ENTRE NOUS

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 276, 14 October 1905, Page 12

ENTRE NOUS

SUBURBAN residents are in the habit of bari owing binall things from each other, such as lawnmowers, five-pound notes, and fryingpans. We know a gentleman who went along to a friend to borrow a lawnmower. The friendi said 1 that he was using his mower at the moment, but would send it over later. Half-an-hour later a boy drove a oow into the garden. "Please, Mr. Borrowit, dad sent me with the lawn-mower." The noble art of self-defence is gathering in a good many disciples. A funny man in Ohristchurch has sent a letter to Colonel Jowsey m which he offers three prizes of £5 each for that number of boxing contests. The contestants are to be several rotund volunteer officers — Colonel Day, Captain Richardson, Major Snow, Major Hobday, and others. Possibly, the gentleman hardly thought that these officers would take it on, but when Cup day comes along, these midle-aged warriors will "strip to the buff" and' serve out "stouch" to one another. • • • There is the germ of a great idea in this. Why doesn't Parliament institute a series of contests between the heavy-weights of the Government and the massive ones of the Opposition. A bout between King Dick and Mr. Bollard, with eight-ounce gloves on, would be thrilling, Mr. Tommy Taylor and Mr. Sidey are about even weights, and Mr. Duncan and Mr. Massey ought to put up a real rousing "go"Mr. Duncan to be allowed bare feet. * * ♦ One of Wellington's philanthropists — that is, builders — was trying to sell a house the other day. It was a wellbuilt house — it took nearly a fortnight to build — and he only wanted one thousand pounds for it, anyhow. The gentleman with a loose thousand! he didn't know what to do with was shown round the house by the builder and the builder's faithful man. "The walls is so good, mister," he said, "that you can't Feel no draughts!" He sent the man into one room, and remained with the possible client in the next. He called thirough the wall : "Jack, can you hear me?" "Only very faint, Mr. Jerrybild," he answered, in a subdued voice. "Can you see me. Jack?" he went on. "No, Mr. Jerrybild !" With a look of immense pride on his face Mr Jerrvbild turned to his customer, umd said • "There's walls for you, six ! Hundred pounds down ; rest at 8 per cent. Thanks! G'day!"

A propos of the prevailing "earthhumger." There are a few bucketsful of sandy country in one of our suburbs that used to be a seagull feedmgground a few years baok. Now-a-days it is woarth about £10 a foot, oir les&. There is a little man frae Noirth o' Tweed who has had 1 his eye on this bit of land for about a year. The owner knows he wants to buy it, and he doesn't want to sell it — just out of "pure cussedness." The other day the owner was round viewing his land 1 when two men popped up simultaneously. One was the Scot, and one was a local land agent. As soon as the land^-owner saw them he started' to streak for home. The land agent followed' him to get in the first word, and the Soot — who had 1 never walked faster than you could roll a barrel — started in pursuit. The landowner held the lead for three miles, over rough roads, and disappeared into his house. The land agent rushed round the baok, and the Scot attacked the house in front. The landf-owner's wife said Mr. So-and-so was not at home, and the land-agent, who had been having a bit of fun with the Scot, dlrifted away. He says when last he saw the Scot he was sitting on a log waiting for the land-owner to come out in order to secure that land. "I'll hae it," says he, "even if ah hae to pay twa pun' ten down and the rest at hialf-a-croon a week !" « • « A litle bit of shine, And a little bit of rain ; A little bit of joy, And a little bit of pain ; A little bit of earth., And some little- tears to patter — And there's the little end Of a very little matter. T- * * gome foolish people say that women have no sense of logic. The glaring injustice of this is proved by a little dialogue heard recently in an up-country police court. A husband 1 , accused of ,n k oc,cinltincr his wife, answered with the d'ienitvof a oonscious rectitude that ihe had! thrown the coffee-pot, tea-pot, and snpqr-bi.s.in at him, and that he had merely retaliated with one poor little plate. This was denied bv the wife. "Look me in the face," cried the indignant husband, "and say that you didn't throw the > i >n° r ar-bE<sa r i." Try whao^ thp wife, in modest triumph, replied • "We haven't got a suear-basin." The hu^ViTid'" renlv is tio+ recorded. He is probably still thinking it out. • ♦ • A young Taranaiki gentleman sallied out one recent night, and, with the aid of a lantern, picked a bouquet of flowers from thie graves in a cemetery. When he had all the flowers he wanted, _ he sallied forth, and addiressed' a midinieht wayfarer, demanding to be called cr Lard Roberts." and waving a gun to empifwsise his claim to a marshal's ha ton. He wore a red coat, and other military picar — and is in the asylum now. By the way. a particularly lame number of people are suffering with h all u derations at the present time in New Zealand.

