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Star (Christchurch), Issue 5664, 8 September 1896, Page 1

placed by an execrably illuminated address, I which set forth how well and truly Miss Coriander Smith had performed her duties as honorary organist at St Prestonpans Sunday school. This illuminated address nuisance is peculiar to the furnished house. Sometimes the father of the house or his sou or. both are recipients of the plague, and are proud thereof. The younger man is a cricketer, and his club testifies to his valour as "A champion doughty ' On the tented cricket-field." Or he is a footballer, in which, case the . syntax of the address is always shaky. The elder man's testimonial is usually from some.loyal Lodge , or other, or. his fellowdirectors have presented it upon his retiring from the directorate of "The Association for the Development of the Australian Quill-pen Industry." And it has been accompanied by a spirit-stand, or a silver tea and coffee service, or some such trifle which does not stay to keep the address in countenance. We find as many casualties among the china as a second-class earthquake would occasion. The local grocer told the Misfit that the Coriander Smiths were very good customers for cement. The doormats were always evolving long loose loops that caught the unwary and tripped him,, unless he walked like Agag with a delicate step. And the bellows— the furnished-house bellows is always the same, a very asthmatic item. This one had a hole in its thorax, through the C. Smith's Misfit putting it down on a lighted stove jet. Yet the china, the mats, the bellows and dumb clocks were inventoried to us as if they were in the condition in which theyleftf their maker's workshops. " Art basket of dyed grasses " sounds pretty, doesn't it ? The basket was made of green rushes, tied with crotchet cotton — evidently the work of a child. The grasses were what one might pick from any paddock in seed time. They were moth-eaten and mousey, and the Misfit burnt the lot before I thought of looking to see if the thing were listed to us. 'Three weeks before our six months were up at " Lorally " Mrs Coriander Smith asked Mr 3 Jobson if she would let the painters come to " touch up the fences." Permission was given. They came before we were lip — two of them — with a handcart full of paints and things, and began by unscrewing the knocker off the front door. They addressed each other as " Boss " and "Skinny " respectively, and started to paint round the fanlight. At ten o'clock " Boss " went away "to see a chap about another job," and did not come back. ".Skinny/'' who was on a- step, ladder, bobbed himself .double to peer through the rungs every time the front door opened. When the opener was other, than the Misfit he sighed audibly. Later on he sang or conversed like this with callers who leant over the fence. "Skinny" (singing)— " I loved her, and sho might 'av,e been — — " Caller on Pence : " Wat are ye doin', Bill?" " Skinny :" " Pyntin'." (Goes on singing)— " The 'appiesfc in the land, But she loved another feller — " Caller on Fence: "Wot crowd live 'ere now, Bill?" "Skinny." "Push named Jobsing." Sings — • • • " That pljred the clar-i-onet In the middle of the Germing band." At five " Skinny " rushed his tools and_ uncovered paint-pots round to our wood-' shed and ran off. That night my Manx cat licked a tasty variety of paint and. died in great pain. In the morning Mrs Jobson was very sick from the smell of paint. By noon we had removed. Our second experience of a furnished house was in a sandy suburb not far from the sea. We took it for the three hot months. Every week whilst we were there ; we got a bill for ten and •iixpence from the Coriander Smiths for " loss of art-basket ' and damage to china and ornaments." I felt lonely when it ceased to arrive. The fare from our new home to Melbourne was one and fourpence, so when I wanted to see the people I most wished to see I had to send them their fare in stamps. The seaside house belonged to a retired contractor, who was a childless widower and added to his other disabilities that of being a lay reader or elder in some church. He insisted on reading over the inventory to us, and did it as if it were a scriptural lesson. ; When-he came to such items as "carpet," " linoleum,". " matting," in the different rooms he gave a little jump and whispered hoarsely " We're standing on it." ' He; was the most scrupulous iurnished-house man we had met, for he omitted from the inventory everything that was damaged or incomplete. His exactness went so far as to omit a Brahma fowl which had been stripped of her feathers by dogs. She was positively naked with the exception of a tail-feather and a wing-quill. And she was pecked cruelly by the other fowls. As her owner phrased it, "her market value was discounted." He had no humour, for when he saw the fowl a few days later as I had dressed her in a combination garment of grey merino, which slipped up over her legs and tied down her back with tapes, he merely remarked, "Aye, a hen in bloomers !" , Portraits of the owner's dead wife and children adorned the diningroom, and on to the frame of each was affixed a bow of crepe. We managed to conceal them with an arrangement of fans and draping. The agent for this hoxise told us it • contained a library of choice works. This was a strong inducement to us. Our first visit was a very hurried one, and I had only time to read the titles of a dozen or so of the books — "Cruden's Concordance," . " Pilgrim's Progress," " Papacy and Politics," " Popery Denounced," "Hell Open to Christians," "Prophecies of Jeremiah," "The Massacre of St Bartholomew." " Austerity the Keystone of Living," " Eomish Claims Eef uted." But I was not disappointed. I merely thought I had struck the holy shelf. There were at least five hundred other volumes. Alas ! in the hot days that followed we had leisure for regret. The books were all of the same calibre. It was a "religious" library.,: Each book was as fiery and bigoted as the other, and everyone of them smelt of podophyllin pills. I never touched one without thinking of my liver. . • : The name of ; this home was "Cypressdale." The piano was locked, and the key not in sight. When Mrs Jobson yearned to play "The Maiden's Prayer " and "La Pluie deß Perles," I wrote for the key. It came with the anxious hope that I had " a light touch." One advantage of frequent removals is that you have no time for stagnating and

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