TRADE CLASSICS.
Every trade has at least one classic. One in the newspaper trade concerns the reporter who was sent to do a wedding, and returned to say that there was no story, as the bridegroom failed to show up. Will a few other trades acquaint us with their classics? It should make an interesting collection.
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]Sir: The classic of the teaching trade: A school teacher saw a man on the car whose face was vaguely familiar. “I beg your pardon,” she said, “but aren’t you the father of two of my children?” S. B.
Sir: The son of his father on a certain occasion, when the paper was overset, objected to adding two pages, but in a moment of economical inspiration agreed to permit one extra page. C. D.
Sir: Don’t forget the classic of dry stories. “An Irishman and a Scotchman stood before a bar—and the Irishman didn’t have any money.” L. A. H.
To continue, the Scotchman said: “Well, Pat, what are we going to have to-day? Rain or snow?”
Sir: “If you can’t read, ask the grocer.” But I heard it differently. An Englishman and an American read the sign. The American laughed. The Englishman did not see the humor of it. The American asked him to read it again; whereupon the Englishman laughed and said: “Oh, yes; the grocer might be out.” 3-Star.
You may know the trade classic about the exchange editor. The new owner of the newspaper [p 293] />]asked who that man was in the corner. “The exchange editor,” he was informed. “Well, fire him,” said he. “All he seems to do is sit there and read all day.”
Divers correspondents advise us that the trade classics we have been printing are old stuff. Yes; that is the peculiar thing about a classic. Extraordinary, when you come to think of it.
“Timerio,” which is simpler than Esperanto, “will enable citizens of all nations to understand one another, provided they can read and write.” The inventor has found that 7,006 figures are enough to express any imaginable idea. But we should think that a picture book would be simpler.
“You can go to any hotel porter in the world,” says the perpetrator of Timerio, “and make yourself understood by simply handing him a slip of paper written in my new language.” But you can do as well with a picture of a trunk and a few gestures. The only universal language that is worth a hoot is the French phrase “comme ça.”