Chapter II: Part 2

"'Well, my friend,' said I, 'suppose we leave it to the guests. You sit down while I say my piece, and then I'll sit down and let you give a demonstration.' The fellow agreed and I went on. I hadn't gone far when he got up again.

"''S all right,' said he, 'you win; needn't go no farther!'"

Mark Twain and Chauncey M. Depew once went abroad on the same ship. When the ship was a few days out they were both invited to a dinner. Speech-making time came. Mark Twain had the first chance. He spoke twenty minutes and made a great hit. Then it was Mr. Depew's turn.

"Mr. Toastmaster and Ladies and Gentlemen," said the famous raconteur as he arose, "Before this dinner Mark Twain and myself made an agreement to trade speeches. He has just delivered my speech, and I thank you for the pleasant manner in which you received it. I regret to say that I have lost the notes of his speech and cannot remember anything he was to say."

Then he sat down. There was much laughter. Next day an Englishman who had been in the party came across Mark Twain in the smoking-room. "Mr Clemens," he said, "I consider you were much imposed upon last night. I have always heard that Mr. Depew is a clever man, but, really, that speech of his you made last night struck me as being the most infernal rot."

_See also_ Orators; Politicians; Public Speakers.

AGE

The good die young. Here's hoping that you may live to a ripe old age.

"How old are you, Tommy?" asked a caller.

"Well, when I'm home I'm five, when I'm in school I'm six, and when I'm on the cars I'm four."

"How effusively sweet that Mrs. Blondey is to you, Jonesy," said Witherell. "What's up? Any tender little romance there?"

"No, indeed--why, that woman hates me," said Jonesy.

"She doesn't show it," said Witherell.

"No; but she knows I know how old she is--we were both born on the same day," said Jonesy, "and she's afraid I'll tell somebody."

As every southerner knows, elderly colored people rarely know how old they are, and almost invariably assume an age much greater than belongs to them. In an Atlanta family there is employed an old chap named Joshua Bolton, who has been with that family and the previous generation for more years than they can remember. In view, therefore, of his advanced age, it was with surprise that his employer received one day an application for a few days off, in order that the old fellow might, as he put it, "go up to de ole State of Virginny" to see his aunt.

"Your aunt must be pretty old," was the employer's comment.

"Yassir," said Joshua. "She's pretty ole now. I reckon she's 'bout a hundred an' ten years ole."

"One hundred and ten! But what on earth is she doing up in Virginia?"

"I don't jest know," explained Joshua, "but I understand she's up dere livin' wif her grandmother."

When "Bob" Burdette was addressing the graduating class of a large eastern college for women, he began his remarks with the usual salutation, "Young ladies of '97." Then in a horrified aside he added, "That's an awful age for a girl!"

THE PARSON (about to improve the golden hour)--"When a man reaches your age, Mr. Dodd, he cannot, in the nature of things, expect to live very much longer, and I--"

THE NONAGENARIAN--"I dunno, parson. I be stronger on my legs than I were when I started!"

A well-meaning Washington florist was the cause of much embarrassment to a young man who was in love with a rich and beautiful girl.

It appears that one afternoon she informed the young man that the next day would be her birthday, whereupon the suitor remarked that he would the next morning send her some roses, one rose for each year.

That night he wrote a note to his florist, ordering the delivery of twenty roses for the young woman. The florist himself filled the order, and, thinking to improve on it, said to his clerk:

"Here's an order from young Jones for twenty roses. He's one of my best customers, so I'll throw in ten more for good measure."--_Edwin Tarrisse_.

A small boy who had recently passed his fifth birthday was riding in a suburban car with his mother, when they were asked the customary question, "How old is the boy?" After being told the correct age, which did not require a fare, the conductor passed on to the next person.

The boy sat quite still as if pondering over some question, and then, concluding that full information had not been given, called loudly to the conductor, then at the other end of the car: "And mother's thirty-one!"

The late John Bigelow, the patriarch of diplomats and authors, and the no less distinguished physician and author, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, were together, several years ago, at West Point. Dr. Bigelow was then ninety-two, and Dr. Mitchell eighty.

The conversation turned to the subject of age. "I attribute my many years," said Dr. Bigelow, "to the fact that I have been most abstemious. I have eaten sparingly, and have not used tobacco, and have taken little exercise."

"It is just the reverse in my case," explained Dr. Mitchell. "I have eaten just as much as I wished, if I could get it; I have always used tobacco, immoderately at times; and I have always taken a great deal of exercise."

With that, Ninety-Two-Years shook his head at Eighty-Years and said, "Well, you will never live to be an old man!"--_Sarah Bache Hodge_.

A wise man never puts away childish things.--_Sidney Dark_.

To the old, long life and treasure;
To the young, all health and pleasure.

--_Ben Jonson_.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.--_Disraeli_.

We do not count a man's years, until he has nothing else to count.--_Emerson_.

To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.--_O.W. Holmes_.

AGENTS

"John, whatever induced you to buy a house in this forsaken region?"

"One of the best men in the business."--_Life_.

AGRICULTURE

A farmer, according to this definition, is a man who makes his money on the farm and spends it in town. An agriculturist is a man who makes his money in town and spends it on the farm.

In certain parts of the west, where without irrigation the cultivators of the land would be in a bad way indeed, the light rains that during the growing season fall from time to time, are appreciated to a degree that is unknown in the east.

Last summer a fruit grower who owns fifty acres of orchards was rejoicing in one of these precipitations of moisture, when his hired man came into the house.

"Why don't you stay in out of the rain?" asked the fruit-man.

"I don't mind a little dew like this," said the man. "I can work along just the same."

