eneral uprising of the audience, there was enough
hand-clapping to arouse the troupe's dejected spirits. The leading man
stepped to the foot-lights after the first act and bowed profoundly.
Still the clapping continued.

When he went behind the scenes he saw an Irish stagehand laughing
heartily. "Well, what do you think of that?" asked the actor, throwing
out his chest.

"What d'ye mane?" replied the Irishman.

"Why, the hand-clapping out there," was the reply.

"Hand-clapping?"

"Yes," said the Thespian, "they are giving me enough applause to show
they appreciate me."

"D'ye call thot applause?" inquired the old fellow. "Whoi, thot's not
applause. Thot's the audience killin' mosquitoes."

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak
ones.--_Colton_.

O Popular Applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet,
seducing charms?--_Cowper_.

ARBITRATION INTERNATIONAL

A war was going on, and one day, the papers being full of the grim
details of a bloody battle, a woman said to her husband:

"This slaughter is shocking. It's fiendish. Can nothing he done to stop
it?"

"I'm afraid not," her husband answered.

"Why don't both sides come together and arbitrate?" she cried.

"They did," said he. "They did, 'way back in June. That's how the
gol-durned thing started."

ARITHMETIC

"He seems to be very clever."

"Yes, indeed, he can even do the problems that his children have to work
out at school."

SONNY--"Aw, pop, I don't wanter study arithmetic."

POP--"What! a son of mine grow up and not he able to figure up baseball
scores and batting averages? Never!"

TEACHER--"Now, Johnny, suppose I should borrow $100 from your father and
should pay him $10 a month for ten months, how much would I then owe
him?"

JOHNNY--"About $3 interest."

"See how I can count, mama," said Kitty. "There's my right foot. That's
one. There's my left foot. That's two. Two and one make three. Three
feet make a yard, and I want to go out and play in it!"

"Two old salts who had spent most of their lives on fishing smacks had
an argument one day as to which was the better mathematician," said
George C. Wiedenmayer the other day. "Finally the captain of their ship
proposed the following problem which each would try to work out: 'If a
fishing crew caught 500 pounds of cod and brought their catch to port
and sold it at 6 cents a pound, how much would they receive for the
fish?'