CLEVER HITS OF THE HUMORISTS
Mistaken Vanity
It is told of Père Monsabre, the famous Dominican preacher, that one day, as he was on the way to officiate in the church, a message came to him that a lady wanted to see him. She was worrying about an affair of conscience, she felt that she must see him, she feared that she was given up to vanity. That very morning, she confessed, she had looked in her looking-glass, and yielded to the temptation of thinking herself pretty.
Père Monsabre looked at her and said quietly, “Is that all?”
She confessed that it was.
“Well, my child,” he replied, “you can go away in peace, for to make a mistake is not a sin.”
Toast
In the days before the war, days famous for generous but unostentatious hospitality in the South, a brilliant party was assembled at dinner in a country homestead. Across the table wit flashed back and forth, and, when the merry party had adjourned to the broad veranda, the guests began to vie with one another in proposing conundrums.
Mr. Alexander H. Stephens offered one which puzzled the whole company. “What is it that we eat at breakfast and drink at dinner?”
For some time no answer came, and the bright eyes of the Southern orator began to sparkle with triumph, when Colonel Johnston, taking up the Commonplace Book of the hostess which lay conveniently by, wrote, impromptu, upon the fly-leaf the following answer:
“What is eaten for breakfast and drunken at dinner?
Is it coffee or eggs—or butter or meats?
Sure double the stomach of obdurate sinner
Who eats what he drinks and drinks what he eats.
But let us consider—’tis surely not butter,
Nor coffee, nor meats, whether broiled or roast,
Nor boiled eggs, nor poached, nor fried in a batter.
It must then be bread—ah, yes! when ’tis toast.”
The Preferred Beverage
Near Invermark, on Lord Dalhousie’s estate, a fountain was some years ago erected to commemorate a visit paid to the place by the Queen. It bears this inscription, in gold letters, “Rest, stranger, on this lovely scene, and drink and pray for Scotland’s Queen—Victoria.” A Highlander was shocked one morning to read the following addenda, traced in a bold hand, suggestive of the London tourist, immediately underneath the original: “We’ll pray for Queen Victoria here, but go and drink her health in beer.”
Identified
In a very scarce book, Hal’s “Parochial History of Cornwall,” published at Exeter in 1750, mention is made of Killigrew, the celebrated Master of the Revels temp. Charles II., though he never was formally installed as Court Jester. The following anecdote will show that, at all events, he deserved the appointment, even though he did not get it: When Louis XIV. showed him his pictures at Paris, the King pointed out to him a picture of the Crucifixion between two portraits. “That on the right,” added his Majesty, “is the Pope, and that on the left is myself.” “I humbly thank your Majesty,” replied the wit, “for the information; for though I have often heard that the Lord was crucified between two thieves, I never knew who they were till now.”
An Uncivil Retort
The attention of a tourist was attracted to the following epitaph in an English church-yard:
“Here I lie at the chancel door,
Here I lie because I am poor;
When I rise at the Judgment Day,
I shall be as warm as they.”
Whereupon the irreverent visitor scribbled underneath:
From a Spirit within.
“’Tis true, old sinner, there you lie,
’Tis true you’ll be as warm as I;
But, restless spirit, why foretell
That when you rise you’ll go to hell?”
Unmistakable Legality
On one occasion when Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate were pitted against each other in court, Mr. Choate had lucidly, with great emphasis, stated the law. Mr. Webster, than whom a greater master of attitude, gesture, and facial expression never existed, turned on him the gaze of his great eyes, as if in mournful, despairing remonstrance, against such a sad and strange perversion. “That is the law, your Honor,” thundered Mr. Choate, catching the glance, advancing a step, and looking full in Webster’s face—“that is the law, in spite of the admonishing and somewhat paternal look in the eye of my illustrious friend!” And it was the law, as affirmed by the court.
A Very Long Bill
Mr. Nathan Appleton and Mr. Longfellow, travelling in Switzerland, reached Zurich, where the landlord charged very exorbitant prices for their entertainment. Mr. Appleton wrote his name on the books and paid while demurring at the price charged.
“I have put my name on the books,” said Mr. Longfellow, “and if you will allow me I will treat the innkeeper as he deserves.”
The name of the inn was the “Raven.” He took the book aside, and wrote these lines:
“Beware of the raven of Zurich,
’Tis a bird of omen ill,
With an ugly, unclean nest,
And a very, very long bill.”
