Humorous Hits and How to Hold an Audience / A Collection of Short Selections, Stories and Sketches for All Occasions

by Unknown

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY		[v]
PART I—HOW TO HOLD AN AUDIENCE
The Voice		[4]
The Breath		[6]
Modulation		[8]
Pausing		[10]
Feeling and Energy		[11]
Gesture and Action		[12]
Impersonation		[13]
Articulation and Pronunciation		[13]
Imagination		[14]
How to Memorize a Selection		[16]
Before the Audience		[18]
PART II—HUMOROUS HITS
The Train-misser	James Whitcomb Riley	[23]
The Elocutionist's Curfew	W. D. Nesbit	[24]
Melpomenus Jones	Stephen Leacock	[25]
Her Fifteen Minutes	Tom Masson	[28]
The Foxes' Tails	Anonymous	[29]
The Dead Kitten	"	[33]
The Weather Fiend	"	[34]
The Race Question	Paul Laurence Dunbar	[35]
When the Woodbine Turns Red	Anonymous	[38]
Cupid's Casuistry	W. J. Lampton	[39]
When Mah Lady Yawns	Charles T. Grilley	[39]
Watchin' the Sparkin'	Fred Emerson Brooks	[40]
The Way of a Woman	Byron W. King	[42]
The Yacht Club Speech	Anonymous	[43]
Mammy's Li'l' Boy	H. S. Edwards	[44]
Corydon	Thomas Bailey Aldrich	[47]
Gib Him One ub Mine	Daniel Webster Davis	[49]
A Lesson with the Fan	Anonymous	[50]
The Undertow	Carrie Blake Morgan	[51]
Marketing	Anonymous	[52]
A Spring Idyl on "Grass"	Nixon Waterman	[52]
Introducin' the Speecher	Edwin L. Barker	[54]
Counting One Hundred	James M. Bailey	[57]
They Never Quarreled	Anonymous	[58]
Song of the "L"	Grenville Kleiser	[60]
The Village Oracle	J. L. Harbour	[62]
If I Can Be by Her	Benjamin Franklin King	[65]
McCarthy and McManus	Anonymous	[66]
And She Cried	Minna Irving	[68]
Dot Leedle Boy	James Whitcomb Riley	[69]
Mr. Dooley on the Grip	Finlay Peter Dunne	[73]
A Rainy Day Episode	Anonymous	[75]
I Knew He Would Come if I Waited	H. G. Williamson	[76]
Love's Moods and Senses	Anonymous	[77]
A Nocturnal Sketch	Thomas Hood	[78]
Katie's Answer	Anonymous	[79]
"'Späcially Jim"	"	[80]
Agnes, I Love Thee!	"	[81]
The Gorilla	"	[82]
Banging a Sensational Novelist	"	[83]
Hopkins' Last Moments	"	[84]
The Fairies' Tea	"	[85]
Counting Eggs	Anonymous	[86]
The Oatmobile	"	[87]
Almost Beyond Endurance	James Whitcomb Riley	[89]
Proof Positive	Anonymous	[90]
The Irish Philosopher	"	[91]
Belagcholly	"	[93]
A Pantomime Speech	"	[93]
The Original Lamb	"	[95]
When Pa Was a Boy	S. E. Kiser	[95]
The Freckled-faced Girl	Anonymous	[96]
Willie	Max Ehrmann	[98]
Amateur Night	Anonymous	[98]
Bounding the United States	John Fiske	[101]
Der Dog und der Lobster	Anonymous	[102]
He Laughed Last	"	[103]
Norah Murphy and the Spirits	Henry Hatton	[104]
Opie Read	Wallace Bruce Amsbary	[107]
The Village Choir	Anonymous	[108]
Billy of Nebraska	J. W. Bengough	[110]
Dot Lambs Vot Mary Haf Got	Anonymous	[112]
Georga Washingdone	"	[113]
Da 'Mericana Girl	T. A. Daly	[114]
Becky Miller	Anonymous	[115]
Pat and the Mayor	"	[116]
The Wind and the Moon	George MacDonald	[118]
Total Annihilation	Anonymous	[120]
Ups and Downs of Married Life	"	[121]
The Crooked Mouth Family	"	[122]
"Imph-m"	"	[124]
