More Toasts Part 9

"Waiter, a pint of beer and a beefsteak with potatoes for this brave man," ordered the civilian.

"And your pals sitting at the next table--would they also not shoot the Germans if they tried to invade this country?"

"Oh, no, never," retorted the Swiss.

"Waiter, a gla.s.s of beer for each of the soldiers at the next table!"

ordered the civilian.

And addressing again the soldier, he asked: "Is this generally the view held in the Swiss Army in regard to a possible German invasion?

Are all the Swiss soldiers so Germanophil?"

"I don't know," replied the soldier.

"But why would you not shoot the Germans?"

"Because we belong to the band."

OFFICER (to private)--"What are you doing down in that sh.e.l.l-hole?

Didn't you hear me say we were out against four to one?"

GEORDIE (a trade-unionist)--"Ay. Aa heard you; but aa've killed ma fower."--_Punch_.

"The army must be a terrible place," said Aunt Samanthy, looking up from the evening paper.

"What makes you think so, Samanthy?" asked her dutiful spouse.

"Why, jest think what it must be where beds is bunk and meals is a mess."

Said the colored lad as he was being mustered out, on being asked what train he was going to take for home: "Boss, I ain't gonna take no train. I lives two hundred miles away, and I'se gonna run the first eighteen, just to make sure they don't change their minds befo' I leave camp."

A factory foreman who had some 300 hands under him went into the army, became a captain of a company and could not get into the habit of calling his soldiers men, but invariably referred to them as my "hands." Imagine, therefore, the surprise of his commanding officer when the captain turned in a report of an engagement, in which he said he "had the very good fortune to have only one of my 'hands' shot through the nose."

"Were you happy when you started for France?"

"Happy? We were in transports."

_See also_ Conscription; Military discipline.

ART AND ARTISTS

HENRY--"He may be a great artist, but he has a peculiar way of doing things."

HAPPY--"How's that?"

HENRY--"He says he painted his greatest masterpiece on an empty stomach."

_Impressionistic_

Whistler once undertook to get a fellow artist's work into the autumn salon. He succeeded, and the picture was hung. But the painter, going to see his masterpiece with Whistler on varnis.h.i.+ng day, uttered an exclamation of dismay.

"Good Heavens!" he cried, "you're exhibiting my picture upside down."

"Hus.h.!.+" said Whistler. "The committee refused it the other way."

"If you do good work, your work will grow after you are gone."

"That's a fact. Rubens left only some 2,000 pictures, but there are 10,000 of his pictures in circulation now."

"Luxurious tastes Richleigh has. He has a Corot in his office."

"That's nothing! I have a whistler in mine."

Two ladies, each with her child, visited the Chicago Art Museum. As they pa.s.sed the "Winged Victory" the little boy exclaimed: "Huh! She ain't got no head." "s.h.!.+" the horrified little girl replied, "That's art; she don't need none!"

One of those country gentlemen who owns a farm in Brown County, but lives in Indianapolis and only spends his weekends on the farm, asked one of his neighbors down in Brown county: "Did you know that T. C.

Steele sold the picture that he painted on your farm?" The farmer made no reply to this, and then the country gentleman told him the price Mr. Steele got for the canvas. "I just wish I had known the feller liked the place well enough to pay that for a picture of it," the farmer said. "I'd a' sold him the farm for $200 less than that."

ARTIST--"Now, here's a picture--one of my best, too--I've just finished. When I started out I had no idea what it was going to be."

FRIEND--"After you got through, how did you find out what it was?"

Bessie is a bright one. The other day her teacher set her and her schoolmates to drawing, letting them choose their own subjects. After the teacher had examined what the other children had drawn, she took up Bessie's sheet.

"Why, what's this?" she said. "You haven't drawn anything at all, child."

"Please, teacher, yes, I have," returned Bessie. "It's a war-picture-a long line of ammunition-wagons at the front. You can't see 'em 'cause they're camouflaged."

"Mark Twain was visiting H.H. Rogers," said a New York editor. "Mr.

Rogers led the humorist into his library.