Handicap!

Northern Advocate, 27 May 1941, Page 2

Handicap!

Though the calendar hanging behind him told him the season was spring the heat of summer was in the afternoon, and the youthful shop assistant mopped his sallow face with an ample pocket handkerchief, and concentrated anew on trying to advise a doubtful maiden on the right as to the sensibility of a pair of quality slippers at nine and six, while she nervously fingered and favoured a pair of a “perrectly heavenly blue," priced at a more reduced and convenient figure. On his Left an old lady, in a high-crowned black hat, upon whose brim a young garden flourished, repeatedly commanded his attention. She was trying to select something old-fashioned from a modern stock at the same time trying to impress him that it was something up to the minute she desired. Yet another customer occupied a stool in the centre of the floor, trying to squeeze with a contorted expression a size five foot into a size four shoe. About her on the floor lay a mingled mass of little and big shoes. It seemed to the wearied assistant that the big woman looked like a whale in a sea of little fishes.

“You know me?” The youth blinked and looked from one to the other of his customers.

“You know* me?” repeated the voice, and its owner, a big hefty Maori, with a hostile expression, advanced haltingly from the doorway. It occurred to the large woman in the chair, who had finally discovered a flexible size of four, that he walked as it he wore a hobbled skirt, instead of the travelstained trousers he stood up in. The shop assistant flustered, began to pile the slippers in neat little heaps of twos and threes. “You remember me—l tell you!” With each short step the threatening voice drummed nearer. "Er—hello!” managed the bewildered youth. “Can I do anything for you?” “You play me very dirty trick,” continued the Maori in clipped English. He turned upon the customers with the air of a speaker who summons an audience. The old lady began stiffly to collect her handbag and umbrella.

“I come into this shop—Monday. Today, Thursday. Well, I see the good poot in the window, the thick, shiny poot. I come in the shop barefooted. 1 give him (he jerked a dangerous finger in the direction of the youth) give him the honest pound; he kive me the sixpence change, and the fraud poot.” The shop assistant remonstrated. “I tell you,” continued the native. “This poot very slow. When I go outside shop—put him on—then walk home —five mile. He take me one day and a half a day. When I get home have the bitta rest, then walk back. When I try for the run all the same, pig with the rope on the leg. Must fall. Well, only thing, I must find the police if you don’t take back this wery slow poot!” Then, unable to suppress the thick lips any longer, he said a lot of other things that made the shopman turn pale and the girl go red, and the fat lady turn her head to the wall. Coming from behind the counter, the shop assistant withdrew a shiny steel pocket knife. It was enough to make anyone draw their breath. The girl did, with a quivered sigh. The woman in the chair saw and uttered a half audible, scream. She had read so many of these paper-covered novels. . . . • “I’m very sorry for you old man,” said the ..youth genuinely. Then he bent, and with the shining blade severed the strong cord that linked one bd>bt to the other!