GOETHE
Title: German wit and humor
A collection from various sources classified under appropriate subject headings
Author: Minna Sophie Marie Baumann Downes
Release date: November 8, 2024 [eBook #74708]
Language: English
Original publication: Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co
Credits: Tim Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.)
GOETHE
GERMAN
WIT AND HUMOR
A COLLECTION FROM FAMOUS SOURCES
CLASSIFIED UNDER
APPROPRIATE SUBJECT HEADINGS
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1903, by
George W. Jacobs & Company
Published, August, 1903
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| I. | Humor of the Sixteenth Century | 5 |
| II. | Humor of the Seventeenth Century | 10 |
| III. | For Gunners | 22 |
| IV. | For Doctors | 37 |
| V. | For Lawyers | 57 |
| VI. | A Chapter for Composers and Music Lovers | 74 |
| VII. | For and About Travelers, Tourists, and Summer Boarders | 102 |
| VIII. | On Cycling | 117 |
| IX. | Authors, Scientists, Artists, and other Celebrities | 120 |
| X. | On the Stage and Off | 154 |
| XI. | The German Soldier | 162 |
| XII. | Crowned Heads and Some of Their Famous Statesmen and Generals | 180 |
| XIII. | Students in the Fatherland | 234 |
| XIV. | Women and Children | 246 |
| XV. | Miscellaneous | 269 |
When Eulenspiegel came to Magdeburg—the fame of his notorious pranks having preceded him—several of the best citizens asked him to give them a sample of his buffoonery. He said he would do so, and promised to fly from the roof of a house on the market place. The news spread rapidly, and old and young hurried there to see him fly. For some time Eulenspiegel stood on the low roof, moving his arms and acting as if he were going to fly, then he burst out laughing and cried: “I thought I was the only fool in the world, but I see that here are almost a whole city full of them. If you had told me that you were going to fly, I should not have believed you; and yet you believed me, a well-known fool. How should I be able to fly? I am neither a goose nor any other kind of a bird. I have no wings, and without wings and feathers nobody can fly. Now you see, I told you a falsehood.”
He turned and left the roof, while the crowd separated, some laughing, some swearing, but all agreeing, that though he was a fool, he had told them the truth.
“A fool may sometimes be a better judge than a wise man,” writes Johannes Andrea of a fool. Once a beggar entered the kitchen of a tavern. A large piece of meat was roasting on the spit, and the poor man took his bread from his pocket and held it over the roast, so the odor would penetrate it, then he ate it. When all his bread was gone he turned to leave, but the host went after him and demanded his pay. The poor man said, “You did not give me either meat or drink; so what should I pay you for?”
The host replied, “You feasted on what was mine, on the odor of the roast, and you shall pay me for that.”
They went to court about it, but judgment was suspended, until next court-day. Now one of the judges had a fool at home, and at dinner this case was talked about. Said the fool: “Pay the host with the jingle of the money, as the poor man feasted on the odor of the roast.”
When court-day came around the fool’s advice was followed.
A man passing through a forest, saw an old blind bear. A young bear, whose tail was in the old bear’s mouth, led him. The man took his gun and shot the young bear’s tail off. Then he took hold of it and led the blind bear for two miles to market at Stuttgart.
A knight invited his father-confessor to dinner. The holy father arrived while the knight was still at church, and being hungry went to the kitchen where all kinds of meat were roasting. He said to the cook: “The roasts are now at their best; give me a leg from this crane and then I’ll wait for dinner.” But the cook replied: “I cannot do that; my master would send me away if I brought the bird, mutilated like that, to the table. Take it yourself, then he cannot blame me.”
The confessor took a knife and cut the leg off, had the cook give him bread and wine, and sat down to enjoy it. At dinner the crane was served lying on his wounded side. The knight[8] asked at once in an angry tone: “Where is the other leg?” His confessor, who sat next to him, whispered to him to keep quiet before his guests, that after dinner he would prove to him that the bird had only had one leg.
As soon as dinner was over, the knight asked his confessor to take a walk with him. They went outside the town. On the way the knight said: “You insisted that the bird had only one leg; how is that?” “I will show you,” returned the confessor, and took him to a meadow where between thirty and forty cranes were standing, all, as usual, on one leg. Pointing to them he said: “Look, all those birds have only one leg.” The knight clapped his hands and chased them. The cranes grew frightened, stretched their necks, put down their feet, and ran. Said the knight to the confessor: “How now? You see that they have two legs?” Says the confessor: “Dear sir, if you had clapped your hands like this at the table, the other leg would have put in an appearance too.”
There was a poor widow, who had a case at court. She brought to the judge a little pot of sour cream; he was to protect her cause. He bade her hope for the best and said that she had[9] a good case, and need not worry. She was glad.
Then came the opponent. He was rich, and brought the judge a young pig. When the case came up, the woman lost her suit. She went to the judge and said: “Sir, where is my little pot of cream?” He answered: “The little pig knocked it over.”
A farmer went to confession and the priest asked him if he knew anything about the Trinity. The good man knew nothing about it. The priest did his best to explain it to him and at last said: “My good friend, to make it still plainer to you, imagine yourself God the Father, respect your son as if he were the Son of God, and take your wife to be the Holy Ghost. Now remember, you three are as one. You are one household and live together; that makes a trinity.” With this the good man went home.
A year later, he came again to confess. The priest asked him at once whether he believed now in a trinity. “No,” said the farmer, “I only believe in the first two, the Father and the Son, in those two I believe firmly. In the Holy Ghost I don’t believe at all; for everything that the Father and the Son gain by hard, heavy labor, the Holy Ghost squanders and spends.” The priest had to give up trying to enlighten the[11] good farmer. He absolved him and let him depart.
A nobleman was walking across the country with a barefooted monk. They came to a brook and found the bridge had disappeared. The nobleman asked the monk, as he was without shoes, to carry him across. The monk did so, but when they were in the middle of the brook he asked the nobleman if he had any money with him. He answered: “Yes.”—“Oh,” said the monk, “we are forbidden to carry money,” and dropped the nobleman into the brook.
A priest who had not studied much, came into the pulpit and said: “I will briefly speak of three things to-day. The first I know, and you do not. The second you know, and I do not. The third none of us knows. That my trousers are torn, I know. Whether you are going to give me a new pair, you know. Our sexton had a fresh barrel of beer put in; but whether that beer is good, none of us knows; so come along and let us taste it.”
Three young noblemen were riding by a field in which a farmer was working among his cabbages. They rode up to him, and one said: “My good man, what will you give us, if we prove to you that you are a cabbage?” The farmer answered: “Nothing, for I can do those tricks as well as you. Now I can prove to you, that your saddles are mules.” At this the young sparks shouted with laughter and said: “Well, tell us all about it.” The farmer answered: “Why, all my life, I have known that anything between a horse and an ass has been called a mule.”
A good but stupid countryman stopped with his farm wagon before a drug-store in the town, and began to unload a big, heavy door. The druggist, much surprised, said: “What do you want with that here? The carpenter lives over there.” Said the farmer: “It is all right. My wife is ill, the doctor has been to see her and wrote the prescription with chalk on this door, as we had no pen and ink. Now, sir, please make it up. I am in a great hurry.”
“Once I caught in my trap a wild duck, a fox, and a nine pound carp.”
“How did it happen?”
“Near the pond, a fox saw a duck; he sneaked up to catch her. Springing at her, he caught her by the wing, but the duck managed to get into the water. The fox holding on to her wing followed her; but a big carp swam up behind and bit him in his leg. The fox closes his claws so tight on the carp that it cannot get away again. Now the trap was close by, and the duck fluttered into it. The fox not willing to lose her, follows in and pulls the carp after him.”
A woman whose little child would not go to sleep at night, wakened her husband, to take his turn for a while in nursing it, as it was as much his part as hers. “You are right,” said the husband, turning on his other side, “you rock your part, I’ll let mine scream.”
A parson preached in Holy week so touchingly about the Lord’s suffering, that the whole congregation began to sob. Then the minister, who[14] was a very tender-hearted man and did not like to see anybody weep, said: “My dear friends, be comforted; it all happened so long ago, who knows whether it is true.”
Once a farmer complained to his minister, that his landlord persecuted him most shamefully. The parson comforted the farmer saying: “The pitcher goes to the well until it breaks; and if he does not get his just punishment in this world he will surely suffer all the more in the next.” Answered the farmer: “Yes, but if the rascal repents on his deathbed, what then?”
The minister, in the scripture lesson at school, had been explaining the miracles, and finally asked a boy: “Jacob, your father is a roofer. What would you call it, if you came home, and heard that your father had fallen from the roof of the church tower, without breaking his neck?”
“Luck.”
“So, luck? But if you came home a second time and heard the same thing?”
“An accident.”
“But the third time?”
“A lie, sir.”
An amiable host had to send late at night for a carriage to take home his four friends, who had taken too much of his wine. He gave the driver the street and house number of each one, and went to bed. He was in his first sleep when his door-bell was rung violently.
“What is the matter?” he called from his window, seeing that the carriage with his guests had returned.
“Oh, sir,” cries the driver, “please sort them out once more for me; they got all mixed up!”
A monk, a farmer, and a barber met on a journey. At night they went into a tavern, but when it was time to go to sleep the barber said: “Listen, friends, to me; this place looks suspicious. I hope they won’t rob us in the night.”
“Yes,” assented the monk, “I don’t feel easy about it either; but what can we do? We can’t sit here all night, we are all three dog-tired.”
“Oh, I know what we can do,” answered the barber. “One of us must watch while the others sleep. We will draw lots who shall be first, second, and third watch.”
The monk and the farmer agreed to this.[16] Lots were drawn, and the barber was to watch first, the farmer second, and the monk last. The barber kept watch faithfully, and after he had done everything to keep awake he took from his bundle his scissors and other tools and soaped the farmer’s head and then shaved it as bald as the monk’s. When his time was up he shook the farmer and called: “Get up, man, it is your turn now!”
The farmer awoke, but when, still stupid with sleep, he put his hand to his head and found no hair, he grew angry and cried: “What a fool that barber is; he was to waken me, and he has wakened the monk instead.”
A hypocrite came into a shop where clothes were sold, and asked for a coat. Different kinds were shown to him, but none pleased him. “I need one that is black on one side and white on the other, but of the same material on both sides.”
“Strange,” said the merchant; “by your face I judge you to be an honest man, and yet you ask—how shall I express it?—well, frankly, for a rogue’s coat.”
“But, my goodness!” replied the buyer,[17] smilingly, “don’t you know at all in what kind of a world we are living? You can’t get along with one coat. The pulpit demands one kind, the court-house another, the café another, the office another, the platform another, the assembly another, the bedroom another. If you meet ten people within five minutes it is possible that you will have to turn your coat ten times.”
“That may be,” murmured the merchant, a simple, honest German, “but if the devil gets you in a black coat, what good will a white one do you?”
A man had loaned to another fifty gulden, but having a poor memory he had forgotten who had borrowed it. He was much worried about it and told his wife. She was clever, as all women are, and told him what to do. “Go, to-morrow morning early, through the town,” said she, “and whenever a friend or acquaintance bids you good day, answer, ‘Thank you, but I would rather have ready money.’”
“I’ll do it,” said he man, and went out early next morning. Everybody took his answer for fun, until he met his debtor.
“This is an insult,” said he. “I don’t care to owe anything to anybody who reminds me of it[18] in such a rude way,” and gave the money back at once.
“When at last my parents gave their consent to my traveling, my uncle took me on a trip to Ceylon. Our vessel arrived there after a stormy voyage of six weeks. About two weeks after our arrival the Governor’s son asked me to go hunting with him. I accepted the invitation. Now my friend was a big, strong man, used to the heat, but I, unused to it, soon grew tired and lagged behind.
“I was just going to sit down by the shore of a raging river, when I heard a noise behind me on the road. I looked back and saw an immense lion coming towards me, who plainly indicated that he meant to make his breakfast off me, without waiting even to ask my permission. My gun was loaded only with shot. I had no time to think, and in my confusion I determined to fire at the beast in the hope of frightening him away. But in my anxiety I did not wait until the lion came within the range of my gun. The noise made him furious, and he came at me with a rush. More from instinct than sober reflection, I turned to run, but—even now it makes me shudder to think of it—a few feet[19] from me stood a horrible crocodile, with mouth wide open, ready to swallow me.
“Just imagine, gentlemen, the frightful position I was in! Behind me the lion, before me the crocodile, to my left a raging river, to my right an abyss, in whose depths, as I afterwards learned, the most poisonous snakes abounded. Almost fainting I dropped to the ground. In a few moments I heard a loud, strange noise. When at last I dared to raise my head to look around, what do you think had happened? The immense force with which the lion jumped, the moment I dropped to the ground, had carried him over and beyond me, straight into the crocodile’s open mouth. The head of the one stuck in the throat of the other, and they fought with all their might to get away from each other. I sprang up just in time, drew my hunting knife and, with one stroke, severed the lion’s head, the body falling at my feet. Then I took my gun and rammed the head down further into the crocodile’s throat, choking him to death.
“Soon after I had gained this great victory over two terrible foes, my friend returned to see what had become of me. After congratulations we measured the crocodile and found his length to be forty feet, seven inches.
“As soon as we had told this extraordinary adventure to the Governor, he sent several men with a wagon to fetch the two animals to his house.
“From the lion’s skin I had a furrier make tobacco pouches, some of which I presented to my friends. The crocodile was stuffed and mounted, and is now one of the greatest curiosities of the museum at Amsterdam.”
“One day I went into the woods to try a new gun, and had used up all my ammunition when a covey of partridges rose from almost under my feet. The desire to have a few of them on my dinner table that night gave me a bright idea. As soon as I saw where the birds lit, I loaded my gun, but instead of shot I put in the ramrod, which I had pointed at the upper end as well as I could in a hurry. Then I went towards the birds, pulled the trigger as they flushed, and had the pleasure of seeing seven spitted on my ramrod. As I tell you, gentlemen, there is nothing like being able to help oneself.”
“Another time, in a forest in Russia, I came[21] across a magnificent black fox. Shooting him would never do, as it would spoil his beautiful fur. Now, Mr. Fox stood close to a tree. Instantly I took the bullet from my gun and put in its place a large nail, fired, and hit him so skilfully that his tail was nailed to the tree. I went quietly up to him, took my hunting-knife, made a cross cut over his face, took my whip and beat him out of his beautiful fur so nicely that it was a joy and a real wonder to see.”
The night before the opening of the partridge season, a gunner and his dog were crouching under some bushes. The time was five minutes to twelve. The dog was getting restless.
“Hold on, Feldman—only five minutes more—and then we can go for them!”
A gentleman who had spent some time in India and had been on several tiger hunts, was asked whether he found it pleasant sport. “Oh,” he replied, “it is very pleasant sport as long as you are chasing the tiger, but should he happen to chase you, it has its drawbacks.”
A poor Jew was tramping through a forest. Suddenly a wolf came running towards him. Dreadfully frightened the Jew raised his staff, but fortunately at the same moment, a hunter who was lurking behind some bushes, shot[23] at the wolf and killed him. “God’s blessing,” cried the Jew, who did not see the gunner, but had heard the shot: “I have carried this staff for twenty years, and never knew that it was loaded!”
“Something remarkable happened to me yesterday. I went gunning and saw two rabbits, about twenty-five feet apart, taking a nap in the grass. Now what to do to get them, I hardly knew. Quickly I pulled the two barrels of my gun apart, drew the trigger and both rabbits were mine.”
A, relating his first gunning adventure:—“What do you think of this, gentlemen! Some time ago, while I was on the lookout for game, along comes a rabbit and sits down not far from me. I shoot, but the rabbit does not move. I shoot again, but still the rabbit does not budge. Now my patience is at an end. I run towards him, and when I get close enough to knock him down, up rises my rabbit and is off. Now how do you explain this, gentlemen?”
Old Gunner:—“Well, that rabbit read you all right. He thought: As long as he only[24] shoots, there is no danger; but when he comes himself, then it’s time to skip.”
Gunner:—“You always insisted that your old gun did not shoot straight, but now that you have a new one, you don’t seem to hit anything, either.”
Sunday Gunner:—“Yes, but now the rabbits don’t run straight.”
Gunner:—“I should just like to know whether that dark speck over there is a driver or a deer.”
Förster:—“We can soon find out. You just shoot at it; if you hit it, it is a driver; if you don’t, it’s certain that it is a deer.”
Gunner (who has shot a rabbit at last):—“Oh, for some witnesses to this!”
Baron (to his neighbor at a pheasant hunt):—“Did you not notice; I hit that pheasant—the feathers flew!”
Förster:—“Yes, I saw it—so did the pheasant.”
Poacher:—“Your Reverence, I have a beautiful deer for sale.”
His Reverence:—“A deer? What? Did you say a deer, Seppel? How long is it since I reasoned with you and tried to make you understand what a bad fellow you are! Did I not tell you that if you shoot a deer, you commit a great crime and that such a deer is as good as stolen? My, but I am angry! Seppel, take that deer right to the kitchen, I don’t want to see any more of it.”
Förster:—“Now I have caught you—what are you doing here with that gun?”
Poacher:—“Oh, my! Herr Förster, I am so down on my luck, that I thought I’d just go into the woods and shoot—myself.”
A:—“Have you heard the news? The Oberförster shot four deer yesterday!”
B:—“He told me he got two.”
A:—“Is that possible? Why, I spoke to him only about five minutes ago, at the Golden Star Inn.”
B:—“Oh, that explains it. I spoke to him half an hour ago.”
Clerk (to his principal):—“Can I have this afternoon off, sir,—an old aunt of mine is to be buried?”
Principal:—“Very well, but the next time you bury an aunt, you might bring me a couple of rabbits.”
A gentleman just returned from Brazil, boasted of the many gorillas he had killed there. “That must have been very difficult,” remarked one of the listeners.
“It certainly was,” said the narrator, “but I knew how to take advantage of the monkey’s passion for imitating us.”
“How?”
“It was very simple. In places where I suspected the presence of gorillas, I loaded a pistol with a blind cartridge, turned it upon myself and fired; then I left a heavily loaded one on the ground and retired. Returning to the place later on, I invariably found the carcass of a gorilla, who had shot himself.”
A good shot knows when he has missed; a poor one does not know when he has hit.
Gunner:—“Would you believe that I shot ninety-nine rabbits within two hours?”
Host:—“Why don’t you say one hundred at once?”
Gunner:—“You don’t think I’d make a liar of myself for just one rabbit?”
Lehman:—“Gentlemen, I must tell you a pretty story of my friend Muller! Recently, while out gunning, he shot at a rabbit, but, of course, missed him. Now instead of running away, the rabbit went up to friend Muller, bowed and said quite distinctly: ‘Excuse me, sir, but I wish to congratulate you. You shot at me to-day for the twenty-fifth time, without hitting me!’”
Muller:—“My friend Lehman’s story needs a supplement. You must know that I introduced myself to that rabbit. ‘What,’ cried the rabbit, very pale, ‘your name is Muller! I thought it was Lehman!’ and he is off like a flash.”
Förster:—“Sepp, the squire is coming to-day. He is going to hunt.”
Sepp:—“Then I had better go at once and lock up the dogs.”
Förster:—“Yes, and the calf too. The cow you might leave in the field.”
Sepp:—“Don’t know about that.”
Förster:—“Well, lock her up too; better be on the safe side.”
“Well this is killing! I shoot at a rabbit and hit a snipe!”
A gunner tells the following story of a dog’s astonishing cleverness. The dog received every day from his master two pennies, to go to the baker’s and get for himself some rolls to eat for breakfast. The master watching him, noticed that for several days, he came home without his rolls. He followed him, and saw him come from a butcher’s with a piece of sausage. For five days the dog had saved his pennies until he had enough to buy the piece of sausage.
At a hunt a farmer saw a badger slip into a hole, and at once he put his hand in to capture the animal. A hunter who was present, asked the farmer: “Have you caught him?” The farmer, whose hand the badger was biting hard, screamed: “No, but he has caught me!”
Warden:—“Now, Killian, you are free once more. I hope you will let this term in prison be a warning to you, to curb your passion for poaching. You are a family man, and you ought to have more consideration for your poor wife and young children.”
Killian (moved to tears):—“Oh yes, sir, I see you mean well by me. You just wait and see if I don’t bring to you the first deer I can shoot!”
Gunner:—“Say, sonny, did you see a rabbit running this way?”
Boy:—“I did, sir!”
Gunner:—“How long ago?”
Boy:—“’Bout three years ago last Christmas.”
Count A—— had lately returned from the South of Asia. Several of his friends called on him to invite him to a hunt. “Gentlemen,” he said, languidly, “I am now so used to hunting tigers, that a hunt without danger to life, has no attractions for me.”
“Well,” said one of the hunters, drily, “don’t let that worry you; I shot at my brother-in-law yesterday, while we were out gunning!”
(Two farmers going through a field.) A:—“What are you running all at once for? You are not afraid of a rabbit?”
B:—“Rabbit! Who cares for a rabbit! But where there is a rabbit, there is a gunner not far off. I don’t care to have him blaze away at me.”
An old Oberförster told the following yarn:—“You can never imagine, gentlemen, the number of bears there are in Russia, unless, like myself, you have been there. Once a friend and myself made an excursion from Petersburg to the hunting-ground in Finland. We had not been on the lookout very long, when my friend[31] whispered: ‘There are two coming this way—you can take the right one, I the left one.’ A double shot, and both monsters were rolling on the ground. At that instant several more bears appeared. Bang—bang—bang—and they are all stretched on the ground, in less than a minute.”
“Oh, but how did you get time to load your guns, sir?”
“Oh, pshaw! In our excitement we never thought of that!”
Herr von N. was a passionate lover of hunting, and though he seldom hit anything, he boasted the more. He was giving a large dinner-party, and, as usual on such occasions, had his man-servant standing behind his chair, so he could appeal to him, as a witness of his heroic deeds. “Now, gentlemen, I must tell you of a very remarkable shot I made the other day. I shot a very large deer through the right hind leg and the right ear. What do you think of that?” Everybody laughed.
“John, you were there,” cried Herr von N., “you can testify to it.”
“Most certainly,” replied the servant, “it is all perfectly true. The deer—if the gentlemen[32] will forgive my mentioning it—was scratching his ear at the very moment my master hit it.” The laughter grew to a roar. John stooped over his master and whispered in his ear: “When your Honor tells a story next, please don’t have things so far apart or I might not be able to put them together as well.”
“Will you permit me, friend, to shoot one of the ducks in this pond? I’ll give you two marks for it.”
“Certainly, sir!”
The gunner pays the money, kills the duck, and, encouraged by his luck, asks the farmer if he may have a second one, pays him two more marks and kills another duck.
“Would you allow me to shoot a third one?”
“Sure, shoot all you want to; the ducks don’t belong to me, but to my neighbor.”
Farmer (to another):—“I caught a rabbit yesterday. He won’t get into my cabbage patch again!”
Förster (coming up behind):—“So, that’s right; and pray what did you do with that rabbit, you rascal?”
Farmer:—“Well, well, what should I have done with him! Look here, sir; I just took the beast, belabored his fur well with my stick and carried him into the next field. He won’t come back here!”
Förster:—“Don’t doubt it at all!”
Förster:—“Well, Doctor, what did you shoot?”
Doctor:—“Oh, ah—I—killed one rabbit—and—wounded three.”
City Swell:—“What a magnificent animal a fully grown deer is! How old do they get?”
Gamekeeper:—“Well, you see, that depends on—when they are shot!”
Förster (to gunner):—“What did you shoot at?”
“At a doe, sir,—but I missed her!”
“What, you shot at a doe? Haven’t you any eyes in your head? You ought to be ashamed of yourself (furiously) to shoot at a doe—and then to miss her besides!”
Förster (to a gunner, who instead of rabbits, has killed several dogs):—“Say, when you are done with the dogs, tell us, so we can clear out in time!”
Teacher (to the Förster’s son):—“Are there many rabbits in your father’s district?”
Pupil:—“Oh yes, sir, lots!”
Teacher:—“That’s queer; I never saw one.”
A:—“Well, aren’t you coming yet?”
B:—“It takes that fellow a long time to get his duds together!”
A:—“You haven’t forgotten anything? You’ve got the ham, the sausage, the pheasant?”
C:—“Yes, I have them; I haven’t forgotten a thing.”
A:—“Then let’s be off!”
C (Pulling his mustache):—“Good gracious! I did forget something!”
A:—“What is it?”
C:—“I left my gun at home!”
Baron von Rothschild has made it a strict[35] rule that none of his guests are to take any of the game shot on his preserves away with them. Though he knew this, a gentleman wished to take home to his wife, one of the pheasants he had shot. He hung it up the chimney in his room, and in the evening hid it in his bag. Early the following morning Baron Rothschild came into his guest’s room to take leave of him and at the same time to see whether his friend was going with his gunning bag empty. A setter had followed the Baron into the room, and as he smelled the bird at once, he hunted all over the room until he finally pulled the finest pheasant from the guest’s bag. “You see, Baron, knowing that you send to market all the game that is killed here for you, I retained this pheasant to mark him and so be able to recognize him at the market stall. Farewell!”
A:—“I tell you, when I count what my license costs, what my board comes to, while on a gunning trip, what I ruin in clothes and boots, what my neglect of business amounts to, every rabbit I kill costs me about twenty marks!”
B:—“Then you may thank your stars that you hit so few.”
Canon, the well-known painter, who died recently, was an enthusiastic gunner. Often during the gunning season he would join other friends of the sport at the hotel, and experiences would be exchanged. Now Canon hated all extravagant, impossible yarns, and one evening when some gunners tried to outdo each other, his patience gave way. His strong voice rose above the din, and everybody listened to the following story: “My setter dog,” he began, “has the finest sense of smell; a finer does not exist. One day we were out partridge hunting, but had no luck; after a three hours’ tramp not a shot had been fired. Suddenly my dog stood still, and then began scratching at the root of a small bush. We approached cautiously. The dog kept on digging, and after he had made quite a hole, one of us went up and helped him. All of a sudden he brought to me—a new porcelain pipe with a partridge painted on it. I always carry it with me as a souvenir.” He put his hand in his pocket and laid the pipe on the table. Shouts of laughter greeted it, but there were no more gunning yarns after that.
Professor:—“Gentlemen, I am going to begin my lecture to-day, with the diseases of mankind. When a person is ill, nature and disease are fighting each other. The doctor comes and beats about with a club, so to speak; if he strikes the disease, the person will recover; if he strikes nature, the patient dies.”
“Yes, beloved hearers, every hour must find us prepared to die. Death is inevitable, yes almost sure!”
Professor:—“Gentlemen, I can inform you that during the past month, more boys than girls were born in our city; but as to the weddings celebrated during the same period, the number of women who were married exceeds that of the men considerably.”
“Gentlemen, at the last lecture we studied the outer form and structure of the stomach; to-day we will enter into the stomach itself.”
“Please, gentlemen, put your knives away now, and take your fingers in your hand.”
Professor:—“We have no patient here to-day who needs an operation, but as his Highness, our patron, wishes to attend one, we will try one on this man here. He is a stranger in the city, so it will be all right.”
Doctor:—“Do you make experiments at your hospital?”
Professor:—“I should say so! We have, for instance, three divisions for inflammation of the lungs. In the first, the patients are not given anything; in the second, they are given tartar-emetic; in the third, tartar-emetic and they are also bled. In all three divisions deaths are about even.”
Doctor:—“Don’t you think that many a[39] patient of the first division could be saved, by being bled?”
Professor:—“Don’t doubt it, but it can’t be done. We must be firm, to reach the desired result.”
Miser:—“If, as you say, there is nothing more to be done for me, I should like it better if you could fix it so that I shall be dead and buried by New Year.”
Doctor:—“What do you wish that for?”
Miser:—“Because I could save a lot of money on New Year’s presents.”
A ship’s doctor was in the habit of prescribing sea-water for most ills. One day by an unlucky accident, he fell overboard. “Hello, Jack,” called one sailor to another, “the doctor fell into his medicine chest!”
