THE SKETCHER

Otago Witness, Issue 3831, 16 August 1927, Page 73

THE SKETCHER

TH-E ARMY OF OCCUPATION.

The mad one and the bad one, They live again in me, The spendthrift and the miser And the preacher, pardie— A lively, hateful company As ever you did see. But there is one of them, alas! Who never passed ray way. She never came a visiting— Not even once avisiting— Much less would she stay. There is a legend she refused Two dozen men and more. No member of the family Had known the like before. And two young men blew out their brains The day she wed to cross the Plains. The mad one and the bad one Are pleasant company. The spendthrift makes life glorious. I’m grateful as can be That the miser acts as balance-wheel And saves my life for me. And of course I must be reasonable, And naturally I see The other would not feel at home In such a company. But still she might have paused just once As she swept on her way To gossip for a moment. Even if she would not stay.— She would have been more useful Than the preacher any day. It is a bitter, bitter thing To know that I must be ( A roadhouse to the stuffy hordes That make my ancestry, And cannot choose from out that host The ones that I have need of most. —Alberta Bancroft, in the Lyric West.

BROTHERHOOD. Bv H. A. Manhood, in John o’ London’s Weekly. For a full minute he stared at the canted signboard by the gate of Rosemary Cottage, scratching dubiously at his palm, his thick lips shaping the tipsy lettered words: “ Teas—Minerals Provided.” First peering over the hedge, he tapped a waistcoat pocket as if to reassure himself, and entered the garden, carefully relatching the gate behind him, blushing ripely as he crossed to the bench farthest removed from my own perch. He sat down with all the cautiousness of an aboriginal encounterine a rustic bench for the first time. Removing his cap, he dabbed his face with a new blue-bordered handkerchief and crossed his legs, immediately uncrossing them, obviously thinking that he would thus be better prepared for flight were he accused of trespassing. Ho had the hypersensitive air of an exhibition rabbit, a dock rat in Arcadia, so to speak. For a tense space he studied my feet. com. paring them with his own, reluctantly deciding that I was harmless. Having pulled up his tight trouser legs, all unconsciously exposing two pale cutlets of flesh above the concertina’d socks, he relaxed with a double puff of relief. Face and demeanour alike suggested that he had weathered about thirty years, with roses very few and far between. He was j stockily built and curiously sallow, as though he had grown up in darkness. He appeared to have dressed in the dark, too. Store creases were visible in his shoddy “ready-mades.’’ The knot of his tie had slipped so that it resembled a cleft twig tucked into his waistcoat. His boots were new, with solidly curving soles, uncomfortable, even to the eye. Hair fiinged his small but prominent ears like dead grass about mushrooms, while his mouth had the appearance of being equipped with more teeth than is usual. His nose, which seemed to have been cruelly pinched while yet plastic, formed the centre-piece of a pair of tea-scales of which his large, misty blue eyes were the dishes. The balance was not quite true, the left dish being slightly lower than the right. His hands were perhaps the most interesting physical feature, these aptly illustrating the law of natural compensation. They were finely shaped but sadly neglected, scars and agnails seeming to indicate that he had employed them against stone in the absence of tools. They were abnormally sensitive and active, sometimes wrestling together or exploring a surface, but more often fluttering in seeming imitation of the wing tremblings of the chaffinch confined to the cage hanging from the trellised arch above the bench. It was as though he was expressing with his hands all those thoughts that could not be put into words. He did not at first notice the bird. A fx.il of seed husks at last drew his attention to the chilly, glinting cage. The chaffinch was huddled in the caked sand,

panting laboriously, working its wings in an enfeebled way as though trying to

recall their purpose, troubled perhaps by dreams of past flights between the balanced green and blue of earth and sky—of April moments when it had come near to perfecting' its hurried lyric. Chance —no other name fits the wayfarer so well—chirruped unmusically, but with good intention. The bird turned its

eracked, beady eyes towards him and uttered a single tarnished thread oi sound. He took the reproach to heart. Climbing upon the bench, he peered into the cage with physician-like solemnity, scratching the bit of cuttlebone wired to the bars as if suspecting that of being the cause of the bird’s melancholy. The setting-sun-like wrinkle over his right eye deepened with his understanding. Sucking in his cheeks, he emitted seductive noises, whispering words of cheer.

