The Man With the Gun at the Surprise Party

A man in Massapequa, L. I., has gone on the roll of philanthropists by devising a new plan for dealing with the "surprise party." The surprise party, like the pastoral donation, has been looked upon as one of those mysterious dispensations of Providence that, like a visitation of locusts, must be accepted as irresistible, endured with becoming humility and received with praise because it does not come more than once in a season. But the Massapequa man, perhaps from confusing the facts, adopted a different method. When the hilarious surprise party, male and female, gleesomely pounded upon his front door, he came to the door with a gun. The women shrieked and fled, and the men, from behind trees, tried to convince the unwilling host that they were not white caps or tramps or robbers. But the man with the gun had his doubts, and it was only after a long parley that the visitors were admitted to the house. Perhaps it was a weak surrender. But the gun's muzzle is like the opening to a path of deliverance for those similarly afflicted, and the closed door is like a door of hope to all sufferers from a like siege. It may be necessary yet to add to invitations to surprise parties: "Please bring refreshments and bullet proof coats."