Time-Honored: Why Some Fans of a New Gizmo Are Eager to Misuse It, by Rob Walker

Last September, at one of those periodic events where Apple offers up a new product with much fanfare, Steve Jobs invited the audience to join him in admiring the latest iteration of the iPod Nano. With the touch-screen interface associated with the iPhone and the iPad, the music player had shrunk to a square, weighing less than an ounce and almost comically wee. Some observers took it for a joke when Jobs said an Apple board member intended to sport the thing as a watch. Others didn't laugh; they sprang into action.
Plenty used the gizmo's clip to simply attach it to a sturdy watchband, and a few began devising brand-new bands specifically meant to accommodate a Nano. Soon the gadget blogs were pointing readers to wristband sources and offering reviews of the device not as a music player but as a time-teller. Today you can buy several wristbands manufactured by the companies iWatchz and Griffin Technology directly from Apple's online store, each about $25. (The Nano itself is $150 or more, depending on memory capacity.) And most recently, a Chicago design firm set off a frenzy with its Nano-watch product proposal, hitting a new record on the Kickstarter, where creative types can solicit donations to underwrite new projects.
The Nano-watch fad merges two well-established developments of the gizmo era. The first is that Apple's various handheld devices have spawned ecosystems of spinoff and add-on products and accessories, from function-adding attachments to style-focused cases and covers. The second is that no matter how many devices we carry around that happen to have clocks built into them, the idea of the wristwatch soldiers on. And Apple seems to have anticipated - maybe even hoped - that its unnamed board member wouldn't be the only person to use the thing as a watch: as an item on The Huffington Post noted at the time, the device came with "clock functionality" preinstalled. ("Clock functionality" seems to refer not only to the fact that the thing tells time but also that one of the choices for the default screen mimics an analog watch face.) Still, it's curious to witness a sophisticated piece of technology wholly reimagined for use for as a mere timepiece.
The case is best made by Minimal, a design firm based in Chicago that set the fund-raising record on Kickstarter, setting out to drum up $15,000 and instead attracting an astonishing $941,718. (Many of the donations amounted to preorders - any pledge of $25 or more entailed receiving at least one of the products as a "premium.") In a promotional video, Scott Wilson, a designer who founded Minimal, directly acknowledges the declining need for wristwatches, which "have been reduced to a status symbol and a fashion accessory," as he puts it. But, he continues, watch designers have long "chased" the notion of a "multitouch watch," and the Nano's interface and petite size almost accidentally resolve that quest.
And so Minimal offers two wrist-wearable bands. With the TikTok (preselling for $35 in January), you snap your Nano into a reinforced plastic case attached to a "high-grade silicone rubber" strap. (You can pop it out via an empty space on the back that happens to be the right size to reveal the Apple logo, and is referred to the promo video as the "brand hole.) The LunaTik has a two piece, bolt-together compartment fashioned from "aerospace-grade aluminum" and is meant for someone less concerned with removing the Nano for nonwatch uses; it's preselling for $70.
Despite the exciting sound of a "multitouch watch," the truth is that the Nano's functions are limited. It has a stopwatch and a timer, and the built-in pedometer syncs with the Nikeplus tracking system for runners. The clock face can be black or white. It's true that the thing holds gigabytes of music, but this incidental fact is completely ignored in the Minimal video. And honestly, even in this stylishly done promotional piece, it's distracting when the LunaTik appears on an actual wrist: it's a little too big and a little too weird, and looking a lot more hyperprop than hyperpractical.
Although in fairness, it could also send another signal - that its wearer is tech-forward and inventive, the sort who embraces not only what's new but also the latest way of using the new for something other than its stated purpose. The slightly off-kilter, blatant geekiness of the result underscores this message. Yes, the watchified-Nano wearer silently declares, I do think I'm Dick Tracy.
Adding a gizmo to the wristwatch formula doesn't avoid the idea of the watch as status symbol or fashion accessory - it squares it. If there's one business that matches fashion in its relentless efforts to make this year's model fashions in its relentless efforts to make this year's model seem dated and in need of prompt replacement, it's technology; before long there will be another batch of gadgets, unveiled by Apple or some rival, that will no doubt render Nanos-repurposed-as-watches obsolete. But for the moment it's a highly noticeable, and vaguely fun, tech-fashion statement. And it does add something new to the history of wearable clock functionality - an idea, that, surprisingly, really has stood the test of time.

Ray Allen, by Tzvi Twersky

There are a handful of excellent shooters in the NBA. And then there's Ray Allen. Excellent shooters can make shots even when lanky defenders with slinky arms obstruct their view of the basket. Ray Allen will make shots regardless of the condition. Excellent shooters are Matt Bonner, Anthony Morrow, Kyle Korver, and their role-playing brethren. Ray Allen is a future Hall of Famer.

It's late in the third act of an unexpectedly close game between the visiting Boston Celtics and the New Jersey Nets, and the Prudential Center in Newark is chilly. Not as temperate as extreme as the old Boston Garden was said to be have had back in Larry Bird's day, but chilly enough that I have to zip up my oversized LRG hoody. The players don't seem to mind, though, as sweat drips down their faces and on to their jerseys.

With a shade over 2:50 left in the third, New Jersey big man Brook Lopez tips in a Travis Outlaw miss to give his team a 58-56 lead. As Boston inbounds the ball and advances upcourt, it's obvious from my perch 20 feet directly behind the Celtics' basket that they're setting up one of their most basic - and effective - sets. Rajon Rondo, dribbling the ball with his right hand, guiding traffic with his left, patiently waits near the top of the key for the play to develop.

As the shot clock ticks toward 18, Glen "Big Baby" Davis, the widest player on the court, takes up position on the left side of the baseline, about 19 feet from the basket. Mirroring his movements, center Troy Murphy sets up in the same location on the right baseline. Jeff Green sits just behind the three-point line on the right wing. Ray Allen, blanketed by Sundiata Gaines, occupies the same position as Green except on the opposite side, near Davis.

17. All five Celtics hold their position.

16. Rajon Rondo takes one last dribble in place, and everything begins to simultaneously unfold. Ray Allen feigns a dive to the corner and Gaines follows his lead, not giving up an inch. In mid-step, though, Allen reverses course and makes a move toward the rim, where Davis lies in wait. Unable to avoid the imposing Baby, Gaines runs smack into him as Allen continues along the baseline. Unflustered by the momentary setback, Gaines gains on Allen, catching up to him under the basket.

15. Eyeing the movement, Green moves along the free-throw line, taking his defender away from the incoming shooting guard, and toward the wing Allen vacated a second prior. Meanwhile, now running at full speed, Allen maintains his course along the baseline, where he rubs off Murphy and makes a V-cut to the opposite wing.

14. Sundiata Gaines cannot get around the screening Murphy. Travis Outlaw, Murphy's defender, is slow running out to the three-point line to pick up the open Allen.

13. Rajon Rondo delivers a perfect chest pass to Allen, who sets his feet, squares his shoulders,
spreads his fingers, and pops his wrist.

12. The ball rotates high in the air, and before the shot reaches its destination, I look away. I look away because, having watched Ray Allen play for almost 15 NBA seasons now, I know what the result is likely going to be. I look away because Allen told me, "I'm only surprised when I miss. When it doesn't go in I'm like, How did that happen?! I don't get it. And truly I mean that. I only question the misses. Even if I shoot a halfcourt shot, I feel like I've got a great chance of making it."

11. Swish. Boston has reclaimed the lead, 59-58. Ray has hit his 2,593rd career three. All is momentarily right in an otherwise topsy-turvy world.

Ray Allen's jumpshot is sweeter than high fructose corn syrup and just as deadly. The question is, Why? Why is his shot greater than all other shots? And, what's the secret behind his success?

"That's an excellent question," says Karl Hobbs, George Washington University's current head coach and the man Ray Allen credits for helping him polish his stroke while at UConn. "I really think it's all in his wrist and the extension he gets on his shot. And he's always relaxed on his shot. He never really rushes his shot."

While Allen certainly doesn't disagree with the man who had him study Hersey Hawkins game tape throughout his stay in Storrs, CT, he thinks his career shooting percentage of 45 (40 from behind the three-point line) has more to do with his legs. " The lower body is the most important," says the 10-time All-Star. "The upper body is kind of like non-existent if your lower body is doing what it's supposed to do. If you've got great legs on your shot, it's always going to have a shot to go in."

While there may be a slight difference of opinion when it comes to dissecting the physical reasons behind his shooting prowess, the leg on which Ray Allen's greatness stands is as evident as the CITGO sign looming over Fenway Park: It's his work ethic.

Everyone knows about Ray Allen's extremely regimented game day routine. They know about his post-nap meal of chicken and rice; they know about his early arrival to the gym; they know about his exhaustive shooting routine. What everyone may not know about is Allen's equally outrageous practice habits.

According to Boston coach Doc Rivers, even on the day after a game where he played 40-plus minutes, Allen will hit the Celtics' facility in Waltham, MA hours prior to the start of practice. After carefully changing into his ball gear - if Allen had a hair on his head, it would never be out of place; his nature is that meticulous - he begins his workout by running on the treadmill for 60 minutes. He then makes his ways down to the court, where he matriculates from location to location, taking 300 or more shots. Then his teammates arrive and practice begins.

"It's just his warm-up, and for most people that's their practice," says Rivers reverentially during a quiet moment before the March game in Newark. "That is why he is who he is."

Who is Ray Allen exactly? He's 15 seasons of 20 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 threes a game. He is, according to many NBA players past and present, one of the greatest shooters to ever lay hands on a Spalding. He is according to the stats, the greatest three-point shooter of all time. He is the perfect citizen, the epitome of cool and the very definition of consistent greatness.
Yet, at 35 years of age, he still practices like the scrawny freshmen at UConn, he was half a lifetime ago. And that is not-so-secret ingredient behind his jumper's serenity and his career's longevity.

"I don't take credit or praise for being able to shoot the basketball, because I do it so much," says Allen. "Pat me on the back. Tell me I'm great. But get in the gym with me and you'll be like, "I've watched him work out, so I really expect that to go in."

Coach Hobbs, observer of almost two decades of Ray Allen hoops, says that you can never tell what kind of game Allen is having based on his ever-neutral facial expression.

Consider February 10, 2011 the exception. After three days and two nights sitting on the precipice of Reggie Miller's record for all-time three-pointers made (2,560), three days and two nights of answering an abundance of questions about it, Allen arrived at TD Banknorth Garden one three short of tying and two short of breaking the record. He'd accomplish both in the first quarter, showing a hint of emotion after No. 2,560 and a full array after the record-breaker.

Backpedaling down the court after draining N0. 2561 over Derek Fisher, Allen pumped his fists - seemingly still trying to keep his emotions in check. He followed that by clapping emphatically. With the crowd noise rising to an NBA Finals-esque crescendo, Allen gave the masses a thumbs-up. Then he exhaled...and started cheesin' from cheek to cheek. Finally, Allen went over to Reggie Miller, who was on the sidelines calling the game for TNT, and gave him a handshake and an awkward but obviously heartfelt hug.

Moments later, after re-adjusting his headset, Miller would note on national TV: “I’m so happy for him, because this is one of the best guys. He is so humble. He’s so giving. He’s a great family man.”

What Reggie Miller was trying to say, and what Ray Allen’s hug attests to, is that Allen is nothing if not gracious. Coach Hobbs knows this from his days working him out on the practice floor at UConn, where a young Allen would always make sure to say, “Thanks, Coach,” before heading to the locker room. I know this from how giving he was with his time—be it on an off-day phone call or after a tough, late-season loss in Newark.

That 88-79 loss to the Nets did irk Allen, though. Because if there’s one thing he cares about almost as much as people, it’s winning.

“A lot of guys in the NBA talk about wanting to win, but they don’t want to win on the team’s terms—they want to win on their own terms,” says Allen. “People talk about it, but they don’t really know what it means to really go about winning. It’s just talk. I’ve been fortunate to meet up with some players and an organization that really wants to win.”

Not satiated with the title he won in 2008, after re-upping for two more years with the Celtics this past summer, Allen spent copious amounts of time in the gym, preparing for another run at the championship.

The work paid off. The 35-year-old had one of his finest season since coming over to Boston in ’07. He’s averaging 16.5 points, shot career-bests of 49 percent from the field and 44 percent from downtown. More importantly, the Celtics finished third in the Eastern Conference.

“He’s gotten better with age,” says Hobbs, who watches the Celtics on TV frequently. “That’s a tribute to how he keeps his body and mind in great condition.”

Though he’d only been a Celtic for four games, Carlos Arroyo thinks he knows the root of Allen’s continued production at an age when most jump shooters are relegated to the bench or the YMCA. “We want to drink some of that water,” says Arroyo of the fountain of youth Allen seems to have discovered. “Whatever he’s drinking, we want some.”

Arroyo’s just finding out what most people already know.

There are excellent shooters. And then there’s Ray Allen.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor

The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennes- see and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. "Now look here, Bailey," she said, "see here, read this," and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did."

Bailey didn't look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children's mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbit's ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. "The children have been to Florida before," the old lady said. "You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee."

The children's mother didn't seem to hear her but the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky child with glasses, said, "If you don't want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?" He and the little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor.

"She wouldn't stay at home to be queen for a day," June Star said without raising her yellow head.

"Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?" the grandmother asked.

"I'd smack his face," John Wesley said.

"She wouldn't stay at home for a million bucks," June Star said. "Afraid she'd miss something. She has to go everywhere we go."

"All right, Miss," the grandmother said. "Just re- member that the next time you want me to curl your hair."

June Star said her hair was naturally curly.

The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She didn't intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of her gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself. Her son, Bailey, didn't like to arrive at a motel with a cat.

She sat in the middle of the back seat with John Wesley and June Star on either side of her. Bailey and the children's mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother wrote this down because she thought it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when they got back. It took them twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of the city.

The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The children's mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.

She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen hid themselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery: Stone Mountain; the blue granite that in some places came up to both sides of the highway; the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple; and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled. The children were reading comic magazines and their mother and gone back to sleep.

"Let's go through Georgia fast so we won't have to look at it much," John Wesley said.

"If I were a little boy," said the grandmother, "I wouldn't talk about my native state that way. Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the hills."

"Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground," John Wesley said, "and Georgia is a lousy state too."

"You said it," June Star said.

"In my time," said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!" she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. "Wouldn't that make a picture, now?" she asked and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the back window. He waved

"He didn't have any britches on," June Star said.

"He probably didn't have any," the grandmother explained. "Little riggers in the country don't have things like we do. If I could paint, I'd paint that picture," she said.

The children exchanged comic books.

