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A Daguerreotype

By WILL PAYNE

Illustrations by Robert Amick

NOTHING, they would have told you that evening, had ever happened to the Tyre Beacon, or ever could happen to it. For nearly fifty years Captain Adoniram Waite had edited it in the same way—presumably he would go on editing it the same way for another fifty years. The man and his paper seemed to have reached a state of toughness, like so much petrified wood, that simply turned the edge of Time's teeth.

So they would have told you any time that evening; but by two o'clock in the morning—bitter cold and snowing—something quite momentous had undeniably happened.

To get the event in proper perspective, we must go back to seven o'clock in the evening—almost exactly seven; only a very few minutes before or a very few minutes after. For in these last years, those with whom he had dined and who had dined with him being dead or incapacitated by aged infirmities, it was always just about seven o'clock—never more than a very few minutes before or after—when Captain Adoniram Waite stumped into the dining-room of the Sheridan House, with a bundle of newspapers under his arm, for his solitary dinner—always at the same corner table, and

for nearly twenty years now with the same waiter.

When the Sheridan House was opened with a grand banquet, and all the best families duly represented, it was supposed to be about the last word in hotels. But that was in 1872, when Tyre itself had only thirty thousand inhabitants—each with a proper sense of its honorable importance—and the automobiles that created its later fortunes were undreamed of.

Now, of course, nobody thought of going to the little dingy old Sheridan House—at least, nobody except farmers and Captain Waite. The gilding on the dining-room ceiling had long since turned dismally brassy; the black-walnut chairs looked antediluvian; Henry, the waiter at the corner table, had grown almost as blanched as the Captain himself, and under the white hair his wrinkled face looked ebony black. He stood a little to one side, holding the finger-bowl and dinner-check, already smiling and fully prepared for the ceremonial bow with which he placed those objects before the diner. He had stood so for some minutes, in fact, and again peered rather anxiously up at the once gilded clock surrounded by tarnished cupids.

Certainly the clock said six minutes after eight, and Henry was surprised, for he couldn't remember that the Captain had ever before tarried that long after eight. Captain Waite himself was surprised, as he looked up from the outspread page that had held his attention. With unwonted haste he signed the check and arose—awkwardly, for his right leg was stiff, the years-after result of a wound received at Gettysburg.

Henry with the usual deferential bustle put the cape over the Captain's shoulders,—a faded militarish garment such as nobody else had worn for ages,—handed him his stout stick, and gathered up the newspapers into a bundle which the Captain tucked under his left arm.

He had never been over five feet eight, and his shoulders stooped now—a meager, hard, fibered, hickory-knot sort of man, with his stiff right leg, the stout, crook-handled stick grasped in his right hand the bundle of newspapers under his left arm, enveloped in the faded, militarish cloak.

One could not imagine he had ever been anything but homely. His narrow forehead sloped; the big, bulbous nose seemed to belong to another face. His thick, snow-white mustache and imperial were ornamental only in that he would have been still homelier without them. His appearance was the subject of many jokes through the impersonal medium of rival prints; but it was very well understood that any one at all who made it the subject of a face-to-face joke would get the stout stick over his head with instant promptness.

That was the universal impression of Captain Adoniram Waite—a man of still formidable passions, ready to fight anything or everything at the drop of the hat. It showed in the set of his wrinkled jaw—almost colorless now, with only the yellowish tinge of old white paper —and in the gleam of his eyes under shaggy brows.

So, at eight minutes past eight, he stumped out of the Sheridan House to the street, where the flagging was sloppy with new snow.

It was just a block to the old three-story brick building—now shabbily squatting at the rear of the newest skyscraper—that still housed the Beacon. He stalked through the dimly lighted and almost deserted counting-room, and up a narrow and crooked flight of stairs at the rear to the editorial offices. In his own corner room, he flung off his hat and cape and sat down at a big black-walnut desk piled high with editorial litter.

IN an older building on that same spot, under his uncle's editorship, he was in a similar room when news came that Fort Sumter had been fired upon. He himself had sat at the desk when they learned that Lincoln was assassinated. Since that night there had been perhaps two score nights altogether when, at some time between 8 P.M. and 2 A.M., he had not sat at the editor-in-chief's desk, directing the paper.

It seemed almost like an established order of nature. The sun rose; the seasons changed; old Titherington, in the den three doors away, edited the weekly edition; and Captain Adoniram Waite stumped in about eight. At two in the morning he stumped out again, through the empty counting-room to the empty street, and into a cab which drove him to the modest two-story brick house that had been his bachelor home for thirty years.

But there was no stumping out this morning. Paige, the managing editor, pushed open the door of the corner room at half past one, and found its occupant stone dead before the old black-walnut desk, one bony hand clutching its edge, his head dropped forward until it almost rested upon the editorial litter.

If it had been Weston or Keith, the automobile magnates, or Ferraro, who had just broken the world record by driving five hundred miles in less than five hundred minutes, Tyre would have been considerably excited by this dramatic exit. But the dramatic exit of one whom it only vaguely and indifferently apprehended as a funny old man who owned a dull old newspaper, left it quite unimpressed. The new school census, indicating a population of three hundred and fifty thousand, was vastly more exciting.

The Leader and the Sentinel put the news of Captain Adoniram Waite's sudden demise over on the third page; but the Leader next day discovered the will in the possession of Lyeurgas Case, and got a very amusing story out of that. It >

made bequests to a number of distant relatives and to a number of old employees, and left the residuary estate to the Shelby School for Young Ladies over at Markham, Kentucky. As deceased had been a bachelor of notoriously crusty temper, and had never within living memory exhibited any particular interest in ladies, young or old, that was considered an amusing eccentricity—which rose to the height of a mild sensation when it was presently discovered that Captain Adoniram Waite had been a decidedly thrifty person, and that the residuary estate, after the Beacon was sold, amounted to two hundred thousand dollars.

THE Bridges-Teller-Thatcher combination bought the paper,—their specialty being the reanimation of moribund journalism,—and Bob Thatcher himself came on to take charge until the reanimation was well under way. Through the counting-room, then, up the narrow, crooked back stairs, and into the corner room of the editor-in-chief came no more the blanched and limping figure of Adoniram Waite, but a rather burly person of eight-and-thirty, with a passion for big-checked ulsters and long, low, yellow racing cars; a person of no discoverable reverence, to whom sentiment was a joke, but of swift, surprising decisions and ready laughter.

Between tossing the big-checked ulster into a chair and lighting a pipe, he expressed his view of the situation to the new managing editor, whom he had brought with him, as follows:

"Clean out the junk; pump in the

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juice; we'll have this honorable old corpse out in the middle of the street yelling its head off in two weeks."

He brought with him also, as secretary and buffer, Miss Daisy Martin, a dark-eyed and comely young woman who did not look at all timid. He put a little desk for her at one end of the corner room, and gave her this instruction:

"You sit right there unless I say 'scat.' Your being in the room will discourage politicians who want to tell me what a great and good man their candidate is, and leading citizens who are willing to let me know, in confidence, just how I should run the paper."

A janitor cleaned the editorial litter from the old walnut desk, even to the dusty contents of the drawers—stuffing it all indiscriminately into a big sack to be burned: for two or three minutes of swift investigation had satisfied Bob Thatcher that it came under the designation of junk.

The book-case against the south wall he suffered to remain after a dusting. It contained most of the British classics, several books of quotations, an early edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Bancroft's "History of the United States"—all of which, while of no particular use to the new occupant, might impress callers.

ONE object in the room aroused a mild curiosity. This was an ancient iron safe, about four feet high by two and a half feet in the other dimensions—such a safe as Bob Thatcher had never seen. It was mounted on pudgy little iron legs, with casters, so it stood up six inches or so from the floor. A red bulldog, crouchant, on a gold field, had been painted on its door; but with the slow effects of time the dog had become eyeless and nearly mouthless—only a dimly vigilant ghost of him remained.

Nobody about the office knew what the safe contained; not even old Titherington, who edited the weekly edition by a formula which his predecessor had devised before the Civil War, when Titherington—astonishing thought!—was a slim, bright-eyed, sandy-haired office boy. The hair was gone now, down to the last thread. The slimness had gradually evolved into a saggy corpulence, so when Titherington sat down he overflowed his own lap. The eyes had grown dim. The linen was pretty sure to be mussy. He seemed to have accepted the demise of Captain Adoniram Waite and the advent of the new proprietors with a simple, unemotional, self-respecting passivity. If he was at all disturbed concerning the tenure of his own position, he gave no sign of it—just waddled along editing the weekly edition quite as if nothing had happened.

He was slow in his speech, and rather wheezy; but the new occupants of the corner room were by no means insensible to human values, and they soon discovered a sweet, sound core of character in the old editor. Miss Martin expressed her sense of it one day when he had waddled out of the room—expressed it in a flash of angry challenge:

"It would be rotten to fire that old man!"

"Oh, I'll never fire Tith," Thatcher replied, with his humorous cackle. "I'll mount him on the British classics and Bancroft's History!"

There were many things to think of besides an old safe whose use nobody knew, so the ancient contrivance stood undisturbed, with its eyeless symbol of guardianship. It occupied the darkest corner of the room—to the left of the big walnut desk. There was no particular use for that particular bit of floor-space, so the safe might have remained there untouched until the proposed remodeling of the editorial rooms was carried out.

But not quite all the old junk had been removed from the big walnut desk. There was a little drawer which the janitor had not discovered, because it didn't look like a drawer. Bob Thatcher's sharp brown eyes detected it one day, and he pulled it open. It contained a derringer—one of those big-mouthed, snub-nosed, peculiarly murderous-looking pocket weapons that were rather fashionable before the Civil War. The find amused him, as his humorous cackle announced.

"Pipe the old boy's gun!" he remarked to Miss Martin, holding up the weapon so she could see it. He examined the relic a moment, chuckling, and tossed it back in the drawer. He noticed that the drawer also contained a T-shaped piece of steel about three inches long; but, as he could imagine no use for it, he paid no attention to it.

A WEEK later, in an idle moment, he again opened the little blind drawer and took out the amusing firearm. That time a mere pointless curiosity moved him to pick up the T-shaped piece of steel. Looking at it more closely, he perceived that it was a key. A moment later the old safe occurred to him; for, where a modern safe has the knob of a combination lock, this ancient article had a round key-hole with tarnished nickel plating.

"I'll bet this is the combination," he declared to Miss Martin, and the next moment was stooping in front of the safe with the clumsy T-shaped key in hand. After a little experimenting the grooves of the key slipped over the wards of the lock, the bolt clicked back, and with a sharp pull the door swung open; by which time Miss Martin was at his shoulder, peering.

There was a lower compartment which had evidently been designed as a receptacle of books of account or like valuable papers; but it contained no such objects now. A glance suggested that the little heap of things lying on the bit of red and green ingrain carpet that covered the bottom of the compartment had no commercial significance. One of the things was a brown glove of fine kid, so slim and dainty that it penetrated one with a sense of feminine grace.

Bob Thatcher stood up, suddenly grave, turned the glove over and handed it to Daisy Martin. She took it silently, felt the soft texture of the leather, put it to her nose, for a faint perfume exhaled from it, then laid it along the back of her hand and smoothed it down there with a restrained touch. It was some sizes too small for her capable hand—too small for any use but beauty. With her dark head a bit to one side, she regarded the glove a moment; then she and Thatcher looked at each other. Both were thinking that the glove must have been put in the safe many years before.

Thatcher stooped for another object, which had drawn their eyes the moment the safe door swung open—an object much more curious than the glove. It was a flat, square case, about four inches long and broad, of tortoise-shell, mounted in gold and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It was fastened with a tiny gold clasp which Thatcher undid. Being opened, the case disclosed on one side merely a dark, shiny glass which mirrored back their peering faces. The other leaf was covered with red velvet, on which lay a lock of chestnut hair arranged in a circle.

"Oh, it's a daguerreotype!" Miss Martin exclaimed.

And, when Thatcher got the dark glass in just the right light, the portrait came out sharper and fresher than a photograph. It was the full-length likeness of a young woman, standing. The soft hair was combed down over her ears in a style long obsolete; the skirt was a monstrous hooped affair of ruffles and flounces. But the daguerreotype showed her features with wonderful distinctness—the little smile upon her curved lips, and the whole appeal of her sweet grace. It was not merely that she was very pretty: she had that loveliness whose elusive image haunts the heart of desirous, wayfaring man.

Staring long at the old daguerreotype, Bob Thatcher unconsciously let slip a little sigh.

"Her hair, I suppose," Miss Daisy Martin murmured, and with the tip of her finger just touched the curled lock.

Thatcher gravely closed the case and laid it, with the glove, on top of the old safe. There were other objects within to be examined. Six of them were notes written in a sloping, feminine hand. In one of them Miss Rayburn very formally accepted Captain Waite's invitation to a picnic. Another ran:

Another, signed "Fannie R.," briefly and prettily acknowledged some flowers. Two were signed merely with the initials F. R., and meant nothing without a clue, which the readers did not have. Apparently one of them said yes to some proposal, and another no. But the sixth note was quite different. The writing showed haste. It read:

It was not signed at all, but the writing identified it. The other object in the safe was a stiff, square envelop addressed to Captain Adoniram Waite, and inclosing an invitation, printed in quaint script, whereby the Misses Shelby begged the honor of Captain Waite's presence at a dance to be given at the Knolls, Markham, Kentucky, February the twenty-fifth, eighteen hundred and seventy-one. There was nothing to show why that should have been treasured; but it reminded them of Captain Waite's last will and testament, bequeathing the larger part of his fortune to the Shelby School.

"Well, by Jove! Who'd have thought it?" exclaimed Bob Thatcher, in a kind of half-incredulous awe, as he finally laid the square white envelop with the other finds.

Then professional instinct arose.

"I say! That would make a corking story if we could piece it out!" he exclaimed eagerly. "There's that unexplained bequest in the will. We could start with the theory that the lady in the daguerreotype had some connection with the Shelby School, and that's the reason Captain Waite left it his money. That would make a good line to hang the story on. We could lug in the old Civil Wartime society stuff, with its hoop-skirts and plug hats and dead-and-gone swells. That used to be the great stuff down here, you know—before Tom Keith showed 'em how to make an automobile every other minute and Mrs. Weston built a greenhouse that covered three acres. We could get a lot of pictures and spread it over a couple of pages of the Sunday supplement! Let's see what old Tith knows about it."

The professional instinct having been aroused, he was at once the brisk and unsentimental editorial dynamo of the Bridges-Teller-Thatcher combination. It was a cardinal principle with him that corking stories wore to be published regardless of anybody's foolish sensibilities. "I'd as lief rob a bank in daylight as suppress a good story," he had more than once declared. "It wouldn't be any more unbusinesslike."

SUMMONED by the office-boy, old Titherington shuffled into the corner room and sagged down into an ample chair by the walnut desk—as mussy in his clothes and as untroubled in his soul as ever.

"Why, yes," said the old man, in his slow, amiable wheeze, as he thoughtfully rubbed his shiny head, "I remember Fannie Rayburn very well. I guess about everybody that lived in Tyre forty, fifty years ago remembers her." He smiled like a sort of patriarchal cherub and added: "I guess about everybody of the male persuasion that lived in Tyre that year was in love with her. Yes," he drawled on reminiscently,—for there was no hurrying him,—"it must have been along 1870 or 1871 that she came here. I could get the date exactly by looking back in the index. Mrs. Carrheart brought her here—sort of a protegee, you know. Mrs. Carrheart was the social leader then—wife of Colonel Edgar Carrheart. She was an ambitious, managing kind of woman—a beauty herself, too. She died only ten, twelve years ago. But Colonel Carrheart lost his money. I don't know's he ever really had a great deal. The family wasn't much heard of in later years. But in war-time and right afterward they were the great thing socially.

"Fannie Rayburn, now—I don't remember just where she did come from. It was somewhere over in Kentucky. I remember her antecedents were rather humble—nothing at all on the Carrheart and Belknap and Livingston order. Why—it kind of seems to me she was a schoolteacher. Oh, yes! Now I remember! She was a distant relative of the Misses Shelby. They came from a fine family, but impoverished by the war, you know, and they started a school for young ladies at Markham. It's the same school, you know, that Captain Waite left his money to. I recall it now. The Misses Shelby had brought up Fannie Rayburn. I think she did some teaching in their school. It couldn't have been very much, though; for, as I recollect it, she was only about nineteen when Mrs. Carrheart took her up."

He rubbed his head again and reflected.

"I don't know just why Mrs. Carrheart took her up. I don't know as anybody knows—probably just her fancy for a very beautiful, attractive girl. She was that kind of a woman, you know. If she took a fancy to anybody or anything, that settled it. Anyway, she brought Fannie Rayburn up here to Tyre as sort of a protegee, and the girl made a great sensation. Everybody was crazy about her."

"OF course, all the young bloods were paying court to her; but I don't remember ever having heard she was engaged to anybody. Her position was sort of peculiar. I suppose," he explained, with his simple-hearted, tolerant smile, "it shows what awful snobs we are. If she'd been Colonel Carrheart's daughter, everybody would have spoken of her as Miss Carrheart; but I remember very well it was sort of the fashion to speak of her as 'Fannie Rayburn'—as showing she was a little off the true blue color, you see. She had the reputation of being a good deal of a flirt. Of course, so far as I know, that was just gossip. Maybe being taken up here the way she was, and courted and all that, sort of turned her head. That wouldn't be remarkable in a young woman. I only know, of course, what was said about her outside the charmed circle. Tyre wasn't as big then, and pretty near everybody had something to say about her that year."

"Did you ever hear Captain Waite's name mentioned in connection with her?" Thatcher asked.

"Captain Waite?" the old editor repeated in mild surprise. "Why, no; I never did. So far's I know, he had nothing in particular to do with her. No doubt he knew her—may have been in her company and all that. Probably he was. But, you see, Captain Waite wasn't quite the true blue color, either. His father was a printer, you know; and so was his uncle, who started the Beacon. They paid more attention to that down here in those days. Then, old Ezra Waite, from all accounts, was a pretty stiff fighter, and we know well enough the Captain was all of that. I guess his social position was only so-so. As far as I know, he never was a man that cared a great deal about society —stood a good deal outside of it, you know, because he didn't care and wasn't especially urged to come in. So no doubt he knew Fannie Rayburn, but I guess there was never anything more than a speaking acquaintance."

"She was here about a year," Thatcher prompted.

"Well, about that," Titherington replied, in his mild drawl—"might have been a year and a half, but hardly longer than that."

Reminiscently rubbing his head, he ambled on:

"I remember very well her going away —that is, I remember there was quite a fuss and flutter about it when we discovered she had gone back to Kentucky. There wasn't any particular reason for it, far's I ever knew—any more reason than there was for her coming up here. She might have got tired of being a sort of protegee, or Mrs. Carrheart might have

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got tired of the whim. Mrs. Carrheart was a woman that would be likely to do that—dashing and domineering, you know.

"Mrs. Carrheart was a Livingston. I suppose there's no harm, now they're all dead and gone, in saying the Livingstons were a pretty bad lot, in their blue-blooded way. I remember the stories they used to tell about the old man—her father: quarreling and dueling and so on, you know. Then, her brother, Sylvanus Livingston, was a famous character in his day. I remember him very well. I saw him jump off his horse one day, right down here at the corner of Jackson and Chestnut streets, and beat a man bloody with the butt of his riding-whip because the man swore when the horse bumped into him. He was a big, black, handsome brute. Pretty near everybody was afraid of him. I know I was. It wasn't good for any young woman outside of that social set to be seen as much as saying 'how d' do' to him on the street. To be seen talking to him for a minute was as much as her reputation was worth."

He gave a deprecating little cough behind his pudgy hand, and wheezed along;

"There was always a mystery about Sylvanus Livingston's death. He was assassinated between here and Cottonwoods. That was the name of the Carrhearts' place, about fifteen miles down the river. He was shot through the heart in a little grove three, four rods off the road. It was a lonely enough spot then, and they never found any trace of the assassin. I don't know's they ever looked very hard. Of course, his reputation being what it was, there was a general supposition that some woman's husband or father fired the shot. He left town here early in the morning—along about daylight, if I remember right—and rode toward Cottonwoods. Pretty soon his horse appeared at Cottonwoods without any rider. They hunted around, and found his body in the grove. The Carrhearts weren't staying at Cottonwoods then, for it was along in the fall. They were in town; but Sylvanus had been going out there, more or less. There was a theory that he probably had an appointment or he wouldn't have got up so early."

He gave a husky little sigh and smiled at his auditors.

"Of course, nobody will ever know. It may have been a tryst that somebody overheard and stopped with a bullet. A woman with a grievance may have invited him there to be killed. There are all sorts of possibilities. All anybody ever knew was, just the horse with its empty saddle, and then the body in the grove with a hole through its breast. I say, all anybody ever knew,"—he smiled apologetically,—"but I've often thought, or used often to think in the old days, of the man who did know—the man who fired the shot. He must have had a story to tell. I suppose now, Mr. Thatcher, one of your hustling young reporters would have got hold of him and printed the story," he added with an amiable and wheezy chuckle. "But that must have been all of forty years ago—all of forty years ago or more. We weren't so keen for news then. There was a pretty general disposition just to let the thing rest."

"But what became of Fanny Rayburn?" Thatcher asked.

"Why, she went back to Markham, Kentucky," the old man replied. "Sort of seems to me she went to teaching in the school again—if she'd ever really taught there before, and I'm not perfectly sure about that. Yes, she went to teaching in the Misses Shelby's school—for several years. Then she died. I recall very well hearing of her death. It couldn't have been more than three, four years, or such a matter, after she left here, for I had just been married."

He rubbed his head once more, thoughtfully.

"She died of slow consumption, as we called it in those days. I recall it very well. I'd been married only a little while. I needn't say I was in love with my wife. But when I heard of that I was terribly sad—just as though I'd ever been anything to her or she to me. It brought a lump into my throat. I couldn't have told my wife about it," he added, with the smile of a patriarchal cherub. "But, you see, Fannie Rayburn—she had a sort of beauty that appeals to you. To think it's gone and nobody will ever see it again brings a lump into your throat." He gave his wheezy little sigh, and concluded quite briskly:

"I guess that's all the story I know; but I can look up the dates for you, if you like."

"Well, you might," Thatcher replied vaguely, not minding exactly what he said. In fact, the old daguerreotype was present to his mind, and there was a slight sensation in his own throat.

"QUITE a story," he commented, half absently, to Daisy Martin, when the old man had left the corner room. "Quite a story—but it doesn't come off; there's no end. Of course, Adoniram Waite was engaged to her—probably a secret engagement. He left his money to that school because she was connected with it. That's pretty good—forty-odd years afterwards. But why the deuce didn't he marry her? There's no real nub to the story."

He got up in restless dissatisfaction and wandered around the office. Again he looked over the objects they had found in the old safe, particularly the old daguerreotype. Then he looked rather resentfully at the old safe itself. Nothing else was in sight within it, but abruptly his mind caught at the small upper compartment of the safe—a strong box evidently designed as a receptacle for money. It was locked tight, and there was no key. He thumped on the door with his knuckle; tried the handle by which, when the lock was thrown, the door was opened; then turned to Miss Martin, saying:

"Let's go through with it! Maybe there's something, in here. Telephone down to the safe company. Tell 'em to send at once a man who can drill a safe door."

While they were waiting, Titherington waddled in, lugging a dusty old file of the Beacon, bound in checkered pasteboard, which he opened on the desk.

"Here's the paper with the account of finding Sylvanus Livingston's body," he said, putting a fat forefinger on the headline.

The account substantially agreed with the one he had given. It told of the riderless horse appearing at Cottonwoods, and of finding the body with a bullet hole in the left breast. It added that the victim had probably been shot while on horseback, because there was no bullet hole through the coat corresponding to that through the shirt and waistcoat, indicating that the coat was thrown open—as might easily happen when a man was riding against the wind. Deceased's eminent social qualities and connections were duly extolled, and his demise duly deplored. But, except for the detail of the coat, there was nothing essential that Titherington's memory had not supplied.

THEY were still looking down at the printed page, yellow around the margin with the damp of forty years, when the safe expert arrived. The thin steel door of the strong box offered little resistance to his drill. Thirty minutes later, Thatcher had reached into the long-sealed receptacle and taken out a stout brown envelop of a size to hold folded legal-cap paper.

