OCCUPATIONS
Mrs. Hennessey, who was a late arrival in the neighborhood, was
entertaining a neighbor one afternoon, when the latter inquired:
"An' what does your old man do, Mrs. Hennessey?"
"Sure, he's a di'mond-cuttter."
"Ye don't mane it!"
"Yis; he cuts th' grass off th' baseball grounds."--_L.F. Clarke_.
All business men are apt to use the techn
cal terms of their daily
labors in situations outside of working hours. One time a railroad man
was entertaining his pastor at dinner and his sons, who had to wait
until their elders had finished got into mischief. At the end of the
meal, their father excused himself for a moment saying he had to "switch
some empties."
"Professor," said Miss Skylight, "I want you to suggest a course in life
for me. I have thought of journalism--"
"What are your own inclinations?"
"Oh, my soul yearns and throbs and pulsates with an ambition to give the
world a life-work that shall be marvelous in its scope, and weirdly
entrancing in the vastness of its structural beauty!"
"Woman, you're born to be a milliner."
A woman, when asked her husband's occupation, said he was a mixologist.
The city directory called him a bartender.
"A good turkey dinner and mince pie," said a well-known after-dinner
orator, "always puts us in a lethargic mood--makes us feel, in fact,
like the natives of Nola Chucky. In Nola Chucky one day I said to a man:
"'What is the principal occupation of this town?'
"'Wall, boss,' the man answered, yawning, 'in winter they mostly sets on
the east side of the house and follers the sun around to the west, and
in summer they sets on the west side and follers the shade around to the
east.'"
JONES--"How'd this happen? The last time I was here you were running a
fish-market, and now you've got a cheese-shop."
SMITH--"Yes. Well, you see the doctor said I needed a change of air."
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a
grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for
with a great deal of enjoyment--_Douglas Jerrold_.