A HAPPY BORROWER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 147, 23 June 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

A HAPPY BORROWER.

OUR CASUAL CONSCIENCE. "HELL BELOW." (By A.) Pliillipa is a charming bridge player. She is never known to revoke, or to ask tho damning question, "What are trumps?" She is a delightful dancer, with an uncanny capacity for remembering the names of her past partners; she never fails to inquire after their favourite hobby if 6he lias on some previous occasion discovered it. She is a mine of information on the films, on the best dressmakers and on all the slightest winds that turn the weathercock of gossip of the world in which slio lives. If tshe likes you well enough, she will supply you at any time with any one of a thousand "aids to beauty," or the choicest hints from tho "Do You Know?" columns. But after that the powers of memory desert her. Ask her for the novel you lent her the Christmas before last, or the bound copy of "Punch" she had from a friend to whom you lent it two years ago, -and she will look a f you blankly, wrinkle lier face unbecomingly, and swear flatly that she did no buch thing.

During that interval between rubber and rubber when chairs are tilted b ick for gossip, or moved nearer to the fire to toast ehift'on-stockinged legs, Pliillipa is drawn towards the bookshelves of her hostess by some magnetic influence that their owner would give much to combat. No volume lying at ease on chair or occasional table is safe from her. If it is, and books lying on chairs inevitably are, one of the latest bestsellers, and if she has not already read it, tho conclusion is foregone:

"Darling! Have you got 'Testament of Youth?' I'd love to read it. May I? Thank you, Angel. . . . Which ones? . . .

'Over the River V . . . Oil, no, I'm sure I haven't. I'll' look, or, of course! But I'm practically certain."

Somo months, possibly weeks, later, friend waiting for her to complete toilet in the flat-cum-bed sitting room where she "digs," and running over tho titles of her accumulated library, aloud, as is the common habit of friends who run over titles, will jog lier memory with a guilty name. Momentarily, perhaps, with remorse, the busy puff is poised in air as she makes the sincere resolution to overhaul her illicit collection the very next day. This resolution she may keep, when a wet Sunday sets her at a loose end, some weeks, or possibly months, hence. Six of One. This task, she reflects, is not as simple as importunate owners affect to believe. Slio mutters petulantly to herself (why do all people similarly engaged subject themselves to an audible catcchism?). She throws down one book and picks up another. She looks at the front page. Except for the übiquitous seven and sixpence it is blank. Another has "To Mary from Roee," or more simply, "From Rose," or more affectionately, "With love from Rose." "Bah!" She sits back on her heels. People have no right to lend books without their name in them. They deserve to lose them. She puts a few of the offenders back on the shelves. Those of Mary Webb belong to Kathleen. She looks at the front to make sure. She doesn't care to remember how long they have been, but decides to atone for their long sentence by parcelling them up and sending them back this week. She puts them aside 011 another shelf for the purpose. Several remain, apparently orphans, or earmarked with no official brand. They go to join the gifts of the mysterious and affectionate Rose. "To Mary," is still debatable. It may be one of the four Marys of Tauranga, of Wellington, of Invcrcargill or of Waipukurau; or it may bo (more probably) the Mary who rings up periodifally, demanding the return of book or books, name and nature unspecified. If she rings again the answer is obvious. And Phillipa goes to wash the dust from her hands, with the comforting conclusion about book-lenders, that if the charge of laziness may be laid at the door of the borrowers, these, also, are not above reproach.

" Caravanserai." All our property is our own, but our books. These are casual and impermanent chattels, brief in their lives, and in their many owners, divided. Like the youth of to-day, they are to be found in everyone's home, but their own. They foregather on strange bookshelves, rubbing dust-jackets (if we are lucky in their borrowers) with other globe-trotters of their kind, and- more often than not, their front page is bare save for that seven and sixpence that we always regretted paying. Threats ana Warnings. When next you see some of your fledgling possessions hovering upon their inevitable flight around the circle of your friends and of their friends' "friends, write one of the following inscriptions firmly within the covers: •If this is borrowed by a friend, That friend shall welcome be To read, to study, not to lend. But to return to me. Read slowly, think seriously, pause frequently and return duly with the corners of the leaves not turned down. Steal not this book for fear of shame, For here you see the owner's name,For when you die your Lord will say "Where is that book you stole away?" And if vou say you do not know He'll send you into hell Jielow. Would that reform Phillipa? Or is it but another proof concerning the ultimate fate of good intentions?