SOME RECOLLECTIONS.

New Zealand Tablet, 29 June 1916, Page 54

SOME RECOLLECTIONS.

Here are a few tit-bits from Lady Poore's Recollections of aw Admiral's Wife: A boy, asked to name the principal animals of Australia, replied: ' Kangaroos, emus, and peccadilloes.' An old Australian lady who had just inherited* a nice little legacy, ' got a bit of her own back' rather neatly when she replied to the question of a travelling Englishwoman calling to congratulate her: ' And now, of course, you'll be making a trip to England?' ' England ! No, thank you. Why, that's where all the convicts came from.' In 1910 Lord Kitchener paid a visit to Admiralty House. Lady Poore once got a laugh out of her guest by narrating a story of a young subaltern at Limerick who attached himself to a very plain and unattractive girl. His friends chaffed him about this inexplicable assiduity. ' She is a very nice girl,' he protested, ' and very well connected. She is a sister of the Countess of Ayr.' His friends were surprised, but a local man in the group roared with laughter. ' Not the Countess of Ayr, you fool,' he explained; 'the County Surveyor.' AMERICAN 'HOWLERS.' Some amusing examples of American school children's ' howlers ' are provided by recent examination papers in New York. Here are a few choice specimens : A vacuum is a large empty space where the Pope lives. In India a man out of a cask may not marry a woman out of another cask. He succeeded because he had entry price (enterprise) . • " - Tennyson wrote ' In Memorandum.' Parallel lines are the same distance all the way and do not meet_unless_you bend them. An angle is a triangle with only two sides. The qualifications for citizenship are that you must be neutral born or made. Gravitation is that which if there were none we should all fly away. Louis XVI. was gelatined during the French Revolution. A mountain range is a large-sized cook (cooking) stove. Horse-power is the distance one horse can carry a pound of water in an hour. Guerilla warfare is where men ride on guerillas. WHAT HE HAD FORGOTTEN. A farmer, noted for his absent-mindedness, went to the nearest market town one day and transacted his business there with the utmost precision. He started on his way home, however, with the unpleasant conviction that he had forgotten something, but what it was he could not recall. As he neared home the conviction strengthened, and three times he stopped his horse and went carefully through his pocket-book in a vain endeavor to discover what he , had forgotten. In due course he reached home and was met by his daughter, who looked at him in surprise and then exclaimed, ' Why, father, where have you left mother ?' A DUAL REPUTATION. A certain distinguished English actor, whom we may safely call Jones-Brown, plays a persistent but horrible game of golf. During a recent visit to America the actor in question occasionally visited the links of a well-known country club in Westchester County, near New York. After an especially miserable showing of inaptness one morning, he flung down his driver in disgust. ' Caddy,' he said, addressing the silent youth who stood alongside, that was awful, wasn't it?'

' Purty bad, sir,' stated the boy. - 'I freely confess that I am the worst golfer in the world,' continued the actor. i - 'Oh, I wouldn't say that, sir,' said the caddy, soothingly. Did' you ever see a worse player than I am?' ' No, sir, I never did,' confessed the boy truthfully. 'But some of the other boys was tellin' me wistiddy about a gentleman that must be a worse player than you are. They said his name was JonesBrown. A RILEY RETORT. James Whitcomb Riley on one occasion was an unwilling witness in a civil suit in which one witness was plaintiff and the other defendant. He didn't want to testify because both men were his friends, and besides he had an aversion to courts and trials and all that goes with them, formed when he gave up the study of Blackstone in his early manhood. One of the lawyers in the case, a pompous fellow with a just-watch-me-settle-this-fellow's-hash bearing, became angered when Riley, apparently evaded answering his questions directly. He spoke to Riley sharply: ' Now, look here, Mr. Riley, this won't do. You're not answering my questions. Let's get down to facts now. You know we're entitled to know what you know about this case. You studied for the bar once, and you know law. Isn't that true?' ' No,' Riley drawled in reply. * I don't know any more law than you do.' WHY ? . Lord Buxton, the Governor-General of South Africa, is an ardent disciple of Izaak Walton, and he tells many good fishing yarns. One of his favorites is about an angler who one day had four hours' tussle with a huge salmon before he was able to land it. When at last he had made sure of his catch he took it home in ecstacy and related his triumph to his maiden aunt. Of course, like all fishermen, he made as much of the story as possible, and laid special stress on the time it took and the immense energy he had to expend before he could bring the salmon safely to land. When he had finished he waited anxiously for the praise due to his cleverness and heroism. For some moments there was silence, and then his aunt looked up from her knitting with a puzzled expression on her face. ' But, my dear Tom,' she said quietly, ' why did you not cut the string and get rid of the brute?' i PROOF POSITIVE. An amateur palmist looked long and earnestly at the left hand of a young girl. Breathlessly the latter waited for the palmist's next words. ' Ah, I see by your hand that you are engaged to be married!' said the palmist. ' How wonderful!' exclaimed the young girl. . ' And,' continued the palmist in a cutting tone, ' I see that you are engaged to Mr. Linson.' ' Oh, it's perfectly extraordinary!' cried the blushing girl. ' How could you know that?' ' By long study of the art,' was the reply. ' But surely the lines in my hand cannot tell you the name of ' Who said anything about lines?' replied the prophet, with scorn.' ' You are wearing the engage-ment-ring I returned to him three weeks ago!'