Good Reason for Sadness.

Otago Witness, Issue 2862, 20 January 1909, Page 94

Good Reason for Sadness.

"You look a trifle doleful to-night," said onq of a group of gentlemen to another, while all -were sitting one Saturday evening before the fire in on© of the clubs. '"Well," eaid th© gentleman addressed, "I have as good a Tight to look doleful to-night as any man I know of." "What's up?" asked 1 the other members of the group in a chorus. ''It was this way. You know lam an ardent bicyclist, and I have a boy who has the- earn© passion. This evening, just after dark, as I was coining down to the club, walking along, thinking of nothing in particular, I was hit in tie back by what eeemed to be a locomotive, and knocked sprawling into the gutter. It was muddy there, and when I had collected my scattered eenee I was all covered with dirt, and aleo very mad. I looked around to see what hit me, and found a young 1 man and a safety bicycle on the pavement all tangled up. I was mad, as I said before, and without stopping to think what I did I took that young man by the coat collar and kicked him off the pavement. I Then I jumped on the bicycle, smashed I all the spokes out of the wheels, and gener- ! ally disfigured it." I Here th-e, gentleman etopped 1 , and one of his audience said : "Well, why should that make you feel as you do? You did just the right thing." "I suppose I hadn't ought to feel ©o," eaid the speaker ; "but, "you see, it was my boy and my bicycle !"