MARK TWAIN'S LAST JOKE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 857, 1 July 1910, Page 7

MARK TWAIN'S LAST JOKE.

6 CHARACTERISTIC APOLOGY. On April 7 all Barnum and Bailey's clowns—s7 varieties, in every conceivable make-up—joined in kissing a bride. With transfers of rouge, lampblack, grease, ilesh colour, and chalk that was purple, pink, white, green, yellow, and elephants' breath, the lady's face at the end of tho congratulations resembled a Sid Long picture. The occasion was the marriago of tho most eminent clown in New York to Miss Fanny Maginley, billed as "Hercula, the earth's strongest woman, who plays catches with cannon balls, and does tho snail act with her villa residence." Tho bridegroom struck the original idea of having tho ceremony conducted in costume, his bonnio brido revealing her massive 'proportions by means of bare biceps and pink tights, and ho and his 50 groomsmen in the ordinary working garb of the professional humorist. The wedding duly eventuated in Barnum and Bailey's ring, with tho elephant trumpeting the responses, and tho rhinoceros cooing his congratulations from his tank. In a trno spirit of comradeship, the clowns wired to their fellow-humorists, Mark Twain, George Ade, and ex-Presi-dent Roosevelt, inviting them to the affair. The former, very weak, and just then endeavouring to get tho better of the grim practical joke which tho Man with tho Scythe was trying to work off on him, got tho wire late. His replywas:—

"I am very sorry, but all last week's dates are filled. I will gladly come week boforo last, if that will answer."