Take a photo to prove herself

A young lady who was on holiday in Brighton went into a bank to collect some money which had been sent there for her from the town in which she lived.

The clerk in the Brighton bank did not know her, so he said, 'What proof have you got that you are really the lady who should collect this money?'

The young lady looked worried for a few moments and said, 'I don't think I've brought any proof with me,' but then she suddenly looked happy again. She opened her bag, took a photograph of herself out of it and showed it to the clerk. 'Here's something,' she said.

The clerk looked at the photograph carefully and then looked at the young lady. 'Yes, that's you.' he said, and paid the money to her without any more trouble.

A deserter encounters his commanding officer

A big battle was going on during the First World War. Guns were firing, and shells and bullets were flying about everywhere. After an hour of this, one of the soldiers decided that the fighting was getting too dangerous for him, so he left the front line and began to go away from the battle. After he had walked for an hour, he saw an officer coming towards him. The officer stopped him and said, 'Where are you going?'

'I'm trying to get as far away as possible from the battle that's going on behind us, sir,' the soldier answered.

'Do you know who I am?' the officer said to him angrily. 'I'm your commanding officer.'

The soldier was very surprised when he heard this and said, 'My God, I didn't realize that I was so far back already!'

Ulterior motives

A young man hurried into his town library. He went up to one of the old librarians and said to her eagerly, 'Do you remember that you persuaded me to borrow a book about Greek history a week ago?'

'Yes, that's right,' answered the librarian.

'Do you remember the name of the book?' the young man asked.

The librarian felt very proud, because she was always trying to get young people to take out books about Greek history, and she rarely found one who was willing to accept her suggestions.

'Yes,' she answered. 'Do you want to take it out again? Did you think that it was so interesting?'

'No, of course not,' said the young man, 'but when I was taking it home, I met a girl on the bus, and I wrote her telephone number in the book. I want to telephone her, so please may I look at the book again?'

An old porter and a small man

An old porter had been working for the railway for a very long time. He was standing in one of the big railway stations in London one morning, waiting for travellers to ask him to help them with their luggage, when he saw a small man running towards the trains, carrying a bag.

The porter watched the man for a few seconds, and then the man saw the porter. At once he ran up to him and said, 'Can I catch the 10.35 train to Newcastle-on-Tyne, porter?' He was breathing very fast, and he sounded worried.

The old porter looked at him for a moment and then said politely, 'Well, sir, I'd like to help you, but I can't answer your question, because I don't know how fast you can run along rails. You see,' he explained, 'the 10.35 train to Newcastle-on-Tyne left five minutes ago.'

Young officer and old soldier

A very new, young officer was at a railway station. He was on his way to visit his mother in another town, and he wanted to telephone her to tell her the time of his train, so that she could meet him at the station in her car. He looked in all his pockets, but found that he did not have the right money for the telephone, so he went outside and looked around for someone to help him.

At last an old soldier came by, and the young officer stopped him and said, 'Have you got change for ten pence?'

'Wait a moment,' the old soldier answered, beginning to put his hand in his pocket. 'I'll see whether I can help you.'

'Don't you know how to speak to an officer?' the young man said angrily. 'Now let's start again. Have you got change for ten pence?'

'No, sir,' the old soldier answered quickly.

Generation gap

A young mother believed that it was very wrong to waste any food when there were so many hungry people in the world. One evening, she was giving her small daughter her tea before putting her to bed. First she gave her a slice of fresh brown bread and butter, but the child said that she did not want it like that. She asked for some jam on her bread as well.

Her mother looked at her for a few seconds and then said, 'When I was a small girl like you, Lucy, I was always given either bread and butter, or bread and jam, but never bread with butter and jam.'

Lucy looked at her mother for a few moments with pity in her eyes and then said to her kindly, 'Aren't you pleased that you've come to live with us now?'

Get a job after university

When George finished his studies at the university, he began to look around for a job. He did not know what he would like to do, but one of his uncles had worked for the government for thirty years, and he advised George to try to get a job of the same kind, so he went for an examination one day. He was successful, and his first job was in a large government office in London.

When George had been working there for a few weeks, his uncle came to visit the family one Saturday evening. He was delighted that his nephew had managed to get a job working for the government, and he asked him a lot of questions about it.

One of the questions he asked was, 'And how many people work in your department, George?'

The young man thought for a few moments and then answered. 'About half of them, Uncle Jim.'

The questions are the same, but the answers have changed

When David Williams left the university, he went to Australia. When he returned to England for a visit twenty years later, he decided to go back to his old university.

David was delighted when he discovered that his old professor was still teaching there. He went to visit the old man, and after they had had an interesting talk, the professor went out to get something. While he was away, David saw an examination paper on the desk. He looked at the date on it and saw that it had been given to the students the week before. David picked the paper up and read it through.

When the professor came back, David said to him. 'Professor. I'm certain that these are exactly the same questions that you asked us in our examinations twenty years ago! How is that possible?'

'Yes, that's right,' agreed the professor calmly. 'The questions are the same, but the answers have changed.'

A waiter in a small restaurant

Dick was a waiter in a small restaurant. One day a man came in and sat down at one of the tables. Dick greeted him and went to find out what he wanted to eat. The man said he would like some chicken with potatoes and other vegetables.

'Roast chicken. 'he added as Dick was leaving.

'Very well, sir,' Dick answered and disappeared into the kitchen.

But the man called him back, saying, 'Just a moment, waiter. Please try to have it cooked just right- not too little, and not to much, and with as little fat as possible.'

'Very well, sir,' answered Dick obediently. 'I'll tell the cook.'

Once more he began to go towards the kitchen, but again the men stopped him with the words, 'Oh, and I forgot to explain that I'm fond of the leg.'

'Very well, sir,' answered Dick. 'Do you prefer the left leg, or the right?'

Keeping is to swallow

A busy mother asked her young son to take his baby sister out into the garden and look after her for half an hour while she was doing some work in the house.

The boy took the baby out, and they seemed to be playing quite happily when suddenly the mother heard the baby begin to cry, so she shouted to her son, 'Billy, what's the matter with Susan? Why's she crying?'

'Because she want wants my marbles,' answered Billy.

'Well, let her play with a few of them if it will stop her crying,' said the mother patiently. 'I must finish this work, and she'd be in my way in here.'

But she wants to keep to them!' answered Billy.

'No, she doesn't!' the mother said. 'She's only a baby. She's too young to understand anything like that.'

'But I know that she wants to keep them.' answered Billy. 'She's already swallowed two of them!'

Mrs. Williamson two sons

Mrs. Williamson had two sons. One morning during the holidays, when she was doing the washing for the family, her younger son came and asked her for some money for sweets.

'Sweets are bad for your teeth,' Mrs. Williamson said. 'Take those two oranges instead, and give one to you older brother.' One of the oranges was quite a lot bigger than the other, and as the small boy liked oranges, he kept that one for himself, and gave his brother the smaller one.

When the older boy saw that his brother had a much larger orange than his own, he said to him, 'It's selfish to take the bigger one for yourself. If Mother had given me the oranges, I'd have given you the bigger one.'

'I know you would,' answered his brother. That's why I took it.'

Mr. Grey and the thief

Mr. Grey had a nice shop in the main street of a small town. He sold jewellery, watches, clocks and other things like those. All went well for some years, and then Mr. Grey's shop was broken into at night twice in one month, and a lot of jewellery was stolen each time. The police had still not managed to catch the thief three weeks later, so Mr. Grey decided that he would try to do something about it. He therefore bought a camera, fixed it up in his shop so that it would photograph anyone who broke in at night, and put some very cheap jewellery in front of it for the thief.

A few nights later the thief did come again, but he did not touch any of the cheap jewellery that Mr. Grey had put out for him. He took the camera. It was worth £150.00.

Mr. Robinson and a hitchhiker

Mr. Robinson was driving to Oxford one cloudy day when he saw a hitch-hiker holding a sign above his head which said CAMBRIDGE. Mr. Robinson thought it unwise to take hitch-hikers, because he had read frightening stories of what some of them did to drivers, but he was a kind man, so he stopped and said, 'You're going to get wet. You're on the wrong road for Cambridge. This road goes to Oxford.'

'Yes, I know,' answered the hitch-hiker gaily, as he got into Mr. Robinson's car. 'That's where I want to go. I only started to wait here a minute ago, and I knew someone would be likely to stop to tell me I was on the wrong road. If I'd held up a sign with OXFORD on it, I might have had to wait for an hour for someone to stop!'

A willing victim letting himself be caught

Joe was going into his usual bar before lunch when he saw a poorly dressed man fishing in a small pool of rain-water about five centimetres deep outside it.

Joe stopped and watched the man for a few minutes. He saw that most of the people who passed by him believed he must be rather mad.

Joe pitied the man, so after a few minutes he went up to him and said kindly, 'Hullo, would you like to come into the bar and have a drink with me?'

The fisherman was delighted to accept his offer, and the two men went into the bar together. Joe bought the fisherman a few drinks, and finally said to him, 'You've been fishing outside here, haven't you? How many did you manage to catch this morning, if I may ask?'

'You're the eighth,' the fisherman answered merrily.

A potato farmer and the policeman

A potato farmer was sent to prison just at the time when he should have been digging the ground for planting the new crop of potatoes. He knew that his wife would not be strong enough to do the digging by herself, but that she could manage to do the planting; and he also knew that he did not have any friends or neighbours who would be willing to do the digging for him. So he wrote a letter to his wife which said, 'Please do not dig the potato field. I hid the money and the gun there.'

Ten days later he got a letter from his wife. It said, 'I think somebody is reading your letters before they go out of the prison, Some policemen arrived here two days ago and dug up the whole potato field. What shall I do now?'

The prisoner wrote back at once, 'Plant the potatoes, of course.

Motor-car speed

A man was driving along a road in his motor-car when a policeman on a motor-cycle stopped him and said, 'You were doing more than eighty kilometres an hour. You're only allowed to do eighty along this road.'

The man had to go to court, and there he told the judge that he was not driving at more than eighty kilometres an hour, and that he never drove at more than sixty-five.

The man's wife had been in the car too, when the policeman had stopped it, and she said to the judge, 'My husband was driving at only fifty kilometres an hour when the policeman stopped him.'

Her sister, Ann, had been in the car too, and she said to the judge, 'We were hardly moving at all when the policeman came up behind us.'

By this time, the judge had had quite enough. 'Stop now,' he said, 'or you will finish by hitting something behind your car.'

Lending money

A man met a friend in the street and asked him to lend him five pounds. The friend did so willingly.

A week later they met again. 'You've lent me £5. Lend me another £5, and then I'll owe you £10,' the friend said. The man did so.

A few days later they met again, and friend said, 'You lent me £10. Lend me another £10, and then I'll owe you £20.' The man did this, although he was rather doubtful about doing it.

Two weeks later the friend asked for more money. 'You've already lent me £20. Can you make it £50?' he said.

The man did not answer for a few seconds, but he was unable to refuse.

A month later, the two men met again. 'You've lent me £50 . . . ,' began the friend.

'Who? Me?' answered the men anxiously. 'I disagree! I've never lent you any money!'

A drunk man

Some friends hired a bus to go to the seaside for the day. When they returned to the bus late at night to go home, someone was lying on the ground beside it. They looked at him and discovered that he was a man from their town whom they were sure had not come on their bus. He was very drunk.

'I suppose he came in another bus,' one of the men said, 'and missed it when it left for home because he was drunk. Now he's come to our bus to go back in that.'

'Two men put him into the bus. He did not wake up during the drive back, and when the bus arrived, they took him to his home, still very drunk.

They knocked at the door for several minutes, and then a neighbour opened a window and said, 'It's no use knocking there. They've gone to the seaside for two weeks.'

Trouble with nose or ears

Mrs. Robinson had one small son. His name was Billy. Mrs. Robinson loved Billy very much, and as he was not a strong child, she was always afraid that he might get ill, so she used to take him to the best doctor in the town four times a year to be examined.

During one of these visits, the doctor gave Billy various tests and then said to him, 'Have you had any trouble with your nose or ears recently?'

Billy thought for a second and then answered, 'Yes, I have.'

Mrs. Robinson was very worried. 'But I'm sure you've never told me that, Billy!' she said anxiously.

'Oh, really?' said the doctor seriously. 'And what trouble have you had with your nose and ears, my boy?'

'Well.' answered Billy, 'I always have trouble with them when I'm taking my jersey off, because the neck is very tight.'

Miss Grey and the man upstairs

Miss Grey lived alone in a small flat. She was old and did not like noise at all, so she was very pleased when the noisy young man and woman who lived in the flat above her moved out. A new young man moved in, and Miss Grey thought, 'Well, he looks quiet.'

But at three o'clock the next morning, Miss Grey was woken up by the barking of a dog.

She thought, 'I've never heard a dog there before. It must belong to the new man in the flat above.' So she telephoned the young man, said some nasty things to him about the dog and then hung the telephone up before he could answer.

Nothing more happened until three o'clock the next morning. Then Miss Grey's telephone rang, and when she answered, a voice said, 'I'm the man upstairs. I've rung you up to say that I haven't got a dog.'

A man Elisabeth want to marry

Elizabeth was a very pretty girl, and her parents were rich. Quite a lot of the young men in the town wanted to marry her, but she was not satisfied with any of them.

One evening, one of the handsomest of the young men who wanted to marry Elizabeth came to visit her in her parents' house and asked her to become his wife. She answered, 'No, William, I won't marry you. I want to marry a man who is famous, who can play music, sing and dance very well, who can tell really interesting stories, who does not smoke or drink, who stays at home in the evenings and who stops talking when I'm tired of listening.'

The young man got up, took his coat and went to the door, but before he left the house, he turned and said to Elizabeth, 'It isn't a man you're looking for. It's a television set.'

A clerk late for work

A clerk who worked very hard and was usually very punctual arrived at his office very late one morning. He had bruises on his face, a scratch on one of his lips, sticking-plaster on his left wrist and thumb, and a bandage on his right shoulder. He had also hurt his knees, ankles and some of his toes.

The manager of the office was not a patient man, and he had been waiting for the clerk, because he had some work to give him. When he saw him come in at last, he said angrily, 'You're an hour late, Tomkins!'

'I know, sir,' answered the clerk politely. 'I'm very sorry. My flat is on the eighth floor, and just before I left home this morning, while I was closing one of the windows, I slipped and fell out.'

'Well,' the manager answered coldly, 'did that take you an hour?'

Bill Jenkins haircut time

Bill Jenkins worked in a big office in the city, and generally he used to go to the barber's during working hours to have his hair cut, although this was against the rules: clerks had to have their hair cut in their own time.

while Bill was at the barber's one day, the manager of the office came in by chance to have his own hair cut. Bill saw him and tired to hide his face, but the manager came and sat beside him, so he soon recognized him.

'Hullo, Jenkins,' the manager said. 'I see that you are having your hair cut in office time.'

Yes, sir, I am,' admitted Bill calmly. 'You see, sir, it grows in office time.'

'Not all of it,' said the manager of the office at once. 'Some of it grows in your own time.'

'Yes, sir, that's quite true,' answered Bill politely, 'but I'm not having it all cut off.'

A large, fat woman and a small, thin husband

There was once a large, fat woman who had a small, thin husband. He had a job in a big company and was given his weekly wages every Friday evening. As soon as he got home on Fridays, his wife used to make him give her all his money, and then she used to give him back only enough to buy his lunch in the office every day.

One day the small man came home very excited. He hurried into the living-room. His wife was listening to the radio and eating chocolates there.

'You'll never guess what happened to me today, dear,' he said.

He waited for a few seconds and then added, 'I won ten thousand pounds on the lottery!'

'That's wonderful!' said his wife delightedly. But then she thought for a few seconds and added angrily, 'But wait a moment! How could you afford to buy the ticket?'