Whittier’s Impromptu
John G. Whittier often wrote impromptu verses in albums and elsewhere, bright with a gayety that does not often appear in his more important works. In the album of a young lady—who with her friends had been rallying him on his bachelorhood—he wrote the following lines:
Ah, ladies, you love to levy a tax
On my poor little paper parcel of fame;
Yet strange it seems that among you all
Not one is willing to take my name—
To write and rewrite, till the angels pity her,
The weariful words, Thine truly, Whittier.
Seeing is Believing
“I should like to see any man kiss me,”
The prudish young Boston maid cries.
Miss Innocence answers, “Why, bless me!
Do you usually close your eyes?”
A Killarney Echo
A good-natured Anglican parson was riding one day in a jaunting-car near the Lakes of Killarney, whose famous echoes sometimes repeat a sound as many as eight times. Wishing to “take a rise out of the driver,” the clergyman said,—
“Do you know, Pat, that there are none but Protestant echoes here?”
“No, sir, I niver h’ard it, and I don’t believe it aither,” was the reply.
“Well, you shall hear it very soon,” said the Anglican. Arriving at a favorable spot he called out softly, raising his voice to a loud pitch on the last word: “Do you believe in Pio Nono?” and the echo replied,—
“No, no! No, no! No, no!”
Pat was delighted at the joke, and, rubbing his hands gleefully, said,—
“Bedad, whin I drive one of the raal clargy here won’t I have the sport out of him?”
Not Rousseau
The Russian poet Puschkin was plagued day after day by a certain Ivan Iakowlewitsch (John, James’s son) to give him his autograph. Puschkin always excused himself, but the petitioner was one of the men who never take a hint. The poet at last consented, in no good humor; he seized the book out of the man’s hand, and scribbled off the following lines:
Vous êtes Jean,
Vous êtes Jacques,
Vous êtes roux,
Vous êtes sot,
Mais vous n’êtes pas, mon cher,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Love of Specie-s
Sydney Smith, preaching a charity sermon, frequently repeated the assertion that of all nations, Englishmen were most distinguished for generosity and the love of their species. The collection happened to be inferior to his expectations, and he said that he had evidently made a great mistake, and that his expression should have been that they were distinguished for the love of their specie.
His Station
At a banquet in London Ambassador Choate sat next to a distinguished nobleman, who during the course of the conversation had occasion to inquire,—
“And to what station in your country, Mr. Choate, does your Mr. Chauncey M. Depew belong?”
“To the Grand Central Station, my lord,” readily replied the diplomat, without a quiver.
The noble Englishman’s face clouded for a moment with uncertainty.
“I’m afraid you don’t know what I mean,” added Mr. Choate, about to go to his rescue. But milord quickly smiled a glad smile of intelligence.
“Ah! I see, I see, Mr. Choate!” he exclaimed. “Mr. Depew belongs to your grand, great middle class!”
Frankness
That was a frank reply to a friend’s intimation of his approaching marriage: “I should make my compliments to both of you; but as I don’t know the young lady, I can’t felicitate you, and I know you so well that I can’t felicitate her.”
Double X
A wealthy brewer in Montreal built a church and inscribed on it: “This church was erected by Thomas Molson at his sole expense. Hebrews xi.” Some wags altered the inscription so as to make it read: “This church was erected by Thomas Molson at his soul’s expense. He brews XX.”
Met the Emergency
At a French provincial theatre, in a military play, the actor who was credited with the part of a general slipped on the stage and fell ignominiously at the very moment when he was supposed to be conducting his troops to battle. With ready wit, however, he saved himself from ridicule by exclaiming, “Soldiers, I am mortally wounded, but do not stay to aid me. Pass over my prostrate body to victory.”
A Similar Privilege
In Carlsbad, Bohemia, is a restaurant keeper, who, when he finds any distinguished person dining at his establishment, presents himself in a dress coat, with many bows, and asks the honor of an autograph. Rothschild, the banker, signed himself simply “R. de Paris.” Oppenheim, a rich banker of Cologne, was subsequently appealed to. He looked at the list and asked who “R. de Paris” was. “That,” said the restaurant man, with pride, “is the Baron Rothschild of Paris.” “Ah!” said Oppenheim, “what Rothschild did, I can do,” and signed himself “O. de Cologne.”
