NOT THE MAN.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 486, 15 March 1881, Page 3

NOT THE MAN.

A Danbury merchant was standing in his store door talking with some friends on Saturday morning, when a passing stranger, a lank man in a rough suit of clothes, aproached and shook hands with him. ' How aro ye ?' asked the stranger. 'Pretty well. How is yourself?' responded the merchant, with promptness, although it was evident that he could not ' pace ' tbe stranger. 'You're looking a heap better than that night at Ransom, you remember ?' said tbe stranger. 'Ransom ?' ejaculated the merchant; ' I don't know what you mean.' 'Mum's the word I' said the man, winking one eye with exquisite facetiousness, while the several bystanders looked at the merchant. £■ 'I don't remember ever seeing you beWm fore,' said the merchant, colouring slightly ' I dont'suppose you remember seeing me. but you did see me at Ransom that night and 1 seen you. I kinder reckon,' he significantly drawled, ■* that I did.' 'I can't remember ever seeing you before,' said the merchant, smarting under the insinuating language of the stranger. |. That party smiled. ' Wasn't you at the hotel in Ransom two weeks ago to-morrow ?' he asked, shutting one eye. ' No, I was not.' 'Oh ! And you didn't have the jim-jams I suppose ?' demanded the stranger desperately. ' Never!' gasped the merchant. I An' kick over the table.' continued the stranger ; 'an' knock down the landlord with a billiard cue.' 'Never, never !' 'An'l suppose you'll next deny that two of us had to hold you down to keep you from knocking your head against the Mall, an' that arter the doctor come, I had to stand round with the club, and swish away at pretended snakes to keep 'em from bitin' on you ? and the speaker looked at bis victim. ' It's no such thing. It's a lie,' cried the unhappy merchant. 4Oh ! you ain't the man ? You ain't the man who swore you'd have the harts' blood •of all Ransom ? You ain't the man, I suppose, who tore all his own clothes off, and jumped into bis own hat, a new silky, and knocked the crown clean through ?' I I tell you I ain't the man, and I want you to understand it,' shouted the merchant, losing his temper entirely. •Not the man?' gasped the stranger, looking very hard at him. • No"!' ' Can it bo possible,' said the' stranger, in a tone of mingled doubt and pain, ' that there are two men in Danbury with just *sncli hfa<3s, an' such eyes, an' such noses an' chins ? I wouldn't a thought it—l ■wouldn't a thought it.' And shaking bis bead dubiously, he passed on. 'That man must be a lunatic' gasped the wretched merchant, mopping the pervpimtion from his fiery fnce. H 'Yns!' drawled one of his -neighbors, looking curio lsly at the others. And they slowly and silently withdrew, and the merchant went back into his store, feeling very unsettled and uncomfortable.