WHAT HE WANTED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 217, 13 October 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

WHAT HE WANTED.

A well-known missionary tells tlie following amusing story:— " I spent t!ic best pact of my youth in the mission field of Africa, and, in company with my wife, was on a vis t to my native country. "I iiad occasion one day to give a description of my cwork to a largo and fashionable audience in a certain hall. While I was speaking I took particular notice of a typical British schooll>oy, who was listening w'th rapt attention to every word that fell from my lips. "I, as is usual In such addresses, wound up with an .earnest appeal to my hearers for contributions, however small, and thinking of this widemouthed listener. added that even children might give their mite. "When the meeting was over 1 was pleased to sec this boy mount the plat form and step up to me. 'Please, s ; r.' said he, 'I have been very much inteiested in your lecture, and " Here he hesitated. " 'Go on, my little man.' Raid I, en coiiragingly: 'you want to help in the good work?' " 'Oh, stow that,' was the precioin cherub's reply; 'what I want to knoT i-i. have you got any foreign stamps to g ve a follow?' "

AX INVISIBLE CLOCK. A pub!, : c clock, which can be heard but not seen, is one of London's curious possessions. It i, in the tower of St. .Mary Abbot's Church. Kensington, and is the only public clock in the immediate neighbourhood. It chimes the quarters and the hours, but commit-: itself no further. It has no dial, i o hands, no outward and visible s : gn it any kind to show that it is a clod:. The eccentricity, it L, explained, is t!:.i result of two causes, one aesthetic, the. other financial. When the tower was built ill !*"!», a clock was suggested as an after-thought, but the architect protested that it would mean the ad(l t on of loft, to the tower and tho ruin of its cherished proportions. A rrcoiul point was that the church, having but slender funds, could not afford a clock with a dial. A compromise was arrived at h yinstalling the works of a chiming (lock in the -belfry withoit d'al or hands.