More Toasts Part 170
"You understand your duties thoroughly, dont you?" she said to the new footman.
"Yes, maam, certainly, maam."
"And you know your way to announce?"
"Well, maam, I shouldnt perhaps like to go quite so far as that, but I think I know my weight to a pound or so."
"Father, is the zebra a black animal with white stripes or a white animal with black stripes?"
"Has Jobkins any money?" asked Hickenlooper.
"Oh, he must have," said Garroway.
"Oh, we all must have--but have we?" said Hickenlooper.
There is an elevator boy in a New York office building, who is among a large number of public servants that resent needless questions.
One day there entered his car a rather fussy old lady, and garrulous as well.
"Dont you ever feel sick going up and down in this elevator all day?"
she asked.
"Yes, maam," said the boy.
"Is it the motion going down?"
"No, maam."
"The motion going up?"
"No, maam."
"Is it the stopping that does it?"
"No, maam."
"Then what is it?"
"Answering questions, maam."
"My father and I know everything in the world," said a small boy to his companion.
"All right," said the latter. "Wheres Asia?"
It was a stiff question, but the little fellow answered coolly: "That is one of the questions my father knows."
Owen Wister, the novelist, apropos of useless questions, once told of a man who stood before a mirror in his room, his face lathered and an open razor in his hand. His wife came in. She looked at him and said, "Are you shaving?" The man, a foe to surplusage, replied fiercely, "No; I am blacking the kitchen range. Where are you--out driving or at a four-oclock tea?"
_See also_ Curiosity.
RADICALS
A radical is a man without a sense of humor; a conservative is one without a sense of the ridiculous.
RAILROADS
"Wheres the president of this railroad?" asked the man who called at the general offices.
"Hes down in Washington, attendin th session o some kind uv an investigatin committee," replied the office boy.
"Where is the general manager?"
"Hes appearin before th Interstate Commerce Commission."
"Well, wheres the general superintendent?"
"Hes at th meetin" of th legislature, fightin some b.u.m new law."
"Where is the head of the legal department?"
"Hes in court, tryin a suit."
"Then where is the general pa.s.senger agent?"
"Hes explainin t th commercial travelers why we cant reduce th
fare."
"Where is the general freight agent?"
"Hes gone out in th country t attend a meeting o th grange an
tell th farmers why we aint got no freight-cars."
"Whos running the blame railroad, anyway?"