Note: Many of the author's spellings follow older, obsolete, or intentionally incorrect practice. 

OPTIONS

by

O. HENRY

CONTENTS

 "The Rose of Dixie" The Third Ingredient The Hiding of Black Bill Schools and Schools Thimble, Thimble Supply and Demand Buried Treasure To Him Who Waits He Also Serves The Moment of Victory The Head-Hunter No Story The Higher Pragmatism Best-Seller Rus in Urbe A Poor Rule

"THE ROSE OF DIXIE"

When _The Rose of Dixie_ magazine was started by a stock company inToombs City, Georgia, there was never but one candidate for its chiefeditorial position in the minds of its owners. Col. Aquila Telfairwas the man for the place. By all the rights of learning, family, reputation, and Southern traditions, he was its foreordained, fit, and logical editor. So, a committee of the patriotic Georgia citizenswho had subscribed the founding fund of $100, 000 called upon ColonelTelfair at his residence, Cedar Heights, fearful lest the enterpriseand the South should suffer by his possible refusal. 

The colonel received them in his great library, where he spent mostof his days. The library had descended to him from his father. Itcontained ten thousand volumes, some of which had been published aslate as the year 1861. When the deputation arrived, Colonel Telfairwas seated at his massive white-pine centre-table, reading Burton's"Anatomy of Melancholy. " He arose and shook hands punctiliously witheach member of the committee. If you were familiar with _The Rose ofDixie_ you will remember the colonel's portrait, which appeared in itfrom time to time. You could not forget the long, carefully brushedwhite hair; the hooked, high-bridged nose, slightly twisted to theleft; the keen eyes under the still black eyebrows; the classic mouthbeneath the drooping white mustache, slightly frazzled at the ends. 

The committee solicitously offered him the position of managing editor, humbly presenting an outline of the field that the publication wasdesigned to cover and mentioning a comfortable salary. The colonel'slands were growing poorer each year and were much cut up by redgullies. Besides, the honor was not one to be refused. 

In a forty-minute speech of acceptance, Colonel Telfair gave anoutline of English literature from Chaucer to Macaulay, re-fought thebattle of Chancellorsville, and said that, God helping him, he wouldso conduct _The Rose of Dixie_ that its fragrance and beauty wouldpermeate the entire world, hurling back into the teeth of the Northernminions their belief that no genius or good could exist in the brainsand hearts of the people whose property they had destroyed and whoserights they had curtailed. 

Offices for the magazine were partitioned off and furnished in thesecond floor of the First National Bank building; and it was for thecolonel to cause _The Rose of Dixie_ to blossom and flourish or towilt in the balmy air of the land of flowers. 

The staff of assistants and contributors that Editor-Colonel Telfairdrew about him was a peach. It was a whole crate of Georgia peaches. The first assistant editor, Tolliver Lee Fairfax, had had a fatherkilled during Pickett's charge. The second assistant, Keats Unthank, was the nephew of one of Morgan's Raiders. The book reviewer, JacksonRockingham, had been the youngest soldier in the Confederate army, having appeared on the field of battle with a sword in one hand and amilk-bottle in the other. The art editor, Roncesvalles Sykes, was athird cousin to a nephew of Jefferson Davis. Miss Lavinia Terhune, thecolonel's stenographer and typewriter, had an aunt who had once beenkissed by Stonewall Jackson. Tommy Webster, the head office-boy, got his job by having recited Father Ryan's poems, complete, at thecommencement exercises of the Toombs City High School. The girls whowrapped and addressed the magazines were members of old Southernfamilies in Reduced Circumstances. The cashier was a scrub namedHawkins, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who had recommendations and a bondfrom a guarantee company filed with the owners. Even Georgia stockcompanies sometimes realize that it takes live ones to bury the dead. 

Well, sir, if you believe me, _The Rose of Dixie_ blossomed five timesbefore anybody heard of it except the people who buy their hooks andeyes in Toombs City. Then Hawkins climbed off his stool and told on'em to the stock company. Even in Ann Arbor he had been used to havinghis business propositions heard of at least as far away as Detroit. Soan advertising manager was engaged--Beauregard Fitzhugh Banks, a youngman in a lavender necktie, whose grandfather had been the Exalted HighPillow-slip of the Kuklux Klan. 

In spite of which _The Rose of Dixie_ kept coming out every month. Although in every issue it ran photos of either the Taj Mahal orthe Luxembourg Gardens, or Carmencita or La Follette, a certainnumber of people bought it and subscribed for it. As a boom for it, Editor-Colonel Telfair ran three different views of Andrew Jackson'sold home, "The Hermitage, " a full-page engraving of the second battleof Manassas, entitled "Lee to the Rear!" and a five-thousand-wordbiography of Belle Boyd in the same number. The subscription list thatmonth advanced 118. Also there were poems in the same issue by LeoninaVashti Haricot (pen-name), related to the Haricots of Charleston, South Carolina, and Bill Thompson, nephew of one of the stockholders. And an article from a special society correspondent describing atea-party given by the swell Boston and English set, where a lot oftea was spilled overboard by some of the guests masquerading asIndians. 

One day a person whose breath would easily cloud a mirror, he was somuch alive, entered the office of _The Rose of Dixie_. He was a manabout the size of a real-estate agent, with a self-tied tie and amanner that he must have borrowed conjointly from W. J. Bryan, Hackenschmidt, and Hetty Green. He was shown into the editor-colonel's_pons asinorum_. Colonel Telfair rose and began a Prince Albert bow. 

"I'm Thacker, " said the intruder, taking the editor's chair--"T. T. Thacker, of New York. "

He dribbled hastily upon the colonel's desk some cards, a bulky manilaenvelope, and a letter from the owners of _The Rose of Dixie_. Thisletter introduced Mr. Thacker, and politely requested Colonel Telfairto give him a conference and whatever information about the magazinehe might desire. 

"I've been corresponding with the secretary of the magazine ownersfor some time, " said Thacker, briskly. "I'm a practical magazine manmyself, and a circulation booster as good as any, if I do say it. I'll guarantee an increase of anywhere from ten thousand to a hundredthousand a year for any publication that isn't printed in a deadlanguage. I've had my eye on _The Rose of Dixie_ ever since itstarted. I know every end of the business from editing to setting upthe classified ads. Now, I've come down here to put a good bunch ofmoney in the magazine, if I can see my way clear. It ought to be madeto pay. The secretary tells me it's losing money. I don't see why amagazine in the South, if it's properly handled, shouldn't get a goodcirculation in the North, too. "

Colonel Telfair leaned back in his chair and polished his gold-rimmedglasses. 

"Mr. Thacker, " said he, courteously but firmly, "_The Rose of Dixie_is a publication devoted to the fostering and the voicing of Southerngenius. Its watchword, which you may have seen on the cover, is 'Of, For, and By the South. '"

"But you wouldn't object to a Northern circulation, would you?" askedThacker. 

"I suppose, " said the editor-colonel, "that it is customary to openthe circulation lists to all. I do not know. I have nothing to do withthe business affairs of the magazine. I was called upon to assumeeditorial control of it, and I have devoted to its conduct such poorliterary talents as I may possess and whatever store of erudition Imay have acquired. "

"Sure, " said Thacker. "But a dollar is a dollar anywhere, North, South, or West--whether you're buying codfish, goober peas, or RockyFord cantaloupes. Now, I've been looking over your November number. Isee one here on your desk. You don't mind running over it with me?

"Well, your leading article is all right. A good write-up of thecotton-belt with plenty of photographs is a winner any time. New Yorkis always interested in the cotton crop. And this sensational accountof the Hatfield-McCoy feud, by a schoolmate of a niece of the Governorof Kentucky, isn't such a bad idea. It happened so long ago that mostpeople have forgotten it. Now, here's a poem three pages long called'The Tyrant's Foot, ' by Lorella Lascelles. I've pawed around a gooddeal over manuscripts, but I never saw her name on a rejection slip. "

"Miss Lascelles, " said the editor, "is one of our most widelyrecognized Southern poetesses. She is closely related to the AlabamaLascelles family, and made with her own hands the silken Confederatebanner that was presented to the governor of that state at hisinauguration. "

"But why, " persisted Thacker, "is the poem illustrated with a view ofthe M. & O. Railroad freight depot at Tuscaloosa?"

"The illustration, " said the colonel, with dignity, "shows a cornerof the fence surrounding the old homestead where Miss Lascelles wasborn. "

"All right, " said Thacker. "I read the poem, but I couldn't tellwhether it was about the depot of the battle of Bull Run. Now, here'sa short story called 'Rosies' Temptation, ' by Fosdyke Piggott. It'srotten. What is a Piggott, anyway?"

