ANECDOTES AND STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 170, 19 July 1924, Page 18

ANECDOTES AND STORIES.

NOVELISTS' "HOWLERS." Novelists are only human. Lord Lytton tells bow §ome Australians took weed into the bush to make a fire. A . musician who reads fiction with ai critical eye for reference* to his own ! art, has discovered two amusing "howlere" in a novel by Aleiftndre Dumas. "In La Femme au Collier de Velours," it is said of *. violinist "the curve of his bow was pronounced enough to enable hint to play on all four Strings Simultaneously," and it is gravely stated of another character that "the compass of her voice was five octaves and a-half!" TOO BARD FOR JOHN. Mies Suettn Lawrence, M.P.. tells an excellent story concerning A Man Who Knew All About Women. "I met him the Other day." she said. "He was a, skilled engineer, and being out of a j job he got one as odd man at a hotel, j Hie duties -consisted of sweeping up, I washing up, scrubbing, and so on. But eventually, in his own words, he was •fired.' " I Sympathising with him. Miss Law-1 renoe asked him if the work was hard. "Hard?" he answered. "It was cruel. It was a woman's work!" "What a comfort that man must have fc«en to his -wife!" added Miss Lawrence. COAST ALL CLEAR. A small boy entered the chemist's shop and asked if he might upe the telephone. This is what the chemist heard: "Is Mr. Jones there? . . . Sir. : Jones, I hear you're looking for a boy to help in your shop and run errand-. . . . You say you already have a boy. Is he giving satisfaction? . . . He is. .. '. Thanks. Good-bye." "Look here," said the chemist, "I need a hoy to help mc here. Are you looking for work?" "Oh, no!" said the .boy. "I work for' Mr. Jones, and I just wanted to find out if I could risk asking for a rise in wages." EXPENSIVE STIMULANTS. Steve Donogohue, the well-known jockey is something of a wit. Among his hundreds of good stories, one of the best coneerm a farmer at an Irish country fair, who was on the lookout for a bargain in horseflesh. Presently he spied a poor specimen of a horse—it was almost a ghost—coming along and eyed it with half a smile. The owner scenting a buyer, stopped. "Hum," eaid the farmer, "how much?" "Twenty pounds." "Hum!" "Have ye a license?" he asked. " A license —for | what?" exclaimed the owner in astonish- I ment. "For the sale of epirits," mur- j mured the other sweetly, as lie strolled | off. I BAKED OR BOILED. ' The following anecdote is taken from the "Life of the Rt Hon. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman," by J. A. Spender. A picture appeared in an English paper which bore the title, "It it Peace or War?" in which Campbell-Bannerman was photographed talking with King Edward. Around them the visitors stood at a respectful distance. A friend of his said later, "The artist has hit you oS very well." Campbell-Bannerman looked at the picture quizzically and said, "Would you like to know what the King was saying to mc?" The friend said he would. "He wanted to have my opinion whether halibut was better baked or boiled." BRAWN V. BRAIN. Sir William Watson in commenting on the absurd prize fight between Carpentier and Beckett in which the latter received £4500 for being punched on the jaw, says the world provides fortunes for fisticuffs and poverty for poetry. Mark Hambourg told Sdr William of an incident in the life of Beethoven. The great composer was obliged himself to pay for the first performance of his great Ninth Symphony. It cost him £80, practically all the money that he had at the time. The performance was an immense success. At its conclusion, I Beethoven's manager, with tears in his eyes, congratulated him on his triumph. "But," said Beethoven, "I want to know about the money." "Maestro," said the manager, "you have lost £20." THE BLIND PIPER. He was a blind piper and a Connemara man. He was playing one Sunday after- ] noon at a cross-roads, for country boys and girls to dance. The priest came by, and found the dance in full swing, and disapproved. The blind piper played away, unconscious of condemnation, seeing nothing, hearing only his own strident strains. The priest strode up to him, and shouted:— ! "'What are ye playing there? Don't ye know the third Commandment?' I "(Which, in the Roman Catholic Church, is that which enjoins that the Sabbat day sail be kept holy.) "But the piper, believing it to be the name of a jig, replied:— " 'I do not. your reverence, but maybe if ye'd fishle it for mc, I could play it!' " j

TWO ATTEMPTS.

A specimen of Irish Police Court humour: — "It is . . . from a magistrate of the past era that I have learned of the tailor whose life history was. briefly, yet sufficingly, given by a head constable of the R.I.C. " 'Your Worships, the prisoner is a conthrary little man who is never duly sober. He was found partaking in a fistic encounter in a public lane in the town. He had the complainant on the ground, and he was thrafficking in his face, and I may say, he wrought sad havoc in it.' "Thus the head constable, in the majestic language becoming to his office. And the best that the little tailor could say for himself was that he had had 'no more than four glasses of whisky, and two at-timpts.'"

APPROPRIATE SONG.

As most people are probably aware, the first scene in Mr. Bernard Shaw's play, "Back to Methuselah," shows Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Stories about the Garden of Eden are, of course, legion, but one of the best concerns the warden of a certain working men's club who, desiring to amuse and instruct the boys, arranged to give a lecture on Bible scenes with lantern slides. He also secured the services of one of 'the members, who happened to own a gramophone, to discourse music appropriate to the slides. As in the case of G.B.S.'s Biblical drama, tbe first picture in the series bad for its subject Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and tbe owner of the gramophone cudgelled his brains to find something suitable. "Play up. play up!" whispered (he warden. Suddenly an inspiration struck the owner of the instrument, and, to the delight of the audience and the consternation of the warden, the gramophone squeaked iut, "There's Only One Girl in the World for Me."