THE MONEY-OR THE BAG?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 783, 23 July 1954, Page 6

THE MONEY-OR THE BAG?

E heard it on the evening air. The contestant was bright. He’d answered all the questions with barely a moment's thought. Nothing seemed to stop him. Then it came! The seven-cubic-foot question! "Tell me," said the Quizmaster, "who wrote Pride and’ Prejudice?" The clever one leapt at it. "Oh," he said airily, "we were discussing that only last night! It was Noel Coward!" We shrivelled for him. Through our discomfiture we heard the reproachful clucking of the Quizmaster’s tongue. What, we wondered, was the fate of such a man? Was he found, weeks later, walking bemused through the streets? Amnesia perhaps? Did his psyche fixate on the one woman-Jane Austen, Jane Austen, Jane Austen-till the end of his days? Or did he take the easy way? And what of the poor man’s wife? Did she weigh in her mind the man and the home freezer? Was the man found wanting? Or was he taken in kindly, and perhaps give the babies to mind? "With questions like these in mind, we invited ourselves to a session where the answers might be found. The venue was Wellington’s Town Hall; the programme, two It’s In the Bag, with assorted artists sandwiched between. The takings would be devoted to the cause of Amateur Theatre; the show itself. to the sale of soap. The auditorium was packed. It holds 2300, and Thespian faces looked satisfied even before the show started. We awaited the entrance of the Master. Last time we saw Mr. Toogood he was the Moor of Venice. His tragic figure lay with a sword in its breast"No way but this, killing myself, to

die upon a Kiss. fe seemed, however, to have made a good recovery. He glowered at the assembly: "Anyone here hasn’t listened to my show on the air?" A man shuffled uncomfortably. The eyes that had been glazed in. Othello lit on him-"Infidel!" The grand manner remained. And so, to. business. (The prizes gleamed on the stage: Three kinds of refrigerator, two kinds of washing-machine, two kinds of vacuum-cleaner, a record-player, an electric shaver. There were others, too, lurking in the bags. Things like allday suckers, 3d stamps, rubber bands, doses of castor oil and the like.) "All those who want to . take part step up front, please-ladies first!"

There was a demure pause. Then, in ones and twos at first, later in tens and dozens, the hopeful housewives came forward. Now the men’s turn, and the stream became a tide, the auditorium sucked dry by the successive waves. There were hundreds, literally hundreds and not one among them thinking of the all-day sucker! Mr. Toogood watched | the queue and manfully concealed his horror-‘"First train for the Hutt at five past six tomorrow." But it was over inside of an hour, and the queue cut down to size. The weapon used: a rapid-fire series of questions. Effective, if not entirely painless. .. The first one made it, and took her seat in the space set aside for the elect. And rightly, too. How did she know the Oxford-Cambridge boat race was rowed upstream? Casualties, however, were heavy: "Who was New Zealand’s Sportsman of the Year for 1953?" The young man was positive. "Don't know," he said. "I’m Welsh." We had to admire the Cambrian logic. Had not the tribe who fled te Wales staved off for centuries the invasions of the outer world? But there remained an uneasy suspicion this man hadn’t heard of the All Blacks either. Anyway, he left the stage in company with an intellectual gentleman who considered there were’ two backs in @ Rugby team. It was a pleasant release from tension to spot Mr. Dearnley, sometime Trans-Tasman Quiz Champ, waiting his turn. Oh, it was easy! Spain and Portugal were on the Iberian Peninsula. We'd known all along, and better still, we'd know Mr. Dearnley would know. There was something comforting about it. We could face the next comer with renewed faith: " "What is the ‘Wavy Navy’?" The lady scouted about for the most probable.’ "The American Navy?" ‘she said, Ah, well, how could they expect a woman to answer that one! Could she ever have been drilled by a petty officer: "The R.N.’s the gentlemen trying to be seamen. The R.N.R.’s the seamen trying to be gentlemen. And the R.N.V.R: (that’s the Wavy Navy, and that’s you) is the neither trying to be both!" By this the hopefuls had shrunk toa mere 60 or so. Mr. Toogood gestured ‘to the technician, raised his arms, and the show was on----with an obedient blast’of applause from the audience. > The speed bewildered. There came @ kind of Twenty Questions, with bells and buzzers and red lights flashing, and before we knew it a woman walked offstage with a fat cigar she’d got for naming Africa’s largest lake. Then there was "packet-time," with the questions at rapid-fire, and 10 packets of soi p‘at stake, We waited for the big-time. It came, after a kind of knock-out competition between two contestants’ at a time. An elderly man brought a gasp from the audience with the information that a wattle was a kind of acacia (hardly anybody had known that), but it was a woman who led the field. The questions fell like hammer-blows. The audience leaned forward. People mumbled the answers to themselves, if they knew, or adopted the Oh-it’s-just-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue look, if they didn’t. The Town Hall cat, a black one, (continued on next page) —