"Mr. Piggott, " said the editor, "is a brother of the principalstockholder of the magazine. "

"All's right with the world--Piggott passes, " said Thacker. "Well thisarticle on Arctic exploration and the one on tarpon fishing might go. But how about this write-up of the Atlanta, New Orleans, Nashville, and Savannah breweries? It seems to consist mainly of statistics abouttheir output and the quality of their beer. What's the chip over thebug?"

"If I understand your figurative language, " answered Colonel Telfair, "it is this: the article you refer to was handed to me by the ownersof the magazine with instructions to publish it. The literary qualityof it did not appeal to me. But, in a measure, I feel impelled toconform, in certain matters, to the wishes of the gentlemen who areinterested in the financial side of _The Rose_. "

"I see, " said Thacker. "Next we have two pages of selections from'Lalla Rookh, ' by Thomas Moore. Now, what Federal prison did Mooreescape from, or what's the name of the F. F. V. Family that he carriesas a handicap?"

"Moore was an Irish poet who died in 1852, " said Colonel Telfair, pityingly. "He is a classic. I have been thinking of reprinting histranslation of Anacreon serially in the magazine. "

"Look out for the copyright laws, " said Thacker, flippantly. Who'sBessie Belleclair, who contributes the essay on the newly completedwater-works plant in Milledgeville?"

"The name, sir, " said Colonel Telfair, "is the _nom de guerre_ ofMiss Elvira Simpkins. I have not the honor of knowing the lady; buther contribution was sent to us by Congressman Brower, of her nativestate. Congressman Brower's mother was related to the Polks ofTennessee. 

"Now, see here, Colonel, " said Thacker, throwing down the magazine, "this won't do. You can't successfully run a magazine for oneparticular section of the country. You've got to make a universalappeal. Look how the Northern publications have catered to the Southand encouraged the Southern writers. And you've got to go far andwide for your contributors. You've got to buy stuff according to itsquality without any regard to the pedigree of the author. Now, I'llbet a quart of ink that this Southern parlor organ you've been runninghas never played a note that originated above Mason & Hamlin's line. Am I right?"

"I have carefully and conscientiously rejected all contributions fromthat section of the country--if I understand your figurative languagearight, " replied the colonel. 

"All right. Now I'll show you something. "

Thacker reached for his thick manila envelope and dumped a mass oftypewritten manuscript on the editors desk. 

"Here's some truck, " said he, "that I paid cash for, and brought alongwith me. "

One by one he folded back the manuscripts and showed their first pagesto the colonel. 

Here are four short stories by four of the highest priced authors inthe United States--three of 'em living in New York, and one commuting. There's a special article on Vienna-bred society by Tom Vampson. Here's an Italian serial by Captain Jack--no--it's the other Crawford. Here are three separate exposés of city governments by Sniffings, andhere's a dandy entitled 'What Women Carry in Dress-Suit Cases'--aChicago newspaper woman hired herself out for five years as a lady'smaid to get that information. And here's a Synopsis of PrecedingChapters of Hall Caine's new serial to appear next June. And here's acouple of pounds of _vers de société_ that I got at a rate from theclever magazines. That's the stuff that people everywhere want. Andnow here's a write-up with photographs at the ages of four, twelve, twenty-two, and thirty of George B. McClellan. It's a prognostication. He's bound to be elected Mayor of New York. It'll make a big hit allover the country. He--"

"I beg your pardon, " said Colonel Telfair, stiffening in his chair. "What was the name?"

"Oh, I see, " said Thacker, with half a grin. Yes, he's a son of theGeneral. We'll pass that manuscript up. But, if you'll excuse me, Colonel, it's a magazine we're trying to make go off--not the firstgun at Fort Sumter. Now, here's a thing that's bound to get next toyou. It's an original poem by James Whitcomb Riley. J. W. Himself. You know what that means to a magazine. I won't tell you what I hadto pay for that poem; but I'll tell you this--Riley can make moremoney writing with a fountain-pen than you or I can with one that letsthe ink run. I'll read you the last two stanzas:

 "'Pa lays around 'n' loafs all day, 'N' reads and makes us leave him be. He lets me do just like I please, 'N' when I'm bad he laughs at me, 'N' when I holler loud 'n' say Bad words 'n' then begin to tease The cat, 'n' pa just smiles, ma's mad 'N' gives me Jesse crost her knees. I always wondered why that wuz-- I guess it's cause Pa never does. 

 "''N' after all the lights are out I'm sorry 'bout it; so I creep Out of my trundle bed to ma's 'N' say I love her a whole heap, 'N' kiss her, 'n' I hug her tight. 'N' it's too dark to see her eyes, But every time I do I know She cries 'n' cries 'n' cries 'n' cries. I always wondered why that wuz-- I guess it's 'cause Pa never does. '

"That's the stuff, " continued Thacker. "What do you think of that?"

"I am not unfamiliar with the works of Mr. Riley, " said the colonel, deliberately. "I believe he lives in Indiana. For the last ten years Ihave been somewhat of a literary recluse, and am familiar with nearlyall the books in the Cedar Heights library. I am also of the opinionthat a magazine should contain a certain amount of poetry. Many of thesweetest singers of the South have already contributed to the pages of_The Rose of Dixie_. I, myself, have thought of translating from theoriginal for publication in its pages the works of the great Italianpoet Tasso. Have you ever drunk from the fountain of this immortalpoet's lines, Mr. Thacker?"

"Not even a demi-Tasso, " said Thacker. Now, let's come to the point, Colonel Telfair. I've already invested some money in this as a flyer. That bunch of manuscripts cost me $4, 000. My object was to try anumber of them in the next issue--I believe you make up less than amonth ahead--and see what effect it has on the circulation. I believethat by printing the best stuff we can get in the North, South, East, or West we can make the magazine go. You have there the letter fromthe owning company asking you to co-operate with me in the plan. Let'schuck out some of this slush that you've been publishing just becausethe writers are related to the Skoopdoodles of Skoopdoodle County. Areyou with me?"

"As long as I continue to be the editor of The Rose, " said ColonelTelfair, with dignity, "I shall be its editor. But I desire also toconform to the wishes of its owners if I can do so conscientiously. "

"That's the talk, " said Thacker, briskly. "Now, how much of this stuffI've brought can we get into the January number? We want to beginright away. "

"There is yet space in the January number, " said the editor, "forabout eight thousand words, roughly estimated. "

"Great!" said Thacker. "It isn't much, but it'll give the readerssome change from goobers, governors, and Gettysburg. I'll leave theselection of the stuff I brought to fill the space to you, as it's allgood. I've got to run back to New York, and I'll be down again in acouple of weeks. "

Colonel Telfair slowly swung his eye-glasses by their broad, blackribbon. 

"The space in the January number that I referred to, " said he, measuredly, "has been held open purposely, pending a decision thatI have not yet made. A short time ago a contribution was submittedto _The Rose of Dixie_ that is one of the most remarkable literaryefforts that has ever come under my observation. None but a mastermind and talent could have produced it. It would just fill the spacethat I have reserved for its possible use. "

Thacker looked anxious. 

"What kind of stuff is it?" he asked. "Eight thousand words soundssuspicious. The oldest families must have been collaborating. Is theregoing to be another secession?"

"The author of the article, " continued the colonel, ignoring Thacker'sallusions, "is a writer of some reputation. He has also distinguishedhimself in other ways. I do not feel at liberty to reveal to you hisname--at least not until I have decided whether or not to accept hiscontribution. "

"Well, " said Thacker, nervously, "is it a continued story, or anaccount of the unveiling of the new town pump in Whitmire, SouthCarolina, or a revised list of General Lee's body-servants, or what?"

"You are disposed to be facetious, " said Colonel Telfair, calmly. "The article is from the pen of a thinker, a philosopher, a lover ofmankind, a student, and a rhetorician of high degree. "

"It must have been written by a syndicate, " said Thacker. "But, honestly, Colonel, you want to go slow. I don't know of anyeight-thousand-word single doses of written matter that are read byanybody these days, except Supreme Court briefs and reports of murdertrials. You haven't by any accident gotten hold of a copy of one ofDaniel Webster's speeches, have you?"

Colonel Telfair swung a little in his chair and looked steadily fromunder his bushy eyebrows at the magazine promoter. 

