AROUND THE TEA TABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 306, 27 December 1928, Page 11

AROUND THE TEA TABLE

MATTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST.

(By SHIRLEY.)

H. G. Wells is said to continue in his newer pompous manner in his latest work '"Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island,"' but I think his description- of a small boy is rather **Kippslike," and anyway, will strike home to many a mother during these holidays. "Cheltenham was not a very happy refuge fo r me. A small boy of five is sedulous in the pursuit of occupation, and tactless in ihs choice of entertainment. My aunt was. addicted to collecting Chelsea figurines and other early English china: she loved the quaint stuff, and yet she failed to recognise a kindred passion in me when my eager young imagination would have introduced conflict and drama among her treasures. Nor did my attempts to play with and enliven the lives of two blue Persian cats please her maturer judgment. I did not understand that a cat, if one wants to plaj with it, should not be too ardently pursued, and is rarely aroused to responsive gaiety by even the best aimed blows. My doughty exploits in the garden where I dealt with her dahlias and Michaelmas daisies as though they werchostile champions and embattled hosts, aroused no spark of approval in her." We will all meet that boy this summer. * » * »

I like the little leaflets sent out by one grocery store. "Children's messages carefully attended to." This is an excellent pledge for the New Year. Not only will we get exactly what we ask for, but the small boy whose head does not reach the counter will still have his turn, however, much he is jerked buck by entering customers. The storeman realises that behind .lohn or Jane is mum, eager for that pound of bacon and ready, with amplified voice, and allusions to paternal authority, to allege pavement hopscotch as a reason for the delay. French shopkeepers are said to be quite particular about lirst come, first served. "Pardon, maritime, monsieur is first" and then "monsieur" comes forward, a little boy of teu.

A p ictnrial way of recommending wares | is always alluring, though really a remnant of old days before reading was ;t. common accomplishment. A convincing modelled cow of , some white substance in a dairy was formerly for the illiterate only, but is now an assurance of good faith. One Auckland fish shop has a little ship made out of a fish's skull, a schnapper's, I think. A fruiterer recommends his wares by painting on his window a bird with pineapple body, who has chosen rhubarb legs, a bunch of bananas spread fan wise for wings, and a cucumber head with tomato ears. The head rests on a spiral *eck with a necklet of black grapes for adornment. The best thing I on a fruit shop window is a notice that fruit will be taken from it, and the be ,t 1 thing on a cakeshop. a notice that cake won't be. For the best fruit goes 011 the window lodge, of course, and remains good, while cake becomes reminiscent of the active fly.

A recent Auckland cinema shows the hom telling father a lie as he goes on; to the forbidden theatre. That was in the 'sixties. In the 'eighties and 'nineties, it was the heroine that had to tell the lie. Before the war neither young mai: nor girl bothered to prevaricate, they just went out and asked the old folks to wait up for them. Now they a*k mother to waken early because someone is needed to let them in. Perhaps soon the old folks will be deceiving their children, after which the wheel may come full circle, the young people doing again what they are tild. There are said indeed to be signs that the young are revolting, not against the old or even the middle-aged, but against the rule of the young. They may not confess this vet, however, for to confess this kind of rebellion is to lose caste. However with all their little defects, our young people are brave and they are going to be courageous enough some day to rebe' even against the real tyrant, themselves,

We hoar of the adventurous "colonial." but in Enphind. since the awakening of the war, th-eie has been a tendency to heat us in what was formerly our metier, wandering here and there, and doing whatever came to the hand. A writing lady now in Auckland, anyway, has managed to have some adventures in England. Wanting to eke out two scholarships, she was sometimes guide in Wales, and sometimes helper in a Welfare Centre, .hist as adaptable as any New Zealand girl, she had a "go" at amateur theatricals, this with a travelling company. Once she helped to present a plav 111 Gloucester gaol, and had to dress in a cell, the door of which could not lock, unless she called upon someone outside to do so. Now she is settled in New Zealand and writing to a Home paper, calls herself "A New Zealand woman." She was a New Zealand woman before she came here, it seems to me.