REPARTEE

"Pa, what is repartee?"

"Oh, merely an insult with its dress-suit on, my son."--_Puck_.

FIRST STUDENT--"The idea; my napkin is damp!"

SECOND STUDENT--"Perhaps that's because there is so much due on your board."

The big man with the I-know-it-all expression sneeringly watched the little man who was eating from a sack of peanuts.

"Down where I come from we use peanuts to fatten hogs," remarked the big man.

"That so?" asked the little man. "Here, have some."

EINSTEIN--"I hear you already, and I dinks you vas talking to yourself."

ROSENBERG--"You vas a liar and a scoundrel! Do you hear dot?"

"What would you say," began the voluble prophet, "if I were to tell you that in a very short space of time all the rivers will dry up?"

"I would say," replied the patient man, "go thou and do likewise."

"I'm tired of always being the goat!"

"Then, why don't you stop butting in?"

"Oh, say, who was here to see you last night?"

"Only Myrtle, father."

"Well, tell Myrtle that she left her pipe on the piano."

"Willie, your master's report of your work is very bad. Do you know that when Woodrow Wilson was your age he was head of the school?"

"Yes, pa; and when he was your age he was President of the United States."

"You are an angel."

"I guess that's right. An angel has but one gown and for her the styles never change."

A stern old preacher had issued to his people a command against dancing, believing it to be a device of the devil.

A few of the young people disobeyed and attended a dance given at a neighboring town. Finally it reached the ears of the preacher, and, meeting one of the culprits on the street one morning, he said in a stern voice:

"Good morning, child of the devil!"

"Good morning, father!" smilingly answered the pretty miss.

CUSTOMER--"The price of these shoes seems high. Wasn't there something said about a movement to have it reduced?"

CLERK--"Yes--but it's not on foot yet."

UNCLE SILAS (visiting city relatives who use electrical appliances for cooking at the table)--"Well, I swan! You make fun of us for eatin' in the kitchen. I don't see as it makes much difference whether you eat in the kitchen or cook in the dining-room."--_Life_.

There had been a quarrel. "You're no lidy," remarked the party of the first part "Ah!" replied the other. "If it wasn't that I _was_ a lidy, p'raps I'd be able to tell _you_ wot kind of a lidy _you_ ain't."

FIRST TRAVELER (cheerily)--"Fine day, isn't it?"

SECOND DITTO (haughtily)--"Sir! You have the advantage of me. I don't know you."

FIRST DITTO--"Humph! I fail to see the advantage."

"We need brains in this business, sir."

"I know you do. The business shows it."

"Well! well!" exclaimed Mrs. Talker, looking up from the morning paper. "Boots and shoes should be getting much cheaper now. Here's a paragraph that states that they are being made from all sorts of skins, even rat skins"; and then, trying to be funny, she added, "I wonder what they do with banana and orange skins?"

"Oh, my dear," replied her husband, "they make slippers!"

The usual large crowd was gathered at the New York end of the Brooklyn Bridge waiting for trolley-cars. An elderly lady, red in the face, flustered and fussy, dug her elbows into convenient ribs irrespective of owners.

A fat man on her left was the recipient of a particularly vicious jab. She yelled at him, "Say!"

He winced slightly and moved to one side.

She, too, sidestepped and thumped him vigorously on the back.

"Say!" she persisted, "does it make any difference which of these cars I take to Greenwood Cemetery?"

"Not to me, madam," he answered, slipping through an opening in the crowd.

AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER (to American)--"You Yanks think you've done a lot, but you forget we Australians have been at the game for four years."

"Well, what have you done, anyway?"

"Done? We've been at Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, the plains of Bethlehem, and--"

"The plains of Bethlehem?"

"Yes; I slept a week there myself."

"Well, I guess that was a busy week for the shepherds watching their flocks!"

Once in a while the choirs do get back at the minister, as, for example, in a Connecticut church the other Sunday morning. The minister announced, just after the choir had sung its anthem, as his text, "Now when the uproar had ceased." But the singers bided their time patiently, and when the sermon was over, rose and rendered in most melodious fashion another anthem beginning, "Now it is high time to awake after sleep."

REPORTING

A noted artist was recently visited by an interviewer, who fired at him from a question-sheet questions such as these:

"Were your parents artistic? Which of your paintings do you consider your best work? When, where, and why did you paint it? How much did it bring you in? Who is your favorite dead master? Favorite living master? What is your income from art? How much--"

But at this point the artist seized the interviewer by the arm and began in his turn:

"Just a moment, please. What is your name, age, and salary? Is journalism with you a life-work or merely a means to a higher literary end? How do you like your editor? State his faults and salary. What was the best interview you ever wrote? Give a brief summary of same. Have you ever been fired? How does it feel? Where--"

But here the interviewer, jerking his arm from the painter's grasp, fled from the studio, and the artist cheerfully resumed his work.

A "cub" reporter on a New York newspaper was sent to Paterson to write the story of the murder by thieves, of a rich manufacturer. He spread himself on the details and naively concluded his account with this sentence:

"Fortunately for the deceased, he had deposited all of his money in the bank the day before, so he lost practically nothing but his life."--_Harper's_.

_See also_ Journalism; Newspapers.

REPUTATION

"So you come from New York," said an English lady to a traveling American. "I supposed, of course, you came from Boston."

"Why did you think that?" inquired the New York lady.

"Because I supposed all cultivated, intelligent Americans came from Boston."

"But what in the world made you think that?" was the natural question.

"Oh, I don't know, exactly. I think it was a Boston lady who told me."

Having heard a popular make of motor-car highly spoken of, he entered the depot with the idea of purchasing one. The selection was soon made, and the customer expressed himself ready to buy if he could have a trial trip. That, the salesman explained, was impossible; the cars were sold on their reputation only. The customer declined to buy without a trial, and was leaving the store when the chairman of the company entered, and the situation was explained to him.

The chairman agreed that the salesman's attitude was correct. "But," said he, "as I don't like turning money away, I'll take you for a run in the car myself." The selected car was brought out, the chairman took the driving wheel, the customer sat alongside him, and the run began.

For some time she ran beautifully. Then, halfway up a hill, there was a sudden stoppage, and, do what he would, the driver could not induce the car to move.

Said the customer: "A jolly good thing I insisted on a trial."

Very red in the face, the chairman left the car, went to the front and lifted the bonnet to see what was the matter. "Holy smoke!" he exclaimed. "She's got no engine in her. She's run two miles on nothing but her reputation."

REST CURE

  I wish I was a little rock     On top of yonder hill   A doin' nothin' all day long     But just a settin' still.

  I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't sleep     I wouldn't even wash   I'd set and set a thousand years     And rest myself--_By Gosh!_

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