He Made a Mistake.

Otago Witness, 5 December 1900, Page 69

He Made a Mistake.

NOW HE WISHES HE HAD NOT ACTED ON THE IMPULSE OF THE lICMENT. A well-known young man in the employ of an F.-st. stock brokerage firm went down to one of the Jersey beaches for an over-Sunday -whirl on Friday a week ago. From Saturday, at about 11 o'clock, until the train, reached Washington on the return trip on Monday this young man had to do most of the buying for a large number of. his Washington friends, who were along with him on the excursion, and he is still walking around ■ ■with a look of pain on his face. And this is the way it all came about: — He went in bathing with the gang of Washingtonians on Saturday morning. All hands were cavorting around and having a huge time of it, when the young man who afterwards had to do so much buying of moist things suddenly pulled up and gazed steadily at -the back of a nice-looking young woman, in a chic bathing suit, who was hanging on to one of the ropes, with her face turned out to sea.

" B'jee," exclaimed the young man to his friends, " I didn't know my brother was down here with his wife. That's the one, with the ewaggerino silkerino togs on and the blue silk polka-dot handkerchief around her head —my sister-in-law. I thought she and Bill ■were visiting in New York. Watch me go up behind her and surprise her." The young man threaded his way cautiously through the big crowd of bathers, and approached the young woman, who was still cluthching the rope and looking out to sea •with a fascinated sort of expression. "When lie was within about 2ft of her, he suddenly reached forth and snatched the blue silk polka-dotted handkerchief from the young woman's hair. Then, before she had time to turn around, he grabbed her by the shoulders and soused her three times, head, shoulders, and all, in the blithesome, wine-dark Bea. The young woman clutched him frantically, but lie only laughed gaily, shouting, "I just know you're asking to be ducked, Sis, ain't you?" and once more he thrust her beneath the sobful waters

She wriggled about in his clutch and came Gb With, her face in full view the last time

he ducked her. When the young man got his first view of the young woman's enraged countenance, he let go of her as if she were 17 red-hot pennies right off the stove lid, and his jaw fell on his chest, and he gasped. " YYoyou — you — mis — miserable, insul — -suiting scoundrel," spluttered the ducked woman. "If my hus — husband ever lay hands vp — upon you, he will break -every bone in your bo — body ! "

The young man from the street dubbed F. was simply unable to get a, word out. The young woman only resembled his &ister-in-law as to the back of her head, and the conseiotisness that he h*ad been real hasty and previous, so to speak," together with the gurgling "and snorting of his Washington friends in the water, who had been watching the performance, tied his vocal chords in knots,

" I am go — going right out of the water this instant," snapped the young woman, who had been soused to a proper finish by a youth with whom she had had no previous acquaintance whatsoever, "and if_ my hus — husband doesn't thrash j r ou within an in — inch of your life, th — then I don't know him, that's all," and she marched straight for the beach, tossing back her fallen hair ominously. Wild visions of a couple of night in a Jersey coast resort dungeon floated through the F.-st man's mind, together with mental pictures of an infuriated husband about nine and a-quarter feet in height. So he just measured the distance between the water's verge and the bathing pavilion, and sprinted for it. He probably did the distance at the rate of nine and four-fifths seconds to the hundred yards. It took him about two hours to get his clothes on. He wasn't in any hurry to leave the bathroom.

When he did leave, he crawled into one of the crazy carryalls that were anchored by the board walk, and ivas driven to hi? hotel, where he remained pretty constantly until it was time to take the return train, purchasing things in tall tumblers for his Wasliinglon friends who turned up at the hotel with bread grins and consolatory phrases after they'd finished out their swim. Every time one of those friends visited the boardwalk he would return and tell the young man that he'd eeen the ducked-young woman in the company of a chap who looked for all the world likp Jim Jeffries, and then the young man would visibly shrink and ask all 'hands among the Washingtoniaus what they'd have again.

Any sudden, sharp noipe startles the young man as he -walks around the Washington street now, and he has sot into the habit of pulling up -short every 10ft or po in his progress and looking apprehensively over his shoulder. — Washington Post.