But afterwards he explained. “’Twas like this:  I chained the monkey to a stick in me yard, and the coal thrains were passin’ all day, and on iv’ry thrain there was a stoker.  In one week I had two tons of coal in me cellar, and the monkey was never wanst hit!”

See also Irish bulls.

JEWS

Pat, answering questions in applying for a job as keeper of the pound, came to the query, “What are rabies and what would you do for them?”

He replied, “Rabies is Jew priests and I wouldn’t do a damn thing for them.”

Israel Paletzky sold and delivered fresh eggs to a near-by soda dispenser.  One day he brought in two dozen eggs in response to an order.  Upon counting them, the proprietor of the soda fountain discovered there was an extra egg and offered it back to the aged Jew.

“Oh, dot’s all right!” said old Israel.  “Neffer mind for chust von egg.”

“Well, Izzy, have a drink then.”

“All right.  I take it a malted milk mit egg.”

To the great God Buddha came the representatives of the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religions, to pay him homage.  Buddha, very flattered, told each of them that if they would express a wish, it would be fulfilled.

“What do you wish?” he asked the Catholic.

The answer was “Glory.”

“You shall have it,” said Buddha, and turning to the Protestant, “What do you wish?”

“Money.”

“You shall have it.”

“And you?” This to the Jew.

“I do not want much,” quoth he; “give me the Protestant’s address!”

Father Duffy is credited by the New York World with this after-dinner story: 

“An old sexton asked me, ‘Father, weren’t the Apostles Jews?’ I said they were.  Puzzled, he demanded:  ’Then how the deuce did the Jews let go of a good thing like the Catholic Church and let the Eytalians grab it?’”—­The Outlook.

In the latest number of the Unpartizan Review Henry Holt tells the following anecdote as used by John Hay: 

“Two Jews,” he said, “were rescued from a raft by a Cunarder.  Both were pretty well used up, when one saw the vessel and murmured, ’A sail, a sail!’ The other who was stretched on the raft revived long enough to exclaim, ‘Mein Gott!  I haf no gatalog!’”

JOKES

Life of a Joke

1—­Appears in LIFE.

2—­Copied in newspaper.

3—­Used in almanac.

4—­Filler on theater program.

5—­Furnishes a laugh in vaudeville.

6—­After-dinner speaker tells it.

7—­Translated in foreign papers.

8—­Retranslated back.  Goes rounds of American papers once more.

9—­Sent to LIFE as original.—­Life.

“Pop, what do we mean by a good listener?”

“A good listener, my son, is a man to whom it is possible to tell a funny story without reminding him of one of his own.”