A Few Kind Words For Business

I GRADUATED from college when muckraking was in its greatest glory.

The magazines and newspapers and reformers had filled our youthful minds with so much distressing information that we hardly knew whether the world was a safe place for us to step out into or not.

We looked askance on all the fellows in college whose fathers had made money. To be sure, the fathers seemed decent enough old codgers when they visited us at the fraternity house. But we felt that something was dark and had in their past somewhere.

We wouldn't have been seen walking on the street with John D. Rockefeller for anything.

I remember visiting Washington and looking at the United States Senate. I felt as if I were visiting Sing Sing.

There was So-and-So from Texas: the Oil Trust owned him. There was So-and-So from Wisconsin: the railroads owned him. And so on.

All there through some unholy alliance.

All city governments were corrupt; all laws were passed from evil motives; all business was yoked together in a vast unseen network, formed and fostered to exploit the nation.

A business man was a being without conscience or intelligence, like a slot machine. You gave him a nickel and he gave you a nickel's worth of goods.

If he took your nickel and gave you nothing in return, then he was a successful business man.

Running a magazine was very easy in those days.

All one had to do was to take down a map of the United States and place his finger on any spot—say Owosso, Michigan. Then call in a writer and say, "Get on the train and go out and see what is rotten in Owosso."

Muckraking did some good: but we have come to realize now that it overplayed its hand.

In fact, I believe it could be shown that the greatest force for righteousness in the United States to-day is nothing more nor less than the once maligned BUSINESS.

Certainly Business is the greatest force in America working for temperance.

The young men of half a century ago were pretty heavy drinkers. The young men of to-day have given up drink.

Not because they were argued into it or scared into it: but because they know that it destroys their efficiency and cripples their progress in Business.

Business is the greatest ally and promoter of Honesty. And more and more I have come to feel that Honesty is, after all, the corner-stone of all the virtues.

I have seen a business man refuse to sign a document that contained the tiniest little misstatement—a misstatement that probably never would have been detected, and would have meant thousands of dollars in profits to him.

I have seen a man whose time is worth a thousand dollars a day spend half an hour editing a single advertisement—so jealous was he of his firm's reputation for never making a false claim or an extravagant assertion.

Business has taught that honesty is the best policy; and millions of young men have been made better citizens by first being made better business men.

Nothing has impressed me more than this: Get to the top of a big business enterprise, and nine times out of ten you will find an idealist.

You will find a man who has long since ceased to be interested in mere money-making, who is staying in business because of what he wants his business to do for his employees, his community, and his country.

I do not say that Business is perfect. Far from it.

But I do say that the time is past when the young man who goes into business needs to feel that he is making a selfish choice—a choice that cuts him off from service to his fellow men.

"Be not slothful in business," said St. Paul, "fervent in spirit; serving the Lord."

Many a man, building a big business in America, has, as a by-product of his building, strengthened the characters and lifted the ideals of hundreds of his associates, and helped in the regeneration of a whole community.

And the number of such men—the idealists of BUSINESS in America—is increasing very fast.

THE ETIQUETTE OF HIGH FINANCE

By B. C. FORBES

THE Kings of High Finance have rules of etiquette stricter than those of the most autocratic sovereigns. The etiquette of High Finance, indeed, resembles the caste system of India.

The King of England, the Emperor of Germany, or the Czar of Russia did not disdain, in peace times, to pay a return visit to any other ruler, no matter how insignificant.

The more powerful Kings of High Finance refuse to pay return visits to financial nabobs only a little lower in the money scale.

Jealousies often arise between two financiers or bankers, each obsessed with the idea that he ranks higher than the other, and is therefore entitled to sit on his own throne and receive the other in audience. Several years may pass without an exchange of visits between such contenders for homage.

There is no written code, of course. The financial rulers seldom, if ever, discuss the matter among themselves. And the public are probably wholly ignorant that any such system of etiquette in High Finance exists. The two basic rules are: The very great financier will not visit the office of any ordinary banker or financier under any circumstances. If the big fellow wants to see the little fellow his secretary sends a summons by telephone. When two financiers are of about equal standing, the one who wants to see the other does the visiting.

The original J. P. Morgan was the greatest autocrat American finance has ever known, although Edward H. Harriman, in his later years, contracted the notion that it was his prerogative to sit on his throne and be kowtowed to by the greatest men in the land. Morgan got away with it; Harriman didn't.

When Jack Morgan took up the scepter of J. P. Morgan the first, money magnates who did not resent bowing down to the greatest of all American bankers balked at jumping at the crack of the young Morgan whip. For a time there was secret insurgency; the financial community would not recognize Morgan the Second as their ruler.

Morgan the Second

BUT when Morgan & Company were appointed purchasing and financial agents for the European Allies and given sole control of expenditures running into the billions, the amount of patronage at the command of Morgan the Second brought most of the rebels groveling to his feet. Since then J. P. Morgan has been widely recognized as the chief ruler of the financial realm, and few men have hesitated to respond to a summons from his financial palace. Like his father, Morgan now does no professional visiting; he only "receives." Such stalwarts as Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank; A. Barton Hepburn, chairman of the Chase National Bank; Charles H. Sabin, president of the Guaranty Trust Company, may be seen any day entering the "Corner House."

Jacob H. Schiff, however, has not accepted the Morgan rulership. Mr. Schiff is the veteran head of the international banking firm of Kuhn, Loch & Co., which is now recognized as even more influential than Mogan & Company in the financing of America's railroad systems. For years there was rivalry between the late J. P. Morgan and Mr. Schiff, but when the 1907 panic threatened to topple over the whole financial structure, Jacob H. Schiff fell into line the day Morgan issued an order to the financial powers to step up to his desk. At that critical time Morgan ruled with a rod of iron and none dared say him nay.

But when Morgan & Company undertook to float the $500,000,000 loan for the Allies last year, Kuhn, Loeb & Co., as well as several other prominent banking houses, were at first ignored. How to remedy this tactical blunder was a problem hard to solve. Mr. Morgan did not care to risk being snubbed by Mr. Schiff, yet the Anglo-French Commission was anxious to gain the Kuhn-Loeb cooperation. Baron Reading, Lord Chief Justice of England and chairman of the Commission, held several secret conferences with Mr. Schiff, and finally James J. Hill was called in to act as mediator. Mr. Hill, after discussing the situation with Mr. Morgan and the Commission, went to Mr. Schiff's office and tendered an invitation to join the negotiations.

The newspapers reported that Mr. Morgan thereafter visited Mr. Schiff and that Mr. Schiff returned the visit next day. Mr. Schiff and Mr. Morgan are now good personal friends, although still financial rivals. Neither, however, has accepted the leadership of the other, and there is no record of any visiting since.

Mr. Schiff is not a stickler for etiquette. He may be seen walking into the City Bank to chat with Mr. Vanderlip any day of the week. When he wants to talk anything over with other big men he has no scruples about going to see them, even though a note or a telephone message requesting a call would be willingly honored, as Mr. Schiff's age as well as his prestige have won him recognition as a power second to none in High Finance. James Stillman, the chairman and largest stockholder of the National City Bank, does not hesitate to pay his respects to the Kuhn-Loeb partners during his annual stay in this country—Mr. Stillman spends about half of every year in Europe.

The newspapers quite recently reported a feud between Vanderlip and Sabin. Mr. Vanderlip does very little visiting; in fact, except for occasional calls at Morgan's, he is never seen in other institutions. Those who have relations with the president of the country's largest national bank, founder of the new $50,000,000 American International Corporation and the head of a gigantic steel and ordnance combination, do not object to visiting him.

But Sabin is president of the biggest trust company in the United States, and one of the most aggressive and progressive men in Wall Street. He was selected by Mr. Vanderlip as a director in the American International Corporation, but after Gaston, Williams & Wigmore had been backed by Sabin in building up a gigantic international enterprise, Sabin suddenly quit the Vanderlip project. It was said that Sabin was not told that the American International had begun to buy up reams of United Fruit Company stock, causing it to rise violently, and that he was very, very angry. The financial paragraphers had Messrs. Vanderlip and Sabin squaring off for a ten-round bout. In the afternoon, unknown to the alert newspaper men, Sabin appeared at the door of the Vanderlip private office. The moment Sabin was ushered in, the two—shook hands! Instead of fisticuffs they had a talk-fest, and enjoyed and laughed over the quips in the morning newspapers.

At Nobody's Beck and Call

SABIN'S rise has been spectacular. When he was only a vice-president he visited right and left, but since he was elevated to the presidential chair he has been more inclined to sit back and let others come to see him. Perhaps only half a dozen financial overlords would not care to respond to a summons from him.

Henry P. Davison, the brains of the Morgan firm, and Albert H. Wiggin,

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A. Barton Hepburn is the most independent national banker in New York. He visits less than any other financier. When he has any dealings with others he lets them know that if they want to come and talk it over he will be glad to see them; if not, they can stay at home. It is related that one day a rather important personage went to see Mr. Hepburn, and overstayed his welcome. One or two hints that it was time for the visitor to go having missed fire, Mr. Hepburn unceremoniously left his desk. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes passed, and then the uneasy financier made inquiries. He was told Mr. Hepburn had gone to lunch!

The richest banker in America attends scores of directors' meetings, but rarely calls upon individuals. The name of our richest banker is not Morgan, not Stillman, not Schiff, not Speyer, not Seligman, but George F. Baker, controller of the First National Bank, and an active member of more directorates of importance than any other man living. He fraternized with the elder J. P. Morgan on most intimate terms, but he keeps so much in the background that his name rarely reaches newspaper columns. An attempt was made by the Pujo "Money Trust" Committee to paint him as an arch-conspirator with Morgan to control and to throttle at will American finance. Yet Baker is one of the meekest of men, the very antithesis of his old chum Morgan. He is perhaps the only banker that young Morgan does not mind honoring with a call.

The telephone often helps to bridge over delicate points of etiquette. Two financiers of about equal importance may be interested in an enterprise. They know they must talk it over. Yet neither wants to go more than half way in meeting the other. No. 1 feels that No. 2 should take the initiative by coming to see him. No. 2 says to himself: "Let No. 1 come to see me; my time is as valuable as his." Day after day a deadlock is threatened. Then, when action can no longer be delayed, one will unhook his telephone, call up the other, and ask, "What about so-and-so?" After a little polite sparring a compromise may be agreed upon in the form of making a luncheon date at the Bankers' Club. Honors are thus even!

The great railroad builder, the late C. P. Huntington, took a novel view of the subject of visiting. "I prefer to go and see any man I have business with, because I can get up and leave the moment I have said all I want to say, whereas, when another man comes to see me, I can't always tell him to get out when I have heard all I want to hear," Mr. Huntington used to say.

Not so with Harriman. His attitude toward even the biggest of financiers latterly became regal. He delighted to order others around—and the bigger the man the more he enjoyed doing the bossing. His actions became so imperious that a newspaper once printed a cartoon representing Harriman as a school master, with such men as J. P. Morgan. James J. Hill, Jacob H. Schiff, James Stillman, and George F. Baker meek and mild pupils cowering under the autocratic teacher. Mr. Harriman was more incensed over this caricature than over any criticism ever published.

What Morgan Called Harriman

FOR years there was bitter enmity between the Harriman and Morgan-Hill forces. Morgan persisted in regarding Harriman as an upstart, as an unscrupulous speculator in railroads. After the famous fight for control of the Northern Pacific, during which the stock of that railroad skyrocketed to $1000 a share, both Morgan and Hill came to have greater respect for "Ed's" abilities. The indications before Harriman died were that he and Morgan had planned to work hand in glove.

The throwing into bankruptcy of the Erie Railroad was all cut and dried when, just before the papers were signed, Harriman swooped down and stopped the Morgan game. Before ten o'clock one morning he put up $5,000,000 out of his own pocket, and later spent more millions in what became known all over America and Europe as "saving the Erie." Harriman aimed at gaining a foothold in New York Central, one of the two pet roads of Morgan—New Haven was the other. Morgan was compelled to recognize the power of Harriman, and had Harriman lived a year or two longer American railroad history would have taken a different curve.

Financial etiquette provides that railroad presidents visit bankers, not vice versa. Samuel Rea, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, comes to the city and steps into Kuhn, Loeb & Co.'s whenever important financing has to be arranged. Young Cornelius Vanderbilt is another frequent Kuhn-Loeb caller. The Vanderbilts are also visitors to Morgan's. Daniel Willard, the forceful president of the Baltimore & Ohio, may be seen entering both Kuhn-Loeb's and Speyer & Company's any afternoon. The biblical decree, "The borrower is servant to the lender," holds good in Wall Street. The fellow who holds the purse strings has the whip hand. Heads of great railroad and industrial corporations never think of telling their bankers to come and talk things over; instead, they go and talk things over.

In Wall Street it is essentially true that "money talks."

The Triflers

By FREDERICK ORIN BARTLETT

Illustration by George E. Wolfe

EVERYTHING considered, Monte should have been glad at the revelation Beatrice made to him. If Peter were in love with Marjory and she with Peter—why, it solved his own problem, by the simple process of elimination, neatly and with despatch. All that remained for him to do was to remove himself from the awkward triangle as soon as possible. He must leave Marjory free, and Peter would look after the rest. No doubt a divorce on the grounds of desertion could be easily arranged; and thus, by that one stroke, they two would be made happy, and he—well, what the devil was to become of him?

The answer was obvious. It did not matter a picayune to any one what became of him. What had he ever done to make his life worth while to any one? He had never done any particular harm, that was true; but neither had he done any particular good. It is the positive things that count, when a man stands before the judgment-seat; and that is where Monte stood on the night Marjory came back from Cannes by the side of Peter, with her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed as if she had come straight from Eden.

They all dined together, and Monte grubbed hungrily for every look she vouchsafed him, for every word she tossed him. She had been more than ordinarily vivacious, spurred on partly by Beatrice and partly by Peter. Monte had felt himself merely an onlooker. That, in fact, was all he was. That was all he had been his whole life.

He dodged Peter this evening to escape their usual after-dinner talk, and went to his room. He was there now, with his face white and tense.

HE had been densely stupid from the first, as Beatrice had informed him. Any man of the word ought to have suspected something when, at the first sight of Peter, she ran away. She had never run from him. Women run only when there is danger of capture, and she had nothing to fear from him in that way. She was safe with him. She dared even come with him to escape those from whom there might be some possible danger. Until now he had been rather proud of this—as if it were some honor. She had trusted him as she would not trust other men. It had made him throw back his shoulders—dense fool that he was!

She had trusted him because she did not fear him; she did not fear him because there was nothing in him to fear. It was not that he was more decent than other men: it was merely because he was less of a man. Why, she had run even from Peter—good, honest, conscientious Peter, with the heart and the soul and the nerve of a man. Peter had sent her scurrying before him because of the great love he dared to have for her. Peter challenged her to take up life with him—to buck New York with him. This was after he had waded in himself with naked fists, man-fashion. That was what gave Peter his right.

Monte had a grandfather who in '49 crossed the plains. A picture of him hung in the Covington house in Philadelphia. The painting revealed steel-gray eyes and, even below the beard of respectability, a mouth that in many ways was like Peter's. Montague Sears Covington—that was his name; the name that had been handed down to Monte. The man had shouldered a rifle, fought his way across deserts and over mountain paths, had risked his life a dozen times a day to reach the unknown El Dorado of the West. He had done this partly for a woman—a slip of a girl in New York whom he left behind to wait for him.

Monte, in spite of his ancestry, had jogged along, dodging the responsibilities—the responsibilities that Peter Noyes rushed forward to meet. He had ducked even love, even fatherhood. Like any quitter on the gridiron, instead of tackling low and hard, he had side-stepped. He had seen Chic in agony, and because of that had taken the next boat for Marseilles. He had turned tail and run. He had seen Teddy, and had run to what he thought was safe cover. If he paid the cost after that, whose the fault? The least he could do now was to pay the cost like a man.

Here was the salient necessity—to pay the cost like a man. There must be no whining, no regretting, no side-stepping this time. He must make her free by surrendering all his own rights, privelages, and title. He must turn her over to Peter, who had played the game. He must do more: he must see that she went to Peter.

BEATRICE had asked him to use his influence. It was slight, pitifully slight, but he must do what he could. He must plan for them, deliberately, more such opportunities as this one he had planned for them unconsciously to-day. He must give them more chances to be together. He had looked forward to having breakfast with her in the morning. He must give up that. He must keep himself in the background while he was here, and then, at the right moment, get out altogether.

Technically, he must desert her. He must make that supreme sacrifice. At the moment when he stood ready to challenge the world for her—at the moment when his heart within him burned to face for her all the dangers from which he had run—at that point he must relinquish even this privilege, and with smiling lips pose before the world and before her as a quitter. He must not even use the deserter's prerogative of running. He must leave her cheerfully and jauntily—as the care-free ass known to her and to the world as just Monte.

THE scorn of those words stung him white with helpless passion. She had wished him always to be just Monte, because she thought that was the best there was in him. As such he was at least harmless—a good-natured chump to be trusted to do no harm, if he did no good. The grandson of the Covington who had faced thirst and hunger and sudden death for his woman, who had won for her a fortune fighting against other strong men, the grandson of a man who had tackled life like a man, must sacrifice his one chance to allow this ancestor to know his own as a man. He could have met him chin up with Madame Covington on his arm. He had that chance once.

How ever had he missed it? He sat there with his fists clenched between his knees, asking himself the question over and over again. He had known her for more than a decade. As a school girl he had seen her at Chic's, and now ten years later he saw that even then she had within her all that she now had. That clear, white forehead had been there then; the black arched brows, the thin, straight nose, and the mobile lips. He caught his breath as he thought of those lips. Her eyes, too—but no, a change had taken place there. He had always thought of her eyes as cold—as impenetrable. They were not that now. Once or twice he thought he had seen into them a little way. Once or twice they had been like windows in a long-closed house, suddenly flung open upon warm rooms filled with flowers. It made him dizzy to remember those moments.

He paced his room. In another week or two, if he had kept on,—if Peter had not come,—he might have been admitted further into that house. He squared his shoulders. If he fought for his own even now—if, man against man, he challenged Peter for her—he might have a fighting chance. Was not that his right? In New York, in the world outside New York,

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He was ready now to face the world with her. He was eager to do that. Neither heights nor depths held any terrors for him. He envied Chic—he envied even poor mad Hamilton.

If he could only be given another chance to do something for Marjory—something that would bite into him, something that would twist his body and maul him! If he could not face some serious physical danger for her, then some great sacrifice—

Which was precisely the opportunity now offered him. He had been considering this sacrifice from his own personal point of view. He had looked upon it as merely a personal punishment. But, after all, it was for her. It was for her alone. Peter played no part in it whatever. Neither did he himself. It was for her—for her!

Monte set his jaws. If, through Peter, he could bring her happiness, then that was all the reward he could ask for. Here was a man who loved her, who would be good to her and fight hard for her. He was just the sort of man he could trust her to. If he could see them settled in New York, as Chic and Mrs. Chic were settled, see them start the brave adventure, then he would have accomplished more than he had ever been able to accomplish so far.

There was no need of thinking beyond that point. What became of his life after that did not matter in the slightest. Wherever he was, he would always know that she was where she belonged, and that was enough. He must hold fast to that thought.

A knock at his door made him turn on his heels.

"Who's that?" he demanded.

"It's I—Noyes," came the answer. "Have you gone to bed yet?"

Monte swung open the door.

"Come in," he said"

"I thought I'd like to talk with you, if it isn't too late," explained Peter nervously.

"On the contrary, you couldn't have come more opportunely. I was just thinking about you."

He led Peter to a chair.

"Sit down and make yourself comfortable."

MONTE lighted a cigarette, sank into a near-by chair, and waited.

"Beatrice said she told you," began Peter.

"She did," answered Monte. "I'd congratulate you if it wouldn't be so manifestly superfluous."

"I didn't realize she was an old friend of yours."

"I've known her for ten years," said Monte.

"It's wonderful to have known her as long as that. I envy you."

"That's strange, because I almost envy you."

Peter laughed.

"I have a notion I'd be worried if you weren't already married, Covington."

"Worried?"

"I think Mrs. Covington must be a good deal like her."

"She is," admitted Monte.

"So, if I hadn't been lucky enough to find you already suited, you might have given me a race."

You forget that the ladies themselves have some voice in those matters," Monte replied slowly.

"I have better reasons for not forgetting that than you," answered Peter.

Monte started.

"I wasn't thinking of that," he put in quickly. "Besides, you didn't give Marjory a fair chance. Her aunt had just died, and she—well, she has learned a lot since then."

"She has changed!" exclaimed Peter. "I noticed it at once; but I was almost afraid to believe it. She seems steadier—more serious."

"Yes."

"You've seen a good deal of her recently?"

"For the last two or three weeks," answered Monte.

"You don't mind my talking to you about her?"

"Not at all."

"As you're an old friend of hers, I feel as if I had the right."

"Go ahead."

"It seems to me as if she had suddenly grown from a girl to a woman. I saw the woman in her all the time. It—it was to her I spoke before. Maybe, as you said, the woman wasn't quite ready."

"I'm sure of it."

"You speak with conviction."

"As I told you, I've come to know her better these last few weeks than ever before. I've had a chance to study her. She's had a chance, too, to study—other men. There's been one in particular—"

Peter straightened a bit.

"One in particular?" he demanded aggressively.

"No one you need have any fear of," replied Monte. "In a way, it's because of him that your own chances have improved."

"How?"

"It has given her an opportunity to compare him with you."

"Are you at liberty to tell me about him?"

"Yes; I think I have that right," replied Monte. "I'll not be violating any confidences, because what I know about him I know from the man himself. Furthermore, it was I who introduced him to her."

"Oh—a friend of yours."

"Not a friend, exactly; an acquaintance of long standing would be more accurate. I've been in touch with him all my life, but it's only lately I've felt that I was really getting to know him."

"Is he here in Nice now?" inquired Peter.

"No," answered Monte slowly. "He went away a little while ago. He went suddenly—God knows where. I don't think he will ever come back."

"You can't help pitying the poor devil."

"But he wasn't good enough for her. It was his own fault too, so he isn't deserving even of pity."

"Probably that makes it all the harder. What was the matter with him?"

"He was one of the kind we spoke of the other night—the kind who always sits in the grand-stand instead of getting into the game."

"Pardon me if I'm wrong, but—I thought you spoke rather sympathetically of that kind the other night."

"I was probably reflecting his views," Monte parried.

"That accounts for it," returned Peter. "Somehow, it did't sound consistent in you. I wish I could see your face, Covington."

"Marjory liked this fellow well enough because—well, because he looked more or less like a man. He was big physically, and all that. Besides, his ancestors were all men, and I suppose they handed down something."

"What was his name?"

"I think I'd rather not tell you that.

"I understand."

"So she let herself see a good deal of him. He was able to amuse her. That kind of fellow generally can entertain a woman. In fact, that is about all they are good for. She had had a hard time of it, and wanted a bit of amusement. Maybe she fancied that was all she ever wanted; but—well, there was more in her than she knew herself."

"A thousand times more!" exclaimed Peter.

"She found it out. Perhaps, after all, this fellow served his purpose in helping her to realize that."

"Perhaps."

"So, after that, he left."

"And he cared for her?"

"Yes."

"Poor devil!"

"I don't know," mused Monte. "He seemed, on the whole rather glad that he had been able to do that much for her."

"I'd like to meet that man some day. I have a notion there is more in him than you give him credit for, Covington."

"I doubt it."

"A man who would give her up—

"She's the sort of woman a man would want to do his level best for," broke in Monte. "If that meant giving her up,—if the fellow felt he wasn't big enough for her,—then he couldn't do anything else, could he?"

"The kind big enough to consider that would be big enough for her," declared Peter.

Monte drew a quick breath.

"I think he would like to hear that. You see, it's the first real sacrifice he ever undertook."

"It may be the making of him."

"Perhaps."

"He'll always have her before him as an ideal. When you come in touch with such a woman as she—you can't lose, Covington, no matter how things turn out."

"I'll tell him that too."

"It's what I tell myself over and over again. To-day—well, I had an idea there must be some one in the background of her life I didn't know about."

"You'd better get that out of your head. This man isn't even in the background, Noyes."

"I'm not so sure. I thought she seemed worried. I tried to make her tell me, but she only laughed. She'd face death with a smile, that woman. I got to thinking

Continued on page 18

Via the Milky Way

By HERMANN BACHER DEUTSCH

Illustrations by Jack Flanagan

PODGIE was looking for a dog to kick. So was the Honorable Tim. And as for Mary—well, Mary would have told you that she wanted something soft to jab with a hat-pin. Kicking was unladylike; and, anyway, Mary's modishly short skirt was of an extreme diameter which would have rendered it most probable that swinging one foot violently would simply have jerked the other one out from under her. But, bless your heart, she was angry!

As if she hadn't any right to be. Five weeks it was since Podgie's telegram had informed her that he had landed at Amsterdam,—five weeks and two days, to be exact,—and not a line from him since. Mary banged the keys on her typewriter with an energy that threatened to impress Dear Sir permanently upon the hard rubber platen.

As for Podgie, he was at that precise moment gazing at the milk-cart of a Belgian peasant girl—a cart to which were hitched the two largest mastiffs Podgie had ever seen. They were too large to kick with any degree of subsequent satisfaction, he reflected bitterly. Then he sat up very straight and turned to the blond young officer beside him.

"I say, Lieut," he demanded, "is there anything in the regulations or the tribal laws of the Huns which prohibits a special correspondent's buying himself a glass of milk at nine-twenty-eight on cloudy Thursday mornings?"

Lieutenant Rudolf Karl von Becker smiled.

"Not a thing," he replied.

ON an afternoon newspaper there is a brief period, just before the beginning of the dog-watch, when the members of the regular trick sit around with nothing to do but wait for the command, "All right, Smith, Brown, Jones, or Robinson; that'll be all for to-day."

Smith, Brown, et al., wearily waiting for the command that will send them home, review in swift, biting phrases the major events of the day's history. Here are no libel laws to hamper one's expression, no split infinitive or hanging participle rules to mar the freedom of one's utterance, and no preferred lists to be on the lookout for.

BUT for once, in the far corner of the Star's local room, no characters were blasted, no solid financial standings wrecked, and no hitherto flawless political integrities assailed. A foreign archduke had been assassinated; the Bear had growled, and the Hun, the Gaul, and the Briton had given tongue. And it was known in the Star's local room that a special would be sent abroad.

"Who d'ye s'pose they will send?" was the topic of the day—grammar is discarded in the interregnum that precedes the dog-watch.

Podgie—otherwise "Podgett, sir, of the Star"—leisurely reached up and scratched a match on the card bearing the red-lettered legend, "Smoking Positively Forbidden."

"They'll send the best one here," he said, as he lighted his cigarette.

"Marvelous, Podgie, marvelous," scornfully quoted Slats Channing. "I call that some deduction. Gosh! you can't keep anything away from these lynx-eyed reporter-men, can you?"

"Go on, Podgie, continue. You interest me strangely," added Tom Craig. "I'll bite. Who is the best man they've got?"

"Modesty forbids that I should name him," replied Podgy loftily.

"Modesty!" scoffed Tad Horner. "Jealousy, you mean. Now, I am a man singularly free from vanity."

Podgie went through the show of clapping his hands in mute applause.

"Author! Author!" he cried.

"Close quotes yourself," retorted Horner, with justifiable bitterness. "You're no beacon-light of originality."

"No," said Podgie bashfully; "I'm a blushing violet, or else I'd confess why the Honorable Tim will send me."

A buzzer shrilled through the low drone of the local room, and Meyer Romanoff, senior copy-boy, left his stool with a bound and headed for the elevator.

"There goes the hot heir to the Russian throne bound for the boss's office now. I'll match nickels—no, pennies; money is a base mirage when you're a long, long way from Saturday noon—I'll match pennies to see who'll be sent across."

"I wish I had your hot-blooded temperament, Slats," sighed Craig. "Having mortgaged my next week's expense account, I am strangely immune to the gambling fever. If only the impetuous Southern blood of Wausau, Wisconsin, did not riot so madly through my veins!"

Meyer reappeared, his broad countenance heavy with the portent of impending fate.

"Gimme a cigarette," he demanded.

"Spit it out, Nutsheimer, spit it out!" said Horner irritably. "Who's elected?"

"You're wanted upstairs," remarked Meyer impersonally.

"Who is?" they chorused.

"Podgett," replied Moyer grudgingly. "Now gimme a cigarette."

But Podgie was gone.

"Oh, would that he were a bird," grumbled Channing. "Who'd 'a' thunk it! Podgie! Managerial senility, I call it."

"Yah, Podgie," mourned Tad Horner. "Podgie sits at his typewriter and is clever in the sweat of his convolutions. 'S a damn shame. Think what I could 'a' done, with my unerring instinct for truth and accuracy."

"G'wan; we know that song and dance," scoffed Craig. "The Honorable Tim is sending Podgie because that kid's the best feature writer in this town, even if he is working for this ratty rag on a salary of twenty-five per—haps. You watch that li'l ol' news-hound make good."

UP in the Honorable Tim's sanctumest sanctum, Podgie was receiving instructions.

"New stuff! 'S what we want," the Honorable roared at him cheerfully. "A.P.'ll send us tactics and tech'calities. Leave a man cold. Readers don't give a tinker's dam' 'bout strategical import'nce Fort Pajama. Wanna read 'bout battle 'n' sudden death. You give it to 'em. See?"

Oh, yes, Podgie saw. Stumbling over two chairs and bumping into a filing cabinet, he walked straight into the wall, bowed, murmured an apology to the water-cooler, and somehow passed out, through the door whose ground-glass panel bore the portentous word, "Private," while the Honorable Tim bellowed parting instructions.

"See Caldwell 'bout letter of credit—don't forget register with censors—apply consul Amsterdam—day press rates," registered themselves feebly against a consciousness that was striving to encompass the tremendous fact that he, Podgie, would be the Star's special abroad. How he would—

"It's no use. It's locked, and I don't know the combination," a clear, cool voice warned him.

Podgie looked up with a start, and dropped his hand from the combination-knob of the big vault door through which he had been trying to get to the elevator.

"Oh, that," he said airily. "Mere abstraction of genius, I assure you. Me and C. Dickens, you know—both absent-minded. By the way, Mary, I'm leaving."

"Leaving!" echoed Mary blankly.

As a matter of statistics and record, Mary was the Honorable Tim's private stenographer. As a matter of fact, she was the Star's goddess. The editorial, advertising, and other staffs alike worshiped Mary by brigades and platoons. No new reporter was considered eligible to the Star's inner circle until he had proposed to Mary.

"I'm so sorry," she always told them. "I'm so fond of you all—I could be so happy with either—any, I mean—were the other nineteen or twenty-seven away. Please don't take it to heart."

It was the initiatory rite.

But Podgie! Mary had known Podgie long before they had both come to work on the Star. They hailed from the same inevitable small town somewhere. Podgie—she wondered whether she had heard aright—Podgie was leaving!

"Yes, leaving," Podgie replied.

"But what have you done, Podgie?"

