SENSE OF HUMOR
SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT (cross-questioning the terrified class)—"And now I want you boys to tell me who wrote 'Hamlet.'"
FRIGHTENED BOY—"P-p-please, sir, it-it wasn't me."
That same evening the superintendent was talking to his host, the squire of the village. The superintendent said:
"Most amusing thing happened today. I was questioning the class over at the school, and I asked a boy who wrote 'Hamlet.' He answered tearfully, 'P-p-please, sir, it wasn't me.'"
After loud and prolonged laughter, the squire said:
"That's pretty good, and I suppose the little rascal had done it all the time!"
British and American Humor
Having observed in a London omnibus a notice warning passengers to be careful as they alight, which is couched in these terms: "Cinema actors risk their lives for pay! Don't do it for nothing!" a New York journalist remarks that "an American advertisement on that subject would be serious; the British are more flippant in their seriousness than the Americans."
It seems as if this critic (writes a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian) never saw the notices posted in the trains used for conveying American troops in France during the last six months of the war. Tho drawn up at American headquarters, these notices are quite as "flippant in their seriousness" as the one he quotes. One of them ran:
THREE KINDS OF FOOLS
1. Fools.
2. Damned fools.
3. SOLDIERS WHO RIDE ON TOPS AND SIDES OF CARS.
A great many American soldiers have already been killed as a result of riding on tops of cars.
There is only six inches clearance between tops and sides of cars and tunnel arches.
There is only six inches clearance between tops and sides of cars and bridge superstructures.
There is only a slight clearance between sides of cars and signal-towers.
IF YOU EXPECT TO SEE THE NEXT BLOCK KEEP YOURS INSIDE.
There was another one worded as follows:
YOUR HEAD MAY BE HARD
But not so hard as Bridges and Tunnel Arches.
Railway company will hold you responsible for damages to bridges and tunnels and signal-towers—they are not insured.
KEEP YOUR BLOCK INSIDE
And yet another:
Huns are waiting.
Trenches ahead.
Speed up.
KEEP YOUR IVORY IN!
HEALTH OFFICER MOONEY—"Y'r Honor, Oi think that humorist should be prohibited from givin' his lecture in the opera house tomorrow night, sor!"
MAYOR OF TOWN—"Why so, Mooney? Is it immoral?"
HEALTH OFFICER MOONEY—"Not immoral, sor; but they say his humor is contagious!"