MR TOOLE IN A FOG.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11919, 20 January 1894, Page 2

MR TOOLE IN A FOG.

Whilo Mr J. L. Toole was fulfilling an engagement at West Hartlepool, on the north.east coast, he went for a stroll down to Seaton Carew, a little bathing resort, with a beach ono of the levelest and smoothest, in the world. Toole lingeted and languished till twilight: Then, all of a sudden, there sprang up a mist, or seafret, and Toole was uncertain in which Vdirection lay his homeward path. He walked for some distance, when there loomed large in front of him a building whose windows were ablaze with light. " Here," said the irrepressible one, "I will ask my way." And he entered the supposed hotel: "A brandy-and-soda \" he called. A lady, rip in years, had answered the summons, at which she nearly gasped with surprise. Following quickly behind was a young gontleman, who, the moment he saw Toole, rocognised him, and whispered in the matron's ear. She disappeared, and roturned with the braudy-nnd-soda, and when the comedian tendorod payment she courteously, and with laughtor in her tones, declined to re? coivo tlie money, at tho same time observing that that was nota hotel, but a. private residence. And indeed it was so, being the domain of Mr Thomas Walker, county magistrate. All parties entered into the humour of the situation witkgraat spirit. Tho young gentleman h*Hrreferred tq wus "Walker fits. He introduced Toole to the whale family, and nothing would satisfy thorn but that he should stay to dinner, which he did, and in the evening the actor was driven in state tp the theatre in the family brougham. The V" sequel has got to be told. The house so ' mistaken for an hotel is in reality to be one, and it is proposed to call it "Toole's Hotel."