thing--I realized the fact and kept still."

Captain "Ian Hay," on one of his war lecture tours, entered a barber's
shop in a small town to have his hair cut.

"Stranger in the town, sir?" the barber asked.

"Yes, I am," Ian Hay replied. "Anything going on here tonight?"

"There's a war lecture by an English fighter named Hay," said the
barber: "but if you go you'll have to stand, for every seat in the
hall is sold out."

"Well, now," said Ian Hay, "isn't that provoking? It's always my luck
to have to stand when that Hay chap lectures."

_See also_ Politicians.

PUBLISHERS

He was a typical gamin, so diminutive in stature that I had to stoop
to interrogate him, which I did in this way:

"Where do you get your papers, my little man?"

"Oh, I buy 'em in the Times alley."

"What do you pay for them?"

"Fi' cents."

"What do you sell them for?"

"Fi' cents."

"You don't make anything at that?"

"Nope."

"Then what do you sell them for?"

"Oh, just to get a chance to holler."

PUNCTUALITY

_Epitaph for Any New Yorker_

I, who all my life had hurried,
Came to Peter's crowded gate;
And, as usual, was worried,
Fearing that I might be late

So, when I began to jostle
(I forgot that I was dead)
Patient smiled the old Apostle:
"Take your Eternity," he said.

--_Christopher Morley_.

_See also_ Alarm clocks.

PUNCTUATION

"Can't you stretch a point?"

"Certainly," said the period. And thus was born the comma.

A high-school girl said to her father the other night:

"Daddy, I've got a sentence here I'd like you to punctuate. You know
something about punctuation, don't you?"

"A little," said her cautious parent, as he took the slip of paper she
handed him.

This is what he read:

"A five-dollar bill flew around the corner"

He studied it carefully.

"Well," he finally said, "I'd simply put a period after it, like
this."

"I wouldn't," said the high-school girl; "I'd make a dash after it!"

PUNISHMENT

In one of the many navy schools a young instructor was attempting to
teach English to a gruff old sailor. "What is a complete sentence?" he
said.

"Solitary confinement, bread and water," was the grim reply.

Among the Monday morning culprits haled before a Baltimore police
magistrate was a darky with no visible means of support.

"What occupation have you here in Baltimore?" asked his Honor.