Page

LEARNEDEN KAMU KOREA LOT

DID IT HAPPEN?

THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 1955.

THE PRIEST AND

THE STICK

WAS in Paris with very little

money

and I

wanted to be in quite another place about a thousand miles to the south- east.

the

ANOTHER STORY BY A FAMOUS WRITER WHICH

AGAIN PUTS THE QUESTION.......DID IT REALLY. HAPPEN 7

TOMORROW WILL BRING YOU THE ANSWER.

Not only would I have to travel by train, which Isical contact enabled me to loathe, but in the third have a corner seat; finally, class on hard seats. That is

a very tiny sailor, supposed to be a good thing. Getting to know country: people more interesting. Are the poor and parsimonious really more interesting than the rich and profligate? Possi- bly also more uncomfort

able.

I reached the station in good time, but the train was already crowded. I quickly decided that

I

Unlike the English, French occupants of a railway carri- age seem to feel that the pests who come in after them have as much right to a place as themselves. knew there would be none of that ganging up of the actual occupants, ourselves, against late intruders look

which one ing for a seat,

on in England, can count

Made room

I should be lucky to get a scat at all, let alone an empty 'carriage, and finally got into a smok-. Sure enough, while I was ing compartment which leaning out of the window contained an old woman in buying a paper pillow and elaborate widow's weeds but hiring a blanket and buying with a pink and smiling sandwiches, apples and wine, face;

a young man with from a trolley on the plat- spots accompanied by a girl form. an enormous priest with the pasty face and sidled into the carriage be- dead hair of the ice-cream hind me, foliowed by two addict. this pair so fond of more who were not exactly by austerities each other that their effort emaciated

asked The first to achieve maximum phy..either.

whether the seats were free, and I was about to say that they belonged to a woman with four children suffering from an infectious skin dis- ease when the old fool of a widow said that they were free and instead of scowling and spreading out their things and making them- selves as wide as possible everyone grinned and mut- tered politely and

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THREE

room.

one a walking stick which seem- ed to me to make a metallic clatter when he knocked it against the door.

She was looking wildly about. (The fact that I could not hear anything may have made her motions seem 'wilder.) She turned to run out again. A big active man with a mop of grey hair came running into the impasse.

The light dramatisöd the jutting nose and, chin, the deep lines of his face it was a tragic mask. lividly pale.

When he

saw the girl he stopped and grew still and tense.

Supplication

ΟΣ

Drawing by Slowatt.

He looked at me as if i were mad, and while i was still instating that I hid witnessed a murder the younger priest came in, carrying

hia stick.

his

had wasted my time and money and annoyed the police.

They talked, their gestures wide and violent, and suddenly As for me I was rending a lady detective novelist who al- the girl fell on her kness on the ways puts me to sleep. But the cobbles, clutching at his thighs drug was slow to work. I kept in what looked to me like a looking up from

that soporife transport

supplication, the lavatory still carrying prose towards the whispered Abruptly startled by something stick conclave. It disturbed me the man looked up and must The older priest, scothingly,

have seen the train: I had the said if I had seen anything at A week later I was loafing strangely.

By my own

outside a sports goods shop in a I woke when the

train curious impression that he was all, why murder? stopped: It

looking straight into my eyes account the man had been in an smail Italian lows. I looked at dark, was beard was apparently crawling, and that I should turn away to emotional crisis: doubtless he Ashing rods, 12-bores and such

I had fainted.

My interest quickened Well, that might s there was sharp sand between heard-I am still quite certain be true: I had taken the bang w

when in one corner of the and my me

underclothes,

muffled the man's fall and the girl's window, I saw a walking stick and I had been beaten all about this-a sort of

scream and made murder of identical with one I had seen bang. I woke when the train stop.

I went in and them.

qui'e recently. over. with a cudgel, It a

asked to see it. the match cigarette, and by flame saw that the three priests had vanished; the others were asleep.

my

My match went out and the engine gave a long, wailing hoot, an appear to night for

by Edward Hyams

ONDON-BORN, Edward Brams hai knocked about the world more than most After schooling he says he got his real education on the Continent, where he spent

Since. some years,

in between writing, working. in a cigaretin factory, and naval service during the war, he has found further Lime to frequent France and Southern Europe, ad his Laun taste is now expressed by vilicniture which he carries on at his farm in Kent. A razor- sharp satirist, he has also found time to write nine

Stories novels and

and Cream, published last year. #10 made

1910. was born married at 22.

