A Funny Surprise

1901

This story is told by a man who dislikes nothing so much as to be asked questions: "My little girl is very fond of seashells," he said, "and, having been called to Atlantic City on business one day, I took advantage of the opportunity to run down to the beach to see if I could pick up a few. I was strolling along the sand, gathering a few shells and pebbles, which I placed in my handkerchief, when along came one of those old idiots who ask questions with their mouths which their eyes could answer.

"He smiled upon me and said: 'Fine day, isn't it? Are you gathering shells?'

" 'No, I snapped back, saying the first thing that popped into my mind; 'I'm looking for a set of false teeth I lost while in bathing.'

"He expressed his sympathy, and then his face lit up as his eye caught sight of a pink and white object on the sand. 'Well, I declare! Here they are now!' he exclaimed, and, sure enough, he picked up a set of false teeth lying right at his feet. I was too surprised to do anything but grab them and put them in my pocket. The funny part of it is that I never had a tooth pulled in my life. I wonder who that false set belongs to." — Philadelphia Record.

Holding His Job For Him

1901

"Of all the excuses I have ever heard from people for not paying their bills," said a collector for a prominent firm the other day, "I got the neatest today from a very wealthy man who always owes the house a bill. No matter whether the bill is for $10 or $100, he always pays $5. I have gone back the next week and got $5 more, and once I went back twice in one week, and he paid me $5 each time and seemed glad to see me. I got to know him pretty well, and the other day I asked him why he did not pay it all, as I knew he had the money."

" 'Well,' said the old fellow, "if I pay you everything I owe you at one time you will collect so fast that pretty soon you will be out of a job for the want of something to collect.'

"I don't know whether that was his reason or not, but I let the subject drop and am just going around there now for another $5. — Memphis Scimitar.

Dwarf Darnell Flim-Flams Little Blind Girl

Atlanta, 1902

MONROE DARNELL, MIDGET, FLIM-FLAMS BLIND GIRL

The climax of eccentricities in flim-flamming was reached yesterday, when a little dwarf was caught trying to flim-flam a blind girl out of 10 cents.

Monroe Darnell, the well-known midget, was the flim-flammer, and his victim was a little blind girl who stands at the street corners patiently waiting for good-hearted people to drop money into a tin cup which she holds in her hand.

Darnell tried to swipe a 10-cent piece which he saw in the cup, and in its stead placed a copper.

The police are constantly meeting up with flim-flam games and new ones are always coming to light. It takes novelty to make a flim-flam go, and the crooks are ever trying to invent some new scheme by which they can get hold of coin without working for it. But it took Dwarf Darnell to present the most unique flim-flam that has come before the police in many a day.

Yesterday the little blind girl was standing at the corner of Decatur and Ivy streets. Some one had dropped a 10-cent silver coin into her tin cup. Across the street Monroe Darnell, who is himself no slouch when it comes to begging money, was standing, and when he saw a coin fall into the blind girl's cup he strolled over her way and peered into the receptacle. Having ascertained that the coin was a dime, he took a 1-cent piece from his pocket, and squinting his eyes around to see if he was unobserved, he quickly swiped the dime from the cup and left the copper in its place. He might have swiped the dime and left nothing in its place, but his leaving the copper showed that his conscience was not entirely dead.

He was not unobserved, however, for a citizen saw the flim-flam and reported the matter to an officer. Darnell was caught with the dime in his hand. He admitted having exchanged a copper for it, but stoutly maintained that he did not mean to steal it.

"Now, look here," said he in his squeaky voice, "yer all knows how I like a joke. All the boys will tell yer that poor little Monroe is always full of his fun. I just meant to play a joke on the blind girl, seeing as how she couldn't see. Then I meant to teach her a lesson about being too careless with her money. I was just going to say to her: 'Baby mine, I have slipped away your dime and put a copper in its place. You mustn't leave your money in your cup so long. You must take it out as fast as you hear it drop, or some fine day a sure enough rogue will swipe your money, and he won't be as honest as poor little Monroe.' You see, I make my money by the same sort of hard licks as the blind girl, and I want her to learn how to take better care of the stuff."

The dwarf was made to restore the dime, and he generously let her also have his copper. If he had not been caught, however, the flim-flam would have been a very serious joke to the little blind girl.

–The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Nov. 23, 1902, p. 5.