"Nothing of the sort. Stan loves to manage them--it keeps his hand in for managing me, he says.... Now, I don't want to hurry you, but you'd better be off if you're going to get as far as Liverpool to-night. Good-bye, dear----" "Good-bye, Dorothy----" "So long, Pratt--up with those bags, Tim----" "Good-bye, Bonnie----" "Corin! Corin!--(Hm! See if I don't have you in hand in another week or two, my boy!)--Come and say good-bye to your father." "Good-bye, Lady Tasker----" "All right?" The wheels crunched; hands were waved; the rabble gave a shockingly undisciplined cheer; and young Arthur Woodgate, who had run along the terrace and stood holding the gate at the end open, saluted. Stan took out his watch again. "Four minutes to sunset," he announced. But there was no need to tell Billie to stand by to strike the flag that hung motionless above the gable where the old billiard-room and gun-room had been thrown together to make the schoolroom. The halyards were already in his hands. "Here, Corin," Stan called, "you shall fire the gun to-night." Corin gave a wild yell of joy. Well out of reach, there was an electric button on one of the rose-grown verandah posts. Stan lifted his newest recruit to it, who put a finger-tip on it and shut his eyes---- "BANG!" went the little brass carronade in the locked enclosure behind the woodshed---- And hand over hand Billie hauled the flag down. But it would be run up again in the morning. _Printed by_ BUTLER & TANNER, _Frome and London_. _SPRING 1914_ METHUEN'S POPULAR NOVELS Crown 8vo, 6s. each IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT By C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON, Authors of 'The Heather Moon,' 'The Lightning Conductor,' etc. This book tells, in the charming manner of the authors, a story of entrancing interest for travellers in Egypt and for home-dwellers too. A young English diplomatist finds himself compelled by an unusual combination of circumstances to become the temporary conductor of a party of tourists cruising on the Mediterranean and seeing Egypt. His strange new duties plunge him into the midst of adventures both comic and serious. He composes quarrels, intervenes in love affairs, baffles the agents of a secret society, conducts his charges successfully up the Nile to Khartoum, and in the end finds love and treasure both for himself and a faithful friend. CHANCE By JOSEPH CONRAD, Author of 'The Nigger of the "Narcissus."' In this new romance, which Mr. Conrad unfolds in his fascinating and curious way, partly by monologue, partly by narrative, we find the author of _Lord Jim_ again revealing one of those strange cases of human passion and disaster which he alone, of living writers, can present. The sea is in the book, but it is not entirely a book of the sea. WHOM GOD HATH JOINED By ARNOLD BENNETT, Author of 'Clayhanger.' This is a re-issue of one of Mr. Bennett's most famous novels. THE WAY HOME