Another negro, a story above, heard the complaint and dropped a brick on the grumbler’s head.

Dazed he looked up and said: 

“De Lawd can’ stan’ no jokes.  He jes’ takes ev’ything in yearnist.”

The late H.C.  Bunner, when editor of Puck, once received a letter accompanying a number of would-be jokes in which the writer asked:  “What will you give me for these?”

“Ten yards start,” was Bunner’s generous offer, written beneath the query.

NEW CONGRESSMAN—­“What can I do for you, sir?”

SALESMAN (of Statesmen’s Anecdote Manufacturing Company)—­“I shall be delighted if you’ll place an order for a dozen of real, live, snappy, humorous anecdotes as told by yourself, sir.”

Jokes were first imported to this country several hundred years ago from Egypt, Babylon and Assyria, and have since then grown and multiplied.  They are in extensive use in all parts of the country and as an antidote for thought are indispensable at all dinner parties.

There were originally twenty-five jokes, but when this country was formed they added a constitution, which increased the number to twenty-six.  These jokes have married and inter-married among themselves and their children travel from press to press.

Frequently in one week a joke will travel from New York to San Francisco.

The joke is no respecter of persons.  Shameless and unconcerned, he tells the story of his life over and over again.  Outside of the ballot-box he is the greatest repeater that we have.

Jokes are of three kinds—­plain, illustrated and pointless.  Frequently they are all three.

No joke is without honor, except in its own country.  Jokes form one of our staples and employ an army of workers who toil night and day to turn out the often neatly finished product.  The importation of jokes while considerable is not as great as it might be, as the flavor is lost in transit.

Jokes are used in the household as an antiseptic.  As scenebreakers they have no equal.—­Life.

  Here’s to the joke, the good old joke,
    The joke that our fathers told;
  It is ready tonight and is jolly and bright
    As it was in the days of old.

  When Adam was young it was on his tongue,
    And Noah got in the swim
  By telling the jest as the brightest and best
    That ever happened to him.

  So here’s to the joke, the good old joke—­
    We’ll hear it again tonight. 
  It’s health we will quaff; that will help us to laugh,
    And to treat it in manner polite.

  —­Lew Dockstader.

  A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
  Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
  Of him that makes it.

  —­Shakespeare.

JOURNALISM

A Louisville journalist was excessively proud of his little boy.  Turning to the old black nurse, “Aunty,” said he, stroking the little pate, “this boy seems to have a journalistic head.”  “Oh,” cried the untutored old aunty, soothingly, “never you mind ’bout dat; dat’ll come right in time.”