The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-01-30 00:00:00

A NIGHT ENCOUNTER WITH A
ROCKING CHAIR.

Old M'Stinger, says the Columbus (United States)
Journal, was going to bed a little wavy the other night,
and not wishing to disturb Mrs. M'Stinger, who has a
tongue like a rat-tail file, he thought it just as well not
to turn on the gas. He got on very well until he
reached the door of the chamber where his patient wife
lay sleeping. Here he paused a moment, balancing on
his heels like pole on a juggler's nose. Then he made a
dash for it, in order to make a bee line across the
floor. Mrs. M'Stinger, with herusual exemplary forti-
tude, had placed the rocking-chair with such gifted
skill that no man could come into the room without
running over it ; so the first thing he knew M'Stinger
stubbed his toe-nail off against the rocker, which
knocked the seat against the crazy bone of his knee,
and made one of the long arms prod him in the
stomach. Simultaneously he fell over the chair cross •
wise, and it kicked him behind his back before he
could get up from the floor, as he stood on all fours.
The engagement was now fully opened. When a
man begins falling over rocking-chairs in a dark room
he ought always to have three days' rations and forty
rounds. Before M'Stinger could get up straight his
knee came down on one of the long rockers behind,
and the back of the chair came down on his head
with a whack that laid him out flat on the floor; and,
before he could move, the chair kicked him three
times in the tenderest part of his ribs with the
sharp end of the rocker. This made him per-
fectly furious, and he scrambled up and made a
blind rush at the chair, determined to blow up the
enemy's works. He ran square against the back, and
it rocked forward with him turning a complete somer-
sault over the handles, throwing M'Stinger half way
across the room and landing on top of him, diggino•
into his abdomen like a bull's horns, as he lay spreaa
ont on the under side. It would have been a good
thing for M'Stinger if he had lain still then and let the
chair have its own way. It lay flat on its back, with
the long points of the rockers embracing his abdomen,
and didn't seem to want to do anything active just
then. But M'Stinger couldn't make up his mind to
give it up yet. He rolled over sideways and upset
the chair. la fell with a crash on its side, giving him
a furious dig in the liver, which made him straighten
out his legs spasmodically, barking one shin from
the instep to the knee on the rocker which hung in
the air; the chair getting on its feet again, stood
rocking backward and forward at him, like a wary
old ram making feints of butting at its adversary, in
order to throw him off his guard. The blow in the
side nearly finished M'Stinger, and while lying there
rubbing his wind back again, he was just beginning to
reflect whether his honour required him to proceed any
further in the affair, when Mrs. M'Stinger suddenly
began screaming all the names in the crimes act, under
the impression that the Charley Ross abductors were
trying to commit a burglary, robbery, and everything
else. Up to this time she had ,been speechless with
tertor, and had lain there trembling, shedding perspira-
tion, and accumulating shrieking power, until she had
gained the screaming capacity of a camel-back engine.
She had just reached herthipd sforzando fortissimo accele-
rando, when old M'Stinger succeeded in getting to his
feet once more, and became dimly visible to Mrs.
M'Stinger. With one last wild parting shriek she
sprang from the bed, and mad') a dash for the door,
near which the rocking-chair still stood menacing the
whole universe with a butting motion. Mrs. M'Stinger
had no time for investigation just then, and she pitched
into and over the rocking-chair, and clean on down-
stairs, the chair after her, turning over and over, and
kicking Mrs. M'Stinger every bump until they both
landed in the hall below' where the chair broke all to
atoms. This ended the fight.