Do You Fear Change?

By WILLIAM G. SHEPHERD

GREAT men are not afraid of changes in their lives: they welcome them.

Lesser men fear changes of any sort, and try to avoid them.

Napoleon was always ready for a change. He resigned from the army when he was only a penniless little whippersnapper of an officer, because he didn't like the way things were going in the French army. Once he tried to get Bourrienne, his friend, to go into the business of renting houses in Paris and re-renting them furnished. He was always willing to try the changes that life offered.

There is an aged elevator operator in an old newspaper building in Chicago who, if you will listen to him, will say to you proudly: "I've seen a lot of folks come and go here. I've worn out three floors in this elevator, standing right here at this lever, and I'm on my fourth one now."

Napoleon never would stay put; we smaller souls always do.

We're afraid even to change our minds. And yet, every day, if we are half wise, we gain new facts which show us that our honest opinion of yesterday, based on the facts that we then possessed, was not clear and exact.

Emerson flames out like this about us unchanging folk:

If you would be a man, speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannonballs, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in words as hard again, though it contradict everything you said to-day. . . . A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Changes always mean pain. That is why we shrink from them. Bodily changes produce what the old-fashioned doctors used to call "growing pains." Business changes mean sleepless nights. Mental changes—changes in opinion and outlook—produce the sharp shooting pains of doubt.

We particularly dread doubts, not realizing that doubts are only "growing pains" in the mental realm.

Fearing the pains of change, we who are small fight all events in our lives or thoughts. But great men welcome events; they yield to the pressure of events. When John D. Archbold died recently, the masters of Standard Oil chose Alfred C. Bedford to take his place.

"How do you explain your success in life?" he was asked.

"Events have pushed me, on," he replied.

Without painful changes nothing can be accomplished in life.

H. A. Overstreet, a California philosopher, sensed the power of change when he said: "In all our human experience the presence of change indicates the fact that work is being done."

Charles Darwin, studying theology, did not like it, and changed to medicine. He was considered a failure in theology. Next he pained his relatives and friends by dropping medicine and changing to biology.

"My son Charles is a great trial to me," said his worried father.

But Darwin, in all his brave changing, was only facing the world and seeking a pathway to his great life-work.

The ruts of life are more terrifying to great-minded men than any possible changes could be.

Charles M. Schwab had a half-million-dollar-a-year job with his old employer, Andrew Carnegie. But one day he threw it up and went out on his own hook at Bethlehem.

Bedford, Darwin, Schwab, Napoleon, and all the great men who have bravely faced the changes of life, have had their sleepless nights, you may be sure, and their periods of soul-racking doubts. But they all knew this one fact, which we smaller folk do not know:

Great suffering comes from not changing oftener than from changing.

If dodging changes really meant escaping pain and inconvenience, all the millions of us who do it would be considered the wise ones of the earth.

But we do not escape suffering and loss by avoiding changes.

Nature imposes a terrific penalty upon her creatures who try to escape changes. See what punishment she has dealt out to the tunicate:

Somewhere, back in the dim history of evolution, the tunicate was on the road toward being a frog.

Like his cousin the frog, he started out in life as a pollywog, with a fine, strong tail for swimming. But his evolutionary history shows that, at some stage of his career, he began to dodge changes. Perhaps this fear first came to some pollywog ancestor of the tunicate when he noticed that his tail was disappearing. It is no small change for a pollywog, who has no legs, to lose his tail.

This pollywog ancestor probably passed through all the pains and doubts that come with changes. He didn't know that the disappearance of his tail was only a forerunner of the appearance of legs. He didn't know that the time might come, if he bravely accepted the change that nature was imposing on him, when, instead of abiding in the murkiness and the mud of the water in which he lived, he might become a fine, big, strong frog of a fellow, who would go to the shore and live in the sunshine amid the grasses and sing loud, comfortable songs in the dusk of summer evenings.

So this frightened pollywog did the simple thing of refusing to play the game of life as it is laid out for pollywogs. He found a niche in a stone, and he stuck his head there where he could feel the hardness of the stone's unchanging material pressing against his retreating forehead. Down in the gloom where he was born. down in the dark water where he had always found his board and keep, he resolved to remain, tail or no tail.

Nature is always accommodating to all her creatures, from tunicate pollywogs up to man. She usually lets us all become just what we want to be. So she began to change the tunicate pollywog into a thing that could stick to a stone instead of a creature that could go up into the sunshine to jump and sing. Very soon the fishlike head of the pollywog begins to change its form. It is converted into a sucker-like pad, by means of which it cleaves to the rock.

Fearing changes, it gets them, nevertheless, with nature's own sardonic vengeance.

Its skin thickens; the shape of its body changes, until-it attains a vaselike contour. Its organs are altered so profoundly that their resemblance to those of its cousins, the vertebrates, practically disappears.

The creature finally consists only of a mouth and a big sack of a stomach, and in appearance it so little resembles an animal that any scientist who has not studied tunicates would be pardoned for declaring that it must be only a rock-growing sea plant.

And yet, nature had headed this change-fearing creature toward the dignity of vertebratehood. Nature had planned to give it a backbone. It stays put all the rest of its life, up against the rock where it first stuck its fear-filled head. To remove it from the rock would be to kill it.

If you have any regard for your personal or for your soul's welfare, don't face the world with flat feet, firmly planted, determined not to move or change your position with the sweep of the world's events. Stand balanced on tiptoe, like a good boxer, ready to meet and welcome any event and the change it may bring to you.

A lack of change is uselessness.

Die, if you have to; but don't be a human tunicate.

To a Woman Who Wants to Help Win the War

YOU want me to speak right out frankly, I assume. So I am going to tell you that—for a little while, at least—the most important thing you can do is to keep a tight hold on your patience and see that both feet are planted solidly on the ground.

When men begin to be drawn out of industry in large numbers, you will not have to look far for real work to do: no one will need to tell you. There will be jobs, always before held by men, which women will have to fill. There will be the need for sonic one to watch the children of the women who go out to work.

Work is corning—plenty of it. Until it reaches you, be as patient as you can.

And, while you are being patient, be also cheerful.

An army officer recently furnished me with the following extracts from letters written to soldiers:

Your room is just as you left it, Hubert, and your mother cries as if her heart would break, every time she goes in to dust the dresser.

There is a vacant chair at the table, dear. We're lonely for you.

Bessie went to work yesterday. She will do her best, but she can never do for us what you did. How we miss your strong, manly shoulders!

Oh, my lover, my heart is bleeding for you.

It is a temptation, when those we love are away, to pour our longing into our letters.

You can help by resisting that temptation. Carry your own burden through the war, as the man you love will be carrying his. Make your letter to him so full of cheerful gossip, so fragrant with trust and love, that its arrival will be the great event of his week or month.

As the opportunities for other war work open up, make it your ambition to do your part as quietly as possible.

The big guns used in the present war burn their own smoke. They throw out no cloud to signal their activities: the more hidden they are, the more effective.

"A great deal of good can be done in the world," says an old Jesuit proverb, "if one is not too careful who gets the credit."

It is an excellent motto with which to win a war.

Be a little tolerant with men if they do not always give you all the time and attention you deserve.

Remember, men are primitive creatures, and have been used to running the world in their own way for a long time.

They are beginning to see that they can run it much better with the help of women; that the enormous reservoirs of intelligence and devotion represented by the womanhood of the country ought not to be shut off from national service.

But the old habits still persist. Be gentle with the primitive male if he moves slowly. Don't yield to the temptation to adopt with him the tactics of Delilah with Samson:

She pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death.

Delilah finally won her point: but Samson was ruined in the process.

One of the great compensations that will come out of this war will be proof to all the world that a woman can do all kinds of work and still remain womanly.

I sometimes wonder whether any woman really appreciates the enormous service which she renders simply by being her own best self.

Womanly charm, a smile, a womanly gesture—these are things very elusive, hard to define: yet, entering into the souls of men, they become the power that moves mountains.

In your eagerness to do something, don't forget, while the war lasts, to be something.

That the men who come back from France may find the war has enhanced rather than detracted from the world's richest treasure—gentle, wholesome, radiant womanhood.

Bruce Barton, Editor.

HOW BIG MEN GET THROUGH THE DAY

By B. C. FORBES

HOW do the active heads of the country's greatest financial and industrial institutions manage to see important callers every day, attend innumerable directors' meetings, think up new plans and new enterprises, wade through shoals of correspondence, and still contrive to drive their business instead of having their business drive them?

By system elaborated to the nth power? By hustling and hurrying at express speed? By working from twelve to sixteen hours a day and snatching only a few hours' sleep?

I talked recently with John D. Rockefeller on how he accomplished so much when in harness—he retired from the daily grind long before he was sixty.

"I was never a slave to business," he told me. "Even in my most active years, I used to run away to the country quite often, and enjoy tree-planting, landscape- gardening, road-building—and playing with little folks."

This did not seem to explain how Mr. Rockefeller conceived and created the most wonderful business organization of the nineteenth century. So I tried again.

"I really never did anything wonderful," the oil veteran replied almost rebukingly. "I just did the best I knew how the things each day brought to be done."

I tried again. A twinkle came into Mr. Rockefeller's eyes. "We managed to do what we did because we picked able men to do things—men of great ability."

Which is in line with the reply of the chief private secretary of a financier whose capacity for work and record for achievement are the talk of the financial community. He said, when I spoke, to him:

"My boss's plan is extremely simple. He gets other people to do the work."

That is more true than untrue. One requisite for the big man is a model private secretary: one who can work day and night; one who can smile perpetually and turn away visitors in a happy frame of mind; one who can say the right thing and write the right kind of letters without bothering his chief for instructions.

Each Day Mapped Out in Advance

THIS, however, does not cover the whole ground. Some of the busiest men in the country lay out a daily routine which they adhere to rigidly. They set apart so many minutes for reading their mail and dictating replies, so much time for receiving business visitors, the necessary time for attending directors' meetings, conferences, and other scheduled engagements—each day is carefully mapped out in advance, so as to conserve every moment and enable all tasks to be accomplished smoothly.

That is the method adopted by the head of the country's largest bank.

On the other hand, certain tremendously busy leaders make as few appointments as possible in advance. They simply have the man they want to see called up and requested to hurry over. This is the plan commonly followed by the most active of the Morgan partners, Henry P. Davison. This house has been spending more than a billion dollars a year for the European Allies alone, and such a multiplicity of questions arise every day that they have to be tackled as they come up and when they come up. Some point regarding the munitions being shipped by, say, the Westinghouse Company is raised by cable, and ting-a-ling goes the telephone. "Mr. Davison would like to see you at once," the secretary informs the president or other active executive.

A Summons from the Corner House

THE other day a representative of the French government, the president of a big trust company, a British government functionary, and the head of a huge industrial corporation all passed through the Morgan portals, one after another, within the space of five minutes.

In despatching their day's work, the Morgan partners have an invaluable advantage over most other individuals and firms. It is this: There is hardly a notable in the financial community who is not prepared to cast everything aside and hasten to the Corner House in obedience to a summons. In other words, Morgan & Company these days have the first call upon the attention of the inhabitants of Wall Street. Prearranged appointments, therefore, are not essentially necessary in their case.

No bank president in America has done so many big things in the last three years as Frank A. Vanderlip, head of the National City Bank, the $50,000,000 American International Corporation, the International Banking Corporation, the National City Company, the Midvale Steel & Ordnance Company, etc. Mr. Vanderlip believes in system—and in having colleagues attend to all details. His secretary achieved such extraordinary success in relieving Mr. Vanderlip of avoidable calls upon his time that he was elevated to the official position of "assistant to the president," and a little later was snatched up by one of the most progressive and profitable firms in Wall Street and enrolled as a partner.

Some idea of the number of meetings, conferences, and interviews Mr. Vanderlip has to crowd into the brief Wall Street day may be gathered from the accompanying page from his diary. Even this list does not tell the whole tale. It does not outline the time spent over correspondence—Mr. Vanderlip is one of the few financial dynamos who insist on opening and reading all their own mail, although his secretaries reply to three fourths of it without even a word of suggestion or instruction, and very seldom have to rewrite any communication after the president has read it over preliminary to signing it. Nor does this specimen page from the Vanderlip calendar indicate the number of officers and other employees of the bank and its allied organizations who invade his outer office at almost every hour of the day, ready to seize an opportunity to get a decision from him.

Dictating Letters on the Train

NUMBERS of big men have their secretaries travel with them to and from their country houses, so that replies to correspondence can be dictated en route. Speeches, too, are sometimes prepared during these journeys. Mr. Vanderlip invariably starts his day's work the moment his train leaves Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson. Then, quite frequently, persons who have been unable to get at him during business hours lie in wait for his exit from the bank on his way home, and accompany him on the subway ride uptown.

The president of the United States Steel Corporation, James A. Farrell, sees probably more people and gets through more work in a day than any other man in America. It is not unusual for him to dispose of fifty or even sixty business callers between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon. In addition, he has to attend the regular meetings of all the subsidiary companies of the corporation, and give his personal attention to stacks of statements and communications of all kinds from the higher-ups among the corporation's 260,000 employees; while, because of his unparalleled knowledge of foreign trade, he is constantly bombarded with queries pertaining to that phase of tho business. Often, too, he is consulted by other concerns entering the foreign field. Many a night he takes home a thick bundle of papers, over which he works until bed-time.

Mr. Farrell has a tremendous advantage over most executives in that he has a very remarkable memory. He carries in his head literally millions of facts and figures, and can therefore go through work with a rapidity and accuracy beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.

"Every business organization is nothing but an aggregation of details," says Mr. Farrell, "and it is essential, therefore, to have complete knowledge of details."

The eyes of Europe have been focused more on the American International Corporation than on any other institution or organization on this side of the Atlantic; for the industrial nations abroad see in it a machine for the conquest of the world's markets on a scale unapproached by any other enterprise. Last year no fewer than 1300 propositions from every part of the world were submitted to the American International. Of this number fully 1000 were rejected, while the balance remained to be studied. No organization ever had so many invitations to spend money.

The man upon whom devolves the task of passing upon propositions and directing the work of the corporation is Charles A. Stone, formerly the multi-millionaire head of Stone & Webster, the electrical engineers and Owners of public-utility enterprises scattered throughout the United States. Mr. Stone agreed to accept the presidency of the American International chiefly because of the opportunities it would afford for the training and development of capable, ambitious young Americans, and, incidentally, because of the incalculable value to American business and American labor that would flow from expansion of the country's foreign trade and its financial operations all over the world.

"People often come to our offices and express resentment when told they can not see me because I am tied up," Mr. Stone remarked to me recently. "I wish people would understand that when I don't see them it is because I can not, and not because I would not like to. It is simply a physical impossibility to see every one who chooses to call; for we have serious work to do, much of it along pioneer lines, requiring a great deal of research and study and analysis."

I was privileged to glance at Mr. Stone's engagement card the other day. He had a meeting at 10:15, and others at intervals until 3:30, the last being a meeting of the directors of the International Mercantile Marine. In between he had a conference concerning the corporation's contract looking toward the construction of 1000 miles of railway in China, an appointment with certain interests identified with construction work in Buenos Aires, a long interview with an eminent official from Russia over the huge projects the American International is to carry out in the land of the ex-Czar, a conference on important proposals in Latin-America, a luncheon date with the other members of

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the corporation's executive committee, and so forth.

Then, there is not an hour of the day when Mr. Stone is not waylaid by a vice-president or other officer who finds himself confronted with a problem calling for presidential solution.

How to dismiss visitors speedily, yet politely, is a difficulty that confronts every influential man of affairs.

When one magnate pays a business visit to another, he briefly explains what is on his mind, has the point settled without a moment's unnecessary delay, and gets out. But some people whose time is not worth a thousand dollars a day—as is the case, I figure, with every name I have already mentioned—fail to realize that "time is money."

A. Barton Hepburn, head of the Chase National Bank, one of the largest in New York, tries hard to see every one who asks for an audience, with the result that occasionally there is a crowd outside his door.

It may contain two or three "stickers" — men who, once inside, are good for an hour. Mr. Hepburn has hatched a simple little method of extracting himself from this sort of dilemma. He gets up from his desk, goes outside his private office door, and starts at the top of the line; and, though he is scrupulously polite, his visitors realize that he is in a hurry, and the fact that they must do their talking standing up pushes them to the point.

J. P. Morgan Had No Waste Motions

I ONCE stood and watched the late J. P. Morgan work at higher speed than any human being I have ever known. He was to sail for Europe in the afternoon, and a line of visitors a block long had to be disposed of. The veteran banker gave an exhibition of doing, not two, but three things at once.

He interviewed the callers at the rate of thirty or forty an hour, he kept perusing a pile of mail on his desk, and dictated letters to his secretary—all at one time! The moment the hour for his departure arrived, he held up his hand, pointed to his secretary to pick up the papers on the desk, and closed the roll-top with a bang. Meanwhile an employee informed the remaining callers that Mr. Morgan could see no more of them.

The whole thing was done like clockwork; but through it all the big man perspired copiously. One reason Morgan could do so much was that he could and did make up his mind in a flash. In the days when he was building up the foreign exchange end of his house, the exchange brokers used to step up to his desk, tell very briefly what they had to sell (or buy), and received an immediate "I'll take it" or "Not interested."

The nation's foremost capitalists now strive to find more time to see people than they did fifteen or twenty years ago. It was then fashionable to hold aloof from all but the financially elite. Harriman softened in this respect about two years before he died.

His system of getting through work was to snap out two or three words or two or three sentences to trusted employees who could write shorthand with lightning rapidity. Harriman could diagnose a situation and reach a conclusion more quickly, probably, than any other capitalist in the land. Like Farrell, he carried a phenomenal store of information and ideas in his mind.

Theodore N. Vail, president of the billion-dollar Bell Telephone system, has the reputation of being able to allocate enough work in four words to keep a man busy for weeks. He was an incessant worker for many years; and even now, although he is over seventy, he keeps the telephone wires sizzling wherever he travels through the country. He tells me that his system is to encourage all ranks of the American Telephone Company's 150,000 employees to send suggestions to the executive' office, so that no good idea may be ignored.

Mr. Vail, as colleagues put it, "simply eats up work." He summons subordinates right and left, gives them brief, clear-cut instructions, and immediately turns to the next matter requiring attention.

Contrary to popular belief, however, the busiest men rarely appear to be extra- busy; that is, they do not rush hither and thither, toss papers about, sweat and fume. They appear always to keep in mind the dictum that "a gentleman is never in a hurry." To watch them—most of them, at least—one would think they had all the time in the world, they work so quietly, smoothly, and deliberately. But they don't make many waste motions or use many unnecessary words.

