A PECULIAR PREDICAMENT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 919, 11 October 1879, Page 2

A PECULIAR PREDICAMENT.

It is a critical moment in the life and clothing of a man when he gets down on his knees to look under a sola for a ball of zephyrthat a lady friend has dropped. It is possible that he may be able to accomplish this fand recover his perpendicular with nothing more serious than a very red face and a general sense of having done 'something. But in nine cases out of ten, he never fully recovers the good opinion of liimseli that he possessed before he undertook the recovery of that ball. It is always just beyond his reach. And in a moment of weakness he drops on his vest and commences to work himself under the sofa by a series of acrobatic feats that would have won him an encore on the Stage. He is so intent oh the recovery of the ball that he quite forgets his' appearance until he is reminded by a suppressed titter, from one of the ladies. Then he realises the situation and commences to back out. Of course his coat is worked up over his head, and as he feels a cold streak creep up his back he pronounces a benediction on the man who invented an open-back shirt. He is also painfully conscious that about two. inches of red flannel drawers are visible between the tops of his boots and the bottom of his trousers. This lias the effect of producing more internal profanity and more violent struggles to back out, during which one suspender breaks and his collar Jbutton comes out. When he finally delivers himself and stands up in the middle of the room, you would not recognise in that red-faced, wild-eyed man, standing there holding his clothes together with one hand, and toying to smooth down his hair with the other, the smiling, genteel ladies' man who stooped down to pick up that ball of zephyr a moment before.—The idiot! ■ '