Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-01-28Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-01-28
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
Edward nodded. "I know; I know it's all wrong, of course; we should make a
stand. Still, if we can buy Angela off, I think ... you understand?..." And
he ambled off to his muck-room.
If anybody in this neighbourhood has anything that is both an eyesore and
an encumbrance they bestow it on Edward for his muck-room, where he stores
it against an impossible contingency. I trotted upstairs to my bedroom and
routed about among my _Lares et Penates_. I have many articles which,
though of no intrinsic value, are bound to me by strong ties of sentiment;
little old bits of things--you know how it is. After twenty minutes'
heart-and-drawer-searching I decided to sacrifice a policeman's helmet and
a sock, the upper of which had outlasted the toe and heel. I bore these
downstairs and laid them at Aunt Angela's feet.
"What's this?" said she, stirring the helmet disdainfully with her toe.
"Relic of the Great War. The Crown Prince used to wear it in wet weather to
keep the crown dry."
Aunt Angela sniffed and picked up the sock with the fire-tongs. "And this?"
"A sock, of course," I explained. "An emergency sock of my own invention.
It has three exits, you will observe, very handy in case of fire."
"Hump!" said Aunt Angela.
Edward returned bearing his offerings, a gent's rimless boater, a doorknob,
six inches of lead-piping and half a bottle of cod-liver oil.
"Hump!" said Aunt Angela.
No more was said of it that night. Aunt Angela resumed her sewing, Edward
his _Gertie_, I my slumb--, my meditations. Nor indeed was the jumble sale
again mentioned, a fact which in itself should have aroused my suspicions;
but I am like that, innocent as a sucking-dove. I had put the matter out of
my mind altogether until yesterday evening, when, hearing the sound of
laboured breathing and the frantic clanking of a bicycle pump proceeding
from the shed, I went thither to investigate, and was nearly capsized by
Edward charging out.
"It's gone," he cried--"gone!" and pawed wildly for his stirrup.
"What has?" I inquired.
"'The Limit,'" he wailed. "She's picked ... lock ... muck-room with a
hairpin, sent ... Limit ... jumble sale!"
He sprang aboard his cycle and disappeared down the high road to St.
Gwithian, pedalling like a squirrel on a treadmill, the tails of his new
mackintosh spread like wings on the breeze. So Aunt Angela with serpentine
guile had deferred her raid until the last moment and then bagged "The
Limit," the pride of the muck-room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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