Afternoon Tea Gossip

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 272, 16 September 1905, Page 10

Afternoon Tea Gossip

By Little Miss Muffitt

A WELLINGTON tenant, has left his house because there are two feet of water in the cellar. Some people are never satisfied. He cannot expect a cellar full of whisky for £4 a month. t A country paper is unnecessary violent. A drunken man, who had the aum of £576 on him, was picked up by a citizen in the street on Monday last, and escorted into safety. What a mercy the man didn't fall into the hands of the police !" « • • Tasmania has got ahead of our own colony. The "Tassy" Legislature has prohibited the youth of that country from "marking a ticket" in a Chiinefae lattery, and promises to heavily fine den-keieper and gambler alike. One Wellington youth recently made £60 m two nights, and he didn't commit any sin — in law. • • • There is nothing very humorous about the inside of a church, but outsidle, at least one city church there was recently a comic item. Evidently, they hadn't deeddted who should preach on the following Sunday, for the announcement was written on the wall • "The preacher for next Sunday will be nailed on the door." • • • A Southern parson, out after notoriety like a veritable Dr. Gibb, is going strong on the evils of dancing, Which he declares is merely "hugging set to music." He wanted to know, the other day, what was to be done to improve dancing. A bold, bad young fellow in the hall replied : "Cut out the music," and the parson danced with rage. Dancing is wicked, so is poisonous parsonaflage. • • * Lieutenant yon Scherbenham, Mr. Leopold' Huberedlosohesbuohabin, Lieutenant "Miroslav Makuc, and) M. Maroslavnackue are on the Austrian warship visiting Australian ports. When they attended a Government House function at Sydney, the usher tried to tell the guests who were coming, but he got to the second syllable of Huber, etc., and then fainted. The Austrian s restored him to his senses by repeating their own names. • • * Hackenschmidt, the "strongest man in the world," says that if one wants to be strong one must eat all the sweets one can get. I noticed! a girl in the Opera House the other night who had eaten a large box full of chocolates. Such an effect did it have on her muscles that she lifted her cloak from its peg in the dressing-room without any help whatever. There is an idea in this tor the Government. They might give up drilling school youngsters, and supply a pound of lollies per day per head. We would! have a race of toothless giants in no time. • • * Pathetic pen-picture from a West Coast paper: — "Yesterday was pension day, and a sight indeed it was to see those who had borne the blunt of time come out with faces beaming with contentment, and blessing the Government of the day for their forethought." In looking up the slang dictionary, I find that "blunt" is described as 'beans," "ooftish," "spons," "gonce," "cash," "rhino," "gilt," "money," and 1 many other things indicating lucre. Persons, therefore, who have been bearing "blunt" for any time are surely not entitled to the old age pension. • • • You know the adoring mamma who brings in little Willie to show off before the visitors, and the visitor who says he ia a nice wee boy, but rather ■weakly-looking, and small for his age, and seems to have no hair, and she had a wee darling just like him, but he took croup one evening, and now his little tombstone prevents a bit of cemetery from looking like open country. Also, the person who hasn't met you foi a year, asd says : "Good 1 gracious, what have you been doing to yourself. You do look ill !" Makes you feel nice, that sort of person. A lady calls on me regularly with all the horrors she has clipped 1 out of the papers in a bundle. I want to. laugh through life, not grizzle. That's what you want, too.

The wife of a Cliicawgo pouk-packmg millionaire, when she. really loves anybody, borrows her little "hanky," and pouis one spot of perfume on it. The one spot costs £25. It is distilled from a certain kind of water-lily — mid a diseased spendthrift mind. * * ♦ A magistrate, with the prevaaling passion for smartness, recently said that people now-a-days apply far matrimonial separation orders just as they would apply for penny railway tickets. It is an unfortunate simile. There are no penny railway tickets in New Zealand. Parliament and parsons don't seem to be "hitting if very well. Thus a Napier parson — "The great multitude of those ccanp'rising Parliament are sheep, and silly sheep at that, led by a great shepherd.' The trouble is that there are no parsons m Parliament, although theire are persons in Parliament who ought to be parsons. His Excellency the Governor attended a small function the other day, and was followed mto the dressing-room by Lus gigantic footman. Quite unconscious of the humour of the situation, a local man of short stature, unable to see through the large liveried person, obtained a step-ladder. Mounting it, he fed his eyes on the' Governor. * # * It is fashionable to be literary. I know a girl who talks literature morning, noon, and night. Asked her what she thought of Scott's 1 "Ivanhoe." She thought it was "perfecly lovely !" And Scott's "Lady of the Lake?" "Delicious!" And Scott's Emulsion? "The best thing he ever wrote !" Then I implored her to read Chaucer's "Faery Queen," which, as you know, is a poetic eulogy of Be&cham's Pills. * * * The new and approved male lip ornament is "the butterfly." No gentleman can afford to be without ooie. It is two inches long — an inch on eaah side of the nose — and it must be turned up, and kept up. Bare-faced persons are warned that they are "without the pale" in refusing to wear "a butterfly." It has been adopted by the British Army, and is, consequently, going to win battles for the Empire. » • • I heard a rather quaint expression the other day. A lady was speaking of a man who was suffering from ennui. Said she : "He looked as bored as an aide-de-camp." Having seen aidles-de-camp on many public occasions, I am able to say that the man mentaomed by the lady must have looked exceedingly bored indeed. Why aides-de-camp should look like graven images is hard to understand, especially as they are paid entirely to be ornamental.