BOYS

A certain island in the West Indies is liable to the periodical advent

of earthquakes. One year before the season of these terrestrial

disturbances, Mr. X., who lived in the danger zone, sent his two sons to

the home of a brother in England, to secure them from the impending

havoc.



Evidently the quiet of the staid English household was disturbed by the

irruption of the two West Indians, for the returning ail steamer

carried a message to Mr. X., brief but emphatic:



"Take back your boys; send me the earthquake."





Aunt Eliza came up the walk and said to her small nephew: "Good morning,

Willie. Is your mother in?"



"Sure she's in," replied Willie truculently. "D'you s'pose I'd be

workin' in the garden on Saturday morning if she wasn't?"





An iron hoop bounded through the area railings of a suburban house and

played havoc with the kitchen window. The woman waited, anger in her

eyes, for the appearance of the hoop's owner. Presently he came.



"Please, I've broken your window," he said, "and here's Father to mend

it."



And, sure enough, he was followed by a stolid-looking workman, who at

once started to work, while the small boy took his hoop and ran off.



"That'll be four bits, ma'am," announced the glazier when the window was

whole once more.



"Four bits!" gasped the woman. "But your little boy broke it--the little

fellow with the hoop, you know. You're his father, aren't you?"



The stolid man shook his head.



"Don't know him from Adam," he said. "He came around to my place and

told me his mother wanted her winder fixed. You're his mother, aren't

you?"



And the woman shook her head also.--_Ray Trum Nathan_.





_See also_ Egotism; Employers and employees; Office boys.