Getting Ahead of an Innkeeper.

Otago Witness, Volume 15, Issue 1562, 15 October 1881, Page 28

Getting Ahead of an Innkeeper.

It need to be a well-known fact In olden stage days that too often the drivers and landlords had an 'understanding' with each other in regard to the time given by the driver to the paßßengers for lunch, as the proprietors always had their pay in advanoe. Many poor hungry travellers were given the chanoe to lunch for the small sum of 50 cents, but before they oould partake of two mouthfuls were summoned to mount the stage and reßume their tiresome journey with their appetites aggravated but not satisfied. The following anecdote of how a cute Yankee beat this penurious scheme was told by an old tr»veller, an eye-witness :—: — One hot day about noon the stage drew up at ft tavern between Buffalo and Albany, «nd fifteen mlnntrs were announced for refreshments. Among the paisengern was one Jonathan Smith, in a homespun llnon lull* who looked m tbongb fee. could eat mi

ox, and Intended to do so. His fellowtravellers, well knowing the custom, made a rash for the table. Meanwhile Jonathan strolled leisurely around the room, looking at the blll-of-fare on the wall, picking his teeth with a home-made toothpick, in anticipation of the good things he was about to eat, when up opoke a timid little man : ' I say, friend, if yoa want anything to eat you had better hurry up aa the stage starts in about a minute.' ' Wall,' drawled Jonathan, with his eye on the bill-of-fare which announced the baked goose he intended to eat, ' Wall, I don no as I am goin' to ■ hurry much in picking out this 'ere grub.' * But you'll be left, my friend.' ' Not as I knows on !' rejoined Jonathan, j sitting down to his goose jast as the other passengers got into the stage, and with a, crack of the driver's whip were off. The departure of the stage seemed to alarm Jonathan about as muoh as the fact that a fly wad trying to get" into his butter. He helped himself bountifully, and seemed inclined to be talkative.

' Make your own butter, landlord ?' The landlord, with an eye to what Jonathan's bill would be until stage time next day," was very affable. ♦ Lay your own eggs ?' Hens doln' mighty well Up tv my place in Vermont — get tv dozen a day. Say, landlord, will you be kind enongh to get me a bowl of bread and milk tv sup off on T The landlord assented, and departed to get the Yankee luxury. While he waß gone, Jonathan quietly took the dozbn silver spoons oat of the holder, and put them into the coffee-pot. When the landlord returned with the bread and milk Jonathan asked him for a spoon to eat it with. The landlord remarked that there were spoons on the table. 'Dv you ace any?' said Jonathan, glancing at the empty spoon-holder. •Great heavens!' cried the landlord, 'I put a dozen silver spoons on that table myself.' ' Waal, dv you spose that them 'ere fellers in the stage are going to pay fifty cents for nothing but a pieoe of pie or so?' said Jonathan with a twinkle in his eye. •Do you know who took my spoons?' Could you point him out from the otber passengers?' demanded the enraged landlord.

' Yoa bet,' and Jonathan .took a chew of tobaooo.

On his horse jumped the landlord and after the stage on a dead run. He overtook it some two miles distant, whispered to the driver of the robbery, and they quietly turned the stage round, and were again at the tavern in the coarse of a half-hour.

The landlord threw open the door of the coach, and said to Jonathan, 'Now, point ont the man who has my BpoonV

Jonathan deliberately drew himself up on top the stage, looked the landlord in the eye, and said, 'If you want your spoons, landlord, you'll find them in the coffee-pot. Drive on, I've had a' plenty,! thankee.'