John Kendrick Bangs

“ If there’s one way to avoid having ladies’ day in the future, it’s to have one now and be done with it."
"All right," said Shakespeare. "I’ll sign too."
"As—er—Shixpur or Shikespeare?" queried Johnson.
"Let him alone," said Raleigh. "He’s getting sensitive about that; and what you need to learn more than anything else is that it isn’t manners to twit a man on facts. What’s bothering you, Dryden? You look like a man with an idea." ”

“ A man who signs his name Shixpur one day and Shikespeare the next needn’t complain if the Bank of Posterity refuses to honor his check."
"They’d honor my check quick enough these days," retorted Shakespeare. "When a man’s autograph brings five thousand dollars, or one thousand pounds, in the auction-room, there isn’t a bank in the world fool enough to decline to honor any check he’ll sign under a thousand dollars, or two hundred pounds."
"I fancy you’re right," put in Raleigh. "But your checks or your plays have nothing to do with ladies’ day. ”

“ I didn’t know, however, but that since you escaped from China and came here to Hades you might have fallen in love with some spirit of an age subsequent to your own—Mary Queen of Scots, or Joan of Arc, or some other spook—who rejected you. ”

“ Get out your brow and frown. I’m perfectly willing to save myself the trouble of writing a poem. Writing real poetry isn’t easy, as you fellows would have discovered for yourselves if you’d ever tried it."
"To pass over the arrogant assumption of the gentleman who has just spoken, with the silence due to a proper expression of our contempt therefor," said Dryden, slowly, "I think in case we do have a ladies’ day here we should exercise a most careful supervision over the invitation list. For instance, wouldn’t it be awkward for our good friend Henry the Eighth to encounter the various Mrs. ”