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Show A COviererr OF errors. Stupidity Mixed With Carelessness That Brought Mortification to a Lovely Woman "Talk of a 'Comedy of Errors!' " said a woman of society the other day. "I had an experience lately that might have been called by that name, although it was anything but a comedy to poor me. You know that I am rather an old fashioned housekeeper and pride myself on my cake, which I make myself from time to time, and of which, when it turns out particularly welL I like to send a specimen to some friend. So the other day, when I ha4 very good luck with a new recipe, I arranged my best looking cake, all daintily frosted, in a cardboard box, and telling my maid to bid the ocachman take it to Mrs. S., with my card, I went out to do some shopping. " 'Did you send the cake?' I asked on my return. 'Oh, ma'am, ' exclaimed the Abigail, 'James made such a mistake! I told him to take the box in the hall, and when I cam down stairs I found he had taken the big case that you brought home yesterday. ' "Well, of course it was a piece of stupidity, but I did not really mind, for the ease contained a fine copy of an antique an-tique flying 'Victory, ' and as Mrs. S. ia a woman of rare appreciation I felt reaL'yv pleased that she should have it, and that I, for my part, should have the credit of remembering her tastes and making what I knew would be an acceptable ac-ceptable present. But I was not so well pleased when Mary, the overzealous, continued, 'So, as soon as I found out, ma'am, what he had done, I told him to go straight back and say that it was a mistake and that you would like the case back, ma'am I' "You may imagine how I felt! It was then too late to do anything, but all night the affair weighed on my mind like an incubus, and the very next morning I wrote Mrs. S. a long explanatory explan-atory note, apologizing for the double mistake of man and maid and trying to explain how the confusion had arisen. It sounded awkwardly enough, but it was the best I could do, so 1 sent it off with the cake, which in the meanwhile had been left waiting in the hall. When the man came back, I asked him what he had done with the case. 'What case?' he said stupidly. 'Why, the case Mary told you to fetch back from Mrs. S. 's. ' 'Shure, an I niver got it back at all,' was his most unexpected answer, which put the finishing touch to the altogether trying situation, for if I had never written writ-ten my note of explanation it would have been all right. When, that afternoon, after-noon, the expressman brought back the unfortunate 'Victory, ' together with a polite but puzzled note from Mrs. S. returning re-turning the unlucky present (which I afterward learned through a mutual friend had been received wifcn much pleasure and given a conspicuous place in the library), my mortification was complete. Of course there was nothing else to be done about it, but I could not bear the sight of the unlucky statuette and sent it to a distant relative, hoping never to see or hear of it again. " New Vcri: Tribun? |