PERSONAL ANECDOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 152, 27 June 1914, Page 15

PERSONAL ANECDOTES.

HIS BEST. ""We miss President Wilson's quiet andtrenchant wit sadly here at Princeton," said an instructor in Greek. "I remember at one of President Wilson's receptions, I complained of a man who boasted of his bad habits.

"•When a man,' said the President, boasts of his bad habits, you may rest assured that they're the best he "has.'"

A LrMIT TO THEIR SPEED. Orville Wright at a dinner in his honour in New York talked about the fast French monoplanes, which now make 150 miles an hour.

"They're very fast," said Wright, shaking his head, "but they're "

"Fast indeed!" interrupted a young millionaire. "Mr Wright, is there anything on earth these machines can't overtake?"

"Yes," said Wright, with a frown, "there's one thing they can't overtake, and that's their own running expenses."

THACKERAY IN AMERICA. The discomforts endured by Thackeray in the Uuitcd States, which he. dwells upon in the recently disclosed letters to Mrs Brookfield, were alleviated by some amusing incidents. After his return tc London, records the

"Chronicle," he told Carlyle that during one of his American journeys "the train stopped at Concord. Then one of the two silent Yankees opposite mc turned to the other and lazily remarked, 'Mr. Emerson, I hear, lives in this town.' 'Y"e-as,' was the drawling rejoinder, 'and I understand that, in spite of his odd notions, he is a man of con-sid-er-able property.'"

BRYCE QUOTED AGAINST BRYCE. A story is told of Viscount Bryce. whose book on the American Constitution is a classic on the other side of the Atlantic. A young American had as companion on one of his railway journeys in this country a more elderly man. Tbey got into conversation, in the course of which an argument arose as to a certain point in American politics. They diifered widely in their opinions, and finally the younjr man said: —

'T know that I'm right, for I'm quoting your fellow-countryman, James Bryce."

"I am Bryce!" was the other's quiel retort. .

MIXED METAPHORS. Mr Ramsay Mac Donald, M.P., has added a gem to the collection of mixed metaphors for which political orators are famous. Referring to the Syndicalists, Mr Mac Donald recently said: —

"No sooner do they get themselves into a hole than they put down a string so that we may pull them out of it. The Delilah of Syndicalism has endeavoured to cut the locks of trade unionism, so that it becomes a mere piece of putty in the hands of the political authorities."

This is declared to be the most magnificent mixing of metaphors by a public man since JShn Burns inveighed against the London County Council for "taking a white elephant under its wing."

"GOD SAVE THE KING." An English ■professor, who had been a fellow-student and' friend of Edward VII. iwben he was the Prince of Wales, was appointed honorary physician to His Majesty shortly after he became King. The professor was very proud of this, and wished his students to know of the honour conferred upon him. So he wrote upon tbe blackboard in his classroom: —

"Professor Baker is pleased to inform his class-students that he has been appointed honorary physician to His Majesty King Ecilward."

The professor shortly left the room, and when he returned to meet another class he could not understand' why they should be so much amused at what he hud written. Later, however, he discovered that someone had carefully added to his announcement the following:—

"God save the King." KING ALFONSO AND HISTORY, A curious little story is told about King Alfonso. When be some little time ago visited Bayonne, which lies' a couple of hours' ride from San Sebastian on the 'French side of the frontier, be was taken to see the local museum, which, among other treasures, contains a realistic picture of the death of Henry IV. of France. After looking intently at tiie picture. King Alfonso suddenly exclaimed: "But Henry is not dying a natural death:" A slight cmbarTa=sinent was noticed on the faces of his French hosts, one of .whom at last gave to the King a little lesson in history.

"Of course." he said, "your Majesty remembers that- Henry was assassinated." But King Alfonso did not remember. "By whom was he killed, then?" "He was killed by a monk named .Ravaillac." Then the Kiug understood. "A king," he exclaimed, "killed by a monk: Now I understand why I was never told the story."

THE FRUGAL DUFFS. Many stories turn on Scottish carefulness about the bawbee. As this, for example, from the annals of the House of Duff: —

Alexander Dull', of Braco, like the rest of his family, could be "near" in money reatters. A sturdy beggar having heard that he had pickt up a halfpenny from the streets of Banff, came up to him craving an alms and saying "God bless ye. Braco. Gi's a babee, and if ye twinna gi's a babee of your awen. gi's th-e babee that ye fand." "■Find a babee to yourself," says Braco.

The Duffs became Earls of Fife, still practising the family virtue, and on occasion preaching it as well. The first earl opposed in Parliament the hiring of Hessian mercenaries for service in the Peninsula on the patriotic ground that we should "give our own fish-guts to our own sea-nwi'Ws," which when explained' to toe English members was considered "a significant and judicious expression'—a poetic way of saying that we should keep the money in the country.

The second Earl Fire, wnen young, was given a shilling, as. was also his younger brother Sandie, afterwards third Earl. Sandic was a spend thrift and dissipated his shilling at Dufftown Fair, but the elder :brotig r .iti his money home again •-living that "he had seen na.ctb.ing he liket- better nor the shilling."