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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 6 (October 1, 1932.)

Miscellaneous Mystery

Miscellaneous Mystery.

What we want is more miscellaneous mystery, such as mystery meals, mystery clothes, mystery jobs, mystery marriages and mystery divorces. Of course mystery meals have always been with us from the moment the Crusaders invented the hot-cross bun for putting it across their victims, and the Scots terrorised the Picts with oat cakes delivered by hand. Even in modern times the mystery meal is not uncommon among newly-weds and and nearly-deads. In fact it has been acclaimed in a well-known Landlady's Lullaby called “Hash-a-buy-baby.” But if every meal were wrapped in mystery like eggs and income tax, gastronomy would be as interesting as astronomy insofar as determining the identity of strange bodies in the great wide outer spaces. We would have porridge dried and shaped like straw hats, stew tied in bundles like kindling wood, pig's feet with spats on, blanc-mange with the shivers extracted, pickled gherkins with the jerks jerked out, whitebait boiled in blacking, black-pudding boiled in whiting, and Irish stew with a Scots accent. Every meal would be preceded by a guessing competition known as a “menumystic”—something such as “what is it that looks like a blushing banana, sounds like a cold day, tastes like a hot time, and is often ‘pickled’ but never ‘stewed,’” the answer being, of course, “a chilli.”

Mystery clothes are not unknown, but mystery at present is confined to feminine fashions, the main mystery being why some of them were ever fashioned at all. But there is scope for the Tailor and Cutter to cut a dash with men's mystery suits; say, something in the shape of a sausage-skin suit of cross-word puzzle pattern, with the seat in front, the hip pocket over the heart, and a spare leg for hikers. There would be two main mysteries attached to every suit—the first being how to get into it, and the second how to get out of it.

Mystery jobs would be better than none at all. They would be advertised something as follows: “Applications are invited for position of irresponsibility with unestablished firm of hot-air merchants. Applicants must have no knowledge of anything, and must be prepared to travel in all directions without knowing where they are going. Duties and salary a complete mystery.”

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“Sea boots for hiking on the high seas.”

“Sea boots for hiking on the high seas.”

Mystery marriages might prove popular. It is a mystery why some marriages are made even to-day, but the real mystery marriage would be rather a mirage than a marriage. The bride, the groom, and the time and the place would be kept a dark secret until they were all simultaneously arraigned before the halter. The accident of birth would have nothing on the accident of marriage, and there would be no time to be sorry until it was all over, which is a great advantage.