“O!” Hannah shrieked and leaned forward to look. Mrs. Tracy handed her the book.
“That’s why I cut them out and paste them. No one would believe them, otherwise. Here is a gem of music criticism: ‘As he stepped to the edge of the platform, the word Artist came to every lip. His natural pathos mingled with his baritone in such a manner that it was impossible to tell where one left off and the other began. And in his dramatic numbers, the writhings of his face showed the convulsive agonies of a soul in pain.’”
231“One of my friends told me about a singer coming to a little village, and they described her appearance and her dress, and wound up the paragraph by saying: ‘The soloist wore white shoes. No other stage decorations were necessary.’”
“Delightful–unless it was deliberate wit! As it was in a Kansas paper, which spoke of some one’s ‘blowing large chunks of melody out of a flute.’ But the charm of these Winsted gems is the entire unconsciousness of the writer. For instance, here: ‘The élite lingerie of Winsted invited their gentleman friends to a leap-year ball!’”
“O, see here!” cried Hannah, turning the pages joyfully. “‘The hall was decorated with syringe blossoms!’”
“Only a misprint, and I saw in a Chicago paper the other day that one of the fashionable ladies wore a gown with a gold-colored y-o-l-k. This is partly a misprint, too, ‘easy hairs were scattered about with a lavish hand.’ But I think it would take a hand that was powerful as well as lavish, to scatter easy chairs very generally! That was the same party where the hostess and her daughters ‘dispensed with the refreshments in the dining-room!’ But I am not going to keep you laughing over the Courier all the afternoon,” and Mrs. Tracy tried to take the book away from Hannah.
“Just one more,” she begged. “Listen! ‘Mrs. Gray’s speech was replete with wit, wisdom and 232 winsome ways.’ O dear, Mrs. Tracy! I never saw anything so funny as this book in all my life!”
“The trouble with it is that it gets one started on a certain line, and it is very hard to get away from it.”
“Like telling funny names you have heard,” suggested Hannah. “Alice and Catherine and Frieda and I got to telling those last night, and we laughed so long and so hard that Dr. Helen came up and put us to bed!”
“Did you have any funnier than Pearl Button?”