A TELL-TALE SHIRT-CUFF.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 525, 12 January 1889, Page 3

A TELL-TALE SHIRT-CUFF.

1 ' The Story of a Shirt-cuff.' Such is the allur. J ing title of a little yarn I am about to relate, and which would work up admirably into a novelette. Lalebircl is ' something in the city ' — runs a commission agency or a loan office, or something — and he is married. Ah, there's the rub. He keeps very irregular hours, ami constantly takea refuge behind the old, old story of having to work late at ' the office.' Mrs Latebird believed this excuse for a lonß time, but latterly she has grown suspicious. The office appears to swallow up not only Mr L.'d days, but half of his nights as well. * # * The othor evening, as he reached for his hat and prepared to make himself scarce as usual, his wife said: ! Will you be late to-night, dear?' 1 Yes, I may be working late, annual balance sheet to prepare for a company and it will take me all my time, I expect. .Don't wait- up.' It was fortunate for Mrs L. that she did not wait up. It was nearly five a.m. before her hard--1 worked joiner returned from the olJfiee. He' brought with him an odour of cigars, and his ' step was a little unsteady. Nightwork tells on a j man. He tumbled into bod and slept like a top I until 'J.iJO. ♦ « » Meanwhile Mrs L. had made a little discovery. She was taking out her husband's sleeve-links from his shirt preparatory to sending that garment to the wash, when soine writing on on 9oi the cuffs attracted her attention. The writing ran : — 'I. O.IL £30, money lost at Nap. W. Latebird. 1 Latebird fenced his wife's questions at the breakfast table with much ingenuity, but when she sweetly enquired whether nap was a nice game and whether £30 was not a good deal to lose at it in one night for a man whose income waa under £250 per annum, Mr L. saw the cat was out of the bag, and, in American phraseology, ha<3 to ' acknowledge the corn.' * * * Possibly the unsophisticated reader may want to know where nap is j^yed in Auckland for such stakes as tho writing, on Mr Latebird's cuff would seem to indicate '? Well, there are several places not many miles from the Town Clock where a little same of nap, 100, euchre, or poker may be had any night, the stakes being, as a rule, pretty high too. And amongst the habitues of the*9 places are many men whose better halves are firmly impressed with the idea that they are the slaves of duty and are toiling every night at « the office,' when in reality they are very differently engaged. What a sensation ft few pictures taken by one of those ' detectivs cameras' of the goings on at soraa of these gambling hells, and subsequently exhibited in town, would create !

— French jok@ : — ' Paul, will yon go softly into the parlor and se» if grandpa is asleep r' 'Tea,' whispered Paul on his return; 'y«s a mamma, he is all asleep but Iris nose. '