“Didn’t you notice that he counted his fingers after I had shaken hands with him and we were coming away?”

PROMOTION

Promotion cometh neither from the east nor the west, but from the cemetery.—­Edward Sanford Martin.

PROMPTNESS

“Are you first in anything at school, Earlie?”

“First out of the building when the bell rings.”

The head of a large business house bought a number of those “Do it now” signs and hung them up around his offices.  When, after the first few days of those signs, the business man counted up the results, he found that the cashier had skipped out with $20,000, the head bookkeeper had eloped with the stenographer, three clerks had asked for a raise in salary, and the office boy had lit out for the west to become a highwayman.

“Are you waiting for me, dear?” she said, coming downstairs at last, after spending half an hour fixing her hat.

“Waiting,” exclaimed the impatient man.  “Oh no, not waiting—­sojourning.”

PRONUNCIATION

A tale is told of a Kansas minister, a great precisionist in the use of words, whose exactness sometimes destroyed the force of what he was saying.  On one occasion, in the course of an eloquent prayer, he pleaded: 

“O Lord! waken thy cause in the hearts of this congregation and give them new eyes to see and new impulse to do.  Send down Thy lev-er or lee-ver, according to Webster’s or Worcester’s dictionary, whichever Thou usest, and pry them into activity.”

“I’m at the head of my class, pa,” said Willie.

“Dear me, son, how did that happen?” cried his father.

“Why, the teacher asked us this morning how to pronounce C-h-i-h-u-a-h-u-a, and nobody knew,” said Willie, “but when she got down to me I sneezed and she said that was right.”

See also Liars.

PROPORTION

A middle-aged colored woman in a Georgia village, hearing a commotion in a neighbor’s cabin, looked in at the door.  On the floor lay a small boy writhing in great distress while his mother bent solicitously over him.

“What-all’s de matter wif de chile?” asked the visitor sympathetically.

“I spec’s hit’s too much watermillion,” responded the mother.

“Ho! go ’long wif you,” protested the visitor scornfully.  “Dey cyan’t never be too much watermillion.  Hit mus’ be dat dere ain’t enough boy.”

PROPOSALS

A love-smitten youth who was studying the approved method of proposal asked one of his bachelor friends if he thought that a young man should propose to a girl on his knees.

“If he doesn’t,” replied his friend, “the girl should get off.”