Storyettes.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1904, 11 June 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

Storyettes.

Grave and Gay, Epigrammatic and Otherwise.

Romien, the famous Parisian wit, was one day oaught in a shewer, and forced to seek refuge in a doorway of the Opera House. It w&s six o'clock already, and ha had au engagement at the Cafe de Paris for that very hour. The rain fell in torrents. There was no carriage to be bad. Ho had [no umbrella. What waa to be done ? While he wbb lamenting his bad luck, a gentleman ttith a largo nmbrella passed by. lljuiitu rushed out and grasped the fellow by the arm, aud gravely installed himself under the protecting umbrella. "I ara oveijoyed to see you." he inimediateSy began ; '• I have been looking for you for two weeks. I wanted to toll you about Clementine." WithouS giving the stranger time to express his surprise, Komieu rattled away with gossip aud anecdote until he bad led hia | unknown companion to the door of the Cafe jda P,iris. Then he glanced at him with a | face of well-feigned aßtoniehment. "Pardon, monsieur," he oried ; "it ssems I am mistaken." " I believe so," said the stranger. "Good gracious 1" added Bimteu ; " ba discreet ; don't repeat what I have told yon." " I promise yon." " A thousand pardons." X Mnieu hastened within tho cafe, and amid great laughter, told his adventure to hi 3 friends. Suddenly one of taem said ; • " Your or a vat is rumpled." I Ramieu pat hia hand to his neck and I turned pale. His pin — a valnable sapphire — was gone. On further examination his puree and watoh w«re found to be gone. Too man with the umbrella waa n pickpooket. At the taking of Moscow, whsn the troops sat in their aaddlep, under a murderous fire, Murat, Napoleon's dashing chief of cavalry, received a diepatoh to which an anawei was ! required. j Though his mettlesome horse waa trembling, Murat laid the reins upon the horn of the saddle, took his notebook in one hand a | pencil in the other, and began to write a I response. i Suddenly a eholl fell and exploded on tbe ground close by. The horae leaped into tho air and swung wildfy around. Marat simply transferred the pencil to the hand tbat held the note book, calmed the horse with the other hand, and then went on writing the dispatch as if nothing had happened. A shout of admiration went up along the line. Murat saw that the enthusiasm aroused by hia trifling act had created a favorable moment for a charge. He gave the order, and the men swept clean through the enemy's line. When Catharina Gabrielli went to St. Petersburg in the latter half of the century, she demanded twenty thousand roubles salary. " Twenty thousand roubles ! " cried Katherine the Second ; " for that I could support two field-marshals." " Very well," answered the singer ; '• your majesty may then have them to sing for you." The Disraelis were visiting Strathfieldsaye in thjß time of the Duke of Wellington. Going up to the bedroom, Disraeli found his wife and her maid moving the bed from one Bide of the room to the other. When he inquired tbe reason hia wife said : "Well, my dear, the duke sleeps on the other aide of the wall, and if I lie against it I can boast that I hava slept between the two greatest men in England." After a dinner given by Stephen Price of Drury Lane Tbustre, all the guests but Theodore Hook and the Bay. Edward Cannon retired. Price wae suffering from gout, but as they disregarded the hints to retire, he Brole off and left them in high talk. On tbe following morning he inquired of his servant : " Pray, at what time did those gentlemen go last night." 11 Go, Bir?" replied John; "they're not gone, sir, they have just rung for coffee." When Elliston came down from London to his own theatre, at Birmingham, he was known to soaroely a member of his own company. On reprimanding one of them sharply, the irrate actor threatened to kick him oil the stage. He rushed to the Btage manager and asked who tbat man was. " Mr. A ." "A great man— a very great man," said Eiliston ; "he threatened to kick me, the lessee of Drury Lane. Such a man ac that must go to London, sir; he mustn't waste his energies here." Aud he engaged tbe actor on tbe spot for Drury Lane. A curious story is told as to how the Rothschilds supported Carafa, the oompcser. The latter was far from rich. His principal income was derived from a snuff-box. And this is the way of it : Tbe snuff-box was given to the author oi " La Prison d'Edimbourgb," about thirty years ago, by Baron James de Ilotbschild, as a token of esteem. Carafa sold it, twenty, four hours later, for seventy-five napoleons to the same jeweller from whom it had been bought. This became known to Rothschild, who gave it again to the musician on the following year, The next day it returned to the jsweller's. The traffic continued to the death of the banker, and longer Btill, lo* his sons kspt up tho tradition, to the great satisfaction of Carafa. " I understand," said a handsome young woman, entering the printing office, " that you employ only girls, and that you ate in need of "a forewoman." " Yes," replied the printer. " Can you make up a forme ?" " Juss look at me and see," cbe answered, turning herself round. She was engaged. An exchange says the best way to " finish" a boy ia to give him plenty of money, nothing to do, let him choose his own playmates, spend his evenings whore he pleases, come home when he gets ready, and he will very soon finish himself. When real estate ia lively eom6 one is making lots of dust. A soda-water fountain exploded last week and injured the owner's pbizIdaho has a river whose source is a mystery. It flows out of a lake in an im* mense volurao, and at one point ia t*irea | hundred aad sixty nine feet deep. Where | all the watsr comes from ia something no i one can tell. 7$ 6

one can