Jiglets: A series of sidesplitting gyrations reeled off—

I have a friend who had a very wild son about sixteen years of age. He could do absolutely nothing with him.

One day the youngster was offered a job in a big tinware factory.

His father, thinking it might tone him down a bit, consented to let him go.

The first Saturday night the kid lost his week's wages in a crap game and was afraid to go home.

Finally he hit upon a bright scheme. He took his trousers, turned them inside out and had them galvanized.

That night he went home and his father prepared to give him a spanking.

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.

"Well," says the chief, "it ought to be easy to find him. Has he any marks by which he can be identified?"

"N-o-o!" says the father. "But confound him, just let me get a hold of him and he will have."

They finally located Willie comfortably settled on a farm. There was a job open and he advised his father to come out and take it, and make a few million growing wheat for the food trust.

His father went and they got along swimmingly.

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."

"I know, I know," says Willie, "but I'm sure father won't like my going to dinner with you."

"Darnation," says the neighbor, now thoroughly worked up. "Why won't he?"

"Well, you see," says Willie, "dad's under the load of hay on the road."

Speaking of Willie puts me in mind of another boy I know.

He's the brightest chap for his years to be found in a day's walk.

Why, when the boy was six months old, he howled all night and slept all day.

They fooled him though, by putting an electric light in front of his parent's door, while he slept one day.

When he woke up to give his usual nightly concert, he found the room as bright as day.

He just turned over and went to sleep again.

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.

I went down to one of the big department stores the other day and met my old friend Matt Wheeler looking over some furniture.

"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."

"Good," says I, "but how about her feet?"

"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.

"Then we got talking about birds, birdlets and birdies.

"I said I loved birdies of all kinds.

"She tore over to the piano and began to play: 'I Wish I Were a Birdie.' Yes, we're looking for a nest now."

Now I'm going to sing you a song about this foolish couple.

Just sit back and hold tight.

It's entitled "What a Difference When the Preacher Says You're Wed; or, I Wonder Why Mary Jones Married a Man Twice Her Age."

He has ceased to call her "darling,"She has ceased to call him "dear";He has ceased composing sonnetsTo her "shell-like little ear."She has ceased to hurry madlyTo the mirror when he calls;He has ceased to buy her chocolatesAnd ice cream at high-toned balls.This is not because these loversHave been mixed up in a row —No, the plain truth is that theyAre a married couple now.

That song always makes me sad.

It's founded upon one of my actual experiences.

I was a married man, once, though I may not look it.

One night I came home late and knocked at the door.

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."

He got a strong piece of twine, tied one end to the offending molar, and the other to the rail of the last car of the Washington express.

Soon the train started.

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."

Then I began to look around for some other diversion, and got it.

In front of me sat an old gentleman with a man-servant in attendance.

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.

While waiting, my attention was attracted to an elderly couple, who had approached the ticket agent as he came out of his coop.

"Say, boss," says the old man, "can you tell me if the three-fifteen has left?"

"Oh, yes," says the agent, "it went by ten minutes ago."

"And when will the four-thirty be along, do you think?"

"Not for some time, of course," was the answer.

"Are there any expresses before then?"

"Not one."

"Any freight trains?"

"No."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing whatsoever."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Of course I am, or I wouldn't have said so," yelled the agent.

"Then, Maria," says the old man, "if we're quite careful, I guess we can cross the tracks."

My train arrived a minute before it was scheduled to leave. A kid stepped up to the conductor.

"Say, mister, there are two men on this train who came all the way from New York, and didn't pay any fare."

The conductor thought that some fellows were beating the company and went through the whole train, but couldn't find any one who didn't have his proper ticket.

So, seeing the kid, he says:

"Hey, where are the two men?"

"On the engine. The engineer and fireman," shrieked the kid.

After the train got in motion, I suddenly espied my old friend Joe Dempsey, who is an insurance agent.

"Hello, Joe," says I, "why so glum?"

"Well, you see, Walter," says he, "I proposed to old Billion's daughter and she refused to have me."

"Well," says I, "that's nothing. There are other girls."

"Yes, of course," says he, "but I can't help feeling sorry for the poor girl."

I looked around for something to throw.

"Yes," he continued, "especially after the beautiful dream I had about her the other night. I dreamt that I had married her and that she had settled $14,000,000 on me."

"Yes, and then you woke up," says I.

"No," says he, "that's the funny part of it. I put that money in the bank."

"Well, that's all right," says I, "but you'll have a dickens of a time in getting it out again."

"That's easy," says he, "I'll just go to sleep again. I guess I'll do that now and draw some of the interest."

We got to the city of the dead and, having nothing else to do, I went with Joe on a scout for business.

While we were out in the suburbs, he struck a man putting up some kind of a building, for he had a large pile of bricks.

"Good-morning, neighbor," says Joe. "I'd like to insure this new cottage you are putting up."

"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.

One day there was a very destructive fire at Cohen & Wosislosmitdewhiskey's clothing store.

Joe took the company's adjuster and went down to investigate.

A good deal of discussion resulted, in which the cause of the fire figured principally.

Cohen said it was due to the electric wiring, and his partner claimed it was the gas-light.

Finally the adjuster called upon Joe to render his opinion.

"Look here, Joe," says he. "This man claims it was the Arc-light and this fellow that it was the Gas-light. Now what do you think it was?"

"Well," says Joe, "if you want my candid opinion, I think it was neither. I'll bet a dollar that it was the Israelite."

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.

When Joe got home at night, he asked his wife how the plan had succeeded.

"Well, I'm a bit puzzled," says she, "he has smashed the whole lot to atoms."

"The very thing," says Joe. "We'll make him a furniture mover."

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."

They howl of the creature who uses the hoe,Of the farmer behind the plow;They warble a song to the horny palm,And they garland the sunburned brow.There's praise for the soldier behind the gun,Who fights after others tire;But here's to the victim of fate's worst blow,The Hebrew who don't have a fire.There's flame in his optic that bodeth ill,There's a dangerous set of jaw;There's a mighty unrest in his heaving chest,And he scoffs at the moral law.Then woe to the creature – or man, or beast —That rouseth the smoldering ireOf the Jew who heavily insures his place,Then finds he can't have 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:

"I'd like to have some more of that bad butter you sold me last week."

"Why," says the grocer, "if it was bad, what do you want more for?"

"Well, you see," says she, "it lasts longer."

This same woman had a calf. That calf was taken sick and died. We had veal for the next three weeks.

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.

"Look here," says she, "isn't this pretty?"

"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.

Once, when she was making preparations for one of these soul-stirring affairs, she says to me:

"I'd like to give my guests a pleasant surprise. Something distinctly original."

I thought a moment and then says:

"Madam, countermand the invitations."

That woman was the meanest thing in the form of a human being I ever struck.

No, I'm wrong; for meanness I give the palm to a certain car driver.

Once, when I was a kid, I footed it out to a resort near my home.

The only cars that ran out there were those little "jiggers."

Well, I was pretty tired when I got out, and didn't feel like walking back.

So I asked one of the drivers to let me hitch behind.

"Where's your fare?" says he.

"Ain't got none," says I.

"Then you can't ride," says he. "But look here, I'll tell you what I'll do. Take those buckets and go to that well up the road, and water that horse and I'll let you ride free."

And he pointed to a skinny-looking little horse.

I got two buckets and the horse drank them off quick as a wink. I got four, I got six, I got ten, a dozen, always with the same result.

Finally the fellow who owned the well refused to let me have any more water, and I went back and told the driver that the man who leased the Great Lakes from St. Peter had locked them up and gone to bed.

"Well," says he, "you didn't fill your contract and I can't let you ride."

As I was going away, a fellow stepped up to me and says:

"You darn fool, they brought all the horses in the stable out and you've watered them one by one."

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:

"Say, this is pretty fast traveling, isn't it?"

"Oh, no, you needn't be alarmed, we never run off the line here."

"Oh, it's not that I'm afraid of," says I. "I'm afraid you'll run off your blamed little island."

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.

"Ha!" says one of them, "we've got you. Come right along."

Do you know, I had a deuce of a time in convincing them that it was not I who had stolen the machine?

I went to a real old-fashioned wake the other night.

It was the most entertaining innovation I ever attended.

I got there pretty late and all the beer had flown down where the Wurzburger usually flows.

I sat down beside my old friend, McGarrigan.

"What, Mac, you one of the mourners, too?"

"Whoi not?" says he. "Didn't the corpse owe me ten dollars?"

"Well," says I, "cheer up."

"I can't," says he, "the beer is all gone."

Just then I saw his face brighten up.

I followed the direction of his glance and saw it rested on a gallon jug.

Mac got up quietly and took the jug into the hallway.

He came back in ten seconds looking more mournful than ever.

"What's the matter, Mac," says I, "was the jug empty?"

"No," says he.

"Wasn't the wine good?" says I.

"It wasn't wine," says he.

"What was in the jug, Mac?" says I.

He gave me a sheepish, sidelong glance and says:

"Water."

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!"

"Hello," came the far off response.

"Where are you?" says Mac.

"Here under this pile of shavings," says Jim.

"What are you up to, anyway?" says Mac.

"Planing that beam. You told me to plane it until you came back. If you had come an hour later there wouldn't have been anything left of it."

Poor Mac sprained his ankle again.

Say, did you ever go to a dime museum?

If not you want to take it in by all means. It's a sure cure for glanders.

I went to one last week, and had more fun than if I came here and listened to these dispensers of heavenly harmony.

Say, wasn't that last part fine? I'm coming up, I am!

I hope to be in the same class as Chuck Conners some day.

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.

A kid in front of me stuck a pin in her arm and punctured her.

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."

But the climax came when we got to the wonderful wax figure, recently imported from Paris at the unheard of price of ten thousand dollars.

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.

Then I had to run. He caught up a big glass case of butterflies and heaved it in my direction.

But the way the butterflies flew wasn't a patch to the way I flew when the porters got hold of me.

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, you see," says he, "when I married her I told her I delighted in cleanliness. When I got home to-day, she told me she had just paid a dollar to have the coal bin scrubbed out and we expect a load of coal to-morrow. Then, too, she told me she had bought a dream of a hat at a bargain, and I asked her whether there ever was a time she didn't get a bargain, and she says: 'Yes, when I married you.'"

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