Atchoo! Sneezes from a Hilarious Vaudevillian

Being of an investigating turn of mind, and anxious to learn all that was possible concerning the latest fad, I cornered old Bijinks out near the hog-pen and engaged him in conversation, during which he made a positive assertion that rather staggered me.

"Do you mean to tell me that you actually believe Christian Science cured you?" I demanded, eagerly.

"Sure," he said, nodding.

"Of appendicitis?"

"B'gosh, no – of Christian Science."

There was a crusty old bachelor at the house who got disgusted with the spoony couples and came up to my room to talk it over with me.

"What is love, anyway?" he demanded.

"Intoxication," I answered, unguardedly.

"Right," he quickly said, "then possibly marriage must be delirium tremens."

Before I could recover my breath he fired another hot shot at me.

"There's three things I never could stand if I ever married."

"And what are they?" I asked.

"Triplets."

I tried to give him the old gag about a woman's heart being a gold mine.

"That's right," he said; "you've got to prospect it before you find out what it's worth; and I know a whole lot of fellows who've gone broke prospecting."

That landlord of ours up in the glorious Catskills was a hard subject to catch napping, and many a time I've watched him crawl out of a hole with hardly an effort.

Probably it requires considerable nerve to run a summer resort hotel, and meet all the requirements which the traveling public seem to expect.

On one occasion I heard a tourist who had just arrived ask him the old chestnut:

"Is this a good place, landlord, do you think, for a person affected with a weak chest?"

"None better, sir, none better."

"I've been recommended, you know, by the doctor, to spend the summer in some mountain region where the south wind blows. Does it blow much here?"

"Why sure, it's always the south wind that blows here," replied the landlord, stoutly.

"Ah, indeed, then how do you account for it blowing from the north just now?"

"That's easy enough, sir – you see it's the same old south wind on its road back again."

That landlord was a jewel, and afforded me considerable entertainment during my sojourn; but he had a neighbor, a stout German farmer, who took the cake when it came to doing business.

Le'me tell you about his experience with the insurance agent, for it was certainly laughable, though old Platzenburger didn't see it that way.

It seems that the house of the farmer, insured for a thousand dollars, had burned down. The privilege of replacing a burned house is reserved by insurance companies and the agent, having this in mind, said to the farmer:

"We'll put you up a better house than the one you had for six hundred dollars."

"Nein!" said Platzenburger, emphatically. "I vill have my one tousand dollar or notings! Dot house could not be built again for even a tousand."

"Oh, yes, it could," said the insurance man. "It was an old house. It doesn't cost so much to build houses nowadays. A six-hundred-dollar new house would be a lot bigger and better than the old one."

Some months later, when the insurance man was out for a day's shooting, he rode up again to the farmer's place.

"Just thought I'd stop while I was up here," he said, "to see if you wanted to take out a little insurance."

"I got notings to insure," said Platz, "notings but my vife."

"Well, then," said the insurance man cheerfully, "insure her."

"Nein!" said the farmer, with determination. "If she die, you come out here and say, 'I not give you one tousand dollar. I get you a bigger und a better vife for six hunded.' No, sir, I dakes no more insurance oud!"

You must excuse me if I have to call a temporary halt upon these proceedings and indulge in a little vociferous sneeze, for a cold in the head is no respecter of persons. This is the sneeze, sung in a sad, sobbing minor:

I've got a cold with snuffles in;
What kind of a cold have you?
I've got the kind that makes me sin
By craving fizzes made of gin
And other stuff with bad booze in —
What kind of a cold have you?

I've got the kind that makes one hoarse;
What kind of a cold have you?
To speak requires my utmost force;
My voice is rough, and harsh, and coarse,
And strains its laryngital source —
What kind of a cold have you?

I've got a cold that makes me mad —
What kind of a cold have you?
That makes me reticent and sad,
That puts me plainly to the bad,
The worstest cold I ever had —
What kind of a cold have you?

I suppose you know I was on a tour in Florida and other parts of the Sunny South last winter?

There is a tradition down there that if a mule kicks a darky on the head the wretched mule is sure to go lame.

When I was down there I happened to notice a little colored girl limping along the street, her feet done up in immense bandages of sacking.

"What's the matter with your feet?" was my natural inquiry.