Fits and Starts.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 243, 25 February 1888, Page 3

Fits and Starts.

"Carry your bag, sir?" eaid a seedy, solemn, shuffling, and shoeless youth, who was occupied inserting a patch of brown paper inside the knees of a pair of trousers, with a well-meant effort to cover a gaping rent that let in too much air, and almost made the woarer of tho dilaoidated garment Unpresentable. Thero was a resignation about the jouth that would have been s>ubline in tho cause of martyrdom, but which raised doubts as to its being a virtue when employed in tho cause (to coin a word) of cadgordom. Ho asked to carry my ba» on the off chance of my saying " No," and i 1 am disposed to think he was not only startled, but disappointed, when I said "Yes," and shoved into his hand a small valise, which looked light enough, but which brought a grimace across the flabby features of the lad when ho lifted it and discovered the weight thereof. "Going far, guffnor?" asked tho youth with that kind of familiarity which wo are told breeds contempt. My answer was evasive, and left the inquirer in doubt and darkness. He shifted the valise from right to left hand, observing, " Heavy swag, ain't it ?" I declined to notice the observation in any shape or mode, and a good wholesome perspiration put in an appearance on the face of the youth. Ho trudged along for a few minutes, and then he incidentally mentioned that "he knew a pub. in the immediate vicinity where they drew * hale strong enough for to take the roof off your skull." Declining to have myskull tampered with, I walked on in silence, feeling sure that I should soon be treated to another tentative, observation. " This is a bag ! Are we nearly there ? plaintively cried the porter. "Nearly where ?" I asked. "Why, where you're agoing, guffnor," exclaimed the youth ; whilst he sarcastically | added, " I suppose you aro agoing some- j where, ain't you ?" He waited for the answer, and whilst he j did so he kindly put my valise down in a puddle. I had recently read and heard a great deal about the unemployed, and their anxiety to find honest work, so I thought I might as well have a test case of my own to record. " Look here, my lad," I said, " you may thank your stars you have dropped on t<? » food thing;." Hi* features brigbtened up a bit, and I availed myself of this ray of human sunshine to inform him that I should require his services for another four hours at least. "I'm dashed if I shouldn't! have a reg'lar fit if I was to cart that bag of yourn about much longer," said tho shabby youth. The emphasis he put upon the word reg'lar raised my cariosity somewhat. *" You decline then, do you ?" " Rayther, guffnor. How am I to get my living if I gets a bloom on my mug like a tomarfcer? Besides, I got to meet the hexcursion from Weymouth." All this was mysterious in the extreme. Why a ruddy complexion should be inimical to a man earning his daily cru3t was strange ; and what the Weymouth excursion had to do with it was still more shrouded in mystery. " Why, I thought you wanted a job ?" I said. " I wanted a job ; I didn't want a journey ; and I ain'b a geeraff, am I?" he insolently inquired. " A little more hexertion and you'd quisby my game," he muttered. In despair, I said, " In the name of goodness what do yoa live by ?" " By fits ! you hold fool," he indignantly added. Now, if he had said by fits and starts, I could have comprehended him ; but he had taken the steam out of mo by his sauce and his suddenness, and I simply stood staring somewhat stupidly at this study of the 9treets. " Yes, by fits ; now do you know ? How can I get hepiiep3ily and suddint faintnesses if you rougee3 me hup like a capetor-knm-pepper 1 Why you ought for to know batter." I took that young man by the shoulders, and I steered him into an adjacent tap. I sat him down opposite to me, and I caused to be placed before him a tankard of foaming ale. I did this like unto a man in a dream." I knew that my companion was in a condition to reveal something, and so I let him awig in silence until I felt he was equal to answering my queries. " So you live by fit 3 ?" I again asked. " Well, I ain'b pertikler whether it's £ts, or jerks, or conwulshions so long as it works."-, " And doe 3 work ?" I innocently inquired. 1 . " Does it work!" he repeated. " Why, in course it do ; specially when your limbs can lend themselves to it like mine can. Look here, guffnor, here's a shake," and he'immediately set every limb quivering as if it had been strung on an agueish bib of wire, till he M.-^itively raised me to a pitch of sympathy, rH I was inclined to give him a practical prou. ot it, when he pat the brake on, and aaked me, " What I thought of tho caper ?".. Asa matter of simulation it was perfect, and I was compelled to admit the artistic nature of the performance. "Good, ain't it?" he inquired, with genuine pride. "You bavn't seen me do the drop, have you? Well, now, you watch ; this is tha joker that fetches the tender-'arted." The speaker gob up, and was walking across the room, when, without warning, he dropped down all of a heap and doubled himself up in a most doleful and distressing" position. Although I was cognisant of the imposition, instinctively I ran to him to offer assistance. The patient partly opened his eyes with a painful effort, and in a voice •faint, from exhaustion aaid — "Brandy, quick !" So natural and so artistic was the action, that I found myself imploring the waiter to lose no time in getting 'the stimulant, until I was recalled to the too impulsive order I had given, by the operator doing a genuine grin as he straightened himself out on his pins, and asked me in triumph — "What l thought of that ?" He didn't give me .time ' to answer, for he told me the Weyraouth excursion was doo, and, he added, " Give mo a west countryman for to operate on. Look here, member, I shall bet you five quid to a bloater that whsn I does my drop on tho station, which I shall do just when the hexcuraionists is coming out, that I , have sympathy, sandwiches, and sixpences enough to keep me for a \reek." After this elegant speech, the unmitigated scoundrel shuffled out of the pub., and 1 saw no more , of him.—" Moonshine."

' Gem from the French — Madam© (to maid) : Francisco, why do you clean my boots with my booth - brush ? Maid (fco raadame) : Madame, the fact i», the other brushes are ab large, and madame's boots are so small. Didn't Stop There.— Misa Angelina : Ah, yes, Mr De Garno ; there is balm in Gtead, is there not ? Mr De Garno (just returned from a foreign tour): Well, er— really, Mia» Angelina, I didn't stop in Gilead when abroad.