ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 343, 31 October 1879, Page 3

ONE THING AND ANOTHER.

(Collated from our Exchanges.) _ It having come to the ears of the United States officials at this point that big English, the bootblack, had a handful of lead nickles in his possession, the boy was interviewed on the subject. " Yes; I've got nineteen bad nickles in my trousers pocket," was his prompt reply. "And what are you doing with them ?" " Holding right to 'em. You needn't think you've got a case again me, for you haven't." " How did you. get those bad pieces?" "Rich man, who shall be namej_black ess his boots every morningbands me out a lead nickel—thinks he's eot a soft thing on me, but I'm laying for Sim!" "How?" "Why, he's got a daughter 'bout my age. I'll be thinking of marrying in two or three years more, and I'll shoulder a bag of his nickels, walk into the parlour, and gently say, ' Mister man, I love thy fair daughter, and I.demand her hand in marriage. Behold the proofs of your vile perfidy, .and come up to the rack or go to the jug!' You just keep still, and let him shower out his bogus coins. I ain't handsome,'but I'm a terror to plan."— -Detroit Free Press.

;An aged millionaire in an American Eastern city has played a sad- trick upon his heir arid relative's. ' He invited them to gather round his dying bed, and when they were assembled there, sprung a notary.and a wholo stock of legal foolscap upon them,, and "in'ade them, all take affidavits that he was perfectly sane and clearheaded and so on—and then died. When the heirs .came to rummage in his desk, they found a will dated in "IOTS, bequeathing most of . his property to an idiotic asylum : and, furious at their deceit, they one and sll began an action to have the will broken.on the ground of insanity—all swearing that, though he was quite sane on the day of his death, he was madder'n a whole litter of March hares in 1875. Then his executor smiled a grim smileandproduced a later <will, made and signed about half-an-hour before the heirs gathered around his dying bed, precisely to the same effect as the fu-st 'one. This sad effect has cast a gloom.! over the community of heirs! ■■■•'•

At an Oddfellows! ball the other day, relates a; contemporary;, r a young gentle.man came suddenly face/to face with a dear kind fatherly-looking gentleman with white hair and highlyirespectableappearf ance. They both.stood transfixed. The same idea lashed across both of them. "Your face is. familiar to me,-very familiar ; but I can't iremember where .we have j.met; so jOften.". ,; However,, the.friendly 'impulse was , carried,- out ;■ they shook hands warmly and' "partook ,of : a friendly glass, and'departed, still ignorant of each other's name arid occupation. But the young man .was determined to ■ solve the problem, and he seized on a waiter, and said to him—"Tell.me, waiter, who is that distinguished stranger with the long white bair ?'.' - And; the waiter whispered lowly— " Please, sir," tbat's the pawnbroker." Colonel Ingersoll says he keeps a pocket" book in an open drawer, and his children go and help thraeselyes to money when they want to. "They may sleep all the day if they choose, and sit. up.all night if they desire. ■ I don't, try to coerce them; I never punish, neyeT scold. They buy their own clothes, and are masters of themselves." A gentleman living in Marshall street, who has a boy that.is as kitteny as his father, read the article and pondered deeply. He knew that Colonel Ingersoll was a success at raising children in the piway they should go, and he. thought he would'try it. The boy had caused him considerable annoyance, and he made up his mind that he had not treated the boy right; so he called the boy from the street, where .he was putting soft soap on the lamp-post, in order 'to- see the lamp-lighter r climb it, and said to him-r" My son, L •have decided to adopt a different course: with you.. Heretofore I have been careful about giving you money, and have wanted to khow where every cent went to, and my supervision has no doubt been annoying to you. Now lam going to leave my pocketbook in the bureau drawer, with plenty of money in it, and you are at liberty to use all you want without asking me. I \vant you to buy anything you desire, buy your own clothes, and feel as though the money was yours, and that you had not got to account for it. ' Just make yourself at home now, and try arid have a good time." The boy looked at the old gentleman, put his hand on his head as though he had got 'em sure, and went out to see the lamplighter climb that soft-soap. The next day the stern parent went out in the country shooting, and returned on the midnight train three days later. He opened thedoOr with a- latch key, a: strange, yellow dog grabbed him by the elbow of his pants, j and shook him, he said, " like the agur." j The dog barked and gnawed until the son ' came downstairs in his night shirt and called him off. He told his father he had bought that dog of a fireman for lldols. and it was probably the best dog bargain thathad been made this season.. He said the fireman had told! him he could find a man that wanted that kind of dog. The parent took off his; pants, what the dog had not removed, and in the hall he stumbled over a birch;bark canoe the. boy had bought of an Indian for 9dols, and an army musket, with an iron raihrod fell down from the corner. The boy had paid 6dols. for that. He had also bought him- ■ selt an overcoat with a sealskin collar and cuffs, and a complete outfit of calico shirts and silk stockings. In his room the parent found the marble top of a soda fountain, a | wheelbarrow, and a shelf filled with all kinds of canned meats, preserves, and crackers, and a barrel of apples. A wall tent and six pairs of blankets were rolled up ready for camping out, and a buckskin ■shirt and a pair of corduroy pants lay on the bed, ready for pulling on. Six fishpoles and a basketful of fishlines were ready for business, and an oyster-can full of grub worms for bait were squirming on the washstand. The old gentleman looked the lay-out over, looked at his pocket-book in the bureau drawer, as empty as a contribution box, and said—" Young man, the •times have been too flush. We will now return to specie basis. When you want money come to me, and I will give you a nickel, and you will tell me what you intend to* buy with it, or I'll warm you. You hear me ?" And now that man stands around from tho effects of the encounter with the yellow dog, and asks every man where a letter will'reach Bob Ingersoll. He says.be. will kill Ingersoll, if it is the last noble act he Over accomplishes.