A member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin tells of some amusing replies made by a pupil undergoing an examination in English. The candidate had been instructed to write out examples of the indicative, the subjunctive, the potential, and the exclamatory moods. His effort resulted as follows:
“I am endeavoring to pass an English examination. If I answer twenty questions I shall pass. If I answer twelve questions I may pass. God help me!”
A clergyman was very anxious to introduce some hymn-books into the church, and arranged with his clerk that the latter was to give out the notice immediately after the sermon. The clerk, however, had a notice of his own to give out with reference to the baptism of infants. Accordingly, at the close of the sermon he arose and announced that “All those who have children whom they wish to have baptized please send in their names at once to the clerk.” The clergyman, who was stone deaf, assumed that the clerk was giving out the hymn-book notice, and immediately rose and said: “And I should say, for the benefit of those who haven’t any, that they may obtain some from the ushers any day from three to four o’clock; the ordinary little ones at twenty-five cents each, and special ones at fifty cents.”
Clyde Fitch, the brilliant playwright, said of a jeweled watch that had been sent him by a Scotch admirer in Peebles:
“A jeweled watch from Peebles. How strangely unexpected! It reminds me of an open-air performance of ‘As You Like It’ that I once rehearsed.
“I rehearsed this amateur performance in a garden that was overlooked by a building operation. As my amateurs postured and chanted the bard’s beautiful lines, bricklayers above us laid bricks, carpenters planed boards, and masons chipped stones.
“And one afternoon, during a silent pause in our rehearsal, we heard a voice from the building operation say gravely:
“‘I prithee, malapert, pass me yonder brick.’”