HUSBAND--"Did he whisper it or say it out loud?"
A priest went to a barber shop conducted by one of his Irish parishioners to get a shave. He observed the barber was suffering from a recent celebration, but decided to take a chance. In a few moments the barber's razor had nicked the father's cheek. "There, Pat, you have cut me," said the priest as he raised his hand and caressed the wound. "Yis, y'r riv'rance," answered the barber. "That shows you," continued the priest, in a tone of censure, "what the use of liquor will do." "Yis, y'r riv'rance," replied the barber, humbly, "it makes the skin tender."
Ex-congressman Asher G. Caruth, of Kentucky, tells this story of an experience he once had on a visit to a little Ohio town.
"I went up there on legal business," he says, "and, knowing that I should have to stay all night, I proceeded directly to the only hotel. The landlord stood behind the desk and regarded me with a kindly air as I registered. It seems that he was a little hard of hearing, a fact of which I was not aware. As I jabbed the pen back into the dish of bird shot, I said:
"He looked at me blankly for a second, then swinging the register around, he glanced down swiftly, caught the 'Louisville' after my name, and an expression of complete understanding lighting up his countenance, he said:
"'Certainly, sir. You will find the bar right through that door at the left.'"
_See also_ Drunkards; Good fellowship; Temperance; Wine.
Governor Glasscock of West Virginia, while traveling through Arizona, noticed the dry, dusty appearance of the country.
"Doesn't it ever rain around here?" he asked one of the natives.
"Rain?" The native spat. "Rain? Why say pardner, there's bullfrogs in this yere town over five years old that hain't learned to swim yet!"
Sing a song of sick gents, Pockets full of rye, Four and twenty highballs, We wish that we might die.
Two booze-fiends were ambling homeward at an early hour, after being out nearly all night.
"Don't your wife miss you on these occasions?" asked one.
"Not often," replied the other; "she throws pretty straight."
"Where's old Four-Fingered Pete?" asked Alkali Ike. "I ain't seen him around here since I got back."
"Pete?" said the bartender. "Oh, he went up to Hyena Tongue and got jagged. Went up to a hotel winder, stuck his head in and hollered 'Fire!' and everybody did."