In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest.--_Bulwer-Lytton_.
Learning hath gained most by those books by which the Printers have lost.--_Fuller_.
Books should to one of these four ends conduce, For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
--_Sir John Denham_.
A darky meeting another coming from the library with a book accosted him as follows:
"What book you done got there, Rastus?"
"'Last Days of Pompeii.'"
"Last days of Pompey? Is Pompey dead? I never heard about it. Now what did Pompey die of?"
"I don't 'xactly know, but it must hab been some kind of 'ruption."
"I don't know what to give Lizzie for a Christmas present," one chorus girl is reported to have said to her mate while discussing the gift to be made to a third.
"Give her a book," suggested the other.
And the first one replied meditatively, "No, she's got a book."--_Literary Digest_.
BOOKSELLERS AND BOOKSELLING
A bookseller reports these mistakes of customers in sending orders:
AS ORDERED CORRECT TITLE _Lame as a Roble_ _Les Miserables_ _God's Image in Mud_ _God's Image in Man_ _Pair of Saucers_ _Paracelsus_ _Pierre and His Poodle_ _Pierre and His People_
When a customer in a Boston department store asked a clerk for Hichens's _Bella Donna_, the reply was, "Drug counter, third aisle over."
It was a few days before Christmas in one of New York's large book-stores.
CLERK--"What is it, please?"
CUSTOMER--"I would like Ibsen's _A Doll's House_."
CLERK--"To cut out?"
BOOKWORMS
"A book-worm," said papa, "is a person who would rather read than eat, or it is a worm that would rather eat than read."
BOOMERANGS
_See_ Repartee; Retaliation.
BORES
"What kind of a looking man is that chap Gabbleton you just mentioned? I don't believe I have met him."
"Well, if you see two men off in a corner anywhere and one of them looks bored to death, the other is Gabbleton."--_Puck_.
A man who was a well known killjoy was described as a great athlete. He could throw a wet blanket two hundred yards in any gathering.
_See_ also Conversation; Husbands; Preaching; Public speakers; Reformers.
BORROWERS
A well-known but broken-down Detroit newspaper man, who had been a power in his day, approached an old friend the other day in the Pontchartrain Hotel and said:
"What do you think? I have just received the prize insult of my life. A paper down in Muncie, Ind., offered me a job."
"Do you call that an insult?"
"Not the job, but the salary. They offered me twelve dollars a week."
"Well," said the friend, "twelve dollars a week is better than nothing."
"Twelve a week--thunder!" exclaimed the old scribe. "I can borrow more than that right here in Detroit."--_Detroit Free Press_.