A Lesson from Luigi

YOU should preserve this editorial: it is valuable. It contains a recipe for living a hundred years.

It is not based upon any theory of mine. If it were it would be worthless. For I have not lived a hundred years.

But Luigi Cornaro lived to be one hundred and two, and "died painlessly, as one who falls into sweet sleep." The formula is his.

At thirty-six, the doctors said to Luigi: "make you will; you have only a few months to live."

At the end of the few months they came back expecting to sign his death certificate. To their surprise, they found him well.

What had Luigi done? Taken medicine? No.

What he did was the simplest thing in the world. He simply stood eating.

Instead of three heavy meals a day, he substituted three very light ones. Instead of getting up from the table with the feeling of fullness, he got up feeling still hungry.

Instead of half a dozen different dishes, he confined himself to one at each meal. And each day he ate the same dish, at the same time, and in the same amount.

Year after year he continued to grow stronger. At seventy he was thrown from his horse, and again the doctors said: "No man of seventy can stand such an accident; you will die." But so strong was Luigi that he was out of bed in no time.

In his years of careful eating he made some important discoveries.

He discovered, first, that the rule, "whatever your appetite craves is good for you," is a bad rule. Many foods of which he was very fond proved bad for him: and some others which he had never liked proved to have just the nourishment that his system required.

He discovered that "a man can not be a perfect physician of any one save of himself alone." In other words, that no physician could prescribe for him offhand a diet as well suited to his needs as he could prescribe for himself, after years of careful study of his own requirements.

All women have an idea that men ought to eat a great deal. If a man is feeling badly, a woman's remedy is always to make him sit down to a large, appetizing meal.

Luigi's women-folks were no different from others. When he was about eighty they gathered around him and persuaded him to increase his daily food allowance from twelve to fourteen ounces a day. As a result he nearly died.

Then he went back to his twelve-ounce diet, and lived twenty-two years longer.

You should read Luigi's book, written about 1540. It is called "The Temperate Life."

You should read it now; because spring is coming, when most people eat too much and then complain of spring fever and think there is something serious the matter with them.

"Most men," said the philosopher, "dig their graves with their teeth."

Diogenes, seeing a young man going to a banquet, caught him and took him home, and rejoiced as if he had saved him from some great danger.

"If I were to assign any one thing as especially conducing to long life from a study of the habits of centenarians," says Sir Henry Thompson, "it would be semi-starvation."

"Semi-starvation"—the word makes you gasp, but have no fear. You can cut down your eating a long way below where it is now and still be in no danger.

Luigi's granddaughter reports that "during the latter part of his life the yolk of one egg sufficed for a meal and sometimes two."

If you would live long, eat very temperately of a few pure foods.

This is the wisest lesson you can learn in this spring of 1916.

It is the lesson from Luigi.

Bruce Barton, Editor

How About Hughes?

By BURTON J. HENDRICK

ONE of the Civil War heroes, when threatened with a presidential nomination, telegraphed, "If nominated will not accept: if elected will not serve." Justice Hughes is on record, but not nearly so emphatically. Will he make his declination more positive, or allow events to take their course? There are a good many "favorite sons" who are losing sleep over that question.

WHAT is going on inside the cranium of Charles Evans Hughes, once Governor of New York, and now associate justice of the United States Supreme Court? He has written several letters declining to be a presidential candidate. Can he continue to write them until next June? If we could only answer this one question, we should hold the key to the next era in our political history. President Wilson, we may take it for granted, already has the Democratic nomination. Mr. Hughes, merely by nodding his Jovelike head, can step forth as the candidate of the Republicans. Merely a whispered syllable, and that great problem which usually tears these two political parties to pieces in the few weeks preceding the nominating conventions—the selection of candidates—would be quietly settled.

No presidential pre-convention campaign has ever presented a situation quite like this. We may amuse ourselves with several candidates—Burton, Weeks, Borah, Cummins: but the outstanding fact is that the Republicans have only two men who stand the slightest chance of snatching the presidency away from Woodrow Wilson. The nomination of Roosevelt would reopen so many antagonisms and offend so many of the rank and file that the Republican party, though perhaps openly harmonized, would still enter the campaign with divided counsels.

Hughes the Farmers' Choice

BUT Hughes possesses two great advantages. Nearly all the party leaders have already announced their readiness to support him. The old guard, who wrecked the party four years ago at Chicago, men like Smoot, Penrose, Crane, are willing to unite on Hughes. Taft several years ago described him as "the greatest asset of the Republican party."

Roosevelt, representing the other wing, and George W. Perkins, at present the active head and financier of Progressivism, have signified, in more or less formal terms, that they will support the associate justice. These facts, interesting from the organization standpoint, do not determine the situation. More important is the steadily growing popular movement for Hughes.

Several years ago, Governor Hughes, then fighting for revolutionary legislation in New York, went upon the stump and "appealed to the people." The situation is now reversed, for the people are now appealing to Hughes. Every man who travels west of the Mississippi River brings back the same story. The Republican rank and file is almost unanimously demanding Hughes. The farmers of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and the other prairie States regard him as a demi-god. Their minute acquaintance with the details of his career astonishes most observers.

The East, of course, has always regarded Hughes as one of its choicest

possessions, and the Pacific States feel themselves as close to him as does New York itself. Rarely in our history have the professional political leaders and the popular mind united upon the same man for presidential candidate. Only Justice Hughes' own vote is apparently needed to make the thing unanimous.

His Famous Cross-Examination of McCall

WHAT is the explanation of this amazing tribute? Fundamentally the matter is simple enough—it is likewise entirely complimentary to the honesty and common sense of the American people. Ever since Mr. Hughes suddenly appeared as the Grand Inquisitor, he has represented certain definite American ideals.

The insurance investigation was really a turning-point in American history. It ushered in a new period in American politics and American business life. Until then we had much denunciation and much sensational and ill proportioned exposure; but Mr. Hughes, with a master hand, gave Americans a perfect portrait, drawn in bold and classic outlines, of the evils that were destroying their institutions.

Our country is a different place from what it was ten years ago. Our attitude toward corruption, political and corporate, our understanding of the functions of the State, have undergone a remarkable. change. Our politics are cleaner; we demand more of our public men; we have a greater sense of our responsibility as citizens. When did this change begin? Most of us associate the transformation with some definite event.

For myself, whenever I attempt to visualize this important change, a scene in the Criminal Courts Building in New York City conies to mind. The room was densely packed with an eager, attentive crowd. Every eye was fixed upon a masterful and defiant figure in the witness-box—Mr. John A. McCall, president of the New York Life Insurance Company.

Just in front of him stood Mr. Hughes, a tall, even athletic figure,—he was only forty-three,—his hair and beard untouched with the gray that now makes him an almost venerable figure. Mr. McCall seemed to personify the arrogance, the power, even the unscrupulousness, of corporate wealth. Mr. Hughes, quiet, aggressive, direct, remorseless in his insistence, suddenly assumed the character of an outraged but determined public conscience.

He Had the Facts

HE was pursuing an apparently innocuous form of inquiry—merely attempting to learn the real facts about a collection of checks that he held in his hand. These checks, all drawn to the order of one Andrew Hamilton, represented certain confidential transactions between that gentleman and the life insurance president. They had been used, Mr. McCall explained, to purchase land in the rear of the New York Life Building—a transaction that called for secrecy, since it involved many parcels of property, and the company would have to pay exorbitant prices should the real purchaser become known. It was certainly a plausible explanation—one that would satisfy most investigators.

Evidently Mr. Hughes, however, was prepared, for he had an elaborate map showing each parcel of property involved. And then his witness underwent about as excruciating an ordeal as any corporation magnate was ever called upon to face. Mr. Hughes took each check, and marked off on his map the piece of property for which it paid. Presently he had matched every parcel with its corresponding check for everything purchased—and there was left $235,000 unaccounted for!

The whole painful truth was then revealed. Mr. Hamilton was the New York Life's "legislative agent"; this money, as well as other large sums subsequently disclosed, was used in making the lawmakers of several States see things in the proper perspective. That is, Mr. Hughes' persistent and methodical inquisitorial procedure disclosed a huge "yellow dog" fund.

Mr. McCall left the stand a humiliated and ruined man, and the American people knew, more graphically than they ever knew before, what had been for years the guiding influences in their political life.

When He Became a National Figure

THE adroitness, the inexorableness with which Mr. Hughes extracted this information made him immediately a national figure. The fact that the revelations affected most seriously the Republican party—which had started the investigation and of which Mr. Hughes himself was a member—at once inspired popular respect for his honesty and disinterestedness.

Another circumstance, which led up to another historic disclosure, revealed the same open-mindedness. In going over the books Mr. Hughes had discovered one mysterious item for $48,000 charged to "Hanover Bank Office Account." At the same time he had received a quiet "tip" not to pursue that item any further, as it involved serious consequences to the Republican organization. Whoever made that suggestion didn't know Charles E. Hughes.

In view of the present political conditions, it is interesting that the witness most concerned in this transaction was Mr. George W. Perkins, now the head of the Progressive party. Mr. Hughes handed Mr. Perkins this check and asked him to explain it. It was a contribution made by the New York Life to the Republican national committee in 1904!

"I am glad that we brought that out," said Mr. Perkins.

"Yes; I intended that it should be brought out," Mr. Hughes replied grimly—one of the few occasions in the investigation when he permitted himself the luxury of a retort.

Another occasion on which he showed this human failing was when Mr. Perkins, explaining certain insurance transactions, sneeringly referred to Mr. Hughes' "fees" as a lawyer.

"My fees," Mr. Hughes flashed back, "are not trust funds!"

Great corporations do not contribute to presidential campaign funds now. The use of corporate money in politics has come into had repute. Hughes is the man who accomplished this reform.

The "People" Have Good Memories

THE "plain people" now demanding Mr. Hughes as a candidate have not forgotten these things. All the facts of his career as Governor of New York are also burned into their memory. Mr. Hughes, in their mind, represents our new political era. His name means antagonism to corporation dominance in politics, to all the abuses of special privilege, and an insistence on the uses of government for all parties in the State.

His career as Governor was a stormy and successful protest against watered stocks, capitalized franchises, exorbitant charges for public service, holding companies, campaign contributions in exchange for legislation, and the control of political parties by corrupt politicians for personal ends.

Perhaps all this seems a little old-fashioned now. So many other governors and public men have fashioned themselves on the Hughes model, and made his issues living realities in all parts of the United States, that an inspection of his political career makes it look perhaps a little stale. Though only five years have passed since

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he retired as Governor, that period seems almost like ancient history.

Just consider the financial leaders who figured in his investigations. They comprised such once familiar phenomena as Edward H. Harriman, Thomas F. Ryan, J. Pierpont Morgan (the elder), James H. Hyde, James W. Alexander, John A. McCall, Richard A. McCurdy, Chauncey Depew, George J. Gould, John F. Dryden. A few years ago we had all these people at every breakfast table, but most of them are becoming dim.

In Hughes' gas investigation, so ancient an aggregation as the "Standard Oil crowd" formed the object of this scrutiny. As Governor, Thomas C. Platt, John Raines, Patrick II. McCarren, Thomas F. Grady, Timothy Woodruff—all of whom are now dead—constantly impeded his reforms. Certainly the United States seems to have lived a century of history since these figures and Hughes' great issues occupied so large a space in the American mind.

But the people, though most of us are now thinking of other things, have not forgotten the vigor, the honesty, the indifference to personal advancement, and the rigid devotion to duty with which Governor Hughes pursued his ends. The details of his struggles may not now seem such pressing issues: but his character is as important, and as much needed, as ever.

How Roosevelt Helped Hughes

THE present situation places all these circumstances in a new light. That men so different as George W. Perkins, Theodore Roosevelt, and even William Barnes should now speak favorably of Mr. Hughes as a presidential candidate is a disinterested tribute to his political value.

For Mr. Hughes has not always met the approval of these men. He made many of his strongest points in the life insurance investigation, as already indicated, at the expense of Mr. Perkins. Mr. Barnes also came to the front in that same all-embracing proceeding. Mr. Hughes' two terms as Governor represented also a continual contest with Barnes, then the most influential boss in New York State, and the Hughes famous "appeals to the people" were really directed against Barnes.

