Title : Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 3, No. 31, March, 1922
Author : Various
Editor : W. H. Fawcett
Release date : July 4, 2020 [eBook #62558]
Language : English
Credits
: Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Whiz Bang’s greatest book—The Winter Annual Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22—hot off the press. Orders are now being mailed. There will be no delay as long as the supply lasts. If your news stand’s quota is sold out—
PIN A DOLLAR BILL
Or your check, money order or stamps
To the coupon on the back page.
And receive our 256-page bound volume of jokes, jests, jingles, stories, pot pourri, mail bag and Smokehouse poetry. The best collection ever put in print.
REMEMBER, FOLK
Last year our Annual (which was only one fourth as large as the 1921-22 book) was sold out on the Pacific Coast within three or four days, and not a copy could be bought anywhere in the United States within ten days.
So hurry up! First Come will be First Served!
Pin your dollar bill to the coupon and mail to the Whiz Bang Farm, Robbinsdale, Minn.
Don’t write for early back copies of our regular issue.
We haven’t any left.
Captain Billy’s
Whiz Bang
America’s Magazine of
Wit, Humor and
Filosophy
MARCH, 1922 Vol. III. No. 31
Published Monthly
W. H. Fawcett,
at Robbinsdale, Minnesota
Entered as second-class matter May 1, 1920, at the postoffice at Robbinsdale, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3. 1879.
Price 25 cents
$2.50 per year
ONE DOLLAR FOR THE WINTER ANNUAL
Contents of this magazine are copyrighted. Republication of any part permitted when properly credited to Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang.
“We have room for but one soul loyalty and that is loyalty to the American people.”—Theodore Roosevelt.
Copyright 1922
By W. H. Fawcett
Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang employs no solicitors. Subscriptions may be received only at authorized news stands or by direct mail to Robbinsdale. We join in no clubbing offers, nor do we give premiums. Two-fifty a year in advance.
Edited by a Spanish and World War Veteran and dedicated to the fighting forces of the United States
Three weeks of Havana’s cliquot, bacardi, cervesa, horse races, jai alai, casino, and the rattly-bang-bang, of garbage cans, piercing shrieks of peddlers, not to mention rip-snorting roaring and exhausted automobiles, have had their exhilarating effects on the usual hum drum existence that has been my part of living on a quiet Minnesota farm. The contrast is pleasant although somewhat tiresome. There’s been too much excitement for the little old editor of this family journal of travel.
Sometime in the dim and distant past I was told that the most difficult feature in writing was to transcribe the first paragraph. My hardest job here is to stay away from the Scotch and soda long enough to even think what the first paragraph will look like. However, with the able assistance of my good old pals, the Haig brothers, I am at last seated by a rickety old dining room table in an apartment overlooking the Malecon, Morro Castle and the Gulf of Mexico.
Confucius once said: “It is not the wine that makes a man drunk—it is the man himself.” [4] This filosophy applies to Cuba today. I have seen more “saloons” in Havana and fewer intoxicated persons than in any city in the United States, both before and since the adoption of the prohibition amendment.
The easy manner in which we Americans can get borie-eyed drunk on a few shots of moonshine reminds of the Wag Jag ditty about
In Havana it is forbidden by law to kiss your wife on the gang-plank, in a taxi or other public place. The usual fine for violation is $25.
Spooning custom here is quite different, too. In Cuba every residential window is protected by iron bars similar to our jails. It is through these barriers that lovers must cuddle and coo—at least until he becomes so nervous and tired from continual standing that he pops the question. I know it would be rather tough on some of our Minnesota farmhands if the farmers should adopt a custom similar to Cuba.
The first thing I learned in Havana was that the Cubans do not like the Whiz Bang’s traveling correspondent, Rev. “Golightly” Morrill. Mr. Morrill’s name is anathema to the average native, due undoubtedly to the fact that our reverend friend rarely deals out his views of life with kid gloves. He [5] sees the world from the standpoint of the betterment of humanity and in seeking to attain his end, strikes out in two-fisted manner.
In republishing a recent Morrill article from this magazine, a Havana publication takes this rap at our correspondent:
The Rev. “Golightly” Morrill is still tramping around the world seeking muck in which to wallow. After his experience in the West Indies and Central America it was not to be supposed that he would find anything very bad to write about, but it seems that he has discovered familiar iniquities on the beaches of California.
We chanced into a gringo barroom towards the close of one evening, lured by broken melodies of the brass rail gang. Through the bedlam we could catch swinging tunes of:
And this one:
Ever since the death of our good neighbor, Cyrus Hopkins, his lonely widow has made a conscientious study of spiritualism. The other morning Mrs. Hopkins visited a Minneapolis medium in the hopes she might communicate with her late husband. The connection soon was made and the following conversation took place:
“Is this you, Cyrus?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Are you happy?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Happier than when you were with me?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Ain’t heaven just grand?”
“I don’t know, dear. I’m in hell.”
How, Kind and Forbearing Readers of this great encyclopedia of Psychic Research, better known as The Whiz Bang, pause a moment while Ye Ed relates how Sir Harry Lauder indirectly caused me much embarrassment.
While lunching at the Friars’ Club on my last visit to New York City, I was cordially invited to a big reception at the Hotel Commodore in honor of Sir Harry Lauder, famous Scottish comedian. The momentous night arrived and I donned by “Sunday-go-to-meeting” clothes for the great event. Please try to imagine my chagrin and sheepishness when friends who had called to escort me, very courteously and, I [7] might add, diplomatically informed me that “it was to be a full dress affair.” How in heck could a horny-handed tiller of the soil be expected to possess a dress suit? After thanking my kind auditors in as gracious a manner as possible, I suggested that probably Sir Harry might consider overalls more appropriate for me. Anyway I did not attend the reception. Next day my Friar friends told me about it and I was happily regaled with Scottish humor. The chairman, they said, graciously introduced Lauder as his “closest friend.” Will these jokes on Sir Harry’s thrift never cease?
During recent pilgrimages that carried me east, west, north and south, I ran across many amusing, although sometimes embarrassing situations. Chief among them was the constantly manifested surprise of newly-found friends that there was actually such a personage, in flesh and blood, as Captain Bilious Billy.
Here is a fair list of the questions usually dished out by new acquaintances:
“Why, I supposed the Whiz Bang was only ‘kidding’ and that ‘Captain Billy’ was merely a book name.”
“And do you really drink that horrid moonshine?”
“Did you have a hired man named Gus?”
“Is Pedro your honest-to-goodness pedigreed bull?”