The prince of R. once said to Hufeland: “You are a famous physician. You know the[40] human body so well inside and out, that you ought to be able to cure all ills!”
“It is with doctors as with policemen,” replied Hufeland. “We know the streets well, but how the houses look on the inside, we can only guess at.”
“Say, surgeon,” thundered the Colonel, “several more soldiers have died and you don’t even seem to know the cause of so many deaths!”
“Oh, I shall get at the mystery,” returned the surgeon, “if it takes the whole regiment.”
Lady:—“Would you mind telling me, Doctor, how it is that you have so many patients?”
Doctor:—“That is very simple. I have three fine agents, who work for me and bring me patients, without being paid for it; they are Poverty, Intemperance, and Imagination.”
Doctor:—“While taking this cure, you must diet yourself strictly; avoid all fatty and acid foods; and leave beer and wine alone.”
Patient:—“Hold on, Doctor; if I must do[41] without all that, I’ll get well without you. If you can’t help me to be well, while I eat and drink what I like, I have no use for either yourself or your science!”
Doctor:—“Well, you are coughing with less exertion to-day!”
Patient:—“That’s not surprising, Doctor, since I practiced at it all night.”
Doctor:—“My dear woman, your husband is in the greatest danger! His hands and arms are very red; he has scarlet fever in the worst form!”
Wife:—“But, Doctor, my husband is a dyer, and was using red this morning.”
Doctor:—“Oh well, then I can perhaps save him yet!”
“You see, Doctor, whenever I shake my head, my brain hurts dreadfully.”
“Why do you shake your head, then?”
“How else can I find out that my brain hurts?”
Doctor:—“Well, Moses, what has happened?”
Moses:—“What has happened? My wife drank coal-oil.”
Moses, Jr.:—“Father, mother is calling for you constantly; do go in to her, so she will get quiet!”
Moses:—“The Lord have mercy! I should go to her? You go in first, Doctor.”
Doctor:—“Why shall I go in first?”
Moses:—“I have six children to support.”
Doctor:—“Well, and——?”
Moses:—“Well, and? you ask, Doctor, and yet you are a smart man. What if she should explode the moment I was with her?”
Countryman:—“Doctor, will you please prescribe a little something for me. I think something is wrong with my lung.”
Doctor (after examining him):—“You go quietly home, my man; as long as you will live, your lung will hold out all right.”
Dr. Schneider was awakened at midnight by a stranger who asked him to come to a patient[43] at a little town two hours distant. “It is very urgent,” added the messenger. The Doctor had his team brought around, and drove away with the stranger. Arrived at the town, the man jumped from the buggy, saying: “I am very much obliged to you, Doctor. I was dead tired and did not know how to get home, so I thought of you and your team. Now I shall be at home in a few minutes. I hope you will get home all right.”
Augusta:—“Well, Ricke, I tell you it is dreadful to be a servant in a Doctor’s family? Just think, every morning his bones are scattered all over the room!”
Ricke:—“Good gracious! Does the man take himself apart every evening?”
Minister (at a sick bed):—“Just have patience, my good woman; all will be well.”
Old country woman:—“It’s easy to talk, sir, but I should just like to know what I have done. Lots of people die so easy, and it’s killing me!”
“Rebecca,” said Reb Baruch, who was dangerously[44] ill, to his wife, “get your most beautiful gown and dress yourself as for a wedding!”
“Why? What for? What good would it do you?”
“I’ll tell you. If the angel of death should enter, and see you standing there, looking so beautiful, he might like you better, and take you instead of me!”
A physician who was asked the difference between rheumatism and gout, answered: “If you take a vise, put a finger between, and turn until you can’t stand it any longer, that’s rheumatism; if you turn once more, that’s gout.”
When Frank, a famous Vienna physician was dying, eight of his colleagues sat around his bed, in consultation. All at once the dying man laughed aloud and said: “I was just thinking of that French grenadier, who, at the battle of Wagram, fell after being struck by eight bullets, and whose last words were: Sapristi, it takes eight bullets to kill a French grenadier!”
A hospital physician asked a sick old man, how he was.
“Oh, dear Doctor,” said the good old fellow, “I feel so ill, that if some one told me I was dead, I should not be surprised.”
The famous preacher Schleiermacher had, during a severe illness, been under the care of the celebrated Dr. Gräfe. After his recovery, Schleiermacher wrote to him and enclosed in his letter four Friedrichsd’or—about thirty-one dollars. Gräfe sent the amount back with this rude answer: “Wealthy people pay me what they like; the well-to-do pay the regular fee; the poor pay nothing.” Whereupon Schleiermacher wrote: “Sir! For the return of the four Friedrichsd’or accept poor Schleiermacher’s sincere thanks!”
The celebrated Dr. Heim, who was known to be often slightly intoxicated, was called while in that condition, into a family whose regular physician he was.
The gentleman of the house, who was taken with an attack of acute indigestion, and was[46] suffering intense pain, confessed that it might be the result of having eaten too many raw oysters. “Give him Chester cheese, and a good big portion of it,” said Heim, and without another word, walked out.
The patient’s family, who imagined that cheese was more indigestible than oysters, shook their heads over their doctor’s advice, and thinking that in his intoxicated condition he had made a big mistake, gave him rum instead of the cheese. A few hours later the patient died.
The next morning Heim came to look after his patient. He was told that he had died in the night.
“Didn’t you give him the Chester cheese?” asked Heim.
“No, Doctor,—we thought—you were—we gave him rum.”
“So,” Heim cried furiously: “you thought, because I was drunk, you knew more of medicine than I, and in that mad idea killed your patient. But I want you to know, that even if I am drunk, I still know more of medicine, than you do in all your sobriety. Now you send for two dozen oysters at once, and I’ll prove to you that even if I do drink a glass of wine, I know very well what I am talking about.”
The oysters were brought, and at Heim’s order, were divided and placed into two separate dishes. To those in one dish he put several slices of Chester cheese; to the others he poured several glasses of rum. “Now, then,” he said, “you let that stuff stand for a few hours and we’ll see who knew best!”
Growling and scolding—for Heim was as famous for his roughness as for his skill—he went away. When he returned a few hours later and the dishes were uncovered, it was found that the oysters mixed with cheese had dissolved into a foam-like substance, while those soaked in rum were in an unchanged condition.
“Well, who was right?” asked Heim. The unhappy relatives were forced to look upon themselves as the murderers of their beloved dead.
A lady patient, who often suffered from severe headaches, once asked Heim’s pardon for trying a remedy which was said to be an infallible cure. She had been told when next the pain came on, to cover her head with cabbage. “Very good thing,” said Heim, “but don’t forget to put a sausage on top of it.”
One evening Heim was called into a family where the infant daughter had been suddenly taken with spasms. Heim felt the baby’s pulse, shook his head, felt his own pulse, then the infant’s again, and at last said: “The baby is drunk; her pulse is exactly the same as mine.” That seemed a queer diagnosis, but it was soon evident that old Heim was right as usual. There had been a celebration in the family that day, and the wet nurse had made use of the occasion to drink a bottle of wine on the sly.
A lady of the aristocracy bothered old Heim dreadfully with questions as to what she could feed her baby on, to make it grow fat. One day she followed him to the house door. “One thing more, dear Doctor! What is asses’ milk good for?”
“For young asses,” replied Heim, and walked off.
Cook:—“Good Frau, since there are two holy days coming, I am going to the hospital.”
Mistress:—“Why, Marie! are you ill?”
Cook:—“No, thank God; there is nothing the matter with me, but I have paid my sick benefit regularly for six years, and I should like to get something out of it.”
“You are an awfully good-natured fellow, to give your man his medicine, yourself. Not many masters would do it.”
“Well, you see, the medicine tastes so horrid, that it is great fun to see the faces he makes, as I pour it down his throat.”
While operating upon an old man, Professor Billroth, of Vienna, told the physicians and students present the following amusing story: “Some time ago an old man came to me to consult me about the disease of his nose. He owned only half a one, and that was not worth much, so he thought I could operate upon it and give him a decent artificial one. I asked how old he was. ‘I am eighty years old,’ he said.
“‘Do you think it necessary at that age to undergo an operation?’ I asked of my patient.
“‘Professor,’ says the old fellow, ‘my father lived to be one hundred and twenty-five years[50] old, and I don’t see why I should walk around for forty-five years with only half a nose.’”
The wife of a farmer in Westphalia was seriously ill, and the doctor was sent for.
“I have a hundred thalers in this bag here, doctor,” said the well-to-do farmer, “and whether you kill her or cure her, you shall have the money.” The patient died. A few months later, the doctor came to get the promised money.
“I am ready to keep my promise,” said the farmer, “but first you will answer me two questions: did you kill my wife?”
“God forbid!” said the doctor. “I certainly could not say yes, to that!”
“So much the better. Well, then, did you cure her?”
“No.”
“Then I am sorry I can’t give you the money. If you wish to bring suit for it—I can’t prevent you.”
The doctor took good care not to go to law about it.
A porter once took a friend from the country[51] to show him around Munich, and among other places of interest they went to the University. The countryman wanted to know what the figures on the front of the building meant. The porter, to hide his ignorance, mentioned several great men of the time. Arrived at a scantily clad Greek philosopher, he says unblushingly: “That is Dr. Schweninger!”
“Oh, Bismarck’s family doctor! But why hasn’t he a coat on?”
“Well, you know, Seppel, since he cured the Chancellor, the people just fight over him, so it is no wonder he hasn’t a coat left.”
At the clinic of the University of Kiel, appeared some time ago, a stalwart countryman about forty years of age, who asked Professor N. to buy his skeleton. “But, my good man,” said he, looking him all over, “I am afraid we should have to wait a long time to come into possession of our own. What do you want the money for?”
“Well, sir, I wanted to emigrate to Australia with it,” replied the countryman.
A traveler asked the host of a country tavern[52] why, being ill, he did not send for a physician?
“Well,” replied the sick man, “the people of this village don’t think anything of doctors; we all like to die a natural death.”
A physician from Baden-Baden tells this story: “It was a clear cold night—after twelve o’clock. I was returning from a visit in the country, and riding through the forests I heard the sounds of ax-strokes. There was no doubt about what this meant. I was in good humor, so I tied my horse to a tree, sneaked up close to the thieves, and watched their doings for a while. As they were giving the last strokes which were to bring down a beautiful tree, I jumped from behind my hiding-place, crying: ‘Got you at last, you villains!’
“‘Clear out—it’s the forester!’ called a voice; and as quick as lightning the whole company disappeared. One ax was left behind, and I took it as a trophy and rode home. The whole affair passed so quickly that I could not see distinctly any one of the trespassers.
“Years passed, when one afternoon as I entered a tavern in Baden-Baden, my attention was drawn to a party playing cards. The game[53] seemed to be lost to the man whose back was turned to me. Suddenly he cried out: ‘Mine with the bower, and thank you!’ It was the same voice, that years ago, had given the command: ‘Clear out!’
“A second game began. I stood behind my man looking at his cards. As he took up a long-expected trump I called to him unexpectedly: ‘Got you at last, you villain!’ Slowly the player turned around to me and said: ‘Where is my ax?’”
Druggist (to a countryman):—“I can’t recommend anything better than Dr. Muller’s health-tea. That is good, and is sure to help you.”
Countryman:—“Oh, if Dr. Muller makes it, let’s have it. Dr. Muller doesn’t drink anything bad.”
A patient is about to take gas to have a tooth pulled. While the dentist is making his preparations, the man counts his money. “Oh, leave that until afterwards,” says the dentist, thinking his patient wants to pay him in advance.
“Why afterwards,” cried he, “if you are going to take my senses away, I want to know beforehand,[54] how much money I have in my pocketbook!”
A well-known and popular actor came to a dentist to have a tooth pulled. When the operation was over he took out his purse. The dentist seeing this, said: “You have given me pleasure so often, that I am pleased to be able to return the favor, so never mind the pay!”
Among the effects of the famous Dr. Boerhave, was a well wrapped and sealed package, with this inscription: “The only and deepest secrets of medical science.” When his library was sold this package brought 20,000 marks. On breaking the seals, the purchaser found nothing but a few empty leaves, on the first one of which was written in large letters, Keep your head cool, your bowels open, your feet warm, and you can laugh at all doctors.
Dr. M. whose bruskness was well known throughout Silesia, was going by coach one day from Breslau to Liegnitz. In the waiting-room were several gentlemen waiting for the same coach. One of them came up to the doctor.
“Are you Dr. M.?” he asked.
“At your service,” was the answer.
“I am glad to hear it. Since you know everything, you could possibly answer a question.”
“Perhaps so; let me hear what it is.”
“Well, you see my mustache is already gray, while the hair on my head is still black; what is the cause of it?”
Without a moment’s reflection the doctor replied: “The cause is simply this, that you have always used your mouth more than your head.”
Doctor:—“Why, the boy is perfectly well again. I knew my pills would cure him. How did you take them, son? In sugar water?”
Boy:—“No, sir; in the popgun. I shot sparrows with them.”
“Can you name the bones of the skull?” asked a professor of a student.
“I have them all in my head,” was the answer, “but I can’t think of the names just now.”
Doctor (to an emaciated patient):—“Now[56] you want one mustard plaster on your chest and one on your back.”
Patient:—“Isn’t that rather too much mustard for so little meat, doctor?”
The lawyer becomes famous through his cleverness, popular through his astuteness, but fat and wealthy through the foolishness of his fellow-men.
“It is terrible how slow Secretary Meier works!” exclaimed the President; “there he is behind again with a big stack of papers! What shall we do with them?”
“Oh, there is Muller, a prompt, industrious clerk, he is never behind! Let’s give them to him,” said the Director.
“What is the difference between a secret and a public session of the town council?”
“When there is a secret session, one knows the result an hour later; the result of a public session, one reads in next day’s paper.”
Detective:—“Your suspicion of your cashier has not been confirmed; you may be sure of his honesty. He makes no show whatever, lives, to be sure, decently...!”
Director (interrupting him):—“Yes, but ... that’s just it; with the salary I give him, it’s impossible to live decently!”
Judge (to accused’s wife):—“Were you with your husband when he broke into the young ladies’ boarding-school?”
Wife:—“Of course; would your wife permit you to break into a young ladies’ school by yourself?”
“But, Doctor, I must win that lawsuit; the contract is as clear as daylight!”
“So it is—but let me tell you, when it comes to a lawsuit, clearness is a thing of the past.”
“What, are you back from Africa already?”
“Yes, I had settled there as sheriff, but there was nothing to levy upon but now and then a[59] nose-ring ... and then I generally had a suit brought against me for levying on an indispensable article of dress.”
“What,” said the disgusted lawyer to a countryman, “didn’t I have you thrown out just now because you were too fresh, and here you are back again!”
“Doctor,” returns he, “please be good, and undertake my defense; I see you are the only lawyer who makes short work!”
Lady (at a lawyer’s who is a friend):—“A question does not cost anything?”
Lawyer:—“No, but the answer does.”
Professor:—“Candidate, what belongs to a last will and testament?”
Candidate:—“A death and a fortune.”
Professor:—“Candidate, what in law do we call one who assists another in committing a[60] crime—who for instance, makes him a key, with which to open the door?”
Candidate:—“That is a locksmith.”
Professor:—“Candidate, what does the term dos mean?”
Candidate:—“Dos—dos—I am sorry I can’t think of it this minute.”
Professor:—“Imagine you were engaged to be married. On your wedding day your father-in-law says, ‘I shall give my daughter 50,000 thaler.’ What would that be?”
Candidate:—“That would be great good luck for me.”
Professor:—“I fully agree with you. Now translate for me this mandate from the Codex. Read the introduction.”
Candidate (reads):—“Sancimus hac lege in perpetuum valitura——”
Professor:—“Stop! Translate these words.”
Candidate (translates):—“Read this—and then farewell forever!”
Professor:—“Good, very good! I also will say to you: Farewell forever!”
Professor:—“Well, candidate, which seems[61] to you the better, that the present generation should save for the future generation, or that they should leave debts behind?”
Candidate:—“I believe it would be better to leave debts behind.”
Professor:—“Why; what are your reasons?”
Candidate:—“We can’t be expected to save for a generation, of which we do not even know whether it will exist. If the judgment day should come unexpectedly, we would have saved for nothing.”
Professor:—“What is a crime?”
Candidate (stuttering):—“A crime is—is, when some one—does—something!”
Professor (laughing):—“Then candidate, you are certainly no criminal.”
Professor:—“I will put a law case before you: Mother and daughter slept with their two little boys, in the same room. As the children were dressed exactly alike, the nurses changed them, so nobody could tell which was the mother’s and which the daughter’s child. How would you decide the case?”
Candidate:—“Are you sure that the children were exchanged?”
Professor:—“Didn’t I tell you so just now?”
Candidate:—“Very well, then you simply exchange the children again.”
“Is the dog tax a direct or an indirect tax?”
“An indirect one.”
“Why?”
“Because it is not collected directly from the dog.”
“Candidate, what do you know about mortgages?”
“Nothing at all; so far, I have always been able to borrow without one.”
“You are thirty years old?” asked a magistrate of a lady whose deposition he was taking down.
“No, twenty,” she answered.
“But I was born in the same year you were.”
“Oh, well,” said the lady, snappishly, “you probably lived faster than I!”
“What is the matter with this woman?”
“She fell on the slippery sidewalk, because there was no sand put on it.”
“Where was it? I’ll put the landlord’s name down at once!”
“It was before the town hall, policeman.”
“Oh, before the town hall! you should have been more careful, my good woman!”
Professor (complaining):—“For the past two weeks a student has occupied the room below mine. The impudent fellow plays the piano and sings every blessed night, ‘Come down, oh Madonna Theresa!’ What can I do about it?”
Police Sergeant:—“Is your name Theresa?”
Professor:—“No.”
Police Sergeant:—“Well then you need not take any notice of it.”
“How did you manage to have your attorney take such an interest in your lawsuit?”
“I borrowed a hundred dollars from him. If I lose my lawsuit he will lose his money.”
Judge:—“Well, Doctor, what do you think of your patient’s wounds?”
Doctor:—“Two of them are fatal, without a doubt; but if the patient is kept quiet, it is probable that the third one will be healed in a couple of months.”
“How did you break into that house?”
“Your Honor, it was two o’clock in the morning; no night watchman in sight; an open window in front of me—why, you yourself would have gone in!”
“Gentlemen of the Jury! When the pear is ripe, it falls from the tree! This pear (pointing towards the accused) grew ripe, fell from the tree, and here it sits—in the dock!”
Judge:—“So the accused stole a salam, (choice sausage)—where is it?”
Constable:—“Here, your Honor, is the corpus delicati.”
Judge:—“You wish your trial postponed, prisoner, because your counsel has been taken ill; but since you were caught red-handed and have confessed the theft, I don’t see what your counsel could say in your favor.”
Prisoner:—“That’s just what I am curious to hear, your Honor!”
Presiding Judge (addressing the crowd in the courtroom):—“I warn you that if there are any more disturbances, I’ll have the court cleared!”
Prisoner:—“That’ll be much better, your Honor; then we’ll be among ourselves!”
“If it pleases the court,” said a prisoner, who so far had stoutly denied his guilt, during the poor defense his counsel made, “make him shut up; I’d rather confess.”
Governor (to a prisoner while inspecting the penitentiary):—“What brought you here?”
Prisoner:—“My cold.”
Governor:—“What? Your cold?”
Prisoner:—“Yes, sir; I had a bad cold when I broke into that house, and had to sneeze; it awoke the gentleman; he caught me, and so I was brought here.”
Warden (to the prisoners):—“His Honor is going to visit the jail this afternoon! Prepare yourselves for it!”
Rogue (to a fellow prisoner):—“Hans, you do the honors!”
Warden:—“Here is the money that is due you. I hope you will now find an honorable way of making a living.”
Prisoner:—“Certainly, sir, you may depend on it.”
Warden:—“Well, we shall see; you may go now! Why are you hesitating? Do you wish to say anything?”
Prisoner (whose burglar kit had been taken from him when he was arrested):—“Might I ask your Honor for my tools?”
Attorney (to the manager of a theatre on[67] seeing the empty house):—“Why, my dear sir, is the public excluded to-day?”
Attorney:—“I assure you, charming Fräulein, we lawyers advance very slowly. One is always waiting for the other’s death. Look, for instance, at that old judge over there. From year to year we have been waiting for the old codger to go off and make room for——”
Lady (interrupting him):—“Sir, that gentleman—is my father!”
A lawyer was speaking at the grave of a colleague. No eye had remained dry, until, putting down a wreath, the orator closed with great pathos, saying: “Rest in peace, dear friend ... and you, gentlemen of the jury, preserve ever a pleasant memory of the accused!”
Waiter:—“What do you wish me to order for your dinner, sir?”
Attorney (pointing to the kitchen):—“I leave that to the mercy of the court!”
“To-morrow I am going to hand my first attempt at a drama to the manager of our theatre.”
“Friend, as a lawyer, you ought to know that even an attempt at crime is punishable.”
“Is it true that you said the man Meier here, had stolen your pocketbook?”
“I didn’t say that, Squire; I only stated, that if Meier had not helped me to look for it, I should have found it again.”
Clerk of the Court (to countryman):—“What do you want here so early? There is nobody here yet, but myself! Before eight o’clock no business is accepted. Don’t you see that it is still two whole minutes of eight? In two minutes you will find me in!”
Rogue:—“Doctor, you got me free. I must show my gratitude. Take this watch.”
Counsel:—“No, no; you are a poor devil. Where did you get the watch?”
Rogue:—“Why, it’s the one I stole.”
Detective (looking for evidence at the spot where a murder had been committed):—“The footprint in this anthill is of the utmost importance. It might—most probably it will—lead to the discovery of the murderer. Constable, hurry back to town at once, bring a bag and a shovel, and shovel this highly important footprint into it. We will take it back with us!”
Judge:—“It is utterly incomprehensible to me how you could kill the man with one blow of your bare fist!”
Accused:—“Shall I show you how I did it?”
Magistrate:—“You complain that your neighbor struck you during a quarrel?”
Washerwoman:—“Yes, your Honor, he struck me several times with his cane on—on—”
Magistrate:—“Never mind; sit down on the missing word.”
Squire:—“You are a carpenter, are you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were working near the place where the row occurred?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How far away were you?”
“Thirty-six and a half feet.”
“How can you tell so exact?”
“’Cause I measured it. I thought right away, some fool from court would ask me about it.”
Magistrate:—“You are accused of loafing; why don’t you work?”
Loafer:—“Because then I would have to pay an income tax.”
Judge:—“Constable, bring in the next witness!” (Constable beckons to a man by the door to step up.)
Judge:—“What is your name?”
Peter:—“Peter Lerch.”
Judge:—“How old are you?”
Peter:—“I don’t think that’s necessary to tell.”
Judge (severely):—“Will you tell me at once, how old you are?”
Peter:—“Thirty-three years.”
Judge:—“Are you a Lutheran or a Catholic?”
Peter:—“But, your Honor——”
Judge (interrupting him):—“If you dare to interrupt me again——”
Peter (quickly):—“I’m a Lutheran.”
Judge:—“Are you related to the accused or in their service?”
Peter (indignant):—“I? to those? Rather not! What is your Honor thinking of?” (Laughter in the courtroom.)
Judge:—“Refrain from all improper remarks! Raise your hand and take the oath.”
Peter:—“Oh, but really your Honor, that’s too much.”
Judge (rises and cries furiously):—“I’ll have you arrested, if you dare to contradict again. Raise your hand and repeat the oath after me.” (Peter does it meekly.)
Judge:—“And now what have you to say?”
Peter:—“The Colonel sends his regards, and asks you to come to dinner to-night at eight o’clock. The deer he shot yesterday has arrived.”
Judge:—“What on earth—— Aren’t you a witness?”
Peter:—“No, your Honor; I’m the Colonel’s[72] orderly. Not finding you at home I came here; and when I asked for you, the Constable showed me in here.”
A celebrated lawyer was pleading a case before a famous judge, and made such daring assertions that he roused the latter into saying: “Well, if this is law, I’m going home to burn all my books.”
“It seems to me,” replied the lawyer quietly, “it would be better if your Honor went home to read them.”
A lawyer once asked a minister, “If the clergy and the devil had a lawsuit together, who would win?”
“The devil,” was the quick answer, “for he has all the lawyers on his side.”
Two lawyers, one as tall as a giant, the other as small as a dwarf, were getting so excited over a case on hand, that the giant said to the other: “Who are you? Why, I could put you in my pocket.”
The other replied quietly: “Then there[73] would be more law in your pocket than there is in your head.”
Counsel (closing his speech):—“And finally, gentlemen of the jury, I would have you remember the golden rule: ‘Do unto others, as you wish others to do unto you,’ or would you like to lie in a prison cell, for years?”
Music is a greater revelation than all science and philosophy!—L. van Beethoven.
Mozart loved his parents tenderly. When quite a little fellow, he composed a song, which he sang with his father every night before going to bed, while standing on a chair where his father had to put him. This ceremony over, he would kiss them and retire in peace and contentment. This nightly performance he kept up until he reached his tenth year.
When Mozart was six years old, his father took him to the palace, to play before Emperor Francis I. Taking him to the piano the Emperor started to turn the leaves for him, when the boy said: “No, you let Wagenseil (the leader of the orchestra) do that, he knows how.”
The evening before the first performance of “Don Juan” at Prag, Mozart told his wife that he intended to write the overture during the night, and asked her to make a punch for him and stay with him, to keep him awake. But exertion and sleepiness made the work so hard, that his wife begged him to rest on the sofa, promising to waken him in an hour. He slept so soundly that she let him sleep two hours. It was five o’clock when she wakened him. At seven the copyist was to come. Mozart worked now so rapidly, that in two hours the overture was finished.
One day Mozart and his wife were walking in the Augarten near Vienna. His wife was telling him about her dog’s devotion, and said: “You just pretend to strike me and see how he will jump at you!” Just as Mozart playfully struck his wife on the shoulder, the Emperor stepped from his summer-house.
“Well, well,” said he; “just three weeks married, and fighting already!”
Mozart explained, and the Emperor laughing, asked:
“Do you remember the anecdote of Wagenseil?[76] and how, when I played the violin, you called from among my audience, sometimes ‘Pshaw! that was wrong!’ sometimes, ‘bravo!’”
Mozart was very generous. An old and honest piano repairer had put some new strings on his beloved instrument.
“What do I owe you, old friend?” asked Mozart. “I am going away to-morrow and wish to pay you now!”
The old man, who always grew dreadfully embarrassed if any one spoke to him, stammered:
“To be sure—your Honor—I have been here—several—times I beg—a thaler.”
“What, a man like you, come to me for one thaler?” With that he put several ducats into the old man’s hand and fled.
For a number of years after Händel settled in London he was financially very unlucky. His operas did not take, and when his friends complained that the house was so empty, he would comfort them by saying:
“That does not matter at all, the music will sound so much the better!”
On a trip to Ireland, Händel was detained for a few days at Chester. As he wished to try some of the choruses that he intended to bring out in Ireland, he asked the organist of the Cathedral, Backer, whether he had any singers in his choir who could sing by sight. Backer named some of his best singers, among them a printer, Janson, who sang bass very well. Händel appointed the time for a private rehearsal at his hotel; but poor Janson, after repeated trials, made so many mistakes in the chorus of The Messiah, “And through his wounds” that Händel grew furious and after swearing at him in four or five languages, cried in broken English: “You villain, you, didn’t you say you could read by sight?”
“So I can, sir,” replied Janson, “only not the very first time!”
When Gluck came to England the first time, in 1745, Händel was asked what he thought of him. His answer, preceded by an oath was:
“He knows and understands counterpoint about as well as my cook!”
One evening while Händel was at Dublin, a certain Mr. Dubourg was to sing a solo to an aria, with a cadence ad libitum. For some time he strayed about in different keys, but at last he commenced the trill with which the cadence closed and Händel cried loud enough for the whole house to hear, to the great amusement of the audience: “Welcome home, Mr. Dubourg!”
