AMERICAN HUMOUR.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 1 October 1913, Page 7

AMERICAN HUMOUR.

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"Indeed! And what have you done or are you doing?"

"I am invited to all of the finest and most exclusive social affairs because of my ancestors, and I am having a royal time with the money they left!" **. * * * Getting a Line on the Newcomers. "Recently," says a Washington man who had been spending a holiday at home in a suburb of the national capital, lil was afforded an amusing instance of. the artlessness of childhood. "Louise, one little girl, on the next porch, was evidently engaged in cultivating- the acquaintance of another little girl, a newcomer in the neighbourhood. The second little girl . was romping oh the porch of the third house from me. " 'What's your name?' shouted Louise. ' • " 'Elizabeth,' was the answer shouted back. 'What's yours?' " 'Louise. The name of the people that lived in that house before you was Berry.' " 'Our name is Parker.' " '•urs is Taylor. Yon didn't know tke Berrys, did you?' • " 'No.' " 'They were something- awful for borrowing. They used to be sending over to our house all the time for everything you could imagine. Your folks -don't do that, do they?' " 'No.' i "Whereupon Louise turned and shouted Tip to her mother, at the second storey window: " 'She says they don't, mamma.' " ♦ ♦ * • • Placing the Blame. —"Yes," said Mrs. Jenks, "on the whole, Freddy and Katie take after their father. Of course,' Katie gets her big brown eyes from me, and Freddy his cute little rosebud mouth—the Jenkses all have ungainly features — but otherwise j they're their father's children. "Of course, though1, Freddy's scholarly tendencies come from my side of the family. I always* was among the foremost in my class at school. And Katie absolutely cannot be made to vary a hairs-breadth from the truth. That trait, I suppose, she', does get j from me—that and; her ability to overlook the faults of others, and her mod i esty. She's so neat and orderly, to* If there's one thing I never could tot crate, it's diso'rderliness. Mi". Jenks used, to be so careless about tin-owing things areund that he nearly'drove me wild.

"Freddy's teacher says Tie 'shows great promise in his piano study. His father, Mr. Jenks, used to tea,ch violin, you know; but I think Freddy inherits his talent from a cousin of mine, who played the mandolin. He couldn't read notes, but really he was a virtuoso.

"Katie seems real handy with needle and thread, just as I was. Why, I could make doll dresses when I was four. You would die laughing to see how clumsy Mr. Jenks is when he mends his socks.. Katie's so industrious—she resembles me in that. Mr. Jenks is really fearfully lazy. He fumbles because he has to cook breakfast f«r himself and the children.

"Oa the whole, though, I think they resekabletheir father. They're so irritable at times when things don't go smoothly, just as he is. Arid Freddy's deceitful, occasionally, and he makes the most horrid faces. I've caught him stealing jam, too. ©f course, as I said, same ef their good qualities they inherit frem my s^e of the family, but mostly they take after Mr. Jenks. Obildre* are "*» awful trial.""Judg«;» '