Blind Man's Buff.

Otago Witness, Issue 2059, 10 August 1893, Page 50

Blind Man's Buff.

Dr X is engaged to an amiable young lady r whom be is permitted to visit three times a week. Her mother) a person with a strict sense of propriety,' disapproves of muoh familiarity,

especially kissing, between the parties. Unfortunately her domestic duties prevent ' her from exercising as close a supervision over the couple as she could wish, wherefore she has arranged to have a little niece with her on visiting days -to mount guard in the drawing room, feeling assured that the presence of the dear child will suffice to keep the young lovers I within the bounds of decorum. One day mamma had something of importance to communicate to her daughter, and, going straight into the room, she was horrified to see her seated on the young man's knees with her arms round his neck, while little EUy was groping about the furniture with her eyes blindfolded. " Doctor ! " she angrily exclaimed ; and Elly, apparently vexed at the interruption, said : "Oh, aunty, we are playing 'Blind Man's Buff ' again so nicely ! " Oscar Wilde's Witticisms. As the epigrams in the dialogue have played an important part in bringing success to Oacar Wilde's latest play, "A Woman of No Importance," readers may be interested in the following samples of his " wheezes ": — The Peerage is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done. My husband is a kiad of promissory note ; I am tired of meeting him. Men know life too early, and women too late. A bad man is a man who admires innocence. A bad woman is a woman of whom men never tire. American dry goods— American novels. Women have a better time than men — there are far more things forbidden them. Nothing survives being thought of. Life is a mauvais quart d'heure, made up of exquisite moments. Women are sphinxes without secrets. The worst of tyrannies is the tyranny of the weak over the Btrong. There are only two kinds of women — plain and coloured. Men marry because they are tired — women because they are curious. The happiness of a married man depends on the women he has not married. The man who can dominate a London dinner table can dominate the world. To get into society it is necessary to feed people, amuse people, or shock people. All the married men nowadays live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men. How can a woman be happy with a man who treats her as if she were a rational beiug ? If I have no temptations in tho course of a week it makes me quite nervous regarding the future. When I was young I had everything I wanted, now I nave everything that other people want. If I lived in the country I would become so unsophisticated that nobody would notice me. When Lady Belton eloped Lord Belton died either from joy or gout — I forget which. She says she is 18. Ibs disgraceful. A girl who will tell you her real age will tell you anything. I don't think England should be represented abroad by an unmarried man. It might lead to complications. Taking sides in politics leads to sincerity, which is the beginning of earnestness, and ends in making people bords. The heaven of some people is the English hunting man pursuing a fox — the unspeakable hunting the uneatable. The House of Lords is never in touch with the people, and therefore remains civilised. If I weren't in debt I should have nothing to think about. Nothing spoils a romance so much as asense of humour in the woman or a lack of it in the man. The Book of Life begins with a man and a woman in a garden and ends with Revelations. All men are married women's property; m fact tbat is the true meaning of married women's property. Ernest talks all the time, but he has no conversation. Duty is what one expects from others. The only difference between the sinner and the saint is that the saint has a past and the sinner a future. A well-tied necktie is the first step in life. How clever you are ! You never mean a single thing you say. j Parody on " To Be or Not To Be" To have it out or not— that is the question ; Whether 'tis better for the jaws to suffer The pangs and torments of an aching tooth, Or to take steel against a host of troubles, And, by extracting, end them? To pull, to tugNo more. And by a tug to say we end The toothache, and a thousand natural ills The jaw is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished ! To pull, to tugTo tug— perchance to break 1 Ay, there's the rub. For in that wrench what agonies may come, When we have dislodged the stubborn foe, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes an aching tooth of so long life ! For who would bear the whips and stings of pain, The old wife's nostrum, dentist s contumely, The pang* of hope defetred, kind sleep's delay, The insolence of pity, and the spurns The patient sickness of the healthy takes— "When he himself might his quietus make For two and sixpence ? Who would fardels bear, To groan and sweat btneath a_ load of pain ? But that the dread of something I'-dg'd within The linen-twisted forceps, from whose pangs No jaw at ease returns, puzzles the will, And makes it rather bear the ills it has Than fly to others that it knows not of. Thus dentists do make cowards of us all— And thus the native hue of resolution Id sickled o'er with the pale cast of fear ; And many a one, whose courage seeks the door, With this regard his footsteps turns away, Scared at the name of dentist I