ANECDOTA AMERICANA
This edition is limited to
eight hundred & fifty copies.
Of these fifty on all-rag paper
are numbered 1 through 50.
Eight hundred are numbered
from 51 through 850.
This is Number 432
ANECDOTA AMERICANA
BEING, EXPLICITLY, AN ANTHOLOGY OF
TALES IN THE VERNACULAR
ELUCIDATORY PREFACE BY
J. MORTIMER HALL
HUMPHREY ADAMS BOSTON
ANECDOTES COLLECTED AND TAKEN DOWN BY Mr. William Passemon
PEN AND INK DRAWINGS BY Anton Erdman
WOOD-BLOCKS DRAWN & CUT BY Bruce MacAile
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY Humphrey Adams
FOR THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE ASPHYXIATION OF HYPOCRITES
SOLELY ON SUBSCRIPTION OF ITS MEMBERS
DEDICATION
TO ALL THOSE WHO
BY THEIR EFFORTS, PASSIVE AND ACTIVE, HAVE MADE POSSIBLE THIS BOOK, THESE, THE RIPEST FRUITS OF THEIR LABORS
GENTLEMEN: IN THE EVENT YOU
do not clearly understand the neat
abstraction of our dedication, we take
the pains candidly to inform you
that this book is inscribed to all
prudes, puritans, hypocrites,
censors, and moralists, that have ever been, are, or shall be.
FROM THE EDITOR TO THE READER ----
We have considered it appropriate to publish these anecdotes in the exact text they had when submitted to us.
We have believed they are told here by printed word very nearly in the manner and vein in which they are generally told by word of mouth. Casual and unpolished as they are, they are thus more significant, more honestly representative of the age. To have subjected them to any deletion, even any revision, would have been to falsify their character and altogether to misrepresent the soil from which they spring.
Hoping the gentle as well as the ungentle reader will confirm our judgment in this matter, we remain,
Very sincerely,
THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ASPHYXIATION OF HYPOCRITES
N.B. We also hope that the index will be found of convenience and value to the amateur as well as to the student.
BY WAY OF ELUCIDATION
IN THE FORM OF PREFACE
"What a laugh is, by what means it is raised, wherein it consists, in what manner it bursts
out, and is so suddenly discharged.....let
Democritus explain all these particulars; they are not to my present purpose, and if they were I should not at all be ashamed to say that I do not know them; for even they who pretend to account for them know nothing of the matter." Cicero:
De Oratore, Book II
OF ALL THE FORCES of nature to which man is (despite all the moralists) still subject in this life, that of the complex phenomena which carry out the will to propagate has been the one which has most consistently engaged his attention. It has had, from the beginning, an irresistible fascination over him. It was the one in which his sensations of pleasure and pain were most directly involved. The result was a powerful emotional bias which for ages kept this region sacred from the play of humor. This immunity was strengthened by an almost inconceivably profound and protracted ignorance not only of the purposes of sex but even of its very processes. So that in no age or race do we find humor playing in this field unless either the emotional bias or the ignorance has been removed.
Early man we conceive of as an integral part of nature, immersed in it, and as subject to its will as the simplest of living creatures. As that consciousness on which we pride ourselves developed it was used to combat the tyranny of
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material forces until today man unabashedly proclaims himself Nature's rebel. He prides himself on his conquest. All he has to do to complete it and sail the air with impunity is to learn how to control atmospheric conditions! It is to be regretted that he has not yet learned to exert a like control of himself. There are few peoples who have not floundered when they came to grip with those forces which, like the sexual, work directly through man, and which, being unescapable motivating forces, must he dealt with as component parts of him. He has, almost invariably, by some perverse inflexibility of mind, sought to impose on his own life the fallacy that here, too, he is superior to nature,
— in the words of the moralists, he has a "soul to save." And, still more amazing, he has in this process developed a
conscience which goes backwards, like Hamlet's crab, telling him be is superior as he acts contrary to his nature. And the result is a book like this.
The first step in man's rationalization of sex was when he emerged from the primitive fear which led him to worship it. But it was only as he achieved objectivity in his attitude toward his ego that be achieved an appreciation of the humor as well as the pathos of his situation under its domination. For, truly to laugh means first of all to be emotionally free, to be removed mentally from all the grievous circumstance that in the undeveloped inspires only wonder and fear. And, even today, what a small proportion of humanity has attained such objectivity! Most of mankind remains, especially in regard to the sexual, no farther advanced than early man. It is as though he regarded the world as inexplicable to his consciousness and
X
irrational from all angles of his logic, and were thus forced to cultivate the laugh or go mad with imaginings of the terror of his predicament.
Some philosophers, noting the ability of man to laugh in the face of this dilemma, have considered it a sign of his kinship with the gods. This inference is correct if the gods are a merry lot free from the operation of natural law. But the reliability of this assumption may be seriously questioned.
For, if the gods are themselves the laws, they are equally inflexible. The more
correct estimate of the faculty of humor is that it is one of those most clearly
distinguishing man from the beasts.
This, however, is a question which we do not pause to argue. The material of this book could be used to support either side. It will undoubtedly demonstrate that certain aspects, at least, of American humor are, in reality, only confessions that man is still impotent before nature; only signs he is still in terror of the driving domination of his instincts; only ruses by which he endeavors to escape recognizing that he remains unable to deal straight-forwardly and rationally with the fundamental facts of his nature.
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Of course, rigidly to insist that the laugh, or even the guffaw, are altogether degenerative qualities in man, altogether confessions of weakness, would certainly be false. For, as we have suggested, there is the laugh of the strong man, the man who can face frankly the incongruities of his nature. There is also the laugh of the free man, the man who is in sufficiently complete control of himself to be able
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to consider dispassionately the disharmonies of his imprisonment in flesh. Such, certainly, are entitled to their laughter. There is no thing under the sun with which they may not divert themselves. And, as far as the gods are concerned, it does not matter much whether it have the cheering warmth of Rabelais, the chill venom of Aretino, or the smooth geniality of Boccaccio. We cannot expert as much from any product indigenous to this country. We have in this way achieved no more than the furtive guffaws of Twain.
And yet, is not every man entitled to his laugh? He is. If he were not he would, nevertheless, not be denied it; no more than he can be denied the use of alcohol, a discovery almost equal in importance to that of fire; no more than he can be kept from rummaging whom it pleases him to rummage; no more than she can be kept from being rummaged by whom it pleases her to be rummaged. It is not in negations, denials, prohibitions, that man does as, for his own well-being, he should do. It is only through knowledge, through comprehension of his nature and dealing with it in ways harmonious to his nature that he achieves himself.
When he has attained this knowledge, or in other words, when he has achieved a certain amount of objectivity in his attitude to the world, he has achieved the greatest parcel of freedom to be had in this life. He has then returned in his feeling life to the realization of his identity not only with all other men, but with all things animate and inanimate, earthly and unearthly. What, then, has he any more than an infant, to fear? He is one with all mankind as well as with all spirits heavenly and infernal. There
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is then no pure to him, and no impure. All is natural and inevitable; all is one, the sun, the earth, trees, stones, snakes, slime, dung. He is potentially any and all things; they are potentially he. He has, then, through his conscious mind, attained that which primitive man had naturally but could not use. And, if we believe in evolutionary processes we must believe he has gained. He has at least acquired a critical brain and a sense of humor,
— whether they be considered gains or not.
The peoples of the East reached this objectivity many centuries before the inauguration of the Christian calendar. Compared with them, the western races have not yet passed mental infancy. Even many of the most penetrating minds of the West have announced nothing finer than: ''It's a bad proposition, this life. Still, it does no good to complain about it. Face it like a man, then, and laugh.' Note
Rabelais:
Mieulx est de ris que de larmes escripre, Pour ce que rire est le propre des homines.
It needs but superficial, insight to realize the general mentality of the West has reached only an intermediate stage between the ignorance, superstition, and fear of the savage mind and the disinterestedness of self-realization. And the ignorance, superstition, and fear of this intermediate stage are more dangerous to the welfare of the race, because outwardly we have achieved emancipation from them. Longer to harbor them means only to refuse to leave the mental level of savages when all outer environment demands it. That means the cherishing of mental dry rot.
Attempts at suppression of the sexual and its relegation
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to the limbo of the unmentionable result in a peculiarly insidious and repulsive narrowing of life which takes its revenge in countless ways. The refusal of man to act honestly on that which he knows to be natural law entails not only a host of physical ills on the individual, ranging through all forms of neurasthenia to insanity, but a host of social plagues, to mention only two, the moralist, and the ugliness of falsified ideals. It entails as well a host of "moral" curses, amongst which hypocrisy and vulgarity or obscenity are perhaps not the least to be regretted. It would, then, be surprising if a race still dominated by the negative ideals of that little Essenian
sect of Jews from which Christianity sprang were other than one of the most hypocritical and "obscene-minded" peoples on the face of the earth.
The term "obscene," however which is bandied about so glibly, and the meaning of which the Catos of the age are quite certain they have a monopoly, is, in reality, as vague in meaning as in origin. The Romans used it in the sense of
ill-omened. And, we have not improved its connotations. The arguments are very strong that there is no thing obscene in itself, that obscenity is a state of mind. If there is any thing at all objectively obscene it is that which is ill-omened, that which runs counter to life, particularly to the life of man. Certainly, there is nothing obscene in any normal process, or their God is the most obscene of them all.
It is, then, a question if to the normal man there is anything really obscene except narrow life. To put it categorically: as a thing, an action, thought, or word leads man to disobey the natural laws of life it may be con-
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sidered obscene. Brutality, greed, murder are obscene, as well as the restrictions which hinder the natural operation of natural functions. Their logic is irrefutable, then, only if the sexual function is not a natural function.
There is no doubt that anecdotes such as the following are especially
numerous amongst peoples ridden by sexual taboos, even if we may not be
justified in seeking their major urge from such suppression. And, there is a
direct ratio between suppression of the sexual and the extent and viciousness of
the joke repertoire. We know the Anglo- Saxon spirit has accentuated both. It
has aggravated the perverse side. It has been a force against life. We believe many of these tales exhibit the peculiar virulency of this suppression in this country. They are, then, obscene in the same sense that current newspapers,
jazz, and picture-shows are obscene. They are, more generously considered, means by which civilized man endeavors vicariously to overcome an unnatural circumscription. But no less to be deplored, because to seek satisfaction in them implies cowardice and ignorance. From the only " moral" point of view worth considering, that of finer and more complete living, they damn this civilization as perhaps no one other thing damns it. And it certainly needs damning.
We thus realize it is not unreasonable to expect much may be learned in this book of the temper, the culture, the character of the race from which it springs. Here is placed plainly in view the backfire of suppression which is called
smut by those burdened by disgust because they lack sufficient vitality to be able to accept the facts of life. But in America it could not possibly be called pornography! For
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in this land they pride themselves there are no whores to write about. Well, they may have driven her to cover. But consider the number of brothel stories in the following text and judge if they have driven her out of mind. It is merely another example of man's stupidity in attacking his own ills at the wrong end.
