A MUTUAL SURPRISE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1582, 25 March 1887, Page 3

A MUTUAL SURPRISE.

A grocery firm have taken the agency for a hammock. One of the articles they have hung up at the front, in the shade of their porch. They bung it there as an advertisement, but numerous people have got into it to see how it worked. It hung so low that they could easily sit in it, and the motion was undoubtedly agreeable and comforting. But the grocers didn't fancy this nerformance, because the hammock-sitters were not ham-mock-buyers. So they removed the loop at one end from the hook, and fastened it by a piece of twine instead. Shortly after, a man came in for two quarts of treacle. It was put up in his pail, and a paper tied over the top, as he had forgotten to bring a cover. When he passed out he saw the hammock. His curiosity was aroused at once. The growers were busy inside, so he thought he would investigate on his own account. He saw at a glance that it was something to get into. He knew it was nothing to wear, and was equally sure it could not be arranged for cooking. He sat down in it. He swung backwards, and lifted his feet up. Then the twine fastening gave way. It was a terrible affair, He had the pail of treacle sitting on his lap, and ttare was a dog sitting under the hammock. Neither the dog nor the treacle expected anything, any more than the man himself did. It was a terrible suprise to all of them. The man and the dog lost their presence of mind, and even the pail lost its head. The " golden syrup " went into his lap, ran down his legs, and swashed up under his vest, and insinuated itself some way in between himself and his clothes. And when he went down, he hit the dog with his heel on the back, and the dig was so wild with terror and amazement that it sent up a headsplitting yell, and fled madly down the street, having first taken the precaution to bite him in the leg, and to tip' over a tier of wooden waterpails. When the pails went down a lot of hoes were carried over with them, and that started a box of garden seeds, mounted on a box, and they in turn brought away a pile of psck measures, whose summit was crowned with a pyramid of canned potatoes. It was a dreadful shock to the man, and nearly paralysed him with its magnitude, But when one artiile following another came avalanching atop of him, he thought the Evil One himslf had burst loose, and he just screamed as loud as he could. Tae treacle was all over him, and the garden seeds had adhered to the treacle, and he looked more like a huge gingerbread stuck full of caraway seeds than anything else. In this awful condition he waddled home.