One Minute with the Editor

Why Do Men Gamble?

PRETTY nearly every father, since the world began, has said solemnly, "My son, never gamble. I speak from sad experience: there is nothing in it." And still the gambling instinct breaks out afresh in every new generation. Why?

H. Addington Bruce, who makes scientific subjects as interesting as fiction, answers that question next week.

Goats

SOME weeks ago we published a very little article about a former minister who raises goats. Since then we have been busy forwarding letters to him. He writes, in his ministerial way: "It seems as though everybody in the United States wants to get my goat."

I Like to Get Mail

YOU know, a preacher or an actor has a big advantage over an editor. They see their audience face to face: an editor never sees his. That's why an editor likes to get mail.

I often wonder how many families there are in which this magazine is read by every member. And how many other subscribers we have who not only read their magazine, but pass it on to a neighbor or to a relative "out West"?

If your family belongs in either of these classes, why don't you take a minute this week to write me a letter and tell me so? Will I answer it? Try me and see.

Lozette Hoag

By WALT MASON

SHE is blonde, petite and winsome, and she makes bystanders grin some when she speaks of scraps and scrappers in a language up-to-date; but no critic need be mocking, as she knows whereof she's talking: for she manages her brother, Clarry Marshall, feather-weight. Willard, that renowned Old Master, who to Johnsing brought disaster, hinted that she ought to do it, and she did it right away; and her gifted brother Clarry says the laurels he may carry will be largely due to Sister, who is hustling every day.

"Managers with whiskers stung me; all the grief and toil they flung me, all the worry and vexation, but the kopecks they retained: but my sister, keen and thrifty, shares the plunder fifty-fifty, is always true and loyal," so the pugilist explained. Facts convince the present writer that he is a rising fighter. He was formerly a soldier, and his days with toil were fraught; then he dropped the gun and saber for his pugilistic labor, and the fates have smiled upon him while he punches domes of thought.

"I arrange the fights for Brother," said the sister, "and another wouldn't guard his highest int'rests as a sister will and can; and when I go interviewing managers, there's something doing, and they compliment me highly, for they treat me like a man. As the coming champeen's sister, I can talk right up to mister, do a little quiet bragging, show where he is doubly strong; and"—with gentle pride she said it—"in the ring he does me credit, proving that in all my boosting there was nothing false or wrong."

While she guards the money question, she looks out for his digestion, and she cooks the kind of fodder that it fighter ought to eat. "If a fighter's food's improper he is bound to come a cropper," said the thoughtful, careful sister, "and he'll land in Hasbeen Street. I am not a suffrage woman—I am altogether human—but the laws that govern boxing need revision pretty bad, and I'd like to help revising—there'd be changes most surprising, and a far more glowing future for the straight, ambitious lad. Modern fighting is not brutal—talk to that effect is futile; it's a fine display of science when the artists come to blows; and I'd like to see the patrons—in the crowd both maids and matrons—emulate the plan Parisian and attend in evening clothes."

Lozette Hoag is bright and pleasant, "acting in the living present," going on her divers errands with a blithe and buoyant tread, nothing of her grace abating while the ring she's elevating. Five-and-twenty cheerful summers have flown lightly o'er her head.

Men Who Make Fortunes in Popular Songs

WHAT makes a popular song? There is just one sure answer to that question—sales! If a song sells half a million copies in the first six months it is a doing well. If it approaches a million within a year of publication, it is a "success." If it goes over a million it is a "terrific hit." Irving Berlin's song, "Alexander's Rag-Time Band," reached the two million mark, and brought its author $20,000.

The half dozen publishing firms that are in the front rank of the popular music business each sell from 5,000,000 to 20,000,000 copies of popular music a year, at from ten to twenty cents apiece. No one has been able to compute the total retail sales of popular music "made in America," but a conservative figure would be 50,000,000 annually,—which means an expenditure of $5,000,000 a year (mostly by women) and $500,000 a year in royalties to the authors.

If you want to get a part of this $5,000,000 or more that is spent every year for popular music, you must do three things: You must first get your good song; then you must make it popular; and finally you must sell it. Each of these three things is a business in itself. And you must be an expert in each one of them.

The only way to get your good song is to get a good song-writer. Almost every one of the successful song-writers to-day is employed by some publishing house to write songs exclusively for it. If the firm publishes forty songs a year, then he must write forty a year. If the firm needs a new song to "plug in" in place of a failure he must sit up all night and produce it. Most of the successful song-writers (there aren't many of them) can write at least one "terrific hit" a year, though they can never be sure which one of their songs will be the big one.

The Most Original Music America Produces

THE songs they write are the most original music America has yet produced. Some critics go so far as to say that our future American symphonies and operas will be written in rag-time. But, curiously enough, some of the most successful popular song-writers can't read a note of music. Irving Berlin was born and

reared in New York's lower East Side; he plays the piano with one or two fingers, in the key of G-flat. Lewis F. Muir, the composer of "The Robert E. Lee," is the son of a clothing dealer and was a tramp for five years. Mr. Muir can play with ten fingers in the key of F-sharp, but he can't read. Yet, just because these song-writers have had no more musical education than the little girl who buys their songs at the ten-cent store, they know what that little girl will like. And it is the same way with the writers of the "lyrics." "Popular" composers don't "write" their songs at all. What they do is to walk around the streets humming a tune, or go to their piano and pick something out with two fingers. When it seems all right, and the words are fitted to it, they call in an arranger (whose more official name is "secretary"). He takes down the tune on paper as they play it to him, and supplies the harmony. There are a few composers who "play their own harmony," and they are the nine days' wonders of the profession.

Before you can compose your song you must have an "idea." An "idea" is the most precious thing in the world. It may be worth a solid million dollars eventually. And it can't be manufactured—it just comes. An "idea" may come from anywhere, but generally it comes from some little peculiarity of common life. Mr. Berlin says that he got his idea for "My Wife's Gone to the Country" from a remark that he overheard in a barber shop. To-morrow on the street-car you may unwittingly give some song-writer an idea that will be worth a small fortune—to him! After the "idea" comes the rhythm. No song can "go" unless it has a definite and striking rhythm. And then with it, the melody. Where a melody comes from nobody knows. Only, don't try to imitate it from last year's "hit." The public wants originality, and knows it when it hears it. One thiing more: Your song may have a good idea and a good melody, but it also needs a "catch" or a "punch" at the end. For instance, take Mr. Berlin's song "Dixie":

I want to be, I want to be,
I want to be down home in Dixie
Where the hens are doggone glad to lay
Scrambled eggs in the new mown hay.

"I want to be in Dixie" is the idea: the scrambled eggs are the "catch."

Having got your good song, the next part of the business is to make it popular. You can't make a poor song popular by any known means. But even a good song must have a hearing before it can become popular. Each publishing house keeps on salary a force of "pluggers" for advertising purposes. Pluggers are professional vaudeville singers who are supplied to theaters, moving-picture houses, and cabarets to sing the new songs published by their firm. The first business of the plugger is to try out the song—to see whether it is worth pushing for big sales. If the pluggers report a "terrific hit," then the real business begins. The "coming song" is urged on all the singers who need a new "vehicle." This is a big proposition, and no firm tries to "push" more than three or four songs at a time. But if a song has the popular quality which the pluggers foretold, the audiences will go out of the theater humming the tune, repeating the "catch," and will wind up at the nearest music store. Within three months the piece will have sold by the hundreds of thousands. After that nothing can stop it. It will be requested at the cafes and demanded at the vaudeville theaters. Its title will appear in newspaper cartoons, and its "catch" will become part of our flexible American language. From this time on the song "sells itself."

Which Is Worth More—the Tune or the Words?

HOW many popular songs are published annually it is impossible to estimate. One big house points with pride to the fact that it puts out "a song for every day in the year." Another company, on the other hand, concentrates on half a dozen or so. But few firms actively "push" more than half a dozen songs in any one year. And those popular songs—the real hits—cover nine tenths of the piano-tops in this country.

Of course, there is bitter rivalry between the men who write the music and those who write the "lyrics." The former are inclined to think that "any old words will do," if you have a good tune; and the latter are sure that it takes a good line to "get a song across." The fact is, the words must fit the music like a glove. The lyric writer is generally the business man of the team. He must have his finger closely on the public's pulse. For fashions change in songs as they do in dresses, and few song-writers can keep pace with them.

It is a very close corporation, this business of making popular songs. But if you have a good tune in your head and are determined to capture $20,000 by way of the ten-cent stores, worm your way into the inner sanctum of some large publishing house, whistle your tune, and stick around until somebody notices it. If it is good it will be bought—right off your lips—for five dollars. The words? Never mind about that. The firm has a man to supply them.

But just one tip from the inside. No more "Get out and get unders" for a time. If you want to build a country house with the proceeds of one song next spring, make it a sentimental ballad.

Hiram Kelly Moderwell.

How Can These Things Be Explained?

DAVID BELASCO'S STORY

MY mother was the first white woman to cross the Isthmus, and she had to make the trip on horseback. Then came the voyage of three weeks to San Francisco, and my birth the night of her arrival in California. In that early time my parents were very poor, and had gone to friends, whose only place for them was a cellar. I was born in the midst of a terrible storm. Thus began our stormy career, which seemed to bind mother and me together as creatures of one thought, a bond that lasted through our lives.

When I grew to manhood and life opened new vistas that took me away from her companionship, I know that her love followed me like a constant prayer. The

years separated us, but never lessened the beautiful understanding between us.

I was in New York at the time of her passing. On that night I had retired early and slept soundly until about four o'clock, when I was awakened by my mother's presence in my room. My bed faced the east, and was just opposite a closed door. That door quietly opened and mother entered, coming slowly toward me with outstretched hands, saying softly, as was her custom, "Davey, Davey."

I raised myself upon my pillow, su-porting myself upon my elbows.

"Mother!" I exclaimed.

She came closer, and I could feel her soft hand as she leaned over my pillow. Hers was a palpitating, living presence. I did not close my eyes: they followed her form until she disappeared again through the door opposite, smiling and calling, "Davey, Davey, good-by."

As soon as my strength returned, I rose, dressed, and went down to a room which I had fitted up in Moorish style for my daughter. There, a little later, my wife found me, my face buried in my hands.

"What is it?" she asked quietly, and I told her.

She attempted to cheer me, saying it must be merely a dream, but I knew. A few hours later a telegram, delayed in transmission, arrived to confirm what mother had come to tell me. She was gone: she had come to say "good-by."

MARGARET ILLINGTON'S STORY

PERHAPS it was because I had been so very, very ill, and was still weak and in that mood of acute awareness that is apt to follow a nervous break-down; but, again, perhaps—

However, this is the story; and it is the reason why, when a roomful of people are pleased to jest at "warnings" and "signs" and talk very smugly of hysteria and superstition, I do not add my voice to theirs. I look at my father's photograph and I am silent. For I do not know.

As I say, I had been ill so ill that, after weeks of suffering, I had that day, for the first time, been allowed to sit up. I was very happy at the assurance that I should soon be able to leave San Franciseo and resume my work. My husband was sitting beside me, and we had been quietly rejoicing together, when suddenly I saw it. There it was, perfectly clear and distinct against the wall above the mantel where father's photograph stood—the out-line of a cross. Without saying anything to my husband, I closed my eyes, waited a moment, and opened them again. It was not an optical illusion. It was still there, in bold, definite outline—a dark cross merging into father's picture at the foot.

With an instinct to take every precaution, I said quietly, almost casually, to my husband: "Do you see anything usual on that wall?"

"Yes," he said soberly; "I see a cross."

"Let us be quite sure," I said; and called to the doctor and nurse, who were in the next room. They saw it too.

"That means only one thing to me!" I exclaimed. "I don't mean myself," I went on, not taking my eyes from the strange shadow. "It is father. The moment that cross fades from sight I shall know he has passed away."

My husband was holding my hand, and I felt him start.

"How did you know?" he said. For, although my father was ill in Chicago, all news of it had been kept from me.

My husband took out his watch and noted the time. He walked to the mantel and moved several objects that might possibly have cast such a shadow as the one we were looking at. The cross remained.

Then slowly it began to fade. It gradually grew fainter and fainter until it was quite gone.

We noted the time again. It was 8:34, Western time, and I thought instantly: "It is half past ten in Chicago."

Late that night a telegram cause telling us of father's death. The time marked on the message was 10:34.

He Ate the First Twenty-seven White Men He Met

PERHAPS you remember that pathetic old ballad of which one verse ran something like this:

Lady pudding with baby sauce;
Little boy pie for a seemed course:
He swallowed them all without remorse—
The king of the cannibal islands.

Whether you remember it or not, here is the king. Perhaps not the identical king the poet had in mind, but certainly one just as good. This is his Imperial Majesty, Wembo-Niama, chief of the tribe of the Batelela.

As a man of good taste Wembo-Niama at one time enjoyed a reputation second to none in Africa. The first twenty-seven white men whom he met he promptly and cheerfully ate.

A Little Trip into Africa

THE Southern Methodist Church decided that the command, "Go ye into all the world," meant "all the world," and not "all the world except the jungles of South Africa." It was voted by the missionary committee to establish a mission in the heart of the Dark Continent; and Bishop Walter R. Lambuth volunteered to undertake the task. It was five thousand miles from where he started to the point he wanted to reach.

