ALL THE LUCK.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15894, 19 January 1924, Page 13 (Supplement)

ALL THE LUCK.

(By "Simple Simon."; "Some people," I said to Christine, ! "have all the luck." I She looked back at the house we had just left and sighed. Altogether a perfect house; altogether a lucky couple that dwelt within it. Built probably, our host had said with justillable pride of possession, in the early years of the fifteenth century. I'm not sure now whether he said fifteenth or eighteenth, but it doesn't matter. Anyway it was older than Queen Anne. It's strange how Queen's Anne's name always crops up in connection with old houses. You can generally And a trace of her somewhere, in the fireplaces, or the new w:ing, or the ceilings. As for the furniture, the number of chairs made in this lady's reign staggers belief. I have two chairs myself that are unmistakeable. You have only to pass a critical hand down their hind ! legs (Whoa Emma!) to murmur I "Queen Anne" at once. The more I look at one the stronger does the fooling 'grow on me that Queen Anne ' sat on it herself. You can see the mark now. It was her favourite chair. That must have been about 1702—roughly. But I was saying, "Some people have all the luck." If you are one of the lucky ones, I ask you, and comI mon decency demands a straightforward answer, "How is it done?" If i you are one of the other nine hundred ' and ninety-nine (my own number is Kismet 998, extension one) let our mutual sympathies unite and our tears '■ flow together. Only, for goodness' sake, don't tell mo your troubles. Compared to mine they simply don't i exist, just as mine compared with j yours arc a mere bagatelle. I can't I remember off-hand what a bagatelle I is, except an inferior form of billi-

ards; but that's what they are. Very well, then.

But why is it some people have it all? Luck, luck, luck. In big things, in medium things, in small things, in absurd things of ho size at all. They don't seek it; it just comes.' Good cards at bridge for instance. Why? How? When I play bridge I never hold a card. That is not true, of course, because I hold hundreds. Bridge with me is simply the art of discarding. I reckon I've held more twos and three in an evening than anyone else in the course of a year. The sight of them at one time was amusing. People who played against me got quite interested. It made them laugh and talk and ask'questions. How did I do it? Did I ever win? Now it palls. The only card games I can play are the ones where you remove all the twos and threes before you start playing. (There is something extraordinarily satisfying, I think, about the king of hearts. I like the look and feel of him almost belter than the ace. I shall write an article round him one day and call it "Which is Your Favourite Card?" Odd how stupid things like cards react on you. Personally I And the nine of spades positively repellent.) But again I wander. It's a terrible tiling to be in a wandering mood when you're writing an article of so many words. By the time you have iinished it's so long that you have to cut half of it out, and rewrite the rest. An essayist I know tells mo he suffers from the same complaint. He starts off full of hope on the pros and cons of platonic love and finds himself stuck half-way with a desserlation on the art of frying pan-cakes. To write about tears one needs the pen of the ready writer and the concise comparlmcnled brain that devises Army forms. Some people have all the luck. Ah, yes, all the luck. I began with that house—a gem, a treasure, a home in a thousand. When I wanted a country house I had to be content with an Edwardian villa, rather rococo, with all the dash of the Swiss collage in it. The world is full of beautiful houses but who gets them? You pass them by the score in any country lane. The right size, Hie righL shape,, the right everything. Character, charm, age, mellowness (if a house isn't mellow don't take it) are written all over it. Through the gate of the walled garden you can see a glimpse of an immaculate lawn, with a yew hedge and a herbaceous border heavily splashed with colour. The roofs arc a perfect red, the roof lias a kingly, protective air. Who lives in it; how did they And it; do they want to leave il? The answers lo these riddles are, "Goodness knows" (twice) ami "No—or al least, not lo you." You, being a nine hundred and nincly-niner, will he rewarded by many months of search by a neoLieorgian atrocity with a dozen illassorted gables and stained glass in the front door. The lucky someone

who finds perfection will motor by one day in the Rolls-Royce he won in a raffle, with its four new tyres which never puncture, and its perfect chaffcur who refuses to take more than a pound a week in wages and does the garden when he isn't waiting at dinner; and then the owner of the house will stop him as lie passes and asks him if ha wants to buy a house for a thousand, pounds, or near offer. Or perhaps the lucky one will pause to ask 'the way, and the two of them will get into conversation and fix things 'up in no time. "One of those chance -meetings, you know. . .

