QUAITE FUNNAI

NZ Truth, Issue 1192, 4 October 1928, Page 6

QUAITE FUNNAI

Society Lichens VDeael t ■ Sea Fruit The whole world is/ an aerodrome, filled with social -try-planes and my-planes, low-skimmers and peak-altitude persons, but this vest-pocket narrative is concerned more particularly with some Wanganui high-flyers who flopped, dismally and disastrously, whilst attempting to fringe the clouds of near -aristocracy and purse-proud pushfulness. IN all our hearts, shrivelled though some undoubtedly are, there is the panting for cooling streams and al fresco fun, yet we like to cling to the idea that boiled shirts and low necks add to the enjoyment. Kingsford Smith and his three pala are the sort who like to put their feet on the top ledge of the mantelpiece and indulge m a cobberly conversazione with folk who really count, or else wing their way through the whirl of some happy little private party, instead of having to swallow the indigestible starch of thbse "Mr. Mayor) and gentlemen" affairs, where yawni are twenty a penny and no one is really interested. Although "Smithy" had Wired the mayor of Wanganui that apart from the pufflcial function at Westmera. the flyers would not attend any other, as they desired to be free during" the evening, some of the almost-peak* altitude persons whizzed their noisy ways around the situation and brought about a conspiracy of interruption. Slying snapping their wing-collara and short skirts into position, they "accidentally" slipped into Foster's Hotel for dinner that night; naively arguing among themselves as to who should entertain the flyers. But the fellows who had slipped between puffs across the Tasman knew how, to elude the pasty minds of those who had not the. decency to respect their wishes, and the soup-to-nuts lichens found themselves like unto bald, bare rolling stones, instead of the social, snowballs they fancied themselves. Before they had time to adjust the cotton wool which drowned their neighbors' operations with the soup spoon, the four wingers had joy Isticked their happy way to" a private' little cubby-hole of a party elsewhere to the. teeth-gnashing chagrin of the low-altitude ones who bent expectantly over their fish knives. The most rib-tickling part of the business is that when the names of local celebrants at the conviviale were 'published on the following morning, there was not the faintest whisper abbut those ought-to-have-beens whose spleen has since been giving them quite a lot of trouble.