HOW TO LEND AN UMBRELLA.

Kumara Times, Issue 815, 12 May 1879, Page 4

HOW TO LEND AN UMBRELLA.

A NEW YORK METHOD*

[old city derrick.]

" Len' me yer umbrella a minnit!''

Such was the exclamation of Jones as he rushed into the office of Squire Lickshingle yesterday. "Certainly, certainly," said the squire, laying down his newspaper, and taking a fresh chew of fine cut; " glad to accommodate you j" and he opened a drawer in hism desk and |began rumaging through his legal forms and blanks. Jones darted into the corner, seized the green gingham relic, and was preparing to fly with it. "Stop, stop, stop!" said the squire, raising his hand majestically; "not too fast, young man. Wait till I make out the necessary papers." Jones dropped the umbrella—on his corn of course. After pumping his lame foot up and down, and tying a hard knot in his countenance, and untying it again, he echoed;

"The necessary papers?" " Yes," said the squire, sternly, " the necessary papers." And he continued his search among the blanks. The right one found, he filled it out in a jiffy, and handed it to Jones to sign. As Jones read the paper his knees knocked together. It was a mortgage on his house and lot as security that he would return the umbrella in good order within fifteen minutes. He faltered :

" Why—why, Squire, I only want to borrow your umbrella to run across the street with. I'll fetch it back in two seconds."

The Squire shoved his spectacles up over his bald spot until they formed two skylights in his intellectual roof, and looking Jones full in the face, said : " You only want to run across the street 1 You'll return in two seconds? Young man, that is what they all say. I take up stock in it. Man wants but little here below, but when he wants his umbrella he wants it. I have known people in my time who have listened to the song of the airen who came to borrow umbrellas, until she had transformed them into a people without an umbrella between them and the pelting storms. lam not one of that kind. I have lived a long time. I. have accumlated a fortune. Why ? For the simple reason that I have not spent my substance In buying umbrellas. That umbrella you hold in your hand is certainly not of uncommon beauty, nor is it of great value. It is simply a gingham umbrella—a green one at that. But it answers the purpose for which &c. 1 have had it since I was a boy. Why? Because no man, neither the Bon of man, has ever taken it beyond the range of my vision without first signing over hiß estate that he would return it in good condition. It may not seem neighborly, but its business. Here is the mortgage, there is the umbrella, without beats the rain of heaven. You have your choice." And the old man resumed his newspaper. Jones thought of his wife and babies, and the pleasant home that was all his own. Then he looked at the doors and windows as if to get in out of the wet. A glance at his new overcoat and Jones was decided.

•• I'll risk " he said, and stepping to the desk with measured tread and Blow, he clapped his name to the mortgage, and was off with the umbrella.