ete. (continued from previous page) "crossed the stage. (Was it an accident?) The tension grew. Then it came. . "What do you play a mandolin with?" The -lady thought a moment. "A thumbx pick." ‘For the first time that night, Mr. Toogood looked uncertain. "Well, actually, it’s called a plectrum, but .. ." his face cleared, "some people call it a thumb pick. Yes, we'll give you that." He leaned forward, and the microphone seemed .to cower, as he yelled, "You’ve got it! You go for It’s In the Bag!" They embraced. The Master looked pleased and happy. The lady looked * dazed. But more was to come. It was a "middle-sized bag. Could be anything. The auction started. This would be the test. "T'll give you ten pounds," yelled Mr. Toogood. "What’ll you have? The -money or the bag?" This was easy. "I'll take the bag," ‘said the lady. "You never know," said the Master, "that bag might contain anything. We had a gent a while ago got an allday sucker! Better take the money!" "Tll take the bag." \ "Fifteen pounds!"

. The audience yelled; "The money!’ — ‘The Bag!"-"The money!"-‘"The Bag!" Mostly it was the men who went for the money. Fifteen pounds is 600 beers in any man’s language. The ladies preferred to gamble. After all, it wasn’t .their. money . .. and that gleaming fridge! There was a longer hesitation now. (Was the all-day sucker making itself felt?) And.a subdued: "T’ll stick to the » bag." And so it went, to £30, In the audience, the money-takers began to make themselves heard, The Master became.more persuasive. He begged her to take the money. He thought only of her interests! Wasn’t £30 in the hand worth an old sock in the bag? Well, wasn’t it? The lady held out. In the 20th Cen‘tury,. temptation was offered by the -Man, and the woman proved stronger. With the rest, we ceased breathing as .the Master drew from the bag a tiny .envelope. He tarried. He disputed. He even (we say it quietly) was guilty of a terminological inexactitude. ‘Then he "gave it away. It was a fridge! Not the _largest, but the answer to most household dreams. The lady raised a smile, .the audience a cheer, and the Master embraced the winner again. Rewards all round, ._ Later, we tracked the lady down. "I ‘was sick with worry." she told us. "And sweating like a man. It was a terrible decision to make, especially when he -got to thirty pounds." What, we asked, finally forced the decision? "Well," she said, "my husband and I had often talked about it, and we decided we'd take the bag. Anyway, it was their ‘money we took a chance on.’ It turned out she’d qualified with a question on the eye-colour of a new-born babe. "I’ve got two." She giggled. "They had dark blue eyes. So I said that." And how, we asked, did she happen to know all the answers? "Well, I left school early," she said. "But I do an awful lot of crossword puzzles. And whenever -I find a word I don’t know, I go straight to the dictionary." To complete the record, we ap‘proached a man who’d missed on his est-and vital-question. How did he feel? He tried to look glum, and failed. "Oh, well. Either you know it or you don’t." Not the philosophers of old could have said a more final word.