THE BISHOP AND THE BALL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2742, 8 February 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE BISHOP AND THE BALL.

A bishop was homeward bound from the States, travelling luxuriously with Mrs Bishop. It was a very hot night, thunder in the air, and as the Atlantic liuer slipped through the water, doing her eighteen or nineteen knots an hour, the cabin would be lit up with the lighting flashes. Mrs Bishop could not sleep forthe heat, Bishop appealed to, lumbered out of his berth, and opened a porthole. Suddenly there bobbed in through the port hole a woollen ball attached to a string. Bishop was perplexed, but he tied it up, and then retired to rest. The ball was an apple of discord in that peaceful cabin, for it hit against theside of the cabin as she lurched, and Mrs Bishop grew querulous and disturbed. Up started the poor Bishop again and, to end matters, he uncoiled the cord and put the ball safe aud sound nnder his pillow There was a heavy thunderstorm, but the Bishop slept soundly that night. Next morning at breakfast, tho captain presiding, he told the tale with a good dealof episcopal solemnity and detail. The captain laughed consumedly. The Bishop laughed too, thinking his story a good one. Then the captain told him that the ball was the end of the lightning conductor. The Bishop that night looked under his pillow before going to bed and slept with a closed port-hole.