A CURIOUS ADVENTURE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1239, 13 September 1884, Page 2

A CURIOUS ADVENTURE.

A curious adventure once occurred in the London offices of the late W. Lindsay, merchant, shipowner, and M.P. There one day entered a brusque, but wealthy, shipowner of Sunderland, inquiring for Mr Lindsay. As Mr Lindsay was out, the visitor was requested to wait in an adjacent room, where he found a person busily engaged in copying out some figures. Tl le Sunderland shipowner paced the room several times, and took careful notice of the writer’s doings, and at length said to him, “ Thou writes a bonnie hand, thoa dost.” “I’m glad you think so,” was the reply, “ Ah, thou dost. Thou macks thou figures well, Thou’rt just the chap I want.” “ Indeed !” said the Londoner. “Yes, indeed,’? said the Sunderland man. “ I’m ft man of few words. Noo, if thoa’lt come over to the canny auld Sunderland, thou seest, I’ll give thee a hundred and twenty a year and that’s a plum thou dost not meet every day in thy life, I reckon. Noo then !” 'J'he Londoner replied that he was much obliged to him for the offer and would wait until Mr Lindsay returned, and would consult him upon the subject. Accordingly, on the return of the latter, he was informed of the tempting offer. “Very well,” said Mr Lindsay, “I should be sorry to stand in your way. One hundred and twenty pounds is more than I can afford to pay you in the department in which you are at present placed. You will find ray friend a good and kind master, and, under the circumstances, the sooner you know each other the better. Allow me therefore Mr M to introduce to you the Right lion. W. E. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer.” The Sunderland shipowner, you may be sure, wag » little taken aback at first, bat he soon recovered his self-possession, and enjoyed the joke as much as Mr Gladstone did, —From Cassell’s Saturday Journal.