A MILLIONAIRE FOR A MINUTE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19846, 21 May 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

A MILLIONAIRE FOR A MINUTE

SEEING WHAT IT WAS LIKE. A LITTLE MAN HAS A GOOD TIME Paris chauffeurs have had a fine joko against one unfortunate cardriver. This man, the smart, uniformed driver of a magnificent private car, was waiting for his mistress outside a large business establishment in Paris. He was tired of waiting. There was little to sew. He had long ago tidied up the cushions inside the car and looked approvingly at the violets and mimosa in the slender silver vase. The chauffeur yawned. Madame was paying a very long call to-day. He was just smothering another yawn when suddenly he heard the welcome sound of the car door opening and closing, a. sound which meant “Home, chauffeur.” With a sigh of relief he let out the dutch, and the smooth, gliding beauty purred and slid away. Boot Instead of a Shoe. The chaufieur drove home as usual, stepped smartly off at the entrance of his mistress’ house, clicked open the car door, and stood politely waiting for Madame to descend. His eye was on the step looking for the pretty little shoe.

The chauffeur started violently anti his heart went cold within him. A worn ancient boot was thrust out, and from the car stepped a short, very shabby, absent-minded-looking man, wearing a faint smile on his lean face and in his buttonhole the violets from the car. He looked round as if to say “Don’t mind me, I do strange things sometimes—things that just come into my head.’ ’ But the chauffeur did mind. “Here!” he burst out, almost beside himself with rage. “What’s this?” The Unwelcome Guest. Ths shabby man’s long and polite reply was lost. The chauffeur spied a policeman crossing the road, whistled for him, and seized the arm of his unwelcome guest. He hastily transferred the absent-minded man to the arm of the law, whisked on to the car again, and drove swiftly back. Madame was just emerging from the business house. The chauffeur drove her home, told the story, and was sent to the police-station to learn the report, given by his passenger. The man was still wearing his faint, lost smile, as if he were a poet thinking of a rhyme or a bird flying south after the flying summer. He was sorry if he had been a nuisance. He just wanted to feel for a minute or two what it was like to be a millionaire.