An Irrasclbie Old Gentleman.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 473, 21 May 1890, Page 3

An Irrasclbie Old Gentleman.

A neat joke was perpetrated on the porters of one of the railways a day or two ago. A gentleman and his companion journeyed a few miles out of Birmingham on a line where there nre frequent stations, at all of which the train stopped. The gentloman seemed tp be on thp-look oqt for soqseorip before tfie train started, bqt entered a qlass coßipartriierit without being suepessful in bis search, After travelling two or three minutes the train stepped, and calling a porter, the traveller referred to slipped twopence in his hand and asked him to see if Mr Brown was in the next compartment. • Is Mr Brown in here?’ shouted the porter through - the window. The passengers looked at each other to see who was Mr Brown, and as no one answered the railway official duly reported he was not there. At the next station the gentleman called another porter and gave him a ‘tip’ to ask the same question again. Indeed at every station he acted in a similar manner. First ib was, ‘No, Mr Brown is not here ;’ then the stout old gentleman who, sitting in the corner by the window, on being asked for the third time, replied, ‘ No, he ain’t. How many more times ?’ At the fourth station he answered, ‘ No, —— Mr Brown,’ and at the fifth station he drew up the window in the face of the innocent porter and gave vent to a volley of oath?. At the sixth station a porter had no sooner shown his face at the window than the irate old man exclaimed, ‘ Mr Brown ain’t here, and if you coiro again I’ll wring your neck.’ This was,, unintelligible to the railway servant, it being his first visit, and fortunately for the men at the next station the gentleman who was so anxious to find Mr Brown in the next compartment to his own stepped out of the carriage and walked away, evidently well satisfied with the success of his joke. Who ho was no one knew, bub he had remarkably long legs, and report says he has been seen with a black face and white eye somewhere about Broad-street.