Entre Nous

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 138, 21 February 1903, Page 14

Entre Nous

MR. Gresswill, the premier Health Officer of Victoria, is remarking, per press, that if you have specs before the eyes, frightful di earns, loss of appetite, decayed enerey that aill-gone sensation,, and all the rest of the patent medicine symptoms, eat meat. Dr. Gresswill rushes into the breach to observe that half the dyspeptics of the world are people with fads, like the vecetarian who buried a pair of gift fowls so that no one should ruin his health by eating them. Dr. Gressvnll's unofficial-sounding advice is to have a good blow-out on beef. Your only chance is to catch your bovine medicine before it leaves for England. * * * Dunedin refuses to have cows feeding on the pastures in its mam streets. Recently' a policeman was patrolling: Princes-street, when he was scandalised to see a common cow strolling nonchalantly along. It became the constable's melancholy duty to run her in as having no lawful visible means of support. Arrived at the station, he was confronted with the dilemma where to put her. He could hardly lock her up in a cell, as the sizes would not correspond, am unthinking Government not having considered the contingency of a cow malefactor. *■ +• * By a brilliant process of ratiocination, the paddock where a thoughtful Government once began to erect a railway station, and didn't, was utilised, and the vagrant turned out to browsei on a grand crop of thistles and luxuriant docks. Then came the question of milking. She literally oozed milk from every pore. The problem was, however solved bv employing a pastoral policeman, who is now luxuriating on someone else's milk. The cow is still unclaimed * * •* "You thiew me a kiss last night," said he, With a smile, to the maiden fan "But the night was daik, it eluded me, Pray have you another to spare 0 " "I may have one," said the blushing miss And ho answered approaching neai 'T won't run the nsk of losing this To make sure T will take it heie "

St. Valentine's I>ay came and went last Saturday, and it is safe to say that no perspiring purveyor ot fn\ olous packages dumped any of his load at youi door. You remember the time, however, when a straining letter-carrier cursed the dear old custom? When his bag was goiged with unaccustomed art and artfulness 9 Every stationer's shop in the more or less good old days grinned van-coloured alleged humour at you and it was "up to you," if you desi led to do anything so vulgar as "take a use" out of an enemy to send him two pennyworth of gaudy insult. Also, your best girl was made the w lllolno- recipient of flamboyant missives speckled with angels, impossible flowers, and fashionable figures. Now, the age is too utilitarian for you to care two>pence about being anybody's valentine, and the card craving only grows upon you at Yuletide. You are pretty glad that your friends have got round to another Easter, though, and still send him or her artificial hen products. (>rd-sendin<; is a "dear" old custom and, with the increase in the price of existence, is likely to fade into obscurity. Soon, we will be sending a list of friends to the Telegraph Department, whioh will, on card-demanding: occasions, despatch a penny wire, with the season's statutory greetings. This is a utilitarian age, as we before remarked. * * • A soulful young man, straight from Home, was admitted to the family circle of a nice boardinghouse about a month ago. He had left his luggage to be put on by the wharf porters at Tilbury, he said, and so he expected it by the next boat. He was so nice. His gentleness was almost appalling to coarse colonials. "Mijht he be permitted to say grace?" he asked, with a pained look, when the unregenerate boarders "w ired into" their hash at din-ner-time. The company dronoed its forks and its eyes, and the soulful youth from Home virtuously prayed while the hash got cold. He chased sinful young men into corners with tracts from 'Ome. * • ♦ "Are your garments spotless?" he would ask his fellow feeders, at odd intervals. A great change came over that house, and the dear young chap soon got a billet as manager of something or other. He went to work one moining. They have said no grace since. All the portmanteaux in the house have unaccountably got unlocked, and anything valuable has left with the young man. Also, some quaint silver spoons a w atch or tw r o, and the best overcoat in the hall have not been seen in their accustomed places since. For w hat we are about to receive make us truly thankful, seems to have been a fitting prayer in the mouth of that vanished youth.

