Birds of Passage

NZ Truth, Issue 1207, 17 January 1929, Page 14

Birds of Passage

YOU'LL see her m any town. . She ■*■ may be seventy, she may be thirteen — age is but by the way, for 'tis by hot- 'brella aione shaft thou know her.

Yea, and not only see her, but all must come m close contact with her; parry with her — side-step, duck, dive and win cc away from her. And as she passes nonchalantly- along her way, do we, mentally, consign her to the thermal shores of the Styx, where she then may be battered with fiery pronge m a manner after the way she do herself harass the way of the pedestrian. In her . several guises doth this pavement-pest take her tortuous path through our midst. There is the old

dame who fain must

keep up her open gamp beneath the street-verandahs and vicious ferules seek to impale the eyes of passers-by. » There is the mind-my-new-hatted matron who makes her exit from the bargain emporium with the action of a soldier fixing. bayonet, and her opening canopy sweeps under your nose like the svings of a giant' night-owl. Then — but the men would deign forgive her — the egoistic flapper who' tucks her fashionable parasol-ella under her arm and w r hirls and whips her way through the throng like a stiff-feathered bantam ... we like her best when she stops suddenly to stoop and gloat over some nifty frailty m a shop-window!