THE BREAK IN THE FILM

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2905, 18 October 1916, Page 6

THE BREAK IN THE FILM

A STREET CORNER IDYLL

I was standing opposite the Bank of New Zealand corner tho other afternoon, waiting for a lady.. The lady was late— about twenty miuutes late —and in the interval of waiting I smoked cigarettcs and regarded tlie film of life, the flowing tide of humanity that eddied and swirled about that busy corner. Have you ever wondered, idly, as people passed you in the street, who and what they, were, what they were saying to each other, and so on? "I don't know any of you,"- I said to myself, "and none of you know me. If I died tomorrow none of you would know, 'and none of you would care. Ana if any of you died to-morrow ■ I wouldn't know, aad I wouldn't care—as if wo were a lot of flies crawling about a big round ball, with tho Heel of Destiny to pulp us when our hour is up." Makes you think, doesn't it? Out in the middle of the street was a large, benevolent-looking policaman, and every chauffeur, cabman, expressman and other privileged wayfarer of the broad highway looked at him—the Law unto them all. They went this way, and that way, or stopped, as his hand willed them. I began to understand the outlook of the juvenile mind when it regards policeman, helmeted firemen, steamer captains, engine-drivers, and other authoritative persons who figure continually in tho spotlight of youthful imagination as IT, and hopes, when it grows up, to be, also, IT. This particular policeman—l was thinking along juvenile' lines now—could send all these carts and motor-cars and people up an alley-way if he liked, and make them stay there for an hour. Of course, he wouldn't, really, but thero it was—potent might—latent absolutism, or whiitever

"Hi!" The film broke. I came back to earth, and perceived that a man on top of a lorry down in Harbour Street was making frantic signs to the policeman. ,

_ Someono drew the policeman's attention to the fact, and lie went over. The man on the top of the lorry pointed down the street, and my eye, following the gesture, porceived a bundle of clotKes lying on the footpath. The policeman bore down upon the heap. People stopped, and looked. One or two followed the policeman. 'A. small boy, starting a long way behind scratch, beat the policeman by yards. Was it, thought the small hoy, a dead 'un, or a drunk? There is to most of' us- a morbid fascination about either.

JleanwEile the traffic, without its policeman, eddied and. swirled as before, in subconscious deference to the spffit" of the Law.

The policeman reached the heap, bent down, and shook it. It was alive, and palpably drunk. With 6o'me difficulty it was raised upon two unsteady legs. . There was a brief colloquy between Law and - disorder, and then the regenerated heap, stimulated Tiy threats, and swaying doggedly, drifted round the corner, and out of sight. '

'She policeman returned to liis throne, and the stream eddied and swirled again as before. The break in the film had been mended. And so it goes on, every day. By-and-by. all we who lived yesterday will be dead. But at the Bank of New Zealand corner there will be another policeman, another eddying, lurrying crowd, another drunk, -perhaps, and another small boy. -"Wi." .