EXOTIC FIGURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 9, 11 January 1945, Page 6

EXOTIC FIGURE

"EGYPTIAN" ON THE QUAY

Today was a beautiful day to bd outside, but there are ways and ways of dressing for it. When a Wellington man took the air on Lambton Quay dressed in a pair of pyjama trousers, a woman's pale blue night-dress with pink trimmings, and an Egyptian tarbrush on his head, and bare-footed, people were inclined to stare. This weird figure appeared at the corner of Willis Street and the Quay half-way through the morning and strolled nonchalantly as far as Woodward Street. There he turned and proceeded back along the Quay to Grey Street. Heads popped from office windows and passers-by stared unbelievingly (and a little apprehensively) but the masquerader was not molested.

Having finished his stroll—and won his bet—the man sought respite from the sun and curious onlookers in a hotel bar.

The apparition was a young returned soldier who had bet that he could walk up the Quay dressed as an Egyptian—or as near to it as the available European garments would allow.