“Is there actually a town named Robbinsdale?”
“Did a honeymooning couple really leave their automobile seat with you when they went to the village constable to report the theft of their car?”
It was necessary to plead guilty to nearly all the allegations heaped on me. Of course, poor Pedro is no more, he having “kicked the bucket” last July, and Gus, too, has sorta back-slid. Gus always was an in-and-outer anyway.
Gus, my old time hired man, has busted into poetry again. The old boy must be getting a whiff of the pine forests about Breezy Point Lodge. Well, here you go, Gus,—we’ll publish this one:
A traveler in the Tennessee mountains sought refuge one evening at a wayside cabin.
He had traveled all one chill, April day and was cold, hungry and footsore. With true mountain hospitality the old mountaineer invited him to supper, and insisted that he spend the night.
The host made him comfortable before a huge open fireplace, and set a jug of mountain dew beside his chair. Also introduced him to his eighteen-year-old daughter, who was the only other occupant of the cabin, unless we may include four lank hounds stretched before the fireplace.
The old man hastened out to look after his chores and the girl busied herself in the kitchen.
The cabin was typical of the region, having two rooms, one containing a bed and two chairs, and the other serving as kitchen and dining room.
The traveler, left to himself, took three or four heavy shots of the moonshine and soon forgot his weariness and the chill of the April day. He divested himself of his shoes, settled himself with a sigh of content, and steamed his sopping feet in the glow of the fire.
Shortly one of the hounds raised his head, languidly, and sniffed suspiciously.
He scrambled to his feet, howled mournfully and dived beneath the bed, the others following him as if they had gone crazy. A piteous [10] whining and snarling issued from under the bed for several minutes, and the traveler became alarmed. The dogs must be mad.
He arose and opened the door, and the dogs shot from under the bed, and through the open door. Each departed, howling as if St. Nick was after him.
It was puzzling to say the least.
The comely daughter entered the room shortly, and the traveler addressed her as follows:
“What is the matter with those dogs?” he inquired.
“I dunno,” she replied, “Lessem one uv ’em brung somepin dead indoors. Dad allus kicks hell out’en the whole passell uv them when they do thet.”
Havana’s tropical sunshine, coupled with a few jolts of “Ron Bacardi Superior,” hath driven ye old cap’n to lyrical lines of lisping lingo. So I sit me down on my cane bottom chair with pencil stub in hand to transcribe that famous Cholo rhyme, “The Young Gringo.” The poem has to do with the proper actions of Americans in Cuba, and other tropical countries.
A stuttering man walked up to a boy who had a parrot in a cage and said, “Ca—ca—can tha—tha—that parrot talk?”
“Well,” replied the boy, “if he couldn’t talk better than you I’d kill him.”
A visitor who was stopping at a hotel was much disturbed by the snoring of one of his friends sleeping in an adjoining room. Suddenly the snore ceased and death-like stillness oppressed the listener. Thinking that something had happened to his friend, he went into his room, and found him sitting up in bed. The friend said, “I was sleeping with my mouth open, and I think I have swallowed a mouse.”
The hotel doctor was sent for, who adopted the novel expedient of calling in the services of the hotel cat, and placed a piece of toasted cheese some little distance from the patient’s mouth, thinking that the mouse, smelling the cheese, would come out to eat it and would fall a prey to the cat. While the remedy was working, the doctor went downstairs to get a drink, and the patient fell asleep and resumed his snoring.
When the doctor returned the cat was missing.
Pat was hard at work digging a post-hole, when the boss strolled by. “Well, Pat,” said he, noting the progress of the work, “do you think you will be able to get all that dirt back into the hole again?”
Pat looked doubtfully at the pile of dirt, and after some thought, said: “No, sor. Sure, I don’t think I’ve dug the hole deep enough.”
BY PRINCESS BIBESCO
Daughter of Margot Asquith
LOVE—“Isn’t that what love means, to fill ordinary, commonplace conventional things with magic and significance, not to need the moon and white scent-heavy flowers at night? * * * You talk about love. What a strange, restricted growth it is with you. You don’t know what the real thing means, you who think passion is bad taste because you are not tempted, you to whom the physical side is a degrading extra.” * * * When he was with her now he stammered. He didn’t know that a stammer is the divine eloquence of love.
PASSION—Passion is no respecter of persons. She hardly seems to select her victims. How many a would-be Juliet waits in vain for those consuming fires her heart is longing for, while they blaze in the reluctant hearts of Mr. Adrian Roses, who only ask to be left in peace, far from the ridiculous and, thank God, equally far from the sublime. Are men in love like this:
“She was the first person he had ever loved. He had trembled when he touched her. His spasms of passion had been like spasms of pain, his face contorted and his voice rough, and then there had followed intervals of wretched shyness. When he had thought of possessing her he had become a saint waiting for a divine manifestation.”
MARRIAGE—“We just are hopelessly unsuited to each other. Do you seriously think that you want a wife like me?” * * * “Marriage will modify you.” * * * “Marriage might modify me if I married the right man. Marriage to you would bring out everything you hate.” * * * “Helena, do you realize that I love you?” “You don’t know what love means.” * * * “Of course I don’t. If I did I might want to marry you.”
PROTEST AGAINST REALISM—“What is it one yearns for? It is to be able to do a thing for the first time again. And that is impossible. When I love, what do I want? I want never to have kissed, never to have given myself before. It is in vain, I say—‘Never before was I awake—I was a dummy in the hands of fate—now I am alive.’ I was shut up perhaps, but my outer petals were touched. Oh, my God, make me again the child I was—but He cannot answer.”
DISILLUSIONMENT—What are we to tell our children? How are they to know that [15] the first accidental encounter with life may take from them a treasure they will only learn about in forty storm-tossed years? Those first gifts—those shy blossomings lovely in their unconsciousness—are surely but the squandering of something half alive, the foolish murder of a bud. Oh, youth is a wicked, cruel thing, eating miracles with its breakfast and not knowing they are not porridge.
WHAT A WOMAN WANTS—“I don’t want anything except to be wanted. I long for you to make ceaseless, impossible demands on me.”
THE GOAL OF HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT—“All my life I have been teased for asking not, ‘Is she beautiful?’ ‘Is she clever?’ but always ‘Is she happy?’ I think it is in many ways the most interesting thing about a person. * * * Happiness is a light, an atmosphere, an illumination. It sets a personality. I always feel it is a creation that is difficult for some and easy for others, but essentially an achievement, never an accident.”
