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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 9 (January 1, 1930)

The Hat Trick

The Hat Trick.

Speaking of hats, let us digress, dear reader. Mr. Winsome Chuckle, an eminent English statesman, has demonstrated frequently that a hat is a useful utensil for putting the lid on foreign relations, but even he cannot deny that it often weighs heavily on the mind, conceals the vegetation on the roof garden, and is prone to produce those wide open spaces on the dome which are the bane of barbers and often put the “mar” in marriage. How true is the ancient adage that freer than a misspent youth is a hatless thatch.

The Town is merely the Country with its hat on.”

The Town is merely the Country with its hat on.”

page 43
Referring again to the fact that the town is merely the country with its hat on, we are reminded that the phrase “Rus in Urb” is no Bolshevik boast or vegetarian viand on a meatless menu; translated freely, and with abandon,
“His country-seat.”

“His country-seat.”

it means “Rush in ‘Erb!” and is a standing invitation to Herbert of Herbertville, or even Bertie of Bowserville to foregather at his country seat among the wurzels, to feel his pulses pounding with primitive passion, his senses reeling with exotic ecstasy in the amorous atmosphere of the “wide and free,” where the frogs render their saxophonalian symphonies, where the cows cool their kneecaps in aqueous acquiescence, where haystacks stand patiently in the paddocks, and where the song of the separator, the incense of burning wood on the altar of arboreal affection, and the sound of little cowslips slipping, all lull him to a mental state bordering on paralysis of the inane.

And what of the town? Comparisons, dear reader, are ultra vires or ultra modern or something to this effect, and the best we can say of Town and Country is that there is a great deal to be said of both (as the fortuitous father remarked to the terrible twins). They both seem to say “I'll get you yet Coquette.” To burst into song again:—