KIRITEHERE-MOEATOA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 507, 9 October 1912, Page 6

KIRITEHERE-MOEATOA.

Own Correspondent. The love for reading Shakespeare has come even unto the bacblocks. A short time ago a few of us discussed playing Julius Caesar in the hall. We conferred together awhile, and then one of us went down and borrowed a volume of the schoolmaster, who, so someone said, new all the characters from A to Z. The delegate returned after an hour, chanting Friends, Roman, countrymen, . lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

"They're fine sounding lines," he remarked. "Let's see what Plutarch says about the lives of Caesar an his noble Roman pals. Dave, you can be Julius, and Bill and me and the others will be the villians. We're supposed to have a down on Caesar over something. I suppose Jim don't mind being Pompey's statue. You can stuff some tow, there's plenty down at the old mill, inside your shirt, James, and sprinkle flour on your hair and face. When Dave sings out "Oh,you brute!" to me—that's Brutus —and dies, you mustn't move or laugh, but just keep cool. It's just a little rehearsal. We rehearsed it togther. It was, however, marred by an unseemly attempt at humour on the part of Casca who, in trying to make up the exact number of stabs mentioned in the play, brought Caesar to life again by means of a pin basely concealed in the end of his wooden sword, and secreted for £hat purpose, no doubt. Caesar chased Casca outside and up the river. It was an unseemly sight. Their togas, very short a la Roman, would have commanded attention anywhere. Then we had trouble with the Btatue. Pompey came down from the box on which he had been standing during the play, and sitting on the end of it, laughed till I told him not to make such a fool of himself, and to have a little consideration for us. He said I looked uncommonly funny in a whitewashed sack, and started to laugh again. Some fellows are very easily amused. The others, like true Romans and true Britishers, considered levity beneath them. True, there was a little profanity, when someone raised the alarm about our clothes being missing when we were shedding our togas. Fortunately it was an idle rumour. Jim took Shakespeare back to the schoolhouse, and that ended our first rehearsal.