Cinder Path Tales

AND EVERY ONE A WINNER 205 and being chased is one of the primitive pleasures of man, and I doubt if we ever quite outgrow it. We cut through thedark­ ness, with the cool night air in our faces, sprinting over the slippery cobble-stonesof the pavement as if in the finals of a " hun­ dred." There wasa mad pleasure init all, and the listening for sounds ofpursuit and the looking sharply ahead for threatening danger added a double zest. It reminded me of a night inold Lancashire, whenwith some schoolmates I had raided afarmer's or­ chard, and with the spoils under our jackets we had led him a cross-country run of a couple of miles, knowing that a good thrashing was close behind as the punishment fora stum­ ble or a temporary shortness ofbreath. We were gaining on the threedark forms ahead, for wecould see them more and more plainly as they bobbed against the lightsat the end of the street. Occasionally some one would yell at us from a window or doorway, but the pounding ofthe knock-kneed bobby was growing more and more faint, and we heard no footsteps at all behind us. We had almost reached Paddy, whose boxing efforts had told on his endurance, and I was just about to call to Jim and Harry, whensud­ denly there emerged from the darkness a herculean figure in brass buttons.