Best Short Stories by Various
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"Oh, yes," answered the conductor.
"But suppose," suggested the thirsty passenger, "that the train should
go on without me?"
"We can easily fix that," promptly replied the conductor. "I will go
along and have one with you."
DESERVED THE LEGACY
A Turkish story runs that, dying, a pious man bequeathed a fortune to
his son, charging him to give L100 to the meanest man he could find.
A certain cadi filled the bill. Accordingly the dutiful son offered him
L100.
"But I can't take your L100," said the cadi. "I never knew your father.
There was no reason why he should leave me the money."
"It's yours, all right," persisted the mourning youth.
"I might take it in a fictitious transaction," said the cadi, relenting.
"Suppose--I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll sell you all that snow in the
courtyard for L100."
The young man agreed, willing to be quit of his trust on any terms. Next
day he was arrested, taken before the cadi, and ordered to remove his
snow at once. As this was a command the young man was utterly unable to
execute, he was fined L20 by the cadi for contumacy.
"At least," the young man said ruefully as he left the court, "father's
L100 went to the right man."
IMPROVEMENT
If you are going to be too fussy about your own particular brand of
beauty then you must expect to reap the consequences.
An actor visited a beauty doctor to see if he could have something done
for his nose. The beauty doctor studied the organ, and suggested a
complicated straightening and remoulding process--cost, twenty guineas.
"I may go you," said the actor thoughtfully. He stroked his nose before
the mirror, regarding it from all sides. "Yes, I think I'll go you. But,
look here, do you promise to give my nose--er--ideal beauty?"
The surgeon grew meditative.
"As to ideal beauty, I can't say," he replied at last. "Why, my friend I
couldn't help improving it a lot if I hit it with a hammer."
WHY SHOULD HE KNOW?
We cannot all of us be truly literary. Most of us lead busy lives and,
after all, is it of any real importance to be familiar with the world's
greatest writers? No doubt this may all depend upon our occupation, as
the following conversation reveals.
The slight man with the bulging brow leaned forward and addressed the
complacent looking individual with a look of almost human intelligence.
It was a monotonous railway journey.
"Wonderful transportation facilities to-day, sir," he ventured. "As we
have been bowling along, my mind has unconsciously been dwelling on
Jane Austen. Think of it, sir, only one hundred years ago and no
railroads. Have we really lost or gained? Marvelous girl, that, sir.
Masterpiece of literature when she was twenty-one, and no background but
an untidy English village. You've heard of Jane Austen, I presume?"
"Can't say I have."
The slight man smiled sympathetically.
"I get a great deal of pleasure from books," he went on. "Bachelor.
Marvelous solace. May know Wordsworth's famous lines, eh? 'Books we know
are a substantial world,' etc. Perhaps you have read something of Thomas
Love Peacock?"
"Never heard of him."
"Ah! Missed a great deal. Wonderful satirist, that. But still, I must
admit that neither he nor Miss Austen are common. Now there's Mark
Twain--for general reading, rain or shine, can't be beaten. American to
the core, sir. Smacks of the soil. Perhaps he missed any warm love
interest--but a delightful humorist, sir. You read him regularly, I
presume?"
"Can't say I do."
"Of course, sir, books are not all. I agree with our old friend,
Montaigne, about that. By the way, which do you prefer, Dickens or
Thackeray?"
"Can't say, sir. They're strangers to me."
"Perhaps you've heard of a man named Walter Scott. As his name implies,
he was born in Scotland. He wrote books, you know--novels, stories.
Rather good, eh? Human interest--wholesome reading--and all that sort of
thing."
"Don't recall him."
The slight man rose up in his seat. He bore down hard upon the stranger.
"Possibly," he suggested, "in the course of your deep and intimate
intercourse with men and affairs, you may recall the name of an
individual named Shakespeare."
"Yes, I think I remember."
