MR. WARNER TRIES IT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4773, 10 July 1876, Page 3

MR. WARNER TRIES IT.

Mr. Warner, a respectable and law-abiding citizen of Barker-street, rode home in an express waggon the other day, having a hand fire-extinguisher and the driver for company. “ What’s that thing ?” asked his wife in contemptuous tones as she opened the hall door. “ What’s that ! Why that’s a fire extinguisher —best thing you ever saw, meant to have got one a year ago.” “Jacob, you are always making a fool of yourself,” she continued, as she shut the door. “Every patent right man get around you as a cat lies for a mouse.” “ Does, eh ? If you know anything at all you’d know that every stqro and office in Detroit has one o’ these. They’ve saved lots of buildings, and may save ours.” “You throw it at the fire, don’t you ?” she asked in sarcastic tones. He carried it upstairs into a closet without replying, and she followed on and asked,. “Don’t it shoot a fire out?” “If you don’t know anything, I’ll learn you something ! It is full of chemicals ; you strike on this knob on the top, and she’s all ready to open this faucet, and play on the fire.” She grinned as she walked around it, and finally asked, “Do you get a horse to draw it around ? ” “No ; I don’t get a horse to draw it around. You see these straps ? Well, I back up, put my arms through them, and here it is on my back.” “I see it is,” she sneered. “And can’t I . run to any part of a house with it,” he demanded. “See—see!” And he cantered along the hall into the bedrooms and out, and was turning the head of the stairs when his foot caught in the carpet. .He threw up his arms and she grabbed at him, and both rolled down stairs. He yelled and she yelled. Sometimes he was ahead, and then she took the lead, and neither of them had passed under the “string’’when the extinguisher, bumping or jamming, began to shoot off its charge of chemicals. “You old—!” she started to say, when a stream from the rose struck her between the eyes, and she didn’t finish. “What in—o-o-u-c-h !” roared Mr. Warner, as he got a dose in the ear. They brought up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, against the hall door and up-stairs by turns, and she gasped : —“ I’ll have you sent to a fool asylum.” “ Who’s a fool ?” he roared, dancing around with his eyes full of chemicals. “ I’m fainting !” she squeaked. It was a sad house when those two highly respectable people got so that they could shut their eyes and discuss matters calmly. And she doubled up her fist and hoarsely said :—“ Take that investigator, or distinguisher, or whatever you call it, back down town, and tell everybody that you are a lunatic.” And he said, “Dummit, I know more than all your whole family put together.” Detroit Free Press.