AT THE HAT SHOP IN THE HIGH STREET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 252, 24 October 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

AT THE HAT SHOP IN THE HIGH STREET.

{By NORMAN HUNTER.)

"There's an awfully exciting play at the theatre to-night," said the .Duchess of Doaneay Tkart. "Do let's go and see it, Kenneth."

"All right," said. Kenneth, who was the duke. "Only I must go to a rather important sort of meeting this afternoon, eo Pll meet you outside the hat shop at the end of the High Street;" "Lovely," said tho duchess. "I'll be there at half-past seven," and she went away to mako up her mind which dress to wear and whether she ought to wash her hair first.

At half-past seven exactly that night the . duke drove up in his carriage and got out at the hat shop at the end of the High but the duchess wasn't there.

"Of course, she'll be late," he said. "Ladies always are. It's expected of them, though I don't know why," and he started to walk up and down.

At twenty minutes to eight the duchess drove up in her carriage and got out at the hat shop at the end of the High Street. But the duke wasn't there. "Bother," she said. "I came ten minutes late on purpose so that I shouldn't have to wait for him and now he's late. -I can't understand it."

And certainly it did seem sort of funny that the duke wasn't at the hat shop at the end of the High Street, because he'd arrived there ten minutes before. "I shall wait five minutes and then no more," said the duchess to herself, and she started looking at the hats in the shop window and trying to guess how much they cost and which, one she'd look niccst in.

By the time .shc'cl guessed them all in turn and decided 011 the most expensive, it was eight o'clock. "Oh, this is annoying!" she cried, and she stamped her foot—in a puddle, by mistake. But whether she was annoyed because she'd stayed longer than five minutes, or because the duke hadn't arrived she didn't say.

The Town Hall clock was striking half-past eight as the duke stood fuming and raving outside the hat shop and looking at his watch, which was fast, and so made things look ten minutes worse than they really were. "Crown jewels and cocoanuts," he cried. "This is too bad. The duchess asks me to meet her at half-past seven and here I've stood outside this wretched hat shop from half-past seven to halfpast eight and still she hasn't come." r°* * * *

"The .nasty man," the duchess was saying five minutes later. "Why didn't he say he didn't want me to the theatre, instead of keeping me waiting outside this old hat shop ever since h&lfpast seven." It certainly was strange. The duke had been waiting since half-past seven for the duchess out3ide the hat shop at the end of the High Street and she wasn't there., Yet the duchess had been waiting for the duke since half-past seven outside the hat shop at the end of the High Street and he wasn't there. Impossible! They were both there, yet neither of them was there! Good heavens!

Well, at last it was nine o'clock and tliey both went home and bumped into each other on the doorstep. "Where have you been, I should like to know?" demanded the duchess. ■ "What sort of a joke do you call this?" cried tlie duke. "I was at the hat shop at 7.30 and you were not," said the duchess.

"You'll pardon me," said the duke, "but I was at the hat shop at 7.30 and you were not there." "I was there," cried the duchess, "and you weren't." "You were not there," thundered the duke, "but I was." "I was, you weren't," shouted the duchess. "You weren't, I was," yelled the duke. "I were, you wasn't," screamed the ducliess, getting her grammar all mixed up in the ' excitement. • And goodness knows how it would all have ended, only just then the butler cam© along. "Begging your graces' pardon," he said, "but did you know there are two hat shops in the High Street, one at each end ?"

"Two hat shops?" gasped -the duke, who never wore hats, but only a coronet.

"Two hat shops?" cried the duchess, who knew only the ladies' hat shop at the end she had waited at.

They both looked at each other and then burst out laughing. ' "Ha, ha," said the duke. "How silly. Never mind though we'll go to the theatre' to-morrow. I haven't got any meetings to go to. Then we can start from here together without waiting anywhere for each other."

And they did,