POOR MR SMITH.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9835, 18 September 1897, Page 3

POOR MR SMITH.

" Now, John Henry, I've stood this sort o , carryin' on as long as I'm a-going to. I ain't going to stay at home all the time, and have you carousing down street a-playing checkers in barber shops and saloons ; not if I can put a stop to it, and I think I can ! Do yon suppose I ain't got no feelings ? Do you think flesh and blood can endure everything ? It's bad enough when you are at home to be poring over the • New England Checker Player , and slips cut out of the Boston Glole —that . horrid Butler paper. And then you had to fool away a dollar and a half for one of those ' Cross' books, and you knew I wanted a new bonnet so as not to be all out of style. Oh !if I could only get hold of that old Mr Bowen, he'd never write no more books full of 'leven-thirteen, forty-six-eighteen, draw ! What a miserable woman bis wife must be ! I should hate to bo in her place. What did you say ? Probably he would hate to have mc? Now, you think you've said something smart; why don't you larf ? You needn't turn over and b'l'eve you've gone to sleep—you can't fool mc so slick as once you could, I wish there wasn't any checker boards in the world. Then that night Mrs Jones and her husband was here you kept him playin' checkers all the time, and every time you spoke 'twas ' Laird and Lady,' • Old Nineteenth,' and what Mr Jamyveer says, and how you can beat Fitzpatrick's Black Doctor. I never thought you would prefer to associate with niggers than to spend your evenings with your family ! You would if 'twasn't for "ma ! Now, you know you've acted shamefully, yes, bhainefully ! You've been mad with 1 her ever since the first day she was here and took ecme of your pesky papers to cut out a polonaise pattern and took your old j checker board to kindle the fire when you left us without any." Here the poor man fell asleep and dreamed he was playing checkers with his mother-in-law and got worsted every time.—" New England Checker Player."