Quick Turnover

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 255, 18 January 1928, Page 1

Quick Turnover

Electrician and His Hat Lost Property Deal Through intricate commercial processes, that worked with baffling suddenness, an Auckland electrician had the privilege yesterday of paying 1a 6d to recover his own hat. The transaction illustrated that the combination of a watchful eye and ready brain can always profit from the harvest of the streets. TT started when two wiremen were - 1 - working one above the other on a pole in Albert Street. The man on top lost his hat as he leaned over, and failing to see it fall, assumed that his companion had caught it. Seven minutes later, when the lunch-hour whistles blew, the pair descended to the pavement, and the hatless toiler asked for his headgear to be handed over. “I thought you put it in your workbox,” he explained, when the other stared at him. blankly. Nowhere on the street was an unattached hat to be seen, so the puzzled pair set out for lunch. As they passed a pawnbroker’s shop a glance into the establishment solved the mystery. The hat lay on the counter. “I bought it five minutes ago,” said the financier in charge. And the electrician was Is 6d poorer before he left the shop with his hat upon his head.