page 5

After Hours.

Father: It's satisfactory to read of this Return of Prosperity.

Sub: It is, so far. And it would be a good deal more satisfactory to see some sign of it. It has not reached the printers yet. I've just read of the burglar who broke into the Manawatu office.

Father: ؟With the usual result?

Sub: Yes. According to the paper, he spoiled a lock, lost his night's rest, and got away with two shillings.

Devil: Just twelve times as much as the Wellington plunderer found in the morning paper's cash box the other night when he got in.

Father: The New South Wales papers are worse off still, it seems. ؟I suppose you read of the country editor who was pressed for his account, and sent his entire assets to the lawyer by mail? A flypaper, with a score or two of dead flies.

Sub: Well, enterprise is not dead, after all. Ivess is away for a plant to start a sheet at Hunterville.

Father: Joe is better at starting papers than at carrying them on. And two rivals are now trying to secure the field before he returns. I suppose it will be like the Otaki venture.

Sub: ؟The Death-Adder? ؟The paper that recorded a hundred lambs in one flock—fifty with one eye, and the other fifty with no tails?

Devil: And the lady riding at midnight on the cow. ؟Dead, is it not?

Father: Not quite. Millar of the Trades Hall, has taken it, and he may do something with it. He should print it a little better, at any rate; and he'll drop the Maori column. Awful Maori it was. It may occur to him that local news would be of interest to his readers.

Sub: Those Maoris are pretty independent. ؟You saw the answer the Pawanui tribe sent to the hon. James Carroll, when he told them he would pay them an official visit on the Sunday?

Father: No.

Sub: « On Sunday we receive Christ's minister — if the other minister has any business with us, there are six days in which he may transact it. »

Father: Good. ؟Do you suspect any intentional sarcasm in the antithesis?

Sub: I cannot say. At all events, the honorable gentlemen took the hint.—By the way, that was rather an insolent letter a certain ministerial private secretary sent to the Baptist union.

Father: Yes. In plain English: If you are also in the market, we're open to negotiate with you.—I'd a queer paper left with me by a policeman a few days ago.

Devil: ؟A summons?

Father: No, a catechism. Questions for reply. How much I spend in oatmeal and how much in bacon; whether I use cheese, and if I devote any of my income to pickles or jam. Whether I go in for beer or other « food-beverages. » And more to the same effect. It is sent to « selected working men, » and they are under no obligation to reply.

Sub: ؟Of what value will the results be, when collected?

Father: I can't say. I did not fill up mine. The temptation to burlesque the thing would have been too strong.

Devil: What a chance, if I'd have got hold of it!

Father: No doubt. That must have been a twin brother of yours, Charlie, who astonished the R.M. Court at Napier the other day.

Devil: ؟Eh? ؟What did he do?

Father: Marched in with elephantine tread, plumped into a seat at the counsel's table, and loudly announced: « I say—I've come for copy! »—؟Have you made any more clippings this month? ؟Any good blunders? ؟Anything from the examination papers?

Devil: Yes, and some original poetry.

Sub: Give us some of the Erudition. As for the poetry——

Devil: (producing scrap-book) The useful knowledge is from Canterbury. A young lady loves to walk under the trees in autumn, and hear the rustle of the Automatic leaves. Queen Elizabeth liked to hear the applause of the crowd at such illusions as « a fair vestal throned by the west. »

Father: ؟Illusions? The word seems happily chosen.

Devil; King John died of grief for losing his jewels in the wash—

Sub: An argument in favor of Mr Buckland's Act, by Jove!

Devil:—but some say he was poisoned by a priest and had an athletic fit. —Then I've a good bit all the way from Texas, where a correspondent requests the editor to continue to pour red-hot thunderbolts right into the teeth of the leeches and sharks that are sucking the life-blood from the people.

Father: I think that could he matched in Wellington. ؟What about the poetry?

Sub: Ough! (Puts his finger to his ears.)

Devil: (relentlessly) I've a real bee-autiful piece from Riverton. Lovely! « The Nuptial Day: to E. T. »

Father: ؟Of the Labor Bureau?

Devil: Don't interrupt. It's in six parts. The Beginning; the Invocation; the Wish; two Sentiments; and the Toast.

Father: ؟How many columns?

Devil: Only five-and-twenty lines. The first part is too pious for recitation. Here's the Invocation:

All ills, all cares, oh Love divine remove.
Pour oil of bliss upon thy silken wove.
Take then the match of peace, oh Love, and fire
The concord in each heart, and let higher
Ascend incense for each zeyphr to spread
Along the path thy chosen soon will tread,
So that the compact mutually made,
May be like truth upon their hearts inlaid.

Father: Somewhat incendiary. Flinging kerosine over the wedding dress, and kindling it! Rice and old boots are bad enough. « Wove » as a noun, and « the match of peace » are original, at any rate.

Devil: Now for a sentiment:

Life without purpose like cut leaves 'neath the sun
Soon becomes death—life's not life if nothing's done.

And here's the concluding toast:

May great hopes be realized, without alloy;
May sweet peace be felt, and that exquisite joy
To which mankind aspire, eagerly expect,
Thy holy wedlock union, grace, bless, protect.

Sub: I caught those last lines. I suppose the writer thought it poetry. Horribly depressing to receive such an effusion on one's wedding-day.

Devil: I guess some comp wrote it. It's signed « Quoin. »

Father: Get your shooter, Charlie, and lock him up!

Sub: I have seen worse lines in print in the colonial papers, ؟Is there a poet in New Zealand?

Devil: Bracken.

Sub: If he has the only, or even the best, claim, there is not. I've read his books, and found witty and humorous rimes, but never a true poem.

Father: I see the unsold balance of his book has been bought up by a printer, who is selling them at a large discount off subscription price.

Sub: ؟The book Made in Germany?

Father: The same.

Sub: I'm inclined, to rate Wills above Bracken. He's tame enough, and horribly profuse; but his verse is tolerably correct. Then there's Hurry—he is too obviously an echo of the authors he admires. Still he has some measure of the gift. But the ladies stand the highest. There has not been a book of verse in New Zealand to approach Mrs Wilson's Themes and Variations.

Father: Miss Mackay, you will admit, is a good second.

Sub: She is; and will make her mark. I have seen good work in the way of fugitive verses, especially in Christchurch papers in years past; but it would be difficult now to trace the writers, and the pieces are for ever buried in the old files.

Father: Talking of rimes, here's a ridiculous old nursery verse that I learned more than thirty years ago. It's been running through my head all day. I must get rid of it:

Anthony Hull had a very thick skull
And one day in Smithfield he met a mad bull.
He knocked him down dead with one blow of his head—
What a precious hard pate he has! all the folks said.

Sub: Come, now; that's stupid enough.

Father: Yes; but the odd thing is that the writer was a prophet.

Sub: ؟What?

Father: The Pall Mall Gazette has just given an account of Andrew Hull, « the man with the iron skull. » Observe the similarity of names.

Sub: Curious, that's all.

Father: It's not all. Hear what he says: « I once butted a bull, and threw him three times. I hit him with the top of my head, not between the eyes, as that would be too hard; but between the nostrils, taking him by the horns as he came towards me. »

Sub: That's pretty close. Well, he'll be a clever man who discovers the law of coincidences.

Devil: Something more for my scrap-book!

(Exeunt severally.)