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"What's the matter?" says I. "Couldn't you manage the horn."

"Well, you see, Brother Jones," says he, "I could manage the horn all right, but I could not manage the neighbors."

This same fellow is a bird fancier. He breeds all kinds of birds.

I asked him to blow me to a small hot bird and a cold bottle now that he was so wealthy, and the stare he gave me was so cold that it froze the highball I carry in my pocket flask.

I don't care, though, if I didn't have the hot bird I had a cold bottle.

He has a great flock of homing pigeons.

The other day he bet a fellow named Robinson, that he could select two out of the bunch that would come home no matter where they were taken.

Robinson thought a while, and then said he'd bet they couldn't come home from Coney Island. I held the stakes.

When the birds were selected and put in the basket, Robinson slyly clipped their wings.

The next day the fellow came to me and claimed the bet.

"What!" says I. "Did those birds come home?"

"Sure," says he. "But their feet are awfully sore."

Say, the other night I was coming down from Yonkers in a trolley car.

No, I wasn't loaded. Do you think every fellow who goes to Yonkers, has to get loaded to drown his sorrow? No, I was quite sober.

One fellow got up in a hurry to leave and brought up plump against a stunning Fire-Island Cinnamon-Bear blond, on the platform.

"It's a wonder you wouldn't be careful," says she of the red cranium.

"I am," says he, "but I was dazzled by your head-light."

The ruddy complexioned damsel came in and sat beside me.

In the natural course of events we got to talking and swapped childhood memories.

She told me that she was married, but didn't live with her husband.

"In that case," says I, "you must be a grass widow."

"Why, yes," she assented. "By the way, are you a lawn mower?"

I hastened to assure her that I was a married man.

"Do you know," she says, as we were crossing the Harlem River, "I was walking over this bridge one time and suddenly a man ran up, seized me, and before I could cry out, hurled me over the rail."

"Can you swim?" says I.

"No," says she.

"Then how were you saved?"

"Well, you see, I walked ashore."

"Walked ashore," says I. "How could you walk ashore?"

"Well, I had rubber boots on."

I thought that was pretty hard on the Harlem.

Say, that reminds me of a friend of mine who is the most spiteful cuss alive.

The other day he went to visit his uncle whose name is John Smith. He hadn't been to see him in so long that he mistook the house, went up the stoop of the house next door, and rang the bell.

A maid came to the door, evidently very much out of humor.

"Is this John Smith's house?" he asked.

"No, it ain't," she snapped, and slammed the door in his face.

Smith walked the distance of several doors, then went back and rang the same bell.

The identical girl came to the door, and Smith up and said: