More Toasts
Chapter 20 : _As it is_ Weep and you are called a baby, Laugh and you are called a fool, Yield and y

_As it is_

Weep and you are called a baby, Laugh and you are called a fool, Yield and you're called a coward, Stand and you're called a mule, Smile and they'll call you silly, Frown and they'll call you gruff, Put on a front like a millionaire, And somebody calls you a bluff.

A successful old lawyer tells the following story anent the beginning of his professional life: "I had just installed myself in my office,"

he said, "had put in a phone and had preened myself for my first client who might come along when, through the gla.s.s of my door I saw a shadow. Yes, it was doubtless some one to see me. Picture me, then, grabbing the nice, s.h.i.+ny receiver of my new phone and plunging into an imaginary conversation. It ran something like this: 'Yes, Mr. S.,' I was saying as the stranger entered the office, 'I'll attend to that corporation matter for you. Mr. J. had me on the phone this morning and wanted me to settle a damage suit, but I had to put him off, as I was too busy with other cases. But I'll manage to sandwich your case in between the others somehow. Yes. Yes. All right. Goodby.' Being sure, then, that I had duly impressed my prospective client, I hung up the receiver and turned to him. 'Excuse me, sir,' the man said, 'but I'm from the telephone company. I've come to connect your instrument.'"

BOARD OF HEALTH

Strolling along the quays of New York harbor, an Irishman came across the wooden barricade which is placed around the inclosure where immigrants suspected of suffering from contagious diseases are isolated.

"Phwat's this fince for?" he inquired of a bystander.

"Oh," was the reply; "that's to keep out fever and things like that, you know."

"Indade!" said Pat. "Oi've often heard of the board of health, but bejabers, it's the first time Oi've seen it!"

BOARDING HOUSES

The fare at a certain boarding-house was very poor. A boarder who had been there for some time, because he could not get away, was standing in the hall when the landlord rang the dinner-bell. Whereupon an old dog that was lying outside on a rug commenced to howl mournfully.

The boarder watched him a little while and then said: "What on earth are you howling for? You don't have to eat it!"

In the soft firelight even the boarding-house sitting-room looked cozy and attractive. The warmth and comfort thawed the heart of the "star"

boarder. He turned to the landlady and murmured. "Will you be my wife?"

"Let me see," replied the landlady, "you have been here four years.

You have never once grumbled at the food or failed to pay my bill promptly and without question. No, sir, I'm sorry. You're too good a boarder to be put on the free list!"

BOASTING

The engineer had become tired of the boastful talk he heard from the other engine drivers at his boarding-house. One evening he began:

"This morning I went over to see a new machine we've got at our place, and it's astonis.h.i.+ng how it works."

"And how does it work?" asked one.

"Well," was the reply, "by means of a pedal attachment a fulcrumed lever concerts a vertical reciprocating motion into a circular movement. The princ.i.p.al part of the machine is a huge disk that revolves in a vertical plane. Power is applied through the axis of the disk, and work is done on the periphery, and the hardest steel by mere impact may be reduced to any shape."

"What is this wonderful machine?" was asked.

"A grindstone," was the reply.

Senator Tillman was arguing the tariff with an opponent.

"You know I never boast," the opponent began.

"Never boast? Splendid!" said Senator Tillman, and he added quietly, "No wonder you brag about it."

They are mighty proud of their one sky-sc.r.a.per up in Seattle.

It is a long, skinny building that stands on one leg like a stork and blinks down disdainfully from its thousand windows on ordinary fifteen-story shacks.

A San Francisco man recently in that city was incautious enough to express surprise.

"What are those posts sticking out all the way up?" he asked a Seattleite.

"Those are mile-posts," said the Seattle man.

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 its 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."

BOLSHEVISM

"The reason you disapprove of Bolshevism is that you don't understand it."

"Probably. Every time I get with Bolshevists and think I am beginning to understand, they start a riot and take my mind off the subject."

There's just one thing the Bolshevik in America can do well--he can dampen the fire under the Melting Pot!

Bolshevism--A blow-out on the tire of world-politics.