SPEAKING OF SOULS

By CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

Illustrations by W. C. Dexter

YOUNG Will Smith came into my grocery the other day and says: "Send over ten pounds of sugar."

I sort of looked him over, and says to him: "For you personal, Will? Sure looks like you need it. What's matter? Your dad caught you at it?"

"At what?" says he, betraying signs of interest.

"How should I know?" says I. over 'tis you're up to. Stands to reason, a feller your age is into some mischief," says I. "You're twenty-four, hain't you?"

"Yes," says he, despondent as a soggy dill pickle. "But I haven't been doing anything, Uncle Eli, and dad hasn't been raising any rows."

"That uses up one guess," says I, "but I got two more. Both of the other two guesses '11 be the same: Some girl's upsettin' your appetite so's you're mighty hard to cook for. Eh?"

You see, I've been in the grocery business on that corner almost ever since Will was born, and maybe before. Anyhow, I seen him when he wasn't more than a dozen hours old. So I felt justified in poking my nose into his business.

"What's her name?" says I.

He poured confidences slow, like they was molasses of a cold morning; but perty soon he says: "Ellis Foster."

"H'm," says I. "Daughter of Pete Foster, that makes automobile engines?"

"Yes," says he.

"State the facts," says I.

"We were engaged," says he.

"Were?" says I. "What soured the milk? Did she catch you at somethin'?"

"No," says he; "she's gone crazy over a man that plays the 'cello—and threw me over."

"What's that he plays?" says I.

He told me again, and then explained what it was, and spelled it.

"H'm," says I. "Bull-fiddle was what we used to call 'em. So she swapped you for a bull-fiddler?" says I. "Why?"

"Oh," says he, "she says I'm just ordinary. She says I'll never be anything but a business man, and that if we married she would sort of grow soggy, and her soul wouldn't expand. There's nothing stimulating about me, nor inspiring."

"Uh-huh," says I. "And this other feller—he's got all them qualities to keep her soul seethin' and rip-snortin' around?"

"She says he understands her, and responds to every emotion of her heart."

"My Gawd! As bad as that?" says I. "What's the bull-fiddler called?"

"His name," says Will, "is Valliant St. Clair."

"Lord save us!" says I. "Did 'The Duchess' write him?"

"What?" says he, being too wrapped up in his woes to have a well greased sense of humor.

"How old is she?" says I.

"Twenty," says he.

"Too old to spank," says I.

"Good-by," says he.

"Hold on a minute," says I. "How old's this here Valliant St. Clair?"

"Middle-aged," says he. "Thirty-five, anyhow."

"Busted the engagement, has she?"

"Yes."

"Her pa know you was engaged?"

"Yes."

"Know she's throwed you on the scrap-heap and took up with this middle-aged feller?"

"I don't think so," says Will.

"Where does this here bull-fiddler abound?" says I.

"He's teaching at the conservatory," says he, "and giving some concerts, or recitals, or whatever they are."

"Now," says I, "I tell you what you do. Jest run on along, and keep on bein' one of them ordinary business men like this Foster girl complains of. Be the kind of one that kin fetch home a fat wad of spendin' money every Saturday night. I've noticed girls most gen'ally outgrows conniption fits of the soul, but there don't never come a time when they neglect to look at money with languishin' eyes. While you're stickin' to your job, I'll be considerin' Valliant and his bull-fiddle, and, like's not, I'll find some excuse for proddin' my nose into the goin's on."

HE went off about as buoyant as a hunk of Edam cheese. I worked around a spell, and then come down with an attack of curiosity; so I says to my delivery boy that I guess I'll do the delivering this afternoon.

I made a dozen stops, and then, finding I was getting closer and closer to the conservatory where Valliant was

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an important figger, I give way to my weakness, and pulled up at the door.

There was a woman at a desk inside, and I says to her: "Ma'am, kin a feller learn to play on the 'cello here?"

I pronounced it right, too, with the locomotive sound to the first syllable.

"We have a wonderful instructor on that instrument," says she. "Wonderful!"

"H'm," says I. "That would be the kind I need. Kin I git a peek at him?"

"I think he's at liberty," lays she, and goes to find out. Perty soon she comes and leads me into a fussy room with rugs and dingusses and do-dads all over it; and there was a tall, stringy, pale, big-eyed feller, kind of draped over a chair.

"Mr. St. Clair," says the woman, "this gentleman wishes to discuss lessons with you."

"Ah, yes," says the stringy feller, looking at me with his eyes all fixed and set into what I calc'lated was a soulful look. "Yes, indeed. For your daughter?"

"I'm fresh out of daughters," says I. "I'm the candidate."

"Eh?" says he, laying down his soulful look like it was a pair of spectacles that could be took off. "What?"

"My soul," says I, "has always been a-yearnin' for sweet music," I says, "but hitherto I hain't never been able to gratify it, to speak of, on account of ready cash. But," says I, "I come into money, and now," I says, "I'm figgerin' on leadin' a life of beauty and pamperin' my artistic aspirations," I says. "You don't think I'm too old, do you?"

"The lessons," says he, "are five dollars each."

"And cheap at the price," says I.

"Of course," says he, "you're not too old. When do you wish to begin?" says he.

"As soon as I kin git me one of them overgrown fiddles," says I.

"Good," says he. "Here's the place to go. I'll give you a note to them, so you'll be certain to get the best."

"And so's you'll be certain to git a commission," says I to myself. It might be that Valliant run consid'able to soul, but if he was to walk along the street and see a soul and a pocket-book laying side by side, I'll make a bet it would be the pocket-book he'd reach for first.

JUST then the door opened with a rush, and in come a little plump girl with one of them faces that makes you wish you was young again.

She come in eager and headlong; but when she seen me she stopped and says, "Oh!" and blushed.

Somehow, it sounded to me like he was warning her to step easy. She backed out and shut the door.

"Perty leetle girl," says I. "Face looks sort of familiar-like. Hain't her name Foster? 'Cause, if it is," says I, watching him close, "her pa's made an awful lot of money the last few years."

"How much?" says he, before he could stop himself; and then followed it up quick with: "Wealth has nothing to do with art."

"To be sure," says I. "Good afternoon. Soon's I git me one of them chellos I'll be back to git my lessons."

I went out. The Foster girl was standing by the door, and couldn't hardly wait for me to git out of the way. I stopped and listened, and heard her fairly rush acrost the room to Valliant. It made me feel sick to my stummick to think how a nice leetle girl like that can make a dummed fool of herself sometimes.

"Anyhow," says I to myself, "I calc'late I'll have to put in my oar. The kind of taming Valliant 'u'd do for that there wild bird wouldn't give her no cheerfuler song."

I climbed up on my wagon, and persuaded my horse Luther to .start up. Named him Luther twenty year ago, after a brother-in-law of mine that resembled him, owing to both of them hating all kinds of work except chawing vittles.

"Luther," says I, "you're a hoss, so you ought to have hoss sense. If you was a bull-fiddle teacher by name Valliant, at five dollars a lesson, and eager, what course of action would you foller if you seen an opportunity to git permanent possession of the only daughter of a man with a million dollars?"

Luther flicked his ears.

"You're right," says I. "You wouldn't go ask her pa for her hand in wedlock. Not you. But you'd bamboozle her till she thought what you said come out of the burnin' bush, like Moses in the Bible, and you'd talk soul, and p'int out the beauty and sweetness and sich-like of runnin' off on the sly and gettin' married 'fore anybody could interfere. That's how you'd figger, hain't it, Luther?"

Luther wagged his ears again, so I knew I was right.

"In that case," says I, "we got to gather up information touchin' on and ree-gardin' the day and the hour of this here project."

After some more thinking, I says:

"And we got to bust it up at the same time, simultaneous, makin' Valliant look like a crab-apple alongside of a Norther Spy when compared to Will Smith. Yass, we sure got to fetch Will out a leetle mite. Will's good and able, but he's backward. He could punch Valliant in the eye, but he couldn't think up somethin' to detract from the market value of Valliant's soul, and at the same time boom his own stock in trade. That'll have to be Uncle Eli's job."

WHEN I got back to the store, I called Will up on the telephone and told him to stop in on his way home from the office, which he done as per request.

"Will," says I, "you hain't much on soul," I says, "but how be you on backbone?"

He didn't say anything.

"Which," says' I, "would you rather do—jest lose your girl, or lose her fightin' like blazes to keep her?"

I could see his fist double up.

"You needn't say anythin'," says I, "I got my answer. Now, here's some pleasant news for you. Valliant is goin' to up and elope with your girl. I dunno when, but most likely as soon as he kin git at it. Do you still want her?"

"Want her?" says he.

"Yes," says I. "Does your love keep on the job even while she's makin' a dummed fool of herself with this bull-fiddler? Do you figger you still want to marry a girl that's willin' to elope with a critter like Valliant?"

"Poor kid," says he. "It isn't her fault. She's sort of fascinated by the—the fellow, I guess."

I liked Will better for not calling Valliant any names. It showed he had a pretty firm grip on himself.

"Well," says I, "we'll try to give you a chance," I says, "to make good on them words. But you got to do your part. You got to see her again, and try to werm out of her what's goin' on, and when. Don't sound perty, but I calc'late it's necessary."

"All right, Uncle Eli," says he, taking orders like a regular.

"And keep this tucked away in your head," says I. "Every man's got a soul—even a business man. Some men wears 'em like a red necktie, where folks 'll be dum near blinded by 'em. Other folks keeps 'em folded away and hid in a safe place till needed. A soul hain't like a white hoss in a street parade, though leetle girls may git that idea. Follow me?"

"I think I do," says he.

"Good," says I. "Now git at what you got to git at. Maybe we can make your girl see it the way we do."

THAT very night Will saw this Foster girl somehow, and had a talk with her that didn't make him feel no easier in his mind.

"She's planning something," he told me next day, "and she's a little worried about it, the way she acts. But I know her, Uncle Eli. She has the nerve to carry through a scheme she starts."

"Didn't git nothin' definite?" says I.

"She spent most of the time I was with her telling me how sorry she was for me, and how it hurt her, and that sort of thing. But she said when the heart spoke it must be obeyed, and hers had spoken."

"Huh!" says I.

"And she said I must give up all hope and all thought of her, because—and then she stopped. Then she said sometimes she was frightened when she thought about it, and acted as if she wanted to tell me something."

"Wish it had been me," says I; "she'd 'a' told it."

"I told her I hoped, whatever she did," he says, with gloom dripping off his voice, "that it would be for the best, and that she wasn't to think about me at all; and she cried a little, and said in a week I'd know, and then I would stop thinking about her and find some other girl who would treat me better. I told her I never should."

"Dum fool," says I. "But, anyhow, you found out it was goin' to happen in a week."

"I suppose so," says he, sort of dispirited.

"And," says I, "I got to find out when."

So I went again to see Valliant, and told him I was on the track of a bull-fiddle that was a dandy, and would have it in two days.

"Kin you give me a lesson Thursday?" says I.

"Yes," says he.

"And one Friday?" says I. "I want to go rapid at the start."

"Not Friday," says he; "I have to leave the city for that day."

"Back when?" says I.

He didn't answer right off, and acted kind of odd-like. Then he said he'd probably be back in two-three days.

"All right," says I—making up my mind I'd find out where the' Foster girl was going to be Friday.

Will found that out for me by asking some girl chum of hers. This here girl told Will that the Foster girl was going to Toledo on the boat to stay a couple of days with some aunt or cousin or something—and then I knew all I had need of for that time. Friday was the date for Valliant's little soul excursion.

Will said it wasn't no real relative, but a girl she went to school with, and he'd been there himself to call, which was pleasing to hear.

"Will," says I, "kin you go to Toledo Friday?"

"I could go to Thibet if it would do any good," says he.

"It won't," says I; "Toledo's the place. I guess we can sort of maybe look on, anyhow, and see they're married proper, if nothin' else."

FRIDAY morning, before the boat started, I done a little fixing up that Will didn't know about. I wanted he should have nothing to do with the scheme I had in mind, so's he could look real innocent at the proper minute. Then I met Will, and we sneaked aboard and went into one of them state-rooms, which we didn't scarcely peek out of all day—except to make certain Valliant and the Foster girl was aboard.

They was there, but not together. Of course they met and talked some; but to a feller up a tree they didn't appear to be traveling with one another. Which made me dead certain. If there hain't anything to conceal, nobody takes pains to conceal it.

When Will first saw this Valliant bending over his girl's chair, I guess he sort of had to dig in his toes to keep from chucking the feller overboard; but I grabbed his coat-tail, in case' his toes didn't hold, and says:

"Bustin' him on the nose wouldn't help, no matter what enjoyment you got out of it. This hain't," says I, "no pleasure excursion for you. What lickin' you got to do, you can tend to to-morrer or next week. You hain't got no idea," says I, "how deep a woman can sympathize with a feller that gits his nose punched."

Well, after a while our boat got into the river and went steaming through the mud to Toledo, where there was a crowd on the dock waiting for us to come in. I seen where Valliant and the girl was getting off the boat, so Will and me give a feller in uniform a dollar, and he let us sneak off out of another gangway, like we was freight.

We hustled ahead and got a place where we could see, and pretty soon along come Valliant, with the Foster girl a-hanging to him and looking sort of peaked and worried, but with her chin set like she was bound to go through with it with never a whimper.

Valliant was wearing the sort of expression I seen once on the face of a feller that had just stole a chicken successful and was making off to cook it. You know that look. Satisfied, and worried, and hungry—and sneaking. That was Valliant.

"What now?" says Will through his teeth.

---

"Keep your shirt on," says I, "and wait."

In about half a minute, out of the crowd rushed a girl, and throwed her arms around the Foster girl's neck, and kissed her and hugged her and rubbed noses and all them capers girls has to cut up when they meet after long separations of a couple of days maybe. Will exclaimed something sharp.

"What's matter?" says I.

"It's Mary Knight," says he, "the girl Ellis said she was coming to see. You don't suppose she's going to help, do you? It doesn't seem possible. I didn't believe Ellis was really coming to her at all."

"You never can tell," says I, "by the looks of a frog, how loud he can holler under your winder. And, ag'in, maybe your girl's as s'prised to see this here Knight young woman as you be."

AT that I started to move nearer, and Will he come along with me.

Valliant had changed looks mighty sudden. Now he looked mad and a leetle scared. Whatever soul he was showing just then didn't look particular appetizing.

"What's this?" says he sharp-like to Will's girl.

She was startled, too, and wondering how come the Knight girl to meet her. But she was a good one, all right. In a second she braced up her spine, and smiled happy-like, and says:

"Mary, this is Mr. St. Clair. He's been very kind to me on the way over. I'm so glad you got my letter in time."

"What letter?" says Miss Knight. "I hadn't any idea you were coming until I got your mother's telegram."

"Mother's telegram!" says Ellis.

"Yes, dear," says the Knight girl, sympathetic and soothing. "There was some news—bad news—she wanted me to tell you."

"Not—" says Ellis, looking like she was ready to topple over.

"No one is dead or sick," says the Knight girl. "Say good-by to Mr. St. Clair, and come along, so I can tell you."

"I—oh, tell me now! Mr. St. Clair," says she, "is a dear friend—a very dear friend."

The way she said it made the Knight girl look more interested at Valliant, and she says, "Why, I thought—" and then stopped herself. I knew she was going to say she thought Ellis was engaged to get married to Will Smith, but caught her tongue before she set her foot on it.

"Mama's telegram!" says Will's girl, anxious-like.

"I'm so sorry, dear," says Miss Knight, "but maybe—it isn't as bad as it sounds."

She hauled a crumpled-up telegram out of her pocket and pushed it at Ellis.

Ellis read it quick, and then says:

"Poor dad—poor old dad! Valliant, you can't imagine the dreadful thing that's happened. Poor dad! And he worked so hard to make it."

"What is it, dear?" says Valliant, kind of squinting up his eyes.

"Listen," says she. "I can't believe it. Why, everything seemed all right when I left home this morning. Here's what mother says: 'Meet Ellis at boat to-day. Break news her father in great financial trouble. Probably lose everything, even our home. Keep her with you few days till things quiet down. Thought it best let her go away short time.' Isn't that dreadful, Valliant? And to think of all the money I've wasted for him! Poor dad."

Right there I began to like that girl real well. You notice there wasn't a word about herself, nor what losing the money was going to do to her. It was all dad. And that was the kind of a girl that was going to up and marry a bull-fiddler with a oily soul! Not one word about herself. And when a girl's father loses a million dollars or so, it seems quite some comedown for the girl, you can bet.

I was watching Valliant as clost as I watch a farmer I'm buying apples from—so he won't put all the big ones on top of the barrel. He looked like a man that's been hit in the pit of the stummick. Yes, sir; he looked mighty sick. He was yaller. For a spell it looked like he'd lost the use of his voice. Somehow, I wanted to chuckle, though there wasn't a sight to chuckle over. But there stood Valliant, eloped with a girl whose dad didn't have a million any more. There he was, on the point of getting all married up to her, expecting jubilant to be relieved of money worries for the rest of his life, and all to once come face to face with the disturbing news that he's jest about doubled up on them worries!

Ellis she looks up at him and says:

"This removes my last hesitation, Valliant. I've been pretty expensive to dad. Now he won't have me to worry about."

Valliant hadn't said a word up to this; but it looked like a place where a man would come pretty clost to having to say something.

"What does it mean?" says he. "What does it mean?"

"It means," says she, "that it's just a poor little girl without a cent in the world that you're going to marry."

The people were mostly gone now, and Will and I had to stand hugged up to a pile of freight to keep out of sight. Valliant and Ellis and the Knight girl stood out on the dock in a little group.

"It can't be," says Valliant. "I had him looked up."

"What?" says Ellis.

"I—I mean, it doesn't seem possible. It's so sudden. It's paralyzing!"

Ellis turned to Miss Knight.

"In the circumstances," she says, "I can tell you," says she. "I wasn't coming to see you at all, Mary. I just told mother that. I was eloping with Valliant. We came over here to be married."

"Oh!" says Miss Knight, and you could see she was sort of shocked.

"You'll help us, won't you? There'll be arrangements to make. Somehow, this news has made me feel so helpless—and a little afraid."

Miss Knight hesitated a minute, and then says:

"Ellis dear, if you're sure—very sure—you're doing right, I'll help you, of course. You'll want to be married as quickly as possible?"

She turned to Valliant.

