"To Make the World Safe for Democracy"

IT sometimes seems as if progress is horribly slow.

Seventeen hundred and seventy-six years of the Christian era had to pass by before any group of men were wise enough and strong enough to announce to the world that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."

And even they had to travel three thousand miles and settle in a wilderness before they dared to do it.

Once the idea had permeated the consciousness of the world, one would have supposed that thrones everywhere would tumble down before it: that every nation would at once have recognized the absurdity of calling a man "king" because he happened to be born in a house with an iron fence around it, and giving him power over the lives and fortunes of the other men and women who happened to be born in other houses without iron fences.

Yet one hundred and forty-one years have elapsed. And still the race is engaged in its old-time business of trying to get rid of its kings—engaged this time with a fury that threatens almost to wreck civilization itself.

Progress is horribly slow, but none the less the world does progress.

I have been reading recently about the conditions that obtained in the half century just before the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Arthur Young, who traveled through France at about that time, found forty million acres of French soil wholly waste—given over to the sport of the rich. In the year 1739-40 more Frenchmen died from famine than had been killed in all the wars of Louis XIV.

More than half of France was cultivated by peasants who were absolute paupers, their little crops trampled by the hunts of the rich, or taxed to death.

"How fares your flock?" asked the King of the Bishop of Chartres.

And the Bishop answered: "Sire, they eat grass like sheep and starve like flies."

This was the normal condition of the common people of France and most other countries only two hundred years ago.

In 1757 the Archbishop Elector of Cologne issued a torture chart, showing the various kinds of torture which an executioner might inflict on a victim, in the name of religion, and the amount of legal payment for each:

           

	THALERS
For tearing asunder with four horses	5
For burning alive	4
For breaking a man on a wheel	4
For burning with a hot iron	1
For nailing a tongue or hand to the gallows	1

Fifty-five different paragraphs, all neatly printed and distributed. This was the state of justice and of religion in much of the world only one hundred and sixty years ago.

In 1834 the Austrian government sent out from Milan a catechism entitled "Duties of Subjects Toward Their Sovereign." Here are two typical paragraphs:

Q. How should subjects behave toward their sovereign? A. Subjects should behave like faithful slaves toward their sovereign.

Q. Why should subjects behave like slaves? A. Because their sovereign is their master and has power both over their possessions and their lives.

This was the ideal of political freedom throughout a large part of the world only a hundred years ago.

We find that ideal still surviving in words like these, uttered by William of Germany shortly before the war:

It is a tradition of our House that we, the Hohenzollerns, regard ourselves as appointed by God to govern and lead the people whom it is given us to rule. . . .

The people whom it is given us to rule—that the ideal behind those words should have lasted so long after the first blow dealt it by our ancestors one hundred and forty-one years ago is amazing, and in a sense discouraging.

But that it can outlast this war is impossible. The world does progress: we are about to finish for all time the work which one hundred and forty-one years ago on July Fourth our forefathers so well began.

Bruce Barton, Editor.

"ONLY THE WOMEN AND OLD MEN"

Painted for EVERY WEEK by W. V. Chambers

THE old men of France are, as are old men everywhere, loving, sorrowing, giving of their feeble strength. But the women of France—what other nation can claim so rich a heritage in the inspiration and devotion of its women?

"What do you want?" they asked Joan of Arc.

And she answered:

"Before the middle of Lent I must be with the king, even if in coming to him I wear my legs down to the knees. No one in the world—neither kings nor dukes nor any others—can recover the kingdom of France; neither can the king have any succor, save from me. Nevertheless I had rather spin with my poor mother. For these things are not proper to my station. Yet I must go and do them, because it is the will of my Lord."

Through the hearts of her women always has run that same spirit of personal dedication to the fortunes of France. Charlotte Corday lived in the little town of Caen; but she felt so deeply the outrages of the Revolution that she came to Paris and willingly sacrificed herself.

"I killed one man to save a hundred thousand, a villain to save innocents" (and here is the ever-present national consciousness) "—a wild beast to give repose to my country."

French legends thank St. Genevieve for the rescue of Paris from Attila and the Huns. One story has it that she went out alone to meet Attila, and persuaded him to spare the town. Another says that she instituted the nine days' prayer—the novena—which influenced the enemy to depart. Once, when French soldiers were starving a few miles from Paris on the banks of the Seine, she rowed great flat-boats of provisions to them.

Bismarck "bled France white," so he thought, with his, levy of a billion-dollar indemnity: but the burgher wives of France, out of their thrift, defeated him. No war or series of wars can permanently cripple France, so long as she has her women.

The Jewel Song

By CLARE PEELER

Illustrations by George E. Wolfe

"AIX?" said Mr. Alston. "Let me see. Never been there, have you? Well, take Atlantic City, mix it with Palm Beach, put Saratoga Springs in the tenth century A. D. for a background, spice the whole thing with a big dash of gay Paree at its warmest—and you get Aix-les-Bains.

"At least, you did before the Big War. The town had two idols—J. Pierpont Morgan and old King George of Greece. Morgan used to come along once in every so often, pick up about everything in Aix that wasn't nailed down, have it wrapped in tissue paper, and send it to his New York address. He paid cash, too. I guess that's why the Aix-ites named a street after him.

"Old King George of Greece used to give 'tone' to Aix—half-tone, as it were. Democratic old thing, was George. All you had to do to be received by him was to put up at a respectable hotel, pay two francs per day admission to the Casino, and go to one of the balls there 'to meet King George.' Then, if you knew anybody that would present you to him, there you were—in society. They named a street after him too. Good business, that was.

"Both their idols are dead now, and I guess Aix is mostly full of wounded soldiers in these merry 1917 days. But in the old times, when it was the happy hunting-ground for English nobility and American and French millionaires, with a few Russians and South Americans spending their money at 'the tables,' and a lot of opera singers down from Paris to make things lively at the Casino—and elsewhere—Aix was a great place. I've seen some things there—"

He paused.

"Go on," I urged.

"Wait a minute," Mr. Alston said. "Is that the Jewel Song from 'Faust' they're playing? Funny. I never can hear that without remembering—"

For an instant his steel-keen eyes grew absent. We were sitting in one of the mezzanine galleries of a New York hotel for our after-dinner smoke, and from below there drifted up to us snatches of the "Faust" music.

"Yes, that's the Jewel Song," I said.

"What did you say it reminded you of?"

"Of a girl I met at Aix one summer," Mr. Alston returned. "And of a queer story. I guess I'll have to tell it to you." He mused a moment longer—then:

THERE was a good-looking hotel in Aix right opposite the Casino, and I put up there because I'd been told it was mostly patronized by Americans and English, and had a fine table.

"You speak French, sare?" says the concierge to me, when I was getting some points from him soon after arriving.

"Nixie," I says. "I came here for rest."

Mary and the girls generally spoke my French for me, but that year they were back home.

There weren't any Americans among the guests, as it happened, but the hotel was full of English. After my first dinner I strolled into the "salon," and sat down to look at the papers on the big center table. There were two or three people in the room, but I didn't pay much attention to them, because I was reaching for a New York Herald—the first American news I'd seen for weeks.

"Excuse me, sir," says a woman's voice. "May I ask if you are reading the Dily Mile?"

(That was the way she pronounced it.)

I looked up and saw a strong, resolute female in the late fifties, with something that passed for an evening dress tied around her figure, and a lace tidy on her head.

"No, madam," I says, getting up. "If my eyes don't deceive me, this is the New York Herald."

"Oh, quite so! quite so!" she says discontentedly. "It's very strange. I don't see the Mile anywhere."

She gave a suspicious look around, and I saw it rest on a big, good-looking, middle-aged Englishman reading a paper on the opposite side of the table.

"Are you reading the Dily Mile, sir?" she says to him. "And may I see it when you've finished with it?"

"I haven't it," he says. "I'm sorry."

"Very well," she says, as though he had apologized. "Perhaps the Bishop has it."

And with that she went out of the room.

The Englishman laid down the paper and looked at me with his eyes twinkling.

"By Jove," he says, "that's quite a terrible old party. She's a bishop's wife, and so one's got to be decent to her; but she makes one's life miserable in here every night demanding the beastly Mail, as though one had it concealed about one. And I always read the Times myself. Don't I, Millie?"

A very pretty girl sitting near him looked up from her book and smiled at me.

"Father," she said demurely, "I think you're forgetting your Catechism. Isn't there something in it about ordering one's self lowly and reverently to one's betters?"

"Oh, my word, one's betters! I like that!" he spluttered. "One's betters, indeed! Fancy that, now!"

Then, when he saw her blue eyes laugh, he began laughing too. They seemed to be good friends, that father and daughter. She drew a paper out from back of her, and held it up. It was the Mail.

"I was so glad Mrs. Delavan didn't happen to ask me for the Mail," she said. "But, after all, you know, it's supposed to be supplied for all the guests, now, isn't it?"

Then she calmly read it through, while her father and I talked. Luckily for us, the Bishop's wife didn't come back.

That was how I first met Pauncefote and his daughter Millicent.

Pauncefote was a widower with a lot of money that I am afraid he had gathered together "in trade." In other words, he'd worked for it, instead of squeezing it out of a bunch of inherited tenants, or raising it out of more land than any one man had any business to own, with a lot of others starving all around.

You notice I seem to have some Radical theories. Well, I mostly learned them from Pauncefote. He and I were "with" Lloyd-George, as they say in England.

There was only one place where he was Conservative, and that was where his daughter was concerned. He wanted her to have everything of the best, socially and every other way. It seems her dead mother had belonged to a "good family," as they call it, and so some old woman with a large handle to her name had taken her up,—"brought her out" and so on,—so that she'd had as good a first season as any other pretty girl in London, in spite of the disgrace attaching to a father who had once had a business.

She was tired out after it all, though, and they'd come to Aix for the baths. Pauncefote's doctor ordered the father exercise and the daughter mostly rest and massage; but they were together most of the time, and I saw them a good deal in the next six weeks.

There was opera across the street from us every night, and we went often.

The first time, it was to hear "Faust" in the Villa des Fleurs, the Casino annex, where you could eat dinner and hear opera at the same time, if you wanted to. Imagine Journet singing that serenade of his to the tune of knives and forks in the background! Cultivated Europe hands the crude American a surprise like that every once in a while. But, anyhow, that's the way Aix did; and if the opera-singers didn't like it, they could always stay in Paris.

After the third act I was telling Pauncefote the old yarn about some barnstormers that gave "Faust" out West. It seems Mephistopheles got stuck in the trap-door going down to Hades in the last act, and some cow-boy in the gallery yelled:

"Hooray, boys! Hell's full!"

That tickled Pauncefote nearly to death, and he begged me to "tell it to Millie." I did. She turned her big blue eyes on me, and:

"Oh, fancy!" she says. "And was it really full?" she says.

From which remark I gathered that the young woman either had a badly atrophied sense of humor, or that she had something on her mind. I looked at her.

"Garden acts the Jewel Song so wonderfully, doesn't she?" she said, not seeming to notice anything. "She makes you feel that Marguerite could have wanted those jewels dreadfully, and still be quite good in her soul."

"How so?" I asked her.

"I mean, she was happy because somebody liked her enough to give her such lovely things, don't you see? It wasn't all flattered vanity, was it? And still they must have seemed beautiful to her—beautiful," she added dreamily. "Do you love jewels, Mr. Alston?"

"Well, diamond tiaras and bracelets don't exactly seem to suit my style of young loveliness," I began—and then the curtain went up.

WHEN the opera ended, we went to "the tables" to watch the crowd play. Outside, perhaps, of Monte Carlo, you'd never see a more striking-looking set of people—all the men in evening clothes, some with orders on, all the women in corking low-cut gowns, with the kind of jewels our women wear at the Metropolitan on Caruso nights. Only here there were about twice as many jewels to each woman. Old Saint-Saens was hobnobbing in a corner with Carolus Duran, the painter, and Chauncey Depew was looking over the Duchess of Westminster's shoulder. Presently everybody whispered "Regardez?" and Mary Garden came through on her way to the restaurant for supper, with the composer de Lara on one side and the King of Greece on the other.

It was a pretty exciting sort of place, taking it altogether, for a young girl, and Millicent Pauncefote's eyes were like two

---

blue stars with black points in the middle. Her pile of golden hair was just enough loosened to make a frame around her soft little pink face. She looked like a—blamed if I know what to tell you she looked like, unless one of those Greuz pictures—the "Broken Pitcher" one maybe.

Pauncefote was amusing himself putting on a few francs, and Millicent and I were watching him, when I saw he eyes get wider than ever, looking at woman playing just across from where we stood.

She was a horrible old creature. Hag Bard, lined through a lot of make-up, gray hair streaking around her face, two eye like an old hawk's, over a hawk's nose am a hard mouth—she reached out a yellow claw when the croupier called out "Faites votre jeu!" and she threw a napoleon on the table. The ball rolled stopped—and the croupier raked in her money. She never even looked at him—just threw on some more. Again it went. Again she threw on more. She was like an old witch feeding the fires of hell.

I went over to Pauncefote and touched his arm.

"Say, Pauncefote," I says, "let's get out of here."

But just then that woman spoke to Millicent.

"Merci, mademoiselle!" she says, with a grin and a bow. "You 'ave brought to me the good chance."

Sure enough, she was winning.

Pauncefote looked over, saw the woman, saw Millicent smile at her, saw everybody turn to look at his girl—and was at her side in about two seconds.

"We're going to the restaurant now," he said. "Come, Millicent."

She looked at him, a little puzzled by his tone. But she came at once.

When we were clear of the salon de jeu, he said to her:

"Don't ever speak to that woman again, Millie."

"Do you know her?" she asked him.

"Heavens, no!" he said testily. "But one can't speak to that sort of looking person, you know."

"No, I suppose not, dad," she said thoughtfully. And that was all of that.

SO I was rather surprised, next morning, to turn the corner of the wide street that leads up to the Etablissement des Bains, and find Miss Pauncefote standing talking to the old woman.

When she saw me, the girl colored and bowed. I passed them, and a very few minutes later Miss Millicent overtook me. We walked along together toward the baths, and she explained that the old woman had stopped her to tell what wonderful luck Millicent had brought to her the night before.

We were just in front of the old Roman arch, when suddenly her eyes brightened still more, her face flushed, and she half stopped. A tall, dark young man in a white flannel suit was coming towards us. He held out his hand with a happy smile as we met.

"Why—why—when did you come?" she said, the pretty pink color all over her face. "Prince Tresipoff, let me present Mr. Alston to you. I didn't know—"

"But of course I would come, mademoiselle," he said. "I told you so."

Then he bowed to me and we shook hands.

"May I walk with you?" he asked.

"I'm to meet dad at the Etablissement des Bains," she said. "I'm sorry."

His face changed.

"Oh—then your father is here?" he asked.

"Of course," she laughed. "Did you think I was in Aix alone?"

"Naturally not," he returned. "But I thought this gentleman might be a relative—an uncle, perhaps—"

"No such luck," I says. "I'm John Alston, of Chicago, U. S. A., Prince, and very pleased to have met you. Miss Pauncefote, I see your father coming, and, with your permission, I'll leave you now. I'm going in here to the Hotel des Ambassadeurs for a cigar."

"May I not accompany you?" the young man said. "I am staying there."

"Sure," I says, as Pauncefote joined us.

He looked about as glad to see Prince Tresipoff as the cat does when the Spitz terrier strolls in to pay a friendly call, and he wasn't very much more cordial.

Well, I detached myself from the happy group as soon as possible, and the Prince followed me into the hotel.

We got a couple of comfortable chairs in the big, sunny lobby where the windows look out into the garden, and started talking. It was borne in on me presently that my young Russian friend was leading me on to talk while he mediatated on his late enthusiastic reception by Mr. Pauncefote. So, with many good wishes for a speedy reunion and so forth, I beat it and walked back alone to my hotel.

I didn't blame the young man for being slightly inattentive to my charms. I had just seen him get about as sharp a throw down, short of personal violence, as any firm father ever administered to an aspiring suitor; and he was pretty evidently not used to such treatment. I wondered what it was all about. The boy looked all right to me.

