A magician was performing in a Kentucky town, and during the evening announced that in his next trick he would need a pint flask of whisky. No move was made to supply the liquor. “Perhaps you did not understand me. Will some gentleman kindly loan me a pint flask of whisky?” Then a lank man in the rear of the hall arose. “Mistah,” said he, “will a quart flask do?” “Just as well, sir,” replied the magician, and every gentleman in the hall arose with flask extended.
“Phœbe,” said a mistress in reproof to her colored servant whom she found smoking a short pipe after having repeatedly threatened to discharge her if again caught in the act, “if you won’t stop that bad habit for any other reason do so because it is right. You are a good church member—and, don’t you know that smoking makes the breath unpleasant, and that nothing unclean can enter Heaven?” “’Deed, missie, I does,” said the woman, “but bress’ yo’ heart, when I go to Heaben I’ll leave my bref behin’.”
It was the custom of a certain deacon, when dining at the home of one of his best friends, to drink a glass of milk, as a prelude to his dinner. One day when the minister was scheduled to appear, instead of the rich, foamy glass of milk, his friend placed beside his plate a glass of milk punch. After the blessing, the deacon seized his glass and drank to the last drop, and then exclaimed as he closed his eyes and smacked his lips, “Oh, what a cow!”
Dean Hole of Rochester, England, told of a very innocent and obliging curate who went to a Yorkshire parish where many of the parishioners bred horses and sometimes raced them. A few Sundays after his arrival he was asked to invite the prayers of the congregation for Lucy Grey. He did so. They prayed for three Sundays for her. On the fourth, the church clerk told the curate that he need not do it any more. “Why,” he asked, “is she dead?” “No,” said the clerk, “she’s won the steeplechase.”
The late Richard Henry Stoddard while endeavoring to procure an impromptu luncheon for a number of his friends after his wife and the servants had retired, found a box of sardines. His vigorous remarks, inspired by the sardine-can’s objections to the “open sesame” of a dull jack-knife, attracted the attention of Mrs. Stoddard on the floor above.
“What are you doing?” she called down.