THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1957.
THE RETURN OF DR. KANG
It was natural that the pupil in trouble should turn to the master for help, but regrettable that she, should make the
mistake of underestimating Dr Kang.
DR KANG stood at the end of the queue. In his hand was
a copy of Love My Murderer by Greta Norwalk. At the other end of the queue, sitting at a small table signing copies of her book, was the famous Greta Norwalk.
She was an attractive slightly untidy woman of about 30, fair-haired, a plea- sant smile and with a fluttery movement of her hands that was elegant and bird-like. It was odd, thought Dr Kang, how a woman who looked so untidy should have such a keen, analytical mind.
{nunnt
book was masterpiece
crime Delion, and in the loc- ture al c hack Just
given she
Klown
briliant, dia- 01- mond-ckar pronch 10 the chniques ов her craft, llow-
ever,
self.
Dr Kang htm
best
gifts were often lindly wrapped.
He moved up paltently, beam- ing
nt nothing
in parucular
LADY IN
DISTRESS
through hist thick-lensed spectacles, o plump. £1 Hutcha- benign gure with
ke face and an air of hring remote from this work. Belum him people wandete:
the book department of this great multiple store and disticil ly he could hear the whine and gasp of the great elevators.
When at last he stood before the table be laid the book down,
Get open at the fly-leaf for
Norwalk to Mgn. For a moment the woman glanced up at him.
The smile deepened about her lins und she wrote
quickly, hlotted her writing, and hands the book back, Scrawled to s the fly-leaf were these wonds, For Dr Kawg, from the apprentice to the manier.
Greta Norwalk.
Dr Kang andet, gave a title bow, and sald; "You are king but remember that [1 Root apprentice is a master's juy, and you have given me intich plea- sure."
CALL FOR HELP
That evening as Dr Kang sat
hotel roo in his
a page-boy brought up A 111er for blm which had been sent by special messenger. 11 was from Gretat
by VICTOR CANNING
This, Would you be kind enough to call at my flut Tomorrow morning? I am desperately in need of your
help
I am the world's untillest man.'
She
Wo-
picked nows- olt
mo-
some old papers chair and tioned Dr Kang to sit down.
You
need
от
my help In personal professional mat- KT?" asked Dr Kan
Kn
"Personal, Dr
"You know of course that I do not work for the love of it-
"I have plenty of maney, You can name your fee."
"And what do you want me to
Grela Norwalk hesitated for a moment. Then, her tace drawn, the smile gone, she said: f wind you to rob a safe and bring me beck stone letters which it contains my letters,"
Dr Kang put the tips of his higes logether plated the tip of the desk. "Your jetters? Blackmall?
It was a small combination, safe and there was a broad smile of pleasure on Dr Kang's face as ho tackled it. It was a long time sinco he had given himself this pleasure. Within ten minutes he had it open. He found the black Japanese box, opened it, glanced inside. It contained two bundles of letters neatly stacked in their opened envelopes which were addressed to Michael Cadille.
KEPT THE BOX
A few minutes later Dr Kang was walking slowly back across The Heath to Greta Norwalk's fat. She let him in and they went together into the study.
"You've got the letters?" ale asked anxiously,
Dr Kang nodded, but he did not pass over the box.
Instead he settled into his chair and lit a cigarette and then looked at Greta Norwalk in mlence for a while.
His gaze made her uncomfortable.
"What's the matter?" she sald al last,
Dr Kang topped the box which was on his knees, "This. You are a good writer and it is
a delight to read your books But between the imagination and the devel there is a great gap. This, perhaps after tonight, you will have learned. You referref la me To me as master and
you n apprentice. contem- Let me give you the golden rule of hll deception and remem- ber it always In your writings In threatened with and in your pets. It is easy to blackmail.
