THE CLOCKWORK LIZARD THAT FOLLOWED ITS OWN TAIL

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 962, 3 May 1930, Page 33

THE CLOCKWORK LIZARD

THAT FOLLOWED ITS OWN TAIL

Once there was a little boy called Reginald Alfred Fitz William Browne, but nobody called him by any of those names. They called him Billikins, which was much better. On his sixth birthday his uncle gave him a clockwork lizard that steered a course by its own tail and ran in beautiful circles. When it grew tired of running round and round in one direction it would pause, jerk its tail and then run round ami round in the opposite direction. This kept it from becoming giddy. AH Billikins’s other toys hated, the clockwork lizard, because it had put their noses and trunks and snouts “out of joint.” They would Watch its antics with their button eyes and sneer at the way it followed its own tail. Then, one day, the clockwork lizard refused to budge. In vain did Billikins shako it and coax it to chase its tail. Its beady eyes stared helplessly up at him, but run it could not. Jlow the other toys jeered! Now that green thing’s day was over, and Billikins would set a proper value on them again. “Never mind,’* said Billikins to the clockwork lizard, “some day you might get better, and, anyway, I love you just the same.” So for three days the clockwork lizard lay in a corner of Billikins’s bedroom pondering the past and growing sadder and sadder. The scorn of the other toys did not worry it. but its clockwork heart was wrung with anguish at tho thought of how it had failed its kind little master. Then, one night, lying motionless in a patch of moonlight, it felt that it could bear its troubles no longer, and a great sob shook it from head to tail. Suddenly a mlraclo happened. Out it ran from the corner with u wild, whirring, And. in a frenzy of excitement, began to chase Its tall! Bound and round it went, faster than it had ever gone before, and the other toys, rousing from their slumbers, stared in amazement. It wakened Billikins, too and., with a cry of joy, he sprang out of bed and knelt down on the lloor beside it, scarcely daring to breathe. At last the wild race ■was over, and Billikins picked up the clockwork lizard. “You had wound me up too tightly, and my heart was bursting,” it seemed to say, “but I shall never behave like that again.” Gently Billikins turned the spring, and there was nothing wrong at all; then he tiptoed back to bed. taking the clockwork lizard with him. From the opposite corner came a disgruntled sound. The stuffed elephant was snuffling through his trunk! —W.S.T.

A RECIPE Take two crocus buds full of pollen, and mix thoroughly with three s of beeswax. Apply very sparingly to ' the Pixie Postmen’s shoes. This mixture is enough to polish seven Pixie 1 Postmen’s shoes. NO LA CRAIG. j ; ! I