CURIOSITY SATISFIED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 233, 30 September 1881, Page 4

CURIOSITY SATISFIED

Lord Lymington relates the following amusing tale of his experience with an inquiring and hospitable gentleman in Arkansas : — He introduced himself to me very kindly on learning that I •was a traveller and an Englishman, and offered me the hospitalities of the town. It was very obliging of him, but unfortunately I could not stay, so we had a chat while I was waiting for the train. During this chat his eyes fell upon a portmanteau of mine, which I had caused to be marked, for convenience Bake and easy identification, with the cabalistic figures 120. This he scanned for so ac time with ill-concealed curiosity, and finally, turning to me, he said rather abruptly, "If I am not mistaken, you are a nobleman, are you not ?" I admitted that such was my unhappy lot. "Then," he said, "I presume that number there on your valise is what they call in the nobility armorial bearings, is it not — in fact, your crest ?" "Hardly that," I modestly replied. "A number is only borne as a crest, I believe, by much more illustrious persons ; for example, the Beast in the Apocalypse." "Oh ?" lie replied, and then, after meditating a moment or two, a«Red, "Have your family been long in England ?" "Yes," I said, "they have been there for some time. But why do you ask !" " Perhaps the number refers," he replied, to the number of generations, just as they recite them in the old Testament, you know ?" "Yes," I unhesitatingly and ■with prompt mendacity replied "that is exactly it, snd I don't see how you hit it^ so cleverly." He smiled all over 'with delight as the train r ashed up, and "waved kind farewells to me as long as we were in sight.