1938-09-05 — Page 10

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THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, MONDAY,.. SEPTEMBER

10

I

STOPPED

HIM..

by S. E. R. Wynne

Twas his puzzled frown that really made me speak to him. There were tram- lines right across his glis- tening forehend, and his eyes were wild. He was muttering. too.

I thought i was the heat, for Stop Me and Buy One men are usually most placid Individuals. And then I saw the paper he was struggling with, the cause of all the trouble.

It looked like a football pool entry form. There were ruled Hues

up and down, arrows pointing this way and that, boxes all over the place. It was like an accountants' nightmare.

"Look at it," he said, when 1 had stopped him and bought one. Look at it! I don't mind selling ice cream, even on Bank Holidays, But doing sums about it after- wards is just about the mlt! “

·

A

a try!"

ND he thrust the paper into my hands, as though "to say, “Here, you have

it was dreadful. He had to fill in his name, the number of his tricycle, the name of the depot he alled up at the details of the stock he fled up, with. "So many large bricks, small bricks, brickettes.. threepenny tuba, fourpenny tubs, sixpenny tubs, waters.

That to begin with.

Half-way through the morning the real van had replenished his dwindling stock. Twice during the sweltering afternoon it had been round again. He had to fill in all that.

And now that he was working his way depot-wards again he was alling in the stack he was taking back, working out how much he had sold, hoping desperately that at the third time of trying it would tally.

I

FELT sorry for him. Mathematical exercises

in the late evening of an August Bank Holiday would get anyone down. And it was being sorry for him, I suppose, that started him off telling me what It's like to be senside Stop Mc and Buy One man,

Don't think I'm grumbling- mech," he said, a bit grimly, "It's

T

Just that I never was good at arithmetic. Otherwise, I've had a grand day,"

And he patted his bulging pouchful of clinking colng to prove it,

He doesn't mind working ou August Bank Holiday. Few of us would if we worked twelve hours u day, six days a week, for seven months of the year at a minimum wage of 31. Bd. (less insurance).

With the English summer being what it is he feels reasonably cheerful if he sells C10 worth of ice cream in a week and takes home on Friday something like £2 39. When he can sell as much la a single day-well, who wouldn't mind working on August Bank Holl- day?

You get some fun out of it. you know.' People are quear on holiday. Do things they wouldn't dream of If they were at home."

The Stop Me and Buy One Man put down the paper with one final ninlevolent glance and cleared his throat.

"There was a woman down here Six of them, there were. Steps. this morning with her children.

you know, But she'd brought Chough Cres and bottles of milk "And she wanted me to keep t and ham sandwiches for sixty.

for her the eggs and the milk and the ham sandwiches-til they were ready for it, so that shouldn't go off.'

66W YOULD I. if you please, be

'W

sure to be back at the pler at half-past twelve! "But it's a friendly Job. Won- derful how people get to know you

"When I first started on my pitch down here there WILS A young chap who used to wall for me on the promenade every Sunday morning about half-past- eight.

"He was always my Arst cus- tomer. And he always looked a bit anxious if he was a few minutes late. When I'd been serving him for a couple of months we got talk- ing. And what do you think?-

שיר

"The children are all right so long as one of us is within reach."

he used to eat my ice cream for breakfast!

"A shop chap, he WILD. Served in a big London stores and never finished work til late on Saturday nights. Then he went home and had a nap. got out his bike and cycled down here in time for breakfast on Sunday morning Breakfast on ice cream!

"Well, I served him from March right up til September, when we pack our trites away. Next March. first time out for me, there he was waiting on the same sent on the prom. as though he'd never left R.

"Only he must have left it, be- cause then he had, a young woman. with him and instead of a ulke leaning against the side of the sent there was a tandem. And they both had ice cream for breakinst.

"That was the second year I was here, and they were waiting for me every Sunday morning except one. Tot quite worried when they didn't turn up. You don't know how I worked myself up over those kids,

S

were, as

TILL. It was all right. Next Sunday there they bright and chirpy as ever. Know what they'd done? Got married. They bought a special that week-to celebrate.

"They still come every Sunday.

"SPITFIRE"

HE very name is enough to arouse curiosity. And seldom has anything been more aptly

named.

