Jokes For All Occasions by Anonymous (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

quarry called to Zeb, the general utility man, and directed him to go across the road to the blacksmith shop and bring back a drill which had been left there for sharpening. Zeb shuffled out of sight, and after a lapse of half an hour, shuffled back lazily into view. The indignant foreman called to him sharply:

"Here, you Zeb! Where've you been all this time?"

The darky grinned placatingly.

"Why, boss," he explained, "I hain't been—I'se gwine!"

PROFANITY

The longshoreman was indulging in a fit of temper, which he interpreted in a burst of language that shocked the lady passing by. She regarded him reprovingly, as she demanded:

"My man, where did you learn such awful language?"

"Where did I learn it?" the longshoreman repeated. "Huh! I didn't learn it, it's a gift."

*         *         *

The deacon carried a chain to the blacksmith to have a link welded. When he returned to the shop a few hours later, he saw the chain lying on the floor, and picked it up. It was just next to red hot, and the deacon dropped it with the ejaculation:

"Hell!" Then he added hastily: "I like to have said."

PROFITEERS

The wife of the profiteer discoursed largely on the luxuries of the new country estate.

"And, of course," she vouchsafed, "we have all the usual animals—horses, cows, sheep, pigs, hens, and so forth."

"Oh, hens!" the listener gushed. "Then you'll have fresh eggs."

"Really, I'm not sure. The hens can work, if they like, but of course in our position, it's quite unnecessary—er, perhaps not quite suitable, you know."

*         *         *

The advertisement offered for fifty cents a recipe by which to whiten the hands and soften them. Girls who sent the money received the following directions:

"Soak the hands three times a day in dish water while mother rests."

*         *         *

"Are you sure this handbag is genuine crocodile skin?" the woman asked the shopkeeper.

"Absolutely," was the reply. "I shot that crocodile myself."

"But it is badly soiled."

"Well, yes, of course. That's where it hit the ground, when it fell out of the tree."

*         *         *

Customer: "But if it costs twenty dollars to make these watches, and you sell them for twenty dollars, where does your profit come in?"

Shopkeeper: "That comes from repairing them."

PROGRESS

The cottager was crippled by rheumatism, and the kindly clergyman taught him his letters, and put him through the primer and into the Bible. On his return after a vacation, the clergyman met the cottager's wife.

"How does John get along with his reading of the Bible?" he asked.

"Oh, bless your reverence," she replied proudly, "'e's out of the Bible and into the newspaper long ago."

*         *         *

The kindly clergyman, newly come to the parish, was at great pains to teach an illiterate old man, crippled with rheumatism, his letters so that he could read the Bible. On the clergyman's return after a short absence from the parish, he met the old man's wife.

"And how is Thomas making out with reading his Bible?"

"Bless you, sir," the wife declared proudly, "he's out of the Bible and into the newspaper long ago."

*         *         *

The physician advised his patient to eat a hearty dinner at night, without any worry over the ability to digest it. The patient, however, protested:

"But the other time when I came to see you, you insisted I must eat only a very light supper in the evening."

The physician nodded, smiling complacently.

"Yes, of course—that shows what great progress the science of medicine is making."

PROHIBITION

The objector to prohibition spoke bitterly:

"Water has killed more folks than liquor ever did."

"You are raving," declared the defender of the Eighteenth Amendment. "How do you make that out?"

"Well, to begin with, there was the Flood."

*         *         *

The wife complained to her husband that the chauffeur was very drunk indeed, and must be discharged instantly.

"Discharged—nothing!" the husband retorted joyously. "When he's sobered off, I'll have him take me out and show me where he got it."

PROLIFIC

The woman teacher in a New York School was interested in the announcement by a little girl pupil that she had a new baby brother.

"And what is the baby's name?" the teacher asked.

"Aaron," was the answer.

A few days later, the teacher inquired concerning Aaron, but the little girl regarded her in perplexity.

"Aaron?" she repeated.

"Your baby brother," the teacher prompted.

Understanding dawned on the child's face.

"Oh, Aaron!" she exclaimed. "That was a mistake. It's Moses. He's very well, ma'am, thank you. Pa an' ma, they found we had an Aaron."

PRONUNCIATION

The parson's daughter spoke pleasantly, but with a hint of rebuke, to one of her father's humble parishioners:

"Good morning, Giles. I haven't noticed you in church for the last few weeks."

"No, miss," the man answered. "I've been oop at Noocaste a-visitin' my old 'aunts. And strange, miss, ain't it, I don't see no change in 'em since I was a child like?"

The parson's daughter was duly impressed.

"What wonderful old ladies they must be!"

But the man shook his head, and explained with remarkable clearness:

"I didn't say 'arnts', miss. I said 'awnts'—'aunts where I used to wander in my childhood days like."

PROOF

Shopper:—"Are these eggs fresh?"

Apprentice:—"Yes, ma'am, they be."

Shopper:—"How long since they were laid?"

Apprentice:—"'Tain't ten minutes, ma'am—I know, I laid them eggs there myself."

PROPERTY

The indignant householder held up before the policeman the dead cat that had been lying by the curb three days.

