SOME GOOD STORIES

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4289, 23 February 1901, Page 4 (Supplement)

SOME GOOD STORIES

A STORY OF .MARK TWAIN. “ About eignt years ago,” writes “Mark Twain” in the “New York Journal,” “I was coming up in a car ot the elevated road. Very few people were in, and on the opposite side sal a man about fifty years old, with a most winning face. 1 took him from his dress to be a-master mechanic, a man who had a vocation. He had with him a very little child of about four or five years. I was watching the affection which existed between the two. I judged he was the grandfather, perhaps. It was really a pretty child, and I was admiring her. As soon as be saw I was admiring her he began to notice me. I could see his admiration of me in his eye, and I did what anyone else would do—admired the child four times as much, knowing I would get four times as much of his admiration. Things went on very pleasantly. I was making my way into his 'heart. By and bye, when he almost reached the station where he was to get off, he got up, crossed over, and he said : —■ ‘Now. I am going to say sometning to you which I hope you will regafu as a compliment.' and then lie went on to say: T have never seen Mark Twain, but I have seen a, portrait of him, and any friend of mine will tell you that when I have once seen a portrait of a man I place it in my eye and store it away in my memory, and 1 fell you now that you look enough like Mark Twain to be his brother. Now,’ he said, T hope you take this as a compliment.’ ‘Certainly,’ I said, ‘I take it as more than a compliment. Yes,’ I said, ‘this is the proudest moment of my life to he taken for Mark Twain, for most men are always wishing to look like some great him, General Grant, George Washington, or like some archbishop or other, but all my life I have wished to look like Mark Twain. Yes,’ I said, T have wished to look like that synome, that symbol of all virtue and all purity, whom you have just described. I appreciate it.’ He said, ‘Yes, you are a very good imitation, but when I come to look closer you are probably not that man.’ I said, ‘I will be frank with you. In my desire to look like that excellent character I have dressed for the character; I have been playing a part.’ He said, ‘That is all right, that is all right; you look very well on the outside, but when it comes to the inside you are not in it with the original.’ ” HE DIDN’T KNOW ORIOKET. An American naper tells how a man from the West went to see a cricket match. “They don’t play cricket in Hooptown, Neb. Well, sir, it’s the moat remarkable game. There was a big field roped in like a corral, and in the middle of it wore two bunches of sticks stuck in the ground. They were about as far from here as across the street apart, and made to fall clown when anything touched them. People could have taken a, handful of nails and.made them stronger, but maybe they knew why they wanted them that way. I didn’t. I asked a man in short pants what they were for. ‘That’s % wicket,’ he says. ‘Wicked what?’ says I. Then he looked scornful, and walked away. Well, two men" in trotting harness . and interference pads and kneestraps and driving-gloves stood up in front of the wicked things with pieces of board in their hands. And a chap in short sleeves took a run half-way across the field, tied himself in a knot, let loose, and threw a hall. Say! the way he threw reminded mo of the way my wife fires stove-wood at the calf when it gets in the garden. I told a man so, and lie says, ‘That is what is called bowling.’ The man thrown at whacked the hall sideways, ran to the next wicked thing, and changed places with the other man. They did that once or twice, and sometimes they ran and sometimes they didn’t. Whenever they ran the people sitting round the ropes clapped hands and cheered. Pretty soon somebody calls out'Over!’ and a lob of men in white suits walked round a hit. Then the man in short sleeves threw the ball, hit the nicked thing, and knocked it all to pieces. The people cheered again, and a man next to me said something about a clean bowl. I didn’t see anything that looked like a

bowl, but I didn’t let on. There were a couple of men on the field in linen dusters. They looked like they might bo Kansas cattlemen, so I thought I would go out and pass the time of day with them. I crawled under the ropes, and a policeman came and; ran me back to the side. When I was explaining now it was the men in the field quit playing, and went into a house all covered with flags. I had a couple of apples in my grip, and I ate one and offered the other to the girl with the man that told me about the bowl. She got all red in tire face, and the man began to laugh, and the girl says, ‘Do you suppose anyone will see? If you tell I’ll never speak to you.’ With that she took the apple and said thanks so sweetly that I wished I had a whole bushel there to give her. Well, I hung around the field all day, seeing everything and understanding nothing. I had a good time enough, but. honestly, I'd rather watch a game of marbles.” SEEING VIENNA. A conductor of tours narrates the following experience. He was passing through Vienna with his party, and, as there was but a short interval between the arrival of the train, and the departure of the next express for Loudon, it became a question as to how much of the city could bo seen. Whilst ho was considering the subject one lady in the company rushed up to him with her baby in her arms. ‘'Oh, Mr Muller,” said she, “I am sure you will not mind holding my child for a few moments while I do some shopping and see something of the place!” Before the unhappy man could utter a word of protest he was left on the platform with the child in his arms. At first the baby looked smilingly up at him, hut then it began to cry at the top of its voice. The more Mr Muller soothed it the more it cried, until presently he found himself surrounded by a crowd of reproachful ladies, who wanted to know' what he meant by being so cruel to the poor child. Gladly would he have transferred the unwelcome little bundle to them, but they, too, were going shopping and would have none of it. Meanwhile his moments for arranging the journey were rapidly passing, and when the truant mother arrived he was almost wild with impatience an danxiety. He made a rush in her direction, but before he reached her she was assuring him with the utmost sweetness—''"Vienna' is really a most interesting place!” "Madame,'’ ho began wildly, “your baby-——” “Oh, don’t mention it, Mr Muller! I do hope she has been good. And if you think there is time to spare, I saw such a beautiful silk blouse in a shop just outside the station—l’ll be back in a few min-

