On Taking My Old Fishing-Pole Out of Winter Storage

I HAVE examined the high cost of living cloud inside and out, and I have been able to discover only this one single patch of silver lining:

Meat prices are so high that the fish which I shall catch this summer will-have some chance of being treated by my family" with respect.

No more shall I be met at the door with the cruel taunt: "If you expect to eat those little things, you will have to clean them yourself." Instead I shall be hailed as one who, in his slender way, is aiding the Allies, and fighting for liberty, by helping to feed the world.

Slinking in at the back gate, with my string of fish, is a humiliation that I shall never have to endure again. I shall march home proudly, as the cave-man used to march, bearing the fruits of his prowess to his woman and cubs.

I am told by eminent doctors that since 1900 there has been a frightful increase in the percentage of deaths among middle-aged men from diseases of the heart and liver and kidneys.

In the same years I have noted a frightful increase in golf and other forms of violent outdoor exercise.

I see men of forty and even younger rushing off to the links for a game that used to be thought safe only for hardened survivors of ninety or more.

I watch them hurl themselves feverishly from hole to hole, returning exhausted to their club-houses or being driven home in limousines, supposing they have done themselves good.

And I shake my head sadly and fondle my fishing-pole.

No man ever died at forty-five from over-exertion at fishing. There is not a single recorded case of a man's heart being adversely affected by the sight of a cork pulled under the surface of a pond.

If one loves life and would continue long in it, let him fish. Fishermen grow in wisdom as they grow in years. As Izaak Walton hath it:

I have found it to be a real truth, that the sitting by the river's side is not only the quietest and fittest place for contemplation, but will invite an angler to it; and this seems to be maintained by the learned Peter Du Moulin, who in his discourse of the fulfilling of the Prophecies, observes, that when God intended to reveal any future events or high notions to his prophets, he then carried them either to the deserts or the seashore, and having so separated them from amidst the press of people and business, and the cares of the world, he might settle their mind in a quiet repose, and there make them fit for revelation.

No great philosophy, as far as I know, has been born either on the bleachers or the links: but how many of the ideas that have made men truer and nobler have come out of long days on the bank, when there were no bites!

Fishing is human life epitomized.

There is the water, calm, inscrutable, impenetrable,—the symbol of fate,—into which every man casts his line.

What lies at the bottom of it for him no man may see. The tiny minnow of misfortune which nibbles away his bait, may be followed the next moment by a monstrous catch of good luck, sweeping him almost off his feet.

What happened yesterday in this very spot is no augury of what may take place to-day. Always there is the hope that the next fling of the line will bring the reward: always the lure of the one more try.

And as one grows older in fishing, even as one grows older in living, there comes the same consoling truth—that one need not catch big fish in order to be happy. That the spirit of the fishing is more important than the size of the catch: that he who fishes well must fish with a calm and tranquil soul, drawing his reward from the joy of his fishing rather than from the weight of his fish.

To one who can tune his soul to it, there is consolation in fishing, and healing and peace.

After their Great Friend had gone, the disciples of Jesus were desolate. Where should they turn? What could they do? And Simon Peter, seeking comfort, answered: "I go a-fishing." Every true fisherman in the world knows exactly how he felt.

Bruce Barton, Editor.

HOW I AM TRYING TO RAISE MY CHILDREN

The Prize Story

ALL the neighbors advised me against taking such a step, but my mind was set on adopting a little girl.

One reason was that my son John was strongly in favor of the action, telling me he was sure the little girl would be so much company for me when he was away at work all day and I was left alone. I am a widow woman, with one son, who is employed in the mill as a loom-fixer and who gets very good pay. We were paying for two houses, and as my share toward this I kept several roomers and boarders, all girls but one. The girls cared for their own rooms, and I had the care of the rest of the house. My days, with their long hours of work, seemed lacking in some way, and I finally decided it was a little girl that I needed to run about the house, play and prattle, and be company for me.

We went to the Home, John and I together, one stormy Sunday afternoon, to see the matron. She brought into the stiff and cold-looking reception-room six little girls, all dressed up in gingham dresses, with boyish-cut hair. Their ages ranged from three years to ten.

John appeared suddenly at a loss what to do, and I felt that the whole burden of selection rested with me. I looked at these six little girls, and my heart went out to every one of them. But Mary, aged six, seemed to take a place in my heart at once. I shall never forget how she looked—big, steel-rimmed glasses covering blue eyes, one of which was crooked, a mop of brown hair, and one chubby forefinger in her mouth.

We took Mary home, and for the first few days she was busy exploring the house from garret to cellar. Then, as the novelty wore off, she began to get lonesome, and she cried night and day, all the time. I later found that she had a brother living with another family in the city, and that he was proving almost incorrigible. This disheartened me greatly, and I was discouraged over the task that confronted me. To make matters worse, Mary seemed to be set against John in everything. That was too bad, for John was the one who was largely the cause of her coming. She would not do anything that he wanted her to, and when we would try to make her mind by moral suasion, she would come to me and lay her head in my lap and cry and cry.

I hadn't the heart to whip her, for she was a poor little orphan with no folks to love her. Father Durgan called and talked with her, and told her she had a good home, kind friends, and that she was to call me mother. This latter she refused to do at first, but after several weeks she would timidly address me as "Mu."

I soon found that little Mary had a very strong will, and that she almost always wanted to do the opposite of what I told her. To break a child's will is not to cure it in the right way. I felt that I must go about the matter carefully, or only the worst would result. The neighbors said that I ought to whip her; but I loved her from the very first, and I couldn't

whip her, for it would break my heart. She would not go to bed at night, and would sleep real late in the morning. She was slow about dressing, and I had to help her each morning. I knew that a child of her age should go to bed early and want to get up.

After being with me for a year, Mary developed into a sullen, sulky child, and I had almost given up in despair of ever being able to do anything with her. John had given up long ago. Then, in the fall, when she was seven years old, I sent her to school. She went with one of the neighbors' children.

After two weeks or so I noticed a change in Mary's bearing. She would hurry in the morning and be afraid that she would be late to school. She seemed brighter, and began to take notice of my work about the house and to ask questions. So many questions that child could ask! In a very short time she was able to set the table for me, and she also wanted to wipe the dishes. She went about the little tasks that I let her do in a real womanly fashion.

One afternoon I did my work up early and went to school with her. I noticed that she seemed a bit shy with the other children, but that she did her part in the school work as efficiently as any. After school I waited and talked with Miss Burbank, her teacher. Miss Burbank said that little Mary came the first week, and sat silent in her seat, not heeding questions or the actions of the children about her. At the beginning of the second week she began to take an interest in things, and asked for the

little colored pegs and cutouts to play with. As she saw that each child was more engrossed in its own labor than in watching her, she became more confident, and started about her own work. At that point of the story I realized that my love for the little waif did my share in helping her, and that the sympathetic teacher and the children all about her also helped Mary.

At home I noticed that she became more tractable, and that very soon she would climb on to John's knee in the evening and get him to read to her out of her little book and explain the pictures. As I sat opposite them at the dining-room table, doing a bit of sewing or darning, I almost felt that our dream was realized— that here was a bright ray of sunshine in the house.

I consulted the city's best oculist, and learned that by a careful operation Mary's eyes could be corrected. It was hard for the poor little girl, as she had just recovered from a throat trouble which required a lancing. But her faith in John and in me helped her. The operation was successful, and when she was eight years old she was able to leave off glasses. The discarding of those ugly steel-rimmed things changed her appearance wonderfully. I tried always to keep her clothes neat and clean, and she began to take a personal pride in her appearance, and her little vanities pleased me and amused John, who said, "Just like a woman." From there on the task of raising Mary became a pleasure that increased every day.

When we took Mary into our home, I was fifty-three years old and was on life, which seemed to beginning to have a dull outlook stretch no farther than my kitchen stove and my mending basket. John says now that he can not see how we could ever have got along without Mary. I am sixty-four now, but my neighbors all tell me that I look twenty years younger. I have joined the Parent-Teachers Association, and take an active part in it. Mary is in her second year in high school, and a leader in the school's activities; and, to her, brother John is the best pal a girl could ask for. This seems almost like a story of my salvation. But, dear mothers,—and fathers, too,—it was and is the salvation of three souls: that of a friendless orphan, a dulling middle-aged woman, and a young man who needed some one to take care of.

H. H., Augusta, Maine.

A Story for Fathers

I AM a farmer, and what I do for my crops, pigs, and chickens—get the best possible specimens after their kind—that I try to do for my children. First, they must have good physical bodies and enduring constitutions.

I remember what I and one other child out of a family of six survived: the old sheet-iron stove in winter, with the thermometer flashing up to ninety or more, and going to bed in an unventilated, tomb-like room; breasting New England country winters without underwear, overcoat, or rubbers; greased leather boots, heavy woolen stockings, with perpetually wet feet, frozen toes, and torturing chilblains; colds in the head, sore throat, cough—an all-winter procession of ills afflicting the hardiest.

A whole house to live in summer and winter, evenly heated, windows wide open at night, a good weekly bath, teeth always clean, feet habitually dry and warm at all costs, and bodies protected except when exercising vigorously—these are points in our physical regime. With such provisions first made, all out of doors may be annexed as the ideal play-room.

I have instilled in my children the value of useful work to build body and mind, but particularly the moral sense of obligation to learn to bear one's own burdens, to help one's self, and to help others. I believe also in the joy of physical exercise. In spite of the exaggerated misteachings of certain religious sects, as I believe, I have encouraged my boys and girls to learn to dance and to enjoy it cleanly. I have swum, skated, skiied, and climbed mountains with the kiddies, and have not lost my zest at forty-seven.

Our summers, for years, were one long picnic without interruption of business. We lived out of doors from May to October in tents and a kind of frame and canvas bungalow, in a grove on the farm, surrounded by productive vegetable gardens and orchards.

The children's dress we have first of all aimed to make comfortable and therefore sensible, and secondly, if possible, beautiful. The latter is not always possible with worked-over material and the cheaper grades of goods, with their harsh dyes and faulty patterns. But even at that it is wonderful what an

independent eye and a high aim can accomplish. We have at least managed somehow on a moderate net income to keep alive a noble regard for good appearance, subordinated to the physical service of clothing.

As for food, I

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adopted no radical modern fad or theory. I am satisfied that, with a few modifications, the old New England system of eating is good. I do not, however, believe in fried meats and potatoes and pie for breakfast. We changed it for just fruit and cereal and milk, moderately sugared, and plenty of it.

I have given most space to the physical concern for our children; for that, in reality, was the "heft" of the job. It has taken ninety per cent. of the time and money. It had to. And we could have used much more.

But there are other things. There is education. And there is eternal life. I know it. Although the father of such a family as mine reads perhaps one book a year, the titles only of promising magazine articles, the abbreviated columns of the daily news, and while he must say his prayers, (the real ones) while on the run, I have kept up, in a way, with education and the most promising religious tendencies around us.

The three girls are now in high school. The boys are coming along. All aim at some still higher education. College, and careers that require special training, we discuss at the family round table.

I can truly say that we have the confidences of our children, even in the things that so many good men and women (even husbands and wives) will not discuss together. I believe that the result is that we have saved them from the pitfalls and have clean children.

God, duty, and the higher life follow as a matter of course. Not one of our bonny bairns but would be surprised if life were not immortal and its end glorious.

E. P. P., Woodstock, Vt.

She Leaves Her Children Alone

I AM trying to leave my children alone. I was brought up under the Frobelian come-let-us-live-with-our-children regime; and, being an only child, I was lived with—incessantly. I slept in a room opening into that of my parents, and I played in the living-room where my mother sewed.

I was helped in everything, judiciously. I never did up my own hair until I was fifteen. Mother helped me make doll dresses, doing the major part of the work; mother always stayed at home to greet me when I came in from school; mother selected my pretty clothes, chose the books that I read, and helped me with Latin and algebra every evening. Even my playmates were carefully selected.

Worst of all, I had no secrets. Mother helped me write the only diary I ever attempted, and corrected the spelling. Even my letters were opened, on the ground that I could have no secrets from mother. And I did not. Automatically I unburdened my soul in the half-hour at bedtime and told mother everything.

The conviction that secrets were wicked was too strong for me. I even told her that glorious first time when the nicest boy I knew kissed me. And with the telling a new-born, wonderfully sweet and elusive thing was killed. I felt suddenly coarsened and degraded—and I had felt neither with the giving of that kiss.

After that I began telling timid but quite deliberate lies as a means of self-defense. I could not object openly; for my mother was too dear and gentle, too anxious to do the completely right thing. She gave years of her life utterly to me, as I shall never have the unselfishness to do for my children.

But I have my ideals. I want my children to be self-reliant, independent of judgment, democratic. I want them clean-minded from choice, not from ignorance. I want them neither self-conscious nor egotistically sensitive. So I leave my children alone.

I have three—two boys and a girl. They are taught regular sleeping and eating habits in their babyhood. I try to teach them the game of pushing buttons into buttonholes and scrubbing hands by the time they are four. After that they dress themselves, learn to take their daily baths themselves, and to scrub out the tub. (It isn't always scrubbed very clean, for the first year or two.) After they go to school they may select their own clothes, within a stated sum that we can afford. And they choose clothes of very good quality, although the colors are a trifle loud.

They choose their own friends and bring them home to the back yard to play. And a motley crew they are. This afternoon I counted six different nationalities defending a snow fort out by the chicken-house. Rarely are they well brought up children. But honesty compels me to admit that the "best friend," who is a redheaded Scotch-Irish boy, and the "second best friend," a little Russian Jew, are much more vivid personalities than the restrained offspring of my intimates.

None of the children have an allowance. Earnings begin at four with a two-cent wage for remembering to bring in the milk-bottle from the front porch. This increases to a dime when they are old enough to run errands, and goes up to twenty-five cents by the time they are ten, when I expect them to make a stab at darning their own stockings and making their own beds. For the one rule of the family is that no one is to ask any one else to do anything for him that he can do himself. After they are ten we pay them at regular hour rates for caring for the chickens, shoveling snow, and odd jobs.

They have their own gardens, and may raise whatever they wish. If the crop is worth buying, I pay a cent more than the store rates. If it is a failure, that is their own affair.

Finally, they have absolute privacy. They each have a room, and we knock on one another's doors. Their letters lie unopened. If I am not there when they come from school, they leave a note on the bulletin-board as to their whereabouts and that is all there is to it. I am quite sure that they must have secrets and confidences of their own, although they are naturally frank children and remarkably friendly in their revelations.

Whether our experiment will bring out good citizens remains for the future. But, of all the anxious parents of my acquaintance, it seems to me that there are none who achieve the real day-by-day fun out of their children that we do.

She Raised a Good Son

AT seventeen I married a prosperous mechanic, thinking I had everything a girl could wish for; but I soon learned that he spent all his money as fast as he made it. After three years of this I found that I would have to go to work to support myself and my child. I started the care-taking of the house in which we lived, in order to save half of the rent.

From year to year things grew harder, as I had more children, and sickness and death came. I had to work much harder to meet our expenses, and to take any work as it came—sewing, washing, cleaning, or anything that would bring in money.

My oldest boy grew to be twelve years of age. He was liked in school for his neatness and nice ways, and I resolved to give him and the other children an education, as this was all I could give them. The boy had begun to understand how hard things were for me, and he tried to help me all he could. He would run errands, clean sidewalks, carry parcels—anything to help. When he was thirteen he got a position as an office boy during vacation, earning $4.50 a week.

At this time I had a young baby less than a year old. I could not leave her with the children while I went out to work, so I took in washing—three washings a week along with my own work.

It was all right for the summer; but when September came I wanted the boy to go back to school. He begged me to let him keep his position. He said, "Mother, you need the money so badly." But, as he needed to make only one more class to graduate, I sent him back to school. Of course I missed the money, and I had to do extra work until January, when he graduated.

Two days later he got a position. That was four years ago, and from $4.50 a week he is now earning $18.

I now no longer go out to work. I have taken a child in to board, and with the money I receive from this and a little sewing besides, we keep the other children well and in school. I have long since separated from my husband.

We have not much, but what we have is ours and we are all happy.

When my father died, my mother did not go out to work to educate us children. She put us in a. Home, and later we were all separated and had to shift for ourselves. But I vowed that this Should never be the fate of my children; for I love my children and would do anything for their comfort and benefit, and I am sure that they love me in return. They are well thought of and respected by all who know them, and I seem to be none the worse for my hardships, for I am always ready to listen to. my children's stories and have a good laugh.

Q., Brooklyn, N. Y.

How She Brought Up Her Little Sisters

I AM not actually a parent, but have been for ten years: one of the "big-sister-mothers" who often have the care of children left to them.

For the first five years after the death of my parents, a great deal of my time was taken with the business of making a living, and the three little sisters "just grew."

Soon after I married, and could give them more daily attention, I discovered that they had really grown to be the most quarrelsome, irritable, fault-finding children you could imagine. Although loving each other and defending each other to outsiders, they could not be long together before trouble began; and often slapping and hysterical tears were the end.

I tried scolding, and often became angry myself and punished them severely. Nothing did any good, and our home was repeatedly in a turmoil.

One evening, at the close of an especially trying day, I realized that I just must find the cause and cure. The children were unhappy; I was unhappy; and we were making a far from pleasant home for my husband.

Now, I knew that the children inherited a nervous, quick-tempered disposition (also my own handicap), and I resolved on a course of action to relieve all undue strain and to help them to self-control.

I knew that I must learn, first of all, to be cool and calm myself. Then I went with the girls to a good physician and had all three examined. The result of this examination was that the eldest was fitted with glasses, to relieve eye-strain which we never knew existed, and the youngest had an impacted tooth treated.

I determined to send them to bed an hour earlier, and have them sleep with wide-open windows.

As all three dressed in the same room, the mornings had been dreadful times, especially when the fear of being late for school intensified the nervous strain. I helped this by calling them in plenty of time; and then, so that they would get over a tendency to dawdle, for a few mornings I went to their room and in as smiling and jolly a manner as I could I showed them how to concentrate their attention on dressing quickly and neatly.

After looking to their physical well being, I thought it time to help them change their pessimistic mental attitude. We often read or tell bed-time stories that teach kindness and patience, finding many of these in the Bible.

The matter of training for concentration has been extended from the dressing time to the home study period, and even to dish-washing.

We have far to go yet, and of course the hardest part of the plan is for me to keep the right, happy viewpoint. Often at first I have felt that I would rather sit by the fire of an evening with the good man of the house than be supervising the girls' work or play. But the children are so interested and happy that there is very little time for "picking" on each other. And, best of all, I am no longer ashamed of the behavior of my little sisters before my husband or guests.

