Best Short Stories

A few days later, King George, casually glancing through the album, noticed that President Roosevelt's photograph had been removed and placed in the section devoted to "Men and Women of the Time." On asking the Prince whether he had removed the picture, the latter solemnly replied: "Yes, sir. You told me the other day that you thought Mr. Roosevelt a genius, so I took him away from the kings and emperors and put him among the famous people."

HE WAS NOT A PROHIBITIONIST

When the question of America's being prepared for war was uppermost Representative Thomas Heflin, of Alabama, told the following story to illustrate his belief that we ought always to be ready:

"There was an old fellow down in north Alabama and out in the mountains; he kept his jug in the hole of a log. He would go down at sundown to take a swig of mountain dew--mountain dew that had never been humiliated by a revenue officer nor insulted by a green stamp. He drank that liquid concoction that came fresh from the heart of the corn, and he glowed. One evening while he was letting the good liquor trickle down his throat he felt something touch his foot. He looked down and saw a big rattle-snake coiled ready to strike.

"The old fellow took another swig of the corn, and in defiance he swept that snake with his eyes.

"'Strike, dern you, strike, you will never find me better prepared.'"

HE SCORNED THE THOUGHT

The father of a certain charming girl is well known in this town as "a very tight old gentleman." When dad recently received a young man, who for some time had been "paying attention" to the daughter, it was the old gentleman who made the first observation:

"Huh! So you want to marry my daughter, eh?"

"Yes, sir; very much, indeed."

"Um--let me see. Can you support her in the style to which she has been accustomed?"

"I can, sir," said the young man, "but I am not mean enough to do it."

RIVALRY

A young American artist who has just returned from a six months' job of driving a British ambulance on the war front in Belgium brings this back straight from the trenches: "One cold morning a sign was pushed up above the German trench facing ours, only about fifty yards away, which bore in large letters the words: 'Got mit Uns!' One of our cockney lads, more of a patriot than a linguist, looked at this for a moment and then lampblacked a big sign of his own, which he raised on a stick. It read: 'We Got Mittuns, Too!'"

IMPERSONAL

A pretty girl at an evening party was bantering a genial bachelor on his reasons for remaining single.

"No-oo. I never was exactly disappointed in love," he said. "I was what you might call discouraged. You see, when I was very young I became very much enamored of a young lady of my acquaintance. I was mortally afraid to tell her of my feeling, but at length I screwed up my courage to the proposing point. I said, 'Let's get married,' And she said, 'Why, who'd have us?'"

AND HE SUCCEEDED

The military strategist is born not made.

For example:

Two youngsters, one the possessor of a permit, were fishing on a certain estate when a gamekeeper suddenly darted from a thicket. The lad with the permit uttered a cry of fright, dropped his rod, and ran off at top speed. The gamekeeper was led a swift chase. Then, worn out, the boy halted. The man seized him by the arm and said between pants: "Have you a permit to fish on this estate?"

"Yes, to be sure," said the boy quietly.

"You have? Then show it to me."

The boy drew the permit from his pocket. The man examined it and frowned in perplexity and anger.

"Why did you run when you had this permit?" he asked.

"To let the other boy get away," was the reply. "He didn't have any."

NO CHANGE IN SHYLOCK

An old woman who lived in the country recently visited some friends in the city. During her stay she was taken to see "The Merchant of Venice," a play she had witnessed more than thirty years before, and which she had always had a strong desire to see again. Calling next day, a friend asked her how the previous night's performance compared with that of thirty years ago.

"Well," she replied, "Venice seems to have smartened up a bit, but that Shylock is the same mean, grasping creature that he used to be."

ENOUGH

After all, only a feminine mind can be truly broadminded and make a correct deduction of a whole from a knowledge of a part. Said a certain lady in a shop:

"I want a pair of pants for my sick husband."

"What size?" asked the clerk.

"I don't know, but he wears a 14-1/2 collar."

HE OBEYED

A certain woman demands instant and unquestioning obedience from her children. One afternoon a storm came up and she sent her little son John to close the trap leading to the flat roof of the house.

"But, mother," began John.

"John, I told you to shut the trap."

"Yes, but, mother--"

"John, shut that trap!"

"All right, mother, if you say so--but--"

"John!"

Whereupon John slowly climbed the stairs and shut the trap. Two hours later the family gathered for dinner, but Aunt Mary, who was staying with the mother, did not appear. The mother, quite anxious, exclaimed, "Where can Aunt Mary be?"

"I know," John answered triumphantly, "she is on the roof."

FAIR WARNING

Andrew Carnegie said:

"I was traveling Londonward on an English railway last year, and had chosen a seat in a non-smoking carriage. At a wayside station a man boarded the train, sat down in my compartment, and lighted a vile clay pipe.

"This is not a smoking carriage," said I.

"'All right, Governor,' said the man. 'I'll just finish this pipe here.'

"He finished it, then refilled it.

"'See here,' I said, 'I told you this was not a smoking carriage. If you persist with that pipe I shall report you at the next station to the guard.' I handed him my card. He looked at it, pocketed it, but lighted his pipe nevertheless. At the next station, however, he changed to another compartment.

"Calling the guard, I told him what had occurred, and demanded that the smoker's name and address be taken.

"'Yes, sair,' said the guard, and hurried away. In a little while he returned. He seemed rather awed and, bending over me, said apologetically:

"'Do you know, sir, if I were you I would not prosecute that gent. He has just given me his card. Here it is. He is Mr. Andrew Carnegie.'"

PREPAREDNESS

Scotchmen are proverbial for their caution.

Mr. MacTavish attended a christening where the hospitality of the host knew no bounds except the several capacities of the guests. In the midst of the celebration Mr. MacTavish rose up and made rounds of the company, bidding each a profound farewell.