The grandmother offered to hold the baby and the children's mother passed him over the front seat to her. She set him on her knee and bounced him and told him about the things they were passing. She rolled her eyes and screwed up her mouth and stuck her leathery thin face into his smooth bland one. Occasionally he gave her a faraway smile. They passed a large cotton field with five or fix graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. "Look at the graveyard!" the grandmother said, pointing it out. "That was the old family burying ground. That belonged to the plantation."

"Where's the plantation?" John Wesley asked.

"Gone With the Wind" said the grandmother. "Ha. Ha."

When the children finished all the comic books they had brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The grandmother ate a peanut butter sandwich and an olive and would not let the children throw the box and the paper napkins out the window. When there was nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested. John Wesley took one the shape of a cow and June Star guessed a cow and John Wesley said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he didn't play fair, and they began to slap each other over the grandmother.

The grandmother said she would tell them a story if they would keep quiet. When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic. She said once when she was a maiden lady she had been courted by a Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden from Jasper, Georgia. She said he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her a watermelon every Saturday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E. A. T. Well, one Saturday, she said, Mr. Teagarden brought the watermelon and there was nobody at home and he left it on the front porch and returned in his buggy to Jasper, but she never got the watermelon, she said, because a nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials, E. A. T. ! This story tickled John Wesley's funny bone and he giggled and giggled but June Star didn't think it was any good. She said she wouldn't marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday. The grandmother said she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentle man and had bought Coca-Cola stock when it first came out and that he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man.

They stopped at The Tower for barbecued sand- wiches. The Tower was a part stucco and part wood filling station and dance hall set in a clearing outside of Timothy. A fat man named Red Sammy Butts ran it and there were signs stuck here and there on the building and for miles up and down the highway saying, TRY RED SAMMY'S FAMOUS BARBECUE. NONE LIKE FAMOUS RED SAMMY'S! RED SAM! THE FAT BOY WITH THE HAPPY LAUGH. A VETERAN! RED SAMMY'S YOUR MAN!

Red Sammy was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower with his head under a truck while a gray monkey about a foot high, chained to a small chinaberry tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got on the highest limb as soon as he saw the children jump out of the car and run toward him.

Inside, The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at one end and tables at the other and dancing space in the middle. They all sat down at a board table next to the nickelodeon and Red Sam's wife, a tall burnt-brown woman with hair and eyes lighter than her skin, came and took their order. The children's mother put a dime in the machine and played "The Tennessee Waltz," and the grandmother said that tune always made her want to dance. She asked Bailey if he would like to dance but he only glared at her. He didn't have a naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous. The grandmother's brown eyes were very bright. She swayed her head from side to side and pretended she was dancing in her chair. June Star said play something she could tap to so the children's mother put in another dime and played a fast number and June Star stepped out onto the dance floor and did her tap routine.

"Ain't she cute?" Red Sam's wife said, leaning over the counter. "Would you like to come be my little girl?"

"No I certainly wouldn't," June Star said. "I wouldn't live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!" and she ran back to the table.

"Ain't she cute?" the woman repeated, stretching her mouth politely.

"Arn't you ashamed?" hissed the grandmother.

Red Sam came in and told his wife to quit lounging on the counter and hurry up with these people's order. His khaki trousers reached just to his hip bones and his stomach hung over them like a sack of meal swaying under his shirt. He came over and sat down at a table nearby and let out a combination sigh and yodel. "You can't win," he said. "You can't win," and he wiped his sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief. "These days you don't know who to trust," he said. "Ain't that the truth?"

"People are certainly not nice like they used to be," said the grandmother.

"Two fellers come in here last week," Red Sammy said, "driving a Chrysler. It was a old beat-up car but it was a good one and these boys looked all right to me. Said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?"

"Because you're a good man!" the grandmother said at once.

"Yes'm, I suppose so," Red Sam said as if he were struck with this answer.

His wife brought the orders, carrying the five plates all at once without a tray, two in each hand and one balanced on her arm. "It isn't a soul in this green world of God's that you can trust," she said. "And I don't count nobody out of that, not nobody," she repeated, looking at Red Sammy.

"Did you read about that criminal, The Misfit, that's escaped?" asked the grandmother.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he didn't attack this place right here," said the woman. "If he hears about it being here, I wouldn't be none surprised to see him. If he hears it's two cent in the cash register, I wouldn't be a tall surprised if he . . ."

"That'll do," Red Sam said. "Go bring these people their Co'-Colas," and the woman went off to get the rest of the order.

"A good man is hard to find," Red Sammy said. "Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more."

He and the grandmother discussed better times. The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it, she was exactly right. The children ran outside into the white sunlight and looked at the monkey in the lacy chinaberry tree. He was busy catching fleas on himself and biting each one carefully between his teeth as if it were a delicacy.

They drove off again into the hot afternoon. The grandmother took cat naps and woke up every few minutes with her own snoring. Outside of Toombsboro she woke up and recalled an old plantation that she had visited in this neighborhood once when she was a young lady. She said the house had six white columns across the front and that there was an avenue of oaks leading up to it and two little wooden trellis arbors on either side in front where you sat down with your suitor after a stroll in the garden. She recalled exactly which road to turn off to get to it. She knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but the more she talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again and find out if the little twin arbors were still standing. "There was a secret:-panel in this house," she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, "and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found . . ."

"Hey!" John Wesley said. "Let's go see it! We'll find it! We'll poke all the woodwork and find it! Who lives there? Where do you turn off at? Hey Pop, can't we turn off there?"

"We never have seen a house with a secret panel!" June Star shrieked. "Let's go to the house with the secret panel! Hey Pop, can't we go see the house with the secret panel!"

"It's not far from here, I know," the grandmother said. "It wouldn't take over twenty minutes."

Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid as a horseshoe. "No," he said.

The children began to yell and scream that they wanted to see the house with the secret panel. John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat and June Star hung over her mother's shoulder and whined desperately into her ear that they never had any fun even on their vacation, that they could never do what THEY wanted to do. The baby began to scream and John Wesley kicked the back of the seat so hard that his father could feel the blows in his kidney.

"All right!" he shouted and drew the car to a stop at the side of the road. "Will you all shut up? Will you all just shut up for one second? If you don't shut up, we won't go anywhere."

"It would be very educational for them," the grandmother murmured.

"All right," Bailey said, "but get this: this is the only time we're going to stop for anything like this. This is the one and only time."

"The dirt road that you have to turn down is about a mile back," the grandmother directed. "I marked it when we passed."

"A dirt road," Bailey groaned.

After they had turned around and were headed toward the dirt road, the grandmother recalled other points about the house, the beautiful glass over the front doorway and the candle-lamp in the hall. John Wesley said that the secret panel was probably in the fireplace.

"You can't go inside this house," Bailey said. "You don't know who lives there."

"While you all talk to the people in front, I'll run around behind and get in a window," John Wesley suggested.

"We'll all stay in the car," his mother said.

They turned onto the dirt road and the car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust. The grandmother recalled the times when there were no paved roads and thirty miles was a day's journey. The dirt road was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp curves on dangerous embankments. All at once they would be on a hill, looking down over the blue tops of trees for miles around, then the next minute, they would be in a red depression with the dust-coated trees looking down on them.

"This place had better turn up in a minute," Bailey said, "or I'm going to turn around."

The road looked as if no one had traveled on it in months.

