But he doesn't want any help. Just let him get to the edge of this net, and he'll be all right.

He is a little boy at school now. Old Jones! He ought not to have whacked me that time; I didn't deserve it, though I was never caught a dozen times when I did.

Why, is that Rover? Good old dog? He can swim too, but he's no good at diving. That bag of stodge I smuggled on board the Britannia! How I sold Hairylegs!

And there's mother! Mother dear, what are you doing here? You'll get wet! What, is that the lead ? Oh! How good of you, mother, that's just what I wanted!

The hands of the stop-watch had shown 2 minutes 18 seconds when Jackson reached the surface, gasping, and was helped into the dinghy; and another half-minute had passed, but but no signs of Sartoris. The watchers in the water reported that nothing could be seen below except a cloud of mud rising and spreading in all directions. What could be done ?

They could do nothing!

Three minutes had passed since the lad had descendedone second-two-three-four -five A shout, "There he is!" broke the grim silence of impotent horror, as something appeared sluggishly float

ing to the surface alongside the boat-something with fair hair and white shoulders. Yes, it was Sartoris, and floatingbut was he alive? There is not a move from him.

Willing hands lifted him out of the water and into the boat, where he was laid across the thwarts, face downwards, for the water to run out of him. But before further measures for the "revival of the apparently drowned" could be taken, he turned over of himself and began to breathe naturally and copiously. And in half a minute he was sitting up on a thwart, with a coat thrown over his shoulders.

The net was dropped and the boat pulled for the shore, and on the way Bolitho found time to announce the official times, as follows: Jackson, 2 m. 25 s.; 2 m. 17 s.; 2 m. 18 s.-total, 7 minutes. Sartoris, 2 m. 14 s.; 2 m. 35 s.; 3 m. 5 s.-total, 7 m. 54 s.

Seated by the roaring bonfire, Sartoris related his adventures, with a greatcoat over him and a stiff glass of whisky and water in his hand.

A torrent of congratulations followed the conclusion of his tale, and he summed up, 'Well, I lost before by a fluke, and now I've won by a fluke."

Said "Torps," "There's no doubt, my lad, that you were not born to be drowned. You'll probably be hanged!"

we

FROM time to time we are warned that we live at too fast a pace. The feverish anxiety to get from here to there has beset the world at many epochs of its history. When Pope deplored the folly of those who "die of nothing but the rage to live," he was but repeating an old and a familiar regret. And in his time the great principle of "internal combustion " believe that is what the wicked principle is called-was happily unknown. Nevertheless, the early eighteenth century could crowd into a small space a thousand experiences. Its leaders of fashion could wear themselves to shreds by rushing from rout to rout, from faro table to faro table. They packed their lives with pleasures, many of which were of a better intelligence than those which we pursue to-day. They might delight, if they would, in the supreme poetry of Pope, in the prose of Swift, in Congreve's incomparable wit. They ran a greater risk of wearing out their minds than their bodies. Many were the false idols which they worshipped, no doubt. They had not yet set up altars to the goddess Speed.

It is Speed that we wor

ship to-day with a singleminded fervour-Speed without purpose, and for its own sake. Without rest and with ever-increasing haste, we live and die in a hurry. That we may rush up and down, and thus save ourselves the peril of thought, we destroy our cities and even our waterways. That we may create new facilities for the foolish thing called "traffic," we pull down houses, and steal pieces of the green countryside.

Material progress,' said Lord Dawson of Penn the other day, "in all that concerned movement has been so rapid that it has outstripped man's rate of adaptation." And from that he argues that "the medical profession would tend to become an educational body, recognising that psychological culture was of equal importance with physical culture.' The growth of medical science, he thinks, has diminished the diseases which attack us from without, and has increased the sub-infections, "which deteriorate us slowly rather than kill us quickly." Lord Dawson, then, translates into other words Pope's simple statement: they "die of nothing but the rage to live," and warns us that man dies as the result of his

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of his achievements." This sacrifice of life and energy is a high price to pay for unnecessary haste, and they perhaps will regret their recklessness who made of the motor-car not a servant but a master.

Lord Dawson believes that society is adapting itself to the new conditions, that it is beginning to learn "to relax, to switch off quickly, by means of the country retreat, Sunday rambles, quiet games, rhythmical exercises of the body, coupled with the love of music and books and the ability to get back to nature or to the cloister." We confess that we do not share Lord Dawson's optimism. When a holiday comes upon us, we see little desire for the cloister. The most of men and women, instead of contenting themselves with music and books, go forth upon the highroad, and the newspapers solemnly record the casualties after a bank holiday as they record record death death and wounds on the day after a battle.

them. But in spite of their zeal, they do not excel either in work or in play, which is for them of greater importance. Where they were once pioneers they have fallen behind in the race. They are doomed to find abroad better workmen than themselves and better players. It is a gloomy prospect, if we may believe Mr Shadwell, and yet even he cannot but see a ray of hope in the future, and there is no reason why our depression should be greater than his.

Whether we get the better of our competitors on the tenniscourt or running-path matters, we believe, not at all. Although we invented the games which all men play to-day, we did not invent the base spirit of professionalism, which, fostered by the thing called international sport, will in the end destroy sport itself. Until the rivalries and the jealousies, the trickery and the foul play, which were introduced by the Olympic Games, had put an end to the ancient spirit of sport, we had nothing to complain of. Our athletes were content to run and to jump as well as they could; and if they lost, to lose without bad temper ; if they won, to win without vainglory. The game was still for them what they cared for most.