Impressions of the Week

NZ Truth, Issue 743, 13 September 1919, Page 6

Impressions of the Week

THE MYSTERY OF DICK.

Has anybody seen "Long Dick?" Where has long Dick gone? With whom, and by i what means did he go? Who is" long Dick, anyhow? These and similar other questions are being asked m Dunedin to-day, still, never an answer, m a manner satisfying, comes echoing upon their utterance. Just how Dick came to Dunedin, how he left Dunedin, what he was doing m Dunedin, remains a mystery — a mystery quite as defiant of elucidation as . is that surrounding his present whereabouts. "Long Dick" was as long m body as he was wide m experience. In fact he was very long — that's how he got his nickname. He was long-headed, long m speech; his pocket seemed to have no end. Thus it was that "Long Dick" won his way into the hearts and confidences of a city as dour and commonplace as he was talkative and flash. At the bars he was the most attractive and outstanding figure — the "beennaids" simply gushed over "Dick." In "The Club," where they drink whisky with afterhour impunity, and where they gamble away their wive's winter coats and the children's school-fees, "Dick" pocketed the cash and commanded, by his austere sobriety, even the respect of the stewards. At the races — c-h! at the races, with field-glasses hanging from his shoulder, instead of a gun, fortified with the tips that fell from his drunken bar and club-room associates, "Dick" let no. "Red Tape" or "Night Alarm" pass his vigilance when the bookmakers asked him if he had a fancy. In select circles., he always held a sway; to his mansions were attracted the dupes m their dourness. But "Dick" has gone. Behind him he has left a lot of smirking barmaids, whose fancy has turned to other "Dicks;" In his wake are to be found many wives of "club"-men who struggle against winter blasts m cotton clothes that would have been woollen, but for " Dick's " persuasive way of straddling and bluffing; to his memory flock the thoughts of "bookies'" accountants, who dream o' nights of unpaid telephone pledges. "Dick" was a stranger, and he took them m. And now as one wanders home, m the extending hours of spring's daytime, there comes (Whispering through the trees, which soon, m the maturity of foliage, will obscure Robbie Burns's statue, the anxiety "6f# Dunedin's question: "Where is Dick"?