THE JUNGLE GAME

Evening Star, Issue 23325, 22 July 1939, Page 8

THE JUNGLE GAME

The young Cobbs, who had recently gone to live in the country and found it rather quiet after busy London, planned a new game for Saturday afternoon.';, “Hunting in the jungle!” eried Billy, when his turn came to make a suggestion. “ Boys to be elephant and riders; girls, the tigers lurking and springing out; score to them every time they bow] an elephant and rider over. There’s our jungle!”—and he pointed to a big stretch of tall rushes that fringed a pond. It sounded a jolly sort of hide-and-seek game, so off ran the three girls to hide and try to surprise the hunters. while Paul, the biggest boy, crawled on all fours, carrying the two younger ones round on his back. The snarls, roars, and shouts that presently went on among the rushes would have sounded truly terrifying to anyone who hadn’t known what was afoot; but the Cobbs were enjoying their game immensely till suddenly there came a frightful hissing noise and a scream of fright. “ Quick! It’s one of the girls! What’s wrong” cried Paul; and up ho sprang. In the excitement of the game none of the children bad noticed that it was leading thorn rather nearer the ipond side of the rushes than they had intended. When the hoys burst through they found themselves almost on top of a swans’ nest. One of the birds was sitting on it: the other was attacking their sister Lily, driving her backwards with menacing beak and wings. “Look out!” Paul shouted to her, taking in the scene at a glance. “ Mind the ” (But the warning came too late. Poor Lily, too frightened by the great hissing swan to take her eyes off it, fell back into the pond. Paul darted past the swan and plunged in after her, and a minute or so afterwards was calling to Ins brothers: “We’re all right. It isn’t deep We’ll land lower down.” There was plenty of laughter presently, when they had changed into dry clothes, over the fright they had had. “ I don’t think we ought to blame the swans for not liking our game.” said Paul. “ After all, we were all rather like wild animals with the row we were making.” FULL MEASURE There once was a silly young man Who wrote verse that never would scan. When they said : “ But the thing Doesn’t go with a swing.” He replied: “Yes; but, you see. I always like to got as many words into the last line as I possibly can.” MOT QUITE RIGHT It is said that a little learning is a dangerous thing, hut it eati also he amusing. A schoolboy wrote that one of the chief clauses in Magna Carta was that no free man should’be put to death without his own consent.