Step Lively! A Carload of the Funniest Yarns that Ever Crossed the Footlights

When I mentioned my prejudice to Bob Corwin only the other day he fairly jumped on me.

"Disapprove of it!" he said, "Great Scott, no! I wouldn't have it different for the world. Why, it was as good as a circus this morning to watch and listen to my wife when her collar button rolled under the dresser."

It was this same good little wife of Bob's who made something of a mistake a while back.

They had a pretty maid at their house, and perhaps Bob, quite naturally, let his eyes follow her a few times in an absent-minded way.

Men frequently do that, you know – don't mean anything wrong at all, and just simply – well, look.

Of course his better half noticed it.

Now, she was no more jealous than the majority of her sex, but somehow she foolishly began to suspect that he was in the habit of kissing the girl in the kitchen and was determined to catch him in the act.

One Saturday night she saw him pass quietly into the kitchen.

The hired girl was out, and the kitchen dark.

The jealous wife took a few matches in her hand, and, hastily placing a shawl over her head, as the hired girl often did, entered the back door.

Immediately she was seized and kissed and embraced in an ardent manner.

With heart almost bursting, the wife prepared to administer a terrible rebuke to the faithless spouse.

Tearing herself away from his fond embrace, she struck a match and stood face to face with Patrick, the hired man.

My colored barber takes an affectionate interest in my personal appearance.

No doubt he knows how much depends on my presenting a handsome front while on the stage.

"Youh hair 'pears to be fallin' out, boss," he remarked, yesterday, while trimming my locks, "I reckons I kin save it.'"

"All right," I said, promptly, "save it if you want to. I've got no use for it."

Perhaps he makes sofa cushions for the trade.

"I hear your name was proposed as a member of the Bon Ton Colored Artists' Club. Did you get in?" I asked him later on.

"Not dat time, boss. You see, dey white-balled me," he said.

Adolphus has a streak of humor in him.

He is particularly sensitive to the comic-paper jokes connected with a darky's love for chickens and watermelons.

As the years roll on those chestnuts never seem to die.

The barber grew so touchy that he hated the sight of fowls, and even refused to eat eggs.

One day his next door neighbor in Jersey City looked over the wall dividing their places.

"Seem to be busy, Adolphus – what you doing?"

"Jest plantin' some of my seeds, dat's all," remarked Adolphus.

"H'm, thought it looked like you was planting one of my hens."

"Dat's all right, Mr. Johnsing – de seed am inside," said Adolphus.

Adolphus was telling me recently about the poor success a book agent had with his wife.

He was selling a "Mother's Guide."

"With the aid of this indispensable book," he declared, "you will be able to bring up your children properly."

Mrs. Adolphus took the book and weighed it thoughtfully in her hand.

Then she caught it by the edge and brought it down on the palm of her hand, as if to see if it could be handled with ease and dexterity.

"I reckon I don't want it," she announced, "becase, as a fact, I don't see dat it's any bettah dan a slippah."

That's going back to first principles.

And you know as well as I do, that some of our best men were brought up that way.

There is nothing I enjoy better than the rattle of a political campaign.

Take such a hurly-burly time as we had when Jerome was running in New York for district attorney on the reform ticket.

Sometimes they call on me to make a speech, and if given enough time ahead in which to prepare, I get along all right.

Once, however, I was caught napping.

I had been given to understand that my name would be called last, and settled down to pick up some points from the other fellow's remarks, on which I could build. 'Tis an old trick.

Through some mistake my name was called second, and before I could fully collect my wits, I found myself there on the platform bowing to the applause.

"There seems to be some misunderstanding about my being called so early in the proceedings," I remarked, "and the incident puts me in mind of something that once happened in my native town.

"At the death of an eccentric citizen it was learned that he had himself written his epitaph.

"When the lettering on the stone was completed, we all went to see what our fellow-citizen had to say of himself, and this was what we read under his name and date of death:

"'I expected this, but not so soon.'"

That excused me. They didn't want any more speeches from me. They thought it was an insinuation that our candidate would soon be a dead one.

And while I'm on the subject of politics I want to tell you of a little scene that I always look back on with a grin.

I happened to be in one of those happy Western towns during the heat of a campaign where they serve out cocktails and revolvers to all comers.