"Mr. Thacker, " he said, gravely, "I am willing to segregate thesomewhat crude expression of your sense of humor from the solicitudethat your business investments undoubtedly have conferred upon you. But I must ask you to cease your jibes and derogatory comments uponthe South and the Southern people. They, sir, will not be toleratedin the office of _The Rose of Dixie_ for one moment. And before youproceed with more of your covert insinuations that I, the editor ofthis magazine, am not a competent judge of the merits of the mattersubmitted to its consideration, I beg that you will first present someevidence or proof that you are my superior in any way, shape, or formrelative to the question in hand. "

"Oh, come, Colonel, " said Thacker, good-naturedly. "I didn't doanything like that to you. It sounds like an indictment by the fourthassistant attorney-general. Let's get back to business. What's this8, 000 to 1 shot about?"

"The article, " said Colonel Telfair, acknowledging the apology by aslight bow, "covers a wide area of knowledge. It takes up theoriesand questions that have puzzled the world for centuries, and disposesof them logically and concisely. One by one it holds up to view theevils of the world, points out the way of eradicating them, and thenconscientiously and in detail commends the good. There is hardly aphase of human life that it does not discuss wisely, calmly, andequitably. The great policies of governments, the duties of privatecitizens, the obligations of home life, law, ethics, morality--allthese important subjects are handled with a calm wisdom and confidencethat I must confess has captured my admiration. "

"It must be a crackerjack, " said Thacker, impressed. 

"It is a great contribution to the world's wisdom, " said the colonel. "The only doubt remaining in my mind as to the tremendous advantage itwould be to us to give it publication in _The Rose of Dixie_ is that Ihave not yet sufficient information about the author to give his workpublicity in our magazine. 

"I thought you said he is a distinguished man, " said Thacker. 

"He is, " replied the colonel, "both in literary and in other morediversified and extraneous fields. But I am extremely careful aboutthe matter that I accept for publication. My contributors are peopleof unquestionable repute and connections, which fact can be verifiedat any time. As I said, I am holding this article until I can acquiremore information about its author. I do not know whether I willpublish it or not. If I decide against it, I shall be much pleased, Mr. Thacker, to substitute the matter that you are leaving with me inits place. "

Thacker was somewhat at sea. 

"I don't seem to gather, " said he, "much about the gist of thisinspired piece of literature. It sounds more like a dark horse thanPegasus to me. "

"It is a human document, " said the colonel-editor, confidently, "froma man of great accomplishments who, in my opinion, has obtained astronger grasp on the world and its outcomes than that of any manliving to-day. "

Thacker rose to his feet excitedly. 

"Say!" he said. "It isn't possible that you've cornered John D. Rockefeller's memoirs, is it? Don't tell me that all at once. "

"No, sir, " said Colonel Telfair. "I am speaking of mentality andliterature, not of the less worthy intricacies of trade. "

"Well, what's the trouble about running the article, " asked Thacker, alittle impatiently, "if the man's well known and has got the stuff?"

Colonel Telfair sighed. 

"Mr. Thacker, " said he, "for once I have been tempted. Nothing hasyet appeared in _The Rose of Dixie_ that has not been from the pen ofone of its sons or daughters. I know little about the author of thisarticle except that he has acquired prominence in a section of thecountry that has always been inimical to my heart and mind. But Irecognize his genius; and, as I have told you, I have instituted aninvestigation of his personality. Perhaps it will be futile. But Ishall pursue the inquiry. Until that is finished, I must leave openthe question of filling the vacant space in our January number. "

Thacker arose to leave. 

"All right, Colonel, " he said, as cordially as he could. "You use yourown judgment. If you've really got a scoop or something that will make'em sit up, run it instead of my stuff. I'll drop in again in abouttwo weeks. Good luck!"

Colonel Telfair and the magazine promoter shook hands. 

Returning a fortnight later, Thacker dropped off a very rocky Pullmanat Toombs City. He found the January number of the magazine made upand the forms closed. 

The vacant space that had been yawning for type was filled by anarticle that was headed thus:

 SECOND MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

 Written for

 THE ROSE OF DIXIE

 BY

 A Member of the Well-known

 BULLOCH FAMILY, OF GEORGIA

 T. Roosevelt

THE THIRD INGREDIENT

The (so-called) Vallambrosa Apartment-House is not an apartment-house. It is composed of two old-fashioned, brownstone-front residenceswelded into one. The parlor floor of one side is gay with thewraps and head-gear of a modiste; the other is lugubrious with thesophistical promises and grisly display of a painless dentist. Youmay have a room there for two dollars a week or you may have one fortwenty dollars. Among the Vallambrosa's roomers are stenographers, musicians, brokers, shop-girls, space-rate writers, art students, wire-tappers, and other people who lean far over the banister-railwhen the door-bell rings. 

This treatise shall have to do with but two of the Vallambrosians--though meaning no disrespect to the others. 

At six o'clock one afternoon Hetty Pepper came back to her third-floorrear $3. 50 room in the Vallambrosa with her nose and chin more sharplypointed than usual. To be discharged from the department store whereyou have been working four years, and with only fifteen cents in yourpurse, does have a tendency to make your features appear more finelychiselled. 

And now for Hetty's thumb-nail biography while she climbs the twoflights of stairs. 

She walked into the Biggest Store one morning four years beforewith seventy-five other girls, applying for a job behind the waistdepartment counter. The phalanx of wage-earners formed a bewilderingscene of beauty, carrying a total mass of blond hair sufficient tohave justified the horseback gallops of a hundred Lady Godivas. 

The capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young, bald-headed man whose taskit was to engage six of the contestants, was aware of a feeling ofsuffocation as if he were drowning in a sea of frangipanni, whilewhite clouds, hand-embroidered, floated about him. And then a sailhove in sight. Hetty Pepper, homely of countenance, with small, contemptuous, green eyes and chocolate-colored hair, dressed in a suitof plain burlap and a common-sense hat, stood before him with everyone of her twenty-nine years of life unmistakably in sight. 

"You're on!" shouted the bald-headed young man, and was saved. Andthat is how Hetty came to be employed in the Biggest Store. The storyof her rise to an eight-dollar-a-week salary is the combined storiesof Hercules, Joan of Arc, Una, Job, and Little-Red-Riding-Hood. Youshall not learn from me the salary that was paid her as a beginner. There is a sentiment growing about such things, and I want nomillionaire store-proprietors climbing the fire-escape of mytenement-house to throw dynamite bombs into my skylight boudoir. 

The story of Hetty's discharge from the Biggest Store is so nearly arepetition of her engagement as to be monotonous. 

In each department of the store there is an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnivorous person carrying always a mileage book and a rednecktie, and referred to as a "buyer. " The destinies of the girls inhis department who live on (see Bureau of Victual Statistics)--so muchper week are in his hands. 

This particular buyer was a capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young, bald-headed man. As he walked along the aisles of his department heseemed to be sailing on a sea of frangipanni, while white clouds, machine-embroidered, floated around him. Too many sweets bringsurfeit. He looked upon Hetty Pepper's homely countenance, emeraldeyes, and chocolate-colored hair as a welcome oasis of green in adesert of cloying beauty. In a quiet angle of a counter he pinched herarm kindly, three inches above the elbow. She slapped him three feetaway with one good blow of her muscular and not especially lily-whiteright. So, now you know why Hetty Pepper came to leave the BiggestStore at thirty minutes' notice, with one dime and a nickel in herpurse. 

This morning's quotations list the price of rib beef at six cents per(butcher's) pound. But on the day that Hetty was "released" by the B. S. The price was seven and one-half cents. That fact is what makesthis story possible. Otherwise, the extra four cents would have--

But the plot of nearly all the good stories in the world is concernedwith shorts who were unable to cover; so you can find no fault withthis one. 

Hetty mounted with her rib beef to her $3. 50 third-floor back. Onehot, savory beef-stew for supper, a night's good sleep, and she wouldbe fit in the morning to apply again for the tasks of Hercules, Joanof Arc, Una, Job, and Little-Red-Riding-Hood. 

In her room she got the granite-ware stew-pan out of the 2x4-footchina--er--I mean earthenware closet, and began to dig down in arat's-nest of paper bags for the potatoes and onions. She came outwith her nose and chin just a little sharper pointed. 

There was neither a potato nor an onion. Now, what kind of a beef-stewcan you make out of simply beef? You can make oyster-soup withoutoysters, turtle-soup without turtles, coffee-cake without coffee, butyou can't make beef-stew without potatoes and onions. 

