three.

He asked for another number, and seventy-six was given. He wrote
sixty-seven.

When a third number was asked, a child who apparently had paid no
attention called out:

"Theventy-theven. Change _that_ you thucker!"

AUTHORS

The following is a recipe for an author:

Take the usual number of fingers,
Add paper, manila or white,
A typewriter, plenty of postage
And something or other to write.

--_Life_.

Oscar Wilde, upon hearing one of Whistler's _bon mots_ exclaimed: "Oh,
Jimmy; I wish I had said that!" "Never mind, dear Oscar," was the
rejoinder, "you will!"

THE AUTHOR--"Would you advise me to get out a small edition?"

THE PUBLISHER--"Yes, the smaller the better. The more scarce a book is
at the end of four or five centuries the more money you realize from
it."

AMBITIOUS AUTHOR--"Hurray! Five dollars for my latest story, 'The Call
of the Lure!'"

FAST FRIEND--"Who from?"

AMBITIOUS AUTHOR--"The express company. They lost it."

A lady who had arranged an authors' reading at her house succeeded in
persuading her reluctant husband to stay home that evening to assist in
receiving the guests. He stood the entertainment as long as he
could--three authors, to be exact--and then made an excuse that he was
going to open the front door to let in some fresh air. In the hall he
found one of the servants asleep on a settee.

"Wake up!" he commanded, shaking the fellow roughly. "What does this
mean, your being asleep out here? You must have been listening at the
keyhole."

An ambitious young man called upon a publisher and stated that he had
decided to write a book.

"May I venture to inquire as to the nature of the book you propose to
write?" asked the publisher, very politely.

"Oh," came in an offhand way from the aspirant to literary fame, "I
think of doing something on the line of 'Les Miserables,' only livelier,
you know."

"So you have had a long siege of nervous prostration?" we say to the
haggard author. "What caused it? Overwork?"

"In a way, yes," he answers weakly. "I tried to do a novel with a Robert
W. Chambers hero and a Mary E. Wilkins heroine."--_Life_.

Mark Twain at a dinner at the Authors' Club said: "Speaking of fresh
eggs, I am reminded of the town of Squash. In my early lecturing days I
went to Squash to lecture in Temperance Hall, arriving in the afternoon.
The town seemed very poorly billed. I thought I'd find out if the people
knew an