BY THE WAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19134, 29 July 1930, Page 9

BY THE WAY.

SOME COLLECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS. (By One of the Boys.) Professor Wall, lecturing to the W.E.A., said that when lights were lit in some of the houses in Ce3don the walls were seen to be absolutely swarming with lizards. It’s a fact. I saw the same in France once. Two of us had pinched a jar of rum the day before. j.j ♦.s 5.5 A relation of ours, who has recently arrived from Home, went down on Saturday* to the races at Timaru, where he had his first introduction to the “ tote.” When I asked him what he thought of it, he said he had been disappointed, and from careful questioning I found that he had made his bet and had expected his money to be automatically placed on the winner. Gosh . . . I noticed the following in the ladies’ column: —Ladies who are gifted with beautiful hands should give them every care and consideration, and never be shy of displaying them or having them admired. Well, I’ll say the ladies with lovely hands do this all right, but the trouble is they will over-call them. A mechanic who was unpacking new cars told me that they often find pieces of chewing gum stuck all over them by the assembling people in Yankee .land. The chewing gum habit seems to be quite universal over there, and, seeing that the main ingredient comes from British Honduras, I see little reason lor becoming alarmed about a war with the United States, ! see that the English team scored mapt of their runs on the off-side. Now, , what was the referee doing to allow that? A somewhat henpecked husband was compelled to spend a large proportion of his evenings ipdoors listening to the wireless. One evening, when all his tentative efforts at escape had been frustrated, the voice of the Sydney announcer came through the loudspeaker: “We are now going over to the Wentworth Hotel.’* “ And I wish I was cornin’ with, y'ou, mate,” said the husband feelingly-. a An Aberdonian took a corkscrew to' a blacksmith to be repaired. TJie smith shook his head and said he could not promise to make a good job of “But if yc care to leave it wi’ me. I’ll see. what I can do wi’ it.” The customer hesitated. " All right,” he said doubtfully: “but it’s no’ mine, ye ken, it belongs to the kirk choir.”

Several people have been talking about the possibility of finding the winner of a race in a dream. The best story in this connection is told of a keen racegoer who, on the eve of an :mportant_race, dreamed persistently of a hat. Next day*, on reaching the course late, he ran his eve swiftly down the card, and, seeing “ Hatteras,” ceased his study to put a fiver on just before the bell rang. In a few moments he was chagrined to hear the shout, “Sombrero wins!”