BY THE WAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18043, 31 December 1926, Page 1

BY THE WAY.

SOME REFLECTIONS AND COLLECTIONS. (By One of the Boys). My first good intention for the new year is that I shall not break the second good intention except for a glass of old port. Can an} r one tell me why a woman who has complained all the year that she had absolutely nothing to wear needs two trunks, a hat-box and a brown paper parcel to take it with her on holiday ? Now for a word of warning. Tf your wife, just prior to her departure on holiday, profers the gentle request that you should paint the wicker armchair a silver grey, refuse point blank. 1 didn’t and I know. Of all the tidd ling jobs, commend me to painting a wicker chair. Please don’t think that this is being written merely to make a paragraph opt of something hardly worth mentioning. I mean all this. I mean it with an earnest desire to assist mankind that would have brought cheers from Gipsy Smith. Do anything, promise anything, but don't paint a wicker chair. After peering into a crystal I feel emboldened to make the following prophecies for the coming year: Jan. I—Good intentions will go west. Jan. 15 —Four local candidates for the Waimakariri River Trust will be defeated. Jan. 16—About this time there will be an epidemic of sales. Feb. 29—Mr Coates will retiirn to New Zealand and the Reform papers will say that he played a prominent part at the Imperial Conference. March 31—Some of the banks will balance, but. all on the right side. March 31—The financial year will end. April I—Borrowing operations for the new financial year will l>egin. May I—The Rugby Reason will open and the opinion will be expressed that Canterbury possesses players equal to any in the Dominion—except in representative matches. June 27—Parliament will open to amend the legislation passed last year, “When Otago went in they required 621 to win.”—News item. But it was more than 6—2—l that they wouldn’t get them. I am glad that Mr Selig thinks our racecourses the best in the world. I have invested a lot of money in those courses from time to time, and 1 like to think that they’re not even thinking of writing down the capital. Again I ask: Who won the war? There's a hotel in vi'ologne displaying the sign: “This hotel is again free.” And here we are, the victors so-called, and have we any free hotels? If so, where ? Well, did you have a good time on your vacation?” "I had two weeks off. I spent a day and a half going to a place where I had nothing to do, nine days in doing nothing, two days with a headache from doing nothing, and a day and a half getting back to where I could do something.” “You have heard the evidence of the last witness,” said counsel, severely. “Am I to infer that you cast doubt on her veracity?” “Not at all,” replied the polite young mna. “I merely wish to make it clear what a liar I am if she is speaking the truth.” Stockings are no longer regarded as an immodest present for a man to give a girl. Only the bare-knee faddist will turn them down. The bad boy wrote on the blackboard: “Our teacher is a donkey." The other boys anticipated ructions when the schoolmaster arrived; but there were none. lie merely wrote the word “driver” after “donkey” and school opened as usual. Mrs G.: “I thought you and Grace weren't speaking.” Mrs C.: “Oh, yes, we are now. I wanted to find out what Elsie told her about me.” “Your cousin refused to recognise me in the grocer’s last night. Thinks I am not his equal, I suppose.” “Ridiculous! Of course you are. Why, he is nothing but a conceited idiot.” A strange thing happened in a London street recently. A man found in the gutter what he took to be a string of worthless beads. On showing them to a jeweller he learnt that he was right 1 Singer (coquettishly) : “What kind of songs do your prefer, Mr Sinick?” Mr Sinick ((gruffly): “The very old ones, madam." Singer: “Oh, but why the old ones?” Mr Sinick (triumphantly) : “Because no one ever sings them, madam!” Some visitors who had put up at a hotel in Auckland found their tennis interfered with by rain. Still, rain or shine, the old-fashioned barometer hung in the vestibule readr “Set fair.” One of the sportsmen called the licensee's attention to the fact. “Don't you think,” he asked, “that there's something the matter with your glass?” “No, no,” replied he, "she’s a good and a powerful glass. But,” he added, reflectively, “she's not moved by trifles.”