“When are you going to get us another dog?”
Few of the great world’s great dispatches contained so much wisdom in so few words as Nye’s historic wire from Washington—
“My friends and money gave out at 3 A. M.”
He had an enviable faculty for suppressing annoyances in the course of an entertainment—something more dreaded by any entertainer than a thin house. In the course of one of his lectures in Minneapolis a late-comer had some difficulty about his seat, and lingered inside the inner door to voice some loud protestations. Of course every head in the audience turned toward the door;—anything for a change, no matter how good a thing has been provided.
Lingered inside the inner door to voice some loud protestations.
Nye endured the disturbance for some time; then he said politely but icily,
“This is a large auditorium, and a difficult one in which to hear, but fortunately we are provided with a speaker at each end of the house.” It is needless to say which speaker received attention after that.
Mr. Nye was engaged to speak at Columbus, Ohio, in a newly-finished church with which the minister and his flock were as well pleased as a small boy with his first pair of trousers. So, in a short preliminary and self-congratulatory address the minister referred to the church edifice, called attention to its many details of architectural beauty and convenience, and laid special stress on its new and improved system of exits.