EIGHT HUNDRED AUTOGRAPHS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 30, 19 January 1940, Page 47

EIGHT HUNDRED AUTOGRAPHS

"Tell them | haven't really a face like a horse," said "Maggie," writing furiously her three hundred and eightieth autograph.

AN enormous table, its whole. polsurface spread out before her and the family+-Fred, Maggie and small daughter hard at work at their seemingly endless task. "It's been the same at every station we stopped at all through the South Island," said Maggie pathetically. " I've written my name so often I've forgotten how to spell it!" And she’s not like a horse either. I had to agree about that. Her hair’s lovely-goldy red and wavy and coiled at the nape of her neck quite simply, without any fuss, Her skin's lovely too -the kind that goes with that hair. Eyes large and darkest grey with long mid-brown lashes. "What do you have to say about me?" she asked. "Ordinary things, like cooking and " eee "Oh? Well, but I can’t. I'm no good. Fred’s a better cook than I am. Maca-

roni cheese is his favourite. And.he’s our best coffee: maker. I love a garden. I hate clothes. I'm mad about animalsand the races. I can’t swim much and I'm terrified of surf, .. ." _ "Tell about animals first," I begged. " O-well, they’re an obsession. We've always got a house full of strays-as well, of course, as Maggie the Dog, Pitti-Sing the Gat, Canaries, Budgies, Lovebirds, Goldfish. Maggie (the dog) had five puppies, and then couldn't feed them! We had to rush home every day after broadcasts to give them prepared food. "Who's looking after all this menagerie while you're away?" "O-my girl friend, Thelma Scot. She'd be known here-over the air, She’s our ‘Mrs. Sproggins’ and ‘ Sonia,’ the Viennese maid, And she was Mary Queen of Seots and Anne Boleyn in ‘Coronets of England.’ She’s ite the flat and all."