Slammed doors

liberty. I had an impression that we had really been stopped for not the time, "that

spare him

embarrassment,

the man

I recall turning my head sharply, and when I looked The priest's explanation was slowly more likely. I rejected it. I still back I saw

the girl his co. Then I bough; I heard the leaning above hands thrOWN forward in a characteristic opening and thu groping, oddly pathetic move. Ung of doors in the next coach which means a ticket Inspector ment, then pitch forward ans

I turned and went towards it, sideways on to the ground.

at the other end of my coach Right at the end, in the shadow, sat the third priest, telling his I had a mon

moment explicable panic; it seemed to me there was a sort of sinister, knowing complacency about those three clergymen, so plump,

I saw the girl scramble up, saw her mouth wide and her face dis

I

torted to scream, When, thought, the scream came, it

10

NATHANIEL GUBBINS

M

Y last little talk on She was still smoking like a

wild life seen from chimney.

I met them' again under the my window.concern headline "Mere Man Says It ed a fat woman in a purple with Flowers" The photograph Mies 1993 grinning jumper who always appears showed

on Good Friday morning on through a large bunch of mixed blooms just presented to her by the promenade seat opposite MM, though as men have

the Sea Nest.

given woman Bowers for cen- She is my harbinger of spring turies it was hard to see the and known to me as the Great news value of the gesture unlösa Purple Warbler. A short time it was to show that MM.'s re- ago I described how her Utile sistarre was gradually breaking mate fed her on sandwiches, down under the assault of cloche cakes,

oranges and ices, and hats, long cigarette holders, and how they both flew back to painted toe-nals their northern nest at the end In 1924 Mere Man hit back of the Easter holidays.

with Oxford bags 14in round Now they

Tho are gone I have the ankles and a beard. been studying the maling game of "Beaver" was flourish habits of younger birds who ing and a bearded young man hop along the front, sit on the was in court on a charge of seat, squawk, peck each other assaulting another young man Audge each other with their who had howled "Beaver" al wings, and dip their beaks into him in the street. paper bags full of shelled

nuts.

Some of the females ar

But Miss 1924, now called Mlady, was still hot in pursult pretty lttle creatures in many of Mere Man despite his beard

It

and

foolish

coloured frocks little hats, though others wear and ridiculous trousers,

She was either curled up Jeans and bright handkerchiefs round their necks hoping they invitingly on a sofa, wearing will be mistaken for art students a velvet smoking jacket, or she was at Ascot in a frock waisted or girl novelists.

They all hop about pain- round the hips, a long necklace fully in high-heeled shoes and that reached to her stomach. # hat full of fruit and is sometimes difficult to exam guess it their cud squawkings vegetables; or she was at the seaside again in a bathing are maniac laughter or screams

& Ettle more during costume of agony.

than the year before, and a The males are also colourful ring of painted corks round in their bright thirts and her neck. If you ask "Why scarves, the top feathers on corks?" I can't say unless she

on Ingenious, their small heads shining, with had been

purease. .."

Mere Man. Perhaps the most interesting In 1925 Milady gave Merc display, for the student of wild. Mrn the coup de grace with an. -- life is the male approach to the Etoo crop, a cigarette holder a female and the female approach foot long, and glass bangles to the maic.

hr-way

up her arms. Although no record of their

It was, in fact, a ride: 22 calibre, made in Belgium: the handle unscrewed to expose the breach, the trigger was a button on the silver band. and not even dear. It was, the an said, for shooting rabbits;

"A poacher's he smiled. signor!"...

tocl

nog

was so umtarthie so black, so courteous and calm. the train often, perhaps always,

1

that I felt moment of real horror, It was the engine whistling again, a long, triumphant boot. With a jerk which nearly threw me down the train began to

move,

First I was paralysed, then I lost my head. I suppose I should have stopped the train by pull ing the emergency cord In fact, I dashed along the corridor

with a vague idea of finding the guard and fell over the largest

priest from my carriage.

A murder

The youngest priest began" some

He had a huge sufcase cut- putting parcels in the rack stopping of the train but another right at the end of the coach,

on both sides. The small earlier hooting had awakened and was looking for something sailor objected: it was his custom to sleep in the rack

me.

I

No body

There is cne "serious about my own theory of these events. How do you arrange to stop a train at a predetermined "spot?

