TRUTHFUL JAMES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 127, 30 May 1908, Page 6

TRUTHFUL JAMES.

"James," said Mr Smith, as he gazed into his son's eyes with a soulsearching look, " have you eaten .»ny of those peaches I put in the cupboard?" V . , "Father," replied James, "I cannot tell a lie. I have not touched one." Mr Smith eyed him wrathfully, and plunging his hand into the bottonij of his coat, drew forth five incriminating stones, each of which _had once been enshrined in the luscious flesh of a peach, but which were now standing in all their .horrid nakedness.

"Then how is it," said the parent, ''that I found these peach stones in your bedroom, and there is only one peach left in the cupboard?" "Father,'-answered James, as he silently but swiftly made towards the door, placing a heavy chair in such* a position that Mr Smith would fall over it—"father, I still cannot tell a lie,; that is the one I never touched."