A FUTILE EXPERIMENT

William Williams hated nicknames. He used to say that most fine given
names were ruined by abbreviations, which was a sin and a shame. "I
myself," he said, "am one of six brothers. We were all given good,
old-fashioned Christian names, but all those names were shortened into
meaningless or feeble monosyllables by our friends. I shall name my
children so that it will be impracticable to curtail their names."

The Williams family, in the course of time, was blessed with five
children, all boys. The eldest was named after the father--William. Of
course, that would be shortened to "Will" or enfeebled to "Willie"--but
wait! A second son came and was christened Willard. "Aha!" chuckled Mr.
Williams, "Now everybody will have to speak the full names of each of
these boys in order to distinguish them."

In pursuance of this scheme the next three sons were named Wilbert,
Wilfred, and Wilmont.

They are all big boys now. And they are respectively known to their
intimates as Bill, Skinny, Butch, Chuck, and Kid.


THEY MEANT TO BE PAID

No man is ever willing to admit that he has any prejudices. But
sometimes the facts confront him sternly, as in the case of the two
gentlemen in the following dialogue: