No one seemed to enjoy my story more than did the guest of the evening. After the party broke up he made me tell it to him all over again. I could read from his expression that he was trying to memorize it. In fact, he confessed to me that he expected to use it when he got home as a typical example of American humor. Six months later I was in London. I attended a dinner. My English friend was the toastmaster. Perhaps my presence recalled to him the anecdote he had so liked. At any rate, he undertook to repeat it. His version ran for perhaps twenty minutes. He entered into a full exposition of the potency of the illicit distillation known among the Yankees, he said, as “shining moon.” He went at length into the habits of rats, pointing out that inasmuch as rats customarily did not indulge in intoxicants a few drops of any liquor carrying high alcoholic content would be likely, for the time being at least, to alter the nature of almost any rat. At length he reached his point. It ran like this: “And then, this little rodent, being now completely transformed by its repeated potations, reared bolt upright and, voicing the pot-valor of utter intoxication both in tone and manner, it cried out in a voice like thunder: “‘I say, I wonder if there isn’t a cat about somewhere?’” § 17 Absolutely no Hurry about It One chilly evening in the early part of March the sheriff entered the county jail and addressing the colored person who occupied the strongest cell, said: “Gabe, you know that under the law my duty requires me to take you out of here to-morrow and hang you. So I’ve come to tell you that I want to make your final hours on earth as easy as possible. For your last breakfast you can have anything to eat that you want and as much of it as you want. What do you think you’d like to have?” The condemned man studied for a minute. “Mr. Lukins,” he said, “I b’lieves I’d lak to have a nice wortermelon.” “But watermelons won’t be ripe for four or five months yet,” said the sheriff. “Well, suh,” said Gabe, “I kin wait.” § 18 One Who Desired to Know A suburbanite in New Jersey was moving from one street to another. Observing with dismay the care-free way in which the moving crew yanked his cherished antiques about, he was filled with a desire to save from possible damage a tall grandfather’s clock which he prized highly. Taking the clock up in his arms he started for the new house. But the clock was as tall as its owner, and heavy besides, and he had to put it down every few feet and rest his arms and mop his streaming brow. Then he would clutch his burden to his heaving bosom and stagger on again. After half an hour of these strenuous exertions he was nearing his destination when an intoxicated person who had been watching his labors from the opposite side of the road took advantage of a halt to hail him. “Mister,” he said thickly, “could I ash you a quest’n?”