Microbes Strike Back.

Otago Witness, Issue 2403, 22 March 1900, Page 64

Microbes Strike Back.

A DETEIIIIIXSD MAN WHO WOULD HAVE HIS

O\\X WAi'

There was nothing in Mr Bowfer's> demeanour during dinner- to lead Mrs Bow&er to suspect that lie had any particular scheme on hand for the evening, but scarcely had they got sealed in the lamily room when he cleared nii chroal and gia\cly observed: "Mrs Boi\-er, how many time*, do you suppo. c c iie hove faced death within the last six month.-'.'" "Why, what do you mean?" she exclaimed in alursn.

"1 mean that we have been preserved about torty times over, and that miracles hnve been wrought m our favour. We are alhe when w c ought to have been dead. Every day and hour lor the last half-year ive have blood face to face witli the grim monster." " F—lF — 1 can't believe it ." she gasped.

"Perhaps not — not even when your husband says it ; but it is the truth, nevertheless. Wo have Lesn in danger of typhoid fever, spinal weiiingiti-s, consumption, pnraly;i?\ and a dozen other fatal diseases, and all through our own cfu'ela.ssnos. 1 can hardly conceit c how we hove escaped." "uttt what io il— why don't you tell me?"

"When was our cellar whitewashed last?" he asked in a voice hardly above a whimper.

"Why, about a year ago, I gues>>." "Our cellar v, as whitewashed for sanitary rcasonf. The idea was to kill germs and microbes. After six months whitewash loses its strength, and germs and microbes will irisk over it, and actually feed upon it. For six months, then, we haie had no protection from the shafts ot the fell destroyer. The malignant germs and microbes " "I'll get a coloured man to-morrow,'' she interrupted, "though I don't think there is any danger. There are thousands of cellars which aie never whitewashed."

"Tncre will be no need of the services of a coloured man, Mrs Bowser. I don't piopose to pay a man lOdol to come here and .skim over the walla in an hour."'

"But you — you don't mean that you will do it yourself?"

"That's exactly what Ido mer.n. I have a pail of whitewash and a brush at- the back door. It*\vill not only be healthful exercise, but inhaling the smell will do me £ O od. i don't propose to -leave a thousand microbps behind in some corner."

"Mr Bowser, please leave this job to some one else," she pleaded in her tender est tones. "If you go to daubing around with whitewash you'll get in trouble and lay it all to me. I'll hire a man le-morrow and ccc that it is well done."

"iiow'll I lay it to you?" sharply demanded Mr Bow Bar.

"I — I don't know, but you will." ''That's all bosh ! 3 never lay anything to you. 1 shall get into a suit oi" old clothes and proceed to whitewash. Nothing will happen, except that our lives will be rendered niors safe for the next six month::.' '

Mrs Bowser groaned and turned away, Mr Bowser would have begun the job e^cn with both legs broken, and *-he knew that argument would be thrown away. Tn a quarter of an hour he wrs at work, and ehe not down the camphor bottle, a box of ointment, and a strip of adhesive planar, and made ready for what might happen. Mr jJowrer icK pinled as he sniffed at the whitewash. lie thought he detected traces ot a, herd of microbes on the walls, and there v,as a grim suti-faclion in his soul at the thoi.ght of mipin^ them out of existence. tii-j heart h^ing in his worlc he put on the dope with \igiv&r.3 hand, and was just applj'hig hi* third brudiful vhen there «ai a sputter and a spatter and he dropped his bru'-h with a whoop. ILa had got a dose of the mixture in his right eye. With, thai optic scj'iinted up ur.til it ivked the end oi his nose, and tho other blinking Jiko a bHnd hor.-;e, he groped his way into the liumdry and applied cold water. lie hoped to get through with it without a call from Mrs Bowser, but the smart was etill lifting his heelts off the floor when she came down and observed :

"Did you call me, Mr Bowser?"

"No. I didn't call you, and you know J didn't !" he shouted in reply. "It's mighty funny thai you have to poke your nose everywhere ! When I want you I'll let you know."

Bui, didn't you whoop?"

"if 1 did, that was my own bushies'. I think I can whoop in my own cellar if I take a notion to. A microbe flew into my eye, and I'm getting it out."

She left him, and after a long ten minutes he got enough of the lime out of his eye to enable him to open it again. His bald crown and lace had been thickly spattered, but he wps not discouraged. He thought, it would be a better plan to begin overhead and work gently until he had got the hang of the thing. He carried two old chairs out of the laundry, and placed them in position, and standing on one and placing the pail on the other he went to work again. Confidence crane to his heart as five minutes slipped away and no twiedy occurred. He had a smooth brick wall to work at, and as he raw it begin to whiten under his brush he felt something of the pride of a born artist. In five minutes more he might have made himself believe that he was touching up a landscape in the Adirondacks had he not made a long reach with his brush to overtake a bug which was heading ior safety The rie'eety chair on which he was standing made that an excuse for wobbling about and breaking down, and when Mr Bowser fell it was, of course, eminently proper to lalso the other chair with him. It was more than a whoop this lime. It mi a yell which lifted Mrs Bowser out of her chair and made tho cook knock the nose off a pitcher, and the crash which followed made the sa&hea rattle. When Mrs Bowter got down cellar she found a pail of whitewash, two broken chairs, and a whitewash brush and Mr Bowser all mixed up on the cement floor, but Mr Bowser was not dead. The contents of the pail had Eioakod him from head to foot, and having struck the back of his head on tho hard floor he was dazed and flighty. With the assistance of the cook he was pulled to the wall and propped up. and a few sniffs of the camphor brought him out of the fog. Then Mrs Bowroi 1 tenderly inquired :

"i-low did it happen, dear? Did the microbes sudden!}'' attack you?" A long minute went by before Mr Bowser could get out a word. Then he slowly replied : "Woman, 3 understand ! You sneaked down here and kicked the chair from under mp. bul I am stil l alive !" "Don't talk nonsense ! Arc you hurt?" "You may go, woman ! Go and plot and plan another attempt at murder!"

"But let me

"And to-morrow we will end this*. Fifteen attempts to murdei me in one year, and now the end has come!"

"Mr Bowser, I '

But he frestured with his right hand and with his left, and kicked out with, his less.

and Mrs Bowser and the cook withdrew and left him alone with the germs and microbes and fell diseases. — C. B. Lewis, in the New York Sup.