MY ADVENTURES AT THE RINK.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 117, 15 May 1912, Page 3

MY ADVENTURES AT THE RINK.

(By Arnold Goldsworthy, in Melbourne Table Talk).)

1 now find that for the second "time in my life I have been a victim to the | rinking eras©. The first time this; happened to me I was a raiV boy, and ; riiiKs were not the finished articles xnev are to-day. The' old roller-skates . were bulky things, and you could not: always rely upon the wheels going round. Also, there was an occasional dump ki the asphalt floor, . and you could always stop in the middle of an exciting rush and walk round th« lump and pick the rush up where you had left it, without losing much in the way of speed. . ' ! Since then, however1, \ twenty-hve years have elapsed, as they say on the theatre programmes. They have just opened a skating rink in our town, ' and I have been down there. Some- ' body told me once that anyone who . had learned to skate on rollers never forgot how, to do it, and I was foolish enough to recall those words as I | started for the rink. ■ : Perhaps I had overlooked the fact that in twenty-five years we are apt to change a little. You lose something of the springiness of boyhood. A boy will swing along a rink, throw his feet .-in the air, catch them before, they hit anybody, and, after a serpentine twist, will go on skating as if nothing had happened. Whereas at our age the serpentine twist is not so easily done. That last little touch of lumbago took care of that; and when our feet are thrown, in the air we have an unhappy way of following them for fear they should get mislaid. ' ' 1 ;

■ Besides in the course of years some of us have put on weight, although we never-admit it tp anyone; and when the* tailor is encircling us with. hi« tell-tale tape he calls out "thirty-, eig-ht!" and his partner at the desk puts down forty-two and his honor is . satisfied. When I try the railway t weighing niachiaies and see- the figure running up to 13 stone, I- say that the machine is out of order.i. But I wish I'could believe it. was. . t

■"■An obliging man iat the tink put on my skates for me. I ga-ve him, 3d, aiid by-way of showing, his gratitude" he put his foot against the toes of ■ my skates, and said' tha^fc if I got .up j I should not start forward before It was quite ready. . Both; of/ us, however overlooked' the fact that it is equally easy to start backwards with; these new ball-bearing -skates! As soon as I was oil'my feet. my. skates went backward accordingly. : . The skate man, doubtless still mindful, of ; the 3d, ■chivalrously: stepped behind.me to catch me as I fell. He

should not have done that, as: I do not fall so lightly as I did when I was twenty-five. When they dragged him. from under me I was quite relieved tp find that, though pale and gasping, he was still alive. We must be thank-

ful for small mercies. He looked #at me for,the moment as if he,would like to have''given me my threepence back m order to leave him with an unre-

stricted right- to use his holiday vocabulary ; so I trumped^ his trick, as it wei>e, by ; giving him a shilling and ■a few words of sympathy that were less expensive. ,• .; Ottr rink is not a very lai'ge one, but it is well patronised. People who want to do plain skating form si rolling procession round the sides, while those who like, to cut graceful figures use the space in the middle of the ' vink for the. purpose. As 1 was only beginning :to, feel my feet as it were, I; stuck to the procession, and made a complete tour of the. rink without falling down. Ido hot say this boast- • ingly, but just to give myself ,a-treat by tailing the truth for once. The only thing about my feat was that it was accomplished very slowly. All the other skaters, with one or two exceptions, passed me at. least once; antl those who did not pass me were learners who were slower than I. That was where my first trouble came in. There was a plucky young lady teaching herself to skate. She was quite a beginner, and every now and then as a practised skater passed her she would grab at him and apolp- , gise. profusely, and the incident was regarded as closed. She-had become ■ '. so ' ; \, prpfiiciient- that she-'. cpuldi r walk •; round therinli with a jerky'movement just as a- swagger-.swell, walks doAvn the street, on Sunday ■■ afternoon, with his. feat well apart" !and his jarms thrown 'out at some distance.from his body. It was clear to' me in the ordinary ; course of events I should have to pass this lady, as I could not be expected to keep behind her for the rest _of the afternoon. I did not like leaving the processional route for even a second and trespassing on the middle of the riak. but it had to be done, as the lady wanted all the room she could get, and as much more as was going. I had to thread my way along the edge of the figure skaters, and then the trouble came. The youncc lady lost her nerve and grasped me lightly by the arm. A practical skater wouldhave gently reassured her., and have passed on. none the worse for the incident. But I was not a practised skater. . Slightly as the touch was it threw me out of my reckoning. The young s lady said, "Oh,- I beg your pardon," ■i with that intensity of expression that only suburban young ladies can give: I was going to beg her not to mention • it. but instead of_ that I found mv- , ! self foolishly clinging to her arm for | support, and she was clincing to : mine for the same reason so that the situation became rather embarrassing. She appealed to me not to le+ her fall, and I implored her to hold up. and the next. mome'Tit it seemed as if the floor rose up of its own-accord ' ■' and fluTio; itself at us. It caught me j just between the shoulders, and I lost ! sight* of the young la,dy altogether, as several of the other rinkers took tho opportunity to fall on the top of me ; and by the time we had sorted ourselves out., and three people had told me t^at T was a number of quite uncomplimentary things, my partner in misfortune had disappeared. 1 I thought the unldndest blow was that-dealt to me by the Proprietor of the rink. Speaking in the . tone < ..of an extremely superior person, he said +hat it was unfair to the ptlwr skat^^s ; for me to escort ladies round the rink I till I was quite sure of myself. H<^ j. also added that from what h» ha-fl } seen of mv skating I had a lot +o: ! learn myself before I could offer tn , te-ich o+her people. ,_ I T made no reply to the proprietor. j There was p notice in front of me to i tlie effect that p°ople making use of mipnrliamentary language would b^ removed from the "ink', and X ,lha<l come to stay. So T 'held my tongue and snved vny pdrnKsion money. Tt was then I discovered fr >r th<i I first time that after a troublesome | fall at my age you do not recover th<> ' ;+v pf Tnr>votr>p-n^ so or*silT- r f? you did twenty-fivo yaars ago. I felt

as if I had bson out for a twenty-mile walk,, and my steps wea-o more uncertain. I noticed'ithis more particularly because I wag in the middle of the rinlr and: a' youiie; cotiple who were swinging round ha 3 made up thetiminds to pass betweeji nio and the procession that was steadily " floating round the sides. I was on my way at the moment to rejoin the procession, and I knew I should collide with the young couple in spite of the fait that I had figured out m«st carefully that they would pass m<3 in plenty of time. ' ••_'.■ I think nothing is more pathetic on a skating-rink than the certainty of ■an unavoidable collision. I don't know how it was with the young' couple, but I have no doubt that they did their best to avoid the disaster. For myself I simrdy let things drift. I found myself already settling down to a sickly smile, and I had my apology ready on my lips. Twentyfive years ago I have no doubt I should have turned abruptly, and there would have been no collision. But the most I could hope for that ■afternoon was that, as they were both young amd light, they would bounce off me pnd leave me to recover my feet as well as I co-aid.