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Show AN AMUSING ADVENTURE. i. Stupid Corporal, an Embarrassed Colonel Colo-nel and a Tactful Woman. A superior officer of the B garr- son was some time ago the hero of a most amusingadventure. Colonel Z had received from Mme. V an invitation in-vitation to dinner, but on the day appointed, ap-pointed, and just as he was about to start, he was seized with a violent attack at-tack of neuralgia and decided to forego the pleasure in store for him. The colonel colo-nel wrote a letter of apology, called his orderly and said: "Guy, you will give this letter to Mme. V and then go and fetch mf. my dinner." Here the plot commences. Guy set off after carefully secreting the letter in his breast pocket along with his to bacco pouch. He arrived at Mme. V 's, delivered his message and stood as rigid as a statua Tho lady of the house was surprised and inquirer' what he was waiting for. Guy replied; "The colonel told me to fetch him his dinner. " Mme. V saw the man's mistake, gave certain orders, and the servants handed the faithful linesman a set of dishes emitting fragrant odors. Moreover, More-over, Mme. V slipped a half bottle of champagne into the soldier's pocket and said: "You will serve this to the colonel at dessert " Guy came back, and, upon my word, the restaurant seemed to have provided f uch a host of good things that the colonel colo-nel got up and took his seat at the table. Over the soup he slowly began to recover his appetite, to his no small surprise. The side dishes made him quite ravenous, raven-ous, with the entrees his pain disappeared, disap-peared, he was stupefied at the roast meat and dumf ounded at the game, an-i still his wonder grew at the marvelous dishes supplied by his chophouse keeper. At the dessert the orderly, obeying his instructions, set the bottle of champagne on the tabla He was asked for an explanation, ex-planation, when everything came out The colonel in despair thought the matter mat-ter over and then gave his orderly 10 francs, telling him to buy a bunch of Bowers and present it from him to Mme. V . Then our colonel, satisfied satis-fied that he had done his best under the trying circumstances, settled down in an easy chair and composed himself to Bleep. An hour and a half later the door opened, and Guy walked in and gravely deposited two 5 franc pieces on the table. ta-ble. The colonel questioned him with some anxiety. "The lady paid for the nosegay," said the honest warrior, apparently well pleased with the general turn of affairs. Mme. Y , on receiving the bouquet, bou-quet, had given the soldier 5 francs by way of a tip, on receiving which the latter simply replied: "It isn't 5 francs, please, ma'am; it is 10 francs." Colonel Z was confined to his bed for three days, to the great alarm of tb& Whole of the garrison. Progres Hlustra |