Democratic watchman. (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1855-1940, May 08, 1908, Image 2

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    2 OE ——————————————— TI
Bruin
Bellefonte, Pa., May 8, 1908.
© HER BIRTHDAY VIOLETS.
By Nell Speod.
Naturally the new boarder nad been
seated beside the landlady's favorite,
Miss Imogene Goldberg. Mrs. De Lan-
cey firmly believed that Miss Gold-
berg’s high blond pompadour and rhine-
stone dog collar lent eclat to her estab-
lishment.
But, oddly enough, Jane Williams.
whose hair was parted demurely in the
middle and who wore her grandmoth-
er's old fashioned locket under her
plain pongee shirt waist, realized that
the fine gray eyes of the new boarder
were looking her way frequently and
intently.
She tried to analyze her feelings with
the salad, and when the coffee—such
thick yet spiritless coffee—was served
she decided that it was embarrassment
aud not a memory which stirred her
whenever the gray eyes glanced her
Still at the conclusion of the meal
she climbed three uncompromising
flights of poorly carpeted stairs to her
hall room and drew from her trunk her
small but treasured box of photographs,
There they were; the father who had
died the year of her graduation, the
mother who had left her alone to fight
the world only twelve months before,
a couple of aunts who had forgotten
her in the needs and pleasures of their
own children, several teachers and
three girls in her class at the high
school.
But there was no picture with mas-
culine eyes that could possibly have re-
sembled the gray ones which had
watched her gravely across the table
in the dingy dining room.
“l am getting moody,” she said to
herself as she prepared for bed. “I
must turn over a new leaf. Tomorrow
1s my birthday. [I can’t afford to turn
sour and old maidish at twenty-one.
When I go back to the office on Mon.
day morning I'll be more pleasant and
make friends with the other girls. I've
been living too much In dreams of the
Yet when she fell asleep it was the
dream again of the past. It was her
birthday, the first party In celebration
of that day which she could remember
with any sort of distinctness.
She was dressed in pink tulle all
spattered with paper stars, and there
were pink candles on the birthday
cake. No one knew why an ordinarily
well behaved and unmischievous child
should do such a thing, but she sud-
denly decided to steal into the dining
room and light the birthday cake be-
fore the “party came in.”
The match sputtered and jumped.
She tried to climb quickly from the
chair, but the tiny flame was quicker
still. In a flash the pretty pink tarla-
tan blazed up far above the candles.
and then she forgot everything in her
fright until she felt some one rolling
her over and over on the carpet and
battering her with his coat, and that
had been Willie, the cavalier of her
wee girlhood.
She remembered how her mother
kissed Willie and cried over him, and
he had “poohpoohed” with very red
face and shuffling feet. Their adven-
ture was handed down as one of the
traditions of the town, but when she
was twelve Willie went away to live
with his Grandfather Grey in the far
west,
Later they had gone to Mexico, and
Jane had lost track of them, although
never forgetting in her own hard
struggle for a livelihood.
And Willie had big gray eyes, just
like those of the new boarder. She
woke with a start. Now she knew
why this man had attracted her atten-
tion. Of course the world was full of
men with gray eyes. There were not
colors enough to go around. Some
must be duplicated, and it was very
silly of her to think about Willie any
more. Doubtless he was married even
now to some dusky senorita whose fa-
ther owned valuable silver mines.
So she turned over and fell asleep
again, not to awaken until some one
tapped at her door and the maid, with
new respect in her bearing, entered,
carrying a huge purple box.
“This here package's for you, Miss
Williams,” she said, but holding it as
if loath to yield it to its rightful own-
er. “An' bein’ as it's Sunday mornin’
an’ Miss De Lancey gone to church,
I'll bring you a cup of coffee an’ some
toast up here.”
For all the world loves a lover. And
are not violets and lovers synony-
mous?
Jane sat up in bed and reached for
the box.
“Never mind about the coffee. I've
oversiept, but I'll be down In a few
minutes.”
She was undoing the box with trem-
bling fingers, and the maid, all unno-
ticed, lingered curiously. Out came &
great bunch of California violets done
up in the most approved fashion—pur
ple foll, cord, tassel and all.
“For me? Impossible! And there is
no card.”
She turned to the lid of the box.
“Gabrielle.”
The florist around the corner!
Oh, it had been a cruel mistake. No
one in the great city knew it was her
birthday, and none would care if they
knew,
“Now, Jane Willlams.,” she sald uss
sternly as was possible with a mouth
half full of hairpins, “right after break-
fast you'll take that box back. It be-
longs to some other Miss Williams.”
And it went back, the excited girl
rushing right past the new boarder In
ber haste—and, yes, In her tinv heart
an ache that the flowers were
meant for her,
“Gabrielle” spoke a most impossible
dialect, aud he did his little worst to
make Jane understand that there had
been no mistake. But Jane firmly re-
fused to carry the flowers back with
her, and, just to convince herself that
she was satisfied with what she had
done, she walked half an hour in the
park, returning to find the box stand-
ing on her shabby bureau. Again she
opened it, and this time an engraved
card met her gaze. “Mr. Frederick
W. Grey.” and beneath was the pen-
ciled legend: “Birthday wishes, and
may [ see you soon? I am waiting in
the parlor now if you care to come
down.”
“Frederick W. Grey?”
That must be the red headed assist.
ant bookkeeper who was “Freddy” to
every one in the office save herself.
She had never heard his last name, Of
course she would see him and thank
him, though she could not imagine
how he had known about her birthday.
Tucking the lovely flowers into her
belt and giving a few deft touches to
tie and hair, she tripped down to the
parlor.
But only the new boarder. he of the
fine gray eyes, was there to greet her.
and he certainly stood at attention as
If waiting for her.
She held the card in her hand and
looked abeut inquiringly,
“Jane—little Jane Willilams—don't
you know me?’ demanded the new
boarder.
Then suddenly something new and
strange pulled at Jane's heartstrings
and at memories long dead. Something
new and wonderful bovnded through
her veins.
“Willie—little Willie,” she almost
sobbed. “Oh, If you'd tied the flowers
with pink tarlatan I would have re-
meimnbered!"”
It took him =o long to tell her all
about it—of his wandering with his ec-
centric old grandfather from mining
camp to mining camp, from Mexico to
Peru and Chile, of fortune made and
lost and found again and of how the
grandfather, growing more and more
bitter against the recreant husband of
his only daughter. had insisted that the
grandson have his name changed by
the law from that of his father’s fam-
ily to his mother's.
Then followed the story of how he
had gone back to the old town directly
his grandfather had departed on the
last long journey; how no one seemed
to know where she had gone, and how
he had finally traced her to Mrs. De
Lancey’'s and had come there unen-
nounced to make sure that he would be
welcome—that she had not changed—
and had not found some one else.
“Oh, Willie!" she sighed contentedly
from a comfortable resting place on
his shoulder. “Just as if there had
ever been any one else since 1 lit the
birthday candles!"
They had pre-empted the tawdry
cozy corner, and by that time Mrs. De
Lancey had come back from church.
donned her pink silk negligee and was
staring at them accusingly from the
center of the ugly red and green parlor.
But when you have fine gray eyes
you generally have the courage to an-
nounce your intentions, and Frederick
William Grey did it so effectively that
Mrs. De Lancey wiped her tears on the
flowing sleeve of her pink negligee and
shook hands with them both: then.
turning her back on the cozy corner.
for once put to its legitimate use. she
departed, murmuring: “Well, you nev-
er can tell what sort of girl will land
a man. And her hair so plain and her
face so pale too!”
When One Spends Money.
One would think that money would
be saved in prosperous times when
there is plenty of it about. But no; that
is not the time when it is saved. It is
then that it is spent. Everybody spends
It—governments, railroads, corporations,
capitalists, housekeepers, house build-
ers, collectors. People expand their
wants in such times and satisfy some
of them, and then is when it is most of
all impossible to live on anything a
year. But after all the money has been
spent a few times over and has come
to be scarce and borrowing has come to
be a serious matter and folks have
much less to spend and no expectations
then everybody groans and begins to
save, not only trying desperately to
squeeze back inside of the bounds of
income, but to pay buck what was
spent In expectation of a time when
saving wotld have become convenient.
