The Dead Marines

NZ Truth, Issue 1188, 6 September 1928, Page 8

The Dead Marines

her £1 for food to last them over the week-end. During the remaining period of the week, he would give her monetary driblets each day — -sometimes two-and-sixpence, maybe five shillings, but the total never exceeded thirty shillings. About two and a-half years ago, he joined an orchestra, since when his weekly quota of "nights out" had averaged three, despite the fact that he had left his fellow instrumentalists. When he played at dances, he received £1 per night, but none of his extra income found its ' way into the purse of his wife. ( Double charts and a fekv flutters at the Courtenay Club, smart little parties, etc., were the bottomless pool into which he flung his money, said Mrs. Martin. Although he was earning only £5 a week and commission as a salesman m tho employ of his father, he was able td buy a car on the time-payment system, as well as maintain the instalments due on his house mortgages, but his wife received no benefit from his little, operations with the dice, which, she understood, were always rolling about somewhere on the tables of the Courtenay Club. He took her out once a week and made up for the^ effort by staying out till two o'clock— or later — on the remaining six nights. It was while they were living at Island Bay that he suggested she should go to her mother's .place on Saturday and stay the night, as he was going to a smoke concert and would not be home till late. When she did arrive home the following day, she found the house . m a state of wild disorder, bottles all over the • place, numberless • glass-marks on the table and bottles under the house, clearly showing where the "smoke concert" was held. * The real truth of these parties was kept from her; even when her husband did return, he was laboring m a slight alcoholic wind.