A Fight with a Rocking-Chair.

Cromwell Argus, Volume VI, Issue 289, 26 May 1875, Page 7

A Fight with a Rocking-Chair.

Old M'Stinger was going to bed a little wavy the other night, and not wishing to disturb Mrs M'Stinger, who has a tongue like a rattail file, he thought it just as well not to turn on the gas. He got on very well until he reached the door of the chamber where his patient wife lay sleeping. Here he paused a moment, balancing on his heels like a pole on a. juggler's nose. Then he made a dash for it, in order to make a bee line across the floor. Mrs M'Stinger, with her usual exemplary forethought, had placed the rocking-chair with such gifted skill that no man could come into the room without running over it ; so the first thing he knew M'Stinger stubbed his toe-nail off against the rocker, which knocked the seat against the crazy bone of his knee, and made one of the long arms prod him in the stomach. Simultaneously he fell over the chair crosswise, and it kicked him behind his back before he could get up from the floor, as he stood on all fours. The engagement was now fully opened. Before M'Stinger could get up straight his knee came down on one of the long rockers behind, and the back of the chair came down on his head with a whack that laid him out flat on the floor ; and, before he could move, the chair kicked him three times in the tenderest part of his ribs with the sharp end of the rocker. This made him perfectly furious, and he scrambled up and made . a blind rush at the chair, determined to blow up the enemy's works. He ran square against the back, and it rocked forward with him turning a complete somersault over the handles, throwing M'Stinger half-way across ; the room, and landing on top of him, digging ( into his abdomen like a bull's horns, as lie lay spread out on the under side. It would have i been a good thing fur M'Stinger if he had lain ' still then, and let the chair have its own way. ' It lay flat on its back, with the long points of , the rockers embracing his abdomen, and didn't seem to want to do anything active just 1 then. But M'Stinger couldn't make up his j mind to give it up yel* He rolled over sideways and upset the chair. It fell with a crash on his side, giving him a furious dig in i the liver, which made him straighten out his _ legs spasmodically, barking one shin from the instep to the knee on the rocker which hung in the air ; the chair getting on its feet again stood rocking backward and forward at him, „ like a wary old ram making feints of butting [ its adversary, in order to throw him off his j guard. The blow in the side nearly finished j. M'Stinger, and while lying there rubbing his wind back again, he was just beginning to ] reflect whether his honour required him to t proceed any further in the affair, when Mrs M'Stinger suddenly began screaming all the 3 names in the Crimes' Act. Up to this time ' she had been speechless with terror, and had j lain trembling, shedding perspiration, and accumulating shrieking power until she gained the screaming capacity of a camel-back engine, j She had just reached her third sforzando fortissimo accelerando, when old M'Stinger j succeeded in getting to his feet < nee more, 1 and became dimly visible to Mrs M'Stinger. r With one last wild pait'ng shriek, she sprang £ from the bed, and made a dash for the door, near which the rocking-chair still stood,, menacing the whole universe with a butting motion. Mrs M'Stinger had no time for investigation just then, and she pitched into and over the rocking-chair, and clear on downstairs, the chair after her, turning over and over, and kicking Mrs M'Stinger every bump until they both landed in the half below, where the chair broke all to atoms. This ended the fight.— Columbus Journal.