A DOMESTIC DISCISSION

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15788, 9 April 1919, Page 5

A DOMESTIC DISCISSION

“Well, old gal,” said Mr Tompkins to his wife last evening, “ how you goin’ to vote?” “Oh, for the uplift of humanity, of course,” replied Mrs Tompkins. “I wept scalding tears when 1 read of the awful things that would happen if the poor man was robbed of his beer, and 1 declare to goodness that 1 haven’t slept a wink since I, saw the plague of disasters that Archbishop Redwood prophesied if Prohibition is carried. It’s beer every time for me.” “You’re kiddin’ now,” remonstrated Mr Tompkins, who was familiar with Mrs Tompkins’ gift of irony and considered her declaration indicated a too sudden conversion to be genuine. “Not at all,” she asserted. “I’ve been in an agony of mind about what the effects of Prohibition arc going in be on my old William as per Archbishop Redwood. Here it is. If ho is robbed of his beer will ho plunge into lawlessness, hypocrisy, evasion and deception. Will he plunge, into a course of folly, bring turmoil into politics, bring perjury and evasion into the courts and deception into the people? Will he be an inherent and rampant _ tyrant ? Heaven help mo, William, if that s what you’re coming to if you can no longer bury your somewhat highlycoloured nose in a glass.” „ “Oh, lot up on that, said Mr Tompkins. “You know all right that ds the public he talks about” “Well, your’re rny rnbL’c,” said his wife. “You’re a sample, and if Prohibition is carried, I am !<■ see my quiet, slow-moving kind-hearted Bill start out as a fiend incarnate on Friday, yelling for a long si cover the while he destroys creation ?

Then said Mr Tompkins “t stands for liberty, I docs, and the lights of man. I likes ray glass of hewer and I ain’t goiu’ to be robbed of it by no wowser.” “And I'd tike to know, Mr Tompkins what you’re standing ON. I feet of those old sex of yours have been darned till there is’nt a bit of the original hot. You’ve liquidated the feet. Tbcv’ve gone down your neck and there's a hole in ytur underclothes for every glass you've drunk, and there’s no money to buy row either for you, c.Tnny or Tom. The children complain that Wowsers’ children are better dressed than they are. And, by God, Bill Tompkin’s.” she continued growing irate, I want to konw where womens rights come in, and when you arc] going to buy me a cff-lumo as good as the Wowser s wifas next door.

“bow, old gal, don’t get in a. scot,” urged Mr Tompkins, indicating by a certain amount of confusion that she was touching the spot. “Excuse me, William, for my momentary lapse from good breeding,” she said, returning to her suavely ironical manner. “But this has to be a heart to heart talk. You say ‘Your glass of her,’ but how many times do you get it filled. I declare to you, William, that yon are losing the fresh smell of humanity and seem to be acquiring an odour that is neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring. Sometimes when you are near at hand, and I don’t know it, I catch a whiff, and I say; ‘Behold a brewer’s cart, a brewery with an unclean pipe approach, and investigations along the line of that smell leads me to you. No Wowser conducts a reek like that. Your aur a Bill Tompkins is a scandal.”

“That ’e all dam rot,” said Mr Tompkins, who did not at all relish this kind of personal criticism. “Very well, Air Tompkins. Perhaps I may be mistaken, and it is attar of roses with which you endow the atmosphere. But you are one of the sane men, the moderate men, and one who stands up for liberty on a holey stocking, and will smell just as you like.” “Oh, I aint agoin’ to stand any more of that rot,” Mr Tompkins shouted, and rushed for the door.

Airs Tompkins noticed that he went for his constitutional the way the wowsers go, and not towards the pub. He seemed now and then, too, to be surreptitiously trying to smell his aura. Whereat she smiled. (Published by arrangement.)