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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 12 (March 1, 1938.)

Delights and Sidelights

Delights and Sidelights.

It's useless to kick and squirm when old Sir Footloose has you in a travelholt. He wheezes in your ear of surf bursting over distant reefs with the primitive abandon of an explosion in an ice-cream factory. He speaks of cocoa-coloured maids with googly eyes, of the husky whispering of cocoa-nut husks in the lonely Cocos, where the tom-tom calls eerily to its paw-paw. He tells of the delights of the doldrums where it's so still that all you can hear is The Hotcha Kids of the Hotel Neurotic, New York, on the saloon radio. He exhorts you to try it once, to sip the cup of derring-do ere the cup goes dry; to rule off the ledger, to dump the overdraft, to shake the gold-dust of civilisation off your Bostocks and run the easting down.

About to take a Round Trip.

About to take a Round Trip.

With the result that one evening you return to the connubial roost and say, “Semolena, how about a trip round the world, or—ahem!—as far round as the old brown sock will take us.” There is an “up-boys-and-at-'em” glint in your eye and a roll in your gait. Semolena has seen it before and determines to count your loose coin as soon as you are asleep. She objects that the only round trip you can afford is on a hurdy-gurdy. She has ninety-nine other objections which you trump with page 31 a bang. For you are no longer the man who said “I will.” You are a fire-eating filibuster a'rearing to tear the celophane off the world and look it over. You command. “Semolena, pack your war-paint! We're off!”

“Wrestle mightily with bags that bulge but won't budge.“

“Wrestle mightily with bags that bulge but won't budge.“

Your friends murmur, “Fancy the MacMildews! How do they do it!” Your office boy says, “Old wire-whiskers is off at last. I hope the ship goes down.” Your creditors go cross-eyed with apprehension, but what do you care? Sir Footloose FitzFreedom reminds you that your great great great grandfather was a merry old sea dog, a jolly old water spaniel, who had a way with creditors until they caught him and suspended his activities from the yard arm. In this manner are most travel decisions born.

The unthinking imagine that you are carried away by enterprise and enthusiasm; the knowing know that you are led away by that submerged old rascal who, ever since your deluded parents said what a lovely baby you were, has been waiting to get you where he wants you.

Working His Passage Home

Working His Passage Home