There was a young man of Constantinople,
Who used to buy eggs at 35 cents the dozen.
When his father said, "Well,
This is certainly surprising!"
The young man put on his second best waistcoat.
* * *
"The maddest man in Arizona," postcards J. U. H., who has got that far,
"was the one who found, after ten miles' hard drive from his hotel, that
he had picked up the Gideon Bible instead of his Blue Book." Still, they
are both guide books, and they might be interestingly compared.
* * *
To one gadder who asked for a small coffee, the waitress in the rural
hotel said, "A nickel is as small as we've got." Some people try to take
advantage of the bucolic innkeeper.
* * *
"I have not read American literature; I know only Poe," confesses M.
Maeterlinck. Well, that is a good start. For a long time the only French
author we knew was Victor Hugo. Live and learn, say we.
* * *
"He is so funny with the patisserie," says Mme. Maeterlinck of
M. Charles Chaplin. "He is an artist the way he throw the pie." Is he
not? M. Chaplin is to Americans what the Discus Thrower was to the
Greeks.
* * *
Sings, in a manner of singing, Mr. Lindsay in the London Mercury:
"I brag and chant of Bryan, Bryan, Bryan,
Candidate for President who sketched a silver Zion."
But we prefer, as simpler and more emotional, the classic containing the
lines--
"But my soul is cryin'
For old Bill Bryan."
* * *
You are familiar with the cryptic inscription "TAM HTAB," which ceases
to be cryptic when you turn the mat over; but did you ever hear about
the woman who christened her child "Nosmo King," having been taken by
those names on two glass doors which stood open?
* * *
A Chippewa Falls advertiser offers for sale "six Leghorn roosters and
one mahogany settee." And we are requested to ascertain whether the
settee is a Rhode Island Red or a Brown Leghorn.
* * *
A Rotary club is being formed in the Academy by the Rev. Rodney Roundy
of the American Missionary Association.
* * *
What do you mean "prosperity"? Even the Nonquit Spinning Co. of New
Bedford has shut down.
* * *
Joseph Conrad's latest yarn is the essence of romance. But what is
romance? For years we have sought a definition in ten words; but while
romance is easily recognized, it is with difficulty defined. Walter
Raleigh came the nearest to it in a recent essay. "Romance," said he,
"is a love affair in other than domestic surroundings." This would seem
also to be the opinion of a West Virginia editor, who, reporting a
marriage, noted that "the couple were made man and wife while sitting in
a buggy, and this fact rendered somewhat of a romantic aspect to the
wedding."
* * *