Bonds on the Bargain Counter

By ALBERT W. ATWOOD

THE war has forced belligerent nations to borrow immense sums of money, and this has driven down the piece of high grade investments the world over. One school of economists believes prices will go still lower; another disputes the contention. But we know that prices will go still lower; another disputes the contention. But we know that prices have already fallen, and in general this is one of those periods when a fall in bond prices goes along with a rise in stocks. Bonds of a company may decline, while stocks of the same concern may soar, which is explained by the fact that interest payments on bonds are strictly limited in most cases to a fixed amount, while stock dividends are rarely so fixed.

This is not the first time that "gilt edged" bonds have swung far down in their course, and if history repeats itself, the upward curve is sure to follow the other. Even taking the most extreme pessimistic view, such investments as this article contemplates never rise or fall more than a few points over a long period of time.

Curiously enough, and yet not unnaturally, the strongest securities have suffered most. I refer to what might be called the aristocrats of the investment world. They are the gilt-edged railroad bonds, old, seasoned, well established, and well known. They are listed on the stock exchanges, and any bank will loan money upon them. Most of them are regular, legal investments for savings-banks. They have been known to the public so long that at present they enjoy a quick and accurate market. They are securities of the largest railroad systems in the country. They are sure in the long run to benefit by awakening prosperity. Lastly, the bonds I now write about are so close to the actual property upon which they are secured, that is, are so near to being real first mortgages, that almost no future conceivable business depression will threaten them. These bonds may go still lower, but they are already in many cases close to their bottom records, through no intrinsic demerits, but because Europeans are selling them. It must be remembered that a foreign investor can not sell at the present time little known American bonds.

Every now and then, a man will say to me that he wantes a bond which is absolutely safe, and that he is not particular as to the interest which it pays as long as it is readily salable. This article is written for that particular person, with this addition, that he can buy the same safe bonds to-day to pay 5%, that only a few years ago were considered reasonable at a little over 4%.

Take as an illustration the first bond in the subjoined list, Baltimore & Ohio prior lien 3 1/2%. This particular issue will be paid off in 1925, or in ten years. The price at this writing is 89 1/4, or $892 for a bond which will be paid off ten years from now at $1000. It pays 31/2%, or $35 a year interest. This figures out a net report upon the investment, if the bond is held until it is paid off, of 4 7/8%.

The following bonds may be regarded as being entirely beyond question as to their complete safety, in every case enjoy a good market, and are well enough known to be available collateral for a loan:

Baltimore & Ohio prior lien 3 1/2%, 10 years before coming due, at current prices pay 4 7/8%. Also B. & O. 4%, due 1948, to pay 4.90%, at prices 89 1/4 and 85 1/2.

Northern Pacific 3%, due 2047, pay about 4.85% at price 62.

Kansas City Southern 3%, due 1950, pay 5% at price 67.

New York Central 3 1/2%, due 1997, pay 4.60%, at price 76 1/2. Absolute first mortgage on line from New York to Buffalo.

Atchison adjustment 4%, due 1995, pay 5% at price 80.

Chesapeake & Ohio 5% consolidated 5%, due 1939, pay 4.90% at price 101 1/2.

A Plain American

A MILLION men are battling in Servia. But one man has conquered Servia's worst enemy, single-handed, and returned quietly to this home again.

That man is Doctor Strong, a plain American citizen like you.

You should read every word of his story in this magazine to your boys and girls aloud.

The King of Belgium, who is a fine fellow, is living in exile in a hotel in France.

Who is doing his job while he is away?

Who is looking after his people?

A plain American and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Hoover.

Later we shall print an article about Mr. and Mrs. Hoover, who are feeding 10,000,000 people. It is every bit as inspiring as this story of Doctor Strong.

Both these articles ought to make you proud that you are an American citizen.

But they should do something more than make you proud: they should make you think.

WHY are Doctor Strong and Mr. Hoover great men? Because they have made money or won titles?

Not at all.

Because they have done great service for their fellow men.

Their lives prove again that the saying of Jesus of Nazareth, which sounds so contradictory, is the truest saying ever spoken:

"Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."

The greatest men in the world serve whole peoples, like Doctor Strong and Mr. Hoover.

Smaller men serve their families and a few friends.

The smallest man in the world serves only himself.

THOMAS JEFFERSON recognized this as clearly as any man. He had received many honors at the hands of his countrymen. He had been a Secretary of State, Ambassador to France, and President. Yet when he came to die, he had this carved on his tombstone:

Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson
author of the Declaration of
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
of
the Statute of Virginia
For Religious Freedom, and
Father of the University of Virginia

He made no mention whatever of the honors the world had given him: he rested his claim to remembrance entirely on the service he had rendered it.

He served: that is why he is remembered.

That is the real lesson of Doctor Strong, and Mr. Hoover, and everybody else who really amounts to anything.

If you have not learned it, you have not learned the real meaning of American citizenship in its highest sense.

Does Eye Strain Cause Headaches?

By EDWIN F. BOWERS, M.D.

SEVERAL readers ask me whether headaches are caused by eye strain, and how they may be avoided?

Notwithstanding its small size and the extreme delicacy of its structure and mechanism, the eye is probably the most fool-proof organ we own.

None would be so foolish as to hold an arm at right angles to the body for five minutes at a time. Yet the same individual will persist with a train-jiggled newspaper or magazine for hours. He will sit bareheaded an entire forenoon, with the bright glint of the water spitefully slapping his eyes. He will pucker up his lids and screw his eyes to a white stretch of beach, or to the wabbly road ahead of his machine, without the least idea or care for eye-consequences.

He will sit facing the gleaming sun, and squint at the antics of twenty men and a little leather-covered sphere hours on end. He will read with the glaring electric lights pouring full stream into his pupils, instead of on his page.

And then he will wonder why his head aches, why he sometimes feels nauseated, and why he should be fatigued! Naturally, all eye abuses are not accorded identical punishment. Strong, vigorous individuals may, by an effort, overcome the fatigue and reflex action from extra stimulation of the ciliary nerves and muscles, which, by pulling the lenses and thereby slightly changing the shape of the eyeballs, alter the focus.

Yet, an nervous school girl, or a neurasthenic women might, for much slighter lapses, suffer agonizing headaches, dyspepsia, loss of appetite, insomnia, and an aggravation of the million and one symptoms characteristic of nervous instability.

In fact, the complex and apparently dissociated symptoms that may arise from eye abuse, or from ocular unbalance, are a source of never-ending wonder, even to physicians, whose bump of wonder is popularly supposed to be atrophied.

On reflection, however, the reason for these disagreeable reflexes is clear. The centers of vision—in other words, those areas in the brain which control the function of sight—are closely connected with many other most important centers.

Thus, strain and fatigue of the eye muscles are communicated to the centers governing the pneumogastric nerve—which has a very great deal of influence over the stomach's state of mind. So when, for instance, we look at a watery horizon, over the side of a vessel that, by its pitching and tossing, is constantly changing our focus of vision, the eye-centers convey this irritation to the stomach centers, and they do the rest.

Indeed, so intimate is the relation between eye strain, headache, and stomach trouble, that so eminent an authority as Dr. George M. Gould contends that every case of migraine, or sick headache, has its origin in eye strain, and can be permanently cured only by correcting this condition.

To avoid headaches, sick stomachs, muscular weaknesses, nervous exhaustion, and all the protean ailments arising from eye strain is simplicity itself. Merely prevent the strain. The most important aid to this noble and praiseworthy end (after correcting refractive errors) is the wearing of amber colored glasses.

These eliminate the "white lights" or "glares," and permit only the mellow and more natural yellow light to visit the retina and optic nerves. Amber lenses are to tired eyes what food, rest, and recreation are to tired bodies.

Next, banish the barehead habit. Wear a light hat in the sun—not only for protecting the eyes, but for preventing the formation of "squint wrinkles."

Observance of htese simple rules will indubitably make your more beautiful or majestic—and much younger looking. It will correct also the manifold correctable ills that result form eye strain and abuse.

You Should Be Proud of This Man

By BURTON J. HENDRICK

AMERICANS, as one result of the European war, have scored another great triumph in sanitary science. After the Spanish war Walter Reed and his associates banished Yellow fever from Cuba. At Panama General Gorgas cleaned up one of the most dreadful fever districts in the world. These two great performances marked great stages in the progress of medicine and of civilization. Now American medical men have achieved a third. Servia, ten months ago, had 300,000 cases of typhus fever. She has not half a dozen now. As Walter Reed drove yellow fever from Cuba, as General Gorgas freed the Panama district from tropical diseases, so Dr. Richard P. Strong has delivered Servia from the typhus.

"Simply miraculous," was the comment of Sir Thomas Lipton, who spent several months in Servia both before and after Dr. Strong's operations.

He Hunts For Trouble and Danger Tuts

THIS cleansing of a nation, however, was nothing particularly new for Dr. Strong. He has spent the better part of the last fifteen years in expeditions of this kind. He represents a new type of medical man—the scientific adventurer, in the best sense of that term; a man who delights in problems that involve not only scientific skill but personal danger; a modern knight-errant, whose weapons are the test-tube and hypodermic needle, and whose enemies are not dragons and giants, but the more powerful though invisible organisms of disease.

"Who's Who" betrays the fact that Dr. Strong is a graduate of Yale and Professor of Tropical Diseases at Harvard. This professorial chair, however, is merely the base of operations for scientific expeditions to all parts of the world. Some time ago he spent several months in South America, tracking to their lair new and strange diseases that might threaten commerce passing through the Panama Canal. Before that he spent an arduous winter in Manchuria, conducting the first battle ever led against the pnemonic plague. Even before that, he had played a conspicuous part in driving smallpox and other diseases out of the Philippines.

Vaccination in the Jungle

HOW many Americans know that small-pox is today a rarer disease in the Philippine Islands than in the United States? Before the American occupation it was the most prevalent scourge. Manila and thousands of Filipino towns and villages regarded the disease as part of the course of nature. About ten years ago, however, Dr. Strong began a task that might have discouraged less venterous souls: that of vaccinating about 10,000,000 little brown wards of Uncle Sam. With an army of sanitarians, he visited all the islands, calling on the chieftains to bring their subjects to indicated places. In the course of a few months millions of brown and yellow arms were scraped with vaccine points. This experience has given the world its greatest discovery, for smallpox is now an unknown disease in the Philippines. And not only smallpox, but scourges that were hitherto endemic

—cholera, the plague, a peculiar disease known as the yaws—have disappeared.

This "yaws," a widely prevalent disease whose manifestations were chronic ulcers in all parts of the body, puzzled Dr. Strong for some time. He discovered the yaws while on one of his explorations into the interior—into the land of the head-hunters. Medical science up to that time had not recorded it, and naturally had provided no remedy. Medicine-men in plenty treated it with wild incantations of their own; beyond these ministrations, however, the sick savages had no means of relief. Dr. Strong wrote the details of his new discovery to Dr. Ehrlich, the great German scientist of Frankfort, who suggested that he try the effect of salvarsan. That was an easy thing to say from the quiet confines of a medical laboratory in Germany. In the Filipino jungle, however, Dr. Strong was facing a tribe of hostile head-hunters and medicine-men—the latter, like their more civilized brethren in other countries, jealously resenting any invasion into their field.

The head of the tribe, who was one of the worst sufferers from the yaws, was especially opposed to any personal experimentation. The situation, that is, called for undiplomatic measures. So one day, when the unguarded chief was sunning himself alone in the quiet of his jungle, Dr. Strong and his assistants laid violent hands upon his royal person, forced his struggling and naked body to the ground, and gave him the Ehrlich treatment.

Naturally, an angry chieftain presently returned to his camp and prepared to organize an expedition to exterminate these medicine-men from the west. Before he was thoroughly prepared, however, something extraordinary happened. The chief, who had been ailing for years, began to feel better. The ulcers disappeared, one by one, until his body was entirely freed from disease. The tribesmen now filed into Dr. Strong's headquarters by the hundreds, not seeking to avenge an insult, but begging for the treatment! Yaws has now disappeared from this and numerous other tribes.

In 1910 the Chinese government turned to the United States and other nations for assistance in one of the greatest crises in its history. The pneumonic plague—the "black death" of the Middle Ages—was ravaging unchecked in Manchuria. Already, although the outbreak had extended over only three months, it had stricken down more than 50,000 victims. For five hundred years civilization had known nothing of this fearful disease; and now, mysteriously revived, it had sprung to life again in its old familiar breeding ground. In answer to China's appeal, European countries sent many of their foremost scientists, and the United States sent Dr. Strong.

A cheerless prospect greeted Dr. Strong on his arrival at Mukden a few weeks later. A Manchurian winter of unusual vigor was devastating the land. The thermometer, all through his stay, averaged thirty degrees below zero. In the ancient Buddhist temples, hastily fitted up as hospitals, Chinese coolies were dying by the hundreds every day. The victim would suddenly become faint, reel, and fall. In most cases, as his fellow Chinamen hesitated to approach him, he would crawl unassisted to some protection, lie for a few days in a stupor, breathing heavily and spitting blood, and finally die, his body turning the leaden hue that gave the disease its forbidding medieval name.

A pile of coffins stood inside of the improvised hospitals. The attendants would attach long hooks to the body like stevedores handling a bale of cotton—and lift it into one of these receptacles. The city of Harlin had an even less formal way of disposing of the victims. The carters would take them to a high cliff and throw them over. In a few weeks they thus heaped up a ghastly pile of five thousand corpses!