"It's not much farther," the grandmother said and just as she said it, a horrible thought came to her. The thought was so embarrassing that she turned red in the face and her eyes dilated and her feet jumped up, upsetting her valise in the corner. The instant the valise moved, the newspaper top she had over the basket under it rose with a snarl and Pitty Sing, the cat, sprang onto Bailey's shoulder.

The children were thrown to the floor and their mother, clutching the baby, was thrown out the door onto the ground; the old lady was thrown into the front seat. The car turned over once and landed right-side-up in a gulch off the side of the road. Bailey remained in the driver's seat with the cat gray-striped with a broad white face and an orange nose clinging to his neck like a caterpillar.

As soon as the children saw they could move their arms and legs, they scrambled out of the car, shouting, "We've had an ACCIDENT!" The grandmother was curled up under the dashboard, hoping she was injured so that Bailey's wrath would not come down on her all at once. The horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee.

Bailey removed the cat from his neck with both hands and flung it out the window against the side of a pine tree. Then he got out of the car and started looking for the children's mother. She was sitting against the side of the red gutted ditch, holding the screaming baby, but she only had a cut down her face and a broken shoulder. "We've had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed in a frenzy of delight.

"But nobody's killed," June Star said with disappointment as the grandmother limped out of the car, her hat still pinned to her head but the broken front brim standing up at a jaunty angle and the violet spray hanging off the side. They all sat down in the ditch, except the children, to recover from the shock. They were all shaking.

"Maybe a car will come along," said the children's mother hoarsely.

"I believe I have injured an organ," said the grandmother, pressing her side, but no one answered her. Bailey's teeth were clattering. He had on a yellow sport shirt with bright blue parrots designed in it and his face was as yellow as the shirt. The grandmother decided that she would not mention that the house was in Tennessee.

The road was about ten feet above and they could see only the tops of the trees on the other side of it. Behind the ditch they were sitting in there were more woods, tall and dark and deep. In a few minutes they saw a car some distance away on top of a hill, coming slowly as if the occupants were watching them. The grandmother stood up and waved both arms dramatically to attract their attention. The car continued to come on slowly, disappeared around a bend and appeared again, moving even slower, on top of the hill they had gone over. It was a big black battered hearselike automobile. There were three men in it.

It came to a stop just over them and for some minutes, the driver looked down with a steady expressionless gaze to where they were sitting, and didn't speak. Then he turned his head and muttered something to the other two and they got out. One was a fat boy in black trousers and a red sweat shirt with a silver stallion embossed on the front of it. He moved around on the right side of them and stood staring, his mouth partly open in a kind of loose grin. The other had on khaki pants and a blue striped coat and a gray hat pulled down very low, hiding most of his face. He came around slowly on the left side. Neither spoke.

The driver got out of the car and stood by the side of it, looking down at them. He was an older man than the other two. His hair was just beginning to gray and he wore silver-rimmed spectacles that gave him a scholarly look. He had a long creased face and didn't have on any shirt or undershirt. He had on blue jeans that were too tight for him and was holding a black hat and a gun. The two boys also had guns.

"We've had an ACCIDENT!" the children screamed.

The grandmother had the peculiar feeling that the bespectacled man was someone she knew. His face was as familiar to her as if she had known him all her life but she could not recall who he was. He moved away from the car and began to come down the embankment, placing his feet carefully so that he wouldn't slip. He had on tan and white shoes and no socks, and his ankles were red and thin. "Good afternoon," he said. "I see you all had you a little spill."

"We turned over twice!" said the grandmother.

"Once", he corrected. "We seen it happen. Try their car and see will it run, Hiram," he said quietly to the boy with the gray hat.

"What you got that gun for?" John Wesley asked. "Whatcha gonna do with that gun?"

"Lady," the man said to the children's mother, "would you mind calling them children to sit down by you? Children make me nervous. I want all you all to sit down right together there where you're at."

"What are you telling US what to do for?" June Star asked.

Behind them the line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth. "Come here," said their mother.

"Look here now," Bailey began suddenly, "we're in a predicament! We're in . . ."

The grandmother shrieked. She scrambled to her feet and stood staring. "You're The Misfit!" she said. "I recognized you at once!"

"Yes'm," the man said, smiling slightly as if he were pleased in spite of himself to be known, "but it would have been better for all of you, lady, if you hadn't of reckernized me."

Bailey turned his head sharply and said something to his mother that shocked even the children. The old lady began to cry and The Misfit reddened.

"Lady," he said, "don't you get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don't mean. I don't reckon he meant to talk to you thataway."

"You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you?" the grandmother said and removed a clean handkerchief from her cuff and began to slap at her eyes with it.

The Misfit pointed the toe of his shoe into the ground and made a little hole and then covered it up again. "I would hate to have to," he said.

"Listen," the grandmother almost screamed, "I know you're a good man. You don't look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!"

"Yes mam," he said, "finest people in the world." When he smiled he showed a row of strong white teeth. "God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy's heart was pure gold," he said. The boy with the red sweat shirt had come around behind them and was standing with his gun at his hip. The Misfit squatted down on the ground. "Watch them children, Bobby Lee," he said. "You know they make me nervous." He looked at the six of them huddled together in front of him and he seemed to be embarrassed as if he couldn't think of anything to say. "Ain't a cloud in the sky," he remarked, looking up at it. "Don't see no sun but don't see no cloud neither."

"Yes, it's a beautiful day," said the grandmother. "Listen," she said, "you shouldn't call yourself The Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell."

"Hush!" Bailey yelled. "Hush! Everybody shut up and let me handle this!" He was squatting in the position of a runner about to sprint forward but he didn't move.

"I pre-chate that, lady," The Misfit said and drew a little circle in the ground with the butt of his gun.

"It'll take a half a hour to fix this here car," Hiram called, looking over the raised hood of it.

"Well, first you and Bobby Lee get him and that little boy to step over yonder with you," The Misfit said, pointing to Bailey and John Wesley. "The boys want to ast you something," he said to Bailey. "Would you mind stepping back in them woods there with them?"

"Listen," Bailey began, "we're in a terrible predicament! Nobody realizes what this is," and his voice cracked. His eyes were as blue and intense as the parrots in his shirt and he remained perfectly still.

The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground. Hiram pulled Bailey up by the arm as if he were assisting an old man. John Wesley caught hold of his father's hand and Bobby I,ee followed. They went off toward the woods and just as they reached the dark edge, Bailey turned and supporting himself against a gray naked pine trunk, he shouted, "I'll be back in a minute, Mamma, wait on me!"

"Come back this instant!" his mother shrilled but they all disappeared into the woods.

"Bailey Boy!" the grandmother called in a tragic voice but she found she was looking at The Misfit squatting on the ground in front of her. "I just know you're a good man," she said desperately. "You're not a bit common!"

"Nome, I ain't a good man," The Misfit said after a second ah if he had considered her statement carefully, "but I ain't the worst in the world neither. My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. 'You know,' Daddy said, 'it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He's going to be into everything!"' He put on his black hat and looked up suddenly and then away deep into the woods as if he were embarrassed again. "I'm sorry I don't have on a shirt before you ladies," he said, hunching his shoulders slightly. "We buried our clothes that we had on when we escaped and we're just making do until we can get better. We borrowed these from some folks we met," he explained.

"That's perfectly all right," the grandmother said. "Maybe Bailey has an extra shirt in his suitcase."

"I'll look and see terrectly," The Misfit said.

"Where are they taking him?" the children's mother screamed.

"Daddy was a card himself," The Misfit said. "You couldn't put anything over on him. He never got in trouble with the Authorities though. Just had the knack of handling them."

