LEAGUE OF NATIONS

"Why do you object to the League of Nations?"

"On musical grounds. After singing 'My Country, 'Tis of Thee,' all these years, I don't want the mental effort of changing to 'Our Countries, Tis of Those.'"

FOR SALE--"League of Nations." Several pages missing; binding gone in spots. Damaged by fire and water. Valuable historical document. Author now unknown. As is.

LEAP YEAR

             _A Modern Leap-Year Song_

  Ah, me! why should I marry me?     Lovers are plenty, but fortunes are few   Why lose wages that carry me     Better by far than a husband could do?   Fond youth, calmly I'm viewing you,     Steeling a heart that might flutter and throb:   I've no thought of pursuing you;     Poverty's stupid--I'll stick to my job.

LEFT HANDEDNESS

Pat, who was left-handed, was being sworn in as a witness in the West Side Court of Denver, Colo.

"Hold up your right hand," said the judge. Up went Pat's left hand.

"Hold up your right hand," commanded the judge, sternly.

"Sure and I am, yer honor," declared Pat. "Me right hand's on me left-hand side."

LEGISLATION

"Have you made any resolutions or turned over a new leaf or anything like that?"

"No," replied the man with the serene smile. "No need of them. If I have any lingering vices I feel that I need only wait for somebody to introduce legislation that will make them impossible."

LEGISLATORS

"Do you think we are happier for the conveniences of telegraph and telephone?"

"Not always," replied Senator Sorghum. "It would be a great comfort to be able to make a speech that exactly agrees with your audience without its being placed immediately before people all over the country who may not feel the same way about it."

"Senator, you promised me a job."

"But there are no jobs."

"I need a job, Senator."

"Well, I'll ask for a commission to investigate as to why there are no jobs and you can get a job on that."

LEISURE

THE CHILD--"Mother, what is 'leisure'?"

THE MOTHER--"It's the spare time a woman has in which she can do some other kind of work, dearie."

LIARS

The teacher was telling her class a long, highly embellished story of Santa Claus, and the mirth of Willie Jones eventually got entirely beyond his control.

"Willie," said the teacher sternly, "what did I whip you for yesterday?"

"Fer lyin'," promptly answered Willie; "an' I was jest wonderin' who was goin' to whip you."

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes, for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain one.--_Pope_.

A Boston minister once noticed a crowd of urchins clustered around a dog of doubtful pedigree.

"What are you doing, my little men?" he asked, with fatherly interest.

"Swappin' lies," volunteered one of the boys. "The feller that tells the biggest one gets the purp."

"Shocking!" exclaimed the minister. "Why, when I was your age I never thought of telling an untruth."

"Youse win," chorused the urchins. "The dog's yours, mister."

A man may tell the same lie about the same thing to the same man seven times seven, and be accounted truthful. Let him vary in but the merest detail and he is a liar. Such is the patent gullibility of a too conscientious world.

An evangelist who was conducting services announced that on the following evening he would speak on the subject of "Liars." He advised his hearers to read in advance the seventeenth chapter of Mark.

The next night he arose and said: "I am going to preach on 'Liars' tonight and I would like to know how many read the chapter I suggested." A hundred hands were upraised.

"Now," he said, "you are the very persons I want to talk to--there isn't any seventeenth chapter of Mark."

A Sunday school teacher asked a small girl the other day why Ananias was so severely punished. The little one thought a minute, then answered: "Please, teacher, they weren't so used to lying in those days."

"Does your husband ever lie to you?"

"Never."

"How do you know?"

"He tells me that I do not look a day older than I did when he married me, and if he doesn't lie about that, I don't think he would about less important matters."

"Do you really mean to call me a liar?" asked one rival railroad man of another railroad man, during a dispute on business they had on Austin Avenue yesterday.

"No, Colonel, I don't mean to call you a liar. On the contrary, I say you are the only man in town who tells the truth all the time, but I'm offering a reward of $25 and a chromo to any other man who will say he believes me when I say you never lie," was the response.

"Well, I'm glad you took it back," replied the other party, as they shook.--_A. E. Sweet_.

_See also_ Husband; Real estate agents; Regrets.

LIBERTY BONDS

"We accept Liberty Bonds at their full value for all goods."

Thus reads a placard in the window of a wholesale liquor house. We have often wondered what the height of damphoolishness might be, having tried various things, but there it is: Exchanging a Liberty Bond for booze.

LIBRARIANS

             _The Reference Librarian_

  At times behind a desk he sits,   At times about the room he flits--   Folks interrupt his perfect ease   By asking questions such as these:   "How tall was prehistoric man?"   "How old, I pray, was Sister Ann?"

"Perhaps," commented her husband's bookish friend, "you should be thankful you did not find him with his nose in 'The Inside of the Cup!'"

  "What should one do if cats have fits?"   "What woman first invented mitts?"   "Who said 'To labor is to pray?'"   "How much did Daniel Lambert weigh?"   "Don't you admire E. P. Roe?"   "What is the fare to Kokomo?"   "Have you a life of Sairy Gamp?"   "Can you lend me a postage-stamp?"   "Have you the rimes of Edward Lear?"   "What wages do they give you here?"   "What dictionary is the best?"   "Did Brummell wear a satin vest?"   "How do you spell 'anemic,' please?"   "What is a Gorgonzola cheese?"   "Who ferried souls across the Styx?"   "What is the square of 96?"   "Are oysters good to eat in March?"   "Are green bananas full of starch?"   "Where is that book I used to see?"   "I guess you don't remember me?"   "Haf you Der Hohenzollernspiel?"   "Where shall I put this apple peel?"   "Ou est, m'sie, la grand Larousse?"   "Do you say 'two-spot,' or 'the deuce'?"   "Come, find my book--why make a row?"   "A _red_ one--can't you find it _now_?"   "Please, which is right? to 'lend' or 'loan'?"   "Say, mister, where's the telephone?"   "How _do_ you use this catalog?"   "Oh, hear that noise! Is that my dog?"   "Have you a book called 'Shapes of Fear'?"   "You mind if I leave baby here?"

  --_Edmund Lester Pearson_

It was at the public library. A small shaver clutched a well-worn, dirty volume. At last it came his turn to place his volume for the inspection of the librarian. The suspense was great, but finally the librarian leaned forward. Taking in the size of the boy and then glancing back at the book she remarked, "This is rather technical, isn't it?"

Planting his feet firmly on the floor, the boy, half-defiant, half-apologetic, retorted, "It was that way when I got it, ma'am."

"My husband is a most inveterate reader," exclaimed Mrs. Knox with a slight tone of ennui. "He reads until dawn every morning. Why, last night I found him asleep with his nose in 'V.V.'s Eyes!'"

             _Toast to Librarians_

  Said the "maker of books" to the "keeper of books,"     Yours is the task to hold   The choice of the changeable minds of men     To that which is pure gold.

  Yours to watch at the ebb and flow     The tides of the public thought--   Flotsam or jetsam floating in     With the treasure genius brought.

  For the unperishable dream of the soul lives on,     As the dream of genius must,   When the brain which wrought and the hand that wrote     Are one with the "daisied dust."

  And so with reverent hands may you give     To the minds of men in their need,   The written word that's the word worth while,     So keepers of books--God speed!

             _Do You Believe In Fairies?_

  The world is full of people     Who are under the impression   That libr'ry work in general     Is the easiest profession.

  "Such nice clean work!" says So-and-So,     "And such nice hours too!"   "Why, really now," exclaims a girl,     "I don't see what you do."   "Just sitting reading all the books     'Most all the livelong day.   Don't tell me now that just for this     The city gives you pay!"

  And no one ever stops to think     Why it's so quiet there.   While they're just sitting at their ease     In some nice easy chair.   And how the books got on the shelves     In just the right, right place,   Nor how the "chief" keeps track of each,     And with a smiling face.

  Oh, mercy no, they seem to think     Some fairy passed that way   With books from many publishers     And when she'd said, "Good day,"   She catalogued them in a night,     And with a bit of glue,   Stuck in the pages that were loose,     And mended old ones too.

  And that she dusted all the shelves,     And kept the records straight;   So when the year came to an end,     She would not be too late   In handing in a full report     Of just what had been done.   (And "full" comprises everything     That's underneath the sun).

  Oh yes, you'll find them everywhere,     Deluded as can be   In thinking libr'ry work's a "cinch,"     And looking longingly   At someone's "easy libr'ry job"     "With not a thing to do!"   But tell me, do you libr'yites     Believe in fairies too?

  --_H.I.B. in the Use of Print_.

A certain woman who came in to take out a card, upon being told she must give the name of a friend as reference said, "Why, I have no friends. I was a librarian."

_See also_ Books and reading.

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