TARDINESS
MR. PECK—"Would you mind compelling me to move on, officer? I've been waiting on this corner three hours for my wife!"—Puck.
"Why is it you never get to the office on time in the morning?" demanded the boss angrily.
"It's like this, boss," explained the tardy one, "you kept telling me not to watch the clock during office hours, and I got so I didn't watch it at home either."
"This is the fourth morning you've been late, Rufus," said the man to his colored chauffeur.
"Yes, sah," replied Rufus. "I did oversleep myself, sah."
"Where is that clock I gave you?"
"In my room, sah."
"Don't you wind it up?"
"Oh, yes, sah. I winds it up, sah."
"And do you set the alarm?"
"Ev'ry night, sah, I set de alarm, sah."
"But don't you hear the alarm in the morning, Rufus?"
"No, sah, dere's de trouble, sah. Yer see de blame thing goes off while I'm asleep, sah."
Professor Copeland, of Harvard, as the story goes, reproved his students for coming late to class.
"This is a class in English composition," he remarked with sarcasm, "not an afternoon tea."
At the next meeting one girl was twenty minutes late. Professor Copeland waited until she had taken her seat. Then he remarked bitingly:
"How will you have your tea, Miss Brown?"
"Without the lemon, please," Miss Brown answered quite gently.