RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29722, 16 January 1962, Page 14

RANDOM REMINDER

MASTER MIND

In the city, he is a man of action—a captain in industry, an issuer of crisp, concise orders, a master of men’s destinies. Hiring and firing is the breath of life to him and, as one might expect of one of his station, he prides himself on his ability to separate the sheep from the goats, the no-hopers from the men of promise, the bees from the drones. Freedom of choice—his choice—is carried home with him. Mastery of the house inevitably means mastery of the staff and the outdoors section of the establishment. His wife was looking forward to a holiday at the southern lakes; his son was

eager to go to the North Island. So he decided, in his own masterful way, that they should all go to Nelson. But before they set off, there was the garden to be done. Scorning the assistance of a wife and son who had not had the benefit of a course in business management, he decided to do the job himself. He went at it like a bulldozer, leaving a long swathe of soil behind him.

There was a corner of the flower garden which had long been a source of irritation to him. It contained some longstalked flowers, white ones, rather like daisies. Out they came, during the process of demolition.

But the man is a plan-

ner, as well as an uprooter of all evils. As soon as he had laid waste to the garden, he went off to a nurseryman to choose more suitable plants, something .more in keeping with his ideas of what should be what. He chose something with a suitably impressive Latin name . . . something or other mirabilis, probably. He took it home, he planted it They are back from the holiday now, and the garden is doing well. But it seems certain, after close examination and the expressed opinion of others, that what is growing in that particular corner are some long - stalked flowers, white ones, rather like daisies.