“Why?” she inquired.

“Because if ’e sees wot ’e’s been carrying for so little money ’e’ll ’ave a fit,” was the freezing answer.

CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS

The Stamp of Learning

“Pa, what’s a postgraduate?”

“A fellow who graduates from one of those correspondence schools, I suppose.”

COSMOPOLITANISM

JOE—­“’Ere, Curly!  You know everything-what’s a cosmopolitan?”

CURLY—­“Well, it’s like this-suppose you was a Russian Jew livin’ in England married to a black woman an’ you’d just finished a bit of Irish stew an’ was smokin’ an Egyptian cigaret, while a German band outside was playin’ the Blue Bells o’ Scotland—­you’d be a cosmopolitan.”

COST OF LIVING

“He has got the first dollar that he ever earned!”

“What a bally ass!  Think how much more he could have bought with it had he spent it then!”

“She says she prefers to do her shopping by telephone.”

“Why so?”

“Says she can’t bear to see how little she is getting for the money.”

“How’s business?”

“Not too good—­thanks to some dishonest rascals who are selling goods at reasonable prices.”

“Did you try the simple plan of counting sheep for your insomnia?”

“Yes, doctor, but I made a mess of it.  I counted ten thousand sheep, put ’em on the train, and shipped ’em to market.  And when I’d got through counting the money I got for them at present prices it was time to get up.”

“Father, I need a new riding habit.”

“Can’t afford it,” he growled.

“But, father, what am I to do without a riding habit?”

“Get the walking habit.”

In these days of the high cost of living the following story has a decided point: 

The teacher of a primary class was trying to show the children the difference between the natural and man-made wonders, and was finding it hard.

“What,” she asked, “do you think is the most wonderful thing man ever made?”

A little girl, whose parents were obviously harassed by the question of ways and means, replied as solemnly as the proverbial judge: 

“A living for a family.”

“Why don’t you move into more comfortable quarters, old man?”

“I can’t even pay the rent on this miserable hole.”

“Well, since you don’t pay rent, why not get something better?”

MRS. HOMESPUN—­“What’ll we contribute to the minister’s
donation-party?”

FARMER HOMESPUN—­“Wal, I dunno, Hannar!  Taters is ’way up, pork is ’way up, fowl is ’way up—­we’ll save money by giving him money.”

A farmer, the other day, took a plowshare to the blacksmith’s to be sharpened, and while the blacksmith worked the farmer chuckled and bragged about a sale of hogs he had just made.