Light-weight though I am, there was a time when I got Corbett badly rattled. He was living at Asbury Park, training for one of his fights, and I, while in a railway car with him, got out some friends—a pack of cards—and did some tricks for Jim. Soon I got him so puzzled that he exclaimed:
“Hold on there, Marsh! These tricks get me nutty.”
It was the unexpected that brought James Young, the actor, a roar of laughter one evening when he addressed as follows an audience composed entirely of his own acquaintances:
“My friends—I cannot call you ladies and gentlemen, for I know you all.”
It was the unexpected, too, that only severely jarred Capt. Alex. Williams, a noted ex-police official in New York. A woman fainted in the street, the captain caught her by one arm, and “Red” Leary, a noted criminal by the other.
“Cap’n,” said “Red” politely, “this is the first time you and me have ‘worked’ together.”
Minister Choate—“Joe” Choate, has a reserve fund of the unexpected. Some American dishes were served up at a breakfast party in England, one being ham and eggs. A young lady at the minister’s right was ignorant of the slippery ways of fried eggs on a dish, so she accidentally spilled the contents of her plate.
“Oh, Mr. Choate!” she exclaimed, “I don’t know what to do, for I’ve dropped an egg on the floor,” and Choate replied:
“If I were you, I’d cackle.”
