INNOCENTABROAD

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 21, 26 January 1939, Page 13

INNOCENTABROAD

TESS SEES AUCKLAND. £100 SPANIEL ESCAPES. RAILWAY POSSE IN PURSUIT. Tess is a ladv-like cocker spaniel with a twinkle in her eye and the curiosity of her sex particularly well developed. She lives in the most exclusive part of Wanganui and is reputed to be fickle and distinctive. She can afford to be. She is worth £100. On Tuesday Tess arrived at Auckland to visit relatives, or prospective relatives, and, with the perverseness of her sex, entirely upset the orderly routine of the Auckland railway station. When her box was placed on to the railway platform from the 7 a.m. train, she sniffed the Auckland air, decided that it was good .and departed forthwith. The manner of her going smacked of treachery to her guardians, but Tess is a flighty dame and she preferred to gain her first impression of a strange city entirely unattached. That her waywardness left the Minister of Railways and his henchmen in the soup worried her not the slightest.

But it cast a gloom over the entire railway staff; actually the gloom did not descend in all its Stygian blackness until the bereaved guardian pointed out that Tess was worth £100 of anybody's money; she being a lady dog of distinction. To the everlasting credit of the station staff they leaped into the emergency like supermen. Three motor cars were filled with eager dog-hunters, most of them railway men and post office officials. A plan of action was carefullv mapped out and the storm troops went into action. In meantime the police were informed to keep a weather eye skinned for a snooty little globe-trotting cocker that answered, when it suited her, to the name of Tess. Throughout the day the chase went on. For a stranger 'to the city Tess developed an extraordinary locality sense. At an early stage she deserted the environs of the station and set off to investigate conditions on the waterfront. After her streamed a fleet of cars, with eyes on every dust tin and butcher's shop. But they should have known better. Tess treats dust tins with contumely and contempt. However, she was not entirely bereft of sporting instincts. When the pursuit slacked she would show herself— warily withal. On these occasions the pursuers would select the railwayman with the kindest face. He would alight nonchalantly (with a leash behind his 1 'back) and call gently and appealingly to Tess. With any other dog it would have worked, but Tess was made of sterner stuff, and after approaching as closely as prudence dictated, she would disappear into the next street. At dusk the safari was called off and the beaters were called in. Then Tess' distraught guardian recei\ed a call that a hundred pounds' worth of devilment was disporting itself in ictoria Park. A taxi was immediately summoned and an unprofitable (except to the taxi man) two hours were spent in an uninspiring examination of all the back streets of Freeman's Bay. A black dog on a dark night is a proposition. \esterdav the search was resumed with flattering co-operation among the several public services. Tess in the meantime had completed a delirious freedom of 24 hours, takinp in all points of interest in the city, not excluding the gasworks and the Grafton Cemetery. But the net was drawing in. A postal van operator spotted her strolling down Richmond Road and telephoned headTiiarters. A taxi was sent out, to hear the welcome news that Tess had succumbed to the fascinations of the van driver and was safely bagged and stowed among the second-class mail matter. So ends the saga of Tess, the dog who gave the railway staff a headache.