PERSONAL ANECDOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 237, 3 October 1908, Page 14

PERSONAL ANECDOTES.

NO RIFF-RAFF I A king's coachman is a personage of no small importance. Certainly the coachman to her late Majesty, Queen Victoria, had a befitting sense of the dignity and responsibility of his position. On the occasion of the jubilee of 1887 he was asked whether he was driving any of ihe royal and imperial guests at that time quarered) in Buckingham Palace. "No sir," was his reply. "I am the Queen's coachman; I don't drive the riff-raff."

A BEECHER STORY.

Henry Ward Beecher entered Plymouth Church one Sunday, and found several letters awaiting him. He opened one, which contained the single word " Fool." Quietly and with becoming seriousness he drew the attention of the congregation to it. " I have known many an instance of a man writing a letter and forgetting to sign his name," he said; "but this is the only instance 1 have ever known of a man signing his name and : forgetting to write a letter! "

THE CENSORIOUS JUDGMENT.

A stoTy now going the round in Court circles (says the London correspondent of the " Liverpool Post ") is appropriate at the moment. A certain peer, who has acquired some notoriety on account of his aggressively anti-German views, declared that Ministers who failed to perceive the drift of things and to prepare for the inevitable war are traitors to the Empire. This or a similar outhurst, came to the ears of the King. "Ah," exclaimed his Majesty, " What will he do to mc now that I am going to Cronberg? I suppose he will cut mc after denouncing mc as disloyal."

HAPPY IGNORANCE.

Francis Wilson, the comedian, apropos of certain curios whereon he believed he had been swindled, said with a light laugh: " The one drawback to knowledge is that it reveals so many dupes and swindles. One summer, for instance, 1 was " doing " Switzerland. In the neighbourhood of Geneva, where the Swiss talk French, 1 climbed a little ueak one fine morning, and on my arrival at the chalet at the top I heard the pretty handmaiden call i.i,bo the kitchen in excellent French: "Quick, mother, quick! Here's a tourist. Put some milk on the fire. You know they always like it warm from the cow.*' '-

I COULDN'T UNDERSTAND IT.

One does not usually make a virtue of fault-finding, but it seems, by Richard Grant White's experience, that it has its valuable part in social economy. Grumbling has always been considered a prerogative of John Bull, and not an agreeable one, but the incident taken from "England Without and Within " goes to prove that it has its uses. I had ; been a little over a week in London lodgings, and had my breakfast served by the housekeeper. One mornI ing the maid said, as she took my tray: " 1 am afraid we shan't satisfy you. sir, with your breakfasts." I told her my breakfasts were very good: that the tea, eggs, bacon, fish, | muffins, and marmalade were good enough j for any man, and all I wished.'' I " l es, sir, but you never grumble | about anything you have, and so we don't know how to please you."

j MANSFIELD'S REBUKE.

A group of theatrical men were talking in New York about the late Richard Mansfield. "Mr Mansfield," said one. "was a delightful humorist, a splendid raconteur in society, but, at the same time, he had a certain proper and becoming sense of his own dignity, and it never paid to be unduly familiar with him. "He was, as we all know, rather bald. He resented, from barbers or friends, | any allusion to his baldness. j "Well, one night at a party a man I came up behind this great artist, stagI gered him with a violent slap on the I back, and exclaimed in a loud, jovial, ■ familiar voice: ] "'Hello. Dick! How are you? Every , time I see you you get " balder and ; balder." j "Mansfield drew himself up. " 'J don't know who you are,' he said, • 'but every time I see you you get ruder and ruder.' "

j SOME WHISTLER STORIES.

; Mr William Mcrritt Chase, the famous American portrait painter, tells some •rood Whistler stories. "Stevenson," he' | said, "must have had Whistler in mind I when he wrote 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde.' | because 1 never saw a'man who seemed to have two such diametrically opposite n.-tturc-p; sometimes his traits" were exquisitely beautiful, and others actually brutal." J j A young woman student of Mr Chafe's, | who had grown tired of his methods and I allied herself to the ranks 0 f the impressionist.-, went to see Whistler to sec what It" was like. She started right in painting a bunch of purple and green ambig-.t- ---; ous scenery. Whistler, looking over her | shoulder, asked what she was doing. I "Why." said the young woman, regarding I him with dreamy eyes. 'T am painting | Nature as I see it. Don't you think one ; ought to do that, Mr Whistler?" "By a ll j means," assented Whistler, "provided" one : docs not see Nature as you paint it."

i j CrOOD CAUSE FOR TEARS.

Harry Lauder, the Scottish comedian j and golfer, was describing at a dinner jin New York a great golf professional. ] "But he is ugly," Mr Lauder said. | "Dear mc. he is ugly, lie is as ugly as that mediaeval Sultan who had all the mirrors removed from his palace so that he might avoid the pain of seeing his own face. "This Sultan called on his Grand Vizier one day, and by accident happened to catch sight of his reflection. His hideousness overpowered him and be broke into violent sobbing. In this outburst the Vizier joined. "Finally the Sultan calmed down, wiped his eyes, and got ready to smoko and talk. But not so the Vizier. "He sobbed on and ou. His master, tapping his slipper impatiently on the cushion" waited for him to cease. "At length the Sultan got angry, and exclaimed: " 'Why do you weep longer than I, Vizier?' '"'Alas!' the Grand Vizier replied, 'you wept, O Commander of the Faithful, because you saw yonr face but for an instant; but I see it all day and every day.' "