LORD BEACONSFIELD AND THE TWO CHERRY STONES.
The Pat is Figaro tells an amusing story frotn Berlin anent the Congress; and argues from it the success of its deliberations. It appears that Brince Bismark gave a State dinner to the plenipotentiaries. His Highness' has the reputation of being what they call here a bon vivenr. At dessert the Marquis of Salisbury suddenly remarked to the Prince, ‘Your Highness will suffer front indigestion ; you have just swallowed a cherry stone. *My Lord,
you are mistaken.' The blood of the Cecils mounted to the brow of the Lord of Hatfield at this apparent flat contradiction of the Imperial Chancellor, and the guests began to look aghast, when the Earl of Beaconsfleld interposed with that suaviter in modo which the noble Earl knows so well
how to employ ‘ Permit me/ said his
Lordship, * you may be both right and both wrong. Addressing the Prince, he said : Your Highness ia far too great a man to take notice whether-you swallowed one very, very small cherry atone.’ * Two,’ insisted Lord Salisbury. 4 Or two,’ gently added Lord Beacons-
field. ‘My noble colleague is too farseeing a man to be mistaken in his eyesight. Will your Highness permit me to be abritrator on the spot 1 • With pleasure/said the Prince. ‘Will yon pass me your plate !’ said Lord Beaconafield. The plate was placed before his Lordship by a gorgeously attired lackey, and amidst the profound silence of the Com t assembly the Prime Minister of England upset the debris of the Prince’s dessert on the table-cloth, and commenced arranging the cherry-stones in rows ; and against each cherry-stone his Lordship placed a stalk, and then deliberately commenced counting the stalks—one, two, three, and so |ou up to fifty-five, and there stopped. * Yonr Highness, said Lord Beaconsfleld, ‘theie are two stones missing.’ The Prince rose and with a voice trembling with emotion, said to Lord Beaconsfield as lie threw himself on his
i neck ‘My Lord yon are the most wonderful man in Europe.’—Loftdon i Spotting Times.
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Kumara Times, Issue 702, 28 December 1878, Page 2
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339LORD BEACONSFIELD AND THE TWO CHERRY STONES. Kumara Times, Issue 702, 28 December 1878, Page 2
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