But rib beef alone, in an emergency, can make an ordinary pine doorlook like a wrought-iron gambling-house portal to the wolf. With saltand pepper and a tablespoonful of flour (first well stirred in alittle cold water) 'twill serve--'tis not so deep as a lobster à laNewburg nor so wide as a church festival doughnut; but 'twill serve. 

Hetty took her stew-pan to the rear of the third-floor hall. Accordingto the advertisements of the Vallambrosa there was running water to befound there. Between you and me and the water-meter, it only ambledor walked through the faucets; but technicalities have no place here. There was also a sink where housekeeping roomers often met to dumptheir coffee grounds and glare at one another's kimonos. 

At this sink Hetty found a girl with heavy, gold-brown, artistic hairand plaintive eyes, washing two large "Irish" potatoes. Hetty knew theVallambrosa as well as any one not owning "double hextra-magnifyingeyes" could compass its mysteries. The kimonos were her encyclopedia, her "Who's What?" her clearinghouse of news, of goers and comers. Froma rose-pink kimono edged with Nile green she had learned that thegirl with the potatoes was a miniature-painter living in a kind ofattic--or "studio, " as they prefer to call it--on the top floor. Hettywas not certain in her mind what a miniature was; but it certainlywasn't a house; because house-painters, although they wear splashyoveralls and poke ladders in your face on the street, are known toindulge in a riotous profusion of food at home. 

The potato girl was quite slim and small, and handled her potatoes asan old bachelor uncle handles a baby who is cutting teeth. She had adull shoemaker's knife in her right hand, and she had begun to peelone of the potatoes with it. 

Hetty addressed her in the punctiliously formal tone of one whointends to be cheerfully familiar with you in the second round. 

"Beg pardon, " she said, "for butting into what's not my business, butif you peel them potatoes you lose out. They're new Bermudas. You wantto scrape 'em. Lemme show you. "

She took a potato and the knife, and began to demonstrate. 

"Oh, thank you, " breathed the artist. "I didn't know. And I _did_ hateto see the thick peeling go; it seemed such a waste. But I thoughtthey always had to be peeled. When you've got only potatoes to eat, the peelings count, you know. "

"Say, kid, " said Hetty, staying her knife, "you ain't up against it, too, are you?"

The miniature artist smiled starvedly. 

"I suppose I am. Art--or, at least, the way I interpret it--doesn'tseem to be much in demand. I have only these potatoes for my dinner. But they aren't so bad boiled and hot, with a little butter and salt. "

"Child, " said Hetty, letting a brief smile soften her rigid features, "Fate has sent me and you together. I've had it handed to me in theneck, too; but I've got a chunk of meat in my, room as big as alap-dog. And I've done everything to get potatoes except pray for 'em. Let's me and you bunch our commissary departments and make a stew of'em. We'll cook it in my room. If we only had an onion to go in it!Say, kid, you haven't got a couple of pennies that've slipped downinto the lining of your last winter's sealskin, have you? I could stepdown to the corner and get one at old Giuseppe's stand. A stew withoutan onion is worse'n a matinée without candy. "

"You may call me Cecilia, " said the artist. "No; I spent my last pennythree days ago. "

"Then we'll have to cut the onion out instead of slicing it in, " saidHetty. "I'd ask the janitress for one, but I don't want 'em hep justyet to the fact that I'm pounding the asphalt for another job. But Iwish we did have an onion. "

In the shop-girl's room the two began to prepare their supper. Cecilia's part was to sit on the couch helplessly and beg to beallowed to do something, in the voice of a cooing ring-dove. Hettyprepared the rib beef, putting it in cold salted water in the stew-panand setting it on the one-burner gas-stove. 

"I wish we had an onion, " said Hetty, as she scraped the two potatoes. 

On the wall opposite the couch was pinned a flaming, gorgeousadvertising picture of one of the new ferry-boats of the P. U. F. F. Railroad that had been built to cut down the time between Los Angelesand New York City one-eighth of a minute. 

Hetty, turning her head during her continuous monologue, sawtears running from her guest's eyes as she gazed on the idealizedpresentment of the speeding, foam-girdled transport. 

"Why, say, Cecilia, kid, " said Hetty, poising her knife, "is it as badart as that? I ain't a critic; but I thought it kind of brightenedup the room. Of course, a manicure-painter could tell it was a bumpicture in a minute. I'll take it down if you say so. I wish to theholy Saint Potluck we had an onion. "

But the miniature miniature-painter had tumbled down, sobbing, withher nose indenting the hard-woven drapery of the couch. Somethingwas here deeper than the artistic temperament offended at crudelithography. 

Hetty knew. She had accepted her rôle long ago. How scant the wordswith which we try to describe a single quality of a human being! Whenwe reach the abstract we are lost. The nearer to Nature that thebabbling of our lips comes, the better do we understand. Figuratively(let us say), some people are Bosoms, some are Hands, some are Heads, some are Muscles, some are Feet, some are Backs for burdens. 

Hetty was a Shoulder. Hers was a sharp, sinewy shoulder; but all herlife people had laid their heads upon it, metaphorically or actually, and had left there all or half their troubles. Looking at Lifeanatomically, which is as good a way as any, she was preordained tobe a Shoulder. There were few truer collar-bones anywhere than hers. 

Hetty was only thirty-three, and she had not yet outlived the littlepang that visited her whenever the head of youth and beauty leanedupon her for consolation. But one glance in her mirror always servedas an instantaneous pain-killer. So she gave one pale look into thecrinkly old looking-glass on the wall above the gas-stove, turned downthe flame a little lower from the bubbling beef and potatoes, wentover to the couch, and lifted Cecilia's head to its confessional. 

"Go on and tell me, honey, " she said. "I know now that it ain't artthat's worrying you. You met him on a ferry-boat, didn't you? Go on, Cecilia, kid, and tell your--your Aunt Hetty about it. "

But youth and melancholy must first spend the surplus of sighs andtears that waft and float the barque of romance to its harbor in thedelectable isles. Presently, through the stringy tendons that formedthe bars of the confessional, the penitent--or was it the glorifiedcommunicant of the sacred flame--told her story without art orillumination. 

"It was only three days ago. I was coming back on the ferry fromJersey City. Old Mr. Schrum, an art dealer, told me of a rich man inNewark who wanted a miniature of his daughter painted. I went to seehim and showed him some of my work. When I told him the price wouldbe fifty dollars he laughed at me like a hyena. He said an enlargedcrayon twenty times the size would cost him only eight dollars. 

"I had just enough money to buy my ferry ticket back to New York. Ifelt as if I didn't want to live another day. I must have looked as Ifelt, for I saw _him_ on the row of seats opposite me, looking at meas if he understood. He was nice-looking, but oh, above everythingelse, he looked kind. When one is tired or unhappy or hopeless, kindness counts more than anything else. 

"When I got so miserable that I couldn't fight against it any longer, I got up and walked slowly out the rear door of the ferry-boat cabin. No one was there, and I slipped quickly over the rail and dropped intothe water. Oh, friend Hetty, it was cold, cold!

"For just one moment I wished I was back in the old Vallambrosa, starving and hoping. And then I got numb, and didn't care. And then Ifelt that somebody else was in the water close by me, holding me up. _He_ had followed me, and jumped in to save me. 

"Somebody threw a thing like a big, white doughnut at us, and he mademe put my arms through the hole. Then the ferry-boat backed, and theypulled us on board. Oh, Hetty, I was so ashamed of my wickedness intrying to drown myself; and, besides, my hair had all tumbled down andwas sopping wet, and I was such a sight. 

"And then some men in blue clothes came around; and he gave them hiscard, and I heard him tell them he had seen me drop my purse on theedge of the boat outside the rail, and in leaning over to get it I hadfallen overboard. And then I remembered having read in the papers thatpeople who try to kill themselves are locked up in cells with peoplewho try to kill other people, and I was afraid. 

"But some ladies on the boat took me downstairs to the furnace-roomand got me nearly dry and did up my hair. When the boat landed, _he_came and put me in a cab. He was all dripping himself, but laughed asif he thought it was all a joke. He begged me, but I wouldn't tell himmy name nor where I lived, I was so ashamed. "

"You were a fool, child, " said Hetty, kindly. "Wait till I turn thelight up a bit. I wish to Heaven we had an onion. "

"Then he raised his hat, " went on Cecilia, "and said: 'Very well. ButI'll find you, anyhow. I'm going to claim my rights of salvage. ' Thenhe gave money to the cab-driver and told him to take me where I wantedto go, and walked away. What is 'salvage, ' Hetty?"

