Marketing The Core 7th Edition Kerin Test Bank 1
Marketing The Core 7th Edition Kerin Test Bank 1
Chapter 05
Test Bank
1. According to the textbook, JCPenney buys paper for which of the following media?
A. in-store signage
B. special advertising inserts in magazines such as Cosmopolitan
C. newspaper inserts and direct mail pieces
D. annual and 10-K reports
E. point-of-purchase displays
Feedback: JCPenney buys paper for use in its newspaper inserts and direct-mail pieces.
3. When JCPMedia buys paper for JCPenney newspaper inserts, it considers suppliers' forest management and other sustainability practices.
JCPMedia buyers consider these as part of the process to
A. fulfill profit responsibilities.
B. formally evaluate paper supplier capabilities.
C. eliminate the need for online purchasing.
D. shorten the value chain.
E. fulfill the auditing role.
Feedback: In addition to paper appearance, quality, quantity, and price, JCPMedia paper buyers formally evaluate paper supplier capabilities, often
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by extended visits to supplier facilities in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Supplier capabilities include the capacity to deliver on-time selected
grades of paper from specialty items to magazine papers, the availability of specific types of paper to meet printing deadlines, and formal programs
focused on the life cycle of paper products. For example, a supplier's forestry management and sustainability practices are considered in the paper
buying process.
4. Kim Nagele, senior sourcing manager at JCPenney, purchases tons of publication paper annually at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. As
described and inferred in the text, Mr. Nagele performs all of the following roles in the JCPenney buying center except which?
A. user
B. gatekeeper
C. influencer
D. buyer
E. decider
Feedback: As senior sourcing manager at JCPenney, Kim Nagele assumes (1) the influencer role, helping to define the specifications for the paper;
(2) the buyer role, having the formal authority and responsibility to select the supplier and negotiate contract terms; (3) the decider role, having the
formal power to select the supplier that receives the contract; and (4) the gatekeeper role, controlling the flow of information within the buying
center—purchasing, marketing production and support, and senior JCPenney marketing personnel. Kim Nagele would not assume the user role for
the paper.
5. JCPenney looks at several capabilities when selecting a paper supplier. These organizational buying criteria include on-time delivery, the
availability, quality and quantity of selected grades of paper, forestry management and sustainable practices, and price. This examination would be
done during the __________ stage of the organizational buying decision process.
A. procurement analysis
B. break-even analysis
C. purchase decision
D. information search
E. alternative evaluation
Feedback: These assessments are typical of the alternative evaluation stage of the decision process.
6. The marketing of goods and services to companies, governments, or not-for-profit organizations for use in the creation of goods and services that
they can produce and market to others is referred to as
A. integrated marketing.
B. institutional marketing.
C. business-to-business marketing.
D. reseller marketing.
E. organizational marketing.
8. Manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, service companies, not-for-profit organizations, and government agencies that buy goods and services for
their own use or for resale are referred to as
A. multinational buyers.
B. resellers.
C. organizational buyers.
D. ultimate consumers.
E. institutional buyers.
10. Organizational buyers include manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, service companies, not-for-profit organizations, and government agencies
that
A. purchase exclusively from one supplier.
B. are exempt from state and local taxes.
C. sell directly to ultimate consumers.
D. sell goods and services for their own use.
E. buy products and services for their own use or for resale.
Feedback: Organizational buyers are those manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and government agencies that buy products and services for their
own use or for resale.
11. Which of the following organizational buyers purchases raw materials and parts to reprocess into the finished goods they sell?
A. retailers
B. wholesalers
C. agents
D. manufacturers
E. ultimate consumers
Feedback: Manufacturers buy raw materials and parts that they reprocess into the finished goods they sell.
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McGraw-Hill Education.
