Nursing a sugar hangover? Stayed out too late with the goblins? Start your recovery with a dose of humor from the 1915 Juvenile Instructor:
Getting Some Results
One day Luther Burbank was walking in his garden, when he was accosted by an officious acquaintance who said: “Well, what are you working on now?”
“Trying to cross an eggplant and milkweed,” said Mr. Burbank.
“And what under Heaven do you expect to get from that?”
Mr. Burbank calmly resumed his walk. “Custard pie,” he said.
Conclusive.
Jinks: “What sort of a chap is Johnson?”
Binks: “Well, if you ever see two men in a corner, and one looks bored to death, the other is Johnson.”
Suggested.
“What do the suffragettes want, anyhow?”
“We want to sweep the country, dad.”
“Well, do not despise small beginnings. Suppose you make a start with the dining-room, my dear.”
Pointed.
Trixie (a bit late in arriving): “Well, girls, who are you knocking now?”
Belle: “We were all here but you, dear!”
A Duet.
A charming young singer named Anna
Got mixed up in a flood in Montana;
So she floated away,
And her sister, they say,
Accompanied her on the piana.
Substitute Accepted.
Actor playing Richard III: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse.”
Heckler: “Wouldn’t a jackass do as well?”
Actor: “Certainly! Come around to the stage door at once.”
For Existence
“He is something of a fighter, isn’t he?”
“Indeed he is, but he doesn’t deserve any special credit for it.”
“Why not?”
“His mother named him Montmorency and kept his hair in ringlets until he was fourteen. He had to fight.”
Lights ’Em Up
“How’s the baby?” inquired the neighbor of the new father.
“Fine,” said the proud parent.
“Don’t you find that a baby brightens up a household wonderfully?” pursued the friend.
“Yes,” said the parent, with a sigh; “we have the light going most of the night now.”
What Was It Then?
“I don’t see why you call your place a bungalow,” said Smith to his neighbor.
“Well, if it isn’t a bungalow, what is it?” said the neighbor. “The job was a bungle and I still owe for it.”
The Proper Place
“Phwat a loively baby yez hov!” said Flaherty. “An’ hov yez had his pictur’ took yit, Oi dunno?”
“Not yit,” said Dugan, the proud father. “We tried it, but afther an hour’s lost wur-rk th’ photygrapher referred us to a movin’ pictur’ studio.
Never Fazed Him
Jim: “My sister had a fright yesterday. she had a black spider run up her arm.”
Bob: “That is nothing. I had a sewing machine run up the seam of my pants today.”
Got Just What He Wanted
“Will you let me off this afternoon, sir?” asked a clerk in a dry-goods store; “my wife wants me to beat some carpets.”
“Couldn’t possibly do it,” said the boss.
The clerk turned joyfully to his work, saying: “Thank you, sir. Thank you a thousand times.”
A Mean Man
“Oh, my boy,” boasted the former leading man, “when I played ‘Hamlet’ the audience took fifteen minutes to leave the house.”
“Ah, indeed?” said the ex-comedian viciously. “Was he lame?”
How a Man Became His Own Grandfather
I married a widow who had a daughter; my father visited our house frequently, fell in love and married my stepdaughter, thus my father became my son-in-law and my stepdaughter my mother, for she was my father’s wife. My stepdaughter had also a son; he was, of course, my grandchild and my brother at the same time, because he was the son of my father. My wife was my grandmother for she was my mother’s mother. I was my wife’s husband and grandchild at the same time, and as the husband of a person’s grandmother is his grandfather …
I was my own grandfather!
All Over
She: “Father says if Teddy Roosevelt was President, this war would now be over.”
He: “It would. Over here.”
An Even Thing
“Aw, Aw,” said Snobleigh – “it must be – aw – very unpleasant for you Americans to be – aw – governed by people whom you – aw – wouldn’t awsk to dinner?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the American girl; “no more so than for you to be governed by people who wouldn’t ask you to dinner.”
’Tis Often So.
“I understand that you have a new motor car?”
“Yes.”
“Do you drive it yourself?”
“Nobody drives it. We coax it.”
His Pacemaker
He was the slowest boy on earth, and had been sacked at three places in two weeks, so his parents had apprenticed him to a naturalist. But even he found him slow. It took him two hours to give the canaries their seed, three to stick a pin through a dead butterfly, and four to pick a convolvulus. The only point about him was that he was willing.
“And what,” he asked, having spent a whole afternoon changing the goldfishes’ water, “shall I do now, sir?”
The naturalist ran his fingers through his locks.
“Well, Robert,” he replied at length, “I think you might now take the tortoise out for a run.”
Many Deserve It
Youth: “I sent you some suggestions telling you how to make your paper more interesting. Have you carried out any of my ideas?”
Editor: “Did you meet the office boy with the waste-paper basket as you came upstairs?”
Youth: “Yes, yes, I did.”
Editor: “Well, he was carrying out your ideas.”
He Asked It
The aged lady next door had been quite ill, so one morning Willie’s mother said to her small son, “Willie, run over and see how old Mrs. Smith is this morning.”
Willie departed, but in a few minutes came back and said, “She says it is none of your business.”
“Why, Willie,” exclaimed his mother. “What did you ask her?”
“Just what you told me to,” said Willie. “I said you wanted to know how old she was.”
Outward Bound
“I hear the sea captain is in hard luck. He married a girl and she ran away from him.”
“Yes; he took her for a mate, but she was a skipper.”
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