Best Short Stories by Various - HTML preview

Pat walked into the post-office. After getting into the telephone-box he called a wrong number. As there was no such number, the switch-attendant did not answer him. Pat shouted again, but received no answer.

The lady of the post-office opened the door and told him to shout a little louder, which he did, but still no answer.

 

Again she said he would have to speak louder. Pat got angry at this, and, turning to the lady, said:

 

"Begorra, if I could shout any louder I wouldn't use your bloomin' ould telephone at all!"

 

EFFECTIVE

 

Some people are always optimists:

 

"Beanborough," said a friend of that gentleman, "always looks on the bright side of things."

 

"Why?"

"Well, the other day I went with him to buy a pair of shoes. He didn't try them on at the store, and when he got home he found that a nail was sticking right up through the heel of one."

"Did he take them back?"

 

"Not much. He said that he supposed the nail was put there intentionally to keep the foot from sliding forward in the shoe."

 

GERMAN ARITHMETIC

 

1 German equals 10 unkultured foreigners.

 

2 soldiers equal 10 civilians. 3 officers equal 12 privates.

 

4 treaties equal 8 scraps of paper.

 

5 poisoned wells equal 1 strategic retreat.

 

6 iron crosses equal 1 ruined cathedral.

 

7 Zeppelin raids equal 7 demonstrations of frightfulness.

 

8 eggs equal 8 hearty meals (common people).

 

9 eggs equal 1 appetizer (aristocracy).

 

10 deported Belgians equal 10 unmarked graves.

 

11 torpedoed neutrals equal 11 disavowals.

 

12 Gotts equal 1 Kaiser.

 

A DIFFICULT PASSAGE

 

"I thought you were preaching, Uncle Bob," said the Colonel, to whom the elderly Negro had applied for a job.

"Yessah, Ah wuz," replied Uncle; "but Ah guess Ah ain't smaht enough to expound de Scriptures. Ah almost stahved to deff tryin' to explain de true meanin' uv de line what says 'De Gospel am free,' Dem fool niggahs thought dat it meant dat Ah wuzn't to git no salary."

WHERE VERMONT SCORED

A gentleman from Vermont was traveling west in a Pullman when a group of men from Topeka, Kansas, boarded the train and began to praise their city to the Vermonter, telling him of the wide streets and beautiful avenues. Finally the Vermonter became tired and said the only thing that would improve their city would be to make it a seaport.

The enthusiastic Westerners laughed at him and asked how they could make it a seaport being so far from the ocean.

 

The Vermonter replied that it would be a very easy task.

"The only thing that you will have to do," said he, "is to lay a two-inch pipe from your city to the Gulf of Mexico. Then if you fellows can suck as hard as you can blow you will have it a seaport inside half an hour."
DOING UNTO HIS NEIGHBOR

"Hey, kid!" yelled the game warden, appearing suddenly above the young fisherman. "You are fishing for trout. Don't you know they ain't in season?"

 

"Sure," replied the youth, "but when it's the season for trout they ain't around, and when it ain't the season there's lots of 'em. If the fish ain't a-goin' to obey the rules, I ain't neither."

 

THE LIMIT

He was a very small boy. Paddy was his dog, and Paddy was nearer to his heart than anything on earth. When Paddy met swift and hideous death on the turnpike road his mother trembled to break the news. But it had to be, and when he came home from school she told him simply:

"Paddy has been run over and killed."

He took it very quietly; finished his dinner with appetite and spirits unimpaired. All day it was the same. But five minutes after he had gone up to bed there echoed through the house a shrill and sudden lamentation. His mother rushed upstairs with solicitude and sympathy.

"Nurse says," he sobbed, "that Paddy has been run over and killed."

 

"But, dear, I told you that at dinner, and you didn't seem to trouble at all."

 

"No; but--but I didn't know you said Paddy. I--I thought you said daddy!"

 

NO TELLING

 

A rather patronizing individual from town was observing with considerable interest the operations of a farmer with whom he had put up for a while.

 

As he watched the old man sow the seed in his field the man from the city called out facetiously:

 

"Well done, old chap. You sow; I reap the fruits."

 

Whereupon the farmer grinned and replied:

 

"Maybe you will. I am sowing hemp."

