Investigating Before Investing

By ALBERT W. ATWOOD

NUMEROUS letters come to me from readers of this magazine who have purchased stocks in small, little known speculative concerns, and want to know whether their investments have been wise. They invest first and inquire afterward—which, of course, is putting the cart before the horse. The soundness of most of these ventures depends on a number of factors that can not be determined without careful investigation on the spot.

Most of the letters that come to me ask for an immediate or early reply in these columns. Evidently there is a reason for haste, although there should not be. Money ought not to be invested in haste. It should be laid out for earning purposes only after the most cold and careful calculation. Haste is the surest sign that something is wrong.

Fakers Always Urge Haste

EVERY faker engaged in selling worthless stocks urges his victim to hurry, and, sad to relate, most of them do. Yet these same people have taken at the least months and in most cases years of painful labor to accumulate the money they are throwing away.

It is the commonest sort of procedure for people to invest money in concerns without knowing the location of their properties, or what State they are incorporated in, or what the earnings are, or where there is any market for the stock. No one should ever buy an investment without knowing where and how it can, if necessary, be sold again.

There are so many good, well known investments in this country, it seems strange that people should be rushed into buying things that are not known at all. Through various books and lists of many kinds, private and otherwise, I have gained 250,000 companies whose securities have to some extent found their way into investors' pockets in exchange for real money. Yet hardly a day passes that I am not asked about some enterprise the name of which does not appear among this vast number.

Perhaps, when one sets out deliberately to speculate, there may be occasion for hurry to seize the best opportunity. But any one who has had experience with investment matters knows that such is not the case when money is to be placed merely to earn a fair return. Of course, the salesman wants you to buy right away. This is his business. But your business is to protect your money. Your duty is to ask questions, and then to go to your local banker and ask him what he thinks of it. If your banker has never heard of the proposition, leave it alone. There may be exceptions to his rule, but as a general principle it is a safe one. For you may be very certain that your banker has heard of almost every standard investment security, or, if he hasn't, he can find out about it.

Good Investments Are Plentiful

THERE are always good investments, and there always will be, as long as the farms of this country turn out ten billion dollars a year, and the factories and transportation agencies lag only a little way behind. There are probably thirty reputable stock exchanges in this country, on every one of which good securities are listed. The New York Stock Exchange has about 1,600 different securities, many of which are desirable investments, and 1,100 members who deal in the,. There are probably at least two or three thousand dealers in securities who are not members of any stock exchange, and most of them are reliable and honest, and always have good investments on hand. There are hundreds of great banks and trust companies that sell bonds. There are hundreds of reliable dealers in farm mortgages.

Don't get excited when some one asks you to buy stock. Get all the facts there are, and then wait a little. If you will employ the same variety of common sense and intelligence in investing money as you did in making it, you may rest assured that the chances of loss will be ridiculously small.

Next week Mr. Atwood will answer the question: "What Is the Smallest Amount of Stock I Can Buy?"

If the Movies Hurt Your Eyes

EDWIN F. BOWERS, M. D.

HOW are headaches produced by eyestrain?

Certain groups of muscles contract and expand to "accommodate" the refractive lenses of the eye to the effect of light and distance. When these muscles are overworked, as by the jarring motion of a train or car, or by focusing on an image flickering on a cinematograph screen, or as a result of the constant changes in focus produced by the varying intensity of light from a gas-jet, they product fatigue in the eye muscle. This fatigue, if continued long enough, is reflected as pain. And, curiously enough, the pain is not always in the thing that is hurt so much as in the thing that recognizes the hurt. Hence, headaches from eye-strain.

The prevention of this strain is relatively a simple matter. If, granting that any refractive error is corrected by the wearing of properly fitting lenses, ocular headaches still persist, there remains only the removal of the cause.

If this cause lies in addiction to the "movie" habit, the "movies" must be abjured, or else the victim must patronize only those picture theaters which show films free from "jumps" and flashes.

If the cause be due to reading in a poor light, some other form of light, which will be steady and free from flickering, must be employed.

Reading in Street-Cars

IF the condition has its origin in the habit of reading in street cars, it will be necessary to put an end to this habit.

It is well to remember, also, that headache is only one of many disagreeable reflexes from eye-strain. Exhaustion of the delicate nerves may lead to ingestion, nausea, and a varied assortment of nervous conditions that seemingly have no connection whatever with the original source of trouble.

Indeed, many cases of "backwardness" in school children have been cured by the simple but effective expedient of correcting defective vision.

Next week: "What Shall I Do to Cure Sleeplessness?"

It's a Bad Year for Marriages

THERE are about a hundred thousand young men and women in this country who ought to have been married this year and won't be. It's a bad year for marriages: every big city reports a falling off. Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, all show decreases of from six to eleven percent. in the number of marriage licenses issued, when the normal thing to expect would be an increase of about six per cent. It is said that we must lay the blame of the European War.

Can the European War Affect Us?

SOUNDS curious, doesn't it? What possible influence can a battle in Poland have on the tender plans of John and Elsie in Waukegan or Holyoke? Well, there is a connection between the two, strange as it may seem. A shrewd old gentleman named Buckle, now deceased, was the first to find it out. He went over the marriage records in London for many years, and found that the number of marriages varied with the price of corn. When corn was low marriages were plentiful: when corn went up marriages went down. Ever since that time, economists have looked to see every great economic movement reflected in the marriage market.

In the present year Cincinnati, with its large German population, has shown the heaviest decrease in marriages; and Philadelphia, where the Quakers are bound by their faith to have nothing to do with worldly wars, has suffered least.

Fortunately for the world, marriage is older than wars or statistics; and Cupid, given even the slightest change, always comes back strong. If the war concludes this year, look for heavy marriage next May. For—this also is against tradition—May and not June is the month of heaviest business at the marriage bureaus.

One Minute with the Editor

Can a Millionaire's Son Make Good?

"WHAT does it all amount to?" said the millionaire to the friend who congratulated him on his success. "What does it all amount to, when your son is a fool?"

Not all millionaires' sons are fools; but, generally speaking, your boy has a bigger chance to succeed in life than the son of the richest man you know.

Burton J. Hendrick discusses this interesting question next week: "Can a Millionaire's Son Make Good?"

This is the first of two articles by Mr. Hendrick. The second will tell what becomes of American girls who marry foreign titles.

And Just to Show It's True

JUST to show that Mr. Hendrick knows what he's talking about, the hero of the lead story next week is a chap named Madigan, who starts out with nothing and wins a fortune.

Is there a girl in the story, too?

There certainly is. If ever we publish a lead story without a girl in it, go to your news-dealer and get your money back.

"The Making of Madigan" is by George Weston.

Think of Any One Asking Such a Question!

DEAR EDITOR: For the benefit of an ignoramus in such matters, will you kindly explain who are Torchy and Shorty McCabe, about whole you have recently published stories.

ANSWER: Torchy and Shorty McCabe are two young gentlemen whose exploits, told by Sewell Ford, have added to the gaiety of nations for nine years. If you never read a Torchy or Shorty story before, it may be a bit like eating your first olive. Once, you get the habit, you can't live without them.

He'll Be Back Presently

DEAR EDITOR: What's become of the Rev. Dr. Lloyd, who was going to solve all our troubles for us?

ANSWER: He's away on vacation. We're sending a bunch of questions along to him to-day, including one from a girl who wants to know whether she should marry a man with a salary of less than twenty-five dollars a week.

Love—Mystery—Adventure

The Girl of the Nutmeg Isle

By BEATRICE GRIMSHAW

Illustrations by Harvey T. Dunn

AFTER lunch, as I was passing through the weaving sheds on my way back to the office, my father came through the swing door. He had some samples of yarn in his hand.

"You must hurry and catch the two-thirteen to Lime Street," he said, speaking to me through the crash and yell of the looms, with his gray beard close to my ear. "Come outside."

We crossed the sheds and stood in an asphalted courtyard where it was comparatively easy to speak.

"I can't spare Henry or James," said my father, twisting his beard with one hand. "In general you are a disappointment to me, Paul, but I will allow you have an eye for yarns. You must do your best. Go and look up Griffens', and tell young Snaith himself that those seventies are not up to the last. Show him the difference. It takes some showing, but you can manage it; anyhow, you have to. Take these hundred and forties as well, and tell him the other is from Fletchers'. Make him see the value they are offering us, even at that increased price. Do your best. You have brains enough and to spare for nonsense of your own. Have you your railway fare?"

I plunged hurriedly into three or four empty pockets. My father watched me with a disapproving eye.

"As usual," was his comment. "It is one-and-four return, first-class. There is one-and-sixpence, including trams. I'll debit it against your allowance. Make haste and catch your train."

I nodded, put the money and samples into my pocket, and crossed the yard to the outer door.

MY father stood in the middle of the asphalt, his long beard blowing in the September wind,—it was a gray Liverpool day, and like to rain,—and as I went out I heard him call:

"Don't go and lose those yarns."

They were the last words he ever said to his troublesome youngest son. If I had known that the iron gate of the Corbet burying-ground was already turning on its hinges to let him in—But, when I knew, the world lay between.

When I got to Giffens', I found that Griffen Senior's wife had died the night before, and the office was closed. I rolled up the yarn samples small, and put them in an inner pocket, till they should be wanted again. I have them still—my father's fear that I should lose them was quite unjustified.

Of course, the right thing to do was to take the train straight back to our works and go on with my accounts. I did not do it. I looked at the Exchange clock, found it was not yet three, and walked down to the B.I.&C. offices in Water Street. The under manager was a friend of mine; I could always rely on him for a seeing-off ticket when I wanted one.

I found him in his little office, with all the windows shut, and a heavy smell of varnished linoleum in the air.

"What's going out to-day?" I asked.

"Best we have," said the under manager, smacking his lips, as if the liners of the B.I.&C. were so many choice things to eat.

"Not the Empress of Singapore?"

"That's she. Eleven thousand register, twin-screw. A hundred and twenty first saloons, one hundred and eighty-two second, seventy-nine third. Can Cargo—"

"Bother the cargo. Can I have a ticket?"

"Catch hold. We've got some star passengers this trip. Carita, going to sing all over India; General Dames; Professor Peddley Liddiard, for Borneo via Singapore. When are we going to see you in the passage department for yourself, Corbet? I never saw a lad so keen on watching other people go off."

"Let it alone, Horseley! I'm not in the mood for being guyed about that," I shouted savagely.

Horseley looked rather keenly at me.

"You go for a walk, lad, or go back your father's office, where I suspect you ought to be at three o'clock in the afternoon. If the Empress of Singapore puts you into such a devil of a temper, I guess you'd better let the lady alone."

"I'm as cool as you are," I said. "Any one else going?"

"Vincent Gore, for parts unknown—after Singapore. Lad, you're morbid. Lots of us get that way in Liverpool, and we have to get over it. You will, too."

"I'm damned if I shall," I said, swinging out of the room.

IT was chill for September; there was—almost—a threat of winter somewhere in the air. A pinching wind blew off the painty-gray water, making dry spots on the pavements. The sun had gone in. Liverpool, down by the landing-stage and the elevated railway, looked like a steel engraving of itself.

They hint a lie who say, "If youth but knew." It does, sometimes—above all, though this is strange, on days like the late September day that saw me drawn to the place where the ships went down to sea. Spring, for youth, is a time of dreaming and languor. The white March days, that send the man of full years looking for his cabin trunk and his pamphlet of steamer sailings, more likely draw the lad of twenty to those quiet nooks near railway bridges far out in the country, where one may dream, and feel the new spring sun flow over his face, like the gold hair of the girl he is dreaming about.

But the earliest bite of autumn, in the latitudes of England, fills a man in the pride of youth with a glory that seems to have no root or reason in any external circumstance. Because the wind has turned cold, and the roads are growing heavy—because dead leaves blow up beneath an iron sky—you are glad. You want to run and sing. You feel the round gold coin of youth held tight within your hand, and know that there is nothing in the world it may not buy. Youth knows!

AT all events, Paul Corbet, aged twenty-two, run away from his work to see the ships go out, knew, that day.

My head was humming with Vincent Gore all the way to the landing-stage. A famous traveler, whose life had been a tissue of the wildest adventures, who had added more than one bit of red to the map of the British Colonies, who was something of a mystery, something of a terror,—for he did not write about his doings, and it was said that every one who knew him was more or less afraid of him,—this man was to be a passenger on the Empress of Singapore to-day, going out to "parts unknown, via Singapore."

All at once a new thought came—a thought that exploded in my brain with the force of a bursting shell. To-night I would go too!

It sounded like the sheerest nonsense; for I had only fourpence in my pocket; my father and my step-brothers were even now looking out for me to come back to the works with my samples; and my aunt, who kept house for us all, no doubt was planning out the dinner at Laurelholme with perfect confidence in the assumption that four men were to be fed at that table, now and forevermore. Yet, I knew that I should do it. I was not too young to have experienced some of those rare moments in the history of the mind when thought and desire, fused together by the heat of some outward shock, flash suddenly into a driving force that nothing can resist.

So I went up the gangway of the Empress of Singapore, knowing that the gates of the world were opening for me—at last.

The alleyways were full of blue-coated stewards carrying cabin luggage; passengers and passengers' friends jostled one another against the enameled bulkheads. Madame Carita swept by in velvet and ermine, with a train of two maids and a secretary. She was abusing the purser, in voluble Glasgow, for having given her the second-best state cabin.

IT was all familiar to me, the whole scene of departure—the gilding and looking-glassing and marbling and birds'-eye mapling and brocading of the shills decorations; the typical ocean-going steamer smell of mattresses, apples, rubber carpeting, and paint. I had never been on the Empress of Singapore before, but I have an eye for ship geography, and I found my way without any hesitation to the first state cabin, which, I somehow guessed, would be the property of the man for whom I was looking.

