One Minute with the Editor

We Answer a Civil Question

DO you mean to tell me," write a reader to whom we returned a photograph, "that this woman is not a Worth While Person?"

The photograph referred to was a snapshot of a woman prominent in reform activities, whose picture has been made almost as familiar to the readers of this country as that of Colonel Roosevelt or the Rheims Cathedral. To be sure she is "worth while"; but we are more interested in another kind of Worth While Folk.

We want to bring about a little change of emphasis in this matter of Worth While Folk; we would like to help get the idea across that there are other people in the world just as interesting as those forever shining ones who labor in the uplift or battle for the vote.

As an illustration here is William Vonberger, or "Little Billy," as he is affectionately called. You probably never heard of him before. He never speaks in meeting. But for years it has been "Little Billy's" job to save men and women from drowning—in one afternoon he rescued six. We count Mr. Vonberger "Worth While." We want more such pictures.

The other picture on this page has what we tern "human interest." It shows Master Rex Basslet of Wisconsin driving the only team of turtles in the world. Rex's father catches turtles as a business, and the six sturdy ones shown in this picture are trained to carry the little wagon at a speed of about a mile a day.

There you have two pretty good examples,—the bit of human interest, the sort of a thing you yourself would stop and look at, no matter how busy you are, and the obscure, everyday kind of Worth While Man. We want this magazine to teem with pictures of this sort. We hope that its weekly visits may serve as a continuing reminder that the world is full of human interest, and that even very ordinary people have extraordinary qualities if you train yourself to look.

Putting It Up to Dr. Lloyd

The question: Should I continue to work for a man whose business I do not respect? This is the Rev. Dr. Lloyd's answer

THERE are in every employment certain definite limits of responsibility. A young man came to me once and told me he could not conscientiously work longer for his employer, who conducted a mail order business, and owned hardly any of the articles he advertised. The young man felt that was not ethical and that is compromised him. So he was ready to throw up his job, and appealed to me to help him get another.

But in that particular case it was none of his business, and one of anyone's business, whether his employer owned the good he advertised or not. He was in position to get them, and did get them as they were ordered; and it was no one's business whether he had owned them five minutes or five years. The point of it is that this young man had set himself up to furnish a conscience for his employer, when all he needed was a conscience of his own.

It is not an uncommon thing for young people who are employed by older ones to set up false standards of judgement and condemn their employers thereby. In general they lack sufficient knowledge of all the facts.

You, my questioner, are employed in a clerical capacity. You know your own part of the business, and a little more. If your employer has never asked you to do a dishonest thing, and the business so far as you know it is conducted honestly, it would hardly be right to condemn it on account of the attack that you tell me in your letter has been made on it from outside. Perhaps the attack on it is justified; perhaps not. You do not give me information enough to make a specific judgement possible.

But this advice I can surely give you: Do your part righteously. Your relations are not with your employer's customers, but with him. Let your conscience control the quality of your work, and let him answer to God for the moral value of his work. Meantime have more of care than you would have if his business were one of unquestioned usefulness, and if you find that it is indeed an unworthy business, that he is deceiving his customers, taking their money and giving them no adequate return, then seek another occupation. Do not continue in any vocation that is not helping [?] so little, to made the world [?]

A New Job for the Motorcycle

LEAPING and pounding over the hard sand beach, exhaust rattling unmuffled, riders bent to the gale, the life-saving motorcycle dashes down the water's edge. Excited, gaping-mouthed people stand clustered at a point far down the beach. From beyond the life ropes comes a faint cry, the forlorn call of a fellow-being in distress. The bronzed riders, answering the signal flashed to them but a moment before, part the little group of helpless on-lookers—the rescue is on and Neptune is robbed of his prey!

It Saves a Life a Week

THIS is a frequently repeated drama at Redondo Beach in Southern California. A $500 investment in the form of a specially built and equipped tricar saved an average of more than a life a week during the winter season of 1914-15. The trained men who ride it can dash into tremendous ease at comparatively little risk to themselves, because they carry with them as part of their equipment a little tin buoy and a wire line to shore. Spent swimmers can be revived by the pulmotor carried on the tricar. Men who have been dashed against piers by great breakers are hurried to hospitals on the little machine. The motorcycle has found a new job.

The cycle used at Redondo is capable of developing a speed of sixty miles an hour. The attached side car has a body six feet long and fourteen inches wide. At one end, held by straps that button with snaps, is a cigar-shaped metal buoy which contains enough air to support two large men in the water. A large leather strap is fastened to the buoy itself, and this in turn buckles about the body of the life saver. A fine wire cable is carried on a hand reel or drum on the frame of the side car. It is very light and very strong, so that its 1,500 feet of length is neither bulky nor heavy. The end of the wire is fastened to the motorcycle.

Under the cover of the side-car box is a complete first-aid outfit, of which the pulmotor is, for this kind of rescue work, the most important piece of apparatus. Stimulants and bandages, antiseptics and soothing lotions, are carefully packed to withstand the wild rides that characterize the service.

Why You Forget to Mail Letters

If you forget to mail the letter your wife handed you, and she asks you why you forgot it, you will probably answer, "Oh, I just forgot, that was all." But that really isn't all. There is a reason for everything.

Scientists have already made great progress in the work of analyzing absentminedness, slips of the tongue, and other mental freaks, such as misplacing objects, [?] isting names about, false recognition, false steps, and the like. Professor Sigmund Freud of Vienna leads in this investigation. He has decided that absent-mindedness, twisted pronunciations, and [such?] things are really due to certain mental motives that have been suppressed [?] concealed by other trains of thought. For example, the husband takes the letter his wife hands him, places it in his pocket, and then forgets all about it. The underlying reason for this is that although it is a trifling service he really dislikes to be bothered with such a petty errand. If you were to tell him this, he would deny it, and think himself honest in making the denial. This proves Professor Freud's theory: that his forgetfulness is due to a concealed train of thought. Almost subconsciously the husband thinks, "Oh, bother! The letter might be dropped into the nearest letterbox by the maid. This will keep me worried trying to remember it."

The husband does not really become aware of this underlying thought. It merely flashes through his brain, and he forgets to mail the letter because of it. In other words, we are always inclined to tuck away into forgetfulness as far as possible all thoughts that are unpleasant.

They Live in the Air

GIRLS make their livings in all sorts of interesting professions that used to be reserved for men; but I make my living in the air, and I love it." says Katherine Stinson, the young woman aviator who is teaching the public school children of San Antonio, Texas, to fly. She has been giving talks on aviation to all the school children in the city, and one boy or girl from each school, chosen by their fellow students, is allowed to go up with her as a passenger.

"Since July, 1912," relates Miss Stinson, "when I came down from my first flight in Chicago, I have been absolutely sure that there could never be any other life for me, and I think I have proved that, with due precautions, flying can be made just as safe as grand opera or dressmaking.

"One needs cool nerves, of course, and, to begin with, some money; for a good biplane costs $5,000 or more, and no one wants to risk his life with any kind but the best. I bought a Wright machine, and have made to date 1,165 public flights without anything even approaching an accident. My sister Marjorie flies every day also. We expect to live as long as though we worked in an office; longer, in fact, because there is an exhilaration in flying that tunes the whole system to the highest pitch of good health.

"The prettiest place I have ever flown over is Alexandria, Minnesota. When I had risen there to a height of 2,000 feet I looked down over a landscape that was simply dotted with beautiful little lakes. From that height it looked as though the earth were inlaid with hundreds of crystal mirrors. You who think the earth is beautiful from a hilltop or a church steeple should see it spread out beneath you from an aëroplane!

"We have tried, Marjorie and I, to prove that flying isn't such a 'hazardous business,' provided one is reasonably careful. But of course even the most cautious person has an occasional bad half-hour. My worst time was at Menominee, Michigan, when a sudden fog blew up from the lake and enveloped me. For fifteen minutes I could see nothing beyond my fingertips, and there I hung motionless in the air, afraid to move either up or down. Fortunately the fog passed by and I could drop to earth; but I was covered with a fine white frost when I landed, as though a snow storm had blown across me.

My Worst Moment

"That was my most thrilling experience, perhaps; but I wasn't half so nervous as when, in Helena, Montana, Governor Stewart presented me with a wrist watch, and the crowd in the stands began to call 'Speech, speech!' You can believe that I spread my wings and escaped from that crowd as fast as they would carry me. Other girls may not feel the same way, but when it comes to flying 5,000 feet in the air, or having to stand up and face 5,000 people on the earth, give me my little biplane and the curtain of soft clouds every time!"

No Society Dogs in This Show

THIS summer there is to be a dog show where the dogs shall be judged not by pedigree or any arbitrary standard, but by their individual intelligence and courage. Instead of being rewarded for the glossiest coat, or the narrowest nose, or the stumpiest legs, the winners will be chosen because they have shown exceptional pluck and loyalty. It will be a kind of Carnegie hero dog show.

Among the many dogs that deserve recognition, Prince, the white Russian wolf hound belonging to Captain Henry of the Mercer street Police Station in New York, will be prominent. Patrolman Patterson and the Captain's dog were strolling along Eighth street, when they sighted a negro named Johnson, who was being hunted for burglary. The negro ran, slipped into a dark, narrow alley, and when the policeman swung round the corner struck him a blow on the jaw that felled him to the ground. Then Johnson ran on down the street. Suddenly out of the darkness Prince leaped upon the man's shoulders, bearing him to the pavement. When Patterson rushed to them a minute later he found Johnson huddled on the sidewalk and Prince standing over him. "Ah ain't much afraid o' de cops," Johnson said on the way to the station; "but when dey gits de bloodhoun's out a feller ain't got no chance."

Dooley, the Plucky Mongrel

DOOLEY too will be there. Time was when Dooley's chief occupation was dodging Brooklyn's poundmaster and small boys with stones and tin cans. But he won himself a home through the gratitude of Dr. Samuel Lieber and his family, whose lives he saved. Early one morning last fall Dooley, in search of breakfast, wandered into Dr. Lieber's house, and found the lower hall on fire. Scurrying upstairs, he barked loudly until the doctor opened his door. The hallway was full of smoke, and the flames rapidly mounted. Dooley bounded into the room, and tugged the covering from Mrs. Lieber's bed even before the doctor could reach her.

The Dog That Worsted a Bull

IN Denmark a man was going for a swim, but had undressed no farther than his shirt when he suddenly received a violent blow in his back and was hurled into the air. Unable to rise, as several ribs were broken, he turned to see a huge bull lowering his head for a second charge. Powerless, he could only watch the attack. But at that moment his bulldog flew at the animal's head, and gripped him by the nose. The bull tried to rub off the dog against the ground; but all effort was useless: the dog hung fast. Not till he had driven the beast out to sea did he relax. He was found lying on the beach just out of reach of the waves, his jaw smashed. The bull was standing far out, only his head showing above water, and so badly injured that he had to be shot. The dog, however, completely recovered.

A Cocker Coast Guard

SPORT, the little cocker-spaniel mascot of the Irene and Mary, will be at the show; for he saved the life of Mans Pierson, the missing sailor of the Arlington which went ashore at Long Beach. Then [?] Irene and Mary was cruising off the coast of Delaware. One morning the spaniel dashed to the windward rail, sniffed uneasily, then lifted his head and whined. Then to the other rail he ran, and back again, whining continually. The Captain could see nothing through the glasses but the dog refused to be calm. It was not until an hour afterward that the Captain spied Pierson standing on a rail and waving his shirt. The waves had carried him far away from the life saver lines at Long Beach. He swam to a bit of wreckage, and for twenty-seven hours had braced himself erect on it with a paddle, signaling in vain ship after ship, until the cocker spaniel discovered him.

Timber Companies Risk Millions On His Guess

THE hunter carries his rifle, the traveler his telescope and camera, the prospector his hammer; but Ike Gerard, whose picture is shown here, carries only an old wind-proof pipe and a greasy notebook. Ike is a timber cruiser, one of a band of heroic adventurers who traverse wild regions and overcome almost incredible difficulties. It is their business to "count the trees," as the phrase goes, before the lumbering gangs arrive. All alone, through the densest wilderness, Ike makes his solitary journeys, and when he emerges at the end of a week, or two weeks, or a month, it is to say to his employers, "Such and such a tract of woods has so many million feet of timber on it." And on Ike's estimate those to whom he reports invest thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands.

The photograph shows Ike with the Copper River and the gigantic Miles Glacier of Alaska as a background; but he is equally familiar with every tree of Hayti, or the Kongo, or the banks of the Amazon: he can tell with amazing accuracy how much each one will produce under the saw. He doesn't actually "count the trees"

of course: what he does is to cruise [?] back and forth in crisscross routes [?] noting the kind and the approximate [?] size of the growth. His estimate, [?] it prove more than five per cent faulty, may turn a profit for his employers into a loss.

He must travel light; which mea [?] ordinarily, no firearms. If he me [?] a grizzly in Eastern Washington, timber wolves in Alaska, or a mountain [?] lion, his safety will depend upon footwork and his courage.

Malted milk and chocolate ba [?] are important items on his me [?] whether he be in Quintana Roo hunting chicle trees for chewing gum, Santo Domingo seeking satinwood or among the cypress swamps Louisiana. His adventures would many books; and yet, strange as may seem, hardly ever has a timber cruiser met fatal injury, or failed find his way back to civilization, [?] of the uncharted wilds.

As for Ike, the flight of the birds, [?] the moss on trees and stones, trails of wild animals, all these signboards to point the way as distinctly as though every turn w [?] mapped and routed.

The Conspiracy

By JUSTUS MILES FORMAN

In the Westchester train Livingstone fell upon Aunt Arabella Crowley, bound for her country place, Red Rose. Aunt Arabella greeted him with great affection, then remembered her wrongs and berated him for having failed her a month since at a dinner party and thrown out the balance of her table.

"You and Mr. Jimmy Rogers," said she, "have no more sense of responsibility than a pair of Angora cats. A lot you care for the woes of a hostess! A lot you care about anything at all except playing an endless series of murderous practical jokes on each other!

"You take my word for it, my lad," said Aunt Arabella, wagging her white head amiably at the attentive Livingstone, "you take my word for it, the unwholesome passion that you and Jimmy Rogers mistake for a sense of humor will get you into jail one of these fine spring days! That sort of thing is ingrowing. You'll begin to think it's funny to dye Jimmy Rogers' hair green when he's asleep, and Jimmy Rogers will roar with delight at the idea of pushing you off an Atlantic liner to see how far you can swim. I advise you both to stop while you are still alive.

"And now what are you doing on this train? Where are you going?"

LIVINGSTONE, laying aside with some relief a hurt and reproachful air, explained that he was going to the St. Maurs' for a Friday-to-Monday. "Yes, of course I know today is Saturday; but I couldn't get away from New York until this morning. A very beautiful person from Boston was in town yesterday on her way to a wedding in Washington, and of course—"

"Of course," said Aunt Arabella Crowley. "I understand; but, if I may make so bold as to inquire, will Jessica Rogers understand? What?"

"She won't have to," said Livingstone cheerily. "That's all off, you know—months back. She couldn't put up with me at all. Jessica's engaged all over again now to a chap she met up in Canada at some winter sports,—man called Heathcote. Jimmy says he is a very good sort; but I haven't seen him yet. He's to be at the St. Maurs', I believe."

Mrs. Crowley shook a scandalized head, and began to declaim; but just then the train slowed down for her station, and she broke off to collect her parcels.

"Goodby, Gerald," she said, and may Heaven be with you—though I don't believe Heaven would ever enter a house that had both you and Jimmy Rogers in it! Be as good as you can, and don't let the Gentleman Burglar get you. The St. Maurs' place and mine are almost the I only ones in this part of the country that he hasn't yet set foot in. Give my love to Jessica Rogers, and tell her she's a heartless flirt, but well rid of the likes of you."

The kindly old lady left the train, shedding parcels at every step, and Livingstone settled back in his place with a morning paper that somebody had left behind.

ODDLY enough, the first item that caught his eye was a new exploit of the famous Gentleman Burglar, who had been, for something like three months now, terrorizing Westchester County. A house occupied by some people called Jarvis, and not more than five miles from the St. Maur place, had been entered at about one o'clock in the morning, and its chief portable treasures removed, while articles of less value had been scornfully thrown aside; for the Gentleman Burglar was something of a connoisseur, and if by any mischance he ever carried away anything not quite up to his standard, he invariably sent it back by post with a charming little note of regret. For example, he returned almost his entire "haul" of diamonds and pearls to the Branders family, politely offering an address in Paris where much better imitations could be had for very little money. And the letter got into the hands of the police too, and was published in every newspaper, to the rage and chagrin of the Branders family.

This sprightly gentleman seemed at last, however, to have got himself into rather warm water; for the Jarvises had laid a trap for him with a camera and a flashlight, and the newspaper that Gerald Livingstone held printed the photograph of a beardless young man, in evening dress and top bat, in the act of turning to leap out of an open window. Livingstone tore the picture out of the paper and stuck it into his pocket just as the train reached his station.

IT was raining, a slow, hopeless drizzle,and he found the St. Maurs and their baker's dozen of guests prowling unhappily about indoors. He greeted his friends with much pleasure, said he thought it would stop raining before noon (but it didn't), and in the billiard room was introduced to the one member of the company whom he did not know. It was remarked by St. Maur père that he gazed upon the pleasant young face of Copley Heatheote with his eyes popping out of his head like a frog's, and St. Maur père vaguely wondered why.

But half an hour later Livingstone fell upon Jimmy Rogers, and grasping that gentleman by the arm steered him firmly into a room apart and closed the door behind them.

"Why don't you say 'Hist!' and hold your finger to your lips?" inquired Rogers. You look exactly like the Third Conspirator. Well, what's your silly game now?"

"I pass over your insults," said Livingstone, "with magnanimous dignity and calm. I want to ask you some questions, and I have what seems to be an excellent reason for asking them. What do you know about Copley Heathcote?"

"Belated jealousy?"

"No," said Livingstone. "I'll explain presently. Tell me what you know about the man."

"Well then," said the irritated Rogers, "I know he's a dashed good sort—altogether too good for what Jessica is saving up for him. She'll never marry him, you know. That girl doesn't get engaged as a preliminary to the holy state: she gets engaged because she can't help it. It's a disease with her. I give Coppy Heathcote three months at the longest. Then—out!"

"Have you seen this morning's paper?" asked Livingstone.

"Yes—more or less. The Gentleman Burglar's at it again—those Jarvis people. Serves 'em right, I say."

Livingstone pulled out a fragment of torn newspaper and spread it before his friend's eyes without comment.

GOOD God!" cried Jimmy Rogers. "It's Heathcote! It's Coppy Heathcote!" He took the photograph to the light of a window and there examined it with care. "Of course it isn't," he said presently, and began to laugh; "but it's a very extraordinary resemblance. Look here! When did this particular robbery take place? Oh, yes, night before last. Where was Coppy that night? Why at the Carterets'. We all were,—Jessica and Coppy Heathcote and the Barnards and Wanda St. Maur and I. That let's Coppy out, doesn't it? That's what the lawyers call a perfectly good alibi."

"The Jarvis place," commented Livingstone, "is perhaps two miles from Tommy Carteret's. Am I right? And this robbery took place about one o'clock in the morning. What time did you all go to bed that night?"

Jimmy Rogers looked at him with a frown. "As a matter of fact," said he, "Heathcote went to bed about eleven, or perhaps half past, with a headache." He gave a sudden angry exclamation. "Are you seriously trying to accuse Coppy Heathcote of burglary? Are you?"

The light of excitement died from Livingstone's eye, and he laughed a little with a sound of embarrassment and apology. He said at once, "Oh, Lord, no! No, of course not. I didn't realize how that sounded. I apologize to everybody. It is odd, though, isn't it, how the whole thing fits together? The most whopping tragedies have been started on less evidence than that."

"Oh, yes, it's odd, right enough," conceded Jimmy Rogers, staring at his friend thoughtfully. He got up and began to walk back and forth across the room with his hands in his pockets, and once he laughed aloud and turned a bright eye upon the corner where Livingstone sat nursing his knee. Livingstone didn't like that laugh. He knew it too well; but he couldn't at all see how the chance resemblance of Copley Heathcote to a burglar could be utilized to bring shame and humiliation to himself, and so presently he

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went away to find his host and have a look at the stables.

BUT late that afternoon, when he had come in from a long tramp in the rain with Wanda St. Maur, and was enjoying his tea very much, Coppy Heathcote singled him out to talk to, and somewhat nervously, Livingstone thought, referred to the photograph in the morning paper. He laughed at the resemblance a little too hard, and explained two or three times over how he had had a severe headache that evening and was flat on his back in bed when the robbery was committed two miles away.

Livingstone tried to change the subject; but the other man couldn't seem to take his mind from the Jarvis robbery and how odd it was that the Gentleman Burglar should happen to look like himself, and Livingstone went up an hour later to dress with a little uncomfortable something at the back of his mind that he wouldn't confess, even to himself, to be a suspicion, but that made him scowl unhappily a good many times, and caused him to wish that Copley Heathcote had never left Canada.

AGAIN at the dinner table the subject of the Gentleman Burglar came up, and St. Maur père said he supposed he should be the next victim, as his house was almost the only one for miles about that had not been entered.

"I'm ready for the fellow, though," he said. "I've had a new safe built into the wall of the smoking room that only dynamite can open once it's locked. It's not a big safe; but there's room in it for all the crown jewels of the St. Maur family, and for everybody else's jewels too. So I advise you ladies to turn your valuables over to me when you go to bed tonight and let me lock 'em up."

"Oh, yes!" said Mrs. St. Maur plaintively. "For Heaven's sake do give them to Johnny! If I thought you were leaving them about, I shouldn't sleep a wink—not a wink! That dreadful burglar will be the death of me yet, in an institution for the insane! I dream the most horrible dreams about him at least once a week. Johnny, I do hope your safe is safe! If that man gets my pearls, I shall drown myself—I promise you!"

"If he gets your pearls," said her lord grimly, "I shall drown myself too."

The pearls they spoke of were a long and excessively magnificent rope that Mrs. St. Maur (heedless of her husband's wails) had bought at Christie's in London when the famous jewels of a certain infamous nobleman were sold at public auction, and it was believed to be one of the three or four finest strings of matched pearls in existence.

It occurred to Livingstone that this conversation was hardly calculated to quiet the nerves of six young women; but they were all very sporting about it, and, after having promised to give up their chief articles of adornment for safe keeping, began to make wagers that the Gentleman Burglar would or would not visit the house in the course of their stay there.

One of the women said she was dying with curiosity to see what this remarkable person looked like; but that was a little too much for the others, who declared themselves able to do quite well without him. Livingstone caught the eye of Heathcote across the table, and that young man began to talk very fast and rather vacantly to his neighbor.

Jimmy Rogers said, "Wouldn't it be spiffing if the fellow turned out to be really a gentleman burglar? I suppose there have been such creatures even outside the works of fiction. Wouldn't it be jolly if he turned out to be one of us here—me, for example, or Jerry?"

He grinned down the table at his friend as if he expected Livingstone to take up his challenge; but Livingstone saw, across from him, young Coppy Heathcote's face turn suddenly grave and rigid, and he thought pale. Once more he met that gentleman's eyes, and they seemed to be making a silent appeal to him.

"It might be you," he replied to Jimmy Rogers. "It couldn't be me, because everybody knows I'm too fond of my sleep. My own opinion is that the Gentleman Burglar is a lady."

That struck everybody as a very interesting and valuable suggestion, and they debated over it with much spirit; but Livingstone took little part in the discussion. The fear and appeal in young Heathcote's eyes remained before him and couldn't be put away. He rose at last from the table with a heavy weight upon his mind.

AFTER dinner Wanda St. Maur, having first radically altered her attire, performed a series of very modern dances, which her guests politely assured her were devilish beyond description and had made them gasp within an inch of their lives. And after that most of the company settled down at bridge or at pool. But Jessica Rogers and Livingstone found themselves together in a secluded corner and began to indulge in pleasant reminiscence.

At the end of perhaps a quarter of an hour of this Livingstone, who, despite the weight on his mind, had been having a very good time indeed, observed with cold horror that a tear was making its way down Miss Rogers' cheek, and that her hand, when she tried to smuggle the tear out of sight, was trembling violently.

"Good Lord!" cried Livingstone. "Whatever is the matter with you?" He wriggled unhappily about in his chair. "I say!" said he. "Look here, you know! I—you mustn't do that! Great Heavens! What is it? What's wrong?"

She looked up at him, and then quickly away again so that her face was hidden. "I'm not very happy, Jerry," said she. "That's what is wrong. I'm just not very happy. I'm horribly afraid about something."

Livingstone's mind flew instantly to that photograph in the yellow newspaper and to his talk with Miss Rogers' brother. "Is it," he asked with some hesitation, "is it anything Jimmy knows about?"

But she shook her head. "Good gracious, no! I should think not! And he mustn't know—ever! Nobody must know—unless—oh, Jerry dear, I'm sorry to have acted like a fool! It just—came on me for an instant—and I used to run to you with all my troubles, and—well, I can't run to you with this one. Probably it isn't a trouble at all, anyhow. Probably I'm quite wrong about it. But I'm afraid, dreadfully afraid, all through and through."

"Poor old Jess!" said Livingstone sorrowfully. "I wish I could help. Look here! Can't you go to Heathcote?"

But at that name the girl caught him almost violently by the arm, and held him with both hands. "Oh no, Jerry! Never! He's the very last one in the world I could—he's just the—" She let go of Livingstone's arm abruptly, and got to her feet. "I've been a silly little fool," she said with a kind of impatient anger. "I ought to have kept still altogether; for I can't tell you anything—neither you nor anyone. It got too much for me all in an instant and—and spilled over. Don't you go worrying about me, Jerry. I shall be all right; at least I hope so. Anyhow, nobody can help me. Now I'll just slip upstairs and mop my eyes with cold water before anyone notices. Oh, deary me! Jess, my good woman, what a fool you are!"

She fled from him toward the stairs, and Livingstone stood looking after her with honest grief at his heart.

"Poor old Jess!" he said to himself. "She has found out something—or at least she's afraid she has. I wonder how much she knows?" And in the silence of his soul he cursed young Coppy Heathcote with a vindictive virulence which would have taken away that genial gentleman's breath if the words had been audible.

HE wandered out into the billiard room, and so to the big, comfortable smoking lounge beyond, where he found Coppy Heathcote making a great hit before some of the other men with sleight-of-hand tricks. They had found somewhere an old pair of handcuffs, and Heathcote was proving that a man of flexible and adroit hands could rid himself of these ornaments in something less than a minute.

Livingstone looked on in morose silence, but once roused himself to say, "That peculiar skill might be very useful to you one of these days."

Coppy Heathcote, who seemed a little flushed with his success, turned his head and laughed a rather insolent laugh. He made no answer in words; but his eyes were bright and mocking and defiant. He seemed to be a young man of moods; for the nervousness and fear and appeal had gone from him completely.

Jimmy Rogers came over and sat down beside his friend. He looked a little ill at ease and cross. "Odd exhibition, that!" said he, nodding his head toward the group in the center of the room. "You know, if I looked as much like a certain burglar as my future brother-in-law does, I think I shouldn't show everybody how skilfully I could get out of handcuffs."

"It's the confidence of virginal innocence," said Livingstone; but his tone must have betrayed some feeling, for Jimmy Rogers turned and stared at him oddly and gave a short laugh.

The bridgers came trooping into the room presently, saying that the ladies had gone upstairs, and demanding drink and tobacco. Then, half an hour later, St. Maur père appeared with a collection of small parcels under his arm. He nodded cheerily to Livingstone as he passed, and said:

"Locking up the pretty stones. Come see my safe?"

LIVINGSTONE said he would, and followed the elder man across the room. The door of the safe was imperfectly concealed behind a Chinese screen; but was in itself inconspicuous because the steel surface had been bronzed to exactly the dull gold tone of the wall. There was the usual little metal knob, with an indicator and a surrounding circle of numbers.

St. Maur laid the little silk bags of jewelry on the floor and began to twiddle the combination lock, to which he was evidently new and unaccustomed.

"Let me see!" he said. "Two—five—three back—two on—five—three. There we are!" The door of the safe swung heavily open, showing its tremendous thickness and the elaborate mechanism of bolts and bars.

"How's that for strength, eh?" boasted St. Maur père. "No burglar's going to get into that without some trouble." He put the half-dozen little bags of jewels into the open center compartment, and then took from his coat pocket Mrs. St. Maur's long string of beautiful pearls, which he laid on top of the others. Then he pushed the door shut upon them, and shot the series of bolts into their sockets.

As the two men turned back into the room they became aware of Coppy Heathcote standing just behind them.

"Hello!" said the host a little nervously. "You gave me quite a turn, my boy. I didn't know you were there."

"I'd only just arrived," said Heathcote with a pleasant smile. "That's a very strong-looking safe. You know I'm interested in safes."

"Safes and handcuffs!" observed Livingstone.

"Yes," said the other man, laughing, "safes and handcuffs. I wish I were as good at safes as at wristlets. I should be rich."

Livingstone looked surprised. "Oh, aren't you rich?" he asked. "Well, patience, patience! 'Every little bit added to what you've got makes just a little bit more.'"

The Canadian laughed again, and Livingstone said to his host that he was sleepy and was going to bed.

"Wanda nearly did for me this afternoon," he explained. "One more walk like that, and I should never walk again—not in this world!"

St. Maur went with him to the foot of the stairs, which was as far as Livingstone would allow, and cautioned him to sleep well, but to wake up and make a row if he heard the house being burgled in the night. "If they try to hack my new safe open," said he, "you'll be sure to hear them—or him, if he works alone. You're just overhead, you know."

So Livingstone promised not to hide under the bed clothes if he heard a noise, and went on up the stairs.

ABOUT twenty minutes later, at the end of a period devoted to pacing up and down his room in some perturbation of spirit, he became aware in taking off his coat that he had left his cigarette case below in the smoking room. As it was as pet cigarette case and possessed very sentimental associations, he put his coat on again and went back downstairs to rescue it. He had expected that most of the men would still be about; but he knew that the women had gone up long since, and so halted abruptly outside the smoking room door at the sound of very feminine voices and laughter from within. Jessica Rogers was speaking.

"—and I wept," said she. "I give you, my word, everybody, I squeezed out a tear! You wouldn't think I could do it, would you? No! Poor old Jerry! It was rather low to cry on him—though no lower than he has been, Heaven knows! And it worked! My dears! didn't it work, just? By the time I left the man he was perfectly convinced that Coppy was the most dreadful villain unhung.

"Prolonged laughter," as the newspaper reports have it.

Outside the door Livingstone's face turned slowly a rich royal purple. He lifted his fists in the air and shook them violently. He looked very like indeed to a young man on the verge of apoplexy; but after an instant the height of danger seemed to pass, and he stood still to listen. He heard Coppy Heathcote's laugh and his high voice.

"By Jove! You should have seen him glower at me later on. Oh, he's hooked right enough. If we can only land him now!"

"More laughing," as the newspaper say. Livingstone heard Jimmy Rogers' voice speaking very slowly and carefully as one who gives important directions, and once or twice his host's—St. Maur's—tones, rather hesitant and ill at ease.

"Well—I don't know. In my house I don't quite like—"

Then Jimmy Rogers again, protesting shrilly that to score on Gerald Livingston was to perform a public service, and that anyone who shrank from such an act was a traitor to his country.

Livingstone listened for nearly ten minutes, and when he had heard all that it was necessary for him to know, turned an slipped quietly upstairs again, where once more he paced slowly up and down an seemed to be buried in anxious thought.

TEN minutes later Jimmy Rogers knocked at the door and came in once without waiting for permission "Hello!" said he suspiciously. "I thought you'd gone to bed long since. What you doing up and dressed?"

"I fell asleep in a chair," said his friend. "What d'you mean by waking me up?"

Jimmy Rogers laid a large weapon on the bed, a Colt automatic pistol, which, he explained, their host had asked him to bring in. "He's passing them out like bedroom candles. 'Just before the battle Mother'—that sort of thing. They're to kill burglars with, I believe. When you hear noises you run out and shoot the other guests or the servants. That all. Goo'night. I'm off."

Livingstone picked up the formidable weapon and opened the magazine. "Blanks!" said he. "I thought so." He waited half an hour to give the servants time to lock up below and retire to their own part of the house, then, without his shoes, he slipped out and down the stairs. The house was dark and no one about; but in the big smoking room the embers of the evening's fire, crumbling between the andirons, filled the place with a dim red glow—all the illumination he needed. In five minutes more he was safely back in his room, and there he permitted himself to laugh before settling down in a

---

comfortable chair for the further wait that was before him.

TWO o'clock sharp was the hour he had heard set for his undoing. At three minutes before two he began to listen with great care, and at exactly three minutes past he heard from below the sound of a heavy piece of furniture overturned as if by accident, and a faint tinkle of broken glass (the latter a frugal fruit jar smashed in the stone fireplace).

Livingstone, clutching his trusty weapon, ran swiftly down the stairs, and halted at the door of the smoking room. The red glow from the fireplace was still sufficient to see by, and in its light he perceived the slim figure of Coppy Heathcote standing in the center of the room as if waiting for somebody.

Livingstone fired two of his blank cartridges—they made a prodigious roar in that empty room—and sprang forward. The other man had turned as if to run; but Livingstone caught him with a sort of flying tackle before he had taken a step,

and slammed him to the floor with a crash which must have made that gentleman see more stars than exist in the firmament. He gave forth a hollow sound as his assailant's weight came down on him, and struggled a little, but as it were perfunctorily, and after a moment lay quite still.

There came from above shouts and cries in many voices, and the sound of running feet on the stairs. Then the electric lights flashed on about the room, and people came pouring in. Oddly enough they were all dressed exactly as they had been two hours before. And that should have seemed very odd to Livingtone; but it didn't. At least he made no comment on it.

ST. MAUR père, who looked somewhat sheepish and guilty, came forward across the room, and Jimmy Rogers, who did not look sheepish at all, but very triumphant, came with him. Behind these two the others of the company stood huddled in a group, and bursts of smothered laughter came from them.

"Have you—have you got him?" asked St. Maur père, who seemed a little uncertain of his role.

"Oh, yes," said Livingstone. "Yes, here he is. Give us a hand to turn him over, will you? I shot him twice and then held him down here in case he was still alive."

Jimmy Rogers burst into a guffaw and began to do a little dance step, and from the group near the door there came a weak scream of joy in a tone vaguely reminiscent of his sister's less controlled moments. But Livingstone, who seemed to have no ear for what went on about him, got to his feet and dragged his quarry after him.

"It seems to be Mr. Heathcote," said he, "and I own I am not altogether surprised."

Then the others came forward and stood about him. They laughed and laughed and laughed as if they would never have done. The men held their sides and made explosive noises, and the women laid their heads on one another's shoulders and screamed. Jimmy Rogers sat down because it hurt him to laugh standing. Even Coppy Heathcote, sore and bruised as he was, burst into a sort of giggle like a little girl. Livingstone looked round him gravely and waited.

"Now," said Jimmy Rogers when at last he could speak, "now will you admit that we've done you—fairly and beautifully and completely done you? Now will you be good?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand," said Livingstone with great patience, and the voice of his ex-fiancée was heard to exclaim:

"The assurance of that man is stupendous, colossal, unique! Like what's-his-name in the history books, he doesn't even know when he's beaten."

And St. Maur père patted him on the arm. "Our friend Rogers," said he, "seemed to feel that he owed you a bad turn for many injuries received but not paid for. I expect you'll have to own up he's even now—eh—what?"

LIVINGSTONE sighed and shook his head. "There seems," said he, "to be a slight misunderstanding. Oh, of course I know all about your little joke. Very pretty, very pretty! Cooked-up robbery, tears from Jessica R., blank cartridges, all that sort of thing. That's all very well, and you've had your laugh, and that's all very well. But you see you made just one mistake. You picked a real burglar to play sham burglar for you." He pointed an accusing finger toward Miss Rogers' fiancé. "Mr. Heathcote," said he, "is the Gentleman Burglar, as I've suspected ever since I saw him this morning."

The accused gentleman emitted a brief laugh of derision, and Jimmy Rogers said:

"Oh, don't be an ass, Jerry! You're a rotten bad loser. Admit you're done, and let's have an end of it."

Even his host ventured upon a mild and fatherly protest. "I say, isn't this—oh—I mean to say, you know—going a bit too far. What?"

"Keep your hands down!" cried Livingstone with a sudden sharpness, and took a step toward where Coppy Heathcote stood a short distance away.

Heathcote obeyed mechanically; but the confident and amused smile died from his lips, and an odd, greenish pallor began to creep across his face.

Livingstone, without stirring his eyes from the figure of the man he had accused, spoke to his host. "It seemed to me when I came down here a short time ago that something looked wrong about the door of your safe, and this gentleman was standing nearby. Would you mind having a look, just to make sure?"

Coppy Heathcote cried, "Oh, rubbish! Don't you know when a joke is over?"

And there were murmurs from some of the others of the company as well. But a few who were there noted that Heathcote's face was wet and shining under the bright light of the overhead electrics, and that his hands were moving and twisting beside him.

"Well, of course," said St. Maur père, "if you insist. It seems perhaps a little insulting—I don't quite like—very odd, you know." He moved toward the safe in the wall, laughing an embarrassed laugh as he went; but abruptly they heard him utter a loud cry, for the safe door stood an inch ajar. St. Maur père pulled it open and thrust in his hand.

"Good God!" he cried out. "It's empty! The safe is empty!"

SOME of the others ran to look, and Mrs. St. Maur could be heard screaming about her rope of pearls; but Livingstone stood where he was, his eyes fixed upon Coppy Heathcote, who was as white as death and whose hands rose spasmodically at intervals toward his breast and dropped again.

"It must have been done," gasped St. Maur père, "after we went to bed and—and before Heathcote came down. No! Confound it, that safe couldn't be opened without explosives! There's not a soul alive but myself that knew the combination." He broke into a sort of whimper, staring about him into the circle of shocked faces.

"The Gentleman Burglar," said Livingstone, "seems oddly concerned about his left-hand coat pocket—the inside pocket—No, you don't! Keep your hands down, please!—Will somebody relieve him of his anxiety? Will you, St. Maur?"

"Oh, no, no!" said his host nervously. "No! I couldn't possibly search a guest's pockets. That's—I couldn't do that."

"Will you, Jimmy?" demanded the accuser.

And Jimmy Rogers said at once, "Of course I will—just to teach you not to be a forsaken ass. No offense, Heathcote." He stepped up to the other man, slipped a hand into the left-hand inner pocket of his dress coat, and stood staring, with Mrs. St Maur's rope of pearls in his hand.

One of the women screamed, and Coppy Heathcote broke out in a kind of sob:

"Good God! I didn't know the wretched thing was there. I didn't steal it. I don't know how it came there. Livingstone, for Heaven's sake—"

"And now," said Livingstone, "having already lost an hour of perfectly good sleep, I think I shall go to bed. Goodnight, everybody, and sweet dreams!" He walked smiling through that silent, white-faced little throng and mounted the stairs to his room.