These anecdotes have all been seeded, or have, at least, grown luxuriantly in the mental soil of these United States of America. Whether they have flowered or not is a cirumstance that, as students, need not particularly concern us at this time. The botanist in a strange world contents himself at first with general observations on the flora.
III
The principle formulated by Agassiz and Fritz Müller and expounded by Ernst Häckel as
the biogenetic fundamental law asserts that the fœtus retraces the physical history of man. Beginning from the zygote, a single-celled animal hardly distinguishable from a plant, it passes through stages which are structurally like those of cœlenterata, echinodermata, vermes, anthropoda, mollusca, reptiles, birds, fish, et cetera to the number of twenty-six, according to Häckel, till it emerges with an aspect rather like that of a day-old monkey. . . If early man had known this he would, (judging from William Jennings Bryan's antics at Dayton, Tennessee), in indignant terror have placed a number of his nature gods on trial for defamation of his pedigree.
It may be asserted with as much exactness that the mental development of the individual also presents an
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epitome of the mental life of the race. Just how dependent one's sense of humor is on the development of the sexual life is still, however, a question worthy some investigation. Certainly the normal American youth of twenty is immune to almost all the humor inherent in sex. And, in this country, there are many otherwise mature individuals, similarly-minded. They are, of course, invariably cases of arrested development. To the youth, as to early man, the sexual act is truly the most important one in the universe, an altogether too serious affair for jesting. He is invariably disgusted by sexual jokes. He has achieved no objectivity in regard to that function. He is personally too intimately concerned in the process. As he ages he attains a true realization of its place in life. He may still agree with R'emy de Gourmont that it is the most important act in life. But it is no longer the most important act to him. Then he can laugh. Then he must laugh. And he laughs for several reasons. He laughs, if he is civilized, to escape, to achieve vicarious satisfaction, as we have suggested. He laughs from elements of humor inherent in the thing.
What are those elements? Perhaps all humor can be reduced to an ability to cause a peculiar sort of mental shock. The delight occasioned by this quality in things which we recognize as humorous, may, on the mental plane, be analogous to that physical delight the Chinese obtain in shooting off fire-crackers. Thus they go to worship
their gods. Nothing puts them in better humor. And since nothing can so shock a
Christian as something concerning the sexual, stories of the sexual claim in the Western world a place of pre-eminence.
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In what that peculiarity consists that it should raise a smile rather than a tear is a question that has engaged all philosophers, to hardly any more purpose than most of their other speculations. They all, in this province, as in others, reveal themselves bound like slaves to the circles of their individual ideas. In considering any subject the conscious mind of any individual, being finite, can treat only the peculiar angles of it with which his particular mind is susceptible of being impressed. Man sees life objectively as a unit. But subjectively he is a seething mass of, to say the least, apparent contradictions. The fallacy of the philosophers
is that they attempt to impose unity on this subjective life, which in its very nature is a conflict. There is no thing in life that is not wider than the grasp of any one man's capacity.
The subject of the laughable is no exception. When the philosopher attacks this peculiarly volatile subject we invariably find he does not capture any more of it than his own susceptibility is capable of appreciating. Thus of theories of humor we have many partial systems, from the derision theory of Aristotle and Plato to that of Bergson who sees in all that at which we laugh a similarity to mechanical action, and Freud who views all the laughable as vicarious escape of inhibited desires. Each is in harmony with the general cosmology of the author, but by no means in harmony with all the facts that underlie the humorous. If we view them as philosophic speculations, as monuments to the endeavors of individuals to impose on others their idiosyncratic views of life, we can learn much from them.
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Ribot's classification of the humourous is perhaps as succinct and comprehensive as any: the reactions of the feeling of the incongruous, and those of one's superiority. Accepting this, the very nature of the sexual offers an irresistible field to the humorist. For the insignificance of of sexual means, the brief joining of the bottoms of two bellies, a male to a female, is altogether too incommensurate to its very important result (from the human point of view), the propagation of the race. It is a situation not to be matched for incongruity. The act itself is an engine-like mechanism, the basis of all mechanics. And, the disrepute in which the sexual has, in the Western World, long lain because of a perverted outlook on life, permits almost any Westerner to consider himself superior to those whom he delights to depict scourged by the whips of lust.
These tales exhibit all the characteristics of the humor of other fields. There is the humor of the unexpected; that of repetition; the humor of distortion and confusion exaggerated beyond the grotesque; the humor of the na'ieve, the quaint, most often displaped in character; the ignorant, inappropriate, willful or playful misapplication of terms; the absurdly out of place,
— without pausing particularly to discriminate between humor, wit, grotesque, absurd. And when we measure them by the same standards by which we measure other humor our results are as good. Real humor like keen wit, has always been rare. It would be absurd to claim real humor for more than a very small number of these tales. They would give the lie to their origin if they were better. For the appreciation of keen humor higher mental associations are needed than, it appears, most men have formed.
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We Americans, as a race, have many mental processes hardly distinguishable from those of children. Among them is that which controls the laugh. It is in the mischances to others,
— the falling on the coccyx, or the brickbat between the eyes,—
that this race still finds its most irresistible incentive to show its teeth in the laugh. It is the superiority feeling, vanity, which some psychologists hold is the most powerful feeling-complex in man. No one can or would deny them it. It is perhaps here that men most nearly approach the gods, though here also it is pure accident and in spite of his ignorance. For, superficially, each man considers every other in this circumstance as the gods consider all men: Let him shoot off his fire-crackers, shoot himself up with them if he please
... To realize that it is foolish needs further growth. But the exercise of the sense of humor of the free man is in this environment tyrannized by the restrictions of infantile mentality, as is his exercise of other functions. It may legitimately be hoped that the publication of this volume will do something toward breaking down one part of this tyranny.
We are thus led to realize there are two infallible gauges by which to measure the individual approach, as well as the racial, to self-realization: the quality of his laugh, and that at which he laughs.
By his laugh shall ye know him, might the old proverb run as truly.
IV
- • •
The peculiar amusement which resides in the telling of these stories may be broken up into several different elements. Chief among them are: the desire to make
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others laugh; curiosity as to the effect of the story on the hearer; and, of course., the achievement of vicarious sexual pleasure. This amusement is, with man as well as with woman, rather in telling than in hearing them. The element of passivity in the listener, however, renders this part more pleasurable to women. There are women who can sit for hours taking huge delight listening to them with never a desire to tell one. Merely an amenity of civilization, in accord with the regulations of nature, that the pain a function occasions is always balanced by an equal susceptibility to pleasure from the same source. It is also in accord with the direct influence of woman's imagination on her bodily processes. In her the processes of evoking images and combining them usually directly stimulate the bodily functions, while on the normal man they exert almost no physical influence. From this we may infer that the greater number of these anecdotes originate with the male.
The vast number of these stories puzzles one who considers them casually. No one knows how, or where, or with whom they originate. Doubtless many arise diretly out of circumstance, that is, are true stories of fact. Doubtless many arise from slight variation of fact, and, by analogy. Many doubtless arise merely from force of natural pre-occupation with images of the sexual. There must also be taken into consideration the natural play of the imagination over these facts, a play, to the sane man, as legitimate as that over any set of facts,—
and irresistible from the point of view of humor, even though the variations, being rather limited, readily become stereotyped.
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It is true that some can be traced to a certain race, to a certain section of the globe. Seldom, however, can their origin be more definitely placed. No teller of these tales ever claims authorship for them. They are all orphans. And, for the student of this phenomenon to catch the individual birth of a joke is as difficult as it is for the naturalist to catch the May-fly casting its larval skin at the surface of a pool.
It is known that the diverting insects grouped by naturalists under the genus
Ephemera, pass a long period as clumsy, sluggish, scaly creatures, crawling about the bottoms of fresh water streams or hiding themselves in small semi-circular burrows in the banks. Doubtless the quips with which we are dealing likewise pass a long period of incubation in that unconscious region which to our conscious mind appears a dark and muddy bottom. And then, one day some urge of life loosens them from their nest of incubation, they find their way to the surface of the conscious mind, burst at once the confining envelope and begin a life for the delight of the strange heart of man.
How long is this life? We cannot say. But if the life of the individual joke is short, the urge in civilized life that their kind be reproduced is as strong as the urge behind the reproduction of our insect
Ephemera. And they doubtless remain as much alike through the ages as do these insects. Only ' to the careful observer will be manifest a difference, changes that are significant of mental horizon, cultural development, social customs, racial characteristics.
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There are other superficial aspects about them which also puzzle the casual observer. How can it be that a full-fledged jest which is known to arise on the Pacific coast one day will be flitting about New York the next morning? It is certainly not a question analogous to simultaneous independent discovery of scientific truth by two different investigators. Nor is telepathic ability sufficiently developed in human beings to offer a satisfactory explanation.
We have the night shift of telegraph operators and long-distance telephone girls to thank for this phenomenon. No messages to send. The lines open and time heavy on their hands. "Hello, Mame," says San Francisco to New York. "Hello, Mable. What's the good woid?" "Oh, nothing—just heard a good one."
— And the news spreads like that of birth and death, and business.
V
And, facility of communication and rapidity of transportation have been set up by some as the measures of civilization! One may well inquire: how do I become a more perfect being for being able to learn that a lynching in Georgia, an adultery in Los Angeles, or a robbery in Chicago occurred five minutes before? What equanimity and serenity are added to me because I am enabled to travel fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four hours?
Civilization is rather to be measured by the solidarity of mankind. Only as facility of communication and rapidity of transportation contribute to this solidarity may they be considered factors contributory to civilization.
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Now, every person of any discrimination at all realizes that only in the most superficial aspects has there been attained any solidarity amongst men. After these thousands of years of breeding a more and more fragile organism we call human, men still go out to kill men in the name of country, men still continue to rob men of the very necessities of life in the name of business, men still continue to pervert men in the name of morality. In other words men are still, in every department of life, merely cutting each other's throats in the delusion that it is only by such preying of man on man that any one can attain the satisfaction of his individual desires.
It is saddening to witness this spectacle. That man is on the wrong track in his civilizing process has been urged by numberless philosophers. The human pageant of the last half century has compelled even so constant a yea-sayer to life as Havelock Ellis to damn it. After all this time man has not yet learned to apply his own life
for his own life. The criteria of civilization should be the facilitation of the supply of the material needs of life, that man may turn his attention to that in which his real life centers: harmonious living. What else would he do unless he make war with guns or with laws, rob, occupy himself with gossipings, trivialities? ask the cynics. Truly, it appears he has not yet the capacity to use his brains for much of anything else.
Not only has man's collective life no interest for the ordinary individual. He has no comprehension his own welfare is inextricably bound up with the lives of all others. Each one is centered in his own little life, and
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under the just-mentioned delusion that only by taking from someone else may he obtain anything. And as long as civilization is on the basis it is perhaps they may not be altogether
wrong. As for their interest in other lives, questions of a neighbor's birth,
and death, adulteries, divorces, robberies, etc., these are the things,
seemingly, that have interest for men, to judge by the "news" paper, which runs under the same motto with their theater, give the people what they want. But why, if they want these things, do they want them? Because their lives are necessarily narrow? or is it because they are fed on false standards?