"The edge of a piece of goods that ain't hemmed, " said the shop-girl. "You must have looked pretty well frazzled out to the little heroboy. "

"It's been three days, " moaned the miniature-painter, "and he hasn'tfound me yet. "

"Extend the time, " said Hetty. "This is a big town. Think of how manygirls he might have to see soaked in water with their hair down beforehe would recognize you. The stew's getting on fine--but oh, for anonion! I'd even use a piece of garlic if I had it. "

The beef and potatoes bubbled merrily, exhaling a mouth-watering savorthat yet lacked something, leaving a hunger on the palate, a haunting, wistful desire for some lost and needful ingredient. 

"I came near drowning in that awful river, " said Cecilia, shuddering. 

"It ought to have more water in it, " said Hetty; "the stew, I mean. I'll go get some at the sink. "

"It smells good, " said the artist. 

"That nasty old North River?" objected Hetty. "It smells to me likesoap factories and wet setter-dogs--oh, you mean the stew. Well, Iwish we had an onion for it. Did he look like he had money?"

"First, he looked kind, " said Cecilia. "I'm sure he was rich; but thatmatters so little. When he drew out his bill-folder to pay the cab-manyou couldn't help seeing hundreds and thousands of dollars in it. AndI looked over the cab doors and saw him leave the ferry station in amotor-car; and the chauffeur gave him his bearskin to put on, for hewas sopping wet. And it was only three days ago. "

"What a fool!" said Hetty, shortly. 

"Oh, the chauffeur wasn't wet, " breathed Cecilia. "And he drove thecar away very nicely. "

"I mean _you_, " said Hetty. "For not giving him your address. "

"I never give my address to chauffeurs, " said Cecilia, haughtily. 

"I wish we had one, " said Hetty, disconsolately. 

"What for?"

"For the stew, of course--oh, I mean an onion. "

Hetty took a pitcher and started to the sink at the end of the hall. 

A young man came down the stairs from above just as she was oppositethe lower step. He was decently dressed, but pale and haggard. Hiseyes were dull with the stress of some burden of physical or mentalwoe. In his hand he bore an onion--a pink, smooth, solid, shiningonion as large around as a ninety-eight-cent alarm-clock. 

Hetty stopped. So did the young man. There was somethingJoan of Arc-ish, Herculean, and Una-ish in the look and poseof the shop-lady--she had cast off the rôles of Job andLittle-Red-Riding-Hood. The young man stopped at the foot of thestairs and coughed distractedly. He felt marooned, held up, attacked, assailed, levied upon, sacked, assessed, panhandled, browbeaten, though he knew not why. It was the look in Hetty's eyes that did it. In them he saw the Jolly Roger fly to the masthead and an able seamanwith a dirk between his teeth scurry up the ratlines and nail itthere. But as yet he did not know that the cargo he carried was thething that had caused him to be so nearly blown out of the waterwithout even a parley. 

"_Beg_ your pardon, " said Hetty, as sweetly as her dilute acetic acidtones permitted, "but did you find that onion on the stairs? There wasa hole in the paper bag; and I've just come out to look for it. "

The young man coughed for half a minute. The interval may have givenhim the courage to defend his own property. Also, he clutched hispungent prize greedily, and, with a show of spirit, faced his grimwaylayer. 

"No, " he said huskily, "I didn't find it on the stairs. It was givento me by Jack Bevens, on the top floor. If you don't believe it, askhim. I'll wait until you do. "

"I know about Bevens, " said Hetty, sourly. "He writes books and thingsup there for the paper-and-rags man. We can hear the postman guy himall over the house when he brings them thick envelopes back. Say--doyou live in the Vallambrosa?"

"I do not, " said the young man. "I come to see Bevens sometimes. He'smy friend. I live two blocks west. "

"What are you going to do with the onion?--_begging_ your pardon, "said Hetty. 

"I'm going to eat it. "

"Raw?"

"Yes: as soon as I get home. "

"Haven't you got anything else to eat with it?"

The young man considered briefly. 

"No, " he confessed; "there's not another scrap of anything in mydiggings to eat. I think old Jack is pretty hard up for grub in hisshack, too. He hated to give up the onion, but I worried him intoparting with it. "

"Man, " said Hetty, fixing him with her world-sapient eyes, and layinga bony but impressive finger on his sleeve, "you've known trouble, too, haven't you?"

"Lots, " said the onion owner, promptly. "But this onion is my ownproperty, honestly come by. If you will excuse me, I must be going. "

"Listen, " said Hetty, paling a little with anxiety. "Raw onion is amighty poor diet. And so is a beef-stew without one. Now, if you're JackBevens' friend, I guess you're nearly right. There's a little lady--afriend of mine--in my room there at the end of the hall. Both of usare out of luck; and we had just potatoes and meat between us. They'restewing now. But it ain't got any soul. There's something lacking to it. There's certain things in life that are naturally intended to fit andbelong together. One is pink cheese-cloth and green roses, and one isham and eggs, and one is Irish and trouble. And the other one is beefand potatoes _with_ onions. And still another one is people who are upagainst it and other people in the same fix. "

The young man went into a protracted paroxysm of coughing. With onehand he hugged his onion to his bosom. 

"No doubt; no doubt, " said he, at length. "But, as I said, I must begoing, because--"

Hetty clutched his sleeve firmly. 

"Don't be a Dago, Little Brother. Don't eat raw onions. Chip it intoward the dinner and line yourself inside with the best stew you everlicked a spoon over. Must two ladies knock a young gentleman down anddrag him inside for the honor of dining with 'em? No harm shall befallyou, Little Brother. Loosen up and fall into line. "

The young man's pale face relaxed into a grin. 

"Believe I'll go you, " he said, brightening. "If my onion is good asa credential, I'll accept the invitation gladly. "

"It's good as that, but better as seasoning, " said Hetty. "You comeand stand outside the door till I ask my lady friend if she has anyobjections. And don't run away with that letter of recommendationbefore I come out. "

Hetty went into her room and closed the door. The young man waitedoutside. 

"Cecilia, kid, " said the shop-girl, oiling the sharp saw of her voiceas well as she could, "there's an onion outside. With a young manattached. I've asked him in to dinner. You ain't going to kick, areyou?"

"Oh, dear!" said Cecilia, sitting up and patting her artistic hair. Shecast a mournful glance at the ferry-boat poster on the wall. 

"Nit, " said Hetty. "It ain't him. You're up against real life now. Ibelieve you said your hero friend had money and automobiles. This isa poor skeezicks that's got nothing to eat but an onion. But he'seasy-spoken and not a freshy. I imagine he's been a gentleman, he'sso low down now. And we need the onion. Shall I bring him in? I'llguarantee his behavior. "

"Hetty, dear, " sighed Cecilia, "I'm so hungry. What difference does itmake whether he's a prince or a burglar? I don't care. Bring him in ifhe's got anything to eat with him. "

Hetty went back into the hall. The onion man was gone. Her heart misseda beat, and a gray look settled over her face except on her nose andcheek-bones. And then the tides of life flowed in again, for she sawhim leaning out of the front window at the other end of the hall. Shehurried there. He was shouting to some one below. The noise of thestreet overpowered the sound of her footsteps. She looked down over hisshoulder, saw whom he was speaking to, and heard his words. He pulledhimself in from the window-sill and saw her standing over him. 

Hetty's eyes bored into him like two steel gimlets. 

"Don't lie to me, " she said, calmly. "What were you going to do withthat onion?"

The young man suppressed a cough and faced her resolutely. His mannerwas that of one who had been bearded sufficiently. 

"I was going to eat it, " said he, with emphatic slowness; "just as Itold you before. "

"And you have nothing else to eat at home?"

"Not a thing. "

"What kind of work do you do?"

"I am not working at anything just now. "

"Then why, " said Hetty, with her voice set on its sharpest edge, "do youlean out of windows and give orders to chauffeurs in green automobilesin the street below?"

The young man flushed, and his dull eyes began to sparkle. 

"Because, madam, " said he, in _accelerando_ tones, "I pay thechauffeur's wages and I own the automobile--and also this onion--thisonion, madam. "

He flourished the onion within an inch of Hetty's nose. The shop-ladydid not retreat a hair's-breadth. 

"Then why do you eat onions, " she said, with biting contempt, "andnothing else?"

"I never said I did, " retorted the young man, heatedly. "I said I hadnothing else to eat where I live. I am not a delicatessen store-keeper. "

"Then why, " pursued Hetty, inflexibly, "were you going to eat a rawonion?"

