34. JOKE ON A DUDE

[A good story for one who has some power of personation, for the dudes get little sympathy.]

A crowded car ran down the other evening. Within was a full-blown, eye-glassed, drab-gaitered dude, apparently satisfied that he was jammed in among an admiring community. On the rear platform a cheery young mechanic was twitting the conductor and occasionally making a remark to a fresh passenger. Everybody took it in good part as a case of inoffensive high spirits, all but the dude, who evinced a strong disgust.

When the young man called out to an old gentleman, "Sit out here, guvinor, on the back piazza," or to another, "Don't crowd there; stay where the breezes blow," the dude looked daggers, and at last, grabbing the conductor's elbow and indicating the young man by a nod of the head, evidently entered a protest. Every one saw it. So did the young man, and he gathered his wits together like a streak to finish that dude. He did it all with an imperturbable good humor and seriousness which would carry conviction to the most doubting.

"Well, I never!" he began, poking his head inside the doorway with an air of comic surprise. "Jes' to see you a-sitting there, dressed up like that. Catch on to them gaiters, will you? Ain't you got the nerve to go up and down Broadway fixed up like that, and your poor father and mother workin' hard at home? Ain't you 'shamed o' yourself, and your father a honest, hard-workin' driver, and your mother a decent, respectable washwoman? Y' ain't no good, or you wouldn't have gev up your place, and I think I'll go look after it myself and put a decent man in it."

He stepped off the car as if bent on doing this at once, and the dude, unable to resist the ridicule of the situation or defend the attack, hastily stepped off after him.

35. NEWSPAPER REPORTER

[Equally good for a missionary meeting or a gathering of newspaper men.]

A young journalist was requested to write something about the Zenana Mission. He assured the readers of the paper that among the many scenes of missionary labor, none had of late attracted more attention than the Zenana Mission, and assuredly none was more deserving of this attention. Comparatively few years had passed since Zenana had been opened up to British trade, but already, owing to the devotion of a handful of men and women, the nature of the inhabitants had been almost entirely changed. The Zenanese, from being a savage people, had become, in a wonderfully short space of time, practically civilized; and recent travelers to Zenana had returned with the most glowing accounts of the continued progress of the good work in that country. He then branched off into the "laborer-worthy-of-his-hire" side of this great work, and the question was aptly asked if the devoted laborers in that remote vineyard were not deserving of support. Were civilization and Christianity to be snatched from the Zenanese just when both were within their grasp? So on for nearly half a column the writer meandered in the most orthodox style, just as he had done scores of times before when advocating certain missions. Some one who found him the next day running his finger down the letter Z, in the index to the "Handy Atlas," with a puzzled look upon his face, knew he had had a letter from the editor.

36. HOW A WOMAN PROPOSED

[A variation of the old and always pleasing theme.]

They were dining off fowl in a restaurant. "You see," he explained, as he showed her the wishbone, "you take hold here. Then we must both make a wish and pull, and when it breaks the one who has the bigger part of it will have his or her wish granted." "But I don't know what to wish for," she protested. "Oh! you can think of something," he said. "No, I can't," she replied; "I can't think of anything I want very much." "Well, I'll wish for you," he exclaimed. "Will you, really?" she asked. "Yes." "Well, then, there's no use fooling with the old wishbone," she interrupted, with a glad smile, "you can have me."

37. LUCKY ANSWER

[Certainly Thompson would be a lawyer, ready for any emergency.]

In times past there was in a certain law school an aged and eccentric professor. "General information" was the old gentleman's hobby. He held it as incontrovertible that if a young lawyer possessed a large fund of miscellaneous knowledge, combined with an equal amount of common sense, he would be successful in life. So every year the professor put on his examination papers a question very far removed from the subject of criminal law. One year it was, "How many kinds of trees are there in the college yard?" the next, "What is the make-up of the present English cabinet?"

Finally the professor thought he had invented the best question of his life. It was, "Name twelve animals that inhabit the polar regions." The professor chuckled as he wrote this down. He was sure he would "pluck" half the students on that question and it was beyond a doubt that that opprobrious young loafer Thompson would fail. But when the professor read the examination papers, Thompson, who had not answered another question, was the only man who had solved the polar problem. This was Thompson's answer: "Six seals and six polar bears." Thompson got his degree with distinction.

38. DOUBLE EDUCATION

A young doctor, wishing to make a good impression upon a German farmer, mentioned the fact that he had received a double education, as it were. He had studied homoeopathy, and was also a graduate of a "regular" medical school. "Oh! dot vas noding," said the farmer, "I had vonce a calf vot sucked two cows, and he made nothing but a common schteer after all."