JIMMY ROGERS came to him there a few moments later, sat down on the bed, and took his head between his hands.

"Great Heavens, Jerry!" said he. "This thing is awful, awful! I can't believe it's true. I don't know what to think."

"Think of your sins," counseled Livingstone. "Think of your sins against me, and repent of them, and pray to be made a better Christian. Your little joke seems to have gone wrong this time, doesn't it?"

"Oh, Lord, yes!" groaned Jimmy Rogers. "I should rather think so!"

"Then you admit," his friend pressed him, "you admit that you lose and I win? You admit that?"

"I admit it," said Jimmy Rogers bitterly. "You win, confound you! You win!"

"In that case," said his friend, "I don't mind telling you that Heathcote didn't steal those pearls or anything else. I opened the safe and stole them myself, before he ever went downstairs, and I slipped them into his pocket when I had him on the floor. Here are the other things. You can take them to St. Maur if you like. Oh, and you might tell Mr. Coppy Heathcote that I wouldn't have gone so far with the thing if he hadn't been cheeky. He doesn't know me well enough to help my friends play jokes on me. That's all. Goodnight!"

Women in Business for Themselves

By EDWARD MOTT WOOLLEY

ABOUT a dozen years ago a girl of sixteen faced the necessity of earning money. Her name was Mary Elizabeth Evans, and she lived at Syracuse, New York, with her mother, grandmother, and two sisters. The father was dead, and the mortgage had been foreclosed.

So Mary Elizabeth and her sisters Martha and Fannie began to make molasses candy and taffy candy and wrap it in white paper, fastened with gold stickers. They canvassed Syracuse, charging forty and fifty cents a pound. Then they established a stand at Syracuse University; but, having no money for an attendant, they simply left the candy on the counter and trusted customers to leave the money. This stand made a hit.

But when the summer came the profits took a drop. Then Mary Elizabeth said to her sisters:

"Why not take our candy up to the summer resorts?"

"Who'll pay the expense!" they asked.

Mary Elizabeth went out to borrow sixty-five dollars for this enterprise; but half a dozen persons refused her. With persistence she finally did borrow the sum through a money lender. Then she took her first trip in a Pullman car and went to Loon Lake, in the Adirondacks.

Provided with a good stock of samples, made by the three girls in the little kitchen at home, Mary Elizabeth now proceeded to canvass the guests at the summer hotels. Her salesmanship was rather remarkable; for she got an order from every guest she called on. The price was raised too, and the candy placed on sale at the hotel stands.

Salesmanship the Secret

DURING that summer and the following winter the three girls and their mother worked long hours making and selling the candy. The business grew, and two little cottages were now occupied instead of one. The Evans girls were the pushing sort, and their salesmanship never rested. They went out and sold their product with all the energy of a big business house. Every person in Syracuse was a possible customer, and they didn't wait for buyers to come to them. They went after the people. Every night their stock was exhausted, and Mary Elizabeth, who took the lead, came to be synonymous in Syracuse with candy.

The next summer Mary Elizabeth went to Newport, and with the winter's surplus profits opened a tiny shop, catering to the exclusive summer colony. Then another small shop was started in Boston. These girls kept everlastingly moving, you see.

The Evans family moved to Boston, and for awhile that was headquarters. Then Mary Elizabeth got a firm grip on her courage and went to New York. That was five years ago.

Today there are Mary Elizabeth stores in New York, Boston, Newport, and Bermuda. One of the Fifth avenue stores in New York, which includes a tearoom, pays a rental close to fifty thousand dollars a year.

Hotels On an Efficiency Basis

MEANWHILE (to tell another story) Miss Anna Maud Gillan and Miss Louise Edwards were occupying a joint apartment in Brooklyn and working in New York. They decided to live over in New York proper, and when looking for quarters ran across the Nicholas Fish mansion on Irving Place. It was vacant, unfurnished, and the rent was three hundred dollars a month.

That was the beginning of their impulse in 1903 to go into the hotel business. They rented the place and put all their savings, about one thousand dollars, into furnishings. Then they borrowed another thousand, and no doubt bought things on instalments. Miss Gillan, who came from Evanston, Indiana, had been working for a piano house in New York. Miss Edwards was with the Bureau of Charities. She was a Brooklyn girl. They resigned their positions and started out boldly.

Now these young women had ideas as to what a hotel should be. Wood fires crackled dreamily; antiques and oriental rugs were in evidence; dainty hangings were at the windows; and special stress was laid on the service. Soon they had a waiting list, and their guests included such people as O. Henry and the present Ambassador to Great Britain, Walter H. Page. Meals were served, and an original conceit was "breakfast in your rooms."

For five years all the profits went into furnishings, and often the young women were hard pressed for ready cash. But they maintained their standards. Finally, after some specially serious difficulties in meeting bills and buying furniture, they held a council and determined on an efficiency campaign. Without altering their scope, they cut down wastes. And then followed financial success.

Today this firm of Gillen & Edwards is managing several hotel enterprises, either of its own or for others. The partners disposed of the hotel where they started. One of their own enterprises is a large summer hotel at Glen Cove, Long Island, operated on the American plan, without liquors. It is said to clear five or six thousand dollars a season. They also manage the Forest Hills Inn on Long Island.

Founded by a Woman

THERE was a Chilean girl named Alice Guy, whose father was a publisher at Valparaiso. An earthquake ruined him, and he died. Then Alice Guy went to Paris to live, with her mother and sister.

When she was sixteen she studied stenography, and got work in the office of Guzamont & Co., Paris, producers of motion pictures. She became secretary to Guzamont, and one day said to him:

"I don't like these pictures of trains and fire departments. Let me produce some of the French short stories."

Ultimately she produced for him "The Passion Play" and "Esmeralda," and drew a salary of one thousand francs a month. Then she married Herbert Blache and came with him to New York, where he represented Guzamont & Co.

Now Madame Blache had that spirit of enterprise that gave her courage and impulse to work. She made a careful study of the motion picture field in America, and asked, "Why can't I produce pictures here on my own account?"

She looked around, and at Flushing, Long Island, she found a building that would answer for a studio. She rented it. She and her husband had ten thousand dollars between them, saved from their salaries, and this became the capital of Madame Blache in founding the Solax Company in 1909.

Blache still held his position. "I will manage this enterprise," said his wife. She went to work with vast energy. First she studied her possible material, and read far into the night. Then she wrote her own scenarios and produced such pictures as "Fra Diavolo," "Carmen," Poe's "Pit and the Pendulum," and "Dick Whittington and His Cat."

The capital proved sufficient; for the profits piled up fast. Three years ago the plant was moved to Fort Lee, New Jersey, and it is now a half-million-dollar enterprise. Madame Blache's productions often cost twenty thousand dollars. The company's net profits are reputed to range between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars a month.

Not Afraid to Borrow Money

OF quite a different type is Miss Elizabeth Marbury, play broker.

Once she was secretary to Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, and when "Little Lord Fauntleroy" made a hit on the stage she decided to try placing plays herself. She rented a small office on West 24th street New York City, at fifteen dollars a month. Through her friends she got author's manuscripts and went out to place them. She read, criticized, and often rewrote whole plays, and made them acceptable to producers.

"I am not intellectual," she says. "I am merely intelligent. I have an imagination and some horse sense. Not always do I take the advice of my friends. If they advise me to do a thing, I quake in my boots. I believe in independence, and I am not afraid to borrow money."

Her friends advised her against opening offices in Paris and London; but she made a great success over there.

One of her early achievements was the placing of Hall Caine's "The Christian." Some of the plays she placed brought in two thousand dollars a night. A broker usually gets from five to ten per cent.

Success breeds success, and some of the plays handled by Miss Marbury been "Diplomacy," "Rosemary," "Lady Windermere's Fan," "In the Palace of the King," "The Eternal City," "The Masked Ball," "Under the Red Robe," and "Barbara Frietchie."

Recently Miss Marbury helped form an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar merger of play brokers, thus organizing the American Play Company, which is said to net eight thousand dollars a month.

Her friends say that knowledge of the play business and her independence of character have made her so successful. When she sees an opportunity she goes after it, and dares to stake her money.

She Trains Secretaries

NOT far from Miss Marbury's office in New York is the office of Mrs. Virginia Wheat, who lives at Elizabeth, New Jersey. Six years ago she was left a widow and took a course in a school for secretaries. There were some things about this school that did not please her, and she impressed her ideas on the management so strongly that she was employed there at eighteen dollars a week to put some of them into effect. In two monnths she was getting fifty dollars as week superintendent. In three years she resigned, and with some financial help started a school for secretaries on her own account. The capital at the start was two thousand dollars, and at the end of the first year she had paid all her debts and had two thousand dollars in the bank.

She now has two hundred students.

Who Was Marie Dupont

By ADELE LUEHRMANN

CHAPTER VI (Continued)

GUY AMARINTH started violently. Gavock gaped at Marie in stupefied astonishment.

"You are! I'm sure you are!" she declared laughingly. "I was getting out of the car, and you somehow stumbled and fell back against the door. You stepped on my gown, or thought you did, and you apologized in French, and I didn't understand, and you repeated it in English!"

Amarinth had swallowed hard several times. His face had reddened, then gone white. He watched Gavock, waiting for him to speak.

Gavock regained his composure with an effort. He felt Amarinth's gaze challenging his; but he forcibly held his eyes on the girl.

"Oh," she murmured with a change of tone, "perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it. But it was so amusing. I didn't think you'd mind."

"He doesn't mind," Amarinth cut in sharply. "He thought it amusing too. He told me about it tonight at dinner. He said that when he spoke to you first in French you answered him in French. He was positive about it!"

"I was mistaken," Gavock said quickly to the girl. "In my embarrassment I misunderstood you."

"You must have. I don't speak French at all."

"But he was not only positive about the French, he was positive he had seen you before—in Europe—in Paris, probably."

"I was mistaken about that also," Gavock said. "Your face was very familiar, or seemed so, and I told Guy all that he says I did. But since seeing you again I have recalled the person whom you so strongly resemble. You cannot be that person; for she is dead."

"Dead!" cried Amarinth.

"Dead," said Gavock. "She died in Paris seven years ago."

At that moment Sybil Lowther, dancing by, stopped and called out to Gavock, "Supper is on, and I'm starving!"

Gavock wheeled toward her with a sigh of relief. "I'm ready if you are," he said.

Miss Lowther dismissed her partner and took Gavock's arm. He turned and murmured a word of excuse to Marie and Guy. They nodded mechanically.

WHO is this Mr. Gavock?" Marie asked, looking after him.

Guy did not answer. He was watching her with a side glance as she stared after Gavock.

"Who is he?" she repeated.

"He's an old friend of my father's, over here on business. He lives abroad—has lived there for twenty years—in Paris."

She turned her head, and at sight of his face drew back with a frightened cry. "Why do you look at me like that?" she exclaimed.

"Why do you look at me like that?" he returned.

His eyes bored into hers. She stared back shrinkingly a moment, then looked away. "There's Aunt Alicia!" she cried, and started forward.

He caught her hand and held it with a grip that made her wince. "Wait! You can go to her afterward. I want to—to ask you something."

He led her down the corridor, back to the little room that had already witnessed one chapter of their common history.

Neither spoke. She tried to draw her hand from the painful clutch of his fingers; but he would not release it until they were in the room, his back against the curtained doorway. Then he let her go.

SHE stretched the fingers, discolored by his pressure, and looked up at him. "What's the matter?" she faltered.

"There's this the matter!" he answered slowly. "I've got to know where you and Roger Gavock met before. I've got to know!"

"Why, we've never met! I saw him this afternoon—"

"I don't mean that: I mean before."

"We've never met before!"

"Will you swear that—on your honor?"

"Guy, don't look at me like that! Why should I swear? I tell you that I never saw Mr. Gavock until this afternoon. Isn't my word enough? What do you mean? I don't understand."

"I've got to know the truth about this thing, Marie. You're my wife, and I've got to know. Gavock told me that he had seen you before—that he couldn't be mistaken—couldn't be!"

"But he has said since that he was. He said the person he took me for is dead—that she died in Paris seven—Ah!" She ended with a sharp cry as of sudden enlightenment.

"What's the matter? he demanded.

She stared at him a moment, wild-eyed. "Whom did he tell you he thought I was?" she gasped out.

"He didn't tell me—he couldn't remember."

"But he told you something—something that—horrified you!"

He was silent.

She caught her breath sharply and began to measure the brief length of tin. room with quick, nervous steps, clasping and unclasping her hands. He watched her dumbly.

"Listen!" she said, wheeling suddenly. "There is something I ought to have told you before I married you. It was wrong not to speak; but—but I love you so—I was afraid—I didn't know what you would think—I was afraid of losing you."

She threw out her hands in a tragic gesture of appeal; but he recoiled from her, his face set in a mask of horror.

"Don't look at me like that!" she begged. "I tried to be honest with you—I put you off months and months—you know I did! I knew I'd have to tell you, and I— Then tonight when you urged me so—and you had the license—I thought that if I told you afterward—" She broke into a piteous moan.

"Told me—what?" he asked in a hard voice.

"Oh don't, Guy—don't speak to me like that! You said you loved me more than anything in the world. You've promised to love and protect me—I'm your wife—"

"Told me what?" he repeated.

