It TVas Jacks More That Time.

Otago Witness, Issue 2425, 5 September 1900, Page 71

It Was Jacks More That Time.

They. were going to rrore the _iext clay. The man had a foxy expression on his countenance when he entered the house the evening before. "I wonder, if it's got here yet? he breathed, through his teeth. Yes, it had got there. It was a telegram from a man he had business r dealings with in Liverpool, demanding his immediate presence. "Isn't this beastly annoying?" exclaimed the man to his wife, winking at himself in the mirroi when her back was turned. "I call this exasperating — just when we're about to move. But there's no getting out of it, I'm afraid. Got to go down to Liverpool the first thing in the morning to attend to that matter. -It's a confounded shame, little woman, that's what I call it, that you'll have to do the moving, but I don't see any other way." t ■ '. Then he again grinned from' ear to ear at himself, in the mirror, her back being again turned for a moment. "Oh, well, that'll be all right, Jack," said his wife. "Of course you have to attend to your business. , I should like to have had you here to. help me — but I'll try to get along." She went to see him off the next morning. On the way back to their home she had several sudden, ample thinks. She smiled in a hard sort of way, and then she went and countermanded the orier for the pantechnicon, and went home and spent the day in reading a tender, touching novel. . He got back) to town two days later, and ■went to the house where he expected to find his goods installed, along with his wife. The place was vacant. Then he went to the old house, where he found his wife enjoying a comfortable meal. "How's this?" he asked, as soon as he got in. "Why haven't you moved?" "Oh, it's your move, Jack," said she, sweetly, and when they really did move, a day or two later, he was on hand to take up the white man's burden and the carpets.