TIME LIMITS FOR ALL.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 167, 20 April 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

TIME LIMITS FOR ALL.

Our drinking hours are already restricted by law, and our cartoonist pictures some new time limits that may socn come into force

Pierce had laid an iron kano on Mr. Sergeant's shoulder. "From Scotland Yard," \e replied, jn a matter-of-fact voice. The Ihe added—"l arrest you, Mr. Sergeant, for the murder of your wife on the second of March last."

The older man loosened his bold of his brother's arm and covered his face with his hands for one moment.

over the chimney piece he caught sigh, of his haggard face between the two vases of pampas grass reflected in tro mirror. He raised l the hand that held the. revolver. Suddenly another faco was reflected behind his own, that of a girl, with eyes full of mad terror.

"Look, here, Jack, when I ve told yon more, you'll see things are not as you think." "Got on! Yes, you have indeed!'' ing you can tell me can make any difference now." "Wait —wait! In Americi I came ncross an elderly man and his wife, well-to-do business people. They liked rne, curiously enough, but the " did. I went into business, and in spite of all your gloomy prophecies 1 got on, and I took my old' friend's name. 1 '

"You infernal scoundrel! How dare you?" He sprang like a wild cat upon the taller man, but the struggle was only momentary. Pushed' slowly back by Pierce, Sergeant sank into a chair, and his opponent, quick as Fghtning, drew out a revolver, and hold it' nome three inches from his head. Terrified and ghastly, the accused man stared up at the commanding figure. "You see, you may just as well make no disturbance. Coma quietly, Mr. Sergeant." "It's a lie —you're mad!" The hoarse faint voice broke into a sort of sob.

"Mr. Pierce—what is it —what are you doing?" cried a voice behind him. He dropped his hand, and turned sharply round. "Why arc you here, Miss Riberts?"

"I ccn't know —1 was frightened. I was in the garden when Mr. Sergeant rushed past me half an hour ago, looking dreadful. I thought perhaps you and he had quarrelled; I didn't knowforgive me!" She spoke with difficulty the while he was slowly regaining some of his old composure. "You won't stay in here, alone?" she whispered, with a look of horror at the revolver.

"God on! Yes, you have indeed!"

"Can't you hear me out'' - ' Sergeant's voice rose hoarse and erger. "I should have done all right if I hadn't come across a woman. In ibtss days she was as pretty as they make them. She made mo marry her, ana I never knew what it was to have a moment's peace again!" "It was this woman, then, whom you " "Yes. She aroused all the devil in me. I was madly jealous of her, Jack; and l she spent almost every mag I had. I heard of a possible business over here, and we took a house ir Fenchestcr " "Three years ago?"

"If it is, it will l>e thrashed out later

"No. But I'm going away, Miss Roberts. We shall never meet again." She laid a hand on his sleeve." "Oh! Why must you go—all of a sudden, too, like this?" "That I can't tell you. But this I will say. lam not worthy to speak to you. I am not fit for the society of straight, honest people any longer." Once more he put the revolver back into his pocket. "That I shall never believe!" she cried.

"You b'ackguard! You think you can hang me, co you? Everyoneevery man in the street here knows I loved my wife." " That may be so " "Then what have you got against mc?"

"Your wife had a lover, and you shot her out of jealousy." "They daren't hang me —there's no proof —not a shadow." His pitiable blustering might have touched a listener less experienced. "Won't you come quietly, Mr. Sergeant?" Pierce, with that curious impassive gaze of his, stood confronting the haggard, twitching lace. Suddenly Sergeant straightened him. self and started violently. "Look here—you ! Who end you tell me you were?"

"Yes. And everything got worse. Jack, you don't know what I suffered ! T know she had one lover •- r.mongst many —who used always to come and see her when I went away to try and push on the business. She laughed l at me, called nu> a fool, failure, a.id a beggar, and at last I got wild. T shot her d'ead in that horrible room looking into the garden—and I dragged he - out under the trees. Often now ! seem to see her there, and she's always smiling smiling!" Pierce looked down at the cowering figure.

From the card-room came the sound of the old song that had evidently been asked for as an encore:—

"When in death I shall calm recline

! The two, who faced each other in , silence, did not hear one note of the music. He only saw that he was saying good-bye to a new, undreamed of happiness—and l she, tor the moment the stronger of the two, war, determined that without a last fight for it 1 she would not renounce her own. Howcould she hold it? As if in answer, the , agitated voice of Mr. Jessop fell upon their ears. j "It's an awful thing, Mr. Pierce, 1 couldn't believe it! There's Mr. Sergeant gave himself up a minute ago to a constable. Confessed to having killed his poor wife. Rut there—they won't hang him. Miss Roberts—don t you get 1 upset mv dear! I expect Sergeants i heart was bad, for he dropped cown i dead as a stone when they were going to take him away. . . . i Mary Roberts opened her eyes a few minutes afterwards to r eel Pierce's utrong arms around her. As if in ans- ! wer to a nuestion, he .aid: "When von know all, it is you who must tell me if T am to go or stay?"