The Spitfire is the fastest stand- ard aeroplane in the world, and it is going to establish Great Britain's alr supremacy beyond all doubt. The Air Ministry has just ordered 1,000 on one contract-the largest single order over placed for nir- craft in normal times.

Fow people have seen the Spitfire fat out." Those who have travelling will not forget it in a hurry. One moment it is a slim, streamlined shape against the sky: the next moment it has gone, the moan of its powerful Rolls Royce Merlin" engine trailing far behind it, the draught of a minin- ture cyclone in Bak

In 1913. M. Jacques Schneider pre- sruted a massivo silver trophy to the French Aero Club to encourage the development of seaplanes. It was to be awarded each year to the pilot putting up the fastest speed above Water and could be won outright by three successive wins. The contests were to be open to the world:

As a point of historical interest, the first contest was won by a French pilot at Monnca in April, 1913, at a speed of 48.75 miles an hour.

Entrica, until 1932, represented. private coterprise. But suddenly it was renllied that there was a lot to be learned from these high-speed events.

America was the first to see it. In 1933 she opened her purse wide. trained special pilots, bulit machines. and look the trophy across the Atlantio froin Britain. The name of Schneider loomed into prominence,

In 1925 the second of the great nasies behind the Spitfire became known, Mr. R. J. Mitchell, designer to Vickers Supermarine, built his firat racing monoplane-the 6.4. Though it talled to win back the trophy from America that year. It put up a world's spred record of over 220 miles an hour italy enved an outright win by

"The few who have seen it fat out tolll not forget th

a hurry."

America in 1920, and the next year began the strangest and most expensive speed battle that the world has ever seen.

By that time both Britain and Italy had taken a leaf from America's book. and developed High Speed Flight Schneider's trophy was already far beyond reach of private competition. Governments were fighting for it, and spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in the effort.

In 1927 Mitchell designed the 9.6, and on it Filght Lieut. "Webster won the trophy from Xaly with a speed of 201,68 miles an hour.

Having won the first leg once more. Great Britain was determined to wis again in 1929, The Government placed Another order with Supermarine, and Mitchell designed the 8.0-Uterally o flying bullet on flants. For a suitable power plant, he turned to Rolls Royce. and

Bir Henry Royco himself--the third great Bpitare namo-designed the engine. Eighteen-hundred horse power, tucked away in a spaco smaller than the average car bonneti

Flying-Officer Waghorn flew the 8.0 to victory a speed of over 320 miles an hour. One more win, and the trophy would belong to Orent Britain for good. But there are limits, even to what the Government feels justified In spending. Schneliter never dreamt that His sporting offer would cost more than

a few thousand franes each year. In- stead, it had cost the various govern ments millions of pounds,

Eight-thirty to the dot they're on that seat, Only now there are three of them and one of those baby sidecars is attached to the tandem.

"And how that kid can eat ice Must have inherited it cream! from his dad.

"Not that ice cream for break- fast is unusual, bless you. Why, every Bank Holiday, when there's as many people sleepitig on the beach at night as play on it during the day, they eat my bricks as though it was eggs and bacon,

"And the kids! Where they put It away to I can't imagine.

I

"It's good for 'em, though. was reading in the paper about calorific value or something Vitimins. You know, the alphabet business. Well, I don't know much about that, but when they get their teeth into my ices they certainly go away looking better for it.

"

A

NO most of them are cnally satisfied. Not like a woman who comes up to me to-day and says, "A tup- peny, please. and would you give my little Willie a ride on your bicycle? Co on, just a little one!

"I said, 'Certainly, mum, if you thrown in from that chap who can get a ride and an ice cream

keeps the donkeys.' That got her!

"She won't come back to me in

a hurry. But lots do, you know, There are nearly 60 of us working for my firm in this town alone- - 3,000 of us all over the country. they say and people still manage to find you just when they want you.

.

"Bometimes when I'm out of stock they' walt half an hour till the van comes round and fills me up again, when they could easily walk down the road to the man on the next pitch, Friendly people. And hardly anyone can resist our best salesmen. Two of them, there arc-the sun and the children.

