What's your hurry? A deck full of jokers

"Why," said he, "I myself experienced the tortures of the Inquisition in that room you see yonder."

"What are those affairs in sight?" I asked.

"I played roulette there, and was broken at the wheel."

Although I never went through a similar experience I could sympathize with Craigie.

Leaving out the wheel part of it, his condition has usually been a constitutional failing of mine, and was that morning when I called at the office of the Sunday paper.

Now, if there is anything I dislike it's to see an editor show his temper.

Some of them are really too provoking.

So when I happened in and found the man who runs the comic supplement frothing at the mouth I tried to soothe him.

"Christopher Columbus!" I remarked, pleasantly, after my usual way, "you seem to be out of humor this morning."

"That's all right," he snarled; "you can't sell me any."

What a husband that bear must be; not domestic, after my own fashion, for I dearly love to do errands for my wife.

Of course I sometimes make blunders in shopping, but then experience teaches one, and in time I hope to be able to hold my own with the tricky tradesmen who look upon me as a soft mark.

When the mistake is really atrocious I get a good calling down, and sometimes have to resort to strategy in order to save the day.

The lady of the house was indignant this evening when I came home from my weary round of the newspaper offices.

"The joke is on you, George," she said.

I wondered which one, for the day had not been productive of much long green.

"What's it all about?" I asked.

"Why, that mattress I told you to buy."

"Well, I bought it all right," I protested, feebly.

"Yes, and instead of sending home a mattress of live goose feathers, you purchased one of excelsior."

"How can you blame me, my dear," I said, "when I assure you it had a placard fastened to it which read 'Marked Down'? That furniture man is a prevaricator, that's all."

Those sharks who sell furniture must have some connection with fishermen, to judge from the thundering big lies they tell.

Now, I am fond of going fishing myself.

Perhaps I take a deeper interest in the whooping big yarns spun around the blazing camp fire by a set of jolly sportsmen than in the taking of mighty strings of fish.

Still, I delight to lure the festive trout out of the wet.

I've met some fellows who like old-fashioned methods, and succeed where the rest with their expensive tackle fail.

One day I had a remarkable run of luck, and that night as we sat around the camp fire, I took occasion to say that my success was due to the superior kind of flies I had used.

"You may flatter yourself on the string you've brought in to-day," said an old fisherman who had joined our party, "but let me tell you, mister, that I saw a Digger Indian catch more fish in one hour in this stream than you've landed all day with your fine flies."

"What bait did he use?" I asked.

"Live grasshoppers," replied the old man; "but he didn't impale them. From his head he would stoically pluck a hair, and with it bind the struggling insect to the hook. Almost upon the instant that this bait struck the water a fish would leap for it. After landing him the Indian would calmly repeat the performance of snatching a hair from his head and affixing a fresh grasshopper to the hook.

"After the Indian had landed in quick succession a mighty string of salmon trout he suddenly stopped. I called to him to go on with the exciting sport, but he merely smiled grimly and pointed significantly to his head."

"What was the matter with his head?" I asked.

"He had plucked it bald," replied the old man.

There have been some occasions when I've felt myself as though I would like to pluck my hair out, though it is generally on account of some stupidity on my part.

And if you don't mind I will tell you right here, how.

I put my foot in it the other night.

I was so provoked at my stupidity that I came near retiring to a nunnery, or taking a solemn vow not to speak a single word for a week.

Now, I haven't an unusually large mouth, and yet when I related my unfortunate break to Charlie Parsons, the cashier of our bank, he was cruel enough to hint that perhaps some people never could open their mouth without putting their foot in it.

I call that decidedly uncharitable, don't you?

But about this stupid remark of mine.

It was a big reception you know, a mixed company, where one was apt to meet any sort of an old star.

Some famous chaps were there, too.

I honored it with my presence.

At the table I chanced to sit next to a learned professor, head of a famous college. And during the meal some fiendish spirit induced me to turn toward him and say:

"Professor, can you tell me who that uncommonly ugly lady is, opposite to you?"

He looked at me with a wicked smile.

"Sir," he said, "she chances to be my wife."

Of course I was overwhelmed with confusion, and to crawl out of the hole I did what any other person would have done under the same circumstances.

"Pardon me, professor, but I mean the lady on the right."

"And that, sir, is my daughter," he said, solemnly.