No Victim Ever Recovers

THE native Chinese were absolutely powerless. They feared the disease to such a degree that no attempt was made to nurse the sick. The usual way of approaching their patients was to stand at a safe distance and examine them through field-glasses! Barbarous as this seemed, it really made little difference to the patients. Every human being who contracted the plague died. It is one of the few contagious diseases in which the mortality is one hundred per cent. A few courageous native doctors attempted the traditional Chinese treatment for all ailments,—sticking needles in the sick man's breast,—and most of those who did this contracted the disease. Practically all their efforts were limited to disposing of the victims. Every day the carters would pause before the houses and cry, as in the days of the Plague of London, "Bring out your dead!"—the most venturesome, perhaps, going in to search for their prey. Burials in snow-drifts were common.

Dissection of the Dead Forbidden in China

DISCOURAGING as these circumstances were, the attitude of the Chinese officials was more discouraging still. Of the dozen or fifteen distinguished foreign scientists who had started for Manchuria, Dr. Strong and his assistant, Dr. Oscar League, were the only ones who arrived there. The Chinese government, after inviting them, changed its mind. Russia suggested that, for the protection of the party, she be permitted to send an armed guard. To the wily Chinese this looked merely like an entering wedge to the military occupation of Manchuria; she therefore politely invited all the scientists to stay away.

When Dr. Strong reached Pekin, he found that he had been summoned home. But he refused to be cheated of a great scientific adventure in this way, and pushed on. When, alone of the great scientific expedition, he reached Mukden, his official reception was almost as chilly as the atmosphere. He sought the silken-bearded viceroy, Hsi Liang, and announced his program. His first request almost took this functionary off his feet. Dr. Strong wanted permission to perform autopsies! Now, dissection of the dead was a penal crime in China. Chinese religion absolutely forbade it. The missionaries to whom Dr. Strong had announced his intention begged him not to attempt it; the mob, they said, would surely kill him. The crafty viceroy had no intention of permitting this desecration, but he did not wish to offend the Americans. Nor did he refer to the fact that the Chinaman's reverence for the dead would make the project impossible.

"I cannot think of permitting you to undergo such dangers," he said. "The dead bodies will infect you, and you will die. I forbid it, because I can't let you catch the disease."

Dr. Strong reasoned persistently. This was the first time in five hundred years that the black death in extensive epidemic form had visited the world! It was the first chance that science had ever had to study the disease. Only by actually dissecting the bodies could he learn facts that had the utmost importance for China and the rest of the world.

There is a peculiar Chinese expression that may mean either "yes" or "no." The viceroy, in the course of the talk, incautiously used this word. Dr. Strong, when the interpreter explained the situation to him, decided that he would take chances on its meaning "yes."

In a few hours he was busy at an autopsy—a great historic event, as it was

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the first one ever performed in China. Dr. Strong and his assistant were dressed in long white, sterilized robes, with white cloths wound around their faces, their heads and their eyes protected by huge goggles. The atmosphere was so cold that the blood from the bodies, running off the side of the tables, formed icicles at the edge, and the pails of water and disinfectants froze continually. Yet, in these and similar experiments, Dr. Strong penetrated all the secrets of this historic disease. He found that the same germ causes it that causes the bubonic plague. The fact that in the pneumonic disease it attacks the lungs, produces a condition altogether different from the less virulent bubonic infection. He also found that one human being could give it to another only in one way—by coughing in his face. Dr. Strong's voluminous report, published by the United States government, is now the final authority on this disease.

While these unprecedented autopsies were going on, however, the little fat Chinese interpreter appeared highly excited. No permission had been given, he said, and so the post mortems must stop. Instead of stopping them, Dr. Strong destroyed another Chinese tradition by starting a wholesale cremation of the dead. Any one who knows to what extremes a Chinaman will go to secure a decent burial for his bones can well understand the perturbation of the Chinese when Dr. Strong began committing the bodies to the flames. In this, as in other matters, however, Chinese good sense finally triumphed. Dr. Strong soon had hundreds of natives working with him in a series of ingenious plans evolved for checking the plague.

The experience really established an era in sanitary science in China, as autopsies are now legalized, and China has begun a systematic program, not only for a sanitary house-cleaning, but for the modern medical education of her sons.

These experiences clearly show why, in the early part of this year, his associates selected Dr. Strong to head the commission that is waging war on typhus in Servia. This commission consisted of highly trained French, English, and Russian sanitarians; and their unanimous opinion made Dr. Strong their chairman.

Uncleanliness the Sole Cause of Typhus

THE famous Austrian invasion of last fall left 60,000 Austrian prisoners in Servia's hands. The triumph proved an embarrassing one, for Servia had few facilities to handle these men. The best the Servians could do was to distribute their unwelcome guests all over the country, wherever the railroads could take them. A few weeks after this distribution typhus broke out in all the places where the Austrians had been sent—a fact that seemed to support the Servian contention that the Austrian prisoners brought in the disease. It displayed a terrible virulence. At that time all Servia contained only about three hundred doctors, a large number of whom fell victims to the disease. A number of the few nurses in the country also succumbed. Moreover, the nation had no resources to handle the plague, since the fierce battles had already filled the poor city hospitals to overflowing. The typhus-stricken people lay sick in the streets and fields, in doorways, in dry-goods boxes—they crawled into whatever wretched places were at hand. The disease, one of the most contagious known, was spreading with deadly rapidity. Had not the Red Cross Commission, with Dr. Strong at its head, energetically taken charge of the work, a large part of Servia must have been swept away.

The Servians three times had thrown the Austrians out of their country; yet these very Austrians, by introducing this disease, more destructive than 42-centimeter guns, would have defeated their enemy.

Typhus is an undignified disease, in that personal uncleanliness alone causes it. No person given to even occasional baths and cursory attention to his physical tenement, will ever acquire it. A parasitical organism, injected into the blood by the bite of a mosquito, causes malaria; a similar organism, injected by the bite of the body-louse, causes typhus. In war-time, these vermin cause probably more discomfort than whizzing bullets and shrapnel. For considerable periods no soldier, from the commanding general down, is free. A country like Servia, without sewers, running water, or the most primitive conditions of sanitation, furnishes an ideal breeding-ground for this pest. Whatever virtues the Servian peasantry may have, bodily cleanliness is not one of them.

These facts indicate the nature of Dr. Strong's problem. The cure of sick people was not his prime consideration. Many became well in the course of events, and others no human ingenuity could save. But his real duty was to check the disease—to prevent its spreading. And the way to accomplish this, theoretically at least, was simplicity itself. Typhus can never prevail in the absence of the conveying parasite; it can never exist, that is, in people who are clean. The vast majority of Servians, because they were dirty, became infected. Dr. Strong's problem was to make them clean. His sanitarian's job was to give a whole nation a bath—something that it probably had not had for centuries, if ever. Such a prospect would have appalled most men—not, however, this Yale graduate and Harvard professor.

Giving a Whole Nation a Bath

DR. STRONG divided Servia into fourteen sanitary districts, so arranged that each contained a railroad center. He covered these districts with railroad trains of three cars each—caravans that might probably be regarded as bath trains. One car contained facilities for hot baths. The next had shower baths. The third was a traveling laundry. At each station were large tents, for the disrobing of the villagers. Long before the train arrived, an advance sanitary squad, assisted by local Servian officials, scoured the country, bringing to the station, at the appointed time, practically all of the inhabitants. There were thousands who had not had their clothes off for months; there were many Mohammedans, whose religion made disrobing before the infidel a mortal sin.

When time bath train arrived, however, there was an animated scene. Hundreds of naked men would leave the tents, deposit their bundles of clothes in the laundry car, and enter the perambulating bath-room. After the hot bath, they would pass into the next car for a shower. When this was over, the doctors inspected them and then gave them a sponging with petroleum—a substance in the presence of which vermin can not live. The victims then passed into the last car, where they received their clothing, which had been thoroughly washed, disinfected, and steam dried. In the evening the women and children received the same treatment. "Having bathed one region, the train would pass on to the next field of operations. Meanwhile sanitary squads covered each district, fumigated all the houses and huts, and taught the people the object of the expedition.

This is the homely process that has driven typhus out of Servia. In August, four months after Dr. Strong's arrival, there were less than a dozen cases in the whole country. Not a single new case had been reported for weeks. Nor is it likely that it will return, as the Strong bath trains are constantly waiting for the first sign of activity. American medical science has conquered one more disease.

A Thousand for Incidentals

By HOLWORTHY HALL

Illustration by Frederic Dorr Steele

OF course, every one in Kenilworth knew Thaxter Ewing; for, after six years of residence at the Inn, he had lost as many golf balls and danced as many miles and tipped as many valets as any bachelor of his age—his age was twenty-seven—in the active community. And, of course, nearly every one who knew him liked him; for he was very boyish and impulsive and ingenuous, no less attractive to this season's debutantes than to the mothers thereof, and still excellent company in the smoking-room. People liked to have him around. For one thing, he was a crystallization of all that is young and refreshing and unsoured by too much experience; nor was he spoiled by lack of enough to furnish him with poise.

He had come to Kenilworth direct from college, and he had brought with him the chronic imagination of a sophomore. Life, he thought, is a problem in angling—it's all a matter of fortune who gets the fish. Sometimes it's the man who rises earliest and doesn't stop for breakfast; and then again it's the man who can spare only half an hour, and intends to give the basket to the guide, anyway. That is to say, Ewing believed in the sovereignty of luck; but he worked just as hard as if he didn't. He played the game both ways, so as not to overlook a chance.

Hence, according to his system, he toiled diligently for a firm that increased his salary every June and December; he saved his money; and when he had accumulated five or six hundred dollars, he cast about for an unparalleled opportunity—an acreage of mullein stalks through which the Subway must inevitably run; a block of full-paid and non-assessable cumulative and guaranteed seven per cent. stock at twelve and a half, plus interest; an option that would make his everlasting fortune as soon as Wall Street understood that he couldn't be bullied or defrauded; a half interest in a patent. Have you forgotten the patents of Bell and Morse and Westinghouse and Marconi and Selden and the inventor of safety-pins?

Thus for six years, during which he rose to importance in his business, saved his money and lost it, retained his faith in human nature and his popularity in Kenilworth, and fell in love with Helen Haynes.

HIS taste was beyond criticism. She was twenty-two, lovable rather than lovely; some of her friends said that if she had devoted fewer hours to altruism, and more to herself, she could easily have been beautiful. I suppose they excepted her eyes from this judgment—her eyes and her character; for no amount of deliberate cultivation could have made them lovelier. As for her standing in society, and the munitions of war—at least, no passer-by, after the most cursory inspection of the Haynes estate, would doubt that her father, either now or recently, had been capable of keeping a job. He had five, or fifteen, or fifty millions—the precise number is immaterial, since the first quotation is ample in Kenilworth, even for a married man.

Obviously, she was under age when Ewing came, unlike Lochinvar, out of the East; but his decision was instant. "There," he said to himself, "is going to be a mighty fine woman!" He himself was hardly privileged to vote, and his temporary salary was two dollars a week more than he paid to live.

Somewhat later he admitted—to himself—that he liked her better than older girls; this was in June or December—the calendar doesn't matter particularly.

He was twenty-five when he knew that he loved her; but his power of observation was so improved that he calculated correctly. If she were very careful and economical, she might find double the amount of his income a rather decent dressing allowance.

And by the time he was really unhappy about her he had four thousand a year, and the amused sympathy of the men of Kenilworth because he had endowed the promoters of Cactus Oil with half of it. The Cactus Oil Company, said Kenilworth, was immeasurably the worst of his bad investments. It was a fake, a swindle, a fraud so palpable that not even a sophomore should have read as far as the third paragraph of the prospectus and kept his face straight. It had leases, perhaps, and concessions; it certainly had credit with a lithographer. But if it were reliable, or if it were merely respectable, why did it neglect to do a little drilling?

Ewing said that it was conservative. The company had drilled, but the results were all dusters. What did that signify? Nothing but bad luck. There were plenty of acres. He was morally certain that limitless oil lurked beneath some of them; and it's a poor fisherman who condemns the sport because he doesn't land his catch at the first nibble.

And between two days,—the older men had reasoned with him at night, and planned to guy him in the morning, in the vain expectation of teaching him common sense,—between two days Ewing caught his fish, caught it while he was asleep, and the lines were bobbing aimlessly up and down in distant Texas.

The news burst upon Kenilworth at the breakfast table; and the men who had kindly volunteered advice to Ewing looked at the figures, and wiped their glasses, and tried to visualize a flow of four hundred gallons a minute—or was it a second?—from a single well. There were already six gushers, the paper said, and the Cactus crowd owned leases and concessions over a tract not appreciably smaller than the State of Rhode Island.

The kindly advisers who stopped at the inn to congratulate Ewing found him pale and a bit hysterical, and they all shook their heads incredulously when he showed them the gaudy certificates worth twenty thousand dollars in any mahogany-finished office where a ticker drones in the corner and plain English is comprehended. Twenty thousand today, before the market opened! Heaven knew how much tomorrow! The worst of it was that they all had to listen to anecdotes of Bell, and Morse, and the man who invented the safety-pin.

"Now, the thing for you to do," said Henderson, when the others had gone, "is to salt that away in good bonds. You can get pretty nearly five per cent. these days, and in less than seventeen years—"

Ewing laughed gently but irritatingly.

"Twenty thousand isn't anything."

"Twenty!" said Henderson. "It's likely to be a hundred and twenty before you get through with it. It's twenty on the first report!"

"That doesn't make any difference I'm satisfied right now. You see, my idea is to take a profit as soon as there's one to take—"

"But the people you mentioned," said Henderson weakly, "didn't act like that! Why, suppose they'd taken one little profit—and quit?"