I found the cabin,—a double one, well amidships on the promenade deck,—knocked at the shut door, and was answered in a voice that left no doubt whatever in my mind that I had guessed right. It was like the bark of a mastiff.

"Can't see any one!" it said.

I opened the door and walked in.

Its occupant swung round in a ship's chair that was fitted to a handsome writing-table, and asked me what the deuce I meant by coming there?

"To speak to you," I said. I did not feel half so put out as I had often felt in my father's works when James or Henry were rating me about something I hadn't done.

"And is the youth of Liverpool," said the barking voice, "so wrapped in fog that it is incapable of seeing when a man is busy?"

I stood against the doorway with my arms folded. He did not frighten me a bit; I felt my spirits rise. For this Vincent Gore, with his big, thin frame, his Cecil Rhodes type of face, and his hard blue eyes with cat-pupils in them, was undoubtedly formidable.

"You look as if you wanted a secretary," I said. "I should like to offer myself. I

---

could make myself exceptionally useful, if you cared to engage me."

The first sentence I spoke in French, the second in German, the third half in Spanish and half in Dutch. All of these languages are useful in the cotton trade, and the work of learning them had been one of the few things about my father's business that really interested me.

Vincent Gore's cat-pupils fixed themselves on me steadily, and I saw that he was counting me up. I saw also that he was one of those men whose first impulse is always to say "no"—who find every variety of "yes" drag heavily on the tongue.

"I don't want a secretary!" he said.

"I can fight," I went on. "I can stand anything, and I'm not afraid of anything in the world."

Vincent Gore swung farther round in his chair, with an impatient gesture.

"Men don't say those things," he said. "Shed your baby petticoats, lad; they seem to have stuck to you a long time."

I felt myself flush hot at the thought of having swaggered.

"Will you have me?" I said.

"No," answered Gore, turning back to his table and taking up his pen.

I went out of the cabin, cold and hot at the same time; but the hot predominated.

BEFORE I was out of earshot, the door opened and Gore barked out: "Sterry!"

A youngish man, light and strong-looking, well clad, but not a gentleman, came running down the alleyway, answering, "Yes, sir." He went into the cabin, and the door was shut. I waited, in an odd, passionless kind of calm. I was sure that something would happen.

Nothing did, except the reappearance of Sterry, who came out, hat in hand, and made for the shore gangway. It was still an hour before sailing time. I saw him go ashore, and followed him, taking the same train on the elevated. My mind was beginning to purr like a cat inside me. For now I began to see.

When he got out I went after him, and followed him again. He went into an outfitter's. I stayed outside.

Either I was not clever at following, or else Sterry was suspicious; for when he came out he saw me, and asked me somewhat impertinently if I wanted anything.

"Yes, I do," said I. "I want you to come and have a drink."

"Oh, if that's all," said the man, dropping his gentleman's-gentleman air, "I'm with you, though I'm blest if I know who you are from Adam. I thought you was a bill, I did."

"Bill for whom?" I asked, falling into step with him.

"Me, you can lay. The governor isn't the sort to have bills after him. Wish you could say the same of me. But there—Jack ashore's Jack ashore to the end of his days."

"Come in here; you'll find it a decent sort of place. So you were a sailor before you became a valet?"

"Yes; Royal Navy. Scotch is mine, thanks."

"Been many voyages with Mr. Gore?"

"Many?" said the man, gaping at me with his hard red face over the rim of his glass. "Why, bless you, I only signed on with him last week. Hardly got time to know the run of his clothes."

"Would you sell your place to some one else?"

"You arst me would I sell my place to some one else—meanin' 'oo?"

"No matter."

"Well, it isn't any matter, for I wouldn't—not for all the girls that lives in Liverpool."

He set down his empty glass and eyed it. I beckoned to the barman (who knew me, fortunately, for I had only twopence in my pocket) and had the glass refilled; The irrelevant remark about girls made me feel hopeful.

I EDGED away from the neighborhood of the men at the bar, and Sterry followed me, carrying his glass. I was very hot within and very cool without.

"See here, Sterry," I said. "I want that place—no matter who for. I happen to be short of cash, but look at this watch. Open the case. You can see it's worth all it cost, and that was fifty pounds."

"Being a man that knows something of watch movements, I can. What's that to do with the flowers that bloom in the spring?"

"I'll tell you. My tie-pin is worth another ten. Take it into any jeweler's and see, if you like. You can have the two if you'll cut off from the ship this afternoon, and let Mr. Gore suppose you've run away."

"Do you want my answer to that proposition?" said the seaman-valet, draining his glass and setting it down. "Then you can have it. My answer is, no. Why? Because Red Bob is worth being valet to, or bootblack either. Red Bob's a man." He added some confirmatory adjectives. "And I don't preepose to go back on him. Not that I don't want the cash, nor her. But go back on Red Bob I won't—not so long as I can stand on my blessed pins and see out of my blessed eyes."

Something in the style of the last remark struck me as familiar. I sized up the valet with an appraising glance. Long arm, light foot, broad shoulder, twinkling eyes beneath a penthouse brow, nose that had clearly been higher in the original pattern than it was at present.

"Will you fight me for the place?" I asked. "I know a quiet place where you can be safe from the police. I—"

"You got one ear regulation pattern and one cauliflower," interrupted Sterry, appraising me now in his turn. "You look young, but you're set. Hard and fit, and a proper young devil, if there's anything in what they call physi—physiography. Yes, I'll fight you for it. And if I win, I take the foolish baubles, me lord, with which you tempt me virtue; and if you win, I stop and marry the girl. Nor don't you think I won't try to knock your head off, both ways, because I will honestly endeavor to so do."

I think we had been speaking louder than either of us had imagined, for at this point three officers of the Red Sun line, and two from the Kinnoull, who had been drinking together at a small table, got to their feet together and came over to us.

"Young Corbet of Corbet Mills; I knew the cut of his jib," cried the Kinnoull man. "Boys, this is going to be fun. I saw Corbet knock out Pentreath in three rounds last Sunday week down at Joe Flanagan's. Come on, all of you."

We went out in a cheerful crowd, like a party of old friends, and made for Flanagan's, a little gymnasium in a quiet street.

THERE is nothing less interesting than the description of a fight on paper, long after it's over and forgotten; and, in any case, this one did not last very long. Sterry was a stone or so heavier than I, older, and somewhat longer of reach. He fought, too, with the spirit and pluck of a game-cock, and the absence of gloves suited his rather rough-and-tumble style very well. On another occasion he would probably have had the better of me. But it was my day, and I knew, like a gambler who is in luck, that I could lose in nothing. I knocked him out in the fourth round.

Burt of the Kinnoull line took him to a hospital, after I had handed over the watch and pin, which I thought he had fairly earned, and received Sterry's ticket—I was cool enough to remember that they would not let me on board without it.

The Red Sun fellows were very decent. They thumped me on the back, stood me drinks which I didn't particularly want, and fixed up my face for me as well as they could. I did not look very presentable when all was done; but there was no time to think about that—no time to do anything but bolt into a shop where they knew my father, get a few clothes on credit, stick them into a Gladstone bag, and run for the tram. The Empress of Singapore had already whistled twice.

With my bag in my hand, a good deal of plaster on my face, and one penny in my pocket, I reached Prince's again, thoroughly winded, and made for the big black liner. The gangway was still down, but the bell was ringing furiously, and the stewards had begun to call out: "Any more for the shore?"—the cry that for those who sail is the swinging on its hinges of the great world's door, and for those who stay the first rattling of sod upon a coffin.

Women were streaming down the gangway as I pressed up. Many of them were crying behind handkerchiefs and veils, and there were men, too, who passed down to the shore with faces gray as the autumn river, and eyes that looked hard, yet saw nothing. People on the deck were saying last good-bys. Often as I have seen it all, it never fails to make me a little choky in the throat.

I consoled myself as I pushed my way among the sobbing, hand-straining groups, with the reflection that there was, at all events, nobody to cry over my departure. And then an absurd vision came to me of my father and James and Henry, all tall and respectable and a little fat, standing out there on the landing-stage and calling to me to come back immediately with the samples of yarn, while Aunt Sarah, pink and roundabout, shook a dinner-napkin at me, and told me that my soup was growing cold, and I was a disgrace to the Corbet family.

"Hooray!" I said irrelevantly, and dived into the second-class companionway. A steward looked at my ticket and let me pass. I got into a quiet cabin, closed the door, and sat down upon the blue-quilted bunk to await the sailing of the ship.

"Any more for the sho-ore?" sounded out again; and stewards passed by in the alleyway, ringing bells. Feet trampled about; I could hear the gangway going up, and by and by came the Empress's last long call, a fierce succession of whistle blasts.

"She's off!" I cried, bouncing on the mattress of the bunk.

She was. In another moment or two, the bit of landing-stage that was visible through the port began to slip back and away, and a lane of gray water opened out. The Empress of Singapore had sailed; and I, who had never been anywhere except across to Antwerp or Brussels, was off "to parts unknown, via Singapore."

I HOPED—I almost prayed—that Vincent Gore would not want his valet before we were out of the river; and, fortunately for me, my luck held. We got clear of the Mersey and out to sea; and the September day shut down to dark. It was blowing up by now. The cabin in which I sat began to swing and curtsey, and the bulkheads creaked as the great ship leaned to the seas. By and by she began to lift in earnest, and I could hear the waterfall crash of big waves on the upper deck as she drove her nose into it, storming down the Channel. We were in for a dirty night.

A clashing of plates in the neighborhood of the pantries reminded me that I was hungry, and also that the dinner hour could not be very far off. I waited for the first bell in some suspense; it seemed likely that my troubles would begin with the announcement of the dressing hour.

I did not have to wait very long. Before the bell had rung, a steward ran down the alleyway past my door, yelling:

"Sterry! Sterry! Here—where's Cabin Seven's valet got to?"

I came out into the narrow passage, with its glitter of white paint and brass door-knobs, and sang out, "Here!"

The man did not give me half a glance.

"Your governor wants you," he threw over one shoulder as he hurried away into the pantries.

I made my way to the first saloon, staggering about a bit,—for, though I was a good sailor, I had no sea-legs as yet,—and went for Number Seven with a dash, resolved to get it over.

Vincent Gore was seated at his table, writing, exactly as I had left him hours before. I do not think he had moved in all that time.

"Get out my clothes," he said, without looking up.

"Yes, sir," I said, determined to play the part out. My throat felt rather dry.

Gore looked up at once, and his glance went through me like a rifle bullet.

"What is the meaning of this comedy? And where is my man Sterry?" he said.

Then he shut his mouth and waited for a reply in a manner that I felt to be peculiarly disconcerting. I was resolved, however, that it should not disconcert me.

"I fought your valet for the place," explained, somewhat short-windedly. "I tried to bribe him, and he wouldn't. So there was nothing else left to do. It was a fair fight. Two of the Kinnoull men and four of the Red Star were there—"

"May one ask where?" asked Gore, with deceptive mildness.

"Joe Flanagan's," I explained. "Flanagan's a real sport, and all the good fights—"

"I don't particularly want to hear about all the fights, if you don't mind," interrupted Gore, still with that unpleasant gentleness. "Give me the net result of this one only—if you please."

"You asked me, and I answered," I said, with a spirit of flame. "We had as even a fight as you'd wish to see for four rounds, and your man knocked me down twice—"

"He seems to have done a little more than that," interrupted Gore again, looking at my damaged face.

"Whatever he did, he's in hospital, and I put him there," I answered. "But he'll be as right as rain in a day or two. I know."

"So it would appear," said Vincent Gore.

"I gave him about sixty pounds' worth of jewelry," I explained. "I hadn't any cash. He didn't want to go back on you, he said. He seemed a decent chap, and was sorry I had to smash him up so, but there wasn't anything else to do. I'll make you as good a valet as you like, since you won't have me for a secretary."

"You," said Gore, tilting back his swing-chair and looking up at me with those hard cat-pupils of his—"you appear to be a nice young devil, taken all round."

"That's what your valet said," I answered rather impatiently.

"I suspect it's not the first time you have heard the comparison," observed Gore. "Well," with a sudden change of manner, "perhaps I'm better suited to have the handling of a young devil than your parents seem to have been, and I've no particular objection to the breed as such. What's your name?"

"Paul Corbet."

"Very well, Corbet; take away my boots and clean them. Clean them properly."

I picked up the boots and started to leave the cabin.

"Say 'Yes, sir,' when I speak to you," barked Gore.

"Yes, sir," I said, and went out.

THE Empress was pitching heavily as I made my staggering way down the passage, and I cannoned into a steward.

"Beg pardon," he began—and then seeing the boots in my hand: "You silly owl, why can't you keep out of the way? Where are you going with them boots?"

"Going to clean them, if I can get some blacking," I said.

"Who are you with?"

"Mr. Vincent Gore."

"Oh—Red Bob! Well, I'll give you a lick of blacking after dinner; it isn't boot cleanin' time now."

"I'm going to do them now," I said. "I wish you could—"

"Who's been knocking your face about like that?" he interrupted.

"A hospital patient."

"Hospital patient!"

"He is now."

"Oh—ah—I take you; I comprehend. Well, seeing it's Red Bob you're with, I'll stretch a point and get you the stuff now. Where's your own?"

"Don't know."

"New to the job?"

I made no answer, but looked at him. I might have looked unpleasant. I went off and got me the blacking, and found my cabin and sat down to clean the boots. The job was not so easy as I had expected; but when I had got them clean and shining, I took them down to Number

---

Seven again, and knocked at the door. Your boots, sir," I said.

The electric lights were on, and the cabin, paneled in white and gold and upholstered in amber brocade, looked very bright and luxurious. Gore was standing in the middle of it, swinging to the motion of the ship as he tied his evening tie. He took the boots from me and examined them. He tapped the inside of a heel with one finger.

"Clean that again," he said, and immediately turned to his tie once more, blotting me out of existence.

I went back and cleaned the insides of the heels with microscopical care. The second bell rang while I was at work. I hurried back to the cabin as quickly as I could. Vincent Gore was still there. He examined the boots and set them down.

"Don't let me have to speak about that again," he said. "Unpack while I'm at dinner."

He left the cabin, and walked lightly and securely along the pitching alleyway toward the saloon companion. I did my best with his things. I had never had a valet, but I was fastidious enough about my clothes to guess fairly well how things should be done.

Gore was back before I had quite finished—I learned later that he was a phenomenally small eater and never lingered over meals. He found fault with me again over two or three matters. I shut my teeth and took it in silence. He dismissed me soon, and I went to the steward's pantry and found some one to give me food.

WHY Vincent Robinson Gore, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., F.R.G.S., was by certain people called Red Bob did not become clear to me for some time. There were a good many people on the ship who knew him, but his curious nickname did not seem to be current among the upper classes of our little world afloat. It was the ship proletariat and the ship bourgeoisie who used it—the deck-hands, stokers, pantry boys, and general stewardry. He was Red Bob to all of these. I would not ask them why,

I was supremely happy! I had inherited Spain and Portugal. I owned the Rock of Gibraltar. And when the Empress tied up alongside the jetty of Port Said, I, looking on flat roofs and minarets painted in strange clearness against a sky of hard, high, unknown blue, felt with a deep content that my hands had closed upon the East.

I was well pleased when Gore sent for me, just after we had entered the Canal, and told me, without any preface or explanation, that the cabin steward would take over my valet duties, and that my secretary work began that day.

"You will have a salary of a hundred and fifty and your expenses," he said. "I'll expect you to learn any languages I may require. I can get a working knowledge of any language in three weeks myself, and I don't see why you should take much longer."

He opened a drawer and took out a small volume.

"This is a Malay phrase-book," he said, handing it to me. "It's time you began. How about your German?"

"I'm pretty useful at it," I answered, wondering a little, for I did not see what need there would be for German in the lands through which we were likely to travel.

"Right," said Gore, and dismissed me.

I withdrew. The steward met me in the alleyway. It was as hot as the flue of a stove in there; the ripples on the Canal outside had a sharp, diamond radiance that hit you in the eye, and the line of the shore glittered hard and white and blue through the yellow circles of the ports. The wind-chutes were out all along the ship, looking like great coal shovels. They caught next to no breeze, for we were going with the wind.

"Lord; it's goin' to be like 'ell in the Red Sea," said the steward, mopping his neck. Then he suddenly remembered himself, and put away his handkerchief.

"Beg your pardon, sir, I forgot," he said, pulling himself up straight. "Mr. Gore says you're to go into cabin twenty- nine, sir, down the next alleyway. Hope you'll be comfortable, sir."

I had punched his head, in the stewards' glory-hole, the night before, for borrowing my shoe-brushes without leave; but his calm eye and starched demeanor suggested that he had never met me except as the benevolent employer of a worthy and obliging servant. I could hear the clink of Vincent Gore's gold in his pocket as plainly as if I had seen it put there.

"Thanks," I said. "Will you kindly shift my traps?"

"I did so already, sir. Anything else I can do, sir?"

"No, thanks," I answered, entering my new, neat cabin, with its humming electric fan, and sitting down to meditate on the fresh turn of affairs.

IT was clear to me that I had been successful in passing some test,—I could not tell what,—and that Gore had finally decided to join my fortunes to his. As to what those fortunes might be, I was uncertain; but I was sure of one thing—there was a mystery and a secret somewhere. Vincent Gore was not only an anthropologist and a geographer. What else was he?

The door curtain swung a little, and a subdued tap sounded on the woodwork. "Mr. Gore asking for you, sir," came the steward's voice.

I went back to cabin seven. Gore was still on the sofa under the big open port.

"Shut the door, please," he said. "I wanted to say to you that I have had secretaries, and given them up, because they talked. Don't you talk, young Paul!"

THE last words were shot out with a dynamic violence that almost made me jump; and as he spoke them Gore's cat-pupiled eyes flashed suddenly red. If you have never seen light eyes play this trick, you will not believe me; and, indeed, the small flash sometimes caused by a sudden dilating of the pupil is not very noticeable. As a rule Gore's eyes, however, did not dilate—they seemed to explode; and for one astonishing instant they were red—red as flame. Then the light passed away, and the steady cat-pupil was fixed on me again. But now I did not need to ask any one why Vincent Gore, in the steamer world that knew him so well, went by the name of Red Bob.

"That's all," he said.

When I got back to my cabin, I settled myself for a comfortable afternoon lounge beneath the fan, musing upon many things. Especially did I muse upon the other secretaries, who had talked. Gore was the sort of man who would maroon you penniless in a foreign port without a grain of compunction, if he thought you had given him cause. I made a compact with myself that no cause should be given.

I wondered what wild adventure Red Bob had set for himself this time. Where were we bound, and for what? I had time to picture to myself many curious happenings before that afternoon was over, but none of them so stirring as those that lay in store for us.

To be continued next week

What the Hotel Is Up Against

By EDWARD HUNGERFORD

EVERY town across the United States that calls itself a real American city has a new hotel. It may be six stories in height, or it may be sixteen; but it is sure to be a dominant cubicle, fashioned after the newest metropolitan taverns in New York or in Chicago.

Only, the difference is that, where economic conditions in New York, Chicago, and a few others of our largest cities demand the skyscraper type of hostelry, there is hardly a small city or large town in the country where a hotel fashioned more upon the foreign ideals of an inn—generous as to lawns and porches, with their opportunities for lunches and dinners al fresco—would not have been more fit, to say nothing of less expensive.

Across the Way to the Jitney Lunch

THE new hotel is operated upon the European plan, of course. It was opened with a banquet or a dance, and for a time it did a vast amount of restaurant business. But after that the tidal wave of ever-eating receded—naturally. The maitre d'hôtel—imported from Alsace, by the way of Hartford and Wilkes-Barre—began to lose his smile of welcome. For he had glanced out of the window too many times and watched the room patrons of the hotel slipping noiselessly out of its portals and into the "Gus and Jim Jitney Lunch" across the way, a humble establishment that seemed to thrive almost entirely as a by-product of its aristocratic neighbor.

You may go into almost any American city, even the very large ones, New York or Philadelphia or Chicago, and find low- priced restaurants shouldering themselves against high-priced hotels and deriving a large portion of their patronage from the roomers of those hotels. It is an unpleasant form of competition, but a very persistent one. And it is a form of competition that seems to be increasing both rapidly and constantly.

"I could cut out the restaurants in every one of my hotels and make a lot more money out of them," says one well known hotel-keeper. "The room end of the hotel—and the bar—make the money. The restaurants lose it. But they must be maintained in order that the reputation of the house be maintained. We have to be like the big fellows—which means that we have to give our patrons the same style that they might find on Fifth Avenue or on Michigan Avenue. Ours is a relatively small house and our city is the twenty-second largest in the land. But our menu-cards must carry all the dishes that one may find in a hotel of a thousand sleeping-rooms. We have tremendous iceboxes, brim-filled to meet the occasional orders of a captious patron, and the food that we have to throw away each night would go far toward feeding one of those little Belgian villages."

You ask your hotel-keeper why he can not install a fifty-cent table d'hôie lunch each day, or even one at sixty or seventy-five cents. He shrugs his shoulders and murmurs something about "fixed charges" and "overhead costs." You know something about "fixed charges" and "overhead costs" yourself—you probably have them in your own business. And if the sixteen-story cubicle was built overwhelmingly big merely because a town was more ambitious than careful as to its expenditures, it will have to come sooner or later to a revision of those fixed charges—even at considerable expense to those capitalists who let their enthusiasm run away with their judgment and who builded a million-dollar hotel where a house at half the cost would have been more than sufficient.

For the average man who rides up and down the land is going to continue to ask why, if roast turkey is eighty-five cents a portion on Broadway, where land value is reckoned into the cost of the plat, it must necessarily be eighty-five cents a portion in Syracuse or in Rochester, where land values are so much lower?

A man went into a large hotel in Washington last spring and ordered grapefruit. A half portion of it cost thirty-five cents. He walked down to Central Market, where he bought the same grade of grapefruit, six for a quarter. In Chicago, seven miserable breakfast prunes cost forty cents.

But all of these charges pale before San Francisco. In that delectable town, not only is thirty-five cents asked for half a grapefruit, and the Florida product barred, but a man and his wife paid $1.20 for raspberries and cream for breakfast. A firm head waiter prohibited their sharing a single portion of the fruit, though it would have been ample for three persons. And this despite the fact that the San Francisco markets are the cheapest and the most bountiful of any large city in America.

The "Club" Dinner

ONCE in a while the new hotel has a "club breakfast"—a sort of table d'hôte meal, low-priced, and instituted to meet outside competition. There are many hotels that do not condescend to the "club breakfast." Perhaps they feel that they would lose caste by it. Instead they prefer to lose patronage. Yet there is a brand-new tavern in Chicago which has not hesitated to meet cafeteria competition by installing a cafeteria itself, and by placing in each of its guest-rooms an earnest appeal to its patrons to use the hotel's own restaurants and cafeteria. It has seen that if there is a profit in the cafeteria idea for an outsider, there ought to be at least a similar profit there for itself. Many new hotels of the better class have installed the table d'hôte or "club" luncheons. And a big house in Cleveland, somewhat shouldered aside by a newcomer, has installed a "club" dinner at a most reasonable price—a decided comfort to a man traveling alone, who objects to the high-priced single dishes that confront him in the restaurant of any modern hotel.

At this point it is entirely in order for your hotel proprietor to arise again in the wrath of protest and to say:

"It is not the question of prices that troubles the man that travels. He is willing to pay the prices—look at the way the excess-fare trains on the railroads are crowded nowadays. But he demands the service. After all, that is what a hotel has to sell—service."

To this last—a moment of reasonable attention. And, to save protracted argument, let us waive many a point and admit that service is the chief thing sought by the traveler. But does the man who sojourns in the big modern hotels that have sprung up all the way across the land get service? You and I, being awakened at seven o'clock in the morning by Maggie, the chambermaid on our floor, shouting to Mollie, the chambermaid on the next, do not feel that we are getting it. But if we do not like that way of doing things, we will have to make the best of it. Time and modernity change many things. And appeal to them, like appeal to the head waiter, is generally worse than useless.

Service—the Chief Thing a Hotel Has to Sell

THIS is one side of the picture. Here is the other, contributed by another clever tavern-keeper. He also believes that the chief thing that a hotel has to sell is service. In the houses that he operates you will find something dangerously like that quality. Perhaps that is the reason he has already great taverns in three enterprising cities of the Middle West, and dreams of establishing many more. Perhaps that is the reason that in his hotels Maggie and Mollie do not shout down the corridors, do not rattle your door-knob at seven o'clock in the morning—ostensibly to discover whether there is need of clean towels, but really to find if they may begin the day's dull routine at your apartment. Instead, the telephone central downstairs jingles the bell softly when she arouses you to tell you that there is a telegram for you, and then you sleepily discover that a morning paper has been poked under your door—with the compliments of the house—instead of being retailed to you by concessionaire newsman at an increase of from one to three hundred per cent above the regular price.

When you talk with this tavern-keeper he waxes enthusiastic over this idea of the service relation between the hotel and its patrons. He will give you a little printed code, issued to his employees, which embodies his idea of that relation. That code is good enough to be printed in full here, but space forbids. It reads, in part:

At rare intervals some perverse member of our force disagrees with a guest as to the rightness of this or that. He maintains that the meat is well done—when the guest says that it isn't. Or that this sauce was ordered when the guest says the other. Or the boy did go up to the room. Or that no party called. . . . Either may be right. He is . . no employee of this hotel is allowed the privilege of arguing any point with a guest....

A doorman can swing the door in a manner to assure the guest that he is in his hotel or—he can sling the door in a way that sticks in the guest's "crop" and makes him expect to find at the desk a scratchy, sputtery pen sticking in a potato. A waiter who can say "Pell Mell" when the guest says "Pell Mell" and "Paul Maul" when the guest says "Paul Maul" can make the guest think himself right—and make us think that the waiter is all right....

And just here take heed that, in all discussions between guests of this hotel and our employees, the employee is dead wrong—from the guest's standpoint and from ours.

The man who wrote that little code may not be above criticism. It may be that in his taverns he is charging outrageous prices for grapefruit, or is permitting an established system of hat-checking brigandage at his restaurant door. These things can be overlooked; for he seems to have a fundamental idea of successful business in his head—the fundamental idea of a fair relation between a business and its patrons, such a relation as Marshall Field and John Wanamaker made possible. And it might be well if commerce travelers and other organizations of a similar sort would buy copies of this little code and distribute them, so that every hotel-keeper in the land might possess a copy to read and to digest.

For in such a spirit as this the hotel problem of America—big and perplexing to every one it touches, whether stook-holder or patron, employee or manager—will eventually be solved. And there is no reason why the United States should not become world-famed for the character of its hotels—not merely in an architectural sense, or because of the excellence of their food, or even the fine qualities of their service, but rather because of the skilful blending of all these things with still another—sincere, home-bidding hospitality—the trait of which all of us Yankees are so supremely proud. Here is a recipe upon which a successful hotel may be concocted—almost invariably.

