Old Grumble Becomes President of an Acclimatisa tion Society and its Consequences.

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 106, 14 March 1889, Page 3

Old Grumble Becomes President of an Acclimatisa tion Society and its Consequences.

It is by reading that the understanding is enlarged, and Grumble's perusal of " Darwin's descent of man" is an exemplification of the fact, for as he closes the work he makes audible comment, and Bays, " Without doubt Darwin is correct and man, in common with all other works of nature, is undergoing perpetual change. I feel it within myself, but I should never noticed it if it had not been for this book." *' Never noticed what, Grumble ?" " That I am evolving, expanding as it were ; while you are ; although, as I now behold jou, apparantly unaltered from whit you were ten years ago ; the same features, the same gait, the same temper, and wearing the same gait, the same specs, I can hardly bring myself to believe that you are — but you are — you most certainly j are." '• Am what, Grumble ? I would : thank you to tell me." " You are a metamorphosis ! While I am developing into something, grander." " A cranky sportsman," said Mrs G., and then continued, you have taken to firing off guns ; and shooting at the stuffed monkey, which you get the stable boy to jerk with a string to represent a rabbit jumping What a height of insanity was reached when the society presented you with a paper and a puppy. I wonder what the puppy would have been worth without the paper. It was the paper stating that the canine infant had a grandfather and a grandmother which made it so priceless, that I, who had reared a family of children was not \ considered fit to take charge of it. No! It must be fed, fed from your own hand and drink from your own cup and be warmed in your own bosom — stalking about like one of the fancy, with the brute's head peeping out from the breast of your coat, until your aunt lost it for yon, which would have been a good job if it had not caused enmity between us ever since, owing to the bad words you called her, and we depending so mnch upon her leaving us her property when she dies." Mrs Grumble's scourge falls heavily upon her husband, ahd with a view of causing her to desist, he says : •' Mrs G., those cynical remarks are unworthy of you. It Ib true I felt aggrieved at the loss of the pet, rot so much on account of its value although its pedigree was p ttrician — as pure as my own, I may say — but because it was presented to me by an August body of gentlemen as a token of esteem. However, my aunt has become reconciled to us again and sent word yesterday that she had seen the dog in someone's possession and requesting us to run down by next train if possible, at the same time volunteering to go and claim the animal. As I could not leave I wired hack." "Do go, whether we leave the next train or otherwise, N.G." Shortly afterward Grumble was surprised by the sudden entrance of the aunt. She was not a timorous woman, and she came in with a burst, wielding a gigantic umbrella, her eyes aflame, and her corkscrew curls dancing like escaped pop -gun springs. 41 What do you mean by this insult, sir," she asked in tones too shrill for a prima donna to reach, of Grumble, whose astonishment was so great that he could not speak in answer to the question (indeed it took him all his time to dodge the umbrella -which was being flourished over his head all the time), then changing her notes to dulcet sweetness, she said to Mrs Grumble, '• Read that, my dear," and Mrs Grumble read my telegram about the dog. " I*ll teach you," roared my aunt, " to practice your senseless jokes upon your aged relative." Then spitefully raised the ■umbrella, brought it down upon his head — and left. As Grumble rubbed the blue mark npon his polished crown, made by the handle of the umbrella, he ruemlly articulated, " What a perambulating volcano," then made a gloomy remark about the teachings of his youth, that it was (easier for a needle to go through the eye of a camel than for a rich aunt to get into heaven, being confirmed. ■" And Mrs G., I believe that Mr S. Goodbehere's explanation regarding the recent earthquake is correct, and that, could the true cause be ascertained, if he did not find that it was some maiden aunt of His Internal Majesty's having it out with bir" down below it is odd to

Old Grumble."