The Classic Humor MEGAPACK ®. Эдгар Аллан По

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      Of course I am always prepared to pay for my pleasure, and though it was not, strictly speaking, my pleasure to deprive my physician of his turn-out, yet if he had turned out it wouldn’t have happened—and, as I say, I was prepared to get him a new vehicle. But he was very unreasonable; so much so that, as he was crowding us—for the seat was not built for more than two, and he is stout—I at last told him that I intended to turn around and carry him home, as we were out for pleasure, and he was giving us pain.

      I will confess that the events of the last few minutes had rattled me somewhat, and I did not feel like turning just then, as the road was narrow. I knew that the road turned of its own accord a half-mile farther on, and so I determined to wait.

      “I want to get out,” said the doctor tartly, and just as he said so Araminta stepped on the brake, accidentally. The doctor got out—in front. With great presence of mind I reversed, and so we did not run over him. But he was furious and sulphurous, and that is why I have changed to homeopathy. He was the only allopathic doctor in Brantford.

      I suppose that if I had stopped and apologized, he would have made up with me, and I would not have got angry with him, but I couldn’t stop. The machine was now going as she had done when I left the barn, and we were backing into town.

      Through it all I did not lose my coolness. I said: “Araminta, look out behind, which is ahead of us, and if you have occasion to jump now, do it in front, which is behind,” and Araminta understood me.

      She sat sideways, so that she could see what was going on, but that might have been seen from any point of view, for we were the only things going on—or backing.

      Pretty soon we passed the wreck of the buggy, and then we saw the horse grazing on dead grass by the roadside, and at last we came on a few of our townfolk who had seen us start, and were now come out to welcome us home. But I did not go home just then. I should have done so if the machine had minded me and turned in at our driveway, but it did not.

      Across the way from us there is a fine lawn leading up to a beautiful greenhouse full of rare orchids and other plants. It is the pride of my very good neighbor, Jacob Rawlinson.

      The machine, as if moved by malice prépense, turned just as we came to the lawn, and began to back at railroad speed.

      I told Araminta that if she was tired of riding, now was the best time to stop; that she ought not to overdo it, and that I was going to get out myself as soon as I had seen her off.

      I saw her off.

      Then after one ineffectual jab at the brake, I left the machine hurriedly, and as I sat down on the sposhy lawn I heard a tremendous but not unmusical sound of falling glass—

      I tell Araminta that it isn’t the running of an automobile that is expensive. It is the stopping of it.

      THE RHYME OF THE CHIVALROUS SHARK, by Wallace Irwin

      Most chivalrous fish of the ocean,

      To ladies forbearing and mild,

      Though his record be dark, is the man-eating shark

      Who will eat neither woman nor child.

      He dines upon seamen and skippers,

      And tourists his hunger assuage,

      And a fresh cabin boy will inspire him with joy

      If he’s past the maturity age.

      A doctor, a lawyer, a preacher,

      He’ll gobble one any fine day,

      But the ladies, God bless ’em, he’ll only address ’em

      Politely and go on his way.

      I can readily cite you an instance

      Where a lovely young lady of Breem,

      Who was tender and sweet and delicious to eat,

      Fell into the bay with a scream.

      She struggled and flounced in the water

      And signaled in vain for her bark,

      And she’d surely been drowned if she hadn’t been found

      By a chivalrous man-eating shark.

      He bowed in a manner most polished,

      Thus soothing her impulses wild;

      “Don’t be frightened,” he said, “I’ve been properly bred

      And will eat neither woman nor child.”

      Then he proffered his fin and she took it—

      Such a gallantry none can dispute—

      While the passengers cheered as the vessel they neared

      And a broadside was fired in salute.

      And they soon stood alongside the vessel,

      When a life-saving dingey was lowered

      With the pick of the crew, and her relatives, too,

      And the mate and the skipper aboard.

      So they took her aboard in a jiffy,

      And the shark stood attention the while,

      Then he raised on his flipper and ate up the skipper

      And went on his way with a smile.

      And this shows that the prince of the ocean,

      To ladies forbearing and mild,

      Though his record be dark, is the man-eating shark

      Who will eat neither woman nor child.

      ESPECIALLY MEN, by George Randolph Chester

      The tantalizing stream on the other side of the hedge seemed, to the hot and tired young man, to lead the way straight into the heart of Paradise itself. Six weary miles of white highway, wavering with heat and misty with hovering dust clouds, still lay between himself and the railroad that would whisk him away to the city. Behind him, conquered at fatiguing cost, were six more miles, stretching back to the village where not even a team could be hired on Sunday. Rather than spend the day in that dismal abode of Puritanism he had fled on foot, his business done, and this little creek, mocking, alluring, irresistible, was the only cheerful thing on which his eyes had rested in that whole stifling journey.

      Even this had a drawback. He glanced up again, with a puzzled frown, at the queer sign glaring down at him from the hedge. It was the third one of the sort in the past quarter of a mile:

      TRESPASSERS

       are warned from these premises

       under penalty of the law

       ESPECIALLY MEN

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