Mr. Robert Gets a Slant

By SEWELL FORD

Illustrations by F. Foster Lincoln

IT'S all wrong, Percy, all wrong. Somebody's been and rung in a revise on this Romeo dope, and here we find ourselves tryin' to make the Cupid Express on a canceled time-card. What do I mean—we? Why, me and Robert. Ah, there you go! No, not Miss Vee. She's all right—don't worry. We're gettin' along fine, Vee and me; that is so far as we've gone. Course there's steen differ'nt varieties of Vee; but I'm strong for all of 'em. So there's no room for tragedy there.

But when it comes to this case of Mr. Robert and a certain party!

You see, after I've sent him back to Miss Hampton loaded up with all them wise hints about rushin' her off her feet, and added that hunch as to rememberin' that he has a pair of arms—well, I leave it to you. Ain't that all reg'lar? Don't they pass it out that way in plays and magazines? Sure! It's the hero with the quick-action strong-arm stuff that wins out in the big scene. So why shouldn't it work for him?

I could tell, though, by the rugged set of jaw as he marches into the private office next mornin', that it hadn't. I expect maybe he'd just as soon not have gone into the subject then, with me or any one else; but so long as he'd sort of dragged me into this fractured romance of his I felt like I had a right to be let in on the results. So I pivots round and springs a sympathetic grin.

"Did you pull it?" says I.

HE shrugs his shoulders kind of weary. "Oh, yes," says he. "I—er—I pulled it."

"Well?" says I, steppin' over and leanin' confidential on the roll-top.

"Torchy," says he, "please understand I am in no way censuring you. You—you meant well."

"Ah, say, Mr. Robert!" says I. "Not so rough. I only gave you the usual get-busy line, and if you went and—"

"Wasn't there some advice," he breaks in, "about using my arms?"

"Eh?" says I, gawpin' at him. "You— you didn't open the act by goin' to a clinch, did you?"

He lets his chin drop and sort of shivers. "I'm afraid I did," says he.

"Z-z-z-zingo!" I gasps.

"You see, the part of your suggestions which impressed me most was something to that effect, as I recall it. And then— oh, the deuce take it, I lost my head! Anyway, the next I knew she was in my arms, and I—I was—" He ends with a shoulder shrug and spreads out his hands. "I thought you ought to know," he goes on, "that it isn't being done."

"But what then?" says I. "Did she hand you one?"

"No," says he. She merely slipped away and—and stood laughing at me. She hardly seemed indignant: just amused."

"Huh!" says I, starin' puzzled. "Then she ain't like any I ever heard of before. Now accordin' to dope she'd either—"

"Miss Hampton is not a conventional young woman," says he. "She made that quite plain. It seems, Torchy, that your—er—that my method was somewhat crude and primitive. In fact, I believe she pointed out that the customs of the Stone Age were obsolete. I was given to understand that she was not to be won in any such manner. Perhaps you can imagine that I was not thoroughly at ease after that."

And, honest, I'd never seen Mr. Robert when he was feelin' so low.

"Gee!" says I. "You didn't quit at that, did you?"

"Unfortunately no," says he. "Our cave-man tactics having failed, I tried the modern style—at least, I thought I was being modern. The usual thing, you know."

"Eh?" says I. "Both knees on the rug and the reg'lar conservatory nook wilt-thou-be-mine lines?"

"I spoke my piece standing," says he, "making it as impassioned and eloquent as I knew how. Miss Hampton continued to be amused."

"Did you get any hint as to what was so funny about all that?" says I.

"It appears," says Mr. Robert, "that impassioned declarations are equally out of date—early-Victorian, to quote Elsa exactly. Anyway, she gave me to understand that while my love-making was somewhat entertaining, it was hopelessly medieval. "She very kindly explained that undying affection, tender devotion, and the protection of manly arms were all tommyrot; that she really didn't care to be enshrined queen of any one's heart or home. She wishes to avoid any step that may hinder the development of her own personality. You—er—get that, I trust, Torchy?"

"Clear as mush," says I. "Was it just her way of handin' you the blue ticket?"

"Not quite," says Mr. Robert. "That is, I'm a little vague as to my exact status myself. I assume, however, that I've been put on probation, as it were, until we become better acquainted."

"And you're standin' for that, Mr. Robert!" says I.

HE hunches his shoulders. "Miss Hampton has taught me to be humble," says he. "I don't pretend to understand her, or to explain her. She is a brilliant and superior young person. She has, too, certain advanced ideas which are a bit startling to me. And yet, even when she's hurling Bernard Shaw or H. G. Wells at me she—she's fascinating. That quirky smile of hers, the quick changes of expression that flash into those big, china-blue eyes, the sudden lift of her fine chin,—how thoroughly alive she is, how well poised! So I—well, I want her, that's all. I—I want her!"

"Huh!" says I. "Suppose you happened to get her? What would you—"

"Heaven only knows!" says he. "The question seems rather, what would she do with me? Hence the probation."

"Is this going to be a long-distance try-out," says I, "with you reportin' for inspection every other Tuesday?"

He says it ain't. Miss Hampton's idea is to shelve the matrimony proposition and begin by seein' if they can qualify as friends. She shows him how they'd never really seen enough of each other to know if they had any common tastes.

"So I am to go with her to a few concerts, art exhibits, lectures, and so on," says he, "while she has consented to try a week-end yachting cruise with me. We start Saturday; that is, if I can make up a little party. But I don't know just whom to ask."

"Pardon me if I seem to hint," says I, "but what's the matter with brother-in-law Ferdie and Marjorie, with Vee and me thrown in for luck?"

"By Jove!" says he, brightenin' up.

"Would you? And would Miss Vee?"

"Maybe we could stand it," says I.

"Done, then!" says he. "I'll 'phone Marjorie at once."

AND you should have watched Mr. Robert for the next few days. Talk about consistent trainin'! Why, he quits goin' to the club, cuts out his lunch hour, and reports at the office at eight-thirty. Not for business, though: Bernard Shaw. Seems he's decided to specialize in Shaw.

Honest, I finds him one noon with a whole tray of lunch gettin' cold, and him sittin' there with his brow furrowed up over one of them batty plays.

"Must be some thrillin'," says I.

"It's clever," says he; "but hanged if I know what it's all about! I must find out though—I must!"

He didn't need to state why. I could see him preparin' to swap highbrow chat with Miss Hampton.

Meanwhile he barely takes time to 'phone a few orders about gettin' the cruisin' yawl ready for the trip. I hear him ring up the Captain, tell him casual to hire a cook and a couple of extra hands, provision for three or four days, and be ready to sail Saturday noon. Which

---

ain't the way he usually does it, believe me! Why, I've known him to hold up a directors' meetin' for an hour while he debated with a yacht tailor whether a mainsail should be thirty-two foot on the hoist, or thirty-one foot six. And instead of shippin' up cases of mineral water and crates of fancy fruit, he has them blamed Shaw books packed careful, and expressed to the boat.

WE was to meet on the boat about noon; but it's after eleven before Mr. Robert shuts his desk and sings out to me to come along. We piles into his roadster and breezes up through town and out towards the Sound. Found the whole party waitin' for us at the club-house: Vee and Marjorie and Ferdie and Miss Hampton, all lookin' more or less yachty.

"Hello!" says Mr. Robert. "Haven't gone aboard yet?"

"Go aboard what, I'd like to know?" speaks up Marjorie.

"Why, the Pyxie," says he. "See, there she is anchored off—well, what the deuce! Pardon me for a moment."

With that he steps over to a six-foot megaphone swung from the club veranda and proceeds to boom out a few remarks.

"Pyxie ahoy! Hey, there! On board the Pyxie!" he roars.

No response from the Pyxie, and just as he's startin' to repeat the performance up strolls one of the float tenders and hands him a note which soon has him gaspy and pink in the ears. It's from his fool captain, explainin' how that rich uncle of his in Providence had been taken very bad again and how he had to go on at once. The message is dated last Wednesday.

Course, there's nothing for Mr. Robert to do but tell the crowd just how the case stands.

"How absurd—just an uncle!" pouts Marjorie. "Now we can't go cruising at all, and—and I have three pairs of perfectly dear deck shoes that I wanted to wear!"

"Really!" says Mr. Robert. "Then we'll go anyway; that is, if you'll all agree to ship as a Corinthian crew. What do you say?" And he glances doubtful at Miss Hampton.

"I'm sure I don't know what that means," says she; "but I am quite ready to try."

"Oh, let's!" says Vee, clappin' her hands. "I can help."

"And Ferdie is a splendid sailor," chimes in Marjorie. "He's crossed a dozen times."

"Then we're off," says Mr. Robert.

And inside of ten minutes the club launch has landed us, bag and baggage, on the Pyxie.

SHE'S a roomy, comf'table sort of craft, with a kicker engine stowed under the cockpit. There's a couple of state-rooms, plenty of bunks, and a good big cabin. We leaves the ladies to settle themselves below while Mr. Robert inspects things on deck.

"Plenty of gasolene, thank goodness!" says he. "And the water butts are full. We can touch at Greenwich for supplies. Now let's get sail on her, boys."

And it was rich to see Ferdie, all gussied up in yellow gloves, throwin' his whole one hundred and twenty-three pounds onto a rope. Say, about all the yachtin' Ferdie and me had ever done before was to stand around and look picturesque. But this was the real thing, and it comes mighty near bein' reg'lar work, take it from me.

But by the time the girls appeared we had yanked up all the sails that was handy, and the Pyxie was slanted over, just scootin' through the choppy water gay and careless, like she was glad to be tied loose.

"Isn't this glorious?" exclaims Miss Hampton, steadying herself on the high side and glancin' admirin' up at the white sails stretched tight as drumheads.

I expect that should have been Mr. Robert's cue to shoot off something snappy from Bernard Shaw; but just about then he's busy cuttin' across in front of a big coastin' schooner, and all he remarks is:

"Hey, Torchy! Trim in on that main sheet. Trim in, you duffer! Pull! That's it. Now make fast."

Nothin' fancy about Mr. Robert's yachtin' outfit. He's costumed in an old pair of wide-bottomed white ducks some splashed with paint, and with his sleeves rolled up and a faded old cap pulled down over his eyes he sure looks like business. I could see Miss Hampton glancin' at him sort of curious.

But he don't have time to glance back; for we was zigzaggin' up the Sound, dodgin' steamers and motorboats and other yachts, and he was keepin' both eyes peeled. Every now and then too something had to be done in a hurry.

"Ready about!" he'd call. "Now! Hard a-lee! Leggo that jib sheet—you, Ferdie. Slack it off. Now trim in on the other side. Flatter. Oh, haul it home!"

And I expect Ferdie and me wa'n't any too much help.

"Why, I never knew that yachting could be so exciting," says Miss Hampton. "It's really quite a game, isn't it?"

"Especially with a green crew," says Mr. Robert.

"But what a splendid breeze!"

"It'll be fresh enough by the time we open up Captains Island," says he. "Just wait!"

Sure enough, as we gets further up the Sound the harder it blows. The waves

got bigger too, and begun sloppin' over the bow, up where Ferdie was managin' the jib.

"Oh, I say!" he sings out. "I'm getting all splashed, you know."

"Couldn't he have an umbrella?" asks Marjorie.

"Please," puts in Vee, "let me handle the jib sheets. I've sailed a half-rater, and I don't mind getting wet, not a bit."

"Then for the love of soup go forward and send Ferdie aft!" says Mr. Robert. "Quick now! I'm coming about again. Hard a-lee!"

"How wonderful!" says Miss Hampton as she watches Vee juggle the ropes skilful. "I wish I could do that!"

"Do you?" says Mr. Robert eager. "Perhaps you'll let me teach you how to sail. Would you like to try the wheel? Here! Now this way puts her off, and the other brings her up. See?"

"N-n-not exactly," says Miss Hampton, grippin' the spokes gingerly.

It wa'n't any day, though, for a steerin' lesson. Most of the time the deck was on quite a slant, which seems to amuse Miss Hampton a lot.

"How odd!" says she. "We're sailing almost on edge, aren't we? Isn't it glorious!"

MR. ROBERT don't seem to be so enthusiastic. He keeps watching the sails and the water and rollin' the wheel constant.

"I suppose we really ought to get some of this canvas off her," says he. "Ferdie, could you help tie in a reef?"

"I—I don't know, I'm sure," says Ferdie, "I think perhaps—"

"This wouldn't be a thinking job," says Mr. Robert. "Of course I might douse the mainsail altogether and run under jib and jigger; but—no, I guess she'll carry it. Ease off on that main sheet a trifle, Torchy."

We was makin' a straight run for it now, slap up the Sound—and believe me we was breezin' along some swift! Vee had come back with the rest of us, her hair all sparkled up with salt spray and her eyes shinin', and shows me how to coil up the slack of the sheet like a door-mat. On and on we booms, with the land miles away on either side.

"But see here!" protests Ferdie. "I thought we were to stop at Greenwich for provisions."

"Make in there against this head wind?" says Mr. Robert. "Not to-day."

It's comin' in heavy puffs now, and the sky is cloudin' up some. Two or three times Mr. Robert heads the Pyxie up into it and debates about takin' in the mainsail. Then he decides it would be better to square off and make for some cove he knows of on the north shore of Long Island. So we let out the sheet a bit more and go plungin' along.

Must have been about four o'clock when it got to blowin' hardest. A puff would hit us and souse the bow under, with the spray flyin' clear over us. We'd heel until the water was runnin' white along the lee deck from bow to stern. Then it would let up a bit, and the yacht would straighten and sort of shake herself before another came.

"I think we'll have to slack away on our peak and spill some of this over the gaff," says Mr. Robert. "Torchy, stand by that halyard, and when I give the word—

Cr-r-r-rack! It come mighty abrupt. For a minute I can't make out what has happened; but when I sees the mast stagger and go lurchin' overboard, sail and thought it was a case of women and children first.

