Between Five and Six Is the Worst Hour for Steet Accidents

By JOHN B. HUBER, A.M., M.D.

BE very careful in crossing the street—but especially on your way home from work. For the hour between five and six is the worst hour in the day for street accidents. So Dr. S. W. Wynne reports in the New York Medical Journal, basing his statement on a study of accidents in the streets of New York.

The investigation brings out a number of other interesting facts. The number of accidents due to street cars has steadily diminished in the past few years. On the other hand, automobiles and trucks are responsible for more accidents every year. But this increase is due not to greater carelessness, but entirely to the added number of automobiles in the streets. Had the same proportion of accidents prevailed in 1916 as in 1908, 1,600 people would have been killed on the streets of New York, and 30,000 wounded. As it was, the number of killed was 407 and the injured 7,500.

What causes street accidents? Skidding cars and careless driving, of course. But carelessness in getting on and off street-cars is a tremendous factor, and, finally, children playing unguarded in the streets.

Given the week and the month, police officials can almost predict the number of accidents in advance. A certain number of people will be killed and injured by automobiles in December, for example: but the number will be smaller than in May, for many automobiles are laid up for the winter. But September is the fatal month. At that time thousands of cars are coming back to the city whose owners have been driving them through the summer on country roads where there is little traffic, and the temptation to be careless is great.

The hours of the day all have their varying percentage of danger, as the chart indicates. One who travels the streets at 4 A. M. is comparatively safe: but from 4 until 11 A. M. the possibility of accident steadily increases. There is a slight slump at noon; and then, in the afternoon hours, as the light grows poorer and the crowd denser, the accidents pole up, reaching their high point in the home-going hours.

For the encouragement of the ladies, it may be pointed out that men are three times as likely to be injured on the street as women.

The Infantile Appendix

THERE have been cases in which infants have had appendicitis before they were born, as Dr. I. C. Apt has proved in an article he wrote for the Archives of Pediatrics. Nor is the disease so very infrequent in children under two years.

Of eighty cases collected by the doctor, twenty-one occurred under three months, seventeen in babies from months to one year old, and the rest in children of from one to two years.

That preeminent surgeon, the late Dr. William T. Bull, was for taking no chances. And so he removed the appendix from his own six-days-old baby. Nothing particular the matter with it—not as yet. He just didn't care to have that useless rudiment remain where it might possibly make trouble later in life.

There's Lots of Strength in Fish

DON'T have the idea that, in substituting fish for meat, you are depriving yourself of any real nutritive value. The only considerable nutritional difference between meat and fish is in the fat that goes with the former. And this difference can easily be made up in other ways. The two foods are about equally digestible. It takes about six pounds of sirloin steak and about an equal amount of codfish to furnish one pound of proteid, the muscle- and bone-forming constitutent of our food. And the cod is much cheaper than the sirloin. Herring has the same proteid value as pork, and mackerel nearly as much.

Then, there is the dogfish; it belongs to the shark family, and its favorite diet is lobster. The latter is threatened with extinction—unless we humans eat the dogfish. We give it that name because it has no resemblance whatever to the dog; and, because we don't like to eat dog, we eschew this very edible fish—which is a pity, for its flesh is very sweet, and it can be cut into steaks like the cod. We are calling it the grayfish now; and under that name it should secure a wide popularity. The oil from the liver of the grayfish is as good as cod-liver oil.

The swordfish is greatly enjoyed in Mediterranean countries; and we are taking to it here. Its flesh is peculiarly tender and well flavored.

The oyster is in many ways the prince of sea foods; a quart of oysters contains about the same food value as a quart of milk or three quarters of a pound of beef. The fear that the oyster is a source of disease is undoubtedly a factor that adds to the high cost of living. Oysters should be plentiful, cheap, and much eaten The great bulk of those sold are wholesome; the numer of beds where pollution is even possibly is small. Thousands of acres of shallow waters are available all along our seaboards for oyster beds; and the oyster-producing possibilities of the Gulf States and of the Pacific waters have scarcely been touched.

For the Excitable Woman

DON'T follow the crowd. Shun bargain days. Don't read by strong light. Never be too serious. Dress not too tight. Wear comfortable shoes. Eat foods that agree with you. Shun tea and coffee. Take an afternoon nap. Systematize your housework. Don't try to accom- plish too much. Keep a memorandum. Let trifles be taboo. Force cheerfulness. Keep little correspondence. Belittle worriments; enlarge joys. Take part in no contests. Retire at an early hour. Steer clear of chatterboxes. And never, never hurry.

From Health Culture.

For Millions It Has Proved a False Hope: Will It Prove a False Hope for Us?

THIRTY-TWO years ago this June a clear-eyed group of youngsters stepped out of West Point in their shining new uniforms.

The nation had trained them as warriors for its defense: but one of them at least had made up his mind that there was no future in the profession of warrior.

He would remain in the service long enough to pay the country for its investment in his education, and then he would go into law.

"The chance of promotion is too slight," he said. "A soldier's opportunity comes through war, and there never will be another great war."

That young man as you may have guessed, was Lieutenant John Joseph Pershing, to-day the central figure in the greatest war of all time. I ask you to stop, for a moment, and consider those two picture: Youth turning its back on war, as a barbarity that the world had outgrown: and age, sadder-eyed, disillusioned, girding itself to the horrible business again.

For in those pictures you have a pathetic epitome of the history of the race.

To every new generation war has seemed a thing to be read about in histories, but too awful to happen again.

Millions of men in every age have laid down their lives in the high faith that they were fighting to end all fighting: millions in France are offering their lives in that faith to-day.

Yet to each generation the great hope has proved barren. Will it prove parren also for us?

The answer to that question rests in no one's hands but ours. It is no matter for guesswork: the facts lie naked and clear.

We know that all the civilized world wants universal peace following this war—and all the world except one little group.

That group has learned nothing from the war: the murder of millions of young men has not softened its heart.

While you and I are fighting for a vision, the Kaiser has pinned his highest decoration on the breast of Lieutenant-General Baron von Freytag Loringhoven, to whom visions are for the weak alone.

The decoration is a reward for the General's new book, "Deductions from the World War"—a book that frankly, cynically aims to prepare the German people for the next war—the war that shall complete Germany's program of world conquest.

"The idea of a universal league for the preservation of peace remains a Utopia," says the General, "and would be felt as an intolerable tutelage by any great and proud-spirited nation.... In any event, as regards us Germans, the world war should disencumber us once and for all of any vague cosmopolitan sentimentality. If our enemies, both our secret and our avowed enemies, make professions of this nature, that is for us sufficient evidence of the hypocrisy that underlies them."

There are little children in your home to-day to whom the world "war" has as yet no meaning.

You fight in the fond faith that it never shall mean to them what it has come to mean to you and me.

But the General Staff in Berlin laughs at your faith, and numbers of those little ones already among the future victims of German guns.

What will be the judgment of those little ones on us a generation hence?

Will they remember us men who fought the thing through and brought to fulfilment the age-old vision of peace?

Or as men who weakly compromised,—with all the facts before us,—knowing that we bought our compromise at the price of the world's great hope?

Bruce Barton, Editor.

DOES A BUSINESS WOMAN MAKE A GOOD WIFE?

Office Training Made Her a Sympathetic Wife

THERE was evidently a shortage of system when my ego was compounded, and I can not see that much was grafted during my four years of business experience. I know how to economize, and since I have been a housewife a budget has been forced upon me by the same continuing necessity. Any housekeeping virtues I may have beyond these are attributable, I think, to my love of the task rather than to my office training. But I am sure I am a much better and happier wife for having had my turn in the grist-mill of business. I have been saved many a pang and my husband many a reproach because I too have been on the nine to five schedule.

It has often happened since Harold and I have been married that he has failed to make his appearance at dinner-time just when I had specially prepared some elaborate favorite dish. Everything ready at the usual hour, I would sit listening for the door to open and trying to get rid of the rankling I felt under the fresh blouse I had put on to give the meal the nature of a feast. It was the genie created out of my workaday adventure which stood by to remind me that the lid of all business couldn't be snapped down promptly at five o'clock. "Well, he might have 'phoned," I would think. There was a hatchet for this objection, though.

I had been secretary and correspondent for a bank official, and I could never forget how Mr. Burton would sometimes come in just as I was ready to leave, and say:

"Miss Marsh, could you let me have the recent correspondence with the Wade County National?"

After the search was over he would add: "Now, will you get off a telegram to them to-night? Something entirely new has just come up."

Of what importance were my personal plans then? And could I wish my husband, a rising young barrister, if he were in conference with the members of his firm at the hour he was accustomed to leave for home, to make himself ridiculous by suddenly interrupting the meeting to say: "I'll have to go and telephone my wife"?

By this same test I knew also that if I called him up during the day and his answers were brief and impersonal, it did not mean he no longer cared for me, but rather that he was holding a consultation with a client who could hardly be expected to sit patiently by and listen to murmurings of "Yes, darling," and "If you wish, dearest."

My understanding of what day in and day out work means also gives my maid an advantage. I am not unmindful of the bliss of holidays and time off now and then; so if Ellen works on everybody else's holiday, she is amply compensated for it, or if she particularly wants a little extra time I rarely refuse her. I am considerate of her getting-off hour, and make it a rule never to keep her later than she is expected to stay without special arrangement.

Now that I have begun thinking about it, there is one thing more which is perhaps an outgrowth of office system, after all. It has saved me many a penny in my housekeeping experience not to throw away a single bill or letter concerning a purchase or transaction, however small, until the matter is finally settled. Business taught me that many people in business conduct their affairs in a very unbusinesslike manner.

Cooking schools and courses in homemaking have helped me to run my home easily and perhaps save my husband from dyspepsia; but, from the standpoint of general liveableness, I consider my most valuable preparation for wifehood the discipline and insight of the daily toil in sight of adding-machines and rollertop desks.

She Understands the Tired Business Man

WHEN I married I was earning a salary that many men wouldn't sniff at. Why should any one think that I can't run a house and keep my husband and children as comfortable as I could if I had stayed at home and let father buy my clothes till I gave my young husband that privilege, learned from mother her way of cooking a pot roast and making a bed, and spent the afternoons playing bridge whist or going to the matinée?

I don't want to swank, but I will wager anything I own that I got my house on a running basis just as quickly as the girl who hadn't ever earned her living.

I didn't have to learn by bitter experience how to get a chicken ready for the oven: my course in biology showed me where to look for the crop, the lungs, and the joints.

I didn't have to learn by bitter experience that a man is much happier if he can come home and go over his day's work with a woman who really understands him than if he has to listen to silly twaddle that he can't possibly get up even a faint interest in.

My experience in an office has shown me so many things that help me keep things going. The machinery of a household should be kept out of sight, and so oiled and cared for that even you yourself can't hear the wheels squeak.

A business woman knows how it feels to come home at the end of the day tired out, and what it means to sit down to a bang-up good dinner without any fuss. She can understand men far better than could her sheltered sister, who only sees them when they are dressed in their best, with a box of candy or a pair of theater tickets in their hands. After you have heard your boss, who really is an old dear and worshiped by all the force, swear at a young reporter for falling down on a job, you won't break your heart over the way your husband behaves when he has to mend the furnace.

Running a house is just as much of a business as running an office, a factory, a shop, or a department-store—the first principles are the same. It is perfectly true that man only "works from sun to sun." But the woman whose work is never done is stupid, a bad manager, and a poor housewife.

The day has passed when the woman who bundles her hair up in the early morning by gas-light, puts on an apron, and bends over the cook-stove and the wash-tub all day is a good wife.

The good wife gets up at a respectable hour, slips on a pretty morning dress, gets a dainty breakfast on the electric stove, does her housework in a very few hours with the most improved appliances that money can buy, plans the dinner, pops part of it in the fireless, and then puts on an up-to-date tailor-made suit and goes to the club, where she reads a paper on dietetics.

If there is a ball game scheduled for ten o'clock some morning, and husband 'phones from the office to meet him at the seventy-five cent side, I can leave my breakfast dishes in the pan in the sink without a qualm.

If I have gone to two matinées on my housekeeping money, and at the end of the week am serving a loaf of beef liver, with stewed prunes for dessert, and some one drops in for dinner, I don't get flustered and send John out for a steak and a can of corn. The guest eats liver loaf and prunes, and I glory in the fact that he has never in his life eaten a better liver loaf, or prunes fixed up any better than he is eating now. I know they are good or I wouldn't have them on my table.

I know I am a good housewife and a good wife, and the fact that I am both is due to the fact that I had the training I did beforehand.

Where the System Broke Down

GOOD wives are like poets—born, not made. If a girl has it in her to be a good wife, she'll just naturally be one. Perhaps she has had business training. Perhaps she has never looked inside an office or other commercial establishment.

A friend of mine had been a business woman for years. As the boys say, her middle name was Schedule. Each morning she took the same suburban train, sat in the same seat, got off at the same corner, ascended in the same elevator, and hung her wraps on the same hook. But say! If any one else had appropriated that same hook, there would have been a stirring up around that office.

Well, that woman married a physician, a man recognized as capable and proficient in his line. But here is what her business training did for this married couple. It threatened with disaster their home life and happiness.

Of course a physician eats, sleeps, and takes recreation, not by schedule, or when he chooses to do so, but when he can. This doctor had a sorry time. Breakfast was served at eight, regardless of whether he wanted to sleep until ten, after working all night on a case. Breakfast was served at eight, if there was a case that needed attention at the hospital at six. Luncheon was served at one, and dinner at seven. If the poor fellow was late he was treated with a cold meal and a colder stare. If they had to break a dinner or an opera engagement, the wife—with the composure gained in business experience—would simply rave and then sulk.

Another case was of a girl in my home town who had worked in her father's little general store for years. From eight in the morning until six at night, she had measured calico and weighed sugar by rule and scale. Then she married a hard-working, sincere, wholesome truck farmer.

She hated her new job and was tragically discontented. She couldn't sew, because she had never had the time to learn. She wouldn't adjust herself to feeding chickens, canning vegetables, and making jam. She had been a good sales-girl, with cheerful, agreeable attention to her customers; but her children are neglected now and her husband is discouraged. She hadn't the disposition to adjust herself to diverse circumstances.

Some folks have the idea that, because a girl can compute the grocery bills with accuracy, she is an ideal wife. This is a mistaken view. I was a teacher before my marriage. Our school system was, of course, conducted with accuracy and precision: As one of the working units in this organization, I complied exactly with schedule. But I grew so tired of being one of the cogs that moved when the machine moved and stopped accordingly, that when I began housekeeping I gloried in its irregularities.

I simply will not have any sort list or schedule of work tacked up in my kitchen. The only card at present on my kitchen walls is the "Home Card" of the food administration.

We live within our income, waste practically nothing, and have a happy time, without introducing the hard-and-fast rules of the business world. I don't take the joy out of my husband's life standing around with a pencil and paper telling him how much every item cost that I serve him for dinner.

Of course we have established standards of living, and some system. But we allow an elasticity in our rules of home-making and home-conducting that would never be permissible in big business.

THE MAN WHO SAW THE KAISER'S INTRIGUE FROM THE INSIDE

By BURTON J. HENDRICK

A FEW months after Henry Morgenthau had taken up his residence as American Ambassador to Turkey he wrote to President Wilson describing his experiences and his unique position at the Ottoman court. "I feel like the spectator at a poker game," said he. "I am permitted to go around and look into everybody's hand; and I can tell which ones are losing and which ones are holding the winning cards."

This typically American illustration pictures the actual situation. Mr. Morgenthau's great advantage as a spectator and a confidant consisted in the fact that he represented the American government. Genial and companionable and able as he is, he could never have enjoyed the confidences of the Turkish officials and the foreign ambassadors had he represented any of the great European powers. From the suspicions that attached to France, England, Germany, Russia, and Italy, the United States was entirely free. The government at Washington was not seeking to undermine the Turkish state by obtaining railroad concessions or making loans. The Turks regarded Americans as a queer kind of people who established colleges at Constantinople, and whose ambassadors were frequently literary chaps or retired business men who had no interest in "spheres of influence," secret treaties, or the other devious manifestations that made up the substance of diplomatic life at the Sublime Porte.

