" ABSENT-MINDED BEGGARS"

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 244, 12 October 1907, Page 9

" ABSENT-MINDED BEGGARS"

Stories of absent-mindedness are plentiful as gooseberries in summer. Most of them are merely tales, but here is a true story which "takes the biscuit." M. Muchot, a well-known French scientist, famous for his exhaustive studies upon the caloric powers of the rays of the sun, is the hero of the tale. He h—i always been an absent-minded man, but for many years his wife prevented his failing producing any untoward results. Three years ago, however, she fell ill, and the professor's peculiarity was allowed to develop unchecked. 'His principal income was a pension from the French Academy. During his wife's ill-

ness he forgot to draw it, and he woul<i have died of hunger had he not also forgotten to pay his rates and taxes. The poor old man, who is over eighty-three, lived on .from hand to mouth on the charity of his neighbours, until a collector applied for his eviction for unpaid taxes; and turned him out into the street. Then his story got into the papers, and just as a public subscription was being raised to keep him from actual starvation, the fact came out that a pension of £ 120 a year was due to himyand had not been drawn for three years! 31. Muchot, however, was scarcely less afflicted in the direction indicated than the great Ampere, of whom scores of tales are told. On one occasion he -was invited to dine with M. Fontanes, Master of Paris University. For a joke, somebody had told Ampere that he must go to the dinner in his Academician's uniform, girt with his sword. When he got to the house he was much annoyed to find everybody else in ordinary evening dress. "I will get rid of the sword at all events," he said to himself, and slipped it behind the cushions of a sofa.After dinner Ampere forgot himself, as usual, and, taking a piece of chalk out; of his pocket, began working out problems on, the cover of the mantelpiece; He became so absorbed that all the guests left without his noticing them, and when he wrote" Q.E.D.- no one was left in the room except Mme. Fontanes, and she sat fast asleep on the sofa where Ampere's sword lay liidderii Ampere went down upon his knees* and pulled gently at the sword, so as to get it away without waking the lady. Presently the sword came out—without the scabfcafd; At this moment Mmc, Fontanes awoke, and alarmed the house with her scream of terror at seeing a man on his knees before her with, a drawn sword in his hand. A delightful story is also told of Pro-" fessor , Pozzi. Hβ iras talking to a lady , who -was bewailing the fact that neither she nor her married sisters had any children. "Perhaps, dear Madame," said the dreamy professor, "perhaps the failing is hereditary."