Mr. Hughes' relations with Colonel Roosevelt, though never strained, were interesting. In 1907 Mr. Roosevelt, then President, practically instructed the Republican convention to nominate Mr. Hughes for Governor. In spite of this, the impulsive President and Governor Hughes had their little difficulties; in particular, President Roosevelt insisted on "helping" Hughes get his legislation through at Albany—his assistance taking the shape of using the Federal patronage to punish the Governor's enemies. But Mr. Hughes did not like this proposition at all: the use of patronage for legislative purposes did not agree with his political convictions. So the President's advances met with a chilling reception. Many political observers believe that only the fact that President Roosevelt selected Taft as his successor in 1908 prevented Mr. Hughes from becoming President at that time.

Where Hughes Stands on Preparedness

DIFFICULTIES like these, however, have long since been ironed out. All sides can now clearly unite on the Supreme Court justice. But what does Mr. Hughes think of the United States and the world as it exists at this present moment? On emerging from the cloistered life he has been leading for five years, he will find a country thinking of other things than life insurance iniquities and public service wrongs. What are his ideas on "preparedness," on Americanism, on the hyphenates? Would he go to war over the Lusitania or the paper blockade? Does his soul harrow at the chance of Japan descending on the Pacific coast?

Temperamentally, Mr. Hughes would hardly seem to meet Colonel Roosevelt's requirements in the present crisis. He would be an ideal figure, one would say, to address arbitration leagues and peace conferences—in fact, he has done that very thing.

One statement we can positively make: Mr. Hughes is certainly not a peace at any price man. He put himself down on that issue as far back as 1908. In January of that year he addressed the Republican Club of New York on national issues—this was really the creed upon which he stood for the presidential nomination. Every word of that address was carefully weighed. National defense in 1908 was not a live issue,—more's the pity,—yet Mr. Hughes devoted to it one entirely satisfactory paragraph.

"We are devoted to the interests of peace," he said, "and we cherish no policy of aggression. The maintenance of our ideals is our surest protection. It is our constant aim to live in friendship with all nations, and to realize the aims of a free government, secure from the interruptions of strife and the wastes of war. It is entirely consistent with these aims, and it is our duty, to make adequate provision for defense and to maintain the efficiency of our Army and Navy. And this I favor."

"The same national character," he said on another occasion, referring to the Civil War, "which accounted for the fierceness of that strife, in whose devouring flames were displayed the indestructible riches of moral strength, is ours to-day. The same patriotic ardor fills the breasts of American youth as when they rushed from field and factory and college in obedience to their country's summons. The wives and mothers of America are as loving, as devoted, as ready to offer sacrifices and to suffer, as were those of forty-odd years ago. The men of the United States are as quick to respond to the call of duty, as keen, as resourceful, as valiant, as those of our heroic past."

Mr. Hughes once made an address at the unveiling of a monument to General Franz Sigel, the German leader who distinguished himself in the Civil War. In this he said many things about Americans of German origin which will now make very delightful reading for that section of our electorate. In case of his nomination it is likely that many million copies of this speech, translated into German, would be scattered through the Middle West.

"It is a pleasant thought," said he, "that the ancestors of most of those who settled the country in colonial days once lived in the German forests; and we witness here on a large scale, and after centuries of varied experience, what is virtually a reuniting of the descendants of a common stock. There is recalled to us to-day the notable influence that our citizens of German birth and extraction have had upon our growth and development. We can not write any chapter of the history of American endeavor without doing them honor."

And Mr. Hughes said this as far back as 1907, many years before their quotability for presidential purposes could have been faintly imagined.

Clearly, therefore, Justice Hughes meets every test of political availability. But the discussion ends, as it began, with the query: Will he take the nomination? Hughes and Wilson—that certainly would be a treat for our somewhat jaded political appetites! It would be a purely moral and intellectual contest. There would be no personal maulings, such as we have sometimes had. The contest, with those two men as candidates, would reach a height of dignity and decency without parallel in presidential campaigns.

But, again, will Mr. Hughes accept it? In thinking this over, my mind goes back to a talk with Governor Hughes in the Albany executive chamber in the early summer of 1910. Mr. Hughes had just met defeat in his struggle with Barnes for direct primaries. He had just accepted President Taft's appointment to the Supreme Court bench. Many people were aggrieved at this—they regarded it almost as' a desertion. Mr. Hughes was good enough to explain in detail his attitude.

An Interview with Hughes

HIS usefulness as Governor, he said, was over; he had served four years, and two terms was about as fixed a tradition for the New York governorship as two terms for the Presidency. He had only one thing before him—a return to the practice of the law. This was distasteful, for several reasons. He would be under the suspicion of coining his career as an investigator and Governor into money —Mr. Hughes had no illusions on the fact that his earnings would be very large.

Again,—what was even more distasteful,—his every word and act would be interpreted as a bid for the Presidency. In going on the Supreme Court bench, however, he as definitely removed himself from political preferment as by going into a monastery.

"Don't be so sure of that," I interjected at this point.

The Governor wheeled around in a flash. "You mustn't say that!" he exclaimed emphatically. My remark had evidently not been a pleasing one.

But, in thinking of the chances that Hughes may run, this little experience naturally comes to mind. He did not intend to enter politics when he went on the bench: but the present situation certainly has its temptations.

Do Athletes Always Die Young?

Making Port

By RICHARD MATTHEWS HALLET

Illustrations by W.J. Aylward

AS soon as old Tom was hoisted aboard the bark Forensic, he sat down on a hatch and inquired, "Whar to?" in an awed voice.

The new crew of that old hooker was lying about in the scuppers, after the manner of new crews: but one among us, Spike Moran by name, sat up and answered him:

"Where to? Why, you was there when the articles were signed, old feller. Sydney, New South Wales. Where was you hoping to go?"

"Liverpool," said that strange old man.

"Oho, I remember," said Spike. "You are the old one I was talking to on the tug, ain't you?"

With grave despondency he confessed to us that he had been trying to ship for Liverpool any time the last twelve years. Is there anything more uncertain than a seafaring life? As we looked closely at him, the old fellow turned his bleached eyes toward the Battery, and scratched his hide of a rhinoceros through the old yellow unwashed singlet he wore—scratched his ribs with a slow motion, as if numbed by the contrarieties of fate.

"What part of Liverpool?"

"Christian Street," said old Tom.

Christian Street—of all streets in the world of sailormen, the most unchristian and the most unholy!

"You keep away from Christian Street," said Spike, "if you want to keep your claws on a pay-day."

Then old Tom, without moving his head, said, in a voice of feigned contempt, that he had a wife in Christian Street.

"Three years older than what I am," he said sorrowfully.

"How old are you, Tom?"

"Sixty-four," answered that melancholy old man.

Spike laughed.

"You would have more cause to complain if you was young, old feller," he said. "It don't make no real difference to you now, having a wife, unless you need nursing. But supposing you was young, and a girl was waiting for you in Sydney, New South Wales, and then you was shipped on the wrong ship, you'd have a right to complain, hey?"

Old Tom's eyes flashed with a light of scorn for youth, and he inquired:

"What girl is this?"

"The mission girl," said Spike proudly, gladly; "the one that comes out to the ship with the organ."

"Ay," said old Tom.

"You know her?"

"Ay," said old Tom.

Closing his eyes, he affected to remember that girl. No sailor can afford to be ignorant of any port or any ship or any woman mentioned in the narrative of a shipmate.

"She wears rough pearls," said Spike, "in a chain round her neck. She is the daughter of a pearl-diver."

"Looking out for her beauty," said old Tom. "I know her. Yes, I have seen her. Black hair."

"No. Brown," said Spike.

"Oh, ay," said old Toni. "Yes; I remember her."

He was an old man going the wrong way again, and he looked at Spike with a kind of hatred.

IT appeared that Spike's prospect of happiness, whispered about the ship, had set the whole crew against him—all save little Jewdler, the apprentice, and me. You do not know how strong can be the attack on a man's soul by a combined ship's crew. He could do nothing to please them. He shaved them, he cooked special dishes for that watch, he lanced wire-poisoned fingers which the Old Man wouldn't touch, he stood for hours as policeman to the watch, in the tropics. You have heard of these nights wherein deep skies and soft trades induce the watch on deck to sleep in odd corners, out of the light of the moon? He was unwearied in serving those men. In vain. His good nature was like oil on this fiery resentment. It blazed up against him everywhere, until at last the' starboard bo'sun, a battered, rough-handed sea-devil, found courage to strike him to the deck.

Later, still smiling, with his head bound in a bloody rag, he talked to old Tom.

"You are an old man, Tom," he said; "you had ought to know. Ain't a girl worth being kicked about a little to get? Ain't there some consolation to a beaten man in the thought that she is there?"

With the red rag fluttering at his brows, he pointed east, whispering: "There is a woman for you."

All this was lost on old Tom, and shattered against his stony ill will. What he knew he would not impart. Well, why should he? This world of water was just the dazzling blue ruin of his hopes.

"Whar to?" he had said feebly; and the mocking fates would only echo him. His voice came up to us as hollow as the echo in a tomb.

Twelve years already of plowing the seas, in an effort to set foot again on the stones of Christian Street. In vain. The malign fates had, conspired with the gray gods of the deep to overset the plans of that unlucky old Ulysses. Ships had foundered under him. He had crawled up out of the sea to wander on inhospitable coasts. 'He had drunk fatal beers, and had waked in the fo'c'sles of ill-starred packets—forsaken old sea-wagons that had borne him protesting to Calcutta or Bangkok or the mythical island of Yap, when he wanted to get to Liverpool.

Now, after these mighty agonies, he sat, bound for New South Wales, on that glittering sea-track that led fourteen thousand miles away from Christian Street. Poor old Tom!

OLD Tom never softened his animosity toward Spike. He seemed to know from the first that his destiny would link with that big sailor's. It was in vain that we reminded him that he was the oldest man on the ship, and would be made night watchman in Sydney and have it soft; and that possibly this very ship would go to Liverpool.

"I'm done," said old Tom. "This is my last ship."

In a ghastly whisper, he told us he could no longer swarm up a rope. Had tried and failed. The sap was out of him. This was his last ship.

Moving heavily in his oilskins, he whispered to us:

"We will all have to leave this ship, too, I am thinking. I saw a blue light off the foreyard-arm the other night."

"When was that, Tom?" asked little Jewdler. "What wheel was that?"

"The gravy-eyed wheel," said old Tom sadly.

"Must've been a star," said little Jewdler, mystified.

"No, it wasn't no star," said old Tom, in the unruffled tones of a man sure of his ground. "Ain't you never heard of death lights? There's going to be death on this ship."

"How is that, Tom?" we whispered, terrified.

But old Tom was careful not to let fall too much wisdom. He wouldn't tell us how it came that a blue light meant death.

But he was right—old Tom was right.

THE starboard bo'sun was a hound—a military hound: one of these ill-conditioned rats who had come out of the Boer War with a scar or two and a yearning to demonstrate authority. He hounded Spike, on account of that girl in Sydney, until Spike knocked him down with his bare fist. Then the bo'sun came with his knife,—two men saw it in his hand,— and Spike knocked him down again, with a belaying-pin. And this time the bo'sun did not get up.

He had sea burial, and Spike they chained in the sail-locker. The Old Man was tearing mad, too, because the death of that man had made the ship shorthanded—as if there were not already enough farmers in the crew. It was like spearing him to make his ship shorthanded, and he told the mate he intended to see justice done. We knew what that meant; and we looked upon our shipmate thenceforth as a dead man.

The Old Man, as it happened, hadn't the least confidence in his two mates, and he had had a row with the port bo'sun over the proper way of sending down a yard. Therefore he intrusted the keys of that locker to old Tom—who venerated the skipper, and also cursed him through the seven cycles of time.

Strange to think of Spike, the gentle-

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hearted, tied to a ring in an iron wall. We were afraid to creep there by night and speak to him through the port. Was he to die? A man who was in love to die? To exchange the torment of the seas for the black void of death? It was hard: but very likely. The word of the skipper would be law in that foreign court.

My heart filled with hatred of that old man who held the keys of Spike's prison. He was sitting on the after-hatch, forcing the strands of a great yellow hawser with his teakwood fid. He was making ready the bowline. His big, crusty fingers moved with care. Many voyages he had terminated thus, not counting them in his life, since they did not lead to Liverpool.

