HIS LITTLE JOKE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 25 May 1917, Page 3

HIS LITTLE JOKE.

A LONDON INCIDENT

Why a soldier wheeling a perambulator with a baby in it should cause a crowd to collect and roar with laughter is a riddle for the higher type of intelligence. But the other afternoon in the Strand says a London paped a crowd gazed with almost unconscious amusement at a sturdy Anzac pushing a pram, without a smile on his face. A woman walking close by uneasily , translated her anxious expression when she said that the child was hers, and the soldier had paid her for “a-shovin’ of it,” The baby was enjoying the fun, and when, opposite the Law Courts, about 20 Anzacs “mounted guard,” the crowd grew so thick that the inevitable policeman strolled across with the Riot Act written large on his countenance.

This Anzac is well known for his stunts. One of his comrades told me that he nearly caused a fatal accident on Saturday. He tried the old dodge of solemnly staring at a particular point in the sky. Others followed, and the power of suggestion caused every head to be craned towards a low-lying-cloud. There was even a .suggestion of Zeppelins from one obsessed individual. There was a stoppage of traffic; two ’buses were side by side, fullon top. The little conductorettc, gazing with the rest, stumbled with the sudden jerk and nearly toppled oven