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Show THAT REMINDS ME- The drawbacks of a rigid social punctiliousness punc-tiliousness are delightfully emphasized by a story current of the way in which Mark Twain once made the acquaintance of hia neighbors. Appearing one mornin? before be-fore their veranda, "My name is Clemens," Clem-ens," he said, so the story goes. "My wife and I have been intending to make your acquaintance. We owe you an apology apol-ogy for not doing It before now. I beg your pardon for intruding on you at this unaccustomed hour and in this Informal manner, but your house Is on fire." The Rev. Mr. Whistler of Hastings Is said to have been rather eccentric in his words and ways. Many good stories are told of him. Here Is one: One day he went up the belfry of All Saints, of which he was vicar, and there he found a bricklayer brick-layer whitewashing the walls. The workman work-man was a member of the local band, and he was whistling away a dance tune 3 hrd aa he could go, so that he didn't hear the parson comlig up, "Is that a proper tune for a place of worship?" shouted old Whistler. "Beg your pardon, sir," he said; "but I forgot where I was." And then, to show he was sorry, he started whistling a new tune. Now, being a member of the band, his hand kept time with the music, and so made the whitewash white-wash brush go wonderfully slow. "Oh, get back to your dance tune," the old parson shouted, "or the job'U never be done!" TAU3NTVsTGENrt:S. "How long did it take you to write that book of yours?" "About four weeks." "How much did you get for it?" "One thousand dollars." "Huh! I made that in four seconds the other day. I thought up a good name for a new health food." MARCH OF REFINEMENT. "Now that I think of it," remarked the passenger with the skull cap, "there used to be a little place on this line they called "Kiss station.- but It must be something else now. I haven't heard the conductor call it out." "We're pretty close to it, I think," replied re-plied the passenger with the goatee. "But it isn't Kiss station any more. They've chanked the name, but retained the idea. It's now" "Happy Junction!" bawled out the conductor, con-ductor, as the train slackened its speed for the next stop. COULDN'tIhAVE BOTH. "You haven't any fire extinguishing apparatus ap-paratus in this town, have you?" asked the dry sroods drummer. . "No," said the village merchant, who was looking over his line of samples, "We had to choose between fire extinguishers extin-guishers and a band concert every Saturday Sat-urday night, and we just had to have the concerts." THE CHANGE TOO GREAT. "Oh!" despairingly exclaimed the typewriter type-writer girl, who was taking her first lesson les-son on the piano. "I don't believe I can ever learn to operate it. The keyboard's so different!" |