PROOF POSITIVE
Of the many anecdotes told by Sir Samuel Garth, a popular physician, frequently mentioned by Swift and Pope, his contemporaries, the following is not one of the worst: Writing a letter at a coffee-house, he found himself overlooked by a curious Irishman, who was impudently reading it. Garth took no notice until he had finished, when he added the following postscript: “I would write you more, but there’s a tall, impudent Irishman looking over my shoulder all the time.” “What do you mean, sir?” roared the Irishman, in a fury. “Do you think I looked over your letter?” “Sir,” replied the physician, ‘‘l never once opened my lips to you.” “Ay, but you have put it down, for all that.” “ ’Tis impossible, sir, that you should know that, for you have never once looked over my letter.”
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NEM19421024.2.87
Bibliographic details
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 24 October 1942, Page 5
Word Count
139PROOF POSITIVE Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 24 October 1942, Page 5
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