THE LOST COIN.

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 60, 12 March 1927, Page 18

THE LOST COIN.

Peter had gone to spend the morning in his grandfather's office. "Long years ago," said Grandfather. "I lost a golden guinea in this office. It was a very valuable guinea, for it had a diamond in it, but, more than anything else, it was given me by my grandmother, and I did not -want it lost." "Bid you ever find it 7" asked Peter, as he stared round the old-fashioned office, with its deed-boxes piled high up against the wall, its big desk and big armchairs, and the machine through which the news came. Tick, tick, went the machine all day long. Peter wondered if it went like that all night. "No," said Grandfather. "We hunted and tve hunted. We turned out the whole place, but the guinea was never found." Just then a clerk came in and said that ' Grandfather was wanted in another room. He left Peter alone, but he gave him strict instructions not to touch the papers on his desk. It was the first time that Peter had been alone in Grandfather's office, and | the first.thing he did was to go over to the tape machine and watch the news coming through. Peter could read many of the words though their meaning did not interest him. He was much more interested in the deep window seats, where he had been told Grandfather's grandfather had sat and watched the people passing

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when ho was a little lad. Then it had all been fields; now it was a square full of motors, but the green trees were still there.

Peter climbed up on the deep window seat and examined the shutters. They fitted into a deep niche, and when they were closed looked just like a part of the panelled wall. Peter touched one, and it rattled and opened itself a little. Peter touched it again. He wondered if there would be room enough for him to get behind it, and he mado up his mind to find out. So he pulled away the shutters to their full extent and saw there a good-sized niche behind them. He wondered if he would be able to stand in it when tlio shutter was open. Peter climbed up, and as he did so his foot touched a coin. It went rolling _ down to the iloor and stopped against the news machine. Down went Poter after it. The coin had finished rolling, and the little boy picked it up. It was a golden guinea with a diamond in it!

"Grandfather, look!" cried Peter, as tho old gentleman ontered the room. I have found your guinea!" There is no need to say how pleased Grandfather was, and how and lie Peter tried over and over again to 'think how tho com came to be hidden there. But that they never found out.

SCOTTISH BOY WHO LOVED JAPAN

Scholars havo lately been busy praising a revised edition of James Murdoch 's History of Japan. This tremendous classic runs to nearly a million words and took twentythree years to write. Unluckily, the author did not live to see the last volume published. He waa a most remarkable man with a romantic history Murdoch was tlio son of a small crofter. As a boy he had to work in tho nolds and then servo in a shop but he snatched time for learning and won a bm-sary for Aberdeen University. Utlier scholarships took him to Oxford Gottingen, and the Sorbonne. At 21 the poor man's son was assistant-profes-sor of Greek at Aberdeen.

Soon people heard of him iv Austi-i----ha, whero he had ii lieaflmiisterslnp worth ;i thousand a year, but lie threw tins up for the more adventurous life of a journalist. Newspaper business led him to Japan. He loved the people forgot journalism, and settled down -ts a teacher. Ho married a charming little Japanese lady, and began to write the history of her land. Just five years bofore his death he pulled up his roots anew to become a professor at the University of Melbourne, but he returned to Japan for a holiday every year, and continued his history. It is strange to think that the great authority, on archaic Japanese manuscripts should be, not a Sumarai, but a Scottish cotter's bairn. Perhaps he was such a good historian just bocause ho was a working man }s son He had not passed all his life in the seclusion of a study, but had known poverty, hard work, dreams, disillusions many countries, and human love. After all, history deals with actions of men and women, and the historian who knows oiily books cannot hopo to understand history as well as ho who knows both books and mem