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| A Frenchman once remarked: "The table is the only place where one is not bored for the first hour." Every rose has its thorn There's fuzz on all the peaches. There never was a dinner yet Without some lengthy speeches. ... Read more of AFTER DINNER SPEECHES at Free Jokes.ca | Informational Privacy |
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Famous StoriesSir Humphrey GilbertMore than three hundred years ago there lived in England a ... Cornelia's Jewels It was a bright morning in the old city of Rome many hundre... Sir Walter Raleigh There once lived in England a brave and noble man whose nam... Socrates And His House There once lived in Greece a very wise man whose name was S... Pocahontas There was once a very brave man whose name was John Smith. ... The Inchcape Rock In the North Sea there is a great rock called the Inch-cape... Grace Darling It was a dark Sep-tem-ber morning. There was a storm at sea... King Alfred And The Beggar At one time the Danes drove King Alfred from his kingdom, a... Maximilian And The Goose Boy One summer day King Max-i-mil'ian of Ba-va'ri-a was walking... King Canute On The Seashore A hundred years or more after the time of Alfred the Great ... Julius Caesar Nearly two thousand years ago there lived in Rome a man who... The Sword Of Damocles There was once a king whose name was Di-o-nys'i-us. He was ... A Story Of Robin Hood In the rude days of King Rich-ard and King John there were ... Other Wise Men Of Gotham One day, news was brought to Gotham that the king was comin... Horatius At The Bridge Once there was a war between the Roman people and the E-tru... He Never Smiled Again The bark that held the prince went down, The sweep... George Washington And His Hatchet When George Wash-ing-ton was quite a little boy, his father... Sir Philip Sidney A cruel battle was being fought. The ground was covered wit... The Kingdoms There was once a king of Prussia whose name was Frederick W... Antonio Canova A good many years ago there lived in Italy a little boy who... |
A LACONIC ANSWERMany miles beyond Rome there was a famous country which we call Greece. The people of Greece were not u-nit-ed like the Romans; but instead there were sev-er-al states, each of which had its own rulers. Some of the people in the southern part of the country were called Spar-tans, and they were noted for their simple habits and their brav-er-y. The name of their land was La-co'ni-a, and so they were sometimes called La-cons. One of the strange rules which the Spartans had, was that they should speak briefly, and never use more words than were needed. And so a short answer is often spoken of as being _la-con-ic_; that is, as being such an answer as a Lacon would be likely to give. There was in the northern part of Greece a land called Mac'e-don; and this land was at one time ruled over by a war-like king named Philip. Philip of Mac-e-don wanted to become the master of all Greece. So he raised a great army, and made war upon the other states, until nearly all of them were forced to call him their king. Then he sent a letter to the Spartans in La-co-ni-a, and said, "If I go down into your country, I will level your great city to the ground." In a few days, an answer was brought back to him. When he opened the letter, he found only one word written there. That word was "IF." It was as much as to say, "We are not afraid of you so long as the little word 'if' stands in your way." Next: THE UNGRATEFUL GUEST Previous: DAMON AND PYTHIAS
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