ROUND ABOUT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 147, 15 April 1940, Page 5

ROUND ABOUT

(By Aitcliel) We have had an insistent demand for more goods based on last week's style and theme. Unfortunately we have no stock on which we can draw and we can only attempt to chronicle incidents when they occur. Apart from that, it may prove an excellent policy to let sleeping dogs lie . . . Some unkind persons suggest that that is my habitual practise ... Another point it may be as well to stress is that I cannot afford a bodyguard, and that may be necestsary should I say too much about; probationary drivers and examining inspectors. The dog, of course, for reason outlined in last week's play and suggestion quoted above, would remain neutral. I will take a risk on the issue. * * • « - Twenty minutes after the incident mentioned in last week's bulletin the Traffic Inspector was called on to test another driver. This time the vehicle was a truck—and was not of a popular make* as far as I know. Though there was nodog, and anticipating the climax H will tell you that the truck did not run away, the one thing this epi-< sode had in common with the other was a Maori driver. The most amazing thing about the experience, for the T.L., was that the truck obeyed his command to stop at the famed lirst bend.i The driver did nothing. "Bai Joves,'' said the driver, "the dashed 'bus is almost human, isn't it?"

The Inspector may have thought, after his narrow escape but a short time earlier, that he was in another world and he made no comment apart f. r om ordering the driver tot take the truck slowly to level ground. As it was a test in reversing, T.I. had to sit still and watch. Gentleness and Extreme Gare. Coaxed with loving care, the dash, ed 'bus worked a slow and cautious passage towards the plains of Clifton Road, with appre-v hensive T. 1., saying,, "The wattles, now, watch the wattles!"' Came then a long period of waiting for the inspector, while the future possible no-warrant-of-fitness prosecution endeavoured to revive life in the stubborn works. _ He came to the conclusion that a fault existed in. the benzine supply feed and so, evidently he had had many opportunities to practise this, he pulled out a length of rubber pipe and proceeded to suck quantities of thestuffwotyoucarntget wivoutcoupons out of the tank and into a jam iar. What he actually did with it after that is not known. He may have attempted the direct induction method. He transferred the goods a number of times, on each occasion tinkering with the engine in the hope that he had done something. Interlude. (That reminds me of one of my experiences when I was higher in , the social strata and sold vacuum cleaners. I had called at a house ' and, miracle of the week, I had J been asked to give' a demonstra-

tion. That, I think, was because all the dogs were away at the back of the farm doing a spot of mustering and the axe was away being sharpened. I told the usual story about the clearer, which could do anything but provide me with a decent income, and plugged the business end of the flex into the light socket"Now," I said, "you press this (1 pressed the button) and it starts. It didn't. So I pressed a few morethings and hoped I had done some* thing to fix the trouble. To cut this story short, it was not until 1 had made two more attempts at the trouble' that I found the power was off for the day). That was rather a lengthy interlude. The story, however, is soon concluded. After friend driver hart found the trouble in the engine, he remedied it and he and the inspector once more got into the cab. The engine started, fired long enough to give the (driver confidence in his. ability as a mechanic, and then stopped short. Later in the day a supply of benyine arrived on the spot and the truck responded. Moral: When sucking benzine out of your tank, make sure that you have left enough in to travel to the nearest service station. * m m « • And while on the subject inclusive, we must congratulate the Traffic Inspector on his able conducting of a lengthy prosecution in the Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 4