Caderousse’s Wager
The following curious anecdote is related in the Événement: Some young men were conversing in a private room of the Maison d’Or. Among them was the Duke de Gramont-Caderousse, who died at the age of thirty-two. Some one reproached him with being too much in favor of the people, and with being imbued with the new democratic ideas. After having replied according to his conscience, he exclaimed, “Well, gentlemen, I’ll wager that, without having done anything to merit it, I will get myself arrested before an hour.” “Without having done anything to deserve it?” “Nothing.” The bet was taken—fifty louis. Caderousse jumped into a cab, drove to the Temple, and soon returned in a sordid costume—a tattered cap on his head, trousers in rags, hobnailed boots, torn, muddy, down at the heels. He rubbed his face and hands over with dirt and then begged some one to follow him. Thus prepared, he entered a café on the Boulevard Poissonnière, seated himself at a table, and called out, “Waiter, a bottle of champagne!” The man hesitated a moment, and then said in an undertone, “That costs twelve francs.” “Well,” replied De Gramont, “I have money to pay with.” And he drew from his pocket forty bank-notes of a thousand francs each, which he laid on the table. The master of the establishment sent at once for some sergents de ville, and in a few minutes the pretended vagabond was saying to the commissary of police, “I am the Duke de Gramont-Caderousse. I had laid a wager that I should be arrested without having done anything to deserve it.... I have won, and I have only now to thank you.”
According to Agreement
The parson wanted to furnish hymn-books for his congregation, and was told by a speculator that he would provide books, provided they included with the hymns advertisements. On the first Sunday after the new books had been distributed the congregation found themselves singing,—
Hark! the herald angels sing
Beecham’s pills are just the thing;
Peace on earth and mercy mild.
Two for men and one for child.
A Pulpit Wager
Many humorous stories are told of Lorenzo Dow. He preached once from the text from St. Paul, “I can do all things.” “No, Paul,” he said, “you’re wrong for once. I’ll bet you five dollars you can’t,” and he took a five-dollar bill from his pocket and laid it on the desk. He continued to read, “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Oh, Paul,” said he, “that’s an entirely different thing,—the bet is off.” “This,” says an English writer, “beats any anecdote ever told of Spurgeon.”
Rhus Toxicodendron
The San Francisco manufacturer of a lotion advertises as follows:
He built a bower of leafy sprays
To shield his darling from the heat.
“Would we might live thus all our days,”
He said, reclining at her feet.
Alas, poor love-blind, foolish folk,
To hold of life so crude a notion!
The bower was built of poison oak
And they had to use Blank’s healing lotion.
Mark Twain Convinced
A story is told that on one occasion Charles Dudley Warner, who was neighbor and friend to Mark Twain, wanted him to go walking, and Mark, as usual, refused. Dudley insisted, but to no purpose.
“You ought to do it,” he said finally. “It’s according to Scripture.”
“No ‘Mark-the-perfect-man’ chestnuts on me,” replied the wily humorist. “Where’s your authority?”
“The fifth chapter of Matthew, verse the forty-first,” said Mr. Warner, “which reads thus: ‘And whoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him, Twain.’”
Mr. Clemens went with Mr. Warner that time.
Motto for a Tavern Sign
Lockhart, in his “Life of Sir Walter Scott,” tells a story of a Flodden boniface who asked Scott for a motto from his poems to put on the sign-board of his house. He says:
“Scott opened the book (Marmion) at the death-scene of the hero and his eye was immediately caught by the inscription in black letter,—
“‘Drink, weary pilgrim, drink, and pray
For the kind soul of Sybil Grey,
Who built this cross and well.’
“‘Well, my friend,’ said he, “‘what more would you have? You need but strike out one letter in the first of these lines and make your painter-man, the next time he comes this way, print between the jolly tankard and your own name,
“‘Drink, weary pilgrim, drink, and PAY.’
“Scott was delighted to find, on his return, that this suggestion had been adopted, and for aught I know, the romantic legend may still be visible.”
A New Light
A widower, in his great bereavement, expressed his feelings by having engraved on the tombstone of his wife the line, “My light has gone out.” As he was about to marry again, he asked the advice of Bishop Henry C. Potter as to whether or not he should have the inscription erased, as it seemed at variance with the new conditions. “Oh, no,” said the bishop, “I wouldn’t have it taken off; just put underneath it, ‘I have struck another match!’”