I MET Pauncefote in the afternoon, over at the Casino. He was sitting by himself on the terrace, smoking gloomily.

"Where's Miss Millicent?" I asked him.

"Dressing," he said shortly. "She'll be over presently."

We smoked silently a few minutes; then he broke out:

"I wish to God that fellow hadn't met you this morning, Alston!"

"Miss Millie didn't seem to mind him," I said—just to start him.

"Confound it, that's just the trouble!" her father snorted. "I wish she did object to him. Heaven knows, I do."

"What's the matter with him?" I asked.

"Everything!" he declared. "He's poor, in the first place."

"That comes about fifth place in the States," I says. "You see, most of us begin that way."

"Of course, I know that," Pauncefote said impatiently. "In a manner of speaking, you know, I began that way myself. But Millie's mother and I—"

His face grew softer.

"Well, we were happy," he said. "But she loved jewels and luxuries of all kinds I couldn't give her then, and I don't want her girl to want for anything."

"I suppose it is tough not to know where your next limousine is coming from," I remarked. "What about this boy's character?"

"I know nothing about it," he snapped. "How could I? He's a Russian. What can I tell about his habits or tastes or morals? He's probably some kind of a political spy. One never can trust these Russian fellows, you know."

"You ought to have been a Conservative, Pauncefote," I says. "It's a sin to waste such sound British views on the Radicals."

This thing I'm telling you about happened in 1911. Sounds funny now, some of it, what? God help all of them! Including ourselves.

"To return to the subject of your young friend," I went on. "Where did you meet him?"

"At the Russian Embassy garden party last season," he said. "He's supposed to be an attaché of sorts."

"Well, that's something for his standing, isn't it?"

"Jolly little," he said resentfully. "And do you think I want my girl carried off to St. Petersburg to live, and becoming a Greek Catholic and all that sort of rot? I'll not have it, and that's flat." He stuck out his lower lip and looked as ugly as you please. I felt sorry for Miss Millicent.

She came in sight just then, walking up the Casino drive—the prettiest thing you ever saw, all in pale blue, from the muslin hat to her suede shoes. She didn't look very happy, though. We had tea together, but she didn't chatter over it the way she'd used to. She lost her color entirely when Prince Tresipoff came out on the terrace with another man, and only bowed to us formally from the distance. Her eyes couldn't help following him when he went indoors, which he did very soon. Presently she said she was tired and would go back to the hotel to rest before dinner.

Pauncefote wanted me to walk with him for a while, but I excused myself. Like the fool of an American father that I am, I didn't feel as kindly towards him as I had before. He was interfering with his daughter's life out of pure jealousy, I thought. I had an experience once myself (I'll tell you about it sometime) of what jealousy will bring out in a person otherwise decent, and it may have prejudiced me.

The Paris New York Herald informed me that evening that "The Russian Ambassador to Great Britain has descended at the Hotel Splendide, Aix-les-Bains"—which announcement didn't leave a plain citizen of Chicago as cold as you might think. I had met him when I was visiting the manager of our London branch—and, as it happened, before the night was out I had business with him.

It was like this:

At dinner neither Pauncefote nor his daughter showed up. I strolled up to their rooms, as I'd got the habit of doing, to smoke on their balcony instead of downstairs in the salon. Nobody was about, so I concluded they'd gone to dine at one of the restaurants, and I went outside for my smoke. Presently I heard some one in their salon, and went in just in tine to see a strange man try to step out by the door. I grabbed him. He was a short, thick-set, dark fellow, plainly dressed, and gabbled a lot of talk that sounded like Russian. Then, when he found I couldn't make out his talk, he tore off about forty-seven yards of rapid French; but I didn't seem to get that, either. He had a package in his hands he kept trying to push into mine and saying, pour mademoiselle. But I thought he'd found it on the table and tried to lift it, so I marched him downstairs to the concierge to explain himself. He came along quietly.

The concierge wasn't at all interested.

"The man was merely leaving a package for Mademoiselle Pauncefote, sare," he said. "It's perfectly right. He has seen me before he came upstairs." (I'll bet he had!)

Mad! Say, I went upstairs thanking God the rest of the hotel were all still at dinner and only wishing I could have got in just one swift punch to spoil that fellow's smile as he left. But by the time the Pauncefotes came in—Millie still looking sad and her father gloomy—the thing had struck me funnily and I told it as a corking joke on me, to cheer them up.

"Oh, really!" Millicent said, when I finished. "It was quite exciting now, wasn't it?"

She didn't seem to care much about anything.

"What is in the package, Millie?" her father asked.

"I can't imagine, I'm sure," she told him.

"Well, open it, then," he said impatiently, and she did.

It nearly dropped out of her hands when she got the cover off; for inside lay the most beautiful pearl necklace I ever saw. She took it out without a word, and all three of us stared at it.

"Millie!" her father said. "You've not bought that, surely?"

She never took her eyes off the wonderful milky things that lay in her hands, as she answered him.

"No, indeed, dad," she said mechanically. "I—I've not got money enough in all the world to buy this, you know."

And as she said that, through the open window from the Casino across the street there came the music of the Jewel Song and a woman's beautiful voice singing "Ah, que je suis belle"

Pauncefote started as if he had been stung.

"Then where did it come from?" he demanded. "Whowho dared give you such a thing? It was that Russian! That was his servant!"

The girl's face was scarlet.

"Oh, no, father!" she cried out.

Just then Pauncefoto held up a card he had rummaged out of the box.

"To the beautiful and charming mademoiselle, with thanks for her kindness."

He took a step towards his daughter.

"What kindness does he mean?" he said, his face white. "What have you done, that he sends you jewels as if you were—"

I grabbed his arm.

"Hold on, old man!" I says.

The girl was shaking all over.

"What—what do you mean, father?" she whispered.

There was something in her face besides horror and outraged feelings. But Pauncefote didn't see it. He was like a mad bull.

"I mean," he raged, "that this Russian devil knows your father isn't 'born,' as they call it. His beggarly family hold themselves above us because I worked for my money instead of grinding it out of the poor wretch born 'below' me. He doesn't offer you honorable marriage—"

"Oh, father, father, stop!" the girl screamed out. "It isn't true! It can't be! He loves me—he's said so over and over again."

"He's said so?" her father said slowly. "You've dared to let him talk of love to you, when I forbade it? You, my daughter? He's gone to these accursed tables and gambled to win the money for this—to bribe you—"

THE sounds of clapping came across the street—loud, long, prolonged. It died away, and again the woman's voice sang:

"Ah, que je suis belle!"

Millicent Pauncefote laid down the necklace on the table. Her father had thrown himself into a chair.

"I will never forgive you for this, father," she said, and went out of the room.

I caught her father's arm as he sprang up to follow her. I'm a pretty strong man, and while I certainly don't hunt scraps, I can see one through if I've got to.

"You dod-gasted infernal fool," I said gently. "Listen to me. Do you want a scandal that will ring all through Aix? Come out here on the balcony and hear what I have to say for a minute."

The word "scandal" fetched him. I'd thought it might.

"I'll stake anything you want," I said to him, when we got out there, "that your daughter had nothing to do with the sending of that necklace. But you can take it from me, Pauncefote,—and, as you know, I've got daughters of my own,—that if you want to throw her into that young man's arms, you couldn't go about it better than you did just now."

Still, even as I spoke, I thought of her secretly meeting the old woman she'd been told not to speak to,—of how she'd hid the newspaper that first evening, when the Bishop's wife was stewing around,—and I honestly didn't know. But it was up to me to quiet her father, anyhow, or heaven only knew what might happen.

---

Pauncefote was a little ashamed already.

He sat down, looking pretty sick.

"It's my temper," he said, after a while. "I've always been like this: I suppose I may seem unreasonable—at times."

"You give that impression, perhaps," I says politely.

"But great heavens!" he broke out. "If she didn't get that necklace from him—

"Suffering Moses!" I says, at my wits' end. "Is she the only mademoiselle in Aix? And is he the only man here likely to send a woman a gift?"

"By Jove," he said, "that's true! There was no address on the box; though."

Some reasoner, he was.

"Somebody's servant was instructed to leave it, and to fix up the concierge accordingly," I says. "Ask me a harder one."

I'll—I'll go in and make it up with the child," he says.

"If I were you, Pauncefote," says I, "I'd leave the little girl to herself for a while. If you happened to get angry again—"

"Oh, very well, very well!" he said. "I'll go in and say good night to her, perhaps."

It was twelve before I went to my rooms. We had talked about a lot of things in that time, and he was pretty well smoothed down. For my part, I'd realized that he took some managing, that fellow—by his daughter or anybody else.

WHILE I was undressing and puzzling things at the same time, a new idea struck me. I almost yelled it out loud. Then I made up my mind to see Pauncefote first thing in the morning. I'd have gone over to his apartment then, only I didn't want to intrude if he should happen to be making things up with his daughter.

"Well, sir, you've learned a few things in Aix," I said to myself. "And one of them is not to judge—"

Just then comes a knock at the door.

I opened it, and there was Pauncefote.

"Millie—she's gone!" he gasped. He held up a note:

"I can not stay with you, father. Please don't try to find me. But remember always I have done nothing wrong.

"She has gone to that Russian," he whispered.

"If it were the last word I had to speak, I'd say she had not," I stuck to it. "But we'll make sure first. Where's your daughter's maid?"

"Millie gave her the evening to herself after dinner, and she's not returned yet. It's only a little after twelve, you know."

Everybody keeps late hours in Aix, even the servants. I got back into my clothes lickety-split, and we hurried downstairs. Luckily there was a taxi handy.

"We'll go to the des Ambassadeurs first," I said. Pauncefote was dazed, apparently.

"Prince Tresipoff has gone out," the concierge of the Hotel des Ambassadeurs told us; and I asked to see his servant.

As I thought, he wasn't the man who had left the pearls. He explained very courteously in English that his master had returned extremely early from the opera, and had been preparing for bed when he had received a note and gone out again.

"Do you know where he went or from whom the note came?" I asked.

"Mais non, monsieur," the man said. "And he said nothing about when he would return; and, naturally, I did not question him."

"Of course not," I said. "Much obliged."

"Do you happen to know who left a note for Prince Tresipoff?" I asked the concierge next.

But he didn't know anything. There were so many notes left for les messieurs, see you, and so many pages to take them and—

"All right," I says. "We'll go to the Splendide next, Pauncefote."

He couldn't seem to think—just followed me blindly. As the car tore up the hill to the hotel, I told him whom we were going to see next, and he nodded.

The Russian Ambassador was chez lui, and when I sent up my card with "May I see you alone?" on it, his servant came down to say that his Excellency would receive Mr. Alston. The great lobby was crowded with people chattering, smoking, drinking coffee, what not.

"Pauncefote," I said, "you'd better wait for me down here. And look here. If you should happen to see your daughter here with any one, don't mind making a scene. Just don't let her get away."

"Let my daughter get away?" he said. "What do you take me for?"

THE Ambassador received me as if I was the very fellow he wanted to see. He's a wonder, that man.

"I want your help for an English gentleman, your Excellency," I said, when we had shaken hands and I had sat down. "A Mr. Pauncefote of London—"

"Pauncefote?" he said. "Pauncefote? Ah, yes; I have met him, surely."

"I suppose Prince Tresipoff mentioned him to you occasionally, too," I said; and he didn't contradict me.

As fast as I could I told him the whole story—in confidence. An Ambassador hears about twenty-five times as many confidential stories as a doctor, and fifty times as many as a clergyman, so they're pretty safe people to tell things to. He looked very grave as I finished.

"But what am I to do, my dear sir?" he said. "I can't find Tresipoff in Aix tonight for you."

"I don't want him, your Excellency," I said. "What I want to know is if you can tell me who a certain old lady is, and where to find her."

Then, the best I knew how, I described to him the old woman who had thanked Millicent for bringing her good luck, that first night at the tables.

"I sized that woman up at the time as a Russian, your Excellency," I finished. "She looks it—cheek-bones, long eyes, and all that. And, if you'll excuse me for saying it, she gambled like one. I believe that necklace came from her. Whether she's a go-between for the Prince, or whether she's taken a shine to the girl on her own account, I don't know. She probably makes her entire income at the tables; and gamblers are a superstitious lot. She might want to keep her luck that way. Anyway, I have a hunch the girl's with her this minute."

The Ambassador lay back in his chair and laughed heartily. I stared at him.

"You are mistaken in one thing, Mr. Alston," he said. "That lady does not make her money at the gaming tables."

"You recognize my description?" I said.

"Perfectly," he told me. "But I regret to say that the lady in question comes here incognita, and I am compelled for certain reasons to respect her wish to remain unknown. I can assure you that she is, to say the least of it, well known in Russia."

His face was like iron. No use trying to get anything out of that image, thinks I. But when I thought of that girl and her father—

"All right," I says. "It's a matter for the police, then."

"No French authority will interfere in this matter," he said. "And, my dear Mr. Alston, if, as you admit, your friend made his daughter unhappy by his treatment of her, the Imperial Russian Government can not do so either, no matter with whom she takes refuge. I am sure you will appreciate my position, and my deep regret that I am unable to serve you."

"Your Excellency," I says, "I have the honor to thank God that I was born in Chicago, bad as it is."

He laughed and shook hands with me as though I'd paid him a compliment.

"By the way," he said, just as I got to the door, "you must motor over to Chartreuse some day, Mr. Alston. It's a

Continued on page 23

THE MELTING POT

In Which the New Books and Magazines are Boiled Down to Give You Fifteen Minutes of Health, Efficiency, Travel, Biography, and Adventure

ARE YOU DOING MORE WORK THAN YOU HAVE TO?

DO what you have to do first, then do what you don't have to do. This is the sure road to advancement. Be faithful, prompt, willing, and you will probably get the usual increase in salary. Then do something outside the routine, take responsibility, show initiative, and you will get the unusual increase. But, as mere faithfulness does not bring great rewards, neither does mere initiative. Speed without accuracy has less commercial value than accuracy without speed.

"Initiative in itself is likely to have little value unless it is backed by judgment," says Nathaniel C. Fowler, Jr., in Grasping Opportunity (Sully & Kleinteich). "Mere brilliance is often dangerous. Become perfect in the fundamentals first, and then branch out from them. Doing what one has to do marks a man or woman for promotion; but taking the initiative is of little value unless the regular duties are properly attended to."

The average employee, says the writer, works by the clock. He performs his tasks satisfactorily. That is all. He sees nothing else to do. He puts nothing of himself into his work. He does what he is told and no more. That is why he remains average.

"If I were the office-boy of a cotton house," suggests the author, "I should learn the cotton business from the planting of the cotton-seed to the finished product. I should read the trade papers; I should go to the public library and take out every book devoted to this industry. It is true that I should absorb much of no value to me or to my employer, but I should obtain a general knowledge of the business which would enable me to accomplish things impossible without it. I should, further, talk with men in my line in the trade; I should play games of conversation with both sides winning; I should be constantly on the alert to gain information; I should not only study the policy of my house, but that of others; I should attempt to obtain the viewpoint of the customer or consumer. And I could do these things even though my regular duties were no more important than filing letters or running errands. Practically every business man began to learn the business as a whole while he was occupying a subordinate position."

PEOPLE WE LIKE

ARTHUR LE SUEUR, spokesman for 100,000 farmers in North Dakota's Non-Partizan League, was a very poor boy on a Wisconsin farm. His parents were French-Canadians. From a "hand" on his father's own farm, he became a "tie-whacker" and lumber-jack in the logging camps. Here he taught himself to read. He became a teacher. Then he taught himself law. Before a great while he was practising law in North Dakota. Before another great while, he was attorney in that State for the Great Northern Railway and the International Harvester Company. But he did not intend to remain a corporation lawyer. He had always been active in movements that would benefit the people. He resigned to devote himself to these activities. He became, in a sense, a "populace lawyer."

Two years ago, when the farmers asked the North Dakota officials for the erection of a State terminal grain elevator, they were contemptuous. The farmers charged that private elevators had been systematically robbing them for years in the grading of their wheat. They had experts demonstrate that they lost, on an average, $55,000,000 annually. They charged, also, that the packer made more off a steer in three hours of selling than the farmer did in three years of raising. To these charges the politicians replied, "Go home and feed the pigs."

