Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1910 — TRUE IN BOTH CASES. [ARTICLE]

TRUE IN BOTH CASES.

The little son of a most upright and respected head of an educational Institution not many miles from Boston oqe night prayed at his astonished mother’s knee that "papa might not come home drunk that evening.” As the gentleman in question was most exemplary in his habiflr, he must have had, on hearing of the petition in his behalf, somewhat the same sensations as those experienced by the captain in Charles E. Trow’s book, “The Old Shipmasters of Salem.” The captain, on one voyage, had a first mate who was addicted to drlbk. While in port in China this officer got sadly intoxicated, and was not able to make up the day’s log. The captain did it for him. Never touching liquor himself, and being greatly disturbed over the affair, he added to the record the sentence, “Mate drunk ail day.” When the officer recovered sufficiently to resume his duties with the log, he was appalled. "Cap’n,” he exclaimed, "t?hy did you put down that I was drunk all day?” “It was true, wasn’t it?” “Yes, but what will the owners say? It will hurt me with them. Why need you have done it?" v But all the captain would respond was, “It was true, wasn’t it?" The next day, when the captain examined the log, down after the entries! of observation, wind, course, tides, and -so forth, he saw, “Captain sober all day.” In high dudgeon he rushed to the deck. , % “What do you /mean, you rascal,” he shouted to the first mate, “by writing In the log that I was sober all day?” "It was true, wasn’t It?" replied the mate. “True? Of course it was true! You know I never touch liquor. Of course it was true!” And then the joke dawned upon the captain, and he had the good sense to laugh.