"Why," says he, and stopped. "Er—this changes things, doesn't it? Makes a change? Er—why, Miss Foster won't want to—marry me and live on the little I earn."

"Why, Valliant!" says she.

He begun to get red.

"I—why, you see—er—I don't earn a great deal. I—not enough to support one. I couldn't ask—"

Ellis turned square and looked at him for a minute. Then she says, sort of low and steady:

"Do you mean, Valliant, that father's losing his money makes a difference?"

"Doesn't it make a difference?" says he, sort of defiant.

"Between us?" she says. "Don't you want me just as badly, now that I'm poor, as you did when I was rich?"

"Want you?" says he—like he didn't quite know what to say. "Oh, yes. Certainly, dear. But wanting you, and being able to afford you—"

She kept on looking right into his eyes till they dropped like he was ashamed; and then her lips trembled a little, and she got as pale as it is possible for a human being to git.

"Mary," says she—"Mary."

And then, after a minute, never once taking her eyes off of Valliant, she says:

"It was to run away with you that I—threw over a boy that loved me—and that I loved. You! He would have wanted me if I was standing in rags on a street corner. I know. That's the kind he was. He was loyal. This—this would only have made him sweeter, tenderer to me. And I hurt him! I jilted him—for you! Well, Valliant, I'm paid."

He didn't say a word in defense, but just stood and took it. It looked like he didn't even have sense enough to take his foot in his hand and go away.

"Why," she says,—and now her voice grew a little hard, and there was a bite to it that made Valliant wince some, even if his hide was thick,—"you didn't want me at all. It was my money. I've heard of—such men, but I didn't believe in them. You planned it all out, didn't you—just like you would plan out a business deal? I wonder how I let you fool me so!"

"Look at it reasonably," says Valliant.

"I am," says she. "I don't know how much money dad had, but it is worth it to—find out how utterly contemptible a man can be. Come, Mary."

SHE turned without another word, and without another quiver of her lips, and walked up the street. Will started to surge out into view with some sort of plan to demolish Valliant; but I judged he was about demolished enough for the minute.

"'Tend to him later," says I. "We got to scoot around the block and meet up with your girl casual-like and accidental. And listen, young feller—you never heard what jest went on. Remember that till your dyin' day. And if you got any suspicion regardin' that telegram,—for instance, that I sent it and her ma never heard of it,—why, you shut that there suspicion up in your bosom—anyhow, till you been married a dozen years. It's your job to act s'prised, and listen to what news is give you—and do what the Lord puts it into your heart to do," says I. "Now let's scoot."

WE went around the block and come down the street that Ellis and her friend was coming up. Right on the sidewalk we met them face to face; and Ellis clutched her friend's arm, and gives a little scream, and says, choked-like:

"Will!"

"Ellis!" says he, right back at her.

"Oh, Will," she says—and begins to cry, right there where the whole of Toledo could look on if it had a mind.

"Honey," says he, in a voice that would have charmed a bird off a fence, "what's the matter? What's happened?"

"Oh, you'll hate me—you'll despise me!" says she.

"Don't you b'lieve it," says he, reaching out his hands eager, like he couldn't scarcely keep from grabbing her right there.

"I—I've been eloping," she says, and looks up at him piteous. "I ran away with a man this morning—to marry him. And now you—you'll never want me any more. You'll think I'm bad—you'll hate me for—for being a—a fool!"

"Honey!" says he again—not being gifted with words.

"You were good," says she, "and honest—and dependable. You'd have loved me always. And I threw that away for—for a thing with a—soul that came off and on like a coat."

"Threw it away?" says he, his voice sounding glad and mighty kind. "You haven't thrown anything away, dear. I—it doesn't matter what you've done—I loved you all the while. More than ever—because I was afraid for you. I'm always going to love you. I want to. Even if you do love somebody else, it won't do any harm for me to go on loving you, will it? I'll never speak about it again."

She looked up at him, and then her face changed for a second, and was young and fresh and lovely again—just for a flash of a second, while she says:

"But I want you to, Will. I want you to tell me every day and every hour."

I turned to the Knight girl and says:

"Don't you kind of figger we better git 'em off the street? They hain't exactly accountable. No tellin' what they might git worked up to do."

"I think," says she, "that it would be best."

So we hauled them into a taxicab and started off for the Knight girl's house; but while we rode along they wasn't any more aware of us than I be of the back of my neck. They jest reorganized themselves thorough as a new concern, and it done my weazened old heart good to git a chance to overhear it.

"But maybe you won't want me," says she. "Dad's lost his money."

"Eh?" says Will, hardly understanding what she said. "What do I care for money?"

And you should have seen the way she looked at him then—for she knew it was genyine.

THAT'S about all, except that Ellis called her mother on the telephone about her pa's financial disaster, and couldn't believe her ears, nor figger out how come she to git that telegram. I hain't sure Will knew either, for he never mentioned it to me from that day to this. But one thing I do know: after dinner at the Knight folks', he excused himself, saying he had some important business to 'tend to for an hour—and when he come back his knuckles was all skinned and barked horrid. He winked at me as cheerful as a sparrow.

"Why, Will dear," says Ellis, "what's the matter with your knuckles?"

"I skinned them," says he, "putting the finishing touches on a perfect day."

I deemed Valliant would think otherwise about it.

The Slacker Who Made Good

By ARTHUR GUY EMPEY

IN the last ten years I have several times read stories in magazines of cowards changing, in a charge, to heroes. I used to laugh at it. But over in France I learned once that the yellow can turn all white. I picked up the story, bit by bit. The incidents are every bit true; the feelings of the man are true—I know, from all I underwent in the fighting over in France.

We will call him Albert Lloyd. That wasn't his name, but it will do.

Albert Lloyd was what the world terms a coward.

In London they called him a slacker. His country had been at war nearly eighteen months, and still he was not in khaki.

He had no good reason for not enlisting, being alone in the world, having been educated in an orphan asylum, and there being no one dependent upon him for support. But every time he saw a recruiting sergeant, he'd slink around the corner out of sight, with a terrible fear gnawing at his heart.

During the Zeppelin raids he used to crouch in a corner of his boardinghouse cellar, whimpering like a whipped puppy and calling upon the Lord to protect him.

Even his landlady despised him, although she had to admit that he was "good pay."

He very seldom read the papers; but one morning the landlady put the morning paper at his place before he came down to breakfast. Taking his seat, he read the flaring head-line, "Conscription Bill Passed."

Excusing himself, he stumbled upstairs to his bedroom. He decided not to leave the house, and to sham sickness; so he stayed in his room and had the landlady serve his meals there.

Every time there was a knock at the door, he trembled all over, imagining it was a policeman who had come to take him away to the army.

One morning his fears were realized. He was ordered to report himself to the nearest recruiting station for physical examination. He reported immediately—because he was afraid to disobey.

From the recruiting depot Lloyd was taken, with many others, in charge of a sergeant, to the training depot at Aldershot, where he was given an outfit of khaki, and drew his other equipment. He made a fine-looking soldier, except for the slight shrinking in his shoulders and the hunted look in his eyes.

They Named Him "Windy"

AT the training depot it does not take long to find out a man's character, and Lloyd was promptly dubbed "Windy." In the English Army "windy" means cowardly.

The smallest recruit in the barracks looked on him with contempt, and was not slow to show it.

One morning about three months after his enlistment, Lloyd's company was paraded, and the names picked for the next draft to France were read. When his name was called, he just fainted in the ranks, and was carried to barracks amid the sneers of the rest.

Arriving in France, he and the rest were huddled into cattle-cars. On the side of each appeared in white letters, "Chevaux 8, Hommes 40." After hours of bumping over the uneven French roadbeds, they arrived at the training base of Rouen.

At this place they were put through a week's rigid training in trench warfare. On the morning of the eighth day they paraded at ten o'clock, and were inspected and passed by General H——, then were marched to the quartermaster's, to draw their gas helmets and trench equipment.

At four in the afternoon they were again hustled into cattle-cars. This time the journey lasted two days. They disembarked at the town of Frévent, and could hear a distant dull booming. With knees shaking, Lloyd asked the sergeant what the noise was, and nearly dropped when the sergeant replied in a somewhat bored tone:

"Oh, them's the guns up the line. We'll be up there in a couple o' days or so. Don't worry, my laddie; you'll see more of 'em than you want to before you get 'ome to Blighty again—that is, if you're lucky enough to get back."

They marched ten kilos, full pack, to a little dilapidated village; and the sound of the guns grew louder, constantly louder. At the village the draft was paraded in front of battalion headquarters, and the men were assigned to companies. Lloyd was the only man assigned to D Company. Perhaps the officer in charge of the draft had something to do with it, for he called Lloyd aside and said:

"Lloyd, you are going to a new company. No one knows you. Your bed will be as you make it; so, for God's sake, brace up and be a man."

The next day the battalion took over their part of the trenches. It happened to be a very quiet day. The artillery behind the lines was still, except for an occasional shell sent over to let the Germans know the gunners were not asleep.

When Hell Broke Loose

LLOYD was put on guard in one of the traverses. Not a shot was fired from the German lines, and no one paid any attention to him, crouched on the firing stop.

At about ten o'clock, all of a sudden, he thought hell had broken loose, and crouched and shivered up against the parapet. Shells started bursting—as he imagined—right in their trench. As a matter of fact, they were landing about a hundred yards in rear of them, in the second lines.

One of the older men on guard, turning to his mate, said:

"Well, where's that blighter of a draft man gone to? There's his rifle leaning against the parapet. He must have legged it. Just keep your eye peeled, Dick, while I report it to the sergeant. I wonder if the fool knows he can be shot for such tricks as leavin' his post."

Lloyd had gone. When the trench mortars opened up, a maddening terror seized him, and he wanted to run, to get away from that horrible din, anywhere to safety. So, quietly sneaking around the traverse, he came to the entrance of a communication trench, and ran madly down it, running into traverses, stumbling into muddy holes, and falling full length over trench grids.

Groping blindly, with his arms stretched out in front of him, he at last came out of the trench into the village, or what used to be a village before the German artillery razed it.

On his left, in the darkness, he could make out the shadowy forms of trees. Crawling on his hands and knees, stopping and crouching with fear at each shell-burst, he finally reached an old orchard, and cowered at the base of a shot-scarred apple-tree.

He remained there all night, listening to the sound of the guns, and ever praying, praying that his useless life would be spared.

As dawn began to break, he could discern little dark objects protruding from the ground all about him. He crawled to one of the objects, and there, in the uncertain light, he read on a little wooden cross:

Pte H. S. Wheaton, No. 1970, 1st London Regt. R. F. Killed in action, April 25, 1916. R. I. P. [Rest in Peace].

When it dawned on him that he had been hiding all night in a cemetery, his reason seemed to leave him, and a mad desire to be free from it all made him rush madly away, falling over little wooden crosses, smashing some and trampling others under his feet.

In his flight he came to an old French dugout, half caved in and partially filled with slimy and filthy water.

Like a fox being chased by the hounds, he ducked into this hole, and threw himself on a pile of old empty sandbags, wet and mildewed. Then—unconsciousness.

Condemned to Death by Court-Martial

ON the next day he came to; far distant voices sounded in his ears. Opening his eyes, in the entrance of the dugout he saw a corporal and two men with fixed bayonets.

The corporal was addressing him:

"Get up, you white-livered blighter! Curse you and the day you ever joined D Company, spoiling their fine record! It'll be you up against the wall—and a good job, too."

Lloyd, trembling and weakened by his long fast, tottered out, assisted by a soldier on each side of him.

They took him before the captain, but could get nothing out of him but:

"For God's sake, sir, don't have me shot, don't have me shot!"

The captain, utterly disgusted with him, sent him under escort to Division Headquarters for trial by court-martial, charged with desertion under fire.

They shoot deserters in France.

During his trial Lloyd sat as one dazed, and could put nothing forward in his defense, only an occasional "Don't have me shot!"

His sentence was passed: "To be shot at 3:38 o'clock on the morning of May

Continued on page 21

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 THREE HILLS

By EVERARD OWEN

THERE is a hill in England,
Green fields and a school I know,
Where the balls fly fast in summer,
And the whispering elm trees grow,
A little hill, a dear hill,
And the playing fields below.
There is a hill in Flanders,
Heaped with a thousand slain.
Where the shells fly night and noontide,
And the ghosts that died in vain,
A little hill, a hard hill
To the souls that died in pain.
There is a hill in Jewry,
Three crosses pierce the sky,
On the midmost He is dying
To save all those who die,
A little hill, a kind hill
To souls in jeopardy.
— From the Red Cross Magazine.

WHAT COUNT TOLSTOY THINKS OF AMERICA

COUNT ILYA TOLSTOY visited the United States, and after spending five months here he wrote to the Century Magazine what he thinks of us.

The first thing that impressed him was our tireless activity, our energy and eagerness. Admirable! But, says he, this activity is not due to any idealism. It is not because we want to understand life, or to do great, unselfish things for mankind, or to discover God. We venerate wealth. We teach our boys to emulate men who have made millions and done little else. Business ability, a rather mean quality, is the thing we cherish.

"We should not forget that a high standard of living or civilization are not the aims of life. They are only arms in the hands of man. It is not enough to be armed. One should know why one takes up arms. Frankly, does a man gather millions in order to spoil his child with toys, each of which costs more than a whole family needs to live on for many years?"

American schools are admirable in many ways. There are so many of them. They are expensively equipped. Every child is compelled to have an elementary education. But—

"America standardizes the school training of her young men and girls. They are all educated in the same way. All are trained on the same model." Therefore Americans sacrifice the individuality of their children to education. And "individuality," says Tolstoy, "is the most precious treasure of mankind, because without it there can be no great literature or art or progress in human thought."

Because we Americans go, to the same kind of schools, read the same kind of newspapers, and wear the, same kind of clothes, our minds work in the same channels. We dress, think, eat, and act alike.

"In Russia, even under, the late autocratic régime, I felt freer, than here in my inner life. In Russia I had to face only the question whether an act was allowed by the police or not; but I could speak my own mind aloud without any diffidence about my neighbor's own views. In America, public opinion can cause more. suffering to a man than the most arbitrary police.

"All this lack of individuality in America tends, I am sure, toward the destruction of the inner sense of beauty. It kills the joy of life, it hampers the artistic development of mankind."

THE KAISER'S COLONEL HOUSE

NO matter how great he may be, a man must, after all, have somebody to talk to. President Wilson has Colonel House, to whom, in moments of perplexity, he can turn and with whom he may chat, not as to a subordinate, but as to an equal. And the Kaiser has Prince Maximilian Egan von Furstenburg.

The name of the Prince has hardly been mentioned in America. Even in Germany he is not often in the limelight. Yet his influence with the Kaiser, according to Edward L. Fox, writing in William Hohenzollern and Co. (McBride), has been in many important matters decisive.

"The Prince lives on a great estate in the shadows of the Black Forest, and is many times a millionaire. Like many other men who have risen in Germany, he attended the University of Bonn. With Bethmann-Hollweg, he belonged to the Borussia student corps with the Kaiser. It is characteristic of the Kaiser that he remembers these college friendships.

It is no secret that the Kaiser is a great admirer of that product of modern civilization, the captain of industry. Prince Max is one of these famed persons. He heads a half-billion-dollar corporation which has been called the 'Prince's Trust.' It owns all sorts of projects, from depart ment-stores to zinc and potash mines."

To Prince Max's influence, according to Mr. Fox, may be laid the decision to allow Hindenburg to take the offensive against the Russians. Von Falkenhayn and the general staff were all against it. Their plan was that Hindenburg, with the smallest possible force of men and guns, should hold the Russians in check while the serious business was done on the western front. Hindenburg held out for a decision in the East which should put Russia out of the war for a year or more. And Prince Max leaned toward Hindenburg.

"Small, quiet, unobtrusive, known familiarly to the Kaiser as 'little Max,' he is one of the few men in the world to whom the Kaiser uses the familiar, affectionate du, and who uses it himself in turn. He has wisely refused any office, having seen the fate of too many of those who have had office thrust upon them and have fallen under their load. He prefers his quiet, unofficial influence. Only two rewards has the Kaiser been able to give him. One is a title, created expressly for him—Colonel Marshal of the Prussian Court. The other title appears on billboards which one sees quite often from the windows of German railroad trains. A large sign announces that Furstenburg beer is the special table drink of his Majesty, the Kaiser and King."

HERE is a one-armed Russian officer exhorting the Petrograd crowds to continue the war. He tells of the Twelfth Siberian Rifles. They passed through Russia singing revolutionary songs. They knew, and everybody else knew, there was not a single round of ammunition among them. And they never came back.

On a memorable day the Petrograd revolutionary mob stretched out its hand to the troops of the Czar and called, "Oh, pretty darling little soldiers! Don't shoot us, your brothers!" and the soldiers walked across the street and joined them.

MORE SOUP, LESS MEDICINE

WHEN your doctor gives you a prescription for an iron tonic, don't have it filled. Spend the money it would cost on a soup kettle. For soup, says Alfred W. McCann in Thirty-Cent Bread (George H. Doran Company), is the unpatented medicine of the kitchen.

A meatless diet of vegetables, fruits, and milk increases iron in the blood by 30 per cent. over a meat diet, and costs no more. Add soup to this, and there is a 50 per cent. increase of iron.

"The soup bowl, neglected in the United States, has become a national institution in France and Germany," he says. "The soup kettle must be put back on the kitchen stove. Into it should be placed every scrap of meat not actually consumed at the table."

Clean vegetable waste that now goes to the garbage pail should go into the soup kettle. Celery-tops and the rough outside pieces, beet-tops, the outer leaves and core of cabbages, the green tops of leeks and young onions, the tougher ends of asparagus—these, as well as every spare bone and scrap of meat from which the pulp can be strained, leave benevolent minerals in the soup stock. The clear vegetable juices have invaluable alkalines which nourish alike growing children and grown men.

"Iron is but one of the normal ingredients of soup," says the writer. "Potassium, sodium, magnesium, and calcium are among the other ingredients.

"Hundreds of patent medicines contain these identical substances, plus alcohol. But, in the case of the patent medicine, its mineral content, unlike that of soup, consists usually of salts which the human body can not appropriate. In the case of soups these salts are present in a form in which they are utilized at once. More soup kettles mean fewer medicine bottles."

IF YOU SHOULD CONTEMPLATE SUICIDE

IF you are of a suicidal turn of mind, the best thing for you to do is to hug the Atlantic Ocean. Just why this is best for you is not entirely clear. But the fact remains that suicides are much more common, in proportion to the population, on the Pacific coast.

