TOMMY'S ESCAPADE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 96, 27 April 1929, Page 19

TOMMY'S ESCAPADE

To say that Tommy Spanker was the most mischievous boy in the village would lie putting it mildly; very mildly! Everyone, including the village constable, P.C. Brown, had withstood his tricks till human endurance could stand no more. A most innocent looking boy was Tommy, curly-haired, a face which made him look as if "butter wouldn't melt in his mouth," and a cheery grin which generally spoke of some successful prank in mind. Our hero comes into the story one fine morning in early spring, as, hands in pockets, whistling cheerily, he strode along the road outside the village which he graced, or rather disgraced. Soon a high brick wall hove in sight. Just an ordinary brick wall, yet Tommy was looking "hard" at it. There was a reason for the fascination which the brickwall held (Tommy always had a reason for everything he did). The wall was the one obstacle which prevented him from entering the private park of Colonel Curtis, a fiery old veteran, well-known for his dislike of all boys, Tommy Spanker in, particular. About the only words he had been known to utter were "fiddlesticks" and "egad.' 5 As can be guessed, he was anything but popular. The reason why Tommy wanted to get into the park was that the Colonel had a private "fishery" there; Tommy being a bit of an angler, had come to see what it was like. He then meant to invite some of his friends on the morrow to a fishing treat. , He gazed at the wall expectantly, as if he expected it to open and let him through. Then suddenly he remembered. Along the road, leaning against a post, he had seen a dirty old ladder; still it didn't matter how dirty it was if it would serve the purpose. "Good," he muttered, and off he went, returning a few minutes later with the ancient contraption. He leaned it against the wall and started climbing. The fates were against him that day, sad to relate. He had reached the centre when the catastrophe happened. An ominous crack! crack! broke the stillness, the ladder thinking it's work nobly performed, collapsed and sank into oblivion. . . not so Tommy, however.. He landed in a bed of nettles. Poor luckless Tommy, out of the frying-pan into the fire, for who should he see coming towards him, moustache bristling, .and waving aloft his ebony-handled walking-stick—which would have given credit to a railway-guard—than Colonel Curtis. Someone was going to feel it,»of that there was no doubt! However, the "someone" in this case, deeming it wiser, perhaps, leapt from his prickly bed and fled, closely pursued by the now irate Colonel. Uttering a cry which must have frightened many an enemy in battle, he acted very much like a lunatic. "Stop, egad, I'll thrash the life out of you. Ough! Ow!" He didn't exactly mean to say these foreign-like words; his foot had collided with rather a large-sized stone, thus bringing him to an undignified stop on cold, hard, mother earth. By the time he had regained-his feet and felt himself all over for broken bones, his quarry had disappeared from sight. "Tommy," said Mrs.. Spanker on "our hero" arriving home, "what are you wriggling about for? Keep still!" "No more scaling walls for me," thought Tommy ruefully, as he lay in bed that night. "Taint worth it." NOEL HOGGARD. Lower Hutt.