Smokers often findl pieces of coolie vi their tobacco, and finger nails are pretty common. One mam, who is veiy tond of a pipe after breakfast, la&c Monday morning settled' himself comfortably for a few maaiutes' Lapse into blue forge truthless. He whittled a stack of tobacco till his knife grated on something harder than a stalk. Ouiriosxty led him to perform a surgical operation on the plug, and) the autopsy revealed a mouse imbedded; in a weedy grave. The animal looked as if its end had not been peace. The body was hunched up and flattened between two layers of tobacco. The delicate proportions of one leg had been slightly damaged, and a set of tender toes filled the observer with admiration. He had a conviction tthat he must have smoked the tail, for he was working an. the spinal cord when he discovered the mummy. ♦ * » Tale of a "remittance man," nobody's enemy but his own. His eminent pa at Home has sent out his allowance every quarter for some yeans now, and things are merry for a week. "When remittance day comes round furtive townspeople hang around the post-office to waylay if possible the Englishman, and if waylaid he is the soul of honour, and squares up all his debts. Sometimes, however, he gets away with the whole amount, a-nd nobody but the piu/blioan scores. He has a whaire six miles from town, and the tradesmen and others go out. and have at look at it. If they see a "registered 1 " envelope stuck on the door, they know that "Gentleman Jack" would have paid if they had been in time. As it is — what would you have? That registered envelope on the door has been the surest indication of the remittance man's wfoerabouts for years now, and it always points to the pub. * * • A propos of recent events. In "The Damnation of Theron Ware," by Hairold Fredleric, published in 1896, one of the characters is made to say : "The Chinaman has the patience to live everything dlown — the Caucasian race included. He will see us all in bed, will that gentleman with the pigtail!" That's possibly why we shall have to keep wide-awake. • * » There is a story — which we sincerely hope is not true — being told of the playful pranks of some policemen in a certain holy city a day's journey hence. 'Tas alleged that two gentlemen in blue, knowing that the sergeant on "rounds" wouldn't happen along for an hour or so, got into the back yard of a pnntery, and made suite of white paper for themselves, going forth to scare benighted citizens. One man they frightened into a newspaper office, where be told his ghostly story. A reporter hastened forth, also armed with white paper and a pencil, and met two policemen who hadn't got any white paper on, but one of whom had hastily planted a large roll in a neighbouring niche. They expressed a keen desire to find that phost. Also, 'tis whispered some other funny men in uniform are in the habit of dipping inebriates into the nearest horsetrouarh when the moon hades her modiest face. The allegation that the police are tired is evidently untrue — if ' these particular samples of this industry are believeable.

"Phosphorus Jack doesn't kill anybody with a bludgeon, or dip poison into their afternoon tea. He only frightens* people — mostly women — to death. He is having a long run, and the police seem to regard him as a humorous kind of lunatic, who does little harm. This peculiar person is seen walking towards one, usually ion a dark and gloomy part of the suburbs. When he gets close, he throws back his coat, revealing a phosphorescent coffin, outlined on his waistcoat. Also, ia luminous letters across his chest : "Prepare to meet thy Doom." Apparently a religious orank. Residents of the suburbs carry pooketsful of road metal, but no one seems to have thrown any yet. • * • "Jack" appeared in the Kilbirnie "cutting" the other day, andi scared a young man pretty badly. The police were on has track. The method of catching the idiot was to send a large, heavy policeman to tramp up and down the cutting. That "Jack" didn't appear is hardly to be wondered 1 at. He is reminiscent of a spring-heeled gentleman who terrified the community some years ago, appearing and disappearing with great suddenness. This springheeled 1 person was shot in the arm by his own father, who, apparently, didn't know who the culprit "was. He took his wounded arm abroadl, and! has never been seen since. There is an urgent need for the present prank-player to be laid by the heels. He is disturbing the peace of the suburbs, and scaring people badly. And! the police will never get him by tramping up and down with unnecessary violence. Quietly does it. • * • Victoria College students got to work with picks and shovels to make a tennis court. One student navvy seems to be more of a navvy than a student. Don't know how he uses a pick, but here's the way he maltreated the pen: — Pick-a-piok this, the students' stroke, First a pick aindl then a ponder, Makes a real live navvy wonder, Does til© students' stroke. Only ten men to one banrow, Toilers to the very marrow. Peeling off their hands the "ca.ro," Thus da students work. It is in the current number of "The Spike." • • • Another splendid cycling achievement. What a magnificent thing it is to break records. At the finish of a Southern road' racf*, the winner walked round the track with his machine, sometimes carrying it on his shoulders, and sometimes pushing it along. When he neared the winning-post he seemed to be utterly spent. He leaned forward until he stooped, and he wobbled at each step. No sooner had he passed the post than his machine was wrenched from, his hands, and he was raised shoulder high above the crowd. In response to the hearty cheers he languidly raised his hand and lifted his cap. The caked mud on Ms face cracked as lie smiled/ a tired, muddy smile. He was hurried! into the dress-ing-room, but emerged soon after, and was taken quickly away in a motor oar. And are not we justly proud of him? Talk about Roman games!

A masterful lady went up to the window at the post-office at Waipu (our infoxmant says it was Waapu) the other day, and said : "Hoo is it, Mr. Postmaster, that ye're char-gin' £»ac muckle for parcel? I thocht ye sent things with open ends cheap." "That's the correct charge, ma'am," said the pos<> master. "And, besides, thus is not open at the ends." "But it us, though , it's a pair of trousers. Did ye ever see breeks that wur na open at the ends. You post-office folks are awfu' stupid." r * * * A lawyer in Wellington, not Long established, eugaged a managing clerk, chief engrosser, costs' clerk, Magistrate's Court clerk, etc., etc. — all in the person of a youth of fourteen, who came from the wilds of the Wairarapa with a sixth standard pass and a cnew suit. He hadn't seen a telephone before, and on tho second day of his legal experience he was told, when a ring came, to "answer the telephone." He had seen the "boas" answer it the previous day. The man on the other end yelled "Are you there?" The boy on this end nodded his head. The man repeated his observation,. The boynodded vigorously. Aeaan the "Are you there?" Replied the boy, with great spirit- "Can't yer see I'm here? I've bin noddin' me head for five minutes. Wotchev pullin 5 me leg about, anyhow?" The lawyer couldn't discharge him for laughing, and, anyhow, he can't get another managing clerk for 10s a week. • • • A Thing that I've Noticed. Here's one thing I've noi iced while jogging along— And I wish I could live as 1 know — We need one another a bat in the throng To give us a lift as we gc . Oh, a lift, is a lift, a,nd a whack is a whack, To bless us, or curse us instead, And it takes as much muscle to shove, a man back As is needed to push him ahead. A curse or a blow may be easily sped, But they really are sure to re-act. By hatred is hatred undoubtedly fed, And l l think you have noticed the fact. You may give a weak brother a lift with his pack, Or add to the rocks he must tread, But it takes as much muscle to shove a man back As is needed to push him ahead. • * • "Please don't teach Johnny nothin' about.his innards; it makes him sick l '" A propos, when a teacher up North was half-way through a lesson on physiology the other day, a boy of thirteen or so was observed to be looking very pale. He was told he might go out and get a dirink, but before reaching the door he toppled 1 over in. a dead faint. While the headmaster was in the act of supplying restorative measures his attention was directed by the class to another boy who was deathly white, and swaying in his seat. Leaving No. 1 stretched out on the floor in approved fashion, the teacher rushed across just too late to prevent No. 2 falling. Before he was extricated, a girl fell limply on the shoulder of a companion, another developed umnistakeable symptoms of nausea, and hurried out, while a third, to cap the commotion and add to the burden of the master, went off into a violent fit of hysterics. The rest of the lesson was dfef erred for a future occasion.

He was a tourist, and he was a bat annoyed because the railway service of New Zealand l didn't provide a train-de-luxe every wo minutes. He found out that there w-as a train to Wellington at 4.44, however, and when, it was 4.45 he called, with considerable heat, to the stationmaster : "Here! Come here, my man \" The mountain didn't come, so Mahomet went to the mountain. "Look here, my man," he continued, it's 4.45 now ! When does the 4.44 train get here?" "We're expecting it every hour, my man!" was all the statiopmaster said, and the tourist has written to the papers about the "insolence of understrappers," and the understrappers are going on being insolent just because isolated tourists can't buy them body and soul by paying a firstclass fare on the railways. • * * Some oddities in New Zealand' laws. At the Auckland Police Court a small boy was fined 2s 6 d for sihototing a little: arrow from a bow (to the danger of the public). Golfing person® in the Northern city aver that people who get in the way at Cornwall Park — the people's property — should be prosecuted. Two Chinamen were fined £50 each and costs for smoking opium in a remote attic, but many comsidiened it an interference with Berritdsh freedom tihat a man should put out bis pipte in a lady-loadted car. A doctor, crossing a railway line, was bumped' by a. train and damaged. He was fined l £1 for not taking proper precautions, but a careless party of people in a trap wihioh ran into a oar claimed and l recovered £300 damages from the company.

An original councillor arose in, a country Town Council meeting a week ago, and said, in a voice hoarse with passion, that a fireman without a uniform was not a fireman. He had seen some men without uniforms at the Town Hall fire. Everybody wept except one other councillor, who remarked that if the firemen had stopped! to put on their uniforms the hall would have been burnt down. The councillor who would rather have had the hall burnt down than see a man in plain clothes putting the fire out, violently asked what right the other councillor had to talk to him, seeing that he gave 5s to the Fire Brigade's funds this year, and 3s 6d last. And the Council had! to mind that indeed, and 1 indeed he ought to be listened to with the bowed knee of reverence. • • • "Writes "Kilbirnie" :—"I: — "I have a keen admiration for the New Zealand boy, but some of the species ought to be awarded a picnic to a desert island — and left there. While in my garden one recent day I heard the agonised squeak of a fowl in a near-by stable. Some boys hurriedly left the stable, so did a fowl — alive, but with all its tail feathers torn out, and much of its body denuded of material covering. The bird took refuge in a drain. Before I could interfere one of thie boys captured a duck. He threw it rouajhly to the ground, and kicked jt. The other boys booted! it round viciously until I interfered. These are the sweiet litbfcl© lads who formerly amused themselves by sTuootine: at old horses — turneid out to die— with p'eia-rifles. Merely youtthful spirits, I suppose ? What say you ?