LISTENINGS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 117, 19 September 1941, Page 14

LISTENINGS

Perpetrated and illustrated by

KEN.

ALEXANDER

Mud and Tears

T is reported that rain and mud have seriously inconvenienced the Nazi armies in Russia. It must be humiliating to the might of the Reich when low: stuff like mud clogs its cogs. Mud is so beastly muddy, and it has so many uses, both natural and unnatural. It is used for both growing and throwing. The Nazis have thrown it for years. Now they may come a thud in mud. They thought they would be tossing the Soviet in Moscow before this. But they did not reckon with Lord Mud of Bog-in-the-mire. The High Command is intensely annoyed. A man with a mind like Hitler’s, inflated with the inflammable gas of megalomania and distended by the hot air of conceit, must find it unbelievable that the low stuff he flung at others is gripping his caterpillars and puddling his pedals. His name will always be mud-but to have it flung in his face! But that is the way things go. The humble ant gnaws the legs off the seats of the mighty and great is the fall thereof. Alexander the Great might easily have ended his greatness by slip-

ping on the soap-if he had used soap. Napoleon found that soft snow on an empty stomach hits harder than hard steel on a full stomach. If Hitler had been less of a hit-and-run artist he might have heeded Napoleon’s hitch-hike from Moscow and allowed his caterpillers to eat up only

bitumen. But he never thought it possible that, after overcoming steel, he would sink in mud. Now, it is safe to say that if anyone offers Hitler that old toast " Here’s mud in your eye" the toaster will be toasted. For a long time Hitler has been using the big stick to stir up the mud of Europe; and the harder he stirred the stickier it got. Now he can’t complain if he gets stuck in it. Nobody has ever accused him of being a stick-in-the-mud; but remember what the tortoise taught us-whether he has taken Leningrad or Leningrad has taken him before this appears, mud will have turned his caterpillers into slow-worms. If Hitler, puddling forward through mud, should meet the ghost of Napoleon struggling back through snow, their conversation would be illuminating. Napoleon would mutter, "Who are you who strain on towards Moscow with guns and strange devices?" "Who am I? Himmel! That’s a scream! Why, I am the conqueror of Europe, of the whole wide world. I am Hitler-the bearer of a New Order." "Yes, yes. Such words sound familiar. Of course your New Order promises happiness through blood, joy through terror, and the overthrow of the inferior works of lesser men?" "Well, yes, if you put it that way. It’s a real New Order, the newest New Order the world has ever seen." "Exactly. Mine was, too-until I discovered the moss on it. Those-er-

engines of yours seem to be making heavy weather in the mud. Settling a bit, aren’t they? And your soldiers are kind of up to their necks in it. Do you think it wise to continue?" "Wise? What’s wisdom to me? I am Wisdom. What I say I'll do I-just do!" " Jusso. Just what I said-and look at me now. And I actually reached Moscow. Of course, I had to hoof it, while you tu "Yes, I’m different. Blood and gears " "Oui, oui, Monsieur Hitler! But take another good look at me! Take care that your blood and gears do not turn out to be mud and tears."