EDITOR'S WALLET.

Otago Witness, 1 June 1910, Page 88

EDITOR'S WALLET.

Storm Episode. ! Two handsome, young women, beeomj ingly dressed, slipped and fell together in I the slushy c-eol. of the crossing. They j arose wet and angry. ! "Wring out, wild belles!" commented ; an observer, such an addition of insult to i injur v being condemned by all who overj heard. Wholesale. He was a buyer in a largo wholesale ! house, and he was in love. One night he snatched ,•;. kiss. "Ah!" ht- exclaimed, "I am eo well pleased with this sample that I should like to negotiate for all you have." He was accepted on the spot. New Zoology. "Now,- boys, an animal with four legs is a quadruped. One with two leg*., is a biped. Man is a biped. Now what is a zebra?" "A striped." What, Indeed! A musician and a young banker were dining at a Continental restaurant, and a dispute ran high between them. At last the musician—a music-hall "star" —sprang up and pulled out a card, which the banker at once accepted and iput in his pocket. Two days later they met in a public park. At once the musician exclaimed : "Sir, you have not yet given me satisfaction." "That I have, and to the fullest extent," was the cool answer. "You gave me a ticket for your concert last night. I went, and sat out the performance to the end. What more do you want?" A Lump of Humanity. She weighed sixteen stone if she weighed an ounce, and she did weigh an ounce. The whole rink shook and rumbled as she struggled round in her efforts to master the whirling- art. Suddenly—a terrific thud—a groan —and there, piled up upon the hoarding, lay a heap of overbalanced femininity. A dozen stalwarts hastened to her aid, But her avoirdupois was too much for their heaving'. "Fetch a lever!" cried one. "Fetch a crane!" shouted a second. The woman opened her eyes. "You will not to have wait a moment, madam," politely remarked a. third. "We have just sent for a crane. 1 trust you are not hurt?" . "N-n-no, I don't think so!" she gasped bravely back. "But, oh, th(cre are some dreadful lumps on your floor!" "Lumps, be hanged, madam!" growled a half-smothered voice from underneath. "I'm not a lump; I'm one of the attendants!" The Colonel's Idea of It. In a certain skirmish a Colonel (General be came to call himself) got a slight scratch on hi l - leg. The wound was a matter of great glory to him, and he nursed it through after-days, growing lamer with every year, chat the memory of his bravei*y might be ever near him. One day, late in his life, as he sat nursing his leg and pondering the glorious past, a young man, visiting the family for the first time, approached and sympathetically remarked : "Lame, General?" "Yes, sir," after a pause and with inexpressible solemnity; "I am lame." "Been riding, sir?" " No," with rebuking sternness. " I have not been riding " "Ah! Slipped on the ice, General?" "No, sir," with actual ferocity. " Perhaps, then, you have sprained your ankle, sir?" With a painful slowness the old man lifted his pet leg in both hands, set it carefully on the floor, rose slowly from his chair, and, looking down upon the unfortunate youth with mirfled pity and wrath, burst forth in the sublimity of rage: " Go, read the history of your country, you. puppy!" His Big; Kesidencc. ' " Whatever became of Sim Watson?" , asked the man who had lc-turned to the 1 little old town after the of many years. "Do vou see tlat big bui'din' up yonder, on the hill?" replied the old settler. " You don't mean to tell me that is the home of little Sim Watson, who was always at the foot of his class in school?" "Yes. I guess you could find him there right now if you were to go up and ask. You see, Sim got to be a great hand for inventin' things. The first invention he ever invented v.as a shoe brush that would go by turnin' a crank, and he might have made a fortune out of it if he had only fix»d it so that the brush could have been tilted. Being stationary, it would only brush the tops of the shoes; and, besides that, there were some other drawbacks, one of which was that the first time Sim ever tried it the chain broke, one end hittin' him just below the right eye and nearly puttin' it out. "After that he invented a fly in' machine. That came purty nigh endin' his career, too. Only thing saved him was that Dave Herdeison's eldest boy wanted to go up on the thing first. Sim was sweet on one of Dave's girls at the time, and I guess he thought it would be a good way to get in with the family by lettin' the boy try the flyin' machine. After that he "

"But did he get the girl?'* "Well, no; but I don't think Dave laid up any grudge against him. He had a big family left, ar.jway. Sim's next in--ventkm was a dishwashin' machine that was to be operated by a dojr on a treadmill. There was great excitement when the folk found out about it, and a man came down from the city to look at the thing-. He was representin' a company with a lot of money that was goin' to take it up and push it if it was all richt." " And Sim was bright enough to prevent them from cheating him out of the profits that his invention bro'ught, eh? How much do you- suppose he is worth?" "Worth? He ain't worth Troth in'" "TjUit T thought you said he lived in

that fine building up on the hill?" "H© does. That's our new workhouse." . * A Well-matched Pair. She was as fair as the day and as stately as the night, and beautiful beyond the dream of any poet. He was strong and brave as any knight that ever jousted on the plain, superb and handsome as the sculptured gods of Greece. It happened by a propitious fate, that sometimes brings the brave and beautiful together, that these two mortal paragons each hid a fa-l.icr.able suite of rooms in the most * fashionable hotel of the most fashionable city of all the land. It is really not much use to finish this story. The reader is shrewd and knows a th'.ng or two, and has read novels before, and knows already how this thing is coming out. But suffice it to say they met, and they loved with an unutterable and infinite devotion.

" Darling," said he —not at once, of course; he wasn't quite so precipitate as all that—but I like to get at the denouement of a ?tory at the beginning and get it out of the way. " Darling," said he, when the proper time had arrived, " I love you beyond expression, with a devotion that can never end. Be mine! Oh, say that you will be mine!" A look of ineffable sadness, of infinite grief, came into her azure eyes. "Aloysius," she said, "you know not what vou ask. There is a dead secret in my life, which if you knew you would spurn me from thee like a deadly thing." "Tell me the secret, darling," said he, "and I swear by my honour that I will love thee all the more." " Aloysius, my own, I will be frank and tell thee. I—l—l owe a three months' bill for my suite of rooms at this hotel." He "looked into her lustrous eyes with an expression of increased endearment. " Regina, my darling," said he, "so do I. We owe the sordid landlord two large bills. Let us wed and make the two bills one." "Oh, my heart's love!" she cried. Oh, my hero—my financier!' and she threw herself into his aims.

Thus two loving hearts and fcwc growing hotel bills were beautifully united.