LUDICROUS MISTAKE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1148, 15 September 1882, Page 2

LUDICROUS MISTAKE.

A. Frenchman, newly arrived in London, impatient to see the town, but fearful of of not finding his way back to his hotel, carefully copied upon a card the name on the the wall at the corner of the sheet in which he was situated. Tins done, he felt himself safe, and set out for a ramble, much upon the principle vulgarly known as “ following one’s nose.” The whole day long he strolled and stared to his heart’s content j wearied at last, ho jumped into a cub, and with the easy, confident air of a man who feels himself at home, he read from the card he had prudently preserved, the name of the street he dwelt in. The cabman grinnod horribly. “This English pronunciation is sadly difficult,” said the Frenchman to himself, “ ho doos not understand mp." And he placed the card before the man’s eye. Cabby grinnod more than ever, gazed in his faro's astonished face and ended by sticking hie hands in his hands in his pockets and roaring with laughter. Indignation on the part of the foreigner j he appealed to the passere-by, who gravely listened to him at first, but upon beholding his card, joined one and all in chorus with the coachman. The Frenchman now got furious ; swore, stamped, gesticulated like a candidate for Bedlam. Ho went so far as to threaten the laughers; a crowd assembled j everybody sympathised with him till they learned the cirjumstances of the case, when forthwith they joined in the infectuous hilarity. Up camo the police, those guardian angels of the bewildered foreigners in London’s labyrinth. The aggrieved Gaul felt euro of sympathy, succour and revenge. He was never more mistaken. The gentleman in blue roared with the rest. They evidently could not help it. Compunction mingled with their mirth, but they nevertheless, guffawed exceedingly. To what extremities the desperate Frenchman might have proceeded, it is impossible to say, had not a gentleman acquainted with the language appeared upon the scene. He too laughed violently on beholdiug the card, and when he had spoken u few words to the Frenchman, the Frenchman laughed likewise, which was a signal for a recoinmoncoment of the general | hilarity, The address, so carefully copied by ] the foreigner al the corner of his street w»»s I the following ; “Stick no Bills.”