "you are as good as I am."--_Theodore Parker_.

DENTISTS

"Pardon me for a moment, please," said the dentist to the victim, "but before beginning this work I must have my drill."

"Good heavens, man!" exclaimed the patient irritably. "Can't you pull a tooth without a rehearsal?"