DIRT
We are more particular nowadays about cleanliness than were those of a past generation. Charles Lamb, during a whist game, remarked to his partner:
"Martin, if dirt were trumps, what a hand you'd have!"
The French aristocrats were not always conspicuously careful in their personal habits. A visitor to a Parisian grande dame remarked to her hostess:
"But how dirty your hands are."
The great lady regarded her hands doubtfully, as she replied:
"Oh, do you think so? Why, you ought to see my feet!"
DISCIPLINE
Jimmy found much to criticise in his small sister. He felt forced to remonstrate with his mother.
"Don't you want Jenny to be a good wife like you when she grows up?" he demanded. His mother nodded assent.
"Then you better get busy, ma. You make me give into her all the time 'cause I'm bigger 'en she is. You're smaller 'en pa, but when he comes in, you bring him his slippers, and hand him the paper." Jimmie yanked his go-cart from baby Jennie, and disregarded her wail of anger as he continued:
"Got to dis'pline her, or she'll make an awful wife!"
DISCRETION
The kindly and inquisitive old gentleman was interested in the messenger boy who sat on the steps of a house, and toyed delicately with a sandwich taken from its wrapper. With the top piece of bread carefully removed, the boy picked out and ate a few small pieces of the chicken. The puzzled observer questioned the lad:
"Now, sonny, why don't you eat your sandwich right down, instead of fussing with it like that?"
The answer was explicit:
"Dasn't! 'Tain't mine."
DIVORCE
The court was listening to the testimony of the wife who sought a divorce.
"Tell me explicitly," the judge directed the woman, "what fault you have to find with your husband."
And the wife was explicit:
"He is a liar, a brute, a thief and a brainless fool!"
"Tut, tut!" the judge remonstrated. "I suspect you would find difficulty in proving all your assertions."
"Prove it!" was the retort. "Why, everybody knows it."
"If you knew it," his honor demanded sarcastically, "why did you marry him?"
"I didn't know it before I married him."
The husband interrupted angrily:
"Yes, she did, too," he shouted. "She did so!"
DOCTORS
A victim of chronic bronchitis called on a well-known physician to be examined. The doctor, after careful questioning, assured the patient that the ailment would respond readily to treatment.
"You're so sure," the sufferer inquired, "I suppose you must have had a great deal of experience with this disease."
The physician smiled wisely, and answered in a most confidential manner:
"Why, my dear sir, I've had bronchitis myself for more than fifteen years."
A well-to-do colored man suffered a serious illness, and showed no signs of improvement under treatment by a physician of his own race. So, presently, he dismissed this doctor and summoned a white man. The new physician made a careful examination of the patient, and then asked:
"Did that other doctor take your temperature?"
The sick man shook his head doubtfully.
"I dunno, suh," he declared, "I sartinly dunno. All I've missed so far is my watch."
A member of the faculty in a London medical college was appointed an honorary physician to the king. He proudly wrote a notice, on the blackboard in his class-room:
"Professor Jennings informs his students that he has been appointed honorary physician to His Majesty, King George."
When he returned to the class-room in the afternoon he found written below his notice this line:
"God save the King."
The Chinaman expressed his gratitude to that mighty physician Sing Lee, as follows:
"Me velly sick man. Me get Doctor Yuan Sin. Takee him medicine. Velly more sick. Me get Doctor Hang Shi. Takee him medicine. Velly bad—think me go die. Me callee Doctor Kai Kon. Him busy—no can come. Me get well."
The instructor in the Medical College exhibited a diagram.
"The subject here limps," he explained, "because one leg is shorter than the other." He addressed one of the students:
"Now, Mr. Snead, what would you do in such a case?"
Young Snead pondered earnestly and replied with conviction:
"I fancy, sir, that I should limp, too."
The physician turned from the telephone to his wife:
"I must hurry to Mrs. Jones' boy—he's sick."
"Is it serious?"
"Yes. I don't know what's the matter with him, but she has a book on what to do before the doctor comes. So I must hurry. Whatever it is, she mustn't do it."
DOCTRINE
In a former generation, when elaborate doctrines were deemed more important by Christian clergymen than they are to-day, they were prone to apply every utterance of the Bible to the demonstration of their own particular tenets. For example, one distinguished minister announced his text and introduced his sermon as follows:
"'So, Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he did eat at the King's table, and he was lame on both his feet.'
"My brethren, we are here taught the doctrine of human depravity.—Mephibosheth was lame. Also the doctrine of total depravity—he was lame on both his feet. Also the doctrine of justification—for he dwelt in Jerusalem. Fourth, the doctrine of adoption—'he did eat at the King's table.' Fifth, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints—for we read that 'he did eat at the King's table continually.'"
DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
During the worst of the spy-scare period in London a man was brought into the police station, who declared indignantly that he was a well-known American citizen. But his captor denounced him as a German, and offered as proof the hotel register, which he had brought along. He pointed to the signature of the accused. It read:
"V. Gates."
DOGS
The tramp was sitting with his back to a hedge by the wayside, munching at some scraps wrapped in a newspaper. A lady, out walking with her pet Pomeranian, strolled past. The little dog ran to the tramp, and tried to muzzle the food. The tramp smiled expansively on the lady.
"Shall I throw the leetle dog a bit, mum?" he asked.
The lady was gratified by this appearance of kindly interest in her pet, and murmured an assent. The tramp caught the dog by the nape of the neck and tossed it over the hedge, remarking:
"And if he comes back, mum, I might throw him a bit more."
Many a great man has been given credit as originator of this cynical sentiment:
"The more I see of men, the more I respect dogs."
The fox terrier regarded with curious interest the knot tied in the