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I remember once going to see him when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxicab number 1729, and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."

• Fadiman, Clifton, ed. The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes (Boston; Toronto: Little, Brown, 1985).

So, he went out to the front of the casino where there was a cab waiting. He got in and explained his situation to the cabbie. He promised to send the driver money from home, he offered him his credit card numbers, his driver license number, his address, etc, but to no avail. The cabbie said "If you don't have fifteen dollars, get the hell out of my cab!!" So, the business man was forced to hitch hike to the airport and was barely in time to catch his flight.

One year later, the business man, having worked long and hard to regain his financial success, returned to Vegas and this time he won big. Feeling pretty good about himself, he went out to the front of the casino to get a cab ride back to the airport. Well, who should he see out there at the end of a long line of cabs, but his old buddy who had refused to give him a ride when he was down on his luck. The business man thought for a moment about how he could make the guy pay for his lack of charity, and he hit on a plan.

The business man got in the 1st cab in the line, "How much for a ride to the airport," he asked? "Fifteen bucks" came the reply.

"And how much for you to give me a blow job on the way?"

"What???!!!! Get the hell out of my cab."

The business man got into the back of each cab in the long line and asked the same questions with the same results. When he got to his old friend at the back of the line, he got in and asked "How much for a ride to the airport"? The cabbie replied "Fifteen bucks" The business man said "OK" and off they went.

Then, as they drove slowly past the long line of cabs the business man gave a big smile and thumbs up sign to each driver.

• Martin, Jim. Posting to TAXI-L, July 12, 1997. "From the Multiple Sclerosis mailing list".

A man named Rabinowitz came out of a restaurant just as a taxi was driving off. He yelled, "Taxi," and the driver stopped for him. "Bathgate and Tremont Avenues," he ordered. When the cab arrived there, Rabinowitz alighted, walked into the Bronx police headquarters, emerged with two cops, and arrested the driver. It was Rabinowitz's taxicab.

• Cerf, Bennett. Anything for a Laugh (N.Y.: Grosset and Dunlap, 1946).

Taxi Driver: "What d'ya mean -- Home James? This is a public taxi."

Drunk: "Oh, very well. Home, Jesse James."

• Cantor, Eddie. World's Book of Best Jokes (N.Y., World Publishing Co., 1945, c1943).

• Romanofsky, Fred. "Cabbies" (October 11, 1937).
• Quoted in: American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940.

• Bierce, Ambrose. The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary. (E.J. Hopkins, ed. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1967).

Before sentencing Sineli Senivuga and Veileba Jobesa (two illegal Fijian immigrants) for their part in the robbery of 5 protective helmets and 400 puncture repair outfits from a Mt. Eden bicycle shop, Justice Morris continued: "It has been put to me that the reason you were so easily apprehended after the robbery was that you had no getaway car. According to your defense counsel, that is because you forgot to ask the taxi to wait for you while you committed the crime. But even more stupidly, you had telephoned the taxi service in the first place and asked to be picked up at your home, so even if you had got away it would have been a simple matter to locate and arrest you later."

"Why couldn't you steal a car beforehand, like everybody else? You tell me it's because you don't have licences, but I preside daily over cases involving professional criminals who don't care about such trivial matters. You are imbeciles. I hereby sentence you both to five years in jail."

• Helesic, Scott. Posting to TAXI-L, February 12, 1997. "This article was originally culled from the alt.tasteless Usenet group."
• Southland (New Zealand) Times, 4/8/1996.

Andersen, Hans Christian 1

"I really should have mentioned this earlier, but I'm actually a hooker and I charge $20 for sex."

The boy reluctantly paid her, and they did their thing.

After the cigarette, the boy just sat in the driver's seat looking out the window.

"Why aren't we going anywhere?" asked the girl.

"Well, I should have mentioned this before, but I'm actually a taxi driver, and the fare back to town is $25."

• Martin, Jim. Posting to TAXI-L, July 12, 1997.

Friend: "What are you looking in your pocketbook for?"

Gertie: "Gee! I thought I'd lost the quarter."

• Cantor, Eddie. World's Book of Best Jokes (N.Y., World Publishing Co., 1945, c1943).

But none of her commands were heeded. When they reached the hotel she popped out and started to give the driver a piece of her mind. When she was through he calmly shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm sorry madam," he said. "I thought you two were making love."

• Smith, Daisine.
• Quoted in: Reader's Digest Fun & Laughter: A Treasure House of Humor, (N.Y.: Reader's Digest, 1968).

"What's the matter?" called the man from the back seat.

"I thought the young lady said 'stop,'" answered the chauffeur.

"Well, she wasn't speaking to you."

• Johnston, William. Bill Johnston's Second Joy Book (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1925).

Lillie: "What happened then?"

Millie: "He got a bit Northern."

• Brande, Jacob M. Brande's Treasury of Wit and Humor for All Occasions (Revised edition; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991).

She wore a new terra-cotta dress,
And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,
Within the hansom's dry recess,
Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless
We sat on, snug and warm.

Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain
And the glass that had screened our forms before
Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:
I should have kissed her if the rain
Had lasted a minute more.

• Hardy, Thomas. Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy (Samuel Hynes, ed.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), vol. II.

• McEvoy, Joseph Patrick. Showgirl (London, Brentano's, 1928).
• Quoted in: Cohen, J.M. and Cohen, M.J., eds. Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1971).

When James B. Reynolds was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Senator Root sent for Mr. Reynolds one day to discuss with him some matter concerning a trade conference in Paris which Mr. Reynolds had been selected to attend.

"I suppose," said Mr. Root, "you speak French?"

"Well, yes," responded Mr. Reynolds. "I know a little French. I have no trouble to make the waiters and the cab drivers understand me."

"I see," said Mr. Root. "But, Mr. Reynolds, suppose there should be no waiters and cab drivers at the conference?"

• Fuller, Edmund. Thesaurus of Anecdotes (Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1948, c1943).

• Faulkner, Alex, and Hartman, Tom. All the Best People... The Pick of Peterborough, 1929-1945 (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1981).
• Quoted in: Fadiman, Clifton, ed. The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes (Boston; Toronto: Little, Brown, 1985).

• Eliot, Valerie. Letter to The Times, 1970.
• Quoted in: Metcalf, Fred, compiler. Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1986).