“‘Don’t you want to be on the winning side?’ said the soldier to a group of civilians who he was suggesting should don khaki.
“‘How do you know ours will be the winning side?’ asked a prospective recruit.
“‘Well, my lad,’ said the sergeant, ‘you know the Germans have been trying for more than a year and a half to win and have failed, don’t you?’
“‘Well, then, we’ve been trying to lose during the same period and we couldn’t.’”
As the regiment was leaving, and a crowd cheering, a recruit asked: “Who are all those people who are cheering?”
“They,” replied the veteran, “are the people who are not going.”—_Life._
Officer (to boy of thirteen who, in his effort to get taken on as a bugler, has given his age as sixteen)—“Do you know where boys go who tell lies?”
Two fair munition workers were discussing their personal affairs.
“Yes; and he’s a regular toff. He’s manager at ——.”
“You don’t say so! Why, they tell me he’s real refined.”
“Rather! Why, he took me to a restaurant last week, and when we had coffee he poured it into a saucer to cool it, but he didn’t blow it like common people would—he fanned it with his hat!”
A farmer the other day took a plowshare to the blacksmith’s to be sharpened, and while the blacksmith worked the farmer chuckled and bragged about a sale of hogs he had just made.
“Them hogs was only eight months old,” he said, “and none too fat, nuther; but I seen that the buyer was at his wits’ end, and by skillful jugglin’ I boosted up the price on him just 300 per cent. Yes, by gum, I got three times more for them hogs than I uster get before the war.”
The plowshare being done, the farmer handed the smith 50 cents.
“Hold on,” said the smith; “I charge $1.50 for that job now.”
“You scandalous rascal!” yelled the farmer. “What do you mean by treblin’ your price on me? What have you done it for?”
“I’ve done it,” said the blacksmith, “so’s I’ll be able to eat some of that high-priced pork of yours this winter.”
“Those Germans are certainly efficient,” said father at the breakfast table.
“Why,” said father, “I see they have put the whole question of the food supply into the hands of the Minister of the Interior.”
When Gen. Leonard Wood was a small boy he was called up in the grammar class.