A BUTTON OFF

Thames Advertiser, Volume IX, Issue 2324, 23 May 1876, Page 5 (Supplement)

A BUTTON OFF

Il is bad.enough to see a baohelor sow .on' a button, but heia the embodiment of grace alongside. of ■ a married man. Necessity has compelled experience in thp case of the former, but the latter has, always depended-upon some one else for. (his service, and fortunately, for the sake' of society, it is rarely he is obliged to - TOBorfc to the needle himself, Sometimes the patient wife soalds her righthand, or'runs a sliver under the -nail of"the index finger of' that hand, and it is. then the man clutches the needle around his neck, and forgetting to, tie a knot in the thread:commences to put on the button. It is always in the morning, and from five to twelve minutes after he is expected .to be down street. He lays the buttpn exactly on the side of its predecessor, and pushes the needle through one eye, and carefully draws the thread after, leaving about three inchos of it for leeway. He.says to himself,—" Well,.if women don't havo the easiest time love? Bee," 'Then he' comes book tho other way, and' gets the through the find the eye, butin spite of a great deal of patientjabbing, theneedlepoint persists in bucking against the solid part of the button, and finally, when he loses patience, his fingers catches the thread, and that throe inches ho hod left to hold the button slips through the eye in a twinkling, and the button rolls leisurely across the floor. He picks it up without a single remark, out of respect to his children, and makes another attempt to fasten it. This time when coming back wilh, the needle he keeps both tho thread ahd button from slipping by covering them with his thumb, and it is out of regard for that port of him that he feels round for the eyo in a very oarefnl and judicious manner) but eventually losing his philosophy as the search becomes more and more hopeless, ho falls to jabbing about in a lose and savage manner, and it is just then tho needle finds the opening, and comes up through the button and part.way through his thumb with a celerity that no human ingenuity can guard against. Then he lays down the things, with a few familiar quotations, and presses tho injured hand betweon his knees, and then holds it under the other arm, and finally jamsit into his mouth, and all the while ho prances about tho floor and calls upon fteaven and earth to .witness that there has never been anything liko it since the World was created, and howls, aod whistles, end moans,.and sobs.