"I didn't tell yon. I'm Inspector Gray from Scotland Yard." "Good heavens! So that is your name? Inspector Gray, are yon?" The detective spoke more angrily. "Come, it's no use delaying. I've got two constables outside whom I can summon in one moment." To his surprise, Sergeant bur-t into n. wild laiifih. "This is too much of a go> ;• tiling. Inspector Gray! I knew 1 bad seen you somewhere. Even when yr,i sat by the fire I thought, where have I seen someone like that? Now I wart no explanations. I know. And so >ou want to bang me, don't you?"

"It was through o letter from her lover that we were put on the right track," he said. Sergeant spoke with a new and desperate eagerness.

'"Now you won't give me up Jack 9 It would be a blackguardly thing to do. I'm not an ordinary criminal, you must Bee that! 1 was more sinned against, 1 swear it." " If only you had cleared out form here!"

'• I thought no one would s-i.-pcct me if I stayed on in that loathsome house." " Charley '. 1 can't help myself. It's my duty, the work I'm bound to carry out. You must come!"

Pierce's face grew darker. "If you kick up a row you'i! eisturb the whole house. Come at once."

An evil, mocking smile ccpt over Sergeant's fact, and the exp.es.sion of his eyes was almost diabolic as he whispered, "The gentleman from Londo.i whom Jcssop told me about. ls:i •• your Christian name Jack?" It was Pierce's turn to str.rt, ever so little.

"You hypocrite! You humbugging scoundrel—your duty to ruin your brother! Yes, you always were the exemplary Jack—a comfort air. joy to your mother!"

! "You dare to mention her." | "Yes, I do. For her sake—for I was her favourite once—you've got to let | me go!" The agony of the greatest tempta- . tion that had ever assailed' him tore ' at the heart of the apparent,;.' impassive man. The present, with its imper- ! alive and bitter duty—"he past with its ' appealing caM of tender memoriesfirst one, then the other seemed trium-

"That's hardly your business," be said curtly.

"I'm not so sure, Mr. .lack Gray. You don't recollect me? Xo, of course not. Mr. 'Pierce' " He lanrdied loudly as the detective's hand grasped him still more tightly.

faces in amazement at new records in bang and speed, she is doing the postman's round, the liftman's gate-clang-ing, the ploughman's furrow, the lamplighter's circuit, the sweep's chimney, the window-cleaner's mountaineering, the carman's deliveries, the bank clerk's lightning arithmetic. She is standing long hours at the mechanic's lathe.

The woman insurance agent trips \n all weathers down miles of mean streets, the woman dentist is following the woman doctor, the janitors of all the learned and lucrative professions are trembling at her nearing footsteps. She is perhaps nearer to the House of Commons than ever Mrs. Pankhurst could hava brought her. I can envisage even the W< )lsack in her future —albeit that »S- will want it recovered daily to m&L'ch her change of robes. Shall men, then, looking forward to the new world after tiie war, bo anxious and pessimistical? Not he. Shall ho be fearful that woman, the worker, will henceforth take the bread oirt of his mouth, when woman, the worker, will go forth to earn the loaves while he, the priceless and rare One, sits at home? Woman has given away her secret and sold her ancient birthright of ease. It is for us, the real fencer sox, to see now that she does not regain it. The mere dream of that idle and care-free future makes me wish that the belligerents of Europe had been more respectful to the mission of Mr. Ford.

MAX'S EMANCIPATION. A last there is promise of man coming into his real kingdom. The curtains are drawing aside of that repose which is his by right hut which lias always been usurped by woman. \\ oman has always been credited with being the tender sex, the imaginative sex, the romantic sex. Woman has always been shielded from the world because ot her sensitive delicacy. Woma.n has not gone out into the hurly-ourly because the clust and the clamour of the market were thought unfitted to her. But she has disproved all that in these days. She is as good as the best of us. It is my own belief that she is far more competent than most of us. She has more determination, less sentiment, more energy, more ruth. Man is the romantic sex, the sensitive sex, the imaginative sex. There is no woman in whose whole body thpre is as much romance as in man's little finger. Woman is the directing sex, th l hard, practical sex, the sex that cannot be " blarneyed" or deceived. George Meredith (who knew more about woman than any man who ever wrote on that difficult and l thorny problem) said that "the friendship of most men is purchaseablo with an air of good fellowship and a cigar." Rut woman is immovable, for hers is the practical sex, the sox with ten acute common senses that we weak men possess not. It is the strangest of paradoxes tlvt mn'.i has always ridiculously attributed n'l softne«es and sensibilities to his