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SMAD. An Organ of Student Opinion. 1931. Volume 2. Number 3.

Sinful Stories — Penrod's Progress

page 8

Sinful Stories

Penrod's Progress

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Penrod who wanted to become a lawyer and get people's money from them to make him rich and famous so he went to Victoria College until he knew all there was to be known about law and the Professors said you ought to be a judge but first of all you have to advertise yourself. So the little boy thought hard about how he could get publicity and at last he joined the Debating Society which is a College Club that talks about all sorts of things and really doesn't say much about them but attracts a lot of attention especially when the public wants to know what's wrong with the world and can get supper for one penny admission including chocolate biscuits and you needn't pay a penny at all if you come in after the debate is over when the Chairman says please signify in the usual manner and everybody claps with relief and says now for the supper. The Debating Society trains people to talk without thinking and they must yell out loud so as to drown people who make witless interjections but the Chairman loves interjectors because it gives him a chance to make speeches whenever he likes and that is all he lives for, because he's too young for Parliament. Penrod went to all the debates no matter what they were about and he could always say something hitting the air with his fist to show it was a fighting speech and that he felt very deeply about everything and the judges always put him first until he got the Union Prize, and then he was made Chairman which made people look at him all the evening and feast their eyes on his face until they knew it practically off by heart. This made Penrod very happy and he said to himself this is a hang of an easy job its time I went after bigger things like the Stud Ass which is not an ordinary kind of ass but really means all the students put together because they are always kicking about something and making horrible noises and not doing what they are told. So Penrod went to the annual meetings of the Stud Ass and spoke louder and more than anybody else until everybody said who is this person isn't he the gasworks sit down shut up and other intellectual remarks but Penrod said I cannot be silenced so they said have it your own way and made him President of the Stud Ass. Now Profs are people who lecture and you have to read books to find out what they have been lecturing about and then you find that they have got it all out of those books only they are allowed to read it from notes while you have to sit and answer silly questions without any notes and no inspiration at all except the supervisors faces but not the Registrar who ought to have charge of the German Army. The Professors are called Professors but really they are only common people like ourselves and cant see further into a brick wall than anybody else or why should they always be having trouble with the Stud Ass which is not a wooden thing like the Professorial Board for that is what the professors call themselves in the lump. Penrod had lots of adventures with the Professors who grew to love him and told him that they were not really villains but by and by something happened that showed him that the College Council was really and truly a villain. Every year the College held a religious ceremony called Foolscapping and all the Professors went dressed up as priests except Doctor Sutherland who went dressed up as the Woman of Babylon or Cherry Ripe or something but looked awfully swish and some man or woman of note in history gave a sermon which the students didn't like, and the students made profane noises which the College Council didn't think was reverent and at last the Council told the students to go to Hades and have a Foolscapping of your own and the students did and it was just like the Real Thing for Penrod preached to them and asked why should everybody be on the Council except us arent we the main guys in this show we want a Soviet. This frightened the Council so much that they sent for Penrod and said take a seat with us for heavens sake and Penrod said gentleman on behalf of the eight hundred students of Victoria University College both men and women who have from time immemorial and I may say gentlemen that that expression is intended to be taken not in its literal but in its legal signification who have I say from time immemorial eagerly nay passionately yearned for this happy realisation of their most profound aspirations in the name of these students gentlemen of whom I am but the humble representative and no more in the name I repeat of these eight hundred students and perhaps of more than eight hundred I have not the figures by me gentleman in their name I accept the great honour which you are pleased to bestow upon me. It would take too long to tell of all the wonderful things that Penrod did on the Council and how he stirred the Council up whenever it so much as dared to think of a student but by and by the Council got restless and said this man is too good to be on a common Council we must get him into Parliament then if he likes he can go to the Imperial Conference and after that to the League of Nation then perhaps he'd like to have a shot at setting up the United States of Europe or perhaps remodelling the Constitution of the British Houses of Parliament nothing on earths impossible to a man who can make fighting speeches but we cant let him waste himself on us. So they got Parliament to pass a Bill making Penrod member of Parliament for the University of New Zealand and after Penrod had gone they said now let us get back into our rut and sleep again and so they did. But Penrod didnt go to sleep he went on and on and on and rose higher and higher until you couldn't see him without a telescope and one fine day he had himself fired off to the moon which he thought would be a handy starting place for a little jaunt to Arcturus to see whether Einstein really was fit to do his job by himself and didn't need a younger and better man to tell him the proper way to go about things and that's all and now we'll sing our Goodnight Song children.

Wog.

June 20th—the flight you will dream about.