MR COVILLE'S COMPLICATED MISFORTUNES.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1134, 19 December 1873, Page 2

MR COVILLE'S COMPLICATED MISFORTUNES.

(-DANBUJIY 3S T EWS.)

These are men who dispute what they do not understand. Mr Coville is such a man. When he heard a carpenter say that there were so many shingles on the roof of his house because the roof contained so many square feet, Coville doubted the figures, and when the carpenter went away he determined to test the matter by going on the roof and counting" them. He went up .there. He squeezed throuhg the scuttle—Coville weighs 2301b5. and then sat down on the roof and worked his way carefully and deliberately toward the gutter. When he got part way down, he heard a sound between him and the shingles, and became aware that there was an interference some way in his further locomotion. He tried to turn over and crawl back, but the obstruction held him. Then he tried to move along a little, in hopes that the trouble would prove but temporary, but an increased sound convinced him that either a nail or a sliver had hold of his cloth, and that if he would save any he must use caution. His folks were in the house, but he could not make them hear, and besides he did not want to attract the attention of the neighbors. So he sat there until after dark and thought. It would have been an excellent opportunity to have counted the shingles, but he neglected to use it. His mind appeared to run into other channels. He sat there an hour after dark, seeing no one he could not notify his position. Then he saw two boys approach the gate from the house, and reaching there, stop. It was light enough for him to see that one of the two was his son, and although he objected to have the other boy know of his misfortune, he had grown'tired of holding on to the roof, and concluded he could bribe the strange boy into silence.

With this arrangement mapped out he took out his knife and threw it so that it would strike near the boys and attract their attention. It struck nearer than he anticipated. In fact it struck so close as to hit the strange boy on the head and nearly brain him. As soon as he recovered his equilibrium he turned on Coville's boy, who, he was confident, had attempted to kill him, and introduced Bomo astonishment and bruises in his face. Then he threw him down and kicked him in the side and banged him on the head, and threw him over into the gutter and pounded his legs, and then hauled him back to the walk aud knocked his head against the gate. And all the while the elder Coville sat on the roof and cried " Police," but couldn't get away. And then Mrs Coville dashed out with a broom and contributed a few novel features to the affair at the gate, and one of the boarders dashed out with a doublebarreled gun, and hearing the cries

from the roof looked up there and espying a figure which was undoubtedly a burglar, drove a handful of shot into his leg. With a howl of agony Coville made a plungo to dodge the missiles, freed himself from the nail, lost his hold on the roof, and went sailing down the roof with awful velocity, both legs spread out, his • hair on end, and his hands making a desperate hue fruitless effort to save himself. He tried to swear, but was so frightened that he lost his power of speech, and when he parsed over the edge of the roof, with twenty feet of tin-gutter hitched to him, the boarder gave him the contents of the second barrel, and then drove into the house to load up again. The unfortunate Coville struck into a cherry tree, and thence bounded to the ground, where he was recognised, picked up by the assembled neighbours, and carried into the house. A new doctor is making good day wages picking the shot out of his legs. The boarder has gone into the country to spend the summer, and the junior Coville, having sequestered a piece of brick in his handkerchief, is laying low for that other boy. He says that before the calm of another Sabbath rests on New England there will be another boy in Danbury who can't wear a cap.