A Boomerang
Some years ago several army officers were stopping at a hotel in Washington. Among them were a Captain Emerson and a Captain Jones. Emerson and Jones used to have a good deal of fun together at the dinner-table and elsewhere. One day at the dinner-table, when the dining-hall was well filled, Captain Jones finished his dinner first, got up, and walked almost to the dining-hall door, when Emerson called to him in a loud voice: “Hallo, captain! see here. I want to speak to you a minute.” The captain turned and walked back to the table and bent over him, when Emerson whispered, “I wanted to ask you how far you would have gone if I had not spoken to you.” The captain never changed a muscle, but straightened up and put his fingers into his vest pocket and said, “Captain Emerson, I don’t know of a man in the world I would rather lend five dollars to than you, but the fact is I haven’t a cent with me to-day,” and he turned on his heel and walked away. Emerson was the color of a dozen rainbows, but he had to stand it.