... SLEEPING DRAUGHT By FRANK KING DOCTOR MICHAEL KENT was back at work again after six months in hospital. Six months, during five of which his life had hung on the slenderest of threads, while anxious colleagues fought a desperate battle against death. Michael Kent knew that it would have been better if they had lost that battle, if the thread had snapped. He was young yet-- only just forty. He ...

... b3hL a the stricken heart. fi JfiMl US By CHARLES BIRKIN. FROM what she could see through the halo round the head of St. John the Baptist, the sky appeared to be clearing. Throughout the early morning a depressing drizzle had fallen, which, while realising the aptitude of a weeping heaven for a funeral, Elizabeth Penvill had found distinctly untimely, for owing to ...

... A FIGHTER PILOTS SHOULDN'T DREAM. aJs* U^-IS By WING SLIP. (BEING OUR SHORT STORY.>* THE two Polish pilots jumped into the dug-out. Spirodvy laughed tensely: I 'm glad we are not mere clay pigeons this time, to be shot out of the sky! Steel fragments sang past above their heads. Zbroutch ducked. We 'll have to fall back. Lieutenant Joseph Rabotsky ignored the swooping Heinkels. This third ...

... HEAVENS MINCH COWS THE TATLER SHORT STORY By DOUGLAS NEWTON THE Ober-Ober-gauleiter of the Sub- Secret Bureau of Espionage regretted current loyalties in moustaches; the last ruler's had been so much more satis factory when a man wanted to be really intimidating. He let loose a growl that would have curdled lions and fixed Miss Weevil with a pentecostal eye. Miss Weevil beamed back so ...

... gj^jP^r LANTERN TECTURE.' By W. P. TEMPLETON. CHARLIE SEMPLE'S first lecture, was a great success, and he looked forward confidently to passing from triumph to triumph at each of the other five rural institutes on his programme. There had been a great deal of applause when the lights went up, and the chairman had made an enthusiastic speech of thanks. I think I can say that Mr. Semple has ...

... By M. HAWKIN ON the gate was written only The Van Verschuyl Home, and the sombre drive might have led up to an old country house. A real-estate speculator who had once bought land near by had made repre sentations to the governors, claiming that an announcement of the Home's purpose would cast a slur on the neighbourhood and damage the value of his property. So from the plate on the gate a ...

... BUBBLE and,. SQUEAK A RECRUIT, who had been complain ing to the Quartermaster-Sergeant that his new battle-dress didn't fit anywhere, walked, unsatisfied, out of the stores into the arms of a Very Senior Officer without saluting. The officer pulled him up. Look at my uniform, he said. Yes, I know, replied the recruit. Mine 's lousy, too THE general was approaching the barrack- gate, when ...

... Stories Froni Everywhere HE was shipwrecked on a South Sea island, and to his surprise discovered a dusky maiden, who offered him drink. A little later she returned with food, which he gratefully devoured. Then, sitting beside him, she said, with an inviting glance You come with me play game, yes Gee said the sailor, springing to his feet, so you 've got a dart board as well A traveller ...

... A . A- JPOPt Ur6 By MICHAEL HASTINGS. fej ...

... IT PAYS TO PUBLICISE THE TAT EE R SHORT STORY By C. GORDON GLOVER J THE very day I heard that Clem Sandbach of Titan Pictures .wanted to make a record-breaking of-the-earth-earthy I got down to thinking. You have to think quick when you're up against it, and big, too, and every other kind of way if you don't want the slow-thinking high-ups to go on getting it all their own way. I was up ...

... The Voice of the Sultan Bystander Short Story Max Murray JUST as one man is proud of his wife and another of his medlar-tree, so Alfred Horsborough was proud of his English accent. He was convinced that an educated Englishman spoke English, and that the rest of the English-speaking world muddled along with its various dialects. Fifteen years' residence in the United States had done nothing ...