MRS SPOOPENDYKE MISUNDERSTANDS.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4934, 1 November 1884, Page 4

MRS SPOOPENDYKE MISUNDERSTANDS.

11 Is there any truth in this story that JBradlaugh has killed Lord Randolph Churchill ? " inquired Mrs Spoopendyke, fitting the sleeve into the armhole and running in the basting. " No,'' ejaculated Mr Spoopendyke. " Where'd you get that ? Mr Bradlaugh has resigned, but he ain't dead." "I read that he had got into some difficulty with Sir Randolph, and Mr Bradlaugh had .dragged him all around by the - ear, and finally they bad to take Mr Bradlaugh away to save his life, '■ though he died afterward." *• Who said so ? " demanded Mr Spoopen* dyke ; " where'd you read anything like that?" "I read it on a pattern that Mrs Winterbotham loaned me for an out* skirt. I'm sure it's so," replied Mrs Spoopendyke. "Get the pattern," said Mr Spoopendyke ; " show it to me." Mrs Spoopendyke unrolled the pattern, and commenced to read, " The Bradlaugh imbroglio has nssumed the most exciting shape. To-day the trouble ■ between Bradlaugh and Lord Randolph Churchill culminated by his lordship seizing him by the throat and holding on, while the crowd yelled with delight. Twenty to one was offered, but Bradlaugh remains firm, and declares that the Administration will not yield. This position aroused the crowd to frenzy. It is said that Lord Churchill really desires to retire to private life, but Bradlaugh at that moment planted his teeth in his

game adversary's ear, and dragged him around until the friends of Churchill were ccnocrp-criic-u—to-— tutcKCcrttr-io save 'Vttß poor thing's life." " There !" said Mrs Spoopendyke, triumphantly,," I told you so." ;." Show me," said Mr Spoopendyke, jumping up and seizing the pattern. " Where d'ye find such nonsense as that ? Where is it ?' " There, it begins under the ruffle, then it runs over on the band and down on the gore, and ends here on the plaiting. I knew I'd seen it," and Mrs Spoopendyke smiled pleasantly. " What's the matter with you P" howled Spoopendyke. " This is where you get your political information, is it ?" This is the source of your intelligence on national affairs ? All you want is two more patterns and a bald head to be a constitutional lawyer. Three overskirts and a pair of spectacles would make you a Supreme Court judge. What d'ye think this is ?'.' " Isn't it right ?" faltered Mrs Spoopendyke. " Did you read from the ruffle over to the band and down t& the gore ?" "If e9, I did, didn't I," squeaked Mr Spoopendyke, " and so did you, didn't you? JJo you know what you've got here ?" '"Isn't it a pat—" " Haog the pattern—l mean the print! Part of it is about Bradlaugh, part about Lord Churchill, and the rest is an account of a dog fight from the Daily Telegraph. Know what it is now? Think you can understand it, now I've explained it to you P Oh, you can. You've got brains. Some day I'm.going to run a pipe in your ear, and start a phosphorus factory," and Mr Spoopendyke danced out of the room, leaving it strewn with pattern dust. "I "don't care," sobbed Mrs Spoopendyke, "it read all right, and the skirt fitted so nicely: that I supposed the articles were put together straight. And it was so perfectly natural, anybody might make the same mistake. It's so like most of the news, that I've been expecting it every day;" and Mrs Spoopenkyke overcast the sleeve, with the serene conviction that after all you've got to patch a newspaper into a pattern to get at the actual facts sometimes.