AFFABLE BUT "SLIM."

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2263, 24 September 1914, Page 3

AFFABLE BUT "SLIM."

THE STORY OF A GOLD PIN. On or about Monday last an old man was slowly walking the sidewalk in the vicinity of Taranaki Street, when ho was accosted by a stranger, who, with hand outstrotehed, greeted him affably with "By jove, is it you. old-.follow?-How aro you ?" • The old gentleman stared at the familiar stranger in a manner that betokened that it was "not himself at all, old fellow." The affable person, howover, grew only more affable. "Let me fix your tie, old man," he said, and without waiting for verbal acquiescence; he ca.ight hold of the tie with his hands and made as if to set it straight. After a few more kind words, the kind stranger moved on. So did the old man, wondering the while. When he came to unfasten his.tie he ceased.to wonder. A valuable gold pin fastening it had strangely disappeared. The stranger whom he had met during the day had evidently taken it as a recompense for his affability. The old gentleman sorrowfully told his talo to a second-hand dealer friend of his next day. Naturally, when some hours later a stranger / camo into the second-hand dealer's shop with a gold tie pin similar in every detail to the one his friend had lost, the dealer of second-hand articles grew suspicious. Hβ refused to bargain for the gold pin, and when the stranger departed to seek material consolation at an hotel opposite, he saw that the police were sent for. The police arrived and arrested tho man, but not the gold pin—it'had disappeared. The man, however, will appear in court this morning. '