"What am I to do with this?" he demanded.

"Take it to headquarters," was the serene reply. "If nobody claims it within a reasonable time, it's your property."

PROVIDENCE

The babu explained with great politeness the complete failure of a young American member of the shooting party in India to bag any game:

"The sahib shot divinely but it is true that Providence was all merciful to the birds."

PRUDENCE

Sandy MacTavish was a guest at a christening party in the home of a fellow Scot whose hospitality was limited only by the capacity of the company. The evening was hardly half spent when Sandy got to his feet, and made the round of his fellow guests, bidding each of them a very affectionate farewell. The host came bustling up, much concerned.

"But, Sandy, mon," he protested, "Ye're nae goin' yet, with the evenin' just started?"

"Nay," declared the prudent MacTavish, "I'm no' goin' yet. But I'm tellin' ye good-night while I know ye all."

*         *         *

The young man, who was notorious for the reckless driving of his car, was at his home in the country, when he received a telephone call, and a woman's voice asked if he intended to go motoring that afternoon.

"No, not this afternoon," he replied. "But why do you ask? Who are you?"

"That doesn't matter," came the voice over the wire. "It's only that I wish to send my little girl down the street on an errand."

PUNISHMENT

The school teacher, after writing to the mother of a refractory pupil, received this note in reply:

"Dear miss, you writ me about whippin my boy i hereby give you permission to lick him eny time it is necessary to lern him lessuns hes jist like his paw you have to lern him with a club please pound nolej into him i want him to git it don't pay no attenshun to his paw either i'll handle him."

*         *         *

The little boy dashed wildly around the corner, and collided with the benevolent old gentleman, who inquired the cause of such haste.

"I gotta git home fer maw to spank me," the boy panted.

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the old gentleman, "I can't understand your being in such a hurry to be spanked."

"I ain't. But if I don't git there 'fore paw, he'll gimme the lickin'."

*         *         *

The little lad sat on the curb howling lustily. A passer-by halted to ask what was the matter. The boy explained between howls that his father had given him a licking. The sympathizer attempted consolation:

"But you must be a little man, and not cry about it. All fathers have to punish their children sometimes."

The lad ceased howling long enough to snort contemptuously, and to explain:

"Huh! my paw ain't like other boys' paws. He plays the bass drum in the band!"

PUNS

"What is your name?" demanded the judge of the prisoner in the Municipal Court.

"Locke Smith," was the answer, and the man made a bolt for the door.

He was seized by an officer and hauled back.

"Ten dollars or ten days," said the magistrate.

"I'll take the ten dollars," announced the prisoner.

Finally, he paid the fine, but he added explicit information as to his opinion of the judge. Then he leaped for the door again, only to be caught and brought back a second time.

The judge, after fining the prisoner another ten dollars, admonished him severely, in these words:

"If your language had been more chaste and refined, you would not have been chased and refined."

*         *         *

A member of the Lambs' Club had a reputation for lack of hospitality in the matter of buying drinks for others. On one occasion, two actors entered the bar, and found this fellow alone at the rail. They invited him to drink, and, as he accepted, he announced proudly:

"I'm writing my autobiography."

"With the accent on the 'bi'?" One of the newcomers suggested sarcastically.

"No," his friend corrected, "with the accent on the 'auto'."

*         *         *

The stallion that had been driven in from the plains was a magnificent creature, but so fierce that no man dared approach closely. Then the amiable lunatic appeared on the scene. He took a halter, and went toward the dangerous beast. And as he went, he muttered softly:

"So, bossy; so bossy; so bossy."

The stallion stood quietly and allowed the halter to be slipped over his head without offering any resistance.

The horse was cowed.

*         *         *

When Mr. Choate was ambassador to the Court of St. James, he was present at a function where his plain evening dress contrasted sharply with the uniforms of the other men. At a late hour, an Austrian diplomat approach him, as he stood near the door, obviously taking him for a servant, and said:

"Call me a cab."

Choate answered affably:

"You're a cab, sir."

The diplomat indignantly went to the host and explained that a servant had insulted him. He pointed to Choate. Explanations ensued, and the diplomat was introduced to the American, to whom he apologized.

"That's all right," declared Choate, smiling. "If you had been better-looking, I'd have called you a hansom cab."

PUZZLE

The humorist offered his latest invention in the way of a puzzle to the assembly of guests in the drawing-room:

"Can you name an animal that has eyes and cannot see; legs and cannot walk, but can jump as high as the Woolworth Building?"

Everybody racked his brains during a period of deep silence, and racked in vain. Finally, they gave it up and demanded the solution. The inventor of the puzzle beamed.

"The answer," he said, "is a wooden horse. It has eyes and cannot see, and legs and cannot walk."

"Yes," the company agreed. "But how does it jump as high as the Woolworth Building?"

"The Woolworth Building," the humorist explained, "can't jump."

QUARRELSOME

The applicant for the position of cook explained to the lady why she had left her last place:

"To tell the truth, mum, I just couldn't stand the way the master and the mistress was always quarreling."

"That must have been unpleasant," the