"I'm writing my autobiography."
"With the accent on the 'bi'?" One of the newcomers suggested
sarcastically.
"No," his friend corrected, "with the accent on the 'auto'."
* * *
The stallion that had been driven in from the plains was a magnificent
creature, but so fierce that no man dared approach closely. Then the
amiable lunatic appeared on the scene. He took a halter, and went
toward the dangerous beast. And as he went, he muttered softly:
"So, bossy; so bossy; so bossy."
The stallion stood quietly and allowed the halter to be slipped over his
head without offering any resistance.
The horse was cowed.
* * *
When Mr. Choate was ambassador to the Court of St. James, he was present
at a function where his plain evening dress contrasted sharply with the
uniforms of the other men. At a late hour, an Austrian diplomat approach
him, as he stood near the door, obviously taking him for a servant, and
said:
"Call me a cab."
Choate answered affably:
"You're a cab, sir."
The diplomat indignantly went to the host and explained that a servant
had insulted him. He pointed to Choate. Explanations ensued, and the
diplomat was introduced to the American, to whom he apologized.
"That's all right," declared Choate, smiling. "If you had been
better-looking, I'd have called you a hansom cab."
PUZZLE
The humorist offered his latest invention in the way of a puzzle to the
assembly of guests in the drawing-room:
"Can you name an animal that has eyes and cannot see; legs and cannot
walk, but can jump as high as the Woolworth Building?"
Everybody racked his brains during a period of deep silence, and racked
in vain. Finally, they gave it up and demanded the solution. The
inventor of the puzzle beamed.
"The answer," he said, "is a wooden horse. It has eyes and cannot see,
and legs and cannot walk."
"Yes," the company agreed. "But how does it jump as high as the
Woolworth Building?"
"The Woolworth Building," the humorist explained, "can't jump."
QUARRELSOME
The applicant for the position of cook explained to the lady why she had
left her last place:
"To tell the truth, mum, I just couldn't stand the way the master and
the mistress was always quarreling."
"That must have been unpleasant," the lady agreed.
"Yis, mum," the cook declared, "they was at it all the time. When it
wasn't me an' him, it was me a
|