TIT. Ns TE a Be AED 2. IY Ye The Fatal Hit BY A. G. GREENWOOD 'A tie. Harry Knowles, Beddington's bowl- er and last wicket, had been instructed to stone-wall., But the last ball of the last over of the match itched outside the leg-stump. The temptation was irresistible, He slashed at it. It was the happy swipe of a rabbit of a batsman only dreams of. Up went a shout of applause, and up in a snighty are, soaring over the huge oak in the hedge by London Road, sailed the ball, to pass out of sight and fall nobody knew whither. Harry was smacked on the back, his hands were wrung, and the spectators applauded; but there was only one 'person in the meadow whose appre- ciation seemed to matter. There she sat in a deck-chair by the gcore-board beside the tent. He glanced aside as he neared her. Daphne Glyn was clapping with the rest, staring at him, and smiling. Nervously he smiled, too. She always made him feel nervous. In the tent, hastily draining a tank- ard of ale, was Harry's uncle, Peter Knowles. He kept an hotel in Notting Hill, and occasionally spent a Satur- day afternoon at Beddington admiring his nephew's bowling :nd deriding his batting. Harry's huge hit hau de- lighted him. So on the way to the station, arm- in-arm with Harry, he suddenly an- nounced that he had decided to stretch out a helping hand. "Fifty pounds, me boy," he said, to Harry's amazement. "Always meant to leave it to you. Rather you had it while I'm still above ground. I've me chequae-book with me" It was past seven c'clock when an up train carried away Peter Knowles, minus his cheque for fifty pounds. Round to Mr. Palmer, the estate agent, went Harry. Mr. Palmer, found in his garden, heard Harry cut. Yes, Bryony shop and house were still on the market. Yes, if Harry put down fifty pounds, the building society would do the rest. Yes, he would certainly give Harry the keys. With the keys of that half-timbered, lime-washed little house at the corner . of Ca 1rch Road and High Street in his pocket, Harry hurried «0 Mill Cottage, where Daphne Glyn lived with her mother. A Jootpath by the stream skirts the garden, and there, hidden by the quick-hedge, Harry waited till scurrying, fluttering, «nd cackling an- nounced Daphne's arrival to feed the chickens. "Hallo! Harry exclaimed, s:eming- ly astounded at their meeting. "Love- ly evening." It took him five minutes to screw up his courage to suggest a stroll. Daphne was agreeable. : In Church Alley, Harry switched the conversation abruptly to Tudor cottages. Later he remarked that he happened to have the keys of Byrony in his pocket. Had she ever seen the house? She hadn't. She would like to. . So Harry took her round the walled. garden, stocked with rosemary, laven- der, and old-time favorites, and lean- ing appletrees; and finally, over the little house itself. "Isn't it jolly?" he said, as he open- ed the door of the old panelled par- lor, empty and echoing. : It was a dream, Daphne said, eyes rapt. In one of Beddington's back streets Harry still kept the antiquarian shop which was all his father had left be- hind him. The few who knew the Knowles' found their way again and again to the shop, but the great flood swirling through High Street swept by without dreaming of its existence. How things would be changed were Bryony his Harry pointed out. He told her how, if he had fifty pounds to plank down, all might be well. She listened with shining eyes. "What a shame!" she said. "Such @& huge opportunity! Couldn't you raise the money somehow?" "I have!" he then said eagerly. "Bryony's mine. I'm going to be the happiest fellow in Beddington if you'll let me be." "Me!" But she wasn't surprised. Probably Harry argued later on, she had known before he did. Then, as the sun sank, they planned and day-dreamed in every room the little house contained; and he pictured her in his mind in each his wife and pal, and kissed her in each because he couldn't resist the temptation. 