Best Short Stories

"What did you have?"

"A lady done gimme a piece of glass ter suck, boss."


HAD HAD TREATMENT

He was a mine-sweeper, and, home on leave, was feeling a bit groggy. He
called to see a doctor, who examined him thoroughly.

"You're troubled with your throat, you say?" said the doctor.

"Aye, aye, sir," said the sailor.

"Have you ever tried gargling it with salt and water?" asked the doctor.

The mine-sweeper groaned.

"I should say so!" he said. "I've been torpedoed seven times!"


HOW HE GOT THEM

A British soldier was walking down the Strand one day. He had one leg
off and an arm off and both ears missing and his head was covered with
bandages, and he was making his way on low gear as best he could, when
he was accosted by an intensely sympathetic lady who said:

"Oh, dear, dear! I cannot tell you how sorry I am for you. This is
really terrible. Can't I do something? Do tell me, did you receive all
these wounds in real action?"

A weary expression came over that part of the soldier's face that was
visible as he replied:

"No, madam; I was cleaning out the canary bird cage, and the d----d bird
bit me!"


CAESAR VISITS CICERO

How modern are the old fellows. Here is a story related by Cicero in one
of his letters which will recall the embarrassments we have ourselves
felt in the presence of the unexpected.

Cicero gives an account to his friend of a visit he had just received
from the Emperor Julius Caesar. He had invited Julius to pass a few days
with him, but he came quite unexpectedly with a thousand men! Cicero,
seeing them from afar, debated with another friend what he should do
with them but at length managed to encamp them. To feed them was a less
easy matter. The emperor took everything quite easily, however, and was
very pleasant, "but," adds Cicero, "he is not the man to whom I should
say a second time, 'if you are passing this way, give me a call.'"


WHY BE POLITE ANYWAY?

Every seat was occupied, when a group of women got in. The conductor
noticed a man who he thought was asleep.

"Wake up!" shouted the conductor.

"I wasn't asleep," said the passenger.

"Not asleep! Then what did you have your eyes closed for?"

"It was because of the crowded condition of the car," explained the
passenger. "I hate to see the women standing."


THE ARRIVAL OF WILHELM

What may be the Kaiser's ultimate fate is thus amusingly told by _Life_
of the scene in Hell on a certain day:

"What's all the racket about?" said Satan, stepping out of the Brimstone
Bath, where he was giving two or three U-boat commanders an extra
flaying.

"Poor old Hohenzollern has got it in the neck at last," said
Machiavelli, who was hosing off the premises with vitriol in
preparation for a new squad of shirtwaist-factory owners.

Satan listened attentively. Indeed, it was true. The Hohenzollerns had
been booted off the throne of Germany.

"Well, that's tough," said Satan. "I never could see why they chivied
those poor Hohenzollerns so. They were perfect devils. I have often said
so. Poor old Bill! Why, he was one of the best pupils I ever had. I
heard someone say that he had made Belgium a hell upon earth. Wasn't
that a compliment?"

"Not only that," said Machiavelli; "he had the novel idea of making the
sea a hell, too. He and Tirpitz did magnificent work. Not even a party
of schoolgirls could go on the water without getting torpedoed. They
drowned I don't know how many innocent women and children in a manner
worthy of the highest education."

"That deportation of non-combatants from Lille was excellent, too,"