During the South African War, when that country was under
martial law, every letter which was sent home had to pass
through the hands of the press censor.
A private in the Yorkshire Volunteers had sent four or five
letters home, telling his parents about the doings of the
regiment, which portions had been obliterated by the censor, and
were therefore unreadable on their arrival at the destination.
He decided to get square with the censor, and at the foot of the
next letter he wrote the following words:
“Please look under the stamp.”
“At the censor’s office the letter was opened and read as usual.
The officer in charge spent some time in steaming the stamp
from the envelop so that he could read the message which he was
certain he would find there.
At last his patience was rewarded; but his feelings can be
better imagined than described when he read these words:
“Was it hard to get off?”--_Tid-Bits._
(2759)
* * * * *
We never can tell when rudeness and ill-manners may return upon our own
heads:
George Ade, in the early days of his career, before his
“Fables in Slang” had brought him fame, says the New York
_Tribune_, called one morning in Chicago upon a Sunday
editor, on a mission from a theatrical manager.
“I have brought you this manuscript,” he began, but the editor,
looking up at the tall, timid youth, interrupted:
“Just throw the manuscript in the waste-basket, please,” he
said. “I’m very busy just now, and haven’t time to do it myself.”
Mr. Ade obeyed calmly. He resumed:
“I have come from the ---- Theater, and the manuscript I have
just thrown in the waste-basket is your comic farce of ‘The
Erring Son,’ which the manager asks me to return to you with
thanks. He suggests that you sell it to an undertaker, to be
read at funerals.”
Then Mr. Ade smiled gently and withdrew.
(2760)