3 That night he sat in the moonlit garden at Mill Cottage. "That great hit of yours!" exclaim- ed Daphne's mother. "Daphne told me all about it. It seems to have scored more than a 6, and won more than a cricket match." It had--though Harry did not know it till later that night. He had gone home blissfully happy, to find Brooke, the XI's captain, awaiting him in his little room behind the shop. "A frightful mess-up, Knowles!" sail Brook glumly. : © Or of the small boys who had hant- 8c Ir the lost b ll Lad at length thought of the new bungalow in ion- don Road. : '1here, stretched cvt on the front lawn, a few yards from the gale, a terrific bruise on his temple, lay a lit- tle boy, with the lost ball beside him. "My. heavens!" exclaimed Harry, aghast. "Not--not--" "No. Unconscious still, though. Dr. Hopwood's with him, and a nurse from the hospital." He had called twice before, Brooke said." The parents were newcomers to Beddington. Brooke had never met the father or mother before. In a frightful state they were. Only child. Seven, "Of course, it's not your fault. No- body could say that," Brooke added. "But it's ours, in a way--the club's, I suppose. Don't know how it stands legally." "We can't find 'em," Harry said. "Their expenses must be paid. That's cricket." "The club's in debt already," said Brooke. "My dear Harry, they can't get blood out of a stone." "I--I'd better go round at once." They went together. They saw the weeping mother, and talked in low tones to the despairing father. A fracture of the skull was sus- pected. The tiny patient couldn't be moved. > Shivering, though the summer night was sultry, Harry went home. Sleep was impossible. His fault? No. Common sense denied it. The boy's fault Of course not. Whose, then? Nobedy's. Danger nad never been suspected. Never before had any bats- man lifted a ball over the oak. But the racket of the thing--the doctcr's bill, the nurse's, the appalling fee a surgeon would charge were an operaticn decided on--who was to pay? The club? Impossible. The parents? A struggling clerk and his wife! Who but the man who had made the fatal hit? Futile to reiterate that it wasr't his fault. He shut his eyes and saw Daphne--Daphne here, there, every- where in Bryony. She faded. She had to fade. The whole day-dream faded. It would be only a day-dream--if he had to pay up. An immediate operation had been decided upon, he learnt, having called early at the bungalow next morning. With the child's father, Harry walk- ed up and down the little garden. Quiet, with the quietness of despair, the man was. : "It wasn't your fault in the least," he said, shaking hands with Harry at the gate. "You musn't "worry, old man." But worry had haunted his eyes and had crept into every sentence. Even in his grisly fear for the boy's life, he could not shut his eyes to the huge load of debt piling up with every passing hour. To Mill Cottage Harry went. With Daphne he sat beside the stream in the shadow of a huge yew, and there she heard him out. "And he doesn't demand anything?" she asked. "Nothing." "Ha doesn't threaten?" "No. He owns it's no fault of any- body's." "How splendid!" she breathed. He glanced aslant at her. She wasn't looking at in in the light he hed come to see it in. That, perhaps, was na- tural. She hadn't hit that fatal ball. Nothing lay on her conscience, stamp- ing, coloring every thinght. "But I musn't take advantage of that, Daphne," he muttered. "Why, no!" she said quickly, and her hand stole out and her fingers crept between him. "I know what you're thinking. It won you fifty pounds, that hit. And it's lost you it again-- or some of it." "That's how you look at it?" he said, staring at her, thrilling, in a strarge sense of elation. "There isn't any other way, is there?" she said. They said good-bye to Bryony to- gether, wandering all over the little house; then, still together, solemn, they went to Mr. Palmer's house. The estate agent, busy in his gar- den, heard them out. He was ready to eancel the verbal agreement. But it wasn't Harry's fault. Nobody would play cricket, or golf, or even tennis if-- That stumped Mr. Palmer. He gave it up. They went that afternoon to the bungalow. A London surgeon's car stood at the gate. His real fee was a hundred guineas, Harry heard, as he walked in the back garden with the ashen father. But the specialist had been told, and was letting them down easily. The district nurse, too, cast only a nominal sum. But the other, the surgical nurse-- Some of the fifty pounds? Harry realized it meant it all and more-- much more. After argument and protest, he left the cheque for fifty pounds, endorsed, behind him, and rejoined Daphne. In the. front garden they waited. 'Splendid, they say! Doing fine!" was the bulletin they subsequently took away. "Whose fault was it?" Harry asked. New Job For a Woman RADIO TELEPHONES INSTALLED ON BERENGARIA Elizabeth Pilot, Ossining, New York, and chief wireless operator of Berengaria, inaugurating new wireless telephone service on board the ship. Back to Mill Cottage and supper. Out on to the bank of the stream in the chadow of the yew. And there he told her that struggling on in Bed- dingon meant struggling for ever. He saw that. He was wondering-- Sell up. Little, if anything, would remain. Go to Canada--anywhere. Work--as only her lover, with Daphne waiting, could work. Save and slave--and send for her at last. "Wait alone?" she said, and her tears dripped on his fingers. Yet it was best. She acknowledged that. "After all," said Harry, "if I hadn't slashed out and made that swipe, I'd never have had the fifty pounds. With- out it I'd never have had the fifty pounds. Without it I'd never have if it wasn't for the poor little lad, I'd have to be glad!" In silence they clung to each other. An agitated voice in her mother's garden made them draw back. - "The lawyer came tonight," thay hearil, and Harry recognized the voice of the boy's father. "It was only this afternoon she owned up. Miss Barton --only daughter of Barton--the boot- man--the millionaire. Lost her head, she says. Didn't dare stop. Blinding along. Why, she adinits she was do- ing forty-five!" "I don't understand one bit!" pro- tested Mrs. Glyn. "Yesterday," he went excitedly on. "The accident. She was driving along London -Road. My buy must have run out of the front garden for the ball. He picked it up, she says, then darted back across the road. You know what kids are. She braked and swerved, she says. Thought she'd missed him. But the back of the car knocked him down. She looked back. He was up and making for the house. And she went on." % The man choked. "Money!" he ejaculated shrilly. "Lashings of it! Ready--longing to pour it out, they are!" "It wasn't the ball?" cried Mrs. Glyn. "You mean it hadn't anything to do with Harry?" On Harry's sank Daphne's lips. Against his her heart beat. "That's it!" the man agreed. "That's what brought me round. He's a brick, and here's his cheque for fifty pounds !"--"Answers." dared ask you to marry me. Daphne, ! The Pebble There's nothing unimportant In this wondrous world cf ours, From its mountains and its rivers To its butterflies 'and flowers; So you need not be downhearted, And the gods of chance impeach. If you're very undistinguished-- Just a pebble on the beach. You may long to be a mcuntain, Or a cliff or towering crag, Or a bright and radiant jewel, Quite the biggest in the bag; But the least and oft the lowliest Great lessons have to teach, And the stormy waves are bafiled By the pebbles cn the beach. Perhaps life never meant you For a place of rank and power, For a mighty, moving century, But only for an hour; But it gave you form and beauty, And a place a child can reach, When it made you just a pebble, One of many on the beach. --A. B. Cooper. 2, +! Dominion Status Sydney Sun (Aus.): (South Africa has appointed g Minister to the Uni- ted States. Australia is still only represented by a trade commissioner.) To the: Government of the United States, Canada and the South .Afri- can Union are nations, while we are still colonies. To Canada she sends her own Ambassadcrs ,and no doubt will do so now with South Africa. This, invidious and inferior position cf Australia is purely Australia's own choice; - There is absolutely no reason why she, too, should not as- sume national rank in 'America by sending a Minister to New York. Why it has ot been considered by the Gov- ernment is a mystery. The world is so constituted it takes men and States largely at their own valuation, and we may be sure that the fact that the Ambassadors of Canada and South Africa may claim audience with the representatives of the United States Government ,and our commis- sioner ccnnot, does not help our esti- mation in the eyes of a nation which is peculiarly susceptible to face values. ---- . Happy Bush Friends in Captavity Ss Srey - HERE IS A BURYING GROUND OF ANTAGONIS Babies of the Berlin Zoo a rhino and gnu, stand side by side at the feed troughs and calmly dine. 4 Fishing With The Cormorant In Japan Dr. E. W. Gudger, American Museum of Natural History Cormorant fishing in the rivers and lakes of Japan is carried on both as a sporting and as a commercial pro- position. As a regular sporting at- traction, usually carried on at might, it