SHORT STORIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2210, 2 December 1920, Page 1

SHORT STORIES.

A Baltimore man recently wrote to a lawyer in another (own seeking information as to the standing of a person there who had for a long lime been indebted to the Baltimore man for a considerable sum of money. In this letter the writer asked “What properly has he that I could attach 1 ?” The lawyer’s reply was prompt and to the point: “The man to whom you refer died some time ago. lie left nothing subject to attachment except a widow.” Alexander Dumas was at the theatre with his friend Soumct during the playing of a piece by that author, when Dumas noticed a man in the audience asleep. “Look at .that!” he said to Soumet. “Thatis your Avork.” A week later they were at the theatre again, when one of the plays of Dumas aa’us being acted. Again they saw the same man sleeping. “Look there!” said Soumel, pointing to the sleeper. “That is what your work does.’’ “Why, my dear Soumet,” said Dumas, “that man has never yet aAvakened from the sleep which your play induced a Aveek ago,” In a dingy and dirty alley lavo “ladies” Avith rubicund faces might have been seen engaged in a Avordy battle that seemed likely to culminate in a yet more dangerous one. “Look ’ere,” shouted one, “you just keep your boy and 'is peg-top indoors. ’E's broke two panes of glass in my front AvindoAv already.” “I shall do no such thing,” retorted the other lady hotly. “It’s not the boy’s fault; it’s ’cause the string is too thick ’e tries to spin ’is top with.”' “String!” almost shrieked the first speaker. “What do I care about ’is string? Got nothin’ to do with me, it aint’s.” “Of course it ’as,” leered l he other-. “You shouldn’t ’ang such nasty thick stuff in your backyard - for clothes lines. Get thinner string,

an’ then p’r’aps ’c could spin ’is top properly, an’ you wouldn’t get any more windows broke.”