FACTS & FANTASIES

Observer, Volume XXIX, Issue 46, 31 July 1909, Page 14

FACTS & FANTASIES

THE enfant terrible had been silent for half an hour, and her anxious mamma at last found her with an alarm clock tied to her foot. "What mischief are you up to now, darling ?" she inquired. " Foot's asleep, and I want to waken it," was the reply.

Diek — " You got engaged last week, old chap, didn't you ?" Frank — "Yes, my boy ; but that's all off now." Dick — Why ?—incompatibility of temper?" Frank— " Not at all — rather the reverse. She advised me to practise economy, but I started by getting her an imitation gold ring."

A San Francisco man named Poet is petitioning for a divorce from his wife, who was a telephone girl before their marriage. He oomplains that every time he goes home and says, "Hello, dearie !" she looks out of the window abstractedly and says, " Number, please !" "Here, Benny," said Mr Bloombumper to his young son, as the latter started to church, " are a shilling and a penny. You can put which you please in the contributionbox." Benny thanked his papa and went to church. Curious to know which coin Benny had given, his papa asked him when he returned, and Benny replied : " Well, pepa, it was this way. The preacher said the Lord loved a cheerful giver, and I knew I could give a penny a good deal more cheerfully than I could give a shilling, so I put the penny in."

Solemn Man — Do you hear the clock slowly ticking ? Do you know what day it is ever bringing nearer ? Cheerful Man — Yes, pay-day.

"Do you beliove in the superhuman ?" "I used to, but I don't any more . " Why ?" "I married him."

There was a simple parent who endeavoured to instil into his boy's mind principles of courtesy and refinement. He thought it rather smart on his part to buy a book on etiquette for Tom's birthday, instead of "Robinson Crusoe," which young Tom hankered after. " When you have read that through," said Tom, senior, "and proved you have profited by it, we will talk about some other book. Better begin by looking under ' D ' in the index, for doors." The senior Tom winked at mamma, and the junior Tom winked at his tyke. " Thanks, pa," said Tom, meekly. It was a pretty fragment of English home life until Tom's sister, in attempting to leave the apartment, found herself clutched by the hand and flung violently backwards into the coal scuttle. "You ignorant little beast ["protested Tom. " Don't you know that a gentleman should open the doer for you ?"

" My dear," said the banker to his only daughter, " I have noticed a young man attired in a dress suit in the drawing room two or three evenings each week of late. What is his occupation ?" "He is (at present unemployed, father," Veplied. the fair girl, a dreamy, far-away look in her big blue eyes, but he is thinking seriously of accepting a position as life-companion to a young lady of means."

A well-to-do Scottish lady one day said to her gardener, "Man, Tammas, I wonder you don't get married. You've a nice house, and all you want to complete it is a wife. You know, the first gardener that ever lived had a wife." "Quite right, missus, quite right," said Tammas, " but he didna keep his job long after he got his wife."

Pat — " I hear yer woife is sick, JYJioUk©." Mike — 'She is thot." Pat — " Is it dangerous she is ?" Mike — " Divil a bit. She's too weak to be dangerous any more !•"

Suffragette — " What we maintain is that women should get men's wages." Voter — "Well, so they do, mum. Leastways, I know my old 'oman gets mine !"

" What can I do," passionately exclaimed the soap - box orator, "when I see my country going to ruin, when I see our oppressors' hands at our throats strangling us, and the black clouds of hopelessness and despair gathering on the horizoai to obliterate the sun of prosperity ? What, I ask, what can I do ?" Voice from crowd : " Sit

down !"

A second-hand clothes dealer was selling a suit to a very meek and easily satisfied customer. All went well until the breeks were tried on. Then — "Ain't they a bit on the big side, mister ?" asked the customer, timidly. " Big ? No fear. Beautiful fit ! Let me brace 'em up. There 1 Now they're lovely ; and comfortable, too, I'll lay. Ain't they ?" The customer wriggled. " Not bad, mister," he said meekly ; "but a little tight under the arms."

Magistrate — "John Murphy, the constable says you were fighting. What have you to say for yourself ?" John Murphy — "Well, your Worship, Oi had a clean white shirt on, an' Oi was sc- mighty proud ay it that Oi got up a bit ay a row wid a man, so as Oi cut take me coat an' wesoot off and show it."

The following is the latest stroke of Cockney humour perpetrated at the expense of the North Briton : — The oanny Scot wandered into the pharmacy. " I'm wanting threepenn'orth o' laudanum," he announced. "What for ?" asked the chemist, suspiciously. " For twopence," responded the Scot, at once.

A prominent lawyer, who, after two months of widowerhood, took unto himself another spouse, was very indignant when he read in one of the local papers the following notice of his marriage : — "The wedding was very quiet, owing to a recent bereavement in the bridegroom's family."

Be was merely a porter in the goods department. Whilst struggling to put a sack of wheat on his barrow, a clerk young enough to have been his son stood looking on. Seeing the clerk Lolling against the door, the man said, "Will you please steady my truck until I get this on ?" " I should say not," contemptuously responded that gentleman. " I am paid for what I know, not for what I do." dropping the sack, the porter calmly surveyed him from his dain-tily-polished toe to his nioely-polished hair, and then said quietly, "Then I'll bet you get a mighty small salary, mister.'