PAT'S INGENUITY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 318, 3 June 1911, Page 10

PAT'S INGENUITY.

One of Ik' loading liotols recently hired a green Irishman in tlie capacity of a wait.'!-, and tlie first day lie attended upon the table a gentleman asked for a napkin. j>fow this was an article lie had never met with in all his life, and he could not tell what the gentleman meant. His Irish blood forbade him displaying his ignorance, and what to do he could not tell. He. wandered np and down the hall, closely observing the movements of his fellow servants, but could hear or see nothing whit., eame up to his notions of a napkin. Almost in despair, he came to the eonelusion, as the best way out of the dilemma, to tell a falsehood. Approaching the gentleman (who had already been 0 waited upon by another waiter), he said: "Flaix, aor, an' will ye be pleased to take something else? 'The napkins be all ate up." "Napkins ate up—you are mistaken, surely?" "'Pon tne honor of a gentleman. 1 be not," replied Patrick, in a polite whisper; "the gentlemen all preferred them to the praties, and not a scrap be left for ••»