Ha! Ha! Ha! I am astonished. I didn't expect to find more than ten persons in the house to-night, and I see there are eleven.

I want to thank that gentleman in the first row—the man with the vigorous growth of hair. It's such a relief to see a man with some hair, in the front row.

Say, I don't think I ever told you of the time I went with a Shakespearian company to tour the New England States.

Never knew I was an actor? Why, of course.

Up to yesterday, he hadn't found it; but no actor who goes out of New York town ever expects to get any salary, and I didn't.

I played Hamlet, Egglet, Eyelet, Omelet and To Let.

Every time I played Hamlet, I got an Egglet in the Eyelet, and I saved them up and made an Omelet, which caused such a disturbance among the other boarders, that my landlady told me my room was To Let.

I was in hard luck all around.

The worst blow that ever struck yours truly, was when we hit a little town in Maine called Haystack Mountain.

Some of the girls wept a little and asked how far it was to the railroad station.

I didn't ask how far it was to the station. I knew what to do. I began to walk.

Do you know, I never struck such a confounded lot of ties in all my life.

The railroad must have employed non-union help. You couldn't judge them at all. You'd strike a lot that were three feet apart and think they were all that way. You'd go to sleep until you struck one at a four-foot interval; then you'd wake up pretty quick and murmur gentle nothings about the company.

About the second day out, I landed at the town of Bridgewater. I walked into the only hotel of the place and thought I'd bluff 'em a little.

"What are the rates?" says I.

"Five dollars a day and up," says the clerk.

Suddenly I became aware that I had a visitor, and I knew my visitor had visitors, too—because I could hear him scratching.

"Say," says I, "who the dickens are you and what do you want?"

"Look here, young feller," says the visitor, "I'm Cornelius Vanderbilt out for a spin in my new automobile, and I won't be disturbed by the likes of you."

"Where do you come from?" says I.

"Maryland," says he. "My father is a great farmer down there. He raised a cabbage last year that weighed four hundred pounds. Now, who are you?"

"Why," says I, "they're going to boil that cabbage your father raised."

After a little while he told me his name was Percival Reginald Van Dusenberry. He was an actor, but he had been walking longer than I.

When we struck the town of Grafton, we got off our Pullman, and began looking for the graft.

Percy went up to a cottage and rapped at the door, intending to ask for some cold victuals.

A hand shoved out and gave him a roll of green-backs. Percy was dumfounded, but took to his heels.

When we were about two miles away, Percy looked at me, and said:

"Those lobsters took me for the landlord."

We located a restaurant presently, and sat waiting at a table for an hour and a half.

"Look here," says Percy, "I never drink water unless it's absolutely pure and healthy. Is this all right?"

"Sure," says the waiter.

Percy took a glassful, and most of it was pollywogs.

"Look here," says he, "I thought you said this water was healthy. Look at those bugs."

"That only proves what I said," says the waiter. "If it wasn't healthy the bugs couldn't live in it."

Just then Percy's eye caught a sign that read:

Percy was certainly getting the biggest ten cents' worth I ever saw, when he stepped over and says:

"Don't you think you have had enough?"

"Just one more plate and then—" says Percy.

"Then what?" says the boss.

"Then you can tell the cook to make them a little bit thicker," says Percy.

I tried to chew my chicken, but couldn't get it down. I managed to catch the waiter on his fifteenth lap between the kitchen and Percy's plate, and says:

"Waiter, this chicken is awfully tough."

"Have some pancakes, then," says Percy. "They're good and come cheap."

We traveled along the road that leads from the hash house, and met a farmer with a gun.

"Say," says I, "have you seen anything worth shooting around here?"

"Not until you came," says he.

I don't blame him though.

Talking of shooting, I don't think I ever told you of the time I went shooting with Teddy.

Teddy is a great shot, but he can't compare with me. I'm going to sing you a song about it, entitled:

"Snap Shot, Half Shot, All Shot; or, It Costs Money To Get Loaded."

That's a very fine song, I'll admit. Percy is just dead in love with it. He makes me sing it about ten times a day.

