ROUND ABOUT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 102, 18 December 1939, Page 5

ROUND ABOUT

(By Aitchel)

You remember that a week or twtf ago I gave you a hint on how to be a detective—or rather, how to write detective fiction? I'll admit that neither the hint nor the examples were the best but it is surprising how the game catches on. It's even goC Claude now. I was speaking to Claude the other day and he produced a magazine. "See this?" said Claude, And pointed to a nom-de-plume over some article. "Read the thing" said Claude, "and see if yon can tell me the age and sex of the writer.""

I read it- it didn't take me long, and had to admit that I couldn't possibly guess the answers. "Well," said Claude, "there's a sentence here containing the whole thing in a nutshell. It says 'Mr Smitherson is stilt this side of forty.' Now it's obvious," continued Claude, by now well warmed up r "that the writer of that article is a spinster thirty-nine years of age." r I was more interested than Claude realised so I urged him on; demanded that he should spill the beans.

"Just a question: of deduction,'* said the sleuth. "Must be a woman, because of the emphasis on the age. By the same token I know that she must be pretty near the forty mark; an impulse common among women is to emphasise the fact that they are under forty—that being the dangerous age. She Is a spinster because a married woman would't have the time to write all that stuff. Simple, eh!' r

What I didn't tell Claude was that

it was a male author well under 40 who was responsible for that particular screed. llow do I know? Well, [ wrote the article. # v « * Two or throe things that struck nie at the Poro Poro School concert last week; a dress worn by one of the local lasses (this Avas very striking): a muddy grass sod thrown up by the wheels of a car; and the

fact that it was deemed necessary to apply a liberal coating of black to the faces of the Maori infants acting the ''Ten Little Nigger Boys." * 9 * * Judging by the toast list the City Fathers lifted their elbows to some ett'ect last Monday riight. In the good old days a kindly expression of good wishes and perilaps a hymn or two would have been considered sufficient to round oft" a year's municipal administration but Time marches onwards and upwards. "Have you heard this one" was the break-ing-up cry at the Civic School. * 9 » 9 The prize for the week must go to the wench who said, apropos thefailure of the light at the Poro Poro Hall on Wednesday night shortly after a coin had been inserted in the meter: "You can put either shillings or sixpences in but I think they must have only put a penny in last time."* She meant it. » » f * Looking over the supplement to the BEACON I came across the recipes and I saw: "Take a cup of... :T or "Take one desert 5p00n..." That has always been my objection to cookerj r books. It reads so easy in a v

recipe. I know a chap—or rather I did know him; I cut him dead now— who used to> spend many hours dreaming that he was rich. He trieil all sorts of methods bar working* until he came across a book of recipes. Like me, he couldn't stand the repetition of "Take this and that and so on." In fact it put ideas into his head and he thought,he had struck the recipe for Get-rich-quick. He followed the book to the letter and started to "Take this and that.."

Unfortunately for him. they were other people's goods he took He bears the convict's mark now antl that is why I cut him dead. The last I heard of him was that he had become a journalist. I don't know where he'll end. * • • * And now, before concluding this column, I would ask of parents m the Bay of Plenty that they do not pass off to their children new pairs of pants or shirts or something ii* the guise of presents from Santa Claus. There is nothing more calculated to upset the legend of the old. boy's existence and apart from that it is a low-Klown trick. * « •* To you who have with me and to any who have suffered because --of* tttef I ecete'rtd' niy best wishes for Christmas and the New Year*