PERSONAL ANECDOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 215, 7 September 1912, Page 15

PERSONAL ANECDOTES.

MX DOOLEY'S WIT. Finley Peter Dunne, creator of Mr Dooley, was dining with a friend at a New York reeta.tira.irt.. Bice-birde were served. The tiny morsels, picked and lean, were brought in upon large slioee of toaet. "Poor little things!" said the host. "Seems a shaane to kill 'em, don't it? How do you suppose they ever munder enough rice-birde to make a dteh?"' Dunne turned over an infinitesimal specimen with his fork.

"I don't know." he said, "unless they lac insect powder."

EXTERNAL RESEMBLANCE. The Hon. David McKeen ds a Canadian Senator possessing a fund of amusement of the Scotch assortment. On one occasion, while he wae seated in a barber's chair at Halifax, 'N.Y., a garrulous and rather inconsequential acquaintance entered, and after some preliminary chatter exolaimed: "Why, Senator, your'-heaois exactly the e&nic .<hape as mine!" "Only on the outside," drawled the Senator.

MUSICAL CONNOISSEURS. Prince Artlhur of Connaught's allusion to the Englishman "who could almost tell when 'God Save the King , was being •played and when it was not," recalls anotiher story. Lord North neither appreciated music nor tried to. On one occasion George 111. tried to coax him to a ooneext of ancient music. "Your hroiher the Ksff&p never misses them," said the King. "Sir," replied North, ''were I as deaf as my brother the Bishop, I wonfltf never miss them either."

TOASTED, BUT NOT BROWNED. The Rev. John Brown, tihe father of the well-beloved Dr Joint Brown who wrote those little claseks, "Kaib" and "Marjorie Fleming," was in "the habit, on festive occasions, of proposing a certain young lady as his toaet. Noticing that 'he had abruptly abandoned Uhe practice, a curious person asked him the reason. "BecmisD," he said sadly, "I have toasted her for sixteen years -wriUKMrt being able to make her Brown, and so 1 have reserved to toast her no kmger."

ART FOR ART'S SAKE. Artists are very often shrewd men of business; it is not every pander -who is swindled 'by the picture deaJers. But a charming story shows that Millet cared little what was paid for his pictures, ■because he did not work for money, 'but for the joy of creating beanty. Millet had a standing agreement with a firm of art dealers, who took all his works in exchange for regular payments of forty pounds a month. Somebody pointed" out to MiHet that they could sell a ■single picture of his for as much as two thousand pounds. "That is their affair," he said. simply. "Aβ long as 1 have all 1 need, and can paint what I like, and as I 'like it, I do not mind what they jet for my pictures." A PAIR OF THEM.

Admiral "Bob" Evans, who died so suddenly recently, has been called the Peresford of the United States Navy. and there aye almost as many good stories told about him us about our own Lord Charles. He was visiting the Brooklyn Navy Yard cne day, when a despatch was handed to him. His eyes were giving trouble just at the time, and when he fumbled for his eyeglasses he found th»t be had mislaid them. He held the paper cl«>se up to his eyes and then some distance away, but he couldn't read it either way. He turned to an orderly who was standing near. '■ Kcad this for mc. my man," he said. The man shoot his bead. '• I can't: I'm as ignorant as yourself, sir;" SAVED HARRY LAUDER'S LIFE. Wearing bus kilts, Mr. Harry Louder. tlie comedian, played a novel part on the sands at Blackpool recently. His concern for dumb animals, especially pit ponies, k well known, and when he was inivited by the mayor of Blackpool to distribute the prizes in a competition for donkeys. Mr. LAuder eagerly responded. Having Axed medals to the -winning donkeys' bridles, the comedian mounted a sandhill and indulged in interesting and amusing "patter. ,. He related some, of his experiences as a pit boy. He told how, when going through a drift in a coal mine, his pit pony suddenly etopppd. "Immediately I struck him with the -whip." Mr. Lauder proceeded: "He tnrncd round to the side of the little tnb II was sitting in, and I am not exaggerating when 1 tell you that about 100.000 tons of stone fell. Had it not been for the cuteness of the hearing of that pony we should both have been buri-ed alive. T owe my life to that Shetland pony. Instead of liekrag my pony because he didn't go on. when I saw whet happened I jumped 'out of the tnb and put my arm ronnd Wβ neck and kissed him."

SARAH -BEIK-fH-A-RDT AT IWOKK. i Three years ago "the divine (Sarah" used to teach at the Conservatoire in Paris, but lately elie has been 'holding private classes. It is quite a sight to see her at work in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre on the darkened stage. Here is a pen and pencil sketch of her at work:— "All I ask of you is sincerity," the great actress remarked, taming to her class. "I want heart and 1 want tears. 'Never mind your voice, never mmd your gestures." "That 'is true," murmured a worshipper. "Sarah always cries real tears—aJl through the -class and ail through rehearsals, and, of course, all through the performance." Another mentber's -turn—a love scene. "Oh, .please, I beg of you, my 'baby, don't make love -like that. You sound like a concierge telling a postman he has 'broken her 'heart." A maid interrupts: (Madame Bernhardt •has two cups of tea, sipping and listening all the time. •Next on the programme. An '.English girl starts a humorous verse.

"Tell 'it with your heart, little one, if it is funny, and don't make grimaces like a chicken suffering with the -pip." Thereupon followed the teacher's interpretation of the linesa custom she bestows on each pupil, delivering the •part with the «wne-ex<ririsite.elrill as she does when acting. And through it all <she is human, keen, even gently sarcastic, bat always *read£ t"witb-£ood, eofid-Twiyiee. ' 1