Best Short Stories

"From Berlin, ma'am," he answered.

The lady stared at him through her lorgnette.

"Dear me!" she said. "Couldn't you go back and come from somewhere else?"

THE LIFE

They were two sweet young American girls, able, beautiful, versatile, patriotic to the core, rushed to death. And one of them said breathlessly:

"What have you been doing?"

And the other one as breathlessly replied:

"Doing! My dear, I hate to tell you. I got up at six. I drove a car forty miles to camp. I knitted a sweater and a pair of socks in between. I went to a Red Cross meeting. I acted as bridesmaid. I read a book on the war. I took a last lesson in first aid. I canned eighty cans of vegetables and, oh--!"

"Do tell me!"

"Why, will you believe me, I have been so busy all day that I almost forgot to get married!"

WELCOMING THE ACTOR

A well-known society performer volunteered to entertain a roomful of patients of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, and made up a very successful little monologue show, entirely humorous. The audience in the main gave symptoms of being slightly bored, but one highly intelligent maniac saw the whole thing in the proper light, and, clapping the talented actor on the shoulder, said: "Glad you've come, old fellow. You and I will get along fine. The other dippies here are so dashed dignified. What I say is if a man is mad, he needn't put on airs about it."

COULDN'T BE BOTHERED

Mose approached the registration booth hesitatingly, and being accosted by the official in charge, assured that dignitary that he had just walked ten miles to register.

"Well, Mose, what branch of the service would you like to be placed in?" inquired the official.

"How about the cavalry?"

"What will Ah have ter do in de calvary?"

"Oh, you won't have to do anything but ride a horse all the time."

Mose scratched his woolly noggin in perplexity for a few moments, and finally said: "Nawssur, Ah don't believe Ah wants ter jine the calvary."

"What's the matter with the cavalry, Mose?"

"Well, yer see, boss, hit's jest like dis: When y'awl blow dem bugles ter retreet, Ah don't want ter be troubled wid no hoss."

THEIR "BIT"

Jimmie, very proud of his first job and weekly salary of $6.83, purchased a Liberty Bond on the installment plan. That evening he saw in the newspaper that John D. Rockefeller had invested in Liberty Bonds to the extent of $10,000,000.

Turning to his mother, Jimmie said proudly, "Well, ma, two of us Americans have done our duty, anyhow."

MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN

A woman doctor of Philadelphia was calling on a young sister, recently married, who was in distress. In response to the doctor's inquiry the newly-wed said:

"I cooked a meal for the first time yesterday, and I made an awful mess of it."

"Never mind, dearie," said the doctor, cheerfully; "it's nothing to worry about. I lost my first patient."

DANGER SIGNALS

An ingenious American has invented a device to prevent such motoring accidents as arise from over-speeding. He describes his contrivance as follows:

"While the car is running fifteen miles an hour a white bulb shows on the radiator, at twenty-five miles a green bulb appears, at forty a red bulb, and, when the driver begins to bat 'em out around sixty per, a music-box under the seat begins to play 'Nearer, My God, to Thee.'"

VULNERABLE

A visiting minister, preaching in a town famous for its horse races, vigorously denounced the sport. The principal patron of the church always attended the races, and of this the clergyman was later informed.

"I am afraid I touched one of your weaknesses," said the pastor, not wishing to offend the wealthy one, "but it was quite unintentional, I assure you."

"Oh, don't mind that," said the sportsman genially. "It's a mighty poor sermon that don't hit me somewhere."

MISLEADING

Johnson, a bachelor, had been to call on his sister, and was shown the new baby. The next day some friends asked him to describe the new arrival. The bachelor replied: "Um--very small features, clean shaven, red faced, and a very hard drinker!"

A SOFT ANSWER

The ocean liner was rolling like a chip, but as usual in such instances one passenger was aggressively, disgustingly healthy.

"Sick, eh?" he remarked to a pale-green person who was leaning on the rail.

The pale-green person regarded the healthy one with all the scorn he could muster. "Sick nothing!" he snorted weakly. "I'm just hanging over the front of the boat to see how the captain cranks it!"

BALLS

A young married couple who lived near a famous golf-course were entertaining an elderly aunt from the depths of the country.

