VOICES OF THE QUAY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3082, 12 May 1917, Page 10

VOICES OF THE QUAY

ON LIFE'S UTILE OCCASIONS (By "Wi.") The other day I stood at the bottom of tho "Dominion" Avenue listening to tho voices of tho Quay. It was enter- ■ taining. _ Try it some fine day. Instead of carrying your business—and domesi tic—worries about with you when you go out into the street, take a holiday, and. enjoy the passing show. You remember what Shakespeare said about tho world being a stage, and you and • I and- all of us the mummers who strut their little hour upon it. Well, every street corner's a stage, and the i bystander sees a pot pourri of drama, . comedy, and other items of entertainment in the gestures and fleeting sentences he glimpses and hears from the . passing show. Some people, you know, go out.on I the highway every day of their lives • and sco nothing, hear nothing. The throng around is simply a blur of human beings who obtrude themselves upon their consciousness only when their hurrying steps are arrested by a perambulator or a crowd in front of a shop window. Now, when I go abroad on the, Quay I see men. women, youths, maids, youngsters, 'policemen, , spielers, lost dog's, Joe Carter, tie pork- .' butcher's fat boy on. tho motor-bike, . all busy in their own particular way. I I hear voices, ecraps of conversation [ .parting tho veil of a lifo that is nothing to mo but a complete little . self-centred cosmos of their own. I Imagine yourself shut up in the wireI less room of a liner in mid-ocean, lis- \ tening to the mysterious calls from the I outer beyond, telling of people and ■ things you have never seen, of great > and infinitesimal occasions, of wars and rumours of wars, of life and death in high places, and grim tragedies of : the underworld. It's just the same as . tho street corner—isn't it? Oh, but ' you say, it isn't so romantic. Isn't it? • I don't know so much about that. Let ! us lift the curtain of the little World - Theatre at the Street Corner. ! Scene: The Quay, at "Dominion" Avenue. Time, high noon, Dramatis personnae: (a) The passing, unseeing ; throng; (b) myself. ' Approached two men.- One, the acme ' of mean, grasping avarice, was a man , who would take a worm from a blind hen if the policeman wasn't looking; the other, an enterprising negotiator i of transactions in. real estate, talking with his hands. "But," said one as they came up, "do you think he's all right—will he bite?" "Bite ["exclaimed the other. "What do you think—l've got his money!" "Ah!" said the first, "that's good enough for me." ! Then they passed out of earshot. I ; wondered whether this "he" who had "bitten and parted with his good money ' was a boob or a wise man. There is ; no close season for boobs. Approached two Indies. One bore <• the patient- aspect of the Woman of Shattered Illusions; the other was the ■ inevitable complement—the Sympa- ■' thetic Friend and Purveyor of Gall for Outraged Feelings. "... And that's the sort of manHE i 6," said the Woman of Shattered Illusions, as they passed. . "My word 1" said tho other. "I wouldn't stand that from the best man that ever ..." I lost the rest of it. Kcw, what . was it all about? We don't know.

Wo can imagine all sorts of things. Was "he" a hideous monster of domestic tyranny who threw things about the kitchen? Or was "ho" a gentle,' longsuffering being who at last had kicked over the traces, and insisted "on the ! milliner getting less of his hard-earned money ia war time? But I think the dear, good, kind Sympathetic. Friend ought to bo slapped, don't you? Approached two men. If they were not spielers, then their immediate ancestors were. In a- previous incarnation they might have been a pair of hungry hawks, circling above a defenceless farmyard. ". . . But is'tho old man a moral to peg?" said Hawk .Number One, with doubt in his eye and suspicion in his voice. , "Nothing surer," said Hawk Nurn- • ber Two, as tho pair passed on. "You see," ho said—l strained my ears— "he's got one foot . . .", I lost tho rest. Why was it ueces--sary that Hawk Number One should ho convinced beyond all doubt that "the old man," presumably the male progenitor—or near relative—of Hawk Number Two, would of a certainty "peg," otherwise dissolvo? Was it affectionate solicitude? I don't think so. Vultures are incapable of solicitude. Was there some deep, dark, "6kin gamo" ou ? Approached two men. A vision of green paddocks, blackened logs, stumps, a creek, lowing kine, an. asthmatic nielodean, and other appurtenances of waybacks, floated before my eyes. • ". . . and he reckons to pull my fence down!" said the first. "But he can't do that," said the second. "That 'ud be illegitimate" (1) The crowd filled just then and they slackened their pace. "It 'ud be what?" said the first. "Illegitimate. Ye could take him to Court. It ain't statuary." (!) "It ain't what?" "It ain't statuary. He . . ." 'They passed on and the English language, scandalised, called for smelling salts. Approached two ladies—youngish' ladies—each smiling. Tragedy gave way to comedy. Ono was tail, the other was short, and tho long and the short of it was this: "Of course," said the short one, with' a giggle, "that was before he got engaged?' "I should hope sol" said the long one., also with a giggle. Aha! You see how they talk about us when they got together,! They passed on. I heard no more. I.didn't want to hear any more. Approached a. young lieutenant and a girl, with an air of pleasant intimacy and ownership that brought a whiff of orango blossoms. "And I got a cheque from Uncle Georgo, too," said she. "Go on—did you, really?" said he. Of course, thoy were not looking at tho passing throng. . You didn't expect them to, did you? But in all tho voices that'reached my car as tlioy passed to and fro on their little occasions, I didn't hear one word about the war!