The St. Johns herald., 1892-03-31
HOTEL LIFE ABROAD.
Humorous Incidents Related by O
 Traveller.
4 Walters Bill for Slaps Tn the Face-An M. F. with DeIirium Tremens- Commotion Created by al.
 Earthquake.

Earthquake.
 Some time ago a French waiter was attending upon a very registering party of diners in private room at a London restaurant, when an altercation arose and the waiter attempting to restore or der received a couple of slaps in the face. He made no remark at the time, but when he brought in the bill there was on it this item: ''Deux souffets, Co" As the aggressor scanned this en- try the waiter set his lips and said in a significant tone: If you find those slaps too dear, sir, l will return them!'
 l once spent a remarkable night in a hotel at Belgium, owing to the antics of man with deliriu1n tremens, says a writer in the London Graphic. The Servians have an abominable liquor dis titled from fermented cabbage. The mere smell is enough to turn an English stomach, but the natives swill the stuff until sometimes it addlcs their heads. The killer of my nights rest was a member of the Servian slIuptscbina or parliament, who had come to Belgrade on some place-hunting expedition and had found the excitement, com bined with the cabbage liquor too much for him. Awaking in the middle of the night with a fit of the horrors he began finging boots, brushes, croclzery and money at the door which separated our two rooms. I went out into the passage and found throng of gentlemen in their nightshirts. Most of them were for allowing the fit to spend itself, un- til somebody suggested that the NJ. P. might set fire to the house. Then they altered their minds, vanished to put on their neither garments, and reappeared ready for action. A series of thumps on the delirious one's door caused him to open it. when a spring was made upon him by half dozen men Together. Such yells as the M. P. uttered I never heard from any other human being, and the bumps which he got as he was carried, kicking and foaming, down the staircase to the courtyard, were enough to make one shudder. The mans wooden head seemed to come into col ision with every knob and angle on the way. At last his captOrs got him into the stone trough of fountain and turned a wide-mouthed, powerful wa tercock on him till he was nearly was drowned. When he could yell no longer, but only gasp, they tore his only garment dripping from his back, cuffed him and smaclied him unmcrci- fully with their huge brown palms, bound him hand and foot with wisps of hay, and finally flung him quite eX- .tinct into the loose box of a cowshed. I thought the man must have been killed. Great was my relief, therefore, when on the very next evening l be- held him sitting in the cafe of the hotel with one of the men who had doctored him in the approved national fashion. He looked little groggy about the eyes, but was having another ''go" of his favorite cabbage stuff.
 As to the earthquake, was staying on the Riviera when the famous con- vulsion of 1888 occurred. 1 was awal1- ened by a shock which dashed two pie lures off the wall of my room and upset the washstand. While I was striking a match another shock strewed me and some chairs among some fragments of broken crocl1ery. I had presence of mind enough to remember that during an earthquake you are no safer in the streets than you are in covered build ing, so I dressed without mad precipi- tancy, and after desperate struggle to open my door which had got damned - walked downstairs. The sight was one never to be forgotten. Men, women and children in deshabille were huddled in the front hall, crying, shrielzing and praying. Some had bolted out of doors with hardly any clothes on, and had made for the sea, where they clamored to be rowed out in open boats-aboGt the worst thing they could do. Among the panic-stricll- en folk was an old gentleman in pyjamas, who had come down the stairs three steps at time. But on reaching the hall he exclaimed that he had for gotten something and must go back. His friends shouted to him that the up- per stories were dangerous; but he turned a deaf ear, bounded upstairs and presently returned Panting. The thing which he had forgotten was his '. set of false teeth!
 Royal Beer.