To most of ns that time never comes.
And yet there are things for which we
spend more than we can afford. that
really do justify our expenditures, so
that after the money has been spent
and we are pinched for the lack of it
we would still rather have what it
bought than have the money back.—
Appleton’s.
Why He Was Anxious.
Buloz, the editor of the Revue des
Deux Mondes, once had at his country
house In Savoy a numerous company
of literary people, one of whom was
Victor Cherbuliez. Cherbuliez contrib-
uted regularly every other year a novel
to the columns of the Revue, and a
story of his was at that time running
in the periodical. The guests had been
out for a walk and had amused them-
selves with gathering mushrooms,
which were cooked for dinner. As the
company were sitting down, it occur-
red to one of the party that undoubt-
edly some of the people who had tak-
en part in gathering the mushrooms
knew nothing about them and that
there might be poisonous fungi in the
collection,
This reflection so affected the com-
pany that all the people present, with
the exception of Cherbuliez, declined
to partake of the dish, He alone at-
tacked it with gusto,
Thereupon Buloz showed sudden and
intense alarm. :
“Cherbuliez! Cherbuliez! What are
you about?’ he exclaimed. “Remem-
ber that you haven't finished your
story in the Revue!”
Greatly to his relief, the mushrooms
turned out to be innocuous, and the
story was finished,
A Remarkable Suicide.
A man who had visited Paris was
telling of an extraordinary suicide he
aad heard of in that gay city. “He
was a Frenchman, who was nothing if
not original,” sald the teller of the
ta'e, “and even when he grew despond-
ent he planned his death Is a most
original fashion. He locked the door
of his room in the Rue Nitot and, re-
moving the weights of the window
cord, fastened them to the window
itself, He added to the weight of the
window by attaching six flatirons. On
the sili he adjusted a large triangular
bread knife, such as is used by chefs,
and made ready a small balloon, capa-
ble of lifting fifty pounds. The in-
genious Frenchman then pughis head
out of the window after atta®hing the
balloon to his neck and by releasing
the clamp that held the window cut his
head off completely with the impro-
vised guillotine. The decapitated body
was discovered several days later, but
it was not until the balloon and the
head were found a week later in the
field of a peasant, eighteen miles from
Paris, that the method of suicide was
really known."
Old Maps of Louisiana.
An interesting exhibit in the Lou-
{siana State museum is a collection of
old maps that show the state of Lou-
isiana extending from Canada, which
was then called New France, onthe
north to the gulf of Mexico on the
south and from Virginia and Carolina
on the east to the Pacific on the west.
These maps were printed in Italy and
Holland and France and were evident-
ly largely works of fancy and imagina-
tion on the part of the geographers, as
they depict mountain ranges where
none exists and lakes and rivers dis-
tributed around in places where they
are not found today. One of the most
charming of these maps represents the
Mississippi river as making a graceful
turn along what is now the roadbed of
the Louisville and Nashville railroad
and emptying into the gulf in Florida.
Along a strip of this country about
where English Lookout and peaceful
Bay St. Louis are located is a fear-
some spot marked as the land of the
man eaters.—New Orleans Picayune,
A Coveted Picture.
Some years ago a western man en-
tered J. G. Brown's studio and seemed
to gain satisfaction in finding its fa-
miliar features unchanged. He told
the artist that in his boyhood he had
worked in the streets of New York and,
with others of his class, had served as
a model for one of the pictures of
street boys. He had gone west and
had prospered and now had returned
with a desire to become the owner of
the group picture in which he and
some of his boyish cronies appeared.
He wanted it as a reminder of the
struggles of his boyhood. He looked
back on those days as being quite as
happy as any he had ever known. The
picture, says W. Howard Standish, dis-
cussing J. G. Brown, a painter of hum-
ble folk, had long ago been sold, and,
although the would be purchaser offer-
ed to give his check for $25,000 for the
work. the artist was unable to supply
any clew to its whereabouts.—New
Broadway Magazine,
To His Benefit.
