Something Like One.

Otago Witness, Issue 2358, 4 May 1899, Page 61

Something Like One.

"We — cl— cr — h'm!'' remarked an old countryman, addressing collectively the gang of his cronies assembled fc> the inn parlour. " I had one experience while I was in town that I think might have been called an adventure without stretchin' the truth.

" I was crossin' the street, and lookin' back at sulhin' — I forgit what now — when there was a shock and a screech, and me and a heavy-set lady and a bicycle was all mixed up in a wild chaos of confusion, as they say in stories. For an excitin* minute, or mebby a minute and a-half, the air was full of me, steel wire, lady bicyclist, frightened ejaculations, and dust. I stood on the back of my neck for a spell, with my feet wavin' wildly in the air, and two of my front teeth jammed into the rheumatic tyre of the bicycle. Then I scrambled to my feet, pulled my fanga out of the rubber tyre, and ther was a swa-shin' sound like a sody-fountain goin' off, and the air squirted out of the lyre and spooled up against the roof of my mouth with a force that nearly blew the top of my head off. "Tell you, I was considerable aggravated. I drew myself up to my full height, raised the rim of my hat — which was all there was left of it — to the lady, and says, hoarsely :

" 'If I am to blame for this, ma'am, I beg your pardon. If you are to blame, don't mention it. G'da}' !' " And with that I trudged onward alonSP my weary way. as the feller called it. I don't know as you'd conpider that an adventure, but I reckon, if you had been mixed up in it like I was you couldn't have told it from one."