We were talking, the other night, about lucky people. Barmer declared
that he knew the man (of whom we had all of us heard) who was left a
large fortune by an eccentric old gentleman whose hat he had picked up
on a windy day at Brighton. A better and more original contribution to
the discussion was that of Bastable, a retired Anglo-Indian. I give it
as nearly as I can in his own words. "The luckiest man I ever met," he
said, "is my groom-gardener, Andrews. I don't mean to say in respect of
prosperity or health, for he is a delicate man, and I can only afford to
give him a modest wage. But he has a charmed life, as you will admit
when you hear of his three escapes.
"Number 1 was when he was employed in repairing the roof of one of the
big London stations. He was slung up in a cradle when he lost his
balance and fell to the ground--a distance of about 80 feet. The odds
were about a million to one that he would be killed, but he managed to
light on precisely the one spot in the whole station area which secured
him a soft fall--a barrel of butter which was standing on the platform,
and from which, for some reason or other, the lid had been removed. The
butter was ruined, but Andrews escaped with a bad shaking. I believe the
butter-merchant brought an action against the Company, but I forget what
happened.
"Number 2 grew out of Andrews's weakness for parrots. He had bought a
parrot from a sailor, who told him that the best way to teach it to
speak was to hang the cage in a well and repeat the words or phrases to
it at 3 A.M. in the morning, so as to secure the greatest freedom from
disturbance. Andrews was then employed in a brewery at Watford, and
lived in a cottage with a strip of garden at the back. There was also a
well, so that he could carry out the sailor's instructions on the spot.
The cage, which was a large one and nearly filled the well, was made
fast to the bucket apparatus, and the first two lessons passed off
without any incident. But on the third night, when Andrews was hard at
work, he was hailed by a policeman, who came along the lane at the side
of the garden--it was an end house--and asked him what he was doing.
When Andrews said that he was teaching his parrot to talk, the
policeman, naturally suspecting that he was there for some felonious
purpose, climbed over the wall and made a grab at him. It was a dark
night, and, in trying to dodge the policeman, Andrews stepped into the
well, which, according to his account, was ninety feet deep. But, as
good luck would have it, he got jammed between the cage and the side of
the well, and remained hung up until the policeman hauled him out with
the aid of the bucket rope. He was badly bruised, but got all right in a
few days.
"Andrews's third and last escape was in the War. He was a reservist,
went out early, saw a lot of fighting and came through without a scratch
till last November, when his trench was rushed and he was taken
prisoner. The front trenches at that point were only about forty yards
apart, and before he was removed to the rear a British shell lit close
to him and blew him back into his own lines. He was badly hurt and,
after some months in hospital, was invalided out of the Army, but
manages to do the light work I want all right."
We all subscribed to Bastable's view of Andrews's luck--all at least
except Barmer, who was a little nettled at having his story eclipsed. "I
can believe the yarn about the shell," he said, "but the butter story is
a bit thick, and all tales about parrots are suspect."
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Bus Conductor._ "Blimy! We _do_ want an Air Minister,
and no mistake, with things like you floatin' abaht in the sky."]
* * * * *
Toujours la Politesse.
"The officer and a man ran in and respectfully shot with a
revolver and bayoneted two other men each."--_Englishman
(Calcutta)._
* * * * *
"Washington, Monday.
A representative from Mr. Gerard on his visit to the Kaiser at
Headquarters has been received at the State Department, and is
now being decoded."--_Manchester Daily Dispatch._
We cannot believe that any American diplomatist could be a mere cipher.
* * * * *