"Oh, I'm not talking about that," exclaimed the fruit-man. "The next time it rains, you can come into the house. I want that water on the land."

They used to have a farming rule
Of forty acres and a mule.
Results were won by later men
With forty square feet and a hen.
And nowadays success we see
With forty inches and a bee.

--_Wasp_.

Blessed be agriculture! if one does not have too much of it.--_Charles Dudley Warner_.

When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.--_Daniel Webster_.

ALARM CLOCKS

MIKE (in bed, to alarm-clock as it goes off)--"I fooled yez that time. I was not aslape at all."

ALERTNESS

"Alert?" repeated a congressman, when questioned concerning one of his political opponents. "Why, he's alert as a Providence bridegroom I heard of the other day. You know how bridegrooms starting off on their honeymoons sometimes forget all about their brides, and buy tickets only for themselves? That is what happened to the Providence young man. And when his wife said to him, 'Why, Tom, you bought only one ticket,' he answered without a moment's hesitation, 'By Jove, you're right, dear! I'd forgotten myself entirely!'"

ALIBI

A party of Manila army women were returning in an auto from a suburban excursion when the driver unfortunately collided with another vehicle. While a policeman was taking down the names of those concerned an "English-speaking" Filipino law-student politely asked one of the ladies how the accident had happened.

"I'm sure I don't know," she replied; "I was asleep when it occurred."

Proud of his knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, the youth replied:

"Ah, madam, then you will be able to prove a lullaby."

ALIMONY

"What is alimony, ma?"

"It is a man's cash surrender value."--_Town Topics_

The proof of the wedding is in the alimony.

ALLOWANCES

"Why don't you give your wife an allowance?"

"I did once, and she spent it before I could borrow it back."

ALTERNATIVES

_See_ Choices.

ALTRUISM

WILLIE--"Pa!"

PA--"Yes."

WILLIE--"Teacher says we're here to help others."

PA--"Of course we are."

WILLIE--"Well, what are the others here for?"

There was once a remarkably kind boy who was a great angler. There was a trout stream in his neighborhood that ran through a rich man's estate. Permits to fish the stream could now and then be obtained, and the boy was lucky enough to have a permit.

One day he was fishing with another boy when a gamekeeper suddenly darted forth from a thicket. The lad with the permit uttered a cry of fright, dropped his rod, and ran off at top speed. The gamekeeper pursued.

For about half a mile the gamekeeper was led a swift and difficult chase. Then, worn out, the boy halted. The man seized him by the arm and said between pants:

"Have you a permit to fish on this estate?

"Yes to be sure," said the boy, quietly.

"You have? Then show it to me."

The boy drew the permit from his pocket. The man examined it and frowned in perplexity and anger.

"Why did you run when you had this permit?" he asked.

"To let the other boy get away," was the reply. "He didn't have none!"

AMBITION

Oliver Herford sat next to a soulful poetess at dinner one night, and that dreamy one turned her sad eyes upon him. "Have you no other ambition, Mr. Herford," she demanded, "than to force people to degrade themselves by laughter?"

Yes, Herford had an ambition. A whale of an ambition. Some day he hoped to gratify it.

The woman rested her elbows on the table and propped her face in her long, sad hands, and glowed into Mr. Herford's eyes. "Oh, Mr. Herford," she said, "Oliver! Tell me about it."

"I want to throw an egg into an electric fan," said Herford, simply.

"Hubby," said the observant wife, "the janitor of these flats is a bachelor."

"What of it?"

"I really think he is becoming interested in our oldest daughter."

"There you go again with your pipe dreams! Last week it was a duke."

The chief end of a man in New York is dissipation; in Boston, conversation.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.--_Cicero_.

The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one,
May hope to achieve it before life be done;
But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes,
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows
A harvest of barren regrets.

--_Owen Meredith_

AMERICAN GIRL

Here's to the dearest
Of all things on earth.
(Dearest precisely--
And yet of full worth.)
One who lays siege to
Susceptible hearts.
(Pocket-books also--
That's one of her arts!)
Drink to her, toast her,
Your banner unfurl--
Here's to the _priceless_
American Girl!

--_Walter Pulitzer_.

AMERICANS

Eugene Field was at a dinner in London when the conversation turned to the subject of lynching in the United States.

It was the general opinion that a large percentage of Americans met death at the end of a rope. Finally the hostess turned to Field and asked:

"You, sir, must have often seen these affairs?"

"Yes," replied Field, "hundreds of them."

"Oh, do tell us about a lynching you have seen yourself," broke in half a dozen voices at once.

"Well, the night before I sailed for England," said Field, "I was giving a dinner at a hotel to a party of intimate friends when a colored waiter spilled a plate of soup over the gown of a lady at an adjoining table. The gown was utterly ruined, and the gentlemen of her party at once seized the waiter, tied a rope around his neck, and at a signal from the injured lady swung him into the air."

"Horrible!" said the hostess with a shudder. "And did you actually see this yourself?"

"Well, no," admitted Field apologetically. "Just at that moment I happened to be downstairs killing the chef for putting mustard in the blanc mange."

You can always tell the English,
You can always tell the Dutch,
You can always tell the Yankees--
But you can't tell them _much!_

AMUSEMENTS

A newspaper thus defined amusements:

The Friends' picnic this year was not as well attended as it has been for some years. This can be laid to three causes, viz.: the change of place in holding it, deaths in families, and other amusements.

I wish that my room had a floor;
I don't so much care for a door;
But this crawling around
Without touching the ground
Is getting to be quite a bore.

I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.--_Samuel Johnson_.

ANATOMY

TOMMY--"My gran'pa wuz in th' civil war, an' he lost a leg or a arm in every battle he fit in!"

