Anecdotes and Sketches.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 17, 23 October 1912, Page 71

Anecdotes and Sketches.

GRAVE, GAY, EFIGRAKMATIO AND OTHERWISE.

Something Serious. ROR the purpose of advertising fish-ing-rods, a shopkeeper hung a large rod outside his shop, with an artificial fish at the end of it. Late one night Perkins, who had been dining a bit too well, happened to see the fish. Going cautiously to the door, he knocked gently. “ Who's there?” demanded the shopkeeper - from an upper window. “Sh-h! Don’t make a noise, hut come down as quietly as you can,” whispered Perkins. Thinking something serious was the matter, the man dressed and stole downstairs. "Now, what is it?” he inquired. "Hist!” admonished Perkins. “ Pull in your lino quick; you’ve got a bite.” ■s>■?> 3 Thim Barkeepers. Thirty-five years ago Mulcahy dispensed both liquors and politics in the Fourth Ward, New York. A visitor found him civil but doleful, his .very soul rent avith grief over the peculations of his barkeepers: “ Faith, and I’ve tried all sorts of thim; Catholies, black I’rotestants, and Jews; divil a bit cud I ever tell which shtolc the most; but I have thini now. I'm after buyin’ this new invintion; ’tis called a cash re-gis-ler, and divil burrst the man who can shteal from that thing.” It was more than two weeks before the visitor called again. He found him tending the bar himself, using his pockets for a till, while the cash register stood forlorn and neglected on its shelf. He was culm, but there was that in his air that told of blighted hopes and the fall of an ideal. However, the Celtic vivacity of expression awoke at some vague reference to the cash register. “ Ah!” he exclaimed.

“ The curse o’ Crummel be on it, on thim that made it, and on thim that told me it would prevint shtealing. Thim barkeepers had it bate tho iirrsht week; they wint t’rough it like the divil wint t’rough Athlone: in shtanding leps.” <s><s><s> Scientific Management. Scientific managers should not go as far as Hussler went. Hussler was the proprietor of a tremendous factory where scientific management had reduced the motions of every hand from 800 to 17. Hussler attended a very fashionable wedding one day, a wedding where the ceremony was performed by a bishop, as-

sisted by a (lean and a canon, and in the most impressive part of the writ Hussler, overcome by his scientific management ideas, rushed up to the altar and pushed the bishop and canon rudely back. "Here, boys,” he said, “one's quite enough for a little job like this.” None to Give Away. A mayor of the old American school was as cynical as he was corrupt. A schoolmate visited him one day and asked for a job. “Well, Joe,” the mayor answered heartily, “ the very next job I have to give away you shall get.” Joe waited about a year, then he ventured to call on the mayor again. “ How about that job?” he said, reproachfully. “ You told me a year ago that I was to get the very next job you had to give away.” The mayor, with a cynical smile, replied: “ But I’ve had none to give away, Joe. I’ve sold them all!”

Expects Too Much. During a discussion of the fitness of things in general, someone asked: “If a young man takes his best girl to the grand opera, spends 20/ on a supper after the performance, and then takes her home in a taxi-cab, should he kiss her good-night?” An old bachelor who was present growled: “I don’t think she ought to expect it. Seems to me he has done enough for her.” <•> A t> Poor Alfred. 'Tennyson, who hated prying publicity, would have shuddered at a passage in "Mrs Brookfield and Her Circle.” lie was troubled by the fitting of his hair, and we read: “Poor Alfred brooded over this, till, on his return, he put himself under a Mrs Parker . . . really his hair is such an integral part of hii appearance it would be a great pity il lie should lose it; and they say this woman really does restore hair, and she is patronised by royalty itself. Can I 'say more in her favour, or in extenuation of A. T.?” This revelation is now being used as an advertisement for a preparation for the hair. But the most familiar portrait shows him bald on top, after all. <?> <S> Two Great Evils. On one occasion (Eleanor A. Towle tells this story in “A Poet’s Children”), being asked to meet an Irish enthusiast who went about the country enlightening people’s minds on the subject of Popish errors, Hartley Coleridge after dinner asked to bo presented to the lecturer ; and, taking his arm while the guests were gathered round, he addressed him with solemnity ; “ Sir, there are two great evils in Ireland.” "There are indeed,” replied the Irish guest, “ but please to name them.” “ The first,” Hartley resumed, “is Popery.” “it is,” cried the other, in emph>t : icquiescence ; “how wonderful you sli . id have discovered It 1 Now, what is the second great evil T” " Protestantism,” was Hartley’s reply in a voice of thunder, as he ran screaming with laughter.