More Toasts
Chapter 193 : WILLIS--"Come with me. I've got two extras."GILLIS--"Who are they?

WILLIS--"Come with me. I've got two extras."

GILLIS--"Who are they?"

WILLIS--"Miss Oldbud and Miss Pa.s.se."

GILLIS--"They're not extras. They're early editions."

"I'm glad Billy had the sense to marry an old maid," said grandma at the wedding.

"Why, grandma?" asked the son.

"Well, gals is highty-tighty, and widders is kinder overrulin' and upsettin'. But old maids is thankful and willin' to please."

CHARLES--"Girls wish they were men."

HERBERT--"Why do you say that?"

"Because spinsters like to call themselves 'bachelor girls,' but no bachelor ever calls himself an 'old-maid man.'"

There is nothing like a good definition, as the teacher thought when he explained the meaning of "old maid," as a woman who had been made a long time.

STAMMERING

They were going home from school.

"Teacher said that that that that that girl used was superfluous."

"Here's the first pupil for my stammering school," said the business man as he introduced himself.

STAMPS

At the post-office a little girl deposited a dime in front of the clerk and said: "Please, I forgot the name of the stamp mama told me to get, but it's the kind that makes a letter hurry up."

STATISTICS

"If a man had put a hundred dollars in a savings bank twenty years ago," said the statistician after dinner, "it would amount to over two hundred now, and he could buy almost as much for it now as he could have got for the original hundred at the time he began to save."

STENOGRAPHERS

"How many stenographers have you?"

"Two."

"I've seen only one of them."

"Well, I've got a worse looking one to show my wife."

"I met your husband today and he was telling me that he is in love with his work."

"Was he, indeed? I must take a look in at the office."

_A Long-Merited Toast_

I used to toast the royal queens And queens of beauty rare; I drained my gla.s.s to lovely la.s.s And to her eyes and hair; But in these day of sober drinks There's one whose health to me Means vastly more than beauty or The blood of royalty:

Here's to my stenographer!

Long faithful to her duty.

She'd win no prize for vampish eyes; Her freckles mar her beauty.

Here's to her! Her specs! Her brain!

I pledge her health in water!

Cool, sober, staid, a precious maid; I love her--like a daughter!

She keeps my creditors at bay, Admitting only debtors; Collects the rent when she is sent, Or writes dry business letters; She always puts her fingers on The paper I require; Sums I can't add she's always glad To do, and doesn't tire.

Here's to her bonny, busy hands!

They never are erratic.

I hope that they will type away For years, nor grow rheumatic!

Here's to her modest salary!

(I'd blush if I should tell it!) But for her grit I'd have to quit My business--couldn't sell it.

_--Stanley R. Hofflund_.

A Chicago banker dictating a letter to his stenographer. "Tell Mr.

Soandso," he ordered, "that I will meet him in Schenectady."

"How do you spell Schenectady?" asked the stenographer.