"How about Macaulay, the greatest essayist in England, and Homer, the
prince of ancient poets, with seven birthplaces? Then there's Emerson
and Longfellow and Goethe and--"
He paused and grabbed the other man by the collar.
"My friend," he said, "you don't seem interested in the world's greatest
authors. May I inquire what your occupation in life is?"
The other man nodded gravely, even austerely.
"Certainly, sir," he replied. "I'm a holiday salesman in Buncum's
Department Store Book Shop."
ONE ON HIM
The code of manners enjoyed by the Germans needs scarcely any further
illumination, but the following incident may serve as further light upon
this threadbare subject.
A physician boarded a crowded crosstown car. A woman was standing, and a
big German seated, sprawling over twice the space necessary. Indignantly
the doctor said to him:
"See here! Why don't you move a little so that this tired woman may have
a seat?"
For a moment the German looked dazed. Then a broad smile spread over his
countenance as he answered:
"Say, dot's a joke on you, all right! Dot's my vife!"
REVEALED
In view of the spirit of comradeship shown between officers and men,
this story is at least open to question, but it may have happened in
some former war.
The lieutenant was instructing the squad in visional training.
"Tell me, Number One," he said, "how many men are there in that
trench-digging party over there?"
"Thirty men and one officer," was the prompt reply.
"Quite right," observed the lieutenant, after a pause. "But how do you
know one is an officer at this distance?"
"'Cos he's the only one not working, sir."
DIAGNOSING HIMSELF
The officer of the day, during his tour of duty, paused to question a
sentry who was a new recruit.
"If you should see an armed party approaching, what would you do?" asked
the officer.
"Turn out the guard, sir."
"Very well. Suppose you saw a battleship coming across the
parade-ground, what would you do?"
"Report to the hospital for examination, sir," was the prompt reply.
IN OUR MELTING POT
During a political campaign in New York a Tammany leader on the East
Side, a self-made man and one not entirely completed yet in some
respects, was addressing a mass meeting of Italian-born voters on
behalf of the Democratic ticket.
"Gintlemen and fellow citizens," he began, "I deem it an honor to be
permitted to address you upon the issues of the day. I have always had a
deep admiration for your native land. I vinerate the mimory of that
great, that noble Eyetalian who was the original and first discoverer of
this here land of ours.
"Why, gintlemen, at me mother's knee I was taught to sing that inspirin'
song: 'Columbus, the Jim of the Ocean'!"
Whereupon there was loud applause.
GIVE HIM TIME
Mr. Johnsing had an enthusiastic admirer in Little Eph Jones.
"Yes, suh," he concluded one of his eulogies, "Mistuh Johnsing is the
biggest man what evuh was."
"Bigger than General Grant?" queried the white man to whom he was
talking.
"Suttinly Mistuh Johnsing is a bigguh man than General Grant," affirmed
Eph.
"Bigger than President Wilson?"
"Of co'se he's bigguh than President Wilson."
"Bigger than God?"
"Well--well--" stammered Eph. "You see, Mistuh Johnsing's young yet."
A BAY STATE SOLOMON
Unfortunately we've mislaid the judge's name, but his court room is in
New Bedford, Mass. Before him appeared a defendant who, hoping for
leniency, pleaded, "Judge, I'm down and out."
Whereupon said the wise judge: "You're down but you're not out. Six
months."
IN MEMORIAM
Availing herself of her ecclesiastical privileges, the clergyman's wife
asked questions which, coming from anybody else, would have been thought
impertinent.
"I presume you carry a memento of some kind in that locket you wear?"
she said.
"Yes, ma'am," said the parishioner. "It is a lock of my husband's hair."
"But your husband is still alive!" the lady exclaimed.
"Yes, ma'am, but his hair is gone."
A DISADVANTAGE
The Germans will be immensely hated after this war. They will be the
pariahs of the future.
Already we see signs of German hatred everywhere. At a reception the
other night in a neutral city, the guest of honor said to a man who had
just been presented to her:
"You are a foreigner, are you not? Where do you come from?"
