A noted Washington wag and beau of many years ago signed his name “A. More.” Mrs. John Washington had invited him to a formal dinner party at Mount Vernon. The company all arrived except Mr. More, but knowing his queer ways the hostess did not wait for him. After she was seated some time a huge envelope was handed her, in which she found an enormous leaf of a sycamore tree. The interpretation was “Sick.—A. More.”
A young lady of Louisville, having received urgent proposals of marriage from an old gentleman, sent the following answer by mail:
“Why thus urge me to compliance?
Why compel me to refuse?
Yet though I court not your alliance,
Perchance a younger I may choose.
For ’tis a state I’ll ne’er disparage,
Nor will I war against it wage;
I do not, sir, object to marriage,
I but dislike to marri-age.”