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A Night Out

Exclusive to "Spike."

The scene was Thorndon Station, the time 7 o'clock on a calm Sabbath evening. Fresh from a Christian Union Tea and evidently in an excess of religious exultation, three members of our Executive and Debating Society—Catherine Forde (Plunket Medal Veteran), William Joseph Mountjoy, President of the N.U.S., and William Penrose Rollings, President of the Students' Association, all moral props of the College and pillars of society—with some Canterbury debaters, including Carol West-Watson, of Dunedin, were at the station bidding farewell to their Northern competitors.

The Northern team passed through the barrier and Joseph, with a superb flourish of his signet ring, dropped his card into the hand of the porter and sailed majestically in on their heels. His companions, however, lacking their leader's poise and influential name, on trying to follow suit experienced a temporary set-back. The gate-keeper demanded a platform-ticket from each. Pen Rollings, in financial desperation, picked up a derelict suit-case, tried to look like a porter and essayed to bluff his way through. This ruse, clever as it was, also failed and the little party pressing their faces against the railings in a closed gate appealed tearfully to Joseph for assistance. Joseph returned, presented a second card to the bewildered man and escorted his less-gifted confreres to the platform.

We shall dwell but lightly on the Bacchanalian revels which attended the departure of the guests. It is sufficient to say that Mr. Rollings chased the train out of the station in a supreme effort to capture the tablet. Returning bootless but not discouraged, Pen found the rest of the party riding jubilantly up and down on a luggage-carrier. Intoxicated by the evening's success and the unaccustomed license he had enjoyed, Joseph, his appetite only whetted led the band resolutely in search of further exploits. Apart from the little hitch on the way out when platform tickets were demanded and Rollings failed to make his legal point clear to the officials, they arrived with more or less dignity at St. James' Theatre (nee Fuller's). Mr. Mountjoy pluckily overcoming a natural aversion to personal encounter with the profanum vulgis agreed to sit in the gods.

'Mid suitable remarks and constant applause from the now thoroughly demoralized Wikitorian trio, the performers vied with them unsuccessfully in an effort to capture the favour of the audience. Mr. Mountjoy at this stage discovered, to his own great delight, a mercifully long-dormant falsetto and could barely be restrained from giving an impromptu recital. As it was he contented himself with a periodic emission of sound, tunefully assisting the tenor on the stage to take his higher notes. In emulation of Lady Macbeth, the feminine members of the party urged on the cavaliers to further excesses. By this time practically everyone in the vicinity was the humble possessor of one of Joseph's visiting cards.

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At this juncture, the audience, missing the competing body from the stage, glanced at its programmes and saw that the next was a particularly stirring item by the Tramways Band and subsided into a state of expectancy. The attendants and the management were in the meanwhile darting here and there upstairs in fluttering perturbation. Miss Forde, yielding to the general air of complete abandon, had been making paper darts and having utilized the programmes of her companions was bartering with those in the row behind for more.

The band-conductor entered and a hush fell upon the house. He clasped his baton. There was a pause and then—Mr. Rollings in a rich, golden baritone clove the silence.

"All tickets, please!"

Uproar!

His bright young face flushed with his meteoric success, Pen turned to seek the approval of the others. But transient was the hour of triumph—he looked into the menacing eyes of an official. For a second they stared, Rollings gripping the seat in a shameless defiance. Then a lunge—a jerk—the sound of dragging feet—and the President of Victoria College Students' Association was with his debauched companions being drawn up the steps by the back of his collar.

Joseph suffered the humiliation of the vile hands of the lowly for perhaps ten seconds and then with innate resolution braced his foot against the exit door. Suddenly, in a trice, the scales fell from his eyes. The mist lifted, the effects of the C.U. biscuits, saveloys and cocoa lost their hold over him. Great heaven! Here was he, Joseph Mountjoy (Junior) descending to a sordid skirmish with base lackeys!

With a magnificent, annihilating gesture he kicked the ticket receptacle into their midst and swept from their sight. And, as he descended the stone steps, with sublime disdain, he gathered up the various forsaken garments shed by his friends—a green scarf here, a rumpled blue collar (with handkerchief to match) there.

The drama closed with a touching tableau outside the theatre. Pen Rollings was sitting on the footpath, his feet in the gutter and his head buried in his hands. The Canterbury representatives and Miss Forde were extracting souvenirs from the advertising show-cases and W. J. Mountjoy (Junior) was presenting, with his usual grace to a stolid doorkeeper a further selection of visiting cards.

—Our Special Correspondent