The Prudential Insurance Company brings out this interesting fact in a brochure recently prepared by Dr. Frederick L. Hoffman. Dr. Hoffman's investigation runs back over a period of several years:

In 100 cities, scattered through the country, the average rate of suicide is 20.3 per -100,000 people. The Eastern States, however, show a rate of only 16.5. The rate in the Southern States is somewhat higher, and rises little by little until it reaches its highest point on the Pacific coast.

Dr. Hoffman points out that the ratio of business failures is also highest on the Pacific coast, and draws the conclusion that the differences are chiefly due to the fact that the East presents more settled conditions, with a smaller percentage of those who have traveled far from home, either to take their chance in business or in search of health.

If one would be sure of resisting the suicidal impulse, he had best settle in Holyoke, Massachusetts, whose percentage is 3.1 per 100,000—the lowest of any large city. San Diego, California, on the other hand, heads the deadly column with a percentage of 63.3 per 100,000.

---

THE STRONG WOMAN OF EUROPE

HOW is it that Holland has been able to keep neutral? The Germans want her to declare war on the Allies, so that they can get at England from the Holland coast. And England would like nothing better than to have Holland fight Germany, so that she can attack Germany through Holland.

Because Queen Wilhelmina is as strong-minded as the matron of an employment agency, the Dutch are still neutral.

"No figurehead is this Queen," writes Sigmund Henschen in the Forum. "Rather, Wilhelmina is very much business. Picture an ordinary little woman (she is anything but stately), a woman who by no stretch of imagination could be called beautiful,—just a plain, capable-looking Holland bourgeoise, double-chin type, plainly dressed, wearing virtuous-looking shoes, a prim suit that has 'made in Holland' written all over it,—and you have her Majesty the Queen.

"She has that look which one always associates with intense religion; and she is almost bigoted. Like the German Emperor, she loves to hold religious services herself. Her hobby is to pray before the royal household. Devoted to Holland she is. She has stated: 'I intend to carry always in my heart the words of my beloved father—that the House of Orange can never, never do enough for Holland.'

"One of the most important plays in the game against Wilhelmina is this: If German spies catch any violation of Holland neutrality by England, it gives German diplomats a ground for demanding reciprocal concessions. If English spies catch a German violation, it puts power in the hands of the British diplomats." So at the outbreak of war she developed a marvelous secret service to trail German and English spies; to search every train, motor, wagon, and person for contraband that went into Germany; and she saw to it that no German spies passed into England with Dutch passports.

"She is honorary commander-in-chief of the Dutch army, and she is in the saddle for hours at a stretch. She wears an officer's uniform, and rides astride.

"With every belligerent trying to drag Holland into war, keeping the little land out is a job for a strong man. It is being done by a strong woman."

WHAT TO DO IN YOUR GARDEN THE SECOND WEEK IN AUGUST

The information given in these articles is furnished by a Research Agriculturist at the New Jersey Experiment Station.

THE emphasis this week is on pruning and planting. Pruning is a process by which the fruit or edible portion of a plant is caused better to develop by the sacrifice of inedible plant tissue, like leaves and stems. It is what you were doing when you thinned out your fruit trees last week, so that you would have larger, better fruit.

Remove handfuls of foliage from your tomato plants. It is difficult to say just how much. Also cut leaves and runners from melon vines and from squash. This will noticeably improve the quality of your vegetables.

Prune your lima beans, too, by cutting off several inches at the top. Pile up earth around your celery to blanch it. White celery is an artificial product of cultivation. Also, remove the suckers that grow around the roots. This last is another phase of pruning.

Onions should be ripening this week. Pull them when you see they are beginning to turn yellow. If you have planted lettuce (which is as poor a food, nutritively, as celery), it will require attention this week. The common "Cos" variety will have to be tied up, while the cool- weather varieties will have to be protected from the August sun by the use of cheesecloth or paper screens. Have you ever seen screened tobacco? Rig up something on a small scale over your lettuce bed like the screens used on the Southern tobacco fields.

Keep up the watering. The weather is still hot and dry. Remember that this applies especially to cabbage and spinach.

You will spend most of the week, however, doing your late, or second, planting. This will make it one of the hard weeks of the year.

Begin with peas, a legume high in portein, and a nitrogen-fixing crop, hence valuable nutritively and for the soil. A good variety is the Alaska. Plant them four inches deep, three inches apart, in rows three feet apart, and fertilize with bone meal and wood ashes, the same as for beans.

Beets are a good food, because they are high in sugar. Use the Blood Turnip beet, and plant it two inches apart, in rows eighteen inches apart. It should be put in one inch deep.

The best variety of late carrot is the Early Horn. Directions for planting are the same as for beets. Both should be fertilized with bone meal and wood ashes.

If you like lettuce, and have done your duty by the nutritiously productive plants, put in some May King lettuce, six inches apart each way, and apply eight pounds of sodium nitrate. But keep in mind that the big thing is to increase the country's food supply by growing, where nothing grew before, foods that can be converted into as large as possible amounts of human tissue and energy and heat. Such foods are not watery vegetables like lettuce, celery, and tomatoes, but nitrogenous vegetables like peas and beans, or, secondarily, vegetables that contain sugars and starches.

Asparagus, which is nutritively about in a class with carrots and beets (a sort of middle class, containing not a little nutriment in the form of starch, and giving bulk to the diet besides), must have beds prepared for it now if you are going to plant it later. Beds should be spread with manure in preparation for next year's crop. Naturally, this puts the plot out of use for some time, which is a disadvantage.

If you have cucumbers and want to make pickles out of them, gather them now, while they are still small.

Then, if you have any time left, start cultivating your cabbage. Put between the rows two and one half pounds of sodium nitrate, taking care that none of it touches the plants; for it will eat them up if it does. If your bed suffers from cabbage-worms, buy a can of arsenate of lead, punch holes in the top with a nail, and sprinkle the contents on the plants. It will not hurt the plants, and it will be death to the pests.

Beetles on potatoes and egg-plants can also be destroyed by arsenate of lead, but in a different form. Dissolve three ounces in five gallons of water, and apply to the plants. Arsenate of lead is said to be the best pest exterminator.

EIGHT RULES FOR WRITERS

ACCURACY, accuracy, accuracy—that is the first great requisite forsuccess in newspaper reporting, or in any form of literary work.

"Many a new reporter has sprung, at a bound, to what seemed the very top of the ladder by writing unusually brilliant or witty articles," says William Drysdale, "and at the, end of a few weeks has been dropped incontinently because he was not trustworthy—because he could not be depended upon. No brilliancy, no rapidity or activity on the part of a reporter can make up for want of integrity and care."

Franklin S. Harris quotes these words in his Young Man and His Vocation (Badger), and follows them with Charles A. Dana's eight rules for the guidance of a newspaper man:

1. Get the news, all the news, and nothing but the news.

2. Copy nothing from another publication without giving perfect credit.

3. Never print an interview without the knowledge and consent of the party interviewed.

4. Never print a paid advertisement as news matter. Let every advertisement appear as an advertisement: no sailing under false colors.

5. Never attack the weak and defenseless, either by argument, by invective, or by ridicule, unless there is some absolute public necessity for so doing.

6. Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth or the only truth.

7. Support your party, if you have one; but do not think that all the good men are in it or all the bad ones outside it.

8. Above all, believe that humanity is advancing, that there is progress in human affairs, and that as sure as God lives the future will be better than the past or present.

LEADS FROM THE DAILY PAPERS

ALMOST any salesman can make money by reading the daily papers, if he knows how to read them. They are full of the names of possible prospects. So-and-So has recently come into some money—he ought to buy life insurance. So-and-So is going on a journey, or has built a house, or is going to get married. Every item carries with it the notice of a need to be filled with some kind of goods. Even a burglary may be turned to account, as was proved by J. E. Bray, an electrical salesman, who tells his experience in "How I Did It" in the Harvester World:

"I had completed my evening meal and filled my old brier, and was starting to peruse the war items, when I happened to notice an article about burglars having visited a house in the vicinity. It read:

As Mr. and Mrs. B. returned from the theater last night, and entered the hallway of their residence, two men jumped out of the parlor window and escaped. Owing to the street lamp being shaded by the trees, they were unable to get a good look at the uninvited visitors.

"I out with my knife, cut out the article, and tucked it away in my vest pocket.

"The next day I called at the address given in the article, and after ringing the bell and handing the lady who answered the call my paste-board, I was invited in. I said, as I took the newspaper article out of its repository, 'Mrs. B., I read in last night's paper you had visitors. Would you mind telling me just what happened? I may be able to suggest something that would help you, should a future visit occur.' She was a pleasant little woman, and related the story in every detail.

"My cue was when she got to the part where the burglars ran down the porch steps. I said, 'Mrs. B., if you had some kind of a light on the porch which could be lighted from a switch in the hall, you could have gotten a description of the men which might have led to their capture. By the way, Mrs. B.,' I added, did they take any of your valuables?'

"No,' she replied; we must have arrived just in the nick of time, for they had all of my silverware tied in a table-cloth.'

"Smiling, I said: 'They may come back after it. Don't you think it would be a good scheme to have electric light put in? You could have a wall switch put right next to your bed, and by just pressing the button throw a flood of light in your room. Also have a light on the porch with a switch in the hall. No, it is not expensive to wire an old house. Let me get you an estimate.'

"I sent a contractor to figure on the job, and we landed it."

The Abandoned Room

By WADSWORTH CAMP

Illustration by Robert McCaig

BOBBY hurried down the road in the direction of the Cedars, trying desperately to recall what had occurred during those hours last night and this morning before he had awakened in the empty house near his grandfather's home. All that remained was his sensation of travel in a swift vehicle, his impression of standing in the forest near the Cedars, his glimpse of the masked figure which he had called his conscience, the echo in his brain of a dreamlike voice saying: "Take off your shoes and carry them in your hand. Always do that. It's the only safe way."

These facts alone were clear to him: He had wandered, unconscious, in the neighborhood. His grandfather had been strangely murdered. The detective who had met him in the village practically accused him of the murder. And he couldn't remember.

He came to a spot where the forest crowded the narrow, curving road. The Blackburn place was in an arid thicket of stunted pines, oaks, and cedars. Old Blackburn had never done anything to improve the estate or its surroundings.

With the silent forest thick about him, Bobby suddenly felt that he was no longer alone. A crackling twig or a loose stone struck by a foot may have warned him. He walked more slowly, glancing restlessly over his shoulder. He saw no one; but undoubtedly it was the detective, Howells, who followed him.

Bobby, however, had no thought of escape. He was impatient to reach the Cedars and to learn all that Howells had not told him of his grandfather's death.

The driveway swung to the road through a broad gateway in a high wooden fence. Bobby entered, and hurried among the trees to the edge of the lawn in the center of which the house stood.

FEELING as guilty as the detective thought him, Bobby paused and examined the house for some sign of life. At first it seemed as dead as the forest stripped by autumn—almost as gloomy and arid as the wilderness that straggled close about it. He had no eye for the symmetry of the wings framing the court, in the center of which an unused fountain stood. He was thinking of Katherine, who had had to face this tragedy alone.

A clicking sound swung him back to the house. The front door had been opened, and Katherine, and Graham appeared in the dark frame of the doorway.

Katherine had thrown a coat around her. Her sunny hair strayed in the wind; but her face, while it had lost nothing of its beauty, showed even at this distance an expression of weariness and anxiety.

Bobby straightened. He must meet these two, although his own wretched appearance and position would define for Katherine more clearly than ever Graham's superiority. He moved forward, calling softly:

"Katherine!"

She started. She turned in his direction and came swiftly toward him.

"Bobby! Bobby! Where have you been?"

There were tears in her eyes. He took her hands. Her fingers were cold.

"Katherine," he said hoarsely, "I'm sorry!"

Graham came up. He spoke with apparent difficulty:

"You've not been home! Then what happened last night? Quick! Tell us what you did—everything."

"I've seen the detective," he answered. "He's told you, too? Be careful. I think he's back there, watching and listening."

Katherine freed her hands.

"Then you were at the station," she said. "You must have come from New York. But I tried so hard to get you there. For hours I telephoned and telegraphed. Then I got Hartley. Come away from the trees, so we can talk without—without being overheard."

As they moved to the center of the open space, Graham indicated Bobby's evening clothes.

"Why are you dressed like that, Bobby? You did come from town? You can tell us everything you did last night after left you, and early this morning?"

Bobby shook his head. His answer came reluctantly:

"I didn't, come from New York just now. I was evidently here last night. And I can't remember, Hartley! I remember scarcely anything."

"You've got to remember!" Katherine cried.

As minutely as he could, Bobby recited the few impressions that remained in his mind.

"Paredes and the dancer," Graham said, after he had finished, "practically forced me away from you last night. It's obvious, Bobby—you must have been drugged."

Bobby shook his head.

"I thought of that; but it won't do. If I had been drugged I wouldn't have moved around, and, somehow, I managed to get to the empty house to sleep. It's more as if my mind had simply closed—as if it had gone, on working its own ends without my knowing anything about it. And that's dreadful, because the detective has practically accused me of murdering my grandfather. Tell, me how—how he was killed. I can't believe such a beast. Tell me. If I was in the house some detail may start my memory."

KATHERINE told her story, while Bobby listened, dreading some disclosure that would convict him. As she went on, however, his sense of bewilderment increased; and when she had finished he burst out:

"But where is the proof of murder? Where is there even a suggestion? You say the doors were locked and he doesn't show a mark."

"That's what we can't understand," Graham said. "We have no evidence that your grandfather's heart didn't simply give out. But the detective is absolutely certain, and—there's no use mincing matters, Bobby—he believes he has the proof to convict you. He won't tell me what. He simply smiles and refuses to talk."

"The motive?" Bobby asked.

Graham looked at him curiously. Katherine turned away.

"Of course!" Bobby cried, with a sharpened discomfort. "I'd forgotten. The money—the new will he had planned to make. The money's mine now; but if he had lived until this morning it never would have been. I see."

"It would seem a powerful motive," Graham said, "for any one who doesn't know you."

"But," Bobby answered, "Howells has got to prove first that he was murdered. The autopsy?"

"Coroner's out of the county," Graham replied, "and Howells won't have an assistant. Dr. Groom's waiting in the house. We're expecting the coroner almost any minute."

Bobby, spoke rapidly:

"If he calls it murder, Hartley, there's one thing we've got to find out—what my grandfather was afraid of. Tell me again, Katherine, everything he said about me."

"He called you," Katherine answered, "a waster. He said: 'God knows what he'll do next.' He said he'd ordered you to come out last night, and he hadn't had a word from you, but that he'd made up his mind anyway. He was going to have his lawyer out this morning, and change his will, leaving all his money to the Bedford Foundation, except a small annuity for me. He said he had no faith left in his flesh and blood. I asked him if he was afraid of you, and all he answered was: 'You and Bobby are thicker than thieves.'

"I wonder," Bobby muttered, "if jury wouldn't think it enough."

Katherine shook her head.

"There seemed so much more than that behind his fear," she said. "As I've told you, he gave me a superstitious feeling. I never once was afraid of a murderer—of a man in the house. I was afraid of something queer and active, but not human."

Bobby straightened.

"Would you," he asked, "call a man going about in an aphasia quite human? Somnambulists do unaccountable things—such as overcoming locked doors—"

"Don't, Bobby! Don't!"

"Sh-h! Quiet! Graham warned.

A foot scraped on the gravel.

"May be the detective," Bobby suggested.

He stared at the bend, expecting to see the stiff, plain figure of Howells emerge from the forest. Instead, with a dawning amazement, he watched Carlos Paredes stroll into view.

Graham flushed.

"After last night he has the nerve—"

"Be decent to him," Bobby urged. "He may help me clear up last night."

"I wonder," Graham mused, "to what extent he could clear it up if he wished."

Paredes threw away his cigarette and solemnly shook hands with Katherine and Bobby, expressing a profound sympathy. Even then Bobby remarked that those reserved features let slip no positive emotion. The man turned to Graham.

"Our little difference of last evening," he said suavely, "will, I hope, evaporate in this atmosphere of unexpected sorrow. If I was in the wrong I deeply regret it. My one wish now is to join you in being of use to Bobby and Miss Katherine in their bereavement. I saw the account in a paper at luncheon. I came as quickly as possible."

Graham answered this smooth effrontery with a blunt question:

"Do you know that Bobby may be implicated in Mr. Blackburn's death?"

Paredes flung up his hands; but Bobby, looking for emotion in the sallow face, found none. The man's voice flowed smoothly, demanding particulars.

"But this," he said, when they had told him what they could, "changes the situation. I must watch that detective and learn what he has up his sleeve. May I telephone to my hotel in New York for some clothes? I want to see this through."

The three looked at each other. Katherine and Graham seemed about to speak. Bobby wouldn't let them.

"Carlos," he said, "you might help me in one thing. I'm almost afraid to ask you. What happened in the café last night? The last thing I remember distinctly is sitting there with you and Maria and a stranger she had introduced—I didn't get his name. What did I do? Did any one leave the place with me?"

Paredes smiled a little, shaking his head.

"You behaved as if Mr. Graham's earlier fears had been accomplished. You insisted that you were going to catch your train. I didn't think it wise, so I went to the cloak-room with you, intending to see you home. Somehow, you gave me the slip."

"You oughtn't to have let him get away," Graham said.

Paredes shrugged his shoulders.

"You weren't there. You don't know how sly Bobby was."

"I suppose it's useless to ask," Graham said. "You saw nothing put in his wine?"

Paredes laughed.

"Is it likely? Certainly not. I should have stopped such a thing. What do you think I am, Mr. Graham?"

"Sorry," Graham said. "You must understand, we can't let any lead slip. This stranger Maria brought up!"

"I didn't catch his name," Paredes answered. "I'd never seen him before. I gathered he was a friend of hers—connected with the profession. Now, with your permission, Miss Katherine, I shall telephone."

Katherine hesitated for a moment, then she said:

"Please go with Mr. Paredes, Hartley, and make him comfortable."

WHEN the door had closed after them, burst out passionately:

"I don't believe it, Bobby. I'll never believe it, no matter what happens!"

"It's sweet of you, Katherine," he said huskily. "That helps, when you don't know what to believe yourself."

"Don't talk that way. Such a crime would never have entered your head under any conditions. Only, Bobby, it ought never to have happened. You ought never to have been in this position. Why have you been friendly with people like—like that Spaniard? What can he want, forcing himself here? At any rate, you'll never lead that sort of life again?"

Her fingers sought his. He clasped them firmly.