They found in Mr. Morgenthau a simple, straight-thinking American gentleman, who displayed the utmost interest in their troubles and evinced a constant readiness to give valuable advice. In a few months, therefore, the men who held supreme power in Turkey found themselves in the habit of dropping in on the American ambassador, or of calling him up on the telephone, whenever their personal troubles became perplexing. Hardly a day passed that Mr. Morgenthau and the leading members of the Turkish cabinet did not discuss some phase of the Turkish situation.

At their suggestion, he made an extended tour of Asiatic Turkey, submitting a report on what he had observed, and suggesting reforms. While Germany was intriguing to get control of the Turkish army, while France was gaining the upper hand in Turkish finance, while Russia was seeking to find excuses for seizing Constantinople, the American ambassador was laying before the Turkish cabinet plans for the introduction of American agricultural methods and American agricultural machinery to improve the status of the shiftless Turkish farmer; and the Turkish cabinet was so delighted by these displays of altruism that they made Mr. Morgenthau a proposition the like of which no foreign diplomat had ever received before.

"Come and join the Turkish cabinet," they said. "We will make you Minister of Commerce and Agriculture."

Not only did Mr. Morgenthau maintain the closest personal relations with the Turkish government: he became the every-day intimate of the gentlemen who then represented the foreign powers. They, like the Turkish leaders, knew that the United States had no selfish interest to serve. The game that the American representative was permitted to observe on confidential terms was the greatest that has been played in history.

Mr. Morgenthau reached Constantinople soon after the conclusion of the treaty of Bucharest—the treaty that ended the second Balkan war. It divided nearly all the European domains of Turkey, except Constantinople and a little surrounding territory, among the Balkan states, particularly Greece and Serbia. It was the signing of this treaty that made inevitable the present war. For years Germany and Austria had marked out the inheritance of Turkey for themselves; it was the essential part of that great Oriental empire, reaching from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf, which all the world now clearly sees represents the great objective of German ambition. The conquest of Serbia and the incorporation of Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey were indispensable details of this grandiose scheme. The treaty of Bucharest, which divided these coveted spoils among the despised Balkan states, clearly meant the end of this Pan-German enterprise.

"I knew from the first day I reached Constantinople," Mr. Morgenthau told me, "that the treaty of Bucharest would not be permitted to stand. Germany and Austria, even then practically Germany's vassal, would not accept this as the solution of the Balkan problem. They decided on precipitating war the day that treaty was signed. An enlarged Serbia placed athwart Germany's road to the east meant that the Kaiser had failed in his great life work.

"Thus I had the great advantage of being in Constantinople while this great war was being staged. As I look back upon it now, it looks like the preparations for a play. The atmosphere was tense and exciting; war was practically the one topic of conversation. They talked war at dinner-tables in Constantinople, just as we talk presidential politics. And the ambassadors of the Great Powers were really actors in the great drama. Their personalities were directly suited to their parts; each seemed to me to be exact typifications of the countries they represented.'

"There was von Wangenheim, the German ambassador—big, burly, six feet two, powerful in physique and in mind—what a perfect representative of German ruthlessness and aggression! He had only one consuming passion—the aggrandizement of his country; and he was just as unscrupulous, just as overriding, just as intriguing, as the imperial power that he represented.

"Then there was the Russian ambassador, Giers, proud, contemptuous, penetrating—just like the imperial despotism for which he spoke. When Giers came into a room you would feel his presence. He would slide in, casting furtive glances to the right and to the left. He would bow to this one and to that, shake hands and pass on. But you had a feeling all the time that he had a knout in his hands, which he was holding over the Turks. He treated the Turks with whom he was thrown into contact as if they were dirt, just as Russia then treated Turkey.

"The English ambassador, Sir Louis Mallet, typified the attitude that England had taken toward Turkey. He was the cultivated, charming English gentleman who has reached a position of competence and security and is entirely satisfied with his place in the world. That was precisely the attitude of the British Empire in 1913. Sir Louis Mallet held himself aloof from the intrigues going on about him. He looked at the Turk as finished, and he showed no desire to cultivate him. He told me that England was withdrawing its investments from Turkey and had no interest in the country.

"The French, on the other hand, were active, as was the French ambassador, M. Bompard, who was much interested in the concessions then being passed around."

Thus Mr. Morgenthau had the greatest opportunity of watching intimately the growing German aggression and the preparations that Germany was making in Turkey for the Great War. He saw the several steps by which the Germans, in the latter part of 1913, got complete possession of the Turkish army—in preparation for the war that had been decreed. He knew—what Europe and America have not yet completely grasped—that the Turkish government, for a year preceding the outbreak of war, was practically in the control of the German ambassador at Constantinople. All vestige of an independent Turkish government had long since disappeared.

There was an obese and decrepit Sultan

Concluded on page 19

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

AMERICANS SMOKING MORE CIGARETTES

THE use of tobacco in the United States is increasing fast. In 1880 the average yearly amount consumed was five pounds per person. By 1914 it had risen to more than seven pounds. This is particularly noticeable when compared with the British figures, which show the rate of consumption to be only two pounds per capita, with practically no increase in recent years.

It is hard to calculate what effect this national habit is having on the people of the United States; but some interesting studies of its effects in various colleges are published in How to Live, by Irving Fisher and Eugene Lyman Fisk, M. D., under the auspices of the Life Extension Institute (Funk & Wagnalls Company).

"In six educational institutions the students competing for places on the football team were grouped as follows:

                   

	Number Competing for Places	Number Successful	Per Cent Successful
Institution A
Smokers	11	2	18
Non-smokers	19	11	58
Institution B
Smokers	10	4	40
Non-smokers	25	17	68
Institution C
Smokers	28	7	25
Non-smokers	17	14	82
Institution D
Smokers	28	11	39
Non-smokers	15	10	67
Institution E
Smokers	10	7	70
Non-smokers	15	12	80
Institution F
Smokers	6	0	0
Non-smokers	26	15	58

Arthur D. Bush, in the New York Medical Journal, estimates that students tested immediately after a period of smoking showed a 10½ per cent decrease in general mental efficiency and a 22 per cent decrease in the field of imagination.

"The vital statistics show," says How to Live, "that diseases of the heart and circulation are rapidly increasing in this country; while in the United Kingdom, where these diseases are decreasing, there has been no material increase in the use of tobacco, and the per capita consumption is less than one third that of the United States."

KILL YOUR WEEDS WITH OVERWORK

THE best time to kill weeds is before they have started.

"Weeds are not truly started until their tops have spread and the roots are growing on the moisture and food in the soil," says the Bulletin of the Agricultural College of Cornell University. "Then they compete with the crop, and are a chief hindrance to the crop growth."

Potatoes, corn, beans, and any other crops planted moderately deep can be kept clear by stirring the ground lightly, before the crop is up, with a weeder or with a light-toothed harrow. Crops planted deeper bring more weed seed to the surface; therefore unless the soil has been seriously compacted by heavy rains, deep planting should be avoided.

"Light, frequent stirring is the secret to clean crops," says the Bulletin. "The teeth should not penetrate more than two inches; one inch is better on all sandy and loamy soils. On hard clay or stony soil a little deeper cultivation may be necessary."

HE BUILDS HOMES FOR WORKINGMEN

ONE thing that made Mark Haller the richest man in South Philadelphia was that no one could look into his serious, simple eyes, and watch the perplexed smile that occasionally interrupts his slow-moving, long upper lip, without liking him. To see him is to want to give him your building contract of two million dollars without waiting for other bids.

In South Philadelphia there is a flat, monotonous city of two-story brick houses, all exactly alike, rows and rows of them touching sides, with wooden porches flush with the sidewalk. Mark Haller built these houses and lives in one of them.

He is a Rumanian Jew; but that doesn't describe him, because he looks more like an Irishman and exactly like a builder. Enormous hands and feet, hair cut close to the scalp, perplexed blond eyebrows, a red and brown complexion, and in his own domain wearing a thin, sagging and wrongly buttoned sweater. He speaks English in the un-self-conscious way of uneducated foreigners, ignoring all the clutter of small words and touching only the main syllables of the rest.

He was a tinsmith in the old country, so when he came to Philadelphia he got a job at the American Can Company. That was ten years ago. "From the first, ev'body like me—Yentiles, all of em."

Working overtime he could sometimes make thirty dollars a week. That was plenty for him in those days; but he knew it was the limit of a tinsmith's earning capacity, and "venn my family get bigger and still only thirty dollars—'sno good." So he began saving.

How a man could save in those days! "You could go out Sat'day night, you know, and buy maybe two nice shickens eleven cents pound only!" In a year, when he had $300, he announced that he was going into business for himself.

"The sup'intendent he said to me, 'Mark, any time you want come back, you come. Doors is open.'" Well, in only a few months Mark was back, with all his savings gone. Five times he tried to go into business—"f'uit business, junk business, f'uit and puddooce, ev' kind of business."

And then he hit on it! For $700 he bought a rickety house, paying $300 he had saved and taking a mortgage on the rest. At night he and his wife went to work on the old derelict. They scrubbed it, painted it, papered it, patched the rotten floor, and fitted up the decrepit plumbing. Result—the house sold for twice what it cost. And then they bought another. That year Mr. and Mrs. Haller cleared $5,000 outside of factory hours.

In the next few years his brick houses began lining up against the streets of South Philadelphia at the rate of three hundred a year—"nice houses, with nice porch and central heating, so sheap, working-people can own 'em and not pay rent all the time."

When Stephen Girard died, he left several acres in South Philadelphia which, under the terms of his will, could not be sold. "I vent to the trustees and I offer 'em $35,300 dollars for the first block—about $7,000 more than it was worth." The trustees—tempted, as he had planned they should be—took the matter to court. The court decided they could sell, and Mark deposited $2,000 to seal the bargain.

"That day, venn I come home, my! so I feel blue. I look at the land—a tin-can dump. Was windy day and papers blowing high. Phew! Ev'body said, 'Now Mark Haller, he's going to get it!' But my gang come to fill up the dump and in one year and fourteen days I hat cleared $72,000."

What made him want to earn so much money? was the last question.

"I tell you," he answered. "Vee got seven kids. My vife and me, vee are doomb—vee don't know anything. Vee want they should have it better."

THE ORIGINAL "UNCLE TOM"

WHEN "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was published, people thought Harriet Beecher Stowe was a sentimental lady who had become wrought up over the question of slavery, and out of her own imagination had created a heartrending book full of impossible noble negroes. The truth is, says the Journal of Negro History, Mrs. Stowe got her idea of Uncle Tom from a negro whose character and achievement in real life were even more remarkable than those of Uncle Tom.

Josiah Henson was born in 1789 on a Maryland plantation. At fifteen he was so strong and intelligent that he became the most valued slave of one Isaac Riley. One of his duties was to help Riley home after a day in the taverns at Georgetown. One day Riley got into a fight, and Josiah, like a good slave, knocked the other man down. Not long afterward, the insulted man, with three of his negroes, waylaid Josiah, and left him lying in his own blood, both shoulder-blades and his right arm broken. Josiah was never again able to raise his hands to his head.

On one occasion Josiah was intrusted to conduct eighteen slaves from Maryland to Kentucky. They met droves of negroes passing in chains, while Henson's band walked freely. At Cincinnati, as he was marshaling his charges into a boat to cross the river, some free negroes crowded around and urged them to escape.

"Seeing that the allurements of the crowd were producing a manifest effect," wrote Josiah in his autobiography, "I sternly summoned the captain and ordered the boat to be pushed off. A shout of curses followed me from the shore; but the negroes under me, alas! too ignorant of the advantages of liberty to know what they were forfeiting, offered no resistance. Often since that day has my soul been pierced with bitter anguish!"

Later he saw these very slaves sold on the auction-block, wailing after their children and wives; and on that day Henson swore that he would spend his life in gaining freedom for the negroes.

First he must escape with his wife and family to Canada. After fearful hardships, they succeeded in reaching the border line.

When he stepped on the Canadian shore, "I threw myself on the ground, rolled in the sand, seized handfuls of it and kissed them, and danced round till in the eyes of several who were present I passed for a madman. 'He's some crazy fellow,' said a Colonel Warren who happened to be there. 'Oh, no, master. Don't you know? I'm free!'"

From then until after the Civil War Henson made harrowing trips into the heart of the United States, and guided whole families of slaves safely into Canada. He freed one hundred and eighteen negroes in this way.

It was during this period that Mrs. Stowe heard him preaching against slavery at Andover, Massachusetts, and she sent for him and asked for his whole story.

In England he was the guest of honor at great dinners—once, indeed, at the Prime Minister's. But, greatest honor of all, Queen Victoria sent for him and his wife. They dined with her Majesty in state at Windsor Castle, and she gave him, "as a token of her respect and esteem, a full-length cabinet photograph of herself in an elegant easel frame of gold." So it isn't an exaggeration to say that compared to Josiah Henson's varied and strenuous life of ninety-two years all fiction is namby-pamby.

---

BUT PRESIDENT WILSON HAS NEVER BEEN TO JAIL

THE ferocity, the sincere championship of the poor, the geniality, the endless curiosity, which make of Pancho Villa a figure almost mythical even in his own country, are vividly brought out by E. S. O'Reilly in Roving and Fighting (Century Company). O'Reilly, although an American, was commissioned major by Villa, and served with him through several of his revolutionary campaigns.

Pancho Villa," he says, "was seated on the velvet cushions of his private car, holding his daily court. He was talking of President Wilson, for whom at that time he professed a great admiration.

"'Tell me,' in the pelado [Spanish-Indian] dialect which is his only language, 'how it is that President Wilson can understand the sorrows of the people when he has never even been in jail?'

His queries were interrupted by an officer of his staff, saluting timidly from the car door. Behind the officer stood two frightened soldiers, their hands bound behind their backs.

"'Mi general,' reported the officer, 'here are the two men who broke into the milk-seller's casa and attacked his daughter.'

"Villa sat silent a moment, crouched in his seat. As he gazed at the trembling prisoners, his expression changed from smiling good nature to savage ferocity.

"Jumping to his feet with characteristic catlike quickness, he leaped forward and struck one of the soldiers a blow with his open hand.

"'You dogs! You wear the uniform of the Army of Liberty, and you make war on the helpless people! You are no better than the soldiers of the Federals. Take them out and give them a volley.'

"Hastily the officer hustled the prisoners down the car steps. Villa stood for a moment as if drunk with fury, shouting profanity hysterically at the offending soldiers. Then, turning back to his seat, his face was again transformed by the good-natured smile.

"'Tell me more about your President. I like him very much. Is it true that he has never had a fight? How can a man lead men if he has never won fights?'

"Even as he talked we heard a volley from the near-by round-house. General Villa never wavered an instant in his conversation, asking question after question."

THE AMERICAN SOLDIER IN FRANCE

It is all very well for American soldiers to learn how to say, "Voulez-vous me donner des oeufs?" before they sail for France, but they need not think they will starve to death if their accent is still imperfect. France is pre-pared for her American allies, says Stars and Stripes, a brisk newspaper published by our troops in France.

"Ice cream parlors will face the new arrival on every hand. The ice cream, to be sure, will be of the sherbet variety, for milk is scarce in France. Still, it will be ice cream.

"The little boys on their way to school will call out, 'How doo you doo?' as they trot past, instead of the bon jour of former days. Little girls will sidle up bashfully, curtsey, and ask with wonderful precision, 'Have you got any gum, if you please?'

"The slang one encounters is real Middle West, or real New York, or a highly entertaining mixture of the two. This change, this Americanization, is due first of all to the marvelous adaptability of the French, their eagerness to be of service, their innate, national sense of hospitality, their unfeigned delight at having us here."

HOW LONG SHOULD YOU WORK?

FOR years employers in England made a fight against the 48-hour week, on the plea that it would reduce their output and profits, says Sir Robert Hadfield, head of the great engineering works. "Now, under war conditions," he continues, "when it is necessary that we should produce at a maximum, we have turned to it as a means to just that end, and find it most efficient. When the war broke out, it was no longer a question of the greatest number of hours for the least pay; it had become a question of the greatest output in the shortest space of time."

