BOARDING-HOUSE FLOWERS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 989, 13 April 1917, Page 4

BOARDING-HOUSE FLOWERS.

Our boarding-house is a nobby place; our dining-table is always" (lower-deck-ed. And no shirt of hair, no pea-filled boot ever caused their victims greater agony than these (lowers cause me. I like to look at flowers, but J am ignorant of their botanical structure, 1 am unable to interpret their spiritual message. In our boarding-house 1 am driven into pretending the contrary. The pretence involves a mental strain which will. T fear, end in a mental collapse. The flower talk at our table embarrasses me. I take part in it. My voice is probably the loudest. I feel a hypocrite, bat I sometimes wonder if I am just, one of a crowd of hypocrites. For instance, take old Rodgers, civil servant, retired. He potters in the garden an hour daily and snugly accepts the compliments of Hie ladies on his v,ork. One day Rodgers lapsed into truthfulness with me. "Fact is." lie says, "I don't care a-er-an anathema for (lowers, but the doctor said my waist belt was getting too wide, and if I didn't start digging in this garden some people would soon be digging in another kind of garden on my behalf." Flower-worship takes the place of family-worship in our boarding-house. Even at that 1 believe Miss Watson is the only sincere worshipper. Take Albert Pankin, for example. With him it is a pose, a girlish pose at that. Before 1 had studied the (lower business Pankin got a peg or two above me with Miss Watson. When she enters the dining-room at night she is sure to remark on the flowers, I'ankin, who is making goaf-like attempts to enter info her favour, butts in with, " Yes. Isn't the pelargonium sweet?" My nose is out until they have finished with the flowers. I'ankin keeps on until T can see that Miss Watson is utterly bored, though she is too kind to show it. 1 sometimes try to rescue her. but, when the ta/k goes beyond roses, pansies, and daisies, 1 am lost. I'ankin knows it, and, if Miss Watson turns to answer some sensible remark I may offer, I'ankin sidetracks her with some fool reference to the caladiums, or the poinso.ttias. These weird names are a worry. I never can remember if an artichoke is a (lower or a vegetable. In former days a dozen names covered every flower that grew. Geraniums, tulips, sweet williatn, ; snowdrops, buttercups and daisies. It was all plain sailing, and when you i could spot these your horticultural education was finished. But now —they seem to be the same old (lowers; but flowers, like females, are evidently liable to change their name. T have actually had fo tret a florist's catalogue and learn a siring of names, though not for my life could I tag on these names to their respective (lowers.

Table. (lowers serve one great social purpose. They provide an excellent conversational starting-point. Von know how it works. You are dumped down at table with people whose religion, politics and antecedents are unknown to you. Flowers are safe. The lady will probably lead off.

"Don't the flowers look lovely? T greatly admire the vinovelias. Don't, you ?'' It is ri thousand to one she is swanking. So you chip in with—"My special favourite is tin 1 eschse.holtzia. I simply dote on eschscholtzias.'' If she is like yourself, a humbug', she will sheer off at that. To make sure you ran follow up with—--1 "I saw a lady with a lovely bouquet of woxesslaiiuns at the .Melbourne | Cup." I Your friend will snatch at that opening. "Ah, were you at the cup"? Anything on? I Now von will both be on more fain-

iliar ground. At last, it is safe to say j you will. Talking of bouquets, do you remember i the old-fashioned ones'.' Solid things they were. When you went into the country your friends, as a parting gift, thrust iuto your hand a bouquet consisting of a bit of everything in the garden. Six roses for a centre, then round it a stem ring of everything un- , til your bouquet had the girth of a j prize pumpkin. You accepted it proud-. ly, perjuring yourself the while with j expressions of appreciation. Then you carefully left it under the seat when ! you quitted the train at Flinders Street. There's a fine art in arranging flow-! ers. Miss Bunn, secretary of the "Wo- J man's Rights League, "docs the How-j ers'' at our boandug-house. When Miss Bunn is busy, Miss Watson some- , times does them for her. I can always [ tell the difference. Miss "Bunn ha.-, not j Miss Watson's line instincts. Let me i give you an idea of how to do it. You '• stick three (lowers with giraffe-like! stems into a vase anyhow, preferably - t an angle suggestive of a drunk person , clinging to a post. Here you naturally say, "How untidy." That shows; yon are inartistic Untidiness is ar-I fistic, only there are certain rules (hid-' den, I confess, from me) which dis-j tinguish artistic untidiness from that untidiness which characterises your personal habits and mine. At our boarding-house table, 1 find I must play the hypocrite, or be branded a barbarian. Far better confess murder than indifference to flowers. Your attitude to flowers reveals not only your taste, but is a test of your morals. Some fool has said, "Shun the man who doesn't love flowers and little children." Frankly, I am not particularly fond of either. And neither an 1 you, you know, when they belong to other people. Unless you gush over flowers you are bankrupt in every noble quality. You are a clod, a soulless thing. Vet 1 have studied many (lower lovers, and when you get them away a bit from their (lower twaddle, they don't seem any more richly endowed with soul than you oi' I, who could not tell the difference between a Bascodium ami a Deftircolia.

Of course, you know what soulful things girls are. They are always "nearer the right thing in a garden than anywhere else on earth."' Especially if the boy is to their taste. I have seen dozens of these girls turned into wives, and they wore as keen as ever on gardens. But gardens of a different sort. Their husbands were coaxed and commanded to start a garden, but always a vegetable one. The soul business goes down before tin.' price of greengroceries. T incline to vegetables rather than (lowers myself. Hut at our (able we talk nasturtians and calceolarias, never cabbages and turnips. Flowers are refined, vegetables are vulgar. The things we smell are more dainty than the things we eat. Any reason why.' Didn't Wendell Holnies say that "a cabbage was just a giant rose (dad in a green surtout.'' J Was any article ever less suitable for its purpose than the (lower glass at our boarding house? Fragile, water filled and top-heavy with flowers. How many a male has foo/.led over similar glasses'? Attempt to pass the mustard, your cuff catches the trailing (lower, over tips the glass, and seemingly a limitless sea spreads over the snow-white table cloth. The hostess smiles soothingly towards you with her lips, but you know there is black murder for you in her heart. A few experiences

like that petrilies even bravo men. They fear to perform the ordinary table courtesies. But, with all their treachery, 1 prefer the lowly trailing flowers to the tail, screening ones. Some are so high ami expansive you can scarce tell who- is opposite yon. Miss Watson sits opposite me at our hoarding house. After a tiring day in town it is refreshing to have a steady look at a «ood looking girl. But, when these big, bunchy flowers are in season for decorations, I <jet a crick in my neck trying to catch Miss Watson 's features. T)o you remember a famous sonj; of Gus Elens.' lie lived in a Loudon back street, and his song described the beau tiful view he would have, ami the historic places he would see, ''if it weren't for the'houses in between. - ' Well, that's how 1 feel at our table. T could often have such a lovely view of Miss Watson if it weren't for the decorations in between. I am sure Miss Watson sends many a smile my way, but I don 't get them because of the decorations in between. And because she cannot readily catch ray eye, she passes her smiles on to I'ankin. I'd so like to send that bounder some flowers —if only they could be presented in the shape of a wreath.

1 really am very fond of flowers, provided they are in their proper place. For instance, when Miss Watson is going out for a night she sometimes wears a llower in her hair. Yon never saw anything so bewitching. Indeed, I have dreams of seeing her one day with a special kind of flower in her hair, ami in my honour, too. She would look well wearing a bit of orange blossom. —Percv Tipkin in the Melbourne "Age.'"