Anecdotes and Sketches.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 11, 14 September 1910, Page 71

Anecdotes and Sketches.

CRAVE, GAY, EPIGRAMMATIC AND OTHERWISE.

Sbe Wanted the Credit. FREEDOM of the will is a doctrine which children can understand and appreciate. The little girl in this story was not willing to have all her naughty ingenuity ascribed to supernatural sources. “It was Satan,” said a mother to one of her children, “who put it into your head to pull Elsie’s hair.” “Perhaps it was,” replied the little girl, “but kicking her shins was my own idea.” <S> <?> <3> They All Serve. George C. Boldt, well-known hotel man, was talking in Philadelphia about the hotels in Switzerland. "They are good,” said Mr. Boldt. “At the price they are remarkably good. The Swiss are a nation of hotel keepers. "The Alps, you know, draw all the world to Switzerland, and the Switzer who wants to become a millionaire goes into the hotel business, as an American would go into steel or sugar. He begins at the bottom. He is a waiter. “It is said that once in Berne, at a historic public meeting, all the leading men of Switzerland were gathered together. A vote had been taken and in the intense silence preceding the epochmaking verdict of the tellers a wag shouted, ‘Waiter!’ “Instantly the whole assembly rose as one man and answered, ‘Yes, sir!’” <s><s>■s> Courtship and Marriage. Courtship is a highly inflammable byproduct of love; another even more dangerous distillation being marriage. Courtship is the beautiful period of supposed.

safety just before the explosion. Marriage is the blackened burned and charred remains after the holocaust. Courtship is to a woman a more or less lengthy period of moonlight, hammocks, diamonds, dinners, dances, theatres, flowers, and Huyler’s best in five-pound boxes. Realising that this cannot go on forever, no matter how much of a good thing he may be, she veers it around to marriage just before it begins to wane. The same period to a man means constant uneasiness as to her constancy, sleepless nights, undue extravagance with her, the practice of personal economies and a general appearance of asininity. As soon as the marriage has been accomplished both breath sighs of relief and begin to see things—said things being made up of defects hitherto kept carefully guarded, such as snoring, temper, physical imperfections, laziness, selfishness, ete. The long courtship is pitiful; it is the hope deferred that makes the heart sick. A short courtship is equally pitiful if it be a ease of elope preferred, for it will make the heart still sicker. <S> <?> Developed Since Then. “Augustus Saint-Gaudens,” said a Cornish novelist, “used to illustrate the development of art in America by a story of the past. "fie said that in the ’4os a rich Bostonian built a fine house in the Back Bty. He decided to adorn the lawn with statuary, and having heard of the Venus de Milo, he wrote to Rome for a copy. “The copy duly arrived. It was marble. But the Boston man no sooner got it than he sued the railroad company for £OOO for mutilation. He won the suit, too.”

By Special Messenger. It is told that after Professor Aytoun had made proposals of marriage to Miss Emily Jane Wilson, daughter of "Christopher North,” he was, as a matter of course, referred to her father. As the professor was uncommonly diffident ho said to her, “Emily, my dear, you must speak to him for me. I could not summon courage to speak to tire professor on this subject.” "Papa is iu the librarv,” said the lady. "Then you had better go to him,” said the professor, “and 1 will wait here.” There being apparently no help for it, the lady proceeded to the library. “Papa's answer is pinned to the back of my dress,” said Miss Wilson, as she re-entered the room. Turning her around. the delighted suitor read these words: "With the author’s compliments.” Asked to Choose. A well-known Southern judge tells a story about a white man who during reconstruction times was arraigned before a coloured justice of the peace for killing a man and stealing his mule. It was in Arkanas, near the Texas border and there was some rivalry between the

States. ’The Justice asked: “Texas law an .Arkanas law. Which will you hab?” Ihe prisoner thought a minute ana then guessed he would take the Arkansas “Den I discharge you fo’ stealing’ de mule an’ hang you fo’ killin’ de man.” “Hold on a minute. Judge,” said the prisoner. “Better make that Texas law.” “All right. 1 nder de law of Texas, 1 lin’ you for* killin’ de man an’ hang you fo’ stealin’ de mule.” Very Bitter. An amusing story conies to hand concerning a spring sale in a well-known milliner’s shop. Two ladies were at the hat counter engaged in the selection of a hat for the younger of the couple. Several hats had been tried on and discussed, when the would-be purchaser espied what she thought would suit her lying on the counter a little way oh. She went up to the “chapeau,’’ and placing it on her head, said to the companion: “’There, how do yon think this suits me?” 'The elder lady replied: “Oh, I don’t like that: why, it is a hideous shape, and so old fashioned!'’ At this moment an acquaintance of both, who was standing at the same, counter, said, in a somewhat bitter tone: “When you have quite done with my hat may 1 have it back again!’’ A Hurricane. “The terrors of the deep.” remarked the captain of a transatlantic liner, “were perhaps never more thrillingly set forth tli.m in the description by a young lady who last year made her first trip abroad. J* he kept a diary, very much like that of Murk Twain, when for seven days he recorded the fact that he ‘got up, washed, went to breakfast.* “There was. however, one important exception. When she crossed the < han n<l the experience was so trying that she felt impelled to describe it. ‘I am firmly resolved to stay on deck/ she wrote, ‘although the tempest increased t<» such a frightful hurricane that it was only wit a the greatest difficulty that I could hold up my parasol.’”