ANECDOTES OF AN MACLAREN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 294, 21 January 1910, Page 2

ANECDOTES OF AN MACLAREN

AMERICAN "POLI'IENESS." When he was in New York 0,1 a preaching and lecturing tour. I invited him to luncheon at one of the gayest uptown restaurants. I and David Munro, of the North American Review, who had been a classmate of his at Edinburgh University, called for him at the old Everett House, and he came downstairs to go with us in a fancy tweed suit and a scarlet -scarf. I suppose there was not another man in the city that day who looked so little like a cleric as' he did.

We boarded a ear and put him into the only vacant seat, while we. cascliardened. hung by straps and bent over him, laughing and talking. We were absorbed in ourselves until the shrillest voice I ever heard said: "If you want to lean on anybody, lean on your friend. Ain't he big enough?" Unconscious 01 transgression, we were shocked, and stared into one another's faces. The voice was 1 that of an untidy, vinegarish, waspish woman seated next to Watson. "Did you speak to us?" ]i asked, abashed. It repeated the remonstrance even more sharply: ''lf you want to lean on anybody, lean on your big friend here." Mine or Munro',9 had unconsciously touched her chaste and poignant knees. She sniffed at our profuse and humble apologies, as we meekly Straightened ourselves, and we had not recovered from our shame and mortification when she, arrived at her destination, flounced out of the car, withering us with a final poisoned arrow from her eye. Watson's face filled with amazement. "I couldn't have believed it," ho panted. "Why, I have always supposed the Americans to be the politest people in the world"; and over iiis -cigar after luncheon he gave us an instance to justify that opinion. . "As I was coming over in the Teutonic, I sat down in the library one afternoon, when the ship was rolling and pitching a good deal, to write some letters. Almost immediately a diffidentlooking young man dropped into v tvair by the desk and fixed his eyes 011 me. An hour or more passed, and he was still there, returning my occasional and discouraging glances at him with a foolish, ingratiating s"mile. I was inclined to be annoyed. I had a suspicion that he was a reader of my books, perhaps an admirer—God only knows why I have admirers!—or an autographhunter. He could wait. They are always with us, like the poor. But at last he rose, swept the air with the cap in his hand, and spoke: " "Excuse me, Dr. Watson; I'm real sorry to disturb you, but I thought you'd like to know that jus't as soon as you left her Mrs. Watson fell down the companion stairs, and I guess she hurt herself pretty badly. The surgeon's with her now."

" 'After I had found out that she was only a little bruised, and had had time to reflect on that young mail's conduct, it seemed so considerate, sympathetic, and delicate that I said to myself only an American could have been capable of it, Never mind that drop of vinegar. Americans are the politest people in the world."

His thoughts were not envisaged, and whether he was quite in earnest or slyly sarcastic, the reader may decide for liimself.—William Rideing, in McClure's Magazine. —»