Clippings.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 168, 27 June 1901, Page 3

Clippings.

bboWn and his telephone

Brown owned a telephony at least the telephone company allowed one to remain in his office while they collected every quarter one-half of Brown’s income to reimburse them for this great condescension. Sometimes Brown’s telephone worked and sometimes it didn’t-. It mostly didn’t. Had Brown been a rude than, he would have sworn; but Brown was meek ancl lowly, and unused to strange oaths. So he meekly and politely requested the company to remedy the difficulty.

But Brown was not aware that the telephone company considered its -duty ended With placing the telephone in his office.

Instead of Using bad language and abusing the company Brown only thought —and waited* Buzz-z-i. It was the telephone bell, and Rrbwn meekly answered. His telephone was No. 901.

“ Hello!” said a voice. “ L that you, Brown—No. 901 ? rt “ This isn’t 901,” answered Brown; this is the I.X.L. slaughter-house, No. at*,* Then the voice said something that caused Brown to blush and hang up the receiver.

Buzz-z i. Brown meekly answered, “ Is that No. 901 ?”

It was the telephone girl, and Brown, being a polite man, took off his hat before answering.

“ Oh, no; this is 853.”

Then the telephone girl drew in her breath, and said something that Brown would not allow himself to hear, and

rang again. “ Hello!” fluid Brown “ Nme-handred-and one ?” There was some doubt in the girl’s voice. And Brown answered : “ Ob, no, this is 702.” Buzz-z-z •‘rNinc-hundred-fcnd-one ?” The telephone girl had given it up, and the superintendent had taken a band. “This is 8,743,” answered Brown patiently. For the next ten minutes Brown was kept busy answering the boll, and he began to fear that hia stock of numbers was going to run out, when the bell broke, and Beown meekly resumed his work.

Fifteen minutes later Brown’s office was invaded by the superintendent, seven expert electricians, and nine linesmen and Brown’s telephone was repaired.

Had Brown been a rude man, it would not have been done yet.

DECIDEDLY FRUITFUL,

It is related that a settler in a Western town in the United States purchased a quantity of sugar at a grocer’s, and found when he came to use it that it had been largely adulterated.

Thereupon he in-erted the following advertisement in the newspaper of the place : “ Should the grocer who, for hiS pifofiß injudiciously mixed a pound of sand with a few pounds of sugar and lately sold u to a customer, not send to that person at once the pound of sugar he cheated him of, bis name shall bo disclosed to the

newspapers.” He affixed bis name and address, and the morning on whioh it appeared had not passed before the advertisement bore fruit —or at least sugar. A pound arrived before noon, and was followed during the d>y by seven more, all from different sources.

AN AMERICAN SCHOOLBOY’S SORROWS.

The sorrows of an American schoolboy are pathetically s-t forth in the following letter, recently received by a school teacher: —“ Sir, will you please for the future give my sun easier somes to do at nights. This is what he’s brought hoam two or three nites back : ‘lf fora bottles of bore will fil thirty to pint bottles, how many pints and half bottles will nine gallons of here fil V Wei, we tried and could make nothing out of it at all, and my boy cried, and sed he dident dare go back in the mornins without doin’ it. So I had to go and buy a nine-gallin keg Of here, which I could ill. afford to do, and then he went and borrowed a lot of wine and brandy bottles, and then counted them, and there were nineteen, and my boy put the number down for an answer. I don’t no wether it is rite or knot, ns we spilt some while doing it. P.S.—Please let the next some be in water, as 1 am not able to buy more bera.”

A DOG YARN

A good dog yarn tells’ how two “bushies,” who bad strayed into a crowded theatre, annoyed their neighbours by a long diocusSion on the merits of a prtee dog owned by one of them. A gontleman silting behind them asked the price ot the dog. “ Five pounds,” replied the astonished countryman. The gentleman took out his pocket book, banded over a £lO note and said : “ Here’s a tenner. Now, that dog’s mine ; so just let him alone, if you please.” The audience smiled, and though the countryman made a woeful attempt to turn the joke by gravely pocketing the dote and handing over the £5 change, the snub was crushing in its effect, and in the dead silence that followed, the philanthropic millionaire leaned bach modestly and enjoyed his popularity. But what the countrymen sail when after the performance, they tried to change the. tenner and found it to be counterfeit, is better left unrecorded*