HUSBANDS
To say of a man that he will make a good husband is much the same sort of a compliment as to say of a horse that he is perfectly safe for a woman to drive.—Puck.
If you marry a widow it is safe to take one whose first trial served a term in jail, then you won't have the perfect example always held up before you.
"Mother," asked Tommy, "do fairy tales always begin with 'Once upon a time'?"
"No, dear, not always; they sometimes begin with 'My love, I have been detained at the office tonight'"
"William," snapped the dear lady, viciously, "didn't I hear the clock strike two as you came in?" "You did, my dear. It started to strike ten, but I stopped it to keep it from waking you up."
"I hear you are going to marry Archie Blueblood?" said one society woman to another. "Is it true?"
"Marry him?" exclaimed the other. "Not likely. What on earth could I do with him? He's rejected from the Army, he can't ride, he can't play tennis, golf, nor, for that matter, can he even drive a motor-car!"
"Oh!" said the friend, "but he can swim beautifully, you know."
"Swim, indeed! Now, I ask you, would you like a husband you had to keep in an aquarium?"
To observe Washington's birthday, in a fitting manner, a teacher in a Yonkers school told in detail the life of the first President of the United States. She emphasized his honesty, sincerity, bravery and self-reliance. At the close of her discourse, she put this question to the class:
"What high office in a nation could such a wonderful man fill?"
A flaxen-haired boy of ten, sitting in a rear seat, raised his hand and blushingly replied: "He'd make a nice husband."
"How's your husband getting along, Mrs. Fogarty?"
"Well, sometimes he's better an' sometimes he's worse, but from the way he growls an' takes on whin he's better, Oi think he's better whin he's worse."
SHE—"I wonder why men lie so?"
HE—"Because their wives are so inquisitive."
HUBBY—"I don't believe in parading my virtues."
WIFE—"You couldn't, anyway. It takes quite a number to make a parade."
"Why do you feed every tramp who comes along? They never do any work for you."
"No," said his wife, "but it is quite a satisfaction to me to see a man eat a meal without finding fault with the cooking."
The husband arrived home much later than usual "from the office." He took off his boots and stole into the bedroom. His wife began to stir. Quickly the panic-stricken man went to the cradle of his first-born and began to rock it vigorously.
"What are you doing there, Robert?" queried his wife.
"I've been sitting here for nearly two hours trying to get this baby to sleep," he growled.
"Why, Robert, I've got him here in bed with me," replied his wife.
A teacher was trying to explain the dangers of overwork to one of the smaller pupils.
"Now, Tommy," she pursued, "if your father were busy all day and said he would have to go back to the office at night, what would he be doing?"
"That's what ma wants to know."
HE—"If I were to die you'd never get another husband like me."
SHE—"What makes you imagine I should ever want another like you?"
MRS. BLANK (to laundress)—"And how is your newly married daughter getting on, Mrs. Brown?"
MRS. BROWN—"Oh, nicely, thank you, ma'am. She finds her husband a bit dull; but then, as I tells her, the good ones are dull."
JUNKMAN—"Any rags, paper, old iron to sell?"
HEAD OF HOUSE (irately)—"No—go away—my wife's away for the summer."
JUNKMAN (smiling)—"Any empty bottles?"
Situation: Buglar, caught red-handed, arraigned in court
WOMAN—"The sorce o' the feller! 'E pretended to be my 'usband and called out, 'It's all right, darlin'—it's only me.' It was the word 'darlin' wot give 'im away."—Punch (London).
"Henry," said his father-in-law, as he called his daughter's spouse into the library and locked the door, "you have lived with me now for over two years."
"Yes, father."
"In all that time I haven't asked you a penny for board."
"No, sir." (Wonderingly.)
"In all your little family quarrels I have always taken your part."
"Always, sir."
"I have even paid some of your bills."
"A good many, father."
"Then the small favor I am about to ask you will no doubt be granted?"
"Most certainly, sir."
"Thanks. Then I want you to tell your mother-in-law that those tickets for the supper-club dance which she picked up in my room this morning must have accidentally fallen out of your pocket, and we'll call it square!"
One morning, Mollie, the colored maid, appeared before her mistress, carrying, folded in a handkerchief, a five-dollar gold piece and all her earthly possessions in the way of jewelry.
This package she proferred her mistress, with the request that Miss Sallie take it for safe keeping.
"Why, Mollie!" exclaimed the mistress in surprise. "Are you going away?"
"Naw'm, I ain' goin' nowheres," Mollie declared. "But me an' Jim Harris we wuz married this mawnin'. Yas.'m, Jim, he's a new nigger in town. You don' know nothin' 'bout him, Miss Sallie. I don' know nothin' 'bout him myself he's er stranger to me."
Miss Sallie glanced severely at the little package of jewelry.
"But, Mollie," she demanded, "don't you trust him?"
"Yas'm," replied Mollie, unruffled. "Cose I trus' him, personally—but not wid ma valuables."
It is necessary to be almost a genius to make a good husband.—Balzac.
Jennie, the colored maid, arrived one morning with her head swathed in bandages—the result of an argument with her hot-tempered spouse.
"Jennie," said her mistress, "your husband treats you outrageously. Why don't you leave him?"
"Well, I don' 'zactly wants to leave him."
"Hasn't he dragged you the length of the room by your hair?" demanded her mistress.
"Yas'm he has done dat."
"Hasn't he choked you into insensibility?"
"Yas'm he sho has choked me."
"And now doesn't he threaten to split your head with an ax?"
"Yas'm he has done all dat," agreed Jennie, "but he ain' done nothin' yet so bad I couldn't live wid him."
See also Carelessness; Domestic finance.