SPOOPENDYKE'S SORE FOOT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3841, 7 November 1883, Page 4

SPOOPENDYKE'S SORE FOOT.

'' My dear,'' whimpered Sir Spoopcndykc, hobbling into his wife's room, unci throwing himself into a chair with a desolate expression of despair on his "My dear, there is something the matter with my foot, and I can't make ont what the trouble is." "I know !" exclaimed Mrs Spoopcndyko, hovering over him with affectionate interest and solicitude ; " I think it is rheumatism," "No, it ain't rheumatism,, cither!" growled Mr Spoopendyke. " It is something worse than rheumatism, and if it goes to my heart it may kill mo !" " May be it's a stone bruise," suggested Mrs Spoopendyke, not realising that a great deal of the sentiment, and most of the danger, are taken out of a malady, when it is definitely understood what a malady is. '' All you want is some linament, and yon j will bo all right to-morrow." " That's all you know about it," grunted Mr Spoopendyico, who was not to bo put ofF with so small a disaster as a stone bruise. " I tell you that I have got some trouble with my foot that threatens my life, and you stand around there like a fork in a bottle, and talk about it as though I hadn't got one leg into my coffin as far as the hip. Hero I am kicking at death's door with a game foot, and all the interest you have in tbo matter is to shoot off a vast amount of intelligence about stone bruises. I tell ye, it's something that ain't to be trifled with. Now, what're you going to do about?" " Aro you sure it isn't a corn?" hazarded Mra Spoopcndyko, timidly. "Sometimes corns hurt worse than anything else ; but I nover hoard of people dying of them." "No, it isn't acorn !" howled Mr Spoopendyke, nursing his foot, and glaring at his wife with a mingled expression of rage and pain. "What d'ye think this foot is, anyway ; an agricultural district P When did you ovoi , hear of a corn that reached from the heel to tho kneo ? Which of your friends ever had a corn that hurt clear to

the ear f , '' and Mr Spoopendyke touched his foot carefully to the lloor, and eyed his wife narrowly to see if she noticed the expression of agony on his face.

"If it acts that way it must be a bunion!" exclaimed Mrs Spoopondyko triumphantly. " All you have got to do is take your boot of! and put your slippers on." " That's 'it," yelled Mr Spoopendykc, hauling off his shoe and firing it across tho room. "When a man is dying of inflammatory rheumatism, it's only a bunion ! You've got it! A pain that starts at the toe, runs to the back of tho neck, and ties in a hard knot over the spine is a bunion ! Show me the bunion !" he continued, sticking his leg out straight and pointing his finger at the offending foot. "Take this digit in your lily white hand, and place it tenderly on the dod gasted bunion before I die and forget what killed mo ! Pick it out of the surrounding anatomy!" he yelled, wriggling his foot, and bouncing up and down in his chair in a delirium of rage. " Pluck the bunion from its mountain fastnesoss on the hoof of Spoopendyke, and hold it up to the gaze of the same !" "Does it hurt—r" commenced Mrs Spoopendyke, soothingly. "Hurt!" roared Mr (Spoopendyke, springing from his chair and dancing around the room like a ilea. "Of course it don't. It tickles .' Hurt! It's a picnic ! Say, my dear," and his voice was low and tendor, "say, my dear, instead of going in the country this summer, we'll lay in a stock of bunions, and wear 'em around for our health and recreation ! Hurt!" he shrieked, breaking out in a new spot. "Hurt! It feels like a band of music ! That's what it is, a bunion! It took you to hit it! When I get time to fit you up with a full beard and a bottle of whisky I'm going to start a dispensary with you ! If you'd only improvo your mind until you reached the standard of intelligence of a moderate donkey, you'd only need a stolen corpse and a bad smell to bo a first-class medical college !" "Say, dear," observed Mrs Spoopendyke, who had been carefully exploring her husband's boot; " say, dear, I think 1 have found out what tho trouble is. It isn't a bunion after all. Here's a peg sticking out here about a epiarter of an inch. If you will have that taken out 1 don't believe you will suil'er any more." Mr Spoopendyke jammed his hat over his eyes, shoved his feet into his slippers, grabbed the obnoxious boot, and started for tJio door with a withering look at his wife as he went out.

"I don't care," murmured Mr.s Spoopendyke, as the front dour slammed vindictively ;" 1 don't '.-are. If hehas it taken out, lie hjis to admit that I was right, and if lie doesn't it will hurthim till he dies. I don't know which will be the worse for him, but he will have to do ono or the other." And with this crowning triumph still in her mind, Mrs Spoopendykc began to scare the flies out of the room with a sheet, wondering why a ily who has been half smashed against one window frame will insist on coming in at the other window to bo smashed over again.