A MUTUAL SURPRISE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 164, 13 July 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

A MUTUAL SURPRISE.

(By Charles Taylor, Glenmore, Waikiekle; age 13.) • A grocery firm had taken the agency for a hammock and hung one, as an advertisement, on the verandah, and numerous people would get into it to see how it worked.

It hung low enough that they could easily sit in it and the motion was agreeable and comforting. But the grocers did not fancy this performance, as the hammock-sitters were not ham-mock-buyers. So they removed the loop at one end from the hook and fastened it by. a bit of twine instead. Soon a man came in for two quarts of treacle. It was put in his pail and. a paper tied over the top. When he passed out ha saw the hammock. His curiosity was aroused at once. The grocers were busy, inside, so he decided to investigate on his own account. He sat down in it, then he swung backwards and lifted his feet up. Then the twine fastening gave way. It was a terrible affair. He had the pail of treacle Sitting on hi 3 lap, and there was a dog sitting tinder the hammock. Neither the dog nor the treacle expected anything any mora than did the man. It was a terrible surprise to all of them. The man and the dog lost their presence of mind, and even the pail lost its head. The "golden syrup" went over his lap, ran down his legs and insinuated itself some way in between himself and his clothes. And when he went down he hit the dog on the back. The animal was so wild with terror and amazement, that it sent up a head-splitting yelp and fled madly down the street, having first bitten the offender's leg and tipped over a tier of water pails with a mighty crash. When they fell a lot off hoes were carried over with them and that started a hox of garden seeds, mounted on a box, and they in turn brought away a pile of tin measures, whose summit was crowned with a pyramid of cow bells. It was a dreadful shock to the man and nearly paralyzed him with its magnitude. But when one article following another came avalanching on top of him, he thought the Evil One himself had burst loose. He let out a yell as hard as he could. The treacle was all over him, with the garden seeds adhering, he looked like a large ginger bread full of caraway seeds.

The hammock did not hang there next day.