"Oh, dear! How dreadful of you, Robert!" wails Ferdie. "We're wrecked. Help! Help!"

"Oh, dry up, Ferdie!" says Mr. Robert. "No hysterics, please. Can't lose a mast or so without getting panicky? Just a weak turnbuckle on the weather stay, that's all. Here, Vee, take the wheel, will you, and see if you can keep her headed into it while we chop away this wreckage. Torchy, you'll find a couple of axes over the forward lockers' Get 'em up. Lively, now!"

We hacked away reckless, choppin' through wire stays and ropes until we has it all clear. Then we trims in the jigger and gets away from it. Two minutes later and we've got the engine started and are wallowin' along towards

It was near six before we made the cove and anchored in smooth water behind a little point.

MEANWHILE the girls had gone below to explore the galley, and when we fin'lly makes everything snug and trails on down into the cabin to see how they're comin' on, what do we find but the tab all set and Marjorie fillin' the water glasses. Also there's a welcome smell of food driftin' about.

"Well, well!" says Mr. Robert. "Found something to eat, did you? What's the menu?"

"Smothered potatoes with salt pork baked beans, hard-tack, and coffee," says Marjorie. "Here it comes."

And, say, maybe that don't sound so thrillin' to you, but to me it listens luscious.

"By Jove!" says Mr. Robert, after he sampled the layout. "Who's the cook?"

Vee says it was Miss Hampton.

"Wha-a-at?" says he, starin'. "Not really?"

Miss Hampton comes back at him with that quirky smile of hers. "Why the intense surprise?" says she.

"But I didn't dream," says Mr. Robert; "that you ever did anything so—er—"

"Commonplace?"

"Early-Victorian," he corrects.

"Cook?" says she. "Oh, dear, yes. I can wash dishes too."

"Can you?" says he. "I'm fine at wiping 'em."

"Such conceit!" says she.

"Then I'll prove it," says he, "right after dinner."

"I'll help you, Robert," says Marjorie.

"My dear sister," says he, "please consider the size of the Pyxie's galley."

SO, as there didn't seem to be any more competition, after we'd finished everything in sight we left the two of 'em joshin' away merry, doin' the dishes. Later on, while Ferdie's pokin' around he makes a discovery.

"Oh, I say, Bob," he calls down, "there's a box up here that hasn't been opened. Groceries, I think. Come have a look at it."

Mr. Robert he takes one glance turns away disgusted. "No," says "I know what's in there. No use at on this trip." Then, as he passes me he whispers, "I say, when you get a chance chuck that box overboard, will you?"

I nods, grinnin', and explains confidential to Vee.

And half an hour or so afterwards ten perfectly good volumes of Bernard Shaw splashed overboard.

Next we sends Ferdie to take a peek down the companionway and report.

"They're looking at a chart," says he.

"Same side of the table," says I, "or opposite?"

"Why, they're both on one side."

"Huh!" says I, nudgin' Vee. "That highbrow line might work out in time but for a quick get-together proposition. I'm backin' the dish-pan."

Just as Brave as Men

These Are The Interesting People You Sent Us

---

Things that Couldn 't Happen Anywhere Except in Moving Pictures

THE light flickers and flashes, and suddenly a great formless image is thrown upon the screen. Suddenly it stirs, gapes in the middle, and you realize all at once that it is a huge human eye. Little by little it opens, and there in the very center of the eye-ball looms the figure of a man pointing a revolver straight into your face.

Secret Processes that Are Jealously Guarded

A FULLY armed man standing in the center of a human eye—that is one of the things that couldn't happen anywhere except in moving pictures. Almost every one of the great film companies has at some time released a trick film in which weird things are made to happen by the magic of the camera. Nothing is more jealously guarded than the secret processes by which these effects are produced. In this particular case the picture was the photograph of a real human eye, photographed close up to the camera, so that it filled the entire screen when projected, and looked to be of enormous size. The man with the gun was photographed at some distance from the camera, and the two films so cleverly superimposed as to give the effect pictured above.

One reads much of the huge salaries paid to moving picture stars, but hears little of the hardships of "stunt" picture- making. Who knows how many broken legs have been offered up on the altar of popular entertainment, or how many days' salaries have been lost because tired, bruised limbs refused to be dragged out of bed? The dive shown in the first picture was made more than once before the camera caught it perfectly—and it was a long dive, and a dangerous one. Even more dangerous was the leap of the girl from the balcony into the arms of the hero below. Real flame enveloped her, and her eyes smarting from smoke made it difficult to gage the distance. Yet the leap had to be made.

Would You Like to Act in Moving Pictures?

HAVE you stage aspirations? Do the reports of princely incomes lure you? There is a place for you with any one of the big film companies, providing only one thing—providing that you are a freak. All the companies are plentifully supplied with beautiful girls and gallant young men; but when it comes to the sort of actors that directors call "types"—the people who, because of exceeding thinness or fatness or length or breadth or ugliness, would attract a crowd on the street—there is always a dearth of applicants. To secure the four waiters shown in the picture above—the fat one, the tough one, the short one, and the thin one—New York was combed from top to bottom. Lew Fields, who is shown at the right, coaching the four, found his work very easy. All he had to do was to advise each one to "look natural." Yes, there is a place for you in motion pictures, and a good salary, if you look anything like these four actors—and you won't have to learn to act, either. Just be natural, and the acting will take care of itself.

Who Was Marie Dupont?

By ADELE LUEHRMANN

Illustration by Frank Snapp

THAT night the unhappy Jeannette danced at the theater, and the following day she took her father to the registry of marriages, and read there the names of John Andrus and Alix Ravelle. The promised letter never came.

Jean brooded, hardly ate, hardly slept, and when in the fall a mild fever attacked him it made a quick sweep.

After his death Jeannette planned to go to Paris to find Alix. Like a miser she watched her savings grow, and in the spring her goal was reached.

SHE arrived in Paris on the nineteenth of April, and found lodgings with the family of a small shopkeeper.

In her search she had two clues,—the names of John Andrus and Dr. Renoir. At the address of the former the woman who opened the door said that Monsieur was out.

"And Madame?"

The woman grinned broadly. "Mademoiselle deceives herself, " she said. "There is no Madame Andrus."

Jeannette clutched dizzily at the door-frame. "She is dead?" she faltered.

"Dead! She is not yet born!" the woman cried with a laugh. "It is to say," she explained, "Monsieur is a bachelor."

What could it mean? With her own eyes she had seen next the marriage record found in Palermo. The next morning she found Renoir's address in a directory and went to his house. She was about to enter the building when to her astonishment she met her sister emerging from it.

"Jeannette!" Alix cried in amazement.

"Come," she said, and hailing a passing cab drew her sister into it. "What are you doing here? Where is father?"

He is dead," said Jeannette, and told what had happened during their separation. The story was interrupted by their arrival at Alix's home.

Jeannette stared about the charming apartment curiously. "Where is your husband?" she ventured finally.

"We separated the day we arrived in Paris. I didn't love him, and he knew it.

It was better for both of us. He wanted to surprise his friends; so he had not written them of his marriage. That made it easy to go back to his old life."

"DO you never see him?"

"Yes; sometimes he comes to see me dance. Sometimes he comes here. People think he is in love with me, that's all." She leaned forward a little. "Listen, Jeannette," she said earnestly. "If you should ever need help of any kind, go to him."

"But what help shall I need now that I have found you?" asked Jeannette.

"Oh, I don't know—you never can tell. I might die or—well, you never know what will come. He would help you. He is the only good man I have ever known."

"Oh, Alix, I was so glad when I heard that Dr. Renoir was still alive! I had been so afraid—you know you said—"

"Yes, I know. And I meant it. I hated him, loathed him. I wanted to make him suffer as I had suffered. But when I saw him again, heard him speak, touched him—" She sprang up and flung her arms out with a gesture of surrender. "I'm a woman, Jeannette, and you are still a child—You can't understand! I loved him first—I shall love him always! When I arrived here he was in Germany, and for months I had to wait and wait. I got an engagement to dance at the opera—"

"The opera! Oh, Alix!"

Alix laughed shortly. "Not as première: in the ballet! I took the name of Floria and said I was Italian. I hoped that when they saw me dance I should be promoted; but I soon found there was no chance of that. Then he came back and found a place for me in a theater—the Purple Pigeon. Well, I have had a success. The men who come to see me dance are very rich and buy a great deal of champagne, and so I am valuable."

"Alix!"

"That is Paris! I cannot change it—it was so before I was born! But now we must have some dinner. I have given my maid a holiday to-day, so we are alone."

When dinner was over Alix prepared to go to the theater. Jeannette was not permitted to accompany her. "It is not a place for you," she was told.

"To-night you will stay here," said Alix. "To-morrow—well, we shall see. Do not wait up for me: I may be very late."

She kissed her sister affectionately.

"Sleep well," Alix said. "And remember what I told you. If you ever need help, go to John Andrus!"

LEFT alone, Jeannette lay down on a couch with a book, intending to read; but weariness overcame her, and she soon fell asleep.

She was awakened by a touch on her arm. Alix was bending over her. "Jeannette, wake up; I need you!"

Jeannette started up in alarm. "What's the matter?" she cried.

"Open your dress at the neck," Alix directed, and while the other tremblingly obeyed she opened her handbag and took out a jeweled necklace. This she clasped about Jeannette's throat, then refastened the dress, so concealing it. "Now put this on," she ordered, and slipping out of the long, fur-trimmed coat she wore, she helped her sister into it. Around her head she wound a scarf. Then she said:

"Now listen carefully. This is what you must do. At the entrance of this house a cab is waiting. Get into it, and tell the chauffeur to go to the Hotel Meurice. He will know where it is, and when you arrive there pay and dismiss him. Here is my purse. In front of the Meurice you will find another cab; perhaps several, so watch carefully. At the window of one a hand will appear holding a lighted cigar. This one you will get into without speaking."

"Oh, Alix!"

"You needn't be afraid: no one will harm you. In the cab there will be a man. Tell him that you are my sister—the sister of Mademoiselle Floria, remember. Speak French: he doesn't know English. Take off the necklace and give it to him, and tell him that I have changed my mind. He'll understand. Then get out of the cab, take another, and come back here."

"But what does it mean?"

"When you return I'll explain—I'll tell you everything. Now you must hurry."

"But why don't you go yourself? Wouldn't that be better?"

Alix shook her head impatiently. "If he once got me into that cab, he'd never let me go again. Oh, don't look so frightened: nothing will happen to you! Do hurry. It will be all right, I tell you!"

Through the silent halls Jeannette went, shivering, and her teeth chattered as she spoke to the waiting chauffeur. The streets seemed very dark and empty and still.

The cab stopped. She stumbled out, and as she stood, feeling in her purse with nervous hand for the fare; her eyes peered along the dark line of waiting vehicles. From the window of one of them an ungloved hand shot out.

A moment she lingered, her knees shaking violently; then, forcing her limbs to action, she advanced toward the beacon of a cigar's red glow. As she approached it the cigar was dropped into the gutter below, the door of the cab was thrown open, and a hand drew her in. The next instant the door slammed and the cab started.

BEFORE she had time to speak an arm was clasped about her, and a deep guttural voice close to her face said in French, "At last!" Then she felt the fierce pressure of lips on her mouth.

With the strength of terror and abhorrence she tore herself away. "Wait! Wait!" she cried in French. "There's a mistake!"

"What?"

"Stop the cab! I'll explain. I'm not Alix—I'm not Mademoiselle Floria!"

"What!"

A light was flashed in her face, and she recoiled from it blindly.

Her companion laughed and dropped his electric flasher into his pocket. "You are in a merry mood to-night, my darling," he said, and caught her again in his arms. He thought she was jesting!

She tried to free herself from his embrace, and could not. A nausea seized her, she grew faint—

IN her next moment of consciousness she was lying back against the cushions of the cab with a burning sensation in her throat and a sharp pain in her eyes. And opening her eyes she was again blinded by the strong light from the flash-light.

"Mademoiselle, who are you?" asked her companion abruptly, and at the question she gave a gasp of relief. He knew then that she was not Alix!

She sat up. "Monsieur, I am the sister of Mademoiselle Floria—her twin sister. It was only to-day that she knew I was in Paris. She sent me in her place to-night to give you back your necklace and to tell you that she had changed her mind."

A dark flush overspread the man's face. "Where is she now?" be asked brusquely.

"At home."

"I see. It is well. We shall return to Paris at once."

"Return to Paris!" she echoed.

"It took some time to restore you: you fainted, " he explained, then rapped sharply at the window.

But the chauffeur gave no sign of having heard.

With an exclamation of impatience the man threw the door open and called out imperiously, "Stop!"

The car came to a halt, and the chauffeur appeared at the door.

"Return to Paris," said his employer shortly, and gave the door a jerk.

But the chauffeur blocked its way. He had moved sharply at the order, and now

---

stood with his head thrust forward, peering past the man at Jeannette. His face was in shadow, and she could make out no feature of it; but her companion, who was nearer, seemed to distinguish enough to startle him; for, demanding gruffly:

"Who are you?" he flashed the light.

There was an instant's illumination, time enough for Jeannette to take in only the full beard that concealed the lower part of the chauffeur's face and the visor of the cap that hid his eyes. The next moment he had seized the flasher.

"It's I, Alix! On guard!" he cried, and at that sprang at her companion.

At the impact the latter was thrown, and reaching for support he clutched the collar of her coat. She felt the drag at her neck, heard the sound of breaking threads, then saw the two men locked in each other's arms in the road.

