All hands got safely into the boat but me. There was so much of me overboard already that I didn't care how soon my skeleton followed.
Finally the ship sank and I found myself astride a big hogshead. I was in an awful situation.
Suddenly, I sighted a flagstaff with a flag attached, and within an hour was in grabbing distance.
"This," I says, "is all right. I'll put the staff in the bung-hole of the barrel and fly a signal of distress."
It flew fine, until a gust of wind took it away. But, as you know, I am a man of resource.
I took off my jacket and hoisted it in the place of the flag.
Another gust of wind came and blew my jacket away. Then I hoisted my shirt. That blew away and I hoisted my socks. Those followed, and I hoisted my trousers.
Say, but it was good I had that barrel. Those pajamas saved my life, though. A week later a passing steamer caught sight of my signal of distress and rescued me.
The first thing I asked the captain was if Rufus had been saved.
"Why," says he, "haven't you heard? He landed at Savannah and cornered the cotton market to the tune of ten million dollars, but he says he's a ruined man because he lost his yacht."
Say, how do you stand on the servant question? I had a girl that beat all outdoors for intelligence.
The other day my wife went out to do some shopping and left Bridget in charge of the house.
When she returned she asked Bridget if any one had called for her.
"Sure, mum," says she, "the babbie called for you all the while you were gone."
That night, when I came home to dinner, I couldn't eat a thing. Everything that wasn't glowing embers, was charcoal. I gave my wife a lecture and told her to fire the girl at once.
My wife went down to Bridget's stronghold and said:
"Bridget, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you'll have to find another place."
"Whoy so, mum?" asked Bridget.
"Well, my husband thinks there's too much waste in the kitchen."
"For the land's sakes, if you'll only let me stay, mum, I'll get a twenty-two corset and lace it until I can't breathe."
One day a friend of mine came to me and says:
"I see you have Bridget Harrohan around the house."
"Yes," says I.
"Do you know that she was in her last situation five years."
"No," says I; "where was that?"
"Sing Sing," says he.
I went home and sent Bridget away.
My wife, in sympathy, recommended her to one of her dearest friends. That sympathy was beautiful to see.
A little later Bridget came back and announced that the friend had engaged her.
"So the lady engaged you, at once, when you told her you had been with me," says she.
"Oh, yes!" says Bridget. "She said any one who could stay with you three months, must be an angel."
Say, I picked up a newspaper this morning, and I was astonished at the great events that are taking place.
I see that George Washington, colored, was appointed postmaster of the town of Gooseberry, N. C., at 9:15 yesterday morning, took up his situation at 9:30, and was lynched at 9:45.
I see that Mark Hanna has donated two millions to be spent in buying ice-cream and ginger snaps for the w-o-r-k-i-n-g-m-a-n.
I had a terrible dream about Mark, last night. It was so terrible that I got right up and dedicated a song to it.
It's entitled:
"What Did I Have For Supper; or, If I Knew What It Was I'd Eat It Again."
A low key, professor. Not a latchkey.
I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And lived in regal state;
That aldermanic feasts were mine,
Served up in Rogers' plate.
I dreamt I once met dear old Ted,
And shook him by the hand;
He said he'd make the niggers
The first men in the land.
I dreamt I saw Mark Hanna
In the Presidential chair;
He had J. P. Morgan seated
Right beside him there.
I dreamt I saw coal king Baer
Stand out upon the street,
Giving tons of coal to all
Within a hundred feet.
I dreamt I saw good Russell Sage
Give millions by the score,
To every poor man in the land,
And some came back for more.
I dreamt that all the Vanderbilts
Had reduced the railroad fare,
And were giving round-trip tickets
To almost everywhere.
I dreamt I had a fortune left
By dear old Harold Payne;
A hundred thousand down, or so,
The lawyers did explain.
I dreamt the Senate quickly passed
The anti-combine laws;
And sent the trusts all limping off
With dislocated jaws.
I dreamt that William Jennings Bryan
Was eventually elected;
They couldn't tell by just what means,
But Dave Hill was suspected.
I dreamt I saw shrewd Tommy Platt
Give doughnuts to the poor,
And when they wouldn't take them
He threw them down the sewer.
I dreamt our friends at Congress
Were running ten-round bouts;
That McLaurin went on with Tillman,
And scored some clean knockouts.
I dreamt there was no grafting,
That politics were clean;
But then, you bet, I just woke up,
I knew that was a dream.
