HUBERT’S CAREER.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1933, Page 16 (Supplement)

HUBERT’S CAREER.

THE BRIGHT NW WORLD. Thera was no need, of course, to say immediately what he was going to do when he was grown up. Hubert was only thirteen. He knew secretly; but he dared not tell Aunt Edie, as she did not agree with him as a rule, nor did she like what he liked. His' mother and father would understand; and when' they came back from India on leave Hubert meant to tell them. He lived usually fa York with Aunt Edie, but now she was coming to London for a week, and Hubert was to accompany her and to meet his godfather for the first time. “I often think,” said Aunt Edie, when they were in the train together, “that you will go in for engineering, Hubert You are quite good, aren’t you, at mending my electric bell. Mr. *Antrobus might take you into his office.” Hubert flushed', wriggled uncomfortably, and said nothing. Then, with a sigh of enjoyment, he took from his overcoat pocket Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and plunged into it Hubert had decided to become an author. He wanted to write stories of things so wonderful that they could never happen; he wanted to spin yarns of aeroplanes that flew so high they reached the stars; tales of divers who dived so far down that they came on the most ancient wrecks and hauled up ■ enormous chests of gold; he wanted, to write of giants and athletes and warriors and scientists.

He said nothing to Aunt Edie about his career, but she noticed his stubborn expression and wondered. “And what are you going to be?” inquired Mr. Gregory Antrobus next day, as Hubert sat in his large crowded room. Hubert looked at his godfather’s open face and trusted him. “I want to be an author,” he said. “An author? Why?” “I like imagining,” Hubert confessed with a great effort. “But, dear qld chap, you might write as a hobby, but you couldn’t count on it for a living. It’s too uncertain. I think you should come to me, in a few years’ time, to train in my office here. I’ll teach you how to be a civil engineer like myself. It’s fascinating work, and

your aunt says you are good with J»W hands.” . "But there’s one big thing against sir,” Hubert said, and by now ha was Sb greatly in earnest he didn’t cai® how h* confided in Uncle Gregory. "There’s no Imagination about it, and I love pretending.” iL “No imagination? See whaat Fm doing now,” said Mr. Antrobus, and he opened his desk and took out a large blue marked in white. , , “This is what is called a blue print. Hubert. It’s a picture of an imaginary new dam over the Nile. I’ve obtained the exact measurements from people on the spot, the exact height of sandbanks, the exact nature of the river bed. This is a complete plan.” > "Wonderful!” breathed Hubert. . "Here is another blue print,* irfd Unde Gregory, whisking it in front of him. “Han of a swimming bath to be erected just behind that house there opposite.” 1 . “But there’s no room!” "There will be room when eH the arrangements I have planned are mad®. Best come to me, Hubert; I need every bit of imagination you can spare,” ss!d Uncle Gregory. “1 didn’t understand before. On, I should love to come!” cried Hubert, looking into a bright new world. - • --- ■■ ' e -' SEEN AT LAST. THE PINNACLES OF A CATHEDRAL. An architect stood looking up at the spire of the Norwich Cathedral, just as thousands of people have gazed at it in the last 400 years. But he saw something no one else had seen. The four pinnacles at the corners of the tower were not symmetrically ! placed with regard to the diagonals Of the tower. . , ~ The architect consulted the Surveyor of the Cathedral, who investigated the matter and agreed that the orientation of the pinnacles was irregular. Nd one had noticed it before. An article about it has been contributed to the journal of the. Royal .Institute of British Architects. It has taken the world 400 years to , notice the unusual design of the pinnacles. Sometimes we see what we ex- - pect to see, and not what is really there. -