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The Clinton News Record, 1940-12-12, Page 6$ PAGE 2 THE CLINTON NEWS -RECORD FACTS WORTH KNOWING Jt is a well known, fact that steno- graphy has been the stepping store to business success for many of our greatest.executivee in Canadian and American businesses. One of the most natural promo - :tions for an efficent, alert steno- grapher, who is ambitious,and not .afraidof responsibility, is the posi- tion of private secretary to some big executive, or busy man of affairs. Such a position carries with it as a rule an extra fine salary, and a cer- tain recognition of both the employ - ar and other employees concerned', which no other position ever, com- mands. The Clinton' News -Record' with which is incorporated THE NEW ERA. T16B1IS OF SUBSCRIPTION 61.50 per year in advance, to Can- adian addresses; $2.00 to the U.S. or other foreign countries, No paper discontinued until all arrears are paid unless at the option of the pub- lisher. The date to which every sub- scription is paid is denoted on the !abet. ADVERTISING RATES — Transient advertising 12c per count line for first insertion. 8e. for each subse- quent insertion. Heading counts 2 fines. Small advertisements not to exeeed one inch, such as "Wanted", "L' ost. "Strayed", etc., inserted once for 35c., each subsequent insertion 15e. Rates for display advertising :':lade known on application. Communications intended for pub- tlication must, as a guarantee of good 'faith, be accompanied by the name .of the writer. G. E. HALL - - Proprietor 13. T. RANCE Notary Public, Conveyancer ,Financial, Real Estate and Fire In- :curance Agent. Representing 14 Fire 'insurance Companies. Division Court Office. Clinton Frank Fingland, S.A., LL.B. lllarrister, Solicitor, Notary Public Successor to W. Brydone, S.C. Sloan- Blocs — Clinton. Ont. H. G. MEIR Barrister -at -Law ,Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ontario. Proctor in Admiralty. :Notary Public and Commissioner. Offices in Bank of Montreal Building. Hours: 2.00 to 5.00 Tuesdays and Fridays. O. H. MCINNES CHIROPRACTOR Electro Therapist, Massage Office: Huron Street. (Few Doors west of Royal Bank) •,Hours—Wed. and Sat. and by appointment. FOOT CORRECTION manipulation Sun -Ray Treatment Phone 207 INSURANCE Fire, Automobile, Automobile Ac- cident, e-cident, Accident, Sickness, Burglary, Plate Glass, Fidelity Bonds, Liabil- ity, etc. Lowest Rates. M. G. RANSFORD, Phone 1SOW. Representing fifteen strong Canadian Companies. HAROLD JACKSON Licensed Auctioneer Specialist in Farm and Household Sales. Licensed in Huron and Perth ounties. Prices reasonable; satis- faction guaranteed. For information etc. write or phone Harold Jackson, 12 on 658, Seaforth; R. R. 1, Brucefield, 06-012 GORDON M. GRANT Licensed .Auctioneer for Huron County. Correspondence promptly answered. Every effort made to give aatisfac- •tion. Immediate arrangements can be made for sale dates at News -Record Office or writing Gordon M, Grant, tGoderich, Ont. fiE McBILGOP MUTUAL Fire Insurance Company Bead Office, Seaforth;' Ont. Officers: President, Thomas Moylan, Sea - forth; Vice President, William Knox, Londesboro; Secretary -Treasurer, M. A. Reid, Seaforth. Directors, Alex. Broadfoot, Seaforth; James Sholdice, Walton; James Connolly, Goderich; W. R. Archibald, Seaforth; Chris. Leonhardt, Dublin; Alex. McEwing, 131- th; Frank McGregor, Clinton. List of Agents: E. A. Yeo, R.R. 1, Goderich, Phone 608r81, Clinton; dames Watt, Blyth; John E. Pepper, Brucefield, R. R, No. 1; R. F, McKer- cher, Dublin, R. R. No. 1; J. F. Prelater, Brodhagen; R. G. Jarmuth, Bornholm, R. R. No. 1. Any money to be paid may be paid to the Royal Bank, Clinton; Bank of Commerce, Seaforth, or at Calvin" Cutt's Grocery, Goderich, Parties clearingug to effect insur- ance ur- ance or transact other business will be promptly attended to on appliea- ton to any of the above officers ad- dressed to their respective post offi- ces. Losses inspected by the director who lives nearest the scene. CANADIAN ;NATIONAL ' AILWAYS TIME TABLE '11P4ains will arrive at and depart from Clinton ss follows: Buffalo and Goderick Div. Going East, depart 6.43 a.nt Going East, depart 8.00 p.m. Going West, depart 11.45 a.m. Ging West, depart 9.50 p.nn. Landon, Huron & Bruce Going North, ar 11.21, lye. 11a47 am. Going South ar.. 2.60, leave 3.08 p.m. PUBLISHED BY - SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT THURS., DEC. 1`2, 1940 SILA1l>il El . COPYRIGHT GENERAL .SIR WESTON* MARRIS, a highly placed officer of the General Staff visiting New Zeal- and on duty. LORNA HARRIS, his pretty, luxury - loving daughter. ' PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS MISS HILDA MARRIS, sister of the General, accompanying him to New Zealand and giving Lorna such supervisionas a high-spirit- ed girl will tolerate, CAPTAIN ALLEN R.ICHARDS, the GeneraI's Aide -de -Camp, who is engagedto Lorna, T. H. HAWKSFORD, chauffeur to the General's party. A New Zealander, "handsome in a rug- ged, arresting fashion." CHAPTER XII (Continued) She came dizzily out of the dark- ness to see tall stems of flax far overhead, waving against the sunny sky; hands under her arms were drawing her backwards out of the harsh, rustling leaves. "Hurt any -where?" said Hawks - ford's voice, as he put,his arms under her and Lifted her out of the flax bush into which she had been thrown. She found herself looking up into his face, and uttered a cry. She attempt- ed to struggle, but could only lie in 'leaden helplessnes in his arms. A dull fright penetrated the haze in her mind and she remembered what had happened. He lifted her as if she had been as light as a child, carried her a few paces, and laid her down on. the grass, "No bones broken?" He lifted each hand in turn, flexed her ankles gently. "I'm not hurt!" Lorna sat up dizzily. Her hat had gone, and her hair was shaken loose round her face. It was plain to see who she was now. "Good thing that flax bush was there to receive you so gently!" said Hawksford in a cheerfully matter-of- fact tone, as if robberies, pursuits and car smashes were everyday affairs. She saw her car lying on its side against a willow tree at the bottom of the bank. The one in which Hawks- ford had chased her was drawn up on the road above. She drew a shuddering breath. It calve into her head as not beyond possibility, that this big, handsome man, who had picked her out of the bush, who had once held her in his arms, who had written her name in his diary "Lorna" —with two underlinings—might de- cide to murder her. "Do you always drive like that?" he was saying, with a sort of jibe in Ins voice. "It's just as well to give way to the trains on the crossings. What were you in such a hurry for? You've been hogging it all the way from town." Lorna, her head clearer, looked him in the eyes boldly, and asked: "What do you want?" "My pocket book," he replied promptly. "I haven't got your pocket book!". "Then where is it?" "I don't know what you're talking about!" "Oh, yes you do! That disguise of yours was simple, but it was quite ef- fective, and I admit it deceived me ata distance; but you use some kind of perfume that's very distinctive, I suppose you get it in Paris or some- where—women like you go in. for that kind of thing, don't they? Anyhow, after you raided city room last night, I recognized it and I knew who you were!" Her head was splitting, specks still danced before her eyes, and; it seem- ed a fair enough bid for time, to put her face down in her hands and say nothing, He bent towards her with a change of tone, "Feeling ill?" "Head aches," muttered Lorna. She felt his hand on her shoulder, he made her lie down flat on the grass. He went down to the creek below to wet a clean handkerchief with water. "I'll have my pocket -book —" Lorna lifted her head and peeped along the road. They were in the midst of wide, lonely paddocks. Far in the' distance on the flat horizon, she could see a little white, box -like homestead. But there was no nearer help at hand. What frightened her most was Hawksford's aggressive manner. For a man who meet know himself in the wrong, it was he who should have been evasive and scared. What did he mean to do with her? He would never allow her to get away to tell what she knew. Her only chance was to make him think she knew no more than her Father knew already. She would tell him about the slip in the typewriter. Let him think that was the source of all, her suspicions, Then he would let her ao—and perhaps he would clear out himself. She heard his footsteps coming hack. He knelt beside her and wiped her face and forehead with the cold dripping handkerchief; she half lifted, her eyelids and saw his face bent over her, frowning puzzled, intent. He smoothed the wet red hair back from her brow, smoothed the fine arch of the perfect, dark brown eyebrows; a faint smile appeared round his grim mouth, and a kind of anger in his eyes. It struck ,sueh a thrill of terror through Lorna that she sat 'up hast- ily: "Thanks — I'm better now. Please don't 'bother about me!" "No, I don't 'think there's much wrong with you." He handed her her handbag, which he had picked up on the bank. "If you don't mind, I'll have any pocket -book—!". "It isn't there. It's at the hotel."' "At the hotel?" She looked along the deserted road. Not a car, not a human being in sight. What an appallingly empty country it was! "I left it in a clothes basket in the batluoom on the second floor," she informed him, and burst out emotion- ally: "1 suppose you must think' I'm quite mad, trailing you to town and then breaking into your room and stealing a notebook! I should have put it to you quite openly at once, but I was trying to find out more about you. My ;father found some- thing in the typewriter lid which made him think someone was collect- ing military information; I suspected you, of course!" Except, for a slight narrowing of his eyes as he fixed them on her, Hawksford's expression did not change. "Found something in the typewrit- er, did he?" "A slip with some notes typed on it. I suspected you at once, I admit!" "And what do you think now?" His tone was a jeer again. "I didn't find anything to enlight- en me in your diary!" "Aren't you being very honest about all this? Don't you think if I'm a spy 1 might do something dras- tic to close your mouth and keep it shut?" He smiled oddly. She turned to him, driven to sincer- ity by a thrill of nightmarish