The farmers went home. They didn't neglect the pigs. But between feedings they organized the Farmers' Non-Partizan League. They canvassed every farm-house. They established a weekly newspaper. They elected delegates to the State convention. Only genuine farmers were allowed to take part in the primaries. As a result the State convention on April 1, 1916, nominated a complete farmers' ticket. The nominee for Governor was Linn Frazier, a farmer with a college education. At the end of a whirlwind campaign Frazier was elected, and every other man on the farmers' ticket went into office with him.

The league spread to other Western States. One of its leaders, as well as its legal adviser, is Arthur Le Sueur, who has in their interests even come as far as New York and Washington. For he intends to take a hand in the next presidential election.

SOUND WORDS ABOUT THE WAR DEBTS

"WHAT about the war debts? Is it true that all the nations are drawing on the future, that they are expending capital before it is created, and heaping burdens upon generations yet unborn? There is a very great exaggeration about that," said George E. Roberts, assistant to the president of the National City Bank, in a recent address. "If you say that they are wasting capital which should be passed down to the future, and that the progress of the world is retarded, I will agree; but that is a different thing.

"In the first place, there is no such thing as expending capital before it is created. Capital must exist in tangible form. There are no economic losses except in tangible things. The war is carried on with tangible things; and these must be furnished now, not after the war is over.

The armies are not being fed this year from next year's crops, nor are they using supplies of next year's make. Whatever else may be obscure about the incidence and effects of this body of indebted ness, one thing is clear, viz.: that all of the production of the future will belong to the future, and none of it will belong to the past. A popular speaker is quoted as saying that five hundred years after the war is over the people will be toiling to pay the interest on these loans. That may be so; but, if it is, it is certain that the payments will be made to people then living, and that their use of the capital will react upon the entire community.

"If we were to conceive of these payments as required to be somehow made to the inhabitants of another planet, with whom no other intercourse was possible, or of the products of the country to the value of these payments as regularly heaped up and burned, then we would have the idea that is generally accepted as to the burden of this indebtedness. But nothing of this kind will occur. The capital raised by taxation will flow from the public into the treasury, and from the treasury back to the people, practically undiminished."

DON'T BE AN ACTOR IF YOU CAN HELP IT

JUST because you did so wonderfully in the High School performance of "Romeo and Juliet," and the local papers said such nice things about you, don't rush to the stage as a career. If you can possibly be happy at any other work, don't be an actor. For the actor, as Walter Prichard Eaton points out in the American Magazine, spends from one fourth to two thirds of his time looking for a job.

Actors used to get nothing for time spent in rehearsals: recently, through a threatened strike, they have forced the managers to pay them a very small wage during the time a play is being prepared. "Suppose we say that a play is rehearsed on an average of three weeks. Now, bear in mind the fact that at least two out of every three theatrical production's in America fail. (Eight out of ten made by one firm last winter failed.) That means the ordinary actor or actress, out of three attempts to land a salary-paying job, works for at least nine weeks on half pay or less.

When you further deduct the usual summer vacation time of, say, six weeks, and add a week at the least hunting each new job, you reach the rather astonishing conclusion that the average actor may very conceivably lose nine weeks out of the fifty-two entire, and nine more weeks in large part. In other words, he is only a part-time worker. His "munificent" salary doesn't look so munificent when figured on this basis.

"But the basis of figuring would be a fair one only if the demand for actors were somewhere near the supply. It isn't; is far less than the supply. It would not surprise those who are on the 'inside,' if the figures could be compiled, to find that the average actor does not work half the year; that he spends as much, if not more, time hunting for a chance to act and in rehearsing than he does in actually practising his profession.

"Mr. Arthur Hornblow, in his recent book, The Stage as a Career, estimates that 'there are to-day in this country 40,000 persons engaged in theatricals, fifty per cent. at least of whom are legitimate actors.' He makes the further statement that in 1915 no fewer than 10,000 applied to the Actors' Fund for relief, 'on the plea that the wolf was at the door and that they needed immediate pecuniary assistance.' Half the practitioners of an honorable and admired calling jobless, in a prosperity year!"

ENOUGH.

By Sara Teasdale

IT is enough for me by day
To walk the same bright earth with him
Enough, that over us by night
The same great roof of stars is dim.
I have no care to bind the wind
Or set a fetter on the sea—
It is enough to feel his love
Blow by like music over me.

(From Rivers to the Sea, published by the Macmillan Company.)

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THE SNIPER'S END

HOW FLOWERS PROTECT THEMSELVES

PLANTS are not pacifists. When they are threatened by an enemy, they arm at once. Nature is their Home Defense League.

Hawthorns, wild apples, and other shrubs incase themselves in an armor of thorns to ward off the attacks of big, browsing beasts, says Herbert W. Faulkner in The Mysteries of the Flowers (Frederick A. Stokes Company). On deserts where vegetation is so scarce that animals eat anything growing from the ground, plants increase their guard in order to survive at all. That is why the cactus makes itself invulnerable with its bristling weapons and the Spanish dagger thrusts out fierce darts at the tip of each leaf.

The ant is another defense. He stroys whole battalions of plant foes. Orange-growers in China place ant-nests in the orange-trees, with bamboo poles from tree to tree for the ants to use as a bridge. Plants do almost as much for themselves. Thistles exude a sugary liquid outside their buds to allure ants to their defense from beetles. An acacia bears hollow thorns as little houses where ants live to guard the flower.

"Just as defenseless civilians may take refuge among an armed band of soldiery," says the author, "so do defenseless plants seek safety among their thorny and prickly kindred; and we find thickets and hedgerows made up of a tangled mass of hawthorns, brambles, and wild roses, interspersed with every kind of soft and de- tender plant and clinging vine."

WHAT DANIEL DEFOE WROTE ABOUT WOMEN

"A WOMAN well taught is a creature without comparison; her person is angelic and her conversation heavenly; she is all softness, sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. The man who can get her has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be thankful. An untutored woman, on the other hand, is impatient, conceited, self-indulgent, turbulent, clamorous, noisy, nasty, and the Devil. Therefore her husband should want her learned for his own peace of mind."

So wrote Daniel Defoe in 1697.

"Mankind for their own sakes—since, say what we will of the women, we all think fit one time or another to be concerned with 'em—should take some care to breed them up to be suitable and serviceable," said the author of Robinson Crusoe (Defoe, by William P. Trent, Bobbs-Merrill Company). "What care do we take to breed up a good horse and to break him well! And what value do we put upon him when it is done! And why not a woman?

"A woman of sense and breeding will scorn as much to encroach upon the prerogative of the man as a man of sense will scorn to oppress the weakness of the woman. But if the women's souls were refined and improved by teaching that word would be lost; to say the weakness of the sex as to judgment would be nonsense, for ignorance and folly would be no more to be found among women than men."

Defoe even went so far as to advise an academy for women. The inmates were to be taught music and dancing—"which it would be cruel to bar the sex of because they are their darlings"; languages, even at the risk of "giving a woman more tongues than one. They should be brought to read books, and especially history; they should in fact be denied no sort of learning."

THE AMERICAN PATENT-MEDICINE HABIT

A DRUG-TAKING nation is no stronger than a drug-taking man; a drug-taking man is never dependable. Americans spend $500,000,000 a year for self-administered drugs. Therefore, says the Monthly Health Letter of the Life Extension Institute, it is time America cut down its drug bill. This, according to the bulletin, is the way to do it:

Don't take cold cures which don't cure colds.

Don't take liver pills. They don't act on the liver. Biliousness is a bugaboo. That "dopey" feeling merely means need of diet and exercise.

Don't go on a grand spring drug debauch. Spring medicine is mostly flavored alcohol. If you have overfed, overdressed, and underslept during the winter, you will feel languid when the first spring days come. To feel right in the spring, correct your living habits.

Don't take mineral waters. They are not "natural" remedies. The best thing about them is the water, and that you can get from the hydrant. Green vegetables, whole cereals, air, and exercise are cheaper—and safer.

Don't take headache medicines. They only aggravate the cause of the headache. Bromo seltzer is a habit-forming drug, as are the sleep-producing medicines. Rest, diet, and menthol salve are better remedies.

Don't take rheumatism cures. Rheumatism is caused by infection which a doctor should try to find and remove.

NO WONDER THE OLD TIMES WERE BEST

THE first "primers" were religious books. At the time they were printed people were just learning to read, so an alphabet was usually included. That is why the school books that later developed for children were called primers, and why, even up to the school days of our fathers, they contained such lofty sentiments. One of the moral lessons of 1771 is resurrected by Clifton Johnson in Old-Time Schools and School-Books (Macmillan Company):

"Master Tommy Fido not only loved his book because it made him wiser but because it made him better too. He loved his Papa and Mamma, his Brothers and Sisters, with the dearest Affection; he learnt his Duty to God, thanked him for his Goodness and was glad that he had not made him a Horse or a Cow. One Day he went to Church, he minded what the Parson said and when he came home asked his Papa if God loved him; his Papa said Yes, my Dear. O, my dear Papa, said he, I am glad to hear it; what a charming Thing it is to have God my Friend! Thus he every day grew wiser and better. Every Body was pleased with him, he had many Friends, the Poor blessed him, and every one Strove to make him happy."

The Shorter Catechism, also taught in school, presented the other side of the picture:

"What will be your condition in hell? I shall be dreadfully tormented. What company will be there? Legions of devils and multitudes of sinners of the human race. Will company afford you any comfort in hell? It will not, but will probably increase my woes. If you should go to hell, how long must you continue there? For ever and ever. If you should die in your sins and God should make you miserable, would you have any reason to complain of him? Not the least. I must be speechless."

Natural history was taught thus, with appropriate illustrations:

"Has the dam a lamb?

"What is a dam?

"What is a lamb?

"Ann can catch the lamb by the ham."

Or by this optimistic bit of free verse:

Mules are good to pull.
Mules are mute.
They make no noise.
Use the mule well.

Philosophy and ethics were embodied in Bolles's Spelling-Book (1831) by this thrilling narrative of Almira and Jane:

"Almira was a very thoughtful girl; she took delight in viewing the beauties of nature; and for this purpose often took a walk near the close of the day. On her return one evening she was accosted by Jane, who, though younger than herself, was always pleased with Almira's company and requested the pleasure of walking with her the next day. Jane informed her mother of what had passed and made request that she and her little brother might join Almira in her ramble. Her Mamma was very willing and said as she was about to go; Do not forget, my child, that it is God who permits you to enjoy so many pleasures. By this time Almira had arrived and Jane and George were ready to go with her. Almira and Jane soon began to converse and little George listened with attention."

George, who seems to have had a little more dash than was natural in a child, confessed that he would sometimes like to be a bird and skip from bough to bough. But after his sister had explained that birds were never taught to read, he said: "Now I see the folly of my wishes; I think I shall never, again, desire to be a bird; I would much rather learn to read and become wise." After more adventurous conversation of this kind, "the evening drew on and they returned home; little George being so well pleased that he related the whole story to his Papa."

THE LOST BABIES OF THE WAR

A REGIMENT of soldiers, marching through a wood on the Polish front, found in their path a dead woman with a two-year-old baby moaning beside her. The men picked up the little thing, fed it, then buried the mother under the pines. They could not bear to part with the baby. For months they washed it, prepared its food, carried it with them wherever they went. When the regiment returned from the front, they collected among themselves a dowry for the child, wrote down the names of officers and men, and, armed with this paper, marched the baby to the Petrograd Foundling Hospital.

"The number of babies lost and abandoned is appalling," says Violetta Thurstan in The People Who Run (G. P. Putnam's Sons). "There are now at the front flying automobile columns whose chief work is to go around and pick up these poor babes in the wood. In the Caucasus there have been more than five thousand children collected who do not know their own names. Most of these are Armenian children. In many of these cases the women have been drowned, the men massacred, by the Turks."

What Will You Get Out of "HCB"?

By JAMES H. COLLINS

UNTIL "HCB" struck this master baker, he had looked upon cost figures as the dryest part of his business. Flour ranged within certain price limits; wages were so many dollars a week; a loaf of bread weighed so many ounces and sold for so many cents. There was always a margin for turning round. He made money on the year's turnover, and saw his business grow. It was far more interesting to develop toothsome specialties, and advertise them, and apply his brain to the creative end of baking.

Then came the war, and a little later "HCB"—which is simply the High Cost of Business due to war conditions. Wheat soared, flour went to famine prices, living costs made it necessary to advance wages, workers became scarce, consumers began to agitate about the weight and price of the loaf. Inside of a year every item of baking costs became highly important and interesting. Materials, machinery, processes, deliveries, sales, and advertising had to be separated and studied, and every possible way of economizing and improving found. His principal working tools were a sharp pencil and a scratch-pad. He had never suspected that baking goods involved so many factors, or that the latter were capable of such variegated and ingenious manipulation.

To-day, if you ask this master baker what "HCB" did for him, he will tell you

that it gave him a grasp of his business such as he never had before, and that it not only saved him from bankruptcy, but when conditions again become normal he will be equipped to make better products, hold his own against competition that he once thought burdensome, and extend his activities all around.

"HCB" has been responsible for more solid thinking in American business the last year than any other influence that has affected it in a generation.

Everything in the line of goods, materials, and equipment has risen in cost. Many articles have become scarce or are unobtainable. Business concerns that spent money and time organizing sales forces have found themselves in the wonderful "seller's market," with buyers coming to them to plead for goods, and there has been the problem of keeping the sales force employed against the day when the market again turns in favor of the buyer, and salesmen will be needed.

On the surface it has looked as if business consisted chiefly of obstacles. But actually it has been growing on these obstacles, because they have stimulated original thinking. Men who have faced these difficulties squarely, and gone through them, are coming out of the "HCB" period with better methods.

It has been an excellent time for quietly dropping outworn customs. In one industry, for instance, manufacturers have been in the habit of giving long credit and various kinds of free service to hold customers in the face of competition. When the rising cost of materials and production caused their margins of profit to shrink, and every item of cost had to be scrutinized, these trade customs were dropped. No single house would have dared do it alone, and nobody had ever been able to bring all the competitors together on a better policy. But "HCB" forced the issue automatically, and that industry will never go back to the old ways.

Some of the largest corporations have learned that they can do things in still bigger ways. In one instance, a public service company adopted a petty policy of building up its future plant when business depression reduced its revenue in the first months of the war. Copper is an important item in its equipment. When the war prosperity came this company was pinched for facilities, and has been suffering from loss of revenue and public criticism ever since, and also trying to make up plant deficiencies, with copper and other metals at record prices. Next time, its directors will not be afraid to invest money on the growth of the United States.

New understandings have been arrived at be-tween employer and employees. Scarcity of labor has made it necessary to use workers to better advantage, and the rise in living expenses has brought about more flexible systems of wages and salaries.

Business has had to explain itself to the public, as high prices and shortage have brought protests and boycotts. A coal man met a committee of farmers who were indignant about the price of fuel. He asked them if they considered two dollars a bushel too much for wheat, and they said no—it cost more to raise wheat under war conditions. "Well, it costs more to mine and deliver coal," he said; and the committee went away with new understanding.

There are still more lessons to learn from "HCB." What goes up must come down. As prices rose, everybody had to adjust and explain. When prices begin to drop, even more careful adjustment will be needed to prevent loss; for materials in the factory and goods in the store will be subject to depreciation, and that will call for great judgment in buying and activity in selling. This is a time that forces every business man to think. The man who is not afraid to use his gray matter, and who sees the possibilities for getting down to facts about his business or his work, will come out of the "HCB" period stronger than when he was forced into it.

Another Good Job Gone

By GEORGE F. WORTS

DO boys still run away from home to join the circus? A. L. Webb claims that, while the supply far exceeds the demand, the army of runaway boys is dwindling year by year. Mr. Webb is in a position to know. He has had charge of the cook-tent in many circuses, and that happens to be an excellent point of observation, where the boy is concerned.

Mr. Webb, who could probably teach the commissary department of an army a few tricks about the efficient feeding of hungry men, estimates that, in spite of the falling percentage, the circus with which he was connected last season was approached by no fewer than a thousand boys, all eager to carry water to the "rubber mules"—which is sawdust ring language for "elephant." Mr. Webb has "trouped" for twenty-seven consecutive seasons. In those twenty-seven years the number of boys ambitious to quench the elephants' thirst has steadily diminished.

Carrying water to the elephants is now a tradition of the rosy past—a good job gone, never to return: tank wagons now do the work of a hundred strong boys. Unpleasant tasks have taken its place.

In the springtime of our youth, you and I watered the "rubber mules" and helped to hold canvas. The new generation of runaways unfolds chairs, or, in rare and privileged cases, carries water to the workmen. Unfolding chairs is an arduous task; but it is one of the most important parts of the circus routine.

No More Pink Lemonade

THE boy who desires to earn his way into the afternoon performance finds, too, that conditions have changed. If he is on hand early enough in the morning—and unfolding chairs is distinctly a before-breakfast job—he is usually tired enough when show time arrives to sleep comfortably through the entire performance.

The permanent runaway can be considered unusually lucky if the circus will have him nowadays. In the past, when circus men followed the rule of Barnum, which was based on the belief that people enjoyed paying money to be fooled, circus life used to be an adventurous game of chance. When the circus came to town, ran shell games, indulged in pocket-picking, pink lemonade, and other milder means of relieving the populace of its superfluous wealth, the runaway boy was accepted, as everything else was accepted, with no questions asked.

Now that the shell game and pink lemonade are no longer sanctioned by circus executives, the runaway is confronted by a list of questions, sternly administered, before which he usually weakens. No modern circus will consider his application unless it is accompanied

by the bona fide permission of parent or guardian. This measure was not put into effect necessarily for moral reasons, but because the time of a circus is too valuable to be tampered with by angry parents.

In effect, most of the boys who run away to join the circus now are orphans. That was not always the case. I remember running away one time, after having indulged in a certain type of literature, to join Buffalo Bill's chosen band, because my parents did not understand me. Probably you have had the same experience at some trying period of your sheltered past.

One custom, established when the circus was a very young institution, still exists. The small boy—and the large boy, for that matter—invariably applies for a job at the cook-tent. That continues to be the source from which the boy's blessings flow. Perhaps he expects to be hired as a water carrier or as a chair unfolder, but somehow he files his application with some one in the immediate vicinity of the culinary department.

The runaway who sticks, provided his credentials are favorably received, almost invariably becomes a "flunky," washing dishes between meals and at meal-times obeying the royal commands of trapeze performers, bareback riders, clowns, and other denizens of the sawdust ring.

Shortage of Runaways Traced to Boy Scouts

WITH most boys the glamour of circus life is rubbed off before the end of the first week, when they reappear at home with the saddened aspect of men who have seen life at its very bitterest. As a matter of fact, the romantic appeal of the circus is felt only slightly by the modern boy. The yellow-backed novels devoted to the adventures of Tony, whose brutal parents caused him to seek the solace of the circus, where he became, by heroic stages, ringmaster, are out of circulation now. The devotion to this stirring literature has been transferred by the newer generation to Boy Scouts' magazines. Youthful ideals are now shaped to a better purpose. With the inspiration of hay-loft literature gone, the old impulse to run away dies.

The 1917 model of circus runaway is no longer recruited from the ranks of the romance-seekers. He is a youthful vagabond, lacking the staying power of the earlier types.

Many of the prominent circus executives of to-day ran away to the circus in their youth. The runaway of to-day joins, not because of the old-time glamour, but from force of circumstance. He is hungry; he drifts where his stomach will be properly attended to. That type of boy, rarely makes a successful executive, in the circus or anywhere else.

PAINT-UP DAY IN OLD GLOUCESTER

A painting by Henry J. Peck

TWO years ago the hulks rotted in the ship-yards of New Bedford and Sag Harbor and Gloucester. Their owners never hoped to compete with the new steel vessels that steamed so swiftly around the world. Then the war came, and, like ghosts from the days of Paul Jones, six-masted schooners, square-rigged brigs, whaling boats with unexpected patches, began to sally out on more perilous journeys than they had tried even in the days of their prime.

A schooner that for years had carried coal from Norfolk to Portland was chartered for Rio, and made $120,000 net for her owner. One old skipper, more from sentiment than as a practical business deal, had bought a vessel for $17,000. A year ago he sold her for $100,000. Many an old tar finds himself now with an income quite as startling to him as any story he ever told a land-lubber.

Since petroleum and the Standard Oil killed the whaling trade, the seaboard towns have continued to prosper through the mackerel fishing. This is a good business, with profits of some seven millions a year; but it has not the tang of the old adventurous days when the shipyards rang with:

My father's a hedger and ditcher,
My mother does nothing but spin,
While I hunt whales for a living—
Good Lord, how the money comes in!

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

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STRICTLY FAMILY MATTERS

DO YOU REALLY USE YOUR EYES?

By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE

IN a certain afternoon, in a leading Boston club, a curious scene took place. It was the outcome of an informal debate among a little group of club members. The statement had been made, and disputed, that few people perceive with any accuracy and fulness the happenings and objects that come within their range of vision. "Most of us do not really know how to use our eyes." This was the issue raised, and, to test it, an impromptu play was staged in one of the club's private dining-rooms.

Four members took part as players, twenty as spectators. Eleven of the twenty were lawyers, seven were business men. Of the others, one was a civil engineer and the other a retired judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Thus all of the spectators were men whose observational power would presumably be above the average. They were instructed to watch closely everything that took place; and, when the play was ended, to write individual accounts of what they had seen.

For the purpose of the experiment the dining-room was supposed to represent a broker's office. One of the players sat at the table, as at a broker's desk. Another, in the role of a customer, entered and approached the table.

Standing opposite the first player, he took out a large pocket-book, drew some papers from it, and laid the pocket-book on the table. After looking through the papers, he gave an order to buy certain stocks and sell other stocks, and then slowly stepped away from the table to take his departure, leaving his pocketbook behind. Now the third player, who had been standing near him, took his place at the table, and, dropping a handkerchief over the pocket-book made an inquiry of the broker. When this had been answered, he too started to leave, putting both handkerchief and pocketbook into his pocket.

The first customer was now near the door. Just as he reached it, the fourth player entered and collided with him, catching at the lapel of his coat to steady himself. The first customer shook himself loose and went out, followed by the Second: But in a moment the first rushed back, crying:

"I have lost my pocket-book! Who has my pocket-book?"

Here the little play ended, and the spectators at once sat down to write descriptions of what had occurred. So slight was the plot, so simple the action, that complete accuracy of description might reasonably be expected, especially from such an audience, composed as it was of keen business and professional men. As a matter of fact, not one of those present had observed the really vital feature of the play—the theft of the pocketbook by the second customer.

Only one noticed that the first customer had failed to take his pocket-book from the table, where he had laid it in full view of all. Another spectator went so far astray as to state in his written account that he had seen the fourth player put his hand into the first customer's pocket and steal the pocket-book when they collided near the door. It was all too evident that, despite the fact that they knew their observational powers were being tested, these highly educated spectators had made most inadequate use of their eyes.

You are surprised at this? You feel sure that if you had been present you would have seen the action of the play more correctly? Do not feel too confident. There is plenty of evidence indicating the contrary, plenty of evidence to warrant the assertion that few indeed are the people who make as much use of their eyes as they should. Let me tell you another little story from real life:

A group of twenty students once visited the Egyptian Room of a museum for the purpose of studying the objects of art it contained. They were especially urged to look closely at the wall pictures, which were executed in the conventional Egyptian manner. Afterward their instructor questioned them as to the impression left on their minds by their visit to the room.

What They Saw in the Egyptian Room

SOME of the students stated that they had been much impressed by a feeling that there was something wrong with the figures of the men and women in the wall pictures. This feeling, they were sure, did not result from the quaint stiffness of the posing characteristic of Egyptian pictures in general. They knew it was due to something more basic than that. Other students now joined in, declaring that they had come away with the same feeling. But none of them could account for it.

The instructor listened to them with a quizzical smile. Then he remarked dryly:

"It is clear that, after all, you have not studied the wall pictures as closely as you ought to have done. Otherwise you would scarcely have failed to see that these figures which puzzle you are figures with two right hands. It is this which makes you feel that they are incorrect—as indeed they are."

Again. At a trial in a crowded courtroom an interesting point arose. A man's ear had been slashed off in a fight, and the question at issue was whether such a mutilation would make any appreciable change in his appearance. The question still was unsettled when the man himself went on the stand.

He had been in the court-room all the time the other witnesses were testifying, and had been seated where many could plainly see him. But not a person had observed what he now pointed out—that both his ears were mutilated. Many years before, it appeared, he had been in another fight, and, by a singular coincidence, had been slashed almost exactly as in the later one. Yet absolutely nobody had perceived the first mutilation until attention was specifically drawn to it.

For that matter, you can easily test for yourself how surprisingly little is perceived by most people. You do not even need to go to the trouble of staging an amateur play, as was done by the members of the Boston club. Merely bring together half a dozen people, and seat yourself at a table on which you have placed a decanter of water and a few glasses. Tell, those watching you that you want them to pay strict attention to what is going on. Then lift the decanter and pour some water into one of the glasses. At once have decanter and glasses removed, and ask the spectators:

"What did I do?"

Naturally, they will reply: "You poured some water into a glass."

Continue to question them, about as follows:

"I poured some water into a glass? Very well. With which hand did I pour it? How many glasses were there on the table? How full was the decanter? Did I hold the glass while I poured water into it? Was it, in fact, water that I poured? Was it not wine? Were my eyes open or shut when I poured? Did I really pour, or only pretend? How long did it take me to pour?" Hans Gross, the eminent psychologist, originator of this illuminating experiment, justly makes this comment on it:

"It is as astonishing as it is amusing to see how little correctness there is to the answers to the questions put by the experimenter, and how people quarrel about the answers, and what extraordinary things they say. Yet what do we require of legal witnesses who have to describe much more complicated matters to which their attention has not been previously called, and who have to make their answers not immediately, but much later; and who, moreover, may in the presence of the fact have been overcome by fear, astonishment, etc.?"

Witnesses' Contradictions Not Always Perjury

JUST remember this, please, when next you read a newspaper account of some court trial in which witnesses flatly contradict one another as to the details of a happening on which the whole trial may hinge. Their contradictions do not necessarily mean that perjury is being committed by wholesale. It is far more likely that the contradictions result from the feeble observational power of the witnesses. Some things they have seen wrongly, some they have not seen at all, as a consequence of never having been properly trained in the use of their eyes. And the chances are that if you were in their situation you would fare as badly on the witness-stand. Get somebody to try the decanter experiment on you. The result is not at all likely to raise your self-esteem.

But it will do you good—or it ought to do you good—in point of creating within you a keen desire to increase your ability to perceive accurately and fully the things at which you look. As matters stand you doubtless posses, to be sure, sufficient power of observing to carry you along fairly well—perhaps extremely well—in the business of your daily life. But you are ambitious. You desire to make headway steadily. And, to this end, the more observational power you can develop the better your prospects will be. This for the reason that observation is the starting-point of all knowledge, and the basis on which sound reasoning rests. Or, as otherwise stated by a clear-thinking student of human efficiency:

"Without an accurate acquaintance with the visible and tangible properties of things, our conceptions must be erroneous, our inferences fallacious, and our operations unsuccessful. The education of the senses neglected, all after-education partakes of drowsiness, haziness, and insufficiency."

And training through systematic practice—in observing always brings excellent results. It may bring amazing, almost incredible results, as has frequently been demonstrated by the experience of people who have made it a point to train themselves in the full use of their eyes. The case of the two Houdins, father and son, is a case of helpful implication to all of us.

How the Houdins Trained Their Eyes

AT a time when spiritistic seances were much in vogue, the Houdins decided to add to their repertoire an act which they called "second sight." One of them, as a feature of the act, was to name accurately pictures, bric-a-brac, titles of books, etc., in some room other than the room in which he was standing, but a room into which he had had opportunity to glance in passing. To perform successfully this feat of "reading through a wall" meant that he would have to train himself to see much at a glance.

The question then remained as to which of the two Houdins could better enact the role of "second sight" reader. To determine this, the father and son started in a friendly competition.

First, from a box of ordinary dominoes they took a single domino and threw it face up, calling out the number of dots on it without pausing to count them. Two dominoes were next used in the same way, and only a little practice was needed to enable both father and son to give the total of dots without counting. From two, they proceeded to three dominoes, then four, five, and six. Within a few days, unbelievable as it may seem, both of them could state, at a single glance, the number of dots on twelve dominoes.

Now they continued their development by a new device. Every day, for a month, they took a walk through the business section of the city in which they were living. Whenever they came to a store having a window display that included a great variety of objects, they would glance into the window keenly, but without stopping. A few steps farther on they would go into a convenient doorway, and note down on a pad of paper carried for the purpose the names of the objects seen in their one rapid glance. Returning to the window, they then would verify their lists.

The result was that, at the end of a month, the elder Houdin at a glance could accurately see and name almost thirty objects in a store window, while the younger man could name more than forty! To the younger one, accordingly, was given the part of principal performer in the "second sight" feat.

Manifestly, a course of training like this can be adopted by anybody. And, whether you are lawyer, doctor, banker, broker, merchant, or mechanic, you will profit by becoming readier to perceive and grasp opportunities, and to pass sound judgments on men as well as things.

It is never too late to begin this training, as long as you have eyes with which to see.

The Greatest Country Merchant

By ALBERT SIDNEY GREGG

IN the little town of Strasburg, Ohio—with hardly more than a thousand inhabitants—is a country store that does more than half a million dollars' worth of business a year; and expects, when the additions now under way are completed, to do a million dollars' worth.

The store employs fifty-three clerks: it handles everything from calico to windmills, from gasolene engines to clothespins. The average store in such a community would be satisfied to make a bare living for one family. This store—the creation of the Garver Brothers, built by their ideas and energies, their belief that success can be made anywhere and under any circumstances—pays annual dividends that many a city merchant would be glad to acknowledge.

How have they done it? How is it possible to secure half a million dollars' worth of trade in a cross-roads town? One part of the secret is in the way that Albert Garver spends his vacations. Follow him around on his annual summer tour, and you will know at the end of a day why it is that people bring their business to him. It is because a genuine fondness for folks lies at the bottom of his character, and a real desire to make his store perform the greatest possible service to its people.

The pretext that Garver takes for his vacation trips is the need of tacking up signs on the barns and fences of the country round about. Imagine a merchant who sells half a million a year tacking up signs on country roads! He does it because he enjoys it, and it gives him an excuse to get on intimate terms with the farmers. After a day of mixing in this way, he writes a personal letter to each person he has called upon—in long-hand, at that. They are personal letters, dealing entirely with the individual interests of the people, and have no relation whatever to store advertising.

As preparations for these "picnics" Garver lays in a stock of oranges, bananas, candy, chewing gum, and cigars. Mrs. Garver and some guests generally accompany him.

One morning Garver drove up to a farmhouse occupied by a newly married young couple and asked for the husband. The wife said he was down in the field, pitching hay. Mrs. Garver went into the house to visit with the woman, while Garver hurried down to see the man. He found the young fellow making hay all alone.

"Get up on the wagon and I will help you a bit," offered Garver.

The young farmer was only too glad to accept the offer, and was soon loading the hay that Garver tossed up on the wagon. All the while they talked—talked about everything under the sun but Garver's store. Garver got tired; but he stayed until the job was done, and left his farmer friend with a grin on his lips and a big cigar between them.

Along toward noon, one day, the Garver party found themselves in the vicinity of a man who did not like Garver very well for political reasons. He and his father lived together, and managed the farm.

Dinner was just over when they drove up. After exchanging greetings and chatting for a while, Garver gave cigars to the men and handed candy to the ladies and chewing gum to the children. Then the women thawed out, and one of them said:

"We have just had dinner, but if you will come in we can soon get you something."

"Oh, never mind about that," replied Garver genially. "We have brought our lunch along, and if you don't mind we will eat out there under that big shade tree."

"Sure, that's all right, Mr. Garver," exclaimed the son. "Wait and I'll fetch a horse blanket to lay on the ground." Away he hurried to the barn, and in a few minutes returned with a big new horse blanket, which he spread on the grass beneath the shade tree.

The Garvers unpacked their fruit and sandwiches, while the children and the family dogs stood about and looked on. Garver gave oranges to the children and a sandwich to the dogs. About this time the women came out of the house with fresh coffee, cream and sugar.

The next day Garver wrote a letter to the father of the young man who didn't like his politics, telling him how they had enjoyed the picnic lunch in his front yard. He also told the old man that it must be a great pleasure to him to live there with his son, who was able to relieve him of much of the hard work of the farm. Then Garver spoke of his beautiful barn, and wound up by asking permission to put a Garver sign on that barn. A letter came back from the old gentleman giving his hearty consent—and the son helped put up the sign. All of which serves to prove the wisdom of Ben Franklin, who once said: "If you want to make a man like you, get him to do something for you."

It is the common practice of the Garver Company to send flowers to funerals and to sick people, and also other gifts to sick children. They are sent without any special display, and are accepted with the good will that prompts Garver to send them. That they "pay" is without question; but I do not think Garver stops to ask whether the flowers will pay. Flowers from his store are sent into the very poorest homes. Many funerals have been held in that locality where the flowers bearing the Garver card were the only ones received.

Kultur Self-Revealed

NOTHING that outsiders have written against Germany has had so much influence with the average thinking American as the things he has read from the newspapers and pulpits and university class-rooms of Germany itself. It is the spirit of Germany as revealed in her own spokesmen that has, more than anything else, made thoughtful Americans feel that here is a national thought and ideal so contrary to all that toward which other nations have been working that its dominance in the world would be nothing short of a calamity.

In a new book entitled Gems of German Thought (Doubleday, Page & Company), William Archer has gathered some extracts from German editorials, sermons, books, and speeches. Here are representative quotations:

"We are still childlike in our inmost feelings, innocent in our pleasures, simple in our inclinations, in spite of individual aberrations; we are still prolific, and our race multiplies, so that our soil has long since been insufficient to support us all. It is therefore doubly imperative for us to remain heroes; for who knows whether the German migrations are destined to remain isolated phenomena in history? The peoples around us are either overripe fruits which the next storm may bring to the ground, such as the Turks, Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese, and a great part of the Slavs; or they are, indeed, proud of their race, but senile and artificial in their Kultur, slow in their increase, and boundless in their ambition, like the French; or, confident in the unassailability of their country, like the English and the Americans, they have forgotten justice and made their selfishness the measure of all things. Who knows whether we Germans are not the rod predestined for the chastening of these degeneracies? Who knows whether we may not again, like our fathers in dim antiquity, have to gird on our swords and go forth to seek dwelling places for our increase?"

—F. Lange.

"The Latin has no feeling for the beauty of a forest; when he takes his repose in it, he lies upon his stomach, while we rest upon our backs."

—H. v. Treitschke.

"It is not only our enemies who, by their underground intrigues, have sought to divert from us the sympathies of the other peoples. If we would speak frankly, we must admit that we ourselves are partly to blame in the matter. A great part of the blame is due to our insufficient self-esteem and self-valuation—an inveterate German failing."

—Professor Dr. R. Jannisch.

"Every artistic achievement of France and Italy since the time of the Romans can be traced to families and classes with a strong mixture of German blood, and, especially in earlier times, to the descendants of the Germanic stocks who had kept their blood, or at any rate their nature, pure."

—H. A. Schmidt.

"Never have ye seen a people and Empire in whiter garments of peace. We offered you palm branches, we offered you justice. Ye ofered us envy and hate."

—J. Hort.

"Work as untiringly as we, think with as much energy, and we will welcome you as equals at our side. . . . Imitate us, and we will honor you. Seek to constrain us by war, and we will thrash you to annihilation and despise you as a robber pack."

—Professor A. Lasson.

"We thank the German army that has kept spotless the shield of humanity and chivalry. It is true we believe that every bone of a German soldier, with his heroic heart and immortal soul, is worth more than a cathedral."

—Professor W. Kahl.

"We see everywhere how our soldiers respect the sacred defenselessness of woman and child."

—Professor G. Roethe.

"Where the German soldiers had to seize the incendiary torch or even to proceed to the slaughter of citizens, it was only in pursuance of the rights of war, and for protection in real need. Had they obeyed the dictates of their hearts, they would rather have shared their soup and bread with the defenseless foe. . . . This spirit of humanity we will preserve and cherish to the end."

—Professor W. Kahl.

"Lastly, we must not forget the German humor. . . . It sometimes proceeds from a firm faith in God, sometimes from a cheerful optimism, always from a serenity of spirit which nothing can disturb. Thus German soldiers out in the field, the moment there is a pause in the fighting, set about trying to ride on the camel which they have taken from the Zouaves. . . . So, too, a non-commissioned officer during a fight admonishes a soldier: 'Shoot quietly, Kowalski, shoot quietly. You will frighten away the whole French Army of the North with your confounded banging!'"

—Pastor M. Hennig.

"The absence of any art of animosity towards other people is a striking characteristic of the Germans—and of the Germans alone."

—H. S. Chamberlain.

"The attempt of Napoleon to graft the Kultur of western Europe upon the empire of the Muscovite ended in failure. To-day history has made us Germans the inheritors of the Napoleonic idea."

—K. A. Kuhn.

"We want no world-dominion. . . . It is unjust, and therefore un-German."

—Professor W. v. Blume.

"Germany will be the schoolmaster of all the world, as every German has a bit of the schoolmaster in him."

—Professor W. v. Blume.

"The war must last until we have forced disarmament upon our enemies. There is a nursery rhyme which runs thus: Knife and scissors, fork and candle Little children must not handle. Since the enemy States behave so childishly as to misuse their arms, they must be placed under tutelage. Moreover, our enemies have acted so dishonorably that it is only just that rights of citizenship should be denied them. . . . When they can no longer bear arms they can not make any disturbances."

—O. Siemens.

"Since the Cromwellian rule of the sword, the army is so hated in England that an officer going from his home to the barracks has to drive in a closed carriage."

—O. A. H. Schmitz.

The Answer

By MABEL NELSON THURSTON

Illustrations by George A. Faul

THE great house, softly lighted, was half hidden by the young May foliage, but none the less its presence was felt everywhere in the beautiful grounds. Yet not half so clearly as May itself. Everywhere were blossoms—a late magnolia like a great dome of ivory in the moonlight—lilacs—a marvelous pink dogwood; a thousand fragrances were blowing to and fro. Half-consciously the two in the garden felt the irony of it—that this must come on such a night.

"It's money, then—or the lack of it?" The man's voice was hard, but it was hard because he was holding himself sternly, and the girl understood. "Let's say it out straight, Jocelyn. We can't have anything but truth between us. It is poverty that you can't stand?"

The girl gave a little cry, as if at a sudden stab of pain.

"Not poverty. Oh, Kent, understand if you can! It isn't that I want things, or would not be willing to give them up. Many and many a time I've longed to break away from them all—have felt as if they were creeping closer and closer, smothering my very soul. Sometimes I hate money, Kent. Oh, it isn't that—it isn't that. It's—I suppose it's just that I am a coward, dear. I don't know any other way of living, and I'm afraid—for both of us. Afraid of what it would do to me and what I should do to you and our love. Oh, if I could only make you see! Take Betty Page—see how she has changed! She's only twenty-three now—such a little girl, with her two babies. And she's tired, and growing old years faster than the rest of us, and she never has any good times. She's just eternally tied down with housework and the babies—"

"But they're happy, Joyce—Betty and Jack. You know they're happy. Do you suppose Betty would give it all up for anything in the world?"

The girl made a small, helpless gesture.

"Give it up? Of course she wouldn't. And happy? Yes, I suppose she is. Oh, I know she is—as happy as a woman can be who is tired from the time she gets up in the morning till she goes to bed at night. But don't you see the point? She is Betty Page, and I am not. The point isn't what she is—it is what I should be in a place like hers. And I tell you I could not do it. I know myself. Oh, I hate myself for it. You can't know how I hate myself; you can't know the awful cold despair that comes up in my heart when I think of letting the real things of life go for a sham that I already hate. You asked me to be honest—there's honesty for you! But, Kent, I tell you, I know myself. I know how, hating myself every step of the way, I should go down before the thousand little wearing trifles that I shouldn't know how to meet. I know how I should get all jangled, and worry you and hinder you in your work, and tie your hands by your love. I know it, I tell you! Oh, Kent, Kent, don't you understand? Don't you understand that it is just because I love you with all the power of loving that is in me that I can not—can not let you do yourself this wrong? Oh, go, Kent! I think I can't stand it any longer. Go, dear—please."

"Then it's Panama?" he asked.

"Anywhere," she gasped—"anywhere! Only go while I am strong enough to make you. I mean it, Kent. If you stay we'll just have to have this all over again later. I could not marry you, not ever. I could not."

For a moment there was silence, and the little drowsy night sounds, maddening with their soft serenity, flowed in between. The girl's face, white with pain, was a dim blur against the dusky shrubbery behind her. The man was in the shadow; but she knew, without seeing, the look in his eyes, and heard the sharp intake of his breath before he spoke.

"You have been brave, Jocelyn, almost incredibly honest and brave. You are wrong—I know you are wrong; but I never shall forget your courage. I couldn't go without saying that. I had no right to bring you such pain. I should have kept away. Good-by, dear."

AND then she was alone in an empty world. For five minutes—ten—the girl waited. It seemed impossible, even with her own words echoing in her heart, that he should really be gone.

Suddenly gathering up her gown,—soft folds of flame-color veiled in black, that swirled about her like actual flame,—she ran down to the garage.

"The car, Chester," she ordered; and stood, consumed with impatience, till he ran it out. "The quickest way," she added, as she gave her order.

The quickest way was through a cheap part of the city. The girl sat upright, looking out with burning eyes. She saw rows and rows of little two-story houses, all just alike. Oh, they had porches and little back yards, of course. Many of the porches were occupied, people chatting socially back and forth. Children were racing up and down the sidewalks. Here and there a man in shirt-sleeves was watering his terrace or fussing about a tiny garden bed.

And this was what Kent would be able to afford until he made his way, and everybody knew how long it took a man to do that in medicine! She tried to imagine herself sitting on the steps of one of those houses, waiting for

Kent. She would wear a cheap lawn, probably—or maybe a shirt-waist: shirt-waists seemed the fashion down here. Her glance fell scornfully upon her satin and chiffon, her slippers with their exquisite buckles.

"Coward!" she cried to herself. "Coward, coward!"

It was a relief to reach Betty Page's. On Betty's street the houses were semidetached, and nobody happened to be on the next porch. The girl flashed across the sidewalk and up the steps, and pressed the bell fiercely. Suppose Betty wasn't home? She must be home—she must!

SOME one was home, however. There were steps through the hall, and then the door was opened by a young fellow who stared at her for a bewildered second before he tossed aside the hammer he was holding to give her a two-handed welcome.

"Jocelyn Marlow, by all that's great! And looking like a fairy princess! Betty"—calling boyishly up the stairs—"come down and see who's here."

Betty was already coming. She was thin, and her pretty color had faded, and she was wearing a little blue lawn that was faded too, and mussed from baby fingers. But her joy at seeing Jocelyn brought the youth flooding back to her face. She clung to her rapturously.

"Oh, you dear, you dear!" she cried, laughing and half crying together. "If you knew what it was to have you come like this! And what a picture you are in that gown!"

"You needn't waste time on that," Jack informed her, laughing. "I've done the compliments. "'Scuse me, Joyce, if I just put a few finishing touches on my screen-door. I know Betty wants to eat you up all by herself."

Betty did not even hear him. She had pushed Jocelyn down on a little divan, and was looking at her with shining eyes.

"Your gown comes in for a part of my delirium of welcome," she declared whimsically. "You just can't imagine how starved I've been to see pretty things, and that—it's stunning, Joy—you don't need to be told that. Oh, but I am the gladdest to get hold of you!"

Jocelyn, looking down into the tired little face, felt a great throb of pity. She looked so pathetically young and little to have those two babies upstairs.

"You haven't been sick, have you, Betty?" she asked. "You see, I have to account some way for such a lavish welcome." Betty shook her head impatiently.

"Of course not. I'm never sick. It's been hot, you know, and I'm a little tired, that's all."

For a moment there was silence, Betty's small hand playing absently with the folds of chiffon and satin. Suddenly she sat up straight, and a small, hard line came about her soft mouth.

"Joyce, I think sometimes I'm the very wickedest woman in all the world. Don't stop me, please—let me tell you. I'll feel better when I say it out. I can't worry Jack—I'm not quite so bad as that, at least."

The older girl put a warm hand over the small, tense ones, now closely clasped over the faded lawn.

"Go on, dear," she said. "I came tonight because I needed something. Perhaps this is just what I came for."

"It"—Betty's eyes, suddenly old with pain, held hers—"it's me, Joyce. It's the way I feel. Of course I love my babies and Jack—love them so that I hardly can bear the joy of the loving sometimes. And yet—oh, Joyce, there are other times when it seems as if I shall go mad with—I don't know how to put it—with the world I live in. I'm forgetting how to think, Joyce. The neighbors are pleasant, of course; but when we run in, we just talk babies, and the way to save work, and the cost of living. I feel so smothered by things—a thousand million little irritating things all piled up on top of me. I used to read, but I can't get a moment till the babies are in bed, and then I'm too dead tired—too tired even to talk. Lots of nights Jack and I sit out on the piazza without saying a word, as if we'd been married fifty years.

"Sometimes I feel as if I should go mad for an hour of music—for a frolic somewhere—to see people in pretty gowns and hear them talk about the latest plays or lectures or fads. And all the time I know that the real me—down inside, back of the tired me—wouldn't exchange all the music in the world for five minutes of Pippa's talk when she comes to one of her talking hours.

"You never know when they will come, with Pippa. She frightens me. I feel as if I didn't know anything when Pippa looks at me the way she does sometimes and begins to talk. I think that's the awful terror that frightens me all the time—that in such a little, little while Pippa will be beyond me. I am afraid of it night and day. And I am afraid of our love—Jack's and mine—growing commonplace, like lots we see. I'm even afraid over Boy sometimes, though not so much yet, because he's too little. But I shall be in a few months more. Sometimes—oh, it isn't all the time, of course, but it's growing oftener, Joyce; that's the terror of it—sometimes it seems to me that I am living in one great fear. Oh, Joyce, can you understand?"

JOCELYN'S face had whitened. She had come to learn of Betty, and how she had learned! She felt as if a deadly numbness were creeping upon her; but, with Betty's agonized little face imploring for help, she

---

forced the numbness back and tried to answer sanely:

"Betty child, how long is it since you have been anywhere?"

"Why, I don't know," Betty replied. "I can't remember, Joyce. You see, we can't leave the babies at night. Once we did—last winter. Mrs. Kirke came in and stayed for us, and Jack took me to see 'The Tempest.'" Betty drew a long breath. "It was fairyland, Joyce. You'd think I'd never been to the theater in my life! But, of course, we didn't feel we could do it again. Mrs. Kirke has her own family."

"But Geraldine—can't she ever come and stay? She loves the babies, doesn't she?"

Betty's face flashed into an exquisite tenderness that transfigured it.

"You forget that Jerry's engaged, Joyce. Of course she couldn't be expected to remember. Don't I know what an absolutely selfish pig I was when I was engaged? There simply wasn't a thing in the world but a great dazzling glory, with Jack in the middle of it. All the other people in the world—even dad and Jerry—were tiny little specks an infinite distance away. There were no sounds in the world except those Jack made—his voice, his step, his ring, so different from anybody's else that I'd have known it in a million. Oh, no, dear; I couldn't take a moment—not a single moment—of Jerry's wonder-time. It can't stay long like that, you know. There come deeper things, but not just that, ever again."

Suddenly Betty leaned forward, wistful and eager.

"Joyce dear?"

"Yes?" Joyce made her stiff lips form the word.

"Don't be angry, dear, please; but I've thought sometimes that if you and Kent Nordoff—"

Jocelyn sprang to her feet.

"No, Betty. Not ever in the world. Don't think of it again. Listen, dear; will you do something for me?"

Betty nodded, a pleading little figure of contrition.

"I want you and Jack to take the car and go for a spin out by the lake. I'll stay with the babies. Just slip a coat over your dress and run, and don't come back till after ten."

"But I'd miss you!" Betty cried.

"I'll come again soon, I promise, Betty. It's a fair exchange. I want your house for an hour—babies and all. May I have it? I want to think out a tangle, and at home Stella is playing Chaminade to a couple of musical admirers. You know Stella when she plays Chaminade? She pervades the place—you can't escape her."

For a moment Betty stood, considering her. Then, with a swift little caress, she yielded.

"I shall feel like a child with an unexpected holiday," she cried. "Jack, Jack," running back to the kitchen. "Come and run away with me! We can have Joyce's car—she said so."

FIVE minutes later Jocelyn stood holding her breath till the sound of the car died away down the street. Then slowly, like one coming back to consciousness, she looked about her. She was going to fight the thing out, once for all. It was a three-act drama, she thought grimly: in the garden with Kent; in the parlor with Betty; but the third act—the crucial one—lay in the duel between herself and Betty's home.

The children first. Softly she ran up the stairs, her trailing skirts caught impatiently in her hands. The nursery was unlighted, but a street light outside made visible the two tiny figures—Boy, splendid and sturdy, even in his babyhood an aristocrat; Pippa, a delicate bit of girlhood, whose fragile body could hardly hold the excitements of her vivid spirit, plain one moment, flashing into beauty the next. No wonder that Betty was afraid of being Pippa's mother. Even as Jocelyn looked at her, a quiver swept across the pale face, and the tiny hands caught each other in a gesture that sent a throb of pain through Jocelyn's heart. Something—she did not know what it was—was more than she could bear. Yet, she must fight it out—she must. She must get the truth from babies—the real truth, the fundamental thing.

She slipped softly into a chair beside Pippa's little crib. Beyond, in Betty's room, a low light was burning. Low as it was, it revealed clearly the cheap furniture; not inartistic—Betty never could be that—but poorly made and poorly wearing. The drawers of the chiffonnier did not shut well. The cheap rug and cheap paper had faded in different tones. Things were crowded because they had to be. It seemed to Jocelyn, looking in with fierce, hard eyes, as if the little, brave, tired, struggling room were fairly articulate—as if it were crying out to her:

"Look at me—look well. I am at my best now, in these shadows. What do you think I am like in the morning when the light streams in? Or when she is too tired to 'pick up'? or when it is hot, as it is most of the summer? Think of me then. Think of the thousands of tiny frets and irritations of me. And there is no escape. She can not leave me unless for another no better. Day in and day out, night in and night out, she has to live with me—"

IT was like a spell. Jocelyn felt her heart pounding in her throat; yet she could not move. She felt as if she had been sitting like that—looking, listening, agonizing—for an eternity; and yet she could not move. The voice of the room went on and on—

Gradually, after ages of it, the voice seemed to change. It grew rougher, hoarser; and yet, it seemed as if the hoarseness were something outside of the room—something struggling against it. Slowly Jocelyn stirred, quivered, came up out of the dreadful place; and then, suddenly, it seemed as if her heart stopped with a terrible jarring shock. The hoarseness was in the room with her. It was one of the children. Not Pippa—a glance told her that, and her heart began again. She ran across to Boy. It was incredible—so incredible that she fought it like an agonizing dream. Why, Boy was perfectly well! Only just now Betty had gone, and Boy was lying there, sleeping quietly. It couldn't be true—the flushed face and gasping breath and little struggling hands! She beat her own hand sharply against the door; but even as the pain of the blow convinced her, she met Pippa's wide, frightened eyes.

"Bruvver's sick," Pippa said.

Jocelyn leaned over her in agony.

"Auntie Joyce must leave you just a minute while she goes for help. Only a minute, darling. You won't cry?"

"No," Pippa returned steadily.

Jocelyn flew down the stairs. Her gown caught upon a door-knob and tore out a great streamer of chiffon; she wrenched it off impatiently as she ran. It seemed an eternity, though it was barely three minutes, before she was battering on the next door, already locked for the night. A window over the porch opened, and a voice asked what was wanted. Jocelyn called up:

"It's Mrs. Page's baby. It's sick. She's out, and I don't know what to do. Oh, please come—somebody!"

It had been a man who answered; but he was pushed aside by a woman, who, even as she spoke, was buttoning on a waist.

"Is he breathing hoarse?" she asked.

"Yes," Jocelyn gasped. "Oh, please hurry!"

"Put water on the gas stove and the little alcohol stove, both. You'll find that on the bath-room closet shelf. I'll be in in half a minute."

Jocelyn stumbled back, calling to Pippa from the door. She had to hunt for matches and fumble with the gas stove, and everything took an eternity. She had barely got the water on when the neighbor pushed in. Afterward Jocelyn remembered that she was middle-aged and fat, and her hair was in curlers, and her blouse was pulling away from her skirt, and she still wore bedroom slippers.

"Who is the doctor?" she gasped, as the woman came upstairs. "I'll telephone."

The woman's eyes had gone straight to Boy.

"Light the gas," she commanded. "There ain't no telephone nearer than the next square. You can call a doctor if you'll feel easier, but there ain't no need. He's had attacks before—he's subject to them. This ain't a bad one."

"But I must get a doctor—I feel responsible," Jocelyn cried.

The woman, already busy about preparations, did not look up.

"Go ahead," she agreed. "Dr. Cheny they've had sometimes. If you can't get him, Dr. McGruder. Tell him it's croup. But they won't do anything I don't know about beforehand."

Jocelyn flew down the street. More eternities. It was done at last, and she was back, breathless, already worn from the strain. The woman was holding the struggling baby, trying to make him breathe over a pan of steaming liquid.

"Oh, give me something to do!" the girl cried. "He said he'd come—the doctor. Oh, won't he ever stop breathing like that?"

The woman looked up then. The eyes under the kid curlers were full of deep, understanding tenderness—the eyes of one who through long mothering has won the deepest secrets of life. In the midst of the battle she had room for the girl's agony.

"You can take him if you want to," she said. "Keep his face over it, no matter how he struggles. I want to fix a hot compress. You'd better take off that dress first."

"The dress!" Jocelyn cried with fierce scorn. "Give him to me—quick."

The woman made no further protest.

"Get a bath towel—like this I've got. You'll find them in the lowest drawer. That's right. Now come and take my seat here. You've got to hold him just so—that's the way. And don't worry—this ain't a bad attack. He'll be asleep in an hour. You see, you caught it at the beginning. His breathing is easier already."

It did not seem to Jocelyn that it was easier. Every hoarse breath felt like a knife in her heart—every struggle of the little body tore her. Her lips set hard and her forehead was wet. She was fighting with all she had—mind, will, body, and soul. Vaguely she knew that the woman was shuffling about, doing things, never a moment out of reach. Once a horn shrieked outside, and the girl started, making the baby cry. She had been afraid it was Betty. Now and then she heard steps on the little street, but not many, for it was getting late.

AFTER endless ages she heard a bell ring, and then voices.

"The danger's all over—it was only a slight attack. But she was so wild, there was nothing to do but let you come—"

Then steps on the stairs and a competent face and voice:

"Why, there's nothing the matter with this young man now, except that he wants to go to sleep. But I'd like to prescribe something for his nurse, to make her sleep to-night, unless she wants to feel for the next week as if she'd just come through a spell of fever."

"Oh, prescribe anything," Jocelyn said wildly. "I'll take your whole caseful without a word, if only he's all right."

The doctor's keen eyes studied her.

"How soon can you get to bed?" he asked.

"Any time—never—as soon as my car gets back! Don't mind my being a bit wild. You see, I never went through anything like this before. I never knew what it was to be frightened before—never in my life."

The doctor nodded.

"It's all right, young lady. You did very well for a first time. I owe it to you to tell you that the way you fought probably pulled the little fellow through

---

sooner. Now next time you'll know enough to do it with half the expenditure—or I hope you will. Only a fool wastes strength recklessly when he knows better. Here's your penalty—a dose now and another in half an hour—and you are not to be wakened in the morning."

THE doctor was gone. Jocelyn, obeying the neighbor's directions, put the baby in his crib and covered him. Suddenly, with the little warm body gone from her arms, she felt as if everything had gone out of life. She stared breathlessly at the neighbor; but she, this time, did not see, because she was looking at Jocelyn's gown.

"Oh, you did spoil it," she cried. "Ain't it a pity! If you'd only taken it off!"

Jocelyn looked down at it, an odd smile on her lips.

"So I did," she said vaguely.

There was another horn outside, and this time it was Betty. She began talking as soon as she opened the door.

"You poor thing—wasn't this an awful way to abuse a kindness? Did you think we had stolen your car entirely? You see, we had a puncture out on the Lake Drive, and—Joyce, what is the matter? Has anything happened?"

She had caught it—something—on the stairs, and flew up, white with terror. It was the neighbor who met her.

"The baby had a bit of a croupy spell—or started to—but she nipped it in the bud. She had me in in half a minute—by the time she'd got the doctor here 'twas all over. She was lots sicker'n he over it—bless his heart."

Betty was bending over the crib—looking, listening, feeling. She turned with a long relaxing breath, which changed into a cry of penitence as she saw Jocelyn's face.

"Oh, you poor dear—how you must have worried! They are awful, I know,—even a little attack like this,—when you're not used to them. And to think of my getting you into all this! Do stay here to-night, please, and let me take care of you and try to make up. Please, dear."

Jocelyn shook her head.

"Not to-night. I'll come to-morrow. You don't know what he gave me—your boy—to-night."

"And your gown!" Betty cried, discovering it. "Oh, Joyce dear—your lovely gown!"

Joyce looked down at it, smiling.

"It's been lived in—no wonder it was too much for it," she answered. "Good night, dear."

LATE as it was, Sylvia and her admirers—and Chaminade—were still at it in the music room. Jocelyn slipped by the door, a great wonder in her heart. And she had thought that living! Three hours ago she had thought so. She knew the truth now. She was exhausted, mind and body, as she never had been before in her life; but she knew the truth. Nothing counted except life. To live for life, to fight for it, even though it took everything you had. It gave a reason for everything—there was none without that.

She was growing heavy-headed—already the powder was doing its work. She took the second powder. She knew she couldn't sleep with such things to think about. But, even as she thought it, the thought grew confused, faint—slipped from her grasp.

It was clear daylight when she awoke. For a moment she lay, puzzled: Then in a flood it came sweeping back, and she sprang to her feet, with a cry. Suppose it was too late to catch Kent! A glance at her clock reassured her. She threw on a kimono and slippers, and ran to her telephone. She tried to hold her voice steady, but it sang like a lark:

"Kent—oh, Kent, will you come? I know now!"

The Flag of Lolonnois

By ARTHUR SOMERS ROCHE

Illustration by George Gibbs

RANSOME watched my growing horror with a satirical smile.

"You think it can't be done?" he asked.

It was the first time he had spoken to me, though his eyes had been upon me throughout the meal.

I pushed away the pudding that a steward had just set before me, and sipped nervously of my glass of water.

"You may succeed for a while," I said; "but you'll hang later."

There came a general growl from the throats of the other six men.

"Dam' sea-lawyer," said Burnham, who was the sailing-master. "He'll Jonah the cruise."

But Ransome stilled his and the others' protests with a glance.

"A guest has certain privileges," he said blandly. "Among them is the right of free speech. Perhaps Mr. Fitch will explain why we are all destined to grace ropes?"

But the meal, though I had not eaten half of it, had driven away the nervousness with which I had greeted Ransome's first announcement of his intentions. I was horrified, but calm. And I did not propose to be the butt of their sneers.

"If you need explanation," I said boldly, "then there is no danger of your hanging."

"Come again," said Ransome pleasantly.

"Why," said I, "any one who can't see the fate in store for you must be insane. Insane people are never hanged, no matter how fearful their crimes. Do I make myself clear?"

"Very," said Ransome dryly, looking about him with a glance that compelled silence from his followers. "And yet, this ship is a little world in itself; and where all the world is crazy, it is folly to be sane—eh?"

"Oh," I sneered, "if that's the game! Excuse me; you talked so much about the privileges of a guest that I forgot."

"Forgot what?" But he colored slightly.

"That he who boasts his hospitality is usually the first to abuse it."

"But there are obligations on the guest," he countered.

"Even upon an unwilling one?"

"An uninvited one," he emphasized the distinction.

"But you asked me," I said coldly.

"True; I forgot."

He stared at me, and I met his glance with the courage of hopelessness.

"Maybe," he said slowly, "you don't understand how easy it all is. It will be a pleasure to have you along with us, Mr. Fitch. And after the first step is taken, and you see how simple it is—eh?"

I shook my head. Though calmer than when he had first broached his maniacal scheme, more able to weigh my chances, to see the advantages of temporizing, there were limits which I would not pass, though I had a hundred lives to save.

"Never," I said flatly.

But he only laughed. "Never is a long time, Mr. Fitch. We shall see. And if you are really finished—? Very well; I would not hurry you, but you can find your room?"

I nodded, and left the table.

As soon as I passed through the door I heard voices raised angrily, and I needed not to linger in the doorway to know that my life was the subject under discussion.

I waited for a good two hours in my room, having a disinclination to be dragged forth undressed. Queer that a man who thinks himself in danger of his life should care about his clothes! Yet I have read that condemned criminals pay greater attention to their toilet on their last mornings on earth than at any other time. Perhaps it was this same spirit that possessed me.

AT any rate, not until two hours had passed, and I felt that there was little likelihood of my status as a "guest" ending this night, did I undress and climb into my berth. And I was long in sleeping then, for I could not hide from my thoughts the fact that, boldly and scornfully as I had derided Ransome's plan, it nevertheless had elements in it that promised success.

For German raiders still held the seas; other German raiders might be expected to slip by Britain's cordon of war-ships in the North Sea. If a merchant-craft belonging to one of the Allies disappeared, what more natural than that a German cruiser should be blamed? If a neutral vessel never made port, the world would set it down to a floating mine. What chance was there that Ransome and his foul crew would be suspected? None at all.

There was only one hitch, and that was in the capture of a United States war-vessel. How the Corinna could do that I did not know, nor had that portion of their plans been touched on during dinner. It had simply been spoken of as a thing assured. And there had been a sublime confidence in their ability to do this seemingly impossible thing that carried conviction.

And I, inimical to them, could do nothing to prevent them, was alive only on the sufferance of their chief.

It was a bitter night that I passed, tossing in my bunk; and I am glad to say that I forgot my own danger in contemplation of the danger that threatened a war-ship of my country.

And then common sense came to me. Many an insane man is absolutely certain that he is Napoleon and that he will escape from St. Helena to-morrow. His certainty doesn't mean much to outsiders, although other inmates of the asylum may agree with him. Was I, in effect, in the mental attitude of one of these inmates? Because Ransome was a monomaniac and had inspired his followers with his own obsession, should I, their prisoner, take any stock in their wild boastings?

They were crazy. Their plan was good; no greater opportunity for piracy had ever presented itself; but—and the "but" was mighty important—when they contemplated seizing an American battle-ship for the furtherance of their mad and wicked schemes, they had passed beyond the line of demarcation between monomania and plain insanity. The very magnitude of the scheme proved its absurdity.

Thus, finally comforted, I went to sleep—to dream, however, of naked cutlasses, of victims walking the plank, of whole hogsheads of rum broached on deck, of men naked to the waist, with bandanas knotted about their sweat-streaming foreheads, and of all the things that were concomitants of the buccaneers in the days of Morgan and of Lolonnois.

NEXT day I did not leave my berth.

When the Chinese steward came to my cabin my head was bothering me, and a half-gale had set the Corinna to dancing, so that I was slightly seasick. The Chinese brought me some breakfast, and I managed to down a cup of coffee and an egg, and then lapsed into half slumber. I ate a little more at luncheon; but, as no order had come for me to rise, I remained where I was.

In the evening, after I had made a fairly respectable meal, Ransome came to my cabin.

He uttered only courteous commonplaces, and said never a word about piracy. He trusted that I would be feeling all right in the morning, offered me a book, and left me.

And that night I slept well—so well that I arose early next morning, and was up on deck half an hour before the breakfast gong sounded. The wind had died down, and, though there was a fairly heavy sea running, my malde-mer had disappeared, and I was cheered by the remark of Dazey—who met me on the deck, and who seemed to bear no particular malice for the fight I had given him—that a dead calm was impending and that the seas would soon quiet down.

"Where are we?" I asked him, as he seemed in a friendly mood.

---

"Off the Delaware Capes," he answered.

"Where are we headed?"

He spat over the Corinna's rail, and his friendliness left him.

"Why," said he, "as you ain't going with us, I don't see as how you'd be interested in our goings or comings."

"I'm not going with you? What do you mean? Where am I going?" I inquired.

"Why, you—you're headed for Davy Jones' locker," Dazey guffawed, and left me.

So, I thought, it has been decided to rid the ship of me. I trembled and I know that I grew white. Yesterday's security had somehow made me feel that I was not in any immediate danger. I looked about, in the desperate hope that I might see some craft, though how I should signal my distress I did not know. But, if we were off the Delaware Capes, we must have been a long way off them; for there was nothing in view save clouds and the heaving ocean.

I looked after the retreating form of Dazey, going forward with a walk that was a strange mixture of the slouch of a Bowery gangster and the roll of a man-of-war's man. Save for a man in the pilot-house, visible through the rear windows,—it was glass on all four sides,—there was no one else in sight. Aside from the engine-room staff, one man was sufficient to handle the little yacht.

For a moment I dallied with the idea of loosing one of the boats that swung from the davits, and making a break for it. But that plan was the essence of absurdity. I was aboard the Corinna, there to remain until some good chance rescued me; and that good chance could hardly be of my own contriving, in broad daylight and out of sight of land. I took stock of my predicament. Suppose that sometime yesterday it had been decided to get rid of me, and that Dazey knew whereof he spoke? I had known within a moment of my landing on the Corinna's deck that I was in deadly danger. Of what profit was it for me to grow loose-kneed every time I was threatened? If every careless, sneering threat frightened me, I should soon be reduced to the state of a nightmare-ridden child.

I was no coward. To my own satisfaction I had proved that, in my battle on the Corinna's deck against odds, and in my defiance of Ransome and his officers. Facing death I could be courageous enough. Should I be any less courageous when death refused to face me, but gibed at me from behind a corner?

"The coward dies a hundred deaths, the brave man dies but once." That would be my philosophy, and I'd try to live up to it.

So I released the rail I had gripped, and deliberately began to whistle. When the notes issued clear from my lips I knew that I had regained the control that had been stolen by Dazey's words. And with that regaining of control came a spirit of defiance. Uncertainty was the worst thing to endure; if I had anything to fear in the immediate future, I'd find it out at once. The spirit of bravado swayed me as I descended to the saloon at the sound of the breakfast gong.

THE six closest followers of Ransome arrived at the table before me, and were wolfing food when I sat down. No one spoke to me, but Barron winked at Pelletier and said:

"Why a man bothers with food when he's going to be fish-food himself is a puzzle to me."

A loud guffaw greeted his bon mot. I stirred the sugar in my coffee until I caught Barron's eye, and nodded pleasantly to him.

"How's your stomach?" I asked. "All well now, I hope. I tried to be gentle with you; I didn't want to kill you."

He stared, and the color surged into his face. Another and a louder guffaw ran around the table. Before it had quite died away I turned to Pelletier.

"I see you've repaired the rail, haven't you?"

He looked at me suspiciously. "What rail?"

"Where your head struck it day before yesterday. Surely no yacht rail could survive the blow of your head, solid as it is."

It was cheap wit, but it served my purpose. Pelletier grew more crimson than Barron at the gale of laughter that swept the saloon.

"By gar, you think you're funny, eh?" he cried. "I'll come and show you right now how hard my fist is."

I rose with him, and picked up a chair. I could stand him off—and the rest of them, for that matter—until Ransome heard the noise and came to the saloon. Then I should learn my fate. And if I had to die—well, so be it. The uncertainty would be over. But if Ransome made them cease their attack, why, then I should know that I was in no danger at present. A rash method of finding out where I stood; but, as I have explained, uncertainty was worse than death.

SNARLING, egged on by the boisterous mirth of the others, Pelletier, reinforced by Barron, came at me. I backed to the doorway, my chair uplifted. And as they closed in I heard steps behind me. Then Ransome's voice, harsh and menacing, drove them back to their seats.

"What's the trouble?" he cried.

"Simply this," I told him. "Dazey told me a while ago that I was to be thrown overboard. Your gang of jail-sweepings here added their words to his statement. Now,"—and I stepped again into the doorway through which I had let him pass,—"if there's anything like that brewing, I propose to have a little something to say about it myself. I'm not going to walk to the slaughter like a lamb. I hope to make my passing interesting to Mr. Barron and his fellow guttersnipe, Mr. Pelletier. If it's your idea that a guest must stand for any amount of threats, it isn't mine. Let's drop the guest bluff here and now. I know it would be more pleasant for your gang of thugs to bait me and enjoy themselves. But I don't see the humor of the game. Let's have a show-down. Either you give me your word that I'm to be unmolested for a certain period, or put me out of the way here and now."

"Why the haste?" demanded Ransome.

I grinned. "Well, this chair is rather heavy," I said. "I might break a bone or two with it. And I may not have a chair handy another time."

"Courage," he said musingly, "and based on education. If I had a dozen like you—"

He stopped short and turned upon his followers.

"I don't make many threats, boys, do I? So when I do make one you understand it's meant, eh? To be sure you do! Well, then, the next man that offers any insult or threat to Mr. Fitch goes overboard! I thought I'd made myself clear. I thought it was understood that Mr. Fitch was to remain aboard this boat until I decided otherwise." He glared at his six silent henchmen. "I do not remember resigning the leadership of this expedition. Do any of you remember my doing so?"

He sat down at the head of the table.

"Sit down, Mr. Fitch," he invited.

I DID so, hoping that the relief I felt was not too evident on my features. Barron, Pelletier, and the rest finished their breakfast uneasily and in haste. One by one, they wiped their mouths with napkins and departed. And I could only marvel at the will possessed by this cripple, that could inspire these ruffians with such awe. Aye, and faith too; for surely it had been his brain, and not their dull wits, that had conceived the idea of using the Great War as a means to hide their crimes. He turned to me as the last of his sublieutenants departed.

"Imagination, eh?" he smiled.

I guessed his meaning, and flushed.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," he said. "Patience and philosophical acceptance of things come with age. You are young. And youth wants to know. Not to know means to feel panic. I do not blame you at all for wishing a showdown. I only regret that my men should have caused you any uneasiness. They'll do so no more. I think they understand

---

me. Indeed, I am glad that you forced the issue. Since we cleared New York harbor, they've become a little too confident of themselves, a little too disinclined to consider me. I wish"—and he said this calmly—"that there would arise sufficient excuse to send one over-side; it would reestablish the authority which being at sea—has not weakened, exactly, but blurred, so, to speak. However, set your mind at rest, Mr. Fitch."

"Easily done," I replied, "if there were something definite to go upon. A reprieve doesn't amount to much if its duration is uncertain."

He looked at me consideringly.

"Night before last," said he, "I said that you might change your mind when you knew how perfect were my plans."

"And I told you that I would not," I retorted. "I am still of the same mind."

"Well, Mr. Fitch, this is the best I can promise you: you will' be absolutely unmolested until it is vital to our plans that you be—eliminated."

"And when will that be?" I demanded. "Granting that you refuse to join us, that may be—to-day."

HE led the way to the deck. We composed ourselves in deck-chairs aft, and he gave me a cigar. As soon as we were both lighted up he began:

"I am a strange man, Mr. Fitch. You would call me a criminal: I call myself a natural man. Struggle is natural; killing is natural.

"I was born of fairly well-to-do parents; they died while I was an infant. My guardian gave me over to the tender care of hired nurses. One of them, dropped me: You see the result—my, back. Unhappily, the nurse died while I was yet a boy; otherwise I should have repaid her for her carelessness. My guardian embezzled the little fortune left to me. It is with great pleasure that I tell you that he died—at my hands.

"No, I was not suspected; it was thought to be apoplexy. A sixteen-year-old hunchback! Absurd! Nevertheless, I did it.

"Yes, I paid my guardian—in full. But I soon discovered that he was not my only debtor. I owed the whole world a debt of hatred. Why? Very simple. Through no fault of my own, I was physically abnormal. The world has no use for the abnormal. I was an object of contempt. For, by reason of my abnormality, I was deprived of opportunity to go to work as healthier boys do. No one wanted a hunchback around.

"Can you wonder, then, that I reverted—that I let my natural emotions have full sway?

"I saw that, under color of legal right, men violated the moral law. I saw that business was often the old robber-baron game reduced to a scientific game. I saw that power, no matter how attained, was the be-all and end-all of existence.

"So, as I had not the capital to get started in the game of legally taking away the other fellow's property, I decided to dispense with legality. I stole. Soon I had money, and a certain kind of power. When I had capital, and could have entered business life, I had acquired a distaste for it. Society scorned me because I was a cripple. I scorned society.

"I used my first capital to finance greater assaults upon society and to strengthen my own security. I gained more capital. Then this war broke out. What I had often dreamed of, yet dismissed as hopeless,—the idea of openly seizing instead of doing it in the dark of night or by subterfuge,—became a glorious possibility. I began planning early last August, when I saw that this war would be almost world-wide. The result of my planning is that to-day I hope to become master of a torpedo-boat destroyer, and in that craft to sweep the seas."

"To-day?" I gasped.

He nodded, smiling.

"That is why I can not be certain of the length of your reprieve, Mr. Fitch. If your being alive could be considered dangerous to my plans—you understand, I hope. But if you should choose to join us, to be my right-hand man, to be one of the leaders of this expedition— Listen! The destroyer, Comet was to start for Norfolk last night. I know that such orders have been given. You'll notice that we aren't making over four knots an hour now. We are waiting for the Comet.

"This yacht, the Corinna, was chartered for a cruise in Florida and Cuban waters. I agreed to furnish my own crew. By what you have seen of them you can understand that they are not likely to balk at anything, eh? Right! And although some of this crew are known to the police and their absence from their usual haunts will be commented on, their real whereabouts will not be suspected. Each one of them made more or less elaborate preparations for leaving the city, supposedly for New England, the West, or the South.

"Nor will the capture of the Comet be suspected. Evidence will be cast into the sea to prove that she was lost through some internal explosion. And while she is mourned I, in command of her, will cruise the ocean, picking up the fortune that the world is not strong enough to withhold from me."

"But how can you capture a war-vessel?" I demanded.

"Craft," he chuckled: "Soon our wireless will call for help. The Comet will come to our rescue; we will take to the boats; the Corinna will blow up, presumably because of uncontrollable fire in her engine-room. We will be picked up by the Comet. Who aboard that ship will suspect our purpose? I have fifty men aboard this boat, and we will have the advantage of surprise. Once aboard the Comet's decks and—they won't be suspecting attack. It will be simple. And then—"

"And sooner or later you'll run short of fuel," I cried. "And what then?"

"There is a West Indian island," he retorted. "There, recently, supplies of oil have been deposited for me. There is another island off the West Coast of Africa. Oh, I have planned well, Mr. Fitch."

He tossed his cigar suddenly overboard, and looked at me.

"Now, Mr. Fitch, where do you stand?"

"And if I stand where I stood yesterday and the day before?"

"Why, then," and he spoke with utter nonchalance, "I shall regret the termination of an acquaintance that I had hoped would be prolonged. You will be left aboard the Corinna when we desert her, Mr. Fitch. Your reprieve lasts until then. What's the answer?"

"Rather a big thing to decide offhand," I answered, with a shaky laugh. "I—have some hours, haven't I?"

"Several," he said. "Think it over." He smiled most pleasantly Upon me, and rose from his chair.

AND then, almost without a moment's warning, happened something that showed the merciless ferocity of the man. For, as Ransome rose, a man came around the deck-house. He was staggering, and so acute had danger rendered my senses that I smelt the liquor his breath while he was yards away.

He stopped short at sight of Ransome. His lips parted in a silly, drunken smile.

"It's my luck," he cried. "It's my luck."

And then he did a thing that I had seen bootblacks and newsboys do. He rubbed the knuckles of his hand across Ransome's hump, while he cried:

"Tha's my luck, tha's my luck!"

Then his foolish smile faded and he backed away. He had gained the deckhouse, and had turned to run from those blazing eyes that had suddenly sobered him, when Ransome sprang. He bent low as he leaped, and his arms went about the drunkard's legs; there was a heave and a toss; and, screeching, the man went overboard.

Dazed by the rapidity of the tragedy, I could not have prevented it had I foreseen it. But the disappearance of the man over the side galvanized me into belated action. Hung on the inside of the rail, a coil of rope attached to it, was a life-preserver. I seized it, swung it high above my head—and dropped it upon the deck, while I bent double from the agony of the blow above the heart that Ran-some had struck me.

"Sorry," he said briefly; "but you interfered with discipline."

As I fell weakly into a chair, his voice was raised in a harsh cry for Barron and Pelletier, and in a moment they were with us. Briefly Ransome told what had happened, and they merely nodded.

"Right," said Barron, when Ransome had finished. "Every drop of booze in the ship. Right!"

"But don't tell them; get them on deck and let me do it," said Ransome.

They nodded and departed; and Ransome started forward. Then he turned back.

"Come forward as soon as you get your breath, Mr. Fitch," he said.

IN five minutes, my breath regained, a dull ache and an occasional shooting pain being the reminders of the blow he had struck me, I walked around the deckhouse, and came to the deck space amidships. And there, drawn up in a rather feeble imitation of military or naval form, were nearly three-score of the hardest-looking citizens I had ever seen.

Yet, even in my first glance, I saw enough to accord Ransome a grudging admiration. For, if these men were from the under-world, surely they were its pick. Hardly a man of them but stood rather over average height; not one of them but had the depth of chest and the leanness of flank and the breadth of shoulder that means fighting ability. Ransome was walking up and down in front of the first line, his hands behind his back, slightly suggestive of Napoleon. He stopped short as I came upon them, and began speaking.

"You've been drinking," he said. "Drink is bad for men like you, especially when you happen to be led by a man like me. It puts queer notions into your heads. It made Carnahan want to rub my hump: he thought it would bring him luck. Is there any one else here who has that idea?"

Except for the shuffling caused by their evident desire to stand in more military fashion, there came not a sound from the assembled men.

"Because, if there is," Ransome broke the silence, "I'd like to make his acquaintance now. For then he could keep Carnahan company, and Carnahan has gone to hell before his time. He's overboard! Is there any objection from any one?"

He waited a moment before continuing, and I, searching each face in the hope that I might find some resentment written there, some one who, because he was against Ransome, might conceivably be imagined to be arraigned with me, found nothing but submission to the leader's will. "To be sure there's none," continued Ransome finally. "You're all determined to stick by me, aren't you? My will is law. Faithful, obedient—you're a fine bunch," he sneered. "Risking your necks from the very start, you add to the danger by getting drunk. But you'll not drink any longer, my boys."

He turned to the men whom I had met at mess, all of whom, save Burnham; who was at the wheel in the pilot-house, were leaning, in various attitudes of evident readiness, against the deck-house, facing the triple line of men.

"You go below," said Ransome. "Rout out every drop of liquor you find. Bring it up and throw it overboard."

"Right," said Barron.

Followed by the other four men, he went forward to the stairs that led to the yacht's forecastle. Ransome came over to me, offered me a cigar, and on my refusing lighted one himself. There ensued fifteen minutes of absolute silence, broken finally by the arrival of Barron. He carried a sort of ditty bag that bulged, and its contents, opened and cast unceremoniously over the rail, were bottles of various sizes.

