"BOARDING" HOUSE.

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20197, 23 December 1937, Page 3

"BOARDING" HOUSE.

A GUEST'S MISTAKE. . _ , QUESTION OF IDENTITY. ' ■ MAN IN POLICE STATION. ■ "Hullo, are you look'ing for someone!''' "Oh, no; I'm just going up to my room." This question was asked and the answer given in the New Plymouth Police Station one evening when a man who had booked a room in a nearby two-storey boardinghousc mistook the Police Station for his lodging place and did not discover his mistake until accosted by an officer who was on duty at the time. The two buildings are close to each other and a stranger might be excused for the mistake made on the occasion, as the front doors of both buildings are close to the street and the stairs lead up in almost identical positions. The furnishings, or lack of them, might have been a cue to an alert person Uiat he was "off the track," Taut perhaps the error occurred in a moment of absentmindedness. Seated in his - office on, the ground floor, and knowing there were none' of the men upstairs, "the officer naturally hailed the visitor, and that was how the mistake was discovered. The stranger apologised and the information that the "boarding" rooms of the station were at the rear of the building was probably of little interest to him.