appre- hension. "Ave you?" she demanded, her eyes very wide and dark in her white face. "Are you a sky? Are you selling the information you've picked up while you've been with my father?" He gazed back at her steadily, searchingly, then looked away. "You think it would be a very terrible thing for anyone to be?" he asked. "I think it would be horrible!" she raid, her voice throbbing on a deep '!tote, "But then if I'm a spy I'm a thief, aren't I?" he countered. "It must be because you saw me with Richard's notecase." FORCING THE TRUTH "You are a spy, then?" she, said desperately. Site wanted to force the truth from him. His face, with its fine rugged lines, the whole hand- some strength of him as she sat there, wrung her heart. "No," he said, not looking at her, smiling slightly, "0f Course, I'm not!" She didn't believe him. Her heart sank. The queer emotional hold ha hacl on her sometimes seemed to with- er and fall away. Fine he might look, and sometimes sound, but he was beyond saving. She was back with the necessities of the situation again, putting up a pretence. "What a fool I've been! I shouldn't have thought that of you, should I?" "No," he said. "Not that. You've been on the wrong trail!" She tried to laugh naturally. "You must think me a perfect idiot, with my detective work! Stealing your pocket book and smashing a car up! But I thought it might be you, and I wanted to be sure before I told. my father about your looking at Al- len's notecase." "Did you? Why?" He shot the question abruptly. "Because—because I gave you my word!" " She looked away. Ile gazed at her, with a smile half wry, half puzzled on his lips as sive knelt there beside him, her shoulders drooping, her long white fingers trailing in the grass. "Are you going to tell your father and Richards about all this when they come. back?" She groped hastily for the best an- swer: "I don't know—1 mean 'no, I don't think so.' I've made myself look rather a fool, I think, with my wild efforts at being clever!" "I didn't know you had it in you," saids Hawksford, with anadmiring amusement, which was more galling to her than an insult would have been. "I' thought you were only fit for sit - ting in the back seat of a ear—or the front seat on occasion—and looking lovely!" What effrontery he had! He could recover in an instant! She held her- self desperately in check. She was sure he believed that her suspicions were allayed. He did not know she knew that he had plans for the 28th of the month. The more she soothed his fears the nearer she would be to escape, and .perhaps to solving the whole mystery , , "And I found nothing ,to tell me anything about you in your pocket book!" she went on, half laughing, reddening as she remembered the re- ferences to herself in it.. He kept his gaze fixed disconcert- ingly on her face. "Did your father tell anyone be. sides you about the notes in the type- writer?" "No," said Lorna, and then wond- ered distractedly if it would have been safer to say "Yes." "I suppose I' thought it would be fun to follow you and see if I could track down the spy!" she added. The thing to do was to appear as silly, and consequently as harmless as possible. "Anything for a new sensation!" said Hawksford, with a slight edge to his tone. "I was mad!" she said, feigning' repentance. "And you don't intend to do any- thing more about it now?" "I feel rather ashamed," said Lorna. "You don't treat the poor chauffeur with mucic consideration, do you?" he said, with a smile, and • rose to his feet, But there was a queer, secret- ive look in his face. "I suppose the next thing to do is to get that car out of the ditch!" "Thanks?" she said, es she walked clown the bank of it. Site drew a breath of relief. Suddenly he seemed quite pitiable to her. Was it a kind of stupidity which made men become criminals? A cretinous optimism which made them think they could get away with things? He seemed so easily persuaded that all was well, and that she had forgotten her sus- picions! She got dizzily to her feet and went down to the car, where he was trying to see what damage had been done, "You seem to have had more than ignition trouble!" he remarked straightening up. Site smiled at the witticism. "The front mudguards are consider- ably knocked about, the windscreen is smashed, and the• door is bent. Can't see what damage has been done other- wise, though, until we haul her clear of the tree, We'll have to get a' breakdown car from Christchurch to get her back onto the road," he said. "It's a hired ear, tool" Lorna went over to the front of it and peered over the side to get a glimpse of the steering wheel and the dashboard. Suddenly a shadow fell on her. She turned and saw Hawksford standing :behind her, a spanner grasped in his hand. All her frayed nerves tensed in a spasm of fear, gripped by an awful fancy that he had been about to hit her on the head! She dodged back, stumbling against the wheel of the upturned car, a kind of gasp breaking from her stiff lips. "What's the ;matter? Don't look so frightened!" He spoke in a tone of easy surprise, then uttered a sudden shout of laughter. "Holy smoke!" he cried. "I believe you thought I was going to murder you!" He dropped the spanner, still laugh- ing, and