But the finch had no reason to associate kindness with the human voice. Its only response was to flutter its wings despairingly. Exhausted, it subsided again into the fouled sand, heart pumping sluggishly. Trellis and wires were imaged in the cage; the finch might have been the last pawn in an intricate game. Perhaps the same thought occurred to Chance. His self-consciousness gave way to a jaunty concern. Skipping from the bench, he poked in the grass among the flower beds, collecting a seedy bunch of

weeds with which he decorated the cage, inviting the chaffinch to the feast with a cheerful “ Come on, old sportie, dinner’s served.” The bird hopped close, pecking blindly, presently discovering the succulent greenery, falling to with pathetic eagerness, Chance watching with tingling enthusiasm.

He was still waiting upon the chaffinch when Mistress Bliscott came down the path to inquire his wants. Warned by her ponderous tread, he sat down hurriedly. She stood before him, drying her spongy red hands on her apron. He asked for tea, “with a mite of cake.” grateful for her friendly manner. Watching her depart, he resumed his study of the bird, dropping again to his seat as she returned with a high-piled tray. With deft surety she distributed china over a little iron table. Chance looked at her sideways, scratching at his palm. Smiling at the puffing tea-pot, he risked a remark—

“ ’Scuse me mentioning it, lady, but that’s a mighty fine birdie o’ yours in the cage.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Mistress Bliscott balanced her head and stroked her overflowing hips. “ You’re certainly right, mister, that you are. He’s not at all a bad little chap—a chaffinch it is, y’know. A little inopy to-day—they do get like that, y’know.” She whistled shrilly, as if calling a dog. but the chaffinch heeded her not at all? “He’ll be as right as rain to-morrow — for sure. My favourite bird, a finch, v'know.”

Chance nodded emphatically. “ Setnns a leedle bit short in the sight, don’t ’e?” he queried, adding conciliating!}’, “ P’r’ans it’s the heat.”

“Bless you, no! that ’ant the heat,” rippled Mistress Bliscott. With an explosive grunt she lifted the cage down and swung it in an attempt to move the finch to song. “ See now? he’s blind, that’s what. They always blind finches, y know it makes them sing so much better. You just prick their eyes with a red-hot needle like vou’d prick a currant. They don’t feel it at all, y’know. You’d be surprised what a vasty difference it makes.” “Don't feel it!” Chance could not have been more astonished had his teeth suddenly melted away. Words curdled in his mouth. He stroked his cap, visibly sickened. Mistress Bliscott poked a finger into the cage and he flinched, even as did the chaffinch. Fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, he produced a coin. It sank into the red palm as into the heart of a jelly-fish, and Mistress Bliscott sailed away, leaving him •staring dully. “Poor little beggar,” he murmured. With unsteady hand he poured a cup of tea, adding milk and sugar, stirring fiercely. But he did not drink. The tea cooled, and he pushed it aside. With a piece of pink icing he scribbled upon the table top, seeming to waver between two courses. Sight of Mistress Bliscott returning down the path bolstered his resolution. “Your change,” she smiled complacently. Chance stared up at her. patted his waistcoat pocket, and rose slowly to his feet

“ Would you sell the little feller, ladv?”

“ Lordy me ! that’s quite a question to spring.” Very deliberately Mistress Bliscott removed a hairpin and scratched her head with the point, regarding Chance thoughtfully, suddenly raising her voice: “ George! Gennelman here wants to buv our finchy—cage an’ all. What about it?”

A huge man with a moustache that was like a cusp of sandstone, wearing the uniform of a warder, advanced from the rear of the cottage, wheeling a bicycle. “What’s that?” He settled his cap firmly. -

Chance turned from his hopeful scrutiny of the bird at sound of the heavy voice. He saw the uniform, stiffened to attention, and_ as suddenly wilted. A little torrent of words burst from him : “ It don’t matter—don’t matter at all—• my mistake. Sorry ter bother you. Guess—guess I’ll be going. It don’t matter at all. .. .” Cap clenched in his fingers he hurried from the garden, heavy-headed, stones

bounding from the touch of his boots, as if in disgust. Mistress Bliscott panted. “ There now ! Did you ever see the like of that before?”

