“‘Yes, I be the master, sir—I be.’
“‘Humph! But don’t you teach the children anything?’
“‘No! I don’t teach the children nothing—for a good reason.’
“‘It must be a very good reason, indeed. What is it, my friend?’
“‘Well, I don’t know nothing myself, sir; so how am I to teach?’
“‘But, my good friend, why did they send you here, then?’
“‘Because, sir, I be too old to take care of the pigs?’”
(1491)
An English army officer and a foreign missionary met on an ocean steamer. The army officer contemptuously said he had lived in India thirty years and had never seen a native Christian. Shortly afterward, he recited with gusto his success in tiger-hunting, declaring that he had killed no less than nine tigers. “Pardon me,” said the missionary, “did I understand you to say that you have killed nine tigers in India?” “Yes, sir,” pompously replied the colonel. “Now that is remarkable,” replied the missionary, “for I have lived in India thirty years and have never seen a tiger.” “Perhaps, sir,” sneered the colonel, “you didn’t go where the tigers were.” “Precisely,” was the bland answer of the missionary, “and may not that have been the reason why you never saw any native converts?”