ENTRE NOUS

Free Lance, Volume XIX, Issue 992, 9 July 1919, Page 25

ENTRE NOUS

A LANCER was having fried blue cod and chips at a city restaurant the other day and' was getting along fine when a couple of curates came in and sat down at the same table. Glancing round at the other table the Lancer saw more curates, and came to the conclusion that the Synod must be in session. The Lancer fell to wondering what the curates were going to get out of it. The Synod hammers away at the Bible-in-schools question, discusses ways and means of making the picture shows strong moral uplifters in the community, gives the pubberies the regular knock, skates nimbly over the highly debatable question of church raffle's, rubs it into the tote-betters, and —where does the curate come in?

Consider the curate—any curate you like to meet —and unless he's married money, you'll find that his hat is green, or getting that way. his coat is green, he wears thick-soled boots guaranteed to last, he has a general air of wondering how much better off he wouid have been on a farm, or working on' the wharf, or if he had gone into the soft goods business before the war started, instead of being condemned to keep up appearances all his lift on a screw that the man who cleans out the. water-channels in front of the vicarage would turn up his nose at.

* ♦ * * • Everywhere the problem the bigwigs of the church are trying to* solve is- how to make church-going more popular with the public. Does it ever occur to them that the solution —one solution at any rate—is to devise ways .and means of preventing curates from, wearing green clothes, shir pants and thick-soled boots, and so give them a chance to concentrate their thoughts on evolving up-to-date "methods of catching the public and holding it ? Does it ever occur to those who give "largely to the church," and* will figure some day in obituary notices as worthy philanthropists, to insist as a condition or their philanthropy that the man who is supposed to inspire the community from the pulpit should receive a living wage?

Speaking of the new fashions in millinery, the bulletin of the Retail Milinery Association of America says that "off-the-face" styles are coming in again. Present styles are more or'» less a sort of ambush for sparkling eyes to peep out from under —good hats for flirting with, but a bit difficult ' to negotiate for kissing. Now they safy, the style is swinging back to the Breton—off-the-face, but not off hubby's mind.

En route lionie after signing the Treaty the German delegates invited their escort —Entente officers—to have dinner with them on the train. The sentimental season will now begin. We shall expect to hear that a German naval officer has asked Sir David Beatty: to come and have a drink, and we shall also expect to hear that Sir David has replied: "Mime's a beer" (we don't think!)

There are no less than sixteen wars still in full swing in Europe. Here they are: — Bdisheviki v. Allies. Bolsheviki v. Russian Loyalists.' Bolsheviki- v. Ukrainians. Bolsheviki v. Germans. Bolsheviki v. Poles. Bolsheviki v. Roumanians. Bolsheviki v. Letts. Bolsheviki v. Lithuanians. Poles v. Germans. Poles v. Ruthenians. Poles v. Czechoslovaks. Germans v. Letts. Austrians v. Jugoslavs. Roumanians, French, Serbs, andi Czechoslovaks y. Hungarians. Buigar Royalists v. Bulgar Reds. * -x- * * A romantic story is going the rounds on both sides of the Atlantic concerning the original of Sir "William Orpen's famous war studies, "The Spy," and " The Refugee." Sir William Orpen is the famous British artist who was commissioned by the British Government to paint war pictures for the nation's art galleries, and after the armistice he went .to Versailles to "do" the Peace Conference for; tlhe same collection. The •miost version of the story about the original of "The Spy," and "The Refugee" describes the model as a beautiful Hungarian, Frieda Nester. who was caught and sentenced to be shot, and it . describes how, on the morning set for her execution, she appeared in the courtvard of a famous French chateau, and made the request that she be allowed to choose her own costume for the ceremony. Her reauest was granted: she withdrew and soon returned muffled in a bkie velvet ooat. The storv also tells how, as the officer in charare of the execution counted, "one— '■■ two —" she dronoed the coat and stood before the firine party nude and beautiful.

It was, of courge, necessarv iior the safety of tlie Allied the completeness of the stoiT—that she be shot anyhow. But some people say that "The Spy"—meaning the girl who posed for the painting of that name—was not shot as she stood in the cold gray dawn back of the old chateau and that she is in fact very much alive. It is alleged she has been seen recently out walking with Sir William himselft. The young lady's name is said to be Yvonne and she is a native of a little place near Lille; she was really a refugee, but never a spy; and she has lived in Paris most of herttiem e since the Germans got to Lille in the beginning of the war.

''Going Up" is ail the rage in Blighty just now with the advent of beautiful summer weather. The ordinary stunt, up and around the aerodrome costs half a guinea, and. extended trips pro rata. For instance, if you want t to take a week-end trip to Brighton, it's ten guineas, please— thank you, and not a word said. All the pilots are expert airmen, and some have great war records, but you can't get any funny stunts. These are barred.. The Prince of "Wales went up the the other day with a famous onearmed airman, and being a privileged client was treated to some real war stunts which made the spectators hold their several breaths.

A Christchurch visitor tells us that although the Welfare League may go ahead its prospects in the southern city did not look too bright. A meeting called by circular, at which a great cnowd of enthusiastic lovers of welfare was expected, was attended bv only eight or nine people. The attitude down there seems to be "Welfare be blowed! What we want is more railway trains."

When the Postal Department told Christchurch that at its age it could not risk the strain of thinking out some way of sending the mails the Christchurch people cursed deeply and got to work. The Progress League rounded up the local bodies, looked into the motor-car question, and happened across the morning newspapers. "While the G.P.O. was compiling on Form A 2469 Q—23la its reply to the

enquiry froon Rip van Winkle, using form 00008, as to the progress of the investigations into the application of the Deputy Assistant Sub Deputy a, new ink-eraser, the Progress League and the newspapers fixed up a complete motor service all over the province, to carry the mails with the papers. The result will be that the farmers will get their letters and papers some hours sooner than usual, and will begin to think that all the yarns they have heard about the G.P.O. being efficient, and so indifferent to obstacles, and such a liustler, must have been made in Germany.

Dear Free Lance:—Here's an instance of fast and furious travelling, as experienced bv a Wellington-Na-pier train one day lasit week. The train left Wellington at 7 a.m., arrived at Hastings at 10.45 p.m. and at Napier about an hour later —197 miles in 17 hours, an average of llf miles per liouiv On the window of one of the carriages a passenger, who was a fairly good artist besides possessing a humorous mind, had drawn an excellent sketch of the train crawling its - weary way through the country and just in front of the engine was drawn a passenger enjoying a walk to break the mootony of sitting it out. Underneath the sketch were the words: ' 'The Napier mail —-the only <way."—Yours, etc., CT.

Mark Twain once wrote a- - ' story about a stolen white elephant. After many adventures and some' sensational sleuth-work bv the police, the animal was found dead in the police station, being discovered through the natural development of its odour. Mark would have been gladi to hear of a recent theft, in Christchure'h. This was the theft of a cash-box from a billiard room. Nothing very remarkable about 'that? But it was the police cash-box in the billiard room of the police station. The' police may or may not have a clue, but they are, as usual, "reticent"—-until you mention it, and then they use language of such a colour that you cannot easily say where the language ends and the unirorm begins.

Dear Free Lanoe : —-Queer are the hobbies of some men whose brains are rattled for six days in the week by red-tape and legal problems. I know an aged New Zealand public servant with many years of efficient service to .his credit whose hobby is cabinet-making. He puts in three or four of those hours he is permitted to spend at home at a carpenter's bench making tolerably strong walking sticks, elegant sideboards, springy sofas, inviting easy chairs, and comfy dog kennels. He doesn't sell the furniture he makes. He is content to fairly wrap himself up in his articles, and a little admiration from his friends is all that he needs and seeks.

There is the man of serious bent with a few feet of spare soil at the rear of the house who on Saturdays at noon is to be seen either with. 25

cabbage plants of a tree or two under his arm with only the one thought in his mind "the afternoon in the garden." Then there is the other man whose hobby on a Saturday,afternoon isr to collect a kit bag at a place where bottles are the main i display in the window, go home and sleep, and at intervals use the curly business end of a useful implement • sold in ironmongers' shops. • But my neighbour beats them all. He is a lawyer's clerk and handles musty parchments from" 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. His hobby is fowls. From my dining-room window I can see across his yard and sheds. Always when- I look out of the window he is there right in the- middle of the pens among the birds. He recently had electric em-rent switched on to the fowl sheds to enable him to- tend and, watch the b i rds during the dafck, winter - months. He dresses well, too, for his hobby. He wears a gay two-striped sports coat sufficient to gladen the heart of any hen or rooster. Lately my neighbour has been more ■ than ordinarilybusy with his fowls. There is, I ber lieve, a show imminent. I saw him last Saturday afternoon—and on Sunday too—with a shiny new baby's bath placed in the pens delicately combing the fowls' feathers and washing and rubbing their tootsies with chamois leather. That spectacle decided my b.obby. I'll get a few frogs and- start" a froggery in my front garden. 1 must have some hobby and noise bigger than a roos--ter's crow about the place.—Yours, etc., POTTBITANA. - .

Overheard in a Sydney Repatriation Office: Returned soldier, once wellknown at the tote applied to the Repatriation Department for a monetary start. "And what business do you propose to embark in?" asked an official. , "I want a cuppler . 'undred quid," answered the digger. ? "What for?" asked" the official. "To buy a trottin' outfit. I wunst went- near to catjchin' the Mugs Stakes-, an' if : some cow 'adn't got in on me and compelled m e to pull me prad Pd landed an honest five hundred jim. "As it was," he added sadly, "the Blind Mice got me snouted, and I 'ad to go to the war."