"FANCY MEETING YOU!"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 86, 10 April 1924, Page 9

"FANCY MEETING YOU!"

One man who does not need to be' told that "the world is very small- after all"' is (according to the "Daily Chronicle") the..London- Commissionaire. For he and his fellow-members of the Corps of Commissionaires, brought into contact with vast and ever-changing crowds, become accustomed' to sudden recognitions and surprise meetings- with friends of long ago.' A commissionaire was on duty outside a hosier's shop when an elderly man entered the shop, made some purchases, and caleld for a taxi-cab. His face haunted the, commissionaire, who made a note of the name of the hotel to which the cab;was to.be driven. When off duty, he went to the hotel and waited in the hall until the customer of. the. afternoon appeared.; "Don't % know you, sir?" he asked. '_, ■ A glimmer o£ recognition came into the other's eyes.' ''Is your name Alfred?" he asked.' "It is, sir, Alfred' .The elderly man \ga,ve an ejaculation nf. surprise: -"I haven't .seen you since' ..you were a boy in knickerbockers," he said, ; "before I. went, to New Zealand twenty years ago. I am your uncle— used to play cricket with you at Clapliam.Common." ■' •• . '.. ■ ", "I 'was Certain I knew you, sir." ; ".Undo1 please, not sir," was the rejoinder: And before "he returned, to New Zealand, "uncle set his nephew up in a :lucrative .business! •