NUMBER FIVE PAID.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3151, 3 September 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

NUMBER FIVE PAID.

Several married men were together at a hotel bar the other night, and it was late. They had been drinking. Finally one of them looked at the clock and said ;

•' What will our wives say when we get home ? "Let them say what they want to; mine will tell me to go to the mischief," reponded number two. "I'll tell you what we will do. Let us meet here again in the morning and tell our experience, and the one who has refused to do what his wife told him to do when ho goes home, pays for this evening's entertainment." " That's a good idea; we will agree to that." So the party broke up and went to their respective homes. Next morning they met at the appointed place, and began to tell their experiences. Said number two one: ' When I opened the door my wife was awake. She said; ' A pretty time of night for you to be coming home. You had better go and sleep in the pig pen, for that's what you will come to sooner or later, anyhow.' Eather than pay for all we drank last night, I did what she told mo to do. I spent tbe rest of the night in the pig pen. That lets me out." Next! Number two cleared his throa and said, ' 1 When I got I stumbled on a chair and my wife called out; ' There you are again; you drunken brute '.You had better wake the children and stagger about for a while, so that they can see what a drunken brute of a father they are inflicted with.' I thought the best thing I could do under the circamstancca was to , obey : so I woke the children, and staggered around until my wife hinted me to stop. She used a chair in conveying the hint. That lets me out." Next! Number three spoke up and said : " I happened to stumble over the pan of dough, and my wife said: ' Drunk again ? Hadn't you better sit down in that dough ?' So I sat down in it. And that lets me out. Next? Number four said: "I was humming a tune, and my wife called out: ' There you are again. Hadn't you better give us a concert ?' I said ' certainly," and began to sing as loud as I could, but she told me to stop, or she would throw something at me so I stopped. That lets me out." Next! Number five looked very disconsolate. He said: " I reckon I' 11 have to pay. My wife told me to do something none of you would have done if you had been in my place." " What was it?" She said: "So you thought you would come home at last ? Now hadn't you better go out to the well and drink a couple of buckets of water just to astonish your stomach ? That was more than I bargained for; I couldn't possibly do that. So it's my funeral."