THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1937, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.) During a recent week-end a man made three successive solo ascents of Mount Egmont —and the third time he placed a bottle in the crater Containing a note WASTED of his feat. Well, do you BOTTLE, know, I once carried a letter the wife had given me for a month in my pocket, and in that period I visited the post office several hundred times. But when I remembered I, at least, ' put the letter in the box, "and had the bottle myself.—l.M. There is a man from the far side of the harbour who is doing quite a swagger around the town, and, quite unconsciously, telling an awful fib when he RECORD LEAP, recounts the exploit that . _ has given him the pouter pigeon chest. He came galloping do\\*n the wharf the other evening and threw himself recklessly after the departing G p.m. ferry, aboard which he landed with one of Edgar Wallace's "dull, sickening thuds." When he came to a few seconds later the boat was well on its way to Devonport. "Cripes," quoth he, as he looked back towards the city, "that was some jump, wasn't it?" "Touchstone" writes:—A yachtsman asks whether the "1" is sounded in caulk. Xo, the word rhymes with talk. At one time it was written cawk. It is surKNOCKING "L" prising how many words OUT OF WORDS, have a silent "1." Would, could and should are commonplace instances, and balm, calm, palm and psalm come to mind. Then there are half, calf, calves, chalk, talk, stalk, walk, folk and yolk. Salmon has the silent letter. It is not so well known that salve, the healing balm, is in the same company, though in salvage the "I" is sounded. It may interest some readers to know that the simple letter '"1" is not easily described. Webster says it is "a palatal sonant, fricative consonant." Sometimes it is called a semi-vowel or liquid. Dear M.A.T.—A friend of mine has a young hopeful, aged 8, who promises some day to become a shining lia-ht in the financial world, probably as a comA BUDDING panv promoter. The other FINANCIER, day he appealed to his father, mother and two uncles to give him "tuppence" each, saying he had an idea he wanted to carry out. Curious to know what it was, they "came to light." Young hop?ful disappeared with the eightpence to return shortly with a packet of cigarettes (for which he had paid sixpence) and proceeded to raffle it among the subscribers to the fund, thus cleaning up "tuppence" on the transaction. His ljewly acquired wealth was soon dissipated at the ice cream shop near by.—C. de M. Two veterans of the Gallipoli campaign, one an Anzac and the other a former naval, seaman, undertook to explain some features of that tragic, glorious LOOKER-ON adventure to a young 1 WINS. fellow who was barely j out of nappies when they were scaling the cliffs'of peninsula.. Both sketched rough maps of the locale, maps so widely different that when the naval man tried to place the Queen Elizabeth on the Anzac s map. he put her aground, while the Anzac could by no means locate his batterv 011 the naval man's map. Meanwhile the youngster, working from his recollection of a book recently read, had also sketched a map, and the cam pa ign both by land and sea was transferred to it. A fourth in the party picked up all three and compared them with a map in the back of his pocket diary—and. sure enough, the third one was most* nearlv nirht. It is true, apparently, of war as of other activities that "the looker-on sees most of the game," though he is still at a bad disadvantage when it comes to showing scars. Under pledge not to drink too much usquebaugh (as if there were such a thinsr!) ■ lan Ban was allowed out to celebrate Hognr a iff nianay with some of his fellow clansmen while BABY. the wee wifie staved at home to look after the baby. Neil of that ilk. 'Twas well on in the morning when lan Ban, having let himself in with the latch key. rapped ~eentlv on the bedroom door. "Is that you. Ian?" asked the wee wifie. "Xo, it's Neil." "Oh. don't be sillv. Neils in his cot and asleep." "Oh. it's Xeil here, a'richt." lan Ban insisted. "Nearlv fou'. but no* quite." The reply to that convinced Jan Ban that "Knock Knocks"' are never less popular than they are about 3 a.m. 011 a wet New Year's morn, especiallv when tliev are "founded 011 fact." " ' i This new sodium lamp system at Devon- j port is all very nice and effective, but have ' a toy Shoreites stopped to think of the disrepute that may fall upon the DEVONPORT borough." Unless someLIGHTS. thing is done quickly, it wi!l be known throughout God s Own as the place of spookv and shadowy happenings. Under those lamps you look like nothing on earth—d»athlv vellow. like so many ghosts walking. But what concern? me are the possible complications. What ' if London becomes jealous? "Suddenly, as he \ walked along the street, a sinister fisfure slunk j up to him in the murk. Two talon-Tike hands I closed round his throat and beran to strange 1 him. on know it. of course, murder in a London fog. as d' 0 r ibed by a thriller writer. chance is that Devonoort will steal London's thunder, so to speak. Storvtellers may turn to Devonport bv night as" the setting for evil deeds. Maybe, there will vet be an exchange of notes between the I.ord Mavor of London and tlie Mayor of -Devonport. The Xew Year celebration is the especial business of the Scot. But it is a generous trait in the characters of the rest of us - - that, having recovered, or HELPING THE partly recovered, from SCOT. the Christmas celebration . we are all prepared to help the Scot with the Xew \ear celebration. So thoroughly, indeed, have most of us done this for these many years past that little prerogative is left to the Scot in the matter. For the most part we leave him to do his "first footing." though the Sassenach has not always been absent from that joyous celebration, and we leave to him his traditional haggis and (as far as we are able) his bagpipes. But even these purely Scottish delights are not free from invasion. One remembers a Xew Year's Eve made additionally joyous l»y a pipe band in a place where such a band had never been before. It was not a critical audience. It wanted noise and plenty of it. and throughout the night it supplemented the efforts of the band with vociferous and not always tuneful son-;:. It used to be the habit of some of the bright lads of the city back in the days when you and I were lads to capture a band. Any" sort of band would do. The idea was simply to create as much noise as possible, noise among the young being synonymous with entertainment. Xowadavs you can achieve something of the same result by giving the radio its maximum volume, but there was a charm in the band against which the radio cannot possibly compete. Whenever the band stopped you "offered it "another," and the more frequent the stops the more vociferous the intervening noises. You can't do that sort of thing with a radio. But if you have been observant you will have noted that the adoption of things synthetic has stopped at the radio. All the other dear okl etceteras are still real enough and the assistance that is given the Scot in celebrating the Bo?v Year iS atiU a ® enthusiast »c as ever.—