The warder calmly adjusted trouserguards about his ankles, dusted’ his hands together, took up a cube of sugar, and crunched it with stolid enjoyment. “ Out to-day,” he said. “ Now, what would he be wanting with a bird, d’ye think?”

RELEASE. Shave his chin, and bind his jaw— Place the weights on Danny’s eyes— They will not show any more Joy, or anger, or surprise. Parson’s been to show the way From this world into the next. Doctor, too, Ims'had his say — Dan has done with drug and text. Rough and bent his still hands lie, Long an humble way he trod — Now he’s Awe and Majesty Second only to his God. —C. Ribton, in the Irish Statesman.

BRAIN WAVES AGAIN. Waves of one kind or another, emanating from the brain, have been discovered more than once; but they do not stay discovered. Such waves would possess great importance as a possible physical basis for telepathy. The most celebrated were probably the “ N-rays ” reported from a Paris laboratory a quarter of a century ago. Though sponsored by some eminent men of science, repeated investigation failed to reproduce them elsewhere, and they are now generally consigned to the realm of the imagination. The latest work in this direction is that of Dr Ferdinando Cazzamalli, of the University of Milan, Italy, who two years ago reported the discovery of electric waves, like radio waves, emanating from the living human brain. He has now published a preliminary report of further experiments tending to establish this remarkable conclusion. Says Dr E. E. Free in his Week’s Science (New York): “Dr Cazzamalli’s method is to place a human subject and a sensitive radio receiving set inside a metallic cage, this cage being necessary in order to shield the apparatus from stray radio waves or other disturbances originating at near-by radio stations or elsewhere. The human subject used is ordinarily a ‘ psychic ’ one —that is, a person subject to trances like those of mediums or to mental disturbances like hysteria. During such psychic happenings curious signals, not otherwise explainable, are detected in the radio receiver. One instance, now reported, is a signal perceived when a trance medium inside the cage experienced what the experts in psychic research call ‘ crypthesthesia,’ which is the perception otherwise than through normal touch or sight of the nature of an article concealed by wrappings. Another instance was a radio signal perceived when a hypnotised subject was made to recall mental images of dead relatives. Dr Cazzamalli believes that his experiments prove the emission from the brain of electric impulses of some kind. These must be taken into account, he maintains, in theories of mental action. Although experts elsewhere in the world were fully respectful of Dr Cazzamalli’s previous experiments, many of them dissented from his conclusions. In the present communication the Italian savant answers some of these previous criticisms. making what must be admitted to be a good case for the correctness ot his viewpoint.”

LINES FOR HENRIETTA. The Universe is dull, And Life’s a fetter. No happiness can gull, The World is dull And Life’s no better, No happiness can gull And yet — There’s Henrietta. The Universe was dull Until I met her, But now her charms do lull The Cosmos dull. Till I forget her, The Universe is dull — Yet not My Henrietta. —Anonymous, in Granta.

MY LADY’S CHEQUES!

Our menfolk usually smile indulgently when we endeavour to carry through any banking business on our own. “ The poor dears,” they say, “ they don’t even know the difference between an order and a bearer cheque.” And, generally speaking, they are right, for our knowledge of cheques is as limited as our menfolk’s knowledge of spring-cleaning. There are two forms of cheques—bearer and order. The “ Pay Miss Edith Jones or bearer ” is the simpler kind. With these there is no need whatever-'for Miss Jones—the payee of the cheque—to sign her name on the back before cashing or paying it in at the bank. Indeed, any ■words you like, or no words at all, can be placed along this line. When, however, it reads “ Pay Miss Edith Jones or order,” then Miss Edith Jones must write her name on the back exactly as it appears on the face of the cheque, although the courtesy title of “ Miss ” is not required. Should only the courtesy title and the surname of the -payee be given, then she may endorse with her usual signature, providing, in the above case, that it contains the word Jones. It may happen that you receive a cheque in which your name is mis-spelt. In tnis case just endorse as spelt, and then, if you like, although it is by no means neces-

sary, you can write your correct name underneath.