She shrank together at his tone. Her own face hardened. "There is someone who can tell you better than I can what—there is to tell. Ask Hugh."

"Hugh Senior! What can he tell me about you that you can't tell yourself?"

"Go to him tomorrow morning—"

TOMORROW—tomorrow—" He jerked out the words, staring ahead unseeingly as thoughts raced through his mind. "You are my wife," he said abruptly. "I promised to protect you—and I will. Will you obey me, as you promised?"

"I will do anything you ask me to."

"Then you are to tell no one of our marriage, not even Mrs. Thorley. And you are not to tell Hugh Senior—above all. Do you promise?"

She hesitated. "I don't understand," she murmured doubtfully.

"Never mind that. Remember you promised to obey."

"I won't tell him. I won't tell anyone."

"Tell them that I asked you to marry me—that's all."

She nodded, her white, drawn face raised to his. "You don't love me! You never loved me!" she said.

The stricken look in her eyes moved him at last. Impetuously he swept her into his arms. "I do love you! Marie, tell me that it isn't anything that could separate us!"

She shivered. "I don't know—I don't

What Does Fifth Avenue Say About Summer Clothes?

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know what could separate us," she answered dully.

"It couldn't be—it couldn't! Tell me what it is. I love you. I only want to know what any man must be sure of about his—wife!"

She drew herself away from his embrace. "I must go to my aunt. I want to go home."

Home! The word struck painfully on his ear. She was his wife—her home was with him!

"Please tell my aunt that I want to go," she said.

He found Mrs. Thorley in the ballroom, and then made his way to the supper room. From the doorway he located Gavock and Sybil Lowther at a distant table, and turned frowningly away again.

"I'll get the truth if I have to choke it out of him!" he promised himself. "He was lying tonight—lying!"

CHAPTER VII

MRS. THORLEY sank back against the cushions of her limousine with an involuntary sigh of relief. Silently she watched the face of the girl beside her as the street lamps and flashes from passing motors threw it into view. A worried frown deepened between her eyes.

Suddenly, shivering in the raw midnight air, she gave an ineffectual tug at the heavy fur robe that lay across her knees. The movement roused her companion, and two young arms came to her assistance.

"Thank you, my dear."

There was no reply, and after a short silence Mrs. Thorley spoke again. "Who taught you that dance, Marie?"

"What?" The girl looked up in dazed inquiry. "Oh, the dance!" she added as if the question had just registered on her consciousness. "Why, Madame Adrienne, of course."

Mrs. Thorley hesitated. "I wondered about it," she said at last, "because I happened to hear Miss Lowther tell someone that Madame Adrienne had not taught it to you, and that Madame thought you had had lessons before you joined her class."

The young shoulders shot up impatiently. "Sybil Lowther is always horrid about other people doing things well."

"I see," Mrs. Thorley murmured. "Is this the dance you are planning to do at the carnival next month?"

"Yes."

"You mustn't. You do it too well."

"Aunt Alicia!"

"My dear child, think a moment! Think how it must seem to people who—don't understand. Miss Lowther's remark was a straw in the wind. Nothing could be more unfortunate than to start—conjecture. So far we have managed to escape it."

To this the girl for several moments said nothing; but her short, quick breathing broke the stillness. Of a sudden she spoke. "Mr. Amarinth asked me to marry him tonight."

Mrs. Thorley stirred slightly. "Well?" she said.

"He's going to see Hugh in the morning. I asked him to."

There was a pause.

"Aunt Alicia, will it make a difference to him? Do you think it will—do you?"

To the eager pleading the answer came reluctantly, "I don't know—I don't know." Then after a moment, "Will you mind so very much if it does?"

"I shall mind terribly—terribly!"

THE car slid smoothly round a corner and stopped. Marie threw open the door and sprang out.

"Hugh must be back," she exclaimed, turning to assist Mrs. Thorley. "There's a light in the library."

"Let me speak to him first," Mrs. Thorley said when they were within the house, detaining Marie, who was starting impetuously for the library door. I'll let you know when I come upstairs."

The girl acquiesced doubtfully, and turned toward the steps.

"Don't change your gown. I won't be long, and I want him to see it," Mrs. Thorley looked back to say before opening the library door.

When the door closed again Marie lingered at the foot of the steps as though undecided as to what to do. She made an impulsive movement toward the library, then with a change of purpose wheeled and ran lightly up the stairs.

HUGH SENIOR started up from a deep armchair before the fire at sound of the opening door. "I must have dozed," he said, advancing to meet his aunt. "Where's Marie?"

"Upstairs. She'll be down later," Mrs. Thorley replied, letting her fur mantle slip into his arms. "She has something to tell you."

"Something to tell me?" he echoed in sharp inquiry.

"Guy Amarinth has asked her to marry him."

"Amarinth!"

"Does it surprise you? Surely you know that she has been seeing a good deal of him lately."

"She sees other men too. Somehow I didn't think of singling out Amarinth. Has she—accepted him?"

"She has sent him to you."

"Ah, I see!"

He walked back to the fire. Mrs. Thorley dropped wearily into the chair he had relinquished, and looked up at him.

In spite of the difference in age and sex, the two were plainly of the same family. A long, rather narrow face, with deep-set, gray eyes, a fine, straight nose, and square, clean-cut jaw were common to both, and in Mrs. Thorley had lost but little of their forceful character through feminization and sagging muscles. Both were tall and sparely fleshed; in bodily movement quick and purposeful; of strong passions, tempered in her by time and experience, in him merely curbed.

"Oh, Hugh!" she exclaimed abruptly and with a touch of impatience. "Why have you let it come to this?"

He turned and stared, not understanding.

"My dear boy, I'm not blind! Don't you suppose I know that you worship the ground she walks on?"

HUGH SENIOR reddened swiftly, and he dropped his eyes to the fire. For a few moments there was silence. "I'm thirty-eight," he said at last. "She is twenty-four. "

"She may be older."

He shook his head. "She couldn't have been more than seventeen, and that was hardly seven years ago."

"Well, what of it? Thirty-eight is young, and you're a very attractive man."

"She doesn't seem to have observed it."

"Of course not! Your attitude toward her has always been so paternal."

"My dear aunt, can I ever make you understand how I feel about Marie? What you have done for her you looked upon as an interesting experiment. The unusualness of the case appealed to your imagination. You liked the idea of doing what few women would have done, and that was partly why you did it."

"I was sorry for the child."

"Of course. I don't mean to imply that your motive was entirely selfish, and I don't underrate the help you've been to me. My problem would have been exceedingly difficult without you. All I mean is this, that while you would in any case have been generous,—with money,—you would have been generous from a safe distance if Marie had not happened to be the charming creature that she was."

Mrs. Thorley gave a little snort of indignation. "My dear nephew, may I inquire how near a problem she would have been to you if you had not happened to fall in love with her?"

"That's just the point I'm trying to make, Aunt Alicia. My feeling for Marie has never had anything to do with my sense of responsibility toward her. I was responsible for her condition. I had wrenched her from her niche in life, and couldn't put her back. I had to find some other for her. You never knew how much the matter troubled me during her first year in England. When you wrote the following summer that you had decided to keep her with you I could have kissed your feet in relief and gratitude." Hugh's voice as he ended was slightly husky.

Mrs. Thorley sighed. "My dear boy, if you had only let her see how much you care!"

"I couldn't," he said after a moment. "Don't you see? I owe her happiness. She has such an exaggerated idea of her obligation to us that she was capable of marrying me out of sheer gratitude. I couldn't let her do that, could I? I owe her happiness, and if Amarinth can give it to her—"

"Guy Amarinth won't marry her."

"Why do you say that?"

Mrs. Thorley looked up with a hopeful glint in her tired eyes. "You won't tell him, then?" she asked.

"Not tell him? I must tell him!"

WHY?"

Hugh Senior studied his companion's face in perplexed astonishment. "I couldn't let him marry her without knowing," he said slowly.

Mrs. Thorley was quick to press her advantage. "He won't marry her if he knows," she said. "You say you owe her happiness. Tell him, and you'll rob her of her chance of it. She loves him, Hugh," she pleaded again. "She asked me if I thought he'd mind when he knew, and I asked if she would mind if he did, and she said, 'Terribly, terribly!' If you had seen her face, heard her voice!"

"She would be the last to wish to deceive the man she loves."

"It's Quixotic!" she exclaimed. "Do you know another girl as charming, as lovable, with as much in herself to give a man?"

"No, and if Amarinth really cares for her—"

"He'll be revolted. There'll come a sense of strangeness between them. We had it ourselves—you remember?"

He nodded, frowning anxiously.

"It's an old story to us; but it will come as a shock to him. He won't marry her."

"Yes, he will. I'll make him see it as we do."

"Don't tell him! Let her tell him after they are married."

"I can't do that. It wouldn't be fair to him."

"To him! And you love her! Oh, you men, you men!" She rose impatiently. "Is one of you ever fair to a woman?"

He winced sharply. "If she has sent Amarinth to me, it is because she wishes me to tell him the truth," he said doggedly.

"Oh, tell him, tell him!" she broke out hotly. "Your story, coupled with the talk he will have heard tonight about her dancing—" She shrugged hopelessly. "Poor child!"

"What talk? What do you mean?"

"I mean that she danced too well. There was talk. I heard one remark, and there must have been others. I told you, you remember, when she began this dancing, that she must have had lessons before. Now I'm sure of it. Her performance tonight was so extraordinary that only one explanation is possible. The girl is an artist—a trained artist. Fortunately most of the people there were too uneducated in such matters to appreciate her performance. Even so, it aroused comment. I have forbidden her to repeat it at the carnival; but I wish you had seen it. You'll see her gown at any rate; though you probably won't realize the significance of it. She planned it herself."

"A trained dancer!" Hugh Senior said, staring down into the fire.

"European at that! It doesn't connote pleasant things, Hugh."

"It's incredible!" he muttered.

"Guy Amarinth may not find it so." She turned toward the door. "I suppose there is nothing I can say to move you?" She paused as though hopefully. "You will tell him?"

He did not answer.

"Goodnight then. She wants to speak to you. I'll send her down."

He went over to her and kissed her on the cheek. "Goodnight," he said gently. "I wish I could see things differently, if only for your sake."

"Poor child!" she sighed.

WHEN she was gone he began nervously to pace the floor, stopping at every turn to listen for the step he awaited. Suddenly he heard it, tapping lightly down the stairs. The door opened, and Marie entered.

She was still wearing the gown in which she had danced; but the low table lamps left her head and shoulders in shadow. In spite of that he at once noted the change in her. And the sight of her face, white and drawn as he had never seen it, stabbed him unbearably.

His glance sank to her dress. Dimmed though its flamelike radiance was in the soft light, it stood out from the dark, book-lined walls and deep-toned furnishings like a flamboyant poster. And it struck upon his mind, filled with disquieting conjectures, a note so garish, so unpleasant, that involuntarily be turned his head away: only for an instant, however; for as the door closed under her hand he looked back and met her eyes. For moment they stood thus without speaking. She was the first to find words.

"Did Aunt Alicia tell you?"

"Yes."

"That he is to see you tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Did she ask you not to tell him?"

He hesitated, then nodded assent.

"She thinks he will mind, then." She drew a deep breath. "What will you do?"

"What do you wish me to do, Marie?"

"Oh, you must tell him everything!"

She came close to him and looked into his eyes silently, intently, as though trying to search his thoughts. Her expression was strange to him; she herself seemed strange and cold.

"I wonder," she said finally, her eyes narrowing in a tenser scrutiny of his face, "if you don't know more about me than you have ever told me?"

He gave her a swift, suspicious glance. "Why?" he asked sharply.

She answered with her characteristic shrug, her eyes still on him. "I feel it," she said. "But listen. You must tell him everything—everything you know."

"What would you do if I should decide to tell him—nothing?"

"I should tell him myself."

"I knew it!" He gave a deep sigh of relief, and his tense face relaxed. "I knew you would not want to buy happiness with a lie."

"I couldn't," she said. "I know that—now!" Her lip quivered with a sudden access of feeling.

"Do you care so much for him?" he cried out in jealous misery.

Her shoulders shook with dry sobs, and she covered her face with her hands.

Impulsively he started toward her, but stopped short. The sight of her dumb anguish hurt him unbearably. But the very strength of his feeling held him rigid. He was afraid of betraying himself, knowing that should he do so she would only shrink from him. Nothing lay in his power to do for her save the one thing,—he must make Amarinth see!

BUT it was not in the man's nature to stand inactive and silent long. He stirred restlessly. "Don't!" he begged.

She wheeled at that and thrust out her arms imploringly to him. "Whatever happens, you won't desert me, will you—whatever happens?"

"Of course not—of course not!" he soothed her. "What are you thinking of, Child? This will always be your home.

"Home! I have no home."

"Marie!"

"I owe everything in the world to you—you and Aunt Alicia, and—"

"You owe us nothing," he put in. "All we have done, all we can ever do, will not compensate for the injury I did you. You owe us nothing."