"You could be honest too if you'd only try," said the grandmother. "Think how wonderful it would be to settle down and live a comfortable life and not have to think about somebody chasing you all the time."

The Misfit kept scratching in the ground with the butt of his gun as if he were thinking about it. "Yestm, somebody is always after you," he murmured.

The grandmother noticed how thin his shoulder blades were just behind his hat because she was standing up looking down on him. "Do you every pray?" she asked.

He shook his head. All she saw was the black hat wiggle between his shoulder blades. "Nome," he said.

There was a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely by another. Then silence. The old lady's head jerked around. She could hear the wind move through the tree tops like a long satisfied insuck of breath. "Bailey Boy!" she called.

"I was a gospel singer for a while," The Misfit said. "I been most everything. Been in the arm service both land and sea, at home and abroad, been twict married, been an undertaker, been with the railroads, plowed Mother Earth, been in a tornado, seen a man burnt alive oncet," and he looked up at the children's mother and the little girl who were sitting close together, their faces white and their eyes glassy; "I even seen a woman flogged," he said.

"Pray, pray," the grandmother began, "pray, pray . . ."

I never was a bad boy that I remember of," The Misfit said in an almost dreamy voice, "but somewheres along the line I done something wrong and got sent to the penitentiary. I was buried alive," and he looked up and held her attention to him by a steady stare.

"That's when you should have started to pray," she said. "What did you do to get sent to the penitentiary that first time?"

"Turn to the right, it was a wall," The Misfit said, looking up again at the cloudless sky. "Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor. I forget what I done, lady. I set there and set there, trying to remember what it was I done and I ain't recalled it to this day. Oncet in a while, I would think it was coming to me, but it never come."

"Maybe they put you in by mistake," the old lady said vaguely.

"Nome," he said. "It wasn't no mistake. They had the papers on me."

"You must have stolen something," she said.

The Misfit sneered slightly. "Nobody had nothing I wanted," he said. "It was a head-doctor at the penitentiary said what I had done was kill my daddy but I known that for a lie. My daddy died in nineteen ought nineteen of the epidemic flu and I never had a thing to do with it. He was buried in the Mount Hopewell Baptist churchyard and you can go there and see for yourself."

"If you would pray," the old lady said, "Jesus would help you."

"That's right," The Misfit said.

"Well then, why don't you pray?" she asked trembling with delight suddenly.

"I don't want no hep," he said. "I'm doing all right by myself."

Bobby Lee and Hiram came ambling back from the woods. Bobby Lee was dragging a yellow shirt with bright blue parrots in it.

"Thow me that shirt, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. The shirt came flying at him and landed on his shoulder and he put it on. The grandmother couldn't name what the shirt reminded her of. "No, lady," The Misfit said while he was buttoning it up, "I found out the crime don't matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you're going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it."

The children's mother had begun to make heaving noises as if she couldn't get her breath. "Lady," he asked, "would you and that little girl like to step off yonder with Bobby Lee and Hiram and join your husband?"

"Yes, thank you," the mother said faintly. Her left arm dangled helplessly and she was holding the baby, who had gone to sleep, in the other. "Hep that lady up, Hiram," The Misfit said as she struggled to climb out of the ditch, "and Bobby Lee, you hold onto that little girl's hand."

"I don't want to hold hands with him," June Star said. "He reminds me of a pig."

The fat boy blushed and laughed and caught her by the arm and pulled her off into the woods after Hiram and her mother.

Alone with The Misfit, the grandmother found that she had lost her voice. There was not a cloud in the sky nor any sun. There was nothing around her but woods. She wanted to tell him that he must pray. She opened and closed her mouth several times before anything came out. Finally she found herself saying, "Jesus. Jesus," meaning, Jesus will help you, but the way she was saying it, it sounded as if she might be cursing.

"Yes'm, The Misfit said as if he agreed. "Jesus shown everything off balance. It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me. Of course," he said, "they never shown me my papers. That's why I sign myself now. I said long ago, you get you a signature and sign everything you do and keep a copy of it. Then you'll know what you done and you can hold up the crime to the punishment and see do they match and in the end you'll have something to prove you ain't been treated right. I call myself The Misfit," he said, "because I can't make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment."

There was a piercing scream from the woods, followed closely by a pistol report. "Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain't punished at all?"

"Jesus!" the old lady cried. "You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady. I'll give you all the money I've got!"

"Lady," The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, "there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip."

There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, "Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!" as if her heart would break.

"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.

"Maybe He didn't raise the dead," the old lady mumbled, not knowing what she was saying and feeling so dizzy that she sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her.

"I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't," The Misfit said. "I wisht I had of been there," he said, hitting the ground with his fist. "It ain't right I wasn't there because if I had of been there I would of known. Listen lady," he said in a high voice, "if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now." His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children !" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.

Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky.

Without his glasses, The Misfit's eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenseless-looking. "Take her off and thow her where you thown the others," he said, picking up the cat that was rubbing itself against his leg.

"She was a talker, wasn't she?" Bobby Lee said, sliding down the ditch with a yodel.

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

"Some fun!" Bobby Lee said.

"Shut up, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life."

