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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0064.PDF
I/OGHT JANUARY 18, 1917. GHJUFL,REFLECTIONS nv ADORNING these shoulders of mine is a head that is fairly good as heads go, and has stood me in good stead these many years past, though it has never beenclever enough to lead my feet into the paths that are easy. Yet I am on the look-out for another head. Make no mistake, I am not thinking of under- going a surgical operation, but merely keeping my eye open as I pass the curio shops in Wardour Street. The kind of head I want is one that I can talk to, and one that will talk back. My own legitimate head, when it considered this frail body of mine sufficiently matured and strengthened —or it may have been the' strengthened body over- ruling for the moment a generally discerning head •—led me into those pre- cincts whereby I becamepossessed of another head, and one that can talk back, but that is not precisely my meaning or necessity. I want a head that can talk some horse-sense into me when my own is stuffed up and clouded like unto a Newfoundland fog- bank in November—when it feels, as it feels now, like a chunk of sponge-rubber saturated with unbaked York- shire pudding, owing to dose upon dose of influenza. You will have gusssed that ^ have been reading Eden Phillpotts again. Alas ! I do not possess a " Laughing Philosopher " who will talk to me at midnight and provide me with the much-sought " copy " which I am unable at these times to evolve myself. Heads I have in my writ- ing-roomthat treat all my attempts at conviviality with contempt. William of Avon on his bracket . in the corner will not condescend to so much as raise the lids from his eyes. All the tobacco smoke I have ever directed at him in an attempt to ring his poetic nose has only resulted in changing the white of his plaster to a lemon yellow. I think William has the jaundice. Possibly my cast of the Bard of Avon has never become imbued with the magic of " My Laughing Philosopher " ; possibly the original has not been sufficiently long dead. You will remember that the head possessed by Mr. • Phillpotts only spoke for 50 days, once every 500 years. I am afraid I cannot wait for William. THE HELM A PATENT INCUBATOR Fact of the matter is that when I get these rapidly recurring and multiplying doses of " flue," my usual dovelike and gentle nature undergoes a remarkable change. In place of the rippling cadence of soothing words with which I habitually spread sunshine around, come others. I am made aware of this change in myself. I am given to understand by my other head that I am an argumentative person, in language less polite than that which I have attributed to her. " Billikin," the " God of Things as they Ought To Be," can't raise enough in the way of ideas to cause a " comp." to wet the thumb and first finger of his right hand. I have talked to that " Billikin " at night- time until the household above must have thought by my persuasive language that I was entreating the cook not to leave us, but all to no purpose. Once, in a desperate attempt to break through his reserve, I stuck the end of a half-smoked cigarette in his mouth, but he looked so much like a popular advertisement that when a ring came at the front door late at night I hastily removed the evi- dences of my levity for fear it was our advertisement manager come for a chat and a cigar. ?' Our manager has his own views about free advertising. Most managers have. Also, and by the way, they have their own views as to whether the Editorial pro- vides the means whereby they are enabled to gain their livelihood, or whether it is the space they graciously refrain. from letting that provides the Editorial with somewhere in which to let off steam. There is always that about advertisement one to suppose that they before the hen, otherwise ever hatch out ? It is futile to argue with these " space merchants " as to the why and the wherefore. They are nqt logical. They talk in a strange tongue and with a crabbed vocabulary. Their lingo is com- posed principally of " quarters, halves and fulls," punctuated by " discounts for fifty-twos, facing matter, back covers and Christmas numbers." Should one try to knock common sense into them with reference to the egg and the hen, what happens ? •Before you know where, you are they whip out a blue form and you have signed for 26 quarters on alternate weeks to advertise a patent incubator which you never possessed. Advertisement managers are so persuasive. Last week I met a man who said he could see no future for aviation. I tried to persuade him into a different understanding, but I lack the persuasive faculty. If I were being initiated to-night into the mysteries of the Royal and Ancient Order of Corks, I would, just previous to the removal of the bandage from my eyes, when the Chief Bung asked me what I 6A managers that leads believe the egg came how could the hen
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