People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1893 — A Broken Thread. [ARTICLE]

A Broken Thread.

There is a good story of George William Curtis, which seems never to have been published. He was lecturing on a Buffalo stage once, when suddenly a heavy rope somehow broke loose from its moorings in the flies above and dropped with a tremendous thud to the floor behind the speaker. Mr. Curtis looked around in mild surprise to see what had happened, then, turning to the alarmed audience again, said, with a twinkle in his eye: “Ah, that must have been the thread of my discourse.” Somebody on a front seat caught the joke first and broke out in a chuckle, which instantly developed into a roar of laughter from the whole house. It was a good many minutes before the thread of that discourse could be resumed.—Buffalo Express. Haskett Smith is the name of the lint English “publican” in Palestine.