JOHNNY--"Gee! How many battles was he in?"

TOMMY--"About forty."

They thought more of the Legion of Honor in the time of the first Napoleon than they do now. The emperor one day met an old one-armed veteran.

"How did you lose your arm?" he asked.

"Sire, at Austerlitz."

"And were you not decorated?"

"No, sire."

"Then here is my own cross for you; I make you chevalier."

"Your Majesty names me chevalier because I have lost one arm. What would your Majesty have done had I lost both arms?"

"Oh, in that case I should have made you Officer of the Legion."

Whereupon the old soldier immediately drew his sword and cut off his other arm.

There is no particular reason to doubt this story. The only question is, how did he do it?

ANCESTRY

A western buyer is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his ancestors affixed his name to the Declaration of Independence. At the time the salesman called, the buyer was signing a number of checks and affixed his signature with many a curve and flourish. The salesman's patience becoming exhausted in waiting for the buyer to recognize him, he finally observed:

"You have a fine signature, Mr. So-and-So."

"Yes," admitted the buyer, "I should have. One of my forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence."

"So?" said the caller, with rising inflection. And then he added:

"Vell, you aind't got nottings on me. One of my forefathers signed the Ten Commandments."

In a speech in the Senate on Hawaiian affairs, Senator Depew of New York told this story:

When Queen Liliuokalani was in England during the English queen's jubilee, she was received at Buckingham Palace. In the course of the remarks that passed between the two queens, the one from the Sandwich Islands said that she had English blood in her veins.

"How so?" inquired Victoria.

"My ancestors ate Captain Cook."

Signor Marconi, in an interview in Washington, praised American democracy.

"Over here," he said, "you respect a man for what he is himself--not for what his family is--and thus you remind me of the gardener in Bologna who helped me with my first wireless apparatus.

"As my mother's gardener and I were working on my apparatus together a young count joined us one day, and while he watched us work the count boasted of his lineage.

"The gardener, after listening a long while, smiled and said:

"'If you come from an ancient family, it's so much the worse for you sir; for, as we gardeners say, the older the seed the worse the crop.'"

"Gerald," said the young wife, noticing how heartily he was eating, "do I cook as well as your mother did?"

Gerald put up his monocle, and stared at her through it.

"Once and for all, Agatha," he said, "I beg you will remember that although I may seem to be in reduced circumstances now, I come of an old and distinguished family. My mother was not a cook."

"My ancestors came over in the 'Mayflower.'"

"That's nothing; my father descended from an aëroplane."--_Life_.

When in England, Governor Foss, of Massachusetts, had luncheon with a prominent Englishman noted for boasting of his ancestry. Taking a coin from his pocket, the Englishman said: "My great-great-grandfather was made a lord by the king whose picture you see on this shilling." "Indeed!" replied the governor, smiling, as he produced another coin. "What a coincidence! My great-great-grandfather was made an angel by the Indian whose picture you see on this cent."

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.--_Burke_.

From yon blue heavens above us bent,
The gardener Adam and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.

--_Tennyson_.

ANGER

Charlie and Nancy had quarreled. After their supper Mother tried to re-establish friendly relations. She told them of the Bible verse, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."

"Now, Charlie," she pleaded, "are you going to let the sun go down on your wrath?"

Charlie squirmed a little. Then:

"Well, how can _I_ stop it?"

When a husband loses his temper he usually finds his wife's.

It is easy enough to restrain our wrath when the other fellow is the bigger.

ANNIVERSARIES

MRS. JONES--"Does your husband remember your wedding anniversary?"

MRS. SMITH--"No; so I remind him of it in January and June, and get two presents."

ANTIDOTES

"Suppose," asked the professor in chemistry, "that you were summoned to the side of a patient who had accidentally swallowed a heavy dose of oxalic acid, what would you administer?"

The student who, studying for the ministry, took chemistry because it was obligatory in the course, replied, "I would administer the sacrament."

APPEARANCES

"How fat and well your little boy looks."

"Ah, you should never judge from appearances. He's got a gumboil on one side of his face and he has been stung by a wasp on the other."

APPLAUSE

A certain theatrical troupe, after a dreary and unsuccessful tour, finally arrived in a small New Jersey town. That night, though there was no furore or general uprising of the audience, there was enough hand-clapping to arouse the troupe's dejected spirits. The leading man stepped to the foot-lights after the first act and bowed profoundly. Still the clapping continued.

When he went behind the scenes he saw an Irish stagehand laughing heartily. "Well, what do you think of that?" asked the actor, throwing out his chest.

"What d'ye mane?" replied the Irishman.

"Why, the hand-clapping out there," was the reply.

"Hand-clapping?"

"Yes," said the Thespian, "they are giving me enough applause to show they appreciate me."

"D'ye call thot applause?" inquired the old fellow. "Whoi, thot's not applause. Thot's the audience killin' mosquitoes."

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.--_Colton_.

O Popular Applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?--_Cowper_.

ARBITRATION INTERNATIONAL

A war was going on, and one day, the papers being full of the grim details of a bloody battle, a woman said to her husband:

"This slaughter is shocking. It's fiendish. Can nothing he done to stop it?"

"I'm afraid not," her husband answered.

"Why don't both sides come together and arbitrate?" she cried.

"They did," said he. "They did, 'way back in June. That's how the gol-durned thing started."

ARITHMETIC

"He seems to be very clever."

"Yes, indeed, he can even do the problems that his children have to work out at school."

SONNY--"Aw, pop, I don't wanter study arithmetic."

POP--"What! a son of mine grow up and not he able to figure up baseball scores and batting averages? Never!"