In 1749, Händel had such poor success with his oratorio “Theodora” that he was pleased when some musicians, who did not play in it, accepted tickets. Later on some of these gentlemen begged permission to hear The Messiah, but Händel said: “Oh, I am your humble servant, gentlemen; you are too infernally particular! You did not care to hear Theodora, when there was room enough to dance, now there is none left for you!”
Händel was holding the last rehearsal of his[79] incomparable and difficult “Te Deum Laudamus” to be rendered at the celebration of the Peace of Utrecht. Before starting, he cried, full of enthusiasm: “Gentlemen! Whoever makes a mistake to-day, is a villain!”
The sublime composition, the excellent rendition, carried him away to such an extent, that at the end of a phrase, forgetting everything around him, he stood like one inspired, and when spoken to, shivered and was unable to control his emotion. With the last note, he cried, tears streaming down his face: “Gentlemen, I am the villain!”
While Haydn lived in Ungarn (Hungary) gunning and fishing were his favorite recreations. He never forgot that he once killed three pheasants at one shot, which afterwards graced the dinner table of the Empress, Maria Theresa.
In 1770, Haydn was very ill with a malignant fever, and during his convalescence his physician strictly forbade his doing any work or touching the piano. Soon after, Haydn’s wife went to church, but before going impressed on the maid the necessity of watching her master closely so[80] that he could not get at the piano. Haydn pretended not to have heard a word of this order, but his wife had hardly left the house, when he sent the maid on an errand. He hurried to the piano, and at the first touch the whole idea of a sonata came to him. The first part was finished while his wife was at church. When he heard her returning, he quickly went back to bed and finished it there.
Haydn owned a case filled with snuff-boxes, watches, rings, medals, and other presents from all the crowned heads of Austria, Russia, Prussia, Spain, France, and Naples. He said: “When life seems sometimes hard to bear, I look at all these things, and feel content and pleased to have been honored by all Europe.”
One day a ship-captain came to Haydn’s room. “Are you Haydn?”
“Yes, sir; what can I do for you?”
“I’ll give you thirty guineas if you compose a march for my ship’s band; but it must be done to-day, for to-morrow morning we set sail for Calcutta.”
Haydn promised to have it ready early the[81] following morning; went to the piano as soon as the captain had left him, and was soon done with it. It seemed to the composer that he had earned his money too easily, so during the evening he composed two more marches, to give the captain his choice or make him a present of the other two. It was barely daylight when the captain appeared.
“Captain, the march is finished.”
“Very good, play it for me!”
Haydn played.
The Englishman put the thirty guineas on the piano, and without saying another word took up his march and walked to the door. Haydn followed him saying: “I composed two more, which I think are better. Let me play them for you and take your choice.”
“The first march pleases me, so that ends it!”
“But listen to the others, perhaps——”
“No, that is impossible!”
The captain hurried down the stairs, Haydn ran after him saying: “Sir, I’ll make you a present of them. You paid me very generously. Do take them!”
The captain hurried still more saying: “It is impossible. I don’t want them!”
“Do let me play them for you!”
“Not for a thousand devils,” cried the captain, who had reached the street by this time, and disappeared quickly. Haydn went at once to learn both the captain’s and his ship’s name, and having succeeded, packed up both marches and, with a note, sent them to the musical salt. He, however, returned the package without opening the note, and Haydn was so furious about it that he tore it to shreds, marches and all.
Another time, while Haydn was sauntering about the streets, he stepped into a music store and asked if they had a selection of good music.
“As much as you wish,” said the proprietor. “Here are some excellent things of Haydn’s!”
“Have no use for them,” said Haydn, curtly.
“What, you have no use for it? For Haydn’s music! What fault have you to find with it?”
“Quite enough! At any rate, I don’t want any of it. Show me some other compositions!”
The merchant, a devoted admirer of Haydn’s, said, indignantly: “It is not necessary, though I have plenty of excellent music, I have none for you!” and turned his back on the composer. At the same moment a gentleman entered who knew Haydn, and spoke to him. The merchant[83] coming up to them said to the Englishman: “What do you think! This old gentleman here has no use for Haydn’s music!” Great was his embarrassment when the gentleman explained.
The following story proves what a noble, generous man Haydn was. In 1780 the daughter of an army officer from Coburg wrote to him of a little adventure, asking him to set it to music. This is the story: She and her intended husband, a captain of the army, together with a friend and a poodle were taking a walk. The captain had been praising his dog’s talents, and made a bet with his friend that the dog would find a thaler laid under a bush now, he being sent back for it after their return home. The bet was accepted. Directly after returning home the captain sent his dog back for the money.
Now it so happened that a traveling tailor sat down to rest under that very bush where the thaler was deposited, found the money and put it in his pocket. When the poodle arrived he smelled the coin and fawned upon the tailor. The man, highly pleased at having found a thaler and such an amiable dog within an hour, took him to his stopping place in the town. The poodle watched the tailor’s clothes all night,[84] and when, early the next morning, the door of the room was opened, he stole out, carrying the tailor’s trousers with him and brought both them and the thaler to his master.
This little adventure had been put into verse under the title: “The Cunning and Serviceable Poodle,” and Haydn was asked now to put the text to music. The lady added that she was poor, but having heard so much of his generosity, she hoped the enclosed ducat would be considered sufficient pay.
Haydn went to work at it at once, but returned the ducat to the young lady in a letter, saying that as a punishment for not knowing him better, and sending any money at all, she should knit him a pair of garters. These garters, made of white silk with a hand-painted wreath of violets, Haydn kept with his jewels in his treasure box.
For years Schubert could not find a publisher for even his most famous compositions, such as the “Erlkoenig,” for instance. In 1823 some friends and patrons published, at their own expense, the first twelve books of songs—the same books that afterwards were to be found all over the world and brought him thousands.
Schubert composed his songs with amazing facility. He composed his charming “Serenade” on the window sill of a country tavern in less than an hour. He was there on an excursion with a party of gay friends, who were clamoring for something new. As soon as he had finished, they sang it to the delight of all who were fortunate enough to be within hearing distance.
Several young wags were making fun of a musician, and said, among other things, that he played like Orpheus.
“Very true,” said the musician, “I, too, seem to have a following of beasts.”
Some time ago I asked B, my carpenter, why he was so downhearted.
“Well,” said he, “you know, sir, that my son Franz was to have been a carpenter. He showed a good deal of talent for it, but now it’s all over.”
“How so?” I asked.
“It happened this way: We went to hear an opera the other night, and such music as we heard! The angels in heaven could not sing[86] any better, and that music they said was made by one Weber. And now my boy won’t be anything else but just such a Weber” (Weaver).
To the manager of the opera at K. came one day a young girl to be examined for a position in the chorus. After she had sung a scale, he asked her among other questions if she could sing by sight, to which she replied: “Oh yes, if I know it by heart.”
“Are you at all musical?”
“Oh no; I am Catholic!”
The younger Pixis was to play at Hanover a concert of Mozart’s. His father kept him hard at practicing, but he seemed listless and paid very little attention to his playing. The elder Pixis, very anxious that all his sons should succeed, chided him and said: “There is still time for you to learn something else. If you do not care to make a virtuoso of yourself, you might make a cobbler.”
“Well, what loss would that be,” replied the little fellow. “Anybody can do without music, but not without shoes!”
One time it occurred to a village organist, that by having some new church music, he might not only glorify a coming festival, but cover himself also with glory before his congregation. Telemann, the well-known composer of sacred music, who lived in the near-by city of Gotha, should compose it, and his colleagues from the surrounding villages with their choirs, should help in the rendition of it. So to Telemann the ambitious organist betook himself, and explained his errand. Now the composer knew him and his confrères as miserable bunglers, and made all sorts of excuses, but the organist was persistent and would not be refused. Telemann, partly angry, partly amused, asked at last what the text for the cantata was to be. That the organist said he would leave to Telemann to choose, a Bible text or something equally appropriate would do. The composer finally consented, and asked him to arrange for the rehearsal, to which he promised to come himself and bring some friends.
The morning of the festival brought Telemann and his friends. The scores were distributed. For the text the composer had chosen the line: “We know nothing against the Lord!” and had put it into a fugue.
“Now,” whispered Telemann to his friends, “listen to those fellows confessing their sins!” The rehearsal began, and from all throats came, like a tremendous wailing, “We—we—we know nothing—nothing—nothing—we know nothing—know nothing—no”—until at last, the whole company having shouted away for dear life—without suspecting anything wrong—was awakened from their dream, by shouts of laughter from Telemann and his friends. Then there was general consternation, the poor organist stood completely crushed. “To be sure, this does not sound very well, gentlemen,” said Telemann, and to comfort the crestfallen organist he drew from his pocket another small cantata, which he and his friends rendered at the church.
Goldmark, the composer of “The Queen of Saba,” while traveling one day, found himself in a railway coupé with a strange lady. A conversation was soon started, and the composer introduced himself with these words: “I am Goldmark, the composer of The Queen of Saba.”
“Ah,” replied the lady, who was not much versed in musical or theatrical matters, “that must be a very lucrative position.”
Beethoven’s parents had him instructed in music at a very early age. When he was only eight years old he played the violin so well as to astonish all his hearers. In the little room under the roof, where he practiced, he noticed one day a very large spider, leaving her web and coming close to him to listen. By and by she grew so tame, that she came and sat first on his desk, then on the artist, and finally made herself at home on the arm which held the bow. Her interest spurred on the boy to do his best, and helped not a little in his progress. One day, his aunt, who filled his mother’s place, came into the little room, bringing a friend who wished to hear the boy play. As he began, the spider came from her corner and settled upon his arm. The aunt seeing the insect, pounced upon her, and crushed her under her foot. Beethoven, horror-stricken at his comrade’s fate, fell fainting to the floor.
Once while at court, Beethoven forgot himself so far as to beat the time on the back of Emperor Francis. The monarch was not the least angry, and often said smilingly, that one[90] of his subjects had beaten him, without being punished for it.
Beethoven’s younger brother had, by extreme economy, saved enough to purchase a country estate. One time he sent to his famous brother, just to anger him, a New Year’s card with: “Johann van Beethoven, possessor of a country estate;” to which polite action, he received the answer: “Ludwig van Beethoven, possessor of brains.”
Beethoven dined now and then at an inn on the flour-market at Vienna. One day he came at half past two, and sat down in his lonely corner, without greeting any of the guests present, a courtesy he had never before omitted. The waiter who knew him, brought him a bottle of the ordinary table wine which Beethoven usually drank, and put the menu before him.
The great composer broke his roll, pulled a notebook from his pocket, leaned his head on his hand and remained in this attitude, writing now and then in the book, until six o’clock in the evening. Suddenly he jumped up and cried: “Waiter, I wish to pay my bill!”
“Oh, but your Honor has not eaten a thing to-day!”
“Haven’t I? Well, all right!” said Beethoven, and took his hat and went out.
The great composer’s gruff, even repulsive manner, during the last years of his life, was partly owing to his deafness and partly to the utter ruin of his finances. He was not a good manager, and had the misfortune to be robbed by those in his employ. He often lacked the necessities of life. Ludwig Spohr, in the early days of his acquaintance with Beethoven asked him once why he had not been to dinner at the inn for some days. Had he been ill?
“No, but my boot was, and as I own only one pair, I had to stay at home.”
The best idea of his domestic misery is given in his diary, an extract from which is here presented.
1819. January 31:
Dismissed the housekeeper, on account of her quick tongue and quicker temper.
February 15:
The new cook arrives.
March 8:
The cook has given two weeks’ notice. On the 22d the new housekeeper takes charge.
April 14:
Engaged a waitress at six gulden per month.
April 20:
The housekeeper gives notice, because she is no good.
April 24:
Bad day. Could not eat anything,—that is, there was nothing fit to eat, everything being spoiled, standing too long.
May 16:
Cook has given notice, because she ruined the dinner again.
July 1:
Enter a new cook. I wonder if she is good for anything!
Such was the great master’s domestic life.
That Beethoven paid no heed whatever to the world, its fashions or its follies, during the time when he worked hardest, showed in his appearance. For instance, he had not noticed that it had become the fashion for men to wear lace frills on the front of their shirts. A friend ordered[93] some for him, so that he should appear well dressed. When Beethoven saw the frills he wondered what they were for. “Oh,” he said, “I suppose they are meant to keep me warm,” and tucked the beautiful frills inside his vest.
When Liszt made his first trip to St. Petersburg, Russia had no railroads, and he traveled over badly neglected roads in a heavily loaded coach, with his secretary and valet. One day, not far from the small town of P—— the coach broke down. Examination showed that it would take at least two days to repair it. This forced Liszt to go to the hotel of the town, a place that could neither offer him his accustomed comforts nor luxuries nor anything in the way of amusements.
Liszt was then at the height of his triumphant career, and all the joys and pleasures of life were his. To such a man the enforced rest in such a poor place, must have been depressing. Under these circumstances it was a happy thought that came to the secretary while reading a poem of Alfred de Musset. In it the poet says: “La reméde au melancolique c’est la musique.” “The remedy for melancholy is music.”
The artist was lying in an easy chair by the fire, watching the smoke from his Havana, when the secretary proposed to kill time by giving some concerts. Solely in the hope of getting a change and some diversion out of it, Liszt laughingly consented. Quickly the necessary arrangements were made and the concert was to be given on the following night in the dancing hall of the hotel.
Now either the virtuoso’s fame had not penetrated so far, or else they doubted that he was the genuine, great Liszt, for when the artist stepped on the platform, he looked at a yawning gulf of empty chairs. About fifteen persons were present.
Taking off his gloves, he looked smilingly at the little band of faithful ones, then came forward and, in the amiable, merry way he had of talking, he pointed out to them that the hall was cold and uncomfortable, while his own sitting-room was warm and cozy. He took the liberty therefore to ask those present to follow him and to take a little supper with him. And offering his arm to the young lady sitting next to him he led the way, while the rest followed not a little surprised, but full of curiosity.
With the help of his secretary and valet, he gave them quite a supper with champagne, Liszt[95] making a most fascinating host, and sitting down to the piano unasked, he played for the mixed company some national airs, which were jubilantly applauded. It was a highly enjoyable evening for the guests and even more so for the host, who thanked his secretary warmly.
The next evening the second concert took place, and the hall was crowded. Whether they came in the hope of being invited to supper or whether their interest in music was aroused is hard to decide. Liszt laughingly inclined to the former. At any rate, the concert was a brilliant success, the whole aristocracy of the neighborhood was present, greeting him with storms of applause. After the concert, they overwhelmed him with invitations, so that the great artist was obliged to extend his stay to a week. He always recalled this as one of his merriest traveling experiences.
Among the great maestro’s papers was found the following amusing story: “One day,” Paganini begins, “I was wandering about the streets of Vienna, when all of a sudden a thunder-storm came up. The rain came down in torrents and seemed to increase every minute. For once I was alone, which happened very[96] rarely, as my valet generally accompanied me. I was very far from my lodgings and already so wet, that I was beginning to fear for my health. So I looked about for a cab. Three passed me, as the drivers did not understand Italian, and I did not speak German. The fourth stopped at my call, the driver was a countryman of mine.
“Before entering I asked his price. ‘Five gulden, the price of a ticket to Paganini’s concert,’ he said.
“‘You rascal,’ I cried indignantly, ‘to ask five gulden for such a short ride! Paganini plays on one string of his violin; you could hardly run your cab on one wheel.’
“‘Oh, it isn’t so difficult as people think, to play on one string. I am musical too, and I doubled the price of my fares to-day, in order to hear the great violinist they call Paganini.’
“I said nothing more, entered the cab, and in ten minutes was at my hotel. I gave the man the five gulden and also a ticket to my concert. The next day just before the concert began, a great crowd was at the door of the concert hall when I arrived, and one of the ushers called to me: ‘There is a dirty, uncouth-looking man at the door, who insists on being admitted.’
“It was my driver of the day before, whom I permitted to enter in spite of his appearance,[97] hoping that he would lose himself in the crowd. But when, at the beginning of the concert, I stepped on the platform, there he was as close to me as he could get, among the elegantly dressed women of the first row. The applause was enthusiastic; my driver’s knew no bounds. Several times he had to be severely reproved for disturbing the rest of the audience. I never had a more appreciative listener.
“Early the next morning he came to my rooms. ‘Sir,’ he said, in the most respectful tone, ‘you can do me a great favor. I have a family, am poor, and your countryman; you are wealthy and famous. You hold my fortune in your hand.’
“‘What do you mean by that?’
“‘Permit me to put at the back of my cab the two words: “Paganini’s cabriolet.”’
“‘Very well,’ said I laughingly, ‘you may put on it whatever you like.’
“That man was smarter than I thought. In a few months he was better known at Vienna than myself; his Paganini cab created a sensation. He had great good luck with it, for everybody wanted to ride in it and he charged good prices.
“When I returned to Vienna two years later, my driver was the owner of the hotel at which[98] I had stayed, and an Englishman had bought the cabriolet for one thousand pounds.”
Meyerbeer’s nephew came to Rossini, to beg of him to listen to a funeral march he had composed on the death of his uncle, and to pass his judgment upon it.
After Rossini had listened patiently he said:
“That is all very well. Yet, I should like it better if you had died and your uncle had composed the funeral march.”
The famous composer possessed a magnificent watch that his king had presented to him. It was a repeater and also a musical watch, for it played the maestro’s prayer from “Moses in Egypt.” But not until after he had owned it for six years, did he understand it fully. Rossini took a boyish delight in showing it and making it play, and one day he did so while in a café.
A stranger who sat near was attracted by the music, and just as Rossini was going to put it back in his pocket, he stepped up to him and said: “You have a very valuable watch there,[99] sir, but I’ll wager that you do not know all its capabilities.”
Rossini, much surprised said: “I have carried it now for six years, in honor of my king. It has never varied one minute, it repeats the hour, quarter-hour, tells the minutes and the day of the month, and plays as you have just heard, the prayer from ‘Moses.’”
“And yet, I insist,” said the stranger smilingly, “that you do not know your watch wholly. I’ll wager anything you like,—your watch against ten thousand francs!”
“Oh, well, if you have ten thousand francs too many, I’ll take the bet,” cried Rossini; “but now give me the proof of your assertion.”
“Very well,—the watch plays another piece of yours, master, and contains your portrait besides.”
Speechless, Rossini saw that when the stranger touched a spring a lid flew back, disclosing his portrait, while at the same time it played “Di Tanti Palpiti” from “Tancred.”
“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, looking at his lost watch, “it is true, you have won the wager; but how could I know?”
The stranger, laughing heartily, handed him back his treasure saying:
“I am the maker of this watch, Michel[100] Plivée. The wager was made in fun, but I am delighted, that you, the great maestro, take such pleasure in my work.”
The well-known pianist, Sophie Menter, delighted everybody with her simple, natural ways. One day in Pesth, while in a company of artists and lovers of art, Liszt among them, a young count, carried away by her playing, cried enthusiastically,
“Mein Fräulein, I lay myself at your feet!”
“Well,” said Sophie Menter, stepping back and smiling roguishly, “go on, lie down!”
“Oh, I did not mean it literally like that,” replied the count in consternation.
“Now you see,” said the young girl seriously, “that you should never say what you do not honestly mean.”
Kirnberger, the son of a carpenter, was taught music at an early age. One day he sat in a corner of his father’s workshop, poring over a task his teacher had set him. Every now and then the boy would sigh deeply, and rub his forehead vigorously. His father who had[101] been watching him for some time, at last asked:
“Well, my boy, what is the trouble?”
“Oh, father, I am to make a fugue, and I do not know how to begin!” Now fugue, in German, means also the groove in a board.
“You silly fellow, why couldn’t you ask me. Come right here and I’ll show you.” The good man took up a board, put his plane to it, and tried to show to his son how a fugue was made.
L:—“Ah, how do you do, my dear sir; where do you come from?”
D:—“From Karlsbad.”
L:—“Well, how did the waters agree with you?”
D:—“Not very well. I was there six weeks and am still as stout as ever. Towards the last I drank fourteen cups of water a day, and still did not lose anything to speak of.”
L:—“You should have gone to Wiesbaden. I was there only two days, didn’t drink anything, and yet lost everything.”
Tourist (to hotelkeeper):—“Will you tell me why you curtained the window of my room from the outside?”
Host:—“Excuse me, sir, but you wanted a[103] cheap room, without a view; and as I had only this one with a view, but could not rent that at your price, we just put the curtain on the outside.”
Stranger (at a mountain tavern):—“Say, mine host, what is that dreadful rumbling noise above?”
Host:—“Dear me, I suppose the tavern is going to tumble down; it’s very rickety. But that’s nothing. If it doesn’t kill us, we’ll build a new one next year, and will hope to see you and your friends.”
Official (to conductor, who is hours behind with his train):—“What made you so late?”
Conductor:—“We don’t run by hours and minutes, we just stick to the date!”
A gentleman farmer, from Pomerania, visited Vienna. At a bird dealer’s, a talking parrot excited his greatest admiration. He paid two hundred gulden for him and had him sent home to his friend Gela. After his return he called on him and of course asked for the parrot.[104] “Oh,” said his friend, “many thanks for your kind attention. He was a little tough, though.”
“What? the parrot?”
“Certainly, he had to be cooked for six hours.”
“What? Did you cook that parrot?”
“Why of course we did.”
“Gela, you are a fool. That was a trained bird; he could talk.”
“Well, why didn’t he say so?”
Professor (on his wedding tour in the mountains):—“Don’t go too near that precipice, Elise, you might fall down.”
Young wife (laughing):—“Oh no, I should take hold of that pine tree there.”
Professor:—“That is a fir tree, my dear! Just see how careless you are! You would take hold of a pine tree and when you got there, there would not be one to hold onto!”
C. M. Oettinger gives in his magazine a humorous and striking characteristic of the European capitals. Amsterdam trades; Aachen conspires; Berlin talks fashions; Brussels debates;[105] Dresden wonders; Dublin begs; Edinburgh dreams; Florence stares; Frankfort counts; Genoa laughs; Hamburg eats; Hanover sleeps; Cassel snores; Constantinople bathes; Copenhagen adorns; Leipzig reads (but only the newspaper); Lisbon works; Madrid smokes; Mainz waits for the Cardinal; Manchester packs; Mannheim swears; Marseilles sings; Munich drinks beer; Naples perspires; Palermo fans; Paris chats; Pesth talks; St. Petersburg is silent; Rome prays; Stockholm is having a good time; Turin dresses up; Venice loves; Warsaw sighs; Vienna digests.
Lady (at a mountain resort):—“As a member of the Alpine Club, you can tell me, I suppose, how many feet this mountain is above the level of the sea?”
Gentleman:—“That—that is difficult to ascertain, as the height changes with the tide.”
Stranger (who sees the Rhine for the first time and has been told that the famous Rhine wine comes from these parts):—“Ah, how delighted I am to see this great river, from[106] which they make that fine Rhine wine you get here!”
1st letter. Wife (from a summer resort):—“How I long for a few lines from your hand!” (No answer.)
2d letter. “I am very much worried about you, do write!” (No answer.)
3d letter. “I am devoured with anxiety about you; it will kill me!” (No answer.)
4th letter. “If I do not hear from you by to-morrow, I shall come home!”
Telegram. “Stay where you are. I am well and happy! Your husband.”
Guest (to his host):—“Look here, Herr Ochsenwirth, my bill cannot possibly be so much. There must be a mistake.”
Host:—“Not possible, sir, since I counted everything twice.”
Tourist (to a farmer’s wife):—“Well, my good woman, where is your husband to-day? Isn’t he at home?”
“No, he’s up on the Alps.”
“Aren’t you afraid to be all alone?”
“Goodness no! I am always glad when he is gone, then I have some peace!”
“But, my dear woman, you ought not to say that! Man and wife belong together. I am always glad when my wife is at home.”
“Yes, while you are gadding about!”
Stranger:—“How high is this mountain?”
Guide:—“My father always said eight thousand five hundred feet. But you can’t depend upon that; father died thirty-eight years ago, and since that time lots of things have changed.”
“Look here, guide; on that signpost down below, it says it takes one hour to come up here, and it has taken us almost three!”
“I know that, but if we put that on the signpost not a decent feller would come up here.”
Countess (who has returned to her estate in the mountains for the summer):—“Well, Sepp, are you all glad to see me back again?”
Sepp:—“Oh my, yes! When you are not here the castle looks to us like an Alp without the cattle.”
Stranger:—“Why don’t you put a railing along this dreadful abyss?”
Guide:—“Well, you know the more strangers that fall down there, the more famous the abyss becomes!”
Captain (to ladies on a steamer):—“Ladies, please do not look so long at the compass, your magnetic eyes will spoil the course!”
Summer boarder:—“You said you had running water in the yard, but I can see only a pump.”
Farmer:—“You just pull a little and it runs!”
Traveler:—“Milk must be very scarce around here that you ask so much for it?”
Hostess:—“The milk is not scarce at all, sir, but travelers are!”
Wife (at a watering place):—“Well, dear[109] Emil, shall we stay here on the promenade or climb up to the ruin?”
Husband:—“What should I climb up to the ruin for? To have to stay here four weeks is ruin enough for me!”
A lady who had been to Italy for the first time was asked, after her return, how she liked Venice. “Oh, quite well,” she answered, “I was only unfortunate in finding the whole place flooded.”
She (in a railway carriage):—“Why, Albert, what are you doing there? You are cutting into the window sill!”
He:—“I’m only marking the place where we had the most beautiful view.”
“But mamma, why are we so afraid of a thunder-storm? The other people on the beach don’t seem to be frightened. No others are running home as we are!”
“Why, child, those are poor people. They don’t draw the lightning as we do, who always have a lot of gold and silver about us.”
“Have you been away during vacation, Doctor?”
“Yes, I was in Thüringen, gracious Frau, in Eisenach, and on the memorable Wartburg.”
“On the Wartburg! Ah, I remember; isn’t that where they have the beautiful waiting-rooms?”
“Where are you going, Rosel?”
“To mass.”
“Do you pray there for everybody, myself included?”
“Oh yes, your Honor; I pray for all poor sinners.”
Owner of a villa:—“What do you think of these pine woods—this spicy odor! You have, perhaps, a consumptive in your family?”
Gentleman:—“No, thank God!”
Owner:—“What a pity!”
Guide (descending with a party into a deep abyss):—“So, now around the corner, and a few hundred feet further down. Then we will have reached the altitude of the depth!”
Guide:—“When the ladies are through talking, your Honor will be able to hear the waterfall over there!”
Stranger:—“You are a happy people up here in the mountains; you always have the beautiful spectacle of the rising and setting sun before you!”
Farmer:—“Yes; but excuse me, doesn’t that happen in the city, too?”
Clerk (on the Rigi):—“Gracious, how this glorious sunset makes a fellow feel soft and tender. Just now they are closing the offices at home in Frankfort!”
Physician (to a newly-arrived guest at a water-cure):—“The nature of your illness requires that you follow the rules here strictly. Drink three glasses of water every morning; after each glass, walk for half an hour. Exercise is the main thing. Strict diet’! Three cigars a day: one after breakfast, one after dinner,[112] one after supper. Come to see me again in three days.”
Physician (after three days):—“Well, how does the cure agree with you?”
Guest:—“Thank you, Doctor; so far, quite well. If I only did not feel so sick afterwards.”
Physician:—“Feel sick? After what? Doesn’t the water agree with you?”
Guest:—“Oh yes, that isn’t it, but the cigars—I never smoked before!”
Guide:—“Yes, sir; it is an immense advantage to us that we nearly always have an east wind.”
Stranger:—“Is that statistic?”
Guide:—“I have kept an account of it for years.”
Stranger:—“But pardon me, if you will look at the weather vane on that tower you will see that the wind is west.”
Guide:—“Oh, well, that’s the east wind coming back.”
Banker:—“If architecture is said to be frozen music, what would you call a Sennhütte?” (a hut on the Alps).
Professor:—“Why, a frozen Schnadahüpfel (senner’s song), my dear friend!”
Nervous lady (to the boatman before the famous echo on the Königssee):—“Won’t you please tell me when they are going to shoot?”
