Why I Didn't Work.

Otago Witness, Issue 2589, 28 October 1903, Page 72

Why I Didn't Work.

"When I was young," re-marked the seedy man, "I wac3 aji inventor. And one d-ay when I had the dise-ase badly, I invented! a machine which I called 'Mother, dear,' because it would call you early. It was a clockwork arrangement which was meant to stand by your budsidp, and at whatever! time 111 the morning it w-ai fixed for, ift would drag you out of bed and force you into your clothes. There were a lot o£ other things attached to it as well, such! as a machine which would b'.ack your boots, and an arrangement for making a cup o£ coffee and frying bacon, and so on. Well, I got it all completed at last, and i(< worked beautifully ; and then I got a millionaire to come and look at it, so thafl ho might find the capital to put it on the market." "Well," aid the listener, bieaklng in. upon; tho silence; "didn't it work?" "Yes," replied the inventor sadly; "rfi Worked very well. But that idiot ©f a millionaire insisted on trying it himself ;i and he laid down on the bed the wrong way for the machine, so that it dragged him) out the wrong way up, end the boot-brush-ing apparatus got to work on the top of his head, while the other end poured' hot coffee down, the kg of his trousers, and when hel finally got fpee he broke uj my humbl« little borne with the patent. That dis*

couraged me, and I haven't invented anything since. Ah-h !"