Fable for the Day

With £400,000 to spend on roads, a new start may be made towards paving the city thoroughfares properly, and the council should not hesitate when the report of its works committee recommending the outlay comes before it next Monday.

Now, it came to pass that a certain
Dust-Grain wandered disconsolate
about the City looking for a good
Home. And it blew hither and thither—
sometimes hither and yet more
frequently thither—and it looked into the
Eyes of Flappers and of Shopping
Matrons, and yet could not find a
Happy Home; for it was a Dust-
Grain with a Mission. And it looked
into the Eyes of Policemen, and of
Gripmen who guided the Tram Car and
called Attention to the Curve. Aye, it
even looked into the eye of the Motor-
ist who drove the Car called Jugger-
naut; and into the Eyes of the Humble
Pedestrian it looked, yearningly—and
yet found not a Home. In a Certain
Street it collided with a Federal Minis-
ter; but it sidestepped again, for He
was not the Man. And it blew around
for a while in the Underworld, looking
even into the eyes of the Friends of
Squizzy Taylor, and even into that Eye,
perhaps, which the Policeman fears to
see cocked over a Revolver. Who
knows? Yet it found not the Home it
craved. And it blew up Swanston
Street, and down Collins Street, and
across Bourke Street; but no resting
place could it find. And it said unto
itself, "I am only a poor little Dust-
Grain; yet I have a Mission, and it
shall be Fulfilled."

Then, suddenly, in a Small Street, it
saw its destination; and, straightway,
it blew into the Eye of a City Coun-
cillor.

And the City Councillor was sore
Offended.

"Why," said he, "with some several
Million pairs of eyes in this vast city,
do you seek mine to inflict?"

But the little Dust-Grain answered,
"I have a Mission. I have looked into
all Eyes, but this is the Eye I seek.
And here I abide."

And the City Councillor rubbed his
Eye, for behold it was sore and much
inflamed. And he said:

"I have your Hundred Thousand
Pounds to spend; and this will I, so
that I may have relief; for I have
come to know what a Dust-Grain feels
like in the Eye of a Citizen."

And the Dust-Grain, answering, said:
"Good-o!" But here I stay until your
vow is fulfilled."

(Moral: A mote in the right place
may do the work of a multitude of
beams.)