TEACHER--"Now, Johnny, suppose I should borrow $100 from your father and should pay him $10 a month for ten months, how much would I then owe him?"

JOHNNY--"About $3 interest."

"See how I can count, mama," said Kitty. "There's my right foot. That's one. There's my left foot. That's two. Two and one make three. Three feet make a yard, and I want to go out and play in it!"

"Two old salts who had spent most of their lives on fishing smacks had an argument one day as to which was the better mathematician," said George C. Wiedenmayer the other day. "Finally the captain of their ship proposed the following problem which each would try to work out: 'If a fishing crew caught 500 pounds of cod and brought their catch to port and sold it at 6 cents a pound, how much would they receive for the fish?'

"Well, the two old fellows got to work, but neither seemed able to master the intricacies of the deal in fish, and they were unable to get any answer.

"At last old Bill turned to the captain and asked him to repeat the problem. The captain started off: 'If a fishing crew caught 500 pounds of cod and--.'

"'Wait a moment,' said Bill, 'is it codfish they caught?'

"'Yep,' said the captain.

"'Darn it all,' said Bill. 'No wonder I couldn't get an answer. Here I've been figuring on salmon all the time.'"

ARMIES

A new volunteer at a national guard encampment who had not quite learned his business, was on sentry duty, one night, when a friend brought a pie from the canteen.

As he sat on the grass eating pie, the major sauntered up in undress uniform. The sentry, not recognizing him, did not salute, and the major stopped and said:

"What's that you have there?"

"Pie," said the sentry, good-naturedly. "Apple pie. Have a bite?"

The major frowned.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"No," said the sentry, "unless you're the major's groom."

The major shook his head.

"Guess again," he growled.

"The barber from the village?"

"No."

"Maybe"--here the sentry laughed--"maybe you're the major himself?"

"That's right. I am the major," was the stern reply.

The sentry scrambled to his feet.

"Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "Hold the pie, will you, while I present arms!"

The battle was going against him. The commander-in-chief, himself ruler of the South American republic, sent an aide to the rear, ordering General Blanco to bring up his regiment at once. Ten minutes passed; but it didn't come. Twenty, thirty, and an hour--still no regiment. The aide came tearing back hatless, breathless.

"My regiment! My regiment! Where is it? Where is it?" shrieked the commander.

"General," answered the excited aide, "Blanco started it all right, but there are a couple of drunken Americans down the road and they won't let it go by."

An army officer decided to see for himself how his sentries were doing their duty. He was somewhat surprised at overhearing the following:

"Halt! Who goes there?"

"Friend--with a bottle."

"Pass, friend. Halt, bottle."

"A war is a fearful thing," said Mr. Dolan.

"It is," replied Mr. Rafferty. "When you see the fierceness of members of the army toward one another, the fate of a common enemy must be horrible."

_See also_ Military Discipline.

ARMY RATIONS

The colonel of a volunteer regiment camping in Virginia came across a private on the outskirts of the camp, painfully munching on something. His face was wry and his lips seemed to move only with the greatest effort.

"What are you eating?" demanded the colonel.

"Persimmons, sir."

"Good Heavens! Haven't you got any more sense than to eat persimmons at this time of the year? They'll pucker the very stomach out of you."

"I know, sir. That's why I'm eatin' 'em. I'm tryin' to shrink me stomach to fit me rations."

On the occasion of the annual encampment of a western militia, one of the soldiers, a clerk who lived well at home, was experiencing much difficulty in disposing of his rations.

A fellow-sufferer nearby was watching with no little amusement the first soldier's attempts to Fletcherize a piece of meat. "Any trouble, Tom?" asked the second soldier sarcastically.

"None in particular," was the response. Then, after a sullen survey of the bit of beef he held in his hand, the amateur fighter observed:

"Bill, I now fully realize what people mean when they speak of the sinews of war."--_Howard Morse_.

ART

There was an old sculptor named Phidias,
Whose knowledge of Art was invidious.
He carved Aphrodite
Without any nightie--
Which startled the purely fastidious.

--_Gilbert K. Chesterton_.

The friend had dropped in to see D'Auber, the great animal painter, put the finishing touches on his latest painting. He was mystified, however, when D'Auber took some raw meat and rubbed it vigorously over the painted rabbit in the foreground.

"Why on earth did you do that?" he asked.

"Why you see," explained D'Auber, "Mrs Millions is coming to see this picture today. When she sees her pet poodle smell that rabbit, and get excited over it, she'll buy it on the spot."

A young artist once persuaded Whistler to come and view his latest effort. The two stood before the canvas for some moments in silence. Finally the young man asked timidly, "Don't you think, sir, that this painting of mine is--well--er--tolerable?"

Whistler's eyes twinkled dangerously.

"What is your opinion of a tolerable egg?" he asked.

The amateur artist was painting sunset, red with blue streaks and green dots.

The old rustic, at a respectful distance, was watching.

"Ah," said the artist looking up suddenly, "perhaps to you, too, Nature has opened her sky picture page by page! Have you seen the lambent flame of dawn leaping across the livid east; the red-stained, sulphurous islets floating in the lake of fire in the west; the ragged clouds at midnight, black as a raven's wing, blotting out the shuddering moon?"

"No," replied the rustic, "not since I give up drink."

Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life.--_Jean Paul Richter_.

Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature; they being both the servants of His providence. Art is the perfection of nature. Were the world now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a chaos. Nature hath made one world, and art another. In brief, all things are artificial; for nature is the art of God.--_Sir Thomas Browne_.

ARTISTS

ARTIST--"I'd like to devote my last picture to a charitable purpose."

CRITIC--"Why not give it to an institution for the blind?"

"Wealth has its penalties." said the ready-made philosopher.