A RECORD BREAKER Along the Fox River, a few miles above Wedron, Ill., an old-timer named Andy Haskins has a shack, and he has made most of the record fish catches in that vicinity during forty years. He has a big record book containing dates and weights to impress visitors.

Last summer a young married couple from Chicago camped in a luxurious lodge three miles above old Haskins's place. A baby was born at the lodge, and the only scales the father could obtain on which to weigh the child was that with which Andy Haskins had weighed all the big fish he had caught in ten years.

The baby tipped the scales at thirty-five pounds!

 

EVIDENCE

 

Circumstantial evidence is not always conclusive. But certain kinds of it cannot be disputed. In the following colloquy the policeman appears to have the best of it.

 

"Not guilty, sir," replied the prisoner.

 

"Where did you find the prisoner?" asked the magistrate.

 

"In Trafalgar Square, sir," was the Bobby's reply.

 

"And what made you think he was intoxicated?"

 

"Well, sir, he was throwing his walking-stick into the basin of one of the fountains and trying to entice one of the stone lions to go and fetch it out again."

 

A FUTURE STATESMAN

All the talk of hyphenated citizenship has evidently had its effect upon a San Francisco youngster, American born, who recently rebelled fiercely when his Italian father whipped him for some misdemeanor.

"But, Tomaso," said one of the family, "your father has a right to whip you when you are bad."

 

Tomaso's eyes flashed. "I am a citizen of the United States," he declared. "Do you think that I am going to let any foreigner lick me?"

 

SMARTY!

William Dean Howells, at a dinner in Boston, said of modern American letters: "The average popular novel shows, on the novelist's part, an ignorance of his trade, which reminds me of a New England clerk. In a New England village I entered the main-street department store one afternoon and said to the clerk at the book counter: 'Let me have, please, the "Letters of Charles Lamb".' 'Post-office right across the street, Mr. Lamb,' said the clerk, with a polite, brisk smile"

HOW TO TELL A WELL-BRED DOG

 

If he defies all the laws of natural beauty and symmetry,

 

If he has a disease calling for specialists,

 

If he cannot eat anything but Russian caviar and broiled sweetbreads,

 

If he costs more than a six-cylinder roadster,

 

If he must be bathed in rose water and fed out of a cutglass bowl,

 

If he cannot be touched by the naked hand, or patted more than twice a day,

 

If he refuses to wear anything but imported leather collars,

 

If he has to sleep on a silk cushion.

 

If he dies before you can get him home.

 

Then he is a well-bred dog.

 

TRY IT AND SEE

A few years ago, while watching a parade in Boston in which the Stars and Stripes were conspicuous, a fair foreigner with strong anti-American proclivities turned to a companion, and commenting on the display, pettishly remarked:

"That American flag makes me sick. It looks just like a piece of checkerberry candy."

 

Senator Lodge, who was standing near by, overheard the remark, and turning to the young lady, said:

 

"Yes, miss, it does. And it makes everyone sick who tries to lick it."

 

WHAT HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Being well equipped physically, Michael Murphy had no difficulty in holding his job as village sexton, until the first interment, when he was asked to sign the certificate. "Oi can't write," said Mike, and was discharged.

Out of a job, Mike turned to contracting and in time became wealthy and a figure in his community. When he applied to the leading bank for a loan of fifty thousand dollars, he was assured that he could get it--and was asked to sign the necessary notes. Again he was obliged to reply: "Oi can't write."

The banker was astounded. "And you have accumulated all this wealth and position without knowing how to write!" he exclaimed. "What would you have been to-day if you could write?"

Mike paused a moment, and answered:

 

"Oi would have been a sexton."

 

CONCLUSIVE

 

Two Irishmen were working on the roof of a building one day when one made a mis-step and fell to the ground; the other leaned over and called: "Are ye dead or alive, Mike?"

 

"I'm alive," said Mike, feebly.

 

"Sure, yer such a liar I don't know whether to believe ye or not."

 

"Well, then, I must be dead," said Mike, "for ye would never dare to call me a liar if I were alive."

 

WHY NOT?

They were a very saving old couple, and as a result they had a beautifully furnished house. One day the old woman missed her husband. "Joseph, where are you?" she called out.