"From Berlin, ma'am," he answered.
The lady stared at him through her lorgnette.
"Dear me!" she said. "Couldn't you go back and come from somewhere
else?"
THE LIFE
They were two sweet young American girls, able, beautiful, versatile,
patriotic to the core, rushed to death. And one of them said
breathlessly:
"What have you been doing?"
And the other one as breathlessly replied:
"Doing! My dear, I hate to tell you. I got up at six. I drove a car
forty miles to camp. I knitted a sweater and a pair of socks in between.
I went to a Red Cross meeting. I acted as bridesmaid. I read a book on
the war. I took a last lesson in first aid. I canned eighty cans of
vegetables and, oh--!"
"Do tell me!"
"Why, will you believe me, I have been so busy all day that I almost
forgot to get married!"
WELCOMING THE ACTOR
A well-known society performer volunteered to entertain a roomful of
patients of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, and made up a very
successful little monologue show, entirely humorous. The audience in the
main gave symptoms of being slightly bored, but one highly intelligent
maniac saw the whole thing in the proper light, and, clapping the
talented actor on the shoulder, said: "Glad you've come, old fellow. You
and I will get along fine. The other dippies here are so dashed
dignified. What I say is if a man is mad, he needn't put on airs about
it."
COULDN'T BE BOTHERED
Mose approached the registration booth hesitatingly, and being accosted
by the official in charge, assured that dignitary that he had just
walked ten miles to register.
"Well, Mose, what branch of the service would you like to be placed
in?" inquired the official.
"How about the cavalry?"
"What will Ah have ter do in de calvary?"
"Oh, you won't have to do anything but ride a horse all the time."
Mose scratched his woolly noggin in perplexity for a few moments, and
finally said: "Nawssur, Ah don't believe Ah wants ter jine the calvary."
"What's the matter with the cavalry, Mose?"
"Well, yer see, boss, hit's jest like dis: When y'awl blow dem bugles
ter retreet, Ah don't want ter be troubled wid no hoss."
THEIR "BIT"
Jimmie, very proud of his first job and weekly salary of $6.83,
purchased a Liberty Bond on the installment plan. That evening he saw in
the newspaper that John D. Rockefeller had invested in Liberty Bonds to
the extent of $10,000,000.
Turning to his mother, Jimmie said proudly, "Well, ma, two of us
Americans have done our duty, anyhow."
MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN
A woman doctor of Philadelphia was calling on a young sister, recently
married, who was in distress. In response to the doctor's inquiry the
newly-wed said:
"I cooked a meal for the first time yesterday, and I made an awful mess
of it."
"Never mind, dearie," said the doctor, cheerfully; "it's nothing to
worry about. I lost my first patient."
DANGER SIGNALS
An ingenious American has invented a device to prevent such motoring
accidents as arise from over-speeding. He describes his contrivance as
follows:
"While the car is running fifteen miles an hour a white bulb shows on
the radiator, at twenty-five miles a green bulb appears, at forty a red
bulb, and, when the driver begins to bat 'em out around sixty per, a
music-box under the seat begins to play 'Nearer, My God, to Thee.'"
VULNERABLE
A visiting minister, preaching in a town famous for its horse races,
vigorously denounced the sport. The principal patron of the church
always attended the races, and of this the clergyman was later informed.
"I am afraid I touched one of your weaknesses," said the pastor, not
wishing to offend the wealthy one, "but it was quite unintentional, I
assure you."
"Oh, don't mind that," said the sportsman genially. "It's a mighty poor
sermon that don't hit me somewhere."
MISLEADING
Johnson, a bachelor, had been to call on his sister, and was shown the
new baby. The next day some friends asked him to describe the new
arrival. The bachelor replied: "Um--very small features, clean shaven,
red faced, and a very hard drinker!"
A SOFT ANSWER
The ocean liner was rolling like a chip, but as usual in such instances
one passenger was aggressively, disgustingly healthy.
