ANECDOTES AND STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 212, 6 September 1924, Page 18

ANECDOTES AND STORIES.

c A FAMOUS STORY. > Dinner was announced, and Lord and Lady Cardigan and their guests sat down, an Olympian gloom on the brow of the hero of Balaclava. Presently, says i he, "My Lady, what do you think of . i this soup?" "My Lord," says she, "it ? i» filth." i THOSE HYPHENS. Captain Home, U.S.N., was said to have a very pretty wit. On one occasion 0 he paid a visit to a British warship, rl commanded by a Captain Cave-Brown--1 Cave When Captain Home went aboard 1 he asked to see "Captain Cave." The k officer of fche watch replied with pauses, meant to emphasise the hyphens in his superior's name, "Captain Cave-Brown-ie Cave is ashore, sir." "Oh, thats all .right," said the visiting captain, Just !,! tell him- Captain Home-Sweet-Home 1 called." A COMMERCIAL PROPOSITION. Jack Dempsey, apropos of a movie ■• queen's recommendation of thirty-seven c toilet soaps, told this story:—"There 3 was a professional golfer one day who t entered a golfing competition. He won * it. Furthermore, he broke a lot of a records for long drives and so on. It *• was a triumph. Well, of course, when k j the golfer came back to the clubhouse ■• ! a crowd of fans gathered round him. 1 j They all had just one question to ask I him. What ball had he been using? On hearing that question he frowned. He hemmed and hawed a bit. Then he & said: "Well, I haven't decided yet." \ 'TIL FLOG YE." Dr. Keate, headmaster of Eton, r thought that flogging was the sure j recipe for every fault, wrote Sir Charles . j Hawtrey, and there is a fable extant i that on one occasion he preached a sermon to the boye, which'started off with "Blessed are, the pure in heart." Then«he stopped. "Do ye hear that, boye?" ihe ,said. "Ye must be pure in heart, t If ye are not pure in heart, 111 flog . ye." I believe, too, it is an absolute , fact that when the list of boys who i ' were to be confirmed was sent up to I 1 him, he flogged fifty-six of them before I he found out his mistake. ; MARE TWAIN - ON ADVERTISING. \ The meeting of the International ■' Advertising Convention brings to mind the answer which Mark Twain, as editor of a Missouri paper, once sent to a superstitious subscriber who wrote to say that he had found a spider in his paper, and asked whether this was a J sign of good luck. Mark Twain replied: '! "Finding a spider in your paper was I neither good luck nor bad luck for you. ' The epider was merely looking over I our paper to see which merchant is not " advertising, so that he can go to that ■ store, spin his web across the door, and lead a life of undisturbed peace ever ■ afterward." A GOOD BREAK. Conway Tearle, the popular British ; film actor, is fond, of tilling of his rise stage: I waa (he says) a billiardmarker at the old Wyndham Hotel in the Strand, and but for a mop, a pail of hot water, and a dirty floor, I might still be chalking up the scores. One day the caretaker failed to turn up, and the hotel proprietor gave mc the "on- the knees" order. I refused to mop floors, j and was discharged. Walking out of the building, I ran int oone of the men who played billiards at the hotel, and told him what 'happened. He was stagemanager at a theatre, and to tide mc over gave mc a small part in a show. I did not go back to billiard-marking! INSURING PHIL MAY. Careless, light-hearted Phil May -was once persuaded, much against his will, to have his life insured:— "It wae his wife's idea to have him overhauled firet by an ordinary doctor who would perhaps put him on a regimen and exhort him to a more careful way of living. The doctor was announced and Phil made more than a clean breast of it. 'Heart rotten, lungs rotten, family history rotten; all dead early from drink, etc' The doctor having heard all remarked: " "Well, I come from the Insurance Company.' "Phil's friends had been too zealous." THEY ALL HAD 'EM. Mr. Ramsay Maconald, who is a j total abstainer from alcohol, has had to deny that he was the author of the following etory:—"ln my own golf club, -which is in Scotland, and devoted to I Scotch whisky and theology, a member was taken suddenly and seriously ill— he had to go into a nursing home after noticing that an aluminium putter he dropped had changed into an adder. On his return, when playing in a foursome, he and. his companions saw a snake take its sinuous way a<r..\>s3 the , seventh green and disappear in a i bunker known as the Tappit Hen. After I a time he observed with a knowing smile: "Ah, ha, you fellows. You all think I saw a snake—but I didn't." TACT. This story is being told in London about one of the new Ministers. ReeeivI ing a message from a Cabinet colleague to come over and see him, he became angry, and said to a friend, "I'm dashed if I'll go! I'm the senior .Minister. If ■he wants to see mc, let him come here." I But the friend, an official nursed for years on the purest essence of Whitehall tact, said: "Quite so, quite so! ■He really ought to come and see you But after all," and he smiled blandly Jin rising, "it's a fine day; let ua walk j across to Oris office together." The senior j Minister looked at him h moment then assented. "Very well," he said, "Jbut the first wet day well ask the WWhter to come across and see us." " PORTMANTEAUX. This ie one of George Robey'e favourite yarns: It was all about a man who arrived at a seaside resort and went to an hotel. Shortly after a friend called and was shown up to his room. He found him sitting in a chair surveying with a gloomy countenance a trunk which stood again the wall cal'leT I**1**' 1, the alatterr ask€d ' the ef J£. a * tr °*k." wns the answer. Well, what's the difficulty—lost the "No I have the key all right," he ft t' h T mg - f a ci * h : i**? teU feu how »™ ***** that trunk - She expected to come with mc, but was prevented. To my certain knowledge she put a enough to fill thr*e trunks the way a man would pack them. If I oDen it. the things will boil up all over room I could never get them back:! Now I m wondering whether it would be