The sexual joke is therefore a tell-tale on civilization in more respects than one. It is not our belief that it will ever die out,— nor that it should. The field is naturally too rich in humorous possibilities. And it is as legitimate a field for humor as any other. It is, however,
our belief that the peculiar crassness and crudity inherent in some of the anecdotes in this volume will be eliminated only as they are eliminated from life. Man - himself must accomplish that. And, in the United States of America, he has no small task ahead of him.
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We are thus led to understand that such manifestations of the human animal as the present stories take their rise out of an obsessional pre-occupation with the images of sex; and that they continue their course because they offer man escape from imposed restrictions, possibilities of vicarious satisfaction of denied desires, and one more field in which to exercise his restless imagination.
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These tales may, then, be regarded as loopholes of escape for a civilization-ridden man. We know of nothing analogous in savage and primitive life. The tendency of civilization is still to castrate, to de-odorize, to render monotonous. This, of course, it can accomplish only superficially. However emasculated the individual or racial life may appear its blood runs still the same blood. These tales may rightly be regarded as attempts to achieve mentally that which cannot be otherwise achieved. The subterfuges of thwarted life are offensive only as disease is offensive. Into any vicarious satisfaction is certain to enter an element of venom. It is an inevitable mental reflex that drives man to seek some satisfaction even that which is unreal, if he can not achieve the real. He never willingly accepts the substitute, if he has normal instincts, i.e. instincts for life. The only satisfaction the normal individual can achieve through these tales is in that which they possess of real humor.
They may also be regarded as signs of man's inexhaustible will to pleasure.
To read this book, or to visit Coney Island one would think this earth a place
of utter boredom. And thus they are supreme witnesses of man's defeat of
himself, in searching that which he needs precisely where he is least likely to find it—the spectacle of which has led more than one otherwise man-loving man to pronounce
homo sapiens utterly stupid.
J. Mortimer Hall
Sutton House The Hundreds
ANECDOTA
ALL
aboard," the conductor called down the platform. And the train had no sooner
started than a slim Englishman entered the smoking compartment of the pullman.
"Gentlemen," he said to the men that crowded the room, "is there any reason
why we shouldn't begin to talk cunt right away?"
2
IN THE corner seat a playwright braced himself to listen complacently. That
which ran through his mind was, "Hush little sex-joke, don't you cry, You'll be
a drama bye and bye."
3
"I DON'T tell dirty stories," came a high voice from a little man. "I like to
listen, but I don't tell them. I can't remember the darn things."
2 ANECDOTA
4
AN ENGLISHMAN entered a drug store and went to the back counter. "Show me some condoms," he said to the clerk. "What kind, the twenty-five cent ones or the fifties?" asked the clerk. "Well, I say, what's the difference?" asked the limey. "The fifty- cent ones you can wash, and use again and again," he was informed. "Fine," he said, "what an economy, I'll take several."
In a few weeks he returned to the drug store, went up to the clerk and said: "You may sell me several condoms, but
not the fifty-cent ones, that wash" "Why not, what's the matter?" the clerk asked. "Didn't they work all right?" "I suppose they did," retorted the Englishman, "but I got a nasty note from my laundry.
5
ANOTHER drug store story recounts the experience of a large Westerner, who, troubled by a horny feeling which he had no immediate prospect of relieving, went to a pharmacist to get something for it in the way of a bromide. He was somewhat embarrassed when he found a woman in attendance. "Pardon me," he said, "but I'd like to see the boss." "Why, I'm the boss," said the woman. ' "Well then, a-er, man clerk," said the Westerner. "We haven't any," the owner replied, "you can tell me what you want. I won't be embarrassed."
"Well," said the stranger, "I've got an awful hard on. What can you give me for it?"
"Just a minute," said the woman, and went to the back of the drug store. In a few minutes she returned.
AMERICANA 3
"I've just been talking it over with my sister, who makes up the prescriptions, and who is my partner in this store," she said, "and the best we can give you is the store and two hundred dollars."
6
.
A SMALL boy entered a drug store and whispered to the clerk that he wanted some condoms. "What size," he was asked, "and who are they for?" "Gimme assorted sizes," he said, "they're for my sister, she's goin' to the country."
7
IN A certain drug store on the upper west side a man entered one day, and seeing only a woman in attendance asked for the proprietor, or a male clerk. "I'm the proprietor, and we have no male clerk," she said; "tell me what you want." "Well," said the man, "I want a few condoms." "What size?" asked the woman. "I don't know. Do they come in sizes?"
"Come back here," said the owner, taking him behind the partition to the rear of the store. "Put it in," she added, throwing herself on a couch and lifting her skirts. The customer readily complied, and as he inserted his prober the proprietor said, "Size 7, take it out. How many do you want?"
In somewhat of a daze the customer left the place, and coming across Levy told him his adventure. The Yid went immediately to the same store, where, pretending to be embarrassed he allowed himself to be coaxed into ask-
4 ANECDOTA
ing the woman for condoms. He also affected great surprise to learn they came in sizes, and when he was invited to the rear of the store complied readily.
"We'll soon find out what size you are," said the woman throwing herself again on the couch. "Put it all the way in." Levy did as he was told, but neglected to take it out until his sperm left him in one grand ejaculation. "You take size 8," said the woman, rising, "how many do you want."
"I don't want any," said Levy, "I just came in for a fitting."
8
ONE OF the oldest of drug store stories is the one about the man who wanted some condoms and was also invited to the rear of the store by the lady clerk, to get the right size.
"Take it out," she said, and when he did the lady took his penis in one hand while with the other she attempted to measure it. "Size 3," she said, "no, 4, Mame, no, no, 7, Mamie, no, no, 8— Mamie, bring the mop."
9
A NEGRO spiritualist meeting was in progress. The leader had just finished expounding his sermon, and he called to his sweltering, panting audience: "We will now have de pussonal paht ob de program. Is thah any among de bredren that has had some intercourse wid ghosts? Dis am de experience paht ob de meetin'. Again ah asks, is thah any among de bredren that has had any intercourse with a ghost?"
A small darky
AMERICANA 5
in the rear of the auditorium raised his hand.
"Ah has," he said, in a small voice.
"Step dis way, brudder, step dis way," the leader shouted. Then as the weazened little darky approached the rostrum he called, "Now tell de bredren just what has been yo intercourse with a ghost."
"I beg yo pahdon," said the little negro, "Ah thought you said
'goat'."
10
COHN met Levy for the first time in years.
"How is things, Levy?" he asked, "I hear you got very rich here in America."
"I can't complain," the other replied. "I got a house and garden in the country, a ottomobile, a wife with ten children and money in the bank."
Cohn, nettled, tried the soften the hurt of his friend's success.
"Well," he said, "after all, in a day what can you do that I can't? We both eat, sleep and drink. What else is in a life."
"Aaah," said Levy, "you call your life living? In the morning I get up, have a fine breakfast, followed by a good perfecto cigar. Then I lay on my verandah. After that I play a round golluf and come back with a healthy appetite for lunch. When I finish I have a fine perfecto cigar, lay on my verandah again, and am ready for an afternoon with my ottomobile. I come back for sopper with a appetite like a wolf. After sopper I smoke a good long cigar, lay on my verandah again, and at night go to the theatre, the opera, where I like."
"That's wonderful! And you don't do no work?" said Cohen, marvelling. On his return home he told his wife of the encounter.
"You know who I met today?" he announced. "Levy, what came over on the ship with
6 ANECDOTA
me. Is that man rich! He's got a house and garden in the country, an ottemobile, a wife with ten children...."
Mrs. Cohen interrupted: "What's his wife's name?"
"I don't know," said her husband, "but I think its Verandah.' "
11
THE DINKTOWN band was doing its best when someone called the piccolo player a Cock-sucker. The leader's baton beat a tattoo on his music stand, and the players became silent. He turned to his audience.
"Who called my piccolo player a cock-sucker?" he demanded.
A voice in the rear of the theatre yelled back: "Who called that cock-sucker a piccolo player?"
12
EVERY Sunday morning when the auld folks had gone to the kirk Annie would be visited by her lover, Jock, and they would seize the service hours as opportune for screwing. One bright Sabbath day Jock arrived just after the auld folks had departed, and whistling a bonnie air leaped up the steps three at a time to Annie's bedroom. The lass was removing her waist when Jock burst in, puffing the final bars of
Annie Laurie. His sweetheart gave him a disapproving look.
Jock apparently didn't notice this, for, putting his arms around Annie he began another tune. The lass tore herself from his arms and began to redress.
"Why, what is it, Annie?" asked Jock. "Have I done aught to offend ye?"
"Stop it, stop it," said
AMERICANA 7
the girl. "Ye were whistlm' an' I will no fornicate wi'
a man wha whistles on the Sabbath!"
13
THE HEIGHT of Ambition: A flea climbing up an elephant's hind leg, with intent to commit rape!
14
THE HEIGHT of precaution: An old maid putting a condom on her candle.
15
MOTHER had just finished her bath and stood in the tub, drying herself. One foot rested on the edge of the tub. Sonny stood near by, looking on. "Ooh, mamma," he prattled, "who cut you?" pointing to the gash God gave her.
"Papa did that," said the mother, in her sweetest tones.
"Cut you right near the cunt, didn't he," the child said.
16
THE NEGRO pastor was on trial before his flock, for various misdeeds. During the proceedings, which were of a solemn nature, he leered at his accusers and snickered at their evidence. He was finally called upon to say a few words in his defense.
"Folkses," he began, "you all is accusin' me of various neefarus
8 ANECDOTA
crimes. You don't have to prove 'em, ah admit 'em. Ah done evything you all said, and mo'. But ah's been a good pastor to you, and now ah's gwine away. As ah passes down de aisle, however, kindly take notice that ah have placed a sprig of mistletoe jus' under mah coat-tails."
17
Two YOUNG movie actresses from Hollywood met in the studio during the lunch rest period, and one complained to the other that she had been troubled for quite a time with crab lice. "How can I get rid of them?" she asked.
"Just rub in some Paris green," said her friend, "that'll kill 'em."
A week or so later on they again met, and the first girl asked the other: "Did you rub in that Paris green I told you?"
"Yes," said the afflicted one.
"Did it kill the crabs?"
"Yep, and a couple of directors too."
18
SVEN got into the mine elevator, chuckling out loud.
"What's the joke, Sven?" asked the mine foreman.
"Ay bane have good yoke on Ole," the bohunk replied. "Ay just find out Ole pay my wife five dollars to foke her and I foke her for nothing."
19
JONES, troubled with a hoarse throat, so that his voice rose barely above a whisper, rushed to his doctor.
AMERICANA 9
The doctor's pretty young wife answered the bell. "Is the doctor in?" Jones asked in husky tones.
"No, come in," the fair matron whispered back.
20
ON A lonely road, far from any town the traveller's car suddenly stopped dead. A quick examination showed him there was no gasoline left in the tank. Night had fallen and he made his way towards a light in a house some distance away. A knock on the door brought a beautiful woman in answer.
"Pardon me, madam," said the tourist, "but my car has broken down. I wonder if you couldn't put me up for the night here?"
"Well," said the lady, "I'm all alone, but I guess I'll take a chance." And she escorted him to a neat little room on the next floor.