"That is different. Patents do run for

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a number of years, but an oil-well might dry up to-morrow—"

"And you mean to say that you're going to sell out —"

"Certainly I am," said Ewing. "And then I'll try something else. I've got it all worked out. I'm going to pay for my room and board at the Inn for a year in advance—they'll give me a big discount on a contract. Then I'm going to lay in a supply of clothes, and buy some insurance "—and put a thousand dollars into a savings bank for incidentals. And after that I won't care what happens. I've got some capital now, and I'm going to make it sit up on its hind legs whenever I whistle."

When he had taken a certified check from his brokers, and deposited it in his own bank, and made the arrangements he had mentioned to Henderson, Ewing went one evening to call on Helen Haynes. He found her out on the big terrace back of the house, which was a very good place to propose to Helen. It must be that she spoke of his good fortune, and of her pleasure at hearing of it.

"It's a good start," said Ewing.

"You could accomplish so much with it," said Helen; in her shy, unplutocratic manner.

"I mean to."

"It's always seemed to me that one holds money simply in trust—against the future."

"I think so, too," said Ewing, "and I want to devote my money—when I've made a lot more of course—and "all my life to the same purpose."

"And that is—?"

He leaned forward until he almost touched her.

"It's you," he said softly. "Helen, please—please don't say a word until I've finished! I've wanted so long to tell you—I know I haven't any right to tell you at all. I suppose I make about as much money as you pay your head gardener. I know how utterly impossible, hopeless, it is now! I'm not blind. All I want to ask you is—not now; but when I've a right to, when I'm ever so much richer—if I can speak to you then, or if you—you don't want me at all. Because, you see, it wouldn't be fair for me to ask you now. I realize that just as well as you do—just as well as your father does. I couldn't ask you to wait, because—nothing might ever come of it. And I couldn't let your father—I couldn't do that! And any minute, in the meantime, there might be somebody else; so I couldn't ask you to wait. But—can you tell me now—is there any one else?"

Miss Haynes, who had been sitting quite still, drew a very long breath, which seemed to Ewing to be freighted with pity.

"No," she said in a queer, even, dispassionate tone; "there isn't any one else."

"If there ever should be, I shouldn't want you to remember this. But if there isn't—and things go as I hope they will—it wouldn't hurt you if I came back and—and did ask you?"

"How could I be hurt to know that you care?" she said in the same expressionless voice.

Ewing rose. He had never felt himself more a man; and in reality he had never been so young.

"I wanted to know," he said. "I wanted to know what chance I had. I've got something now to plan for, to hope for, to work for."

He bent over her. For a tremendous, enervating moment she thought he was going to kiss her. He straightened resolutely.

"For a reward like that," he said, "even if it's only your permission to—to come back—a man can do a great deal. I'd better go now; but I will come back."

"Good night—oh, good night!" said Miss Haynes faintly from the terrace.

"Good night," said Ewing from the loggia. Under his breath he added a valediction; but Helen never heard it. This isn't to infer, however, that she was in any way deficient; for it wasn't until several minutes later that his footfalls on the road ceased to reverberate in her consciousness. In fact, she counted them.

One who really sets the mind to it can prove practically anything by proverbs or by statistics. It's a very wise thing to remember that all generalizations are more or less false, including this one. So, when Henderson pointed out that the odds against making money in any listed security are 2200 to 1, Ewing was able to show by his own data that Hoyle was a rank amateur.

JIMMY FANNING, who sold industrials in Wall Street, said that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place; and Ewing retorted that a rolling stone doesn't, either. Helen Haynes' father intimated that in studying history the pupil ought to bear in mind that the man who invented interest was no slouch, and lugged in the fable of the grasshopper to clinch the argument. But Ewing came up to the scratch with Andrew Carnegie's suggestion to put all your eggs into one basket, and then watch the basket; and Mr. Haynes wilted promptly. As a heavy stockholder in Steel, he couldn't diplomatically grant very much to the grasshopper, when it came to dividends.

"You think, I suppose," he said, "that you can't lose, now you've started?"

"I hope I can't," said Ewing.

"I thought the same thing when I was your age," stated the older man.

If he hadn't been Helen's father, Ewing would have riposted with: "And I hope I'll be in a position to agree with you when I'm your age!" But Mr. Haynes was Helen's father, and he had five, or fifteen, or fifty millions, and one daughter. Ewing said: "I try to be conservative, sir."

"If you want to save time, Thaxter, why don't you go down to see some acquaintances of mine in the Cotton Exchange? You haven't enough money to interest 'em in a deal, but they'd be glad to match you for it."

"You must think I'm bound to lose!"

"It's inevitable," said Mr. Haynes. "All you have to do is play long enough and you'll spend your whole stake in commissions. Or else you'll win three or four times, and find yourself cleaned out on the next attempt. I'll admit that you were pretty level-headed to get out from under Cactus Oil. But I'm an old campaigner, boy! Take my advice—"

That was the customary peroration: "Take my advice." Ewing listened patiently to most of it, and took none of it. On the contrary, he collected his available funds and forced them into the coffers of a Middle Western railroad.

"Why," demanded his friends, "didn't you pick out a live one?"

"The papers say the crops ought to be good," returned Ewing, "and that means big freights, and I only had to pay 62."

"How are you getting along in the office?"

"Fine!" said Ewing. "I'm to get more money the first of the year."

"You'll need it," they warned him in chorus.

AT this period he adopted a new attitude toward the world. He had a little more dignity, a little more self-possession, a great deal more confidence in himself than he dared to communicate. Alone, unaided, and in the face of stern opposition, he had wrung a treasure from the deep, and he liked to think about it; and man is usually apt to be molded out of his thoughts. Furthermore, it doesn't do a young man any harm to dream about a girl who he imagines is too good for him—infinitely too good for him—but she might be persuaded to overlook it.

In the office he spoke with quiet authority; at home he permitted none of the old-time raillery. It was only when he scanned the closing quotations, or reflected upon the interior decorations of the Haynes house, that his certainty wavered by the breadth of an iota.

He had bought his railroad stock on margin. The transaction, he protested steady, was much the same as buying a house subject to mortgage. He held steadfastly to this belief as long as the market was strong; with the stock at 60 he was Napoleonic. At 58 he perceived that a pool must have been formed manipulation; if he had known the parties, he would have accused them of conspiracy. Nevertheless, he expected to take a profit within a few months. The crops flourished; the Interstate Commerce Commission granted an increase in freight rates; the omens were thoroughly pitious; and the stock went to 56.

"Poor old Ewing," said Henderson to Jimmy Fanning, "is the kind of man those fellows love. If I could swallow the idea of predestination, I'd certainly say that poor old Ewing was predestined to be one grand sucker! The innocent child actually thinks he can take a handful of small change down to the Street and come out with a trunk-load of treasury notes! About two weeks—then they'll howl for more margins—poof!" He gestured expressively, and added: "Sky-high!"

But the next time he saw an evening paper, and stared at half a column descriptive of a bullish movement in Western rails, and observed that in place of yesterday's 56 the quotation was 61 and a fraction, he altered the schedule. The sky remained one of the terminals, but it was the other one. Inside of two weeks Ewing sold just below 70. On the following morning he was flushed and triumphant instead of pale and shaken.

HE called at the Haynes'; but the evening was uneventful. Ewing couldn't talk personalities with Helen; her father, under the circumstances, wasn't receptive to market gossip. Ewing said eight times: "This is a good cigar"; and Mr. Haynes said six times: "I don't understand where the breeze is tonight—usually it's quite cool here"; and Helen said hardly anything, but she appeared by far the happiest of the three.

Going down to the city in the club-car, Jimmy Fanning edged over to Ewing and

---

asked if he didn't want to buy some industrials.

"Too speculative," said Ewing regretfully.

"Strictly between ourselves, old man, you must have had some inside information on that deal—I mean, to hold on, and be so cock-sure about it, when you were off six points—"

"Oh, I had my facts."

"I hear you're getting into wheat. Know anything?"

"A lot," said Ewing.

"Because," explained Fanning, with elaborate carelessness, "any time yon happen to run across a dead-sure shot, you know, you might pass it along. The boys over at the club think you're—well, rather level-headed. Anything new?"

"Wheat," said Ewing.

"Doggone you!" his friend reproached him. "You're the funniest operator I ever saw in my life! You waltz out and make forty or fifty thousand on two long shots in succession, and by rights you ought to be supporting a couple of Broadway restaurants. Honestly, have you let go of a nickel yet?"

"Maybe a nickel," conceded Ewing; "but if you'd said a dime you'd have had me! Why, that's the trouble with most people, Jimmy. They make money, and then they waste it. I can't eat more than one meal at a time, or wear one suit of clothes, and if I didn't go into the office regularly, and have to forget all about finances, I'd be a regular hanger-on in a bucket-shop in no time. I'm keeping balanced, that's all. Getting ready for my old age."

"They must think a lot of you in the office?"

"They treat me like a human being, anyway," grinned Ewing.

They got out to the platform together, and waited for a subway express.

"Wheat, I think you said," remarked Fanning.

"September wheat."

"Any—justification?"

"Too many contracts for exportation," said Ewing, "and only an average yield. And whenever you see five cents to the good, grab it!"

That was how Jimmy Fanning paid for a motor, and bought a hundred feet of frontage adjoining his new house, and financed a tennis court and a garage. Like all the other men in Kenilworth, he was beginning to take Thaxter Ewing seriously. The debutantes, however, and the mothers thereof, complained that Ewing wasn't as entertaining as he used to be. He seemed secretive.

PERHAPS not more than one man in a hundred is temperamentally equipped to endure prosperity; but Ewing happened to be the man in that particular hundred. It pleased him to smoke the same brand of tobacco and to patronize the same tailor as he had done in times of stringency; to eat the same food, and to curb the same desires.

"I suppose one of the oldest chestnuts in the Street," said Henderson, "is the story of the lamb who comes down with a shoestring and goes back with a million. But do you know the facts? I understand he started with a couple of thousand in Cactus. I don't know exactly how much he's cleaned up so far, but I do know he wrote a check for eighty dollars for his income tax—and that doesn't include his last two deals. As nearly as I can figure it, he must have made about a hundred and fifty thousand. Well—you've heard about the hush before the storm—"

During the hush, while Kenilworth was getting ready to lend Ewing an umbrella, he dashed out among the non-conductive metals—zinc, specifically—and brought back ten or twelve thousand dollars without even wetting his feet. He had incurred no risk, he said; it was inevitable that the demand for pure zinc on the Continent would multiply enormously if the war lasted another month or two. He denied any intent to speculate, and insisted that a sound investment based on good information was the purpose for which capital was created.

Although Kenilworth thought his boyishness impaired by these sudden profits, there could still be no doubt of his ingenuousness. He didn't embarrass the men who had advised him—he didn't claim any especial merit for catching his fish. That was the beautiful, appealing feature of it—he hadn't ceased to believe in the sovereignty of luck. And, even in a community where financial modesty is one of the last virtues to flourish, he never assumed or imagined that he was clever.

But the possession of resources had its effect upon him, nevertheless. When he played golf in these days, he tipped his faithful caddie a quarter instead of fifteen cents; and when he said good night to Helen Haynes he held her hand a full second longer than the conventional. The arrogance of the rich!

HE had set his heart upon a quarter million. That, together with his salary downtown, he thought might do for a man of thirty or under. At least, they could struggle along with it. He had heard that one doesn't need to fear matrimony until after the third year of it; and he hoped that three years would put him beyond the necessity of living on a bread-and-cheese income—in the meantime, they might struggle along, provided the bread were of the best grade obtainable and the cheese were imported.

And so, when he was hardly more than twenty-eight, when he was utterly unconscious of anything remarkable in his accomplishments,—he was so young that he rather expected nice things to fall into his lap by sheer force of gravity,—when he was entirely unappreciative of the fact that six per cent. on his original investmcnt was all that he had right or reason to anticipate, he went into Coppers. He went into it with both feet, which is to say that he wrote an initial check for fifty thousand. He needed ninety to complete his quota. And that night, up at the Haynes' house, he told Helen that he was tottering on the very threshold of triumph.

"Oh, that's nice!" she said. "What is it this time?"

Ewing shook his head.

"It's too big to talk about. You see, I've got some absolutely confidential information, and I can't afford to have it leak out. Everybody in Kenilworth would try to get in on it, and then nothing would happen. That's the way those things work. But if I have any luck—"

The next morning Coppers were up an eighth, and Ewing wrote another check.

"The market's steady, isn't it?" he asked Fanning.

"Steady!" said Fanning. "It's asleep!"

But, Coppers advanced a quarter, and Ewing wrote a third check. Rumors of a general bear movement were common; but Coppers fought up another eighth, and Ewing bought seventeen hundred and eight shares on the usual margin. That left him sixty dollars in the bank—he could have carried six more shares, of course, but he was always conservative. He realized how important it is to carry a balance in the bank.

It must have interested him to note how he had come to pose as a mascot. People—some of them—actually credited him with the inside knowledge he was so fond of talking about. He could almost have charged a commission for a chance suggestion. Fanning and Henderson and dozens of others, who had learned of some gigantic coup in preparation, came to him and pleaded—fairly begged—to be let in on it. It pained him to deny them, but he had to think first of Helen.

Within a few days, however, there was talk of a pool in Coppers; some one asked Ewing point-blank if that were his coup.

"I'm not saying," he responded.

"Henderson intimated you're in the pool yourself."

"I might do worse," he granted.

"What is it—bull or bear?"

"Honestly, old man," said Ewing, "I can't tell you."

"Not even for friendship's sake?"

"Something more than friendship is involved," said Ewing mysteriously, "and— I'm sorry—but I can't breathe a word of it to anybody."

For once, he had cast aside his old principle of taking a profit as soon as it was apparent. He needed a five-point gain; five little points stood between him and the summit of his ambitions. His information was excellent; the pool was incidental, but it ought to help him. The break was due in not more than ten days, two weeks at the latest; and after that—

It was during those two weeks that Ewing neglected his office duties for the first and only time in his career. He spent them in motoring around Kenilworth with a real-estate agent, and gathering together references and credentials of the leading architects in New York and vicinity. One of the architects, who had friends in Kenilworth, said that Ewing was the most innocent client he had ever dreamed of. He had inquired whether it would be ethical to hold a competition for a house that couldn't possibly cost more than twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars, including the plumbing.

And when Coppers advanced two points, and then two more, Ewing stopped looking at plots of limited extent, and began to consider the desirability of expert landscaping. You see, if the pool really got behind Coppers, and shoved as hard as they knew how, the movement might not peter out so soon—and Ewing might have half a million.

Of course, every one knew that some violent activity in the market might be looked for; else why did Mr. Haynes, who had practically retired from the Street, begin to take the 7.56 to town every morning, and stay in late at night? And why did all the others complain so bitterly if breakfast weren't ready at least half an hour earlier than it had ever been ready before? Ewing was the only placid financier in Kenilworth—and he had more at stake than all the others put together.

Why, on the day of the Copper panic, when the Exchange was, a solid mass of raving, disheveled maniacs, Ewing was poking around the hills with his real-estate man, no more concerned about his quarter million, or his half, than if he had inherited it overnight and had utilized every cent of it in those ridiculous unproductive government bonds—as if anyone ever became rich and married an angel on three per cent.!

EWING got back to the Inn at four o'clock, sunburnt and happy. Under the door of his room he found at least twenty telegrams and telephone from his brokers; and without waiting to read them through, he jerked the receiver from the hook and called New York. His face was radiant; it was the face of a man in that rare and exquisite moment when success is certain and prodigious, and yet when the last word of verification is still to be uttered. And after he got the brokers on the wire, and talked with them two or three hectic minutes, he went to the window and stared out over the hills of Kenilworth as if he had never noticed them before. Then, because his youth hadn't quit him without reserve, he changed a perfectly adequate tie for one almost exactly like it, and went up to tell Helen.

"Why, Thaxter!" she cried. "I haven't seen you for weeks!"

"No," he said unsteadily; "I've been pretty busy lately."

"You've been working too hard; you look tired out."

"I am; but it's all over now."

Although the expression was equivocal, she seemed to sense its meaning; a little glow of color irradiated her cheeks, and as suddenly died away.

"Really?" she faltered.

"Hadn't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"The market—"

"I knew there was something important—daddy's hinted at it; but—"

"The bottom fell out of it early this afternoon. I was looking at some land up near the golf club, or they might have reached me."

He smiled at her—the raw, unhumorous smile of one whose doctrine it is to take the world as it comes—until it comes adversely, and then to take it fighting.

"Thaxter!" she said, with a sharp intake of her breath.

He gestured, palms upward, toward the sky.

"All gone!"

He turned aside, and then, because he retained a boy's horror of appearing theatrical or, stricken in defeat, he returned to meet her eyes.

"The whole thing," he said. "They just managed to catch it. If I hadn't been lucky, I'd be hit harder still—the market broke four or five points more afterwards. When it's all cleared up, commissions and interest and all, I may have a hundred dollars coming to me—not much more than that, anyway. I thought I'd better come up and tell you before anybody else told you."

"All gone!" she whispered dully.

"Oh, it's all part of the game."

"But—now—"

"Now?" he said. "Why—nothing."

"Isn't there—couldn't there be a—a mistake?"

"Hardly," he said, with sudden huskiness. "I just came up to tell you. It was a beautiful dream while it lasted—"

"Isn't any of the—dream left, either?"

"How could there be? I've made such a fool of myself! Your father and Henderson and lots of the fellows said I should, and I have. No; and because it isn't likely that we'll see so very much of each other for a while—"

"Don't!" she gasped, "Thaxter! Don't be—silly!"

"Silly!" he echoed. "Is it silly to realize where I stand now?"

Faintly, as if from a great distance, she heard herself saying: "But are you sure you know where you stand?"

The blood sank from his cheeks. "Helen!" he said thickly. "You don't understand!"

"Y—yes, I do!"

"But it's been a year—and I'm in exactly the same place—"

"But if I didn't mind then—do you suppose I do now?"

Through the murk of his slaughtered hopes he caught at the incredible, dazzling truth.

"Why, Helen!" he stammered. "Would it have been—any use to ask you then?"

Breathless, she nodded. Ewing, his eyes very wide, came a step closer to her.

"And you know how poor I am? And we'd have to—to live on what I have? Nothing but my salary—and—and one little thousand dollars I put away for incidentals? You know that?"

Again she nodded. Ewing held out his arms.

"Oh, my dear!" he said brokenly. "If I'd only known—"

SHORTLY before dinner time Mr. Haynes, who had five or fifteen or fifty millions, I've forgotten which, tore up to the entrance portico of his four hundred thousand dollar estate in a twelve thousand dollar English touring-car, and dismissed a chauffeur who got forty dollars a week.

In the hallway he was met by two rapturous young people who weren't thinking of currency.

"Well," said Mr. Haynes briskly. "It was some day! Coppers—on the short side. There's life in the old dog yet. We netted a hundred and fifty thousand."

At mention of the short side Ewing's jaw dropped. For the first time since the revelation, he saw that he might have been fighting against too great odds. Recollections of the pool, of the foreboding rumors, of Mr. Haynes' quondam interest in metallurgical securities, flooded him; and he perceived, as in "a flash of lightning, that he had lost what Mr. Haynes had won. It wasn't a matter to laugh at, of course; still, when you come to consider the irony of it—

But Helen was already laughing.

"What's the idea?" demanded father jocosely. "Isn't it enough?"

"I don't care," said Helen recklessly. "Thaxter's got a thousand, daddy—Thaxter's got a whole thousand!"

Behind the Bolted Door?

By ARTHUR E. McFARLANE

Illustration by Henry Raleigh

FOR another minute Doctor Laneham stood where he was, staring at Glasbury's writing on that envelop. Fortunately, he had turned away from the desk, and the night clerk could not see his face. With an effort he regained at least an outward command of himself, and pushed the letter back.

"This is not for me," he said.

Perhaps he should have made some excuse to keep that envelop and lay it side by side with the murder note. But there was no real need. There could be no other handwriting just like that. It was as distinctive, as unmistakable, in a two-line address as it could have been in twenty pages.

He got himself away and back to his car. And five minutes later, with Willings and D. Hope, he was once more looking at the murder note itself:

We have now reached the point where it must be either murder or suicide.

If Glasbury had not written that, no one had.

Then, in Mrs. Fisher's hand:

Couldn't it be made to look like an accident?

Then, like a seal, that little death's-head. It, too,—there could be little doubt of it,—was drawn by Glasbury's pen.

THIS time the Doctor made no attempt whatever to keep things from the girl. Her the first numbness of the blow, she took it with a courage that was his reward.

She still refused to tell what Glasbury had meant either to herself or to Mrs. Fisher.

"I'll only say again," she said, crying a little, "that he couldn't have done it. No matter what the evidence is, he couldn't! And I'll believe that, to the end. But I'll help you every other way I can, if only to prove him innocent."

"I know you will," said Laneham; "I know it. And remember this: I took your word in the beginning—if you couldn't tell, you couldn't. And I take it now. So we'll not have to go over that again."

Then he insisted on being allowed to give her something that would make her sleep, and sent her off to bed. And, with Willings, he turned back for one last look at that murder note before they went themselves.

We have now reached the point where it must be either murder or suicide.

On the surface, could any written line have plainer meaning? And yet, in one way, it admitted of an interpretation wholly simple and innocent. Forget that remembered horror that had looked out from the hollowness of Glasbury's thin young face, and—but no; that was something one could not forget!

Willings did not speak again till he had reached the stairs.

"Doctor," he said then, "even supposing Glasbury capable of murder,—and they say we all of us are, under stress and passion enough,—can you possibly suppose a man like that capable of rifling a money envelop, attempting to crack jewel safe, and intriguing with a criminal Italian servant?"

"I have made no such supposition," said Laneham. And then he broke off. "But I must use the telephone now. And we'll all be able to get really to work on our third step, in the morning."

When, however, Willings came down next morning, he found that already the Doctor had gone far.

He had been in touch with McGloyne again. He had told him of Glasbury, without reserve. And though, as in the case of the elevator man, he had dissuaded the bureau chief from the thought of making any immediate arrest, Glasbury was to be thoroughly shadowed, both in the St. Hilaire and on the street. Also, he learned that Glasbury had his working office in the Savoy Building. And he asked McGloyne to have one of his "pigeons" get him the contents of his waste-

paper basket for the following week.

As for Willings and D. Hope, again he sent them out upon that quest for the undiscovered German magazine with the word "mund" in big letters on its cover.

It was only when they returned at the end of the day, and again empty-handed, that for them that day's first development took place.

From the Doctor's private office came a new voice—they heard it the moment they entered the door—a negro's voice, quaking with terror and pleading for mercy.

"Boss, them police officers, they was a-at us, an' a-at us, an', befo' Gawd, I couldn't rightly say now jest what we did tell them! But they'll tell you—they'll tell you we sure didn't have nawthin' to do with that—that thing up there in the Fishers'! Boss! Why, befo' Gawd, don't you-all remember I was one of the boys what done hailped you an' the Judge to break in? An' if I sure had knowed what was waitin' for us in there, could I 'a' done that, now, could I 'a' done that?" His voice ran up in a cracking arpeggio.

"You heard what I told the Inspector," said Laneham; "and all I can add to that is that you're being watched now, every minute and every one of you! If you try even to go to the roof again—"

"Which we won't, boss! Which we won't! An', befo' Gawd, if we could ever 'a' knowed they'd be putt-in' it onto us!"

"Another thing. If you start talking again—even to the police—"

"We won't! We won't! H'avens above, didn't we take our Gawd's oath at the start-off that we wouldn't?"

Then, next moment, he was trying to take that back.

"Yes," said the Doctor; "I know quite well that you did—'at the start-off.'"

And, with his visitor bursting into new terrors and new oaths of protestation, he showed him out and started him down the stairs.

As Willings had guessed from the beginning, he was that elevator man, or boy, who had taken them down the night before—that same operator too, presumably, who had, a few minutes afterward, attempted to hurl Laneham down the open shaft!

But the Doctor now had nothing more to say of the matter. The visit had left him as coolly unconcerned as if his escape from death had been a story told to him.

"You forget about it, too," he commanded them. "What's more, I've just received another urgency call from Hartsdale. I'll have to leave in an hour, and I mayn't be back till late. In the meantime, there are certain other things that must be done. Above all, if possible, I must see Judge Bishop."

AS soon as the Doctor could speak to Willings alone, he returned to the subject of Glasbury.

"Apparently he hasn't been in his office since the afternoon of the murder. At any rate, the clean-up women say that since then his waste-basket has been empty. And he seems to have been away from the city the day of Mrs. Fisher's funeral."

"Doctor," Willings asked, "have you remembered that card you sent up to him last night? Won't that put him on his guard against you, at any rate?"

"It was a blank card. And he'll hardly know my writing. The only danger is that, at any time, he may collapse. Yet that, too, might give me opportunities—Hello, that sounds like McGloyne."

The big Inspector was below. He had nothing more to report on Glasbury; but he spoke again of Maddalina.

"She's sure the original she-devil, all right!" he said—"and hard through and through. There's no third degree invented that'll ever get anything out of her. An' her friends are still huntin' her in the hospitals."

"Good. And you'll have to keep them doing that. For, if once it gets out that she's in police hands, I tell you again it'll undo about everything we've done so far, and that in half a minute!"

Again McGloyne promised.

"But Fisher knows we've got her," he added. "And he was around to-day, just as crazy eager to see her put through as he was when I thought we could put it up to Butler Jimmy! You'd say, wouldn't you, that last night would 'a' shook him out of all o' that? But, by gee—it turned me kind o' sick—I believe he'd volunteer to strap her in the chair himself. Lord, I don't know how he'll act when he hears about Glasbury!"

Then he told Laneham of a new treasure he had taken to cover the Fisher apartment—so far as it could be covered.

He wasn't going to seem to depend any

---

longer on mere locks and bolts. Of course, he would be keeping all that, and his outside men as well. But, to add to them, he was putting in an inside guard—another plain-clothes man and Sergeant Hooley.

"Good," said Laneham. "And now I only hope that Judge Bishop will come in time."

THE Judge arrived just as he was getting into the car, and the Doctor took him with him to the station.

He told him in the fewest possible words of that new "return" the night before; of the attempt to kill him in the elevator shaft; of Glasbury, and what they now knew of that murder note. And then, leaving him no time for comment, he turned and asked point-blank:

"Bishy, you have always been Mrs. Fisher's legal confidant—you knew more of her affairs than any one else. Will you tell me why almost her last act on earth should have been to make her will?"

"Good God!" said Bishop. "Do you tell me that?"

"You heard Maddalina speak of a writing, a scrillo, she had had to witness. That was what it was. Jimmy told us last night, after you had gone."

"My heavens!"

"And now, old man, will you say to me that she had never, within the weeks before, spoken of making a new will to you?"

The Judge had no need to answer: his expression told the story. This, then, was the thing that he had been holding back.

When he finally did reply, it was with another question.

"Laneham, if there was such a will,—if Mrs. Fisher attempted, that morning, to make one for herself,—what was her reason for such haste as that? You remember her call for me to come and see her in the afternoon."

"I remember."

"And another thing. If she made such a will—where did that will go to?"

"I don't know. The police search was thorough enough, and it revealed nothing. Furthermore, there are wills and wills, just as there may be different sorts of suicide pacts."

"Laney!"

"By this time, too," continued Laneham levelly, "you must have noticed that there have been two distinct sorts of 'returns' to those Fisher rooms?"

Bishop threw himself back and twisted in his seat.

"Stop it, stop it! You ask me to think that your—your specter, or your demon, has been making his returns for that will?"

"I ask nothing, and I suppose nothing. I only know that Mrs. Fisher made a will, or something that Jimmy believed was a will, in all haste, not three hours before her death. And we've got a long way now past believing we've been following any mere attempt to steal her pearls."

"Enough!"

The Judge made a motion to stop the car and get out. "Man, you start my hair! Is this your psychanalysis? And, if there was any such document, let me say this: May your devil friend soon find it and be satisfied!"

IT was after midnight when Laneham returned to the city. And it was about half past one when he was awakened by the telephone. By now he had that feeling of knowing, at least in part, what was coming. For, since the day of the murder, had not every night call been a sort of notice, or a new warning and preparation?

It was McGloyne.

"Dr. Laneham? Yes? I'm callin' you from my house, where a call has just come in for me. Your man, or whatever he is, has been back in them deviled rooms again. He's killed Hooley—done for him with the same smash on the temple that killed Mrs. Fisher. And they don't know yet but what my other man is finished too.... Did he get away again? Oh, sure he did! An' no more trace of him than before! But get up there, won't you, the quickest you can, an' learn anything you can yourself."

He tapped only on Willings' door. Willings answered at once. And it was in the limousine that they really finished dressing. At the Casa Grande a police car had arrived just before them. It held a detail under Captain McGowan of the Central Bureau. And McGloyne had given him orders to look for the Doctor. Another physician had also been "called"—one Hammerling, from the Drive—and they all went in together.

Running their elevator was the self-same young West Indian who had visited and pleaded with Laneham that afternoon. And now his twitching countenance showed a fear that, once seen, kept them front looking at him again. But he took them up, someway. The police officers gave little heed to him,—for by then was there any one in the Casa Grande who was calm?—and they pushed out into the crowd of tenants moving fearfully about in the corridor.

There, one of the patrolmen left on outside guard that night took charge of them and led them through.

McGowan asked him only a single question:

"The locks were right again?"

"Not a one of them touched, Cap! We had to use our keys to get in ourselves. That was what kep' us, or we'd 'a' been in the moment we heard Hooley go down!"

"Where is he?"

"Right in there, where the devil got him. We left him so for evidence."

HOOLEY was lying diagonally across the front of the fireplace in Mrs. Fisher's little library. Almost directly above his head, indeed, was that inlaid Bikri shield that masked the tiny wall safe itself. Two patrolmen were stooping over him.

"It's no use, Cap," said one of them. "He was dead, you'd say, before he hit the floor. He likely never knew what killed him."

But the two physicians could at least verify the cause of death. It was what McGloyne had said it was—a blow upon the side of the head which crushed in the temple, even as Mrs. Fisher's had been crushed in.

"No bullet wound, of course," said Dr. Hammerling; "for it goes in only about an inch. But it was enough."

"And the same instrument!"

McGowan hurried them on into the middle room, where lay the plain-clothes man, who had been only wounded.

"How is it with you, Grogan?"

The man did not answer. He was still unconscious. He had lost much blood, and from his lips there came the heavy, stertorous breathing resultant upon shock.

A basin of water stood near. While Laneham bathed his head, his fellow physician felt along the suture lines for a possible fracture.

"I don't find anything," he said at last. "A little concussion, maybe; but I doubt if there's even that."

Calling for a hand mirror, he made an eye test. The pupils were almost normal.

"Right. Nothing the matter whatever."

Next moment, with a sudden throwing out of his hands and a first starting stare, the man began to come to again.

Plainly, he was still living in the moment when he had received his blow.

"Get him!" he cried. "Get him! He went that way—to'r'ds the swimmin'-tank!"

"Now, now, now!" said McGowan. "Just you sit tight a little. But we'll get him, all right, in time!"

"Turn them other lights on! Turn them— Oh-h!"

Then came the first words of real consciousness.

"Where am I? An' where—where's the sergeant?"

"You're where you got your crack, Grogan. An' the sergeant—don't you ask us about him. You just go ahead an' tell us what you know."

They propped him up against a chair, and he tried to take hold of himself. He stared now this way, now that, like a child that has just fought itself awake, but only half awake, from nightmare.

"An' he's gone now?" he demanded. "He's gone?"

"Oh, gone this half hour, the devil."

"An' devil he was! Captain, you've named him. Devil he was in all the meanin' of it. An' he's done for me!"

"Now, tell us everything, Billy, and set us right on this."

"Set you right! Set you right! There's no man'll ever do that!"

"Where did he come from?"

"He came from nowhere, an' he went nowhere—if he ain't in the room there with the swimmin'-tank, where the first murder was done. But I'll be honest with you, Captain, from the beginnin'-I couldn't lie with the sergeant layin' dead in there. When it come I guess we both was sleepin'."

"Sleeping?"

"It don't sound likely now, you'll say. An' I wouldn't have thought meself that I could ever have slep' in these rooms. For I was feared of the post—feared. The stories I'd heard—even if I'd only believed the half—had put the dread in me. An' I doubt if the sergeant, for all his laughin', liked it any too well himself. But we were both of us dog-weary when sent in. An' what with the heat bein' left on, an' every winda tight down, an' the dark an' all—"

"You had no lights burning?" asked Laneham.

"Noan! Noan! Accordin' to the Inspector's orders. What good, indeed, to be lyin' hid there, with a lot of elethrics goin'? But we were both of us close by switches, so that, if the time come, we could have light, enough with a thumb twist. Well, I didn't have the time even for that thumb twist!

"Doctor,"—he seemed to know Laneham,—"I've said I was likely sleepin'. But if I was I began to dream it before I woke! An' I'll never tell you whether I was dreamin' or wakin' when I seen him first."

"Where did he come from?"

"From nowhere, I've told you. An' he was all in white—savin' his face: it was black enough! There was no lights, but there was the shadows from the moon, which was light enough for him. An' he'd just spied the sergeant, an' was swingin' clear to do for him!

"Did you ever have the feelin' in your sleep that you got to wake up—an' you tried to wake, but you couldn't wake? Did you ever thry to call out, an' all the sound you could make went sand-dry inside your throat? An' did you ever thry to move, an' not a limb, not a muscle, could you move? An' if that could come to me wakin', could it come from anything but a devil's spell laid on? I don't know what he hit the sergeant with. His back was to'rds me. But he didn't strike him till he'd swung once an' twice an' three times, like some golf-player offerin' at a ball! An' then, with the sergeant's deathery, he give a kind of deep-down little laugh, an' jumped away, an' ran for this room here.

"He ran for this room here, an' then I knowed that he hadn't knowed of me before—or, if he had, he had forgotten. For at the sight of me he went back a step—But it was only a step. An' then he lepped, an' leppin' he strook me as he passed. I'd got to one knee, an' had one arm to guard with. It was that, an' that alone, that saved me. An' I kep' conscious long enough, too, to see him once more as he passed through into that swimmin'-pool,—yes, an' through the wall of it, for the door was closed then!—like the way he'd come. An' the boys from outside were in that room while I could still see him passin' through!"

In the next room, Father McLean, the Department chaplain, was now praying over Dooley. And there was silence till he finished. Then the dead man was carried to the outer hall, and Grogan was helped after him.

THEY turned to the patrolmen who had been on post in the corridors. Had they seen anything? Either before they burst into the rooms or after?

Nothing at all.

Grogan said that Hooley's slayer passed through the wall of the swimming-pool after they were inside. Didn't they see even a shadow?

"We weren't lookin' for any then," said one of them. "But it might be so. We'll believe anything now. And Grogan—we run first to him—he was screechin', 'He's in there! He's in there!' But when we'd got the lights on and could look, nothin' was changed in that swimmin'-place so much as a dust spot!"

Laneham made sure of that for himself. Then he walked back to the little library and the fireplace, and, lifting the Bikri shield, looked at the outer door of the miniature safe. It seemed not to have been touched. But he called up the Electric Protection night office again. As on the previous night, there had been no alarm.

At that moment McGloyne arrived.

"What are you going to do this time? the Doctor asked him.

"You may ask it," he answered dully; "for I've got Hooley's blood upon me now. Do—what can I do? Go the same old circuit, tappin' walls an' lookin at windows?" He called one of his aides. "Send Grogan in again. There'd ought to be at least a little more that he can tell."

"GROGAN," he asked the man, "you say he was all in white?"

"Like a sheeted ghost," Grogan an' swered, himself almost as pale as one. "Always, o' course, exceptin' for his face."

"Yes, and what do you think yourself he was, ghost or man or devil?"

"Does a ghost carry anything he can strike a man dead with? An', Inspector, would he laugh, too, when he done it?"

"Then you think," said McGloyne, with a shake of his jaw, "that he's just plain devil?"

"Nor I didn't say that, neither."

"Then what is it you do think? Oh, go ahead; tell us, tell us."

"Inspector,"—and at that first note in his voice, now hardly whispering, they had again that feeling of knowing what was coming,—"have you ever heerd tell, in the old coontry, of men that was tempted and sold their souls to the devil?"

"Well? Well? And if I have?"

"To clench your bargain, as they say, you've first to kill the one you should by rights be lovin' best. But, once you have, it's settled. And, in the hours when you ain't soul-wrung with penitence, more killin' is all your pleasure. As for the rest, you can go annywhere, you can do annything. An' to pass through a wall is nawthin'—nawthin' at all!"

"All right," said McGloyne. "We'll say that your man is blood-paid an' devil-bought. What kind of figure of a man would you say he was?"

"I'd say he was a yoong man."

"Yes?"

"And I'd say he was slim an' slender, an' light on his feet."

"Yes?"

"For an instant I thought I could see his eyes. An' oh, the depth they had. An' for all he was joyin' in his killin' then, oh the misery he'd been through to win it! "And you heard him laugh?"

"That I did! That I did. And it was a kind of voice so hollow deep you'd say it had come from the pit itself!"

Five minutes later the Doctor was calling up the house detective of the St. Hilaire, Glasbury's apartment hotel.

"It's Dr. Laneham speaking. Have you anything to report on Glasbury?"

"I have that."

"And what?"

"He went out about two hours ago, at one twenty. An' it's only just now that he's come in again."

"Did Morris trail him?"

"He did."

"And where did he go?"

"He went to his office in the Savoy Buildin'. Morris saw him in an' out o' there.

"Yes; and did he notice anything about him when he came out?"

"He did. An' I noticed it, too, when he come back here. If we hadn't knew where he'd been we'd 'a' said he'd just comin' back from croakin' some one!"

To be continued next week

"It Takes Nine Women to Make a Lady"

Pictures posed especially for "Every Week" by Hazel Dawn of the Famous Players Company

Old and New Love Making

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"Dear Editors"

The Movie Maid and the Martinet

By OCTAVUS ROY COHEN

Illustrations by Harvey Emrich

WHEN an irresistible force meets an immovable object—

How many of you have had during that proposition thrown at you during the first-term high school examination in physics? Practically it's impossible, but theoretically it is interesting. And just such a problem was amusing the Takagraph Film Company's New Jersey stock company: the irresistible force being Personified in Cal Frazer and the unmovable object in Molly Wainwright, star of stars in the movie firmament.

Cal was a martinet. His best friends admitted as much, always qualifying their damning admission with an adjective-studded eulogy regarding his undoubted ability as a director. There was nothing of mildness about Cal's work in the studio. He ruled his forces with a rod of iron. Discipline was his watch-word, his shiboleth.

Yet he was not pig-headed. He appreciated sound criticism, but that criticism must come after working hours. Sound or unsound, he gave every critic a hearing. If he agreed he curtly said "Thank you," and adopted the idea suggested. If he disagreed he said "Thank you" a trifle more kindly, and paid no further heed to the advice. But, from the time the empty camera clicked out its test at the first rehearsal until the day's work was ended, Cal ruled with the iron hand of a Czar. He was brusque, snappy, and at times almost impolite. But his sins were forgiven him—every one. Cal delivered the goods.

TRAINED in the school of legitimate drama, Cal had entered the film field as director because he believed the field for artistic dramatic expression even greater in moving pictures than on the stage. He was the moving pictures' most ardent devotee.

"There is no form of emotion, no degree of action, that can not be filmed," said he. "Serious, analytical drama will always live; but the moving picture has undermined the field of melodrama, and the day will come when movie melodrama will be on a plane of equal elevation with that now occupied by serious, searching spoken drama."

Cal's contract with the Takagraph company contained queer and unusual provisions. He had been created the final court of appeals in his domain, and from the jump he ran things as he thought they should be run, subject to no one's orders, to no one's demands. Save for the engaging of the stars, he might have been the owner of the company. Hence this story.

The Takagraph Company had its offices in New York, but its chief studio was in central New Jersey, under the command of Cal Frazer. Its second company traveled through the South, and was then at Bat Cave, North Carolina, producing feature films. Yet another company under the "Big T" brand operated near Los Angeles, the Mecca of filmdom.

The year following Molly Wainwright's sensational leap as a star into public favor, her contract with the rather small company by which she was employed expired. Immediately there was a wild scramble for her services. Fabulous sums were offered, and even the disappointed competitors who were forced out of the running by financial limitations agreed that she was worth it all.

The Takagraph Company entered the competition gravely and grimly. At the end of a month her signature was affixed to one of their contracts. She was assigned to Frazer's stock company.

THE day she left to join the company in Takaville, the movie city built by the company in the most picturesque section of New Jersey, Thornton Burgess, president of the company, took upon himself the task of warning Miss Wainwright of the director under whom she was to work.

"You're familiar with Cal Frazer's products," he smiled suavely, "and you know that he ranks as one of the best directors, if not the very best, in the film industry. But you have probably not heard that he is a martinet. He is brusque, curt to the point of impoliteness. He refuses to differentiate between a star and a supernumerary when things go wrong. Discipline is his middle name. But he's a magnificent teacher—and we have given him free rein."

Burgess didn't notice Molly's perfectly rounded figure stiffen and her appealing brown eyes flash fire, nor did he give heed to the steely timbre of her voice.

"A slave-driver?" she inquired quietly.

"Perhaps. But an easy man to work with, if one delivers the goods and does as he says. But what he says—goes!"

"An individuality-robber?"

Burgess smiled.

"Scarcely. He's too much of an artist for that. The movies constitute his first and only love. He's rather a misanthropic guy otherwise. His company hated him at first. Now they'd fight for him. He's made actors of 'em."

"I see." Molly's lips were compressed into a thin whitish-crimson line.

The initial meeting of director and star was inauspicious. She was frigid in her acceptance of his none-too-hearty greeting, and mentally he catalogued her as "swell-headed."

"Stuck on herself," he mused cynically. "Like the newly rich: doesn't quite know how to take herself; and believes that she's the great and only." Where-with he heaved a sigh of resignation. "My duty is plain. I'll have to train her."

Next morning he ordered her to the wardrobe woman for costume in the first scenes of a three-reel domestic drama in which she was scheduled to make her debut with the Takagraph Company. Her role was that of a young woman very much in love with her husband. Their life is idyllic until their first baby comes between them. The young mother sacrifices everything for the child, neglecting the husband. The finale was a scene in which he, in desperation, kidnaps his own child, and she finally realizes the emptiness of his life and the injustice she has done him. It was one of the human interest pictures of every-day life for which the Takagraph Company had become famous, and a role in which Molly Wainwright's talent for gripping work could be shown to best advantage. Earle Davis was cast for the husband.

The day was not good for outdoor work, and Frazer decided to devote himself to the making of the interior scenes. Although there was an undercurrent of antagonism, the first few scenes went along swimmingly. The girl's work was superb. It was after a scene in which the quiet happiness of their domestic life is shown—and wherein the young wife tells her husband the great news of the coming baby—that he broke an iron resolve and praised her work.

"Excellent!" he snapped. "Excellent!"

She looked up quickly and met his gaze for the barest fraction of an instant. And, because she did not know the man, she fancied that she detected an ironical note in his praise. She flushed.

Then came the scene after the baby's birth: The mother, lying in bed, is gazing into the face of her child. The husband is called to view the miracle. The nurse steps back out of the picture; leaving the parents and child together. The mother scarcely notices her husband—she has eyes for no one but the baby. The husband is surprised and hurt.

It was one of the big scenes of the picture.

Molly, the baby, and the nurse took their positions. The camera man made ready to click his machine in order that they might test the number of feet it was to run. Earle Davis took his place behind the interior set, out of sight of the machine, ready to enter at his cue.

"Ready!" barked Frazer crisply. "Careful, now. Straight at the baby, Miss Wainwright! That's it. More softness to your face—this is your first child. Miss Carter, smile and nod indulgently. You're a nurse—you've seen this sort of thing lots of times. Now, Davis has knocked. Tiptoe to the door. Let him in. Then, as he enters, you step back as quickly as you can without showing haste and get out of range of the camera— No! No!" as the nurse turned her back to walk across the room. "Walk backward, and don't make it too hasty. Get out of the room, Davis. Now do that over again."

Molly stirred and looked around at the other actors. Frazer leaped forward.

"Hold your pose, Miss Wainwright!" he shouted. "Hold—"

She flushed indignantly.

"This is a rehearsal," she retorted.

"I know it!" he roared. Frazer always roared when directing a big scene. "And I said hold your pose! Understand?"

Furiously she assumed her pose again. The rehearsal proceeded. Finally the husband was left gazing at his wife and baby.

"Now, Davis," snapped the director, "lean over to kiss her—you're proud, relieved, and happy. You're ready to drop on your knees—so. Miss Wainwright, don't look at him—look at the baby. You don't know he's existing. That's it. Now—as he leans over to kiss you—you, with unconscious cruelty, turn farther over to get a better view of the child. Davis, you try to kiss the child. Miss Wainwright, glance at him for just a second and pull the child closer to you. You think he's all yours—get me? Come, now!" as she hesitated. "Quick! Quick! Hurry!"

DELIBERATELY she began her motions. Frazer hopped into the scene like a wild main.

"Hold that camera!" he yelled. "Hold it! I want that scene faster, Miss Wainwright. This ain't the time for all those heroics. That baby is new, and your feelings haven't had a chance to crystallize yet."

"I can't do it any faster," she replied belligerently.

"You've got to!" Then, turning to the right: "Miss Carter, positions. Take the whole scene over. I'm going to get it right."

"You mean you're going to get it your way," interpolated Molly tactlessly.

The other members of the company gasped. Frazer spun around in a fury.

"I'm going to get it right!"

The third rehearsal passed off to the liking of the director.

"Picture!" he announeed. "Poses! Little softer expression, Miss Wainwright. So! Closer to the bed, Miss Carter. Ready! Camera!"

The machine started to click. Frazer stood teetering on the balls of his feet, jaw set and eyes glittering, his whole attitude speaking concentration. He said nothing—it was his policy never to talk to his actors during the actual taking of a scene unless absolute necessity arose, and then to snap at them in monosyllables.

All went well until the part of the scene that had caused trouble in rehearsal. And then, deliberately, Molly Wainwright acted it as she had at first—in the manner

---

that had driven them into their first clash. Frazer's eyes distended with anger and unbelief. He was in the picture in a second.

"That don't go!" he roared. "I showed you how I want it made, and you're going to make it that way. Take the whole thing over. And this time—it's my way!"

And it was. But when Molly went to make a costume change after the scene was finished she was shaking with anger. She, Molly Wainwright, moving picture nonpareil, had been openly affronted before the entire company over which she was supposed to rule as queen. She changed her costume and strolled on to the huge stage. Frazer was just then finishing an incidental scene in which she did not appear, before breaking up the stage set he was using, and she took her place behind the camera, with the other members of the cast not far behind her. They eyed her curiously.

The scene was finished. Frazer turned and surveyed the group behind him impersonally.

"Next scene," he said crisply. "Miss Wainwright, you and Miss Collins are in this—" He glanced at them critically. "Costumes very good!" he praised—then turned away.

So far as one could judge by his actions and words, he had entirely forgotten the clash of a few minutes before.

But her pride had been touched to the quick, and all of the aggressiveness in her nature was aroused. She determined to force him to let her work in her own way. He could lord it over the others in his irascible, domineering way if they had a mind to let him: as for her, she was Molly Wainwright, the star, and she knew that her position with the company was such that she must win out in the end.

At first Frazer refused to admit to himself (he took counsel with nobody) that it was war between them. But as the days dragged into weeks and, the weeks into nearly two months, he found that he could no longer ignore the hand-writing on the wall. Being a man, he faced the issue squarely, and he knew that the issue meant the breaking of the woman or the breaking of himself.

Cal Frazer had never been a man of half-way measures. Once determined on a course, he went the straight-line way—by the shortest, most effective route. And this was no exception.

He hazed her!

The members of the company gasped. They could not believe the evidence of their senses. Molly Wainwright being hazed!

As for Molly, she didn't dream that he would have the temerity to keep it up; but as the days sped by and he continued to force her to do the work usually held for supers and thrill-women, she faced the realization of what he was doing.

She gritted her teeth and said nothing. He had determined to break her, had he? Very well!

She set out to oppose him in everything—to clog his work, to lessen the output of that particular studio. To use the phraseology of one of the camera men, she was trying to "get him in Dutch" with the company.

She knew that her efforts were meeting with success, and he knew that she knew it. But never by a word or a sign did he show it. It never occurred to him to take his troubles to the New York head-quarters. He stuck grimly to his post, and with set teeth remained silent on the letters that came daily from the main offices inquiring why this or that or the other picture had not yet been finished.

MATTERS were reaching a crisis. Frazer selected a two-reel scenario with a devil-may-care heroine, and cast Molly Wainwright in the part. At times the script savored strongly of slapstick.

The work that should have been finished in less than a day took two—thanks to Molly's efforts. Frazer determined to finish the picture on the third day. And as he prepared for a day in the woods he allowed himself the luxury of a little grin.

In the woods near the studio was a stagnant pond about three feet deep. Few trees were near it—it provided an ideal spot for the watery wind-up of the chase that provided one of the thrills of the picture. He watched Molly's face when she saw the pond and received the explanation that she must leap into its slimy depths.

Molly stared first at the inflexible director and then at the repulsive-looking pond. She trembled with rage—at the indignity of it.

"I am to jump—in there?"

He nodded gravely.

"Why, certainly."

She gazed at the pond once more—and shivered. Her shiver was unconsciously ludicrous, and some of the supernumeraries snickered audibly. It proved the last straw. Her long pent-up fury burst forth in a raging torrent. She whirled on Frazer, the imperturbable, like one possessed.

"I'm to jump in there, am I? In that dirty, slimy pond? I am, eh? Well, I won't!"

He raised his eyebrows the slightest fraction of an inch.

"O-o-h! You won't?"

"No. And, what's more, I'm going to tell you now what I think of you. You're a coward! You've been making war on me, a woman. I made a hit in this country with my work, and I've never before had any trouble with a director. But you—even though I was warned in advance about your nasty disposition, I didn't think I'd find a man here who lacked the very elements of decency. You've handicapped my work—you've ruined it. You've ordered me to do things—"

"You've interfered with my work," he interrupted calmly and very softly. "My output of pictures has been reduced forty per cent. since you have been with me. You have done it deliberately. And as to my criticism of your work—I am the director of this company."

"You've acted the cur!" she sizzled. "Well, I'll tell you right now that it's you or me. Both of us can not remain with this company. I—"

"Wait a minute, please," he interrupted. "You have said that one of us must go. Do you mean that?"

"Certainly."

"You are positive?"

"I won't be insulted—"

"Do you mean it?" His voice was tinged with vitriol.

"Yes!"

His voice dropped again to normal, but his words were clear and decisive.

"Very well, Miss Wainwright. Then you may consider that you no longer have anything to do with my company!"

The company gasped.

"What?"

"I believe you are under contract with the Takagraph Film Company," he continued suavely. "With that I have nothing to do. But you don't work with my company any longer. They'll probably send you to Los Angeles. I'll thank you to leave at once. You interfere with my work."

He turned to the others.

"Miss Carter, you will costume yourself as Miss Wainwright was for the original outdoor scenes. We'll take the picture over, with you in the lead."

And he turned his back on Molly Wainwright, the high-priced star, whom he had dismissed as casually as he would a five-dollar super.

THORNTON BURGESS listened with amazement to Molly Wainwright's story. His mind was working at lightning speed.

"Extraordinary!" he remarked noncommittally. "Most extraordinary!"

"Outrageous!" she snapped. "Unbelievable!"

He stared straight in her eyes.

"What Frazer remarked is true," he said fairly. "Since you joined his company his production of pictures has been reduced forty per cent."

"I have nothing to do with that, Mr. Burgess. But I refuse point-blank to work under him any longer."

"That is final?"

"Absolutely."

"Hum!" He puffed great clouds of smoke into the room. "I'm sorry."

"So am I—very. But my decision stands."

"Quite sorry. It puts me in an embarrassing position. Would—a—you consent to take the leads in the Los Angeles company?"

She stiffened.

"No! Positively not!"

"Why?"

"Because he ordered me there. It would be a victory for him."

"Victory—" Burgess felt the necessity of tact. "Ahem! Yes—I see. And you won't reconsider?"

"No."

"Well, I shall communicate with Mr. Frazer. I suppose you will be at your hotel for the next few days?"

"Yes."

"Very well. I shall let you know as soon as I have seen him. Meanwhile pray do not mention this highly unpleasant matter to any one. It is regrettable—very regrettable."

"Very!" she agreed caustically—and left.

The interview that night between Thornton Burgess and Cal Frazer was quiet, emphatic, and to the point.

"I'm convinced," said Burgess, when Frazer had finally told his story, "that you have been right throughout—a trifle curt and drastic; perhaps, but nevertheless right. You might—er—have communicated with me—

"I'm the director," repined Frazer. "I'm supposed to engineer my own troubles.

"Quite so. Quite so. Sorry. Ah! You see, she refuses to go to Los Angeles, and I couldn't send her to North Carolina. Eunice Bailey is heart and soul in that work there—her husband is playing opposite, and it is the best working company we have. Now, it seems to me—"

Frazer's eyes flashed to meet those of the president.

"Yes?" There was fire in the simple interrogation. Burgess temporized.

"Her salary, you know, is tremendous; and we must pay it—under our contract."

"Yes?"—quietly.

"I was wondering whether you—er—a—mightn't take charge of the Los Angeles studio?"

"And if I don't?"

"But—"

"If I don't?"

"Then—er—I— You make it very hard for me, Mr. Frazer. You see, we are paying Miss Wainwright"

"Yes"—bitterly. "Because you're paying her some fool price, I must eat dirt. Thanks! I can't say that I see your point of view. Miss Wainwright has seen fit to say that either she or I must leave the Takaville studio. Now, be a man and say which one of us it is to be."

"You won't go to Los Angeles?"

"If I stay with the Takagraph people I remain in charge of the Takaville studio. Now—come clean!"

"It is hard—"

"I reckon I can stand any shock."

"Well,"—Burgess fidgeted uncomrfortably and his face grew a bit purplish,—"I hate to do it, Frazer, but you—well, it that we can't afford to lose—"

Frazer rose and bowed sarcastically.

"I understand, I believe. And since I am no longer in your employ, may I ask for my contract?"

"You won't reconsider—"

"We've threshed that out. And as I have no desire to draw a salary when am not working, may I have my contract?"

Burgess went to the safe in the corner of his office, and handed Frazer his contract. Grimly Frazer tore it across, then across again, and yet again. He dropped the bits into the waste-basket with an unconsciously dramatic gesture.

"Good day, Mr. Burgess," he said with forced politeness.

Burgess choked.

"S'long, Frazer." Then, as the door was closing: "And say, Frazer—I feel like hell about this. But you understand?"

"Yes,"—drily,—"I understand."

FRAZER idly turned the pages of a dramatic weekly. He let it drop to his lap as he turned to gaze on the gaunt silhouette of the city outside his window. Then he shook himself and smiled wanly

---

at his reflection in the polished mirror.

"Guess I'd better go job-hunting," he soliloquized. There came a knock on the door. Frazer opened it to admit a bell-hop.

"Lady t' see y', sir," announced that dignitary, extending a tray on which rested a card. Curiously Frazer glanced at it. He stiffened at the name:

Miss Molly Wainwright

"Very well. Tell her I'll be down in a second."

The boy pocketed his tip and pussy-footed his way down the corridor.

"Dat's Molly Wainwright," he informed a co-worker a minute later. "Some queen, ain't she?"

Less than five minutes later Cal Frazer altered the room. Molly rose from one of the easy chairs to greet him. Her manner was constrained, but her eyes met his squarely.

"I won't keep you but a minute," she said simply. "I've just come from Mr. Burgess's office. He told me what happened last night. I didn't realize then just what an injustice I had done you. I came straight to you—as I told him I was going to do—to say that I know I've been a churl, and that I've been dead wrong from the jump. I'm sorry."

Frazer shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"That's all right—that's all right, Miss Wainwright."

"No, it's not all right! Because I happen to be drawing more money than you, you have lost your position. It isn't fair. I want to ask you to give me a chance for reparation. I want to ask you to—to go back to the Takaville studio as director. And I—I'm going back too." Her eyes filled with tears. "I'll promise, Mr. Frazer, that you'll have no more trouble with me—"

"Aw, sa-a-a-ay!" he blurted. "Now, don't—"

"You've taught me my lesson," she finished gamely. "Will you let me show the company that I know I'm wrong? Will you?"

His sharp-featured face was transformed with a smile.

"Will I?" he grinned. "Will I? You just bet I will! And say—we'll show 'em a few things in the movie line, won't we?"

On the Way with Cyril

By SEWELL FORD

Illustration by Frank Snapp

IT was a case of declaring' time out on the house. Uh-huh—a whole afternoon. What's the use bein' a private sec. in good standin' unless you can put one over on the time-clock now and then? Besides, I had a social date; and, now Mr. Robert is back on the job so steady and is gettin' so domestic in his habits, somebody's got to represent the Corrugated Trust at these function things.

The event was the openin' of the Pill Box; you know, one of these dinky little theaters where they do the capsule drama at two dollars a seat. Not that I've been givin' my theatrical taste the highbrow treatment. I'm still strong for the smokeless war play where the coised spy gets his'n good and hard.

But I understand this one-act stuff is the thing to see just now, and I'd picked up a hunch that Vee and Auntie had planned to be in on this openin' until Auntie's sciatica developed so bad that they had to call it off. So it's me makin' the timely play with a couple of seats in E center and almost gettin' hugged for it. Even Auntie shoots me an approvin' glance as she hands down a favorable decision.

So we sits through five acts of piffle that was mostly talky junk to me. And, at that, I wa'n't sufferin' exactly; for when them actorines got too weird, all I had to do was swing a bit in my seat and I had a side view of a spiffy little white boa, with a pink ear-tip showin' under a ripple of corn-colored hair, and a—well I had something worth watchin', that's all.

"Wasn't that last thing stupid?" says Vee.

"Didn't bother me any," says I. "Maybe I wa'n't followin' it real close."

"The idea!" says she. "Why come to the theater, anyway?"

"Lean closer and I'll whisper," says I.

"Silly!" says she. "Here! Have a chocolate."

"Toss," says I, openin' my mouth.

Vee snickers. "Suppose I missed and hit the fat man beyond?"

"It's a sportin' chance he takes," says I. "Shoot."

I had to bump Fatty a bit makin' the catch; but when he sees what the game is he comes back with the friendly grin.

"There!" says Vee, tintin' up. "Now behave."

"Sorry," says I, "but I had to field my position, didn't I? Once more, now."

"Certainly not," says Vee. "Besides, here goes the curtain."

And if it hadn't been for interruptions

like that we might have had a perfectly good time. We generally do when we're let alone. To sort of string the fun out I suggests goin' somewhere for tea. And it was while we're swappin' josh over the toasted crumpets and marmalade that we discovers a familiar lookin' couple on the dancin' surface.

"Why, there's Doris!" says Vee.

"And the happy hubby!" I adds. "Hey Westy! Come nourish yourself."

Maybe you remember that pair? Sappy Westlake, anyway. He's the noble fair-haired youth that for a long time Auntie had all picked out as the chosen one for Vee, and he hung around constant until one lucky day Vee had this Doris Ull come for a visit.

Kind of a polity, peevish queen, Doris was, you know. Spoiled at home, and the job finished at one of these flossy girls' boardin'-schools where they get a full course in court etiquette and learn to call the hired girl Smith quite haughty.

But she looked good to Westy, and, what with the help Vee and I gave 'em, they made a match of it. Months ago that must 'a' been, nearly a year. So I signals a tray-juggler to pull up more chairs, and we has quite a reunion.

SEEMS they'd been on a long honey-moon trip: stayed a month at the big fair, done the whole Pacific coast, stopped off a while at Banff, and worked back home through Quebec and the White Mountains. Think of all the carfares and tips to bell-hops that means! He don't have to worry, though. Income is Westy's middle name. All he knows about it is that there's a trust company downtown somewheres that handles the estate and wishes on him quarterly a lot more'n he knows how to spend. Beastly bore!

"What a wonderful time you two must have had!" says Vee.

Doris shrugs her shoulders.

"The Exposition gave me a headache every time I went," says she. "And in the Canadian Rockies we nearly froze. I was glad to see New York again. But one tires of hotel life. Thank goodness our house is ready at last. We moved in a week ago."

"Oh!" says Vee. "Then you're housekeeping?"

Doris nods. "It's quite thrilling," says she. "At ten-thirty every morning I have the butler bring me Cook's list. Then I 'phone for the things myself. That is, I've just begun. Let me see, didn't I put to-day's order in my—yes, here it is." And she fishes a piece of paper out of a platinum mesh bag. "Think of our

---

needing all that—just Harold and me," she goes on.

"I should say so," says Vee, startin' to read over the items. "'Sugar, two pounds; tea, two pounds—'"

"Cook leaves the amounts to me," explains Doris; "so I just order two pounds of everything."

"Oh!" says Vee, readin' on. "Butter, two pounds; eggs, two—' Do they sell eggs that way, Doris?"

"Don't they?" asks Doris. "I'm sure I don't know."

"Coffee, two pounds,'" continues Vee. "'Yeast cakes, two pounds—' Why, wouldn't, that be a lot of yeast cakes? They're such little things!"

"Perhaps," says Doris. "But then, I sha'n't have to bother ordering any more for a month, you see. Now, take the next item. 'Champagne wafers, ten pounds.' I'm fond of those. But that is the only time I broke my rule. See—'flour, two pounds; roast beef, two pounds,' and so on. Oh, I mean to be quite systematic in my housekeeping!"

"Isn't she a wonder?" asks Westy, gazin' at her proud and mushy.

"I say, though, Vee," goes on Doris enthusiastic, "you must come home with us for dinner to-night. Do!"

At which Westy nudges her and whispers something behind his hand.

"Oh, yes," adds Doris. "You too, Torchy."

VEE had to 'phone Auntie and get Doris to back her up before the special dispensation was granted; but at six-thirty the four of us starts uptown for this brown-stone bird-cage of happiness that Westy has taken a five-year lease of.

"Just think!" says Vee, as we unloads from the taxi. "You with a house of your own, and managing servants, and—"

"Oh!" remarks Doris, as she pushes the button, "I do hope you won't mind Cyril."

"Mind who?" says Vee.

"He—he's our butler," explains Westy. "I suppose he's a very good butler, too—the man at the employment agency said he was; but—er—"

"I'm sure he is," puts in Doris, "even if he does look a little odd. Then there is his name—Cyril Snee. Of course, Cyril doesn't sound just right for a butler, does it? But Snee is so—so—"

"Isn't it?" says Vee. "I should call him Cyril."

"We started in that way," says Doris, "but he asked us not to; said he preferred to be called Snee. It was unusual, and besides he had private reasons. So between ourselves we speak of him as Cyril, and to his face— Well, I suppose we shall get used to saying Snee, though— Why, where can he be? I've rung twice and—Oh, here he comes!"

AND, believe me, when Doris described him as lookin' a little odd she's said sumpn. Cyril was all of that. As far as figures goes he's big and impressive enough, with sort of a dignified bulge, around the equator. But that face of his, with the white showin' through the pink, and the pink showin' through the white in the most unexpected places! Like a scraped radish. No, that don't give you the idea of his color scheme exactly. Say a half parboiled baby. For the pink spots on his chin and forehead was baby pink, and the white of his cheeks and ears was a clear, waxy white, like he'd been made up by an artist. Then, the thin gray hair, cropped so close the pink scalp glimmered through; and the wide mouth with the quirky corners; and the greenish pop-eyes with the heavy bags underneath—well, that was a map to remember.

And the worst of it was, I couldn't. Sure, I'd met it. No doubt about that. But I follows the bunch into the house like I was in a trance, starin' at Cyril over Westy's shoulder and askin' myself urgent, "Where have I seen that face before?" No, I couldn't place him. And you know how a thing like that will bother you. It got me in the appetite.

Maybe it was just as well, too, for I'd got half way through the soup before I notices anything the matter with it. My guess was that it tasted scorchy. I glances around at Vee, and finds she's just makin' a bluff at eatin' hers. Doris and Westy ain't even doin' that, and when I drops my spoon Doris signals to take it away. Which Cyril does, movin' as solemn and dignified as if he was usherin' at a funeral. Then there's a stage wait for three or four minutes before the fish is brought in, Cyril paddin' around ponderous with the plates. Doris beckons him up and demands in a whisper:

"Where is Helma?"

"Helma, ma'am," says he, "is taking the evening out."

"But—" begins Doris, then stops and bites her lip.

The fish could have stood some of the surplus cookin' that the soup got. . . wa'nt exactly eatable fish, and the potato marbles that come with it should have been numbered; then they'd be useful in Kelley pool. Yes, they was a bit hard. Doris gets red under the eyes and waves out the fish.

She stands it, though, until that two pound roast is put before Westy. Not such a whale of a roast, it ain't. It's a one-rib affair, like an overgrown chop, all it reposes lonesome in the middle of the big silver platter. It's done, all right. Couldn't have been more so if it had been cooked in a blast-furnace. Even the bone was charred through.

Westy he gazes at in his mild, helpless less way, and pokes it doubtful with the carvin' fork.

"I say, Cyr—er—Snee," says he "what's this?"

"The roast, sir," says the butler.

"The deuce it is!" says Westy. "Do-do I use a saw, or dynamite'?" And he stares across at Doris inquirin'.

"Snee," says Doris, her upper lip tremblin', "you—you may take it away."

"Back to the kitchen, ma'am?" asks Cyril.

"Ye-es," says Doris. "Certainly.

"Very well, ma'am," says Cyril, sort of tragic and mysterious.

He hadn't more'n got through the swing-door before Doris slumps in her chair, puts her face into her hands, and begins lettin' out the sobs reckless. Course, Westy jumps to the rescue and starts pattin' her on the back and offerin' soothin' words. So does Vee.

"There, there!" says Vee. "We don't mind a bit. Such things are bound to happen."

"But I—I don't know what to do, sobs Doris. "It's—it's been getting worse every day. They began all right—the servants, I mean. But yesterday Marie was impudent, and to-night Helma has gone out when she shouldn't, and now Cook has spoiled everything, and—"

We ain't favored with the rest of the sad tale, for just then there's a quick scuff of feet, and Cyril comes skatin' through the pantry door and does a frantic dive behind the sideboard.

Doris straightens up, brushes her eyes clear, and makes a brave stab at bein' dignified.

"Snee," says she, real reprovin'.

"I—I beg pardon, ma'am," says Cyril edgin' out and revealin' a broad black

---

smooch on his shirt-front as well as a few other un-butlery signs.

"Why, whatever has happened to you?" demands Doris.

"I'm not complaining, ma'am," says Cyril; "but Cook, you see, she—she didn't like it because of my bringing back the roast. And I'm not very good at dodging, ma'am."

"Oh!" says Doris, shudderin'.

"It struck me here, ma'am," says Cyril, indicatin' the exact spot.

"Yes, yes, I see," says Doris. "I—I'm sorry, Snee."

"Not at all, ma'am," objects Cyril.

"My fault entirely. I should have jumped quicker. And it might have been the pudding. That wouldn't have hit so hard, but it would have splashed more. You see, ma'am, I—"

"Never mind, Snee," cuts in Doris, tryin' to stop him.

"I don't, ma'am, I assure you," says Cyril, pluckin' a spray of parsley off his collar. "I was only going to remark what a wonderful true eye Cook has, ma'am; and her in liquor, at that."

"Oh, oh!" squeals Doris panicky.

"It began when I brought her the brandy for the pudding sauce, ma'am," goes on Cyril, real chatty. "She'd had only one glass when she begins chucking me under the chin and calling me Dearie. Not that I ever gave her any cause, ma'am, to—"

"Please!" wails Doris. "Harold! Stop him, can't you?"

And say, can you see Sappy Westlake stoppin' anything? Specially such a runnin' stream as this here now Cyril. But he comes to life for one faint effort.

"I say, you know," he starts in, "perhaps you'd best say no more about it, Snee."

"As you like, sir," says Cyril. "Only, I don't wish my feelings considered. Not in the least. If you care to send back the salad I will gladly—"

Westy he glances appealin' towards me.

"Torchy," says he, "couldn't you—"

COULDN'T I, though! Say, I'd just been yearnin' to crash into this affair for the last five minutes. I'd remembered Cyril. At least, I thought I had. And I proceeds to rap for order with a table-knife.

"Excuse me, Mr. Snee," says I, "but you ain't been called on for a monologue. You can print the whole story of how kitchen neutrality was violated, issue a yellow book, if you like; but just for the minute try to forget that assault with the roast and see if you can remember ever havin' met me before. Can you?"

Don't seem to faze Cyril a bit. He takes a good look at me and then shakes his head.

"I'm sorry, sir," says he, "but I'm afraid I'm stupid about such things. I can sometimes recall names very readily, but faces—"

"How long since you quit jugglin' pies and sandwiches at the quick-lunch joint?" says I.

"Three months, sir," says he prompt.

"Tied the can to you, did they?" says I.

"I was discharged, sir," says Cyril. "The proprietor objected to my talking so much to customers. I suppose he was quite right. One of my many failings, sir."

"I believe you," says I. "So you took tip buttling, eh? Wa'n't that some nervy jump?"

"I considered it a helpful step in my career," says he.

"Your which?" says I.

"Perhaps I should put it," says he, "that the work seemed to offer the discipline which would make me most useful to our noble order."

And as he says the last two words he puts his palms at right angles to his ears, thumbs in, and bows three times.

"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.

"I refer," says Cyril, "to the Brotherhood of the Sacred Owls, which is also named the Sublime Order of Humility and Wisdom."

And once more he does the ear wig-wag. Believe me, he had us all gaspin'.

"Vurra good, Eddie!" says I. "Sacred Owls, eh? What is that—one of these insurance schemes?"

"There are both mortuary and sick benefits appertaining to membership," says Cyril, "but our chief aim and purpose is to acquire humility and wisdom. It so happens that I have been named as candidate for Grand Organizer of the East, and at our next solemn conclave, to he held—"

"I get you," says I. "I can see where you might find some practice, in bein' humble by buttlin', but how about gettin' wise?"

"With humility comes wisdom, as our public ritual has it," says Cyril. "In the text-book which I studied—'The Perfect Butler'—there was very little about being humble, however. But my cousin, who conducts an employment agency, assured me that could only be acquired by practice. So he secured me several positions. He was wholly correct. I have been discharged on an average of once a week for the last two months, and on each occasion I have discovered newer and deeper depths of humility."

I draws a long breath and gazes admirin' at Cyril. Then I turns to the Westlakes.

"Westy," says I, "do you want to accommodate Mr. Snee with a fresh chance of perfectin' himself for the Sublime Order?"

He nods. So does Doris.

"It's a unanimous vote, Cyril," says I. "You're fired. Not for failin' to duck the roast, understand, but because you're too gabby."

"Thank you, sir," says he, actin' a little disappointed. "I am to leave at once, I suppose?"

"No," says I. "Stop long enough in the kitchen to tell Cook she gets the chuck, too. After that, if you ain't qualified as Grand Imperial Organizer of the whole United States, then the Sacred Owls don't know their business. By-by, Cyril. We're backin' you to win, remember."

And as I pushes him through the pantry door I locks it behind him. Followin' which, Doris uses the powder-puff under her eyes a little and we adjourns to the Plutoria palm-room, where we had a perfectly good dinner, all the humility Westy could buy with a two dollar tip, and no folksy chatter on the side.

NEXT day the Westlakes calls up another agency, and by night they had an entire new line of help on the job.

What do you guess, though? Here yesterday afternoon I leaves the office on the jump and chases up to the apartment-house where Vee and Auntie are settled for the winter. My idea was that I might catch Vee comin' home from a shoppin' orgie, or the matinee, or something, and get in a few minutes' conversation in the lobby.

The elevator-boy says she's out, too, so it looks like I was a winner. I waits half an hour and she don't show up, and I'm just about to take a chance on ringin' up Auntie for information, when in she comes, chirky and smilin', with rose leaves sprinkled on both cheeks and her eyes sparklin.' Also she has a bundle of books under one arm.

"Why the literature?" says I. "Goin' to read Auntie to sleep?"

"There!" says she, poutin' cute. "I wasn't going to let any one know. I've started in at college."

"Wha-a-at!" says I. "You ain't never goin' to be a lady doctor or anything like that, are you?"

"I am taking a course at Columbia," says Vee, "in domestic science. Doris is doing it, too. And such fun! To-day we learned how to make a bed—actually made it up, too. To-morrow I am going to boil potatoes."

"Hellup!" says I. "You are? Say, how long does this last?"

"It's a two-year course," says Vee.

"Stick to it," says I. "That'll give me time to take lessons from Westy on how to get an income wished onto me."

As it stands, though, Vee's got me distanced. Please, ain't somebody got a plute aunt to spare?

Every Time She Builds a House She Writes a Play

IF you want to write a play, build a house. Margaret Mayo (the Polly of-the-Circus-Baby-Mine-Twin-Beds Miss Mayo) says it helps a lot. She ought to know, for she has written more plays than any other woman in America. For each one of the last five she has written she has built a house. She says it's just pleasant fun to write plays if you have a companion art like house-building to keep your mind fresh and active.

"I wish," she said one day at luncheon, "that it didn't make me so tired and nervous writing on a play."

Her handsome husband, who is the only man in America who writes, manages, produces, and acts in his own plays, smiled at her in a lazily calm way that is characteristic of him.

"It doesn't tire you to write," he corrected. "It tires you to carry around the waste energy your play generates. It's only hard," he explained, "to do one thing. It's easy to do many. Remember the proverb, 'If you want something done ask a busy man'?"

So that's how it happened that Miss Mayo began to look around for some way of using up her surplus play-writing energy, in order to keep her mind fresh and active. "I had wanted all my life to build a house," she said. "But somehow it had always looked like too big a job to tackle. Now I determined to do it. I had just begun to write 'Polly of the Circus,' and when the play was finished, my house at Harmon was ready to live in."

Miss Mayo had an exciting time getting the house built. For, although she drew her plans and then told her carpenter to go ahead, she changed her mind very often about what sort of house she wanted. She also changed her mind about which way it should face, and whether there should be fire-places and sleeping porches, and how many. Probably no one but Miss Mayo ever made sleeping porches for their servants, and a special outdoor servants' dining-room.

"Why didn't you go back on the stage and act, if you wanted other work?" some of her friends want to know. So then Miss Mayo tells them why she left the stage. One day a friend told her that Cigarette in "Under Two Flags" was just the part for her. "Only," added the friend, "it's never been dramatized." A little thing like that didn't bother Miss Mayo. She decided to dramatize it herself. When her play was done, after three months, it marked the end of her career as an actress. She was so fascinated with play-writing she never wanted to act again. Miss Mayo wrote eight plays before she began building houses.

The first house she built she calls, hospitably, "Tumble In." It has been her home ever since it was finished. Of course she can't live in all the houses she builds, but she puts them up near enough so that she can have as neighbors the friends she turns her houses over to. The second one is called "Look Out," because of the view down the Hudson River.

While Miss Mayo was collaborating with Salisbury Field on "Twin Beds," she just had to do something in the building line, and yet she didn't feel like doing house all by herself, when she was only partly responsible for the play. At last she struck the right thing. She bought a little house down the road from her over a bit, and began reconstructing it. "It fitted the psychology of collaboration," declares Miss Mayo. It is called "Look In." "Hidden house," which gets its romantic name from its location in pink-and-white dogwood grove a quarter of a mile back from the road, was put up while Miss Mayo and her husband band collaborated on "The Wall Street Girl."

No one knows yet what play Miss Mayo has been working on this year. But the house that goes with it, a tiny little Peter Pan sort of place, all moss-gray outside and blue and old-rose chintz in, is near-ready for use. Miss Mayo has decided to keep it for herself, as a sort of little-girl playhouse to come to now and then when she wants to go to the land of "make believe" and have a very, very good time. Miss Mayo is looking around for more land at Harmon. She wants to write more plays.

He Travels with an Awl

"BE a shoemaker and see the world," is the sound advice of Harold Stepan of New York City. He is a Spaniard, only twenty-one years old. For five years he has accomplished two very difficult and incompatible things—self-support and an extensive exploration of the Western Hemisphere "from Greenland to Antigua"—almost. He is one of those rare persons who indulge their wanderlust without becoming derelicts. He is always a producer—the direct descendant of a long and dignified line of journeyman cobblers.

"If you want to be foot-loose," he says, with a soft ascent and a radiant white smile, "be a shoemaker."

"As soon as I get my second citizen papers, I go. It's too hot on land these days."

The Pleasantest Trade

SHOEMAKlNG, he thinks, is the most profitable and pleasant trade there is. Even in New York, where people don't have shoes made to order, where repairing is the only demand made upon his skill, his average earnings are $5 a day. And Saturdays—he made a graceful foreign gesture.

"Saturday I work all night, until nine o'clock in the morning."

That is the one inconvenience that the world gives a shoemaker. Everybody wants their shoes trim and bright for Sunday.

For one reason, young Stepan would rather work in Latin countries, especially among the French and Spanish, where people from all classes have shoes made to order. There shoemaking has all the dignity of a creative art. After he has spent many years learning the craft, people recognize him as a designer and a craftsman, and pay him accordingly, as much as ten or twelve dollars a pair. Peasants come to him for great tough boots, hand-sewn with thick leather thongs, that last not only a lifetime, but "even unto the third and fourth generation." And in the cities, actresses and dancers and fine ladies give him orders for thin, pliant lustrous dancing shoes.

"But wherever I go I get work, he says. "Everywhere there are shoes to be mended. I am in good fortune because people like me. One lady asked me why I am always smiling, and I told her. You see, when I was born my mother smiled. Ever since I have been smiling."

Give the Baby a Bone

"BETTER babies" can thrive in Indian encampments, where ice-boxes and bath-tubs are unknown, according to Mrs. Blue Feather, the mother of three robust and healthy Indian children who have never been sick one day in their lives.

Mrs. Blue Feather's real name is "See-Yan-Ohn," and she is of the Iroquois Indian tribe.

"'Joh-Gah-Yeh-Oh' is my baby's name. It means 'willing to do,' and is a name of honor," she said. "When it is hot, I put him in his papoose frame and hang him up in a tree, or put him under a shady bush.

"He never wakes up in the night, and he never cries. He got four teeth without any trouble.

"American mothers give their babies medicine; we never do," she continued. "Our babies are also healthy because we nurse them ourselves. I bathe him in any running stream or int he lake, even in cold weather. Indian babies love the water. American mothers make mistakes and dress babies too much. It makes them cross and sick. Indian babies wear very little; not much of anything is best. That's why white people say Indians are all face—because they can stand cold all over their bodies even in winter.

"We don't feed our children sweet things. It is very bad for them. Give the bay a bone to chew on. It is much better."

She Bosses Wisconsin's Farmers

By WALT MASON

THE picture's decidedly cowey—no charge fro inventing that word; the woman in Adda F. Howie; the cows are a part of her herd.

She thinks that the farm life's entrawncin'* when methods are kept up to date; her home is at Elm Grove, Wisconsin, her fame is all over the State. She's now on the State Board of Farming—the first woman member to gain that eminence useful, disarming old prejudice, idle and vain.

You see how the cows crowd around her—there's one with a strap and a bell—and that is because they have found her a friend who has studied them well. An excellent herd of the creatures she's managed, and made the same pay; she knows all the curves and the features of cattle, from antlers to whey. She ranks with the thinkers and readers who never do farming by guess; she studies the eminent breeders, and follows their paths to success.

She wants to see farm life improving, to cast off the outworn and dead; "And so," she remarks, "it's behooving the farmer to work with his head."

She's seen at farm institute meetings, where husbandmen patiently sit and listen with glee to her greetings, her music and logic and wit. She teaches the bright side of farming, the profit, the glory and fun, and makes the vocation seem charming, as so one before her had done.

An excellent work she is doing, a work for which money can't pay—distributing gladness and shooing the bogies of farm life away!

*Entrancing. Desperate measures must be resorted to when a rhyme for "Wisconsin" is necessary.

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