SHORT STORIES.

Grey River Argus, 19 February 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

SHORT STORIES.

RASTUS AND THE CHICKEN. Mandy was sick and Rastus was awaiting with apprehension the verdict of the doctor. -“Your wife’s badly run down,” said the doctor, “and you’vo got to feed her up. Buy a chicken and make her some good, nourishing broth. ’’ “Thanks,” said Rastus. Then, as the doctor was on the doorstep, he added, thoughtfully: “Say doctor, is there anything special about its being •*. boughten chicken?” ONLY A GUNSMITH. At a territorial drill hall a batch of j recruits were undergoing musketry. A fiery sergeant-major noticed a dulllooking private standing yawning. Striding up to him, he snatched his rifle from his hand and gave him lengthy instruction of the various parts of the rifle. “Now,” he said, on finishing, “you look just as dull as before. "What’s your trade?” “Gunsmith,” came *he private’s meek repiy. LADY BOUNTIFUL’S SURPRISE. Finding herself with two extra tickets for the Olympia Circus, a fashionable matron, in a burst of good Samaritanism, captured two urchins in the street and took them with her. For a tiniCj suffused with the pleasure of j playing Lady Bountiful, she was under the delusion that she was showing the boys some thrilling new sights. I “Have you ever seen anything like I this before, bovs?” she asked. “Seen

it?” one of them replied. “Why, we know some of them clowns personally. ” THE UNWANTED DIP. He was irascible and obstinate and he had ventured on the ice when common sense should have, warned him against it. When the ice gave way and he found himself standing in four feet of cold water his language was calculated to widen the gap around him. “Dear me!” said a sympathetic old lady, the only witness of the catastrophe, from the bank. “Whatever made you come to fall in like that?” For a moment he glared at her balefully, then: “I didn’t come to fall in,” he said, snappily; “I came to skate.” A FANCY CAKE. A man called at a pastry shop and asked for a cake to be made in the shape of the Hotter S. The. pastry-cook said it would take three days to make. The customer did not mind, he would call back in three days. He did. He saw inc cake but did not like it. It was not the right kind of S. He wanted a script S. The pastry-cook said he would make another, but it would take three days. The customer said he would call in that time. He did. He liked the cake. “Where shall I deliver it?” asked the pastry-cook. 4f Don’t deliver it,” replied the customer; “I’ll cat it here.” “A BAG OF REMNANTS. 7 A Scottish gillie who had accompanied a middle-aged and corpulent Englishman on a fishing expedition returned alone and announced that the visitor had fallen into the river and been drowned. “The first time he cam’ up I grippit him by the hair, but it was a wig and cam’ awa’ in ma hand, an’ doon he sank. So I said to mysel’, ‘Weel, ma chappie, T’ll let you droon. Ye’re naething hut a bag o’ remnants.