"Sick, eh?" he remarked to a pale-green person who was leaning on the
rail.
The pale-green person regarded the healthy one with all the scorn he
could muster. "Sick nothing!" he snorted weakly. "I'm just hanging over
the front of the boat to see how the captain cranks it!"
BALLS
A young married couple who lived near a famous golf-course were
entertaining an elderly aunt from the depths of the country.
"Well, Aunt Mary, how did you spend this afternoon?" asked the hostess
on the first day.
"Oh, I enjoyed myself very much," replied Auntie with a beaming smile,
"I went for a walk across the fields. There seemed to be a great many
people about, and some of them shouted to me in a most eccentric manner,
but I just took no notice. And, by the way," she went on, "I found such
a number of curious little round white things. I brought them home to
ask you what they are."
JOE'S DIAGNOSIS
A colored man entered the general store of a small Ohio town and
complained to the storekeeper that a ham that he had purchased there a
few days before had proved not to be good.
"The ham is all right, Joe," insisted the storekeeper.
"No, it ain't, boss," insisted the other. "Dat ham's sure bad."
"How can that be," continued the storekeeper, "when it was cured only
last week?"
Joe reflected solemnly a moment, and then suggested:
"Maybe it's done had a relapse."
PURELY LITERARY
A celebrated author thus sketched out his daily programme to an
interviewer: Rise at 11; breakfast at 12; attention to mail; a few
afternoon calls; a ride in the park; dinner; the theatre, and then to
bed.
"But when do you do your literary work?" he was asked.
"Why, the next day, of course," was the reply.
TOO FORWARD
At a parade of a company of newly-called-up men the drill instructor's
face turned scarlet with rage as he slated a new recruit for his
awkwardness.
"Now, Rafferty," he roared, "you'll spoil the line with those feet. Draw
them back at once, man, and get them in line."
Rafferty's dignity was hurt.
"Plaze, sargint," he said, "they're not mine; they're Micky Doolan's in
the rear rank!"
OBEYING ORDERS
The manager of a big Australian sheep-ranch engaged a discharged sailor
to do farm work. He was put in charge of a large flock of sheep.
"Now, all you've got to do," explained the manager, "is to keep them on
the run."
A run is a large stretch of bushland enclosed by a fence, and sheep have
many ingenious methods of escaping from their own to neighboring runs
and so getting mixed up with other flocks.
At the end of a couple of hours the manager rode up again--the air was
thick with dust as though a thousand head of cattle had passed by.
At last he distinguished the form of his new shepherd--a collapsed heap
prone upon the ground. Surrounding him were the sheep, a pitiful,
huddled mass, bleating plaintively, with considerably more than a week's
condition lost.
"What the dickens have you been doing to those sheep?" shrieked the
almost frantic manager.
The ex-sailor managed to gasp out: "Well, sir, I've done my best. You
told me to keep them on the run, and so I hunted them up and down and
round--and now--I'm just dead beat myself."
TABLE OF COMPARISON
To instill into the mind of his son sound wisdom and business precepts
was Cohen senior's earnest endeavor. He taught his offspring much,
including the advantages of bankruptcy, failures, and fires. "Two
bankruptcies equal one failure, two failures equal one fire," etc. Then
Cohen junior looked up brightly.
"Fadder," he asked, "is marriage a failure?"
"Vell, my poy," was the parent's reply, "if you marry a really wealthy
woman, marriage is almost as good as a failure."
KNEW HIS JOB
It was Easter eve on leap year, and the dear young thing, who had been
receiving long but somewhat unsatisfactory visits from the very shy
young man, decided she might take a chance. Robert had brought her a
splendid Easter lily.
"I'll give you a kiss for that lily," she promised blushingly.
The exchange was duly, not to say happily, made. Robert started
hurriedly toward the door.
"Why, where are you going?" asked his girl in surprise.
"To the florist's for more Easter lilies!" he replied.
