THE U-BOAT SINKER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 290, 6 July 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE U-BOAT SINKER.

A BOA HI) OF INVENTION' SENSATION. He stood outside Victory House unconscious of the stares of people who iorgot to pass by when they saw him. I looked round instinctively for a cinema camera when first I caught sight of him, because he was exactly tlie sort of figure you expect in a Wild West flicker of i/»n reels. His furry "(haps," tho flaming shirt, the wide-brimmed hat, all screamed "Cowboy" at you. Ho looked round suddenly, and T happened to bo the nearest person to him. "Can yew tell me if this is the Ideas Boorohr 1 ' he demanded. 1 fumbled in my memory for halfforgotten phrases from "The Virjjjnioii." but the only word in his vernacular tliat I could recall was" Yep." I used it. "Take mo right in," ho said. "I kin sink submarines."

I gripped him by the arm and took him hastily inside the portals of the Board of Invention and Research. But, once started, there was no stopping him. Ho orated to the eoinmdssioiinaire, to me and to the mosaic entrance hall. "Cowboys can sink submarines as quick as you can count," he said. "How?" Ho whirled Lis right hand suddenly above his head, and shot it forward. The commissionnaire bolted into his box to ring for the police. LARIATS! ''Lariats!" said tho cowboy laconically. " When the submarine comes up she just shows a bit of periscope, and tlie gunner who can hit that is a cracker jack. But the cowl>oy—" Ho smiled and raised his right hand again. Tlie eommissionnairo bolted the door of his box. "Give me a motor launch and put me in the English Channel," tlie cowboy went on, "and I'll cloan up the pirates for yew." "But if you lassoed the perifoope, and the submarine dived, wouldn't it drag you down with it?" "Nix!" said the cowboy, with the tired patience of a teacher instructing a dull child. "There would bo a 'traveller' attached to tho Lariat, earning a bomb. The U-boat goes down? Well, so does the 'traveller.' It runs down the rojie so slick that the bomb jsrta the initial velocity of a 1G inch shell, and then it hits the submarine."

T came to my senses several how - * later in ClTaring Cros* Hospital. I •:.i; told that Lord Fisher is still in tho b.'-st of health, so presumably the cowboy has not yet s.xm him. Perhans 1 ha'vo even ?aved tho life of tho President of the Board of Invention and Research by acting as a shock absorber. —F.E.R., in tho "Daily Express.