I have a husband tie a knot with your tongue that you know. And I love him very your hands can never undo." deart
Thank you. But what does been away for six all this mean?" months on a bustness trip and Je due back next week. While The next morning bekare #ht's been away like a fool
Ihr Kang went up to Gil, what
A foot
She Greta Norwalk's flat. It was en the garden levet of a large house overlooking Hampstead Heath. It was a ne, sunny autumnal murag and the gass gleaned with 16 lacing DI dew-hung spiders' webs,
At the head of the sheet was the address of her fat in Homp- stood. Dr King stared at it for some time, then put it away in Jer pereket.
velk
Gretz Norwalk opened the door to in and fed bkn into a Litered study at the back of the beuse, overlooking the garden.
The wadow was upen and a
shaft of sunlight em great phasized the disordered state of ite joki.
The top of the desk was dusty, Norwalk and the typescript read; and a spider had built a web
After sering you today! acres the open back of
chair. should have liked to call Seeing Dr Kang's eyes go round round this evening and talk the pince Greta Norwalk said, "I to you on a maller of great must apologise for the untidi- Importance to me, but pre- resH, The woman who looks slous engagements prevent after ne is away for a week,
FOR
"ZORIC
DRYCLEANING"
CARPET SHAMPOOING
Call
59195
for collection
THE STEAM LAUNDRY CO.
RUPERT
1956 ANNUAL
$450
“Ditalnoble "only from
South China Morning. Post Ltd.
HONG KONG '& KOWLOON
walked to the window to hide her emotion.
"Mind you," sakt Dr Kant landly, "I do not give you this advice Irce, You have already paid £1,000 for it, You see, iny dear Irdy, I might have believed yesery of blockmail, except
AKG-VIIMAÇ
"I pald you to bring me the letters, let me have them?”
"While
he was away," said for one thing....
As a writer
Dr Kang helpfully, "you formed you could not resist embellishing
an attachment, which you now a lie." He waved his hand to- regret. You wrote letters to the words the telephone on the tlesk. man and now he intends to.... This morning you told me that Who is be?"
Michael Cadille had just tele- phoned you, pasting final threat to you.
Greta Norwalk turned back to him. "He's an actor, Michuel Cadille, and he lives in a block "You should have looked at of flats on the other side of the the telephone closely. Between Heath. I never dreamt he could the mouthpiece of the instrument Le so despicable." She waved her and the stand on which it rests hand towards the telephone on there was a fresh spider's web. the desk. "He
the tele- was on
"You could not have pleked i phone again a few minutes up without breaking it. before you came in... He wants knew you had received no tele- an enormous sum for the letters, phone call. It was that which and I know cnce he gets the made me suspicious of you. money it won't be the end. He'll Eo an bleeding me.
"So you decided that the best way was to steal the letter from hung
"Yes. He goes to the theatre
NATO
CELEBRATIONS
"OP.LOOK!_-BRINGING THEIR OWN
FATTED CALF,TOO!"
BLIMP
BLOCK
2012
ARRIVAL OF THE PRODIGALS
World Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester Guardian
James Thurber
T
WITH MAN HE HAS SYMPATHY, RESPECT HE RESERVES FOR DOGS
By LES ARMOUR
roughs
Un
which the artists might get to work.
Thurber persisted. But Russ come around เอ
buver
HURBER stands 6 feet were
onc anet one half inches tall in his bare feet (a thing he avoids as much
has s possible), trouble keeping his hair out of his eyes, and a moustache which looks like a once well-kept lawn gone to seed.
He regards life with the deadly serious, baleful eye characteristic of great humorists,
But Thurber is a rare thing ameng humorists: His humour reflects himself. He really does ree himself as a baffled, bewilder- od man, buffeted by the cosmos and hopelessly outwitted by his own gadgets.
For himself
fellow and his mnt Thurber his sympathy. Respect he reserved for dogs. One of his cartoons shows two dogs calling one another names, One is sharing of the "You low down human being, you!"
other:
the
He also suspects, livm time to time, that the animals have the The nerce, beefy upper hand. woman enquiring Hippopotamus: "What have you done with Doctor Milmoss?" is clearly no match for the hippo who regards her with a look of amused disdain,
no
Women and Dogs
dk
Da Thurber's queer eing squiggles were cartooning at its greatest.
Years
ho later remarked: "They are just a fail. made them The English have into a fact."
