Maclean's

FICTION

THE 7TH DAY

NEWCOMEN FOUND the door, but his fingers recognized the strength of thick oak crosspieces. The iron plate of the lock was as big as two hands. He snapped on his cigarette lighter and looked around him. Sacked onions and . potatoes filled the air with a sour pungency.

By MAX BRAND

10

FICTION

All Very Civilized

THIS,” Cecily said, “is our last fight.” And the next thing Si knew she was engaged to Tom Weatherby. It happened almost as fast as that, between the time Si hit Tom on the nose at the Yacht Club one night and the middle of the next afternoon when he called on Cecily. By NORMA BICKNELL MANSFIELD

4

FICTION

Suva Skipper

THE KID had the sea fever. The genuine article, too. Y'ou could see it in his eyes, right off. The second mate of the Volante could, at any rate. But maybe that w'as only because John Grisholm liked kids, and understood about those things that are so intensely important to them. By JACLAND MARMUR

14

FICTION

HIT and Run

I TS TOO bad about Charley, but it’s just one of those things. Everybody wondered about him for a long while. He sold his car and took to riding in streetcars all of a sudden, and nowadays when someone of the crowd stops by for him and Edith, to take them to a party, he gets tight-lipped and queer the minute the motor starts. By WILL F. JENKINS

8

GENERAL ARTICLES

How Deep Is Down?

OW DEEP is down? In Canada, so far as mining is concerned, it’s 6,142 feet. In India it’s more than 7,000 feet. In Brazil it’s 8,000 feet. In South Africa it’s 8,250 feet. And in each case, gold is the objective. No other treasure locked in the hard rock above the molten core of the globe lures men so far down. By LESLIE McFARLANE

16

GENERAL ARTICLES

WHAT'S WRONG WITH SCHOOLS

WHAT IS wrong with our schools anyway? No other question is more often put to us teachers than this. Its cast and tone reveal the questioner’s conviction that something is wrong. But our normal and perhaps very natural reaction is to reply by asking another question: By W. SHERWOOD FOX

16

LONDON LETTER

Japan and Britain

THE OTHER day I sat in the lounge of the Savoy Hotel before lunch with an American publisher. He was an intelligent man. one of the minority of world citizens who inhabit the Free and United States of America. He was worried. So was I. The cynic might observe that when a writer and publisher are seen together, it is only the publisher who should look worried. By Beverley Baxter

12

GENERAL ARTICLES

320 MILES AN HOUR

NOW THAT I am back in England again, one of the first things that people ask me is, "What was it like travelling at 320 miles an hour on land? What were your reactions, and was it all just a blur?” Well, during the last few years I have been fortunate enough to get a number of records in all kinds of cars, from the smallest upward, but never until my last trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, U.S.A., had I travelled at a rate much exceeding 180 m.p.h., so I was able to approach the matter of 300 m.p.h. records with an open mind, so to speak. By CAPTAIN G.E.T EYSTON, M.C.

20

FICTION

Backstage at Ottawa

WHATEVER else changes in this changing world, Parliament doesn’t. Again this week we sat in the Press Gallery for the opening, heard and saw “Black Rod” with his “message from His Excellency,” watched members troop to the Senate for the Speech from the Throne, listened to portentous hoary quips between the Front Benches. By A POLITICIAN WITH A NOTEBOOK