He says he can sympathize with the horses and cows, for he has "stopped many a charge that went astray" and knows how it feels.

We left the farmer with the gun, and Percy began to get woefully dry.

"Great Scott," says he, "I'd give almost anything for a drink of whiskey."

He spied an old gent with a kind face, tottering along the road.

"Just wait a minute," says Percy, "I'll see if that old gent carries a pocket flask."

So he went over and says:

It happened this way.

We saw a large tent in which a revival meeting was going on.

"I'm going to take part," says Percy.

I tried to dissuade him, but it wouldn't go.

Finally, we got clear of the tent and just sloped for it.

I was so afraid that the judge would give me time to explain why I was with Percy that I started to run and didn't stop until I got to Boston.

Now I'm going to sing you a little song, entitled: "He Made a Foolish Break And Got The Laugh; or, Wedded Persons' Compliments."

There! I'm greatly relieved now that I've got that song off my mind. I was afraid I might break down, because it's so touching.

Talking of relief, puts me in mind of a friend of mine who wanted to be relieved, in the worst way, of a barrel of over-ripe sauerkraut. When I heard his tale of woe, I laughed so that I had to go and buy a new pair of suspenders.

You see, he had a German friend who had the kraut and didn't know what to do with it, so he offered to send it home to my friend Jenkins. Jenkins accepted and stored it in his cellar.

And he did.

The next morning he went out to feed the dog and found him—dead.

That day nine families moved out of Jenkins' flat, and the tenth was just going when he donated the kraut to an orphan asylum. The orphans broke loose and took leg bail.

There wasn't any one but the janitor to feed it to and he threatened to quit.

The last Jenkins heard of the kraut, it was about to be shipped to Dick Croker to sod his lawn at Wantage.

You know, though, girls, I appreciate you, if no one else does.

"What's the matter?" says I. "Couldn't you manage the horn."

"Well, you see, Brother Jones," says he, "I could manage the horn all right, but I could not manage the neighbors."

This same fellow is a bird fancier. He breeds all kinds of birds.

Robinson thought a while, and then said he'd bet they couldn't come home from Coney Island. I held the stakes.

When the birds were selected and put in the basket, Robinson slyly clipped their wings.

The next day the fellow came to me and claimed the bet.

"What!" says I. "Did those birds come home?"

"Sure," says he. "But their feet are awfully sore."

Say, the other night I was coming down from Yonkers in a trolley car.

"It's a wonder you wouldn't be careful," says she of the red cranium.

"I am," says he, "but I was dazzled by your head-light."

The ruddy complexioned damsel came in and sat beside me.

In the natural course of events we got to talking and swapped childhood memories.

She told me that she was married, but didn't live with her husband.

"In that case," says I, "you must be a grass widow."

"Why, yes," she assented. "By the way, are you a lawn mower?"

I hastened to assure her that I was a married man.

Another time she went to a palmist, who rambled on telling her the usual stuff they tell every one.

Finally, she says:

"There is a line on your hand that indicates you are a very beautiful woman."

Say, I had an accident with a cat the other night, and I'm nervous for fear the S. P. C. A. will get after me.

You see I came home pretty early and, just as I got my key in the door, I heard something behind me.

I didn't pay any attention, and as I opened the door that something scooted past me and slipped upstairs.

I took off my boot, got a light, and—the rest I'll tell you in my latest sonata, entitled:

"Oh, Bring Back My Tabby To Me."

That's a pretty good song, if I do say so myself. I always feel like laughing when I sing it, though. It reminds me of my dear departed friend, Tom O'Moore.

This Tom was the brightest fellow that ever lived.

"Och," says Tom, "is it that small lump you mane, that's nothin'. That's only where Bridget hit me with the lifter."

Tom had the troublesome tooth taken out and left the place.

Outside, he met his dear friend O'Holleran who, as he saw Tom, yelled:

"I say, Tom, did you hear of the frightful miscarriage of justice that McCarthy was the victim of?"

