STRANGE ANTICS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 48, 4 September 1891, Page 20

STRANGE ANTICS.

Not long ago a Bridgeport, Conn,, young lady who desired to get up with the lark in order to go on an eloping tour adopted the schoolboy's plan, and the lover was to be on hand at daybreak to give the signal. The string used for the pedal communication was a stout cord, and one end was dropped out of the third storey window into the back yard and the other, of course, was attached to the damsel's toe. The legend runs that a goat arose early next morning and wandered into the yard. After eating up all the old sardine tins, barrel staves, and broken crockery, he found the string and took that in as dessert. As soon as the string was drawn taut the goat stood upon his hind legs and gave an impulsive jerk. The girl woke. The goat gave another sudden pull and the maiden jumped out of bed with a smothered cry of pain. Tben she stooped down to detach the cord just as the ridiculous beast gave another violent jtrk, and she nearly lost her equilibrium, and her toe, too, the cord cutting into the tender flesh. She sprang to the window and called down in a hoarse whisper : " Stop pulling, Harry ; I'll be down in a minute." Then she made another effort to untie the cord, but (the perils* tant goat gave his head several angry bobs, and each time the girl uttered a cry of pain. Again she called into the darkness : " Harry, if you don't stop jerking like that I won't come down at all." She was answered by another savage pull, and theory of angnish that escaped her brought her mother into the room with a look of affright and a lighted lamp. The young lady fainted, the elopement was nipped in the bud and the disappointed maiden's toe was sore for a month, The goat escaped. — American paper,