Henpecked and haggard husband asked the butcher: “What kind of meat have you this morning?”
“Some steak as tender as a woman’s heart,” said the butcher.
“I’ll take sausage,” said the customer.
By Walter Scott Haskell.
In the place first, I want it understood that I am a California cousin to a doughboy’s cootie.
When first I clapped my binnacle lights on the robust form of Susanna, I knew that she was my meat, vulgarly speaking. I loved her very avoirdupois, and that was going some, as she was no light article. I took her gauge one evening as we sat in the parlor and I snuggled up to her in a most friendly fashion. My advances were met with cold resentment. She did not say a word, but she jammed my head against her corset in a manner that bespoke her an amazon of no mean physical power. I thought my spinal column was broken; but when she let go, I breathed a sigh of relief and was contented to just look at her and nurse my sprained parts. I decided to use diplomacy, and waited until she had taken herself to the arbor hammock in the garden to indulge in an afternoon siesta. I watched around, and when I saw her eyelids droop and close, her breast heave in regular breathing as one asleep, I made my way to her side and bent over her fair face. How my mouth watered for a bite of her, but I almost feared that she would wake and lam me in the jaw. Temptation was too strong, however, and in an evil moment I turned my attention to her roll-down stocking that showed a goodly proportion of her nether parts. With a kind of subdued clicking of my jaws, I put my lips to her bare knee and experienced the joy of a stolen kiss. It may have been a disgraceful act, anyway the tickle of my touch awoke her, and she kicked unmercifully, like a cow that will not be milked. I ducked and escaped death, with a mouthful of her blood, the best that I had ever had, for she was my meat, and I am a California flea.
A summer night and a maid and a man has frequently caused an early fall!
She was a pretty and ambitious girl and had studied the matrimonial problem to a nicety.
“Yes, I suppose I shall wed eventually,” she said, “but the only kind of masculine nuisance that will suit me must be tall and dark, with classical features. He must be brave, yet gentle. Withal he must be strong—a lion among men, but a knight among ladies.”
That even a bow-legged, lath-framed youth, wearing checked trousers and smoking a cigarette that smelt worse than a burning boot, rattled on the back door and the girl knocked four tumblers and a cut glass fruit dish off the sideboard in her haste to get to him.
We like the story from Ralph Neville’s “Mayfair and Montmartre,” of the little chorus lady who, when her rich admirer had bought her some charming underclothing, said to him in the shop as they were being packed: “Now [18] have a good look at them, for you’ll never see them again.”
This, of course, occurred in the long, long ago Victorian days.
While in Jacksonville I chanced into a Greek restaurant and of the waiter inquired what they had for dinner.
A normal woman would joyously go through life with a pirate or yeggman who would drug her with the opiate of flattery, in preference to hooking onto a nincompoop tango lizard who refreshes her with eternal, infernal, divinal criticism.
“If I die,” said the sick man gloomily, “what will become of you and the children?”
“Oh, don’t worry, darling,” replied the little woman. “I’ll soon find somebody to take care of us.”
An Irishman while on his way to call upon his best girl suddenly caught sight of a beautiful parrot in a nearby tree.
He decided it would be just the present for her. Slowly he drew near the bird and upon reaching one of the highest branches, was just about to grab his prey when the parrot, who had been eyeing him sharply, suddenly squawked, “Well, what do you want?”
Pat withdrew his hand and humbly made answer, “Excuse me. Er—I thought you was a bird.”
Let’s sing it again:
They arrived home late from the party. Wife took off her hat and slammed it on the floor. Then she confronted her hubby.
“I’ll never take you to another party as long as I live!” she said.
“Why?” he calmly wanted to know.
“You asked Mrs. Jones how her husband has been standing the heat.”
“Well?”
“Well, her husband has been dead two months.”
Father and son were licking up moonshine.
“Father,” asked the son, “how am I to know when I’m drunk?”
The old man pointed across the street. “When those two men over there look like four,” he responded.
“But father,” interrupted the son, “I see only one man there.”
Lion Tamer—“Step into the cage with the lion, Rastus, and let the photographer focus you.”
Rastus—“He’d better focus me before ah goes in there, boss, for he ain’t gwine hab no time to focus me when ah comes out.”
Actors are the bunk. I heard one in Minneapolis knocking St. Paul and I applauded him, and I saw the same actor in St. Paul knocking Minneapolis and I gave him the razzberry.
“I’ve got you at last,” he cried, “move if you dare, move! It’s taken me many years, but at last I’ve got you where I want you! Now I dare you to move!”
“Yep, you’re right,” replied his friend, “it’s the first game of checkers you ever did win from me.”
Dear Capt. Billy —If your pedigreed bull is a thoroughbred, why not have him registered?— Simon Simple.
No use to register him; he couldn’t vote anyway.
Dear Capt. Billy —My wife is getting too strenuous. The other day she broke a plate over my head. What would you advise me to do?— Nyce Boise.
You might try cast iron plates.
Dear Capt. Bill —Please define love?— Amorous Annabelle.
Love is the psychology of youth; the subtle sympathy that blends the world into a thing of joy and pleasure unrestrained.
Dear Bill —Is “The Eternal Triangle” a play or a book?— Innocent Imogene.
It’s a heart-throbbing and soul-stirring play, Imogene, in which all humans have at some time or other enacted a leading part—Adam and Eve excepted. In fact I feel certain that neither Adam or Eve ever “Cribbed” in the [22] University of Paradise with its rapturous courses of enchantment. There’s a reason.
Dear Skipper —What epidemics were suffered by United States troops during the World War?— Si Frever.
Spanish influenza and American Shavetails. Both were rather annoying at times, as any doughboy will tell you.
Dear Farmer Bill —Being as how you are a tiller of the soil, I suppose you’re familiar with the “Black Eye Susan?”— Nick Nack.
No, Nick, I never met the lady, but I know the gentlemen who gave it to her.
Dear Bill —Is there very much difference in women as a whole?— King Young.
They’re all alike, young man, except they’ve got different names.
Dear Skipper —What is meant by “The Port of Missing Men?”— Berry M. Deep.
Ladies’ night in a Turkish bath.
Dear Skipper —Who are the leading Turkish rulers?— Jack Sellers.
Pasha Hat, Mustapha Beer and Esaad Enuf.
Dear Capt. Billy —What is your best definition of a diplomat?— Phillis Fullabunk.
A diplomat, Phillis, is a man who, when he [23] gets home late, sneaks into bed backwards so that if his wife awakes he can tell her he is just getting up.
