SOME GOOD STORIES.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 23, Issue 6, 23 January 1912, Page 2

SOME GOOD STORIES.

Mr. Wilkie. Baird selects the following stories From tbs corner of Chapel-street right up to Bt. John’s Wood Road a brewer’s drayman effectually barred the passage of a motor-omnibus. The drayman took not the least notice of the crowded motor-bus whose passage he was so unnecessarily barring, but at last, in response to several passengers’ earnest appeals he designed to look round, and innocently inquired “what all the row was about.” As he did so. it was apparent that nature had endowed him with a mouth that literally, stretched from ear to ear. On catching sight of the drayman’s cavernous jaws the chauffeur immediately stopped the motor-bus and, politely taking off his cap, said, in pitying tones, “Sir, I always takes off my hat to a man as is in trouble through no fault of' his own, and with a mouth like yours you must be suffering agony with nothing but empty barrels all round you.’’

A certain very charitably-disposed lady was stopping at house not long ago, and, being well aware of the interest her guest took in the poor, her hostess asked her whether she would care to play the part of a Good Samaritan and accompany her to visit an old woman in the parish who had been laid up for years with an incurable complaint, but who was never tired 0 f receiving visitors, ‘as,’ to use her own words, ‘ladies and gentlemen was always so thoughtful, and never left without giving her a bit of comfort.’ Comfort, by ,the by, invariably took the form of some small present. Accordingly they set out, and after a long walk through the fields arrived at the old dame’s cottage. That afternoon she seemed particularly full of her ailments and, for quite half an hour, talked steadily about the various aches and pains with which she was afflicted.

The kindly-natured visitor sympathised with her as best she could, and, on leaving, asked her husband, who was a wizened-up old labourer of threescore years and ten—and a few years over—whether his wife had proper care and' attention ? ‘‘Oh, yes, mum,” he said, gratefully ; "t’ld woman wants for naught.” ‘‘And has she a good doctor in attendance ?” ‘‘To be sure she 'as mum,” was the startling reply ; ‘‘and nohow could wrong medicine harm her, seeing that I goes to church twice every Sunday to pray against false doctering (doctrine).” The loafer, smoking an old clay pipe, was gazing disconsolately over the parapet of Blaekfriars Bridge, watching a bargeman endeavouring to pull a huge barge up to a mooring station the other side of the bridge. The barge, however, was so big and heavy that to make any way with it at all half-a-dozen oarsmen would have had their work cut out. Still the single bargee was in no way perturbed by the difficulties of his task ; for, pulling manfully away at the oars, he succeeded in getting the harge to move at the rate of about live feet in five minutes. He must have been rowing quite an hour to cover fifty yards, but eventually he reached the bridge, and as he passed under it, travelling at a pace which the slowest snail ever born would have regarded as too slow, the loafer leant over the bridge and, removing his clay pipe from his month, shouted out, "Well, good-bye Bill ; don’t forget to bring us a parrot back with you.”—‘‘Tit-Bits.”