LOST HIS BET.

Evening Star, Issue 4125, 17 May 1876, Page 3

LOST HIS BET.

Bather an amusing affair took place lateen Saturday night. Towards the witching hour of twelve, a certain well-known merchant and a portly countryman of about sixteen stone weight were transacting business in a store near the Alliance Hotel, when some chaffing conversation took place as to their relative muscularity, the merchant, who is a light weight, averring that he could take bis ponderous friend on his back to the Star and Garter Hotel (a good 300 yards), in less than two minutes. The heavy man put down his ten “bob” on it, and the merchant also staked his half-sovereign, and bade the former come outside. He did so, and the would-be Samson forthwith bade him strip, as bis wager was to carry tbe man —not bis clothes. Not to be done, Falstaff forthwith stripped off coat, waistcoat, and shirt, but made some demur a bout the unmentionables. The merchant insisted upon a complete “peel,” and to his astonishment and discomfiture off came the nether garment also, and his big friend stood beftire him in the first costume of Adam. Then buckling to his task manfully, the merchant took the party in buff on his shoulders, and staggered with him as far as Cockburn’s, confectioner, about half the required distance, to the .great amusement of the two or three late birds who were abroad at that hour. Here, however, the merchant had to give up the task, and so soon as his friend had donned the breeches, bis own half-sovereign and the merchant’s found their way side by side to the former’s breeches pocket. The merchant is a smart man, and no doubt calculated on winning his wager by tbe other’s refusing to carry out tbe conditions literally, but in this case found that he was not quite smart enough, and had to play tbe r6le of “tbe biter bit.”—‘N. O. Times.’