BACK IN TEN MINUTES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 834, 30 November 1929, Page 8

BACK IN TEN MINUTES

THE QUIET CORNER

(Written for THE SUN by the Rev. Charles Chandler, Assistant City Missioner.) RIM tragedy often lu-rks behind these four words:—Back in Ten Minutes. Members of the back-in-ten-minutes brigade are never on the job when wanted, and in consequence of this, miss all the “plums” when they are being given out. Opportunity, like Time and Tide, waits for no ,man. There are far too many scrambling to shake him by the hand, and so he never cools his heels outside anybody’s door. . A. typical instance of this is to be found in the true story of one whom we will call Tom Baker. He kept a small shop —it never kept him. In this shop he attempted to sell a few groceries, soft drinks, and a little confectionery. If he had stopped behind his counter for every moment of the working day, he could have earned a fair living. As it was, he was half his time somewhere else —anywhere else but on the job. The shop door looked as though it had been riddled with white ants. It was smothered with small holes. These holes had been made by drawing pins with which he was continually pinning up the notice that teas eventually to be the means of the complete wreckage of his life. “Back in Ten Minutes.” People were known to wait for half an hour in the hope that he would return, but alas! they were disappointed. One day a wag of a fellow who had been waiting for some time, took out a pencil and wrote “What fort” under that familiar notice. In all probability Tom Baker spent most of the time that he was behind his counter figuring out just when he could next conveniently display his back-in-ten-minutes notice. Needless to say Tom Baker has since gone out of business, and that his present address is unknown. NEXT WEEK; OMNIBUSES.