"If I get past this," he said, "I'll always look you straight in the eye, Katherine. You don't quite understand—"

He broke off, glancing at the door through which Graham had disappeared.

"Then remember," she said softly, "I don't believe it."

She released his hand, sighing.

"That's all I can say, all I can do now. You're ill, Bobby. Go in. Rest for a while. When you've had sleep you may remember something."

As he climbed the stairs Bobby heard Paredes telephoning. He couldn't understand the man's insistence on remaining where clearly he was an intruder.

His bedroom, which he had occupied only once or twice in the last few months, seemed unfamiliar to him.

"Come!" he called, in response to a stealthy rapping at the door.

Graham entered noiselessly, closing the door.

"I had a chance to slip in here," he

Continued on page 15

CHIPETTES OF THE OLD BLOCK

WHAT STARTS WARS?

WOMEN-HATERS

—Continued from page 10

explained. "Paredes is wandering about the place. I'd give a lot to know what he's after at the Cedars. Katherine is in her room, trying to rest, I fancy."

"And," Bobby asked, "the detective—Howells?"

"If he's back from the station," Graham answered, "he's keeping low. I wonder if it was he or Paredes who followed you through the woods?"

"Why should Carlos have followed me?" Bobby asked. "I've been thinking it over, Hartley. It isn't a bad scheme having him here, since you think he hasn't told all he knows."

"I don't say that," Graham answered. "I don't know what to think about Paredes. I've come to talk about just that. I'm a lawyer, and I've had some criminal practice. I'm going to take your case, if you'll have me."

Bobby was a good deal touched.

"That's good of you—more than I deserve, for I have felt resentful toward you at times."

Graham, it was clear, didn't guess that Bobby referred to his friendship for Katherine, for he answered quickly:

"I must have seemed a nuisance, but I was only trying to get you back on the straight path where you've always belonged. I can't believe you did this thing, even unconsciously, until I'm shown proof without a single flaw. Until the autopsy the only thing we have to work on is that party last night. I've telephoned to New York and put a trustworthy man on the heels of Maria and the stranger. Meantime I think I'd better watch developments here."

"Please," Bobby agreed. "Stay with me, Hartley, until this detective takes some definite action."

He picked nervously at the fringe of the window curtain.

"If the autopsy shows that my grandfather was murdered," he said, "either I killed him, or else some one has deliberately tried to throw suspicion on me; for, with nothing but a possible motive to go on, this detective wouldn't be "so sure. Why in the name of heaven, should any one want to kill the old man, place all this money in my hands, and at the same time send me to the electric chair? Don't you see how absurd it is that Carlos, Maria, or any one else should have had a hand in it? There was nothing for them to gain from his death. I've thought and thought in such circles as that, until I am almost convinced of my guilt!"

HE drew the curtain farther back and gazed across the court at the room where his grandfather lay dead.

"I did hate him," he mused. "There's that. Ever since I can remember, he did things to make me despise him. Have—have you seen him?"

Graham nodded. "Howells took me in. He looked perfectly normal—not a mark."

"I don't want to see him," Bobby said.

He drew back from the window, pointing. Howells had strolled into the court. He paused by the fountain, glancing for a moment anxiously downward. Then he came on, and entered the house.

"He'll be restless," Graham said, "until the coroner comes, and proves or disproves his theory of murder. If he questions you, you'd better say nothing, for the present. From his point of view, what you remember of last night would be only damaging."

"I want him to leave me alone," Bobby said. "If he doesn't arrest me, I won't have him bullying me."

Jenkins knocked and entered. The old butler was white-faced and tremulous.

"The policeman, sir. He's asking for you."

"Tell him I don't wish to see him."

The detective himself stepped from the obscurity of the hall, smiling his queer smile.

"Ah! You are here, Mr. Blackburn! I'd like a word with you."

He turned to Graham and Jenkins.

"Alone, if you please."

Bobby mutely acquiesced, and Graham and the butler went out. The detective

leaned against the door, studying Bobby with his narrow eyes.

"I don't suppose," he began, "that there's any use asking you about your movements last night?"

"None," Bobby answered jerkily, "unless you arrest me and take me before those who ask questions with authority."

The detective's smile widened.

"No matter. I didn't come to argue with you about that. I was curious to know if you'd tried to see your grandfather's body."

Bobby shook his head.

"I took it for granted the room was locked."

"Yes," the detective answered; "but some people, it seems, have skilful ways of overcoming locks."

He moved to one side, placing his hand on the door-knob.

"I've come to open doors for you—to give you the opportunity an affectionate grandson must crave."

Bobby hesitated, fighting back his feeling of repulsion, his first instinct to refuse. The detective might take it as evidence against him. On the other hand, if ho went, the man would unquestionably try to tear from a meeting between the living and the dead some valuable confirmation of his theory.

"Well?" the detective said. "What's the matter? Thought the least I could do was to give you a chance. Wouldn't do it for everybody. But then, everybody hasn't your affectionate nature."

Bobby advanced.

"For God's sake, stop mocking me! I'll go, since you wish it."

THE detective opened the door, and stood aside to let Bobby pass.

"Dare say you know the room—the way to get there."

Bobby didn't answer. He fought back his aversion, and entered the corridor of the old wing.

As he paused before the door his grandfather had had the unaccountable whim of entering, the detective took a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock.

"Queerest case I've ever seen," he mumbled. "Step in, Mr. Blackburn."

Because of the drawn blinds the room was nearly as dark as the corridor. Bobby entered slowly, his nerves taut. Against the farther wall the bed was like an enormous shadow, without form.

"Stay where you are," the detective warned, "until I give you more light. You know, I wouldn't want you to touch anything, because the room is exactly as it was when he was murdered."

Bobby experienced a swift impulse to strangle the brutal word in the detective's throat. But he stood still while the man went to the bureau, struck a match, and applied it to a candle.

"Come here," the detective commanded.

Bobby dragged himself forward until he stood at the foot of the four-poster bed. The detective lifted the candle and held it beneath the canopy.

"Look all you want now, Mr. Robert Blackburn," he said grimly.

Bobby conquered the desire to close his eyes—to refuse to obey. He stared at his grandfather, and a feeling of wonder grew upon him. For Silas Blackburn rested peacefully in the great bed. The

---

face retained no fear, no record of a great shock.

Bobby glanced at the detective.

"Why," he asked simply, "do you say he was murdered?"

"He was murdered," the detective answered—"murdered in cold blood. And look you here, young fellow—I know who did it. I'm going to strap that man in the electric chair. He's got just one chance—to make a clean breast of it."

He bent farther over the body, and held the candle so that its light searched Bobby's face instead of the dead man's.

The underlying implication of those intolerable words stretched Bobby's sick nerves too tight. He lost his last control, and cried out hysterically:

"Why don't you do something? For God's sake, why don't you arrest me?"

A chuckle came from the detective.

"Listen to the boy! What's he talking about? Grief for his grandfather! That's what it is—grief."

"Stop!" Bobby shouted. "You've been accusing me ever since you stopped me at the station. 'Why don't you arrest me?"

He managed to lower and steady his voice.

"You can't—that's the reason. He wasn't murdered. The coroner will tell you so. Anybody who looks at him will tell you so. Since you haven't the nerve to arrest me, I'm going. Understand—I'm my own master. I do what I please; I go where I please "

At last the candle moved to one side. The detective straightened and walked toward Bobby.

"That's just what I want you to do—anything you please. I'm accusing nobody, but I'm getting somebody right now for this old man's murder. Now get out of this room, since you're so anxious to, and don't come near it again."

A FIRE blazed in the big hall fireplace. Paredes stood with his back to it, conversing with a man sitting in the shadow of a deep leather chair. As he came down the stairs Bobby heard the man's heavy rumbling voice.

"Certainly it's a queer case, but not the way Howells means. I dare say the old fool died what the world will call a natural death. If you smoke so much, you will too before long."

Bobby tried to slip past; but Paredes saw him.

"Feeling better, Bobby?"

From the depths of the chair arose a figure nearly gigantic in the firelight. The face, at first glance, appeared to be covered with hair. Black and curling, it straggled over his forehead.

As children Bobby and Katherine had been afraid of this great, grim country practitioner. That sense of an overpowering and incomprehensible personality had lingered with them.

"I'm afraid you came too late this time, Dr. Groom," said Bobby, shaking hands.

The doctor looked him up and down.

"Not for you, I guess," he grumbled. "Don't you know you're sick, boy?"

"I'm very tired, that's all. I'm on my way to the library to try to rest."

The big man nodded approvingly.

"I'll send you a sleeping dose," he promised; "and don't you worry about your grandfather's having been murdered. I've seen the body. Stuff and nonsense! Detective's an ass. Waiting for coroner, although I know he's one too."

"I pray," Bobby answered listlessly, "that you're right."

"If there's any little thing I can do—" Paredes offered formally.

"No, no. Thanks," Bobby answered.

There was no fire in the library, but he wrapped himself in a rug and lay on the broad, high-backed lounge, which was drawn close to the fireplace, facing it.

His complete weariness conquered even his anxiety. The entrance of Jenkins barely aroused him.

"Where are you, Mr. Robert?"

"Here," Bobby answered sleepily.

The butler walked to the lounge and held out a glass to Bobby.

"Dr Groom said you were to drink this. It will make you sleep, sir."

Bobby closed his eyes again.

"Put it on the table where I can reach it when I want it."

"Yes, sir. Mr. Robert! The policeman? Did he say anything, if I might make so bold as to ask?"

"Go away," Bobby groaned. "Leave me in peace."

AND peace briefly came to him. It was the sound of voices in the room that aroused him. Graham's anxious demand was the first thing Bobby heard distinctly—the thing that warned him to remain hidden:

"I think that now, with the coroner on his way, it's time you defined your suspicions a trifle more clearly. I am a lawyer: in a sense, I represent young Mr. Blackburn. Please tell me why you are so sure his grandfather was murdered."

"All right," the detective's level voice came back. "Half 'an hour 'AO' I would have said no again; but now I've got the evidence I wanted."

Bobby waited, his nerves tense.

"Two days ago," the detective went on quietly, "old Mr. Blackburn came to the court-house in Smithtown and asked for the best detective the district attorney could put his hand on. I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I've got away with one or two pretty fair jobs. So they turned him over to me. It was easy to see the old man was scared. The funny part was, he wouldn't say definitely what he was afraid of. I thought he might be shielding somebody. He told me he was afraid of being murdered, and he wanted a good man he could call on to come out here if things got too hot for him.

"'My heart's all right,' he said. 'It won't stop a while yet, unless it's made to. So, if I'm found cold some fine morning, you can be sure I was put out of the way.'

"Naturally, I tried to pump him; but he wouldn't say another word. I didn't think much more about it until they told me early this morning he lay dead here under peculiar circumstances."

"Odd!" Graham commented. "It does make it more like murder, Howells. But he doesn't look like a murdered man."

"When you know as much about crime as I do, Mr. Graham, you'll realize that murders which have been planned a long time are likely to take on one of two appearances—suicide or natural death."

"All right," Graham said. "For the purpose of argument, let us agree it's murder. Even so, why do you suspect young Blackburn?"

"Without a scrap of evidence, it's plain as the nose on your face," the detective answered. "If old Blackburn had lived until this morning our young man would have been a pauper. As it is, he's a millionaire. The two had been at sword's points for a long time. Robert hated the old man—never made any bones about it. You couldn't ask for a more damaging motive."

"You can't convict a man on motive," Graham said. "You spoke of evidence."

"More," the detective replied, "than any jury in the land would ask."

Bobby held his breath.

"When I got here," the detective said, "I decided, on the theory of murder, to make a careful search as soon as day broke. I didn't have to wait for day, though, to find one crying piece of evidence. For a long time I was alone in the room with the body. Queer feeling about that room, Mr. Graham. To keep my spirits up, as well as to save time, I commenced searching about the place with a candle. Nothing about the bed. Nothing in the closets or the bureau.

"Then I got on my knees and looked under the bed. The light was bad, and I didn't see anything at first. After a minute, close against the wall, I noticed something white. I reached in and pulled it out.. It was a handkerchief, and it had a monogram, Mr. Graham: 'R. B.' in purple and green."

BOBBY felt the net tighten. If that evidence was conclusive to the others, how much more so was it to him! He recalled how, after awaking in the empty house, he had searched unsuccessfully in all his pockets for his handkerchief.

"I went to his room," the detective hurried on, "and found a lot of his clothes and his stationery and his toilet articles marked with the same cipher. I knew my man had made a big mistake—the sort of mistake every criminal makes, no matter how clever he is—and I had him.

"But that isn't all, by any means. I repaired the lock, and, as soon as it was day, closed the room and went outside to look for signs. Since nightfall no one had come legitimately through the court except Dr. Groom and myself. Our footprints were all right—making a straight line along the path to the front door. In the soft earth by the fountain I found

another and a smaller print, made by a very neat shoe, sir, and I said to myself: 'There is almost certainly the footprint of the murderer.'

"There were plenty of others coming across the grass. He'd evidently avoided the path. And there was one directly under the open window where the body lies. It's still there. That's the last one I found. The prints ceased there. There wasn't a one going back, and I was fair up a stump. Then I saw a little undefined sign of pressure on the grass, and I got an idea. Suppose,' I says, 'my man took his shoes off and went around in his stocking feet?' I couldn't understand, though, why he hadn't thought of that before. I went back to Robert Blackburn's room and got one of his shoes, and ran into a snag again. The sole of the shoe was a trifle larger than the footprints. Every one of his shoes I tried was the same way. I argued that the handkerchief was enough, but I wanted this other evidence. I simply had to clear up these queer footprints.

"I figured, since the murder had been made to look so much like a natural death, that Mr. Robert'd come out here sometime to-day, expecting to carry it off. I wanted to go to the station, anyway, to find out if he'd been seen coming through last night or this morning. While I was talking to the station agent I had my one piece of luck. I couldn't believe my eyes. Mr. Robert walks up from the woods. He'd been hiding around the neighborhood all the time. I needed only one look at him, and I had the answer to the mystery of the footprints.

"I gave him plenty of time to come here and change his clothes; then I manoeuvered him out of his room, and went there, and found the pumps he'd worn last night and to-day. You see, they'd be a little smaller than his ordinary shoes. Not only did they fit the footprints exactly, but they were stained with soil exactly like that in the court. There you are, sir. I've made a plaster cast of one of the prints. I've got it here in my pocket, where I intend to keep it until I clear the whole case up and turn in my report."

Graham's tone was shocked and discouraged: "What more do you want? Why haven't you arrested him?"

"No good detective would ask that, Mr. Graham. I want my report clean. The coroner will tell us how the old man was killed. I want to tell how young Blackburn got into that room. One of the windows was raised a trifle; but that's no use. I've figured on the outside of the wing until I'm dizzy. There's no way up for a normal man. An ourang-outang would make hard work of it. His latch-key would have let him into the house, and it would have been simple enough for him to find out that the old man had changed his room. I've got to find out how he got past those doors, locked on the inside."

He chuckled again.

"Almost like a sleep-walker's work."

Bobby shivered. Was that where the evidence would point? Already the net was too finely woven.

THE detective continued earnestly:

"I'm figuring on some scheme to make him show me the way. I've a sort of plan for to-night, but it's only a chance."

"What?" Graham asked.

"Oh, no, sir," Howells laughed. "You'll learn about that when the time comes."

"I don't understand you," Graham said. "You're sure of your man, but you keep no close watch on him. Do you know where he is now?"

"Haven't the slightest idea."

"What's to prevent his running away?"

"I'm offering him every opportunity. He wouldn't get far, and I've a feeling if he confessed by running he'd break down and give up the whole thing. You've no idea how it frets me, Mr. Graham. I've got my man practically in the chair; but, from a professional point of view, it isn't a pretty piece of work until I find out how he got in and out of that room. The thing seems impossible; and yet, here we are, knowing that he did it. Well, maybe I'll find out to-night. Hello!"

The door opened. Bobby, from his hiding-place, could see Paredes on the threshold, yawning and holding a cigarette in his fingers.

"Here you are," he said drowsily. "I've just been in the court. It drove me to seek cheerful company. That court's too damp, Mr. Detective."

His laugh was lackadaisical.

"When the sun leaves it the court seems full of unfriendly things—what the ignorant would call ghosts. I'm Spanish, and I know."

The detective grunted.

"Funny!" Paredes went on. "Observation doesn't seem to interest you. I'd rather fancied it might."

He yawned again and put his cigarette to his lips. Puffing placidly, he turned and went out.

"What do you suppose he means by that?" the detective said to Graham.

Without waiting for an answer, he followed Paredes from the room. Graham went atter him. Bobby threw back the rug and arose. For a moment he was

Continued on page 23

LUCK

By WILLIAM ALMON WOLFF

IT wasn't until the reunion itself was, properly speaking, at an end that Palmer understood how great a mistake he had made in attending it. A dozen men, perhaps, were sitting in the big first-floor parlor of the Hotel Essex, where the class had made its headquarters for the three days of this fifteenth anniversary celebration. Most of the class had scattered; the ones who were left were waiting for late trains.

"The thing comes down to a question of money—naturally," Crutcher was saying. "Conditions are changing. It costs more to train a specialist, and especially an engineering specialist, than it did fifteen years ago. I take it, we're not affected much by sentiment? I know I'm not."

There was a murmur of assent. Crutcher could still carry the class with him, when he got under way, with that cold, incisive speech of his, as he had been wont to do fifteen, eighteen years before. He had been proving that throughout 'the three days of the reunion. He had asserted himself, without effort, as the most significant man in the class. A man who, at his age, had become vice-president and general manager of an important railway system might look to the future for almost anything.

"It's simply good business, as I see it," Crutcher went on. "We know this place. We know the sort of men it turns out. We all need men of that sort—technically trained men. That's why I fought for the endowment plan. It looks well for a class to put up a building or create a special fund—but the way to help the place is to add to the general endowment fund. I was glad to give a thousand dollars on that basis—I wouldn't have given ten cents for Hammond's section of a new chemistry building!"

Palmer shrank back into his chair as he listened. That was the sort of talk that made him feel so hopelessly out of touch with these men of his own class. His lip curled at Crutcher's entirely casual reference to his gift.

Palmer's appearance reflected his mental isolation in that company. The other men were much of a type, dissimilar as they were. About all of them there was the crisp, alert quality of the successful, prosperous American. They were immaculate, despite the soggy heat. And Palmer was not. His clothes had the look of clothes that are worn every day because their owner has no other suit to change to.

He did not differ so much from these others; he really was of their type. He was tall and lean; there lingered about him something of the same alert look of the trained man. But his eyes had a discontented look, and he looked older than most of them.