utes!” Before he could protest she had vanished again, to reappear presently with a beaming smile on her face and a parcel in her hand. The hungry conductor had only thirty minutes in which to eat his luncheon and arrange for the railway journey; but the well-satisfied lady had seen Vienna. A MFT CAL SURPRISE. In “Sketches of Life in the Golden State,’’ Colonel Albert S. Evans tells an amusing anecdote of an ambitious hunter who met his first grizzly bear—in procession. The incident occurred in the woods near the site of the presnit town of Monterey. The hunter sat down to rest in the shade of a tree, and unwittingly went to sleep. When he woke it was near sunset, and he sat np, rubbing his eyes, and contemplating a. return to his hotel, several miles distant. Just then a rustling and crackling noise from a clump of chaparral about a hundred yards away attracted his attention. Out walked a grizzly bear, a monarch of his kind. He yawned, licked his paws, and then advanced t ovards tho tree where our hunter sat. but evidently was unconscious of his presence. His grizzly majesty had proceeded about twenty paces, when a female bear followed him, and in an instant later a third grizzly followed her at a. slow, shambling pace. The hunter sat spellbound with terror as the procession came towards him, until the forward grizzly was within thirty yards. Then, scarcely realising what he did, he sprang to his feet,.and uttered a, frenzied yell —yell upon yell! The effect was magical. The foremost bear sprang into the air, turned sharply about, knocked the female down, rolled over her, gathered himself up, and bolted “like forty cartloads of rock going down a chute,’’ straight for the chaparral again, the other two-hears close at his heels, and never turning to sec what had frightened them. The hunter, seeing his enemy retreating, sprang to his feet and iu, at top speed for the hotel, leaving hat and gun behind. The truth of his wild end startling tale was proved the next day by the numerous bear-tracks of different sizes found in the marshy ground near by. But the three bears had gone off beyond pursuit.

ENGLISH VILLAGE LIFE

The smart Yankee had returned to Ins own select circle in Chicago, and was recounting his experiences' in Europe. ‘‘Say, tell us,” said a friend, ‘‘air the English so thunderin’ slow and "dull, after all ?’ ‘Waal,’ replied the traveller, T reckon so. I went right down into the heart of England to answer that vurry question, for myself. Wo all got vurry friendly, of course, in the bar parlour of the little village ‘pub.’—yes, it’s ‘pub’ they call it in England. There was the boss of the ‘pub’ himself, the local butcher, the local everything, and there wuss myself. I just listened and smoked and sipped my glass of four-ale. All the rest smoked and sipped tlieir four-ale. I can’t say there was much to listen to. The talk ran like this:

Villager: I ’ear as Ted Robinson got the sack last week. Pause.

Other Villager (deliberately puffing smoke from his pipe)—Ted Robinson? Villager—Yuss, I ’ear so. Ted Robinson got the sack las’ week. [Pause again. Other Villager (after more smoke) — Got the sa«k, eh! Villager: Yuss, I ’ear as ’ow he did. [Longer pause. Other Villager: Las’ week was it as he got the sack ? Villager—Yuss. I ’ear as ’ow it was las’ week. [Long, long pause. Other Villager—l ’eard that a Friday.

“And,” added 1 the smart Yankee narrator, “not a soul among ’em smiled! It was their regular mental diet. Oh, yes, smart men tho English are—no mistake about that.”