The Usual Way	"	[125]
Nothing Suited Him	"	[126]
A Litte Feller	"	[126]
Robin Tamson's Smiddy	Alexander Rodger	[127]
A Big Mistake	Anonymous	[129]
Lord Dundreary's Letter	"	[131]
Slang Phrases	"	[133]
The Merchant and the Book Agent	"	[134]
The Coon's Lullaby	"	[136]
Parody on Barbara Frietchie	"	[137]
Before and After	Charles T. Grilley	[139]
When Greek Meets Greek	Anonymous	[140]
Mr. Potts' Story	Max Adeler	[141]
At Five O'clock Tea	Morris Wade	[143]
Keep A-goin'!	Frank L. Stanton	[145]
A Lover's Quarrel	Cynthia Coles	[146]
Casey at the Bat	Phineas Thayer	[147]
Familiar Lines	Anonymous	[149]
A Friendly Game of Checkers	"	[150]
Modern Romance	Henry M. Blossom, Jr.	[152]
Lullaby	Paul Laurence Dunbar	[153]
The Reason Why	Mary E. Bradley	[154]
How a Bachelor Sews on a Button	Anonymous	[154]
Christopher Columbus	"	[155]
The Fly	"	[156]
The Yarn of the "Nancy Bell"	W. S. Gilbert	[157]
I Tol' Yer So	John L. Heaton	[160]
"You Git Up!"	Joe Kerr	[161]
Presentation of the Trumpet	Anonymous	[162]
Don't Use Big Words	"	[163]
Der Mule Shtood on der Steamboad Deck	"	[164]
The New School Reader	"	[165]
The Poor Was Mad	Charles Battell Loomis	[167]
Lides to Bary Jade	Anonymous	[168]
"Charlie Must not Ring To-night"	Anonymous	[169]
A Short Encore	"	[170]
My Double, and How He Undid Me	Edward Everett Hale	[171]
Romance of a Hammock	Anonymous	[173]
Finnigin to Flannigan	S. W. Gillinan	[175]
An Introduction	Mark Twain	[177]
The Harp of a Thousand Strings	Joshua S. Morris	[177]
The Difficulty of Riming	Anonymous	[179]
So Was I	Joseph Bert Smiley	[181]
The Enchanted Shirt	John Hay	[183]
Deb Oak und der Vine	Charles Follen Adams	[185]
The Ship of Faith	Anonymous	[187]
He Wanted to Know	"	[188]
An Opportunity	"	[190]
Gape-seed	"	[190]
Lariat Bill	"	[192]
The Candidate	Bill Nye	[193]
One Afternoon	Anonymous	[196]
Not In It	"	[198]
A Twilight Idyl	Robert J. Burdette	[199]
Lavery's Hens	Anonymous	[201]
Lisp	"	[202]
They Met by Chance	"	[203]
The Bridegroom's Toast	"	[203]
Rehearsing for Private Theatricals	Stanley Huntley	[204]
The V-a-s-e	James Jeffrey Roche	[206]
Papa and the Boy	J. L. Harbour	[208]
The Obstructive Hat in the Pit	F. Anstey	[210]
Hullo	S. W. Foss	[213]
The Dutchman's Telephone	Anonymous	[214]
Doctor Marigold	Charles Dickens	[216]
The Ruling Passion	William H. Siviter	[219]
The Dutchman's Serenade	Anonymous	[220]
Widow Malone	Charles Lever	[222]
His Leg Shot Off	Anonymous	[224]
The Stuttering Umpire	The Khan	[225]
The Man Who Will Make a Speech	Anonymous	[227]
Carlotta Mia	T. A. Daly	[228]
The Vassar Girl	Wallace Irwin	[229]
A Short Sermon	Anonymous	[231]
A Lancashire Dialectic Sketch	"	[232]
His Blackstonian Circumlocution	"	[233]
Katrina Likes Me Poody Vell	"	[234]
At the Restaurant	"	[235]
A-feared of a Gal	"	[237]
Leaving out the Joke	"	[238]
The Cyclopeedy	Eugene Field	[239]
Echo	John G. Saxe	[244]
Our Railroads	Anonymous	[245]
Wakin' the Young 'Uns	John C. Boss	[247]
Pat's Reason	Anonymous	[249]
Quit Your Foolin'	"	[250]
