GETTING AHEAD OF AN INNKEEPER.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3217, 21 October 1881, Page 3

GETTING AHEAD OF AN INNKEEPER.

It used to be a well-known fact in olden stage days that too often the drivers and landlords had an ' understanding' with each other in regard to the time given by the driver to the passengers for lunch, as the proprietors always had their pay in advance. Many poor hungry travellers were given the chance to lunch for the small sum of 50 cents., but before they could partake of two mouthfuls were summoned to mount the stage and resume their tiresome journey with their appetites aggravated but not satisfied. The following anecdote of how a cute Yankee beat this penurious scheme was told by an old traveller, an eye-witness : —■ One hot day about noon the stage drew up at a tavern between Buffalo and Albany, and fifteen minutes were announced for refreshments. Among the passengers was one Jonathan Smith, in a homespun linen suit, who looked as though he could eat an ox, and intended to do so. His fellowtravollers, well knowing the custom, made a rush for the table. Meanwhile Jonathan strolled leisurely around the room, looking at the bill-of-fare on the wall, picking his teeth with a home-made toothpick, in anticipation of the good things he was about to eat, when up spoke a timid little man : ' I say, friend, if you want anything to eat you had better hurry up as the stage starts in about a minute.' 'Wall,'drawled Jonathan, with his eye on the bill-of-fare which announced the baked goose he intended to eat, ' Wall, I don no as I am goin' to hurry much in picking out this 'eie grub.' ' But you'll be left, my friend.' 'Not as I knows on !' rejoined Jonathan sitting down to his goose just as the other passengers got into tho stage, and with a crack of the driver's whip were off. The departure of tho stage seemed to alarm Jonathan about as much as tho fact that a fly was trying to get into his butter. He helped himself bountifully, and seemed inclined to be talkative. * Make your own butter, landlord ?' Tbe landlord, with an eye to what Johnathan's bill would be until stage time next day, was very affable. ' Lay your own eggs ?' Hens doin' mighty well up tv my place in Vermont— get tv dozen a day. Say, landlord, will you be kind enough to get me a bowl of bread and milk tv sup off on ?' The landlord assented, and departed tc get the Yankee luxury. While he was gone Jonathan quiety took the dozen silver spoons out of the holder, and put them into tho coffee-pot. When the landlord returned with the bread and milk Jonathan asked him for i spoon to eat it with. The landlord remarked that there wer spoons on the table,

'Dv you see any ?' said Jonathan, glancing at the empty spoon-holder. 'Great heavens !' cried the landlord, ' I put a dozen silver spoons on that table myself.' '' Waal, dv you spose that them 'ere fellers in the stage are going to pay fifty cents for nothing but a piece of pie or so ? ' said Jonathan with a twinkle in his eye. 'Do you know who took my spoons ? ' Could you point him out from the other passengers ? ' demanded the enraged landlord. ' You bet,' and Jonathan took a chew of tobacco. On his horse jumped the landlord and after the stage ori a dead run. He overtook it some two miles distant, whispered to the driver of the robbery, and they quietly turned the stage round, and were again at the tavern in the course of a half-hour. The landlord threw open the door of the coach, and said to Jonathan, 'Now, point out the man who has my spoons.' Jonathan deliberately drew himself up on ton of the stage, looked the landlord in the eye, and said, 'If you want your spoons, landlord, you'll find them in the coffee-pot. Drive on, I've had a plenty, thankee.'