Boatman:—“You’ll hear it soon enough, I won’t have to tell you first!”
A:—“I can’t understand why people always complain about mountain excursions being so expensive. I just took a two days’ trip again, and except for a bowl of milk, I didn’t spend a cent.”
B:—“What are you giving me, why you must have starved!”
A:—“Why of course not. I had a cold roast goose, a dozen hard-boiled eggs, a piece of ham, and two bottles of wine, with me. You don’t starve on that!”
Stranger (to his host, a peasant on the Alps):
“Your butter is certainly very poor.”
“If you please, it’s our own butter!”
“Why, you just told me you had sold all your cows.”
“Does the gentleman think we are so far behind the times, that we need cows to make our own butter?”
Guide (on the summit of the Alps):—“Look out, your Honor; if you fall down backward, you will be buried at Partenkirchen; and if you fall forward, at Lermos!”
Tourist (to guide):—“What will the team cost for the trip?”
“Seven gulden.”
“That is too much. Here in my Bädeker it says: Trip including a tip, five gulden.”
“Well, then you just let Bädeker drive you!”
Economical stranger (at a bathing establishment):—“How much do you charge for a bath?”
Cashier:—“One mark.”
Stranger:—“Couldn’t you fix one for me for half a mark? You might give me a little less water!”
Stranger (on the lake):—“You had better row ashore, my man; the waves are getting very high; the boat might upset, and I should be lost!”
Boatman:—“You need not be afraid, sir; I am at home on the water. A stranger was drowned here only last week, but we found his body the very next day.”
“I am surprised that the air in this miserable town is so fine! I wonder how it is!”
“That comes from the quantity of Swiss cheese that’s consumed here!”
“Why, what has that to do with it?”
“Well, just think what immense quantities of Swiss air are imported yearly, in the pores of that cheese!”
Guest:—“I had two portions of coffee for breakfast; how much?”
Waiter:—“Beg pardon, sir, did you have it with or without sunrise?”
A guest comes to a country tavern and asks[116] for a glass of beer and a piece of cheese. As the latter does not look very appetizing, he calls the host and asks him to bring a nicer piece. He simply turns the slice over, so that the better looking side is turned up and says: “There you are!”
Author (at a mountain inn, reading a fresh newspaper, left by a newcomer):—“... What! the King of Haïti is thinking of getting married?... Hm, hm! I wonder if he has read my article on the necessity of marrying!”
Ordinance: Every foot passenger will carry a visible number and will ring a bell on approaching a cycler. Riding and driving strictly forbidden.
Cycler (passing a carriage on the road):—“And still there are cabs—to-day, when the cycle rules the world! They are a funny sight!... Of course an old woman is in it; who else would use one of those antediluvian vehicles?”
(Half an hour later, he and his wheel have been picked up by the occupant of that carriage, both badly bruised and battered):—“What luck, that this cab came along! I wonder how I would have gotten home without it!”
Lady (on her wheel, meeting the Herr[118] Förster, an acquaintance):—“Please, Herr Förster, in what direction does Lahnberg lie? I am riding there to meet my husband who is on his new wheel.”
“Lahnberg lies about two miles from here on the road to the right—your husband lies to the left.”
A:—“How is your wife?”
B:—“I see her very seldom now.”
A:—“Why, how is that?”
B:—“Well, you see, she always sits behind me on the tandem.”
Piano repairer:—“It’s strange that every week a pedal gets broken on this piano.”
Footman:—“It’s because our young lady rides a wheel all day.”
(Two wheelmen, one of whom is a beginner, pass each other.)
A:—“I see you are getting on very well!”
B:—“Oh yes, for so short a time, I—(falls from his wheel)—you know, my friend, I ought not to talk yet!”
Policeman (to a cycler):—“In this street cycling is forbidden; get off at once!”
Cycler:—“My name is Meyer, policeman, and I live Tulpenplatz 277. Send for the fine—but don’t make me look ridiculous before all these people. I can neither mount nor get off by myself; I can only ride.”
Waitress (calling into the kitchen at a country tavern):—“For the gentleman vegetarian a little green fodder, and for his steel horse a drop of oil!”
Papa (bringing his wheel in):—“Come here, wifey, and bring all the children! Now, all of you open your mouths wide, I am going to open the pneumatic tubes, that I filled on the Arlberg with delicious mountain air for you!”
A:—“Who is that gentleman in that sporty costume?”
B:—“That is a teacher of cycling.”
A:—“Oh, a sort of velocipedagogue.”
The great philosopher was extremely careful about his dress. One day, having donned a new suit, he went for a walk, and in passing a house a careless servant threw some dish-water on him. He expressed his anger in a very lively fashion and went at once into the house from which the girl had come. The daughter of the house received him with many excuses, assuring him that all damage might be avoided if he would permit her to wash the spots off at once. Kant kept on scolding until the young woman had removed all traces of the mishap. She, who knew him very well, asked his name just for mischief, and when he had told her she said: “I am delighted, to have had this occasion to meet you.”
“I too am pleased to have made your acquaintance,” replied Kant, “but not with the occasion that brought it about.”
“Oh, but it is just the occasion that pleases[121] me so much,” said the young woman, “for if anybody accuses me of vanity after this, because I am very particular about my clothes, I shall tell them that I am following the example of the great Kant.”
At an evening company a number of anecdotes were told of some great man. “I remember to have heard similar anecdotes of other great men,” said Kant, “but that is not surprising; great men are like church-steeples, around both is generally a great deal of wind.”
One day Goethe made one of a skating party. His mother and a friend were sitting in a sleigh watching the skaters. Goethe came up to them, took his mother’s long cloak off, hung it around himself, darted to and fro on the ice, cutting the funniest capers for some time before he brought it back to her.
Goethe often bathed at night in the Ilm. One beautiful summer night, when the moon shone full on the poetic swimmer, a countryman on his way to Upper-Weimar, wanted to make a short cut, by climbing over the gate of the[122] castle’s bridge. Goethe saw him and in one of his mad moods, which set Weimar so often in commotion, he uttered the most unearthly yells and shrieks, while jumping up and down in the water. Those terrible sounds coming from a white figure with long, floating black hair, terrified the countryman so much, that he turned and fled as if possessed.
One evening Wieland was reading aloud to a large company, assembled at the country house of the Dowager Duchess Amelia of Tiefurth. The reigning Duke, who had been out hunting, came in during the reading, found the room too warm and opened one of the windows. Some ladies thinly clad sat close to it. Goethe observing that they suffered, tiptoed to the window and shut it softly. The Duke turning around, saw that some one had resisted his wish. “Who has shut the window, that I opened?” he asked the servants, but not one dared to mention the culprit. Goethe however, stepped forward and with an arch gravity said: “Your Highness has the power of life and death over all your subjects. Upon me let judgment and sentence be pronounced.” The Duke laughed, but the window was not opened again.
Of another evening’s reading, Falk von Muller relates: Goethe had come in, unnoticed by anybody, and sat down close to the reader, with his back turned to the audience. After a while he offered to read. At first everything went beautifully; then he began to extemporize and his exuberant spirits getting the better of him, he put everybody out of countenance in one way or another. In a little fable, in doggerel verses, he likened me wittily enough, to a worthy turkey-hen, that sits on a great heap of eggs of her own and other people’s, and hatches them with great patience, but to whom it sometimes happens to have a china egg put under her instead of a real one, a trick at which she takes no offense.
“That is either Goethe or the devil,” cried I to Wieland, who sat opposite to me at the table.
“Both,” replied he; “he has the devil in him again to-day and he is like a wanton colt, that flings out before and behind, and you do well not to go too near him.” Years after, we often laughed over that evening’s performance.
When a youth, Schiller learned to play the harp. A neighbor who did not like him, said to him one day: “Herr Schiller, you play the[124] harp like David, only not as well.” “And you,” Schiller replied, quickly, “talk like Solomon, only not so wisely.”
In a company the conversation turned to Schiller. One lady confessed she did not know where Schiller was born. “For goodness sake, keep still, don’t let anybody hear you,” said her friend; “have you not read the poem: ‘I, too, was born in Arcadia’?”
Bishop Ross, famous for his brilliant wit and fine humor, was discussing with some friends a new book, “Thoughts about Time and Eternity,” when some one, who found fault with the title, asked him to explain to him the difference between time and eternity. “If I took the time to explain that to you, it would take me an eternity to make you understand it,” was the bishop’s answer.
During a celebration at Berlin, followed by the distribution of some orders, an old general asked Count Ross whether it was not very hard[125] for clergymen always to find an appropriate Bible text, for sermons on special occasions. “Not as hard as you think,” replied the bishop, “we have our concordance and other books of help, which never fail us.”
“What text would be proper for the present celebration?”
“Oh, that is not hard; you will find it at the beginning of St. Matthew, at the birth of Christ, where the evangelist says of the three wise men: ‘And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.’”
Carl Lachmann was famed for his witty answers. In 1828 he was called to Berlin as rector of the University. One time he was presiding at a meeting of the faculty. It had grown late and pretty dark, when H., the dean of the theological department, entered. On seeing him, Lachmann called to the usher: “Herr Schade, have the lights brought; darkness has entered.”
A colleague, who had married a wealthy woman, and who liked to show off, asked Lachmann:[126] “What do you think the addition to my house has cost me?”
“Half,” was the dry, curt answer.
When a friend informed him of the death of the minister of finances, Lachmann said seriously: “Yes, death comes easy enough to such as he, but the likes of us must first give up his soul.”
Linné, the great naturalist, followed the principle of never taking notice of criticism. His bitterest opponent was Browall—a small light beside the great scientist. At first Browall’s behavior was very humble and modest, so Linné called a plant, of which only one species was known at that time “Browallia demissa” (demure or modest Browallia). Later on, after Browall had been advanced, he acted the high and mighty towards Linné, and he, having found a second species of his plant called it, “Browallia elata” (elated Browallia). At this Browall was very angry and wrote a great number of excited articles against Linné, who avenged himself further by naming a third species of the plant “Browallia alienata”[127] (alienated Browallia). In this way he certainly took a lasting revenge, for this anecdote will live as long as botany lives.
When the poet Hagedorn was mortally ill, he asked his physician, what his illness was.
“Water, my dear Hagedorn, too much water in your breast.”
“Why, that’s entirely impossible,” replied Hagedorn; “I never drank, in all my life, a whole glass of water.”
A professor once undertook the hard task of translating Virgil into Greek and publishing it. In the announcement of his work he said: “In gratiam corum, qui Latinam linguam non callent” (For the benefit of those who do not understand Latin).
A well-known sculptor quarreled one day with Thorwaldsen, and went so far as to place his own works above those of the latter. “You may tie my hands,” said Thorwaldsen, “and I will bite the marble with my teeth better than you can chisel it!”
A scientist asserts that all effervescent drinks, such as champagne, are nothing but fluids, gone crazy over the treatment they received at the factories, and foaming with rage.
Gottfried Kneller, a celebrated portrait painter, had a beautiful flower-garden. His neighbor, Dr. Ratcliff’s servant, came in so often to get flowers, that Kneller grew angry, and sent word to the doctor that he felt obliged to close up the gate. Ratcliff sent answer that he could do with it what he pleased, only he would not advise him to paint on it.
“Good,” said Kneller, “I’ll take anything of his as long as it is not medicine.”
When the celebrated Professor Gesenius announced a lecture on the first book of Moses (Genesis) his always well-filled auditorium was crowded. All the students were waiting impatiently for what was to come. Punctual to the minute, Gesenius appeared, and opened his lecture with these words: “Gentlemen, the Genesis is not as old as you think.” This was the signal for shouts of laughter from his entire[129] audience, but which was not meant to offend their honored lecturer, and we do not know whether he ever heard the reason for this merriment. Gesenius had five daughters, whom the students designated by the names of the five books of Moses—Genesis, Exodus, etc. The oldest was Genesis. Hinc ille risus! (Hence that laughter.)
Crebillon was once asked why he chose the terrifying for the subjects of his tragedies. “I had no other choice left,” he replied. “Corneille took Heaven from me; Racine the Earth (world); so all that was left for me was Hades.”
Neander, the great church historian, wanted a book that was on top of a high book shelf in his study. The step-ladder was not high enough, so he climbed from that to the top of the high, square porcelain stove to reach the coveted treasure. He dived into it at once, and grew so absorbed in the contents that he forgot to come down from his perch. His sister, Neander’s Hannchen, waited in vain for him to come to the afternoon coffee. Anxiously she hurried to the study but she did not discover[130] him. Seeing the step-ladder leaning against the stove, and being of an orderly turn of mind, she put it in its place. Concluding that her brother must have gone out, she went back to her room.
But when hour after hour went by, and evening came, and Neander had not appeared, she grew quite alarmed. What dreadful thing might have happened to him! In the meantime he—who was so painfully missed—found that it was getting too dark on top of the stove to read any longer, so he concluded to come down from his high seat. But, alas! his retreat was cut off! In a distressed voice he called for his Hannchen, who delightedly hurried to his relief.
A young author once handed to Professor Engel a drama, whose title was, “Such is Humanity,” asking him to give his opinion of it. Engel returned it shortly, saying: “I wrote my opinion down on it.” The author for some time looked in vain for the written criticism, but at last he found that Engel had added to the title the little word “not.”
Emperor Karl V, once asked Michel Angelo[131] what he thought of Albrecht Dürer. The great painter answered: “If I were not Michel Angelo, I would rather be Albrecht Dürer than Karl V.”
Count D., a collector and somewhat conceited connoisseur of paintings, had a landscape in his gallery which he considered a great masterpiece. He showed it to a celebrated painter, asking his opinion of it, with these words: “Several people to whom I have shown it insist that it is a copy, but I’m blessed if I don’t horsewhip the next fellow who says so. Now, my dear friend, I want you to give me your candid opinion of it!”
A young man wished to have his portrait painted.
“How do you wish to pose?” asked the artist.
“With a book in my hand, reading aloud.”
A critic once boasted in company, of the power of his pen, and said, among other bright things, that artists owed their fame to him, as he distributed it.
“Indeed you do,” replied a witty woman, “and so generously, that there is not a particle left for yourself.”
Voltaire, while living at Berlin, once praised the poet Haller very much. A gentleman present said: “You praise Haller, while he expresses himself very differently about you.”
“You are right,” returned Voltaire, “but possibly we are both mistaken.”
“What,” cried a young physician, seeing Voltaire drink coffee late at night, “you drink coffee? Why, coffee is a slow poison!”
“I believe you are right there; it must be a slow poison,” replied Voltaire, pouring out another cup, “since I have enjoyed it daily, for about sixty years.”
The great but timid astronomer, Schubert, once acted very awkwardly at a court function. Some one remarked how strange it was to see a great man like that act so strangely. A wag said sarcastically: “It, no doubt, confuses him[133] to see so many stars in the wrong places,” referring to the medals on the gentlemen’s breasts.
Gellert, the writer of a number of our most beautiful hymns, wrote the following, of Haller’s poem “The Origin of Evil”:
It would be hard to find two more different natures than those two authors and poets. Hebbel was a giant, full of self-consciousness and spiritual pride, classing himself with Shakespeare. Grillparzer was simple, painfully modest and retiring.
While both were at Vienna, Grillparzer was invited to meet Hebbel, at an evening company, which honor he declined with the following words:
“I have a great respect for what he writes, but, you see, I don’t feel at home near him. I am truly afraid of him. He is too clever for[134] me. He often starts queer subjects to converse about. He is, for instance, fully capable of asking you: ‘What is God?’ Well, I don’t know, but he does. Now, since I cannot argue with him, I should have to sit there like a mute.”
Kästner once criticised a book like this:—“This book is printed on the worst kind of paper. What a pity to waste so much good paper!”
A stranger in München asked a gentleman where the painter Kaulbach lived.
“Kaulbach? The painter Kaulbach?” said he. “I don’t know the man, but if you need a painter, I can recommend painter X. very much; he painted my landlord’s doors and windows very well and very cheap.”
“Your book is full of donkey ears again,” said his father to the little Lessing.
“Why father, that book has a perfect right to donkey ears,” answered the future great dramatist and critic.
Lessing once had a servant, of whose honesty he was warned repeatedly. For a long time he paid no attention to this, but finally he concluded to test the man. He told a friend that he had left some money on the table, to see whether their suspicions were well founded. “But did you count how much you put there?” asked the friend who knew Lessing’s absent-mindedness. Lessing looked at him startled; the need of counting it had never occurred to him.
One day Lessing entered an inn and sat down to write. The host came and asked him who he was. Lessing, intent on his writing, did not answer. Then the landlord came close to his side, looked over his paper and asked again harshly: “Who are you, sir; I wish to know!” Lessing turned around and said very seriously: “I am Lucas the Evangelist.” The saint, be it remembered, is always painted with an ox at his side.
While Lessing was with Lichtenberg in Göttingen, they talked one time about genius.[136] Lichtenberg said: “You are a genius!” To which Lessing replied: “I feel tempted to box the ears of anybody who calls me names like that.”
Theodor Mommsen, the genial historian, when working, was oblivious to everything that happened about him. Once he had a servant who knew well how to take advantage of this. He served his master’s dinner in the study, and asked him to come to the table, but the professor paid not the slightest attention to him. A bright idea came to the man. He served the second course, took away the first, and ate it himself. He did the same with the second and third courses.
A few hours later, the professor began to feel the want of food, and going to the kitchen he asked, angrily: “Am I not to have anything to eat to-day?” “Why the professor has dined long ago,” answers the servant unblushingly, and Mommsen, cursing his absent-mindedness, went back to his work again.
There are absent-minded physicians too. The physician of one of the princes was so busy, that[137] he never found time to take care of his own health. Finally a virulent fever took hold of him. Absent-mindedly he felt his own pulse and muttered: “The fellow is lost; that comes from the stupidity of people who never will call in a doctor till it is too late.”
The great Lessing too was often absent-minded in the last years of his life. One evening he knocked at his own house door. The servant not recognizing him in the dark called from a window: “The professor is not at home.”
“All right, it does not matter,” returned Lessing, “I’ll call again some other time.”
(How the great humorist came by his name.)
Saphir’s grandfather’s name was Israel Israel. Emperor Joseph ordered that all Jews should take a permanent surname. Old Israel, when summoned before the magistrate was very undecided, so the man of law and justice, in order to make short work of it, said: “You are wearing a ring with a sapphire. Your name shall be Saphir. That settles it. No contradicting or——”
This “or” was accompanied by a certain look at two policemen. So this “or” is the cause of the humorist’s name.
Saphir was once asked by Baron Rothschild to write something in his album. Saphir wrote: “Lend me 100 Louis d’or and forget, forever your friend,
M. G. Saphir.”
An indifferent, but very arrogant author said once:—“My works will be read when Schiller and Goethe are long forgotten.”
“Certainly, not before that,” was Saphir’s quick reply.
Once an author came to Saphir with the manuscript of a comedy he wished to read to him, and said:—“You know, sir, that whenever Molière finished one of his comedies, he read it to an old woman in his service, thinking that whatever would make her laugh, would have the same effect on an audience. So in reading mine to you, I have no doubt that if it pleases you, it will please the public.” “Thanks for your compliment, but since you[139] are not Molière, permit me to decline to play your old woman,” was Saphir’s reply.
Some one spoke of a clever young woman, who had great talent for painting, and who had recently married a fool. “If she does a great deal of painting,” said Saphir, “I am not surprised that she took a stick!”
Saphir once had a wordy battle with an author. The latter, who envied the famous humorist, said: “You write for money only, while I write for honor.” “Every one of us writes for what he needs most,” was Saphir’s rejoinder.
The first great wave of admiration brought to Heine also a host of cavillers and doubters of his genius.
Young Levin, brother of Rahel Varnhagen, once told Heine, partly in fun, partly seriously, that his poems particularly, did not deserve the extravagant praise everybody bestowed on them, and that their chief charm lay in the quick transition from the highly pathetic to the[140] trivial, and that anybody who had caught the trick could imitate them very easily.
“Well, compose a poem à la Heine,” said the poet laughingly. “I am not afraid of your competition.”
Next day his friend returned, handing him the manuscript of a lyric poem:
This was what Heine read, and falling on his friend’s neck in comical despair, cried:—“If you publish that I am lost!” declaring himself vanquished by this pretended take-off.
During the last days of his life, a friend visited him at Paris, and entered just as two nurses carried him to a fresh bed.
“How are you, Heinrich?” asked his friend.
“Very well,” replied Heine; “you see the women still carry me on their hands.”
When Humboldt was made honorary citizen of Berlin, he made the customary visits of thanks to all the city fathers. In his round he came to the house of an elderly councilman, who hurried down-stairs in his lounging robe and received his distinguished guest at the carriage door, with the explanation that he would never permit the venerable gentleman to climb the stairs in his behalf. At the same time, he was not going to deny himself the honor of a conversation. So he climbed into the carriage, exchanged with Humboldt for a quarter of an hour the usual courtesies, and ended his visit by slipping back into his house, calling to the coachman “to go on.”
While living at Paris, Heine’s apartments were on the fifth floor. One day on returning home, his wife met him at the door and told him reproachfully that an old gentleman had been there to see him; she was very sorry that the poor old man had climbed all those stairs for nothing. Heine looked at the visiting card. “You may comfort yourself, dear child; that man has climbed way above us.” It was the card of Alexander von Humboldt.
One afternoon Humboldt was walking through one of the markets at Berlin, when his eye was attracted to one of the stalls, where a pair of beautiful pistols, inlaid with mother of pearl and of rare old workmanship, were exhibited. He bought them at the price of ten thalers, and on his return home he made the interesting discovery that one of the papers used for wrapping was a leaf from an old “book on herbs,” the work of one of the earliest printers. To save from utter destruction a priceless treasure, Humboldt returned at once into the region of second-hand clothes-shops. For some time he could not find the man who had sold him the pistols, as all the dealers thought he had come to return them. Only when he declared that he had come to return a thaler given to him above his change, they all came from their shops, surrounded him and clamored for the money. They grew so offensive that Humboldt raised his pistols, which had the effect of making them take to their heels and also brought the real former owner, who told him to put the old shooting irons in his pocket, as they were not loaded, and to give him the money. Humboldt followed him into his shop and asked for the book from which the leaf was torn. He[143] soon discovered that with the exception of a few leaves, the book bound in pigskin was intact, and one of the rarest of its kind. Asked for the price of the book, the dealer in old clothes took a pair of patched trousers from a hook and said:—“Give me four thalers and you shall have this beautiful pair of trousers into the bargain. You will look swell in them next Sunday.” The bargain was closed, but Humboldt declined the addition of old clothes. Whenever the great naturalist afterwards showed the treasures of his library to his friends, he never omitted to tell the story of how he acquired the “book on herbs.”
Having just recovered from a severe illness, the amiable author of fairy tales, Musäus, was invited out to a dinner. Everybody there was pleased to see him looking so well, and congratulated him on his recovery; but at last his wife could keep silent no longer and confessed that he only looked so well, because he had used her rouge when dressing.
“Well, the murder is out,” said Musäus; “do you feel better now? Yes, I did paint myself red, because I dislike being pitied on account of my illness, and would rather be envied for[144] my healthy looks. But since my wife is such a tell-tale, I shall not keep silent either, and will tell you of a bright remark she made, a short time ago, while we were driving to Erfurt. We were passing a field of flax in full bloom and I said: ‘See how beautifully blue the flax is!’ At this my wife points to the field next to it and says, just to show her extraordinary knowledge of farming: ‘Yes, but the tow in the next field is looking fine too.’”
One day the great pedagogue was obliged to borrow five hundred gulden from his friend, the burgomaster of Aarau. On his way home to Neuhof, he met a poor man, who told him that his barn had burned down and that he had been to Aarau to borrow the money to rebuild it, but had met with no success. What was the philanthropist to do! He gave the man the five hundred gulden. Of course it was necessary to return to his friend and borrow the same sum over again, and also to ask him to look the family up, but—now he came to think of it—he had never even asked the man’s name.
Several times Pestalozzi, on account of his[145] negligent appearance, was taken for a tramp and locked up, once at Bern, and later on at Solothurn; at both places he was taken to the hospital. At Bern, Baron von Fellenberg, to whom he sent a note, hastened to the hospital to explain the error made and secure his release. Pestalozzi comforted his distressed friend by telling him that he had had a very good bed and an excellent soup. In Solothurn, they put him in a room with a barred window, from which, luckily, he saw the friend he was to visit, and by calling to him, told him of his plight. “But, for goodness’ sake, Pestalozzi, what did they lock you up for?” asked his liberator.
“Oh well,” replied he, “they took me for a fool or a rogue.”
Another time Pestalozzi was caught by a guard, just as he had climbed into an orchard and picked up a fallen pear. The looks of the poorly dressed stranger justified the man’s action, who collared him and took him to the village lock-up which was in the schoolhouse. As luck would have it, the magistrate had read Pestalozzi’s “Lienhart and Gertrud,” and set the author at liberty with many excuses. On leaving the great pedagogue said: “In future, do not lock[146] up old rogues in your schoolhouse or you will have young ones come from it.”
One day Pestalozzi was at a large dinner. He wished to be gallant, and, on offering a dish to his neighbor on the right, a lady dressed very elaborately, emptied the contents of it over her silk dress. To excuse himself he rose, and his hasty movement caused his spur to catch in the dress of his neighbor to the left, tearing it badly. This was more than he could stand. With one bound he rushed to the door, hurried down-stairs, out to the stable, mounted his horse and galloped off.
Philipp Melanchthon’s hobby was palmistry. One day he dined with one of Wittenberg’s councilmen. The infant of the family was shown to him, and Melanchthon was ready at once to prove his skill. He took the tiny hand and said: “This child will be a great theologian.”
“What a pity that it is a girl!” exclaimed the father, while all present smiled.
Superintendent Lohmann once visited his friend, the song writer, Pastor Hülsemann, of Elsey, Westphalia. Lohmann finding the door open entered the house. The parson was not in his study, but down-stairs in the kitchen he heard the parson’s wife. Lohmann, full of fun, as usual, called down-stairs in his friend’s voice, imitated to perfection: “Riekchen!”
“What is it?”
“Lohmann, from Wesel, is here; see that we have a good dinner.”
“What, is that slow old fellow here again? I wish the idiot would stay at home!”
Lohmann said nothing, but went back to the study. Soon after, his friend returned home and was very glad to see his dear friend, the visitor. Having no idea, of course, of what had happened, he went down-stairs to tell his wife Riekchen, that there would be a guest for dinner. Entering the kitchen, he said: “Lohmann is here.”
“You’ve told me that once before.”
“What! I told you? Why, I have only just now entered the house.”
One can imagine the greetings at dinner when the parties met; one rather embarrassed; the other ready to burst with merriment.
Pius IX possessed a fondness for humor, even when the occasion was a disagreeable one. When the news was brought to him that the French had lost Sedan, he cried: “Hélas, Napoleon a perdu ses dents!” Napoleon has lost his teeth (meaning, he will bite no more).
During the panic in the money market of 1866, the agent of a money-lending concern came to Baron Rothschild and begged him to advance them some money; but was promptly refused.
“Oh, but you have always helped us before,” wailed the agent.
“I know it.”
“You lent us some money only a few days ago.”
“That is true also.”
“Then, why do you refuse it now?”
“Well, you see, the Jewish law forbids to lend money to any one in extremity.”
Frau Rothschild lived to be eighty-nine years old, and, to the last, she retained not only her[149] faculties, but also her much-dreaded wit. In her last illness she whispered to her physician: “Dear Doctor, do try to do something for me.”
“What can I do?” replied the physician, “I can’t make you young again.”
“I don’t want you to; I only want to keep on growing old.”
In 1820, the head of the house of Rothschild, at Paris, was severely injured by a fall from his horse. In order to save the wealthy man’s life the celebrated surgeon, Dupuytren, was called upon to perform a difficult and dangerous operation.
The operation was successful, and was barely finished, when a letter was brought to the surgeon, who, on reading it, gave a cry of astonishment.
“What is it?” asked Rothschild, in a weak voice.
“I must leave you at once!” cried Dupuytren; “you will excuse me; the Duke de Berry has just been assassinated at the opera!” With these words he rushed off.
Against the surgeon’s order, Rothschild managed to drag himself from his bed; reached, by great exertion, the bell-rope; and rang.
Servants came running from all directions, and he ordered them to send at once for his bookkeeper, his cashier, his agents. Several appeared within a few minutes. He cried: “Sell! Sell everything, and at once!”
His prompt action saved his house from a catastrophe, as stocks went way down. But his imprudence made his recovery very slow, as it confined him to his bed for weeks longer.
The famous sculptor, Schadow, and Minister von Schuckmann were both frequent visitors at a Berlin club. The former always went home early, while the minister was generally the last to leave, and had his carriage call for him.
One evening the minister was the very last one again, and found in the dressing-room only one hat. Now his own hat was old and worn and this one was brand new. There was nothing to do—as he did not wish to drive home bare-headed—but to wear the strange hat. Although the rain was pouring down hard, it would not hurt the hat in the carriage.
Early the next morning, while the minister was still in bed, his footman brought him his old hat and a note. It was from Schadow, saying: “I bought a new hat yesterday morning.[151] When I was leaving the club last night it rained hard, and as I did not wish to spoil my new hat, I took yours, knowing that your Excellency would drive mine home unharmed.”
At a company, some one mentioned that a famous Dutch painter could, with one stroke of his brush, change a laughing child’s face into a crying one. “Pshaw, that’s no great art; I can do that with a broomstick!” was another’s dry remark.
A Jewish country merchant was in Frankfurt on business, and decided to have a new suit made while there. The tailor took his measure and asked: “Do you wish the coat made English, French, or German style?” “Make it nice and modern, but quite neutral; I wish to live with the whole world in peace,” was the Jew’s reply.
A rich Jew asked a poor Jew to dinner. Fish was served, and the rich man gave the poor man the smallest. He picked at them with his fork, without eating any, and mumbled the while[152] in his beard. The rich man watched him for some time, and then asked:
“Why don’t you eat? What are you doing with the fishes?”
“Excuse me,” said the other, “I was talking to the fish.”
“Well, what about?”
“I had a brother who was drowned some years ago, and we could not find him in the water; so I was asking the fishes if they could tell me something about him.”
“What do they say?”
“That they were still too small to know anything about it; that I should ask the big ones.”
Ashamed, the rich man filled his plate with large fish.
A Jew cried bitterly, when during the day of atonement, the rabbi, chanting the psalm of penitence, came to the place: “Dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return.”
“Schmul, why dost thou weep?” asked his neighbor, trying to comfort him. “If thou wert gold, and had to turn to dust, thou would’st lose one hundred per cent. But since thou art dust and returnest to dust, thou gainest nothing and losest nothing.”
A wealthy Jewish society man, of Frankfurt, sat one evening at the opera, in which a foreign singer made her début. Next to him sat a lady whom he knew slightly. He asked her very soon, how she liked the singer, and to her favorable comment said: “Oh, I have heard her sing better; she dined at my house yesterday and sang afterwards. Ah; if you could hear her beautiful private voice!”
A young actor was playing Razman in Schiller’s “Räuber” (Robbers). When he says to Moor: “Come, let us go to the Bohemian forest and gather a robber band,” Moor cries harshly: “Fellow, who put these words into your mouth!” The actor pointed at the prompter below, and said timidly: “The fellow down there.”
The following humorous incident is told in verse of Prelate Carl von Gerok, the recently deceased author of “Palm Leaves.” It happened one spring-day in the King’s park at Stuttgart. Along the philosopher’s path, Gerok was walking deep in thought, and carrying an umbrella very carefully in his hand. On a sidepath, never thinking of a possible shower, walked a well-known singer. Suddenly it began to sprinkle,[155] and in a few moments the rain came pouring down. The prelate, a gallant gentleman, offered to take the lady under his umbrella. Neither one knew the other. In pleasant conversation they arrived at the singer’s house, and Gerok begged to know the lady’s name.
The singer Tichatschek was once engaged by the Grand Duke of H. to sing for a few nights at his Opera house. On arriving, the singer went at once to an orchestra rehearsal of the opera in which he was to sing, and which was conducted by the Grand Duke, who was an enthusiastic musician. While still behind the stage Tichatschek[156] could hear that the orchestra was playing out of tune and that the wind instruments were ahead.
“Great heavens!” cried the singer, “what musical chaos is this? What idiot is occupying the leader’s desk?”
With these words he stepped upon the stage, and found himself face to face with the Grand Duke, who exclaimed excitedly:
“I am that idiot!”
The singer canceled his engagement on account of “acute hoarseness.”
A well-known comic actor, who had accumulated a large fortune, was on his deathbed. A number of his friends stood around, weeping.
“Calm yourselves,” said the dying man, “you won’t weep over me as long as you have laughed over me!”
At a small theatre, Hamlet was being given, and a very poor actor played the principal part. In the scene with the ghost, he shouted like mad. Some one in the parquet said: “Quite true to Shakespeare, only the cock forgot to crow when the ghost appeared.”
“Instead of that,” some one else said, “an ass brayed.”
A money lender once asked Garrick what he understood by “honesty”?
“Why should you want to know,” replied Garrick; “you had better not meddle with things that don’t concern you!”
When a third-rate actor, playing Hugo in Müllner’s “Guilt,” stabbed himself, the audience cried: “Bravo! da capo!” (do it again). He jumped up, bowed, and stabbed himself a second time.
At the Karl Theatre in Vienna the farce “Judith and Holofernes” was being played. During the performance a small dog that had been hiding behind the scenes walked out on the stage, stood still in front of Holofernes and wagged his tail. Nestroy, who was playing that part, had hardly spied the uninvited guest, when he cried pathetically:
“What does this young Assyrian here?”
The audience broke into a roar of laughter and applause, while the young Assyrian fled.
A singer, whose simple, soulful singing more than compensated for the usual flourishes of so-called high art, was playing Julia in “The Vestalin.”
“Is this art?” asked the resident prima donna, of the manager.
“God forbid!” replied he, with a sarcastic smile, “this is pure, true nature.”
A Methodist once said of a theatre: “It is a place where Satan can have, every evening, so many souls for a few pieces of silver, that he is sorry he once bribed Judas Iscariot with thirty pieces.”
While Beckmann, the great comic actor, was playing at Berlin, his friends persuaded him one day to imitate Fränkel, the journalist and critic. He did it both in looks and manners so well, that at the close of the act the audience called for Fränkel. The offended critic brought suit, and Beckmann was sentenced to ask the complainant’s pardon, in the presence of witnesses and at the plaintiff’s home. At the appointed hour Fränkel, surrounded by his family[159] and a number of friends, was waiting for the penitent. Time passed on leaden feet. At last the door opened, Beckmann put his head in and asked:
“Does Mr. Maier live here?”
“Oh no,” replied Fränkel, “he lives next door.”
“Ah, then, I beg your pardon!” said Beckmann, who, having thus done penance, retreated quickly, amidst shouts of laughter from all but the angry, disappointed Fränkel.
A manager whose name was Peter, engaged a singer, named Cock for a number of operas. At the first performance, the singer did not please. Things were worse at the second; and on the third night the house was empty. A critic said:
“When the cock crew the third time, Peter went out and wept bitterly.”
A great comic actor had been assisting at a concert, given for the benefit of the poor of a large parish. After the concert the clergyman entertained at supper all who had taken part. The great actor found under his napkin an[160] easter egg, and on breaking it, five gold pieces fell out.
“Ah,” he said merrily, to his host, “you knew that I am fond of boiled eggs, but one thing you did not know, that I eat only the white. Permit me to leave the yolk for your poor.”
On the same day a mediocre actor and a frivolous spendthrift died at Berlin. Some one remarked: “The city has lost to-day two artists of a peculiar kind: the one still owes us art, the other had the art to owe us!”
One day a famous actor, who was seeking his health in the country, missed his horse. He asked a countryman whether there were horse-thieves around.
“Oh no,” said he, “we are all honest people here; but for some days, some actor-fellow from the city has been loafing around here; perhaps he took it.”
A bishop once asked a great actor:
“How is it, that we clergymen, in spite of[161] the great and true subjects we discuss in public, make so little impression, while you gentlemen of the stage, make so much?”
“It is because we actors make fiction sound like truth, while you clergymen make truth sound like fiction.”
“The enemies of our military system,” said an examining officer, “say that a standing army is a great misfortune. Can you tell me of a still greater one?”
“One that is running away,” was the quick rejoinder.
A soldier who was supposed to stand guard at the entrance of a public building, had sat down on a large stone in front of it. An officer, in passing, asked him angrily: “What are you doing?”
“I am sitting here standing guard.”
Lieutenant:—“What should every true soldier have?”
Recruit:—“Three sweethearts—a cook, a barmaid, and a laundress.”
Colonel:—“I do not see, Lieutenant, what there is to laugh at, in the serious words I am addressing to you.”
Lieutenant (who has noticed that all the other officers present are watching him):—“If the Colonel will pardon me I will tell him. If I make a sober face, my comrades present will think I am being hauled over the coals; but seeing me smile, they will think you are inviting me to your dinner-party to-night.”
“You, fellow!” called a Sergeant to a recruit, “you are not paying attention! What is your head for?”
“That my necktie can’t slip off.”
Colonel:—“I am sorry to have to tell you, but the Sergeant has lodged a complaint against you. You called him an ass.”
Captain of the Horse:—“Pardon me, Colonel; I am sometimes a little rough. I am really sorry to have used the expression, but I should never have thought that the man was such an ass as to be offended.”
Corporal:—“Captain, I have to report that three men are missing.”
Captain:—“Why, how is that?”
Corporal:—“There are three sausages too many.”
“Will you not sit down by me, Lieutenant?”
“Thank you very much, madam, but I belong to the standing army.”
“Why John, what a stupid action this is,” said a Captain of the Horse, to his servant. “You have brought me a pair of boots that do not match. One has a high top and the other a low one.”
“I have been wondering about that myself, and I don’t understand it,” said the man, “but the most curious part of it is, that on the shoe-box stands another pair just like this one.”
An officer fell from his horse in a public square. A Jew standing near said: “This would never have happened to me, sir!”
“What, Jew, are you a better rider than I?”
“Not that,” replied the Jew, “but I should never have mounted the horse.”
Sergeant (to a recruit):—“You idiot, you are so stupid that Schwarz could not have invented the gunpowder, if you had been within forty miles of him.”
An intoxicated soldier, who was quarreling with his Corporal finally said:
“You just keep quiet; you are no man.”
“I’ll show you,” retorted the Corporal, drawing his sabre.
“You can’t do it,” returned the other; “does not the Captain always say, when he orders out the guard: ‘for this post, six men and a corporal’? Do you see now that a Corporal isn’t called a man?”
Captain:—“To-day is Sunday, so I won’t swear; but to-morrow, you may all go to thunder!”
A recruit stood sentry for the first time. At first he walked quietly up and down before the sentry-box. After a while he grew tired, stood still before it, looked it all over and shaking his head exclaimed: “I wonder what they see in this old box that I must stand here and guard it!”
A squadron of cavalry was drilling for a review, which was to be held shortly. The Prince, riding past, looked on. An attack was executed which closed with a jump across a ditch. One rider fell with his horse and rolled into the ditch. The Prince rode up, asked the man if he was hurt, gave him a ten mark piece, and rode slowly away.
“Sergeant,” called the Captain, “give that fellow three days in the guard-house!”
Hearing this, the Prince rode up to the Captain and said:
“Could not you let the poor devil off for once?”
“Your Highness,” returned the Captain frankly, “if you give to every soldier who falls, a ten mark piece, my whole squadron will be in the ditch to-morrow.”
Officer’s servant:—“Excuse me, sir; have you an advertisement in the paper, that on account of sickness a horse will be sold?”
Gentleman:—“I have.”
Servant:—“Then my Captain wishes to know whether the gentleman is sick or the horse?”
Captain (noticing that after his command “stand still” two soldiers are whispering):—“When I, your Captain, command, ‘stand still,’ the angels in heaven listen; but you, you lobsters, can’t keep your tongues still.”
Captain of the horse (discovering two straws on the race-track):—“Lieutenant A., who ordered a hurdle-race for to-day?”
1st Lieutenant:—“Comrade, I am a happy mortal. Engaged to be married. Loveliest girl,—an angel I tell you. Marry for love—upon honor!”
2d Lieutenant:—“Has she money?”
1st Lieutenant:—“What a stupid question!”
Lieutenant (to his orderly):—“You idiot, what are you thinking of, to clean my drinking cup with a handkerchief?”
Servant:—“Beg your pardon, sir, but it is my own.”
“Pray, tell me, Captain, why you are staring so hard at my plate?”
“I am admiring that ice, Fräulein, that can keep so cold in view of your charms.”
“Have not seen you for a long time, Count. Been on leave?”
“Oh, yes,—been two weeks in Potsdam. Aunt died suddenly.”
“Well, well,—congratulations. Inherit anything?”
“Not I; the old aunt left everything to charitable institutions. Stupid idea! As if a German Officer of the Guard was not a charitable institution, too!”
Sergeant (instructing):—“Who commands a battalion?”
(Soldier is silent. Behind him some one whispering.)
Sergeant:—“What blockhead is whispering to you?”
Soldier:—“The Major.”
“Where is the sausage that you were to bring every evening?”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant; I ate it myself.”
“What! how dare you?”
“Well, you see, sir, coming back with it, I met a comrade, and he asked me to whom the sausage belonged, and I said, of course, ‘To my master.’
“‘What,’ said he, sneeringly, ‘does your master eat only a sausage for supper? What a shame!’ So I told him you bought it for me, and ate it up right before him and so took the shame upon myself.”
Lieutenant (to recruit):—“How should a soldier act before the enemy?”
Recruit:—“That depends entirely upon how the enemy acts!”
Major’s Wife (stout and elderly):—“Lieutenant von Schwenker is a charming man. At every ball he comes to me and begs for the first dance.”
Colonel:—“He is all right; he is a brave fellow, that Lieutenant; he always does the disagreeable duties first.”
A general who had the misfortune to lose several battles, received as a New Year’s present a box containing a drum on which was written: “Not good for anything but to be beaten.”
Lieutenant:—“You idiot; you have brought me a single ticket instead of a return ticket!”
Servant:—“But sir, there was such a crowd at the ticket-office, that I was glad to get this one.”
Youthful Prince (as guest at a drill, sees the Colonel lead his regiment in a poorly executed attack):—“General, that regiment I suppose is lost?”
General:—“The regiment is not, your Highness, but the Colonel is!”
“George, you must always knock at the door before you enter a room, and then wait until some one calls ‘come in,’” said the Major’s wife to a new servant. While the Major and his wife are at dinner, George puts his head through a crack in the door, but draws it back quickly, closes the door, and knocks. His astonished mistress calls: “Come in!... George, did you not understand? I told you to knock first, and then wait until some one calls ‘come in.’ Instead of doing that, you looked first into the room. What did you mean by that?”
“I understood you all right, but I had to look in first to see if any one was in the room to call ‘come in.’”
Corporal:—“Recruit Neier, how many more times must I tell you to hold your head up! What makes you look at the grass all the time; haven’t you had your breakfast yet?”
Major (narrating):—“But when, on the thirteenth of October, the battle of Leipzig was fought——”
Lieutenant:—“Excuse me, Major; that was on the eighteenth.”
Major:—“Young man, do you think you know it better than I? I tell you it was on the thirteenth.”
Lieutenant:—“I do know it was not, for only lately I read the history of the battle by a famous historian.”
Major:—“Don’t talk to me about any of your scribblers. I—your Major—tell you it was on the thirteenth.”
Lieutenant:—“Pardon me, Major, if I doubt it in spite of that.”
Major (boiling with rage):—“Very well, Lieutenant, then I tell you officially, that it was on the thirteenth.”
Lieutenant:—“Very well, Major, then it was on the thirteenth.”
The Lieutenant wishes to give to a reporting soldier a cigar, and opens a fresh box.
Soldier:—“Oh don’t trouble about opening the box, sir; I can do that at home.”
Captain:—“John, go up-stairs and ask my wife to give you my field-flask; but don’t you drink out of it. I believe there is poison in it.”
John (in the Captain’s rooms):—“Will the gracious Frau kindly give me the Captain’s field-flask?”
Captain’s Wife:—“Which is the one he wants? There are several hanging here.”
John:—“The one which the Captain believes has poison in it.”
Sergeant:—“A sentry may not leave his post under any circumstances. Recruit Huber, what would you do if you stood guard at the powder magazine, and there should be an explosion and the whole thing flew into the air?”
Huber:—“Fly with it.”
“Marie, why did you make the potato dumplings so dreadfully large?”
“Well, you know, madam, that my sweetheart is in the Artillery, and he is used to this size.”
Captain of the Cavalry (playing a duet):—“But my dear lady, you are again a nose-length ahead of me!”
Lady:—“Please, Captain, play my accompaniment on the piano.”
Captain:—“With great pleasure! I’ll follow you through thick and thin on that piano.”
Sergeant (at instruction):—“Muller, what is horizontal?”
Soldier:—“If from the centre of the earth——”
Sergeant:—“Never you mind the centre of the earth; I asked you what horizontal is.”
Soldier:—“Every plain——”
Sergeant:—“Oh pshaw! Now listen! four equally high feet, a couple of boards across them—that’s horizontal.”
“May I offer you some dessert, Lieutenant?”
“Thank you—but a Lieutenant never deserts!”
Corporal (to his men, with whose drilling the Colonel has just found fault):—“I tell you this much, you fellows, if you don’t do any better, we shall drill the whole day, have field practice at night, bivouac afterwards, without fire, without straw, without cooking, and with the thermometer ten degrees below zero.”
A voice from the ranks:—“Why don’t you let it rain too!”
Ten minutes after taps:—“Oh say! don’t run so hard. We’ll get there early enough to be—too late.”
Lieutenant:—“I saw you running after a girl last night. It was after ten o’clock, and she was a homely, old piece at that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Soldier:—“Your pardon, Lieutenant, but—I was ordered to take—the Colonel’s wife home from the theatre.”
Sergeant (to a recruit):—“You big num-skull, you are more stupid than a piece of wood![176] That, at any rate can swim, and that is a good deal more than you can do!”
In the barrack yard of a garrison stood a lot of pear trees. The pears were ripe and a squad of soldiers under the supervision of Sergeant Schulze, is ordered to gather them. Punctually at the appointed hour the men arrive, and, shortly after, have disappeared among the branches of the trees to begin their task. Sergeant Schulze soon notices that more pears go into the men’s pockets than into the baskets. However he says nothing and looks on smilingly. As soon as all the fruit is gathered, he orders the men to the horizontal bars standing in the yard, whereupon there is a great shower of pears from the men’s pockets.
Captain:—“What were the results of your target-practice?”
Sergeant:—“Good, Captain; my men would have shot better if the target had stood a little more to the right.”
Corporal:—“Goodness me! that fellow wabbles around on his horse, like a poet on Pegasus!”
“There is that fellow fallen off again! That is about the tenth time to-day!”
“Corporal, I believe that horse has a grudge against me.”
Recruit (lying on the ground):—“Captain, I won’t sit that horse again; he is too uppish. Just see him look down on me!”
Captain:—“What in the name of common sense, is the matter with this punch? It tastes abominable! Schaffer, what kind of water did you use when you made it?”
Schaffer:—“It was quite fresh from the village, sir, but as you said you did not need it for an hour and it was boiling, I cooked the sausages in it.”
Lieutenant:—“Mayer, suppose you are standing[178] sentry, and an officer, wearing his cloak comes along, you cannot tell whether it is a General or a Captain; what salute would you make?”
Mayer:—“If he looks pleasant I would ‘shoulder arms,’ but if he looks gruff, I had better ‘present arms.’”
Sergeant:—“Recruit Berger, you were ten minutes late again last night; where were you?”
Berger:—“I—I—was with my sweetheart, and she lives so far away—that——”
Sergeant:—“How many times must you fellows be told that discipline does not bother with love affairs! If you must fall in love, do it near the barracks.”
Sergeant:—“Why must a soldier never lose his head?”
Recruit:—“Because—because—he could never put his helmet on again.”
A recruit, who was standing guard one night near an observatory, was staring thoughtlessly at the sky and up at the tower. Suddenly somebody[179] appeared on the observatory, and, as the recruit thought, pointed with a long gun into the night. “Now I should just like to know what that man up there wants to shoot in the dark,” he said to himself, while his eyes followed the direction of the telescope. All at once a star fell. The gun dropped from the astonished recruit’s hand as he cried: “Well, I’ll be jiggered; he hit it!”
General:—“Were you at my house?”
Adjutant:—“Yes, sir; your gracious wife is at home, and Lieutenant von Schneidewitz is there.”
General:—“Again? Have an alarm sounded at once.”
Markgraf Johann von Brandenburg, reigning Prince of Neumark, was in the habit of leaving his debts stand for a long time. His gunsmith at Nuremberg was well aware of this. So having filled an order, he wrote one day the following laconic letter to him;
“Good-day, your Grace! Your gun is finished. If you send the money, I’ll send you the gun. If you don’t send the money, you won’t get the gun. God be with you!”
His Grace, far from resenting this language, sent the money.
Emperor Joseph II of Austria, was once asked by an ecclesiastic of noble birth, for permission to go to Rome, to visit the graves of the Apostles Peter and Paul. The Emperor made this very appropriate answer:
“It would be more agreeable to me, if, instead of making a pilgrimage to dead bones, you would visit more in your parish. I am sure the Apostle Princes would be more pleased with that, too.”
On one occasion Emperor Joseph II returned the poems of a very indifferent poetess whose name was Kemeter, with this marginal note: “My dear Kemeter, you had better make hemeter” (shirts).
Emperor Joseph II traveled under the name of Count von Falkenburg. Once, when passing through Stuttgart, the Duke of Würtemberg offered to him the use of the castle, but the Emperor declined, saying he would rather go quietly to a hotel. Then the Duke ordered all hotelkeepers of Stuttgart to take down their signs and had an immense one put over the castlegate which bore these words: “Hotel Emperor Joseph II.”
Such an invitation the Emperor could not resist. When he descended from his carriage, the Duke received him, dressed as a hotelkeeper,[182] while members of the highest nobility played the parts of servants. The most beautiful ladies, in cap and apron acted as chambermaids, some noblemen as waiters. The Emperor entered into the joke heartily, and it was carried on through the day in the most charming manner. His going was as remarkable as his coming. When the coach drove up, a postilion mounted the horse. His shabby coat and dirty boots drew the Emperor’s attention.
“This fellow,” he said, laughing, “is certainly no flatterer; he did not even put on his Sunday coat. He looks as if he liked a drink; we must give him a good tip.”
But the postilion drove with great skill, and very fast. When they reached the first station his Majesty was going to give him a good tip but was told that it was the Prince —— who had driven him in his own coach. The Emperor thanking him said: “You made a splendid postilion, but if I had watched you, I should have discovered the fraud, for now I think of it, you did not swear once.”
A knight of the Maltese Cross, once boasted before Emperor Leopold II: “We took three[183] vows, that of poverty, of chastity, and of obedience.”
“As far as I know,” returned the Emperor, “you made a fourth one,—that, of not intending to keep any of the three.”
A quick, witty answer always won the heart of Frederick William I. Once, on horseback, he turned a street corner, and found himself so close to a young man that his horse’s nose touched the latter’s breast.
“Who are you?” he asked harshly.
“A Candidatus Theologiæ, your Majesty.”
“Where from?”
“From Berlin.”
“Pshaw, the Berliners don’t amount to anything.”
“The majority certainly do not, your Majesty, but there are exceptions. I know of two.”
“Who are they?”
“Your Majesty and—myself.”
This was a man after the King’s own heart, unafraid, quick-witted. It was not long before he had a good parish.
King Frederick William I after an audience[184] with an Ambassador, said to his equerry, who was present:
“Isn’t he a tall, handsome man? What do you think of his head?”
“Tall, handsome people, like the Ambassador, your Majesty, resemble houses four or five stories high. The first three or four stories are generally occupied, but the upper story is empty.”
While Prince von Lobkowitz was Emperor Leopold’s minister of state, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the streets of the Austrian capital were in a dreadful condition. Lobkowitz had asked the city officials repeatedly to see that the streets were kept clean, but without avail. Then the Prince, in his capacity as Governor of Vienna, sent for the burgomaster, who arrived in his embroidered court dress, low shoes, and silk stockings. The Prince received him pleasantly, but seemed very busy.
“I beg your pardon,” he began, “but urgent business calls me away; come with me in my carriage and we will discuss affairs on the way. I will put you down in your street, so you can send your own carriage home.”
The very much flattered and elated burgomaster[185] did so, and took his seat beside the Prince, who began to talk about the weather.
Suddenly the minister looked around as if frightened.
“Ah,” he said in a tone of deep regret, just as the carriage was going through one of the filthiest streets of the city, “I have mistaken my way. I must ask you to descend here, as my business calls me to the other side of the city, and I am late already.”
The footman opened the carriage door, but when the burgomaster saw the sea of mud into which he was to step, he turned to the Prince and begged to be taken a little further.
“Impossible,” said Lobkowitz, firmly. So the poor burgomaster, in his court finery, had to step out into the mud into which he sank ankle deep. Lobkowitz laughed aloud. But he never had to complain of dirty streets again.
A basket of fine cherries having been sent to Frederick the Great, at a time when that fruit was extremely scarce, he sent them by one of his pages to the Queen. The page, tempted by the beauty of the fruit, could not resist tasting, and finding them delicious, devoured them all, without reflecting on the consequences.
A few days afterwards Frederick asked the Queen how she had liked the cherries.
“Cherries?” said the Queen, “what cherries?”
“Why, did not Clist, the page, bring you a basket the other day?”
“No,” replied her majesty, “I have not seen any.”
“Oh,” said the King, “I will give that rogue something more savory.”
He then went to his room and wrote the following note to the officer of the royal guard.
“Give the bearer twenty-five lashes, and take his receipt for them.”
He then called Clist, and told him to take the note to the guard-house and wait for an answer.
The page, however, fearing something wrong, determined to send the note by somebody else, and just as he was going out at the palace door, he met a Jew banker who was well-known at court, and asked him to carry the King’s note. The Jew, glad of an opportunity to be obliging, went at once. On his arrival at the guard-house, the officer read the note, told the messenger to wait, and called out the guard. The Jew, thinking it was to do him honor as a messenger from court, begged the officer not to give himself any trouble.
“I will not,” he replied, and ordered the guard to seize the Jew, and give him twenty-five lashes, which was immediately done. The Jew, with his honor and his back severely wounded, was going away; but the officer told him he could not go till he had given a written acknowledgment for what he had received. The Jew was obliged to give it for fear of getting another beating.
The affair soon came to the ears of the King, who, though he could not help laughing heartily at the adventure, was obliged to confer some favors on the hero of it, as the banker frequently advanced him large sums of money, in cases of necessity.
Frederick the Great once gave an audience to a man who stammered. This grew very tiresome to his Majesty, who asked:
“Tell me, do you stammer when you sing?”
“No—your—Majesty!”
“Well then, just sing to me, what you wish to tell me.”
“Well, I made one parson happy, for this world and the next,” Frederick the Great often[188] said laughing heartily. “It was in Silesia. I had been quartered several times at the village parson’s without ever having seen him, so I sent for him.
“‘How do you do, parson?’
“‘Very badly.’
“‘Well, Well! Have patience; everything will be all right in the next world.’
“‘I doubt it very much; I am afraid it will be worse.’
“‘How so?’
“‘I have two daughters, three sons, a small parish and—debts. If I die, without having satisfied my creditors, your Majesty will understand that I should be damned without mercy.’”
Frederick the Great made the personal acquaintance of every soldier of his regiment of guards. Whenever he saw a fresh one, he put the three following questions to him: “First, how old are you? Second, how long have you been in my service? Third, are you satisfied with your pay and treatment?”
It happened that a young Frenchman, who did not understand German, enlisted in the Prussian service, and Frederick, on seeing him, put the usual questions. The soldier had learned[189] the answers by heart, but in the same order as the King generally interrogated.
Unfortunately, on this occasion, the King began with the second question:
“How long have you been in my service?”
“Twenty-one years,” replied the Frenchman.
“What!” said Frederick, “how old are you then?”
“One year,” was the reply.
“Upon my word,” exclaimed his majesty, “you or I must be mad!”
“Both,” replied the soldier, according to what he had been taught.
“Well,” said the astonished King, “this is the first time I have ever been called a madman by one of my guards. What do you mean by it, sir?”
The poor fellow seeing that the King was angry, told him, in French, that he did not understand a word of German.
“Oh! is that so?” said the monarch. “Well, learn it as soon as possible, and I have no doubt that you will make a very good soldier.”
Some time after having sustained a severe defeat[190] at Kolin, Frederick the Great, at a review, jokingly asked a soldier, who had a deep cut in his cheek:
“Friend, at what ale-house did you get that scratch?”
“I got it,” said the soldier, “at Kolin, where your Majesty paid the reckoning.”
Just before the battle of Rosbach (1757), things looked bad for the King. Frederick the Great was lying asleep on a heap of straw near a camp-fire, when he was awakened by one of his grenadiers calling:
“Frederick!” (The grenadiers of his guard were allowed to call him that.) “Look, they are bringing in one of your grenadiers who has deserted!”
“Why did you run away and leave your King?” was Frederick’s question.
“Well, things were going so badly with you, that I wanted to try my luck elsewhere.”
“You are right,” concluded the King; “but just try one more campaign, and if things don’t look any better for me after that, I’ll promise you, I will run away with you!”
If Frederick the Great heard that any one had spoken ill of him, he simply asked:
“Does the fellow own a hundred thousand men?”
“No.”
“Well, then, I can’t do anything to him; but if he commanded a hundred thousand soldiers I would declare war on him.”
One time Frederick the Great presented to Count von Schwerin, his equerry, a snuff-box with a monkey on the lid. The Count had the monkey taken out and the king’s picture put in the place. In the evening, looking as pleased as possible, he paraded it before the king’s eyes.
“You seem to like it,” said the king, with an ironic smile.
“Everything that comes from your Majesty’s hands is precious to me,” Schwerin assured him, “and I value this box the more, as it shows the picture of one whom I honor with all my heart—your Majesty’s picture!” Astounded at this impudence, Frederick looked at the box, and, noticing the change, laughed at the old diplomat and said:
“The idea is fine and does you honor, but the[192] picture is not good; here is a better one!” and handed him his own richly-jeweled snuff-box.
One of the characteristics of Frederick the Great was that he loved a tilt with the clergy. So he said to the Bishop of Ermenland:
“I hope to slip into paradise under your cloak.”
“Hardly,” returned the Bishop, whose income had been reduced to one-third, “your Majesty has cut down my cloak too much.”
General Ziethen once fell into a doze at the king’s table. As some one made a motion to rouse him, the king said:
“Let him sleep. He has watched long enough that we might rest.”
During the many wars he was engaged in, Frederick the Great shared not only all the dangers but also all the hardships of the common soldier.
Once he marched with his grenadiers till[193] very late at night. At last they halted, and the king said:
“Grenadiers, it is a very cold night; we must have a fire!” One was built at once. Frederick wrapped himself in his cloak, sat down on a few pieces of wood near the fire, and the soldiers grouped themselves around him. After a while General Ziethen came, and he also sat down on a little pile of wood. Both were extremely fatigued and soon fell asleep.
The king, on opening his eyes, perceived that Ziethen had slipped off his seat and that a grenadier was placing a fagot under his head for a pillow. In a loud voice Frederick said:
“Bravo! the old gentleman is very tired!” Soon after, a grenadier got up, half asleep, in order to light his pipe by the fire, and carelessly touched the General’s foot. The king, who was glad to see Ziethen take a little much needed rest, held up his hand and said whisperingly:
“Take care, grenadier, not to waken the General; he is very sleepy.”
General Seydlitz once reported to Frederick II one of the skirmishes such as happened almost daily during the seven years’ war, and[194] in doing so, praised a Lieutenant, whose conduct and splendid bravery well merited an order. The king had the young officer summoned and said to him pleasantly:
“I hear you have been very brave. I will reward you for it. Here are a hundred Friedrichsd’or, and here is the order of merit. You may choose.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the officer took the money.
“You don’t seem to have much regard for honor, anyway,” said the king, displeased.
“Pardon me, your Majesty,” replied the officer frankly, “I have debts, and honor demands that I should pay them as soon as possible. I hope to earn and return for the order in a few days.”
“That is brave, my son,” said the king, patting the Lieutenant’s shoulder. “You may take the order now; you deserve it!”
One morning while out riding near Potsdam, Frederick met a post-chaise in which sat one of his generals, who had numerous debts.
“Why my dear W.,” said the king to him, “you are off early; where are you going?”
“To Potsdam, your Majesty, to have an understanding with my creditors.”
“Oh,” smiled Frederick, “you would have done that better at Berlin; there are certainly not chairs enough at Potsdam.”
Frederick the Great was passionately fond of playing the flute. One of his teachers for years, was J. Quantz, the famous flutist, who was also well known for his quick, witty answers. One evening after the usual concert, the king was conversing with his intimates, when Quantz made the remark that nothing could upset him, no matter how great the surprise. Frederick turned to him and said, laughing:
“Quantz, Quantz, you shall prove that to me,” to which Quantz replied with dignity:
“Your Majesty, I am ready for any test.”
A few days afterwards, Quantz was to play a solo on his flute, during the evening concert. On going to his desk, he found on his music a large sheet of paper on which was written: “Quantz is an ass! Frederick II.”
Not in the least disturbed, Quantz quietly folded the paper and was going to put it into his[196] pocket, when the King who had been watching him, cried:
“Here, Quantz, what are you hiding there? Let me see what it is!”
“Your Majesty,” replied the former, “some one has been trying to have a poor joke at my expense. It is not worth taking notice of.”
“Well,” said Frederick, apparently surprised, “you must read it, Quantz; you ought to let me hear what has been written to you!”
Quantz bowed, and unfolding the paper, said:
“If your Majesty wishes it, I cannot refuse.” Then, sharply accenting each word, he read aloud: “Johann Quantz is an ass; Frederick the second!”
Everybody grew pale; some grasped their swords, but the King went smiling up to Quantz, patted him on the shoulder and said:
“Well done, Quantz, but another time you must not be quite so rude; do you hear?”
At all the evening concerts, the King played the flute. Once he played a new composition of his own, which contained a faulty passage. Quantz, on hearing it, coughed significantly. Frederick[197] understood the meaning of it, but said nothing. The next day he asked one of the other musicians his opinion of the passage. The latter pointed out the mistake. The King corrected it at once, saying:
“We must not let Quantz get a chronic cough.”
After one of the victorious battles of the seven years’ war, Frederick the Great gave orders that a young cornet, whose bravery he had had occasion to witness himself, be brought to him.
“What is your name?” the monarch asked the young man.
“Von Stira Stora Stazarneda, your Majesty,” was the answer.
“What, sir,” cried the King, indignant at a name so hard to remember, “why, the devil isn’t called that!”
“He is no relative of mine, either, your Majesty,” was the impudent cornet’s prompt answer.
The King smiled, and said:
“I am very glad to hear it, Lieutenant von Stira Stora Stazarneda,” and with a wave of his hand, dismissed him.
The Prussian Ambassador at the Court of England, wrote to Frederick the Great that his salary being insufficient, he would be compelled to sell his carriage and go to Court on foot. The King answered laconically: “You can just walk; it won’t hurt you. If anybody makes a remark about it, you can tell them you are my ambassador, and 300,000 men are walking behind you.”
From the beginning of the War of Independence (1813-14, against Napoleon I) Field-Marshal Prince Blücher urged the allied powers to go forward (hence his name, Marshal Vorwärts) and thus created more confusion among them than among the enemy. But the old soldier did not pay the slightest attention to that. Once when he received a dispatch to turn back with his army he growled:
“Those diplomatic fool tricks and this scribbling of notes will have to be stopped. I shall direct this campaign without notes.”
Once, while trying to ascertain the enemy’s[199] whereabouts, a bullet struck Prince Blücher’s foot, but fortunately tore only his boot.
“That’s bad enough,” joked Blücher, “we have a good many more doctors than cobblers with us.”
When presented with a Doctor’s degree at Oxford, Blücher said:
“Well, now, you ought to make Gneisenau at least a druggist, for he made my pills.”
After a hard day, Blücher was taking a few hours’ rest. An Adjutant wakened him to report: “The enemy has made a move!”
“Well,” cried the Prince, “then report to the enemy that I made one too!” and with this he turned over on his other side.
Blücher was a great lover of music. His favorite pieces electrified him as often as he heard them, but of them all Mozart’s “Magic Flute” took first place. While the allies were at Aachen, Angelica Catalani, the famous singer,[200] aroused everybody’s enthusiasm. The Emperor Alexander of Russia stood at the head of her admirers, but her acknowledged favorite was the aged Marshal Vorwärts.
One evening Catalani sang at a large reception and one of her songs was Papageno’s “Ring, Little Bell, Ring.” Blücher was delighted, and asked her to sing another of Papageno’s songs, but the singer, greatly embarrassed, had to confess that she knew no other.
“I can teach you,” said Blücher; “I know every aria in the ‘Magic Flute.’”
“What,” cried Emperor Alexander, “Blücher can sing too? You must give us a song then!”
The old soldier stood up and began in his rough voice, dreadfully out of tune, but still recognizable: “The Bird Catcher I Am.”
Emperor Francis listened with visible emotion, the dignified King of Prussia smiled quietly to himself, while Emperor Alexander laughed as hard as he could and started a vigorous applause. Blücher, encouraged, sang again, and wound up with “Bacchus is a Brave Man.” The last number created such a storm of applause that Catalani said jokingly:
“I can’t compete with old Blücher; he has beaten me, too; he received more applause than I did.”
When Field-Marshal Wrangel was Commander-General of Stettin, he sent for the painter, Most, and gave him an order to paint several portraits of his ancestors for his dining-room. The painter asked if the General had some pictures to copy from.
“That isn’t necessary,” said Wrangel; “just make them look somewhat like me, and dress them correctly. Nobody knew them personally anyhow.”
Wrangel generally rode a white horse, a fact which the enemy soon noticed. When the officers of his suite drew his attention to it and asked him to ride another horse, to be less exposed to danger, he answered with his customary calmness:
“Why shouldn’t I ride a white horse, gentlemen? They shoot at me, but they hit you.”
Wrangel was once walking with the Crown Prince, later Emperor Frederick, “unter den Linden” in Berlin, when they met a shoemaker’s apprentice merrily whistling. As they came[202] near, he stopped, grinned all over his face, and pulled off his cap.
“Now your Royal Highness can see what fine fellows these boys are,” said Wrangel; “they are all delighted to see a member of the Royal Family.”
“Wrangel,” cried the Crown Prince, laughing, “you just ask that boy, why he stopped whistling.”
“Say, sonny,” called Wrangel, “why did you stop whistling?”
“When I see you, I have to laugh, so I can’t whistle,” was the reply. The answer pleased the Crown Prince immensely.
When Wrangel returned from the war with Holstein, he ordered a weather-vane for the roof of his palace, just like one he had seen during the campaign, an Uhlan with his lance at rest.
“But he must turn whichever way the wind blows, like any other well-regulated weather-vane,” said Wrangel, “or I shan’t pay for it.”
The Uhlan was made, put on the roof and the General was informed of it. Well pleased, Wrangel went to the window.
“Why I can’t see him, you swindler!”
“But your Excellency——”
“Oh, pshaw, there are dozens of Excellencies. I am General-Field-Marshal.”
“But Herr General-Field-Marshal; you cannot see the weather-vane on the roof, while you are under it.”
“Yes, yes, that is true; but what good is the weather-vane to me, if I can’t see it?”
After thinking it over for some time, Wrangel stated the case to the French Ambassador across the street, who was perfectly willing to have the Uhlan put on the roof of his house. Now Wrangel could see the Uhlan from his room, and always knew which way the wind blew. Could he possibly have known, what he did, when he put the Uhlan on the Frenchman’s roof?
An officer came to report to Papa Wrangel, as he was often called. The General noticed that the officer’s spurs were not those prescribed by regulations. He took him to task about it, and gave him twenty-four hours house-arrest. The officer seeing that Wrangel wore the same spurs, made a remark about it.
“Very well, my son,” said the General,[204] “then you stay another twenty-four hours for me.”
King Frederick William III was in the habit of coming to the Queen’s sitting-room every morning, to breakfast with her, preferably on some fresh fruit. One morning, he saw on her work-table a pretty new lace cap. Smiling, he asked the price of it.
“It is not necessary,” replied the Queen merrily, “that the men should know what women’s finery costs; they don’t understand, and think everything is too dear.”
“But you can tell me what the cap cost. I should like to know!”
“Oh, yes; I chose a cheap one; it was only four thalers.”
“Only? Why that’s a lot of money for a thing like that!”
The king, standing by the window, kept on teasing her, until an invalid soldier of his guard passed by. The King called him into the room. He had hardly entered when the King said to him:
“The lady on the sofa there has a lot of money. What do you think, old comrade, she[205] gave for that cap on the table? Now don’t let the pretty pink ribbon dazzle you!”
The old fellow, inexperienced in such things, said:
“Well, it may have cost a few groschen.”
“There, do you hear that?” laughed the King. “Oh, yes; groschen. She paid four thalers for it! Now you go over there and let the beautiful lady give you as much.”
Looking at the King, she quickly opened her purse and put four thalers into the old soldier’s hand. “But,” she added with a mischievous smile, “the gentleman at the window has much more money than I. All I have I owe to him, and he loves to give. Just go over and let him give you double the amount.” The lucky veteran departed, delighted with his morning call.
Frederick William III was not fond of the extremely formal court etiquette prevailing at the time. Even as Crown Prince, he gave numerous proofs of his dislike of the stiff formalities which prevented an intimate family life. Once the mistress of ceremonies, Frau von Voss, reproved him for speaking of the Queen as “my wife” instead of saying “her Royal Highness,[206] the Crown Princess.” The King promising to reform said:
“Now, my dear Voss, announce me to her Royal Highness the Crown Princess, and ask if I may have the honor to speak to her Royal Highness.”
The mistress of ceremonies went to fulfil his command, walking with the slow, dignified, solemn step which etiquette prescribed. When she entered the Queen’s apartment, the King, who was already there, sitting arm in arm with his “Louise,” called to the horrified lady:
“Why my dear Voss, her Royal Highness, the Crown Princess, is not to be seen for an hour, and I mean to spend that time with ‘my wife.’”
Queen Louise, the mother of Emperor William I, was once told that her sons ate their fruit with too much haste. The Queen at once gave the order that every piece of fruit for the Princes’ breakfast-table should be wrapped in thirty pieces of paper. The unwrapping proved a sure remedy against their eating too fast. Emperor William I often recalled this rule saying jokingly:
“From my youth up, nothing was ever made[207] easy for me. Even to get a rosy-cheeked apple was considerable work.”
Frederick William IV, later Emperor William I, never liked to listen to long speeches when he was received into a city. One day, after having traveled for many hours in a post-chaise, he reached the gates of a small town about noon, tired and hungry. Here the King was received by the officials, and the burgomaster began a long-winded speech with:
“Most high and most gracious King! When Hannibal stood before the gates of Carthage——”
“He was probably as hungry as I am. Come, my dear burgomaster, get into my carriage and be my guest.”
On a certain occasion when Frederick William IV had reached a small town, the burgomaster began his speech:
“Five thousand citizens——” (here he stopped). “Five thousand citizens——” (he began again). “Five thousand citizens——” (No, he couldn’t do it.)
“Please greet your five thousand citizens for me,” the King interrupted him now, “but each one separately!” and drove on.
King Frederick William IV was always a most gay and amiable host. Once at a ball he stood in the ball-room talking to a very tall and very slender gentleman. Suddenly, an officer of the hussars, in the whirl of the dance, chased with his partner right between the two. The officer frightened to death, stops at once and excuses himself.
“Never mind,” said the King, laughing; “don’t excuse yourself; a hussar must necessarily go through thick and thin.”
One day, while Frederick William IV was taking a walk at an early morning hour, he noticed from a distance, a woman, who was beating the donkey drawing her milkcart. He went near and asked the cause of her violence. With tears in her eyes the woman said:
“Oh, dear, I am in a great hurry, and this stupid donkey won’t go. If I don’t get to Potsdam at the usual time, I’ll lose all my[209] customers. I know his tricks. If I only had somebody who would take him by the ears, while I beat him from behind—he would go all right.”
The King soberly grabbed the donkey by his ears, the woman did her part, and the donkey began to trot, while his owner thanked her unknown helper heartily.
At home the King told his wife of the service he had rendered. The Queen did not approve of the proceeding, and said:
“As Crown Prince, my dear Fritz, you might have done that, but as King——”
“My dear child,” interrupted the smiling monarch, “my sainted father helped many a donkey along.”
The livery-stable-keeper, Faber, of Magdeburg, who had been very patriotic and generous during the war with France, asked permission to drive Emperor William on his first visit to Magdeburg after the war, in a carriage he had built for the purpose. Permission was granted, and he was rewarded with an order of the fourth class. When the Emperor went to Magdeburg the next time, Faber drove him[210] again, but this time standing. “Why do you drive standing, Faber?” asked the Emperor.
“The fourth-class always does, your Majesty; they ride standing” (in a railway train), replied Faber, pointing at his order. The Emperor laughed heartily, and Faber received an order of the third class.
In 1878, while Emperor William was recovering from the wound made by Nobiling in his murderous attack, Crown Prince Frederick transacted all business of state. After the first few days of pain and excitement were over, and as the Emperor grew stronger, his gay humor returned.
One morning as the Crown Prince came in to see him, the Emperor, extending his sound hand asked:
“Well, dear Fritz, have you reigned already this morning?”
Once after a hunt, the Emperor was told that he had killed twenty-eight pieces of game. He looked surprised and said gaily:
“This reminds me of the words: ‘There[211] are things happening between heaven and earth of which man has no conception,’ for it certainly is wonderful that I killed twenty-eight pieces of game, when I shot off only twenty-five cartridges!”
One summer morning, in 1874, while Emperor William I was taking the water cure at Ems, the following humorous incident happened. He and Emperor Alexander II had as usual taken their morning walk together, and then seated themselves on a bench of the promenade near the Trinkhalle. The chance of getting a good look at the two rulers was not to be lost by the summer guests, and soon a crowd was walking up and down in front of their bench. The Czar who did not like to be stared at, made an impatient remark about it, when Emperor William, pointing to Bismarck who was just passing and bowing respectfully, said:
“Now we shall have peace!”
“Why so?” asked the Czar, surprised.
“Why?” returned the Emperor, “because there goes Bismarck; he is more famous than we are! The people will run after him now and give us a rest.”
After recuperating for some weeks at Berchtesgaden, in the Austrian Alps, during the summer of 1886, Prince William, the present Emperor of Germany, accompanied by the Princess, went to Salzburg to meet their royal grandfather. The aged monarch asked the Princess how she had enjoyed herself.
“Oh very much indeed,” she said, “only at times I was dreadfully homesick. I do so long to see my children.”
The Emperor asked, smilingly:
“But why didn’t you bring your little ones with you; the mountain air would have been splendid for them.”
“Yes, but grandpapa, it would have cost too much!”
The Emperor nodded assent: “You are right; three little Princes do cost a good deal.”
When the royal family met for a late supper, the Emperor handed a telegram to his granddaughter. She looked at it, scarcely able to comprehend the contents, until the old gentleman said with a kindly smile:
While the Emperor and Empress were at Ems, Count von Gneisenau, a son of the famous general of that name, was often asked to dine at the royal table. It was his habit always to decline the after-dinner coffee. One day he had again been a guest at dinner. A lackey offered him a cup of coffee. The Count declined, without interrupting his conversation with the Empress. A second time a cup was offered to him, and before he could decline again, the Empress said: “Do take that cup!”
The Count obeyed, but held the cup in his hand. The Emperor coming up to them remarked: “Why, Gneisenau, you are not drinking your coffee!”
The Count murmured a few words of excuse. “Well, you might at least look at the cup!”
Gneisenau did so. Tears of emotion dimmed his eyes. On the cup was the portrait of his father. With a benevolent smile, the Emperor said:
“I saw that cup this morning in one of the stalls of the promenade and bought it for you! You must always drink out of it.”
The little Princess Feodora, of Sachsen-Meiningen,[214] a great-granddaughter of Emperor William I, was learning to knit, and the first thing she wanted to do was to knit a pair of warm socks for her beloved great-grandpapa at Berlin. In a few weeks the task was accomplished and the gift sent off. It pleased the Emperor so much that he insisted on putting the socks on at once.
During the evening it was noticed that his face looked drawn, as if he was in pain; but on being asked if he was ill, he said smilingly:
“Do not worry, I am all right; but Feodora has made such a lot of immense hard knots in her socks, that I feel as if I were screwed into one of the old instruments of the inquisition!”
A general once asked the Emperor for a detachment of cavalry, for service at the capital of his province. Laughing, the Emperor said:
“My dear general, you will have to ask that man,” pointing towards Moltke; “he alone disposes of our army. I must be thankful if he leaves me my guards!”
The Emperor was an enthusiastic sportsman.[215] One day, while on a hunt with a number of royal guests, he grew tired, and decided to go home quietly. Two of his guests, noticing this, accompanied him. They had walked along the road some distance when a farmer with his wagon overtook them. One of the gentlemen asked him to take them along for a consideration. The farmer consented and the three climbed into the farm-wagon.
Curiosity soon got the better of the countryman, and turning to one of the gentlemen, he asked:
“And who might you be?”
“I am the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg.”
“May the——!” cried the farmer, laughing; and turning to the second gentleman, he asked “and who are you?”
“I,” replied he, “am the King of Saxony!”
“Why, this is getting better,” cried the amused farmer. Finally he turned to the third gunner with:
“Well, and who are you?”
“I am William, Emperor of Germany!”
“Well, this beats all!” said the countryman, partly amused, partly indignant, “but I should certainly not have thought that such old dignified gentlemen would find pleasure in fooling the likes of me! So that you may know[216] who is driving you, I’ll introduce myself: I, I am the Shah of Persia!”
The shouts of laughter at this sally made the gentlemen forget their fatigue.
While Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria was on his last visit to Emperor William at the shooting-lodge, Letzlingen, the two, with four other royal gunners, were playing a game of billiards at fifty pfennig, about eleven cents, each.
The Emperor won, and soon after retired, but returned again to give some directions about the next day’s hunt. The gentlemen were still playing.
“What is this game you are playing?” asked the Emperor.
“Oh, a child’s game, your Majesty, called ‘Meine Tante, deine Tante,’ my aunt, your aunt, or ‘Naschi-Waschi.’”
“I can play that,” said the Emperor, and staked the thaler he had just won, and won another. Smiling, the Emperor put the money in his vest pocket when one of the gentlemen remarked: “Your Majesty might try it again,” but he replied, “No, thank you, this just covers to-day’s expenses,” and retired again.
While visiting the Victoria-Bazaar, the Emperor asked one of the ladies, just to please her, to explain the construction of the sewing-machine to him and the Empress, who was with him. After other questions he asked for what the little drawer was used. “To keep the small utensils belonging to the machine in,” answered the young lady, somewhat embarrassed. The Emperor expected that she would pull the little drawer out, but when she did not do so, he concluded correctly, that the contents were not as they should be. With a gay “With your permission?” he pulled the drawer out and saw an appetizing sandwich reposing there. Smilingly the Emperor asked the young lady:
“Does this utensil belong to the machine too?”
Quickly the lady replied: “Yes, your Majesty, to the machine of the human body.”
Greatly pleased with this witty remark, the Emperor turned to the Empress, saying: “This proves that sewing-machines do not dull the working of the brain.”
After Emperor William had recovered from a severe illness in the spring of 1885, his physicians[218] would not give their consent to his attending the coming manœuvres on horseback. They feared the great exertion would be too much for the aged monarch, who was then eighty-eight years old, and proposed that he should review them in a carriage.
“Impossible,” said the Emperor; “there is nothing more unsoldierly!”
“But your Majesty,” a General ventured to say, “even Frederick the Great attended manœuvres in a carriage.”
“Oh, yes,” replied the aged monarch, “but he only did so during the last years of his life.”
While traveling in cold weather one time, the Empress Augusta stopped at Dessau to have the hot bottle for her feet replenished. The Adjutant and a lackey with the bottle, hurried into the restaurant to ask for hot water. The attendant had just used the last of it to make coffee, and after running around in great confusion he declared:
“I am very sorry, but there is not a drop of hot water.”
“What,” called a gentleman standing at the buffet, “you have no hot water?” and instantly[219] seizing the full coffee-pot he poured the boiling contents into the warming bottle, and the guests had to do without coffee for breakfast.
The Adjutant hurried out with his prey, but soon returned to ask, in her Majesty’s behalf, the name of the inventor of the brilliant idea.
“My name is Cohn,” said he. He was afterwards for a long time Emperor William’s private banker.
A sly dry goods merchant once sent to Emperor William a magnificent silk lounging gown, thinking that that would bring him the custom of the Court. The Emperor however sent the gown back with the laconical words: “The Hohenzollerns do not wear lounging gowns.”
One day the Crown Prince Frederick William, later Emperor Frederick, was walking alone in the streets of Berlin. Suddenly an old Jew accosted him with the question: “Any old clothes?” The Crown Prince did not see him at first. “Any old clothes, any old clothes?” the Jew, who did not know whom he was pestering, kept calling.
At last the Crown Prince stood still, looked at the Jew astonished, but asked pleasantly: “What is it you wish?” The dealer in old clothes scraped a bow and said: “Have you any old clothes to sell?” At this the Crown Prince laughed outright and answered: “My good friend, I have a large family, and there are no old clothes; when I am done with anything, it is made over for the boys.”
While the Crown Prince Frederick William was dedicating a chapel of the University at Halle, he noticed among the students drawn up in line, one whose face was a mass of scars. Turning to Dr. Volkman, the well-known surgeon, he said, jovially: “That head gave you a lot of mending to do!”
“Ah, your Royal Highness,” answered the man of science, “that sort of thing we sew only by machine now!”
In honor of the presence of a number of crowned heads, who were taking the waters, a gala performance was to be given at the theatre of Hamburg. The first to appear in the royal box was the Grandduke of Hesse, with two[221] Princesses. He took a chair and sat down between them, when the chair broke to pieces and his Royal Highness found himself sitting upon the floor. The accident created great merriment both in the royal box and among the audience.
Soon after, the Crown Prince Frederick William appeared in the box, and when told of the mishap, laughed heartily and took pains to throw himself heavily into his chair, but it held together. Finally the Prince of Wales, now King Edward, appeared. The Crown Prince at once presented to him the leg of the chair with the most comical solemnity.
When Emperor William and the Crown Prince visited Erfurt after the war with France, the youths of the city enthusiastically greeted the latter, whom they adored. The Crown Prince leaning from his carriage called out: “Boys, in the carriage behind is Moltke; scream for all you are worth!”
And the boys certainly did it.
One evening Alfred Grünfeld, the piano virtuoso, was playing before the Crown Prince[222] and Crown Princess. After the performance the Crown Prince patted Grünfeld’s shoulder saying, “Do you know, my friend, that we are, in a sense, colleagues?” Grünfeld bowed, but had to acknowledge that he really did not know how he came to the honor of being a colleague of his Royal Highness.
“Well, I will tell you,” said the Crown Prince. “I was, like yourself, a pupil of Kullak’s, but—now you must not give this away—the good Kullak wanted to make something of me, as he did of you, and he didn’t succeed.”