"Well, Aunt Mary, how did you spend this afternoon?" asked the hostess on the first day.

"Oh, I enjoyed myself very much," replied Auntie with a beaming smile, "I went for a walk across the fields. There seemed to be a great many people about, and some of them shouted to me in a most eccentric manner, but I just took no notice. And, by the way," she went on, "I found such a number of curious little round white things. I brought them home to ask you what they are."

JOE'S DIAGNOSIS

A colored man entered the general store of a small Ohio town and complained to the storekeeper that a ham that he had purchased there a few days before had proved not to be good.

"The ham is all right, Joe," insisted the storekeeper.

"No, it ain't, boss," insisted the other. "Dat ham's sure bad."

"How can that be," continued the storekeeper, "when it was cured only last week?"

Joe reflected solemnly a moment, and then suggested:

"Maybe it's done had a relapse."

PURELY LITERARY

A celebrated author thus sketched out his daily programme to an interviewer: Rise at 11; breakfast at 12; attention to mail; a few afternoon calls; a ride in the park; dinner; the theatre, and then to bed.

"But when do you do your literary work?" he was asked.

"Why, the next day, of course," was the reply.

TOO FORWARD

At a parade of a company of newly-called-up men the drill instructor's face turned scarlet with rage as he slated a new recruit for his awkwardness.

"Now, Rafferty," he roared, "you'll spoil the line with those feet. Draw them back at once, man, and get them in line."

Rafferty's dignity was hurt.

"Plaze, sargint," he said, "they're not mine; they're Micky Doolan's in the rear rank!"

OBEYING ORDERS

The manager of a big Australian sheep-ranch engaged a discharged sailor to do farm work. He was put in charge of a large flock of sheep.

"Now, all you've got to do," explained the manager, "is to keep them on the run."

A run is a large stretch of bushland enclosed by a fence, and sheep have many ingenious methods of escaping from their own to neighboring runs and so getting mixed up with other flocks.

At the end of a couple of hours the manager rode up again--the air was thick with dust as though a thousand head of cattle had passed by.

At last he distinguished the form of his new shepherd--a collapsed heap prone upon the ground. Surrounding him were the sheep, a pitiful, huddled mass, bleating plaintively, with considerably more than a week's condition lost.

"What the dickens have you been doing to those sheep?" shrieked the almost frantic manager.

The ex-sailor managed to gasp out: "Well, sir, I've done my best. You told me to keep them on the run, and so I hunted them up and down and round--and now--I'm just dead beat myself."

TABLE OF COMPARISON

To instill into the mind of his son sound wisdom and business precepts was Cohen senior's earnest endeavor. He taught his offspring much, including the advantages of bankruptcy, failures, and fires. "Two bankruptcies equal one failure, two failures equal one fire," etc. Then Cohen junior looked up brightly.

"Fadder," he asked, "is marriage a failure?"

"Vell, my poy," was the parent's reply, "if you marry a really wealthy woman, marriage is almost as good as a failure."

KNEW HIS JOB

It was Easter eve on leap year, and the dear young thing, who had been receiving long but somewhat unsatisfactory visits from the very shy young man, decided she might take a chance. Robert had brought her a splendid Easter lily.

"I'll give you a kiss for that lily," she promised blushingly.

The exchange was duly, not to say happily, made. Robert started hurriedly toward the door.

"Why, where are you going?" asked his girl in surprise.

"To the florist's for more Easter lilies!" he replied.

AN ANGLOMANIAC

"What are you studying now?" asked Mrs. Johnson.

"We have taken up the subject of molecules," answered her son.

"I hope you will be very attentive and practise constantly," said the mother. "I tried to get your father to wear one, but he could not keep it in his eye."

YANKEE FODDER

Senator Hoar used to tell with glee of a Southerner just home from New England who said to his friend, "You know those little white round beans?"

"Yes," replied the friend; "the kind we feed to our horses?"

"The very same. Well, do you know, sir, that in Boston the enlightened citizens take those little white round beans, boil them for three or four hours, mix them with molasses and I know not what other ingredients, bake them, and then--what do you suppose they do with the beans?"