From its thickness one might surmise that it contained several sheets of such paper. On the back, along the line where the flap folded down, it was sealed in four places with red wax. The patches of wax were thick, and each of them bore a different impress. One of them seemed to have been made by a large intaglio finger-ring; another, perhaps, by a watch-charm. The third had evidently been made by a small key of rather odd shape. The fourth was the biggest of all. Thatcher studied it a moment, with a puzzling notion that it ought to suggest something to him. Then he opened the little drawer in the walnut desk and took out the ancient derringer.

While examining that obsolete weapon before, he had noticed that the end of the butt was slightly concave and corrugated. It fitted smoothly into the impress in the wax. Evidently, then, the fourth seal had been made by the butt of this firearm.

On the front of the envelop was written, in ink now faded:

Each name was written in a different hand—evidently a signature. Evidently, also, each man had sealed the envelop with some object that he could identify. Thatcher looked over at the outspread newspaper file. Sylvanus Livingston had been shot in the early morning of October 14, 1871; not—they now knew—on horseback, but with his coat thrown open and a dueling pistol in his hand.

The two upon whom this buried drama arose stared at each other with what Titherington had said about Sylvanus Livingston's reputation in their minds. They could see the protegee, of doubtful, insecure position, in his sister's house—the protegee whose beauty "appealed." It could have been no light thing, for one of the men whose signatures appeared on the envelop was Sylvanus Livingston's brother-in-law.

The soft and shining loveliness which the old daguerreotype still imaged rose upon them. She had gone back to Kentucky, to die soon of a slow consumption. For more than forty years Captain Adoniram Waite, tough and fierce, had gone on here with his lips shut and the locked old safe at his elbow. To dig her up from her grave, with whatever wounds she had borne fresh upon her, they had only to break the seals and read.

"See here!" Bob Thatcher exclaimed. "You come down to the basement with me right away while I stick this in the furnace! If I went alone, I'm afraid I might open it!"

Could the Metropolitan Museum Be Robbed?

SOME time ago a small bronze image was stolen from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and was found eventually in a pawn-shop on the lower East Side. More recently two pictures of minor value disappeared from a public school to which they had been loaned by the Museum.

Thefts from foreign museums, while not common, have occurred often enough to inspire every curator in this country with a daily dread lest, through some lack of precaution, his own priceless collections might suffer. The Louvre has been especially unfortunate in this respect. The theft of the "Mona Lisa" followed a long chain of smaller thefts in which the marauders succeeded in getting away with small statues, rich tapestries, brocades, and priceless bits of pottery. A curious fact about these thefts is that almost all of them occurred on Monday—the day which French thieves regard as their "lucky day," and the day on which all museums are most nearly deserted.

Could the Metropolitan Museum, America's richest storehouse of art, be robbed? Might a clever thief hide himself away at closing time in one of the great chests or sarcophagi, operate at night, hide away again, and drift out of the building in the morning after the doors are opened to the public? A picture valued at half a million dollars—such as Rembrandt's "Old Woman Paring Her Nails,"—is an attractive prize, and such a canvas might easily be rolled up and concealed beneath an overcoat.

When thieves are willing to take such long chances in robbing banks, which are so heavily protected, or express cars guarded by armed guards, why should we not wake up some morning to read that a valuable picture has disappeared in the darkness? The sculpture is safe enough because of its size and weight; but if the "Mona Lisa" could be carried out of the Louvre, why might not Tintoretto's "Doge at Prayer" or Rembrandt's "Woman Paring Her Nails" be carried out of the Metropolitan in the same way?

If a burglar could manage to conceal himself in the building at night, the first disadvantage that would confront him when he issued from his retreat would be the fact that the friendly element of darkness would be denied him. All the galleries are lighted by electricity throughout the night. The night watchmen communicate with the central office at stated intervals by ringing a signal on the alarm boxes distributed throughout the building. These signals assure the night attendant that the rounds are being made and that the watchmen are on duty. If the burglar concealed himself near an alarm box and overpowered a watchman just after he had sent in his signal, the burglar would have perhaps an hour in which to conduct his operations. His attack on the guard, of course, would have to be so quick and sure, and so effective, that the guard would not have time to get his whistle to his lips, or even to cry out. Probably only one of the most valuable pictures in the Museum would be worth such a risk.

Attached to the frames of all the most valuable paintings there are small wires connecting with the central alarm system. If the frame is lifted from its place, or even drawn out from the wall a little way, these wires register the number of their gallery in the central office, and in doing so ring the ten big gongs in the corridor. These gongs give the number of the gallery from which the alarm has come, and are often rung for emergency drill, when every one of the fifty guards in the Museum hurries to that gallery, and all exits from the building are shut. At the same instant that the big gongs clanged throughout the building, the alarm signal would ring at Police Headquarters. (When the gongs are rung for drill, the Police Department is temporarily cut off.)

This Burglar Must Be an Electrician

ONE thing is clear: the burglar who carries one of the great pictures away will have to be an expert electrician. He must be a combination of thug and scientist, and he would have to know a great deal about the underground channels of the picture market, or be in the employ of someone who did.

The pictures of smaller value take their chance. There is a Meissonier so tiny that it could be carried out under a fat man's coat, frame and all; a Degas that would slide under a man's vest. But several plain-clothes men are always circulating about the galleries, and the guards themselves do not know which of the visitors are detectives; for they are changed frequently, so that their faces will not become too familiar.

$100 a Week Making Shoes

JOSEPH ERICSSON, aged thirty-one, is earning a hundred dollars a week edging army shoes. Probably he is the fastest shoemaker the world has ever known. Eight hours a day he sits on a high stool in front of an edge-trimming machine in the Brockton, Massachusetts, factory, stripped to his undershirt, and turns out double the amount of work averaged by his shop-mates. For several weeks past he has trimmed one hundred dozen pairs of shoes each day. He works by the piece, and his daily wages have averaged fifteen dollars.

A million pairs of shoes a week are being made in Brockton, all of them for the Italian army. Some of the factories are working day and night, and every machine that can be crowded into the work-rooms is running. The result of this activity means fat pay envelops for hundreds of men. Wages of forty and fifty dollars weekly are not uncommon, but Ericsson is far ahead of his nearest rival.

Does It Right the First Time

YET Ericsson does not seem to be exerting himself, and probably could show greater speed if he tried, at least on a spurt. Once, when working in another town, he earned $120 in a single week on women's shoes, which require special care. Some time ago he went to Lynn for a few days to "fill in" at a shop there. He trimmed a hundred dozen pairs of shoes in eight hours, and had his fellow workmen looking on in amazement.

Ericsson was trained as a shoemaker in Sweden. He has developed efficiency to the highest point. With a long sweep of his big hand he grasps a shoe, passes it around the whirring knife, and sets it back on the rack. He makes no more false motions than the machine itself. Most operators have to go back and trim off little points of leather that were skipped on the first round. When Ericsson has carried a shoe around the knife the work is finished.

Just now army shoes can not be turned out fast enough. The best oak leather is used and the smooth side is turned in, for the shoes are not lined. They appear to be made wrong side out. Although they look as if they might wear for years, they are said to last for only a month in a hard campaign. Therefore it would seem as if Ericsson, the wonder, might go on earning a hundred dollars a week as long as the war lasts.

Starting Over Again at Fifty

FIFTY years is just the right age at which to set about making a fortune. William Malcolm, school-teacher, agriculturist, business failure, could prove it to you, if he had the time—but he is too busy carrying on a little side line that is going to net from seventy-five to one hundred thousand dollars next year.

William Malcolm had at one time in his life accumulated the tidy fortune of fifty thousand dollars; but adverse conditions swamped him, and when the tidal wave of disaster had passed he found himself with nothing but his courage, health, and initiative.

Back of his little four-room schoolhouse at Puente, California, is one hundred and eighty-five acres of hillside country, which Malcolm bought at $12.50 an acre. Part of the land would be fit for farming if irrigated. Now Puente, though in the upland country, is below the frost-line, and Malcolm recognized the place as admirable for a growth of eucalyptus trees.

He set aside a part of his acres for eucalyptus; and the remainder, about one hundred acres, he devoted to general farming. In two years' time he had invested three thousand dollars in trees and the cost of planting and caring for them. Early in the game be discovered the difficulty of handling the enterprise alone, and took in a partner. Very wisely, Malcolm did not throw up his job of teaching, and he is still at it. After school hours, on Saturdays, on other holidays, and during vacations, he gives the venture his personal supervision.

Next year, when the snow is flying in the mountains and in the less favored regions of the United States, the partners will begin to reap the rich rewards of their thrift and enterprise. Malcolm could dispose of his grove for a dollar a tree— and there are sixty thousand of them. As telephone poles they would be worth between five and seven dollars apiece. One fourth of them will be ready for cutting by next winter. Two years from now an equal number will be ready for the market. In fact, the grove is likely to prove an inexhaustible source of revenue; for a eucalyptus tree that has been properly cut will grow up again.

Yes, William Malcolm, thirty years a school-teacher, successful eucalyptus rancher, hale of body, vigorous of step, alert of mind, proves conclusively that the half-century mark is by no means too late an age to start anew to make a fortune.

The Wall Street Girl

By FREDERICK ORIN BARTLETT

WHEN Don came back to the office he found Miss Winthrop again at her typewriter, but she did not even glance up as he took his former place at Powers' desk. If this was not particularly flattering, it at least gave him the privilege of watching her. But it was rather curious that he found in this enough to hold his attention for half an hour. It is doubtful whether he could have watched Frances herself for so long a time without being bored.

It was the touch of seriousness about the girl's eyes and mouth that now set him to wondering—a seriousness that he had sometimes noted in the faces of men who had seen much of life.

Life—that was the key-note. He felt that she had been in touch with life, and had got the better of it: that there had been drama in her past, born of contact with men and women. She had been dealing with such problems as securing food—and his experience of the last twenty-four hours had hinted at how dramatic that may be; with securing lodgings for the night; with the problem of earning not more money but enough money to keep her alive. And all this had left its mark, not in ugliness, but in a certain seriousness that made him keen to know about her. Here was a girl who was not especially concerned with operas, with books, with the drama, but with the stuff of which those things are made.

Miss Winthrop removed from her typewriter the final page of the long letter she had finished and rapidly went over it for errors. She found none. But, as she gathered her papers together before taking them into the private office of Mr. Farnsworth, she spoke. She spoke without even then glancing at Don—as if voicing a thought to herself.

"Believe me," she said, "they are not going to pay you for sitting there and watching me."

Don felt the color spring to his cheeks.

"I beg your pardon," he apologized.

"It doesn't bother me any," she continued, as she rose. "Only there isn't any money for the firm in that sort of thing."

"But there doesn't seem to be anything around here for me to do."

"Then make something," she concluded, as she moved away.

BLAKE, to whom he had been introduced, was sitting at his desk reading an early edition of an evening paper. Spurred on by her admonition, he strolled over there. Blake glanced up with a nod.

"How you making it?" he inquired.

"There doesn't seem to be much for me to do," said Don. "Can you suggest anything?"

"Farnsworth will dig up enough for you later on. I wouldn't worry about that."

"But I don't know anything about the game."

"You'll pick it up. Did I understand Farnsworth to say you were Harvard?"

"Yes."

"I'm Princeton. Say, what sort of a football team have you this year?"

Don knew football. He had played right end on the second team. He also knew Princeton, and if the information he gave Blake about the team ever went back to New Jersey it did not do the coaching staff there any good. However, it furnished a subject for a pleasant half hour's conversation. Then Blake went out, and Don returned to his former place back of Powers' desk.

"I'll bet you didn't get much out of him," observed Miss Winthrop, without interrupting the click of her machine.

"He seems rather a decent sort," answered Don.

"Perhaps he is," she returned.

"He's a Princeton man," Don informed her.

"He's Percy A. Blake," she declared—as if that were a fact of considerably more importance.

He waited to see if she was ready to volunteer any further information, but apparently she considered this sufficient.

At that point Farnsworth came out and took a look about the office. His eyes fell upon Don, and he crossed the room.

He handed Don a package.

"I wish you would deliver these to Mr. Hayden of Hayden & Wigglesworth," he requested.

Farnsworth returned to his office, leaving Don staring helplessly at the package in his hands.

"For heaven's sake, get busy!" exclaimed Miss Winthrop.

"But where can I find Mr. Hayden?" inquired Don.

"Get out of the office and look up the firm in a directory," she returned sharply. "But hustle out of here just as if you did know."

Don seized his hat and obeyed. He found himself on the street, quite as ignorant of where to find a directory as he was of where to find Mr. Hayden of Hayden & Wigglesworth. But in rounding a corner—still at full speed—he ran into a messenger boy.

"Take me to the office of Hayden & Wigglesworth and there's a quarter in it for you," he offered.

"I'm on," nodded the boy.

THE office was less than a five minutes' walk away. In another two minutes Don had left his package with Mr. Hayden's clerk and was back again in his own office.

"Snappy work," Miss Winthrop complimented him. "The closing prices must be out by now. You'd better look them over."

"Closing prices of what?" be inquired.

"The market, of course. Ask Eddie—the boy at the ticker. He'll give you a sheet."

So Don went over and asked Eddie, and was handed a list of closing quotations—which, for all he was concerned, might have been football signals. However, he sat down and looked them over and continued to look them over until Farnsworth passed him on his way home.

"You may as well go along now," Farnsworth informed him. "You'll be here at nine to-morrow?"

"Nine to-morrow," nodded Don.

He returned to Miss Winthrop's desk.

"He says I may go now," he reported.

"Then I'd go," she advised.

"But I—I want to thank you."

"For heaven's sake, don't!" she exploded. "I'm busy."

"Good night."

"Good night."

He took the subway back to the Grand Central, and walked from there to the

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club. Here he found a message from Frances:

"Dad sent up a box for the theater tonight. Will you come to dinner and go with us?"

WHEN Don, after dressing, left his house for the Stuyvesants' that evening, it was with a curious sense of self-importance. He now had the privilege of announcing to his friends that he was in business in New York—in the banking business—with Carter, Rand & Seagraves, as a matter of fact. He walked with a freer stride and swung his stick with a jauntier air than he had yesterday.

He was full of this when, a few minutes before dinner, Frances swept down the stairs.

"I'm glad you could come, Don," she said. "But where in the world have you been all day?"

"Downtown," he answered. "I'm with Carter, Rand & Seagraves now."

He made the announcement with considerable pride.

"Poor Don!" she murmured. "But, if you're going to do that sort of thing, I suppose you might as well be with them as any one. I wonder if that Seagraves is Dolly Seagraves' father."

For a second he was disappointed—he had expected more enthusiasm from her.

"I haven't met the families of the firm yet," he answered.

"I thought you knew Dolly. I'll ask her up for my next afternoon, to meet you."

"But I can't come in the afternoon, Frances."

"How stupid! You're to be downtown all day?"

"From nine to three or later."

"I'm not sure I'm going to like that."

"Then you'll have to speak to Farnsworth," he laughed.

"Farnsworth?"

"He's the manager."

"I imagine he's very disagreeable. Oh, Don, please hurry and make your fortune and have it over with!"

"You ought to give me more than one day, anyhow."

"I'll give you till June," she smiled. "I really got sort of homesick for you today, Don."

"Honest?"

"Honest, Don. I've no business to tell you such a secret, but it's true."

"I'm glad you told me," he answered soberly. "What have you been doing all day?"

"I had a stupid morning at the tailor's, and a stupid bridge in the afternoon at the Martins'. Oh, I lost a disgraceful lot of money."

"How much?" he inquired.

She shook her head. "I won't tell; but that's why I told dad he must take me to see something cheerful this evening."

"Tough luck," he sympathized.

They went in to dinner. Afterward the Stuyvesant car took them all to a vaudeville house, and there, from the rear of a box, Don watched with indifferent interest the usual vaudeville turns. To tell the truth, he would have been better satisfied to have sat at the piano at home and had Frances sing to him. There were many things he had wished to talk over with her. He had not told her about the other men he had met, his adventure on his first business assignment, his search for a place to lunch, or— Miss Winthrop. Until that moment he had not thought of her himself.

A singing team made their appearance and began to sing sentimental ballads concerned with apple blossoms in Normandy. Don's thoughts went back, strangely enough, to the white-tiled restaurant in the alley. He smiled as he contrived a possible title for a popular song of this same nature. "The White-Tiled Restaurant in the Alley" it might read, and it might have something to do with "Sally." Perhaps Miss Winthrop's first name was Sally—it fitted her well enough. She had been funny about that chocolate éclair. And she had lent him two dollars. Unusual incident, that! He wondered where she was to-night—where she went after she left the office at night. Perhaps she was here. He leaned forward to look at the faces of people in the audience. Then the singing stopped, and a group of Japanese acrobats occupied the stage.

Frances turned, suppressing a yawn.

"I suppose one of them will hang by his teeth in a minute," she observed. "I wish he wouldn't. It makes me ache."

"It is always possible to leave," he suggested.

"But mother so enjoys the pictures."

"Then, by all means, let's stay."

"And they always put them at the end. Oh, dear me, I don't think I shall ever come again."

"I enjoyed the singing," he confessed.

"Oh, Don, it was horrible!"

"Still, that song about the restaurant in the alley—"

"The what?" she exclaimed.

"Wasn't it that or was it apple blossoms? Anyhow, it was good."

"Of course there's no great difference between restaurants in alleys and apple blossoms in Normandy!" she commented.

"Not so much as you'd think," he smiled.

It was eleven before they were back at the house. Then Stuyvesant wanted a rarebit and Frances made it, so that it was after one before Don reached his own home.

NOT until Nora, in obedience to a note he had left downstairs for her, called him at seven-thirty the next morning did Don realize he had kept rather late hours for a business man. Bit by bit; the events of yesterday came back to him; and in the midst of it, quite the central figure, stood Miss Winthrop. It was as if she were warning him not to be late. He jumped from bed.

But, even at that, it was a quarter past eight before he came downstairs. Nora was anxiously waiting for him.

"You did not order breakfast, sir," she reminded him.

"Why, that's so," he admitted.

"Shall I prepare it for you now?"

"Nevermind. I haven't time to wait, anyway. You see, I must be downtown at nine. I'm in business, Nora."

"Yes, sir; but you should eat your breakfast, sir."

He shook his head. "I think I'll try going without breakfast this week. Besides, I didn't send up any provisions."

Nora appeared uneasy. She did not wish to be bold, and yet she did not wish her late master's son to go downtown hungry.

"An egg and a bit of toast, sir? I'm sure the cook could spare that."

"Out of her own breakfast?"

"I—I beg your pardon, sir," stammered Nora; "but it's all part of the house, isn't it?"

"No," he answered firmly. "We must play the game fair, Nora."

"And dinner, sir?"

"Dinner? Let's not worry about that as early in the morning as this."

He started to leave, but at the door turned again.

"If you should want me during the day, you'll find me at my office with Carter, Rand & Seagraves. Better write that down."

"I will, sir."

"Good day, Nora."

Don took the subway this morning, in company with several hundred thousand others for whom this was as much a routine part of their daily lives as the putting on of a hat. He had seen all these people coming and going often enough before, but never before had he felt himself as coming and going with them. Now he was one of them. He did not resent it. In fact, he felt a certain excitement about it. But it was new—almost foreign.

IT was with some difficulty that he found his way from the station to his office. This so delayed him that he was twenty minutes late. Miss Winthrop, who was hard at work when he entered, paused a second to glance at the watch pinned to her dress.

"I'm only twenty minutes late," he apologized to her.

"A good many things can happen around Wall Street in twenty minutes," she answered.

"I guess I'll have to leave the house a little earlier."

"I'd do something to get here on time," she advised. "Out late last night?"

"Not very. I was in bed a little after one."

"I thought so."

"Why?"

"You look it."

She brought the conversation to an abrupt end by resuming her work.

He wanted to ask her in just what way he looked it. He felt a bit hollow; but that was because he hadn't breakfasted. His eyes, too, were still a little heavy; but that was the result, not of getting to bed late, but of getting up too early.

She, on the other hand, appeared fresher than she had yesterday at noon. Her eyes were brighter and there was more color in her cheeks. Don had never seen much of women in the forenoon. As far as he was concerned, Frances did not exist before luncheon. But what experience he had led him to believe that Miss Winthrop was an exception—that most women continued to freshen toward night and were at their best at dinnertime.

"Mr. Pendleton." It was Eddie. "Mr. Farnsworth wants to see you in his office."

Farnsworth handed Don a collection of circulars describing some of the securities the firm was offering.

"Better familiarize yourself with these," he said briefly. "If there is anything in them you don't understand, ask one of the other men."

That was all. In less than three minutes Don was back again at Powers' desk. He glanced through one of the circulars, which had to do with a certain electric company offering gold bonds at a price to net four and a half. He read it through once and then read it through again. It contained a great many figures—figures running into the millions, whose effect was to make twenty-five dollars a week shrink into insignificance. On the whole, it was decidedly depressing reading—the more so because he did not understand it.

He wondered what Miss Winthrop did when she was tired, where she lived and how she lived, if she played bridge, if she spent her summers abroad, who her parents were, whether she was eighteen or twenty-two or-three, and if she sang. All of which had nothing to do with the affairs of the company that wished to dispose of its gold bonds at a price to net four and a half.

AT twelve Miss Winthrop rose from her machine and sought her hat in the rear of the office. At twelve-five she came back, passed him as if he had been an empty chair, and went out the door. At twelve-ten he followed. He made his way at once to the restaurant in the alley. She was not in the chair she had occupied yesterday, but farther back. Happily, the chair next to her was empty.

"Will you hold this for me?" he asked.

"Better drop your hat in it," she suggested rather coldly.

He obeyed the suggestion, and a minute later returned with a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich. She was gazing indifferently across the room as he sat down, but he called her attention to his lunch.

"You see, I got one of these things to-day."

"So?"

"Do you eat it with a fork or pick it up in your fingers'?" he asked.

She turned involuntarily to see if he was serious. She could not tell, but it was a fact he looked perplexed.

"Oh, pick it up in your fingers," she exclaimed. "But look here; are you coming here every day?"

"Sure," he nodded. "Why not?"

"Because, if you are, I'm going to find another place."

"You—what?" he gasped.

"I'm going to find another place."

The sandwich was half way to his lips. He put it down again.

"What have I done?" he demanded.

She was avoiding his eyes.

"Oh, it isn't you," she answered. "But if the office ever found out—"

"Well?" he insisted.

"It would make a lot of talk, that's all," she concluded quickly. "I can't afford it."

"Whom would they talk about?"

"Oh, they wouldn't talk about you—that's sure."

"They would talk about you?"

"They certainly would."

"What would they say?"

"You think it over," she replied. "The thing you want to remember is that I'm only a stenographer there, and you—well, if you make good you'll be a member of the firm some day."

"I don't see what that has to do with where you eat or where I eat."

"It hasn't, as long as we don't eat at the same place. Can't you see that?" She raised her eyes and met his.

"I see now," he answered soberly. "They'll think I'm getting fresh with you?"

"They'll think I'm letting you get fresh," she answered, lowering her eyes.

"But you don't think that yourself?"

"I don't know," she answered slowly. "I used to think I could tell; but now—oh, I don't know!"

"But good heavens! you've been a regular little trump to me. You've even lent me the money to buy my lunches with. Do you think any man could be so low down—"

"Those things aren't fit to eat when they're cold," she warned him.

He shoved his plate aside and leaned toward her. "Do you think—"

"No, no, no!" she exclaimed. "Only, it isn't what I think that matters."

"That's the only thing in this case that does matter," he returned.

"You wait until you know Blake," she answered.

"Of course, if any one is to quit here, it is I," he said.

"You'd better stay where you are," she answered. "I know a lot of other places just like this."

"Well, I can find them, can't I?"

She laughed—a contagious little laugh. "I'm not so sure," she replied.

"You don't think much of my ability, do you?" he returned, somewhat nettled. She lifted her eyes at that.

"If you want to know the truth," she said, "I do. And I've seen a lot of 'em come and go."

He reacted curiously to this unexpected praise. His color heightened and unconsciously he squared his shoulders.

"Thanks," he said. "Then you ought to trust me to be able to find another lunch place. Besides, you forget I found this myself. Are you going to have an éclair to-day?"

She nodded and started to rise.

"Sit still; I'll get it for you."

Before she could protest he was half way to the counter. She sat back in her chair with an expression that was half frown and half smile.

When he came back she slipped a nickel upon the arm of his chair.

"What's this for?" he demanded. "For the éclair, of course."

"You—you needn't have done that,"

"I'll pay my own way, thank you," she answered, her face hardening a little.

"Now you're offended again?"

"No; only—oh, can't you see we—I must find another place?"

"No, I don't," he answered.

"Then that proves it," she replied. "And now I'm going back to the office." He rose at once to go with her.

"Please to sit right where you are for five minutes," she begged.

He sat down again and watched her as she hurried out the door. The moment she disappeared the place seemed curiously empty—curiously empty and inane. He stared at the white-tiled walls, at the heaps of pastry upon the marble counter, prepared as for wholesale. And yet, as long as she sat here with him, he had noticed none of those details. For all he was conscious of his surroundings, they might have been lunching together in that subdued, pink-tinted room where he so often took Frances.

He started as he thought of her. Then he smiled contentedly. He must have

Continued on page 16

Men Who Fight the Devil

Movie Stars as Their Families See Them

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Women in Men's Jobs

Pulling an Alibi for Mink

By SEWELL FORD

Illustrations by F. Vaux Wilson

I EXPECT I ought to have a heart, kiddin' along such a noble patriot as Brooks Bragdon. One of my new reg'lars at the Physical Culture Studio, too. But somehow, when I brush up against such a serious, self-approvin' party, I just can't restrain the josh.

Not that any of it ever gets to him. He's just as good as armor-plated against such stabs. Vice-president of a big accident insurance company, Mr. Bragdon is; and I suppose that down in the new marble skyscraper where he's the main wheeze he is surrounded constant by two or three hundred salary-grabbers that hold their breath whenever he passes by. And you know how easy it would be, havin' that fed to you all day, to work up a favorable opinion of yourself.

He's one of the kind, too, that when he acquires a fad goes to it strong. I take it he has 'em seldom. But he's got one now. Yes, yes! Course, there's plenty of other apostles of preparedness busy bucklin' steel spurs on the old eagle, but mighty few workin' longer hours at it than Mr. Bragdon. When he ain't bein' interviewed, or dictatin' jingo pieces for the Papers, he's talkin' to people about it. Why, he'll even stop between rounds here in the gym, as Swifty Joe is swabbin' him off, and explain some new scheme of his for convertin' the U.S.A. into a United Standin' Army.

NO scrubby little three hundred thousand is goin' to satisfy Brooks Bragdon. Not much. "A million in khaki" is his motto; and, to back 'em up, he wants a few other millions, all drilled to take the field at the tap of a bell. He wouldn't fool around waiting for volunteers. Not a minute! His first move would be to have Congress draft every man out of a job into the reg'lar army. Next, he'd organize trade regiments— mill hands, carpenters, bakers, bookkeepers, and so on—drill 'em every noon hour; and, if they kicked, fire 'em. Then they'd have to go as reg'lars. He'd have all the college and high-school boys drilled, too.

"Why overlook the orphan asylum kids?" I asks.

"Good idea," says he. "They can't begin too young."

Near as I can figure out, if Brooks had his way, about half of us would be shoulderin' rifles, and the other half makin' ammunition. He'd have our sea-coast bristlin' so with 42-inch cannon that our shores would look like a fine-tooth comb; and the submarines would be so thick that the cunners and bluefish would have to grow wings and learn to lay their eggs in the tree-tops. He'd turn out a new super-dreadnought every week, until the sea was so full of 'em it would always be high tide.

"Who'd we fight with all that?" says I.

"Any one, every one," says Mr. Bragdon, swellin' out his chest and lookin' fierce. "That is, we'd be ready."

He's thought out some grand little schemes, Brooks has, all by himself. Say, what he couldn't tell Joffre and Kitchenette and Lastenburg about handlin' armies and raisin' recruits—well, they don't know what they're missin', that's all. But his pet proposition is his sawed-off regiment.

"You wait," says he. "I'll show you some day. Yes, sir, I'm going to raise a regiment of my own, just to demonstrate the idea. This stature limit is all tommyrot. The six-foot soldier is archaic, obsolete. He may have been useful in the days when men wore armor and fought with broadswords; but now—bah! Give me the five-footer instead. This is the age of trench warfare, isn't it? And for the six- footer you need a six-foot trench, while for the short fellow— Well, you see the point. Saves time and labor."

"I see where I'm qualified from the start," says I.

"Oh, I'd want 'em shorter than you, McCabe," says he. "I'd teach 'em to dig first."

"Why not breed a race of human moles?" I suggests.

"Exactly," says Brooks.

"With spade hands," I goes on, "and only a sort of foldin' trigger-finger that wouldn't interfere when they was diggin' themselves in."

"No," says he. "I would equip them with a shovel-rifle, made so that the shovel part could be detached and worn as a kind of steel helmet. I thought that all out when I was taking my rookie course up at Plattsburg last summer. You know, I put in a full month at it."

"Yes," says I. "I saw your picture in the papers a lot."

"Did you?" says he, eager. "How did I—er—how did we show up in our uniforms, eh?"

"You was swell," says I.

It was no more'n the truth; for Brooks Bragdon is a big husk of a man, a bit hand hewn about the face, but with good calves and shoulders, and in puttees and a tight-fittin' service coat he looked his best.

"I've had some studio photos taken wearing that," says he. "I'll bring you one. Of course, though, my colonel's uniform will be a much better fit."

Brooks' idea of war, as near as I could dope if out, is to sit in front of a tent, five or six miles behind the firm line, and order heroic assaults—by telephone. He admits he's never done any soldierin' outside of them few weeks in the plute camp at Plattsburg; but he's read a stack of magazine war articles, learned to sleep in a cot-bed without fallin' out, and now he's willin' to take a colonel's commission any time his country calls him.

"The man who wouldn't," says he, "is a poltroon."

"I d' know," says I. "Maybe I'd go as general if I could spare the time, but this colonel stunt strikes me as too risky."

"Bah!" says Brooks. "Every man owes his life to his country."

"Yes; but we don't really expect it to collect," says I. "For me, I'd just as soon keep on owin'."

Mr. Bragdon he stares at me suspicious, like he ain't quite sure whether I'm guilty of low treason or not; but he only snorts patriotic as Swifty helps him on with his fur-lined overcoat, and he strides martial across the front office.

I EXPECT it's the sudden and snappy way he jerks the door open, or else this strange party must have been crouchin' heavy against it. Anyway, in from the hall he tumbles, right at Mr. Bragdon's feet, sort of impetuous and clawin' the air as he takes a turn on the floor. Brooks he drops his cane and does a wild leap backwards. Shows what a born strategist he is, though, when he grabs Swifty Joe and swings him in front as a buffer.

"Hello!" says I, pluckin' the stranger

by the collar and standin' him up. "Who the blazes might you be?"

He gasps once or twice, blinks around stupid, and then manages to mumble: "I—I'm Mink Stacey."

"Are you, though?" says I. "Well, what's the idea of this rollin' entrance? Impersonatin' a bottle of milk, are you?"

This Stacey party he simply goes on battin' them wide-set, stary blue eyes of his, as if he'd been in the dark hallway so long the light dazzled him.

"Come, my man," puts in Brooks, steppin' bold from behind Swifty. "What do you mean by almost tripping me up in that fashion? Explain yourself."

"I—I was lookin' for a—for a boardin'-house," says Mink Stacey.

"Sure you didn't mistake this for the Waldorf?" says I, grinnin' from Brooks to him.

Mink don't seem to get the joke. In fact, I doubt if he's much of a bear for the comic stuff at any time, for he has a dull, woodeny face that a smile wouldn't feel at home on. It's a good, honest face, so far as that goes, though not ornamental. No; he wears his cheekbones too high, and his hair too near his eye-brows. Also, the button nose and the four days' growth of wiry stubble on his chin sort of detract from his natural beauty.

It's the kind of face that seems made to fit into a tin growler or the top of a dinner-pail; and his stubby fingers was crooked natural, like he'd been born to swing a pick. Outside of that, he's a squatty built, thick-barreled party, with one shoulder a trifle higher than the other and a nick out of the top of his left ear.

"Boardin'-house," he repeats. "That's what I was lookin' for."

"Stick to it," says I. "You'll believe it yourself after a while."

"Nonsense!" says Mr. Bragdon. "You were slinking against that door. Hiding from someone, weren't you?"

Mink sort of shudders, rolls his eyes desperate towards the hallway, but shakes his head.

"Boardin'-house," says he.

"Sorry," says I, "but that ain't convincin'. Any jay would know this was no boardin'-house block. Pull another, Mink. Wa'n't it a manicure you was lookin' for?"

Mr. Stacey continues the stupid blink act.

"Then we'll have to admit that Mr. Bragdon has the right dope," I goes on. "People don't hide in hallways unless they're tryin' to give some one the slip. Who was it, now?"

Mink he only glances uneasy back at the door, and tries to wriggle out of my grip.

"Careful there, Shorty!" warns Brooks. "He looks like a desperate character."

"Are you, eh?" says I, facin' him about. "Got any alibi to that? Well, this does begin to look serious. Swifty, suppose you scout around' outside, and if you see any brass buttons in the offing tell'em we've got their man up here, ready to hand over if—"

"Don't!" breaks in Mink. "Please don't, mister."

"Oh, ho!" says I. "Then it is a case of cops on the trail, eh? Now what you been up to that the police want you?"

"'Tain't the police," says Stacey. "Honest. It—it's that recruitin' officer."

"What?" demands Brooks Bragdon. "A deserter, are you?"

Mink hangs his head. "I—I didn't sign," says he; "only told him I would. That was this mornin'. I didn't know then. I let 'em feel me over and measure me. They passed me, all right. And this afternoon I was to sign up."

"Well, why don't you?" insists Bragdon.

"Because," says Mink, "I met a feller in a bar-room,—he's from one of the forts near here, coast artillery, he said,—and he told me about what they hand you in the army. Treat you like a dog, he says. It ain't just drillin' and wearin' a uniform. It's blackin' the officers' boots, and emptyin' garbage, and diggin' ditches, and gettin' kicked and cussed generally. The drill sergeants are the roughest, he says. Once they get down on you, life ain't worth livin'. Then, you're apt to be shipped off to the Philippines. Then you get the fever, and the natives go after you with knives that—"

"COWARD!" breaks in Mr. Bragdon. "That's what you are, my man—a yellow cur. Trying to get out of doing your duty to your country, are you? Well, we will see about this. McCabe, just march that chap around to the nearest recruiting station. There's one over on Sixth Avenue. Come along with him."

I glances at Mink to see if he has anything more to say. He ain't got a word. Nothin' very chatty about Mink. I was just about to start off with him, too, when he turns them wide-set blue eyes on me with such a dumb, appealin' look that— well, I stops.

"Ah, what's the hurry, Brooks?" says I. "Let's debate this a bit."

"But I insist," says Bragdon, motionin' impatient towards the door. I don't care such a lot for the way he says it, either.

"Oh, do you?" says I.

"Certainly I do," says Bragdon. "It's my duty, and yours, to turn this miscreant over to the proper authorities. He has promised to enlist, been examined, given his sacred word, and all that. Well, then,

---

he's practically a deserter. And if you don't take him there—"

"Well," says I, steppin' between Mink and Bragdon, "what then?"

I expect I does it a bit hasty and hostile, and maybe my neck was tinted up some. Anyway, Brooks Bragdon backs off, his mouth open.

"Do you mean to say, McCabe," says he, indignantly, "that you would encourage such a dastardly act? Why, the fellow is a shirker, a poor, miserable coward who—"

"Maybe," says I, coolin' down some, "but that ain't any sign he can't change his mind if he wants to, is it? Strikes me he ought to have a chance to state his case. I ain't so strong for this army stuff as you are. A few of us ain't, you know. And he may have other reasons for backin' out.

"Come now, Stacey, speak up. Have you told us the whole of it?"

"Well," says he, sort of flushin' under the dirt and tan on his woodeny face, "there—there's Rosie."

"There generally is," says I. "A skirt in the background, eh? Well, who and where is Rosie?"

"She—she's Rosie Beaubien," says he. "Her mother runs th' mealin' house up at Battenkill Cut."

"Up at which?" says I.

"That's where the lumber-mill is where I was workin', up in Vermont," says Mink.

"He's right," puts in Brooks. "I know it. Been there. We had a big claim to adjust once. I suppose Rosie is a French-Canadian girl, eh?"

Mink nods.

"A lot of these people work in those camps and saw-mills," goes on Bragdon. "If you want to know, I can tell you just how much apiece it costs to blow 'em up in a boiler explosion. We settled for half a dozen last year. But some of those girls are rather pretty, you know. I suppose this Rosie of yours is; eh, my man?"

Mink he only scowls at Brooks, so I takes my turn again.

"Jumped your job, did you?" says I. "What was it?"

"Peavey-man on the sidin'," says he.

"Clear as mud," says I.

"I understand," says Brooks. "He un loads the logs from the cars as they're brought down to the mill—does it with a peavey.

"You see, they pile the logs on flats, twenty or more to the car, and hind them on with chains. As the train comes down the mountain it is shunted on a siding thirty or forty feet above the millpond, with a skidway down to the water. The peavey-men stand at either end of a car, and when they loosen the chains and the logs start rolling—well, it's a matter of jumping quick or getting caught in the rush. Quite a sight to watch that pyramid crumble and go crashing down into the water! I watched the work for an hour one day, when I was up there. Rather fascinating. Have to keep your wits about you, eh, my man?"

Mink don't say anything—just stares woodeny straight ahead.

"Come," says I. "With a good job like that, and Rosie, why did you quit?"

Stacey sort of shudders and half rouses from his trance.

"On account of Dutchy Breen," says he.

"Eh?" says I. "Cut you out, did he?"

Mink shakes his head.

"He was workin' opposite me," says he. "Fair enough with the peavey, but slow like on his feet. Too fat, Dutchy. Logy. Swilled coffee. I used to tell him, too. Then one mornin' we was unloadin' the first run. There'd been sleet overnight, and the skids was slippery; glare ice on everything. We'd got the chains loose on Number Three car, but the load stuck. Froze in. We goes to work with the peaveys. 'Have an eye, there!' I sings out to Dutchy. 'Aw, hell!' says he.

"Then the logs started. I jumped for the end. A big spruce just grazed my shoulder. But Dutchy—well, he was too fat. Got him. Ten tons, bang on top of him. He goes plop! like a smashed punkin. Made me sick here."

MINK rubs one hand across his belt and stares for a minute, woodeny. Then he braces up, brushes his eyes open, and goes on.

"Him and the load," says he, "smashin' and grindin' and jumpin' into the pond. Ice there, too, and twenty feet of black water. They had to get the drags out and fish for him. She was there watchin' —Mrs. Breen. His kids, too; four of 'em. I—I couldn't stand it, so—so I sneaked off. I only told Rosie, I sent her word, too, when I got here. I was goin' to get a job. But I couldn't. I got hungry. Awful.

"Then I thought I'd try the army. I would, too, if I hadn't met this feller that told me how bad it was. I wouldn't like to black boots for anybody. That ain't man's work. Or emptyin' garbage. And if any drill sergeant kicked me I'd kick back, I guess, though I ain't much on the fight. But no boss has ever laid a hand on me without gettin' a punch back. They know that up at Battenkill Cut. I—I wish't I was back there."

"What?" says I. "In front of one of them car-loads of logs?"

Mink nods. "I got over bein' sick," says he. "If you ain't too fat you stand a show. You got to take chances at 'most anything. Might as well be with logs. I can handle a peavey better'n 'most anything else, too. They paid me a dollar seventy-five a day. That's good money, up there. And this noon I gets a card from Rosie. She's been to see Collins, the foreman. He says I can have my old job back if I get there by the time the whistle blows next Monday mornin'. I wish't I could!"

HE stops, starin' stupid at the, ceilin' for a while. Then he comes to life long enough to shoot me another of them kicked-dog glances of his. It got to me all right, too. I turns to Brooks Bragdon.

"Well," says I, "sort of batted up to you, ain't it?"

"To—to me?" says he, lookin' kind of fussed.

"Wa'n't you statin' emphatic a few minutes ago," says I, "how somebody was a rank coward? Referrin' to Mink, wa'n't you? Course, that was before he'd stated his case—before you knew about him bein' on the peavey job. But you've heard; and you've seen the sort of work he's pinin' to go back to. That bein' the case, I should think you'd kind of feel like—"

"You're quite right, Shorty," says Brooks. "Stacey, I must apologize. You—you're no coward, at least."

"And maybe," says I, "he'll be just as useful to his country up there, jugglin' saw logs and side-steppin' sudden death forty times a day, as he would be over on Governor's Island blackin' officers' boots. Anyway, the peavey job seems to be his choice. And this is supposed to be a free country, ain't it?"

"Ye-e-es, I presume it is—in a way," admits Brooks, a trifle draggy.

"Railroad fares ain't free, though," I goes on, diggin' up my roll. "What do you say? Let's pass the hat for Mink and Rosie."

He ain't such a bad sport, Brooks Bragdon, even if he don't think the way I do on some things. In on my five-spot he chips a twenty.

"Take Rosie something nice," says he.

The Most Dangerous Wild Animal in North America

By EDWIN TENNEY BREWSTER

WHICH is it? Not, apparently, the Bull Moose. Many a man has sat in the crotch of a limb, with nothing on his stomach but the wind blowing off the landscape, while B'r Moose pawed the earth below and waited for him to come down and be trampled. But there is always the tree—and the man never tires first of the waiting.

There is, of course, the rattlesnake. If he once bites fairly, you are a pretty sick person.

But mostly he doesn't bite. And, when he does, he commonly hits leggings or boot-leather. Besides, most of the rattlesnakes are dead.

There are the bears, of several sorts; but the man always gets away. As for cougar and lynx and wildcat, they are as prudent as they are brave. If the lone hunter is content to pass them by on the other side, they commonly reciprocate the attention.

Even the fierce gray timber-wolf has become afraid of man. Those who have tried it say that it is now possible to shoot a deer and leave it in the woods unguarded overnight.

The pack will walk around it till they trample the snow hard. But the terrible man-smell in the wolves' noses keeps their mouths from the meat. So much the more is the hunter himself fairly safe.

The wild creature that damages more human beings than any other is the great horned owl.

Not that he means any harm. But he is as large as a cat, and as stealthy, and his claws are an inch long. Also his eyesight is poor, and he hunts on the edge of the night.

As he sits aloft in a tree in the gathering dusk, and sees a fur cap or a shock of hair go by under him, he has no way of making out that what looks like a fat rabbit has six feet of man under it. So he drops down on silent wing, and drives two handfuls of sharp chisels into the scalp of the luckless wight.

It is said that in northern Canada there are more woodsmen, packers, and trappers scarred by the talons of the horned owl than by all kinds of teeth and claws combined.

In fact, they say that in the lumber camps, in regions where the owls are especially abundant, the human invader is afraid to go home in the dark without half a pork-barrel over his head!

And We Say "There's No Chance Any More"

By LLOYD SHELDON

IT is less than six years ago that a short, then slender, brisk-speaking, brisk-moving young man knocked at the door of the largest theatrical managers in this country and virtually begged them to become partners in his motion-picture enterprise, almost upon their own terms. He offered to supply capital, studios, experienced producers, even theaters suited for pictures. They were merely to supply their names and influence in getting well known plays and players. An astounding offer, in view of the later development of the business. Yet one after another refused him. Most of them even scoffed at his idea.

But the young man held to his idea. To-day he's the president of the Famous Players Film Company, and part-owner of a circuit of theaters valued at four or five million dollars and employing more stage stars than any three theatrical managements combined. Incidentally, his idea turned out so profitably that he can afford to pay Mary Pickford the biggest woman's salary in the world—$104,000 a year. His name is Adolph Zukor. Meantime the "fad" has come to rank fifth among the industries of the United States, and last year represented a gross business of $800,000,000.

Carl Laemmle came to this country from Laupheim, a small town near Ulm in Germany, in 1884, a boy of seventeen, none too robust, and with no assets save fifty dollars which he had earned, and a willingness to do anything. He found a place in a German drug store on First Avenue, New York.

It Only Costs a Nickel"

YOUNG Laemmle might have become a prosperous druggist, if he had not located a brother in Chicago, through the columns of a Western German weekly. This brother, older than he, was a Western enthusiast. He told Carl about the glowing opportunities there, and sent him a ticket and ten dollars, to come West. But for twenty-one years opportunities and Laemmle failed to meet. During that Period his story is that of a million other wage-earners—with this difference from many of them: he saved. After working ten years in Chicago, he went to Oshkosh, and became manager of a clothing store. By stinting himself of pleasures, making his suits last three or four years, and practising all the economies of a man who lays aside a fixed portion of a small salary every week, he had at the end of twenty-one years $3300—enough to start a small store.

Should he risk it, or should he hold on to the sure thing? Maybe you have asked this question of yourself.

Laemmle had learned—for he was always a close observer of how other men made their fortunes—that one of the surest ways of succeeding was to sell something women wanted, and to sell it cheap. Women had plenty of pennies, nickels, and dimes to spend. Largely for this reason, he decided to chance a five-and ten-cent store. There was no room for one in Oshkosh, so he asked for a vacation, and went to Chicago to look for a suitable opening.

One afternoon, after he had searched the city, with his brother, for a location, they passed a moving-picture theater of the store type.

"Why don't you go in and rest, Carl, while I run over to the office?" said the elder Laemmle. "It's a good amusement, and only costs a nickel."

It was the first time that Laemmle had been in a moving-picture theater, though at the time—the summer of 1906—picture theaters were numerous. He hadn't felt that he could afford the time or the money for amusement. But that phrase of his brother's, "It only costs a nickel," gripped him.

What was it that could entertain people for a nickel?

He went in.

When the picture ended, he groped his way through the dark aisle to the box office and inquired for the proprietor.

"Can you really make money giving this entertainment for a nickel?" he asked curiously.

"Do I look like a charity worker?" laughed the proprietor. Good-naturedly he explained why the entertainment could be presented so cheaply.

The next week Laemmle drew his $3300 from an Oshkosh bank, sent in his resignation to the clothing house, and finally found an empty store on Milwaukee Avenue that answered his purpose. There he opened his first theater.

When he balanced accounts at the end of the first week, he found he had cleared close upon a hundred dollars. The second week he banked a hundred and fifty, and by the following month he was averaging two hundred dollars a week.

The exchange men supplying Laemmle with films discovered how profitable his methods were, and put up the price of his service. Without announcing his plans, Laemmle opened a film exchange of his own. He had only $2800 at the time, most of which he had taken out of his theater, and if he failed in his new enterprise he would make enemies who could drive him out of his theater by withholding the supply.

This was plunging—plunging with a recklessness that he hadn't believed possible when he used to lay aside as much as he could from an eighteen-dollar salary!

He had no difficulty getting customers. There were too many exhibitors rebelling at the cut-throat methods of the exchange men—who were not only charging extortionate prices, but who were giving out torn, "rainy" reels. Often exhibitors would order one set of reels, and would get another that their patrons didn't like. They welcomed Laemmle. His trouble was in getting films. He now needed $10,000; but he tried without success to raise money at the banks.

Just when his affairs were blackest, and he had given himself another week at the utmost, a manufacturer who had learned of his manner of conducting business called him into his office.

"Laemmle," he said, "we need men like you in the film business. I know how you are fixed; I'm going to allow you a week's credit."

That week's credit saved him. Six months later he was doing a gross weekly business of $6000, with a profit of $1000. A $312,000 annual business on a capital of $2800, built up by a man who nine months before had been drawing a salary of eighteen dollars a week! And they say business nowadays is prosaic.

Fighting the Trust

THEN the film manufacturers resolved to fence in the goose that was laying the golden eggs, and combined into what is still spoken of in the trade, as "the Trust." Agents came to Laemmle and demanded that he take so much film or none, and at a price that he declared would eventually put him into bankruptcy. He refused, and they cut off his supply. He sent abroad for the output of foreign manufacturers. It was so inferior that he couldn't sell it. His business had been practically wiped out in a night.

This would have discouraged most men, but not Laemmle. He called his partners into his office.

"There is only one way out," he said. "We've got to manufacture film!"

"But we know nothing about it!" expostulated one.

"Neither did the others when they started."

"They control the patents, the directors, the actors," persisted the objector. "We'd better lay low for the present."

"And get buried forever!" exclaimed Laemmle. "I'm going to make film. Are you with me?"

One of his partners had faith, and stuck. The two men came East, and built a small studio on Amsterdam Avenue in New York City. They hired a small company of actors, a director, and a camera-man, and began taking pictures. In that company were Mary Pickford and the actor, now her husband, Owen Moore. Even then the little star showed her heart appeal on the screen, and the first picture was a surprise to the trade. Laemmle saw his fortune coming back.

"The Trust" fought bitterly, but Laemmle held on, and, just six years after he had first visited a moving-picture show, he formed the Universal Film Company-now one of the three powerful film organizations in this country.

Nor is Laemmle the only example of success gained through adhering to an idea. W. W. Hodkinson, head of the $10,000,000 Paramount Pictures Company, had quite a different idea. Hodkinson began work when he was fourteen as a telegraph messenger-boy in Pueblo, and between calls he studied telegraphy. A messenger-boy who is practising code when others are curled up reading dime thrillers is usually noticed.

One of Hodkinson's principles is that spare time is capital that one can either waste or invest. Hodkinson made it a rule to invest his. In the early hours of the morning, when there was a lull on the telegraph wires and in the train service, he studied stenography, to prepare himself for a promised opening in the general manager's office. Just as he was ready to take this position, the Gould interests bought out the road, putting their own men in all the responsible positions. Hodkinson realized that his chance of immediate advancement was gone. He must begin all over again.

Daytimes, to pay for his stenography lessons, he had sold tuition for a textbook concern. This concern offered him an agency. He accepted it, and was so successful that they gave him a territory. With this went the responsibility of financing sub-agents in that section. Just as he was making good and profits of six and seven hundred dollars a month began to roll in, a strike was called in the Trinidad fields, his richest source of income. At one fell blow, new sales and payments for tuition already contracted for were wiped out. By the time he had met all obligations he found himself with only enough funds to carry him a week or two.

But he had tasted the flavor of success, brief as it was. Instead of looking for a job, he looked for a business.

He was in Ogden, Utah. One afternoon he passed a nickelodeon with a young woman of his acquaintance. As they entered the door, they found a dark, smelly coop, and a much painted woman singing a coarse song. Hodkinson realized that neither the interior nor the habitués permitted him to take his companion inside, and they turned back.

"Why doesn't some one start a movie theater that women would like to go to?" pouted his companion.

That set him thinking. Here was a form of amusement that by its nature appealed to women even more than to men. With characteristic enthusiasm, he decided to open immediately a theater that was clean, and that would give a longer and more varied program of pictures that young women could see. He didn't consult his bank-book—he didn't have any. But he went out with his theory, and borrowed $200 from a hard-headed business man on the strength of it. He also found a partner with another $200.

The two men—the other of whom was H. A. Sims, now a prosperous theater owner—took the worst theater in the city, because it was a failure and they got it cheap. They threw out the kitchen chairs and the school benches that had been used for seats, and obtained, on credit, regular orchestra seats. They found that the projection-machine threw more flickers than pictures, so they sold it for junk and

---

borrowed enough money to get a new one. They interior-decorated the place themselves, and when they opened it to the public they advertised "The Electric Theater—Just Like Home!"

Like every successful exhibitor, Hodkinson found difficulty in getting high-grade films. He opened an exchange, and built it into one of the largest in the West. His idea was that the public wanted longer photo plays—four-and five-reel stories instead of one and two.

As Hodkinson prophesied, longer pictures were successful from the start. But the market became so deluged with feature films that prices were slashed to shreds. For a while it looked as if the whole structure would collapse. Exchange men needed a colossal capital to carry on their business, and manufacturers, with each production costing from $20,000 to $50,000, required still more. A two-million-dollar concern with sensational ideas was crashing!

When gloom was deepest, Hodkinson came East with an idea. He called together representative exchange owners from various sections of the country, and held a meeting with the manufacturers of features with whom they dealt. The result of that meeting was the Paramount Pictures Corporation.

Another man who will tell you that opportunity is usually only another name for a good idea, and that success lies in confidence in that idea, is Adolph Zukor. Like Laemmle, Zukor was au immigrant. He came here a lad of fifteen, a native of Hungary. He got a job in a wholesale fur house, packing and unpacking boxes at two dollars a week. Hard work brought advancement, and when Zukor had saved enough he bought a partnership in a Chicago house, and several years later returned to New. York to open a fur store there. But the fur business is a business of slow returns. Zukor began to look for an opening where he could turn his small capital quickly.

A cousin ventured in a penny arcade, and persuaded Zukor to look into its possibilities. One of the first things that had surprised him, on landing here, was the way in which people let their pennies go. When he saw the penny-in-the-slot machine, he was immediately struck by its magnetic power in attracting this loose change. He invested in one, and it proved so popular that he called in Marcus Loew, also a fur man; and together, with the additional capital, they opened nine in New York City. Then they branched out into other cities.

But Zukor noticed that they didn't attract women. Patrons had to stand up to look in the penny-in-the-slot machines, and women liked to sit down.

What Does the Public Want?

ONE day, when he was making a business visit, he chanced upon a store moving-picture show in Pittsburgh. It was only fourteen by thirty feet, and it wasn't overfull. But in the audience were several women sitting down!

He rushed back to New York, and worked Loew into a fever of enthusiasm. Together they set out to find whether they could obtain an adequate supply of pictures, and they chanced upon an ingenious invention called "Hale's Touring Cars," an arrangement whereby the audience sat in an imitation railway observation car and looked out of the window at the unfolding scenic splendors thrown on the screen by a projecting machine. The illusion was heightened by the grinding of wheels, the whistling of the train, and colored porters selling gumdrops.

To instal these pictures in their stores more capital was required, and they brought in William A. Brady, who at that time had reaped a small fortune managing prize-fights. The first day, the public came in droves. It seemed as if nothing but a cataclysm could keep the owners from being millionaires. Then something happened. Within a month the patrons had dwindled to a remnant.

"The public never knows what it wants," growled Brady.

"The public does know. We didn't," retorted Zukor. "It wants a story— something to hold its interest and excite its curiosity. Scenery gets stale. If we show them little dramas and comedies, we'll succeed."

Loew was of the same idea.

"You fellows can stick at it if you want!" snapped Brady. "I'm through with cheap amusement."

Without a whimper Zukor and Loew tore out the Touring Cars, put in seats and a curtain, and began to give moving-picture shows. For two years they just broke even. In those days, 1904, pictures were very inferior, and, owing to the limited market, only a few were being produced. To keep the theater open, they had to repeat some pictures as many as five times a month. The neighborhood began to tire of these repetitions.

Getting Big Actors for the Movies

ZUKOR pleaded for more pictures. He aroused indifferent manufacturers to the revolutionary possibilities of this new and cheap amusement. Slowly, regular and more frequent releases began to be turned out, and slowly the crowds came back. Then Zukor conceived the idea of etting well known plays and players for pictures. It was his great idea.

The profession laughed. Two-dollar artists appearing for five cents, walking through parts, without any chance to use their voices!

Twice Zukor went to Daniel Frohman and twice the elder of the Frohmans refused to help him. But Zukor took him to his theaters, showed him the popularity of good pictures, impressed him with the the vastness of the market. Before the month was out Frohman had become an enthusiast, and entered into partnership with him. But even Frohman could not overcome the prejudice of the actors themselves.

Between them, Zukor and Frohman concluded that the only way to break down this prejudice was to have the greatest actress of them all appear before the camera. They persuaded Sarah Bernhardt to play in the silent drama.

The profession no longer laughs at Zukor. His "insane" idea has brought movies to the dignity of the legitimate. To-day he is paying six stars—Mary Pickford, Marguerite Clarke, Hazel Dawn, Marie Doro, Pauline Frederick, and Jack Barrymore—an aggregate yearly salary of $367,000.

While other managers were waiting to see how Zukor's idea turned out, one of the youngest among them, Jesse L. Lasky, saw in it the logical development of moving pictures, and went even further with it than Zukor himself.

Lasky is paying Billy Burke $40,000 for her appearance in one picture, and last summer he wrote a check for considerably more than that amount for the services of Geraldine Farrar, the first of the Metropolitan opera stars to be persuaded into the movies. And Lasky has received too many hard knocks not to be essentially practical in these colossal expenditures.

Each of the leaders in the picture industry will tell you that movies are still in their infancy. Some are so enthusiastic that they are confident that the day of two-and-three-dollar pictures has come. But the great mass of producers—the men who have made fortunes—still attribute the success of moving pictures to two fundamental facts: they are an entertainment that women, particularly young women, like; and they can be presented so cheaply that the family purse feels little or no drain.

The Wall Street Girl

Continued from page 8

Frances to lunch with him in the pink-tinted dining-room next Saturday.

That night, when Miss Winthrop took her place in the elevated on her way to the uptown room that made her home, she dropped her evening paper in her lap, and, chin in hand, stared out of the window. That was decidedly unusual. It was so unusual that a young man who had taken this same train with her month after month, and who had rather a keen eye for such things, noticed for the first time that she had in profile rather an attractive face. She was wondering just how different this Pendleton was from the other men she met. Putting aside for a moment all generalizations affecting the sex as a whole, he was not like any of them. For the first time in a long while she found herself inclined to accept a man for just what he appeared to be. It was difficult not to believe in Pendleton's eyes, and still more difficult not to believe in his smile, which made her smile back. And yet, if she had learned anything, those were the very things in a man she had learned to question.

Not that she was naturally cynical, but her downtown experience had left her very skeptical about her ability to judge men from such details. Blake, for instance, could smile as innocently as a child and meet any woman's eyes without flinching. But there was this difference between Blake and Pendleton: the latter was new to New York. He was fresh to the city, as four years ago she had been. In those days she had dreamed of such a man as Pendleton—a dream that she was sure she had long since forgotten. Four years was a long while. It gave her rather a motherly feeling as she thought of Pendleton from that distance. And she rather enjoyed that. It left her freer to continue thinking of him. And this she did until she was almost carried beyond her street.

And after that she almost forgot to stop at the delicatessen store for her rolls and butter and cold meat. She hurried with them to her room—hurried because she was anxious to reach the place where she was more at liberty than anywhere else on earth. She tossed aside her hat and coat and sat by the radiator to warm her hands.

She wondered if Pendleton would go the same way Blake had gone. It was so very easy to go the one way or the other. Farnsworth himself never helped. His theory was to allow new men to work out their own salvation, and to fire them if they did not. He had done that with young Brown, who came in last year; and it had seemed to her then a pity—though she had never liked Brown. This was undoubtedly what he would do with Pendleton.

But supposing—well, why shouldn't she take an interest in Pendleton to the extent of preventing such a finish if she could? There need be nothing personal in such an interest; she could work it out as an experiment.

Miss Winthrop, now thoroughly warm, began to prepare her supper. She spread a white cloth upon her table, which was just large enough to seat one. She placed upon this one plate, one cup and saucer, one knife and fork and spoon. It was a very simple matter to prepare supper for one. She sliced her small portion of cold meat and placed this on the table. She removed her rolls from a paper bag and placed them beside the cold meat. By this time the hot water was ready, and she took a pinch of tea, put it in her tea-ball, and poured hot water over it in her cup. Then she took her place in the one chair.

But, oddly enough, although there was no place for him, another seemed to be with her in the room.

"LET me have your engagement-book a moment," Frances requested.

Don complied. He had taken his dinner that night at the dairy lunch, and after returning to the house to dress had walked to his fiancée's.

Frances puckered her brows.

"You are to have a very busy time these next few weeks," she informed him. "Let me see—today is Wednesday. On Friday we are to go to the Moores'. Evelyn's debutante dance, you know."

She wrote it in his book.

"On Saturday we go to the opera. The Warringtons have asked us to a box party."

She wrote that.

"Next Wednesday comes the Stanley cotillion. Have you received your invitation?"

"Haven't seen it," he answered.

"The Stanleys are always unpardonably late, but I helped Elise make out her list. On the following Friday we go to dinner at the Westons'."

She wrote that.

"On the following Saturday I'm to give a box party at the opera—the Moores and Warringtons."

She added that, and looked over the list.

"And I suppose, after going to this trouble, I'll have to remind you all over again on the day of each event."

"Oh, I don't know; but—" He hesitated.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Seems to me we are getting pretty gay, aren't we?"

"Don't talk like an old man!" she scolded. "So far, this has been a very stupid season."

"But—"

"Well?"

"You know, now I'm in business—"

"Please don't remind me of that anymore than is necessary," she interrupted.

"Oh, all right; only, I do have to get up in the morning."

"And why remind me of that? It's disagreeable enough having to think of it even occasionally."

"But I do, you know."

"I know it, Don. Honestly I do,"

She seated herself on the arm of his chair, with an arm about his neck and her cheek against his hair.

"And I think it quite too bad," she assured him—"which is why I don't like to talk about it."

She sprang to her feet again.

"And now, Don, you must practise with me some of the new steps. You'll get very rusty if you don't."

"I'd rather hear you sing," he ventured.

"This is much more important," she replied.

She placed a Maxixe record on the Victrola that stood by the piano; then she held out her arms to him.

"Poor old hard-working Don!" she laughed as he rose.

It was true that it was as poor old hard-working Don he moved toward her. But there was magic in her lithe young body; there was magic in her warm hand; there was magic in her swimming eyes. As he fell into the rhythm of the music and breathed the incense of her hair, he was whirled into another world—a world of laughter and melody and care-free fairies. But the two most beautiful fairies of all were her two beautiful eyes, which urged him to dance faster and faster, and which left him in the end stooping, with short breaths, above her upturned lips.

To be continued next week

"How I Made My Flower Garden Pay"

I want some 500-word letters on this subject, accompanied by snap-shot photographs.

There must be hundreds of women in the country who have made their flower gardens yield real money. If you are one of these, tell me about it in 500 words. Fill your letter full of facts: tell how you made your garden; what you planted; and how you sold the flowers.

Have your letter reach me within three weeks: I want it for our Flower Garden Number, and will pay for it if it is interesting enough to print.

THE EDITOR.

His Whiskers His Fortune

IT was while Charles Rogers was attending Philadelphia's Centennial, back in 1876, that the idea came to him to let his thick black hair and whiskers grow as long as they would. Whiskers indicate talent, he decided, after a close observation of all types of sight-seers.

As it turned out, the same hair and whiskers, now snowy white, have proved to be Mr. Rogers's fortune in his declining years. He has just passed his seventy-fifth birthday, and through them he has kept his independence for a decade. Giving him the appearance of a prophet, they earn a comfortable living for him from Chicago artists who use him for a model.

At Christmas time he earns extra money, by playing Santa Claus in one of the large department-stores. Outside of a costume, he needs no other embellishment to make him look the part to perfection, and his patience in writing down what the small boys and girls want, and reading out the list clearly so their parents can hear, makes him a great favorite.

"Don't Judge the Town by the Depot"

EVERY time a citizen of Baldwin, Long Island, New York, sees the railroad station of his home town he says "Ouch!" That is because Baldwin as a town is up and doing, in spite of the fact that it has a barn of a depot. So many "ouches" were registered in the past few months that the Business Men's Association of "the best little town on the south shore of Long Island" finally called a meeting and decided to take steps to remedy the evil in a most original way.

A huge sign now shames the railroad and advertises the town. "Don't judge the town by the depot," it reads; and, in addition to this slogan,—which Baldwin hopes is but a temporary one,—there was room for some facts about the little city. Now every traveler that passes through reads about its boating, bathing, and fishing, and of its trolley, churches, and high school. "Some day," says the chairman of the Association, "we are going to have a depot that will represent the town."

Snappy Work

ANY man going along probing the banks of a stream with a steel rod is not necessarily a surveyor. He may be locating turtle soup for the languid palates of future hotel diners.

The two Basslers, J. S. and Max, of Darien, Wisconsin, may be found thus engaged during the three fall months. They find a ready market for all the snapping turtles they can furnish at from ten to fifteen cents a pound. As an average catch for a season runs from ten to fifteen tons, it may be seen that turtling is far from an unprofitable sport.

Nobody but a born turtler can hope to be successful in this enterprise. If one can find turtles, he can find them; otherwise he had better stick to playing the 'cello or driving a grocery cart. Some people locate underground streams by means of forked sticks. In much the same way, the Basslers start out in the mud with their slender six-foot steel rods, hooked at the ends, and their high rubber boots. Turtles do not believe in signs, and they leave none around telling where they have retired to. But the Basslers find them out and pull them up one by one.

As fast as they are caught by one man, the other washes them and puts them in bags. A good hole will frequently yield three hundred pounds of turtles.

The turtles make the trip to the big soup-consuming cities in barrels equipped with a Pullman car arrangement of shelves one above another, with small holes for ventilation. For venerable and more important travelers, who are often from fifty to seventy-five years of age and weigh some thirty-pounds apiece, there are more commodious state-rooms.

Why Husbands and Wives Leave Home

YOU really can't expect the women to want to stay in the home, when there are such extraordinarily ingenious hotels about. Have you ten children that must have room to play squat tag in, are you from the country with a highly trained palate in eggs, can you endure nothing but pure mountain-stream spring water, must you have Turkish baths, are you an elderly maiden lady with a proper fear of men, or are you a bachelor with a past—there is some particular hotel in New York built just for you.

From the old Holland House to the Plaza, from the McAlpin and the Knickerbocker to the Vanderbilt and the Belmont, within a radius of a mile, are eighteen hotels that cost from five millions up, where art and science and good cooking and all the other great discoveries of the twentieth century make it their one purpose to give you everything on earth you want.

From Rock Springs to Turkish Baths

EACH one has its characteristic advantage. The Belmont has real spring water bubbling from the rock, just as it did on the old Dutch farm. Across the street stands the Manhattan, a great place of rendezvous for politicians and college boys. Around the corner, the Biltmore contrives to give every conceivable luxury; its roof, modeled on a summer resort pattern, has the added charm of being protected from thunder-storms; to be sure, it's a very sophisticated resort—not the place to picnic. There are high-class musicales on certain days, and if the musicale proves too much you can take an elevator a floor or two, to the Turkish bath.

They Manicure the Waiters

A NEW YORK hotel chef must expect to tempt the goutiest gourmet. Chef Louis, at the Ritz-Carlton, has a trough where he keeps brook-trout alive; he selects his eggs by an electrical machine that tells whether they are more than twenty-four hours old or not. The McAlpin has a chef just to make candy, and at Christmas the management gives several thousand pounds to its guests. Here, too, are chemical laboratories for inspecting the food, and the waiters are manicured every day free of charge. There are bachelor apartments at the Netherland, a children's sanitary play-room at the Vanderbilt, and at the Plaza a governess to take children for an hour's walk.

And the Knickerbocker, not to be outdone, has a dining-room that can be transformed into a theater, with regular scenery. So, if you are entertaining the King of the Cannibal Islands, you can make him feel at home with a background of palms and a couple of crocodiles from Central Park, and waiters with rings in their noses.

In spite of all these modern conveniences, there are said to be some quaint, old-fashioned people left in New York who still prefer the well worn slippers, the moss-grown pipe, and a wife of their own. But the ranks of these staid old citizens grow thinner year by year. And those who have not succumbed to the hotels are moving into hotel apartments. What is the difference between a home and an apartment? A home has more rooms than baths: an apartment has more baths than rooms.

50,000 Men Voted for Her

FIRST a nurse, then the wife of an invalid farmer and mother of six adopted children made orphans by her sister's death, later an indefatigable organizer of the Farmers' Grange, and finally member of the State legislature, Agnes L. Riddle, deep-chested and big-armed, stalwart and cheery, is the most universally respected woman in Colorado.

Mrs. Riddle's philosophy of government is the philosophy of mothering. This is she on her farm, and hour's ride from Denver, on a sun-flooded plain that stretches off miles and miles to the vague snow-drifts of the horizon mountains.

"I have found out that you don't get very far if you tell a child, 'Don't do this'; or 'you mustn't do that,'" says Mrs. Riddle, "because what you've told him not to do is still in his mind. You can't kill off evil, drive it out, unless you have something better to offer right away. That's the trouble with the fight against the miners' saloon."

When Mrs. Riddle was elected State secretary of the Farmers' Grange there were five hundred members and fourteen organizations. Farmers are a hard class to organize, but Mrs. Riddle sometimes ran behind a neighbor, as he went with the plow, to talk organization; and at the end of two years there were five thousand members of the State Grange and ninety-two organizations.

"Our Grange," says Mrs. Riddle, "has helped us get experiment stations for research work, demonstration farms, and agricultural college, a domestic science department, rural free delivery, and parcels post."

Denver still talks about Mrs. Riddle's speech on the Segregation Bill. To examine medically the red-light district, securing its patrons against disease, and then to license the district and make it profitable to the city—this was the rosy program offered by the bill. The discussion had all been favorable and the bill seemed about to pass, when Mrs. Riddle rose.

"Gentlemen," she exclaimed,

pushing up her sleeves as if preparing for a two weeks' wash. "I'm for the bill when it's amdned to segregate the fallen man."

Then, "Are these girls Fiji Islanders, that you talk about them as you do?" she burst out. "Don't you know that they are Denver girls?

"You say they even come to the doors of your churches." Her words were now barbed with scorn. "That's where they ought to be. If the churches can't take them in, the churches ought to go out of business.

"Gentlemen, I say, let him who is without sin cast the first vote."

And no one voted.

"That was a time when a woman was needed," says Mrs. Riddle, "and I gave it to them straight."

WOMEN seem to have created a monopoly of beautifying hands, but the exception is Robert A. ("Bob") Mitchell. Bob makes a very good living as a manicure. He manicures the hands of clocks. Whenever the hands of the great clocks that now speed New Yorkers to their duties develop ailments or look as if they needed trimming, Bob is sent for.

Recently a high wind swept around the corners of the metropolis and broke so many "crystals" that numbers of the bigger time-pieces whose indicators measure from five to thirteen feet in length stopped dead. Under the fury of the gale their hands had locked together so that they pointed to the same minute, letting the hours take care of themselves. Bob Mitchell fixed them.

Bob's Highest Job

ONE giant clock in New York has retained Bob as a sort of family manicure; for it has, in all, eight large but very tender hands. This is the clock of the Metropolitan Tower—354 feet above the sidewalk. Its the minute hands are thirteen feet long and its hour hands only two feet shorter. The hands are of heavy steel framework with a copper covering. Cut into this covering are holes from which a whole army of incandescent lights gleam at night.

When Bob manicures the hands of the Metropolitan Tower clock, he opens a small door in one of its four faces, and crawls out upon the "wrists," 'way out to the "finger-tips." He prefers nine-fifteen and two forty-five as the time for his work, since at these moments the hands are in horizontal position. So steady are the hands of the Tower clock that their movement is not accelerated or retarded in the slightest by the weight of the manicurist. The hands weigh 1700 pounds a pair, and they are driven by motors which are attached to such low gear that their control over the hands is absolute. Not even the tremendous friction set up when a strong wind blows against the twenty-eight-foot dial, endeavoring to wrench the great indicators loose, affects the movement at all.

Like the steeplejacks, Bob has no fear of height. By rigging a block-and-tackle he brings himself up to the proper elevation. and begins to work. Sometimes he diagnoses the case as lack of proper skin food, and applies a very common remedy called paint. Wooden hands have a tendency to become chapped and cracked. Copper hands—copper is the prevailing fashion in clock hands just a present—have to soldered, and occasionally the wind tears loose a hand-nail, so to speak, which as to be cut off and "cauterized."

"Do the hands run any faster on the big clocks than on the small ones?" an inquisitive person is sure to ask Bob. when he comes down after completing his task.

"No," he always answers; "the minute hand goes around once in an hour and the hour hand once in twelve."

Bob has never had a serious accident in the manicure business, but he was almost killed once. He was working on the hands of the clock of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, in New York, when he slipped and fell backward. He made a desperate grab for the tackle rope, and held on, though his fingers were almost jerked from their sockets.

"No, being a manicure isn't dangerous," says Bob—and he should know, for he has been at it forty-three years.

A Prehistoric Teddy

NO, our distinguished ex-President was not the model for this carving. Centuries before Theodore Roosevelt was ever thought of, this statue was hewn and carved.

This figure was an Aztec deity, and in its day had its thousands of faithful worshipers. Races, peoples, dynasties, in the land of this old idol, vanished utterly from the face of the earth. Temples and monuments crumbled and were soon overgrown by a rank vegetation.

The idol shared the same fate. It, too, lay buried for centuries

until recently, when workmen digging the foundation for a public building in the city of Mexico unearthed this wonderful bit of ancient carving.

The Aztecs of old were a very efficient and strenuous people, and probably really did have a Teddy of their own. Anyway, here he is, carved in stone.

The thick-set figure, the size and shape of the head, the strong teeth, the mouth and general facial expression , could surely be no more true to life if they had been molded from our Teddy himself.