A STORY FOR SCOUTS

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 24 August 1935, Page 10

A STORY FOR SCOUTS

THE MYSTERIOUS CASE .Tack Lenton, the stationmaster’s son, was an intelligent boy of 13' who had just joined the .Scout Troop in the small town where he lived. His father was not at all sure that he approved of the idea. At last, however, he gave in, and Jack was enrolled, went to camp, and won a few badges. But still Mr -Benton found himself wondering sometimes what was the good of it all. •One evening when, he. came in from work he placed a small suitcase in front of Jack, saying; We’ve got a bit of a puzzler at the station, my boy. The 10.15 from Cardington came in with one of its doors open, and this

case was lying on the seat. Someone may have fallen out, or they may not. The line has been searched, but nothing found. Can you tell me anything of the owner from looking at the things in the case?”

Jack spread the articles out on the table, and made a list of them. There was a purse containing 255, a fountainpen, a copy of Prior’s New Latin Grammar, an unused notebook, a copy of Greek Translation Exercises, a spectacles case, a box of matches, a papercovered story book, te Red Ikey of Deep Gulch,” a snapshot of about twenty boys in school caps outside a ruined abbey, inscribed Hayley, May 19, a pair of new Tunning shorts, a penknife, a Toll of eamera film, a pair of football boots, two military hairbjruslies with the initials J.H.S., a toothbrush, a tube of paste, and a pair of striped pyjamas.

Jack studied the list for some time. "It’s a schoolboy, X should think,” he began, “and a fairly big one. The boots and pyjamas and shorts give his size, and, although if you go by these (he pointed to the two classical books) he might be a master, X think a master would be more likely to have a newspaper than this cowboy'yarn; and he might also haye cigarettes with his matches. He’s red-haired, because here’s a Ted hair or two in his brush, and his initials are J.H.S. I’ll tell you more in a day or two.”

At the end of the week Jack looked up from a letter he had just opened. “ J.H.S. is John Hugh iSmeeton,’' he announced, “a Sixth Form boy at Crowndale. He's in. Collington Hospital with a lost memory, after falling from the train, walking to a road, and being picked up by a motorist. “However do you know all that?” ashed his father. “I looked up Hayley and found it was a ruined abbey in Wales. So I wrote to the caretaker; and found that a party from Crowndale had signed the

Visitors' Book for May 19, Then I asked the Head jf he had a big, short--sighted, red-haired boy .whose initials Were J. 11.5, “Well, that's splendid!” said his father. “I’m glad you are a Scout, if Scouts do things like that.”