Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1873 — An Astonishing Fix. [ARTICLE]

An Astonishing Fix.

Old Mr. Mugride, who has a cottage up at Shadynook, invited a few of his friends to go up and stay atvhile and enjoy the country air. As they were all fond of good beer, he sent up a keg of new ale to be put in the cellar and kept until his arrival. Saturday afternoon he and his friends went up. After opening the parlors and making things comfortable, he thought a little beer wouldn’t go bad; so taking his gimlet and lantern, he went down'to fill the flowing bowl. Arrived in the cellar, he found that the keg was leaking through an old vent, so getting his lantern down, he commenced to tap it, putting one of his thumbs over the leak; but finding that the light wasn’t good where the lantern set, he took the handle of it in nis mouth and continued boring. Pretty soon the gimlet went through, and the beer came out whizzing; and as he had neglected to, make a plug, he had to put his other thumb over it. He had the beer all snug enough, but discovered that he himself was in a fix—he must either stay so or lose the beer. His mouth; being in use, prevented his calling anybody. He turned his head to the left, then to the right, and then lie would drop it iu a devotional manner, jmd make a noise between a snort and a growl. About this time he began to feel something damp under him, and found, by investigating, that he was sitting in a pan of soft soap. Above him he could hear his friends enjoying themselves in the parlor, playing the piano, and his daughter singing “Father, dear Father, come home with me now,” followed by “Thou art so near and yet so far.” His jaws began to ache holding the lantern, and the drool was running out of each corner of his mouth, which made him nearly frantic. His feet and legs ached, too, Irom the cramped position which he was in, and he had- decided to let the beer slide, when he heard footsteps approach which proved to be the servant girl coming down after coal. As soon as she caught sight of him she dropped the coal-hod, which fell into a tub containing a_nest : of pet kittens, killing three of them and causing the old cat to light out up the stairs, landing in a pan behind the stove. The loss of his pets made the old man so irate as to drop his lantern and rehearse that part of the dictionary which is left out. After scraping off the soap as well as he could, he wended his way up the back stairs to his room and changed his raiment. Returning to the parlor, he told his friends that he had been out to see a man. —Danbury News.