As he prepared himself for bed the motorist couldn't help thinking how much more pleasant it would be if the young woman would come into bed with him. It would be a beastly way to repay her hospitality, he thought, to make any advances,
but he could not keep from thinking of her beautiful form, neatly outlined in
the flimsy wrapper she wore. Finally, with a sigh, he crawled into bed. But he
could not sleep. He found himself still thinking of the fair and lonely lady. Gradually the sheets assumed the form of a tent above him. There was a sudden, soft tap at his door.
"Come in," he shouted, glee in his voice. A smiling face showed itself in the doorway, a golden, smiling, warm, inviting countenance.
"Would you like company?" the young lady said, sweetly, softly.
"Would I?" the guest shouted, "You just bet your life I would."
"That's fine,"
10 ANECDOTA
the lady replied. "You see another gentleman whose car broke down is at the door and wants me to put him up!"
21
SAMBO, lately of Harlem, was in the trenches with his buddies, hard at the business of winning the war. For five days there had been no lull in the fighting. The men had had very little sleep, cut off as they were from the main body, and there was much speculation as to when a relief unit could come up. Sambo didn't particularly care whether he were shot or lived. It isn't particularly cheerful to be several thousand miles from home, without a letter to connect you with dear ones left behind. And Sambo hadn't heard from his wife in months.
Suddenly he noticed next to him a strange negro. And then all about him he saw others of a different regiment. Relief had come at last. For an hour or more the fighting continued with even greater ferocity, and then, suddenly there came a lull. Sambo threw • himself to the ground, near the stranger he had first • noticed. There was some conversation, cut short when a package of letters was thrust into Sambo's hands. His eyes showed white. Eagerly he tore open the first of the fat letters and devoured the writing, the strange negro meanwhile looking on casually. Suddenly Sambo held his hand up to the light.
"See dat, bo?" he said. "Ef dat ain't de mos' considerinist wife. Look at dat boy; sends me a hair right off 'er snatch. Hot dawg!"
The other negro reached over, took the hair from Sambo, ran it delicately through his fingers, gazed
AMERICANA II
at it in the sunlight, then turned to Sambo. "Pahdon me," he said, "but ain't yo name 'Awkins?"
22
CLITO: King Solomon had a thousand wives, they say . How could he tell which one to screw?
23
THERE was a lull in the firing of the big guns and Mistah George Washington Lincoln Smith spied a cow meandering aimlessly across a field. He turned to Alexander Hamilton Burr and said, with considerable fervor: "Oh, boy, see dat? Oh, ef it was only a woman."
Alexander turned back to him and said with equal fervor: "Oh, boy, ef it was only dark."
24
A NEW YORKER once boasted that a friend of his was endowed with a wondrous sense of smell. Just one sniff at an object, in the dark, and he could tell what it was. So it was decided that his powers be put to the test and an assortment of twigs was brought to a room, in which was the wizard, blindfolded.
One of the twigs was held under his nose for an instant. "Pine," said the man with the keen sense of smell. Another twig he guessed to be birch, another oak, another hickory and so on, all correctly. One of the invited company, further to test the powers of this gifted nose, then held under it his middle finger, which had just come from an exploration of a maid's private parts.
"Hollywood," the wizard guessed.
12 ANECDOTA
25
ERASMUS JOHNSON took his creole sweetie out for a buggy ride. As they got out into the country he pulled in the reins. "Whoa," he said. Then turning to the girl, "how about a little piece, Mandy?" "Huh-uh," said the girl, "I can't. I'se ill." "Giddap," said Rastus. A little further into the country, in an even more secluded spot he reined in again. "Whoa," he said, "Mandy, it's a little mo' lonelylike here. You got another way to satisfy me." "Huh-uh," said Mandy, "kaint do nothin' there. I'se got piles." "Giddap," said Johnson.
As they drove they got further into the woods, and Rasmus turned into a side road. "Whoa," he yelled, and leaping from the buggy he picked up a large stone, with which he advanced toward his sweetheart.
"Jes' yo tell me you got lockjaw," he said, "and ah'll crush yo' skull!"
26
THE MAID had been using, surreptitiously, the bathtub of her employer, an elderly bishop. He was a bachelor, very fastidious about his toilet, and desired the exclusive use of his tub. He reprimanded the maid with much indignation.
"What distresses me most, Mary," he said, "is that you have done this behind my back."
27
BECKY came to her father with her head downcast. "Papa," she said, "you know that rich Mr. Leven-
AMERICANA 13
thal? Well, he knocked me up, and I'm going to have a baby soon."
"My God," said the father, "where is he, I'll kill him, the bastard, the moiderer, the son- of-a-bitch. Give me his address. I'll moider him." Dashing to the rich man's home, he cornered him, and, in a loud voice, told him what he intended to do. But the rich Mr. Leventhal was quite calm.
"Don't get excited," he said, "I ain't running away, and I intend to do the right thing by your daughter. If she has a child and it's a boy, I'll settle on her fifty thousand dollars. If it's a girl, I'll settle thirty-five thousand on her. Is that fair?"
The father halted, while the look of anger on his face changed. "And if it's a miscarriage," he pleaded, "will you give her another chance?"
27
EDELSON had retired from business and was enjoying life, till one day his eldest son came to him and demanded ten thousand dollars.
"I knocked up a girl," he said, "and I got to have it, or there'll be terrible trouble. You must save the family name."
"This is terrible," said the old man, "but I can't see the family disgraced. "Here is my check." Several days later his other son came to him. "Papa," he said, in an agonized voice, "I got to have twenty thousand. I knocked up a girl and if I don't have the money we are all ruined."
"Gevald," said the father, "that takes away nearly mine whole fortune. But I can't see the family name disgraced. Here's the money."
A few days later his daughter came to him and confessed, "Papa, I'm pregnant."
"Thank God, business is picking up," said the old man.
14 ANECDOTA
28
ONE OF the earliest jokes is the tale told on the Emperor Agrippa, who, observing a slave pass the palace, was surprised to see that he was almost the image of himself. "Ho, there," the Emperor cried, "Slave, did your mother ever pass this way?"
"No, sire, but my father did," was the rejoinder.
This ancient jest is repeated in various languages, with the answer sometimes: "My father was your father's butler."
29
MANY stories are told of passionate men who have had recourse to animals. One of these pertains to a negro who entered his employer's barn and screwed a she-mule. As he was working away, just before the ejaculation, he was heard to exclaim, "Oh, if you only could cook!"
30
"I'M SURE my husband isn't faithful to me," an Irish- X woman remarked. "Not one of the children look like him."—From "Pins and Needles."
31
A TRAVELLING man who "made" a small town in the West, in the gold rush days, had been without his piece for some time. He inquired of the hotel clerk
AMERICANA 15
where he could obtain a woman.
"There ain't none," said the clerk. "We use that mule in Perkins's barn."
"What do you mean, you screw a mule?" asked the drummer.
"Certainly," said the hotel man, "there's a nigger at the door, you pay him a dollar and screw the mule." So the travelling salesman went to the barn, and saw the black man at the door. Peeking in, he saw the mule, all decked out in ribbons, smelling of the best of perfumes. He took out a dollar and proffered it to the guardian.
"There ain't nothin' doin,' " said the negro, refusing the money. "Jim McCann, the gambler, is keepin' her now."
32
PAT AND MIKE were tired of war, and in a lull in the firing spied a cow, which they killed and skinned. Pat got into the hindquarters and Mike into the fore. Thus they proceeded back of the lines. Suddenly Mike in the forepart, began to run, Pat, perforce, following. They ran on and on, until Mike suddenly stopped. "It's no use, Pat," he gasped. "Brace yourself, here comes the bull."
33
A CERTAIN tragedian, noted for the size of his jock, was invited by a flapper to her home. As they sat in the parlor she begged for one look at the actor's immense tool. He unbuttoned his trousers and the maiden took the huge implement in her hand and commenced fondling it.
"My, how lovely!" she said. "It's no wonder everyone calls him Caesar. How
16 ANECDOTA
regal he is in his dimensions. How imposing is his stature. How determined of purpose he is. Such fine line! Such force of character. . ."
The tragedian interrupted her: "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
34
THE LAZIEST nigger in forty-eight States is rightly said to be the one who was discovered by his employer seated on a barrel, screwing a mule, but without moving himself. All he was saying was, "Giddap, whoa, back! Giddap, whoa, back!"
35
A COCKNEY, strolling across Westminster bridge met a whore, with whom he rapidly struck a bargain. It being a dark night, she leaned against the bridge parapet and lifted her skirts, while the cockney tried to get his cock in. He worked away madly for a few seconds seeking the opening. In the distance the lights of London loomed soft and mellow. A clock chimed the hour. Soft breezes blew over the Thames. All the city was at peace,—the cockney trying to find the happy orifice. At last he gasped, "Is it in?"
"No," said the girl, "a little more to the Abbey, if you please."
36
BERNSTEIN returned home, and in high dudgeon began to upbraid his wife. "Who was here today? Tell me!" he demanded. "Who is your lover? Tell me,
AMERICANA 17
who came here today to see you?" His wife's denials availed her nothing.
"Don't try to fool me," Bernstein stormed, "I'm the only man in this house. Who was your lover here today? Why is the toilet seat up!"
38
A COUPLE of bookmakers, standing in front of the Hotel Astor turned to look after a "Follies" girl who passed. "Gee," said one, "I feel like screwing that dame again."
"What!" said the other, "you mean to tell me you screwed that swell dame?"
"No," was the answer, "but once before I felt like it."
39
OLE AND PAT had struck up an acquaintance on shipboard, working their way to this country, and, although their occupations did not permit them to see much of each other it developed into a sort of friendship. Pat was one of the deck crew, and it was Ole's job to wet down the coke used in the engine room, to keep the dust from choking the firemen.
Some time after the ship docked the two friends met on Broadway. After a few minutes of hearty greeting Pat asked Ole: "Say, what the hell was it you were doin' to work your way over, Ole?"
"Ay bane coke soaker," said the Swede.
"Ye dirrty divil," said Pat, spitting, "and I nivir suspicted ye!"
40
Two CATS, screwing on the roof of a whore house, fell off in their frenzy. A small boy rushed into
18 ANECDOTA
the sporting house and shouted to the madam: "Missus, your sign fell off."
41
HE: I wonder why that girl giggled when we passed her?
She: Oh, don't you know? She works in the laundry."
—'Small town stuff.'
42
ALDERMAN Brown was reputed to have the longest prick in his town, and every married, and nearly every unmarried, woman in his ward was aware of it. A new resident was apprised of the Alderman's endowment and determined to test it. On approaching him, however, she found the Alderman not readily inclined to fall in with her ideas.
"I'm all through with that stuff," he declared. "It's coming near to election and I can't take any chances." But the lady pleaded and pleaded until he yielded, and the quicker to satisfy her, took her into the hallway of her home.
'Now let's see how big your John really is,' the woman thought. "Unbutton my pants," said the Alderman, "we'll let this be all your work. Now take it out. Lift up your skirt. Put the head into your slot. All ready? Now— walk towards me!" Truly a prodigious weapon.
