CUROISITY.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 17, 26 January 1878, Page 3

CUROISITY.

I ONCE heard a druggist advise a small boy not to smell of the contents of a certain jug, and I tarried in that vicinity for a time to see if the boy would take the advice. Mixed up in man's composition, is an ingredient termed curiosity. Curiosity is a morbid yearning to know anything that you do not know. It is the " unravelling of the mysterious," as the fellow said when he pulled part of a skein of yarn out of a plate of hash This boy had a lump of crude curiosity in him as large as an unabridged dictionary, and all the charm of life to him seemed to bo a desire to get his nose over the mouth of that jug. He walked around it in a circle, each time drawing nearer to the jug, till he was in close communion with it. It was a large six gallon jug, and he was a small five gallon boy. He east a furtive glance at the proprietor, whose eye did not seem at that instant to be in the direction of the jug, and grasping the cork firmly, he gave it a pull, and out it came. Time with him was precious, and he did not waste any. Stooping over quickly, ho took a smell as deep as a post hole. He could not have taken any more unless his nose had been larger. Simultaneous with the smell, two little hands went up to his face, and one little boy demonstrated the attraction of gravitation, by sitting down on the floor, in a manner that would have brought a Hush of pride to the face of Isaac Newton. He sat down so energetically, that it unbuttoned his jacket, and shifted the parting in his hair to the opposite side of his head. The next breath he drew could not have given him more satisfaction, bad it been a leading prize in a lottery, and he went out into the fresh air, his nose feeling as big as a watermelon, and as hot as a Hatiron. I had just curiosity enough to go along and read the label on the jug. It looked as familiar to me as a dunning letter, as I read the words, " Spirits of Ammonia," 1 knew why the boy sat down so suddenly. He did not take the druggist's advice by a jug full.