SEVENTH EMPTYING. 99 



objurgations, did he wrestle to make an impression with 

 knife and fork on the unyielding crust, and then finding out 

 the trick, he seized a carving knife, and we cleared out to 

 obviate murder. 



Did I not once hear how two bosom friends had 

 quarrelled over a practical joke played by one of them. 

 A practical joker by the way does not keep his friends, he 

 sells them. One very dark night, one friend induced the 

 other to accompany him along the edge of the river on some 

 pretext, having previously placed a heavy stone in such a 

 position that it would fall from the bank into five feet of 

 water at the slightest touch. As they passed the spot, the 

 practical performer managed to get two or three yards in 

 the rear, touched the stone, which fell with a mighty splash, 

 dashed quickly and quietly back into the darkness, and his 

 friend missing him, of course, thought he was in the river. 

 There was no answer to the alarmed cries for " John," so 

 like a brave man he plunged into the hole to find his 

 drowning friend, and the first thing he laid hold of was 

 John's hat, carefully thrown after the stone, and when at 

 length he was unable to recover John's body, and in due 

 time reached the inn to break the doleful news, he found 

 that faithless friend as dry as a wooden god, seated before 

 the fire as placidly as a baby of six months old. There is 

 something wrong about this idea, I think, but you can alter 

 it according to your own fancy. 



Did I not myself once take a hand in an absurd practical 

 joke at Howietown, Ullswater, on a very old friend who had 

 mortally offended nine of us by appearing on Sunday in such 

 an out-of-the-way place in a velveteen coat, white waistcoat, 

 knickerbockers, and patent leather shoes. Considering we 

 were all as usual in the very oldest apparel we possessed, 

 things for which any sane rag man would not have offered 

 more than one shilling and thrippence, it was unforgivable, 

 and when he took to setting night lines and dimmed the 