In the printing trade, where the hours were reduced just before the war from 53 to 50, the same results appeared, reports Henry Bentinck in the Contemporary Review. After watching very carefully the results of the shorter hours, the works manager of one big firm came to the following conclusions:

1. That he gets more output per head, now that shorter hours are worked, in spite of the fact that his labor has been scarce, fluctuating, and to a great extent unskilled.

2. That overtime is of no use for more than a fortnight. At the end of the second week he has always noticed a marked falling off of the quality of the output, and has then promptly stopped the overtime.

3. That pre-breakfast work is entirely useless.

So in the textile trades, in engineering, and in all brancehs of clerical work, very careful studies, made by experts who sought to increase war production, have convinced them that shorter hours mean greater output.

WHAT CHINA WANTS

THERE is an impression abroad that Oriental peoples, and especially the Chinese, are suspicious of Western ways and slow to take advantage of Western education. Tyler Dennett, writing in Asia, denies this: "Ask a citizen of any Oriental country what three things he most desires for his people. Two of the answers may vary according to the local conditions, but one is uniformly the same from Sapporo to Hyderabad: better schools."

The missionary's lot is not always the difficult one it has been pictured. About thirty years ago a young man, William F. Oldham, now Bishop Oldham, arrived in Singapore to start a Methodist mission. The Straits of Malacca are perhaps, "mile for mile, the richest area in the world. The Chinese were the first to discover this fact. One man who came to the Straits about sixty-five years ago as a coolie died last year reported worth more than twenty million dollars."

The young Methodist missionary landed there without a cent to back him. "Not long after his arrival he was invited to lecture before the Celestial Reasoning Association, an educational organization of Chinese merchants. He selected astronomy as a safe topic for the lecture. The next week the penniless missionary became tutor in English to a prominent Chinese gentleman. In a month he had a class of thirty-six boys, most of them rich men's sons. A little later the merchants gave him sixty-two hundred dollars with which to start a school.

"In ten years this school began to enroll a thousand pupils annually, and now there are sixteen hundred. The most extraordinary part of this story is that the school, now a college, has never yet cost a missionary cent for operating expenses. At the same time the institution has always been a distinctly Christian school and under the direct control of the Methodist Episcopal Church."

WILL THERE BE NO MORE HOLY RUSSIA?

RUSSIANS are known all over the world for their simple piety and the power that the Russian Church has always exercised over their lives. Has all this been swept away in the tide of revolution? According to a priest who served as chaplain with the Russian troops at the front, the people are still religious, with an amusing way of bending the orthodox dogmas and forms to fit their new revolutionary faith. This priest is quoted by John Reed in the Liberator:

An orthodox priest, bound on volunteer priestly duty to the trenches, humbly begged the honor of traveling in our company. He was a big, healthy man, with a wide, simple Russian face, a gentle smile, an enormous reddish beard, and an insatiable desire for conversation.

"Eto Vierno! It's true!" he said, with the suspicion of a sigh. "The revolution has weakened the hold of the church on the masses of the people. Some say that we served the old régime—that we 'blessed the gallows' of the revolutionary martyrs. But I remember in 1905, when thirteen sappers were executed for mutiny, no priest would administer the last rites. How could we speak consoling words to a man about to be murdered?

"Some have lost all faith, but the great masses are still very religious—even though extreme revolutionaries. On the caps of the reserves used to be a cross and the words, 'Za verou, tsaria, i otechestvo'—'For faith, tsar, and fatherland.' Well, they scratched out the 'faith' along with the rest." He shook his head. "In the old form of the church prayers God was referred to as 'Tsar of Heaven' and the Virgin as 'Tsarina.' We've had to leave that out—the people wouldn't have God insulted, they say.

"During regimental prayer the priest prays for peace for all nations. Whereupon the soldiers cry out, 'Add "without annexations or indemnities!"' Then we pray for all those who are traveling, for the sick and suffering; and the soldiers cry, 'Pray also for the deserters!' Simple-minded children! They think that God must grant anything if it is included in a regular prayer by a regularly ordained priest. Woe to the priest who refuses to pray the soldiers' prayer!"

WHEN THE HAND WAS QUICK ON THE TRIGGER

IN the good, dead days before inhabitants of the West had to go to motion-picture shows to see themselves in action, a woman traveled, mostly alone, mostly on horseback, through California, Colorado, and Utah. She emerged to write A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (E. P. Dutton & Company). Her name was Isabella L. Bird. A recently issued edition of her book gives this startling picture of the West in the early seventies:

"At the mining towns up above this, nobody is thought anything of who has not killed a man—in a certain set. These women had a boarder, only fifteen, who thought he could not be anything till he had shot somebody, and they gave an absurd account of the lad dodging about with a revolver, and not getting up courage to insult any one, till at last he hid himself in a stable and shot the first Chinaman who entered.

"Things up there are just at that initial state which desperadoes love. At Alma and Fairplay, vigilance committees have been lately formed; and when men act outrageously and make themselves generally obnoxious they receive a letter with a drawing of a tree, a man hanging from it, and a coffin below on which is written, 'Forewarned.' They 'git' in a few hours."

FOR MOLLY

By RAYMOND LESLIE GOLDMAN

Illustrations by O. F. Howard

IN the gray-stone All Saints' Church, which stands at the head of Cheever's Alley like a water-lily amid the gathering scum of a still-pond, Mrs. Dorgan's sixth-born was christened Daniel Patrick. Five days later, when Mrs. Dorgan carried him down to the refuse-laden stoop of their tenement, an adulterated bar of sunlight flared for a moment on the Titian down of Daniel Patrick's head; and Cheever's Alley saw. "Daniel Patrick" was swept away by the tide of an age-old tradition and was usurped by "Brick."

In Cheever's Alley a name is earned, not given. Daniel Patrick remained "Brick" only so long as his red hair was his chief characteristic. Mary Egan's eldest boy was called "Simp" Egan, because he made peculiar noises in his throat and looked at things with wide-staring eyes. "Bull" Yeggers was so called because no boy in all Cheever's Alley could long withstand the onslaught of Bull's bulging knuckles.

When Daniel Patrick was eight years old, Bull Yeggers had just turned twelve. After serving their daily sentence imposed by the Board of Education, Danny and Bull sold the evening papers in front of All Saints' Church.

Bull hated Danny. He hated him because it was his nature to hate every one; but most of all he hated him because he dared to seek the favor of Molly Hennessy.

"Listen here," Bull had once told Danny, doubling his fist under the smaller boy's nose by way of emphasis, "if youse ever say one woid to dat kid, an' I find it out, I'll—I'll smear youse up! Understan'?"

Danny understood. He knew that Bull's "smearing up" was a decidedly painful process, and he had no desire to undergo the ordeal. So, on this particular Wednesday afternoon, he maintained his usual discreet silence when Molly skipped toward the corner where he and Bull were selling papers.

"Hullo, Molly!" greeted Bull. "Where yuh goin'?"

Molly wrinkled her nose.

"Nowheres," she replied; "an' what's it to you? 'Lo, Brick!"

Danny made no answer; but his big blue eyes told her more than mere words could have expressed.

"You better not say nothin', you little red-headed Mick," warned Bull, edging closer to Danny. "If youse wasn't such a yeller dog, I'd show youse up in front o' Molly."

Danny hung his head in shamed silence and kicked at imaginary pebbles on the sidewalk. Molly tossed her head.

"You wouldn't dast say that if he wasn't littler'n you!" she cried. "An' I'd ruther be a red-headed Irishman than a cotton-top Swede, I would! An' I like Brick, an' I hate you worser'n mud, an'—"

SHE checked her tirade at the approach of a well-dressed young man, who paused before Bull, two fingers in his vest pocket.

"Got a Telegram?" he asked.

"I got de Woild," evaded Bull, selecting a paper from the sheaf under his arm.

"I got a Telegram," spoke up Danny. "Latest wuxtry."

The young man took Danny's paper, dropped two pennies in his palm, and passed on. Bull turned to Danny, his eyes narrowed.

"Aw right, yuh little t'ief! Dis is de las' straw!" He placed his papers on the ground and put a stone atop them. "Listen here: youse eider hand over two cents or take what's been comin' to youse a long time."

Danny dropped his papers to the pavement and stowed the pennies away in his trousers pocket. Then he awaited Bull's approach. An idea had come to Danny.

"Well," snarled Bull, "are youse gonna hand over dat money?"

Danny rested his hands on his hips and dared to meet Bull's eyes.

"If you want it," he replied quietly, "sure an' you c'n be after gittin' it fer yerself."

With his open hand Bull swung a stinging blow to Danny's cheek.

"You leave him alone," cried Molly.

By way of reply, Bull dug both hands into Danny's pockets.

"'Finders keepers, losers weepers,'" he quoted. "Anyt'ing I get now is mine."

The young man who had bought Danny's paper, scenting the trouble that he had unknowingly caused, had paused a dozen paces away; and now he joined the ever-growing group of idlers that was gathering about the two boys. He saw a surprising thing. He saw Danny, who had slouched forward to make his side pockets easy of access, suddenly straighten up, tightening the rims of his pockets about Bull's wrists. He saw him step backward to the length of Bull's arms; and then, putting every ounce of strength he possessed into each blow, send first his right and then his left fist crashing into Bull's unprotected face. One, two, three, four, five, six—

Danny was aiming each blow—one upon each eye, three flush upon the nose, one sent squarely to Bull's thick lips. A trickle, then a stream of blood from Bull's flattened nose. The sight of it, the feel of it, aroused Danny to further efforts. He swung his arms like flails against Bull's cheeks and ears.

Bull screamed in surprise and pain. He struggled in vain to extricate his hands from Danny's pockets.

"Lemme loose," he screamed; "lemme—"

Danny's fist changed his words to a gurgle. Bull dropped weakly to his knees.

The crowd shouted its delight. "Brick! Brick! Brick!" echoed through the empty portals of the gray-stone church. Behind Danny stood Molly, flushed with pride.

"Hit 'im, Brick!" she urged. "Hit 'im! hit 'im! Hit 'im fer Molly!"

And then it was that the young man changed Danny's name.

"Th' little fox!" he murmured, half aloud.

The boys who stood about him heard his words; and soon the echoes of "Fox—Fox Dorgan!" chased those of "Brick" from the gray-stone church.

The young man stepped from the ring of boys and stayed Danny's wearied arms.

"That's about enough of this," the young man said to Danny. "Your man looks licked."

"Am—am I pinched?" panted Danny.

The young man smiled.

"No, you ain't. But you will be if a cop comes along. You'd better clear out—all of you." He pointed to Bull. "One of you boys had better take this fellow home."

Molly touched the young man's sleeve.

"Say, I know you," she said. "My brudder's got yer pitcher in his room. You're One-Round Chimmy Kelly, ain'tcha?"

The young man smiled. "Right you are, little girl."

"An' you're th' champeen light-weight," she went on. "Danny, here, is th' champeen o' Cheever's Alley now. An' he's my feller," she added proudly.

Danny had been gazing ruefully at his bruised knuckles; and now he looked up.

"Gee! Are you One-Roun' Kelly?" he murmured. "Gee!"

Kelly smiled again. He had won and lost many battles—smiling.

"You're all right, little fellow," he said, patting Danny's head. "What's your name?"

"Daniel—" he began; but Molly interrupted him.

"Fox—Fox Dorgan," she said; "th' champeen o' Cheever's Alley!"

"All right, Champeen Fox," said Kelly gravely. Any time you want to, you can come to my gymnasium over on Sixth Avenoo, near—"

"I know where it is," put in Danny, trembling. "Thank ye kindly."

"An' welcome ye are," said Kelly, thrilled to his heart at the Irish brogue so long abandoned.

THE parlor of the Hennessy apartment was undergoing a transformation wrought by the judicious use of smilax and green crêpe-paper. Perched on the topmost step of the convertible kitchen-chair-step-ladder, her sleeves rolled up above well rounded elbows, Molly Hennessy inclined backward from the waist for a critical survey of her work.

"Is that wreath in th' center, ma?"

Mrs. Hennessy placed her hands on her hips, cocked her head sidewise and upward, and pondered.

"Just right, Molly. Come down now. You'll be tired out entirely b'fore th' comp'ny comes at all."

"I ain't b'gun th' chandelier yet, ma." Molly carefully descended the ladder and caught up a twisted strand of smilax from the floor. "I'm glad I had them crêpe decorations left from my sixteenth birthday. They charged me thirty cents a string for these vines."

"'Tis vines she must be afther havin'! On me eighteenth birthday, Molly, back in th' auld counthry, me poor mother—rist her soul in p'ace—sthrung onions in th' kitchen for us."

"This ain't th' old country, ma. B'sides, this is more'n a plain eighteenth birthday."

Mrs. Hennessy imprinted a hearty kiss on Molly's suddenly pink cheek.

"Bless you, machree, that it is! But it won't be much of a saicret you'll be lettin' out, Molly. There's niver a wan o' your friends that didn't know you an' Danny would be engaged, what with you two carryin' on iver since—"

"Aw, ma—"

"—iver since you was both little tots an' we was all livin' downtown in Cheever's Alley. An' it's a lucky girl you are, too. Molly, marryin' th' champeen middle-weight o' th' world."

"Don't I know it, ma? With him such a famous man an' all? Ten thousan' dollars they're givin' him for his ten-roun' no-decision fight with Sailor Jenks next Saturday night! Just think, ma—ten thousan'; an' th' only chance he's got of losin' his championship is to be knocked out! An' you know, ma, what chance there is of Danny gettin' knocked out in ten roun's. I know I'm lucky; but to hear Danny talk you'd think he was th' lucky one."

"An' lucky he is, too." Mrs. Hennessy regarded her daughter fondly.

"Better finish th' decyrations, Molly. Pa will be home iny minute now, an' we

---

want a early supper. Wait till I light th' lights.

"Let me, ma."

Molly tiptoed to reach the jets with a flickering match, and the room sprang into yellow light. The amber glow brought out the sheen of her heavy chestnut hair and its shots of dull, rich copper; the whiteness of her skin; and the rush of pink to her cheeks and throat.

"Oh, ma!"

"Yes."

"You won't let pa smoke his pipe t'night? I brought home two cigars for him. They're on my dresser. Danny's bringin' some o' his swell friends t'night an'—"

"Sure, Molly. For once pa c'n go without his pipe."

"An' shut th' kitchen door when you go in, will you, ma? I don't want th' place to smell like cabbage."

PEEPING through the half opened kitchen door, Mr. and Mrs. Hennessy stood side by side, looking along the darkened slit of hallway and into the festive parlor. Came to them the sounds of laughter, pitched too high and too low; of the well meant efforts of a too raggy ragtime player; of the shuffling and gliding of feet.

"Th' piany will be ruined entirely," mumbled Mr. Hennessy. "There won't be a sthring left in it at all."

"That's Jamie Douglas playin'," informed his wife. "Niver a lesson has th' lad had in his loife. He plays by ear entirely."

"He must be shtone deef," commented Mr. Hennessy, flicking the ashes from his cigar with a vindictive fifth finger. "I was niver made fer seegars, Bridget. I'll be t'ankin' you fer tellin' me where it is you've hid me pipe."

"Look, Barney!" Mrs. Hennessy extended her arm to guide her husband's gaze with a pudgy finger. "See that girl shtandin' with her arm through Danny's? Th' wan with her back to us? 'Tis wan o' Danny's friends. Her name's Eudora La Rue."

"Whisht!" Mr. Hennessy knotted his brows. "It's hopin' I am that she's dressed more complaitly on th' other side. A dress loike that ain't fit to wear in a daicent house, Bridget."

"'Tis not," agreed Mrs. Hennessy. "An' shtickin'-plaster on her back, Barney! How could a respictable woman dress loike that, even if her shoulders are as white as milk itself? An' niver for a minute has she left go o' Danny's arm."

"Whisht!" said Mr. Hennessy again. "'Tis our Molly should be shtandin' at his side. Why don't she tell them all an' take possession?"

Mrs. Hennessy shrugged.