"They--"

"They eat 'em, sir," interrupted the first Southerner impressively; "bless me, sir, they eat 'em!"

ONE EXPLANATION

At the meeting of the Afro-American Debating Club the question of capital punishment for murder occupied the attention of the orators for the evening. One speaker had a great deal to say about the sanity of persons who thus took the law into their own hands. The last speaker, however, after a stirring harangue, concluded with great feeling: "Ah disagrees wif capital punishment an' all dis heah talk 'bout sanity. Any pusson 'at c'mits murdeh ain't in a sanitary condition."

REMORSE

"I got son in army," said a wrinkled old chief to United States Senator Clapp during his recent visit to an Indian reservation in Minnesota.

"Fine," exclaimed the Senator. "You should be proud that he is fighting for all of us."

"Who we fight?" the redskin continued.

"Why," the Senator replied, surprised. "We are fighting the Kaiser--you know, the Germans."

"Hah," mourned the chief. "Too dam bad."

"Why bad?" protested Senator Clapp, getting primed for a lecture on Teutonic kultur and its horrors.

"Too dam bad," repeated the old Indian. "Couple come through reservation last week. I could killed um, easy as not. Too dam bad."

He wrapped his face in his blanket and refused to be comforted.

THE REAL CULPRIT

The Crown Prince had been so busy that he hadn't had time to get together with his father and have a confidential chat. But one evening when there was a lull in the 808-centimeter guns, they managed to get a few moments off. The Crown Prince turned to his father and said:

"Dad, there is something I have been wanting to ask you for a long time. Is Uncle George really responsible for this scrap?"

"No, my son."

"Well, did Cousin Nick have anything to do with it?"

"Not at all"

"Possibly you did?"

"No, sir."

"Then would you mind telling me who it was?"

The anointed one was silent for a moment. Then he turned to his son and said:

"I'll tell you how it happened. About two or three years ago there was a wild man came over here from the United States, one of those rip-roaring rough riders that you read about in dime novels, but he certainly did have about him a plausible air. I took him out and showed him our fleet. Then I showed him the army, and after he had looked them over he said to me, 'Bill, you could lick the world,' And I was damn fool enough to believe him."

A MATTER OF NOMENCLATURE

A Negro was recently brought into police court in a little town in Georgia, charged with assault and battery. The Negro, who was well known to the judge, was charged with having struck another "unbleached American" with a brick. After the usual preliminaries the judge inquired:

"Why did you hit this man?"

"Jedge, he called me a damn black rascal."

"Well, you are one, aren't you?"

"Yessah, I is one. But, Jedge, s'pose somebody'd call you a damn black rascal, wouldn't you hit 'em?"

"But I'm not one, am I?"

"Naw, sah, naw, sah, you ain't one; but s'pose somebody'd call you de kind o' rascal you is, what'd you do?"

"IT IS FORBIDDEN"

Early in the war J.B. adopted a French soldier and furnishes him with a monthly allowance of tobacco. Incidentally, he is also lubricating his rusty French by carrying on a correspondence with his "filleul de guerre" who writes him from the trenches, "somewhere in France."

In a recent letter, the soldier informed his American benefactor that "hier j'ai tué deux Boches. Ils sont allés à l'enfer." (Yesterday I killed two Boches. They went straight to hell.) The censor wrote between the lines, "Il est defendu de dire où est l'ennemi." (It is forbidden to tell where the enemy is!)

HER PRAYER

A visitor to a Glasgow working woman whose son was at the front was treated to a fluent harangue on the misdeeds of that "auld blackguard," the Kaiser. She ventured to suggest that we should love our enemies and pray for them.

"Oh, but I pray for him, too."

"What do you say?"

"I say, 'Oh, Lord, deal wi' yon old blackguard, saften his heart, and damp his powther.'"

CAUTIOUS MOURNER

Walking through the village street one day, the widowed Lady Bountiful met old Farmer Stubbs on his way to market. Her greeting went unnoticed.

"Stubbs," said she, indignantly, "you might at least raise your hat to me!"

"I beg your pardon, m'lady," was the reply, "but my poor wife ain't dead moren' two weeks, and I ain't started lookin' at the wimmen yet!"

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