Two or three times he seemed to be about to say something, but always he stopped short. Once, at least, Crutcher was conscious of his intention, and looked at him curiously, then turned away, with something like a shrug, when that intention bore no fruit.

"What a fool I was to come!"

That was the burden of Palmer's thoughts.

HE had had a definite, clear purpose in coming back. It had seemed to him that, among all the men he had known so intimately fifteen years before, there must be one who would honor a draft upon old friendship and association—who would reach down from the heights he had attained and lend a hand to him, Palmer, who had stayed down in the valley of failure.

It was Crutcher upon whom he had counted most heavily, probably. He and Crutcher had been great friends in their four years at Tech. They had even roomed together for one year.

And yet, in these three days, he had felt himself more remote from Crutcher than from any of the others. A curious diffidence had tied his tongue when he and Crutcher had sat down together for a talk over old times. He couldn't lay the blame for this at Crutcher's door. Crutcher had tried to do his part. He had singled Palmer out at once; had slapped him on the back with all the old heartiness and enthusiasm. It was Palmer who had been unable to respond. And gradually Crutcher had left him to himself, had gravitated award men with whom he now had things in common, with whom he could talk over common problems. They were men, Palmer saw, with whom Crutcher had had little to do fifteen years before.

EVERY few minutes the little group lost some member. Men glanced at their watches, rose, shook hands all around, and went, bound for their distant duties. Palmer had counted upon the fact that, in the end, only he and Crutcher would be left. He meant to make his appeal; it was vital that he should. But he was painfully nervous.

"Well—it's about over!" said Crutcher, as the last of the others went. "You're going to New York, aren't you, Jim? Better make the trip with me. My car will be on the one o'clock train—and there's plenty of room. Suppose we go on over to the station and get aboard."

"Why—thanks," said Palmer awkwardly. He'd forgotten that Crutcher would, naturally, have a private car. He had a painful feeling that Crutcher had asked him to travel with him because he couldn't, decently, avoid doing so. But he was glad, anyhow. The evil moment of that appeal he had so definitely decided to make was postponed. And perhaps when he got away from the atmosphere of the reunion it would be easier.

The car was ready when they reached the station. But the train was not due to pull out for some time. It was noisy, and even hotter than it had been in the hotel.

"No use turning in yet," said Crutcher. "Sit down, Jim. We'll have something cold and a smoke. I don't know—I've done nothing but talk for three days, it seems to me, but I've not had a real talk with you."

He stopped for a moment, to give an order to the Japanese servant who had appeared. And then he turned upon Palmer, so that their eyes met.

"Now—let's have it, Jim!" he said. "What the devil's happened to you? What's been wrong?"

Palmer was conscious of an extraordinary relief. After all, Crutcher had made his opening for him. He overlooked all the implications of Crutcher's question. Insidious processes of degeneration had been at work in Palmer. Five years before he might not have resented that question, nor its tone—but he would have been hotly ashamed. He was no longer ashamed of his failure. He had ceased to be affected by the mere sense of failure. His only concern now was with the amelioration of his immediate troubles.

"What's been wrong?" he echoed. "A little of everything, I guess, Dick. Luck's been against me." He saw Crutcher's swift, instinctive gesture of protest, and laughed bitterly. "Oh, it's all very well for you to look like that! I know how you fellows who've got on hate the talk of luck. And, mind you, I'm not ascribing your success to luck. I don't envy you or any of the other chaps who've pulled things off. At least—I'm not jealous—not that, way—"

Crutcher said nothing; but his eyes snapped.

"I started with the T. C. & T.—the very road you're practically the head of now," Palmer went on. "I started the way we all do, I suppose. I was out along the line, surveying. I knocked about a good deal the first year or so. I wanted to know the railway game all the way through, from top to bottom. It was good fun in those days, Dick. There wasn't much I didn't do. I pounded a key for a while at a little country depot, and had a whirl at train-despatching, so that I'd be able to say I knew it. I fired an engine for a while."

"Good stuff, all of it," said Crutcher crisply. "I played about the same game myself. We used to write, once in a blue moon, in those days. We had the same notion—know a railroad from the roadbed up—"

"Yes. But I never got going—the way you did. I got my training and my experience, and I landed pretty well with the U. P. Then a lot of chaps were laid off—and I had to toss with another man. They could keep one of us—and he won the toss. I didn't care much. But after that sort of thing's happened to you a hundred times—

"It seemed as if I never could get a real hold. I was always being let out—not fired, but just let out. I saved some money, one time, somehow—had a lucky turn or two, to help. And I started in as a contractor. Weather broke wrong—there were strikes—I couldn't get my materials through—the whole thing went to smash. That's about the way it's been—one break's been a good deal like another. I tell you, there is such a thing as hard luck, whether you fellows know it or not!"

"I suppose so," said Crutcher, nodding. "I fired a division superintendent the other day—for being unlucky."

"For being unlucky—" Palmer repeated slowly. "Why—" He stared at Crutcher for a moment, and then, suddenly, he broke out passionately. That's what I've been saying! If a man's unlucky he might as well quit."

"Right—if he's working for me!" said Crutcher balefully. "Because he'll have to resign in a hurry to beat me to the job of firing him! Take this man I let out the other day. He was unlucky. I believe that. He's an honest man—a capable man. But his division spoiled every efficiency record I was chalking up. He couldn't get his traffic through on schedules. His maintenance costs were twice what they ought to have been. He had wreck after wreck—"

"But you say he was unlucky?"

"I didn't say it. He did. I admit it—because it doesn't matter. My curves go up or down, regardless of whether ill luck or inefficiency lies behind the figures, Jim! This man had an excuse for everything—a good, sound, unassailable excuse. And, just the same, I fired him—and I fired him a little sooner than I'd have fired a man who was making mistakes and finding out he'd made them."

PALMER sat silent, staring, fiercely rebellious, hotly resentful at last.

"It seems to me that you've evolved a damnable creed, Dick," he said at last. "I suppose it makes for efficiency—but it's inhuman, condemning a man because he's unlucky. If you said you didn't believe in luck—"

"That's what I don't say—and won't say!" Crutcher cut in sharply. "I don't have to believe in luck—or to disbelieve in it. I want luck eliminated—absolutely. And so—I eliminate the unlucky man. Just as I'd have been eliminated, inevitably, automatically, on my way up, if I'd been unlucky. Just as—you've been eliminated, Jim."

His voice softened as he said that.

"You didn't just come back for the

---

reunion," he said. "I've been watching you, Jim. You wanted to say something. And you didn't—you couldn't quite bring yourself up to scratch. You wanted one of us to do something?"

"It's pretty obvious, isn't it?" said Palmer, with a bitter laugh. "I'm up against it—hard. I'm just through with a job. And I've got to have something—something that pays me better money than the wages I can get any time. I haven't told you quite how big a fool I've been. I've got responsibilities. I married, five years ago."

"H'm!" said Crutcher. "Thought so. You can get a job at a hundred a month easily enough—and you need twice that? Well, you've got my philosophy—though I'd not use as big a word as that. Go ahead and ask me for something! What do you suppose I can do for you?"

The scorn in Crutcher's voice brought Palmer to his feet, his eyes blazing.

"You—you needn't rub it in like that!" he cried furiously. "I know what you think of me. Why can't you let me alone? Here—I'll go back and ride in the day coach. What did you ask me to ride in your car for?"

"Sit down!" said Crutcher. "I'm going to do the biggest thing I can for you—and the only thing. I'll give you a chance. I had to make you understand these things before I could put my proposition to you. Now!

"On the face of it, you're the last man alive I'd give any sort of job to. But—I've got a memory of you as you were when I used to know you. You had great things in you, Jim. You had vision and imagination. You've had the sort of training I can use. And so—I'm willing to gamble on you and your—luck. I can't make the stakes high. You're like a lug that's been losing right along—but that I'm betting on because there's some fool sentimental reason why I should. When I back a horse like that, I don't bet high. I throw away a five-dollar bill, or a ten. But—if it wins I'll go higher the next time it runs.

"Here's what I'll do. I'll put you to work on my road. You'll start pretty close to the bottom. You may go out with a surveying party—you may find yourself holding down a station agent's job a hundred miles from nowhere. You've got to run a race or two among the plugs before I can enter you in a stake event. But—whatever your pay turns out to be, I'll add enough to it each month to make two hundred. That's my gamble. You'll pay it back if we win; if not—"

Crutcher was on his feet as he finished speaking. He checked Palmer's incoherent reply; his hand fell upon Palmer's shoulder.

"I've handed it to you pretty hard, Jim," he said. "But there wasn't anything else for it—the way I see it. You've fallen down pretty hard. It may be your fault—it may be that you've had the bad luck you talk about. It doesn't matter. I'm giving you the chance to make good. And I'm doing it—oh, if you don't get this, Jim, it would be better if we quit before we started! I'm not pulling one of these classmate stunts. All I see in you is a good man who's been wasted for fifteen years—the sort of man I can use if it turns out that he hasn't been spoiled.

"I'm going to turn in. Sleep late, if you like—and get around to my New York office about eleven. Good night!"

"Good night!" Palmer echoed.

But he didn't have a good night. He slept very little, and such sleep as he had was not of a useful, restful, recreative sort. He was bitterly angry at Crutcher. He resented his attitude.

He couldn't refuse Crutcher's offer. But he determined, hotly, that he would consider the arrangement as a temporary one, as a makeshift to carry him through this latest of a series of recurrent crises.

IN the field, where Crutcher sent him, Palmer's fundamental excellence as an engineer stood out and earned him plenty of work first, and swift promotion. Palmer understood well enough that with this Crutcher had nothing to do directly. He saw Crutcher only once in the eight weeks that followed their trip in the private car. The vice-president, stopping off at Palmer's section in the course of a flying inspection trip, took a couple of minutes to greet him. He nodded approvingly.

"You must be getting along well, Jim. You've had a couple of raises, I find."

"I can handle this sort of thing," said Palmer shortly. "It's pretty elementary, you know."

"Perhaps—but it's important," said Crutcher. "We spent two hundred thousand dollars two years ago to straighten a line and save two minutes of running time that intelligent surveying of the original right of way would have made unnecessary."

"I know," said Palmer curtly. "There isn't a road in the country that isn't full of unnecessary curves."

PALMER had no real responsibility at this time. He was a subordinate—an important subordinate, it is true, but, after all, only a minor cog in the machine. A new connecting link in the T. C. & T. system was being pushed through to completion at top speed; every man concerned was working under pressure. The engineering problems involved were not especially complex; in the main, the work was simple enough. But there wasn't time for checking up the work. Men were being scrapped every day.

And so it chanced that, at a critical stage of the work on his particular section, Palmer found himself temporarily in charge. He shrank a little from the responsibility; he shrank even more from making an appeal for help that might well come under the eyes of Crutcher. The great thing, after all, was to finish the survey. There was a chance to save a week, perhaps, in the final reckoning.

"You'll have to swing your line around that swamp, Palmer," said Crossman, the engineer whose place Palmer was to fill until his relief came from headquarters.

Crossman's teeth were chattering. In spite of the sultry heat of the August night, he was shivering in the grip of a malarial chill.

"There's quicksand there—we could waste a month trying to get a firm bottom, and then have to go around, after all. Take the bull by the horns—you can't run a line in the field the way you can over a map!"

"Right!" said Palmer soothingly. "Take your quinine and forget it, old man. There's no doubt about that quicksand."

A multitude of details overwhelmed Palmer in the next few days. Crossman gave in utterly to the malaria that had knocked him out, and went back to civilization. Palmer was short-handed. He meant to satisfy himself absolutely about that quicksand: he didn't do it.

After all—Crossman must have been sure; he must have made the tests. And speed, speed—that was what was necessary. Better to swing the line around.

By the time Palmer was relieved of his added work and responsibility the die was cast, as far as that section was concerned. The track around the swamp was laid and ballasted; the rail-head had been pushed on far beyond that ugly loop in the line. Palmer, worn out, on the verge of illness himself, got a week's vacation, and ran back to New York to see his wife.

And immediately, with the chance to relax, he began to worry about the detour around the swamp. He stood it for two days; then he went back.

He reached the rail-head late in the evening. At sunrise next morning he was on his way back to the swamp, riding on a light engine. He dropped off at the edge of the swamp—and by three o'clock that afternoon he knew that Crossman had been deceived by his illness and his shattered nerves. There was the superficial appearance of quicksand, but it was only superficial. A couple of days of work would have preserved the line of the preliminary survey!

He was all alone when he made sure that he was right. He threw up his head with a bitter laugh.

"My luck! My damned luck! To have a chance like that, and miss it because a thousand things I oughtn't to have had to do were piled up on me!"

And then, all alone as he was, he flushed. He stood still a moment, his head lowered, thinking. He was thinking of the look that would come into Crutcher's eyes as he listened to such a cry, such an extenuation of failure.

"Luck!" he said aloud, with an extraordinary bitterness. "Your luck! You fool—it was just you—the same you you've always been and always will be!"

HE made his decision as he strode across to the track. And it sent his head up and brought a flash into his eyes. He had tapped a wire when he arrived in the morning, and now he sent a curt message to his new chief at the rail-head, announcing his intended return to New York and demanding some means of reaching the main line. A motor-ear came humming along the track within half an hour; he traveled all night in his field clothes, and he wore them still, caked with the swamp mud that had dried upon them, when he reached Crutcher's office the next morning.

He had to wait to see Crutcher, and the vice-president looked up in surprise when he saw him.

"What's broken loose, Jim?" he asked.

Palmer told the story plainly, simply, without an unnecessary word. He added nothing; he left nothing out, except as he had to do so in extenuation of Crossman. His sick chief he did not involve at all. Crutcher, toward the end of the recital, was figuring on a scratch pad.

"It might be worse," he said. "It'll be cheaper to make the cut-off now than to do it later. The construction gangs are still on the ground. So—"

He stared at Palmer curiously.

"I don't know that this would have come out, if you hadn't told me about it," he said reflectively. "The chances are that it would have been taken for granted that that loop was necessary. The possibility of a cut-off mightn't have occurred to any one for twenty years."

"I'd have known about it," said Palmer wearily. "I don't know whether I can make you understand. But, you see, I found out yesterday that you'd been right about me. You didn't actually say it was my own fault I'd flunked all the way through—but I could read between the lines. You made me sore—oh, you made me sore all right! I suppose you intended to do that."

Crutcher nodded; but Palmer was not looking at him. And the curiosity in Crutcher's eyes was keener than ever.

"I didn't get it at first," Palmer went on. "The first thing I did was to curse my luck. I thought it was the same old story. And—it was. Only I saw it straight for the first time. I hadn't been unlucky. I'd fallen down on the job again. And—I could see why you eliminated men who had that sort of had luck. I don't know—I think it's going to be worth something to me to have found that out. And so—I decided to eliminate myself by telling you—whether you found out for yourself or not—"

Crutcher's fist came crashing down upon his desk, so that the telephones upon it jingled and the ink-wells leaped up.

"Ah!" he said, deep down in his throat. "But—I'm the one who's in charge of the eliminating process around here, Jim! Luck! You had bad luck—but you've beaten it! Hang the cost of that cut-off! I've won the bet I laid on you, Jim! You've come through—after fifteen years. I think you've laid your last mistake to bad luck! Mistakes—do you think I'm looking for men who don't make mistakes? I'm not quite such a fool! You needn't go back to the job. You can report to me here—so that I can start breaking you in to the job I hoped you could fill when I talked to you in June. And— This is the end of August. By the first of October we ought to know whether you can make good as my assistant."

Why Not Spend Your Vacation This Way?

WHEN I was a clerk in a dry-goods store at fifteen dollars a week, the annual problem of a vacation had to be settled on an allowance that made railroad fares and hotel bills look like the unattainable. Wrestling with this question sometimes consumed more energy and nervous force than the good obtained from the vacation itself. So I tried summering in the back yard and on the roof- gardens to save money; but the saving was not so apparent as it seemed, and in the end I missed the change of scenery, which was more vital to me than the rest. Indoor, confining work makes one long for the outdoor life, with its change of environment.

One summer, when the money problem was particularly annoying and the mind and body crying loudly for something they weren't getting, I flung all convention to the wind, and went out to have a vacation that would at least have the zest of novelty. I decided to try my hand as an outdoor salesman to pay for my two weeks of rest. Some will smile at the word "rest," for it was a pretty busy, strenuous life. But it gave me an opportunity to see something of the summer resorts and get out of the beaten rut.

This is the way I did it: I made a careful selection of a list of summer resorts that would suit my purpose. Then I mapped out a circuit, with a time schedule that would bring me back home at the end of two weeks. Next I outlined my plan to the head of the house, and received his permission to drum up trade as a free-lance. With the house catalogue and a few samples stored away in my bag, I started jauntily out on my trial trip. The house was well known throughout the East, and I needed no further introduction than that I represented the concern.

I tackled the hotel where I stayed the morning after I arrived. It was a prosperous season with the resort hotels, and I found that was a good time to sell goods to the proprietors. They had ready money, and it was coming in every day.

My line consisted of table linen, window curtains, toweling, bed linen, and all the dozen and one things that a boardinghouse or hotel uses in quantities. Without very much persuasion, I got orders enough to pay for my hotel bill, and then moved on to the other boarding-houses and hotels of the place. Every one bought a few things, and some gave me fairly big orders. Late in the afternoon I took the train for the next nearest beach resort, arriving there in time for dinner.

I repeated this operation in ten different places, spending more than one day in the larger resorts. As it was a novelty, and my life didn't depend on it, I suppose I showed more enthusiasm and persuasiveness than if I had been a regular salesman.

I reached home the day before my vacation ended. My orders had been sent in by mail, and some of them already filled. My commissions more than paid for my vacation expenses, leaving me ten dollars to the good. The experience had been beneficial in other ways. I had had a real vacation, if change of environment constitutes a vacation. I verily believe that I felt better physically and mentally than if I had idled through the two weeks.

But the best part of the experience came later. It encouraged me to believe that I had the making of a salesman in me. I had never dared before to make the experiment by resigning my indoor job. Now I took the bull by the horns, and plunged in, asking for and receiving a territory. I never regretted going on the road. It helped me financially and physically. And it was all due to the vacation that paid for itself.

G. E. W.

On the Gate With Waldo

By SEWELL FORD

Illustrations by F. Vaux Wilson

COURSE, when you find a neighbor's pet dog runnin' loose in your back yard and in danger of bein' sent to the pound, it's only decent to collect the little beast and return him. So when Sadie discovers this bedraggled, woolly little white kyoodle trailin' a broken lead around through her pansy beds, I gets a sudden call.