As the party penetrated deeper and deeper, they caught vague rumors of the dangers that lay ahead. Six months before—so their natives told them, chattering with fear—only six months before, a party strongly armed had attempted to force its way through, and not one of them had been heard of since. Wembo-Niama had sworn that no white man should ever stand within his dominions. If the strongly armed parties that had gone before were unable to conquer, what would happen to the missionary, unarmed and alone?

A Latter-Day Miracle

TO which the Bishop answered only:

"We shall not perish."

The natives carried him on and on, until they set him down, at last, in the presence of Wembo-Niama himself. They trembled in every limb. They were sure the white man was about to be eaten—and they with him.

Why he wasn't is a mystery. The Bishop calls it an act of God. You can explain it as you will; but the fact remains that three months later, when the Bishop left, Wembo-Niama and all his people had become converts to Christianity.

"You will come back in eighteen moons," begged the big black as the Bishop left him. And the Bishop promised that he would.

It was necessary to change several of the tribal customs after the Bishop's visit. For one thing, Wembo-Niama had cornered pretty nearly all the desirable young

women in the tribe for the imperial harem. Having so very many wives, the problem of keeping them always true and orderly was a serious one. Wembo solved it with true savage directness. Once in five or six months, he lined all the wives up before the whole village, and cut off the head of one of them as a lesson to the rest. The plan worked well, so Wembo said, and it had never occurred to him that there was any objection to it until the arrival of the Bishop.

When He Came Back

FOR eighteen months Wembo counted the moons, cutting a notch in a long stick as each one ran its course. And when the eighteenth full moon arrived, the Bishop came back, according to his promise.

Wembo had not been idle in his absence. A veritable army of native Christians lined the Bishop's path, singing in their native tongue, "Onward, Christian Soldiers."

Comfortable houses are taking the place of the grass huts that once were good enough for Wembo's people. Fighting and the chase are giving way to agriculture. And a whole tribe has been transformed—all because one white man dared to do the impossible.

Wembo-Niama is nearly seven feet tall, which makes him probably the largest member of the Southern Methodist Church in the world.

That Girl and Sylvester

By FLORENCE RYERSON
Who wrote "In the Room Across from His"

Illustrations by Robert McCaig

VAN WYKE PLACE was undeniably exclusive. By a process of time and tradition, it had reached a point where it was no longer called by its name as a whole, but was referred to as "the Place." To live there marked one at once, not as a mere member of the inner circle, but as the circle itself—the bull's-eye, as it were, of social distinction. Its inhabitants felt that they had permanently isolated the outside world.

Then came the shock. Digby Bernard and his wife and young son went down on the Titanic, and the Bernard place reverted, by course of law, to a distant cousin. The cousin at once sold the place, and the horrified Olympians found themselves gazing upon a seven-foot brick wall which, their horrified ears had learned, shielded that Pearl without price—Natalie North.

NATALIE was not a quiet and retiring person by profession, and the brick wall was more in the way of protection from a superabundance of public admiration than because of any modest desire for concealment. She was known as the "Queen of the Movies"; her name, blazoned in primary colors, shrieked at the shuddering Olympians from every billboard.

With one accord the women of the Place gathered to discuss the situation. They met, in accordance with time-honored tradition, at the home of Mrs. Sylvester Ffolette. Mrs. Ffolette was a Van Wyke, one of the Van Wykes, and she lived next door to the Bernard place.

"Do you suppose the woman expects us to call?" inquired Mrs. Wellington Crinkle, as one might consult an oracle.

Mrs. Ffolette nodded ponderously.

"She undoubtedly expects to buy her way in," said she. "These actresses receive fabulous salaries. She'll probably put up a billboard on the front lawn," she added grimly.

Mrs. Wetherby-Jenkins gave a little shriek. "And we're across the street from her!" she wailed. "Isn't there something we can do?"

Mrs. Ffolette pursed her lips.

"I have been thinking," she announced,—and the circle became instantly attentive. "I have been thinking, and Mr. Ffolette and I have decided to buy the place next door for Sylvester."

The circle breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly a luminous thought seemed to strike Mrs. Crinkle.

"What if the woman won't sell?" she inquired.

Mrs. Ffolette waved a plump hand.

"She will be glad to sell when she realizes that we absolutely refuse to call upon her," she said confidently.

Mrs. Crinkle was still doubtful.

"And who is going to tell her so?" she inquired.

"I shall send Sylvester," replied Mrs. Ffolette. The circle nodded its approbation. "He would naturally be the one to inquire; and then, of course," she added with careful carelessness, "he is a lawyer."

Sylvester being the only one of the Olympian younger set who had managed to come away from college with a degree, she was not unnaturally proud of the fact, even though the complicated code of the Place made it impossible for him to put it to any practical use.

"Sylvester," she continued, "is to come this afternoon, and we will put the matter before him."

Mrs. Ffolette's words were interrupted by the arrival of her son. Sylvester was twenty-five, tall, and perfectly tailored.

Mrs. Ffolette regarded him proudly through her glass.

"You are a little late, Sylvester," she said.

"I was caught at the club," he replied. "Couldn't get away before."

His mother shook her head.

"I wish you'd let polo alone," she said. "It's so dangerous."

"I've got to do something!" said Sylvester, with a shrug. He had been back from Cambridge a year and the Place had begun to pall. "Did you want me?"

Mrs. Ffolette nodded.

"Something dreadful has happened, Sylvester," she admitted, "and we want your advice."

She explained the situation. When she had finished, Sylvester nodded his head judicially.

"I fancy she's a sort of adventuress," he said, "who will be glad to sell out when she finds the game doesn't pay. If you like, I'll go over at once."

He stepped to the French window, and then suddenly turned.

"What are they doing there?" he demanded.

On the other side of the wall was rising a weird structure, under the hands of a gang of workmen. It resembled nothing so much as a young skyscraper.

"It's a sign; I know it's a sign—an electric one!" wailed Mrs. Wetherby-Jenkins.

Sylvester stepped out of the window and on to the lawn, hat in hand.

"I shall go to the woman at once," he announced, "before she perpetrates any more outrages."

"Remember, Sylvester, don't be too harsh," said Mrs. Ffolette.

"I shall be gentle but firm," Sylvester said gravely, and disappeared in the direction of the house next door.

ARRIVED before the new neighbor's gate, Sylvester rang the bell. Presently a man appeared and opened the gate, looking at Sylvester doubtfully.

"Where is your card?" he inquired.

Sylvester drew a visiting card from his pocket and presented it. The man glanced at the bit of cardboard and shook his head. "I mean your appointment card," he explained.

"I have no appointment card," replied Sylvester a bit wrathfully.

The porter began to close the gate.

"Then you should go around to the back. 'All agents enter at rear,'" he added, quoting a sign that hung conspicuously at the left of the entrance.

Sylvester put his foot in the crack of the gate.

"Look here, my man," he announced, "I've come to see Miss North on important business, and I don't want any more nonsense. I am a lawyer," he added, feeling that this might help.

The man looked at him with more respect, and opened the gate.

"It is usual to make an appointment," he said. His voice became more ingratiating as he viewed Sylvester's faultless makeup. "I'll take your card to Miss North; she's in the garden. Please wait here."

He left Sylvester standing, somewhat

---

awkwardly, on the lawn, and disappeared through the shrubbery. After a moment he reappeared.

"Miss North says you can come," said he, and led Sylvester through a tangle of oleanders to a sunken garden at the rear.

Sylvester followed sternly. He tilted his chin at a belligerent angle, and at that instant tripped over a pile of branches that had been spread upon the lawn, regaining his balance with difficulty. When he looked up he discovered that a woman was standing before him.

Subconsciously he was aware that she was beautiful, that her hair and eyes were dark and her figure graceful. Consciously he noted only that she was laughing. At his look she bent her head for an instant over his card, which she held in her hand, and when she glanced up the smile had vanished. She looked slightly puzzled.

"This is Mr. Ffolette?" she inquired.

Sylvester bowed.

"You have come to see me about the new contract, I suppose," she resumed.

"I have come to see you about buying this place, Miss North," said Sylvester.

She was younger than he had supposed—younger even than he; the fact made it possible for him to put a note of hauteur in his voice.

Miss North looked more puzzled.

"You are interested in real estate?" she inquired. "I understood you were a lawyer."

Sylvester stared at her. That she should not have recognized his name had not occurred to him. He enlightened her.

"I am Sylvester Ffolette," he announced. "Our house, as you have doubtless noticed, is next door to yours."

Her face cleared.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Ffolette. I have not yet learned the names of my neighbors. Won't you sit down? It is very good of you to call."

Sylvester sank stiffly into a garden chair. He felt that things were not going as he had intended.

"I have come to see about buying the place," he repeated.

She looked at him, surprise plainly written in her countenance.

"I am afraid you have been misinformed," she said. "I haven't the slightest intention of selling." She laughed a breezy little laugh. "Why, I've only just moved in, and I've hundreds of improvements to make. You see, I am already building a conservatory," pointing to the framework that had horrified the Olympians. "It is going to cover a quarter of an acre. And I'm going to have peacocks, too," she added.

Sylvester shuddered.

"My father is anxious to buy the place just as it stands," he repeated with emphasis. "I am empowered to ask you to name your price."

MISS NORTH regarded him a trifle impatiently.

"I have just told you I had no intention of selling, Mr. Ffolette," she said.

Sylvester leaned forward confidentially.

"Miss North," he said, "I shall be perfectly frank with you. I am afraid you have bought this place under a misapprehension."

"A misapprehension?" she murmured.

Sylvester continued in a kindly tone:

"I understand perfectly that coming from—er—outside, you could not quite understand the attitude of the Place, and it is only fair to you to tell you now that it—it simply is no use trying," he finished rather vaguely.

Miss North looked interested.

"Trying what?" she inquired. "You seem to know considerably more about me than I do about myself."

Suddenly she eyed him suspiciously. "You aren't with one of the papers, are you?"

Sylvester stood up wrathfully. He felt it was time to be firm.

"You have come here," he said, "with the expectation of becoming one of us; and I, Miss North, am trying to do you a kindness when I tell you that your neighbors, however much they might wish to befriend you if you were in trouble, feel that they can not—simply can not—call upon you."

Miss North gazed at him a minute with an expression of bewilderment.

"You thought I came here for that?" she breathed. Suddenly she flushed. "I suppose you, who have probably never done anything worth while in all your life, would think so—would suppose that I came here to spend my life in breaking in. My dear young man, I came here to work. It probably hasn't struck your intelligence, but this house is on the direct road to the studio, and I can run out there in my machine in twenty minutes. Also," she added with emphasis, "I came here because I knew no one and would not be obliged to meet my neighbors."

She rang a little bell on a table by her side, and the porter appeared.

"Good afternoon," she added quietly.

That night, over a pile of autographs, she recounted the adventure to her friend and confidante, Sallie McBane. Sallie, short and fat, was known in the film world as the "Queen of Comedy."

"It's a wonder you didn't slap him!" she commented. Natalie chuckled.

"I wonder what he would have done if I had?"

"Phoned for the police, probably," said Sallie. "Think of the people who would give a fortune just to meet you!"

Natalie looked thoughtfully out over the moonlit garden.

"He's different," she said. "I've never met any one like him before. It's really true—they don't want to meet me, the people around here. They're not putting it on."

She walked to the window and gazed through the trees to where the lights next door shone above the wall.

"I'm going to educate Mr. Sylvester Van Wyke Ffolette!" she announced.

TWO days later she met him on her way to the studio. He was riding a magnificent horse, and his mount shied at the brilliant red of her car. She watched him approvingly as he quieted the animal's excitement; then she stopped her engine and called him.

"Mr. Ffolette!" she said.

He came over to the automobile, not recognizing her at first. When he saw who it was, he grew red. Natalie noted the blush and marked it as a good sign.

"I am glad we met," she said sweetly.

"I wanted to apologize for the other day. I'm afraid I was a little bit rude; but, you see, you rather took me by surprise."

Being a gentleman, there was but one answer possible for Sylvester, and she knew it. She waited with malicious joy for him to make it.

"I am sure it was my fault," he stammered at last. "If there was any rudeness, it was mine. Pray do not consider it again."

He would have turned his horse, but she detained him.

"But I was rude," she affirmed. "And I have been feeling so badly about it." She looked at him appealingly. "Just to show that I am forgiven, won't you come with me to the studio? I think you will be interested."

Wiser men than he had fallen victim to those eyes.

"I knew you weren't of an unforgiving nature!" she said, without waiting for his reply. "The studio is just around the turn. I'll go ahead. When you get to the office, tell them I sent you and they'll let you in."

The next minute she was lost in a cloud of dust. Sylvester followed slowly. He had the feeling that he was making a mistake; but she expected him, and politeness required that he go.

In front of the studio he tied his horse and entered the red door marked "Office." The name of Natalie North acted as a talisman. The man at the desk nodded.

"She spoke to me about you," he said. "You can go out with Fritz here, and she'll be there. They're taking equestrian dope in the field. Did you bring your horse?"