"Me—I've made good," he assured her joyously. "Oh, no; they're not canning me just yet, thank you. But the moors and fens and bosky dells of South Market, Street shall know me no more for a space""

He shouldered an imaginary rifle and marked time, singing:

"Podgie, stop that nonsense this minute. Why are you going—where, when?"

"Because I'm good—because I'm awfully good—and say my prayers every night: 'Bless faver and muvver and Mary and the Honorable Tim and make me a war correspondent.' To the German headquarters in Belgium or France, wherever they happen to be when I get there. By the next taxi, choo-choo train, and passenger-boat."

"Oh, Podgie, I guess that's poor!"

Podgie struck an attitude.

"'General von Hindenburg, allow me to present Mr. Carter Podgett, of the Star.' 'Why, howdy, Gen. How's every little thing to-day? What's the dope on the next attack? I wanna be where I can look things over. Be a good fellow and slip me the office on your next little hating-bee' 'Sure thing, Podgie. You make the press notices good and strong on how we captured the village of Dopeville-on-the Wiser, and we'll split a little case of wet goods after the fracas.' Good old scout the general is, eh, Mary?"

"Podgie, you are a man singularly free from vanity."

He stopped short.

"You've been talking to Tad Horner."

"Don't forget," she replied gently, "that the law forbidding conversation between Tad Horner and me was repealed at the last general session."

"And you read that in a book, too." He regarded her mournfully. "Originality is the half-sole of wit. Epigram."

"That's not an epigram; that's an insult. But, Podgie, it really is splendid—your going away, I mean, not the insult."

"Well, I like that! If that's the way you feel about it, why—"

"No, please, Podgie! You know what I mean, so don't be horrid."

PODGIE looked into Mary's countenance, and something he saw there checked the flippant reply on his tongue. A woe-begone something, it was; a distinctly unhappy something, traceable to no other cause than Podgie's departure. And through Podgie's heart there surged a great joy.

"Why—why—Mary—why—but you really don't—can't—Mary!" he said lucidly.

And Mary, flopping dolefully forward over her typewriter, buried her face in her arms and wept.

The interlude, gentle reader, is no business of yours. You'll know what

Page 7

"And here I was," Podgie said after a space, "all ready to wait a couple of years till the weekly insult got big enough to give me the chance to settle down as a solid citizen and delicatessen-store taxpayer! Mary, the boss is handing me seventy fish per each and every on this stunt. Maybe that's rotten, what?"

"And oh, Podgie, they have some little houses out in Rosedale that are perfect doves. When you come back—"

Podgie's reply, when he made it, was wholly irrelevant.

"Just one more, Mary," he said at length. "Remember, I'm going away."

And now five weeks,—five whole weeks and two days over,—and not so much as a picture post-card of a battle scene with "Cross marks spot where I stood, and means—you know what" scrawled over it. As for the Honorable Tim, he was providentially unquotable. A bellow, thinly muffled by a partition, caused the ground-glass marked "Private" to rattle in its fastenings.

PODGIE, who was an experiment by the Honorable Tim in "new blood, sir," in which that gentleman firmly believed, had gleaned most of his ideas of the duties of war correspondents from a careful reading of "The Light that Failed." He had a vague notion that if you carried a knapsack full of provisions not ordinarily included in army rations you would forthwith be taken into the councils of generals hungry alike for real food and good publicity.

He reached Brussels via Amsterdam, and looked up the American consul as per instructions. That much harassed individual was acting as representative pro tem. for three or four belligerent nations. His spare time he filled in by trying to see that trainloads of American tourists were convoyed with more or less safety in a general westerly direction.

Therefore, when Podgie finally scrambled through the crowd the consular ante-room, he was given a painful surprise.

"Yes, of course, Mr. Podgett," said the consul. "Sorry I can't be of any help to you at present. Drop around in a couple of weeks, when these maniacs have gone, and I'll fix up your credentials."

Podgie went away. There didn't seem to be anything else to do. As for his luggage—well, he had already seen enough to know that any hope of recovering that was destined to be unfulfilled. He had his nice new shiny kodak, a portable typewriter, and a plentiful supply of paper.

He sat at a sidewalk table, sipping what he had purchased under the deceptive title of an "American mixed drink."

"I'll hand it to you," he apostrophized his glass, "that you're mixed—you taste like a bar-room equivalent for hash, and you're just about as inspiring. Gee! I sure gotta think this thing over."

The result of his cogitations he summarized thus: First, one observed that people bearing huge bundles or dragging carts loaded with household goods arrived constantly in the city, mainly from the south and east. Secondly, one had merely to follow this line to its source, proceeding always in a direction opposite to that of the fugitives. Thirdly, one must hurry, which meant that one would proceed to charge the Star's expense account with automobile hire.

He looked up and down the street, and noticed for the first time the absence of all power- or horse-driven vehicles. Then he remembered the stories he had heard at Amsterdam.

"Commandeered by the army, of course—worse luck! In the name of his Majesty the King, kick in! Come through with that flivver, thank you, and here's a quartermaster's receipt for it. Oh, sure, for the full value—it's just as well secured as a man on a burning tight rope over the bottomless pit. Well, here's where Podgett of the Star goes scouting. Guess a fellow ought to be able to dig up some sort of a crowbait."

His folding - typewriter - and - stand satchel in one hand, his kodak slung neatly over one hip, Podgie scoured the alleys and by-ways of Brussels, asking for a cheval. When necessary, he illustrated his remarks with prancing gallops, and on one occasion with a lifelike neigh. Toward evening his search was rewarded. An octogenarian led Podgie, with an air of great secrecy, through a cellar passageway to an inner court, where he woke up what had once been a horse.

"Horse!" gasped Podgie incredulously. "Whaddaya mean, horse? That's an eohippus, and on five toes he scampered 'mid something or other rocks. What d'ye take me for, anyway—an antiquarian?"

The man, to whom Podgie might just as well have been talking Choctaw, nodded his head intelligently.

"Five hunner francs, m'sieu," he said.

"Five hundred francs—for that? One hundred hard iron bucks for an animal that's got four feet in the glue factory and the rest in the fertilizer mill? Not a chance!

"Oui, m'sieu. Five hunter francs, wis carriage."

"Lessee the carriage."

The octogenarian pointed. In the general dilapidation and gloom, Podgie had not noticed a high cart with immense warped wheels. Podgie suddenly realized that this had been his first opportunity, after a day of steady search, to glimpse a horse and vehicle of any description that was for sale. He therefore swallowed any sarcastic remarks he might have been tempted to make, and, reflecting that it was all on the Star's expense account, passed over five hundred-franc notes.

"Here you be," he said cheerfully. "I'll call for your Cinderella pumpkin in the morning; so wake up early, wake up early, father dear, and bounce right outa the hay. And harness Dan Patch into your dump-cart for me, will you? And get me some chewing gum and hair-pins—that chariot might break down, and I want a repair-kit handy."

Podgie was near to tears as he saw his equipage in the morning, when the daylight pitilessly revealed its true condition. Still, inasmuch as there seemed nothing else to be done, he vaulted in, roused Dan Patch from his dream of fields green and pastures new, and started.

"They tell me butter doesn't suit the works," he confided to Dan Patch; "but it is the best butter, so here goes."

HE stopped at noon or thereabouts in a little village whose name a cross-roads signboard gave as Ottignies. Here he feasted royally on bread, cheese, and wine of the country, which reminded him strikingly of the cider vinegar of his youth. He also attempted, without success, to pump the crone who brought him his meal.

At a farm-house a little farther along, he bought two chickens, thinking to stock his knapsack with dainty provisions. If he could have made the people at the farm understand what he wanted, he would have bought a ham too; but his French had its limitations. He secured the chickens by flapping his arms and clucking.

The whole long afternoon he drove over the marvelously kept white road, his newspaper soul singing within him and his eyes drinking in the "local color." The distant sound of firing, which had first reached him as a heavy, muffled drone, now carried a rapping, crackling treble, though back of this still trembled the deep diapason of the big guns. And before him the horizon was no longer streaked in spots, but was one low-lying bank of evil black smoke. Only the steady stream of fugitives, all tramping stolidly westward, was unchanged.

Not that the afternoon lacked adventure. Twice Podgie passed wagons loaded with wounded—common delivery wagons they were, transformed into ambulances by the simple operation of tacking a flaring Red Cross streamer on each side. And every once in a while Podgie drove through the main street of a ruined and blackened huddle of shells which had once been a village.

There is a special providence that watches over newspaper men. At night-fall Podgie drew his cart to the side of the road, turned Dan Patch out to grass, curled himself in the bottom of his cart, and slept.

THE low, slanting rays of the morning sun awoke him.

"Hello, Dan'l," he said cheerfully, clambering stiffly down from the cart. "Happy birthday to you. Wowie, but I'm sore!" He stretched himself and yawned lingeringly. "Guess I better scout around a bit and get the lay of the land some. Lots of nice fresh green grass, Dan'l. Just help yourself. Me, I'm goin' up Greenland's icy mountain over there and be real nosey. Yes, sir; I'm that curious—I'm going to peep right over the top of it!"

Accordingly Podgie climbed a low hill, around the base of which the road along which he had come yesterday lay.

"I've got a swell voice for cooling soup, anyway," he soliloquized critically. "Well, here we seem to be, and now for to admire and for to see this blooming world so—"

Instead of finishing the quotation he gave a low whistle. Then he ducked swiftly into a clump of scrub birches. Then he sat down with his back to a tree and lit a cigarette.

"Podgie, my boy, you're in luck," he communed with himself. "Unless appearances are more than ordinarily deceitful, you are about to see something."

And he did. Before him spread a broad plain, dotted savannah-like with irregular clumps of trees. Through the middle of this wound a fairy river, shreds of mist clouding its silver surface. On the right-hand bank a double line of trenches, joined by occasional and irregular offsets, followed the stream. A parallel series of trenches scarred the plain about two hundred yards to the left of the stream.

A white feather puffed from the distant border of a forest far back of the left-hand trenches. Something that left a black, smoky trail behind it hurtled through the air and screamed as it flew. A great cloud of earth sprang from the ground to mark the spot where that something fell.

Podgie shivered.

"Br-r-r-r," he said. "Never touched me. Guess I'll say a prayer or two, or sing an I. W. W. song, or something. If one of those birds ever drops within hailing distance of me, my neutral rights are going to suffer a distinct shock. Well, this seems to be the theater of war, and I'm cast for a strictly thinking part. Go it, grandpap—go it, b'ar. We must preserve our li'l ol' neutrality. I shall keep score and say, 'Well played, well played indeed, sir,' at the thrilling parts."

The story of that battle is ancient history now, but it is history which was written first in, for, and by the Star. Podgie saw many a gray wave surge out of the trenches at the left. He saw each wave recede, leaving a gray froth to mark the length to which it had washed over the plain. He saw the earth-spouts that showed where the screaming shells had gone home travel nearer and nearer to the right-hand trenches. He saw those spouts later, when they sprang from the trenches themselves, and shuddered at the thought that they were not all earth and dust and stones then.

By night his physical being was sick—sick with hunger and fatigue, and most of all with horror. But his mind was fed and drunk—drunk with the potent stimulant that is the reward of every newspaper-man when he lands his story.

"It's a clean scoop," he gloated, "and I'm the boy that pulled it off."

Swiftly he made his way down the hill, for his fingers itched to put on paper the record of the battle he had witnessed. With a little shout of joy, he noticed that Dan Patch and the cart were still where he had left them in the morning.

"Good old Dan'l," he said. "Sorry to disturb you, but you're what's going to carry the good news from Ghent to Aix." He sprang into the cart. "Up, guards, and at 'em. Our next imitation, ladies and gentlemen, will be one of the famous ride of Paul Revere. Wonder where the nearest telegraph station is."

FAR ahead the horizon showed as a dull red smear, and toward this Podgie drove, keeping his steed awake by dint of much profanity and constant application of the lash. Suddenly a man stepped out of the shadows into the center of the road, and delivered what sounded like a crisp bark. There was no need to rein in. Podgie merely dropped the lines and elevated his hands, while his horse came to a halt of its own accord and promptly fell asleep.

"What's the big idea, old head?" Podgie inquired genially of the man who had stopped him. "Want me to 'company halt,' I take it?"

In silence the sentry motioned him to descend. Podgie donned his now wrinkled coat, slung his kodak over his shoulder, and vaulted to the ground. Then he reached up, took his typewriter satchel in one hand and the brace of chickens which he had purchased the day before in the other, and, tossing an airy "Sleep tight, Daniel!" to the horse, marched up to the soldier, halted, and came to attention.

"I who am about to die would salute you if I didn't have a typewriter in one hand and a young poultry farm in the other," he informed that gray-clad gentleman. "What's the good word?"

The soldier snapped some guttural phrases into the darkness behind him. Another gray figure came running up, divested Podgie of his camera, his type-writer, and his live stock, and motioned him to follow.

A brief tramp between beautifully

Page 8

The floor of the room into which Podgie was thrust was quite deeply bedded in straw. He accepted the situation philosophically. Bunching up the straw, he folded his coat for a pillow, and, letting himself down in sections, stretched out luxuriously.

"Great stuff," he admitted sleepily to the darkness. "This imprisonment thing will look bad, I guess, when I send it in. The old Star won't eat this description, will it? All I want is to get within spittin' distance of a typewriter and a cable office, and I'll fill the Star as full of local color as a kid with the measles or a black eye." He felt sleepily above his head in his coat pocket to see if he still had his credentials. "Bet Dan Patch doesn't sleep any sounder'n I do this night. Wonder what they'll gimme to eat—in—"

Podgett, sir, of the Star, was fast asleep.

IT took some time, when he awoke in the morning, for his mind to focus on the event that led to his imprisonment. His cell was an enormous stone-flagged room, bedded throughout its length deep in straw. There was a platform or dais at one end, and at the other were high French windows. Idly he sauntered over to one of these and looked out.

His keenest anxiety was for breakfast.

"Wish those bandits hadn't grabbed off my two muley hens last night," he mused. "One of 'em might have laid an egg, and, believe me, I'd eat same, shell and all. If these soldier gents are trying to throw a scare into me, they've got a hot chance of getting away with it. But I sure could do some ground and lofty appreciating before a cubist picture of "Fried Ham and Eggs Descending an Esophagus."

A door opened behind him, and Podgie faced about swiftly.

"Greetings," he said. "We gates the war?"

The blond young officer in the doorway smiled.

"I speak English," he stated. "You are to come with me, if you please, sir."

"Gee, you call me sir and everything, don't you? And you look, oh, ever so kind and good and considerate-like. So, if you've any pity, let a poor newspaperman's tears prevail and lead me to a place where I can wash up, scrape face, and mangle a little chow."

"I am afraid I do not understand, sir."

Podgie illustrated, rubbing his waist-coat and then pointing to his open mouth and swallowing an imaginary bolus of food.

"I haven't rehearsed this little act at all, but lookie—gestures and everything. Grub, feed, scoffins, chuck—breakfast."

"Oh, breakfast. That you shall certainly have later. But first you will please come with me."

"Thanks, old man. Them few kind words have put new heart into me. Come with you, is it? Lead on, Macduff, and tell the cook to brown me wheats enough—Shakespeare or the Twenty-third Psalm I forget just which that's from. After you is manners."

HE was ushered into the presence of a majestic, bemustached individual who looked like the picture of the walrus in "Alice in Wonderland." There was much explanation, during which Podgie pointed emphatically to the seal over the consular signature, and delivered a brief discourse on the freedom of the press and the benefits resultant upon wholesome publicity.

The blond officer, who was addressed by the walrus as Herr-rr-rr Lieut'nant Becker, translated.

"It is all well," he informed Podgie. "Your kits shall be returned, and your typewriter also. Only your camera is not allowed, and those hens which you carried are lost, I fear. You will be watched by myself, you understand. And your telegram may be sent through the censorship office of this district."

"All right, Lieut," said Podgie cheerily. "Tell the General I'm much obliged. I'll tell you what—I know a swell game we can all play. Let's sit around the breakfast table and eat and think pleasant thoughts. What say?"

"You are to come to the officers' mess with me. Are you prepared?"

"I don't have to be. But accept it from a man whose very toe-nails have become hollowed out, that chef of yours had better be a preparedness disciple, because he certainly is going to get a lot of exercise."

PODGIE had been trained on an afternoon newspaper, where the main problem is one of meeting nine dead-lines a day. He knew how to work fast. Two hours after his breakfast his story was ready for the wire. He gloated over the sheets as, under the guidance of Herr-rr-rr Lieut'nant Becker, he walked to the local censorship bureau.

This was a hut from whose every window ran wires, and here Podgie was introduced to some men who were working, hatless, coatless,—they were the first coatless Germans Podgie had ever seen,—opening letters, reading them hastily, and sorting them into two piles. One of these piles consisted of sheets which were torn half across. As Podgie looked, a private entered with a great basket almost half full of torn sheets, and into this basket the pile on the table was swept.

"This, Mr. Padgett," explained the Herr Lieut'nant, "is the district bureau. You will kindly hand him your writings for correction, not?"

"Not is right. Why, they wouldn't even dare to copy-read this at the office. This is going in under my 'by-line,' and doesn't get revised to any noticeable extent."

"So sorry," said the Lieutenant, shrugging his shoulders. "It will have to be done if it goes over the wires. The newspaper gentlemen all their work must deposit here."

"But, man, listen to reason, can't you?" implored Podgie. "I'm not writing any sob stuff here. This is a straightaway news story—just plain facts. Let 'em look it over and see if everything in it isn't as straight as a string. If I've written a thing that isn't the truth, I'll eat the story and top it off by swallowing my type-writer."

"You know what that means?" asked the officer. He pointed to a placard where blazed in large red letters the word, Verboten.

"I don't care if there's a verboten list as long as the wait for an owl car, that bunch of butchers won't get their lunch-hooks on my stuff. That's flat." Podgie wadded the folded sheets into his pocket. "Come on, Lieut; I'll shoot you a game of pool, with a mark on the one, five, ten, and fifteen. There's no gravy for us in this joint."

They lounged out into the public square with the inevitable fountain plashing away in its center.

"Let's sit down here and listen to the tinkling tintinabulations of the hydrant," suggested Podgie. "We mustn't forget that war is a serious business and that I'm your prisoner. How about a little refined torture?"

"You are a funny man," confessed Lieutenant Becker. "Why do you not let them read what you call your story? They may not even touch it, you know."

"Aw, what's the use?" Podgie said. "I'm going to send this in just as she stands, don't you worry. All that's got me faded right now is how am I going to do it? "

"But you can't. It is forbidden, and you will be very strictly watched."

"Ain't you the old eagle-eye, though! I will make you a little sporting proposition, Mr. Herr-rr-rr Lieutenant von Becker. I'll bet you three to seven in anything you like, from American double eagles to German quartermasters' receipts, that this story will get past."

"I think I shall take your wager, Mr. American," said Lieutenant Becker, "to be paid in London, in pounds sterling."

"You've got a great chance to collect if you win or pay if you lose. However, may the best man win—both boys members of this club."

"I shall win and collect, never fear."

"Just to show you I've got nothing up my sleeves, watch me close, now," said Podgie. He walked to the fountain, where he emptied his fountain-pen, rinsing the barrel several times with clear water.

The officer laughed.

"First, laugh to you and last to me, Becker. D'you know, when I think of those Knochenkopfs trying to copy-read my stuff, my stuff,—I want to find a dog to kick. Damn this country, anyway, where there isn't even a cur," he continued, as he noticed the milk-cart of a peasant girl, drawn by the two largest mastiffs he had ever seen. "There doesn't even seem to be a pooch in it that doesn't look more like a bull elephant than a dog."

Podgie looked from the milk-cart across the square to the blond young officer.

"I say, Lieut," he demanded, "is there anything in the tribal laws or regulations of the Huns which prohibits a special correspondent's buying himself a glass of milk at nine-twenty-eight on cloudy Thursday mornings?"

Lieutenant von Becker smiled.

"Not a thing," he said. "You shall be served milk at the table in the future, if you wish."

"Thanks, old man," said Podgie. "In the meantime, you better see that I don't change clothes with her ladyship over there, while ostensibly soothing myself with a sparkling bumper of milk."

He strolled negligently across the square to the milk-cart, slipping his fountain-pen from his pocket. As the girl handed him a tin dipper filled with milk, he tossed her a gold piece, sending it wide, so that it dropped clinking to the cobbles. She stooped to pick it up. When she turned back to the cart, Podgie was smacking his lips over the empty dipper.

THE Honorable Tim was no man to be taken lightly, even in his calmest moments, to say nothing of his present mood. Therefore the ground glass marked "Private" had hardly begun to rattle before Mary was on her way to the inner office.

"That fool Podgett's not married, what?" was the question that greeted her.

"Why, I hope not—that is, not yet—I mean not to my knowledge, no, sir,"

"Send Carter up here'n a rush."

Mary got the city desk on the house 'phone, and Carter came up to the office on a run.

"Got letter from Podgett," shouted the Honorable Tim. "'S addressed to his wife, care Star office."

"Podgett's not married," stated Carter.

"Know it. 'S why I sent for you. You make head or tail out that letter, you're wonder. Meaningless. Perf'cly meaningless. Mus' be keepin' drunk. Or else gone crazy."

"Let me see it," said Carter. "Funny why these sheets should be all crumpled."

Mary turned about swiftly and looked over Carter's shoulder at the sheets. Carter's expression changed from one of wonderment to chagrin.

"This isn't Podgie's fault, boss," he said, after he had read a few lines. "He's pulling a new one to get past the censor, and it's up to—um-m-m. This must be some sort of a cipher he's invented, and one that doesn't need a special key. See, here he speaks of dining with Becker, walking with Becker. Becker, Becker, and more Becker—the name's all over. Becker evidently is the German army."

"Don't be ass, Carter. Looka that. Says 'Becker gave me a cigarette and I strolled about the square with him for some time this afternoon.' S'pose he's takin' German army out walkin'?"

"No, not that way. But here—the cigarette evidently refers to smoke, which means a battle, of course. Let's see."

"Carter, you're fool. Crazy's hen. Think we're going to publish account of battle described like that? Have Leader hop on us 'bout foe's? 'N' what's he mean by all that milk, praisin' quality of milk they give him?"

"Please let me have it a minute, Mr. Carter," Mary cried. "I think I know what it is. I'm sure of it, if he says anything about milk."

"Well, I will be—but nemmine 'bout that," gasped the Honorable Tim. "Give her sheet or two, Carter. Got more brains 'n whole fool editorial staff."

Mary seized a box of safety matches from the desk, lighted one of the matches, and passed the flame under one of the crumpled sheets from side to side..

"Humph! Think it's sympathetic ink," grunted Carter scornfully. "D'you think Podgie or anybody else would take a chance on getting away with that? Why, if they caught him with sympathetic ink they'd shoot him for a spy!"

"Not this kind of ink," said Mary, lighting another match and repeating the operation. "I've seen this used before."

Speechlessly the two men watched her play the flame back and forth. The edge of the paper caught fire, and with a little cry she dropped the match and pressed out the flame with her palms.

"Look, Mr. Woodward," she cried breathlessly, as she handed him the sheet. "Can you see it now?"

The Honorable Tim left his chair with a bound.

"Boy!" he bellowed, going to the door. "Boy! Take Miss Eastman to casting room 'n' let her scorch sheets paper. Hustle!"

Some ten minutes later Mary returned with the scorched sheets. Gloatingly the men read the story of the battle which is ancient history now—ancient history which was first written in, for, and by the Star.

"You devil, you nervy little devil," said Carter to the absent Podgie. "How did you do it?"

"How's it done, Miss Eastman?" asked the Honorable Tim.

"It's milk, sir," replied Mary. "You write on the sheets with milk, and then you crumple them up and straighten them out. That hides the trace of the milk. Then you write something else over it with ordinary ink or a typewriter, and nobody suspects that there's anything underneath. Then, when you heat the paper, that scorches the milk and turns it brown, so it's easy to read."

"Glory! Tell Caldwell give you bonus this week. Clever stunt, you knowin' all 'bout—By the way, how did you know?"

Mary blushed.

"You see, at the boarding-school they always opened my letters—and Podgie—well, of course we didn't want the Sisters to know everything, did we?"

"YOU know, Lieut," said Podgie, grinning, "I'm rather in hopes you Teutons never sing your measly Hymn of Hate in Trafalgar Square. I want that pound sterling you're going to pay me to be worth enough so's I can buy you 'n' me a regular drink with it. Say, Lieut, did you ever taste a real gin fizz?"

The Kiss

By GEORGE AGNEW CHAMBERLAIN

Illustrations by Frank Snapp

IN April Hollender was appointed to take charge of the London branch of the Associated News Exchange, and the same month saw him cross to look over the field before accepting definitely. His hesitation was due to the fact that he would not live anywhere without his wife, and his position was such that he could afford to refuse to place her in uncongenial surroundings. The crossing was uneventful; so was the trip up to London on the boat-train, save for one ludicrous incident.

For a man of his attainments Hollander was young, only thirty-seven, and in spite of a close-cropped mustache looked some years under his age. He also looked very lonely, and had been promptly adopted on board by two of his table companions, Mr. and Mrs. Blyth. Blyth was a rotund little man with a twinkle in his eye; his wife was one of those apparently soft, caressible women that seem ready to mother the whole world, but that will stand for no mothering themselves except at the hands of their lawfully wedded husbands. She was very pretty.

An innocuous youth named Smith attached himself to the trio. He seemed content to sit by the hour where he could gaze at Mrs. Blyth's pink cheeks and full red lips. He never made any advances save with his predatory eyes, and they offered just that shade of adoration that a woman of her type can absorb in large doses with an easy conscience.

IT was natural that the four should engage a section for the journey up to London; and as Mrs. Blyth, though a good sailor, had a slight tendency to train-sickness, it was just as natural that Blyth should get up and pass to a smoking compartment when he wanted to enjoy a cigar.

It was during one of these absences that the train plunged into a long tunnel. Just before darkness engulfed them, Hollender and Smith were lounging on one side of the section, while Mrs. Blyth sat on the other, looking very demure, very pink-cheeked and red-lipped. When they came out of the tunnel the two men were still lounging, but Mrs. Blyth was sitting tensely erect, her cheeks pale and her lips drawn into a thin white line that made her look almost ugly. In her demure eyes were tears of rage.

While Smith and Hollender were still staring open-mouthed at the transformation in their vis-à-vis, Blyth hurried back, looked at them with a puzzled frown on his face, and then at his wife. "My dear," he said, "what on earth has happened?"

Mrs. Blyth's eyes snapped furiously from one to the other of the two men seated before her. Her glance searched their faces and fell back on itself, baffled.

"While we were in the tunnel," she gulped over a sob in her throat, "one of these—these men—kissed me on the mouth."

Hollender came erect with a jerk, and turned on Smith. "Miserable little pup!" he exclaimed.

At the same moment Smith turned on Hollender, his eyes blazing with the fire of the worshiper who sees his most sacred shrine defiled. "You cad!" he cried.

Blyth burst into a roar of laughter. His wife, Smith, and Hollender, caught by that broadside of mirth at the height of their emotional flight, held their breath and hung poised as though on the verge of a sickening fall. Then Mrs. Blyth spoke rapidly, as if she had barely time to get out the words: "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Me?" said Blyth. "I think I've done enough. While we were in the tunnel, somehow I felt like kissing you—so I slipped back and—and did it!"

He collapsed into a seat and roared again. Mrs. Blyth gave one hysterical gulp, and then she laughed too. Presently they were all laughing, and kept it up till they were worn out.

After that each sat in his corner and dozed or pretended to doze. Hollender was not sleeping; he was thinking hard.

"Smith," he said to himself, "is all right; so am I; so is Mrs. Blyth. But Blyth has got a coarse streak. He's what the English call a bounder. He put his own wife in a difficult position. What if she had pretended nothing had happened? How would Blyth be feeling right now? But she didn't. She's true blue through and through. But Blyth is a bounder and a fool. He risked his own happiness, his peace of mind, for the sake of a joke."

HOLLENDER found conditions in London satisfactory, and three months later returned to America to fetch his wife. He always thought of her as the Girl, with a big G ; for she was the most wonderful thing that had ever come into his life. He had a right to be proud of her. She was clean inside and out, long and supple, clear-skinned, and with the light in her face that is the essence of beauty. Seeing her in a hot room, one thought of cool breezes, and to look into her eyes was like catching a glimpse of lilac plumes tossing in a high wind.

Scarcely had she stepped aboard when a court formed about her. There was nothing new in that. She was accustomed to it; so was Hollender. He watched her sifting the personalities that gathered near her as he had often watched before, and saw her rapidly winnow away the chaff, till only two men remained. They were worth while: she would keep them. Each was too big in his own way to slip through the large mesh of her net.

There is always suggestion in a coincidence, however far-fetched. "It happened just so before," invariably sends the mind off on a speculative tangent. Hollender never stopped to think how natural it was that he should find himself, his wife, and the two men together in a compartment of the boat-train to London. Consequently he thought he found himself face to face with a significant coincidence, and his mind promptly wandered off to thoughts of the Blyths.

He remembered the harsh judgment he had passed on Blyth, and wondered how he could have been so hard on the little man with a twinkle in his eye.

There were two sides to that question; perhaps three. Probably Blyth had been merely boyishly thoughtless when he played that practical joke, or he may have been a bounder, or—yes—there was the third side. Perhaps he had deliberately put his wife to the test to settle all doubt forever, willingly gambling content to win a fuller happiness.

Hollender's thoughts turned to Mrs. Blyth and the role she had played in the scene of three months before. How well she had come out of the test! How complete had been her reaction! How more than lovable she must have been to her husband in her white-lipped rage at the supposed profanation of her person! After all, Blyth had the satisfaction for all time of knowing that his wife was true blue through and through.

Hollender glanced at his own wife and at the two men sitting one on each side of her. She was listening to their talk. There was color in her cheeks; her well formed lips were half parted, and her eyes, passing absently across his face, left their unfailing impression of lilacs tossing in the wind.

Her whole person was set in a note of high vitality. She was altogether desirable, and of a type far above that of the soft and pretty Mrs. Blyth.

The two men were scarcely less remarkable. One was a civil engineer to whom the whole world was as the palm of his hand. When he talked in a low monotone, one saw strange lands, felt the illimitable distances of barren plains or smelled the sweat of toiling men. The other was a gentleman soldier, a volunteer, just recovered from a wound. He was on his way back to the front. He talked with absolute detachment of the changing face

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These two were undoubtedly women's men, but they were not philanderers. One could imagine either one of them tossing away ambition and all he possessed for love of the one woman. Such men rise seldom to the fly of womanly charm, but once caught, they are not lightly cast aside.

Hollender studied their faces, glanced at his wife, and brooded. He saw himself and these three people as on a plane infinitely above the innocuous Smith and the Blyths. In his exaltation he felt securely above the level of vulgarity.

"What a test," he thought to himself. "What a test it would be!" and smiled.

Then something his wife did or said, some faint movement of her hand toward the soldier,—some little thing, so quickly passed that the brain could not altogether seize it,—wiped the smile from his face. For a moment he wondered vaguely what was coming over him; then his thoughts took form and direction. What man, after all, is absolutely sure? How many men have been fools to their wives and all the world through a too perfect trust?

"What rot!" he cried to himself, and shrugged his shoulders as though to shake off his mood. But his nerves refused to be steadied so easily. He arose, felt his pockets to see if he had cigarettes and matches, said he was going out for a smoke, and passed into the corridor. He had not gone five steps when the train plunged into the tunnel. Almost without volition he paused, turned, crept back to the compartment, and stooped over his wife.

He remembered just how she had been sitting, with her hat off, and her head thrown back against the partition cushion of the high upholstered seat. He bent over her till he felt her faint breath. He laid his lips gently on hers. For the fraction of a second she recoiled; then, to his horror, her lips came forward and caressed his mouth with a soft, silent kiss.

WITH his brain in a mad whirl, he stole from the compartment and staggered down the corridor. The train shot out of the tunnel into the glare of a rare sunny day; but his eyes were so blurred he could scarcely see. He stumbled along until he found an empty section, temporarily vacated by people gone to dinner at the first call. He sat down and stared before him. Presently he noticed that his hands and knees were trembling.

"You asked for it," he said aloud to himself. "You asked for it."

His own voice sounded strange to his ears. For the first time in his life he felt like two distinct persons. His own self, the self he had always known, stood apart and stared accusingly at the new and shaken being that he had become. He felt as though he were literally in the air, as though all solid purchase had been swept from beneath his feet.

One thought penetrated the chaos in his brain: "You must go back. You must pull your two selves together and go back. You must go back as though nothing had happened, as though you knew nothing."

Gradually he steadied his muscles. He arose and walked up and down, a cigarette held absently between his fingers. He had forgotten to light it. He puffed on it two or three times before he noticed that it was unlighted, then he struck a match and watched the flame tremble. That would never do. He struck another and another until one burned quite steadily. He lit the cigarette and smoked it rapidly.

When he returned to his own section, he found the two men sitting exactly as he had left them, but his wife had slightly changed her position. She held her hat in her lap loosely, both hands playing with its brim absently. Her eyes were half closed, and there was a tiny tilt to the corners of her mouth, as though it were on the verge of smiling. She was not talking or listening. In her face was a look of withdrawal, as if her thoughts had stopped to linger at some point long passed by her companions.

Hollender sat down opposite his wife, but found he could not bear to look at her. Just as he arose to change his seat her eyes swept up and passed swiftly over his faee. Her mouth seemed more than ever on the verge of breaking into a smile. He tried to smile back, but he felt that it was a failure. His lips seemed stretched into a straight line that would not bend. He felt his heart pounding.

"She can look at you and smile," he thought bitterly.

It was the first bitter thought he had ever had of his wife. It helped him—stiffened his backbone and hardened his nerves. But the strange feeling of having suddenly become two persons still clung to him. He thought to himself in dialogue. His old half said to the new, "At any rate, you know where you stand. You asked for it, you got it; now take it and use it." All the rest of the way to London, his new self answered back with mumblings and weak interjections: "Why? Why? My God!"

BUT, in spite of the strengthening bitterness, he felt a great gulp of self-pity as he showed his wife into the charming flat he had taken. She flew from room to room and from low laugh to low laugh, for Hollender had achieved a stroke of genius. The flat contained only bare necessities. In each room was a large sign, "Imagine curtains and portières," or, "Imagine cretonnes."

The Girl felt a lump rise in her throat. How wonderful that a mere man should have guarded her against the inevitable loneliness of a strange environment by reserving to her the master solace of beautifying her new home! Wordless, she turned to him, put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

He had to make an effort not to answer that caress with a shiver; for to him the Girl was not here—the Girl for whom he had planned and remembered. In her stead had come a strange woman, a wonderful woman, such as a king might covet, but a stranger, a mystery. At kissing her he felt a thrill, new and astounding, as though his lips had tasted of the illicit.

For a moment he was horrified, then the internal dialogue began again, and he argued himself back to a sanity founded on reason and facts. He did not know that reason and facts are but will-o'-the-wisps in the realm of emotion. In spite of them the truth remained: his wife was a strange woman. He felt for her a fresh but feverish desire, and gradually succumbed to it. Where all had been purity, there crept in a taint. He could no longer think of their love as something sanctified, hidden and guarded behind some inner, mutual veil. Day by day the Girl receded, day by day he sank and dragged her to the level of the flesh.

But it was only to Hollender's distorted vision that the Girl was withdrawn. She herself was in the flat. She had been there all the time. She had felt a great surge of tenderness as she passed swiftly from one evidence to another of his thoughtfulness, and had turned to him with her heart in her hands and on her lips. The next moment she had come up against him as a barrier. She had found herself suddenly torn one way by his burning eyes, and another by his unsmiling face.

Had he been cold, they would soon have come to open battle and a decision. But as the slow weeks passed, the new fire in him, the ungarnished exultation in mere material possession, put her off. She surrendered to his hot caresses breathlessly, only to wonder the more at his long periods of abstraction and gloom. She began to feel herself under a strain, as though her forces were being consumed without recuperation. Life took on a strange face. It became a battle against unseen things. She felt her vitality ebbing, sinking steadily, like a barometer before a storm.

She had plenty of time to puzzle over the change that had taken place in Hollender and in their relations, for he was less with her now than at any other period of their marriage. At first he laid it to his work and its uneven demands on his time, but as the days passed, he omitted subterfuges. She could feel him twitching in her presence as though under an irksome restraint, and when he would suddenly rise and prepare to go out, she was too hurt even to raise her eyes in question.

If his wife was under a strain, Hollender was doubly so. He had to fight not only against circumstances, but against himself. He was constantly haling himself before a tribunal, trying himself over and over again, and finding no acquittal; only a relief in bitterness at the memory of the overwhelming discovery he made on the train. The Girl was gone forever; there remained this woman whom he could never trust.

More than once he left his work hurriedly to dash to the flat on some flimsy pretext, but really only to find out what his wife was doing. On each of these occasions he started out possessed by mad speculations; on each he returned feeling demeaned, assured by his tardy sanity that he had lowered himself, was constantly lowering himself. Life became a vile thing, dragging him and all that he touched down to an unaccustomed level. He hated himself when he was away from his wife, he despised himself on those occasions when he smothered memory in a cloak of hot affection.

FOUR weeks, each burdened with the strain of a normal year, dragged slowly by; then, one evening when Hollender arose and started toward the door, his wife stopped him.

"You're not going out to-night," she said. "I want to talk to you."

He turned and stared at her. Her voice had sounded like an echo from former days. For a moment he saw her with the eyes that had known only the Girl. He felt a shock. If this were indeed the Girl, her arms had gone strangely thin. Under her eyes there were shadows and pale cheeks, and a mouth drawn down at the corners. In her eyes themselves was a faded light, as of lilacs wilted in too hot a sun. He stared at her lips and remembered.

"Well?" he asked, flushing under the recollection.

"I want you to sit down and listen to me," said the Girl, leaning forward, her arms outstretched on the table before her. "I don't know what's the matter. You haven't cared to tell me. I only know that there is a great deal the matter; so much that it is not only separating us—it's doing more. It's breaking us. Something has changed you terribly. I don't know what it is, but I have thought and thought, and I know when it began, the very moment."

"When?" asked Hollender hoarsely.

The Girl's eyes wandered from his face.

"It began at my last happy moment—the moment in the train when we were in the tunnel and you slipped back and kissed me in the dark."

"What!" whispered Hollender. He rose slowly to his feet and gripped the edge of the table with both hands. His head swam, and when he tried desperately to stare at the Girl he found that his eyes were blinded by a haze. There was a humming in his ears. Perhaps he had not heard her aright. Gradually, word by word, he made her repeat what she had said; then, scarcely knowing what he did, he caught up his hat and rushed from the room.

He found himself in the open. There was a chill in the air, but he did not notice it. He walked at a terrific pace through the darkened streets. He walked for hours, faster and faster, as though by mere physical haste he were striving to catch up with some aching heart's desire that dodged before him, threatening at any moment to disappear forever and leave behind an eternal void.

What had he done? Oh, what had he lost? As a man gazing across a bleak chasm at a pleasant land he stared back through long ages to the life of peace and trust and communion that had once been his.

"How monstrous," cried his fevered mind, "that so great a happiness should be so fragile!" and something within him answered, "Happiness endures only within guarded shrines."

Twice some fellow pedestrian snatched him back from precipitating himself before a shadowy bus. Finally a constable peered questioningly into his face, stopped him and asked him if he knew where he was going.

At the moment the question seemed almost natural to Hollender. He answered that of course he knew where he was going, and mentioned his own address. The officer hailed a passing taxi; thrust him into slammed the door, and gave the driver directions. Five minutes later the cab drew up at the familiar door. Hollender realized that he had been walking in a circle, as though some loadstone had held him to its orbit.

He paid the fare automatically, and, avoiding the elevator, climbed slowly to his own floor, opened the door, and walked in.

The Girl was sitting where he had left her, only her head was fallen forward between her outstretched arms. He coughed and shuffled his feet. She looked up, startled.

A THOUSAND things had been on his tongue to say—great things, strong things, born of vast grief and shame and utter surrender: but his lips, driven by subconscious curiosity, opened to a puerile question.

Continued on page 20

NEW STYLES IN DRESS

HALF A CENTURY ON THE JOB

Page 13

BEWARE OF A DARK MAN WITH WHISKERS

WHAT SCIENCE IS DOING

To Roll This Old World Along

PUTTING FOXES ON A POTATO BASIS

HAVE you a little silver fox in your back yard? If so, get aboard the nearest train, hire a compartment, go to the most expensive hotel in New York, and don't worry about the bill. That is our fatherly advice to you if you own a real live silver fox. The market price for silver fox pelts now is in the cloudy neighborhood of $1000 to $2000.

Not long ago, an American farmer was struck by the happy idea that a fox ranch, or a fox farm, ought to be an exeedingly good investment. He figured it out something after this fashion:

He tried it, and it worked. It worked so well, indeed, that a corps of enterprising business men decided to go into the game on a grand scale, and sell stock. So foxes were incorporated, stock sold, and fox-ranching became a big polite poker game, with fox pups as the chips. The stock attracted thousands of dollars of widows' and orphans' money. But, strange to say, nobody sold any fur.

The famine in fox skins had created an abnormal demand. Because of individual financial stress, a few pelts found their way to the market, selling for record prices. These sales boosted the prices of breeders as well as the stock. Then the war happened along, and the money market was, in a manner of speaking, squelched.

With less than five thousand silver-black and patch foxes capitalized, in round numbers, at ten million dollars, and the prima donnas, brewers' wives, and princesses of royal blood shrieking and tearing their hair because silver fox muffs and scarfs were not to be had, certain enterprising farmers made up their minds to emulate Luther Burbank and cross foxes to get something different. They crossed red and gray foxes, and a beautiful silver fox was the result. That pricked the fur bubble of the foxy gamblers.

A fox farm, with the exception of the odor, is not very different from a dairy farm. The product is fur instead of milk. The sale of breeders is quite within the strictest game laws, for pelt is a commodity. As the number of foxes increases the price of pelts will drop; but the supply of skins can not equal the demand for the fine, glossy silver fox for a great many years.

After his adventure with the bears and bulls of the stock market, the little silver fox has come back with a lesson to teach. He shall be grown as potatoes are grown. The farmer is going to raise our fox fur, precisely as he raises cattle and pigs for us to eat.

The future of fur farms, of cross-breeding in general, is enthralling. Society craves novelty, and pays well for it. Perhaps—who knows? we may live to see the day of the bred-to-order muff.

COMPETITION FOR PEROXIDE

THE old-fashioned man who used to recommend salt as a cure for warts has been replaced by an Italian veterinary surgeon who says that powdered sugar will cure a wound in fine style. No matter what the nature of the wound or its situation or condition of infection, the sugar acts as an absorbent, as an anti-septic, and as an excitant of nutrition of the tissues.

The treatment has been notably successful in wounds caused by operations on the feet of horses. Bussano Gerardo, the discoverer of this remarkable secret, says that any sort of sugar will do, whether it be from cane or the lowly beet. Glucose, however, is best, in many ways. Glucose is powdered finer than either cane or beet sugar, and adheres much better to the tissues, covering them with a layer that is very firm and resistant.

So the next time little brother falls downstairs, don't run for the peroxide—go to the kitchen cabinet and fetch the sugar bowl.

THE BREAD-BASKET OF THE ALPS

WOULD you recognize a teleferica if you met one on the street? Probably not. You would never meet one on the street, anyway, because a teleferica is the name the Italians give to their queer cableways which span, from peak to peak, the valleys of the Alps. The special Italian correspondent of the Railway Age Gazette writes that among the Italians it is prized more highly than the wireless telegraph is prized by the men who go down to the sea. Will Irwin once compared the teleferica with a bread-basket, or a department store bundle-carrier.

According to Italian army statistics, there are 123 miles of cableways scattered along the 400-mile battle-front, with a total carrying capacity, of 3600 tons. Three-quarter-inch steel cables are strung over rivers, plateaus, and low peaks. Then the car is mounted. Riding in a teleferica car is a brand-new sensation. Let the man who did it give you his impressions: "We climbed into the basket, the side rails of which were certainly not more than six inches high, although I did not note this when the car was still within two feet of solid ground. A whirring of wheels, and our car ran smoothly into space. . . . I held on for dear life to those low sides, and fervently hoped that the colonel wouldn't rock the boat and spill us out. "This thing would not pay as a passenger proposition in peace times,' I remember saying to the colonel. Indeed, it would pay about as well as a similar teleferica operated between the top of the Woolworth Building and the Metropolitan tower."

The ability of the teleferica to do hard work taxes the imagination. The carrying capacity of its units along the 400-mile front equals the combined efforts of six army divisions of 240,000 men—or 120,000 mules. Formerly, to bring up a single 149-millimeter gun a distance of 20 kilometers from a certain locality required two months of time and many gangs of men working. Twenty days of this time was lost waiting for snow avalanches to fall.

On one occasion the lives of forty men were lost when the cannon fell into a crevasse, and the cannon was recovered

Most of this hard work is now being done by the cableway. Food and ammunition also find their way to the mouths, respectively, of the men and the guns via the sprightly teleferica.

A BABY-CARRIAGE GARAGE

HIS majesty the czar of the household, otherwise known as The Baby, has taken another trench. To put the facts a little differently, Charlie Scott, an ambidextrous negro of Chicago, found that running a laundry, a shoe-shining parlor, and a carpet-beating and window-washing institution left him with too much idle time. He wanted to expand.

Charlie has had his little stand there at Eugenie Street and Wells for so many years that all the people around

Charlie came to the rescue. The lady accepted his generous offer to take care of the baby carriage for one dollar a month. Other women followed her example. And Charlie's income leaped ten dollars a month and more.

SHORT AND INTERESTING

A Western garage has adopted the cafeteria plan. All tools and supplies belong to the garage, and owners and chauffeurs are allowed to use them within an inclosure. The tools are returned and a charge is paid.

SCARCELY any species of fresh-water fish is free from attacks by the little disk-like fish-flea. The fish-flea presses its flat greenish body against the skin of the larger fish. The so-called fish louse is neither flea nor louse, but a member of a simple group of crustaceans.

AN aeroplane was disabled by pigeons recently while making a flight in England. It appears that the machine ran into a large flock of pigeons. The propeller struck a number of the birds and was shattered. The aviator was forced to volplane to earth.

WHY SUBMARINES FAIL

THE Deutschland did not prove anything. Her trip here can not be accepted as proof conclusive of the practicability of the submersible for merchant purposes.

We are not shouting those statements from the quarter-deck of a pro-Ally editorial page, or anything of the sort: we are merely expressing the sentiments of Simon Lake.

Mr. Lake is a firm believer in the submarine, for he is responsible for a host of valuable submarine patents; he is the foremost submarine authority of the world.

In the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Mr. Lake expresses the view that the demand for increased speed has come too rapidly. Reliability, he says, is far more important than high speed. The perfect submarine engine has not yet been discovered. That is why submarines fail now. The famed Diesel engine weighs 500 pounds or more for every horse-power delivered to the shaft. That weight is believed to be excessive. But when German ship-engine designers were called upon to devise an engine doing the same work and weighing one tenth as much, they racked their brains, drank quarts of black coffee to keep pace with the burning of the midnight Diesel oil, used up acres of white tablet paper and yards of lead pencil, trying to figure it out, and finally shook their heads with a "No, Kaiser; it can't be done."

Mr. Lake is a firm disbeliever in the cargo submarine, although he was the first man to see its possibilities. The real job of the submarine, he says, is right alongside the war vessel.

OUR OWN CARNEGIE LIBRARY

On These Two Shelves—The New Books and Magazines

IS BLAKELOCK INSANE?

BLAKELOCK has disappeared. Mrs. Van Rensselaer Adams took him from Dr. Belden's sanatorium on September 15, and hasn't returned him.

"Yes, he is painting," says she; but when they ask her, "Where?" she looks inscrutable.

For twenty years Blakelock painted pictures that didn't sell. Occasionally the grocer accepted one in exchange for potatoes, but not as often as the Blakelocks needed potatoes. When his eighth child was born Blakelock went mad, and they put him in an insane asylum for seventeen years.

Shortly afterward his paintings began to circulate rapidly among art dealers. Critics said "Blakelock, Inness, and Corot" in one breath, as if it were the name of a railroad. The Toledo Museum bought his picture, "Moonlight," for $20,000, because it revealed "the light that never was on sea or land." Another strange thing: hundreds of pictures signed "Ralph Albert Blakelock" began turning up at auctions—in fact, so many that he couldn't have painted all of them had he used his four limbs at once.

In the meantime, Blakelock himself, as forgotten as the dust in a broken tea-pot, was a little old man in an insane asylum, who painted sunsets on shingles, signing them "A-1," and confiding to the keepers, "That stands for Albert the First."

And now Mrs. Adams, who rescued him from the asylum last spring, has hidden him.

"There is a plot to put him back in the asylum," she hints, "aided from a quarter we would least suspect. All this, not because he is a dangerous madman, but because he is sane enough to tell an 'original Blakelock' from an imitation. By a shake of his head he can explode more than one art dealer's fortune."

FACING STARVATION IN THE DESERT

NINETY-TWO British seamen, brought up on beef and plum-duff, quarreled but lived for three months on snails "roasted in their shells on a camel-dung fire and eaten without salt." Lewis R. Freeman writes of them in the Atlantic Monthly.

The first mean thing the Germans did was to sink the Tara; the second was to save the drowning British and turn them over as prisoners to a hungry Arab tribe. This was their Christmas dinner: "About December 20 a little flour, tea, and sugar was given us, and we were told that this was the last of such dainties. We decided to keep to our snail and root diet for four days longer, and save these for a spread. Here is our menu: "Christmas Day, 1915: Breakfast—Rice, boiled with a little salt. Dinner—Two ounces of boiled goat-flesh. Teatime—One small pudding and weak tea."

One day Captain Gwatkin-Williams tried to escape. "A fanatical Senussi priest came to fetch me, and he rode on a camel, driving me ahead of him with a long hippo-hide whip. They gave me no food or water for two days, and my one clear recollection of that period is gulping down the nearly hatched eggs from a lark's nest—the horrible revulsion of my outraged stomach as the mess entered it." The Captain is now a vegetarian.

As the starvation went on, the men became ferocious. Knives were pulled over the division of three grains of rice. One man told afterward how he "'ad to clout" one of the quartermasters because the latter had been so "swanky" as to say that the torpedo that sank the Tara was scarlet, "w'en the bally thing was only red."

About three o'clock on St. Patrick's Day—"we had celebrated by a feeble attempt to kill off a few of the snakes"—a force of forty-one armored cars thundered down on the camp. The Arabs made for the horizon. The delirious prisoners plunged their hands into jam-pots and beef-tins, while the Red Cross corps the stretchers.

SHOULD MEN BE COMPELLED TO MARRY?

IN Germany there were war-brides; in England there may be war-grooms. Young Englishmen are being killed; young Englishwomen are remaining unmarried; and young English babies are less frequent than they used to be. Still the bachelor lives and sings, "spending his life selfishly in late hours and at his ease." So writes a man in Tit-Bits—very evidently a married man with a large assortment of children.

"We must again become the most prolific race on earth. For if we do not we are doomed."

The question, then, is: how to make the bachelor marry. Ans.: "Touch his pocket, and touch it deeply. Tax the bachelor. He belongs to the middle class and does not suffer from poverty. Tax him more and more with every year he goes over thirty without marrying."

Bachelors are accounted for in this way: "A man marries impetuously before twenty-six, but more and more deliberately later. A bachelor gets fond of his single blessedness and gets a dread of 'youngsters' and the possibility of a family. The fact is, he thinks too much. Love is blind and marries. Selfishness is alert and far-seeing."

Perhaps the bachelors aren't to blame. The Englishwomen may be enjoying their outdoor work as truck-drivers and police-women. We wonder if these "virtuous and highly domesticated girls who would grace any man's home"—according to the writer—aren't perhaps putting the secret veto on proposals of the elderly unromantic bachelor, "so set in his ways."

THOMAS NAST'S FIRST ASSIGNMENT

ARE you overworked and underpaid?

Is your short-sighted employer doing his best to smother your genius? Then read the story of this boy, whose biography by Albert Bigelow Paine is quoted in the Saturday Night:

A round-faced lad of fifteen, with his drawings under his arm, called many years ago on Frank Leslie to apply for a staff position on Leslie's Weekly.

The publisher looked through the little German's drawings, remarked that they were pretty good, and sent him down to draw the crowds entering the Christopher Street ferry. It was a hard assignment, and he did not expect to see his young visitor again.

Promptly Monday morning he appeared before Mr. Leslie with his drawing. The publisher asked if he had done it alone. Then, without comment, he gave him a half-page engraving block, told him to whiten it and get the staff artist to show him how to re-draw his picture on it.

The boy knew no more about whitening a block than he did about whitening

When he took the block back to Mr. Leslie and received an offer of $4 a week as staff artist, he could hardly speak for joy.

This boy was Nast. Four dollars a week seemed a princely salary to the man whose pencil, Grant said, with Sheridan's sword, was the potent factor in ending the Civil War.

THIRTY-FIVE MILLION BUSHELS OF OYSTERS

"EAT them, Brookes," said the wife of the English Ambassador. "They aren't half as nahsty as they look."

That happened many years ago, but now: "Oysters, with the single exception of herring, are the most important of all water crops," writes Commissioner Smith in the Youth's Companion. The thirty-five million bushels gathered every year in this country are worth $17,000,000—and that long before the horse-radish is applied.

It's a prolific animal, the oyster, but millions of them die young. If the larva doesn't happen to settle on a hard surface, the unfortunate creature won't develop.

In Japan, one Dr. Mikimoto has educated his oysters to make pearls, says Tit-Bits.

"When large enough they are carefully opened and a foreign substance introduced into their bodies. By the end of five years the oyster, in all his irritation, has coated the substance with many layers of nacre." And there is your pearl.

DO YOU LICK YOUR STAMPS?

THE next time you stamp a letter in your usual unconventional way, don't be surprised if you come down with typhoid.

The postage stamp has been tried, found guilty of secreting germs about its person, and sentenced to a licking-machine. Two Philadelphia scientists have been putting postage stamps through the third degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and 48 out of 50 disgorged themselves of hidden germs. With two exceptions, says the Philadelphia Ledger, the germs happened to be harmless, but they might just as easily have been tubercular or diphtheritic.

The jury of two who were impaneled on the case recommended that post-offices and other places dispensing postage instal some kind of device for moistening stamps.

Page 17

HOW TO LIVE ON 24 CENTS A DAY

WE have learned a lot of things about food in the last few years: for instance, that we don't feel faint when we haven't had pie for breakfast; that three kinds of meat for dinner aren't necessary to keep up the spirits.

An article in the Survey now claims that a man's three meals a day can be bought for twenty-four cents or, to put it more vividly, $6.72 a month. So go and buy that limousine.

Emma A. Winslow studied the 500 food orders that the New York Charities Organization Society made out for hungry families in 1914. By careful mathematics she found that 24 cents a day was enough to feed one man.

This didn't mean 24 cents' worth of bread and water, either; for in those 500 orders there were 93 varieties of things—from soup to nuts.

It isn't true, she also discovered, that a hungry man will eat anything.

"The hungrier he is, the more fastidious he becomes. He must have a palatable mixed diet. In the long run this is less expensive than unvaried food, because it is more appetizing and more nourishing."

Here is the sensible way to spend your 24-cent allowance:

1. Buy a main dish for the day. It must be of protein; fish, meat, eggs, cheese, or dried beans.

2. Then a little starch: bread, cornmeal, oatmeal, rice, macaroni, or hominy.

3. A fat to cook with: butter, butterine, lard, oil, or cooking fat.

4. Buy two kinds of vegetables: potatoes and one other—onions, carrots, turnips, cabbage, spinach, or canned tomatoes.

5. If there are children buy two kinds of fruit: prunes, jam, dried apricots, dates, bananas, apples, or oranges.

After you have paid for these you should find in your purse the exact change for sugar and for tea, coffee, or cocoa.

Although the people who follow this diet are as well fed as any bank president, still it's pleasant to think of the old days when we ate such square meals that the corners hurt.

VANITY IN CONVICTS

TO think that it should be a clergyman who would give the sex away!

However, since the cat is out:

Says a prison chaplain in an interview reported in the London Answers:

"You might very reasonably think that vanity could not long survive in the atmosphere of a gaol, but I can assure you it flourishes within the walls of a cell and behind iron bars as bravely as in my lady's boudoir in the haunts of fashion.

"The artifices and ingenuity of the female prisoner would be very amusing if they were not pathetic. She will collect any odds and ends of red stuff and steep them in water to impart the coveted 'rose-tint' to her cheeks. She will scrape the whitewashed walls of her cell and chew the lime fragments into a paste to provide a substitute for powder.

"As a substitute for a corset some women wind strips of cloth, torn from their skirts, tightly round their waists, and one ingenious prisoner actually constructed an efficient corset from the wire of a cell window-grating.

"Another resourceful lady—a terrible character, by the way—used to retire every night (until she was discovered) wearing a beauty-mask made from the hot bread and milk provided for her supper."

Just as the chaplain was finishing his revelations about the frivolous sex, a terrific din arose down the prison corridor.

A guard, rushing past, shouted the reason for the commotion: "They are shaving off the mustaches and whiskers of some new arrivals in the men's ward."

HOW THE CROWN PRINCE LOOKED TO A WOMAN

IT must be true. We've seen his picture, but hoped it didn't do him justice. "Wilhelm never took a good picture," we could hear his mother saying. But Lady Sarah Wilson saw him in the flesh, four years ago; and now that she has described him, one thing we know—he can't lead the annual ball of our lodge.

"The German Crown Prince speaks English fluently, with scarcely any accent and a flow of colloquialisms," she writes in the May Cornhill. "He was dignified and gracious that evening, although subsequent meetings did not heighten that impression. His expression is elusive, and his face consists entirely of expression, for the features are insignificant.

"Yet there is fire and devouring vitality about him. In his curious slanting eyes, that you can scarcely arrest for a second, so restless are they, it is impossible to read what is passing through his mind—much that is trivial, no doubt, for he was callow and school-boyish when I knew him—but other thoughts as well.

"A distinguished official jogged my elbow as we were leaving the party.

"'Look at him now,' he whispered—'the panther's cub."'

WHAT GOES ON IN CHILDREN'S HEADS

IF the children come home exhausted from their examinations, it is no wonder. Fancy the mental strain they have undergone to evolve such answers as these, which were selected from those given by New York State pupils in a Regents' examination:

The chamois is valuable for its feathers, the whale for its kerosene oil.

Climate is caused by the emotions of the earth around the sun.

The purpose of the skeleton; something to hitch meat to.

A blizzard is the inside of a hen.

George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time became the father of his country.

The alimentary canal is located in the northern part of Indiana.

The qualifications of a voter at a school meeting are that he must be the father of a child for eight weeks.

Gender shows whether a man is feminine, masculine, or neuter.

Four animals belonging to the cat family are the father cat, the mother cat, and the two little kittens.

A GREAT AMERICAN

ONE of the biggest figures that has risen out of the war is Herbert Hoover, the American engineer who organized the relief of Belgium. Through him England gives five million and France four and a half million dollars a month to this unfortunate people. The United States has given seven millions in all.

"I will never forget," says a writer in Everybody's Magazine, "the simple way in which he [Hoover] told me of his adventure in going to France and asking for help. He went to the Premier and said: 'I have got to have some money for the relief of the Belgians'; and the Premier said: 'But we have a war ourselves; we have destitute people of our own. How much do you think you should have from us?'

"And he said, 'Well, I think we should have twenty-two million francs a month from you until the war is over.' And the Premier said, 'Oh, my, we have not the money. But I will see the banks; I will see what can be done.'

"The next day a letter came saying: 'Dear Mr. Hoover, please find check for twenty-two million francs. I beg you will acknowledge it,' signed by the Premier of France. And each month the same check has come.

"He said to me, with a glow: 'Do not believe that the American flag is not respected abroad. If any one ever tells you that, tell him to go to Brussels and stand in front of the United States Legation and see the Belgian as he passes take off his hat to the Stars and Stripes.'"

PIGMIES AND THEIR WIVES

THE pigmy is a model of domesticity. Although of wandering habits, he cleaves to one wife. As three children are considered an extravagance, he contents himself with two. His worst vice is that he occasionally relieves a neighbor of a fowl or two at night. Perhaps this weakness is some relation to the Southern negro's affinity for chicken-coops.

So shy are pigmies, and so prone to hide in the tree-tops or amid thick foliage, that not every African explorer has been able to see them. A few have, however, and some of their accounts have been edited by A. G. Lewis in Sports, Travel, and Adventure (Dodd, Mead & Company).

Pigmy men, as described by one of these travelers, are about four feet high. In spite of their brevity of stature, they are more powerfully built than most African races. They are broad-chested, muscular, with short, thick necks, small bullet heads, and massive legs. Their chests are covered with black curly hair. Most of the men wear thick black beards.

So friendly did one tribe become with an explorer that they even brought their wives to see him. The women are comely, attractive little creatures, with skins much paler than the men's. They have the usual flat nose, thick lips, and black curly hair of the negro. Their eyes are singularly beautiful—so bright, so quick, so restless, that they seem never to light for a second on anything. Smaller than the men, the women are not more than three feet and ten inches in height.

Pigmies can not become farmers, for they never stay in one place long enough to gather a crop. From the trees they get fruit, nuts, and wild honey. For their meat they shoot buffalo, antelope, monkeys, wild pig, and occasionally elephant.

"Often," said A. B. Lloyd, the famous missionary traveler, "they follow a wounded elephant for days, shooting into it hundreds of their little iron-tipped arrows, until the poor creature dies from sheer exhaustion. They then make their little camp all around the carcass, and live upon the flesh as long as it will last, and then away they go again to seek other food."

He Fought Three Hours with a Man-Eating Shark

AT this writing Billy Harlow and Benny Kinnear, aged sixteen and eighteen respectively, are enjoying the spotlight that has been focused upon them ever since the morning of August 16, when they valiantly battled for three hours with a man-eating tiger-shark in Tacoma harbor.

Billy and Benny are fond of fishing, and between them they own a small boat and a 300-foot line set with hooks about four feet apart. The night before they had fastened this line to the government buoy about a mile from shore, planning to return in the morning and reap a rich harvest of dog-salmon, black cod, and sea trout. Instead they found their line tangled about something that pulled on it so hard that the boat was nearly capsized several times. Unable to imagine what kind of fish they had caught, the boys were leaning over the side of the boat and peering down into the water, when all of a sudden a huge head

"We were both of us scared stiff," Billy Harlow admits; "but we didn't let go our line—we hung on for dear life, and hollered for help; but nobody heard us."

For three hours the plucky boys fought a fight as full of thrills and chills as any recorded in the pages of a yellow-back. Then the captain of a private yacht, with two of his crew, went to the rescue. The shark was finally tired out, towed to shore, and hoisted to the floor of the dock. By the combined efforts of a crowd of onlookers it was securely roped, although it never stopped doing its best to swallow somebody whole.

The shark weighs 400 pounds, is nine feet long, and experts say it is between five and six years old.

The Triflers

Continued from page 5

about it in my room, and that's why I came down here to you. You've seen more of her these last few months than I have."

"Not months; only weeks."

"And this other—I don't want to pry into her affairs, but we're all just looking to her happiness, aren't we?"

"Consider this other man as dead and gone," cut in Monte. "He was lucky to be able to play the small part in her life that he did play."

"But something is disturbing her. I know her voice; I know her laugh. If I didn't have those to go by, there'd be something else. I can feel when she's herself and when she isn't."

Monte grasped his chair arms. He had studied her closely the last few days, and had not been able to detect the fact that she was worried. He had thought her gayer, more light-hearted, that usual. It was so she had held herself before him. If Peter was right,—and Monte did not doubt the man's superior intuition,—then obviously she was worrying over the technicality that still held her a prisoner. Until she was actually free she would live up to the letter of her contract. This would naturally tend to strain her intercourse with Peter. She was not one to take such things lightly.

Monte rose; crossed the room, and placed his hand on Peter's shoulder.

"I think I can assure you," he said slowly, "that if there is anything bothering her now, it is nothing that will last. All you've got to do is to be patient and hold on."

"You seem to be mighty confident."

"If you knew what I know, you'd be confident too."

Peter frowned.

"I don't like discussing these things, but—they mean so much."

"So much to all of us," nodded Monte. "Now, the thing to do is to turn in and get a good night's sleep. After all, there is something in keeping normal."

MONTE rose the next morning to find the skies leaden and a light drizzling rain falling that promised to continue all day. It was the sort of weather that ordinarily left him quite helpless, because, not caring for either bridge or billiards, nothing remained but to pace the hotel piazza—an amusement that under the most favorable conditions has its limitations. But to-day—even though the rain had further interfered with his arrangements by making it necessary to cancel the trip he had planned for Marjory and Peter to Cannes—the weather was an inconsequential incident. It did not matter greatly to him whether it rained or not.

Not that he was depressed to indifference. Rather he was conscious of a certain nervous excitement akin to exhilaration that he had not felt since the days of the big games, when he used to get up with his blood tingling in heady anticipation of the task before him. He took his plunge with hearty relish, and rubbed his body with the Turkish towel until it glowed.

His arm was free of the sling now, and, though it was still a bit stiff, it was beginning to limber up nicely. In another week it would be as good as new, with only a slight scar left to serve as a reminder of the episode that had led to so much. In time that too would disappear; and then— But he was not concerned with the future. That, any more than the weather, was no affair of his.

THIS morning Marjory would perforce remain indoors, and so if he went to see her it was doubtful whether he would be interfering with any plans she might have made for Peter. An hour was all he needed—perhaps less. This would leave the two the remainder the day free—and, after that, all the days to come. There would be hundreds of them—all the days of the summer, all the days of the fall, all the days of the winter, and all the days of the spring; then another summer, and so a new cycle full of days twenty-four hours long.

Out of these he was going to take one niggardly hour. Nor was he asking that little for his own sake. Eager as he was—as he had been for two weeks—for the privilege of just being alone with her, he would have forgone that now, had it been possible to write her what he had to say.

In a letter it is easy to leave unsaid so many things. But he must face her leaving the same things unsaid, because she was a woman who demanded that a man speak what he had to say man-fashion. He must do that, even though there would be little truth in his words. He must make her believe the lie. He cringed at the word. But, after all, it was the truth to her. That was what he must keep always in mind. He had only to help her keep her own conception. He was coming to her, not in his proper person, but as just Monte. As such he would lie telling the truth.

He shaved and dressed with some care. The rain beat against the window, and he did not hear it. He went down to breakfast and faced the vacant chair which he had ordered to be left at his table.

Peter had suggested once that he join them at their table until madame returned; but Monte had shaken his head.

Monte did not telephone her until ten, and then he asked simply if he might come over for an hour.

"Certainly," she answered; "I shall be glad to see you. It's a miserable day, Monte."

"It's raining a bit, but I don't mind."

"That's because you're so good-natured."

He frowned. It was a privilege he had over the telephone.

"Anyhow, what you can't help you may as well grin and bear."

"I suppose so, Monte," she answered. "But if I'm to grin, I must depend upon you to make me."

"I'll be over in five minutes," he replied.

She needed him to make her grin! That was all he was good for. Thank heaven, he had it in his power to do this much; as soon as he told her she was to be free again, the smile would return to her lips.

He went at once to the hotel, and she came down to meet him, looking very serious—and very beautiful. Her deep eyes seemed deeper than ever, perhaps because of a trace of dark below them. She had color, but it was bright crimson against a dead white. Her lips were more mobile than usual, as if she were having difficulty in controlling them—as if unspoken things were struggling there for expression.

WHEN he took her warm hand, she raised her head a little, half closing her eyes. It was clear she was worrying more than even he had suspected. Her conscience was probably harrying the life out of her. This must not be.

They went upstairs to the damp, desolate sun parlor, and he undertook at once the business in hand.

"It hasn't worked very well, has it, Marjory?" he began, with a forced smile.

Turning aside her head, she answered in a voice scarcely above a whisper: "No, Monte."

"But," he went on, "there's no sense in getting stirred up about that."

"It was such a—a hideous mistake," she said.

"That's where you're wrong," he declared. "We've tried a little experiment, and it failed. Isn't that all there is to it?"

"All?"

"Absolutely all," he replied. "What we didn't reckon with was running across old friends who would take the adventure so seriously. If we'd only gone to Central Africa or Asia Minor—"

"It would have been just the same if we'd gone to the North Pole," she broke in.

"You think so?"

"I know it. Women can't trifle with—with such things without getting hurt."

"I'm sorry. I suppose I should have known."

"You were just trying to be kind, Monte," she answered. "Don't take any of the blame. It's all mine."

"I urged you."

"What of that?" she demanded. "It was for me to come or not to come. That is one part of her life over which a woman

Page 19

"And I?" he asked quickly.

"You?"

She turned and tried to meet his honest eyes.

"I'm afraid I've spoiled your holiday," she murmured.

HE clinched his jaws against the words that surged to his lips.

"If we could leave these last few weeks just as they are—" he said. "Can't we call that evening I met you in Paris the beginning, and the day we reached Nice the end?"

"Only there is no end," she cried.

"Let the day we reached the Hôtel des Roses be the end. I should like to go away feeling that the whole incident up to then was something detached from the rest of our lives."

"You're going—where?" she gasped.

He tried to smile.

"I'll have to pick up my schedule again."

"You're going—when?"

"In a day or two now," he replied. "You see—it's necessary for me to desert you."

"Monte!"

"The law demands the matter of six months' absence—perhaps a little longer. I'll have this looked up and will notify you. Desertion is an ugly word; but, after all, it sounds better than cruel and abusive treatment."

"It's I who deserted," she said.

He waved the argument aside.

"Anyway, its only a technicality. The point is that I must show the world that—that we did not mean what we said. So I'll go on to England."

"And play golf," she added for him.

He nodded.

"I'Il probably put up a punk game. Never was much good at golf. But it will help get me back into the rut. Then I'll sail about the first of August for New York and put a few weeks into camp."

"Then you'll go on to Cambridge."

"And hang around until after the Yale game."

"Then—"

"How many months have I been gone already?"

"Four."

"Oh, yes; then I'll go back to New York."

"What will you do there, Monte?"

"I—I don't know. Maybe I'll call on Chic some day."

"If they should ever learn!" cried Marjory.

"Eh?" Monte passed his hand over his forehead. "There isn't any danger of that, is there?"

"I don't think I'll ever dare meet her again."

Monte squared his shoulders.

"See here, little woman; you mustn't feel this way. It won't do at all. That's why I thought if you could only separate these last few weeks from everything else—just put them one side and go from there—it would be so much better. You see, we've got to go on and—holy smoke! this has got to be as if it never happened. You have your life ahead of you and I have mine. We can't let this spoil all the years ahead. You—why, you—"

SHE looked up. It was a wonder he did not take her in his arms in that moment. He held himself as he had once held himself when eleven men were trying to push him and his fellows over the last three yards separating them from a goal.

"It's necessary to go on, isn't it?" he repeated helplessly.

"Yes, yes," she answered quickly. "You must go back to your schedule just as soon as ever you can. As soon as we're over the ugly part—"

"The divorce?"

"As soon as we're over that everything will be all right again," she nodded.

"Surely," he agreed.

"But we mustn't remember anything. That's quite impossible. The thing to do is to forget."

She appeared so earnest that he hastened to reassure her:

"Then we'll forget."

He said it so cheerfully that she was ready to believe him.

"That ought to be easy for you," he added.

"For me?"

"I'm going to leave you with Peter."

She caught her breath. She did not dare answer.

"I've seen a good deal of him lately." he continued. "We've come to know each other rather intimately, as sometimes men do in a short while when they have interests in common."

"You and Peter have interests in common!" she exclaimed.

He appeared uneasy.

"We're both Harvard, you know."

"I see."

"Of course, I've had to do more or less hedging on account—of Madame Covington."

"I'm sorry, Monte."

"You needn't be, because it was she who introduced me to him. And, I tell you, he's fine and big and worth while all through. But you know that."

"Yes."

"That's why I'm going to feel quite safe about leaving you with him."

She started. That word "safe" was like a stab with a pen-knife. She would have rather had him strike her a full blow in the face than use it. Yet, in its miserable fashion, it expressed all that he had sought through her—all she had allowed him to seek. From the first they had each sought safety, because they did not dare face the big things.

NOW, at the moment she was ready, the same weakness that she had encouraged in him was helping take him away from her. And the pitiful tragedy of it was that Peter was helping too, and then challenging her to accept still graver dangers through him. It was a pitiful tangle.

"You mean he'll help you not to worry about me?"

"That's it," he nodded. "Because I've seen the man side of him, and it's even finer than the side you see."

Her lips came together.

"There's no reason why you should feel responsibility for me even without Peter," she protested.

She was seated in one of the wicker chairs, chin in hand. He stepped toward her.

You don't think I'd be cad enough to desert my wife actually?" he demanded.

He seemed so much in earnest that for a second the color flushed the chalk-white portions of her cheeks.

"Sit down, Monte," she pleaded. "I—I didn't expect you to take it like that. I'm afraid Peter is making you too serious. After all, you know, I'm of age. I'm not a child."

He sat down, bending toward her.

"We've both acted more or less like children," he said gently. "Now I guess the time has come for us to grow up. Peter will help you do that."

"And you?"

"He has helped me already. And when he gets his eyes back—"

"You think there is a chance for that?"

"Just one chance," he answered.

"Oh!" she cried.

"It's a big opportunity," he said. Marjorie rose and went to the window, where she looked out upon the gray ocean and the slanting rain and a world grown sodden. He followed her.

"I'm going now," he said. "I think I shall take the night train for Paris. I want to leave the machine—the machine we came down here in—for you."

"Don't—please don't."

"It's for you and Peter. The thing for you both to do is to get out in it every day."

"I—I don't want to."

"You mean—"

He placed his hand upon her arm, and she ventured one more look into his eyes. He was frowning. She must not allow that. She must send him away in good spirits. That was the least she could do. So she forced a smile.

"All right," she promised; "if it will make you more comfortable."

Page 20

"It would worry me a lot if I thought you weren't going to be happy."

"I'll go out every fair day."

"That's fine."

He took a card from his pocket and scribbled his banker's address upon it.

"If anything should come up where—where I can be of any use, you can always reach me through this address."

She took the card. Even to the end he was good—good and four-square. He was so good that her throat ached. She could not endure this very much longer.

He extended his hand.

"S'long and good luck," he said.

"I—I hope your golf will be better than you think."

Then he said a peculiar thing. He seldom lost his head as he did in that second. But, looking her full in the eyes, he ejaculated below his breath: "Damn golf!"

The observation was utterly irrelevant. Turning, he clicked his heels together like a soldier and went out. The door closed behind him. For a second her face was illumined as with a great joy. In a sort of ecstasy, she repeated his words.

"He said," she whispered—"he said, 'Damn golf.'" Then she threw herself into a wicker chair and began to sob.

"Oh!" she choked. "If—if—"

To be continued next week

The Best $1 Idea of the Week

THREE years ago my family went to Ohio for a vacation. The first morning after their departure I, as usual, slept very late, and when, by some chance, I did awaken, I dressed hurriedly, dashed downstairs and out the front door, slamming it behind me so the Yale night latch would catch. It did; and that evening it cost me two dollars to get in, as I had left my latch key comfortably nestling on the chiffonnier in my bedroom.

I resolved on the spot that it would never happen again, and I started out to collect keys. Every idle key coming under my observation became part of my collection. I knew from experience that every man had one or more dormant keys on his key-ring, so, whenever the opportunity presented itself, I asked for and usually obtained possession of these "idlers." My collection is now quite large.

Last summer I disposed of six suit-case keys from my collection, getting ten cents each for them, and the purchasers in every case were glad to get them. Had my collection of suit-case keys been larger, I could have done a thriving business this summer. I have sold, at the same price, quite a number of ordinary door keys to forgetful people.

The incident that pleased me most and yielded the largest return happened one Sunday afternoon at the railroad station, when a perplexed traveling man was trying to pry open his twenty-five dollar traveling bag with a pen-knife. When I approached he was perspiring, gritting his teeth, and murmuring sweet nothings. I offered to assist, but was informed that this particular bag had a particular key, which he had lost, and he must get a duplicate in Chicago, where the article was purchased.

"I'll look it over if you will permit," I suggested.

"Go ahead," he replied; "and there is a five-spot in it if you can get it open without too much damage."

I examined the collection on my ring, picked the winning key at first glance, opened the case, collected the five, and made the traveler happy; for his mileage and several rush orders were in the case. My interest in collecting keys, preferably suit-case keys, has been keyed to the highest pitch.

The Kiss

Continued from page 10

"How did you know it was I that kissed you?" he asked.

For a moment the Girl was puzzled. She looked at him intently from under puckered brows.

"How did I know?" she repeated. "Why, the other two men were clean-shaven."

Hollender sank suddenly into a chair. His hat dropped to the floor. His arms hung at his sides. He stared at the Girl as though he saw her for the first time in many days.

"God!" he murmured. "God, what a fool—what a fool I've been."

The Girl stared back at him. Light began to dawn in her eyes, and with it a hot flush rose slowly to her cheeks.

"You mean—" she began. "You thought—"

She stopped again. Then a startled look, as of sudden discovery, lit up her face and hardened it.

"Why," she exclaimed, "is that what has been the matter? Did you think I thought that kiss came from one of the other men?" She sat up very straight. "Did you try to make me think some one else was kissing me?"

Her arms stiffened, and she rose slowly to her feet. Hollender did not answer nor move except to follow her with his eyes. There was a stricken look in his face, but the Girl did not see it; her gaze was fixed through and beyond him. She was trying to relive the scene in the train from his point of view. She felt herself being put to the test; felt her lips respond as to a clandestine kiss. The color deepened in her cheeks.

"So you thought that!" she breathed.

Hollender groaned. The Girl had come back. She stood before him, yet infinitely removed. Never, at the height of his agony, had he felt such a sense of utter loss. Where once he had known but love, now he knew adoration. As he gazed at her parted lips, her wide eyes and flushed cheeks, and at her heaving bosom, he felt his heart bow down, crumble and melt within him.

Her glance came back from far away and settled on his stricken face. As one slowly awaking, she saw agony, remorse, and worship written there as on a printed page. Her eyes softened and grew troubled.

Hollender answered that look of returning interest with a cry. He flung himself at her feet, wrapped his arms around her knees, pressed his face against her.

"Oh, Girl!" he sobbed. "Forgive me—only forgive me! I know what I've done, all that I have done! You can't forgive not all at once, but if you'll try—only try! You mustn't think I haven't paid—torture—darkness and a lonely road! Oh, Girl!"

For a moment her fingers plowed nervously through his hair. Then she sank to the floor beside him and drew his head against her breast.

"What does it matter," she whispered, "if I can forgive? You have forgotten love. Love forgives. Love laughs—"

Something swelled in her throat and choked her. She strained him closer and closer, so that he could hear her exultant heart leaping the barrier of spoken words.

They Have Been Married 100 Years

THESE old people are a great "ad" for the married state. Their wedding was consummated away back in dim history, more than a hundred years ago; and yet, in their pictures, they register optimism. The old woman doesn't hesitate to say she is 120 years old, and her husband brags "going on 131." As for their next anniversary, the only fit present we can think of is the philosopher's stone, which is so valuable it can't be found.

Their great-great-great-grandchild (now aged four) is preparing for his long life by selling the guava paste, strange chocolates, molasses, and cocoanut cakes which his maternal ancestor makes. He sells them to tourists who die young anyway.

This genealogy of three lives was found on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, which sprawls among the Andes, 12,645 feet above the sea, and is so big that steamers ply up and down it, and it occurs to passengers that they are floating above the clouds. Because of its high altitude, it is supposed to be remarkably healthy. Anyway, most of these Indians, without trying, live as long as turtles.

Sometimes We Think of Trying It Ourselves

EVERY one knows the old saying, "Don't count your chickens until they're sold"; what a difficult bird it is to rear; and how moody and unreliable hens are when it comes to setting.

Well, Charles Hubbard has lived only eleven years, yet he hatched 38 chicks from 45 eggs. All except one grew to be strapping young chickens, and sold for $7.50 apiece.

"An extraordinary record!" said the government's agricultural agent, who was the judge of the Connecticut Poultry Club contest. The rules were: "Each contestant shall set three settings of 15 eggs; all chicks shall be hatched before June 1; all work must be done by the contestant; an account of time, feed, and materials shall be kept."

Early in the spring, the little chicken boy's father bought him a pen of live Ruff Orpingtons—a cock and four hens, who laid the necessary 45 eggs. The first of May, 38 chicks hatched out.

Charles' chicken pen got as much care as a sanatorium for the nervous rich. He spent about two hours a day and all Saturday nursing his birds, changing their litter, spraying them, seeing that they had exercise and regular meals, with an occasional tonic of liver and buttermilk.

One bright, September day, a buyer who was visiting farms in the county came upon Charles and his chickens, and straightway offered him $7.50 for every one that could qualify as show bird. Instanter Charles worked out a rigid system of feeding, exercising, and grooming, and put his chickens in training for the roll. This is the way he describes his gynmasium:

"The two cockerels I placed in separate condition coops, and first of all dusted them for lice. I hung a small cabbage in each coop, put two cups in each, one for water and the other for grit, shells, and charcoal.

"The first day of training I didn't feed them any grain, just let them pick the cabbage. The morning of the second day I washed their faces, combs, wattles, and shanks with warm water and medicinal soap. I dried them and greased them with sweet oil and turpentine."

A few weeks later he shipped a hen and a cock to the Ohio State Fair—"a fine pair of birds," wrote he, "sound in wing and tail, and have a good even surface color." And, as you'd expect, they won four prizes. At the Salisbury and Hagerstown fairs he also won prizes.

The 38 birds were sold by November, and Charles got out his account book. Charging himself ten cents an hour for his work, and adding in the necessities for every well brought up chicken, the cost of rearing was $77.50. Only one turned out to be a bird without a career—an everyday dollar-and-eighty-cent hen with a narrow chest and poor color. Since the rest of his family sold for $277.50 and won several prizes, Charles is beginning his next year's farm with $201.80.

Besides all that, for winning the Poultry Club contest he will be given a short course at the Connecticut Agricultural College when he is old enough. The query is—will he need it?

Curing Lumbago with a Comb

By EDWIN F. BOWERS, M.D.

LUMBAGO, as a rule, responds very quickly and kindly to zone therapy.

The weapon that has given the best results in attacking lumbago and kindred affections is a common dull-pointed aluminum or other metal comb, such as may be procured at most animal shops for dog-combing purposes. These are clutched, one in each hand, the teeth pressed firmly on the palms of the hands and on the palmar surface of the thumb, first, second, and third fingers. The pressures thus "cut across" each of the five zones. In order to get the best results the pressures should be continued for from ten to twenty minutes. Occasionally it may be necessary to work also on the "web" between the thumb and the first finger, and between the first and second fingers.

Some practisers of zone therapy prefer to begin operations on the tips of the thumb, first, second, and third fingers—gradually working up the palms of the hands, and spending five minutes on the wrists.

Remember always that the palmar surfaces of the hands and fingers are to be attacked for pains anywhere on the back; and the top or (back) surfaces of the hands and fingers should be treated for any trouble on the front of the body, arms, or legs. In zone therapy, front is back, and back is front, so far as the hands and feet are concerned.

A Bad Case Helped

RELIEF usually follows the first treatment. I recall a recent case that had persisted for more than three months. This man had taken practically every form of treatment recommended without any except transient benefit.

He was bent almost double, and for many weeks had not been able to stand erect. Be was presented with two aluminum combs and told to squeeze them for ten or fifteen minutes while waiting in the ante-room. After being brought into the office, his hands were thoroughly "combed."

He straightened out completely, received a treatment the following day, and found it unnecessary to take any more.

Sometimes equally good results follow from fastening hollowed-out spring-clothespins on the tips of the fingers corresponding to the zones in which the lumbago is felt—or even from binding heavy rubber bands around these fingers—leaving them in position five or ten minutes at a time, unless the finger becomes badly discolored, in which case the pressure must be temporarily removed.

One zone therapy practitioner, while on a journey, noticed that the conductor of the train walked "all doubled up." It developed that the railroad man had a "misery in his back." Three weeks in a sanatorium had given little relief.

The doctor invited him to go into the smoking compartment for a few minutes. Here he put rubber bands on the thumb and forefinger of each of the trainman's hands, at the same time making firm pressure with his thumb nails on the ligatured fingers. The conductor was not informed of the purpose of this procedure, so his imagination had nothing to work on.

After about ten minutes of this treatment, a whistle blew, and the conductor had suddenly to leave his chair. He straightened up and went out "on the run."

When he came back, he laughed and said: "This is the first time in six weeks I've stood up or moved without pain. What in thunder have those little rubber bands to do with lumbago, anyway?"

Naturally, in sciatica and in articular or joint rheumatism the results have not been so uniformly favorable. For sciatica may be due to hip-joint dislocation. Indeed, one of our most famous bone surgeons claims that all cases sciatica result from a twist or subluxation of the hip joint—which certainly is not true of those cases cured with a comb, or by electricity, or by some medical measure.

Treating Sciatica

IN treating sciatica, particular attention must be given the "hip area" or the hand on the same side as the sciatica. This means that the palmar surface of the little finger and the palm of the hand on that side, as well as the "edge" of the palm, running up over the top of the hand, must be thoroughly "combed."

But the best and most rapid relief for sciatica is usually secured by "attacking" the soles of the feet—using the comb in the same manner and for the same areas as described for the hands: in other words, by manipulating the zones in the feet corresponding to the zones in the hands.

Shall I Buy a Foreign Bond?

By ALBERT W. ATWOOD

MANY readers have wanted to know about foreign government bonds since the war began, but the writer has hesitated to discuss these investments because of the possible element of hazard connected with them. Conditions have been changing in recent months, and it now seems fairly certain that American investors can pick up "bargains" among foreign government bonds without much chance of loss.

Expert opinion has been veering in favor of these loans because of the improvement in the position of the Allies; for, while there are German and Austrian bonds for sale in this country, by far the greater interest is in the various obligations of the more numerous Allies. The writer is no military expert, but he feels reasonably safe in assuming that the Allies will not be badly enough defeated to have their countries overrun by the Germans. Such an outcome of the war is about the only one that would lead to the external bonds of the Allies being repudiated.

But a much more practical reason I'm favoring these foreign government bonds—or, at least, a few of them—is the fact that England and France have been compelled to borrow in this country in the last few months through the means of collateral security. This is a new departure for such rich and powerful countries; but then, war is a great leveler. In addition to the credit of these rich countries, the bonds are backed by ample security in American bonds and stocks and securities of neutral countries, which are left on deposit in this country to the extent of 12 per cent. of the face value of the loan. Thus, even if the Prussian Guard should seize both Paris and London and make England and France mere colonies of Germany, there is no reason why the bonds should not be paid off.

The American Foreign Securities Corporation 5s (French) and the United Kingdom collateral trust 5s both may be purchased on the Stock Exchange at about 98. This means that they will pay 5 3/4 per cent., and they afford a safe and at

Page 23

The Anglo-French 5s are actively traded in on the Stock Exchange and have at all times a big market there. They are the obligation of both France and England, and are more suitable for the permanent investor, as they do not mature so soon as the other two loans. Moreover, they may be had in $100 units. These bonds at 95 pay well over 6 per cent., and confidence in their safety increases daily.

"Is there a lack of security in government bonds caused by a possible change in government?" asks one reader. "If Germany, for example, should conquer France, might not Germany refuse to pay the French bonds?"

Certainly that is exactly what might, and probably would, happen. That is the chance one takes with an unsecured loan, such as the Anglo-French loan. And there are even more chances with the internal loans which are now becoming so popular with American operators. Even such governments as France, England, and Germany, with their long record of meeting every payment, might directly or indirectly repudiate an internal loan, that is, one placed originally with their own people.

But there is no case of a government of the first class repudiating an external loan in modern times. It could not do so, as long as it had the money to pay and cared to remain in the society of nations.

Russia Offers Attractive Speculation

BY far the most attractive speculation among the government bonds is those of Russia. Because of its inability to export and the necessity of importing vast quantities of goods, the price of the Russian ruble has fallen at least 40 per cent, as compared with American money. Normally a 1000-ruble bond would be worth about $515, because the ruble is worth about 51 cents. But, owing to the decline in rubles, it was recently possible to buy a 1000-ruble bond for $297, provided it was left with bankers in Russia until after the war, or $302 if it was brought over to this country and delivered to the buyer at once.

Now, it is clear that if the owner holds the bond until 1923, when it is to be paid off, and rubles return to 51 cents by that time, he will have made a very large profit, irrespective of the per cent. interest that would be paid each year. If Russia should defeat Turkey and secure Constantinople, rubles would probably return to their normal price at once. They even advanced considerably because of Rumania's entrance into the war. That they will remain at a discount after the war, considering Russia's vast natural resources, seems most unlikely. Of course, one is speculating in foreign exchange; but in the long run that is a fairly sure form of speculation.

American Railroad Bonds Cheaper Abroad

EXCEPT for the experienced operator, the internal Russian securities present various difficulties. The ordinary investor will do better to wait for further issues of Russian external securities (there has already been one). For persons willing to study opportunities closely there are plenty of them, not only in all manner of internal Russian loans, but in Japanese bonds, which may be had to pay as much as 8 per cent., and in many high-grade American railroad bonds, which may be bought abroad some ten points lower than in this country, provided they are left with bankers in Holland or Switzerland until after the war. In some cases the very best first-mortgage bonds of the leading American railroads may be had in Holland twelve points below the New York price.

German and Austrian bonds, like the Russian, also may be had to pay enormous returns, the assumption being that German and Austrian exchange will also get back to normal after the war.

The prices mentioned in this article are, of course, subject to change, and may be very different a few weeks after the article is written. Many reliable brokers are now making a specialty of foreign government bonds, and I doubt whether all the bargains will have been snapped up until very close to the day when a treaty of peace is signed.

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.

Write Slattery & Co., 40 Exchange Place, New York, for pamphlet giving list of Standard Oils which have piled up sufficient surplus to warrant near-by large extra cash or stock dividend. Ask for 23-E, including booklet explaining the Twenty-Payment Plan.

An interesting description of the plan by which you can purchase stocks and bonds of dividend-paying companies is contained 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 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.

The Bache Review has become most valuable to bankers and business men on the financial situation, because it condenses in a graphic manner the most comprehensive, reliable, and able views of current events as they affect business, finance, and investments. It is issued weekly by J. S. Bache & Company, 42 Broadway, New York. Sent on application.

Several interesting books describing public utility investments yielding from 6 to 7 per cent. and showing the stability of utility earnings may be obtained upon request from H. M. Byllesby & Company, Engineers and Managers, 218 South La Salle Street, Chicago, and 1219 Trinity Building, New York.

A detailed description of the methods used in selecting and making the best farm mortgages without a single loss to clients in thirty-one years is set forth in a booklet offered free by George L. Foreman & Company, 11 South La Salle Street, Chicago.

Any one interested in the security market should send to L. R. Latrobe & Co., No. 111 Broadway, New York, for their statistical books on Copper Stocks, Motor Stocks, Standard Oil Stocks, Investor's Guide (270 pages) or Weekly Market Letter. This firm will mail you any one of these books free on request. Partial Payment Plan.

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 special current letter B, a copy of which will be supplied by the above-named firm on written request.

One share or one hundred-dollar bond of any listed security can be purchased on the partial-payment plan through Pearl & Co., members of New York Stock Exchange, 71 Broadway, New York. Their Booklet E, explaining the details of this method, will be sent to investors on request.

Every one interested in securities should have a copy of The Investor's Guide. It discusses all classes of bonds thoroughly and intelligently, and is adapted to the purposes of the large or small investor. E. F. Coombs & Co., 122 Broadway, New York City, will send you a copy on request.

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.

"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.

Investors desiring to acquire $100 bonds of the best known issues, and of a class that are legal for investment by Trustees and Savings Banks, should send for the special list E that has been prepared by Merrill, Lynch & Co., members of the New York Stock Exchange, 7 Wall Street, New York City.

All those interested in high grade unlisted stocks and bonds should write to Dawson, Lyon & Co., 42 Wall Street, New York, for a copy of the Unlisted Securities Review. It will be sent monthly, free of charge, also Circular 66.

The booklet, "Odd Lot Buying," issued by Hartshorne & Picabia, members of the New York Stock Exchange, 7 Wall Street, New York City, differs to a great extent from those issued by most firms doing business in odd lots of stock. The firm offers special inducements in the way of advice to small investors. Copies of this Booklet 0-2 on request.

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, inclosing four cents in stamps, if you want a copy.