The St. Johns herald., 1901-05-04
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 GOOD Short Stories

dyspepsia and indigestion and that sort
 of thing the other day with a lady, who
 remarked that she supposed the greater
 part of the trouble men had with their stomachs was due to the different wines they drank. "It was the indiffer-
 ent wines that gave me the most trOu- ble," retorted the venerable statesman.
 The superintendent of schools at Spo- kane, Wash, desiroUs of testing the powers of composition existing in a
 class of S-year-olds, requested that three sentences be written, each to con- 1 tain one CT t.e threa words. "bees,"
 "boys," and bear" 4 small girl labor ! iously concocted the following sentence:
 Boys bees bare when they go ill swim ming"
 On one occasion the Dean of Wells, in
 introducing B. A. Freeman, whom he
 could abide neither as man nor his
 torian, said: "I rise with great pleas
 ure to propose the health of our emin-
 ent neighbor, MT. Freeman, the his
 torian, a man who-in his own personal
 characteristics so often depicted
 for us the savage character of our first
 forefathers."
 The great Duke of Wellington was
 noted for his rigid integrity. Here is
 an instance which occurred in refer
 ence to his large estate. Some farm
 adjoining his lands was for sale, and
 his agent negotiated for him for the purchase. Having concluded the busi- ness, he went to the Duke and told him
 he had made capital bargain. What do you mean? asked the Duke. "Why, your grace, I have got the farm for so much, and I know it to be worth at least so much more." Are you quite sure of that?' Quite sure, your Grace for have carefully surveyed it" "Very well, then, pay the gentleman from me the balance between what you have al- ready given him and the real value of the estate"
 In his volume on Ellen Terry, Gle ment Scott tells of a somewhat self-sat- isfed, vain-glorious, and grumpy. actor who complained that the noted English actress continually laughed in one of l his most important scenes. He had not the courage to tell her his objections, so he wrote her a letter of heart broken complaint, in which he said: "I am ex- tremely sorry to tell you that it is i'm possible for me to make any effect in such and such a scene if you persist in laughing at me on the stage, and so spelling the situation. May 1 ask you to change your attitude, as the scene is a most trying one" Miss Terry's an Swer was very direct and to the point, for she wrote: You are quite mis- taken. I never laugh at you on the stage. I wait till I get home!'
 Max Kalbeck relates in Der Lotse of Hamburg the mishaps of Brahms when he was on the way to attend the funeral of his dear friend, the widow of Schu- mann. The telegram announcing her death was sent to Vienna and thence forwarded to him at Ischl by mail. He found that he would just have time to reach his destination by taking the Orient Express" and changing cars at | Wells. On the way he fell asleep and went too far, so that he had to wait all | day at Linz for an ordinary train to Frankfort. Purchasing a paper, he | read that the funeral would not be at | but at Bonn, and that it had | been postponed on his account. So he | took the night train at Frankfort, and i arrived at Bonn in the morning just in time to change his clothes and join the funeral procession "I was fearfully | nervous and vexed." he declared to a friend afterward; II only wonder that I did not have q stroke of paralysis"