THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1025, 27 May 1880, Page 2

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD

An amusing illustration of the necessity of the schoolmaster being abroad in this part of the world came to our knowledge a day or two ago. A gentleman in Tauranga, who had made arrangements for giving a patty, w«nt to the trouble of getting invitation cards issued which ho sent to las friends soliciting the pleasure of their company on the occasion. The cards as usual contained in the left hand corner the well known letters "H.S.V.P." (Bepondez tfil vaus plait), but several of the ladies and gentleman who read the polite missives were quite nonplussed about the meaning of the mysterious characters. Dictionaries, phrase books, and " Polite letter writers," were brought into requisition to unravel the difficulty, but not a hint could be found anywhere that would throw the slightest light on the dark enigma. After innumerable guesses and conjectures the most extraordinary the ladies, gave it up, but some of the gentlemen were of sterner stuff and doggedly refused to abandon the attempt at finding a solution of the riddle. At length a happy thought struck one of the brighter intellects, who, like a second Daniel, professed himself prepared to read the writing and give the interpretation. This genius ingeniously suggested that the mystery arose from " a printer's error," and that the stupid compositor had in his dense ignorance inadvertently substituted a "V " for a"Q !" With this alteration the cabalistic characters were quite intelligible, and it was evident to the most obtuse that they were the initial letters of the sentence " Respectable Select Quadrille Party," which was intended by the sender, so it was said, to give a hint as to the class of persons that were expected to be present. The gentleman who sent out the cards having heard that the mysterious letters were such a puzzle to some of his friends, thoughtfully went to the trouble of getting fresh cards printed, with the request for a reply in plain English, which nobody could mistake. This is not the first instance in which these letters have puzzled some of our fashionable, folk of New Zealand. On the occasion of a recent ball a number of ladies belonging to the upper ten, and who rank among the elite of society on the East Coast, were quite at a loss to know what the sender of their invitation cards meant by printing four letters — R.S.V P. — -on the corner, and in their difficulty applied to a well-known gentleman, who took a good deal of trouble in " insensing " the fair creatures into the meaning. From the expression of the countenances of the inquirers, and for other reasons the gentleman, our informant, believes that his well-meant efforts were unavailing, and that the ladies are under the firm belief till this day that the four letters were intended to convey some ll uncanny hint," which would not bear to be printed in plain language. — Bay of Plenty Times.