attracts a large number of sight-seers among the Japanese, and barges with lanterns, servants, and refreshments {carry the visitors to the fishing grounds. A writer in the London Times, Major-General Palmer, gives a clear account of how the fishing is done at night, by the light of great capes of blazing pine-knots suspended over the bow of each boat to attract the fish: : "There are, to begin with, four men in each of the seven boats before us, one of whom, at the stern, has no duty but that of managing his craft. In the bow stands the master, handling no fewer than 12 trained birds with surpassing skill. Amidships is an- other fisher, of the second grade, who handles four birds only. Between them is the fourth man who, with a bamboo instrument, makes the clatter necessary for keeping the birds up to their work. Each cormorant wears at the base of its neck a metal ring, drawn tight enough to prevent mark- etable fish from passing below it, but at the same time loose enough to ad- mit the smaller prey, which serves as having attached to it at the middle of the back a short strip of stiffish whalebone, by which the great awk- ward bird may be conveniently low- at work; and to this whalebone is looped a thin rein of spruce fiber, 12 feet long, and so far wanting in pliancy as to minimize the chance of entanglement. "The master lowers his 12 biff one by one into the stream and gathers their reins into his left hand; and forthwith the cormorants set to at their work in the hearties and jol- liest way, diving and ducking with wonderful swiftness as the astonish- ed fish come flocking toward the blaze of light. The master is now the businest of men. He must handle his 12 strings so deftly that, let the birds dash hither and thither as they will, there shall be no impediment. He his hands following his eyes. Specially he must watch for the moment when any of his flock is forged -- a fact generally made known by the bird it- self, which then swims about in a fool- ish helpless way, with its head and swollen neck erect. Thereupon the master, shortening in on that bird, lifts it aboard, forces its bill open with his -left hand, which still holds the rest of the reins, squeezes out the fish with his right, and starts the creature off on a fresh foray -- all with such admirable dexterity that in another moment the whole flock is again perfectly in hand." This account gives the reader an excellent idea of this combined sport and business. As for the cormorants. ".... they are trained when quite young, being caught with bird-lime on the coasts. Once trained, they work well up to 15, often up to 19 or 20 vears of age; and though .their keep in winter bears hardly on the masters, they are very precious and profitable hunters during the five-months' sea: son. For one bird will catch about 150 fish of four or five inches length in an hour, or 450 for the usual three. hour fishing trip. Every bird in a flock has and knows its numbers; and one of the funniest things about them is the quick-witted jealousy with which they invariably insist, by ali that cormorant languauge and panto- mimic protest can do, on the obser- vance of their recognized rights. No. 1, or "Ichi," is the senior in rank. His colleagues come after him in numer- ical order. Ichi is the last to be put into the water and the first to be taken out, the first to be fed, and the last to enter the baskets in which when work is over, the birds are carried home. If, for instance, No. 5 be put into the water before No. 6, the rumpus that arises is a sight to sce and a sound to hear." Cormorants are also used in an- other way -- by men wading in streams. = The cormorants are often as pointer dogs, and apparently full of perfect enjoyment. To the right and left they plunge with_lightning strok- es, each dip bringing up a shining fish. When the fish are sorted the small fish are thrown first to one bird and then to another. Hach bird catches his share "on the fly" and makes a sound which doubtless means that he likes the fun and will be glad to try it gain at the proper time. (Note: The author quotes at length from the acounts of many ancient and contemporary writers to show that this time-bonored Fapanese sport is carried on now much as it has been for centuries.)--The Scientific Month, lw ered into the water or lifted out when, must have his eyes everywhess and wm A at Caf en RA i alle a wa eA a a