"Yes," replied Mr. Cumrox. "I'd rather be back at the dear old factory than learning to pronounce the names of the old masters in my picture-gallery."

CRITIC--"By George, old chap, when I look at one of your paintings I stand and wonder--"

ARTIST--"How I do it?"

CRITIC "No; why you do it."

He that seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius: as he must needs paint for other minds, and not for his own.--_Mrs. Jameson_.

ATHLETES

The caller's eye had caught the photograph of Tommie Billups, standing on the desk of Mr. Billups.

"That your boy, Billups?" he asked.

"Yes," said Billups, "he's a sophomore up at Binkton College."

"Looks intellectual rather than athletic," said the caller.

"Oh, he's an athlete all right," said Billups. "When it comes to running up accounts, and jumping his board-bill, and lifting his voice, and throwing a thirty-two pound bluff, there isn't a gladiator in creation that can give my boy Tommie any kind of a handicap. He's just written for an extra check."

"And as a proud father you are sending it, I don't doubt," smiled the caller.

"Yes," grinned Billups; "I am sending him a rain-check I got at the hall-game yesterday. As an athlete, he'll appreciate its value."--_J.K.B_.

ATTENTION

The supervisor of a school was trying to prove that children are lacking in observation.

To the children he said, "Now, children, tell me a number to put on the board."

Some child said, "Thirty-six." The supervisor wrote sixty-three.

He asked for another number, and seventy-six was given. He wrote sixty-seven.

When a third number was asked, a child who apparently had paid no attention called out:

"Theventy-theven. Change _that_ you thucker!"

AUTHORS

The following is a recipe for an author:

Take the usual number of fingers,
Add paper, manila or white,
A typewriter, plenty of postage
And something or other to write.

--_Life_.

Oscar Wilde, upon hearing one of Whistler's _bon mots_ exclaimed: "Oh, Jimmy; I wish I had said that!" "Never mind, dear Oscar," was the rejoinder, "you will!"

THE AUTHOR--"Would you advise me to get out a small edition?"

THE PUBLISHER--"Yes, the smaller the better. The more scarce a book is at the end of four or five centuries the more money you realize from it."

AMBITIOUS AUTHOR--"Hurray! Five dollars for my latest story, 'The Call of the Lure!'"

FAST FRIEND--"Who from?"

AMBITIOUS AUTHOR--"The express company. They lost it."

A lady who had arranged an authors' reading at her house succeeded in persuading her reluctant husband to stay home that evening to assist in receiving the guests. He stood the entertainment as long as he could--three authors, to be exact--and then made an excuse that he was going to open the front door to let in some fresh air. In the hall he found one of the servants asleep on a settee.

"Wake up!" he commanded, shaking the fellow roughly. "What does this mean, your being asleep out here? You must have been listening at the keyhole."

An ambitious young man called upon a publisher and stated that he had decided to write a book.

"May I venture to inquire as to the nature of the book you propose to write?" asked the publisher, very politely.

"Oh," came in an offhand way from the aspirant to literary fame, "I think of doing something on the line of 'Les Miserables,' only livelier, you know."

"So you have had a long siege of nervous prostration?" we say to the haggard author. "What caused it? Overwork?"

"In a way, yes," he answers weakly. "I tried to do a novel with a Robert W. Chambers hero and a Mary E. Wilkins heroine."--_Life_.

Mark Twain at a dinner at the Authors' Club said: "Speaking of fresh eggs, I am reminded of the town of Squash. In my early lecturing days I went to Squash to lecture in Temperance Hall, arriving in the afternoon. The town seemed very poorly billed. I thought I'd find out if the people knew anything at all about what was in store for them. So I turned in at the general store. 'Good afternoon, friend,' I said to the general storekeeper. 'Any entertainment here tonight to help a stranger while away his evening?' The general storekeeper, who was sorting mackerels, straightened up, wiped his briny hands on his apron, and said: 'I expect there's goin' to be a lecture. I've been sellin' eggs all day."

An American friend of Edmond Rostand says that the great dramatist once told him of a curious encounter he had had with a local magistrate in a town not far from his own.

It appears that Rostand had been asked to register the birth of a friend's newly arrived son. The clerk at the registry office was an officious little chap, bent on carrying out the letter of the law. The following dialogue ensued:

"Your name, sir?"

"Edmond Rostand."

"Vocation?"

"Man of letters, and member of the French Academy."

"Very well, sir. You must sign your name. Can you write? If not, you may make a cross."--_Howard Morse_.

George W. Cable, the southern writer, was visiting a western city where he was invited to inspect the new free library. The librarian conducted the famous writer through the building until they finally reached the department of books devoted to fiction.

"We have all your books, Mr. Cable," proudly said the librarian. "You see there they are--all of them on the shelves there: not one missing."

And Mr. Cable's hearty laugh was not for the reason that the librarian thought!

Brief History of a Successful Author: From ink-pots to flesh-pots--_R.R. Kirk_.

"It took me nearly ten years to learn that I couldn't write stories."

"I suppose you gave it up then?"

"No, no. By that time I had a reputation."

"I dream my stories," said Hicks, the author.

"How you must dread going to bed!" exclaimed Cynicus.

The five-year-old son of James Oppenheim, author of "The Olympian," was recently asked what work he was going to do when he became a man. "Oh," Ralph replied, "I'm not going to work at all." "Well, what are you going to do, then?" he was asked. "Why," he said seriously, "I'm just going to write stories, like daddy."

William Dean Howells is the kindliest of critics, but now and then some popular novelist's conceit will cause him to bristle up a little.

"You know," said one, fishing for compliments, "I get richer and richer, but all the same I think my work is falling off. My new work is not so good as my old."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Mr. Howells. "You write just as well as you ever did. Your taste is improving, that's all."

