WEEK-END CHAT

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 May 1925, Page 8

WEEK-END CHAT

GRAIN AND CHAFF.

(By

“Mackay”).

“Try being cheerful when your troubles are heaviest, and see how much lighter they become.” “Speaking the truth does not mean telling all one knows. There are truths that should be buried deep under silence and charity.” — ll — I “If you have no good reason for doing a thing, don’t do it.” Overheard at a recent Cobden dance : He: You look charming to-night. She : Stop your spoofing. . He: You really do. I hardly recog', nised you at first. A Coaster who recently visited Auckland, declares that, not knowing quite where it was situated, he said to a small boy : “Am I all right for the Zoo?” “You look all right to me mister, but I ain’t runnin’ it,” was the noncommittal answer. Said the O’Brien-ite : “When I read about some of these wonderful inventions in electricity it makes me think a little,” Replied the Doogan-ite : “Yes, isn’t it remarkable what electricity can do?” “On the wharf, this morning, I saw an example of what I call regular hard lines,” said a Mawhera Quay retailer the next-door shop-keeper. “Indeed, old man. Well, what was it?” “Railway lines.” t A budding young horseman from Ross, Was thrown from his South Westland horse; His (language arid grief ♦ Were beyond all belief, As he landed “four square” in the gorse; Dr Jim was stepped the other day and asked: “I say, doctor, did you ever doctor another doctor ” “Oh, yes.” > “Well, does a doctor doctor a doctor the way the doctored doctor wants to be doctored, or does the doctor doing the doctoring doctor the other doctor in his own way?” At one Coast school, recently, during a lesson on scientific agriculture, the teacher asked : “What can you tell me about nitrates?” “Well—er—they are a lot cheaper than day rates,” was the “shot” by one pupil.

He had \just been accepted, and was gazing with dreamy eyes into the distance.

“Ah, my darling,” he murmured, “what matter it that sorrow and trouble must of necessity be lurking in the unknown future. While 1 am with you, J think of naught but the present.’’ “So do I, dearest,” she replied, “but you’ll take mo with you when you buy it, won’t you? Men have such queer taste in rings.” Greymouth bridge circles will be interested in' the tale told l by (he late Lord Leverhulme of a new-rich profiteer who was playing bridge in a charity tournament. His partner, a bishop’s wife, left the call to him, and he made it diamonds. But when he laid his hand down it contained only two diamonds, both low cards. “Why in the, world,” said the bishop’s wife, “did you go diamonds on such a hand as that?’’ “I thought I seen you twiddle your diamond ring, ma’am,” explained the profiteer. Which reminds us of an incident at a recent evening. One of the guests was not a good card player, and it was only after much pressure that he took- a hand. After a particularly glaring error his partner turned upon him m real anger. “Why didn’t you follow my lead?” he asked. “If I followed anybody’s lead, sir,” ' exclaimed the device, hotly, “it certainly wouldn’t be yours.” His partner subsided. In" the next hand, however, he threw down his cards in desperation. “Took here,” he cried. “Didn’t you see me call for a spade or club? Have you no black suit ” “Yes, 1 have,” retorted the novice, “but I’m keeping it for your funeral.” ' And it camp to pass that an exGreyinouth girl, now married and living at Christchurch, advertised for a gardener, and was interviewing two applicants for the position on the front lawn when, to hgr surprise, she noticed her experienced neighbour making frantic signs to her from a window to accept the taller man of the two. > She complied with the suggestion, and, having told the new gardener his duties, she asked her neighbour what had caused her to choose ttie tall man. “Well, my dear,” returned the other, “when you are choosing a gardener always remember one thing. If his trouser# are patched on the knees you may be sure of a worker, but if they are patched at the seat don’t have anything to do with him.”