"And, as the dinner progressed, he told his guests what the more expensive dishes had cost. He dwelt especially on the expense of the large and beautiful grapes, each bunch a foot long, each grape bigger than a plum. He told, down to a penny, what he had figured it out that the grapes had cost him apiece.
"The guests looked annoyed. They ate the expensive grapes charily. But Dr. Hale, smiling, extended his plate and said:
"'Would you mind cutting me off about $1.87 worth more, please?'"—New York Tribune.
CHOPIN'S "INSPIRATION."
Many people have heard the "Marche Funèbre" of Chopin, but few are aware that it had its origin in a rather ghastly after-dinner frolic.
The painter Ziem, still living in hale old age, relates how, about fifty-six years ago, he had given a little Bohemian dinner in his studio, which was divided by hangings into three sections. In one section was a skeleton sometimes used by Ziem for "draping" and an old piano covered with a sheet.
During the after-dinner fun Ziem and the painter Ricard crept into this section, and, wrapping the old sheet like a pall around the skeleton, carried it among their comrades, where Polignac seized it, and, wrapping himself with the skeleton in the sheet, sat down to play a queer dance of death at the wheezy old piano.
In the midst of it all, Chopin, who was of the party, was seized with an inspiration, and, seating himself at the piano with an exclamation that brought the roisterers to their senses, extemporized then and there the famous "Marche Funèbre," while his Bohemian auditory applauded in frantic delight.—London Globe.
VERY SUPERIOR CLAY.
The late Eugene Field, while on one of his lecturing tours, entered Philadelphia.