"I'm resting in the parlor," came the reply.

 

"What, on the sofy?" cried the old woman, horrified.

 

"No, on the floor."

 

"Not on that grand carpet!" came in tones of anguish.

 

"No; I've rolled it up!"

 

HOW COULD HE KNOW?

The youth seated himself in the dentist's chair. He wore a wonderful striped shirt and a more wonderful checked suit and had the vacant stare of "nobody home" that goes with both.

The dentist looked at his assistant. "I am afraid to give him gas," he said. "Why?" asked the assistant.

 

"Well," said the dentist, "how can I tell when he's unconscious?"

 

IN ADVANCE

In a rural court the old squire had made a ruling so unfair that three young lawyers at once protested against such a miscarriage of justice. The squire immediately fined each of the lawyers five dollars for contempt of court.

There was silence, and then an older lawyer walked slowly to the front of the room and deposited a ten-dollar bill with the clerk. He then addressed the judge as follows:

 

"Your honor, I wish to state that I have twice as much contempt for this court as any man in the room."

 

NO FREE ADVERTISING

 

A violinist was bitterly disappointed with the account of his recital printed in the paper of a small town.

"I told your man three or four times," complained the musician to the owner of the paper, "that the instrument I used was a genuine Stradivarius, and in his story there was not a word about it, not a word."

Whereupon the owner said with a laugh: "That is as it should be. When Mr. Stradivarius gets his fiddles advertised in my paper under ten cents a line, you come around and let me know."

WHY NOT?

 

Jimmie giggled when the teacher read the story of the man who swam across the Tiber three times before breakfast.

 

"You do not doubt that a trained swimmer could do that, do you?"

 

"No, sir," answered Jimmie, "but I wonder why he did not make it four and get back to the side where his clothes were."

 

THE SAME OLD HOURS

 

She was a widow who was trying to get in touch with her deceased husband.

The medium, after a good deal of futile work, said to her: "The conditions this evening seem unfavorable. I can't seem to establish communication with Mr. Smith, ma'am."

"Well, I'm not surprised," said the widow, with a glance at the clock. "It's only half-past eight now, and John never did show up till about three A.M."

 

WHY NOT?

 

Private Jones was summoned to appear before his captain.

 

"Jones," said the officer, frowning darkly, "this gentleman complains that you have killed his dog."

 

"A dastardly trick," interrupted the owner of the dog, "to kill a defenseless animal that would harm no one!"

 

"Not much defenseless about him," chimed in the private, heatedly. "He bit pretty freely into my leg, so I ran my bayonet into him."

 

"Nonsense!" answered the owner angrily. "He was a docile creature. Why did you not defend yourself with the butt of your rifle?"

 

"Why didn't he bite me with his tail?" asked Private Jones, with spirit.

 

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING

 

Dr. Harvey Wiley tells the following story: Sleepily, after a night off, a certain interne hastened to his hospital ward. The first patient was a stout old Irishman.

 

"How goes it?" he inquired.

 

"Faith, it'sh me breathin', doctor. I can't get me breath at all, at all."

 

"Why, your pulse is normal. Let me examine the lung-action," replied the doctor, kneeling beside the cot and laying his head on the ample chest.

 

"Now, let's hear you talk," he continued, closing his eyes and listening.

 

"What'll Oi be sayin', doctor?"

 

"Oh, say anything. Count one, two, three, and up," murmured the interne, drowsily.

"Wan, two, three, four, five, six," began the patient. When the young doctor, with a start, opened his eyes, he was counting huskily: "Tin hundred an' sixty-nine, tin hundred an' sivinty, tin hundred an' sivinty-wan."
THE MAN HE LEFT BEHIND

An English storekeeper went to the war and left his clerk behind to look after things. When he was wounded and taken to the hospital, what was his surprise to find his clerk in the cot next to him.

"Well, I thought I left you to take care of the store," said the storekeeper.

"You did," answered the clerk, "But you didn't tell me I had to look after your women folks as well as the store. I stood it as long as I could and then I said to myself: 'Look here, if you've got to fight, you might as well go and fight someone that you can hit.'"

SOME SPEED

It was a dull day in the trenches, and a bunch of Tommies had gathered and were discussing events. After a while the talk turned on a big Boche who had been captured the night before.