E. K. S., Uniontown, Pa.

This Woman Had Inexhaustible Patience

MY little girl was born almost totally deaf. The slight hearing which she possessed was not sufficient for her, unaided, to gain through it any knowledge of the spoken language.

There was a period when it seemed that she was not bright; but at the age of eight years, when upon the death of her mother she came to me, it was evident that it was simply a case of deafness.

The creed that I formulated in the beginning was that I would be failing in my duty to her did I not expect and obtain from her just as much as I would from any other child.

It is true that the carrying out of this principle has required extreme patience, but I never let myself make allowances for her handicap. In this way she has learned that if she tries she can do as other children.

Oh, the great triumph when she, for the first time, came out of a drug store eating an ice cream cone which she had ordered herself. I was sure then that others could understand the sentence that she had spent days in learning. If she could say one sentence she could learn others.

She is being taught in the oral method. Why should a child be taught any method that makes her conspicuous and which is not understood by every one, such as talking with fingers? My little girl has been taught to read lips and make in return the same motions with the right sounds.

It is true, there have been times when she has cried because I would not repeat with my lips what some friend was telling her, but strengthened her by compelling her to get the words from lips to which she was less accustomed. For the sake of other mothers, I would say that if you have such a child, never let her read discouragement in your face, but always hope and success.

When teaching her, be sure your lips are in the light, and speak slowly. Of course your success is dependent upon absolute obedience. A deaf child, especially, must be taught this first of all.

My little girl is now eleven years old. She is in the fourth grade of the public school, and is carrying her work as well as any child.

It has meant cooperation on my part with her teachers. When she entered school I asked her teacher to say something to the assembled class, using her lips only and making no sound. When she asked who could tell what she said, of course my little girl was the only one who raised her hand; and their the children realized that she could do something that they could not. This removed any tendency on their part to laugh at some of her words that were not as plain as theirs.

During the first term after she entered school, she spelled down her class. This removed any question of her position, so far as her schoolmates were concerned.

After school every day she has a good play out of doors, and when she comes in I have a short story ready for her.

First she reads it from the book, and all unknown words are explained. Then she reads it from my lips. Then she shuts her eyes, and I read it very slowly and very loudly, having her try to catch the sounds and repeat each word.

This I consider very important, for it stimulates the slight hearing she possesses, just as one may be trained to see at great distance; so perhaps her slight hearing may become of value.

Next I tell her the story; then she tells me the story. And then she writes it in her words, and together we go over and correct the written story.

She is a pretty little dancer, and very soon she will play a piece on the piano at a recital.

With all of this study, she has plenty of time to play and writes to her grandma: "I have a lovely good time all the while."

M. T. Mankato, Minn.

The House of Hoblitzell

By ELMORE ELLIOTT PEAKE

Illustrations by M. L. Bower

THE firm occupied an extensive suite on the twelfth floor of a human beehive known as the Black Hawk Building. The partners themselves had planned the quarters when the building was projected, and had leased them for twenty-five years.

The rooms were finished in mahogany and Algerian onyx, and were bedded with rugs from which the heaviest footfall evoked no sound. Entrance was had by a single door, on the frosted glass of which, in small, chaste letters, ran the legend: "House of Hoblitzell." Beside this door, in business hours, stood a liveried sentinel—so stiff, so stern, that he might have been an ex-captain of Uhlans.

If your credentials satisfied this Cerberus you found yourself in a corridor the first opening from which let you into a reception-room sprinkled with luxurious chairs around a table in the center. At this table presided a tall, lean, sphinx- faced old man, whose shoulder-length white hair evoked images of Franz Liszt, but who was only Otto—an office-boy raised to the nth power. He, after you had produced your credentials a second time, led you along a private passage to one or another of the apartments, four in all, occupied by the members of the House.

Had one of these gentlemen granted you permission—which he certainly would not—to inspect the rest of the establishment, you would have seen, first, a counting-room, with cashiers, bookkeepers, and stenographers; next, a sales-room, unlike any other in your experience; and, finally, a work-room, occupied by a dozen chunky, round-shouldered, spectacled Germans, shirt-sleeved and bent over small individual benches.

Crudely speaking, the House of Hoblitzell was a jewelry store. But it was such a jewelry store as only genius, tradition, and wealth could contrive. It was a store into which no poor man, by any accident, could stray. It never advertised. All sales were by appointment, all admissions by card, and the only clerks were the partners themselves—the youngest of whom was fifty-two.

But they were the most accommodating of clerks. If, for instance, Mr. Croesus wanted to buy his wife a five-foot rope of pearls, each of a weight and orient which all the bivalves in all the oceans of the world make only six or eight of a year, and worth, say, a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the House of Hoblitzell would at once despatch a lapidary on a tour of the capitals of earth, the satrapies of Persia, and the principalities of Indian maharajahs, with instructions not to return until he had collected the costly concretions required.

Or if Mrs. Croesus wanted something in stock, she was ushered into the sales-room—an elegant boudoir-like apartment, with light-proof tapestries masking the windows, and a battery of powerful electrics in the paneled ceiling drenching the atmosphere with a filtered, opalescent radiance. No show-cases, no emblems of trade, were in sight. But, bowing the lady into one of the gilt Hepplewhite chairs, the black-frocked Herr Hoblitzell, Traub, Swasey, or Baum, as the case might be, would enter an alcove,—in reality a vault,—emerge with a tray of the scintillating baubles for which men sweat blood and women barter their bodies, place it on an exquisite little tabouret at madame's knee, and, drawing up another chair, leisurely help her to a selection.

And all the time, at the other side of a concealed peep-hole ten feet up on the wall, was glued an unblinking human eye —an eye belonging to a man who regarded every member of the human race as a potential thief. Close to his hand was a

push-button; and when his fear—or hope—was realized, when Mrs. Croesus—or, as oftener happened, a mock Mrs. Croesus—hastily thrust a precious trinket into her corsage during the salesman's absence in the vault, an ugly little gargoyle on a bracket would blush a fiery red.

The scene that followed varied according to the temperament of the customer. But whether she was a lady or an adventuress, whether she wept or stormed, the finale was always the same. The House of Hoblitzell got back its own, and closed the incident then and there. What happened in that room never seeped out to the world.

INTO the reception-room of this imposing House tripped, one morning, Miss Paige Priestley, of Logansport; handed a card to old Otto; and a moment later stood in the presence of Anton Hoblitzell—a bulky Bismarckian sort of man.

"Sit down, Miss Briestley," said he in a guttural basso. "You are new in the city? No friends here?"

"None," she answered, a bit timidly.

For a moment he studied her fresh young face, brows as perfect as if penciled by an artist, and a wonderful crown of dark hair.

"It would be voolish to ask such a milk-maiden sort of girl if she has some bad habits—eh!" He smiled benevolently. "You never took a drink of liquor in your life, I will vager."

She flushed slightly.

"At Christmas dinner, at home, we always pledge one another's health in a glass of mother's cherry bounce."

"Ach! How nice! And cigarettes? You never smoked one in your life?"

"No, sir."

"In a vay, Miss Briestley, this is none of my business, so long as you do your work. We have girls—and good girls—who do drink and smoke. But I would like it better if they didn't. You come most highly recommended as a stenographer. But that will be only a small part of your work. We want honest, intelligent, and loyal servants—and good-looking, if they are women. We study psychological effect, and our girls occasionally meet a customer, as you will see. You are as peautiful—pardon me!—as a goddess. You will do for a trial. I will start you on seventy-five dollars a mont'. We pay much because we ask much. In three mont's I will pay you a hundred—or nothing. You are ready for work this morning? Then I will introduce you to Miss Dahlgren, our head stenographer."

Miss Sabine Dahlgren proved to be a young woman with golden eyelashes and hair that might have been spun from the glumes of corn-tassels. She held her full bust with the military erectness of the perfectly corseted woman. A rose-pink blouse of Georgette crepe seductively tinted the plump flesh beneath, and a black satin skirt swathed her shapely hips as smoothly as a second skin. She was a striking person. Yet the girl from Logansport instantly disliked her.

Paige was assigned to a roll-top typewriter-desk next to Miss Dahlgren's—to facilitate her initiation, she supposed. It began at once.

"Your day," said Miss Dahlgren in a rich, full-throated voice, "will be from nine to five, with an hour for lunch. I will show you a nice place to eat, if you wish. You may wear at work any kind of waist you please, but your skirt should be dark—preferably black. If you choose silk or satin the house will stand one half the cost. A coiffeur in the building will dress your hair in thirty minutes, at the house's expense, whenever you have an outside assignment—such as taking an assortment of jewels out for a lady to try on with different costumes. But that will not be for some time. I should also say that our ladies are not allowed to associate with our men outside the office, except at lunch."

She paused as a ruddy, flaxen-haired young fellow, enveloped in a fur-trimmed tan ulster, with gloves and a derby hat to match, swept into the room like a breeze from the lake. He passed swiftly through, with a cheery "Good morning!" to everybody, and disappeared in the direction of the private rooms.

"Mr. Max Hoblitzell, son of the chief!" announced Miss Dahlgren. "Most of your work will be with him, in the beginning. He breaks in the new stenographers, I guess it's no hardship," she added, snapping her full blue eyes.

PRESENTLY Mr. Max called for Paige, through a tiny telephone on Miss Dahlgren's desk. Miss Dahlgren showed the way, and Paige, with note-book and pencil, entered the room with a little flutter. This House of Hoblitzell, with its voluptuous, secretive, mysterious atmosphere, half frightened her.

Mr. Max, however, proved different. At her entrance he sprang up from his table-desk, smiled, proffered a soft white hand, and introduced himself. He chatted genially for five minutes about her, her home and family, her former employment. Then he dictated five letters, three to foreign addresses, and finished with a cablegram to Liverpool.

---

"Miss Dahlgren will code that cable. The Duke of Abyrton, you know," he explained merrily, "wouldn't want it known that he is pinched for cash and has concluded to part with a portion of the ducal jewels."

A few nights later Paige wrote home: "I think my work is going to be very interesting. This firm sells jewels to only the very richest people, and has resident agents all over the world on the lookout for famous stones and pieces which misfortune has forced the owners to sell. Pitiful, isn't it!"

However, in a second letter, to a certain "Dear Charlie," her loneliness and homesickness found expression.

SHE was a month old in the House when, on reaching the congested, roaring street one afternoon after work, Paige met young Hoblitzell in the portico. He took her arm and steered her through the sidewalk to a limousine at the curb.

"I'm kidnapping you, Miss Priestley," he said, laughing, "because I happen to be going your way. Jump in!"

Modish, immaculate, self-assured, and twisting a little straw-colored mustache that was prinked up at the ends like the Kaiser's, he was not to be disobeyed. Paige was in the car almost before she knew it, and half way to her Forty-eighth Street boarding-house, before it occurred to her that Mr. Max must have looked up her address in the office records.

The next week he took her home twice, and the second time suggested, at her door, that she dine with him. Now was the moment for her self-promised no—especially as her weekly letter to Charlie Mills was already two days overdue. Yet she hesitated, and Mrs. Drum's Thursday menu of pot roast, macaroni, and sago pudding tipped the balance in Max's favor. She fenced a little first, though.

"Miss Dahlgren told me that the men and women of the office were not allowed to associate after hours!" she exclaimed archly. "But perhaps the rule doesn't apply to the bosses."

"Yes, it does. But rules, I've heard, are made to be broken. I'll call for you in an hour."

Paige bathed and dressed with a faster heart than she would have cared to acknowledge. But when she took a final peep in her glass, after carefully pinning on her hat and slipping into a white coat,—both new,—she was satisfied that Mr. Max would not regret his invitation.

The little table that Hoblitzell had reserved at the restaurant was near the cabaret stage. A minstrel turn was on when the pair took their seats, and Paige joined in the applause. But the next performer—evidently a favorite—was a painted and penciled young woman in tights and a daring corsage. Paige was not unfamiliar with the ballet, but this woman's proximity, intimate manner, and indecent posturing disturbed her. When the dancer leaped from the low stage and pirouetted among the diners, so close that they could whiff her powdered flesh, Paige's cheeks grew hot and she dropped her lashes under Hoblitzell's appraising gaze. Then, at the sudden recollection that this was prayer-meeting night back home, and that her father might be giving out a hymn at this moment, quick tears came.

"Have a good time?" asked Max on the way home.

"Yes—except for that odious woman."

He laughed. "Next time we'll cut out the cabaret."

"Mr. Hoblitzell," said she quietly, as a street lamp flashed by outside, "I don't believe there'll be a next time."

"Why not?" he asked cheerfully.

"Because—because I'm a working-girl, and this kind of thing is outside my life."

"It isn't, if a man chooses to put it inside, is it? That's the only way any woman gets it."

She fell silent. She wanted to urge the difference in their social positions—their relation of employer and employee. But she balked at the baldness of this argument, and said instead:

"Why should you choose to do it?"

"Because I like you. I like to be seen with a woman of your style and beauty. I enjoy your talk. You're different."

So there was a next time, after all, and the very next week at that.

"See that fellow?" observed Max, inclining his head toward a bristly-pompadoured man a few tables away, sitting before a platter of food that might have fed a family. "That's Schroeder, one of the House's spies. He keeps tab on our employees. Apparently he has you under observation this week. If so, he will report your purchases, from an ice-cream soda up."

He laughed gleefully at her expression of alarm.

"Will he report my being with you?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, no. He's in my pay as well as dad's."

Before Paige the two Hoblitzells' talk had always been "Yes, my son," and "Yes, my father," in what struck her as a beautiful German fashion. This was her first intimation that their relations were not ideal. Later Miss Dahlgren hinted to her that Max's social pace did not square with the conservative traditions of the House of Hoblitzell. "Fifteen thousand a year is not a fortune, you know."

It seemed like one to Paige, but she did not say so. Instead, she wondered, with a queer little gripping of her heart, if Sabine had ever basked in Max's sunshine.

The suspicion, which had occurred before, furnished her food for reflection. It ended in a resolution to touch the brakes, at least, to the chariot of pleasure in which she had been careening. But Max's amiable tyranny and princely habit of waving objections aside, coupled with a boyish zest in every fluttering page of the book of life, made a combination hard to resist. So once more Paige's misgivings began to drowse.

"That boarding-house of yours is a smelly place, isn't it, Paige?" asked Max, one bright Sunday morning when she, instead of going to church, was spinning along Sheridan Road.

Paige laughed.

"Rather. But it's the best I can afford."

"How much do you pay?"

"Eight a week."

"Could you stand ten? There's a German widow here in town—a kind of forty-second cousin of dad's—in reduced circumstances, but still hanging on to the old home place and eking out her income with boarders. She has only two, and would take a third, she told me the other day, if she could get a real lady. I told her I knew of just one." He gave her a roguish glance, and added in his impetuous way: "I'll show you the place now. You needn't commit yourself."

And he swung the car into the first cross street.

IT was an old-fashioned, grimy brick, house on the North Side. However, the double drawing room on the first floor was substantially if somewhat somberly furnished; and back of this was a high-ceiled, spacious bedroom, with a private bath.

"It used to be our guest-room" explained the ponderous Mrs. Schwarz. "But now I have no guests no more, and I need the money. My udder young ladies room upstairs, where there iss also a sidding-room. So this young lady could have the parlor almost to herselluf, if she hass company of an evening. Also the piano.

And if she doesn't blay herselluf," she added facetiously, "I am sure, when I look at her handtsome vase; there iss a young man I know who would come and blay for her."

At Paige's pretty confusion Max burst into a peal of laughter. Then, as if to prove that Mrs. Schwarz was not joking, he sat down to the old grand piano and played and sang in a tenor voice that opened Paige's eyes.

"You never told me you sang," said she, as they rolled away from the house.

"I don't. I once thought I could. So did mother, who rated music above all the letters and sciences in the world. So I spent a year and several thousand iron men in Berlin. Then I woke from my dream." he spoke more seriously than usual. "I have what we Germans call a sangerbund voice—good to make a noise with when moistened with plenty of beer. But what about the room?"

"It's lovely," she answered plaintively. "And I'm so sick of that little coop of mine, with the odor of cooking floating up the back stairs. But ten dollars a week is almost half my salary."

"Two fifths, to be exact. And one of these days you will be getting another raise. Leave that to your friend Max. You can't afford to cheapen yourself, my girl, by living in a cheap place. That room of Mrs. Schwarz's is a bargain. I'll telephone her in the morning that you will come—eh?"

He laid his gloved hand upon hers. For the rest of the ride it felt warmer than the other one; and it would not have been good for the peace of mind of Charlie Mills, grocer, of Logansport, to see just then the dark lashes shyly shading the lustrous windows of her soul.

Max, however, the next day did not telephone Mrs. Schwarz. He went to see her instead. He talked with her ten minutes, and then counted down upon her knee, one by one, five yellow twenty-dollar gold certificates. Her black eyes sparkled avariciously. His own blue ones, albeit he smiled, smoldered curiously. As he passed down the steps he hummed the cabaret catch:

For in every good little girl
There's just a little bad—

PAIGE was delighted with her new, quarters. Their stillness was gratifying after the scramble at Forty-eighth Street. She reveled in the snowy, porcelain-tiled bath-room, and resumed her cold morning splash.

Her two fellow boarders evidently had easy morning hours, for they never appeared at the seven-thirty breakfast; and as Paige lunched downtown, and was now dining out four or five evenings a week with Max, a fortnight passed without her making the acquaintance of the young ladies. But in the hall she occasionally passed one or the other, heavily furred, hatted, and perfumed; and once she detested the fumes of a cigarette. She was astonished that the staid Mrs. Schwarz should permit such capers in her house.

She had no need of the young women's society. Her one or two free nights each week were spent in mending, reading, and writing letters. The other, nights, were given over to Max—usually at a concert or theater or a high-class cinema show. But frequently, after dinner, they spent the evening at home. Max loved the piano. Often he sat before it for an hour at a stretch, with scarcely a word, playing endlessly from memory. From the grave and remote expression on his handsome face at such times, Paige knew, with the instinct of her sex, that she might as well have been in Timbuctoo.

Yet he surprised her one night by suddenly turning from the keys and exclaiming:

"Paige, I'd be content to spend all the rest of the evenings of my life with you!"

She scouted him playfully, though unable to control a mounting color.

"You don't believe it, Lady of the Marble Heart?" he demanded, approaching her chair and taking her hand.

"I believe that you believe it at this moment," she parried.

