s."

To my friend Mr. Julian Sturgis, himself one of the happiest of
phrase-makers, I am indebted for the following gems from America.

Mr. Evarts, formerly Secretary of State, showed an English friend the
place where Washington was said to have thrown a dollar across the
Potomac. The English friend expressed surprise; "but," said Mr. Evarts,
"you must remember that a dollar went further in those days." A Senator
met Mr. Evarts next day, and said that he had been amused by his jest.
"But," said Mr. Evarts, "I met a mere journalist just afterwards who
said, 'Oh, Mr. Evarts, you should have said that it was a small matter
to throw a dollar across the Potomac for a man who had chucked a
sovereign across the Atlantic.'" Mr. Evarts, weary of making many jokes,
would invent a journalist or other man and tell a story as his. It was
he who, on a kindly busybody expressing surprise at his daring to drink
so many different wines at dinner, said that it was only the indifferent
wines of which he was afraid.

It was Mr. Motley who said in Boston--"Give me the luxuries of life, and
I care not who has the necessaries."

Mr. Tom Appleton, famous for many witty sayings (among them the
well-known "Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris"), heard some
grave city fathers debating what could be done to mitigate the cruel
east wind at an exposed corner of a certain street in Boston. He
suggested that they should tether a shorn lamb there.

A witty Bostonian going to dine with a lady was met by her with a face
of apology. "I could not get another man," she said; "and we are four
women, and you will have to take us all in to dinner." "Fore-warned is
four-armed," said he with a bow.

This gentleman was in a hotel in Boston when the law forbidding the sale
of liquor was in force. "What would you say," said an angry Bostonian,
"if a man from St. Louis, where they have freedom, were to come in and
ask you where he could get a drink?" Now it was known that spirits could
be clandestinely bought in a room under the roof, and the wit pointing
upwards replied, "I should say, 'Fils de St. Louis, montez au ciel.'"

Madame Apponyi was in London during the debates on the Reform Bill of
1867, and, like all foreigners and not a few Englishmen, was much
perplexed by the "Compound Householder," who figured so largely in the
discussion. Hayward explained that he was the Masculine of the Femme
Incomprise.

One of the best repartees ever made, becaus