Bill Nye, when a young man, made an engagement with a lady to take her driving. The appointed day came, but at the livery stable all the horses were taken save one old, shaky, exceedingly gaunt beast. Mr. Nye hired it and drove to his friend’s residence. The lady kept him waiting over an hour before she was ready and then, viewing the shabby outfit, flatly refused to accompany Mr. Nye. “Why,” she exclaimed, “that horse may die of old age any moment!”
“Madam,” Mr. Nye replied, “when I arrived that horse was a prancing young colt.”
In “Some Reminiscences” by William Rossetti is the following anecdote of Tennyson: “The witness was Allingham, to whom the incident happened. He was at breakfast at the house of the poet laureate, who, in a rather feeble moment of facetiousness, asked: ‘Will you have a hegg?’ ‘Yes, thank you,’ replied Allingham, who had scarcely appropriated the proffered viand when Tennyson added, ‘I suppose you understand I was only joking when I said hegg?’”
“Long introductions when a man has a speech to make are a bore,” said former Senator John C. Spooner, one of the great Senate leaders. “I have had all kinds, but the most satisfactory one in my career was that of a German mayor of a small town in my State, Wisconsin.
“I was to make a political address, and the opera-house was crowded. When it came time to begin, the mayor got up.