She did not disengage her fingers, though she wanted to. Max had a rare manner of taking these little liberties with her—a combination of brotherliness and guardianship, as it were, which it was extremely difficult for her to repulse with dignity and without an air of coquetry.

Sometimes, for a frolic, they had dinner in the back drawing-room, served by a neighboring caterer. Or again, along, about ten o'clock, Paige would make a rabbit, after Max had run out for cheese, wafers, olives, and the bottle of beer: which he declared was an essential ingredient. Occasionally he would insist on cooking the dish himself, tying on one of Paige's aprons and prancing about like a boy.

One night he came back with two extra bottles of beer, and poured a glass for each of them.

"You know I never drink that stuff," said she soberly.

"Of course. But can't you take a sip just once, as a libation to my Teutonic gods?" he asked playfully.

She took a swallow, followed by a comical, wry face. But in the end, under his chaffing,—and an undeniable pleasant glow within,—she drained the glass. The flushed face and liquid-bright eyes that resulted certainly subtracted nothing from her beauty, if Max's avid gaze were an index. When they collided, in clearing the table, Max touched his cheek to hers. She slapped him gently, and laughed dizzily. And when he bade her good night he slipped an arm around her waist and kissed her on the mouth.

The contact of his tobacco-scented lips loosed her from the liquor's spell like a dash of cold water. He made his exit before her tongue could frame a protest; but she remained standing in the hall, incredulous and half stunned. Then she covered her burning face with her hands. Charlie Mills, who of late had become a shadowy, distant figure, suddenly stepped forward in her mind.

She had been kissed before, of course, by awkward youths. But somehow this kiss was different; and after getting into her crêpe-de-chine night-dress—the kind Miss Dahlgren always wore—and plaiting her long black hair, she snapped off the light and crept into bed without kneeling for her prayers.

At the office the next morning Max greeted her with marked civility. For a week his conduct was unimpeachable. Then, though Paige was still wary, the incident began to edge into the background of her memory.

ONE morning, about this time, old Anton Hoblitzell summoned her to his room.

"Miss Briestley, you have been a good girl," he began in his ponderous way, "and the House wishes to bestow an expression of its confidence upon you. My son is engaged in a negotiation of some importance. Miss Dahlgren usually assists him, but this time he has expressed a preference for you."

He paused. Paige dropped her eyes, abashed. Then he continued:

"There will be some clerical work to do. That will be your part, ostensibly. Really, we want you as a witness. Absolute secrecy is required, so you will go to the place after dark to-night, and may not get back before midnight. For this extra work we will allow you two days' pay. Does that meet with your satisfaction?"

"Yes, thank you," she murmured.

A few minutes later Max himself broached the subject. He seemed nervous, smoked furiously, and paced the floor as he talked.

"Paige," he broke out abruptly, "I lost two thousand dollars at poker last night. That is more than I can afford."

"You told me you had quit," she remarked coldly.

"I did quit. It was my first game in four weeks. But—I guess I'm a weakling.

He laughed shortly, tossed aside his cigarette, and plunged his well-kept hands into his pockets.

"If dad knew this—well, something would drop."

Silence followed. Paige, with lowered lashes, pondered bitterly old Anton's expression of confidence in her—she who for months had habitually broken an office rule. She pondered also the fact that her partner in this infringement was a man who could gamble away in a night a sum equal to her father's biennial salary. Truly she had traveled fast since leaving the parsonage in Logansport, five months before.

She finally became aware of a bit of cardboard under her eyes, bearing the words in German script: "Mapleton Road, one mile north of Chester Corners." The scrawl had no interest for her until, idly, she reversed the card and saw the engraved nane of August Schroeder, the

---

spy—a man of uncanny appeal to her imagination. But even then she would not have given the matter a second thought had not Max almost snatched the card from her fingers.

"Those are directions for our trip tonight," said he shortly, and thrust the pasteboard into a pocket of his silk waistcoat.

THE car left the Black Hawk Building at seven o'clock, three hours after the early February night had fallen. Once out of the Loop district, Max, whose breath was tainted with liquor, began to advance throttle and spark. Suburb after suburb flashed by. The roads were smooth and hard, and when open country was reached the splendid car leaped along like a greyhound, hoarsely bellowing for right of way. Farm-house lamps dotted the darkness, and occasionally they caught pale gleams from the lake on the right.

At a cross-roads, the nucleus for a cluster of houses and a store, Max stopped and honked the storekeeper out.

"Chester Corners?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And Mapleton Road straight ahead?"

"Yes."

The whirr of the motor half drowned Max's word of thanks, and the car shot on.

"Isn't this about a mile?" asked Paige, recalling Schroeder's directions.

Max gave her a quick glance.

"You don't see any house, do you, that looks as if it might contain a collection of jewels?" he asked brusquely. Paige subsided, and six or seven minutes elapsed before the car swerved between a pair of lantern-topped brick pillars, serpentined through an extensive park, and finally halted in the porte-cochere of an imposing country house. Yet all the time the thought hammered at Paige's brain that August Schroeder was the last man in the world to write a wrong direction.

The footman led them to a great room which was lighted at one end only, where a wood fire was burning. Hoblitzell introduced Paige to a Mr. Van Cleve and wife. A rustic-looking man in the background—he proved to be a notary public—also arose awkwardly, bowed, and sat down again.

Max lost no time.

"I suppose these are the jewels," he began briskly, sitting down at a table and drawing forward a beautiful mother-of-pearl casket with gold straps and corners and inlaid bosses of jade. "Have you listed them?"

Van Cleve gravely drew a paper from his breast pocket. His wife—a sweet-faced woman with graying hair—raised a handkerchief to her eyes.

Max scanned the paper swiftly, and turned it over to Paige. "Miss Priestley will check as I call off the pieces," he announced. "She will then copy the items into a duplicate bill of sale while I am making my appraisement. First, though," he added, with a smile, "I'll relieve myself, with your permission, of this somewhat burdensome bit of hardware."

He extracted from his hip pocket a bulldog revolver of blued steel and laid it on the table.

A deep silence fell. One by one, Max lifted from their costly repository necklaces, pendants, fillets, lavallières, sunbursts, bracelets. The list proved correct, and Paige opened her fountain-pen. Max, equipped with a delicate balance, magnifier, Vernier calipers, a vial of alcohol, and some tufts of cotton, weighed, measured, polished, and scrutinized.

Now, Paige Priestley had a brother in a cavalry regiment of the National Guard. He was a crack revolver shot, and he had initiated his sister in the art of using his pet weapon. Paige therefore knew something about a revolver. And as she drove her pen along, close to Max's elbow, three facts tormented her. The first was Schroeder's card. The second was Max's fingers, visibly tremulous. The third was his revolver. From her angle of vision she could see plainly into its chambers. They were loaded with blank cartridges!

Finally Max leaned back in his chair and touched a cambric handkerchief to his bedewed forehead.

"Mr. Van Cleve, I can offer one hundred and eighty thousand dollars for the lot. My offer, of course, is contingent upon a reexamination by our lapidaries, in natural light, with some of the larger stones dismounted for a more exact weighing. For instance, this briolette," lifting a rosy, pear-shaped diamond, "may

not show so warm a hue in daylight. But the re-valuation would hardly differ from mine to exceed five thousand dollars."

"That is the best you can do?" asked Van Cleve soberly.

"The very best, sir."

"All right, then."

Max receipted for the property on the bottom of the original list. The bill of sale was duly executed. As soon as she had affixed her signature, Mrs. Van Cleve hastened from the room, with misty eyes. The notary followed, after hesitating as to whether to shake hands all round or not.

MAX wrapped the pieces separately in squares of linen, packed them in a box from the office made of quarter-inch iron, —sufficient to protect the contents in the event of a smash-up on the road,—and turned the key.

"Mr. Hoblitzell," said Van Cleve at that instant, "I'd like a word with you in private."

Max withdrew the key, laid it on the lid of the box, and entered an adjoining room with Van Cleve, who closed the door after him.

In the same moment Paige, standing with her wraps on, gasped. The three facts that had been whirling in her brain like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, had suddenly come to a rest, as if at last chancing to fall into a prearranged combination. And, lo, the combination spelled the plot for which her mind had been groping!

She stood breathless for a moment. Then, springing forward, she seized the key to the box, inserted it, flung up the lid, and, working fast and furiously with both hands, crammed the packages into the capacious pockets of her automobile coat. When the door opened, the key again lay on the lid. Max picked it up, drew on his ulster, reached for his revolver, and, after shaking hands with the master of the house, tucked the box under his arm. Outside, he rolled it in a robe and stowed it in the trunk of the runabout.

"Poor devil!" he murmured, as he sank into his seat. "He wanted to know if I could get a check to him within forty-eight hours. He's hard up—like some of the rest of us."

"Are you hard up?" asked Paige from a tight throat.

"My dear girl," he exclaimed with emotion, "I owe more thousands than you could count on your pretty fingers and toes if they were multiplied by ten."

The car sprang forward. But after a little Paige, who was watching the meter with dilated eyes, saw the speed fall to twenty miles an hour. Then her heart quickened at sight of a waving red lantern in the gloom ahead.

Max instantly slowed to a crawl. "By Judas, that looks suspicious!" he exclaimed, drawing his revolver. "If I thought it meant a hold-up I'd drive through like a cannon-ball. But don't he frightened. It may be only a fallen tree."

The head-lights, however, soon revealed a stout rope stretched across the road. As the car stopped a voice called:

"Climb out, with your hands up!"

Max leaned over the door and discharged three shots. The bandits—one on either side of the road—each fired back twice.

"That's just a warning!" called the voice again. "We mean business. Climb out now, or be shot out!"

The victims climbed out. A masked man advanced with a drawn revolver.

"Give me your gun, friend!" he demanded of Max.

His partner, meanwhile, loosed the rope at one end, blew out the lantern, and tossed both into the roadside.

"Now face about and walk back the way you came!" commanded the first man.

The pair obeyed. Before they had taken twenty steps the car snorted. Turning, they saw the tail-light rapidly receding until, at a bend in the road, it disappeared.

Max played his part well. He did not overdo it.

"We'll get 'em," he declared. "We always have. Now we'll leg it to Chester Corners and telephone for another car."

"Hadn't you better telephone the police, too?" asked Paige, playing up to her part. The episode had not frightened her in the least, except for the apprehension that the pseudo-bandits, for the sake of appearances, might search her person and thus blunder upon the treasure they thought to be in the car.

"We never employ those dunderheads," returned Max.

Continued on page 22

THE MELTING POT

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

THE MAN THAT CUBA HONORS

BORN on the East Side of New York when that part of the world was a strip along the wharves, not miles of tenement- houses, Johnny O'Brien had his own sail-boat by the time he was ten. At thirteen he signed up before the mast. But the real business of his life began during the Civil War, when he smuggled arms across the Mexican border to the Confederate soldiers. If he had been caught at this by-play he would very probably have been shot at dawn or have suffered some like discomfort. But luck was with him through all his long career of filibustering.

After the Civil War, Colombia engaged him, during one of its sudden revolutions, to convey sixty tons of dynamite from New York to Panama. As O'Brien knew no crew would sign up with such a cargo, he merely announced that his craft was a private yacht under orders to meet its owner. Crossing the Gulf of Mexico, they met an electric storm, one of the worst O'Brien had ever seen. Not only did they run the peril of lightning, but the dynamite, packed in boxes of fifty pounds each, became loosened in the lunging of the yacht. Not daring to warn the crew of their danger, for had they known they would have risked almost certain death in the small boats, he hauled the boxes of dynamite back into place with his own hands.

In 1896 "Dynamite Johnny," now famous for the Colombian affair, gradually worked up his end in the Cuban fight for independence. Though watched by the Spanish and the American Secret Service, he managed to clear the New York harbor with a cargo of 2000 rifles and a ton of dynamite.

In those days the O'Briens' house was well watched by detectives, and Mrs. O'Brien several times found occasion to douse with hot water some figure lurking in the shrubs. But it was the last of his adventures. Captain O'Brien—Captain Unafraid, "Dynamite Johnny," whatever you choose to call him—was ready to retire now from active life to the wilds of New Jersey.

HAVE YOUR TREES HEART DISEASE?

THE life of a tree is much like the life of a man. It shows trouble, sickness, accidents, death.

Trees do not, it is true, have diphtheria; but they do have heart trouble. Sometimes a great old tree will look sound all its life, but when it is felled its heart will he destroyed by dry-rot. This disease, says Maud Going in Our Field and Forest Trees (A. C. McClurg & Company), makes the tree absolutely useless for lumber. Instead of being hard and firm, it is a mere mass of powder or a bundle of short woody threads which is known as punk.

Punk is caused by fungus, a parasite that devours trees. A tree fungus starts as an innocent tangle of threads as fragile as cobwebs. Frail as the threads look, they are strong enough to penetrate wood; and wherever they pierce they leave destruction.

After the fungus has turned many feet of valuable timber into worthless punk, it sows its seed. Through a crack in the bark it sends out a knobby bracket that lumbermen call a "conche." This is the fruit of the fungus—corresponding to the pods on a pea-vine or the berries on a bush.

These brackets of fungi shed their seeds in the shape of a fine, dry powder. If one of these tiny grains lights on a tree where a spot has been bared by a broken bough or the scrape of an ax, it enters, grows, and eats out the heart of the healthy tree.

HIRING 32,000 PEOPLE

NOW many people would it be necessary to hire in order to repair the natural losses in a force of 10,000 and increase that force to 20,000 in one year?

At first it sounds like a comparatively simple problem in addition and subtraction; but the Western Electric Company found it not so easy. To increase the force at its Hawthorne plant by about 10,000 in 1916, the employment department of the company found it necessary to employ 31,834 people.

"Of course a great many changes are to be expected every year in a force of 20,000. Girls leave to get married; young people living at home quit because their parents move to some distant part of the city; other employees are lost through sickness, death, etc.; some have to be discharged. But, allowing for all these, there remains a large number who leave for causes that are not reasons. Employment specialists classify them as "floaters." Young people without family responsibilities form most of this class, which is most in evidence when work is plentiful.

"We can partially understand their mental processes. Most of us have days when we feel tired of our jobs, disgusted with ourselves, and at outs with the world in general. But who can understand the peculiar mental twists that lead a person to apply for a job and then never show up to take it, as was the case with one out of every eleven applicants at the Works last year? In fact, the proportion was somewhat greater than one in eleven. In actual figures, 2951 out of the total 31,834 persons hired did not report for work at all, after having taken the trouble to make a trip to the Works and go through the employment routine."

Here is a problem for modern industry to solve. One person in every eleven who applies for a job not only has no specific training, but knows his own mind so little that, after having secured the job, he doesn't even report for work. What can be done to help this one applicant in eleven who does not know his own mind from one day to the next?

ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG RECRUIT

To the thousands of young men about to begin their first long "hikes" under discipline, the commandments may be summed up, according to the Plattsburg Manual (Century Company), as follows: "Keep your feet in good condition, and don't drink too much water."

1. Wash and dry the feet carefully, and put on clean socks as soon as practicable after getting into camp.

2. Wash out the socks you have been wearing and hang them out to dry.

3. Do not wear socks with holes in them: Should a hole begin to cause rubbing, turn the sock inside out or change it to the other foot.

4. Just as soon as you get into camp, cut your toe nails square across the ends, so they will not grow in.

5. In case of any foot trouble that you can not relieve, report to the surgeon at once. Don't wait until you can not march before reporting.

6. Excessive drinking on the march is the besetting sin of the inexperienced soldier. One swallow of water calls for another. Soon your canteen is empty: your stomach feels uncomfortable. You are still thirsty. If it is necessary to replace some of the water of the body that is lost by perspiration,—and this is often necessary,—first gargle out the mouth and throat, and spit the water out; then take a swallow or two; but be careful not to drink to excess. Injudicious and excessive drinking fills the hospital ambulances and auto-trucks with men who should be in the ranks.

WHEN TO BUY STOCK

IF you want to take a little flyer in Wall Street, be sure, first, that your money does not come out of your fund for living expenses, but out of a surplus fund for investment; and, second, know your securities. Henry Hall, in How Money Is Made in Security Investments (De Vinne Press), gives the following suggestions on when to buy:

In years of panic, trade depression, and reactions, buy only in the late summer or fall, on some strong drive at prices, when income yield from a stock is larger than the dividend.

In years of improving business, if the market has not risen for more than one year, buy on strong reactions in the summer or fall months, and especially if the market has been so dull for several days or weeks as to excite comment in the newspapers.

In a good year, buy during a panic caused by some transient development which does not alter the broad trend of conditions, or on the second drop of prices after recovery has begun.

After a dividend has been raised, buy after the next strong reaction.

After a stock has long been inactive, and when the price is low, buy when transactions become large and the price begins to rise.

Do not buy after a long or sudden rise, especially if the income yield is less now than the dividend.

If a stock is not above investment value, buy, after a sudden rise, when the stock has reacted half way back.

Do not buy a stock whose earnings have been barely able to meet fixed charges and dividends, if an intention is made manifest to expand the capital or bonded debt considerably.

Buy the stock of a company about to be reorganized only after the plan of reorganization has been made known.

Never buy in January, except in those years which begin the first or third quarter of a 10-11 year cycle.

Buy when, after a trading market lasting several weeks, the tide of prices begins to rise and breaks above the trading range.

After you have bought. do not sell out on the first smart rally. Wait until it is written that the time has actually come to sell.

THE IDEAL SCHOOL-TEACHER

THIS is the picture of the Ideal School-Teacher, as drawn by high-school boys who were asked to write brief descriptions of her.

I have just had a teacher who is, I believe, the best that can be found anywhere. When outside of school she did not act as if she were far above the pupils, but mingled with them as if she were one of them. If she asked a pupil a question and he did not answer rightly, she did not snap him off quickly and call on some one else, but talked to him and tried to find out on what grounds he based his answer.

My ideal high-school teacher is one who treats all the pupils alike; who explains clearly all that is not understood by the class. If a student comes to a class without his lesson, he should be kind and yet stern without getting angry.

My ideal teacher is a young lady of very cheerful disposition and quite nice-looking. She is strict and yet not cross, and does not always wear a frown, or look as though she were mourning over somebody.

Professor Irving King in The High-School Age (Bobbs-Merrill Company).

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IT PAYS TO CULTIVATE THE NEWLY-WEDS

ONE thousand dollars is the estimated cost of getting a new charge-account customer for a New York department-store.

The best way for any storekeeper to reduce this high cost is by cultivating the newly-weds. So says W. R. Hotchkin in The Manual of Successful Storekeeping, published by Doubleday, Page & Company for the Associated Advertising Clubs of America.

"In cities where newspapers publish all the marriage notices it is very easy to secure the names of all the newly married people every morning. In smaller cities, where the list may be published only once or twice a week, it is easy to find some other means of securing the list; sometimes it may be by making arrangements with each of the clergymen or aldermen.

"Immediately, when the names of a newly married couple are secured, a letter of congratulation should be sent, tendering the hospitalities and services of the store.

"A card list of the names of married people, with the dates of their weddings, should be very faithfully kept; and other letters should be mailed to this list from time to time, suggesting the new things that may be required in the home at that particular season.

"A letter may be mailed to the man of the family a month before the wedding anniversary, suggesting to him the fact that his wedding anniversary is approaching and he may perhaps be thinking of some appropriate gift for his wife.

"In addition to a list of newly-weds, there should be a list of birthdays—whenever a birth notice appears the name and date should be put on a card index, together with the names of the parents, so that letters may be written preceding the birthday anniversary.

"Of all the advertising that goes out of a store, nothing is of quite so much importance as the personal letter on the firm's stationery, signed with the individual name of a member of the firm, the general manager, or some popular salesman or saleswoman."

BERNARD SHAW AT THE FRONT

"LIFE is very uncertain at the front; but so is death," wrote Bernard Shaw after visiting the battle-fields in France. "The inevitable does not always come off.

"Whether you fight for victory or fight to make victory possible, the result is the same; you fight like the very devil anyhow.

"For good or evil, when once the cause is staked on the sword, Cromwell, Washington, and Lincoln must go through with it as resolutely as Ivan the Terrible, Alexander, or Napoleon.

"One does not trouble about the danger of damp sheets when the house is on fire.

"When war overtakes you, you must fight, and fight to win, whether you are the aggressor or the aggrieved, whether you loathe war as the kingdom of hell on earth or regard it as the nursery of all the virtues.

"It is not that you must defend yourself or perish; many a man would be too proud to fight on those terms. You must defend your neighbor or betray him; that is what gets you.

"The strange satisfactions which men find in war may be largely a reaction against the dullness of a civil life that satisfies none of their heroic instincts.

"I do not justify them, and I know they must finally be satisfied in nobler ways or sternly repressed; but I should be dishonest if I attempted to ignore them."

THE PLUCK OF FRENCH SOLDIERS

FRENCH poilu, attached to the rear, wanted to get into hard fighting. In spite of his pleas, he had not been sent to the front. He went home, dug his potatoes, and came back, a deserter. Deserters are sent to the front. That was his way of getting into the danger line.

French soldiers will never tell why they have received medals. Especially will they never tell why they have received the medal given for signal bravery. "Rien de tout"—nothing at all—is their answer to any questions. "What is this for?" one asks a man who has received three. "Oh, nothing." "And this?" "I forget." "And the third?" "I don't know."

There were forty men with one leg in a Paris hospital. There were twelve with no legs. One day three of them were taken out in an automobile. There was just one leg in the back seat where there should have been six. But they were not sorry for themselves. "If food is dear, we shall have only one leg to nourish," they say. Or, "When our legs come from America we shall be all right."

Such is the spirit that made the heroes of the Marne. It is described in Saturday Night by Frances Weatherston, who writes of the fields where flags among the corn wave over the bodies of brave dead:

"Not a single grave is neglected. One had so many more flowers on it than any of the others that I asked whose it was. It was that of an unknown. Many a woman had come long distances to place flowers on it, in the faint hope that it might be that of her husband or son."

DON'T TRAVEL WITH A WHISKY FLASK

AN Alpine party after a hard climb had to spend the night at a high altitude. Some of the men refused alcohol, and went to bed cold and miserable; the rest partook freely, and slept oblivious to all hardships. In the morning those who had abstained awoke refreshed and well; those who had taken a small amount found themselves cold; and those who had indulged freely did not awake at all. They were dead.

The only time alcohol is useful in such cases, says Dr. Winslow in Prevention of Disease (W., B. Saunders Company), is after the exposure is past and you have entered a warm room or bed. Then you may escape a chill by a glass of hot water and whisky.

The harm done by alcoholic drinks depends largely upon the proportion of alcohol they contain.

Beer contains from 3 to 7 per cent. Dark beer is not so injurious as light beer. Light wines, like California, Rhine, and Hungarian, have from 7 to 15 per cent. alcohol. Heavy wines, like imported sherry, port, and Madeira, have from 17 to 30 per cent. Sparkling wines, like champagne and Burgundy, contain only about 10 per cent. alcohol. But they are charged with carbonic-acid gas, which, by its rapid stimulation of stomach and heart and increase of circulation, makes them injurious. Distilled liquors are made from fermented matter that contains not only alcohol but volatile acids and ethers. Whisky and gin are distilled from corn, rye, wheat, and barley; brandies from fruit juice; cognac from wine; rum is distilled from molasses. They contain from 45 to 55 per cent. alcohol.

Alcohol is both food and poison. It can supply energy without requiring digestion, which is why it is sometimes valuable for severe exhaustion, strain, or extreme age. Such occasional use is practically the only time it is beneficial. It can increase muscular power for half an hour, after which there is a corresponding loss of strength. It never helps where there is need of sustained effort. Soldiers endure longer on the march without it.

While scientists may differ on many details concerning alcohol, says the writer, they all agree on these basic facts:

Alcohol does not benefit the healthy man under normal conditions. Habitual moderate use or excessive occasional use both impair the health. It is especially bad for women and children. Acting first on the functions of the brain that have most recently developed, it decreases the higher brain functions of will, self-control, reason, and judgment, and sets us back on the animal plane. The depression of these brain centers also impairs sight, hearing, and touch. Although the effects of taking alcohol may not be visible for years, soon or late it destroys the vital organs, degenerates the nervous system, and hardens the brain.

"To realize most poignantly the enormous number of persons wrecked by alcohol," sums up the doctor, "one should be attending physician at a large city hospital. The insane asylum is another splendid place to view the end results of alcohol upon the subject or his progeny."

GET ALL THE SLEEP YOU CAN

SEVEN for a man,
Eight for a woman,
Nine for a fool, they say—

used to be the classic formula that cruel parents repeated on school mornings when you begged for another half hour's sleep. But doctors are now coming to the rescue of children (and fools, too) by insisting on longer hours of slumber.

There is always some one foolishly ambitious to get along on less sleep than nature requires, says the New York Medical Journal, in answer to a letter from a man who complains that he tried to work as hard and sleep as little as Edison, and in the process had lost his health. The curious public, says the writer, is always more interested in the 'freakish' doings of a few than in the sensible conduct of average people. They try to follow the example of Edison because he is a great scientist, whereas great scientists are often fools in the care of their own bodies.

"We do not know," says the writer, "how much sleep Mr. Edison requires or takes, but we are informed that he is far from being in the most enviable state of health. We do know that most great men have needed more sleep and have taken more than has been credited to them.

"Napoleon, who was blessed with the constitution of an ox, took between six and eight hours of sleep, and, though he could go for long intervals without rest, always made up for such loss—on one occasion sleeping for thirty-six hours at a stretch.

"Benjamin Franklin, who was as thrifty of his time as he dared to be, and who was very robust, limited himself to six hours of repose, but not less."

The Last Word

Little Sully's Double Play

By SEWELL FORD

Illustrations by F. Vaux Wilson

SAY, this is on the side. You might suppose that, with two youngsters callin' me pop, and one goin' on 'leven years old, I'd be more or less wise to the art of raisin' 'em. Ought to be, anyway, hadn't I? And I expect at times I do make a noise like I am. But right now, while I got my chin dropped, I want to admit that the longer I keep at it the less I seem to know about bein' a parent.

Last Saturday afternoon was a fair sample of how I'm apt to crab the act. First off, I wasn't countin' on bein' called to stand the stern father test, so I was caught kind of off my guard, if that's any alibi.

I'd closed the Physical Culture Studio at noon, sent Swifty Joe home rejoicin' to his South Brooklyn truck patch, and had hurried out to Rockhurst myself, the big idea being to help Dominick in a little repair job on the sea-wall. I'd got myself into a pair of overalls, and we had a tub of cement all mixed, when Sadie appears on the back veranda and begins wavin' distress signals. Course, I has to quit and go see what's broke loose.

"Well, what's gone wrong?" says I, climbin' up the walk as far as the corner of the garage. "Subs in the offing?"

"No," says she; "but I wish you would just come in here a moment, Shorty."

I knew the tone, and it ain't often Sadie gets that desperate note in her voice. So I trails along in.

"Bring him down here, Aunt Julia," she calls up the stairs.

Not a reg'lar aunt, you know, only a cousin-in-law of Sadie's on the Dipworthy side. She's been stayin' with us since Easter, and it's by request that the children call her Aunt Julia.

UNDERSTAND, I don't mind havin' Julia around—not a bit. I always have been kind of strong for old maids. I admire their pluck, for one thing, and generally they have a lot of good points. Besides, Aunt Julia adds sort of a tone to the establishment. Quite a highbrow, for one thing. Oh, my, yes! Reads things in French and Spanish, calls these music composers by their right names without chokin', and can talk about such stuff as the Bahia movement, Bernard Shaw, and the free-verse slingers until you're dizzy.

Kind of distinguished-lookin', too, when she's dolled up for a dinner-party, though I must say these smock effects she wears around the house day-times look kind of sloppy to me. Also the stringy way she does her hair.

Ideas are Aunt Julia's long suit, though. She has 'em about 'most everything, and of course the proper way of bringin' up children is among 'em. So it's only natural that she's been givin' us a few points. Did you ever see an old maid who couldn't? But, on the other hand, who are we to say we don't need 'em?

Oh, she does it pleasant enough. Nothing naggy about Aunt Julia. Just has her notions about things, and the facts to back 'em up. So when this serial debate about little Sully's dancin' lessons breaks out again, and she's listened to the youngster announce that he's off all that silly stuff for good, and Sadie has sighed weary and put it up to me, and I've passed out my usual wabbly decision—well, then Aunt Julia states her mind.

"Of course," says she, "if you think the child capable of deciding such matters for himself, there's nothing more to be

said. If not, you should insist firmly that he must do as you think best."

"How about this dancin' business, though?" I puts in. "We ain't trainin' him up for any Palm Room lizard or cabaret scorpion, you know."

Aunt Julia smiles sarcastic.

"I hardly think you need fear that he will ever become a professional dancer," says she. "But, to my mind, dancing is precisely what he needs now. It gives one poise; it lends grace. And an hour once a week among little girls of his own age will do him good. It may teach him that the female of the species is not necessarily a fearsome, mysterious creature —may tone down some of his rough exuberance."

"Then you would insist on his going?" asks Sadie.

"Undoubtedly," says Aunt Julia.

"There!" says Sadie. "Just what I've always told you, Shorty. Now, I want you to see that he goes."

"All right," says I. "If the ayes have it, it's a vote. And maybe it's the best thing for him, after all."

So, only the night before, I'd given Sully his orders.

"But, pop—" he begins, his upper lip startin' to quiver.

"Now, none of that, son," says I. "You can't work me with the sob stuff. Your mother wants you to go to that dancin' class to-morrow afternoon, and that's all there is to it. Those girls ain't goin' to bite you, are they? You take a chance, anyway."

He had his head turned to the wall as I said good night, so I can't tell whether he's takin' it cheerful or is indulgin' in the sulks. One thing I'm fairly sure of, though. Whatever I hand out straight to the youngster generally goes with him. Mostly I get along without havin' to lay the law down flat. I try to; mainly because I ain't always sure what it ought to be myself. But when he's told what to do or what not to do, and can't argue me out of it, then you can depend on his mindin'.

Which is why I'm a little puzzled when I find that it's Sully who's causin' the domestic crisis.

Aunt Julia comes towin' him down from upstairs like she was leadin' a prisoner up before the bar.

"This is the way, he dresses for a dancing lesson," says she. "Look!"

At first glance I couldn't see anything wrong, I'll bet he would have put' it over me easy; for he has on his dinky little black coat, his wide white collar, black silk stockings, patent-leather pumps, and everything.

"Well," says I, inquirin'.

"Doesn't it strike you that he looks unusually— er — plump?" suggests Julia.

"Eh?" says I, givin' him the sharp up-and-down. "Why, that's so. Wha—What—"

"Here!" says Sadie, unloosenin' a few buttons in the front of his white shirt. "This is the way he minds you. See!"

What she reveals underneath is a gray flannel shirt with red letters on it. And under the silk stockings are gray woolen ones. In fact, Sully has dressed twice—once for dancin', once for baseball; and as he couldn't do both at the same time, it was up to us to guess which pastime he meant to renig on.

"Huh!" says I, starin' at him stern. "Reg'lar human layer cake. Spillin' a little strategy, eh?"

He don't deny it, nor he don't whimper. I expect, if he'd been trained proper, he ought to be scared stiff in a case like this where he was caught with the goods on, as you might say. But all he does is look me square in the eye spunky, like he was watchin' to see what I was goin' to do next. And, somehow, I'm just soft enough to like to have 'him that way. I hope he'll never be afraid of me, or any one else. Still, I don't mean to let him get away with any mutiny act.

"Young man," says I, "you just trot upstairs and shed them baseball togs. Make it speedy, too."

This time he behaves like he was ready to obey orders, for in less than five minutes he reports back for inspection, all costumed proper for minglin' with the younger set. It seems the class meets at the Boomer-Days', and the usual program has been to send Sully over in the car; that is, when he could be induced to go.

"Perhaps I had better go along and see that he really gets there," suggests Aunt

"And be sure that he actually goes in, will you?" adds Sadie.

"I shall take him to the door myself," says Julia, settin' her chin firm.

I thought they was carryin' the deputy sheriff effect a bit too far myself, but I let 'em do it their own way. And Sully, after givin' Aunt Julia one scowl, follows her into the limousine.

"Now," says I, "if the revolutions arc all over, maybe I can get back to my work."

SEEMS like it was goin' to be a poor day for repairin' sea-walls, though. Dominick and I'd hardly got half a dozen rocks laid up when Sadie calls me in again.

And now she has her chin set, too.

"What do you think, Shorty?" says she. "He isn't at the dancing class, after all."

"How do you know?" says I.

Well, seems she'd got kind of anxious for fear Sully would still be grouchy and might take it out by rough-housin' some of his little play-mates, so she'd called up to see how he was behavin'. Mrs. Boomer-Day reports that he's missin'. Yes, she'd seen him arrive, had even watched the maid tow him upstairs to the dressin'-room. But after that he hadn't shown up: He'd just disappeared. They'd searched the house for him, too.

And you should of seen Aunt Julia's face when she blows in about then and gets the news.

"Why," says she, "I took him to the very door. I don't understand."

"I don't know what to make of it," says Sadie, "except that he is defying us."

"Looks that way, don't it?" says I.

"Well?" says she. "We can't let him do that, can we?"

"It depends," says I, "on who's who around this ranch. If it's Sully we may as well find out, and I'm going to devote the rest of the day to the job."

I'LL admit I was some peeved; but I was a bit curious, too. My first hunch was that he was still hidin' at the Boomer- Days'. In ten minutes I'd changed my clothes, jumped into the runabout, and was over there. But after half an hour of peekin' into closets and under beds and into clothes-hampers and coal-bins, I had to give it up.

"Evidently," says Mrs. Boomer-Day, in that purry, disagreeable way of hers, "Master Sullivan prefers other society. My Harold thinks that he is probably off playing baseball somewhere."

"Your Harold may be a good guesser," says I.

I was red behind the ears, I expect, as I backs out; but I decides to follow the clue just the same. So I drives down to the village, and hunts up a couple of half grown boys that are hangin' around the garage.

"Say, son," I asks of one of 'em, "who are the Rockhurst Cubs playin' to-day?"

"The East Siders," says he. "Over'n th' field back of th' nut-and-bolt fact'ry."

"Thanks," says I, speedin' up once more.

As a rule, I don't follow these games of the back-lot league in person, although I get full reports of most of the Saturday events. Sully does the reportin'. He belongs to the Cubs himself, bein' sort of third assistant substitute, near as I can make out. I've been promisin' all the season to go and watch one of these mighty contests; but, somehow; I haven't got around to it.

But now I made straight for the scene of conflict. I had a notion I might not be such a welcome spectator, either. Not that I'd settled on anything definite, but I was gradually gettin' worked up to the point where I might do something abrupt.

NO trouble to locate that ball game.

You could hear it half a mile off. From the sound you might have thought that about a thousand strikers was bein' charged by a troop of cow-boy cavalry. But when I got near enough to see over the fence, all I can make out is about three or four dozen kids, rangin' from nine to fourteen.

I parks the ear outside, and strolls in until I can camp down behind an agitated little bunch just to the left of home plate. Nobody pays any attention to me at all. I might have been a striped elephant hung with silver bells and not been noticed, for they sure was considerably taken up with the loin's out there in front. Mostly they was yellin', players as well as spectators, and of course nobody could hear what any one else had to say. But that didn't seem to bother 'em a bit. Each one kept right on. And it's surprisin', ain't it., how much lung power a peaked-faced, seventy-pound kid can develop when he really cuts loose?

Continued on page 15

OLD GLORY

A painting for Every Week by Sidney Riesenberg

IN 1783 William Pitt, the most powerful statesman of his day, condescended a few remarks upon those colonies that had so presumptuously broken away from the mother empire. "That country," he said before Parliament, "concerning which writers of lively imagination have lately said so much, is weakness itself. Exclusive of its poverty, want of resources, and its independent government, the circumstances alone of such a vast country, with a third less of people than that small spot in Europe inhabited by the Dutch, are incompatible with strength. The present inhabitants are likely to fall back on the interior country to get better land and to avoid taxes. That they may in some future age become a country of farmers without markets can be expected, but the settlers beyond the Allegheny Mountains can not be commercial."

So felt the judicial, informed man of affairs. To the majority of English, America was altogether a country of Indians, witches, and weak-minded younger sons one never mentioned at home. The first European to salute the American flag, a general at the Dutch garrison of St. Eustatia, was removed for his indiscretion. The artist Copley created no end of amusement in London by whimsically adding the Stars and Stripes to a ship-mast in the background of a painting.

Meanwhile, the United States grew, steadily wresting the wealth from the wilderness. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 more than doubled its area. Settlers began to desire new regions. In flat boats, bullet-proof against the Indians, they descended the Ohio. In a few years Clinton's "big ditch" opened up northern New York; and Chicago, a frontier fort in 1832, grew in half a dozen years to be a flourishing town. Almost, it seemed, of their own accord, railroads stretched themselves across the continent. In spite of the prophecies of Mr. Pitt, the population of this country had grown from the four millions of the first census, taken in 1789, to more than ninety millions in 1910.