Dear Capt. Billy —Will you please tell me who invented apple sauce?— Anna Nyas.
William Tell. He shot the apple off his son’s head and they all had apple sauce for supper.
Dear Captain Bill —Don’t you think a woman is everything in the world?— Tiddledewinks.
Yes, indeed—everything I can think of.
Dear Capt. Billy —What is the easiest way to drive a nail without smashing my fingers?— Ab Doman.
Hold the hammer in both hands.
Dear Whiz Bang Bill —What is your idea of the height of absentmindedness?— Lou Z. Lizzie.
The professor who woke up at daylight and found a fair lady beside him, much to his astonishment, having forgotten that he had married the night before.
Dear Capt. Billy —Can you give me a good remedy for toothache?— Holey G. Macknaw.
Fill the mouth with cold water and sit on a hot stove till the water boils.
Dear Capt. Billy —What is good to keep hair in?— Baldy Bozo.
A cigar box.
Preacher—Take up the collection before I start preaching.
Why?
Preacher—Because I’m going to preach on thrift.
Sunday School Teacher—“Percy, what must we do before our sins can be forgiven?”
Percy—“Sin.”
A well-known actor was introduced to a chap who didn’t strike him particularly because he was prejudiced against men who talk in soprano voices. The next time they met he ignored the fellow entirely. A few days later he ran across the fellow again, but his face was still frozen.
The fourth meeting occurred in a cafe, and he of the soprano voice waltzed up to the disgusted actor’s table.
“Do you know,” he said, “we have met three times and you weally haven’t noticed me?” Then with a sibilant lisp in a high C that nobody in the cafe could miss, he gave the actor three little dabs on the shoulder and squeaked, “Proudie! Proudie! Proudie!”
One day an inspector of a New York tenement house found four families living in one room, chalk lines having been drawn in such a manner as to mark out a quarter for each family.
“How do you get along here?” inquired the inspector.
“Very well,” was the reply. “Only the man in the farthest corner keeps boarders.”
Some kind-hearted man of money moves the motion that Manhattan’s mackerel munching macaroons be deported to Waikiki Beach to indulge in the popular Hawaiian pastime of poi-eating.
“Mine is a sad case, Lady,” said the solemn visaged inmate of the asylum to the visitor.
“My parents fed me Gripe nuts; made me sleep up in the garret among the rats, in a ‘buggy’ bed and beneath a crazy quilt. My only pet was a squirrel, and my only toys, the wheels from a cuckoo clock.”
And striking a Napoleonic attitude, he strode out in search of Josephine.
Some people are so dry that talking to them is like chewing a blotter.
The Meanest Man bought his bride a nickel’s worth of candy as a wedding present, then took her on a trolley ride honeymoon.
After they got off the car he said, “Let’s save some of that candy for the children.”
He got on at Park and sat in the last car.
She got on at Park and sat in the last car.
When he went over the bridge he smiled. She laughed aloud. At Kendall she crossed her legs. He crossed his fingers. At Central he had her phone number. She had his watch. When they reached Harvard he offered to take her home. He kissed on the front porch. Then he went back to Ridgely Annex and cut one more notch in his shoe trees.
“I guess it’s my personality,” he thought as he tumbled into bed.
“I guess it’s my smile,” she thought as she tumbled into bed.
“Marie is so modest she puts her pet dog out of the room while she is changing her gown!”
“The idea!”
“Well—it’s a Pekingese.”
There are two classes of people: those who sit and think, and those who sit.
Preacher—Rastus, do yo’ take dis here woman for better or for worse?
Rastus (from habit)—Pahson, Ah shoots de works!
He—Do you like indoor sports?
She—Yes, if they go home early.
“Will you please insert this obituary notice?” asked an old gentleman of Pedigreed Bull Smith of the Minneapolis Journal. “I make bold to ask it because the deceased had a great many friends about here who’d be glad to hear of his death.”
As the old saying goes—you’ll find no Chinese laundries where the River Shannon flows.
If everything we did in life was printed on our foreheads there would not be so many reformers out in the daytime.
In Hades: “Hell-o!”
In Heaven: “Hal-o!”
“Were you ever pinched for going too fast?”
“No, but I’ve been slapped.”
“Sir,” writes a correspondent, “When I was in Butte I dropped my meal ticket on the floor and one of those miners with hob-nailed shoes stepped on it and punched out a week’s board.”
Sandy McDugal was a great golf enthusiast. In many months he never missed a morning. Then the inevitable happened—Sandy was absent. His fellow golfers, worried lest Sandy be ill, sought him out.
They found the old Highlander in apparently good health. Sandy refused to explain his absence from the course until after vigorous questioning.
“Weel,” drawled Sandy unwillingly, “if ye must know, I lost me ball.”
There are two things that I can’t understand. A locoed cow and a love-sick man.
A traveling man had missed his train and went back to his home. He took his pass keys out of his pocket, opened the door, and to his great surprise his wife was sitting on his best friend’s lap, and kissing him.
“Smith, I’ve set a trap for you and caught you,” shouted the irate husband.
Smith replied, “With bait like this, you can catch me any time!”
“That was a striking gown your girl wore last night.”
“Yes; that was her union suit.”
When Mrs. Murphy saw her husband hanging in the stable she said, “so that’s where my clothes line went!”
A Thing of Beauty is an expense forever.
The new guard was not familiar with a certain railway run in Wales. Came a station which rejoiced in the name of Llanfairfeshanpwllgogerych. For a few minutes he stood looking at the sign board in mute helplessness. Then, pointing to the board and waving his other arm toward the carriages, he called, “If there’s anybody there for here, this is it.”—Western Christian Advocate.
A Darky and his brown sweetheart, followed by three pickaninnies, applied to the clerk of a Southern court house for a license to wed.
The clerk eyed the assemblage doubtfully. “Whose children are these?” he asked.
“Dey our’n,” was the ready response from the man.
The clerk was scandalized, being new at his post. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, waiting to get married till you have a family half grown—”
“Jedge, you’ll have to excuse dat,” interrupted the “bride,” sweetly. “De roads out our way is so bad!”
Elizabeth—Say, daddie, what is that thing under your nose?
Daddie—Why! That’s my mustache. Why do you ask?
Elizabeth—I just wondered what you called it. Mamma’s got one of them things under her arm.
Cohen—Ikey, what for you go up dem shtairs two at a time?
Ikey—To safe my shoes, fader.
Cohen—Dot’s right, my son; but look out you don’t shplit your pandts.
