Galt Collegiate Institute and Vocational School - Specula Galtonia Yearbook (Galt, Ontario Canada)

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'ig I' ..- .--. M' W , Rl I S In ..., . ' f f x x . - - -, 1, if . P5 Q uf. A if Mr. Dando has earned for himself, through the years, something of the reputation of Peck's Bad Boy. His earliest recollection, in fact, is of getting the works for attempting to abscond with his brother's wrist watch. He confesses to having felt the schoolmasterly lash- twice since he entered the portals of the Collegiate. Once in the dear dead days beyond recall, when Miss Harding held court in Room Ninety-four, the very young Dando was committed to the mercies of the oflice strap, on a charge of shooting rice, at whom we do not know. He chewed gum one day, and was scathingly bidden to discard it, by whom we dare not say. The School Captain is a sportsman. As far back as he can remember, he has been snap on a rugby team. Wherever a group of schoolboys band themselves together to play a game, he may be found. Last year he was chosen Captain of the Basketball Team. The Gym. Team has known him ever since its inception. He is the Major of the Twenty-First Cadet Corps, and a crack shot with a rifle. The Man Dando's travels have led him afield to Cochrane in the wilds of the North, and the Border Cities on the edge of gangsterdom. He ap- proves highly of the inhabitants of the Ontario mining town, but considers Detroiters and Americans generally as grubbing and mercenary. His best loved sports are tennis and basketball, in both of which he is a steady, dependable player. He gives no reason for reading the books of Philips Oppenheim and Gene Stratton Porter. As interviewing representative of the Specula Galtonia, I asked Mr. Dando several pertinent questions. What are your political views ? ' I am a Tory, he replied. As to your question regarding the St. Lawrence Waterway, I think it would be tough on Montreal. My idea of Empire Free Trade is that it would be practicable if it were somewhat restricted. What is your opinion of the teachers and pupils of the school ? Well, the teachers are all right in the main. One or two of them might take reducing exercises. Some others might be somewhat more amicable, for instance it wouldn't hurt them to say good morning to us when they meet us in the corridors before nine o'clock. That would make for better feeling between them and us. The pupils are too staid. Why don't they get over their foolish inferiority complexes, and enter into things more? They don't mix enough, and it wouldn't do them any harm to slide down the bannisters once in a while. Perhaps Mr. Wholton would make some concessions in that case. To what do you attribute your successful school career ? I don't know whether this is the proper thing to say or not, but I think it developed mainly because I have- always tried to be friendly and congenial with everybody in the school. Have you a definite ambition ? Yes, I want to be a chemical engineer, and discover a way of turning old newspapers into sugar. My concluding question was one that has puzzled the master minds of the generation. But Mr. Dando's answer to it came quick as a flash. What is the solution of Unemployment ? If every person had a job, there would be no unemployment. 34

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fix S Sunset By HUME WILKINS O pause on a ribbon-like road in front of the pine-shielded schoolhouse at Torrance, and behold the Ruler of Day take his seat amidst the western isles of Lake Muskoka is to have reached the summit of beauty. The inside of day's blue bowl is overlaid with fairy gold, misted with all the delicate films of the rainbow. These dream-hues mingle with the sky-line in a sheaf of ruby flame. Down the rippling waters dance the wraiths of the exotic heavens, in a wild Bacchanalian riot of magical colour. Battleship Island, its towering pines jet-etched against the blazing hor- izon, stands in dark-browed dignity to guard the way to the bedside of the sun. With a stroke of His brush, the Painter silvers the edges of rose-tinted cloud-feathers, which hang, motionless, above the fire-pot, and the colours begin silently to steal back to Iris, the rainbow maiden. The orange lamp of day sinks out of sight, and ephemeral twilight embraces the world with sensuous caresses. At her coming, the breezes, thrilled with her evasive loveliness, pause in their revels, and all is still. 'il Harold Dando-School Captain Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight, Which in a queen's secluded garden throws Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf, By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound, is the well deserving winner of the coveted Thomas Porter Scholarship for School Captain in nineteen thirty-one. AROLD STANLEY DANDO is a native of Two Twenty-three North Water Street, Galt, city of a thousand other glories. He first put in an appearance there on October Fifteenth, Nineteen Twelve. Mr. Dando is tall and slender, lithely built. His locks, parted on the right side of his head, are curly and raven, characteristically kinky. Spark- ling eyes reveal the mischievous imp dancing behind them. His cherry complexion is easily fluctuated by emotion. His face is long and oval, at times assuming a pale cast of thought, although he is more likely to act on the spur of the moment, Without cogitation. Mr. Dando uses his tongue extensively for the purpose to which it was intended, but secrets are as safe as Gibraltar when once confided to him. Occasinally his calm temper turns testy side up, and his organ of speech moves accordingly. To hisbest friends he is always pleasant and suave, except when they annoy him unbearably. He is unceasingly tender- hearted, and delights to perform the small courtesies. Sociability is 1n- alienable to him, and a coterie of admirers often surrounds his attractive self. 33 .

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PAM T'-'Sl U L' A A Pnrrvs H '- if The Supposed Elephant By CATHERINE BOWMAN N elephant lived in a square box outside the railway station, near the opening of the tunnel. Jack might not have been so perfectly cer- tain if his father had not told him it was an elephant. But Jack had seen the trunk himself-the long, leathery trunk with water dripping from the top of it. He had seen it when he was driving in the car with his father, and was obliged to wait because the gates across the road were shut down to let the train pass. The engine stood some dis- tance away, outside the trunk, by the square box and Jack said, Oh, Dad, look! There's an elephant's trunkf' Dad looked, and answered gravely, Yes, it's an elephant's trunk. They keep the poor brute in that tank, and he's hungry. He's even trying to get something to eat out of the engine. Jack looked again, and he could just see that the trunk seemed to be feeling about inside the engine. Presently the engine-driver pushed it out, and it fell back, all dripping with waiter. They gave it nothing but water. Jack thought that was mean of the railway station. He was very quiet all the way home, although generally he had many things to tell his father. Jack loved all animals. He knew what a lot elephants wanted to eat, but this poor elephant had nothing at all-nothing but water. He felt so miserable that he could not go to sleep for hours and hours. In the morn- ing the thought made his own cereal taste quite horrid, it even spoiled the egg sitting on a beautiful bit of buttered toast. If his father had not been in such a hurry at breakfast, he might have known that Jack's mind was far away. He was beginning to make a plan. If the railway station would not, and his father could not, he must go and feed the elephant him- self. He would go in the night after his mother had put him to bed. The other worry was money. But after inve-stigating his bank he thought he had enough of it. The buns were soon purchased and hidden under the bushes in the garden. He felt sure that if his mother saw the bags she would ask awkward questions. He was afraid, too, that Rags, his terrier, would steal the buns. For the rest of the day Jack was under a great strain of anxiety. It seemed ages and ages before his mother tucked him in, kissed him good-night, and went away to the kitchen. Directly she had gone, Jack was out of bed and pulling on his socks. Ten minutes later, he was slipping out of the house, very quietly, with most of his clothes buttoned in the wrong button-holes, because he had never put on all his clothes alone be- fore. It was quite a long way to the station, and it was getting dark when Jack slipped through its white gate. Nobody saw him as he made his way towards the elephant's house. Not a sound came from the animal, and Jack ' 35 H-xx ' b ' T T ,