"How Long Will It Take?"

Otago Witness, Issue 2801, 20 November 1907, Page 75

"How Long Will It Take?"

Thi» great liner had just left New York, and a British novelist of some repute, who had dropped lazily into a deck-chair, was overheard to say to an acquaintance : ■ i"L ' am going home, away from the sound of the eternal question, 'How lor » wiH it fake?' "If a man in New York stops *o have his shoes polished, he asks the boy, 'How long will it take?' ~So\r, unless ithat man has been living the life of a tramp, he tftaows how long it takes to polish shoes ; but it hAS become second nature to ntm to ask the question. "When he goes to the barber for a shave he asks, 'How long will it tako?' And if it is not done quickly enough -he will go elsewhere next time. It >s the same at lunch. 'I'll take an oyster stpw." he'll 6ay; then then, 'Hold on, waiter. How Ion? will it take?' "You hear the same question at the drug store, the bank, the hotel, anrl in thp street. Everything is regulated by

'How lon<r will it take?' "Within a week I shall be in Liverpool, mingling again with friends who, when I ask them to lunch with me, will not answer hesitatingly. 'Well, I would — Lut— how long will it take?' "

— A bachelor says that " ladies are like watches — nrettv enough to look at; sweet faces and delicate hands ; but somehow diinrult to regulate after 'they are set a-going."