The late Peter Cooper Hewitt, millionaire inventor of New York, had a very intimate knowledge of high society in the world’s capitals.
Mr. Cooper Hewitt, discussing the English professional beauties of the ’80’s, said one day:
“A famous, or rather a notorious professional beauty, visited Constantinople. Her charms worked havoc among the Turkish nobility. The sultan himself was smitten.
“At a dinner party on her return, King Edward, then the Prince of Wales, questioned her about her Turkish conquests.
“‘You made a great hit with the sultan, I believe?’ he said.
“‘The sultan,’ she answered with enthusiasm, ‘is a dear. He conferred this decoration on me.’
“And she displayed a jeweled emblem which glistened on her white bosom royally.
“‘It’s the order of virtue,’ she explained, and then, lowering her eyes, she added—‘of the second class.’”
Did you ever sit in the parlor with your best girl and hold each other’s hands ’til they got all “perspiry” and then let go and rub off and get a fresh hold again?
When I die I want to be cremated so I can carry my remains around in my vest pocket.
“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet.”
Recently there came to our notice a booklet containing what purports to be a sermon delivered by one Bob Shuler, pastor of the Trinity Methodist Church, Los Angeles, bearing on its cover the statement that it is “published in pamphlet form because of the utter impossibility of securing the publication of such a discussion through any Los Angeles daily newspaper.”
Taking for his text, “The Movie Industry vs. The Public,” Rev. Shuler devotes approximately four thousand words to what seems first a conviction and then a trial of the only screen star ever charged with a felony. He says:
“That he was directly and absolutely responsible for her death, I am certain.”
The worthy pastor then proceeds with the admission that “the attitude of the movie luminaries toward the marriage relation; their continuous ‘souse’ in divorce and scandal; their quarter of a century of screened sex appeal; * * * the evident looseness that has sprung [33] up among them; their booze parties; their cigarette smoking beauties; their behavior as reported by scores who live neighbor to their studios; * * * all has forced me against my will and over my protest to believe that a majority of the movie crowd are of the same stripe * * *.”
Having already found him guilty, Dr. Shuler then asks whether this actor is a fair, fit sample of a type, and promptly answers his question by saying:
“I think you will have no trouble in recognizing that he is a most splendid example of a type, a most certain sample, of a variety of folk who have decided to be the independent authors of their own standards of morality or immorality, without regard to or respect for the public.”
On the same day there was brought to us a copy of a daily newspaper containing about four thousand words under the heading, “In Loving Memory of Harry S. Duffield,” being a transcript of an eulogy delivered a few weeks ago by James Neill at the bier of his brother-actor and lifelong friend, from which we quote:
“In all these years I never heard from these dead lips one irreverent oath. His thoughts were white and his speech was clean. By nature he was devotional. He believed in church attendance and private prayer, and in the constant reference of daily concerns to Divine guidance. His reputation for gentle judgment [34] of his fellows was well known. Save to report good of his fellowman, he spoke not at all. * * * So good-bye forever, dear Harry Duffield, our best beloved, and may the dear, gentle God be very tender with you and give you everlasting peace and rest.”
What power is theirs to soften pain, to educate, to instruct, when sent on some constructive mission.
And what a world of destruction they can accomplish when their author’s purpose is to gain notoriety through misrepresentation, to besmirch clean men and women by fastening to a majority the alleged shortcomings of a few, and to entirely disregard the command of our Creator, “Judge not that ye be not judged.”
Marshal Petain, before he married, was once delivering some pretty frank invective against marriage in the presence of some friends. He ended by saying nearly all married couples led a cat-and-dog life. “But, look here,” said one friend, “that’s an absurdly sweeping statement. Besides, cats and dogs don’t always quarrel. Look at those two on your hearth at this moment. They get on well together.” Petain smiled. “Tie them together and watch,” he said.
Judge—Are you guilty?
Prisoner—I haven’t heard the evidence yet.
Put on your muzzle, father, here comes the dog catcher.
A man was hit by an automobile in front of the Whiz Bang News Stand at Sixth Street and Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, the other day. He arose rather dazed and ventured “Where am I?”
“Here you are, sir,” replied the book seller, “a map of Minneapolis for ten cents.”
Doctors ought to get wise to themselves and hire some cabaret singers to entertain their prescription hounds in the waiting rooms.
Kiss me cute, kiss me cunning; kiss me quick, my daddy’s coming.
Brother, ah’s tough; ah’s so tough mah shadow won’t walk down the street with me, an’ when ah gargles mah throat ah has to use carbolic acid an’ boilin’ water to even feel it.
You must sleep well, you lie so easy.
Our hired man Pete informs us that it wasn’t a six-foot tank of solid concrete that he dove into, as announced in our last issue, but that it was a six-foot tank filled with tapioca pudding instead.
I’ve heard of a lot of absent-minded guys, but the one who scratched his hot cake and poured the syrup down his neck beats ’em all—What say?
Never look a blind pig in the eye.
He—You were a red head last night.
She—Now I’m a black head.
He—I’ll have to squeeze you.
We know a certain “reformer” in Santa Ana who could make a fortune if he would sell his pictures for puzzles.
“Really, I seldom cross my feet in a street car.”
“I hardly ever wear silk ones either.”
Waiter—“One stew for a bum! He has his own bread!”
Ashes to ashes, sand to sand; please show me a butcher that won’t weigh his hand.
I know a man who refuses to shave until he gets a drink of good liquor. He is now tripping on his beard.
Were you ever at sea?
No, madam, I came over from Ireland in a wagon.
How could you cross the ocean in a wagon?
Why, my good woman, I rowed over.
I am wild, wild with glee; because I kissed my sweetheart, and she slapped me—That convinced me that she loved me.
My girl’s name is Niagara. She falls for anybody.
They shot him with limburger cheese and then killed him for smelling bad.
He—My father has a rabbit tattooed on his arm.
She—That’s nothing. My father has hares all over his chest.
She—You married me for love and got it.
Old Foggie—You married me for money and got it.
She—I’ll tell the world I earned it.
Don’t put any of that powder on my face, see! What ya tink I am, a sissie?
A fashion magazine reminds us that one way to get away from the city Bustle is to move to the Outskirts.
While swimming someone stole his clothes, so he painted a number on his B. V. D.’s and ran home like a track man.
A Daily Newspaper Raving
“Call up a steeple-jack today and get him to paint the flag pole on the garage,” said Warren as he finished his sixth helping of ham and eggs, and folded the morning paper preparatory to leaving for the office. “Why, Warren,” Helen exclaimed, “I can do the job as well as a steeple-jack, and the money saved can be used to buy a new worm for our still; the old one is almost worn out.”