"With th' newfangled notions o' that girl, Barney, I can't be kapin' up at all. Only Jim Kelly would she tell it to when he came in. ''Tis not fair,' she says, 'to make him wait just loike th' rist of 'em; with him th' manager o' Danny, an' all he's done fer him.' So Molly must write some fancy cards an' put 'em on th' plates with th' lemonade an' cake."

IN a corner of the parlor, apart from the whirling, laughing, chattering guests, stood Mr. James Kelly, retired champion light-weight of the world and active manager of Fox Dorgan. He stood with legs widespread, hands buried deep in his trousers pockets, his head thrust forward, his lips closed tightly about the unlighted cigar that bulged his cheek.

"Why th' grouch, Jim?"

Jim turned his head and smoothed the furrows from his brow at sight of Molly.

"Hello, Molly! Enjoyin' your party?"

"Sure I am. But you ain't. Why're you standin' here next to Mr. Plastercast Mozart with a grouch?"

"I'm gettin' old, Molly. I can't mix with th' youngsters no more."

"You old!" Molly revealed the sparkle of even, white teeth. "Th' papers been callin' you 'old man' so long, you think you're old at thirty-six. Cheer up, Jim!" She neared his ear with her lips. "Y'know, this is my happy night."

He reached for her hand and held it, looking over her head and beyond her.

"God grant it!" he murmured.

Molly looked at him quickly. "What's th' matter with you, Jim? You ain't yourself t'night at all. What's on your mind?"

"Nothin', I tell you. Run along now an' enjoy yourself."

"I won't do nothin' of th' sort till you tell me what's th' matter. I wanna know. Go on, Jim; be a good sport."

"I was just thinkin', Molly. Business, that's all."

"Business! Then it's about Danny."

"Gee, Molly; ain't I got other business except Danny? You go on an'—"

"But it is about Danny."

"Now, Molly, you—"

"It is!"

Jim chewed his cigar for "Yes; it's about Danny."

Mr. Jamie Douglas, again impelled by the urge of his unfostered genius, seated himself at the piano and broke into a fury of melody that would have moved to tears any Mozart other than the plaster one at Jim Kelly's elbow.

"Come on, Molly," said Jim. "I—I'll dance this with you."

Molly shook her head.

"I wanna know, Jim. Danny, I got a right to."

"But, Molly—"

"You tell me!" She took his arm and led him, reluctant, into the adjoining dining room. The erstwhile round table—now oval from three inserted boards—was the base of a wide cone of light converging to the two Welsbach burners under the inverted bowl suspended above. Covers were laid for twelve; and from beneath the flowered paper napkins on the plates the corners of small white cards extended.

MOLLY closed the door behind her and turned to face Jim. "Well, Jim?"

"Be reasonable, Molly. I—"

"If it's about Danny I got a right to know."

Jim clasped his hands behind his back and twice circled the table; then he stopped before Molly.

"I guess you're right, Molly," he said. "You got a right to know."

"Jim, don't look like that! You—you scare me!"

"Yes, you got the right," he repeated. "You should have been told b'fore it got this far. I hope to God I ain't doin' wrong in tellin' you.

"Jim, I—"

"Listen, Molly girl." He stepped nearer to her and laid his hand on her arm. "Haven't you seen how—how that Eudora La Rue has been hangin' on to Danny all evenin'? Haven't—"

"Oh, that!" Her words were almost a sigh of relief. "Don't be foolish, Jim. Sure, I noticed it. Danny can't help what she does. Why, him—he's square! Do you think I could be jealous o' her? She's pretty, maybe, but—well, she's too fixed up an' painted to be jealous of."

Jim struck his forehead with his open palm.

"You—you make it hard for me to tell you," he cried brokenly. "You sweet, sweet child!"

Molly caught at his sleeve. Her eyes widened with the dawn of a dreadful truth.

"Has—has it been—been goin' on—right along?"

"Molly, haven't you seen that Danny don't look like his old self lately? Haven't you seen th' rings under his eyes, an'—"

"He—he told me it was from hard trainin', Jim, with him tryin' to get in shape for Sailor Jenks—"

"Trainin'!" cried Jim. "Trainin'! Is stayin' up till three in th' mornin' trainin'? Is drinkin' whisky trainin'? Is bein' with that woman all th' time trainin'? I—"

"Jim!"

She was staring at him with growing horror, her eyes all iris now, and the knuckles of her fingers between her teeth.

"I've talked an' talked to him, an' it's no use. Four days from now he meets Sailor Jenks. Four days he's got left to train for th' toughest man he ever met; an' he's drinkin', Molly—drinkin' like a fish."

"No! No!"

"He'll never last th' ten rounds if he keeps up this rotten pace. He'll—"

"No! No! No!"

"I—I don't want to hurt you like this, Molly—God knows I don't! But, like you said, you got a right to know. You an' him gotta have it out together sooner or later; an' it's best for you to talk to him b'fore—b'fore—those cards—"

"No, no, Jim! Tell me it ain't—"

"Listen to me, Molly. I want you to talk to him. Try to bring him to his senses. He don't love that woman; he couldn't—after lovin' you. He can't forget what you've meant to him ever since he was a kid. Everything th' lad ever done he done for you—for Molly. I'll send him in to you, an'—an' you talk to him."

"No; wait! I—"

He stooped to press his lips to her cold, moist forehead—and was gone.

"Wait! Wait—"

SHE stood rigid, staring at the grained panel of the door as if the nightmare of her tortured brain were visualized on it. The heavy sound of the piano jarred into her consciousness like concussions of distant gun-fire. After minutes that were hours, the door opened and closed; and Danny stood before her.

In his pale blue eyes, set widely apart

beneath a broad, fair brow, there was something furtive—a restless glint that was half shame, half defiance. He moistened his lower lip with the upper, the upper with the lower, and ran his palm across his curly, dark-red hair. Now that he was not smiling, mute evidences of his guilt revealed themselves in his face: the blue pouches beneath his eyes, the sallowness of his cheeks, the deepening lines that gave a drooping appearance to his wide mouth.

"What do you want, Molly?"

She started at the sound of his voice, as if, in her daze, some one had flung a wet towel across her cheek.

"Danny!"

She took the single step that separated them; and, as her arms found resting place on his shoulders, she crumpled forward, so that his encircling arms must support her.

"Danny, tell me it ain't true! Tell me it ain't, Danny!"

He looked away from her flushed face, held so near his own that he felt her hot breath on his cheek.

"What ain't, Molly? I—"

"You don't love her, Danny? You—you don't love that Eudora, do you, Danny? Tell me you don't, an'—an' I'll believe you."

"Is that th' way to talk about a guest in your house, Molly—callin' her 'that Eudora'? Do—"

She drew back from his unwilling embrace.

"It's true, then!"

"Now, Molly, you—

"It's true!" she repeated, her voice jerking upward to shrillness. "It's true! You lied to me! You—you—"

He gestured her to silence.

"Do you want 'em all in here to see what's th' matter?"

Numbness crept upon her again, and she could only stare at him, wide-eyed. He shifted uneasily; thrust both hands into his trousers pockets. She heard the tinkle of coins as he fumbled with them.

"There's no use in gettin' up in th' air, Molly. We can just as well talk this thing over quiet."

He walked around her and to the other end of the room. She turned slowly to face him again, still mute.

"I didn't want to lie to you, Molly," he said, his eyes still fixed on his shoes. "I didn't do it to—to protect myself, but for you. I—I couldn't bring myself to tellin' you that it—about Eudora an' me."

He paused. She swayed slightly, but steadied herself as her hand found the back of a chair.

"I wanted to tell you th' other day when you said you was gonna announce our—our engagement t'night." His eyes sought the small white cards on the table; then shifted away quickly, as if the sight of them were blinding. "I—I tried to make you call it off—put it off—for a while; but I couldn't think of any excuse good enough without tellin' you th'—th' truth. I was lookin' for a chance to tell you t'night, b'fore Jim—"

"You want it called off?" She spoke quietly now, with a voice like steel.

"God, Molly! You don't know how I hated to do this! But ain't it better than waitin' till after—after we was—"

"You want it called off?"

"When I asked you to marry me that time, I thought I loved you. I do love you, Molly; but it's a different kind o' love. It's just like you was my sister—my little sister. I didn't know it then, but I do now. I—I see th' difference now."

Molly hung her head and pinched shut her eyes, as if that stab of pain were something she could shut out with her sight.

"We just grew up t'gether like brother an' sister, Molly, an—an' I made a mistake. It ain't that I don't love you. It—it's just a different kind, that's all."

Continued on page 21

A Side Bet on Bart

By SEWELL FORD

Illustrations by F. Vaux Wilson

IF I hadn't got this sudden hunch about wantin' to bore holes, I expect Bart and me would have been strangers to this day. You see, I was puttin' up a new piece of apparatus in the Physical Culture Studio, and there was a couple of bolts that needed to go through a 2x4. What I should have done was to call up the janitor, tip him half a dollar, and had the thing fixed right away.

Must have been that glimpse into Spratt's hardware store, over on Sixth Avenue, that set me off. It's a weakness of mine, gawpin' into hardware store windows. Let me get one glance at a lot of shiny new tools, and the next thing I know I'm ranged up alongside with my nose against the glass, like a kid outside a candy shop.

Not that I'm any expert at usin' such things. I don't suppose I could qualify as a saw-and-hatchet man on an army barracks contract. But every now and then I'm tempted by some display, and add another chisel or a new saw or a patent drill to the collection of weapons I'm apt to use when the wood-butcherin' fit is on me strong.

This time it was a set of bitts, a whole dozen of 'em, put up neat in a varnished box. I didn't know the size of the bolts I wanted to bore the holes for, but I took a chance that one of these bitts would be just right, and breezed into the store.

"Gimme a set like that in the window," says I to the clerk.

"Set of what?" says he, sort of crisp.

"Why," says I, "a set of what you got there."

"There's two windows," he comes back. "We got wrenches in one and—"

"Say, if your feet don't hurt you too much," says I, "step outside and I'll point 'em out. It'll save time. Now look: this window, third from the end, second row up."

"Oh!" he grunts. "Babcock's A 6's. Why didn't you say so?"

"Because it ain't my job to know the hardware catalogue by heart," says I. "Don't have to show a union card to buy tools, do I? or a water-front permit?"

"Huh!" says he, gettin' busy with the wrappin' paper.

"Oh, by the way," I goes on, "I expect I'll have to have a bitt-stock, too."

"What kind?" says he.

"Hennessy's Three Star," says I offhand.

"Eh?" says he, starin' stupid.

"Or a Timkins double-thrust," I adds. "It don't matter which."

I had him goin' then. He begins walkin' up and down behind the counter, pullin' out drawers and shuttin' 'em, and mutterin' to himself, while I stands back and watches him. Odd lookin' gink he is. Face like a sheep. Honest! One of these long, pointed noses, and the rest of his map taperin' away on both sides, with bat ears that stick straight out from his head. And his face seems to have a permanent strawb'ry tint to it, like he was sufferin' from a chronic grouch.

I'd just decided that we was quits, and was goin' to call the hunt off by tellin' him I wasn't any connoisseur of bitt-stocks, when a big, full-faced, grizzly-haired gent appears from the back office—the boss, evidently—and demands snappy of the clerk what he's lookin' for. The sheep-faced one mumbles something about bitt-stocks.

"What!" growls the big gent, glarin' hostile at the clerk. "Why, you mush-brained fat-head! Been here fifteen years and don't know where we keep the bitt-stocks! Say, hanged if you don't grow fooler and fooler every—"

"My fault," I breaks in. "I was just kiddin' him along by askin' for a brand I'd made up."

"Then he should have had sense enough to know it," says the boss. "Here, you! Show the gentleman that Spencer ratchet. There, right under your nose, you numbskull!"

Course that was kind of raw stuff to pull right before a customer, and I felt sort of mean about lettin' the poor fish in for it. When the big gent had drifted back to the office, I says as much, too.

"Oh, that's nothing," says the clerk. "It would have been something or other, anyhow. That's what I get right along. It's what I've always got—always will, I expect. I'm used to bein' bawled out by old Spratt."

"Must be in love with your job, then," says I.

"Say," says he, leanin' over the counter and whisperin' hoarse, "I'll tell you something. "There's only one thing in the world I hate worse'n my job. That's old man Spratt."

"Then if I was you I'd quit 'em both," says I.

"Oh, would you?" says he.

With that he goes on doin' up the parcels. When he comes back with the change for a ten, he seems to have a new idea. He suggests that if my place ain't too far away he'll bring the things around when he goes out to lunch. As I was bound for a chop-house myself, I gave him the number and said he might.

WHEN I got back to the Studio about one-thirty, there is Sheep-face waitin' for me with the goods.

"I been thinkin' of what you said about quittin'," says he.

"Ye-e-es?" says I.

"And I got a good mind to do it, too," he goes on.

"What a reckless daredevil you are!" says I. "Accordin' to your own account, you've stood Spratt's rough stuff for years, never dreamin' of cuttin' loose until some stranger drops in and gives you the idea. Huh! Say, I'll bet you five to one you don't. Come!"

"I—I ain't a bettin' man," says he, droppin' his chin and shufflin' his feet.

And say, come to size him up close, he's about as cheap a lookin' specimen as you'd run across. It shows in his face, in the way his shoulders slump, in the nervous trick he has of twiddlin' his fingers when he talks.

"I see," says I. "The main thing you want is to do a little safe beefin' about your boss. Eh? Well, seein' how I helped pull down this last blast, I guess I can stretch the willin' ear for a few minutes. Go on. Works out his disposition on you, does he?"

"It ain't so much what he says," grumbles the gent; "it's the way he looks at me, like I was a yellow dog he wanted to kick into the corner. Why, there's times when he don't speak to me for days at a stretch. And only him and me left in the store now. There used to be five or six of us—more than that when I first came; but since the neighborhood has changed so much business has fallen off, and they've been let go, one by one."

"You managed to stick, though," I suggests.

"Because I got the lowest pay of any," says he, "and did the most work. Besides, I was the one he could always cuss out when he felt like it. He didn't begin that until after I got married and he thought I wouldn't dare leave on account of the wife. That's the kind he is—a big-mouthed bully."

"Oh, come!" says I. "Spratt didn't strike me as bad as all that."

"You don't know him," says the clerk. "He's mean clear through. And he thinks he's so much better than I am. Treats me like I was dirt under his feet. Why? Tell me that, will you? Because he's my boss and I'm only hired help? Or just because he's got more money than I have? Say, if it hadn't been for a little slip-up, years ago, it might have been the other way round. Yes, sir. I might have had enough to buy and sell old Spratt four times over.'

"You don't say!" says I, a bit curious. "How was that?"

"I got a rich uncle out in Michigan," says he. "He brought me up, was goin' to leave me his pile and all that, only—well, I got in a scrape. I was runnin' with kind of a swift crowd of young fellows then. They got me into a poker game, and

I lost a lot of money, more'n I could pay. They—they made me sign his name to a check."

"Bad business," says I, shakin' my head.

"It was only for thirty dollars," says he; "but what made Uncle Zeb so wrathy was when he found out I'd lost it at poker, instead of bein' robbed, as I told him. You know, he's one of the religious kind, deacon and all that; but he had an awful temper. And swear! I thought he was goin' to skin me alive that night, him and me locked in a room alone. It was along in March, and a young blizzard goin' on; but when he got through lammin' me around, he threw me out into the snow as careless as if I'd been a rat or something. I was about all in then, and he warned me if I didn't clear out, or ever came back, he'd finish the job."

"Some uncle, I should call that," says I. "You cleared out, eh?"

"You bet I did," says he. "I knew one of the brakemen on the night freight, and when it came along he let me crawl into the caboose. By morning I was half way to Detroit. Many a time since I've wished I'd dropped in a drift that night and had it all over with."

"You look like you'd been up against it, Mr.—er—what's the name?" I asks.

"Nurn," says he.

"Eh?" says I. "Once more with that. Spell it."

"N—u—r—n," says he. "Bartholomew Nurn."

It's a perfect fit," says I. "But we might as well have the rest of this tragedy of yours, Bartholomew. After gettin' yourself Simon Legreed by Uncle Zeb, how'd you come to pike for New York and pick out a boss like Spratt?"

"I didn't, right away," says Nurn. "It was four or five years before I landed here. I was just driftin' around. Seems like I never did anything by plan. Things just happened to me. I got jobs here and there, but I couldn't seem to stick. Then I'd have to move on. I never was very strong, so lots of the work I tackled was too hard for me. Some of them gang foremen used me pretty rough, too. One broke my jaw with a punch of his big fist. Another hit me with a shovel. I was in the hospital three weeks after that, in Buffalo.

"A couple of times I came near starving. Once was right here in New York, over in Bryant Park. I could show you the very bench. That was when big Pat Scully found me. He used to be a porter at Spratt's. He picked me up, fed me a beef stew, and got me the job. "That's how I come to be there now."

"But you went and got married," I puts in. "Did that on your own motion, I expect?"

"Ye-e-es, in a way," says Bart. "It was like this: Backin' up to the rear of Spratt's used to be a restaurant. Luella, she worked there, washin' dishes. We used to see each other at odd times. She wasn't much to look at, any more'n me, but we kind of got acquainted. She didn't have any folks, either, and she was havin' a rough deal, too. We told each other, swapped our troubles, as you might say, and I suppose we felt sorry for one another. I don't remember which one of us it was said the word, but first thing I knew we was married and livin' in a couple of back rooms over on Eighth Avenue. We're there now."

"Any kids?" I asks him.

Bart shakes his head. "I don't know how we'd have fed 'em or taken care of 'em if there had been any," says he. "I don't even know what'll become of us if I quit the store or old Spratt takes a notion to close up, as he threatens. I'm over forty now, and not very well. My stomach ain't right; I have dizzy spells. And Luella couldn't do much. We—we—well, you see how it is."

I nods. I was beginnin' to squirm over some of the brash things I'd said to Nurn. Poor 'cuss! Life hadn't been much of a picnic for him. No wonder he had that cheap look on his face.

Concluded on page 15

HOW THEY HATE THEMSELVES

THE FOOT THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE

---

THEY DIDN'T WANT THEIR PICTURES TAKEN

Concluded from page 10

"Never heard any more from Uncle Zeb?" I asks.

"Never tried," says he. "I don't even know whether he's still livin' or not. He was mighty tough when I left."

"How would it be," says I, "if you was to write him a letter, sayin' you was sorry for that bad break you made when you was a youngster, but how you'd lived straight ever since, and what a tough time you'd had? Give him the whole tale, as you've put it to me—about Luella and all."

Bartholomew stares at his shabby shoes a minute or so; then he lifts them shifty eyes of his.

"I don't believe it would do any good," says he. "He was a hard man—Uncle Zeb. Great one to keep a grudge. Besides, maybe he's dead."

"It wouldn't cost much to try it on," says I. "He might do a little something for you."

"I ain't ever begged from anybody," says Nurn. "Not a cent."

"I wouldn't call this beggin', exactly," says I. "If there was nobody else for him to leave his money to, you got a right to come in for some of it, anyway. Why not take a chance?"

"I—I'll talk it over with Luella," says he. "Much obliged, Professor McCabe. You—you don't know how much good it's done me to—to tell somebody."

And say, blamed if them narrow-set eyes ain't leakin' as he turns and drifts out. Swifty Joe, who always has an ear stretched and an eye squinted, slides in from the gym just then.

"I tried givin' that skate the steer," says he, "but he wouldn't have it. Did he work a touch on you?"

"Not yet," says I.

"He will if he ain't blocked off," says Swifty. "He's no good, that one, believe me."

Just to ease my mind, I dropped in to see Spratt next day while Bart was out hittin' the lunch-counter, and registered my alibi for him a little stronger. I explains how it was the Nurn was chasin' around foolish when he came in, and says I wouldn't want to feel I'd got him canned or anything.

"Oh, him!" says Spratt, hunchin' his shoulders. "Never fear. I'm through trying to fire him. He always comes begging back, so what's the use? The only way I can get rid of him is to close up shop—or die, I suppose."

He grins as he says it, and I knew then he wasn't half so bad as Bartholomew had tried to make out. He's one of these husky, hearty old boys, Spratt, with no patience at all for weaklings such as Nurn, and he takes no pains to hide it.

WELL, it must have been a fortnight afterwards when, one noon, Bartholomew comes scuffin' into the front office with his face all flushed an' his little eyes twitchin'.

"Say, Professor," he begins, "you lost that bet. I've quit him, cold."

"Eh?" says I. "Oh! Spratt, you mean?"

"Yes, sir," says he. "But you were right about Uncle Zeb. I've heard from him. Thought I was dead all these years. I expect, too, he figured he'd done it. Anyway, he says he's worried a lot. Wants me to come on and see him. Sent me a hundred to do it on. What do you know about that?" And he waves a letter.

"Well, well!" says I. "And your first move, I suppose, was to hand old Spratt a few crisp remarks?"

Bartholomew scowls a bit.

"I sure meant to," says he, "but somehow I—I didn't say much except that I was through."

"Yes?" says I. "What does Spratt have to say to that jolt?"

"Ah, he only growls something about good riddance—the old sorehead!" says Nurn. "Thinks I'll come sneakin' around again to-morrow. He'll see. We're off for Michigan to-night—me and Luella. We may not come back, either. I shouldn't wonder but Uncle Zeb would let us stay."

"Then here's hopin'," says I, givin' him the grip. "And the best of luck."

Let's see, that was some time before Christmas. And in a month I'd almost forgotten there was such a person as Bartholomew Nurn. I expect if I'd gone shoppin' again for caprenter's tools I might have remembered. But I didn't. So here the other mornin', when Swifty tells me about this early 'phone call from the Plutoria and says it's a party from Michigan who left the message, all I can do is scratch my ear, puzzled.

"Yes; but what was the name?" I asks.

"Sounded like Burns," says Swifty. "Said he'd be waitin' in the lobby. He wants you to come up for lunch."

"Oh, very well," says I. "Anybody that wants to see me that bad ought to be accommodated, hadn't they?"

SO about twelve-thirty I chases up to this dollar-a-minute joint, and lets the guy in the rear admiral's uniform shunt me through the plate-glass merry-go-round. Then I strolls past rows of palms—dustosa cigarbuttis variety—and wanders through lanes of high-backed chairs, scoutin' for some one who might look like his name was Burns. Nobody give me the glad hail, though, or presents me with a meal ticket, and I was wonderin' if Swifty hadn't got the name of the place wrong when I sees a pair of ears that looked sort of familiar.

They're round bat ears, and they're juttin' out from under the edge of a black and white plaid cap that would have made a good checker-board. No, I was sure I didn't know anybody who had nerve enough to wear a cap like that anywhere except at a polo match or a bull fight. Besides, the gent is attached to one of these oatmeal terriers by a leather lead. Still, I was sure I'd seen them ears before as well as behind. I steps along until I gets a side view. And there's that sheep-shaped face. It's Bartholomew.

"For the love of soup!" says I, swingin' him round by the arm and givin' him the up-and-down, from the new yellow shoes to the Clan MacLaren tie. "Tell me; who's done this to you?"

"Oh!" says he, beamin' friendly as he spots me. "Hello, Professor. Got my message, did you?"

"But listen, Bart," I goes on. "What's happened? You sportin' around in a joint like this, makin' a noise like excess profits! How the blazes can—"

"I found Uncle Zeb," says he.

"Oh!" says I. "How was the old boy?"

"Very low," says Bartholomew. "He lasted only ten days after we got there. And what do you think, McCabe? He left me the whole pile—every dollar."

"Whe-e-ew!" says I. "How much?"

"I wouldn't dare guess," says he. "The lawyers ain't figured it all up yet. But there's a lot—real estate, mortgages, bank stock, all kinds of bonds, and cash. You see, there wasn't another relation left, and after the way he'd treated me— Well, he'd had the will made out for years. Anyway, I got enough, I guess, to get what I want."

"I see," says I, grinnin'. "And I take it your first want was some sport-cut clothes."

Bartholomew looks sort of pleased.

"I never had anything but cheap black suits all my life—the kind that turn green and rusty," says he. "I never did believe in this mournin' stuff, either. And say, how do I look in 'em?"

"Great!" says I. "Why, you look—well, like you'd been oversubscribed."

"Huh!" says he, swellin' out his chest. "You ought to see Luella. Come on. She's waitin' for us in the Egyptian parlor."

YES, Luella was worth seein'. I wished then I'd known her before they found Uncle Zeb, so I could have appreciated the change. But I could guess. The modistes and milliners and beauty doctors hadn't been able to camouflage that heavy kitchen-help face of hers, or the dull eyes. They'd done their best with what they could reach, though. Her mud-colored hair had been through the henna treatment and tortured into the latest shape. She had jewelry hung on her and pinned to her until she looked like a munition worker's bride. The waist of her dress began just under her arm-pits and stopped about eighteen inches from the floor. Poor soul! She had a sort of pleadin', scared look in her eyes that told the whole story. It would be some time before she got used to appearin' in costumes like that.

As for Bartholomew, he was makin' a desperate stab at playin' the lordly plute. But he almost apologizes to the bell-hop he asks to take care of the terrier when we starts for the white-and-gold dinin'-room. It's two or three minutes before he can get a head waiter to see him. He shies at

the silver-framed menu-card like he'd been handed a bomb, and when the bus-boy fills his water glass he says, "Much obliged," and then giggles nervous. I helps him out by suggestin' what we shall have for lunch.

When we gets to the black coffee, though, and he lights a forty-cent cigar, Bartholomew begins to buck up. He shoves back a dollar tip at the waiter and demands an ash-tray real rough.

"I ain't told you the big news yet," says he, waggin' his head.

"Let it come," says I.

He looks over at Luella and winks.

"About Spratt," says he.

"What!" says I. "You've been around and unloaded your mind?"

"Better'n that," says Bart. "I've bought him out."

"You don't mean it!" says I.

"Uh-huh!" says he. "I'm the proprietor now. I'm runnin' the store. Spratt—well, Spratt's workin' for me."

You could see the buttons strain on his vest.

"Say," says I, chucklin', "that's gettin' back at him. Got him right under your thumb now, I expect, makin' him squirm!"

Bartholomew nods.

"Course," he goes on, "I don't need to bother with any such picayune business as that. I wanted to, that's all. It don't pay. Not now. I can make it pay, though. I always had a lot of good ideas that Spratt would never listen to. He'll listen now, I guess. You bet he will. I ain't sprung 'em on him yet. But wait. I'm goin' to change the whole thing—put in a line of electric light and bath-room stuff, shift the counters all round, hire a lot of clerks, and make things hum. You'll see. And say, when I get it all planned out I want you to drop around some day—I'll tip you off when—and hear me tell Spratt what's what and where he gets off. Will you?"

I SAID I'd be delighted. Well, the word came yesterday. I was there. Some of the new force was on hand, also a contractor who was goin' to juggle the fixtures.

"See here," says Nurn, struttin' important, "I want this side counter run across the middle, right here."

"Why," breaks in Spratt, "that would spoil the whole effect. Now, what we want—"

"We?" comes in Nurn, gaspy.

"Say, Bart," protests Spratt, droppin' a heavy paw friendly on his shoulder, "you know you're no more of a business man than you're a he-angel. Now, just leave this to me. I'll tell McCarty how to fix it."

"But the bath-room stuff," says Nurn.

"Bah!" says Spratt. "This is a hard-ware store, not a plumber's shop. Forget it. What we need to put in for this trade is a full line of cheap junk—tack-hammers, glass knobs, patent cork-pullers, picture-hangers—all that. Anything that can be used in a flat or an office. I had it all thought out years back, and I'll make a go of it for you. All you got to do is keep out. Now run along while I tell McCarty what to do."

Bartholomew didn't run. Not quite. He stood there, openin' and shuttin' his mouth and twiddlin' his fingers.

"But see here, Spratt," he begins; "I—"

"Oh, don't bother me now," says Spratt, brushin' him one side as he starts to tow McCarty to the office.

Then Bartholomew looks up and sees me standin' there. He don't say a word until he's joined me and we've fetched the sidewalk.

"It's no use, I expect," says he. "He's still old Spratt, and I—I'm just Nurn. I'm the boss, though, really. I ain't goin' to let him forget that."

"That's talkin'!" says I.

Yes, and that's about all it was. I ain't spillin' any sympathy for Bartholomew Nurn, though. He owns a dog now; and some day, after he gets a little more used to 'em, he's goin' to look a head waiter square between the eyes.

WHAT SORT OF A MAN IS LUDENDORFF?

By CAPTAIN MICHAEL WHITE

TO begin with, Ludendorff is not an aristocrat, and, strictly speaking, not of the German military caste, like Moltke, Falkenhyn, Hindenburg, or even Mackensen. The von tacked on to his name goes with all German high military command.

Ludendorff began life as the son of an East Prussian farmer. But farmer Ludendorff had served in the Franco-Prussian War, and, since he was ruled out from winning an officer's commission himself, he decided his son should clatter a saber down Unter den Linden, if farm profits and Junker influence could unlock the door of Prussia's exclusive military caste.

Those who remember the boy Ludendorff say that he was shy, averse to joining in the sports of his companions, and very much of a dreamer. Moreover, he was something of a truant in studies which did not interest him. In all this the boy Ludendorff singularly resembled the boy Kitchener, whose father was an Irish gentleman farmer.

The German specialists who took the youth in hand microscoped the depths of him, to discover maps—military maps—spread all over his brain. They found that upon those maps he built air structures of military campaigns. That definitely placed him. Instead of clattering a saber down Unter den Linden, he went to the studious seclusion of the staff in the department where there was an abundance of maps, with leisure for recreation reduced to a minimum. It seems to have just suited young Ludendorff.

Since for thirty years thereafter his life was mainly military maps, doubtless he came to be thoroughly familiar with the topography of the strategically weak frontier of East Prussia. That was Hindenburg's life-long hobby. In this way the two are said to have at first come together. But the idea didn't take at all with the German General Staff, who were concentrated almost entirely on the west frontier. Hindenburg was getting old, and apparently his perpetual hammering away about his East Prussia defensive strategy was regarded as a bore. Anyway he was retired as a kind of back number. As to Ludendorff, he was not big enough then to attract the displeasure of the All Highest or the General Staff.

Then came the Great War, and, as Hindenburg had predicted, the Russian invasion of East Prussia. With refugees streaming into Berlin an S. O. S. call was sent out for Hindenburg. He agreed to drive the Russians back, provided he could have Ludendorff. Well, where was Ludendorff? They found him at the siege of Liège, acting as a major on the staff. Thus, at a bound, he leaped from a non-entity to a leading figure in the war.

Since then Hindenburg and Ludendorff have campaigned together, as it were, arm in arm, an oddly associated couple when you come to look at them. While the aristocratic Hindenburg delights in sports, hunting, fishing, and what not, and is reputed to show quite an elephantine gaiety in the society of women, the farmer's son cares only for war. Hindenburg is the only general of supreme command, both Ally and Entente, who has held his job from the outbreak of war. But now—now it is Ludendorff and Hindenburg. Ludendorff is just as taciturn now as when a boy. But it is recently reported of him that if he didn't have his way he would carry Hindenburg into retirement with him in his pocket. Which would be an achievement; for Hindenburg bulks about two Ludendorffs.

THE WAR PUZZLE

AN INTERVIEW WITH HARRY LAUDER'S WIFE

HARRY LAUDER'S great personal loss, and his wonderful work for the Red Cross, his untiring energy and his brave comedy, are known wherever his name is known, and that is almost world-wide; but not many people know about the little woman who is an equal partner in his loss, whose brave courage and indomitable domesticity make a bit of home for him even in the cramped quarters of a Pullman.

"Ah, she is a great little woman," Harry Lauder said; "but she won't like you if you ask her questions—I warn you."

Nevertheless, the little woman, wrapped in the silken folds of a pale gray Japanese kimono, knitting away industriously at a sock, was kindly and hospitable.

"Why don't you American women knit socks?" she asked. "In New York, here, and everywhere, the women knit and knit yards of mufflers and jerseys, but never a sock; and the men need socks more than anything."

"We don't know how," I admitted. "You see, knitting is a new occupation for this generation of American women."

