The Joys Of Philanthropy
Stephen Leacock
“Good-morning,” said the valet de chambre, as I stepped from my room.
“Good-morning,” I answered. “Pray accept twenty-five centimes.”
(more…)The Advantages Of A Polite Education
Stephen Leacock
“Take it from me,” said my friend from Kansas, leaning back in his seat at the Taverne Royale and holding his cigar in his two fingers—”don’t talk no French here in Paris. They don’t expect it, and they don’t seem to understand it.”
(more…)The War Prophecies
Stephen Leacock
Startling Prophecy in Paris. All Paris is wildly excited over the extraordinary prophecy of Madame Cleo de Clichy that the war will be over in four weeks.
(more…)The Retroactive Existence Of Mr. Juggins
Stephen Leacock
I first met Juggins,—really to notice him,—years and years ago as a boy out camping. Somebody was trying to nail up a board on a tree for a shelf and Juggins interfered to help him.
(more…)This Strenuous Age
Stephen Leacock
Something is happening, I regret to find, to the world in which we used to live. The poor old thing is being “speeded up.” There is “efficiency” in the air. Offices open at eight o’clock. Millionaires lunch on a baked apple. Bankers eat practically nothing. A college president has declared that there are more foot pounds of energy in a glass of peptonized milk than in—something else, I forget what. All this is very fine. Yet somehow I feel out of it.
(more…)The Anecdotes Of Dr. So And So
Stephen Leacock
That is not really his name. I merely call him that from his manner of talking.
His specialty is telling me short anecdotes of his professional life from day to day.
(more…)Passionate Paragraphs
Stephen Leacock
(An extract from a recent (very recent) novel, illustrating the new beauties of language and ideas that are being rapidly developed by the twentieth century press.)
(more…)The Kidnapped Plumber: A Tale Of The New Time
Stephen Leacock
“Personally,” said Thornton, speaking for the first time, “I never care to take a case that involves cellar work.”
(more…)A Visit To Versailles
Stephen Leacock
“WHAT!” said the man from Kansas, looking up from his asparagus, “do you mean to say that you have never seen the Palace of Versailles?”
“No,” I said very firmly, “I have not.”
(more…)The Mariposa Bank Mystery
Stephen Leacock
Suicide is a thing that ought not to be committed without very careful thought. It often involves serious consequences, and in some cases brings pain to others than oneself.
(more…)My Unknown Friend
Stephen Leacock
He stepped into the smoking compartment of the Pullman, where I was sitting alone.
He had on a long fur-lined coat, and he carried a fifty-dollar suit case that he put down on the seat.
Then he saw me.
(more…)My Lost Opportunities
Stephen Leacock
The other day I took a walk with a real estate man. Out in the suburbs he leaned over the wooden fence of an empty lot and waved his hand at it.
“There’s a lot,” he said, “that we sold last week for half a million dollars.”
“Did you really!” I exclaimed.
(more…)The Dentist And The Gas
Stephen Leacock
“I think,” said the dentist, stepping outside again, “I’d better give you gas.”
Then he moved aside and hummed an air from a light opera while he mixed up cement.
(more…)I Am Interviewed By The Press
Stephen Leacock
Immediately upon my arrival in London I was interviewed by the Press. I was interviewed in all twenty times. I am not saying this in any spirit of elation or boastfulness. I am simply stating it as a fact—interviewed twenty times, sixteen times by men and twice by women. But as I feel that the results of these interviews were not all that I could have wished, I think it well to make some public explanation of what happened.
(more…)Reflections On Riding
Stephen Leacock
The writing of this paper has been inspired by a debate recently held at the literary society of my native town on the question, “Resolved: that the bicycle is a nobler animal than the horse.” In order to speak for the negative with proper authority, I have spent some weeks in completely addicting myself to the use of the horse. I find that the difference between the horse and the bicycle is greater than I had supposed.
(more…)Number Fifty-Six
Stephen Leacock
What I narrate was told me one winter’s evening by my friend Ah-Yen in the little room behind his laundry.
(more…)A Study In Still Life — The Country Hotel
Stephen Leacock
The country hotel stands on the sunny side of Main Street. It has three entrances.
