“CALL AGAIN”

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 63, 8 December 1930, Page 10

“CALL AGAIN”

Time and the Levy A MELANCHOLY THOUGHT Slightly bustled after a strenuous morning’s work a business man on Saturday presented himself at the counter in the G.P.0.. where the unemployed levy is being collected. Through turning to the right at the entrance and finding no one at the inquiry counter, ho did the circuit of the counters before reaching his objective. The time was 12.7. “Sorry, sir, we’ve closed for the day,” said the efficient young clerk bundling his blue “check” books together. The business man looked ruefully at his three halfcrowns, and plaintively asked that they be accepted. . “Oh, you’ve got till the end of the month,” came the reply, “and you can pay at any of the branch offices.” The business man trudged off. The Te Aro Post Office was not very far off if one walked sharply, and it were better to get the thing over. That little walk to Te Aro gave him time for the melancholy reflection that his half-crowns had taken some part of his. life to win, and it was now taking a little more of his life to get rid of them. He was paying for something he couldn t use to provide money to subsidise work that really needn’t be done in order that someone else may hare a job for which neither training, desire, nor temperament had equipped him.