POOR MR FORBES.

Thames Star, Volume IIII, Issue 1709, 25 June 1874, Page 2

POOR MR FORBES.

The housewife will do well to keep her surplus ■ pepper in "a loose paper on an upper shelf. Mrs Forbes, of Nelson street, is distinguished for that trait of domestic government. Mr Forbes keeps the piece of mutton tallow with which he strengthens his boots in a piece of paper also. We don't pretend to say that Mr Forbes puts this mutton tallow on an upper shelf, or any shelf at all when he gets through with it. We wouldn't dare say this in face of the fact that Mr Forbes has always appeared surprised when it is handed him, B3t he keeps it in a paper, and the advent of snow on Saturday morning prompted him to look for it. Mrs Forbes had her attention attracted towards him by his getting down on his knees.'to peer under the stove, and by a remark he incidentally dropped to the effect that "he bet he'd build a house yet that he could put a thing in and find it again." She asked him what he was looking for, but he preserved a mood v silence, and continued the search, taking the kettles out from beneath the sink, and scrutinising each one with unrelenting seve- 1 rity.

"Why don't you tell me what you" are looking for?" demanded Mrs Forbes. ".None of your business," said hs snappishly.

"I don't believe you know what you are looking for," retorted Mrs Forbes, and appeared to receive much consolation from the remark.

"If things were left where they are put," exclaimed Mr Forbes, now thoroughly exasperated, " they could be found again.'' Whatever observation Mr Forbes contemplated venturing to this was abruptly cut off by the advent of a neighbour, who wanted to consult her iv regard to the trimming of a cloak. Mrs Forbes hastily adjourned to the sitting room, and Mr Forbes passed into the pantry to exolore the shelves. Bits of paper peeping over «dge of the upper shelf immediately attracted his attention, and he proceeded to take them down.

Now, a woman would Lave taken a chair for this purpose, that she might rather see what she was doing, but a mail rarely descends to the weakness of a woman. As long as the contents/of a ahelf, can be reached, he does not care (o see the shelf itself. And so Mr Forbes stood on his tip-toes, and' reaching up, began to drag down .he paper parcels. Mrs Forbes, m the sitting-room with the neighbour, and completely engrossed in. the particulars of the new cloat was startled out of her chair by a partly smo and e out Cof h Hnd X and out of her senses by a piercing shriek and a terrific crash, and flyin| into the kitchen found the breakfast tobfe tipped over, and the portly and conservative Mr Forbes prancing in among the rums of the crockery and food, madly rnbbmg his eyes, and sneezing most vociferously. b The poor woman was immediatly made aware of the cause of the mishap. Bis passionate reference to pepper in paper parcels, to the awful stupidity of thefemale sex, and to a future world, all of which, most singularly jumbled together; needed no unravelling to make - them more explicit. She dragged him to the sink, she dashed cold water in his face and down*his back and bosom, she rubbed his ears and pounded him between the shoulders, and besought him with flushed tace and tearful eyes "not to carry on and make such an idiot of himself." But it was some time, even under her skilful treatment, before he could stifle his screams and profanity, and venture to open his bleared and inflamed eyes, and it was not until she had said eight times that if "he had only told her what he wanted this might have been saved," did ne teel sufficiently recovered to dash into that pantry and demolish that shelf.— Danbury Kews.