Magic of 6-15

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 329, 14 April 1928, Page 12

Magic of 6-15

WHEN LONDON GOES HOME Scenes at Victoria SIX O'CLOCK and a misty night. We converge upon Victoria like an army on the retreat, our heads bent forward and our legs working overtime to get out of the day's work. We already see Juniper \ ilia or The Laurels with the dinner table spread before a bright fire and Molly or Mabel, mother or auntie, waiting our arrival. Or we are thinking of “the pictures’’ after a quick, cosy meal, or that “flannel dance” (for we now have “flannel danees” in our suburban winter season), in which we are to forget what that brute Jones, the boss, said to us about that bloomer this morning.

'T'HANK Heaven for the exodus from the City! Here is Gertie by our side—with high heels and, let us hope, high ideals, with one of those invariable hard brown leather cases with the two clasps, tottering along upon her three-inchers, but, on the whole, making pretty good weather of it—wondering whether she'll get the 6.5 for Sutton. Will he wait for her? Dare she wear those new red-heeled shoes, which pinch across the little toe, to the dance to-night? Dare she risk it? Her small head is packed with as much calculation and cunning as a nest of snakes. And what she, and those thousand other Gerties by her side, carry in those hard bags, this deponent knoweth not. For they are too big for a vanity case and too small for a suitcase! As we push with Gertie into the suburban departure, our eyes catch the gorgeous Elevated Electric on the left like some celestial sky sign, leading to “the Crystal Palace”—probably some heavenly palace of the fairy tales. For Victoria Station is a fairyland—with the blues and whites of Smith’s bookstall on the right, the green lanterns at the head of the platforms, the red and violet uniforms of the hotel porters, and the gay scarlet and yellow checks of the latest thing in ladies’ “wrap-cloaks.” London magic! Here is a big blackboard to tell the world that “the Southern Belle” leaves each day for the sunny South Coast. We wonder who the Southern Belle may be when she's at home —and there she is! For directly underneath the notice is a bounteous female, a trifle overblown. On her smooth, round head she balances a magnificent “creation” of white underbody covered with red and green feathers. In her costly seal coat an enormous red rose blooms. And in her short, podgy arms there lies an insolent King Charles, his small nose stuck disdainfully into the air and sniffing contemptuously at you and me, poor City workers. His mistress also seems to sniff at us. She is not fleeing the City. She does not know what “the City” is, although her husband—that big, important-looking personage with the two chins and the great watchguard at her side—gets all of his money, and hers, out of it. As a matter of fact, both of them have been staying on the Cornish Riviera in an expensive hotel and they are onlyon their -way home to Penge. And, dash it all, we've missed our 6.5! For all these things have been happening about us in the one minute from the outer gates to our platform. Not another train for fifteen minutes. So much more time to look about us. A most amazing station. Every human passion, every human frailty and virtue displayed before us every five minutes—and all free. Better than a cinema. Better than a theatre. Look at those dozens of little girls, each one carrying her tiny vanity case and a little bag, who are making their way to platforms 11 and 12. The brave little legs of each are clothed in. the pinkiest of artificial silk, and even though the shoes underneath are not always what they ought to be, they all have high heels—for they are aspiring souls. They are the beginners in the great City. And they are fighting, though they know it not, the first skirmish of what is to be a series of battles, of defeats and victories, until

the grave. Brave little hearts—good luck to them! The women we mentally divide into three classes. First, the brave little souls of whom we have taken note. Then, the girls of from 20 to 25, who have, so to speak, got over the shock of the first plunge into the City* depths, and some of whom are beginning to look very serious about it all. Finally, the older women, not manv and often with sad faces, of from 40 to 50. who “have been through it all.” The “brave little souls” as they rush by are only eager to tell mother or dad all about the first day in the office or warehouse. The second type is wondering when “he” will come along and take them out of it all. And the third are thinking all sorts of things —from hoping against hope that Mr. Right may soon show himself in the offing to a hopeless thinking that he will never come now'. There is tragedy here as well as comedy. But Bertie is not thinking. Bertie is a man-about-town, with a “waist’ and a monocle and a little dog. Bertie never has thought. He has never had to think. He is controlled, as he is led, by his minute companion, for whom he exists, for he has nothing else to occupy him. Bertie is not leaving the City. He is one of the very fewr going the other way—he is going to his crack Pal’ Mall club, where he w ill bore and be bored until midnight, while “Dandie,” the wirehaired terrier, will be petted to death by the porter. A “dog’s life,’ indeed! A contralto whistle of great volume and sensitiveness breaks upon our listening ears. It is one of the more florid passages of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly,” whistled most beautifully by a porter in spectacles—a contem plative porter, not to be bought with money. We wonder what is his history? Is he one of the flotsam and jetsam of the war? How did this intellectual become a porter? What is he about? What is it all about? Well, if it comes to that—what is life about? We give it up. A man is passing us. He is & frowzy, blousy-looking fellow—oldish, perhaps fifty or sixty. His trousers are fringed and his boots down at heel. On his great red face there are set carelessly, badly-polished piuce-nei. He is unshaven, and in his right hand he carries an old evening paper, obviously picked up from the ground. The last time I saw that man was at the fight between Lang and Langford at Olympia, now nearly 17 years ago. That night he sat betw'een a Cabinet Minister and a dramatist of note, his shirt front dazzling, his head high. Now he drags past like a derelict, on his way to the wretched little home in Brixton where his wife waits, w r ondering whether Josh will come home drunk or sober this time. He does not knowr that I see him. Nor does he care. He is past caring, as past everything. And he tells every* body that he “doesn’t care.” The gentleman behind him also doesn’t care. In fact, in between hiccups he tells anybody who chooses to hear that he “doesn’t care if it snows.** He has liad a pretty good day in the City and has been “celebrating.” From his left-hand overcoat pocket gleams a portentous bottle of whisky—“for emergencies,” he explains to the circumambient. He is, perhaps, the only really absolutely happy member of our crowd, as he hiccups his wray toward platform 17 on the right. And here comes “the Colonel.” “Hal Jove, sir! But we showed ’em bow to do it at Majuba.” His soft hat i* set rakishly over one monocled €▼«- His splendid sweeping white moustache envelops his splendid whit* teeth. His trousers are the very latest in stripes, of faultless cut and hang. And across one shoulder there hangs carelessly the strap of a pair of racing glasses. Colonel Crusher. V.C., has been having his day in the City, for his name appears upon tha boards of half a dozen limited liability companies—but his heart, redolent o' the sporting ’nineties, is really with the gee-gees over the sticks. An old body, but a young heart —Colonel Reggie Crusher, V.C. Heaven knows what will happen to these two coming along in the very middle of the new freshet that pour* through into the station at 6.15, as we see our 6.21 signalled. He is gazing enraptured at her. And she is gazing enraptured at hi®* On his commanding nose be carries enormous “lighthouses,” which must magnify her charms tenfold. And she. looking up at him where he stride* high above her, carries her heart l* her eyes for all the world to see. They cannon off each other as the crowrd. He has stepped upon an old gentleman’s toes, the old gent cursing him most lustily, but un heeded. She has stuck the corner her hard black bag into the-, stomach of another gent coming in th-a opposite direction. She knows it nut. They pass blissfully onwards through No. 1* gate singing “Love’s old sweet song to the exquisite discomfiture of their surroundings. God bless them! The exodus from the City. The exodus from toil and moil to light and love. God bless them! Well, as Tiny Tim said: “God bless us, every one!” —Shaw Desmond, i° “Tit Bits.”