168
ACROSS THE STRAITS
There were several pretty girls in the office, laughing and chyacking the counter clerks, which jarred upon the feelings of this poor orphan wanderer in strange and unemployed lands. We gloomily took a telegram form, and wired to a friend in North Island, using the following words: 'Wire quid; stumped,'
Then we crossed the street to a pub and asked for a room, and they told us to go up to No. 8. We went up, struck a match, lit the candle, put our bag in a corner, cleared the looking-glass, &c., off the toilet table, got some paper and a pencil out of our portmanteau, and sat down and wrote this sketch.
The candle is going out.
