A Little World for Little People

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 786, 5 October 1929, Page 35

A Little World for Little People

FRIENDSHIP IS A STEADY LIGHT SHINING IN DARK PLACES I * - -..J PUZZLES AND PERPLEXITIES BUT,” said the Doorkeeper, with a deep sigh, taking off his rose-coloured spectacles and putting Them neatly away in their case, “what is a square word? I have studied the whole Happy Town page, and I can’t find one. They are all oblong. Even the word ‘square’ itself is not square.” “Y r ou must have put those spectacles on upside down,” laughed the Little Thought, gently tweaking his old friend’s ear. “That puzzle is not a square word at all. It is a word square. “But isn’t a square word a word square, just as an eaten apple is an apple eaten?” asked the Doorkeeper, more perplexed than ever. “Apples don’t come into the discussion,” answered the Little Thought. “You must have put those spectacles on hack to as well as upside-down.” “But,” cried the Doorkeeper, triumphantly, “I can distinctly see an apple in this word square picture.” “But it is a whole apple,” laughed the Little Thought. “There is not even a bite out of it.” “I give in,” said the Doorkeeper. “Which Sunbeams won the competition?” “Which competition?” asked the .Toyshop man, strolling up with a freshly-picked primrose in his buttonhole. “So many of them have been tipping poor Mister Horatio Tipping'out of that cockleshell boat of his..” “Where did you get that flower?” asked the Doorkeeper, enviously, all else forgotten. “I found it on the Jovshop counter, but there is another presentation primrose awaiting an owner oil the doorstep of the Place-of-You-Never-Can-Tell.” “Shade of Mercury, lend wings to my feet!” exclaimed the Doorkeeper, taking to his heels. “Is that Latin or Welsh?” asked the Little Thought, faintly. “I have never heard him talk like that before.” “I think it is thermometer language.” answered the Joyshop man. “The mercury is always affected by the shade.” “Wrong !” called the Woodpecker. “Mercury was a famous person with winged feet. I have it on the best authority that the wings were supplied by an ancestor of mine!’!. , (TN r j “Oh, dear,” gasped the 'hr. kJ OWVw Dawn Lady, “what on earth " k can I call the ‘square story’ \ this week?”