Verily, verily, Republics and friends are ungrateful.
Do you know, all the gentlemen I mentioned in that song I just sang are my friends?
Talking of friends, puts me in mind of an ungrateful cuss I once called by this over-worked figure of speech.
He met me on the street, slapped me on the back, and said:
"Hello, old man!"
"Hello!" says I, "what do you want?"
"What do I want?" says he. "I want ten dollars."
"That's an awful large sum of money, and I'm afraid I haven't got it to lend," says I.
"You've got it in the bank?" says he.
"Yes," says I.
"Now, look here," says he. "The Good Book teaches us that we are all brothers."
"Granted," says I.
"Well," says he, "if I am your brother, by moral right what's yours is mine, and what's mine is yours. If I had the money I'd give it to you so quick it would take your breath away. Now, what you ought to do is to draw that money from the bank."
I rushed down to the bank, and says to the teller:
"Is the cashier in?"
"No," says he, "he's out. Are you a depositor?"
"Yes," says I.
"Then you're out, too; the police are on the trail now."
I went back to Harris, and gave him the last cent I had. He promised to pay me back in an hour.
A month after I met him.
"Say," says I, "how about that money I lent you? You said you only wanted it for a short time."
"That's right," says he, "I only had it for ten minutes. I went into a faro game."
Some time ago, Harris visited a tailor and had an overcoat made. He wanted trust, and the tailor, of course, wanted references.
Harris put up such a bluff that the tailor gave him the overcoat. He certainly played his game to perfection.
Then Harris wouldn't pay.
The tailor came around and said:
"See here, Harris, wasn't I kind enough to let you have that coat on tick? And now you won't pay. I'm sure it was the best that I could make, and it must have worn well."
"Certainly," says Harris, "all my nephews wore it."
"There, didn't I tell you it – " began the tailor.
"Yes," said Harris, "every time it got wet it shrunk so that the next youngest one could wear it."
Then the fun began.
The tailor put the bill into a collector's hands.
The collector called upon Harris.
"I'm sorry for you, old man," said the collector, "but your tailor has put your account into my hands for collection."
"Indeed, I'm so sorry for you. And you say you're going to try to collect it eh?" says Harris. "Well, I am so sorry for you."
The collector couldn't get a cent. Every time he called after that, Harris threw him downstairs.
Why, he got so after a while, that as soon as Harris appeared at the door, he would rush to the stairs and throw himself down.
Harris had him trained.
The tailor hit upon a brilliant scheme.
He hired a woman to collect the bill.
Harris was in a dilemma. He couldn't throw a woman downstairs.
He told me about it, and asked my advice, but I had none to give.
The next time I met him he shook me by the hand and said:
"I got around that woman-collector business all right. She never went back to the bloomin' tailor after the second time she called."
"Why," says I, "how did you manage it?"
"Oh!" says he, "that was dead easy. I just married her."
Did you ever strike one of those people who are dead stuck on their lineage and have charts tacked on their bedroom door, showing how many thousand years they can trace their ancestors?
I struck a "she" specimen the other day.
As soon as we were introduced, she says: "Jones, Jones, surely you are a descendant of the famous family of Joneses, who had their origin in the stone age and lived in a cave on the Palisades, about a mile from Hoboken?"
"I can't remember," says I, "it's so long ago and I have a poor memory."
"Yes, but let us come nearer to the present generation," says she. "You surely are a relative of the Joneses, the Milwaukee millionaires of the same name."
"Yes," I says, "a distant relative."
"How distant?" she says.
"As distant as they can keep me," says I.
"Have you any poor relatives?" says she.
"None that know me," says I.
That got her mad. She says:
"If I were your wife, I would put poison in your coffee."
"And if I was your husband," says I, "I'd drink it."
The other day I met Charlie de Hopen Dagen, the Scotchman, who had just enlisted for service in the Philippines.
"Hello, old man!" says he, "come and have a drink."
I wasn't feeling very thirsty, but I went.
It seemed to me that I had about ten thousand Manhattans, and then we had nine thousand and forty-eight whiskey sours to counterbalance them and try to sober up.
Something made Charlie rampageous, and he began to scrap with the barkeeper and almost killed him.
I finally got Charlie, seeing four moons and ten gangplanks, on board his vessel which was just about to leave.
The next day I met his brother Jim.
"Hello, Walter, I hear you saw Charlie off last night," says he.