A Tennessee congressman enjoys
telling a story of a darky in his dis-
trict who in a way is something of a
philosopher.
Some one was saying to Mose one
day: “You're always in trouble, Mose.
Why can't you try to do better? You're
a likely sort of darky. and you could
get along very well if only you'd behave
yourself—keep a steady job instead of
drinking bad whisky and getting your-
self behind the bars half the time.”
“Excuse me, boss,” said Mose, with a
grin, “but it looks to me like I makes
wore money this way. When I works
hard 1 gets $7 a month and my board.
When 1 gets arrested the jedge he says
to me that it will be $10 or thirty days.
How kin I afford to work for $7 a
month when I'm worth $3 more in de
lockup ?”—8t. Paul Pioneer-Press,
Diagnosed the Case.
A successful oculist recently put in
a day or two with his new shotgun in
the marshes. Ie soon noticed that
when using the left hand barrel he
generally brought down the game, but
when using the other barrel he inva-
riably missed. He finally tacked a
small target to a bush near the river's
bank and fired at it several times with
each barrel in order to bring the mat-
ter to a test. The result confirmed his
suspicions. One barrel was all right,
or nearly so. and the other was all
wrong.
“Well,” said the oculist to a friend
who was with him, “as nearly as 1
can make out this gun has a severe
case of strabismus, with strong symp-
toms of astigmatism!” — Modern So-
ciety.
The Cost For Repairs.
“Why did you sell your auto?"
“Cost too much for repairs.”
“Wasn't it a good machine?”
“First rate. Never got out of order.
But I had to pay for repairing the peo-
ple it ran over.”—Philadelphia Ledger.
Judicial Ignorance.
“Did the clock stop when you dashed
it down cellar?" asked the police judge
of the man who was charged with be-
fag disorderly.
“Of course it stopped. Did you sup-
jose it went through to China?’
Modern Facilities.
“Who was dis Rip Van Winkle?”
“An old time guy wot slept in de
mountains.”
“Didn't have no public libraries, 1
s'pose, in his day?’—Loulsville Cou-
rier-Journal,
Cruelty and fear shake hands togeth-
er.—Balzac.
in the Drinking Days.
A once well known individual who
had lived every day of his life and
gained from it a great experience left
the following advice—and little else—
to his sons: “Drink slow; do not mix
your liquor; never sit with your backs
to the fire.” It was an excellent pre-
cept for the era in which it was given
—the times when the dining room door
was kept locked that there might be
no shirking the claret and when the
only chance at the circuit mess of es
caping intoxication was to drop under
the table “like the rest,” as Lord Cock-
burn tells us he did. and I¥ quiet—
nay. even when our judges resented
that discredit should be brought on
drinking by misconduct. Everybody
drank, and much too much, in those
days, but especially the upper classes.
A well known politician discharged his
coachman for overturning him in his
carriage. “I had certainly drunk too
much, sir.” urged the poor man. “but
I was not very drunk. and gentlemen.
you know, sometimes get drunk.” “I
don’t say you were very drunk for a
gentleman,” returned his master, “but
you were exceedingly drunk for a
coachman!"—London Illustrated News.
Cage For a Queen Bee.
When a queen bee becomes unpro-
ductive through old age, it is necessary
for the bee keeper to supply the colony
of bees with a new queen. This he
does in the following manner: The old
queen is removed from the hive and
the bees are left alone for about twelve
hours or longer, during which time
they find out that they are queenless.
The new queen is then put into a cage
made of wood and wire cloth, with an
opening through one end. This open-
ing Is filled tight with a mixture of
honey and sugar. The cage thus pre-
pared is laid upon the tops of the
frames in the hive. The bees soon dis-
cover the new queen in the cage and
set to work upon the honey and sugar.
In the hive bees recognize friends and
strangers by their sense of smell, and
a strange queen entering a hive would
be very quickly killed by the bees. By
the time the queen is liberated from
the cage she has acquired the scent of
the hive and is therefore no longer a
stranger.— London Globe,
Eccentric Editions of Books.