"My mother, " said the young man, "always made me eat one for a cold. Pardon my referring to a physical infirmity; but you may have noticedthat I have a very, very severe cold. I was going to eat the onion andgo to bed. I wonder why I am standing here and apologizing to you forit. "

"How did you catch this cold?" went on Hetty, suspiciously. 

The young man seemed to have arrived at some extreme height of feeling. There were two modes of descent open to him--a burst of rage or asurrender to the ridiculous. He chose wisely; and the empty hall echoedhis hoarse laughter. 

"You're a dandy, " said he. "And I don't blame you for being careful. Idon't mind telling you. I got wet. I was on a North River ferry a fewdays ago when a girl jumped overboard. Of course, I--"

Hetty extended her hand, interrupting his story. 

"Give me the onion, " she said. 

The young man set his jaw a trifle harder. 

"Give me the onion, " she repeated. 

He grinned, and laid it in her hand. 

Then Hetty's infrequent, grim, melancholy smile showed itself. She tookthe young man's arm and pointed with her other hand to the door of herroom. 

"Little Brother, " she said, "go in there. The little fool you fished outof the river is there waiting for you. Go on in. I'll give you threeminutes before I come. Potatoes is in there, waiting. Go on in, Onions. "

After he had tapped at the door and entered, Hetty began to peel andwash the onion at the sink. She gave a gray look at the gray roofsoutside, and the smile on her face vanished by little jerks andtwitches. 

"But it's us, " she said, grimly, to herself, "it's _us_ that furnishedthe beef. "

THE HIDING OF BLACK BILL

A lank, strong, red-faced man with a Wellington beak and small, fieryeyes tempered by flaxen lashes, sat on the station platform at LosPinos swinging his legs to and fro. At his side sat another man, fat, melancholy, and seedy, who seemed to be his friend. They had theappearance of men to whom life had appeared as a reversible coat--seamyon both sides. 

"Ain't seen you in about four years, Ham, " said the seedy man. "Whichway you been travelling?"

"Texas, " said the red-faced man. "It was too cold in Alaska for me. And I found it warm in Texas. I'll tell you about one hot spell I wentthrough there. 

"One morning I steps off the International at a water-tank and lets itgo on without me. 'Twas a ranch country, and fuller of spite-houses thanNew York City. Only out there they build 'em twenty miles away so youcan't smell what they've got for dinner, instead of running 'em up twoinches from their neighbors' windows. 

"There wasn't any roads in sight, so I footed it 'cross country. Thegrass was shoe-top deep, and the mesquite timber looked just like apeach orchard. It was so much like a gentleman's private estate thatevery minute you expected a kennelful of bulldogs to run out and biteyou. But I must have walked twenty miles before I came in sight of aranch-house. It was a little one, about as big as an elevated-railroadstation. 

"There was a little man in a white shirt and brown overalls and a pinkhandkerchief around his neck rolling cigarettes under a tree in frontof the door. 

"'Greetings, ' says I. 'Any refreshment, welcome, emoluments, or evenwork for a comparative stranger?'

"'Oh, come in, ' says he, in a refined tone. 'Sit down on that stool, please. I didn't hear your horse coming. '

"'He isn't near enough yet, ' says I. 'I walked. I don't want to bea burden, but I wonder if you have three or four gallons of waterhandy. '

"'You do look pretty dusty, ' says he; 'but our bathing arrangements--'

"'It's a drink I want, ' says I. 'Never mind the dust that's on theoutside. '

"He gets me a dipper of water out of a red jar hanging up, and thengoes on:

"'Do you want work?'

"'For a time, ' says I. 'This is a rather quiet section of the country, isn't it?'

"'It is, ' says he. 'Sometimes--so I have been told--one sees no humanbeing pass for weeks at a time. I've been here only a month. I boughtthe ranch from an old settler who wanted to move farther west. '

"'It suits me, ' says I. 'Quiet and retirement are good for a mansometimes. And I need a job. I can tend bar, salt mines, lecture, floatstock, do a little middle-weight slugging, and play the piano. '

"'Can you herd sheep?' asks the little ranchman. 

"'Do you mean _have_ I heard sheep?' says I. 

"'Can you herd 'em--take charge of a flock of 'em?' says he. 

"'Oh, ' says I, 'now I understand. You mean chase 'em around and bark at'em like collie dogs. Well, I might, ' says I. 'I've never exactly doneany sheep-herding, but I've often seen 'em from car windows masticatingdaisies, and they don't look dangerous. '

"'I'm short a herder, ' says the ranchman. 'You never can depend onthe Mexicans. I've only got two flocks. You may take out my bunch ofmuttons--there are only eight hundred of 'em--in the morning, if youlike. The pay is twelve dollars a month and your rations furnished. Youcamp in a tent on the prairie with your sheep. You do your own cooking, but wood and water are brought to your camp. It's an easy job. '

"'I'm on, ' says I. 'I'll take the job even if I have to garland my browand hold on to a crook and wear a loose-effect and play on a pipe likethe shepherds do in pictures. '

"So the next morning the little ranchman helps me drive the flock ofmuttons from the corral to about two miles out and let 'em graze on alittle hillside on the prairie. He gives me a lot of instructions aboutnot letting bunches of them stray off from the herd, and driving 'emdown to a water-hole to drink at noon. 

"'I'll bring out your tent and camping outfit and rations in thebuckboard before night, ' says he. 

"'Fine, ' says I. 'And don't forget the rations. Nor the camping outfit. And be sure to bring the tent. Your name's Zollicoffer, ain't it?"

"'My name, ' says he, 'is Henry Ogden. '

"'All right, Mr. Ogden, ' says I. 'Mine is Mr. Percival Saint Clair. '

"I herded sheep for five days on the Rancho Chiquito; and then the woolentered my soul. That getting next to Nature certainly got next to me. I was lonesomer than Crusoe's goat. I've seen a lot of persons moreentertaining as companions than those sheep were. I'd drive 'em to thecorral and pen 'em every evening, and then cook my corn-bread and muttonand coffee, and lie down in a tent the size of a table-cloth, and listento the coyotes and whip-poor-wills singing around the camp. 

"The fifth evening, after I had corralled my costly but uncongenialmuttons, I walked over to the ranch-house and stepped in the door. 

"'Mr. Ogden, ' says I, 'you and me have got to get sociable. Sheep areall very well to dot the landscape and furnish eight-dollar cottonsuitings for man, but for table-talk and fireside companions they rankalong with five-o'clock teazers. If you've got a deck of cards, or aparcheesi outfit, or a game of authors, get 'em out, and let's get on amental basis. I've got to do something in an intellectual line, if it'sonly to knock somebody's brains out. '

"This Henry Ogden was a peculiar kind of ranchman. He wore finger-ringsand a big gold watch and careful neckties. And his face was calm, andhis nose-spectacles was kept very shiny. I saw once, in Muscogee, anoutlaw hung for murdering six men, who was a dead ringer for him. But Iknew a preacher in Arkansas that you would have taken to be his brother. I didn't care much for him either way; what I wanted was some fellowshipand communion with holy saints or lost sinners--anything sheepless woulddo. 

"'Well, Saint Clair, ' says he, laying down the book he was reading, 'Iguess it must be pretty lonesome for you at first. And I don't deny thatit's monotonous for me. Are you sure you corralled your sheep so theywon't stray out?'

"'They're shut up as tight as the jury of a millionaire murderer, ' saysI. 'And I'll be back with them long before they'll need their trainednurse. '

"So Ogden digs up a deck of cards, and we play casino. After fivedays and nights of my sheep-camp it was like a toot on Broadway. WhenI caught big casino I felt as excited as if I had made a million inTrinity. And when H. O. Loosened up a little and told the story aboutthe lady in the Pullman car I laughed for five minutes. 

"That showed what a comparative thing life is. A man may see so muchthat he'd be bored to turn his head to look at a $3, 000, 000 fire orJoe Weber or the Adriatic Sea. But let him herd sheep for a spell, andyou'll see him splitting his ribs laughing at 'Curfew Shall Not RingTo-night, ' or really enjoying himself playing cards with ladies. 

"By-and-by Ogden gets out a decanter of Bourbon, and then there is atotal eclipse of sheep. 

"'Do you remember reading in the papers, about a month ago, ' says he, 'about a train hold-up on the M. K. & T. ? The express agent was shotthrough the shoulder and about $15, 000 in currency taken. And it's saidthat only one man did the job. '

"'Seems to me I do, ' says I. 'But such things happen so often they don'tlinger long in the human Texas mind. Did they overtake, overhaul, seize, or lay hands upon the despoiler?'

"'He escaped, ' says Ogden. 'And I was just reading in a paper to-daythat the officers have tracked him down into this part of the country. It seems the bills the robber got were all the first issue of currencyto the Second National Bank of Espinosa City. And so they've followedthe trail where they've been spent, and it leads this way. '

"Ogden pours out some more Bourbon, and shoves me the bottle. 

"'I imagine, ' says I, after ingurgitating another modicum of the royalbooze, 'that it wouldn't be at all a disingenuous idea for a trainrobber to run down into this part of the country to hide for a spell. Asheep-ranch, now, ' says I, 'would be the finest kind of a place. Who'dever expect to find such a desperate character among these song-birdsand muttons and wild flowers? And, by the way, ' says I, kind oflooking H. Ogden over, 'was there any description mentioned of thissingle-handed terror? Was his lineaments or height and thickness orteeth fillings or style of habiliments set forth in print?'

"'Why, no, ' says Ogden; 'they say nobody got a good sight of him becausehe wore a mask. But they know it was a train-robber called Black Bill, because he always works alone and because he dropped a handkerchief inthe express-car that had his name on it. '

"'All right, ' says I. 'I approve of Black Bill's retreat to thesheep-ranges. I guess they won't find him. '

"'There's one thousand dollars reward for his capture, ' says Ogden. 

"'I don't need that kind of money, ' says I, looking Mr. Sheepmanstraight in the eye. 'The twelve dollars a month you pay me is enough. I need a rest, and I can save up until I get enough to pay my fare toTexarkana, where my widowed mother lives. If Black Bill, ' I goes on, looking significantly at Ogden, 'was to have come down this way--say, a month ago--and bought a little sheep-ranch and--'

"'Stop, ' says Ogden, getting out of his chair and looking prettyvicious. 'Do you mean to insinuate--'

"'Nothing, ' says I; 'no insinuations. I'm stating a hypodermical case. I say, if Black Bill had come down here and bought a sheep-ranch andhired me to Little-Boy-Blue 'em and treated me square and friendly, asyou've done, he'd never have anything to fear from me. A man is a man, regardless of any complications he may have with sheep or railroadtrains. Now you know where I stand. '

"Ogden looks black as camp-coffee for nine seconds, and then he laughs, amused. 

"'You'll do, Saint Clair, ' says he. 'If I _was_ Black Bill I wouldn'tbe afraid to trust you. Let's have a game or two of seven-up to-night. That is, if you don't mind playing with a train-robber. '

"'I've told you, ' says I, 'my oral sentiments, and there's no stringsto 'em. '

"While I was shuffling after the first hand, I asks Ogden, as if theidea was a kind of a casualty, where he was from. 

"'Oh, ' says he, 'from the Mississippi Valley. '

"'That's a nice little place, ' says I. 'I've often stopped over there. But didn't you find the sheets a little damp and the food poor? Now, Ihail, ' says I, 'from the Pacific Slope. Ever put up there?'

"'Too draughty, ' says Ogden. 'But if you're ever in the Middle West justmention my name, and you'll get foot-warmers and dripped coffee. '

"'Well, ' says I, 'I wasn't exactly fishing for your private telephonenumber and the middle name of your aunt that carried off the CumberlandPresbyterian minister. It don't matter. I just want you to know you aresafe in the hands of your shepherd. Now, don't play hearts on spades, and don't get nervous. '

"'Still harping, ' says Ogden, laughing again. 'Don't you suppose thatif I was Black Bill and thought you suspected me, I'd put a Winchesterbullet into you and stop my nervousness, if I had any?'

"'Not any, ' says I. 'A man who's got the nerve to hold up a trainsingle-handed wouldn't do a trick like that. I've knocked about enoughto know that them are the kind of men who put a value on a friend. Notthat I can claim being a friend of yours, Mr. Ogden, ' says I, 'beingonly your sheep-herder; but under more expeditious circumstances wemight have been. '

"'Forget the sheep temporarily, I beg, ' says Ogden, 'and cut for deal. '

"About four days afterward, while my muttons was nooning on thewater-hole and I deep in the interstices of making a pot of coffee, uprides softly on the grass a mysterious person in the garb of the beinghe wished to represent. He was dressed somewhere between a Kansas Citydetective, Buffalo Bill, and the town dog-catcher of Baton Rouge. Hischin and eye wasn't molded on fighting lines, so I knew he was only ascout. 

"'Herdin' sheep?' he asks me. 

"'Well, ' says I, 'to a man of your evident gumptional endowments, Iwouldn't have the nerve to state that I am engaged in decorating oldbronzes or oiling bicycle sprockets. '

"'You don't talk or look like a sheep-herder to me, ' says he. 

"'But you talk like what you look like to me, ' says I. 

"And then he asks me who I was working for, and I shows him RanchoChiquito, two miles away, in the shadow of a low hill, and he tellsme he's a deputy sheriff. 

"'There's a train-robber called Black Bill supposed to be somewhere inthese parts, ' says the scout. 'He's been traced as far as San Antonio, and maybe farther. Have you seen or heard of any strangers around hereduring the past month?'

"'I have not, ' says I, 'except a report of one over at the Mexicanquarters of Loomis' ranch, on the Frio. '

"'What do you know about him?' asks the deputy. 

"'He's three days old, ' says I. 

"'What kind of a looking man is the man you work for?' he asks. 'Doesold George Ramey own this place yet? He's run sheep here for the lastten years, but never had no success. '

"'The old man has sold out and gone West, ' I tells him. 'Anothersheep-fancier bought him out about a month ago. '

"'What kind of a looking man is he?' asks the deputy again. 

"'Oh, ' says I, 'a big, fat kind of a Dutchman with long whiskers andblue specs. I don't think he knows a sheep from a ground-squirrel. Iguess old George soaked him pretty well on the deal, ' says I. 

"After indulging himself in a lot more non-communicative informationand two-thirds of my dinner, the deputy rides away. 

"That night I mentions the matter to Ogden. 

"'They're drawing the tendrils of the octopus around Black Bill, ' saysI. And then I told him about the deputy sheriff, and how I'd describedhim to the deputy, and what the deputy said about the matter. 

"'Oh, well, ' says Ogden, 'let's don't borrow any of Black Bill'stroubles. We've a few of our own. Get the Bourbon out of the cupboardand we'll drink to his health--unless, ' says he, with his littlecackling laugh, 'you're prejudiced against train-robbers. '

"'I'll drink, ' says I, 'to any man who's a friend to a friend. And Ibelieve that Black Bill, ' I goes on, 'would be that. So here's to BlackBill, and may he have good luck. '

"And both of us drank. 

"About two weeks later comes shearing-time. The sheep had to be drivenup to the ranch, and a lot of frowzy-headed Mexicans would snip thefur off of them with back-action scissors. So the afternoon before thebarbers were to come I hustled my underdone muttons over the hill, across the dell, down by the winding brook, and up to the ranch-house, where I penned 'em in a corral and bade 'em my nightly adieus. 

"I went from there to the ranch-house. I find H. Ogden, Esquire, lying asleep on his little cot bed. I guess he had been overcome byanti-insomnia or diswakefulness or some of the diseases peculiar to thesheep business. His mouth and vest were open, and he breathed like asecond-hand bicycle pump. I looked at him and gave vent to just a fewmusings. 'Imperial Cæsar, ' says I, 'asleep in such a way, might shuthis mouth and keep the wind away. '

"A man asleep is certainly a sight to make angels weep. What good is allhis brain, muscle, backing, nerve, influence, and family connections?He's at the mercy of his enemies, and more so of his friends. And he'sabout as beautiful as a cab-horse leaning against the Metropolitan OperaHouse at 12. 30 A. M. Dreaming of the plains of Arabia. Now, a womanasleep you regard as different. No matter how she looks, you know it'sbetter for all hands for her to be that way. 

"Well, I took a drink of Bourbon and one for Ogden, and started in tobe comfortable while he was taking his nap. He had some books on histable on indigenous subjects, such as Japan and drainage and physicalculture--and some tobacco, which seemed more to the point. 

"After I'd smoked a few, and listened to the sartorial breathing of H. O. , I happened to look out the window toward the shearing-pens, wherethere was a kind of a road coming up from a kind of a road across akind of a creek farther away. 

"I saw five men riding up to the house. All of 'em carried guns acrosstheir saddles, and among 'em was the deputy that had talked to me at mycamp. 