AN ANGLOMANIAC
"What are you studying now?" asked Mrs. Johnson.
"We have taken up the subject of molecules," answered her son.
"I hope you will be very attentive and practise constantly," said the
mother. "I tried to get your father to wear one, but he could not keep
it in his eye."
YANKEE FODDER
Senator Hoar used to tell with glee of a Southerner just home from New
England who said to his friend, "You know those little white round
beans?"
"Yes," replied the friend; "the kind we feed to our horses?"
"The very same. Well, do you know, sir, that in Boston the enlightened
citizens take those little white round beans, boil them for three or
four hours, mix them with molasses and I know not what other
ingredients, bake them, and then--what do you suppose they do with the
beans?"
"They--"
"They eat 'em, sir," interrupted the first Southerner impressively;
"bless me, sir, they eat 'em!"
ONE EXPLANATION
At the meeting of the Afro-American Debating Club the question of
capital punishment for murder occupied the attention of the orators for
the evening. One speaker had a great deal to say about the sanity of
persons who thus took the law into their own hands. The last speaker,
however, after a stirring harangue, concluded with great feeling: "Ah
disagrees wif capital punishment an' all dis heah talk 'bout sanity. Any
pusson 'at c'mits murdeh ain't in a sanitary condition."
REMORSE
"I got son in army," said a wrinkled old chief to United States Senator
Clapp during his recent visit to an Indian reservation in Minnesota.
"Fine," exclaimed the Senator. "You should be proud that he is fighting
for all of us."
"Who we fight?" the redskin continued.
"Why," the Senator replied, surprised. "We are fighting the Kaiser--you
know, the Germans."
"Hah," mourned the chief. "Too dam bad."
"Why bad?" protested Senator Clapp, getting primed for a lecture on
Teutonic kultur and its horrors.
"Too dam bad," repeated the old Indian. "Couple come through reservation
last week. I could killed um, easy as not. Too dam bad."
He wrapped his face in his blanket and refused to be comforted.
THE REAL CULPRIT
The Crown Prince had been so busy that he hadn't had time to get
together with his father and have a confidential chat. But one evening
when there was a lull in the 808-centimeter guns, they managed to get a
few moments off. The Crown Prince turned to his father and said:
"Dad, there is something I have been wanting to ask you for a long time.
Is Uncle George really responsible for this scrap?"
"No, my son."
"Well, did Cousin Nick have anything to do with it?"
"Not at all"
"Possibly you did?"
"No, sir."
"Then would you mind telling me who it was?"
The anointed one was silent for a moment. Then he turned to his son and
said:
"I'll tell you how it happened. About two or three years ago there was a
wild man came over here from the United States, one of those rip-roaring
rough riders that you read about in dime novels, but he certainly did
have about him a plausible air. I took him out and showed him our fleet.
Then I showed him the army, and after he had looked them over he said to
me, 'Bill, you could lick the world,' And I was damn fool enough to
believe him."
A MATTER OF NOMENCLATURE
A Negro was recently brought into police court in a little town in
Georgia, charged with assault and battery. The Negro, who was well known
to the judge, was charged with having struck another "unbleached
American" with a brick. After the usual preliminaries the judge
inquired:
"Why did you hit this man?"
"Jedge, he called me a damn black rascal."
"Well, you are one, aren't you?"
"Yessah, I _is_ one. But, Jedge, s'pose somebody'd call you a damn black
rascal, wouldn't you hit 'em?"
"But I'm not one, am I?"
"Naw, sah, naw, sah, you ain't one; but s'pose somebody'd call you de
kind o' rascal you _is_, what'd you do?"
"IT IS FORBIDDEN"
Early in the war J.B. adopted a French soldier and furnishes him with a
monthly allowance of tobacco. Incidentally, he is also lubricating his
rusty French by carrying on a correspondence with his "_filleul de
guerre_" who writes him from the trenches, "somewhere in France."
