THE TRAM WE MISS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 336, 24 October 1908, Page 11

THE TRAM WE MISS.

A RHAPSODY. A good-tempered man once wrote very wittily about the ills wo suffer from tli6 malice of, inanimate objects. I don ? t know whether ho would call a rrant car run by electricity an inanimate object ; ho most certainly could not deny its maliciousness—especially if it were a-Tinakarori car. "Why it should bo the tram. wo want to catch that we .invariably see vanishing in the distance just as wo reach the stopping-placo has never been discovered, but the problem is on© worthy of the attention of the greatest philosophers. This sort of thing does not happen by accident, there is somewhere a deep design,' and the trial might bo easier to bear if the ultimate object were known. 1 think it must have some special educational effect on women, for it certainly means more to a woman ,to miss a tram than it does to a man. •• . The street corner is man s natural environment, and by a verandah post ho is as much' at homo as were bis ancestors under, a spreading forest treo. A few minutes more or less spent in these pleasant surroundings matt-or

little to him, though, ofcourse, ho has t< protend he is horribly annoyed if he is kepi waiting for . a moment.- To a woman, however, this period of waiting is a great trial and how often, she experiences it in Welling' toil. Especially with the Tinakarori tram for that is. never there. It has always jusl gone.' At' least the stray tramway officia whom olio sometimes ' encounters walking absent-mindedly about the street corner: always .says it has just gone, and ono believes that' ho really means it. Ho also al ways adds that another will bo along in tci minutes. This is where he shows liimsel: most truly great, whero he reveals himscl. as a .poet, a mystic with. a.faith-in the un seen, ;the intangible, a dreamer of . strangi dreams. Ho believes that- the. Tinakaror car will actually make its dramatic. appear anco-in ten minutes, and . because he s< simply believes it, one understands how tin nations in their earliest days, cam? to believ in other'things that they had'never seon things" far beyond their-own • experience,-h dragons,' arid vampires', in'roc's eggs, spooks and iotlief .marvels. • Olio' realises that .it wa eyes such as his'that saw Valhalla, and til Miriatq'iir', that, watched the serpent', of; th Laoc'oon creep slinily from the deep, and ear like his that heard . the mermaids on. th rocks sing-songs, that lured.men .to destruc tion. Ho is of tho race of seers, he is of th brotherhood of prophets. who foretqld event in large round numbers that, perhaps, dc noted -days, perhaps were 'only to bo inter preted.by centuries'; '• „ ijL -. Lot no 'oils believe the Tinakarori'tram will liever'cdmo in just- te: minutes'.' It. never, did. There, are only tw courses to pursue when this . fairy tale i told ; . , Ono "is to. walk all tho way to' Tina karori without delay, and the other is t beguile tho time of waiting. For my pari when I am . told that story of " the next l ten minutes," I make straight for the neai est millinery establishment and carefully sui voy-tho hats, selecting the pnes I should no liko to wear, tho ones I'd like my friends t buy,, and thoso that it would pleasure mo t see worn by. my unfriends. ■ . . This takes time, but there is time to take Or I go to a book shop and browso along th shelves, picking out the .most, attract-iv looking of the newest novels, and reading th first chapter- to seo .what She, is andth last to find ,out' whether'She"gets,him, anc having satisfied myself on", these .matters, go oiitside, again and wait, once more; B doing this I never by any chance loso my cai and I often contrive to keep my temper.