SHORT STORIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2104, 18 March 1920, Page 1

SHORT STORIES.

The butcher was grumbling angrily to himself as he put up Mrs Grableigh’s very small order, which included a nickel’s worth of cat meat, when a breathless maid dashed into the shop. “Have yon sent off Mrs Grableigh’s things yet?” she gasped. “Just doin’ it up,” snapped the man. “Oh, thank goodness!” exclaimed the girl. ‘‘Then don’t send the cat’s meal. The cat lias just caught a sparrow!” That versatile actor, Mr Joseph Coyne, tells the following; in a railway carriage he once got into conversation Avith a seedy-looking indiA’idual. “Ah, sir,” said the la I lev, sadly, “I’ve seen some very hard times, i was once a doctor Avith a large practice, but owing to one unfortunate little slip my patients began tp leave me, and now Pm just living from band to month.” ■ “Oh, indeed,” said Mr Coyne. “Wha,t. was the slip?” “Well,” Avas the reply, "in filling in 1 he death cerliticate of a man who had died, I absem-mimlediy signed my name in the space marked ‘Cause of death.' " At a prohibition meeting once, the speaker of the evening happened, to have a red nose. They heckled him about this: “Hey, tell us all about your nose!” “Say, mister, that beak ain’t no Aval or colour!” The prohibition speaker grinned at first under his heckling, but as it kept tip, he got madder and madder. “Noav, hoys,” he yelled, his eyes dashing lire, “if you don'l stop it I’ll get mad in a minute. I’m not very easily pul out, but when 1 ana put out you can be. sure that it’s —” “Closing lime!” shouted a heckler, and the crowd Avcnt wild. A certain pussyfoot, Avhile proceeding along the highway, mime upon a stonl man pulling along. Drawing up, he inviled the pedestrian to seat himself in his car, ani they began to discuss I lie topics of the day. Learning that his companion was a licensed victualler, the pussyfoot began at once to spread Ids propaganda. “Friend,” he said, “1 ,can, if you will, show you how to enhance your profits and do good to humanity at one stroke.” “How, pray?” asked (he oilier. “Sell Ihe public nothing but water!” replied the pussyfoot. The licensed victualler*!!! a cigar and laughed loudly. “Why, said lie, “1 have done nothing else for years.” Booth Tarkington, the mn’elist, is said to tell with gusto this story concerning himself and another popular author: — “I avus strolling around an artists’ Red Cross fair, Avhen two pret-' ly ‘flappers’ of sixteen or so came up and asked me for my autograph. ‘I haven’t got a fountain pen,’ I said, much Haltered, ‘Will a pencil do?’ ‘Yes,’ said the other dapper, and so I took out my pencil and signed my name in the moroccohound book that she had given me. “The flapper studied the signature with a frown. Then she looked up and said: ‘Aren’t yon Robert W. Chambers?’ ‘No,’ said 1, ‘l’m Booth Tarkington.’ “The ‘flapper’ turned to her friend with a .shrug of disgust. ‘Lend me your rubber, May,’ she said.”

“You mustn't fish here/'' the boy was told: “these waters belong- to the lord of the manor.” “I didn’t know that,” said the boy-. Laying aside his rod, he took up a book and commenced reading. The keeper departed, but returning the same way about an hour or so afterwards, he found the youth had started fishing again. “Didn’t,l tell you that this water belonged to the lord of the manor?” he shouted. “Why, you told me that an hour ago,” retorted the youngster. “Surely the whole river don’t belong to him; his share went by long ago,” Struck by the notice, “Iron Sinks,” in a shop window, a wag went inside and- said ho was perfectly aware of the fact that “iron sank.” Alive to the occasion, the smart shopkeeper retaliated. — “Yes, and time Hies, but wine vaults, sulphur springs, jam rolls, grass 'slopes, music stands, Niagara falls, moon light walks, sheep run, Kent hops, and holiday trips, scandal spreads, standard weights, India rubber tires, the organ slops, the world goes round, the trade turns, and —” But the visitor had bolted. After collecting his thoughts he returned, and, showing his head at the doorway, shouted: “Yes', I agree with all

of that perfectly—and marble busts.” An amusing story is told regarding Jane and Katherine Lee, those two very clever children who have delighted so many patrons of the cinema. One day their mother, after showing them where Manhattan was on the map, turned it over and said, “And away over here is Hamburg, where. Jane was born. Up here is Glasgow, where Katherine was born. I was born over here in Ireland, and away over hero in Chicago is where your father was born. Jane and Katherine pored interestedly over the mail for a time, then the latter, measuring off the distances with her finger, turned to her mother and said, “A hy, mother, isn’t it strange how we all came together