The Rocking Horse Winner, by D.H. Lawrence

There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up some fault in herself. Yet what it was that she must cover up she never knew. Nevertheless, when her children were present, she always felt the centre of her heart go hard. This troubled her, and in her manner she was all the more gentle and anxious for her children, as if she loved them very much. Only she herself knew that at the centre of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody. Everybody else said of her: "She is such a good mother. She adores her children." Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in each other's eyes. There were a boy and two little girls. They lived in a pleasant house, with a garden, and they had discreet servants, and felt themselves superior to anyone in the neighbourhood. Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money. The mother had a small income, and the father had a small income, but not nearly enough for the social position which they had to keep up. The father went into town to some office. But though he had good prospects, these prospects never materialised. There was always the grinding sense of the shortage of money, though the style was always kept up. At last the mother said: "I will see if I can't make something." But she did not know where to begin. She racked her brains, and tried this thing and the other, but could not find anything successful. The failure made deep lines come into her face. Her children were growing up, they would have to go to school. There must be more money, there must be more money. The father, who was always very handsome and expensive in his tastes, seemed as if he never would be able to do anything worth doing. And the mother, who had a great belief in herself, did not succeed any better, and her tastes were just as expensive. And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time though nobody said it aloud. They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart doll's house, a voice would start whispering: "There must be more money! There must be more money!" And the children would stop playing, to listen for a moment. They would look into each other's eyes, to see if they had all heard. And each one saw in the eyes of the other two that they too had heard. "There must be more money! There must be more money!" It came whispering from the springs of the still-swaying rocking-horse, and even the horse, bending his wooden, champing head, heard it. The big doll, sitting so pink and smirking in her new pram, could hear it quite plainly, and seemed to be smirking all the more self-consciously because of it. The foolish puppy, too, that took the place of the teddy-bear, he was looking so extraordinarily foolish for no other reason but that he heard the secret whisper all over the house: "There must be more money!" Yet nobody ever said it aloud. The whisper was everywhere, and therefore no one spoke it. Just as no one ever says: "We are breathing!" in spite of the fact that breath is coming and going all the time. "Mother," said the boy Paul one day, "why don't we keep a car of our own? Why do we always use uncle's, or else a taxi?" "Because we're the poor members of the family," said the mother. "But why are we, mother?" "Well - I suppose," she said slowly and bitterly, "it's because your father has no luck." The boy was silent for some time. "Is luck money, mother?" he asked, rather timidly. "No, Paul. Not quite. It's what causes you to have money." "Oh!" said Paul vaguely. "I thought when Uncle Oscar said filthy lucker, it meant money." "Filthy lucre does mean money," said the mother. "But it's lucre, not luck." "Oh!" said the boy. "Then what is luck, mother?" "It's what causes you to have money. If you're lucky you have money. That's why it's better to be born lucky than rich. If you're rich, you may lose your money. But if you're lucky, you will always get more money." "Oh! Will you? And is father not lucky?" "Very unlucky, I should say," she said bitterly. The boy watched her with unsure eyes. "Why?" he asked. "I don't know. Nobody ever knows why one person is lucky and another unlucky." "Don't they? Nobody at all? Does nobody know?" "Perhaps God. But He never tells." "He ought to, then. And aren't you lucky either, mother?" "I can't be, it I married an unlucky husband." "But by yourself, aren't you?" "I used to think I was, before I married. Now I think I am very unlucky indeed." "Why?" "Well - never mind! Perhaps I'm not really," she said. The child looked at her to see if she meant it. But he saw, by the lines of her mouth, that she was only trying to hide something from him. "Well, anyhow," he said stoutly, "I'm a lucky person." "Why?" said his mother, with a sudden laugh. He stared at her. He didn't even know why he had said it. "God told me," he asserted, brazening it out. "I hope He did, dear!", she said, again with a laugh, but rather bitter. "He did, mother!" "Excellent!" said the mother, using one of her husband's exclamations. The boy saw she did not believe him; or rather, that she paid no attention to his assertion. This angered him somewhere, and made him want to compel her attention. He went off by himself, vaguely, in a childish way, seeking for the clue to 'luck'. Absorbed, taking no heed of other people, he went about with a sort of stealth, seeking inwardly for luck. He wanted luck, he wanted it, he wanted it. When the two girls were playing dolls in the nursery, he would sit on his big rocking-horse, charging madly into space, with a frenzy that made the little girls peer at him uneasily. Wildly the horse careered, the waving dark hair of the boy tossed, his eyes had a strange glare in them. The little girls dared not speak to him. When he had ridden to the end of his mad little journey, he climbed down and stood in front of his rocking-horse, staring fixedly into its lowered face. Its red mouth was slightly open, its big eye was wide and glassy-bright. "Now!" he would silently command the snorting steed. "Now take me to where there is luck! Now take me!" And he would slash the horse on the neck with the little whip he had asked Uncle Oscar for. He knew the horse could take him to where there was luck, if only he forced it. So he would mount again and start on his furious ride, hoping at last to get there. "You'll break your horse, Paul!" said the nurse. "He's always riding like that! I wish he'd leave off!" said his elder sister Joan. But he only glared down on them in silence. Nurse gave him up. She could make nothing of him. Anyhow, he was growing beyond her. One day his mother and his Uncle Oscar came in when he was on one of his furious rides. He did not speak to them. "Hallo, you young jockey! Riding a winner?" said his uncle. "Aren't you growing too big for a rocking-horse? You're not a very little boy any longer, you know," said his mother. But Paul only gave a blue glare from his big, rather close-set eyes. He would speak to nobody when he was in full tilt. His mother watched him with an anxious expression on her face. At last he suddenly stopped forcing his horse into the mechanical gallop and slid down. "Well, I got there!" he announced fiercely, his blue eyes still flaring, and his sturdy long legs straddling apart. "Where did you get to?" asked his mother. "Where I wanted to go," he flared back at her. "That's right, son!" said Uncle Oscar. "Don't you stop till you