43
To OBSERVE for herself, at first hand, the life of a chorus girl, a certain society matron ventured
AMERICANA 19
backstage during the performance of a musical play. As she stood near one of the chorines she nodded towards a man in shirt sleeves, with a black cigar in his mouth, and whispered: "Who is that?"
The chorus girl extended her arm. "That dirty son-of-a- bitch, that lousy cock-sucking bastard, that whoremaster fairy," she said, "excuse me for pointing ... is the stage manager."
44
Two GIRLS met on Broadway and exchanged greetings. "What are you doing now?" asked one. Oh, I've got a swell job," was the answer. "I get in at noon, do very little work, the boss takes me for lunch, and then for a drive in the afternoon. In the evening, mostly, we take dinner at a road house. What are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm a whore too," the other answered.
45
THERE was a fire in a whore house and one of the firemen managed to bring out a bed.
"Thank God, they saved the workbench," said the madam.
46
JONES brought home a parrot which he said he had bought at auction, and which was supposed to be a Wonderful bird. But for over two months neither Jones nor his wife, who had at first objected to Poll, could make the pet talk. They tried everything from "Polly wants a cracker," to "Hello, Polly, pretty Polly" but
20 ANECDOTA
with no result. They concluded the bird was deaf and dumb.
One afternoon, while the head of the house was in his office Mrs. Jones invited the ladies of the sewing circle to her home. One of them interrupted the gossip to state that she had secured a fine pair of hose at Gimbles, and lifted her skirt to show them. Another showed a marvelous corset she had purchased at Bests, A third showed a neat silk petticoat. Mrs. Jones lifted her skirt and said: "Look at these wonderful bloomers, all silk, that I bought at Altmans."
The parrot, who had cocked his head from one to the other of the ladies now chirped up: "Ah, home at last. One of you whores give me a cigarette."
47
IN ORDER to start a small bank account for his wife, Brown agreed to give her fifty cents every time he diddled her. Mrs. Brown always dropped the money into a small safe she kept in her closet. At the end of the year the box was opened, to see how much money the lady would be able to put into the bank. Brown was amazed to see a number of one, five, and ten dollar bills among his halves. "Here," he said, "I only gave you a fifty-cent piece each time I screwed you. How did you get these big bills?" "Do you think everybody is as stingy as you?" Mrs. Brown answered.
48
THEY were in bed and he begged her to spread her thighs wider apart. She obliged, but still he begged her: "Spread them a little wider. Oh, just a
AMERICANA 21
little wider." Exasperated, she said to him: "What the hell are you trying to do, get your balls in?"
"No," he answered, "I'm trying to get them out."
49
THE story is told of a clerk who married and spent a pleasant honeymoon with his bride. But one day he came to the office with a rather glum expression on his face. When his fellow clerks asked him what was the trouble he said: "Gee, I pulled a terrible bone this morning. Just before starting for the office I turned the wife off, and then, like an absent-minded jackass I laid down a five-dollar bill on the table." The other men consoled him. His wife wouldn't think anything of it, they assured him.
"That isn't what bothers me," he answered. "She gave me three dollars change!"
50
THOMAS BURKE, author of Limehouse Nights,
is the author also of the following, in his Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse.
OF POLITICIANS
Upon a time the amiable Bill Hawkins
Married a fair wife, demure and of chaste repute,
Keeping closely from her, however,
Any knowledge of the manner of man he had been.
Upon the nuptial night,
Awaking and finding himself couched with a woman,
As had happened on divers occasions,
He arose, and dressed, and departed,
22 ANECDOTA
Leaving at the couch's side four goodly coins.
But in the street,
Remembering the occasion and his present estate of
marriage,
He returned with a haste of no dignity, Filled with emotions of an entirely disturbing nature, Fear that his wife should discover his absence And place evil construction upon it, Being uppermost.
Entering stealthily, then, with the toes of the leopard, With intention of quickly disrobing, and rejoining the
forsaken bride,
He perceived her sitting erect on the couch, Biting shrewdly, with a distressing air of experience, At one of the coins.
Even so it is when Big Politician meets Little Politician.
51
MINISTER: And how is my little lad today?
Little Lad: Ssh! Not so loud. Dad might hear!
52
BERNSTEIN met Cohen on the street and seemed to be very angry. "Cohen," he yelled, "you got to make that boy of yours behave, or I'll break every bone in his body." Cohen demanded to know what had happened to cause this outburst. "He came to my house last night," said Bernstein, "and went with my daughter in the parlor. Like a good feller I left them alone. Now listen Cohen, I don't throw it up to you that he laid my Becky over on the couch. I don't throw it up
AMERICANA 23
to you that he screwed my Becky there ; but what gets me real angry is why does the son-of-a-bitch have to wipe his cock on my plush portieres?"
53
THE HEAD salesman of the small town department store came forward to greet the customer. The latter demanded to see a pair of ladies' drawers with no pee-hole in them. The salesman showed him a pair. "How many of these have you?" the patron asked. "Two hundred pair," said the other. "Are there any more in town?" the stranger asked. When he was assured there were not, "I'll take all these," he said, and they were packed up for him. He paid, took the bundle to the street in front of the department store, saturated it with gasoline and set fire to the whole two hundred pair.
The salesman rushed out in great trepidation. "Why did you buy all those buttonless drawers if you meant to burn them up," he cried.
"Listen, I'm not crazy," said the customer, "I just don't want anybody else in this town to have the trouble I had last night."
54
A PHYSICIAN was very much annoyed by the frequent visits of a certain simple-minded negro who was always afraid something was the matter with him. One time he wanted a Wassermann, the next he thought he had piles. So it went week after week. One Monday morning, seeing Rastus present himself rather bloated with gas on the stomach, the idea suddenly came to the physician how he might get rid of this bothersome pa-
24 ANECDOTA
tient, and, at the same time, amuse himself.
When the negro unburdened himself of his symptoms he said gravely: "Rastus, you're caught at last. That has happened which I've long expected. From all you tell me and all I see you're certainly pregnant."
"O Lordy," the credulous negro moaned, and ran out in terror. As he passed the office of the only other doctor in the town, he ran in for a second consultation. The first physician had in the meantime telephone his
confrere explained the situation, and been assured his joke would be upheld. "No doubt about it, Rastus, you're pregnant."
By the time the negro reached home he was moodily resigned to his fate. He found his wife in the kitchen. "Mandy," he petulantly reproached her, "ah done told you what you'd do to me gettin' on top o' me like dat."
55
A COLORED lady came into Gimble's Department Store the other day and asked for a pair of drawers. "How do you want them to button?" the clerk asked, "front or side?"
"Doan make no difference," the negress replied, "these yere is fer a corpse."
56
SEVERAL scientists were discussing prostitution, the customs esoteric and indigenous to its pursuit. Said one: "It must be exceedingly dissatisfying to a person of intelligence to observe the simulation of passion which a hardened prostitute offers to her patron. I have
AMERICANA 25
often wondered whether there might not be some autoerotic means of inducing a real passion with each customer."
The college janitor, who was standing nearby interrupted: "You means you wants to know how to get a whore hot?" "Yes," said the professor.
To get a whore hot, real hot," said the janitor, "Fuck her and don't pay her!"
57
LIFE'S IRONY: One night with Venus. Six months with Mercury.
58
How MUCH do you charge?" the man asked.
"Two dollars," said the whore. The bargain was made and they proceeded to her flat.
She lay over on the bed in the age-old posture of the prostitute, and he fitted to his erect prick a condom. When he had finished he proffered her fee to her, but she disdained it. That ain't enough," she said. "But you told me it was two dollars," said the man. "I know," the harlot answered, "but there's a dollar more—cover charge."
59
IN FRANCE a condom is known as capote Anglaise,
or "English cap." A gentleman once went into a French shop, intending to purchase a dark cap, to wear in mourning for his wife, who had recently died. He knew the French word for cap was
capote, so he
26 ANECDOTA
asked for that. Several were shown him, but he wanted one English style, so he asked for a
capote Anglaise. The clerk sent him to the drug department where he repeated his request to the lady clerk. She arched her brows and asked him what color he wanted. "My wife has just died," he answered, "so I want a black one."
"Such delicacy!" said the clerk.
60
WHEN did Evelyn Nesbit Thaw really love her husband?
When he shot White.
61
A LITTLE girl came into a down-town drug store and asked the clerk for three rolls of toilet paper. The clerk, however, did not recognize the little one and stopped her. "Who is it for?" he asked.
The little girl tilted her nose in the air as she answered: "For all of us."
62
AT A STAG party on upper Broadway a negress was giving a "circus." She lay stripped on a matting and went through all the eye-rolling, bosom-heaving contortions of a woman with a lusty man screwing her. She wriggled her buttocks, locked and unlocked her thighs, squirmed and tremored.
Overcome with emotion one of the stags shouted: "Fuck her hot!" The negress stopped and turned towards the offender: "If you-all cain't be gentlemen," she said, with grave dignity, "this performance cain't go on!"
AMERICANA 27
63
Two REPORTERS, seated in the Claridge dining room, amused themselves by guessing the occupations of the various diners. They decided to their mutual satisfaction that one was a broker, another an actor, a third a manager, a fourth a lawyer, and so on. But they disagreed about an elderly gentleman seated near a window, with a beautiful blond. One reporter insisted the old man must be a broker, while the other maintained he must be a physician. To settle the argument, one of the men called the old gentleman away from the girl, to their table.
"To settle a bet," one of the newspapermen said, "would you mind telling us what your occupation is? My friend here says you are a broker, while my guess is that you are a doctor." The old gentleman surveyed them both a moment and replied, "I'm neither. I'm a taxidermist. Just now I'm stuffing that bird, and a little later I'll mount her."
64
AT A Greenwich Village Ball a young woman presented herself entirely without clothes. The doorman stopped her, with these words: "Miss, this is supposed to be a costume ball. Now we don't mind how few clothes you have on, but you are supposed to represent something." The young woman retired to the ladies' dressing room, and shortly after reappeared with nothing on save a pair of black shoes and black gloves. The doorman again stopped her. "You're just as bad as you were before," he said, "what are you supposed to be?"
"Can't you see?" the girl asked, "I'm the five of spades."
28 ANECDOTA
65
MANDY: Ah'd like a little vacation, Missus. Ah wants to go home and see mah chillun.
Mistress: Why, Mandy, I didn't know you were married.
Mandy: Well, ah ain't, Missus. But ah ain't been neglected.
66
THREE old maids went off on a tramp in the woods. The tramp died.
67
ONE 'Flapper' had just finished 'retailing' the latest. "Tell me another, Mame. I heard that one yesterday. It's a good one, though. I told it to Harry in bed last night and he laughed so hard he laughed his hard off.
68
MAMMY JACKSON had long been noted in Tuscaloosa as a peaceable, dutiful, and loving wife till one morning early one April she stood before the judge on a charge of having beaten her husband into insensibility.
On hearing the charge against her, the minister of justice expressed his surprise. As the good woman was still panting with rage he had, however, no difficulty in eliciting her story, and less difficulty in pronouncing judgment.
