The New Pun Book, Thomas A. Brown and T. J. Carey [reading books for 5 year olds txt] 📗

be beside himself.

"Well, Pat, and how is that bull-pup of yours doing?"

"Oh, he's dead! The illigant baste wint an' swallowed a tape-measure!"

"Oh, I see! He died by inches, then?"

"No; begorra, he didn't! He wint round to the back of the house an' died by the yard!"

[48]"You treat me," cried Mrs. Peck, "as though I was a monkey!"

"Oh, no!" responded H. Peck, "One can train monkeys."

"My lord," said the foreman of an Irish jury when giving in his verdict, "we find the man who stole the mare not guilty."

"Did the fisherman have frog's legs, Bridget?"

"Sure I couldn't see, mum; he had his pants on."

"A woman fell overboard from a ship yesterday and a shark came up and looked her over and went away."

"He never touched her?"

"No. He was a man-eating shark."

Groceryman—"Pat, do you like apples?"

Pat—"Sure, sor, Oi wudn't ate an apple for the world."

"Why how is that?"

"Ough! didn't me ould mother die av apple plexy?"

[49]"See here, sir," remonstrated the young gentleman, "I got up to give my seat to the lady, not to you."

"Ach, dat's all right. She's my vife," he responded placidly. And he kept the seat.

"My son," said the good old man, "if you only work hard enough when you undertake a thing, you're bound to be at the top when you've finished."

"But suppose I undertake to dig a well?"

"Did you have any trouble with black ants in Ireland, Bridget?"

"No, ma'am, but I had some trouble onc't with a white uncle."

"There's a young woman who makes little things count."

"How does she do it?"

"Teaches arithmetic in a primary school."

"It's thrue," said Paddy to Dennis one day, "it wor a grand soight. But whoile ye're standin' sit down, an' Oi'll tell ye all about it."

[50]"What did you wear last night?" asked the celery. "A lovely mayonnaise," replied the lettuce. "And you?" "Never was so mortified in all my life; I wasn't dressed at all," said the celery; and the beet blushed.

A woman never fully understands the hardness of the world until she falls off a bicycle a few times.

Mrs. Fussy—"John you're the most unreasonable man I ever met in my life."

Mr. Fussy—"I don't doubt it. I'm the only one that ever married you."

Jonah's experience with the whale is proof that you can't keep a good man down.

"Since I've been married I don't get half enough to eat."

"Well, you must remember that we are one now."

"What man in the army wore the biggest hat?"

"The one with the biggest head, of course."

[51]"Nothing can make a woman so superlatively happy as to have a baby of her own to kiss," exclaimed Mrs. McBride, rapturously, as she fondled her firstborn.

"My dear," replied her husband, pityingly, "you can never know the unutterable joy of being 'Next' in a crowded barber shop on Saturday night."

"Aren't you afraid, dear, you'll catch cold in the scanty bathing robe?" he asked.

"Oh, no," replied the dashing bride. "This is a very warm suit, hubby, dear."

Mrs. Benham—Our new minister's name is Stone.

Benham—Well, there are sermons in stones.

Algy—"Charming widow, isn't she? They say she is to marry again."

Cholly—"I wouldn't want to be a widow's second husband."

Algy—"Well, I'd rather be a widow's second husband than her first, doncher-know."

[52]A Boston, man upon learning that there were 4,000 Poles in New York, exclaimed: "What a place to raise beans."

Fred—"I had a fall last night which rendered me unconscious for several hours."

Ed—"You don't mean it? Where did you fall?"

Fred—"I fell asleep."

"I say, old chap, how short your overcoat is!"

"Oh, that's all right! It'll be long enough before I can afford a new one."

Pat—"'Twas the divil of a blow the dago gave yer. Yer wuz near Kilt."

Mike—"Begorra, I wish I had died that I moite see the villain hung."

Jim—"Why do you wear your stocking wrong side outward?"

Pat—"Because there's a hole on the other side."

"Held by the enemy"—the ulster which we are unable to redeem.

[53]"How could you endure talking so long with that ugly old woman with that frightful costume without laughing in her face?" "Oh, that's easy. She is my wife."

Teacher—When does suicide become a crime?

Smart Boy—When it becomes a confirmed habit.

"Nonsense, sir. Why is suicide a crime?"

"Because it injures the health."

The modern drummer is not much like the month of March. March is said to come in a lion and go out a lamb, while the drummer comes in a lyin' and goes out a lyin'.

How to signal a bark—pull a dog's tail.

"Say, pop, do people take snuff nowadays?"

"Sometimes, my son."

"Oh, then its all right?"

"What is all right?"

"Why, I heard mamma telling Aunt Amy that you wasn't up to snuff."

[54]"I understand that Willoughby was half seas over at the Sneerwell dinner." "Oh, no. He was sailing into the port when I left."

Bacon—What's that thread tied about your little finger for?

Egbert—Oh, that's just to remind my wife to ask me if I forgot something she told me to remember.

He—You saw some old ruins while in England, I presume? She—Yes, indeed! And one of them wanted to marry me.

Cholly—Ethel Knox told me last night I wasn't over half-witted. Susie—I shouldn't feel badly about that; she never did know anything about fractions.

Mrs. Swellery—What is the matter with my husband, doctor?

Physician—Appendicitis, madam.

Mrs. S.—I am so glad. I was afraid he might have something unfashionable.

A man who drives away customers—the cabman.

[55]Cleverton—Miss Cutler tells me she has been putting quinine on her face lately for her complexion.

Dashaway—I guess I'll go around there. I have a touch of malaria.

Maud—How do you define love?

Marie—Love is the life of illusion.

"And what is marriage?" "Oh, marriage is the death of them."

Weeks—Well, how are things over in Boston? Have they named any new pie "Aristotle" yet?

Wentman—No-o. But I heard a man there ask for a Plato soup.

Sunday School Teacher—What is meant in the parable by a "house built upon a rock?"

Sunday School Scholar—A Harlem flat.

"I am quite surprised, Mr. Meeker, to account for your wife's knowledge of parliamentary law."

"Great Caesar! Hasn't she been speaker of the house for the last fifteen years?"

[56]Mr. Greathead, the landlord, says he prefers as tenants experienced chess player, because it is so seldom they move.

"You have a bad cold," he said. "I have," she replied huskily. "I am so hoarse that if you attempted to kiss me I couldn't even scream."

A little burn makes a big smart sometimes. But even a big burn could not make some people smart.

"Don't talk to me about compulsory vaccination!" exclaimed the man who had his arm in a sling. "I'm sore on that subject."

There are many sweet, entrancing moments in this life, but when a man steps on your pet corn you do not experience one of them.

The impecunious young man who marries a girl with a substantial check attached may very properly be said to have been checkmated.

[57]Visitor—I suppose you have a great deal of poetry sent into you for publication?

Editor—No, not very much poetry as a rule; some of it is verse, and some of it is worse.

"What is your idea of happiness?"

"Nothing to do and lots of time to do it in."

—So Ethel is to marry that young Bob Halstey; why, he has been jilted by half a dozen girls.

—Case of being well shaken before taken, I suppose.

"I've been pondering over a very singular thing."

"What is it?"

"How putting a ring on a woman's third finger should place you under that woman's thumb."