A SICK WIFE.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1115, 16 August 1879, Page 3

A SICK WIFE.

He was a stem, austere looking man, and when ho walked into a store where " wines and liquors for family were advertised for sale, he gazed carefully around before making known his wants. Then ho called tbe proprietor to him, and leaning over the counter, inquired in a low tone if he had any whisky be could positively recommend to families in eases of sickness. The proprietor Btatcd in a subdued though no less confident voice, thai he had. Ho had used it, he said, in his family, during critienl periods of illness, and he hadn't the slightest hesitation in endorsing it, even though the applicant was the President of the United States. " I am thus particular," explained the austere man, " because it is rarely that I have anything of an intoxicating nature about my house, and never then except in cases of the direst necessity." "I understand," said the liquor man, nodding approvingly ; "lam » good deal that way myself, although in the business." Then ho took a bottle out of the case that stood on a high shelf, and dusting it off carefully, almost fondly, because the whisky it contained was so- very rare, handed it to the manj with the remark that he might take out a search warrant and hunt through all the private cellaro in Bourbon country without being able to find its superior. " I don't know anything about it," said the stem customer, with an impatient wave of the hand — ■' don't ever drink it myself, aud can only take it on your recommendation. • My wife, you see, is very bad with BOie throat — " " Capital thing for sore throat," said the proprietor, rolling the bottle up in a piece of brown paper. "My wife tried it for that not' long ago, end it did her a world of good." " Can't you put it in a different looking parcel?" asked the austere: individual. "I don't like to be seen — " " Oh, of course, got just the thing for it htre ; look like a packaga of thread or something of that kind,' and he put it into a square paper box that fitted it exactly. " My wife has tried everything for that throat of hers," said the austere, man, as he counted out the change, " and I thought maybe a little ardent spirits just as she went to bed-;" '• Yoo do perfectly right," said the dealer, opening the door for him. "An ounce of whisky — I mean of prevention — is worth a pound of cure." " She's so delicate," pursued the j au&tere one, " catches cold with every change of the weather. Things I wouldnH notice at all make hec down sick. I am afraid she's not long for this world," with a pious COUQrh. " The weather is very bad for delicate constitutions," suggested the liquor man. " Especially for hers," added the person of austerity, about to step out; Then he turned na with a sudden thought, and said, "I suppose if I gave it to her with hot |frater and a little suger it would be all the better, wouldn't it." " Oh, much better. Don'fc forget the hot water and sugar." The liquor dealer turned to us with a smile as tbe man left, and said : — •' Wonder if that man thiuks he is humbugging anybody. But that is the way some folks get their whisky." " Wasn't that story about his sick wife correct ?" we asked. " Sick wife 1 sick fiddlestick. He hasn't any wife, and never had, but he doesn't know that I know it. 1 meet with lots of such cases ; men who come here and buy whisky to dritik on the sly, endeavoring to veil it under some such thin pretence as that man employed. Lots of bogus temperance men and pious frauds in this world." It certainly does appear so. — ' Cincinnati Saturday night.'