"You see, it wuz like dis, Jedge Brown. Yesterday I wus doin' mah washin' on de back po'ch like a good wife when mah nigger comes in from de field. And he sez to me, 'Beckie, ah wants you-all to come into de house wif me.' Bein' a dutiful wife, as yer honor knows, ah went into de house wif
AMERICANA 29
him. When we got into de house he sez he wants me to come upstairs wif him. So ah goes up de stairs wif him. 'Come on in here, Beckie,' sez he. And ah went into de bedroom wif him. When ah gets into de bedroom he sez, 'Beckie, ah wants yuh to lay off all yo' clothes now.' So ah lays off mah clothes. 'Lay down on dat bed,' den sez he. And ah lays down. Now, Jedge, you-all knows me as a lovin' wife. But when dat nigger gits me in dat position and den says 'April fool' to me and walks out o' de room ah figgers dats more'n mah lovin' kin stand. Ah jes' had to do somethin.' "
"Case dismissed," said the Judge dryly.
69
Do YOU know who earns most at this hospital, the rabbi or the priest?" queried the pretty nurse of the mother who had just been delivered of a boy.
"No, I haven't the least idea."
"You haven't? Why, the rabbi, of course. He gets all the tips." *.
70
IN A gold-mining district, a claim-worker, a certain Brown, received news with which he was so delighted he ran down the street telling everybody he met that he had found a twelve-pound gold nugget as good as any to be found in America. Such news was without a precedent even in that locality where men were striking it rich every day. So the local newspaper sent a reporter to get the particulars. Mrs, Brown's
* Perhaps one of the last places one would expect to find the sexual joke is at the maternity hospital. Yet, due to the character of events there, a: well as to a peculiarly compensative process at work in the nurses and in the women confined, the maternity hospital is for the sexual joke an especially favorable breeding-place. We only regret that we have no more examples of such 'cultures.'
30 ANECDOTA
elder sister, a lively hussy, fond of her joke, happened to answer the bell. This is the conversation that followed.
"Does Mr. Brown live here?"
"Yes."
"May I speak with him."
"I'm sorry, but he's not in just now. Is there anything I can do?"
"Well, I understand he found a twelve-pound nugget."
"Why, . . ." then, in a flash, seeing the situation, she added, "Yes."
"Can you show me the exact spot where he found it?"
"I'm afraid Mr. Brown would never consent to that, as it is private."
"Is the hole very far from here?"
"No, it is quite handy."
"Has Mr. Brown been working the claim very long?"
"Only about ten months."
"Was he the first to work it?"
"Well, he's told me he believed he was."
"Was the work difficult?"
"It was at first but it was easier after a while."
"Has he got to the bottom yet?"
"Not yet, I believe, but very near."
"Do you think there are any more nuggets?"
"Doubtless, if the claim is properly worked."
"Has he worked it since he found the nugget?"
"No. But last night I heard Mrs. Brown tell him it was time to start again."
"I suppose he works secretly."
"Yes, mostly at night."
"Did he have any help?"
"Well, Mrs. Brown did her level best, I am sure."
"Do you think he would consider parting with the claim?"
"No. He finds too much pleasure working it himself."
"Did he blast with nitro-glycerine or did it do it all by hand?"
"I believe he did some of it by hand. He just kept on digging, though I believe he used vaseline."
"Has he widened the hole any?"
"Yes, a little."
"Is he going to improve the mine?"
"Well, he said he would whitewash it.
"Does he always work alone
AMERICANA 31
at night."
"No. Mrs. Brown holds the tool for him and they go fifty-fifty."
"Would you mind showing me the nugget?"
"Not at all."
And she brought the baby to the door.
71
LEVY was courting Reba and he sat on a chair. Reba sat in his lap. Her warmth made his peter rise, and Reba, sitting on it, felt it, and it was pleasant. So she sat a long time. Levy was in agony. But finally the door bell rang, and as the girl went to answer it, Levy shifted his jock to the other side. When his sweetheart re. turned, however, she sat on the other side, and again feeling the protuberance remarked, "Ooh, Abie, another one?"
"Yeh," he answered foolishly,
\ got two of them."
When they were married Reba discovered his perfidy. "Now do it with the other one," she said, after her defloration. Abie told her he had given it to Feinberg. "He didn't had one," he said, "so I helped him out." A few days later Levy returned home early, in time to see his Reba coming out of Feinberg's
flat. "What were you doing in there?" he demanded.
"Aaah, Abie, you gave away the best one," she said.
72
AN ARMENIAN was being examined by the draft board. The physician, looking over the hunk's penis for traces of veneral disease, pulled back the foreskin. Unable to decide he let it slip back, and pulled it forward again. Absentmindedly he was continuing this operation when the draftee interrupted.
"Par-
32 ANECDOTA
don me," he said, "if you're doing this for the government go right ahead. But if you're doing it for me, move just a little faster, please."
73
Two SALESMEN were standing in front of the Astor when a very beautiful girl passed. "Gee," said one, "I'd give a hundred dollars to smack that dame on the bare arse."
"Do you mean it?" asked the other. "I know her, and maybe I could fix it for you." The first repeated his offer and his friend hurried after the girl. It was arranged, and the trio repaired to a room in the hotel. Here the young woman lifted her skirt, let down her bloomers and lay face down on the bed. The salesman who had made the offer gazed on her bare posterior with admiration. He allowed his hands to softly caress the rounded, warm flesh.
"Gee," he said, "her arse is smooth like alabaster! Feel how round and warm it is. Man, it's wonderful!"
"Go ahead, slap it," his friend exclaimed.
"Why should I?" was the answer. "This feels wonderful, and it doesn't cost anything."
74
THE PRESIDENT of a large life insurance company was speaking at a company dinner. He had been speaking over two hours, and it was near midnight. Yet. none of his employees had dared leave the room. There was a long list of speakers to follow, and these impatiently waited for the president to stop speaking. But he just rambled on, saying nothing at great length.
AMERICANA 33
Finally, however, he sat down, after introducing the next speaker, a visiting English insurance man. The latter rose and said: "The hour has grown so late, gentlemen, that I will not deliver my speech, but will instead tell you a little story: A wee bird was flying about one day, when it suddenly began to rain. The downpour drenched the bird and it fell to earth, where the rain beat on it ceaselessly. Finally, towards noon the sun came out and warmed the little bird, so that it beat its wings and fluttered about. A horse passed by and dropped some breakfast for the wee bird, and it ate, and it ate till it could eat no more. Then straight into the air flew the wee bird, and, in good spirits, began to chirp. And it chirped and it chirped till a hawk, flying high in the sky, heard it, and swooping down on the little bird, gobbled it up.
"And the moral of this little story," concluded the Englishman, to the president's discomfiture, "is, that when you're full of horseshit, don't chirp too much!"
75
THE DOCTOR had just delivered a young woman on the west side of a lovely child, and he complimented
her, asking to see the father of such a wonderful baby. "I'm ashamed to admit it, doctor," said the young woman, "but my husband is on the road. The father of this child is Meyer Ginsburg."
"Oho," thought the doctor, "one of those cases," and went on his way. In a few days he was called to confine a woman on the east side, and she also said the father of her child was Meyer Ginsburg. The following week a woman in Brooklyn attributed the parenthood of the child to
34 ANECDOTA
Meyer Ginsburg. In short the doctor answered about a dozen cases, in each of which the father was named Meyer Ginsburg. The last straw came when he was called to the Bronx to a family named Ginsburg, and delivered the woman of triplets.
"Pardon me," said the doctor, "but is your husband named Meyer?"
"Yes," answered the woman, "do you want to see him? He's downstairs in the yard, sawing some wood." The doctor went down, to see this marvel, and found him a weazened little Hebrew. "Listen, Meyer," said the doctor, "I confined in the last few weeks twelve women in all parts of the city, uptown, downtown, east side, west side, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, and each one said you are the father of the child. My God, man, how do you do it?"
"It's easy, doctor," Ginsberg replied, "I got a bicycle!"
76
IT USED to be the custom of an ex-prize fighter to stand on the corner of Broadway and 45th Street and address young women who went by with this question: "Do you fuck?" A friend of his remonstrated with him. "Don't you get many a slap in the face?" he asked.
"Yes," the pug answered, "but you'd be surprised what a lot of fucking I get, too."
77
MURPHY sought out the doctor, greatly worried. "My wife has a great pain inside at the end of the spine," he said. "I wish you'd give her something for it," The doctor gave him a powder, told him to
•
AMERICANA 35
put it on the end of his penis, mount his wife, penetrate her, and thus rub the powder well into her. The Irishman tried it, but returned to say that his wife did not feel much better. "You didn't know how to do it," the doctor told him.
"Well, then, come on home with me, and you do it," said the lout. The doctor did, and finding the wife comely, was nothing loth to begin and to rub the powder well in. Murphy looked on, and scratching his head remarked, "If I didn't know you to be the doctor, begorra, I'd think ye were screwing me wife!"
78
IT WAS a cold night and the pimp was spending it with his girl. They lay in bed, in her room, and disported themselves right valourously, when there was a sudden ring at the bell, repeated three times. They started, It was a signal from a customer. "Where can I hide?" asked the pander, looking about. "There isn't any place in this room," said his girl, "but you better get out of the way quick." There was no time for him to do anything but grab a flimsy nightgown and rush out on the fire-escape, before the patron arrived.
The bitter cold attacked the pimp out on the fire-escape, and he trembled as he cursed himself for not getting a heavier robe. His thin lips turned blue, his knees knocked against each other till they hurt, his eyes grew livid. Inside, where it was warm, the other man enjoyed himself at his leisure. It was cold outside, he knew, so he was in no hurry to finish.
Her lover, meanwhile, began gradually to grow numb. He permitted himself a peek into the room, where, under the
36 ANECDOTA
warm sheets his lady and the cash customer were bobbing up and down. His nose had turned from red to blue, he felt that his ears were non-existent, his fingers were stiff rods, when finally he heard the door slam. With difficulty he raised the window and intruding his icy head into the warm room, asked, in a trembling voice: "Has the
sucker gone yet?"
79
ANDERSON'S house was being over-run with rats and he sought advice as to the best way to rid the house of them. One friend advised that he bait a few traps with apples to catch the rodents. On his way home to try this method he met another friend, who advised him to use nuts instead of apples, as bait. Perplexed, he told his wife of the conflicting advice he had received. "Put down a few traps," she answered, "with apples in some and nuts in the others. Then you're sure to get them."
He did so, and next day came up from the cellar in great glee to break the news to his wife. She was in the parlor, with a roomful of other women, sewing, when he burst in. "I caught eight of them," he announced. His wife beamed on him. "Did you get them by the apples?" she asked.
"No."
80
AN ENGLISHMAN was present at a party once during which one of the guests recited a parody as follows:
"Mary had a little skirt, 'Twas split just right in half, And everywhere that Mary went, She showed her little calf."
•
AMERICANA 37
It was a jolly rhyme, thought the limey, and made a mental note of it. Back in deah ol' Lunnon he essayed to repeat it at a mixed gathering, promising it would amuse the ladies. This is the rhyme as he read it: "Mary had a little, er, ah, skirt, 'Twas slit, er . . dontcherknow, just in front, And everywhere that, er . . Mary went, She showed her little . . My Gawd,
that can't be right."