"Why, it's the Tollands' Fluffy," says she. "He's broken away again."

"Don't blame him," says I. "I would, too, if I had to live with the Tollands."

"Now, Shorty!" protests Sadie. "I wouldn't be so prejudiced. And you know how badly they felt the last time he got away. No doubt they think a lot of the dog. Do catch him and take him back."

"Oh, very well," says I. "But I will admit I had other plans. Come here, you homely man's purp!"

Somehow, that didn't entice Fluffy as much as it might. He eyes me suspicious, and then scampers off around the corner of the garage. Only about as big as two handfuls of cotton waste, he is, but he surely is full of yelps and action.

No, it wasn't near runnin' my legs off tryin' to corner Fluffy, or crashin' through a clothes-line, or the dive I took over a wheelbarrow, that got me peeved. I just naturally don't care for that breed of dog. Never did. You know, one of these pink-eyed, useless little house insects that looks like sort of a cross between a feather-duster and a dish-mop, without any of the good points of either.

So after I'd captured him, and driven nearly a mile in the roadster with him tied in beside me, yelpin' and snappin' all the way, maybe as I walks up to the Tollands' front door and rings the bell I might not have been in a folksy frame of mind. If it had been any one else, I suppose I'd felt different. But the Tollands— Well, I don't want to knock 'em, but they're just the kind of people who'd own a dog like that. The sort who'd call him Fluffy, too.

Anyway, S. Waldo is that type. You could tell by lookin' at him. I can't say why, either, only you could. One of these stiff, frozen-faced, mealy-mouthed parties, Waldo is; who always dresses just so, always says commonplace things, and does 'em. A human rubber stamp.

I understand he's head salesman in the silver department of a big jewelry store, and I expect when it comes to assistin' kind friends to pick out weddin' presents, or unloadin' table junk on the limousine trade, he's quite a star. But outside of that I can't see but what he just clutters up the earth. Not that he's an active nuisance, for he's about as neutral as they come. He don't belong to the yacht club, or play golf or tennis, or go fishin'. I suspect he would indulge in croquet if he dared. Maybe he knits in secret. Anyway, he don't seem to have any open vices or bad habits, such as cigarette smokin', or attendin' ball games, or wearin' loud neckties. No, he's a perfectly proper party, Waldo. Strictly.

Why he should want to bluff along on a fifteen hundred dollar salary out here among such a set of near-plutes as we got in Rockhurst-on-the-Sound was a mystery to me until I heard he confided to some one that he did it for business reasons. Thought he could pull in new customers from among his neighbors; and, besides, he had an idea he was livin' up to his job. Anyway, the Tollands manage to pay the rent of this little hip-roofed cottage, and with one maid and no kids they make a fairly good showin'—specially on Sunday, when S. Waldo sports a silk lid and a frock-coat. One of the ushers, I'm told, at St. John's.

It's clear Waldo never expects me to splurge on silverware, for all he ever favors me with is the stiffest sort of nod. Almost acts like he was afraid to be seen speakin' to me. And when him and I are takin' the same train to town, he always walks to the other end of the platform. Not that this makes me feel disappointed. I'm generally relieved; for if I had to talk to Waldo all alone for any length of time, I'm dead sure I'd say something that would make him blush. He might have to slap me on the wrist—there's no tellin'.

As for Mrs. Tolland, she's a little mouse of a woman, with big eyes and a pointed chin, who never looks up except to gaze admirin' at S. Waldo. An odd pair of misfit neighbors they make.

SO you can figure I ain't soothed any by the fact that I'm still standin' on their front door-step three or four minutes after I'd first rung the bell. I punches the button again, this time givin' it a good long push. I can hear the buzz, too, somewhere in the back of the house. But nothing happens in the way of an answer. Yet I could swear one of the front shades had been pulled down since I came, and that some one had tiptoed across the front hall. I was pretty sure, too, that Waldo was at home; for this was Saturday afternoon, and I'd seen him get off the one-fifteen.

What was the big idea, anyway? Had they caught sight of who it was and thought they were blockin' off a social call? Fluffy was gettin' restless, too. Twice he'd almost satisfied his yearnin' to sink them sharp little teeth of his into my wrist. Was I expected to camp out there all day, holdin' this little brute by the scruff of the neck, just for the sake of doin' a neighborly act?

I tries rappin' on the door panels. That's followed by a soft scurryin' inside, and then more silence. I had a feelin' some one was tryin' to peek at me from one of the upper windows. So I steps back on the walk and gazes up at the second story.

"Hey, Tolland!" I sings out. "For the love of Mike!"

Then I can hear whisperin', as though some excited debate was goin' on. Next the window over the front door is opened a few inches and the shade pulled back.

"Is that you, McCabe?" asks a husky voice that sounds something like Waldo's.

"Did you think it was an enemy bombin' squad come to blow you up?" I asks. "Course it's me."

"Are—are you alone?" he asks.

"No, blame it all!" says I. "Can't you see I've got your bloomin' pup, that I found strayin' round my grounds?"

"Oh, Fluffy!" says he. "We didn't know what had become of him, but we couldn't—er— I'll be right down."

AND when he has unlocked and unbolted the door, I hands over the dog to him without a word. I was turnin' to go, when he makes a half-hearted stab at apologizin'.

"You see," says he, "we—ah—we were rather expecting some one else."

"Huh!" says I. "Meant to give 'em a real cordial reception, didn't you?"

"As a matter of fact," says he, "it was some one we wished to avoid: a—er—a distant relative of—ah—of Mrs. Tolland."

"Oh, yes," says I. "I see. They will happen in the best of fam'lies. A soused uncle, or something like that, eh?"

I hears a gasp from behind Waldo, and guesses that Mrs. Tolland has been some jarred by my remark.

"Oh, no, indeed," puts in Waldo hasty. "Nothing at all like that. A step-cousin who is—well, somewhat eccentric, to say the least."

"A bughouse party?" I asks cheerful.

"We-e-ell," says he, "I should hardly describe her in just that way. But tell me, McCabe; you did not happen to meet, did you, as you came along, a rather stout, middle-aged woman with short, grayish hair? She would probably be without a hat, quite sunburned, and most likely carrying a bundle, possibly a camping bag or knapsack."

"No," says I; "I don't remember passin' any such freak. Promised you a visit, has she?"

"Threatened, rather," says Waldo. Then he turns to Mrs. Tolland. "Had we not better tell all to Professor McCabe, Louise, since we have divulged so much? I am sure we can rely on his discretion and—and possibly he might suggest something that we could do."

So, the next thing I knows, I've been asked into the neat little sittin'-room, the door has been locked behind us, and I'm hearin' the whole tale about this batty cousin, just as though I'd been on chummy terms with 'em all along.

But come to get right next to the Tollands and they ain't so bad. I begins to suspicion that they're more or less human. And they act so nervous and desperate that I'm kind of sorry for 'em. Besides, I might have been some curious.

Quite a roamer, Cousin Jane is, I take it. And she has a cute little habit of pouncin' down on her relations and stayin' for months at a time. Not that she'd ever inflicted herself on the Tollands so far, for up to last fall she'd been caromin' around out on the Pacific coast, from Los Angeles to Seattle. Had even wandered as far up as Alaska.

Her people sort of took it for granted that Cousin Jane meant to stay West for good; but here last fall she'd bobbed up at Aunt Kate's, back in Augusta, Maine, and stuck around until after Christmas. Then she'd gone to Brother Robert's, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and they didn't get rid of her until Easter. When last heard of she was with Sister Mabel in New Haven, and had been askin' for the Tollands' address. So there was no hope of escapin' her.

"Only fancy," says Waldo. "For nearly two weeks we have been expecting her to appear at any moment. Every time a carriage drives up, or a car stops out front, or the bell rings, we ask each other, `What if it should be Cousin Jane?' So we—we have shut things up on the street side, and stopped answering rings, in the hope that— Well, you see. And it rather gets on one's nerves, you know."

"I should think it might," says I. "What's Cousin Jane's specialty? Slippin' Paris green in the coffee or hidin' bombs in the beds?"

Mrs. Tolland indulges in another gasp, and Waldo almost turns pale.

"Oh, no, no, I assure you!" says he. "Miss Emmons is an entomologist."

"As bad as that!" says I. "Then why don't you have her put away for it—in a sanatorium?"

"You misunderstand," says Waldo. "She collects bugs and—and things; studies their habits, writes books about them."

"Oh!" says I. "Course, that's odd enough, but it ain't anything you can be locked up for. Why all the panic over her comin', though?"

"But she dresses so—so unconventional," goes on Waldo. "And she does such strange things. Why, she has been known to live all alone in a cabin, miles from anywhere, for months at a time. And she seems to have no regard for civilized customs, absolutely. At Sister Mabel's, for instance, she would go for long tramping trips in the woods, wearing very short skirts and—rubber boots! She appeared that way during a card party one afternoon. True, we do very little in a social way, yet we have our reputation to consider. And if she should be seen coming and going here in her camping costume—well, what would people think?"

I GOT the point. Waldo could see himself some fine Sunday mornin', all dolled up in his frock-coat and shiny lid, meetin' Cousin Jane dashin' around a corner in her gray flannel shirt and wadin' boots, maybe danglin' a dead snake by the tail.

"Besides," says he, "we are quite unprepared for guests. You see, our cook

---

is leaving, and we are not sure of getting another. So we simply can not receive Jane if she comes. Can we, Louise?"

"No, I can't see how we could," sighs Mrs. Waldo. "Isn't there something we can do, though, besides this?"

I scratches my head thoughtful.

"Lemme see," says I. "Course, there ought to be a law prohibitin' visits from freaky relations. If they could only be divorced out of the fam'ly, now."

That strikes Waldo as a happy thought.

"If one only could," says he. "Just think! Why, I might divorce Louise, or she might get a separation from me; but from this Cousin Jane of hers, no matter how just the complaint, there seems to be no escape."

"No," says I; "relations are wished on you for good. And it's all wrong. I don't see, though, but you'll have to run the risk of shuntin' Jane and let it go at that; just have to keep yourselves dug in until after the grand attack."

Before I went, too, I'd promised that if I thought of any new stunt, such as puttin' up barbed-wire entanglements or layin' mines, I'd let 'em know. Also that if I saw her headed in their direction I'd do my best to shoo her off.

And from then on Waldo and I got almost chummy. When we met at the station mornin's, we'd swap sort of a sleuthy hail.

"Well," I'd say, liftin' my eyebrows mysterious, "anything break out your way yet?"

And Waldo, he'd glance around cautious and shake his head.

"Louise had one bad scare yesterday," he'd say, "but it turned out to be only an agent."

Or maybe it would be a Salvation Army solicitor.

I gathered that they were just layin' low, keepin' the shades down, and not exposin' themselves more than necessary.

MUST have been a week later, when one evenin' Sadie and me was comin' home from a drive about dusk,. that I spots this suspicious-lookin' party trudgin' up from the station. She had a hat on, but it's considerable askew, and from the way her gray hair is bobbed up it might well be short. Besides, she's luggin' a tacky-lookin' straw suit-case with stuff strapped on the outside.

I slows up for a better look as we're about to pass her, and I ain't a bit surprised when she gives me the hail. She wants to know if I can tell her where the Tollands live.

A tough-lookin' party she is, too, come to get close.

"The Tollands?" says I. "I don't think you'll find 'em at home." Which was true enough.

"Worse luck!" says she. "And after cartin' this bag near a mile!"

"I can give you a lift back, if you like," says I. "There's a train in at seven-fifteen."

"Thanks," says she; "I'll be much obliged."

So we loads her into the rear seat with her luggage.

She didn't have much to say on the way down, only grumbled to herself, and we got her there just in time for her to get a ticket.

"That was easy," says I to Sadie. "I'll call up the Tollands when we get home and let 'em know. They'll be relieved, I expect."

But they wasn't.

"Great heavens!" says Waldo. "That wasn't Cousin Jane. It must have been the new cook. She was due half an hour ago."

"Sorry," says I, "but she fitted in with your description. Next time I'll ask if she's a member of the fam'ly or is a recruit for the kitchen."

I DIDN'T think there would be a next time. Didn't seem likely. In fact, I'd about lost interest in the Tolland siege, and was 'most forgettin' about their batty cousin, when here the other afternoon, as I drops off the smoker at our station, I'm nearly run down by a husky female who piles off the next car ahead.

"Excuse me, young man," says she; "but how do I get out to Waldo Tolland's place?"

And say, there's the tanned face, the short gray hair, and the queer-lookin' bundle.

I'll admit she ain't wearin' either rubber boots or leggins. She is dressed sort of mannish, though, in a plain tailored dress, with a simple black sailor on her head.

"Why—er—it's quite a ways," says I, sort of edgin' off.

"Well, what of that?" she demands. "I suppose I can get a jitney or a carriage, can't I?"

"You might," says I, "and then again—well, I couldn't say. Fact is, I'm in a hurry."

"Are you?" says she, givin' me the once- over and steppin' around so she blocks my way. "But not in so great a hurry, I hope, that you can't afford to be civil. You know where Mr. Tolland lives, don't you?"

"Why, ye-e-e-es," says I draggy. "That is, where he did live. It—it's out on the Post Road."

"Humph!" says she. "And when was the last time you knew of his living there?"

"Yesterday," says I, grinnin' foolish.

She snorts again, and eyes me threatenin'.

"Nice kind of neighbors Mr. Tolland has, I must say," says she. "That'll do for you, young man. I see a taxi over there, and I'll get it myself. Thank you for nothing."

"Gee!" says I, drawin' in a long breath as I makes my escape. "I wonder."

For a couple of days now I've carried that guilty feelin' around with me. I had a hunch I'd made another bad break, but I wasn't sure. Somehow, though, I didn't care about meetin' Tolland, so twice I rushes through breakfast and takes an earlier train.

HERE this mornin', though, I overslept, and there was nothing to it but for me to show up for the eight-twenty-six as usual.

I'd counted on dodgin' Waldo; but, as luck would have it, he comes strollin' around the corner of the baggage-room where I'm pretendin' to be lookin' for some express.

"Why, there you are, McCabe!" says he, and I can't tell whether he's enthusiastic, or just excited.

There was no use tryin' to duck any longer, though.

"Go on; spill it," says I.

"Why, what do you mean?" asks Waldo.

"Ah, the strange female party," says I. "Was she Cousin Jane or the new cook?"

"Why, both," says he.

Then it was my turn to gawp. "Eh?" says I.

Yes, it had been Cousin Jane, all right. And when they hadn't answered her first ring she'd simply walked right around to the back of the house and cornered 'em in the garden.

They'd surrendered, too, without firin' a shot.

But it seems she wasn't half as bad as the other relations had let on. For one thing, she wasn't collectin' any insects around Rockhurst. She was off the bug game for a spell. It appears that her book on the subject had made something of a hit, and through that she'd just landed a commission from some museum to go clear to South Africa, where bugs was thicker and more entertainin' in their habits.

She was only stoppin' off here for a week or ten days until she could collect a proper outfit and get a steamer.

SO she wasn't stompin' around the parlor in rubber boots these days. Meantime, though, findin' the Tollands without a cook, and Louise tryin' to feed herself and hubby out of tin cans, she turns to and shows 'em what really good eatin' tastes like.

"And I say," says Waldo, "it is wonderful what delicious dishes she can prepare from simple things. What she calls camp stew, for instance. Really, I've never known until now what good food was. But we have a regular cook coming to-day, and I was anxious to see you before you—"

"Trust me," says I. "I've quit crashin' in on your visitors. I won't steer her off."

"Please don't, " says Waldo, "for Cousin Jane has promised to stay with us long enough to train her in. She is quite a remarkable woman, you know, Cousin Jane."

"Huh!" says I. "Wish you'd found that out before you got me rung in on this fool gate-guardin' act. And sometime, Waldo, just for sport, point me out as I'm drivin' by, and get her to register her opinion of me."

The Slacker Who Made Good

—Continued from page 7

18, 1916." This meant that he had only one more day to live.

He was taken, under guard, in a motor lorry, to the sand-bagged guard-room in the village, where he was dumped on the floor and left, while a sentry with a fixed bayonet paced up and down in front of the entrance. Bully beef, water, and biscuits were left beside him for his supper. The sentry, seeing that he ate nothing, came inside and shook him by the shoulder, saying in a kind voice:

"Cheero, laddie; better eat something. You'll feel better. Don't give up hope. You'll be pardoned before morning. I know the way they run these things. They're only trying to scare you, that's all. Come, now, that's a good lad; eat something. It'll make the world look different to you."

The good-hearted sentry knew he was lying about the pardon. He knew nothing short of a miracle could save the boy.

Lloyd listened eagerly to his sentry's words, and believed them. A look of hope came into his eyes, and he ravenously ate the meal beside him.

A little while later the sentry was relieved, and a D Company man took his place.

Looking into the guard-house, the sentry noticed the cowering attitude of Lloyd, and, with a sneer, said to him:

"Instead of whimpering in that corner, you ought to be saying your prayers. Its bally conscripts like you what's spoilin' our record. We've been out here nigh onto eighteen months, and you're the first man to desert his post. The whole battalion is laughin' and pokin' fun at D Company, bad luck to you! But you won't get another chance to disgrace us. They'll put your lights out in the mornin'."

After listening to this tirade, Lloyd, in a faltering voice, asked: "They are not going to shoot me, are they? Why, the other sentry said they'd pardon me. For God's sake—don't tell me I'm to be shot!"

"Of course they're going to shoot you. The other sentry was jest a-kiddin' you. You ain't got no more chance o' bein' pardoned than I have of gettin' to be colonel of my batt."

When He Came to Himself

WHEN the fact that all hope was gone finally entered Lloyd's brain, a calm seemed to settle over him, and, rising to his knees, with his arms stretched out to heaven, he prayed—and all of his soul entered into the prayer:

"Oh, good and merciful God, give me strength to die like a man! Deliver me from this coward's death. Give me a chance to die like my mates in the fighting line—to die fighting for my country."

A peace, hitherto unknown, came to him; and he crouched and cowered no more, but calmly waited the dawn, ready to go to his death. The shells were bursting all around the guard-room, but he hardly noticed them.

Suddenly there came a great rushing through the air, a blinding flash, a deafening report, and the sand-bag walls of the guard-room toppled over; and then—blackness.

When Lloyd recovered consciousness, he was lying on his right side, facing what used to be the entrance of the guard-room. Now it was only a jumble of rent and torn sand-bags. His head seemed bursting. He slowly rose on his elbow, and there in the east the dawn was breaking. But what was that mangled shape lying over there among the sand-bags? Slowly dragging himself to it, Lloyd saw the body of the sentry. One look was enough to know that he was dead.

Like a flash, it came to Lloyd that he was free—free to die like a true Briton, fighting for his king and country. A great gladness and warmth came over him. Carefully stepping over the body of the sentry, he started on a mad race down the ruined street of the village, amid the bursting shells, minding them not, dodging through or around hurrying platoons. Coming to a communication trench, he could not get through. It was blocked with laughing, cheering, and cursing soldiers.

Climbing out of the trench, he ran wildly along the top, never heeding the rain of machine-gun bullets and shells, not even hearing the shouts of the officers telling him to get back into the trench. He was going to join his company, who were in the front line. He was going to fight with them.

While he was racing along, jumping over trenches crowded with soldiers, a ringing cheer broke out all along the front line, and his heart sank. He knew he was too late. His company had gone over. But still he ran madly. He would catch them; he would die with them.

What His Company Was Doing

MEANWHILE his company had gone "over." They, with the other companies, had taken the first and second German trenches, and had pushed steadily on to the third line. Then D Company, led by their captain, had pushed steadily forward until they found themselves far in advance of the rest of the attacking force. "Bombing out" trench after trench, and using their bayonets, they came to a German communication trench which ended in a blindsap; and then the captain, and what was left of his men, knew they were in a trap.

Right in front of them they could see hundreds of Germans preparing to rush them with bomb and bayonet. Their supply of ammunition was exhausted, and the men realized it would be a case of dying as bravely as possible, or making a run for it.

But D Company would not run: it was against their principles.

The Germans would have to advance across an open space of three or four hundred yards before they could get within bombing distance of the trench, and then it would be all their own way.

Turning to his company, the captain said:

"Men, it's a case of going west for us. We are out of ammunition and bombs, and the Boches have us in a trap. They will bomb us out. Our bayonets are useless here. We will have to go over and meet them, and it's a case of thirty to one; so send every thrust home, and die like the men of D Company should. When I give the word, follow me, and up and at them. Here they come. Get ready, men."

Just as he finished speaking, the welcome pup-pup of a machine-gun in their rear rang out, and the front line of the onrushing Germans seemed to melt away. They wavered, but once again came rushing onward. Down went their second line. The machine-gun was taking an awful toll of lives. Then again they tried to advance; but the machine-gun mowed them down. Dropping their rifles -and bombs, they broke, and fled in a wild rush back to their trench, amid the cheers of D Company. They were forming again for another attempt, when in the rear of D Company came a mighty cheer. The ammunition had 'arrived, and with it a battalion of Scotch to reinforce them They were saved. The unknown machine gunner had come to the rescue in the nick of time.

With the reinforcements it was an easy task to take the third German line.

After the attack was over, the captain and three of his non-commissioned officers wended their way back to the position where the machine-gun had done its deadly work. He wanted to thank the gunner in the name of D Company for his magnificent deed. It was he who told me the ending of this story.

When Lloyd came to the front-line trench, his company had left it. A strange company was nimbly crawling up the trench ladders. They were reinforcements going over. They were Scotties, and they made a magnificent sight in their brightly colored kilts and bare knees.

Jumping over the trench, Lloyd raced across "No Man's Land," unheeding the rain of bullets, leaping over dark forms on the ground.

He came to the German front line; but it was deserted, except for heaps of dead and wounded. Leaping trenches, and gasping for breath, Lloyd could see right ahead of him his company in a dead-end sap of a communication trench; and across the open, away in front of them, a mass of Germans preparing for a charge. Why didn't D Company fire on them? Why were they so strangely silent? What were they waiting for? Then he knew—their ammunition was exhausted.

But what was that on his right? A machine-gun. Why didn't it open fire and save them? He would make that gun's crew do their duty. Rushing over to the gun, he saw why it had not opened fire. Scattered around its base lay six still forms. They had brought their gun to consolidate the captured position; but a German machine-gun had decreed they would never fire again.

Lloyd rushed to the gun, and, grasping the traversing handles, trained it on the Germans. He pressed the thumb-piece, but only a sharp click was the result. The gun was unloaded. Then he realized his helplessness. He did not know how to load the gun. Rising to his feet, he stumbled over the body of one of the gunners, who emitted a faint moan. Stooping over the body, he gently shook it, and the soldier opened his eyes.

"For God's sake," Lloyd cried, "if you want to save the company, tell me how to load that gun!"

The Coward Turned Hero

As if reciting a lesson in school, the soldier replied in a weak, singsong voice: "Insert tag end of belt in feed block, with left hand pull belt left front. Pull crank handle back on roller, let go, and repeat motion. Gun is now loaded. To fire, raise automatic safety latch, and press thumb-piece. Gun is now firing. If gun stops, ascertain position of crank handle—"

But Lloyd waited for no more. He took a belt from one of the ammunition boxes lying beside the gun, and followed the wounded man's instructions. Then he pressed the thumb-piece, and a burst of fire rewarded his efforts. The gun was working.

Training it on the Germans, he shouted for joy as their front rank went down.

Traversing the gun back and forth along the mass of Germans, he saw them break and run back to the cover of their trench, leaving their dead and wounded behind. Releasing the thumb-piece, he looked at the watch on his wrist. He was still alive, and the hands pointed to "3:38," the time set for his death by the court.

"Ping!"—a bullet sang through the air, and Lloyd fell forward across the gun. A thin trickle of blood ran down his face from a little black round hole in his forehead.

The sentence of the court had been "duly carried out."

Why I Should Not Wish My Son to Be a Humorist

By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

A HUMORIST and a Philosopher were seated under the spreading branches of the oak in the garden of the Hyperion Club the other night, when Bibbs sauntered idly up, and seated himself beside them, with a deep sigh.

"Wherefore the sigh, Bibbsy?" queried the Philosopher.

"I'm up against a stiff problem," Bibbs replied. "I have a son who has just got through college, and it's up to me to find him some kind of a job; and I tell you, old man, it's no joke. What to do with a nice kid who has had a bully time at college for four years, and has now come face to face with a real and not an academic world, is a mighty hard nut for any man to crack. The law and medicine are overcrowded. The church makes little appeal to a lad with expensive tastes; and in this particular case my boy has no aptitude for either science or pedagogy."

"Which leaves only three professional fields open for him," said the Philosopher. "Finance, literature, and plumbing."

"I haven't any spare cash to back him in finance," said Bibbs; "but literature does appeal to him strongly. He really has a nice vein of humor, and—"

"Then," said the Humorist, interrupting, "your problem is solved."

"Make a humorist of him?"

"No—a plumber."

Bibbs looked at the Humorist inquiringly.

"Yes," said the Humorist; "make a plumber out of him As a plumber he could with ease provide his wife with her motor-car and her jewels, his daughterwith her duds and her domestic science education, his boy with his cigarettes and his classical training, and above all himself with peace of mind, all of which would leave his humor fresh and sweet and clean and unwearied by over-indulgence. We have had banker-poets, lawyer-novelists, and other hyphenated geniuses—why not a plumber-humorist?"

"But when would he have time to think'?" demanded Bibbs. "Humorists have to think, don't they?"

"Poor devils—they do!" replied the Humorist, with fervor. "In this case; your son could do all his thinking while he was plumbing. Is there any quiet so reposeful, so restful, so truly still, as that of a plumber gazing wistfully at a pipe, far from the madding crowd, all day long, at eight dollars a day, with a helper to hold his candle for him while he gazes, at sixty cents extra per hour?"

"There is something in what you say," said Bibbs, "though the thing sounds incongruous to me."

"Incongruity is the soul of humor," smiled the Humorist. "But the thing goes even more deeply than that. Not only is humor as a bread-and-butter proposition a thing of deadly seriousness, but it is overwhelmingly 'persistent in its demands. The humorist is allowed no relaxation from the pursuit of his profession. A manufacturer of pig-iron can go to a dinner, a tea, a reception, or some other social function, and get away without making the slightest allusion to pig-iron or having to give away a couple of tons of his product. But not so your humorist.

"To speak frankly, I can conceive of nothing more dreadful than the plight of him who is called a humorist when he finds himself in a state of antical bankruptcy when some social light calls upon him to stand and deliver. It is worse even than having a note fall due at the bank with nothing but an overdraft to meet it; because the note, to be negotiated at all, has had to have an indorser.

"But there is no such relief for the unfortunate humorist. If I, for instance, am introduced to some charming woman at a five o'clock tea, who has heard that I am a humorist, and she observes with a merry twinkle in her eye that she thinks it will rain to-morrow, and then glances expectantly at me, with a ripple of laughter just waiting to be loosed by the witty reply which she is certain I am going to make, I must either make good by some overwhelmingly funny mot on the subject of to-morrow's meteorological conditions, or be set down for what I really probably am—a most commonplace sort of a person. I can not say to her, as I would say, in general intent, to the cashier of the bank, 'I find myself a trifle short on rainy-day jests this afternoon, madam. Can't you let this thing run over for another month, and give me time to turn around?'"

"If she had any sense of humor at all, I think the lady would consider that rather amusing, at that!" grinned Bibbs.

"Just so," said the Humorist. "And therein lies one of the very grave reasons why I would spare my son, if I had one, the laurels of the humorist. When you are really suffering some inward embarrassment that tries your soul and sets your nerves a-quiver, nobody will take you seriously.

"Jerome K. Jerome—who, despite the high character of his humor, will, in my judgment, find his most lasting claim to immortality resting on his play, The Passing of the Third Floor Back '— has suffered from that misunderstanding of his intent by a public insistence that he specialize on humor. A few years after his production of that little classic of pure fun, Three Men in a Boat,' Mr. Jerome essayed serious fiction, and produced a novel of real merit and literary distinction; and a good ninety per cent. of his critics, American as well as English, deplored what they called the falling off of his humor, because the story of John Ingerfield did not strike them as being in the least degree funny!"

"Still—there, on the other hand, was Mark Twain. People took him seriously in his 'Joan of Arc," said Bibbs.

"Not until he had taken the public by the neck and knocked its collective heads together good and hard," retorted the Humorist. "Apparently you never heard Mark Twain expatiate on that very point.

"'When I wrote "The Prince and the Pauper," he once observed to a newspaper reporter, 'I flattered myself that it was a serious work. It was my maiden effort in that direction. Up to that time I had been content to grind out books of Mark Twain humor; but this was to be entirely different. Well, in due course of time the book came out. To me it was a crucial point in my life. My anxiety over its reception at the hands of the literary critics was so great that I couldn't sleep or eat. It will not be hard to imagine my chagrin, then, when they came out with yards of slush in which they called this, my first serious work, my masterpiece of humor.'

"And it was for that precise reason," continued the Humorist, "that, when Mark Twain came to the serial publication of his 'Joan of Arc,' he published it anonymously. The critics nearly worried themselves into nervous prostration over it,' said Clemens. 'And maybe I didn't get my revenge! I let them speculate and chatter for nearly two years before I printed a card in Harper's informing them that Mark Twain had written it.'

"In my own small way, I haven't been immune to the slings and arrows," continued the Humorist. "One of the joyous recollections of my younger days is the memory of a time when I had political aspirations, and because of that amiable weakness I allowed myself the luxury of a candidacy for the mayoralty of my native city. I tried as hard as I knew how to fit myself for the responsibilities of the office, and to comport myself with as much solemn dignity as the occasion seemed to require. But it was no use. I might as well have tried to whistle down the winds as get my constituents to take the thing seriously. Moreover, a New York newspaper got upon my trail, turned the batteries of its wit upon my candidacy, and printed as real wholly imaginary interviews with myself. And a goodly proportion of my friends, neighbors, and enemies—political enemies of course, for I am not aware that I have any others—actually thought I had written those interviews myself! And I was walloped! I hasten to add, Bibbs, that this was but a temporary unhappiness to me; for, while the sting of the defeat and the misunderstanding of my friends were a sore trial to me at the time, when I came later to realize what kind of people mayors have to associate with, I rejoiced in the verdict.

"Don't fool yourself, Bibbs," concluded the Humorist. "It's hopeless. Save your boy. Let him put it over as a plumber, if he can lay his pipes with sufficient skill, but don't doom him to the heartbreaking experience of being a humorist."

Books for Beginners

By ALBERT W. ATWOOD

YOUNG men and women have shown an increasing disposition, in the last few years, to increase their knowledge of various branches of finance. Many of the readers of these articles have asked for the names of books on a wide variety of subjects, and these requests have indicated a serious purpose to master the subjects.

Books on finance in themselves do not make a financier. Books alone will never develop an accountant, banker, investor, broker, or speculator. Along with the reading there must be first-hand observation, or, even better, first-hand experience.

But, on the other hand, by coupling with daily experience or observation a course of study in the larger aspects of the same subject, a tremendous impetus is obtained. A girl might work as a stenographer in a bank indefinitely without much advancement and without really understanding what she is doing. But if she reads along with her daily work, her chances are improved. The young man put into a stock or bond house with very few duties at first must learn mainly by close observation. But he is a chump if he does not read at the same time. Indeed, the larger bond houses actually compel their beginners to attend lectures and read text-books.

Many young people have a mistaken idea that there is some one book that will give them just what they need. With all due respect to the printed page, I have never found any book on finance that covered its subject completely or fully, except. one or two that presupposed too much technical knowledge to begin with. The great thing is to read something—to begin with something. One book leads easily to another.

Librarians in public libraries are specializing more and more on business books. They can quickly suggest a sufficient reading course for any beginner. Corporations are doing the same.

There are countless private agencies ready to suggest books. Any young man or woman considering a course in business reading should write for the list of business books published by D. Appleton & Company. These are popular, yet fairly complete, and cover almost every branch of finance. The Bankers Publishing Company of New York City has detailed books on practically every phase of banking, trust companies, savings banks, etc. In nearly every city of large size there are publishing companies that make a considerable specialty of business books.

Theodore H. Price, one of the best known writers on finance, has brought together in pamphlet form several of his articles on "Books for Business Men." This pamphlet can probably be obtained by writing to Mr. Price, 15 Wall Street, New York City. Two articles by the present writer—one on learning to be an accountant and the other on how to get into the stock and bond business—appeared in this magazine of August 7, 1916, and May 14, 1917. The last chapter of this magazine's booklet, "Making Your Money Work for You," deals with books on finance.

A question frequently asked is: "What books should I read to prepare for the banking business?" If a young man is already in the business, he should join the American Institute of Banking, which has more than 20,000 members and maintains regular courses. It publishes a very complete syllabus of books on every phase of the banking business.

Among the most useful works on the practical side of banking are those of Fiske on "The Modern Bank" (D. Appleton & Company) and "Practical Banking," by Kniffen (Bankers Publishing Company). Perhaps the wisest method of beginning such a course of reading would be to master the chapters on money and banking in any recognized text-book on economics, such as those of Taussig, Fetter, Seager, Ely, Seligman, and numerous others. A few chapters would furnish the background for a further study, and nearly all these books furnish detailed suggestions for further reading.

I can not too strongly urge that young men and women who have never had a college or high school course in economics read a book on that subject before they attempt to specialize in their reading. One or more such books are to be found in almost every library. Another suggestion: By watching financial adver tisements in newspapers, much free literature of a valuable nature may be had. Almost all the large trust companies, for example, have published for free distribution booklets describing their functions.

Finally, it may be said that perhaps the most useful single financial book for a beginner is a financial dictionary, possibly the best being that known as "Money and Investments," published by Montgomery Rollins of Boston.

The Abandoned Room

—Continued from page 16

as curious as the others regarding Paredes' intention. He slipped across the dining- room. The hall was deserted, and the front door stood open. From the court came Paredes' voice, even, languid, wholly without expression:

"Mean to tell me you don't react to the proximity of unaccountable forces here, Mr. Howells?"

The detective's laugh was disagreeable.

"You trying to make a fool of me? That isn't healthy."

As Bobby hurried across the hall and up the stairs, he heard Paredes answer:

"You should speak to Dr. Groom. He says this place is too crowded by the unpleasant past—"

Bobby climbed out of hearing. He entered his bedroom and locked the door. He threw himself on the bed, muttering:

"If I run away, I'm done for. If I stay, I'm done for!"

He took a fierce, twisted joy in one phase of the situation.

"If I was there last night," he thought, "Howells will never find out how I got in the room, because, no matter what trap he sets, I can't tell him."

His leaden weariness closed his eyes.

ONCE more it was a voice that awakened him—this time a woman's, raised in a scream. He sprang up, flung open the door, and stumbled into the corridor. Katherine stood there, holding her dressing-gown about her with trembling hands. The face she turned to Bobby was white and panic-stricken. She beckoned, and he followed her to the main hall. The others came tearing up the stairs—Graham, Paredes, the detective, and the black and gigantic doctor.

In answer to their quick questions, she whispered breathlessly:

"I heard. It was just like last night."

She shook. She stretched out her hands in a terrified appeal.

"Somebody—something moved in that room where he—he's dead."

"Nonsense," the detective said. "Both doors are locked, and I have the keys in my pocket. The room is empty except for the murdered man—unless some one's broken down a door."

Katherine cried out:

"No; I heard that same stirring. Something moved in there."

The detective turned brusquely and entered the old corridor.

"We'll see."

The others followed. Katherine was close to Bobby. He touched her hand.

"He's right, Katherine. No one's there. No one could have been there. You mustn't give way like this. I'm depending on you—on your faith."

She pressed his hand, but her trembling did not diminish.

The key scraped in the lock. They crowded through the doorway after the detective. He struck a match, and, lighting the candle, held it over the bed. The next instant he had sprung back with a sharp cry. As he pointed, the others fell back in horror and amazement. For on the bed an abominable change had occurred.

The body of Silas Blackburn no longer lay peacefully on its back. It had turned on its side, and remained in a stark and awkward attitude. For the first time, the back of the head was disclosed. Their glances focused there—on the tiny round hole at the base of the brain, on the pillow where the head had rested, and which they saw now was stained with blood.

BOBBY watched the candle quiver at last in the detective's hand. The man strode to the door leading to the private hall, and examined the lock.

"Both doors," he said, "were locked. There was no way in—"

He turned to the others, spreading his hands in justification.

"At least, you'll all grant me now that he was murdered."

They continued to stare at the body of Silas Blackburn. Cold for many hours, it was as if he had made this atrocious revealing movement to assure them that he had indeed been murdered—to expose to their startled eyes the sly and deadly method.

To be continued next week