"No," says Tom, "what was it?"

"Well," says O'Holleran, "they locked poor Mac up for being drunk when he was clane sober."

"Begob," says Tom, "I don't belave it at all, at all. Mac must have been drunk to let them lock him up when he was sober."

"I say, Tom," says O'Holleran, "do you believe in drames?"

Tom and O'Holleran took a walk through the suburbs, and came upon some blackberry bushes laden with half-ripe fruit.

"I say," says O'Holleran, "what kind of bushes do you call those, Tom?"

"Whoi, you fule," says Tom, "they're blackberries."

"Get out," says O'Holleran, "they're red."

"Sure," says Tom, "but every fule knows that blackberries are always red when they're green."

"Run up the bank for your life," cried Tom, and set a good example by doing it himself.

I stepped into one of these holy terrors and sat down on a revolving stool similar to those they have in dry goods stores.

These seats are placed so closely together that your neighbor's business is your own.

You try to eat your soup. He nudges you and sends it back in your plate.

He tries to eat his pork and beans. You nudge him and he fishes in his vest pocket for pork, and down his shirt front for beans.

The first entree was:

"Omelette a la Creole."

"Good heavens!" I thought. "Do they slice Creoles and serve them as omelettes?"

I wasn't very anxious to find out.

The next was:

"Rice soup a la Bellevue."

"Holy smoke, I have the rum habit so bad, I imagine I see Bellevue everywhere I go. I wonder what would happen if I were to take that?"

I got nervous and prepared to leave.

The last thing I saw on the calender was

"Croquettes a la D'Esprit."

"That's it exactly," I thought, "they get so desperate in these places that they hash up all the leavings and call them by their right name."

When I passed the manager of the shebang, he says:

"What's the matter? Are you dissatisfied with what you've had?"

"Then, besides, I'm liable to be inconvenienced any time," he says, "through an argument I had with a friend of mine this morning. He said I was extravagant, and I said I wasn't."

"Well," says I, "did you succeed in getting him to think the same as yourself?"

"Yes," says he, "but I may get arrested any minute for assult and battery, and they'll fine me not less than five dollars."

I don't think I ever told you of the awful time I had, when I went yachting with my friend Rufus Sage, did I?

I found my ear in the captain's mouth and he was telling me something I didn't want to know.

The captain found my right boot exactly where it should have been under the circumstances.

"This," I says, "is all right. I'll put the staff in the bung-hole of the barrel and fly a signal of distress."

It flew fine, until a gust of wind took it away. But, as you know, I am a man of resource.

I took off my jacket and hoisted it in the place of the flag.

Another gust of wind came and blew my jacket away. Then I hoisted my shirt. That blew away and I hoisted my socks. Those followed, and I hoisted my trousers.

That night, when I came home to dinner, I couldn't eat a thing. Everything that wasn't glowing embers, was charcoal. I gave my wife a lecture and told her to fire the girl at once.

My wife went down to Bridget's stronghold and said:

"Sing Sing," says he.

I went home and sent Bridget away.

My wife, in sympathy, recommended her to one of her dearest friends. That sympathy was beautiful to see.

A little later Bridget came back and announced that the friend had engaged her.

"So the lady engaged you, at once, when you told her you had been with me," says she.

I had a terrible dream about Mark, last night. It was so terrible that I got right up and dedicated a song to it.

It's entitled:

"What Did I Have For Supper; or, If I Knew What It Was I'd Eat It Again."

A low key, professor. Not a latchkey.

Verily, verily, Republics and friends are ungrateful.

Do you know, all the gentlemen I mentioned in that song I just sang are my friends?

Talking of friends, puts me in mind of an ungrateful cuss I once called by this over-worked figure of speech.

He met me on the street, slapped me on the back, and said:

"Hello, old man!"

"Hello!" says I, "what do you want?"

"What do I want?" says he. "I want ten dollars."

"That's an awful large sum of money, and I'm afraid I haven't got it to lend," says I.

"You've got it in the bank?" says he.

"Yes," says I.