"He was scared stiff," said one Tommy.

 

"Did he run?" asked another.

 

"Run?" replied the first. "Why, if that Boche had had jest one feather in his hand he'd 'a' flew."

 

A DEEP-LAID PLAN

"Would you mind letting me off fifteen minutes early after this, sir?" asked the bookkeeper. "You see, I've moved into the suburbs and I can't catch my train unless I leave at a quarter before five o'clock."

"I suppose I'll have to," grumbled the boss; "but you should have thought of that before you moved."

 

"I did," confided the bookkeeper to the stenographer a little later, "and that's the reason I moved."

 

ONLY ONE THING FOR HIM

A three-hundred-pound man stood gazing longingly at the nice things displayed in a haberdasher's window for a marked-down sale. A friend stopped to inquire if he was thinking of buying shirts or pyjamas.

"Gosh, no!" replied the fat man wistfully. "The only thing that fits me ready-made is a handkerchief."

 

A TEST OF FRIENDSHIP

Andy Foster, a well-known character in his native city, had recently shuffled off this mortal soil in destitute circumstances, although in his earlier days he enjoyed financial prosperity.

A prominent merchant, an old friend of the family, attended the funeral and was visibly affected as he gazed for the last time on his old friend and associate.

The mourners were conspicuously few in number and some attention was attracted by the sorrowing merchant. "The old gentleman was very dear to you?" ventured one of the bearers after the funeral was over.

"Indeed, he was," answered the mourner. "Andy was one true friend. He never asked me to lend him a cent, though I knew that he was practically starving to death."

 

BLISSFUL IGNORANCE

It was during the nerve-racking period of waiting for the signal to go over the top that a seasoned old sergeant noticed a young soldier fresh from home visibly affected by the nearness of the coming fight. His face was pale, his teeth chattering, and his knees tried to touch each other. It was sheer nervousness, but the sergeant thought it was sheer funk.

"Tompkins," he whispered, "is it trembling you are for your dirty skin?"

 

"No, no, sergeant," said he, making a brave attempt to still his limbs. "I'm trembling for the Germans; they don't know I'm here."

 

GRATEFUL TO THE DOCTOR

 

A Chinaman was asked if there were good doctors in China.

 

"Good doctors!" he exclaimed. "China have best doctors in world. Hang Chang one good doctor; he great; save life, to me."

 

"You don't say so! How was that?"

"Me velly bad," he said. "Me callee Doctor Han Kon. Give some medicine. Get velly, velly ill. Me callee Doctor San Sing. Give more medicine. Me glow worse--go die. Blimebly callee Doctor Hang Chang. He got no time; no come. Save life."

HE MIGHT BE, BUT SHE WASN'T

Dinah had been troubled with a toothache for some time before she got up enough courage to go to a dentist. The moment he touched her tooth she screamed. "What are you making such a noise for?" he demanded. "Don't you know I'm a 'painless dentist'?"

"Well, sah," retorted Dinah, "mebbe yo' is painless, but Ah isn't."

 

A SPORTING PROPOSITION

 

An Arkansas man who intended to take up a homestead claim in a neighboring state sought information in the matter from a friend.

"I don't remember the exact wording of the law," said the latter, "but I can give ye the meanin' of it all right. It's like this: The government of the United States is willin' to bet one hundred and sixty acres of land against fourteen dollars that ye can't live on it five years without starvin' to death."

THE PROPOSAL

He was a morbid youth and a nervous lover. Often had he wished to tell the maiden how he longed to make her all his own. Again and again had his nerve failed him. But to-night there was a "do-or-die" look in his eye.

They started for their usual walk, and rested awhile upon his favorite seat--a gravestone in the village churchyard. A happy inspiration seized him. "Maria," he said in trembling accents--"Maria! When you die--how should you like to be buried here with my name on the stone over you?"

KNEW MORE ABOUT HENS THAN HISTORY

After reading the famous poem, "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," to the class, the teacher said: "As a drawing exercise suppose you each draw, according to your imagination, a picture of Plymouth Rock."

All but one little fellow set to work. He paused and finally raised his hand.

 

"What is it, Edgar?" the teacher asked.

