SHAUN'S PATCH

Southland Times, Issue 20002, 16 October 1926, Page 13 (Supplement)

SHAUN'S PATCH

THE NEW HADES. Hell is obsolete.—News item. An Efficiency Expert, recently “late,” Dickered with Peter outside of the gate, Declaring to Heaven he never would go While a field for his energies called him Below. • “Who will suggest that in Heaven above,” He said, “there is anything I can improve, So why take me in, though my passport is right, Foreknowing I’m facing the tedious plight Of idling, while old Eternity ranges, Where Perfect Control won’t admit any changes? Let not the Expert become an Effete While Hell it is known has become obsolete, Look over the fact that my cloud is reserved And let me go down. For the worst I am nerved And if on the Earth I have earnt a reward Please don’t serve it. up where I’m sure to be bored. I’m for Efficiency, up-to-date system, Faults have existed, but I’ve never mist ’em; Ford of the Tin-car devised in Detroit Knew never one-tenth of the things I exploit, Never a tenth, though to say it’s a crime, Of the methods by which to save labour and time, Especially where one is not asked to fence On questions of limiting office expense. You must be aware, Pete, when cash is deficient It’s awfully hard to make business efficient, But here is a chance and with money to burn A Hell of a job if all’s true that I learn, Which means, though it sounds like a quaint paradox, Here’s an opening to pull Hades clean off the rocks, To boost up the heating, get better returns For the outlay, with service that certainly earns Better profits and so with these business repairs We’ll soon see a rise in the Ordin’ry shares. Tis system you want and an up-to-date plant * Card index, telephones, for believe me, you can’t Expect any soul to be pained as it should By the prospect of Hell if the method’s no good. My ref’rences? Just you wait till I tell . . But Pete turned awav with a terse: “Go to Hell!” The Devil he found in the Board Room alone, His tail limp and lifeless, and all he could groan Was something that only his typiste could hear On the decrease in suffering being so queer, That fire and brimstone had lost all their force While boiling oil came as a matter of course, And though the snake pits to the combings were crammed Not one sinner cared a hoot if he were damned. “The service is rotten,” he said, “’tisn’t worth The price, ’cos the late innovations on earth Have changed all the values and sinners don’t fear Us at all! They in fact much prefer to be here, And I and the staff,” he said this with a sob, “Will shortly be forced fo hunt some other job.” Just then, as the doorbell awoke with a din, The Efficiency Expert with firmness walked in. “The Devil I want,” he remarked, “is it you?” Satan swallowed and gurgled: “The Devil you do! What the why in my sanctum thus do you barge?” “Quit you're rotting,” he answered, “I’ve come to take charge. You’re down in the mouth ’cos the show's obsolete; But I'll put the whole blinking stunt on its feet, Two hundred per cent. I’ll increase all your pain And Hell will come into its own once again.” The Devil and typiste exchanged a shrewd grin; “And pray, Mr Expert, how will you begin? This is old, it's as ancient as Man, Conservative, cautious—so trot out your plan.” The Expert sat down, with a cough cleared his throat And murmured: “Well, Nick, let the girl take a note:

“We'll scrap the old plant and sell it for junk The Earth can show much better stuff than that bunk, We’ll modernise—Modernise! that is the point, From basement to ceiling w’e’ll remake the joint. First in all levels and this is emphatic, We’ll put in the Radio and all the static Amplified twenty times all day will be Heard with the programmes sent 4ZP. And why this expense with an old-fashioned fire ? We’ll accomplish far more with a sturdy Male Choir, And musical sinners will have to hear ballads Eternal on roses and similar salads, Sung by those folk who think all the known joys Are wrapped up in tone or in highly-trained noise. The brimstone is done. We’ll devise newer tricks With bitumen, laid in a very* hot mix, But mind and I care not if this gives you shocks, I’ll have it laid prompt, so we won't employ Fox, And on it all day, in the wind and the sand, Mayors’ll run their own taxis which haven’t a stand. The liquid refreshment for souls parched and gritty Will wait the report from a Special Committee, While bankers and lawyers who lucre can hoard

