George V. Hobart

“ Don't talk politics while playing whist. Either whist or politics will suffer if you do. Statisticians claim that 34,647,932 times out of 34,647,933 it is whist that suffers.
Don't, when drawing a trick towards you, pause in the act to smile disdainfully upon your opponents. They may not admire a spectacular arrangement of your features, and if they happen to be in a bad humor your facial expression may be ruined for life.
Don't labor under the erroneous impression that your opponents have no right to trump your ace if they can. ”

“ No matter how many good things our friends say about us, we are never surprised.
Nothing is so astonishing to us as another man's success.
Needless to say, a friend in need is a friend in the soup. ”

“ A fault-finder is a home-made knocker.
Every woman jumps quickly from mice and at conclusions.
"Don't be a clam," must be wisdom on the half shell.
The man who means everything he says is generally a stingy talker.
Hot air is mighty, and will prevail in politics.
A fool and his money is the root of much laughter. ”

“ The ladies of America have started a rebellion against the sardine-cars, but every time they start it the conductor pulls the bell and leaves the rebellious standing on the corner.
We are a very nervous and careless people in America. To prove how careless we are I will cite the fact that Manhattan Island is called after a cocktail.
This nervousness is our undoing because we are always in such a hurry to get somewhere that we would rather take the first car and get squeezed into breathlessness than wait for the next which would likely squeeze us into insensibility. ”

“ Don't fall off the chair in horrified dismay when your opponent puts your ace to sleep with a little trump. Trumps were invented for that purpose, and horrified dismay is not becoming to every style of beauty. ”

“ Ink is a non-conductor and discolors the palate. Borrow an apple from the grocer and tie it up in the blotting paper. The blotting paper will absorb the flavor from the apple in about three minutes. Now take the apple back to the grocer and say, "Much obliged, thank you!" Cut the blotting paper into thin slices and add water. Stir gently until it boils over then unhook it. Serve hot and if your husband kicks say to him bitterly: "You should have married an heiress with a Papa in the Food Trust then you could afford to have real apples!" ”

“ THERMOMETER. A machine invented by a drugstore proprietor for the purpose of driving humanity to drink.
[pg 108]
TROUBLE. The only thing which a man borrows and wants to pay back in a hurry. The place where a man finds his head when he loses it.
TROUBLE HUNTER. A man who always comes home with a game-bag full.
TRUTH. The kind words our enemies say about us. Something which never figures in politics because it forgets to register.
[pg 109]
Undoubtedly the man that burns the candle at both ends is light-headed. ”

“ UMPIRE. A guessing machine used and abused in and about a baseball game.
UNHAPPY. The man who knows it all with nobody to tell it to.
UNSELFISHNESS. To be able to read of a neighbor's success without reaching for the harpoon. A man who will give his last cigar to a stranger and then go home and kick his wife on the shins because she spent forty cents for baby's new shoes.
UNDERTAKER. A man who gets the laugh on those who take life as a joke.
[pg 112]
[pg 113]
Vanity is the raw material from which hot air is manufactured. ”

“ If you hear thieves in the chicken coop during the night, don't move a muscle; if you smell smoke and know the house is on fire, lie perfectly still and count imaginary sheep jumping over an imaginary fence; if you feel the folding bed closing up let it close and go on with your counting; if you know that burglars are in the room pay no attention to them and let them burgle—you have business of your own to attend to. A man with a thoroughly developed case of insomnia has no time for such trifling details. ”

“ Back to the pajamas! Bad business! bad business! I will have to dig a tunnel through your neckties to see if you have a cafe au lait or a cafe chanteuse in the trunk. When a man gets nervous it is always wise to watch him. ”

“ The germs in the street cars are extremely sociable and will often follow a stranger all the way home.
Often while riding in the street cars I have felt a germ rubbing against my ankle like a kitten, but being a gentleman, [pg 102] I did not reach down and kick it away because the law says we must not be disrespectful to the dumb brutes of the field.
Many of our street cars are made out of the same idea as a can of condensed milk.
The only difference is that the street cars have a sour taste like a lemon squeezer. ”

“ Whiskey is the name of the photographer that can make a high-priced man look like 30 cents.
When a man sits around waiting for something to turn up Fortune always turns him down.
When a man is anxious to keep your secret keep him anxious. ”

“ Whist is a well known game with cards. It requires close attention and silence. Some people learn to play whist in fifteen minutes, but their partners generally wear a worried look. There are other people who never learn to play the game, but, unfortunately for humanity, they never fully realize this fact. ”

“ If they cannot enjoy you and your lung-power exhibit, they should stay at home. Keep right on utilizing your vocal chords. Chatter on incessantly. Be a consistent ass until the last man is out and the umpire crawls into his cyclone cellar. Then go home and bathe what's left of your voice in witch hazel, and get ready for the morrow. ”

“ Breathlessness can be cured, but insensibility is dangerous without an alarm clock.
For a man with a small dining-room the sardine-car has its advantages, but when a stout man rides in them he finds himself supporting a lot of strangers he never met before. ”

“ Don't fail to call the attention of your opponent to the fact that he or she hasn't followed suit, being very careful to select a loud and resonant tone of voice for the occasion. This compels your opponent to look carefully through his or her cards and fervently wish that you had sense enough to mind your own business. ”