Of course, 13 may be that

has to wait at the Impasse de la voie. I am not, of course, coolly suggesting that three real priests. and a girl conspired to murder a man.

I found the guard. I made a devil of a fuss, and although he

Anyone can put on a zoutone clearly thought me both potty and officious and refused and carry the paraphernalia of look for other witnesses, he did ey in a conspicuous manner. have the train stopped at the No, I don't know who the victan next town to let me off. I went was nor why he was murdered. back down the line in a local nor have I any idea what they did with the body. But that I train.

witness a did

cold-blooded

At the gendarmerie, after trying hard to find something wrong homicide I am and always shall with my passport and civic be convinced

status, they were Arst bored, WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED. then rude, finally resigned. A plain-clothes man drove me to the Impasse de la vote,

in it.

I

gave him an incoherent me.

The friezed wall was that of a Junatic asylum. The tall build- ing, very grim in the dawn, a Barnabite monastery. There was no body, no blood, nothing. Just that barmy cow's head leering at badly needed air and a

There had been no repert wounding or killing. stretch, so I got up and went account of what I had seen. He of a into the corridor, shivering and looked at me as if I were mad, the detective said, "Monsieur I detected a strong vein of gaping. I recall being slightly and while I was still insisting saw anything, it was an old man anti-clericalism in his man- surprised at seeing none of the that I had witnessed a murder, and his young mistress at ner which, at that moment, priests even there. True, the the youngest priest came out of crisis."

on night journeys. I thought

I shared. However, the corridor was dimly lit;

priests were very amiable

extremities of the coach

in shadow.

"

and had just finished pilling

all their parcels dangerously

the

Were

I rubbed mist off the corridor

hands

in the other rack when the window, making my guard shouted "En voiture!" filthy, and found myself looking down on a butt-end of a street,

There was a fusillade of slammed doors, a savage The train was

A high jerk and we were off. embankment in the outskirts of Running at night through the a town. The embankment was suburbs of Paris, you find your the dead-end of the cul-de-sac, self staring through the uncur One side of it looked like a tained windows of bare tene, prison wall, brown-brick, tall, ment bedrooms and watching with 'a frieze of broken glass. fat woman in dirty, bursting The other was the windowless corsets comb the tatty bits out stone wall of a building so high of her hair.

it towered into darkness,

Whispers

re-

And he shrugged.

600

ISLANDS

#

DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

YES

NO

Put your tiek in the spoen åbows and keep this panel by you whi) tomorrow ... when the answer will be glan-with- another story in this serius brè • •

Florence A. Kilpatrick

• Bidyesterday's story—The Falluru ipt_Plan_3, by Stephan Fatteriactually

bappen? The answer, in: YES, .

AND NOT

COUNTING THE SUKOSHI

By RICHARD HUGHES

'savage

This usually takes the form there is

a berder with

of pushing each other with wedding, I can only assume their shoulders as they conic that Milady. Bnally ran Mere to rest on the seat, throwing Man to earth, because they both nuts at Euch other, blowing vanished from the newspapers out paper bags and exploding soon afterwards, them in each other's ears, and By now Milady must be at

of vigorous ruffing top icist 80 and Mere Man round, feathers.

about 85.

a

Are they happy grandparents in comfortable retirement, talk- When the male is shy, as ing of their wild, wild youth? usually the case, the female Or, because of their early ex- attacks him with vicious blows travagances are they old-age from her wings, thumping him pensioners, with Mere Man un-

the chest and back

Budable

afford .cigarettes for and Milady sometimes striking him about Milady's holder, the head.

Those who have hobbling to the chiropodist onco never before witnessed this ex- a month on her painted toes? hibition of frustration might

on

to

assume that they were quarrel Dialling TUM

ling, but to the initiated. It is

a manifestation of sex TJULLO. Is that my stomach? peculiar to the species, plom

Hacking

of

We are going on a diet. Why?

Can't you take more exercise? Our feet de not like exercise. From today we will follow the calorie diet which has been ro

First vived in a newspaper. we must decide on our activity group and our key figure.

