The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-01-13
REAL FISH STORY.
Red Horse Swallowed Diamond Stud
ded Set of False Teeth.

| From the st. Louis Globe Democrat.
! Il go fishing about once every year"
| began the man from Memphis, some
times on the st. Francis, sometimes at
| Reelfoot lake, sometimes | go to Michi-
! gan, but every once in a while | like to
! get up in the Ozark country, in Missouri,
and fish in the beautiful clear streams OF
| that lovely region. Some years ago
| Joined a St. Louis party and went for
-two-weeks' outing trip on the Gasconade.
| 1t was a mixed crowd, men and women,
| some solid business men like myself and
some inclined to be rather sporty, though
| all We're eminenty respectable. One OF
| the party was a lady of rather uncertain
| age, but kittensh. She was great on
| clothes and jewelry, had a leaning toward
/ the stage and was a steady patron OF
| the race tracks. One day she made
| haul on 40 to l shot, and. being pretty
well loaded with diamonds in the ordinary
| way, she took a notion to follow the lead
! of an actress she was daily about, and
! have one set liz her teeth. She was rather
short on the natural articles but she had
a pretty good plate filled with nfolars and
bicuspids, and so forth, so she bought
good-sized Sparkler and turned it and the
plate over to her dentist, while she went
into retreat for a few days.
well, nobody could deny the fact that
man like myself it was rather disconcert-
ing at first. However, you got used TO
it after you'd been in her company a
while, for she kept the diamond exposed
pretty much all the time
1t was a gay party all right, and we
had a mighty pleasant trip, but one day
the lady under consideration was leaning
idly over the ege of boat gazing into
the crystal waters of deep pool, when
another boat, run by an unlicensed ergi-
neer in our party, butted into hers. With
a gasp and a blood-curdling scream that
dislocated her upper maxillaries, she tun-
bled over into the water, and when they
fshed her out she had lost much of the
freshness of youth, and there was a lack
of plumpness about the mouth that made
her look like she was in the last stage Of
consumption.
"She had to admit her loss, but she was
so knocked out by the shock that she
took the first train back to ST Louis and
left us to search for the diamond. We
did our level best you may be sure for a
$500 diamond is worth going to some trou-
BILE about without considering the matter
of teeth; but we couldn't find a trace of
1t, and after a whole week spent in the
neighborhood we returned to our homes.
The lady got her another plate, and was
soon as plump and rosy as before.
ut was year after this, and all of us
had forgotten the incident, when fish
cleaner at one of the stalls in Unit
market at st. Louis picked up a big red
fish, fish that is quite common in Mis-
souri, waters, and was cutting 1t open
when his knife struck something hard. He
dug around carefully, and when he finally
brought the hard thing to light he nearly
fell over in a fit for it was the missing
plate of teeth set with the diamond still
intact. OF course, the story got out and
into the newspapers, together with an
. elaborate account of the loss on
, the Gasconade. and the lady was
so mortified that soon she got her
diamond back. which she did after paying e
a good round price for it, she went to
New York. 1t was altogether a lucky
thing for her. though. for the advertise
ment she got out of the business helped
her to first-row place in the chorus OF
a comic opera company, and she's still
cirsiing round the country showing her
teeth to delighted audiences"