She Took Him at his Word

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 85, 5 January 1888, Page 3

She Took Him at his Word

Wriggles had some teeth, pulled lately, and took cold in his jaw, which swelled until it looked like a prize watermelon. He poulticed it and bandaged it, and walked the floor several nights with it. But all to no purpose ; it kept on swelling. The other morning he remarked to his wife that he'd give £10 to any one who would hit him a tremendous thump on it suddenly, without his expecting it, to see if it would'nt burst the swelling. The dear woman smiling to herself, went and gathered a bootjack; and stepping up quietly behind the old man as he was trying to strain some coffee through his teeth, lovingly inquired. "Where,, does it pain you most, Wrig?" f ' f "Oh, Lord! Right here!" replied he, as he turned his jaw up and pointed to the apex of the protuberance. Taking a step back, the dear woman raised the bootjack on high, and hit him a regular bungstarter right in the centre of the calamity, and similingly stepped back to await the results. The old man's knees flew to his chin as he shut up like a rat-trap, and withahollow groan herolledoffthechair on to the floor. But he was up in a moment ; and as he danced the cancan, with original variations, his wife smilingly asked : '* Did it relieve you dear ?" As he tried to howl out an answer, old Mrs Pry, who had just dropped in, beat a hasty retreat. And now the whole neighbourhood has it that •'Wriggles hag got 'em again !"