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Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 85, 9 January 1928, Page 6

A fond parent’s Christmas gift of a bicycle to a boy living in one of the suburbs of Dunedin has revealed in the ■ latter a vein of commercialism which, it developed along ' the right lines, should assure him financial independence and a life of ease long before he reaches niiddleage (remarks the “Otago Daily Times ’). Tho lad possessed the machine only two days, when his father, returning home one evening, met at his front gate, a round doz.cn eager and clamouring youngsters, one of whom, had just returned from a ride on his son’s brandnew bike. The father’s mild rebuke to his hopeful and an expression of doubt as to tho wisdom of allowing all and sundry to ride the now machine, were mot by tho explanation that the nominal sum of ono penny (collected in advance) was being charged for a ride round two blocks. Ono of tho youthful hirers chums (probably for a consideration) was standing guard at the street intersection, to minimise the possibility of any ol the clients taking more than bis pennyworth, and a comfortable jingling in the managing director’s pockets told of a good day’s business. Unfortunately for the lad, however, his enterprise was looked on somewhat unsympathetically by the parent, and the firm, after do—a dividend, disbanded.