A dying man once sent for an Arkansas editor, who hastened to the death-bed with more alacrity, as he had no heirs. I’m glad you’ve come, said the old man in a deathly whisper. Come closer. The editor approached. You know I have worked hard, and that I have earned every cent I have got. Some time ago, you remember, I subscribed for your paper for six months. There is just one more number due me, and as I am dying and can’t wait until your next issue comes out, just give me a nickel and we’ll call it square.
The following missive was received by the forest ranger of the Pasadena district and read recently at the annual dinner of the Sierra Club in Los Angeles. Kind and Respected Cir—
I see in the paper that a man named J⸺ S⸺ was atacted and et up by a bare whose cubs he was trying to git when the she bare came up and stopt him by eatin him up in the mountains near your town. What i want to know is did it kill him or was he only partly et up am he from this place and all about the bare. I don’t know but what he is a distant husband of mine. My first husband was of that name and I supposed he was killed in the war but the name of the man the bare et being the same i thought it might be him after all and i thought to know if he wasn’t killed either in the war or by the bare for i have been married twice since and their ought to be divorce papers got out by him or me if the bare did not eat him all up. If it is him you will know it by him having six toes on the left foot. He also sings base and has a spread eagle tattoed on his front chest and a ankor on his right arm which you will know him if the bare did not eat up these parts of him. If alive don’t tell him I am married to J⸺ W⸺ for he never liked J⸺. Mebbe you had better let on as if i am ded but find out all you can about him without him knowing anything what it is for. That is if the bare did not eat him all up. If it did i don’t see you can do anything and you needn’t take any trouble. My respeks to your family and please ancer back.
P. S.—Was the bare killed. Also was he married again and did he leave any property worth me laying claim to?
An advertisement in a newspaper calling for a “first-class bookkeeper at $3 a week” drew forth the following answer, the only one attracted by the munificent salary.
I am a young man, thirty-seven years of age, having had a business experience of twenty-three years, being connected with the United States Embassy at Madagascar, and feel confident if you will give me a trial I can prove my worth to you. I am not only an expert bookkeeper, proficient stenographer and typewriter, excellent operator and erudite college graduate, but have several other accomplishments which might make me desirable. I am an experienced snow shoveler, a first-class peanut roaster, have some knowledge of removing superfluous hair and clipping puppy dogs’ ears, have a medal for reciting “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight.” Am a skilled chiropodist and practical farmer, can also cook, take care of horses, crease trousers, open oysters and repair umbrellas. Being possessed of great physical beauty, I would not only be useful, but would be ornamental as well, lending to the sacred precincts of your office that delightful artistic charm that a Satsuma vase or stuffed billy-goat would. As to salary, I would feel I was robbing the widow and swiping the sponge cake from the orphan if I was to take advantage of your munificence by accepting the too fabulous sum of $3 per week, and I would be entirely willing to give you my services for less, and by accepting $1.37 per week would give you an opportunity of not only increasing your donation to the church, pay your butcher and keep up your life insurance, but also to found a home for indigent fly-paper salesmen and endow a free bed in the cat home.