Humor Books

CHAPTER I I was down on the card to make a quick jump to Pittsburg a few nights ago, and I'm a lemon if I didn't draw an upper berth in the sleeping car thing! Say! I'll be one of a party of six to go before Congress and tell all I know about an upper berth. And I'd like to tell it right now while I'm good and hot around the collar. The upper berth in a sleeping car is the same... more...

CHAPTER I I met Renniker the other day at the club. He is a man who knows everything—from the method of trimming a puppy's tail for a dog-show, without being disqualified, to the innermost workings of the mind of every European potentate. If I want information on any subject under heaven I ask Renniker. "Can you tell me," said I, "the most God-forsaken spot in England?" Renniker,... more...

OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH When I saw the little house building, an eighth of a mile beyond my own, on the Old Bay Road, I wondered who were to be the tenants. The modest structure was set well back from the road, among the trees, as if the inmates were to care nothing whatever for a view of the stylish equipages which sweep by during the summer season. For my part, I like... more...

PREFACE. The design of the projector of this volume was, that it should contain the Best of the shorter humorous poems in the literatures of England and the United States, except: Poems so local or cotemporary in subject or allusion, as not to be readily understood by the modern American reader; Poems which, from the freedom of expression allowed in the healthy ages, can not now be read aloud in a... more...

The boy hesitated as he looked down the wet street of the little country town. "I've 'arf a mind not to go," he said, "blessed if I ain't——;" then, after a pause, with hands in pockets and coat collar turned up, he lounged off, muttering, "I'll see what Bill ses." Bill was waiting at the corner, looking somewhat sheepishly at the miscellaneous display in... more...

"Why, how d'do, Mrs. Miggs? Come right on in. Ma's jist run over t' Smith's a minute t' borruh some thread and some m'lasses and a couple uh aigs. Aw! yes, come on—she'll be right back. Let's see: S'pose we set on th' sofa and I'll show yuh th' album, so's yuh'll kinda begin t' know some of our folks. We like t' be... more...

WATTY WILLIAMS was a studious youth, with a long nose and a short pair of trowsers; his delight was in the green fields, for he was one of those philosophers who can find sermons in stones, and good in everything. One day, while wandering in a meadow, lost in the perusal of Zimmerman on Solitude, he was suddenly aroused from his reverie by a loud "Moo!" and, turning about, he descried, to his... more...

"Same Old Bill, Eh Mable!" Dere Mable: Were in sunny France at last. I cant tell you much about it yet on account of its havin been so foggy since we got here. We didnt deboat in Paris as I was expectin. We sailed up a river to a town with a wall around it and got off there. I dont know what the wall was for unless to keep people in. They certinly wouldnt need one to keep anybody out of that... more...

THE STORY OF THE TWO FRIARS BY EUGENE FIELD It befell in the year 1662, in which same year were many witchcrafts and sorceries, such as never before had been seen and the like of which will never again, by grace of Heaven, afflict mankind—in this year it befell that the devil came upon earth to tempt an holy friar, named Friar Gonsol, being strictly minded to win that righteous vessel of piety unto... more...

Times has changed, says Maw to herself, says she. Things ain't like what they used to be. Time was when I worked from sunup to sundown, and we didn't have no daylight-saving contraptions on the old clock, neither. The girls was too little then, and I done all the work myself—cooking, sweeping, washing and ironing, suchlike. I never got to church Sundays because I had to stay home and get... more...