2. Ptolemy was born in the year 223 A.D. and died after reaching the age of eighty-four. Half his life he spent traveling, and a third, having fun. What is the price of a pound of nails, and was Ptolemy married?
3. On New Year’s Eve, 200 people were thrown out of the Bolshoi Theaters costume ball for brawling. If the brawlers numbered 200, then what was the number of guests who were drunk, slighdy drunk, swearing, and those trying but not managing to brawl?
4. What is the sum of the following numbers?
5. Twenty chests of tea were purchased. Each chest contained 5 poods of tea, each pood comprising 40 pounds. Two of the horses transporting the tea collapsed on the way, one of the carters fell ill, and 18 pounds of tea were spilled. One pound contains 96 zolotniks of tea. What is the difference between pickle brine and bewilderment?
6. There are 137,856,738 words in the English language, and 0.7 more in the French language. The English and the French came together and united their two languages. What is the cost of the third parrot, and how much time was necessary to subjugate these nations?
7. Wednesday, June 17, 1881, a train had to leave station A at 3 A.M. in order to reach station B at 11 P.M.; just as the train was about to depart, however, an order came that the train had to reach station B by 7 P.M. Who is capable of loving longer, a man or a woman?
8. My mother-in-law is 75, and my wife 42. What time is it?
A LAWYER’S
ROMANCE:
A PROTOCOL
affix
60 kopeck
duty
stamp
ON THE TENTH OF February, in the year eighteen seventy-seven, in the City of St. Petersburg, Moscovsky Region, District 2, in the house of Zhivotov, Second-Guild trader, located on the Ligovka, I, the undersigned, met Marya Alekseyevna Barabanova, daughter of a Titular Counselor, 18 years of age, literate and of Russian Orthodox faith. Meeting the aforementioned Barabanova, I experienced an attraction for her. Since, according to art. 994 of the crim. cdx., illegal cohab-itation incurs penalties as determined in the above article, in addition to church penitence, (cf. the case of trader Solodovnikov, 1881, voi. of Court Disp., Fin. Dept.), I asked for her hand in marriage.
I married her, but did not live with her for a long time.
I fell out of love with her. Having assigned her complete dowry to my name, I began lounging about in drinking houses—the Livadias, the Eldorados—and did so for five years. So, according to art. 54, vol. 10 of the Civil Court Codex, a five-year absence without knowledge of an indi- viduals whereabouts is grounds for divorce, and so, with due deference, I respectfully request that your Honor initiate proceedings for me to divorce my wife.
QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS
QUESTIONS
1) How can you tell what she’s thinking?
2) What can an illiterate man read?
3) Does the wife love me?
4) When can you sit and stand at the same time?
ANSWERS
1) Search her premises.
2) A heart.
3) Whose wife?
4) When you’re sitting in jail.
AMERICA
IN
ROSTOV
ON THE
DON
THE FOLLOWING CURIOUS notice adorned the last couple of issues of the Don Bee:
My wife, Efrosinya Alexandrovna, ran away—“to find some love and happiness”—with an army officer. As I am perfecdy happy without her, I ask, first of all, that she never come back again, and second, that whoever might find her does not deliver her back here, and third, that I refuse to recognize any further extensions to my lineage, except for our two children, Alexander (4), and Yevgeni (4 months).
Yakov Selvestovich Ribalkin
This notice led us to the following modest reflections:
1. What if somebody does find this treacherous woman and, ignoring the notice, brings her back to the esteemed Mr. Rib- alkin? What then?
2. How much will the esteemed Mr. Ribalkin be paid per line? This “tale from his life” is so interesting that the Don Bee’s readership has increased at least threefold in the last few days. Although it would not surprise us if the honorarium for this piece went to Mr. Ter-Abramian, himself—“the Pumb- lisher [!] and Enditor [!]” This editor is obviously under the misapprehension that the above piece is a bona fide announcement. He refuses to acknowledge that there might well be other humorists beside himself.
3. The style of this announcement reminds one too much of Mr. Ter-Abramians own style. Could this be a joke at the expense of the public on the part of the great publisher himself?
MR.
GULEWTCH,
WRITER,
AND THE
DROWNED
MAN
ON FRIDAY, JUNE 10, the famous and talented journalist Ivan Ivanovitch Ivanov took his own life in the Hermitage gardens, in front of everyone. He drowned himself in the pond. May you rest in peace, you honest and noble toiler, whisked away in the prime of life. (The deceased was not yet thirty.)
That same Friday, in the morning, the deceased had taken some pickle brine for his hangover, written a playful sketch, lunched cheerfully with friends, gone for a walk in the park with some cocottes at seven in the evening, and at eight... taken his life!
Ivan Ivanovitch was known to be joyful, carefree—a lover of life.
He never thought of death, and had not once boasted that he would live “God knows how long,” even though he drank like a fish. So you can imagine the expressions on the faces of all who knew him when his body was pulled out of the green water!
Rumors raced through the park—“There’s something fishy going on! This smells of foul play! The deceased had no creditors, no wife, no mother-in-law... he loved life! There is no way he would have drowned himself!”
The suspicion of foul play grew stronger when the ven-triloquist, Mr. Egorov, attested that a quarter of an hour before Ivanovs tragic end, he had seen the deceased in a boat with Mr. Gulevitch, writer. When the authorities undertook a search for Mr. Gulevitch, it turned out that the writer had made a run for it.
Arrested in Serpukhov, Mr. Gulevitch, writer, at first claimed he knew nothing. Then, when he was told that a confession would mitigate his guilt, he burst into tears and confessed. At the preliminary inquest he made the following deposition:
“I knew Ivanov only for a short time. I became acquainted with him because I have a great respect for men of the press. [In the protocol the word respect was underlined.] There were no family ties between us, nor did we have any business connections. On the ill-fated evening, I had invited him for tea and stout, because I have great respect for literature [here again respect was underlined, and next to it in scrawny protocol handwriting, ‘All this emphasis!’]. After tea, Ivan Ivanovitch said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to take a boat out.’ I agreed, and we got into a boat.
“‘So tell me a joke!’ Ivan Ivanovitch said when we were in the middle of the pond.
“I didn’t need to be asked twice, and launched into one of my classical jokes with ‘Well, if you insist.’ After only a few words Ivan Ivanovitch burst out laughing, grabbing his stomach, rocking back and forth, causing the deciduous [What does he mean?] foliage of the Hermitage gardens to resound with the congenial [What?] hilarity of the venerable journalist... When I, Gulevitch, writer, finished my second joke, Ivan Ivanovitch again burst out laughing, rolled back... It was Homeric laughter! Only a Homer [Who?] could laugh thus! He rolled back, leaned against the side... the boat listed, and the silvery ripples obfuscated him from Mother Russia’s loving eyes... and... I can’t go on! Tears... are choking me!”