Shaun's Patch

Southland Times, Issue 20664, 20 April 1929, Page 13

Shaun's Patch

“A LITTLE NONSENSE NOW AND THEN" —“ Hudibras.” (

Every rich man should have a will of his own. SOUTHLAND LIMERICKS. There was an old maid of Mataura, Whose temper grew saura and sattra, She was so depressed All people confessed They hoped that it would overpaura. FAMOUS PINS. S die. point. Hair (uncommon). Hat Hare). Safety Terra —-—. afore. * * » « NOTES ON THE RANGITIKI. Uncensorcd Reports. Honours have been showered on the N.Z. Shipping Company by the best people of the land who have sat in every chair and lounge and have tested the springs and taps in every cabin of the Rangitiki, but no recognition was greater than that afforded the ship by the St. Andrew’s Scottish Society. The Mackintosh having had this vessel built for his trip to the Old Country, that part of the world adjacent, to Moyhall, the Chief descended on the Bluff with his latest and most magnificent walking stick, and a stock of new Gaelic words. After inspecting the state room selected by The Mackintosh and pronouncing it adequate, he ascended to the captain’s quarters, and, not doing things by halves, bestowed on the commander a sprig of heather, accompanied by the accolade, which in a trice changed the Captain to Mac Smith in honour of his association with The Mackintosh. Unfortunately one visitor was late for this touching ceremony. On the way to Bluff, he picked up a puncture. It is announced with due secrecy that my friend John William put on the spare in 2min. 3S 1.-osec, a New Zealand record, and that, all the while he kept up a running fire of pleasantries to relieve the tedium for those accompanying him. Interest in the vessel was intense, but it is nothing to the astonishment of the St. Andrew’s Scottish Society at the money spent to provide a ship fit. to carry to the land of his fathers The Mackintosh. The society is wondering what will happen if the Chief suddenly decides to travel overseas, since in no case could he content to play second fiddle to The Mackintosh. In any case he can’t play the fiddle at all—his instrument is the pianoforte. HATES. I quote this from an American paper for the purpose of addition: — I slay those maidens, as a rule, Who chirp: “Dont be a fool, you fool.” I eat up little girls who hum: ■‘Di, dee di, dee dum, dum, dum.” At "Don’t be sil,” I nant with rage And wince when told to "be your age.” Cries of “Don’t be ridic’ dismay me: Likewise confessions that. "you slay me!’ And I rebel at such jocoseries As “Boy! I'll say you know your groceries'.” These thoughts come to me by way of addenda: I hate those folk who say to me: "Oh once I nursed him on my knee.” But worse than them the silly cow Who adds: “I couldn't do it now.” A hate for girls—they make me cross — By greeting me with “Now, old boss.” And hate in me grows cold and colder, For those who slap me on the shoulder, And yell before my coughing’s through: "Well, who’d have thought of meeting you.” The girl who in a crowded car Won’t take your seat give’s me a jar Likewise the girl who at a tea Takes all the cakes I want for me. But most of all I have a frown For the girl who went and turned me down. * * * * THUMBNAIL ESSAYS. Fish. One of the greatest influences for evil is the fish. It is a cold-blooded beast, but it has wrecked the moral fabric of more warmblooded human beings than any animal, with the possible exception of Golf. The onion Is the mourner’s friend, but the fish is the liar’s inspiration. Every fisherman is viewed with suspicion unless he can produce the fish to bear testimony to his veracity, but. the fish that escapes weighs most, heavily in the scales. There is something significant in the fact that every fish carries its scales with it. Some fish live in salt water, and some in fresh, and there others at their best in breadcrumbs. A salt water fish should be fresh to be enjoyable, and the fresh-water fish requires salt. A lot of people fish for fish, but others fish for compliments and in each case they use bait, and usually there is a catch in it. Fish are among the champion egg-layers in the world. Their record is ova anything else, and it is a reritarkable thing that they need no silver cups or pedigrees to spur them on. Fish make exciting food. Dodging bones is one of the most thrilling adventures of the table, but even if you can stick it the results are always more than you can stomach. The best of the fish stories yet nut. forward is in the Bible. No one has ever beaten Jonah, but that has not been through any lack of trying. Jonah was the first man tq tell the story of the fish that, got away. That should not be brought up against him. Fishermen honour Jonah as a fellow fisherman, they do not elevate him beyond humanity: their deity is Ananias.

