26 SEPTEMBER 1931, Page 11

INTERVTEWESE.

If you complain that you don't believe in this paper-bag incident, then you can't have been reading your daily papers carefully. And if you protest that pigeons don't talk like that, my reply is that people never do use the exact words which their interviewers put into their mouths. It would be a pompous and pedantic world if they did. For example, when you ask a child whether it likes school, it says " Mm." And when, with maddening persistence, you inquire which lesson it prefers, it will almost invariably say " Sums," because that is a nice short word and the quickest way of ending a boring conversation. But what the interviewer

writes down " Oh yes,' exclaimed Peggy enthusiastically, ' I am devoted to my studies ; history is my favourite subject at present, but I am very anxious to learn literature as well, because my Daddy writes books.' " Then there is the inter- viewed charwoman who, when her employer has been found with his head in the gas-oven, is reported as saying, " When, as is my invariable custom, I entered Mr. Hackleforth's flat to prepare his breakfast, he seemed cheerful and in good spirits," whereas her own words, probably, were : " S'moming, when I come, 'e was as right as rain." Best of all, there is the policeman who " stated that he had no information upon this matter." What he actually said, of course, was " I don't know nothink about that "—which, as you must have noticed, is what policemen nearly always do say. Still, newspapers have to be filled somehow, and no doubt this verbal grouting is the easiest way to support their tottering columns.

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