Heterophemy

— Heterophemy, the curious disease which consists in using one word when meaning to use an entirely different one, gives rise to many amusing combinations. An old lady living in a town on the Hudson River is thus afflicted. She is tall and stately in appearance, courtly and gracious in manner, and this makes her incongruous sentences all the more ridiculous. Strange to say, she herself is totally unconscious of her infirmity, for the family, friends, and even the servants endeavor to save her from the mortification she would feel.

Not long ago, when she was recovering from a serious illness, the bishop of the diocese chanced to be making his annual visitation, and at the suggestion of the rector they went together to call upon Mrs. Drew.

She was delighted to see them, and entertained them with her usual grace and cordiality. The conversation naturally touched upon her illness, and her thankfulness at her recovery, which for a time had been despaired of.

Presently she turned to the bishop, saying earnestly, “ My dear bishop, let us have a little drop.”

The startled prelate glanced at the rector. He, knowing his old friend’s infirmity, cast about in his mind for her probable meaning.

“ Bishop,” repeated the old lady seriously, “ let ’s have a little drop.”

“ Certainly, Mrs. Drew,” interposed the rector, waiting for her to make some move which might disclose her meaning. But Mrs. Drew waited expectantly, also.

“ If you have not your Vade Mecum with you, there is a Prayer-Book,” she said, after a moment.

The rector, with a sigh of relief, turned to the bishop. “Mrs. Drew will be glad to have you read prayers with her,” he said quietly.

Prayers were read, and then the gentlemen prepared to take leave.

“ Your visit has been a pleasure,” Mrs. Drew said warmly. “ Now, Mr. Belknap, won’t you take this little boy home to your dear wife, with my best love.”

For a moment Mr. Belknap wondered if she could mean the bishop, but she relieved his mind by lifting a magnificent bunch of roses from a vase on the table.

Allied to this is another form of misspeeeh, to which most of us are occasionally subject, — the exchange of syllables. A certain young lady, who, to her intense mortification, often reverses her vowels thus, says she is entirely unconscious of it, even after speaking.

One summer evening she was sauntering with a friend towards the village post-office of the little town where they were staying.

On the way they encountered an acquaintance with a handful of letters.

“ Ah, good evening,” she said, in her peculiarly gracious, suave manner. “ Are you strailing out for your mole ? ”

The mystified young woman made some inarticulate reply and passed on. As soon as the friend could recover her gravity, she gasped, “ I suppose you intended to ask Miss May if she was strolling out for her mail ? ”

The same young lady was relating a sad story of various misfortunes which had overwhelmed a dear friend.

“ Think,” she concluded pathetically, “ of losing husband, children, property, and home at one swell foop ! ” And a howl of laughter rent the roof.

The sister of the young woman in question recently accepted the position of instructor of Latin and Greek in a well-known girls’ school.

“ Miss Brown,” asked an acquaintance, joining her as she stood, one evening, with a group of friends, “ where is your sister, Miss Helen, now ? ”

“ Helen is teaching Latin in a young ladies’ cemetery in ——,” responded Miss Brown promptly.

“ An appropriate place,” broke in an irrepressible youth, “for her to teach dead languages.”

One more example : —

Pupil in Greek class : “ Does that mean that the canals grew smaller and smaller as they got further from the river, or that from the main canal there were little ditches branching off ? ”

Teacher (hurriedly). Little britches dancing off. Next.”