While inspecting St. George’s Church, in Nördlingen, the Crown Prince praised the splendor and size of it. He was told that the Catholic Church in Dinkelsbühl was even larger and more beautiful, and he decided to visit that also. The burgomaster at Dinkelsbühl was notified by a telegram, so the city fathers awaited the Crown Prince. When he arrived, the burgomaster advanced to make a speech, but the Crown Prince declined to listen, saying: “Let me tell you something; we two will make a compact. You promise not to say anything, and I’ll do the same.”
The Crown Prince, while in Dresden, visited the Johaneum, the famous collection of arms. Talking and smoking he walked about, when suddenly he noticed a sign: “Smoking strictly forbidden.” At once he took his costly Havana from his lips, put it into a boy’s mouth saying: “There, you finish it, I must obey the rules.”
While studying at the University of Göttingen, Bismarck was taken ill one day. The doctor was sent for and ordered quinine. Soon after he had left, a big box of “eatables” arrived from home. Bismarck went at it, consumed about two pounds of sausage, washed down with several glasses of beer, and then went to sleep. The fever left him.
Next day when the doctor came he said: “Thank heaven, dear doctor, the fever is gone.”
“Yes,” replied the doctor, “quinine is a most excellent remedy.”
“Well it wasn’t exactly this time, you best of doctors, but two pounds of sausage had the same effect, and nature may do the rest.”
When the new two-mark piece was issued, a number proposed to call it Bis-mark, bis being the Latin for twice. The National Liberals would then have Bismarck in their pockets, the Socialists would see him beaten, the Ultramontanes could get him changed whenever they liked, and to the Government, the formation of a Bismarck party, would insure the most wide-spread influence.
Prince Bismarck and Count Kleist-Retzow, friends and related to each other, accepted an invitation to a hunt of several days. The first day the two followed the noble sport with great zest. When they returned in the evening, Kleist-Retzow was so very much fatigued that he told Bismarck that he would not rise at seven the following morning to continue the hunt. While talking gaily over their wine, Bismarck said that he would take care that he got out of his bed whether he liked it or not. After they had retired, the Count locked and barricaded his door against Bismarck’s attack the next morning, and then went to bed. But once more Bismarck’s voice came from the[225] next room admonishing his friend to be sure and rise in good time.
“Keep quiet; I want to go to sleep,” replied Kleist-Retzow.
“Yes, and you’ll get up when I want you to, I’ll give you my word for that,” returned Bismarck, and then went to sleep himself. At half-past six in the morning, the Chancellor knocked at Kleist-Retzow’s door and as it was not opened, he called to him to get up. The Count had not the slightest intention of doing so, and Bismarck assured him again that he would be out of his bed by seven. Kleist-Retzow lay still and paid no attention to him. Bismarck took his shotgun, went into the yard, stood before the window of his friend’s bedroom and shot through it into the ceiling, so that the plaster fell down upon the Count’s head. Kleist-Retzow, very much frightened, jumped up at once and went to the window to see what had happened. Seeing nobody, he quickly put on his clothes and hurried down-stairs. Bismarck came to meet him, greeted him, and without changing a muscle, said: “I hope you have rested well; it is just seven o’clock!”
In 1871, while Bismarck, as Ambassador of[226] the Confederation, lived at Frankfort, he occupied rooms in a private house. There was no bell in his study with which to call his valet from his room on the floor above, so he requested his landlord to have one put in. That gentleman, who was not a friend of “that Prussian,” declined to do so, saying, that his tenants always had done things of that sort at their own expense, and he didn’t see why he should make an exception now.
Some time later in the day a pistol-shot rang through the house. Very much frightened, the landlord ran through all the rooms until he came to Bismarck’s study, where the still smoking pistol lay on the table, and the smoking Bismarck sat quietly at work.
“For heaven’s sake, what has happened?” cried the landlord.
“Nothing at all,” said Bismarck, “that you need worry about. I just signaled to my valet that I want him. It is a perfectly harmless signal. I hope you will soon get used to it.”
It is hardly necessary to add that Bismarck got his bell in short order.
One day, while the peace negotiations were[227] in progress, the representative from Hanover asked Bismarck how he managed to get his despatches through the mails unopened. Bismarck, for answer, asked him to take a walk with him. He took him to the poor district of Frankfort, to a narrow street where only small stores were to be found. Arrived before a little grocery, Bismarck, to his companion’s surprise, put on gloves and then entered the store. His first question to the clerk was: “Do you keep soap?”
“Yes sir.”
“What kinds?”
The clerk put several kinds before Bismarck, from which the latter selected a particularly strong-smelling piece, and put it in his pocket. Then he asked for envelopes and was shown some of the very cheapest kind. Now Bismarck took a despatch from his inside coat-pocket, put it into one of the envelopes, fastened it, and asked for pen and ink and began to write the address. But of course with gloves he could not do it, so he asked the clerk to do it for him. Then he put the envelope with the despatch into the same pocket with the soap. When they were on the street again Bismarck said to his companion: “Now, I defy them to smell my despatch under a perfume composed[228] of soap, herring, and cheese, and an address written in such a hand.”
Prince Bismarck was suffering from great nervousness at one time, and was obliged to stop smoking and drinking wine altogether for some weeks. When he complained to Emperor William about it, his Majesty said:
“There you see the difference between us. I am ever so much older than you, but I enjoy my cigar, can take a glass of wine, and am very well with it all.”
“Oh yes, your Majesty, that is an old story,” returned the Chancellor; “the rider always has it easier than the horse.”
Lord Russell, the English ambassador at the German court, called one day on Prince Bismarck at the palace of the latter, in Berlin. During conversation, Lord Russell remarked, that a man in the Chancellor’s position must be bothered with a great many troublesome callers.
“God knows how true that is,” sighed the Prince.
“But you certainly have some remedy or other to get rid of such people quickly?”
“Oh certainly,” laughed Bismarck, “one of my best is, that my wife comes in to call me away on some pretext or other. Of course the caller can’t remain after that.”
These words were hardly uttered, when the Princess entered, and said in the most harmless way: “Otto, it is time to take your medicine; do not forget it.”
Lord Russell broke into a ringing laugh and took his leave at once.
The following humorous story was first published in the Leipsic Tageblatt. One day, during the siege of Paris, Count Lehndorff, the Aide-de-Camp, visited Captain von Strantz, at Ville d’Avray, an outpost near Paris. In reply to the Count’s question, how he was getting on, the Captain said: “Oh quite well; I have just been dining for the sixty-seventh time off roast mutton.” The Count laughed and rode on. Next day an orderly called on the Captain with the following message: “It having come to the ears of Count Bismarck, Chancellor of the Confederation, that Captain von Strantz would doubtless be dining off his sixty-eighth joint of mutton to-day, his Excellency sends him herewith four ducks as a change of diet.”
In May, 1891, a curious circumstance which, having occurred just before Bismarck’s fall, might have indicated to him how slippery was the ground on which he trod. He went one day to see the Emperor, who was busy, and who sent word that he would see the Chancellor presently. Ere long the royal children came in, and insisted upon his dancing with them. “No,” said Bismarck, “I am too old to dance with you.” “Then you must play,” they said. He accordingly sat down to the piano. Pretty soon the Emperor came in, and, finding him thus engaged said: “So, here is the fourth generation of the Hohenzollerns, which has to dance to your playing.”
Bismarck once gave to some friends the following droll account of Count Moltke.
“When a declaration of war is floating in the air,” the Chancellor said, “even Moltke gets talkative, and when we were in for it in 1870, he grew ten years younger in a day. Before, taciturn and cross, he now chatted pleasantly, got an appetite for champagne and heavy cigars, and lost the last remnant of gout that he had acquired while resting on laurels that had grown[231] old. But at any rate, the famous old General is a comforting example for all enthusiastic smokers. He shows how healthy smoking is, and that one can grow old doing it. He showed his fondness for a good cigar even in the battle of Königgrätz.
“On that memorable day in July, 1866, when victory and defeat hung for hours in the balance, I was filled with disquietude and apprehension. I rode up to Moltke, who sat on his horse like a statue, following every movement of the battle. To talk to him was impossible; but I had in my case two cigars left, a good one and a bad one. Without a word I offered the case to Moltke, and without a word he took it, examined the two cigars and selected the good one. This was enough encouragement for me, for I said to myself, if the General can so calmly select the better cigar, our chances must be good.”
Directly after the declaration of war, in 1870, an old friend met Count Moltke on the street, and remarked:
“You must be overburdened with work just now!”
“Oh no,” was the cold-blooded answer, “the[232] work was all done beforehand. All orders are issued, and I have really nothing to do!”
A few minutes later, he met a merchant, with whom he had done business at Kreisau, who asked him anxiously about the outlook. “Well,” said the old Field-Marshal in his mildest tone, “I am quite content; my barley crop, it is true, was only middling, but my crop of winter wheat promises to be immense and that, as you know, is the main thing.”
Once, while Moltke was at Ragaz for his health, he walked alone through the woods to the village Pfäfers. It was very warm and he was thirsty, so he went into the village inn and asked for a drink. The host sat down by him and began:
“I suppose you are a guest at Ragaz?”
“Yes.”
“They say Moltke is there too!”
“Yes.”
“How does he look?”
“Well, how should he look? Just like one of us two.”
It was at Meaux, the night before the siege of[233] Paris began. All the Chiefs and Generals of the different divisions of the army, were assembled in the Field-Marshal’s quarters, discussing plans and studying maps and charts. It was two o’clock in the morning; a big fire was burning in the grate; the room was intensely warm.
Moltke, so one of the officers tells us, was in a long dressing gown, without his wig, was walking up and down, deeply engrossed in thought. The heat made the perspiration stream down our faces. Suddenly one of us looked up to ask the Field-Marshal a question, but stopped short and drew the attention of the others to what he saw.
The General, too, had found it necessary to wipe the perspiration from his face, but in his preoccupation he had not noticed, that in passing his night-table, he had picked up his wig instead of his handkerchief and was vigorously wiping his face with it. He kept it up for some time, looking so exceedingly funny that we broke into shouts of laughter. When we explained, he joined in our mirth.
Professor:—“The old Greeks built their theatres in such a way that the spectators sat in an uncovered space.”
Fresh student:—“But what did the old Greeks do when they were at the theatre and it commenced to rain?”
Professor (thoughtfully taking off his spectacles, polishing them and putting them on again):—“When it rained at the time the old Greeks were at the theatre, the old Greeks got wet.”
Professor:—“How do you find the size of a triangle?”
Student (mumbling to himself):—“What a fool that Professor is; how should I know!”
Professor:—“What is that? Say it again; perhaps you were right.”
Professor M——, of Königsberg, whose house faced the cattle market, had a number of enemies among the hot-headed students. Once when during a lecture, they created an uproar, drumming on their desks, he said coldly: “Gentlemen, for your own sakes I must beg of you not to remind me where I live.” These few words soon restored quiet.
Professor (at a medical examination, showing a human bone):—“Can you tell me about how long this bone might have been buried in the earth and whether it is of the male or female sex.”
Student (after thinking for some time):—“The bone has been in the earth since the death of its owner, and is of the male sex because we say: Der Knochen” (masc. article).
Professor (making a farewell speech):—“And now, young gentlemen, as you are entering the life of the University, I ask you to avoid all drinking bouts. Beer drinking makes stupid students. Remember me!”
Professor:—“I have to ask your indulgence for a few minutes. I left my manuscript at home, but my little son will bring it at once.”
The little son (entering):—“Mother could not find the manuscript, so she sends you the book from which you copied it.”
Creditor (who is receiving his money at last):—“There are still ten marks missing, if you please!”
Student:—“I shall deduct those from the amount, for rent, since for the past few months you lived at my lodgings more than I did.”
Student:—“Herr Nachtwächter (nightwatchman), I wish to ask you something. May I call a Nachtwächter a donkey?”
Nachtwächter:—“Just you take yourself off, before I haul you in.”
Student (goes, but returns after a few steps):—“Now listen; I have another question. May I call a donkey a Nachtwächter?”
Nachtwächter:—“You may, for all I care!”
Student:—“Well then, good-night, Herr Nachtwächter!”
Student:—“What time is it?”
Pawnbroker:—“Did you waken me in the middle of the night to ask me that?”
Student:—“Why of course, you’ve got my watch!”
Professor:—“Well, young man, if your father should borrow a thousand marks, promising to pay them back in yearly instalments of two hundred and fifty marks, how much money would he still owe at the end of three years?”
“A thousand marks.”
“Why, my dear sir, you don’t even know the rudiments of arithmetic.”
“Possibly not; but I know my father.”
Student:—“Have you heard the latest news? Mischler’s brewery has burned down!”
Innkeeper:—“How was that possible, with so much material on hand to quench fire?”
Student:—“I can easily explain that. When the flames began to lick the beer, they found they liked it.”
Student (coming home in the evening):—“Has my overcoat been fetched, Frau Muller?”
Landlady:—“Oh yes; twice.”
Student:—“How is that?”
Landlady:—“Well, you see, first I fetched it from the tailor, and afterwards the sheriff fetched it from your room.”
The end of the term has arrived. Freshman Muller has managed, by coaxing all his uncles and aunts, to scrape enough capital together, to rescue his dress suit and overcoat from the pawnshop and is now on his way home. The following morning, when the first joy of having him at home again has subsided, his mother begins to look over his clothes. She finds in his overcoat the ominous pawnshop number, and sending for her son, she asks sharply:
“What does this number mean?”
“Why, at the last University ball I left the coat in the dressing-room, and I suppose they stuck the number on.”
Only half satisfied with this explanation, his mother dismisses him, but soon after sends for him once more.
“Now then, I wish to know if you left your trousers also in the dressing-room at that last ball?”
Professor:—“What causes the Northern Light?”
Student (embarrassed):—“I did know it perfectly well, but have forgotten it again.”
Professor:—“What an enormous loss for science! You are the only human being who knew it once, and you had to forget it!”
Porter (to a lot of students who at an early morning hour, noisily demand admission into a closed café):—“Gentlemen, you want to have education?”
Students:—“No, coffee!”
Professor (very angry):—“You are the biggest fool here!”
Student (excited):—“Sir! You are forgetting yourself.”
“Is this the famous Kohlenberg?” asked a[240] stranger of a student whom he met while ascending it.
“Yes, sir, very famous and very interesting.”
“Would you have the kindness to tell me,” said the stranger, “whether there are any legends or other dreadful tales associated with this mountain?”
“A whole lot, sir, only recently two young men went up on this side and never came back.”
“Horrible! What became of them?”
“Why, they went down on the other side.”
In the waiting-room of a small railway station, a crowd of noisy young fellows were making fun of a student, who was walking impatiently up and down, but stopped from time to time to look into the mirror. At last the noisiest of the crowd called out:
“Say, are you in love with yourself, that you look into that glass so often?”
“I only want a look at a gentleman now and then,” was the student’s calm reply.
Student:—“I drink too much! Why, mother, as a good son, I could not sleep without[241] having drunk your health. Now the first glass is for the alma mater; the second, for the professors; the third, for science in general and my special study; the fourth, I must drink to father’s health, so it’s only the fifth that I can drain in your honor!”
Professor:—“How do you treat the epidemic diseases prevalent at the present time?”
Student:—“I treat them with the greatest contempt.”
While the cholera was raging at M——, the police issued an order that everybody who went home after ten o’clock at night, must do so without making any noise whatever, or pay a fine of five gulden. One night several students who had sat over their beer too long, went home late, singing lustily. The nightwatchman at once accosted them, and asked whether they had not read the order that everybody must go home without singing or making any other noise?
“Of course we have read it,” said one of the students, drily, “but we are not going home.” This quick-witted answer confused the worthy[242] watchman, and he let them go. Next day the following amendment was read under the order: “Nobody is permitted to sing or make any noise on the street at night, whether they are going home or not.”
A student who had failed in his final examination at the University, returned home. At dinner his father asked how his examinations went.
“So well, that at general request, I have to go all through them again shortly.”
Professor (examining a student):—“And how do you guard yourself against impure water?”
Student:—“First, I boil it; secondly, I filter it!”
Professor:—“And thirdly?”
Student:—“I drink beer.”
“You are engaged to be married to one of your fellow-students, Suffel?”
“Oh, yes; one of us is sure to pass the examination, and that is enough.”
Gentleman:—“Don’t you drink water?”
Student:—“Never; I tried it once, and almost drowned.”
Among students. “What a spendthrift that Spund is! Day before yesterday was the ‘First,’ and when I wanted to borrow from him to-day, he hadn’t a pfennig.”
Father (to his son, an extravagant student):—“What? You want to start a coin collection? That looks to me about as funny as it would if our poodle started a sausage collection!”
1st Student:—“Where do you have your clothes made, Spund?”
2d Student:—“Meyer and Strauss.”
1st Student:—“I should never get a double firm to work for me. Instead of having to dodge only one creditor, you have to dodge two.”
Student:—“Grandmother, you must have been a beautiful girl once!”
Grandmother (taking her pocketbook from her pocket):—“How much do you want for your bout to-night, you rascal?”
Student (renting a room):—“Shall I pay the rent in advance, Frau Muller?”
Landlady:—“No, never mind; I’ll save you the trouble of having to borrow it again from me.”
Fräulein:—“... And you risked your life gathering those Alpine roses for me? Now just tell the truth, you bought them?”
Student:—“Oh, but gracious Fräulein, how could I—at the end of the month?”
Uncle (before examination):—“Are you prepared, Karl?”
Student:—“Oh yes, for the worst.”
Student (at a tavern hunting for his[245] overcoat):—“My overcoat has been stolen! Well, the thing isn’t worth much. Luckily the tailor has not been paid yet, but there were fifty pfennigs in the pocket! It’s a perfect outrage!”
The Diplomat says:—“Oh, let us form an everlasting alliance.”
The Soldier:—“You gave my heart an incurable wound; or ‘you came; I saw; you conquered.’”
The Doctor:—“Only you can cure my suffering heart.”
The Florist:—“Just one word from your lips and our path through life shall be strewn with roses.”
The Builder:—“Let us plan our cottage together.”
The Sailor:—“Loveliest maiden, united to you, I could brave all the storms of life.”
The Jeweler:—“This single band shall form a golden chain.”
The Scientist:—“Ah, let me explore your heart and read my happiness in your eyes.”
The Sculptor:—“If your heart is not of marble, let my image dwell therein.”
The Baker:—“Will you share my bread in joy and sorrow?”
The Candlemaker:—“You shall be the light of my life.”
Lady:—“The gentleman will surely buy this small bouquet!”
Gentleman:—“Certainly, madam, how much is it?”
Lady:—“Suppose we say twenty marks?”
Gentleman:—“Madam, that is too dear for me!”
Lady (pressing a kiss on the flowers):—“And now, sir?”
Gentleman (turning away):—“Now it is altogether beyond my means.”
“My lady, there is a gentleman down-stairs, who wishes to see you!”
“Did he not give you his name?”
“No; he said it was not necessary.”
“You do not know him?”
“No; he pinched my arms and cheeks.”
“Oh, that is my brother Gustave.”
Young Housewife:—“Why Nanny, how can you be so heartless as to throw those poor lobsters at once into boiling water? They ought to be put on in fresh water so they could get used to the heat by degrees!”
He:—“I am going to take a bottle of sea-water home with me as a souvenir from Norderney!”
She:—“But don’t fill it quite full, or it will burst on us when the tide comes in.”
“So that is why you are in the dumps, my dear; you want to go to Wiesbaden, and are ordered to Ems. Don’t be offended, but if ever I pay a yearly salary to my family physician, and should want to go to a certain watering place, I would see that he found the proper malady for it.”
Father:—“Karl, the stork brought you a little brother last night.”
Karl:—“I know it.”
Father:—“How’s that?”
Karl:—“I heard you say to the stork as he flew away, ‘Won’t you take an umbrella; it is raining very hard.’”
Lady:—“Were you not afraid to travel with your wife through the Abruzzen?”
Gentleman:—“Oh no! my mother-in-law always sat with the driver.”
“I assure you, my friend, my son is dead in love with that actress. He has told me repeatedly that he could not live without her.”
“Well, then let him marry her, and he will soon learn to!”
A farmer had worked all day in the field in storm and rain, and in the evening, came home very tired, and wet to the skin. At the door, his dear wife who had been in the house all day met him, and said: “Dear husband, it has been raining so hard that I could not fetch any water, and so was not able to cook a soup for you. Since you are so wet, fetch a couple of pails; you can’t get any wetter.”
There was no disputing this fact, so the man took the pails and went to the distant pump. When he returned to the house, his wife sat cozily by the fire; so he took one pail after the other, poured the water over his wife and said: “Now you are just as wet as I am, and you can fetch the water yourself. You can’t get any wetter.”
Sophie (to her elderly maiden aunt):—“Auntie, is not ‘to leave’ conjugated: I leave, I left, I have been left?”
Women are the pearls of creation, and, as such, expect to be set in gold.
Since the fair sex has been talking so much about women’s rights, there are fewer of the “right women” on earth.
When the suitor appears, the belle of seventeen asks: “Who is he?”—of twenty-five: “What is he?”—and after ten years more: “Where is he?”
“Beloved Anton! I waited in the rain for you to-day at the corner. I hope you have been ill. Shall come again to-morrow. Your true Anna.”
Wife:—“I don’t know what is the matter with our Clara; she does not wish to go to the balls; she is indifferent to dress; the theatre no longer gives her pleasure; and now she even refuses to go to a watering-place for the summer. The girl must love unhappily.”
Husband:—“Good gracious! how economical! Sarah, could not you love me unhappily for once?”
Admirer:—“It gives me the most exquisite pleasure to hear you say that you discover daily how much I am like your sainted husband. Might I ask in what I resemble him?”
Young widow:—“You have all his bad habits.”
Husband:—“You are lovely in this dress, that is true, but—the money!”
Wife:—“That does not count, when the object is to please you!”
Gentleman:—“But, ladies, this loud talking during the concert is abominable!”
Lady:—“I fully agree with you. One must actually scream, to make oneself understood.”
“You wish a New Testament, madam?”
“Yes, but, please, the very newest.”
Mother:—“My daughter does not please you?”
Gentleman:—“To tell the truth, I do not care for paintings.”
Mother:—“Pardon me, but did you ever see an angel, other than painted?”
Cook:—“Miss Helene, please, shall I put a pinch of paprika into the chicken-stew?”
Miss Helene (just back from boarding-school):—“Why, Anna, you do not have to be[253] so economical here; put a good big tablespoonful into it.”
Lady:—“Do tell me, Professor, why we are called the fair sex?”
Professor:—“Well, I am sure I don’t know either.”
“... Oh, who dares to deny it! She knows how to chain the men! And yet—caprice of nature—she never can chain one man!”
Young Lady:—“Can I get a guide to write love-letters here?”
Clerk:—“For yourself?”
Young Lady (embarrassed):—“For myself?—oh, no! for—my—grandmother!”
A housemaid was ordered to go to a guest’s room to tell him that dinner was ready. She found him standing before the looking-glass, tooth-brush in hand, cleaning his teeth. She[254] gave her message, and on returning to her mistress, said, “The gentleman will come at once; he is just sharpening his teeth.”
A butter-dealer and a cheese-monger were to be godmothers at a christening. At church the latter pushed herself into the place of honor, next to the mother. But the butter-dealer stepped in front of her saying, “Butter comes before cheese.”
Young wife (fresh from boarding-school):—“Oh, Kathi, what are you doing? That fish does not need washing! Why he has been in water all his life.”
To a Banker. “Why do you let your daughter marry your cashier?”
“Precaution, my dear sir; if he ever runs away with the bank’s money, my daughter will, in all probability, get some of it.”
At a Ball. “May I ask for the first waltz?”
“Certainly—but please, Doctor, dance a little slower; I am still in mourning.”
Lady:—“But John, my guests drank only three bottles of champagne yesterday, and here are four missing.”
John:—“Did they drink only three? Well, I didn’t count them,—I don’t think it is nice to watch one’s guests.”
Intended Husband:—“You know, Bertha, I would go to the end of the world for you!”
Fiancée:—“Then, please, stay a few days longer with us.”
Intended Husband:—“Why, my dear Bertha, I should lose my return ticket!”
Doctor’s Wife:—“Why, my dear husband, what are you so dreadfully excited about?”
Doctor:—“Just think of it! By mistake I signed my name under the question, ‘Cause of death,’ in a death certificate!”
An Eskimo family was being exhibited at the zoölogical gardens. The young wife of an Army officer who had taken her there, asked them, “How do you like it in Berlin?” and as the Eskimos kept silent, not understanding her, the talkative little woman went on, “Don’t you think it’s nicer here, than in Eskimo?”
Lady:—“Dear Emilie, by whom is this magnificent piece, that is being played?”
Emilie:—“I think it is by ‘Da Capo,’ an Italian composer, who has written a great many pieces.”
Young Housewife (helping the cook prepare the menu for a dinner-party):—“As second course, we will have baked eel.”
Cook:—“How much shall I order, my lady?”
Young housewife:—“I think ten yards ought to be enough.”
“Say, papa, when I am a papa, I’ll make Liesel roast a goose for me, too; but I shall give my little boy some of it.”
First Day. Stormy weather; poor company.
Second Day. Captain very amiable; offers me his heart and hand. Refused.
Third Day. Captain renews his offer. Threatens to kill us both and to blow up the vessel with three hundred souls on board. Refused.
Fourth Day. Saved three hundred lives.
“The ladies lessen our sorrows, double our joys, and treble our expenses. Long may they live!”
“Auntie, do you like chocolates?”
“Oh yes, little one, I love them!”
“Ah! Then I had better ask grandmamma to take care of my box of bonbons.”
Husband:—“Just think, little wife, I saw the first asparagus in the garden. Would it give you pleasure to cut it yourself?”
Young Housewife (trying to hide her ignorance in this direction):—“I tell you what, Adolf; we’ll go together. You pick it off, while I hold the ladder.”
Servant:—“Will you please tell me, madam, where you buy your sausages?”
Mistress:—“On Humboldt Street.”
Servant:—“I am afraid I can’t remember that.”
Mistress:—“Just think of the Kosmos.”
Bride:—“What is the name of that beautiful star over there?”
Bridegroom:—“That is Venus.”
Bride:—“What does it mean?”
Bridegroom:—“The happiness of love!”
Wife:—“What is the name of that beautiful star over there?”
Husband:—“It’s the evening star; don’t know the name of it.”
Wife:—“Do you know what it means?”
Husband:—“That it is getting night.”
A flirt is a rose, of whom each plucks a leaf; the thorns remain for the future husband.
Gentleman:—“You were some time in Italy, Baroness; how did you like Rome?”
Baroness:—“Rome? Just wait a moment! (To her daughter.) Emma, was it not at Rome where we bought those poor gloves?”
Baroness (returning home):—“Maria, I cannot suffer you to take your sweetheart into the kitchen!”
Cook:—“Your ladyship is very kind, but my sweetheart would not go into the salon!”
Husband:—“I wish you would tell why you women are forever dressing up and have to have such a lot of new clothes all the time; do you think such extravagance pleases the men?”
Wife:—“Oh, we don’t care to please the men; we want to make the other women jealous!”
Little Fritz (to the cook):—“Anna, how do you spell ‘sauce’?”
Cook:—“Sauce? Well, you see, Fritz, there are so many different kinds of sauce!”
Gentleman:—“Mein Fräulein, do you like sauerkraut?”
Fräulein:—“Why, what a queer question to ask me!”
Gentleman:—“Well, you see, I love the little sausages that go with it, so if you liked sauerkraut, we should match beautifully.”
Professor:—“Well, dear Elise, after passing such a brilliant examination, I suppose you will settle down at once to practice law?”
Student:—“Oh, no, I am going to enter the government service; else my future husband would not receive a—pension.”
A little girl was heard holding the following monologue:
“Did God really make the whole world? I couldn’t do it. It must have been dreadfully hard. But I know one thing He didn’t make, this washrag of my doll’s; I knitted that myself, the dear Lord can’t knit.”
Little Carl had been scolded a good many[261] times for dropping and breaking things. One day his mother happened to drop and break a cup. “Why, mother, now you are a naughty boy, too!” exclaimed the little one.
There is nothing like a jolly and good-natured uncle in a family. What fun the children have with him! Just now they are all hanging around him waiting for what is coming next.