81
LIZA was large, and colored, and took in washing. One of her numerous beaux one day asked her: "How come you got such big hands, Liza?" "Why man," Liza replied, "when I was a chile I used to make mud pies, and the mad squashed out my hands like that." "Well, then, how come you got such big feet?" her swain enquired. "Why that was fum walkin' barefoot in the mud," Liza answered. Her sweetie smiled, and asked: "Sister, did you ever
sit in the mud?"
82
Two HEBREW traders, cast ashore on an island in the South Seas, became aware that the native King was to have a great birthday party. Each determined to bring him a gift, to ingratiate himself with the royal host, and perhaps, begin trade relations. Abie presented himself at the feast with a huge bunch of bananas for the King. His Royal Highness took one look, and laughed: "That's a hell of a gift for ME! Take him outside and shove every one of those up his arse." Abie was led off, but instead of fear, he was laughing. Asked
38 ANECDOTA
to explain his uncalled for mirth, he replied: "Mine brother is bringing pineapples!"
83
THEY met on the train, and to while away the time a poker game was suggested. Repairing to a drawing room mutual introductions began. "My name is Hancock," said one. An elderly gentleman introduced himself as "Alcock." A third was named "Babcock." "My name is Hitchcock," said a fourth. The fifth, a weazned little Hebrew, said, "I don't think I care to play in this game. My name is Kuntz."
84
MANDY was parading down the main street of the colored section of Birmingham, dressed fit to kill. She had on resplendent ear rings, a new gown and wrap, her shoes were patent leather, her hose silk. On her head was a hat trimmed with birds of paradise. A friend accosted her: "Why, Mandy, where you get all them beautiful togs?" Mandy giggled back, "Ain't you heard? I just been ruined!"*
85
THE REGIMENT was billeted in a neutral village just over the border from the enemy. Two peasant girls met in the market-place, and one said to the other: "You know how we're trying to be nice to the soldiers.
* Thomas Hardy has treated the same theme in rhyme. (Vide: "The Ruined Maid," p. 145 in his "Collected Poems," Macmillan, 1923.) Whether the above is a vulgarization of Hardy, of originally observed fact, or simply an example of folk imagination we have not been able to determine. Hardy is, however, responsible for the following line: "If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst."
-
AMERICANA 39
Well, this morning the strangest thing happened. A private came into our house, where I was alone, and without a word took off his sword. Then he removed his coat, let down his trousers, and, still without a word, threw me on the bed and screwed me. Still silent he got up, redressed, bucked on his sword, and went out... Lord only knows what he wanted."—From the Hungarian.
86
THE AMERICAN version of the above story is that a chambermaid at the Biltvania answered a ring from the 16th floor. The moment she entered the room the guest seized her, threw her on the bed and did his will. Then, as expeditiously, he ushered her to the door and pushed her out.
"To this day," the maid told a friend, "I don't know what he was ringing for."
87
A HOTEL chambermaid on her honeymoon wrote to her friend: "You ought to try it without your shoes, Mame, it's great!"
88
GOLDSTEIN'S wife had died. Goldstein made the house ring with his lamentations. Finally his brother persuaded him to go to his room, to quiet him self. For three days nothing was heard from Goldstein. His brother, alarmed, went up to see him, and found him screwing the maid.
"Meyer," he said, in an injured tone, "Only a few days your wife is dead, Meyer, and what are you doing?"
Meyer stopped long
40 ANECDOTA
enough to look up. He pleaded, "In my grief, I should know what I'm doing?"
89
RASTUS was pained. With no malice aforethought he had returned home several hours earlier than usual, only to find his wife in bed with the janitor. "Mandy, Mandy," he said, "I sho' am 'shamed of you."
But Mandy only looked up and said, "Look on, nigger, gaze on an' learn somethin'."
90
THE Hebrew parallel to this story recites how Levy came home early one day, to find his wife in bed under the vigorous strokes of a stranger. "Rebbeca!" said Levy, "to think that after all these years, after all I did for you, after I made from you a lady and gave you from the finest, you should do such a thing to me. Rebecca, I took you when you was a poor girl and ... ain't you even got respect enough to stop while I'm talking to you?"
91
A GENTLEMAN from Idaho was in Paris and didn't want to make himself too conspicuous. So he asked a cabby to give him the address of a good whorehouse. He went there by himself, quietly, asked for a private room, and, after selecting his partner, ordered dinner with lots of wine.. After the meal the man entertained himself in various ways with his playmate, who taught him positions of which even Elephantis,
AMERICANA 41
Aretino and Luisa Sigea were ignorant. Thoroughly drained, the gentleman from Idaho went downstairs, where he asked the madam what his bill was.
"There is no charge," said the lady of the house.
Astonished, but not disposed to argue the matter, her guest left. All next day he hugged his secret to himself. He could barely wait till dinner time before he again presented himself before the bawds. Again he went through his performance, but this time, when he made a bluff at paying the piper he was informed the charges were seven hundred francs.
" What! " he shrieked. "Wasn't I here last evening, and didn't I go through every kind of screw, and you didn't charge me a sou?"
"Ah," said the madam, "but last night was for the movies."
92
ABRAMS frantically dashed up the stairs of his home. "Sarah," he panted, "we got to move out of here right away. I just found out the most terrible thing. I just learned that the janitor from this house screwed every woman in it but one."
"Yeh, know," said Sarah, "that's that stuck up thing on the third floor."
93
LORD Cholmondely called his valet to him. "I'm bored this evening," he said, "Bring me a whore."
His valet went on the errand and soon returned with a fairly presentable young English girl, blond-haired and blue-eyed.
"Undress," said m'Lord. "Lie on that couch there."
As the girl complied, he removed his waistcoat and trousers, and mounted her. He was
42 ANECDOTA
laboring with great diligence when the lady, to let him have the thrill that went with each of her affairs, gave him a moist tongue kiss.
"Here now," said the Lord, "don't get personal, or I shall jolly well stop screwing you!"
94
Two HEBREWS and their wives were on a train trip when they passed through a tunnel. As they got into the light Cohen said to Levy: "I just kissed your wife."
"That's nothing," said Levy as he put his fingers under Cohen's nose. "Smell."
95
THE young man on his honeymoon had selected what he thought to be a quiet hotel. What he saw, however, in a room across the air-shaft from his caused him to pull down the blind and call for the manager.
"What kind of a joint is this?" he demanded. "I come here with my bride, thinking this was a quiet, refined hotel. What's the first thing I see here?" He led the manager to the window and pulled the blind aside. In the room across the way three nude men were practicing a spinctrian posture, that is to say, in vulgar language, back-scuttling each other. "Lucky Julius," was his comment, "always in the middle."
96
SPEAKING of back-scuttling, the story is told of two Armenians who were discussing the merits of various positions for intercourse.
"Did you every try the back way?" asked one; and when the other said he
AMERICANA 43
hadn't, he urged him, "When you get home tonight, try it on the wife. Gee, it's great, and you'll never go back to the other way."
The second Armenian said he would try anything once. When they met the next day the first asked him how he liked the back way method.
"Oh, it's very fine," the other answered, "but the children laughed so!"
97
WHILE on the subject it would be as well to tell the story of the two friends who worked in a laundry. One was always quite well dressed, the other shabby, although both earned the same wages. The prosperous one urged the other to do as she was doing. Listen," she said, "every night I go to a certain house on the next block, where I manage to earn a few dollars easy. Come on over, I'll introduce you." The other demurerd. A compromise was finally reached when her friend suggested that for a few days they go over during the lunch hour and try it. Her second day at her new vocation found the shabby laundress in the company of a hilarious youth who offered three times the usual fee if she would let him do it the back way.
"Come on," he said, "just like a couple of dogs. It won't hurt you."
"All right," the girl finally agreed, "but for heaven's sake don't drag me past the laundry."
98
AN OLD rounder married an innocent virgin, in the days when there were such creatures, and, tired of the various postures of love, determined, on discovering how demure his bride was, to begin by teaching her how
44 ANECDOTA
to play the flute. For several weeks after his marriage he amused himself in this way. Then even that thrill waned, and one night as they ere abed he attempted to board his still virginal spouse.
"You get off me!" she shrieked. "Don't you dare try to do that, you dirtly degenerate."
99
BUSINESS being slow, a travelling man accepted a position with a circus, and continued travelling. When the troupe was out about five weeks, and camped on a prairie, the salesman approached one of the ballyhoo men.
"Say," he said, "what do you fellers do for a woman?"
The ballyhoo man looked him over. "Why, hell," he said, "we never need a woman. We take any man on the lot. It's a shot for shot proposition."
"What, buggery?" said the salesman. "Never!"
But in a week he changed his mind and again approached his friend, to ask him just how to go about it.
"Oh, go over to any man on the lot and tell him what you want," he was advised.
Next day he sought the ballyhoo man and dragged him to one side. "Look at this," he said, taking out his tool, which was badly lacerated, and hung almost in shreds. "With a whole circusful to choose from, I had to pick the glass-eater!"
100
A COCKNEY had just been married. He hurried to a taxi with his bride, followed by a number of their friends. As they sank back into the seat one of his friends leaned in and leered at them. "What abaht
AMERICANA 45
t'night?" he chuckled, "what abaht t'night?" "Yes," the bride shot back at him, "and what abaht this afternoon? Eh?"
101
WHEN I got back to the office my stenographer told me she had a new position."
"What did you say?"
"I said, 'Shut the door and let's try it.' "
102
A COUPLE who were fond of playing poker found it inconvenient to cohabit because of their four-year old son. So they formed the practice of waking each other in the middle of the night to make approaches in a code they agreed on, which made use of poker terms.
At 1 A. M, she awoke and said, "I open."
"I pass," said he, turning over to sleep.
At 3 A. M. he awoke, and tapping his wife on the shoulder, said, "I open."
"I pass," said she.
"But I've got a straight," said he.
She hesitated a moment. "All right, I'll play," she said. "I need one to fill."
103
ANEW WORD was coined for a certain actor whose inclinations were equally amorous for men as for woman. One of his critics called him "ambisextrous."
104
HAVING come to an understanding with the farmer's daughter, a certain travelling salesman sought to find a convenient time and place for them to get to-
46 ANECDOTA
gether. As no opportunity offered itself, he determined to make one. The girl was not allowed to leave the house, so one morning while downtown the salesman procured a dog license. When he returned home they hid the old man's glasses and told him they had been married. "Here is the license, we're going upstairs to bed," said the drummer.
The farmer, hunting around, found his glasses and hurried upstairs, where he pounded on the door. His daughter paused in her undressing.
"Mamie," said the old man, "ef you hain't done it, don't do it, cause this ain't fer it! This ain't no doin' license!"
105
HEYWOOD BROUN in his book The Boy Grew Older
has his hero, Peter Neale, take home a chorus girl who lives on 168th Street. At her door she says to him, "You're entitled to a kiss. Anyone that takes me all the way to 168th street is entitled to at least a kiss from me. Next month I'm going to move to 242nd Street!"