"Yes, everything," she insisted,—"these years of happiness, care and affection that never failed, friends, and this beautiful home and clothes,—everything. Everything I have you've given me, even my

Continued on page 18

Where the Vice President Spends His Vacations

IF a matter of vital import should have demanded the presence in Washington of the Vice President of the United States this spring, he might not have arrived at the capital according to schedule; for he and Mrs. Marshall have tabooed the telephone at their ranch in the heart of the Arizona desert, and the mail that is generally sent over once a day from the village a few miles away would have to answer.

"There must be some place in the world where I can rest," said the then Governor of Indiana, and years ago he found the haven he sought at Scottsdale. Only a short time ago he ordered a frame house built on his property in cactus land, and this spring put the finishing touches on it himself. There is no gas nor electricity in the five-room cottage, and the grounds are still in a crude state; though the Vice President toils diligently with hoe, rake, and shovel. A barbed wire fence is being built by the presiding officer of the Senate, who has "cut out work" and declares he is the "happiest man in the world." He did not even walk when the family ran out of wood; but took the wheelbarrow down the road and borrowed a load from his father-in-law, W. E. Kimsey.

He reads, smokes, and loafs, and his reading is mostly fiction of the popular variety. Although a State car is at the disposal of Arizona's distinguished guest, when he journeys to Phoenix it is generally in the stage with whomsoever happens to be going in for the week's supplies.

How to Make an Outdoor Fire

By EL COMANCHO

VOLUMES, mostly ponderous or underweight, utterly useless stuff, have been written about the "art" of building an outdoor or camp fire. In reality there is no mystery in this "art" at all. Just remember a few scientific facts and apply commonsense, and you can build as good an outdoor fire as anybody else can.

The things to bear in mind are these:

Your fire should be built out in the open, never against a tree or log in any circumstances (because of added danger of setting fire to the woods), and never against a large rock or a bank, simply because a fire must have air and lots of it if it is to burn; therefore, the open site where air circulation can get across it from any direction.

Having selected your site, cut green timber, or pile two parallel rows of rocks, of such size as you may need, depending on the time you are to use your fire, to act as side logs.

If it is a one-meal fire, two sticks as big your arm are enough; if it is a one-day camp or longer, let your green sticks be twelve inches through and six feet long.

Place these eighteen inches apart, end on to the direction that the prevailing winds for the locality come from. Bank rocks or earth up against the ends of the sticks to prevent rolling or sliding.

Now, to find dry wood, always go to the standing live trees about your camp site (especially so if in thick timber), and get the dead branches that are always more or less numerous on every living tree in the wilds.

This wood is always the driest wood in the forest, bar none. For this reason it is best to start fires with, especially if the weather is or has been wet. In open timber in dry weather one usually can find more or less firewood on the ground, unless it is in a heavily timbered pine country;but the dead limbs on standing timber are always the driest wood you can get.

Use small, splintery wood to start with, and build your preliminary fire as open as you can, so the air will get into every part of it and thus make it burn freely. Cross the sticks into a loose pile to do this, and do not pile them up in a heap of parallels if you hope to succeed quickly. Your fire wants air and lots of it,—just don't forget that,—and build accordingly.

After you have a hot bed of coals you can burn most any kind of wood any old way.

Your cooking fire should be built up and allowed to burn down to a bed of coals, then kept going with a dry stick or so at a time; for your outdoor cooking must be done over a small but hot fire.

One great trouble with everybody is that they build about ten times as much fire as they need. You can understand this when I say I can make coffee for two, broil bacon and trout for two, and do it easily over the fire that a block six inches long sawed from the end of an ordinary 2 x 4 will produce. Don't build your fire too big: keep it small and hot by giving it plenty of draft and feeding it dry wood a little at a time and often.

Never leave a fire burning and go away from camp for any length of time, and never, in any circumstances, break camp and hit the trail without being careful to put out every last living coal of your camp fire beyond the possibility of a doubt, because a passing breath may scatter the coals and turn the woods behind you into a roaring furnace. This is especially so in pine or fir forests in mountain country.

Is Your House a Junk Shop?

By MARY HARROD NORTHEND

DON'T let your home resemble a curio shop! Don't let your walls and your mantel shelf be the recipients of a meaningless collection of ornaments! If you are not absolutely sure that this picture is needed here, that vase there, be on the safe side and use neither. There is very little danger of having too few ornaments; so don't be afraid of a bit of blank wall space and think it will indicate poverty to your friends. The finest homes, furnished by those who know, have the very least in the way of ornament. One print carefully hung, a single pair of candlesticks exactly placed, give far greater effect than a clutter of things scattered about haphazardly.

It is not always possible to select just the pictures we should like for our rooms: very often we must make the best of those we have on hand. But they can at least

be assorted so that the frames will harmonize both with the woodwork in the room and with one another. Red mahogany frames do not look well with oak, but they are lovely with white paint or pale enamels. Gilt frames can be used in the same room, and they are also permissible with brown woodwork. Golden brown frames look their best with the same color in trim, and black can be used with very dark wood, with white or mahogany.

In hanging the pictures think of the walls as so many pieces of blank paper that are to be decorated. Mark them off into imaginary panels between the doors and windows or any vertical lines in the room, and then arrange one or two pictures in each. For instance, if there is several feet of unbroken wall surface between two doors, you might put one picture exactly in the center or two small ones of equal size side by side. You must place them so that they will at once form a central spot of interest on that wall. You can work this out with pencil and paper if you wish. Draw a number of rectangles of the exact proportions of the wall space, and then mark out in each one proposed positions for the pictures. You will soon find the one that appears to be the best arrangement.

There are two things that will influence this. One is the relation of each group of pictures to the room as a whole. The pictures on one wall should balance in a measure those on the other. If there are two similar wall spaces on opposite sides of the room, for example, they should be treated in about the same way; that is, one place should not have several striking pictures and the other but an insignificant little one, even though each looks well enough when considered alone.

The other matter upon which the arrangement of pictures depends is the position of the furniture against the wall, and this is perhaps the least understood and most constantly sinned against point. Whenever a picture is placed over any piece of furniture it should seem to be supported by it. It should be over the center of it and not seem too heavy for the structure beneath it.

Hang Your Pictures Flat

IT is not always easy to compose groups satisfactorily when the pictures are of unrelated shapes and sizes; but by a little experimenting it is possible to find the best positions.

The height at which a picture should be hung will vary somewhat according to the proportions of the wall space; but the center line or the center of a group should be about on a level with the eye of the average person. Hang them flat against the wall and not tilted out. It is just as bad not to have the side lines vertical as not to have the top and bottom ones horizontal. In order to do this place the screws as near the top of the frame as possible, or even along the top, if this can be done without showing.

The wires should be inconspicuous unless they are decidedly decorative, such as heavy cord. To make them so it is better to use two straight wires from two hooks, rather than the single wire, forming a triangle above the picture. Wires and picture hooks may be painted to match the wall and molding.

The same kind of thought and planning is necessary for the proper arrangement of all ornaments and bric-a-brac. On the mantel shelf an exact and careful balance is essential; but this does not mean absolute symmetry. It is the easiest way to make sure that the arrangement is right: a vase in the center, for instance, and a pair of candlesticks just the same distance from the ends cannot be criticized. But if the room is not very formal in character, ornaments that are not in pairs can be used equally well. The general mass and proportions, however, should be similar.

In arranging the tops of bookcases, tables, bureaus, or wherever any movable ornaments are placed, the same general ideas should be observed. We are gradually growing to realize the beauty in a certain amount of formality and restraint, and the mass of photographs and ornaments that used to bedeck these have been relegated to the attic. Instead of the dressing table being littered with a motley array of silver and fancy bottles

upon a fussy lace cover, the modern bureau is more likely to have a plate glass top, a pair of candlesticks with or without shades, and perhaps nothing more than a tapestry-covered box or tray. In this greater simplicity, this elimination of useless things, there is not only greater art, but saving of labor in dusting and caring for them.

The American Woman 100 Years from Now

By BLANCHE BATES

ONE hundred years from now the American woman will be an Amazon, if we are to judge by her present rate of development. She will be directing armies and looking around the corners for the pygmy men. She will be the dictator of the world. Of course we cannot change the course of nature; but at least the men will be staying at home taking care of the babies and wheeling the perambulators down the pavements, while the women are doing the hard, stern things of life.

Narrow Life of the Oldtime Actress

REMEMBER that the days of my mother were occupied with three main topics, which bounded her horizon absolutely,—her work, her home, and her children. Outside of these she had time for nothing else. All that she knew of life was confined to the three essential interests. She would have smiled at the idea of devoting herself to any great question of the day, and would have laughed at the suggestion of keeping abreast of the current topics of the times. When she was through with the day's work or evening's work on the stage, she must hurry home for fear that the children had suffered in her absence. And she must hurry back from home to the stage, for fear that she would miss her call.

In twenty-five years all this has been changed, I might say revolutionized.

I don't think I can name ten of the leading actresses of America who do not give part of their time to some great public service. It may be the kindergarten, it may be child labor, it may be the playground movement, it may be the tenement problem, or again it may be fighting the great White Plague. The actress of today has broadened and developed. She has other interests besides those of the footlights, just as women in other walks of life have been given new and broader ideas outside of the routine of the household.

I believe that the signs of the times indicate a larger development in the ranks of women than of men. It is logical that this should be so. The world has never seen women so independent, so vigorous, and so full of the initiative as the woman of today. It is a spectacle new in history and we should be superficial if we did regard it as a foundation upon which other and still broader results will be built.

Fashions 100 Years from Now

YOU ask me what the fashions a hundred years from now will be, and I answer that it is a question depending entirely upon the men. You may not believe it, but the men dictate the fashions of woman-kind. They may rail at the absurdity of fashion and may sneer at their wives' raiment; but just the same it is their street corner admiration that has brought fashions into the world and will keep them there.

Why Men Kill Themselves

A MAN who was meditating suicide, from sheer loneliness, remarked, "A man who loses his reason goes to a psychopathic ward; but a man who loses hope has no place to go."

The Antisuicide League

TO fill this need the Rev. H. M. Warren started the Autisuicide League eight years ago, after reading the story of a young girl who tried to commit suicide in a New York hotel and died within a year of the wound she inflicted upon herself. Statistics show that in New York alone an average of 860 commit suicide every year. In one year Bellevue Hospital admitted 235 who had attempted to kill themselves; and when they recovered all but one regretted ever having made the attempt. Dr. Warren declares that often a word of encouragement, just getting a man's mind out of a set groove, will start him out afresh.

One man of thirty-five was tired of life, thought himself a failure, and despaired of finding anything worth while. Dr. Warren asked him to perform some trifling services for him, and the man became interested and enthusiastic.

A very little money, often five dollars, will change the whole color of things. A young fellow of thirty-two had dissipated his fortune, quarreled with his family, had gone completely to pieces, and would have shot himself had not Dr. Warren informed his family, who telegraphed him the necessary funds.

Some Curious Cases

PEOPLE are often driven to suicide by a lack of opportune sympathy and tact. A pretty German girl took poison because her family humiliated her by refusing to let her lover see her. A visit to the movies might have saved the life of a boy only fifteen years old. He had had a bad attack of puppy love for a little girl in his school, always carrying her books and escorting her home. The girl died, and her grief-stricken lover appeared at the funeral with a huge wreath. Returning from the ceremony, he went to his room, weeping and inconsolable. Something should have been done to divert him; but he was allowed to be alone, and next morning the family found him dead.

There was a similar case of a mere boy who wanted to take his inamorata out driving on Easter Sunday. He had a new suit, and it was to be a gala affair. The father at the last minute refused to let him use the horse. The boy brooded over the disappointment, and that night killed himself.

Such causes for suicide seem ludicrously trifling; but then, one man shot himself because his dress suit didn't arrive on time.

Fashions in Suicides

METHODS of committing suicide seem to run in fashions, the most popular one at present being bichlorid of mercury. A novel suicide featured in the press is certain to be followed by an epidemic of the same type. In families too there run curious coincidences. Three members of one family took carbolic acid, and there was the same stretch of twenty-one years between the deaths of each. On the anniversary of the suicide of a friend who had jumped off a train one man felt a violent obligation to do the same, though he didn't want to at all. Dr. Warren recommended for him a good dinner and the theater.

Men between thirty and forty are the most susceptible to suicidal moods; and the spring months are the most popular period for taking one's own life. Loneliness and family troubles are the leading reasons for suicide. Illness is another. One man thought he was losing his mind, and feared he would injure one of his family. Just before shooting himself he wrote home, "I write to tell you I take my life to save you."

Dr. Warren hopes to extend his work all over the country. He wants to restrict the sale of firearms and poisons, and also to stop the publication of such books as one in his possession, which states four hundred reasons for committing suicide, and ways to do it.

The Strangest Farm in the World

By RENÉ BACHE

THE newest, and in its way the most remarkable, scientific institution in the world is now on an operating basis in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Its business is the preparation of an antisnake-bite serum, which, its efficacy having been satisfactorily proved, is beginning to be exported in quantities to India, Australia, and other countries.

For the manufacture of the serum large amount of serpent venom is required, and to supply it several hundred living snakes of the most deadly species are kept on the premises. The ophidiarium, or snakery, is exceedingly picturesque, being a sort of village of small hemispherical houses, each having the form of an inverted bowl, with an entrance hole.

The Snake Village

THE houses are of concrete, and there are scores of them, each one provided with a little detachable door, which fits the entrance opening, so as to prevent the occupant's exit when desired. They serve their purpose admirably, as they provide shelter, seclusion, and darkness,—the three essentials for a snake's dwelling.

Through the snake village run concrete paths, so that all parts of the ophidiarium may be readily accessible, for keeping it in order, feeding the reptiles,

and catching them when they are wanted to furnish venom for the laboratory. Surrounding the houses are neatly kept grass plots, and serpents of species unfriendly to one another are separated by low concrete walls and moats of water two feet wide, to prevent neighbor quarrels.

The principal building of the Antivenom Institute at São Paulo is devoted largely to the housing of four-footed animals of various kinds. There are great numbers of rats and rabbits in cages, and one wing serves the purpose of a stable for the horses that produce the serum. Each horse receives a series of hypodermic injections of snake venom behind the shoulder at intervals of four or five hours, beginning with very small doses, which are gradually increased until it is able to endure a quantity that under ordinarily conditions would kill four hundred horses.

When the animal has acquired the requisite degree of immunity a quantity of blood is drawn from a vein in its neck into a suitable receptacle, and let stand for awhile, until the red part, which is heavier, sinks to the bottom. The watery, colorless part is then siphoned off. This is the precious serum filled with the antipoison that has accumulated in the body of the horse to oppose the action of the snake venom.

It remains only to put up the serum in little glass bottles, previously sterilized, each of them marked with the date of preparation and a guaranty of the contents for twelve months. None of the product is sent out, however, until it has been "proved" by the actual cure of rats and rabbits which have received injections of snake venom far in excess of what would ordinarily kill them.

Treatment of a horse for the purpose here described has to be kept up continuously for six months before the animal is sufficiently venom proof to furnish serum. Even when this is accomplished, fresh injections must be given right along, lest the antivenom lose some of its efficacy. The remedy is guaranteed efficient against the poisons of all species of deadly serpents common to the New World and the Old. It has been proved for the cobra, the rattlesnake, the tiger snake, the asp, the viper, the fer-de-lance, and others.

To get the venom required for inoculations the snake is first made a helpless prisoner by passing over its head a slip-noose of leather attached to the end of a short stick. The reptile is then laid on a table and held firmly while a thin glass saucer is thrust between its jaws. It is likely in such circumstances to bite fiercely, emitting its venom into the saucer. If not, the same result may be accomplished by pressing the venom glands with thumb and forefinger, thus squeezing out their contents through the fangs.

Snake venom is a transparent fluid, yellowish in color, and of about the con-sistency of human saliva. When dried it takes the form of flaky yellow crystals. In this shape, or dissolved in alcohol or glycerin, it will remain unaltered and will preserve its poisonous properties for an indefinite period. No satisfactory chemical analysis has ever been made of it; but it seems to be a very complex albuminous compound. A curious discovery recently made is that the blood of

venomous serpents is itself poisonous, containing as it does the principles that are concentrated in the secretion of the venom glands.

Harmless When Swallowed

VENOMOUS snakes are themselves absolutely venom-proof. Rattlesnakes dosed by injection with large quantities of their own or other venom have shown not the slightest ill effects. Another remarkable fact is that serpent venom is harmless to human beings or other animals if taken internally. The late Dr. S. Weir Mitchell found that one-fourth of a drop of rattlesnake poison would kill a pigeon, if given by hypodermic injection; but a pigeon fed with six drops a day for three successive days suffered not at all in consequence.

Professor Mangili, a pioneer investigator in this line, had an assistant who boldly swallowed all the venom that could be extracted from four large vipers. No bad effects followed. The same negative result was noted by Professor Baird, at that time secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who ate the venom glands of a rattlesnake. As recently ascertained, serpent venom in such circumstances is harmless, because it cannot pass through the mucous membrane that lines the stomach, and it undergoes changes during digestion that allow it to enter the blood as an innocuous substance.

Butter Your Bread with Sunflowers

THE Germans have started to grow sunflowers for butter. An order has even been promulgated by the Prussian Ministry of Railroads requiring all station masters to plant with sunflowers every bit of available ground.

The seeds of the sunflower are rich in an oil that, when refined, is very palatable for table purposes. In fact, it somewhat resembles olive oil in flavor, and on this account has been largely used as an adulterant of the latter. Its employment as a substitute for butter is a new idea, but unquestionably practicable.

"War Butter "

IT seems odd, however, when one comes to think of it, that the Germans, having decreed the utilization of the potato (a vegetable of American origin) for the making of "war bread," should now propose to get their butter from another plant of New World derivation (the sunflower was a discovery of the Spaniards in Mexico, whence they took it to Europe, where it was first grown in the gardens of old Madrid).

The Indians over a large part of America, however, had cultivated the sunflower for many centuries before Columbus landed, using its seeds for food and the oil for dressing their hair. In fact, they had improved it to such an extent, by selecting each autumn the largest and finest seed pods for the next spring's planting, that (originally it was a wild plant, bearing only small flowers) 500 years ago it was as highly developed as the sunflowers of our gardens today. But within recent years the giant varieties have been produced and grown in Russia.

In that country 1,000,000 acres are annually planted with sunflowers; chiefly of two kinds, one of which bears small seeds, suitable for oil making, and the other big seeds, consumed by the people in enormous quantities as we eat peanuts, though uncooked. A fair-sized sunflower head will yield 2,000 seeds.

An acre of land will produce fifty bushels of sunflower seeds, which yield a gallon of oil to the bushel. The seeds are crushed with millstones, and then the kernels, separated from the shells by sifting, are pressed in bags of horsehair cloth. Sun flower oil is an important commercial product in Russia. Of pale yellowish color, it is largely used as an illuminant, being burned in lamps, as well as for making candles and soaps.

Hardly any other plant serves so many uses as the sunflower. Poor people in Russia make a very nutritious bread of the seeds, ground to flour. It is said that nothing fattens chickens so quickly as sunflower seeds, or is so encouraging to egg-laying ambition on the part of hens. The "cake' which represents the residue after extraction of the oil, is a valuable cattle food.

A Substitute for Quinine

A yellow dye is made from the petals of the flowers. The fiber of the stalks, which is fine, silky, and very strong, is woven into silk fabrics. Cheap cigars are manufactured from the leaves, as well as Cigarettes. Mixed with an equal quantity of tobacco, they give peculiar aromatic flavor to the latter, and afford an acceptable "smoke" for the pipe.

In parts of Russia where wood is scarce the stalks are used by farm people for fuel, one acre yielding many cords of good hot stuff for burning in winter. The peasants of that country have a firm belief in the value of the leaves as a febri fuge, mattresses being stuffed with them for fever sufferers to sleep on. This idea may or may not have a sound basis, but it is said on good medical authority that an alcoholic extract of the seeds is an effective substitute for quinine in cases of malaria.

Air Pressure Wrecked It: Water Pressure Saved It

THESE two photographs of a ten-foot-diameter siphon show the gigantic force of air pressure and water pressure, as it was through the former that the 10,000-foot length of pipe was crumpled like paper, while it was through the flow of water with a fall of 200 feet that the riveted plates of quarter-inch steel were smoothed out into the original shape.

This siphon is a link of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and crosses the Antelope Valley, a sandy waste with a "dry stream" in its center. When there is an unusual rainfall the wash becomes a raging torrent, and it was this circumstance that made the trouble. The concrete foundations that carried the siphon across the wash were undermined by a heavy and prolonged rain, and the siphon burst at this point. Immediately the contents gushed out with such force that a vacuum was left within the pipe, and for a distance of 10,000 feet it collapsed, the top falling in and almost touching the bottom plates. This section of the aqueduct had cost $250,000, and it seemed as if the loss were hopeless.

A Pipe That Will Hold a Motorcar

BUT William Mulholland, the man who engineered the great work, was equal to the emergency; for being equal to emergencies is his strong point. He ordered the repair of the break and the replacing of the foundations, and when that was done the water was again permitted to flow into the siphon. It comes from the hills under a 200-foot head, and its volume may be imagined from the fact that the pipe is so large that a motorcar can be driven through it. When this great weight of water was allowed to enter the crumpled pipe a little at a time, a slight lifting of the top could be observed; as the pressure was increased, the pipe gradually regained its former cylindrical shape; and when the second photograph was taken the last unevenness was being smoothed out.

Prunes Versus Pills

By EDWIN F. BOWERS, M.D.

OUT of many letters, I select four that in varying phrases ask the same question. Paraphrased in a single sentence, the question is, "How can I best keep clean inside as well as out?"

Metchnikof's theory that the cause of old age and early death lies in the ravaging effects of intestinal microscopic plants may or may not be true. But we do know that absorption of the poisonous products of bacteria from the intestines into the circulation is a cause of the hardening of arteries and the lowering of tone that accompanies aging protoplasm. It is hardly to be thought, however, that it is the sole cause.

Yet it is conceded by medical men that most diseases—not resulting from direct infection or acquired by contagion—are due to the vitiated state of an organism poisoned by its own products of decay. So clearly is this now recognized that one school of physicians, the Alkaloidists, has adopted as a slogan, "Clean Up and Keep Clean."

So to be healthy the first requisite is to clean out of the system the debris of used material. Proper physiological functioning of any organ or member depends upon its being constantly used. When we persistently fail to employ a function Nature takes it away from us. This is the chief objection to most artificial means for overcoming constipation. They stimulate a drastic cathartic action which leaves the bowel muscles more toneless—or atonic, as doctors call it—than before.

It follows then, with the majority of laxatives usually taken, that there must be a gradual increase in the amount, until finally response to any "safe" dose falls to the vanishing point. Cascara and phenolphthalein perhaps are exceptions to this rule, but not sufficiently exceptional to warrant universal confidence.

The really safe and most dependable corrective of constipation is diet. And among the most dependable things in diet are prunes. For the luscious fruit pulp, the malic acid, and the mildly stimulating salts and juices, if eaten regularly, preferably as the introduction to breakfast, do more to overcome intestinal apathy and inertia than almost any other item on our bill of fare.

To get the best results they should be eaten boldly and fearlessly, not in the homeopathic doses customarily dished out to us. A generous saucerful, with plenty of rich, heavy juice to enhance its tart tastefulness, should be the average dose.

For bottle-fed babies (who, by the way, have an almost invariable tendency toward constipation) strained prune juice is most excellent. It must, of course, be given on an empty stomach, so as not to curdle the baby's dinner and give him a tummy ache.

Prunes are a distressing source of flatulence and colic to some. This is usually corrected by discontinuing the use of the whole fruit, and concentrating dietary attention upon the heavy juice.

The prune, we may remark in passing, is also a highly nutritious food, carrying from twelve to twenty-five per cent. of sugar concealed about its pulpy person.

So when food, drink, and medicine, each quality satisfying and eminently efficient in its way, can be combined in one delicious dish, it may well be considered a distinct achievement.

It is greatly to be hoped that, with a wider recognition of the virtues of these dried Saint Catharine and green gage plums, the perennial battle between prunes and pills will result in an overwhelming victory in favor of the sleek and succulent prune.

I Must Have 6 Per Cent. to Live

By ALBERT W. ATWOOD Next week Mr. Atwood will answer the question, "How Can I Save Enough to Educate My Children?"

FROM a woman in Western Pennsylvania comes this appeal:

I have been left a widow, and must find a safe investment which would bring me in 6% in order to live on the income. Please advise me, as I know little about business.

There is no use in telling this widow that she would be better off with 4% or 5 % on her money. Even with no experience in business matters she probably knows that money can be invested at a low rate of interest more readily than it can at a higher rate. But she must have 6%, and with a little care and trouble she will get it, and safely at that.

Unfortunately this particular inquirer does not state how much money she has, or whether she expects to earn anything. But the inference from her letter is that she does not expect to work, because she speaks of the necessity of finding a safe investment "in order to live on the income." She is hardly likely to live on much less than $600 a year, which would mean a capital of S10,000.

Now if she has S10,000 or anything like that sum, my first advice to her is emphatic and absolute. Do not put it all into any one security. Do not put it into two or three securities, even. Divide it up into six different forms of investment at the very least.

The first step is to inquire of some reliable local bank, or from the financial editor of any reliable newspaper or magazine, the name of a stock or bond broker of established reputation, and also the name of a dealer in either farm or city mortgages, possibly in one of the Middle Western States.

Then the S10,000 should be divided roughly into halves, and one portion placed in a number of different first mortgages, or bonds secured by first mortgages, through a dealer with a good reputation and many years of experience. In numerous cities there are dealers who have loaned scores of millions of dollars upon farm or city mortgages and have lost practically not one dollar. It goes without saying that loans should be made only in settled communities, whose agricultural or industrial enterprises, as the case may be, are sound and established. If the $5,000 is placed in five different mortgages, none should run more than ten years, and preferably they should come due at different times, so that some ready money is practically always available.

One-third or one-half of the other $5,000 should be invested through the broker partly in preferred stocks of our strongest railroads or industrial companies. Finally the broker should be instructed to place the remaining $2,000 or $3,000 in two or three such bonds as California Gas & Electric 5%'s, Public Service Corporation 5's, Bethlehem Steel refunding 5's, or Republic Iron & Steel first 5's.

This is not the only way to invest for 6% and safety; but it is one sure way of doing it, and I am sure that the possibility of loss is reduced very close to zero.

Here is more of

Who Was Marie Dupont?

Continued from page 12

name." A tremor ran through her; but she hurried on. "You won't think I'm ungrateful, will you? No matter what happens, you won't think that? I couldn't hear it!"

"My dear child, what is the matter?"

"I couldn't bear it if you thought me ungrateful. I'm not, Hugh—I'm not! You do believe it, don't you?"

"Of course."

"That's all then. Goodnight." She turned and hurried to the door.

"Marie, come back! Tell me what is troubling you," he begged.

"You'll know—soon," she said, and the next moment the door closed after her.

HE began nervously to cross and recross the room. What was the matter? What had she meant? What was it he would know soon? Why had she been so pathetically eager to convince him of her gratitude? He questioned himself again and again, and found no answers: only vague forebodings that seemed rooted in the very beginnings of his acquaintance with the girl.

He passed into a smaller room adjoining the library and switched on the light. Crossing to a chest of drawers, he fitted a key in the lock of one and opened it. Back behind papers and packages of various kinds he slipped his hand and drew out a long and narrow box. This he placed on a table and opened. Within lay an object wrapped in several folds of tissue paper, which he lifted out with care and laid beside the box. In the box there remained unwrapped a dirk with a carved bone handle, the blade blue and evil looking.

For a long time he stood frowning down at this weapon. Suddenly his lips closed tight as on an ultimate decision, and recovering the box he replaced it in the drawer which he then locked. The package on the table he slipped into the pocket of his coat.

Switching out the lights, he returned to the library, where he also extinguished the light. As he slowly mounted the hall stairs to his bedroom he looked at his watch. It was two o'clock.

CHAPTER VIII

TWO o'clock! Irma Niklova paused halfway up the fourth steep flight of tenement stairs and listened to the two deep notes that boomed softly from a distant tower. She panted from the exertion of the long climb, and her thin, bloodless face was blue with cold; but in spite of discomfort and fatigue her nerves quickened at the perfection of the tones that spread their resonance through the silent night.

With an effort she dragged herself to the top and felt her way down the narrow, unlit hall to a door from which, through a wide crack at the sill, a dim ray of light escaped. At the door she stopped and listened for a moment, then noiselessly turned the knob and went in. Noiselessly she closed the door again behind her, while her glance swept the room.

On the bed in one corner lay a boy of perhaps fifteen or so. His form was huddled beneath the coverings; only the pale, wasted face and black, unkempt hair were visible. He was asleep, and his short, feverish breathing alone broke the stillness.

Nearby at a table sat a man, also asleep, his face pressed down upon his right arm. This arm, stretched out across the table, ended in the empty cuff of the gray knitted sweater he wore. The hand was missing. The left arm hung limply to the floor, and near it lay a drawing pencil where it had fallen from his inert fingers. A drawing board lay on his knees.

Irma Niklova stood motionless. So close was she to the man that she could have touched him. A tremor shook her slender body, and her somber black eyes warmed and softened as they gazed at the fair, disheveled head and half-hidden face. Presently she stooped and without a sound placed her violin case on the floor against the wall; then rising she slipped her right hand from its rough woolen glove and timidly extended it. Instantly she drew it back. A moment's hesitation, then a soundless step, and, holding her breath, she bent her lips to the head of the unconscious man.

HE started up instantly, and the drawing board clattered to the floor. She sprang back, her face white. He turned and blinked at her in a daze.

"Miss Niklova! I didn't hear you! Was I asleep?"

She turned her burning face from his gaze and put a quick finger on her lips.

The sick boy had stirred at the noise of the falling board; but while his sister waited in silence he sank back again into the depths of slumber. She touched his hot forehead lightly with her hand, then felt beneath the covering for his pulse. A look of relief dawned in her face.

"He seems better," she whispered to the man who watched.

He nodded. She crossed back to the door and opened it, beckoning him. Outside they began to talk in low tones. The doctor had not come, the man said; but Pavlo had taken the medicine and had slept: assuredly he was better.

"You must go to bed," she said when the report was ended. "You are very weary. Never, never can I thank you for all you do for us, Mr. Andrus!"

He raised his left hand in a silencing gesture of protest. "What I do for you, you would as gladly do for me, Miss Niklova. We are comrades. It is understood."

He returned to the room a moment and picked up the fallen sketch and pencil. "If there is anything I can do, you will call me?" he asked, rejoining her.

She nodded with a smile so warm and tender that it almost beautified her tired, wasted face. "I'll call you—I promise." She hesitated, then added timidly, "Don't work any more tonight—you look so tired."

He smiled, and turning left her.

In the doorway she waited, looking after him until his head had vanished above the stair railing. Back in her room, she busied herself reviving the meager fire in the tiny grate, then in a smaller adjoining room she partly undressed, slipped on her long outdoor coat, and returning to the sickroom lowered the pale flame of gas. Before the icon that filled one corner of the room she knelt a long time in prayer, then stretched herself upon a narrow sofa near her brother's bed, and almost at once fell into a light, restless sleep.

BARELY an hour had passed. Irma Niklova found herself standing beside her brother's bed. What had awakened her? she wondered, startled. Had he called out or moved? He lay exactly as before; but now his breath came in short gasps, his skin looked waxen, his lips blue.

Tremblingly she felt his wrist. A cry of terror broke from her. With shaking hands she measured out some medicine and poured it into the lips of the sick boy. He half started up, gulping the fluid. She held her fingers on his pulse and waited.

At the end of ten minutes she noticed a change. The pulse was stronger, the breath came more slowly. She lingered a moment longer, then threw open the door, and guided by the scant light from the room ran swiftly down the hall and up the stairs to the floor above.

At the door of John Andrus she knocked. No answer came. She knocked again, one hand on the knob. Silence! Then unconsciously her hand pressed the knob, the door yielded, and she lurched into the room.

To be continued next week

Such a Little Queen

She flashed for a single moment into the spotlight eight months ago, when she indignantly refushed the German demand to permit its armies to cross her little Kingdom, and since then no news of her has filtered through to the outside world. Her refusal did her little good for the soldiers tramped across her tiny domain anyway, and into her very palace. What has happened there since to Marie Adelaide, Grand Duchess of Luxemburg? Is she a haughty prisoner, as the press of the Allies claims, disdainfully spurring the advances of her captors? Or has she, as the Germans claim, lent her slender resources to their cause?

Little Things You Ought to Know

Celluloid Watch Crystals

AT the outbreak of the war American watchmakers were much concerned regarding the watch crystal situation; the German source of supply being shut off, and previous attempts to make them in this country having failed.

Watch crystals of glass are now being made her successfully, and an American inventor has helped the matter along by devising a celluloid watch crystal, which has the beveled edge and general appearance of a glass crystal and possesses the additional advantage of being unbreakable.

The Black Hole of Calcutta

IF the prisoners in the famous Black Hole had been as well informed as modern scientists, there would have been no such death rate as actually occurred. The men died has shown that air can support life if it be kept in motion, even though it has but a small amount of oxygen in it.

If the prisoners in the notorious dungeon had therefore formed in a mass and resolved round and round at a pace that would have been easy to keep up, not only would the contained air have been stirred up, but each man on the outside of the revolving mass would have had his face presented periodically to the small window.

In fact, in the light of recent discovery, the same incarceration could now take place without the loss of a single life; that is, provided the men were reasonably strong and healthy.

Where It's Two Days at Once

A GREAT many people cannot see why, when a man crosses the international date line in the Pacific ocean, if he goes toward the east he loses a day, and if toward the west he gains a day. That is, if it, say, happens to be Tuesday just this side, if he crosses to the west it will be Monday. The distance he may have actually gone need be only a few feet; but it is true nevertheless. The actual time may be only a second's difference.

To understand this, remember that we go from Monday to Tuesday at twelve o'clock at night,—jump immediately from one day to another. Consider also that if a man could travel toward the east as fast as the earth rotates, and if he started at midday, with the sun directly overhead, he should go completely round the earth in no solar time at all; for the sun would always be just over his head, and to him it would be twelve o'clock all the time if he measured time by the position of the sun. He would not experience any night at all, and so would have twenty-four hours of sunlight. But it has actually taken him twenty-four hours to get around; so the time when he reached his starting place again would be twelve o'clock noon all right, but would be a day later than when he started.

So it can be readily seen that some meridian on the earth's surface must be picked out as the starting point of a new day—and the chosen one lies almost entirely in the Pacific Ocean.

Where Khaki Came from

A WRITER in the Scientific American says that khaki has been in use in the British army for more than forty years. It was in use in the Jowaki Expedition in 1877. Again all troops (British and native) engaged in the Afghanistan war of 1878-80 wore khaki. Even the shoes were tan-colored leather, sword belts and saber scabbards were tan-colored leather, helmets were covered with khacki covers and pugrees. Buttons and buckles were not polished.

Khaki is a Hindustani word meaning dusty, earthy.

Siberian Signal Men

IT is probable that nowhere save in Siberia are convicts employed in any service pertaining to the operation of railways. In that place of exile there are may "good conduct" men who spend their live in little huts along the line of railway, always a verst apart, whose only duty it is to signal with green flags that the road is clear. At night they signal with a green lamp.

If the traveler stands between the railway cars at midnight, he may tick off the green lights as the train spins along. Away down the black avenue will appear a tiny green speck. As the cars proceed this speck will become larger and larger, and finally the figure of a man holding up the lamp is distinguishable int eh darkness. And there are thousands of these men along the line. A signal started today in Moscow runs for eleven days, until it is broken on the banks of Lake Baikal, beyond Irkutsk.

A Deep Sea Mascot

ONE of the favorite mascots of deep-sea fisherman, to which they attach great importance, is a tiny flat stone, or bone, found in the ears of plaice and other fish. The wearer of one of these stones is supposed to be immune to the danger of drowning.

It is easy to find these stones in the ears of fish, although they are no bigger than a split lentil. Anybody who cares to look for one and to examine it will see on its surface light and dark rights, similar to those found on a larger scale in treetrunks. The number of rings tells the age of the fish, as a new ring appears each year.

Parvenus and Malaprops

An airy self complacent Mrs. Newly Rich of Washington's somewhat mixed society was at a large and fashionable ball. When she was introduced to a young man who had not been dancing she asked, "How is it that you are not tripping the light bombastic toe?"

The conversation having turned on balls in general. Mrs. Newly Rich told of a masked ball to which her husband had gone "in the garbage of a monk."

When someone asked her if she had seen the Dardanelles when on a trip to the Orient she said with a great deal of animation, "Oh, yes indeed! We dined with them a number of times."

THIS was equal to the break of a Mrs. Parvenu who had returned from a trip abraod and had a great deal to say regarding the number of distinguished literary people she had met. When asked if she had met George Eliot she clasped her hands and said rapturously, "Yes, indeed! He was the most delightful literary man we met while we were in England. HE and my husband got to be real chums. They smoked and rode and took long trip together, until folks called them a regular David and Pythimus pair."

A MRS. MALAPROP was overheard on a streetcar while telling a friend about the illness of an acquaintance. "I don't know just what the trouble is," she said; but I believe there is something the matter with her spiral colyum. There is vertibrat out of place, or something of that sort. And it is apt to go hard with her, just getting over pumony.

WHEN someone complimented Mrs. Parvenu on the excellence of a dinner she had served to her guests she said complacently, "Yes, I ave a real good chef. I have to have; for my husband is a perfect ipecac and has to have everything cooked just so."

A little late this hostess told of a short flight she and her husband had taken in an airship, and when asked if she had been frightened during the trip she said, "No, I don't knwo that I was frightened at all, and yet I was glad and thankful when I found myself on terra cotta again."

SOMEONE spoke in a flattering way to the mother of a Washington society belle regarding her daughter's beautiful arms. "Yes, Mary has awful nice arms," was the reply. "Some day I mean to have a real nice bust made of them."

It is charged to another Washington woman new to society that when her daughter called her attention to a remarkably fine bust at an art exhibition the mother said reprovingly, "Why, my dear, my dear! You shouldn't say 'bust.' It is vulgar. You should say 'burst.'"

THE rural correspondent now and then indicates the fact that a spelling book and dictionary would be useful to him. This was true of the correspondent who sent the following item to the county paper: "Mr. Will Peeker is down with appendisheetous, which may necessitate a operation if it don;t get no better. His father is also down with skiatic trouble, and his mother's health has been slim for sometime; not to mention his sister, who has locomotive taxes. Too bad!"

Another rural correspondent gave an account of a wedding and referred to the bridal procession "producing down the aisle to the entrancing strains of Mendel & Sons wedding march."

Someone sent a rural editor an anonymous letter, and received the following scathing rebuke in the editorial columns of the paper, "Anyone who will send an unsigned synomonous letter to another person is sure to be deserving of the opprobrious epithet 'Hic jacet,' or 'He lies.'"

The parvenu who seeks to air her limited knowledge of French is sure to provoke smiles at her expense. This was true of the one who said at a dinner party, "Oh, it was quite the most élite affair of the season. All the beau monde and bon ton of the city were there, and it was too de rigeur for anything. And it was a most seclusive affair, with the greatest number of prominent digitaries there!"