A teacher giving a lecture on the rhinoceros found his class was not giving him all the attention it should. “Now, gentlemen,” he said, “if you want to realize the true hideous nature of this animal you must keep your eyes fixed on me.”
A negro had made several ineffectual efforts to propose to the object of his affections, but on each occasion his courage failed him at the last moment. After thinking the matter over he finally decided to telephone, which he did. “Is that you, Samantha?” he inquired upon being given the proper number. “Yes, it’s me,” returned the lady. “Will you marry me, Samantha, and marry me quick?” “Yes, I will,” was the reply; “who’s speaking?”
He was a big, black, good-hearted, old negro, stranded near Boston, and he had decided, after considerable “cogitation,” to work his way back to, the South, where he would feel more at home. In Boston, in Springfield, in Hartford, in New Haven, it was always the same. When he rang a bell and asked for work and a bite to eat the answer usually was, “I’m very sorry, but there’s not a thing to be done here to-day.” There were occasional exceptions, of course, or uncle could never have got on, but the thing most to be counted upon was pleasing politeness coupled with nothing else.
At last the old man left New York and then Philadelphia behind, and one day found himself in Baltimore. His knowledge of geography was nil, but he thought he ought soon to be getting into “de Souf,” and with that hope at heart rang the bell of a fine house on Charles Street. The door was opened by the host himself, who, after an instant’s survey of the figure before him, blurted out:
“Why, yo’ —— black rascal! How dare yo’ ring this bell? Get off mah steps this secon’, befo’ I brek yo’ haid!”
“’Deed I will, boss; ’deed I will,” came the hurried answer. “I wuz on’y lookin’ fer a bite to eat, boss.”
“A bite to eat!” repeated the other. “An’ don’t yo’ know whar to go for all yo’ want? Get yo’self round back, an’ they’ll feed yo’ full—but cyart yo’ good-for-nuthin’ black carcass off these steps, I say.”