“ Oh, yes, the man with a jag can hold on to the fence, but he can't hold on to his reputation.
Opportunity is something a Fool waits for while the Wise Guy runs down the road to meet it.
Occasionally we meet men who have to part their hair in the middle in order to have a well-balanced head. ”

“ This Cook Book was invented by the President of the Food Trust with the hope that the poor man will find therein much to comfort him since meat and other luxuries have gone out of his life, because the Trust needs the money.
The beauty about the dishes mentioned here is their cheapness. Let us begin with the soup:
MOCK CHICKEN SOUP.—Take a piece of white paper and a lead pencil and draw from memory the outlines of a hen. Then carefully remove the feathers. Pour one gallon of boiling water into a saucepan and sprinkle a pinch of salt on the hen's tail. Now let it simper. ”

“ Then I jumped off and swore off and swore at and walked home.
If the man who invented the idea of standing up between the seats in a sardine-car is alive he should have a monument.
My idea would be to catch him alive and place the monument on him and have the conductor come around every ten minutes for his fare.
Then the punishment would have a fit like the crime.
[pg 104]
[pg 105]
The man with plenty of money has friends to burn and when he goes broke he finds he has burned most of them. ”

“ How the rest of the world does hate the people who have a good time.
A Miss is as good as a mile of Misses—if you love the girl.
The horseshoe is always lucky—when the horse wins.
A hard worker will never be arrested for killing time. ”

“ Care should be taken that the turkey does not escape in the butler's pantry or fly up the dumb waiter, because the turkey is a very nervous animal. Once you get the turkey in the kitchen lock the door and prepare the stuffing. The best stuffing for a turkey is chestnuts, which you can obtain by tearing a few pages from "The Life and Anecdotes of an After Dinner Speaker." Now remove the wishbone carelessly and make a wish. Then coax the turkey over to the gas stove and push it in. ”

“ When you have broken three chairs, upset the centre table and stepped on six assorted tacks, you will realize what a stupid habit sleeping is anyway, and your senses will have become so acute that you will want to sit up and read the Family Story Paper during that portion of the night which has not been devoted to swearing. ”

“ Don't make an earnest endeavor to split the table asunder when playing a winning card. People may think you are eccentric if you try to make kindling wood of the table every time you lay down an honor. ”

“ OSLERISM. The art of picking out a fit subject for the Osler treatment. "You can lead an old man into a drugstore but you can't make him drink chloroform." (Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, page 19.)
OSLERIZE. To pour chloroform over an old man's breakfast food and telephone for the undertaker.
OSLERITIS. An attack of hysteria which broke out at a banquet and became epidemic in the newspapers.
OSLEROOZA. A man who believes in Oslerism. He is generally a young man in love with a girl whose Papa is over forty and who wears No. 11 shoes of a high voltage. ”

“ INCONGRUITY. A man who prays with such noise in Sunday School that he sprains his voice and then goes home and beats his child for talking too loud on the Sabbath day.
INDOLENT. A lazy man just before he becomes a loafer.
IRONY OF FATE. A man with an invitation to a beefsteak dinner who has to stay home because his wife has acute indigestion.
[pg 56]
INDIAN COMMISSIONER. The gentleman who invented the idea of opening up barber shops near the Indian reservations, so that Lo could get his hair clipped by a reaping machine once every year, whether he needed it or not. ”

“ The last census shows us that the street cars in the city of New York have more ways of producing nervous prostration and palpitation of the brain to the square inch than the combined population of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Tinkersdam and Gotterdammerung.
To get in some of the street cars about six o'clock is a problem, and to get out again is an assassination. ”

“ PENITENTIARY. An assembly hall which always plays to a full house because whiskey is it's advance agent.
PHILOSOPHER. A man who can size himself up and forget the result.
PLAN. Something which any fool can lay, but it takes patience like a hen to hatch it.
PLEASURE. Fun you have to-day so you can worry over it to-morrow.
[pg 86]
POETICAL LICENSE. A woman who weighs 275 pounds and listens to the name of Birdie.
POLITICS. The place where a man gets it—sometimes in the neck, sometimes in the bank.
POLITICIAN. The reason we have so much politics. ”

“ CHARITY. Something which begins at home and stays at home every day except Sunday, when it goes to church to talk about itself.
CINCH. When a man starts out with a bundle of money and a bundle of booze it's a cinch that he drops the money first.
COLD FEET. A punishment for those that stand around and wait for dead men's shoes. ”

“ This is a nice dish for a small family and at the same time it shows what a generous nature the Food Trust has to suggest it.
MOCK GIBLETS.—Take two rubber-neck clams and after stuffing them with chestnuts fry them over a slow fire. The Coal Trust will see to it that you have no trouble in getting a slow but expensive fire. Let them sizzle. Now remove the necks from the clams and add baking soda. Let them sizzle. Take the juice of a lemon and scatter it at the clams. ”

“ GOOD TIME. About $9 worth of headache next morning and eighteen cents in small change left in the pocket.
GOURMAND. A man who delights to make his stomach feel like a department store.
GRAND OPERA. A disease which breaks out in society every winter and can be cured only by inward applications of a seat in a box and outward applications of diamonds on the chest. ”

“ Some of our street cars lead a double life, because they are used all winter to act the part of a refrigerator.
It is a cold day when we cannot find it colder in the street cars.
In Germany we find Germans in the cars, but in America we find germs. ”