REAL ESTATE AGENTS

STEVE--"That Smith guy of the Meadow Bottom Development Company has got the fastest car in this neck of the country. He makes ninety miles an hour."

HANK--"Some car! What's he want of such a speed demon?"

STEVE--"He's gotta have it when he's advertising his development as being five minutes from the station."

A house-hunter, getting off a train at a suburban station, said to a boy standing near:

"My boy, I am looking for Mr. Smith's new block of semi-detached houses. How far are they from here?"

"About twenty minutes' walk," said the boy.

"Twenty minutes!" exclaimed the house-hunter. "Nonsense! The advertisement said five."

"Well," replied the boy, "yer kin believe me or the advertisement, whichever yer want. But I ain't tryin' to make no sale."

"Look here, you swindler!" roared the owner of the suburban property to the real-estate man. "When you sold me this house, didn't you say that in three months I wouldn't part with it for $10,000?"

"Certainly," said the real-estate dealer calmly, "and you haven't, have you?"

REALISM

Things that are what they appear to be are so rare that one cannot tell them when one sees them.

RECOMMENDATIONS

"Eh-yah! Young Doc. Purt is a pretty good doctor," admitted the landlord of the Petunia tavern, in reply to the inquiry of a guest who felt the need of a physician's advice. "In spite of all the money he's spent for electrical apparatus and the fact that he wears one of these 'ere three-cornered vanduct beards, there have been no unusually distressing deaths in our midst during the six months he has been with us."

The applicant for the job of office-boy presented his credentials in a manner that bespoke his entire confidence that the position would be his. The sour-looking old gentleman at the head of the establishment read the paper carefully and then surveyed the boy searchingly.

"It is certainly a very nice thing for you to have these recommendations from the minister of your church and your Sunday-school teacher," said he, "and I must admit that you look honest. All the same, I'd like to have a few words from someone that knows you on week-days."--_Harper's_.

"You say you have good references?"

"Yes, ma'am. I have over a 'undred splendid references."

"And how long have you been in domestic service?"

"Two years, ma'am."

A prominent New England educator tells of a Chinese cook in Manila who was innocently carrying about a reference, written by a saturnine Englishman, with which he expected to secure a good position. The reference read as follows:

"This man cooked for me six months; it seemed much longer. He left on account of illness--my illness."

"Have you any references?" inquired the lady of the house.

"Yis, mum, lots of thim," answered the prospective maid.

"Then why did you not bring some of them with you?"

"Well, mum, to tell the troot, they're just loike my photygraphs. None of thim don't do me justice."

Here is a letter of recommendation given by a butcher to a former employee:

"Whomsoefer is de boss--

"Dear Sir--Dis is to testify dot Hans Snyder vorked for me von week. Ven he left I was perfectly satisfied."

RECRUITING

POLICEMAN (rounding up draft suspects)--"Have you got a card?"

THE SUSPECTED ONE (with suitcase)--"A whole case of 'em! Which do you want to see--draft, registration, meat, sugar, calling, milk, playing, or postal-card?"--_Judge_.

"Before I left the United States," said Col. George Harvey recently in London, "I agreed with a Columbia professor who said preponderant power in men and money was bound to win the war; but now I have a stronger argument--one which fell from the lips of a recruiting-sergeant in the Strand yesterday.

"'Don't you want to be on the winning side?' said the soldier to a group of civilians who he was suggesting should don khaki.

"'How do you know ours will be the winning side?' asked a prospective recruit.

"'Well, my lad,' said the sergeant, 'you know the Germans have been trying for more than a year and a half to win and have failed, don't you?"

"'Yes,' replied the questioner.

"'Well, then, we've been trying to lose during the same period and we couldn't.'"

United States Senator Howard Sutherland, of West Virginia, tells a story about a mountain youth who visited a recruiting-office in the Senator's State for the purpose of enlisting in the regular Army. The examining physician found the young man as sound as a dollar, but that he had flat feet.

"I'm sorry," said the physician, "but I'll have to turn you down. You've got flat feet."

The mountaineer looked sorrowful. "No way for me to git in it, then?" he inquired.

"I guess not. With those flat feet of yours you wouldn't be able to march even five miles."

The youth from the mountains studied a moment. Finally he said: "I'll tell you why I hate this so darned bad. You see, I walked nigh on to one hundred and fifteen miles over the mountains to git here, and gosh, how I hate to walk back!"

RECRUITING OFFICER--"What's the good of coming here and saying you're only seventeen years old! Go and walk around that yard and come back and see if you're not nineteen."--_Punch_.

_See also_ Conscription.

RED TAPE

America consumes more red dye than any other color. This, as you are aware, is the color chosen for government tape in Washington.

REGRETS

_Who Am I?_

I am frequently most potent in the morning, but I am willing to abide with you at any time.

I am what you feel if you get married or if you do not get married.

I am what the after-dinner speaker says he feels because he came unprepared, and what the listeners show they feel without saying it.

I come to you when youth leaves you.

I am yours when that sarcastic person drops a remark which you cannot fittingly answer, and I am doubled when you are later alone and think of just the brilliant retort you should have given.

I am what overwhelms you when you suffer an overwhelming financial loss.

I am the vainest of the vain.

I am regret!

MRS. EXE--"Here's an invitation from Mrs. Boreleigh to one of her tiresome dinners. I hate them."

EXE--"Why not plead that you have a previous engagement?"

MRS. EXE--"That would be a lie. Edith dear, write Mrs. Boreleigh that we accept with pleasure."

RELATIVES

"Have you any relatives living in the country?"

"No; whenever we take a vacation we have to pay our own board."

"Old Millyuns says that since he made his pile of money he feels like a neutral nation."

"Why is that?"

"Because he has so many diplomatic relations."--_Judge_.