STOPPING A LEAK.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1752, 19 June 1888, Page 4

STOPPING A LEAK.

When a man comes home late with a thickness in his speech, his whole frame harrassed by an explosive hiccup, and an aroma of rum ronnd him like a halo, that is not the moat favorable time for a loving and considerate wife to remind him that there is a hole in the roof which should be plugged before the rain comes on. The wife who is not anxious to be left a widow would postpone the observation till, her lord and master has wrapped his head- in wet rags and taken a long sleep. Mrs Chubb, of Parramatta,t6ld Chubb on© Saturday evening tlat the kitchen mof needed a patch as big as arable, and Chubb, who was under the influence of twenty pewter pints of colonial beer, promptly accepted a contract to doctor the abrasion. Ee first borrowed a ladder from a neighbour, and immediately proceeded to fall over it, and under it, and through it and round about it, in a most complicated and "bewildering manner, knocking lumps off his head every Bhot. Then he poked one ead jthrough a window, and knocked his wife into a. wash-tub with the other. After which :he stood the ladder up against the atmosphere, and started to mount it; but before he had risen high enough to command a view over the way, he was astonished to perceive that the ladder was falling on bin with malice aforethought. Chubb hastened to get from under, but he was several | seconds too late, and the infernal contrivance got him down and jumped on him twice,, killing a valuable dog and laming a laying hen at the same time. After stanching his wounds, Chubb surveyed the ladder for some moments with becoming gravity; he walked round and around it warily, as if to secure a point of vantage, and valiantly attacked it once more. This time he succeded in upending it against the house, only sweeping down a range of flower pots, mutilating a cat, and wounding two delicate children by the way. He now proceeded to climb the ladder for. the second and last time, securing firm grips, and picking his steps with every care; but about half-way up he overshot his calculations, his legs poked in between the spokes, and before he had time to calmly deliberate over the situation, Chubb and the ladder; came to grass with a dull thud. Mrs Chubb procured the assistance of a neighbor to disentangle her squashed hubby, and carry him into the house. He was put to bed, bathed in turpentine and swath«d in bandages, and next day he felt as if he had fallen out with a tramcar, and been run over by a waggon. The hole remains in the root.