In the hands of that old man the suggestion of this huge rope was hideous. My eye fell on him again and again as I played the ship through those giant seas. That yellow shard of a man held the keys, held the destiny, of Spike in the hollow of his hand.

ORDINARILY it's a calm and holy business, furling the wings of the ship as she is going into harbor. There is a touch of awe in what you do to her then; as if you were stroking your good angel. There's the exhilaration of relief, and certain wild anticipations too, awakened by land odors. It is a lazy moment of hush and speculation, and of unconscious religion; and the ship bears you away into the dark heart of the unknown.

But this time we were struck with horror to see that dark coast rising before us. The ship was a funeral ship, straddled by death and the black vengeance that old Tom bore in his heart for Spike, our shipmate. Even now we could hardly credit the gloomy significance of this incarceration.

Little Jewdler and I, as we lay on the upper topsail-yard, gazed hard at that beacon throbbing through the dark gloom of the night—this night so still, so vast, so full of spice. Once we had felt like storm-ridden vikings; now we quailed— the black water swarmed and seethed in coils and flickerings of phosphorescence; a silver band of light streamed by unendingly at the water-line, throwing up a light of magic on the ship's gray hull, making her under-body soft and unsubstantial.

All the while we heard the quiet voices of the watch aft floating up to us, we saw the coals in their pipes gleam and fade, like tiny beacons. We knew that they were leaning about, asking one another in throaty whispers who would stick to a ship where murder had been done.

Then we saw old Tom, sitting apart, in his yellow singlet, nursing memories of Liverpool in his heart of leather! We heard him say to the mate, in calm tones:

"There's a heavy dew falling. That means a shift of wind in this latitude."

We were filled with hate of his calm voice. Lying with our chins on the round of that wide hanging yard, we recreated that starboard bo'sun only to do him to death again.

And high over the Southern Cross we saw swinging the red star that Spike had given that mission girl for her own. As if it had been a spark from the fire in his heart, it glowed deep.

"Must be eight bells," said the apprentice.

He clambered down and struck it. As we met again on the deck, the bo'sun said, "Watch is aft, sir," in the chastened voice of a man without enmities.

The voice of the mate came down in a tolerant undertone:

"Relieve the wheel and lookout."

THE watch dissolved, rolling men in shore-going shirts brushed past us. We heard a terrifying whisper from a big Yank:

"I tell you, I'm not going to see an American citizen done to death."

At once that black ship seemed to be alive with the mutterings of conspiracy. Our hearts thumped. Would they attempt a rescue at the eleventh hour? We crept after the ank, and heard him say to a silent Dane:

"Sharks are nothing. He could splash when he got away from the ship. Better than swinging."

"Swinging!" We writhed on the hatch, little Jewdler and I. That word hissed like a snake; it whistled through the air like a bullet.

Suddenly we saw the Yank padding after Tom in his bare feet, and we rolled into the shadow of the hatch. They stopped within five feet of us. We saw the teeth of that Yank shining against his terrifying beard. He had a deep, abrupt voice; his bold nose seemed to forge at you like a ram. But old Tom was turned half away from him.

"Are you going to see a man done to death? You give us the key, and we will see the man over the side all right, all right."

Old Tom hung his two fists at his side, and looked round him.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself —tempting an old man to desert his duty."

"Duty!" cried the Yank bitterly. "Why, darn it, ther isn't no such word. I would shed my blood to save that boy from the rope."

"No," said old Tom.

He sat down on the hatch, weighty and incorruptible; puffing out a cloud of smoke. He seemed to be possessed by some rigorous ideal of conduct, and to peer down on us from some impregnable rampart.

The Yank raised his shadowy white arms and cursed. We saw his face glisten with sweat as he lashed past us. Then Jewdler rose up from the deck in front of old Tom, and whispered to him:

"Don't you want to save a man's life? What difference does it make whether you stay by this hooker or not? You could pretend you lost the key."

Old Tom leaned forward and said huskily: "I'm watchman of the ship."

"Well, what of it if you are? Ain't there no other ships?"

"She's going to Liverpool," said old Tom. "Ain't you heard the news? This ship goes to Liverpool, and where she goes I goes."

LIVERPOOL! What hope was there of shaking the resolution of that old man whose withered heart was set on Liverpool? He sat mooning at us, very stiff, as if swathed in bandages—the old mummy! What earthly difference did it make where he was? His wife in Liverpool had probably deserted him. We thought there was something exasperating and inopportune in that old man's yearning to see his wife again. Was it likely that he had anything in common with that ardent lover in the sail-locker?

"Tom, have you fed him to-night?" whispered Jewdler.

"Ay," said Tom.

There he was close up in the dark; he went through the motion of scratching his ribs.

"How is he?"

"Why, comfortable," said Tom; "comfortable as an old shoe."

It was too much to believe.

A puff of wind came in our faces with that piercing land odor on it, and a spice, as it seemed, of sandalwood and sunbaked earth. Little Jewdler sighed desperately.

"He was going to get married, Tom," he said regretfully.

"Ay, that's right," said old Tom densely. "Let him marry."

"He can't now," wailed Jewdler. "They'll string him up."

"Well, that's certain, too," said old Tom.

He had the habit, exasperating to youth, of accepting all statements without amendment and without rebellion. He never reconciled conflicts. Experience had shown him they were irreconcilable. He had learned to submit himself austerely to the fates, and bow his head beneath the yoke of time the oppressor.

Still, he was one of the finest sailormen under the canopy of heaven. He was watchman of the ship. He knew his duty.

"What are we going to say to this mission girl, when she comes aboard?" asked little Jewdler.

"She will have to sorrow," said old Tom harshly. "This will be her cross. We all have our cross, and this will be hers."

Was he bent on making all destinies as cruel as his own?

"He did kill the bo'sun, sure enough," said old Tom. "And there ain't enough of us is positive the bo'sun had a knife in his hand at the time."

"The Dane saw it," said Jewdler eagerly.

Old Tom gloomed at us reproachfully. We wanted to cast him into the sea, but we remembered in time that he was one of the finest sailormen under the canopy of heaven.

"Weren't you ever in love?" we whispered to him mournfully.

"Love—ha!" said old Tom. He squirmed in his singlet. The vast blue night grew deeper over us, bearing musky smells.

"Love—ha!"

We should loathe the memory of this which should have been a magic time for sailors—to be under tow in such a night of stars. But this time the savor of coming to land was lost. The yellow lights were like eyes—the eyes of those hounds of the law that were so soon to be set on the great body of Spike and bring it down.

The ship was like a dream ship stealing into an enchanted harbor, betraying life only in the watchful coals of those pipes along the topgallant rail.

AND now all was over. The town lay fully revealed, shimmering, striking animated golden points into the surface of the harbor. We heard the roar of the anchor-chain tumbling up out of its iron locker—a voice from the tug:

"Let go. Give her forty fathom."

The immense black masts of the ship moved slowly against the stars as she swayed back on her chain.

There we were at last—quieted, after four months. The very deck under us seemed to have lost its spring. It was ponderous, like a rock-ledge to the soles of our feet. Had those hatches ever resounded to the thump of weather seas? Had Spike killed the bo'sun? Had we actually seen that ill-omened man tilted overside with the shackles at his ankles?

Driven to it by sheer disbelief, we approached the sail-locker. That ghastly white iron wall intimidated us. The wraith of Spike seemed to extend itself out of that port with its poison green brass rim. We laid our cheeks against the iron, whispering: "Spike, Spike."

Then we heard the noise of his chains. He was manacled at the wrists—tied to a ring in the wall.

Suddenly his face filled the port. We were shocked to see it. His eyes burned on us, luminous, like an animal's in the dark. We shrank back, as if the chains had sunk through to the soul and made a strange creature of him—less than man. We were desperately ashamed of this feeling, which in no way shook our loyalty.

"We've dropped anchor, Spike," said Jewdler.

"Ay," said Spike.

His voice was as still as the ship. Had he actually spoken? We could hear water dripping somewhere, and a link or two falling in Spike's chain.

Suddenly he murmured:

"I have filed this chain. Can you get the key to the locker? In God's name—"

We had to confess that we had failed. Staring in, we heard him fall back and say, in profound melancholy;

"I am a dead man."

It was actually like a voice from the tomb. We crowded up close to the port, looking into the glazed eyes of that doomed man whose soul was sinking in him like a fire dying down.

"I had rather be et by a shark," he whispered. "I would rather have my heart snapped out by a gray-nurse than swing."

"Swing!" He had spoken the word aloud. With his own lips that intrepid sailorman had framed the abhorrent syllable that spelled the end.

We found no words deep enough to be a consolation to a man so far removed from the good offices of mere benevolence.

Then, in turning away to get a full breath, we saw that old Tom was coming off the section-head—coming down slowly and weightily, with the deliberation of an incorruptible man whom nothing can hasten and nothing can retard. Yes, we had a mournful conviction that nothing was to be hoped from that detestable old fellow with his mind bent on Liverpool. His heart had withered with his body. He was as far from the tremors of youth as if he had been born old.

What did he portend? Of course, if he allowed the prisoner to escape, he must escape with him, since there would be no more peace on that ship. Well, what of it? Couldn't the queer old codger get another ship bound for Liverpool? Well, could he? For twelve years he had been trying to do just that. Now, at last, the way was plain. But if he let the prisoner escape—

No, he would never do it. We felt that he was as obdurate as the iron wall we were leaning against.

WE were interrupted by the voice of Spike floating through the port:

"Listen. That's the oars of the mission boat!"

We heard the sound of oars approaching the ship.

"It may be the harbor-master," mumbled Jewdler.

"No," said Spike. "She is coming."

His voice died.

At this moment across the quiet decks we heard the amused voice of the Old Man calling over to the mate:

"It's the mission, boat. Lower away the accommodation steps."

Affrighted, we fled away from that port. The weight of tragedy was too heavy for us. Yet nothing could prevent us from pausing at the accommodation steps as the mission folk came over with their portable organ.

We saw the girl spring to the deck, laughing, without assistance, and look round her quickly. She knew the ship. We shrank behind the rack of capstan bars to avoid her questioning eye.

At this moment a slight wind sprang across the harbor, lifting the gray awning on the poop, and bringing a land fragrance with it, which forever fixed' the scene in memory: the girl looking for her lover, in vain.

It was terrible to see her standing expectant in the waist of that great ship, which seemed to be running over with foul whispers of crime.

She sighed, twisted her hands together, and followed the organ.

Jewdler and I muttered together, seeing that they had set down the organ within a dozen feet of Spike's port. We crept over the hatch, wriggling on our bellies, and were in time to see her hang her hat on an iron belaying-pin—the second from the brace-pins.

The hair crawled on our necks. This was the pin Spike had used to crush in the skull of that bo'sun! We thought we heard his chains clank again. Certainly he must now be staring at her. The girl stood with her hands folded, while the organist offered prayer. Bitterly that ship stood in need of prayer.

IT was quiet. The crew of that old Forensic were looming out of shadow. Their heavy arms hung down, they twisted spun yarn in their fists. Then she sang.

All was calm; you could fancy you were dreaming. The brine crystals were still sparkling in ridges on the deck, where the seas had been falling down into that corner not twenty hours back. Yes, at' that very spot we had struggled on the braces with foam at our necks, and that dead bo'sun bellowing in our ears. How could we believe in the actuality of that slim girl singing there beside an organ? Yet she was there. The pure line of her cheek was sweetly drawn against the great crooked rail, of the starboard fence, which gleamed red with blistered paint. Had we, in truth, ever seen that huge iron bulwark sinking in foam?

She ended her song.

Then, as the organist stood up to speak, she descried Jewdler and me lying on the hatch, and came toward us with a look of

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smiling indifference. But the moment she had glided into the shadow of the bridge, she whispered:

"Where is Jake Moran?"

She caught her breath with eagerness. "He's on board, isn't he?"

We nodded and swallowed hard. "Where is he?"

I felt her moist hand about my wrist. I was choking. I had never had anything soft like that wrap itself about me before.

"Where is he?" she said again.

We stared at her like two little penguins that have just swallowed something. You have seen them hump their shoulders and look baffled and secret, haven't you?

"He's in the sail-locker," said Jewdler. He pointed at that black port, which looked so grim against the white wall of the section-head.

"Why—why isn't he—on deck?"

"Chains," said Jewdler, gulping. "Locked in."

Suddenly we both blurted out in agonized tones:

"He killed the starboard bo'sun."

She seemed to slack and riffle like a sail when you luff ship.

"All fair and square," we whispered. "He had to. The bo'sun was coming at him with a knife."

SHE was stunned. Something she had held shut in her hand dropped to the deck. We never knew what it was.

Still, we felt a strange solace in the sorrow of that woman. To linger near her, even as bearers of tragedy, was to experience something of the stimulation of romance. We saw in her eyes the light of some desperate protective instinct.

"Take me to him," she whispered.

Could we?

Glaring down the deck, we saw the sallow missioner talking to the crew in kindly tones. Those gentle precepts of his, falling on the ears of shaggy men, seemed to be numbered among the things that are drowned in storm, and overmatched by the sea's wickedness. The men were looking at him with rapt attention, with strange amusement, knowing that Spike the murderer was just behind him.

Old Tom was on the outermost edge of the circle. When we touched him, he turned slowly, with his head solid on his huge shrunken shoulders. As soon as lie spied the girl, he knew what was wanted of him

"Come on, Toni," we urged him; "let her see him. You can come yourself."

THE girl came toward us, trying to appear calm. A damp strand of bronze hair clung to her cheek; and the eye glittered woefully in the shadow of this. In another second she had stumbled over a ring-bolt, and this flung her suddenly against him. Old Tom, taking her by the shoulders, put her away from him slowly.

As if he knew his danger, his smoky eyes rested forbiddingly a moment on the desperate face of that girl. He swallowed, scratched his ribs, shook his head stiffly, as if bewildered by the nature of this attack.

Suddenly the mission girl made a swift gesture, laying one hand on her bosom, as if abandoning her heart to that old man without words. Her other hand touched my arm. She was trembling from head to foot.

"Come," said old Tom harshly.

We glared at him. Was it possible? He was actually shuffling toward the alleyway on which the iron door of the locker opened. We floated after him, rustling against pegged oilskins.

We heard the girl's quivering breath drawn as the key turned in the lock. The iron door swung open, and we were in a position to see Spike leaning out from the wall where he was chained.

Suddenly I recollected that he had filed his chain. Would he try to escape? No; he made no movement, save to move a little way behind a heap of musty canvas.

The girl uttered a faint cry, as if her heart were broken. Stumbling past us, she fell at his feet, putting her arms about him with that protective gesture which seemed to assert that he might rest content, for she would never let him go. Had she a power to reverse the malign decrees of men simply by fierce rebellion in the heart?

"You are not afraid of me?" said Spike in harsh tones. "You are not afraid of me?"

He looked down at her fiercely, strangely, as if at something lost to him, whose mistlike soft shadow still clung, deceiving him.

She shook her head, trembling against him. Lowering his arms about her, he let the chains slip, and stood up unshackled, holding her where the light, streaming through the port, fell on her face.

"You came too late," he said.

"No—no!" she cried. "Not too late. If you could not help it, you will not be punished."

SPIKE fixed her mournfully with a look of his old gentleness.

"I must die," he said distinctly. "Make up your mind to this."

For an instant he laid his cheek against hers. Then his eye fell on the figure of Tom, lingering in the door with distaste expressed in every line of his decrepit old body.

"They will take the skipper's word for it," he said. "The word of an able seaman is nothing."

Lying in his arms, she reached up her hands to his face and suddenly whispered:

"If you could come away now—in the mission boat—while he is talking. There is a freighter about to weigh anchor. You could escape, and come to me again."

Spike's eye gleamed; but he looked at old Tom almost with amusement.

"No chance," he said. "You can't bribe the jailer."

"Yes, come," she whispered, with the same strange insistence. She drew him unresisting over the heap of canvas; and, turning on old Tom, cried in a moment of concentrated passion:

"Who are you, to part us? I love him. Do you understand, old man? Let him go with me."

"Hah," said that old man surrounded by mysteries. "And what becomes of me?"

"Let him go," she said again, with hypnotic force. "He shall not die!"

"Hah," said old Tom.

He opened his mouth, as if to hurl at her one of those contemptuous phrases of an old-fashioned sailor holding on to his duty like grim death. Perhaps in that moment the vision of Christian Street was strongly present to him. He had only to hold that key firm, turn it in the lock again, to attain Liverpool at last. The satisfaction of his twelve years' quest was near.

BUT the irony of the sea is eternal. It is said that the sea is salt with the tears of women who have sorrowed over its disasters. And yet, none but able seamen can know properly the atrocities of which it is guilty in its devilish unrest.

Old Tom suddenly uttered the amazing syllables:

"Take him."

He had betrayed himself in two words.

Without more, we crept aft in the shadow of the hatches. Would he repent and cry out, after all? Would the lure of Christian Street defeat him in the midst of his intended sacrifice?

We trembled and swallowed our hearts, seeing those red stars stream across the sky again. Looking back at the crew still clustered about the organ, we fixed our eyes on the little red hat hanging on the belaying-pin that had done the mischief.

"Good-by, Forensic," murmured Spike Moran.

One by one, we dropped into that mission boat.

WHEN old Tom came last of all with his concertina, he sat on it, and squeezed out a little sound, a little sob. Horror-struck, we leaned against the gray side of the ship, waiting. The black water came up to those scored and dented iron plates without a ripple.

What hugeness, what torment, what impregnability expressed in a ship's side! And what uncertainty. There was no movement over our heads, and we drifted away.

Spike rowed. The girl, taking the tiller ropes, leaned forward with a dawn of hope on her face, which we saw glimmering through darkness like a shell sinking in clear water.

Not a word was spoken. Holding our breath, we approached the red side of a tramp.

"Take in your oars," said the girl.

Drifting against that ship, we heard the ring of feet running on her iron decks and the sound of the chain going through the hawse-pipe. She was already weighing anchor.

At this moment old Tom's hand rasped on the plates and caught a trailing end of rope. He pulled: it came taut.

Staring aloft with wrinkled brow, he muttered, "There's a coal port just overhead."

Spike had already seen it. He rose from his oars, taking the girl in his arms and murmuring to her, "I will come again."

But at these words it seemed to me that old Tom shook his head, slowly, sadly. What was the promise of an able seaman to come again? The winds blow where they list.

The two who were young stood up together, silent, desperate: and, as her hands met behind his neck, she cried earnestly:

"You will come again? Jake, you will come?"

He kissed her. This was what pay he had for six months of soaking in the misery of five oceans. He went away in his skin, it may be said. And some phantom of promise seemed to whisper along the black side of the ship, as he ascended the rope. She was still standing, her arms lifted, even after he had left them. He slipped through the port.

AND there was old Tom, looking around for a place to sit down. You see how age had betrayed him. He could no longer swarm up a rope.

Yes, he had lost his chance. Wasn't it bitterness to have been betrayed by some memory, some softening recollection of the wild justice of early love? I affirm to you that this was heroism. It's unlikely he ever got to Liverpool, you know. Too old. And he couldn't go back to the Forensic. This last memory of his life was a memory of dereliction.

With a shamed face, he mumbled:

"Another dollar for Gertie," sitting back in the stern-sheets, bewildered, scratching his ribs, with that slow motion of his, through the yellow singlet that had no buttons on the chest.

Just then the great tramp began to move. We heard the jar of the engines, and the clang of an iron lever, dropping from the winch, I suppose.

The woman was still staring at that black opening in the unknown ship that had swallowed up her lover; but old Tom, with mystery on every hand, stood up, bracing himself against the thwarts of the mission boat. Turning up his old face, full of grave despondency and puzzlement, he cried out in a rusty voice:

"Whar to?"

And, seeming to come out of the very skies, a harsh voice, rolling along the iron decks:

"Liverpool."

Our Whole Garrison at Popham

WHEN the foreign gentlemen now engaged in cutting one another's throats cease fighting and begin to figure up the bills, they will look across the Atlantic and behold your Uncle Samuel, his pockets bulging with all the money in the world. Then will come the most critical moment in the history of this nation.

The temptation will be supreme. The force on the other side will be ready; and we—well, we are defended, of course. For instance, at the mouth of the Kennebec (post-office Popham, Maine) we have a million-dollar fortress with a garrison of two men and a cat. There are two fortresses, to be exact, and the government has spent considerably more than a million on them.

Our First Line of Defense

THE fortifications aren't there for the amusement of summer visitors or foreign spies, either. They are a part (how important is a matter of opinion) of our policy of preparedness. If a foreign foe should ever attack us, the guns are there. The garrison would spring to them and do everything that two men could possibly do to meet the emergency. They would constitute our first line of defense. Perhaps the cat could be counted among the reserves.

The two men referred to are the ordnance sergeant and the private who, at the present writing, constitute the garrison of this fortress. The number is small, but it is all the government can spare. It hasn't very many coast guards, at the best.

In the summer, when the danger is greater, not from an outside foe but from summer visitors, who might regard the guns as souvenirs and attempt to carry them away piecemeal, four men are stationed at Popham instead of two.

Two men or four—what difference? We Americans, a million of us, would spring to arms just as soon as Popham or any of our numerous vulnerable spots was attacked. We would man these guns, among others. Any big gun is a simple affair; a child can operate it. And we Americans are childlike in so many ways. Besides, the people who live in Popham would be on their way elsewhere, and the only damage the guns could do would be to the sand on the beach, the water in the river, or the atmosphere. In and about Popham there is plenty of sand, water, and atmosphere, so why worry?

Popham Is Probably Safe, Anyway

MOREOVER, it is probable that no foe would ever attempt to take Popham. It has been demonstrated that an army of invasion could comfortably and conveniently land on Long Island and from that point move on New York at no greater effort than the average Long Islander expends in commuting daily. Why should any foe attack Popham? But then, why should our government put a million dollars' worth of fortifications there? Or even two men? Two men represent a goodly proportion of our available force.

But shucks! no one would attack us, anyhow. We're too powerful—too rich. We have too many resources. We are unique among the nations of the world. We have million-dollar fortifications garrisoned by two men and a cat.

Let us be strong, if only in faith. Mr. Bryan's million men will spring to arms. There are no arms for them to spring to? They couldn't use them if there were? Very well. The sergeant's cat will bite holes in the enemy's dreadnoughts and sink them. All will be well, never fear!

This May Help You to Land a Job

By DONALD A. KAHN

"I HAD just graduated from high school, and was fooling away my time doing such odd jobs of printing as I could scrape up, turning out the work on a hand-lever press I had received for a birthday gift some years before. Business was bad in our town that summer, and anything in the way of steady employment at a regular wage seemed impossible to secure.

"Finally, however, a young acquaintance of mine, who was lucky enough to have a place as handy man in the office of the local furniture factory, foolishly got in bad with the president of the concern, and was going to quit at the end of the week. Upon learning this, I asked my friend whether his successor had been appointed. He laughed at the idea of my having a chance: there were dozens of names on the waiting list.

"I saw at once that if I were to secure this position I should have to make something of an effort. The president had never heard of me, nor had any one else in the factory, and there were no strings that I could have pulled in my behalf. I was thinking this over when my eyes fell upon my humble printing equipment. An idea came to me, and, happily, I was just kid enough to adopt it.

"I set up in type the name and address of the president of the furniture factory, and printed this name and address upon the face of four new postal cards I happened to have in my pocket. On the reverse of these same cards I printed my own name in large type—nothing else.

"That very day, which was Tuesday, I took one of these cards to the post-office, and resolutely dropped it down the letter-chute. I repeated the performance on Wednesday, on Thursday, and on Friday.

"Saturday morning I dressed in my 'store clothes' and went to call on my prospective employer—whom I knew to be a stern-looking man.

"When, at last, I was shown into his private office, I couldn't suppress a grin; for there, stuck up on the great man's desk, were my four postal cards, all in a neat row.

"'Your office boy quits to-night, sir,' I stated, when he asked me what I wanted. 'I'd like his job.'

"The president began to scratch his head with the point of his pencil.

"`I can't give it to you, my boy,' he said regretfully. 'I've half promised that position to a dozen young fellows.'

"`I'm the one man for the job!' I maintained, with conviction. (I did want that place!)

"'What's your name?' the president asked, absently reaching for a pad.

"I'd been waiting rather uneasily for that question. 'Richard L. Cady,' I replied.

"The president stared as I made the confession, glanced from me to the battery of mysterious portals, and grinned.

"I picked up my cap and rose.

"`I'll be back early Monday morning, ready for work,' I volunteered.

"The president kept on grinning.

"'See that you are!' he said."

Selling One's Services

THE man applying for a job has something to sell—his services. And, as far as he employs the tactics of a skilful salesman, just to that extent is he likely to succeed in placing his wares. In competition for a desirable job the best bidder—which usually happens not to be the lowest bidder—will win.

Suppose the lad in the foregoing anecdote had gone to the president of the furniture factory unknown, with no sort of introduction. And suppose he had asked, politely but uninterestingly, for the position he wished. The chances are that he would have received merely a polite refusal. But this boy made his name a fixture in the factory president's office before ever he put in an appearance.

A. B. Chamberlain, a wagon manufacturer in a large city, had experienced trouble in finding office help that would exhibit the slightest genuine interest in the business. The men and girls in his employ did well enough at routine work; but when an emergency arose, where some intimate knowledge of the product or organization of his particular factory was needed, they were sadly unequipped to meet the demand. He had subscribed for all the trade papers for them; he had tried to get them to study the factory catalogues or to walk about the factory proper in their spare time; but they preferred to use their odd quarter-hours in idle gossip or in novel-reading.

Mr. Chamberlain was without children of his own. The fact that he had so son to become his right-hand man was the one regret of his life. He used to read the "want ads" in the local papers in a vague quest for some young man who might perchance prove willing to take a filial interest in his business. But these were all very much alike.

As Mr. Chamberlain read one after another he got so he could picture the advertiser in his mind. The advertiser was either a half-baked young man with a light-blue cravat and a cigarette, or a washed-out, gum-chewing young woman with a mode of spelling all her own. In a word, A. B. Chamberlain had become quite pessimistic on the subject of office employees.

Then one day a new sort of advertisement appeared in a local paper. It was a new sort, because it possessed concreteness, color, and personality. The paragraph read substantially as follows:

Bookkeeper-stenographer, some experience, wants work. High school and business college graduate. Interested in manufacturing and sales. Ambition to become executive's assistant. Box 22B, Star.

After A. B. Chamberlain had read it through several times he tried to form a mental picture of the advertiser. He didn't quite succeed. But of one detail he was certain: the advertiser must look somewhat like a son. He wrote him to call.

The advertiser did call, and Mr. Chamberlain was slightly startled on that occasion; for an attractive-looking girl of twenty-three or -four came in response to the invitation. A son, indeed!

This was all before the day when woman had established herself in the secure position her sex now holds in the mercantile world. But A. B. Chamberlain was open to conviction; he talked eagerly to this wide-awake, bright-eyed girl. He discovered when she talked that her voice was low and her speech cultivated. He saw that she possessed the manufacturing talent—imagination. He caught the contagion of her intelligent enthusiasm and of her self-confidence. He was judge enough of human nature to recognize in this slight young woman a future executive of rare ability—the right-hand man he had been looking for.

She was entered upon the pay-roll at a beginning salary of twenty-five dollars a week. To-day she is the virtual manager of the Chamberlain vehicle factory.

The young woman would not have succeeded as she did had she not been qualified for success. But here is the point: If her situation-wanted advertisement had not been so cleverly worded that it appealed to the jaded Mr. Chamberlain, this happy business affiliation would never have been brought about. Concreteness, color, and personality did it.

He Was a Crank, Too

WHEN a tool supply house decided to discontinue its local office in a Western city, Marshall Smith, who had served the firm as branch accountant, was thrown out of a position. An epidemic of business depression had infected the nation, and Smith anticipated trouble in finding a new job. He hunted work for some time without success. Finally a business acquaintance gave him the tip that one Dugan, a wholesale lumber dealer, was quietly looking around for a head bookkeeper.

"It's good pay," said the friend; "but the work is exacting and the job will be hard to land. Dugan's got dyspepsia; he's a crank on accuracy. He's the hardest man in town to work for."

Smith blackened his shoes, brushed his suit, and went to call on Dugan.

"Huh!" said Dugan. "Your references may be all right; but I don't know you— never heard of you before!"

"I've got references, but he doesn't know me!" Smith thought it over slowly—it was a new sort of logic. Then Smith did some quick thinking, and some quick talking.

"But I've heard of you, all right, Mr. Dugan!" he blurted out significantly. "I've heard of you, all right!"

"What have you heard of me?" challenged Dugan, interested.

"I've heard that you're the hardest man in town to work for!"

"Humph!" snorted the lumber man. "Then why do you ask me for a job?"

"I ask you for a job because I can satisfy the most particular mortal on the face of the globe when it comes to keeping a set of accounts," explained Smith mildly. "I'm as cranky on the subject as any employer can be."

Dugan thought it over. "Take off your coat and stay awhile," he said finally.

Putting Your Cook-Stove to Work

Is Your Favorite Actress on This Page?

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Everybody Has His Own Idea About Food

A Balance for the Boss

By SEWELL FORD

Illustrations by Frank Snapp

YOU see, I was openin' the mornin' mail. Hope you get that part. Not that I want to seem chesty over it. Just goes to show, that's all. For, of the whole force here at the General offices, there's just three of us can carve up the mornin' mail without gettin' fired for it. And the other two are Old Hickory and Mr. Robert.

H-m-m-m! Business of lookin' important. That's what it is to be a private sec. But, between you and me, this slicin' and sortin' envelops ain't such thrillin' work; mostly routine stuff—reports of department heads, daily statements from brokers, and so on. Now and then, though, you run across something rich. This was one of the times.

I was 'most through the pile when I comes to this pale pink affair with a heavy wax seal on the back. Perfumed, too, like lilacs. First off I thought it must be private, and I held the letter stabber in the air while I took a closer look. No. It's addressed just to the Corrugated Trust. So rip she goes. After I'd read it through twice I grins and puts it one side. When Mr. Robert blows in I hands the pink one to him first.

"We're discovered," says I. "Here's some one that hints polite how we're a bunch of strong-arms organized to rob the widow and orphan of their daily bread."

Mr. Robert takes one sniff, then holds it at arm's length while he runs it through. Gets a chuckle out of him, too.

"It's rather evident," says he, "that Mrs. Theodore Bayly Bagstock doesn't approve of us at all—though just why is not quite clear."

"That's easy," says I. "This Inter-Lake Navigation that she's beefin' about was one of them little concerns we gathered in last fall. Paid something like fourteen, and our common at three and a half don't seem so good to her, I expect. Still, she got a double on her holdin's by the a deal, and with the melon we're goin' to cut next month—"

"Suppose, Torchy," breaks in Mr. Robert, tossing back the letter, "you answer the lady in your own direct and lucid way. You might suggest that we are neither highwaymen nor the Associated Charities, using any little whim of sarcasm that occurs to you."

I'd just thought out a real snappy comeback too, and was dictatin' it to a stenographer, when Old Hickory happens to drift by with his ear out. He stops short.

"Hold on," says he. "What Mrs. Bagstock is that?"

"Why, the peevish one, I expect, sir," says I.

"Let's see that letter," says he. I passes it over.

"Huh!" he goes on, rubbin' his chin reminiscent. "I wonder if that could be—er—young man, I think I'll answer this myself."

"Oh, very well, sir," says I, shruggin' my shoulders careless.

MUST have been half an hour later when Old Hickory calls me into the private office, and I finds him still gazin' at the scented note.

"Torchy," says he, glancin' keen at me from under his bushy eyebrows, "this Mrs. Bagstock seems to think we are using her badly. As a matter of fact, those Inter-Lake share-holders were lucky. We might have frozen them out altogether. You understand, eh?"

I nods.

"But I can't put that in a letter," he goes on. "It could be explained in a personal interview, however."

"I get you," says I. "I'll 'phone for her to come around."

"No!" he roars. "You'll do nothing of the sort. What the rhythmic rhomboids put that into your head? I don't want to see the woman. I'll not see her, not on any pretext. Understand?"

"I think so," says I.

"Then get your hat," says he.

"Yes, sir," says I, edgin' out.

"Just a moment," says Old Hickory. "You are to explain to Mrs. Bagstock fully: assure her that in the long run she will not be the loser, and so on. As courteously as you know how. And—er—if in the course of the interview you should happen to learn her given name—er—just remember it."

"Such as Ella May or Josephine?"

"No!" he snaps. "Natalie. Now clear out."

AIN'T he the foxy old pirate, though? Sendin' me off on a sleuthin' expedition without givin' up a hint as to what it's all about! Was it some back-number romance that this lilac-dipped note had reminded him of? More likely there'd been some Bagstock or other who'd double-crossed him in a deal and he'd never found a chance to get square. Anyway, he's after a confidential report, so off I pikes.

My troubles began right at the start. I had to hunt the address up on a city map, and when I'd located it on the lower West Side, down in the warehouse district, I'm sure of one thing—this Mrs. Bagstock can't be such-a-much. If I had any doubts they was knocked out by the sign hung alongside the front door —"Furnished Rooms."

I expect it had been quite a decent old house in its day—one of these full-width brick affairs, with fancy iron grill-work on either side of the brownstone steps and a fan-light over the door. There was even an old-fashioned bell-pull that was almost equal to a wall exerciser for workin' up your muscle. I was still pumpin' away energetic, not hearin' any results inside, when the door is jerked open, and a perky young female with the upper part of her face framed in kid curlers and a baby-blue boudoir cap glares at me unpleasant.

"Humph!" says she. "Tryin' to play 'Rag-Time Temple Bells,' are you?"

"Then I did register a tinkle, did I?" says I.

"Tinkle! More like a riot call," says she. "Want to look at rooms?"

"Not exactly," says I. "You see, I'm representin'—"

"Are you?" she crashes in crisp. "Well, say, you fresh agents are goin' to overwork this comedy cut-up act with our bell one of these times. Go on. Shoot it. What you want to wish on us—instalment player-piano, electric dish-washer, magazine subscriptions, or—"

"Excuse me," I cuts in, producin' the letter; "but, while you're a grand little guesser, your start is all wrong. I came to see Mrs. Bagstock about this. Lives here, don't she?"

"Oh, Auntie?" says the young party in the boudoir cap. "Then I guess you can come in. Now, lemme see. What's this all about? H-m-m-m! Stocks, eh? Just a jiffy while I go through this."

DURIN' which I've been shooed into the parlor. Some parlor it is, too. I don't know when I've seen a room that came so near whinin' about better days gone by. Every piece of furniture, from the threadbare sofa to the rickety center table, seems kind of sad and sobby.

Nothing old-timey about this young female that's studyin' out Mrs. Bagstock's letter. Barrin' the floppy cap, she's costumed zippy enough in what I should judge was a last fall's tango dress. As she reads she yanks gum industrious.

"Say," she breaks out, "this is all Dutch to me. Who's bein' called down, anyway?"

"We are," says I. "The Corrugated Trust. I'm private sec. there. I've come around to show Mrs. Bagstock where she's sized us up wrong, and if I could have five minutes' talk with her—"

"Well, you can't, that's all," says the young lady. "So speed up and tell it to me."

Course, I wasn't doin' that. We holds quite a debate on the subject without my scorin' any points at all. She tells me how she's a niece by marriage of Mrs. Bagstock, and the unregrettin' widow of the late Dick McCloud, who up to a year ago was the only survivin' relative of his dear aunt.

"And he wasn't much good at that, if I do say it," announces Tessie, snappin' her black eyes. "I don't deny he had me buffaloed for a while there, throwin' the bull about his rich aunt that was goin' to leave him a fortune. Huh! This is the fortune —this old furnished-room joint that's mortgaged up to the eaves and ain't had a roomer in three months. Hot fortune, ain't it? And here I am stranded with a batty old dame, two blocks below Christopher."

"Waitin' to inherit?" I asks innocent.

"Why not?" says Tessie. "I stood for Dick McCloud 'most three years. That ought to call for some pension, hadn't it? I don't mind sayin', too, it ain't one long May-day festival, this bein' buried alive with Aunt Nutty."

"Meanin' Mrs. Bagstock?" says I.