The road from Kilbirme to Wellington, via Oriental Bay, is charming. It is extremely picturesque. The boundless, blue ocean on the one hand, the ozone-swept heights of Hataitai on the other. That picturesque road, when a really willing northerly is trying to level the works of nature and grade the mountains is not so interesting. A corpulent business man might have been seen on Wednesday morning last shoving a spray-drenched bicycle round the points of that picturesque road. The bike was blowing out like a streamer in the wind, and, as he faced the last lap between himself and town, a savage gust took v his cap, whirled it up in the air several hundred feet, and deposited it on the flats on the other side of the beetling cliffs. -> * * The obese individual relinquished his kicking steel steed, and, after much loss of skin, a great deal of perspiration, and some language not permitted in civilised society, captured his careering cap. The bike, oh, where was it? Ask of the winds that far away with fragments strewed the sea. Two hundred yards from the spot the rotund rovsterer had deposited his wheels he found them, on a rocky bottom, being lanped by the whispering tide. _ When he eventually turned up at his office, his fellow-workers remarked that they ''hadn't got a bob on 'em," or words to that effect, but the florid citizen, after some trouble, explained that he was the w reck of a former employee, and spoke of bike and cap, and things. Now he takes the Newtown tram, or walks. Poster art is becoming very hidi in Wellington. The people with "that bald spot" look so natural, the searchlight reveals" so many things, and the "knife that sets you free" is such a slashing w eapon, that you really believe youiself to be in the presence of the objects represented. On Tuesday morning, a gentleman whose chief object 111 life is to slake his torrid clay, brought up in front of a "P.D." poster, and raised his hat. "How d'ye do, Miss? Why, blest if it ain't Lizzie. 'Ow are ye doin', Lizzie? Don't ye know me? I'm Jack. Cousin Jack, from Waapiro. Shake hands '" Jack extended his horny hand, but Lizzie stared straight past him at a handsome youth on the other side of the road. "Well, I'm blest," exclaimed Jack, "you 'aye got stuck up since ye came to Wellin'ton." Just then a gentleman in blue took a hand in the conversation, and put one in the coat collar of cousin Jack. Jack, muttering anathemas, of which Lizzie was the subject, was last seen suspended from a policeman like a rag scarecrow.

X Whangamomona at one tune was frequently heard of, m Parliament and outside, as a place in the wilderness where a late Minister of Lands planted a special settlement, and, having once got the poor settlers m, they were unable to get out again, and so had to exist on potatoes, fern-root, and eels for a great portion of the year. That state of things, if it ever existed outside the imagination of Opposition members is passing away. Whangamomona has now a dairy factory, a public hall, a store, two boardinc-houses (but, as yet, no pub-lic-house), and at this season of the year the colonist or tourist who wants to get out of the beateni track would be well repaid bv a drive or ride forty miles east of Stratford. • ♦ • Whangamomona 1 has a special constable, yclept "Nugget," which is one of its most noted possessions. The said "Nugget" is a sturdy erev cat, and he has constituted himself the peacemaker of the village. A Wellington visitor, who has just paid a visit to the region, tells us that, whilst a triangular dog fight went briskly on, "Nugget" marched into the thick of the canine combat, boxed one dog on the ear bit another on the nose, and scratched the third combatant, marching off with all the honours of war, amid cries from the populace of "Bravo ' Nuget !'" The dogs, like sailors deprived of a fight by a policeman, soon returned snarling at one another, when in marched "Nugget," and dared them to come on. Then' the dogs retreated, with their candal appendages tightly closed in, and "Nugget ' marched off with the air of a bri-gadier-general. All visitors to Whangamomona are advised to make the acquaintance of "Nugget." * * * Manawatu maidens, and the sunburnt sons of the soil thereaway, are just now burning with stage fever. The fact of the matter is an author-actor-poet gentleman has taken the flax-milling public into his confidence and he threatens to make every man an actor and every maid a tragedienne. Girls up that way have even taken to covering up their mountain blushes with pearlpowder, and their mincing gait is ever in rehearsal for the terrific conquest to be made in a week or two, when the author-actor has begun to exhibit the fruits of his genius. He reckons that never before (not even in Wellington) has he come across so much pure, unadulterated talent in one lump, and he threatens to leave Wellington to stew in heartbroken agony at his absence, now that he has at last reached the true Mecca.