To suggest that the English had made them into a fad was far worse, from Ross's point of view, than to suggest that they were a fad. Ross did not hold a very high opinion of English
humour,
indeed,
a
not, Wils
until Thurber's first book (written with E. 1. White) became best-seller and famed for Its drawing that Ross allowed them
in The New Yorker.
Sex Revolution
It is
10
with
The book, entitled "Is Sex such Necessary?" dealt with
"What pressing questions as should
tell children
their parents?" and exhaustively with the Sexual Revolution. (Thurber explained that this started with the discovery by men that they were not altractive, as such, to
10
tempt Women. Seciding woman by acquiring, new mental qualities man at last became so Intelligent that he realiseed the
business was whole
comical. Intolerant of them. He Is Time, however, has made him
concerned Ains, by the time this stage had
tolerant increasingly curlous, questioning, been reached, as every devotee and kind
almost social problems, of the Thurber cartoon knows impossible in a conversation
As far back as 1041, he wroto full well, woman had acquired find out much about him or
play a hilarious, but cutting complete mastery of mon.)
much about what he is think-
Unlike
he his heroes called "The Malc Animal” in In the Thurber world there is So I
which
the E. B. White, Thurber's co- Ing.
he atlacked salvation and
contrives to be the questioning men are nuther, was the acknowledged rather than the quesiloned.
Encroachments on academic destined to be ever bested by
in humorist's art.
American master of the by women and women
dogs. From him, Thurber admits, he
His tragedy has made him freedom
universities-and mahaged to Thurber appears to get out of learut his trade.
loneller. In 1941, he began to bed that the dogs may have taken
#o blind and for the last Bye make his point while having years he every morning full of the fear
has not been able to glorious fun with the national
sports, collage
American fool over, He is sure that his who developed the apparently draw line,
ball poodle, if she ever masters aimless, wondering prose which Three years ago his wife who
choked the
with has kept him in touch with the And
beneath the him out of business. few word tricks, will soon have laughter, Actually the wander- world of vision since he went surface of his new collection of
ings and the seeming aimless blind and read, fo him the fabia-just published in book. ness are delusive.
Thurber, things he has not been able to formho has returned like the clphers he once read for himself, began to go political problems. decoded, is a master of word
Thurber's An operation has
may be her sight but, the Thurber hafted, but there is fight left economy. His "Fables for Our savoit 00. Time" seem to drift happily family is still in danger of in him yet over the surface of life. until total darkness.
And Thurber, commando-like, James Grover Thurber was su
Blindness has not made him continues to throw his bombs suddenly, a few words sum up born on December 8, 1894, an encyclopaedia in a sentence. bitter nor blunted his sense of fres
the. mast unexpected Ohlo and firal clashed squarely and disappear in a puff of humour,
angles.... with the world at Ohio State
laughter, University. Apparently beaten, he went from Ohio to Paris where he became 1 cipher clerk in the American embassy.
WRITING CLUE
"And then when I opened the every evening. I still have a key safe and glanced at the letters his nat which you could have, in this box. No, no. I did not He keeps the letters in a small read them.
to
not
me an
The address on the black Japanese box in his safe. envelopes was enough. I saw at
writing was As for the safe"-for a moment once that the
A woman's writing, but the smile came back-"It is one yours.
You gave write about cracking not yours. thing to
example of yours when you sates. But to do it"
"Few women have the art," kindly signed my book," smiled Dr Kang. "Give me the key to the flat and your cheque for a
thousand pounds," he went cn, "and
I will look after the safe. I shall bring the letters here this evening.
Greta Norwalk stood up, her face dark with anger.
cam
"I paid you to bring me the letters. Let me have them!" After he had left Greta Nor- Dr Kang shook his head. "So walk, Dr Kang walked to her that you
ruin another bank and cashed her cheque. As woman to soothe your wounded he counted the notes he was pride?" thinking that it was a silly sheep which made the wolf her con- fessor.