"Now, look here," says he. "The Good Book teaches us that we are all brothers."

"Granted," says I.

I rushed down to the bank, and says to the teller:

"Is the cashier in?"

"No," says he, "he's out. Are you a depositor?"

"Yes," says I.

"Then you're out, too; the police are on the trail now."

I went back to Harris, and gave him the last cent I had. He promised to pay me back in an hour.

A month after I met him.

"Say," says I, "how about that money I lent you? You said you only wanted it for a short time."

"That's right," says he, "I only had it for ten minutes. I went into a faro game."

Some time ago, Harris visited a tailor and had an overcoat made. He wanted trust, and the tailor, of course, wanted references.

Harris put up such a bluff that the tailor gave him the overcoat. He certainly played his game to perfection.

The tailor put the bill into a collector's hands.

The collector called upon Harris.

"I'm sorry for you, old man," said the collector, "but your tailor has put your account into my hands for collection."

"Indeed, I'm so sorry for you. And you say you're going to try to collect it eh?" says Harris. "Well, I am so sorry for you."

The collector couldn't get a cent. Every time he called after that, Harris threw him downstairs.

Did you ever strike one of those people who are dead stuck on their lineage and have charts tacked on their bedroom door, showing how many thousand years they can trace their ancestors?

As soon as we were introduced, she says: "Jones, Jones, surely you are a descendant of the famous family of Joneses, who had their origin in the stone age and lived in a cave on the Palisades, about a mile from Hoboken?"

"I can't remember," says I, "it's so long ago and I have a poor memory."

"Yes, but let us come nearer to the present generation," says she. "You surely are a relative of the Joneses, the Milwaukee millionaires of the same name."

"Yes," I says, "a distant relative."

"How distant?" she says.

"As distant as they can keep me," says I.

"Have you any poor relatives?" says she.

"None that know me," says I.

That got her mad. She says:

"If I were your wife, I would put poison in your coffee."

"And if I was your husband," says I, "I'd drink it."

Something made Charlie rampageous, and he began to scrap with the barkeeper and almost killed him.

I finally got Charlie, seeing four moons and ten gangplanks, on board his vessel which was just about to leave.

The next day I met his brother Jim.

"Hello, Walter, I hear you saw Charlie off last night," says he.

"Yes," says I, "he was very much off."

"Was he in good spirits when you left him?" says he.

"Sure," says I, "the best that money could buy. He was a little sick, though."

"I hope it wasn't anything contagious," says he.

"If you could see the barkeeper up in Dan Mulligan's place," says I, "you'd thought it was."

"Holy smoke!" says a fellow who stood beside me on the station. "No wonder Lakewood is so healthy. They water the streets with Fakir's Sarsaparilla."

Did you ever notice that when you have been taking liquid refreshments and are feeling good, and can't walk straight, then is the time you meet all your dearly beloved friends who like to talk about you?

The other night I went to a beer party, and when it got time to go home, I felt pretty much so-so.

I started out and the very first fellow I met was Jenkins.

"Why, my dear Walter," says he, "I am surprised. Don't give way to strong drink. Verily, verily, put it behind you."

"Say," says I, "I fell down stairs last night, parson, with twenty bottles of beer, and didn't break one of them."

"Verily, verily," says he, "that was indeed marvelous. How did you accomplish that extraordinary feat?"

"I had them inside me," says I.

The parson passed on and the next fellow I met was Dr. Brown of Spotless Town.

"What!" says he, "drinking beer again, friend Jones? I thought I told you that every glass of beer you took put a nail in your coffin."

"Can't give it up, doctor," says I. "Then, too, what does it matter after you're dead and gone if your coffin is as full of nails as the new East River Bridge is full of rivets."

I began to get a little confused, and couldn't see very clearly.

I met a friend and says:

"Say, Tom, can you tell me what has become of Walter Jones?"

Just then the bell rang, and the maid announced the doctor. He came in looking like a big sunflower.

"Sorry, old man, to see you in such a condition last night," says he.

