A HEAVY FORFEIT.

Star (Christchurch), 20 December 1907, Page 3

A HEAVY FORFEIT.

The new game of which everyone ia talking — an absurd game it seems to the writer in his present iaability to master it— may be all very well, but it is scarcely happjly named for the purposes of polite conversation. It is distinctly startling to hear that the curate, a man of blameless reputa- I tion. is " out in the garden playing the Devil with Bishop Blank." A thing like that travels far, and ! brings accumulation of misunderstand- j ing in its train. j One excellent man of the cloth suffer- j ed miseries over a far more innocent I pastime. He participated in the harmless, unnecessary spelling-bee at the house of a | well-known hostess, and came down ! badly among the "n's" in the word " drunkenness." He cheerfully paid forfeit at the time, and uncomplainingly admitted his unfamiliarity with a word with which he could not be expected to have expert acquaintance. But it became a very different matter when, in course of time, the story got abroad that he had been turned out of his hostess's house for drunkenness 1 — " Sketch."