Schweininger’s Thrust
When Bismarck made the acquaintance of his last doctor he was sick and peevishly declined to answer questions. “As you like,” said the doctor; “then send for a veterinary surgeon, as such practitioners treat their patients without asking them any questions.” The Chancellor was captured.
Significant Change
A French paper revives the story of Alexandre Dumas being one day the guest of Dr. Gistal, an eminent medical man of Marseilles, who after dinner requested the novelist to enrich his album with one of his witty improvisations. “Certainly,” replied Dumas, with a smile, and drawing out his pencil he wrote, under the eyes of his entertainer, lines which may be imitated as follows:
“Since Dr. Gistal came to our town,
To cure diseases casual and hereditary,
The hospital has been pulled down”—
“You flatterer!” here exclaimed the doctor, mightily pleased; but the poet went on—
“And we have made a larger cemetery.”
The Remedy
Goldy’s touching lines, “When lovely woman stoops to folly,” fare sadly in the hands of a silk dyer, who sends about a circular with this parody:
“When lovely woman tilts her saucer,
And finds too late that tea will stain—
Whatever made a woman crosser—
What art can wash all white again?
The only art the stain to cover,
To hide the spot from every eye,
And wear an unsoiled dress above her,
Of proper color, is to dye!”
Botanical Misnomer
In one of the early comic annuals there are some amusing lines of Hood’s describing how a country nurseryman had made a large sum out of the sale of a simple little flower which he sold under the name of the “Rhodum Sidus.” This charming name had proved quite an attraction to the ladies, and the flower had become the rage of the season. At length a pertinacious botanist, who found that the flower was a not uncommon weed, insisted on knowing where the nurseryman had got his name from; he elicited the following reply:
“I found this flower in the road beside us,
So christened it the Rhodum Sidus.”
Not Interchangeable
A rather amusing incident occurred recently at a show in Paris, where the wonderful “Performing Fleas” were exhibited. One of the dear creatures, which acted as coachman to the great flea-coach, managed to hop off his box, and elected a rather stout lady, standing near, as his first resting-place. The proprietor of the show, who had spent much time and patience upon the education of his insect, was in despair, and the lady was asked if she would mind making a search for the missing pet. She accordingly retired to a private room, and in a few minutes returned triumphant, carefully holding the captive in the most approved style. She handed him to the showman, who started and changed color, and returning the flea to the lady remarked: “Je vous remercie, Madame, mais celle la est à vous, pas à moi!” (Thank you, Madame, but that’s not mine.)
Business Economy
Two commercial tourists, chancing to meet in an inn of a country town, began, after lighting their cigars, a dispute as to the relative extent of the business of their respective houses. One, zealous to prove the superiority of the establishment he represented, after enumerating extraordinary instances, reached the climax with the assertion that the business of his house was so extensive, that in their correspondence alone, it cost them over five hundred dollars a year for ink.
“Pooh, pooh,” said the other, “why, we save that much yearly by just omitting the dots to the i’s and the strokes to the t’s.”
Completing an Unfinished Stanza
It is related that Dr. Mansel, of Trinity College, Cambridge, by chance called at the rooms of a brother Cantab, who was absent, but had left on his table the opening of a poem, in the following lofty strain:
“The sun’s perpendicular rays
Illumined the depths of the sea.”
Here the flight of the poet, by some accident, stopped short, but Dr. Mansel, equal to the occasion, completed the stanza in the following facetious style:
“And the fishes, beginning to sweat,
Cried ‘Damn it,’ how hot we shall be.”
Sonnet to a Cow
Why cow, how canst thou be so satisfied?
So well content with all things here below?
So unobtrusive and so sleepy-eyed
So meek, so lazy, and so awful slow?
Dost thou not know that everything is mixed,
That naught is as it should be on this earth,
That grievously the world needs to be fixed,
That nothing we can give has any worth,
That times are hard, that life is full of care,
Of sin and trouble and untowardness,
That love is folly, friendship but a snare?
Prit, cow! this is no time for laziness!
The cud thou chewest is not what it seems!
Get up and moo! Tear ‘round and quit thy dreams!
Xanthippe Vindicated
The admirers of Sorosis have waited patiently for that sisterhood to discuss and vindicate the character of that long maligned and grossly misunderstood victim of history, Xanthippe. But Sorosis procrastinates, and fails to declare that Socrates would have tried any woman’s temper.