And the flag which was adopted by the American Congress on June 14, 1777, which England scoffed at in 1800, and which forced England's respect in 1812, now waves, at home, over the richest country in the world; and, abroad, side by side with the Tri-color and the Union Jack in the battle to make "the world safe for democracy."

WHAT WAS THE BEST TIME TO BE ALIVE?

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HERMITS

Continued from page 10

As the ones dancin' around the bases and out in the field have on dirty gray suits, I take it that the Cubs are lettin' the East Siders have their turn at the bat. Reg'lar uniforms, the Cubs have. I remember donatin' a ten-spot to that noble purpose along last March. The East Siders don't seem to be costumed so consistent, for the one prancin' on and off first base has on a faded blue shirt with khaki pants, while the husky youngster swingin' a club so menacin' at the plate is sportin' a hornet-striped sweater and plaid knickers that need repairin' in the seat.

BUT the copper-haired boy who's crouchin' tigerish in the pitcher's box, with one eye on second and the other on the batter, is got up about as odd for this particular brand of sport as any I ever remember seein' on a diamond. He's wearin' a pleated white shirt, black knickerbockers, black silk stockings, and patent-leather pumps. Also, there's something familiar about that freckled face and the snub nose. You've guessed it. Sully!

I expect a reg'lar parent, one that was on to his job, would have marched right out there, taken him by the ear, and led him back to his dancin' class without hesitatin' a second. I knew that's what I ought to do. But, somehow, I couldn't. Not right in the middle of an innin'. You see, I used to do a little pitchin' myself. Anyway, it wouldn't be so conspicuous if I waited until the sides changed.

"How does the game stand?" I asks of a lad just in front of me. He has been beggin' a party he calls "Scrubby" to "Take a lead, for the love of Mike!" and has subsided for a second. That is, I tries to ask him, but he don't hear me until I've swung him around by the elbow and shouted in his ear.

"Aw, we had 'em smeared—'leven to five," says he, "at the end of the third, and we was goin' strong until they sprung this bench-warmer on us. Then they begun gettin' the good breaks, th' lucky stiffs. Aw, Scrubby, git off that sack, can't you! Git off it!"

Which Scrubby does, but he's no more'n started for third than Sully stops a windup in the middle and slugs the ball to second. It's a low throw and a bit wild, but short-stop picks it out of the dust and manages to block off the runner as he dashes panicky back to the base.

"He's out! No, he ain't! Yes, he is, too! The ump says he is! Aw, robber, robber!"

Well, the howls go something like that. You know. But after every one has had his say, or lost his breath tryin', the decision seems to stand, and Scrubby comes limpin' in.

"Wouldn't that frost you!" remarks my young friend. "He's got a head like a pin, Scrubby has. Two down, that makes, and this boob of a Chunk Meyers up. Aw, say! Them Cubs'll be tyin' th' score first thing we know. It's only 'leven-eight now and three innin's to go."

"Lost your battin' streak, eh?" I suggests.

"Nah," says he. "We was scorin' right along until they puts in that Sully McCabe. We ain't found him yet, that's all. You wait. We'll pound him all over the lot."

"Not much of a pitcher, Sully, eh?" I asks.

"Oh, he's all right," says the youngster. "He's got a fast in, he has. Now, watch this one. No, it broke too quick. But look at Chunk reach for it. Ah, wait for the good ones, Chunk. Make him put 'em over. Yep, he's some twirler. Looked like he wa'n't goin' to show up at first, and then he breezes on in them fancy togs. Been to a girls' party, I expect. His folks make him do things like that, they say. What do you know about that? I wisht they'd kept him away about an hour longer. Aw, for the love of beans! Chunk has fanned!"

Chunk had, makin' three out. And once more I knew it was up to me to lead Sully from the field and tell him a few things.

"Come on, now, fellers! Buck up. We gotta get them three runs this innin'."

It's Sully, tellin' his side a few things as he leaves the mound. And while he's walkin' in I steps around back of an old sprinklin'-cart that the street cleanin' department seems to have run in there for outdoor storage. Even if I hadn't ducked I doubt if he'd seen me, for he's got his whole mind on that game. Once, as he walks over to sort out a bat, he was within ten feet of me, but he never looks up. So when it's his turn at the plate I comes out in the open again, watchin' curious to see what the youngster would do with the hickory.

His first move is to spit on his palms, rub 'em in the dirt, and then wipe 'em careful on them best Sunday knickers. No, he don't follow that up by knockin' the cover off the ball, exactly; but after passin' a couple of wide ones he swings vicious and sends a snappy grounder through short-stop, and by the time the left fielder has run in on it Sully is well on his way to first.

He had the throw beat a mile, but he's takin' no chances, and I can't say I was quite so thrilled as some of the others when he executes a ten-foot slide into the bag. He's safe, all right, and the Cub on third manages to score on the catcher's muff, but the appearance of that dancin' class costume ain't a whole lot improved.

But a minute later, when the East Siders' center fielder fumbles a pop fly, and follows it up with a wild throw to first, I finds myself swingin' my hat and joinin' in with the chorus of "Beat it, Sully! Go to third! Keep a-goin'!"

AND Sully does. A knee of one of the silk stockin's failed to stand the strain as he stumbles across home plate, and he's left most of a shirt sleeve in the third baseman's hands, but the score stands: East Siders 11—Rockhurst Cubs 10, and only one down. By the way Sully's nine gathers round and pounds him on the back and offers him water and chewin' gum, I judge that they approve of his base-runnin'.

I expect I could tell you every play made from then on, but maybe I'd better skip it? the last half of the ninth, when, with fifteen tallies up for the Cubs and only fourteen for the opposition, two out and two on bases, Sully digs his right toe into the black dirt of the hole that marks the pitcher's box and faces Tony Sarello, the East Siders' heaviest slugger, who'd rapped out a two-bagger off him only a couple of innin's before.

Believe me, it's some strenuous moment. Noise! Why, a double-header crowd at the Polo Grounds couldn't yell much louder or more constant. I was lookin' for the youngster to crack any minute. But say, in the midst of all that riot he stands as steady as a bridge-pier, glancin' from first to second, shakin' his head at the catcher to change the signal, and gettin' Tony fidgety while he fingers the ball. Tony whales away at one, but it sails off outside the foul line. Then he bites at a slow drop, and before's he's recovered from that Sully shoots over a fast straight one shoulder-high that Tony fans furious, and the trick is turned. He's churned the air for a strike-out, and the Cubs have won.

SOME head work that was, take it from me. So why shouldn't I lead the cheerin'? I'm still swingin' my hat and yellin' enthusiastic when Sully walks in from the box, and the first thing I know he's starin' at me bug-eyed.

"Pop!" says he, sort of gaspy.

"Good boy, Sully!" says I, pattin' him on the back. "You had his number, all right. Christy Mathewson couldn't have done better."

He grins, looks kind of relieved, and asks: "Did—did you see much of the game?"

"Only the last three innin's," says I. "But it was a swell finish. And say, son, I guess it's worth celebratin'. Collect your team and we'll see if we can't load 'em all on the runabout. I think there's a freezer of ice-cream at home that ain't workin', and maybe some cake."

Course, that was all dead wrong. No parent should get so excited over a ball game that he plumb forgets why he went there. I'll admit that. But blamed if that ain't my case. And not until we rolls into the yard, with the members of the Rockhurst Cubs plastered all over that car like flies on a lump of sugar, and I gets a glimpse of Sadie and Aunt Julia starin' out at us horrified, do I have a rush of memory to the brain.

"Good night!" says I under my breath.

"Why, Shorty McCabe!" says Sadie. "I thought you went to find Sully and take him back to his dancing class?"

"Why—er—that's so," says I, grinnin' sheepish. "But say, Sadie, you just ought to see that kid play ball."

"Humph!" says Sadie.

But here was nine hungry youngsters, all eyein' her amiable and expectant, and she's just as strong for kids as I am. So she suspends hostilities long enough to carry out the ice-cream and cake program. Not until they've cleaned up our dinner dessert and been sent off cheerin', does she range me and Sully up in the livin' room and begin makin' pointed remarks.

"Sully, you're a sight," says she. "And you stood by, Shorty, and watched him ruin a perfectly good suit of clothes! Why didn't you bring him home at once?"

"With him coaxin' a run out of a scratch hit like a reg'lar Ty Cobb? Ah, come, Sadie!" says I.

"What I fail to understand," puts in Aunt Julia, "is his disappearance from the Boomer-Days'. Didn't I watch you go in the front door, Sully?"

Sully nods.

"And then the maid took you upstairs?"

"Uh-huh," says Sully.

"And then?" demands Julia.

Sully glances at her weary, like it was no use wastin' breath tryin' to make her understand. He turns to me.

"You wouldn't listen, pop, when I wanted to tell you how the Cubs was to give me a try-out to-day against the East Siders. I been practisin' up for a month. And then yesterday our reg'lar twirler, Pink Slattery, goes and gets a boil on his shoulder. Could I lay down on the fellers in a case like that? Now, could I?"

"I expect you couldn't," says I. "But that don't explain what you did after goin' up the front stairs at the Boomer-Days'."

"Why," says Sully, "I walked down the back way."

WELL, that ends the court martial, and I hope I kept in my chuckles until after Sully had been sent to clean up.

"But, Shorty," says Sadie. "I don't see what we're going to do."

"Simple enough," says I. "Next Saturday see that he wears his baseball outfit on the outside."

"What about his dancing lessons, though?" insists Sadie.

"Suppose we ditch 'em until late next fall?" says I. "Do you know, Sadie, that kid may have big-league stuff in him."

I hears a gasp from Aunt Julia. But Sadie, she just smiles sort of indulgent. Anyway, there's a vacancy in the Boomer-Day dancin' class, and I understand that Pink Slattery has been notified he can take his time about curin' up that boil.

The Blue Aura

By ELIZABETH YORK MILLER

Illustration by Arthur I. Keller

(Continued)

THOUGH Dora managed to keep silent, even to fool Ted into thinking she did not suspect anything, she watched him and Mollie Brian that evening with the vigilance of a cat at a mouse-hole.

It seemed to her that they avoided each other more than usual, which was suspicious in itself. Of course!—they were pretending they hadn't been together all the afternoon. Ted was particularly guilty in his manner, and Dora hated him for an increased tenderness toward herself.

But after Turco's jeering criticism she simply had to "stick." Underneath she boiled and seethed like a caldron; but Turco was watching her, and after their act was over he came home with them.

Little by little, Dora calmed down; that is to say, one moment she felt she would burst, and the next—under Turco's blinking, wondering gaze-she would determine to play the woman of the world and ignore her husband's lapse.

The main reason was that she had foolishly confided her own silly escapade to Turco. Turco knew that she was quite as wicked as Ted ever could be. Turco knew pretty much all there was to know of her outrageous conduct. He wouldn't tell Ted, of course, but he knew, and that made it inconvenient for her to have the wild scene her jealousy demanded.

AT supper she thought she would prove to Turco how generous and high-minded she really was. She was hypocritical sweetness personified.

"Teddy, my lamb, I was talking with Turco this afternoon about our taking a flat together—having some sort of home, you know. Next week I'm going house-hunting. First thing Monday morning I'm—"

"Don't!" Tyson interrupted so vehemently that both Turco and Dora started. "Oh! Why not?"

Her husband avoided looking at her. He made a business of opening a bottle of beer, and a little crimson flush crept up the back of his neck.

"What good would it be? You said so yourself. Half the time we're on tour—"

"Just half, this year," Turco interrupted. "We're booked twenty-six weeks about London, and I wouldn't be surprised if next season it was more."

"That's all right; but who wants the bother of a flat? We're very comfortable here."

Dora's lips quivered. She looked at Turco as much as to say, "You see what happens when I try to be good!"

"Of course it was different for you when Dumpling was alive," Ted went on, addressing himself to Turco, "but it must have been a big expense. Now we've got the studio for practice and for you to give your lessons—what more do we want?"

There was a silence. Dora's breast heaved dramatically.

"It was you who suggested it first," she said, when she could trust herself to speak.

"And you who turned it down."

"Well, I've changed my mind. I'd like a place of my own. I met a girl I used to know—Eileen Hogarth. Her husband's an actor, and they're awfully happy. They've got a kid—and a flat. She wants me to come and see her."

"So that's what put it into your head!"

"Perhaps you think I don't know what's taken it out of yours," Dora retorted.

"Don't be silly. Some day we might do it, but just now I can't afford the expense."

Turco stared at him shrewdly.

"Expense, is it? There's my furniture, and Dora and me to share expenses."

Ted seemed exasperated.

"I don't know what's come over you two. No—no—no! Not next week, anyway. I've got too much to do."

"Who's asked you to help?" Dora put in.

"Well, I'd want to, wouldn't I?"

"You act like it," she retorted sarcastically.

Then she began to cry, and rushed out of the room. Being good was too great a strain on Dora.

OF course there was something behind Ted's curious behavior, and Dora was quite certain it was Mollie Brian. Perhaps he'd confide in Turco; but Turco wouldn't tell, any more than he'd tell on her.

The men sat talking in low tones in the sitting-room until very late; but Dora could not catch what was said, and finally she sobbed herself to sleep.

She wondered that Ted did not come to comfort her and plead how much he loved her. Perhaps, as Turco suggested, she had lost his love by her wicked behavior of late. She would never have dreamed he had the spirit to pay her back in her own coin.

The next morning—Sunday—Ted was up, breakfasted, and out before she got her eyes fairly open. There was a note from him to say he might not be in for Turco also had gone; but Dora felt sure he, at least would return in the course of the morning.

It was an unpleasant day for her. Neither of the men returned until the late afternoon, and she listened to their lame excuses about shifting the scenery and properties in cold silence.

Not for a moment would she let them think she cared; but Turco's attitude hurt her more than Ted's. A husband is only a husband,—the object of eternal suspicion,—but a friend is different, and now Turco had gone over to Ted, actually if not openly.

"Sly little beast!" said Dora to herself. "Monkey-face! What do I care?"

But she did care. It was all the worse because they both seemed so anxious to please her.

It was, "Dora, my darling, we're going to take you to dinner at Chapin's, so make haste and put on that black glittering thing. Turco and I love you in that frock."

And from Turco, "She shall have a wee drop of champagne, if I have to pay for it myself."

Dora scorned their duplicity, but she buried her feelings. Turco had called her a chameleon, whatever that might be, and she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of being right until the moment came for a decisive blow. If they could be hypocrites—particularly that saintly Turco—so could she.

Her smile was dangerous as she put on the black, glittering frock. She took an arm of each as they started for Chapin's, and her fingers itched to inflict gripping pain; but she, suffered the temptation grimly.

Let this game of deceiving her go on much longer, and she'd teach the two of them a lesson they wouldn't forget.

IT did go on, by fits and starts that drove Dora frantic.

On Monday there was a slight slackening. In the afternoon they took a "busman's holiday" and went to a music-hall.

But on Tuesday something of very grave importance happened. It was one of those things that sometimes change the whole course of a life.

First of all, in the morning there had come a letter for Ted, in what Dora assumed was a woman's writing. He read it, tore it up, and fed the pieces to the flames. And he had done this with the air of clumsy self-consciousness that marked his every action since his visit to the Zoo on Saturday.

Dora asked no questions, because Turco was there and all her pride was up.

So, when Ted mentioned casually that he'd be rather busy that morning in the studio with Turco, she said nothing. They went off, and an hour later she dropped in at the studio, where she found Turco alone, engaged in fixing up a trapeze he had brought over from his own place.

"Where's Ted?" she asked, with a misleading air of innocence.

"Oh, he's just stepped out for a minute or two," Turco replied; and his air of innocence was not in the least misleading.

"When do you expect him back?"

"Couldn't say—exactly."

"Where's be gone?"

"How should I know? I'm not his keeper," said Turco rudely. "Blast this thing, anyway!"

He gave a savage kick at the trapeze support, which was refusing to fit the floor buckles they had made for it.

"Perhaps I'm in the way," Dora suggested coldly.

"Well, I'm busy," said Turco in a rather loud, blustering voice, "and I don't see how you can help. I've got something to do besides talk. It's a pity you haven't."

She turned away to hide two tears that suddenly rolled down her cheeks. She hadn't anything to do except overhaul her wardrobe or put in an hour's practice to keep her muscles in trim. But Turco knew that wasn't her fault. He knew how busy she had meant to be this week —how good and happy too.

"Very well; I'll find something to do!" she cried in challenge, as she ran down the stairs.

Turco called back at her from the top: "Don't be a fool, Dora—because you'll be mighty sorry if—"

"I'm not going to be a fool any longer," she retorted. "You can tell that to Ted, if be ever shows up here."

HER heart was hard with bitterness, and she clenched her hands to keep from sobbing outright in the street:

"Why do I love Ted? I don't! I hate him. I hate Turco, too!"

All the time the revenge she could take if she wanted to was simmering in her brain. She felt that she hated Lord Anthony Harland even a little bit more than she did Ted and Turco; for now that there might be some truth in the deserted wife theory, it had ceased to charm her.

That was only play-acting, and this was real. The reality pained her more than she would have thought possible.

Her first thought was to go straight to Harland, and she actually started for Eaton Place. On the way, however, she changed her mind and decided to call on Eileen Hogarth. If Eileen wasn't in, well and good—that would be an omen.

But Eileen was in; and so was the baby. Dora was made to stay to lunch, and Eileen's husband appeared, a changed man from the irresponsible young actor he had been before he married Eileen. The atmosphere fairly reeked of domesticity.

Eileen prepared the lunch herself, and Dora held the baby, while Jack Hogarth laid the table. They were laughing all the time, so merry and cheerful that it didn't seem as if there could be a heartache in the world.

"You must come and see us," said Dora, as she was leaving. "Only we're in lodgings—not as nicely fixed as you are."

She was keeping up her pretense bravely.

"We shall have to bring the nipper," Hogarth replied. "We take him everywhere—don't we, mummie?"

"He's so lonesome being left," Eileen explained.

"I want you to bring him," said Dora, a faint shadow reflecting the pain in her eyes. "I'd like Ted to see him. And he's so good!"

In this the parents heartily concurred, and bade Dora an affectionate farewell after the manner of their kind, each of them kissing her, and holding up the baby to receive her parting embrace.

It was dawning on Dora that she must make a success of her marriage.

Turco was right. She herself was to blame. She had driven Ted away by her coldness and folly. He must be brought back by the warmth of love.

Could she not forgive, as she prayed every night to be forgiven herself?

Could she not rise to the really noble heights of love? At least, Ted still pretended to love her, and if she accepted his pretense, squared their accounts without asking questions, all might be well.

How to make a beginning? She had been much impressed by the aspect of Eileen's luncheon table. It was graced with a glass bowl of flowers and by doylies instead of a cloth. Dora did not stop to think what the table in her own haphazard sitting-room would look like without complete protection. Her imagination saw it the same as Eileen's, smooth as glass, delightfully original and esthetic.

Having no doylies, she would buy some —also a glass bowl. With Dora there was never any time like the present. She would scratch together a meal at home— such as home was—and make it worthy even of Eileen. At least, it gave her something to do, and took her mind off Harland and senseless revenge.

Turco was right. She must stick, and prove that she was a postage stamp provided with a good backing of gum.

Accordingly, she sought her favorite shop in Oxford Street, where you could buy pretty nearly everything.

And it was there that the really dreadful thing happened.

As she was coming in through one swing door, Ted was going out through another, followed by Mollie Brian. They were both heavily burdened with bundles, and a taxicab was waiting for them.

Dora stood frozen just inside the door.

They did not see her. She watched them drive off together, engrossed with each other, laughing, talking, so engaged in settling the numerous parcels that they had no eyes for anybody.

Poor little Dora's high resolutions died an instantaneous and brutal death.

All the time she hadn't half believed it was true. Now she saw for herself.

WHEN she got home, Turco was in the sitting-room at Mrs. Petrosini's, reposing cross-legged on the couch, reading the evening paper.

He did not look up when she passed through to her bedroom; but presently he called out, as if he had marked something strange in her manner:

"Hello, there! What's the matter? Anything wrong?"

"Nothing that I know of," Dora replied, reappearing minus her hat and coat. She went over to the fire and poked it gently, There was no suggestion of viciousness in the action. Turco looked at her around the edge of his paper. Her face was chalky white, and her expression, except for the eyes, was that of a dead woman.

"What's the matter, Dora? Are you ill?"

"I don't want your sympathy. You're a false friend, Turco. I would never have believed it if I hadn't proved it for myself," she said coldly.

"Me? A false friend!" Turco nearly exploded. "I like that! Explain yourself."

"I'll explain nothing. You took me for a fool, didn't you? Perhaps you can tell me where Ted is this minute. Can you do that?"

"Eh?" Turco looked foolish.

"Well, I'll tell you—since you pretend not to know. He's with Mollie Brian, buying her clothes—at least, he was about an hour ago. And you tried to make me think you didn't like her."

Turco folded his newspaper and rolled himself a cigarette.

---

"You're dotty, my girl—that's what you are, or else you're trying to pull my leg. Ted's got no one on his mind but you, and Mollie is about the last—"

"Stow it!" Dora exclaimed. "I don't want to talk about it, anyway."

She sat down on the hassock, her chin resting on her clenched hands, her gaze fixed on the flickering coals. Turco watched her in puzzled silence. When she spoke again her voice was friendly and she reverted to quite another subject:

"Turco—Dumpling used to say you had such lovely 'thought forms.' Is that the same as an aura?"

The mention of Dumpling caused Turco's eyes to grow misty.

"You simply had to have good thought forms when you were with Dumpling," he said. "She was so good herself—such a patient, sweet little kid."

"Oh, yes, she was, Turco. But is it the same thing as an aura?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Turco replied. "I can't explain very well. It's as though you were inside a sort of iridescent soap-bubble, and thought forms might be like things you see reflected in the bubble."

"What an idea! If you could choose, Turco, what color aura would you like to have?"

"Blue—pale blue, with some mauve and gold in it," Turco replied promptly.

Dora sighed.

"I thought blue was pretty good. But, Turco, I'll never wear a blue aura. Mine is green and crimson, I know—and that means jealousy and passions, you told me once."

Turco half closed his eyes.

"It's grayish just now. You're depressed, Dora. I wish you'd stay one color for five minutes."

"I'll never wear a blue aura now," Dora repeated sadly.

THE door opened, and Tyson came in, glowing from the cold, rubbing his hands and grinning cheerfully.

"Hullo, you two! Having a seance or something?"

"Where've you been?" growled Turco.

Ted slapped him on the back and winked broadly.

"Now, you know where I've been, so what's the use of asking?"

There was undoubtedly a double entendre in his tone. Dora sneered faintly at Turco and suffered her husband's kiss. She was quite convinced as to Turco's hypocrisy; but her mind was made up firmly to say nothing whatever on the subject again. To-day was only Tuesday. On Friday they would both learn what it means to deceive a woman.

Thursday afternoon Lord Anthony Harland was very busy completing preparations for his enforced holiday abroad; but he found time to smile over a quaint telegram he had just received:

"Little monkey!" he exclaimed to himself. "At least, she's frank enough; but I don't believe her."

What he didn't believe was that she didn't care for him. He had felt all along that she would be there, and even before the receipt of the telegram had instructed his servant to make arrangements for two.

The crowded little house had been dismantled of most of its possessions. The family portraits, which had come to Harland by special deed, had been despatched to his brother Kincrolly, in bond as it were for the loan of money he had demanded.

The last of the personal things to be

disposed of was the photograph of the butterfly woman who had worked all the mischief, according to the man who loved her. How self-satisfied she seemed, got up for the photographer in the carefully groomed mode of several years ago, her hair all waved, pearls in her ears and about her throat, and a gown that had undoubtedly suggested the occasion.

She reeked of vanity, but she had charm, that priceless gift of the gods. And charm is power. As Harland took the photograph from the frame and tore it to bits, he was destroying all that remained of his heart. Such as he was, he loved her. Such as she was, he had thought she loved him.

Well, her reign was over! That was how he put it. It seemed more self-complimentary than the other way about.

And then the door-bell rang—and her reign was not over.

"Miss Trelawny, my lord," announced Dodge. "I believe you said that if Miss Trelawny called at any time—"

"Oh, yes, I'll see her," Harland interrupted.

He had always suspected that Trelawny would go in for some delicate form of blackmail. She was no ordinary person, and there had been times in the past when the sight of her prim visage and glittering eye-glasses had caused him to shudder.

The remnants of Olive Darrell's photograph were still being consumed by fire when Edith Trelawny came in. Trim and trig in navy blue serge, small hat, furled umbrella, and eye-glasses, she stood respectfully before Harland and hoped she found him well.

"Quite well, Trelawny, thank you. I'm off to the Continent to-morrow. Anything special I can do for you?"

"Indeed, my lord, I scarcely know how to say, since you are leaving town. I've a message from madam."

"Oh? From Mrs. Darrell?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Indeed! A—a letter?"

He was puzzled, and very eager in spite of himself.

Edith Trelawny was also puzzled.

"In the circumstances, madam couldn't very well write. Is it possible you haven't heard the sad news, my lord?"

"Sad news? Good heavens! What—"

"It was in all the papers, my lord."

"I haven't seen the beastly papers for two days. I've been far too busy."

He might have added and too wretched to take any interest in the doings of the world and his fellow men.

Edith licked her lips and the eyeglasses gleamed. Who does not enjoy being the first to impart serious news?

"Mr. Robert Darrell met with an accident in the hunting field yesterday morning, my lord. He broke his neck."

"Dead?"

"Unfortunately, my lord. He was dead when they picked him up. I believe madam had word that you were going away—"

"They probably told her," Harland muttered. He felt stupefied.

Edith gazed at the ceiling long enough for him to collect himself, then went on:

"Madam telegraphed me, and I went down last evening to see her. Of course I couldn't refuse to go, although I had to get some one to take my place at the theater on that night, as you may imagine."

"Yes. You saw her—where? You didn't go to The Manor, I suppose?"

"Oh, no, my lord! What with him lying dead and all, and old madam so set against me for what I did through no fault of my own beyond being fond of young madam and quite sympathetic—"

"I know. Where did you meet her? For heaven's sake, woman, get on with your story."

He was eaten alive with impatience.

"I'm sorry, my lord. I'm that upset I scarcely know where to begin."

"You don't look upset."

"No? It's habit, I suppose. All my life I've been in the habit of repressing feelings."

"Well, I haven't!" Harland exclaimed.

"Just so, my lord. I was about to say, madam telegraphed me to meet her at six o'clock at Mrs. Debben's."

"The lodge?"

"Yes, my lord. Mrs. Debbens used to be a particular friend of mine, and it would be all right. Well, I saw her— madam—and you wouldn't believe how broken up she was—"

"Naturally—her husband's being killed so suddenly," Harland said with an effort.

---

"Oh, I dare say she felt that very much. You'll forgive me, my lord, if I seem to be personal, but—"

"Yes—go on."

"Madam was badly broken up about your going away. She said I must see your lordship, and you mustn't go on any account. She says that for the present you know she can't communicate with you but in a week or two after the funeral—well, she'll manage, somehow. She said I was to give your lordship her very best love, and she hopes you'll understand."

Exultation shone in Harland's eyes. Here was his chance to return with interest the bitter blow that had been dealt him.

Would he take it? The blackened remnants of the woman's photograph swayed to and fro in the heat of the fire. He looked at them curiously.

Edith coughed discreetly. His gaze, so long abstracted, returned to her.

"I'm seeing madam again to-morrow. She'll be expecting a message from your lordship. What am I to say?"

"Tell her—tell her—that I understand," he answered thickly. "That's all."

"Thank you, my lord—and have I permission to bid your lordship good evening?"

"You have. Thanks very much, Trelawny."

When Dodge had shown her out he demanded the newspapers.

SINCE the fatal Tuesday afternoon, Dora had been more of an enigma than ever to her husband and Turco. The men had apparently come to some sort of an understanding over the matter of Ted's shopping excursion with Mollie Brian.

Turco, feeling himself under a cloud where Dora's good opinion was concerned, had told his partner that he wouldn't stand for any nonsense of that sort, and insisted that Ted should explain to Dora. Ted did explain—but badly. He said he had chanced to meet Miss Brian in the shop, where he had gone to buy some haberdashery for himself, and she asked him to help her with her own parcels. It was a lie Dora could have picked to pieces with a twirl of her fingers, but its very flagrancy kept her quiet.

TED was engrossed in something of great importance to himself, and Dora let him be. They saw very little of each other in the two days that followed. Nor did she see much of Turco. He, poor fellow, was taking advantage of this short holiday to tear up his home.

Dora, left to her own devices, fooled them both, as she firmly believed she herself was being fooled. She was sweet and friendly. They dined together each night at Chapin's, although lunch had been struck off the menu.

She thought that she cared no longer. Turco's simile of the gumless postage stamp still appealed to her, but in a different way. "You can't stick if you've nothing to stick to," was her comment on it.

Her imagination, however, did not warm in the least to what she was about to do. She did not want to run away with Harland. She did not want to go to Spain or anywhere else with him. The telegram was sent in sheer defiance. It was the only possible thing to do by way of getting even with Ted.

On Thursday night, after supper, Turco said complacently: "Well, we open at the Corintheum on Monday. Madame Bernhardt's in the bill, and Tina Wherry. We're placed equal to Wherry. Not so bad."

Tyson laughed like a boy.

"I should say not! We've been going great lately."

"Next season an advance of thirty per cent., and money to burn," said Turco. "Did I show you those contracts?"

Dora, huddled on the hassock before the fire, let them ramble on. What had it to do with her—next season—even next Monday at the Corintheum?

"You told me," said Ted. "Of course it's all you, old man. I know that right enough."

"It's all of us—Dora too. They love her. Can I act by myself?" Turco was wonderfully generous. He was also businesslike. "Eleven-thirty to-morrow morning—work all day Saturday—a limber-up on Monday morning. They haven't called a rehearsal. They know our stuff. Dora, did you hear?"

"I heard. What would happen if one of us was taken ill—couldn't go on or something?"

"Depends which one," Ted said tranquilly.

"Me—for instance?"

"Oh, well, you wouldn't make a vital difference."

"I don't know about that," said Turco. "Dora's got her place with us. We've had good luck ever since she joined on."

Dora's head dropped on her folded arms. She was not going to cry, but she felt terribly depressed.

Life would be a curious thing from now on. It could be adventure of the wildest sort, and adventure was something she had always craved; but now she didn't care very much for it.

"I wish it was to-morrow night," said Ted, winking at Turco.

Dora looked at him vaguely, and then at Turco, who said: "S-sh!" and went into a fit of silent laughter. "Because to-morrow I'm going to have the night of my life," said Ted.

"You're a good one for keeping secrets," Turco rebuked him.

"What are you going to do?" Dora asked. "Or mustn't I ask?"

She didn't care, really. To-morrow night she would be far away. Perhaps Ted wouldn't be enjoying himself as much as he thought.

"You can ask, but if I was to tell you—o-oh, how the fur would fly!"

"Don't tease her," said Turco sharply.

She got up and left them. Let them chuckle and pretend and make a fuss over mysteries, if they liked. Her life was going off with a bang to-morrow. Ted could have his Mollie Brian, since he preferred her.

IN the morning Ted and Turco left for the studio, as they called it, directly after breakfast. Dora was expected to join them at eleven-thirty.

She waited until they were out of the house, and then hurriedly packed a couple of bags with clothing that she had already prepared. It did not take her ten minutes. Then she dragged the bags downstairs herself, and hailed a taxicab. She was off, with a sob in her throat and a great misery in her heart.

To be concluded next week

THE AFFECTIONS OF LUCILE

By FREEMAN TILDEN

Illustrations by August Henkel

IT was ten o'clock in the morning after the night before. Mr. Wheeler Wiggins sat at his desk. There was a pile of letters on the blotting pad, but Mr. Wiggins had not tried to open them. His elbows were upon the desk, and he had a hand clapped to each side of his head. He was thinking.

Mr. Wiggins was thinking of a number of things. But his thoughts pretty much resolved themselves into the drab conclusion that, whatever he had done, he shouldn't have done it. He despised himself. Physically, he felt muddy and itchy. The roof of his mouth exactly fulfilled his conception of what an abandoned mucilage factory would be like. He dully but devoutly wished that there were some one to whom he might safely go and promise hereafter to be a better man.

Now, if Mr. Wheeler Wiggins had been a practised hand at intemperance, if he had been a sport, or a rounder, or anything sinful like that, he would have known exactly what to do. A bath, a rub-down, a close shave, and an eye-opener—and there he would be!

But Mr. Wiggins was the rankest kind of an amateur at dissipation. He was a steady, sober, honest, and industrious citizen. For his one peccadillo his conscience was smiting him hip and thigh— and on the top of his head. He had crept to his office like a penitent, hoping that in the midst of work he might forget.

This hope was wretchedly illusory. The only things he could forget were the things he wanted to remember. With appalling clarity he remembered most of the things he wanted to forget.

Most of them: not all. Not all. Mr. Wiggins could remember everything up to a certain point. At this point his past life became enshrouded in a dense brown fog. Behind that veil, what follies might be hidden? At this thought, Mr. Wiggins shuddered; and as he shuddered the door opened, and Horace Horniman, the Enderby station agent, walked in.

"'Mornin', Mr. Wiggins," saluted Horace. "Fine day."

"Is it?" asked Mr. Wiggins, with some surprise; and then he added quickly: "Yes, isn't it?"

"It has come," said the station agent, laying down an express way-bill under Mr. Wiggins' nose. "Sign there."

"What's come?" asked Mr. Wiggins, signing.

"The animal."

Mr. Wiggins looked vacantly at the station agent, and blinked. Before he trusted himself to reply, he went over to the faucet in the corner and diluted his speech with water. Then he asked anxiously:

"Animal, Horace? What animal?"

"Why, your kangaroo," replied Horace. "There's a crowd down at the station, looking it over. I guess you're going to surprise the village, eh? Shall I send him up to your house right away?"

Mr. Wiggins tottered against the desk, from which he rebounded feebly against the wall. He might have continued to bound and rebound like a failing peg-top, until he whirled and fell over on the floor, if there hadn't been a chair handy. Into this chair Mr. Wiggins dropped. He ran a hand through his thin hair, and gazed upon the station agent with a hurt and frightened expression.

"Is this a joke?" Mr. Wiggins murmured, after a pause.

"If it is, it isn't on the express company," replied Horace in a businesslike way. "'Twas prepaid. Aw, say, Mr. Wiggins, you can't fool me. I know your game. You're going to present it to the town, to start a zoo. And it's a mighty nice thing to do, too. Folks'll appreciate it. Enderby needs something like that. Ain't I guessed right, Mr. Wiggins?"

Mr. Wiggins gave the station agent the sad, sweet smile of a man who is passing slowly away in the bosom of his family.

"I don't feel any too brisk this morning, Horace. Liver's out of order, I suppose. But if the—thing has really come, I'll go down and look at it. I'll go—now."

ON the way to the station it occurred to Mr. Wiggins that, assuming there were really a kangaroo down there addressed to him, it would be well to conceal his real feelings in the matter until he had fuller information. So he volunteered, in as sprightly a manner as possible, "Does it seem to be a healthy kangaroo, Horace?"

"Not being experienced with 'em, I couldn't say, Mr. Wiggins. It's a queer looking beast. When I left it, it was sitting on its tail. I will say, Mr. Wiggins, that in all my experience with the express company, now covering more than twenty-four years, this is the first kangaroo I ever handled. Yes, sir."

"Indeed?" returned Mr. Wiggins affably.

Horace Horniman shooed the crowd from the window of the express-room.

"Mr. Wiggins is here," he whispered hoarsely. "Back away, folks! All right, Mr. Wiggins," he continued, unlocking the door. "Here 'tis!"

Mr. Wiggins entered and looked dumbly upon his property. His property, propped up on its hind legs and tail, with two ridiculous fore feet clasped across its breast, put its fawnlike nose between two slats of the big crate and rubbed said nose thoughtfully up and down. There was a tag on the crate which unmistakably stated that the kangaroo was consigned to Mr. Wheeler Wiggins of Enderby, and was valued at $500.

"Well, well, I'm glad it came in such good order," said the consignee thickly. "Keep it here till I telephone you what to do with it, will you?" And he walked nervously and hastily back up the main street to his office. A cold chill ran up and down the spine of Mr. Wiggins as he walked.

"Never again!" whimpered Mr. Wiggins to himself. "This is what comes of it! Never again!"

---

Mr. Wiggins sat down again at his desk when he reached the office. He locked the door against surprise, and laid his throbbing head down on the blotter. And slowly, like the dissolving views of the stereopticon, he was made acquainted with the manner in which he had come into the possession of an animal of which he stood in no need whatever. The veil began to lift and expose, view by view, the rash performances of the past forty-eight hours.

It had all happened because there was a circus—a one-ring circus—showing at Springhaven, nine miles away. Mr. Wiggins had always been a connoisseur of circuses. It was the harmless self-indulgence of a hard-working business man, who gave himself few excursions besides. He loved to poke around in the side-shows. He doted on the high-wire acts. And he could even get excited about the hippodrome races, even though, in his heart of hearts, he was fully aware that the male riders "pulled" their horses in favor of the lady in red and yellow. He was a genuine circus fan.

SO Mr. Wiggins had, in the absence of any similar enthusiasm on the part of Mrs. Wiggins, gone alone over to Springhaven early Saturday morning, so as not to miss the noon parade. And that was well enough.

But in Springhaven Mr. Wiggins had the evil fortune to meet J. L. Delormie, traveling salesman for a hardware firm. Mr. Delormie, aside from being a rattling good salesman, had a passion for red neckties and wore his derby hat cocked rakishly over one eye: and that's all you need to know, for present purposes, about J. L. Delormie.

But that wasn't the worst. By some extraordinary circumstance that Mr. Wiggins had not learned, and probably never would learn, Mr. Delormie was the bosom friend of Sig. Farino (whose name in private life was O'Reilly), the owner of the circus. And, for the first time in his life, Mr. Wiggins had that ravishing experience of seeing the "inside" of a circus.

Sig. Farino's UNXLD Circus and Record-Breaking Menagerie laid over in Springhaven for the Sunday. Mr. Wiggins likewise laid over in Springhaven. He telephoned home to Mrs. Wiggins that he had met a hardware man he had been wanting to see for some time.

Thus far the recollection was perfectly clear. There followed, however, a welter of details in which Mr. Wiggins faintly recalled raising his hand with righteous verticality and saying, "No, boys; no more for me." But he also recalled stultifying himself by having one more.

There was something, too, about drawing three cards to a pair of tens, and catching both other tens—and he remembered being pounded on the back by Sig. Farino and hearing the circus man's words:

"Well, old sport, I'm pretty near cleaned out—let's have another."

Mr. Wiggins recalled having almost belligerently sunk a fistful of money into a vest pocket, and having positively refused to have another. And then, somehow, he fancied he must have relented.

Then—but whether it was then or some time thereafter was not clear—they went down to see the menagerie. And now the hardware merchant blushed furiously, even in the privacy of his office, as he remembered putting his arm around the leg of a camel and asserting that he was the son of an Arabian sheik, and chanting "Allah-il-Allah" effectively, to prove it.

Mr. Wiggins likewise recalled, to his shame, that he had begged to be allowed to enter the cage with the Numidian lions, and pull their whiskers for them. He had told Sig. Farino, in confidence, that one look from his (Mr. Wiggins') eye had quelled many a lion before, and would gladly do so again.

Mr. Wiggins sighed with relief as he realized that, for obvious reasons, Sig. Farino must have declined to allow him to pull the whiskers of the Numidian lions.

And then they came to the kangaroo. Mr. Wiggins recalled that Sig. Farino had patted this kangaroo affectionately on the head, and had told his guests that he thought the world of that kangaroo—that he had started in business with that kangaroo—and wasn't it a shame that he would soon have to part with that kangaroo, because the kangaroo was growing old and could not much longer stand the rigors of travel?

To which Mr. Wiggins had replied, with an outburst of feeling, that it was a shame. He had whispered to Sig. Farino that he, Wheeler Wiggins, had always had a warm spot in his heart for kangaroos; that even when a very young child he had wanted to own a little kangaroo of his own, but something

had prevented; and that now, in his mature years, confronted with this perfect specimen, he could scarcely refrain from taking it in his arms and making off with it. He remembered patting the kangaroo affectionately upon the nose, and calling it, for no particular reason, "my old friend Billy Patterson." Whereupon Sig. Farino had laughed and remarked, "No, Mr. Wiggins; she isn't that kind of a kangaroo—her name is Lucile."

And thereupon Mr. Wiggins, of Enderby, with a great upsurging of feelings that he could not repress, had emptied all his winnings from the poker game into Sig. Farino's hands, and begged him to remember that a man who had to go through life without a kangaroo of his own was a pitiable object.

"Will you give Lucile a decent home, if I should let you have her?" asked Sig. Farino, with what Mr. Wiggins now knew to be deadly seriousness.

Mr. Wiggins had responded that, once the kangaroo came into his possession, only death would them part—and more of the same, which he shuddered to recall.

"She's yours," had been the quick reply. "I'll see that she is crated up and sent to your home. Be good to her! And if you ever have to get rid of her before she dies, don't sell her. Shoot her!"

THE hardware dealer was just pondering the means by which this consummation might be effected, when there was a sharp knock on the door.

"Wheeler!" cried a penetrating voice. "You in there?"

Mr. Wiggins rose and shuffled to the door, unlocked it, and opened it to find himself facing Mrs. Wiggins.

Mrs. Wiggins was excited. In her haste to get into the office her small feathered hat had tilted absurdly over one ear. Her sharp nose was quivering with suspicion.

"Don't try to tell me!" she hurled at her husband. "Don't try to tell me, Wheeler! I've been down and seen it for myself!"

"I haven't tried to tell you anything, have I?" replied Mr. Wiggins lamely.

"Five—hundred—dollars—for a miserable overgrown rat! And you were going to buy an automobile this spring! And you buy that hideous thing instead! Perhaps you intend to harness that up and drive it around town, Wheeler Wiggins? Or maybe you're going to ride it bareback! Five-hundred—"

"I didn't pay a cent for it. Don't you go getting so excited without knowing the facts, Jennie," parried Mr. Wiggins, sparring for time. "Truth is, if you want to know, I was able to do a certain person a great service, and he gave me this—er—the thing that was nearest and dearest to him—er—he even paid the expressage—"

"Did him a service!" snorted Mrs. Wiggins. "Well, I don't call that deformed deer a token of gratitude! I wouldn't send a misshapen thing like that to my worst enemy. Maybe you're going to get a hand-organ—"

A medley of agitated voices outside interrupted Mrs. Wiggins.

"He's here!" shouted a masculine voice; and then three men flowed into the room. The leader stopped suddenly when he saw Mrs. Wiggins.

"Beg pardon, Mrs. Wiggins," he apologized. "We didn't know you were here. We came over to see Wheeler about this kangaroo. Hod Horniman says that your husband has bought it to give to the town as a sort of nucleus for a zoo. If that's so, all I want to say is that it's a mighty snappy thing to do. As one of the selectmen, I shall vote to accept it—and, furthermore, I want to go on record as saying that Wheeler Wiggins is the kind of man for a town like Enderby to have. It will get into the papers and advertise the place, and a sensation like that is good for business. Shake, Wheeler!"

Mr. Wiggins rose, groggily at first, and extended his hand. Then, clutching at this heaven-sent solution to the problem, he recovered his self-possession, cast a triumphant look in the direction of Mrs. Wiggins, stuck his right hand dramatically between the first and third buttons of his vest, and replied:

"Thank you, Samuel. Much obliged to you all. But I don't want any notoriety. I thought something of this sort might be good for Enderby. All I say is—take the animal—with my compliments."

"We'll call a special meeting of the board this afternoon," concluded Mr. Tench. "It'll go through like a shot!"

When the men had gone, Mr. Wiggins looked at Mrs. Wiggins. There was in his glance a suggestion that something like an apology might be in order. But he might have known better than that. Mrs. Wiggins took out her handkerchief and began to weep brokenly into it.

"Well, now what's the matter, Jen?"

"It was just like you, Wheeler; just like you!" she sobbed.

"Just like me? What? How?"

"To tell everybody else before you told me!"

Mr. Wiggins planted his hands behind his back, walked over to the window, and looked out upon the cluttered area.

"You follow me and you'll wear diamonds," he said pompously. "You know, Jen, as well as I do, that a man has to think out these big deals alone."

This beautiful domestic scene was interrupted briefly by the return of Samuel Tench.

"Excuse me just a minute, Wheeler," he said. "I suppose the animal should be taken out of the crate as soon as possible. I've got a hog run on my place that hasn't been used for years. Would it be all right to turn the kangaroo in there? And what does it eat?"

"The very place, Sam," replied Wiggins. "It's fenced, isn't it? Four-foot stone wall? That's fine. Have her uncrated and turn her loose in there. And feed her —lemme see—"

Mr. Wiggins assumed the air of a man

who knew well enough what kangaroos eat, but was merely trying to remember what they prefer or relish most.

"Give her some cracked corn," he announced, "and a little hay—not more tha a forkful. And maybe a can of salmon."

"I don't suppose they bite?" asked Mr Tench, as an after-thought.

"Bless you, no indeed," replied the kan garoo fancier. "She's as gentle as a kitten, Sam. Her name is Lucile."

MRS. WIGGINS having departed, after giving vent to certain feminine forebodings of evil, the hardware merchan put aside all thought of business for the day, and began to pace up and down the floor of his office, considering the presentation speech that would now be in order.

He first had recourse to the dictionary since, in the privacy of his own store, he admitted to himself that his knowledge of the habits of kangaroos was extremely limited.

It was a small and altogether insufficient dictionary. It told Mr. Wiggins, step by step:

KANGAROO. n.—A marsupial.

MARSUPIAL. n.—A sub-class of mammalia.

MAMMALIA. n. pl.—Highest class Vertebrata.

VERTEBRATA. n. pl.—Animals having bone or cartilaginous vertebrae, together with Amphioxus with simple undivided notochord.

At this point Mr. Wiggins became weak and dizzy. He sighed and placed the dictionary back on the shelf.

"Well, they've got a nerve," he muttered, "to call that thing a 'Dictionary of

---

the English Language.' Not a blessed word as to what they eat."

However, Mr. Wiggins remembered that he could drop in at the Carnegie Library on his way back from dinner, and dig up the salient facts of kangaroo life. The main point now was to decide what form the presentation speech should take.

The simple oratorical method would go something like this:

"My friends and fellow citizens: The ovation you have accorded me has overwhelmed me. The small service, the unimportant service, that I have been able to render my native place deserves no such flattering recognition," etc.

But Mr.Wiggins wondered if it wouldn't be better, this time, to adopt something 'a little more brisk and pungent than the above—to plunge his listeners right into the very swim of the matter by slinging at them suddenly the question:

"My friends, do you know what a marsupial is? You do not? Then I will tell you," etc.

Or even more effective, perhaps, might be to begin in an offhand, informal way, showing his great familiarity with the subject and with all commentators on the subject, such as:

"My friends and fellow citizens: Carl Hagenbeck, the great animal expert, once said of the kangaroo that it is the most marvelous of nature's works. I agree with Mr. Hagenbeck unqualifiedly."

Should there be any one in the audience rash enough to deny that Carl Hagenbeck ever said this, Mr. Wiggins would crush him with a light, superior smile, and proceed over his mangled form.

Mr. Wiggins sat down, finally, and began making notes with feverish inspiration. Just as he was striking, white-hot, some telling phrases if from the anvil of his imagination, the door opened, and the office-boy, store-boy, and boy-of-all-work, complete in the person of one short redheaded boy, came in and dropped several newly arrived letters on the desk.

The hardware dealer ran his fingers through the envelops idly, with a far-away rostrum look in his eyes. But suddenly his glance fell upon one of the envelops. In the corner of the envelop were the words:

SIG. FARINO'S
UNXLD ROAD SHOWS.
en Route.

Mr. Wiggins tore the envelop open with trembling fingers. A blush of humiliation overspread his face as he saw the salutation:

The hardware dealer put his hand to his brow and tried to persuade himself that he was incapable of asking any one to address him as "Wiglets." He read on, falteringly:

A boxing kangaroo! Mr. Wiggins found it hard to believe that he, Wheeler Wiggins, was in actual possession of one of these high-lights of animal training. The thought of the added prestige of presenting to the town such a marvelous creature overshadowed the ignominy of being addressed as Wiglets, and of being reminded of the fact that he had wanted to pull the whiskers of the lions. He brushed back his hair, took up his pencil again, and was proceeding with his presentation speech, when the door swung open in response to a violent shove, and a man bawled himself into the office. At the same moment there was an excited roar of voices in front of the store.

"YOU see, don't you? You see what the damn thing has done to me, don't you?" yelled the visitor.

"Good Lord!" cried Mr. Wiggins, springing up at sight of the intruder. "Silas Higginbotham!"

"Don't good Lord me!" frothed the visitor. "Just look at me, that's all!"

Mr. Wiggins did look upon the foremost and least-loved citizen of Enderby. He looked upon that austere Higginbotham character, that landmark of cold propriety and respectability. He looked upon this owner of mortgages and clipper of bonds—and then he looked again. Mr. Higginbotham was waving the tattered remains of his silk hat wildly in the air, when he was not shaking it under the hardware man's nose. One side of the foremost citizen's face was caked with mother earth. A sleeve of his coat was hanging by a few threads at the shoulder. There was a big red-and-blue patch under one eye.

"What has happened?" asked Mr. Wiggins hoarsely.

"You—you know what has happened!" rasped the elderly mortgagee. "Right on the public highway—right in the broad daylight, I've been murderously attacked! If it hadn't been for the crowd, I'd have been killed! And you want to know what's happened? You fiend!"

Mr. Wiggins felt his spine grow gelatin-like and cold. His thoughts went instantly to Lucile, gentle as a kitten, the boxing kangaroo, who wouldn't hit anybody unless she took a fancy to them. But, hoping against hope, he summoned up the courage to ask:

"Who—did it, Mr. Higginbotham?"

"Who did it?" snorted the other man. "Who do you suppose did it? Ain't that what you brought that animal to this place for? Ain't it part and parcel of your devilish plans, Wiggins? Ain't you been sitting there plotting this deviltry for months? Why else would you pay five hundred dollars—five hundred dollars!— for a hellish beast that leaps on people and tries to throttle them? You'll suffer for this—penalty of the law—you wait and see."

"Just a minute, Mr. Higginbotham; I can explain," shouted the frenzied Wiggins, running after the swiftly departing man. As he went to the front of the store lie saw a swaying crowd outside. He stopped short and fled back into his office, Shot the bolt in the door, and dropped into his chair:

"This is what comes of it!" groaned the hardware merchant. "She must have got out of the hog run some way. I'm ruined! I'm a ruined man!"

For just a moment there passed through Mr. Wiggins' surging brain a plan for

emigrating to Australia. He instantly considered the possibility of enlisting in the army, of becoming a lay brother in a monastery. He wondered if his insurance could be attached for damages in case he was forced to resort to suicide.

And then—Mr. Wiggins had an inspiration. It was a wild hope, but it thrilled him with emotion. He seized fountain- pen and paper, hastily rammed them into his pocket, and grasped his hat. There was a back entrance to the store that led out and along an alleyway in the rear of the buildings on the main street, until it emerged near a bridge across the river. Mr. Wiggins, unobserved, gained this egress. He flew down the alleyway.

There was one spot when the merchant had to come into the main street. That was at the bridge. As he turned this corner he saw the remains of a popcorn wagon strewn in all directions. His heart sank. He thought of Lucile—like a playful kitten—who must have had a sudden attack of tender feeling toward the popcorn man, and lovingly punched him and his wagon all over the street. Then he hustled onward.

"If they only haven't telephoned to Sam Tench!" Mr. Wiggins prayed fervently, as he trotted. "If I can only have just three minutes more!"

HE came to an old-fashioned house on a shaded back street, went up the steps at a bound, and knocked. It was Samuel Tench himself, first selectman, who responded.

"The very man we wanted to see!" exclaimed Mr. Tench. "Come in, Wheeler!" Then, perceiving that Mr. Wiggins was out of breath and laboring under some excitement, he asked: "I hope you haven't changed your mind about letting the town have the kangaroo?"

"He hasn't heard anything!" thought Mr. Wiggins, with a fast beating heart. He restrained himself so well as to wear an expression of self-effacement as he replied: "N-no, Sam—she's a good deal to part with, but—er—public spirit—er—I'm in an awful hurry—could you make a written acceptance before I go?"

"We've just held a meeting here and voted to accept the animal," replied Mr. Tench. "With a vote of thanks to you, Wheeler. So it's all settled, provided you don't go back on us."

Mr. Wiggins felt the perspiration suddenly cease, like a man who is about to have the sun-stroke. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.

"At what time did you take the vote, Sam?" he asked chokingly. It was eleven-twenty now.

"Oh, about eleven," was the reply. "Why?"

"Because," replied Wheeler Wiggins, straightening up into full manhood again and looking upon the selectman with a magnanimous eye, "Lucile has escaped from your hog run and is down on Main Street, punching everybody in the eye. I wonder, Sam, that you could be so careless! You must have left the gate open! I do hope nothing will happen to Lucile! You know, she's worth a lot of money—and you can't be too careful, Sam, with—er—the property of the town."

"Escaped? Punching everybody in the eye? You're joking, Wheeler," said Mr. Tench incredulously.

"Far from it, Sam. Didn't I tell you that Lucile is a boxing kangaroo? She won't hit anybody she doesn't take a fancy to,—it's a part of her gentleness,—but she must have taken a fancy to old Silas Higginbotham, because he just came into my office a total wreck."

For just a moment Mr. Tench's face lit up with pleasure.

"As far as I know, she's the only living thing that ever did like Higginbotham, then," said the selectman. "I don't know as I care what she did to him. He hasn't a friend in Enderby."

"Well, that may be, Sam, that may be. But as I came across the street it looked to me as if Lucile had sort of made friends with Joe Cate, the popcorn man, too. I noticed his wagon and goods scattered round. I think we'd better get right down to the scene of action before Lucile makes any more friends. You better call up the other selectmen, and we'll try to round her up."

MR. TENCH, perceiving that the situation demanded quick action, worked the telephone in a hurry. A few moments later he and the hardware merchant left the house and hurried down to the center. As they rounded into the main street, they saw that the street was deserted, except for a queer-looking figure that stood directly in front of the hardware store. They thought they could make out other figures in the lower branches of trees.

As they neared the spot, a man darted out of an alleyway with a whoop, and fled toward them. He passed them so quickly they did not have time to speak; but they noticed that there was a big red spot on one side of his face, and his right eye was closing.

"It's the postmaster," murmured Mr. Wiggins. "It looks like Lucile had been making friends with him. Quick, Sam!"

Somebody, from a safe perch on a rooftop, yelled: "Here comes Wheeler!" Another, and waggish, creature, speaking through a crack of the grocery door of the Enderby Cash Market, replied: "Sprinkle salt on its tail, Wig!"

Within thirty feet of Lucile, Mr. Tench stopped so suddenly that Mr. Wiggins, who was slightly in the rear, bumped him.

"Is there any good way to catch them, Wheeler?" he asked. "Or had we better wait till the other selectmen come?"

"In their native haunts they are captured by—" Mr. Wiggins was saying, when Lucile lifted her fawnlike head and caught sight of them. She poised herself on her tail and bounded some fifteen feet toward them, going through the air like a rock from a catapult.

Mr. Tench tried to turn and jump simultaneously—something that only a skilled athlete can do. He was also hampered by the fact that, at the very moment he jumped, Mr. Wiggins grasped him by the coat. Both men spun around like tops, and went to earth together. Before they

---

could move another muscle, Lucile had cleared the remaining fifteen feet, and was beside them.

Mr. Tench was not ashamed to vent a terrified "Ooooooo!" But he braced himself on one arm and awaited the end with a good deal of fortitude. The heartless wag in the doorway continued to advise: "Salt its tail, Wheeler! Salt its tail!"

Mr. Wiggins rose to the occasion splendidly. Even the most timid of men, cornered, will act with some heroism. Mr. Wiggins drew himself cautiously to his feet and said sternly:

"Lucile!"

Lucile was sitting on her tail again, regarding the two men with eyes that expressed surprise, coupled with the desire to serve. Her liquid brown eyes seemed like two deep wells of loving-kindness. Almost could be discerned in them great tears, ready to flow at an unkind word. Her small nose vibrated with sensitiveness; and her two fore feet were clasped in front of her with something of the attitude of appeal.

AN uncanny, reckless idea came into Mr. Wiggins' mind. He looked commandingly into Lucile's face, and, scarcely knowing what he was doing, said: "Lucile, shake hands!"

Instantly the kangaroo held out one of her delicate paws. Mr. Wiggins grasped it and—to his own amazement—held it.

Lucile waited obediently for the next command. Mr. Tench had scrambled to his feet, and was watching the hardware dealer with admiration. A cheer went up from the roof-tops and the lower branches of trees.

"At-a-boy!" shouted the delighted populace. "Some animal-tamer, Wheeler!"

Mr. Wiggins was emboldened. He suddenly remembered Sig. Farino's postscript about Lucile's single weakness. He went into his pocket and took out a rubber pouch of smoking tobacco, removed a handful of the weed, and tendered it to the kangaroo. Lucile swallowed it eagerly.

And then, if ever an animal expressed gratitude for kind treatment, Lucile did. Her eyes became suffused with thankfulness. She shifted her position slightly, drew back her right fore paw, and shot it with deftness and precision against Mr. Wiggins' left eye. With her left paw she caught him beneath the right ear—and, to show him how thoroughly she appreciated his thoughtfulness, she reached over and hooked Samuel Tench so powerfully under the chin that the selectman described half a complete arc, and landed on his back with a terrible yell of pain.

Mr. Wiggins looked up at the blue sky above him,—which he could now do without bending his neck,—and he shouted at the top of Isis voice:

"Take her off! Take her off!"

Lucile, ever at command, construed the request in her own way, according to her training. She reached over and began to hammer Mr. Wiggins' upturned countenance. She did it without the slightest show of malice—did it obviously out of heart; and when she saw Mr. Tench trying to rise, she gracefully kicked him with her left hind foot, without doing any damage to him except slitting his trousers neatly up the leg.

HOW long Lucile would have continued to perform is only a rash conjecture. There came a providential interruption.

A brindle mule, belonging to the wheelwright, sauntered just then out of his stall, as was his wont, and crossed the street to drink from the public fountain. He was about thirty years old; he had gray loops around his eyes; and he had worried his tail nearly to a stub by constant warfare with flies.

Lucile saw the mule. It may have been that she had a natural affection for mules. It may have been that she thought she could learn to care for this particular mule at sight. It may have been mere curiosity. The fact is, Lucile suddenly quit her vaudeville with Mr. Wiggins, and bounded over to the side of Old Bill.

Bill was astonished. He waved one ear as a sign that in all his life he had never seen anything like this. But he was an old mule, and used to seeing queer things, and after an appraising glance he moved on toward the watering trough. Lucile followed. Her tender eyes displayed intense feeling. She approached Bill with dainty hops, until she was within distance to show her affection. Then, as a playful bit of coquetry, she planted a solid left-hand blow upon her new-found acquaintance. And it happened that the part of Bill's anatomy that caught the blow was the part that Lucile could most easily reach, coming from a southerly direction.

Bill the mule turned and looked at Lucile. There was something of annoyance in his glance; and something of astonishment. Lucile swung her right.

And then Bill kicked.

They carried Lucile—with a good deal of solicitude, considering the fact that she had declared martial law on the main street—into the rear part of the drug store, and old Dr. Goodridge volunteered to do all that medical skill could do. It was of no avail. At half past three on a Monday afternoon, Lucile's elongated rear toes turned up. She looked around her benignly—and joined her marsupial relatives.

"DIDN'T I tell you?" asked Mrs. Wiggins. "And you've been hard at work on a presentation speech, to give that miserable fattened up chipmunk to the town. Now, Wheeler Wiggins, you'd better stick to the hardware trade and leave menageries alone!"

Mr. Wiggins threw out his chest and looked at his wife with superior commiseration.

"I guess you don't know me, Jen," he said. "I'm sure going to make that presentation speech. Lucile will be presented to the town as a nucleus for a collection of stuffed animals and birds. She will be handsomely mounted, and will look well at the end of the hall over the Public Library."

"Huh!" sniffed Mrs. Wiggins. "Who's going to pay for it? I suppose you are."

"No," replied Mr. Wiggins, feeling tenderly at One of his bandages. "Old Silas Higginbotham will foot the bill. You see, when the old codger learned that Lucile wouldn't hit any one unless she took a fancy to them, and always slugged those hardest that she loved best, Silas figured that Lucile must have been crazy about him. She's the only thing that ever did like him. The old man was touched very deeply. He'll reciprocate by having her stuffed."

The House of Hoblitzell

—Continued from page 7

"We have our own detective corps. The House of Hoblitzell never betrays a patron. Telephoning the police would be equivalent to notifying the world that J. Conger Van Cleve is on the verge of bankruptcy."

MAX left Paige at her door a little after midnight.

In the drawing-room, redolent with so many pleasant memories, she dropped into a chair in the dark, and wept softly. She realized that she had drawn a hand in a desperate game. When the box was opened, and her hand discovered, there would be an explosion.

She thought of telephoning for Max—of begging him to abandon his nefarious scheme. Alas, it was too late for that! He had doubtless already reported the robbery, either to his father or the House detectives.

At last she evolved a plan. She unloaded the jewels into her little black traveling-bag. With them she also inclosed a sheet of note-paper, after laboring over it ten minutes. Next she took from her dresser a tiny automatic pistol which Max had given her, and thrust it into her muff. Then she called a taxi.

She was back in an hour. It was then two o'clock. From habit she undressed and went to bed. But sleep, of course, was out of the question. At six-thirty she rose, dressed, and put on her wraps—not omitting her muff. It was still dark outside when she emerged from her room. But, to her astonishment, she discovered Mrs. Schwarz on the seat of the hall-tree.

"Why, good morning!" exclaimed Paige.

The landlady ignored the salutation.

"Mr. Max hass just telephoned he iss on the way over here," said she roughly. "You are not to leaf till he comes."

Paige started, but answered with spirit:

"Mr. Max is not my master."

"You will find he iss just now," retorted Mrs. Schwarz, exposing a heavy brass key in her hand. "The door iss locked."

"Then unlock it or I'll telephone the police," Paige said angrily.

"You will!" snorted the woman. "Not if I can put my fist in your face first, you won't! You think I will have my place pulled by the cops for such as you—a kept woman!"

Paige recoiled with a frozen face, her eyes sick with horror, as she panted:

"Why—why—you know you lie!"

"What iss it you call yourself, den, when a man pays for your room and boardt?" demanded the landlady.

"He doesn't!" cried the girl. "I pay it myself, every week. You know I do."

"I know you pay ten dollars," retorted Mrs. Schwarz. You little hussy—tryin' to make me belief that you belief you git a first-floor suite for ten dollars a veek. T'irty dollars iss the price. And don't Max pay the difference? Don't he carry a night-key? Liar, eh!"

Paige closed her eyes and leaned, from faintness, against the wall. There came a tap on the door, and Mrs. Schwarz admitted Max. He was pale and shaken.

"You may go now," said he to Mrs. Schwarz. Then, to Paige, when they were alone: "We have caught the bandits already. But the box was empty."

His harsh voice, the hard, suspicious eyes with which he probed her own, were new to Paige. For a moment the universe seemed to whirl.

"Don't thieves have a way of emptying boxes?" she queried.

"Not these. They had no key. The lock is a kind that can't be picked, and it wasn't forced. Paige," he exclaimed vehemently, "it was you who opened it, when I was out of the room! Are you a thief? If not, why did you do it?"

"Because I am not a thief—because I didn't want you to become one, either," she burst out passionately.

"You mean—?" He licked his lips.

"That I know the truth—that there were no real bandits to catch."

He smiled cynically.

"Smart little girl! I bow to your acumen. I confess my misdemeanor."

Then, with a swift alteration of tone:

"Pardon me, Paige. I am not myself this morning. You know why I did it. You know I am no thief at heart. I told you of my debts last night. They are not ordinary debts. They are loans from friends. They must be paid.

"My father is responsible for them, in part, by holding me down to a niggardly salary. For the mischance of last night, as it will be regarded in the office, for the leaking out of my errand, a certain culpability will be chargeable to me. My father will assume it. It is upon him that the loss will fall—and ultimately upon me, his only heir. We are friends, Paige. I have done you many kindnesses. Lift me out of this mire now by handing me back the jewels and burying your knowledge of them in your breast."

"I can't, Max," she answered firmly.

"Then listen!" he said angrily. "If I go down, you go with me. Look at these quarters! You think you know what they cost, but you don't. They cost thirty dollars a week. You earn twenty-five. Do you follow me?"

"The shame is yours, not mine," she answered brokenly.

"The world won't believe it."

She wiped her eyes for answer. He studied her for an interval. Then, with a deadly intensity, he continued:

"Nor is that all. I am in the middle of a desperate venture. I can't go back; I must go forward. Now, I warn you solemnly, since an appeal to both your reason and friendship has failed, that I'll have those jewels, if I have to bind and gag you first, and then tear out the floors and walls of these rooms to find them. And if I go that far, I'll go farther," he added darkly. "I have confederates. They cherish no illusions as to the sacredness of life. If it is necessary for their protection—if your silence can't be bought—they'll drop your body in the lake as readily as they'd drown a kitten."

He advanced menacingly.

"Stop!" she cried. "The jewels are not here. They are in a hotel vault. Here is the receipt!"

He clawed at his collar as if choking.

"They are in my bag," she hurried on. "With them is a statement of what happened last night—and of the evidence that led me to suspect you—Schroeder's card and your revolver loaded with blanks. I called a policeman to witness the deposit of my bag at the hotel. Then I drove to the police station. I told the sergeant I feared something might happen to me. I didn't think of death,—I couldn't conceive of you as a murderer,—but I was afraid I might be spirited away and made to appear as a party to the robbery. The sergeant took down my name and address and told me what to do. If I do not report at the station by three o'clock, an investigation will be started and my bag requisitioned from the hotel."

She paused, breathing heavily.

"Now let me out—out of this terrible house and out of your life!"

An apoplectic hue overspread the man's face. His hands opened and shut like talons; his breath rattled in his throat. Then, crouching, with a cunning gleam, he slowly advanced one foot, like a cat stalking a mouse.

Paige emitted a cry of alarm, and whipped the automatic from her muff.

"Max, if you try to hurt me—if you take another step, I swear that I'll defend myself to the last bullet in this pistol!"

He halted, staring with impotent fury at her set lips, her tragic eyes. Then, as her thumb pushed down the safety catch of the pistol, he sullenly moved out of her path. She passed him guardedly. At the door she paused and returned the pistol to her muff.

"I will see that your father gets the jewels," said she in a dead voice. "I will tell him no more than is necessary. Nothing of your debts—nothing of this," with a gesture that swept the room. "Your honor, as you call it, will rest in his hands. If I can show mercy, surely he can."

As she passed down the outside steps the light of a new day suffused the brick fronts across the street with a rosy glow. It occurred to Paige that Charlie Mills must be opening his store about then.

Help Win the War

By ALBERT W. ATWOOD

I AM writing this article in the early days of May: it will appear in the early days of June: and by the time it does appear the first $2,000,000,000 of the Liberty Loan of 1917 will probably have been subscribed—over-subscribed, let us hope.

The first response to every national loan of this character comes always from the banks and insurance companies, and from wealthy individuals. There is a double reason for this. In the first place, men of very large means are accustomed to look for the greatest possible degree of safety in their investments, and can afford to get along with a small return. They are delighted to have the opportunity to purchase government bonds, because there is no question of the complete safety of the investment.

But there is another reason why the wealthy naturally respond to an offering of government bonds more quickly than do the people at large: they are accustomed to financial affairs. Through their banks, trust companies, lawyers, secretaries, and managers the men of large means buy securities that look "good" to them almost automatically. Wall Street men buy and sell bonds like flour. or potatoes, and anything as secure as a government bond issue is taken as a matter of course.

The fact that government bonds are free from all taxes except the inheritance tax means much to a man with a large income. Not only is he freed from the income tax on all his property represented by these bonds, but lie is not obliged even to report their ownership when he fills out his income-tax blank. To those whose incomes run up into the hundreds of thousands this is a most important consideration.

But it is not a good thing for the country to have the bulk of its bonds owned by the well-to-do or the very rich. It creates or at least accentuates class distinctions. Those who are opposed to the war will say that it is a rich man's war, and brought on by rich men who are interested in munitions factories. Such critics will say that the wealthy purchase bonds, collect interest on them, and stay at home safely; while the poor man does the fighting, and is either killed or comes home to pay enormous taxes to meet the interest on the bonds owned by the rich. But this is not true if every one who has a few hundred dollars joins in the financial support of his country.

A great statesman has often been misquoted as saying that a public debt was a public blessing. What he said was that a public debt widely distributed among the people was a public blessing. One reason the French are so patriotic is that French government rentes are owned largely by the peasants. They really have something at stake when their country goes to war. They know mighty well that the almost superhuman effort to push the Germans back is not a "rich man's war" in any sense—military, political, or financial.

It is very doubtful whether more than one big loan can be raised in this or any country by merely appealing to the banks and to wealthy individuals. England, France, and Germany have all found it necessary to enlist all their people in the work of selling bonds. It is easy enough to float the first one or two or three billions through the banks and a few individuals; but after that the great, mostly untouched resources of the people must be drawn upon. In both England and Germany more than five million people subscribed for bonds.

You can be of very real help to-day, for you can help win the war if you buy even one small bond. There is no use arguing which is most helpful, fighting in the trenches, working in munitions factories, hoeing potatoes'on the farm, or subscribing for bonds. Each one is absolutely necessary. If you can do more than one, so much the better. If you can do nothing except buy a bond, that is a lot better than doing nothing.

You don't have to know anything about finance to buy government bonds. Any financial advertiser in this paper will take your subscription without charge and see that you get the bonds. Any bank or trust company will perform the same service. Even if you haven't enough money to buy a single small bond, you will find that many banks will make the purchase for you, if you pay $10 down, and allow you to complete payment in small monthly instalments.

Don't throw your other investments overboard to buy government bonds with. The surest way to make the country strong is to support every industry. If the railroads and other enterprises go under, the government won't have anything to levy taxes upon, and so it won't be able to pay interest on its bonds. We all are bound up together. This is no time for severe restriction except in harmful and unnecessary luxuries. It is the time for confidence and wholesome expansion. Industry must be vigorous, or there will be nothing to fight the war with. So don't sacrifice your promising investments.

Stop wasting money, and you will be able to help the government more than in any other way. What you save is just exactly what should go into government bonds.

Free Booklets You May Have for the Asking

John Muir & Company, 61 Broadway, New York City, have made arrangements whereby particular facilities will be offered to purchasers of U.S. War Loan Bonds in $100 denominations. The firm is not charging for its services in connection with the distribution of the Government Bonds.

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

Sound opinions on the situation as related to business and financial operations and to effect upon securities have made the Bache Review known throughout the United States and Europe. It is read by thousands of business men who are guided by its authoritative conclusions. Issued by J.S. Bache & Co., 42 Broadway, New York. Sent upon request without charge.

The conservative investor can safely purchase listed stocks and bonds on the partial-payment basis by investing a moderate amount monthly. This plan is described in special letter issued by Wright, Slade & Harnickell, members of the New York Stock Exchange, 71 Broadway, New York City. This circular sent on request.

High-grade improved Montana farm property first mortgages bearing 6 per cent. interest net are offered for sale by Phelps-Eastman Co., investment bankers, McKnight Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Also Minneapolis city bonds in conventient denominations and bearing 6 per cent. interest net. Descriptive literature will be furnished upon request.

"June Stock and Bond Investment Suggestions," a circular containing a diversified selection of securities at present available, is issued by Merrill, Lynch & Co., members of the New York Stock Exchange, 7 Wall Street, New York City. This circular and a list of high-grad $100 bonds suitable for the moderate investor sent on request.

The Odd Lot Review, published weekly, presents in plain English a clear-cut viewpoint on the financial and market conditions. Sample copy sent of request to 61 Broadway, New York City.

A new circular, showing how to obtain a dividend every month through the Odd Lot method, has been issued by Hartshorne & Pucabia, members of the New York Stock Exchange, 7 Wall Stree, New York City. Ask for Circular o=14. The firm also offers special inducements in the way of advice to small investors.

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

First farm mortgages and real estate bonds are not subject to fluctuations in value in these uncertain times. E.J. Lander & Co., Grand Forks, North Dakota, will send a booklet free to those who are interested in farm mortgages. Ask for booklet "R."

Perkins & Company of Lawrence, Kansas make their loands upon personal examination of security and guarantee titles perfect. They mail their interest drafts to their investors to reach them the first of the month, so that there are no delays in interest payments. Write for circular No. 721.

Have your read Mr. Atwood's financial booklet, "Making Your Money Work for You"? It is written especially for our readers, and if you will write him, inclosing five cents in stamps, at 381 Fourth Avenue, New York he will send you a copy.