"Yes, that's it," she nodded quickly; "but you learn easily. I have taught girls on trains, and in the theatres; and it is certainly very much more sensible and necessary to knit socks."

"I suppose you knit Mr. Lauder's?"

"Indeed I do. Here is a pair I have just finished."

"About other things, do you find us very different over here?" I asked.

"Ah, yes; you don't know the war yet. You are so far out of the war zone, you haven't suffered any; you haven't done without things—what is a little bit of sugar? Over there we have learned literally that half a loaf is better than none. But it is more than food and money that we have lost; that wouldn't count if there wasn't the other. . . .

"I couldn't go to the front with Mr. Lauder, but he went right to the trenches, and sang and talked to them. Tell American women that if they trail over there after their husbands, they will trail in vain, and that they can do much more good right here at home.

"This was our boy." Her eyes looked as though they wanted to cry and yet would not as she held out a picture of a lad with a frank, boyish face. "His eyes were blue like mine," she said, "but he looked like his father. Here is a picture of him when he was a wee—"

Ah, yes, John Lauder; even if there is a little wooden cross in France marked with your name, you are still the most living, vital thing in the lives of your mother and father.

DWINELLE BENTHALL

GERMANS NEVER CHANGE

THE Prussian never changes. His contempt for public opinion, his brutal assumption that right does not matter so long as might is on his side, is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

At the close of the Franco-Prussian War, John Lothrop Motley was American minister to Great Britain, and he wrote a letter to his old college mate, Bismarck, which is recalled by a correspondent to the New York Evening Post. In terms of friendship Motley suggested that "He would be a sincree friend of Germany who should modestly but firmly suggest that the more moderate the terms on the part of the conqueror at this supreme moment, the greater would be the confidence inspired for the future, and the more secure the foundations for a durable peace, and the more proud and fortunate the position and character of United Germany."

Bismarck's reply was a single phrase penciled in his own handwriting on the margin of the letter: "Damn confidence."

THE FIRST CIVILIAN TO WIN THE V. C.

THIS man, now Sergeant J. J. Farmer, won the first Victoria Cross ever given to a civilian. It is probably the most famous, the most coveted of all medals of valor, and the hardest to win. This is the story of how he got it:

When the famous Egyptian campaign of 1883 began under Kitchener, Farmer joined the service in the civilian capacity of telegrapher and despatch rider. He had spent many years in Egypt, and spoke Arabic fluently. Under Sir Valentine Baker he served in the early part of the campaign, and after the terrible rout at Tokar, he carried the news at great personal danger through to Saukim.

Later, with six intelligence officers, he engaged in mapping the country from Dongola to Khartoum. While carrying despatches to Gadaref from Khartoum, he saw coming from one side a party of Arabs. After a desperate race, in which his horse gave out, he was captured and taken to the Arabs' camp. Farmer believes he would eventually have been executed, but that night he worked free from his bonds, managed to crawl away to the outpost of the camp, and, mounted on a swift Arab steed, made his escape. After days of wandering in the desert, nearly dead from thirst, he reached Khartoum, and was able to deliver verbally the greater part of the despatches, which he had destroyed when the Arabs captured him.

A little later, while stationed at Assouan as a telegrapher, he received word from a frightened native boy who was loyal to the British that some five miles down the track the Dervishes had placed explosives. Farmer had just received word of an oncoming troop train. He dashed down the track and removed the explosives. While carrying the last of them, he stumbled and fell, and the explosives went off, shattering his leg (which later had to be amputated), breaking several ribs, and rendering him unconscious. But the troop train was saved. It rushed by a few minutes later. No one, however, saw the unconscious man. For forty-eight hours Farmer lay out in the open, a prey to thirst and heat. Finally the black boy who had given him the information instituted a search, and he was found.

Sir Garnet Wolsley recommended Farmer for the Victoria Cross. But that famous medal created by Queen Victoria was designed only for men of the army or navy. The Queen, however, on being informed of the circumstances, ordered a special silver cross to be struck, a Victoria Cross, but carrying the title "Civilian's Victoria Cross." It was the first one ever given, and since then only one other has been awarded.

Farmer was ordered to England, and in July, 1889, was presented at Buckingham Palace to receive his trophy.

After some years in the employ of the quartermaster-general's department Farmer emigrated to Canada. When the present war broke out he was accepted in the 11th Special Service Company to do clerical work. Like all men who have done great deeds, Farmer is modest. But the other clay his story came to the ears of members of the American Club in Vancouver, and they made him a life member, and bought him an artificial leg of the latest model.

AN ENGLISHMAN'S WAY

WHAT is underneath that baffling front of easy stolidity which the born Britisher presents to the outsider? M. André Chevrillon, of an allied and more excitable race, tries to pierce it for the benefit of his readers in England and the War (Doubleday, Page & Company).

"The Englishman," he says, "is governed by rules of the social code, the first of which is to conform as closely as possible to the general type. Convention forbids him, above all, to 'gush.'"

And the result, to say the least, is strange if not startling in the eyes of the innocent foreigner. Consider the case of the new recruit facing the stern drill sergeant, Union Jack stuck jauntily in his buttonhole. Patriotism had driven him to the ranks, and he was trying to show it. Heavens! What a breach of good form!

"Take that gew-gaw out!" yells his mentor. "You're a soldier now. We want no damned patriotism in the army."

Yet another convention is that which commands the Englishman to "play the game," whatever the tactics of his opponent—a convention which will account for the little incident of the sing-song. It was being held in a billet in France which for the moment harbored some German prisoners. The officer in charge had to step out for a few minutes. This is what he heard on his return:

"Order, gentlemen. Our friends 'Ans and Fritz will now oblige with the 'ymn of 'ate."

But what is underneath it all? Is it insincerity, of which the Englishman is so often accused? Or is it lack of feeling? Or is it merely reticence—a reserve that forbids him to reveal his inmost thought to any but his nearest and dearest? M. Chevrillon decides for the last explanation, and, to justify himself, quotes this letter, written by a young soldier to his fiancée:

"You will hear nothing from me for a week or a fortnight, perhaps longer. Don't worry. Look on me as I look on myself—as an abstraction, a part of the Great Soul struggling for salvation, its own and that of the world. I am no longer a person with private joy and sorrows. Nor are you either."

THE MAN WITH THE DONKEY

THE story is told by John Gallishaw in Trenching at Gallipoli (Century Company). Its hero has no Distinguished Conduct Medal nor a Victoria Cross; but perhaps, while he lived, the devotion and gratitude of hundreds of wounded soldiers on the awful fields of Gallipoli make up for the neglect of those higher up.

"His real name was Simpson, but all over the Peninsula he was called the Man with the Donkey.

"In the early days the Anzacs had captured some booty from the Turks, and in it were some donkeys. It was in the strenuous time when men lay in all sorts of inaccessible places, dying and wounded. Simpson in those days seemed everywhere.

"As soon as he heard of the capture, he went down, looked appraisingly over the donkeys, and commandeered two of them. On one donkey he painted F. A. No. 1, and on the other, F. A. No. 2 (F. A. being his abbreviation for Field Ambulance).

"Day and night after that Simpson could be seen going about among the wounded, here giving a man first aid, there loosening the equipment and making easier the last few minutes for some poor fellow too far gone to need any medical care. The wounded men who could not walk or limp down to the dressing station he carried down, one on each of the donkeys and one on his back or in his arms.

"He talked to the donkeys, as they plodded slowly along, in a strange mixture of English, Arabic profanity, and Australian slang."

The Man with the Donkey now is dead. He was killed by an enemy bullet while he was taking some wounded men back to the dressing station.

WRITTEN BY A RUSSIAN SOLDIER

THE bewilderment and despair of the Russian soldier who, after three years of fighting, found himself deserted by his country and betrayed by his generals, is shown in the following letter written by a man in the ranks to the Red Cross sister who nursed him back to life after he had been wounded and gassed. It was published in the New York Times:

Dear Little Sister:

Here with us the light has gone out of everything. We are hungry, dressed in rags and barefooted. The food is very bad, we have very little bread, the only meat we get is horseflesh, and that is not fresh. We have got a horse of our own, but have nothing to feed it with, so are thinking of eating it ourselves. There is no help for us anywhere. It is our fate to be thrown aside and forgotten by the world and to die of cold and hunger.

Formerly the Russian soldier was feared by the whole world, but now that he has been betrayed no one even remembers him. Formerly every commander tried to cause as many losses to the enemy as possible and to save his own men, but now they try to lose as many of their own men as possible without harming the enemy.

Take Riga, for example. Every soldier was willing to give his life for it, and many tears have been shed by us over it. But it was surrendered without a fight, and the soldier was blamed. It was not known that the order for the retreat had been given and was enforced by the threat of capital punishment in the case of disobedience.

As to the rumors that the soldiers run away from the trenches and loot—nowadays all the scoundrels put on soldiers' uniforms and disgrace them. And as to the soldiers not wanting to fight any more—remember we have been in the trenches for more than three years, and the knowledge that we are being betrayed on every hand and the fact that we have lost faith in the war finishing with victory to us makes it impossible for us to fight any longer.

BOCHE WAR

"PERFECTLY SAFE"

A CERTAIN British company had been holding a point in the line which, under a terrific bombardment, became almost untenable. The commanding officer, consequently, ordered them to retire to a somewhat safer position in the rear. They did so in good order and with few casualties, those missing being accounted for under that head.

Presently the German artillery lifted its curtain, and the infantry began to pour over. Imagine the astonishment, then, of those who had withdrawn to see their old trench being defended against the oncomers by a rapid rifle fire from an unknown source. For some hours the battle lasted all along the line; but still the isolated spot held out. Again and again the Germans assailed it, but without success—at each attack they lost about twenty or thirty men. And even those who reached the trench were evidently quite unable to oust its defenders. Finally, toward dusk, the fighting died down, and shortly after the officer in charge of the company who had retreated received this courteous and concise little note:

Sir:

Two other men and I were left behind when the company withdrew. During the fight we collected in eight stragglers from other battalions, so we are now eleven. We held the line against all attacks. If you, sir, and the rest of the company wish to come back now, the trench is perfectly safe.

JAMES GUFFIN, Sergeant.

And the wounded officer who tells the story in The First Canadians in France (George H. Doran & Company) comments:

"I showed that note to my commanding officer before they carried me away. It was an humiliation, but it was my duty."

TROUBLES OF A WAR SURGEON

ALL the unpreparedness is not found in America. Arthur Martin, a British surgeon with a long line of initials after his name, tells of some of the heart-breaking difficulties the doctors had to cope with owing to mistakes and negligence in the medical organization.

"One day early in the war I had a number of wounded men to treat, all with dirty septic wounds," he writes in A Surgeon in Khaki (Edward Arnold, London). "The method of sterilizing our hands was inefficient, and I asked for rubber gloves. Rubber gloves for the hands of the surgeon are absolutely essential when dealing with a number of septic cases. Judge of my consternation and amazement when the senior medical officer of the ambulance said that 'there were no rubber gloves in the ambulance equipment, and he did not believe in the necessity for rubber gloves.'

"Again, in a dangerous operation on the knee-joint I could not get any sterilized towels nor an aneurism needle nor a pair of scissors. The only scissors had been lost, and only one aneurism needle, which had also been lost, was supplied in the instrument case. I could only get two sterilized towels, and these I had to boil myself. There were no gloves. There were none of the things round one to treat shock from which the officer suffered after the operation. It made one despair. Yet all these things should have been at hand, and could have been easily obtained by the exercise of some forethought."

In another chapter of his book Dr. Martin tells the following amusing story:

"An officer in command of a French trench wrote out the news of the Emden fight on a piece of paper, and tied this paper round a stone, which he flung into the German trench. It was received with guttural cries of annoyance. Shortly after this time, from the German trench came another stone with a piece of paper inscribed, "Monsieur, go to Hell." The French officer, ever polite, and determined to have the last word, sent back this note:

Dear Boches: I have been invited to visit many places in my time, but this is the first time that I have been invited to visit the German headquarters.

The Biggest Word in a Retail Store—What is It?

By JAMES H. COLLINS

"WHAT is the most important thing to watch in a retail store?" asked the sales-instructor of his class. It was a class of men who were taking a course in selling methods at the plant of an accounting machinery concern.

The hands went up, and various suggestions were made—to keep the store neat and clean, to have attentive clerks, to carry attractive merchandise, to know one's goods thoroughly, to advertise, to keep track of costs, and so on.

"None of you has mentioned the really big thing," said the teacher, "though each has mentioned part of it. This most important thing in a store also happens to be our selling key. Take time to think—see if you can give me the answer to-morrow."

But next day nobody was any nearer.

"Turnover!" said the teacher. "That's the answer. How hard does a store work for its owner? What profit does he make on his capital? How cheap can he sell goods? How much can he pay employees? These questions all center in turnover—how many times the stock is cleared out each year. Study any store with turnover in mind, and you will get at fundamentals. It is the reason for success and the explanation of failure. Our equipment will do several things for a merchant, but they all relate to turnover, and that is our broadest basis of selling, and the right viewpoint on our goods."

A pickle salesman was made Eastern manager for a big orange marketing association, and set out ambitiously to learn the new line and increase the consumption of oranges in his territory. He tried various sales arguments—demonstrated the display value of oranges, showed how they were being advertised, and so on. But it was not until he linked the fruit with turnover that he made his real entrance into that new field.

For oranges, and fruit generally, are perishable stock, compared with grocery staples. When the grocer puts in a fruit department, he has to watch it more closely than his ordinary stock. He and his clerks keep it before customers, clear out odds and ends, and more fruit is ordered to fill in gaps and keep up a display.

The outcome is, better store-keeping and selling methods in one part of the store, which in time is certain to extend to other sections.

Several hundred grocery stores were recently studied by the Harvard Bureau of Business Research, and statistics of cost, profit, turnover, and so forth, compiled. It was found that stores selling both groceries and meats turned their entire stock nine times a year, as against seven times for those selling only groceries—this being the influence of perishables on semi-perishables.

Stores with the lowest selling expense usually paid the best wages to clerks— turnover again. Some clerks sold five thousand dollars' worth of goods a year, while others sold three and four times that much. Overhead expense is almost as much for one clerk as another. The five-thousand-dollar man, at four per cent. net profit, would be earning $160 a year net profit for his boss, while a twenty-thousand-dollar clerk would be earning $640. Therefore the merchant whose clerks knew how to help increase turnover could easily find money to raise their pay.

Turnover was the secret of success for a retail grocer in a Southern town with so many disadvantages that it seemed futile to try to build a sound business there.

To begin with, this place is a winter resort. Plenty of well-to-do customers in winter—little trade in summer. It is distant from good wholesale markets, so goods come slowly. It was hard for the proprietor to keep trained helpers, because he had nothing for them to do in summer.

But his trade was organized on a yearly basis, something like baseball, so that everything centered on the biggest possible turnover in the winter months. In summer he studied merchandise, to decide what should be carried; in autumn he bought; in winter he sold; and in the spring he adjusted his stock to local demands for a light summer trade.

This general scheme put every activity of the store behind turnover, and enlisted all his employees.

In buying, for instance, he had formerly relied on the nearest jobbers, who could send him stuff in a hurry during his busy season. But when the summer was used to plan stock, he sent far afield for samples of things not carried by these near-by jobbers, and often bought from manufacturers in New England and the Middle West. Planning ahead enabled him to draw upon national supplies and stock things that sold themselves.

He bought quick-selling articles, but did not forget that many necessary things are bound to move slowly, and that if customers can not get service on those they will not come for the quick-moving profitable merchandise.

He taught his clerks to watch stock all year round, to see what was moving fast and what was running out. By clerks' reports on the latter items he had information that enabled him to order fresh supplies ahead, so that there were never any articles "Just out—sorry" in that store. "Just out" is the greatest of trade-killers.

By this general scheme he was able to make his capital work hard and pay real profits; and a grocery trade authority, not long ago, gave it as his opinion that this man in his old age will have what few retail merchants have after years of business in much more favorable localities—a snug fortune representing profit on the turnover that was his life's work.

Is It Worth While to Be a Millionaire?

IF you are thinking of becoming a millionaire, it will be worth your while to read this, so you will know in advance how much it is going to cost.

