THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 246, 26 November 1878, Page 2

THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

" Quiet ! Comfort !! Economy ! 1!"

"Q. C. E."

lam just about full and running over with the above, beside having spilt a considerable quantity. Once more I have " been in trouble," and the Jiapu of Bam, Sam, Lamb, and O'Gobbleam liave done a iangi of rejoicing over having me in their powerful clutches. "Be the Rock of Gashel," it was an ennobling sight to see "the force," in cerulean war paint, hand in hand, doing a song and war dance round the " chokey " when they had me safely inside ; Sam led the music, Lamb led the gambolling, Ram did the Catherine wheel and circus business, whilst O'Gobbleam'e looseness of limb and mouth for harmony made him splendid in the "general utility" line. The entertainment was gratis— there's, where the " economy" came in, but I have not, ns yet, discovered where the " quiet and comfort" was. What brought me into the scrape? Why, Hooper's beer and square gin, they did it between them. I don't want, however, to to go into this matter, neither do I wish to say a word against Ham, Sam. and Co., or their paeans of delight over-getting me ; but I do want to say a word or two about the wretched den, yclept the lock-up, where I took my (un)quiet (dis)comfort, which " His Airship" later on made the the reverse of economical—-" Not a word from you, Sir ; we know you; forty shillings and costs; keep an eye on him, Serjeant!" Wretched den did I say, why those two words "imperfectly describe the abominable boh. Putting a man in there wliohas been drinking will just serve him as .it did me —it wiil give him "the horror*." F.-uij/h. 't : . 'lominable. I ac- !••■ i v ''at . are a necessity, >r. ». vtiy the Afcaroa spe-

.; is.cii -oLuuiii be euoii a one as it is. I atn going , to keep up the row until this building is abolished, although I don't much think that Polonius said to Laertes—

" Beware of entrance into a quarrel ; But, being in, get in thy liveliest licks, Remembering , that a blow • •

Well landed on thy opponent's bread-, basket,' Followed rapidly by ono on the end of the nose,

Is great medicine for thee."

" Whene'er I take ruy walks abroad, how many — ' lovyers' I see.. How sweetly they " hunt in couples " —there is Darby and Joan, Venus and Adonis, Pat and Bridget, Meg and Jock, "Piccadilly Weepaws" and Sewaphina, yonng colonial Flaxstalk and Miss Toitoi, all spooning-, billing and cooing, and going through the

old Adamite performance of laying on the sentimental as thick as Brother Snorey does his mortar. Well, Ido like to see others happy if I am not so myself, and having this notion irriny head I started, never mind when, out for a lonely walk, thinking that the sight of cheerful faces might act upon me as a " pick-me-up." I was dreadfully dejected, only just getting over " the shakes" and " forty shillings ,-" looked, I expect, as miserable as I felt, and so, I suppose, enlisted the Sympathies of the tender-hearted OTegger. SsjWj, he— " Jack, haven't you got over horrida Bella (hold on Mr Printer! ' Wars, horrid warslV is the plain 'Cremona,' Quackearly dear) yet ? Lend me a match, and come on with me ; ,1 will soon enliven you up and a pair,, of turtles that I twig yonder. D'ye see them ?' r I looked and saw Piccadilly Weepaws and his own Sewaphina sitting under a goree hedge and intent on themselves only. To my astonishment, that scamp O'Pegger began to play snake; he threw himself down, wriggled himeelf along the ground, and, when he reached it, set that fence on fire close behind Weepaws and his Se-wy. Wasn't there a commotion and a treble blaze up! Didn't Weepawa say wicked words I Wasn't lin ecstasies! " Come on, Jack," said O'Pegger, " a little more of this, and—

" You will soon have mens soma in corpore

sano ; And not care if the girls say yes or say no."

My particularly drouthy brother, in bis keen appreciation of the ambrosial nectar of " Glentakit," Tonal Mactonalt, is great on being just to himself before being generous to others, and carries his ideas on this subject into strict practice. Ah, Tonal! the " mutchkin " " her nain sel' " has assisted ye with at her own expense. Yes, " we haye lived and liquored together through many a changing year; we've shared each other's" —no, not whisky, but sympathies anent the same beverage. Comes to Tonal—who, by-the-bye, is not hhort of a "bawbee or twa," and who, if close-listed sticking to is any criterion, never will be short—a magnate of the land, armed with that, to Tonal, horrible invention of the dark ages called a subscription list. Says the magnate—" Tonal, my boy! there's a poor fellow just out of (he hospital who is thoroughly hard up ; he wishes to get away from here to where he can get some light employment; be a brick now, and give me a trifle to help the man on his journey." Tonal fidgeted, fumed, and fumbled at "hertrooser pooch," and finally producing a coin, said—"here's a shillin , till ye," dabbed the tnopus into the magnate's hand, and levanted. Whilst the magnate was iti wonderment at Tonal's unexpected liberality, a friend strolled up ; says the M. —" Look here 1 Tonal has opened his heart and purso by giving me a shilling, here it ie!" The friend looked, and. bursting into a loud laugh, said— " Why, he's had you, that hilling ia a bad one." " Pity 'tis 'tis true !" Tonal had had the magnate, and done his charity cheaply. However, I agree with Buckminster, who wrote that—

"The highest exercise of charity is charity to the uncharitable." Says one of my former emploj-ers to me —"Jack, V»«hy don't you tell that anecdote of the deputation which waited upon some members of the Borough Council, aud the kind of mother tongue that was used on that occasion." "What," I replied, ** tell it all, lock, stock, and barrel." " No, no," was the rejoinder, *' that would never do, it would surfeit the readers of the Mail, tell them what you know I know." Yes, this was it:—There had been, what is not uncommon, a row among the municipalists, and that deputation were requested by some of their fellow burgesses to endeavor to. put things on an amicable footing again, so that the business of the borough should not be brought to a standstill through bickerings and pique. The deputation, according to arrangement, met the members of the Council who were supposed to be the obstructionists, and in their suavest and blandest manner commenced the troublesome undertaking of endeavoring to reconcile the antagonism existing. This they found to be more difficult than they supposed, calm reasoning being unable to cope with heated passion. Just at the moment when things were at the'blackeet, and when the deputation began to realize •* that there was no "silver lining, to the cloud," up jumps a hitherto silent councillor, who stopped the babel at once by saying—"Why don't you listen-to the deposition properly ? They are sent to us as a deposition from Borne of the ratepayers, and we should treat them properly!" A loud guffaw from " deposition " and councillors followed this speech. . Councillor Silence didn't know what the laughing was about, but, thinking he had made a joke, he joined in the laugh, and, there is no doubt about it, his speech did what the "Reposition" could not—it made the crooked ways straight, and thoroughly smoothed down the asperities and rancour which had previously . been dominant. Councillor Silence' never made many speeches during his official. life* but that one short interjection was "sufficient for the day," and gained the. desired end. After this, Silence might say

" I am Sir Oracle ; When I speak,let no dog bark!" . Good-bye.