Xanthippe has been called a shrew, a harridan, a scold, a virago, a termagant. Her temper has been represented as hasty, and her poor, patient husband, Socrates, has commanded not only respect for his genius, but pity for his domestic woes. It is extraordinary that such a misconception of the facts arose. It is remarkable that hitherto not one apologist for Xanthippe has arisen.
But the champion of woman, of womanhood—yea, even of woman’s rights—cannot study the facts preserved in history concerning this ill-assorted pair without perceiving the gross injustice done to a simple-minded and worthy dame. Reduced to its simplest terms, our proposition is that Xanthippe lived and died a victim to the Socratic method.
Ladies, put yourselves in her place. Married to an ugly man in the bloom of her youthful beauty,—to a man conspicuously ugly, with a flat nose, thick lips, bulging eyes, so ugly that the handsome Alcibiades compared him to Silenus,—we see at the outset that it was clearly a mariage de convenance. Think of the discoveries the poor girl made after the wedding! Her homely husband refused to wear shoes or stockings when the courting days had passed. He not only never dressed for dinner, but even refused to change his clothes at all, day in and day out. Having once secured a housekeeper he rarely stayed at home, was constantly off in the city, loafing in the market-place, disputing with every comer. He had given up his trade as a sculptor as soon as he had her dowry to spend, and spent his time gadding about with young men and neglecting the proud, fair girl at home.
It was common talk that at the banquets, for which he forsook his home, he drank more than any one else present. The misguided man, moreover, seems to have had a devil, or demon, constantly instigating him to some singular deed or remark. No wonder Xanthippe’s beauty faded! No wonder that the being looked at askance at every meeting of the Society of Athenian Dames she attended resulted in her gradually isolating herself from social affairs! Confined to the narrow limits of her small home, soured by neglect, yet ever faithful to the satyr Socrates, who left home early and drank till the wee sma’ hours at night, it is evident that the trials she contended with were great. But, you say, she must, as a cultivated, ambitious woman, have greatly enjoyed and as greatly profited by the opportunities of converse, infrequent but priceless, with the great dialectician when he actually was in the bosom of his family. That is the very point at issue. Our contention is that Socrates’s conversation, if he conversed with his wife at all, was the very straw that broke the camel’s back. Imagine being kept awake every night, say from two to four by a husband, more or less the worse for wine, and obliged to converse with him in question and answer, and being constantly held down to rigid logical rules of expression! What woman could endure having to voice her complaints in logical phrase? How the war-horse of dialectics would snort in the excitement of battle at hearing the feminine argument “Because” advanced in answer to some impertinent question on his part.
It is undoubtedly true, and Plato incidentally corroborates it, that one day when Xanthippe was out of wood, and the week’s ironing was all waiting to be done, Socrates, in sheer laziness, and from no ascertainable motive but pure cussedness, stood still for twenty-four hours continuously. His apologist adds that he was entranced in thought, and a partial public has believed it. But tell me, oh twentieth century wife, what effect it would have had on your nerves and temper if your Thomas or Jack were to treat you so?
If he had only brought his friends home occasionally and brightened Xanthippe’s life somewhat in that way! Even the rough, uncouth Xenophon would have been better than nobody. But this garrulous Greek seems to have had no redeeming domestic features—unless we except what Xenophon records in his Memorabilia (II. 2) as to his admonishing his eldest son, Lamprocles, to be grateful to his mother, which was only decent in the old man, as we infer from the context that Xanthippe had furnished Lamprocles with liberal pocket-money.
We have a profound sympathy with Xanthippe. If she became a shrew, it was Socrates’s fault. But it does not appear that she ever failed in the great duties of womanhood. And it ill beseems either the man or his apologists to malign a hard-working, much-abused woman whose defects of temper were not congenital, but created and increased by this malicious maieutic philosopher himself.
Democritus at Belfast[[3]]
Tyndall, high perched on Speculation’s summit,
May drop his sounding line in Nature’s ocean,
But that great deep has depths beyond his plummet,
The springs of law and life, mind, matter, motion.
Democritus imagined that the soul
Was made of atoms, spheric, smooth and fiery;
Plato conceived it as a radiant whole—
A heavenly unit baffling man’s inquiry.
Indolent Gods, immeasurably bored,
Beyond the blast of Boreas and Eurus,
Too lazy Man to punish or reward,
Such was the heaven conceived by Epicurus.
