50 - Funny Story

Miss Jones teaches mathematics at a school. In one of her classes, the boys and girls are about eight years old, and they 'are not very good at arithmetic. Miss Jones always tries to make the work interesting and amusing as well as useful.
One day she gave them a question: 'If you go to the market to buy vegetables,' she said, 'and a carrot and a half cost twelve pence, how much will you have to pay for a dozen carrots?'
The pupils began to write in their exercise-books, and for a long time~ nobody spoke. Then one boy put his hand up and said, 'Could you repeat the question~ please, Miss?'
The teacher began, 'If a carrot and a half-', but the boy inter­rupted her.
'Oh, a carrot and a half?'· he said. 'All this time I've been trying to work it out in cabbages, Miss.'

49 - Funny Story

An old admiral was famous in the navy for his bad temper, so everyone tried hard not to annoy him. One week his ships were going to take part in a big international exercise, so he came on board in the evening, had his dinner and then went to bed. In the morning he had his breakfast early, came up to the bridge and examined the ships in his group carefully. Then he said angrily, 'There should be two cruisers in this group, but I can only see one. Where's the other?' No one dared to answer and this made the admiral even angrier. His face became redder and redder.

'Well?' he shouted. 'What are you fools hiding from me? Where's the second cruiser? What's happened to it? Answer me!'
At last a young sailor found enough courage to speak.
'Please, sir,' he said, 'you're on it.'

48 - Funny Story

A very strict officer was talking to some new soldiers whom he had to train. He had never seen them before, so he began: 'My name is Stone, and I'm even harder than stone, so do what I tell you or there'll be trouble. Don't try any tricks with me, and then we'll get on well together.'

Then he went to each soldier one after the other and asked him his name. 'Speak loudly so that everyone can hear you clearly,' he said, 'and don't forget to call me "sir".'
Each soldier told him his name, until he came to the last one. This man remained silent, and so Captain Stone shouted at him, 'When I ask you a question, answer it! I'll ask you again: what's your name, soldier?'

The soldier was very unhappy, but at last he replied. 'My name's Stonebreaker, sir,' he said nervously.