Spoiling the Fun.

Otago Witness, Issue 1522, 8 January 1881, Page 27

Spoiling the Fun.

Take, a very simple illustration, the case of the young man who had been offered a aaucer of delicately salted ice cream by two young ladies, who waited in convulsive glee for the first grimace and its attendant remarks. Not a gesture or word betrayed that he had noticed it at all. Still talking lightly of last night's German and to-mor-row's tennis, he finished the entire saucerful ; then, bowing slightly, left the room, Was ever ' fun ' more delicately spoiled ? Take again the case of a certain college professor, who has almost abolished practical joking on the faculty, not by punishing, but by foiling the intended fun of the students. Informed one night that the students were 'painting' the walls of the chapel, 'Very well,' he said, 'let them paint; but tell me when they are through.' Dressing hastily he went about town rousing every painter in the place, and as the last student went out of the chapel a dozen, artisans went in. Next morning, when there was an unusually large attendance at prayers, behold the calcimined walls as fair, as spotless, as irreproachable as ever. The dignity of the college had not been allowed to be insulted, yet never a student was ever questioned, blamed, marked, or expelled. In the same manner, when the tongue of the bell had been removed one night, another was in its place before dawn, and the astonished students were summoned to their devotion at the usual hour.

Again when the wheel of the organ disappeared and the organist had been secretly informed that his services would not be required the next day, one of the very delinquents was called upon to take his place, finding to his chagrin, that the keys responded dutifully to his touch. It is the ' silent organ ' that ' loudest chants on the master's requiem.' In this case it was certainly the organ's music that chanted loudest the humiliation of the guilty. No wonder- the students of that institution have about decided that what may be called hazing the professors does not ' pay.' Said the boys at Rugby : ' There's no fun in telling Arnold a lie, for he always believes us!'

In like manner, good old Jacob Bright found it politic, when the boys ran over his new grass, not to punish the offenders, but to gather them together and tell them, as the path across his field was not wide enough for them, that he would make it wider, if they would only tell him just how wide they would like it. — Christian Register.