Rev. Dr. Wolcott Calkins, in The Congregationalist, tells an interesting story of his visit to Mr. McCall, the missionary to the French. Mr. McCall told him amusing stories, among which was one about an Englishman who undertook to address a meeting in one of the Salles, in broken but voluble French. After a while his preparation appeared to have run out and he faltered, till in desperation he exclaimed, “Mes chers amis! Je regrette beaucoup de ne pas connaître mieux la belle Française!” That was the end of the meeting. The smile broke into laughter and the whole audience, was soon in a tumult. The Englishman didn’t know that he had expressed regret for his lack of acquaintance with the beautiful French woman.
One Form of Vanity
A sturdy peasant from the Tyrol, says the Fremdenblatt, was standing at a shop-window in Vienna, looking at a reproduction of the fine group, by Rauch, of “The Three Graces.” The peasant did not seem insensible to the perfection of form, but after awhile he burst forth, “What fools these girls are! They have not got money enough to buy themselves a suit of clothes; yet what little they have, they spend to get their photograph taken.”
“Beats,” Not Turnips
The angry mother of a small girl, a pupil in a New York grammar-school, indignantly demanded of the principal that the music-teacher in that school be discharged. When asked why she wanted the teacher dismissed, the mother said that in the midst of a lesson the day before, she had asked the child to tell her how many turnips were in a peck. This, she added, was probably done to humiliate her daughter.
Thinking this a most peculiar question for the teacher to ask, the principal sent for her. The astonished teacher could not remember asking such a question; but on learning the name of the pupil a light dawned on her. “Oh,” said she, “your daughter misunderstood me. I asked her how many beats there were in a measure.”
Reasonable Excuse
The following is said to have been the postscript to a letter received lately by a sporting nobleman in Lancashire from his steward: “I beg your lordship will excuse me for having taken the liberty of writing this in my shirt-sleeves, but the excessive heat has compelled me to be guilty of this disrespect.”
Sending a Postscript
The wife of an Irish gentleman having been suddenly taken ill, he ordered a servant to get a horse ready to go for the doctor. By the time, however, that the horse was ready, and the note to the doctor written, the lady recovered from her sudden indisposition. Thereupon he added the following postscript to his note, and sent the servant off with it: “My wife having recovered, you need not come.”