get there. What's the horse's name?" "He doesn't have a name," said the boy. "Gets on without all right?" asked the uncle. "Well, he has different names. He was called Sansovino last week." "Sansovino, eh? Won the Ascot. How did you know this name?" "He always talks about horse-races with Bassett," said Joan. The uncle was delighted to find that his small nephew was posted with all the racing news. Bassett, the young gardener, who had been wounded in the left foot in the war and had got his present job through Oscar Cresswell, whose batman he had been, was a perfect blade of the 'turf'. He lived in the racing events, and the small boy lived with him. Oscar Cresswell got it all from Bassett. "Master Paul comes and asks me, so I can't do more than tell him, sir," said Bassett, his face terribly serious, as if he were speaking of religious matters. "And does he ever put anything on a horse he fancies?" "Well - I don't want to give him away - he's a young sport, a fine sport, sir. Would you mind asking him himself? He sort of takes a pleasure in it, and perhaps he'd feel I was giving him away, sir, if you don't mind. Bassett was serious as a church. The uncle went back to his nephew and took him off for a ride in the car. "Say, Paul, old man, do you ever put anything on a horse?" the uncle asked. The boy watched the handsome man closely. "Why, do you think I oughtn't to?" he parried. "Not a bit of it! I thought perhaps you might give me a tip for the Lincoln." The car sped on into the country, going down to Uncle Oscar's place in Hampshire. "Honour bright?" said the nephew. "Honour bright, son!" said the uncle. "Well, then, Daffodil." "Daffodil! I doubt it, sonny. What about Mirza?" "I only know the winner," said the boy. "That's Daffodil." "Daffodil, eh?" There was a pause. Daffodil was an obscure horse comparatively. "Uncle!" "Yes, son?" "You won't let it go any further, will you? I promised Bassett." "Bassett be damned, old man! What's he got to do with it?" "We're partners. We've been partners from the first. Uncle, he lent me my first five shillings, which I lost. I promised him, honour bright, it was only between me and him; only you gave me that ten-shilling note I started winning with, so I thought you were lucky. You won't let it go any further, will you?" The boy gazed at his uncle from those big, hot, blue eyes, set rather close together. The uncle stirred and laughed uneasily. "Right you are, son! I'll keep your tip private. How much are you putting on him?" "All except twenty pounds," said the boy. "I keep that in reserve." The uncle thought it a good joke. "You keep twenty pounds in reserve, do you, you young romancer? What are you betting, then?" "I'm betting three hundred," said the boy gravely. "But it's between you and me, Uncle Oscar! Honour bright?" "It's between you and me all right, you young Nat Gould," he said, laughing. "But where's your three hundred?" "Bassett keeps it for me. We're partners." "You are, are you! And what is Bassett putting on Daffodil?" "He won't go quite as high as I do, I expect. Perhaps he'll go a hundred and fifty." "What, pennies?" laughed the uncle. "Pounds," said the child, with a surprised look at his uncle. "Bassett keeps a bigger reserve than I do." Between wonder and amusement Uncle Oscar was silent. He pursued the matter no further, but he determined to take his nephew with him to the Lincoln races. "Now, son," he said, "I'm putting twenty on Mirza, and I'll put five on for you on any horse you fancy. What's your pick?" "Daffodil, uncle." "No, not the fiver on Daffodil!" "I should if it was my own fiver," said the child. "Good! Good! Right you are! A fiver for me and a fiver for you on Daffodil." The child had never been to a race-meeting before, and his eyes were blue fire. He pursed his mouth tight and watched. A Frenchman just in front had put his money on Lancelot. Wild with excitement, he flayed his arms up and down, yelling "Lancelot!, Lancelot!" in his French accent. Daffodil came in first, Lancelot second, Mirza third. The child, flushed and with eyes blazing, was curiously serene. His uncle brought him four five-pound notes, four to one. "What am I to do with these?" he cried, waving them before the boys eyes. "I suppose we'll talk to Bassett," said the boy. "I expect I have fifteen hundred now; and twenty in reserve; and this twenty." His uncle studied him for some moments. "Look here, son!" he said. "You're not serious about Bassett and that fifteen hundred, are you?" "Yes, I am. But it's between you and me, uncle. Honour bright?" "Honour bright all right, son! But I must talk to Bassett." "If you'd like to be a partner, uncle, with Bassett and me, we could all be partners. Only, you'd have to promise, honour bright, uncle, not to let it go beyond us three. Bassett and I are lucky, and you must be lucky, because it was your ten shillings I started winning with ..." Uncle Oscar took both Bassett and Paul into Richmond Park for an afternoon, and there they talked. "It's like this, you see, sir," Bassett said. "Master Paul would get me talking about racing events, spinning yarns, you know, sir. And he was always keen on knowing if I'd made or if I'd lost. It's about a year since, now, that I put five shillings on Blush of Dawn for him: and we lost. Then the luck turned, with that ten shillings he had from you: that we put on Singhalese. And since that time, it's been pretty steady, all things considering. What do you say, Master Paul?" "We're all right when we're sure," said Paul. "It's when we're not quite sure that we go down." "Oh, but we're careful then," said Bassett. "But when are you sure?" smiled Uncle Oscar. "It's Master Paul, sir," said Bassett in a secret, religious voice. "It's as if he had it from heaven. Like Daffodil, now, for the Lincoln. That was as sure as eggs." "Did you put anything on Daffodil?" asked Oscar Cresswell. "Yes, sir, I made my bit." "And my nephew?" Bassett was obstinately silent, looking at Paul. "I made twelve hundred, didn't I, Bassett? I told uncle I was putting three hundred on Daffodil." "That's right," said Bassett, nodding. "But where's the money?" asked the uncle. "I keep it safe locked up, sir. Master Paul he can have it any minute he likes to ask for it." "What, fifteen hundred pounds?" "And twenty! And forty, that is, with the twenty he made on the course." "It's amazing!" said the uncle. "If Master Paul offers you to be partners, sir, I would, if I were you: if you'll excuse me," said Bassett. Oscar Cresswell thought about it. "I'll see the money," he said. They drove home again, and, sure enough, Bassett came round to the garden-house with fifteen hundred pounds in notes. The twenty pounds reserve was left with Joe Glee, in the Turf Commission deposit. "You see, it's all right, uncle, when I'm sure! Then we go strong, for all we're worth, don't we, Bassett?" "We do that, Master Paul." "And when are you sure?" said the uncle, laughing. "Oh, well, sometimes I'm absolutely sure, like about Daffodil," said the boy; "and sometimes I have an idea; and sometimes I haven't even an idea, have I, Bassett? Then we're careful, because we mostly go down." "You do, do you! And when you're sure, like about Daffodil, what makes you sure, sonny?" "Oh, well, I don't know," said the boy uneasily. "I'm sure, you know, uncle; that's all." "It's as if he had it from heaven, sir," Bassett reiterated. "I should say so!" said the uncle.