Roughly speaking that's how it's done. So easy. It's the same with servants ("She came up to ihe wrong house, my clear, and I nabbed her there and then —a treasure! And her suffles!" or horses ("I don't know why I did it, but I heard a man say. . . . and I see it won at 100 to 8"). Some people carry a step further and buy old masters for £lO which arc sold at Christie's for £IO,OOO. Others get that "everything he-touch cd-turned-into-gold feeling" that you read about in novels. 1 want to meet one of these people badly. I should like them to toiiich something of mine. . .

Am I grumbling? (No.) I hope not (No). And even if lam (You're not) ever so mildly (Nonsense'.). Why shouldn't I (Ah!) I'm unlucky (Very) aren't I? (Yes). Most of us are, aren't we? (Yes). W« don't often get what we want (no,) when we want it (no) done? (Ye —no.) Well, of course not. Don"i arguo. It's an unfair world, a grosslly unfair world. The supply of luck is badly arranged. There isn't enough to go round and what there is is a monopoly. Like all monopolies, it's in the wrong hands. What I mean to say, it isn't in yours and mine. Otherwise when we touch things they'd turn into gold or 100 to 8

! winners, or cooks who win the open championship for souffles.

By the way, Christine says that the unluckiest man in tho whole wide world is the man who hasn't got a grievance. I wonder what the dickens she means? SLOWER DANCING. The and one-step were speeded up so much last season by many bat.ds that there is a distinct tendency now to slow the time of the fox-trot down, according to Uve Morning Post The introduction of the "Blues," which is simply a slow fox-trot, is a part of this revolt. Sonic-one argued it out this way. Dancing is becoming increasingly popular among men of middle age, who are no longer anxious to rush, about ball-rooms, as they might have done in their earlier days. Hence t'he demand for slower time. There maybe somi truth in the suggestion. Longer and smoother steps arc the order of the day, which is a mere in the same direction. For instance, the eld pas do de'jx cr chaser, as it was erroneously called, is dead as a doornail. It was never graceful, and was really too quick a step for comfort, except possibly among the most agile and athletic. The desire for slower and more languid movements may account also for the revived popularny of the waltz. At one or two piae«« visited recently, where some of me best ballroom dancing in London can be seen, the fox-trot, of course, \v_s the most popular dance, but the waltz came a close second. Dancers may not adhere rigidly to-day to the oldstyle steps, but the farn.liar slow movements are there, and Ihe modern waltis, when danced well, is must graceful and pleasing to watch, in fact, quite as attractive as its original. As for the efforts to resuscitate the tango, Major Cecil Taylor, president ot the Imperial Society of Dance Teachers,

said that the ballroom tatis-o was not really a tango at all. When he winced it 10 or 15 years ago at the Coliseum and elsewhere lhcr« were !S distinct movements in it, find even Ihese did not represent i quarter of Ihe original number, as the dance was performed iu South America. Mr Taylor »a ! d the ballroom' variob whs composed of only four movements, quite easy to learn, and all of them progressive, by which is Tioant that no extraordinary amount cf pace is needed for manoeuvring. Yet at present there seems lii Lie sign of Ihfc tango in the ballroms. Perhaps nctter luck will attend a new dunce which has just been launched. Tlu: Imperial Society of Dance Teachers recently offered a prize of £SO for a new dance, us'ng Ihe fox-trot as a basis. A dance in five movc/ncnU. submitted by M. .Mamiilc do lUiynals, and entitled "The imperial Blues," has been accepted. There is, first, a "forward walk glide." then two sideward movements, followed by a circle and a final sideward walk. lis features arc itc entire freedom from vulgarity or exaggeration, its simplicity of stop, and its progrcssivencss.