12. Which of these statements regarding organizational buyers is most accurate?
A. Wholesalers and retailers resell the goods they buy without reprocessing them.
B. Wholesalers and retailers alter the goods they sell to meet the specific needs of their customers prior to resale.
C. Manufacturers purchase processed goods and resell them to suppliers who in turn resell them to ultimate consumers.
D. Ultimate consumers can be considered organizational buyers when they purchase in large quantities.
E. Government agency purchases are more similar to ultimate consumer purchases than they are to wholesalers and retailers.
Feedback: Manufacturers buy raw materials and parts that they reprocess into the finished goods they sell. Wholesalers and retailers resell finished
goods without reprocessing them.
Feedback: Organizational buyers consist of manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and government agencies that buy products and services for their
own use or for resale.
14. Organizational buyers are divided into three markets, which are
A. industrial, wholesaler, and retailer.
B. industrial, retailer, and government.
C. retailer, manufacturer, and government.
D. industrial, government, and ultimate consumer.
E. industrial, reseller, and government.
Feedback: Organizational buyers are divided into three markets: (1) industrial, (2) reseller, and (3) government.
Feedback: Organizational buyers are those manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and government agencies that buy products and services for their
own use or for resale. Organizational buyers include all buyers in a nation except ultimate consumers. Only the owner of a restaurant is an
organizational buyer; all other alternatives involve purchases by ultimate consumers for their personal use.
17. A firm that reprocesses a product or service it buys before selling the product again to the next buyer is referred to as
A. an industrial firm.
B. a reseller firm.
C. a government agency.
D. a wholesaler.
E. a retailer.
18. Insurance companies, farms, auto repair, and fisheries are all examples of companies in the
A. consumer market.
B. cooperative market.
C. reseller market.
D. industrial market.
E. government market.
Feedback: There are about 7.5 million firms in the industrial, or business, market. Companies that primarily sell physical goods (manufacturers;
mining; construction; and farms, timber, and fisheries) represent 25 percent of all the industrial firms. The services market sells diverse services such
as legal advice, auto repair, and dry cleaning. Service companies—finance, insurance, and real estate businesses; transportation, communication, and
public utility firms; and not-for-profit organizations—represent 75 percent of all industrial firms.
19. Which of the following types of firms are in the industrial market?
A. retailing
B. construction
C. wholesaling
D. state governments
E. federal regulatory agencies
Feedback: There are about 7.5 million firms in the industrial, or business, market. These industrial firms in some way reprocess a product or service
they buy before selling it again to the next buyer. Companies that primarily sell physical goods (manufacturers; mining; construction; and farms,
timber, and fisheries) represent 25 percent of all the industrial firms.
20. Which of the following is a service business within the industrial market?
A. construction
B. mining
C. transportation
D. government
E. farming
T H paused before the house that bore the number at the head
of Mrs. Joyce’s letter. It was in a mean street, and his soul went out in
pity towards the unfortunate woman, who, with all her refinement, was
compelled to live amid such squalid surroundings.
“And heart-starved, too,” he mused, pityingly. “Heart-starved for the
want of love, of sympathy, of the sense of soul-union that makes life
with a married partner at all bearable.”
“Yus, sir; Mrs. Joss lives yere. Top floor, lef’ ’and side. Yer kin go
hup!”
A child had opened the door in response to his knock. Following the
directions given, Tom Hammond climbed the dirty stairs. On the top
landing were two doors. The one on the right was fast shut; that on the
left was ajar a few inches. His approach did not seem to have been heard.
Mrs. Joyce, the only occupant of the room, was seated at a bare deal
table, sewing briskly.
He stretched out his hand to tap at the door, but some impulse checked
him for a moment. He had the opportunity to observe her closely, and he
did so.
She sat facing the window; the light shone full upon her. She was
dressed in a well-worn but well-fitting black gown. Round her throat—
how pure and white the skin was!—she wore a white turnover collar, like
a nurse, white cuffs at her wrists completing the nurse idea. Her hair—
she had loosened it earlier because of a slight headache—hung in
clustering waves on her neck, and was held back behind her ears with a
comb on either side. There was a rare softness and refinement in the pale
face that drooped over her sewing. Seen as Tom Hammond saw her then,
Mrs. Joyce was a really beautiful woman.
He gazed for a few moments at the picture, amazed at the rapidity of
her sewing movements.
“The tragedy of Tom Hood’s ‘Song of the Shirt,’” he muttered, as he
watched the gleam of the flying needle.
“Oh, men with sisters dear!
Oh, men with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you’re wearing out,
But human creatures’ lives!
Stitch, stitch, stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt.”
Under the magnetic constraint of his fixed gaze the woman looked
towards the door. She recognized her visitor, and with a little glad cry
started to her feet. Tom Hammond pushed the door open and entered the
room. She sprang to meet him.
Now that he saw her, he realized the expression of her face had
changed. Heaven—all the heaven of God’s indwelling pardon, love,
peace, had come to dwell with her. All that she had said in her letter of
her new-found joy, was fully confirmed by her looks.
“How good of you to come to see me, Mr. Hammond!” she cried, as
she felt the clasp of his hand.
“How good of you to write me of your new-found happiness!” He
smiled back into her glad, eager eyes.
He took the chair she offered, and with a question or two sought to
lead her on to talk of the subject about which he had come to see her.
“The very title of the subject,” Hammond explained, “is perfectly
foreign to me.”
“It was all so, so foreign to me,” she returned. Then, as swift tears
flooded her eyes, she turned to him with a little rapturous cry, saying,—
“And it would all have been foreign to me for ever, but for you, Mr.
Hammond. I never, never can forget that but for you my soul would have
been in a suicide’s hell, where hope and mercy could never have reached
me. As long as I shall live I shall never forget the awful rush of soul-
accusation that swept over me, when my body touched the foul waters of
that muddy river that night. The chill and shock of the waters I did not
feel, but the chill of eternal condemnation for my madness and sin I did
feel.
“I saw all my life as in a flash. All the gracious warnings and
pleadings that ever, in my hearing, fell from my sainted father’s lips, as
he besought men and women to be reconciled to God, seemed to swoop
down upon me, condemning me for my unbelief and sin. Then—then
you came to my rescue—and——”
Her tears were dropping thick and fast now.
“And—my soul—had respite given in which to—to—seek God—
because—you saved my body.”
Overcome with her emotion, she turned her head to wipe away the
grateful tears. When next she faced him, her voice was low and tender,
her eyes glowed with a light that Tom Hammond had never seen in a
human face before.
“Now, if my Lord come,” she said softly, rapturously, “whether at
morning, at noontide, at midnight, or cock-crowing, I shall be ready to
meet Him in the air.
“I used to think that if ever I was converted, I should meet my dear
father and mother at the last day, at the great final end of all things.
“But now I know that if Jesus came for His people to-day, that I
should meet my dear ones to-day. For when ‘the Lord Himself shall
descend from heaven ... the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which
are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.’”
Tom Hammond gazed at the speaker in wonder. The glory that filled
her face, the triumph and rapture that rang in her voice, were a strange
revelation to him.
“A starvation wage for making slop-shirts,” he mused, “yet more than
triumphing over every discomfort of poverty by the force of the divine
hope that dominates her! What is this hope?”
“Tell me of this wondrous thing, Mrs. Joyce,” he said, aloud, “that can
transmute your poverty and suffering to triumph and rapture, and your
comfortless garret to a heaven on earth.”
“Before I begin,” she replied, “tell me, Mr. Hammond, have ever you
seen this?”
From the window-shelf she reached a tiny envelope booklet.
“‘Long Odds’!” he said, reading the boldly-printed title of the book.
“No; I have never seen this. It sounds sporting, rather.”
“Take it, Mr. Hammond,” she went on; “if it does nothing else, it will
awaken your interest in this wonderful subject.”
He slipped the book into his breast-pocket. She opened her mouth to
speak again, when a sound from outside caught her ear. She started to her
feet; her face turned deadly pale. The next instant the door was flung
noisily open, and her husband entered the room.
The blear-eyed, drunken scoundrel glared at the two seated figures,
then laughed evilly as he cried,—
“Turned religious? Oho! oho! Like all the rest of your religious
people, make a mantle—a regular down-to-your-feet ulster—of your
religion to cover every blackness and filthiness of life.”
“Silence, you foul-mouthed blackguard!”
Tom Hammond’s lips were white with the indignation that filled him,
as he flung his command to the man.
“Silence yourself, Tom Hammond!” bellowed the drunken scoundrel.
“I know you,” he went on. “You’re a big bug now! Think no end of
yourself, and of your messing paper. Perhaps you’ll say you came to
invite me to join your staff, now that I’ve caught you here?”
His sneering tone changed to one of bitterest hate, as he turned to the
white, trembling woman.
“You’re a beauty, ain’t you? Profess to turn saint; then, when you
think I’m clear away, you receive visits from fine gentlemen!
Gentlemen? bah! they’re——”
“Silence, you drunken, foul-mouthed beast!” again interrupted Tom
Hammond.
There was something amazing in the command that rang in the
indignant tones of his voice.
“Unless,” he went on, “you want to find yourself in the grip of the
law.”
For a moment or two Joyce was utterly cowed! then the devil in him
reared its head again, and he hissed,
“You clear out of here, and remember this; if I have to keep sober for a
year to do it, I’ll ruin you, Tom Hammond, I will!”
He laughed with an almost demoniacal glee, as he went on:
“I can write a par yet, you know. I’ll dip my pen in the acid of hate—
hate, the hate of devils, my beauty—and then get Fletcher to put them
into his paper. He’s not in love with the ‘Courier,’ or with Tom
Hammond, the Editor.”
“You scurrilous wretch!” It was all that Hammond deigned to reply.
“Good day, Mrs. Joyce!” he bowed to the white-faced woman.
For her sake he did not offer to shake hands, but moved away down
the stairs.
He caught a hansom a few moments after leaving the mean street. He
had purposed, when he started out that morning, to hunt up his other
correspondent, the Jew, Abraham Cohen. But after the scene he had just
witnessed, he felt quite unwilling to interview a stranger.
“I wish,” he mused, as he sat back in the hansom, “I had not gone near
that poor soul. I am afraid my visit may make it awkward for her.”
His eyes darkened as he added: “And even for myself. It will be very
awkward if that drunken brute puts his threat into execution—and he
will, I believe. Innuendo is a glass stiletto, which, driven into the victim’s
character, into his heart and then snapped off from the hilt, leaves no clue
to the striker of the blow. And a demon like that Joyce, playing into the
hands of a cur like Fletcher, may slay a fellow by a printed innuendo,
and yet the pair may easily keep outside the reach of the law of libel.”
For the first time since the floating of the “Courier,” his spirits became
clouded.
“Then, too,” he muttered, “there is this sudden breakdown of Marsden,
and, for the life of me, I don’t know where to look for a fellow, whom I
could secure at short notice, who is at all fit for the ‘Courier’s’ second.”
His face had grown moody. His eyes were full of an unwonted
depression.
“If only,” he went on, “Bastin had been in England, and were to be got
——” He sighed. There was perplexity in the sigh.
“Where on earth can Ralph be all these years?” he muttered.
He glanced out of the cab to ascertain his own whereabouts. In two
minutes more he would be at the office.
CHAPTER X.
IN THE NICK OF TIME.
F a wonder, Tom Hammond could not sleep. Usually, when the last
thing had been done, and he was assured that everything was in perfect
train for the morning’s issue, he ate a small basin of boiled milk and
bread, which he invariably took by way of a “night-cap,” then went to
bed, and slept like a tired ploughman. But to-night slumber would have
none of him.
“It must be the various excitements of the day,” he muttered. “That
story of Ralph’s Caribbean child was enough to keep a fellow’s brain
working for a week. Then there was meeting Ralph so unexpectedly, just,
too, when I so lusted for his presence and help. Then there was that
Joyce item——”
His mind trailed off to the scene of the morning, every item of it
starting up in a new and vivid light. Suddenly he recalled the booklet
Mrs. Joyce had given him.
“I can’t sleep,” he murmured; “I’ll find that thing and read it.”
His fingers sought the electric switch. The next moment the room was
full of light. He got out of bed, passed quickly through to his dressing-
room, found the coat that he had worn that morning, and secured the
booklet.
He went back again to bed, and, lying on his elbow, opened the dainty
little printed thing and began to read thus:
“LONG ODDS”
“You don’t say so! Where on earth has she gone?”
“I can’t say, sir, but it’s plain enough she is missing. Hasn’t been seen
since last night when she went up to her room.”
I was put out, I own; my man on waking me had informed me that the
cook was missing; she had gone to bed without anything being noticed
amiss, and was now nowhere to be found. She was always an odd
woman, but a capital cook. What had become of her? The very last sort
of person to disappear in this way—a respectable elderly Scotchwoman
—really quite a treasure in the country; and the more I thought of it
while I dressed, the more puzzled I became. I hardly liked to send for the
police; and then again it was awkward, very—people coming to dinner
that day. It was really too bad.
But I had scarcely finished dressing when in rushed my man again. I
do so dislike people being excited, and he was more than excited.
“Please, sir, Mr. Vend has come round to see you; his coachman has
gone—went off in the night, and hasn’t left a trace behind, and they say
the gardener’s boy is with him.”
“Well,” said I, “it is extraordinary; tell Mr. Vend I’m coming; stay, I’ll
go at once.”
It was really past belief—the three of them! After an hour’s talk with
Vend, no explanation offered itself, so we decided to go to town as usual.
We walked down to the station, and saw at once something was
wrong. Old Weeks, the stationmaster, was quite upset: his pointsman was
missing, and the one porter had to take up his duty. However, the train
coming up, we had no time to question him, but jumped in. There were
three other people in the compartment, and really I thought I was going
off my head when I heard what they were discussing. Vend, too, didn’t
seem to know if he was on his head or his heels. It was this that startled
us so: “What can have become of them all?”
I heard no more. I really believe I swooned, but at the next station—a
large one—we saw consternation on every face. I pinched myself to see
if I was dreaming. I tried to persuade myself I was. Vend looked ghastly.
A passenger got in; he did not look quite so dazed as some did, but
savage and cross. For a time none spoke; at last someone said aloud—I
don’t think he expected an answer—
“What on earth’s become of them?” and the cross looking man, who
got in last, growled out,
“That’s the worst of it; they are not on earth, they are gone. My boy
always said it would be so; from the very first moment I heard it, I knew
what had happened; often he has warned me. I still have his voice
ringing in my ears.
“‘I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed: the one
shall be taken, and the other shall be left.’ (Luke xvii. 34.)
“I know only too well ‘that night’ was last night. I’ve often prayed for
it without thinking, and so I daresay have you: ‘Thy kingdom come.’ It
makes me so savage I don’t know what to do.”
Now, I was an atheist, and did not believe the Bible. For the last thirty
years (I am past fifty) I had stuck to my opinions, and when I heard men
talk religious trash I invariably objected.
But this seemed altogether different. I tell you, for a thousand pounds I
couldn’t have said a word. I just hoped it would all turn out a dream, but
the further we went, the more certain it became that we were all awake,
and that by some unaccountable visitation of Providence a number of
people had suddenly disappeared in the night.
The whole of society was unhinged; everybody had to do somebody’s
else’s work. For instance, at the terminus, a porter had been put into
Smith’s stall, as the usual man was missing. Cabs were not scarce, but
some of those who drove them seemed unlicensed and new to their work.
The shutters in some of the shops were up, and on getting to my bank I
heard the keys had only just been found.
Everyone was silent, and afraid lest some great misfortune was
coming. I noticed we all seemed to mistrust one another, and yet as each
fresh clerk, turned up late, entered the counting-room, a low whisper
went round. The chief cashier, as I expected, did not come. The
newspapers no one cared to look at; there seemed a tacit opinion that
they could tell us nothing.
Business was at a standstill. I saw that very soon. I hoped as the day
wore on that it would revive, but it did not. The clerks went off without
asking my permission, and I was left alone. I felt I hated them. I did not
know what to do. I could not well leave, else they might say the bank
had stopped payment, and yet I felt I could not stay there. Business
seemed to have lost its interest, and money its value. I put up the shutters
myself, and at once noticed what a change had come over the City while
I had been at the bank. Then all were trying to fill the void places; now it
seemed as if the attempt had failed.
In the City some of the streets had that dismal Sunday appearance,
while a few houses had been broken into; but in the main thoroughfares
there was a dense mass of people, hurrying, it struck me, they knew not
where. Some seemed dazed, others almost mad with terror. At the
stations confusion reigned, and I heard there had been some terrible
accidents. I went into my club, but the waiters had gone off without
leave, and one had to help oneself.
As evening came on, I saw the lurid reflection of several fires, but,
horrible to say, no one seemed to mind, and I felt myself that if the whole
of London were burnt, and I with it, I should not care. For the first time
in my life I no longer feared Death: I rather looked on him as a friend.
As the gas was not lit, and darkness came down upon us, one heard
cries and groans. I tried to light the gas, but it was not turned on. I
remembered there was a taper in the writing-room. I went and lit it, but
of course it did not last long. I groped my way into the dining-room, and
helped myself to some wine, but I could not find much, and what I took
seemed to have no effect; and when I heard voices, they fell on me as if I
were in a dream. They were talking of the Bible, though, and it now
seemed the one book worth thinking of, yet in our vast club library I
doubt if I should have found a single copy.
One said: “What haunts me are the words ‘Watch therefore.’ You can’t
watch now.”
I thought of my dinner party. Little had I imagined a week ago, when I
issued the invitations, how I should be passing the hour.
Suddenly I remembered the secretary had been a religious fanatic, and
I made my way slowly to his room, knocking over a table, in my
passage, with glasses on it. It fell with a crash which sounded through
the house, but no one noticed it. By the aid of a match I saw candles on
his writing table and lit them. Yes! as I thought, there was his Bible. It
was open as if he had been reading it when called away, and another
book I had never seen before lay alongside of it—a sort of index.
The Bible was open at Proverbs, and these verses, being marked,
caught my eye:
“Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched out My hand
and no man regarded; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock
when your fear cometh.”
I had never thought before of God laughing—of God mocking. I had
fancied man alone did that. Man’s laughing had ended now—I saw that
pretty plain.
I had a hazy recollection of a verse that spoke of men wanting the
rocks to fall on them; so looked it up in the index. Yes, there was the
word “Rock,” and some of the passages were marked with a pencil. One
was Deut. xxxii. 15: “He forsook God which made him, and lightly
esteemed the Rock of our Salvation.”
Perhaps he marked that passage after he had had a talk with me. How
well I remember the earnestness with which he pressed salvation upon
me that day—explaining the simplicity of trusting Christ and His blood
for pardon—and assuring me that if I only yielded myself to the Lord I
should understand the peace and joy he talked about. But it was no use. I
remember I only chaffed him, and said mockingly that his God was a
myth, and time would prove it, and he answered,
“Never. ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall not
pass away.’ He may come to-night.”
I laughed and said, “What odds will you take? I lay you long ones.”
