What Causes Typewriters' Cramp?

By EDWIN F. BOWERS, M.D.

TYPEWRITERS' cramp—as well as writers', telegraphers', dancers', or pianists' palsy—is caused by over-stimulation of certain cells in definitely localized areas of the brain.

The first effect of this stimulation is to produce of this stimulation is to produce a swelling of the nerve or brain produce a swelling of the nerve or brain cells, by the absorption of the nutritive material in which the cells are bathed. However, as they become more and more fatigued by long-continued stimulation, the cells shrink, their centers or nuclei become displaced, and finally they become disorganized, and death of the cell ensues.

The chemical results of these changes have been experimentally studied in animals. These investigations show that normal protoplasm—material of which the cells are composed—is transformed from phosphorus-loaded fat into neutral fat—fat devoid of phosphorus.

This is what happens when a typist, a pianist, or a clerk persists in over-stimulating those areas in the brain that order the fingers to write or play. If the will does not let up on these orders to the muscles concerned in writing or playing long enough for them to secure rest and recuperation from their over-stimulation, we have a case of palsy on our hands, with the same degeneration of motor nerve motor nerve matter which ultimately results in a total atrophy (or shrinking) of the nerves and muscles that they supply.

When to Ask for a Vacation

WITH these facets in mind, it is needless to say that "occupation cramps" are most serious disorders. Persistence in using the muscles concerned, after the symptoms of nerve-strain are manifest, is an open invitation to a breakdown.

When the fingers or arms feel stiff, heavy, or fatigued, when there is pain in using the affected groups, often associated with a tremor of the muscles, it is high time to ask for a vacation. Otherwise complete paralysis may follow.

Often there is a sensation of pricking or numbness in the fingers, and sometimes great nervousness and mental depression.

The treatment is simple enough—if it can be carried out. It consists in rest, and then rest—followed by more rest. Massage of the parts is beneficial—always stroking in the direction of the flow of the venous blood—from below upward. A course of electric treatments—preferably by the faradic battery—is helpful.

The FitzGerald method has also been successful in this affliction. This consists in stimulating normal nerve functioning by sharply pricking the ends of the affected fingers several minutes at a time, morning and night, with a blunt knitting-needle. Dr. Fitzgerald frequently uses a steel hair-comb for this purpose. This treatment must be persistently carried out to secure the best results.

Also, a long course of nerve-tonics, under the advice of a competent physician, is usually necessary. But over and above all, no matter what the circumstances, these disorders should never be treated with contempt. For they are much more grave and serious than we have hitherto thought, and their cure is dependent upon the complete coöperation of the afflicted one. Unless the cause of the condition—which is almost invariably over-exertion of the affected muscle groups—can be removed, the outlook is decidedly unpromising. There is one worse thing than having typewriters' cramp, and that is obstinately to disregard the fact that one has it.

A House that Horse-Radish Built

By WALT MASON

NOW it is Martin Wise and wife on whom you fix your gaze; they've lived a long and useful life, that had no futile days. His years count up to seventy-three, and hers threescore and ten; and they should live, their friends agree, as many years again.

Horse-radish is a condiment that beats the chemists' best; it has a rich, hair-lifting scent, it's loaded down with zest. The Wises grate and bottle it, and sell it in their town and it's so pure and strong and fit, it has a wide renown. Five thousand bottles of their sauce in season they have sold, and rivals were a total loss and found the peddling cold.

Two years ago said Martin Wise, "It's time we had a home"; to which the faithful wife replies, "No bats are in your dome."

He once had learned the mason's trade, is golden bygone years; and he had acted as an aide to skilful carpenteers. "We'll build this residence ourselves," the dauntless couple swore, "from cornice to the pantry shelves, from porch to kitchen door."

They labored in the burning sun, they toiled there side by side, until their mighty task was done and they could point with pride. As first assistant, Mrs. Wise did stunts that might have strained a husky man of twice her size; but never she complained. She did the lathing all alone, and did it mighty well, while Martin, man of brawn and bone, nailed shingles for a spell. And when not at these heavy tasks, horse-radish she would grate, and put it up in handsome flasks, and help to pay the freight. Their radish brought in all the kale that helped make good their dream; it paid for every lath and nail, for every joist and beam. It paid for every bed and quilt, the stove that bakes the pies; it is "The House that Radish Built" to which you glue your eyes.

They're watching, form their fig-tree, now, the years scoot down the track; let's hope that Martin Wise and Frau may long enjoy their shack.

"I Dread the End of the Year"

"I DREAD to come to the end of the year," siad a friend to us recently; "it makes me realize I am growing old."

That suggests a question: When is a man old?

In Shakespeare's time a man was old at forty, and often, because of the gay life, invalided long before that.

Sir Walter Scott at fifty-five bemoaned the fact that he was an old man.

Montaigne retired to his castle at thirty-eight to spend his declining years in peace and study.

Dr. Samuel Johnson once remarked that at thirty-five a man had reached his peak, and after that his course must be downward.

Psychologists tell us that in all mammals except man the period of life is five times the period of growth. A dog gets its full growth in two years, and lives ten; a horse in five years, and lives twenty-five. On this basis a man should live from one hundred to one hundred and fifty years.

Why were these three men—Scott, Montaigne, and Johnson—old while they were still comparatively young?

The answer is, because they felt old and acted old.

William James, the great psychologist, said that most men are "old fogies at twenty-five."

He was right. Most men at twenty-five are satisfied with their jobs. They have accumulated the little stock of prejudices that they call their "principles," and closed their minds to all new ideas: they have ceased to grow.

The minute a man ceases to grow,—no matter what his years,—that minute he begins to be old.

Bismark, who died at eighty-three, did his greatest work after he was seventy.

Titian, the celebrated painter, lived to be ninety-nine, painting right up to the end.

Goethe died at eighty-three, and finished his "Faust" only a few years earlier; Gladstone took up a new language when he was seventy; Commodore Vanderbilt increased the mileage of his lines from 120 to more than 10,000 between his seventieth birthday and his death at eighty-three.

Laplace, the astronomer, was still at work when death caught up with him at seventy-eight. He died crying, "What we know is nothing: what we do not know is immense."

And there you have the real answer to the question, When is a man old?

Laplace at seventy-eight died young. He was still unsatisfied, still growing, still sure that he had a lot to learn.

As long as a man can keep himself in that attitude of mind, as long as he can look back on every year and say, "I grew," he is still young.

The minute he ceases to grow, the day he says to himself, "I know all that I need to know"—that day youth stops. He may be twenty-five or seventy-five, it makes no difference. On that day he begins to be old.

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 Avenue.

The Wall Street Girl

By FREDERICK ORIN BARTLETT

Illustrations by George E. Wolfe

BEFORE beginning to read the interesting document in front of him, Jonas Barton, senior member of Barton & Saltonstall, paused to clean his glasses rather carefully, in order to gain sufficient time to study for a moment the tall, good-looking young man who waited indifferently on the other side of the desk. He had not seen his late client's son since the latter had entered college—a black-haired, black-eyed lad of seventeen, impulsive in manner and speech. The intervening four years had tempered him a good deal. And yet, the Pendleton characteristics were all there—the square jaw, the rather large, firm mouth, the thin nose, the keen eyes. They were all there, but each a trifle subdued: the square jaw not quite so square as the father's, the mouth not quite so large, the nose so sharp, or the eyes so keen. On the other hand, there was a certain fineness that the father had lacked.

In height Don fairly matched his father's six feet, although he still lacked the Pendleton breadth of shoulder.

THE son was lean, and his cigarette—a dillettante variation of honest tobacco-smoking that had always been a source of irritation to his father—did not look at all out of place between his long, thin fingers; in fact, nothing else would have seemed quite suitable. Barton was also forced to admit to himself that the young man, in some miraculous way, managed to triumph over his rather curious choice of raiment, based presumably on current styles. In and of themselves the garments were not beautiful. From Barton's point of view, Don's straw hat was too large and too high in the crown. His black-and-white check suit was too conspicuous and cut close to the figure in too feminine a fashion. His lavender socks, which matched a lavender tie, went well enough with the light stick he carried; but, in his opinion, a young man of twenty-two had no business to carry a light stick. By no stretch of the imagination could one picture the elder Pendleton in such garb, even in his jauntiest days. And yet, as worn by Don, it seemed as if he could not very well have worn anything else. Even the mourning-band about his left arm, instead of adding a somber touch, afforded an effective bit of contrast. This, however, was no fault of his. That mourning has artistic possibilities is a happy fact that has brought gentle solace to many a widow.

On the whole, Barton could not escape the deduction that the son reflected the present rather than the past. Try as he might, it was difficult for him to connect this young man with Grandfather Pendleton, ship-builder of New Bedford, or with the father who in his youth commanded the Nancy R. But that was by no means his duty—as Don faintly suggested when he uncrossed his knees and hitched forward impatiently.

"Your father's will is dated three years ago last June," began Barton.

"At the end of my freshman year," Don observed.

Jonas Barton adjusted his spectacles and began to read. He read slowly and very distinctly, as if anxious to give full value to each syllable:

Donald Pendleton, Jr., waved an objection with his cigarette.

"Can't you cut out all the legal stuff and just give me the gist of it? There's no doubt about father having been of sound mind and so forth."

"It is customary—" began the attorney.

"Well, we'll break the custom," Don cut in sharply.

Barton glanced up. It might have been his late client speaking; it gave him a start.

"As you wish," he assented. "Perhaps, however, I may be allowed to observe that in many ways your father's will is peculiar."

"It wouldn't be father's will if it wasn't peculiar," declared Don.

BARTON pushed the papers away from him.

"Briefly, then," he said, "your father leaves his entire estate to you—in trust."

Don leaned forward, his stick grasped in his gloved hands.

"I don't get that last."

"In trust," repeated Barton with emphasis. "He has honored our firm with the commission of serving as a board of trustees for carrying out the terms of the will."

"You mean to fix my allowance?"

"To carry out the terms of the will, which are as follows: namely, to turn over to you, but without power of conveyance, the paternal domicile on West Sixtieth Street with all its contents."

Don frowned.

"Paternal domicile—I can translate that all right. I suppose you mean the house. But what's that line 'without power of conveyance'?"

"It means that you are at liberty to occupy the premises, but that you are to have no power to sell, to rent, or to dispose of the property in any way whatsoever."

Don appeared puzzled.

"That's a bit queer. What do you suppose dad thought I wanted of a place that size to live in?"

"I think your father was a man of considerable sentiment."

"Eh?"

"Sentiment," Barton repeated. "It was there you were born, and there your mother died."

"Yes, that's all correct; but—well, go on."

"The rest of the document, if you insist upon a digest, consists principally of directions to the trustees. Briefly, it provides that we invest the remainder of the property in safe bonds and apply the interest to meet taxes on the aforesaid paternal domicile, to retain and pay the wages of the necessary servants, to

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"Well, go on."

"In case of your demise—"

"You may skip my demise; I'm not especially interested in that."

"Then I think we have covered all the more important provisions," Barton concluded.

"All?" exclaimed Don. "What do you think I'm going to live on?"

HERE was the clash for which Barton been waiting. His face hardened, and he shoved back his chair a little.

"I am not able to find any provision in the will relating to that," he answered.

"Eh? But what the deuce—"

For a moment Don stared openmouthed at the lawyer. Then he reached in his pocket for his cigarettes, selected one with some deliberation, and tapped an end upon the case.

"You said dad had considerable sentiment," he observed. "It strikes me he has shown more humor than sentiment."

Barton was still aggressive. To tell the truth, he expected some suggestion as to the possibility of breaking the will; but if ever he had drawn a paper all snug and tight, it was the one in question.

"Damme," Pendleton, Sr., had said. "Damme, Barton, if the lad is able to break the will, I'll rise in my grave and haunt you the rest of your days"

If the boy wished to test the issue, Barton was ready for him. But the boy's thoughts seemed to be on other things.

"I suppose," mused Pendleton, Jr., "I suppose it was that freshman scrape that worried him."

"I was not informed of that," replied Barton.

"It made good reading," the young man confided. "But, honest, it was not so bad as the papers made it out. Dad was a good sport about it, anyhow. He cleared it up and let me go on."

"If you will allow me to advance an opinion,—a strictly personal opinion,—it is that Mr. Pendleton devised the entire will with nothing else but your welfare in mind. He had a good deal of pride, and desired above all things to have you retain the family home. If I remember correctly, he said you were the last lineal descendant."

Don nodded pleasantly.

"The last. Kind of looks as if he wanted me to remain the last."

"On the contrary," ventured Barton, "I think he hoped you might marry and—"

"Marry?" broke in Don. "Did you say marry?"

"I even understood, from a conversation with your father just before his death, that you—er—were even then engaged. Am I mistaken?"

"No; that's true enough. But say— look here."

The young man reached in his pocket and brought forth a handful of crumpled bills and loose change. He counted it carefully.

"Twelve dollars and sixty-three cents," he announced. "What do you think Frances Stuyvesant will say to that?"

Barton refrained from advancing an opinion.

"What do you think Morton H. Stuyvesant will say?" demanded Don.

No point of law being involved in the query, Jonas Barton still refrained.

"What do you think Mrs. Morton H. Stuyvesant will say, and all the uncles and aunties and nephews and nieces?"

"Not being their authorized representative, I am not prepared to answer," Barton replied. "However, I think I can tell you what your father would do under these circumstances."

"What?" inquired Don.

"He would place all the facts in the case before the girl, then before her father, and learn just what they had to say."

"Wrong. He wouldn't go beyond the girl," answered Don.

He replaced the change in his pocket.

"Ah," he sighed—"them were the happy days."

"If I remember correctly," continued Jonas Barton thoughtfully, "twelve dollars and sixty-three cents was fully as much as your father possessed when he asked your mother to marry him. That was just after he lost his ship off Hatteras."

"Yes, them were the happy days," nodded Don. "But at that, dad had his nerve with him always."

IN spite of the continued efforts of idealists to belittle it, there is scarcely a fact of human experience capable of more universal substantiation than that in order to live it is necessary to eat. The corollary is equally true: in order to eat it is necessary to pay.

And yet until now Pendleton had been in a position to ignore, if not to refute, the latter statement. There was probably no detail of his daily existence calling for less thought or effort than this matter of dining. Opportunities were provided on every hand,—at the houses of his friends, at his club, at innumerable cafés and hotels,—and all that he was asked to contribute was an appetite.

It was not until he had exhausted his twelve dollars and sixty-three cents that Don was in any position to change his point of view. But that was very soon. After leaving the office of Barton & Saltonstall at eleven, he took a taxi to the Harvard Club, which immediately cut down his capital to ten dollars and thirteen cents. Here he met friends, Higgens and Watson and Cabot of his class, and soon he had disposed of another dollar. They then persuaded him to walk part way downtown with them. On his return, he passed a florist's, and, remembering that Frances was going that afternoon to thé dansant, did the decent thing and sent up a dozen roses, which cost him five dollars. Shortly after this he passed a confectioner's and of course had to stop for a box of Frances' favorite bon-bons, which cost him another dollar.

Not that he considered the expense in the least. As long as he was able to reach in his pocket and produce a bill of sufficient value to cover the immediate investment, that was enough. But it is surprising how brief a while ten dollars will suffice in a leisurely stroll on Fifth Avenue. Within a block of the confectionery store two cravats that took his fancy and a box of cigarettes called for his last bill, and actually left him with nothing but a few odd pieces of silver. Even this did not impress him as significant, because, as it happened, his wants were for the moment fully satisfied.

It was a clear October day, and, quite unconscious of the distance, Don continued up the avenue to Sixteenth Street—to the house where he was born. In the last ten years he has been away a good deal from that house—four years at Groton, four at Harvard—but, even so, the house had always remained in the background of his consciousness as a fixed point.

Nora opened the door for him, as she had for twenty years.

Are you to be here for dinner, sir?" she inquired.

"No, Nora," he answered; "I shall dine out to-night."

Nora appeared uneasy.

The cook, sir, has received a letter—a very queer sort of letter, sir—from a lawyer gentleman."

"Eh?"

"He said she was to keep two accounts, sir: one for the servants' table and one for the house."

"Oh, that's probably from old Barton."

"Barton—yes, sir, that was the name. Shall I bring you the letter, sir?

Don't bother, Nora. It's all right. He's my new bookkeeper."

Very well, sir. Then you'll give orders for what you want?"

"Yes, Nora."

In the library an open fire was burning brightly on the hearth, as always it had been kept burning for his father. With is hands behind his back, he stood before it and gazed around the big room. It seemed curiously empty with the old man gone. The machinery of the house was as adjusted by him still continued to run on smoothly. And yet, where at certain hours he should have been, he was not. It was uncanny.

It was a little after one; Don determined to change his clothes and stroll downtown for luncheon—possibly at Sherry's. He was always sure there of running across some one he knew.

He went to his room and dressed with some care, and then walked down to Forty-fourth Street. Before deciding to enter the dining room, however, he stood at the entrance a moment to see if there was any one there he recognized. Jimmy Harndon saw him and rose at once.

"Hello, Jimmy," Don greeted him.

"Hello, Don. You came in the nick of time. Lend me ten, will you?"

"Sure," answered Don.

He sought his bill-book. It was empty. For a moment he was confused.

"Oh, never mine," said Jimmy, perceiving his embarrassment. "I'll phone dad to send it up by messenger. Bit of fool carelessness on my part. You'll excuse me?"

Harndon hurried off to the telephone.

Don stared at his empty pocket-book, at the head waiter, who still stood at the door expectantly, and then replaced the empty wallet in his pocket. There was no use waiting here any longer. He could not dine, if he wished. Never before in his life had he been confronted by such a situation. Once or twice he had been in Harndon's predicament, but that had meant no ore to him than it meant to Harndon—nothing but a temporary embarrassment. The difference now was that Harndon could still telephone his father and that he could not. Here was a significant distinction; it was something he much think over.

DON went on to the Harvard Club. He passed two or three men he knew in the lobby, but shook his head at their invitation to join them. He took a seat by himself before an open fire in a far corner of the lounge. Then he took out his billbook again, and examined it with some care, in the hope that a bill might have slipped in among his cards. The search was without result. Automatically his father's telephone number suggested itself, but that number was now utterly without meaning. A new tenant who undoubtedly would report to the police a modest request to forward to the Harvard Club by messenger a hundred dollars.

He was beginning to feel hungry—much hungrier than he would have felt with a pocket full of money. If course his credit at the club was good. He could have gone into the dining-room and ordered what he wished. But credit took on a new meaning. Until now it had been nothing but a trifling convenience, because at the end of the month he had only to forward his bill to his father. But that could not be done any longer.

He could also have gone to any one of a dozen men of his acquaintance and borrowed from five to fifty dollars. But it was one thing to borrow as he had in the past, and another to borrow in his present

Page 5

The situation was, on the face of it, so absurd that the longer he thought it over the more convinced he became that Barton had made some mistake. He decided to telephone Barton.

It was with a sense of relief that Don found the name of Barton & Saltonstall still in the telephone-book. It would not have surprised him greatly if that too had disappeared. It was with a still greater sense of relief that he finally heard Barton's voice.

"Look here," he began. "It seems to me there must be some misunderstanding somewhere. Do you realize that I'm stony broke?"

"Why, no," answered Barton. "I thought you showed me the matter of thirteen dollars or so."

"I did; but that's gone, and all I have now is the matter of thirteen cents or so."

"I'm sorry," answered Barton. "If a small loan would be of any temporary advantage—"

"Hang it!" cut in Don. "You don't think I'm trying to borrow, do you?"

"I beg your pardon. Perhaps you will tell me, then, just what you do wish."

"I must eat, mustn't I?"

"I consider that a fair presumption."

"Then what the deuce!"

Don evidently expected this ejaculation to be accepted as a full and conclusive statement. But, as far as Barton was concerned, it was not. "Yes?" he queried.

"I say, what the deuce?"

"I don't understand."

"What am I going to do?"

"Oh, I see. You mean, I take it, what must you do in order to provide yourself with funds."

"Exactly," growled Don.

"Of course, the usual method is to work," suggested Barton.

"Eh?"

"To find a position with some firm which, in return for your services, is willing to pay you a certain fixed sum weekly or monthly. I offer you the suggestion for what it is worth. You can think it over."

"Think it over!" exclaimed Don. "How long do you think I can think on thirteen cents?"

"If you authorize me to act for you in the matter, I have no doubt something can be arranged."

"You seem to hold all the cards."

"I am merely obeying your father's commands," Barton hastened to assure him. "Now, can you give me any idea what you have in mind?"

"I'll do anything except sell books," Don answered promptly.

"Very well," concluded Barton. "I'll advise you by mail as soon as anything develops."

"Thanks."

"In the meanwhile, if you will accept a loan—"

"Thanks again," answered Don; "but I'll go hungry first." He hung up the receiver and went back to the lounge.

STUYVESANT was proud of his daughter—proud of her beauty, proud of her ability to dress, proud of her ability to spend money. She gave him about the only excuse he now had for continuing to hold his seat on the Stock Exchange. The girl was tall and dark and slender, and had an instinct for clothes that permitted her to follow the vagaries of fashion to their extremes with the assurance of a Parisienne, plus a certain Stuyvesant daring that was American. At dinner that night she wore, for Don's benefit, a new French gown that made even him catch his breath. It was beautiful, but without her it would not have been beautiful. Undoubtedly its designer took that into account when he designed the gown.

The dinner was in every way a success, and a credit to the Stuyvesant chef—who, however, it must be said, seldom had the advantage of catering to a guest that had not lunched. Stuyvesant was in a good humor, Mrs. Stuyvesant pleasantly negative as usual, and Frances radiant. Early in the evening Stuyvesant went off to his club for a game of bridge, and Mrs. Stuyvesant excused herself to write notes.

"I met Reggie Howland at the tea this afternoon," said Frances. "He was very nice to me."

"Why shouldn't he be?" inquired Don.

"I rather thought you would come. Really, when one goes to all the bother of allowing oneself to be engaged, the least one expects is a certain amount of attention from one's fiancé."

She was standing by the piano, and he went to her side and took her hand—the hand wearing the solitaire that had been his mother's.

"You're right," he nodded; "but I was all tied up with business this afternoon."

She raised her dark brows a trifle.

"Business?"

"Lots of it," he nodded. "Come over here and sit down; I want to tell you about it."

HE led her to a chair before the open fire. He himself continued to stand with his back to the flames. He was not serious. The situation struck him now as even funnier than it had in Barton's office. He had in his pocket just thirteen cents, and yet here he was in Stuyvesant's house, engaged to Stuyvesant's daughter.

"It seems," he began—"it seems that dad would have his little joke before he died."

"Yes?" she responded indifferently. She was bored by business of any sort.

"I had a talk to-day with Barton—his lawyer. Queer old codger, Barton. Seems he's been made my guardian. Dad left him to me in his will. He left me Barton, the house, and twelve dollars and sixty-three cents."

"Yes, Don."

She did not quite understand why he was going into details. They did not seem to concern her, even as his fiancée.

"Of that patrimony I now have thirteen cents left," Don continued. "See, here it is."

He removed from his pocket two nickels and three coppers.

"It doesn't look like much, does it?"

"Oh, Don," she laughed, "do be serious!"

"I am serious," he assured her. "I've been serious ever since I went to Sherry's for lunch, and found I did not have enough for even a club sandwich."

"But, Don!" she gasped.

"It's a fact. I had to leave."

"Then where did you lunch?"

"I didn't lunch."

"You mean you did not have enough change to buy something to eat?"

"I had thirteen cents. You can't buy anything with that, can you?"

"I—I don't know."

Suddenly she remembered how, once on her way home from Chicago, she lost her purse and did not have sufficient change left even to wire her father to meet her. She was forced to walk from the station to the house. The experience had always been like a nightmare to her. She rose and stood before him.

"But, Don—what are you going to do?"

"I telephoned Barton, and he suggested I take some sort of position with a business house. He's going to find something for me. I'm not worrying about that; but what I want to know is what I ought to do about you."

"I don't understand, Don."

"I mean about our engagement."

She looked puzzled.

"I'm afraid I'm very stupid."

"We can't be married on thirteen cents, can we?"

"But we needn't be married until you have more, need we?"

"That's so. And you're willing to wait?"

"You know I've told you I didn't wish to be married before spring, anyway. I think it's much pleasanter staying just as we are."

"We can't be engaged all our lives," he protested.

"We can be engaged as long as we wish, can't we?"

"I want to marry you as soon as I can."

Her eyes brightened and she placed a soft hand upon his arm.

"That's nice of you, Don," she said. "But you don't know what a frightfully expensive burden I'll be as a wife."

"If I earned, to start with, say fifty dollars a week—would you marry me on that?"

"If I did, what would we live on?" she inquired.

"Well, I have the house. That's provided for—all except the table."

"But if I spent the fifty dollars for a new hat, then what would we have left for provisions?"

"You mustn't spend it all on a new hat," he warned.

"Then, there are gowns and—oh, lots of things you don't know anything about."

"Couldn't you get along with a little less?"

She thought a moment.

"I don't see how," she decided. "I never get anything I don't want."

"That's something," he nodded approvingly. "Then you think I must earn more than fifty a week?"

"I only know that dad gives me an allowance of ten thousand a year, and there's never anything left," she answered.

"Ten thousand a year!" he exclaimed.

"Everything is so expensive to-day, Don. All this talk sounds frightfully vulgar, but—there's no use pretending, is there?"

"Not a bit," he answered. "And if ten thousand a year is what you need, ten thousand a year is what I must earn."

"I don't believe it's very hard, because dad does it so easily," she declared.

"I'll get it," he nodded confidently. "And, now that it's all settled, let's forget it. Come over to the piano and sing for me."

He sat down before the keys and played her accompaniments, selecting his own songs. They ran through some of the latest opera successes, and then swung off to the simpler and older things. It was after "Annie Laurie" that he rose and looked deep into her eyes.

"I'll get it for you," he said soberly.

"Oh, Don!" she whispered. "Sometimes nothing seems important but just you."

THE arrangement that Barton made for his late client's son was to enter the banking house of Carter, Rand & Seagraves, on a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. Don found the letter at the Harvard Club the next morning, and immediately telephoned Barton.

"Look here!" he exclaimed. "I appreciate what you've tried to do and all that, but what in thunder good is twelve hundred dollars a year?"

"It is at least twelve hundred more than you have now," suggested Barton.

"But how can I live on it?"

"You must remember you have the house—"

"Hang the house," Don interrupted. "I must eat and smoke and buy clothes, mustn't I? Besides, there's Frances. She needs ten thousand a year."

"I have no doubt but that, in time, a man of your ability—"

"How long a time?"

"As to that I am not prepared to give an opinion," replied Barton.

"Because it isn't when I'm eighty that I want it."

"I should say the matter was entirely in your own hands. This at least offers you an opening, and I advise you to accept it. However, you must decide for yourself; and if at any later date I may be of service—"

Don returned to the lounge to think the matter over. It was ten o'clock and he

Continued on page 17

The Champion Bee-Catcher

WHEN a swarm of bees suddenly encamps on your Victrola, don't send for the police or burn your house down in an effort to smoke them out. Just call up Jimmy Fisk, Redlands, California, and Jimmy will come—provided you send him carfare and are willing to pay him a reasonable wage for his time.

For experts can't be had these days without money, you understand; and Jimmy is an expert—the only professional bee-catcher in the United States. Out in his territory they call him the Bee-Coaxer.

You know that feeling that comes over you sometimes, madam, that, no matter if the heavens fall, you've simply got to drop everything and wash your hair. Well, it's that way with bees. When they make up their minds to swarm, they swarm, and nothing can stop them. The new queen calls to them, and the whole hive-full will follow her, no matter where. Usually they do not fly far, but they light in the most unexpected places— sometimes on the limb of a tree, or on a chimney, or in a church pulpit, or even on a passing vehicle. Swarms have been known to fasten on to and completely cover an innocent little bicycle standing at the curb.

Then comes Jimmy. Without gloves or any other protection except a simple mask, he collects the swarm, loads it on to a little express wagon, and takes it away to the nearest hive. It's quite a trick, as you would discover if you ever tried to handle a couple of thousand bees, each one with a perfectly healthy stinger spoiling for use. But Jimmy is never stung.

In the past few months he has collected a hundred swarms, which are now hived as respectable bees should be; and on the side he has gathered in something like two thousand pounds of honey: for when a bee swarm is allowed to remain in an empty barn or a hollow tree-trunk for any length of time, the workers have a number of combs filled in short order. And it's one of the rules of the profession that to the "catcher belong the spoils."

It is one of the best little things about the average American that, no matter what may happen, he will figure out some way to make a living. We like to dig up these stories of ingenious Americans who make their living after unconventional fashions of their own invention. We've told in these pages the stories of the man who catches rattlesnakes for a living, and the man who raises goats, and fifty others similarly interesting. And now to this collection of people in unique employments we add the story of Jimmy Fisk, the only man in America who makes his living as a professional catcher of bees.

Want to Weigh 350? Eat Popcorn

MANY people believe that there is no such town as Oshkosh, that it is simply one of those fanciful places that newspaper humorists have invented because it sounded good. To all such doubters this story will be very interesting.

It concerns Fred Dahlen, the man whom you see fitting so snugly into this popcorn wagon. To address Fred, through the mails, you write "Oshkosh, Wisconsin" on the envelop.

Some men bend and break under a blow of Fate: others—the real though unadvertised heroes of the world—merely laugh and grow fat. It is part of the business of this magazine to discover heroes of this every-day sort, and Fred Dahlen is one of that kind. When a train collided with him one afternoon, cutting off one leg, Fred was distressed, but his spirit was not broken. Before he left the hospital he had made up his mind to buy a popcorn wagon.

"It took all the money I could get together," he says, "and you might call it a long chance—a man of my age investing all his savings in a business he didn't know anything about. But I had an idea that the public is willing to pay a fellow that smiles—provided he gives 'em what they want. And I knew what the public wants—it wants plenty of butter. I started in to put more butter on my popcorn than any other popcorn man in the world, and inside of six weeks I had my competitors on the run.

"Now I make all the colored popcorn balls for the grocers at Christmas time—10,000 of them this year alone. Yes, it makes me a comfortable living. 'Bout $2000 this year isn't so bad, me bein' used to another trade and all. This year I had enough saved up to buy an automobile, and I'm going to hitch my wagon to the car next year and work the county fairs.

"I wouldn't encourage an able-bodied man to enter the popcorn business, though—too confining. But there isn't many things a one-legged man can do-especially," he added in an after-thought, "since I turned fleshy."

"Fleshy" Fred weighs over 350 pounds, and is still improving. No railway train would care to take a chance with Fred these days. But his optimism has increased in proportion to his flesh. He's the happiest one-legged man in Wisconsin, and Oshkosh folk claim that his popcorn wagon is as much a civic improvement as a drinking fountain.

How We Made Fifty Cents Grow

WE thirteen boys made up our minds a year ago that we ought to go to college. We held a meeting about it, and took up a collection to start a college fund. The results of that collection were exactly fifty cents—not much of a start, but still a start. Then we began looking for some way to make that fifty cents grow.

Kindling—there was an idea. Every family needs kindling, and we were the boys that knew how to provide it. We started in chopping up all the old boards and boxes we could lay our hands on, and before long we had sold eighty bunches of kindling at ten cents a bunch. Our fifty cents had grown to $8.50.

Then we took our whole fortune and bought an incubator, following the stories of people who say they have made money in chickens. Perhaps those people all tell the truth: we aren't saying they don't. But we didn't make any money—that is, hardly any. We finally unloaded our chicken business for $25. Then we borrowed $8, added it to our $25, and bought an old ruin of a horse, and went back into the kindling business on a wholesale scale.

You should have seen that old horse: he certainly looked like the last rose of summer. But we fed him up and were kind to him, and, if you'll believe it, he looked so much better and felt so much stronger this fall that we sold him for $60—a hundred per cent. on our investment and the use of the old fellow for several months into the bargain.

Well, sir, since then we have done almost everything that boys can do to turn an honest penny. The oldest of us is seventeen, and we range all the way down to eleven. We've collected gas bills, peddled papers, and now we're branching out into pigeon-raising and Belgian hares. We find we can sell our surplus stock without any trouble, and our capital stock is booming. Our treasury now contains $350, every cent of it made from that original fifty cents.

Some day you'll read in the papers the names of thirteen star football players at Yale or Harvard, and you'll notice that they all come from one town, Glenville, Ohio. That will be us. We haven't got nearly enough money yet, but we're young, and $350 is a pretty fair start, you'll agree. We have an idea that any dozen boys anywhere can go to college if they are willing to work, and have sense enough to save.

The Only Pet Sea-Cow

IF Mrs. Vernon Castle really wants to lead the fashion, she must get over the illusion that that monkey of hers is the latest thing in pets. Not at all. Haven't Mr. and Mrs. Schulze of Pittman, Florida, a pet sea-cow?

Professionally, Mr. Schulze is not a competitor of the Castles, being an alligator-hunter. He has trapped hundreds of alligators in the Everglades, but for twenty years he had wanted a sea-cow, and Mrs. Schulze simply couldn't be happy without one. Then they found Nellie. She was caught in his ordinary nets, but before he could pull her out he had to get permission from the government, and assure them he only intended to use Nellie for educational purposes. As Nellie is nine feet long and weighs nearly four hundred pounds, and as one blow of her tail can knock over an alligator she was not the easiest customer in the world; but Mr. Schulze finally got her into the wooden tank he had ready. Nellie isn't a fish: she can live without water four or five days, and she can remain under water for only five minutes. But her speed as swimmer is her great protection against alligators and crocodiles. Nellie seems to recognize her mistress and eats from her hand. For sea-cows are vegetarians, just as their dry-land sisters are, with almost the same swing of the jaws.

Since entering civilized society Nellie has spent much of her time traveling. She has a large galvanized iron tank which nicely fits an express car. Nellie has the advantage of her more terrestrial sisters in that she doesn't have to give milk; in fact, her chief asset might be said to be her face. Mr. Schulze has found this worth insuring for $3000.

Alms and the Man

By PERCEVAL GIBBON

Illustrations by Cecil Jay

WHILE she was yet dressing, she had heard the soft pad of slippers on the narrow landing outside her room and the shuffle of papers; then, heralded by a single knock, the scrape and crackle of a paper being pushed under her door. It was in this fashion that the Maison Mardel presented its weekly bill to its guests.

"Merci!" she called aloud, leaving her dressing to go and pick up the paper. A pant from without answered her, and the slipper thudded away.

Standing by the door, with arms and shoulders bare, she unfolded the document, a long sheet with a printed column of items and large inky figures in francs and centimes written against them, and down in the right-hand corner the dramatic climax of the total. It was the total that interested Annette Kelly.

"H'm!" It was something between a gasp and a sigh. "They're making the most of me while I last."

Her purse was under her pillow—an old and baggy affair of shagreen, whose torn lining had to be explored with a forefinger for the coins it swallowed. She emptied it now upon the bed. The light of a Paris summer morning, golden and serene, flowed in at the window, visiting the poverty of the little room with its barren benediction, and shining upon the figure of Annette as she bent above her money and counted it. She was a slender girl of some three-and-twenty years, with hair and eyes of a somber brown. Six weeks of searching for employment in Paris, of economizing on food, of spurring herself each morning to the tone of hope and resolution, of returning each evening footsore and dispirited, had a little blanched and touched with tenseness a face in which there yet lingered some of the soft contours of childhood.

SHE sat down beside the money on the bed, her ankles crossed below her petticoat. Her accounts were made up. After paying the bill and bestowing one franc in the unavoidable tip, there would remain to her exactly eight francs for her entire resources. It was the edge of the precipice at last.

"Well," said Annette slowly—she had already the habit of talking aloud to herself that comes to lonely people. She paused. "It just means that to-day I've got to get some work. I've got to!"

She rose, forcing herself to be brisk and energetic as she dressed. The Journal, with its advertisements of work, had come to her door with the glass of milk and the roll which formed her breakfast, and she had already made a selection of its more humble possibilities. She ran them over in her mind as she finished dressing. Two offices required typists; she would go to both of them. A cashier in a shop and an English governess were wanted: "Why shouldn't I be a governess?" said Annette. And, finally, somebody in the Rue St. Honoré required a young lady of good figure and pleasant manners for "reception." There were others, too; but it was upon these five that Annette decided to concentrate.

She put on her hat, took her money and her Journal, and turned to the door. A curious impulse checked her there, and she came back to the mirror that hung above her dressing-table.

"Let's have a look at you!" said Annette to the reflection that confronted her.

She stood, examining it seriously. It was, she thought, quite presentable—a trim, quiet figure of a girl who might reasonably ask work and wage; she could not find anything in it to account for those six weeks of refusals. She perked her chin and forced her face to look assured and spirited, watching the result.

"Ye-es," she said at last, and nodded to the reflection. "You'll have to do; but I wish—I wish you hadn't got that sort of doomed look. Good-by, old girl!"

At the foot of the stairs, in the open door of that room which was labeled the "bureau," where a bed and a bird-cage and a smell of food kept company with the roll-top desk, stood, the patronne, Madame Mardel.

"Good morning, Mademoiselle. Again a charming day!"

She was a large woman, grossly fleshy. Annette knew her for an artist in "extras," a vampire that had sucked her purse lean with deft overcharges, a creature without mercy or morals. But the daily irony of her greeting had the cordial inflection of a piece of distinguished politeness.

"Charming," agreed Annette. She produced the bill. "I may as well pay this now," she suggested.

Madame's chill and lively eyes were watching her face, estimating her solvency in the light of Madame's long experience of misfortune and despair. She shrugged a huge shoulder deprecatingly.

"There is no hurry," she said. She always said that. "Still, since Mademoiselle is here—"

Madame eased herself, panting, into the chair before the desk, revealing the great rounded expanse of her back with its row of straining buttons and lozenge- shaped revelations of underwear. With the businesslike deliberation of a person who transacts a serious affair with due seriousness, she spread the bill before her, smoothing it out with a practised wipe of the hand, took her rubber stamp from the saucer in which it lay, inked it on the pad, and—waited.

Annette had been watching her, fascinated by that great, methodical rhythm of movement; but at the pause she started, fished the required coins from the purse, and laid them at Madame's elbow.

"Merci, Mademoiselle," said Madame; and then, and not till then, the stamp descended upon the paper. A flick with a scratchy pen completed the receipt, and Madame turned to hand it to Annette with her weekly smile.

"Good morning, Mademoiselle. Thank you; good luck."

The mirthless smile discounted the words; the cold, avid eyes were busy and suspicious. But Annette had had six weeks of training in the art of preserving a cheerful countenance.

"Good morning, Madame," she smiled, with her gay little nod, and reached the door in good order.

THERE was still Aristide, the lame man-of-all-work, who absorbed a weekly franc and never concealed his contempt of the amount. He was waiting on the steps, leaning on a broom, and turned his rat's face on her, sourly and impatiently, without a word. She paused as she came to him, and dipped two fingers into the poor old purse.

"This is for you, Aristide," she said, and held out the coin.

He took it in his open palm and surveyed it with lifted eyebrows. "This?" he inquired.

"Yes."

The insult never filed to hurt her. This morning, in particular, she would have been glad to set forth upon the day's forlorn hope without that preface of hate and cruel greed. But Aristide still stood, with the coin in his open hand, staring from it to her, and she flinched from him.

"Good morning," she said timidly, and slipped past.

It needed the gladness of the day, its calm and colorful warmth, to take the taste of Aristide out of her mouth. Soon the stimulus of the thronged, streets, the mere neighborhood of folk who moved briskly and with a purpose, restrung her slackened nerves, and she was again ready for the battle. And as she went her lips moved.

"Mind, now!" she was telling herself. "To-day's the end—the very end. You've got to get work to-day!"

The first address she went to turned out to be that of a firm of house and estate agents; it was upon the first floor, and showed to the landing four ground-glass doors, of which three were lettered "Private," while the fourth displayed an invitation to enter without knocking. Upon the landing, in the presence of those inexpressive doors behind which salaries were earned and paid and life was all that was orderly and desirable, Annette paused to make sure of herself.

"Now!" she said, with a deep breath, and pushed open the fourth door.

WITHIN was an office divided by a counter, and behind the counter desks and the various apparatus of business. The desks were unoccupied; the only person present was a thin, pretty girl seated before a typewriter. She looked up at Annette. Her face showed patches of too bright a red on the cheek-bones.

"Good morning," began Annette, with determined briskness. "I've come—"

The girl smiled. "Typist?"

"Yes," said Annette. "The advertisement—"

She stopped. The girl was still smiling, but in a manner of deprecating and infinitely gentle regret. Annette stared at her, feeling within again that rising chill of disappointment with which she was already so familiar.

"You mean," she stammered—"you mean—you've got the place?"

The thin girl spread her hands apart in a little French gesture of conciliation.

"Ten minutes ago," she answered. "There is no one here yet but the manager, and I was waiting at the door when he arrived."

The sunlight without had lost some of its quality when Annette came forth to the street again; it no longer warmed her to optimism. She stood for some moments in the doorway of the building, letting her depression and discouragement have their way with her.

"If only I might cry a bit," she reflected. "That would help a little. But I mustn't even do that!"

She had to prod herself into fresh briskness with the sense of her need—that to-day was the end. She sighed, jerked her chin up, and set forth again in the direction of the second vacancy for a typist.

