PAINFUL MEDICAMENT

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1351, 26 February 1881, Page 2

PAINFUL MEDICAMENT

A fcoueliitif? incident is reported to have taken place in oue of the district hotels ; the moral being that elderly gentlemen, circumstanced as our hero was, should always take good ciire to lock their bedroom doors. The gentleman in question, who has entered upon the iron-grey iigo of human experience, had gone to bed as usual, and preparatory to a more substantial repose, had drawn the candle close to his bed-side, and was deep in tho pages of a favourite author. All of a sudden an intruder entered, and without tho slightest ceremony, walked off with the caudle. The first impulse of the gentleman was bewilderment, and tho next was a determination to obtain immediate satisfaction. In pursuance of the last, he forthwith set out in ve'irch of the intrnder. Tho hotel referred to is a perfect labyrinth of passage*, v/ith sections and crosssections aif atfuntum. It soon became evident to our hero that he had missed Mb mark in a twofold sense — lost tho game he was in pursuit of, and likewise the road \ ack to his bunk. The circumstance was rather inoppoitune, especially -is it happened at rather an untimely hoar. Nothing daunted, however, he strove hard tj gain his lost reckoning. In this endeavour he was suddenly confronted by one of the female domestics — a raw, bigboned Scotch la-^s, recently imported from the "Land of Cakes;" one whose early training in the ghost stories and legends of her native hills had not been neglected. The gentleman now, for the first time, recollected that in bis thirst for vengeance he had omitted to don his nether garments, the result being that he was but lightly clad in a long flowing robe sacred to the presence of tl\e bed ckimber. Axl eye witness stated that it was natty enough it its way ; pure white, and frilled to the feet. In a dark passnge however, such an encounter was awkward. The lady at oucp concluded it was a second edition of the memorable Alloway kirk adventure by Tain O'Shanter, a,nd the idea so gained on her mind that she became spell-bound, in all but the tongue. That available-weapon she used with so much energy, that the household was soon astir. First appearances told dead against our venerable friend, and in the agonies of the moment the landlady shouted out that nothing would redeem the character of the home short of the '• guilty pair" being immediately welded in the ''holy bands of wedlock." It was discovered, however, just in the nick of time, that the gentleman had already undergone the welding process, otherwise we might have had bigamy and its attending consequences to add to this list of casualties. In that dilemma it was agreed to adjourn -further consideration of the affair until the morrow. With the morrow came a more charitable spirit, and our hero was enabled in the cool of the morning to make a clean breast of it. So successful was he that on taking his departure, even the landlady herself admitted that he had left the house without a stain on his character.