“What! And have you tried it?”
“Tried it often, an’ would have done some remarkable shootin’, but jest for one thing.”
“And what was that?”
“Well, I wanted a dog, you see, that could stand both climates. The last dog I had froze his tail off pintin’ on the summer side. He was on the Great Divide, you see, nose on the summer side, tail on the winter side, an’ his tail froze right off before I could shoot.”
HE CUT IT SHORT
Garrigan was the name of the new station agent. He was an Irishman, of course, and magnified his office by sending in to headquarters very lengthy telegraphic despatches giving very minute details of the many accidents that happened to the trains at his station. Headquarters, at length wearying of the man’s unnecessary prolixity, instructed him to cut out all superfluous particulars and to confine himself to essentials only. “Cut it out?” said he, “an’ sure that I will the very next time an accident happens, or me name isn’t Garrigan.” The next day some cars went off the track—they were always going off the track at his station—and as soon as they were made all right, he wired headquarters a laconic despatch, in the very rhythm of which one can hear the rumble of the car-wheels: “Off again; on again; gone again. Garrigan!”
NOT GOOD LOOKING
A man was buying a horse of a French Canadian. He looked the animal over carefully. The Frenchman said, “He not look ver’ goot, but he is a goot horse.” The purchaser, not setting much store by the man’s judgment of good looks in a horse, and saying that he didn’t care for appearance provided other things were all right, bought the animal. Next day he brought the horse back, saying that he was blind of an eye, and demanded his money back, but the Frenchman said, “Non! Vot I tell you? Did I not say zat he not look goot?”
One day when Mrs. Van Auken installed a Chinaman in her kitchen, the following conversation took place: “What is your name, sir?” asked Mrs. Van Auken. “Oh, my namee Ah Sin Foo!” “But I can’t remember all that lingo, my man. I’ll call you Jimmy.” “Velly welle. Now whachee namee I callee you?” “Well, my name is Mrs. Van Auken. Call me that.” “Oh, me can no membel Missee Yanne Auken. Too big piecee namee. I callee you Tommy—Missee Tommy.”