Sylvester pointed through the door.

"It's in front," he said, puzzled.

"Better get it," advised the man. "If you want to keep up with the procession you'll have to hump. Fritz!" he called to a group in the corner. "Take this fellow to location No. 2, back of the wash. They're starting that new cow-boy series down there."

Fritz was a jovial man of rolling gait, who bestrode a horse as if he had been born in the saddle. He regarded Sylvester's mount with interest.

"Yours?" he inquired.

Sylvester admitted it.

Fritz nodded his head. "I allus like t' keep my own, too," he confided. "Those livery stable hacks they hire for th' cowpunchin' scenes 'u'd throw a fit if they seen a heifer."

Sylvester looked about him, dazed. Behind the office was a tangle of scenes leaning against each other at crazy angles, and beyond was an open field ending in a wash where a few oak trees grew.

"Where is Miss North?" he inquired.

Fritz jerked his thumb in the direction of the wash.

"Over there, talkin' to the director," he said. "He's pickin' th' extras. If you're a friend o' hers she's probably puttin' in a good word for you."

"Extras?" said Sylvester questioningly.

Fritz laughed.

"You're sure green," he volunteered. "Extras are the ones like you 'n' me, who don't git t' work reg'lar."

SLOWLY its was home in upon Sylvester that the unspeakable Fritz expected him to perform in the picture! He turned to disillusion him, but stopped with his words unspoken. Natalie North was riding toward him. She was in a habit of green corduroy, and her coal-black horse was curvetting with excitement.

Sylvester gradually became aware that beside her was a man, obviously the director, who was regarding him critically. As they approached the man spoke hurriedly.

"I understand you can ride," he said.

Sylvester stiffened.

"I have ridden a little," he answered, "at polo."

The man regarded him thoughtfully.

"Swim?" he asked.

"I don't see what business it is—" began Sylvester.

"Do you swim?" repeated the man impatiently.

Natalie laughed.

"It's my fault," she said. "I should have explained. Lester White, the man I play with, has just broken his leg, and we can't start the new series—"

"Miss North tells me you can ride," interrupted Holcomb hurriedly, "and I'm willing to give you a trial. We need some one here who can ride like a gentleman. Those fellows"—he indicated the crowd over his shoulder—"can ride all right, but they're cow-punchers. Now, you"—he regarded Sylvester critically. "You look like a gentleman, and you ought to film well. Besides, you've a fair mount," he added, pointing to the winner of cups, "and that counts a good deal. We'll start time action now," he added, turning his horse. "Miss North will explain the first situation."

He galloped away. Sylvester turned upon Natalie and exploded with indignation.

"What—what is it, anyway?" he inquired.

"Ready!" called Holcomb. "We'll take the rescue first, while the horses are fresh. You can ride down this way, Miss North. The crowd is in the background, and your horse shies right there and bolts. Then you—what's your name?" he demanded of Sylvester suddenly.

"Ffolette," he replied—"Sylvester Ffolette. But, really, I—"

"Bad!" said Holcomb positively. "Very bad! Too willy-boy for cow-boy stuff. You'll have to choose another."

Sylvester laid a hand on his bridle.

"Look here," he said. "There has been some mistake. I haven't the slightest intention—"

Holcomb was not listening. His eye was riveted on a distant part of the field. Suddenly he produced a megaphone from under his arm and began to roar through it.

"To the left," he yelled in an ear-splitting tone. "To the left. They've got to jump the wash before they hit the water."

Sylvester followed his eye, and discovered a large tank edged with live-oak boughs. The director nodded.

"That's where you pull Miss North from her horse and swim with her," he said, pointing. "But I'll tell you about that when we come to it." He broke again into a hoarse bellow. "No, no, no, no! Not there!" he roared, and galloped down the field.

Sylvester turned his horse and regarded Natalie with dignity. It did not better his humor to discover that she was rocking back and forth in her saddle, helpless with laughter.

"I am going home," he said. "You may explain to the director that I am not in his employ."

Natalie caught her voice with a little gasp.

"He thought you were an extra!" she gurgled. "Oh, I can't help it," she added, as she caught the wrath in his eye. "He said you looked like a gentleman!"

Sylvester tightened the reins.

"If you will kindly tell me the proper direction to get out of this field, I will go," he said.

Natalie became suddenly serious.

"Oh, of course, if you are afraid—" she began solicitously.

Sylvester turned back.

"Afraid of what?" he asked quickly.

Natalie shrugged her shoulders.

"It is dangerous," she admitted. "And, of course, not being used to doing anything—"

Sylvester spoke with exasperation.

"I am not afraid of anything!" he declared. "You don't seem to understand that my family must be considered."

Natalie regarded him with a faint, patient, smile.

"I understand perfectly, Mr. Ffolette," she said sweetly. "There is a gap in the hedge over there, and you will find the road perfectly safe from there on."

She wheeled her horse and gave him a view of her perfectly groomed back. Sylvester hesitated; suddenly he spoke through his teeth.

"To show you I am not afraid," said he, "I am willing to do anything you suggest today. Will that satisfy you?"

Natalie beamed upon him.

"I knew you were game!" she declared, and Sylvester, in spite of his wrath, felt a warm glow down his spine. It did not last long. The director charged down upon them and took Sylvester in hand. Almost before he could protest, he found himself facing a horrible instrument of torture operated by a saturnine individual with red hair. Holcomb waved a hand.

"Now, there's the camera," he said hurriedly. "We'll film the runaway first. You come through the gap over there, following Miss North. When she reaches the tank she will fall off her horse into the water in a faint. You jump your horse into the water and drag her to the other side. Do you get me?"

Sylvester found himself dumbly charging across the field, followed by a crowd of screaming "extras."

IT was eight hours later that, he entered the studio and stood leaning weakly against the door. His suit was a tattered and mud-caked thing of the past, and his puttees were no more. He had rescued Natalie four times before the critical taste of Holcomb was satisfied. Afterward he had done other things—various, but all equally obnoxious. He had a hazy memory of snatching her from the arms of an Indian chief, of rescuing her from a prairie fire. There was also a more or less distinct impression that he had crawled four or five hundred yards along a rocky wash, dragging a supposedly broken leg after him.

As he stood leaning against the door of the studio Sylvester became aware that Natalie was beside him, looking fresh and trim in a white suit and scarlet hat.

"I'm going to take you home in my machine," she said. "It's out in front."

He followed her wearily into the car,

---

sinking against the red cushions with a sigh. Suddenly a thought broke through the haze in his brain.

"But my horse!" he began.

Natalie smiled sweetly.

"Fritz will look after it," she said. "It's with the others in the stable. It will save time in the morning. We start at six to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" Sylvester straightened suddenly. "You don't expect me to do any more of this, do you?"

She regarded him wide-eyed.

"Any more?" she inquired.

"I'm through," said Sylvester positively. "I told you I'd do it to-day, and that was all. You don't suppose I'm going into it for a life work, do you?"

"Do you mean," Natalie gasped—"do you mean you intend to desert in the middle of a picture?"

Sylvester looked puzzled.

"I thought we finished the picture," he said. "I couldn't see much to it, but I thought it was done."

Natalie regarded him pityingly.

"Done!" she said. "Done! Why, we've only finished part of a reel, and there are three of them; and of course, after that, there's the rest of the series."

"The series?" he inquired dazedly.

Natalie spoke calmly.

"I thought you understood," she said. "It's the new 'Natalie's Nerve' series, and were going to do about twenty three-reel films. That is, if Holcomb decides to keep you."

"Do you mean," Sylvester moaned—"do you mean—"

"It won't all be as bad as it was today," she said comfortingly. "Of course, there's lots of society stuff, where you wear evening clothes and do the Handsome Harry act. You'll get used to the rest."

Sylvester pulled himself together.

"I won't," he declared, with an attempt at firmness. "This nonsense has got to stop right here. I shall send for my horse tomorrow."

There was a long pause. The car spun silently over the road. Sylvester became uncomfortably conscious that his companion was trying to hold back her tears. After a time she spoke, and there was a catch in her voice—a flattering little catch.

"I'm sorry," she said—"to be so disappointed. You see,"—and she looked at him sadly,—"you see, I never believe in taking people on their outsides. Now, when I saw you the other day, I thought, he looks like the kind of man who never does anything but loaf around, but I won't believe it. I'll believe that he really can do something besides just dress and eat.' And so I gave you your chance, and you were doing so splendidly!" The catch became a little sob. "And now—now you're only a quitter, after all!"

She broke down completely.

Young Ffolette squirmed in his seat. "I'm sorry—" he began uncomfortably.

"Please don't let's talk about it!" said Natalie thickly.

There was a short silence. Natalie drove the car with a face in which grief and resignation were skilfully blended. Sylvester watched her profile.

"How long—er—how long will the series take us?" suddenly inquired Sylvester Van Wyke Ffolette.

AT the door of her room Natalie ran into Sallie.

"Look here," said the comedienne. "I want to know what you are doing to that boy."

"I'm making an experiment in the interest of humanity," said Natalie.

Sallie sniffed.

"Humanity'd thank you. Taking a perfectly good man in a hundred-dollar riding-suit and turning him into a human wash-rag! What on earth did you say to Holcomb? I never saw him fall for a new one before."

Natalie smiled enigmatically.

"That's my business," she said. "Whatever I said, it worked, didn't it?"

Sallie regarded her for a moment.

"I can't understand why you're doing it, Nat." Suddenly her eye became fixed. "If you go to work and marry him—"

Natalie threw hack her head and smiled into a mirror.

"No," she said; "I mean to give him a lesson, but not as bad a one as that. And, besides, I'm never going to marry a man who won't beat me."

Sallie sniffed.

"I don't mean really beat me," Natalie went on. "But he's got to be able to do it, and want to do it, but be too much of a gentleman. Now, Van—"

"Since when has he been 'Van'?" inquired Sallie.

"Well, what can I call him? said Natalie. "I sha'n't call him Sylvester, and I won't call him Ffolette. For purposes of designation, I have selected 'Van' as being the least impossible."

"Go on," said Sallie tartly.

Natalie ignored her tone.

"Now, Van isn't the kind of man I could marry, because I could twist him around my little finger."

She held up the finger in question, and Sallie looked at it doubtfully.

"Have you noticed his chin?" she inquired.

SYLVESTER was a success. Under the watchful eye of Natalie, he dared and did impossible things. As a gentleman in the drawing-room scenes he was perfect.

At home things were serene. He had not felt it necessary to explain to the family that his days were no longer passed in gentlemanly leisure at the club. He had an unvoiced conviction that he was two men, and that, even if he broke his neck on the screen, his other self would still go on being the irreproachable Sylvester Ffolette of Van Wyke Place.

Just then the blow fell.

It was entirely due to Mrs. Wetherby-Jenkins, who had a propensity for slumming and other kindred Olympian sports. She suggested a trip to the movies en masse, to mingle with the hoi-poloi. Mrs. Ffolette felt that they owed it to themselves to see the kind of thing that was influencing the masses, and promised that Sylvester should take them that evening.

They decided on a certain startling offering, advertised in inch type as the opening engagement of Natalie North in "Natalie's Nerve." As Mrs. Ffolette remarked, they might as well kill two birds with one stone, and get a good look at that woman while they were about it.

Strangely enough, Sylvester did not take to the idea. He protested an engagement, that the movies were vulgar, that it was no place for his mother—above all, that "Natalie's Nerve" was the last one to choose. Mrs. Ffolette regarded him through her glass.

"I am sometimes afraid I have made a snob of you, Sylvester," she sighed. "You seem to have such a disinclination for mingling with the masses. I shall expect you to join us tonight." And she swept grandly up the stairs, leaving him to ponder upon the irony of fate.

THROUGH the open foyer, blazing with electric signs, swept the Olympians. Before he could protest, Sylvester was seated, staring with horror at the screen before him. Vaguely he recognized a caricature of himself in the suavely smiling hero who bowed to the audience above the announcement. He glanced at his mother; but she, unsuspecting, was smiling blandly upon the entranced crowd. The action began.

Mrs. Ffolette gazed upon the screen with guileless eyes. In the distance a horseman appeared, making directly for the audience. There was something vaguely familiar in the set of the horse, and she began to be mildly interested. Suddenly she raised her glass. The horse-man drew nearer, paused, wheeled, and saluted the camera. As one the Olympians sat up and gasped. With a smothered exclamation, Mrs. Ffolette turned to the seat beside her. It was empty.

That night the mansion in Van Wyke Place was the setting of a terrible scene. Sylvester was non-committal, but firm—Sallie had not noted his jaw for nothing. Upon his mother's wrath he turned a deaf ear. He had started the series and he would finish it. Moreover, the stopping of his allowance did not matter. Had it ever occurred to her what a moving-picture hero's salary was like? Mrs. Ffolette choked and retired to her room.

Sylvester went off to bed. Tomorrow they were to go on location, and it behooved him to get his sleep while he could.

The location was Catalina Island, that Paradise of the "movies." Catalina reeks with perils. For twelve breathless reels Sylvester rescued Natalie from perils by sea and land. Then he returned home, brown but smiling. The end of the series was in sight.

