One morning, as Mr. Clemens returned from a neighborhood call, sans necktie, his wife met him at the door with the exclamation: “There, Sam, you have been over to the Stowes’s again without a necktie! It’s really disgraceful the way you neglect your dress!”
Her husband said nothing, but went up to his room.
A few minutes later his neighbor—Mrs. S.—was summoned to the door by a messenger, who presented her with a small box neatly done up. She opened it and found a black silk necktie, accompanied by the following note: “Here is a necktie. Take it out and look at it. I think I stayed half an hour this morning. At the end of that time will you kindly return it, as it is the only one I have?—Mark Twain.”
The teacher was teaching a class in the infant Sabbath-school room and was making her pupils finish each sentence to show that they understood her.
“The idol had eyes,” the teacher said, “but it could not—”
“See,” cried the children.
“It had ears, but it could not—”
“Hear,” was the answer.