"Well," drawled one of the oldest, "sometimes we set and think, and then again other times we just set."--_Woman's Home Companion._
Marie Corelli's domestic quiet at Stratford-on-Avon seemed likely to be destroyed not long since by the opening of a girls' school in the house immediately adjoining her own. The famous novelist found that the recitations of the pupils greatly interrupted her literary work. She stood it, however, as long as she could, but finally wrote a letter of protest to the proprietor of the school. The reply she received from the elderly school-mistress was prompt, and ran as follows:
"Dear Miss Corelli: Judging from the literary work of yours which it has been my privilege to see, I should say that it would be just as well if you were interrupted even more frequently."--_New York Times._
Emerson Hough once wrote a story called "Hasenberg's Cross-Eyed Horse," which he sought diligently, but unsuccessfully, to market with the greater number of the known periodicals of the world. At last the story found a resting-place in Mr. Hough's desk. Three years ago, feeling a bit let down physically, he took the advice of a distinguished publisher of New York and put himself in the hands of an osteopathic physician.
Some doubts as to the beneficial results existed, but no doubt whatever as to the size of the bill. Mr. Hough pondered long and seriously on the question of getting even with his doctor. At length he happened to think of his old story of the cross-eyed horse.
"I'll have the osteopath treat the horse's cross-eyes," said the author to himself. Whereupon he rewrote the story, sold it promptly at a good figure, and made it a chapter of his last novel, "Heart's Desire," where it is known as "Science at Heart's Desire."--_Bookman._
Fish Don't Always Bite, but Everything Is Grist for the Poet's Mill, So Here Are a Few Verses Anglers May Con When the Tide is Out and the Boat's High and Dry on a Mud Flat.
It was an honest fisherman, I knew him passing well; And he lived by a little pond, Within a little dell.
A grave and quiet man was he, Who loved his hook and rod; So even ran his line of life, His neighbors thought it odd.
For science and for books he said He never had a wish; No school to him was worth a fig Except a school of fish.