LIGHT LITERATURE. HE GOT IT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 106, 20 April 1881, Page 4

LIGHT LITERATURE. HE GOT IT.

This isn't a cold world. This isn't a world of disappointments. The man who says so wants revenge on a poor-house for refusing to take his old father off his hands. Thomas Andrews came to town the other day to buy a grindstone. Times had been pretty dull with him, and he meant to sharpen them up. Grind ! grind ! grind ! Till the pickaxe carries an edge; And the crowbar cold is cut in two By falling against the wedge. After looking at various grindstones of various sizes, and adjourning to a saloon after each look, Thomas suddenly found more grindstones dancing before his eyes than he could take care of. Some had wings, and some had legs, and some went whirling round, and some stood still. A drunken man always has a main idea — unless too drunk to have any at all. Andrews' idea was that he came to town to get a fat butcher's autograph. Armed with a piece of brown wrapping paper and a horseshoe nail for a pencil, he entered the shop of the corpulent butcher and said: " Peeze gimme your ozzograph, thaz a good fel'r." j " I'll sign no contracts with any man," replied the butcher as he turned to his mutton. Andrews persisted in his efforts to obtain the signature, and at last he got it — on the nose. He was out on the street hunting for a fence rail or something with which he could knock the butcher's shop into ruins at one blow, when the officer tackled him and led him down. " Now, then," began the court, in a brisk tone, as the prisoner was walked out, " do you want an autograph or a grindstone ?" The man scratched his ear, looked deeply troubled in mind, and then replied that he guessed he'd take a cornsheller in preference to either. " You got hit on the nose, did you ?" "Well," slowly replied Andrews, as he laid his finger on that organ, " noses don't swell up as big as a teacup unless they are hit, do they ?" " See here, sir," continued the court, in a sharp voice, "you go and get that corn-sheller, and then paddle for home ; and after this, when you come into the city, let liquor alone, and attend to your business. " Will you go?" "I rather think I'd be a fool to stay," drawled the prisoner, as he made for sunshine.