ything at all about what was in store for them. So I turned in at
the general store. 'Good afternoon, friend,' I said to the general
storekeeper. 'Any entertainment here tonight to help a stranger while
away his evening?' The general storekeeper, who was sorting mackerels,
straightened up, wiped his briny hands on his apron, and said: 'I expect
there's goin' to be a lecture. I've been sellin' eggs all day."

An American friend of Edmond Rostand says that the great dramatist once
told him of a curious encounter he had had with a local magistrate in a
town not far from his own.

It appears that Rostand had been asked to register the birth of a
friend's newly arrived son. The clerk at the registry office was an
officious little chap, bent on carrying out the letter of the law. The
following dialogue ensued:

"Your name, sir?"

"Edmond Rostand."

"Vocation?"

"Man of letters, and member of the French Academy."

"Very well, sir. You must sign your name. Can you write? If not, you may
make a cross."--_Howard Morse_.

George W. Cable, the southern writer, was visiting a western city where
he was invited to inspect the new free library. The librarian conducted
the famous writer through the building until they finally reached the
department of books devoted to fiction.

"We have all your books, Mr. Cable," proudly said the librarian. "You
see there they are--all of them on the shelves there: not one missing."

And Mr. Cable's hearty laugh was not for the reason that the librarian
thought!

Brief History of a Successful Author: From ink-pots to flesh-pots--_R.R.
Kirk_.

"It took me nearly ten years to learn that I couldn't write stories."

"I suppose you gave it up then?"

"No, no. By that time I had a reputation."

"I dream my stories," said Hicks, the author.

"How you must dread going to bed!" exclaimed Cynicus.

The five-year-old son of James Oppenheim, author of "The Olympian," was
recently asked what work he was going to do when he became a man. "Oh,"
Ralph replied, "I'm not going to work at all." "Well, what are you going
to do, then?" he was asked. "Why," he said seriously, "I'm just going to
write stories, like daddy."

William Dean Howells is the kindliest of critics, but now and then some
popular novelist's conceit will cause him to bristle up a little.

"You know," said one, fishing for compliments, "I get richer and richer,
but all the same I think my work is falling off. My new