"The sun is good for a sale every time. The children are all right so long as one of us on a trike is within reach.

"What gets you most of all is going a quiet pitch on a country road. You know, where the cars are whizzing by.

"That's the trouble, see? They First are always whizzing by. they're getting somewhere. Then they're getting home again.

"It's not missing the anles so much as sering the kids' faces that worries me. You can see them a mile oft. As soon as they catch sight of the trike they jump up and dig Pa in the ribs.

"B

UT PA is going too fast With only one leg to win, Britain decided to drop out of the game. Then,

jor he's making up for time lost after being la out of the blue, came Lady Houston. cheque book in hand. She put down a a traffic jam or he's too lazy to pull sum of £100,000 and said "Go alícad."... up or he's just plumb broke. You

designer The brilliant

-Mitchell- created the Supermarine 8.6.b. - The wizard Henry Royce crammed an extra 600 horsepower into nearly the same engine spice, and in 1931 Filght-Lleut. Boothman roared home to victory at a * speed of 340 miles an hour.

The Schneider Trophy belonged to Great Britain for good.

J.

To-day the trophy is nearly, for- Rotten. Jacques Behnelder. Mitchell, Lady Houston, and Sir Henry Royce are all dead. “Not one of them ilved to see the full results of their work.

As a direct result of their work we have the SPITFIRE-Instest thing of In kind on earth. Without any one of them it would not have come into being. And soon, with 1,000 Spitfires in our first line, we shall have reason to be truly grateful.

Miles Henslow.

can watch the kids' faces chang- ing from expectation to doubt and then to disappointment and tears.

"Generally they disappear with their noses pressed against the back windows and crying enough for a cloudburst."

He was a sentimental Stop Me and Buy One. Man. Until he picked up that paper again. Then he began to get hot under the collar once more..

"Why don't you stop yourself and buy one?" I said.

He did.

I hope he remembered to enter it up.

-To-day's Thought- THE way to a man's heart is.

through his stomach.

-FANNY FERN.

Count the "TELEGRAPHS" everywhere

1938.

STICK To Your LAST

British Distrust of Versatility

NIH HENRY WOOD, toremost Bel- fish conductor, is a painter of no mean talent, and his Hertford- |shire home is hung with kls land-

seapes

He never exhibits them, however; he knows his countrymen too well. "In this country," he said to a friend. "you are not supposed to be good at inore than one thing. If you conduct -you conduct!"

With his customary shrewdness, Sir Henry put his finger at once on characteristle of the Briton, who has an instinctive distrust of people who can do several things equally well.

He likes the cobbler to stick to his last. If the cobbler chooses to paint pictures in his spare tinte, well and good--so long as they are bad pic- tures. If, on the other hand, the cobbler's artistic efforts show merit, then it is taken for granted that he cannot be a very good cobbler.

The proverb about the cobbler and his last, and the engnate saying which implies that a Jack of several trades cannot be

R master of any of them, are totally wrong and illogical, but then the Belton never pretended to have any capacity for logic. He only knows that he likes his politi- cfuns to be politielans, and his novelists to be novelists, and not to any nonsense about mixing the

have

two jobs.

Benjamin Disruell, DUC of the astutest men who ever lived, reallsed this. When he was fairly launched 4 A serious statesman, he left off writing novels. They

were very

good novels; but he knew the English temperament, and he knew that as long as he continued to write them, he would not be taken at his full value as 4 political leader.

CS-

When he was unassailably tablished, with many statesmanlike achlevements to his credit, he took up the

pen again, and wrote "Lothair," Just to show the pubile that he could do it if he liked. Doubt About Winston Churchill

Perhaps Mr. Winston Churchill is the victim of his own versality to a certain extent. He bewilders the public by being just as good a writer as he is a polittelun, so that the man in the street cannot make

up s mind whether "Winston," whom lie admires and loves, is a statesinan who has taken to writing books, or a writing genius who has gone politics.

for

And when he begins painting ex cellent landscapes, the man in the street is more uncertain than ever how to place him.

The way to succeed with the British public is to put all your eggs into one basket and to falet that basket in plain letters. Do not tes the public be in any uncertainty as 10 how you wish to be considered-as a painter, for instance, or a inwyer. or an engineer.

