Good Stories.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2090, 8 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Good Stories.

DiailS one day, in the early part of the pretest century, at the house of a Leeds manufacturer, *■ the lady of the house,'' relate* Mr. Aiaric Alfred Watts, in his rccentlypoblUfaed life of his father, “• h*p|>tiitd toremark to my father upon the difficulty experi-

enced in Yorkshire in obtaining governesses whose mode of speaking was free from the faloit and peculiarities. She had had to part with several ladies who had suited her in other respects, in consequence of this defect ; bntshe had just succeeded inobtaining one so highly recommended that she hoped her troubles on this score were at an end. The lady in question bad arrived that very day, and she had not indeed yet had an opportunity of seeing her. At that moment one of the gentlemen observed that a strange lady was crossing the lawn with the young people of the family, and, opening the French window, proceeded to admit the new governess, whom, as being a paragon, everybody was naturally anxious to see. The lady made her acknowledgments gracefully enough and took her seat and glass of nine with dignity and composure, when the host, in order to make things pleasant, observed to her, ‘Yon most not a low the girls to take you too long walks. They are great walkers. I hope they have n- l tire i you already 1 " To which the lady r->p.i .• : . with much good humour, ‘Na, na, Ido nariiidl When a once gets agate, a pegs it awa* rarely 1 1 ”

The late 0. S. Calverley. who was known

r.t i! irr. iv as 0. S. lilayds, was the most audacious and daring of schoolboys, both r> rai.y an l physically. About the year 1848 Id <-•. r Vaughan was endeavoring to teach his papis a iittle modem history. The innovatioa was a startling one, and the sixth form offered to it a passive resistance which, conridi ringthenaturc of the text-book employed,

Knells Mt'<h rn Eurnfr . was. from a literary anil historical point of view, not altogether indefensible. Not finding his questions very readily answered, the doctor on one occasion asked, as a sort of final question, and in a voire of. for him. somewhat unusual sternness, " And how, Blayds. did the Huns conduct th; mselves after their arrival in Italy /” The answer, given r trbaUm from the testbook, and sounding all the more absurd from the relentless accuracy with which the author’s aunost incredible sentence bad been committed to memory and the calm deliberation with which the words were uttered, ran as folluws " They hnntei the bear in the voluptuous parterre, the trim garden, and the cvpe'islve plcasun-ground, where effeminacy was w nt to saunter and indolence to loll.”

Frc.l Gibbs of New York City, was shot tht-ugU ; .:s face in that terrible fight at Cold H.\ri • ■. Gibbs was a sergeant-major in the Or.e I! ::.,!k 1 and Kurty-cighth Now York

In.v.'.tiy. and <uie . f his chums was Horace 1! y. ..f Seneca Falls, who was first serf ai.t of Ci-mj any A in the same regiment, (ii jo-’- wound was an ugly one. The ball lore t. : jiigli his cheeks and mouth, and kr. ck.d oi't his teeth and rendered him s -t'ocli't-ss. little further along the line lay f:i- n i Uum«ey, unable to move, with

a i.niii-t-wound in his thigh. In getting off the field Gibb* found his old friend, and in *:cn lan.ntaemade known his 1 •ssotspeecb. - i s:i y, i walk .’ " inquired P.umscv. Gibbs nt ided ills head. " Well," said llumsey, ‘‘l o.v. talk, hut I can’t jyalk a step. Let me c mb .i n yo.ir hack, and you walk and I’ll t.i.k. The tw ,of us will just make a man.” Gibbs kn-dc down, and let bis friend climb on hi- s' o.il hj rs. and the pair made their way safely to the rear. The roar guard stopped them, and askc I searching questions, which Ilams-.y answered vigorously, while Gibbs st■!•*! mute. Tncy were passed. Tennessee troops were the butt of much joking an. ng Union soldiers during the war, on the nr in I that they never shut a door, an 1 ha 1 feet that would astonish a Chicago giil. The neglect to shut doors was explained by Tennesseeans on the ground that their climate was so salubrious that they had no nod of d• rs except ns luxuries. But they never quite g..t over the story a Yankee prisoner told at Belle Isle atrout their big feet. *• It was at Petersburg.” was the prisoner's sr ry, "that our brigade met a Tennessee regiment and poured hot shot into them for

an hour. We knew we were doing terrible execution, because we could sec their guns "dropping out of their hands. But somehow none of them dropped over. Presently wo charged, and when we came up to their line, we found that what remained of it were dead men. M e bad to knock them over with the belts of our muskets, because their big feet would not let them fall down.”

While travelling through Nebraska, Musin, the virtuoso, lounged into the smoking car to kill a few of the heavy moments incident to a journey across the plains. He found a raw countryman scraping a polka off the strings of a fiddle. He played with the proud consciousness of a man who is master of his art. ‘-Let me play you something,” said Musin. Without a word the fiddler handed the virtuoso his instrument. Putting the thing into at least a suggestion of tune, Mus a payed a touching cavatina, and then the " Carnival of Venice,” as arranged by Paganini. The piayer of polkas and square dance music opened his mouth and absorbed every n.tc. H hen Musin had finished he handed the fiddle back to the spell-bound owner. The countryman shook his head. ’• I don’t want it any more,” he said, laconically

In Brisbane there was a firm of solicitors, by Burnt Lmie and Brown, and it fell to the lot of th.se gentlemen, says the author of The .VcrrA’i nr Land, to send in a bill of costs which tue government had to pay, and over which—as is not uncommon with lawyers’ bills —considerable heart-burning existed. It chanced that at the time the vote for this bill was before the House, a Bill for the protection of wild birds was also under discussion. In committee, rose with much s-il-mnity. an hon. member at that time ree -gaised as quite the freest of free lances, and proposed that in the Bill the ’■ lawyer-bird ”be included. The House not following the hon. member, he was asked to explain what this bird might he, to which he replied, amidst roars of laughter, It is little and brown—and it has a very long bill 1”

An exceedingly funny criticism on a dramatic hitch was delivered in the Queen's Theatre in Dublin some years aero. A very portly Mephistophel-s in a Faust extravaganza had to go home." The dramatic devil was. like Hamlet. fat and scant of breath.” and, as he sank through a small circular trap, he stuck. The demons below tugged at Lis crimson legs in Tain ; the tried to stuff him down. All was useless. And then over thedelightful Dublin din that rcae from the a hole house came a still small voice— •’ Well, boys, that's a comfort anyway —the lower regions are full 1” Then they dropped the curtain. A professor who had been conducting a fashionable Shakespeare Club, after he had expended infinite patience and hardly less erudition upon the study “Oth“lfo," asked, in a glow of self-satisfaction, if there were any last questions any one wished to ask before another play was taken up. His feelings may be imagined when a very pretty girl, who had been very close in her aliention throughout the entire coarse, inquired, naively and earnestly : “ But Professor —, what did he kill Desdemona for ' How ronld he be angry with anybody so sweet V

On one occasion When Charles 11. granted an audience to William Penn the •curtly Quaker, in accordance with the habit •I the Quakers, entered the royal presence With bit bat upon his head. The king, with«nt comment, quietly laid aside his own hat. Thereupon Penn said: ‘-Friend Charles, why doit thou remove thy bat.” Charles, whose love of humor was one of his few rcdeeiaina characteristics .responded, promptly; •It ii the custom of thi» place for one person to remain uncovered