TWO MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 18, 30 April 1892, Page 443

TWO MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

EACH WAS FOLLOWED BY A LAUGH AND AN APOLOGY. A LAKE steamer was on its way from Marquette to Saginaw. Among the passengers was an inquiring English tourist, who came on board at Marquette at dark, and immediately turned in. After breakfast he came on deck with a very ill-defined notion where he was, and at the first opportunity he accosted the captain, who was anything but the affable personage of whom we hear so frequently. • Beg pardon, sir,’ said he, ‘ but can you tell me the name of the lake I’m on ?’ ‘ The Lake Huron,’ replied the captain, shortly, and passed on about his duties. The passenger looked puzzled for a moment, and then, supposing he had been misunderstood, followed the official. ‘ I beg your pardon. Did you say ’ ‘ It’s the Lake Huron,’ said the captain, brusquely, wondering if the passenger was hard of hearing. ‘ Yes, 1 know,’ persisted the anxious inquirer ; ‘ but what’s the name oUthe lake I’m on ?’ ‘ The lake you’re on is the Lake Huron,' roared the captain, thoroughly exasperated at such stupidity, and not at all conscious of the double meaning conveyed in his speech. The passenger looked after the retreating official in angry astonishment. ‘ The lake I’m on is the lake I'm on,’ he soliloquized. ‘ What beastly impertinence ! Of course it is ! The lake I’m ’ Then he paused ; the solution of the mystery flashed across his mind, and he laughed so heartily that it put him in a good humour, and presently he hunted up the irate captain and straightened outjnatters to their mutual satisfaction. A parallel incident refers to the adventures of a man who went to a certain railway-station in New Jersey to buy a ticket for a small village named Morrow, where a station had been opened only a few days previously. ‘ Does this train go to Morrow ? asked the man, coming up to the office in a great hurry, and pointing to a train on the track with steam up and every indication of departure. ‘No ; it goes to-day,’ replied the ticket agent, curtly. He thought the man was ‘ trying to be funny,’ as the saying goes. ‘ But,’ rejoined the man, who was in a great hurry, ‘ does it go to Morrow to-day ?’ ‘ No, it goes yesterday, the week after next,’ said the agent, sarcastically, now sure that the inquirer was trying to make game of him. ‘ You don’t understand me,’ cried the man, getting very much excited, as the engine gave a warning toot. ‘ I want to go to Morrow. ’ ‘ Well, then,’ said the agent, sternly, ‘ why don’t you go to-morrow and not come around here to-day ’ Step aside, please, and let that lady approach the window.’ . * P u .fc’ ra y dear sir !’ exclaimed the bewildered inquirer, ‘ it is important that I should be in Morrow to-day, and if the train stops there, or if there is no train to Morrow today ’ At this critical juncture when there was some danger that the mutual misunderstanding would drive both men frantic, an old official happened along and straightened out matters in less than a minute.

The agent apologized, the man got out his ticket, and the train started for Morrow to-day.