THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 116, 19 May 1933, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Dear M.A.T.,—Apropos humour both in the dining room and kitchen. The night porter was a new arrival; his last job of the early morning being to tidy « SOUP, SIR?" the kitchen and light the fire. Enter the "chef" with cauliflower hat, a bad temper and a walrus moustache that seemed to quiver in anticipation of trouble. Eyeing the new porter with a bateful glare, lie sizzled, "What s become of the pot that was on the stove? "The pot, chef!" "The pot, yes," he sizzled again. "Oh, there was only water and a sausage in it, chef. I ate the sausage and cleaned the pot." "Gosh!" murmured the chef, "the stock!" —J.P.M. You can easily tell that Fritz and Europe generally are determined to have brotherly love and universal" peace by the Berlin picture in i the "Star" on Thursday FORCE. evening. A small old man reported to be a Jew—he isn't really Semitic in appearance — is in the presence of Berlin police. Afty ordinary schoolboy of large calibre could arrest this small old man • with one hand. A hefty, plain-clothes man, who possibly wears an eighteen and a half collar, is menacing the poor old thing with a notebook. A large man all rigged out in a flat-topped lancer cap, Sam Browne belt and heavy cloak, is giving the tiny totterer the once over. A young constable, with a face like a Greek god, a crash helmet and goggles (from the cyclist branch), is ready to burst into speed should the tiny totterer dash past the six foot three giant of the regular Berlin police, who stands like a tree in the background. There is a cove who looks like a Uhlan in the offing and a chap with apparently a field grey cap on. In all about 91 stone of preventive force to see that a little old thing, probably weighing eight stone six, doesn't imperil the safety of Germany. Oh, yes, there was a war to make war impossible, and now there is such forceful peace that it takes seven giants, all armed to the teeth, to interview a 75-year-old gent weighing as much as a fifth standard schoolboy. "It's a mad world, my masters." One wonders if Mr. Hitler has ever seen two doctors ?

"Talking about the demobbed airman who mistakingly lit his pipe with a tenner and threw the rest in "the grate," said the old soldier; "when my regiTHE RIVER LYS. nient was at Armentieres I then held the responsible position of lance-corporal. Man, I swung the kilt when I got the stripe! The dirty, grubby River Lys strolled past our lines and to the Fritz lines. People (like your airman)threw things away in that grubby stream. I was posted with other details 011 the bank of this river. One day we heard the swish of a Froggy's corduroy pants, and presently dear old grandpere, with a face like a walnut shell, carrying an umbrella and wearing a rather poor apology for a kepi, came up. He was apparently full of calm news, and spoke to the party in mixed English. took him up to headquarters, and the Brass Hat in charge told me to get a couple of men 'and do whatever this man tells you.'' The old man lished in the filthy Lys and pulled up a net with more rubbish than you'd believe. His first lind was a dead pig. With one sweep of his knife he opened it up to the jaw, searched its inside and grunted. He successively became •surgeon to several dead cats which he searched with minuteness, took labels of several dead marines he found, kept every scrap of paper —-from old books and so forth—thanked me and the two men for our kind attentions, and reported to headquarters. It transpired that old Walnut Face was "ail immensely keen French spy who had succeeded in having many enemy men shot for espionage, and who, by his researches in the River Lys, had once found a highly important document embedded in a dog and still bearing the signature of 'Haig F.M.' As his old corduroys creaked away, my two kittles exclaimed in chorusj 'Ma Conscience 1'"

In a relatively workless world, para* doxically bursting with fatness, it is exhilarating to note that so many employed persons "knock off work to carry LABOUR TO bricks." There are the REFRESHMENT. cases of the clergyman, tlio school teacher, the officer of the skeleton army, all at times undergoing "refresher courses," the inference being that plain, everyday, week by week, year by year ordinary yakkar doesn't refresh. Spurred to its logical conclusion, Pick and Shovel Joe, pushing the long banjo for fiftyone weeks in a year, should spend his fiftysecond week refreshing himself by throwing bricks to Harry. The immortal story of the postman who spent his annual leave doing the old round with his substitute is apropos. Normally, so habituated do toilers become to the manacles that bind them, that for the first day or two of a vacation holiday-makers frequently make ghostly appearances on office premises, apparently disliking to break away from the job for a whole fortnight. Honest-to-goodness eminents with a few thousands in the bank (and who cannot possibly be spared, as it were) simply mention that they are off to Europe for six months or so, or intend taking the missis and the daughter on a world tour. By. "refresher course" standards these eminents are "cruelling the pitch." Logically, an eminent lawyer, or a profound accountant, should refrain from going abroad, and should sit for four weeks' holiday in a nice little study at home, reading Boyle's Law or Simkins on Statistics. In short, what is really indicated is "Do the same job in your holidays and you will be refreshed."

"Have you ever noticed," said he of the thoughtful brow, "anything particular about public telephone boxes'/" "Barring the characteristic pert u me, THE 'PHONE BOX. the remarkable polishing effect of the human hand, the tattered red literature suspended from the wall —and the waiting crowd that hates 1110 while I insert a penny—nothing," said M.A.T. The thoughtful one described a 'phone box as a ladies' boudoir, toilette parlour, private reading room, writing table and waiting room. Said that he had intended ringing up a number the other day and unhappily disturbed a bending lady adjusting drooping hose. Shocked, he turned to No. 2 box, where a lady was eagerly searching a railway time-table, the while enjoying every chocolate (with crunchy centres) she ate. In another there was a charming girl immersed in an Edgar Wallace, her attache case barring the fairwav, and in still one more there was a message boy with a mirror, obtaining that charming wavy efiect with a green comb—so he borrowed a 'phone at a pie shop. His idea is that the lad with the mirror is a pioneer, and that a permanent, immovable and indestructible mirror should be let into the wall of every 'phono box; that boxes should be enlarged to admit washbasins, soap, towels, bootbrushes and shoe polish. He thinks the red literature supplied is insufficient—and that an assortment of censored (and censured) novels j might bo added by the Post Office. lie is j afraid that a suggestion for a sofa in each box would not be regarded with favour by the authorities. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Clod gives all men all earth to love, But since man's heart is small, Ordains for each one spot shall prove Beloved over all. —Rudyard Kipling. Health Is the first good lent to men, A gentle disposition then. Next to be rich by 110 by-ways, Lastly with friends to enjoy our days. *■ —Herrick. ,