BEHOLD THE DEEDS!
(Chant Royal)
I would that all men my hard case might know;
How grievously I suffer for no sin:
I, Adolphe Culpepper Furguson, for lo!
I, of my landlady, am locked in,
For being short on this sad Saturday,
Nor having shekels of silver wherewith to pay;
She has turned and is departed with my key;
Wherefore, not even as other boarders free,
I sing (as prisoners to their dungeon stones
When for ten days they expiate a spree):
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
One night and one day have I wept my woe;
Nor wot I when the morrow doth begin,
If I shall have to write to Briggs & Co.,
To pray them to advance the requisite tin
For ransom of their salesman, that he may
Go forth as other boarders go alway—
As those I hear now flocking from their tea,
Led by the daughter of my landlady
Pianoward. This day for all my moans,
Dry bread and water have been servèd me.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
Miss Amabel Jones is musical, and so
The heart of the young he-boardèr doth win,
Playing “The Maiden’s Prayer,” adagio—
That fetcheth him, as fetcheth the banco skin
The innocent rustic. For my part, I pray:
That Badarjewska maid may wait for aye
Ere sits she with a lover, as did we
Once sit together, Amabel! Can it be
That all that arduous wooing not atones
For Saturday shortness of trade dollars three?
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
Yea! she forgets the arm was wont to go
Around her waist. She wears a buckle whose pin
Galleth the crook of the young man’s elbòw;
I forget not, for I that youth have been.
Smith was aforetime the Lothario gay.
Yet once, I mind me, Smith was forced to stay
Close in his room. Not calm, as I, was he;
But his noise brought no pleasaunce, verily.
Small ease he gat of playing on the bones,
Or hammering on his stovepipe, that I see.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow
I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin!
Thee will I show up—yea, up will I show
Thy too thick buckwheats, and thy tea too thin.
Ay! here I dare thee, ready for the fray!
Thou dost not “keep a first-class house,” I say!
It does not with the advertisements agree.
Thou lodgest a Briton with a puggaree,
And thou hast harbored Jacobses and Cohns,
Also a Mulligan. Thus denounce I thee!
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
Envoy
Boarders! the worst I have not told to ye:
She hath stolen my trousers, that I may not flee
Privily by the window. Hence these groans,
There is no fleeing in a robe de nuit.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons
Secretary Chase was not originally a profane man. He learned how to swear after he went into Lincoln’s Cabinet. One day, after he had delivered himself vigorously, Lincoln said to him:
“Mr. Chase, are you an Episcopalian?”
“Why do you ask?” was the somewhat surprised counter-question.
“Oh, just out of curiosity,” replied Lincoln. “Seward is an Episcopalian, and I had noticed that you and he swore in much the same manner.”
Family Physician: “Well, I congratulate you.”
Patient (excitedly): “I will recover?”
Family Physician: “Not exactly, but—well, after consultation, we find that your disease is entirely novel, and if the autopsy should demonstrate that fact we have decided to name it after you.”
AN INSURANCE AGENT’S STORY
“Oh, I guess we have our experiences,” laughed the fire insurance agent. “We are just like others who have to deal with all kinds of people.
“Take the smart Alecs, for instance. They give us a whirl once in awhile, but we generally manage to get as good as a draw with them. It was only last fall that one of them came in and wanted me to insure his coal pile. Of course I caught on at once, but I made out his policy and took his money. In the spring he came around with a broad grin on his face and told me that the coal had been burned—in the furnace, of course. I solemnly informed him that we must decline to settle the loss. He said he would sue. I told him to blaze away, and I would have him arrested as an incendiary. That straightened his face out, and it cost him a tidy little supper for a dozen of us just to insure our silence.
“One shrewd old chap had grown rich out of our company, and when he had built an elegant new store and stocked it with goods he came to us again for insurance. I refused him, but he was persistent, and I finally assented on condition that he hang a gross of hand-grenades in the place. After I had seen them properly distributed, I sent an old chum of his up to get the real lay of the land, for I was still suspicious. This is what the cronies said to each other:
“‘What is them things, Ike?’
“‘Hand-grenades.’
“‘What’s hand-grenades?’
“‘I don’t know what was in ’em at first, but they’re full of kerosene oil now.’
“We canceled the policy.”
A girl from town is staying with some country cousins who live at a farm. On the night of her arrival she finds, to her mortification, that she is ignorant of all sorts of things connected with farm life which to her country cousins are matters of every-day knowledge. She fancies they seem amused at her ignorance.
At breakfast the following morning she sees on the table a dish of fine honey, whereupon she thinks she has found an opportunity of retrieving her humiliating experience of the night before, and of showing her country cousins that she knows something of country life after all. So, looking at the dish of honey, she says carelessly:
“Ah, I see you keep a bee.”
Minister (at baptismal font): “Name, please?”
Mother (baby born abroad): “Philip Ferdinand Chesterfield Randolph y Livingstone.”
Minister (aside to assistant): “Mr. Kneeler, a little more water, please.”