Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1910 — GOOD SHORT STORIES [ARTICLE]

GOOD SHORT STORIES

A well-known Scottish clergyman got Into conversation in a railway carriage with a workingman, who informed him that he had been a coupler on a railway for several years. “Oh," said the minister, “I can beat that I have been a coupler for over twenty years. "Aye,” replied the workman, "but I can uncouple, and you canna.” After waiting for several weeks without hearing from her story, the amateur author wrote the magazine editor, requesting an early decision, saying that she had "other irons In the fire." Promptly came the editor’s response: “Dear Madam: I have read your story, and, after giving it careful consideration, I should advise you to put it with the other Irons.”

One of the anecdotes..which Andrew Carnegie is fond of telling concerns a crabbed bachelor and an aged spinster, who one day found themselves at a concert. The. selections were apparently entirely unfamiliar to the gentleman, but when Mendelssohn’s "Wedding March” was begun he pricked up his ears. "That sounds familiar,” he exclaimed. "I’m not very strong on these classical pieces, but that’s very good. What is it?” The spinster cast down her eyes. "That,” she told him, demurely, "is the Maiden’s Prayer.’ ” A Dover lawyer tells a story In which figures the Honorable H. L. Dawes, who, it seems, in his younger days was an indifferent speaker. Shortly after his admission to the bar he had a case which was tried before a North Adams Justice of the peace, and Dawes was opposed by a lawyer whose eloquence attracted a large crowd. The Justice was perspiring in the crowded room and evidently fast losing his temper. Finally he drew off his coat and, In the midst of the eloquent address, burst out: “Mr. Attorney, supposing that you take a seat and let Mr. Dawps speak. I want to thin out this crowd.”

Small boys are not always as sympathetic as their relatives wish, but, on the other hand, they are seldom as heartless as they sometimes appear. “Why are you crying so, Tommy?” Inquired one of the boys’ aunts, who found her small nephew seated on the doorstep lifting up his voice in loud walls. fell d-downstairs! ” blubbered Tommy. “Oh, that'e-tpo bad,” said the aunt, stepping over him and opening the door. "I do hope the little dear wasn’t much hurt!” “S-she’s only hurt a little!” walled Tommy. “But Dorothy s-saw her fall, while I’d gone to the g-grocery! I never s-see anything!” A theatrical manager delighted in taking a rise out of conceited or vain members of his oompany. “I see you are getting on fairly well,” he remarked. “Fairly? I am getting on very well,” replied the hero of the play, proudly. “I played Hamlet for the first time last night. You can see by the papers’ glowing criticisms how well I got on.” “I have not read them,” replied the other quietly, “but I was there.” “Oh, you were. Well, you noticed how swimmingly everything went off? Of course, I nlade a bungle of one part by falling into Ophelia’s grave, but I think the audience appreciated even that.” “I know they did,” said the manager with a slight smjle, ’’but they were frightfully sorry when you climbed out again!”