FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 206, 19 November 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN”

NUMBER 13 There are still some people who are superstitious regarding the number 13. One of these, dismayed by the prospect of having the "unlucky” number attached to his dwelling, wrote to the Mount Albert Borough Council about it, and asked that he be given the number 11a. The council was unsympathetic; in fact, two of the councillors said they had lived under the shadow of the number for some years. Their appearance was proof that they had never been murdered in their beds or burned to death. The complaining ratepayer was informed that he must be given the fatal number—but that he could please himself whether he put it up or not. If everyone else in the street has a number, and he has not, he may easily he located. “Mr. Blank, no number, Blank Street, Mount Albert,” will find him. Per contra, many people regard 13 to oe a lucky number—they even hack 13’s at the races. But they don’t often win. * * * THE BUCKET MIXTURE “Take Action’s” letter to the editor in reference to those publicans who pour back the drip from the beertap into the barrel illustrates a common trick of the trade, despite the fact that the L.V.A. has no knowledge of it. The L.0.M., who has leaned against a bar or two in his time, has seen it; and he has seen the dregs of beer bottles poured into other bottles, to b supplied to customers. Even meaner practices have been pursued by some of the Boniface fraternity. The L.O.M. recalls one particularly frugal publican in Hobart, Tasmania —where they claim to produce the best beer (and apples and girls) in the wide world. This gentleman. when asked to have a drink, would say, "Thanks, I’ll have a cigar!” select one out of the box, place lightly and with careless ease between his teeth and absent-mindedly forget to light it. When the customer had gone, he would put it back into the box. The next customer who called for a cigar would have the pleasure of smoking it. Thus did Mr. Publican receive two payments for one cigar. Fortunately all publicans are not so enterprising. LATE WAKES A perfect lady who told the magistrate she broke her prohibition order and became Intoxicated because she had learned of the death of a friend’s friend six months after the event was fined £6 for this outburst of grief. It is peculiar how some people fly to liquor to mitigate their misery. Only the other day a man remembered that a friend had died in 1907, and that it must therefore he the 20th anniversary of the sad circumstance. He became very intoxicated; at the seventeenth drink his sorrow was as acute as it was at the graveside, and quite a number of friends plunged into wet mourning with him. Another man misquoted Shakespeare. “Where did you get that from?” asked a friend. “Bill Shakespeare,” replied the erudite one —and let me tell you I knew ’im well in the Old Dart—’e used to work in the same printin’ office as my old man.” “Go on,” said his friend. “Shakespeare’s been dead this long time.” “Good God!” exclaimed the other; “you don’t say so. Poor old Bill!—come and ’ave a drink. Bill was one of the best!” -r r r

BED-TIME STORIES The tale of the little boy at Devonport who switched the light on in his parents’ room at 3 a.m. to see if they had arrived home is indicative of the changed relationships of parent and child. Dong ago, Dad or Mum would order the children to bed; now the children do the ordering. “Now, Dad,” says Henry, who has just arrived home from the theatre, “it’s time you were in bed. You’ve got to go to work in the morning, you know; and you must call me early, as I have t be at college for a game of handball before lessons. Off you go, Dad —-and don’t forget to clean my shoes before you call me!” “Now then, Mum,” says Maud, who has been to the pictures, “what do you mean by staying up reading till this hour? You know you’ve got a big washing day to-morrow, and you have to iron my white frock before I go out In the morning—you should have done it tonight, instead of straining your eyes reading the paper. Off you go, Mum; I’m stopping up to write some letters and have supper—put the kettle on, please—and don’t forget to call me at S o’clock in the morning!” Dad and Mum retire like obedient parents, for they know that parents who do not obey their children must suffer for it.