A man who has been married seven years is now trving to discover the mirror he broke. Many a leader of men was made because he saw which way the crowd was going and nipped in ahead. THOSE DAUGHTERS. She was only the fortune teller's daughter but she worked the oracle. EDUCATIONAL AIDS. Give me a sentence with the word "palinode” in it. I had a palinode him sixpence. THE WIDOWS. When the dyer’s wife heard of his death she said: "And him just dyeing to live.” Y’ou know, the Southern Cross party shouldn't have starved. They could have, obtained plenty of nuts from the machine, and from the generator plenty of currents. LETTER SUMS. The letters in this long division sum stand for figures, and if they are ranged from nought to nine they will spell a word that refers to something protruding. LATE ) DENTALIN ( VTUEV EPVI UELVA UTTIA ..IDPL LATE LLLH LU I LI ..ELPN EPYI .UTU The answer to last week’s Letter sum is EVERLASTING. * * . * # POINT VENUS JIGGLE. A Very Modern Novel. —What has gone before. Michael Brewster rose early. Chapter I. — a fly. Brewster should have known that in the dark he could not see the fly, winging its way to destruction; but he had tiptoed, so to speak, over the rim of consciousness, and now was armed with weapons which an instant before were beyond his grasp. The fly came and settled on his hand. First to the fly. A common housefly, a very common one, too, to judge by its habits, travelling in the dark because it had suddenly become aware of the luminous figure which was Michael Brewster standing on linoleum, not six feet from the bed he had left so long ago. It seemed centuries, but with a wrench Brewster avoided that lane of thought—it would needs travel so very far before reaching a turning, and there was the fly, waiting like himself in the cold. The fly had two wings, and more legs. Two. thin wings, thinner than gossamer, more delicate than a used gas mantle, bore this little beast through the miles of its life, working at such high speed that they vanished from sight, and left for the human eye the picture of a liody, a coarse ugly body, floating through the air in a musical haze. They could fly silently if they wished, but, perhaps, some flies were so happy they could not resist the temptations of song. Life was a tremendous business, even for a fly. Some biological statisticians with time hanging on their hands set out to find what the family life of the fly was like. They were surprised. The female fly fe a mother who has no time for race suicide. Not yet contaminated by feminism, and all its incongruities (Brewster wished he could go off on that discussion instead of having to stick to flies), the female fly kept her laying record abreast of the fishes, and saw to it that, no adding machine devised by human ingenuity could keep pace with the product of her and her family. Even Dr. Truby King could nor comprehend the motherhood of the fly without feeling that he was giving his life to a very' small business after all. Enemies she had in large numbers. The world was crowded with foes, and among them those conservatives who still insisted that baby flies should l>e named. In close touch with the problem the female Hy long ago has chosen numbers as the easiest and only effective way of identifying her progeny, and in spite of the additional help of the Dewey system (a modern development) she found it difficult to trace the flies of her own body through their second and third generations. In spite of those enemies her children persevered, and the race lived. 'Times were not what they used to be. A false idea of the virtues of cleanliness had resulted in the elimination of much good food stores. In the world of men public life might be dirty, but private living was more hygienic. Thus the food supplies were not so plentiful, and the female fly paused to wonder if this would effect her great-great-great-grandchildren harmfully. The passing of the horse was of importance in any contemplation of food supplies. Once she had seen a spot of petrol on the road, dropped from a motor-car, and had tasted it. For a few seconds she had a sense of high-flying, but after that despondency, and the taste was abominable. Yet, she wondered, would the race change to meet the new conditions? The radicals among them were talking of the future in strange words, and with horror she recalled how she had heard one of her great-great-grandchildren asking another of the same generation how many miles she flew to the gallon. The change from horse power to petrol was world-shaking and the fly reeled at the thought of the tremendous possibilities of (To be Continued.)