Wit and Humour

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 83, 4 October 1941, Page 15

Wit and Humour

"Just how do you think I could save on electricity and fuel oil?" asked one citizen. "Well," replied another, "you might move in with your wife's folks for the duration of the emergency." "Too late," sighed the sad one, "they thought of it first and are already established at my house." The large factory had organised its own Home Guard, and the men were duly posted to guard the works. The manager approached the main entrance, and the sentry, torn between duty and deference, challenged: "Halt, Mr. Brown! Who goes there?" To trick British airmen into throwing away bombs the Nazis in Holland built a fake airfield of wood, with hangars and planes painted on it. The night after it was finished a British plane flew overhead—and dropped one wooden bomb, From Nebraska comes a story of a commencement speaker who sought an inspirational formula for getting ahead in the world. He sought for a pungent phrase that would describe in a few syllables the "open sesame" to success, but he hadn't found it even on the evening of graduation. As he opened the auditorium door on his way to the festivities, he noted the word PUSH. There it was—just the word. During his speech he carefully avoided the word, leading up to it in | the verbose language of all commencement speakers. Finally he reached the climax. "The key to success," he said, "is a four-letter word you see every day. There is it, right behind you, on the door of this auditorium." His audience turned their heads to the door. There, above the handle, was the four-letter w.ord—PULL. A celebrity was placed next to a talkative and inquisitive maiden lady, who bored him excessively with her questions. "Tell me, won't you, what was your greatest ambition as a child, and have you attained it?" she asked. , The celebrity looked at her sadly, and said: "Madam, I regret to say I have never attained my boyhood ambition." "And what was it?" "Madam, my greatest ambition was jto throw an egg into an electric fan!"

Here is a true story of two little London evacuees in Suffolk which has set the whole . village roaring with laughter. ' . One afternoon, on the farm at which they are staying, they accompanied the farmer as he made his rounds of the henhouses and came back with, a basketful of brown eggs. On the following afternoon they again went round with the farmer and brought back another basket of lovely brown eggs. On the third day they were allowed to go alone to collect the eggs. When they returned, one of the little Londoners turned to the farmer and said: "Here they are. We left two until tomorrow, cos they aren't, quite done yet. They're still white." McGinn appeared before the Magistrate on a charge of assault and battery, the charge having been brought by Kelly. The Magistrate was attempting to get. both sides of the story and asked McGinn what induced him to punish the plaintiff. ■ "Sir," said McGinn, "suppose a man called you an Irish scallywag—what would you do?" Said the Magistrate with a smile, "But I'm not Irish!" "Well," responded McGinn, "suppose he called you the kind of scallywag that ye are?" "Now remember, Pat," said a ser-, geant to an Irish soldier, "the password is Saxe—after Marshal Saxe, you know." "Sure," said Pat, "Oi'll never forget it. Wasn't my father a. miller and my uncle a coalman?" Later in the day the Irishman was challenged. "Bags," he replied. "Sergeant, can a man be punished for something he.hasn't done?" "Certainly not, Private Smithl" "Well, I haven't cleaned my rifle." __ . Little Kuth, who had never known the joys of going barefoot on warm summer days, and who for the first time in her short life had been playing with some children who were running around barefooted, came running to her mother and said breathlessly ."Mother, I want to go bareheaded." "Why, child, you are bareheaded," said her mother. j "Oh, no, mother," said Ruth, "I want to go bareheaded on my feet."