Will be put in the hands of a new Dairy Board. The expert who jazzes with only one fella Will dance nothing else but the true Dar« danella To music supplied by a man with the gripes Playing a handful of punctured bag-pipes. And daily they’ll listen while someone reviews The evidence proving the English are Jews, But people whose natures are known to be sourer Will hear about bridges upon the Mat aura. The speedsters for ever will have to remain In second-class carriages on the Bluff train, The -golfers who swaggered in roomy plus fours Will not be permitted to talk on their scores, The miners will not be allowed to talk strike, But farmers, though doing all else they would like, With sheep or with cattle, with crops or with fowl Will not be permitted to let out a growl, And those who on movies pronounce moral strictures Will vie nothing else but the uplifting pictures. > The place will be dry . . .” Here Old Nick intervened: “Your plan Is too terrible, none but a fiend Would torture poor sinners. If that is the price For making Hell pay —well I don’t think it’s nice. The prospect your Expert imaginings paint Undevils me. Girl, I am feeling quite faint! Some whisky, bootleg or any old gargle! I’d sooner reside, man, in South Invercargill.” MINE OWN PEPYS. SATURDAY, October 9.—Up betimes and a great busyness in my home, so that my daughter do come and pester me with messages to arise for the doing of paperhanging. After the saying of my prayers that no evil befal me, to mount a scaffolding and there to take such a strip of pasted paper as I have never before seen in this my life. Many times to unfasten the pasted serpent from my locks and to use such language that my wife to drive my family from the estate to their great aunt’s, but not before my son hath declared himself to hope I do precipitate myself into the paste - bucket and so to be punished for mine megrims. To the peril of mine immortality to persist in the task and after much relaying to fix two strips as firmly as maybe and then to relax for the day that I may privily curse the ones who did inspire these projects. Mrs Shaun at intervals to declare that not until this day hath she known what, manner of man I be and would she to her mother’s instanter were it not for the scandal to arise therefrom. In the evening quietness for bridge, but in such agony in my back that I do fear all the lumbagos my ancestors have known to come as a joint legacy. And so to bed in great thoughtfulness. MONDAY, October 11.—This day lay late that I may recover from the ills occasioned by my exploits on the scaffold and thus to avoid further assaults on the task. To read that Padre Robinson at First Church hath instituted a retiring collection for “Millionaires’ Rest Homes,” which do seem to me a most worthy object in that these poor men do suffer from the indigestions that must accompany the gathering of great wealth. Words brought from Dunedin there hath been a decision in the Beauty Contest but in this I do take no interest in that the combat is confined to females. An the contest were for male pulchritude I would invariably enter mine own portrait and thus to reveal to the Chief there do be one field in the which I may hold him cheap, but my physician, who in all things do be most objectionably honest, to declare my measurements, despite my dieting, do not satisfy the specifications, in that I do bulge where there should be re-entrant curves. A most unkind fellow and doubtless a little jealous. TUESDAY, October 12—Rouse this day despite the keeping of mine eyes closed and led to the scaffold. There to learn my technique so much improved I to increase my paj>erhanging powers a threefold, and with a corresponding decrease in the use of my Mother tongue. This to please me mightily, hut to ponder that it were well in future to devise ceilings which may be detached and placed on the lawn for the papering. WEDNESDAY, October 13—Up this day and to my news-sheet wherein to read of the forays at the table of the Aldermen who do wrangle on the voting for the Town Engineer, but small satisfaction save we do learn who did place small value on degrees. My lord Farrant to chide certain of his fellows who would write to the papers concerning public matters, as an indiscretion, but it to seem to me his remarks the more indiscreet in that his opponents may write again and note be was out of order.

THURSDAY, October 14.—0 n this day so busy with the hanging of paper I to have no time for the writing of my Diary.

FRIDAY, October 15—Up betimes and with alacrity to my paperhanging in that the ceiling do be now acquitted and my skill so great I may almost earn a journeyman’s pay an the time do come when the Bolshevists do make us all work at the wrong jobs. But pain to come to me in that Mrs Shaun to be so enamoured of my skill she hath even now devised plans fpr the renovating of other rooms and'therefrom there to rise before me a prospect of such labours as would daunt the heart of the bravest. I to impress on her she did express a wish to visit her mother and to urge this be done before she may think of other worlds to conquer. But this of no avail in that she hath set her mind on these things, and so to bed with a grave fear in my heart that my domestic hearth may yet be the scene of such a tragedy as hath not been known since Mary of the Scots did blow up one of her husbands.