 

"Please, ma'am," Edgar piped out, "do you want us to draw a hen or a rooster?"

 

CHARITY

 

Bishop Penhurst was talking, in Boston, about charity.

"Some charities," he said, "remind me of the cold, proud, beautiful lady who, glittering with diamonds, swept forth from a charity ball at dawn, crossed the frosty sidewalk, and entered her huge limousine.
"A beggar woman whined at the window:

"'Could ye give me a trifle for a cup of coffee, lady?'

 

"The lady looked at the beggar reproachfully.

 

"'Good gracious!' she said. 'Here you have the nerve to ask me for money when I've been tangoing for you the whole night through! Home, James.'

 

"And she snapped the window shut in the beggar's face indignantly."

 

ADVICE TO MABEL

A London man just back from the States says that a little girl on the train to Pittsburgh was chewing gum. Not only that, but she insisted on pulling it out in long strings and letting it fall back into her mouth again.

"Mabel!" said her mother in a horrified whisper. "Mabel, don't do that. Chew your gum like a little lady."

 

NOT A NATIVE

 

A New York man took a run not long ago into Connecticut, to a town where he had lived as a boy.

On his native heath he accosted a venerable old chap of some eighty years, who proved to be the very person the Gothamite sought to answer certain inquiries concerning the place. As the conversation proceeded the New Yorker said:

"I suppose you have always lived around here?"

 

"No," said the old man, "I was born two good miles from here."

 

HE GOT IT TWICE

 

They were twins. It was bathing time and from the twins' bedroom came sounds of hearty laughter and loud crying. Their father went up to find the cause.

 

"What's the matter up here?" he inquired.

 

The laughing twin pointed to his weeping brother. "Nothing," he giggled, "only nurse has given Alexander two baths and hasn't given me any at all."

TOO MUCH One of the Scottish golf clubs gives a dinner each year to the youngsters it employs as caddies. At the feast last year one of the boys disdained to use any of the forks he found at his place, and loaded his food into himself with his knife. When the ice-cream course was reached and he still used his knife, a boy who sat opposite to him, and who could stand it no longer, shouted:

"Great Scot! Look at Skinny, usin' his iron all the way round!"

 

THE DIGNITIES OF OFFICE

This story--which is perhaps true and perhaps not--is being told in many Italian messrooms. On one of his royal tours, King Victor Emmanuel spent the night in a small country town, where the people showed themselves unusually eager in caring for his comfort. So when he had gone to bed, he was surprised to be wakened by a servant who wanted to put clean sheets on his bed. However, he waited good-naturedly while it was done, and wished the servant good-night. He had dozed off to sleep, when he was roused for the second time by a rap on the door; and the servant reappeared, asking to change the sheets again.

Naturally, the King asked why the change was made so often. The servant answered reverently, "For oneself, one changes the sheets every week; for an honored friend, every day; but for a king, every hour."

FAME

 

A Long Island teacher was recounting the story of Red Riding Hood. After describing the woods and the wild animals that flourished therein, she added:

 

"Suddenly Red Riding Hood heard a great noise. She turned about, and what do you suppose she saw standing there, gazing at her and showing all its sharp, white teeth?"

 

"Teddy Roosevelt!" volunteered one of the boys.

 

NO PEACE FOR HIM

 

Willie was out walking with his mother, when she thought she saw a boy on the other side of the street making faces at her darling.

 

"Willie," asked mother, "is that horrid boy making faces at you?"

 

"He is," replied Willie, giving his coat a tug. "Now, mother, don't start any peace talk-you just hold my coat for about five minutes."

BOILED Not long ago the editor of an English paper ordered a story of a certain length, but when the story arrived he discovered that the author had written several hundred words too many.

The paper was already late in going to press so there was no alternative--the story must be condensed to fit the allotted space. Therefore the last few paragraphs were cut down to a single sentence. It read thus:

"The Earl took a Scotch high-ball, his hat, his departure, no notice of his pursuers, a revolver out of his hip pocket, and finally, his life."

 

FORCED INTO IT

 

Even the excessive politeness of some men may be explained on purely practical grounds. Of a certain suburbanite, a friend said:

 

"I heard him speaking most beautifully of his wife to another lady on the train just now. Rather unusual in a man these days."