Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 224, 15 October 1904, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt.

A LOCAL lady was fearfully angered the other day when she told the Telephone Exchange that she wanted to speak to her husband and was asked "What number?" She asserts that she is not a bigamist. path will be repaired. Sweet charity 1 Saw a lady buying cheaper than these ?" she asked. You see, they are for charity I * * There is a man in Newtown who has never been in battle in his life but he ETtftSTbeen faced with bursting Shells. He is a poultry fancier, and this is the chicken season. A wit calls on me to remark that the reaLTwhy a bearded man looks so much HkTa molkey is the "similarity of their facial axpression. 1 got t.ne oS-boy to throw the office-dictionary at him. . • • The Jap "V.C." is called "The DistinSshS Service Order of the Golden Kite" and the nbbon is green. Its wfare.s are not. It is a good deal more rare than the prized B.itish decoration. # » Epigram of S.M. Haselden who, by the way, slipped down and hurt his knee the other day. It was got ott during the heai ing of a promissory-note case. "Experience is a good teacher, but hei fees are high." * • A Federal Pailiamentanan asked in the House the other day if the Government would kindly double his free allowance of postage stamps. He had been a "silent member" till them He is now known as Postage-stamp Blank. * * The lat© Mr. George Adams (Tattersail's sweeps) began his business Me as a publican, and was a brewer at the time of his death. He made "Adams ale He got a stroke of paralysis six years ago. He was twice marned, but had no children. . * • About the only thing the Yankees cannot "comer" is the egg supply. Once recently they bought np the whole available American supply. -Next morning, presumably for spite, the united hens of America laid twentythree millions more. y. * * I note with horror that fashion decrees that the ciease in men's ti outers, shall now be on either side of the leg, and not down the centie. The old style made it difficult to see some male understandings at all. The new fatyle makes a man look as if he was perched on the top of a couple of 12 x 1 boards. Mr. Wilson Barrett's last jest. He didn't know his complaint was serious. Said he to the sui geons before he was chloroformed "I was to have opened myself on the Ist of September, and here are you fellows going to open me on the 20th of July'" "Never mind," answeied one of them, "we'll close you up again all right!" Grimly significant that "close you up." * * * I know a Wellington lady whose son is at Oxford. She didnt go to Girton herself, but she had nearly six months' schooling once. Talking abo.ut her brilliant son to a friend, she said that "John was always good at sums." "He may get the mathematical tripos," suggested the friend "Oh, I sincerely hope not,' responded mater, "he's had typhoid fever already!" » * * I attended an auction sale of odds &nd ends the other day, and a man bid furiously against an auctioneer's dummy for a Japanese ornament worth about Is 6d. He paid 12s 6d for it When he got it, he was disgusted. "I believe I am the biggest fool that ever lived '" he said, quite audibly. "You have the casting vote, sir," glibly said the auctioneer, "and now we are all unanimous."

An item for prohibitionists. An Australian woman pubhoan lias been fined for adulterating rum. It was found that she "bioke down" ten gallons of overpioof spirit with six bottler of wine, twelve of stout, a quart of beei , and a few plugs of tobacco. "Oh, death where is thy sting?"

The men with tuined-up trou&eis show But little of conceit ; They let all other persons know That they have good^ized feet.

A very remaikable fatality occuned at Home recently, as the result of the quarrel of two nval fishermen for the hand of a lady. One of the rivals pretended to become friendly with the other and both went away together in a fishing-boat. When they got about one hundred yards from the shore, one took a nfle out of a locker, and fiied at his mate. The bullet entered his head killing him instantly. Coming ashore, he found the lady in dispute dead on the shore. She had been strolling along unknown to either of the men. The bullet had passed through both rival and sweetheart.

The New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts' sixteenth annual exhibition is well worth seeing. On the whole, the exhibits show a decided advance over previous years And the number seems to be steadily giowing. The visitor is perhaps most struck with the seines of portrait studies, 307 "In the Sene and Yellow," by A. Datello-Rubbo. The series is very fine, and the artist has given, life and life-colour to his woik. In the same artist's "Grey Cowl," 312, thi like remarks apply, but the treatment of the shadow on the monk's face is an, added chaim to very high-class ■work. * * * • Miss Sybil Johnson has many pastel sketches, all showing true autistic feeling and life. No. 35, a sketch of a naval officer, is forceful and natural. But, "Foothght Fne" (No. 158) is this young artist's finest effort, being the bead of a beautiful girl weirdly illumined and glonfied by the glow of unagmed embers. Nos. 61 and 62, specimens of Ceha Burton's best work, show masses of cactus dahlias and clematis respectively. They seem to borrow their bloom straight from natuie. * * * E. W. Payton's "Bloom of the Pohotukawa" is very striking and well painted. The gnarled old tree on the edge of the sea, topped by its flame of led blossoms, is evidently an inspiration. E. W- Payton correctly gauges distance. A portrait of Miss Elfie Williams, by M. Williams (No. 165), is eminently clever, natural, and unstitted. If one oould pick a fault, it must be with the drooping hand of the subject, which is less instinct with the life that is the chief charm of the whole. * * * No. 159, "Aaltje,' is a portiait gem by M. A. Cohen. Aaltje, in, her sunbonnet and her calm, childlike face, is a very charming child, charmingly paintel No. 151, "A Country Road in Antwerp," is noteworthy on account of its fine perspective effect. It is by G. E. Butler. The red roofs and ancient buildings, glorified by the setting smn, are treated with tender warmth, and the whole is most pleasing. No. 200, "Red Beach Forest, Mararoa," is a picture that appeals to one by the naturalness of the growing timber in. the foreground. The dark distance, which the westering sun. is turning to gilt on the tops of the trees in the foreground, is skilfully done. A. Hamilton has pictured the true soul of the forest.

A man booked a seat in a Pans theatre the other day, and, having settled himself quietly, took poison and expired. The question whether the crime was piemeditated or was the result of witnessing the play does not appear to have been satisfactorily settled.