THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 212, 8 September 1938, Page 10

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.)

The answer to the problem in this column on Monday did not bring a single correct answer. Here it is: Commencing at figure 3, draw a line to figure FOUR LINES. 7, then to figure 1, continuing a little beyond the 1. Then continue through figures 2 and 6, goiiKT bevond the 6, and finally con mue through figures 9 and S. Thus you through all nine figures, using only tour straight lines, without lifting pencil from paper. —Johnny. A nice illustration of the distinction between idiom and slang is provided in the Teplv of a witness to a lawyer: "I do not know what you are getIDIOM AND ting at."' The remark SLANG, means a little more than the respectful: "I don t know what you are driving at." At least, it means that the lawyer was '-getting at the witness rather than getting at the truth. The first form is idiom and the second form good English. It is perfectly good English to say: "I am determined to get at the truth"" To sav "We are getting at the truth is equally good English. Law Courts provide some interesting instances of idiomatic phraoes that have outgrown their literal meaning. A famous Xew Zealand judge was once hearing a commission case in which some hard sncaung was going on. The lawyer, cross-examining a witness, said, *'Xow, Mr. • fact that vou are a company promoter?" \No, said the witness. 'T am a communion agent pure and simple."' "A commission agent i ,u rc, said the judge incredibly, "and simple? Touchstone. The Duke of Connaught's name being in the news just now has brought to mind an incident of the campaign in Egypt in 1882. He went'out in Transport H.R.H.? No. 20 (otherwise the s.s. Orient), and it will be remembered that transports lay in Alexandria for a few days. The Orient was lying alongside the wharf and I was one of a gang scrubbing hammocks on deck. An officer whom I recognised as the Duke of Teck came close to the side and asked. '"Is the Duke of Connaught on board?" His accent was unmistakably German. Being near the rail and knowing that H.R.H. had gone on board the Inflexible. I told him so. When he had turned away with a faintly guttural "Thank you," some of the ganj asked who he was. I said that he was His Boyal Highness the Duke of Teck, and got the rejoinder. "Wot yer giving us—he'« a Dutchman!"—A.F.

Two lads from Lancashire came to New Zealand not so very Ion? ago. Joe was lucky and soon found a job. but Bill's star wasn't shining and he tramped OPPORTUNITY, from firm to firm and

received neither work nor encouragement. Says Joe, "You don't go about it the right way. What you want to do if an employer asks if you can do a job, say 'Yes,' and take it on." A couple of days later Bill called on a builder and was asked if he could do the work of a joiner. Bill replied that lie could, and was shown some timber. "Make me two doors," said the boss. Bill wasn't at all confident, and after working at his first attempt at doormaking for a couple of hours he buried it in the sawdust. He then started on his second attempt, and was doing the best he could with the timber when the boss came along. "Gosh," he said, "if you can find another door like that one in New Zealand TO give you a fiver." "That • so," | replied Bill, drawing his first attempt from under the sawdust. "Hour about that?" Whep the boas recovered, BilT'Jfot fired;—Glengkrry.-

That cable from Capetown on Saturday informing us that the first pink elephant to be seen by a sober man was observed in the

Kvnsna Forest, Cape SEEING THINGS. Province, is news only by the fact that it was seen by a sober man. We are told that native woodcutters when they saw it fled in terror; in other words they had a blue fit on sighting the pink elephant. Plain and variegated animals of various species have been seen by men since beer was first brewed and consumed,' but only by men who have consumed muchly. There was an occasion when a chap who, wending his way home one evening, failed to see the safety zone and tripped over it. An hour later he was in hospital with an arm in splints. Next evening he was visited by a pal who returned home very depressed. When asked how the patient was getting on. the pal shook his head ruefully and said, "I don't like the look of it. He is really bad. You know, while I sat at his bedside there were millions of little green things crawling over the quilt and Bill didn't see a single one of I them."—Johnny.

| A reader wbo does not attach his or her name sends along the following interesting item. There are some startling coincidences

to be found in the South NOT TRUE Australian Directory. In TO NAME, the alphabetical section,

for instance, one finds nineteen columns of Smiths and only three of them are blacksmiths. Smiths are butchers and bakers (and possibly candlestick makers, too), and display their versatility in occupations ranging from "salesmen" to "civil servants." But only three are true to label. The Carters are everything but what their name implies. Not one of their number is shown as a carter or a carrier. There are no bakers named Baker, although there is a baker named Cook. Two Lambs axe butchers. Several Clarke and Clarkes are accountants. A Potter is a nurseryman. Among the most unusual name-occupation coincidences most rank those provided by Detective Copp, of Bemark; Mr. L M. Quinsey, a Southroad chemist; Mr. R. L. Gold, a Bank of Adelaide branch manager; and Mr. P. R. Gum, who owns a joinery works at Unley. ANTI-SHOUTING. When a Darwin hotelkeeper unlocked a corrugated iron store to inspect eighty IS-gallon kegs of beer, he was met by swarms of large, intoxicated white ants. Hundreds of gallons of beer had disappeared.—News item. (Hand over the uke): So strange does it seem, might be 'most a dream Is this story that comes in the news Of white ants galore that broke into a store And drank eighty kegs of good booze. They drank all the liquor and ended up shicker. These white ants who went on the spree: They were not bootleggers, the cunning young beggars. They preferred all their spotting buckshee. 'In their drunken carousal, they knew no i refusal— It was "Drink to Thine Onlv." my dear. iNot often the chance came the way of the I ants To indu'ge in a keg of free beer. I Like an army of savages they continued ! their ravages 'In the "moonshine" and likewise the sun. But the boss of the nub made quite a hubbub When he found what the white ants had 1 done. And so in alarm he opposed the great araiv By placing some salt on the floor: But the^ burrowing ants—in between pants— Worked a thirst ud as never before. .They drank with a will, and drank to their nil. And the lot of them ended up drunk; To the chagrin of the boss when he noticed his loss. And exclaimed so "Gee. I'm sunk:" 1 ~ WOHNNE.