“Now, young gentleman,” he says to the oldest, “I am going to give you a riddle. It is gray, has rather large ears, and you can ride on it; what is it?”
“Why uncle, that is you,” cries the youngest, joyfully.
Little Anna was ill in bed, and could not be induced to take her pill. Her clever mamma hid it in a preserved pear and gave her that. After a while she asked: “Well, my darling, have you eaten your pear?”
“Oh, yes, mamma,” answered the little one, “all but the pit.”
Elsie (who, with her mamma, is dining off[262] a very tough chicken at a railway station):—“Mamma, don’t you think this chicken must have been hatched from a hard boiled egg?”
Lady:—“Has the Baron not been here yet to-day?”
Maid:—“Everything has been here once,” says Lessing, “but—the Baron has not been here yet.”
Monday:—“Aïda.” Starved with my lover in the prison cell.
Tuesday:—Sang “Gilda” in “Rigoletto.” Was murdered and dragged from the stage in a bag.
Wednesday:—In “Traviata” I sang “Violetta,” and coughed virtuos-tuberculos, my life away.
Thursday:—As “Selika” (in l’Africaine) died from the poisonous odor of the Manzanillen tree.
Friday:—Sang the “Jewess,” and as a finale was thrown into a kettle of boiling oil.
Saturday:—As “Sulamithe” in the “Queen of Saba” was suffocated in the Simoom of the desert.
Sunday:—“Hamlet” and I as “Ophelia” drowned—under a storm of applause—in the brook. How beautiful it is, to be able to devote one’s art and one’s life to give pleasure to one’s fellow-men!
Count:—“Gracious lady, are you not dancing to-night?”
Lady:—“Not till after midnight, Count.”
Count:—“Why not until then?”
Lady:—“Because to-day is the anniversary of my husband’s death.”
Mother (coming home, meeting her children):—“Why, children, how you do look; where have you been?”
Walter:—“At the Major’s, across the street, mamma, and didn’t we have a great time playing!”
Elsa:—“And just think, mamma, Clara’s mother has no nerves at all!”
Fanny had succeeded in coaxing her mother to take her to hear “Lohengrin.” During the[264] performance she turns to her mother and says: “Why, mamma, how stupid of Elsa to ask Lohengrin his name, when all she had to do was to look at the program!”
“Ah, sir, if ever I should have grandchildren, I could not wish them a better father than yourself!”
“So sad to-day, Miss Alice?”
“Oh, yes; I am very unhappy!”
“May I ask why?”
“Papa told me just now, that we are going home to-morrow.”
“Am I perhaps the happy one, on whose account you are so very unhappy?”
“Is it true, mamma, that swans sing before they die?”
“Yes, my child! but come, stop feeding them or you will make them ill.”
“That is just what I want to do. I am going to feed them till they die. I do want to hear a swan-song, so much!”
“So you have but just returned from a trip to Paris! You visited the Louvre, I suppose?”
“Oh, certainly, was so delighted with it, that I went all over it!”
“And which one of the many magnificent pictures pleased you most, Baroness?”
“Pictures? I did not see any pictures; the velvet coats charmed me most!”
“Ah, then you were at the dry-goods store ‘Louvre’!”
“Why, where else did you think?”
Minister (who has a few boy boarders):—“So you have sunk so low, Fritz, as to steal my milk from the cellar! But who is it, from whom you can conceal nothing; who sees everything; before whom I myself am nothing but a grain of sand?”
Fritz (weeping):—“Your wife, sir!”
The mother, on leaving the room, warns her little daughter: “Don’t think of taking a pear from the basket when I am gone; you know, little one, that if I cannot see you, the dear[266] Lord can.” Mother gone, the little girl can’t resist the temptation, and looking up to heaven, she says, in a pleading voice: “Dear Lord, do please turn around!”
“Mamma, I know how things in this world are ordered,” said little Bertha, who had just administered a severe rebuke to her doll. “The doll must mind me; I must mind the nurse; the nurse must mind you; you must mind papa; papa must mind the Emperor; the Emperor must mind God; and God——” here she stopped, thought a moment, and then said decidedly—“and God must mind Bismarck.”
“The dear Lord must wear a very large hood, mamma!”
“Why so, child?”
“Because at school we always pray:
A pretty little girl was often hurt by the way the neighbors and servants talked about her red hair. One day her grandmother tried to comfort[267] her, saying: “Dear child, God made your hair, and everything He does is well done.”
“Oh, but then I would rather He would not make anything more for me,” declared the little one.
Little Elsie was at a children’s party with her nurse. In the evening there were fireworks set off. When the first sky-rocket went up, the child began to cry bitterly, calling to her nurse in a voice full of fear, “They are shooting the dear Lord!”
Lieschen, on Christmas day with her new doll:—“See, Hannchen, what a beautiful new doll the Christ-child has brought me!”
Hannchen (with an old, but repaired doll):—“My mamma said that only the repair angel came to us this year.”
At the examination the children were to say the creed before the superintendent. It was practiced so that three children were each to say one article.
The first began: “I believe in God the Father——”
The superintendent skipped the second, and asked the third: “Go on, child!”
“I believe in the Holy Ghost!”
“No; I believe in Jesus Christ!”
“No I don’t believe in Him. He believes in Him,” said the boy, pointing towards his overlooked neighbor.
Two sailors were winding up a rope, and did not finish as quickly as they expected.
“Where in the world,” cried one of them impatiently, “is that end?”
“I bet,” returned the other, “they have cut it off.”
The wife of a well-known Berliner presented him on his birthday with a dressing-gown. Agreeably surprised, he tried it on, but found that it was about six inches too long. In the night a violent storm occurred. The anxious wife arose and, to pass the time, took the dressing-gown and shortened it. Then she retired again.
Now, with the family lived a very active sister-in-law, who was in the habit of rising very early. On this morning she saw the dressing-gown, and thinking to please her[270] brother-in-law, she took it down and shortened it six inches more. After breakfast the two ladies went to market, and the husband, thinking of his dressing-gown, before going to business, ordered the cook to take it to the tailor, and have it shortened about six inches. In the afternoon the tailor returned it—a jacket with tails.
“We are nowhere, since we joined the Prussians; we must be soldiers, we must pay taxes, and we must keep our mouths shut!”
“Now, tell the truth, Hans; when were you a soldier? When did you pay taxes, and when did you ever keep your mouth shut?”
A clergyman living near Rastock, had an old man, one of his farm-hands, drive him to Warnemünde to inspect a man-of-war. On the way he talked about the big vessel they were going to see.
“Oh,” said his farm-hand, “I’ve seen a vessel like that often enough.”
“Where did you ever see a man-of-war?”
“At Portsmouth, when my regiment was shipped.”
“How did you get to Portsmouth?”
“We came there from Quebec. I was stationed in Canada a long time. Lots of Indians there. They loafed around the streets, even their color wasn’t like ours.”
“But how did you get there?”
“From Gibraltar, where it’s dreadfully hot, and nothing is there but stones and rocks. Oh yes, they’ve monkeys and loads of dust.”
“But how in the world did you happen to strike Gibraltar?”
“Went with the Englishmen.”
“And how did you get among the Englishmen?”
The farm-hand scratched his head, grinned, and said: “I ran away from here, because I did not want to be a soldier.”
“Could you tell me when the last train for Potsdam is going to leave?” asked a traveler of his neighbor at the station.
“Well,” said he dryly, “I don’t suppose either of us will live to catch it.”
A German merchant dining with a Chinese Mandarin at Hongkong, seemed to be very much[272] pleased with the foreign dishes. He had just been enjoying a roast, when the disquieting thought struck him, that he might have been dining off a cat, as he had been told that the Chinese ate cats as well as rats. He determined to find out. But unluckily the Chinaman did not speak German, and the German did not understand Chinese, so the latter pointed at the dish saying: “Miau, miau!”
“Wow, wow!” said the Chinaman, shaking his head.
At a large evening party, one of the guests stood in a corner yawning.
“Are you very much bored, sir?” asked his neighbor.
“Yes, dreadfully,” was the answer. “And you?”
“Oh I am bored to death too.”
“How would it do, to clear out together?”
“I am sorry I can’t; I am the host.”
“Say, do you think we need the sun more than the moon?” asked one corner-lounger of another.
“What a foolish question,” replied the other;[273] “of course we need the moon more; it’s light enough in daytime anyhow.”
Professor (to a shepherd):—“A shepherd once told me that black sheep eat a great deal less than the white ones. I supposed he told me a story?”
Shepherd:—“No, not at all!”
Professor:—“Well, how is that?”
Shepherd:—“Why, you know there are a great many more white ones than black ones.”
A young officer and a clergyman met at a party. The former, intending to be witty, said: “If I had a stupid son, I would make a clergyman of him!”
The clergyman replied: “How opinions differ! Your sainted father thought otherwise.”
“Which one of you can swim?” asked a gentleman who wished to be rowed across the lake. At once a number of boatmen surrounded him, crying:
“I, sir; I!” Only one remained at a distance.
“Can you not swim?” he asked the man.
“No, sir,” answered the boatman.
“Then you are the one to row me over.”
During war time a parson wished to rouse his congregation to more enthusiastic patriotism, so, when addressing them one day, he cried: “Ha! Already I see the enemy coming, see him enter your village, burn your homes, take away your wives and daughters! Yes, they are coming, they are near; do you see the flags waving? Do you hear the beating of the drums?” at the same time drumming on the pulpit with both fists. Immediately the schoolmaster behind the pulpit imitated the blowing of a bugle. The parson turning around, whispered: “Schoolmaster, what are you doing?”
“I am helping you, sir,” he replied. “I know our farmers. Infantry alone won’t do; you want cavalry too.”
In one of Munich’s streets, a crowd had gathered around a little lost boy. He answered all questions as to his name, where he lived, with: “I don’t know.” There seemed nothing left[275] to do, but to take him to the police station, when some knowing fellow had a bright thought. He planted himself in front of the boy saying, “Now you just tell me, sonny, where do you buy your beer?”
“At the Franziskaner,” was the quick reply. There he was taken and was soon identified.
1. Beware of the first quarrel. When it comes, fight it out bravely to the end; it is of far-reaching consequence, that you should come out victorious.
2. Never forget that you are married to a man, not to a God; then his shortcomings will not surprise you.
3. Do not pester him continually for money, but try to get along with your weekly allowance.
4. If your husband should not possess a heart, he undoubtedly owns a stomach; you will be wise, if you try to gain his favor with well-cooked food.
5. Now and then, not too often, let him have the last word; it pleases him and you lose nothing by it.
6. Read something besides the death and birth-notices in the paper; it will surprise him[276] occasionally, that he can talk about current events and politics at home, without having to go to the tavern for it.
7. Always, even when quarreling, be polite to him. Remember that you looked up to him before marriage; don’t look down on him now.
8. At appropriate intervals permit him to know more than you do; it will preserve his dignity, and it will be to your advantage to acknowledge, now and then, that you are not infallible.
9. Be your husband’s friend, if he is clever; if he is not, try to elevate him to be yours; never descend to his level.
10. Respect your husband’s relatives, particularly his mother; she has loved him longer than you have!
“I count on your taking part in our charity-concert, Doctor. I have often had occasion to admire your beautiful voice.”
“I regret exceedingly, sir, but since I have been married I have no longer a voice.”
Professor Schnudlich (to letter-carrier):—“Any letters for me?”
Letter-carrier:—“What is your name?”
Professor:—“My—my—well now, I can’t think of my own name! I am always forgetting something! And my wife, Frau Professor Schnudlich, is away too. She could tell it to you instantly.”
“How starved this lion looks, and yet the city allows a lot of money for their food!”
“Well, I suppose the keeper takes the lion’s share.”
Lieutenant:—“Then you refuse me your daughter’s hand, sir? Ah, would that my grief might soften your heart!”
Banker:—“I am sorry, sir, but in this instance I don’t follow my heart, but my brain.”
Lieutenant:—“And may I not hope for a softening of the brain?”
A tradesman punished his erring apprentice, saying, at the same time, “How much longer are you going to serve the evil one?”
The boy replied, “You ought to know best, master; I believe my time is up in four months.”
One beautiful summer afternoon, Herr Fraulich decided to take his family for a drive on the Prater in Vienna. After spending two hours over her toilet his wife appeared at last, leading their little son.
“Oh Kathi,” cried the husband, when he saw them, “how could you dress the child up like that! He looks simply crazy! I am not going to take you out this way. I don’t want people to think that I am parading a monkey.”
On this there was an exchange of sharp words, but finally the husband gave in and they set out. But on the stairs, Herr Fraulich, to spoil his wife’s triumph, said, “You may say just what you like, I stick to it—Franz looks just like a monkey.”
At the house-door they met a friend. She greeted them, kissed little Franz, and remarked:
“What an angel of a child your Franz is—the very image of his father!”
Servant:—“I am glad you like the room, sir. I hope you don’t mind smoke!”
Gentleman:—“Oh no, I smoke a great deal myself.”
Servant:—“That’s good; the stove here does too.”
Dude:—“Pshaw! Life is stale! I believe I’ll kill myself some day. But how?”
“Have a thought shoot through your head for once.”
A gentleman who had trouble with his eyes went to an oculist to have them examined. The physician took the eye out, put it on the table, and examined the socket. When he turned around he was horrified to see the cat in the act of swallowing the eye. He grabbed her, carried her outside, took out one of her eyes, and returning to the consulting room, replaced the gentleman’s with the cat’s eye, and told him to come back in a week.
When the patient returned the oculist asked him if he could see.
“Oh, yes,” he answered; “I can see by day as well as by night.”
“Do you sleep well?”
“So, so! One of the eyes sleeps soundly, but it’s strange, the other seems to be constantly on the lookout for mice.”
A missionary was invited to a dinner at which the daughters of the house appeared in low-neck dresses. The host thought it necessary to apologize for the fashion. “Oh,” said the missionary, “I don’t mind it at all. I ought to be used to it, having spent ten years among the aborigines.”
Wife:—“I believe you love your pipe better than you do me!”
Husband:—“Well, that doesn’t go out as much as you do!”
Son:—“Is it true, father, that there are people living on the moon?”
Father (not wishing to betray his ignorance):—“Certainly, son.”
Son:—“But what becomes of the people when the moon wanes?”
Father:—“They wane too.”
“What doctor have you, Rosenthal?”
“What doctor? My neighbor in the next[281] room has a doctor. When he comes to see him, I listen at the door, and whatever he orders, I do. What need have I, then, to spend a lot of good money on a doctor?”
“Will you tell me, my dear friend, how you manage, that you are never pressed for money, but always have plenty of it?”
“That is very simple; I never pay old debts.”
“But how about the new ones?”
“I let them grow old.”
“There is a great deal of talk about women’s faults, and the reasons why they need so much waiting upon. The question has even been asked—by a man of course,—why the dear Lord, in making Eve, from one of Adam’s ribs, did not make a servant for her at the same time.
“We are able to answer this question satisfactorily. She simply did not need a servant.
“And why not? Because Adam never came to Eve, lamenting over a pair of torn socks, asking her to darn them, or with a shirt that had parted company with its buttons, or with a pair of[282] ripped gloves that wanted mending at once. Neither did he walk around in the mud smoking cigars and then come back with boots that needed blacking.
“Neither did he sit yawning behind a newspaper, and, as soon as the sun went down, ask gruffly: ‘Will supper be ready soon?’
“Instead of this, Adam lit the fire himself, put the kettle on, pulled the radishes, pared the potatoes, and, in general, did his duty. He was satisfied with one dish, and did not grumble, if Eve did happen to make a mess of it for once. They didn’t bother with serviettes, they used a palmleaf. He didn’t put a boiled shirt in the wash every day. He milked the cows and fed the chickens. He never brought half a dozen friends to dinner, when one was not in the least prepared for them. He did not stay out late at night playing cards; it was not necessary for Eve to sit up and worry. He didn’t lounge around saloons, while Eve sat at home rocking little Cain. He never scolded and looked for his slippers in the corner where ‘he knew’ he had put them. When he took off his boots, he put them in their place under the fig-tree.
“In short—he did not think that Eve had been created for the sole purpose of waiting upon[283] him; he did not harbor the fixed idea, that it was degrading to a man to lighten his wife’s burdens. These are the reasons, gentlemen, why Eve had no need of a servant.”
A vivacious woman, who was talking to a statesman about the Woman’s Rights question, suddenly asked:
“What position would you give me if women filled government positions as well as the men?”
“I would give you the management of a deaf and dumb asylum.”
“And why?”
“Because those unfortunates would either have to learn to talk or you would have to learn to keep silent.”
Reason is the only thing we can lose without ever having possessed it.
Gentleman:—“Don’t you love Heine?”
Old Maid:—“Why should I? The man is dead!”
“Waiter, close those windows; there is a draught, and I am suffering with rheumatism. I can’t have the door open, either, or my feet get cold, and don’t you go and wipe those tables, you’ll raise a dust and I have a cough! My tea must not be strong either, as I am nervous.”
“If I were you, I would go to a hospital and be put in an incubator.”
Gentleman:—“At fifty we may call the ladies ‘old women,’ may we not, gracious lady?”
Lady:—“Certainly, and many men much sooner.”
Some one says of the residents of Munich: “When they rise in the morning they are beer barrels, and when they retire at night they are barrels of beer.”
Father (to his son going on a long journey):—“Benjamin, when you arrive at Krotoschin,[285] you needn’t waste any paper writing a letter. I’ll give you a stamped envelope addressed to me; you just mail that, and I’ll know that you arrived safely.”
Son:—“Father, you can save the postage. I’ll mail it without the stamp, and you just refuse to take it.”
Mother:—“I wish you would tell me, Franz, why you don’t want to marry Fräulein Neumann. I tell you, the girl is a pearl.”
Son:—“That is quite possible, but I don’t like the mother-of-pearl.”
A thief while at confession, stole the confessor’s watch.
“I have stolen,” declared the thief.
“Then you must give the stolen article back to its owner,” said the priest.
“I will give it to you.”
“No, I don’t want it.”
“But if the owner won’t take it,” asked the thief, “what shall I do then?”
“Then, in God’s name, keep it,” answered the unsuspecting priest.
A:—“Look, on the weather-vane of that church-tower sits a fly.”
B:—“Yes, I see him, and what’s more, he is yawning just now, and has a hollow tooth in his mouth.”
Three wags met an old Jew. “Good-morning, Father Abraham!” cried the first. “Good-morning, Father Isaac!” the second. “Good-morning, Father Jacob!” the third.
“You are mistaken, gentlemen,” said the Jew; “I am neither Abraham, nor Isaac, nor Jacob; I am Saul, who went to look for his father’s asses, and I’ve found them, I’ve found them!”
“You villain,” said the judge to the horse-thief, just brought before him, “how did you dare to steal a horse from the street, in the middle of the day?”
“I steal a horse?” returned the thief. “Let me tell your Honor, that in a very narrow street a horse stood right in my way. I was in a hurry, and wanted to drive him on in front[287] of me when a voice cried, ‘Take care, that horse kicks!’ Then I tried to push past him, and go my way, when somebody called out, ‘Hold on, that beast bites!’ Now what else could I do, if I did not want to be bitten, but to jump on him as quickly as I could? And I had hardly touched the saddle when the impatient horse takes the bit between his teeth and runs. He took me fourteen miles, and that is how I came to be here, your Honor. Now did I steal that horse, or did that horse steal me?”
Doctor (to a patient whose wife died six months before):—“You may live a good many years yet, if you are careful.”
Patient:—“That’s all right, Doctor, but just think of the reception my sainted wife will give me if I keep her waiting so long.”
“Well, Louise, as the wife of such a promising physician, you must lead a charming life!”
“Oh, yes! a very charming life, to sit all day long, muffled up to my eyes, in the waiting room, making believe I’m a patient!”
“Oh say, I like this statue!”
“So do I; just think of having two throats, and to be permitted to carry the door-key!”
“Sarah,” said Moritz one morning to his wife, “Sarah, offer me one hundred and fifty marks for my hops!”
Sarah:—“Well, I offer you one hundred and fifty marks for your hops.”
Moritz then went to the hop market where a dealer offered him one hundred marks for his crop.
“What,” cries Moritz, indignantly, “one hundred marks! May the lightning strike me, if I haven’t already been offered to-day one hundred and fifty marks.”
Neighbor:—“What in the world is your husband doing in the laundry all morning?”
The Poet’s Wife (angrily):—“He is forever writing his poetry on his cuffs! Now he is hunting in the wash-boiler, for the fourth verse of his last poem.”
“My wife is attention personified! Some time ago I happened to mention that I loved all lilacs—and what do you suppose I saw, when my birthday came around?”
“Well—a beautiful bouquet of lilacs on the table.”
“No, sir! My wife, in a new lilac dress!”
Herr Schanz, of Berlin, came to W. on a pleasure trip. He stopped at the hotel “Krone,” and was given a room on the third floor.
That night he started for home feeling a little muddled. He lost his way, and strayed into the hotel “Kronprince” on the same street, which was only two stories high. When he reached the second floor and saw the roof above him, he shook his heavy head incredulously, and shouted down the stairs, “Say, porter, what kind of a monkey-shine is this? What’s become of that third story?”
“You need not be so proud of your flowers,” said the thorns to the rose-bush. “It is to us you owe the greater part of your popularity!”
“What! your parents wish to force you to marry that old banker!”
“Indeed they do, and what is more, they want me to study medicine, as he is always ailing!”
“Good gracious, fellow, did I not order you to burn all my old love-letters, and here I find them bound on your table?”
“Please excuse me, Captain, but my cook always wanted a guide for love-letters, and so I thought yours would do nicely!”
Host (to a stranger who is settling his account):—“I am two marks short of your change. Let me look at the account again, perhaps I can think of something else to put down!”
A:—“Who is the gentleman, to whom you were speaking a while ago?”
B:—“Ah, that’s a great man! He is one of the ten-thousand foremost writers of our day!”
Gentleman (in a cigar store):—“Can you recommend that brand of cigars, ‘Ne plus Ultra’ with a good conscience.”
Dealer:—“Certainly, sir; they are absolutely perfect and remarkably cheap.”
Gentleman (smilingly lighting one of them):—“I am very glad to hear you say so—all the more, since you wrote to me, that they were not fit to smoke, and not worth half the money I charged you for them. I am the manufacturer!”
“The best thing for us to do, my dear Edward, will be to get an automobile. If we ride up to the dry-goods store in one of these, we can get enough goods on credit, so that we can live well by simply pawning them.”
“Since your future husband is so devoted to all kinds of sports, I suppose you will make your wedding trip in a balloon?”
“Why no, that is out of date,—in a submarine vessel.”
“The people living in our part of the city are of that class who can pawn their automobiles during the carnival season.”
“Well, how is your flying-machine progressing?”
“I am sorry to say, it fell into the ocean.”
“And how far along are you with your submarine boat?”
“That flew up into the air!”
“You must get an automobile, Rudolph!”
“Well, I might get one on credit—but how about the benzine?”
A woman lawyer, showing her dresses, said, “In this dress, my dear friends, I defended the infamous murderer, Muller; in this, the well-known burglar, Schlosser; in this, the clever green-goods man, Shlapinski; and in this, I represented the Countess Flirtinski, in her divorce suit.”
A:—“The young Baron seems a very harmless sort of fellow.”
B:—“Not any more—he bought an automobile yesterday.”
Professor:—“My wife tells me that Fräulein Melanie is fairly in love with her automobile! Another instance of man being replaced by a machine!”
Dealer (who has just been knocked down by an auto):—“What do you think of that Baron! First, he borrows my benzine, and then he runs over me with his automobile!”
Automobile Dealer:—“I can recommend this motor of twelve horsepower; with it you can run over the largest furniture van with ease.”
“Why was your marriage put off?”
“Because when we autoed to be wedded, we ran over the magistrate who was to tie the knot.”
“Papa, now let me tell you; either you buy me an auto, or I’ll use you as the comic character in my new novel.”
Brakeman (to couple walking on the ties):—“Don’t you know that it is not only forbidden, but very dangerous, to walk on the ties?”
“Yes, but not nearly so dangerous as on the highway with all those red devils running about.”
“Automobile all right—well built!—How much?”
“Seven thousand, five hundred marks.”
“Yearly payments?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good! I’ll take the auto with me! I’ll pay one hundred marks per annum. My father and grandfather both lived to be over seventy!”
“Johann, has my husband returned from his auto ride?”
“No, gracious lady, and the third policeman has just been here, asking for him.”
Father (to his daughter’s fiancée):—“Besides the necessary outfit, we can give our daughter only an automobile, a piano, and a camera!”
“How did you come to buy an auto?”
“Well, it happened this way. I wanted to get some delicatessen for supper, but made a mistake in the shop door and got into an automobile place, and as I didn’t want to be so impolite and go off without buying something, I just took an auto.”
She:—“What does this mean? You just consulted the doctor about your catarrh and here you sit and drink beer all day long!”
He (smiling cunningly):—“Well, you see the doctor forbid my smoking dry.”
“If the Baron has so many debts, why doesn’t he find a wealthy wife?”
“Ah, but his debts are so many that one wife wouldn’t do any good at all!”
Young Lawyer:—“Was a client here?”
Clerk:—“One, I think, during the dinner hour; your overcoat is missing.”
Housemaid (rushing into the artist’s studio):—“For heaven’s sake, Herr Pempe, hide yourself—or go away for a time at once! A while ago there were six or eight gentlemen here, who said they were the ‘hanging committee’ and wanted you! I had hard work to get rid of them, but they are coming back soon!”
“I hope your lawyer is not going to let the District-attorney intimidate her!”
“Goodness, no! She is his mother-in-law!”
Husband:—“What did you do with yourself, dear, while I was at the club?”
Wife:—“I was very industrious, I mended all those horrid holes in your lion and tiger skins.”
Husband:—“Why my dear child, what were you thinking of! Those holes were my greatest pride; they represented my best shots!”
Cashier:—“To make you feel perfectly secure, I’ll present you with my photograph.”
Banker:—“Haven’t you one without a beard?”
Malicious Painter:—“Just think, I received three orders for portraits to-day!”
Friend:—“There, now you see, people are not as bad as you paint them.”
Doctor:—“Well, you seem to be quite well again! Did you take my pills every day?”
Countryman:—“Oh, yes, I took them all right. You see, it was this way, doctor. My black hen got at the box of pills and ate them all up. So I killed the hen and ate her, and so I got well again.”
“If I take my cod-liver oil nicely, mother always gives me five pfennig.”
“And what do you do with so much money?”
“Oh, mother puts it into my bank and buys more cod-liver oil with it.”
Boy (to his father in a picture gallery):—“Father, what kind of a painter is this ‘Anonym’ whose name is mentioned so often in the catalogue?”
Father:—“What a foolish boy you are! Anonym is a foreign word and means that the painter wishes to be unknown for the present.”
Father (at home, several hours later):—“It is perfectly dreadful the way you children meddle with everything; there is no end to your mischief! Now my beautiful meerschaum pipe has been broken. Who did it?”
Boy:—“Anonym, father!”
Mother:—“Remember, Franz, it is very naughty to lean on your elbows as you are doing just now.”
Franz (pointing at a picture of the Sistine Madonna hanging in the room):—“Oh, but mother, those two angels there are doing the same thing.”
Little Baroness:—“When people die they go to heaven, do they not? and when a child dies it goes to heaven too——”
Baroness:—“And is called an angel.”
Little Baroness:—“But, mamma, if one of us should die we would be called ‘von angel,’ of course?”
Child:—“Mamma is it true that people are made of dust?”
Mother:—“Yes, my dear.”
Child:—“Are the negroes made of coal-dust, then?”
A teacher took an apple from one of the pupils, and after awhile, believing himself unnoticed, ate it. The pupil began to cough. “What is the matter with you,” asks the teacher.
“Why, my apple went down the wrong way, sir.”
Mother (to her six year old son):—“Fritz, how did this happen? Your new trousers have already several holes in them!”
Fritz:—“Oh, but mother, you can’t expect me to be always looking out for what goes on behind my back!”