The late Lord Darling never got all the credit due to him as a Judge, because the British public only con- nected bin with "Laughter in Court," Make a reputation as a wit auf Jour fellow-countrymen never lake you seriously as anything elsc.

can

One sees this everywhere. Nobody will believe that the man with a name for amusing conversation can be any good of business. Business is a serious matter; and nobody got on at it by cracking Jokes.

Mr. James Gunn, the portrail- painter, Is credited with a wish to go into the louse of Commons. it is. very dificult for a British con- stituency to believe that anybody connected with the arts can be a serious politician.

It Does Not Pay

True, the well-known novellal, Mr. A. E. W. Mason, once sat for Coventry, and Mr. A. P. Herbert is a member of the present House of Comments, but those two eminent swallows do not make a summer.

W. M. Thackeray was soundly beaten when he was candidate for the re- presentation of Oxford, and never tried again.

The lute Joseph Chamberlain,

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NEXT SAILING—

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18th September.

DODWELL & CO., LTD.

Hongkong Bank Bldg.

OUR

Agents.

Telephone 28021.

BRITISH

CROSSWORDS

ACROSS

I Suitable place for a hogshead falling overboard (four words

0, 2, 3, 3).

9 it this dog were racing would it use Its head to beat the others? (7).

apostic of Tariff Reform, once wrote 10 This was obtained from the

Was

a play, but in spite of being highly

unscrupulous alchemist (7). praised by theatre people who anw 11 Could this part of a house be it in manuscript, it was never pro- duced.

made for nought? (4). The author

an op- shrewd 12 One of the tribes but enough to see that being known as ponent of Israel (5). a dramatist would seriously damage 14 French novelist (4). his status as a Minister,

10 The head of

state (3).

Д

totalitarian

pansy

"How." people would say, "can the non attend to his Parliamentary 10 The way in which duties when he is always hanging stem curls (6).. about the theatres with a play in his 20 This piece of furniture advises pocket? This would have been an

"endeshabille"

I unjust view to take; but unhappily21 Father" (0),

people do not always take the junt model (7).

23 A lost vagrant (0).

view.

The e Sir Joseph Lyons never 24. Only a little fellow but he may appeared before the public as

д

bite (6).

landscape painter, excellent as his 27 This 20 down is the time for

and

flavouring (3).

29 Malay weapon (4).

plctures were. He knew that the public connected him with catering

would never allow him to be 30 A military body perhaps (5). considered as anything else but 91 What Shylock insisted on kav- caterer

"Stick to what you

doing," says the public, "and never mind about trying to do two things at the same time!" Verantilly does not pay.'

arc

There is a story of James M'Nell Whistler and Lord Leighton, P.RA,, which; might be quoted on this sub- ject. Somebody was louding the Preisdent of the Royal Academy up to the skies. He was such an atcom- plished man-witty speaker, charm- ing conversationalist, well-graced writer, and soon and so forth. "Paints, too, doesn't he?" grated Whitler.

Claude Gant

(4)

Ing 34 Book of the O.T. (7). 33 This method of stopping an

argument in certain after all.. (7).

30 The coffee's innocence of the

charges against it (14).

DOWN

1 In the direction of part of a

hospital (7).

2 Inauspicious (7).

3 Servants who might be, the

head of the Romanies (4);

1 Produce (8), :

Would it be right to put this headgear below others!" (8).

185

8 "news rides post" (Milton)--

(4).

7 Confide (7).

8 Ask one for a dismissal (8).

13 An old lady in favour of bet-

ting? (7).

13 Here a man who has paid once

is made to pay again (6).

17 A famous gate (3).

19 A time of possibility (3).

20 See 27 across. (3).

22 Royalty making a request? (0). 23 Dock labourer or time-server

(7).

20 Extravagant (7).

26 Remedy,

for bad

perhaps (7).

27 Wet is so utilised (0),

28 A cheap mixture (6).

alignment

33 From this the fare may be

known (4).

33 He helped to make tropical

Jancis healthier (4):

H

SATURDAY'S SOLUTION

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LONDON·B·B-IDGE"

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