What is the effect of the two tra isverse parallel lines which are often draw'l across a cheque. They mean that th-* paying banker, that is the bank whos>* liame s printed On the top section, will not pay that cheque except to another lijnk. So that if you are the payee of such a cheque, you cannot present it for payment at the specified bank. You must get a different bank to collect it for you, and you will receive the proceeds when the cheque has been cleared. Those parallel lines might have inscriptions-, such as “and C 0.,” or “C 0. or “Bank,” but the meaning is exactly the same. When the crossing contains the words, “Aje payee,” the cheque cannot be instantly wished, but must be paid into the payee’s bank account. Should the payee not possess such an account, the best procelure is to request a bank to open one temporarily until the cheque is cleared, when the bank will then pay cash.

The greatest care should be taken when making out a cheque, and any alteration must be initialed. Particular care should be taken in seeing that the words and figures of the amount in question agree. For the sake of precaution, never leave any room in the word or figure space where a dishonest person could enlarge the amount. Carelessness such as this has led to many forgeries. With a bearer cheque the ruling out of the word “bearer” constitutes it automatically into an order cheque, requiring then the necessary endorsement by the payee. Changing a bearer cheque in this way into an order cheque does not require initialing, but the reverse process — writing “ bearer ” above the cancelled “ order ” —does need an initial. If these few points ean be grasped, then the supercilious smiles of the alleged sunerior sex need never be feared. —Home Chat.

LITTLE THINGS. It’s the little things that count in life! “What a commonplace platitude!” comes the mass response. Yet the very people who cry out at the triteness of the phrase are the last to pay homage to its unerring accuracy. Instead, they proceed in every conceivable way to ignore it completely. They have heard it so often that it has lost all meaning. It is quite obsolete and valueless to them, therefore they can afford to laugh when it is quoted as having an apt bearing on real life.

The unfortunate thing is that these people are generally flooded with ambition. They long to do big things in the world; to carve their initials distinctly on the hard surface of the wall of fame; and because they will not recognise the importance of little things they very seldom succeed. Instead they grow bitter and soured and trace their misfortunes to every source but the right one.

Even as every big thing is made up of little, things, so in life every big act—every act- worth recording —is built up by small deeds which are lost in the uniform whole, but which, nevertheless, are most essential to its completeness. It is a good thing to be ambitious—to see the star you are aiming for shining in the distance; but to think that the whole journey to it can be achieved in one leap is crass folly. It only means crippled hopes and thwarted dreams.

The only way to reach the star is to follow the long road to it with small but sure steps. It is a weary trail and many give up hv the way; but these with the pluck and endurance to carry on meet a worthy reward at the end. So many forget that -we were never meant to fly, and thus they try to use the wings they have not got. and their star of ambition remains as far away as the stars above their heads.

The people who ignore the value of little things build castles in the air and mourn when these fade like mirages in the desert into nothingness. The wise ones of the earth waste no time in fruit-

less dreams and sighs—they set to work and lay the foundation stone of their castle, as the first of the many little units to build up the complete edifice of their success.—Glasgow Weekly Herald.

EVOLUTION. I thought there would be No marks in the snow— It was so early in the morning And the garden empty. But everywhere before me went The footsteps of a cat, Solitary, Purposive, And across the path were pencil!ings Made by the. birds. And then my tracks. But What walked after Leaving no trace, Musing on the threefold inscription in the snow? And as it mused, did it understand? —Lyn Lloyd Irvine, in the Nation and Athenaeum.

RAILWAY SUPERSTITIONS.

