A STRAPPING JOKE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 340, 21 March 1874, Page 3

A STRAPPING JOKE.

A French musician has been creating considerable social and public disturbances by his inveterate disposition to play practical jokes. His chief object in life seems to be to wovry Custom House officials Arriving at a place on the frontier, provided with a quantity of luggage, he would pretend to conceal a huge trunk and a small one from the eye of the officials, only the more to excite their curiosity. At last the larger trunk would be opened. It would be found to contain thousands of second-hand trowser «traps— an appendix of trousers now perfectly obsolete - which had evidently been packed by hydraulic pressure, for the most franctic efforts on the part of the employda could ,not put them back again into .the trunk. In the meantime hundreds of passengers storm at the detention, while the practical joker calmly looks on at the bother he is causing. But the second and smaller trunk has now to be examined, and the Custom House people hope there to find him in default They ask for the keys The practical joker draws bunches of ponderous keys from every one of his pockets ; none will fit, until, at last, their patience exhausted, the Custom House officers threaten to burst the trunk open. The the possessor of the trunk calmly asks the angry officer if he is married. •♦ What business is that of yours ?" is the surly reply. " Only this : That before you open that trunk T would advise you to go-home, shake hands with your wife, kiss your .little children, write your will, and call at an undertakers as you come back, There are rattlesnakes in that U-unk. I never travel without them." Of course the man leaves the trunk instantly, and a -messenger has to be sent to the head director, who is shrewd enough to be aware that he has to deal with some practical joker. Presently the official returns, and asks pompously " now many snakes have you, sir Only six." is the reply— "look for yourelf.' "Oh, only six; The head of the department says six snakes can paas, but that seven would have to pay duty. lam instructed to state to you that if you do not leave this office— trowser straps, snakes, and all— in five minutes, you will be forcibly ejected." "And who is to repack my precoua straps, a collection unequalled iv the w.orld ? The law entitles me to all my Goods. You took them, out ; put them back again. The best period of my life is being devoted to finding pair's for these straps."