106
A MARRIAGE-BROKER was trying to arrange a match between a business man and a beautiful young girl. But the business man was obdurate. "Before I buy goods from a mill I look at snatches, and before I get married I must also have a sample," he said.
"But, my God, you can't ask a virtuous, respectable girl for a thing like that," said the
schadchen.
"I'm a man from business," said the other, "and that's the way it will be done, or not at all."
The broker went
AMERICANA 47
off in despair to talk with the girl. "I got for you a fine feller, with lots of money," he said. "He's a business man and his rating is O. K. But he's
eppis a little meshuga. He says he's a good business man, and wouldn't go into nothing blind. He must have a sample."
"Listen," said the girl. "I'm so smart a business man as he is. Semples I wouldn't give him. References I'll give him!"
107
PRIX: Do you know why Jesus was born in a stable?
Bollix: No, why?
Prix: Because they didn't allow Jews in the hotels.
108
Two Swedish chambermaids went to a photographer. He ordered them to stand facing the camera, with their backs to a painted scene. Not satisfied with their position, he kept shifting them until one of the girls asked the other, "Why don't he take the picture? What is he doing?"
"He wants to focus," said the other.
"Let him take the pitcher first," her friend replied, "and foke us after."
109
A LEARN ED sexologist was once asked by a patient what was the ideal time for a screw between man and woman, husband and wife.
"A man should sleep in a bed by himself in one wing of his house, the bed being in the middle of the room, which should not have a carpet. The wife should be in another wing, con-
48 ANECDOTA
nected by a long, uncarpeted hallway, with stone flagging. Now, when the husband will get up, naked, from his warm bed, walk quietly down that hallway, to a door, which will be in the middle, separating the couple, and wait without making a sound for his wife to get out of her warm bed, and walk naked down the cold hall to the door... that, that, I say, will be the highest moment of desire, and the right time for a screwing party!"
110
HE'S so dumb he went into the Martha Washington Hotel and asked for the gent's toilet.
111
HE'S A spendthrift all right. He's keeping a woman at the Y. W.
A.
112
SOON after the Hall-Mills murder case the Methodist Episcopal College of New Jersey met, according to Will Rogers, and passed a ruling that hereafter all rectors must button their collars in front, and their pants behind!
113
WHEN the Singer Midgets go on a vaudeville tour the house work is divided among them. One of the ladies cooks, another sews, one of the men does
AMERICANA 49
the heavy work, and so on. One week, while they were playing the Palace theatre in New York, the lady who did the cooking missed a couple of performances. Newspapermen who approached Walter Kingsley, house press-agent, scenting a possible story, were told that the midget who did the family washing in a kettle had had the ill fortune to fall backward into it.
"Was she badly hurt," Kingsley was asked.
"No, she just got a little behind in her work," he said.
114
A NOTORIOUS 'piss customer' ambled into Dinty Moore's place but was promptly shooed out. He tried another cafe, but, being as well known there, he was again put out. After four or five attempts, his bladder full to bursting, he rushed into the office of a Times Square doctor.
"I can't piss, doctor, I can't piss," he moaned.
"Here, come with me," said the doctor, leading him to the toilet. "Now try hard."
The man nearly filled the bowl with his water. "What do you mean," said the physician, "you piss all right. Why did you say you couldn't?"
"I meant they wouldn't let me," said the man, gratefully.
115
ONE season when Sir Herbert Tree returned to London from a tour of the provinces he decided to cut expenses, so dismissed his leading man and engaged a cheaper actor. He had occasion a few weeks later to use a comfort station and noticed, after defecating, that the attendant was the former leading man.
"My, how you have fallen," he said as he paid the man his
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fee. "You must be starving to do this."
"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," said the actor. "Of course, business has been a little slow this morning. I've had twelve pissers, and you're the third shit to come in."
116
"BUGS" BAER says: "God put the stink in a fart for guys who are hard of hearing."
117
A WEEK before the wedding the young girl came to her mother in tears. "I'm so afraid about getting married," she said. "I'm afraid I won't be able to please my sweetheart."
Her mother, who wanted to make the girl's trials easier, undertook to explain to her the secrets of married life. With some hesitation, she began to explain to the girl what she would have to go through.
"Oh, that doesn't bother me, mother," said the daughter, "I can fuck alright, but I can't cook."
118
A NEGRO who had the misfortune to get his first clap went to his doctor. To frighten him the doctor said: "I'm afraid I'll have to cut off your organ."
"Mah which?" asked the dinge.
"Your organ," . said the doctor.
"So dat's whut yo' call it," said the coon. "Kin I have a minute to mahself to think this thing over?" The doctor agreed. In a few moments he came back into the room, to hear the negro addressing his penis: "Ohgan o'mine, yo' has played yo' las' tune!"
AMERICANA 51
119
THE schooner Salt Lake had been at sea over a month and was nearing Tahiti. The crew were as horny as could be, but one of the men, who had never visited the port was disturbed as to how he should get what he was after. He approached the mate.
"It's simple," said the latter. "When you go ashore just go up to the first man you see and ask him where you can get a woman."
"But I can't speak the bloody language."
"Well, in that case just take out fifty cents and show him your prick. He'll direct you then all right."
In a few hours the sailor returned. "That was lousy advice you gave me," he told the mate. "The first guy I went up to, I took out my pecker, and showed him half a buck. In a second the bastard had his prick out, with fifty cents, matched me, and took the buck!"
120
WHEN the animals boarded the ark, old Noah, to prevent trouble, made all the males check their organs, giving each a ticket for his private property. When they were settled on Mt. Ararat, just before going ashore, when their parts would be restored to them, the monkey approached his spouse.
"Tonight, my dear," he said, "I'm going to give you a real nice time. I don't mind telling you it'll be the best you ever had. I've swiped the elephant's ticket."
121
A MICHIGANITE, who had just purchased one of Mr. Ford's latest, was out for a drive one day
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when the car suddenly halted and he could not get it started again. Just then Henry himself drove by in a Lincoln, saw the man's difficulty and stopped.
"I can't seem to turn the engine over," the customer complained. Ford himself lifted the head, leaned down into the mechanism and whispered to it. Immediately the engine began to run.
"Oh, Mr. Ford, please tell me what you told the engine," the man pleaded, "so I won't have this trouble again."
"I just whispered 'Lizzie, this is Henry, turn over,' " said the great historian.
122
"I'M GOING to buy a Studebaker," an old maid said to a friend of hers.
"Don't do it," he counseled, "Get a Buick. If you buy a Studebaker, you'll get screwed."
Next day she had a Studebaker.
123
A PROFESSOR of botany was lecturing to a girl's class. "This twig, you will notice," said he, "is composed of bark, hardwood, and pith. Of course you know what pith is."
The class stared at him blankly. "Don't you know what pith is?" the professor repeated. "You, Miss Brown, you know what pith is, do you not?"
"Yeth, thir," said Miss Brown.
124
No, YOU'RE not going out tonight," said Mrs. Kantor, to her daughter. "I wouldn't let you should go."
"But mamma, how do you expect I should get
AMERICANA 53
a feller if I don't go to parties and balls?" complained the girl.
"Never mind," said the mother, "you'll get a feller without parties,—you'll get a feller without balls...."
125
ASCHADCHEN, or marriage broker, was telling a prospect about a splendid girl he had in mind for him to marry. "She's got a college education. She's beautiful,—take a look from this picture. Money in the bank she's got too. Her family is Al, and her disposition is fine."
"I know," said the young man, "but why do you give me such a bargain. What's the matter with her?"
"Nothing," said the schadcken,
"only, she's the least little bit pregnant."
126
A STRANGER was being shown through a small southern town. The bank, it was pointed out to him, was owned by Mr. Cohen. So was the department store, and the town garage. "That's a beautiful fountain", said the stranger. "Cohen put that up," his guide said, "and that library too."
"Cohen must be well liked and respected in this town," said the stranger.
"Only for one little mistake he made!" the cicerone said. "If not for that one little mistake people would now be pointing him out as 'Cohen, the philanthropist,' instead of 'Cohen, the cocksucker'."
127
THE young man and his sweetheart sat in the parlor. Her parents, who were in the kitchen, noticed
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that the youth kept running to the bathroom every few moments. "What's the matter with him?" the old man asked. "I don't like this running business. Maybe he's got a disease. Go on, Becky, you ask him what's the matter with him."
With some hesitation the mother approached him and asked him why he kept running to the bathroom so often.
"Well, I'll tell you," the young man replied. "You're daughter is so lovely that I can't help having an erection every time I see her. So I've been running into the bathroom to put cold water on the head of my thing, to keep it down."
The old woman returned to her husband. "Nu," he asked. "What kind a disease is he got?" "You should have such a diseases," she said.
128
PRIX: Why is a Ford car like a whore?
Bollix: I don't know. Why?
Prix: Because you can have lots of fun with one, but you'd hate to be seen in public with it.
129
FRANK. HARRIS, disgusted with Oscar Wilde for his passion for young boys, finally made the author promise to abstain from his perversion. However, not two weeks later he called on Wilde and found the latter in bed, with a boy.
"You son-of-a-bitch," said Harris, who was never known to use the polite term when the impolite would do just as well. "What the hell do you mean by this? Didn't you promise me on your word of honor that you'd never do this again? Didn't you tell me you were going to turn over a new
AMERICANA 55
leaf?"
"Don't get excited, Frank, I am," said Wilde, unabashed. "Can't you see I'm at the bottom of the page now?"
130
"WHAT you all doin' fo' a livin' now, honey?" dusky belle asked of her beau.
" I'se a lion tamer," he answered modestly. "Fo' two bucks a day ah sticks mah head in de lion's mouf."
"You ain't no lion tamer," said his sweetie. "You just a lyin' bastard."
131
COMING home from a party the young man and his girl stopped in her hallway for a parting kiss. As they embraced he grew horny, and pleaded with her to lift her skirt. She refused. He tried every artifice to excite her orifice, but with no success. Finally, in sheer disgust he left her, saying, "You won't, eh? Well, there's no use the three of us standing here then."
132
Si CAME to New York armed with an address which a travelling man had given him and the admonition to 'ask for Singer and say Jack sent you.' Everything went well, and Si spent a delirious night. Next day he was walking down lower Broadway, when to his surprise he saw the magic name Singer on a store window, with some sewing machines on exhibition. Inside, behind a counter stood a pretty girl.
"Jack sent me," beamed Si as he entered.
The girl smiled at him
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and said, "Would you like one?"
"You bet. How much?" asked Si.
"Well, some are eighty dollars, some sixty-five, and the cheapest are fifty."
"Go on," objected Si, "what you trying to do. I got one last night for twenty dollars."
"Oh," said the girl, "that's the kind you screw on a table."
"No, ma'am," insisted Si, "I screwed this one in bed!"
133
JOCK: I saw a funny thing on Broadway today. A rooster was chasing a chicken down the street in front of the Columbia theatre, trying to mount her. But the chicken ran from him, out to the middle of the street and stuck her head on a trolley track, and was run over.
Stropp: What was the big idea?
Jock: Better death than dishonor.
134
Two fellows who hadn't seen each other in some time met one day and one asked the other what he was doing. "Oh, me,
