“Horrible!” said the hostess with a shudder.  “And did you actually see this yourself?”

“Well, no,” admitted Field apologetically.  “Just at that moment I happened to be downstairs killing the chef for putting mustard in the blanc mange.”

  You can always tell the English,
  You can always tell the Dutch,
  You can always tell the Yankees—­
  But you can’t tell them much!

AMUSEMENTS

A newspaper thus defined amusements: 

The Friends’ picnic this year was not as well attended as it has been for some years.  This can be laid to three causes, viz.:  the change of place in holding it, deaths in families, and other amusements.

  I wish that my room had a floor;
  I don’t so much care for a door;
    But this crawling around
    Without touching the ground
  Is getting to be quite a bore.

I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.—­Samuel Johnson.

ANATOMY

TOMMY—­“My gran’pa wuz in th’ civil war, an’ he lost a leg or a arm in every battle he fit in!”

JOHNNY—­“Gee!  How many battles was he in?”

TOMMY—­“About forty.”

They thought more of the Legion of Honor in the time of the first Napoleon than they do now.  The emperor one day met an old one-armed veteran.

“How did you lose your arm?” he asked.

“Sire, at Austerlitz.”

“And were you not decorated?”

“No, sire.”

“Then here is my own cross for you; I make you chevalier.”

“Your Majesty names me chevalier because I have lost one arm.  What would your Majesty have done had I lost both arms?”

“Oh, in that case I should have made you Officer of the Legion.”

Whereupon the old soldier immediately drew his sword and cut off his other arm.

There is no particular reason to doubt this story.  The only question is, how did he do it?

ANCESTRY

A western buyer is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his ancestors affixed his name to the Declaration of Independence.  At the time the salesman called, the buyer was signing a number of checks and affixed his signature with many a curve and flourish.  The salesman’s patience becoming exhausted in waiting for the buyer to recognize him, he finally observed: 

“You have a fine signature, Mr. So-and-So.”

“Yes,” admitted the buyer, “I should have.  One of my forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence.”

“So?” said the caller, with rising inflection.  And then he added: 

“Vell, you aind’t got nottings on me.  One of my forefathers signed the Ten Commandments.”

In a speech in the Senate on Hawaiian affairs, Senator Depew of New York told this story: