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How I Cut Down My Doctor's Bills

The Prize Winning Letter

TWO years ago I broke down so completely in a nervous way that I could neither think consecutively nor hold myself quiet. For a while I was in a sanatorium; but that was expensive, and the atmosphere was depressing. My breakdown had come in part from hard and long continued work with responsibility; but chiefly, as I have noticed is often the case, from worry—and selfish worry at that.

I faced the situation candidly, and as a result I went back home with a schedule for living that left as little time as possible for thought of myself and my ailments. At first I did the things I could do with the least strain. Gradually, as I grew stronger, I took more and more responsibility and did real constructive work. My aim was to have a variety of things to do, and as often as possible they were for others.

What were these things?

One of them was to plan unusually good meals, in which I studied the tastes of each member of my family. At first I had sometimes to give up in the midst of things and rest and let some one else finish; but those times grew fewer and fewer till they ceased altogether.

But the greatest of all helps was my garden. I made my aim twofold: to make the garden a real delight to all who saw it, and to furnish the family and our neighbors with delectable vegetables in as many varieties as possible. I planned it to that, from the time the first pie-plant shoot grew long enough to cut and the first crisp radish appeared, there should be something from the garden, if not for every meal, at least for one meal a day. From the apple and other fruit seeds which I saved from the table I started a miniature nursery.

As my strength came back I did as much as I could of the heavy work in the garden; and the exercise, the sunshine, the fresh air, and most of all my never-failing interest and enthusiasm acted like tonic.

I did other things when I could not work in the garden. You will laugh at one of them, yet it was extremely effective. I read the Encyclopedia Britannica, volume by volume. I made a specialty of English economic history; but I found that I was constantly stopped by other fascinating articles. I chose the Britannica because the discussions are all worth while, and yet there was the variety that my nervous restlessness demanded. Magazines also furnished the same healing variety.

I followed a daily schedule. I rose early and went to bed early, and stopped considering whether I had slept well. On rising I drank from two to six glasses of water, and, if there was no gardening, I took some indoor exercise, followed by a cold shower, ate an apple, and then my breakfast. I worked and read till ten, when I had some more water, and if I had no heavy exercise in connection with my work, I took some light exercises to keep the muscles supple. In the afternoon at four I repeated this. If I was hungry between meals,—and nervous people are apt to think they are,—I either ate an apple or drank some hot water. If I grew faint I drank a glass of hot water, and found that it always revived and quieted me. When I felt sorry for myself or wanted to cry, I drank hot water, bathed my face in hot water, and let it run over my wrists. Just before going to bed I took a hot bath.

As to my diet: I aimed to have uncooked and cooked fruit every day, and, though I touched no meat from choice, I found that it was possible to get into the three meals the requisite proteins, carbohydrates, etc., without at each meal having such a variety that the system would grow disordered.

All this time I took no drug of any kind, and no stimulant but hot water, and I kept my mind glad. This sickness has taught me that it does not pay, even in perfect health, to think anything but happily about people and situations. One's productive power is decreased materially with every angry, covetous, or even intolerant thought.

But the hardest thing I had to do for months was to refuse to see any one but the immediate family. No one who has not tried it knows how difficult—and how healing to ragged nerves—this is.

There is one thing of which I am certain: If a variety of unselfish interests, outdoor exercise, plenty of water, a carefully balanced diet, and happy, controlled thoughts could cure me when I had reached the plight I was in,—when, I believe, I was on the extreme verge of mental disturbance,—it will save others from breaking down. It is not work, in reasonable amounts and under reasonable conditions, that kills, but worry, a narrow horizon, selfishness, and disregard for the laws of physical, mental, and spiritual life.

Miriam Hunt, Clark, S. D.

She Humanized Her House

HAVING suffered for several weeks with a backache which was growing steadily worse, I decided to go to a doctor on a certain day. In doing my morning work that day, I was about to put away the "leftovers" from breakfast, when it seemed to me I had reached the limit of my endurance. I was using a food-box, outside of a window which stuck so that it was hard to open it, even using both hands.

I felt just then that I could never open that window again. Then the thought struck me that possibly, since that hurt

my back so, it might be partly the cause of my trouble. Taking courage from the thought, I got an oil-can, a cake of soap, and a knife, and oiled, soaped, and scraped for half an hour. At the end of that time I could open and close the window with a touch. I decided to postpone my trip to the doctor's for a few days, and never found it necessary to go.

Since that time I have watched closely for things that tire me and things from which I instinctively shrink. Among the conditions that have needed adjustment have been a door that opened with a jerk, a gas-jet above my reach, a kitchen table too low, shelves too high, mixing bowls and kettles too heavy, run-over heels, skirts too tight or too heavy, too many rugs, and standing over a hot stove when a fireless cooker should have been used.

I surely have saved many a doctor bill—in the case mentioned probably a very large one. For what doctor, however thorough he may he, would ever think to examine the kitchen window?

C. F. H., Washington, D. C.

No Overeating, No Doctor

ONE day, as I watched a G. A. R. parade, I noticed that all the veterans were lean and thin, over seventy years of age, and apparently healthy and happy. Suddenly the thought struck me:

Where are all the fat men?

I asked that question of a wise-looking old fellow, thin as a lion and full of ginger.

"Gathered to their forefathers; dug their own graves with their teeth," said he.

At that time I weighed 201 pounds, was five feet six inches tall, short of wind, gouty, catarrhal, and rheumatic. Now I carry around 165 pounds, and the aches and pains have vanished.

How did I do it?

Here is the program:

Immediately upon waking up in the morning, I draw in and throw out the abdomen one hundred times. I have performed this exercise approximately 110,000 times. It has strengthened my abdominal muscles in a wonderful way, and stimulates the great trunk sewage system.

Then with a rough brush I quickly scrub

every inch of cuticle on the body. This brushing opens the pores and takes off the skin dust.

Now I'm ready for exercise, and I put a lot of "pep" into it. I have about twenty movements which any physical instructor can outline to the prospective health-seeker. Now I'm in a glow. The blood is coursing rapidly through the arteries. A quick scrub in tepid water, followed by a cold spray, takes the fog out of the brain and brings me out of the tub pink, fine, and fit. People who creep out of bed and into their clothes miss a luxury that can not be purchased with money.

Breakfast? I have a cup of coffee with cream and sugar, and sometimes a couple of pancakes made from bran flour.

At noon? Nothing but a glass of buttermilk, sometimes two, with a cracker and a dish of cottage cheese, which leaves the brain fresh and keen for the afternoon's work.

Dinner? I eat vegetables, soft boiled eggs, lean meat, milk, graham gems, and salads. I have cut out fried stuff, fresh bread, potatoes, fat meats, too much sugar, and all midnight lunches. I get up from the table feeling that I could eat some more, and that is the time I stop.

Now a hearty dinner at noon is like a dose of poison, and the joy of stuffing myself is gone; but the joy of feeling perfectly well, fit for business at forty-nine, and having the capacity for the really enjoyable things of life more than compensates.

G. L. C., Detroit, Michigan.

Health and a Golden Wedding

THE writer of this letter, 72 years old, enjoys complete freedom from organic, nervous, or rheumatic complaints, keeps house without hired help for husband and family, attends church services, lectures, and concerts, visits the poor and afflicted, takes active part in several societies for women's welfare, reads her newspaper regularly, walks a mile or two every bright day, and plays the piano evenings.

The health of myself and family is excellent; no doctor's services have been required for several years past. We rise about 5 A. M. in summer, 6 A. M. in winter, taking a short walk before breakfast, breathing deeply the fresh morning air, listening to the songs of birds, viewing the beauties of nature, and raising grateful hearts to the Creator of all earth's loveliness, whether the trees are covered with foliage, laden with fruit, or bending beneath a mantle of snow.

According to rules of health, we eat, without repletion, well cooked meals, according to the season, fruit and vegetables in plenty, meat rather sparingly, fresh eggs, milk, rye and whole wheat bread, a soup, different every day, coffee in the morning, tea in the evening.

We sleep seven hours, each member of the family having a separate room, with open windows protected from draft and insects by wire and muslin screens. The house is well ventilated, on a slight elevation of a large lot, with a garden and grove, in a suburb. The first sunbeam glides into the east windows and the last rays penetrate every nook of

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the west rooms. We keep ourselves actively employed all day, remaining outdoors as much as possible, devote our leisure to long walks in the country, and in the evenings to literature and music at home.

At meals, only pleasant conversation is tolerated, while arguments on war, politics, or our neighbors' foibles are avoided.

We watch carefully all symptoms of illness. When they are apparent, the patient abstains from food, takes a warm bath, drinks some kind of herb tea, and drinks plenty of hot water. Recently we celebrated our golden wedding with our faculties unimpaired; our health preserved by leading the simple life and following the Golden Rule.

M. W. B., Brookland, D. C.

Eliminating the Doctor

WHEN both work and play became intolerable drudgery, I took an inventory. The whites of my eyes were yellow, my tongue coated, my skin sallow, my shoulders stooped, and, worst of all, I was one great aching pain.

As a child food did not agree with me and I always had a headache. At twelve I was ill several months with inflammatory rheumatism; at thirteen I had an abscess of the ear which resulted in an operation for tonsils and adenoids. And after that, with intervals of two or three years of misery, I suffered typhoid fever, operations for appendicitis and exophthalmic goiter, and finally a long stay in a sanatorium undergoing unsuccessful treatment for duodenal ulcer.

After every sickness and operation I had been told, "You'll be all right now. If you aren't, come back again." But I did not get all right. The last time I visited a house of physical correction, I asked: "What causes all my intestinal trouble?"

"Oh, constipation—auto-intoxication. You see, where there's imperfect elimination of waste products your system absorbs poisons which it has to get rid of the best it can. Practically all human ills come from unclean intestines."

"What causes inflammatory rheumatism?"

The answer was practically the same. The answer was the same regarding all my illnesses.

"What causes cancer, tuberculosis, and Bright's disease?"

"It's not known definitely; but probably imperfect assimilation has much to do with them. Imperfect assmilation leaves the body unbuilt up, while imperfect elimination rapidly undermines it through internal poisons that have not been thrown off."

It became quite obvious to me that my bodily ills were directly traceable to sluggishly moving insides. I decided to study myself as I would a valuable engine, in order to discover what hurt me and what helped me, and then rigorously to live up to any system I might establish.

Having lived almost exclusively on a diet of meat, eggs, and milk, I decided to substitute vegetables and fruits for a trial—not a trial of a day or two, but one covering three months. Almost immediately I discovered that my lifelong headaches were vanishing; there was no more pain in my shoulder-blades or neuritis in my arm. Other pains, however, in the region of the stomach, continued, causing me to try various combinations in the vegetarian diet.

By careful observation I found a few edibles that seemed to give me no distress, and having this known quantity for a starter, I added only one new dish to my list at a time. It soon became apparent that if I ate grapefruit I must bar cream on my cereal; so I substituted butter or honey.

Continued experiments convinced me that fluid at meals did not work for my best good; yet I knew fluid—much fluid—was necessary to cleanse the alimentary tract and the blood. I tried sipping two glasses of water on rising, two between breakfast and lunch, two between lunch and dinner, and two upon retiring.

My weight was increasing, my skin clearing, and my general condition improving. Reading that civilized peoples eat insufficient bulk, I added sterilized bran, sometimes cooked, sometimes uncooked, to my oatmeal, and frequently I used it on other food. Stewed prunes, stewed dates, and stewed seedless raisins became a mania with me, because I found that raw fruits, so necessary to the average individual, caused me great suffering. Though I did not particularly care for spinach, I made it one of the chief articles of diet, because I had read that the French consider it "the broom of the stomach."

Exercise which, after a fair trial, proved inadequate or harmful, I cut out; that which seemed beneficial I made part of my regular schedule. I also developed the sleeping-porch habit, and found myself rising earlier and feeling more refreshed than ever before.

From a lifeless and indifferent worker I have become an interested, efficient one, and I firmly believe that if every man inventoried himself, and then adapted a system of diet, exercise, and baths to his own particular needs, the doctors would have to take up plumbing.

L. R. B., Highlands, North Carolina.

Gymnasium at the Lunch Hour

SPENDING my lunch hour in a gymnasium instead of in a restaurant has kept me off the doctor's visiting list more than anything else, I think. It had been my custom to eat a heavy meal in the middle of the day, and about ten years ago I began to take on weight at an alarming rate. My parents were very stout, and I made up my mind not to suffer the inconveniences they did, if I could help it.

There is a gymnasium near the office, and I became a member. Every day that I possibly could, with the exception of Sundays, I went there and exercised. Within a year I had taken off twenty pounds. It was hard work at first, but I stuck it out, and find now that light exercise four or five times a week keeps me at a comfortable weight. I play a game or two of hand-ball, have a shower and a short swim in the tank, eat a light lunch, and return to my work full of "pep" instead of dopey and sleepy from too much eating and smoking.

In the warm weather I keep a change of underwear in my locker, and it is like starting the day afresh to get back to the office bathed and with dry clothes on. In these ten years I have not spent a nickel for a doctor's services for myself.

Of course, a person's business would have to be located near a gym to do all this in an hour; but a friend of mine who is allowed only an hour for lunch managed by going over every other day—taking an hour and a half for lunch one day and half an hour the next. He says he finds even that of great benefit.

And one more thing. Before I started the gym work I had made several unsuccessful attempts to cut out smoking. A year and a half ago I decided to try again, and, barring two occasions (once on a fishing trip, to keep away the mosquitos, and once to be sociable), I have not smoked since.

H. S., East Rockaway, Long Island.

A Health Rhyme

A GOOD clear conscience, to keep away worry;
Start in time; that I need not hurry;
Cleanliness of both the body and mind,
The equal for cosmetics is hard to find;
Lemon juice in hot water instead of pills
This is how I cut down my doctor's bills.
Bantie Dote, Bogota, New Jersey.

Medicine at 12c per Gallon

I HAVE eight children, seven boys and one girl, ranging between twenty-one and five years of age, none of whom has ever been sick.

I consider this the result of my application of a preventive medicine which I buy at the grocery store for twelve cents a gallon. One eighth of a gallon a year is sufficient for any family.

At the first symptom of disorder or drowsiness, swollen or sore throat, or other indications of sickness—I administer a generous throat-bath. My way of doing it is: fix absorbent cotton on one end of a wooden stick; dip the cotton in a cup of the preventive fluid, and swath the afflicted one's throat. This I do three times a day for two or three days.

My remedy is cheap and it easily procured. It does not taste good, but I always have it in the house. I take it from the same can that I fill lamps with. Its name is kerosene.

H. E., Boston, Mass.

The Man Who Stopped Growing

By William R. and Louis Duryea Lighton

Illustrations by Herman Pfeifer

IN the Webster breakfast-room the only jarring note was Sam Webster himself.

The room had been "done" in gold and pale blue. Sam flatly refused to be "done" in anything.

The room had been furnished in a more or less clever counterfeit of the style of Louis XIV.

Sam's own chair at table was a squat, bulky piece of the American black-walnut period at its worst, with sprawling claw feet, sprawling arms, and a garland of cabbage roses carved upon the high back. The hand of a dull-witted tombstone-maker might have wrought those roses; the chair was hideously ugly and out of keeping; but Sam would not give up its solid comfort.

Sam's pepper-and-salt business suit, worn comfortably loose upon his heavy, thick-shouldered figure, was a long way from matching the room's lines and color scheme; so was his shaggy mop of grizzled hair; so was his broad, florid face; so was his slouching attitude.

Had you studied the face of Sam's wife, seated across the table, you must have seen that she disapproved of Sam as he was. Her feeling did not amount to cold dislike, but only to that degree of disapproval which, granting his good points, would have added something to them. Perhaps you would have sympathized with her. Sam's table habits were not of the Louis XIV breakfast-room stage in the family fortunes. His development in behavior had been arrested years ago. He had halted at a stage where life was still a thing of simple terms, leaving it to his family to take up the complexities if they chose.

His meal was finished. He lounged in his grotesque chair with his morning paper and his cigar. Burnt matches and cigar ash were scattered about.

His wife would not have minded his smoking at table if only he had been tidier. She knew the futility of protest.

She waited, regarding him curiously till he let his newspaper fall to the floor and met her scrutiny with a quizzical squint in his gray eyes. He enjoyed looking at his wife's face. It was a kindly face, well set off by her abundant gray hair. Sam was glad that her acceptance of the new fol-de-rols had not gone so far as the dyeing of her hair. Cheeks and chin were more than a little inclined to fleshiness; but the flesh was well kept and fresh, and her eyes were warm.

"Well," Sam said, "I've just been readin' that Mrs. S. Jerome Webster is one of the patronesses of the new charity for what-you-may-call-'ems. Name away up at the top, with just the few that got their names in black print with a border round 'em. Must have cost you somethin'. Molly, I dare you to tell me how much it did cost you."

His challenge was good-tempered, with only a faint hint of satire. His wife could not take offense. She answered frankly enough:

"I subscribed five hundred dollars, Sam."

Sam whistled.

"Five hundred! For just that? That's what I'd call mighty expensive advertisin'—five hundred just to get your name in the paper once! Besides, look at the way they've got it: 'Mrs. S. Jerome Webster.' Why didn't you have it put 'Mrs. Sam'l J. Webster'? Then the works would have got some advertisin' out of it too. The Sam'l Webster Iron Works is the name I go by. How come in it there's a Mrs. S. Jerome Webster when there ain't any Mr. S. Jerome Webster? I reckon you'll be wantin' a check for the five hundred, won't you? I've got a good notion to sign my name to it 'S. Jerome Webster.' You know what would happen to it. The bank would turn it down in a holy minute. There ain't any such person as S. Jerome Webster that can draw my money out of the bank."

HIS wife was not enjoying his raillery. The little indulgences of the new social order that had come with Sam's greatest prosperity were grateful to her, but she could not yet feel quite secure in them.

There had not been time for the strangeness to wear entirely away, for making her immune to Sam's mild ridicule. No one but Sam ridiculed her in her hearing [?] she was the more embarrassed by his speech on that account.

"It's a good charity, Sam," she said. "The town's big enough to be needing a girls' home."

"The town's big enough to be needin' lots of things," Sam returned. "And you could do a lot with five hundred if you'll put your mind to it yourself, instead of

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[?] in' at it this way: Who's this chap that's promotin' the scheme? Reverend—Reverend What?"

"Fosdyke," his wife supplied.

"No, that ain't it—that ain't all of it." He picked up his newspaper and made a hurried search of its columns. "Rev. P. Martyne Fosdyke! Who's he? He's a new one on me. He don't belong in town, does he? What's he come here to start a girls' home for? I'll bet I know why. So could you if you'd stop to think about it.

Martyne Fosdyke! I'll bet the name his folks gave him was Peter Martin. Why don't he use it that way? It's because he's a fraud. If it was me I wouldn't give the Rev. P. Martyne Fosdyke as much as a plugged nickel. I wish to glory you hadn't put your name down 'Mrs. S. Jerome Webster.' I don't like bein' stuck in the same class with Rev. P. Martyne Fosdyke."

His wife smiled as her mind conjured a picture of the dapper Fosdyke and compared it with Sam. She was silent for a little time. When she spoke, it was not a direct reply to what Sam had said.

"SAM, I do wish you could begin to look at things differently. You're so stubborn, some ways. It's not quite fair. You're a rich man. Being a rich man ought to mean more than just having a lot of money."

Sam's eyes narrowed.

"What's the trouble? I've been givin' pretty near all that everybody's been askin' for."

"Yes," she returned. "You're generous enough that way, with other people; but you're almost stingy with yourself, and with—with us too, in a way. Your being rich ought to mean a lot of chances for the children, and for us too. Things have changed in town, Sam, and you haven't changed. You haven't grown with the town; you haven't even grown the way your own business has grown. It seems as if you stopped growing yourself when you got out of debt in the old shop and began to get ahead. Sam, you could be a big man in town if you wanted to."

"I reckon I'm doin' my share," he persisted dully. "There ain't many things we don't give to as much as anybody, even them that's got more."

"That isn't what I mean," she said, with her first sign of impatience. "You don't seem to know that the town has a social life now, and that you ought to take a part in it. I don't believe you know that it isn't enough nowadays to go over and sit on a neighbor's porch in the evening in your shirt-sleeves, the way you used to do. Sharpston isn't a village now."

Sam grimaced and shook his head.

"Dollin' up in the evenin's? Is that the kind of thing you're gettin' at? Not for me! When I ain't got any friends left that I can visit with in my shirt-sleeves [?] I want to, then I'll stay home. When I grew up to the place where I could feel easy and right, there's where I had the sense to stop. I ain't goin' to change any more. When it comes to changin', you've changed a plenty for both of us. Mrs. S. Jerome Webster!" He spoke the name without derision but with a grim sort of humor. "Mrs. S Jerome Webster givin' away five hundred dollars at a clip and gettin' her name in the paper for patronizin' charity! That's a sight of change since the time when you and me didn't know but what we might be needin' charity for ourselves if we didn't pull through with things at the shop."

He pushed back his chair and stood up, giving himself a shake to settle his clothing.

"No! You go ahead this way, if it tickles you. I ain't goin' to fuss with you about it. But I'm goin' to stay the way [?] be."

"Even if you know it hinders the children?" she asked quickly.

Sam's manner was not quite so smooth-tempered. He scowled and his lips tightened.

"Hinders 'em?" he echoed. "How do you mean?"

"That's what I've been wanting to say," the returned. "I've never had the courage

to be plain about it with you. Yes, I mean you're hindering the children by being so—so—"

Her courage stopped at the final word; but Sam supplied it:

"So common. You might as well say it all while you're sayin' it. I know there's plenty of folks that thinks about me that way. Well, that's right. It don't hurt me to say I'm common. But I ain't so common this way as I would be if I tried to cover it up by puttin' on dog. A fool's the commonest kind of man on earth. How would it be helpin' the children any if I let folks see they had a fool for a father? I hate shammin'."

"It needn't be a sham, if you were able to grow," she began; but Sam stopped her with a gesture.

"I've got my growth. If you ain't, why, you just keep right on growin'. That'll be all right with me. As for hinderin' the children—" He checked himself suddenly. "Shucks, Molly!"

He walked slowly round the table and stood at his wife's side.

"If you and me had had things fixed for us like this when we was their age, we wouldn't have thought we was bein' hindered. Don't you get anxious. If Tom's got the ambition to amount to more than his dad, I ain't goin' to hinder him by bein' the way I am. If he ain't got it in him, it won't help him for me to be puttin' on frills. You quit your frettin'."

HE could not put the matter out of his own mind so easily. It persisted when he left the house and walked to his work. He did not think about it deliberately, as about a problem that must be solved. He was not irritated or angered. Rather, his wife's suggestion had made a gray atmosphere for his thoughts as he went through town to the works.

He felt better when he turned the last corner and came within sight of the massed, smoke-grimed buildings with their towering chimneys and the ten-foot-high metal-lettered sign: "Sam'l J. Webster Iron Works." Always that picture stiffened his shoulders and squared his chin. The main buildings covered a full block of ground, with an overflow of lesser shops and warehouses across the railroad's switch-track. There before him lay the thing he had fought for and accomplished. He could not feel depression, face to face with it.

His son Tom was at the broad desk which they two shared between them, working with the morning's mail. Tom was the living image of old Sam brought up to the minute and compounded with youth. He looked up and nodded.

"Hello! I was just going to ring you up. We've copped the S. & M. contract at our price. Signed, sealed, and delivered!"

THAT was good news. Sam sat down to enjoy it, tipping back in his swivel-chair, bringing a cigar from his pocket:

"Bully!" he said. "Good work, son! I'd have bet on your gettin' it. Ten thousand, clean cash profit, six weeks from now. Makes you feel fine, don't it?" He chuckled. "Mighty! I guess I know! If I live to be a thousand, I ain't goin' to forget the feelin' of my first contract, away back yonder in the little shop. It took a month of hand-forgin', with me swingin' a hammer with the best of 'em, and it cleaned up three hundred dollars. Three hundred for a whole month, with three hands on the job! But I certainly did need the three hundred then. And that was the first step the shop had ever been able to take away from odd piecework. That was the beginnin'. Ten thousand clean, usin' only one corner of the works for six weeks! That's growin' some, son!"

Tom smiled in sympathy; then his lips compressed and he sat erect, with a manner his father had.

"Dad, there might just as well be another five thousand of profit in this job for us. We could make it easy if the works were on another footing."

"Well," old Sam said, "I wouldn't wonder if we could go over the ten thousand some. We do need some remodelin' in the foundry, if we're goin' to tackle much of the big steel work. But we ain't quite got to that yet, son. A few more ten thousands first!"

"I don't mean remodeling the plant," Tom said. "That can wait a while. I'm talking about the men. We're in worse shape there than in equipment—farther behind, I mean. The whole force needs a shake-up, from top to bottom."

"Does it?" Old Sam's eyes glinted, though his tone was level. "It's a pretty good crew. It's took a good while to build that crew up to where it is."

"That's it exactly!" Tom said. "It's taken a good while. That means that some of the men may have been here too long. They've dropped behind. The works ought to be modern, dad—as modern as we can make 'em."

Sam took his time for answering that, rolling his cigar.

"There's nobody that's been here any longer than me," he said presently.

Tom laughed. The laugh was meant to imply pleasant things; but the old man did not show pleasure.

"The hands, they come and go. They ain't always up to mark, mebbe. But the heads are the fellows I'm talkin' about. Most of them have been growin' up with the business, years and years. They know it as well as I do."

"Do they?" Tom queried. "Perhaps they know it; but they can't do it. There isn't a department that's having modern management. Those heads have been trained to their trades; they're good enough workmen. But they don't know that there is such a thing as scientific management. Efficiency is a word that's been born since their day."

"Yeh?" Old Sam's tone was listless, as it was wont to be when he was thinking deepest. "Name one of the heads that ain't a good man for his job."

A NAME came to Tom's lips, but hung unspoken. The owner of the name entered from the humming shops beyond—old Eddie Brady, the foundry foreman. There could be no doubt that he was old; his age was the plainer in that it had shriveled and dimmed him instead of plumping him out. Zest had faded from his eyes; his leathery cheeks were collapsed over jaws with most of the teeth gone; his twisted hands had lost their certainty. Sure enough, Eddie was old.

He shuffled to Sam's desk, put down some smeared papers, and went shuffling back to his work. There was no greeting. The eyes of father and son followed him

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keenly. When he was gone, Tom glanced across the desk.

"Don't you think yourself that Eddie's job is rather too big for him? The works have grown past him. Why, if he'd come to us as he is, hunting a job, we wouldn't hire him as a common laborer. He's not equal to a real day's work, let alone directing the work of thirty-five men under him. And there are Gladstone and Carey in the woodworking shops, and Stark in the machine shop, and Bates—"

Sam stopped him with an inarticulate syllable, deep in his thick throat:

"Aghr! Wait, now! I know! There's no need to go round and round with that. I know! Come right down to cases with me. If the business was yours, would you be firin' old Eddie?"

Tom could be as straightforward as his father.

"I'd have him quit on a pension—him and the others."

"Pension!" Sam bit the word off short, then spat deliberately. "Pension! Pension old Eddie?" He gave a short laugh of grim, sardonic humor. "I'd a heap rather you'd be the one to tell old Eddie about it than me."

Suddenly his temper burst beyond all bounds.

"Hell's bells, Tom! You don't know what you're sayin'. You don't know who old Eddie is. Let me tell you somethin'. Away back there in the little shop, Eddie was one that swung a hammer with me on that first decent job. I owed him six weeks' pay when I got that contract. Eddie knew as well as I did that it was a toss-up before that whether he ever got his money. Then's when he could have quit me if he'd been one of the quittin' kind. He didn't. He stuck. He'd work all day with me, and then he'd come down and worry with me half the night, tryin' to figure things out. Me talk to old Eddie about pensionin' him? Old Eddie stays right where he is, long as he can stand on his feet. Mebbe efficiency ain't a word that belonged to my time, but gratitude did."

"I know you're fond of him," Tom began.

Sam picked up the word hotly.

"Fond of him? You're not sayin' it at all. I love him! It's his looks you're mindin' now. He ain't much for looks. But he was a good-looker in his day. Do you know what makes him look the way he does now? It's because the life of him has gone into the works—the life of him as much as mine."

TOM was not a man whose will could relinquish easily. He had known that his part would be difficult.

"I know, dad. Just the same, the business has grown beyond him. To keep responsibility in the hands of men like Eddie is like cutting down our power enormously. If there was an engine in the shops that leaked half its steam out of its cylinders, you'd be the first to want it fixed. Well, we're wasting a lot of steam through leaks like old Eddie. It's the business I'm thinking about. If the business is going ahead, we can't let it be hindered by our human fondnesses."

"Hindered!" The word struck upon Sam's memory with a sense of sharp dismay. "Hindered!"

His wife had spoken to him of hindering. He got out of his chair and marched heavily back and forth across the room.

"Hindering! Good Lord, has it got as far as that? Have I been doin' somethin' I didn't know about? Have I got the works built so big that I can't be human in 'em any more? And I've fixed up a house I can't hardly be human in; and I've got my folks up to where bein' plain human ain't enough to suit 'em. What kind of a mess is it I've been makin'?"

Had he known, the Rev. P. Martyne Fosdyke would not have been likely to choose that moment for his call upon Sam. In any moment Sam would have felt dislike for Fosdyke's smug air, for his artificial smile, for his small eyes set close together, and for his purring voice. Now Sam detested him at sight.

"Ah-h, Brother Webster?" Fosdyke gave Sam a card.

The old man glanced at it; then stood scowling, waiting.

"I shall not occupy much of your time," Fosdyke said. "Your good lady, Brother Webster, has subscribed generously to the fund for a working girls' home to be established in Sharpston. Thus far I have visited only a few of those whose names would lend prestige. Tonight there is to be a public meeting. If I might have in hand, Brother Webster, the actual checks to cover those first subscriptions, to be exhibited at the meeting, the psychological effect—"

Old Sam was very blunt.

"Why did you come to Sharpston to start your home?"

"Ah-h!" Fosdyke's voice was velvet smooth, but his eyes were alert. "The Lord's vineyard, brother, is wide."

Sam grunted. "But the pickin' is better some places than others. And women are easier pickin' than men. I didn't see any men's names in your list in the paper. This five hundred of mine, now— If you got it, how much of it would be your rake-off?"

"Rake-off?"

Fosdyke's voice was at its smoothest, his eyes at their keenest.

"Yes," Sam growled. "How much would you pinch off for yourself?"

"Well, really!" Fosdyke purred. "That is rather a forceful way of putting it. The laborer, you know, is worthy of his hire—"

Old Sam tore Fosdyke's card in two and dropped the pieces.

"You don't get a cent of my money till there are some men backin' your scheme—good men, men I know; and then my money's goin' through the hands of an auditin' committee. You needn't come back till that can be done."

He turned abruptly to his desk. For a time he fumbled blindly with his papers, picking them up, slamming them down again, not knowing what they were. Presently, with a formless oath, he put on his hat and went out.

AT home, he went stamping impatiently from room to room through the big house, hunting his wife. He found his two daughters idling over a late breakfast. He did not linger with them. Not many words had passed lately between father and daughters, whose ways were not his ways. He persisted in his search till he came upon his wife in her sitting-room, engaged with a stenographer who visited her thrice a week. Sam spoke almost harshly:

"Molly, let the girl go. I want to talk to you."

He paced the floor till the stenographer had gone, and his wife had come to him, concerned. She was not used to seeing him like this.

"Sam, what is it?" she asked.

Sam tried to laugh, but made a sorry failure of it.

"Nothing. Everything! There's nothing wrong; but everything's gone wrong somehow. Things have come to where I've got to talk 'em out with you. Business is all right; it's our life I'm meaning. It's been on my mind a sight, but I've been keepin' my mouth shut about it. I could keep right on keepin' it shut if I was willin' to let things go. But I ain't goin' to do it. It's somethin' that's got to be worked out, and I can't work it out alone. Nobody could. It's got to be between you and me—both of us."

He took up his restless pacing, while she watched him, wondering. Until to-day it was long since their talk had gone beyond the commonplaces; it was long since Sam had shown anything more than a half stolid, half whimsical interest in the life of his family. Now he was genuinely troubled.

"Listen to me, Molly," he said. I turned down your Fosdyke person this mornin'. I did it on purpose. I told him he couldn't have his money, and I'm not goin' to give it to him. I ain't goin' to give away any more money like that, so as to get it printed in the paper and talked about. And there's some other things I ain't goin' to do any more, either."

HE halted before her, a stern, implacable figure, his eyes relentless.

"You know what you said to me at breakfast—about me hinderin'. Well, I got that same thing from Tom at the office. He's wantin' me to fire Eddie Brady, and Carey, and the rest of the old-timers. He says it's hinderin' the business to keep 'em. I've had that notion dished up to me twice to-day. It don't suit me. You as good as told me I'm hinderin' by wantin' to be just plain old-fashioned friendly with folks; and Tom told me I'm hinderin' by wantin' to stay human at the works. It ain't goin' to do, Molly."

He checked himself, and his thoughts took a sharp turn.

"Say, I can't talk to you the way I want to here. I'll be quarrelin' with you in a minute, like as not. I ain't ever got used to you in these rooms, with all them fixin's. Say, how long is it since you've been up to my room?"

She smiled vaguely, a little uneasily.

"Why, Sam, it's—it's quite a while. I don't get up to the third floor. I supposed there was nothing I could do—"

"Well, come on; let's go up there now," he suggested. "I can't feel right here. I can say what I mean up there. Come along."

The upper floor of the big house was at another domain. Sam had insisted upon keeping it so. Bits of rag carpeting lay in the halls; clean white paint covered the woodwork; homely plainness was everywhere. Homely plainness found its fullest expression in Sam's own room, with its low, sloping ceiling and its jutting dormer windows looking out over the tree-tops in yard and street. A worn rag carpet was there, too, and worn arm chairs, and a wide, old-fashioned bedstead of black walnut. The walls held a few shabbily framed pictures of a style long past—a chromo of a Mother and Child, an impossible bit of blue and green and white mountain scenery, and a pair of setter dogs at work in a stubble-field, with a gay-coated huntsmen in the background. Odds and ends were scattered about in disarray; yet each seemed, somehow, to have fallen into its fit place.

Clumsily Sam placed a chair.

"Set down," he said, and seated himelf opposite. "This is more like. If you had on a different frock you'd look mighty natural in that chair. It's quite a spell since you've set in it, ain't it? Not since you got done with nursin' Katie. That sixteen year in the spring. Remember when we got it?"

She stirred, looking down at the faded upholstery. Sam laughed softly.

"Sure you do! Bill Carey made the speech when they give it to you. He wasn't any great shakes for a speech, I guess he'd never made one in his life before. But a body could tell what he was meanin'. That was the Christmas I had five men in the shop. They bought that chair on tick and paid for it a little piece at a time. I'm keepin' it. I'm keepin' several things. Take a look around.

---

Look sort of close, and see if you notice anything."

She did as he bade. After a moment her lips parted and her eyes looked startled.

"Why—why, Sam—"

"I thought you'd notice," Sam said. "The room ain't the same shape. It's a heap bigger than the parlor used to be, and the windows ain't the same; but I fixed it up as near as I could, with all I could find that hadn't been broke up or lost."

Again she stirred. She was not comfortable. It was a long gap her memory had been made to bridge so suddenly.

"It beats all," Sam said, "how many of the things we used to have had somethin' human tied up with 'em. Them wasn't the days when I just left it to you to get whatever you wanted and let the bills come in. When we bought anything, you and me would spend a heap of time pickin' it out and figurin' if we could afford it. That bed was the first thing in the house we ever paid for all at once. It made me feel mighty smart. And there was a lot that was give to us—that tidy your hand's foolin' with, on the arm of the chair—Bert Stults' girl Sally crocheted that for you, the time you was settin' up nights with her. She never got the mate to it finished, and her mother wanted to keep that one, because it was the last thing Sally done. Do you mind?

"And there's that picture of the boy Christ. Old Brady's kids used to like that one, when they had it home; they said he looked as if he'd be a real nice boy to play with. They made us take it after we'd been totin' 'em rice puddin' and truck when they was all gettin' well of the measles."

HIS mood changed suddenly; the lines of his big face set.

"Molly, Molly!" he cried. "You've lived that down, somehow. I haven't. New things got to interestin' you: havin' more money, and doin' more things with it—bigger things, mebbe, in a way. I've kept right on lovin' the old way. I wish to God I was back in it now. Yes, I do! Right back there in the time when I'd just made sure I was goin' to win out, and when we hadn't got over havin' to be careful, and when your face hadn't got done with lookin' anxious and wishful. I loved it! That was when I was a man, and not just a mark. That was the only time in my life I could afford to be friendly, because then was the only time I knew who my friends were.

"You and me never have been as close as we was then—not as close to each other, nor as close to other folks. That's what I like—bein' close to folks, and givin' little things to 'em because you love 'em, and gettin' little things from 'em because they love you. That's the humanness of it—lovin', and' bein' loved back. What does this kind of givin' get you? It gets you just what you give. And that ain't love. If I'd have given Fosdyke his money, the lovin'est thing I could have said to him would have been to take it and go to the devil with it. That's the way I felt. But that ain't what I want."

SAM drew close to her side, laying his big hand upon her head, compelling her eyes to meet his.

"Molly, when did you ever know of love really hinderin' anything? Honest, are you willin' to grow away from it? How much love are you gettin' out of this?"

Their eyes held, his full of entreaty, hers full of awakening wonder. Slowly, heavily, he knelt and bent his shaggy head upon the chair-arm, where lay the "tidy" the fingers of Bert Stults' Sally had made and given in love and gratitude. A tremor of feeling shook him. His wife put out her hand, touched his tumbled hair lightly, then flung her arms about him with a cry:

"Sam, don't! Sam! Why, Sam!"

"Bill the Brute"—and Others

By James Ford

THE New York criminal of to-day is very different from his prototype of a third of a century ago. He dwells, not in a "den," but in a conventional apartment-hotel or a flat. He no longer skulks about alleys disguised with false whiskers, but may be found on pleasant afternoons—unless especially wanted in Mulberry Street—clean-shaven and excellently tailored, in such busy haunts of men as upper Broadway and Forty-second Street. He operates on strictly modern lines; but, like his prototype of former years, he keeps his business to himself, seldom admits even to his intimates that he is living dishonestly, and in some cases enjoys respectable social connections, brings his family up well, and takes pride in educating his children and in securing for his daughters husbands who "live straight."

A Cracksman of International Reputation

AS merry a soul as ever scuttled a ship was that redoubtable cracksman, "Bill the Brute." Of American birth and upbringing, Bill gained an international reputation by the skill and rapidity of his work, and the deftness with which he eluded the police. For some years his operations covered a wide expanse of territory, not only in this country, but in France, Germany, and England as well, until a misadventure in Scotland condemned him to a long term in prison.

At the first call to dinner in his new home, Bill sprang upon one of the keepers, a man against whom he had not a particle of feeling, and crushed his skull with a heavy iron bar. This done, he threw down his weapon, and was taken unresting to his cell, to be known forever after as "Bill the Brute." Later, on his way to court, he broke out of the prison van and escaped.

About a year afterward, a New Yorker who enjoys wide acquaintance among people of every class, and who would just as soon walk down Broadway with Bill [?] ykes as with John D. Rockefeller, stopped before a shop window to glance at a patented contrivance that was said to make check forgery an impossibility. Suddenly he was startled to hear the whispered words, "I could beat it in a minute," and on turning around found himself face to face with "Bill the Brute."

Years before he had taken Bill into his house as man-of-all-work, in which capacity Bill's sense of humor found expression in an odd way. Like others of his class, he had invested a good deal of money in jewels, and these he wore in unexpected and unusual places. Frequently, when his benefactor was entertaining guests, Bill would make his appearance for the purpose of replenishing the fire, and incidentally would display a set of superb rubies worn as trouser buttons, and three huge diamonds of the finest water in his blue flannel shirt. Then, while the ladies were gazing spellbound at this jeweled workman, he would touch his cap with great humility and ask if "dere was anyt'ing else de boss would like attended to."

As became a professional of high degree, Bill seldom alluded to his calling, but more than once he confidentially and mysteriously assured his host that he would give a million dollars for the privilege of spending a month in certain localities in Europe, chiefly in France, where over twice that sum of money, jewels, and plate lay buried in country graveyards, the old-fashioned cracksman's favorite hiding-place, thanks to common superstition. Yet such was his distrust of all humankind that he would not commission any one to recover the booty for him, and in the end he faded away without revealing his secret.

When a crook does "leak," it is not to a reporter or clergyman, but to a woman. About twenty-five years ago an American actor, one of our leading comedians, being in London, acquired two charming, prosperous American friends.

For some months they were his constant visitors. All at once, however, his new friends quietly effaced themselves from the scene, and a fortnight later all Europe rang with the news of a great Viennese robbery in which jewels and bank-notes of enormous value were stolen in so ingenious a fashion that no trace whatever of the thieves remained. Four days later the door of the actor's apartment was opened, and his two friends sauntered in with cheery, cordial greetings.

A party happened to be under way that evening in honor of a well known "water queen" who was then performing in a tank in a music-hall. Among those who were instantly impressed by her vivacious personality was the younger of the two American gentlemen. Immediately he took off his silk hat, lifted a false top in the crown, and, stirring up a glittering mass of precious stones, exclaimed: "Veil, Dolly, how vould you like some of dese?" It transpired that his professional name was "Sheeny Mike."

Adam Worth, the bank robber, passed his declining years in England, living (of course under an assumed name) among respectable associates, and educating his son at Oxford. One of his old pals, who had been associated with him in the Merchants' Despatch robbery, left the business for good and all a great many years ago, and became one of the most famous actors in America. Curiously enough, he always appeared in plays of a highly moral nature.

Another criminal of high degree is living quietly in the vicinity of New York, and is still under close police espionage, although he is now over eighty years of age and might be supposed to have retired from his profession, which is that of counterfeiting. This man, who is well born, well educated, and possessed of cultivated tastes, was seen to enter a box on the first night of one of the great Wagner operas some years ago in company with Superintendent Byrnes, and to listen to the music with the deepest and most critical attention. He had that very day been sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. But he was so extremely anxious to hear the new opera, in order that his long sojourn at Sing Sing might be cheered by pleasant memories, that, in return for the privilege, he gave out certain information that the Superintendent of Police was very anxious to acquire. Between the acts the two men discussed their business in low tones, and the next morning the aged counterfeiter started for prison.

One Sermon I Remember

IT was in an opium joint in Bleecker Street that I heard a sermon which I have never forgotten. The text was the term "smart people," which crooks are in the habit of applying to themselves.

"Yes, I'm one of these smart people that you talk about, and these gentlemen are what we call suckers," said a way-worn criminal—still under forty and a human derelict. "We call them suckers—we smart ones. But it's the suckers that own houses and build railroads and live at the best hotels; it's the suckers that have long lives and die comfortably in their own beds, and rich at that. Who ever heard of any of us smart people owning houses or railroad stocks or anything we dared to call our own? How long do we last, and how do we die?"

And he turned abruptly away with a shudder.

Possibly in his mind's eye he saw the hillside burying-ground back of Sing Sing, where so many men who might have been successful and distinguished in life sleep in unmarked graves.

Our $1 Idea

DURING my stay in Nagasaky, Japan, I hapened to take a stroll through the streets. I could stand before the little Japanes girls for hours and watch them at their work for fancy embroidery or needlework, and their little hands were busily pushing the needles. After this I regular visited those places, as I found great interest in same and thought of taking a chance to invest a few dollars in getting an outfit to start in making those fancy works. I could not waite until up duty in sitting down and learn of same trade, as it gave me great pleasure in doing so. Soon enough I found buyers of my needlework and every one of them who called me an old maid took a likening in my work and begun to buy also of my embroidery as well knitwork. So one day after I return from Japan one of my comrads received a letter from his parents with an order of 5 more of those fancy aprons of whom one I had made many month previous as they where well like it. I invested my money to buy up enough material to make up a dozen of this for no doubt I would sell them without any trouble, as hand embroidery and made especially by a sailor-boy seemed to be a curiosity to those who represented with one of them. I had found out the chances where good of making myself useful in spare time and made an extra income and made from $ 15.—to $ 20.—a month, also I found out the making of belts for ladies and gents as well mash-bags where wellcome and well liked by everybody, as same where of handsome designs as never seen before on the marked. I made the first year $ 150.75, the second year $ 200.—and the third year $ 125.—and last year $ 213.—even if my friends call me a sissy or old maid, when I look upon the sum of money I have made since then I do'nt mind those at all. Many a times I heard people asking me how they could go ahead and too make an extra income like me. Well, it is easy enough if the good will is at hand as well the impatience in doing such kind of work and the results of it will be astounishing.

Kritt and the Lady Holsteins

By Sewell Ford

Illustrations by F. Vaux Wilson

THERE'S times when I wish I had a job in a signal tower, or at a ticket window—some place where people pass quick and are shot along before you get to know too much about 'em. You might not think, either, that runnin' a physical culture studio would rub you so close to folks. But some way it does. And say, the closer you see 'em, the more you need to be able to grin. Take Forbes Latham.

He's a young plute that Pinckney tows in because he'd found him dinin' on crackers and milk at the club. A tall, keen-eyed party, this Mr. Latham, with a serious, stand-offish air. But Pinckney don't let that affect his frivolous nature.

"Behold, Shorty," says he, "a war-battered hero."

"Oh, I say!" protests Mr. Latham.

"Fact!" insists Pinckney. "If it wasn't for the war you'd still be a normal human being, available for week-ends occasionally. As it is, you spend your time signing contracts to produce high explosives at a profit that ought to make you feel like a pickpocket. It's making so much money that he doesn't need, Shorty, which has brought him to this state."

"Rubbish!" says Latham. "I'm perfectly fit, I tell you."

"With no appetite, and sleeping but three hours a night!" goes on Pinckney.

"A little touch of nerves, perhaps," admits Latham.

HE being a friend of Pinckney's, I soaks him my top price and arranges a session that makes him think he's gettin' his money's worth. In a week or so Mr. Forbes Latham has worked up an appetite for real food and is hittin' the floss reg'lar. Also his ego ain't so prominent. He tells me he means to keep on trainin', while business is so strenuous, anyway.

"It's rather a strain," says he, "and I am depending on you, Professor, to pull me through—on you and my Holsteins."

"Your which?" says I.

Then he proceeds to tell me about his model dairy farm up in Connecticut. It's his big hobby.

"I'll bring up some photos of my new buildings," says he, "and one or two of Lady Blanche de Nimours."

"If she's one of them cigarette-smokin' foreign dames," says I, "take my advice and duck."

But it seems Lady Blanche is only the pride of the herd, with a milk-givin' record that I forget.

Every time we come to a breathin' spell he'll drag in that dairy farm of his and try to pin me down to a date when I'll go out and inspect it.

That's what he was at one afternoon when Swifty comes into the gym and reports a stranger in the front office.

"Rummy-lookin' gink, too," says Swifty.

"Then sweep him out," says I. "Want me to do the janitor work, do you?"

"Ahr-r-r-r, chee!" says Swifty. "Wot's the use gettin' messy? Didn't I say how he wants to see Mr. Latham?"

"Me?" says Forbes. "What name?"

"Wouldn't give any," says Swifty.

"Oh, well!" says I. "I'll go."

And say, Swifty ain't exaggerated any. What I find standin' sort of limp and wavery in the front office is a sorry-lookin' specimen. I expect before his cheeks caved in he was one of these square-heads. He has a young-old look, anywhere between twenty-five and fifty, and there's a weary, hopeless sag to his shoulders. Not the kind of caller Forbes Latham would want to see.

"Who put you next to his being here?" I demands.

"I—I happens to see him comin' up a while ago," says the stranger. "I waited downstairs for a spell. Then it—it took me some time to climb the stairs. My—my wind."

"Huh!" says I. "What's the name?"

"Kritt," says he.

"Swell monicker," says I. "Well, Kritt, what do you want of Mr. Latham?"

"I—I just want to see him, that's all," says Kritt.

"How interestin'!" says I. "Think he wants to see you?"

Kritt ain't sure on that.

"Then you'd better check out," says I. "Try at his office to-morrow."

Kritt stares at me sort of dumb and wooden, but he makes no move to go.

"I—I got to see him to-day," says he.

Well, we debates that point four or five minutes. Then I gives up.

"I'll ask Mr. Latham," says I. "He must be dressed by now. Wait here."

But when I describes the party to Forbes, and tells the name, he says he never heard of any such guy.

"Let's see what the fellow's like," says he, and follows me into the next room.

One look and he turns away disgusted.

"Never saw him before," says he. "Send him off."

I've always got more curiosity than sense, though, in such cases. I has to go on askin' questions.

"See here, you," says I. "What do you mean, trailin' in here after a stranger?"

"I know him, all right," insists Kritt. "Worked for him more'n a year."

"Oh!" says Latham. "One of the hands, eh? It's possible. Where were you?"

"In the tolly shop," says Kritt.

"I see," says Latham. Then he turns to me. "Their name for trinitrotoluol. Tolly! Rather good, eh?"

"Easier on the tongue," says I. "But what's the rest of it, Kritt? Were you fired, or what?"

"I got the sickness," says he—"the tolly sickness. Fumes in the lungs. Been in the hospital three weeks."

"They get careless," explains Latham; "we have a lot of cases like that. But you were well taken care of at the hospital, weren't you, my man?"

Kritt nods. "I wish I hadn't been," says he. "They turned me out—like this."

Forbes Latham shrugs his shoulders.

"You knew the risks when you went into the shop, didn't you?" he demands. "And you got your three dollars a day, double wages for unskilled labor. We can't do any more for you. Sorry. You'll be all right in a few days."

KRITT still stands there, blinkin' stupid. "Can't you get back to your folks?" says I.

"I—I wouldn't go to 'em—this way," says he. "I'd rather die."

"How about friends?" I suggests. "Where were you workin' before you went into this tolly shop?"

"Grocery, Asbury Park," says he.

"What!" says I. "Left a nice summer resort and a cinch job to go mixin' up bomb-stuffin'?"

"It was the three a day," says Kritt. "I needed that to—to— Well, there was Anna."

"Sure!" says I. "There generally is an Anna. Somebody's second girl, was she?"

"She was cashier in the grocery," says he. "I was sending most of my wages to her. When I'd saved up three hundred we was to have—"

"I get you," says I. "Took a cash reserve to ring the wedding bells for Anna. German, I'll bet?"

Kritt nods. "But—but I'm like this now," says he. "I can't get a job at anything."

"Oh, you'll find something," says Latham careless. "Here's a dollar."

Kritt stares at it and then shakes his head.

"If—if you could find me a place," says he, "until I get strong again. Maybe something outdoors."

"Why, say," I breaks in, "what's the matter with sendin' him up to that bloomin' cow farm of yours?"

Hit me as a happy little idea, but Latham don't warm up to it at all. He explains how he has only experts to look after his fancy stock, graduates of agricultural schools, and that a wreck like Kritt wouldn't fit in at all.

"Wouldn't, eh?" says I. "Then fit him in. For if you must know how I feel about it, this dumpin' your fact'ry waste on the street strikes me as kind of cold-blooded. I wouldn't treat a dog that way."

Latham squirms a bit at that and flushes up some under the eyes. All of a sudden he shrugs his shoulders again and remarks casual: "Oh, well! Perhaps my farm superintendent can find something for him to do. I'll write him a note."

"Better make it an order," says I.

I sees to it, too, that Kritt has carfare and is started on his way.

FOR a few days Latham don't mention his farm again. But he can't keep off the subject for long. He begins once more urgin' me to go out with him.

"Maybe next week I will," says I.

As it happens, it wasn't until here the other day that I runs out of excuses and gets cornered. So after lunch Latham picks me up in a taxi, and by three o'clock we've made two changes and have been dropped 'way up somewhere among the nutmeg fields and pie orchards, where a black and white limousine is waitin' for us.

"Sporty color-scheme you got on the car," says I.

"It matches the Holsteins, you know," he explains.

I didn't quite get the point then. But by the time we'd rolled past about a mile of black-and-white fence-posts and come

in sight of a group of white buildin's with black trim I begun to suspect that Latham's collection was tinted different.

"My new barn on the left," says Forbes.

"Barn!" says I. "Quit kiddin'! You mean city hall."

It was a barn, though, but nothing like any I'd met before. Sort of a barn deluxe—cement floors, white cement walls, casement windows, steam heat, and superintendent's office.

"We will go into the dormitory first," says Latham. "It's about milking time. Through here. There! How is that for a herd?"

Well, he got a gasp out of me. Here's a double row of black-and-white cows, fifty on a side, and all lookin' as neat and slick as if they'd just been gone over with shoe-blackin' and a powder-puff. They're in white iron pens, each with a white enameled feed-box and drinkin'-can, and the floor is as clean as a ball-room. And every cow has a door-plate with her name and number on it.

"Gosh!" says I, takin' off my hat. "I don't have to be introduced, do I?"

"It could be done," says Forbes. "They are all registered, and I have their certified pedigrees. The milking is going on, you see."

"Is it?" says I. "Where?"

All I could see was a couple of men in white duck suits movin' around quiet with covered pails. Then I spots this arrangement of tubes that seems to be connected with the butter department of some of the cows.

"We use the electric milker, you know," says Latham. "Five units in operation."

I smothered the gasp that time.

Another thing that got me interested was the way they kept books on the cows. As soon as one is pumped dry the milk is weighed and the amount marked up on a chart opposite her name.

"Eighteen pounds for Mercedes II," I reads off, "and twenty-two this mornin'. That's producin' some, ain't it?"

"Lady Blanche has an average of forty-six pounds a day for a month," says Latham.

"Which is she?" I asks.

"Oh, she is in a private dormitory just now," says he, "on another test period. Sorry I can't take you in there, but during a test no one but her attendant sees her."

"Some exclusive cow, eh?" says I.

NEXT we went through the nurseries, where there are dozens of little black-and-white bossies of all sizes. I could have bought one of 'em too, one with four names and a pedigree a foot long, for two or three hundred dollars. Latham even offers to give me one if I'll start a dairy farm.

"Much obliged," says I; "but who am I, that's vague about my own grandfather, to associate with a calf like that? No, thanks, Latham."

Before we were through I had a peek at the outside of Lady Blanche's retreat quarters, and the superintendent showed us her test chart, where they'd put down every ounce of milk she'd given, all the details of her balanced ration, and I don't know but her pulse and temperature.

"But where's our friend Kritt?" I asks. "Got him busy on Lady Blanche's coachin' staff?"

Latham almost shudders.

"Certainly not," says he. "Only our most experienced and trustworthy men are allowed to come in direct contact with the herd. High-grade cows are sensitive animals, you know; and Kritt—I believe he is one of the floor-cleaning gang."

I suggests that I'd like to have a look at him, to see how he was comin' on, and the superintendent sends out a college hick in shell-rimmed glasses to have him paged. The report is that he can't be found.

"That's odd," says the superintendent; consultin' a work-book.

Continued on page 13

Venuses

We Prefer [?] Buy Gasolene

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Money Means Nothing to Them

Continued from page 8

"Perhaps you can find him while I am taking Professor McCabe through the maternity wards," says Latham.

I didn't even blink at that. Honest, I wouldn't have been surprised at findin' a lot of trained nurses or a twilight sleep outfit. But while we're goin' from one buildin' to another, windin' through long hallways and turnin' corners, I gets a glimpse of some one dodgin' behind a pile of boxes.

"Wasn't that Kritt?" says I.

"Not in here," says Latham. "He's not allowed."

"Looked like him, anyway," says I. "He made a sudden duck when he saw us."

"The deuce!" says Latham. "We'll just look into this. Here, was it behind these— Well, my man, what does this mean?"

It's Kritt, all right; crouchin' behind the boxes. He straightens up when he's discovered, and scowls at us sullen. He has improved a lot in a few weeks. His face hollows have filled out and he's got some color back. But he don't seem as tame as he did. There's an ugly look in his wide-set eyes, and he's keepin' one hand behind him. He don't seem anxious to talk.

"I say," insists Latham, "what are you doing here?"

Kritt only keeps on scowlin'.

"Come out of that," orders Latham. "You'll not, eh? Well, my man, I'll just—"

"Easy there!" I sings out. "He's got a knife."

Latham steps back hasty.

"Lemme handle him," says I. "Now, what's this all about, Kritt? What's the cutlery for, anyway?"

He stares sulky and grumbles something under his breath.

"Ah, come!" says I, talkin' soothin' and edgin' in on him gradual. "You know us, Kritt. We're friends of yours, ain't we?"

"You are, maybe," says Kritt, "but not him."

"Oh, well," says I, "tell it to me, then. Now, what's the idea of this—"

I MADE a quick grab at his wrist about then and shook that knife on to the floor. It's an eighteen-inch meat-carver.

"Sorry, Kritt," I goes on, "but you acted suspicious. Course, it was an accident, your havin' that knife, but—"

"It wasn't," snarls Kritt. "I was goin' to slit the throat of that blasted cow!"

"Which cow?" says I.

"Ah, that silly beast, Lady Blanche," says he.

Latham gasps.

"You scoundrel!" says he. "Kill Lady Blanche?"

Kritt chuckles hoarse.

"Har-r-r!" says he. "Gets under your hide, that does, don't it?"

"Why, Kritt!" says I. "What you got against the cow aristocracy?"

"That's just it!" says he. "Cow aristocrats! Honest to Gawd, McCabe, you'd think they was better'n human beings. Why, they're treated better. Do you

know what? I was kicked out of the barn just for cussin' a bit before them lady cows. And this Blanche beast! It would make you sick to hear these nuts talk about her—queen of the herd and all that.

"Say, she's got a box-stall better'n any room I ever had in my life—electric lights, a shower bath, and an electric fan to keep the air sweet. You ought to hear 'em fuss over her meals. And if she showed signs of bein' sick there'd be a doctor here on the jump. Think of that! That's the way he takes care of his cows. But the men that make his money for him— Say, you saw the way I looked. And I've seen over a hundred lugged out of the tolly shop with their pipes full of gas. What does he care? But his cows! You mustn't even speak cross to one. Bah! Say, I'll do it yet."

"You'll go to jail; that's where you'll go, my man," speaks up Latham.

"For what?" demands Kritt, sneerin'. "For attempted assault and battery on a cow?"

"Got a point on you there, Latham," says I.

"I'll find a way," says Forbes. "I think the village police justice will take care of this fellow for me."

"Not without a trial," says Kritt. "And I'll tell a few things that maybe won't look nice in print."

Latham bites his lip.

"Oh, come!" says I. "How is it goin' to help for you to go around committin' cowmacide? Mr. Latham didn't invent factories, you know. There's plenty of other concerns just like his. And the bosses don't all run fancy dairies. You don't want to get sent up for malicious mischief, or anything like that. What would Anna say?"

"Huh! Anna!" he snorts. "She's quit me. Married another guy. On my money, too."

"Hard luck!" says I. "But you can't take it out on Mr. Latham's cows."

"I will," says Kritt. "Let him jail me if he dares."

"I dare," says Latham, "but I've just thought of something better. The army. You may take your choice."

"Fine!" says Kritt. "Lead me to the army."

LATHAM takes him at his word. Two minutes more and we've all moved into the office, where we're waitin' for the superintendent to get out his runabout and cart Mr. Kritt off to the nearest recruitin' station.

Just as the machine is ready, he steps up to shake hands with me. "So long, McCabe," says he. "You meant well by me, anyway. And I'm glad I came here and found out about these blasted cow aristocrats. It's set me to thinkin' things out. I've got it straight now, too. The army's the place for all trash like me. They'll learn us to shoot there. And say, some day we'll show these rotten plutes how well we can do it. It's the only way we'll ever get our rights."

Forbes Latham is near enough to hear some of this. As the car starts off that's takin' Kritt to be a soldier, he shakes his head and remarks:

"A dangerous fellow, Shorty—dangerous! Seems to have developed that streak recently."

"Maybe it's from associatin' with five-thousand-dollar cows," says I. "Got me a bit dizzy myself at first. Before we go, though, I wish you'd blow me to a dipperful of that machine-extracted milk. I could drink a hundred dollars' worth or so about now."

Which was makin' a quick shift, eh? But I didn't want to get in over my head. The Forbes Lathams—and the Kritts. There's so many of 'em, too! But unless you know the answer, which I don't, you just got to dig up something to grin about, ain't you?

Making Dollars Grow

AS a "hack" or "omnibus" writing man with a varying income arriving mostly in small remittances, the matter of saving in my case was a problem that baffled my wife and me. She had reason to be especially worried about it because, being the financier of the family, she often found it necessary to cut penurious corners on account of a lack of system [?] putting something away for rainy days.

First of all, of course, we tried the commercial bank account, which was as easily checked out as it was deposited, and nothing came of it except an occasional surprising and discouraging overdraft.

After that we tried the budget system, depositing nothing in the bank. We simply set aside so much for groceries and rent, a little for clothing, rather too much for amusements, and a tiny allotment for a rainy day. This plan might have worked, except that "groceries" was continually borrowing from "rent," "clothing" from "education," and everything else from "savings." There was another objection, too. We never could tell when to expect the checks, and it was next to impossible to make the apportionments. The rent check might come in three days late, and the landlord would have grabbed all that might be left in the "dentist and doctor" with a goodly helping of "light and fuel," to the great derangement of the plan.

The real plan was a matter of evolution, hit upon quite by accident. It all came about through the penny bank. Somewhere in our attempt to save, we had deposited a dollar and had received this penny bank. When it was filled with pennies it could be turned in at the bank and its tinkling contents credited to the account. Because we could see the penny stack growing day by day, there was a solemn pact that all pennies received in change should be turned in faithfully for the penny bank. As a consequence of this copper compact, the penny bank did a much steadier business than any of our former experimental depositaries, and when it had been emptied at the parent bank for the fifth time the big idea popped out unannounced. It was this:

Save pennies in the hand bank, and deposit dollars; save dollars as high as eleven, and deposit ten in another account; save tens until $110 is reached, and deposit $100 in the main savings account. To avoid cruel questioning, we maintained savings accounts in three separate banks. The up-to-$11 account we called No. 1; the up-to-$110 account No. 2; and the main savings account, No. 3.

Of course, it must not be assumed that all our savings sifted through the penny bank and up through the ranks to the major account. The rule was simply: checks for less than $10 went into Account No. 1; checks for more than $10 into No. 2; and on one memorable occasion when one came for exactly $100, that went with great acclaim into No. 3. Account No. 2 is our busiest account and the one that we watch with most interest, because occasionally we have to make a withdrawal that produces an undesirable sag in a most promising balance. Except for absolute emergencies, no money is withdrawn from No. 3, and when a unit is deposited we regard it as actually saved.

The value of this system lies in the fact that the various growing sums exert a saving influence. It is easy to be economical when you are aware that No. 1 needs only a dollar to deliver a unit to No. 2, or that No. 2 is within $20 of disgorging another unit to the major account. When another unit is added to No. 3, we celebrate the event by going downtown for supper and to a show afterward.

H. G. G.

Guarding and Grabbing War Secrets

By Fred C. Kelly

JUST a short time ago a Washington newspaper man with a foreign-sounding name strolled into the Army War College, which is a sort of post graduate school of advanced strategy, and asked for various information about the work of that institution. He got the facts he sought with so little effort that he was amazed. Army officers talked to him as unguardedly, it appeared, as if he had been inquiring about the weather. They never saw the young man before, but took his word that he was what he claimed to be. Yet he had a foreign-sounding name, and, for all they knew, might have been a military spy from some distant land. Much of what they told him might have been of interest to any foreign power which desired inside information about United States military policies.

The young man came away expressing himself as shocked at the gross carelessness of the officers at the head of the war college. He had gone there provided with letters establishing his identity, but the credentials had not been asked for. High-up officers answered his questions without reserve, and one of the main features of their policy, it seemed, was simply to be courteous.

Uncle Sam Is Not Secretive

THE United States is probably less secretive about its military plans, and less curious about the secrets of others, than any of the important nations.

Unlike Germany and Japan, the United States does not maintain in time of peace a system of secret military agents in other countries,—except, perhaps, in Mexico,—but it does interchange with various other nations what may be termed tolerated spies. I refer to the military and naval attachés connected with the legations and embassies of nearly all the larger nations. The chief duties of these attachés are to furnish their governments with information about the naval and military activities of the country in which they are stationed.

For example, Captain Boy-Ed, naval attaché, and Captain von Papen, military attaché, at the German embassy in Washington, were well within their rights when they made observations and reports to Berlin about the amount of war munitions being shipped from this country to the Allies. What they did not have a right to do was to interfere with any American industrial work—certainly not to the extent of concocting bomb plots.

It is safe to assume that every time a new kind of gun is placed in service in the War Department of this country, the military attachés of various foreign nations stationed in Washington promptly send drawings of it to their own military chiefs. Our attachés abroad do the same thing. No nation objects to it, within certain limits. The thing is regarded as an exchange of courtesies.

Every time a new topographical map of any part of this country is prepared by the United States Geological Survey, this government takes it for granted that all the leading nations abroad are supplied with copies through their regular military attachés. No copies are mailed to the foreign embassies, but the attachés get them. In similar manner, topographical, highway, and other maps come to our own War Department from abroad. It is a little like the methods of various morning newspapers in obtaining copies of one another's first editions. Every newspaper has safeguards to prevent such copies leaving its press-room. Yet, somehow or other, the exchange of mail editions never fails to take place.

Generally speaking, it is a part of the military policy of the United States to hold itself aloof from much prying into the military or naval plans of other nations. This policy is predicated on the theory that we are not seeking trouble with anybody else, and are disposed to assume that nobody else is going to start anything with us.

The United States and Germany may be said to represent the two extremes in the matter of getting secret information about the military doings of other nations. Just as the United States does almost none of this sort of thing in time of peace, Germany has long had the reputation of being the leader in the use of spies, as a part of the German policy of preparedness. And next to Germany comes Japan, whose system of military spies is modeled closely upon that of Germany.

While the United States does not go in for much spying on other countries in time of peace, it can nevertheless whip together effective military secret service, if emergency arises, almost overnight. The task would be made simple by the fact that the United States has numerous other lines of detective service from which highly competent men could be borrowed. For example, there are in Europe, at all times, American government detectives who for shrewdness and all-around sleuthing ability rank toward the top of their profession. They are in the custom service, under the Treasury Department, and their duty is to obtain advance information about attempts to smuggle in European goods without the payment of duty.

We Keep on Tap a Large Supply of Sleuths

FEW persons realize how many detectives are required by the various departments of this government. Nearly every department has its own quota of sleuths.

Plots against munition plants and other industrial concerns in this country have recently called for special investigation. Most of this work has been done by detectives connected with the Department of Justice, which at all times has a large force of professional strangers in its employ. The information that led to Captains Boy-Ed and von Papen being withdrawn from this country was obtained largely by these secret agents of the Department of Justice. They do much the same kind of work that is performed by the Secret Service,—whose work is to guard the President, and to catch counterfeiters,—but they are classified under a less fascinating and less romantic title.

A plan has lately been adopted by which the State Department acts as a sort of a clearing-house and coördinates the work of various government detective services in throttling the activities of plotters. Similarly, the detective skill of all these departments could be brought together to collect information in time of war.

Breaking Babies into the Movies

NO longer need the arrival of a new baby strike terror into the financial heart of father and mother. For with the advent of the moving picture the baby has come into his own as a bread-winner of the family. He gets three dollars every time he shows his dimpled face before the camera, and hands over his pay envelop without a whimper.

There is never a dearth of infant applicants. If an employee in the studio has a baby nephew, or a cousin whose friend has a baby, the little tot is rushed to the studio the moment work begins on a new film that calls for baby actors. Every fond parent is possessed of a desire to see his precious infant on the screen. Besides, there is the matter of the three per day.

The producers often have to deal with pitiful cases among the poor. More than once, a tiny tot has brought bread to its hungry family. One woman whose husband spent all his wages for drink practically lived on the earnings of her six-months-old infant. A Mexican family was on the verge of starvation when a photo-play engagement was secured for the baby, who saved the day.

Started Movie Career at the Age of Two Days

EVEN very young babies are often available. One director began work on a picture that called for a new-born baby. A doll wouldn't do—it had to be a real live infant. In the midst of his dilemma, the director happened to learn of an event that was about to occur in a family living two blocks from the studio. Two days after its birth, the new baby started his career as a motion-picture actor. And the spectators asked, "Where did they find such a little baby?"

But the director who needed a Japanese child did not find the task so easy. Japanese mothers are superstitious; and, although dozens were offered big sums if they would lend their babies to the camera-man, not one dared to invite the evil influences of the gods.

Finally, however, a poverty-stricken family was found. The mother had already suffered so many misfortunes that new evils held slight terror for her, and she gave her infant, on condition that it should he well cared for. The American actress who played the part of the Japanese mother was devoted to the child, and in the three days that he was at the studio she washed, dressed, and cared for him herself.

Some parents rather hesitate to leave their infants in the care of strangers, even though competent nurses are provided. Directors do not greatly object to the presence of the mothers, however, for often it is easier to induce the youngster to register the proper emotion if the parent is at hand.

The most popular actress on the screen has to take second honors with any unknown infant when it comes to reaching the heart-strings of the people. A "close-up" of a baby, his toothless mouth stretched in an engaging smile or in tearful protest, is the surest route to the hearts of the spectators. And every director knows this, although he would gladly banish babies from the movie studio if he could.

For a nine-months-old actor isn't very amenable to reason. If his rôle demands tears, he is quite likely to present a face wreathed in smiles. If the plot calls for a laughing, happy baby, he suddenly grows pessimistic and wails at the top of his voice.

Ordinarily it is much easier to make a baby cry than laugh; but occasionally a "temperamental" baby breaks all the known laws. Such a one defied all efforts of the director for two days. Rattles and dolls and toys brought forth the wildest uproar when smiles should have been registered. Then, when the young rascal was supposed to weep, he became the most jovial of infants and refused to shed a tear.

Sometimes tiny tots take the sad scene greatly to heart. Thirty youngsters were once engaged to play the parts of orphans in an asylum. The star who took the part of an older orphan in charge of the young children won their affection, and when it came time for the prim and cold superintendent to punish her, the children with one accord joined in a deafening wail. Two professional nurses were needed to care for this group of children.

Babies in "Slapstick"

IT is hard to make a baby understand that he is "dead." At the critical moment he will suddenly come to life. One player, after many attempts to induce a baby to remain quiet, held the little fellow in a vise-like grip from head to feet, with its body pressed to her breast. This is about as far as a reputable producer will go.

It is true, however, that babies are sometimes roughly handled in "slapstick" comedies. A live baby has been tossed into the arms of some one on the run, carried about the room topsy-turvy means by of his clothes. Such treatment is almost certain to have an injurious effect upon the little bundle of nerves.

As far as possible, producers substitute dummies. In one picture, for instance, it was necessary to take a kidnapped baby in a rowboat to a schooner located a short distance out to sea. A bundle of rags wrapped in a shawl offered a successful substitute. In another film, the star climbed to the top of a high hill and plunged into a volcano, her baby in her arms. It would have been decidedly perilous to carry a live child on such a climb.

But a bundle of rags doesn't laugh or cry. And it's the warm, palpitating, lively baby that reaches people's hearts.

The Girl Beyond the Trail

By James Oliver Curwood

Wladyslaw T. Benda

DAVID thought of the girl's words a long time after she had fallen asleep. Even in that last moment of her consciousness he had found her voice filled with a strange faith and a wonderful assurance as it had drifted away in a whisper. He would not want the picture any more—because he had her! That was what she had said, and he knew it was her soul that had spoken to him as she had hovered that instant between wakefulness and slumber.

He looked at her, sleeping under his eyes, and he felt upon him for the first time the weight of a sudden trouble, a gloomy foreboding. And yet, under it all, like a fire banked beneath dead ash, was the warm thrill of his possession. He had spread his blanket over her, and now he leaned over and drew her thick curls back from her face. They were warm and soft in his fingers, strangely sweet to touch, and for a moment or two he fondled them as he gazed steadily into the childish loveliness of her face, dimpled still by that shadow of a smile with which she had fallen asleep.

Her faith in him was so great that she was going back fearlessly to those people whom she hated and feared—not only fearlessly, but with a certain defiant satisfaction. What would he have to do to live up to that surety of her confidence in him? A great deal, undoubtedly. And if he won for her, as she fully expected him to win, what would he do with her? Take her to the coast—put her into a school somewhere?

He tried to picture Brokaw; he tried to bring up Hauck in his mental vision; and he thought over again all the girl had told him about herself and these men. As he looked at her it was hard for him to believe anything so horrible as she had suggested. Perhaps her fears had been exaggerated. The exchange of gold between Hauck and the Red Brute was probably for something else. Even men engulfed in the brutality of the trade they were in would not think of such an appalling crime. And then—with a fierceness that made his blood burn—came the thought that Brokaw had caught her in his arms and had kissed her! That was the proof.

BAREE had crept between his knees, and David's fingers closed so tightly on the loose skin of his neck that the dog whined. He rose to his feet and stood gazing down at the girl. He stood there or a long time without moving or making a sound.

"A little woman," he whispered to himself at last. "Not a child."

From that moment he was filled with a desire to reach the Nest. He had never thought seriously of physical struggle with men except in the way of sport. But a soul had given itself into his protection, a soul as pure as the stars shining over the mountain-tops. He took his automatic out of his pack, loaded it carefully, and placed it in a pocket where it could be easily reached. It was a declaration of something ultimately definite. Then he stretched himself out near the fire and slept.

He was awake with the summer dawn. The sun was beginning to tint up the big red mountain when he and the girl began the descent into the valley. Before they started the girl borrowed his comb and brush and smoothed the tangles out of her hair, tying it back with a bit of string. But as they traveled downward David observed how the rebellious tresses formed themselves into curls again.

IN an hour they had reached the valley, where they rested, while Tara foraged among the rocks for marmots. It was a wonderful valley into which they had come. From where they sat, it looked like an immense park. Green slopes reached almost to the summits of the mountains, and to a point half way up these slopes—the last timber-line—clumps of spruce and balsam trees were scattered over the green as if set there by the hands of men. At the foot of the slopes on either side, like decorative fringes, were thin and unbroken lines of forest. Between these two lines of forest lay the open valley of soft and undulating meadow, dotted with purplish bosks of buffalo willow and mountain sage, green coppices of wild rose and thorn, and clumps of trees. In the hollow of the valley ran a stream.

And this was her home! She was telling him about it as they sat there; and he listened to her, and watched her birdlike movements, without breaking in to ask questions which the night had shaped in his mind. She pointed out gray summits on which she had stood. Off there, just visible in the gray mist of early sunshine, was the mountain where she had found Tara five years ago—a tiny cub that must have lost its mother. Perhaps the Indians had killed her. And that long, rock-strewn slide, so steep in places that he shuddered when he thought of what she had done, was where she and Tara had climbed over the range in their flight.

She had chosen the rocks so that Tara would leave no trail. He regarded that slide as conclusive evidence of the resolution that must have inspired her. A fit of girlish temper would not have taken her up that rock slide, and in the night. He thought it time to speak of what was weighing on his mind.

"Listen to me, Marge," he said, pointing toward the red mountain ahead of them. "Off there, you say, is the Nest. What are we going to do when we arrive there?"

Little lines gathered between her eyes as she looked at him.

"Why—tell them," she said.

"Tell them what?"

"That you've come for me, and that we're going away, Sakewawin."

"And if they object? If Brokaw and Hauck say you can not go?"

"We'll go anyway, Sakewawin."

"That's a pretty name you've given me," he mused, thinking of something else. "I like it."

For the first time, she blushed—blushed until her face was like one of the wild roses growing in the valley.

And then he added:

"You must not tell them too much—at first, Marge. Remember that you were lost, and I found you. You must give me time to get acquainted with Hauck and Brokaw."

She nodded, but there was a moment's anxiety in her eyes, and he saw for an instant the slightest quiver in her throat.

"You won't—let them—keep me? No matter what they say—you won't let them keep me?"

He jumped up, with a laugh, and tilted her chin so that he looked straight into her eyes; and her faith filled them again in a flood.

"No—you're going with me," he promised. "Come. I'm quite anxious to meet Hauck and the Red Brute!"

TO David it seemed singular that they met no one in the valley that day, and the girl's explanation that practically all travel came from the north and west, and stopped at the Nest, did not fully satisfy him. He still wondered why they did not encounter one of the searching parties that must have been sent out for her, until she told him that since Nisikoos died she and Tara went quite frequently into the mountains and remained all night. Hauck had not seemed to care. More frequently than not, he never missed her. Twice she had been away for two nights and two days. It was only because Brokaw had given that gold to Hauck that she had feared pursuit. If Brokaw had bought her—

She spoke of that possible sale as if she might have been the merest sort of chattel. And then she startled him by saying:

"I have known of those white men from the north buying Indian girls. I have seen them sold for whisky. Ugh!" She shuddered. "Nisikoos and I overheard them one night. Hauck was selling a girl for a little sack of gold—like that. Nisikoos held me tighter than ever that night, I don't know why. She was terribly afraid of that man Hauck. Why did she live with him if she was afraid of him? Do you know? I wouldn't; I'd run away."

He shook his head.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you, my child." Her eyes turned on him suddenly.

"Why do you call me that—a child?"

"Because you're not a woman—because you're so very, very young, and I'm so very old," he laughed.

FOR a long time after that she was silent as they traveled steadily toward the red mountain.

They ate their dinner in the somber shadow of it. Most of the afternoon Marge rode her bear. It was sundown when they stopped for their last meal. The Nest was still three miles away, and the stars were shining brilliantly in the sky before they came to the little wooded plain in the edge of which Hauck had hidden away his place of trade. When they were some hundred yards away they climbed to the top of a knoll, and David saw the glow of fires. The girl stopped suddenly, and her hand caught his arm. He counted four of those fires in the open. A fifth glowed faintly, as if back in timber. Sounds came to them—the slow, hollow booming of a tom-tom, and voices. They could see shadows moving.

The girl's fingers were pinching David's arm.

"The Indians have come in," she whispered.

There was a thrill of uneasiness in her words. It was not fear. But he could see that she was puzzled, and that she had not expected to find the fires, or those moving shadows. Her eyes were steady and shining as she looked at him. It seemed to him that she had grown taller, and more like a woman, as they stood there. Something in her face made him ask:

"Why have they come?"

"I don't know," she said.

They started down the knoll straight for the fires. Tara and Baree filed behind them. Beyond the glow of the camps a dark bulk took shape against the blackness of the forest, and David guessed that it was the Nest. He made out a low building, unlighted so far as he could see. Then they entered into the fire-glow. Their appearance produced a strange and instant quiet. The beating of the tom-tom ceased. Voices died. Dark faces stared—and that was all. There were half a hundred of them

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about the fires, David figured; and not a white man's face among them. They were all Indians—a lean, night-eyed, sinister-looking lot. He was conscious that they were scrutinizing him more than the girl. He could almost feel the prick of their eyes.

With her head up, his companion walked between the fires and beyond them, looking neither to one side or the other. They turned the end of the huge log building, and on this side it was glowing dimly with light, and David heard faintly other voices. The girl passed swiftly into a hollow of gloom, calling softly to Tara. The bear followed her, a grotesque, slow-moving hulk, and David waited. He heard the clink of a chain. A moment later she returned to him.

"There is a light in Hauck's room," she said. "His council-room, he calls it—where he makes his bargains. I hope they are both there, Sakewawin—both Hauck and Brokaw."

She seized his hand, and held it tightly as she led him deeper into darkness.

"I wonder why so many of the Indians are in? I did not know they were coming. It is the wrong time of year for—a crowd like that."

He felt the quiver in her voice. She was excited, he knew. And yet not about the Indians. She hoped that Hauck and Brokaw were in that room! She would confront them there, with him. That was it. She felt that her bondage, her prisonment in this savage place, was ended; and she was eager to find them, and let them know that she was no longer afraid or alone—no longer need obey or fear them. He felt the thrill of it in the hot, fierce little clasp of her hand. He saw it glowing in her eyes when they passed through the light of a window. Then they turned again, at the back of the building.

They paused at a door. Not a ray of light broke the gloom here. The stars in the sky seemed to make the blackness deeper. Her fingers tightened.

"You must be careful," he said, "and—remember."

"I will," she whispered.

IT was his last warning. The door opened slowly, with a creaking sound, and they entered a long, gloomy hall, illumined by a single oil lamp that sputtered and smoked in its bracket on the wall. The hall gave him an idea of the immensity of the building. From the far end of it, through a partly open door, came a reek of tobacco smoke, and loud voices—a burst of coarse laughter and a sudden volley of curses that died away in a still louder roar of merriment. Some one closed the door from inside. The girl was staring toward the end of the hall, and shuddering.

"That is the way it has been—growing worse and worse since Nisikoos died," she said. "In there those white men who come down from the north drink and gamble—and quarrel, always quarrel. This room is ours—Nisikoos' and mine." She touched with her hand a door near which they were standing. Then she pointed to another—there were half a dozen doors up and down the hall. "And that is Hauck's."

He threw off his pack and placed it on the floor, with his rifle across it. When he straightened, the girl was listening at the door to Hauck's room. Beckoning to him, she knocked on it lightly, and then opened it. David entered close behind her. It was rather a large room—his one impression as he crossed the threshold. In the center of it was a table, and over the table hung an oil lamp with a tin reflector. In the light of this lamp sat two men. In his first glance he made up his mind which was Hauck and which was Brokaw. It was Brokaw, he thought, who was facing them as they entered—a man he could hate even if he had never heard of him before: big, loose-shouldered, a carnivorous-looking giant, with a mottled, reddish face and bleary eyes that had an amazed and watery stare in them.

Apparently the girl's knock had not been heard, for it was a moment before the other man swung slowly about in his chair so that he could see them. That was Hauck. David knew it. He was smaller than the other, with rounded, bullish shoulders, a thick neck, and eyes wherein might lurk an incredible cruelty. He popped half out of his seat when he saw the girl—and a stranger. His jaws seemed to tighten with a snap—a snap that could almost be heard.

But it was Brokaw's face that held David's eyes. He was two thirds drunk. There was no doubt about it, if David was any sort of judge of that kind of imbecility. One of his thick, huge hands was gripping a bottle. Hauck had evidently been reading him something out of a ledger—a post ledger, which he still held in one hand. David was surprised at the quiet and unemotional way in which the girl began speaking. She said that she had wandered over, into the other valley and was lost, when this stranger found her. He had been good to her, and was on his way to the settlement on the coast. His name was—

SHE got no farther than that. Brokaw had taken his devouring gaze from her and was staring at David. He lurched suddenly to his feet and leaned over the table, a new sort of surprise in his heavy countenance. He stretched out a hand. His voice was a bellow:

"McKenna!"

He was speaking directly at David—calling him by a name. There was as little doubt of that as of his drunkenness. There was also an unmistakable note of fellowship in his voice. McKenna!

David opened his mouth to correct him, when a second thought occurred to him in a mildly inspirational way. Why not McKenna? The girl was looking at him, a bit surprised, questioning him in the directness of her gaze. He nodded and smiled at Brokaw. The giant came around the table, still holding out his big red hand.

"Mac! God!—you don't mean to say you've forgotten—"

David took the hand.

"Brokaw!" he chanced.

The other's hand was as cold as a piece of beef, but it possessed a crushing strength. Hauck was staring from one to the other, and suddenly Brokaw turned to him, still pumping David's hand.

"McKenna—that young devil of Kicking Horse, Hauck! You've heard me speak of him. McKenna—"

The girl had backed to the door. She was pale. Her eyes were shining, and she was looking straight at David when Brokaw released his hand.

"Good night, Sakewawin!" she said.

It was very distinct, that word—Sakewawin! David had not before heard it come quite so clearly from her lips. There was something of defiance and pride in its utterance, an intentional and decisive emphasis of it. She smiled at him as she went through the door, and in that same breath Hauck had followed her. They disappeared.

When David turned he found Brokaw backed against the table, his two hands gripping the edges of it, his face distorted by passion. It was a terrible face to look into, to stand before alone in that room—a face filled with murder and menace. So sudden had been the change in it that David was stunned for a moment. In that space of perhaps a quarter of a minute neither uttered a sound. Then Brokaw leaned slowly forward, his great hands clenched, and demanded in a hissing voice:

"What did she mean when she called you that—Sakewawin? What did she mean?"

It was not the voice of a drunken man now—but the voice of a man ready to kill.

"Sakewawin! What did she mean when she called you that?"

It was Brokaw's voice again turning the words round, but repeating them. He made a step toward David, his hands clenched tighter and his whole bulk growing tense. His eyes, blazing as if through a thin film of water,—water that seemed to cling there by some strange magic,—were horrible, David thought.

Sakewawin! A pretty name for himself, he had told the girl—and here it was raising the very devil with this drink- bloated colossus.

He guessed quickly. It was decidedly a matter of guessing quickly and of making prompt and satisfactory explanation—or a throttling where he stood. His mind worked like a race-horse. Sakewawin meant something that had enraged Brokaw: a jealous rage, a rage that filled his aqueous eyes with a lurid glare. So David said, looking into them calmly and with a feigned surprise:

"Wasn't she speaking to you, Brokaw?"

It was a splendid shot. David scarcely knew why he made it, except that he was moved by a powerful impulse that just now he had no time to analyze. It was this same impulse that had kept him from revealing himself when Brokaw had mistaken him for some one else. Chance had thrown a course of action into his way, and he had accepted it almost involuntarily. It had suddenly occurred to him that he would give much to be alone with this half drunken man for a few hours—as McKenna. He might last long enough in that disguise to discover things. But not with Hauck watching him, for Hauck was four fifths sober, and there was a depth to his cruel eyes which he did not like.

He watched the effect of his words on Brokaw. The tenseness left the man's body, his hands unclenched slowly, his heavy jaw relaxed—and David laughed softly. He felt that he was out of deep water now. This fellow, half filled with drink, was wonderfully credulous. And he was sure that his watery eyes could not see very well, though his ears had heard distinctly.

"She was looking at you, Brokaw—straight at you when she said good night," he added.

"You sure—sure she said it to me, Mac?"

David nodded, even as his blood ran a little cold.

A leering grin of joy spread over Brokaw's face.

"The—the little devil!" he gloated.

"What does it mean?" David asked. "Sakewawin? I've never heard it."

He lied calmly, turning his head a bit out of the light.

Brokaw stared at him a moment before answering.

"When a girl says that, it means—she

belongs to you," he said. "In Indian it means—possession. Dam'—of course you're right! She said it to me. She's mine. She belongs to me. I own her. And I thought—"

He caught up the bottle and turned out half a glass of liquor, swaying unsteadily.

"Drink, Mac?"

David shook his head.

"Not now. Let's go to your shack, if you've got one. Lots to talk about—old times—Kicking Horse, you know. And this girl? I can't believe it! If it's true you're a lucky dog."

HE was not thinking of consequences—of to-morrow. To-night was all he asked for—alone with Brokaw. That mountain of flesh, stupefied with liquor, was no match for him now. To-morrow he might hold the whip hand, if Hauck did not return too soon. "Lucky dog! Lucky dog!" He kept repeating that. It was like music in Brokaw's ears. And such a girl! An angel! He couldn't believe it!

Brokaw's face was like a red fire in his exultation. He drank the liquor he had proffered David, and drank again, rumbling in his thick chest like some animal. Of course she was an angel! Hadn't he and Hauck and that woman who had died made her grow into an angel—just for him? She belonged to him—always had belonged to him; and he had waited a long time. If she had ever called any other man that name—Sakewawin—he would have killed him. Certain. Killed him dead. This was the first time she had ever called him that. Lucky dog? You bet he was. They'd go to his shack—and talk.

He drank a third time. He rolled heavily as they entered the hall, David praying that they would not meet Hauck. He had his victim. He was sure of him. And the hall was empty. He picked up his gun and pack, and held to Brokaw's arm as they went out into the night.

Brokaw staggered guidingly into a wall of darkness, talking thickly about lucky dogs. They had gone perhaps a hundred paces when he stopped suddenly, very close to something that looked to David like a section of tall fence built of small trees. It was the cage. He jumped at that conclusion before he could see it very clearly in the clouded starlight. From in there came a growling rumble, a deep breath that was like air expelling itself from a bellows, and David saw faintly a huge, motionless shape beyond the stripped and upright sapling trunks.

"Grizzly," said Brokaw, trying to keep himself on an even balance. "Big bear fight to-morrow, Mac. My bear—her bear—great fight! Everybody come in to see it. Nothing like a bear fight, eh? S'prise her, won't it—pretty little wench

---

—when she sees her bear fighting mine? Betcher hundred dollars my bear kills Tara!"

"To-morrow," said David. "I'll bet tomorrow. Where's the shack?"

David pulled his hat over his eyes. Brokaw told him what he and Hauck had planned. The bear in the cage belonged to him—Brokaw. A big brute; fierce; a fighter. Hauck and he were going to bet on his bear because it would surely kill Tara. Make a big clean-up, they would; and they needed the money. The girl had almost spoiled their plans by going away with Tara. And he—Mac—was a devil of a good fellow for bringing her back!

David leaned over and gave Brokaw a jocular slap, forcing a laugh out of himself. "Prettiest kid I ever saw! How did it happen? She hasn't belonged to you very long, eh?"

"Long time, long time," replied Brokaw. "Years ago."

Suddenly he lowered the cup so forcibly that half the liquor spilled.

"Hauck said she didn't," he growled. "Said she didn't belong to me any more, an' I'd have to pay for her keep! I did. I gave him a lot of gold!"

"I should have killed him, shouldn't I, Mac—killed him an' took her?" cried Brokaw huskily. "Like you killed the breed for that long-haired she-devil over at Copper Cliff!"

"I—don't—know," said David slowly, praying that he would not say the wrong thing now. "I don't know what claim you had on her, Brokaw. If I knew—"

"She's mine—been mine ever since she was a baby," he confided, leaning across the table. "Good friend give her to me, Mac—good friend, but a fool!" He chuckled. "Dam' fool!" he repeated. "Any man's a dam' fool to turn down a pretty woman, eh, Mac? An' she was pretty, he says. My girl's mother, you know, so she must have been pretty."

"What happened?" David urged.

"Bucky, my friend, in love with that woman—O'Doone's wife," resumed Brokaw. "Dead crazy, Mac. Crazier'n you were over the breed's woman, only he didn't have the nerve. Just moped around waiting, keeping out of O'Doone's way. Trapper, O'Doone was—or a Company runner; forget which. Anyway, he went in a long trip in winter, and got laid up with a broken leg long way from home. Wife and baby alone, an' Bucky sneaked up one day and found the woman sick with fever—out of her head. An' if she didn't think he was her husband!"

His eyes half closed.

"BUCKY got her to run away with him," continued Brokaw, "her and the kid, while she was still out of her head. Bucky even got her to write a note, he said, telling O'Doone she was sick of him an' was running away with another man. Bucky didn't give his own name, of course. An' the woman didn't know what she was doing. They started west with the kid.

"But all the time Bucky was afraid! He dragged the woman on a sledge, and snow covered their trail. He hid in a cabin a hundred miles from O'Doone's, an' it was here the woman come to her senses. Bucky says she was like a mad woman, and that she ran screeching out into the light, leaving the kid with him. He couldn't find her. She never came back.

"He waited till spring; keeping that child, and then he made up his mind to get her back to O'Doone in some way. He sneaked back to where the cabin had been, and found nothing but char there. It had been burned. Oh, it was funny!

"And after all his trouble he hadn't dared to take O'Doone's place with the woman. Said it was conscience. Bah! he was a fool. You don't get a pretty woman like that very often, eh?

"Came west, Bucky did—with the kid," he went on. "Struck my cabin on the Mackenzie a year later. Told me all about it. Then one day he sneaked away and left her with me, begging me to put her where she'd be safe. I did. Gave her to Hauck's woman, and told her Bucky's story. Later Hauck came over here. Three years ago I come down from the Yukon, and saw the kid. Pretty? Gawd, she was! And she was mine. I told 'em so.

"Mebbe the woman would have cheated me, but I had Hauck on the hip because I saw him kill a man when he was drunk—a white man from MacPherson. Helped him hide the body. And then—oh, it was funny!—I ran across Bucky! He was living in a shack a dozen miles from here, an' he didn't know Marge was the O'Doone baby. I told him a big lie—told him the kid died, an' that I'd heard the woman had killed herself, and that O'Doone was in a lunatic asylum. Mebbe he did have a conscience, the fool! Went away soon after that."

"And this man Bucky—what was his other name, Brokaw?"

Brokaw's voice came in a husky whisper:

"Tavish!"

THE next instant Hauck was in the open door. He did not cross the threshold at once, but stood there for perhaps twenty seconds, his gray, hard face looking in on them.

"I'm sorry," David said. "He's terribly drunk."

"Yes, he's drunk," Hauck said, his voice hard as rock. "Better come to the house. I've got a room for you. There's only one bunk in here—McKenna."

He dragged out the name slowly, a bit tauntingly, it seemed to David. And David laughed. Might as well play his last card well, he thought.

"My name isn't McKenna," he said. "It's David Raine. He made a mistake, and he's so drunk I haven't been able to explain."

Without answering, Hauck backed out of the door. It was an invitation for David to follow.

Hauck led him to a room almost opposite the one Marge had said belonged to her.

"This will be your room while you are our guest," he said.

He tried to speak affably.

"Make yourself at home," he added. "We'll have breakfast in the morning with my niece."

David was glad that he turned away without waiting for an answer. He did not want to talk with Hauck now. He wanted to turn over in his mind what he had learned from Brokaw.

It was Tavish, then—that half mad hermit in his mice-infested cabin—who had been at the bottom of it all! The discovery did not amaze him profoundly. He had never been able to dissociate Tavish from the picture, unreasoning though he confessed himself to be.

His mind leaped back to that scene, years ago, when Marge O'Doone's mother had run shrieking out in the storm of night to escape Tavish, even leaving her baby girl in her madness and terror. Tavish believed she had died. But she had not died!

He was filled with a great desire to go at once to the girl and tell her of this wonderful new fact that had come into her life, and he found himself suddenly at the door of his room, with his fingers on the latch.

He thought of Father Roland, of the mysterious change that came over him that night of Tavish's death, of the mystery-room in the Château where he worshiped at the shrine of a woman and a child who were gone—of—

He clenched his hands and stopped himself. Tavish, the woman, the girl—Father Roland!

He was still pacing his room when the creaking of the door stopped him. In another moment Marge O'Doone stood inside. He had not seen her face so white before. Her eyes were big and glowing darkly—pools of quivering fear, of wild and imploring supplication. She ran to him, and clung to him with her hands at his shoulders, her face close to his.

"Sakewawin—dear Sakewawin—we must go—we must hurry—to-night!"

She was trembling, fairly shivering against him. He put his arms about her.

"What is it, child?" he whispered, his heart choking him suddenly. "What has happened?"

To be continued next week

How Can I Know?

By Albert W. Atwood

How can I know the standing of unlisted stocks, their earning power and their market value?

THIS is a difficult question to answer, because it is so broad and general. By unlisted stocks the correspondent means those that are not admitted to the stock exchanges. In the larger cities, especially New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, there are regular stock exchanges which permit only a limited number of stocks and bonds to be bought and sold, and much information regarding these securities must be furnished by the companies before any "listing," or permission to do business in them, is permitted.

A listed stock may not be better, necessarily, than an unlisted stock, but the presumption is in favor of it. Usually it is a fairly tried and seasoned security, and rarely is it a mere gamble. There are some unlisted stocks better than any listed ones; it is safe to say that the vast majority of unlisted securities available to the public are not so safe as those that have been admitted to quotation on the exchanges, althongh, among the "outside" shares are numerous desirable ones.

But this article is intended to throw light on unlisted stocks, not to describe the other variety. In regard to copper shares, Weed's (formerly Stevens') "Copper Handbook" describes many thousands. It is a standard, reliable work, to be found in any large library, in all brokers' offices, or it may be ordered from a book dealer. Any copper stock not found in this book (unless promoted since the last edition went to press) is hardly worth further attention. A much smaller and cheaper but reliable copper stock manual, and also a similar booklet on Standard Oil stocks and another on "independent" oils, are published by a service company in New York and distributed free by brokers who specialize in these particular securities. From Los Angeles one may purchase for 50 cents a copy of the Oil Bradstreet, which lists only oil companies in the State of California; but there are thousands of them.

This book and Weed's "Copper Handbook" do not give the prices of stocks, but only facts concerning companies.

I am very much afraid the investor who wrote the letter at the head of this article was in hopes that I could tell him of some one book from which he could learn all about unlisted stocks. Now, there are hundreds of thousands of such stocks, and no one hundred books tell all about them. The inquirer should read chapter 8, on "How Can I Learn More About This Subject?" in the booklet, "Making Your Money Work for You," a copy of which will be sent by the editor of this magazine for 4 cents in stamps. He should obtain from brokers who specialize in outside securities in such cities as Boston and New York copies of their circulars; and, above all, he should learn to read the financial pages of newspapers.

Newspaper Stock Quotations

TIME and again, inquiries come to this department asking where the quotation for a certain stock may be found. Nine times out of ten it appears on the financial page of any leading newspaper, especially in the New York papers—which, as a rule, cover more different markets in their stock quotations than papers in other cities. Before me is one New York paper—and nearly all others are as complete or more so—which gives, in addition to all quotations on the New York Stock Exchange and the Consolidated Stock Exchange of New York, the following quotations:

New York City bonds; Standard Oil group; mining stocks in San Francisco, Tonopah, Goldfield, and Colorado Springs; tobacco stocks; Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Chicago, and Philadelphia stock exchanges; Boston curb; railway equipment bonds; short-term notes; auction sales; public utilities (about one hundred different quotations); munition stocks; and, finally, the New York curb list, with quotations on perhaps 250 miscellaneous securities.

As to the standing and earning power of unlisted stocks, if nothing is to be found in any of the books mentioned in this article or in the more extended list of books, periodicals, and newspapers mentioned in Chapter 8 of "Making Your Money Work for You," the search for information will not be an easy one. Other resources are the following: statistical departments of brokers and investment bankers (which are often very complete), financial editors of newspapers and magazines, bank officials and bank credit departments, and reporting agencies, the names of which in each city may be obtanied from the banks, and which will make reports for a regular fee.

Free Booklets that You May Have for the Asking

Arrangements have been made by which any reader mentioning this magazine may have any or all of the following booklets on request.

Slattery & Co., 40 Exchange Place, New York, issue the "Investor's Pocket Manual," giving important corporation statistics, which will be sent upon request, including booklet explaining the Twenty Payment Plan. Ask for 22-E.

The partial-payment method of saving and investing is interestingly described in Booklet L-2, entitled, "The Partial-Payment Plan," which will be sent to any applicant by Sheldon, Morgan & Co., members New York Stock Exchange, 42 Broadway, New York.

The American Investor is a monthly magazine of human and timely interest. The publishers will send a complimentary copy to any one interested in making sound investments. Address Department 12, 10 Pine Street, New York City.

The Citizens Savings & Trust Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, will furnish to our readers, upon request, Booklet P, which contains some very interesting information on banking by mail.

The Odd Lot Review is a weekly publication written in plain English, in terms which the average man can understand. It aims to give a common-sense view of small investment opportunities. Sample copies will be sent on application to the publishers, 61 Broadway, New York City.

A calendar of approximate dividend dates of stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange will be sent by Baruch Brothers, members New York Stock Exchange, 60 Broadway, New York. The firm will also send their booklet on Odd Lots, outlining their Instalment Payment Plan, on request.

Any one interested in the Motor Stocks should send to L. R. Latrobe & Co., 111 Broadway, New York City, for their booklet E. E. 6. This firm also has a Partial Payment Plan for the purchase of all Curb and Stock Exchange Securities, which they will send on request.

An investor's folder entitled "Questions and Answers" on securities is issued for free distribution by J. Prank Howell, 52 Broadway, New York. Write for your copy of this timely folder, E. W.

Williams, Troth & Coleman, Investment Securities, 60 Wall Street, New York, offer public utility preferred stocks, yielding 5 to 8 per cent., and common stocks with enhancement possibilities. This offering is outlined in "Current Letter B," a copy of which will be supplied on written request by the above-named firm.

In their booklet "How," E. F. Coombs & Co., 122 Broadway, New York, describe a small-payment plan for the purchase of bonds in denominations of $100, $500, and $1000, which enables investors to take advantage of current price without increasing the cost of the bonds.

First mortgage buyers will be interested in the Investor's Guide, published monthly by the National Bond & Mortgage Trust Company, 2940 Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. The Guide is sent free. Write and ask them to put you on the mailing list.

Free copy of the Unlisted Securities Review and Circular 66 will be sent on request by Dawson, Lyon & Co. 42 Wall St., New York. This firm quotes markets in all unlisted stocks and bonds. The Review contains suggestions for investment, as well as list of 75 unlisted stocks with their quotatations, dividend rates, etc.

"The Partial Payment Plan," booklet B 33, describing how you may purchase stocks and bonds, will be sent upon request to any one interested in this subject. Address John Muir & Co., 61 Broadway, New York City.

A special booklet on Motor Stocks, giving full financial data of the important companies, with other valuable information, has been issued for free distribution by Messrs. Andrews & Co., dealers in investment securities, 108 S. La Salle St., Chicago, Ill.

Mr. Atwood has written a financial booklet, "Making Your Money Work for You," especially for our readers. Write him at 95 Madison Avenue, New York, enclosing four cents in stamps, if you want a copy.

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