James Oliver Curwood, a novelist, tells of a recent encounter with the law. The value of a short story he was writing depended upon a certain legal situation which he found difficult to manage. Going to a lawyer of his acquaintance he told him the plot and was shown a way to the desired end. "You've saved me just $100," he exclaimed, "for that's what I am going to get for this story."

A week later he received a bill from the lawyer as follows: "For literary advice, $100." He says he paid.

"Tried to skin me, that scribbler did!"

"What did he want?"

"Wanted to get out a book jointly, he to write the book and I to write the advertisements. I turned him down. I wasn't going to do all the literary work."

At a London dinner recently the conversation turned to the various methods of working employed by literary geniuses. Among the examples cited was that of a well-known poet, who, it is said, was wont to arouse his wife about four o'clock in the morning and exclaim, "Maria, get up; I've thought of a good word!" Whereupon the poet's obedient helpmate would crawl out of bed and make a note of the thought-of word.

About an hour later, like as not, a new inspiration would seize the bard, whereupon he would again arouse his wife, saying, "Maria, Maria, get up! I've thought of a better word!"

The company in general listened to the story with admiration, but a merry-eyed American girl remarked: "Well, if he'd been my husband I should have replied, 'Alpheus, get up yourself; I've thought of a bad word!'"

"There is probably no hell for authors in the next world--they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this."--_Bovee_.

A thought upon my forehead,
My hand up to my face;
I want to be an author,
An air of studied grace!
I want to be an author,
With genius on my brow;
I want to be an author,
And I want to be it now!

--_Ella Hutchison Ellwanger_.

That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time.--_C.C. Colton_.

Habits of close attention, thinking heads,
Become more rare as dissipation spreads,
Till authors hear at length one general cry
Tickle and entertain us, or we die!

--_Cowper_.

The author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.--_Disraeli_.

AUTOMOBILES

TEACHER--"If a man saves $2 a week, how long will it take him to save a thousand?"

BOY--"He never would, ma'am. After he got $900 he'd buy a car."

"How fast is your car, Jimpson?" asked Harkaway.

"Well," said Jimpson, "it keeps about six months ahead of my income generally."

"What is the name of your automobile?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? What do your folks call it?"

"Oh, as to that, father always says 'The Mortgage'; brother Tom calls it 'The Fake'; mother, 'My Limousine'; sister, 'Our Car'; grandma, 'That Peril'; the chauffeur, 'Some Freak,' and our neighbors, 'The Limit.'"--_Life_.

"What little boy can tell me the difference between the 'quick' and the 'dead?'" asked the Sunday-school teacher.

Willie waved his hand frantically.

"Well, Willie?"

"Please, ma'am, the 'quick' are the ones that get out of the way of automobiles; the ones that don't are the 'dead.'"

"Do you have much trouble with your automobile?"

"Trouble! Say, I couldn't have more if I was married to the blamed machine."

A little "Brush" chugged painfully up to the gate of a race track.

The gate-keeper, demanding the usual fee for automobiles, called:

"A dollar for the car!"

The owner looked up with a pathetic smile of relief and said:

"Sold!"

Autos rush in where mortgages have dared to tread.

_See also_ Fords; Profanity.

AUTOMOBILING

"Sorry, gentlemen," said the new constable, "but I'll hev to run ye in. We been keepin' tabs on ye sence ye left Huckleberry Corners."

"Why, that's nonsense!" said Dubbleigh. "It's taken us four hours to come twenty miles, thanks to a flabby tire. That's only five miles an hour."

"Sure!" said the new constable, "but the speed law round these here parts is ten mile an hour, and by Jehosophat I'm goin' to make you ottermobile fellers live up to it."

Two street pedlers in Bradford, England, bought a horse for $11.25. It was killed by a motor-car one day and the owner of the car paid them $115 for the loss. Thereupon a new industry sprang up on the roads of England.

"It was very romantic," says the friend. "He proposed to her in the automobile."

"Yes?" we murmur, encouragingly.

"And she accepted him in the hospital."

"What you want to do is to have that mudhole in the road fixed," said the visitor.

"That goes to show," replied Farmer Corntassel, "how little you reformers understand local conditions. I've purty nigh paid off a mortgage with the money I made haulm' automobiles out o' that mud-hole."

The old lady from the country and her small son were driving to town when a huge automobile bore down upon them. The horse was badly frightened and began to prance, whereupon the old lady leaped down and waved wildly to the chauffeur, screaming at the top of her voice.

The chauffeur stopped the car and offered to help get the horse past.

"That's all right," said the boy, who remained composedly in the carriage, "I can manage the horse. You just lead Mother past."

"What makes you carry that horrible shriek machine for an automobile signal?"

"For humane reasons." replied Mr. Chugging. "If I can paralyze a person with fear he will keep still and I can run to one side of him."

In certain sections of West Virginia there is no liking for automobilists, as was evidenced in the case of a Washingtonian who was motoring in a sparsely settled region of the State.

This gentleman was haled before a local magistrate upon the complaint of a constable. The magistrate, a good-natured man, was not, however, absolutely certain that the Washingtonian's car had been driven too fast; and the owner stoutly insisted that he had been progressing at the rate of only six miles an hour.

"Why, your Honor," he said, "my engine was out of order, and I was going very slowly because I was afraid it would break down completely. I give you my word, sir, you could have walked as fast as I was running."

"Well," said the magistrate, after due reflection, "you don't appear to have been exceeding the speed limit, but at the same time you must have been guilty of something, or you wouldn't be here. I fine you ten dollars for loitering."--_Fenimore Martin_.

