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Instant download pdf Management Information Systems Managing the Digital Firm Canadian 7th Edition Laudon Test Bank full chapter
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Laudon/Laudon/Brabston, Management Information Systems, Seventh Canadian Edition
3) Program-data dependence refers to the coupling of data stored in files and software
programs that use this data such that changes in programs require changes to the data.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
6) NoSQL technologies are used to manage sets of data that don't require the flexibility of
tables and relations.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 180
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
7) Data governance deals with the policies and processes for managing the integrity and
security of data in a firm.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 193
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
9) A data dictionary is a language associated with a database management system that end
users and programmers use to manipulate data in the database.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 181
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
14) OLAP enables users to obtain online answers to ad-hoc questions in a fairly rapid amount of
time, except when the data are stored in very large databases.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
15) With in-memory computing, a computer's primary memory (RAM) is used for processing.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 186
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
16) In a Web-based database, middleware is used to transfer information from the organization's
internal database back to the Web server for delivery in the form of a Web page to the user.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
17) The disadvantage of using a Web interface for a database is that it typically requires
substantial changes to the internal database.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
18) Common Gateway Interface is a specification for processing data on a Web server.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
19) Data administration is a special organizational function that manages the policies and
procedures through which data can be managed as an organizational resource.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 193
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
21) An effective information system provides users with accurate, timely, and irrelevant
information.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 174
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
22) Program-data dependence wastes storage resources and also leads to data
inconsistency where the same attribute may have different values.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
23) A traditional file system can deliver routine scheduled reports after extensive
programming efforts, but it cannot deliver ad hoc reports or respond to unanticipated
information requirements in a timely fashion.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 177
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
25) The most popular type of DBMS today for PCs as well as for larger computers and
mainframes is the rational DBMS.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
26) Up until about five years ago, most data collected by organizations consisted of
transaction data that could easily fit into rows and columns of relational database
management systems.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 184
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
27) Big data does not refer to any specific quantity but usually refers to data in the petabyte and
exabyte range—in other words, billions to trillions of records, all from different sources.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
28) A data mart is a database that stores current and historical data of potential interest to
decision makers throughout the company.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
29) Which of the following best illustrates the relationship between entities and attributes?
A) the entity CUSTOMER with the attribute PRODUCT
B) the entity CUSTOMER with the attribute PURCHASE
C) the entity PRODUCT with the attribute PURCHASE
D) the entity PRODUCT with the attribute CUSTOMER
Answer: B
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.1
30) Which of the following is not one of the main problems with a traditional file environment?
A) data inconsistency
B) program-data independence
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33) The confusion created by ________ makes it difficult for companies to create customer
relationship management, supply chain management, or enterprise systems that integrate
data from different sources.
A) batch processing
B) data redundancy
C) data independence
D) online processing
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
37) DBMS for midrange computers include all of the following except
A) DB2.
B) Oracle.
C) Microsoft SQL Server.
D) Microsoft Access.
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
38) The type of logical database model that treats data as if they were stored in two-dimensional
tables is the
A) non-relational DBMS.
B) mobile DBMS.
C) relational DBMS.
D) hierarchical DBMS.
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
41) In a table for customers, the information about a single customer would reside in a single
A) field.
B) row.
C) column.
D) table.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.2
43) A field identified in a table as holding the unique identifier of the table's records is called
the
A) primary key.
B) key field.
C) primary field.
D) unique ID.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
44) A field identified in a record as holding the unique identifier for that record is called the
A) primary key.
B) key field.
C) primary field.
D) unique ID.
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
45) In a relational database, the three basic operations used to develop useful sets of data are
A) select, project, and where.
B) select, join, and where.
C) select, project, and join.
D) select, from, and join.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 179
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
50) Which of the following technologies would you use to analyze the social media data
collected by a major online retailer?
A) OLAP
B) data warehouse
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C) data mart
D) Hadoop
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 186
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
52) An automated or manual file that stores information about data elements and data
characteristics such as usage, physical representation, ownership, authorization, and security
is the
A) data dictionary.