"But, Sandy, man," objected the host, "ye're not goin' yet, with the evenin' just started?"

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

FULL SPEED AHEAD

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."

PLAYING SAFE

A lady recently selecting a hat at a milliner's asked, cautiously:

"Is there anything about these feathers that might bring me into trouble with the Bird Protection Society?"

"Oh, no, madam," said the milliner.

"But did they not belong to some bird?" persisted the lady.

"Well, madam," returned the milliner, pleasantly, "these feathers are the feathers of a howl; and the howl, you know, madam, seein' as 'ow fond he is of mice, is more of a cat than a bird."

WORDS FAILED HER

The budding authoress had purchased a typewriter, and one morning the agent called and asked:

"How do you like your new typewriter, madam?"

"It's wonderful!" was the enthusiastic reply. "I wonder how I ever done my writing without it."

"Would you mind," asked the agent, "giving me a little testimonial to that effect?"

"Certainly not," she responded. "I'll do it gladly."

Seating herself at the machine, she pounded out the following:

Aafteb Using thee Automatid Backactiom atype write, er for thre emonth %an d Over. I unhesittattingly pronoun ce it tobe al ad more than th e Manufacturss claim! for it. Durinb the tim e been in myy possessio n $i thre month it had more th an paid paid for itse*f in thee saVing off tim e anD laborr?

ONE WAY OUT

One of the congregation of a church not far from Boston approached her pastor with the complaint that she was greatly disturbed by the unmelodious singing of one of her neighbors.

"It's positively unbearable!" she said. "That man in the pew in front of us spoils the service for me. His voice is harsh and he has no idea of a tune. Can't you ask him to change his pew?"

The good pastor was sorely perplexed. After a few moments' reflection, he said, "Well, I naturally would feel a little delicacy on that score, especially as I should have to tell him why I asked it. But I'll tell you what I might do." Here his face became illuminated by a happy thought. "I might ask him to join the choir."

HOW WAR BEGAN

There have been a great many explanations for war, but the following appears to have its special merits:

The world was supplied with an original producer; namely, Woman.

Woman produced babies.

The babies grew up and produced tradespeople.

The tradespeople produced goods with which to supply the woman.

The goods, coming into competition with each other, owing to the different parts of the world wherein they were manufactured, produced trouble.

The trouble produced international jealousies.

The international jealousies produced war.

Then the war proceeded to destroy the women and babies, because it was through woman in the beginning that war became possible.

MATRIMONIAL ENDURANCE

A happily married woman, who had enjoyed thirty-three years of wedlock, and who was the grandmother of four beautiful little children, had an amusing old colored woman for a cook.

One day when a box of especially beautiful flowers was left for the mistress the cook happened to be present, and she said: "Yo' husband send you all the pretty flowers you gits, Missy?"

"Certainly, my husband, mammy," proudly answered the lady.

"Glory!" exclaimed the cook, "he suttenly am holdin' out well."

MISSING IT

The folks in the southern part of Arkansas are not noted for their speed.

A man and his wife were sitting on their porch when a funeral procession passed the house. The man was comfortably seated in a chair that was tilted back against the house, and was whittling a piece of wood. As the procession passed, he said:

"I reckon ol' man Williams has got about the biggest funeral that's ever been held around hyer, Caroline."

"A purty good-sized one, is it, Bud?" queried the wife, making no effort to move.

"Certainly is!" Bud answered.

"I surely would like to see it," said the woman. "What a pity I ain't facin' that way!"

THE OBVIOUS PLACE

What is known in a certain town as "A Shop Carnival" was being held, and little girls represented the various shops. One, dressed in a white muslin frock gaily strung with garlands of bonbons, advertised the local sweet shop.

When the festival began she fairly glistened with attractive confectionery, but as time wore on her decorations grew less. Finally, at the end of the last act, not a bonbon was to be seen.

"Why, Dora," cried the stage manager, "where in the world are all your decorations? Have you lost them?"

"Oh, no," replied Dora; "they're perfectly safe. I'm wearing them inside."

THEIR OPPORTUNITY

In war times Cupid is not only active but overworked, and people who have never loved before do not wait upon ceremony. In the spring of 1918, a certain rector, just before the service, was called to the vestibule to meet a couple who wanted to be married. He explained that there wasn't time for the ceremony then. "But," said he, "if you will be seated I will give you an opportunity at the end of the service for you to come forward, and I will then perform the ceremony."

The couple agreed, and after a stirring war sermon at the proper moment the clergyman said: "Will those who wish to be united in the holy bond of matrimony please come forward?"

Thereupon thirteen women and one man proceeded to the altar.

DOING HIS DUTY, BUT--

That time-honored subject the wife who talks and the husband who endures never ceases to be a source of inspiration to the humorist, and it is truly astonishing how many new ways it can be treated:

One day the telephone bell rang with anxious persistence. The doctor answered the call of a tired husband.

"Yes?" he said.

"Oh, doctor," said a worried voice, "something seems to have happened to my wife. Her mouth seems set and she can't say a word."

"Why, she may have lockjaw," said the medical man.

"Do you think so? Well, if you are up this way some time next week you might step in and see what you can do for her."

ANTICIPATING THE PLEASURE

Will Hogg of Texas says that down in Houston one Monday morning a Negro boy in his employ came to him with a request.

"Boss," said the darky, "I'd lak to git off nex' Friday fur the day."

"What for?" inquired Hogg.

"Got to go to a fun'el."

"Whose funeral is it?"

"My uncle's."

"When did your uncle die?"

"Lawd, boss, he ain't daid yit!"

"Then how do you know his funeral is going to take place on Friday?"

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