THE BUZFUZ PAPERS. (No. 1.) Mr. BUZFUZ MEETS A "DRINKIST."

Waikato Times, Volume IX, Issue 522, 23 September 1875, Page 3

THE BUZFUZ PAPERS. (No. 1.) Mr. BUZFUZ MEETS A "DRINKIST."

Yes, I've seen a few good drinkers in my time. I haven't been used to "chronicle small beer," but I think no small beer of myself for all that. I never yet saw a case of spontaneous combustion, but I've seen many a man that I would'nt a low to go near a tin of Kerosene on any account. I've seen some men that were a standing menace to their neighbeurs, and very frequently a sitting menace too. I've sepn men that ought to be brought under the " Dangerous Goods Act," and proclaimed a magazine. A friend of mine, whose experience has almost exceeded my own, has told me of a man who used to hire himself out as a red-lantern on a railway. That man's nose could be distinguished on the darkest nights. The railway guards presented him with a testimonial for his ! efficiency. He was engaged on that rail- ! way for thirty years, and the only accident that ever happened was when a swell with long whiskers, impelled by curiosity, went up to examine the figure, md got his hirsute appendages severely singed. These stories may appear slightly exaggerated, but they are respectably vouched for. I was telling this story not lonor ago to an American friend of mine, who has seen a few things in his time, and he said : "Pooh ! Thai aint nothing. Knew a fellow once as used to drink 84 glasses of echnnaps before breakfast." There was a foreign looking gentleman in spectacles on the other side of the ta^le. He had on a broad-brimmed hut, and his whiskers covered his shirt front. He was a man with a peculiarly benign aspect of countenance, just the sort of individual that you would have asked to hold the stake 3 if you had been making a bet. He was smoking an ancient pipe, <mmy and mellow with the smoke of many generations. The foreign looking person merely grunted, and turned up his eyebrows. But you should have seen him drink beer. He appeared to apply himself to his pewter at regular intervals between a certain number of whiffs from the pipe. Probably the pulls at the pot marked some point in his mental progress. I looked at the foreign chap and said : " Eighty-four glasses, why that is seven bottles. I think you've made a slight erroi in your figures, 'now, haven't you' 1" " Not a bit of it, siree, 1 saw him do it myself regular every morning for years." "And what became of him at last " 1 " Wall, I guess, I don't know for sartin,

! but I hefcid as he hiied hisae.f out as a distillery." The foreign looking man here removed his ! i ie from his mouth, and exclaimed " Putstausand !" "I have heaid," I remarked, "that Germans are great drinkers/ This was intended to draw out my foreign » friend, and it succeeded. He carefully laid down his pipe, finished the pint, and began thus :—: — Vel dat vas ver good, but I knows yon Shannon man as vos more better ash o^at. He vas gcme vrcm Pobcmia vere dey trinks more peer as der tyful. Potstausands dat ist wah ! In dat guntrie dey vereß on dere gotes zilver puttons, more as dirfcydree on efery vaist-gote ; and py airings I dells you vot, efery dime dey gets yon trink dey oonputtons yon putton, De glasses in dat blace is more pigger as dwo of de bints vot you gets here, and by ahingo I see yon Sharinan vat alvays trink droo de puttons dree dimes. Eien, ach, — in hin.mel! Dat vos ninedy-nine more as bints of peer vot he trink." I winked at my friend on the left, but he had listened to the story with profound gravity "Yah," continued the veracious foreignor, " dat vas dwelve kallons vot he trink, and by toonder yen he vas go afay he walkjoost asubright as der tyful, and he speak joost as sensiple as me yen I trinks not more so mooch ash dwenty bints. Here, landloort, vill oop dis bint hot vonce more again 1 Yah 1" and the foreign gentleman proceeded to refill his pipe with imperturbable gravity. "Well," broke in my friend, "I 'low that's a putty respeckable story, but lor' bless yer, it aint nuthing to some things as I could tell you. I know'd a man onst — This was enough. It was the last straw. I looked at the two with mingled contempt and amazement, and fled the spo t.