voice at his elbow, "do you think dad will play with you to-night?"

"I am sure he will," comes a confident reply from the same quarter, "if you give him two minutes to light his pipe in, and refrain from unseemly demon-demonstrations of affection in the meanwhile." "It's a hard world for parents," grumbles Juggernaut, getting up. "Where is my tobacco-pouch?"

His hand falls upon the corner of the mantelpiece, but encounters nothing there but a framed photograph of a sunburned young man on a polo pony-Uncle Ally, to be precise.

"Now where on earth is that pouch? I know I left it on the left-hand end of the mantelpiece after lunch."

There is a shriek of delight at this from Brian, in which Miss Carr joins, for the great daily joke of the Carr family is now being enacted.

"Where can it be?" wails Juggernaut. "Under the hearthrug, perhaps? No, not there! In the blotting-pad? No, not there! I know! I expect it is behind the coal-box."

Surprising as it may appear, his surmise proves to be correct; and the triumphant discovery of the missing property scores a dramatic success which no repetition seems able to stale. (This is about the fiftieth night of the run of the piece.)

Presently the pipe is filled and lit, Master Carr being permitted to kindle the match and Miss Carr to blow it out, the latter feat only being accomplished by much expendi

ture of breath and a surreptitious puff from behind her shoulder, contributed by an agency unknown.

"Now Brian, young fellow," announces Juggernaut, “I will play for ten minutes. Let me speak to the the sister first, though."

He lifts his daughter, whom he has never seen, from her mother's knee, and exchanges a few whole-hearted confidences with her upon the subject of her recreations, conduct, dolls, health, and outlook on life in general. Then he restores her, and shouts—

"Come on, Brian Boroo!"

There is a responsive shriek from his son, and the game begins. It is not every boy, Master Brian proudly reflects as he crawls on all fours beneath a writing - table, who can play at blind man's buff with a real blind man!

Daphne leans back in her chair and surveys her male belongings restfully. Time was when this husband of hers, at present eluding obstacles with uncanny facility and listening intently, with the youthful zest of a boy-scout, for the excited breathing of his quarry, found life a less hilarious business. There rises before her the picture of a man led from room to room, steered round corners, dressed like a child, fed like a baby-shattered, groping, gaunt, but pathetically and doggedly cheerful. Neither Daphne nor her husband ever speak of that time now. Not that she regrets it: woman-like, she sometimes feels sorry it is over and gone.

was of real use to her man in those days. Now he seems to be growing independent of her again. Then she smiles comfortably, for she knows that all fears on that score are groundless. He is hers, body and soul. And she

A small, unclean, and insistent hand is tugging at her skirt, and Miss Carr, swaying unsteadily beneath the burden of a bulky and tattered volume, claims her attention. "Show me pictures," she commands.

She and her tome are hoisted up, and the exposition begins. "Where did you find this book, Beloved?" enquires Daphne. The book is an ancient copy of the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and we have encountered it once before in this narrative.

"Over there," replies Beloved, indicating the bottom shelf of a bookcase with a pudgy thumb- "under ze Gwaphics.' What's ze name of that genelman?"

To Miss Carr distinctions of caste are as yet unknown. In her eyes every member of the opposite sex, from the alien who calls on Thursdays with a hurdy-gurdy to the knightin-armour who keeps eternal vigil in the outer hall, is a "genelman.' Even if you are emitting flames from your stomach, as in the present instance, you are not debarred from the title.

Daphne surveys the picture in a reminiscent fashion, and her thoughts go back to a dis

tant Sunday morning at the Rectory, with her youngest brother kneeling on the floor, endeavouring to verify a pictorial reference in this very volume.

"What is he doin' to the other genelman?" continues the searcher after knowledge upon her knee, in a concerned voice.

"He is trying to hurt him, dear."

"What for?"

So the inexorable, immemorial catechism goes on, to be answered with infinite patience and surprising resource. Presently the cycle of enquiry completes itself, and the original question crops out once more.

"What did you say was ze name of that genelman?" with a puckered, frowning effort at remembrance.

Apollyon, dear.” "Oh." Then the enquirer strikes a fresh note.

"Do you know him?" "I used to," replies Daphne. "At least," she adds, "I used to

know some one who I thought was like him. But his name turned out not to be Apollyon after all."

"What was his name, then his pwoper name?" pursues Miss Carr, deeply intrigued.

Daphne turns to another illustration, coming much later in the book, and surveys it with shining eyes.

"His proper name, Beloved?" she asks.

says

DUTY took me to a small Arab town on the coast of British East Africa last February, and chance found me in the fish-market one day.

The variety of fish was wonderful, and their colouring such as is only found in the tropics; but what chiefly attracted my attention was a group of half a dozen large turtles, fresh from the sea and sprawling on their backs, waiting for purchasers. I asked how they had been caught, and the question received rather a curious answer. Turtle-fishing, I was told, was practised entirely (with the exception of a stray animal caught now and again in a net) by natives who came from another part of the coast and stayed here only for the season. Their method of capture was to use sucker-fish attached to lines. These fish fastened themselves on to the turtles, and such was the tenacity of their hold that even the largest animals were unable to get away.

