"I want the library," said Mr. Gaswell to the architect, "to be the largest and airiest room in the house." "I don't see what you want with a library," interposed Mrs. Gaswell, "you know very well you don't smoke."
The following anecdote, which we have received as authentic from the lips of a clergyman, sets forth in a very pleasant way the folly of reproaching preachers as hirelings, merely because they receive temporal support from their congregations.
At the meeting of a presbytery in an eastern state, it fell to the lot of one of the ministers to be quartered with a man belonging to a denomination which does not allow of salaried preachers. He was accosted by his host as follows:
"What is thy name, friend? I mean the name thy parents gave thee."
"Has thee any objections that I should call thee by that name?"
"Certainly not; my mother always calls me John."
"Well, John, I understand thee belongs to the class of hireling preachers."
"You are greatly mistaken, sir; I do not belong to that class."
"I mean thee is one of those preachers who receive pay for preaching."
"No, sir; I receive nothing for preaching to my people."
"How then," said the interrogator, evidently surprised and disconcerted, "does thee manage to live?"
"Why, I work for my people six days, and then I preach for them on Sundays for nothing."
Sir Wilfred Lawson told the following story the other evening: A student at college was sent for by the Don, who said--"Sir, I am told you have a barrel of beer in your room, which is contrary to all orders." And the young man said: "Well, sir, that is true; but the fact is the doctors told me that if I drank this beer I should get stronger." The Don said: "Are you stronger?" "Yes, sir, indeed I am," was the reply, "for when the barrel came in I could scarcely move it, and now I can roll it round the room."
"I'm in a pickle," remarked a young employe at the store.
"I've been expecting for some time that you'd get into a pickle," was the rather forbidding reply.
ANCIENT MARINER--Holy smoke, where's that young feller gone to? Didn't 'pear quite natral like anyhow.
"Charlotte, my dear, how is it I find you weeping? Have you bad news from your husband?"
"Oh! worse than that! Arthur writes me from Carlsbad that he would die with grief at being absent from me, were it not that he gazes at my picture and covers it with a thousand kisses every day."