There is one in front which leads into the Bar. There is one at the side called the Ladies’ Entrance which leads into the Bar from the side. There is also the Main Entrance which leads into the Bar through the Rotunda.
(more…)A Manual Of Education
Stephen Leacock
The few selections below are offered as a specimen page of a little book which I have in course of preparation.
Every man has somewhere in the back of his head the wreck of a thing which he calls his education. My book is intended to embody in concise form these remnants of early instruction.
(more…)Are The Rich Happy?
Stephen Leacock
Let me admit at the outset that I write this essay without adequate material. I have never known, I have never seen, any rich people. Very often I have thought that I had found them. But it turned out that it was not so. They were not rich at all. They were quite poor. They were hard up. They were pushed for money. They didn’t know where to turn for ten thousand dollars.
(more…)How To Be A Doctor
Stephen Leacock
Certainly the progress of science is a wonderful thing. One can’t help feeling proud of it. I must admit that I do.
(more…)The Force Of Statistics
Stephen Leacock
They were sitting on a seat of the car, immediately in front of me. I was consequently able to hear all that they were saying. They were evidently strangers who had dropped into a conversation. They both had the air of men who considered themselves profoundly interesting as minds. It was plain that each laboured under the impression that he was a ripe thinker.
(more…)Getting The Thread Of It
Stephen Leacock
Have you ever had a man try to explain to you what happened in a book as far as he has read? It is a most instructive thing. Sinclair, the man who shares my rooms with me, made such an attempt the other night. I had come in cold and tired from a walk and found him full of excitement, with a bulky magazine in one hand and a paper-cutter gripped in the other.
(more…)A Model Dialogue
Stephen Leacock
In which is shown how the drawing-room juggler may be permanently cured of his card trick.
(more…)Borrowing A Match
Stephen Leacock
You might think that borrowing a match upon the street is a simple thing. But any man who has ever tried it will assure you that it is not, and will be prepared to swear to the truth of my experience of the other evening.
(more…)The Conjurer’s Revenge
Stephen Leacock
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” said the conjurer, “having shown you that the cloth is absolutely empty, I will proceed to take from it a bowl of goldfish. Presto!”
(more…)Men Who Have Shaved Me
Stephen Leacock
A barber is by nature and inclination a sport. He can tell you at what exact hour the ball game of the day is to begin, can foretell its issue without losing a stroke of the razor, and can explain the points of inferiority of all the players, as compared with better men that he has personally seen elsewhere, with the nicety of a professional.
(more…)How To Avoid Getting Married
Stephen Leacock
Some years ago, when I was the Editor of a Correspondence Column, I used to receive heart-broken letters from young men asking for advice and sympathy.
(more…)Insurance Up To Date
Stephen Leacock
A man called on me the other day with the idea of insuring my life. Now, I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so. I have been insured a great many times, for about a month at a time, but have had no luck with it at all.
(more…)The Awful Fate Of Melpomenus Jones
Stephen Leacock
Some people—not you nor I, because we are so awfully self-possessed—but some people, find great difficulty in saying good-bye when making a call or spending the evening. As the moment draws near when the visitor feels that he is fairly entitled to go away he rises and says abruptly, “Well, I think I….” Then the people say, “Oh, must you go now? Surely it’s early yet!” and a pitiful struggle ensues.
(more…)How To Live To Be 200
Stephen Leacock
Twenty years ago I knew a man called Jiggins, who had the Health Habit.
He used to take a cold plunge every morning. He said it opened his pores. After it he took a hot sponge. He said it closed the pores. He got so that he could open and shut his pores at will.
(more…)How To Make A Million Dollars
Stephen Leacock
I mix a good deal with the Millionaires. I like them. I like their faces. I like the way they live. I like the things they eat. The more we mix together the better I like the things we mix.
(more…)Lord Oxhead’s Secret
Stephen Leacock
It was finished. Ruin had come. Lord Oxhead sat gazing fixedly at the library fire. Without, the wind soughed (or sogged) around the turrets of Oxhead Towers, the seat of the Oxhead family. But the old earl heeded not the sogging of the wind around his seat. He was too absorbed.
(more…)My Financial Career
Stephen Leacock
When I go into a bank I get rattled. The clerks rattle me; the wickets rattle me; the sight of the money rattles me; everything rattles me.
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