STOWAWAY WITH MEASLES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22519, 29 September 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

STOWAWAY WITH MEASLES

Joe Baird was fed up with measles* He felt ready to burst .with energy, tat he couldn’t. play' with ;ahy of pe boys in the street just Vin case ta gave them a zneasle. He’d done JU the reading be' wanted, to do hr a long time, and ..there - wasn’t taything he could do by ; himself. So be pulled his cap over,his red lair and wandered ‘down the road to the airport where the men were •verhauling the engine- of. the liner. - Joe knew most of the chaps in , the khaki overalls, as his father was (heir chief. They don’t mind J6e looking round, and he- was pretty nre they' would be broadminded •bout measles. Men were. Besides key probably didn’t know he’d even kid them. He hoped they didn’t. ' “Mow are you. Bert?”, he asked 1 freckled mechanic. 11 “I’ve got the i measles.”, “You have not.” ■ "Have so. The brown .sort.” “Huh.” So they ' knew,, did . they, foe wandered to the back of the tangar. ?i- v “Hullo. • Jim,” he said to a boy tho was pourinig in oil/? ' 2 “Well, if it’s not our little‘>friend. How are the red spots. sonny? STm very well, thank you, but I’m sll germy. , Don’t mind, do you?” m Mked. •SNot at all,” said Jim' quite truthJUly. A dose of measles might save kin from that exam next week. ■ • ifXan I come in. then?’.’- . "Yes, my bunch * of tattle.” . r.. ;.“Where’s pat?”, Joe-asked. . . “Tearing down the engine of the finer.. Better, not 'go over •■there, ftey’re busy with the big ship,”' _ HBhat was enough for f Joe. He wentwas too busy to eveir notice flt With strange ground engineers y.was hurriedly screwing, and tmUptaing parts of * the ' starboard tataue belonging teethe-.big Silver tapr. Three of the-greasy Sjta had their backs to him, ind. tat was too completely occupied wk the gadget in his hand' to see climb up behind thta port tague and into the' pilot’s, cabin, fatqok a quick look round And de-

(By Tut Thomas)

cided he’d try.it. He crawled over the Wing quietly and was soon in the cabin. What a dashboard! He’d never seen - anything quite 'like it; Swelling with pride he sat in the .pilot’s seat, clutched the control column and gazed at the, board. He nibbled one of the pilot’s spaghetti sandwiches, and felt very important till he remembered Pat, so he crept but of the pilot’s seat into the pas-, sehgers’ cabin, and into another cabin at the back of the craft where they 'stored extra luggage, he sup.posed. There was a big , book' oh the floor with coloured pictures in it of all the best aeroplanes in the world. Joe. climbed up on a luggage .fdek and put his nose into the wonderful book.. ■ ;The. clanking, noises .of engine rer .pairs stopped, and the big liner was wheeled, out on to, the tarmac; but it. was a hot drowsy day and Joe didn't notice any of this, and by the time the engines were ■ turned over; ready for flight he was curled up asleep, dreaming of silver wings sparkling in the blue sky. The first thing- he knew was a sickening feelipg inside and a big bump as the machine i dropped in, ah airpocket. Flaming delight! The aeroplane had ;.teken off with him. He climbed dbwh . stiffly, opened the door and peered through the window above the outer door. Clouds and sea. That was all he saw. ' If He Went into the passengers’ cabin there, would be trouble—awful• trouble, for everyone was terribly hard: on stowaways. He’d .. often thought about stowing away on a liner till his father- drumnjed-it into him ; just how serious was the Offence. The only thing to do would be tb wait till the aeroplane landed and out of the dpor as quickly as possible, run for the nearest terephone and ring his father. * He; heard voices, deep and muffled, very near to him, so he ducked back into his hiding place to save any bother.. If he listened hard he might hear, where the liner wks heading for, he thought. r : “’Bre, you go through this bag and be quick , about it,” said the

bullying ' voice. “I’ll go through this.” _ "Got it!” screeched the other. “Don’t tell the whole aeroplane, idiot!” hissed the first man. “Give the letter to me and go back to the cabin. I’ll tie up the bags again.” , “No. I’ll wait for you,” ■ “Windy, eh?” Joe peeped oyer the tpp of the partition which divided his compartment from the mailbags. They weren’t wearing uniform! “Mail thieves,” thought Joe. So these were the men who were giving his father and the men who ran the mail service so much trouble. Joe slipped off the rack and crept to the next door. Good! It had a lock on the outside. Quietly he slipped the bar across and hurried into the passengers’ cabin, his heart thumping and his mouth, dry. He knew he must not. speak to the pilot or, to the copilot. so he asked a surprised-look-ing passenger for a pencil and a sheet of paper. ; "Two thieves locked in with the mail. Come quick,” he scrawled! He, knocked on the pilot’s door and a passenger dragged him back. ‘•■You can’t go in there, little boy,” an elderly woman said to him as She clutched hold of his jersey. But fbe co-pilot had opened the door, and whitefaced Joe handed him the note. Soon the pilot stepped into the cabin, and Joe saw it was Geoff Marie.

; “What on earth are you doing here!” he exclaimed angrily. "What’s ell- this about, Joe?” Poor little Joe didn’t feel a bit heroic; he was thoroughly frightened of Geoff’s scowling face. Marie took a man with him to the mail, compartment and sure enough they found two men there who couldn’t explain why they Were there., Geoff sent Joe back to the man at the controls to tell him to land at Berrick, the next airport. , s '“Berrick,” said Joe' to himself vaguely. It was nearly 500 miles iway from home. , Joe was put in the charge of a riian who was a friend of the pilot. The woman who called him “little boy” glared at him through her pink rimmed glasses, and another woman smiled at him and wagging

the feather in her hat said; “My little boy just loves me to read him stories' about stowaways. He’ll be thrilled. when I tell' him I've travelled with a real live one.”

“Yare,” said Joe well info his shirt. “Wouldn’t she hop if she knew about the measles,” he grinned to himself.

There was a lot of hustling and excitement at Berrick when the liner landed and Joe felt rather important. Geoff Marie put a call through to Captain Baird and Joe was sent home in a specially chartered Gull aeroplane. Joe’s father met the Gull when it landed. Joe thought there would be a severe •reprimand, waiting for him and perhaps a sound whacking, but his father met him with a broad grin on his face.

"Come on home, thief-catcher,” said Captain Bai'rd.

Nigerian Ponies The country-bred ponies of Nigeria, West Africa, are on the small side, but they are sturdy beasts and can carry a surprising weight. Horses are cheap there. A good mount can be bought for £8 or even less, and £l4 is a top price. The cost of upkeep, too, is moderate, for ponies go unshod over the soft -soil. Their hooves are pared occasionally, that is all; there is nothing to pay for shoes or farriers. These ponies are used in turn as hacks, polo ponies, hunters, steeplechasers, and are shown in the ring at gymkhanas.

Times for Dinner Dinner, the chief meal of the day, was in olden times partaken of about mid-day, but the fashionable hour for dinner has undergone many changes, 8 p.m. now being the formal dinner hour in Britain. During the reign of George HI it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon; under George IV it was 6 o’clock, and then came to be 7; but Queen Victoria set the modern British example of having dinner at 8.