Since Warren’s salary had been reduced from $3,000 to $2,984 a month Helen had watched every dollar, and the thought of paying a man 50 or 75 cents to paint the flag pole caused big tears to form in her eyes and run down her cheeks into the platter of fried mock turtle, which was her favorite breakfast dish.
“There, there, little wife, don’t cry,” pleaded Warren, placing an arm on her shoulder and gently kicking her back of the right ear, “We’ll say no more about the matter today, but if I hear of you trying to climb that flag pole I’ll cave in half a dozen of your ribs” and flinging [40] her a kiss he dashed blithely out of the house and hailing a passing whisky runner’s car, was soon out of sight on his way to work.
Helen busied herself around the house and tried to keep her mind off of the painting job. Since they had dispensed with the services of three maids and there was no one to assist her with the house work except Bridget, the Japanese house girl, there was much for her to do. Getting Baby Winifred ready for school was the biggest task, and this morning the little girl was more unruly than ever. Only by giving her a large glass of potato whisky mixed with snuff, of which the child was intensely fond could Helen induce her to stop breaking the cut glass decanters on the sideboard, and allow herself to be dressed.
Making out the order for the butcher shop occupied three hours, and when that was done it was time for her music lesson, for Helen never allowed anything to interfere with her musical education, and at ten o’clock she seated herself at the Victrola and under the skillful tutelage of her teacher she was soon able to play the overture from “Lily of the Alley.”
From eleven until two was spent in eating a light lunch, and then Jacquiline Olson dropped in to complain about Mabel, Helen’s pet cobra, biting her little boy. The Olson woman was always distasteful to Helen and when she requested that the snake be kept tied up during the summer months, Helen arose [41] majestically and with a deft uppercut knocked her over three chairs into the wood-box, where she lay moaning feebly and offered no resistance when Helen carried her over to the window and dropped her with a crash into the alley.
Most women would have considered their day wrecked after such an incident, but Helen, after draining a dipperful of hemlock wine, dismissed the affair from her mind and started to repair one of the dining room chairs she had broken in a friendly argument with Warren the evening before. After several futile attempts to make the glue stick she gave it up as a bad job and flung the chair in the bath tub where she was certain Warren would not see it for months. Then the telephone rang and a deep bass voice informed her that Baby Winifred had been arrested for throwing rocks at the statue of Benedict Arnold in front of the city hall.
“Well, there’s nothing I can do till Warren comes home,” said Helen as she hung up the receiver and went out in the back yard to dig a hole to bury the neighbor’s bull dog which Pussy Purr-mew had just dragged in the house. “I wish the dear thing wouldn’t bring home all the dogs she kills,” sighed Helen, “but I suppose she wants to show me what a good fighter she is.”
After burying the dog, Helen went back to the house and picking up the latest issue of Naughty Stories, soon was so interested that [42] she did not hear the voices of the men at the front door when they brought Warren home from the office, drunk, and dumped him on the front porch, where he lay until she stumbled over him an hour later.
By this time Warren was sober enough to eat supper, which he did in a silence only broken when he inhaled the soup and drank his coffee.
“Why don’t you talk to me?” Helen demanded toward the end of the meal. “Don’t sit there like a dummy and never say a word. Men are such brutes!” And throwing herself behind the kitchen stove she wept bitterly.
The Victor Dog sat on a talking machine and the record ran so fast, that the dog’s head caught up with his tail, and he didn’t have room to pass “His Master’s Voice.”
My girl’s ears are so large that if you were to look at her from the back you would swear she was a loving cup.
As thou hast made thy bed, why lie about it?
In the April issue Smokehouse Poetry fans will be treated to an old classic, “Absolution,” by Nesbit.
Just because you own an Ingersoll watch is no indication you’re a horological expert.
“Did you hear the one about the mouse-trap?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s snappy.”
A fool and his honey are soon mated.
“I’m glad my affairs are rounded into good shape,” said the pretty young thing as she pulled on her stockings.
Heard about the classy new neckwear for trainmen? They say these railroad ties are quite the rage.
“Is she a very modest girl?”
“Very—she won’t even look at the weather strip on the house!”
“Let me kiss those tears away!” he begged tenderly.
She fell in his arms, and he was busy for the next few moments. And yet the tears flowed on.
“Can nothing stop them?” he asked, breathlessly sad.
“No,” she murmured; “it is hay fever, you know. But go on with the treatment.”
Mr. Jones had recently become the father of twins. The minister stopped him in the street to congratulate him.
“Well, Jones, I hear that the Lord has smiled on you,” he said.
“Smiled on me!” repeated Jones. “He laughed out loud at me.”
While a Denver physician was inspecting the insane hospital at Pueblo an inmate approached him and asked: “I beg your pardon, sir, but have you a piece of toast?” “No,” replied the doctor, in surprise, “but I can get a piece if you want it badly.” “Oh, I wish you would. I’m a poached egg and I want to sit down.”
Jockey thrown in first race at New Orleans:
“Let Zybszko ride him.”
At a colored camp meeting in Louisiana the following sermon was delivered by a very black old darky, wearing huge spectacles:
“Brethren and Sistren, de preachifying dis mawnin’ will be from de text on de 10 virgins. De bridegroom war a-coming and ’spectin’ dem 10 virgins to be ready wif dere lamps all trimmed and a-burnin’, but, lo, when he was come he done foun’ dat on’y five of dem virgins war ready; yessir, five was trimmed and five was ontrimmed; five was wise and five was onwise; five was ready and five was onready; five was male and five was female.”—Harper’s Magazine.
“I don’t like your heart action,” said the doctor, applying his stethoscope.
“You’ve had some trouble with angina pectoris, haven’t you?”
“You’re partly right, Doc,” answered the young man, sheepishly. “Only that ain’t her name.”—Pathfinder.
When I was farmin’ in North Dakota I raised spuds an’ one day I went out to see how my spuds was comin’. The patch was right on a side hill. Well, sir, do you know that when I pulled up that vine two bushels of spuds rolled out of that hill before I could plug up the hole.
The colored minister had just concluded a powerful sermon on “Salvation is Free” and was announcing that a collection would be taken. Up jumped a brother in the back of the church. “If salvation is free,” he interrupted, “what’s the use paying for it? I’m going to give you nothing till I find out. Now—”
“Patience, brother, patience,” said the parson. “I’ll illustrate. Suppose you were thirsty and came to a river. You could kneel right down and drink, couldn’t you? And it would cost you nothing, would it?”
