AN AMERICAN ABROAD.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1976, 1 March 1893, Page 4

AN AMERICAN ABROAD.

" There was an American in the railway carriage to Liverpool," writes George R. Sims in the • Referee.' "This gentleman interested me greatly. He was dark and dreased with elaborate care, and kept on producing instruments of a remarkable character from his pockets. He was a man who was thoroughly equipped for all the contingencies of every-day life. A blue* bottle got into the carriage, and he produced a fly paper, on which it promptly settled and died. He wanted to smoke, and he took out a pipe with seventeen distinct and separate patents in it. He filled it from a pouch which was absolutely remarkable for its ingenuity. He put the tobacco in with a patent spoon, he rammed it down with a metal stopper, then he put a skewer, which he wore attached to -a silver chain, up the stem, then he stabbed the tobacco with a stiletto to make the pipe draw more easily, and then he kindled a light by means of an elaborate arrangement in six compartments, which took about fifteen minutes to fit together. •• After that he hung his hat up by a patent hat-suspender, put on his gloves with a button hook, squirted himself all over with a scent spray, cut his newspaper with a paper cutter that was also a railway key and a bootjack, and wrapped .himself in a patent rug, which, by pulling various strings, could be made into an overcoat, a macintosh, a bed quilt, a life-belt, a tablecloth, and a shroud, Finally he went to sleep, after setting a pocket alarm to wake him up in an hour, and patting a patent catch on his watch chain in case either of us should be taken suddenly with kleptomania."