THE WAYS OF THE WAR OFFICE

It will not be Sir Evelyn Wood’s fault if there is any red tape at the War Office while he is in charge. Ho has nad an example of Pall Mall methods which ho will probably remember when ■he enters on his brief regime there this week. When Sir Evelyn was a captain in the 17th Lancers ho devised an improved cavalry saddle, and sent it, with' an accompanying letter, to the War Office for inspection. The letter and parcel were politely acknowledged at the time, and the matter rested—for nearly twenty years. Then, when Sir Evelyn was Quartermaster General of the Forces, he came by chance across a parcel addressed in his own handwriting to the War Office. It was unopened, and on cutting tEe string he found his saddle. . A COLD WEATHER JOKE. A business man came flown to his office on a winter' morning when it was bitterly cold. “Whew, how cold it is!” he sam to one of the clerks. "Just shut that safe, if you please.” The clerk obeyed with a puzzled look. Then, when he could restrain his curiqsity rlo longer, he asked: “Excuse me, sir, but why did you toil me to shut the safe?' “Why,” replied Iris employer with a sly chuckle, tliere are a good many drafts in that safe.” A REASON FOR NOT MARRYING. Pretty Teacher (severely) “Did your mother’ write this excuse?” , Bad Boy: “Yes'm.” Pretty Teacher: Humph! It looks very much like one of your scrawls.” Bad Boy: “Mamma wrote it; but, please, ma’am, she had sister Jennie in one arm crying with a bumped head, and brother Willie in the other with a cut finger, and a lot of sewing on her lay, and she was rocking the cradle with her knees, and she had to write with her toes.” Pretty Teacher (in the evening): “I am very sorry, Mr Poorchap, but I have changed my mind; I shall never marry.’ SINGING TO THE CAMEL. Jehu who wallops his horse to make it go when the poor beast is dead tired might do well to take a hint from the

Arabs of the desert. They use camels much as other folks use trains or ships. In fact, the camel

has often been called the ship of the desert. The camel has a very queer temper, which needs to be studied. When, therefore, the Arabian driver wants his camel to go faster he doesn't begin to “leather" it. He finds it better to sing to it, and the simple tunes cheer the jaded creature so much that it actuallv quickens its pace at least onefourtli. First one driver in the caravan sings

a verse, and then the others join in tnc chorus. Some travellers have said that they have asked the drivers to sing not only to increase their progress, but also because the melodies were so sweet and simple that they were worth listening to 0:1 their own account. THE MAX FKOM THE MINT. " hot me have a cigar, is one way lie starts to work it upon a victim. “A good cigar.'’ The tobacconist hands out a hunch 1 : perfcctos for the joker to make his selection from. In payment the joker pulls out from liis right hand trousers pocket fifteen or twenty silver coins of various denominations, all of them evidently fresh from the die. Passing over one of them ho smiles knowingly. '“Pretty fair money to ho turned out by a fehow like me,” is the remark he sends along with the smile. “Couldn’t do better yourself, lil bet.” If the victim nibbles at the bait, as about nine out of ten do, he examines the coin closely, and sends back at the jocker a smile ns knowing as the other had put on.’ “Made it yourself,” he exclaims. “Yes, it’s a pretty fair sort of coin for you to make. But you didn’t make it.”

“Oh, didn’t I? Of course, I did, and all of these here in my po«kot, too. What's more I’ll bet you cigars for the company I did.” The bet is taken pretty quickly as a rule, and then file joker grins as he produces from /his card-case a bit of engraved pasteboard, showing that ho is connected with the Royal Mint in a capacity which actually enables him to make the money lie carries. A NEW BOILER. Mr Frankfort Moore, in an interview, says: lan Maolaren told me the other day of a, delightful conversation he recently heard at a suburban dinnertable. There was a considerable, company present, and after a number or long, deadly pauses—which in themselves would bo impossible in society—a lady broke the stillness with 'T anJohn have been married 25 years today.” The people looked at her am said, solemnly, “Ah, really!” Then another pause, and thoy looked at her tn continue the topic she had so daringly started. She was quite equal to the occasion, and, gazing round with an air of placid pride, she said, “Yes, 25 years ; and we’ve got a new boiler in the kitchen.” “HEAVEN ON EARTHW . The lato Colonel Ingersoll was riding in a street car one day when the RevDo Witt Talmage got in, and they presently fell into an argument. Finally Ingersoll said—“ Then you would like to live in a place. Brother Talmago, where everyone had to be good by law?” Certainly,” said Talmage. ‘‘You would like to live where everyone had to go to church regularly every Sunday ?” “ Fes. that would suit me.” “Where no man could get a drink, and where swearing was not permitted 1 ?” “Yes, that’s the place for,me.” “And where every man would have to keep regular hours?” ‘‘That would be Heavein on earth,” said Tannage, smiling, and striking his knee with liis open palm. “Well,” said Bob, looking over his glasses, “you’d better go to Sing Sing Prison. That’s the way they do