FLYER AND SALESMAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 78, 1 April 1936, Page 10

FLYER AND SALESMAN

A COUNTRY DEMONSTRATION

"SCOTTY" UNCONSCIOUSLY PROPHETIC

(Written for the "Evening Post,")

"Scotty Fraser killed! Why " A housewife in a country town, learning the distressful tidings of a gallant young parachutist's untimely plunge to death, becomes meditatively reminiscent.

To her door, one evening little more than a month ago, had come a neat, dapper, smiling salesman. Somewhat slight as to build, pleasant of voice, young-looking, and eager, he was not easily to be discouraged . by the apparent disinclination of the "quid wife" to-inspect his wares. For he was full of enthusiasm for. his goods, as welL as gifted with an ingratiating charm of manner., There was, indeed, a hint of almost paternal affection in .the tones in which he dilated upon his special "line" of goods, as if it stood in some kind of intimate personal relation to himself—this wonderful vacuum cleaner, with its "up to the minute" modernity, and every manner of cute and labour-saving gadget incorporated in its mechanism, making possible the painting of a room with as easeful facility as the sweeping of a floor. There was no obligation to buy the article; all that was desired was an opportunity for practical demonstration of the virtues of this unique, this incomparable cleansing apparatus. And so forth.

Really, his enthusiasm tended to become contagious, his persuasiveness irresistible, enhanced as it was by a subtle touch to the effect that two housewives,in adjacent streets, after being afforded ocular evidence, had instantly succumbed to the charms of the magical invention. And so the prospective new client of this imperturbable canvasser, "swearing she would ne'er consent, consented," and forthwith members of the household submissively followed the lead of the demonstrator in procession from room to room of the dwelling—admiring beholders, admittedly, of the mechanical wonder's brilliant achievements in dislodging the tiniest and most cunningly concealed particle of "foreign matter" lurking beneath chair and couch, and in the texture of carpet.

Not all "who entertain strangers entertain angels unaware," but in this stranger,, invited to share its evening meal, one country household discovered at least a personality of unusual interest and attraction —a discovery to which piquancy was later added by the guest's self-disclosure as none other than "Scotty" Fraser. Intriguing this, to find one's "knight of the road" visitor suddenly metamorphosed into a "knight of the air"— flyer in the Great War, and, later, parachutist among New Zealand's skyways. Not'even the fair lady of romance absorbed with greater zest the "thousand tales" of the Oriental romancer than did this little household group the facts stranger than fiction narrated by the travelling salesman—incidents of the war and of flying, told with a conversational charm untainted by any, note of egotism, and illustrated by references to an album of generous proportions, containing full-plate photographs. The narrator, it appeared from his story, had been a pupil, in the science of parachuting, of the late Haakon Qviller, the Norwegian whose flying career came to so tragic a close at Oamaru in May, 1931, his 'chute failing to open in a 5000-feet descent. This detail led on to a demonstration, m dumb show, of the process of folding and packing a parachute—a proceeding which, the demonstrator emphasised, necessitated the most scrupulous care and accuracy, because upon the later unfolding of the pleats without a hitch depended the safety of the parachutist in "taking off" upon his hazardous descent. Not only must the pleats and cords be properly folded; but when the flyer was ready to descend a certain small pin which held them in place must be released; and one might go through the process of folding and releasing a score of. times until it became' almost automatic, and yet on the twenty-first occasion some little thing overlooked at the crucial moment might jeopardise the 'chutist's very existence.. Nonchalantly uttered sentences, but how big with looming destiny! Did no prescience of coming events warn this engaging "stranger," this daring explorer of the ethereal^ heights—presently to take his smiling cheerful leave of his new-made friends—of that "slip twixt the cup and the lip" that spells disaster—a tangled cord, perchance, or a forgotten pin? The carefree blitheness of his leave-taking forbids the thought that any ominous shadow of futurity had darkened his horizon, to poison "blissful or to quench the gaiety and the gladness of living that shone from his smfling eyes. Gallantly the skiM "demonstrator," in more fields than one, fared forth to "greet the unknown with a cheer'! ■