MOTHERS-IN-LAW

The lady bather had got into a hole and she couldn’t swim.  Nor could the young man on the end of the pier; but when she came up for the first time and he caught sight of her face, he could shriek, and he did.  He shrieked: 

“Help!”

A burly fisherman sauntered to his side.

“Wot’s up?” he asked.

“There!” hoarsely cried the young man.  “My wife!  Drowning!  I can’t swim!  A hundred dollars for you if you can save her.”

In a moment the burly fisherman was in the sea.  In another he was out of it, with the rescued lady bather.  Thanking his lucky stars, he approached the young man again.

“Well, what about the hundred bones?” he asked.

But if the young man’s face had been ashen gray before, now it was dead white, as he gazed upon the features of the recovered dame.

“Y-e-s, I know!” he gasped.  “But when I made the offer I thought it was my wife who was drowning; and now—­now it turns out it was my wife’s mother!”

The burly fisherman pulled a long face.  “Just my luck!” he muttered, thrusting his hand into his trousers pocket.  “How much do I owe you?”

“Is your wife’s mother enjoying her trip to the mountains?” “I’m afraid not.  She’s found something at last that she can’t walk over.”

MOVING PICTURES

A recent movie comedy showed on the screen a bevy of shapely girls disrobing for a plunge in the “old swimming-pool.”  They had just taken off shoes, hats, coats and were beginning on—­a passing freight-train dashed across the screen and obscured the view.  When it had passed, the girls were frolicking in the water.

An old railroader sat through the show again and again.  At length an usher tapped him on the shoulder.

“Aren’t you ever going home?” he asked.

“Oh, I’ll wait a while,” was the answer.  “One of these times that train’s going to be late.”

“Didn’t anybody criticise you for filming an automobile in ancient Babylon?”

“No.  But I had a dozen letters calling my attention to the fact that the car showed a California license tag.”

Moving day comes on May 1st, but every day in the year is movie day.

SLAPSTICK DIRECTOR—­“Can’t you suggest a novel from which we could adapt a comedy?”

COMEDIAN—­“My memory isn’t very accurate, but isn’t there a book called ’Alice Threw the Looking-glass’?”

MOVIE OPERATOR—­“What shall I do with this film?  There is a tear in it that cuts right through the hero’s nose!”

CLEVER MANAGER—­“Ha! just the thing!  Bill it as a feature in two parts.”

PROMOTER—­“I have here a scheme for revamping old films.”

MANAGER—­“Beat it!  I’m too busy refilming old vamps.”

An old couple from the country wandered into a moving picture show in town.  As they entered a cow-boy picture was being shown.