Mrs. Wharton, the novelist, has never described any blunder of the so-called smart set quite as pathetic as one that actually happened to herself. A young man of a particularly old family, who sat next to her at dinner, said: “I’m terribly frightened to meet you, Mrs. Wharton,” and when asked the origin of his terrors, explained: “I’ve always heard you’re such a frightful blackleg.”
Rosenthal, the pianist, speaks eight or ten languages. But his knowledge of idiomatic English has not always been sufficient to enable him to follow all the critics have said about his pyrotechnic playing. The other day, reading over the latest batch of clippings in the manager’s office, he suddenly asked: “Vat iss ‘Fourt’ of July interpretation?”
“Fourth of July?” was the reply, “Don’t you know the Fourth of July? Why, the national holiday—everything noble and patriotic—George Washington—Battle of Bunker Hill—the Declaration of Independence—” “Ah! I see,” said the pianist, “Un grand compliment!”
Representative Cushman, of Washington, once came to Speaker Cannon with a letter written by the speaker himself.
“Mr. Speaker,” he said, “I got this letter from you yesterday and I couldn’t read it. I showed it to twenty or thirty fellows in the House and, between us, we have spelled out all but the last three words.” Uncle Joe took the letter and studied it, “The last three words,” he said, “are ‘Personal and Confidential.’”