For months past I had heard rumours of this method of fishing, but I had never met any one who had actually seen it practised, and, to tell the truth, I was very doubtful if such a thing could be done. So, evidently, was my companion, an Arab Sheikh, who, though he had spent a lifetime on the coast, stoutly denied the possibility of such proceedings. The only way of satisfying myself

was to see a turtle caught by these means, and I asked the Sheikh if he would try and arrange for the fishermen to take me with them on their next trip. This he promised to do, but not without many protestations of the difficulty of overcoming the men's dislike to showing their trade secrets to to outsiders. He evidently underrated his own powers of persuasion, however, for after a short interval he came to see me, bringing a native fisherman who willingly consented to show me all that I wanted to see. see. The expedition was arranged for the following morning.

Daylight saw us off. The natives were in their own craft, a roughly constructed canoe, with remarkably little beam for its length; the Sheikh and I in my boat. The way at first led between the coral reef, which fringes all this coast, and the shore. The scene was impressive even to an eye jaded with tropical beauty. The sun rising behind a low bank of clouds on the horizon gilded earth and water with its light; above it was a background of unbroken blue, which promised a day of calm and fiery heat. The sea lay between the reef and the sandy shore, rippling with the breath of a warm land breeze. Behind the sand stretched a monotony of grey-brown bush, relieved here and there by

clusters of ragged cocoa - nut palms and an occasional baobab tree. The beach ended in a point crowned with graceful casuarinas, and after that there was no more sand; coral took its place, and the bush came down to the water's edge.

Following our pilot, we passed through

a narrow

opening in the reef, nearly getting swamped in the surf as we did so, and emerged into the open sea. The breath of wind had died away and the water was like glass glass heaving and swaying under the lift of a mighty swellwhich was all that was left of the North-East Monsoon. A couple of rude oars-mangrove poles with a small circular wooden head tied on to the head were brought out in the canoe, and with their aid and that of an energetic paddler in the stern good endway was made. The course was eastward, following at some distance the edge of the reef. Half an hour's progress took us to the fishing-ground, and the fact that we had reached it was unmistakable. short distance from the boat the oily surface of the water was broken for the fraction of a second: a turtle's head bobbed up, looked round, and dived in again with a noisy splash. The enjoyment that I was finding in the trip was, unfortunately, not shared by my good friend the Arab Sheikh. The stream of conversation which he had maintained since we started died away. Gal

At a

lant gentleman that he is, he made no complaint, but it was most evident that the monstrous rolling swell had been too much for him, and he suffered acutely. As nothing would have induced me to go back at this stage of the proceedings, I had my boat brought alongside the canoe, and I hastily transferred myself into it. The boat boys were told to take the Sheikh back to land with all possible speed, and to return for me later.

My new crew consisted of five natives: there were the two fishermen, two lads who managed the boat, and a small boy of about six who, I take it, was an apprentice and expected to make himself generally useful, which he did in the intervals of helping himself with surprising liberality from a pot of cooked maize flour into which various odds and ends had found their way.

Fishing now commenced in earnest. Two sucker-fish, or "taza as the natives call them, were used, and a third was kept in reserve. These "taza" varied in size; I should say their length was roughly about 3 feet, 2 feet 4, and 1 foot 8 inches. With the exception of their extraordinary limpet-like power of attaching themselves to anything, there seems to be nothing abnormal about them. They are slender, green coloured, scaleless fish, with something rather suggestive of a snake in their movements. The part by which they attach themselves to their

prey lies at the back of their heads. In appearance I can only compare it to the corrugated rubber-sole of a tennis shoe. It is only while they are in the sea, apparently, that they possess this power of attachment. I handled one of the fish myself, and it made no attempt to fasten itself to my hand either in or out of the water.

The "taza" are secured by passing a piece of cord under the skin of the body near the tail, passing it round the body and knotting it. This cord is then tied on to a fishing-line, just as an ordinary hook would be, and no further preparation is needed. When not wanted, the fisherman passes the line through the fish's gills and out at the mouth, knotting it so as to form a loop. The

" is then put overboard at the end of about 6 feet of line, and immediately attaches itself to the side of the boat and by it is towed along. I noticed the men were always most careful to secure the fish in this way, even if they were being put out only for a few minutes, and I concluded it was necessary to do so in order to bring the "taza's" head up to the direction in which the boat was going.

yards away from the boat. On reaching the water the "taza" darts away without hesitation, as if glad to gain even such restricted liberty, and the fisherman sits and holds the line to which it is attached as if he were using an ordinary hook and bait. And on this morning we had not long to wait for results. After only a few minutes' fishing, one of the men made a sudden exclamation, and his line began to pay out rapidly. His companion hastily hauled in his own "taza," passed the line through its gills and mouth, tossed it overboard again and seized an oar. The other two boys betook themselves to their paddles, and immediately we were in pursuit of the turtle to which the first "taza" had become fast. I had no watch, but I should say the turtle was played for about half an hour; once or twice it came up to the surface, but the curved back and head emerged only for a second and down it plunged again.

In its flight it covered a long distance, but it seemed to have no fixed plan of no fixed plan of escape, for the course was constantly changed. Presently the fisherman seemed to find its strength failing, and began to cautiously haul in his line. After some conversation, his companion laid down his paddle and released his own "taza from the side of the boat to which it has been clinging during the pursuit. Following the direction of the other man, he threw the fish a few feet ahead of the boat