“Of course not. That’s just what I—”
“That water would be free,” continued the parson. “But supposing you were to have that water piped to your house, you would have to pay, would you not?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“Well, brother, salvation is free, but it is the having it piped to you that you got to pay for. Pass the hat, sexton.”
It was rather quiet at the postoffice the other day and outside of the Whiz Bang mail our genial postmaster, Bud Nasset, sorted out only two letters. The first one was addressed to Deacon Miller from his son, reading as follows: “Dear Father—I am in jail. Son.” The Deacon’s answer was the other letter, “Dear Son—So am I. Father.”
BY REV. “GOLIGHTLY” MORRILL
Pastor People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn.
All aboard for China, the country of Confucius and chop suey! At Canton a wonderful spectacle took place at the wharf. A sampan man had beaten his wife and thrown her on the dock where she sat and chanted in a monotonous voice while a hundred coolies gathered round and watched the interesting ceremony. She referred to her husband and his ancestors, then scraped up a little pile of dirt, spat on it, molded it into the image of a man, addressed it with a few words, suddenly knelt and foully insulted it, and so eased her conscience, balanced the books of honor and “saved her face.”
From the Hotel Victoria in the Shameen, or Foreign Quarter, two cadaverous coolies carried me in a coffin-shaped sedan chair across a stinking canal into native Canton. My guide, Ah Cum, led the way. The streets were so narrow and the show windows so near that I could have been a shoplifter with both hands. If hungry, there was a free lunch counter extending [52] along the streets with tea and rice, live fish, glazed ducks, gory pigs, a choice assortment of fresh entrails, some dead dogs and rats, crates of yowling cats, and huge pots of slimy soup thickened with animal, vegetable and other matter that would make the Witches’ Cauldron in “Macbeth” look like a cup of consomme in comparison.
At the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii, where the prayers of the holy had given way to the harangues of the politicians, I saw a gilded statue big as life of the first European globe-trotter to China, Marco Polo. Such a traveler was a novelty then, but now is a nuisance. I went by old walls whose painted dragons the new Chinese had wiped out; by temples whose only occupants were a few second-hand gods and bats; took time to visit the water-clock tower where drops of water instead of grains of sand mark the time of China’s millions towards the grave; passed through gates of the old city wall to the hillside where hundreds had been shot; looked into the graveyard where the poor common people rest after life’s fitful fever, while the restless rich, who shunned them in life, lie apart from them in the City of the Dead.
Like mummies in a museum, they sleep unburied in their rich caskets and await the grafting geomancer, that oriental undertaker, who promises the relatives to find some place in the ground undisturbed by the Great Dragon. [53] By the religious milestone of the five-storied, weedy, seedy Pagoda, whose oracles are dumb, I headed for the Execution Grounds in the pottery district where the sharp sword had sent many a man back to his original clay.
China is becoming civilized now and stands her criminals up against a wall and shoots them. Here was a narrow alley lined with earthen pots covered with mats, under which were fleshless skulls. One of them seemed to look imploringly at me, and I picked it up. Alas, some poor Chinese Yorick! I was anxious to see the man who struck the fearful blows, and Ah Cum called the executioner who came out with a knife estimated to have cut off 300,000 heads in thirty years. There is a death here by “seventy-two cuts,” but one from his sword was enough.
Bayard Taylor said China was a good place to leave, and I was not very sorry when the whistle blew to cast off and say good-bye to the city of dreadful sights, sounds, suffering and smells. Leaving the grotesque outline of an old fort, a little island stained by some dark murder, a place where pirates had scuttled a ship, a picturesque Pagoda looking like an eight-story Easter bonnet, Grecian-bend shaped junk-boats and sampans like big, broken barrels floating along, we sailed down the Pearl River and at midnight reached the Portuguese town of Macao. On deck we were surprised to find the officers embracing the coolies. Were they trying [54] to relieve them of their hard-earned spoils of fan-tan which they had won during the night? No, the honest officials were only searching for concealed arms, but found only those which Nature had allowed and provided.
An illuminated sign, “First-class Gambling House,” drew my attention. Gambling, next to loafing and the manufacture of opium, is the principal occupation of the youngest and oldest inhabitants. Macao is the Oriental Monte Carlo. Gambling here is backed by the government which gets back a certain per cent of the earnings which it invests in hospitals, asylums and cheap lodgings for the people who have been beaten at the game. At this gambling-hell one could play at the big table downstairs, or drop into the game by lowering his money in a small basket from the balcony above. Tired of the game, the player recuperates his wasted energies here by eating bird-nest soup and shark-fins, or drinking Portuguese wines. If he is sleepy, he may take the opium-pipe train of thought to the Flowery Land where every-day is Sunday.
At a “song-parlor” some Chinese dolls amused us with their squeaky voices and knife-scraping music. It sadly recalled my visit to a Hongkong house of pleasure whose almond-eyed inmates illustrated Confucius’ remark that “women had no souls,” and the Chinese philosophy which attributes death and evil to Yin, the female principle in Nature. Their artificially [55] whitened and rouged faces were ghastly, and their flower-and-jewel-bedecked hair glued down to the skull was anything but attractive to an Occidental eye. Their lips were red like the dawn of day, their complexions like congealed ointment, and their betel-nut-stained teeth like black watermelon seeds. They unfurled painted fans, sipped tea, nibbled sweetmeats, puffed at opium-pipes, and looked quite flowery in their blue collars, purple tunics and bright green trousers. I wonder if the men, whom they were entertaining, remembered the Chinese proverb, “There is no such poison in the green snake’s mouth or in the hornet’s sting as in a woman’s heart.”
After visiting next day a firecracker factory, temples, joss-houses, and a tobacco plant where little children and old women were at work sorting the leaves, I was conducted to Macao’s notorious opium factory. I entered a low-ceiling room where men were stripped to their waists like blacksmiths at the forge. They picked up the crude opium, shaped like a cocoanut shell, scooped out the chocolate-looking substance, threw it into a kind of brass wash-basin under which roared the fire, until it steamed and blubbered like a pot of hot mush or molasses. They darted here and there like imps with these pans. Then the liquid was poured in porcelain boxes of various sizes. The whole place seemed like a Devil’s smithyshop where chains were being forged for lost souls. The odor was [56] peculiar and penetrating. I must have absorbed some of the dope, for I felt dizzy and was glad to get outside in the fresh air.
