HE KNEW IT ALL.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1523, 19 March 1886, Page 3

HE KNEW IT ALL.

The youth had been patronising the young ladies by vouchsafing choice bits of superior wisdom. " Tou remember what CsDsar said when he was about to cross the Rubicon?" said the old gentleman. "Certainly," replied the youth, with a careless glance of pity at the young ladies, who, of course, could not be expected to know everything that a man knows. " And, of course, you are equally familiar with the life of Peter the Hermit ? " continued the old gentleman. " I should say that t was," replied the young man quickly, but not without a slightly troubled look in his face. " And Semiramide," the old gentleman went on, "you remember his famous saying ? " " Yes," gasped the youth, wishing that the old man might be struck with apoplexy as soon as convenient. "I am glad you remember it," said the old gentleman with animation, " for I've clean forgot* ten it. Now, if you'll be kind enough, and no doubt the ladies will be glad to hear it also." The youth by tins time wished that the old gentleman had died in infancy, and as for the ladies he couldnt help thinking how much better it would have been had they never been born. "By the way, pursued the old gentleman, seeing the youth hesitated, " who was Semiramide? He had something to do with the last Franco-Prussian war, hadn't he ? " Yob, oh, yes," replied the youth, catching at the bait with while something like a giggle was passed around among the young ladies as if it were a paper of caramel*. " And Peter the Hermit was instrumental in bringing about a peace at the close of that struggle ? " " Yes." Hie youth said this very faintly. " But Cnsar held out and* marched his shattered force into the Wallachain principality ?" " That's the way I remember it," replied the youth, with a desperation born of despair. Then the old gentleman looked at the young ladies, who were engaged in stuffing their mouths full of pocket handkerchief and then he looked at the youth and exclaimed: —"Ah, sir, how I envy your store of knowledge! What ft comfort you must be to your parents!" Then the youth got up and went into the cheerless night, and cursed the old gentleman behind his back. And the young ladies laughed in unison, but the noise of their laughter was overborne by the merry peals of the old gentleman —Exchange.