Some child said, “Thirty-six.”  The supervisor wrote sixty-three.

He asked for another number, and seventy-six was given.  He wrote sixty-seven.

When a third number was asked, a child who apparently had paid no attention called out: 

“Theventy-theven.  Change that you thucker!”

AUTHORS

The following is a recipe for an author: 

  Take the usual number of fingers,
  Add paper, manila or white,
  A typewriter, plenty of postage
  And something or other to write.

  —­Life.

Oscar Wilde, upon hearing one of Whistler’s bon mots exclaimed:  “Oh, Jimmy; I wish I had said that!” “Never mind, dear Oscar,” was the rejoinder, “you will!”

THE AUTHOR—­“Would you advise me to get out a small edition?”

THE PUBLISHER—­“Yes, the smaller the better.  The more scarce a book is at the end of four or five centuries the more money you realize from it.”

AMBITIOUS AUTHOR—­“Hurray!  Five dollars for my latest story, ’The Call of the Lure!’”

FAST FRIEND—­“Who from?”

AMBITIOUS AUTHOR—­“The express company.  They lost it.”

A lady who had arranged an authors’ reading at her house succeeded in persuading her reluctant husband to stay home that evening to assist in receiving the guests.  He stood the entertainment as long as he could—­three authors, to be exact—­and then made an excuse that he was going to open the front door to let in some fresh air.  In the hall he found one of the servants asleep on a settee.

“Wake up!” he commanded, shaking the fellow roughly.  “What does this mean, your being asleep out here?  You must have been listening at the keyhole.”

An ambitious young man called upon a publisher and stated that he had decided to write a book.

“May I venture to inquire as to the nature of the book you propose to write?” asked the publisher, very politely.

“Oh,” came in an offhand way from the aspirant to literary fame, “I think of doing something on the line of ‘Les Miserables,’ only livelier, you know.”

“So you have had a long siege of nervous prostration?” we say to the haggard author.  “What caused it?  Overwork?”

“In a way, yes,” he answers weakly.  “I tried to do a novel with a Robert W. Chambers hero and a Mary E. Wilkins heroine.”—­Life.

Mark Twain at a dinner at the Authors’ Club said:  “Speaking of fresh eggs, I am reminded of the town of Squash.  In my early lecturing days I went to Squash to lecture in Temperance Hall, arriving in the afternoon.  The town seemed very poorly billed.  I thought I’d find out if the people knew anything at all about what was in store for them.  So I turned in at the general store.  ‘Good afternoon, friend,’ I said to the general storekeeper.  ’Any entertainment here tonight to help a stranger while away his evening?’ The general storekeeper, who was sorting mackerels, straightened up, wiped his briny hands on his apron, and said:  ’I expect there’s goin’ to be a lecture.  I’ve been sellin’ eggs all day.”