REVOLT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20252, 11 May 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

REVOLT.

DAY-DREAMING TO DEADLOCK

BY K. M. KNIGHT.

It isn't often the linotype men rebel against their lot, but tho autumn got into tho hearts of two of tha boys of a city typesetting firm, and it did strange things to them. " Geo whiz," said the first boy, " there is something "about a day like today that gets a man where he's not expecting it. I came down the road this morning through a rough wind, and it reminded 1110 of another kind of life from this one. I thought that I 'was driving a mail van along a stretch of country, over roads that were beginning to get sticky with rain, and every time I stopped to deliver parcels of goods into the wayside boxes, a wisp of rain hit me in the face and half blinded me. I did that work once, you know." "Yes?" said the second boy. "I'm town-bred myself." " Lord, man, you don't know you are alive. There is absolutely nothing in this life. When it is cold in here we put on another shirt, but when it's cold and you're delivering goods along tho road you hustle round a bit more. Doesn't matter how cold it is outside—there is always a glow inside.

" I know ' a road," said this boy, " where there are plains 011 one side and hills on tho other. It connects two wayback towns, and years ago my dad used to drive a coach and five horses through tho mud. I can lemember tho fun when one of the wheels struck a root. Everyone in the coach hit the roof. It was a great lark. And then tho road was metalled, and dad got a bit old and tired, and I drove Lizzie back and forth with the mail. It was good, but I didn't appreciate it."

" You had better go back and drnre another Lizzie over another road with some more mail."

" Gee, I'd like to. I think I'll be a farmer. What say we go and get a farm somewhere, and grow swedes lor winter feed ?"

' " Where is the money coming from?" " Somebody gives us two pounds a week for life. Some old fairy godmother appears one morning out of the metalpot, and says: " ' My sons, this day I have received from an unknown source a sum of money to be deliverer! to you at the rata of two pounds per week for life. You may now do as you like. Here is the first instalment.' The old girl would have togive me that, or the trick would not work." " You have an imagination, my sonny. A lively one. Carry on." Possibilities. " Well, someone has paid us to live, instead of paying us to die by inches in this stinking lead shop. It is a sound investment. We grow in beauty side by side as we travel by day on the country roads, and sleep by night in barns and under the shelter of thick trees. The wind in our faces, the rain beating against us, the glow of our bodies as we race through the cold air, puddles on the roads with (iio wind lufiiing them, the scent of leaves lying in long lines on the road's edge, ail add to the adventure, and we wouldn't change places with kings." " And wiiat about it when we get fed up with doing nothing?" " Doing nothing, man 1 We wouldn't be doing nothing. It would be a serious business, this seeing life from tiie tramp's point of view. Wo would definitely set ourselves the job of seeing so- much of the country each daj, walking so many miles, eating so much steak and kidney pudding; that would keep the boredom out of it."

" I gee. I'm beginning to wake up to the possibilities. And where does the farm como in?"

" That comes in when we begin to want (o settle down. Every chap wants to settle down, sooner or later. You see, we'd know plenty about the country, having seen so much eft it, and we would know a good farm when we saw one. We would make arrangements with some farm-sick old man and swop him our combined four pounds per week for life for his good farm. He would go and settle in the town, in some little suburban homo with a concrete path from the front gate to the front door, and we would run the farm." The Ideal Life. " I'd take charge of things, and you would do as you were told," said the first boy. " Yes. I might. But suppose the old man would not swop ? And suppose I'd not swop the two pounds per week for any green-grass farm, what then ?" " What, you'd bo such a dirty clog as all that? After I had got the dashed money for you ? After it was my fairy godmother who had taken pity on you? ATtcr wo had tramped together for so lone?"

""The roving life might have grown on ne. I might not have wanted to settle

down. " I tell you it wouldn't be drifting. Not with me. It would be seeing lifo." " Well, then, seeing life. I might have wanted to on seeing life, and not wanted to settle down and milk cows and wade about through mud." " There wouldn't be any mud on our farm. It would be a model farm." " Ila," said the second boy, drawing a deep breath. "Look here," said tho first boy, "we get this farm, and then we start to worn at daylight each day. We get up and go for the cows, milk them, have a huge breakfast, drive cream to a factory, get big cheques at the end of each mouth, and have a great time. You buy a car and I buy a motor-launch, and we motor down to the river and spend the day fishing. Great fun." The End of the Dream.

" No, you don't," said the second boy. " You don't swamp 1110 like that. I laven't said yet that I wanted to buy a arm. I haven't said that I would give

up my income for hard work. I haven't said I'd buy a car. In a fifty-fifty business like this we've both got to agree about what shall be done." i " Well, wo could easily agree. Think of the glorious freedom." " If you wanted ine to do something I didn't want to do ? If you wanted a bally farm and .! didn't?" " Look," said the first boy, theic would bo no linotypes. No set hours. No fight for existence. No worry about money. Just glorious freedom." " I wouldn't have a farm," said tlie second boy. "It would bo just as much a tic as anything else. We would always have to be" there to milk, and we might as well be here." " All right," said the first boy. " That settles it. That's the slone end of that golden dream. Behold my carriage a pumpkin once more, and I with my broom in inv hand. All gone up in smoke, just because von couldn t agree to a sensible proposition." The second boy drew his chair closer to his machine. The office door opened and a man bustled out. " Here," he said to the first boy, " haven't you got anything to do? This wilj keep you busy for a. time. Set it in forty ems. and go like the wind.*' " Right," said the first boy. "It shall be."