Mr. George Somes Layard in a book
entitled “Suppressed Plates, Wood En-
gravings, Etc.” writes of the ridicu-
lous people who value such books as
the first issue of the first edition of
Dickens’ “American Notes” just be-
cause there is a mistake in the pagi-
nation, or a first edition of Disraeli's
“Lothair" because the prototype of
“Mgr. Catesby” Is divulged by mis-
printing the name “Capel,” or “Poems
by Robert Burns,” first Edinburgh edi-
tion, because the Duke of Roxborough
appears as “the Duke of Boxborough,”
or Barker's “Breeches” Bible of 1504
because on the title page of the New
Testament the figures are transposed
to 1495, or the first edition in French
of Washington Irving's “Sketch-Book"”
because the translator. maltreating the
author's name, has declared the book
to “traduit de I'Anglais de M. Irwin
Washington,” and in the dedication
has labeled Sir Walter Scott “barron-
net.”
Cornish Humor.
The magistrate at the Liskeard po-
lice court might well have excused the
laughter which greeted the remark of
a poiice witness only a short time ago
who said with all seriousness: “He
was drunk, your honor, and couldn't
stand. I told him to go away. and as
he wouldn't I locked him up.”
The laugh in another court was
against the solicitor who severely ask-
ed, “Were you present when you heard
this?"
Mixed metaphors are not a peculiar
nor indeed a common failing of the
Cornishman, but a certain eloquent
town councilor quite recently got en-
tangled when in the course of a pro-
tracted debate on the momentous sub-
ject of the local dust bins he declared
indignantly, “It is time we put our
foot down with a loud voice.”—English
Illustrated Magazine,
A Fair Jury.
In a suit some years ago between fa-
ther and son before an Indiana justice
of the peace the sextet comprising the
jury came in after three hours’ delib-
eration with the following impartial
verdict: “We, the jury, agree to find
judgment for neither plaintiff nor de-
fendant and find that each pay balf
the costs.” It is said the verdict struck
every one as being so unusually fair
that even the parties to the action
were satisfied.—Case and Comment.
Fooled.
Lazy Lewis—I was told dat de farm-
er wot lives on dat hill paid his hands
jist de same whedder dey worked er
not, so I went an’ hired t' him. Tired
Thomas—Den youse played off sick, I
reckon? Lazy Lewis—Yep. an’ at de
end ov de month I found dat he never
paid nobody nothin’ nohow.—Chicago
News.
Broke the Charm.
“Well, you are a good little boy. Are
you usually as quiet as this?”
“No fear, but mother’s going to give
me a clockwork engine if I don’t say
anything * about your dreadful red
nose!”—London Opinion.
In the Fog.
Towne—So you were in London, eh?
How did you find the weather there?
Browns--I didn’t have to find it. It
came and hunted me up and surround-
ed me In chunks.—Philadelphia Press.
A London Joke.
Walter (who has just served up some
soup)—Looks uncommonly lke rain,
sir. Diner—Yes, by Jove, and tastes
like it too! Bring me some thick soup.
-London Tatler.
©
Mammoth Cave.
For many years after the discovery
of Mammoth cave the entire work of
exploration was practically in the
hands of negro sinves, the property of
the man who owned the cave. Some-
times they wonld ceme to an obstacle
that barred the passage. such as a
great limestone rock or a yawning
crevasse across the way. Such obsta-
cles would often stop exploration in
that direction for years, though beyond
the obstruction there were likely to be
scores of beautiful chambers and many
miles of passageways. Thus it happen-
ed that for years nothing was known
of that large part of the cave lying be-
yond the abyss named the Bottomless
pit. This obstruction was known for
over twenty vears before It was cross-
ed. Then one day in 1837 the negro
cave explorer Stephen and some of his
fellows dragged to the place the trunk
of a small tree, and on this rather dan-
gerous bridge Stephen crawled across
the abyss. Then began the explora-
tions that revealed one of the most
wonderful and extensive parts of
Mammoth cave. The abyss was found
later to be 180 feet deep.
Some Witty Titles.
The pupils of one of the high schools
i of Philadelphia evinced great interest
in a competition for a prize to be
awarded the pupil who should submit
| the wittiest list of titles for twelve
| sham books on a dummy shelf. The
| following are some of the titles recelv-
ed in the competition:
“A New England Puss,” by M. E. W.
