Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-05-02

A clever young woman who keeps the
wolf from the door with the point Of a
pen told me something yesterday which
may be as new to you as it was to me,
says an exchange, and if you love the
feeling of a satin-smooth pen under
your fingers, and know the horrors Of a
pen that wears your soul to tatters with
it's scratching. the thing may be as well
come to you as it was to me. We met.
the clever young woman and 7, at the
house Of a woman who writes books, and
found her in mourning.
MY favorite pen is lost" she COM
planned. My pen, which moved over the
paper as softly as rain drops slide down
the window panes. 1t was a paragon
among pens. l loved it. | wiped it ten
derby on the softest of chamois skins. I
rested it on a silver rack. and now it has
fallen to the floor and is no more. Seven
stiff. new pens have | tried, and seven
times l have shrieked in agony as they
scratched and creaked and mutilated my
thought. l hav not courage to try
again. I am desolate."
"All pens look alike to me-" said the
clever young woman, and all pens
would look alike to you if you only knew
how to break them in. Don't moisten
your new pen between your lips before
you DeSlH 10 write. Lon Say cIdfInS
over it or squander our substance in
gold pens. Take your cheap steel pen,
dip it into the ink. then hold it in the
flame Of a match for a few seconds, wipe
it carefully. dip it into the ink, and you
have a pen that will make glad the heart
within you. 1t is a process 1 have never
known to fail"
Harper's Weekly: A yarn is told in
Ma Mia and If cnnonrrc tho nriSon and
two Tennessee volunteers. A Filipino
convict had climbed the prison wall and
was running for dear life through the
open. Two long-legged Tennesseeans
were on guard duty. They knelt to fire.
II don't guess it's more than three hum
dred yards said one quietly.
Il reckon it's most five hundred said
the other, as if he We're discussing the
weather.
The prisoner was running like a deer
and rapidly approaching the under
growth around innumerable little huts,
where he would be safe.
'Call it four hundred,'' suggested the
first Tennesseean, in a conciliatory tore
They adjusted their sights. aimed and
fired.
The escaping convict fell, and the two
Tennesseeans went out to bring in what
was left of him.
IF he's hit in the head it's my shot
said one.
Il aimed low, acco'din' to amy regula-
tons drawled the other.
The convict was found with one bullet
through the back of his head and an
other through the lower end of the spine
They know how to shoot in the noun
tains of Tennessee.
Washington Post: A very amusing
story is current in London just at pres.
~ - nrrt -, ~ 1-,o nT %Lo .1,-e% 1rl.,N.
able doctors, one, indeed, who has a very
large practice. 1t seems that he has q
telephone in his bedroom. The other nigh
when the weather was particularly
stormy and the eminent physician and
his wife were both fast asleep the tele-
phone suddenly rang, and over the wire
came the message: please come around
at once to Berkeley Square; Lady b is
very ill.," e."
The physician uttered an ejaculation
which was distinctly supplementary
and handing the transmitter to his wife
said: Say / am out Of town. which, like
an obedient wife, she Immediately pro-
ceeded to do.
The following afternoon the physician
called at Lady BIS house, and meeting
her husband, exclaimed: $50 sorry [ was
not at home when you rang me up last
night. =
But you really were not at homer in.
quired Lord b.
"of course not" replied the physician,
with a most unblushing effrontery.
"Then, my dear DOCTOR spoke Lord b
who is q bit of a wag, in the most earn
est and sympathetic manner Il must
sympathize with you in your terrible mis-
fortune. For I distinctly heard a mans
voice in your bedroom talking to your
wife"
The face of the physician is stated tc
have defied description, all the more as
Lord b hurried off the moment he had
said this without giving him time to ut