"Bad condition, doctor," says I. "Why, that wasn't a flea bite to the condition I'm in this morning."

That doctor has a son that beats anything you ever heard tell of. He has made all his money on apples.

No, he don't grow them. He's a doctor.

It's little green apples I'm talking about now.

When leaving, the doctor told me I must take to automobiling and I would soon get well. I told my wife about it.

"Doc is simple to throw money away like that," says she.

"Don't worry about that," says I. "He charges double price for surgical visits."

"Get out," says I, "is that so?"

"Yes," says she. "When he sees that they are doomed, he sends them to a specialist.

"Oh, Walter!" says she. "By the way, are we all out of debt?"

"Thank Heaven, we are," I replied.

"Then let's give a swell dinner."

"But that would throw us into debt again."

"Of course it would, but what is the use of having good credit unless you can use it?"

I suppose after that I ought to sing you my latest howling success, entitled "No New Proverbs for Your Willie Boy; or, Some of the Fifty-seven."

Say, do you know I'm always afraid to carry that song about with me, for fear that some burglar will follow me home and steal it while I'm asleep.

The truth is I'm somewhat afraid of burglars.

The other night my wife woke me up and said:

"Walter, Walter, there are burglars in the house."

"All right, just take a light and turn them out," says I.

I grabbed a chair and went at him.

We finally compromised.

He was to take everything of any value if he would only let me—I mean if I would only let him up.

He took all the silverware off the sideboard and began to pack it up.

He used his hand first, but the blow almost killed his father.

Then he used a club, but failed to make any impression upon his son.

Then he got out of patience and said to his wife:

"Maria, confound it, get me a can opener."

Now this same Billy got so educated in that factory, that he wanted to go West and shoot millionaires, so he just sloped.

His father telegraphed all over the country, and then, as a last resort, rang up police headquarters.

One day a neighbor came across Willie hustling like old Sam Hill to reload a wagon of hay which had overturned.

"Well, Willie, I see you are in trouble."

"Yes," says Willie, working for dear life.

"Suppose you come to the house and have dinner with me," says the neighbor.

Willie wouldn't hear of it. The man finally persuaded him to go.

All the way to the house and at dinner Willie kept saying:

"I shouldn't have come. I know dad won't like it."

"Why," says the neighbor, "your father will never know unless you tell him."

That boy is a genius though, in his way.

Why, do you know that they have had thirty-four examinations since he's been going to school, and he's managed to dodge every one of them.

"Hello, Matt," says I, "how's Mamie?" Mamie is his sweetheart, you know.

"Oh!" says Matt, "I've thrown her over."

"Well, that was a foolish thing to do," says I. "Mamie was a good and beautiful girl."

"I know it," says he, "but her father offered to give us enough money to furnish a home, if we got married. I'm going with another girl now."

"What sort of a girl is she," says I, and that started him off.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to start a fellow extolling the virtues and graces of his chosen before he is married?

If you ask him how his wife is after the ceremony, all you get out of him is something resembling a grunt.

Well, this fellow rambled.

"She's an angel. She isn't like other girls. She's got the loveliest complexion. The handsomest face, the finest figure, the sweetest nature that ever woman had."

"Feet, man," says he, "what are you talking about? Are you demented?"

"No," says I, "but you ought to have looked at her feet."

"What has her feet got to do with it?" says he, "I'm marrying the girl, not her feet."

"That's right," says I, "but you'll get her feet thrown into the bargain. Never marry a club-footed girl, because she's always got something to hit you with in case of an argument."

Even that didn't shut him up.

"Let me tell you how I got engaged to her," says he.

"Go ahead," says I.

"I was down to her house one night and stayed until almost one o'clock.

"Finally her old man hollered downstairs and asked the girl if I didn't think it was about time to go to bed.

"I hollered up that it was all right, I'd excuse him if he wanted to go.

My wife shoved her head out of the window, and says:

"Is that you, Billy, dear?"

My name's not Billy. I got divorced.

Talking of graveyards, I took a trip to Philly last week.

Say, I never had such fun since I sold my automobile.

