GRIMALDI AND HIS WIFE.

Clutha Leader, Volume XX, Issue 1026, 23 March 1894, Page 3

GRIMALDI AND HIS WIFE.

Grimaldi, the clown, had a shrewish wife and a bad temper of his own. The pair succeeded in making their lives so unutterably wretched that, at last, in despair, they determined to end thorn. Grin;aldi. went out and purchased ' an' ounce, of arsenic to poison the .rats.' After swallowing each a moiety, the pair spperated. that they might not witness each bthers pangs. He went to the sitting-room couch, she to her bed in the adjoining room?- The door between the two rooms was left open. A long ensued. Each listened anxiously, intensely. But nothing was heard save an occasional sob from Mrs G., or a quivering sigh from Mr G. At length Grimaldi, in a deep, low voice, asked, • Are you love. T With a sigh she answered, ' No.' ' Damnation !' he .cried, in perplexity. • Grimaldi !' she returned, reproachfully. Half an hour elapsed. Mrs Grimaldi found the silence unbearable. Frightful visions of her husband stretched out cold and motionless were before her. 'Mr Grimaldi !' she cried, 'are you dead?' The gruff answer came, 'No ; Mrs Gsimaldi.' For two hours these questions and answers went on periodically. At last the lady's turn coming again, she tremblingly raised herself in her bed and cried out, ' Mr Grimaldi, my love, are you not dead Vas if his living were what gamblers wouid call a bluff. Grimaldi camly replied, ' No, my dear, I am not ; and I don't think I shall die to-night unless it be of starvation. Get out of bed Mrs Grimaldi, and see for some supper, for I am hungry.' He had at last found the truth. The apothecary knew the couple, and guessing their purpose, had given Mr Grimaldi a small parcel of magnesia. — Lippincott's

Magazine.

The Spectator tells of a delightful letter of the Duke of Wellington which has just been unearthed. It runs as follows : ' StrathfielH, July 27th, 1837— Field-Marshal the Duke of. Wellington is happy to inform William Harries that his toad is alive and well.' By the way and explanation of this curious despatch we are told that the Duke in one of his country walks found a little boy lying on the ground and weeping bitterly. Being questioned the little boy pointed out a toad to which he had been accustomed to bring food and which always looked for his coming and took the food with gladness. The youngster was abont to be sent away to school, and he told the Duke he feared his 'poor toad' would -die, whereupon the Duke promised that' it should be fed regularly, and the letter quoted above is said to be one of five which the little boy received before he came back for the Christinas holidays to find his toad alive and well, thanks to the care of the Iron Duke.

Surgery and medicine have received most important aid from science and invention in a stomach lamp which has been tested at Baltimore before the members and students at the medical college. A demonstration was given of an electric light aglow in the stomach of a man, and through the walls the eye was able to follow vital processes as to which there is still a great deal of guesswork and hypothesis. In cases of cancer and chronic indigestion the invention may have wonderful results.

In all lives there is a crisis in the formation of character. It comes from many causes, and from some which on the surface are apparently .trivial. But the result is the seme — a sudden revelation to ourselves of our secret purposes, and a recognition of our perhaps long-shadowed but now nasterful convictions.

A delicate way of putting it. — Bill (threateningly) — Dyer mean to say.Tm cheatin' yer 1 Jim (urbanely) — Cheatin me, Bill 1 Nolhin' of the sort ! Wot I means to say is, if yer think I didn't see yer slip them three 'alleys' inter yer westkit pocket, youre a cheatin yerself !

Guest (to new and extra footman from London) — Where's the meet this monring? Footman — In the pantry, I believe' sir.