THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 134, 9 June 1933, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

THE HAND. Dear M.A.T., —I went to a card and dance evening the other night —very nice, too. was reminded while there of a little ditty long ago: Last night I held a little haod, So dainty and so neat. h,, rß t I thought my heart would surely burst, So wildly did it beat No other hand e'er h<sld so ti„nt Could greater gladness bring Than the sweet Hand I held last Four acos and a king. —TUoCAjM. "Alf": Overheard in the tram yesterday afternoon. Two toilers reading the billboard of the "Star" as. the tram passes it. lirst. **• "Peace Pact; Ten. Years. THE PEACE. What on earth does that mean, Bill?" Bill: It means that they've all got ten years to get ready for the next war, and anyone who staits before then's offside."

Noticed that a slight discussion took place on a local body on the point of a relief worker having to work for a pair of boots, a gen.leman facetiously asking » TOIL. he also had to work for his meat issue. It ail depends, of course, on the tenderness of the meat. But it reminded one of the army. Troops' mess deck. All hands sitting at the tables eating the mid-day meal Enter the ship's captain, military officer of the day and sergeant-major. Sergeant-major yells in a dreadful 'voice, "Attention!' Everybody springs to attention and tries to stop chewing. "Any complaints?" (ferociously), No reply. Sergeant-major howls, "Get on with your work!" Party goes out. Men resume meal. Number 0/000 removes broken tooth from mouth. " 'Work' is right," says he. "Anonym" hastens in to say he found a man on a railway platform holding a " sta £ in his hand and chuckling consumedly. It seems he had been reading MORE LIGHT, tho paragraph about the x traveller who sat in the first-class carriage—"lighted" with gas insr his paper by the aid of two candles. Then was told the other story of the tired travellers who by flickering beams of a typical railway light tried to woo Somnus. The light shefl its rays only on a few feet of railway property, the vast spaces to east and west being as dark as a wolf's throat. A young man, greatly daring, committed the first crime in a hitherto spotless career. He rose —and turned out the light! Almost!immediately an official, plainly doing his duty, entered the gloom and instantly turned on the light. He solemnly inquired who had dared to do this thing. The trembling passengers, with visions of a horrible clash with the authorities, kept a frightened silence and shivered with apprehension. Tho official, having done his duty, moved on. A daring passenger rose—and turned tho "light" out. Then everybody went to sleep.

Oh, the brave music of a distant drum! People at the moment are engaged in poisoning thrushes, shooting thrushes, trapping thrushe?, or listening in THE THROSSEL. rapt ecstasy to the matutinal warblings of this sweet songster. Jack lives within a stone's throw of a pine tree. A thrush has'made the tree top his cathedral. From this he pours forth each morning the glorious cadences from his pulsing throat. Jack, between waking and sleeping, has lain in bed hearing the same music that has charmed the ear of Alfred the Great, Julius Caesar and Mr. Coates. Distance has spiritualised the, throbbing notes, bringing a pageant of history, of gladness, of emotion. The thrush vacated his airy cathedral and swooped nearer Jack's home —so near that a small boy with a catapult—but there! He took his morning stand on a flagstaff close to Jack—and altered the 1 rhythm of his appeal, so that the listener between sleeping and waking thought that this bird of the centuries was merely saying with ceaseless iteration, "Get up! Get up! Get up!" John got up. "I wonder," said he to his wife this morning, "if I could whang that blessed bird with a rock I"

The citizen sought a dentist in a vast congeries of marble halls. As he was decanted from the elevator at the designated flat there appeared before him a WATCH limitless expanse , of YOUR STEP, gleaming floor. At either end was a muscular gentleman, kneeling on knee pieces cut from lorry tyres. Eacli possessed tins of material and polishing rags and both were rubbing for dear life, until the surface under their magical hands became so brilliant that the man on his way to the dentist could have seen his swollen cheek in the floor. Hurtling towards him without conscious ,effort was a middleaged gentleman out of control. It was-nine o'clock in the morning—and anyhow the middle-aged gentleman is a total abstainer. But he had no brakes. The man with the swollen jaw put out a hand and brought the involuntary slider to a stop, thus probably saving him from casualty. The man with the swollen jaw, sitting in the dentist's library reading an 1888 magazine, toyed with the idea that in this city and other cities there are miles and miles of glittering linoleum, polished to a painful brilliance every morning, forming vast glaciaria and demanding extreme care among pedestrians throughout the country. There is no doubt whatever that commercial interests in these altitudifious places are allied with temperance societies, for no Inan not in normal health could possibly essay these long, shining halls without a disaster. They therefore make one watch one's step. If the busy bee could only compute the amount of wax that is used to cause this universal glitter On hundreds of miles of footway—he'd buzz conceitedly.

William has a Pomeranian kuri named Biddy.X Biddy, with canine sagacity, buries bones for future reference, but although the Pom. is highly intelliOLD BONES. gent, the place of burial is often forgotten, the pup making excavations all over the lawn in frantic search for missing provender. Biddy recently had a particularly bony day. Alert espionage by members of the household failed to indicate the burial ground—and the family in due course sought their respective beds. William himself during the night dreamt ghastly dreams of mortuaries, gibbets on lonely heaths, executed highwaymen swinging from gallows and grisly emblems of mortality grouped in dismal heaps in the catacombs of Rome. He awakened in a fright and adjusted his uncomfortable pillow. Beneath was a large bone, most obviously interred by Biddy. Other members of the family reported | a shin-bono beneath a mattress, sheep's ribs 'under a bedspread, and segments of an ox tail nestling beneath a bolster. The bonc-hider has been mentioned in fiction, too. Lan Hay [has partially immortalised Excalibur, the gigantic dog. "Scally's" owner received one day a visit from the Lord-Lieutenant of the county and his lady. Her ladyship, with aristocratic calm, sat in the most comfortable chair on the lawn. Ultimately she fidgeted. Her anxious host politely said, "I'm afraid, Lady C , you are not comfortable?" "Oh, the cushion is quite nice," replied the lady, "but there seems to be something under it." There was—Scally had hidden his latest and largest trophy under that cushion. A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. He who is lord of himself and exists upon his own resources, is a noble but a rare [being.—Sir E. Brydges. *