EDITOR'S WALLET.

Otago Witness, Issue 2915, 26 January 1910, Page 87

EDITOR'S WALLET.

A Serious Blimder. A worthy son of the Emerald Isle went home the other night after he had done his day's work, and' began making himself generally useful in washing and cooking. Having bought ?,- pound of soap and a pound of very fat baoon he got the fryingpan, and cut up as much as he thought he could eat: The landlady, smelling something horrible burning,, rushed up the stains and asked what he was doing. "I'm cooking some bacon," he replied. 'OVfoy, man, that's soap!" she explained. 'Then, bedad!" said the Irishman, "I must have washed my shirt wid the bacon." Store Evidence. "The recent press reports touching the use of whisky by juries in Tennestse," says a New York lawyer, "reminds me of an amusing incident in connection with a trial I once witnessed in Arkansas. "The defendant had been accused of selling adulterated liquor, and some whisky was offered in evidence. This was given the jury as evidence to assist in its deliberations. "When they finally filed into .court his Honor asked: "Well, gentlemen, have you arrived at a decision?" " 'No, your Honor,' responded the foreman, 'and before we do we should like to have more evidence.' " The Lady Spanker. Dorothy is five years old, and longs supremely to join the gay democracy trooping by every morning to the public school cxt the next block. Incidentally she keeps the family informed of school affairs after they havaf ben refashioned in her infant mind. The other day sho hurried her mother to the window to observe a very elegant and severe-lookinig ladv i~;ssinff by. "That's itJirt very headest lady at the school.," explained the would-be schola? importantly. "They earud' you to her wihen. you are naughty, an' sho opens the window an' sticks you 'alf out, an' then sho shuts it down on you v.n 'spanlks what 'angs inside!" Taiiiina: a Yokel. "What I want to know is," said the proprietor of the Village Bell to the great lion-tamer, who was in the bar, "how you have *he nerve to face ih® animals in the cage?" "Oh! that's easy enough. I just show 'em I'm not afraid of 'em, and I look at '«m steadily eye to eye." he fixed such, a strong g?ze on, the landlord that he quickly disappeared, lest he should be tamed, too. "See that stolid, silly-k!okin,g yokel over there?" the fixing a keen .«>.;! piercing eye on a plough-boy at the end of the" room. '"Yes," was the hushed rejoinder of the •bysfeuidera, "wbrt are you going to do to him?" "I'm going to fix him with my eye and make him come over to me." So saying ho glared fi>eroa]y at his "subject." Presently the ploughboy rose and slowly came towards the tamer. "Didn't I say so?" whispered the showman. Sure enough, on caini? the yokel. When he was close to the tamer he suddenly let fly with his strong arm, and planted a well-direct;*! blow on the showman's nose, saying, "You'll stare at me like that again, won't you?" A Roadside Crack. One summer fov"ncon "auld Tarn Spiers" was ploughing with a poverty-stricken pair of horses, and swearing at them to hurry them to the land-end by the main road. ■Arrived there- he called out to an old friend whom he toad' seen coming on a whijte pony: "Hullo, Robin! Are ye for the toon?" "I niith, if need be," replied Robin. "Are y© ma-kin' ready for the neeps?" "Just that. What's new wi' ye? I saw ye were girnin' cantily tae yersel' as ye caan' on. Some funny notion was kittlin

yer noddle, I'se warran'. Ot wi* it, an" gie's the guid o' it." "I was only makin' a comparison, Tarn; an' as I haena time to spare I'll gie ye't in the shape o' a conundrum that ye can think ower an' laugh at till I come back." "Weel-a-weel, sin' ye maun awa' oot wi' yer guessin' tale, an' I'll do my best at it."

"Hoo are your twa horses like Weaver Willi's under pants that I eaw on his groser buss yont the road? That'll gie ye somethin' to thin) aboofc. I'll be back in twa hoors' time. See an' be ready wi' yer answer. Ta-ta the noo!" And Robin rides on hie way. It was mid-afternoon ere he returned, and Tarn meanwhile; had 1 solved the riddle to his own satisfaction and in .hie own way. He also had various wondering about Robin's delay, his destination, and his business. "What's keepin' him? Hoo far has he been? What's he been after?" These "neighbourly queries," natural to a country Scot, now troubled Tam more than the conundrum. At noon, after a hasty dinner, he had walked quietly along as far as Weaver Wull's to see the wonderful pants that Robin had compared to his team. He missed seeing them on the gooseberry bush, for Wull's gaid wife had already taken them in. But a naturally inquisitive man like Tam is hard to beat. He went to the weaver's house and cried in at the open door: "H&e ye ony thrums to spare, . Wull, man?" As the weaver passed into the loomshop to get the thrums Tam • said' to the guid wife, whom he had known all her days: ' 'Guid day, Jennie, my lass! Ye'll let me get a cinder to licht ma pipe?" Without waiting for leave he stepped to the fireside to get tho tongs to lift a cinder. Hanging over a string by the "chimley eheek" to day off were the very articles he was in search of, and as he lighted his ".cutty" he took good stock of them. He thanked the wearer's wife for the light and the weaver for the thrums, end strolled home to have a special look at his two horses. When he had them yoked up in front of him again 'he saw the likeness and said to himself: "They're an auld dune pair a' sair gane at the knee 6; an' so are Wull's pants. I that's the answer to Robin's gueesin'-tale." Having satisfied himself that he had thus satisfied the conundrum, he troubled himself only with the "neighbourly queries," and determined to keep Robin on the crack until he should find, out his errand that day. So, when Robin rode up again, Tam'e first salutation was: "That's been a lang twa hoors, Robin. What's keepet ye?" "I was just bidin' a hittie to gie ye time to find out that, conundrum. What's the answer ? Or! hae y© no fund oot ye-f?" "Go! that was easy to guess. They're just an auld dune pair, an' sair gane at the knees." "Ah, Tam! I never said Wull's pair were auld! Ye've seen them." "Ot coorse. Folk canna compare the thing's they d'inna see." "Weel, ye're quite richt s# far; but ye micht hae- added that thev were baith puir drawers, an' needet a lot o' darnin' to get rhem to gang on." And Robin laughed at his own wit, and as he laughed he rode on, leaving Tam with his queries unpropounded. When Robin- was beyond hearing Tam. began thinking aloud, as he frequently did. "I wonder if the sly auld. buffer meant that cunnindrum, as heca'dit, as a bit yarn for me to toozle oot, so that ho micht. get by without my spierin' what he's been ridin' after the day, or if he intandet it as a Cfuiet rebuke to me for swearin' at the auld brutes?"Robin was an elder of Tarn's kirk, and Tam was correct in both surmises as to the use of Robin's riddle. In a roundabout way the story got from Tam to Wull, and the next appearance of the auld pants was as floorcloths. —Aleo Alan".