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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 4 (August 1, 1932)

Survival and Arrival

Survival and Arrival.

This is the tale as propounded. It happened in the horse-days, before the horse-power daze. Skinny connected with Roa by coach, via mud, impecuniosity, and the urge to lap up the spirit of life “before Life's liquor in its cup be dry.”

Roa and environs were mostly environs, virile, vertical and untamed. When Skinny fell off the coach through his inability to identify one leg from the other, both being frozen south of the ham-strings, Roa was raving with the preparatory delirium of its annual race meeting. Skinny dropped in providentially, like a thistledown cast among cannon balls. In Roa, the light-weights tipped the bar at thirteen page 62
“He-he-men who laugh at the boy with a bulge.”

“He-he-men who laugh at the boy with a bulge.”

stone, the featherweights weighed in at eleven stone, whereas Skinny, at nine stone, was a disgusting example of forced feeding. At eight stone he personified the ideal state of muscle-bound moribundity pictured in the press by he-he-men who toss the scornful laugh at the boy who bulges. While Skinny essayed to sort himself up, a large chip of the old back-blocks, lavishly encrusted with barberous growth, ran a speculative eye over his geography. There was doubt in the large one's glance, yet hope.

“You looking for a job?” he rumbled. Skinny supported the supposition. “Do you ride?” asked the pioneering person, in the tone of one who says “of course you don't play golf.” “I do,” answered Skinny, like one taking the oath of submission at the altar. If “riding” is merely a matter of survival and arrival, Skinny could ride. He had “picked up” riding as one “picks up” influenza and statistics.

The large exhibit explained. It appeared that he owned a horse, name of Gentle Annie, which he had entered for the Shepherd's Plate. She was a good horse, but she hated weight like a dishonest grocer. Weight did not appear to be one of Skinny's secret vices. He was engaged to exhort Gentle Annie to victory.