It was Holcomb who administered the blow. The series had been an unprecedented success, and it was decided by the powers that be to continue it indefinitely. Arrangements had been made with a local zoo, and Natalie with her gallant rescuer were to journey to the wilds of Africa via the local parks. The news reached Natalie first, and she gleefully retold it to Sallie.

Sallie regarded her pityingly.

"And you're fool enough to think he'll go on?" she inquired.

Natalie shrugged her shoulders. "You're overlooking the fact that he happens to be in love with me," she replied.

"Has he said so?" inquired Sallie.

"No, but he will. Some day he'll drop gracefully upon one knee and proffer his love like a perfect gentleman. I feel it coming."

Sallie shook her head.

"He isn't the kneeling kind—not with that chin. When he wants you he'll get you. You mark my word."

She broke off suddenly. Sylvester was crossing the studio, wrath in his eye.

"Look here!" he said. "What's all this about a new set of episodes? And what on earth is that out there?" He pointed to a large cage, shrouded as yet with sacking, from which emerged a low and rumbling sound. Natalie nodded.

"That," she said, "is Juno, the lion; and we are at present preparing for the thrilling story of Natalie in the Lion's Den."

"You are not," Sylvester said firmly, "going into the lion's den."

Natalie smiled.

"That's where you're wrong. Moreover, you are going to come in and drag me from her jaws at the crucial moment. It is so written."

She walked briskly out the door, and Sylvester followed silently. The cage had disappeared, but from the clump of trees by the wash came the indignant roars of Juno. Behind the trees they found Holcomb, dripping profanity. Juno, usually the most docile of pets, had developed an unexpected taciturnity. Even the director was dubious about trying the picture.

"We'll have to put it off today," he mourned. "And the camera's set, too!"

"It will he put off indefinitely," remarked Sylvester. "I shall not permit anything so criminal to take place."

Natalie flashed him a look. The time for a battle royal had come. There were only the director and the camera man present, and she pitted her strength against his.

"I think it would be an excellent time to do it now," she said. "If the lion is fierce, it will only make the picture more natural. Are you ready?" she called to the camera.

"Right-o!" came the reply.

"You will stay where you are," Sylvester said coldly.

There was a pause, and then, ignoring him, Natalie put one hand on the door of the cage. Instantly she was picked up and set down to one side, as one might swing a baby. Sylvester was standing in front of the cage, his eyes blazing.

"We've had enough of this nonsense!" he said, and addressed the director crisply. "You've had your series, and this ends it. You can feed your extras to the lion, if you like; but Miss North is going with me."

"I am not! said Natalie positively.

Sylvester regarded her for a moment.

"Do you know," he said, "there are times when I wish I were not a gentleman."

"Why?" she asked unguardedly

"So that I could beat you," he replied, and put a firm hand on her arm. "Come!"

Natalie drew back with one final flash of rebellion.

"Where are we going?" she demanded weakly.

"Home," said Sylvester Van Wyke Ffolette.

Behind the Bolted Door?

By ARTHUR E. McFARLANE

Illustration by Henry Raleigh

"I'M h'innocent, Judge your lordship," Jimmy protested. "That I can tell you now. But who did do it, and 'ow to account for the things that 'appened afterwards, that I can never tell you—if there's any one alive that can!"

Outside, the storm was now blowing harder than ever. But the three—Jimmy, Willings, and Miss Hope—were in dry clothes again—Jimmy in one of Doctor Laneham's old suits. Laneham had had coffee and bouillon made for them in the big dining-room. And now, warmed back to speech and confidence, the little butler seemed almost tremulously eager to tell his story.

"Oh, h'all I want is to tell it," he said; "for then you'll know for yourselves if I'm tellin' you the truth!"

"Good," said the Doctor. "But, Jimmy, this is our first chance to talk to any one who was there in that Fisher apartment from the beginning. And if I could just ask you one or two questions first?"

"There's nothink you can h'ask, sir, but what'll be as quickly answered."

"Good again. Then, from breakfast on, was any one in those rooms, to your knowledge, except yourself and Maddalina, the maid, and Mrs. Fisher and the Professor themselves?"

"No, sir; and h'after breakfast the Professor he went out."

"Yes," Judge Bishop interrupted; "he was down in our office, with Potter, all day."

"I know. And I 'eard 'im say 'e was going to bring Mr. Potter back for dinner."

"Exactly. And, Jimmy, did you at any time, during the afternoon, hear a voice that you could not account for?"

Jimmy paled a little. But, "No, sir," he said; "no."

"Very well. And now there's some writing I'm going to show you."

FROM one of his desk drawers the Doctor produced the murder note.

He showed it first to D. Hope.

"It'd have been kinder," he said, "if I'd let you see it in the beginning. But I kept telling myself it mightn't be necessary."

The death's-head in red ink. The two lines in that heartlessly fine and beautiful Gothic script: "We have now reached the point where it must be either murder or suicide." And then that last line, written by Mrs. Fisher herself: "Couldn't it be made to look like an accident?"

For a moment the girl could not speak. She could only knot and twist her handkerchief between her fingers.

"I suppose it means," she breathed, "that there was—was what they call a suicide pact?"

"It would seem so," Lancham answered, "on the surface."

"But there wasn't! There wasn't! S' 'elp me, there wasn't!"

It was Jimmy who was crying out the denial. He was standing over the bit of paper, with mouth and eyes a-gape. "It's 'er writing, the bottom part, of it, that's sure. But Gord 'e knows Mrs. Fisher was the last woman that would do it of 'erself!"

"I would think so too, Jimmy," said the Judge. "But, tell us, have you ever seen that other writing anywhere before?"

"No, sir; never, sir!"

"Nor I," said D. Hope. "Nor I!"

"None of us have," said Willings.

"AND now, Jimmy," said the Doctor, "will you go ahead and tell your story? You told us yesterday, when we found you in the rooms, that it was your day off. Tell us first how it was that, in that case, you were there at all."

"I will, sir; I will. It was my h'afternoon h'off, and I'd started h'out, too. But I didn't get anywhere. I'd only walked a square or two when I found myself fairly blown through with the cold in the light great-coat I'd put on. An' I went back to get a 'eavier one."

"Yes?"

"Dr. Laneham, if you can lay your 'ands on that Eyetalian trollop Maddalina, there's a black deal that she can tell you. She didn't do the murder. She couldn't 'ave. To that I'd 'ave to swear myself. But if she 'asn't the guilty knowledge of it on 'er soul!... I say, I'd come back. And, as I h'entered, Mrs. Fisher came down from Maddalina's rooms,—right above mine, they are, you know,—an' that she'd been 'aving trouble with 'er I could see at once. She 'ell 'er 'and at 'er throat, and she was white and gasping with it, and she beckoned me to follow her.

"She didn't make no explanation.

Continued on page 18

Sons and Daughters in the Movies

---

Jockey's Luck

This remarkable set of pictures. is the result of years of watchful waiting on the part of the camera-man, and has no duplicate in the world.

What One Millionaire Did to a Town

"I AM made fairly miserable if I discover that in any business I do I have not extracted every dollar possible. It is one of the first principles Mr. Rockefeller taught me; it is the one he has inculcated in every Standard Oil man, until it has become a religion with us all."

Nothing could exemplify the attitude of the old corporation "barons" better than these words of Henry H. Rogers, the Standard Oil magnate; and no one so well represented the fast disappearing type of American self-made multimillionaire as did this man.

The old wiseacres of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, used to say that he was a "right smart young feller," and add that "he'd be heard from yet." Nobody in the county could toss a barrel of potatoes with quite the same insouciance. Rogers afterward learned to juggle corporations with the same facility.

Started as a Brakeman

HIS first act of distinction deserves sincere applause. He startled the authorities at a school entertainment by reciting, not some ennobling verse of the theirs-but-to-do-or-die genre, but a singular selection:

If ever they should turn me out
When I have better grown.
Now, hang me, but I mean to have
A treadmill of my own.

Even in those days Rogers had a striking vigor of speech that characterized him all through life, and that exposed him perhaps more than he desired to the analysis of the public. He once complained boldly of the hardness of the school benches.

"If I ever get rich," he concluded to the startled school-marm, "I'm going to build a school-house where boys can be comfortable."

Rogers spent his spare time outside of school doing odd jobs at fifteen cents an hour. His first regular work was as a brakeman. He earned $1.15 a day for twenty-one days, and then decided it didn't pay.

He became clerk in a grocery store, and for the next four years drove a delivery wagon. There are still people in Fairhaven who declare no one can "gee-up" a horse the way old "H. H." used to when he was a boy.

When he was twenty years old Rogers married Miss Abbie Gilford, and after the wedding the two

moved away from Fairhaven to the petroleum fields of Pennsylvania. They took with them exactly $200.

The Rogers' new home was a little cabin. Outside the door a stream flowed by, and here they did their laundry. For a while Rogers went back to his old work as brakeman, this time on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Later he got a job in the paint-shop of a Fairhaven friend, Bartholomew Tabor. It didn't take Tabor long to recognize Rogers' worth, and he was soon able to give him the boost he deserved. Charles Pratt, of the Pratt Oil Works in Brooklyn, asked him to recommend a keen New England boy. Tabor told him about Rogers, and Pratt took him on at once.

In the next few years Rogers did so well that when the Pratt Oil Works was amalgamated with the Standard Oil, in 1874, Rogers was chosen chairman of the manufacturing company. His rise now was steady and swift, until he reached the pinnacle as one of the big Standard Oil magnates.

Rogers belonged to that generation which had no scruples in playing high finance. The game was new then, and the rules were dimly defined. The stories of some of the deals are startling enough. There was that great Amalgamated Copper business, which Rogers, William Rockefeller, and James Stillman floated through the National City Bank. The thing smashed, losing millions for its investors. However, the triple syndicate was said to rake in some thirty-five millions from the transaction.

"No man has done his business properly who has missed a single dollar he could have secured in the doing of it," commented Mr. Rogers.

$1,000,000 for Fairhaven

ROGERS in his later years practically rebuilt Fairhaven. He spent more than a million in general improvements, building water-works, a library, a church with the finest set of chimes in the world, and many miles of macadamized roads.

"I do not think a fair judge would find me guilty of avarice, either in business or in the manner of my living," he once remarked.

However, it is doubtful if even this lavishness toward Fairhaven required much personal sacrifice, since he was still able to finance alone a railroad in Virginia for some forty millions. To be sure, there was great surprise, at his death in 1909, because he left only thirty-five millions.

What Happens When You Get Angry

By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE

EVERYBODY knows, in a general way, that it is not wise to get angry. Under the influence of anger the judgment is clouded, and acts are sometimes committed that one may forever regret. In matters of importance, the man who gets angry is always at a disadvantage with an opponent who keeps his temper.

But, besides these obvious consequences of anger, of which everybody is aware, there are others equally serious, though by no means so well known. Most harmful, and at the same time least known, are the remarkable changes brought about in the physical organism every time anger dominates a human being.

It is no exaggeration to say that the person who gets angry with any frequency—even though his anger manifests itself only in a comparatively mild irritability or general "crankiness" of disposition—is running the risk of having his life unexpectedly cut short, or of passing into a state of chronic invalidism. I write these lines, indeed, fresh from observation of a man whose miserable plight furnishes a striking instance of the catastrophic physical effects of anger.

The Man Who Was Irritated by Trifles

WHEN I first knew this man, several years ago, I noticed his habit of becoming irritated, sometimes almost infuriated, by trifles. He was forever worrying, fretting, complaining. There was seldom a day that he did not make at least one outright display of anger.

Learning recently that he was very ill, I paid him a visit. I found him in an extremely depressed state. He told me that he could not sleep, that he had ringing noises in his head, and that he found it hard to concentrate his thoughts.

In addition—and it was this that troubled him most—he was suffering from chronic indigestion. He asserted that everything he ate caused him intense pain.

"I suffer agonies!" he cried. "It is as if some one were plunging a knife into me, and turning it around inside of me."

As he was past middle age, this sounded suspiciously like the pangs of an internal malignant growth. But, in the absence of other symptoms usually associated with such a condition, and knowing his disposition, it seemed more likely that his trouble was the result of a nervous weakness of the digestive organs. Accordingly I suggested that he consult a certain eminent nerve specialist, and this man confirmed my tentative diagnosis.

"This is essentially a nervous case," the specialist said, "and it calls for sanatorium treatment."

The man is now in a sanatorium, where he has shown some improvement. But if he is to be cured—and still more, if he is to stay cured—it is absolutely certain that he will have to do something he has never yet done: learn to control his temper.

In the light of modern scientific knowledge of the effects of anger on the bodily processes, I can say without hesitation that to this man's irritability, and to this alone, is due his breakdown. It is so with thousands of men and women. And it is not only digestive disorders to which long-continued habits of fretfulness and irritability give rise.

One of the greatest problems before medical profession at the present time is how to account for the steady increase in degenerative diseases of the heart, blood-vessels, liver, and other internal organs.

While the death-rate from specific infetious diseases like typhoid and tuberculosis is decreasing, the death-rate from degenerative diseases is rising. Until quite recently no satisfactory explanation of this was forthcoming. Now there is evidence that a good part of the increase is directly attributable to the adverse influence exercised on the internal organs by anger and other exciting emotional states.

