THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 34, 10 February 1930, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) THE TELEPHONE. • What wukes us up at 2 a.m. To totter down the stairs And bark our shins 011 table legs And tumble over chairs'.' What drags us from the steaming bath To don a dressing gown And tell some beastly cheerful voicc The wife in out of town? 1 What interrupts the morning shave When we've applied the lather And holds us with nn itching nose To talk a lot of blather ? What makes us put the teacup down And push the plate away, To tell some kind, obliging soul We don't want fish to-day V What keeps us fuming, hat in hand, And makes us miss our train, To hear some silly ass remark The weather looks like rain ? What rings upon our office desk When we would be alone? That product of tills year of gracc— The t-c-l-c-phone. —A.H. " " & One of those uncanny wharf cranes of ours was snaking a slingful of iron bars out of the stomach of a steel ship on a steel cable so slender as to be almost IRON.- invisible to the watcher — a remarkable triumph of science, if you care to think a moment—the steel cable in proportion to the load being as a spider's web to a well-grown rat. One jangling bar waggled ominously, causing the watcher to shudder for the nonchalant gentlemen below. It occurred to the watcher that similar steel spider webs lifting every conceivable kind of iron and steel load from every conceivable kind of iron ship were at it all the world over—lying at iron and concrete wharves —unthinkable millions of tons of old Mother Earth made by the genius of man into the commercial product the world uses most of. Now don't be bored. The dangling of that slingfill of iron rods set up a useful line of thought. Who mines these incredible millions of tons of iron? Whoever hears anything about iron miners? Every other kind of miner is heard oftener than an American jazz gramophone record. Coal miners strike oftener than a clock. Has anyone ever heard of an iron miners' strike? Who wins the unthinkable quantities? Does the man who wins it get five pounds a week or fifty pounds? Apparently the most important workers 011 earth never say a word. Ha! they've landed that sling of iron bars without a casualty—liooray! No genuine enthusiast ever has mulligrubs. A boyish interest in a hobby, in one's life work, in one's children, in one's games, in one's flowers, keeps juvenant THE ENTHUSIAST, the apparently aged and smooths the path of life. There was once a gentleman of eighty profoundly skilled in plant lore and a notable grower of stone fruit. He would talk plums long, long after the cows came home and nectarines until the village bells had tolled the hour of midnight. One evening he dissertated to M.A.T. 011 the habits of stone fruits, the freestone, the slipstone, the stone that breaks in half, the stone that a Californian is trying to eliminate. At 12.15 M.A.T. looked at the clock and rather rudely fidgeted. "Come along to my place and I'll show you some of my plums," said the enthusiast. "Why, it's after twelve!" said the other. "Well, it isn't far," said the old enthusiast. "Only about three miles to my place." "But it's pitch dark," feebly remonstrated the scribbler. Then the true greatness of the enthusiast burst forth, "I've got an electric torch!" he said. Frank produced "The Passing Show" par referring to hair and the loss of it. "Hair lias been long absent from my head," said he pensively, "since I was about THE DESERT, twenty-three years old. I am now thirty years older than that. I squandered my substance in riotous hair restorers for years and years, but the aridity remained, as you see. Up to the time of the Great War I could see no advantage in hairlessness, and, indeed, gave Locko,' the celebrated restorer, another chance prior to enlistment. Nothing of a hirsute nature eventuated. My Sahara remained infertile. It was only among the horrors of war, the pediculae, the slush of the trenches and the indescribable and obscene bestialities of life, that I came to thank Providence for balditude. Where other unfortunate and hairy men were obliged to sedulously comb companions from their locks and go to spent breweries for disinfectant baths, I would simply give the old dome a polish and emerge beautiful as the morn. Last birthday an implacable enemy sent me a brush and comb. Coward!" A gentleman exhibiting every symptom of n. Scottish ancestry lias called to agree that tiis fellow countrymen intend to teach Americans (and the English) BOOK OF WORDS, the English language. He disagrees with the statement in this column inspired by a Glaswegian that the Aberdeen clips his wurruds, and in answer to the allegation presents the following evidence: "In the old days Scotsmen from the North-east taught Europeans how to fight; now they give instruction in the use of the King's English. For instance,- Professor MacCallum has been for many years the professor 3f English at Vienna University, and is a ' popular broadcast lecturer in Austria. In fact this Aberdonian is setting the fashion in English pronunciation throughout the wide province of the Rosenhugel radio station. A medal las just been struck to his honour, as a tribute to him for the work he has been doing in weekly broadcasting for the past five years." Apropos human resemblances inducing mistakes as to identity, there is the case of the call New Zealand soldiei"—the same who burnt the skin off his hand with KHAKI TWINS, a red-hot carbine after that bit of rifle fire at < Slimfontein. Having nothing to kill one day, the stalwart one spent his leisure wandering in strange lines. An immense and fussy corporalmajor (yes, corporal-major) demanded to know 1 ivhat he was doing at liberty. The soldier ;old the C.M. the simple New Zealand truth. < 'You're delirious!" said the C.M. anxiously, > ind crooked an immense finger at a couple of troopers out of a giant caravan. "Take him 1 back to the hospital at once!" barked the C.M. ] 'He's broken out." Violently remonstrating 1 it the two Lifeguardsmen, the inoffensive length of soldier was taken before the M.O. 'Who's this?" he asked. "Z , sir, of C Squadron; lie's broke hospital and we've brought him back." "Good gad!" said the loctor. "Queer! I left Z in bed only two minutes ago." The doctor dodged away down the big tent and came back. "Z i s still there," he said. The New Zealander was flabbergasted. _ "Could I see me ?" he joked. "Come along!" said the doctor, while the Guardsmen ' guard stood easy. Z lay in bed recovering from typhoid. "Charlie!" said the Lifeguardsman. "Bill!" said the New Zealander. "How's this?" asked the M.O. "Twins!" said Bill. "Haven't seen each other for thirteen years." ' "All right, you men!" yelled the doctor. "Tell the corporal-major I've got twins." There is an astute lad in a local business who, it is hoped, may reach high eminence in the detective force or any other calling requiring the exercise of SIGN OF analytical faculties. His SOLVENCY, employer on a recent day sold to a gentleman over . the counter some expensive' goods. He was perturbed when the gentleman, whom he had never seen before, desired to pay by cheque. He retired momentarily and said, in the pres- • ence of the staff, "I wonder if I ought to take his cheque?" And the astute lad piped up, You take it, boss; I seen his boots; he's weann spats. 'E's a gent!"