A MIDNIGHT VIGNETTE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16749, 2 June 1922, Page 6

A MIDNIGHT VIGNETTE.

TO SPAR, OR NOT TO SPAR.

Midnight hnd struck half an hour before. Long shafts of light and deceptive shadow's fell across the waste of asphalt in the City Square, and played tricks on the pools—it had been raining softly for some hours. They stood eyeing each other in front of the Cathedral, heedless of the drizzle and their lack of coats; and crooked their arms as all good boxers do. They said not a word. One, inclined to corpulency, feinted with superb science and nearly fell over in the attempt to maintain his balance. No. 2 “sprang” heavily back and made mystic passes in the air with his fists, his body turned sideways. They ambled round each other in utter silence, landing prodigious imaginary punches on each other’s unshaven faces, and dodging gravely from imaginary counters. The mighty combat ebbed and flowed, no Helen sitting on the walls while the fate of Troy trembled. And still not a sound was heard other than the pattering of gentle rain from heaven. No 2 waxed hostile, and dabbed his rotund opponent on his florid nose. To make matters worse the pavement hurled itself in a cowardly fashion at his incipient rotundity (vide “Theory of Relativity,” Einstein.) Ah me, a foul blow ! The striker gazed with quizzical dismay at the ruin he hnd caused. He stooped and gurgled a series of cuddlesome, whisky-marred coos into his companion’s ear. They floundered and stood upright, gazing sorrowfully a.t each other, then donned coats, and, arm in arm, with rickety, indefinite strut, set out up the dripping street, the conflict over. Further down the street their auras regained complete harmony, and, as O. Henry would say, they joined in singing the lovely symphony in G minor from Beethoven’s ‘ Song Without Music,” finishing up with that grand song with arpeggios on the side. .

Away up, the moon sailed between her wisps of gossamer clouds, and the man in the moon was probably saying:

1 Truly, these curious beings bay truggjing radiancy of better thin-