'What is the use of fagging like that on a hot day?' asked Harold Lock of his brother Frank, who came and flung himself panting on the grass beside him.

'I must keep in training: a fellow so soon gets slack and out of practice if he is lazy,' was the answer.

'Well, being lazy is good enough for me in the holidays,' the elder boy said. 'I should think it pretty hard lines to have to run a mile in this sun.'

'It makes all the difference, though, if you are keen,' Frank told him. 'I want to be the fastest runner in the school, and I don't want to go back and find I am easily beaten in the sports.'

'I don't see the good of it myself,' said Harold, rather scornfully, but Frank only laughed good-temperedly, and began to swing himself on a branch of the tree for change of exercise. If there was one thing he hated more than another, it was sitting still for too long a time.

The same evening the boys were on the platform of the little village station, watching some trucks being shunted from the main line on to a siding. Suddenly there was a loud cry from one of the men engaged in the work as a heavy truck got off the rails, turned over, and dragged another with it. No one was seriously hurt, but the station-master, who was soon on the scene of the accident, turned pale as he saw the obstruction on the line.

'Stop the down express!' he shouted. But the signal-box was a quarter of a mile away, and precious minutes would have passed before he could be near enough for his voice to reach the signal-man. By that time it might be too late to stop the express.

Then, like an arrow, a nimble little figure flew past him. It was Frank, his running powers put to some practical use at last. The station-master followed as quickly as he could. But when at last he came up breathless, he found that Frank had already done his work, and the signal was against the train.

'It's touch-and-go whether we have caught her,' muttered the signal-man, and they all held their breath as the rumble of the train was heard in the distance.

'She's slowing down—she's safe!' gasped the station-master, and he hurried down again, followed by Frank and the signal-man.

But it was only a few yards off the overturned trucks that the express was finally brought to a standstill. The few seconds gained by Frank's speed had saved her. Nothing could have prevented a terrible accident if the signal had not caused the train to slow down just in time.

The passengers crowded round Frank, and thanked him warmly when they heard the story, and a few days later came a more practical expression of their gratitude in the shape of a handsome gold watch.

'So your running was some good after all,' Harold said, and he no longer laughed at his small brother's hobby, but learned to admire the nimbleness of body which, with his ready wit, made him of so much use in an emergency.

M. H.