The circus began at Hoboken and continued all the way down.

When I got to the station I noticed an Irishman sitting out of harm's way, holding his jaw.

"What's the matter, old man?" says I; "toothache?"

"Yes, bedad," says he, "but I'm going to get rid of it."

The twine held and so did the tooth.

You never saw any one run to beat that fool Irishman. He had Duffy beaten to death.

Finally after he had run a two-mile straight-away, the cord snapped, but the tooth stayed in. Pat came back.

"Be jabbers," says he, "the dum thing fooled me that time, but I'll get even. I'll go to a dentist."

I got on my train and took a seat in the forward car.

Just opposite, a very stylish, rather beautiful lady sat next to a clerical-looking chap.

When the conductor came around for her ticket, she fumbled for her purse, then grew pale and gasped:

"I've been robbed. There is nothing in my pocket but a piece of orange peel, some cloves, and a bottle of whiskey."

Then she began to throw the articles on the floor.

"Madam," said the deep bass voice of the clerical-looking chap, "I'll thank you to take your hands out of my pocket and leave its contents alone."

He was greatly bothered by a fly, which used to go in one ear and out the other.

You know how they do, sometimes.

The fly had made ten laps, and was comfortably along on its eleventh, when the old fellow called his servant.

"John," says he, quietly, "catch the little creature as gently as possible and put it out of the window. Don't hurt it, though, or I shall be angry."

John, who evidently knew his master's weakness, caught the bothersome fly and carried it to an open window.

"Ah, master," pleaded he, "just look, it is beginning to rain. Shall I not give the poor little fly a mackintosh and an umbrella?"

Just then the train stopped at a way station and I got off to get a bite to eat. As usual, I got left.

"It isn't a cottage at all," began the man.

"Ah, well, my good man," says Joe, "if it's only a dog-house, you'd better have it insured."

"Confound you," says the suburbanite, now in a rage, "get out of this. I'm rebuilding my well."

Joe, soon after this, decided to stay in the carpetbaggers' city and take the agency of a large insurance company.

Joe at last got married and, when his son was still quite young, it bothered him somewhat to know just what trade or profession he ought to select for him.

So at last he told his wife to get the boy a box of paints, a toy steam engine, a printing press, and see what the boy would take to most readily.

That didn't suit Mrs. Dempsey though, and she said they ought to have the boy a musician.

"All right," says Joe, "we'll let him learn the clarionette."

"Why, Joe!" says his wife. "Whoever heard of such a thing. I say, let him learn to play the violin. Think what an unhandy thing a clarionette is to carry."

"That's right, my dear," says Joe, "but think what a darn handy thing it is in case of a scrap."

Now I'll try to amuse you by singing my latest dead march, entitled "The Moth and the Flame; or, My Kingdom For a Fire."

That song always gives my friend Rosensky a bad attack of indigestion.

All the time I'm singing it he keeps moaning:

"Dink if that vas me. Dink!"

The time I was boarding, my landlady's name was Mrs. Closefist.

One day she went to the grocery store and says:

She had a pig and that pig died. We had pork for the next four weeks.

She had a mother-in-law. That mother-in-law was taken sick—but we fooled her, we all moved.

One morning my egg wasn't fried right, so I blew the girl up.

She blew the servant up, the servant blew the cook up, and the gasoline stove blew the frying pan up.

It was a case of blow-up all around.

Mrs. Closefist had a daughter named Jane, who was taking painting lessons at the time.

She also took pains to let every one within a hundred miles know about it.

One day she brought down a thing that looked to me like a green shutter in a cloud of steam.

"I'm enraptured," says I. "Such a wealth of detail, such a display of budding genius! The perspective is simply perfect. It-it-it—is—so—clever. Oh! confound it, I can't find words to express my admiration. By the way, what is it?"

"Why," says she, "I am surprised. It represents a green field on a cloudy day. Can't I paint well?"

"Fine," says I. "In fact you have done so well, I am going to recommend you to a friend of mine who wants a fence whitewashed."

Mrs. Closefist, whose reputation for meanness was well known, was in the habit of giving a soiree once a year, "just to liven the boarders up."

I don't know whether it made any of the other fellows particularly lively, but I know that on such occasions was the only time I ever managed to get any sleep.

There were very few outsiders who attended, because the "racket" usually partook very much of the chief trait of the hostess.

Say, I don't think I ever told you of the time I went to England. You see, I arrived at Liverpool and took the train for London.

The train seemed to me to be going remarkably fast for that country and I got sort of uneasy.

At the first stop, I went to the guard and said:

While out for a stroll the other afternoon, I reached the foot of a steep hill just in time to see a fellow with an automobile come skating down faster than he intended.

When he had reached the bottom and the dust had settled, I walked over and asked him if he was hurt.

He said he wasn't, but looked ruefully at his auto.

"This darned thing cost a cool two thousand the other day, but I'd be willing to sell it for fifty now," says he.

I looked it over and it seemed a pretty likely sort of machine and not very much hurt, so I took him up.

He got out of the way mighty quick, and three minutes after he disappeared two mounted policemen came dashing up.

Mac is a boss carpenter.

The other day he called his assistant and says:

"Here, Jim, I'm going out for a few minutes and you can plane down this beam until I return."

He pointed to a big beam about eighteen inches square.

But, alas! when poor Mac got out on the street, he slipped and sprained his ankle.

They took him home and it was the next day, toward evening, before he could hobble around to his shop.

His assistant was nowhere in sight.

The only thing that met his gaze, was an enormous pile of shavings.

So he bawled out:

"James!"

Well, as I said, I went to this shelter for freaks and looked them over.

There was the fat lady who was blown up twice a day with the air pump.

There was the living skeleton who was fed on pork and beans three times a day.

There was the Circassian girl who paid twelve dollars for her wig.

When we got to the glass eater, the real fun began.

There was a yap and his wife standing where they could get a good view of the performance.

They watched him, enraptured for a time, and finally the woman says:

"Hiram, just look at that fellow eating window glass."

"That's nothing," says Hiram, "our little Reuben can do the same thing."

"G'wan," says the woman, "how's that?"

"Why, if he eats little green apples, won't he have pains on the inside?"

Then we passed on to the ventriloquist.

"What's a ventriloquist, Hiram?" says Mandy.

"Why," says Hiram, "it's a fellow what stands on one side of the room and talks to hisself from the other."

I looked that wax figure over and something about it struck me as being familiar.

Finally it came to me all at once.

It was Sim Johnson, who borrowed twenty dollars from me out in Chicago. So I went over.

"Hello, Sim," says I. He never moved a muscle.

"Don't you know me, Sim?" says I.

"Go 'way," says he, without moving his lips.

That made me mad as a hornet, and I says:

"Go 'way? Not much. Who is the wall-eyed, bandy-legged, beer-guzzling harp, who borrowed twenty dollars from me, out in Chicago?"

He never said a word. That got me madder.

I continued to pay my respects in this fashion:

"You miserable, consumptive-looking ingrate. You sea-sick-looking, despicable turkey hen; I'd like to kill you. You mean to rob me."

"You lie," shrieked Sim, now warmed up.

Talking of wax men, puts me in mind of a fellow who lives in the flat opposite mine.

He's about the most miserable specimen of a man I ever struck.

His wife is always quarreling with him; he's always quarreling with his wife.

When he proposed to her he said, as we all have said:

"Darling, if you will only marry me, I will make you the best husband in the world."

"Never fear, sweet," says she, "if I marry you, I'll make you that all right, all right."

One afternoon, I heard her giving him a Sam Hill of a blow-up and met him in the hall soon afterward.

"Say," says I, "why in thunder don't you assert your independence?"

"Independence," he wailed, "why she won't even grant me home rule."

"What were you scrapping about just now?" says I.

Well, late that night the unhappy couple got to scrapping again, and the worm turned and gave his wife a most unmerciful beating.

I thought he was going to kill her, so I went in search of a policeman.