“Thoughts On My Bed,” Stead.
“On Different Tacks,” by Van Ham-
mer.
“Lizzie Wouldn't,” by John Wood.
“The Fatal Blow.” by John Knox.
Porter's “Tales of Lost Baggage.”
“Lost In the Wash,” by the author
of “Bachelor's Buttons.”
“Grinding the Poor,” by Mill
“Owe No Man,” by O. W. Holmes.
“After the Ball.” by the author of
| “Our National Game.”
Morse on “Our Old Houses.”
“Woodchucks and Rabbits,” by Bur-
roughs. :
“E. E.” by the author of “My Dou-
ble.”
An Unconscious Meal.
Once John Muir, author and ranch-
man, was dining with a friend. They
sat down. and Muir begen to tell a
story. The waiter came around several
times, but the story was so good noth-
Ing was ordered. Muir talked and talk-
jed. and in between he would reach
{over and break off a plece of bread
| from a French loaf on the table. This
| he did a good many times. The story
reminded him of another, and so he
talked and ate bread until finally, being
very hungry. his companion broke in
| with:
{ “Well, what shall 1 order for you. Mr.
{ Mair?
“Order?” he repeated in his abstrac-
tion.
“Yes, order—to eat.”
He looked over at the last little re-
| maining plece of bread on the plate
; and said, as if waking from a dream:
! “Eat? Why. I've had all 1 want
That bread was bully.” —Bookman.
Large Thumbs.
“People of great strength of charac-
ter. who are guided by the head rather
than the heart. have large thumbs.”
says Irving R. Bacon. “Whenever you
see a person with a strikingly large.
well developed thumb, you may be al-
most certain you have before you one
who is a natural born ruler. eminently
practical and fond of whatever is use-
ful. Wherefore also he Is fond of his-
tory. A large thumbed woman may
fall in love as deeply as her small
thumbed sister, but will not marry un-
less she can see a sufficient bread and
butter supply ahead. But she is more
apt to be a real helpmate when adver
sity comes." —New York Journal
The Only “Merrymaking.”
The school record kept by an old
time teacher of “No. 6” in a New Eng-
land village contains at least one item
which moved a chance reader to smiles.
It Is this:
“Special honor badges were given to
Flora and Minetta Lovett for the best
attendance. During the entire school
year they were not once absent to at-
tend any pienic, reunion, excursion or
merrymaking, the only exception be-
ing the afternoon of May 10, when
their twin brothers were ill from the
effect of something they had eaten and
not expected to live, although they
soon recovered.”
No Visible Signals.
“Yessum." said Sandy Plkes as he
devoured the wedge of pumpkin ple, “I
sternly object to the nefarious practice
of clipping off de tails of dogs.”
“Ah, I am glad you are so tender
hearted, my poor man.” sympathized
the good housewife.
“Well, it ain't exactly dat, mum, but
when a dog hasn't any tail I can't tell
by de wags if he Is in a good humor or
not, and it makes me skeery about ap-
proaching de house.”—Chicago News.
Strict Truth.
May—She says she can trace her an-
cestry on her mother's side back to the
conquest of England. Fay—That's cor-
rect. Her maternal grandmother was
married in leap year to a man named
England. — Catholic Standard and
Times.
The Ruling Passion.
“Why didn't your daughter go to Bu-
rope to study music, Mrs. Dibbs
“We've got her ready to go three
times, and each time she decided she'd
rather stay at home and show her
clothes.”
Beware of inquisitive people. An ex-
cessive curlosity to know all is generul-
ly accompanied by as great a desire to
tell it again.
The Concertina.
The accordion, which was a develop-
went of a previously existing aeolina,
was invented in 1820 by a Viennese
named Damian and consists, as every
oue knows, of a small pair of bellows
aud a range of keys which regulate the
admission of wind to metal reeds. The
accordion sounds notes in one key only.
