£40 for a Slipper.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 3 July 1914, Page 2

£40 for a Slipper.

Forty pounds was the reward which Miss Hilda Gilbert, a young and beautiful American, received for the loss of one of her dainty slippers, which, Cinderella-like, she left behind in a well-known Paris cafe where she had been performing. Miss Gilbert is girdling the globe to win a wager made with the well-known novelist, Mr. Jack London. One condition is that she shouid work her way round the world, and it was in the discharge of this not too easy task that she found herself singing to a select company in the Cafe de Paris on the night. that her slipper passed from her possession into that of the baron who had fallen a victim to the charms of her' voice. ~ Unable to detain the singer, the baron pleaded for the slipper as a memento, and, his request acceded to, swelled Miss Gilbert's travelling fund to the extent of a l,ooof. note. Africa is tobe the scene of her next conquests, and, although she has already been two years on her journey, she is nothing daunted.

" You can't expect us to accept stuff like this," said the indignant editor ; "it isn't poetry at all—it's simply gas !" "I see," said the unruffled poet, "something wrong with the metre !" "I say," remarked a fellow to some of his companions, "let us see who can tell the biggest lie." "All right," said one. " I'm the biggest fool in England." "Oh," exclaimed the first, "we agreed to tell nothing but lies, and you begin by telling the truth."