THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 64, 17 March 1930, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Everybody with a drop of Irish blood in him wears the shamrock to-day (or, if he cannot get it, some other form of clover, or even watercress), in memory THE SHAMROCK, of St. Patrick. Nobody has yet fathomed the shamrock legend, nor explained how it came to be the emblem of the Green Isle. The name is almost identical in Arabic, and Pliny nearly hits upon a Latin version of the banishment of serpents when he declares that they cannot abide trefoil. As the lady president of the Plunlcet Society so truly says, there are many expensive social teas, but this paragraph has nothing whatever to do with mTHE FLYING stitutional teas. A lady FROCK. who lives in the country I had come in to Auckland !to attend a little social affair. She brought two little girls. She wore a charming chiffon gown, and the girls had equally chic hats. Later she had to drive home, and ehe was in a hurry. She hastily squeezed the two hats and the dress into a suitcase, snapped the catch either futilely or otherwise, threw the bag in the car, and turned for home. When she arrived, she retrieved the- hats, but there was' no dress. She -explains that, although there was no wind in Auckland at the time, there was a half-gale blowing on the road. The point for surprise to her is that subsequent search failed to recover the dress, which had simply been blown none knows where. She thinks it might be in the branches of a high tree a hundred miles away, or may even have been stopped by a clothes line or a fence. To M.A.T. there is no surprise whatever about a frock bursting from a bag and flying. They are light on the wing. M.A.T. recently and personally weighed six beauteous frocks. The complete series scaled fourteen and a half i ounces. "... And things are not what they seem." The unemployed man sought sedulously for work. He had combed the business places without success, and beONE NEVER gan scouring the residenKNOWS. tial areas. There might be a job of painting, digging, gardening, lawn mowing. - So he thought he would choose only the most opulent-looking houses. He found a very nice large house and rang the bell. The gentleman of the house answered. The out-of-work put his request. Had the gentleman a job of work? The gentleman regretted. The unemployed man mentioned that he would do up the garden and mow the lawn. The gentleman still' regretted. "I'll do a day's work for ten shillings," pleaded the mam "I haven't got ten shillings, said the man of the opulent house. The inquirer smiled respectfully but incredulously. Then the householder said: "I've been out of work myself for three months. If my wife didn't take in a few boarders " One never knows. There- is a rabbit at Eden Park. No, I'm not referring to cricket; it's a real rabbit, and quaint is the history thereof. More than a year ago Bunny escaped CALL OF THE from a hutch in a s'uburTAME. ban garden, and decided, curiously enough, that the cricket pavilion would make a splendid home, though whether on account of accommodation or companionship M.A.T. knoweth not. The fact remains that the rabbit came to live in, or rather under, the pavilion. It resolutely declined to be caught, but declined, with equal resolution, to go back to the wild. The call of the taine, as typified by a scrap, of sweet biscuit, wi*» nearly always potent enough to bring Bunny forth from its hiding, place in the early morning, and Mr. Mills, the groundkeeper, soon succeeded in establishing himself orr a friendly footing with the little creature. It was hardly wer seen during the day, but as the setting sua cast lengthening shadows across the turf, it would come out to nibble the grass in front of the pavilion. Some time ago Bunny disappeared, and' Mr. Mills thought his pet had deserted liim, but there came dramatic, even tragic," proof of its continued presence, for one day, when the motor mower was started up, out from the roller there tumbled a litter of young ones! The call of the tame, with a vengeance. Bunny is still Eden Park, and everyone wishes it well, but hopes it will revise its choice of a nesting place. How it got into the machine shed is a mystery, and why it should have chosen the innards of a nasty, noisy motor mower as the place in which to rear its little ones is "a thing no feller can possibly understand." Bill went fishing. Moreover, Bill caught fish—a round dozen of schnapper, with- the pearly pink of freshness radiant upon them. Nothing remarkable about WHEN FISH ARE that, you'll say, but wait PRICELESS. a minute. Bill had been fishing many times before, but his prowess of other seasons appeared to have deserted him, and the catches had been few and scanty. Unfortunately Bill had promised his pals in Auckland .that he would bring a good schnapper or two over for them. He had fished assiduously, and his pals had waited patiently, but the melancholy tally of blank days had continued to grow, and Bill's mana had grown less. Then (as already remarked), Bill came back to the wharf with the goods. Who should be there to meet him but a neighbour? Funny how people do appear on these occasions. "By jove," said the neighbour, "something like a cateli! What about me giving you a bob or so for one of the big ones?" Bill regarded him grimly. "Don't be 'Uncle Willy,'" he said. "I wouldn't sell s em'; I'm going to give 'em to some pals at work. Here, I'll give you a couple of smaller ones." The neighbour thanked him cordially, took the fish, and turned for home. As he did so he heard the voice of Bill, crooning over his catch: "Sell 'em!" Bill was 6aying to himself. "Sell 'em! I wouldn't sell 'em for a quid apiece." The fact that London crowds have gathered in Hyde Park to listen to the peal of bells forged for the subsequent delectation of Wellington has reminded CAMPANOLOGY, a minor campanologist of the Christmas puddings. A New Zealand lady married, and with her husband went Home to live. Sometimes her heart was in New Zealand with her mother, who remains here. When she was a little homesick she wrote to her mother suggesting that she should send Christmas puddings to j New Zealand, and that mother should °send Christmas puddings from New Zealand. The exchange was made. The London puddings arrived in Auckland, and were consumed. Acknowledgments were made. The exile daughter subsequently wrote to her mother saying that she would like to know who amonc her relatives and friends had got the little sil° ver bells she had mixed in with the puddings, j There were about a dozen of these little bells she said. One of the lady's relatives mentions that, of all the Auckland people who partook of those campanological duffs, none saw a bell. He has often wondered since why himself and his Auckland relatives do not walk about ringing silver peals. WHO TOLD YOU THAT? Six steamer passengers, two Englishmen, two Scotsmen, and two Irishmen, were shipwrecked on a desert island. By the end of the first week the Irishmen had had half a dozen fights and made friends again. The Scotsmen had. started a Burns Association. The Englishmen hadn't spoken to one another.