The concertina proper was invented on
the same date by Charles Wheatstone,
who later became a famous man of
science. It seems curious that a man
whose reputation rests chiefly on his
electrical work and discoveries, who
was one of the earliest men of science
to make experiments in connection
with submarine cables and who, more-
over, was an extraordinarily skillful
decipherer of cryptographic writings,
should also have dabbled In musical
inventions. But. as a matter of fact,
Wheatstone's musical work preceded
his scientific discoveries. He went
straight from school to the business of
manufacturing musical instruments,
and It was in 1820, at the age of twen-
ty-seven, that he took out his patent
for the concertina. But he was more
Interested in the scientific principles
on which wusical Instruments are con-
structed than in music itself, and his
acoustical and musical experiments
soon drew him into the path which led
to his many electrical discoveries. —
London Globe.
An Emended Sign.
Many a householder at the merey of
the painter will find a bond of sympa-
thy with the students of Stanford uni-
versity in the incident taken from the
San Francisco Chronicle. The score of
fraternity houses on the campus were
in the process of being cleaned up in
preparation for the receptions and
luncheons to be given to visitors on
the day of the big football game. A
man got the contract to paint one of
the houses white with the understand-
ing that the job must be done and dry
by a certain day. After making a rush
start the painter asked permission to
hang out his sign. HIs request was
granted. and he put up a conspicuous
announcement over the front porch,
“These Premises Being Painted by
Blank Biank.”
Then the work dragged. He would
come one day and stay away two. So
the impatient collegians added to the
slgn until the announcement read:
“These Premises Being Painted by
Blank Blank, Now and Then.”
A Calm Witness.
A lawyer was cross examining a wit-
ness with a view to getting him mud-
dled in his testimony. The following
questions and answers occurred:
“Did you sce the plaintiff faint a
short time ago?"
“Yes. sir.”
“People turn pale when they faint,
don't they?"
“No. sir: not always.”
“What! Do you mean to tell me that
a person can faint and not turn pale?
Did you ever hear of such a case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you ever see such a case?’
“1 did, sir”
“When?
“About a year ago, sir.”
“Who was it?"
“Twas a negro, sir.”
The lawyer excused the witness. —
Cincinnati Commercial ‘Tribune.
The Moabite Stone.
The so called Moabite stone was dis-
covered by the Rev. F. Klein in 1868
among the ruins of Dhiban, the ancient
Dibon, The stone was of black ba-
salt, rounded at the top and bottom.
two feet broad. three feet ten inches
high and fourteen inches in thickness,
but was unfortunately broken by the
Arabs, whose cupidity had been arous-
ed by the interest that was taken in it
by the explorers. The fragments were
afterward collected and laboriously
fitted together, and the stone now
stands in the Louvre at Paris. The
inscription of thirty-four lines is in
Hebrew-Phoenician characters and ap-
pears to be a record of Mesha, king of
Moab, mentioned in II Kings iii, refer-
ring to his successful revolt against
the king of Israel.—New York Ameri-
can,
A Model Friend.
What true friendship consists in de-
pends on the temperament of the man
who has a friend. It is related that at
the funeral of Mr. X., who died ex-
tremely poor, the usually cold blooded
Squire Tightfist was much affected.
“You thought a great deal of him, I
suppose 7” some one asked him.
“Thought a great deal of him? 1
should think I did. There was a true
friend! He never asked me to lend
him a cent, though I knew well enough
he was starving to death!”
Too Expensive.
Two little girls who were taken to
see “Othello” were much impressed by
the death scene.
“l wonder whether they kill a lady
every night?" asked one.
“Why, of course not,” said the other.
“They just pretend to! It would be
too expensive to really kill a lady every
night!”
Sweet Sorrow.
“I can't please my friends,” sobbed
the young bride.
“What's the matter, pet?”
“They insist that I can't be happy
with a fathead like you, but, oh, hus-
band, I am!"—Washington Herald.
Domestic Amenities.
Knicker—I've waited an hour for you
to get your hat on straight. Mrs.
¥uicker—Well, I've waited longer than
that for you to get your feet on
straight.—New York Sun,
Decision of character is one bright
golden apple which every young per-
son should strive In the beginning to
pluck from the tree of life.
nol
Li ¥