In a recent letter, the soldier informed his American benefactor that
"_hier j'ai tue deux Boches. Ils sont alles a l'enfer._" (Yesterday I
killed two Boches. They went straight to hell.) The censor wrote between
the lines, "_Il est defendu de dire ou est l'ennemi._" (It is forbidden
to tell where the enemy is!)
HER PRAYER
A visitor to a Glasgow working woman whose son was at the front was
treated to a fluent harangue on the misdeeds of that "auld blackguard,"
the Kaiser. She ventured to suggest that we should love our enemies and
pray for them.
"Oh, but I pray for him, too."
"What do you say?"
"I say, 'Oh, Lord, deal wi' yon old blackguard, saften his heart, and
damp his powther.'"
CAUTIOUS MOURNER
Walking through the village street one day, the widowed Lady Bountiful
met old Farmer Stubbs on his way to market. Her greeting went unnoticed.
"Stubbs," said she, indignantly, "you might at least raise your hat to
me!"
"I beg your pardon, m'lady," was the reply, "but my poor wife ain't dead
moren' two weeks, and I ain't started lookin' at the wimmen yet!"
UNPREPARED BASE THREATENED
Tommy Tonkins was keen on baseball and particularly ambitious to make
his mark as a catcher. Any hint, however small, was welcomed if it
helped on his advance in his department of the game. When he began to
have trouble with his hands, and somebody suggested soaking them in salt
water to harden the skin, he quickly followed the advice.
Alas! a few days later Tommy had a misfortune. A long hit at the bottom
of the garden sent the ball crashing through a neighbor's sitting-room
window. It was the third Tommy had broken since the season began.
Mrs. Tonkins nearly wept in anger when Tommy broke the news.
"Yer father'll skin yer when 'e comes 'ome to-night," she said.
Poor Tommy, trembling, went outside to reflect. His thoughts traveled to
the strap hanging in the kitchen, and he eyed his hands ruefully.
"Ah!" he muttered, with a sigh. "I made a big mistake. I ought to 'ave
sat in that salt and water!"
INCONSIDERATE
A more kind-hearted and ingenuous soul never lived than Aunt Betsey, but
she was a poor housekeeper. On one occasion a neighbor who had run in
for a "back-door" call was horrified to see a mouse run across Aunt
Betsey's kitchen floor.
"Why on earth don't you set a trap, Betsey?" she asked.
"Well," replied Aunt Betsey. "I did have a trap set. But land, it was
such a fuss! Those mice kept getting into it!"
ANOTHER ENGAGEMENT
An Italian, having applied for citizenship, was being examined in the
naturalization court.
"Who is the President of the United States?"
"Mr. Wils'."
"Who is the Vice-President?"
"Mr. Marsh'."
"Could you be President?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Mister, you 'scuse, please. I vera busy worka da mine."
A HARD KNOCK
During the cross-examination of a young physician in a lawsuit, the
plaintiff's lawyer made disagreeable remarks about the witness's youth
and inexperience.
"You claim to be acquainted with the various symptoms attending
concussion of the brain?" asked the lawyer.
"I do."
"We will take a concrete case," continued the lawyer. "If my learned
friend, counsel for the defence, and myself were to bang our heads
together, would he get concussion of the brain?"
The young physician smiled. "The probabilities are," he replied, "that
the counsel for the defence would."
DURABLE
The admiration which Bob felt for his Aunt Margaret included all her
attributes.
"I don't care much for plain teeth like mine, Aunt Margaret," said Bob,
one day, after a long silence, during which he had watched her in
laughing conversation with his mother. "I wish I had some copper-toed
ones like yours."
ACCURACY
An American editor had a notice stuck up above his desk that read:
"Accuracy! Accuracy! Accuracy!" and this notice he always pointed out to
the new reporters.
One day the youngest member of the staff came in with his report of a
public meeting. The editor read it through, and came to the sentence:
"Three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine eyes were fixed upon the
speaker."
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