The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 14, Issue 2 (May 1, 1939)
A House-howled Word
A House-howled Word.
You may remember, many years ago, a biological phenomenon with the stage name, Argus, who challenged all-comers to a catch-as-catch-can with Knowledge. His slogan was “Ask Argus!” You could ask him anything from the number of three-penny bits circulating in Dunedin to the pronunciation of “centennial” and he could give you the answers; and, as no one knew what the answers ought to be, there was no harm done. He may have got the “bull” in the eye every time for all I know, but I can't help thinking what a bore he must have been at home. The common or house-howled Knower has no honour in his own family. Originally he is a domestic product—the victim of blind faith. In the first place he induces his wife to take a preference share in Marriage (Incorp.) on representations which, later, she finds to be unsupported by the evidence. Originally she is deluded by his air of doggish wisdom and, by the time she discovers that she has been sold a pup it is too late to rescind the license.
By this time he is an incurable Knower. Answers wing from his lips like migrating godwits, knowledge springs from him like rats deserting a shrinking sip, or fleas fleeing a drowning dog. He doesn't even have to think them up and they don't have to be correct because no one listens to them, anyway.