THE CHOKE HAD COME.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3933, 27 February 1884, Page 4

THE CHOKE HAD COME.

Ho had just got his oy.ster shop) opened to the public tho other day, when in came a man who asked: "Cot any raws!'" "Yes, sir." "Serve 'em on the half shell?" "We do." "Extra large?" "We have some of the largest oysters I ever saw." The price was asked and given, and as it seemed to be perfectly satisfactory tho man ordered a dozen, and added: "I've got a slight contraction of the muscles of flic throat, and sometimes I choke. If anything happens to me run me to tho door, whore I can get the air, and then rush for a drink of water." The caterer promised to observe the caution, but it was only when tho twelfth and last oyster was taken in between the two rows of teeth, which stood out like tenpenny nails, that anything happened. Then the eater suddenly raised one leg, his eyes bulged out, and he began to skip around like a goat dodging a club. The choke had come. Tho caterer seized him by the arm and ushured him to the door, and then hurried to tho rear end of the restaurant for a glass of water. When ho returned with it, half expecting to see his customer lying on the floor in the agonies of suffocation, no one was in sight. The man was not in tho door, nor at tho door, nor around the door ; ho was two blocks away.—Loudon Caterer.