MUNDANE MUSINGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 83, 29 June 1927, Page 4

MUNDANE MUSINGS

FLAPPER CHAT THE WISDOM'OF WOMAN (Written for THE SUN.) “The path of perfect guesthood,” declared Joan, “is anything but an easy one to tread.” “My poor dear, but why?” I asked in my sympathetic-ist voice. “Jf there’s anything you want to know . . . er . . . the correct fork to use . . . what your table napkins are for . . . or any little thing like that . . well, I’m always about, you know, and from out my store of etiquette books I’m sure I can put you right.” “Lon’t be an ass, darling,” said Joan sweetly. “Of course it’s nothing stupid like that . . . surely you’ve noticed what perfect manners I have?” “Well,” I admitted, “since you’ve known me they certainly have improved, but then of course . . . there’s always room for improvement, you know.” “If you’re going to be rude I shan’t talk to you at all,” snapped Joan. “My darling, I won’t mention anything you’re sensitive about again. Do tell me what the real - trouble is,” I cooed. Joan glared at my inoffensive little remark. However, she burbled on again in a- moment after helping herself to a cigarette and a large chocolate all at once. “I went to Smith’s last night to bridge. She rang up and asked me at the last minute, and though I knew 1 was only being a kind of stop-gap for her, I trotted along. The cat told me that it was only a small party and that there’d be no one at all there really, so I wore that old black georgette thing, and would you believe it, she had the very nicest man there. A gorgeous lad . . . named Ron Marshall; and I did wish I’d worn a decent frock. Anyhow, he didn’t seem to notice it, and we were having the stunningest talk all about plays and books and dances and things like that, when I found everyone was horribly quiet and glaring at us dreadfully as though we had done something awful. Just as though I could help forgetting we were playing bridge or that I was supposed to be dummy. Anyhow, I banged' my cards down and we started talking again, and would you believe it, darling, that old cat asked me if we’d rather not play as we couldn’t take any interest in the game. After that, of course, I just couldn’t talk to him.”

Joan dreamed off into a silence that lasted for minutes.

“Well,” I inquired at last, “what else is it that’s made you feel as badly as you do?”

“My dear, if you’d only seen him! Imagine, if you can do such a thing, a pair, of atmospheric eyes, set in a firm khaki face,. . . blue eyes, they were . . . firm, though kind . . . ever twinkling . . . serious . ... and then, below that a nose! . . . what a nose! . . . firm though kind* ever twinkling, ever serious . . . and then below that again, a mouth . . .” “Ever twinkling, ever serious!” I supplied helpfully. “LOn’t be mad, treasure. I was going to say, a mouth, red-lipped and gay, yet white and stern, passionate yet cold . . . humorous yet sad.” “Oh, is that all . . . and having got that ‘Ethel M. Lell-ish’ speech out of your system, s’pose you come down to earth, honey-bunch, and say that the lad you met was a stout fellow or something in similar English that a poor woman can understand . . . ‘ever serious . . . ever twinkling’ . . . ooh! . . . how could you?” “My dear lump of butter . . . he was much too wonderful . . . d’you think p’raps he’ll ask me to marry him?” “Oh, this is rather sudden, isn’t it, young woman?” “M’mm . . . p’raps it is, and, anyway, folk never marry their first loves nowadays, do they ?” “Lunno whether they do or not, dear; but you couldn’t . . . it’d be polygamy. Think of George and Harold and Monty and Eric and . . .” “I wasn't in love with any of them . . . they were merely experiments,” sniffed Joan in her most scornful manner. “This time there’s really something different about the way I feel.” “Never mind, cherub; it’s probably the grocer’s port you had at that bridge party last night. It is pretty foul, isn’t it? . . . I’ve had some. The poor woman goes to the grocer when she wants it, and thinks she’s getting wine! ” But Joan was thinking of other things. Presently she began again: “How on earth am I going to meet him again? I’m sure he doesn’t know any of the folk I know except the Smiths, and I so rarely go there.” “Why not ask him out yourself? It’s not as though you were one of the ‘dear, sweet girls’ of the midVictorian school, who was afraid of being thought ‘unmaidenly’ if she rang up a man and dropped a subtle hint or three about the gorgeous dancing floor they’ve got at a certain cabaret.” “Could I? I wonder. Somehow he doesn’t look a man like that.” “Rot, my child; they all are . . . why not try it and see?” For some reason I didn’t see Joan for weeks. When I did I promptly inquired how he of the “ever serious, ever twinkling nose” was. Joan looked vacant for a moment, then said in an indifferent voice: “Oh, that Marshall person, d’you mean? The most uninteresting man I’ve ever seen. I met Iwm accidentally one day in town, and he introduced me to the drabbest little woman you ever saw. Positively frumpish, poor thing. Apparently it was his wife or something like that. But darling, have you met lan Jackson? . . . he’s the most priceless lad. I met him last night at Smiths . . . you never ‘Saw anything like the child . . . he’s got the most atmospheric eyes . . .' blue as blue . . . gorgeous crinkly hair . . . shoulders so big you want to snuggle right down into them . . .” And Joan wondered why I laughed . . . H.M. Crochet thick wool over the handle of the chain attached to the watercistern. This will save the disfiguring marks of the swing and bang on the wall.