"TEA, PLEASE!"

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 95, 22 April 1922, Page 17

"TEA, PLEASE!"

TRAGI-COMEDY OF RAILWAY

REFRESHMENTS.

(By CYRANO.)

►TVith you Knslisli. while there's tea there's hope."—l'iuero.

The other day a doctor in the service of the State looked out from a railway carriage on a crowd besieging a railway refreshment counter, and found the gjtrht. sad, and indeed almost disgusting. What did these people want to wolf tea and sandwiches for, to the impairment of their digestion and nerves? The Tesult was a little lecture to the public on the evils of wrong dieting. 7 am sure that many of those who read his homily wished to ask him a few questions. At what time of the day did this experience occur. When had he himself had his last meal? Had he any information as to when the persons he criticised so freely bad had theirs? Besides, one is tempted to apply to him the immortal saying of Sir Toby: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Good heavens, if travellers on the New Zealand railways are to live like Spartans, and deny themselves refreshers of tea and coffee, who will travel? These stops for refreshment are oases in a desert of weariness. A cup of strong tea gives tou what Conrad might describe as an illusion of happiness.

Railway refreshments in England are an old source of humour. "I know what railway station sandwiches arc made of!" says a character in a popular farce, mysteriously. There is humour in the New Zealand railway arrangements for eating, if philosophy can distil it out. Some of it has been removed since the Department took off the dining cars, and thereby relieved passengers of the necessity for standing in what was a faint resemblance to a queue, on the platform of moving carriages, perhaps in wind and rain, for many a weary mile. Few complaints are to be heard about the railway station rooms where you get set meals; my own small experience there has been quite haippy. The trouble is, however, that these places do not meet the needs of all expresses, and I had an experience of quite another kind in a town where it was necessary to go to a privately-run dininsr room for dinner. It -was beside the station, and I went ■with my party straight to the table, but the service was so slow and so many things were "off," that we had to come away in possession of about quarter of a meal instead of a whole one. For this I had the pleasure and privilege of paying nine shillings, and I do not know that I have ever grudged money more. I felt hot at the stupidity of caterers who could not organise so simple a ser- ; vice as feeding a number of people ex- | pected at a certain hour and having only' a limited time in which to eat. A similar want of system is observable at | GOffle refreshment counters. It is an amusing and a sad and annoying sight— according to your place in the rush and your temperament—to see two or three attendants vainly trying to pour out sufficient liquid for a three-deep crowd that has only five minutes in which to indulge * "in. "what•-' our".'-medical -friend would call the depravity of irregular refreshment. ,At such a time the race is to the swift and the battle to the strong. Experienced travellers know when to move from their seats as the train apjproaches a tea station, and. just where their carriage will pull up in relation to the refreshment room. Pity the poor woman who has no man to get into the scrimmage for her and bring her a cup of tea and a sandwich. But even to those in the front row the delay is some- ; times maddening. "Tea, .please!" "Tea, please!!" "Tea and sandwich!" "Coffee and cake!!" "Hey, Miss, tea and; scone!" Pale hands stretch out (from the second row and claw the air vainly. No form of address seems to have any special effect on the overwhelmed attendants. How slowly the tea seems to leave the teapot! With what fumbling hands the attendant gropes in the till for change for the man 'beside you! More than once I have choked down a very strong desire to jump over the counter and help myself. Surely, you tell yourself, there must be a 'better way of doing things. The time of the train's arrival can be ascertained beforehand to a minute, so why not have dozens of cups of tea ready? I saw this done successfully at a Canterbury station, and really the contrast .between this efficiency and the lack of it I had seen at some other places almost moved mc to embrace the person in charge. The result of this scrambling and delay is that when you do achieve tea and a sandwich you attack it with uncivilised abandon, and thereby hurt the feelings of grave doctors watching poor stupid humanity from the train windows. •Which is the most enjoyable cup ot , railway tea in point of time and circumstance? ;i_i '

Sweet when the morn is srey. ; Sweet when they've cleared away * Lunch: but at close of day Possibly sweetest. Go it has been written of tobacco. I should vote for the cup that rouses you from the fustiness, the frowsiness, the coagulated stiffness, of night hours 6pent on the Main Trunk. I remember joining the first Auckland-bound train at Te Awamutu, which meant rising about one o'clock. I fortified myself against sleepiness by promising myself tea at Frankton, but alas, the shutters were up at that refreshment room. Between Frankton and Mercer I existed in a series of jerky transitions between an exhausted consciousness and a disturbed doze. Never have I felt more tired, mentally and phyically. When we got to Mercer the whole train, which was very full, nun_ itself en masse on the small refreshment room. The effect of that tea was amazing. I was a new man, capable of enjoying a book from there to the end of the journey, and walkin- several miles from Auckland station! (/.t is one of the little jokes ot the Railway Department to land you in Auckland on a Sunday morning long before the trams begin running.) I fancy Mercer must be the scene of the..fiercest scrambles for tea to he seen anywhere in New Zealand. The traveller gets there early in the morning after a night in the train, and you know what those nights are like.

The darkness shivers. A wan light through the raiu , ... „_,. Strikes on our faces, drawn and white, ana somewhere .. .. ._• A new day sprawls; and. inside, the tout Is chill, and damp, and fouler than before. Tea? Not all the doctors in the world would drag us from it. It is a great sight to see a long express pull in at iMercer iv the light of dawn, and a crowd of tea-seekers jump from every carriage and sprint along the platform. 'The last time I raced for the refreshment room an absurd quotation came intomv head. "The night that we stormed Valhalla a million years ago. Then, I suppose, they had nectar at tne «-_ of it, but was it as good as tea?