B) data definition diagram.
C) entity-relationship diagram.
D) relationship dictionary.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 181
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
53) The specialized language programmers use to add and change data in the database is called
A) a data access language.
B) a data manipulation language.
C) structured query language.
D) a data definition language.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 181
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
56) The process of streamlining data to minimize redundancy and awkward many-to-many
relationships is called
A) normalization.
B) data scrubbing.
C) data cleansing.
D) data defining.
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 194
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.
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Laudon/Laudon/Brabston, Management Information Systems, Seventh Canadian Edition
57) A schematic of the entire database that describes the relationships in a database is called
a(n)
A) data dictionary.
B) intersection relationship diagram.
C) entity-relationship diagram.
D) data definition diagram.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 184
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
58) A one-to-one relationship between two entities is symbolized in a diagram by a line that
ends with
A) two short marks.
B) one short mark.
C) a crow's foot.
D) a crow's foot topped by a short mark.
Answer: A
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 184
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
59) Which of the following is not one of the techniques used in Web mining?
A) Knowledge mining
B) structure mining
C) server mining
D) user mining
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 190
AACSB: Reflective thinking skills
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
60) You work for a retail clothing chain whose primary outlets are in shopping malls, and you
are conducting an analysis of your customers and their preferences. You wish to find out if
there are any particular activities that your customers engage in, or the types of purchases
made in the month before or after purchasing select items from your store. To do this, you
will want to use data mining software that is capable of
A) identifying associations.
B) identifying clusters.
C) identifying sequences.
D) classification.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.3
61) You work for a national car rental agency and want to determine what characteristics are
shared among your most loyal customers. To do this, you will want to use data mining
software that is capable of
A) identifying associations.
B) identifying clusters.
C) identifying sequences.
D) classification.
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.3
63) All of the following are technologies used to analyze and manage big data except
A) cloud computing.
B) noSQL.
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C) in-memory computing.
D) analytic platforms.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
64) A nationwide magazine publisher has hired you to help analyze their social media datasets
to determine which of their news publications are seen as the most trustworthy. Which of
the following tools would you use to analyze this data?
A) text mining tools
B) sentiment analysis software
C) Web usage mining technologies
D) data mining software for identifying associations
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.3
65) The tool that enables users to view the same data in different ways using multiple
dimensions is
A) predictive analysis.
B) SQL.
C) OLAP.
D) data mining.
Answer: C
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
69) ________ tools are used to analyze large unstructured data sets, such as e-mail, memos,
survey responses, etc., to discover patterns and relationships.
A) OLAP
B) Text mining
C) In-memory
D) Clustering
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
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70) An alternative to using application server software for interfacing between a Web server
and back-end databases is
A) CGI.
B) HTML.
C) Java.
D) SQL.
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
71) The organization's rules for sharing, disseminating, acquiring, standardizing, classifying,
and inventorying information is called a(n)
A) information policy.
B) data definition file.
C) data quality audit.
D) data governance policy.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 193
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
72) The special organizational function whose responsibilities include physical database design
and maintenance, is called
A) data administration.
B) database administration.
C) information policy administration.
D) data auditing.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 193
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
73) Which common database challenge is illustrated by a person receiving multiple copies of an
L.L. Bean catalog, each addressed to a slightly different variation of his or her full name?
A) data normalization
B) data accuracy
C) data redundancy
D) data inconsistency
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.1
74) Detecting and correcting data in a database or file that are incorrect, incomplete, improperly
formatted, or redundant is called
A) data auditing.
B) defragmentation.
C) data scrubbing.
D) data optimization.
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 194
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
75) You are creating a database to store temperature and wind data from national airport
locations. Which of the following fields is the most likely candidate to use as the basis for a
primary key in the Airport table?
A) address
B) city
C) airport code
D) state
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.2
C) normalizes data.
D) enforces consistency among different sets of data.
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 194
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
77) Which of the following is not a method for performing a data quality audit?
A) surveying entire data files
B) surveying samples from data files
C) surveying data definition and query files
D) surveying end users about their perceptions of data quality
Answer: C
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 194
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.4
78) The most popular type of DBMS today for PCs as well as for larger computers and
mainframes is the ____________________________.
A) relational DBMS
B) relational DMBS
C) rational DBMS
D) rational DMBS
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.2
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 185
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
80) Another way of facilitating big data analysis is to use _______________________, which
relies primarily on a computer’s main memory (RAM) for data storage.
A) data warehouse
B) in-memory computing
C) analytic platforms
D) Data mining
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 186
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
86) The discovery and analysis of useful patterns and information from the World Wide Web is
called ______________________.
A) Data mining
B) Web surfing
C) Web data
D) Web mining
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 190
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
89) To analyze unstructured data, such as memos and legal cases, you would use ________
tools.
Answer: text mining
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
90) A(n) ________ view shows data as it is actually organized and structured on the data
storage media.
Answer: physical
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
91) DBMS have a(n) ________ capability to specify the structure of the Knowledge of the
database.
Answer: data definition
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 181
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
92) Relational DBMSs use ________ rules to ensure that relationships between coupled tables
remain consistent.
Answer: referential integrity
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 183
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
94) In ________, a data mining tool discovers different groupings within data, such as finding
affinity groups for bank cards.
Answer: clustering
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
95) High-speed ________ use both relational and non-relational tools to analyze large datasets.
Answer: analytic platforms
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 186
AACSB: Reflective thinking skills
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
96) A(n) ________ is software that handles all application operations between browser-based
computers and a company's back-end business applications or databases.
Answer: application server
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
97) In data mining, the technique of ________ uses a series of existing values to predict what
other values will be.
Answer: forecasting
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
99) Information is _______________ when it is useful and appropriate for the types of
work and decisions that require it.
Answer: relevant
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 174
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
100) __________________ is the presence of duplicate data in multiple data files so that the
same data are stored in more than one place or location.
Answer: Data redundancy
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
101) __________________ refers to the coupling of data stored in files and the specific
programs required to update and maintain those files so that changes in programs require
changes to the data.
Answer: Program-data dependence
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
103) ______________________________ use a more flexible data model and are designed for
managing large data sets across many distributed machines and for easily scaling up or
down.
Answer: Non-relational database management systems
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 180
104) The process of creating small, stable, yet flexible and adaptive data structures from complex
groups of data is called ____________________.
Answer: normalization
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 183
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
106) The small publishing company you work for wants to create a new database for storing
information about all of their author contracts. What factors will influence how you design
the database?
Answer: Student answers will vary, but should include some assessment of data quality,
business processes and user needs, and relationship to existing IT systems. Key points to
include are:
Data accuracy when the new data is input, establishing a good data model, determining
which data is important and anticipating what the possible uses for the data will be, beyond
looking up contract information, technical difficulties linking this system to existing
systems, new business processes for data input and handling, and contracts management,
determining how end users will use the data, making data definitions consistent with other
databases, what methods to use to cleanse the data.
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 175-176
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.1
107) When you design the new contracts database for the publishing house mentioned above,
what fields do you anticipate needing? Which of these fields might be in use in other
databases used by the company?
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Answer: Author first name, author last name, author address, agent name and address, title
of book, book ISBN, date of contract, amount of money, payment schedule, date contract
ends.
Other databases might be an author database (author names, address, and agent details), a
book title database (title and ISBN of book), and financial database (payments made).
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 175-178
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.1
108) List at least three conditions that contribute to data redundancy and inconsistency.
Answer: Data redundancy occurs when different divisions, functional areas, and groups in
an organization independently collect the same piece of information. Because it is collected
and maintained in so many different places, the same data item may have:
1. different meanings in different parts of the organization,
2. different names may be used for the same item, and
3. different descriptions for the same condition. In addition, the fields into which the data is
gathered may have different field names, different attributes, or different constraints.
