“Ignorant of the Slippery Ways of Fried Eggs.”
Matt Snyder, the actor, found at his table one night a young man so elaborately dressed as to be a startling dude, so he asked his daughter:
“What did you bait your hook with to catch that?” but he was floored by the sweet reply:
“Cake, papa.”
Sometimes the unexpected will cause a man to be grievously wounded in the house of his friends. Here is an illustration, clipped from a New York newspaper:
“Marshall P. Wilder, the professional humorist, was in the Lambs’ Club, surrounded by some spirits, yesterday evening. He looked at his watch and remarked wearily, ‘I’ve got to run away, for I’ve got to go up-town to be funny. It’s an awful bore.’
“Wilton Lackaye, who has been taking up the rôle of smart cynicism left by poor Maurice Barrymore, drawled, in his most irritating manner: ‘I wouldn’t do it, then. Why don’t you give your usual entertainment?’
“‘Cruel boy,’ chirped Wilder, as he made for the door.”
Lackaye is also the man who gravely suggested to a patriotic Scotchman that the reason the bagpipes were put in the rear of a regiment in battle was that the men would be so anxious to get away from the music that they would run toward the enemy.