Two sailors and a village boy

Two sailors who had just finished a long voyage went home to their village and decided to have a few drinks in the bar there. When they had had enough, they came out into the street to look for something amusing to do, but it was a very quiet place, and nothing interesting ever happened there, so they could not find anything.

But at last, while they were standing in the market-place outside the bar, they saw a village boy coming slowly towards them. He was leading a donkey by a rope, so the sailors decided that they would have a joke with him.

'Hullo, ' one of the sailors said to the boy. 'why does your brother have to have a rope round his neck when he goes for a walk with you?'

'To stop him joining the navy,' the boy answered at once.

Timothy and his mathematics teacher

Timothy was ten years old. He was not a very good pupil, and he did not like having to do homework, because he preferred do to do other things in his free time. Frequently he did not do his homework, and when he did do it, he always made a lot of mistakes.

Then one day, his mathematics teacher looked at Timothy's homework and saw that he had got all his sums right. He was very pleased and rather surprised. He called Timothy to his desk and said to him, 'You got all your home work right this time, Timothy. What happened? Did your father help you?'

Usually Timothy's father did help him with his homework, but the evening before this, he had not been able to, because he had not been at home, so Timothy answered, 'No, sir. He was busy last night, so I had to do it all myself.'

A clumsy denial resulting in self-exposure

Len and Jim worked for the same company. One day, Len lent Jim $20, but then Jim left his job and went to work in another town without paying Len back his $20.

Len did not see Jim for a year, and then he heard from another friend that Jim was in town and staying at the Central Hotel, so he went to see him there late in the evening.

He found out the number of Jim's room from the clerk at the desk downstairs and went up to find him. When he got to the room, he saw Jim's shoes outside the door, waiting to be cleaned.

'Well, he must be in,' he thought, and knocked at the door.

There was no answer.

He knocked again. Then he said, 'I know you're in, Jim. Your shoes are out here.'

'I went out in my slippers.' answered a voice from inside the room.

A clerk look for letters storage facility

A clerk who worked in a small office in a factory discovered that there were so many files in his room that there was not room for any more. Also, each file was so full that it was impossible to add any more papers to it.

'Well,' he thought, 'every week I have to find room for several hundred letters, so something will have to be done about this.'

He thought and thought, and then decided to send a note to his manager explaining what had happened and asking him for his permission to go through the old files and to take out and destroy all letters which were no longer of any use.

The next day he received a note from the manager in answer to his. It said, 'All right, you have permission to do as you suggest, but you must make copies of all letters before destroying them.

Mrs. Evans and a small boy

Mrs. Evans went to a large local cinema one summer afternoon. Half-way through the wonderful film there was the usual interval, so that people could buy sweets, chocolates and ice-cream.

Mrs. Evans rarely bought anything in the cinema, but this time she was feeling hot, so she thought, 'I'll have an ice-cream to cool me. I certainly need it.' Quite a lot of the audience were waiting to buy ice-creams from the girl who was selling them, so Mrs. Evans waited for her turn.

There was a small boy in front of her. When it was his turn, he offered the girl ten pence and asked for an ice-cream, but they cost twenty pence, so the girl said, 'I want another ten pence, please.'

The small boy put the coin back in his pocket, put his hand in another pocket, took out another ten pence coin and offered that to the girl.

Mrs. Evans was so amused that she paid the other ten pence herself.

Two Mexicans fight a duel

Two Mexicans had accused each other of cheating, and both of them were getting angrier and angrier.

'I 'll kill you!' shouted José.

Miguel laughed rudely and answered, 'You could never kill me;but I could kill you!'

'Just try!' José shouted back. 'We'll fight a duel in the park at five o'clock tomorrow morning.'

'No, not in the park.'Miguel answered. 'The police might see or hear us there. Let's go out to a quiet place in the country.'

'All right,' said José, 'I accept. Let's go to San Antonio by the first train tomorrow morning. That's where I usually fight my duals.'

'I do too,' answered Miguel.

The next morning they went to the railway station together, and José bought a return ticket, but Miguel bought a single one.'

'Ho, ho!' said José, 'so you don't expect to return? I always get a return ticket.'

'I never do,' answered Miguel calmly,'I always use my opponent's other half.'