It is not that people nowadays get angry more frequently and more intensely than in by-gone times; but, for reasons with which everybody ought to be made acquainted, anger affects the human organism more injuriously to-day than used to be the case.

Just how, then, and why, does anger cause conditions of physical ill health?

To begin with, it has been definitely established that every time a person becomes angry the mechanism by which his stomach digests food is temporarily put out of order, and that its paralysis of function continues for some time after the anger storm has passed.

A prime requisite to good digestion is a free flow of saliva and gastric juice when food is chewed. There must literally be a preparatory automatic "watering" of the mouth and stomach. Ordinarily this begins as soon as food is taken into the mouth—if one is hungry, it begins at the mere sight of food. But it has been proved that, no matter how appetizing the food, the digestive flow stops almost altogether under the influence of anger.

Effect of Anger on a Dog

THIS was first demonstrated a few years ago by a Russian physiologist, , experimenting with dogs so conditioned that he could see into their throats and stomachs.

When a dog was irritated,—as by showing it a cat which it was prevented from attaching,—the flow of saliva and gastric juice instantly stopped, and did not begin again for some time after the dog had been calmed. Even a slight degree of irritability was sufficient to stop gastric secretion.

The same result has since been repeatedly recorded by other scientists experimenting with cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, children, and full grown men and women.

Thus one observer, a medical man named Hornborg, had as a patient a small boy in whom disease had caused an external opening large enough to allow a view of the workings of the stomach. Doctor Hornborg found that if he gave this boy food after angering him, his eating of the food was not accompanied by a flow of gastric juice.

Besides stopping the secretory processes of the stomach, anger stops its muscular movements as well, and also the movements of almost all the alimentary tract. Hence food eaten during, or soon after, an outburst of anger or petulance, is not properly taken up by the alimentary canal for final digestion, absorption, and elimination. Which means, it need scarcely be pointed out, that every part of the body suffers in some degree through diminished nutrition. And certain specific discomforts are likely to be experienced—sour stomach, gastric pains, head-ache, and so forth.

It Weakens the Human Organism

EQUALLY striking is the effect of anger on the liver. One most important function of the liver is to store glycogen, or "animal starch," which is a source of energy when liberated from the liver into the blood in the form of sugar. Under normal conditions, an exceedingly small amount of sugar—all the body requires—is liberated. The liberation of a greater amount is a waste, and if long continued has a fatally weakening effect on the system, constituting the serious disease known as diabetes.

Now, as has lately been proved by an American investigator, Professor Cannon of Harvard University, anger, or strong emotional excitement of any sort, immediately causes the liver to liberate sugar in excess.

Professor Cannon found this to be true in the case of both animals and human beings. Almost always a man examined after he had been angry or excited showed clear indications in the liquids of his body of glycosuria, or excessive sugar.

Here is Professor Cannon's summary of one of his most interesting observations:

"C.H. Fiske and I examined twenty-five members of the Harvard University football squad immediately after the final and most exciting contest of 1913, and found sugar in twelve cases. Five of these positive cases were among substitutes not called upon to enter the game. The only excited spectator of the Harvard victory who was examined also had marked glycosuria, which on the following day had disappeared."

Further than this, on testing the blood of excited and angry animals and people, Professor Cannon discovered that it held in excess another substance which, like sugar, is usually present in the circulation in exceedingly minute quantities.

This substance, called adrenalin, has some extraordinary properties. It is secreted by two small glands back of the kidneys. If artificially extracted and injected into the blood of a human being in any appreciable amount, it instantly has the effect of creating a sharp rise in blood pressure, the blood-vessels being constricted and the heart-beat increased. It also alters the distribution of the blood, driving it from the abdomen to the head and limbs. And for the time being it enormously increases muscular power and abolishes all feeling of fatigue.

Precisely the same effects, scientific research has proved, are brought about by the quantity of adrenalin set free in the blood during periods of anger or other emotional stress. That is to say, not only does anger temporarily stop stomach action and abnormally stimulate the sugar-releasing function of the liver: it also imposes an unusual strain on the heart and the blood-vessels.

Naturally, the question at once arises as to why it should have these particular bodily effects. This is a question I put recently to Professor Cannon, who is recognized as perhaps the foremost living authority on the physiology of the emotions.

The answer he gave me is of practical importance to every reader of this article.

"You will observe," he said, in effect, "that these various bodily reactions are all in the nature of reflexes. That is, they are not controlled by the will, but are automatic. And, being reflexes, they have originally been developed by the organism, not to injure it, but to promote its welfare.

"Their one purpose, indeed, is to enable the person who is angry—or, for that matter, the person who is frightened, the very same reactions occurring under the influence of fear—to take effective action in accordance with his anger or his fright.

"The increased secretion of adrenalin augments his muscular power for striking or running, and, by driving the blood from the abdomen to the limbs, puts it where it is for the moment most needed. The increased liberation of sugar means an increase in the fund of immediately available energy. And the decreased action of the stomach helps to permit fuller action by those parts of the body called more directly into play in striking or running.

"In short, all of these reflexes cooperate to strengthen the body for a supreme exertion, and thus assist in the physical struggle for existence.

"Obviously, however, being intended for a special purpose, they cease to be helpful when not utilized for that purpose. If these physiological results of emotional excitement are not 'worked off' by action, they may have pathological effects."

This is precisely the point to be borne in mind.

The Remedy

WITH the progress of civilization there has been a steadily decreasing tendency to follow emotional states by vigorous physical action. Excepting in comparatively rare instances, men no longer spring at one another's throats when angered, as they used to do in the days of primitive man, and even as recently as the rough-and-tumble period of the frontier. Only in childhood and boyhood, as a rule, does anger lead to violent personal combat.

Consequently, in the life of the average civilized adult, the physiological products of anger are not adequately worked off. And consequently, also, those civilized adults who permit themselves the luxury of frequent moods of anger, vexation, anxiety, and worry, run the risk of developing such disorders as chronic stomach trouble, diabetes, heart disease, and weakened blood-vessels.

There is only one remedy. Either we must revert to the savage habits of our primeval ancestors, or we must keep a tighter rein on our emotions.

When the Jitney Came to Enderby

By FREEMAN TILDEN

Illustrations by Norman Borchardt

UNTIL the month of January, 1909, everything that Elisha Hammick touched turned, as we say, to gold. Fortune smiled upon him; and not only smiled, but in certain events actually uttered a loud guffaw. He was the richest man in Enderby, and he had started as a barefoot boy. Still, the recipe for riches must call for something more than bare feet; for several other men who had begun life in an equally nude condition had in the same number of years barely acquired boots.

But in the first month of that year 1909, as aforesaid, Fortune stopped smiling on Elisha Hammick—at least, temporarily. It was in that period that Mr. Hammick built the Enderby Street Railway.

The town of Enderby stood in need of a number of things, but one of the things it distinctly did not require was a street railway. But there was a wave of promotion about that time. A skilful promoter came to town and promoted Mr. Hammick, and Mr. Hammick promoted the railway, and the towns-people promoted the scheme with their five-cent fares until the novelty wore off, and then resumed their cheap and hygienic habit of walking. The Enderby Street Railway became a joke.

OF course, the investment did not pauperize Elisha. It gave him a severe shock, and it grieved him; but he was still rich. But something worse was to come. Mary Hammick, his only child, fell in love with—the motorman!

With the motorman—yes. That was bitterness and wretchedness for Elisha. But that was not the worst. For the motorman happened to be "Tobe" Shore, son of Tobe Shore the useless, who was son of Tobe Shore the shiftless. Every generation in Enderby had had its Tobias Shore, and each succeeding Tobe had kept up the tradition of inefficiency. They were always big, well built, handsome men, these Tobe Shores. They had always had more than their share of wit and good nature. But they loved not work.

This Tobe Shore, the motorman, was as big, fine-looking, clever, and good-natured as any of his forebears. More as an experiment than anything else, Elisha had offered him a chance on the Enderby Street Railway. Somewhat to his surprise, Tobe jumped at the chance. It supplied just the excitement, perhaps, that the Shore nature demanded; and it did not too closely resemble productive labor. Anyway, Tobe became a motor-man, and then—

It was Mrs. Fryer, the town gossip, that gave the alarm. She came into the First National Bank one morning, as full of business as if she had an account there. She wanted to see Mr. Hammick immediately—on important business, certainly.

"Well, Mrs. Fryer, what can I do for you?"

"I don't want you to think I am meddling in other folks' affairs," began Mrs. Fryer breathlessly. "I never meddle. You know that, Mr. Hammick. You've known me—"

"You are all right, Mrs. Fryer," interrupted Mr. Hammick. "What was it you had in mind?"

And then the awful story came out.

Elisha Hammick leaped from his chair and clutched feverishly at his paper-knife. "You saw them?" he shouted. "You are sure, Mrs. Fryer?"

Mrs. Fryer nodded, with a contented purr.

"That young scamp had his arm around my daughter, and she was running the car—with one hand on the controller and the other on the brake-handle? Will you take oath on that?"

"Oath?" repeated Mrs. Fryer indignantly. "I am a decent woman, Mr. Hammick."

"Yes, yes; if you saw them you saw them," said Elisha quickly. "I'm much obliged to you, Mrs. Fryer. I'll remember it. Good morning."

"Ellis," shouted Mr. Hammick to the cashier, "stop the car, when it goes by next trip, and tell Shore I want to see him."

Not long afterward Tobe Shore came in, whistling and whirling his controller-handle. "Mornin', Mr. Hammick," he saluted cheerily.

Mr. Hammick settled back in his chair with a gleam of wolfishness in his eyes. But he asked blandly: "Shore, did you ever let anybody—that is, anybody—run your car?"

Tobe's cheeks reddened, but he laughed heartily.

"Who saw us?" he replied. "I bet it was old lady Fryer! She couldn't keep her mouth shut if her teeth were falling out!"

"When did this occur?" continued Mr. Hammick, with a sigh of relief that he did not have to explain the horrible thing he meant by "this."

"Oh, I always let her run the car down the long hill this side of Pleasure Park," replied Tobe eagerly. "She's a corking good motorman, Mr. Hammick."

Elisha suppressed a desire to scream. He went on as calmly as he thought the principles of big business required of him:

"Were there passengers on the car, Shore?"

"Not that week," chuckled Tobe.

"This is not a joke, Shore," cautioned the president of the road. "Where was Morrill?" He referred to the conductor.

"Bill? Oh, Bill was having his nap," said Tobe.

"His nap!" roared the outraged Hammick.

"Well, what's the use getting that way about it, Squire?" asked Tobe, in a tone of pained surprise. "Bill had read the morning paper twice over, and the motion of the car just naturally makes a fellow sleepy."

"You're fired!" snapped Hammick, with a wave of finality.

"Just as you say," assented Tobe, without turning a hair.

Thereupon a brilliant idea occurred to the owner of the street railway. The car was made a pay-as-you-enter affair. That is, the passengers paid Bill Morrill as they entered. The conductor became the motorman, and the place of conductor remained vacant.

IT was easy enough to fire Tobe Shore, but it was not so easy for Elisha Hammick to quench the fire that had taken flame in the heart of his daughter. It is one thing to say to an employee, "You are fired!" It is another thing to say to one's daughter, "Kindly fire your sweet-heart!" Especially when one has a weakness for one's pretty, rosy, lively daughter, and even stands a bit in awe of her.

Elisha thought the matter over at length, and then decided that the businesslike method of procedure was to turn the job over to Mary's mother.

Mrs. Hammick was at least outwardly scandalized to hear that the family was in imminent danger of receiving a motor-man into its bosom. She had a heart-to-heart talk with Mary. She was too femininely wise to cast aspersions on the family tree of Tobe Shore. She well understood that a warm-hearted young woman of eighteen years does not bother about family trees, be they ever so scrubby. She did not try to sandpaper the character of young Mr. Tobe Shore, because in truth she knew that anything attempted toward that end merely serves to burnish and illumine the fine qualities of a prospective husband. No; she fell back on the good old argument of afflicted parent-hood. She wanted to know if Mary, after eighteen years of constant receipt of love and affection, was going to bring her father's and mother's graying hairs to the tomb—or something like that. Efficiently used, this appeal makes nine hits out of ten shots.

Miss Mary Hammick wept. She pouted. She did not see why Tobe Shore was not the equal of any young man in the village. She clutched at the region of her heart. She dampened the pillow whereon her cheek rested. But she succumbed to duty. Clandestinely she saw Tobe Shore once again, and returned to him the engagement ring he would have given her if he could have afforded it, and admitted that she would always, always, always remember—

Two matters of huge satisfaction did Mary Hammick take out of this abyss of woe. One was the poignant feeling of ownership of an inner sorrow; and the other was the joy of knowing just what to do when a trolley car blows a fuse. For both of these she was indebted to Tobe Shore.

The Enderby Street Railway continued to run. It had to run. As a going business there was always a chance to unload it upon some rash outsiders who did not realize the terrible walking capacity of Enderby people. Besides, there was the matter of pride. Elisha Hammick had a passion for his little white elephant. He used to board the car now and then and make the round trip, and when any one got aboard he smiled. He smiled because the car had a passenger.