Tale told by a leturned anglei. A true tale, too, the thiee peisons concerned will swear Ihiee men in a boat at Island Bay. Good sport. Later no sport. What— oh, a shaikh Right again' The shark's capturer hauled his finny prize to the gunwale, and a mate stood by with a knife to let its hfe out. He cut the line, ot course. The shark took what our respected informant characterises as a "bacward dive," and, in doing so got rrcely entangled in No. 2 line. No. I hauled in his slack quick and lively, but the shark, winking a nsny eye, dived for deaths unknow n once more takintr sinkers and lines, too. J* 0 ; f_ man m the boat was chuckling, now that Nos 1 and 2 were bookless and lmelcss. He plied his line, and piiffawed Just as he was on a delirious laugh his hook caught He was ouf of the anchor of course? No, sirree, he had hooked that shark. With the united efforts of thS three sportsmen, the fish> monster M as hauled up, and this tame was.despatched. It is not often that a shark will persist in assisting sport this w ay. is it? There is a delicious unctuousness about the following incident as told by an ardent church-goer They had been having the usual trouble at a vestry meeting. There were three sections at cross-purposes. The parson while deprecating the heat displayed by members over the matter of a few pounds (that concert,, you know!), was a good deal more than white-heated himself, and remarking that he noued they *°™ d sleep on the question, dismissed the meeting with a prayer and the brethren departed, the last one locking the door. No one knew that the parson was inside, but he was. At 5 o'clock next moraine, the matutinal milkman had his attention called to the church by a terrific ban^ng from within and he gathered the tale through the key-hole. The reverend prisoner returned to a sorrowing family in tune for brea,kfast and there is going to be a row at next vestry meeting. * * * The public servant had been working —once. He stood in a picturesque attitude at the w indow of a big building. He was annoyed. He called a passing colleague. "Look at that fellow on the roof over there'" he said. 'Why what is the matter with him Q " asked the other who saw nothing but a plumber smoKing his pipe. "Well, Iv'e watched the lazy be^ar for half-an-hour bv the clock, and he hasn't done a stroke of work. It's up to his boss to sack him. The latest Australian novelty is the "sixpence m the slot meal " There are no waiters in these restaurants. All you have to do ig to push a sixpence or a knife, or a tin disc into any of the machines around the room and the plate is before yOuv O u Already a German ao-ent threatens to come to New Zealand to plant his slot meal machines. * * * A "shot," who has made something of a name on the butts, has, after many years, applied to the Defence Department for a new rifle. His gun he says, throws "seven feet, to the left, and always has. He found this out early in his- shooting career, so that he is able to get near the bulls-eye pretty often now. He w ould be useful in the field, where there is not time for windgauges, orthootics, range-finders, tainted sights, and red flags. * * + The drink again' Two obfuscated individuals ranged alongside a shooting gallery the other night, and started a match. Every shot was a bulJs-eye, ancl, by the time that the score stood at 20 all, no misses, a crowd had gathered round ready to 'chair" the winner. 'Twas only when a friend came out from the bell end of the shooting tube, and knocked off ringing, and the shootinggallery man had used up his available supply of blank ammunition, that the iron entered into the soul of the gathering, and the marksmen's powers palled. It is hard to have to believe that any man in New Zealand unwillingly does his duty to his King and country. That there are men m New Zealand w ho actually desire to be exempted from jury sw vice is unfortunately true, and that theie are others who insist that a juryman should not lose money by doing his duty is also true. The othei day. in Auckland, a simple case was tried. There could be no doubt of the verdict, His Honor said. The wn'. however, m anted to retire. Why ? The chairman explained to His Honor "Perhaps I have no right to mention it, Your Honor but there is a feeling among the lU rv that if they do not retire they will be liable to be chosen on the next .luryWinch was certainly, in the words ot the vulear. a "dead &**-** *\. ,H f Honor said the jury had no right to retire in order to avoid service although he had no power to prevent them rrom doiiv so. The foreman's confession was ?ollowedbv the collapse of the iurv and a verdict forthwith. They were released from service

The agitation for the abolition of barmaids exists, if only in the bosoms, of lawful wives and those kind of uncoivsidered persons. There* is a tale told m this connection, and it is north telling again, if only for its look of childlike veracity. The incident of the anecdote happened in a popular city bar, where a fresh-looking grey man, of perhaps fiftysix, was going very strong with a dark statuesque Hebe of the well-known beauteous brand. This devotion had been commented upon by other loungers for an hour past, and he was leaning across the bar with his hand upon the dainty, ringed fingers of the smiling barmaid. « * * Suddenly, a tall, commanding matron of forty-five bounced into the bar throueh the street door. The elderly masher was flabbergasted, and the matron regarded him coolly for a moment. "Ah, Henry " she said, "I was told I should find you here." "Ye— ye— yes, any dear," gasped Henry, "you see, I am busy gathering evidence to be used in our movement for the suppression of barmaids." But, the matron smiled starkly, and Henry was led away like a lamb to the slaughter. • • • Some ladies and gentlemen, who were doin^ the "sights" of Wellington the other day, included the Government

Printing Office than which there is no finer north of Martin's fountain. A boy accompanied the party, and the foreman was most assiduous. He showed them various processes, and explained the intrioacies of bookbinding minutely. They put in three-quarteTS of an, hour m this delightful occupation. Therv had probably "done" lions before. Anyhow, they said nothing, but received the glowing explanations in silence. "Oan> none of you gentlemen speak English p " quoth the foreman. "Why do you ask ?" returned a supposed Jooste. "Oh, I imagined you were from South Africa!" said the foreman. They were not Boer delegates after ail, and the dread solemnity of Hon-hunting was at last dispelled by the joint laughter of leader and led. * * # Talking about the Boer delegates, we wonder why the "Post" was surorised that the Boer delegates spoke English, and wore clothes unlike those seen in illustrated papers?. There are very few outfitters' establishments scattered around on the South African kopjes, and it is easier to effect a capture! than to affect a collar. It is absolutely marvellous that the Boers did not fight in frock coats, clean collars, and beil-tou-pers As for speaking: English, every second Boer knows Sankey's Hymns off by heart.