B. C. Forbes, who is perhaps the world's greatest expert on rich men and women, has discovered that the old rule that you can't get something for nothing applies to millionaires, just as it does to any one else. Millionaires pay a good, round price for being millionaires.

Forbes found this out when he put a note in his magazine asking suggestions as to when he, very busy, might find time to think. Among the answers was one from a millionaire who told him to get up at six o'clock in the morning and think before breakfast. Forbes says that that is the time his babies come in to play with him. And he comments on the situation as follows:

"The more I discover about men who have attained conspicuous success, the more I am impressed with the fact that they have had to forfeit something very much worth while. Some have lost their capacity for rational domestic life; some have lost the ability and even the inclination to make and keep friends; some have allowed the milk of human kindness to dry up in their veins; some have lost that touch of childlikeness without which no man can be wholly lovable. To gain admittance to millionairedom, too many men have withdrawn themselves, so to speak, from the world of human society and social life.

"As Christian Scientists phrase it, each of us has his or her own 'problem' to solve. We must each decide what are the things worth while and what things cost more than they are worth. Just what proportion of a man's time should be given to playing with his kiddies, and what proportion should be devoted to his business, is typical of the problems one meets all through life. To sacrifice everything on the altar of Mammon is unwise."

This Mountain May Run Your Motor

WE have become so used to thinking of oil only as spouting out of the ground from rich wells that we have overlooked mountains of it lying around on top of the earth, waiting to be refined. And it took the war shortage of motor fuel to jog our oil men into thinking of oil as coming from rocks instead of from a gushing stream.

With a motor fuel famine staring them in the face, we Americans looked around and found that the Scotch shale oil industry had been holding its own for many, many years, even against Mr. Rockefeller.

In 1916 the Scotch crushed up and refined three and a half million tons of oil boulders, which yielded eighty million gallons of crude oil, more than half a million gallons of motor spirit, nearly five million gallons of naphtha, twenty-two million gallons of kerosene, thirteen million gallons of fuel and gas oils, eleven million gallons of lubricating oils, twenty-seven thousand pounds of paraffine waste, and sixty thousand pounds of ammonia.

Looking again, our men discovered oil mountains in this country. Here is one of them, on Parachute Creek, near Grand Valley, Colorado. And, if experiments for turning it into crude oil are successful, this mountain may ultimately be sold to you by the gallon, to make your motor go. The Engineering and Mining Journal reports one company in the West that expects to produce six thousand barrels of crude oil daily from rock like this.

America is finding a lot of things, now that war has made it look for them.

Bringing Them In

DURING a week when a retail merchants' convention was held in his city, a manufacturer left at the dealers' hotels coupons that read:

Notice to chauffeurs: This coupon, when signed by a delegate, is good for one ride from any point in the city between 8:30 A. M. and 6 P. M. to the Miller Mercantile Company.

The coupon provided space for identification, signature, and the firm name of the merchant who used it, says Ralph Evans in System.

The truth of the prospect's statements was quickly ascertained by referring to the convention's printed list of delegates. A number of worth-while sales resulted from this unusual way of making it easy for the out-of-town visitor to buy.

He Used His Wife's Head in His Business

IF you're limping on the job, read this experience of mine, then take your troubles home to your wife some night and talk them over. She may help.

I was selling printing in New York, and making enough to live. But my wife and I both thought I wasn't getting ahead very fast.

My firm was small, the chiefs didn't offer their salesmen any help, and I was inexperienced in a hard selling game.

One night, tired and discouraged, I came home, ready to give up.

But at this point my wife took command, and in a long talk after supper we evolved the idea of a business diary. I jotted down the names of every one I had seen that day—his appearance and peculiarities, the time of the call, what happened, the kind of printing each man used, and other items of interest concerning the firm and its business.

"Then we discussed each prospect, and the best method of getting his business. My wife was able to give me some very valuable suggestions about handling the different men and how to discover and make use of his particular hobby. Then we got to reading various business magazines, and we cut out and pasted in the diary items that applied to my work.

For the last few months we have been spending about an hour a night in our business conference, with wonderful results. My wife has never had any kind of business training, but her comments and suggestions have given me a different angle to work from, and have served to make me think more accurately in preparing a campaign for each firm and its buyer. Also perusal of the diary serves to refresh my mind concerning suggestions gleaned from the clippings, and little trivial points about a man that often help to put over a sale.

Why not make your wife's intuition and understanding of human nature an asset?

He Saw the Kaiser's Intrigue from the Inside

Concluded from page 5

who nominally ruled the Turkish Empire; there was a Grand Vizier who was popularly supposed to perform the offices of a prime minister; there was even an assemblage, known as a Turkish Parliament, whose establishment a few years before had been hailed as introducing the democratic system in this Oriental despotism. But all these external factors were merely fictions and shadows.

Real authority in Turkey represented something not unlike the American boss system in its most flourishing days. Real government was "invisible" and "extra-constitutional." A private society, known as the Committee of Union and Progress, ruled Turkey something in the same way that Tammany once ruled New York. The two great bosses in this organization were Talaat Pasha and Enver Pasha.

Just as Charley Murphy started life as a street-car driver and rose to imperial power in New York, so Talaat, beginning life as a telegraph operator at Salonika, reached a position of dictatorship in the party of Union and Progress. His associate, Enver, had trod a more cultivated path; he had received his education in Germany, where he had absorbed German ideas and ideals—indeed, had become completely Prussianized.

These men controlled the Committee of Union and Progress, and consequently the Turkish government. Talaat at first showed some disinclination to becoming part of the German machine; but Enver played Germany's game from the start. When the latter became Minister of War, early in 1914, his elevation was generally regarded as a German triumph. Wangenheim ruled Enver, and through him forced Turkey into the war on Germany's side.

Mr. Morgenthau can detail incident after incident and episode after episode showing the influence of Germany in Turkish affairs, even months before she openly became Turkey's ally. Naturally savage as the Turk may be, the German tutelage added a refinement to his methods that they had not had before.

When Turkey entered the war, the utmost confusion broke out in Constantinople. Mr. Morgenthau suddenly found that he had become the ambassador of eight nations, and his first problem was to get the foreign ambassadors and enemy residents safely out of Constantinople. The Turkish government agreed to his arrangements, and things were proceeding satisfactorily when the usual sinister influence made itself felt. Turkey held up the train that was to take Mr. Morgenthau's charges away, and the refugees, huddled in the railroad station, learned that no more passports were to be issued and that those already granted would be ignored. Acting under German pressure, the Turks had conceived the clever scheme of holding these residents in Constantinople as hostages.

Mr. Morgenthau, breaking away from the excited and distracted crowds, rushed to the house of Talaat and protested in the most energetic terms. He found the leader of the Turkish Empire in his retiring room, in his pajamas; and the setting as well as the conversation that followed was extremely informal. Talaat still keeps in his private room the telegraph instrument with which he once earned his daily bread; for some reason or other, he still prefers to do his own telegraphing. And, at the conclusion of Mr. Morgenthau's talk, he called up his associate and the chief of police, and made arrangements for the departure of the foreigners.

The amiable interference of the German ambassador was manifested also when the English and French fleets began their ill-omened bombardment of the Dardanelles. Von Wangenheim, through his hired press bureau, spread reports—utterly false, of course—that American ammunition was being used for this bombardment. The German ambassador gave the Turkish authorities a tip—characteristically German—as to the way in which they could reply to these bombardments.

When the English guns began to assail the fortified port of Alexandretta, the Turks collected all the French and English residents of this town and placed them in exposed positions where they were most likely to be hit. They followed precisely the same methods of defense at the bombardment of Smyrna. But it was the bombardment of the Gallipoli peninsula that furnished the finest opportunities of this kind. There were then almost two thousand French and English in Constantinople. The Turkish authorities proceeded to corral these, with the idea of taking them down to Gallipoli, where they would be exposed as targets to the Allied guns. (Herein we detect precisely the same philosophy that placed Belgian women and children in front of the German army in its march through Belgium.) Mr. Morgenthau appealed to the German ambassador to secure his protest against such barbarity, but found no response. He appealed to Enver and Talaat, but found them immovable.

"You tell the British admiral what we are going to do," said Enver, "and he'll stop bombarding these places."

Mr. Morgenthau finally persuaded the Minister of War not to send two thousand residents on this errand, but to select fifty of the youngest. These men spent several exciting days on the peninsula, Mr. Morgenthau constantly prodding Enver to have them brought back. In these parleys the Turkish fondness of bargaining came out gruesomely.

"They have been down there long enough," Morgenthau would say to the Minister. "You have redeemed your promise—now let them come back."

"Just one day more!" Enver would reply.

This persistent haggling finally resulted in bringing the hostages back without the loss of a single man.

The world does not yet realize the effect that the English defeat at Constantinople has had upon the Turkish people. It revived a dying nation. The Turks are the only people, Talaat and Enver constantly reiterate, who have defeated the British navy. Poor and wretched and degraded as the nation is, the leaders now confidently look forward to the days when all the greatness of the Ottomans is to be restored.

"When I was trying to make arrangements for the French nuns to depart," said Mr. Morgenthau, "I asked the Austrian and German ambassadors to help me, as they were both Catholics. Almost immediately Enver asked me to step over to see the Minister of War. 'Why did you send the Austrian and German ambassadors to see me?' he asked. I told him my reasons. 'Now, you are very foolish,' he answered. 'We will do a great deal more for America and for you than we will for them'—contemptuously.

"'Enver,' I said, 'why would you do more for us than for them?'

"'Why,' he said, 'we are under no obligations to them. They have given us soldiers and commanders and lent us a lot of money, but that is a trifle compared with what we have done. Just see what Turkey has accomplished. We have put this big army into the field; we have kept busy for them more than a million of their enemies; and we are the only nation that has demonstrated to the world that the English navy is not invulnerable. Now, on which foot is the shoe of obligation?'

"The Turks hate the overbearing Germans, and Enver showed that hatred on this occasion.

"'If they don't do what we want,' he said, 'we shall show them!'

"'How about your friendship for Germany?' I suggested.

"'Friendship!' he retorted. 'There is no such thing in international relations. We are friends to-day with Germany, because that suits our present policy. if next month it suits us better to embrace England and France, we shall do so!'"

Why We Aren't Mad at Hoover

—By Don Herold

HERBERT HOOVER is the only man the war has produced whose name has been made into a verb. He has made "Hooverizing" a pleasant household fad, and the public in general is not only pretty friendly toward him, but feels something of the same sort of affection for him that it feels for, say, George Cohan; and that is some record for a food controller. The average official life for a food controller is six months.

Not long ago I had the opportunity of observing Mr. Hoover "close up" for several days.

I was anxious to find out, if possible, just why we, the public, are not mad at him.

Mr. Hoover himself, when he took his job, expected to hold it six months.

I believe that one reason the public still likes Mr. Hoover is that he is an awfully, awfully serious, awfully, awfully earnest man about his job. Mr. Hoover has seen ten million people much closer to starvation than any of the rest of us can start to imagine; and he knows that he has a job requiring almost divine sympathy and divine wisdom, and he knows that he has no such sympathy or wisdom. It is this that makes him serious. Yet Hoover is a man about whom jingles are written. There are hundreds of Hoover jokes going the rounds of the country to-day.

I sincerely believe that Herbert Hoover has deliberately acted as a buffer between the American public and the grim seriousness of the world's food situation, and that the "morale" that we have about food conservation is the result of his deliberate resolution to send us singing along the road of food conservation that he has laid out for us.

Mr. Hoover is a psychologist. He is a pedagogue. He not only knows what to ask the public for, but he has some imagination as to how the public will react to different methods of asking.

It is his deliberate intention that we shall keep good-natured about food conservation—and food conservation is some-thing about which a nation can easily become morbid. It is Mr. Hoover's intention that we shall want to conserve food as much as he wants us to.

He is an interesting study.

He is a small man with a small face and small features—serious features. He seems to be thinking, thinking, oblivious to everything except his own thoughts. I never caught him looking at anything. He just seems to be looking at what he is thinking.

When he talks, it is without the slightest attempt at effect. He lets nothing get in the way of his attempt at clear thinking. He does not care what impression he makes with anything except his "getting at the point."

When he talks to an audience, he does not raise his hands from the table. He has no gestures. He does not raise his voice. The man farthest from him in the room can hear what he is saying, but his voice does not go an inch farther than necessary.

His method of thought is this: He thinks long rows of reasons for and against; he is just as anxious to get the reasons against as the reasons for. Most men come to a conclusion after putting four facts, say, against five. Mr. Hoover seems to want several hundred on each side. He looks several years back and several years forward, for reasons for or against. He has a statistical department at Washington which alone employs nearly four hundred people. This indicates his desire for facts. When he has measured all the facts for and against any proposed line of action, he then considers the probable psychological effects. Then the chances are that he isn't satisfied:

"We are not yet ready to come to a conclusion in this matter."

For practical things, for getting things done, Mr. Hoover has a mind that is, paradoxically, metaphysical. I have never seen any one in whom there is so little monkey-business, so great a faculty for getting to the practical point that shall be used as a basis of action.

And as for action—well, there wouldn't be any verb "Hooverize" if there weren't something mightily dynamic in the man Hoover. He has probably done more to an entire nation, with less compulsory law to back him up, than any man who ever lived. Mr. Hoover's head is all forehead and jaw.

Mr. Hoover has had a lot of experience with folks in the large. At twenty-six years of age he was the head of a gigantic mining industry in the Chinese Empire, the boss of 400,000 people, a builder of towns and railroads.

For three years before America entered the war, he fed ten million people in Belgium. He has not only had experience with folks, but with folks in relationship to food.

He has courage. "We are going to do certain things, if we hang for them," I heard him say to the food administrator for one of the Western States.

After an evening meeting of food adminstration workers, at which Mr. Hoover had been the principal speaker, a man said to me:

"Isn't he quiet and calm?"

"But oh, the punch!" I said.

"But oh, the punch!" the other man repeated.

Now and then—not often, but now and then—a little smile breaks on Mr. Hoover's face. It's a very winning smile while it lasts.

Perhaps that is another secret why we aren't mad at Mr. Hoover for telling us what to eat. Perhaps the Herbert Hoover behind those brief smiles is the Herbert Hoover who has held the job of food administrator—longer than six months.

This is Her Week

NAPOLEON III of France was scouring Europe for a royal wife—some princess whose marriage to him would make firm his position and give him a valuable alliance with a neighboring kingdom; but wherever he looked his fellow rulers gave him to understand that they looked upon him as a low bred demagogue, and that his aspirations to marry their daughters were gross insults.

Meanwhile a beautiful Spanish girl watched and waited, her shrewed old mother coaching her play from the side lines, as it were. The girl was a Mlle. Eugénie Montijo—a countess by courtesy. Paris looked upon mother and daughter as beautiful adventuresses, as indeed they were, living by their wits, wriggling upward in a desperate climb toward their goal—the throne of France. In other days they never could have come within a million miles of the court. But in the new hodge-podge that made up French society they found no difficulty.

From the first, Napoleon III was hopelessly enamoured. And Eugénie did not lose one single trick in the daring game. And finally Napoleon married her—as she knew he would.

All the world loves a lover, and the romantic French went wild with delight. The city of Paris was given over to fêtes and bonfires; medallions of Eugénie were sold on every street corner. Poets sang of her beauty. No woman was ever more adored.

A brief period of unexampled prosperity set in. Revenues rose to an unprecedented height. Stocks boomed. Industries flourished. The hungry were fed. There was work for all. To the new Empress went the praise for all this. Her popularity doubled and trebled. She was called the most beautiful and best dressed woman in the world. She set the fashion for five continents. For instance, before the birth of her only child she adopted a style of costume known as "crinoline." Every woman in the civilized world did likewise.

Not in a hundred years had the French court been such a riot of wit, fashion, splendor, and costliness. Had she been content to be merely beautiful she might be Empress still; but after the birth of her son she began to meddle in politics, and before she knew it she had a war on her hands. The war that she referred to playfully as "my little war" turned out to be the grim Franco-Prussian war of history; and when Sedan surrendered and the Emperor was captured, a mob set out for the palace to avenge the country's shame by killing the Empress. So Eugénie the beautiful had to escape to England in a veil and waterproof.

