Down he went with his pick, and for about fifteen minutes nothing was heard from him. Then came a strong, determined, deliberate pull on the signal rope, indicating that Pat had a very decided wish to come to the top. The assistants pulled him hastily to the raft and removed his helmet.
“Yis,” said Pat, “Oi’ll worruk no longer in a dark place where Oi can’t spit on me hands.”
On the first day that a young man began his duties as reporter on a popular paper a report came from a near-by town that there was a terrible fire raging. The editor of the paper immediately sent the new reporter to the place, and, upon arriving there, he found that the firemen were unable to get control of the fire, so he sent this telegram to the editor: “Fire still raging. What shall I do?” The editor was so mad that he wired back at once: “Find out where the fire is the hottest and jump in.”
“One day,” related Denny to his friend Jerry, “when Oi had wandered too far inland on me shore leave Oi suddenly found thot there was a great big haythen, tin feet tall, chasin’ me wid a knife as long as yer ar-rm. Oi took to me heels an’ for fifty miles along the road we had it nip an’ tuck. Thin Oi turned into the woods an’ we run for one hundhred an’ twinty miles more, wid him gainin’ on me steadily, owin’ to his knowledge of the counthry. Finally, just as Oi could feel his hot breath burnin’ on the back of me neck, we came to a big lake. Wid one great leap Oi landed safe on the opposite shore, leavin’ me pursuer confounded and impotent wid rage.”
“Faith an’ thot was no great jump,” commented Jerry, “considerin’ the runnin’ sthart ye had.”
Quite recently an old friend of the Browns went to see them at their new country home. As he approached the house a large dog ran out to the gate and began barking at him through the fence.
As he hesitated about opening the gate, Brown’s wife came to the door and exclaimed: “How do you do! Come right in. Don’t mind the dog.”
“But won’t he bite?” exclaimed the friend, not anxious to meet the canine without some assurance of his personal safety.
“That’s just what I want to find out,” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. “I just bought him this morning.”
The late Julian Ralph, one of the most gifted newspaper men of his generation, while being shaved one day, was forced to listen to many of the barber’s anecdotes.