AN HOUR WITH A MADMAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5490, 21 June 1879, Page 7

AN HOUR WITH A MADMAN.

On one evening recently, as Mrs. Charles Roe, of tbe Denbigh Hotel, Fielding, was sitting in her private parlour, she was surprised by the entrance of a rather jauntylooking gentleman, who, taking np his position in front of the fire, commenced beating the "Devil's Tatoo"on the mantelpiece. After he hail successfully gone through about four bars of that delightful harmony, to the accompaniment of hisown humming, hewheeled suddenly round, and bid the landlady good evening. When she replied to the salutation, he continued, " 1 suppose you don't know me, Mrs. Roe ?" Mr.-. Roe acknowledged the correctness of the supposition, when the stranger replied, "Oh, my name is Luby, Ruby, Booby. I was here a few years ago, but I have been in the lunatic asylum since then, and only got free a few days ago." Although from the commencement of the strange acquaintance Mrs. Roe had had her suspicions of the fact, finding them realised by the man's own admission was not calculated to re-assure her, more especially as the visitor broke out into, "Whisky hot; whisky hot; I'd like a tot j like, a tot; and if not bought, it must be got. It must be got." This doggrel he kept repeating over and over in strange glee, accompanied" with pantomimic gestures, until his unwilling auditor was almost frightened out of her wits. He quitted the Denbigh in the same abrupt way in which he had entered, and next turned up at Brown's Hotel, were, having got possession of a gun, he bailed up a lodger who had retired to slumber, presenting it at his head, at the same time indulging in a fresh supply of jingling doggrel, to the effect: " I'm going to shoot, to shoot; to shoot, to sboot a brut?, a great big brute ; and that's a truth, a downright truth." After he had indulged in this playful little pastime for some time, to the very great relief of his captive ho placed the very dahgerous toy aside, and betook himself to the bar-parlour, where he joined in the general conversation.