A TRIFLING INCONVENIENCE.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3673, 2 October 1880, Page 4

A TRIFLING INCONVENIENCE.

M My dear," said Spoopendyke, feeling up the chimney, " hare you seen my gold collar button ? " # " I saw it the day you bought it, answered Mrs Spoopendyke, cheerily, " and I thought it very pretty. Why do you ask P " "'Cause I've lost the measly thing, responded Mr Spoopendyke, running the broom handle up into the cornice and shaking it as if it were a carpet. "You don't suppose it is up there, do you ? " asked Mrs Spoopendyke. " Where did you leave it ? " •• Left it in my shirt. Where do you suppose I'd leave it—in the hash ? " and Mr Spoopendyke tossed over the things in my wife's writing desk and looked out of the window after it.

" Where did you leave your shirt P " asked Mrs Spoopendyke. " Where did I leave my shirt P Where do you suppose I left it P Where does a man generally leave his shirt, Mrs Spoopendyke ? Think I left it in the ferryboat? Got an idea. I left it at prayer meeting, haven't you P Well, I didn't. I left it off, Mrs Spoopendyke, that's where I left it. I left it off. Hear me?" And Mr Spoopendyke pulled the winter clothing out of the cedar chest that hadn't been unlocked for a month.

"Where is the shirt now?" persisted Mrs Spoopendyke. " Where do you suppose'it is ? "Where do you imagine it is P I'll tell you where it is, Mrs Spooendyke, its gone to Bridgeport as a witness in a land suit. Idea! Ask a man where his shirt is ! You know I haven't been out of the room since I came home last night and took it off;" and Mr Spoopendyke sailed down stairs and raked the fire out of the kitchen range, but didn't find the button.

" Maybe you lost it on the way home," suggested Mrs Spoopendyke, as her husband came up, hot and angry,*and began to pull a stuffed canary to pieces, to see if the button had got inside. "Oh, yes! Very likely!, I stood up against a tree and lost it. Then I hid behind a fence so I wouldn't see it. That's the way it was. If I only had your head, Mrs Spoodendyke, I'd turn loose as a razor strop. I don't know anything sharper than you are ; " and Mr , Spoopendyke clutched a handful of dust off the top of the wardrobe. "It must hare fallen out," mused Mrs Spoopendyke. . "Oh! it mast, eh! It must have fallen out! Well, I declare, I never thought of that. My impression was that it took a buggy and drove out, or a balloon and hoisted out," and Mr Spoopendyke crawled behind the bureau and commenced tearing up the carpet. " And if it fell out, it must be some where near where he left his shirt. Now he always throws his shirt on the lounge, and the button is under that." A moment's search soon established the infallibility of Mrs Spoopendyke's logic. "Oh, yes! Pound it, didn't you?" panted Mr Spoopendpke, as he bumped his bea9 against the bureau and finally climber! to a perpendicular. "Perhaps you'll fix my shirts so that it won't fall out any more, and maybe you'll have sense enough to mend that lounge, now has made so much trouble. If you only to the house as I do to my business, there'd never be any difficulty about ; loosing a collar button. "It wasn't my fault—" began Mrs Spoopendyke. 11 Wasn't, eh ! Have you found that coal bill you've been looking for since . March?"

"Yes."

" Have, eh! Now where did yon put it ? Where did you find it P " "In your overcoat pocket." . —Brooklyn Eagle.