THE LOAN LIZARD

Southland Times, Issue 20641, 13 November 1928, Page 4

THE LOAN LIZARD

MR S. M. MACALISTER’S STORY. Mr S. Morell Macalister, the Independent Reform candiate for Invercargill, at a meeting on Saturday evening last, on saying that* he had been out trout-fishing that afternoon, was asked to tell a fish story. He stated that instead of a fish story he would tell his audience a story of a lizard—the loan lizard. This lizard had a most attractive and gaudy tail. In chasing the lizard he had found it, with its twists and wriggles, a most difficult creature to catch. What had made it more difficult was the fact that, as is the case with some of the lizard family, it had the wonderful power of changing its colour. However, after a stern chase through camouflaging grasses in which its ever-changing appearance had made it difficult to follow, he had seized it very firmly by the tail. What did it do then, but, without a wink, discard its beautiful tail and make off into the grass again a very incomplete old lizard and minus its only attractive feature. It could not grow another tail and its glory was gone forever. The lizard was his opponents’ loan proposal and its tail the sinking fund.