AVIATION

The aviator's wife was taking her first trip with her husband in his airship. "Wait a minute, George," she said. "I'm afraid we will have to go down again."

"What's wrong?" asked her husband.

"I believe I have dropped one of the pearl buttons off my jacket. I think I can see it glistening on the ground."

"Keep your seat, my dear," said the aviator, "that's Lake Erie."

AVIATOR (to young assistant, who has begun to be frightened)--"Well, what do you want now?"

ASSISTANT (whimpering)--"I want the earth."--_Abbie C. Dixon_.

When Claude Grahame-White the famous aviator, author of "The Aeroplane in War," was in this country not long ago, he was spending a week-end at a country home. He tells the following story of an incident that was very amusing to him.

"The first night that I arrived, a dinner party was given. Feeling very enthusiastic over the recent flights, I began to tell the young woman who was my partner at the table of some of the details of the aviation sport.

"It was not until the dessert was brought on that I realized that I had been doing all the talking; indeed, the young woman seated next me had not uttered a single word since I first began talking about aviation. Perhaps she was not interested in the subject, I thought, although to an enthusiast like me it seemed quite incredible.

"'I am afraid I have been boring you with this shop talk," I said, feeling as if I should apologize.

"'Oh, not at all,' she murmured, in very polite tones; 'but would you mind telling me, what is aviation?'"--_M.A. Hitchcock_.

AVIATORS

Little drops in water--
Little drops on land--
Make the aviator,
Join the heavenly band.

--_Satire_.

"Are you an experienced aviator?"

"Well, sir, I have been at it six weeks and I am all here."--_Life_.

BABIES

_See_ Children.

BACCALAUREATE SERMONS

PROUD FATHER--"Rick, my boy, if you live up to your oration you'll be an honor to the family."

VALEDICTORIAN-"I expect to do better than that, father. I am going to try to live up to the baccalaureate sermon."

BACTERIA

There once were some learned M.D.'s,
Who captured some germs of disease,
And infected a train
Which, without causing pain,
Allowed one to catch it with ease.

Two doctors met in the hall of the hospital.

"Well," said the first, "what's new this morning?"

"I've got a most curious case. Woman, cross-eyed; in fact, so cross-eyed that when she cries the tears run down her back."

"What are you doing for her?"

"Just now," was the answer, "we're treating her for bacteria."

BADGES

Mrs. Philpots came panting downstairs on her way to the temperance society meeting. She was a short, plump woman. "Addie, run up to my room and get my blue ribbon rosette, the temperance badge," she directed her maid. "I have forgotten it. You will know it, Addie--blue ribbon and gold lettering."

"Yas'm, I knows it right well." Addie could not read, but she knew a blue ribbon with gold lettering when she saw it, and therefore had not trouble in finding it and fastening it properly on the dress of her mistress.

At the meeting Mrs. Philpots was too busy greeting her friends to note that they smiled when they shook hands with her. When she reached home supper was served, so she went directly to the dining-room, where the other members of the family were seated.

"Gracious me, Mother!" exclaimed her son: "that blue ribbon--you haven't been wearing that at the temperance meeting?"

A loud laugh went up on all sides.

"Why, what is it, Harry?" asked the good woman, clutching at the ribbon in surprise.

"Why, Mother dear, didn't you know that was the ribbon I won at the show?"

The gold lettering on the ribbon read:

INTERSTATE POULTRY SHOW
First Prize Bantam

BAGGAGE

An Aberdonian went to spend a few days in London with his son, who had done exceptionally well in the great metropolis. After their first greetings at King's Cross Station, the young fellow remarked: "Feyther, you are not lookin' weel. Is there anything the matter?" The old man replied, "Aye, lad, I have had quite an accident." "What was that, feyther?" "Mon," he said, "on this journey frae bonnie Scotland I lost my luggage." "Dear, dear, that's too bad; 'oo did it happen?" "Aweel" replied the Aberdonian, "the cork cam' oot."

Johnnie Poe, one of the famous Princeton football family, and incidentally a great-nephew of Edgar Allan Poe, was a general in the army of Honduras in one of their recent wars. Finally, when things began to look black with peace and the American general discovered that his princely pay when translated into United States money was about sixty cents a day, he struck for the coast. There he found a United States warship and asked transportation home.

"Sure," the commander told him. "We'll be glad to have you. Come aboard whenever you like and bring your luggage."

"Thanks," said Poe warmly. "I'll sure do that. I only have fifty-four pieces."

"What!" exclaimed the commander. "What do you think I'm running? A freighter?"

"Oh, well, you needn't get excited about it," purred Poe. "My fifty-four pieces consist of one pair of socks and a pack of playing cards."

BALDNESS

One mother who still considers Marcel waves as the most fashionable way of dressing the hair was at work on the job.

Her little eight-year-old girl was crouched on her father's lap, watching her mother. Every once in a while the baby fingers would slide over the smooth and glossy pate which is Father's.

"No waves for you, Father," remarked the little one. "You're all beach."

"Were any of your boyish ambitions ever realized?" asked the sentimentalist.

"Yes," replied the practical person. "When my mother used to cut my hair I often wished I might be bald-headed."

Congressman Longworth is not gifted with much hair, his head being about as shiny as a billiard ball.

One day ex-president Taft, then Secretary of War, and Congressman Longworth sallied into a barbershop.

"Hair cut?" asked the barber of Longworth.

"Yes," answered the Congressman.

"Oh, no, Nick," commented the Secretary of War from the next chair, "you don't want a hair cut; you want a shine."

"O, Mother, why are the men in the front baldheaded?"

"They bought their tickets from scalpers, my child."

