out of that little hole?"

New York Elks are having a lot of fun with a member of their lodge, a
Fifteenth Street jeweler. The other day his wife was in the jewelry
store when the 'phone rang. She answered it.

"I want to speak to Mr. H----," said a woman's voice.

"Who is this?' demanded the jeweler's wife.

"Elizabeth."

"Well, Elizabeth, this is his wife. Now, madam, what do you want?"

"I want to talk to Mr. H----."

"You'll talk to me."

"Please let me speak to Mr. H----."

The jeweler's wife grew angry. "Look here, young lady," she said, "who
are you that calls my husband and insists on talking to him?"

"I'm the telephone operator at Elizabeth, N.J.," came the reply.

And now the Elks take turns calling the jeweler up and telling him it's
Elizabeth.

OPERATOR--"Number, please."

SUBSCRIBER--"I vas talking mit my husband und now I don't hear him any
more. You must of pushed him off de vire."

A German woman called up Central and instructed her as follows:

"Ist dis de mittle? Veil dis is Lena. Hang my hustband on dis line. I
vant to speak mit him."

In China when the subscriber rings up exchange the operator may be
expected to ask:

"What number does the honorable son of the moon and stars desire?"

"Hohi, two-three."

Silence. Then the exchange resumes.

"Will the honorable person graciously forgive the inadequacy of the
insignificant service and permit this humbled slave of the wire to
inform him that the never-to-be-sufficiently censured line is busy?"

Recipe for a telephone operator:

To fearful and wonderful rolling of "r's,"
And a voice cold as thirty below,
Add a dash of red pepper, some ginger and sass
If you leave out the "o" in "hello"!

TEMPER

Hearing the crash of china Dinah's mistress arrived in time to see her
favorite coffee-set in pieces. The sight was too much for her mercurial
temper. "Dinah," she said, "I cannot stand it any longer. I want you to
go. I want you to go soon, I want you to go right now."

"Lawzee," replied Dinah, "this surely am a co-instence. I was this very
minute cogitatin' that same thought in my own mind--I want to go, I
thank the good Lawd I kin go, and I pity your husband, ma'am, that he
can't go."

TEMPERANCE

A Boston deacon who was a zealous advocate for the cause of temperance
employed a carpenter to make some alterations in his home. In repairing
a corner near the fireplace, it was found necess