No Fool Tricks Here.
Scene: Country poet office. Delicate Individual (to postmaster, whoso probable weight is 20st): 'Kindly give me twenty three-ha'penny stamps, please." Postmaster places twenty-three halfpenny stamps on counter. Customer (timidly): "I don't think you understand me. I said twenty threeha'penny stamps." Postmaster (getting a vivid red): "Well, haven't I given, you twenty-three ha'penny stamps?" Customer (shivering in his shoes): "Yes, you have; but that isn't quite what I wanted. I wanted twenty three-ha'penny stamps." Postmaster (boiling over) : "Well, pVaps you can't count. I make it twenty-thpee, and I don't want any of your fool tricEta here, or I'll come ,round and break you in two across my knee!"
Customer (absolutely quaking): “Perhaps I’d better write it down.” This is what he wrote: “I wish to purchase twenty three-half-penny stamps.” Postmaster grows cool and civil and hands them over in silence.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19110816.2.286.3
Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 2996, 16 August 1911, Page 82
Word Count
143No Fool Tricks Here. Otago Witness, Issue 2996, 16 August 1911, Page 82
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