Here, for a while, hope burned high. The office was that of a firm of thriving wine exporters, and the post had not yet been filled. The partner into whose office she penetrated was a stout, ruddy Marseillais.

"Yes, we want a typist," he admitted; "but I'm afraid—" His amiable brown eyes scrutinized her with manifest doubt. "You have references?" he inquired.

Yes, Annette had references. She had lost her last situation only when her employer went bankrupt; the testimonial she produced spoke well of her in every sense. She gave it to him to read. But what—what was it in her that had inspired that look of doubt, that look she had seen so often before?

"Yes, it is very good." He handed the paper back to her, still surveying her and

Page 8

It was then that hope flared up strongly. He could not get out of it; he must employ her now. Salary? She would take what the firm offered! And still he continued to look at her with a hint of embarrassment in his regard. She felt she was trembling.

"I'm afraid," he began again, but stopped, at her involuntary little gasp and shifted uneasily in his chair. He was acutely uncomfortable. An idea came to him and he brightened. "Well, you can

And to-day was the end! Annette stared at him. "When?" she asked shortly.

"Oh, in a day or two," he answered uneasily.

Annette rose. She had turned pale, but she was quite calm and self-possessed.

"I—I hoped to get work to-day," she said. "In fact, I must find it to-day. But will you at least tell me why you won't give me the place?"

The man's cheery face began to frown.

"I'm not complaining," Annette said. Her voice was very low. "But there's something wrong with me, isn't there? I saw how you looked at me at first. Well, it wouldn't cost you anything, and it would help me a lot, if you'd just tell me what it is that's wrong. You see, nobody will have me, and it's getting rather—rather desperate. So, if you'd just tell me, perhaps I could alter something and have a chance at last."

Her serious eyes, the pallor of her face, and the level tones of her voice held him like a hand on his throat. How could he speak to her of the true reason for refusing her—the son in the business, the avid young debauchee whose victims were girls in the firm's employ?

"If you'd just tell me what it is, I wouldn't bother you any more, and it might make all the difference to me," Annette was saying.

She saw him redden and shift sharply in his chair.

"Mademoiselle!" He returned her look gravely and honestly. "Upon my word, I can see nothing whatever wrong with you—nothing whatever."

"Then," began Annette, "why—?"

He stopped her with an upraised hand.

"I am going to tell you," he said. "There is a rule in this office, and behind the rule are good and sufficient reasons, that we do not take into our employ women who are still young—and pretty."

She heard him with no change of her rigid countenance. She understood, of course. She had known in her time what it was to be persecuted. She would have liked to tell him that she was well able to take care of herself, but she recalled her promise not to bother him further. She sighed, buttoning her glove. "It's a pity," she said unhappily, "because—I really am a good typist."

"I am sure of it," he agreed.

She raised her head. "Well, thank you for telling me, at any rate," she said. "Good morning, Monsieur."

"Good morning, Mademoiselle," he replied, and held open the door for her.

AGAIN she stood a little while in the doorway, regarding the throng, every unit of it wearing the air of being bound toward some place where it was needed.

"I think," considered Annette, "that I ought to have some coffee or something, since it's the—last-day."

She looked down along the street. Not far away, the awning of a café showed red and white above the sidewalk, sheltering its row of little tables, and she walked slowly toward it. How often in the last six weeks, foot-sore and leaden-hearted, had she passed such places, feeling the invitation of their ease and refreshment in every jarred and crying nerve of her body, yet resenting it for the sake of the centimes it would cost!

She took a chair in the back row of seats, behind a small iron table, slackening her muscles, making the mere act of sitting down yield her her money's worth. A crop-headed German waiter brought the café au lait that she ordered, and set it on the table before her—two metal jugs, a cup and saucer, a little glass dish of sugar, and a folded napkin. The cost was half a franc; she gave him a franc, bade him keep the change, and was rewarded with half a smile, half a bow, and a "Merci beaucoup, Matame!"

She lifted the cup. "A short life and a merry one," she toasted herself before she drank the fragrant hot coffee.

Six francs remained to her, and there were yet three employers to visit.

IT was three hours later, toward two o'clock in the afternoon, that she came on foot, slowly, along the Rue St. Honoré, seeking the establishment that had proclaimed in the Journal its desire to employ, for purposes of "reception," a young lady of good figure and pleasant manners. She had discovered, at the cost of one of her remaining francs for Omnibus fares, that a fifty-franc-a-month governess must possess certificates that governessing is a skilled trade, overcrowded by women of the most various and remarkable talents. At the shop that advertised for a cashier, a floor-walker had glanced at her over his shoulder for an instant, snapped out that the place was filled, and walked away.

The name she sought appeared across the way, lettered upon a row of first-floor windows; it was photographer's.

"Now!" said Annette. "The end—this is the end!"

A spacious landing, carpeted, and lit by the tall church windows of the staircase, great double doors with a brass plate, and a dim indoor sense pervading all the place. Here, evidently, the sharp corners of commerce were rounded off; its acolytes must be engaging female figures with affable manners.

Annette's finger on the bronze bell-push evoked a man-servant in livery, with a waistcoat of horizontal yellow and black stripes like a wasp, and a smooth, subtle, still face. He pulled open one wing of the door, and stood aside to let her pass in, gazing at her with demure eyes in whose veiled suggestion there was something satiric.

"There is an advertisement in the Journal for a young lady," she said. "I have come to apply for the post."

The smooth man-servant lowered his head in a nod that was just not a bow.

"Yes," he said. "If Mademoiselle will be seated, I will inform the master."

The post was not filled, then! Annette sat down and looked round. It was here, evidently, that the function of "reception" was accomplished. The man-servant admitted the client; one rose from one's place at the little inlaid desk in the alcove, and rustled forward across the gleaming parquet to bid Monsieur or Madame welcome. One added oneself to the quality of the big, still apartment.

"I could do it," thought Annette. "I'm sure I could do it. I'd want shoes that didn't slide on the parquet; and then— oh, if only this comes off!"

A SMALL noise behind her made her turn quickly. The door by which the footman had departed was concealed by a portière of heavy velvet; a hand had moved it aside and a face was looking round the edge of it at her. As she turned, the owner of it came into the room, and she rose.

"Be seated, be seated!" protested the newcomer in a high, emasculate voice; and she sat down again obediently.

"And you have come in consequence of the advertisement?" said the man, with a giggle. "Yes, yes! We will see, then!"

He stood in front of her, half way across the room, staring at her. He was a man somewhere in the later thirties, wearing the velvet jacket, the cascading neck-tie, the throat-revealing collar, and the overlong hair that the conventions of the theater have established as the livery of the artist. The details of this grotesque foppery presented themselves to Annette only vaguely: it was at the man himself, as he straddled in the middle of the polished floor, staring at her, that she gazed with a startled attention—the face like the feeble and idiot countenance of an old sheep, with the same flattened length of nose, and the same weakly demoniac touch in the curve and slack hang of the wide mouth. It was not that he was merely ugly or queer to the view: it seemed to Annette that she was suddenly in the presence of something monstrous.

She flushed and moved in her seat under his long scrutiny. The creature sighed.

"Yes," he said, always in the same high, dead voice. "You satisfy the eye, Mademoiselle. For me, that is already much, since it is as an artist that I consider you first. And your age?"

She told him. He asked further questions, of her previous employment, her nationality, and so forth, never removing his narrow eyes from her face. Then with sliding steps he came across the parquet and sat down beside her on the Empire settee.

Annette backed to the end of it and sat defensively on the edge, facing the strange being. He, crossing his thin legs, leaned with an arm extended along the back of the settee and his long, large-knuckled hand hanging limp. His sheep's face lay over on his shoulder toward her. In that proximity its quality of feeble grotesqueness was enhanced. It was like sitting in talk with a sick ape.

"'Curiouser and curiouser!'" quoted Annette to herself. "I ought to wake up next and find he really doesn't exist."

"Mademoiselle!" the creature began to speak again. "You are the ninth who has come hither to-day seeking the post I have advertised. Some I rejected because they failed to conciliate my eye; I can not, you will understand, be tormented by a presence that jars my sense."

He paused to hear her agree.

"And the others?" inquired Annette.

"A-ah!" The strange being sighed. "The others—in each case, what a disappointment! Girls—beautiful, of a personality subdued and harmonious, capable of taking their place in my environment without doing violence to its completeness, but lacking the plastic and responsive quality which the hand of the artist should find in his material. Resistant— they were resistant, Mademoiselle, every one of them."

"Silly of them," said Annette briefly. She was meeting the secret stare of his half closed eyes quite calmly now. "What was it they wouldn't do?" she inquired.

"Do!" The limp hand flapped despairingly; the thin voice ran shrill. "I required nothing of them. One enters. I view her; I seat myself at her side as I sit now with you; I seek in talk to explore her resources of sentiment, of temperament. Perhaps I take her hand—"

As if to illustrate the recital, his long hand dropped suddenly and seized hers. He ceased to talk, surveying her with a scared shrewdness.

Annette smiled, letting her hand lie where it was. She was not in the least afraid; she had forgotten, for the moment, the barrenness of the streets that awaited her outside and the fact that she had come to the end of her hopes.

"And they objected to that?" she inquired sweetly.

"Ah, but you—"

He was making ready to hitch along the seat, and she was prepared for him.

"Oh, I'd let you hold them both if that were all," she replied. "But—it isn't all, is it?"

She smiled at the perplexity in his face. His hands slackened and withdrew slowly.

"You haven't told me what salary you are offering?" she reminded him.

"Mademoiselle, you too?"

She nodded. "Me too," she answered, and rose.

Other failures had left her with a sense of defenselessness in a world so largely populated by men who glanced up from their desks to refuse her plea for work. But now she had resources of power over fate and circumstance. The streets, the night, the river, whatever the future held, could neither daunt nor compel her.

She went slowly down the wide stairs.

"Nine of us," she was thinking. "Nine girls, and not one of us was—what did he call it?—plastic. I'm not really alone in the world, after all."

But it was very like being alone in the world to go slowly, with tired feet, along the perspectives of the streets, to turn corners aimlessly, to wander on with no destination or purpose.

Her last turning brought her out to the arches of the Rue de Rivoli. Across the way, the trees of the Tuileries gardens lifted their green to the afternoon sunlight. She hesitated, then crossed over.

There was yet money in the old purse, a single broad five-franc piece.

"It's a case for riotous living," she told herself, as she passed in to the smooth paths beneath the trees. "Five francs' worth of real dinners, or something like that. Only—I'm not feeling very riotous."

THERE was a seat that she knew of farther on, overshadowed by a lime tree, where she meant to rest and put her thoughts in order. But already at the back of her mind there had risen, vague as night, oppressive as pain, tainting her disquiet with its presence, the hint of a consciousness that, after all, one does not starve to death—one takes a shorter way.

A lean youth with a black cotton cap pulled forward over one eye, who had been lurking near, saw the jerk with which she lifted her head as that black inspiration was clear to her, and the sudden coolness and courage of her face, and moved away uneasily.

"Ye-es," said Annette slowly. "Ye-es! And now—oh!"

A bend in the path had brought her suddenly to the seat under the lime tree. She was within a couple of paces of it before she perceived that it had already its occupant—the long figure of a young man sprawled back with his face upturned to the day and slumbering with all that disordered and unbeautiful abandon which goes with daylight sleep. His head had fallen over on one shoulder; his mouth was open; his hands, grimy and large, showed half shut in his lap. There was a staring patch of black sticking-plaster on one side of his chin. His clothes, that

Continued on page 13

People Who Could But Don't

Débutantes

Including Those Whose Pictures Never Get On the Society Page

Page 11

Alms and the Man

Continued from page 8

were yet decent, showed stains here and there. The whole figure of him seemed suddenly to answer her question. This was what happened next; this was the end—unless one took that shorter way.

"They walk till they can't walk any longer; then they sleep on benches. I could never do that!"

She stood staring at the sleeping man.

"No, it sha'n't come to that with me!" she cried inwardly. "Lounging with my mouth open for any one to stare at! No!"

She turned to walk away.

The old purse was in her hand; through its flabby sides she could feel the five-franc piece. Somehow, that had to be disposed of. Five francs was a serious matter to Annette. She looked round; the man in the seat was still sleeping.

Treading quietly, she went back to him, taking the coin from her purse as she went. Upon his right side his coat pocket bulged open; she could see that in it was a little wad of folded papers. "His testimonials—poor fellow!" she breathed. Carefully she leaned forward and let the broad coin slip into the pocket among the papers. Then, with an end of a smile on her lips, she turned again and departed. Among the trees, the lean youth in the black cotton cap watched her go.

A DAY that culminates in sleep upon a bench in a public place is commonly a day that has begun badly and maintained its character. In this case, it may be said to have begun soon after 9 A.M., when young Raleigh, junior member of Raleigh & Son, stepped from a train and into the nearest drug store to have his chin—cut in trying to shave on the train—patched up with two inches of black court plaster. On the train the night before Raleigh had planned his day: he would arrive in Paris at eight-thirty, call on several business houses, and get back to the station at two for the Calais train. But, in the first place, the train was late, and from that time on his plans went wrong.

His first visit, on the manager of a foundry, did not have the results he had hoped for, and took too much of his precious time. The next was on some machine-tool people on the other side of Paris. Finding a little difficulty with some of the new steels, Raleigh went into the shop to demonstrate his idea, standing to the machine in his tweed clothes while the swift belting slatted at his elbow and fragments of shaved steel and a fine spray of oil welcomed him back to his trade. It was not till it was finished that he looked at his watch and realized that he had missed the two o'clock train.

He paid off his return cab in the Place de la Concorde, and stood doubtfully on the curb, watching it skate away into the traffic. His baggage had gone on by the two o'clock train; he was committed now to an afternoon in those ancient clothes with the oily stigma of the workshop upon them. His hands, too, were black from his work; and he had slept badly in the train, and done without a bath.

"I'll wander up to the Meurice and get a wash, anyhow," he decided, and turned to stroll through the Tuileries gardens. He went slowly—it was pleasant among the trees; and when a seat offered itself he sank down into it, crossed one leg over the other, and his eyes closed restfully.

THE touch that roused him was a very gentle one, the mere brush of a dexterous hand that slid as quietly as a shadow along the edge of his jacket pocket and groped into it with long, clever fingers.

Raleigh, waking without moving, watched the slim, white-faced youth with a black cotton cap slouched forward over one eye. Then swiftly he caught the exploring hand by the wrist and sat up.

"You mistake," he said crisply; "there's nothing but old letters in that pocket."

The youth tried to wrench loose; but Raleigh gave a twisting jerk to the skinny wrist, and the struggle was over.

"Well," demanded Raleigh, "what have you got to say for yourself?"

"Monsieur!" "I meant no harm, but I was desperate; I have not eaten to-day," —his eyes noted the amused contempt on Raleigh's face, and he paused an instant like a man taking aim,—"and when I saw the lady slip the money into Monsieur's pocket while he slept, and reflected that he would never know he had lost it—"

"Eh?" Raleigh sat up. "What lady?"

"It's not a minute ago," replied the youth, discarding the whine. "See, she is perhaps not out of sight yet, if Monsieur will look along the path. She approached Monsieur cautiously, while he slept, and slipped the money into his pocket. Yes, Monsieur, that was the pocket."

He smiled as Raleigh plunged a hand into the pocket and drew out the coin.

"She is going out of the gate now, Monsieur," he said.

Raleigh turned. At the farther end of the path the woman pointed out to him was close to the exit. He could see of her nothing save her back—that and a certain quality of carriage, a gait measured and deliberate. He threw a word to the thief.

"All right; you can go," he said, and started after the secret bestower of alms.

"And me?" the outraged thief cried. "And me? I get nothing, then?"

The serge-clad back was disappearing through the gate into the welter of sunlight without. Raleigh sprinted along the tree-shaded path. He picked up a view of the serge-clad back again, walking toward the bridge, hastened after it, and slowed down to its own pace when he was still some ten yards behind.

"Why, it's a girl!"

Somehow, he had counted upon finding an elderly woman, some charitable eccentric who acquired merit by secret gifts. He saw, instead, a slim girl, neatly and quietly clad, whose profile, as she glanced across the parapet of the bridge, showed pearl-pale in the shadow of her hat, with a simple and almost childlike prettiness of feature. There was something else too, a quality of the whole which Raleigh had no words to describe. But he saw it, nevertheless—a gravity, a character of sad and tragic composure, that look of defeat which is prouder than any victory.

"Something wrong!" he said to himself vaguely, and continued to follow.

At the southern end of the bridge she turned her back to the sun and went east. She neither hurried nor slackened that deliberate pace of hers. Raleigh, keeping well behind, his wits acutely at work, wondered what it reminded him of, that slow trudge over the pavements. A little farther on an incident enlightened him.

She stopped for a minute and leaned upon the parapet. He crossed the road to be out of sight in case she should look back. She had been carrying in her hand a purse, and now he saw her open it and apparently search its interior, but as if she knew already what to expect of it. Then she closed it and tossed it over the parapet into the river.

"Ah!" He knew now what that slow, aimless gait suggested to him. He recalled evenings in London when he walked or drove through the lighted streets, and saw, here and there, the figures of those homeless ones who walked—walked always, straying forward in a foot-sore progress till the night should be ripe for them to sit down in some corner. And then, that shadow in her face, that mouth, tight-held but still drooping; her way of looking at the river! His hand, in his pocket, closed over the five-franc piece that she had dropped there. He started across the road to accost her forthwith; but at that moment she moved on again, and once more he fell into step behind her.

There is a point, near the Lle de la Cité, where the Seine projects an elbow. The girl followed the elbow round, and stopped at the angle of it. She leaned her arms on the coping and gazed down at the quiet, still water below.

SHE was looking at it with such preoccupation that Raleigh was able to come close to her before he spoke. He, too, put an arm on the parapet at her side.

"Looks peaceful, doesn't it?" he said.

The girl's head rose with a jerk, and she stared at him, startled. She failed to recognize in this tall young man the sprawling figure in the Tuileries gardens.

"I—I—who are you?" she stammered. "What do you want?"

He answered in tones of careful conventionality.

"I'm afraid I startled you," he said. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have ventured to speak to you at all if you hadn't—" He paused. "You don't happen to remember me at all?" he asked.

"No," said Annette. "If I hadn't what?"

He slipped a hand into his pocket and drew forth the five-franc piece.

"I happened to fall asleep in the Tuileries gardens this afternoon," he said. "Idiotic thing to do, but—"

"Oh!" The color leaped to her face. "Was that—you?"

Raleigh nodded. "You had hardly moved away when a man who had been watching you tried to pick my pocket, and woke me. He pointed you out."

Annette gazed at him in tired perplexity. Now that he was on his feet, the condition of his clothes and hands and the absurd black patch on his chin were noticeable only as incongruities; there was nothing to suggest the pauper or the outcast in this big youth with the pleasant voice and the strongly tanned face.

"I—I made a mistake," she said. "I saw you sleeping on the bench, and I thought—a little help, coming from no-where like that—you'd be so surprised and glad when you found it." She sighed. "However, I was wrong; I'm sorry."

"I'm not!" Raleigh put the money back in his pocket swiftly. "It's the most splendid thing that ever happened to me.

Annette shook her head.

"I didn't say that," she answered. "You weren't starving, and—you don't understand. It doesn't matter, anyhow."

"Please," said Raleigh. He saw that she wanted to get rid of him. "It matters to me, at any rate. But there is one thing I didn't understand."

She did not answer, gazing over her clasped hands at the water.

"It was while I was following you here," he continued. "I was watching you as you went, and it seemed to me that you were—well, unhappy; in trouble or something. And then I saw you open your purse and throw it into the river."

"There was a hole in it," said Annette shortly, without turning her head.

"But—" he spoke very quietly. "You are in trouble? Yes, I know I'm intruding upon you"—she had moved her shoulders impatiently—"but haven't you given me just the shadow of a right? Your gift—it might have saved my life if I'd been what you thought; I might have fetched up in the Morgue before morning. Men do, you know, every day—women, too!"

Her fingers upon the parapet loosened and clasped again at that.

"You can't bind me with such an obligation as that and leave me planté là."

"Oh!" Annette sighed. "If you want so much to know—l'm a typist; I'm out of work; I've been looking for it all day, and I'm disappointed and very tired."

"And that's really all?" he demanded.

"All!" She turned to look at hint at last, meeting his steady and penetrating eyes quietly. She had an impulse to tell hint what was comprehended in that "all." But, even while she hesitated, there came to her a sense that he knew—that the gray eyes in the red-brown face had read more of her than she was willing to show.

"Yes, that's all," she said.

He nodded, a quick and businesslike little jerk of the head.

"I see. I've been worrying you, I'm afraid, but I'm glad I made you tell. Because I can put that all right for you at once, as it happens."

THE girl leaning on the wall drew in a harsh breath and turned to him. Young Raleigh, who had written a monograph on engineering stresses, had still much to learn about the stresses that contort and warp the souls of men and women. He learned some of it then, when he saw the girl's pale face deaden to a blanker white and the flame of a hungry hope leap into her eyes. He looked away quickly.

"You mean—you can—"

He hushed her with his brisk little nod.

"I mean I can find you a situation in a business office as a typist," he said explicitly. "Wasn't that what, you wanted?"

"Yes, yes." She was trembling; he put one large grimy hand upon her sleeve to steady her. "Oh, please, where is the office? I'll go there at once, before—"

"Hush," he said. "It's all right. We'll get a taxi and I'll take you there. It's the Machine-Tool & Gear-Cutting Company. I don't know what they pay, but—"

"Anything," moaned Annette—"I'll take anything!"

"Well, it's more than that," he smiled. "A typist with Raleigh & Son at her back isn't to be had every day of the week."

A taxicab drifted on to the quay. Raleigh beckoned with a long arm.

"And after we've fixed this little matter," suggested Raleigh, "don't you think we might go somewhere and feed? I can get a sketchy kind of wash at the office while you're talking to the manager: and I'm beginning to notice that I didn't have any lunch to-day."

"I didn't, either," said Annette, as the taxi slid to a standstill beside them. "But—oh! you don't know all you're doing for me! I'll never be able to thank you."

Raleigh opened the door of the cab for her. "You can try," be said. "I'm in Paris for three days every fortnight."

The taxi-cabs of Paris include in their number the best and the worst in the world. This was one of the latter, a moving musical-box of grinding and creaking noises. But Annette sank back upon its knobbly cushions luxuriously, gazing across the sun-gilt river to the white window-dotted cliffs of Paris with the green of trees foaming about their base.

Once On the Summer Range

By FRANCIS HILL

Illustration by Douglas Duer

WHERE had the devils gone? What were they up to now? Crawling through the blind tangle of dead and living branches, peering, feeling, exploring with every sense, I hunted the clue. Soon I had it.

About midway between our little green jewel of a park and the lower valley edge of the timber lay a deep, rocky hollow. It amounted, almost, to a lateral ravine or gully up the main eastern wall of the gulch, only it was so shallow everywhere—a mere indented line, except at the one point. And here, relatively protected and hidden, in this one steep-sided, bowl-like cavity, higher up the mountain than we were, yet not above five hundred yards from our stronghold—here the whole precious tribe of raiders had taken refuge: Doak, Flynn, Jericho, "Judge" Samuels, Nigger Bill Jackson, Rutty Snodgrass, Hare-lip, Ed Snowy, Dutch Klem, Spavin Haggerty—the very pick and choice of the Swallowfork lot. They'd built themselves a small fire, and were closely camped in about it.

One smoky blot of detail in the striking chiaroscuro of the picture caught and held my eyes—held me as did none of the living men. It was the body of Mickey Devine. Also I observed that Jericho had his left arm in a rude sling. We might have done worse with the ten-gauges.

I cocked the Winchester under my handkerchief—crept nearer.

THEN, between two bats of an eyelash, quick as a nest of divers, they'd all scattered, sprung away, leaving Nigger Bill Jackson alone in the middle of the firelight. I shook with excitement: What was it? There'd been no warning—nothing that I could hear. And why hadn't the yellow devil bolted with the rest? He stood, clutching in one hand what looked to be a short round stick, in the other a long piece of heavy string.

"Shucks," he yelled, "you-all sure would make a bunch of high-grade quartz-miners!"

I listened, open-mouthed.

"What the blazes do we know about you and your cursed lying nigger truck?" snarled Jericho, who, winged arm and all, was probably the most formidable man there.

"Ain't I done been telling you?" the cook retorted. "Ain't I just come straight from the mines—sledging with a drill as much as anything else? Didn't I steal this here very stuff out of the Lightning Lead's tool-house? Ain't she big medicine? Don't I savvy her like I savvy sowbelly and beans?"

I snailed in and down the hollow another two yards on him, screwed up my eyes to gimlet-points. The thing he had in his left hand was a stick of dynamite!

"No sirree," proudly went on that mulatto devil, wrestling with the fuse. "This here little old blast won't go off none till I'm ready to put her off. Then I reckon she'll go off plenty."

"And what'll she do when she goes off?" ventured Hare-lip.

"What'll she do? She'll blow that cabin and them fancy dude jokers so far—"

He was working feverishly away with his dynamite and fuse in the brightest of the fire-shine. I edged farther down into the bowl, pushing and nursing my cocked Winchester breathlessly before me. At last I could manage to squint through the sights.

I didn't hold on Nigger Bill. My Winchester rested solidly across the thinly screened top of a rock. After a painfully long bead, drawn as fine on the fat stick of dynamite as I could draw it, I pulled trigger. Then, in a continuation of the same movement, I grabbed up the rifle and tried to run. But the explosion was too near, too splintering.

I closed my eyes—I didn't want to see. A frightful general impression of the flash and roar I couldn't escape, naturally. After that, though—I don't think there was much fire left to see by. The first instant I could—the instant the ground had steadied a trifle underfoot, the violent knock-down reverberations died out of the close gully air, you understand—that first instant I staggered up and took to my heels. Crazy, frightened yells resounded behind me in the dark; twigs and stones came rattling down like hail about my ears. I couldn't tell whether I was being chased or not. Bearings completely gone, I floundered desperately. When in a minute or so I'd really found myself, I legged it for the park as hot as I knew how. Soon I was dashing full speed across our little plot of open, with strong hands eagerly reached out to drag me into the safe harbor of the stockade. Home!

Inside there, Eloise, hands tightly clasped, hung voicelessly back from the others. Maggie, on the contrary, frisked and spoke to me abundantly with her beautiful eloquent dark eyes. As for Ericsson and Glendenning—they did nothing but ply me with questions. "What the thunder—how—when—where? Who was it? Why was it? Had it been a keg of powder? Were the crooks trying to blow up the side of the mountain? Had I been there—seen it?"

I had to sketch every detail of that lurid fantasy in the hollow over and over again. Eloise, her fingers always strainingly intertwined, her pale lips slightly parted, followed my lips, mute. But Ericsson and Glendenning waked the sensitive echoes with their horse-laughter. Between them, in the end, they made such an ungodly racket that Doctor Duncannon roused inside the cabin with a startled cry. Eloise hurried in to him. Presently, seizing my chance, I slid in under the canvas flap after my girl. The soft murmur of her voice greeted me; In her divinely tender way, she was still soothing her father.

When she'd at length got him quieted, she came across the dark space of floor to me. We stood a little while so, silent, close together, hands caught in hands.

A ROUGH hail from out among the trees broke into that long moment. Threats! I'd certainly heard that brutal sodden snarl before to-night? Not a doubt. It was Jericho.

"Don't you sneaking, bush-whacking nigger-killers think you're going to get away with this here game!" howled the big smacker. "We'll round you up now, if it takes—"

The bellow of our ten-gauges—four almost simultaneous barrels—answered him from the stockade. He came back with five spitting slugs from a Colt's—he had only the one working arm, remember. Then followed the queer final stage of that night's madness.

From all sides, an uncertain, irregular scattering of bullets began to pour in against the light cabin walls. I question if more than half a dozen men were enlisted in this cordon. Nothing more vague, pointless, perfunctory than their shooting could well have been imagined. It was mere rank stodging through the motions of an idea, after every spark of life had gone. Nobody took a hair of risk. A prayer-meeting couldn't have been duller. Yet the thing lasted on for hours.

I got a scratch, a burn on the wrist, tossing a piece of heavy wood out on the fire. For the rest, we lay low, not wasting our honest cartridges, though cutting loose an occasional shot when the opening seemed, possible. Night waned, morning drew on, windy and storm-presaging, with its rare seven-thousand-feet chill. We all grew very sleepy.

At last, not far short of actual dawn, we heard horses, with ringing shouts and curses, down in the gulch-bottom. Ericsson and I, jumping wide awake, cocked our ears, then danced and sparred together around the room in high relief. For in that blasphemous noise down gulch we had each of us picked up a particular harsh, curt tone—ranch boss Bull Dorgan!

SOON we were standing with Bull—Ericsson, Glendenning, and I—around our all-night fire. Leading his crew of Swallowfork regulars, the grim-foreman had routed Jericho and our discouraged siege outfit at a charge. Or, rather, it had needed only the bare sound of the familiar voice to wilt that glittering outfit.

"Well," declared Dorgan, "as the whirl seems about over, and as I've got pretty nigh every suffering hand on the place right up in this here timber, I expect we'd better be crawling our ponies some—or no Swallowfork sheep won't be worked to-day." He turned to me. "You'll range your wether band out, same as usual?"

I was only too glad to be able to assure him I would.

"But you ain't told us yet," said Glendenning, "how you come to be in on this."

The old Piegan hotel-keeper was proving, as I had expected he would, of invaluable service to us in this post-bellum pinch. Bull, I could see, treated his presence on the scene with genuine interest, approval—almost with respect.

Now, for instance, good-humoredly scratching a hairy ear, he—the foreman—took time to explain:

"Oh, I was sure to rope up something sometime. One of my boys tore loose day before yesterday, and went to town and got drunk with the stray lot. About two this morning he'd sobered up enough to ride in and wake me and allow there 'might be' some trouble on the cards."

For one reason or another—God knows why—we all laughed.

"But," went on Bull, "it don't seem like you needed help much. Two down and four in hobbles is a right fair killing, for an evening."

"Four in hobbles!" (He meant crippled, of course.) Which four? Jericho was the only cripple I'd seen. He swung again, still humorously, on me.

"Oh, just some little casual side ructions when you run afoul of the nigger that way. Rutty Snodgrass is shy an eye, they figure, Ed Snowy a bunch of fingers, and Judge Samuels has got a hole in his belly as big as a tomato-can—all from where stones flew up and gouged into 'em, I guess."

The chaotic picture, just as I had tried not to see it, made me sick to the fingertips. But Ericsson responded to Bull's jocose mood enough for two, and through my vertigo I could hear Glendenning plaintively swear: "Then I reckon I didn't get nobody at all."

"Sure you got somebody, mister!" Ericsson gallantly protested. "Sure you did! Maybe you got Mickey. I bet you did! I never spotted anything for dead certain. I bet you got Mickey and Jericho—both!"

"We're packing the one remainder and the four invalids down on their Rainbow livery-stable hosses," said Dorgan. "But Nigger Bill!" He made a wide gesture. "The mountain ants'll have to gather him up and bury him, all right."

"He seemed considerable mixed up under the blast, hey?" queried Glendenning. "Some busted?"

Bull changed his tobacco.

"We found a piece of one shoe jammed in among the rocks."

Catching a sidewise squint at the rapidly graying sky, the ranch boss hitched his baggy overalls with a snap.

"Here! I got to be pulling my freight."

Ericsson scrambled wildly about.

"Wait!" he cried. "Coffee! 'I'll have her boiling in two flips—"

But Dorgan couldn't be tempted.

"Ten miles," he growled, "and a clutter of no-account squalling roustabouts to be hazed through."

He flung a nod to Glendenning. "Better stop in at the, ranch. Tek'll probably be riding out."

Without another word said his grizzled foretop falling unkempt on corrugated brows, he "strode heavily away, disappearing down Our path to the gulch-bottom. A renewed clash of noisy activity greeted his arrival down there. Then the confused hoof-beats of many horses resounded. After that the fine, clean resurgence of the mountain stillness.

I might as well wind up this incident now. It's easy, in a material sense. If there was ever any official county inquiry into the death of the two crooks, I knew nothing of it. The one called "Judge" also died in Rainbow, I believe, of the wound in his stomach. But nobody seemed to care—nobody took these diseased and floating sheep-camp outcasts seriously enough to bother whether they lived or died.

I SHALL always remember my girl's faint outcry as we plowed free of the shadow of the timber that morning after the fight—I leading Crow by a hackamore rope, she, still in her last night's festal dress, riding behind me. All the lower sweep of gulch lay open before us, densely blanketed in six inches of sleety white.

"How cruel!" she murmured. And then—"But how good, too! It will wash away the blood—better than rain."

And for both of us, as we stared down the unfamiliar vista, that melting hail did then and there blot out some evil-smelling part of the night behind us.

In the days that followed I think I was a faithful enough herder. Only, all the while I herded, I was breathing, not the woolly stench of sheep, but the divine air of romance. On the range, in my hut, by sun and stars, in stillness, among the winds and gigantic stabs of thunder, that transfiguring spirit abided with me. Beauty dwelt everywhere in life. The herby yellowing earth warmed and caressed. The icy mountain water laved with a new, delicious thrill. The sky of summer, profoundest high and bright sapphire during the day, impenetrable

Page 15

Eloise rigged herself a kind of presentable divided skirt out of one of her few durable dresses. She had been an orthodox side-saddle rider from childhood, but now she fell into the honester cross-seat habit almost without a thought. Half a dozen times a day she would ride Crow up and down the gulch. Also, when anybody from the home ranch appeared on the horizon,—any intruding stranger whatever,—she would hastily slip on to the white pony and lope away. For the rest—overwhelmingly the greater part of

THOSE long sunny hours, gloriously idled among the sage, did things to my girl—tanned her pallid cheeks, made her vigorous, antelope-like, nearly wild-spirited. Sometimes this healthy tang of caprice and wildness (bred in her, I knew, by sheer joy and physical well-being) all but intoxicated me—all but swept me off my head and feet. First and last, we were a man and woman, alone together in the great golden gray-green spaces of the world. And this lambent air, this dry smell of earth, this perfect flower of life blossoming within us both!

In a secret woodland nook we built a true Nicolette bower, piny and fragrant, and sweet as the thin mountain dew. But we didn't often go there. We loved best the open country.

Well, so it went. One week, two weeks, three weeks, of July slid behind us. More and more unresistingly our dusk-of-evening trysts lasted on while moon and stars raced across the measuring strip of fathomless black heaven above the gulch. Ericsson's faded blue eyes on me became fixed and surly—menacing, fierce. Eloise and I were frankly betrothed. He understood that. He understood it—fine, squat watch-dog—without being in the least satisfied. I had a ring—why shouldn't we be married?

ERICSSON had his own proper notions about weddings. So we packed him up on old Crow and sent him out into the world to dig up somebody who would come here and tie the knot in regulation ecclesiastical or civil law fashion, with a marriage certificate and all the honest trappings. He went willingly enough— was gone two days.

Toward the close of the second day of his mission, Ericsson came jogging round the lower flare of the gulch from the east. I expected him, and spotted old Crow instantly from where I was leisurely working my wethers in for corralling for the night. He pushed heartily up through the sage to me, his florid broad cheeks wreathed in grins. He'd lost all his recent guardian fierceness now—was in complete high feather at the project of our immediate marriage. And you may guess what my own spirits would be these days. Ericsson's face beamed so moonlike over Crow's bobbing ears, I hailed him from a little distance off.

"So. You've had luck, then?"

"Sure!" he said. "Sure I had luck. I got him."

"Fine! When does he come?"

"To-morrow."

"Fine. A preacher? What denomination?"

Crow had stopped directly in front of me. The lop-sided Swede boy squirmed and shifted in the saddle, rubbed his bristle of straw-colored hair. In one twinkling every trace of the blissful shine had evaporated out of him. He stammered, reluctant: "Well, maybe not a regular, registered-brand preacher, exactly, Matt." Then, in a blurt: "He's a cowboy—that's what he is."

"A cowboy?"

"Riding Bible's his name He knows the Bible off by heart. He's the only blame son-of-a-gun I could get to come."

It wouldn't have fazed Eloise and me a hair, understand, if his man had been an Indian or a Chink. Anything would do for us. But Ericsson—the formalist, the stickler, the camp Mrs. Grundy! He sat above me there, blinking and swallowing.

"What!" I yelled. "Are we to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony by a greasy, gambling cow-puncher?"

"Riding Bible's a kind of a preacher," mumbled Ericsson. "He preaches when he's in town. He don't smoke or chew or drink or gamble or swear. He's the bronco-buster on the Cross-Arrow, down here. He's the Cross-Arrow 'vangelist."

"You light right straight back to town—" I was beginning.

But just then Eloise and her father most unexpectedly appeared, coming down the gulch. That, naturally, put a crimp in the fun. I shook hands, cleared everything with the again broadly beaming Swede boy, and we all had a gay supper together at my shack.

NEXT day both Glendenning and the Cross-Arrow evangelist duly arrived in the gulch—Glendenning in his customary spring-wagon, Riding Bible on a striking black-and-white pinto, walleyed horse. From the first casual squint up at him on the foam-flecked circus horse, that cowboy impressed me. He was an altogether unusual figure, chockfull of temperament. He wore neither chaps nor spurs, but he had on the highest-heeled boots I've ever seen. Stuck into the loose, elaborately stitched tops of the boots were his yellow sour-dough overalls; and, above that, a clean gray flannel shirt, unrelieved at the neck by handkerchief or tie. His hat was a huge, handsome black Stetson; and the coat tied in a tight roll on his saddle—well, all I can say of that is that it was evidently a black frock. If you could have got by some of the wrinkles and sunburn and layers of gray range dust". But you couldn't. Riding Bible absorbedly shook the garment out, heedlessly put it on; and a clown suit on your vicar wouldn't have been half so entertaining. Yet you soon forgot. Nobody but fanatics really count in the world, anyway, I've discovered.

"We must make it very beautiful," Eloise had said. "It must be as beautiful as—" She turned her intent, smoldering blue-black eyes inward, pondered. "I think dawn is the loveliest of all."

So the evening passed, and the night, and morning came. Well before daylight, I met Eloise at the foot of the path from the park. We neither kissed nor shook hands, but kept silently on up the gulch-bottom through the dark, she fleetly leading the way, the rest of us following after. She took me farther up toward the head of the long, winding gulch, deeper into the mountains, than I had yet been. Mutely we walked, breathing low. Mystical promise throbbed all about me—in my arteries, in the chill air. Just as the first subtlest fingers of dawn began to brush away the midsummer night, we reached my girl's foreordained place.

She whispered to me: "You stand on one side of the brook, and I'll stand on the other. Then we'll watch till pink touches the sky. That shall be our signal to kneel."

Riding Bible's simple ritual was an infinitely more moving office than I had believed possible. No doubt the fragrant, bruised greenery about us, the silvering waterfall at our backs, helped a good deal. But that red-headed cowboy had the voice of an Old Testament prophet. He towered leanly over the rest of us, fantastic as a dervish, his deep-set small eyes burning, a long, bony finger measuring off and driving home the vibrant words into our souls. He could scarcely have conducted a revival with more biting fervor. I dare say he busted his Cross-Arrow horses in precisely the same spirit.

So we stood on opposite grassy banks of the narrow channel, so near the feathery waterfall that the jewel drops of blown water incessantly sprayed and thrilled us—stood while Riding Bible's great voice rolled out like the voice of the mountain itself—stood, still consecrated till the flush of full dawn—dawn that came flaming on under myriad veils like a mighty burning opal. Then we knelt a moment on the two sides of the stream, hand-fasted across the limpid water—

THERE is not much more to tell. The days that followed went neither too fast nor too slow. The whole wretched time instinct seemed annihilated in us. It seemed as if we might drift on so forever, she in her honeymoon bower, I with my sheep. In earliest September the first sting of autumn struck our gulch air. It was magnificent, that new shimmering brilliance. Doctor Duncannon took a miraculous little brace. We hung on and on—on past the middle of the month. It didn't seem reasonable or possible to tear ourselves away. The warm dust of summer blew off. Everything became exquisitely fresh, novel, blindingly fascinating again. Happiness—

Then suddenly, without warning, came the collapse that gave us our final imperative warning. The old man rallied marvelously again, but we knew now that we must not delay. If the wish that he had made to her was to be fulfilled, if he was to breathe his last amid the old home surroundings that he loved, there was not a moment to be lost. We must hurry him East—double quick.

So we came out of our wilderness, out of our Paradise, into civilization again, but bringing our Paradise with us. It's a long way from the sheep-herder's cabin in the gulch to New York; it's a long way from twenty-seven to fifty-six. But in the early summer, on that one great day, we leave the city, Eloise and I, and steal away to a little place in the country that we know, where there is a brook and a waterfall, and where the sun comes up over the encircling trees as it came up that morning years ago.

And there, hand-clasped across the tiny brook, we wait—wait silently and alone — wait, we waited that morning, once on the summer range.

The End

What About the $25-a-Week Man?

By EDWARD MOTT WOOLLEY

Illustrations by Jessie Gillespie

IN Chicago there is a very large industrial company that marks its clerical employees in just about the way a school-teacher marks her pupils. They are graded according to their endeavors and abilities along different lines of activity. And this record is used by the high executives in making promotions.

I happen to know of one man in that concern who was getting twenty-five dollars a week five years ago. He was a bookkeeper, and had worked for the house three years; and then he was suddenly promoted, without being consulted, to the position of assistant office manager at forty dollars a week. The way it happened was told me by the advertising manager of the company.

The "Old Man" of the house, as the chief owner was dubbed, had taken away the office manager and put him in a better job; and so the assistant office manager moved up a step, leaving a vacancy. Following the regular method prescribed by the policy of the house, the Committee on Promotions met and went over the book called "Personal Records." They found a number of men who had high marks for attendance, for being on time, for industry, for neatness of work and accuracy; but they found only a few who also had high marks for original ideas in office methods, inventions in accounting, and general efficiency. The man in question stood out above them all; and so, on his merits, he was picked to be the new office manager's under-study. To-day he occupies a high executive position, and draws a hundred dollars a week.

Now, this incident, which is nothing spectacular, but simply an episode that is repeated in this house every week or so, is an illustration of the truth that in these days the creative man has plenty of opportunity to climb. You have heard twenty-five-dollar-a-week men say they had gone as high as they ever could go. Such statements are by no means sound or conclusive. In my own case, I once made the mistake of thinking that twenty-five dollars a week was all I was ever going to get. It looked as if I had struck the limit; but there were things in store that I hadn't dreamed of, and they came from creative work.

Opportunities for Creative Workers

THE big chance for the twenty-five-dollar man is to originate things; and for men who really do that, and who get results, there is practically no limit. It is the little, unknown concerns of to-day that stand in the greatest need of creative work. Many of them will be built into big concerns in the next decade by young men who see their chance.

Quite recently it came to my knowledge that a great manufacturing company wanted a young man to go to the other side of the earth and become resident chief of the company's organization there. It would seem as if this concern might have found the right man in its own offices in the United States; but, oddly enough, the man with just the right qualifications was not available.

The company had plenty of technical men from among whom it might have picked a man for this post. But it didn't want a technical man. It wanted a man with a broad understanding of what it called "organization."

Now, this is a very deep subject, but in a few words it may be defined as the science of developing executives to the point where they pull together, and the art of eliminating friction in an organization of

In the large manufacturing concern of which I am speaking there was not a young man who filled the bill; it was necessary to go outside to find a man with a big vision on organization. From this incident it appears that young men who specialize in this direction, and who have ability and persistence, need not remain very long as twenty-five-dollar men.

This Man Made His Own Job

THE traffic manager of a large wholesale house tells me an interesting story of his own advancement. He began as an office-boy in the establishment where he is still employed. It was a small concern then, and had no traffic manager; but it grew rapidly. The office-boy was advanced to the position of an office clerk at eighty dollars a month. It happened that the company was having a lot of trouble because of the congested condition of the trucking between its establishment and the freight-houses. Sometimes its wagons had to wait for hours before they could get up to the platforms to unload. Here was a situation that appealed to the creative instincts of this young clerk. Just why it appealed to him I am unable to say; nor can he explain it himself.

"It came to me in a flash," he says. "Why couldn't there be some sort of cooperation, I wondered, between the wholesale merchants of our city, so that deliveries at the freight-houses could be made more or less on schedule, thus doing away with the big crush that usually came at certain hours of the day?

"I thought about this for some time, but said nothing. Really, it was none of my affair how badly the trucking was congested or how long the teamsters and hauling equipment had to stand in expensive idleness. My eighty dollars a month was coming right along, anyway. Besides, I was timid about offering suggestions, and not at all sure of myself. But finally I got up nerve to tell my idea to the executive in charge of the office, and he put it up to the proprietors.

"They sent for me, and this was my first attendance at an executive conference. I felt out of place, and was half sorry I had spoken. But, to my surprise, my plan went through, and proved advantageous all around. This encouraged me to make other suggestions, and led me ultimately into a study of railroad traffic and ways to save freight charges. I discovered that in many cases the house had been shipping under the wrong classifications, which meant unnecessary cost to our customers; and we ourselves had been paying more freight than we should have paid.

"In connection with my other work on the books and blanks, I gradually assumed the work of a traffic manager. Then, in about a year from the time I began this study, I was made traffic manager in earnest. Executive conferences have now become quite common with me."

His salary to-day is around five thousand dollars a year.

There is in New York a certain large company manufacturing a kind of wearing apparel which it sells on the mail-order plan. In its early years it had a good deal of a struggle. The market for its goods seemed to exist, but somehow the house didn't connect with it.

One day a young man applied at this establishment for employment. He had worked in various offices, but never had made anything of a hit—not having found his right niche. The mail-order house happened to need a man in the correspondence department, and he was hired at ten dollars a week to work in the filing- room. Here is his story:

"For two years I did just ordinary routine work, and my salary seemed to stick at fifteen dollars. Twenty-five dollars a week would have looked princely. Meanwhile I studied stenography and typewriting nights, and finally was given this class of work at the office. My wages were now raised to twenty-two dollars. Then one day, through the illness of the executive who was head of the correspondence department, it fell to my lot to try my hand at dictation.

He Had Ideas About Letter-Writing

"NOW, I had felt for a long time that the letters this house sent out were not the right sort. They were dead, conventional, devoid of interest. Being thrown on my own resources, I made up my mind to put some life into my letters.

"The result was unexpectedly rude. I had been ordered to send all the letters to the head of the house before mailing them. I took them into his office myself, and waited for him to look them over. They shocked him severely.

"'Who told you to write this sort of stuff?' he demanded.

"'Nobody,' I hesitated. 'It was my own idea.'

"'We can't use them!' he broke in. Go back and have them rewritten.'

"But, while I was doing this, he came to my room and told me to hold the matter in abeyance until the next morning. You see, those letters had got hold of him already.

"Next day the whole matter was gone over with the higher executives. There was much difference of opinion, but the letters 'got by.' Thus began an entirely different scheme of correspondence in our office. Our letters began to be framed in a personal and confidential way. The business took on a sudden momentum; and within two years I was head of the correspondence department."

He is more than that to-day, being a stockholder of some importance.

Some Self-Educated Men

I VISITED a factory recently where for two years scientific management had been in process of installation. Scientific management is a philosophy of efficiency reduced to concrete and undeviating practice. The president of the company told me that the greatest difficulty had been encountered in getting men to carry out instructions. He referred especially to the office force. He secured a high-class man as head of the planning department, but the work of training a clerical force to keep the records of the plant under efficiency methods was discouraging.

"Among our office force of about forty men," he said, "the task of developing men to handle the new work intelligently seemed for a time a hopeless one. Out in the shops we had less trouble than we had in the office. Finally the most apt pupil turned out to be a young fellow who was born of foreign parents and whose education had been mostly self-acquired. He was quite as eager and ambitious as the others were indifferent, and we have advanced him over their heads to be assistant to the chief of the planning department. We pay him forty dollars a week. He is mastering the whole scheme of scientific management, and he will be worth sixty dollars in another year."

In another factory met the chief cost clerk, a man under thirty, who told me he owed his advancement to concentration on the subject of costs.

"My first job," he said, "was that of bell-boy in a hotel, but I quit it in two weeks because I saw no reasonable prospect ahead. Then I got a place in a factory office, where I stayed four years. During the last year or two I began to feel stagnated and dissatisfied with my wages of eighteen dollars a week. It was a badly managed factory, and the proprietors finally woke up to this fact, and put some expert accountants at work to instal a cost system. These experts were supplied by a firm of efficiency engineers. Their work interested me, and I saw a chance to learn a skilled specialty; so I got a job with the engineering firm, starting at twelve dollars a week. In time I became capable of going out for my employers on the various contracts they undertook, and I installed cost systems in a great many plants.

"Two years ago the company for which I now work sent for me and offered me my present position, which pays me several times the eighteen dollars a week I earned before I specialized in cost work."

Then, I knew a manager of a branch store who started as a clerk for very small wages, but who now gets sixty dollars a week. I asked him if he ever considered twenty-five dollars a week as his limit, and he answered:

"If anybody had told me ten years ago that I could ever earn sixty dollars a week, I should have laughed at him, or sneered. But I discovered that executive ability was paid good wages, and I studied the thing, and voluntarily took responsibility beyond what was expected of me."

The Wall Street Girl

Continued from page 5

had not yet breakfasted. Having neglected to send any provisions to the house, Nora, acting upon his orders of the day before, had not prepared anything for him—there was nothing to prepare.

However, whether he ate breakfast or not was a detail. That is to say, it was a detail when he left the house; but now after the brisk walk to the club in the snapping cold air, it had grown in importance. Watson, on his way into the dining-room, passed him.

"Join me?" he asked, waving a greeting with the morning paper.

"Thanks," answered Don. "Guess I'll wait a bit."

Watson went on.

Don returned to a consideration of Barton's proposal. He was forced to admit that the old lawyer had an irritating knack of ignoring all incidental issues and stripping a problem to a statement of irrefutable fact. It was undeniable, for example, that what Don might desire in the way of salary did not affect the truth of Barton's contention that twelve hundred dollars was a great deal more than nothing. With a roof over his head assured him, it was possible that, with economy, he might be able at least to keep alive on this salary. That, of course, was a matter to be considered. As for Frances, she was at present well provided for and need not be in the slightest affected by the smallness of his income. Then, there was the possibility of a rapid advance. He had no idea how those things were arranged, but his limited observation was to the effect that his friends who went into business invariably had all the money they needed, and that most of his older acquaintances—friends of his father—were presidents and vice-presidents with unlimited bank accounts. Considering these facts, Don grew decidedly optimistic.

In the meanwhile his hunger continued to press him. His body, like a greedy child, demanded food. Watson came out and, lighting a fresh cigarette, sank down comfortably into a chair next him.

"What's the matter, Don—off your feed?" he inquired casually.

"Something of the sort," nodded Don.

"Party last night?"

"No; guess I haven't been getting exercise enough."

He rose. Somehow, Watson bored him this morning.

"I'm going to take a hike down the Avenue. S'long."

Don secured his hat, gloves, and stick, and started from the club at a brisk clip.

FROM Forty-fourth Street to the Twenties was as familiar a path as any in his life. He had traversed it probably a thousand times. Yet, this morning it suddenly became almost as strange as some street in Kansas City or San Francisco.

There were three reasons for this, any one of which would have accounted for the phenomenon: he was on his way to secure a job; he had in his pocket just thirteen cents; and he was hungry.

The stores before which he always stopped for a leisurely inspection of their contents took on a different air this morning. Quite automatically he paused before one and another of them and inspected the day's display of cravats and waistcoats. But, with only thirteen cents in his pocket, a new element entered into his consideration of these things—the element of cost. It was at the florist's that his situation was brought home to him even more keenly: Frances liked flowers, and she liked to receive them from him. And here were roses that looked as if they had been plucked for her. But they were behind a big plate-glass window. He had never noted before that, besides being transparent plate-glass was also thick and hard. And he was hungry. The fact continually intruded itself.

At last he reached the address that Barton had given him. "Carter, Rand & Seagraves, Investment Securities," read the inscription on the window. He passed through the revolving doors and entered the office.

A boy in buttons approached and took his card.

"Mr. Carter, Mr. Rand, or Mr. Seagraves," said Don.

The boy was soon back.

"Mr. Farnsworth will see you in a few minutes," he reported.

"Farnsworth?" inquired Don.

"He's the gent what sees every one," explained the boy. "Ticker's over there."

He pointed to a small machine upon a stand, which was slowly unfurling from its mouth a long strip of paper such as prestidigitators produce from silk hats. Don crossed to it, and studied the strip with interest. It was spattered with cryptic letters and figures, much like those he had learned to use indifferently well in a freshman course in chemistry. The only ones he recalled just then were H2O and CO2, and he amused himself by watching to see if they turned up.

"Mr. Pendleton?"

Don turned to find a middle-aged gentleman standing before him with outstretched hand.

"Mr. Barton wrote to us about you," Farnsworth continued briskly. "I believe he said you had no business experience."

"No," admitted Don.

"Harvard man?"

Don named his class.

"Your father was well known to us. We are willing to take you on for a few months, if you wish to try the work. Of course, until you learn something of the business you won't be of much value but if you'd like to start at—say twenty five dollars a week—why, we'd be glad to have you."

AT the beginning Don had a vague notion of estimating his value at considerably more; but Mr. Farnsworth was so decided, it did not seem worth while. At that moment, also, he was reminded again that he had not yet breakfasted.

"Thanks," he replied. "When shall I begin?"

"Whenever you wish. If you haven't anything on to-day, you might come in now, meet some of the men, and get your bearings."

"All right," assented Don.

Within the next five minutes Farnsworth had introduced him to Blake and Manson and Wheaton and Powers and Jennings and Chandler. Also to Miss Winthrop, a very busy stenographer. Then he left him in a chair by Powers' desk. Powers was dictating to Miss Winthrop, and Don became engrossed in watching the nimbleness of her fingers.

At the end of his dictation, Powers excused himself and went out, leaving Don alone with Miss Winthrop. For a moment he felt a bit uncomfortable; he was not quite sure what the etiquette of a business office demanded in a situation of this sort. Soon, however, he realized that the question was solving itself by the fact that Miss Winthrop was apparently oblivious to his presence. If he figured in her consciousness any more than one of the office chairs, she gave no indication of it. She was transcribing from her note-book to the typewriter, and her fingers moved with marvelous dexterity and sureness. There was a sureness about every other movement, as when she slipped in a new sheet of paper or addressed an envelop or raised her head. There was a sureness in her eyes. He found himself quite unexpectedly staring into them once, and they didn't waver, although he was not quite certain, even then, that they saw him. They were brown eyes, honest and direct, above a good nose and a mouth that, while retaining its girlish mobility, also revealed an unexpected trace of almost manlike firmness. It was a face that interested him, but, before he was able to determine in just what way, she finished her last letter and, rising abruptly, disappeared into a rear room. Presently she emerged, wearing a hat and coat.

It was, on the whole, a very becoming hat and a very becoming coat, though would not have suited at all the critical taste of Frances Stuyvesant. But it had not been designed for that purpose.

Miss Winthrop paused to readjust pin and the angle of her hat. Then she took a swift glance about the office.

"I guess the boys must have gone," she said to Don. "This is the lunch hour."

Don rose.

"Thank you for letting me know," he replied cordially.

"Most of them get back at one," she informed him.

"Then you think I may go out until then?"

"I don't see why not. But I'd be back at one sharp if I were you."

"Thanks, I will."

DON gave her an opportunity to go out the door and disappear before he himself followed. He had a notion that she could have told him, had he asked, where in this neighborhood it was possible to get the most food for the least money. He had a notion, also, that such a question would not have shocked her. It was difficult to say by just what process he reached this conclusion, but he felt quite sure of it.

Don was now firmly determined to invest a portion of his thirteen cents in something to eat. It had no longer become a matter of volition, but an acute necessity. For twenty minutes he wandered about rather aimlessly; then, in a sort of alley, he found a dairy lunch where in plain figures coffee was offered at five cents a cup, and egg sandwiches at the same price. It was well filled, but he was fortunate in slipping into a chair against the wall just as a man was slipping out. It was a chair where one broad arm served as a table. Next to him sat a young woman in a black hat, munching a chocolate éclair. She looked up as he sat down, and frowned. Don rose at once.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know you were here. Honest I didn't."

"Well, it's a public lunch, isn't it?" she inquired. "I'm almost through."

"Then you don't mind if I stay?"

"It's no business of mine," she answered curtly.

"But I don't want you to think I—I'm intruding."

She glanced at him again.

"Let's forget it," she decided. "But you might sit there all day and you wouldn't get anything to eat."

He looked around, uncertain as to just what she meant.

"You go to the counter, pick out what you want, and bring it back here," she explained. "I'll hold your seat for you."

Don made his way into the crowd at the rear. At the counter he found he had for ten cents a wide choice; but her éclair had looked so good he selected one of those and a cup of coffee. In returning he lost a portion of the coffee, but he brought the éclair through safely. He deposited it on the arm of the chair and sat down. In spite of his utmost effort at self-control, that éclair made just four mouthfuls. It seemed to him that he had no more than picked up his fork than it was gone. However, he still had his coffee, and he settled back to enjoy that in a more temperate fashion.

Without apparently taking the slightest interest in him, Miss Winthrop observed the rapidity with which he concluded his lunch. She knew something about being hungry, and if she was any judge that tid-bit produced no more impression upon this six-foot man than a peanut on an elephant.

"That all you're going to eat?" she demanded.

Don was startled. The question was both unexpected and pointed. He met her eyes—brown eyes and very direct. The conventional explanation that he had ready about not caring for much in the middle of the day seemed scarcely worth while.

"Yes," he answered.

"Broke?" she inquired.

He nodded.

"Then you ought to have had an egg sandwich instead of one of those things," she informed him.

"But the one you had looked so good," he smiled.

"I had an egg sandwich to start with; this was dessert."

"I didn't know," he apologized.

"You ought to get one now. You won't last until night on just that."

"How much are they?" he inquired.

"A nickel."

"Then I guess I won't have one."

"Haven't you five cents?" she cross-examined.

"Only three cents," he answered.

"And you begin work to-day?"

"Yes."

"It's only Tuesday, and you won't get paid until Saturday."

"So?"

"Do you expect to make that éclair go until then?"

"I hadn't thought much about it," he answered uneasily.

"You don't look as if you would," she said. "You are new to this, aren't you?"

"Yes."

He did not resent her questioning; and it did not occur to him to give her an evasive reply.

"Just out of college?"

"Last fall."

"What you been doing since then?"

"Why, nothing," he admitted. "You see, my father died only last month, and—"

"Oh, I see," she said more gently. "That's hard luck."

"It makes a good deal of a difference," he said.

"I know."

It had made a difference in her life when her father died.

She turned to her éclair; but, as she was raising the fork to her lips, she caught his eyes and put it down again.

"Look here," she said; "you must eat something. You can't get along without food. I've tried it."

"You!" he exclaimed.

"Indeed, yes."

"Dieting?"

"Hardly," she replied grimly.

He had heard of men going perforce without food, but he did not remember ever having heard of a woman in that predicament. Certainly he had never before met one.

"You mean that you've gone broke, too?"

"Why, certainly," she answered. "The firm I was with first went broke, and it was a couple of months before I found another position. But that's over now. What I want to know is what you're going to do until Saturday."

"Oh, I'll worry along," he answered confidently.

She shook her head.

"Worry won't carry you along."

SHE hesitated a moment, and then said impulsively:

"Now, look here—don't get peeved at what I'm going to say, will you?"

"I don't believe it's possible to get peeved with you," he declared.

She frowned.

"Well, let it go at that. What I want to do is to lend you a couple of dollars until Saturday. It isn't much, but—"

Don caught his breath. "You—"

She did not give him time to finish. From somewhere she produced a two-dollar bill and slipped it into his hand.

"Take this and get an egg sandwich right now."

"But look here—"

"Don't talk. Go get a sandwich."

He seemed to have no alternative; but when he came back with it she had disappeared.

He sat down, but he could not understand why she should have gone like that. He missed her—missed her more than he would have thought possible, considering that he had met her only some two hours before. Without her this place seemed empty and foreign. Without her he felt uneasy here. He hurried through his sandwich and went out—anxious to get back to her.

To be continued next week

They Did It All Alone

He Built This House

"FROM plans to plumbing, this domicile is mine. I did it with my own hands, " is the boast of Sam Siggins, a carriage-maker in Washington, D. C. For seventeen years he has toiled at the building of a house that would be worthy of the bride who is still waiting its completion, and no man has helped him with his task. Today, not quite finished, the house is worth fifteen thousand dollars; yet all the materials were hewn from the hillside or purchased from the savings earned in the carriage shop.

Since the time when Siggins first conceived the idea of building, all of his spare time, his holidays, and his Sundays has been used in working, up to the present, when his initial dream has become a reality. During all these years his ingenuity, his mechanical and engineering skill and his artistry, have been focused on the crystallization of this dwelling. He has not missed a single day from his work, or put any money into the venture other than what he has earned from his daily labor.

Quarried the Stone Himself

HE quarried from the side of the hill the tons of stone used in the walls and chimneys. He dug out the sand and gravel to use in the mortar for this masonry,—5400 cubic feet of it,—and hoisted stone, gravel, and sand with his own hands up to the summit of the hill where his house stands. The winch used in doing this was of his own contrivance. He installed a ram in the little stream running through the place, and forced water into barrels where it would be handy in mixing cement. He made the molds and then poured in the cement for the big structural parts of the edifice, as well as for the details of balustrade, floor-tile, and hearth-stone. He made seventy-three huge cement pipes to lay as an aqueduct through which to conduct the stream, instead of letting it run over the surface and expose it to the trash and filth coming from places farther upstream. He built two chimneys fifty feet high and twelve feet broad, and placed every one of the 40,000 pounds of Spanish tile covering the roof.

As Sam Siggins, architect, he has produced a house with twelve rooms, sleeping-porches, cellar, and, most distinctive of all, a large esplanade inclosed by arched pillars. As engineer, he has produced cement flues that carry ashes directly from the fireplaces to the bin below, a pneumatic water system that keeps up the necessary pressure at all times automatically. He has put in a steam-heating system, with pipes and radiators throughout the building. He has a bin under the porch to hold coal. Throughout it is a dwelling such as a man with a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year might order from the best architect. It represents the savings account to which he has added not only a share of his wages as an expert wood-worker, but also every moment of time he could afford from his daily meals and resting hours.

When he doesn't stay late at the shop, Sam Siggins spends the evening at the "Wigwam." When the days are long, he accomplishes much before it is necessary to light a lantern. In the winter, he does most of his evening work by lamplight.

When It's Finished—

WHEN one hears the sound of hammering and sawing coming from that quarter,—whether after supper, when all workmen are supposed to be taking their rest, or on Sunday or the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving,—and asks any passer-by what it means, the reply comes without a moment's hesitation that it's Sam Siggins building his house; that he has been at work on it for seventeen years; and that when it is finished his sweetheart says she will marry him.

And He Built This Telescope

THE only sort of person who can do any star-gazing without the aid of a telescope is a youth on a moonlight night. Professor G. D. Swezey of the University of Nebraska is no longer a youth, and being a professor of astronomy, he wanted a telescope through which to gaze. He has it now, because he built it, not because the university appropriated the funds to have some one else build it. And it is one of the finest instruments in the United States. But Professor Swezey still has a card up his sleeve. When the instrument was done there was no observatory large enough to put it in, so the university must put up a building for the department of astronomy, whether it wants to or not.

Three generations of students helped. That was because the job took eight years, and because students graduate. The first class took hold in the university machine shops in 1907. The professor drew the tentative plans himself, and then carried them over to the room of an engineering student who had a penchant for star-gazing. Blueprints followed that work, detailing the 319 parts that had to be constructed.

Then, for the next eight years, the professor put all of his spare time into the construction of an instrument with all modern equipment which would be scientifically accurate. There are only two or three firms in the United States capable of turning out a big telescope, and they require from a year to three years to fill such an order. Professor Swezey's work was not slow relatively.

The cash valuation of these eight years of spare-time labor is about six thousand dollars, and now the University of Nebraska has the largest telescope in the State, and one of the largest instruments in the Middle West. It measures eighteen feet long and has a twelve-inch lens. It stands on an iron base that is twelve feet high—and it is all a gift from the professor to his university. Professor Swezey's ideas are not patented, any more than are those of Sam Siggins above. Any man who really wants some thing is at liberty to try their methods.

Where Houses Burn Like Paper

PHILLIPS BROOKS, traveling in Japan, noted that the houses are either built very solidly, so as to withstand earthquake shocks, or else very flimsily, so that they can be rebuilt with little trouble or loss. An earthquake, sweeping this flimsy section, causes hardly more consternation than a hard rain along the banks of the Ohio River.

In the Philippines the enemy is not earthquake, but fire. United States officials found, when they took hold of the islands, that the people could not pay much for building materials, and that the bamboo houses burned down about as regularly as our houses are cleaned. Moreover, it was suspected that in some instances the dealers in bamboo had set fire to whole sections of the native dwellings, in order to freshen the market for their product.

The government has not yet solved this problem of fighting fire, and never will. But long steps have been taken in reducing the damage. The fire-fighting apparatus of Manila is now the finest in the far East, and rigid building restrictions have been enacted which greatly reduce the fire hazard.

Can You Win This Prize?

IN the hope of stamping out the evil entirely, the government offered a liberal prize to any one who should invent a building material that would be as light and as cheap as bamboo, and at the same time be absolutely fire-proof. The prize has never been claimed: probably it never will be.

Fighting fire in the Philippines, fighting fever in Cuba, fighting revolution in Hayti, and ignorance everywhere—so the strong arm of the United States reaches out in all directions. For such is the penalty of power.

Is Your Cat a Good One?

THIS does not necessarily mean, is it a prize-winning Persian, with a more or less fancy price attached, but is it good of its class, whatever that may be—Persian, Angora, Siamese, Manx, or common native short-hair? Is it in good condition, well groomed, and fairly well up to the standard of the requirements for its class?

It is no longer necessary to own a long-haired cat in order to be satisfied or proud of its possession; for many of the short-hair are quite as beautiful, and far more easily cared for. Moreover they are coming to be much valued by cat fanciers.

Short-Hairs" Coming into Favor

PRACTICALLY the same points called for in a long-haired exhibition cat are required in the short-hair. Let me mention a few of these, and see how closely they fit your cat and mine. A good head, round and short in the nose, strong of jaw, with tiny ears set well apart, will go far toward putting a cat in the winning class. Then, a compact body, well carried on short, well set legs; a short well shaped tail, well carried—not dragged; and a smooth, clean, silky coat, with the skin rippling freely over supple muscles.

Solid color cats—for instance, black, white, blue, cream, orange—should be of a perfectly solid and even color, without a white hair anywhere, not even the little white spot on the throat known to fanciers as "the locket." Personally I regret this discrimination, but the fanciers consider it a defect.

If you have a silver-stripe or tabby cat with the silver very white and clear and the black a clean jet-black, with no tinge of brown about the head or fore paws, you may begin to have aspirations about the winter cat shows.

Broken colors are always taboo; but any standard color properly marked with white—white feet, white collar and bib, and white blaze in the face, not extending above the eyes, with all the rest of the body free from white are in a class by themselves, and I hope the day will come when full justice will be done them.

The beauty of any cat depends so greatly upon its care that one is hardly in a position to judge it until it is put at its best. The first requisite in the care of a cat is a comfortable place for it to live in, especially at night—its own basket or cushion, where it will be undisturbed;

Tabby's Bill of Fare

IN arranging its bill of fare, we must remember that the cat is carnivorous and not omnivorous, like the dog, and that meat, either raw or cooked, must form an important part of its diet. This meat diet should be fed at night. The morning meal may consist of some cereal with milk or cream; at noon bread soaked in broth or gravy, such vegetables from the table as it will eat—excepting potatoes, which should not be fed. Dog biscuits, soaked in broth until soft, are especially good and fattening. This may be varied by an occasional dish of cream toast, bread and butter, which is always well liked, macaroni cooked in broth, with a bit of cheese on the side. Where there is only one pet cat, its meals usually come from the family table; but where a number are kept their feeding becomes a matter of careful and economical marketing, and one must learn what cuts of meat furnish the greatest amount of nourishment with the least waste. Cheap cuts of meat that are largely bone are not economical when fed raw; but when cooked they make a nourishing broth which, with bread, provides a wholesome meal. Liver, when well cooked, may be fed safely once or twice a week; but it must never be fed raw.