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.1
110) You have been hired by a national furniture leasing company to implement its first business
intelligence systems and infrastructure. To prepare for your initial report, describe the types
of data in their firm they can use to support business intelligence and the systems that you
will implement to support both their power users and casual users, and explain how these
systems or tools work together.
Answer: All types of data can be used for their business intelligence systems, including
operational, historical, machine-generated, Web/social data, audio and video data, and
external data. The large datasets can be collected in a Hadoop cluster, and used by an
analytic platform to support power user queries, data mining, OLAP, etc. A data warehouse
can be used to house all data, including smaller data sets and operational data, and be used
to support casual use, for queries, reports, and digital dashboards, as well as support the
analytic platforms. Smaller data marts can be created from the data warehouse to enable
faster querying and typical queries from casual users.
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 185-186
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.3
111) Identify and describe three basic operations used to extract useful sets of data from a
relational database.
Answer: The select operation creates a subset consisting of all records (rows) in the table
that meets stated criteria. The join operation combines relational tables to provide the user
with more information than is available in individual tables. The project operation creates a
subset consisting of columns in a table, permitting the user to create new tables that contain
only the information required.
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 179-180
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.2
112) Describe the ways in which database technologies could be used by an office stationery
supply company to achieve low-cost leadership.
Answer: Sales databases could be used to make the supply chain more efficient and
minimize warehousing and transportation costs. You can also use sales databases, as well as
text mining and sentiment analysis, to determine what supplies are in demand by which
customers and whether needs are different in different geographical areas. Business
intelligence databases could be used to predict future trends in office supply needs, to help
anticipate demand, and to determine the most efficient methods of transportation and
delivery.
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 184-185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.3
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113) Describe the ways in which database technologies could be used by a toy manufacturer to
achieve product differentiation.
Answer: Product databases could be made available to customers for greater convenience
and ordering online. Databases could be used to track customer preferences and to help
anticipate customer desires. Sales databases could also help clients such as toy stores
anticipate when they would need to re-supply, providing an additional service. Data mining,
Web mining, and sentiment analysis of big data could help anticipate trends in sales or other
factors to help determine new services and products to sell to clients.
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 184-185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.3
114) What makes data mining an important business tool? What types of information does data
mining produce? In what type of circumstance would you advise a company to use data
mining?
Answer: Data mining is one of the data analysis tools that helps users make better business
decisions and is one of the key tools of business intelligence. Data mining allows users to
analyze large amounts of data and find hidden relationships between data that otherwise
would not be discovered. For example, data mining might find that a customer that buys
product X is ten times more likely to buy product Y than other customers.
Data mining finds information such as:
● Associations or occurrences that are linked to a single event.
● Sequences, events that are linked over time.
● Classification, patterns that describe the group to which an item belongs, found by
examining existing items that have been classified and by inferring a set of rules.
● Clusters, unclassified but related groups.
I would advise a company to use data mining when they are looking for new products and
services, or when they are looking for new marketing techniques or new markets. Data
mining might also be helpful when trying to analyze unanticipated problems with sales
whose causes are difficult to identify.
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 188-189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.3
115) What are the differences between data mining and OLAP? When would you advise a
company to use OLAP?
Answer: Data mining uncovers hidden relationships and is used when you are trying to
discover data and new relationships. It is used to answer questions such as: Are there any
product sales that are related in time to other product sales?
In contrast, OLAP is used to analyze multiple dimensions of data and is used to find
answers to complex, but known, questions, such as: What were sales of a product—broken
down by month and geographical region, and how did those sales compare to sales
forecasts?
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 187-188
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.2
W HEN Ralph St. Jermyn had arrived at the Scotts’ there were
assembled, within reasonable distance, what Aunt Elsie would
have called all Diana’s admirers, and Marcus, having expressed a
wish to see them all together, so that he might judge of them, Diana
set about to make plans so that he might have the opportunity he
sought.
Her mind being full of islands, having heard much of one from
Miles Hastings, she bethought herself of a bird-island that lay out to
sea at some distance from the end of the Loch, and on that island
she proposed Uncle Marcus and the other men should spend some
time together. Marcus was perfectly willing. He was interested in
sea-birds and loved the sea; moreover, he was always anxious to do
anything Diana asked him to do, in the hope, perhaps, that Aunt
Elsie would have proved in like circumstances less amenable. There
was always that incentive to an extreme amiability.
Uncle Marcus said he would ask St. Jermyn to join them and stay
the night; but Diana must understand it was late in the season for
young birds to be hatched. It was very unlikely there would be any.
Diana didn’t mind that—a bird was a bird, no matter its age. She had
a good deal to say to Miles Hastings on the subject of islands. She
dwelt on them particularly at those times when he wanted to talk of
other things—emphasizing rather persistently, he thought, the fact
that whereas one man on an island was as helpless as a new-born
babe, another was useful, resourceful, and undefeated. He said he
understood: Uncle Marcus would be rather useless, St. Jermyn more
so. “But you,” said Diana, “would make soup out of birds’ nests?”
He questioned it, but she persisted and went so far as to predict
that he would serve it up in the half of a cocoanut shell, to which he
readily agreed, such things being usually found on the islands of
Scotland.
“Wait and see,” she said.
He was waiting as it was, and growing daily more and more
hopeless; just as surely as Diana was growing more and more
delightful, and, of course, more and more beautiful. Any girl may do
that, is bound to do it, in the eyes at least of the man who loves her.
With Mr. Maitland, Hastings felt he made no progress. He was polite,
as a host is almost in duty bound to be, but he never talked about
Diana as Hastings would have liked him to talk: never left them alone
together, as Hastings would have liked to be left. He very often, on
the contrary, prevented them being alone and Diana unfortunately
did not seem to notice it. Hastings wondered in what way he might
propitiate his host. He might save him from drowning, but it was
hardly likely Mr. Maitland would place himself in that particular
danger, thereby affording Hastings the opportunity he so earnestly
sought. He might save Diana from drowning, but even to benefit
himself he would not let her risk that peril by water.
The island, on which Diana proposed Uncle Marcus and the young
men should be stranded for a while, rose straight from the sea: a
barren rock. It would take three quarters of an hour to get there in
the motor launch, and given a fine day it should prove a delightful
expedition—“For those who like it,” said Watkins mournfully.
Diana undertook to make all the arrangements. She and John
discussed the matter at length, and John would have been seen—if
any one had looked—to shake his head every now and then during
the discussion, and to raise a protesting hand; but protest as he
would, Diana triumphed and her word was law—just as her will was
his pleasure, which John was most careful to say when it was most
evident her will was not his pleasure.
Uncle Marcus had suggested taking lunch with them, but Diana
objected. She said they would get frightfully tired of the island, and
as soon as they had seen what birds there might be just out of the
shell, and what birds there might be not quite out of the shell, they
would long to go home. Again Diana had her way.
They landed on the island: Diana climbing up ahead of them all
and calling first to one, then to another to come and look here—and
there. She pointed out evidence of original sin as presented by the
sight of a little bird still attached to its shell, who was ready to fight
for the rocky inheritance that was his by at least the right of priority.
The men were interested. Everything in the nature of uncultivated
land, be it rock or otherwise, suggested interesting problems to St.
Jermyn, and at his fingers’ ends he had statistics as to how many
herrings were eaten per day per gull. That opened up the “Fisheries”
question, an important one.
Marcus was perfectly ready to discuss any question with St.
Jermyn; but he wanted first of all to take a photograph of a particular
gull, who at all events up to this moment had not deprived the poor
man of a single herring. “Just wait,” he said, “one moment!”
Marcus found St. Jermyn very interesting: and exactly the kind of
man he would like Diana to marry if she must marry, but he did not
see the necessity. Hastings, too, was, of course, very attractive, for
even to Marcus a certain length of limb and an amazing amount of
virility in a young man were attractive. As to many middle-aged men
youth strongly appealed to him, and it was only because of Diana
that he made the smallest attempt to withstand Hastings. Having
only just discovered her, as it were, he did not see why he should
give her up to the first man who happened to fall in love with her.
