A SAD OCCURRENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3701, 3 January 1891, Page 2

A SAD OCCURRENCE.

xnia is mo story m a wedding i which didn't come offAgnA of two i loving hearts that *W trodden j underfoot by the iioof ou calamity, jd The parties to tke transaction reside* """"" r in Brisbane, a sultry citfc. with a defective supply whiclpuns by ■I ■ tits and/wts, \iith intervalsVstween j when/fe fit is over, and tAVstart begun. th/Brisbano citizen wants a balh, L&\ > M>ly Rets out of his \ ;■■'. 3own under the tap and waits, wßk\ -\ \ ie has waited till he is dead US* lot a of water/ iJSs co^B^H

... t .-.' mistake, and whenever he is gone th delusive fluid comes with a rush, am floods the room, and soaks throng! into the apartment below for si: nights. Then it stops running jus forty-five minutes before lie gets back and there is no water again for a lort night. It was this local peculiarity which broke up the two lovers alreuilj a'luded to, and scattered their hope: r like an eye struck by dynamite. Th< .tf bridegroom—a newspaper man— \\m r i utranger in the land, and on his i wedding morning he rose early anc climbed into the showcr-baih. Ht turned the water on just enough tc make himself reasonably damp, am then he turned it off again, anc smothered himself from head to fool in soap- When he could hold nc more soap he turned it on once more —or rather he tried to do so, but there wis no water there. He got one eye open with difficulty and inspected the pipes, but the soap got into it, and be closed it hurriedly. In his ignorance he fondly imagined that the refreshing fluid would come back in a few seconds so he ' sat on the edge of the „bath to wait. He kept on waiting. An hour passed slowly, and the soap had dried on him, and he new wild and began to denounce of Brisbane as a of hogs, dogs, devils, but Tib good results followed. He also began to get cramped, so he spent the next hour sitting on the floor, which would have made his best girl's hair run cold and her blood stand on end, and then crawled back into his bedroom, kicking his clothes in front of him, and tried vainly to get the soap off with the bait hat brush. Next he attempted to move it with codliver oil, and when that scheme fell through also there were no more liquids left in the house except gum and ink. At this stage he lay down and held on to the floor, else he would have blown the roof off with an explosion of sentiment, and lest he might do some damage he hid himself under the bed and cursed inwardly. The mattresses and other fixings helped to muffle exterior sounds, so he stayed under the bed for two hours and a bsJf before it struck him that there dull sound of rushing water somewhere, but when he flew back into the bathroom he found that though the water had evidently been-rupning for thirty minutes or so, it bad just stopped again, and he was in time to catch the last drop on the top:bf his Ilf-fld, and that was all, Human endurance gave out at that point, and he swore twenty-eight or twentynine times louder than he had sword before." Naturally enough the landlady came upstairs, and asked him through the keybole what was the matter, but when he bade her clear out because he had nothing on except one drop of water on his head ehe retired in disorder, and set it down to drink. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when the bride's brother came also with thunder in his eyes and a large stick in his hand, to demand why nobody

had turned up at the altar, and when he tried the bedroom door he found it locked. Then he demanded admittance, and in response there arose from within the hoarse, idiotic shriek of a dry maniac covered with soap. The sufferer's reason had given way beneath the strain, and he had emptied the gum and ink oyer himself i and then climbed up the chimney, L He was dragged out with difficulty W~ and removed to the local asylum where he has a shower-bath every morning, bat his case is : generally regarded as hopeless." There is a settled gloom upon his bsulj and the apark of intelligence has fled for ever. Sydney Butletm.^: