Here are the quotations for the coming week (Dec 7th to 13th):

1. …'The tension snapped. Simmons fell back on the arm-rack deliberately, - the men were at the far end of the room, - and took out his rifle and pack of ammunition. 'Don't go playing the goat, Sim!' said Losson. 'Put it down'; but there was a quaver in his voice. Another man stooped, slipped his boot, and hurled it at Simmons's head. The prompt answer was a shot which, fired at random, found its billet in Losson's throat…

2. …'The fallin'-block had sprung free behind a full charge av powder - good care I tuk to bite down the brass afther takin' out the bullet, that there might be somethin' to give ut full worth - an' had cut Tim from the lip to the corner av the right eye, lavin' the eyelid in tatters, an' so up along by the forehead to the hair…The dhrink and the stew that he was in pumped the blood strong…

3. …' "Knee to knee!" sings out Crook, wid a laugh whin the rush av our comin' into the gut shtopped, an' he was huggin' a hairy great Paythan, neither bein' able to do anything to the other, tho' both was wishful.
' "Breast to breast ! " he sez, as the Tyrone was pushin' us forward closer an' closer.
' "An' hand over back ! " sez a Sargint that was behin'. I saw a sword lick out past Crook's ear, an' the Paythan was tuk in the apple of his throat like a pig at Dromeen Fair.
' "Thank ye, Brother Inner Guard," sez Crook…'

The sources of this week's extracts (Nov 30th to Dec 6th) are as follows:

1. (... she turned her broad black bows to the westering light, and lifted us high upon hills that we might see and rejoice with her...) This is from "Steam Tactics" in Traffics and Discoveries.

2. (...I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches...) This is from " 'They' " in Traffics and Discoveries.

3. (...the unjust police; our natural enemies, the deliberate market-day cattle, broadside-on at all corners, the bicycling butcher-boy a furlong behind...) This is from "The Vortex" in A Diversity of Creatures.

In the New Readers' Guide We have just published notes by David Page on a further three stories in The Smith Administration from Volume II of From Sea to Sea , "Hunting a Miracle", "The Explanation of Mir Baksh", and "A Letter from Golam Singh". We have also just published notes by Alastair Wilson, on "Steam Tactics" from Traffics and Discoveries.