HE WAS THERE ON BUSINESS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 973, 29 October 1908, Page 22

HE WAS THERE ON BUSINESS.

(By

MAX ADELER.)

Judge Pitman, one day, while walking down the street, observed our coroner, Barney Maginn, standing in front of a lager beer saloon, evidently in a condition of expectancy concerning something that was going on within, for every minute or two he would peep through the window. The judge accosted him, and this conversation followed: — Judge: “Going down the street, Maginn,” Coroner: “Not yet a bit.” Judge: “What are you waiting for?’ Coroner: “Never you mind.” Judge: “A friend inside,” Coroner: “N-n-no!” Judge: “Anything, up?” “Well; ho; but something’s getting ready to> be up.” Judge: “Corpse in there?” “Well, not .exactly, but. I’m iidpefur. one soon will be.” ; Judge:.'“Hopeful! Whyiffwhat do i you mean?” ' , i

Coroner: ‘‘Judge, there’s a man. In there who can drink : 'sixty 7 “glasses’ off Wgef-r -4a sixty minutes, and he’s on ; his thirty-seventh glass now. 'ile’s going to win that bet, judge, and then he’ll be ready for me to set on. I’m laying round till he caves and goes under. Won’t you wait and go on the jury?” .; The judge waited, and, in half an hour, the man came out with the stakes in his pocket, and looking as if he would live for a hundred years. As he reached the pavement, he said: “Good mornin’, Barney, and judge. Fine weather for the crops,” and then passed on up the street, unsuspicious of the designs of-Mt Maginn. As he left the coroner scowled, and, shaking his fist at the retreating absorber of malt liquor, he exclaimed: “You chuckle-headed, beer guzzling turkey buzzard! To go back on me that way! You wall-eyed Dutch idiot, if I had my rights, instead of you parading around the streets that way you’d be laid out on a slab with the doctor groping inside you, and a ijury of honest men considering a verdict. But it’s always the way I’m treated. I’ll fix you next time if I have to put bug poison in the beer.” Then Barney left, disconsolate.