Pardon? There are four activity groups,

distance sex talk also sounds like a quarrel "Who do you think you are,

Because since the end of Funny Face Marlon Brando?"

rationing you have become "You're a nice one to talk about bigger and bigger, · faces. If I had a face like TOURN I'd drown meself" "Perhaps 1 will" "Well, go on. Drown I should yourself

WOITY. though again the initiated will realise that it is no more than self-conscious display rudeness, involving personal re- marks, which disguises ten- derer emotions soon to be sublimated in a regular union. sedentary, fairly active, very When the maling season is active, and doing heavy work, and I think we come under the winter comes goeg the interested observer tedentary group, can then

see the once pretty. That's not my fault. Etile female still hopping pain- Don't argue. The key. 8gure fully along the front in her for the sedentary group is 16. high-heeled shoes, but pushing We must then decide on our stone, reduce a pram. Her figure has sagged ideal weight in

over and

a little. Her once bright fea it to pounds, and multiply that thers are dull. When the little figure by 16. We then get the Tokyo, lepers, an island that is inhabited seans to float on the tide, is bird in the pram squawks she number of calories we next to

soothes it with baby talk

maintain our ideal weight. Do HEN is an island not only by breeding memories of probably the best known of the

But as the years go by the you understand? feudal islands of the Inland Sea. Bril- an island? For the ogres and

female, now bedraggled in I'm doing my best. massacre, ant. island that is in land with cherry blossoms in answer, turn to

Our ideal weight would be habited only by kappa, the evil spring end maple in autumn,

fat-heeled shoes, her figure

Multiplied by Fixed to the wall was a Japan's Tourist Bureau, devils of the sea; an island the island is only half an hour's shapeless, and a handkerchief 12 or 1681b.

her. lamp-bracket and lantern

head 16 that makes 2,688 calories. binding

dingy which invites the visitor "to ("Contrary") which all harassed ferry run from atom-bombed miniscent of the Revolution, Ạ

Japanese parents threaten to Hiroshima. Hundreds of stons feathers, is not only pushing But as we are two stone over ashtail gasburner gave a sad, enjoy a trip on the Inland send naughty chicos, Very cast down by this

steps lead to a famed thrine pram but is followed by two weight we must reduce our food

three

small birds. in intake by 448 calories a day. triumph

of urban culture, I fishlail gas burner gave a sad, Sea," and declares that there'

and to the peak of Misen, where pulled down

cow's head are more than 600 islands"

rompers and woollen caps. the blind and yellow, poster, a

At times, the traveller is an eternal flame filekers in the

Are you still with me? with

I'm not very good at mums. turned to the carriage. We had

an air of malicious in that 'fairy-book water reminded at the blue-and-gold dear wirey air. settled down; the young couple Insanity.

This means that as 2oz. of A street nameplate

cf the Dodecanese islands; vistas at times, of the intimate beauty were chewing gum annd holding said Impasse de la voie. I was way. cach

shudder other; the sailor had turning away with a

This is magnificent Oriental of the Whitsunday Passage on allowed cal Miyajima. Te pre- become a cocoon in the rack; when I was stopped by a understaternent, On any clear Australia's Great Barrier Reef; war years, births and deaths the widow had folded her hands surprising event.

day, you can count, haphazard at times, of the artificial; cana- were also prohibited; expectant and was smiling at space.

A very pretty girl in a red more than one hundred alone ised stretches of the Florida mothers and the dying were

in the islet-crowded bottleneck Keys. black figures, bent towards each cotton frock and plimsolls carne other with heads together, and racing into the impasse.

The three priests, huge, burly,

AL

the

whispered, whispered. One held black hair, tied, in a handker-russet - and Franite island of a rosary, one a breviary and chief, was escaping untidily.

SILENT

賣麵

Largest Morning.

Largest Afternoon

·Circulaijan

Ciraulation

SALESMEN

Largest Sunday.

Circulation

SEA MISTS

No whezled

vehicles OFTE

I

Backward Glance

was while I was clearing my room, of old newspapers that famous rediscovered those

the gay 20's, characters of "Eve," sometimes called "Milady and sometimes "Miss 1923." "Miss 1924, or "Miss 1825," and "Mere Man" occasionally called "Adam."

ferries smartly to Hiroshima. These restrictions do not operate of the 250-mile-long sea be- Her tween

now-but to burials are allowed Takamatsu

and.

cy the island. Shodo. Here the sea narrows to

To many

visitors, Shodo about four miles,

But, under a blue sky, the Island, which commands the 40 miles et ita videared with

light is blindingly different approach from Kobe to the The difference,

it seems, is unique, a pellucid radiance that bottleneck of the Inland Sea, simply one of definition, "We even Florida lacks. And when most effectively and appealingly don't count the sukoshi (small) the clouds mass, or a hissing epitomises and symbolises the that I went on reading about aces,"

explains 4 wrinkled, rain squall sweeps along, and sellied islacut's of the ren grinning ishteman of the stronghold of Indonesian at low sea mists creep in to make a fantastic floating world pirates one thousand years ago, of the pine-tufted island peaks, If the aukoshi ones, are counted the tropical affinity.

