Got on to His Game.

Otago Witness, Issue 1917, 13 November 1890, Page 42

Got on to His Game.

" There's a man I've a good mind to run in," said a patrolman to a couple of gentlemen on the street yesterday, pointing to a seedy -looking chap who was going about with his arm in a sling. " I find he is going about begging and showing his arm, which is scalded from the shoulder to the elbow to excite sympathy. He says it was tbe result of a boiler explosion in a mill at Bay City, but I have my doubts. I think he's a

beat." One of the gentlemen addressed was a physician, and naturally expressed doubt about any workman of good character who was scalded in the line of duty being compelled to beg, and said : " I'd like to look at his scald." The patrolman thereupon accosted the invalid and told him to show his wound. The physician examined the sore carefully, and said : " This is no scald ; this has been blistered. A scald of this size is always of unequal invasion, while here, I notice, the tisaue is equally invaded over the whole surface. Besides, there are punctures showing where the water has been let out. Now, you fellow, own up and tell us yom little game." " Well, pardner," said the beat, with a 'sickly grin, " you're the first one as ever got onto me, and I've worked this racket on morn a thousand. It's jest as you say — it's blistered. My two pards did this for me, and they're fixed the same way. We've lived like lords the last three months — all the beer w e could lush, an' more grub'n we knowed what to do with. But you've called us down, and I see it's no use to give you a bluff. I expected long before this that- some doctor would pipe me off and the police give me the run ; but it's come now, and I am at yer service, gentlemen."