A CRUEL HOAX.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3243, 22 November 1881, Page 4

A CRUEL HOAX.

A cruel hoax has just been played off upon a German painter who is well known both in Paris and Berlin. This clever man affects to be blase, and. at a New Year's gathering of journalists, artists, and aetoi's, in a very popular house " Unterden Linden," refused a pressing invitation to the so-called " Elite balls " of this month, on the ground that he had ceased to care about dancing. When he had left, a motion for his punishment was proposed and carried, and the ministration of the vengeance of the company was committed to a witty and ingenious comedian. He called the next day upon the artist, complimented him upon his refusal to take part in the slow and conventional dances of the ordinary world, and after a pause invited him to attend a "divinely amusing entertainment" as he phrased it, got up by an artistic coter ie called the " Ulk Club," and consisting of a carnival, at which every guest was obliged to array himself in "a really piquant costume." " Last year,,' says the inviter, "we were all pirates and sailors; but this year we are resolved to be savages, redikins, j£amrs, cannibals, or whatever a man wills Of that sort." The artist thought the thing would be worth seeing, and told his friend to send him a few things out of his theatrical wardrobe. Accordingly the actor despatched to the painter's the complete outfit of a savage chicf —a brown skin, diadem of feathers, earrings, and nosering, an elaborate tinselled apron, and a hatchet, while he promised to call and " tatoo"' him on the evening of the festival. On the fated day the actor drove up, found his friend equipped in his masquerade, put a few finishing touches to his appearance, and they drove off together. " I shall introduce you to our party," he said, " and then hurry across to my rooms to costume myself." The coach stopped, the actor helped the " savage chief" to alight, went up the stairs with him, whispered in the ears of the liveried attendant, and hurried back to the cab, saying as he went, " Good bye for half an hour ?" The servant threw open the double doors, and shouted in tremendous tones, " King Nabuk-di-Nitsa, of the Volcanic Islands?" The artist shouldered his hatchet, and stalked proudly into the great saloon, when to his horror, he discovered that it was filled with ladies and gentlemen in nineteenth-cen-tury evening dress. He turned and fled down tho steps, where he found the actor considerately holding open the coach door.