After-dinner speakers and professional jokesmiths of the stage or the printed page are not responsible for the spread of good stories to the extent with which they generally are credited. That honor properly belongs to telegraph operators and notably to telegraph operators serving on “leased” wires in newspaper offices. Late at night when the flood tides of news matter have slackened off, the operator, say, in New York, tells his friend in Buffalo a good one he heard that afternoon. The Buffalo man passes it along to Kansas City. The Kansas City man conveys it by dot-and-dash to a pal in Denver and next morning folks are grinning over it in the streets of San Francisco. I always have loved short funny stories. I prefer them to be new, but an old one, properly told, is often better than a new one badly presented. For the contents of this book I have sought to choose those short stories which made the greatest appeal to me. Some of them I heard years ago; others no longer ago than yesterday. For the book I claim two distinctions, namely, as follows: There is only one mother-in-law story in it. There is not a single story in it in which a colored character is referred to as “Rastus.” I. S. C. CONTENTS [_Topically Arranged_] A ACTORS [1]64, 178, 179 AERONAUTIC 153, 187 AFTER-DINNER SPEAKERS 16, 130, 142, 355 AGRICULTURAL 66, 84, 119, 348, 360 ALCOHOLIC 1, 11, 18, 33, 36, 64, 65, 68, 89, 150, 157, 203, 212, 232, 242, 263, 319, 342 AMERICANS ABROAD 10, 24, 94, 215, 219 ANIMAL FRIENDS 5, 15, 25, 71, 117, 167, 216, 232, 233, 248, 291, 293, 344 ARCTIC 120, 221 ART 8, 168 ARMY (A. E. F. mostly) 21, 30, 34, 39, 62, 69, 71, 73, 97, 156, 161, 162, 163, 354, 359 AUTOMOBILING 105, 303 ----- [1] These figures refer to the numbers of the stories and not to the pages in the book. B BANKING 44, 52, 113, 218 BASEBALL 32, 184, 228, 278, 357 BATHING 66, 127 BRIDAL COUPLES 92, 200, 205, 320 BUNCO STEERERS 110, 273 BUSINESS 8, 35, 44, 136, 165, 277, 341 C CANADIAN 180 CARRIER-PIGEONS 71 CENSUS 40 CHILDREN 95, 128, 129, 223, 231, 240, 290, 293, 324, 347, 352 CHINESE 40, 99 CIRCUSES 19, 123, 171, 209, 336, 366 CLERGYMEN 33, 45, 49, 56, 94, 103, 116, 158, 187 COCKNEY 199, 201 COWBOY 22, 51, 349 CRICKET 164 CRITICISM 362 D DANCING 9 DENTISTS 301, 303, 306, 312 DINING 53, 65, 77, 128, 160, 192, 261, 304, 313 DOCTORS 98, 146, 226, 285, 314, 361 DOGS 190 DWARFS 262, 325 E EDUCATIONAL 57, 268, 276, 346 ENGLISH 16, 24, 46, 130, 142, 184, 235, 249, 321, 337, 345 F FEMININE 9 FEUDS 3, 101, 138, 143 FINANCE 70, 241, 250, 296 FISHING 111, 175 FOOTBALL 78 FORTUNE TELLING 158 FRENCH 30, 196, 225, 280 FRUGALITY 35, 42, 108, 147, 265, 300, 309 G GHOSTS 86, 351