RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31237, 8 December 1966, Page 36

RANDOM REMINDER

QUESTION AND ANSWER

There are still some people in Auckland who are aware of the small world outside. A few of them even admit to having relatives in the south. One or two take the trouble to travel down to see them. This one was a dear old lady, who went to the National Airways Corporation office to purchase a ticket so she could fly to Christchurch to see her son. She had been planning the trip for some time, and had, indeed, kept beside her an advertisement setting out the services and the fares. She took enough money for her air passage to the office, only to discover that sine* she had dipped her piece'

from the paper, the N.A.C. had bunged on an increase of 10 per cent. It meant, in round terms, that she was about £1 short of the required sum, after she had carefully unfolded the little bundle of notes she had taken with her. She rummaged in her handbag. And little old ladies, like little young ones, carry an enormous quantity of goods in their handbags. But from the envelopes and stamps and handkerchiefs and bottles of eau de Cologne and shopping lists and combs and compacts and bills and lipsticks etc., she found a florin or two and a few shillings and quite a collec-

tion of sixpences. She kept diving into the heap and coining up triumphantly with another small coin, until her total stood only a few pence short of the the required sum. But her treasure bunt ended. Careful searching of every crevice and corner failed to yield another penny. She was a good-natured old lady, and she laughingly produced a small pearl button, saying “Would you take this?” The man behind the counter drew himself to his full height, assumed an expression reminiscent of Jeeves when the young master was up to no good and said: “Madam, what do you think I am—a Zulu?”