The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1880-06-24
A New Hat and an Old Cheese.

Probably the meanest trick that was
ever played on white man was played
last week in this city, and the fact that
there is no vigilance committee here is
the only reason the perpetrators of the
trick are alive. A business man had Just
purchased new stiff hat and he went
into saloon with half dozen friends to
fit the hat on his head. They all took
beer and passed the hat around so all
could see it. One of the meanest men
that ever held country Office went to
the bartender and had thin slice of Linz
burger cheese cut off, and when the
party were looking Mt the frescoed ceiling
through the beer glasses this wicked per-
son slipped the cheese under the sweat
leather of the hat, and the man put it on
and walked out The man who owned
the hat is one OF your nervous people who
is always complaining of being sick and
who feels as though some dreadful dis
ease was going to take possession of him
and carry him off. He went back to his
place of business, took off his hat, and
laid it on the table and proceeded to an
swer some letters. He thought he de-
tected q smell, and when his partner
asked him if he didn't feel sick he said
he believed he did. The man turned
pale and said he guessed he would go
home He met q man on the sidewalk
who said the air was full of miasma and
in the street car man who sat next to
him moved away to one end of the car,
and asked him if he had just come from
Chicago. The man with the hat said he
had not, when the stranger said they
we're having great deal of smallpox
there, and he guessed he would get out
and walk, and he pulled the bell and
jumped off. The cold prespiration broke
out on the forehead of the man with the
new hat, and he took it off to wipe his
forehead when the whole piece Of cheese
seemed to roll out and breathe, and tho
man got the full benefit of it, and he
came near fainting away. He got home,
and his wife met him and asked him
what was the matter. He said he be-
lieved modification had set i'll, and she
took one Whit as he took off his hat, and
said she should think it had.
"Where did you get into it?" said
she.
"Get into it," said the man, 81 have
not got into anything, but some deadly
disease has got hold of me, and shall
not live"
She told him if any disease that smelled
like that had gothold of him and wasgoing
to be chronic, she felt as though he would
be burthcn to himself if he lived very
long. She got his clothes off, soaked his
feet in mustard water, and he slept. The
man slept and dreamed that smallpox
flag was hung in front Of his house and
that he was riding in "A wagon to the
pest house. The wife sent for doctor,
aud when the man of pills arrived she
told him all about the case. The doctor
picked up the patients now hat, tried it
on and got sniff, He said the hat was
picked before it was ripe. The doctor
and the wife held post mOrtcm exam
ination of the hat and found slice OF
Limburger "Few and short were tho
prayers they said" They woke the pn'
tient, and to prepare his mind for tho
revelation that was about to he made, tho
doctor asked him if his worldly affaira
were III satisfactory condition. He
gasped and said they We're. The doctor
asked him if he had made his will. He
said he had not but that he wanted o
lawyer sent for at once. The doctor
asked him if he felt as thought he was
prepared to shuttle off. The man said he
had always tried to lead a different life,
and had tried to he done by the same AZ
he would do it to himself, but he might
have made Il misdeal some way, and he
would like to have a minister sent for tC
take an account of stock.
Then the doctor broughtto the bedside
the hat, opened up the sweat-leather and
showed the dying man what it was that
smelled so, and told him he was rs well
as any man in the city. The patient
pinched himself to see if he was alive and
jumped ont of bed and called for his re-
volver, and the doctor couldn't keep up
with him on the way down town. The
last we saw of the odoriferous citizen he
was trying to bribe the bartender to tell
him which one of those pelicans it was
that put that slice Of cheese in his hat
lining.