If, as the wide-observant Darwin dreams,
Man be developed of the Ascidian, ·
Methinks his great deeds and poetic dreams
Scarce square with his molluscous pre-meridian.
But, even as Milton’s demons, problem tossed,
When they had set their maker at defiance,
Still “found no end, in wandering mazes lost,”
So is it with our modern men of science.
Still in the “Open Sesame” of Law,
Life’s master key professing to deliver,
But meeting with deaf ear or scorn-clenched jaw,
Our question, “Doth not law imply lawgiver?”
Betwixt the Garden and the Portico,
Thou vacillating servant, often flittest,
And when we seek the source of law to know,
Giv’st us a phrase, “survival of the fittest.”
Pray who may be the fittest to survive,
The spark of thought for coming time to kindle,
The sacred fire of science keep alive?—
Plato, Agassiz, Humboldt, Huxley, Tyndall?
If Tyndall’s last word be indeed the last—
Of Hope and Faith hence with each rag and tatter!
A black cloud shrouds our future as our past:
Matter, the wise man’s God; the Crowd’s—no Matter.
[3]. (See Report of Professor Tyndall’s Inaugural Discourse to the British Association.)
Christmas Chimes
Little Penelope Socrates—
A Boston maid of four—
Wide opened her eyes on Christmas morn,
And looked the landscape o’er.
“What is it inflates my bas de bleu?”
She asked with dignity;
“’Tis Ibsen in the original;
Oh, joy beyond degree.”
Miss Mary Cadwallader Rittenhouse,
Of Philadelphia town,
Awoke as much as they ever do there,
And watched the snow come down.
“I’m glad that it is Christmas,”
You might have heard her say,
“For my family is one year older now
Than it was last Christmas day.”
’Twas Christmas in giddy Gotham,
And Miss Irene de Jones
Awoke at noon and yawned and yawned,
And stretched her languid bones.
“I’m sorry it is Christmas,
Papa at home will stay,
For ’Change is closed and he won’t make
A single cent to-day.”
Windly dawned the Christmas
On the city by the lake,
And Miss Arabel Wabash Breezy
Was instantly awake.
“What’s that thing in my stocking?
Well, in two jiffs I’ll know.”
And she drew a grand piano forth
From ’way down in the toe.
The Nestling Shuttlecock
The amusing verses of Peter Pindar (Dr. John Wolcot) on the King and the Apple Dumplings have been so much copied in school books and collections of humorous poetry that most readers are familiar with the monarch’s questioning:
“Strange I should never of a dumpling dream;
But Goody, tell me, where, where, where’s the seam?”
“Sir, there’s no seam,” quoth she, “I never knew
That folks did apple dumplings sew.”
“No?” cried the staring monarch with a grin,
“Then how the devil got the apple in?”
But Pindar’s “King of France and the Fair Lady” is seldom, if ever, found outside of his now scarce poetical works:
A king of France upon a day,
With a fair lady of his court,
Was pleased at battledore to play—
A very fashionable sport.
Into the bosom of this fair court dame,
Whose whiteness did the snow’s pure whiteness shame,
King Louis by odd mischance did knock
The shuttlecock.
Thrice happy rogue, upon the town of doves,
To nestle with the pretty little loves!
“Now, sire, pray take it out,” quoth she,
With an arch smile. But what did he?
What? what to charming modesty belongs!
Obedient to her soft command,
He raised it—but not with his hand!
No, marvelling reader, but the chimney tongs.
What a chaste thought in this good king;
How clever!
When shall we hear again of such a thing?
Lord! never.
Now were our princes to be prayed
To such an act by some fair maid,
I’ll bet my life not one would mind it;
But handy, without more ado,
The youths would search the bosom through,
Although it took a day to find it.
Proverbial Philosophy in New Dress
Teach not your parent’s parent to extract
The golden contents of the egg by suction.
The good old lady can the feat enact
Quite irrespective of your kind induction.
A member of the feathered federation,
A prisoner by your palm and digits made,
Is worth at least a couple of his brothers
Who in your leafy arbor seek the shade.
Theory and Practice
Doctor (to brother physician)—“Yes, sir, the sovereign remedy for all ills is fresh air and plenty of it. People don’t let enough air into their houses. Well, I must hurry off; I’m on an errand.”
Brother Physician—“Going far?”
Doctor—“No; only down to the hardware store to get half a mile of weather-strips.”