Drink
It was nine o'clock in the morning, but this particular passenger on the
platform of the trolley car still wore a much crumpled evening suit.
As the car swung swiftly around a curve this riotous liver was jolted
off, and fell heavily on the cobble stones. The car stopped, and the
conductor, running back, helped the unfortunate man to scramble to his
feet. The bibulous passenger was severely shaken, but very dignified.
"Collision?" he demanded.
"No," the conductor answered.
"Off the track?" was the second inquiry.
"No," said the conductor again.
"Well!" was the indignant rejoinder. "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have
got off."
* * *
The very convivial gentleman left his club happy, but somewhat dazed. On
his homeward journey, made tackingly, he ran against the vertical iron
rods that formed a circle of protection for the trunk of a tree growing
by the curb. He made a tour around the barrier four times, carefully
holding to one rod until he had a firm grasp on the next. Then, at last,
he halted and leaned despairingly against the rock to which he held, and
called aloud for succor:
"Hellup! hellup! Somebody let me out!"
* * *
The highly inebriated individual halted before a solitary tree, and
regarded it as intently as he could, with the result that he saw two
trees. His attempt to pass between these resulted in a near-concussion
of the brain. He reeled back, but presently sighted carefully, and tried
again, with the like result. When this had happened a half-dozen times,
the unhappy man lifted up his voice and wept.
"Lost--Lost!" he sobbed. "Hopelessly lost in an impenetrable forest!"
* * *
The proprietor of the general store at the cross-roads had his place
overrun by rats, and the damage was such that he offered a hundred
dollars reward to anyone who would rid him of the pests. A
disreputable-appearing person turned up one morning, and announced that
he was a professional rat-killer.
"Get to work," the store-keeper urged.
"I must have a pound of cheese," the killer declared.
When this had been provided:
"Now give me a quart of whiskey."
Equipped with the whiskey, the professional spoke briskly:
"Now show me the cellar."
An hour elapsed, and then the rat-catcher galloped up the cellar stairs
and leaped into the store. His face was red, the eyes glaring, and he
shook his fists in defiance of the world at large, as he jumped high in
air and shouted:
"Whoopee! I'm ready! bring on your rats!"
* * *
Two Southern gentlemen, who were of very convivial habits, chanced to
meet on the street at nine o'clock in the morning after an evening's
revel together. The major addressed the colonel with decorous solemnity:
"Colonel, how do you feel, suh?"
The colonel left nothing doubtful in the nature of his reply:
"Major," he declared tartly, "I feel like thunder, suh, as any Southern
gentleman should, suh, at this hour of the morning!"
* * *
The old toper was asked if he had ever met a certain gentleman, also
notorious for his bibulous habits.
"Know him!" was the reply. "I should say I do! Why, I got him so drunk
one night it took three hotel porters to put me to bed."
* * *
A farmer, who indulged in sprees, was observed in his Sunday clothes
throwing five bushels of corn on the ear into the pen where he kept half
a dozen hogs, and he was heard to mutter:
"Thar, blast ye! if ye're prudent, that orter last ye."
* * *
A mouse chanced on a pool of whiskey that was the result of a raid by
prohibition-enforcement agents. The mouse had had no previous
acquaintance with liquor, but now, being thirsty, it took a sip of the
strange fluid, and then retired into its hole to think. After some
thought, it returned to the pool, and took a second sip of the whiskey.
It then withdrew again to its hole, and thought. Presently, it issued
and drew near the pool for the third time. Now, it took a big drink. Nor
did it retreat to its hole. Instead, it climbed on a soap box, stood on
its hind legs, bristled its whiskers, and squeaked:
"Now, bring on your cat!"
* * *
The owner of a hunting lodge in Scotland presented his gamekeeper with a
fur cap, of the sort having ear flaps. When at the lodge the following
year, the gentleman asked the gamekeeper how he liked the cap. The old
man shook his head dolefully.
"I've nae worn it since the accident."
"What accident was that?" his employer demanded. "I've heard of none."
"A mon offered me a dram, and I heard naething of it."
* * *
The old farmer was driving home from town, after having imbibed rather
freely. In descending a hill, the horse stumbled and fell, and either
could not, or would not, get to its feet again. At last, the farmer
spoke savagely:
"Dang yer hide, git up thar--or I'll drive smack over ye!"
* * *
Mrs. Smith addressed her neighbor, whose husband was notoriously brutal,
and she spoke with a purr that was catty:
"You know, my dear, my husband is so indulgent!"
And the other woman retorted, quite as purringly:
"Oh, everybody knows that. What a pity he sometimes indulges too much!"
* * *
In the days before prohibition, a bibulous person issued from a saloon
in a state of melancholy intoxication, and outside the door he
encountered a teetotaler friend.
The friend exclaimed mournfully:
"Oh, John, I am so sorry to see you come out of such a place as that!"
The bibulous one wept sympathetically.
"Then," he declared huskily, "I'll go right back!" And he did.
* * *
When the Kentucky colonel was in the North, some one asked him if the
Kentuckians were in fact very bibulous.
"No, suh," the colonel declared. "I don't reckon they're mo' than a
dozen Bibles in the whole state."
* * *
The Irish gentleman encountered the lady who had been ill, and made
gallant inquiries.
"I almost died," she explained. "I had ptomaine-poisoning."
"And is it so?" the Irishman gushed. And he added in a burst of
confidence: "What with that, ma'am, and delirium tremens, a body these
days don't know what he dare eat or drink."
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