ASTONISHMENT and fright rendered her incapable of thought; but instinct moved her to action, to flight, anywhere away from those mad, struggling beasts. She opened the door at her side and slipped noiselessly to the ground and across to the border of grass that stretched along the stone wall at the roadside. Then, without a thought of caution, as heedlessly as a frightened hare, she began to run. Behind her she could hear the scuffling of feet and panting, gasping breaths.

Suddenly she reached a turning in the road and paused a moment. To her right she saw squatting village houses.

Keeping close to the shrubbery, she dashed on through the dark. Suddenly she came to a sharp halt. She had heard something, and at the sound she dropped to the ground, her heart thumping wildly.

The car was coming down the road. It stopped almost opposite her. There was a moment of silence. Then a voice called out, "Alix, Alix! Where are you?" Again a pause. "Come here, you fool!" Then a snarl of rage and an oath.

Jeannette hardly breathed. Each moment she counted as the last before discovery. It was the chauffeur's voice that called. This man with the beard and the cap over his eyes, who was he? And where now was the other man? What had happened? What would happen when he found her?

She lay without stirring until the whir of the car had receded, then raised her head. The car was gone.

She sprang to her feet and ran on again. Faintly from the distance came the sound of a train whistle. Just ahead was a railway station. Perhaps the train would stop there, perhaps it was bound for Paris.

HALF an hour later she was mounting the stairs to her sister's apartment. Alix was waiting, wild-eyed and pale.

"My God!" she cried, wringing her hands when she had heard Jeannette's story. "And you don't know how it ended, this fight?"

"I know that it was the chauffeur who tried to find me—"

"The chauffeur was Felix Renoir," Alix interrupted. "Listen! I must tell you everything; for you must help me. He will come here, I am sure of it—any moment! He must not know that it was not I in the cab. If he found out that I had failed him, he would never forgive me. Oh, Jeannette, don't look at me like that! Try to understand. I love him, and he drove me mad. Others fell at my feet; but I could not move him. I played with the others to hurt him, to make him jealous. One of these was Prince Xico of Rumania. He had a wonderful necklace with a sacred cross which was given by the Patriarch of Constantinople to one of his ancestors. I wore it when I danced. My portrait was painted wearing it. All Paris talked. I cared nothing for him or for his necklace; but I saw that for the first time I had touched Felix. He came every night to see me dance, and I was happy! Then a week ago he stopped coming, and I heard that he had been seen with some one else. I was beside myself!

"Yesterday the Prince came to me. The King had commanded his return to Bukharest, and he had come to say good- by. He had the necklace with him; he put it on me. 'Kiss the cross,' he said, and to humor him I did it. Then he took it from me and wrenched it from the necklace and kissed it and held it up and looked at me. 'Now you are mine forever!' he said. 'Forever your fate is linked with mine!"

"What did he mean?"

Alix shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "He is ignorant and superstitious. It is a legend in his family that the cross has some sort of magic power. Centuries ago some old witch predicted that it would be broken from the rest of the necklace three times. It had happened twice, he said: this was the third time. 'Now,' he said, 'when we die, you and I, it will be in the same hour and by the same hand."

"The same hand! What did he mean?"

"That we'd be murdered, I suppose: people were always killing one another in those days. Of course I didn't believe such silly rubbish! But he begged me to go away with him, to Russia. I could dance in St. Petersburg, I should be famous, he said; then I could come back here to the opera. At last I said I would. Anything seemed better than staying here. He left the necklace with me and took the cross, and I agreed to meet him in a cab at the Meurice after I had finished dancing. He stayed away from the theater so as to throw his friend, Count Szemere, off his track.

"WELL, after he was gone I thought of Felix, and I knew that I could not go away without seeing him again. I went to his laboratory and told him that I was going to Russia with the Prince. 'To Russia!' he said. 'And his wonderful necklace he will leave in Paris, I suppose?' 'No, he will take it with him,' I said, 'and I shall wear it when I dance in St. Petersburg!'

"He didn't say anything for a while; then suddenly he caught me in his arms. He told me then that he had always loved me, but was too poor to marry me in Palermo, and had left me as he had, thinking that if I hated him I would soon love some one else and that would be best for me. He was only a poor surgeon; but if he had anything, even such a necklace as that of the Prince, we could go to America together and be happy. Oh, I don't know all that he said—when his arms are around me I can't think! Suddenly he said he had thought of a plan. I was to meet the Prince as I had promised and persuade him to let me have the cross to carry in my dress for safety. At Argonne, where we would have to stop for gasolene, he would be waiting in another car, he would signal me, I would slip out and join him, and we would catch a train and later a boat for America. Well,—I agreed."

"Alix, that was stealing!"

"I was desperate. It was my one chance of happiness. I promised. Then as I left the house—I met you. And when I went to the theater last night I never expected to see you again, Jeannette. That was why I told you to go to John Andrus if you ever needed help. But during the evening something came over me. I realized that I could never do the thing I had promised. So I sent you to give the necklace back to Prince Xico. I thought that would end the matter. I meant to tell Felix that the Prince had changed his mind. And now—"

"Alix, I have the necklace still!" Jeannette exclaimed. "I had no chance to give it to him." She raised her hands to her throat; but Alix stopped her.

"Let it stay. To-morrow I shall return it. I wonder," she went on with a puzzled frown, "why Felix changed his plan? The beard was for a disguise. I wonder what he meant to do? I wonder—sh!"

She threw up her head in an attitude of keen listening. "That was a step on the stairs—he is coming," she whispered.

She led her sister to the rear of the apartment, and opening the door of a small, dark room pushed her into it.

"This is my maid's room," she said. "Lock the door and wait. Be quiet—and don't make a light! He must not suspect that you are here. I want him to think that I kept my word to him. When he is gone I will come and tell you. Don't come out until I do. It won't be long."

In the darkness Jeannette waited. She had heard her sister's receding footsteps, the closing of a door, then nothing more. At last the sound of steps again reached her, and she started up from the chair to which she had groped her way. Alix was coming back! But the steps came to a halt, then retreated again.

Once more she waited, ears strained to attention. She shivered with the cold and with a dread she could not define. Then suddenly it struck her that a change had come over her surroundings. She made out some garments hanging over a chair, and on a rude dressing table the outlines of some simple toilet articles. Among these the glint of steel struck her eye, and looking closer she saw that it was the blade of a knife, a dirk with a rough bone handle. She stared at it absently. Suddenly she realized that day was breaking. In alarm she started to her feet. Hours must have passed! What could have happened?

Suddenly resolve tensed her nerves. She would wait no longer. Noiselessly she turned the key, and as she did so the fingers of her free hand darted out and grasped the knife from the dressing table.

The gray light of dawn filled the rooms through which she passed in swift silence. They were empty, and like a flash came the thought, Alix is gone!—Felix Renoir has taken her away!

"Alix!" she called frantically, and dashed headlong into the salon.

The sight she met there froze her with dumb horror. On the floor lay the body of her sister, her face so gashed that it bore no semblance to itself. A long time she must have lain there; for the blood from a wound in the breast had oozed out until it stained the whole bodice.

Frozen and mute, Jeannette remained, how long she did not know. Then slowly, without conscious thought or purpose, her right hand raised itself and slipped the knife it held into the opening of her bodice. Over a chair hung the fur-trimmed coat where she had thrown it on her return that night. She caught it up, put it on, and without a backward glance hurried from the house.

As she sped through the streets one thought possessed her. She was going to kill Renoir. He had done this thing, and he must die for it.

"Look out! Look out!"

The sharp English words pierced her absorption. Involuntarily she turned her head—

SLOWLY the story had been drawn from Marie. There had been breaks while she sobbed despairingly for the sister she had lost, and Hugh and Mrs. Thorley had comforted her as best they could. Gently but persistently Hugh questioned her; for he knew that never again would she have the details of that tragic night so clearly in mind. The mental impressions of seven intervening years must soon crowd in and dull the memories of the past.

"It's been a hard, sad experience for you, dear child," said Mrs. Thorley; "but great good has come of it."

The girl assented with a quivering sigh. She looked at Hugh. "It was your voice today, just as it was that morning in Paris, that—saved me. Oh, can one have such possibilities—in oneself and never even guess it? To think that I would have killed a man!"

"You were half-crazed with grief !" said Mrs. Thorley. "And no wonder!"

"Of course," Hugh agreed. "And this morning when you saw Renoir your mind took up the train of thought at the point where the shock of the accident had interrupted it, that's all. Probably nothing except the shock of seeing that face would ever have restored your memory. His flight is confession of his guilt. He killed the Prince; then, thinking that Alix had been in the car and knew what he had done, he—silenced her."

Marie gave a start. "And they died 'by the same hand,' as the Prince had said." There was a touch of awe in her voice.

"I don't think we shall ever see Renoir again, unless," Hugh hesitated, watching her face, "we try to find him."

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "What good would that do anyone?"

"You are right," he said.

"How strange," she went on after a moment, "that all that happened to me on that terrible night should in an instant have been shut from my knowledge! But what a blessing—for me!" The look of gratitude and affection that she gave them made words unnecessary.

"THERE'S one thing that seems strange to me," said Hugh, "and that is the fact that the people with whom you lodged in Paris did not report to the police that you were missing. Surely they must have wondered why you did not return."

"Oh, that isn't strange," Marie replied. "I had told them, you see, that I was going to try to find my cousin, Dr. Ravelle.

They probably thought I had found him, that he was rich, and I didn't think my few poor belongings worth returning for."

"Tell me, my dear," Mrs. Thorley asked. "Had you ever worn a dress like the one you danced in the other night?"

"My dress?" Marie repeated, pausing to follow the train of memories started by the question. "Why, that is like one of Alix's dancing dresses that I saw in her apartment! And my dance! They said I had changed it. I was not conscious of what I did after the applause came on the pirouette—until Miss Niklova's violin string broke—" She broke off with a start. "Miss Niklova—John Andrus—he died—"

Her listeners waited anxiously.

"Miss Niklova was very unhappy—she loved him," she murmured vaguely, "and he was my husband— Oh, no, no! He married Alix! Oh—" She covered her face with her hands.

They waited in silence. After a time she looked up from one to the other. I remember it all now," she said quietly. "I am Guy Amarinth's wife. Our marriage is to be annulled."

"But now that we know all about you, he will feel differently," said Mrs. Thorley. "I feel differently too."

"Then let me send for him"; Thorley started for the door.

But Marie stopped her. "I didn't mean that," she said. "I meant that I am different from what I was when I married him. How can I be the same? How can I see things or people in the same way? Oh, don't you understand? I could never be his wife! I want to be free. You said the marriage could be annulled."

"Well," said Mrs. Thorley, "while you two settle matters I am going to 'phone Dr. Sterling. I sha'n't be satisfied until he has looked Marie over."

"You are quite sure about your feeling for him?" Hugh asked when they were alone.

"I am quite sure."

"Then I shall go on with the matter without delay."

He stood up as if to go, and she too rose, and for a minute they stood facing each other silently. Then as he turned away she spoke:

"Last night, when you knew nothing about me, when I didn't even have a name—you offered me yours. I—I shall never forget that."

"I offered you something else too," he said, his voice very low; "but you didn't want either of them."

"I want them now," she whispered.

"Marie!" He caught her hands.

"Don't you see that I was like a child who looks at things without understanding them? Why, the best thing life can give a woman was at my elbow, and I didn't even see it!"

"Are you sure—are you sure?"

"I am sure."

"And it isn't—gratitude?"

She lifted her eyes bravely to his.

"Kiss me!" she whispered.

He folded her in his arms and kissed her. Then she drew back a little and looked up at him. Her face was flushed and lovely. A smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.

THE END

Nobody Wants His Job

THERE is only one man in this big country of ours who calls himself an expert on bombs and infernal machines, charged with dynamite, gunpowder, nitroglycerin, chlorate of potash, mercuric cyanide, and various other chemicals of an explosive nature, set ready to burst and blow things into kingdom come.

When a bomb or other supposedly deadly missile is discovered, he responds to the call—comes for it, takes it to a little one-story, one-room building seven feet high by five square, locks himself inside, and then digs, scratches, and pulls apart what has just been put together to destroy life and property.

He has no fear, but proceeds to his task with spirit, even buoyancy. He contemplates the live, primed missile, which in his hands must be opened and all its deadly components separated and tabulated, as an ordinary job for an ordinary man. Each new bomb is a strangely engaging novelty to him, a sort of rare speculative function.

No Insurance Company Will Take Him as a Risk

MR. EAGAN displays all this calmness and intrepidity in spite of the fact that if he should be killed to-morrow his wife and four children would be left without insurance money; for no insurance company will take him as a risk. And the law puts him in a class that is not allowed to bring damage suits against the city in case of injury sustained in the performance of duty.

He has no chance for promotion, for there is no place to which he can now be promoted. Being in and of a collateral branch of the fire service, the department pension does not apply to him.

No one has ever offered to be his under-study, nor is there any one to succeed him when he quits.

And for all this he gets the munificent salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year!

There you have a sketch of the job held down for twenty-one years by Inspector Owen Eagan of New York's Bureau of Combustibles, who, in that time, has opened, transported, analyzed, and destroyed more than seven thousand death-dealing contraptions of all shapes and sizes. There isn't another job like his in the world; moreover, there isn't another man in the world who wants the job!

A short, fat, squat man he is, with a great round body and heavy arms and legs. His eyes are blue-gray and inquisitive, and his face full and smiling. His hair is bushy and curly, and just touched with the frost that comes in the middle fifties.

He looks like a perfect physical specimen—though you will notice that the index-finger of his left hand is missing. If you ask him he will tell you that, in addition to this missing finger, the thumb of his right hand is nerveless and three of the fingers are numbed into uncertain availability; also, the dark hue of the right cheek and eyelid is due to the presence of particles of steel embedded in the tissues.

