His Last Moments.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 228, 12 November 1887, Page 6

His Last Moments.

The old book agent was dying. ' It is hard, very hard,' he murmured ' to have this happen just as I had been given exclusive territory for a work which is bound to sell like hot cakes/ Then, glancing at the sobbing friends who stood around his bedside, he said : 1 Soon all that will be left of me is a sainted memory. I shall have departed, as Shakspere (whose works in ten volumes at ss.each or £1. for the set I have often sold), remarks, to that bourne from whence no traveller returns. But do not weep. I have one last request to make of you. Promise that you will grant it.' 'We will,' replied all present in choking accents. * I have your word— yours, Uncle Si, and yours, Aunt Matilda, and Bill's, and cousin Jim's, and Dr Slaughter's?' 'You have,' was the unanimous response. ' Then,' said the dying man with animation, * I shall put each of you down for a set of Hooligan's New History of New Zealand in twelve volumes, full morocco, at per set. The entire work will be delivered to each of you within a week.' One by one the sorrowing friends filled out, too full for utterance. ' That little stroke of business gets me on Ai monument,' said the agent,. addressing his wife. 'And now suppose you send round for the undertaker and I'll see if I can't get him to invest in a set and take it out in trade.'

Tho Bruco Dairy Factory have received on an averago 160 gallons of milk this season since commencing operations, and the supply ia on the increase. This is about 100 gallons a day more than was leceiveu on the opening clays last year. The balance sheet submitted at the annual general meeting of the Wniamwa ])airy Factory Company, held last week, showed a deficit of £274 17s. on the year s operations.