The costumer came forward to attend to the nervous old beau who was mopping his bald and shining poll with a big silk handkerchief.

"And what can I do for you?" he asked.

"I want a little help in the way of a suggestion," said the old fellow. "I intend going to the French Students' masquerade ball to-night, and I want a distinctly original costume--something I may be sure no one else will wear. What would you suggest?"

The costumer looked him over attentively, bestowing special notice on the gleaming knob.

"Well, I'll tell you," he said then, thoughtfully: "why don't you sugar your head and go as a pill?"--_Frank X. Finnegan_.

United States Senator Ollie James, of Kentucky, is bald.

"Does being bald bother you much?" a candid friend asked him once.

"Yes, a little," answered the truthful James.

"I suppose you feel the cold severely in winter," went on the friend.

"No; it's not that so much," said the Senator. "The main bother is when I'm washing myself--unless I keep my hat on I don't know where my face stops."

A near-sighted old lady at a dinner-party, one evening, had for her companion on the left a very bald-headed old gentleman. While talking to the gentleman at her right she dropped her napkin unconsciously. The bald-headed gentleman, in stooping to pick it up, touched her arm. The old lady turned around, shook her head, and very politely said: "No melon, thank you."

BANKS AND BANKING

During a financial panic, a German farmer went to a bank for some money. He was told that the bank was not paying out money, but was using cashier's checks. He could not understand this, and insisted on money.

The officers took him in hand, one after another, with little effect. At last the president tried his hand, and after long and minute explanation, some inkling of the situation seemed to be dawning on the farmer's mind. Much encouraged, the president said: "You understand now how it is, don't you, Mr.. Schmidt?"

"I t'ink I do," admitted Mr. Schmidt. "It's like dis, aindt it? Ven my baby vakes up at night and vants some milk, I gif him a milk ticket."

She advanced to the paying teller's window and, handing in a check for fifty dollars, stated that it was a birthday present from her husband and asked for payment. The teller informed her that she must first endorse it.

"I don't know what you mean," she said hesitatingly.

"Why, you see," he explained, "you must write your name on the back, so that when we return the check to your husband, he will know we have paid you the money."

"Oh, is that all?" she said, relieved.... One minute elapses.

Thus the "endorsement": "Many thanks, dear, I've got the money. Your loving wife, Evelyn."

FRIEND--"So you're going to make it hot for that fellow who held up the bank, shot the cashier, and got away with the ten thousand?"

BANKER--"Yes, indeed. He was entirely too fresh. There's a decent way to do that, you know. If he wanted to get the money, why didn't he come into the bank and work his way up the way the rest of us did?"--_Puck_.

BAPTISM

A revival was being held at a small colored Baptist church in southern Georgia. At one of the meetings the evangelist, after an earnest but fruitless exhortation, requested all of the congregation who wanted their souls washed white as snow to stand up. One old darky remained sitting.

"Don' yo' want y' soul washed w'ite as snow, Brudder Jones?"

"Mah soul done been washed w'ite as snow, pahson."

"Whah wuz yo' soul washed w'ite as snow, Brudder Jones?"

"Over yander to the Methodis' chu'ch acrost de railroad."

"Brudder Jones, yo' soul wa'n't washed--hit were dry-cleaned."--_Life_.

BAPTISTS

An old colored man first joined the Episcopal Church, then the Methodist and next the Baptist, where he remained. Questioned as to the reason for his church travels he responded:

"Well, suh, hit's this way: de 'Piscopals is gemmen, suh, but I couldn't keep up wid de answerin' back in dey church. De Methodis', dey always holdin' inquiry meetin', and I don't like too much inquirin' into. But de Baptis', suh, dey jes' dip and are done wid hit."

A Methodist negro exhorter shouted: "Come up en jine de army ob de Lohd." "I'se done jined," replied one of the congregation. "Whar'd yoh jine?" asked the exhorter. "In de Baptis' Chu'ch." "Why, chile," said the exhorter, "yoh ain't in the army; yoh's in de navy."

BARGAINS

MANAGER (five-and-ten-cent store)--"What did the lady who just went out want?"

SHOPGIRL--"She inquired if we had a shoe department."

"Hades," said the lady who loves to shop, "would be a magnificent and endless bargain counter and I looking on without a cent."

Newell Dwight Hillis, the now famous New York preacher and author, some years ago took charge of the First Presbyterian Church of Evanston, Illinois. Shortly after going there he required the services of a physician, and on the advice of one of his parishioners called in a doctor noted for his ability properly to emphasize a good story, but who attended church very rarely. He proved very satisfactory to the young preacher, but for some reason could not be induced to render a bill. Finally Dr. Hillis, becoming alarmed at the inroads the bill might make in his modest stipend, went to the physician and said, "See here, Doctor, I must know how much I owe you."

After some urging, the physician replied: "Well, I'll tell you what I'll do with you, Hillis. They say you're a pretty good preacher, and you seem to think I am a fair doctor, so I'll make this bargain with you. I'll do all I can to keep you out of heaven if you do all you can to keep me out of hell, and it won't cost either of us a cent. Is it a go?"

"My wife and myself are trying to get up a list of club magazines. By taking three you get a discount."

"How are you making out?"

"Well, we can get one that I don't want, and one that she doesn't want, and one that neither wants for $2.25."

BASEBALL

A run in time saves the nine.

Knowin' all 'bout baseball is jist 'bout as profitable as bein' a good whittler.--_Abe Martin_.

"Plague take that girl!"

"My friend, that is the most beautiful girl in this town."

"That may be. But she obstructs my view of second base."

When Miss Cheney, one of the popular teachers in the Swarthmore schools, had to deal with a boy who played "hookey," she failed to impress him with the evil of his ways.