ROUND THE BREAKFAST TABLE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XXI, 23 November 1895, Page 642

ROUND THE BREAKFAST TABLE.

[with apologies to the autocrat of the breakfast table.] WHEN the ball of conversation is to be set arolling the Professor generally takes the kickoff. He did so by questioning the Simple Little Miss on her manner of spending the holiday. ‘ We had a picnic on the 9th,’ she said. ' Oh, it was so lovely I We had just a nice number, you know —no odd ones —Mamma, of course, to play propriety. After lunch we strolled through the bush and got ferns and things, and had such fun. We did have a delicious time, didn’t we dear ?’ ‘ Mamma, of course, assents. She doesn’t go into the bush at picnics. She washes up the tea-cups and packs the hampers, then settles down underneath a tree, and persuades herself she is cool and comfortable instead of hot and perspiring. She cannot read, because the sunlight slanting across the pages makes her eyes and her head ache badly. She dare not sleep, for she is on duty. Grasshoppers, straw-walkers, and earwigs make her day hideous with their crawling attentions ; a family of mosquitoes, brought up in the way that mosquitoes should go, court her with intentions strictly carnivorous Yet she “ has such a delicious time,” and it is so eminently proper and sensible that she should broil for three or four hours in a mid-summer heat, in order to chaperone her daughter, who is “getting ferns and things ” in the bush half a mile away ! When the ferns, and more particularly the “ things ” are got (in the shape of colds, that sitting upon the damp grass might account for, did one not .know the magical influence possessed by the absent chaperone—not to mention faces flushed beyond the limits of sunburn and bush-scrambling exertions) they all go back to town, and Mrs Grundy extols picnic chaperonage, and smiles approvingly at ‘ ‘ mamma, ’ ’ for is she not composed of mammas who do exactly the same ?’ Thus the Professor when the Simple Little Miss had marched off her much-enduring parent to attend some new social festivity. ‘ I agree with you as to the farce modern chaperonage too often represents,’ said the Practical Man. ‘The older type held by no means a nominal position. She conducted her fair charges into a ball-room ; beamed amiably upon their partners, taking care to adjust her smile to the extent of their incomes; was “ at home on Thursday ” to the biggest figure (not athletic, dear friend, but arithmetic !) ; required Angelina’s presence at the conclusion of each dance, and personally supervised her programme. The present-day chaperone enjoys a hearty supper, as indeed her wearisome occupation entitles her to uo; after that, she goes to sleep, or, at any rate, supports the wall and her sisters in misfortune through a stage bordering on somnambulism. A whole chapter of incidents—elopement, registry office, Sydney steamers, and all—might safely be arranged under her sleepy eyes. Angelina has merely to produce her chaperone as a sort of habeas corpus testimony to her good character, and Vanity Fair in the jury box will wink at any sin on the calendar. As to calculating the amount in pounds shillings and pence of her respective partners, every properly-trained young woman knows how to do that nowadays, else where would be the object of teaching them higher mathematics ! At the same time the chaperone is not wholly a superfluity, nor will her mission cease and her lot, thereafter, Income a happy one until girls themselves realise their

only right to dispense with her—the right of self-re-spect, self-sufficiency ; the power to regulate their own actions with all due propriety and seemliuess. To whom much is given, of her much shall be required. An American girl with her latch-key, says Max O’Rell, is the most discreet and trustworthy young person in the two hemispheres. The colonial girl has not got the length of a latch-key; yet, despite her frivolity and worldly wisdom (for which her age and generation, rather than herself, are responsible) there is being slowly but surely fostered in the fair young New Zealander, by reason of the progressive Liberalism of her country, with its recognition of h->r political rights and its opportunities for her advancement in every sphere of life, that spirit of “self-rever-ence, self-knowledge, self-control,” which alone can lead her—or the women of any nation—to sovereign power, and fairly entitle her to her latch key—social, civil, religious and political.’ ‘ Talking of picnics,’ said the Frivolous Youth, ‘ inclined me to suspect myself of somewhat vague ideas on the subject (no one else suspected him of entertaining any ideas on any subject). As far as I can recollect, after the sooty-looking contrivance carried in brown paper by somebody’s youngest brother, and technically known as a “ billy ” has been got to boil, everybody sits round in a ring and receives a cupful of its contents, and deposits them contentedly on the grass behind, when everybody else is looking the other way. Then is the correct thing, I believe, for some heroic soul to plunge into rivers of melted butter, and attack —nay even eat a sandwich. When all are looking, struck speechless at his temerity, he softly—as one would handle an ancient and sacred mummy—introduces the joke about the desert of Sahara and the sand which is there, and a blessed feeling of repose, like to the hand-grasp of an old familiar friend, steals over the Company. The calm and soothing restfulness which we experience in the presence of old age, instantly possesses them. Gazing wonderingly on that hoary-headed embodiment of wit, fancy bekons them back through the ages to the morn when multitudinous little Shems and Hams and Japhets of a third generation played leap-frog about the Ark, and Grandnapa Noah came and gave them sixpence each all round because the Mount Ararat Bulletinha.6. made a good joke about him. Imagination recalled, and the sandwichesepisode over, it is usual and original for each young man to hand a certain button-shaped style of confectionery to the young lady next him and ask her if she will have a “kiss.” She says she should just think she wouldn’t, and an argument follows, which, for some inexplicable reason, requires the privacy of a bush-ramble. This is generally looked upon as the most hilarious part of the day’s excitement, and for my own part, in spite of mosquito bites and other unpleasant after-effects, I believe it. Let Professorial wisdom R.I.P. ! There is

something delightfully nice and original about balancing yourself on a tree stump with Angelina, in the heart of the bush, and only blue-bottles and dragon flies and maoribugs around to share in your enjoyment of her silvery rippling voice, as she wonders if mamma knows where she is, and whether she oughtn’t to go back. But if you are not in love, and therefore sane, and know discretion to be the better part of valour, you will not linger too long on the tree stump with Angelina, lest mamma should circumvent you, and make it impossible to “go back”’ —which last remark shows the Frivolous Youth to be at least wise in his day and generation.