MR AND MRS SPOOPENDYKE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1127, 17 January 1884, Page 3

MR AND MRS SPOOPENDYKE.

‘ Now, my dear,’ said Mr Spoopendyke, prancing into the sitting room wit!) every evidence of delight and contentment pictured on his face. ‘ Now, my dear, what do you think I’ve brought you ?’ ‘l’m sure I don’t know,’ fluttered Mrs Spoopendyke. ‘Please tell me what it is, for I know it is something nice !’ ‘ Look,’grinned Mr Spoopendyke, unwrapping the package and developing a cabinet photograph of himself nicely framed in gilt. 1 How do you like it ?’ and Mr Spoopendyke held it out at arm’s length and admired it hugely. ‘ Isn’t it perfectly splendid V gulped Mrs Spoopendyke. ‘ It is the best likeness of you I have ever seen. Did you get it for me.?’ 1 Of course,’ replied Mr Spoopendyke, still buried in admiration of his counterf flt. ‘ You don’t imagine I got it for the rats, do you? Haven’t any kind of a notion I brought it home to kill bugs with, have you ? Now where shall we hang it f ‘ I don’t know,’ murmured Mrs Spoopendyke, with her finger to her lips. ‘ Why, wouldn’t that space between the two windows be a good place ?’ ‘ Why, wouldn’t the top shelf of the pantry be better ?’ growled Mr Spoopendvke. ‘ If you are looking for a place where the light won’t strike it why not put it under the carpet, or stick it between the mattresses? This picture demands some refulgence to show it off, and I’m going to put it where the most light is calculated to siriko it. Now where can we put it ?’ ‘ Isn’t that a good place over the bed V suggested Mrs Spoopendyke, who began to see that her husband was aiming for the chimney, where the painting of lut father naa hung for years. ‘ If you hang it over the bed, I can see it whenever I come into the room.’ ‘Just so,’ snarled Spoopendyke, running a cord through the eyes in the back of the frame, ‘ I don’t know though,’ he continued, as a brilliant idea occurred to him. ‘ You like that place between the two windows best, don’t you ? I don’t know but wbat that is a good place for a picture.’ ‘ Best place in the room,’ giggled Mrs Spoopendyke, satisfied that she had carried her point and saved the location sacred to her father. ‘ Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Mr Spoopendyke, with a gleam of specu lation in his eyes. We’ll hang your father’s picture up there and I will be content to take the subordinate place over the chimney piece,’ Mrs Spoopendyke saw she had hern caught in her own trap, and made no further resistance. ‘ Where’s the step-ladder ?’ asked Spoop endyke. ‘Bring me the portable Tower of Babel, and 1 will fresco this wall with the finest of modern artistic efforts.’ Mrs Spoopendyke lugged the stepladder upstairs, and Mr Spoopendyke having arranged his string, mounted to take down the old gentleman’s picture with a view to the proposed removal, ‘ Look out you don’t fall, dw, 1 suggested Mrs Spoopendyke, foigetting her defeat in her solipitu.de for her husband. ‘ That’s all right,’smiled Mr Spoopendyke from his perch. ‘You just quit roosting on that bottom round like an hen, and I will got on without further trouble.’ Mrs Spoopendyke jumped off the ladder but her dress caught on the step, and down came Mr Spoopendyke like a bundle ot soiled clothes, rolling on the floor and trying to get clear of the ladder that had rolled after him and had mixed itself up with him ap that it was difficult to tell which was which. ‘ What did you let go for !’ yelled Mr Spoopendyke, trying to get his elbow out of his mouth, and still struggling with the i ladder. Didn’t I tell ye to hold ? Think

I don’t know how to get olf a ladder when I get ready 1 S’pose I want a ladder turned bottom upwards when I want to get down ? Take it off! ’ be roared, satisfying himself he was powerless. ‘lf you want to see a ladder climb up Spoopendyke, stand up a while and give me a show. Dod gast that ladder V and with a vicious wrench Mr Spoopendyke contrived to free himself from the ladder aid assume a perpendicular. ‘ Let the picture go, dear,’ cooed Mrs Spoopendyke. ‘ You can fix it some other time. ’ ‘No time like the present!’ hissed Mr Spoopendyke, jamming the ladder against the wall and mounting cnce more. ‘ Never put off a father-in-law until tomorrow that you can get away with today ! Now you hold that thing tight, or you will he apt to be a winow between this and the time it takes to sweep me up !’ and Mr Spoopendyke seeing that his wife had a death grip on the ladder, took the picture from the wall and began to descend cautiously, ‘ Shall I take the picture, dear V asked Mrs Spoopendyke, letting go the ladder and bolding up her hands for the picture. Mr Spoopendyke turned to hand it to her, and losing his balance once more came down with a crash. ‘Got it?’ shrieked Mr Spoopendyke as the ladder again toppled over on him and he saw the repetition of his former mishap. ‘ Think ye got the picture ’ Got a notion that ye saved enough to collect the insurance on ? If the picture is safe,’ he continued in a subdued and melancholy voice, ‘if the picture is safe, never mind me, Good-bve dear. When they ask for me, tell ’em I am gone to that realm where the measly pictures cease from troubling and the step ladders do not breik in and corrupt. Going to lift that tiling off me, or are you going to use it for a tombstone ? : “Mark it ‘Hie Jacet Spoopendyke,’ or take it away before I begin to exert my supernatural strength and kick it into the rea'ms of eternal bliss, where the latter biteth like a !’’ and with a prodigious kick, Mr Spoopendyke sent the ladder to the nethermost part of the room and arose to his feet foaming. ‘ Never mind the picture, dear 1’ suggested Mrs Spoopendyke. You leave it wish me and I’ll iiang it to-morrow, ‘ Oh, you’ll do it.’ howled Mr Spoopendyke, whirling on his heel and coming hard down on bis own photograph which he had carefully laid on the floor, ‘ You are the one to hang it! Trust you for a thing of that kind ! ff you had a wire along your ceiling and a catalogue in your ear, you’d only want a tin-type and n row to be an academy of design !’ and with th's complicated description of his wife’s few failings, Mr Spoopendyke shot into bed as if he were practising archery, and nursed his wounds and wrath until he fell asleep. ‘ I don’t care,’ muttered Mrs Spoopendyke, trying to untie the knot of her shoelace with her teeth, ‘ I don’t care. It will teach him another time to let poor papa’s picture alone.’