FACTS & FANTASIES

Observer, Volume XXIX, Issue 44, 17 July 1909, Page 14

FACTS & FANTASIES

TWO Quakers were having an argument, and one considered the other was speaking falsely. This is how he reproved him : — " Friend Thomas, I will not call thee by any bad name, but if the governor were to ask me who was the grandest liar in the town, I would hasten to thee and say, ' Thomas, I think the governor greatly desireth to speak with thee.' "

Reporter : "What shall I do today ?" Editor : "Stroll down Queenstreet, allow a motor omnibus to run over you, and describe the sensation in four columns for to-mor-row's paper."

Miss Bunkerhill : " Have you read 'Soott's novels ?" Miss Laker : " All except his ' Emulsion.' I have seen it advertised, but I have never been able to get a copy." ■ • •

He was a fine type of the old Southern colonel, the fiery scion of a race of cavaliers. Also, he was exceedingly wrathful. He had just received a letter from a man, " a low sqht of puhson, suh, I a.ssuah you," which displeased him immensely, and he was debating inwardly, how best to oonvey to his vulgar correspondent an adequate expression of his (the colonel's) opinion of him. But his stenographer was a lady. The colonel snorted, made two or three false starts, and finally dictated : Sir — My stenographer, being a lady, cannot transcribe what I think of you. 1 heing a. gentleman , cannot think pt it. But you, heing neither, will readily understand what I mean, tr*"' •-— _« — —

" When we are married, of course you will shave every morning. That is one of the rules of our club. We all agreed not to marry any man who wouldn't shave every morning." "Well, what about the mornings I don't get home in time ? I belong to a olub, too."

Some time ago an offico boy, answering the telephone for the first time in his life, not knowing how to use it, was told that, when the bell rang, he was to answer it. When, therefore, he heard it ring, he picked up the receiver, and shouted :— "Hello ! Who's there ?" The answer came back : — "I'm one hundred and five." " Go on," said the boy. ' It's time you were dead."

Newly-wed mistress (impatiently) : " Gracious, Eliza. ! Isn't dinner ready yet ?" 'Liza : "No, mum ; an' it wawn't be ready for abaht two hours yet. You would have split poa, soup. Why, it has taken me two hours to split 300 peas, an' there's 479 to be split yet." ■ • • "Well," observed Old Man Potts, "I've spent a heap of money on my boy Bill's education, more'n nine hundred dollars jest to see him through Yale. And I ain't through yot. It shorely makes me sore to think of the money I'm wastin' on a boy who ain't got so much sense now as he had before he went to college." "What's the matter, father?" asked Mrs Potts. '' Mebbe you're a little hard on Bill." " No, I ain't, Mary," answered the old man. " Jest to show you — a little while ago I says to him I thinks it was going to rain to-mor-row. What fool answer d'ye suppo.se he made me ?" " I'm sure I don't know, father." " He begged my pardon."

Mistress (angrily) : " How dare you talk back to me in that way ? I never saw such impudence. You have a lot of nerve to call yourself a lady's maid." New Ma... ;"I don't call myself that now, ma'am ; but I was a lady's maid before I got this job." « a m There are at least two ways of looking at most natures. Some negroes were discussing the death of a small darky. The cause of the catastrophe was clear enough to one of the men. "De po' chile died fum •eatin' too much watahmillion," he exclaimed. One of the others looked his doubts. "Huh !" he grunted, scornfully, " Dar ain't no such thing as too much watahmillion." "Well, den," remarked the first, " dar wasn't enough hoy." "Young man," began the aged gentleman, "I am seventy years old, and don't remember having told a lie." "That's too had," the young man replied. " Can't you have something done to your memory ?" " I understand that he is ell informed ?" w "Yes, indeed. He has three sisters who belong to the sewing circles of different churches." ■ a • Little Boy : " Mummy, dear, why can't I stay up till it gets late ?" Mother : " That wouldn't do at all, dear. You'd wake up so cross in the morning." Little Boy (thoughtfully) : " Does daddy go to bed very late, mummy?"

Confidential Clerk -. " Your wife is in the outer office, sir, and would like to speak with you a moment." Employer: "Yes. Ah — cr — Jenkinn, just see what my balance is at the bank, will you?"

" Mrs Dashaway uses very picturesque language, doesn't sbe ?"

"Urn ! The other day I heard ber telling about a hat she bad bought with a perfectly beautiful • regret' on it."

" What did your father say when you asked him for me ?"

"He didn't say anything. He fell on my neck and wept."

The longhaired, lank and melancholy individual rushed breathlessly into Slopton's one and only shop. "Is this tbe only shop in Slopton?" he asked the proprietor, giving a long and anxious look round the counters. "It is." "Do you sell stale eggs?" " I do." "Can I buy stale eggs anywhere else in Slopton ?" " No." " WeH, give me all you've got in stock." The grocer looked the lean one over with suspicion. "Going to Bee 'Hamlet' tonight?" he asked. " No," replied the customer, gloomily ; "I. am going to play 'Hamlet' tonight !"

" Radium was a unique discovery."

" Not entirely unique," answered the professor. "It resembled a great many other discoveries in being more remarkable for what it was going to do than for what it did."

" Too much ridicule is heaped on the gentleman farmer," said the speaker at a banquet of gentlemen farmers. After tbe thunderous applause died down, he continued : " Too many of us take the view of the gentleman farmer that an old friend of mine takes. "'Gentlemen farmers!' he grunted one day in my hearing. ' Everybody knows what a gentleman farme r is.' " ' Well, what is he ?' said I, impatiently. " ' Oh,' said my old friend, ' he's a man capable enough to run a farm as it should be run, and rich enough to stand the loss.' "