When all the men were deeply engaged with the birds on the
island, Diana took the opportunity to slip away, back to the landing-
place where John awaited her orders. “Now, John,” she said; and
John drew from his capacious pockets various things, among them a
flask, a bottle, and a parcel. “Just inside the cave, John, there!”
Diana pointed to the cave, and John climbed up the rock and put the
things inside the cave. Diana followed him, and at the mouth of the
cave she built a cairn of stones, and under the top stone she placed
a slip of paper; then telling John to be quick she left the place as
quickly as she had come and sliding down the rock called to him to
slide softly: but John was heavier than Diana and slid less gracefully,
and little stones came rattling down with him.
“They’ll no be hearin’ them,” said John.
Diana dropped into the boat where Tooke was biding his time, and
hers. She told him to slip off quietly, and he assured her that what
noise the boat would make would be drowned by the sound of the
wind which was rising. John screwed up his eyes, looked out to sea,
and predicted a “storrrm.” Diana was afraid they might not escape
unseen, and she looked anxiously to the quickly receding island; but
John said the gentlemen would be so busy in taking the little birds
that they would not be looking.
“Not taking them, John; that would be horribly cruel!”
“Just their photograph-ees, miss,” said John.
He went on to say he had been one day fishing on the loch with a
gentleman, and as they had passed an island on the loch they had
seen three wee birds just out of the shell, and when they came back
five hours later and passed the island the wee birds had swum out to
meet them. “And, indeed, they did and the gentleman took them.”
“Not the birds, John,” protested Diana again for the sake of his
reassurance, “just their photograph-ees,” and Diana thought of Uncle
Marcus, who was also just taking photograph-ees of little birds, and
her eyes danced and she saw nothing of the storm that was coming.
She got home and ate a most excellent luncheon cooked in Mrs.
Oven’s best manner, and having drunk her coffee sat down to write a
letter, and the letter she wrote was this:
Then she walked to the window and looked out. It was raining, not
heavily; but a fine, driving mist blotted out the landscape. The island
would be rather a horrible place now—rather horrible! She became
grave; she no longer wanted Aunt Elsie because she was a splendid
laugher, but rather because she was one to quiet fears, to make
things look brighter than they really were. Could any aunt in the
world do that now? No glimmer of light pierced the grey pall that
hung over the Lodge of Glenbossie.
Diana went to the door and called John, and out of the mist
stepped John, and Sandy with him. Beads of moisture stood all over
their rough tweed coats and they looked as serious as they looked
moist. They said: “What aboot the gentlemen, now?” and Diana
asked, “What about them?”
And Sandy looked to John and John shook his head and was
thinking the sea would be too rough: there would be no fetching
them now. And Sandy nodded. John was right there.
“Not to-day?” asked Diana.
John doubted it: Sandy doubted it. Diana began to doubt it.
The moor was no longer visible. The birch wood was blotted out.
“Tooke must try, Sandy—John! He must! Make him!”
“Aye,” said the two men, and like Shetland ponies they turned their
backs to the storm.
“What did we leave on the island? Enough whiskey for them all?”
John shook his head.
“Not enough?” asked Diana incredulously. “There was a whole
flask.”
“And there are five gentlemen to it,” said John, and he shook his
head.
“But five men couldn’t drink a flask of whiskey in one day, it’s such
disgusting stuff!” said Diana.
And John looked to Sandy and Sandy to John. It took a good joke
to make Sandy laugh—he laughed the noo!
“We left a lobster—and a tin of sardines, didn’t we, John?” said
Diana anxiously.
John would not be saying that much whatever.
“And a match?”
“A match, yes.” John admitted that.
“What else?”
He said they had thought that enough, for the matter of an hour or
two.
“Some tobacco, John?”
“Yes, some tobacco.”
One match, some tobacco, a tin of sardines, a lobster, a flask of
whiskey, a bottle of water, and two empty cocoanut shells and—five
men.