A GEOGRAPHICAL PARTNER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2596, 2 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

A GEOGRAPHICAL PARTNER.

Wk cull the subjoined amusing sketch from the Judy Almanac for 1SS!) :—I had a curious experience the other night. I had tho honour of em bracing—in mazy valse—-the whole of England, Scotland and Ireland. It was in this wise. Dr. Shark is a gentleman who believes in the rational treatment of patients in his private lunatic asylum. He gives them picnics in .summer and balls in winter, and plenty of amusement all the year round. Taking one consideration with another, I should imagine that lunacy, under these conditions, is rather a pleasant thing. I always look forward to tho dances he gives, for, after considerable experience, I have come to the conclusion that idiotic partners are rather loss idiotic than the commonplace misses which one meets with at ordinary balls. She was sitting iti a corner of the ball-room toying with a fan. A largo and massive woman, whom one would no more have suspected of being insane than of being consumptive. I asked the doctor to introduce me, for I admire h'uo women. He did so, and I s.'it down beside her. Wo spoke about the weather as new acquaintances will. She was perfectly rational on that point at any rate. She thought it was appalling. I mentioned casually that I had been to Torquay for my summer holiday*. Do you know it ?" I asked. " Oh, yes — there it is," she replied. I looked in Mie direction iu which she pointed, and saw a rather extensive foot encased in an irreproachable Soulier dc (hum: " That is Land's End," she said reflectively, indicating the place where the little ton of her right foot might be supposed to lie, and that is the Lizard over there. I am tho United Kingdom, yoti know," she add»d with dignity. I bowed iu silence. It was a colossal idea, aud not to be comprehended at once. " That is the North Foreland over there," she went on tapping her left foot, " I have seen some troublo with it lately, aud oh," her voica became quite plaintive, "Iwas afraid that they were going to take Ireland away from me," and she glauced affectionately at her left arm. I thought it better that wo should join in the dauoe, for the geographical confidences threatened to become embarrassing. So I put my arm round the top of Lincolnshire and the base of Yorkshire, and as far into Lancashire as I could get (for her waist was more than IS inches), aud wo dancod. "My car is burning so ; I am afraid thero must bo a storm on the coast of Aberdeen," were tho last words I heard her say as I. led her to a seat.