THERE was nothing vindictive about Tobe Shore. Vindictiveness was something that had not run in his family. But the injustice of being so summarily dismissed from his post rankled; and it rankled to the extent of filling his soul

with the ambition to depart from the Shore traditions and create an estate. There were no more local street cars to motor, so Tobe fell back on the only other kind of locomotion that offered itself. He borrowed a little money and bought a small automobile. Then he chartered an unused barn and called it a garage, with the accent, naturally, on the first syllable. Business trickled in, and Tobe did well. He bought a larger car, and managed so carefully that he was able actually to keep new tires on hand—than which there is no truer gage of success.

The Enderby Street Railway, too, began to pick up business. Whether the people of Enderby were beginning to feel the stiffness of years in their joints or whether the presence of so many opportunities for riding demoralized them, they began to desert pedestrianism. On one remarkable trip from the railroad station to the rail-end, the street-car's register showed twenty-one fares. Mr. Elisha Hammick again began to dream dreams.

AND then, one day, Tobe went to the city on business, and returned with a whimsical smile on his face. He went straight to the newspaper office and ordered a big placard to be printed.

"How do you spell it?" asked the printer.

"J-i-t-n-e-y," replied Tobe, reading from a memorandum-book.

"That's a new one on me," was the comment. "Never heard of that word before."

"You'll hear it a lot before many days," was Tobe's reply.

The next morning, upon the arrival of the first up train, Tobe Shore was at the railroad station. He ran his big touring car alongside the waiting street-car, with its front facing the station platform. A big sign, done in the largest wood-type of the Enderby Gazette print, proclaimed:

JITNEY!
Anywhere the street-car goes,
5 CENTS.

Five passengers alighted from the train when it pulled in. Five passengers looked two or three times at the waiting street-car and then at the inviting upholstery of the automobile.

"Right in here!" shouted Tobe briskly. "Same price as the street-car, and I let you off at your door."

Five passengers climbed into the jitney, and the street-car clanged uptown without a fare.

The street-car was not fast, and the automobile was. Tobe chopped his five passengers and arrived in front of the Town Hall just in time to take on a stout, elderly woman who was in the act of climbing aboard the trolley car.

"This way, Mrs. Keep!" shouted Tobe, jumping out and seizing the passenger's arm. "Much more comfortable, Mrs. Keep. Same price, and I drop you right at your back door-step."

"Here, Tobe!" expostulated Bill Morrill from the front platform of the street-car. "You leave my passengers alone!"

Bill had quickly scented the cloud that overhung his job.

"Well, which do you want to ride in, Mrs. Keep?" asked Tobe in a spirit of great fairness, pausing with his hand on the clutch. "Same price, remember."

"Oh, I'll go along with you," was the reply. "The steps of the car are so high, anyway."

Farther up the line, Tobe arrived just in time to filch another prospective patron of the trolley car. Likewise, he pursued the Hammick property all the way back to the station, and made sure that it made the round trip without a passenger. He kept at the game steadfastly all day. By noon the word "jitney" was circulating through the village. It enjoyed the same burst of popularity that had greeted the slang "rubber-neck" when that word had first made its debut in Enderby.

At three o'clock in the afternoon the

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cashier of the bank ran out and halted Bill Morrill as he was passing through the Square. "Mr. Hammick wants to see you, Bill," he announced.

Bill came into the magnate's office.

"What's this Tobe Shore is doing?" asked the richest man in Enderby.

"What's he doing? repeated Bill, in tone of mingled disgust and apprehension. "He's taking all my business, that's all. I've made six trips with only two passengers, and they both rode on passes. That's what he's doing."

"H'm" said Mr. Hammick. "You ought to sing out, Morrill. I understand Shore drums up trade by standing 'side of his jitney, or whatever he calls it, and telling folks his business. Why don't you do that?"

"Huh!" snorted Bill Morrill. "What have I got to holler about? Wooden seats? Rattling windows? Can I take people into their back yard? I've got all I can do to keep the old hooker on the track."

"The old what?" shot back Mr. Hammick angrily.

"My car," replied Bill, with the irony of long-suffering patience. "My big, beautiful, upholstered Pullman car."

"You get out!" snapped Elisha. "If you want to let that fellow put you out of a job, go ahead. I don't care."

But Mr. Hammick did care. He fretted all the afternoon. Every time he heard his car coming, he took up a position in the front office where he could see without being seen. He saw the Enderby street car, his pride and passion, rolling along the street as innocent of occupants as if it were intended only for the purpose of maintaining the franchise. He saw Tobe Shore dashing around in his automobile, doing—not very much business, to be sure, but all the business there was to do.

THEN Mr. Hammick bought a quarter page of the Enderby Gazette over the telephone, and rushed the following copy to the printer:

WHEN YOU RIDE ON THE ENDERBY STREET RAILWAY
You have a reliable, solvent concern to fall back upon in case of accident.
WHEN YOU RIDE ON A TRAMP AUTOMOBILE
Where would you come in for damages in case of accident?
REMEMBER THIS POINT AND PATRONIZE THE STREET-CAR.

The advertisement made talk—plenty of it. But it brought no fares to the register of the street-car. Tobe Shore was working his rugged voice, his cushioned scats, and his winning personality for all they were worth. And he, too, resorted to newspaper publicity. Out of his righteous indignation he replied to Mr. Hammick's attack in the following notice:

WHEN I DROVE ON THE ENDERBY STREET RAILWAY
I ran over a horse, a cow, three cats, five dogs, and several hens. How much damages did the owners receive?
YOU CAN SUE A HEARTLESS CORPORATION
? ? ? ? ? BUT can you collect ? ? ? ? ?
TOBE SHORE, the Careful Driver, NEVER HAS AN ACCIDENT.
Patronize the JITNEY!

With a freshly printed copy of the Gazette in his hand, Elisha Hammick hurried home. He was in that ungentle frame of mind that leads men to kick cats. But the Hammick cats were not in evidence, and after slamming a door or two, Elisha proceeded to exhaust his feelings upon his family.

"Well, I suppose you know what your friend is doing—just from sheer spite," he said to his daughter savagely.

The young woman threw back her head and swallowed a little lump in her throat.

"I don't know as he's been a friend of mine—for some months."

Whereat there was chilly silence.

"But I do think it is rather mean of him," continued the rosy-cheeked Mary, after giving her father a queer appraising glance.

"You don't say!" was the sardonic answer.

Another pause. Then Miss Hammick felt her way along a little further.

"Father," she said, "I know of a way to beat Tobe all hollow—if you'd only do it."

"Well?" said Mr. Hammick, becoming suddenly interested.

"Yes, I know it could be done," Mary went on. "You see, it's only a matter of attracting people by giving them something different. Now, if you'd let me run the car instead of Bill Morrill—"

"What?" shouted Hammick incredulously. "You run the car!"

"Mary!" said Mrs. Hammick, horror-stricken. "Mary, what are you saying?"

"I mean it," said the young woman. "Oh, I'd just love to! And I can run a trolley car as well as any one."

"Why, Mary Hammick!" cried her outraged mother.

"Don't talk nonsense!" said Mr. Hammick.

"That's it—anything I want to do is nonsense," replied the girl. "You keep me moping around home all the time, because anything I really want to do is unlady-like. I hate housework—so there! I could—"

"Mary!" remonstrated Mrs. Hammick. "Please don't mention such a thing again."

"Well, I didn't suppose you'd let me do it," added Mary. "You're all afraid of what people would say. But, if you won't do that, I've got another idea. Your trolley car can't compete with Tobe's touring car, father. People like to be comfortable, and they like novelty. Now, if you'd take out those miserable hard seats, and put in soft rockers and a lounge, and let me fix up some nice curtains at the windows, and have a carpet, on the floor—"

"And furnish breakfast, dinner, and supper—" interrupted Mr. Hammick, with a sour smile.

"Oh, no; you wouldn't have to do that. But you might let me serve tea in the afternoons, if Bill would run slow over the rough spots; and you might put our phonograph in the corner—"

Elisha Hammick looked off into space. Finally he said:

"I don't know why it couldn't he done. We've got to fight fire with fire. But all that costs money."

"You don't mean to say, Elisha Hammick, that you'd permit our daughter—"

"Why not?" was the cool rejoinder. "As she says, she's moping around, doing nothing. And, anyway, people would regard it in the light of a prank. I don't know; it might be possible."

"Everybody in town would ride on the car then," suggested Mary Hammick.

"It might be done," admitted Elisha absently. "I'll think it over."

That night Mr. Hammick was at the car-barn when Bill Morrill brought the car in after its last trip.

"How did it go, Morrill?" he asked.

"No business," replied Bill in a melancholy voice. "That feller gets 'em all. We can't compete with his blamed jitney."

"Take out the other car in the morning," ordered Elisha. "I'm going to make a few repairs on this one. I'm going to put that jitney out of business, if it costs every last cent I'm worth!"

WHEN he returned home, Mary Hammick was drawing a diagram of the trolley car as it should be.

"There'll be a couple of workmen at the barn tomorrow, Mary," said Hammick. "They'll do what you tell 'em to. I leave it to you. If the people of Enderby want a boodwar instead of a decent trolley car, let 'em have it. And, by the, way, you're not—er—soft on that Shore fellow any more, are you?"

"Oh, no, father," said Mary joyously. And at the moment she really believed it.

It took three days to make the requisite changes in that old trolley car. Then, a little after seven o'clock one morning, Bill Morrill pulled out of the barn and drove gingerly down the track. Every few hundred feet he turned and looked

back into the car and grinned. "Gee, it looks like a house on wheels!" he murmured.

The day before, the Enderby Gazette had published an announcement that set the old town in a frenzy of expectation:

ALL THE COMFORTS OF HOME!!
Beginning to-morrow morning and every day thereafter
THE ENDERBY STREET RAILWAY
Will put in commission the finest trolley car ever operated in the country. Every seat a richly upholstered affair, and conveniences and comforts for all.
ALSO
Tea served every afternoon from 2:30 to 5 without extra charge.
WATCH FOR THE FIRST TRIP PRICE THE SAME AS USUAL—FIVE CENTS.

Tobe Shore took up his stand, as usual, beside the street-car, near the station. He clambered out of the driver's seat and went over and peered into the trolley car.

"Whew!" said Tobe.

The exclamation was not unwarranted. Never, in Enderby or elsewhere, had been seen a trolly car like this. The hard wooden seats had given way to a variety of comfortable rocking-chairs; a leather-covered couch stood across the rear end of the car; in the forward left-hand corner was a table, spread with a snowy clout, on which rested a dainty tea-set and all the appliances of refreshment; and white curtains fluttered at the windows. Behind the tea-table, reading a magazine and looking even fresher and

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more inviting than her surroundings, sat a young woman.

"Whew!" repeated Tobe Shore—and then the train came in.

THE jitney journeyed leisurely uptown without a passenger.

The jitney journeyed leisurely around town without a passenger.

The jitney met the noon train without securing a passenger.

Then Mr. Tobe Shore put the jitney in his garage and rode all the afternoon on the trolley car. He had tea going out to Pleasure Park; he had tea returning to the railroad station; he stretched out luxuriously in a rocking-chair, and agreed with all the other passengers, who filled the car to its capacity each trip, that this was the finest traction Enderby had ever seen. He left the car at five-thirty. But before he left he stood a moment at the little tea-table and said, in that rich, pleasant voice of his:

"You did fine, Mary—that is, Miss Hammick. You've put the jitney clean out of business, I guess. I don't know—I'll run in competition for a while; but I guess you've won."

Miss Hammick looked up from her magazine and asked shyly: "Do you hate me, Tobe—that is, Mr. Shore?"

"Well, I should say not!" was the cheerful reply. "Besides, I may think up something new, myself."

"Well, we've got him beaten to a standstill," said Bill Morrill, looking in the door and rubbing his hands gleefully.

"Yes," she smiled. But, when the car was clear of passengers, Mary took a little lace-edged handkerchief and dabbed it at her eyes. She was beginning to feel that there is such a thing as being too clever.

Tobe Shore, meanwhile, was driving aimlessly around the outskirts of the town, cudgeling his brain. So distrait was he that a flock of hens, enjoying late hunting in the road, narrowly escaped destruction. Tobe woke up so quickly that he stalled his engine.

"Narrow shave!" he muttered. "And me advertising as a careful driver!"

And then, suddenly, the idea came! It must have been closely connected with the hens, for Tobe gave them a swift glance over his shoulder, climbed out of his car, grinned a broad grin, executed a few tango steps in the middle of the road, started his engine, and shot away. He never slackened his speed until he drew up in front of the hotel in Doddburg Center, seven miles away. Then he got out and rushed into the hotel, greeting the proprietor with the question: "Where can I find the town clerk?"

FROM Pleasure Park to the outskirts of the village of Enderby is one long down grade. It was on this long slide that Mrs. Fryer had seen the scandalous proceeding that she reported to Elisha Hammick. It was just before leaving the Pleasure Park end of the road, next afternoon, that Mary Hammick said to Bill Morrill persuasively: "Let me run the car down the hill, Mr. Morrill."

"Oh, I couldn't, really!" replied Bill virtuously.

"You know—I have done it," urged the young woman.

"Yes, I know; but I couldn't think of it," resisted the motorman.

"Mr. Morrill," said Mary Hammick in frigid tones, "do you think I fixed up this car to spoil Tobe Shore's business? Do you think I went to all this trouble to please you and father? I want to run this car."

Bill looked at her curiously and replied: "I knew there was something else back of it."

"Well, there is, you see," was the prompt response. "If you see any passengers, you can take charge. Ring the bell and we'll start. You just see if I can't run it as well as anybody."

"I'll lose my job!" grumbled Bill; but he pulled the bell.

The car, under the guidance of the new driver, started slowly down the incline. "Don't let it get too much headway!" shouted Bill Morrill warningly.

"Pshaw, I know what to do," was the gay reply. "Don't you worry, Mr. Morrill." And the trolley car slid onward.

At the exact moment when the trolley car started, an automobile, that had been waiting behind a bend in the road,

began to chug. By the time the car had gone two hundred yards, the automobile, unseen by either occupant of the trolley car, was traveling along abreast of the rear platform. For half a minute the two remained in the same relative position; and then, quick as a flash, the automobile—which bore a "jitney" sign that flapped in the wind—shot ahead until it was a hundred feet in advance. It veered deliberately until a full third of it encroached upon the rail—and then stopped dead!

It doesn't take long for a trolley car to travel a hundred feet downhill.

There was a piteous shriek from the front of the trolley car, a crunching thud as it struck the stalled automobile. An object in a long linen dust-coat shot out of the automobile and landed in a heap at the side of the road. The jitney turned over just twice, and landed squarely upside down. And then the trolley car stopped with such suddenness that every "richly upholstered chair" and every "comfort of home" slid pell-mell forward, and piled up over the kicking person of Bill Morrill.

She didn't faint, and that one shriek was the only shriek. Before Bill Morrill had untangled himself from the comforts of home, Mary Hammick was kneeling beside the crumpled dust-coat at the roadside.

"Tobe!" she cried softly. "Tobe, speak to me! Open your eyes, Tobe! Please!"

There was no answer.

"Now, if you had minded what I had told you—" began the voice of Bill Morrill.

She turned upon the motorman a white face that cut him short. "Run for the nearest doctor," she ordered. "Go quick! I'll take all the blame—afterward."

When Bill had gone, Mary Hammick lifted the injured man's head tenderly. "Tobe!" she cried. "Please speak to me, Tobe. My heart is breaking, dear—don't you know it? I love you, Tobe, do you hear me? If you'll only open your eyes—"

"What'll you do?" asked Tobe Shore, suddenly opening his eyes.

"You're not dead!" she cried hysterically, with the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What'll you do?" repeated Tobe, looking steadily into her face.

"I'll—I'll do anything," she sobbed.

"All I want you to do," responded Tobe, "is to marry me. There's something in the inside pocket of my coat. Will you please take it out?"

She drew forth a sheet of paper, folded twice.

"Marriage license," explained Tobe laconically. "I got it in Doddburg Center. Do you mind looking in the lower vest pocket on the side toward you?"

Without a word, her trembling hand took out a small square box and carefully opened it. "For me—dear?" she gasped, holding up a plain gold band ring.

"I got that in Doddburg Center—too," explained Tobe. "Now, before any one comes, perhaps you have a kiss for an injured man."

With joyous abandon she pressed her lips against his. Then she looked at the patient sternly and said: "Tobe Shore, do you mean to tell me that you got these things and then ran in front of the car on purpose? Surely you're not that crazy!"

"Sure I'm crazy—about you, Mary," replied Tobe, and then closed his eyes and refused to show the slightest sign of consciousness.

With her heart beating very fast, Mary Hammick approached old Doctor Sands a few minutes afterward, and looked anxiously into his face.

"Two ribs, a collar-bone, and a sprained ankle," he said with professional coolness. "He's got nerve enough for six men. He, never whimpered when I prodded him."

"Yes, he has plenty of nerve, Doctor," said the girl, laughing through her tears.

THAT night Elisha Hammick was nervously sitting, standing, and walking up and down in the office of Lawyer Stone. Like a seasoned business man, his first thoughts had taken the form of defending a law-suit.

"Well, well?" he cried impatiently, when the lawyer returned from a visit to Tobe Shore's bedside. "What is it, Stone? What's going to be the outcome?"

"Elisha, you're in luck!" replied the lawyer, slapping Hammick on the shoulder. "Tobe Shore says he would sue a stranger, but he couldn't think of suing his father."

"His father!" repeated Hammick mechanically; and then sat down heavily in a chair and wiped his glistening forehead.

A few moments passed, marked only by the heavy breathing of the owner of the Enderby Street Railway.

Then Elisha Hammick brought his fist down on the arm of the chair and uttered a hoarse and cynical laugh.

"I'll get even with them!" he yelled.

"Don't take it too hard," cautioned the lawyer. "We all have daughters, and all our daughters get married sooner or later. What do you propose to do, Elisha?"

"I propose, Stone," replied the traction magnate, "to get even. I'm going to give them a fitting wedding present—the scamps! I'm going to give them the trolley road."

She Owns All These Oil-Wells

WHAT is said to be the largest income enjoyed by any resident of the State of Oklahoma is that of little seventeen-year-old Sarah Rector, a native Creek Indian girl. Her estate comprises a tract of something like seventy acres, two miles north of Pemeta, Oklahoma, on the Cimarron River.

A year ago this tract of land was valued at about fifty dollars an acre. At present it would be hard to estimate its real value—Sarah Rector's income from the forty-eight producing oil-wells located on her property averages nearly $35,000 each month.

The land is leased to B. B. Jones, and in the last four months he has turned over to the Muscogee County Court, in trust for Miss Rector, the sum of $140,000. Prior to this the girl had received about $125,000. She gets one eighth of all the oil produced,—that is, out of every million barrels of oil that flows from the forty-eight wells on her property she is entitled to 125,000 barrels,—and the wells are now producing close to a million barrels of oil a month.

This fortunate little Indian maid, who is an orphan, was educated in the reservation school. She is quiet and unassuming, and no one would ever dream that she is one of the richest girls in the United States.

Some House-Boat

A HOUSE-BOAT, of course, is just a house stuck on a boat. Nothing simpler. You've seen them many a time—little squat shanties on flat, powerless scows, tied up along the shore or floating lazily down sluggish streams.

But you have never seen a house-boat like this one, because it is the only one of its kind in the world—the queen of houseboats. It is sixty-two feet long, with a beam of thirteen and a half feet. The main saloon forward is nearly twenty feet long, and has everything you would find on an ocean liner. From this a private stairway leads to the quarters of the owner and his guests, each a separate apartment having its private bath. Aft the saloon are the dining-room and pantry. The boat has steam heat, open plumbing, and electric light. The water supply is adequate for a cruise of three thousand miles, and six thousand gallons of gasolene can be stored—enough to feed the two 200-horsepower motors for many weeks.

"How much does it cost a year to keep a private yacht?" some one once asked J. P. Morgan.

"Sir," was his answer, "a man who would ask such a question has no business to think of keeping a private yacht."

The man who built the queen of houseboats never asks vulgar questions about the cost of anything. His name is Payne Whitney. He doesn't have to.

More of the mystery

Behind the Bolted Door?

Continued from page 8

'Jimmy,' was all she says, I know it's your day out, but will you take the door again for just a few minutes—till I've time to pull myself together? I think I'll have to take a plunge.' And all I said was that I would. 'Another thing, too,' she says. 'In case Mr. Willings calls, and I have to keep him, will you just give him this while he's waiting?'

"It was a big blue envelop that she 'ad there on 'er library table. But that was nothing to make a mystery of. She'd left the same sort of envelops for 'im before. An' I gave it to 'im, too, as 'e 'imself will tell you."

"You did, Jimmy," said Willings. "But, Jimmy, had you any idea what was in that big blue envelop?"

"Bank-notes, wasn't it, sir," he answered simply, "for your settlement 'ouse? But, Mr. Willings, sir,"—and his voice changed and trembled,—"think twice as 'ow you use them. For Mrs. Fisher—Gord rest 'er—was dead before ever that money reached you!"

"Dead then!" exclaimed Willings. "But you—"

"Oh, not that I knowed it then. And not that I'm even sure yet that I 'eard 'er end. All that got to me was the sound of something falling near the pool; and at that distance it might only 'ave been a 'eavy book. I 'eard it just as I was goin' in to announce you. I'd gone as far as the library to get that envelop; and she didn't answer. But I took it that the water must be runnin' in the pool and she didn't 'ear my voice on that account—it 'ad 'append so before. So I just pressed 'er bell. She could always 'ear that. I knew she'd know what it meant, too. And then I went 'on back again to my own quarters.

"Well, there I sat, 'earing Maddalina moving about above me, and thinking, Well, whatever devilment you've been h'up to, you vixen, this is a precious note, me doing your work an' you just as busy as ever on your own!' For ten, fifteen, twenty minutes I sat there. And then it came to me that I 'adn't 'eard Mrs. Fisher come out to Mr. Willings, an' maybe, after all, she 'adn't 'eard the bell. So I went to look.

"She wasn't in the drawing-room. She wasn't in 'er library. I listened. The water wasn't running in the pool. And I rang again—I rang a dozen times; but she didn't answer. . . . Judge your lordship, I began to get the fear and chill of it then, if it was only because everything was that quiet! And I pushed on into 'er bedroom, 'er dressing-room, and then on to the pool itself. An' there"—his eyes seemed to wince—"oh, Gord, the blood alone!—there I found 'er!" . . .

"Jimmy," said Bishop, ending the silence, "what I want to ask you is this: Why didn't you tell Mr. Willings? Or why didn't you cry out and rouse the house?"

"Yes, Judge your lordship, why didn't I? For that's what any h'onest man would do. And for that first minute, while I was still trying to make my tongue speak and my limbs move at all, that was my first thought. I, too, was thinking of myself as a h'onest man. And then—

"Judge, I've a record. I've done my seven years 'ard in Dartmouth. And that's the only thing that counts in my life. I served it for killing a man I never saw or 'eard of. But no matter for that. That's neither 'ere nor there. I've got my murder record. And, Judge, there's no man who 'as ever done his seven years 'ard in Dartmouth will ever, this side of 'ell, take h'even a 'undredth chance of being sent that road again!"

"But, Jimmy," asked D. Hope, her eyes wet, "why should they think that you had done it?"

"And who but me could 'ave done it? From where I was I could see that nobody 'ad come in through the 'all. I couldn't 'ave let any one think, could I, that it might 'ave been Mr. Willings? And it couldn't 'ave been Maddalina. As I've told you, up to then I'd 'eard 'er moving about above me. That is, up to my going to look for Mrs. Fisher she 'ad been. But now, as I got back to my own room again, and sat down, water-knee'd, to try to think where I should run for first, I realized I didn't 'ear 'er any more. Minute followed minute, an' I didn't. Then I crep' up the stairs to see. Her doors were open. She was gone, and everything stripped clean.

"So much for 'er! She'd been warned ahead, and was prepared enough. But she couldn't 'ave done the thing 'erself. That wasn't 'umanly possible. And who could 'ave done it, Judge? No one came down the 'all that afternoon but Mr. Willings! All the windows was locked! Who was it? Answer me."

For a moment he halted. And the Doctor asked another question:

"Jimmy, were you in the Professor's rooms that afternoon? Did you burn any paper there?"

"No, sir. Nor any other time. But, gentlemen, there's more to come, and worse. It's sticking in my throat."

BEHIND them, at the windows, the wind whined and rose to long howlings that almost shook the house. And the little butler seemed now to be shaking with it.

"I 'adn't the nerve to go out to Mr. Willings again. About fifteen minutes more, maybe, an' I 'eard 'im going. An' then, at the same moment, I—I—'eard something else."

"Jimmy, old man," said Willings, "was it a sound of some one knocking?"

"It was, sir—it was. Oh, sir, so you 'eard it, too? An' then, after that, you 'eard the ring?"

"The ring?"

"What ring?" asked the Judge.

"You mean some one, on the 'phone?" demanded Laneham.

"No, gentlemen, no. There was no one at the 'phone, either calling or ringing, at any time. The ring I mean was some one ringing in 'er rooms—maybe from that swimming-pool itself. It was 'er private bell, and it was sounding h'up above, for Maddalina."

"You're sure?"

"If I dreamed it, it's a dream I'll never forget. And it didn't come h'only that once. It came a second, and then a third time. And by then it'd got me sort of crazed like. An' I says to myself, Well, Gord 'elpin' me now, whoever you are, ghost or devil, I will face you! I will, if it's only that it might 'elp me, someway, to clear myself.'

"Judge your lordship, and you, Dr. Laneham, that was just before you came, and I 'ad to take 'old of myself to let you in. And after I'd answered your ring, all I wanted was to get away.

"But what I'm going to tell you now came first, between Mr. Willings' ring and your coming, while I was there alone. And, as you'll remember, night was falling then. In corners and in the closets it was dark. But I looked everywhere. I was 'alf out of my wits. If I'd found any one, it would 'a' been kill me or I kill you. But I found no one. What I found was something else, an' different, and I began to find it from the start.

"Judge your lordship, when I left those rooms after first I'd come on Mrs. Fisher's body, I closed every door behind me coming out—three doors closed tight. It seemed like I 'ad to, or it'd follow me. Well, the first thing I saw now was that the door to the bedroom, and the next door to the dressing-room, and after that the next one, to the swimming-pool itself, all were open. An' more—an' more than that." Again, with a shudder, he stopped.

"You're going to tell us, aren't you," asked the Doctor quietly, "that the body had been moved?"

D. Hope jerked in her chair. In a sense, they all did. And Jimmy cried out:

"It 'ad!—I don't know 'ow you knew it, but it 'ad! I found her this second time as the papers describe it: she was lying on the rattan couch, be'ind the plants. But she 'adn't been there at first. She'd been 'anging in 'er bath-robe, 'ead down, over the outside of the pool. It was there that she'd been killed!

"Dr. Laneham, what was that?"

It was Jacobs, knocking at the door to tell the Doctor of a telephone call.

And the call was from the night operator of the Electric Protection Company.

"Dr. Henry Laneham?"

"Yes."

"We promised to let you know if we received any further alarms from the Fisher apartment. Well, we've had another from there just now."

This time the Judge himself fairly cried, out: "Laney, in the name of heaven!"

"Gentlemen, it's the thing that murdered her—it's come again for the body!" cried Jimmy, his lips white.

"No, no," Laneham quieted him. "No, no, Jimmy. The body isn't there: it was taken away after the inquest. It's in Greenwich now."

"Thank God," whispered Willings.

The Doctor was evidently holding on to himself with an effort.

"But we must go over there and find out about things for ourselves," he said quietly, and he looked at Willings first. "Will you come?"

"Surely."

"And you, Bishop?"

"No." The Judge refused absolutely, though no one would really have taxed his stout person with any actual fear. "I've been in this thing too much for my office already. I'll stay here with D. Hope and Jimmy."

So the Doctor and Willings went alone.

JUST inside the entrance to the Casa Grande stood the uniformed Electric Protection patrolman who had responded to the murder alarm itself. It was easy to see that he was very much excited. With him was the E. P. "diagram boss" whom every one had been seeking the night before. He introduced himself:

"Grady, my name is, Doctor. They told me from the office to be expectin' you. I don't exactly know your line, but if you're helpin' that McGloyne outfit, God knows they need it. This is Carney"—he beckoned to the excited man in uniform. "An' friend yegg anyways came near to gettin' him!"

"Came near to getting him?"

"Sure. Didn't the office tell you that? Hell, the knife's stickin' in the wainscot yet! But come on up an' I'll show you!"

Laneham had to hold him by the arm.

"Just a minute," he said, "just a minute till I get this straight. Do you mean to tell me that, with all these policemen of McGloyne's on duty in the halls, some one got into the apartment and sent an alarm from the safe to your office—and was still inside when your man arrived?"

"Sure, that's just what I'm tellin' you."

"Sure!" echoed Patrolman Carney; "and, the son-of-a-gun must 'a' been workin dark as well as quiet. But he heard my key all righty. For I'd just got that first inside door open to Mrs. Fisher's rooms when—zim, whizz, zowie—it come!"

"Friend yegg threw his stabber at him," explained Mr. Grady.

"He cert'inly did! An' the next minute I was losin' my step an' goin' back down them stairs head first. An' them two McGloyne bulls, they takes me for the yegg, o' course, an' jumps on me. An' by the time we can sort ourselves out again, an' get some lights turned on, why, o' course yeggsy's made his get-away!"

"Come along and get it for yourselves, said the Electric Protection boss.

In the outer halls of that Fisher floor there were now half a dozen of those McGloyne "bulls." And their faces were the faces of men who feel that they have left themselves open to criticism. When Grady asked leave to take his friends in with him alone, they merely backed away and let him. And once more Laneham and Willings found themselves mounting

---

that little stairway down which, in the murderous darkness of the evening before there had sounded that never-to-be-forgotten voice.

"I'll admit," said Grady, "that I don't just see how he made it. Two cops on the hall, one on the elevators, one on the doors, an' the doors locked! You can excuse the poor boobs for swearin' it ain't human. Maybe not. But, if it ain't, show me the ghost that carries a knife like that."

And, jerking his thumb toward the wainscoting on the left, he turned on another light.

"My Lord!" said the Doctor, and for a moment fell back. For, driven into that oaken wainscoting a good inch, there it was!

It was the long, angular, pointed blade—greasy black of handle and heavy as a cleaver—that is used in Italian butcher shops. Carney stood up beside it, and it touched his "Adam's apple."

"If it'd caught me square it would gone right through," said he.

"No doubt of that," said Grady. "An' now just come inside. First I'll show you that long-lost little hidy-hole." He threw on more lights ahead of him and went straight on through to Mrs. Fisher's little library. In the chimney-breast, on the right side of the fireplace, there had been set into the brick a small brass-and-silver "shield" of Bikri work. Grady put his thumb against, its lower edge. What they, or any one, would have taken for a solid inset, was simply a hinged and hanging mask. Within it was a steel door—now with its lock broken. And inside of that again was the "combination door" and the little safe itself.

Grady looked at them, and spun the clicking gears back and forward pleasantly.

"And you can be absolutely certain," Laneham asked, "that your alarm to-night was genuine?"

"Well, if the wind did it, it had to lift, both these covers an' make a battery contact! In fact, I take it that friend yegg wasn't just ready with his soup or his can-opener, or to-night he'd sure have made his blow."

"But, of course," said Willings, "there's nothing in the way of jewelry in there now'?"

Mr. Grady laughed.

"You can bet there's somethin' in there, fast enough. They say them azure pearls would bring from six to seven thousand per. Well, proof enough of the value the yegg puts on 'em, ain't it, that he'd chance comin' back a second time, even after it had cost him a murder to make it a flivver the first?" He snapped the Bilri shield back into place again.

"An' now let me show you somethin else. Someone has been callin' this a ghost job from the start,. A ghost job! Say, stand a minute where you are. What do you see? Doors everywhere. Getaways enough for a killin' in Chinatown! An' when you add to that dark halls—well,"—suddenly he turned off all the lights at once,—"just get it for yourself!"

IT was so sudden, indeed, that it was wholly unnerving. If the darkness was not complete, it was worse: it was a darkness filled glidingly with specters. And, in part simply to break the silence:

"Mr. Grady," said Willings, "there's at least one person besides your friend yegg who knows about this wall safe."

"An' who?"

"The man who put it in."

"What? Tut, tut, tut. That for you. Even if he was around, you might as well look slantways at the Chief himself. Ain't that right, Carney? Not old Throaty!"

"Old Throaty?"

"Oh, that's the name we used to give him, from his voice. You'd say he fetched it from the bottom of a well. Regular Hamlet's-father stuff. Once you heard it, you'd remember it, for life."

Grady still kept them in that haunted darkness.

"I believe he done some other work for Mrs. Fisher, too, off his own bat. An' then, somehow he got sore on her an' quit."

He began to feel his way back to the fireplace.

"And your man Throaty," asked Laneham—"where is he now?"

"Where is he now! Well, say, I guess I ain't made myself just clear. The old geezer croaked in Bellevue less'n a week ago!"

WELL?"

"Well, to say the least, it doesn't seem to be getting a great deal simpler."

Willings said that. But neither had spoken till they were almost back at 390. There they told the others.

As if from some sheer spinal coldness, the Judge got to his feet and threw more wood upon the fire.

"It's—it's all just uncanny horror," shivered D. Hope. "All just one mixed-up blur of it!"

Jimmy had gone a clay-gray again. "You'll never get to the bottom of it, gentlemen—never in this world!"

"And the question is, Laneham," said the Judge, "what do you now propose to do?"

"I propose to go ahead exactly as before."

"What?"

"If the man Throaty is dead, he is dead. If from the beginning there has been much that has seemed to be more than natural, I am going to leave it to prove itself so. In the meantinme, there is enough that is purely and simply criminal. And it will be sufficient for the present if we try to deal with that."

"Oh, naturally! If one could find anything to take hold of, or anything to base a theory on."

"I have found something to take hold of, and I have my theory—at any rate, in part."

Bishop, now walking the room, rounded to a halt.

"And is it anything that you can share with us?"

"No. Bishy, it isn't!" Laneham spoke in a sort of self-defense. "As you know, I went into this as a psychologist and a psychanalyst. I can only follow the methods and principles of my profession for criminal work. And to the outsider they would in many ways be absolutely misleading."

"For example?" Bishop pressed him.

"Yes, I'll give you an example, though only a distant one. Take this: After every crime, we say, there will enter in the 'law of dispersal.' The crime is a kind of exploding bonb. It scatters the innocent with the guilty. All people want is to get away from it. And we reason that the guilty may try to get away under cover of the innocent. Well, up at the Casa Grande, —and in the Casa Reale next door too,—tenants are already giving notice: the Van Zile. Glasbury the playwright Colonel Hackett, and others. And, under the 'law of dispersal,' theoretically I must keep my eyes on them. But have I any earthly right to give it out, even to you, that I'm doing so?"

"Oh, no, no. no. But, Laney, what about that m-u-n-d, mund?"

"Just this. If I can find the magazine, or whatever it was that had that word on the back of it. I should say that the purely criminal part of our mystery would come very near to being solved."

And then he turned to Jimmy.

"Jimmy, for the time being, we're going to keep you here. But, for to-night, it's far too late already"—he rang for Jacobs—"and we must put you away till morning."

Jacobs came, received his charge, and the Doctor followed them to the landing. Then he came back to the others.

"Listen," he said. "There's been too much talk in this already. And I hope, after to-night, it'll be mainly action. But let me say this now. I've made no pretense of any sort of superhuman methods, but, such as I'm using are beginning already to work out—a little. I had reasons for believing that somebody or something—whoever of whatever was in the apartment the afternoon of the murder; call it Grady's 'friend yegg.' if you like—would come back again if we let him believe that his treasure was still there. And to-night he did come. If we feel that we've a problem that in some ways may be insoluble, the more reason why we should be content to take it step by step. And for me to-day has meant just this: A first step has eliminated Jimmy as a suspect. But so much the more does his story convince us that we may well find our next step, and a deal of guilty knowledge, in the maid Maddalina."

"Little doubt of that," said the Judge, with feeling, "if we can find the girl herself."

"Well, I think we can. I think I've already been able to make the initial move in that direction. Oh, no, no! I'm not going to go into it to-night. It's as late for us as it is for Jimmy. Come in for breakfast and I'll tell you about it then."

But neither Laneham nor the Judge was at the breakfast-table. When "Owly" Willings and D. Hope came down, they found that, in spite of all the Doctor's professional arrangements with McMaster, he had been called from his bed to an urgency case at his Hartsdale sanatorium. And he had had time only to leave them a scribbled note. It read:

I want you two to go up to the Casa Grande, and to Maddalina's rooms (the Commissioner or Judge Bishop will have fixed it for you. I'll 'phone them both), and look everywhere and thoroughly for anything that may look like writing on her walls.

SO the next morning, in Maddalina's rooms and on her walls began the search for Maddalina.

At first Willings was for making the quest alone. But the girl would not have it so.

"We'll only be going into the servants' wing," she said; "and I think I'm able to stand that."

So they went together.

At those ninth-floor exits from the Casa Grande elevators, Central Office men and uniformed patrolmen now barred the way in every direction. But the Commissioner had "fixed it." The doors were opened to them. And one Lieutenant Halley, McGloyne's right-hand man, came heavily and gloweringly out to pass them through.

"The Commissioner is bail that you leave things exactly like you found them. Does that go?"

"Certainly."

"Well an' good, then. But you've sure got your nerve with you, young feller. You know, a man was nearly killed up here last night. You've sure got your nerve!"

As has been said, Maddalina's two rooms—or three, with her bath—were at the extreme end of the upper floor of the servants' wing. And a first glance showed that Mrs. Fisher had provided the girl with quarters little less dainty than her own—rugs and matting of a soft-piled stone-blue, furniture all of light wicker, and cheerful chintz, and walls rough washed in restful old ivory. To associate such surroundings with what had been done, seemingly with Maddalina's guilty knowledge, at the swimming-pool seemed impossible.

And writing on her walls? Why should she write on them? And what would she write? And, if she had written anything, would it not have been found by McGloyne and his men in the first hour after the tragedy?

But they were there to look. And, taking hold of themselves, they set to work to do it thoroughly. They began with the sitting-room. And all the exposed surfaces were soon examined. Then they moved out the furniture, piece by piece, and looked behind it; and, before they put it into place again, they looked for anything that might have been written on the back of it. They did that even in the case of the pictures.

"Would you know her writing if you saw it?" Willings whispered.

"Why, I've never seen any of it. I've hardly seen her, you know. Don't you remember how I used to tell you we both had the same 'Thursday off'?"

"Ah!"

The sound came from behind them, a long-drawn, hateful exclamation, full of venom.

They both turned convulsively, and shrank back as they saw what stood behind them.

To be continued next week