"Yes," says I, "he was very much off."
"Was he in good spirits when you left him?" says he.
"Sure," says I, "the best that money could buy. He was a little sick, though."
"I hope it wasn't anything contagious," says he.
"If you could see the barkeeper up in Dan Mulligan's place," says I, "you'd thought it was."
Say, every one says Lakewood is so healthy, know why?
I heard only the other day, from a man who knew all about it.
I went down there, and the first thing I struck was one of those watering carts, plastered over with a patent medicine ad.
"Holy smoke!" says a fellow who stood beside me on the station. "No wonder Lakewood is so healthy. They water the streets with Fakir's Sarsaparilla."
Did you ever notice that when you have been taking liquid refreshments and are feeling good, and can't walk straight, then is the time you meet all your dearly beloved friends who like to talk about you?
The other night I went to a beer party, and when it got time to go home, I felt pretty much so-so.
I started out and the very first fellow I met was Jenkins.
"Why, my dear Walter," says he, "I am surprised. Don't give way to strong drink. Verily, verily, put it behind you."
"Why, parson," says I, "I am very much surprised that you can't see that I've got it behind me now.
"Say," says I, "I fell down stairs last night, parson, with twenty bottles of beer, and didn't break one of them."
"Verily, verily," says he, "that was indeed marvelous. How did you accomplish that extraordinary feat?"
"I had them inside me," says I.
The parson passed on and the next fellow I met was Dr. Brown of Spotless Town.
"What!" says he, "drinking beer again, friend Jones? I thought I told you that every glass of beer you took put a nail in your coffin."
"Can't give it up, doctor," says I. "Then, too, what does it matter after you're dead and gone if your coffin is as full of nails as the new East River Bridge is full of rivets."
I began to get a little confused, and couldn't see very clearly.
I met a friend and says:
"Say, Tom, can you tell me what has become of Walter Jones?"
"Why," says he, "you're Walter Jones yourself, ain't you?"
"I know it," says I, "but I want to know where he's got to."
He took me home.
The next morning my wife thought I was down-hearted. So I was. She tried to cheer me up.
"Oh, Walter! look here, the morning paper says that in Yumyami, Africa, a wife may be bought for twenty yards of cotton cloth."
"Well," says I, "I guess a good wife is worth it."
Then she started on another tack.
"By the way, you know Charlie Benson, don't you?"
I admitted that I did.
"Well," says she, "of late he has become quite attentive. I really think he means to run away with me."
"I'd like to see him do it," says I.
"Why," says she, "here's an account of a very intrepid photographer, who took a picture of a wildcat, just as it was about to spring at him."
"That's nothing," says I. "Jimmy Peck has a snap shot of his wife coming at him with a kettle of boiling water."
"It says here that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. I wonder why?"
"Any fool knows that," says I. "When the lightning comes again the place isn't there to strike."
"Say," says she, "I heard that you spoke to that ugly Mrs. De Fashion yesterday."
"Yes," I assented.
"She had a new hat on; did you notice what it was like?" says she.
"Well," says I, "it had a cowcatcher front, a battered-down funnel, a tailboard behind, a flower garden on top, and a job lot of ribbons streaming down in back. You can easily make one like it."
She soon got tired of trying to cheer me up and quit in disgust. It's a pretty hard job to cheer me up when I'm down-hearted.
Just then the bell rang, and the maid announced the doctor. He came in looking like a big sunflower.
"Sorry, old man, to see you in such a condition last night," says he.
"Bad condition, doctor," says I. "Why, that wasn't a flea bite to the condition I'm in this morning."
"I called upon Rollins this morning," says he, "and I never saw a man in such a complete state of mental depression. He says he was out with you last night. Can't you go around and convince him that his life still holds some future brightness for him?"
"Doctor," says I, "that's impossible. He's drawn his salary three weeks in advance and spent it all last night."
"Do you know," says the doctor, "I had a very remarkable experience last night. A young fellow came to me and said he had swallowed a cent and I made him cough up two dollars."
That doctor has a son that beats anything you ever heard tell of. He has made all his money on apples.
No, he don't grow them. He's a doctor.
It's little green apples I'm talking about now.
When leaving, the doctor told me I must take to automobiling and I would soon get well. I told my wife about it.
"Doc is simple to throw money away like that," says she.
"Don't worry about that," says I. "He charges double price for surgical visits."