FLAT EMPTY
་་
For this reason he does not describe himself a dog lover. "A
lover." doy
ho says pointedly, "is to me a dog who loves another dog,"
It
"What are you talking about-" him.
was
But it was
Thurber himself.
customers
Private Miracle
reports, he learned to write but But the, here mayehlafrist, |
r
Man
smooth
New! High-Speed · Machine
Satellites
To Track
As They Circle Earth At 18,000 MPH
Who can resist the tale of there among the the man who saw a unicom In squiggles and the codes of his garden-and landed his wife diplomacy that the madness of in the booby hatch?
The hero man first seems to have struck is typical Thurber Man, mild- mannered, trusting, concerned to And out what unicorns eat. Dr Kang smiled. "Michael In 1920, he came home to His wife, promptly phones for Cadille throw you over for an-
NEW high-speed computing machine, for use in become D reporter on
the the
cnd, police
the Block other woman. These are her Columbus Dispatch where, họ Thurber vilinin, ilio
tracking "satellites" travelling at 18,000 m.p.h, above letters to him. You hated her
smiles the earth during the Inernational Geophysical Year, for taking your place. With them
did not impress his employers tolerantly when the law artives which begins in July, has been designed by American you would have ruined ភទ
prospective Joseph and her....Not by blackmail, per-
off goes the wife. The At eight o'clock that evening haps, but by exposing her to her despite his own tales, he seems morallot's moral,
scientists. Pulitzer. As à matter, of fact, moral, 01 course, is not a when ho know that Michací
but "Never The machine can predict the alty, will head the staff at the Cadillo would be safely on the husband. Yes. I have a feeling
to have been A Arst-class count your boobles until they're orbit of a "satellite" within computer centre, stage of the theatre where to that Michael Cadille has D
reporter 'And ho worked, hatched."
Work on testing the 72it-long was playing. Dr Kang went to weakness for married women,
seconds of receiving complicated successively, for the Paris his fiat, He rang the bell, waited, so" Dr Kang stood up. "I shall edition of the Chicago Tribune and famous and enabled him, stalled in Washington.
Humour made Thurber rich sets of figures. It will be in-Vanguard rockets, to send ten of those "satellites" on their orbite, and, when there was no reply, destroy these letters, and leave and the New York Evening. like his heroes, to wander the
is nearly complete. The rockets let himself in
you, dear
earth in search of whatever Informatica ́ from the "satel-built to carry the 211b metal private miracle It is he looks to"-200 or more miles above satellites" in a nose lockerare the Earth will be radloed back built in three parts. After each Paris is his favourite haunt by a transmitter weighing 13 boost, the spent part disintegrates Ho left the Past and report and, next to Paris, London. in which a great deal of enter on the door, Dr Kang added:
ounces. Radio tracking stationn nnd falls to earth. Finally tile
taining was
No one knows quite what he will pata on the data to "satellite" a left to begin You do that ing in 1027 to join the staff of "Stick to Action,
these placen. He is Washington, or four well. Remember it is better to Thora
orbit outside the pull of gravity, wore three
sharp does in New Yorker. tongued
not n gregarious man, Ever "answers” will be reported back algned photographis of women ride an ass that you can manago,
Selcodists export that many when he is surrounded by to the stations immediately...
unknown facts about the atmo about - the place, including one than a horse which will throw
At the New Yorker he began people—as he usually 18-ho
apbore, radiation, cosmic rays and of Greta Norwalk, The mic lie you.”
lo.draw. Bub Ro was not appears to be a lonely man. Tasting Nearly, Complete meteorology will be learned impressed, 11mlded
Romo of Ho is not, like many lonely
from readitch Livets by 1BB Thurber'a early drawings,' Ross men, sorry for himself nor, like
Dr Paul Herget, Professor of sateliltes' Instruments. — Londás factfully, muggested that they some, is he bored by people or Astronomy at Cincinnati Univer- Express Service,
a thousand Post.
"I shall stop the cheque."
Not Impressed
He wore gloves and he took pounds the wiser." his time. It was an expensive,
"I cashed it this morning. well furnished flat and had all the marks of a bachelor quarters. Goodbye, dear lady," His hand
done.
had learned this from 'Grelam was behind a ploture in the bed- room.
Thursday:
FIND MY SON
Ross's
young
and
for,
+
The
computer's