These "excepts" to his perfect physical condition are the result of the explosion of the most cunningly contrived instrument of death ever devised—the only bomb of the seven thousand he has handled which exploded in his hands, or, as Eagan himself expresses it, "the only bomb in the whole lot that ever got me."

It is Eagan's duty to match his nimble wits against the diabolical cunning of the secret assassin.

By discovering that there are certain characteristics in the making of bombs which prove almost to a certainty that they are constructed by an individual or group of individuals employing the same methods, he has broken up New York's "bomb industry" and sent to Sing Sing several bomb-makers.

Every bomb found in New York, whether exploded or unexploded, passes through his hands. He is so familiar with bombs, he knows them all by their first names.

Twenty-one years' experience in digging out of hell fire and brimstone tangible evidence for the police to work on has enabled him to tell at a glance whether an infernal machine is the work of a crank or of a professional black-hander.

Neither a Stoic nor a Fatalist

STILL, he is neither a stoic nor a fatalist.

He goes about his work with extreme caution, and he works day and night, Sundays and holidays; for he is at the beck and call of anybody in the greater city who thinks he has found a bomb.

"Suppose you go over to the magazine some day with a bomb and don't return," ventured an inquisitive one.

"Well, they'll be able to tell when it happened by seeing what time my watch stopped!" replied Eagan.

There are certain regulations connected with his office, and these he has never failed to follow—as yet.

"I'm as sound as a dollar," says he, "—up to the present time."

She's Happier in the Air than on the Ground

IF, for three generations, all your ancestors had been engaged in the business of risking their necks for a living, a little thing like dropping 1,600 feet from a military aeroplane rushing along at the rate of 75 miles an hour would seem as natural and easy to you as stepping out of a jitney bus. At least, that's what Tiny Broadwick says; and she ought to know, for she tried It. Indeed, she has been trying similar stunts for most of her nineteen years, and she says that she's happier in the air than on the ground: Yes, and safer too.

Tiny's father was a parachute jumper before Tiny was born; and his father was practising that same perilous occupation before him.

She Began Her Career at the Age of Six

TINY started in at the age of six, and has made more than six hundred parachute drops in the succeeding thirteen years. But jumping from a balloon hanging steadily in the air is one thing, and dropping out of a swiftly moving aeroplane is quite another.

When Tiny announced to Brigadier-General Striven, Chief of the United States Army aviation corps, that she planned a 1,600-foot drop from an aeroplane, he told her she would do anything of the kind. But he didn't know Oscar Brindley, the Wright instructor, took her up in his machine, her parachute, incased in canvas, hanging like a knapsack over her shoulders. At a height of 1,600 feet Brindley dropped suddenly 100 feet, and then raced straight ahead the length of the field. Suddenly Miss Broadwick was seen to stand erect. She took one step forward to the edge of the framework, and then dived suddenly down, head first.

Would the parachute open? The crowd below stood breathless while the little figure shot downward one second—two seconds; and then suddenly the parachute was ripped from her shoulders by a string attached to the fuselage of the aeroplane.

It caught the air; it opened wide. Gracefully as a bird Miss Broadwick floated to the ground. They gathered around her as she alighted, still breathless.

"It was ever so much easier than dropping from a balloon," she said. "There was not so much strain when the parachute opened, because I was dashing sideways as well as down."

"Just Joy"

"YOU'RE a plucky girl," remarked the a Brigadier-General dryly.

"Oh, not plucky," laughed Tiny Broadwick. "I call it just joy. I don't think any one knows what living really means until he has felt the wild thrill of dropping a few thousand feet through the cool, rushing air."

Which is probably true—provided, of course, that one's ancestors were parachute droppers.

For if one is to be a successful parachute dropper or bareback rider one thing is essential: he must be careful to pick out the right kind of ancestors.

No Race Suicide Here !

Beauty Instead of Pep

By MARIAN BRUNTLETT POWELL

Illustrations by Nell Hatt

MR. R. W. EMERSON, late of Concord, once expressed his admiration for the man who could engage in a variety of occupations—farm it, team it, preach, peddle, teach school, go to Congress, buy a town-ship—through it all landing on his feet.

He should have known Mabel.

By the time Mabel was twenty she had worked in a shoe factory, a pickle factory, a glove factory, three Emporiums and one Leader, sorted feathers, racked small pots from the jiggerhead, washed dishes, waited tables, produced pastry, and finally found herself in a railroad lunchroom in a small city of the corn belt, where the work and the noise were hideous, but the pay thirty per month, an occasional tip, and two meals a day.

And Mabel was on her feet, as every railroader that ate at the place knew one week after her arrival.

They were swollen and spread out, and tormented her unmercifully, after the manner of a working-girl's feet. Feet are the working-girl's greatest sorrow. There are those who would have you believe it is her lonely heart or her empty head; but don't you believe it. She could stand either of these if it were not for her feet.

Nevertheless, Mabel was on hers.

Mrs. Casper, the wife of the proprietor of the lunch-room, noticed it at once. Mrs. Casper was a plain lady with thin hair and a handsome husband, and naturally had grown into the noticing habit.

She mentioned Mabel to Sam Casper. Sam Casper wasn't much—but then, he wasn't so bad, either. He had just sense enough to realize what a poor, miserable, woman-harried cuss he would be without Mrs. Casper, and to keep himself where her eye was on him.

"That girl's got something the other girls ain't," Mrs. Casper told him.

"Uh-huh," Sam returned absently. He preferred them plumper himself.

A WEEK later she mentioned it again.

"That girl's got something the other girls ain't," she said emphatically. "I've a notion to let her look after the refrigerator."

At this Sam was agitated. The care of the refrigerator in a railroad lunch-room is important; for if a railroader gets a piece of doubtful meat he never comes back, and he tells all his friends why.

"Good gracious, pettie love!" he exclaimed. "Ain't that goin' quite some distance? Can't you like the girl without gittin' religious over her? I'd go slow if I was you, dearie; honest I would. I'd go slow."

However, while Mrs. Casper took Sam's "'Can't you like the girl without gittin' religious over her?'"

advice and "went slow," she daily became more convinced that Mabel had something the other girls had not. One day, after the noon rush, when she saw Mabel chase the flies out of the doughnuts before she clapped the glass dome back on the sarcophagus, she had to say something about it to Mabel.

"They's sure something different about you from what they is about most girls," she declared fervently. "You've got something they ain't!"

MABEL looked around to make certain she could not be overheard.

"You bet I have!" she returned. "A baby."

"What?" Mrs. Casper's pale eyes bulged in unbelieving astonishment.

Mabel nodded an emphatic affirmative.

"A baby," she asserted proudly, the mother gloating in her eyes. "A boy baby named Cyril Eugene. You see, I was married quite some time when I was seventeen. He was reel attractive in some ways, but he lit out when he seen how awful high matrimony was goin' to come with the woman flat on her back."

"A baby!" Mrs. Casper repeated, her tone so soft it was almost crooning. Then she looked at the mother and she shook her head. "A baby! Don'ts you know little girls shouldn't have babies?" Was there the merest glint of envy in Mrs. Casper's eyes? "I'm awful fond of the little tads myself. I used to expect to have two or three some day. I'd just love to dress 'em, specially these days when a little boy's clo'es is as cute as a little girl's. But—" She breathed a long sigh. "I never could take time off to have even one. I been too busy keeping an eye on Sam Casper."

Mabel nodded sympathetically.

"You've missed a lot," she said. "If I didn't have him to 'most push me out o' bed nights cuddlin' so close against me, seems as if—seems as if—well, it's some better than the movies, believe me!"

Straightway Mrs. Casper offered her the care of the refrigerator and the extra five dollars a month that went with it. A qualm struck her after she had done it—she had never trusted the refrigerator to a girl before.

A person can perform miracles and pay insurance on thirty-five a month, if the person happens to be a mother. Contemplating her good fortune, Mabel soliloquized:

"I can look the whole world in the face and tell it to go soak its head!"

Now the day came when Ed Adams, tired of the one chop-suey joint the small city afforded, drifted into the railroad lunch-room. News of the place had reached Ed. Good coffee can not long be hid, nor a clean refrigerator lack renown forever. Ed came again for the sake of the coffee, and again for the sake of Mabel. After that coming was a habit with Ed.

Ed was a cheerful chap, with nice hands and no chance of promotion. He sold shoes in Martin's Gents' Furnishings. Everybody liked Ed. The boss liked him so well that he remarked to him one day:

"Ed, you make me darn tired."

Ed ran his fingers through his curly hair and smiled a superior smile.

"I do have that effect on some folks," he acknowledged frankly.

"Yes, and you'll keep on havin' that same effec' on the few folks you'll meet that's got any sense," the boss snarled back. "Why don't you get down to brass tacks and make sump'n o' yourself? I'd a wife and two children when I was as old as you."

Ed straightened up. His easy-going manner was replaced by one of severe virtue.

"Mr. Martin," he informed him impressively, "they's one thing I'd like you to understand. I've treated the ladies fair. In stric' confidence, Mr. Martin, I may remark that—well, let us be modest and remark that more than one fair one has nearly broke their dear hearts, so anxious was they to try matrimony with me on sixty per, Mr. Martin. But me, Mr. Martin,—havin' the gift, so to speak, o' glimpsin' the future,—I never allowed it, Mr. Martin, notwithstanding the grief

of all concerned. I've ever"—Ed placed one of his nice hands where attendance at the Orpheum had taught him to locate his heart—"kept the best good of the ladies right here."

"My Gawd!" was propelled through the raised right corner of Mr. Martin's mouth. "You're a nice gink, you are! Sich a ladylike sport! Listen here. I'm goin' to tell you what my Della says about you—and my Della can hit a nail pretty straight when she uses her tongue fer a hammer. 'Jim,' she says, 'Ed ain't no man at all. He's just a frugal fop, that's what he is. He raises enough wind to buy a vest that sets off his complexion, and a long cigar to stick in his face when he goes to the park, and thinks he's a man. He'll pick up a lady's hankacher to see her nearly bust with gratitude and surprise because she ain't used to her own man pickin' up nothin' lighter 'n a full wash-tub. But will he get right down on his marrows and support a wife and kids? He won't—not on your life insurance!"

Ed hadn't paid much attention to the last of this. He had been caught by a phrase.

"Frugal fop," he repeated. And again: "Frugal fop! Say, tell your Della from me that ain't half bad."

The boss gave his trousers a vicious hitch. He clamped his lower jaw to the upper with an audible snap. He had no more to say. He hadn't made his money by wasting breath on fools.

ED was perfectly—if picturesquely—honest about himself with Mabel.

"Say, kid," he remonstrated the day she, almost at personal peril, reserved one of the individual chicken pies for him. "Don't think I ain't touched by this here. I am. But I always play fair with the ladies, Mabel. That's the plain, simple, and unvarnished truth. So I'm goin' to advise you not to take such a heartfelt interest 'in me hereafter. I'm nice, I know; but I ain't worthy. Ever'body likes me; but even the boss's Della, who's fond enough of me to invite me out to dinner every other Sunday nearly, calls me a frugal fop. I earn jest enough to keep myself fed fair and lookin' cute, and beyond that I've no ambition that any one's ever been able to discover. A frugal fop—that's what the boss's Della calls me."

A line came between Mabel's eyes; a pretty, stubborn little outthrust to her lower lip.

"Your boss's Della is a cat!" she said. Ed knew she wasn't, but he honored Mabel for thinking she was.

He took her to the movies every time Mary Pickford was featured, and to the Orpheum every time the music was advertised as "classy." And he derived so much enjoyment telling all about himself that he did not notice she told very little about herself.

She usually met him uptown, and did not ask him into her boarding-house when they came home, because she could not afford to risk the disapproval of her landlady.

ONE noontime in early May—when summer, which had dropped in early, imperiously summoned to the open suddenly resolved upon genuine expenditure—and something else—for Mabel sake. Ed always played fair with the ladies.

"Looka here, girlie," he began earnestly as Mabel was punching his check, remembering that he was not a railroader hence not entitled to a discount. Do you think, if I'd be awful good to you, you could refrain from tryin' any under handed Juliet business on me?"

The stubborn little outthrust to Mabel's lower lip became prettily pronounced. She did not raise her eyes.

"You know, I wouldn't have no more chance 'n a rabbit this weather—and

---

with the moon full, too," he pursued. "What I'm aimin' at is this here. Could you take a buggy ride with me, beginning at exactly seven and ending at ten sharp, and not take advantage of the fact that I was trustin' myself to you?"

Her glance strayed outside. The summer edged daintily in through the smoke and the roar, and fingered her hair.

"It would be awful nice," she said longingly.

Ed noticed that she was pale and a little thin. She looked as if she ought to be off her feet. Somehow, the look insisted upon Ed's attention and wrung something in the middle of him.

"Kid," he said a trifle huskily, "after this I'm goin' to quit comin' here. It's for your sake. The eats is good and very reasonable. But I'm jest what the boss's Della said—a frugal fop—though I've always played fair with the ladies, and please Gawd I always will! Now, listen here, Mabel, while I hand you a bit of advice. You act sweet to the young fella goin' to steer to the lunch-room tomorra or the day after. He ain't much to look at, but he's worthy. You ain't too fond o' me, Mabel—yet—and you get right down to tacks with him. Remember, it's the early girlie that sets the grub to hustlin' to pay the instalments."

Mabel smiled a wan smile.

"I'll be glad to go to-night—thanks," she said.

Ed watched her narrowly. Unreasonable as it was, he was happy—overjoyed, indeed—because she showed no interest in the gink he was going to steer to the lunch-room to-morrow or the day after.

He was tensely afraid she might still; but her next words were only:

"And you'll be as safe with me as with your own mother."

She deposited his check face down beside his plate. His hand strayed over hers.

