"Go 'way from me now," said Pat genially, "me head's bustin' wid business. It takes two lid-pincils a day to do me wurruk."
A catalog of farming implements sent out by the manufacturer finally found its way to a distant mountain village where it was evidently welcomed with interest. The firm received a carefully written, if somewhat clumsily expressed letter from a southern "cracker" asking further particulars about one of the listed articles.
To this, in the usual course of business, was sent a type-written answer. Almost by return mail came a reply:
"You fellows need not think you are so all-fired smart, and you need not print your letters to me. I can read writing."
An American motorist went to Germany in his car to the army maneuvers. He was especially impressed with the German motor ambulances. As the tourist watched the maneuvers from a seat under a tree, the axle of one of the motor ambulances broke. Instantly the man leaped out, ran into the village, returned in a jiffy with a new axle, fixed it in place with wonderful skill, and teuffed-teuffed off again almost as good as new.
"There's efficiency for you," said the American admirably. "There's German efficiency for you. No matter what breaks, there's always a stock at hand from which to supply the needed part."
And praising the remarkable instance of German efficiency he had just witnessed, the tourist returned to the village and ordered up his car. But he couldn't use it. The axle was missing.
A curious little man sat next an elderly, prosperous looking man in a smoking car.
"How many people work in your office?" he asked.
"Oh," responded the elderly man, getting up and throwing away his cigar, "I should say, at a rough guess, about two-thirds of them."
In the Chicago schools a boy refused to sew, thinking it below the dignity of a man of ten years.
"Why," said the teacher, "George Washington did his own sewing in the wars, and do you think you are better than George Washington?"
"I don't know," replied the boy seriously. "Only time can tell that."
John D. Rockefeller tells this story on himself:
"Golfing one bright winter day I had for caddie a boy who didn't know me.
"An unfortunate stroke landed me in clump of high grass.