“Sir,” screeched the wild-haired man, “are you opposed to free speech?”

“Not unless I am compelled to listen to it,” replied old Festus Pester.

FRENCH LANGUAGE

“Does your son who is abroad with the troops understand French?”

“Oh, yes, but he says the people he meets there don’t seem to.”

FRIENDS

  “A fellah come to me today
    And slapped me on the back
  And started makin’, right away,
    The us’al sort of crack
  About how good a friend he was,
    How strong he was for me—­
  But friends don’t need to tell you so,
  There’s other ways to tell you so,”
    Says Charlie Cherokee.

  “When makin’ up my list of friends
    I try to git ’em all;
  The folks who give me recommends,
    Or loans, however small;
  I try to think of all they done
    A friend of mine to be. 
  I find a rainy day is what
  Will tell you who’s a friend or not,”
    Says Charlie Cherokee.

  “I’ve never added to the list
    A man, like this one did,
  Who slapped my back and grabbed my fist
    And started in to kid. 
  For friends don’t need to say a word,
    Their friendship you can see,
  Can see it in a fellah’s eyes—­
  For friends don’t need to advertise,”
    Says Charlie Cherokee.

  —­Douglas Malloch.

  A day for toil, an hour for sport,
  But for a friend life is too short.

—­Emerson.

It’s a pretty safe guess that if you have no friends you have done something to deserve the fix you are in.

A friend who is not in need is a friend indeed.

Friends

Around the corner I had a friend,
In this great city, that has no end. 
Yet days go by and weeks rush on
And before I know it, a year has gone,
And I never see my old friend’s face,
For life is a swift and terrible race. 
He knows I like him just as well
As in the days when I rang his bell,
And he rang mine, we were younger then
And now we are busy, tired men,
Tired of playing the foolish game,
Tired with trying to make a name. 
“Tomorrow” I say, “I’ll call on Jim
Just to show him that I think of him,”
But tomorrow comes, and tomorrow goes,
And the distance between us grows and grows. 
Around the corner—­yet miles away
“Here’s a telegram, sir” Jim died today. 
And that’s what we get and deserve in the end,
Around the corner, a vanished friend.

  —­C.  Hanson Towne.

See also Borrowers.

FRIENDSHIP

“Friendship,” said Uncle Eben, “don’t mean no mo’ to some folk dan a license to borrow money.”

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals.—­Goldsmith.