The Threepenny-bit.

Otago Witness, Issue 2666, 19 April 1905, Page 81

The T hreepenny-bit.

Presently mother and eon got out, and there entered a lady in a coat of sables, with two charming little girls, in bright rc<s jackets and caps, from beneath which fell showers of golden hair, illuminating *ho "drab interior as a stained-gla-^ window docs an ancient church. "Ah!"' I thought to mjsoif. "the mother of such beautiful chiluica must be" good." Alas', how foolish it is to judge of character by externals! —most unwise! The lady, who had a charming presencepur a threepenny-bit into the rough hand of the conductor. He looked at it and said, "There's a hole in it," and shook his head. "I cau't take it, ladj'.'' *" You can't fake it! " she exclaimed, the biocd suffusing her cheeks. She had c-> idonily a high temper. " No, lady." He spoke in tones polita but firm. She we'it on: '"I believe you could 1 take it if you liked." The conductor shock his head. "You think so, d-^ yoti? [No "lady" this time] I tell you they won't take it from me, and I'm not going to take it from you."' Then, sotto voce,- " I suppose you would not mind that, so as you palmed it off! " So this lady, who had a keen eye to business, reluctantly produced three copper pence from out of her jjurse, a. gold chain one, and I have no doubt she would have defended her conduct with many excellent reasons. She then slipped the threepenny-bit with a hole in it into a little recess apart from the other coins, and, looking round, said to the company, ''Well, somebody will have tG take it,"and smiled, showing a ?ei of pearly teeth. How charming sh© was! I had really half a mind to take it myself, she was such a, siren. I suppose conductors are proof against them. —The Apologue. — Said a sly, gentleman, '"I should give it away, mm, if I were you." The lady paid no heed to him —perhaps because he was old and venerable: perhaps because she regarded his speech as a liberty; perhaps because she v.as thinking •ai-jgrily of the threepenny bit. Not lo h<? put down, and being 1 garrulous, as old age is. he addressed the comp:.ny: "A fri2ad of mine once had a halfcrown with a hole in it. Ha tried to pass it many a time, but i hough he was a deep scbemer he was unable to get rid cf it. One day he gave it to a poor cab-runner who carried hfs portmanteau from one of the stations "to bi's house clo=e by. The cabrunner thought he had made a mistake, so put it in his pooket and.ran. The next day my frie-nd took a ticket for the city at the same station, t,nd received change in silver for half a sov-ereign. Later on in, the day he took out the money from his pocket, and at once recognised his own half-crown ! The cab-runner had filled the hole up, and the stopping had come out. You should examine your change before leaving the desk,' said the- clerk at the booking office when my friend showed him the half-crown." "That's my motto,"' put ki the conductor. "Acd what happened to the half-crown, sir?" asked an inquisitive person, one of those who likes an end. "What happened to it?"' qwoth the old gentleman, with a benevolent smile. " I keep it on my watch-chain to remind me that he who diggeth a pit for others mayfall into it himself. I was that man." The

lady frowned, but the old gentleman only laughed, and got out. — Pall Mall Magazine.