Soon afterward the Emperor died. A little later, on an expedition in Zululand, the young Prince Imperial was killed. Widowed, childless, her wealth gone, Eugenie has continued to live in retirement in England. She is ninety-two now, but she says she will not die until the French have entered Berlin and avenged "her little war."

For Molly—Continued from page 9

"It ain't that kind with me, Danny," said Molly, looking up. "I—I thought it was till you asked me, an'—an' then I knew it wasn't. I don't believe it is with you, neither. You—you just say that."

"Molly, I—"

"You told me that time how it was me who put you where you are. Not a fight could you win, you said, without me at th' ringside. Always when you fought, you said, you thought of me an' tried to win—for me. That's love, Danny—real love." Hysteria crept upon her, melting the steel in her voice, distilling the fire in her eyes to scalding tears. "That woman don't love you like I do, Danny. Them painted up kind don't love—"

"Molly, you got no right—"

"I have got a right! I have! I won't let you go without sayin' nothin'. I have got a right! She don't love you. She couldn't really love you an' let you ruin your condition like you've done when you got to fight for your championship in four days. How can you meet Sailor Jenks like you are, Danny? How could she let you get that way if she loved you? Can't you see she don't, Danny? Please, please, can't you see she don't?"

She came toward him, her yearning arms outstretched.

"You got it all wrong," cried Danny. "I know what kind o' condition I'm in. There's nothin' th' matter with me. Even if I was sick, I could lick Sailor Jenks by just usin' my brains. I'm not called Fox for nothin'. Three days o' hard trainin' an' one day o' rest, an' I'll be in as good condition as I ever was. You got no right to talk that way about Eudora when you don't know her—"

"I do know her."

"I ain't gonna discuss her with you, Molly. I—I thought we could just—split up, without no fussin' or nothin'. I told you how I felt towards you. I'm terrible sorry it had to happen. I—I wouldn't take th' fattest purse goin' to have it happen. But it's better now than if it was after it was too late."

"I won't fuss, Danny. Just listen—"

"There's nothin' more to say. I'm sorry it had to happen; but it did, an' we can't change it. There's no use in keepin' on talkin' till one of us says things we don't mean. Ain't it best we part quiet, Molly?"

"Y—yes.

"I wouldn't take—"

"Go, then!"

She stood with her cool palms pressed against her stinging cheeks, her mouth crushed to an open pucker.

He paused at the door. "But, Molly, what will you do about—"

"Tell 'em I'm sick—anything. Get 'em out o' th' house!"

She turned the key of the door as he slid out; then leaned heavily against the panel, her head buried in her arms. From the parlor came to her the subdued hum of voices. The sound of the piano broke off abruptly. She turned and walked to the table.

Slowly she circled the table, stopping at each plate to draw from beneath the paper napkin on it a small white card. When she returned to her starting point, she held twelve of them in her trembling hand.

A rap sounded on the door.

"Molly machree! Open the door, Molly!"

"A—aw right, ma."

Three drops splashed from Molly's cheeks to the cards she held. Slowly, one by one, she tore the white squares into bits and let them filter through her fingers. They fluttered to the rug like frost-killed leaves. One small strip, with writing on it, remained in her palm. She read it with blurred eves: "Molly and Danny."

With a great sob she let it, too, flutter downward; and followed it, pressing her streaming face against the white shreds on the floor.

FOUR nights later, when the light-studded hands of the Metropolitan clock—which overlooked the squat building of the Cosmo Sporting Club—had risen to indicate the hour of ten, Fox Dorgan, enveloped in his famous scarlet robe patterned with black fox heads, parted the ropes that bound the arena, and stepped between them to his corner.

Six low-suspended arc lamps with green-coated reflectors drenched the elevated ring and a small area outside it with a steady downpour of white light. The rest of the Cosmo Sporting Club lay in an emphasized dusk, pierced by dull-red "Exits," spelled at regular intervals high up along the boundaries of the vast room.

Fox Dorgan responded to the cheers that greeted him with a broad smile and a careless wave of the hand; addressed a word or two to friends in the boxes at the ringside, recognizable in the light that bathed them.

"Say, Fox," some one called, "they say you're a wreck. Take off that robe an' show us."

With the smile that made him so popular a champion, Fox stood up and flung back the scarlet robe. From its black silk lining his body sprang out in alto-rilievo, white, clean-cut, like an Olympian hero wrought in marble.

"Oh, what a wreck!" one man sang out in gleeful irony.

"What do yuh call 'in condition'?" cried another. "Oh, boy!"

FOX hid himself in the robe again, and walked to his corner, leaned easily over the ropes and smiled down at Eudora. She flashed back a smile that disclosed too many of her small white teeth.

"You go right after him, Fox," she advised in a low voice. "I don't care if this scrap lasts only one round."

"Jim here thinks—" began Fox; but Jim cut him off.

"Keep that stuff to yourself," he commanded.

Fox tossed his head impatiently and lowered his voice beyond Eudora's hearing:

"Looka here, Jim: I'm not askin' you to like her any; but you c'n have th' decency not to show you don't, can't you?"

"I can't," replied Jim, "when you're fool enough to want to give away everything—"

"Ain't it safe enough to tell her, when—"

"All right. Forget it now. Here comes Jenks. Now, listen, Fox: Don't let your looks fool you. We got you in such shape that you look like a million dollars. But remember that they can't see inside you."

"I tell you, I feel fine," Fox protested. "I never—"

"I'm glad of it. But you fight th' way I told you—and keep away. Let Jenks do th' fightin' till th' last gong. I'm tellin' you plain, Fox, if this fight ends b'fore th' tenth, you won't be th' one left standin'. I don't care what kind o' openin' he leaves—you keep away."

"You're boss," said Fox. "I'll use my brains."

Whichever way Fox fought pleased his followers. If he was aggressive, they admired his courage; if he was defensive, they lauded his skill. In either case, they were expectant from gong to gong—awaiting the unusual, the lightning thought and action that marked each of Fox Dorgan's battles.

In the second preliminary of that evening, one of the participants, realizing that the odds against him were too great to be overcome, had sought to save himself from the ignominy of a knockout by "keeping away." His efforts had been greeted with hisses and catcalls from the spectators. But now that it was Fox Dorgan who "kept away," side-stepping, ducking, blocking, ever retreating, never advancing, the crowd sang his praises in a song made up of tenors of shrill whistles, baritones of clapping hands, and bassos of hoarse shouts. Fame blends every fault into the background of reputation. It is the art of camouflage at its best.

Jim Kelly was jubilant.

"Atta boy, Fox!" he cried, squeezing a sponge on Fox's tongue. "He couldn't touch you that round. Half of it's over, an' he hasn't got to you yet. Keep away if you hafta run!"

---

Fox Dorgan, reclining in the angle of the ropes, crowding a needed hour's rest into a minute's time, smiled.

"You betcha!" he replied.

"You're breathin' hard, Fox," said Jim anxiously. "Are you tired? Rub his legs there, Bill!"

"Feelin' fine," assured Fox. "Just usin' my brains—an' keepin' 'way." He turned his head to see Eudora. "Still with me, Babe?"

"I sure am, dearie," she replied. "Why don't you go after him an' end this?"

"Will you please sit down, Miss La Rue?" said Jim quietly. "I'm managing this man."

The gong sounded, and the seconds grabbed stools, buckets, and towels, and scurried out of the corners.

"Well, Dorgan," sneered Sailor Jenks, as the fighters met in the center of the ring, "are you gonna fight this time?"

Leaning backward from the waist, the back of his right glove laid across his left cheek, his right forearm and elbow protecting his heart and stomach, his left arm slightly extended, Fox grinned and retreated. "If you c'n ketch me."

Jenks stepped in quickly, swung—and missed.

"I know why you won't fight," snarled Jenks, balancing himself against a counter that was not delivered. "Eudora's fixed you!"

The words locked Fox's legs for an instant. A jab caught him full upon the lips. It was the first blow to reach him. He shook his head, grinned, and with his palm checked the right hook that followed.

"You can't make me sore, Jenks. I'm fit enough to knock your block off—only Jim won't let me."

Jenks ignored his remark.

"You're a great fox, you are," he sneered, "to let a woman fool you like Eudora done; to let her get you so's you can't even fight. She got you where we wanted you, aw right. Eudora's my wife!"

A flush overspread Fox's face and neck, breaking in shredded ends just above his shoulders.

"What's th' use o' that sort o' talk, Jenks? It won't get you nowheres. I'm fightin' this fight my own way."

They weren't fighting now—just warily tapping gloves.

No cheering came now from the restless lake of faces that radiated outward and upward from the arena. Instinctively the fans sensed the unusual. One voice rose in protest:

"Say, whatcha think this is—a Kaffee Klatch?"

A chorus of laughs mounted after the words.

The fighters were in Fox's corner now.

"Eudora hon," called Jenks, "I just told this boob that you were my wife. Is it th' truth?"

"It sure is," returned Eudora slowly. "I guess th' Fox ain't so foxy, after all."

The forced grin faded from Fox's face; the muscles of his arms crawled suddenly to knots.

"Keep away!" shouted Jim, leaping to the ropes. "Keep away, Fox!"

Fox gave no heed. He glanced at Eudora as if to seek the verification of her words. He found it. There was no smile for him now; instead, a downward curve of her thin lips which revealed the magnitude of her contempt for him.

"Oh, oh!" mocked Jenks, dancing back to the center of the ring. "You fool Fox!"

AND now Fox Dorgan fought—consuming in that remaining minute and a half the little strength three weeks of dissipation had left him. He was the Fox no longer. He fought blindly, thoughtlessly, willingly taking two blows that he might place one on that hated, grinning face before him. And Eudora, seated now in Jenks's corner, looked upon her work and saw that it was good; for first she had ravaged his body, and then she had drugged his brain.

The gong sounded; the men fought on. That clang meant nothing to Fox. He was fighting for something greater than a purse, than fame. The referee pried them apart and stepped between them. Fox reeled, blood-streaked, punch-drunk, to his corner.

"Good God!" sobbed Jim, sponging away the blood from Fox's battered face and heaving body. "He's gone—gone!"

Silence fell upon the Cosmo Sporting Club, a fitting prelude to the passing of a champion. The swirls of tobacco smoke formed themselves into a blue cloud that hung low, almost motionless, like a shroud, then disintegrated into swirls again at a sudden movement of the crowd. A hum of voices rose. For into the boundary of light came a girl—came running down the ribbon of the aisle from somewhere in the murk to Fox's corner.

"Molly!" gasped Jim. "Molly!"

She caught at Jim's sleeve, her white face drawn, her eyes, blue-rimmed by sleepless nights and tortured sleep that was worse than wakefulness, too bright.

"It's not too late, Jim?"

Fox opened his puffy eyes, rested them on Jim's averted face, then followed his manager's gaze—to Molly.

"Molly," he murmured. "Go away. You—you mustn't see—"

"Oh, Danny, Danny!" She reached through the ropes and laid her cold hands on Danny's hot neck. "Danny, you can win yet! You can, Danny!"

THROUGH those white arms life-blood seemed to flow to him. He raised his gloved hands to touch them.

"Molly, you—you—"

"You don't care—about her, Danny! You—you won't let that lose your fight." Her lips were at his ear. "I love you, Danny. I—I forgive you everything. Win for me, Danny—for Molly!"

He closed his eyes. There rose the gray-stone church; and in the shadows of its portals Danny Dorgan stood. A wide, grinning face towered above him; and at his side stood a little girl with soft brown hair and soft brown eyes—

"For Molly," she was pleading; "for Molly!"

The pierce of the gong shattered the weave of his dream. He rose, tottered, staggered out to meet the eager Jenks. A glancing blow caught him too high upon the head. He crumbled to the mat. Slowly, dazedly, he labored to his knees, his head sagging forward as if disjointed at the neck.

Jim Kelly, unashamed of tears, reached for the sponge. Molly caught his arm.

"Don't!" she quivered. "Watch!"

Fox was on his feet now, his body arch-bent, his fingers just touching the floor. And over him bent Sailor Jenks, waiting—

"I'm gonna throw it up," cried Jim. "I'm not gonna let—"

Molly clung to his arm. Her face was flushed now as with the sense of triumph. She alone, of all that breathless crowd, understood.

"Jim, don't you see?" she whispered. "I gave him back his brain! Look, Jim"—the words scaled to a shriek, muffled in her tightened throat—"look!"

Up swept Fox's body, up swept his left arm, up went Jenks's arms, high above his head. A dull thud as Fox's right fist struck the sailor's unprotected jaw. Jenks hunched forward, slid down Fox's body as down a slippery pole, and lay still.

For ten seconds Molly stood there at the ringside, watching the rising and falling hand of the referee as he tolled the blessed seconds. Then she turned, struggling through and against the boiling tide that surged toward the arena, to the exit and out into the night. Spring laid a cool palm on her burning cheeks; breathed softly upon the dank hair that curled from beneath her jammed-on hat. From the line of windows behind her tumult flung itself into the air.

A crowd of men and boys was clustered at the doorway.

"Who won?" they called to her. "Do yuh know who won?" "Who won th' fight?"

"Fox Dorgan," she called back. "Fox Dorgan won in th' seventh."

She hurried on. She was trembling; she strained her throat with sobs; but the heart within her sang.

"Fox Dorgan," it sang to her. "Fox Dorgan won—for Molly!"

THE EDITOR ANSWERS

"LIVING up to your ideals," says a friend of ours, "is like walking a tight-rope a hundred feet above the street. You have lots of good gresh air, and the admiring glances of many spectators. But the only way you can maintain your balance is to keep going straight ahead: attempt to stand still, or go backwards, or side-step, and you're lost."

And Still They Come

Dear Sir:

In your January 2 issue I noticed a photograph of Phil Norton, Jr., of whom you say, "the pride of Camp Lewis, American Lake, near Seattle." The camp is not near Seattle, but instead is just outside the city limits of Tacoma, and belongs to Tacoma, as Tacoma citizens had to vote to make it an army post city. And not only that, but soldiers from the camp are forbidden to enter the city of Seattle until they clean out the city.

Why not correct this, as fair to Tacoma?

A SUBSCRIBER, Tacoma, Washington.

The picture of Phil Norton, Jr., was sent to us by a Seattle correspondent, and we followed his advice in stating that Camp Lewis is "near Seattle." Apparently he sent the photograph with the purpose of stirring the peaceful citizens of Tacoma to angry protest: if so, his success should satisfy him. At the moment of going to press there are four Tacoma residents who have not written us, but we doubt not their letters are on the way.

We apologize to all the folks in Tacoma: we have just visited their city, and like it—just as much, indeed, as we like Seattle.

Who Has Something to Say?

Dear Editor:

What I like about your magazine is that it is so genuinely human. I feel as much interested in the things you publish as though they were written to me personally. Especially your contests. Will you ask some of your readers to write you on the subject, "How I Started in Business with a Small Capital?" I know of several people who need encouragement along this line, and I am soliciting your help in giving it to them.

G. H. B., New York.

Most of us want sometime to be in business for ourselves: and we are all interested to know how the other fellow managed it.

I'll be glad to print some letters on this subject, and to pay for them too. They must be very specific, however, with the kind of facts and figures and "dos" and "don'ts" that other people can use.

This is No. 107 on Our List

Dear Sir:

Where, or where, in this land of ours is there a barber shop where a man can go in and ask for a hair cut or shave, and get it without being asked whether he wants a face massage, hair tonic, shampoo, hair singe, head treatment, bath, or what not? The average man coming out of a barber shop is half convinced that he has but twenty minutes to live.

Can't you do something about it?

C. H. B., New Jersey.

We are sorry to report that this will have to take its regular place on our list of reforms that we intend to bring about. We are pledged next to wage a campaign against the waiters and waitresses of the world who ask "Coffee with the dinner?" but never, never serve it with the dinner.

Thank You

LATEST reports from the news-dealers are to the effect that we're going stronger at five cents than we did at three. For your loyal friendship that has made this possible, many, many thanks.

And so, good-by until next week.