Capri- se, surely, they ought to be don Cr the Mediterranean is the tally is 3,000 or more. No blurred and erased at once, other stretch of water anywhere. in the world has so many

irds,

ALL SORTS

It would take a year to visit ever be larger lalands of the Inland Sea.

Behind Beppu, Kyushu's “spa

YELLOW ROAD

ccare, at the "southern end of 20 springs

the

#

heet, one medium bolled potato,

2.20%, of duck, and a 20%, “chop' each, represent 100 calories, we must reduce our diet by at least that much a day.

How much would be feft?' Very little. But instead of beef, potato duck, and chops I could send down quantities of cabbage, lettuce, carrots, anxi watercres,

And nothing else?

How many calories double Scotch?

Indeed. I was so fascinated by these gadabouts of 30 years ago

For instance, if I sent down them for a whole day, leaving four bunches of watercress that my room in a bigger mess than would be only 100 calories, So wound 1202: of cabbage, or 8' Oz. ever,

According to th

picture

two large heads papers of carrots yellow with age it was in the of lettuce, malding 400 in all.. It is serene, fush, sub-tropical, painted her toe nails red, leaving perhaps I could have 400 azio

summer of 1923 that Eve first If you didn't send those down unspoiled. A yellow road runs around the island 86 miles Mere Man stunned and ripe for ries of beef or duck, or perhaps and can be traversed in five conquest as she swaggered along at steak-and-kidney pudding? - You must have fresh vege miles. In the soferior are lakes, the beaches in two-piece

and woollen bathing costume

tables, with doreria of barn- 13. digarette in holder gizx

The mere mam who edited this Inland Sea, towers sampling bon, pine, fr and birch, and Mount Aso, the largest double groves of plum and cherry paper was so impressed by the I don't know. There are islands of all shapes crater volcano in the world. At blossom and palma and olive dizarette holder that he published I was thinking that if you an actual-size close-up of it the stopped sending down Scotch and sorts and sizes Islands Beppu are marble baths and trees. with golden bescher, starels mud baths, staid

scalding pools, and Deer and wild bour roam the next day. It broke through four we could have a steak and

columos showing Eve winde kidney pudding every day and with ochre beaches, islands with hissing

eyed forests, and at night the grotes wickedly at the mouthpiece end still lose weight, sultry. black beaches, Islands with co geisha and sluggish crocodiles, que badgers come downl beaches at all; islands that dis From the forests of a fearby curious droves to watch the caked Miss 1923, was in a punt You can't send down double The next week. Eve, now I wouldrys want it every day. appear at high tide, Islands that mountain, swarms of protected cecasionat card and buses pass. cease to be islands and are seen and pampered monkeys enter You can buy an island for on the river with Mere Man Scotcher on to be clutching the skirts of a the streets with assurance, and yourself if you are interes of under the trees Mere Man

interested. They were in a quiet backwater lettuce. mother island with a market maclence, wept bounty

rald Within easy

rowing reet at low tide, islands that stores and retum, sed, to their Shodo there is a bargain desert was holding a punt pole and

Kerhere by siad; with a yellow mark, puppet done, che manipes before righttal

swimming wearing white flannels and a You'll take it and like it, make noodles, istands that make also an elaborate bordello, which bezh, a hill, a forest, a brook straw hat tipped at a rakish I shall never lice. Stotch and olive oil, Islands that rejoice in isopers for spection as ha a dozen gales, some angle, Mins 1923

923 was reclining waterereza, Like All-The-Sainte national treasure in the daytime rains and olives, and a small against cushions in the stern Stand by for two large heads Got-Drunken" anlaised thet Store Baiyajind, with a wooden pier. The prize: 3,000,000 hor cloche hat almostesting of lethire, four banches, of I inhabited only by Fabbits, a crumper camphor wood forty arid yon, or 23,000. Which is cheap Island that is inhabited only by Jenter Stinto ride that a désert islands go these days.

World Copyright

Cart 17

watercress" and

It wouldn't be fair.

on bir beaky, doee, and curly watercress, and a duble, clumps of hair hiding her ears.

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