A.T. Quiller-Couch told a good Cornish story the other day in presenting
certificates to the members of an ambulance class in his own town of Troy.
"Years ago," he said, "an old Cornish fisherman at a similar class was
asked how he would treat the apparently drowned.
"'Well,' he replied, 'the first thing we always did was to empty the man's
pockets.'"--_Westminster Gazette._
When Archibald Clavering Gunter began the series of novels which was to
make him famous, he tried in vain to find a publisher. As none of them
would have anything to do with his books, he was obliged to bring them out
himself.
Shortly after the appearance of "Mr. Barnes of New York," he met the head
of one of the big publishing houses, who inquired how his last book was
selling.
"Fine," responded the cheerful commercialist; "I've sold two tons of it
already."
Thackeray chanced to be dining at his club when a pompous officer of the
Guards stopped beside the table and said:
"Haw, Thackeray, old boy, I hear Lawrence has been painting yer portrait!"
"So he has," was the reply.
"Full length?"
"No; full-length portraits are for soldiers, that we may see their spurs.
But the other end of the man is the principal thing with authors," said
Thackeray.--_London Tit-Bits._
Mr. Gladstone was once guilty of deliberately evading an international
regulation at the Franco-Italian frontier. He was carrying for his
refreshment a basket of fine grapes, which stringent regulations at the
time forbade being taken from one country to the other, on account of
phylloxera, an insect that attacks the roots and leaves of the grapevines.
Mr. Gladstone's great brain reviewed the situation; he must obey the law,
but he was determined to have the grapes, so he sat down then and there on
the railway station bench and--ate them.
Irving Bacheller, the author of "Eben Holden," went a little farther north
than usual last summer while on his vacation, and penetrated Newfoundland.
He caught a good many fish, but this did not prevent his keeping an eye
on the natives. He was particularly impressed by the men who spent the day
lounging about the village stores.
"What do you fellows do when you sit around the store like this?" he asked
of the crowd arranged in a circle of tilted chairs and empty boxes and
maintaining a profound silence.
"Well," drawled one of the oldest, "sometimes we set and think, and then
again other times we just set."--_Woman's Home Companion._
Marie Corelli's domestic quiet at Stratford-on-Avon seemed likely to be
destroyed not long since by the opening of a girls' school in the house
immediately adjoining her own. The famous novelist found that the
recitations of the pupils greatly interrupted her literary work. She stood
it, however, as long as she could, but finally wrote a letter of protest
to the proprietor of the school. The reply she received from the elderly
school-mistress was prompt, and ran as follows:
"Dear Miss Corelli: Judging from the literary work of yours which it has
been my privilege to see, I should say that it would be just as well if
you were interrupted even more frequently."--_New York Times._
* * * * *
Emerson Hough once wrote a story called "Hasenberg's Cross-Eyed Horse,"
which he sought diligently, but unsuccessfully, to market with the greater
number of the known periodicals of the world. At last the story found a
resting-place in Mr. Hough's desk. Three years ago, feeling a bit let down
physically, he took the advice of a distinguished publisher of New York
and put himself in the hands of an osteopathic physician.
Some doubts as to the beneficial results existed, but no doubt whatever as
to the size of the bill. Mr. Hough pondered long and seriously on the
question of getting even with his doctor. At length he happened to think
of his old story of the cross-eyed horse.
"I'll have the osteopath treat the horse's cross-eyes," said the author to
himself. Whereupon he rewrote the story, sold it promptly at a good
figure, and made it a chapter of his last novel, "Heart's Desire," where
it is known as "Science at Heart's Desire."--_Bookman._