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At White Plains, N. Y., one Richard Kefter loaded his automobile last week with apples and hay. He started. A deer bolted from the woods, gave chase. Retarded by snow Mr. Kefter could not distance the beast, was chased for five miles. At last he threw out five apples and an armful of hay. The deer stopped, content.
Bletch
In Manhattan, hapless Jeremiah Bletch dropped the $5 gold piece, office Christmas gift, that he was telephoning Mrs. Bletch about, into the pay station box. Mrs. Bletch grieved.*
Dobbin
In Philadelphia, one George F. Dobbin, contractor, was told by a maid that two gentlemen wished to see him on business. Going to the front door he faced two pistols. The gentlemen told him not to make a noise. While they were going through his pockets Contractor Dobbin's baby toddled into the vestibule. Mr. Dobbin told the baby to go upsairs. "Then," says Mr. Dobbin, "in order not to alarm my wife, I told the men to talk about business. The smaller of the two, who seemed to have a pretty good education, said:
'Well, Mr. Dobbin, are the papers on that job ready yet?'
"I replied very audibly, 'They're coming along.'
"While carrying on the conversation, they took three wallets, $75 in money, my watch and a signet ring."
Soak
In Milwaukee, Drs. J. L. Yates and William Thalhimer made use of an old soak who had pernicious anemia. He was 65, had wretched teeth and would get drunk between blood transfusions. Altogether he received 52 litres (54.95 quarts) of blood. Some of it was fresh from the donors; some had been kept in cold storage; some was modified, some unmodified. The man soaked up anything the doctors thought good for him. When he died he was living on blood three-fourths of which was not his own and had undergone 113 transfusions. "No other patient has received, so far as is known, the number of transfusions here recorded," commented the doctors in their report to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Slime
At Geneva, Switzerland, Bacteriologist Henry Spahlinger heard a sudden explosion and felt himself splashed with slime. The container in which he was culturing virulent tuberculosis germs had burst. Knowing well the danger of infection the scientist stripped off his clothes and for two hours scrubbed his equipment and laboratory with germ-killing lysol. What germs he had involuntarily inhaled he hoped would die off be fore they could harm him.
*Honest money counters of the New York Telephone Co. found 68 more gold pieces in the Christmas collections brought them, in sealed boxes, from pay station booths.