Douglas Jerrold’s genius for repartee is perhaps best shown in his most famous reply to Albert Smith, whom he disliked and frequently abused. Smith grew tired of being made the butt of the other’s wit, and one day plaintively remarked: “After all, Jerrold, we row in the same boat.” “Yes,” came the answer, “but not with the same skulls.”
Mr. Brown, a Kansas gentleman, is the proprietor of a boarding-house. Around his table at a recent dinner sat his wife, Mrs. Brown; the village milliner, Mrs. Andrews; Mr. Black, the baker; Mr. Jordan, a carpenter; and Mr. Hadley, a flour, feed, and lumber merchant. Mr. Brown took a ten-dollar bill out of his pocketbook and handed it to Mrs. Brown, with the remark that there was ten dollars toward the twenty he had promised her. Mrs. Brown handed the bill to Mrs. Andrews, the milliner, saying, “That pays for my new bonnet.” Mrs. Andrews, in turn, passed it on to Mr. Jordan, remarking that it would pay for the carpentry work he had done for her. Mr. Jordan handed it to Mr. Hadley, requesting his receipted bill for flour, feed, and lumber. Mr. Hadley gave the bill back to Mr. Brown, saying, “That pays ten dollars on my board.” Mr. Brown again passed it to Mrs. Brown, remarking that he had now paid her the twenty dollars he had promised her. She, in turn, paid it to Mr. Black to settle her bread and pastry account. Mr. Black handed it to Mr. Hadley, asking credit for the amount on his flour bill, Mr. Hadley again returning it to Mr. Brown, with the remark that it settled for that month’s board; whereupon Brown put it back into his pocketbook, observing that he had not supposed a greenback would go so far.
A doctor came up to a patient in an insane asylum, slapped him on the back, and said: “Well, old man, you’re all right, you can run along and write your folks that you’ll be back home in two weeks as good as new.” The patient went off gaily to write his letter. He had it finished and sealed, but when he was licking the stamp it slipped through his fingers to the floor, lighted on the back of a cockroach that was passing and stuck. The patient hadn’t seen the cockroach—what he did see was his escaped postage stamp zig-zagging aimlessly across the floor to the baseboard, wavering up over the baseboard and following a crooked track up the wall and across the ceiling. In depressed silence he tore up the letter and dropped the pieces on the floor. “Two weeks! Hell!” he said. “I won’t be out of here in three years.”
A Bostonian, arriving at the gate of Heaven, asked for admittance.
“Where are you from?” inquired the genial Saint.
“Boston.”