But he became a partner. And when the Leger was coming on Paul was 'sure' about Lively Spark, which was a quite inconsiderable horse. The boy insisted on putting a thousand on the horse, Bassett went for five hundred, and Oscar Cresswell two hundred. Lively Spark came in first, and the betting had been ten to one against him. Paul had made ten thousand.

"You see," he said. "I was absolutely sure of him."

Even Oscar Cresswell had cleared two thousand. "Look here, son," he said, "this sort of thing makes me nervous." "It needn't, uncle! Perhaps I shan't be sure again for a long time." "But what are you going to do with your money?" asked the uncle. "Of course," said the boy, "I started it for mother. She said she had no luck, because father is unlucky, so I thought if I was lucky, it might stop whispering." "What might stop whispering?" "Our house. I hate our house for whispering." "What does it whisper?" "Why - why" - the boy fidgeted - "why, I don't know. But it's always short of money, you know, uncle." "I know it, son, I know it." "You know people send mother writs, don't you, uncle?" "I'm afraid I do," said the uncle. "And then the house whispers, like people laughing at you behind your back. It's awful, that is! I thought if I was lucky -" "You might stop it," added the uncle. The boy watched him with big blue eyes, that had an uncanny cold fire in them, and he said never a word. "Well, then!" said the uncle. "What are we doing?" "I shouldn't like mother to know I was lucky," said the boy. "Why not, son?" "She'd stop me." "I don't think she would." "Oh!" - and the boy writhed in an odd way - "I don't want her to know, uncle." "All right, son! We'll manage it without her knowing." They managed it very easily. Paul, at the other's suggestion, handed over five thousand pounds to his uncle, who deposited it with the family lawyer, who was then to inform Paul's mother that a relative had put five thousand pounds into his hands, which sum was to be paid out a thousand pounds at a time, on the mother's birthday, for the next five years. "So she'll have a birthday present of a thousand pounds for five successive years," said Uncle Oscar. "I hope it won't make it all the harder for her later." Paul's mother had her birthday in November. The house had been 'whispering' worse than ever lately, and, even in spite of his luck, Paul could not bear up against it. He was very anxious to see the effect of the birthday letter, telling his mother about the thousand pounds. When there were no visitors, Paul now took his meals with his parents, as he was beyond the nursery control. His mother went into town nearly every day. She had discovered that she had an odd knack of sketching furs and dress materials, so she worked secretly in the studio of a friend who was the chief 'artist' for the leading drapers. She drew the figures of ladies in furs and ladies in silk and sequins for the newspaper advertisements. This young woman artist earned several thousand pounds a year, but Paul's mother only made several hundreds, and she was again dissatisfied. She so wanted to be first in something, and she did not succeed, even in making sketches for drapery advertisements. She was down to breakfast on the morning of her birthday. Paul watched her face as she read her letters. He knew the lawyer's letter. As his mother read it, her face hardened and became more expressionless. Then a cold, determined look came on her mouth. She hid the letter under the pile of others, and said not a word about it. "Didn't you have anything nice in the post for your birthday, mother?" said Paul. "Quite moderately nice," she said, her voice cold and hard and absent. She went away to town without saying more. But in the afternoon Uncle Oscar appeared. He said Paul's mother had had a long interview with the lawyer, asking if the whole five thousand could not be advanced at once, as she was in debt. "What do you think, uncle?" said the boy. "I leave it to you, son." "Oh, let her have it, then! We can get some more with the other," said the boy. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, laddie!" said Uncle Oscar. "But I'm sure to know for the Grand National; or the Lincolnshire; or else the Derby. I'm sure to know for one of them," said Paul. So Uncle Oscar signed the agreement, and Paul's mother touched the whole five thousand. Then something very curious happened. The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening. There were certain new furnishings, and Paul had a tutor. He was really going to Eton, his father's school, in the following autumn. There were flowers in the winter, and a blossoming of the luxury Paul's mother had been used to. And yet the voices in the house, behind the sprays of mimosa and almond-blossom, and from under the piles of iridescent cushions, simply trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy: "There must be more money! Oh-h-h; there must be more money. Oh, now, now-w! Now-w-w - there must be more money! - more than ever! More than ever!" It frightened Paul terribly. He studied away at his Latin and Greek with his tutor. But his intense hours were spent with Bassett. The Grand National had gone by: he had not 'known', and had lost a hundred pounds. Summer was at hand. He was in agony for the Lincoln. But even for the Lincoln he didn't 'know', and he lost fifty pounds. He became wild-eyed and strange, as if something were going to explode in him. "Let it alone, son! Don't you bother about it!" urged Uncle Oscar. But it was as if the boy couldn't really hear what his uncle was saying. "I've got to know for the Derby! I've got to know for the Derby!" the child reiterated, his big blue eyes blazing with a sort of madness. His mother noticed how overwrought he was. "You'd better go to the seaside. Wouldn't you like to go now to the seaside, instead of waiting? I think you'd better," she said, looking down at him anxiously, her heart curiously heavy because of him. But the child lifted his uncanny blue eyes. "I couldn't possibly go before the Derby, mother!" he said. "I couldn't possibly!" "Why not?" she said, her voice becoming heavy when she was opposed. "Why not? You can still go from the seaside to see the Derby with your Uncle Oscar, if that that's what you wish. No need for you to wait here. Besides, I think you care too much about these races. It's a bad sign. My family has been a gambling family, and you won't know till you grow up how much damage it has done. But it has done damage. I shall have to send Bassett away, and ask Uncle Oscar not to talk racing to you, unless you promise to be reasonable about it: go away to the seaside and forget it. You're all nerves!" "I'll do what you like, mother, so long as you don't send me away till after the Derby," the boy said. "Send you away from where? Just from this house?" "Yes," he said, gazing at her. "Why, you curious child, what makes you care about this house so much, suddenly? I never knew you loved it." He gazed at her without speaking. He had a secret within a secret, something he had not divulged, even to Bassett or to his Uncle Oscar. But his mother, after standing undecided and a little bit sullen for some moments, said: "Very well, then! Don't go to the seaside till after the Derby, if you don't wish it. But promise me you won't think so much about horse-racing and events as you call them!" "Oh no," said the boy casually. "I won't think much about them, mother. You needn't worry. I wouldn't worry, mother, if I were you." "If you were me and I were you," said his mother, "I wonder what we should do!" "But you know you needn't worry, mother, don't you?" the boy repeated. "I should be awfully glad to know it," she said wearily. "Oh, well, you can, you know. I mean, you ought to know you needn't worry," he insisted. "Ought I? Then I'll see about it," she said. Paul's secret of secrets was his wooden horse, that which had no name. Since he was emancipated from a nurse and a nursery-governess, he had had his rocking-horse removed to his own bedroom at the top of the house. "Surely you're too big for a rocking-horse!" his mother had remonstrated. "Well, you see, mother, till I can have a real horse, I like to have some sort of animal about," had been his quaint answer. "Do you feel he keeps you company?" she laughed. "Oh yes! He's very good, he always keeps me company, when I'm there," said Paul. So the horse, rather shabby, stood in an arrested prance in the boy's bedroom. The Derby was drawing near, and the boy grew more and more tense. He hardly heard what was spoken to him, he was very frail, and his eyes were really uncanny. His mother had sudden strange seizures of uneasiness about him. Sometimes, for half an hour, she would feel a sudden anxiety about him that was almost anguish. She wanted to rush to him at once, and know he was safe. Two nights before the Derby, she was at a big party in town, when one of her rushes of anxiety about her boy, her first-born, gripped her heart till she could hardly speak. She fought with the feeling, might and main, for she believed in common sense. But it was too strong. She had to leave the dance and go downstairs to telephone to the country. The children's nursery-governess was terribly surprised and startled at being rung up in the night. "Are the children all right, Miss Wilmot?" "Oh yes, they are quite all right." "Master Paul? Is he all right?" "He went to bed as right as a trivet. Shall I run up and look at him?" "No," said Paul's mother reluctantly. "No! Don't trouble. It's all right. Don't sit up. We shall be home fairly soon." She did not want her son's privacy intruded upon. "Very good," said the governess. It was about one o'clock when Paul's mother and father drove up to their house. All was still. Paul's mother went to her room and slipped off her white fur cloak. She had told her maid not to wait up for her. She heard her husband downstairs, mixing a whisky and soda. And then, because of the strange anxiety at her heart, she stole upstairs to her son's room. Noiselessly she went along the upper corridor. Was there a faint noise? What was it? She stood, with arrested muscles, outside his door, listening. There was a strange, heavy, and yet not loud noise. Her heart stood still. It was a soundless noise, yet rushing and powerful. Something huge, in violent, hushed motion. What was it? What in God's name was it? She ought to know. She felt that she knew the noise. She knew what it was. Yet she could not place it. She couldn't say what it was. And on and on it went, like a madness. Softly, frozen with anxiety and fear, she turned the door-handle. The room was dark. Yet in the space near the window, she heard and saw something plunging to and fro. She gazed in fear and amazement. Then suddenly she switched on the light, and saw her son, in his green pyjamas, madly surging on the rocking-horse. The blaze of light suddenly lit him up, as he urged the wooden horse, and lit her up, as she stood, blonde, in her dress of pale green and crystal, in the doorway. "Paul!" she cried. "Whatever are you doing?" "It's Malabar!" he screamed in a powerful, strange voice. "It's Malabar!" His eyes blazed at her for one strange and senseless second, as he ceased urging his wooden horse. Then he fell with a crash to the ground, and she, all her tormented motherhood flooding upon her, rushed to gather him up. But he was unconscious, and unconscious he remained, with some brain-fever. He talked and tossed, and his mother sat stonily by his side. "Malabar! It's Malabar! Bassett, Bassett, I know! It's Malabar!" So the child cried, trying to get up and urge the rocking-horse that gave him his inspiration. "What does he mean by Malabar?" asked the heart-frozen mother. "I don't know," said the father stonily. "What does he mean by Malabar?" she asked her brother Oscar. "It's one of the horses running for the Derby," was the answer. And, in spite of himself, Oscar Cresswell spoke to Bassett, and himself put a thousand on Malabar: at fourteen to one. The third day of the illness was critical: they were waiting for a change. The boy, with his rather long, curly hair, was tossing ceaselessly on the pillow. He neither slept nor regained consciousness, and his eyes were like blue stones. His mother sat, feeling her heart had gone, turned actually into a stone. In the evening Oscar Cresswell did not come, but Bassett sent a message, saying could he come up for one moment, just one moment? Paul's mother was very angry at the intrusion, but on second thoughts she agreed. The boy was the same. Perhaps Bassett might bring him to consciousness. The gardener, a shortish fellow with a little brown moustache and sharp little brown eyes, tiptoed into the room, touched his imaginary cap to Paul's mother, and stole to the bedside, staring with glittering, smallish eyes at the tossing, dying child. "Master Paul!" he whispered. "Master Paul! Malabar came in first all right, a clean win. I did as you told me. You've made over seventy thousand pounds, you have; you've got over eighty thousand. Malabar came in all right, Master Paul." "Malabar! Malabar! Did I say Malabar, mother? Did I say Malabar? Do you think I'm lucky, mother? I knew Malabar, didn't I? Over eighty thousand pounds! I call that lucky, don't you, mother? Over eighty thousand pounds! I knew, didn't I know I knew? Malabar came in all right. If I ride my horse till I'm sure, then I tell you, Bassett, you can go as high as you like. Did you go for all you were worth, Bassett?" "I went a thousand on it, Master Paul." "I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I'm absolutely sure - oh, absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky!" "No, you never did," said his mother. But the boy died in the night.

And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brother's voice saying to her, "My God, Hester, you're eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, he's best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner."