"War Brides"—and Bridegrooms

AN elevator-boy in a Wall Street office building overheard two men talking about Bethlehem Steel and Electric Boat and the other war stocks—"war brides," Wall Street calls them. He had saved four or five hundred dollars. He took it, in fear and trembling, to one of the curb brokers, and bought Electric Boat at 70. The other day he sold his holdings for $100,000 and retired to a farm.

Next week Mr. Freeman Tilden tells his story, and teh story of other "war bridegrooms" who have made fortunes overnight.

That's one side of the case. The other side will be presented in a late article by Mr. Tilden, entitled "Men Who Couldn't Stand Prosperity."

Incidentally, there is one easier way to get money than by gambling in stocks—that is, to marry it. Next week look for a page of pictures of ladies whose photographs were once on the theatrical page, but are now on the society page.

You Should Not Worry

HARRIMAN died twenty years before his time. He was a tremendous worker, but work did not kill him.

What killed Harriman was thinking in bed.

Thinking in business hours is a constructive process. Thinking in bed is usually a worry.

One reason why every man should read history is in order that he may know the folly of worry.

Read the History of Rome by Ferrero, especially those chapters following the assassination of Cœsar. See the pitiful worry of poor Cicero.

Should he follow the dictates of his conscience and throw in his lot with the friends of Cœsar, who had shown him so much kindness?

Or should he take what seemed to be the safer course, and join with Cœsar's assassins?

Day after day he tortured his soul with worry.

How pitifully unimportant all that worry seems to us, two thousand years afterward. How clearly we can see that if Cicero had simply followed his conscience he could have spared himself all that worry and saved his life and his honor.

A greater man than Cicero lived through a far greater period of trial. And he did not worry.

That man was Abraham Lincoln.

He was depressed, yes; heartsick, yes. But worried? No!

When he was tempted to worry by some trial that seemed overwhelming, he would say to himself, "This too will pass."

By which he meant that a thousand such trials had visited men in centuries gone by, and had passed away. His trial was important enough to make him think. But no trial could be important enough to make him worry.

A certain business man faced his board of directors recently. He had done his best—but he had lost them a large sum of money.

One of the directors said to him:

"You don't seem to be much worried."

He replied:

"You gentlemen don't pay me any money to worry about your business. You pay me to do my best according to my judgment and conscience. I have done that. To worry would not add one penny to your balance sheet."

Learn this lesson from history: In all the six thousand years of history, worry has accomplished nothing.

Your worry will accomplish no more.

The editor of this magazine is Bruce Barton: write him a letter about the magazine once in a while, at his New York office, 95 Madison Ave.

The Celluloid Hero

By EDWIN BALMER

Illustrations by Robert McCaig

JAMES HENTLY, the star, halted at the table where Marian Treves was breakfasting alone. "Good morning. You've heard the order for the day?"

The leading woman—she was a slight girl, dark-haired and blue-eyed, with the dainty but definite features required for film work—looked up. "We're to work on the ice again?"

"Yes; sorry, but it seems those fifth-reel scenes weren't right—the ones where I find you freezing to death. Flagg and Tatnall saw them on the screen last night, and they both said they wouldn't do."

Marian colored quickly. "I thought that was the trouble. I hadn't been able to free myself from the feeling that, as I was freezing to death, I was of some importance in those scenes—whereas, of course, the sole object of interest must always be yourself."

Hently's handsome face flushed—but not from anger, as had hers; from injury. And, as before when she had succeeded in snubbing him, Marian felt a queer sense of shame spoiling the triumph of it.

"Since it means working out there on the ice again to-day," he said, "I wanted to say that if you'd be ready half an hour earlier than usual, I would. The sooner we finish, the better. The ice is threatening to go, I hear."

Marian followed his graceful saunter down the dining-room. Every one else also was gazing at him—every one; down to the country girl waitresses, who frankly abandoned all pretense of interest in others simply and wholly to adore him. The sight banished Marian's regret at the success of her snub; this feminine worship of Hently was sickening. Less than three years ago he had been a floor-walker in a department store. Dave Flagg, who happened to go shopping with his wife, saw the handsome young man—Hently was then twenty-four—and also he saw the women crowding around Hently to ask any sort of superfluous question and ogling him as they moved away. Flagg watched the spectacle for half an hour, and that evening signed up Hently to a contract.

Hently's first appearance on the screen surpassed even Flagg's most sanguine hopes of success. Women and girls went wild about him. His manager, certain now that he had a good thing, built upon it. From possessing good looks, Hently became Publicly endowed with every ability and virtue; he was skilful, strong, brave as a lion, and—unmarried. Yes, James Hently, the unequaled, was still heart-whole. Marian, smiling satirically to herself, arose and left the dining-room.

Her maid brought her cap and fur mittens and great-coat to her in the hotel hall. Marian bundled up and went outdoors. The wind from the north, which had flimsy crashing and whistling about the flimsy summer hotel all night, was now a gale—a violent below-zero gale, blowing the gray clouds above it. "Snow," said the government weather forecast. "Colder, with northerly blizzard by evening." Colder it already was; the thermometer on the porch, which had stood at ten below in the evening, was now four degrees lower. The February sun—a small, lemon-hued disc low down to the southeast—scarcely showed between the clouds. There was no doubt that a Michigan mid-Winter storm was going to postpone indefinitely further activities of the Flagg

Feature Film Company "on location" at Point Coquin, Upper Peninsula, to make the great polar scenes of Flagg's new six- reeler, "The Angel of the Arctic."

THE polar scenes were placed upon the ice between Peary Land and the Pole; but, as that merely meant long stretches of frozen sea, pack-ice and floes and hummocks and pressure ridges, with gaunt, barren rocks here and there, Flagg had found all these at the northern end of Lake Michigan in January. And at the edge of the ice was the open water required for the great climax scenes of the fifth reel to which Hently had referred.

So, since the first week in January, Flagg had kept his company of forty men and women at the summer hotel there. The company had completed one hundred and eleven of the hundred and thirty-two arctic scenes; twenty-one only remained to he made. Some of these might later be photographed in deep snow almost anywhere; but, since others must be made upon the same location, Marian and Hently must go again three miles from shore and react those scenes in the gale this morning, or the rest of the fifth and sixth reels now finished might as well be scrapped and thrown away.

Marian walked out upon the ice, examining the danger of this demand upon her. She did not come from an acrobatic troupe or from a department store. Her people had been of the sort who acted in the old days at Daly's; her mother had been a member of Mansfield's companies; and, since she was eighteen, Marian herself had played leads in New York and London.

When, the preceding December, the play in which she had been starring had been taken off and she had received the telegram offering her the part of the "Angel" in this wild outdoor photo-drama, she had accepted it in the spirit of athletic adventure, and prepared to concede and endure a good deal—but not everything.

Even behind the shelter of the shore, the gale almost blew her from her feet. It assailed the glittering ice-field so that a cannonade of crackling followed the shock of each gust. At ridges where, earlier in the winter, parts of the ice-field had drifted away and later been blown back and cemented, the cannonading was almost continuous. The outer ice-sheet could not long stand that gale!

Marian swung back to the hotel, rehearsing her refusal to go out on the ice to-day; but the sight of Hently, as she reentered the hall, checked her.

"How does it look—dangerous yet?" he asked her.

"I shouldn't say so," Marian returned loftily.

Courage was the boast of these moving picture people, advertised of them as if other actors must lack it. She would leave it to Hently to make the protest.

One of the Alaskan dog teams used in the play had just returned from the railroad with the mail, and letters were being given out in the hotel office. Hently was receiving his huge daily heap of feminine flatteries. Marian took her letters to her room and read them while her maid got her into her fur costume.

"Luckiest Girl Alive!" the first writer hailed her. "Think of having James Hently's arms about you! You are the envy of every woman in the world!"

The next angered her even more:

Marian flung that sheet after the other. So she was being advertised as approved by Hently! She was congratulated— envied—for having won the celluloid hero's personal interest. And she thought of the hundred or so foolish girls who had probably written him that morning further to flatter and fawn upon him.

HENTLY'S letters from girls and women numbered indeed, that day, almost six score; but no one of them flattered him. He sorted over his mail as a business matter, simply to make the formal acknowledgment which his contract with Flagg required. It was true that for less than three years James Hently had been a moving picture hero; but feminine adulation for him was a far older story than that. His earliest recollection as a little boy was of women—his mother's friends, strangers on the street—hugging and kissing him against his perpetual protest. His earliest schemes were of ways to escape proud maternal "showing him off." In public school, no amount of effort on his part to be normally "bad" won punishment from his teacher; little girls in near-by seats gazed adoringly, no matter what he did; in high school it was even worse for him. After leaving school he started work as a shipping clerk. The wife of the foreman, coming down one day, saw him and instantly invited him out for dinner; he declined, and thereafter the woman called almost daily at the shipping-room, till Hently was discharged.

He then tried a freight office; the daughter of the general agent, after frantically flirting with him and being

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ignored, accused him to her father of insulting her, and Hently left. He tried three other such occupations with similar results; and then he gave up. If women were to be his fate, he would make them his fortune. He accepted a position as a floor-walker, and later in similar spirit went into "the pictures." As a matter of business, Flagg advertised his star as still "heart-whole"; but since a year before Hently came to the pictures that had not been true. For at that time he had met Marian Treves.

He did not know she was an actress when first he saw her. She came to the department store where he worked and had reason to refer to him. He saw her slight, patrician little figure beyond the women who then happened to be about him. She stood observing them, and him, with the amused contempt which she felt for them—and for himself—but could not express. She spoke to him impersonally and hurried away. He did not call his feeling love at first; but he saw a picture of her in a paper the next day and learned who she was. He went several times to see the play in which she was starring and observed her with increasing reverence. He did not attempt any meetings with her, nor did he once wait at the stage door—he knew better than that. Then, with his engagement with Flagg, and his rapid winning of popularity in the films, and the failure during two successive seasons of the plays in which Marian Treves appeared, came the astonishing opportunity to be associated with her!

She had not the least recollection of having spoken to him years before; she merely was acquainted with the fact that he had been a floor-walker. As he "worked" with her he was stung by the same superior, amused contempt for him—and for his admirers—which had first excited his impulse toward her. This had made the weeks of work with her a strangely miserable delight; and this morning, when he must force her to endure more discomfort, if not to risk danger, he awaited her with additional dread and eagerness.

Marian observed the dread as she met him, costumed for the arctic scenes, in front of the hotel. The other members of the company had already departed to their work at locations farther up the shore; Flagg and Tatnall had gone with them. Hently, as was his custom, was to direct his own scenes. Two dog sledges, with their drivers, alone had remained. Marian seated herself upon one of the sledges; Hently perched on behind her; Dyke, with his camera and film reels, freighted the other. The drivers shouted and the dogs raced out over the lake, the gale blowing them on.

Three miles from shore, at the edge of the ice, the sledges stopped. The actors and the camera man got off; and the dog teams and their drivers, having no part in the acting there, disappeared toward the shore, where Tatnall now would need them.

MARIAN watched Hently as he gazed back toward the land after they had rehearsed their first scene. The gale blew over the unprotected ice with terrible violence, and the cannonade of cracking, which they had heard on the way out, was now almost continuous. With a roaring rend, a great floe separated itself from the ice-field a few hundred yards to the south and, whipped by the water driven up about its edges, drifted swiftly away into the lake. Hently spun about in dismay. He came over to her, his handsome face white and his gray eyes wide with alarm.

"Hadn't we better go in?" he appealed.

The impulse to gibe and taunt him over-mastered, for the moment, her own fear. "Why? Are you afraid?"

She had almost to shout it in the wind. He winced, as she had hoped she might make him.

"I had no idea it was so bad out here," he shouted to her. "We'd better walk in."

But madness still held Marian. She did not mean to make him stay; she meant only to humiliate him at the risk of a second's longer stay. "I knew it was like this before I came out, if you didn't," she cried back to him. "I came out to go through those scenes in your way, so no one can say it was my fault if this silly play fails. Are you afraid to stay and work with me?"

Hently gazed from her again to the ice; the cannonading of the cracking seemed to be less.

"All right; we'll make the final of the fifth reel; that's the most important. Go over there," he pointed. "You're coming up over that slab, remember. You're half frozen. You see the open water and fall down. Then you lie still till I come. Pay attention to me," he shouted savagely. "If we're going to stay here now to make this scene again, we'll make it right!"

Marian retreated in the direction he indicated; but her attention was all to the wind and the ice, not to the play. As she stood facing the wind, she did not need to feign freezing; her cheeks and forehead already were numb. She scrambled somehow up the sloping slab of ice, and, standing on the top, gazed about her.

"Now fall forward on your face and let yourself roll down to the smooth ice!" Hently shouted. "Now, lie still there!" "Dyke, give her twenty or thirty feet. Now, Marian, get up, but fall down again at once. Come close to the camera and collapse."

Marian collapsed and lay motionless, facing the terrible wind, her numbed right cheek against the ice. The camera clicked above her. It no longer photographed her, but Hently, who was coming up behind her. She heard him exclaiming his extemporized lines as he discovered her: "Who can this be in this desolate waste?" With her actually freezing her face against the ice, he was as deliberate as ever. "My God, it can't be—it can't be she!"

He had come up to her and was touching her. "It is she! How came she here? It is she! . . . What's that?"

The hands released her. Hently, reckless of the camera, had leaped to his feet. Marian, her face against the ice, had felt the reverberations as well as heard the loud, violent volley of cracking. Ignored by Hently, she struggled to stand up. An ice-needle, as tall as a man, stood almost exactly in line with the hotel; and, as Marian stared, she saw the hotel pass from one side of the needle to the other.

Hently turned to Marian a ghastly face. "We're adrift!"

She had no time to make response, if she tried to. With his word he had rushed from her. She turned, gasping, to Dyke.

"The ice is gone! We're being blown out!" Marian screamed to him; he was tearing his camera from the tripod and hugging it under an arm, but he thought of her.

"Beat it!" he yelled. "Run for your life. I'll follow you."

Marian ran. Hently had run a couple of hundred yards before she started, and he increased his lead swiftly. Marian thought that twice he turned to look back; but she could not be sure even of that, he was so far ahead; besides, the gale assailed her eyes so bitterly that the cold and violence of it blinded her; she ran, head down, stumbling on the ice-slabs. Hently's desertion of her to save himself was merely what she had expected; still, the fact stunned her.

Dyke, overtaking her, dropped his camera and pulled her along, but she stumbled more weakly. He yelled to encourage her, then he let her sit on a chunk of snow, and, as she became steadier and looked about, she saw open water—a lead two hundred, yards across and widening swiftly; the water already was rough, as the wind assaulted it.

Hently too had been stopped at the edge of the water. In spite of having rushed away by himself, he had reached the lead too late to leap across or even to dare to swim it. A swim of two hundred yards in that arctic water and in the face of that gale would have been, he knew, certain death. Marian stirred with bitter exultation that, whatever she and Dyke were to endure, Hently was to suffer too. As she watched him, he turned and approached her.

"I got there in time to catch the attention of some one on the shore," he told her. "That was the one thing to do—to make sure that some one knew we were going out. I don't see the man who signaled back to me; he must have gone to get help."

If she had had the strength, Marian would have risen to avoid him. She made no reply, but sat staring past him. Figures appeared on the shore.

Marian felt Hently grasp her arm; he pulled her up to her feet. "You must walk and keep warm. Move about with me! They will bring boats now, but it must take some time."

She shook off his grasp; he and his press-agents would only make more capital for him from this accident; he, of course, was fitting himself for the hero role, so hers must be that of the girl sustained and saved by his daring action, his undaunted courage and unequaled strength. She might not keep him from advertising that; but she could keep it from being the truth. She walked about, but not with Hently. He conferred with Dyke, after which the camera man started back to the other side of the ice-field. Marian tramped up and down; the floe seemed something more than half a mile in one direction, not so extensive in the other; it still was cracking loudly, which must mean that it was breaking again, and it was going out very fast. The width of the water in the lead had more than doubled in the few moments since Marian reached the edge. Hently came up to Marian.

"Have you seen Dyke?" he questioned.

"No."

"He ought to be back."

THEY climbed a ridge, and sighted the camera man a long way off; he had recovered his camera, but, instead of returning, he pointed to a strip of blue streaking the green and white of the ice in front of him. The floe had parted and cut Dyke off by himself. Hently shouted to him, uselessly. The sections of the floe drifted farther apart; the beach seemed twice as far away as before, and a flurry of snow, driven horizontal by the gale, further dimmed sight of the hotel and hid the figures of the men moving to the rescue.

Hently grasped Marian's arm, and she did not try to avoid him. With only a call of caution now and then as to the condition of the ice underfoot, he walked her up and down, up and down, while the snow swirled thicker and thicker, until it was blowing a wild, blinding blizzard, which shut out all sight of the shore. The waves of wide, wind-swept water tossed up against the floe and passed under it, lifting and cracking it. If a boat were being launched into that water now, the eye no longer might pilot it to the rescue; so Hently faced the gale and shouted again and again. A shout came in reply. Together they ran toward it, but, as they encountered water on the other side of the floe, they knew what the cry was: it was from Dyke, also drifting in the blizzard, and yelling, as were they, for help. Even those cries soon ceased.

Marian, weak and numb and all but nerveless, hung now on Hently's arm, only occasionally mustering strength and courage to care and to hold herself up beside him. With wonder—wonder shot through with an astonished challenge of her previous thought of him—she felt his strength and determination increase as hers failed. He made no boast or display of it; but, as again and again they shortened their path up and down the ice, as the floe cracked and broke, till they had little more than a hundred paces to tramp in any direction, he looked down at her with a steadying, reassuring smile, and pulled her a little closer to him.

"The boat may be hours finding us in this snow!" he shouted to her. "We must do everything to keep warm."

"Yes," she called back to him.

"Work your face! Smile—or frown!"

"Frown?"

His right hand was out of its mitten, and he held it to her chin. "That spot didn't wrinkle. It's frozen."

Her face, indeed, was so numb that she could not feel any warmth in his hand. He held his palm to her cheek, taking away his hand only to replace it with the other, warm from its mitten.

"I'll do it myself now!" she protested, baring a small white hand. He said no word, but his fingers quickly caught hers —his fingers, big and strong and still warm in spite of their minute's exposure to the wind, while in comparison hers, though just from the fur, were icy.

"Your mitten can't be a good one; your hand is cold!" he cried to her. "Wear mine."

She resisted without success, as he thrust her hand into the mitten he had just taken off; it was huge over her fingers and let in the cold worse than her own.

"Pull your arms in under your coat!" he commanded her; and, when she refused, "Must I make you?" He pushed her arms up her sleeves till they were within the fur coat and against her breast; then he knotted the sleeves swiftly, keeping the cold out and her arms in.

She stood beside him, a helpless, armless figure; but she was warmer.

"Now move your face!" he ordered. "Let me see how it is!"

She grimaced and satisfied him.

"That's all right now."

"Let me see you move your face!" she asked him.

He smiled. "No stiff spot yet, is there?"

"No."

They continued their endless walk up and down. Nowhere on their floe was a slab large enough to form even a windbreak, much less anything to offer shelter; the snow was dry and was swept off by the gale as swiftly as it fell; there was nothing to do for warmth but to keep walking, walking. Hently's big, strong body seemed as able to oppose the terrible cold as to fight fatigue. Marian, though Hentley kept her walking when her own will could no longer have driven her, felt the awful chill coming to her feet; then they ceased to pain her and she stumbled along still more clumsily.

Hently bent forward and watched her walking. "Are your feet cold?"

"No!" she tried to deny. "I'm all right!"

"Do they feel cold, or can't you feel them?"

"I'm all right!" she cried back to him. If her feet were frozen what could he do for her here?

"Rise on your toes as you step," he ordered her. "Are you trying to do it?"

"No."

"You can't even try?" he called to her compassionately. And before she knew what he was doing, he had seated her on the ice, her back to the wind. He lay down before her and jerked off her "Eskimo" footgear; he opened his clothes and placed her numbed and icy soles against the warmth of his chest. She cried out in protest and tried to pull herself away. But he laughed, and hugged her feet to him, and covered them up with his clothes till she twinged with the pain of sensation coming back to her ankles and toes, and at last he thrust her fur shoes over her feet again. He shouted again and again after they got up; but still only the swish of the wind over the water and the splash of the bigger waves against the floe answered him. And now the gray light above the snow was swiftly fading; the water became black and the snow turned to gray; then all about was black—such black as Marian had never before imagined save as blindness.

LONG before this Marian had passed all limits of conscious weariness, and as she walked it was without willing it. The moving of her legs had become something automatic and above control, like the beating of her heart. The arm about her body, the strength that supported her and bore her on, the hand feeling over her face and pressing on that spot and on this, were not of a man beside her, but of some jinnee of the blackness—now monstrous and cruel as she tried to lie down and fought him for rest, now benevolent and kind as she stumbled upon something that hurt her and he lifted her up and saved her from falling.

His voice, as now and then he shouted, was hoarse in a way that was not human; his legs, brushing beside hers, moved back and forth, back and forth on that ghastly treadmill of eternity, and made hers move with his. And now,

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though she was not screaming at him or struggling against him to let her drop down and rest, but because she merely was falling asleep still walking, he was beating her: he was pounding her back and her arms; he was shaking her and striking her face; he tore open her coat and thrust his hands within and against her body. That freed her hands and she fought him better than she had before. But he won against her—that great, monstrous, invisible covered with fur—he over-powered her and tied up her arms again, and bound her body in a bundle and thrust her back on that eternal treadmill.

But, though goaded and beaten and driven, even the strength that was not hers began to fail at last. The jinnee could push her or drag her beside him no longer; she lay half senseless, a weight in his arms. Consciousness of any sort remained long enough only to tell her that he was shouting beside her ear something about a light—a light he was sure he had seen through the snow. He had succeeded in picking her up, and was carrying her, lurching across the ice. He leaped, and they fell. Then there was something different—something very different choking her. It was water, not snow; and the jinnee was threshing through it. She choked again. He was clutching at an ice edge and trying to pull himself up on it without letting her go, but he could not do it; he was slipping off and sinking into the water with her, and then threshing back, to clutch and slip again.

She had sense enough to know that thus he could never get out; so she cried to him to let her go and save himself; but he would not do it. Then she lost consciousness again, and what happened she did not know at all: but the jinnee no longer was beating her; at least he was letting her sleep.

MARIAN awoke in a comfortable, bright little bedroom, heated by an iron stove in which wood crackled. There was a window looking out upon a smooth, snowy slope, on which the sun was shining. Marian was in a soft, warm bed, with heavy blankets and a clean, smooth sheet; and she wore a queer, high-necked nightgown with long sleeves.

As she looked about, an elderly woman who had been sitting near the head of the bed bent forward and touched Marian's cheek.

"You're feeling better now, dearie?" the woman inquired.

Memory—not memory of how she got into that house and into that bed, under the care of that woman, but recollection of what had been before—flashed back to Marian. She started up.

"He?" she cried. "He's safe, too? He's here?"

The woman put a hand on Marian's shoulder to steady her. "Yes, dear. Of course; he brought you here."

"He brought me here! He got away from that ice and out of the water! He hasn't been hurt?"

"Why, he's been about for hours, dearie. It's almost sunset now. After he knew you'd be all right, he got some clothes from my man, and they went out to look for the man who was adrift with you. They didn't find any trace, but heard word he was found."

"Dyke was found?"

He was picked off by a boat the afternoon of yesterday. You drifted onto here, dearie. This is Beaver Island, and Mr. Hently carried you up here from the ice."

"Then he—he's here now?"

"I'll fetch him for you."

The woman propped Marian up a little with a pillow, and brought from the stove something hot to drink; soon after that she went out.

Marian lay tingling and trembling with a strange sort of impatience, expectancy, humiliation at thought of herself, exultation at thought of him—what it was she could not define to herself.

The door opened, and she cried out weakly with delight as Hently entered. He wore a fisherman's flannel blouse, and big, baggy brown trousers, and his face was worn with lines of strain and exhaustion; but because of them no face had ever seemed so wonderful to Marian. As his gray eyes, full of concern for her, met her eyes, she cried out and raised her arms to him.

"Jim! Jim! I didn't hurt you! I didn't make you freeze or drown! You're quite well!"

He came beside her, and as she seized him she ceased trembling, and, strangely, he now was shaking; his big hand scarcely was able to find hers and carry it to his lips.

"Then you're really all right?"

"You ought to know that! You kept me alive and saved me when I—when I— oh, Jim, how could I ever have judged you so?"

"Judged me, Marian?"

"You know what I thought. Because the rest of the women in the world tried to make a fool of you, I thought that—that they'd succeeded; and instead you're the finest, the bravest, the strongest, most wonderful man in the—"

A hand, a strong but very gentle hand, over her lips stopped her. She jerked away. "I will say it," she defied him, "for it's true. You're the most—"

"No, you sha'n't say it, Marian," he begged. "Not you."

"Not I?"

"No; for don't you see if it hadn't been for you the rest might have succeeded? Don't you see why I loved you?"

"You loved me?"

"From the first moment I saw you laughing at me!"

"You mean when you were the floorwalker in Chicago four years ago?"

His grasp of her tightened. "What? You remembered that?"

"Not till this morning, dear—or was it last night? It was when we were in the water and I cried to you to let me go. I did do that, dear, didn't I?"

"Yes, yes."

"But of course you didn't; you kept right hold of me. I was choking—I thought I was dying, I guess; and somehow my memory gave me a picture of you in the store, surrounded by women and me laughing at you. Was that true?"

"That was true; that was where I saw you first; and for that laugh I've loved you ever since."

"I hated myself for it last night."

"But, dear, I loved you because you treated me that way; you won't change too much because now we—"

"Jim, how could I ever have laughed at you?"

"Oh, you will again!"

"I never shall!"

DAVE FLAGG, president of Flagg Feature Films, and Tatnall, his director, having reached Beaver Island by devious methods of transport, drove from the chief settlement to the fisherman's cabin on the west shore. On his way, Flagg began building up the marvelous publicity story. He had heard already how Hently, after getting into the lake between floes, in his struggle for the shore, had succeeded in saving Marian as well as himself, and had carried her, with her clothes as well as his own covered with ice, to the fisherman's cabin where they found refuge. That was a wonderful end; but as wonderful must have been the experience of the night when Hently had kept himself and Marian Treves alive through that arctic blizzard. As a publicity story, properly played up, it simply could not be beaten. Flagg sketched the possibilities enthusiastically to Tatnall, and whipped up his team in his impatience, as he came in sight of the cabin.

One hour later, the same team, with Flagg and Tatnall, drove away.

"Can you beat that?" Flagg roared his indignation. "Can you match it? The greatest publicity story for a star ever since a spot-light shot on a screen, and we can't use it—except the stuff the papers have got already. Can you beat it—I ask you that? He won't tell what happened on the ice, and when she told what he did—oh, isn't that boy a bear—he said he'd leave me, contract or no contract, if we use a word of it. And he'll do it. Oh, mama, the chance there! And it happened, and we can't use it, just because he's going to marry the girl; and that's all there is to it."

What Chance Has the Clerk?

By EDWARD MOTT WOOLLEY

SCATTERED about the country today are a hundred thousand clerks, or more, who in ten or twenty years are going to be at the top of their particular industries. Men who are at the bottom to-day are going to rise out of obscurity and take command of large undertakings. It is interesting, then, to look back a few decades and glance at some of the men who were once clerks, but who now rank at the top in their own lines of activity. I am going to omit names commonly seen in print.

He Went After the Big Job

IN 1885 a youth named Albert H. Wiggin went to work in a Boston bank. His father was a minister, and possibly the boy might have gone to college. He preferred the bank. For six years he filled lower positions, and then, shrewdly foreseeing the prestige he would gain from an experience as a bank examiner, he went out after that job, and got it. In this position he acquired a broad knowledge of the banking system, and in a few years he had the chance to enter a Boston bank as assistant cashier. From this it was only a step to the vice-presidency. As vice-president he saw an opportunity to consolidate several banks, and demonstrated the proposition to the directors. It was done.

Then Mr. Wiggin came to New York as vice-president of the Chase National Bank, which had been on the lookout for a man of wide experience and fertile ideas. That was in 1899. In 1911 he became president of this great bank, and I venture the guess that his salary is now more than $50,000 a year. His friends say he is a good mixer; but the secret of his success seems to have been his analytical study of the banking business, and his initiative. He does things while other men are waiting.

The Clerk Who Wasn't Afraid to Borrow

SOME twenty-five years ago another youth, Alfred H. Cosden, was working in a drug store in Dover, Delaware, for three dollars a week. He went to New York in search of a better job, and was employed by the William B. Riker & Sons Company, druggists, at a dollar a day.

This young man was thrifty, and started a savings account, to which he added a little every week. He worked on the drug store's books in the evening, and in that task he had a chance to get acquainted rather intimately with the proprietor, and to learn the financial end of the business.

Now observe how things work together. He perceived the advantage of owning a little of the company's stock, but he needed more money with which to buy it. His bank book showed how systematically he had been saving, and, his reputation being thus established, the bank lent him the money he needed. With the stock as collateral, it considered him a good credit risk.

When he was thirty years old his salary with this same firm was still only twenty-five dollars a week. He had not progressed very rapidly. But presently he saw his great opportunity, which he might not have seen except for his early initiative in buying some of the stock. He now bought the stock of a retiring member for $95,000, the bank lending him what money he needed, and again the stock was used as collateral. He became secretary of the company, and then general manager. Then he brought about the purchase of five Brooklyn stores, and other stores, and soon he became president of the company, which evolved into one of the largest retail drug enterprises in the world.

This Boy Studied While He Worked

OUT in Mishawaka, Indiana, lived a boy named Melville W. Mix, who went from high school to become office boy for the Dodge Manufacturing Company. He was promoted to the position of shipping clerk; and then, to test out his selling ability, was transferred to the sales department. His company manufactured machinery.

In a few years the young salesman was put in charge of the Chicago branch; he was then taken back to headquarters as sales manager. For reasons that may have seemed mysterious to people on the outside, he walked right along up to the presidency. And his company is one of the largest of its kind in the United States.

To those who know Mr. Mix there is not any mystery about it. He is one of those business commanders who have analyzed the whole philosophy of successful business. He began as a boy to acquire this big viewpoint, which so few young men make any attempt to get. He has studied the theory of manufacturing, which includes such vital things as costs, the science of wages, and adequate records. Above all, he has studied the art of developing men. He has the big vision of organization.

This Man Went Ahead Without Orders

A YOUNG man named John G. Shedd once went to work for Marshall Field & Company in Chicago, as a clerk in the wholesale house. Right from the start he exhibited traits that the ordinary clerk does not show. He found the goods on the shelves arranged in a very unhandy way, and he set out to rearrange them. He was an extraordinarily careful, competent, and methodical man in everything, and these methods brought such perceptible cash results to his department that he was advanced to larger responsibilities.

Marshall Field had a habit of watching tabulated reports from the different departments, and very soon he saw that Mr. Shedd's departments were showing up bigger than some of the others. He found out who John G. Shedd was, and put him where he would have a wider scope for his activities.

Today Mr. Shedd is president of the great house of Marshall Field & Company because he got results. A thousand little things that other men thought of no importance made him a getter of cash results.

He Wouldn't Stay in a Rut

RATHER striking is the story of S. Frederick Taylor, who was once a bookkeeper in Chicago, like many another young man to-day. It is related of him that he had some ideas about salesmanship, and was anxious to get out on the road for the tea importing house for which he worked. The house was loath to take him off the books, however, because he was doing that work so well.

This seems to be the snag on which many men are caught. Because they do some particular thing well, they stay in a rut, unless the houses for which they work are broad enough to develop understudies and shove the good men ahead. This is the principle on which a modern business organization perpetuates itself and retains the services of its valuable men. But in Mr. Taylor's case he found himself in a rut—and quit.

Through a series of events, he landed in New York, in the office of the Borden Company, milk dealers; and here his ambition to be a salesman found opportunity in a singularly large way. Milk salesmanship in those days was wholly undeveloped. It was a haphazard business, without any system. Everything was done by guess and by chance, and few milkmen had any idea of cost-getting methods.

Mr. Taylor began to work out his ideas, and he became president of the company—one of the greatest food-product corporations in the country, as well as a remarkable sales organization.

A different sort of story is that of Joseph H. Appel, who once did some clerical work in a Philadelphia newspaper office. At two o'clock one morning the thought occurred to him: "Why shouldn't advertising be handled something like news?" He wrote to John Wanamaker, suggesting this idea. Mr. Wanamaker hired him, and a new way of handling advertising copy was evolved.

Mr. Appel is now advertising manager for the Wanamaker stores, and his story illustrates in a rather graphic way the value of an idea, if it is seized and acted upon. A man may be a clerk all his life, no matter how many ideas he gets, if he doesn't turn at least some of them into action.

He Knew He Could Sell Paint

WALTER H. COTTINGHAM was a hardware clerk in Montreal. One thing the store sold was paint, and it looked to him like a product to swear by. He quit his job, and began to make gold paint in a one-room shop in Montreal. After making a batch with his own hands, he went out and sold it.

But he wanted something bigger than this, so one day he went down to Cleveland and applied in person for the Montreal agency of a large paint company. The Cleveland people told him they would look him up, and he went home. Soon, getting impatient, he wired for the agency—and presently he got it.

He had vast energy, and original ideas about how to do things. Like Melville Mix, he became a student of business philosophy. The Cleveland company put its Canadian business in his hands, and ultimately he was asked to go to Cleveland, where he is now president of the Sherwin-Williams Company—one of the largest in the field.

To tell the story of Mr. Cottingham would be to describe one of the most effective selling organizations in the country. As nearly as I can come to it in one sentence it is this: Systematic selling, that pushes forward without resting.

Frank N. Doubleday was employed when he was twenty years old by Charles Scribner's Sons. He became manager of Scribner's Magazine, and afterward made up his mind to get into business for himself. As he told me the story, it was something like this: His available capital was very small,—about twelve hundred dollars, if I remember right,—but he invested nearly all of it in a trip to Europe to see Rudyard Kipling. Through this piece of enterprise he established connections that gave him some of the best-selling books ever printed.

To-day the great publishing and printing house of which Mr. Doubleday is the

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head has the reputation of operating on the highest efficiency principles; but I never think of it without recalling this story of its inception. Without this bit of daring, based on knowledge of the business, probably the plant would not exist to-day. It seems to be mostly the men who go after things who get to the top. Efficiency rests, after all, on knowledge, enterprise, and the nerve to act.

But perhaps the most significant thing in these stories of clerks is this: that all these six men showed initiative and took something of a chance in order to get ahead.

Each One Took a Chance

WIGGIN went out after a bigger job, and took the chance of "falling down" in it. Cosden took a chance in borrowing money with which to buy his stock in the company. Mix was full of new ideas from the time he was a boy, and did not hesitate to try them out. Shedd owed his advancement to his habit of going ahead on his own account without asking for detailed instructions. S. Frederick Taylor would not stay in a rut when he knew he had the ability to make good in bigger things. Appel saw a chance, and lost no time in getting after it, although the easy thing would have been to forget it. Cottingham jumped out of a job into all sorts of troubles. Doubleday staked everything on a big idea when he went after his opportunity in Europe.

There doesn't seem to be anything in the stories of these men that couldn't apply to the average clerk.

Catching Up with Cupid

By JULIAN HAWTHORNE

A LADY to see you, Mr. Cabot," said Miss Maffit, opening the door.

"Oh, I can't! A lady? What name?" said the young man, looking up from the map he was studying.

"She said Miss Mary Minturn."

An expression of surprise and pleasure crossed John Cabot's face. He got to his feet. "Bring her in," he said.

John Cabot was tall, strong, twenty-eight, and good to look at. He was the head of the firm of John Cabot & Company, mining engineers and contractors; an alumnus of Harvard; owner of the famous Old Abe Mine at Hedgehog, northern Canada, and he had made a lot of money.

In came his visitor, her light brown hair floating out in delicate strands beside her fresh-hued, spirited face. When her blue eyes met Cabot's they smiled, and then the smile parted her lips. They shook hands heartily.

"Why, Mary, how perfectly delightful to see you!" exclaimed John Cabot. "I'd been partly expecting your father; but—you! Your father's well, isn't he?"

"Better than he will be when he knows what you wrote him," said Mary. "At this moment he's half way to Toronto."

"Not in consequence of my letter?"

"No wonder you're surprised. That letter of yours came last night, John, I've such a story to tell you! I'm afraid it's too late to do anything; but if not, and you'll tell me what, I'll do it."

"Was there any trouble about—"

"Oh, I've no words for it! Such a lot to explain, and yet not a minute to lose! Can I have half an hour?"

"You can have all day." He pressed a button on his desk. "Miss Maffit, I'm in to nobody—to nobody at all!"

Then he turned to his visitor. "Now, then, let's have it!"

MARY drew a long breath. "Your letter arrived an hour ago. We'd moved, you see, and it had been to the old address. If it hadn't been for that—"

"Well, what?"

"You said in the letter, you know, that you would like to buy our claim for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"Yes. Didn't your father think that a fair price?"

"A fair price! John, we were offered ten thousand dollars for it yesterday, and Father accepted it!"

Cabot sat up suddenly. "The bargain is actually completed?"

"That's my only hope. It won't be completed till Father meets Jorum and receives the money. If he could only be overtaken and stopped before he gets there—"

"Wire him!"

"There's nowhere to wire to. I don't know what route he went by, nor where he'll be when he arrives. Besides, he might stop at Buffalo—"

"Who is Jorum?"

"The man who sold us the claim six months ago. I'll begin at the beginning. You know Father went up to Canada last year to get in on the Hedgehog gold boom. He had eight thousand dollars—all that was left of our money. Poor Father! He's so enthusiastic and credulous. So now here he was with a total capital, just half as big as our income used to be, and he sunk it all in that one claim, on the word of an entire stranger. He came back from Canada singing paeans of victory. We were going to get several hundred per cent. on the investment right off; Jorum was the greatest mining genius in the world, and the best fellow! And—oh, the samples he brought back with him. Ten, twenty, fifty thousand dollars to the ton! He couldn't be mistaken—he'd taken them out of the hole himself! He bought machinery and hired miners, and for a month or two he lived in palaces—of the imagination! And then—bang! It turned out that the mine had been salted—isn't that what they call it?—and had no more value in it than a sandpit on the beach, such as you and I used to dig when we were children, John—do you remember?"

She laughed, drew off her gloves, and brushed back from her forehead the flying strands of hair. Her gloves were cheap cotton ones, her frock was a blue serge, ready made, her carefully blacked boots were in need of cobbling. Three years before there had not been in New York a young woman more freshly attired than Mary Minturn.

"Jorum disappeared," she added. "So ended the first lesson!"

JOHN CABOT sat looking intently at her, his eyes bright with indignation. "What reason had this Jorum given your father for selling him a fifty-thousand dollar vein for eight thousand dollars?"

"Oh, he was manager of a big company at a huge salary, and he couldn't be bothered with a little claim so far away from their main property—that was his story! The reality was that he got Father's eight thousand and skipped!"

"But do you say it is this same Jorum who has offered to buy the claim back?"

"That is what happened. Jorum's letter containing the offer reached Father twenty-four hours before the postman delivered yours, and he took the train north. I assumed the liberty of opening and reading yours—and here I am!"

"Why did your father accept a proposition from a man who had proved himself a scamp?"

Mary Minturn laughed and sighed. Cabot noticed that the fresh color that had been in her cheeks when she entered had faded out, and that there were lines about her mouth and eyes.

"Jorum's letter was clever," she said. "I fancy he is an entertaining person. He never hinted that the mine was after all really valuable. Of course Father in that case would have insisted on working it himself. But what he did say was that he had been deceived by the samples just as Father had been—some scoundrelly third parties had fooled them both. But he, Jorum, held himself bound in honor to make restitution."

"One moment," interposed Cabot. "Had Jorum given your father a deed?"

"Yes; and what he now suggested was that Father return him this deed, and then he, Jorum, would remit to Father a certified check for ten thousand dollars, as reimbursement for the eight thousand lost, and two thousand as interest and for wear and tear. Oh, it was a noble and magnanimous letter! Father wanted to mail him the deed by return post! He was indignant at my distrust of an honorable and generous gentleman; but he finally compromised on going up to Canada and finishing the business on the ground. Of course your letter makes it plain why Jorum wanted to get possession. Your offer, though, by the way, is ridiculous, John. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for forty acres of rock pasture!"

Cabot squared his shoulders energetically. "We'll clear up that point to begin with," he said. "Our offer—for it was the offer of the firm—was straight business. We should have made the same to any other owner. We own fifty claims adjoining yours. Ten days ago we stripped a vein that proved very rich. We followed it to the boundary of your claim. I made up my mind to buy it before I knew it was yours; You may be sure your rascal Jorum won't think our figure too high."

"Well," said Mary, "the point of importance now is to overtake Father. Are there any ten-mile-a-minute flying machines available?"

"When we were kids we generally found a way of doing things when we wanted to," said Cabot. "Let's try once more."

He wrote two or three lines on a sheet of paper, and touched the bell. "Have this telegram sent to the conductors of all trains that left here for Canada last evening," he told his secretary when she appeared; "also to all Toronto and Buffalo hotels, and to all train conductors leaving those places for the Hedgehog regions to-day. I said in the despatch," he informed Mary, as the stenographer went

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out, "that he was to conclude no deal until he heard from me. And now let's have a look at the time-tables."

After a few minutes' study of the folders he glanced at his watch, and faced her with a confident, boyish smile.

"The schedule from here to Cobalt City is thirty-four hours," he announced. "It's now ten-thirty. The next train leaves the Penn. depot at three. If we took that, he would have a good start on us."

"No hope in the telegrams?"

"Oh, there's always hope! I sent 'em answer paid, so we might hear from him in an hour—might, you know! But of course we won't wait for the three train. I'll 'phone for a special at once."

"Oh, no, John! They cost—"

"They don't cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Look here, Mary—your father can pay me back if we win; if we don't, it's my gamble! For if Jorum gets that claim, he won't let go of it under half a million. I know what I'm doing!"

Mary watched him while he arranged with the traffic manager for the special. She had admired him from her childhood up; and now, how strong he was, how resourceful, masculine, and courteous! Life with her hare-brained and intractable father had made her a little cynical; but she knew that John Cabot had also had battles and hardships; and he had held to his ideals through them all. Nothing had soured or lowered him.

He hung up the receiver. "Our special will be ready in an hour." Then he looked her straight in the eyes. "We'll get your outfit for the trip at the department store near here, and save your going home to pack up. My auto's outside. We'll dine on the train. Ever ride on a special? It's a lark! We'll win! Come on!"

AN hour and a half later Mary sat opposite John Cabot at a cozy dining table, flying northward at sixty miles an hour. In her spacious state-room she had changed her costume for a new and pretty traveling dress selected at the store, and had been attended by a deft French maid. It was long since she had known such luxuries.

"Our chef seems rather good on soup," John remarked cheerfully. "Now let's see what he's done with the pompano!"

"How can you spare the time to make this journey?" asked Mary, trying to keep the tremolo out of her voice.

"It's the last day of September," he replied, "and I haven't had a breathing spell since Easter. I should have been going up anyway."

"If we only succeed! But—"

"Mary, you're not up to form!" said John reprovingly. "You never used to weaken in the old times. Besides, the express trains don't average more than thirty-five miles an hour, and we're doing nearly twice that. Allowing that your father goes straight through, we ought to be on his heels at Cobalt. Then it'll be an hour or two before he and Jorum can finish the deal. And there's a chance that your father may be forewarned of the big strike before Jorum can get in his work."

Mary shook her head forebodingly. "Jorum knows his business."

"I believe you'll like this pompano," said John, as he served it. "Jorum is a swindler; but it's in my bones that we'll beat him. Such a rascal must have a record behind him. Did I give you any of this dressing?"

"What haven't you given me, you dear old boy!" cried Mary in high C; for the strain on her nerves and emotions during the last days had been great. She suddenly plunged her face into her napkin.

John Cabot looked out of the window. Nobody would have suspected that he was suppressing a sudden tremendous desire to take the girl in his arms and comfort her.

It was perhaps fortunate that Mary recovered herself quickly. "I'll behave now."

"You're all right," said John. "So your Jorum is clever and entertaining, is he? We once had one of those amusing scamps in our office. Cupid Hackett, we called him. He looked like a rosy cherub grown six feet high. Always happy and smiling; childlike, innocent, lazy, but smart as lightning upon occasion. Sang like an angel; could have made a fortune on the concert stage. He'd been a classmate of mine, and when we began doing big business he turned up and asked for a job. He was good at figures and bookkeeping, and I gave him that department, and later made him treasurer. At closing-up time one Saturday he took the cash in the office, about fifty-three thousand dollars, and went off to deposit it in the bank. He never got there, and never came back. He probably went to Mexico; but we could never strike his trail. That was five years ago. And yet he was such a good fellow that I could half believe he'll come back some day and explain it all satisfactorily. No doubt there are many such charming thieves, and your Jorum is one of them."

"He infatuated Father," said Mary, "and I'm sure Jorum will get the deed if they meet. I wish I were as sure that Father will get the certified check."

"Where are we, steward?" asked John.

"Just passing Philadelphia, Mr. Cabot."

John looked at his watch. "We did that ninety miles in an hour and twenty minutes. We are winning, old chap! No beating us when we pull together! We shall interrupt Jorum's magic spell yet! Shall we take our coffee in the forward car? And may I smoke a cigarette?"

MARY slept soundly that night. At dawn the maid roused her. They had reached Buffalo, and were to be transferred to another special.

"Seven hours thirty-five minutes from New York," John announced as he helped her into their new quarters. "How's your appetite? I'm always famished on a railway trip. Do you like finnan haddie for breakfast? Good! So do I. I've wired North Bay to have fresh trout for lunch. For dinner we'll have your father and the deed for the claim!"

"It is so nice to have somebody taking care of things," said Mary. "I've had so much of that to do myself these last years. No message from Father?"

"He managed to dodge us; but no matter. He'll be the more pleasantly surprised, and Jorum will sink through the floor like the baffled fiend in the pantomime. Here comes Niagara Falls. We ought—I beg your pardon!"

"What for?" asked Mary.

"I'd been going to say that we ought to be a married couple. This air has gone to my head. Toronto next! Canada is a great place!"

He was in high spirits, and Mary caught the contagion. Breakfast tasted like nectar and ambrosia. Afterward they sat out on the observation platform and breathed the electric northern atmosphere. They were running through a rolling, wooded country, with lakes that were like rivers drawing near and receding as they flew past. John overflowed with good humor that made Mary laugh and kept her interested. North Bay came at last, and the trout fulfilled its reputation. Cobalt was close at hand. "They can't be so far ahead of us now," said John. "Are you bored?"

"Bored!" exclaimed Mary.

The town that owed its existence to a chance blow of Fred La Rose's pick came and went; a glimpse of wooden shanties and brick fronts, crooked streets full of prospectors, French Canadians, Americans, Englishmen, dead-brokes, and capitalists. They learned that the express had passed through less than two hours before.

"If one could only travel by telegraph!" said Mary, biting her lips with impatience.

John leaned forward in his chair and put his hand on hers. "Do you believe in Providence?" he asked her. "I do! Things don't happen by accident in this world. You and I together here aren't an accident."

Then he got up and walked away. He didn't come back for an hour, during which Mary indulged thoughts of her own—such thoughts as she had never before known.

THE train slowed down and halted.

Mary looked out of the window, and saw a group of men standing at the road-side, pointing, talking, and others running or walking hither and thither. "What is it?" she called to the porter who hurried by.

"A freight got off the switch, Miss, and three cars lyin' across the line," he replied.

As she drew back with a deadly sinking of the heart John Cabot came through the car like a northwestern breeze through a fog. He had more the aspect of a victorious general than of a defeated one.

"I was just beginning to get scared at our good luck," he said; "but I'm at ease again now. Why, we'd have been up with the express in another half hour, and the excitement would have been over! But now we're in for a real third-act finish! Jump out and see us work! This is just the pick-me-up I wanted!"

Together they left the train, and he established her comfortably on a pile of ties beside the track.

The conductor and the engineer were shaking their heads. "It would be a good job if we got that stuff out of the way in three hours," said the engineer.

"Three hours! I'll give us sixty minutes!" retorted John scornfully. He pulled off his coat and tossed it up to Mary on the woodpile. "Here, you," he said to one of the men near him, "there's a camp with more than twenty men in it half a mile up the line. Ten dollars to you if you have 'em down here in fifteen minutes—off you go! Now, boys, help me rig up a ram on the cow-catcher, and we'll make the engine help us shove this hamper out of our way. Conductor, there ought to be a coil of rope in the caboose. Pitch in, all of you, and bear a hand! There'll be five hundred dollars cash to divide up among you, if we are free inside an hour. Fix a lever with those logs and pry the first car over to the right. Lively now, my boys—put your beef into it! Engineer, keep your steam up—we'll need it, All together, now! She's starting! Keep it up—don't stop to spit on your hands! Here come the fellows from the camp! Good work, Tom. Here's your tenner."

Mary looked on entranced. John was everywhere; he was doing the work of three men—of a dozen men! His collar was flying loose, his shirt was torn, his eyes were blazing, his face shone with sweat. He lifted, he hauled, he shoved. The men caught fire from his example, and each surpassed himself.

SO absorbing was the work and the struggle that it did not seem long. The dusk had come down, and in the flare of the lanterns and torches and the hurrying to and fro Mary could not tell how much had been done. But at last there was a shout, and then three cheers, and through the darkness came a figure. John Cabot, laughing, wiping his face with the sleeve of his torn shirt, followed by the shouting, indiscriminate crowd. He came to the pile of ties on which she sat, held out his hands to her, and she bent forward and was swung lightly to her feet. He lifted her up to the platform steps of the train. The engineer blew three piercing whistles, the train moved, gathering headway, and she got a vision of the crowded faces and forms of the men below, as the car swept by. "Hurray for John Cabot!"

And then she heard the voice of John Cabot himself, in an amused, boyish chuckle. "Come in now: the show's over. Fifty-seven minutes! Didn't I tell you that taking a special was a lark? Just wait till I get a wash and change my shirt, and we'll have our supper."

It was dark night, lighted only by the glimmer of lights here and there, when they came, stumbling over roots and boulders, to the door of the big frame house that had been pointed out to them, and pushed open the door. A welter of tobacco smoke, voices, many faces, figures in overalls and in broadcloth, all the heterogeneous phantasmagoria of a mining camp inn at night.

"Mr. Minturn? Don't know the party, sir. Jorum? Oh, yes, you'll find Jorum up in No. 19. Come to think of it there's an old gink with him—may be Minturn. Here's a wire just come in for one of that name—you might take it up to him. Yonder's the stairs."

The noise below dulled away as the two mounted the stairs, and now became audible a man's voice humming an air from "Fra Diavolo." A door down the passageway was ajar. It was from there that the singing proceeded. Cabot opened the door and stepped into the room, with Mary close behind him.

Two men were there. One, elderly, his back to the door, sat at a table writing; the other, big and heavy, with curly yellow hair and a rounded visage expressing careless good humor, half reclined on the bed, his coat off. On the side of the room adjoining the door stood a chest of drawers, and on the top of it lay a revolver.

Mary, stepping swiftly from behind Cabot, laid her right hand on the weapon. Then she said, "How do you do, Father!" The younger man jumped up and stood staring. Minturn turned slowly in his chair.

"What—why, Mary! How—who—"

"So Cupid Hackett is Jorum!" said Cabot, approaching the singer with a smile.

The smile did not appear reassuring to the big man. He gave one glance toward the bureau; but Mary cocked the gun. Cabot laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Cupid," he said, "it's convenient to find you and Jorum together. "After we've settled about Mr. Minturn's claim, we'll take up the matter of that fifty-three thousand that you owe me."

"You're not on American soil. The claim's mine—bought and paid for," said Jorum; but his voice lacked pith.

MARY; still keeping the muzzle of the revolver in the direction of Jorum, reached under her amazed father's arm with her left hand, snatched up the paper he had been signing, and held it over the chimney of the lighted lamp on the table. Jorum made a spring for it; but Cabot had him by both arms, and the receipt for the Minturn claim caught fire and was burned to a cinder. Mary kissed her father.

"Has he paid you the ten thousand dollars, Mr. Minturn?" inquired Cabot.

"Cabot!" cried the old gentleman. "This is extraordinary—outrageous! I demand an explanation! The claim is Mr. Jorum's; though I shall have to write him a fresh receipt for it. The money is in my pocket. What business have you—"

Cabot smiled cheerfully. "Your daughter will explain to you, Mr. Minturn," he said. He turned to his captive. "Cupid, you're the same old piece of bad goods—three quarters bad, the rest excellent! Where did you get the money to pay Mr. Minturn?"

Jorum's round face, which had assumed a dejected expression, gradually changed, and in a moment he burst out laughing.

"John, old pal, the joke's on me!" he cried. "The ten thousand? I borrowed it on the security of the claim, naturally. If I'd won out, you'd have got back your fifty-three thousand—maybe! That young lady is clear grit; I give you credit, Senorita. Well, what are you folks going to do about it? I'll call it square, if you like; though I haven't got five plunks in my jeans—honest, I haven't!—well, five and twenty at an outside quotation. As for that matter of ours, John, you know it isn't extraditable. Besides, old chap, you made it so easy for me that I had to do it. It wasn't my fault." Meanwhile Mary had enlightened her father as to the facts. He jumped to his feet and shook his fists aloft. "I demand that this scoundrel be arrested and jailed—this infernal swindler—it's outrageous!"

"Now, my dear man, that's language, you know," remonstrated Cupid. "I paid for your dinner too! In this lady's presence let us be gentlemen!"

"Let him go, John," said Mary.

"Cupid, you may go," said Cabot. "Here, take your gun. You'll never use it; but you can perhaps raise a couple of dollars on it. Live straight if you can. You'll never succeed as a crook."

Cupid put on his coat and took up his hat. In the doorway he turned. "My dear folks, I take leave of you without rancor. I'm a good loser. John, may venture to say, Bless you, my children?"

He was gone; the three looked at one another.

"What does the impudent fellow mean?" sputtered Mr. Minturn.

"Mary, I love you. Will you marry me?" said John, holding out his arms to her.

"Oh, may I?" murmured Mary, letting herself be enfolded.

Soap-Box Orators

Which Is Worth More—Your Face or Your Feet?

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They All Forgot Safety First

IF we were to have another war, would there be any one to lead that charge against the enemy; any one not afraid to die? Has a century of peace made us soft and unheroic? Here is the answer to that question. Each one of the folks on this page has risked his or her life, not amid the flare and enthusiasm of a battle, but alone, in a single-handed fight with the elements for the life of a comrade.

FLOYD E. MORGAN is the first gentleman on the page. With a board for a paddle and a sinking row-boat as a life-preserver, he set out into Bryant Pond, Maine, to rescue a drowning man. Before he could reach his man, the leaky tub filled, forcing him back to shore. While his man still struggled for life,

Morgan emptied his treacherous boat and in stantly set out again. This time he won.

CLUTCHED in the death grasp of a drowning boy, I. Walker Cook sank to the bottom of a pond at Ford's Ferry, Kentucky. There at the bottom they struggled together, and at length young Walker rose to the surface, gasping but free. Stopping only long enough to regain his breath, he dived again, coming up a moment later with the unconscious boy in his arms. For which Walker received a medal from Mr. Carnegie and a thousand dollars.

FOR SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS John A. King stood at the bottom of a well, underneath a twelve-foot wall that threatened every minute to cave in and smother him; for seven and a half hours he worked desperately, filling a little box with dirt and stones. Each boxful, as it was lifted out of the hole, brought him a little nearer to the bottom, where a man lay suffocating under the dirt and debris. In all La Cygne, Kansas, where the accident took place, there was no other man who dared tackle the job. The man at the bottom of the well, a negro, lives to tell the tale.

FOUR GIRLS whom Harry Keiser had just rescued from the roof of their home were with him in a row-boat on the raging Olentangy River when the boat

hit a telephone pole and capsized. Keiser didn't think twice, or even look at the shore. He grabbed the nearest two girls and started to work them toward the bank, down current. He saved one of them. Incidentally, before the capsize occurred, Keiser was the only man who volunteered to row out to the flooded house to save the girls. Did he get a Carnegie medal? He did.

C. IVIs HERNECKER crossed the White River flood three times, when no other man in Portersville, Indiana, dared to risk it once—and each time he rescued a man. When the White River goes on a rampage it covers a little island near Portersville—all but the tree-tops. This year the flood rose so fast that

three helpless folks had no time to escape, and were washed into the tree-tops and left there. Hernecker was let down the current in a boat attached to a wire: each time, as he arrived at the island, he was so exhausted that the men in the trees had to lasso him with a grape-vine. But he won.

THERE is a sandy, slippery mountainside at Highlands, North Carolina, which no one but William Dillard has ever descended. It ends at the brink of a cliff half a mile high. It is no place to try to shoot the chutes on a picnic; but that is what one picnicker did, and he stopped at the edge of the cliff, unconscious, one leg over. The picnic party shut its eyes, and some of its members prayed. Dillard has the feet of a mountain sheep, so he didn't shut his eyes: he went down and rescued his companion, and when he got back up, there was a medal waiting for him.

RUTH DIMOCK is going to college on the thousand dollars that the Carnegie Hero Commission gave her. She is a cracking good swimmer, is Ruth, but she had already been in the water an hour when she saw one of her boy play-mates going down in Lake Batavia, New York. She plunged in and got him, and that's why she wears a medal.

Taking Title to Your Land

By WILLIAM HAMILTON OSBORNE
Who wrote "How to Make Your Will"

TAKING title to a lot of land and premises may seem a simple operation, and frequently it is. On the other hand, five times out of ten, interesting, not to say exasperating, complications are quite apt to ensue. Let us take a concrete case.

Mr. Nicodemus Fuller is a young man employed, say by an insurance company, at a steady salary of two thousand dollars a year. He needs all the money he gets. He has a wife and child or children. But Nicodemus Fuller and his wife are smitten with the usual and ordinary ambition that assails every young and happily married couple: they want to own a house.

You Choose Your House

WE are not now concerned with their method of selection, nor with the appearance, nor, in fact, with the value of the house they pick out. Let us assume, however, for the purpose of this article, that they choose a cozy little dwelling in a good neighborhood on the outskirts of some New Jersey town. Let us assume, further, the following facts:

First, the owner of the house and lot is probably a builder, an architect, or a real estate man. Second, very likely the house is already tenanted, with the probability that the tenants hold a lease until the following May. Third, the street is well paved; actually the pavement was completed some two short months ago, but that fact is not apparent to Mr. Nicodemus Fuller and his wife—all they know is that the street is paved. Fourth, assume also that water pipes and possibly sewer pipes have been very recently laid in the street.

Mr. Nicodemus Fuller and his wife, noting how well the house looks in its furnished state, and perceiving the undoubted respectability of the neighborhood, and satisfying themselves as to the value of the house and lot, decide to buy.

As the lease of their own apartment does not expire until the first of the ensuing May, they are will to permit the tenants to remain in the house until that time.

You Pay Your First $50

HAVING decided to purchase, they sit down and dicker with the owner. The owner wants fifty dollars down to bind the bargain. He tells them it is quite unnecessary to have a lawyer; that he has closed many transactions so far as the preliminaries were concerned; and he takes out his fountain pen and writes the following receipt:

Simple, isn't it? Now let us see where Mr. Nicodemus Fuller stands. That receipt is actually a contract, and it is actually binding upon Elijah Hawkins—binding to the exact extent of its terms.

Under that contract Mr. Hawkins, upon the following December 1, must execute and deliver to Nicodemus Fuller a deed, and by that deed must convey a good and marketable title to that property. That is all he has to do. Mr. Nicodemus Fuller must pay a balance of fourteen hundred and fifty dollars cash, and must deliver a mortgage for thirty-five hundred dollars. That is all he has to do.

Understand that, when you make a contract to purchase your house, it is not at all necessary that before the execution of the contract any examination of the title should be made. The search of the title—touched upon hereafter—is an intermediate operation, carried through after the date of the contract and before the delivery of the deed; so that when Nicodemus Fuller pays his fifty dollars he does not have to know that Elijah Hawkins has a good and marketable title. If Elijah Hawkins has no good and marketable title, either the deal is off or Hawkins may be the subject of a lawsuit.

So that all Nicodemus Fuller has to do, when he has made up his mind to buy the house, is to make and enter into a proper contract. You have seen the sort of contract that Elijah Hawkins gave him—and you have heard it stated that that contract absolutely bound Elijah Hawkins to convey to Fuller a good and marketable title. You have also heard it stated that Mr. Fuller needs all the money he can get.

Now, let us see what happens pursuant to the Hawkins contract of sale. Young Mr. Fuller goes either to a title company or to a lawyer and he has his title searched. The title closes on December 1, 1914. Mr. Hawkins lives up to the letter of the contract. Mr. Fuller's lawyer finds that the title is free and clear. He also finds that the taxes for 1913 have been paid. As this transaction occurs with reference to lands in New Jersey, it is well to state that taxes for a current year do not become a lien upon property until December 20 of that year. Therefore, on December 1, the taxes of 1914 have not become a lien. There is no other encumbrance against the property. There are no assessments that constitute a lien, and Mr. Hawkins gives his deed. It is not a warranty deed. It contains no covenants. Mr. Hawkins is a rich man, and his warranty in a deed is a valuable asset in case of any future complication as to the past condition of the title. But Mr. Hawkins' contract does not call for a warranty deed—it provides simply that he shall convey a good and marketable title, and Fuller's lawyer has found from the record that the title was good and marketable.

Making Sure of the Title

NOW, it is said that there never was a perfect title in the world. If Nicodemus Fuller's lawyer overlooked something somewhere in the records, or if there was some latent defect or irregularity in the chain of title—such as the making of a deed at some time by an infant or by a husband posing as a single man—in short, if ten years from now Mr. Fuller's title turns out to be defective or entirely bad, he can not fall back upon any covenant of warranty, though Mr. 'Hawkins' warranty, as has been said, is worth its weight in gold.

Mr. Nicodemus Fuller, therefore, fell down in one particular: he failed to stipulate in the contract or receipt that Mr. Hawkins was to give him a full covenant and warranty deed. Nor can Mr. Fuller ten years hence fall back upon the old receipt and say that Mr. Hawkins has failed to give him a good and marketable title; because the contract, such as it is, merges in the deed, and the deed is considered to be the performance of the contract.

Now, of course, the title that Mr. Fuller gets may be perfectly good—sound as a dollar. If so, then that question is disposed of. However, Mr. Fuller takes his deed—a plain bargain-and-sale deed, conveying merely all the title that Mr. Hawkins has.

Of course Mr. Fuller does not move into the house. The tenants, under an amicable arrangement, are to stay there until next May; so Mr. Fuller is entitled to collect the rent from December to April, inclusive.

Suddenly he wakes up. Somebody in the City Hall has notified him that, unless he pays his taxes on his piece of property by December 20, the taxes will become a lien. Mr. Fuller shows the notice to his wife.

"How can this be?" exclaims young Mrs. Fuller. "We bought this title free and clear."

So he and Mrs. Fuller descend upon their young lawyer like a wolf on the fold.

"I thought," says Mr. Fuller, with the air of a man not only having a chip upon his shoulder, but also having something up his sleeve, "that you certified that the title to my house was free and clear."

"It was," answers the attorney.

Mr. Fuller flashes the notice from the City Hall. "Why are all this year's taxes—for 1914—due upon the house?" he said.

"Of course," replies the attorney; "but they are not a lien until December 20—to-morrow. Even to-day your property is free and clear."

"Well—but—" splutters Mrs. Fuller, "you ought to have brought that matter up."

Your First $50 May Cost You $100

THE young lawyer produced from a pigeonhole the Hawkins contract.

"This," he said, "was already signed when you brought it to me. Hawkins has complied with this contract in every respect. I have done my duty. There is no lien now against your property—there was none when you bought it."

"But," persists Mr. Fuller, "we own this property for only one month—December—in this year of 1914, and yet we pay the whole year's taxes!"

"True," says his attorney; "and those taxes amount to possibly a hundred dollars—"

"Exactly one hundred," says Mrs. Fuller.

"Sorry," proceeds the attorney, "but nothing can be done—that is, nothing now."

"What could have been done, and when?" asks Mr. Fuller.

The attorney settles himself back in his chair.

"Fuller," he says, "our friend Hawkins is a perfectly reliable man. He carries his contracts out to the letter—and only to the letter. He knows just what he wrote on the face of that receipt; he knows just the limit of his liability. Once you had paid your fifty dollars, and once he had signed that contract in that form, you could have held him to nothing else— nothing whatever. He performed his contract. If," went on the lawyer, "you

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had come to me before you paid your fifty dollars and before Mr. Hawkins signed the receipt, I could have set you straight."

"But," still protested young Mrs. Fuller, "I am sure that before we paid that fifty dollars Mr. Hawkins said that everything was paid—everything. I feel sure, too, that he said he would give us a warranty deed."

What They Might Have Done

"NOW, Mrs. Fuller," returns Fuller's counsel, "don't waste words. Any conversation that took place prior to the signing of that receipt was merged in and swallowed up in it. The receipt represents the final and only agreement between the parties—no matter what he said before he signed it."

Nicholas Fuller began to realize that his attorney knew what he was talking about.

"What, then," he asked, "could we have done?"

His counsel placed the finger-tips of one hand against the finger-tips of the other.

"You could have come to me," he said, "before paying your fifty dollars and before Hawkins signed his contract; or you could have told Hawkins to prepare a contract and submit it to your counsel. In either case, it would have cost you in the neighborhood of a five-dollar note. In that event, so far as taxes are concerned, I should have provided in the contract this: that, since Hawkins had collected and enjoyed eleven twelfths of the rental for the year 1914, and since you were to collect and enjoy only one twelfth of the rental for this year, and since taxes are usually considered a charge upon income, that therefore both the rent and taxes should be apportioned between the parties as of December 1. In that event, Mr. Fuller, you would have paid one twelfth of one hundred dollars and you would have saved eleven twelfths of that amount. Out of that eleven twelfths you could have paid me my five dollars. Do you see the point?"

Of course Mrs. Fuller did not see the point and would not see the point. But Mr. Fuller did. Not right away, of course, for he paid five dollars to another lawyer to see if his lawyer's diagnosis was correct—and found it was, much to his sorrow.

Item: Mr. Nicholas Fuller out so far ninety-one dollars and sixty-six cents.

So far, so good—or, rather, so bad. But Mr. Nicholas Fuller is not yet through.

The Next Surprise

EVERY time that Mr. Fuller visits his house to collect his rents or otherwise, he goes into raptures over the neighborhood. The street is neatly and beautifully paved, and he thanks his stars that, though Mr. Hawkins may have got him on the question of taxes for the current year, there will be no future assessments for the street improvements.

On February 1, however, he attends bright and early at his house to collect the February rent. The tenant pays it on the dot. But the tenant does something else—he hands Fuller a little sheaf of official-looking papers.

"Handed in yesterday," says the tenant, "by somebody from the City Hall."

Mr. Fuller looks them over.

"I guess," he says, "they go to Hawkins—probably receipts for the assessments."

"Looks like it," says the tenant. "Sewer, water, and paving. I didn't look them over very much, but—are they receipts?"

"No," says Fuller, "they are not; they're bills—they ought to have been receipted. Hawkins paid them, so I'll take them down."

On his way to the office he dropped in at the City Hall. "Will you just receipt these bills?" he said to the man behind the desk.

The man took a pencil from behind his ear, jotted down a few figures on a pad, and added them up.

"There's a little interest," he said, "so the full amount is three hundred and fifty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents. Have you got a check-book handy?"

"Check-book," said Fuller. "Why, they're paid."

"Oh, thunder!" returned the man. "Why didn't you say so? Wait until I look them up."

He looked them up, and shook his head. "Some mistake," he said; "these haven't been paid."

"Hawkins said he had paid them," returned Fuller.

"What Hawkins?"

"Elijah Hawkins."

"Well, if he said so," answered the official, "he'll do it. Let's see—who owns that property now?"

"I do," said Fuller. "My name is Nicodemus Fuller."

The man smiled grimly.

"Why, man, these assessments were confirmed only about ten days ago. How long have you owned the place?"

"Two months," said Nicodemus Fuller.

"Well," returned the man behind the desk, "I guess you're in for it. I guess it's up to you."

"I don't understand," went on Fuller. "I bought my title free and clear."

"I know," repeated the man behind the desk; "but don't I tell you that these assessments were confirmed less than two weeks ago? That puts it up to you—unless, of course, you've got some kind of special deal with Hawkins."

The Lawyer Can't Help You—Afterward

ALL day Nicodemus Fuller brooded over this development. All that night Nicodemus and his wife lay awake and talked about it.

"I don't care what you say," said Mrs. Fuller; "Robins must explain this thing."

Robins was their lawyer,—the same one that searched the title,—so they went to him.

"Now, Mr. Robins," exclaimed Fuller,—with the air of one who would ejaculate, "I've got you," while Mrs. Fuller nodded vehemently at his side,—"now, Robins, here's something that is clearly up to you. Look at those bills for assessments."

Every lawyer shudders when his client comes back to talk about a title that he has passed. Robins shuddered accordingly, but he held out his hand for the bills. He looked them over.

"Why, man," he said, "these assessments were only confirmed two weeks ago."

"What of that?" said Fuller. "The water-pipes were down, the sewer-pipes were down, and the street was paved when I bought my house."

"What is more," said Mrs. Fuller, "Mr. Hawkins told us it was paved."

"Well," answered Robins, "it was paved—that's a fact; but the pavement and the water and the sewer all happen to be new, and the assessments represented by these bills never became liens until two weeks ago—until six weeks after you took title. When you took title your title was free and clear. If this pavement had been laid ten years ago and confirmed nine years ago, and had never been paid, it would have been shown in the search, and you could have forced Elijah Hawkins to pay for it. But this, Fuller, is entirely up to you."

"Why didn't you raise it at the closing?" exclaimed Fuller.

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "It would have done no good," he said. "Hawkins had not bound himself to pay it. Hawkins carried out his contract."

"Couldn't this have been avoided in any way?" asked Mrs. Fuller.

Robins sighed.

"Yes," he repeated wearily, "it could have been avoided by running up a little bill of five dollars at my office before you paid your fifty dollars down."

"But it was fraud!" spluttered Fuller.

"Not fraud," returned the lawyer, "unless you can say absolutely that before you paid your fifty dollars Mr. Hawkins deliberately represented to you that all street improvements had been paid for. I don't believe he did, because Elijah Hawkins is careful not to misrepresent. Can you say that he did so misrepresent?"

Fuller looked at his wife and she looked at him. They could not. They were honest people, and they knew that Hawkins had made no such statement to them or either of them at any time.

Mr. Fuller, in due course, paid the assessments for the sewer and the assessments for the water and the assessments for the paving.

Q. E. D. Mr. Fuller found himself out about the total sum of four hundred and fifty dollars, more or less.

An ounce of prevention, they say, is worth a pound of cure. In this case, a grain of legal advice would have prevented a ton of worry and expense.

What, therefore, should Mr. Nicodemus Fuller have done after he and his young wife had made up their minds to purchase their cozy little dwelling?

First Get Your Contract

THEY should have done just what Robins told them they ought to have done. First, they should have said to Mr. Elijah Hawkins, "Our lawyer insists upon a contract. You draw the contract or have it drawn, and we will submit it to him for approval." If Mr. Hawkins had balked at this on account of the expense,—although Mr. Hawkins is a crackerjack at drawing contracts,—then Fuller could have said, "I will have my lawyer draw the contract to suit himself and will submit it to you for your approval."

Do not get the idea that the case of Nicodemus Fuller is by any means an extreme case. Any lawyer, any real estate dealer, can tell you that five times out of ten, in connection with the purchase of homes, the proposed purchaser merely lays down a small cash payment and takes a receipt such as Hawkins gave. It is the natural thing to do. Every man earning a salary realizes that the searching of a title is important—that he must be sure that he is getting his home free and clear. He also knows—or Hawkins may tell him—that before making the contract a search is not essential. The search comes in between.

Again, the case of Fuller is not an extraordinary case. People with limited means try to get the best value for their money. This sends them to new parts of town—to newly opened streets—to sparsely settled residence districts. They must cut their goods according to their cloth.

An enterprising city constantly extends its paving, is constantly laying sewer and water pipes in new streets—and quite as constantly is collecting assessments therefor.

Three times within the past two years the writer of this article has had the same difficulty with his clients—or rather his clients have had the same difficulty with themselves. One case was glaring. A young salaried man purchased, on the outskirts of a New Jersey town, a good-sized tract of land. It was a corner piece of property. It measured one hundred feet upon one street, and one hundred upon the other. He took his contract from a millionaire. He failed to submit it to an attorney before signing, and yet it was a printed contract of the regulation form. He brought the contract to his counsel, who searched the title and passed it. It is true that neither counsel nor client, during any part of the transaction, thought the street pavement on both streets was new.

But, whether they had known it or not, the contract called for the closing of a title that was to be free and clear and nothing more; and on the day of closing it appeared that the title was wholly free and clear.

Six months later the city presented the new owner with a bill for twelve hundred dollars for the paving, at the rate of six dollars a foot on one street in front of the property and at the rate of six dollars a foot on the other.

This young purchaser, eager and willing though he was to have his title free and clear, had made a terrible mistake: he had failed to have his contracts drawn by a professional who understood his business—he had failed to consult a lawyer. In this case, as in the Fuller case, it might be that the former owner confronted with the payment of twelve hundred dollars of assessments, might have raised his price; but he would not have raised it twelve hundred dollar worth, unless his property was in great demand.

Mr. Fuller probably knew that the title should be searched before delivery of the deed: this is a matter much more generally understood by laymen. A search is not expensive unless the title is unusually complicated, and even then lawyers make the attempt to regulate their fees proportion to the purchase price.

Mr. Fuller probably paid Robins, his attorney, sixty or seventy-five dollars, possibly one hundred dollars, for the search of the title. This expense, while not to be considered in the light of a dead loss, because it is in reality a necessity, yet adds nothing to the value of the property. You can not get one hundred dollars more for that property next year because you paid one hundred dollars search fee when you took title. Therefore, in buying, include this essential expense in the amount that you have determined to pay for the property.

Having satisfied himself that the title is good, Robins adopts an additional precautionary measure. He takes Mr. Hawkins' affidavit, in which Hawkins swears that he is the owner and that the premises are free and clear, and that he knows of no liens or encumbrances against the property, and no judgments or charges against himself. If Hawkins lies in this affidavit he can be thereafter sued for fraud, if his statements have caused damage to his grantee, Nicodemus Fuller.

Closing the Title

HAVING notified his clients that the title is clear, Robins takes them, on the first of December, to the office of Hawkins —unless the contract provides for the closing of the title at the lawyer's office. Having arrived at Hawkins' office, and both sides having indicated their readiness and ability to perform the contract. Robins, the attorney, then examines the deed and the blind and mortgage. He compares the deed with the former title deeds and with the search. He compares the deed with the contract to see that it complies with the same. He then has the deed, bond and mortgage, and affidavit executed. Then he gets busy on his figures. He apportions rent and taxes; he, deducts from the purchase price Hawkins' of share of taxes and assessments, which he holds back because he, Robins, must see to it that these things are paid. And then he adopts one more precautionary measure—he calls up the office of the Register, the office of the County Clerk, and the office in Trenton to find out whether, since his search was completed, anything additional has been placed upon the record that might affect the title. He does this, because, if Hawkins were a crook, Hawkins might sell that house at ten o'clock on December 1 to Mr. Isaacson, get his money for it, and Mr. Isaacson might record his deed at eleven o'clock and be the record owner; Mr. Hawkins might close his deal with Fuller at twelve o'clock and then skip out of town at one o'clock' under which circumstances Mr. Fuller would have parted with his good money and would have found himself the owner a title which was nil, since Mr. Isaacson whose innocence is to be presumed, had placed his deed on record ahead of Fuller.

After all this fuss and feathers, if Mr. Fuller finds subsequently that, by reason of any fact whatever, his title is defective to a material extent, he then may sue Hawkins on his covenant and warranty and if Hawkins is financially responsible Fuller can collect.

Such, in its various successive stages, is the travail that precedes the birth of the title to your home. Let me cite two old adages:

First, Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. Second, Do not lock the stable door after the horse is stolen.

Behind the Bolted Door?

By ARTHUR E. McFARLANE

Illustration by Henry Raleigh

"WELL, Doctor," asked Willings, "what now?"

Already the question had been asked many times that week. Yet now no answer seemed humanly possible.

But Laneham did answer. Even then he still lifted his jaws unyieldingly to all the powers of darkness.

"We keep on as before," he said; "if we have to do with the demonic, the more-than-natural, that must be proved. In the meantime all we really know is that between one and three this morning Glasbury was in his office in the Savoy Building."

"Yes, but that alone—"

"I know. I know. But there is nothing supernatural in his being there at such an hour. And if at the same time we are to believe that some secondary, blood-paid devil-image of him was here in the Casa Grande killing Hooley, that must be told me from the lips of the man himself. Till then there is still enough for us to learn in other ways."

Next morning brought them, among

other things, the first contents of Glasbury's office waste-paper basket.

What did the Doctor hope to find amid the mere debris of the man's every-day working life? Obviously, nothing definite. It was only one means among a dozen. But, being such, it was at least a possibility. And the fact that, after being away from his office for days, Glasbury should return to it at one o'clock in the morning, to tear up anything whatever, seemed to promise something.

The Central Bureau "pigeon" who had rifled the basket might well have been the uncombed and dirty son of one of the Savoy scrubwomen. But he knew all he needed to know.

"Your guy's come back again this mornin', too," he told Laneham; "so this bein' a Sata'day, see, maybe I'll be snitchin' youse some more this afternoon."

What he had "snitched" this first time he had carried to Seventy-second Street in a battered, dog-eared old suit-case. And when they had opened it, they seemed to have proof enough, there alone, that Glasbury must have spent the entire two hours that night in his office and nowhere else. For that old suit-case was half filled; and every sheet of paper and envelop had been torn and retorn till scarcely a piece was to be found larger than a postage-stamp.

"I'll have to leave you two to work on it," said the Doctor. "You know what we have to look for. In the first place,"—and again he brought out the murder note—"we must make absolutely certain, word for word and letter for letter, of the identity of the writing. In the second place, here you have Mrs. Fisher's writing, too. You must look at every scrap for anything that even remotely resembles it. And after that, somewhere, in some way, there may be something else."

He left them, and they went to work.

The big Washington desk stood behind them. Willings cleared it off, and spread out handful after handful of those tiny fragments, so that there might be as much as possible under their eyes at once.

"I know," he told D. Hope, "that this is mighty hard on you."

"No," she answered, "it isn't. Because I know that the more we learn, the sooner we'll prove him innocent."

But it became evident almost immediately that at least half of that torn paper had once been merely the manuscript, or the successive manuscripts, of a play! It established the identity of Glasbury's writing. He had penned the murder note—there could no longer be any doubt of that. But a play? Why should any man, however haunted, go to his office at one in the morning to destroy a play? Certainly there was little hope of getting an answer from any internal evidence in the play itself. It would have taken weeks to piece its thousand shreds and tatters together. Meanwhile they faced a blank wall.

As far as they could, they put the bits of manuscript aside, and began to sort out everything that looked like the remains of correspondence.

There was little difficulty in getting the pieces of those individual letters together. There were many of them, for they represented the accumulated mail of several days. But it was only a matter of matching paper with paper.

But in no case did any of those letters tell them anything. Not one that could by any stretch of imagination be taken for the writing of Mrs. Fisher. Most of them were business letters. The only puzzle was why they should have been destroyed at all.

Outside the manuscript, or manuscripts, of the play, in only two cases did Glasbury's own writing show. Both were the beginnings of letters. And because his stationery, a heavy, hand-laid bond, was as distinctive as his writing, they also were comparatively easy to put together.

One of those beginnings read:

DEAR HARRY: I should nave answered you at once. But, without going into it now, ever since Saturday...

Saturday, the day of the murder!

The other:

GENTLEMEN: I very greatly regret that not having been in my office for several days...

And it, too, had gone no further.

In both there was a something about the writing—a rigid tremor, a sort of quivering powerlessness—that seemed of itself to show that the hand could go no further.

"It's as if his will power had suddenly been snapped," said Willings.

But that, too, they had known, or felt, before. Again they had learned nothing that was new.

THEY went back to the first business letters and began to work through them a second time.

Meanwhile, the Doctor had gone directly to the Savoy Building.

In a sense, he had gone only to get its topography, to study its exits and—even as in the case of the Fisher apartment in the Casa Grande—the arrangement of doors and corridors on Glasbury's floor.

But he had hardly reached the Savoy elevators when some one touched him lightly and spoke to him. It was Morris, McGloyne's "outside man."

"He's up there yet," he said, "if you'd like to go up and take a little look around?"

And, since Glasbury would not know either of them even if they came upon him face to face, they went together.

The Savoy was an old building, the typical flimsy seven-story fire-trap of the 80's. It had only one entrance, and its open stairway mounted from landing to landing around the elevator shaft.

Glasbury's office was on the fourth floor: they walked up.

His door was almost exactly opposite the further elevator. A postman was just entering. And passing quickly, they started on up to the floor above.

But when, on the halfway landing, they came opposite again, and could look through the elevator shaft, Laneham saw that Glasbury's door was topped by an old-fashioned fan-light. From the ceiling level, therefore, any one in the further elevator could command at least a part of Glasbury's room. In the same moment Morris had the same thought. He made it plain that he could run an elevator, and he had already established the necessary confidential relations with the starter. Two minutes later they were going slowly up in a car alone.

The Doctor thought only to give himself a possible opportunity of observing Glasbury, himself unobserved. And as the car came gradually to a stop at that

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fifth-floor level, he found that by standing well over to the left he could see, through the fan-light and an inner open door, the young playwright's desk, his shoulder, and then, as he moved, his half-averted face.

What did it say? Again, what story, what explanation of hideous mystery, spoke from it? At that moment it held only a suffering blankness, a hunted misery to wring the heart.

But as Laneham still watched him, his shoulder moved again. His hands went out. He seemed to be opening his mail. And next moment that blankness in his face, that suffering misery, had changed again to horror, and new horror!

FOR what the Doctor beheld in the next half minute nothing in the world had prepared him. On Glasbury's desk was the sick, steady flutter of a letter held in a hand that shook and shook. Then on a sudden that shaking stopped, and for an instant he turned almost full face. In his expression alone there was that which should have given any one warning, the expression of the hunted man who at last, and at bay, has taken his decision. His right hand seemed to go blindly into an open drawer. It came out again. At his temple there was the swift, level glitter of polished nickel. A click, then another. And Laneham, powerless even to move, knew that Glasbury was trying to shoot himself.

He was trying to. But, from some defect, the weapon refused to serve him. And next moment, as he let it drop heavily to the desk again, once more his face was changing—to the look of the man who believes, harriedly, that he can not die, and tells himself that in death itself there would be no escape for him. Then, trembling and shaking, he got to his feet. Standing over his wastebasket, he was tearing that letter—whatever it was—into such shredded bits as the Doctor had already seen. Somehow he steadied himself. His every feature now said desperately that, whatever must be faced, he would still endure and face it through!

A few minutes more and he moved quickly to the door and was in the street again. And Laneham, following, was telephoning to McGloyne:

"Yes, yes... For his own sake—to save his life—though I think there is no more danger now. But watch him every moment.... Yes, and make absolutely certain of getting me everything from this morning's basket."

A LITTLE after two, the contents of that second basket reached 390.

It held little compared with the first, but it held enough: again they cleared the big desk and went to work. The Doctor said nothing as to what they might expect to find. He merely laid out that murder note once more, and once more began to match tatter against tatter.

And it was the paper itself, and not any writing upon it, that first brought his hands to a halt.

"Willings, look here," he said. He was holding a tiny strip of that water-lined, almost transparent foreign note-paper known as onion-skin.

"Well?"

"Where have you seen that before? You don't recognize it?"

In the meantime he had found a second strip, this time with writing on it.

"But at any rate you recognize the pen work? You don't? But I see. Of course the other was in Italian."

And as Willings and D. Hope stood waiting he crossed to his desk and brought back the letter, the love letter that they had taken from Maddalina.

Again he translated it: "You are an angel of heaven... of a surety my love will now endure forever... and you shall have at least two of them for yourself."

"We decided some time ago," said the Doctor, "that the 'two of them' referred to two of those fifty-dollar notes which our precious Maddalina took from Mrs. Fisher's money letter. Well, it would seem that our lover friend has now been writing to Glasbury. But let us get the whole letter together."

That now promised to be easy. Small though they were, those bits of "onion-skin" now seemed to stand out from everything else.

But they had scarcely begun—Laneham had just spread himself out a second little pile—when, looking again, he suddenly put his hand over it, and spoke to D. Hope.

Before he said it she knew that he wanted her to leave them.

"If, without asking why," he begged her, "you'll just let Willings and me finish this alone?"

And, to give her something to do, he asked her to go on with the search for that lost magazine with its clue-word "mund."

"Try some of the scientific publications," he said, "the German chemical journals, and that sort of thing."

Not until she was gone did he lift his hand again.

Beneath it lay three scraps of that slippery "onion-skin": on each piece were smears and blotches of fresh blood.

"My Lord!" cried Willings.

Neither spoke again till the last terrible little shreds had been fitted into place, the whole letter was together, and it could be read.

It ran as follows:

And the entire bottom of the letter was one daub of what—there could be no doubting it—was the life-blood of Sergeant Hooley.

IT was a second murder note, and one more hideous almost than the first. For a time neither could touch it again. But, blood-smeared and dreadful, the thing was there.

"The—the beast must have written it," said Willings, "as soon as he got back to his diggings."

"Little question. He can hardly have needed to re-moisten his fingers!... Well, so much for poor Grogan's ghost-demon. So much for his apparition from nowhere that passed through the solid walls!"

"But, Doctor,"—Willings was reading the hideous screed again,—"what does this mean: 'We, too, can kill in those Fisher rooms?' Evidently the Italian devil believes that Glasbury did it. If he didn't—"

He was stopped by the warning in Laneham's face. And at the same instant the Doctor was covering everything with a newspaper. D. Hope had come back again.

She had come back again, and her eyes were shining. "Doctor," she cried with her first breath, "I've found it!"

"Found it?"

"Found your 'mund' magazine. It's a medical one, in German. Here is the name in full, with the date: it's an old number.... They had it at Koelbel & Scheuer's."

"But where is it? Didn't you bring it with you?"

With all his repression, he was far more excited than she was herself.

"They had only one copy left, and it had just been ordered."

"Well, we can get another somewhere. In the meantime there'll be one in the Physicians' and Surgeons' Library. And I'll go down there at once. Oh, don't mistake me. There mayn't be anything in this at all. But if there is!"

"But what about to-night?" Willings was ready to believe that already Laneham had forgotten the existence of those blood-daubed paper scraps beneath the newspaper.

"Oh, I'm not forgetting to-night. And, Willings, old man, before I go, for a minute I must talk to you."

He did. Then, by telephone, he got McGloyne and his man Morris and made certain arrangements with them. If, at ten that night, those Italian jewel thieves and murderers expected to be in Glasbury's rooms at the Casa Reale, he must do everything in his power to prepare for them. He did not leave the house until he had.

But, having gone, hour after hour went by before he returned. Five o'clock passed, and six. He called up to say that he could not be home for dinner. They did not see him again, indeed, till after eight. And then—a first glance at his face told the story: they knew that he had taken one more step—that once more and unmistakably he had found the thing he sought! It was unmistakable. But not less obvious was it that he had no thought of telling of it then.

"There's only one thing we must do tonight," he said; "we've a little ambush to fix up. And the time is short enough already. Willings, we'll get back first to the Casa Grande."

He told him, on the way, that Glasbury was still at the St. Hilaire; Morris had just made sure of that. And Morris was to warn them too, when Glasbury left to meet his blackmailers. For it was evident that he intended to meet them.

"And now, son, a second time: if you feel that you'll be running uncalled-for chances?"

"Not for a moment!"

AT the Casa Grande they found McGloyne in plain clothes. He had with him, at last, those promised floor plans.

"I'd have done better just to have turned you over the originals," he said; "for everything was tied up while the blue-printers kept us waiting."

"It's all right," Laneham told him; "I guess we know already what we're going to learn from them."

He carried the rolled sheets into the room behind the telephone-board and spread them out.

"There you have it. The Fisher apartment in the Casa Grande here and Glasbury's bachelor rooms in the Casa Reale adjoin. They abut at Mrs. Fisher's little writing-room." McGloyne stifled an exclamation, and the Doctor turned to him. "But, right now," he said, "whatever the appearances seem to be, I ask you to take my word for it that never for a moment has there been anything that could lie against the honor of either of them."

McGloyne dropped his hands. "As you say, Doctor, as you say. Only it's brought them death an' hell. Well, our time's short." He handed Laneham a latch-key. "An' there's one thing you'll be needin'."

"Good."

"It's for Glasbury's middle room. When are you going over?"

"At once. For Willings and I would like to get a preliminary look around."

They all walked around the block to the entrance of the Casa Reale together.

But McGloyne got no further than the entrance. A message had just come in for him. It was Morris's warning: Glasbury was on his way.

"No time for any lookin' around. But my men are placed. Payton's planted on the inside. You'll find him there. An' if Mr. Willings is still wantin' to make a second?"

"I am," said Willings.

"Well an' good. Get in then, get in, the quickest you know how!"

In another minute Willings and the Doctor were in Glasbury's rooms.

"Officer Payton?" the Doctor called.

"Right here." Payton, a lanky "special," showed his head from behind the curtain of the trunk closet. "And you'll find another cover," he said, "back of a big desk in a den place at the other end."

They hurried through to it. The desk was an old-fashioned, low-bodied, high-backed secretary. It had been placed across the corner by the window; and nothing could have offered better concealment. Willings slipped behind it, and pulled it in again. He had his automatic in his pocket. Laneham made him take it.

"But never fear," he reassured him; "you won't need to use it. Remember, though, try to see Glasbury first, and then give them time to talk." And he was gone.

He could hardly have left the elevators before Glasbury was entering. It seemed to Willings that they must have met. But he was alone. And, throwing on the lights, he came slowly through to the little study. "Try to see Glasbury first!—it was as if Glasbury had known he was there! While Willings still crouched uncertainly, the young playwright crossed to his desk and began to write something. He rose from it, with a face once more filled with a white but resolute despair—and Willings showed himself.

"Who—who are you?" With his first backward leap Glasbury's hand went to his own coat pocket; "and what are you doing here?"

But it was not what he said nor the words he used that struck through Willings' memory.

He tried to explain his presence in a single sentence. He said that he was a friend, that he knew why he, Glasbury, was there, and that he had a second friend and ally in the further room.

"We've seen the letter they sent you," he ended rapidly; "and we're here to meet them, too. You weren't going to pay them?"

"No, no. Never that!"

"Then what were you going to do?—You have a gun, haven't you?"

"I have. And this time one I can depend upon. There—there'll be two of them. I was going to try to do for both, the fiends—and then"—he whispered it dryly—"then finish with myself."

It was what Willings had thought. At that moment, from the hall there came a sound of footsteps.

"But you won't do anything now, will you? You'll just leave everything to us?"

And, in another minute, what was to follow had begun.

FROM his "cover" of course Willings could at first see nothing. He only knew that Glasbury's visitors had let themselves in with their own key. They seemed, in fact, to be entirely familiar in his rooms.

"Allora—now!" said one of them, the Italian, and presumably Hooley's murderer. But the other went straight on through to the rooms beyond. And what Willings could not know was this:

Suspecting an ambush, he had gone directly to that trunk closet. Payton was uncovered; and with a stumbling rush the lanky special leaped out.

But he was not quick enough. Even before he could raise his voice, a black-jack did its thudding work, and he went down like the dead.

Instantly, as though by a kind of reflex action, the Italian whirled back to the hall doors and shot their bolts: for the present at least, no one could interrupt from outside. Next moment both blackmailers were fleeing from the little room where Willings was concealed.

He jumped for them. And before they could use their weapons—almost before he knew himself that he was using his—he had put a bullet through the shoulder of the man with the black-jack.

"Up with your hands!" he shouted.

"The hell I will!" he cried. And "winged" though he was, the man tried with his other hand to pull his gun.

Outside, with curses and shoulder-drives, McGloyne and his detail were now trying desperately to burst their way in. "What the devil! What's gone wrong with them locks! Put yourselves at 'em again!"

The time was short. And now the young Italian had sprung for Willings.

"Nom de Dio, but I get you anyway he screamed, and pressed his weapon squarely against his side.

"I guess not!" Willings twisted it away again, even as the explosion came. With a second wrench and jerk, the gun went through the window. "Not this time, I think!"

In all his life before, Mr. Walter, or "Owly" Willings had never engaged in even an imitation of a gun-fight. But now it seemed to him to be something wholly natural and eminently satisfying. That he might be killed did not worry him at all. If he was, there was Daphne Hope, who would know just how it

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happened. Also he was there to take care of Glasbury; and through it all he kept Glasbury behind him.

He was down on the floor now—they all were—but he was still fighting. He had some one by the throat. And in some way he managed to get hold of the winged man's black-jack. And then suddenly he knew that Laneham and McGloyne and McGloyne's men were inside. Another burst of shots, and the thud, thud, thud of subduing night-sticks. And as, amid smoke and the salty smell of powder, Willings again found himself sitting up and looking around, he became gradually aware that some one was working over Glasbury.

It was the Doctor. In almost complete collapse the young playwright was passing from one fainting fit to another. And, "Oh, my God!" he was crying.

The Doctor looked up and caught Willings' gaze fixed on him. That voice—would they ever forget it? It was the lost-soul voice they had heard twice before in the Fisher rooms. "Oh, my God, my God!"

TEN minutes later the two would-be jewel thieves and blackmailers sat trussed and ready for the patrol wagon. But, in the little room of the high-backed desk, Laneham was having a last word with McGloyne: "You must leave Glasbury with me. For the next few days he'd have to go into hospital in any case."

"All right. All right."

"Till further notice, too, I'll ask you not to try to talk to those two worthies, either. If possible, keep it absolutely quiet that you've even caught them?"

"You mean keep it even from Fisher?"

"What? Oh-h. Oh, if you want, tell him."

"But, Lord, when you might say we've got the thing cleared up!"

"Cleared up? Inspector, once more, who killed Mrs. Fisher? Those two don't know. Why, and how, was she killed? And how did the murderer get in? Has the first of those questions been answered? Has any part of the real mystery been solved? No. But, if you will give me the opportunity, to-night I think we can at last begin."

McGloyne shook his head uncomprehendingly. But, the matter was in Laneham's hands.

"Doctor," he said, "what do you want to do?"

"Several things, one of which will again convince you that I've lost my senses. But I want first of all—and nothing could be gained by letting any one else know—first of all to be free to go with Willings hack to Mrs. Fisher's rooms, and, for the remainder of the night if need be, look for something."

"What?"

"A certain tiny pellet of fused white metal which should still be somewhere near or in the swimming-pool."

To be continued next week

He Says He Starves for Old Clocks

IN the center of New York's antique district on Fourth Avenue is the only old clock shop in the world. It is kept by an old clock-maker, who will tell you—while he smiles gently—that he starves himself for love of old clocks.

"No one wants to buy them," he says sadly. But the sadness is on account of the public's lack of appreciation of his treasures, not because he cares about making money. As he roams about his room full of clocks,—probably the most varied collection of old time-pieces to be found anywhere,—there is many a one before which he stops to say hastily, if a visitor displays interest in it, "That one I couldn't think of selling, of course!" But it is to these oldest and rarest clocks, which no money could buy, that Mr. Karg gives most prominent display in his little hole-in-the-wall shop.

A Clock that Was Once a French King's

MOST of his cherished French clocks are in a cabinet, behind glass doors. There is one that is said to have been the gift of a French king to a lady.

When Mr. Karg tells in what country the clocks are made, he will explain, "I don't lay it against the clocks, that they were made in France. The clocks aren't to blame. A clock-maker loves a clock just because of itself." Then his eyes will twinkle. "Work is thicker than blood," he says.

Perhaps to show what blood really flows in his veins, however, he will turn to a clock made more than a hundred and twenty-five years ago in the Black Forest of Germany. It is of black rosewood, about three feet high, carved with tiny flowers and fruits. Underneath the clock-face miniature doors open on the hour and a bugler appears with his pipe at his lips, blowing a martial tune of five notes. While the minute-long tune is being played, Mr. Karg waits, heels attitude of and eyes alert, in a soldier-like attitude of attention.

"That tune used to be played in the German army in the time of my grand-father," he says.

Many of the clocks in his shop Mr. Karg made himself. One—oh, no; this isn't for sale!—has a figure of a school-master at the top of the clock, and his rod rises slowly above a school-boy's head, second by second, in an arc whose degrees mark the minutes. On the hour down comes the rod on the boy's head—which has stood this treatment for Mr. Karg won't say just how long; but the clock was made when he was twenty-five years old, and that was between forty and sixty years ago.

"Some day," says Mr. Karg wistfully, "that clock will get to the auction sale. Did you ever think of that? That everything in the world that isn't burned up finally comes under the auctioneer's hammer? One generation, two, maybe three or four, takes care of it. Then comes a generation that doesn't want it or can't afford to keep it, and it's sold."

What Americans Did to Their Clocks

ALL in a batch by themselves are the clocks, with their glass doors and their wreaths of red and yellow roses. The Yankees did something to their clocks that no other makers ever did before or since. They printed their names in big, bold letters right across the front. One old Yankee clock-maker was Seth Thomas, and after his death a company was formed to perpetuate the name; so that to-day a Seth Thomas clock is about as good as they make them—in America, according to Mr. Karg. One old Yankee clock that is in the Old Clock Shop has the name C. Jerome in a conspicuous place; and, with Yankee shrewdness, the address "New Haven, Connecticut," added. "That was ex-District Attorney Jerome's grandfather," the clock-maker says. "He taught his son to make clocks, and in turn the grandson was taught. But there was more money in law. One never stays in the clock-making business for anything but love of it."

As he stands in front of an elaborately griffin-carved clock, Mr. Karg will tell you that it is an Italian clock—at least, the case was made in Italy; the works came from Germany. The Russians, Spanish, and Italians have never made clock-works. They get them from Germany.

While he was telling me all these things, a cuckoo's door partly opened, and the cuckoo looked out a moment and then went silently back.

"Now, isn't that the politest hint you ever saw?" asked the clock-maker, with a happy chuckle. "He's telling me that I forgot to wind him up last night. Once in a while I do forget a clock here and there. Would a wife be patient, like my cuckoo, if I forgot to bring home the meat for dinner, do you think? Why, in some ways clocks are a lot more satisfactory as friends than human beings are!"

He Spends Uncle Sam's Money

By WALT MASON

THIS man signs checks for Uncle Sam, to pay for hauling of the mails from Washington to Yuba Dam, and other points along the rails.

A half a million checks a year he has to sign, which is some chore; you know how you get on your ear when you must sign a measly score. He used to labor all day long to pay the bills our Uncle owed, and, though courageous, brave, and strong, his back was bent beneath the load.

And then the Treasurer got wise and blew himself for this machine—the little trap before your eyes,—which helps to pay the good long green. Though simple, it is yet a power, and illustrates our modern way; now Mr. Thiel in half an hour can do what used to take a day.

Ten fountain pens, fixed in a frame, obey the motions of his hand; he writes with one, all write the same, as though a wizard gave command. A goodly youth of princely mien stands by to feed the numbered sheets into the marvelous machine of which this soulful lyric treats.

The Treasurer, the other day, remarked to the surrounding clerks: "Now, let me have the right of way—we'll see how fast this blamed thing works." A hundred checks he therewith signed in fleeting seconds fifty-four—which surely beats the painful grind he used to know in days of yore. Just take your blackboard and some chalk, and figure, in your blithesome way, how many checks a man could knock from this machine in half a day.

Oh, figure till the day is through, and keep on figuring, my friend; then figure out what you would do if you had all those checks to spend.

Training a Man to Be an Omnibus

WHY does the steak you can get for fifty cents on Sixth Avenue cost a dollar and a quarter at the Ritz-Carlton? Partly because of the "service." The hungry man who spends five cents for a cup of coffee at Child's is not over-sensitive as to the manner in which it is served; but the gentleman who pays forty cents at the Waldorf-Astoria is. In turn, the bigger the restaurant, the more exacting the management of its employees.

A high-class restaurant trains its men for their positions. One would think that an omnibus—an apprentice waiter—could set up tables and clear them off without any special training. But this is not the opinion of fourteen of the largest hotels in New York City. Before a boy can enter any of their dining-rooms, he must undergo a rigorous course of study in the Training School for Omnibuses they maintain in New York City.

There are two definite requirements that the applicant must meet before he is admitted to the school. The first is cleanliness; the second, quickness. If he is not willing to shine his shoes, comb his hair, and pay special attention to his finger-nails, he will never be an omnibus. Nor will he be given the training if he shows signs of being a "clodhopper."

Americans Excluded

IT'S a unique training that can take a "green" foreigner, put him through a quick-fire course of a few weeks, and then turn him loose in a big dining-room. Julius Stein, the man who has managed the school since its establishment three years ago, is a veteran head waiter himself, and he doesn't spare the feelings of the would-be omnibuses who come his way. His firm belief is that not everybody can be an omnibus—any more than he can be a pianist or an actor. American boys, especially, are incapable of being trained for this arduous profession. They are too "obstreperous," too independent, too likely to answer a curt order with a slap on the cheek. If Mr. Stein were running a school for bell-hops, he'd let American boys in; but in his school only one American boy out of fifty has stood the test.

Mr. Stein's position is not an easy one. He works with the rawest of raw material, foreign-born boys, most of whom have never seen a big dining-room. He must turn them out capable of meeting the requirements of the big houses. With what patience he teaches and translates and repeats! For an omnibus must know the name of every article used in a restaurant.

The school is a laboratory restaurant, in which imaginary meals are served. There are service tables, small guest tables with covers for two, large guest tables with covers for four, linen, silver, china, glassware, oyster shells on oyster plates, tabasco sauce and horse-radish, ancient rolls.

The boys are first taught to set up a table. Mr. Stein is the waiter, each boy, in turn, his omnibus.

There is an amazing routine to the omnibus's job. Before the guests arrive, he covers the table-cloth with a top, places salt and pepper shakers, dinner plates with napkins, water pitcher, and glasses turned wrong side up. The napkins he is not allowed to touch, but brings on a plate. Glasses must be brought on a tray. Linen and silver are to be found on the service tables, glassware in the pantry. Even a plate is placed just so, with the monogram facing the guest.

When the head waiter has seated the guests, the omnibus brings ice. He then waits respectfully until the waiter has taken the order. Each table is set according to the order. Silver is brought on a tray.

Clearing off is the less pleasant half of the omnibus's work. The best houses do not allow trays for removing dishes. This means that the omnibus must not only be able to carry a weight of dishes on his arm, but must know how to hold his fingers so that they form a foundation. If dishes are dropped only two or three times, an omnibus is discharged. And no waiter will stake his omnibus to part of the tip if the 'bus leaves the service tables encumbered with dirty dishes.

The would-be omnibus's training is complete only when he can set up a table correctly and clear it without dropping dishes. With most of the boys this takes three weeks to learn. The number of pupils at the school is kept within a limit of fifteen, so that each boy can receive personal attention. When they finish their course, Mr. Stein finds them a job. He is a wizard at this. There is no restaurant in New York whose class of service he can not tell with his eyes shut. French help for Delmonico's, Greeks for the Hotel Manhattan.

His Training Is Only Begun

THE trained omnibus receives about $22 a month. To this may be added ten or fifteen cents out of each dollar of the waiter's tips—if the omnibus really helps the waiter. Apprenticeship is long, promotion slow. While it takes only three weeks for boys to be trained as omnibuses, it requires three years for an omnibus to become a waiter. And the three years are strenuous ones of fines and suspensions and discharges. I've have worked to the top of the profession, however. Think of Oscar Tschirky "Oscar," maître de hôtel at the Waldorf Astoria, and A. Schneider, maître de hôtel of the Astor!

Often a boy who is already a hotel employee becomes ambitious. The school now boasts of a Greek pantry-man who wants to work in the dining-room. Exactly how much in earnest he is may ascertained from the fact that his ten-or twelve-hour work-day has to be supplemented by two hours at the school. Greeks are good workers, according to Mr. Stein; but Austrians or Germans usually make better omnibuses.

Putting the Hen Out of Business

COLORED ministers are said to possess a strong affection for chicken; but it seems that the male gender is not alone in this marked partiality.

Bena Martens, an old colored woman who lived in Charleston, South Carolina, bought a setting of Leghorn eggs—costing more money than she ever dreamed fifteen eggs could cost—and placed them under a setting hen.

All went well for several days, when the hen grew weary of her task and deserted the nest. No amount of coaxing could persuade her to return. Aunt Bena was in despair. Finally a triumphant idea occurred to her. She disappeared, and remained out of sight so long that her neighbors grew alarmed and asked what had become of Aunt Bena.

"Lord, boss," exclaimed the questioned one, "she been hatchin' dem eggs."

"Impossible!" ejaculated the hearer.

"No, sah, it ain't. Aunt Bena done hatched every one o' dem fifteen eggs last Monday. She just stayed in bed, with dem eggs right close up to her, till she hatched 'em, an' she's de proudest woman o' dem little biddies you ever seed."

Investigation proved the statement to be correct. Aunt Bena had actually taken the hen's place and hatched the fifteen eggs.

Successful Though Rich

By ALBERT W. ATWOOD

"I HAVE read in the papers about the immense profits by the du Pont Powder Company since the war started," writes a young man; "but what I want to know is this: Did the du Ponts inherit the business or did they not? I don't see why these men should get so much credit if they were born rich. Do you think there is any such chance for young men who have nothing to start with?"

IT is quite true that the du Ponts inherited the powder business, and that it has been a family affair for a long time. But it is a great achievement for any family to keep a business going successfully without the incentive of poverty. Besides, the most successful member of the family was not born to the business. Strangely enough, he was not even born rich.

T. Coleman du Pont, who recently sold out his controlling interest in the powder business to his cousins to become the owner of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, was not born to great wealth at all. His father discovered that there was not enough room in the business for all the younger members of the family, and went to Louisville, Kentucky, to enter the trade of paper-making. There Coleman du Pont was born; and, while his father was able to give him a good technical education and start him in the coal business, Coleman would never have become the powerful factor he is in American business life if he had not had great energy and ability.

So successful was he in operating coal and iron mines that in 1902, when all the older du Ponts had either died or petered out, until there was little ability left, some one suddenly suggested: "Why, there is Cousin Coleman out in Kentucky. Perhaps he could be induced to take an interest."

The powder trade was at a low ebb. The railroads were charging enormous freight rates to carry high explosives. Express companies would not carry them at all if there was any way of getting out of it. Coleman du Pont sized up the situation. He saw that freight rates must be eliminated. So new factories, small ones, were dotted all over the country, in twenty-two States. Orders were filled from the nearest plants, and the expense in transportation was practically done away with. Meanwhile, Coleman du Pont had bought in stock at low prices, but when he came to sell out more than ten years later he got nearly $20,000,000 for it.

He Works With His Men, Not Over Them

A MAN with enough strength of character and force will succeed in anything. Coleman du Pont was not afraid to leave the coal business to become president of a powder company, a trade about which he knew nothing. But sill more remarkable was his self-restraint in selling out his powder stock just as the European war started, knowing as he must have that it was sure to become immensely more valuable. But he had started to put up, almost alone, a $30,000,000 building for the Equitable Life Assurance Society in New York. And, although he knew nothing about life insurance, he bought the company itself. He had finished his work with the powder industry, and a few millions more didn't matter.

He is a big man physically, very strong and skilful with his hands. He has innumerable hobbies, loves eery variety of animal, and has always worked with his men rather than over them. He was always able to do any work that his men could do. Although perhaps the most prominent man in Delaware for a number of years, and a member of its best known family, he was called by his first name even by the negro porters at the railroad station. When he was president of the company, a far greater number of begrimed laborers entered his office in a day than superintendents, bankers, and financiers. He always had time to listen to any complaint or to see anybody.

I should say that a young man born without riches has just as much chance to succeed, provided he has both brains and the necessary energy, as the sons of the rich. If Coleman du Pont had been born with another name he might not have gone into the powder business, but he would have made a great success elsewhere.

Standing on Your Head on a Wave

DOWN in the South Sea Islands, where the people really don't care whether they get their costumes wet or not (since the costumes consist of a blue hair ribbon and a string of pearl beads), there is a very popular sport called "surf-riding."

To surf-ride, one provides himself with a long board weighing about a hundred and fifty pounds and shaped after the fashion of a cigar.

Thus equipped, the rider wades out beyond the line of breakers and waits for a particularly string and high wave to come along. At precisely the right moment, he launches himself on the wave, and is propelled at terrific speed away up the beach. On a shallow shore, where the surf reaches far out, one may often ride several hundred yards in this way, and the sensation is said to be wonderful.

Beginners are satisfied, or should be, with lying full length on the board; but no such simple plan suffices the experienced rider. He must kneel, stand upright, or balance on his head; and in any of these positions it requires a fine sense of equilibrium to avoid a spill.

The sport so long popular in the South Seas has come into vogue in California. The picture shows Vance Vieth, of Los Angeles, standing on his head with his feet in the air.