I looked around for about an hour and finally located one talking to Billyon's cook.

"Say," says I, "you're wanted around the corner. A man has nearly killed his wife."

"How big is the man?" says he.

I went to the race track the other day and met a bookmaker I know.

"Hello," says he. "What brings you here? Do you know anything?"

"No," says I, "if I did, I wouldn't be here."

I finally placed a small bet on a couple of horses, and when the first race was run off, anxiously watched the ponies.

They soon got so far away that I couldn't keep track of them, and noticing a fellow with a pair of field glasses next to me, who seemed to be seeing everything going on, I says:

"How does Sunflower stand?"

Sunflower was the horse I bet on, you know.

"I don't know," says he, "I'm only watching the first ten horses."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I sing that song, but I guess I'll laugh.

Crying doesn't suit my complexion; then, too, I've enough to be sad about already.

I live in the suburbs.

You see if a man lives in the city, his wife always wants to go to some show or other, and that costs money.

All the rolls had been exhibited except one, when the old maid says:

"Never mind taking that down, I won't buy any cloth to-day. I was only looking for a friend."

"But, madam," says the girl, "if you think there's any possibility of her being in this roll, I'll open it up."

Just as I was about to say that I wanted some kind of cloth that would suit a red-headed woman, a little dapper chap butted in and says to the girl:

"Ah, darling Louisa, I have thought of you all week. How I love you dear. Will you give me your heart?"

I was just about to say what I wanted, when another tall, lanky, moth-eaten-looking fellow stepped in and engaged the girl's attention for half an hour.

Finally he turned and went out without buying anything.

The floorwalker stepped up to the girl and says:

"You let that man go out without buying anything."

"Yes, sir."

"He was at your counter for a half hour."

"I know it," says the girl.

"In spite of all the questions he asked, you rarely answered him."

"I know it," says the girl, "but then, you see, I didn't have what he wanted."

"And what's that?" asked the floorwalker.

"Five dollars. He wanted me to subscribe to a life of Mark Hanna, compiled by a workingman."

Finally the one who was getting the worst of it cried out:

"Say, I thought this was to be a fair, stand-up fight?"

"That's right," said a number of his companions.

"Well, how the devil can it be a fair, stand-up fight if he keeps knocking me down all the time?"

All at once a cop put in an appearance and arrested the principals, and some of the bystanders as witnesses.

I thought I would see the thing out, so I went to court where one of the men entered the charge of assault against the other.

"No, your honor," says the man. "Nobody chucked an epithet. Mike called John a bad name and John heaved a brick at him. Nobody hurled nothing else."

After leaving court one of my teeth pained me dreadfully, so I went to the dentist to have it attended to.

He advised me to take gas.

"All right," says I. "What is the effect of gas?"

"Why," says he, "it simply makes you totally insensible. You don't know anything that's taking place."

"Go ahead," says I, and I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out all the money I had.

The dentist, thinking that I was about to pay him, says:

After numerous liquid greetings, I asked him how Mrs. Jenkins was.

"Well," says he, "she isn't well at all. You see, she had an awful experience last night.

"I was out and she was all alone in the house. Suddenly she heard muffled footsteps on the porch. They came nearer and finally sounded in the dining-room.

"Bravely she faced the midnight marauder, who pointed a pistol at her head.

"'Tell me where the money is hid,' he hissed, 'or I'll fire.'

"'Never,' she answered determinedly. 'Villain, do your worst.'

"That's a pretty hefty thing to sit on, ain't it?" says he, by way of introduction.

I said it was.

"Well, I never let that 'scope out of my sight," says he.

"Why?" says I. "Valuable?"

"Why, man," says I, astounded at the barefaced lie, "Nelson has been dead for over a hundred years!"

"Well, well," says he, "so he has. How time does fly."

I think it's almost time I warbled something. How's this?

Now, considering that I've got to do some hundred-yard dashes up and down a twenty-foot flat with my youngest son, I think I'll say good-night.

May your slumbers be more peaceful than mine.

The End.