Charley's Neighbours

By

Bill Gill

SPEAKING of tapeworms,” said Charley.

“Oh, but I wasn’t,” I protested.

“You weren’t,” Charley admitted, “but the jokers that infest the other flats on my landing were. All worked up, too, about some pugilist or other that owned one. So I tells them that true yarn about old Lody.

Remember?”

Yes, yes,” I said hastily. “You needn’t repeat ”

“This fellah Lody,” continued Charley, undeterred, “used to have a trading site down in the Louisiade group, well off the beaten track.

He was a sick man, too, had been for years. Tried every medicine in the calendar but none was any good so finally he came in to Samarai to see the quack.

“A funny looking jasper, this Lody. A great fat body perched on a pair of long skinny shanks,

flanked by the thinnest arms you’ve seen, and topped by a head that looked no bigger than a lemon, and about the same colour.

“It didn’t take the quack long to diagnose his complain t.

Tapeworm!

And a desper ate case at that. Well, the first thing the doctor did was to put him on a light diet of two teaspoons of water at daybreak and the same at sundown

nothing else at all. After three days of this treatment the worm inside Ihim was ravenous and nearly drove poor old Lody off his rocker.

“On the fourth day the quack, getting Lody to close his mouth firmly, placed a lump of very over ripe meat on his lips. In no time at all the tapeworm, having smelt the putrid bait, poked its head down one of the poor bloke’s nostrils and the doctor was onto it like a ferret on a frog.

“Forty-two feet of tapeworm the quack hauled, hand over hand, out of the ‘host’ (as he called Lody); head and tail all complete.

“We paid it out along the recrea tion ground and had the Govern ment surveyor measure it. The doc. was delighted, thinking he’d got a world’s record, and he put it in a

bottle of gin to preserve it for posterity.

“However, when he consulted his books he found that a doctor in Upper Silesia had captured one measuring 58 feet, and another in Uganda went over the 60 feet mark, so his didn’t even merit a mention.

“Very disappointed the doctor was, and he hove the bottle away in dis gust. But the boys down at the ‘Cosmopolitan’, hearing of this vandalism, very properly retrieved the valuable trophy.”

HERE Charley paused to laugh.

“Surely it isn’t that funny,” I said, austerely.

“That’s what the other fellahs said,” replied Charley, when his hilarity had abated somewhat.

“Which other fellows?” I asked.

“The fellahs I’m talking about.”

“But I thought you were talking about a tapeworm?”

“If you’d only pay attention you’d know that I’ve been talking about the jokers infesting the flats on my landing. I was talking to them about the tapeworm.

“Oh,’ I said, somewhat doubtfully.

“Well, one of these jokers was a plump fellah with a pink face, rim less glasses and hundreds of teeth.

When I laughed, like I always do, at that part of the yarn, this fellah says, ‘Why, I didn’t know you had no teeth, Charley!’ ‘Who’s talking about teeth?’ I asked sharply. ‘Well, this tapeworm ’ ”

“ ‘We’ve had enough of your silly tapeworm,’ he rudely interrupts. ‘Tell us, if you must talk, about how you lost your teeth.’

“ ‘They’re not lost,’ I told him, sarcastically, ‘l’ve lent them to a friend to go a-courting. Now this bottle ’

“ ‘Sheer neglect,’ says this fellah, Tf you’d only cleaned your teeth once in a while you’d still have a splendid set like mine,’ and he grins to show me enough ivory to make a keyboard for a Wurlitzer organ.

“ ‘Mister,’ I told him, ‘l’m not in terested in your teeth. If ever I do get curious, I’ll break off a dozen

of them and study them at my leisure. Now this tape’—but again I was interrupted: ‘lt’s my opinion

you’re nothing but an old humbug,' says this fellah.

“ ‘Oh—ho,’ says I, ‘so that’s the way of it?’ and reaching down I plucked off one of the table legs. ‘Get outer this flat before I flatten you,’ and I gave the table leg a bit of a flourish. As it happened there was a cage of love-birds hang ing behind me. The waving shil lelagh skittled it and in a flash the air was thick with flying feathers and screeching cockies.

“This fellah made a spring for my throat, but I was ready for him and a poke with my stock sent him

flying one way, and his glass an other. His mates picked him up and they all went clattering down stairs.

“But they were up again in no time, a young John in tow. ‘What goes on?’ yelled the policeman.

Attempted murder, assault, creat ing a public nuisance, or what?' “ ‘Nothing like that,’ I reassured him. Merely a private difference of opinion.’ ‘But you won’t deny breaking his glasses, I hope?’ he went on. ‘Only one pane’, I came back, quick and lively, ‘and only because he refused to vacate the premises when so ordered to do.”

“This legal jargon knocked the chocks out from under them for a moment, but they rallied pretty quickly. ‘Whose premises?’ the fellah yelled. ‘This is my flat you’re wrecking.’

“ ‘Why, so it is,’ says I. ‘Sorry’ —and, after draining all the glasses on the table and the mantlepiece, out I walked.

“ ‘Just a minute ’ said the young cop. Then, catching my wink, he turns on the flat tenants and addressed them sternly: ‘Any more of these disturbances and I’ll have the lot of you over the road. Only on account of this gentleman de clining to lay a charge, you’d all be sleeping in Long Bay this night.’

“Ah,” said I, “then it all ended harmoniously.” And I rose, ready to depart.

BUT that wasn’t all,” said Charley, grasping my arm.

“What?” I cried, “you don’t mean to say ’”

“All I had to say,” said Charley, “was the climax of the tapeworm story, and I did that under police

(Foot of Col. 1, Page 82)

. .a funny look ing jasper . . .”

who’s talking about teeth?

thick with flying feathers

(Continued from Page 81)

protection later that night, well after midnight in fact.”

“Okay,” I said, resignedly. “Tell me, too”—as if I didn’t know.

“The boys in Samarai raffled the bottle; bob a ticket, in aid of the penurious planters.

“We got over forty quid for the cause,” said Charley, with an air of profound satisfaction.

“You did, eh?” said I. “And the winner of the raffle, what did he get?”

“Why,” said Charley, “he got the trophy, of course.”

“And what use is a tapeworm in a gin bottle to anyone?” I asked.

“It was won by one of these Misima miners,” said Charley. “He cut up the worm for bait and landed over a hundred-weight of butter fish with it.”

I waited in silence, knowing Charley’s passion for clearing up all loose ends. “And the bottle,” he concluded, with a leer. “Well, you know how tough these miner boys .are.”

An interesting development in New Guinea to-day is the steady importation of good strains of cattle from Australia, in the hope that a new industry can be established on New Guinea’s cool plateaus.

These fine types had just been penned on a New Guinea steamer by Commonwealth Wool and Produce Co., Ltd., consigned to Lac.