drawing her towards him, crushed her gently in his arms and patted iter an the back; "No, Lorna," he said. "Whatever I've done, or whatever I may do, I shan't murder you. I have wanted to murder you, rather, one or twice, I admit. But not because of anything concerned with espionage!" She wrenched herself away, her face on fire, and turning her back on him walked hastily up the bank to the other car, "He knows that he has an attrac- tion for me," site thought, fighting for calm, "He knows he has a hold on me! But it isn't that kind of hold —it won't stop me from finding out as much' as I can and telling the truth about him!" He followed her in a moment or two, bringing her suitcase from the wrecked car. "We'll drive' back in to Christ - church and send .out a breakdown ear," he said, with a sidelong glance at her to see bow she was feeling. She got in beside him, and he turn- ed the car. They' started back for Christchurch. He said nothing, but kept his eyes on the road ahead, with a queer kind of smile—was it a smile of triumph? - at the corners of his mouth. With sombre weariness Lorna re- flected that she had him utterly de- ceived. (CONTINUED NEXT WEEK) CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS ARE NOT CORRECT You'll be giving presents this Christmas; 'Your house will be decked with holly and mistletoe, there'll be a Christmas tree, and the kids will be hanging up their stockings. Maybe you'll go to church. Of all these customs, only one has any real connection with Christmas, That is the last-mentioned — and probably least observed. 'Exchanging presents belongs properly to the New Year. Christmas trees existed long before Christianity. And old Santa Claus is quite out of place at Christ- mas. His date—St, Nicholas Eve—is really December 5th. In certain countries New Year is still the gift season, as 11 was in the earliest days of Rome. The Romans generally gave figs and dates covered With gold leaf, ac- companied by money with which to buy statues of the gods. Mistletoe has really no Christmas significance, for it was the Druid's New Year gift— cut from the saered trees with a gold- en knife to the people. Down through the ages, from B.C. to A.D., New Year remained the time for gifts. Christmas presents were still unknown in the time of Henry VIII, but New Year presents weren't. In fact, that monarch extorted New Year gifts from his subjects as his right. Queen Elizabeth depended on New Year gifts for her magnificent wardrobe—and it is recorded that she took good care not to give too much back. Pins and gloves were the most pop- ular presents. At the end of the fif- teenth century, women Wore still us- ing wooden skewers, and welcomed an "expensive" present of pins. Often they received instead money to buy the pins themselves—which gave us the expression "pin money." Christmas trees were introduced into England from Germany not so long ago—but for their true origin one trust go back to ancient Egypt, where palm trees put forth a shoot every month and were of festive sig- nificance at the end of the year, be- cause they bore twelve shoots, rep- resenting twelve months. New Year The best wa / tt e buy Groce1res r� ;�snfS:�ns .00 You get good value when you shop by telephone because the grocer takes particular care of his "telephone customers"; their continued patron- age depends on his good service. A tele. phone in your 'home haves precious time and trou- ble, too. There's no need to wait t� get served—a telephone order gets immediate attention. The small cost of a tele- phone pays' for itself many times over in convenience and pleasure. again, you see. Whether or not it was that giving presents to children on December 5, in recognition of the kindly St, Nicholas, the festivities of Christmas, and the exchange of gifts at New Year, became too expensive as in- dividual custom, the fact remains that gradually they all became lumped to- gether on Christmas Day. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTMAS CARDS The greatest volume of Christmas mail consists of greeting cards. This branch of the season's trade is rapidly increasing, Every year card designs become more varied and colorful, and stationers cveeywhero report bigger sales. Yet it is less than a century since the first Christmas cards made their appearance in England, In days gone by it used to be a general custom to write Iong lettere to all one's friends and acquaintances at Christmas time. People who never met each other from one year's end to another would exchange at least a dozen pages of greeting a few days before the 25th, and this letter -writ- ing often occupied several weeks. The credit for inventing the time- saving card goes to a Birmingham artist named William A. Dobson, who later became a member of the Royal Academy, In 1884 he designed a card, painted with rich colors, symbolizing the spirit of Christmas. In the follow- ing year he had his little masterpiece lithographed and sent copies to some of his friends. Th ci nur at ra ac,.co• JUST LIKE 1 1 Lifigaakt01110116MOSIOWSWIlabgagittigitigNig",524-4532. We Have Just Received Lovely Samples of Pe CprHIST sollal, AS CA 'DS Moderate in Price. Beautiful in Design. Tho Clilltoii Newsiocord PHONE 4 J fOt 'Ca sos