Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1883 — The Egg Story. [ARTICLE]

The Egg Story.

B wwM violate all precedent ts Ba .fnrr o f Hnlnwhn* K)d th* Mg WUM to readers of &is volume. It is briefly as follows: Soon after his return to Spain he dined with Cardinal de Mendoza, an eminent clergyman with a talent for dinners. An objectionable youngnaan who was present, and who undoubtedly had taken more champagne than was good for his fellow-diners, naked the Admiral if he did not think that if>be had not discovered the NeW World soma one else would have very shortly discovered it He was unquestionably *n impertinent young man, but he was-undoubtedly right in assuming tW sooner or later the Atlantic would have been crossed, even if Columbus had never been born. Historians tell us that Columbus, in reply, asked the young man if he could stand an egg on its little end, and when the young man, after rudely inquiring what Columbus was giving him, was constrained to admit sfaat Ke could not perform the feat in ■qw.estloc, great explorer afatply flab* tened the little end of the egg by knocktag it against the tablelandthen easily made it-etand up. The.whole company inwientjy hurst fatal, tears, and exclaimed that dotambus was the and noblest Of mankind. If this trick of flattening an egg wan really regarded as a brflliant>repaxtee, *by which the impertinent young man ought to have been utterly withered up, it gives us a melan■ehcly view of the state nf the art of repartee-ameng the Spaniards. The real facts Of the case are probably these : Cardfaalde Mendoza, the dinner and the inq»ertinent young man doubtless existed the manner specified, and the impertinent young man. innn advanced state *of champagne, probably s«id somefhiqg insulting to the Admiral. The lattes; disclaiming to notice the affront by wards, and reluctant to cawue any unpleasant scene at the Cardinal's table, merely threw aan egg at the offender’s head, and pursued the conversation with his host. Subsequent writers, determined to give a profoundly scientific character to everything the Admiral did, built up from this slight basis of facst the egg-balancing story. In point of fact, any one can balance ah egg on its little end by the exercise of a i'ittie care and Satienoe, and it is rather more easy to o this with an egg that lias not been flattened than with one that has.— WL L. Alden's “Christopher Columbus.”