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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 6 (October 1, 1929)

The Lunatic's Lapse

The Lunatic's Lapse.

Proudly, arrogantly, madly, he came stepping through the gate as if Caesar's chariot thundered behind him instead of a sled-load of rata.
Reduced Fare On The Railway.

Reduced Fare On The Railway.

Scornfully he eyed the cook, preening in the sun. Without warning, the man of pots and pans unleashed a hearty country sneeze. The Lunatic shrieked, side-stepped, and gathering his feet up in a bunch essayed to mingle himself with the distance, until, with a crash like the crack of doom, the sled met the corner of the whare. The wall crumpled up and dropped off like a climax in a cinema comedy, disclosing Whiskers, the post splitter, sitting terrified in a top bunk.

Meanwhile, The Lunatic lay on his back endeavouring to kick the roof off the world.

As my late friend ‘Orace, the ostler, was wont to observe, “There's something abart ‘orses—”

Certainly the worst horse is something superior to the schoolboy's definition: “A ‘orse is a quadrapig with a leg on each corner and a head on one end. At the other end is a tale which he unfolds like Hamlet or anny other animil.”

Like Hamlet and the horse, “I would a tale unfold,” but I needs must slam the stable door with the obvious observation that, for connecting up diverse points of the compass, the meat horse has been superseded by his big brother with the iron constitution. Especially popular is the iron horse when King Holiday reigns and there is Reduced Fare On The Railway.