Another passage marked was 1 Samuel ii. 2, “Neither is there any rock
like our God,” and lower still “Man who built his house upon a rock.”
I had no need to look that out. I knew what it referred to, and then my
eye caught Matt. xxvii. 51, “The earth did quake, and the rocks rent.”
That was when Christ died to save sinners, died to save me—and yet I
had striven against Him all my life. I could not bear to read more. I shut
the book and got up. There were some texts hanging over the fireplace:
“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted
out.”—Acts iii. 19.
“The blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanseth us from all sin.”—1 John
i. 7.
“Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”—2
Cor. vi. 2.
As I turned to leave the room these caught my eye, and I said, “Well, I
have been a fool.”
Tom Hammond looked up from the little booklet,—a look of
bewilderment was in his eyes, a sense of blankness, almost of
stupefaction, in his mind. Like one who, half stunned, passes through
some strange and wondrous experience, and slowly recalls every item of
that experience as fuller consciousness returns, he went, mentally, slowly
over the story of the little book.
“The verisimilitude of the whole story is little less than startling,” he
murmured. His eyes dropped upon the book again, and he read the last
line aloud: “Well, I have been a fool.”
Slowly, meditatively, he added: “And I, with every other otherwise
sane man who has been careless as to whether such things are to be, am
as big a fool as the man in that book!”
He laid the dainty little messenger down on the table by his bedside.
His handling of the book was almost reverential. Reaching to the electric
lever, he switched off the light. He wanted to think, and he could think
best in the dark.
“Of course, I know historically,” he mused, “all the events of the
Christ’s life, His death, His resurrection, and—and——Well, there, I
think, my knowledge ends. In a vague way I have always known that the
Bible said something of a great final denouement to all the World Drama
—an award time of some kind, a millennium of perfect—perfect—well
perfect everything that is peaceful and——Oh, I don’t know much about
it, after all. I am very much in a fog, I see, for Mrs. Joyce and that
booklet both speak of a return of Christ into the air, whither certain dead
and certain living are to be caught up to be with Him and to begin an
eternity of bliss.”
For a moment or two he tried to disentangle his many thoughts; then,
with a weary little sigh, he gave up the task, murmuring: “I certainly am
not ready for any such event. If there is to be a hideous leaving behind of
the unready, then I should be left to all that unknown hideousness.”
A myriad thoughts crowded upon his brain. He gave up, at length, the
perplexing attempt to think out the problem, telling himself that with the
coming of the new day he would begin a definite search for the real facts
of this great mystery—the second coming of Christ.
By an exercise of his will he finally settled himself to sleep.
CHAPTER XII.
THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH.
Her fingers were busy, her mind all the time kept mentally arranging a
host of things.
“I wonder,” she murmured presently, “how Uncle Archibald and
George will take my sudden departure? Well, I’m glad George is out of
town. He’s been showing signs of spoons lately with me, so it’s best,
perhaps, that I should get off without seeing him.”
By eleven that forenoon she had left Waterloo. Her uncle had seen her
off from the station. He wanted to accompany her to Southampton, but
she would not hear of it.
“I want to be very quiet all the way down,” she said, “and write some
important letters. Make my excuses to everybody, and explain that I only
had an hour or two to do everything.”
At the last moment her uncle slipped an envelope into her hand,
saying, “You are not to open it until you have been travelling a quarter of
an hour.”
Then came the good-byes, and—off.
She had been travelling nearly a quarter of an hour when she opened
the envelope. There was a brief, hearty, loving note inside, in her uncle’s
hand-writing, expressing the joy her visit had given him, and his sense of
loneliness at her going, and saying:
Tom Hammond had just settled himself down to work when a letter,
bearing the Southampton post-mark, was delivered to him. Opening it,
and reading “My dear Mr. Hammond,” he turned next to the signature.
“Madge Finisterre?” he cried softly, surprisedly, under his breath.
Wonderingly he turned back to the first page, and read: