"Selone Sours is out after a severe cold.

"Her daughter Emma Sours is still nursing her risings.

"Your scribe took a trip to Louray one day last week and purchased three sacks of fertilizer, one peck of clover seed and a half bushel of timothy seed.

"We remarked to our little son the other day that it was going to rain, as certain birds were singing, and he said, 'Pa, rain don't come out of a bird.'"--_The Page News._

There is a sign over in Newark that somehow doesn't just strike my fancy; it reads--

P. Flem. Delicatessen.

A couple of young country chaps wandered into the lobby of Shea's Theater in Toronto and stood watching the people go up to the ticket-office window and purchase tickets; finally they got into the line, worked their way up to the window, then one of them laid down a two-dollar bill and said,

"Give me two tickets to Hamilton, Ontario."

"Irish Billie Carrol" was standing in the wings at the old Olympic Theater in Chicago, watching the show. There was a chap on who was one of those men who can never let well enough alone; if he said or did anything that the audience laughed at, he would immediately say or do it right over again. Billie watched him awhile, then turned to his friend and said,

"All the trouble with him is, he always takes three bases on a single."

Barney Reiley, then with the Old Homestead Company, now the manager of a theater in Indianapolis, and I were walking down the street in Baltimore, when the sun, shining through a magnifying gla.s.s, set fire to an oculist's show window.

"By Golly," said Barney, "it's a lucky thing that didn't happen in the night, when there was n.o.body around."

Boston newspapers one week contained the following interesting announcement:

"At Keith's; Cressy and Dayne; Don't fail to bring the children to see the Trained Dogs."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At the Majestic Theater in Chicago they have a big, two-sided, electric sign upon which are displayed the names of the acts playing there. They place the names of two acts on each side and use no periods. One week the two sides read--

"CRESSY & DAYNE THE VAGRANTS."

and

"ELBERT HUBBARD NIGHT BIRDS."

Said the Actress to the Landlord, "Want to see 'The Billboard,' Mister?"

Said the Landlord to the Actress, "I'd rather see the board bill, Sister."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

An English actor, just over, was playing at the Fifth Avenue Theater in New York City. He was in love with America and wanted to see it all--quick. One night he came to me and said,

"I think I will take a run over to Buffalo Bill's place in the morning, before the matinee."

I told him I would; it would be a good run for him.

Buffalo Bill lives in North Platte, Nebraska.

One of the provincial music halls in England has the roof arranged like a roll-top desk, so that in hot weather it can be rolled back, thus making a sort of roof garden out of it. An American Song and Dance Team was making their first European appearance there; their act was a much bigger hit than they had antic.i.p.ated; and when they came off at the end of their act one of them said delightedly to the other,

"Say, we just kicked the roof off of them, didn't we?"

"I beg pawdon, old chap," said the stage manager, overhearing him; "it rolls off, you know."

James Thornton and Fred Hallen were coming out of the Haymarket Theater in Chicago; Jim, who was ahead, let the door slam back against Fred.

"Oh, Good Lord," howled Fred, hanging on to his elbow; "right on the funny bone."

Jim looked at him, and in that ministerial way of his said,

"You haven't a funny bone in your body."

A young man asked me recently what spelled success on the stage. I told him the only way I had ever found of spelling it was W-O-R-K.

SOME HOTEL WHYS

Why are porters and bellboys always so much more anxious to help you _out_ than _in_?

Why do so many hotel bathrooms have warm cold water and cold hot water?