NOTHING SERIOUS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 361, 17 May 1911, Page 2

NOTHING SERIOUS.

It was so hot in the night nursery ! Mother and father were out to dinner, and nurse pone down to her supper. The pas was turned down almost to a spark, and gloomy shadows haunted the room. "'l'm so firsty." wailed the baby, kicking back the sheet, and peering over her cot rails at the drowsy six-year-old brother. "Sue'; your tongue hard, and wet'll come into your mouth." Baby sucked hard. "It's all dry. Oh, I'm so firsty ! Get me a drink." Geofi pretended to sleep. How could he face the terrors of that long, .lark nursery ? "Please Gcflery ?" Dead silence. Baby gave a little sob, and swallowed two salt tears. Then Geofl pulled himself together, and remembered he was a mai). But, oh, the misery of stepping cr.it of bed, not Knowing whether there was a bear underneath it ! His face was hot, and a lump came to his throat as he ran trembling towards the washstand. Baby rattled her cot rails in eager anticipation ; the sound made Geofl think that something was after him. He could not run with a glass of water, and went stumbling through the darkness shivering with fright. "Ah-h," said the baby, drinking greedily. "Fank you, dear." Bat the hero who had faced the shadows was already tightly curled up in bed, and breathing hard. The perils of the journey bad exhausted him, but the sense of duty done came as he murmured, "I bad to do it, 'cos she's only a girl." "I'll work no more for that man, Dolan." "An' why ?" "Shure, 'tis on account av a remark he made." "An' phwat was that ?" "'Says he, 'Casey,' says he, 'ye're discharged.' " A SENSATIONAL EXPLOSION. A Mr. John Smith, who is described —evidently not without reason —as a fast talker, gives the following description of the blowing up of a steamboat on the Mississippi : "I had landed at Helena for a minute to drop some letters in the post-office, when, all of a sudden, I heard a tremendous explosion, and looking up, saw the sky was darkened for a minute with arms, legs, and other small bits and scraps of my fellow-passengers. Amongst an uncommonly ugly medley, I espied the second clerk about one hundred and fifty feet above my own level. I recognised him at once, for ten minutes before I had been drinking a pint of beer with him out of the same glass. Well, I watched him. He came down through the roof of a shoemaker's shop and landed on the floor close by the shoemaker, who was at work. The clerk, being in a liurry to go to the assistance of any surviving sufferers, jumped up when the 'man of wax' demanded £SO for the damage done to his roof. " 'Too high !' replied the clerk ; 'I never paid more than £2O in my life, and I've done the same thing often.' "