She Would Be a Mason	James L. Laughton	[251]
Henry the Fifth's Wooing	Shakespeare	[254]
Scene from "The Rivals"	Richard Brinsley Sheridan	[258]
Scenes from "Rip Van Winkle"	As Recited by Burbank	[261]
PART III—SERIOUS HITS
If We Had the Time	Richard Burton	[267]
The Fool's Prayer	Edward Rowland Sill	[268]
The Eve of Waterloo	Byron	[269]
The Wreck of the Julie Plante	W. H. Drummond	[271]
Father's Way	Eugene Field	[272]
I Am Content	Carmen Sylva Translation	[274]
The Eagle's Song	Richard Mansfield	[275]
Break, Break, Break	Alfred, Lord Tennyson	[277]
Virginius	Macaulay	[277]
The Women of Mumbles Head	Clement Scott	[279]
William Tell and His Boy	William Baine	[282]
Lasca	F. Desprez	[284]
The Volunteer Organist	S. W. Foss	[287]
Life Compared to a Game of Cards	Anonymous	[289]
Old Daddy Turner	"	[290]
The Tramp	"	[292]
The Dandy Fifth	F. H. Gassaway	[293]
On Lincoln	Walt Whitman	[296]
The Little Stowaway	Anonymous	[296]
Saint Crispian's Day	Shakespeare	[299]
The C'rrect Card	George R. Sims	[300]
The Engineer's Story	Rosa H. Thorpe	[303]
The Face Upon the Floor	H. Antoine D'Arcy	[306]
The Funeral of the Flowers	T. De Witt Talmage	[309]
Cato's Soliloquy on Immortality	Joseph Addison	[311]
Opportunity	John J. Ingalls	[312]
Opportunity's Reply	Walter Malone	[312]
The Earl-king	Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe	[313]
Carcassonne	M. E. W. Sherwood	[314]
The Musicians	Anonymous	[315]
On the Rappahannock	"	[317]
Como	Joaquin Miller	[319]
Aux Italiens	Owen Meredith	[322]

PART I
HOW TO HOLD AN AUDIENCE

To hold the interest of an audience and to successfully entertain it—whether from public platform, in fraternal organization, by after-dinner speech, or in the home circle—is a worthy accomplishment. Moreover, the memorizing of selections and rendering them before an audience is one of the best preparations for the larger and more important work of public speaking. Many of our most successful after-dinner speakers depend almost entirely upon their ability to tell a good story.

The art of reciting and story-telling has become so popular in recent years that a wide-spread demand has arisen for books of selections and suggestions for rendering them. Material suitable for encores has been particularly difficult to find. It is thought, therefore, that the present volume, containing as it does a great variety of short numbers, will meet with approval.

There is, perhaps, no talent that is more entertaining and more instructive than that of reciting aloud specimens of prose and poetry, both humorous and serious, from our best writers. Channing says:

"Is there not an amusement, having an affinity with the drama, which might be usefully introduced among us? I mean, Recitation.

"A work of genius, recited by a man of fine taste, enthusiasm, and powers of elocution, is a very pure and high gratification.

"Were this art cultivated and encouraged, great numbers, now insensible to the most beautiful compositions, might be waked up to their excellence and power.