Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1895-07-26

man ike stamping, SO WITCH tney
had arranged the table-a mahogany
table with shiny top-beside the
wall, and put little hassock on top
Of it, Mr.. Wigglesworth felt sufficient
ly Modified to snip off another length
Of the Beardsley pattern and apply
some more paste to its posterior sur
face, maintaining a steady current OF
growing at his wife, on general prin-
ciples.
Now, don't be fool" he said, en-
couragingly, as they picked up the
paper and he laboriously climbed to
the polished surface OF the table with
it. Then he stepped cautiously upon
the hassock and stood there an instant,
his knees webbing painfully.
"Can you reacb?" his wife called
from below. She was busy keeping
her part of the paste away from the
mahogany table.
"Reach?" echoed Mr.. Wigglesworth,
in a concentrated voice. What We
s'pose I'm up here for, anyway? Think
Pm addressing the county convention?
Want me to move an amendment in
favor of woman's suffrage, don't YEP"
Then the hassock turned slightly, as
the worm is said to do, and in catch
ing his balance and breath Mr.. Wiggles-
worth jerking the paper out of his
wife's grasp. The paper turned a
smart corner and tapped up against
the wall and chung in clammy and
tenacious embrace.
What We do that for?" shouted
Mr.. Wigglesworth, as loud as the I'M
certain hassock would permit.
"I-I didn't 60 to-" returned his
frightened wife, and with what alacrity
she was mistress of she unpeeled the
cold and deathlike sheet.
"Now you let it alone, dye hear?"
warned her husband, and acting upon
his direction Mrs. Wigglesworth re-
tired to the far side of the room, where
she watched him in species of fasci
nation. This is the tragedy that
speedily unfolded itself before her:
Mrs. Wigglesworth, feeling more
and more the treacherous character
of the hassock, held his knees at that
angle which gives to even the strong
est man an appearance of weakness.
His arms were thrust out to their full
capacity, and, though at a distance,
Mrs. Wigglesworth could feel their
dreadful ache. First, her husband
pressed HE end of the strip close up to
the border; the lower end caught on
also at the same instant, but in quite
another part OF the room, and by the
time Mr.. Wigglesworth had reached
painfully downward and fetched it
loose, at the same moment muttering
something that Mrs. Wigglesworth
tried hard to hear, but couldn't, dis
tinctly, the upper end came away and
tapped down over Mr.. Wigglesworth's
forehead. leaving more paste there
than his wife had thought could be
left on one forehead in a single after
noon. Mr.. Wigglesworth's comments
upon this transaction. as he frenziedly
snatched at the paper, were not only
clearly audible to the wife, but even
penetrated to the hired girl, who
promptly opened the kitchen door to
see if she might not be able to hear
still palmer. Then Mr.. Wigglesworth,
with an earnestness that nobody could
avoid noticing, spanked the moist side
of that paper against the wall and
slapped it with both hands till the
creations OF Aubrey Beardsleys's fancy
ran all into each other.
"Now fix the lower end" chirped
Mrs. Wigglesworth from the distance.
This was one OF those things that
were better left unsaid. Mr.. Wiggles-
worth had stood on that uncertain has
sock till his knees appeared perman-
emily fixed at hali-cock, his arms were
stretched clean out of their legitimate
precincts, his head was bursting with
the hot air of the upper strata, and per-
spiration glued his garments so close
to him that he appeared to have been
born that way. When this gratuitous
direction burst cooingly from his wife's
lips, he fetched mad snatch at the
lower end of the paper, and on the in
slant the hassock, with low, fendish
chuckle, turned over on the other side.
Mr.. Wigglesworth had only time for
one yell, but it was full grown in area,
and then vaulted into the air, the
paper letting 60 its hold and trans
ferring its affections to the falling for
tunes of the house Of Wigglesworth,
and as that gentleman went sailing
through the atmosphere, the paper
wound itself in sinuous folds about
him, till a stranger looking in at the
window would have said that Mr..
Wigglesworth wac an admirable living
picture reproduced from the Yellow
Book.
"That's right" he yelled, soon as
he could get to his feet and kick the
hassock through the door, " stand over
there with your thumb in your mouth
and toeing in-that's all you're good
for. VIVA dye let 60 that paper for?"
he continued, shaking his fist toward
the ceiling; "why didn't We steady the
table, same's 1 told ye, You make me
out the blamedest old fool in Knox
country, always trying to help you
NTH your ocooop;,;pu huf .ort