More Toasts. Various
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"Gee, whiz! Isn't that Smithson who just went by in his automobile? When I knew him a few years ago he had a junk-shop."
"He still has. Only he moved in to a fashionable street and labeled the same stock 'Antiques.'"
CUSTOMER—"What! Five hundred dollars for that antique? Why, I priced it last week and you said three hundred and fifty."
DEALER—"Yes, I know; but the cost of labor and materials has gone up so!"
AD WRITER—"When do you want me to prepare that copy for the sale of antiques you have been planning?"
BOSS—"We'll have to hold back on those awhile. The wormhole borers are on strike in Grand Rapids."
APARTMENTS
MR. LONGSUFFER—"Say, janitor, it's down to zero in my flat."
JANITOR—"Down to zero, is it? That's nothing."
Necessarily So
"I wonder if they take children in these apartments."
"They must. Some of the rooms aren't big enough for a grown person."
"How do the Joneses seem to like their little two-room kitchenette apartment?"
"Oh, they have no room for complaint!"—Judge.
APPEARANCES
A man's appearance indicates how his business is prospering, and his wife's appearance shows how much he is spending.
In civilized society external advantages make us more respected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one. You may analyze this and say, what is there in it? But that will avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system.—Johnson.
A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.—Shenstone.
Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.—Chesterfield.
In all professions every one affects a particular look and exterior, in order to appear what he wishes to be thought; so that it may be said the world's made up of appearances.—La Rochefoucauld.
APPETITE
"Josh," said Farmer Corntossel to his son, "I wish, if you don't mind, you'd eat off to yourself instead of with the summer boarders."
"Isn't my society good enough for them?"
"Your society is fine. But your appetite sets a terrible example."
TEACHER—"You remember the story of Daniel in the lion's den, Robbie?"
ROBBIE—"Yes, ma'am."
TEACHER—"What lesson do we learn from it?"
ROBBIE—"That we shouldn't eat everything we see."
APPLAUSE
"You don't attach much importance to the applause an orator receives."
"Not much," admitted Senator Sorghum. "There is bound to be applause. You can't expect an audience to sit still all evening and do absolutely nothing."
"The train pulled out before you had finished your speech."
"Yes," replied Senator Sorghum. "As I heard the shouts of the crowd fading in the distance I couldn't be sure whether they were applauding me or the engineer."
A slowness to applaud betrays a cold temper or an envious spirit.—Hannah More.
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.—Emerson.
ARITHMETIC
"Waiter," he suggested mildly, "I want three eggs, and boil them four minutes."
But the cook, having only one in the place, boiled it twelve minutes.
Which proves the value of higher mathematics.
SCHOOL-TEACHER (to little boy)—"If a farmer raises 3,700 bushels of wheat and sells it for $2.50 per bushel, what will he get?"
LITTLE BOY—"An automobile."
"Now, then, Johnny," said his teacher, "if your father gave you seven cents and your mother gave you six and your uncle gave you four more, what would you have?"
Johnny wrinkled up his forehead and went into silence for the space of several minutes.
"Come, come," said the teacher impatiently. "Surely you can solve a simple little problem like that."
"It ain't a simple problem at all," replied the boy. "I can't make up my mind whether I'd have an ice-cream soda or go to the movies."
In Missouri, where they raise more mules and children than in any other place in the world, a certain resident died possessed of seventeen mules and three sons. In his will he disposed of the mules as follows: One-half to the eldest son, one-third to the next, and one-ninth to the youngest.
The administrator who went to divide the property drove a span of mules out to the farm, but when he went to divide the seventeen into halves, thirds, and ninths he found it was impossible with live mules; mules not being very valuable, he unhitched one of his own, putting it with the other seventeen, making eighteen, when he proceeded to divide as follows: One-half, or nine to the eldest, one third, or six, to the next son, and one-ninth, or two, to the youngest. Adding up nine, six, two, he found that it made seventeen, so he hitched up his mule and went home rejoicing.—Ladies Home Journal.
"Now, Harold," said the teacher, "if there were eleven sheep in a field and six jumped the fence how many would there be left?"
"None," replied Harold.
"Why, but there would," said she.
"No, ma'am, there wouldn't," persisted he. "You may know arithmetic, but you don't know sheep."
One day, as Pat halted at the top of the river-bank, a man famous for his inquisitive mind stopped and asked:
"How long have you hauled water for the village, my good man?"
"Tin years, sor."
"Ah, how many loads do you take in a day?"
"From tin to fifteen, sor."
"Ah, yes! Now I have a problem for you. How much water at this rate have you hauled in all?"
The driver of the watering-cart jerked his thumb backward toward the river and replied:
"All the water yez don't see there now, sor."
ARMIES