There is no more melancholy sight, in China’s teeming nightmare cities, than a drug-befuddled victim staggering out in the early dawn from some hasheesh house and tumbling down in the street where he dreams he is in the Celestial City with his ancestors. When he is rudely awakened by a hungry rat gnawing his hand or foot, the golden vision vanishes. In the cold light of the morning, racked with nameless pains, he crawls off to work at some mean job, hoping to make enough for another night’s opium dream in which to forget the hell of this tormenting world.
“Now, let’s stick together, boys,” said the first of three flies as they lit on the piece of tanglefoot.
Ikey kicked in the bathroom door and discovered Rebecca dead in the bath tub. For a moment he gazed horror stricken, then rushed to the head of the stairs and shouted to the maid, “Mary, Mary!”
“Yes, sir,” answered the shixa.
“Only von egg for breakfast dis morning, Mary.”
Engagement wanted. Small part, such as dead body or outside shouts.
Father got his hand blown off. That was a terrible sin. It could have been worse if it was the hand that he had his wages in.
“Paris is falling,” delicately hinted the maiden, as her escort’s garter snapped and fell over his shoe-top.
“Trash!” exclaimed the president of the Ash Men’s Union, as the secretary finished reading the reports.
Lady went into a store and asked for a camisole. “What bust?” asked the salesman. “I didn’t hear anything,” she replied.
Tell the truth and shame the family.
A good story is told on our old friend Colonel Luce of the Minnesota National Guard. Two battalions of the Colonel’s regiment were staging a sham battle at their summer encampment.
The defending forces took possession of a small hill overlooking a river and destroyed the only bridge by the simple method of tacking up a notice on it stating that they had done so. As a result it was quite a surprise to them to see the attacking forces swarming across the bridge, making extraordinary motions in front of them with their hands.
“Hold on there, men!” shouted the Colonel’s aide from the observer’s post, “you can’t cross that bridge. It has been blown up.”
“Tuhel with that!” retorted the Major of the other side, “we’re not crossing it, can’t you see we are swimming the dang river?”
When we were in the army we used to read “The Daily Undershirt.”
A woman’s beauty is always a liability, although at times considered a big asset.
(From the L. A. Times)
Personal—Lady 26, quiet, traveled, experienced in business or will assume domestic work for opportunity in music and art. Prefer aged person financially able who would appreciate ray of sunshine. Address MP.
(Cuba City, Wis., News-Herald)
An auto load of Benton girls, consisting of the Hunter sisters, Miss Calvert, Miss Ayer, and another one, attended the funeral Tuesday, and put in the rest of the time fishing, etc. They had a jolly fine time.
(From the Peoria Journal)
Would like acquaintance of good business man or a young farmer, like one with car, for pastime and results. Address C. A., care Star.
(Adv. of Chicago Beach Hotel)
Patrons not wearing bathing suits will find the cafe very comfortable.
(From the Denver Post)
Caring neither for life, limb or anything, I will consider any proposition you may have, regardless of what it may be; must earn money; do anything; go anywhere; fear nothing; answers confidential. I need money. Will go the limit to get it.
Years ago when W. A. McConnell was manager of the Brooklyn theater he had a pet parrot which was kept in the box office. During a “big run” the ticket seller was wont to say, “Get in line, please; one at a time, one at a time, gentlemen.”
The bird escaped one afternoon, and McConnell commissioned some boys to find it, which they did on an old tree in a nearby park, where several crows were making its feathers fly. McConnell asked if the bird said anything and the leader of the boys replied: “Yes, he said, ‘Get in line, please; one at a time, one at a time, gentlemen.’”
The porch was dark. The hour was late. The couple sat whispering among the shadows.
“Mary,” called a voice, “it’s time for you to come in.”
No movement.
“Come in, Mary.”
Still no movement.
He asked: “Don’t you mind your mother?”
“Not unless you do, Jimmy.”
Boy—“What is a grass widow?”
Father—“A woman whose husband died with the hay fever.”
Among the things you read about but never see is a crease in a fat man’s trousers.
(From New York Times)
HOMELESS HUSBANDS—If you want a friend, a pal—a WIFE!—look for one like the Lonely Lady in BEAUTY AND NICK. Such as she is rarely to be found in this, the age of sex and shekels—surely not in the endless procession of poppy-painted dames and damsels, young as youth, wrinkled as an O’Shanter witch; all with skirts so tight as to make them goat-gaited; so short that these bogus beauties have turned the most beautiful Avenue of the world into a mere leg lane—a free rival of the sash-clad ladies of a Broadway burlesque.
“Step up, boys! Ladies not allowed! See for yourself. And we all paid the two bits and saw a jackass.”
Let me introduce myself. My name is Sol.
Any relation to Lysol?
No, Ingersoll. Watch me!
It’s a long road that has no roadhouse.
Bridget —Better put on your woolen socks, Bridget, or you will catch cold in your lungs.
Andy Gump —A continuous buzzing noise in your ears is not always a sign of serious mental trouble, or any other illness. It is probably the first indication that your wife needs a new hat.
Sweet Marie —You are mistaken, Marie. The Scottish Highlanders are not members of the Middlesex Regiment.
Weeping Winnie —Cheer up, Winnie. You are overdosed on pessimism and, in retrospection, I feel sure you have presented a very sad aspect to the cynics of humanity.
Queen Liz —Your singing lessons may keep the wolf away from the door, ’tis true, if the wolf hears you.
“You can’t pick me up—I’m not of that metal,” said the piece of glass to the bar magnet.
Naughty Nellie —Where does your lap go when you stand up?
Willie Zatso —It is considered bad manners for children to stick their elbows out when cutting their meat at dinner. You might make your father cut his mouth.
A knock-kneed man walked down the street. Said the right knee to the left knee, “If you let me get around this time I’ll let you get around next time.”
I saw a dog chasing a jackrabbit down the hill and it was so hot the dog and rabbit were both walking. (Lie down, Fido, you’re all wet.)
“I’ve got that down Pat,” said Mrs. Flanigan, as she gave her son a dose of castor oil.
Bob—“You look sweet enough to eat.”
Gert—“I do! Where shall we go?”
Frank Adams in a recent Cosmopolitan story describes the modern dance thusly:
“If there wasn’t any music they would be arrested.”
CONTENTS
256 pages of fun. The gems of 25 early editions of Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang. Stories, toasts, poems, drippings and pot pourri comprise this greatest Whiz Bang book.
Only a Few Left
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Whiz Bang,
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