Archbishop Patrick J. Ryan, of Philadelphia, once received a call from Wayne McVeagh, in company with Mr. Roberts, president of the Pennsylvania system at the time that McVeagh was counsel for that railroad. “Your Grace,” said Mr. McVeagh, “Mr. Roberts, who always travels with his counsel, will, undoubtedly, get you passes over all the railroads in the United States, if in return you will get him a pass to Paradise.” “I would do so gladly,” flashed the archbishop, “if it were not for separating him from his counsel.”
On one of his collecting trips through Scotland the eminent English geologist, Hugh Miller, at the end of the day gave to a servant his bag of specimen stones which he had labored all day to collect, to be carried some miles to his home. Later, while sitting unobserved in a corner of the village inn, he heard the man communicating to a friend in Gaelic his experience with the “mad Englishman,” as he called him, in the following manner:
“He gave me his bag to carry home by a short-cut across the hills while he walked by another road. I was wondering why it was so fearfully heavy, and when I got out of his sight I made up my mind to see what was in it. I opened it, and what do you think it was? Stones!”
“Stones!” exclaimed his companion, opening his eyes. “Stones! Well, that beats all I ever heard or knew of one of them. And did you carry it?”
“Carry it! Do you think I was as mad as himself? No, no. I emptied them all out of the bag, but I filled it again from the stone-heap near the house, and gave him good measure for his money.”
Former Representative Gibson, of Tennessee, had a voice that would play tricks with him. It would work all right for a few minutes, and then it would stop entirely, and Gibson would be left gasping for a moment or two, high and dry in the middle of his argument, until his voice came back again. He was making a tariff speech one day, sailing along in fine shape. “Why, Mr. Speaker,” he shouted, “the tariff is like a pair of suspenders. Uncle Sam needs it to keep up his—”
Right there his voice broke. Gibson couldn’t say a word.