WEDDING FEAST

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12355, 27 January 1926, Page 8

WEDDING FEAST

WELCOMED ADDITION CASE OF “SPECIAL” GOES ASTRAY. A delightful story of how a Christmas box went astray is much too good to be lost, even though it happened in Christmas week. It concerns a city caterer who in the course of the year, apart from business, had been rendering a service for which a certain wholesale firm felt an obligation for which it could not offer payment, so took advantage of the festive season to express in tangible form its appreciation in the form of a case containing a few bottles of “special” and three or four battles of choice wine. A day or two before Christmas the caterer in question happened to be in the warehouse, and laughingly remarked that he had received no Christmas box. It should be said that wholesale merchants decided last year to cease giving these looked-for expressions of good wishes, but there were other and personal considerations in this case. “Oh, hut you’ve had one sent you,” came the rejoinder. “Not on your life,” was the reply, and upon making seri-

ous inquiry it was ascertained that the case had been dispatched, labelled and addressed, to the caterer. Some investigation followed in the course of the next two or three days, but it was not until the New Year that the solution of the mystery was arrived at. The cate had been duly received by one of the: employees. It so happened that a wedding celebration was to take place the same evening, and another case containing the wherewithal to drink the health of the bride had already arrived. Then came the second case, the Christmas box, and the employee, thinking this was also for the wedding party, conveyed it upstairs to the banquet room. The first consignment had been consumed, and the proprietor of the room—in ignorance of the fact that this was his Christmas box, believing it to belong to the bridal party—opened up the second case, and seTved out what was required. When the celebration was over there were a few bottles of “special” and wine left over, so he remarked to the parents of the bride, “Oh, you had better take that home.” They also were unaware of what had happened, thanked the proprietor for' what appeared to be an act of generosity on his part, and took the very acceptable gift away. It was a week afterwards when the employee, recalled what had happened, and when he described the case it turned out tq be the missing Christmas box, which the owner had given away without tasting a drop. And that “special” was real “special” too.