"I've enjoyed knowin' you, kid," he said huskily. "I wish—I wish I had more Pep."

She withdrew her hand; her lip looked as if it would have trembled had it belonged to a lady of less character. "You're sure seven isn't too early for you?" she asked.

IT couldn't have been, for he was waiting for her in Williams Park at a quarter before, looking very spruce in a new waistcoat, pongee color with blue dots; and—oh, sartorial triumph!—a band on his rushing-the-season Panama that exactly matched.

He drove his rented steed with a slightly comical grandeur, and he wasn't sure whether the ache in the middle of him was due to sorrow because he had beauty instead of pep, or something he shouldn't have eaten.

He found that he waited for Mabel a trifle impatiently.

"I'm gettin' crazy over that girl," he soliloquized half aloud; and, oddly, he used Mrs. Casper's very words. "She's got sump'n the other girls ain't."

She had; and the "sump'n" toddled talkatively beside her. "Sump'n" crowed, chortled, dimpled, and danced at sight of the horse. His mother apologized for his presence.

"I thought the ride 'u'd do him good, even if he was up late for once." Then the real reason tumbled out in a rush that left her breathless. "And I jest couldn't go off and leave him, when he loves a horse so—I'd 'a' felt like a pig the whole evening."

A faint flush colored her cheek as she explained further:

"You see, Ed, I been a married lady in my time. He—he—well, the high cost of matrimony got him."

Somehow, this started heat currents up and down Ed's spine.

"Ya-a-ahh!" Ed showed his teeth unpleasantly. "It didn't get you, I notice," he observed warmly. "You stuck right by your job."

HE climbed out of his hired chariot and took the little fellow from his mother. He held him on the horse's back—and the ache in the middle of him was springing up to his throat every now and then.

"Gee, ain't he sweet!"

Ed fingered the baby ear. The boy endured it, for, with infantile penetration, he saw that while Ed might be soft he was a good slob..

"Do you suppose I was ever like that? Maw says I was an awful fine baby."

Self-forgetful mother enthusiasm made Mabel's thin face beautiful.

"Sure you was!" she returned quickly. "A lovely baby. Any woman that's ever of had one of her own would think of that the first thing. I only hope my boy will grow up as straight and decent as you." Her look was frankly admiring. But it was not the dangerous kind of admiraion. She had said that he would be as safe with her as with his own mother, and she was one who kept her word. Dimly realized that he was feeling the way his boss had tried to make him feel and failed.

"Don't throw no bouquets at me, please." Ed spoke with obvious effort. "I—I ain't worthy. I ain't never thought o' nothin' but a good time fer myself, while you—you been supportin' this little fella all by your lonesome and not lettin' out no holler. You been supportin'—"

"You bet I have!" Mabel interrupted briskly. "And kept up insurance, and got two hundred and seven dollars in the bank, and my divorce all paid for. I'm on my feet. Why, Ed, what is the matter?"

FOR the lumps and smarts that had been troubling Ed were demanding expression via his eyes and nose.

"Say, Mabel," he said, "just take this ittle chap a minute while I let this out o' my system. Well, darn it, let it come—let it come! I'm sorry I'm such a slob, put don't be scared, little one! Yes, I'll tell you what it is. It's seein' you, you brave, skinny little she-soldier, you! hustlin' to keep this here baby boy fat an' hearty, and insurance kept up, and divorces paid for, and other real things of life! While I—I—a full grown man—I can be tickled to death nearly because my hat-band matches my vest—oh, gosh! But say, Mabel, looky here! They's a whole lot of pep in me, and You'll say so too when I begin to use it. I can't be kept at sixty plunks a month long, Mabel.

"Now, see here, Mabel—if a gink with face as full of expression as a pastryboard comes into the lunch-room to-morra or the day after, and begins to tell you about the six-room-and-bath he's got early paid for out in McGlaucken's addion, you'll tell him to jest keep the 'For Rent' sign on it—won't you, Mabel? You'd never be happy with that gink, label. Mabel, I got it in me to be worthy. I—"

She interrupted him:

"You might jest as well say the rest in the buggy, Ed. The hire's going on all the time, and nobody's getting no good of it.

"THE rest must have been satisfactory, for Ed immediately began to work nights and to set the boss to thinking seriously of taking a partner—Ed being nice fellow to get along with. And the boss's Della began to have three guests for dinner every other Sunday nearly, while the summer was still young. She borrowed a high-chair for one of the guests from neighbors that didn't need the high-chair any more.

Cats and Dogs Solicit for Charity

CHARITABLY disposed cats and dogs who know what silk cushions and limousines are like have responded nobly this year to the call for alms to benefit abandoned pets that roam the streets and haunt back-yard fences when their thoughtless owners depart on summer vacations. The New York League for Animals, of which Mrs. James Speyer is president, has issued its social register, and any one can now find out who's who in the dog and cat brigades, which support the hospital in Lafayette Street with dues of one dollar a year and little mite-chests into which odd pennies, nickels, and dimes are placed to aid animals that have no homes.

Dogs that Are Charitably Disposed

MISS MARY GARDEN'S "Scotti" was the most industrious worker for the cause last year. He turned in $112.50, while Mrs. Edward Tuck's "Chang" collected $101. These are in the millionaire class. Many offerings are as low as 25 cents. Mrs. John Jacob Astor's four dogs brought in $2 apiece. Mrs. Joseph H. Choate's "Tammas" had only 50 cents to give. Edith C. Gould's "Bellina" contributed $19.15, and George J. Gould,

Jr.'s "Swift, "$19.10. "Nitchie," who belongs to Miss Anne Morgan, collected $10, and Thomas F. Ryan's "Barry" and "Rosa" $15 each. Mrs. James Speyer's "Mingo Minx," "Buster Brown," and "Fuzz Buzz" gave respectively $5.93, $6.10, and $6.97. Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt's "Gyp" presented the large sum of $48, while Mrs. Orme Wilson's "Pansy" contributed $21.90.

Mrs. Vernon Castle's "Wallop" and Vernon Castle's "Zowie" and "Ajax" took out mite-chests, while Miss Jane Cowl's "Aigu Houpla" and Miss Elsie Janis's "Mousmee" were generous. Mrs. Speyer gave $20 in memory of her "Wu Ting Fang," and Mrs. Edward N. Breitung $35 in memory of "Milo."

Cats Not So Generous

THE cats were by no means so active in collecting funds for the cause, though they lent moral support. Thomas F. Ryan's "Congo," with a contribution of $17, was up in the idle rich class and led all competitors. Miss Carolyn Wells paid $5 dues and entered five cats, who together raised $2. And Miss May Irwin's "Peaches" and "Lady Nicotine" stand well up in the register.

How to Make Your Bed Out of Doors

EL COMANCHO

A GOOD bed in camp after a hard day's tramp is one of the most important things in any outing trip. There is only one right way to make it so it will fill all requirements.

Get three yards of unbleached cotton sheeting six feet wide for the foundation.

Take pure linseed oil and rub into this cloth just enough to wet it through, with no surplus. Don't paint it on, and don't dip it: just rub it in by hand to wet the cloth through, and no more.

Get about thirty ordinary three-quarter-inch iron harness rings and forty-five feet of fish cord as thick as a slate pencil. Thread the cord through the rings, and then sew the cord entirely round the edge of your oiled cloth, placing one ring at each corner and the rest equidistant from one another all the way round the cloth, sewing them in place as you go.

Now stretch the oiled cloth up tightly in the shade and let it dry for two weeks; then put it in the sun for two days, turning each side to the sun in turn.

You now have a waterproof-sheet that is flexible and will not tear.

To Fit Out the Bed

NOW get a plain single light-weight cotton bed blanket, about six feet wide and six to seven feet long. Also get three pounds of wool (not cotton) batting.

Now spread your oiled sheet out flat. Next unroll your wool batting and spread it flat on your oiled sheet, so that it covers the sheet evenly from edge to edge for six to six and one half feet of the length of the oiled sheet. So place the wool that there is about two feet of the oiled sheet not covered by the batting at one end and eight inches or so of the oiled sheet not covered at the other end; thus making two bare oiled muslin flaps on the ends of the sheet, with the wool spread to cover all the sheet between.

Now spread your cotton blanket down smoothly over the wool and pin it into place, so nothing will slip.

Next sew your cotton blanket to your oiled muslin sheet clear round the blanket edge as the blanket lies flat and smooth. Now "tie" through your whole mass just as an ordinary bed comforter is tied, by stitching through blanket, oiled sheet, and batting at intervals of six inches apart both ways.

It Is Also a Sleeping-Bag

TO use the bed fold it lengthwise and put it on a twig or small bough mattress with the oiled side down. This gives you the blanket side to sleep on (or rather between), and you tuck the short end of the oiled sheet in at the bottom to protect your feet, and spread the long oiled end out beyond your head to keep your head off the ground and the brush and grass from scratching you at night—and there you are!

The oiled sheet keeps the dampness in the ground and the air from reaching you; and it is almost air-tight, so it is very warm. The cotton blanket is smooth and clean next to you, and the wool batting between is light, warm, and sanitary.

With a good mattress of twigs under this bed and a light tent over it you can sleep in any weather in any country. If it is cold, just lace it up by means of the rings along the edges into a sleeping-bag.

The Flying Monorail

THE most remarkable elevated road in the world is in operation in Burbank, California, on the Fawkes estate, where a monorail system has been built to demonstrate a mode of transportation which, it is said, will revolutionize travel.

The car, which resembles a dirigible balloon, is driven by a huge fan-shaped propeller that receives its motive power from a 60-horse-power gas engine. After estimating the thrust of the great aluminum blades, and checking up by results in practice, Mr. Fawkes states that a speed well toward two hundred miles an hour can be made with his device.

Each car carries fifty-six passengers. While the machine is suspended from an overhead rail, the weight of the car is to a great extent removed as the propeller makes its greatest speed, so that when making its maximum rate the car is almost flying, though it is guided by the wheels that hold it to the rail.

Not only does the momentum tend to lessen its weight, but the air pressure is utilized by a system of tilted planes beneath the body, which are inclined somewhat like the planes of an airship, so as to give the car a slight upward motion that offsets the force of gravity to a certain degree.

The Fawkes monorail car is built of aluminum and steel, and the sheath that covers the framework is of polished aluminum, so that the car in flight resembles an enormous torpedo. The ear is fifty feet long, and the propeller is six feet wide.

Mr. Fawkes has made a large fortune from other inventions, but he considers the new monorail to be his greatest.

Which Are Faster?

POPULAR fancy, and even expert scientific opinion, have always complacently considered the shaggy American buffalo untameable, and, in the hurried march of mechanical invention, have never stopped to examine the possibility of setting the bison to work. The problem of domesticating this so-called stupid beast was reserved for Major "Bob" Yokem, of Pierre, South Dakota—who, after five years of constant effort and trouble, can harness his pair of buffaloes to a wagon.

Major Yokem is well known among the pioneers and ranchmen of the West in every State from Texas to Oregon. He was formerly a Untied States marshal. A few years ago he whimsically determined to test the intelligence and ability of the buffalo, a job regarded by his friends as rather unattractive and hopeless. The bison gave him a full share of trials and trouble.

An exciting and popular amusement is the frequent races between Major Yokem's animals and the fast broncos of the neighborhood. The buffalo often win over even the fleetest equine racers. They have never become accustomed to the saddling process, however, and will "buck" in a way that shames a veteran bronco.

The Handsomest Bald Head in America

WHEN Robert John Orr of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, conceived the idea of the Bald Head Club of America he as only following out the dictates of Fate, for he was born bald and has never recovered.

When Mr. Orr and several other hairless wonders put their smooth pates together in the little town of Falls Village, Connecticut, three years ago and organized the "Bald Head Blub of America," the news spread far and wide, and the first annual banquet, held in Falls Village, was the occasion for columns of cleverness and near-cleverness in the Sunday papers. Mr. Orr was elected president at this banquet, and he has remained in that high office, a shining light to the world, ever since.

The B. H. C. of A., be it known, has thousands of members all over America including such men as ex-President William H. Taft and the late Elbert Hubbard. Only those who can show at least three square inches of scalp devoid

of hirsute adornment are admitted. Fra Elbertus claimed exactly claimed exactly three square inches of bald spot on the crown of his head.

It is not only the exterior of Robert J. Orr's skull that has brilliancy, however, for Mr. Orr, who was born in Tyringham, Massachusetts, a little Berkshire village, inheriting only the ambition and character given him by a Scotch soldier father and an Irish mother, is one of the most progressive salesmen of various things in New England. To fill in the spare moments left over from selling real estate from Maine to Montana, groceries, cigars, fruit, and other lines, he has started a daily newspaper in his home city. Needless to remark, this paper will deal largely in bald truths.

How He Lost His Hair

"IS it true, Mr. Orr," I asked him, "that you lost your hair while visiting your sister in Montana?"

"I will have to admit it. My sister has a ranch in Montana. While visiting there some years ago, a terrific blizzard swept the plains. For five days it howled about the little adobe ranch house where we were confined. On the third day the enforced confinement had become irksome to me. I opened a little window hung on a side hinge, as is the fashion out there, and stuck my head out. A fierce gust of wind clapped the window shut, catching my head firmly just above the ears. When I was released from my painful position a few minutes later, it was discovered that he top of my head was shorn as clean as if it had been shaven and smoothed with emery. Since hat, I am glad to say, I have been bald. Now, you would scarcely believe it—"

All joking aside—which is impossible—the Bald Head Club of America, started in jest, has become a powerful social organization. The next annual banquet will be held in New York, and it is said that an effort will be made to take a photograph of the assemblage—a feat that it is expected may be accomplished, even at night, without the aid of electricity or a flash-light.