When Buster Keaton decided to make “ The General ” the comedy of aq 1860 locomotive he began to hang about engine sheds to pick up local colour, and discovered by chance a railwaymen’s “Gospel of Superstitions,” a list of a score or more queer rules -which no railway engineer will violate unless he intends to commit suicide. On the first day of Buster’s observations a driver with a 40 years’ record backed his engine into the shed instead of proceeding on his journey. When the irate superintendent demanded the reason the driver pointed to the bell: it was

upside down. That engine had to bo laid away for the day. Time ami - again the explanation of seemingly unnecessary stops can only come from the man on the plate. For example, no engineman in possession of his senses will drive on within possible hitting distance of a pig. Scoffers cannot quote a single case in which a United States train hitting a pig hag not been subsequently derailed. Not all the animals, however, which frequent American railway tracks are considered unlucky. There is the goat which browses between the sleepers on the Harlem section of the New York Central. All the efforts of the permanent way officials to discourage it from haunting the track have failed, and drivers now regard it with reverence as the patron saint of"the line.

Black cats are eyed with horror by enginemcn, but dogs are considered lucky. Cross-eyed people avoid approaching American engine cabs because} they are evil omens liable to be driven away with well-aimed lumps of coal. Their proper function is to sit on the first seat of the rear coach, thereby conferring one day’s luck on the conductor. As a matter of fact, while the engine driver is giving his steed a final inspection all adults who stare at him aro considered unlucky unless they are accompanied by children.

Accidents on United States lines aro believed to occur in triplets. An engineer who reports one is gloomy and despondent until he has worked off the spell by reporting two more. Neither will any engineer who has not lost all interest in life cheerfully write “ 13 cars ” on hisreport; he prefers to report “13 cars and an engine.” The brakeman supports the driver in his observance of superstitious rites by never carrying his lamp above his waist; to do so is considered fatal.

But the strangest of all tales of railway superstition is the story of the engine on the New York, New Haven, and Hartford line. On the 13th of every month, no matter who he inay.be, the driver of that engine reports sick. The number of the engine is 013. —The Weeklv Scotsman.

TREES. Then said Jehovah unto men: “ I will set in the desert the green fir tree, The pine and the box together shall be, Where the fragrant boughs of the cedar swing Shall dwell all the fowl of every wing; “ Thou shalt not destroy, when the nations fight, A tree good for food or pleasant to sight ; For this is the law of your earthly span, The tree of the field is the life of man.” —lrene Welch Grissom, in Outdoor America.

DINING IN ITALY.

We had seen the house by daylight, set like an eagle’s nest among the olives on the extreme hill top. Then we had wondered how it was reached. Scrambling, stumbling up the mule-track on a moonless spring night, we knew, writes a correspondent to the Daily Telegraph. Olives and cypresses became mere shadows in the surrounding blackness. At times the track narrowed into a knifeblade thinness, at otheis its steepness became a challenge. Above the stars served only further to darken the night sky. A torch and, occasionally, a friendly wall were our only guides. Our hosts were English, but it was with Mario and Gilda that we were really dining. Gilda had cooked the repast. Mario served it with a serviette hung, in a professional manner, over one arm. There was not much entertaining in that mountain fastness, which was, foe Mario, a sorrow. He was, above all things, “ elegante.” He liked ceremonious meals; guests, preferably with titles; a steady flow of excellent wine, while he, as master of ceremonies, took the centre of the stage. He received the compliments on the excellence of the soup as his right. The cook, was she not his wife, his, and the soup, therefore entirely his affair? The asparagus he handed round with a flourish—it was still expensively early for such a dish. The chicken was shredded and served with deliciously cooked potatoes and crisp green salad. Cheese waa followed by the sweet omelette—the chef d’oeuvre of the repast. The signori had been warned that- the lights must bo lowered. Gilda, of the dark, serious eyes and capable hands, was permitted a place in the entertainment. She it was who held the dish bearing the golden “frit tata,” licked with blue flames* while Mario stirred and lifted the fire in a spoon, and the signori applauded and shouted “Bravo!” and “ Maravigliosol” until the last flame died, and the time had come for the rich, golden sweetness to melt like a dream in the mouths of the guests. Finally, there was dessert and a great refilling of glasses | with Chianti Antinori, rose-gold nectaiT: which only the signori could afford tar \ drink.