After him came Pelletier, Schmidt, Johnson, and Wickham, each laden with bottles and flasks. It was clear that the crew of the Corinna had not purposed to go dry.

As the last bottle went overboard,

---

Ransome took his place again before the triple ranks.

"Some one of you," he said, "may have liquor concealed. It was understood before we started on this cruise that treachery would be punishable with death. The man who drinks to-day is a potential traitor. If you don't understand me I'll explain. The most ticklish, dangerous part of our business will have to be faced in the next six hours, most likely. Liquor loosens the tongue. A loose tongue might arouse suspicion. And suspicion would mean prison, if not the electric chair, for all of us. Therefore, the man who does anything that might cause suspicion to be aroused is a traitor. And such a traitor will die as surely as Carnahan has died. So, if there's any one of you that had liquor concealed where it couldn't be found, I warn him to get it at once, and throw it overboard. Am I right?"

Sheepish affirmatives came from the men.

"That'll be all, then," said Ransome.

Dismissed, the men shuffled away. Ransome came to me, and I looked at him with a greater awe than heretofore. Puny-seeming cripple, by the mere force of his will he swayed these rascals to his bidding.

"Well?" he said smilingly. "What do you think? They'll follow me to hell, eh?"

"That is exactly where they'll follow you, I believe," I retorted.

"Not believing in hell or other fables, I miss the point of your wit," he chuckled. "However—my plans begin to look more feasible?"

"This is a yacht," I answered; "a seaworthy, roomy old tub, but—a yacht. How do you expect to account for the presence aboard hem of nearly sixty men?"

Again he smiled. "You give me credit for little forethought, Mr. Fitch. I have purchased a large plantation in Florida. Finding it necessary to visit the spot personally, and knowing from experience that you can not always rely on labor contractors I decide to bring my laborers with me on my yacht. Simple and satisfactory, eh?"

"I see," said I. "And if there happened to be among your 'laborers' a man opposed to your devilish plan—"

"Exactly; he'd queer the whole thing. So you see, Mr. Fitch—ah, well, I must not press you. It is the middle of the forenoon now. It will probably be about four o'clock before the Comet is close enough. Six hours, Mr. Fitch. I pray that you will make good use of them."

He grew suddenly white and clapped his hand to his forehead. He swayed, leaned against and clung to me.

"There, there." It was Barron's voice, as tender as if addressing a child. "I knew so much excitement—let me help you downstairs."

He passed an arm about the hunchback's shoulders and led him to the door of the deck-house, Ransome offering no protest. The door closed behind them.

Crippled in brain as well as body, and afflicted, despite his shoulders and arms, with some sort of ailment that must torture him, Ransome nevertheless ruled his followers. And not all of them by fear alone, it seemed. Barron seemed devoted to his dwarfed master.

And those followers would, some time to-day, seize an American ship-of-war and—I refused to carry out my thoughts to their logical conclusion.

In some way, I must wreck the plans of this maniac! Restless with my own helplessness, I turned away from the water just in time to see Barron coming toward me.

"The chief's head is bothering him," he announced. "It does whenever he is over-excited."

"Then he should refrain from murder," I retorted.

"Murder! Peanuts! That ain't excitement for him. It's argument that excites him. You been arguing with him. I guess you been telling him he's going to make a flivver of this affair. That's what gets him: contradiction. And it's got to stop."

"Meaning—"

"Meaning that, orders or no orders, I know what's good for him and what ain't. If you don't want to join us,—and God knows I don't want you along,—say so like a man. But don't try convincing the chief that he's in the wrong alley. Because if you do your finish comes right then."

"You don't suppose the scene with his men just now—taking their liquor away—had anything to do with his headache?"

"Headache!" Barron glared at me. "Why, he's suffering enough to kill an ordinary man. It 'most drives him crazy, it does. Maybe that did have something to do with it. Probably it did. But not half as much as arguing with you. He's took a fancy to you. He wants you. He's upset because you won't join us. And it's enough for him to be upset without you shooting off hot air. Mind that. You talk low or you'll be talking with the angels quicker'n you expect. That's all."

HE turned and left me—left me to wonder at what manner of men these were. Ransome could kill a man, could threaten death to half a hundred more, could deprive these tough, order-resenting men of their liquor; and then, because he had a fainting spell and suffered pains in his head, Barron attributed these sufferings to an "argument" with me. What manner of men were they? For I did not doubt but that the rest of the crew would agree with Barron's diagnosis.

Murder, and promises of murder, must be their natural existence. Violence must be so normal to them that verbal argument became to them what murder was to an ordinary man like myself. I gripped the rail with nervous fingers. I didn't want to lose my sense of proportion, my sanity, as these men had done. I must remember that men who would start upon such an expedition as this were not the kind that would fit in with any

theory of humanity that I owned. These men were atavists, reincarnations of the brutes who sailed the seas centuries ago; and for me to try to understand them meant to lose my own reason. Let me dispense with argument, even to myself, as Barron wished me to do with his chief, and deal only with cold facts.

And the cold facts were these: I had six hours of freedom—comparative, that is, the freedom of the ship—and opportunity to win over to common humanity any of the crew that I might. Barron, for all his threats, would not molest me while his chief lay suffering.

I started forward, with some wild idea of interviewing members of the crew, of trying to persuade them of their madness. But by the time I had reached the companion leading to the men's quarters forward, I had come to my senses.

I turned disconsolately back, and as I did so the wireless crackled. I looked up, and from his cubby-hole by the pilothouse the operator, looking down, waved me a friendly hand. On the impulse, I climbed the iron stairs that fronted the superstructure.

I PASSED by the open door of the pilothouse, and Captain Burnham scowled at me from the wheel.

The operator had ceased sending now, and was listening. As I stood there, wondering what message the Corinna might have received and with whom she might dare to hold converse, he slipped the gear from his head and waved me to a seat.

"Just seein' everything is O. K.," he said.

"How?"

"Why, just testing the thing. Heard the Comet calling Fortress Monroe. In code, a-course, so I couldn't understand; but I cut in with a lot of nonsense to see if they'd get it, and they sent out word in plain talk to stop the funny business. Instrument's O. K."

I looked at him. He was only a boy, and I could not believe that he was as steeped in crime as the rest of the crew.

"I should think you'd be afraid to monkey with a war-ship," I said.

"Huh? What war-ship?"

"The Comet, of course," I answered.

"Never heard of her," he said shortly. "Do you know what I'm going to be when I grow up? I'm going to be a brakeman on a railroad. Did you ever hear me sing 'Casey Jones'? Listen."

He sang a verse of that famous ballad; then he stopped abruptly, drew some dice from his pocket, and offered to play klondike with me. And suddenly I knew.

I got up and, with a friendly word, passed from the cubby-hole.

Burnham called to me as I went by his doorway:

"Got fooled, didn't you? Thought there might be a lingering chance, eh?"

"He may fool you," I retorted.

He chuckled. "One thing about Carey where he is straight in his thinking. That's the wireless. Receives O. K. and sends the same. Second he gets away from the actual work of it, though, he's a plain bug. Oh, he won't fool us. Ask Ransome about him if you want. Nutty as a squirrel on everything else in the wide world: but he'll send a message straight and he'll take one straight. Seems to come to himself when he slips into his

---

seat and gets his finger on the key; second he pulls away he's four years old again. But don't worry about him fooling us; we don't. In a hurry?" he added maliciously. "Oh, very well."

I could hear him laughing as I scrambled down the iron stairs and made the deck. The hope that had come so suddenly, that had been inspired by the friendly wave of Carey from his window, had disappeared as swiftly. I began to feel that dignity commanded that I should cease vain hoping. I was hopelessly caught. If I had to die, let that be the end of it. Let me not emulate some trapped rat for the edification of the crew of the Corinna. And so I made no further effort, indulged in no more vain hopes.

I ate luncheon with the "officers' mess," and learned, from dropped remarks, that Ransome was still lying down in his room. When I had finished I went on deck again, to behold to the north of us smoke upon the horizon, and to note that our own engines had ceased. We lay silent, inert, upon a smooth though swelling sea. Little by little the smoke upon the horizon grew blacker, and soon I could make out the hull of the ship I guessed was the Comet.

Like a race-horse she dashed through the swelling seas, growing larger each moment. From our wireless room the imbecile Carey was sending and receiving messages that I could easily guess to be lying appeals for help and the war-ship's encouraging [casses?] . And I, knowing that we lured the Comet on to capture and the death of her crew, could do nothing.

And then, when she was, I should judge, about a dozen miles away, Ransome came on deck. He came directly to me.

"Time is up, Mr. Fitch. What have you decided?"

"To see you damned!" I cried.

"Sorry," he said, and I really could read a little regret in his eyes. "But very well. You must realize, of course, that we end our acquaintance right here. You couldn't be persuaded?"

WEAPONLESS, I faced him. I shook my head, clenching my fists against his rush, hoping to strike one blow, perhaps to put a stop to this plan of his by stamping the vicious, wicked life from his misshapen body. And as I waited for a blow from those powerful arms, I was scatter-brained enough to wonder at the commonplaceness of it all. My reading had somehow caused me to think that death was a gloriously tragic thing. Yet here was Ransome prepared to dispose of me with the same faint regret with which he would have disposed of a prepossessing puppy; which was none the less deadly because it was as matter-of-fact as the intent that guides the butcher's knife.

I felt that I was doing a heroic thing. I was dying for the sake of law, of order, of right. And yet Ransome, who would be my murderer, looked somewhat bored, somewhat annoyed, slightly regretful; and that was all. I felt great words in my throat, but somehow I could not utter them. I felt that a band should be playing, soldiers saluting, women weeping, men uncovering their heads: and—the sea was oily, and callously calm; there were no hoarse shouts from the crew of the Corinna. I saw two or three looking idly my way, but that was all. It was hard to die for such a cause, the cause of honesty, in such a way, without anything to make my passing dramatic. And yet, though suddenly sick and cold with fear, I could not yield to Ransome: I could not win my life by the eternal damnation of my soul. My body stiffened.

I think Ransome had been waiting for some sign of weakness on my part, and I think he noted that stiffening. He stepped swiftly in toward me, his arms crooking. Then, as I swung wildly for his face, he stepped nimbly back, and I saw his lips curl in a smile. Too late I understood. I turned, but Barron's blow was launched. There was not even the elation of landing a blow granted to me. And my last conscious thought, instead of being somewhat heroic, was that I was an ass not to have known that Ransome was merely distracting my attention—that the life of the chief would never have been permitted to be endangered by me. Then blankness.

To be continued next week

The Jewel Song

—continued from page 7

beautiful road, well worth seeing. And go over to d'Hautecombe Abbey."

The confounded, cold-blooded diplomat! I thought.

"I'm not much in the mood to consider pleasure excursions just now," I said. "I'd like to find—"

"And if you happen to notice," he went on, exactly as though I hadn't spoken, "there's the most charming villa imaginable at your right, just at the head of the slope leading up from the lake, exactly opposite the Abbey. A very delightful old lady has taken it this year,—a friend of mine,—a Madame—now, what is her name?—Petrovna; Madame la Princesse Olga Petrovna—"

I went back and shook hands again.

"I beg your pardon," I said.

"And for what?" says he.

"Never mind," I says. "I guess I can be a diplomat, too. Good-by—and thanks, old man."

I grabbed Pauncefote out of the fauteuil in which he was sitting, staring desperately at every one that passed. He was half crazy, and he looked it.

"Hurry!" I says.

And as the taxi tore along the road I told him what had passed between the Ambassador and me.

"He says the police won't interfere?" Pauncefote commented. "We'll see what we can do without them, by Jove!"

Then he was silent again. Once he said:

"Alston, if I could just get my little girl back and have her laugh with me again!" Then he choked.

WE drew up in front of the villa the Ambassador had described. It was a beautiful place indeed, as far as I could see, with gardens around it on three sides and a terrace in front. The windows were all lighted.

The man who had brought the jewels—he was in butler's clothes now—stared at us as he opened the door in answer to our ring.

"Madame n-'est pas chez elle," he said, and started to shut the door; but Pauncefote had his foot inside, and we both pushed in.

"Madame la Princesse Olga Petrovna will receive a friend of the Ambassador's, I think," I, said, not caring a hoot whether or not I raised international Hades. "You go tell her so. And tell her Mr. Pauncefote of London would like to see his daughter."

He didn't get any of that, except that I knew the old lady's name, which evidently stumped him. While he stood there getting his breath—we had come in what you might call a little unceremoniously—the portieres that covered the entrance to an inner room were drawn aside, and our ancient friend stood in the doorway.

Maybe people improve in their own setting. Anyhow, she looked different to me—rather imposing, if anything, in spite of her awful clothes, and with the fierce glare all gone out of her eyes that had been in them at the tables.

"Come in, gentlemen," she says—and we did. "Be seated." And we didn't.

"Which of you is Mr. Pauncefote?" she asked. I motioned to him.

"Mr. Pauncefote," she said then, seating herself as we stood before her, "my servants have been scouring Aix for you for the last hour. I found your daughter on the road to Hautecombe this evening, in a state of despair—"

Pauncefote caught her by the arm. "Where is she?" he demanded.

The old lady looked at her arm, and he dropped it.

"She was planning to run away—drown herself—heaven knows what, pauvre petite! But I have persuaded her that she alter her mind."

"For God's sake, where is she?" he demanded again.

She rang a silver bell on the inlaid table at her elbow.

"Gregor," she said to the man who had admitted us, "priez mademoiselle de venir ici et—"

She beckoned to him and whispered.

"She is quite safe, Monsieur Pauncefote," she added, as the man bowed very low and went. "But I would advise you to be kind to her. She has had a very bad shock, and I am so sorry. For, see you, it is my fault."

"Yours?" he said. "Oh, no—"

The curtain parted and Millicent came in, white and shaky. But at that minute from another door in came Prince Tresipoff. They stared at each other, amazed.

Pauncefote seemed to forget his daughter at the sight of the young man.

"What—what does he do here?" he stuttered, his fists clenched.

The old lady drew herself up.

"And why should he not be here, monsieur?" she asked. "He is my nephew.

"And my heir," she added casually, "if he marries with my consent. My child—"

I had gone over to Millicent and put my arm around her. She was clinging to me, but her eyes were on the Prince, and he didn't see any one but her, either. But our old friend started in, just the same. She was used to an audience, all right.

"My nephew told me, last spring, that he loved an English girl whose father refused her to him. What happens? I come to Aix to see this jeune fille, and my little weakness for play returns. Ma foi, but a bad little weakness! Only it comes but seldom. I go to the tables, and the first time I see her the child brings me luck. Next day I see her again, and I demand her name. She pleases me. I send her a little token of friendliness,—it is my way,—and unluckily it is misunderstood by her good father. To-night she tells me all her story, and I say, 'Wait! Have patience. Stay with me a day or two.' I send for the boy unknown to her—et voila!"

SHE stopped for breath. The young Russian stared at his aunt, amazed. Pauncefote had come over to us.

"He's a good lad, M. Pauncefote," the old lady chuckled. "He tells me, 'I love this girl—ten times more, now that she has suffered for me. Que le diable! I will marry her, no matter what you or any one says.' Eh, mon neveu with the very bad temper?"

The young man kissed her withered claw-hands. She beamed on him like some kind of a beneficent old harpy.

"Pardon, ma tante," he stammered. "I did not know—"

"Millie," Pauncefote was saying to his daughter, "you'd best be coming back with me, don't you think? I—I've been rather frightfully worried about you, you know."

That was as near to a dramatic apology as Pauncefote ever got. His daughter smiled at him, with tears in her eyes. But the young Russian intervened.

"Sir," he said, "I have the honor to ask you again—now—for your daughter's hand."

The girl's face was perfectly beautiful as she turned it towards him, and I saw poor old Pauncefote wince. He had lost his daughter for good, I guess he thought.

"I suppose I must say yes," he began—when, to his horror, the young Russian threw his arms around him and kissed him on both cheeks.

"Father!" he says, the tears running down his face.

And when I saw those people last,—three years ago,—Millie's beautiful boy had just learned that word, and you'd have thought, to hear Pauncefote brag about him, that the young one had invented the English language.