What's your hurry? A deck full of jokers. Niblo George
with fishermen, to judge from the thundering big lies they tell.
Now, I am fond of going fishing myself.
Perhaps I take a deeper interest in the whooping big yarns spun around the blazing camp fire by a set of jolly sportsmen than in the taking of mighty strings of fish.
Still, I delight to lure the festive trout out of the wet.
I've met some fellows who like old-fashioned methods, and succeed where the rest with their expensive tackle fail.
One day I had a remarkable run of luck, and that night as we sat around the camp fire, I took occasion to say that my success was due to the superior kind of flies I had used.
"You may flatter yourself on the string you've brought in to-day," said an old fisherman who had joined our party, "but let me tell you, mister, that I saw a Digger Indian catch more fish in one hour in this stream than you've landed all day with your fine flies."
"What bait did he use?" I asked.
"Live grasshoppers," replied the old man; "but he didn't impale them. From his head he would stoically pluck a hair, and with it bind the struggling insect to the hook. Almost upon the instant that this bait struck the water a fish would leap for it. After landing him the Indian would calmly repeat the performance of snatching a hair from his head and affixing a fresh grasshopper to the hook.
"After the Indian had landed in quick succession a mighty string of salmon trout he suddenly stopped. I called to him to go on with the exciting sport, but he merely smiled grimly and pointed significantly to his head."
"What was the matter with his head?" I asked.
"He had plucked it bald," replied the old man.
There have been some occasions when I've felt myself as though I would like to pluck my hair out, though it is generally on account of some stupidity on my part.
And if you don't mind I will tell you right here, how.
I put my foot in it the other night.
I was so provoked at my stupidity that I came near retiring to a nunnery, or taking a solemn vow not to speak a single word for a week.
Now, I haven't an unusually large mouth, and yet when I related my unfortunate break to Charlie Parsons, the cashier of our bank, he was cruel enough to hint that perhaps some people never could open their mouth without putting their foot in it.
I call that decidedly uncharitable, don't you?
But about this stupid remark of mine.
It was a big reception you know, a mixed company, where one was apt to meet any sort of an old star.
Some famous chaps were there, too.
I honored it with my presence.
At the table I chanced to sit next to a learned professor, head of a famous college. And during the meal some fiendish spirit induced me to turn toward him and say:
"Professor, can you tell me who that uncommonly ugly lady is, opposite to you?"
He looked at me with a wicked smile.
"Sir," he said, "she chances to be my wife."
Of course I was overwhelmed with confusion, and to crawl out of the hole I did what any other person would have done under the same circumstances.
"Pardon me, professor, but I mean the lady on the right."
"And that, sir, is my daughter," he said, solemnly.
Then I flew the coop.
When I was strolling along the Bowery this evening I saw a man come jumping out of a museum that boasts of more freaks than Barnum's show.
"Where's the nearest doctor?" he cried, and from his frightened appearance I felt positive the human snake had gulped down the bearded lady, or the living skeleton with the ossified bones wanted a tough joint pulled, or had got stuck in the wastepipe of the sink.
"What's the matter – anything wrong?" I asked.
"Wrong," he yelled, "I should say there was. Why, the sword swallower has got a pin down his gullet! Show me a doctor, quick!"
A little further along I saw an Irishman being run out of a clothing store by an irate Jew, who certainly looked as though he couldn't take a joke.
The Celt was laughing when I caught up with him.
"What's up?" I asked.
He pointed to the sign that read:
"Great Slaughter in Clothing."
"Sure," said he, "the gossoon was mad clane through because I wint in and asked to see one av thim kilt suits," and he laughed so hard that he choked half to death over a set of false teeth.
Speaking of teeth, that was pretty tough on Snyder when his little son and heir took to giving away family secrets so recklessly.
It seems that Snyder had been treating himself to a new set of teeth.
The youngster thought the event of sufficient importance to be related to the minister when he called.
And quite naturally the good dominie, much amused, asked what would become of the old ones.
"Oh, I suppose," replied little James, with a look of resignation; "they'll cut 'em down and make me wear 'em."
Snyder's wife is a good general.
She was riding in the car with her little daughter Edith, when the conductor, thinking perhaps of a half fare, asked:
"How old are you, little girl?"
"You must ask ma," she immediately replied, "'cause she always takes care of my age in a street car."
Now that was pretty cute, don't you think so?
And my youngest came up smiling recently.
Really, I am worried about that little chap, because I never know whether he is going to be a fool or a humorist.
Perhaps it doesn't matter much.
On this occasion he had had his first ride in an automobile.
A fellow around the corner bought one recently, and as he wants to get in my good graces for some reason or other, he asked Harold to go through the park with him.
That evening I heard my wife, who is very circumspect in all such matters of etiquette, say:
"Harold, did you thank Mr. Gaycrank for that lovely ride he gave you?"
Harold was reading but did not answer.
So she asked him again.
I knew he heard from the way he looked up, but was surprised that he made no reply.
"Harold!" she spoke sharply, now.
"Yes, ma," he replied.
"Did you thank Mr. Gaycrank for taking you riding? Why don't you answer me?"
"I did thank him, ma," whispered Harold, "but he told me not to mention it."
Harold was studying geography.
I saw something puzzled him.
"What's the knotty problem?" I asked him.
"They call the Mississippi the 'Father of waters,'" he said, "and I think it ought to be the 'Mother of waters.'"
"Correct, my son," I said, admiringly.
"Is Missouri the daughter of Mississippi then?" he asked.
I'm afraid I have much to answer for.
And think of it, that boy only nine years old.
What will become of us when he breaks loose at man's estate?
Just this morning he astonished me by declaring the dictionary was only an old joke book after all.
I frowned upon such levity.
The dictionary I look upon as an old and valued friend, and one deserving of the utmost respect.
It has pulled me out of many a difficulty.
"Nonsense,