She nods. "One of Dick's little cracks,' says she. "Her real name is Natalie."

I expect my ears did a reg'lar rabbit motion at that. So this was the one? Well, I'd got to have a look at her!

"Eh?" says I. "Did you say Natalie?"

"Aunt Nutty's a better fit, though," says Tessie.

"Ah, come!" says I. "She don't write so batty. And anybody who can notice the difference between fourteen per cent. dividends and three and a half ain't so far gone."

"Oh, you never could work off any wooden money on her," admits Tessie. "Her grip on a dollar is sump'n fierce; that is, until it comes to settin' the stage for one of her third Wednesdays."

"Her which?" says I.

"IF it was anything I could cover up," says Tessie, "you bet I'd deny it. But anybody on the block could put you wise. So, if you must know, every third Wednesday Aunt Nutty goes through the motions of pullin' off a pink tea. Uh-huh! It's all complete: the big silver urn polished up and steamin', sandwiches and cakes made, flowers about, us all dolled up—and nobody to it! Oh, it's a scream!"

"But don't any one come?" says I.

"Hardly," says Tessie, "unless you count Mrs. Fizzenmeyer, the delicatessen lady; or Madame Tebeau, the little hairdresser; or the Schmitt girls, from the corner bakery. They pretend to take Auntie almost as serious as she takes herself. Lately, though, even that bunch has stopped. You can't blame 'em. It may be funny for once or twice. After that—well, it begins to get ghastly. Specially with the old girl askin' me continual to watch out the window and see if the Van Pyles haven't driven up yet, or the Rollinses, or the Pitt-Smiths. If that ain't nutty, now what is?"

"The third Wednesday, eh?" says I. "That's to-morrow, ain't it?"

"Sure," says Tessie. "Which is why you can't see her to-day. She's in trainin' for the big event—y'understand?"

"But I'd like to set her mind easy on this stock proposition," says I.

"Wish you could," says Tessie. "She's been stewin' a lot over something or other. Must be that. And I could take you up to her if you was on the list."

"What list?" I asks.

"Her doctor, her solicitor, her banker," says Tessie, checkin' 'em off on her fingers.

"Say," says I, "couldn't I ring in as one of her bankers? Then I could get this off my chest and not have to come again."

"I'll put it up to her," says Tessie. "Got a business card on you?"

I had an engraved one. Maybe that's what did the trick, for Tessie comes back smilin'.

"But it'll take me half an hour or so to fix her up," says she. "She's dreadful fussy about her looks."

"I got all day," says I.

But at that it seemed like I'd been shut up in that sobby parlor for a month

---

when Tessie finally gives me the word. "Come along," says she. "And don't forget to make a noise like a banker."

Say, after I'd been led up to this faded old relic that's bolstered with pillows in the arm-chair by the window, and listened to her wavery, cracked voice, I couldn't see anything funny in it at all.

It's a vague, batty sort of talk we had. Mostly it's a monologue, by her.

"I am quite annoyed;" says she, tappin' the chair arm with her thin, blue-white finger-nails. "My income, you know. It must not be reduced in this way. You must attend to it at once. Those Inter-Lake securities. I've depended on those. Mr. Bagstock gave them to me on our fifth wedding anniversary. Of course, I am not a business woman. One can't neglect one's social career. But I have always tried to look after my own securities. My father taught me to do that when I was a mere girl. So I wrote about my Inter-Lake Navigation shares. Why should your firm interfere? You say in a few months they will pay as well. But meanwhile? You see, there are my Wednesdays. I can't give them up. What would people say? For years that has been my day. No, no, young man; you must find a way. Tell your firm that I simply must keep up my Wednesdays."

AND, as she stops for breath, it's about the first chance I've had to spring anything on her. Old Hickory hadn't told me not to use his name, and was I to blame if he'd overlooked that point?

"Yes'm," says I; "I'll tell Mr. Ellins."

"Who?" says she, steadyin' her wanderin' gaze. "Mr. Ellins?"

"Old Hickory," says I. "He's president of the Corrugated Trust, ma'am."

"Really!" says she. "How odd! I—I used to know a young man of that name— a pushing, presuming, impudent fellow. In fact, he had the audacity to call on me several times. He was quite impossible socially; uncouth, awkward, rough spoken. A mere clerk, I believe. And I—well, I was rather a belle that season, I suppose. At least, I did not lack suitors. A brilliant season it was for me too, my first. Our dinners, receptions, dances, were affairs of importance. How this raw Middle-Westerner came to be invited I've forgotten. Through my father, I presume. I had hardly noticed him among so many. At least, I am sure I never gave him an excuse for thinking that he could— Oh, it was outrageous. I had been trying to dance with him and had given it up. We were in the little conservatory, watching the others, when—well, I found myself in his arms, crushed there. He—he was kissing me violently. I suppose I must have screamed before I fainted. Anyway, there was a scene. He was given his hat and coat, shown the door. Father was in a rage. Of course, after that he was ostracized. I never saw him again, never forgave him. And now— Do you think this can be the same Mr. Ellins? He sent you to me, did he not? Did he mention anything about—"

"Not a word except business," says I. "And I must say that performance don't sound much like the boss."

"Ah!" says the old girl, sighin' relieved. "I am glad to hear you say so. I should not care to have any dealings with him."

She was back in the '70's again, tryin' to look haughty and indignant. Next minute she was protestin' about her income and announcin' that she must keep up her Wednesdays.

"Yes'm," says I, backin' out; "I'll tell him."

"Well?" says Tessie, as we gets back to the parlor. "Ain't that some bug-house proposition? Got an ear-full, didn't you? And to-morrow we'll— There's that fool bell 'again. Oh, it's the doctor. I'll have to take him up. So long."

SHE let the young doctor in as she let me out. I was half way down the block, too, when I turns and walks back. I waits in the tin runabout until the pill distributer comes out.

"What about the old lady in there?" says I. "Kind of wabbly, ain't she?"

"Oh, she may last 'a month more," says he. "Wonderful vitality. And then again—oh, any time; like that!" and he snaps his fingers.

Maybe I didn't have some details to give Old Hickory.

"It's a case of better days," says I. "Must have been some society queen and she's never got over the habit. Still play- in' the game."

Then I describes the guestless teas she has. But never a smile out of Old Hickory. He listens grim without interruptin.'

"But what about her first name?" he asks at last.

"Oh, sure," says I. "Didn't I mention that? Natalie. And I expect she was some stunner. She's near the finish now, though. Shouldn't wonder but to-morrow might be her last third Wednesday."

"Who says so?" demands Mr. Ellins savage.

"Her doctor," says I.

With that, Old Hickory bangs his fist on the desk.

"Then, by the Lord Harry," says he, "I'd like to make it a good one."

"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.

"Young man," says he, "I don't know whether you have had fool luck or have been particularly clever, but thus far you have handled this affair for me like a diplomat. Now I'm going to ask you to do something more. I don't care to hear another word about Mrs. Bagstock, not a whisper, but—er—here's a' check for two hundred dollars. No, I'll make, it five. Just take that and see that her silly tea to-morrow is a bang-up affair; with plenty of real guests."

I gasps.

"But, I say, Mr. Ellins," I begins, "how do I—"

"Don't ask me how, young man," he snaps. "What do I know about tea-parties? Do as I tell you."

Say, that's some unique order to shoot at private sec., ain't it?

And did I make good? Listen. Before nine o'clock that night I had the thing all plotted out and half a dozen people gettin' busy. Course, it's mostly Vee's program. She claps her hands when she hears the tale.

"Why, Torchy!" says she. "Isn't that just splendid! Certainly we can do it."

AND when Vee gets enthusiastic over anything it ain't any flash in the pan. It's apt to be done, and done right. She tells me what to do right off the reel. And you should have seen me blowin' that five hundred like a drunken sailor. I charters a five-piece orchestra, gives a rush order to a decorator, and engages a swell caterer, warnin' Tessie by wire what to expect. Vee tackled the telephone work, and with her aunt's help dug up about a dozen old families that remembered the Bagstocks. How they hypnotized so many old dames to take a trip 'way downtown I don't know; but after Mrs. Tessie McCloud had watched the fourth limousine unload from two to three classy-lookin' guests, she near swallowed her gum.

"Muh Gawd!" says she. "Am I seein' things, or is it true?"

Not only dames, but a sprinklin' of old sports in spats and frock-coats and with waxed white mustaches was rounded up; and, with five or six d—butantes Vee had got hold of, it's some crusty push.

FIRST off Mrs. Bagstock had been so limp and unsteady on her pins that she'd started in by receivin' 'em propped up in a big chair. But by the time-the old parlor got half full and the society chatter cuts loose she seems to buck up a lot.

Next thing I knew, she was standin' as straight as a Fifth Avenue doorman, her wrinkled old chin well up and her eyes shinin'. Honest, she was just eatin' it up. Looked the part, too. A bit out of date as to costume, maybe; but with her white hair piled up high and the diamond-set combs in it, and a cameo as big as a door-knob at her throat, and with that grand-duchess air of hers, hanged if she don't carry it off great. Why, I heard her gossipin' with old Madam Van Pyle as chummy and easy as if it had been only last week since they'd seen each other, instead of near twenty years ago.

Havin' to pay off some of the help, I had to stick around until it was all over. So I was there when she staggers towards Tessie and leans heavy on her shoulder.

"They—they've all gone, haven't they?" she asks. "I—I'm so tired and—and so happy! It has been the most successful Wednesday I've had for some time, hasn't it?"

"Has it?" says Tessie. "Why, Auntie, this was a knockout, one of the kind you read about. Honest, even when I was fittin' corsets for the carriage trade, I never got so close to such a spiffy bunch. But we had the goods to hand 'em—caviar sandwiches, rum for the tea, fizz in the punch. Believe me, the Astors ain't got anything on us now."

Mrs. Bagstock don't seem to be listenin'. She's just gazin' around, smilin' vague.'

"Music, wasn't there?" she goes on. "I had really forgotten having ordered an orchestra. And such lovely roses! Let me take one more look at the dear old drawing- room. Yes, it was a success, I'm sure. Now you may ring for my maid. I—I think I will retire."

As they brushed past me on their way to the stairs I took a chance on whisperin' to Tessie.

"Hadn't you better ring up the doc.?" I suggests.

"Maybe I had," says she.

Perhaps she did, too. I expect it didn't matter much. Only I was peeved at that boob society editor, after all the trouble I took to get the story shaped up by one of my newspaper friends and handed in early, to have it held over for the Sunday edition. That's how it happens the paper I takes in to Mr. Ellins Monday mornin' has these two items on the same page—I'd marked 'em both. One was a flossy account of Mrs. Theodore Bayly Bagstock's third Wednesday; the other was six lines in the obituary column. Old Hickory reads 'em, and then sits for a minute, gazin' over the top of his desk at nothing at all.

"Poor Natalie!" says he, after a while. "So that was her last."

"Nobody ever finished any happier, though," says I.

"Hah!" says he. "Then perhaps that balances the account."

Saying which, he clips the end off of a fat black perfecto, lights up, and tackles the mornin' mail.

Here's the Sawdust Trail

WANT to hit the sawdust trail? If you really mean it, you'd better go to Muscatine, Iowa. The inhabitants of Muscatine don't have to hit—they can't get off it. They live on it.

Muscatine grew as even the real-estate boomers never dreamt it would. It is the center of the big Mississippi lumber-mill district. For seventy years the lumber mills operated along the banks have deposited their sawdust about Muscatine, until now it ranges from three to fifteen feet in depth, defying even the most strenuous floods. Meanwhile, as we have said, Muscatine was growing.

Farmers from miles around drove into Muscatine of a Saturday evening. Also lumbermen. Muscatine was the metropolis. And the only way they could get to Muscatine was over the sawdust reclaimed land. So rose the inevitable problem, can roads be built on sawdust?

But railroad tracks had been laid on sawdust ten years before—and were still above ground—so why not a simple five-inch concrete foundation of vitrified block paving?

Now the main street of Muscatine lies opver this reclaimed territory—very convenient for butchers, etc., who need sawdust in their business. And all the time the mills are turning out a percentage of sawdust, and, as far as we know, with no commission.

Mr. B. Sunday will doubtless soon be invited to Muscatine. He should ascertain whether the sawdust trail is living up to the reputation he has given it.

He's All Ready for May 15

HERE'S a provident person from up in Maine who doesn't mind if it does rain on his new summer bonnet.

Proudly as any nobleman of the days "when knighthood was in flower" does William H. Whiting, of Jonesport, a sea-coast village in Washington County, Maine, wear this novel hat of his own construction.

"I got tired of paying a couple of dollars for a hat and having it blown off into a mud-puddle or under wagon wheels," explains Mr. Whiting. "I found straw too flimsy and perishable, wool and other cloths too hot, Panama too expensive. I wanted a hat that would give service—and last.

"So I went into my own tin-shop, picked out a sheet of the thinnest tin, and made my own 'sailor.' It's the best fit I ever had. It's not hot. It stands the rain. Yes, of course I run the risk of its some day attracting a bolt of lightning."

Like all apostles of a new creed or custom, Mr. Whiting has to stand for a lot of "kidding"; but ready wit, an inexhaustible fund of good nature, and a dominating spirit of independence, cause these shafts of ridicule to glance off his unwounded complacency.

Mr. Whiting's philosophy regarding this guying is: "It's my own hat. I built it for my own head, to suit my own ideas. It came out of my own shop, from my own tin, and I'm wearing it myself. So it seems to be distinctly my own affair—though I'm willing to let any one else have one like it if he wishes."

He Was Arrested for Taking This Picture

Missing-Roberta Hoyt!

By ADELE LUEHRMANN

Illustration by R. M. Crosby

FRIDAY, Saturday, and Sunday came and passed, and if the girl I knew as Roberta Hoyt went to Farnham I did not hear of it. According to the papers there were no developments whatever in the Hoyt case.

Friday night, after a dinner with Rice and Farnham and Tal, I returned to my room convinced that Farnham had not yet heard from Miss Hoyt, and, though the knowledge puzzled me, it brought a feeling of excitement and expectancy.

The dinner was at the doctor's, and he gave us a corking feed—a slight expression, he called it, of his own and Farnham's appreciation of our courtesy, etc., in the Riverton affair; and also (I added mentally) as a possible way to find out what I knew of Roberta Hoyt.

Not a word did the doctor say about that resemblance to a friend of which he had spoken to Tal. Apparently he had decided not to try to put that over. I thought I knew how they sized up the situation. Knowing they could not force me to talk, they had had me watched; then, when I evaded their man so neatly Thursday night,—for they could not have understood the Rogers-Mulrooney episode,—they concluded to try something in the nature of a personal and veiled appeal.

So they gave me plenty of chances to open up and talk. But I ignored them. If that waitress stuck to her bargain, I expected to pull through without telling anybody anything; and I was counting the days to November eighth like a child waiting for Christmas.

On Monday, November 4, the police pricked up their ears in earnest, and things really began to happen. I recall the date distinctly; but, if I did not, it is here on my next newspaper clipping:

EDITORIALLY the Record issued a rousing call to the police to get on the job, which was taken up by all the papers. The discovery of the jewelry seemed to startle everybody—to be considered most significant and ominous. The Record made the biggest fuss, of course, crowing to beat the band. Anybody not wise to them would have thought that no one on the staff had closed an eye since Roberta Hoyt left home, while the truth was that the jewelry had been found by the merest fluke. Talbot Sands had turned it up in the pawn-shop while searching for something else.

I heard all about it from him that evening. He breezed in for a bite of dinner, bursting with importance. He was, however, not resting on his laurels, he, said, but going straight ahead on the case as fast as he could travel. To begin with, he had got next to Suzanne Ripet, the maid who had identified the jewelry.

"I saw right off," said Tal, "that there was no love lost between her and Mrs. Otison; so I watched for my chance, and got her to agree to meet me this evening. I want to find out something about Bobbie Hoyt's home conditions, and that's the sort of thing a servant, particularly a lady's maid, would know. So I've arranged to see her here at seven o'clock. I made it here because it's convenient to the office, and because I want you to see her too. You may get an impression that would not occur to me."

He paused an instant; then, feeling that the unwonted compliment called for explaining, he said:

"You did the other day. You suggested something I should not have thought of —that the girl seen on Fifth Avenue was somebody wearing a red wig to make her look like Miss Hoyt. Of course that's ridiculous, but it gave me a good idea, which is that the girl who pawned the jewelry was Miss Hoyt herself wearing a blond wig."

"Strikes me as pretty far-fetched," said I.

"Not at all. Everything bears it out. To begin with, Kaplan identified the picture of Miss Hoyt as the girl he had seen until the question of hair came up. He was sure the girl he saw had yellow hair—you couldn't shake him on that point, even though he had to back down about the photograph. Another thing: Miss Hoyt was considered a very good amateur actress, was in lots of things for charity, and it would have been natural for her to hit on some such theatrical scheme to avoid detection. Anyhow, the idea is worth investigating, and I thought you might help me by going round to the hair shops in that locality—"

"To find out if any of them sold a yellow-haired wig to a red-haired girl?" I finished, laughing at the thought of the mystification such a trip would cause the man who was trailing me.

But Tal was dead serious. Stumbling on that jewelry had been a lucky hit for him; for, though his name had not appeared, the newspaper world credited him with the find, and if he could go ahead and

---

pull off something else it would mean a lot to him.

So I said I would think it over. As he talked on I debated whether I ought not to warn him that if he wished his meeting with Miss Hoyt's maid to be secret he must not have me there. But I decided, finally, that as he was only gathering news to give to the world next morning, it would make little difference. And I was anxious to see the maid on my own account.

THE woman was prompt, and we saw her in the small reception-room in which I had had my unpleasant talk with the tea-room waitress. We had hardly got there when a man passed the door, paused a moment, and looked in as if just idly curious. He was my shadow, as I was soon to learn.

Suzanne Ripet was a stoutish, olive-skinned Frenchwoman of thirty or so, of pleasant manner and voice. Her motive for coming she made clear at once. Tal was the wonderful person who had found the jewelry; assuredly he would also find the girl, and it was everybody's duty to help him. She did not hide her extreme impatience with the past inactivity of police and press. She had been alarmed, she said, from the very first.

"But 'ow I 'ave worry!" she exclaimed. "I 'ave not sleep—but not at all—me! I 'ave not know what I must do."

She leaned toward us and her low tone sank to a whisper:

"I 'ave fear Mees Bobbee 'ave kill herself! Mon Dieu, I 'ave fear it all day, all night."

"Killed herself?" Tal repeated. "Why?"

"It is zat Madame Otison," replied the maid, with a sudden edge to her tone. "All day she 'ave talk, talk to zat poor Mees Bobbee zat she marry her wiz zat Mister Winter. Zat is after ze engagement wiz Mister Farnham is end. She is so afraid for having no money if Mees Bobbee will not marry. And Mr. Winter 'e think only for zat also—for ze money. Zat is true!"

She bobbed her head with emphasis.

"And Madame Otison she say Mees Bobbee can marry, and so soon she 'ave ze money zen queeck for ze divorce. But Mees Bobbee zay zat is to cheat her grandfazzer and also Mr. Winter, and zat she will not do—nevaire. And she say, 'For me, I will be dead before I will marry zat Marcus Winter.' Zen she stop ver' queeck, and she say to Madame: 'For you would be better if I would be dead now, hein?"

Her dark eyes rested a moment silently and meaningly on each of us.

"What did Miss Hoyt mean by that?" asked Tal.

Suzanne Ripet gave a quick shrug. "Zat I do not know. It is something in ze will."

"The will?"

"But yes; the will of ze grandfazzer of Mademoiselle."

"I see," Tal said. "Go on."

"Zat night Mees Bobbee, she 'ave not sleep at all," the maid went on. "And she 'ave cry. I 'ave found under her pillow a handkerchief ver' wet pauvre enfant! And when Madame come; and begin like before to talk and talk, zen Mees Bobbee she say ver' queeck: 'Don' talk any more I will marry wiz 'im. It is not right zat I make you poor also wiz me; for zat I 'ave not ze right.' And zen it is arrange zat Mees Bobbee marry wiz Mr. Winter, and ze engagement will be announce on Saturday evening. It is for zat she 'ave wish ze dress from Cecile. You remembaire, messieurs?"

Now that she reminded me of it, I did recall that the dressmaker had said Miss Hoyt had insisted upon a certain dress being finished for Saturday evening. It was evident that up to the time she left the shop she intended to return home and marry Winter. What had happened after that?

"Zat was Friday morning," continued Suzanne. "Mr. Winter is come and 'ave talk wiz, Mees Bobbee, and when, he is gone she 'ave stay a long time in her room alone. When she go out zat afternoon she smile and say to me: Comme la vie est drole, n'est-ce-pas, Suzanne?' You know what zat wishes to say, messieurs? Zat life is ver' funny. 'You dream you are in 'eaven, and zen you wake up,' she say, and she smile again. She is so brave, so gay, zat poor Mees Bobbee."

Two tears splashed to her cheeks.

"Have you any idea who the man was that she was with last Tuesday on Fifth Avenue?" inquired Tal. "Wasn't there some one that she might have decided to marry instead of Winter?"

The maid shook her head emphatically.

"But you will find her?" she pleaded anxiously. "You 'ave found ze jewelry; you will now find Mees Bobbee too?"

"I'll certainly try," said Tal.

He questioned her further, but learned nothing more of importance. The vital suggestion he had got from her was about Robert Hoyt's will, and the instant she was gone he announced his intention of going up to interview Rosser about it, since it was too late to get at the document itself in the public records, and he had to have the news for the first edition.

"I'll call up Rosser and find out when he'll see me," he said. "Then I've got to go over to the Record for a few minutes. Stay around until I get back; I want you to go with me."

Though I agreed, I had my doubts as to the wisdom of it. The chances were that Rosser had heard of me from Rice and Farnham. But the future was in the lap of the gods; I was too much in the dark to try to steer a course.

"Did you notice one thing?" Tal lingered to remark. "That woman said Miss Hoyt saw Winter on the morning of the day she disappeared, and you remember he told us he had not seen her since her break with Farnham. What do you make of that?"

"Nothing, except that he and Mrs. Otison would naturally not want the truth to get out; it was too discreditable to them. But it's plain now why he was so afraid the girl had killed herself."

He nodded.

"I'm anxious to find out about that will. Queer, no one thought of looking it up before; but then, nobody has taken the case very seriously till now."

HE went off, and I strolled back to the lobby. Suddenly I heard my name loudly called. I was being paged. Farnham was there to see me.

"Good evening, Terrill," he said; and as we shook hands, I stared at him, shocked by his haggard face.

"May I see you alone somewhere, where we won't be observed?" he asked nervously.

"Of course," said concealing my surprise; and proposed my own room. He assented, and we started up. Trivial remarks being impossible; neither of us spoke until my door had shut us in. Then, without preface, he came to the point.

"Terrill, where is she?"

"I don't know, Farnham."

He looked at me a moment doubtingly.

"That's God's truth," I declared.

"But you're the man Rice saw with her."

"Yes, I am. Sit down. I'll tell you about it."

I TOLD him the story of that Tuesday afternoon exactly as it had then appeared to me, and I showed him the locket. But I did not mention the waitress. I risked his, going to the tea-room and learning the truth there, because I knew it would not bring him one step nearer the girl I was shielding. One thing only I must at all hazards conceal—the chance encounter at the Hillside Inn.

"I have not seen her since," I ended, "nor has she written me one line." That was quibbling, but it was necessary, for

---

he would be sure to ask. Then, on a sudden impulse, I added: "But you know she has not written to me, since the man you have had watching me has been through all my letters."

"What!" He gazed at me blankly. "The man I've had watching you? What do you mean?"

"Haven't you and Rice been having me trailed?"

"My dear fellow!" He stood up, his face reddening. "Whatever do you take us for? We look upon you as a friend. I'm in your debt!"

I studied his face. His honesty was transparent.

"Then who is it?" I demanded. "Somebody has been at my heels. And it began the day after I came down from Riverton with you. Dr. Rice recognized me that night, didn't he?"

"Yes; but it would never have occurred to us to—"

"Then who is doing it?"

"I have no idea, Terrill. I give you my word."

I walked the floor, trying to think calmly, though I was greatly excited. I did not doubt Farnham; yet, if he and Rice were not behind the man who was watching me, who was? Not Rogers nor Mulrooney. Their spying had ended with their pumping of the telephone operator. Besides, I was all but sure Mulrooney had never recognized me—unless-

"Did you or the doctor ever get that cabman, Mulrooney, to identify me?" I questioned Farnham.

He shook his head.

"Did either of you tell Mr. Rosser about me, or Mrs. Otison, or anybody?"

"No; we did not feel at liberty to do that. We hoped you would speak of your own accord—the other night at dinner."

"This thing knocks me flat; I've got to get to the bottom of it," I persisted. "You're sure, you say, that Rosser doesn't know about me?"

"Oh, no—I said we didn't tell. He may know it, however. But I have not communicated with him since the morning after Miss Hoyt's disappearance was made public. The meeting was not pleasant."

The final statement and his constrained manner caused me to look at him in quick surprise.

"I may as well be frank, Terrill, though I speak in confidence, of course. Mr. Rosser did not approve of Miss Hoyt's engagement to me. He objected to me, not as a man, but as a foreigner. Her fortune, he said, had been made in America by an American, and should stay in the country. But it wasn't her money I wanted—though I dare say no one would believe that."

"I believe it, Farnham."

"Thanks. Well, when Rosser got back from Europe and heard from Mrs. Otison of Miss Hoyt's disappearance, he heard also that the engagement had been broken, and why—Winter's version. And when we met the next day it was most unpleasant, and we haven't met since."

"I see," I said; and, while I mentally pursued my own point, he went back to his troubles.

HE looked worried enough—nerves on edge, suspense, no sleep, and all that. It was so fantastic, so incredible—the pawning of the jewelry, her meeting with me, then silence.

"If she asked you to tea, she meant to be there," he told me over and over. "Something occurred to prevent her returning home. What was it?"

I met his distressed eyes guiltily. I knew the answer, or part of it, but I did not speak. His face alone was proof that he had had no word of any kind from Miss Hoyt, and, though I was sorry for him, yet for myself I was glad. I could not help it. After all, we were man and man, and I had played fair.

After a while he went away, and I had begun to wonder what was keeping Tal, when he arrived, announcing elatedly that Rosser would see us at once at the Hoyt house. It was there Tal located him after considerable difficulty, and he had agreed to wait.

I kept an alert lookout as we left the hotel and boarded a trolley, and was rewarded by observing that a man who left at the same time also took the car with us. And at Fifty-ninth Street, where we got out to transfer, he got out too.

"This is too slow," I said to Tal, and hailed a passing taxi. But, to my vexation, as we piled into it Tal sung out the Hoyt address so loudly that the man, lingering near us, must have heard; and when we turned off Fifth Avenue into Eightieth Street a cab just behind ours turned off also. It stopped farther down the block, and, though we were kept waiting a minute or two at the Hoyt door, no one had got out of it when we were admitted.

NOW, it is one thing to be shadowed when you know who is doing it and why, but quite another when you do not. All the unexplained features of the case surged back to my mind, particularly that telephone conversation I had overheard at Hillside. And the conviction grew that, behind all I knew, something was going on of which I knew nothing, could guess nothing, yet in which I was somehow involved.

Added to this was a feeling of strangeness on entering the home of Roberta Hoyt. The number on the door recalled so vividly the occasion on which I had heard it first. How different was this visit from the one I had then anticipated!

Mr. Rosser was waiting for us. He was a thin, wiry old man, with a lot of white hair and a pair of the shrewdest eyes I ever saw. When he had given me the once-over I felt as if he had been through my pockets and my brain-cells as well.

He seemed perfectly willing to discuss the will; but, just as we were seated and he was about to begin, a servant appeared to say that he was wanted on the telephone.

"You'd have to start early to get ahead of him," Tal remarked in a whisper, while he was gone.

The call was evidently short. In a couple of minutes Rosser was back.

"The will of Robert Hoyt is very simple, though unusual," he observed, reseating himself. "It was designed by an unusual man for an unusual purpose. I advised against it, because it is my belief that for the dying to attempt to regulate the lives of those they leave behind almost always ends disastrously. But he was not to be dissuaded. An only child himself, he had ardently desired a large family, but had, as you know, but one child. The death of his son was a grief from which he never recovered, and he was pathetically devoted to his granddaughter, who lost her mother also in infancy. The sole object of his will was to achieve her happiness; and happiness, especially for a woman, was in his opinion not to be found outside normal living—family life and children, the more the better. Consequently, as Roberta grew up showing no inclination toward domesticity, it worried him greatly, and in his final illness he determined to secure her welfare—against her own will, if necessary. The marriage clause was the result."

"What were the other provisions of the will?" Tal asked.

"The usual sort of thing: bequests to relatives and servants, an allowance for Miss Hoyt until she reached the age of twenty-one or married, and an allowance to Mrs. Otison in consideration of her services as companion and chaperon, which allowance was to continue after Miss Hoyt's marriage."

"What provisions were made for the possibility of Miss Hoyt's death before marriage?"

"In that case the residuary estate was to pass to various philanthropic institutions."

"How about Mrs. Otison?"

"Mrs. Otison?" Rosser repeated, as if the question puzzled him. "Her income was to continue. Indeed, she was to forfeit it only if Miss Hoyt failed to marry, the reason being to give her a strong personal interest in bringing about the marriage."

"I understand," said Tal. And, indeed, it was clear now why Mrs. Otison would be better off with her niece dead than unmarried. "So, if Miss Hoyt is alive and unmarried on her twenty-first birthday, the whole estate is to go to the institutions you spoke of?"

"Possibly," replied Mr. Rosser, Calmly examining his well-cared-for nails. "But I do not know what becomes of the estate in that event—nobody knows yet. The will provides that in that case the income shall be shared by the aforesaid institutions for the period of one year, at the end of which time a certain sealed letter shall be opened and the estate disposed of according to its instructions."

"Oh," murmured Tal, with a blank look at Rosser. "And no one living has any idea what those instructions are?"

"No one. The letter was written and sealed by Mr. Hoyt, then given to me, and by me was deposited in a bank vault. Odd as the arrangement may seem at first thought, it had sound reason back of it. Mr. Hoyt feared that, should he make known the disposition of his estate in the event of its forfeiture by his granddaughter, the knowledge might lead, directly or indirectly, to such forfeiture."

"You mean that whoever was to get it might try to prevent Miss Hoyt from marrying?"

"Exactly."

"But the general impression seems to be that the money is to go to charity."

There was a pause, and again the old man fell to contemplation of his finger-tips.

"The supposition is natural, since the wording of the will seems to indicate plainly that neither Miss Hoyt nor Mrs. Otison will benefit; but—it is merely a supposition."

He rose as a signal that the interview was over, and after a few remarks on other aspects of the case, we thanked him and departed. Tal being in a hurry to get to the office, we picked up the first available taxi, and he put in the time chattering about his theories and suspicions, while I tried vainly to fit in this fresh information with what I already knew.

IT was nearly midnight when Tal came into the Cecil and announced to me disgustedly that the story he had got from Miss Hoyt's maid would not be published. It had been stopped by an appeal from Rosser to the judgment-seat of the Record.

"What do you know about that?" Tal grumbled. "Didn't I say you'd have to start early to get ahead of that old serpent? I'll bet he knows what's in that sealed letter. And I'll bet he knew when we were there about that woman coming here and seeing us."

"But how could he?" I asked; and, even as I spoke, the answer flashed into my mind.

It was Rosser who was having me shadowed. His man had passed the door of the reception-room while the Frenchwoman was there, had reported the fact, had then followed us to the Hoyt house, and had at once called Rosser on the telephone to tell who we were.

But why was Rosser watching me? Had Mulrooney recognized me, after all, and gone to him? Or had he got his information from another source? Was he part of that unknown background which I sensed but could not see?

To be concluded next week

No Ink on His Cuffs

IT'S the way he dresses and he carries that has put Lueve Parcell at the top of hte list of newspaper reporters in his town.

Lueve is a business news reporter, and his work consists of getting bankers, brokers, and other business men to let him in on their deals. He learned long ago that, to get close to the big men, he must create in them a desire to see him. So he took to dressing differently each day—always in the latest fashion.

He has twenty-eight canes, all of which were imported from foreign countries. Many of them were given hi by his business friends who remembered him

while touring other countries.

The business men of his acquaintance eagerly look forward to his coming. They can tell by the cane he carries what day of the week it is and what the weather prospects are. And his neck-tie is always in keeping with the season.

Mr. Parcell always has a new joke to spring on his friends, usually on some local happening or about some man in the locality.

After looking over Lueve's apparel and listening to his joke, the business men are in fine humor to reciprocate by giving him the latest "dope" on business; and trust Lueve never to miss a story on his beat.

Can a Bank Clerk Win Promotion?

By Albert W. Atwood

I HAVE been in the employ of the First National Bank of this city for over six years and at present hold the position of teller. Can you suggest any books or pamphlets that would be of benefit to me in furthering my knowledge of modern banking? Can you advise where I could secure literature describing the various kinds of bonds, such as debenture, sinking fun, etc.? As you know, promotion is slow in the so-called country banks, and I should like to become efficient enough in this profession to merit advancement or secure a better position with a larger bank.

HERE is a type of many letters that come to this magazine. It is a commonplace fact that reading books alone will not advance a young man to positions of greater trust and responsibility. Reading may make a full man, but it does not necessarily make him active and efficient. Yet, given an initial amount of energy and native intelligence, a careful, systematic course of reading will furnish a young man with two assets of great and lasting benefit.

A bank clerk or any other worker in a financial enterprise is in a better position to handle new problems if he has followed a course of study. Anybody may learn after a time to do certain routine work, but education helps to give a man that readiness and versatility of resource which is needed to open up new paths. A bank teller may take in money until he is old enough to retire, and never get any higher in his profession unless he is able to handle something besides cash. Emergencies are harder to deal with than routine, and knowledge helps one to meet them.

The clerk who is able to explain fully and courteously to an old lady customer the difference between a bond and a stock, when the vice-president and cashier happen to be away on their vacations, is pretty sure to be at the beginning of a better position.

But study has still another and different sort of value for the younger workers in any business. It raises them immensely in their employer's esteem. Many large corporations will remit to their employees the cost of a course of study in a night or correspondence school.

The first suggestion to make to the bank teller is to organize a chapter of the American Institute of Banking in his town, a great organization whose very purpose is to better the lot of the bank clerk. If there is a chapter there already, he can obtain all the information he desires about books and courses of study from the chapter; if not, he can get it from the educational director of the Institute at 5 Nassau Street, New York City. If no one has yet organized a chapter, he will show his initiative and energy by taking the lead and getting the requisite information from the Institute. There are hundreds of these chapters, and they offer in many cities valuable lectures courses on money, banking, and investments.

If it is not feasible to form a chapter in the small town from which the letter came, it is still possible for the young man to write to the library of the American Bankers' Association in New York City, if the bank for which he works is a member of that Association, and obtain suggestions for a reading course. This information the librarian will be very glad to furnish hi, and it will be as detailed as he desires.

There are many excellent correspondence courses covering the whole general field of money, banking, investments, corporation finance, foreign exchange, commercial law, accounting, organization, and economics. A postal card directed to the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin, or the Alexander Hamilton Institute of New York City will bring full information.

Some Helpful Books

ONE of the newest books dealing with the practical side of banking is Kniffen's "Practical Work of a Bank." However, it may not be so much with the practical work of a bank that the young teller desires to familiarize himself as a more complete understanding of the whole science of money and banking. I suggest that he read Book III, Volume I, of Professor Taussig's "Principles of Economics," which he will probably find is his local public library. Conant's "Principles of Money and Banking" will give him more detailed information along the same lines.

There are a great many books detailing with investments, bonds and stocks; but none of them covers al these subjects/ There is one fairly complete book on bonds known as "Principles of Bond Investment," by Lawrence Chamberlain, and I think it would be wise for a bank teller to master this work without wasting his time on more elementary pabulum for the "small investor." Along with it he would do well to read any of the several standard text-books on corporation finance.

A great many other books might be mentioned, but too many suggestions will confuse him, and after reading two or three books other lines will quickly open up. The great point is to make a start and stick to it. Better do no reading at all than start something and then give it up only half completed.