"They rode up careful, in open formation, with their guns ready. I setapart with my eye the one I opinionated to be the boss muck-raker ofthis law-and-order cavalry. 

"'Good-evening, gents, ' says I. 'Won't you 'light, and tie your horses?'

"The boss rides up close, and swings his gun over till the opening init seems to cover my whole front elevation. 

"'Don't you move your hands none, ' says he, 'till you and me indulge ina adequate amount of necessary conversation. '

"'I will not, ' says I. 'I am no deaf-mute, and therefore will not haveto disobey your injunctions in replying. '

"'We are on the lookout, ' says he, 'for Black Bill, the man that held upthe Katy for $15, 000 in May. We are searching the ranches and everybodyon 'em. What is your name, and what do you do on this ranch?'

"'Captain, ' says I, 'Percival Saint Clair is my occupation, and my nameis sheep-herder. I've got my flock of veals--no, muttons--penned hereto-night. The shearers are coming to-morrow to give them a haircut--withbaa-a-rum, I suppose. '

"'Where's the boss of this ranch?' the captain of the gang asks me. 

"'Wait just a minute, cap'n, ' says I. 'Wasn't there a kind of a rewardoffered for the capture of this desperate character you have referredto in your preamble?'

"'There's a thousand dollars reward offered, ' says the captain, 'butit's for his capture and conviction. There don't seem to be no provisionmade for an informer. '

"'It looks like it might rain in a day or so, ' says I, in a tired way, looking up at the cerulean blue sky. 

"'If you know anything about the locality, disposition, or secretivenessof this here Black Bill, ' says he, in a severe dialect, 'you are amiableto the law in not reporting it. '

"'I heard a fence-rider say, ' says I, in a desultory kind of voice, 'that a Mexican told a cowboy named Jake over at Pidgin's store on theNueces that he heard that Black Bill had been seen in Matamoras by asheepman's cousin two weeks ago. '

"'Tell you what I'll do, Tight Mouth, ' says the captain, after lookingme over for bargains. 'If you put us on so we can scoop Black Bill, I'llpay you a hundred dollars out of my own--out of our own--pockets. That'sliberal, ' says he. 'You ain't entitled to anything. Now, what do yousay?'

"'Cash down now?' I asks. 

"The captain has a sort of discussion with his helpmates, and they allproduce the contents of their pockets for analysis. Out of the generalresults they figured up $102. 30 in cash and $31 worth of plug tobacco. 

"'Come nearer, capitan meeo, ' says I, 'and listen. ' He so did. 

"'I am mighty poor and low down in the world, ' says I. 'I am working fortwelve dollars a month trying to keep a lot of animals together whoseonly thought seems to be to get asunder. Although, ' says I, 'I regardmyself as some better than the State of South Dakota, it's a come-downto a man who has heretofore regarded sheep only in the form of chops. I'm pretty far reduced in the world on account of foiled ambitions andrum and a kind of cocktail they make along the P. R. R. All the way fromScranton to Cincinnati--dry gin, French vermouth, one squeeze of a lime, and a good dash of orange bitters. If you're ever up that way, don'tfail to let one try you. And, again, ' says I, 'I have never yet wentback on a friend. I've stayed by 'em when they had plenty, and whenadversity's overtaken me I've never forsook 'em. 

"'But, ' I goes on, 'this is not exactly the case of a friend. Twelvedollars a month is only bowing-acquaintance money. And I do not considerbrown beans and corn-bread the food of friendship. I am a poor man, 'says I, 'and I have a widowed mother in Texarkana. You will find BlackBill, ' says I, 'lying asleep in this house on a cot in the room to yourright. He's the man you want, as I know from his words and conversation. He was in a way a friend, ' I explains, 'and if I was the man I once wasthe entire product of the mines of Gondola would not have tempted me tobetray him. But, ' says I, 'every week half of the beans was wormy, andnot nigh enough wood in camp. 

"'Better go in careful, gentlemen, ' says I. 'He seems impatient attimes, and when you think of his late professional pursuits one wouldlook for abrupt actions if he was come upon sudden. '

"So the whole posse unmounts and ties their horses, and unlimbers theirammunition and equipments, and tiptoes into the house. And I follows, like Delilah when she set the Philip Steins on to Samson. 

"The leader of the posse shakes Ogden and wakes him up. And then hejumps up, and two more of the reward-hunters grab him. Ogden was mightytough with all his slimness, and he gives 'em as neat a single-footedtussle against odds as I ever see. 

"'What does this mean?' he says, after they had him down. 

"'You're scooped in, Mr. Black Bill, ' says the captain. 'That's all. '

"'It's an outrage, ' says H. Ogden, madder yet. 

"'It was, ' says the peace-and-good-will man. 'The Katy wasn't botheringyou, and there's a law against monkeying with express packages. '

"And he sits on H. Ogden's stomach and goes through his pocketssymptomatically and careful. 

"'I'll make you perspire for this, ' says Ogden, perspiring some himself. 'I can prove who I am. '

"'So can I, ' says the captain, as he draws from H. Ogden's insidecoat-pocket a handful of new bills of the Second National Bankof Espinosa City. 'Your regular engraved Tuesdays-and-Fridaysvisiting-card wouldn't have a louder voice in proclaiming your indemnitythan this here currency. You can get up now and prepare to go with usand expatriate your sins. '

"H. Ogden gets up and fixes his necktie. He says no more after theyhave taken the money off of him. 

"'A well-greased idea, ' says the sheriff captain, admiring, 'to slip offdown here and buy a little sheep-ranch where the hand of man is seldomheard. It was the slickest hide-out I ever see, ' says the captain. 

"So one of the men goes to the shearing-pen and hunts up the otherherder, a Mexican they call John Sallies, and he saddles Ogden's horse, and the sheriffs all ride up close around him with their guns in hand, ready to take their prisoner to town. 

"Before starting, Ogden puts the ranch in John Sallies' hands and giveshim orders about the shearing and where to graze the sheep, just as ifhe intended to be back in a few days. And a couple of hours afterwardone Percival Saint Clair, an ex-sheep-herder of the Rancho Chiquito, might have been seen, with a hundred and nine dollars--wages andblood-money--in his pocket, riding south on another horse belonging tosaid ranch. "

The red-faced man paused and listened. The whistle of a comingfreight-train sounded far away among the low hills. 

The fat, seedy man at his side sniffed, and shook his frowzy head slowlyand disparagingly. 

"What is it, Snipy?" asked the other. "Got the blues again?"

"No, I ain't" said the seedy one, sniffing again. "But I don't like yourtalk. You and me have been friends, off and on, for fifteen year; and Inever yet knew or heard of you giving anybody up to the law--not no one. And here was a man whose saleratus you had et and at whose table you hadplayed games of cards--if casino can be so called. And yet you informhim to the law and take money for it. It never was like you, I say. "

"This H. Ogden, " resumed the red-faced man, "through a lawyer, provedhimself free by alibis and other legal terminalities, as I so heardafterward. He never suffered no harm. He did me favors, and I hated tohand him over. "

"How about the bills they found in his pocket?" asked the seedy man. 

"I put 'em there, " said the red-faced man, "while he was asleep, when Isaw the posse riding up. I was Black Bill. Look out, Snipy, here shecomes! We'll board her on the bumpers when she takes water at the tank. "

SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLS

I

Old Jerome Warren lived in a hundred-thousand-dollar house at 35 EastFifty-Soforth Street. He was a downtown broker, so rich that he couldafford to walk--for his health--a few blocks in the direction of hisoffice every morning, and then call a cab. 

He had an adopted son, the son of an old friend named Gilbert--CyrilScott could play him nicely--who was becoming a successful painter asfast as he could squeeze the paint out of his tubes. Another member ofthe household was Barbara Ross, a step-niece. Man is born to trouble;so, as old Jerome had no family of his own, he took up the burdens ofothers. 

Gilbert and Barbara got along swimmingly. There was a tacit and tacticalunderstanding all round that the two would stand up under a floral bellsome high noon, and promise the minister to keep old Jerome's moneyin a state of high commotion. But at this point complications must beintroduced. 

Thirty years before, when old Jerome was young Jerome, there was abrother of his named Dick. Dick went West to seek his or somebody else'sfortune. Nothing was heard of him until one day old Jerome had a letterfrom his brother. It was badly written on ruled paper that smelledof salt bacon and coffee-grounds. The writing was asthmatic and thespelling St. Vitusy. 

It appeared that instead of Dick having forced Fortune to stand anddeliver, he had been held up himself, and made to give hostages to theenemy. That is, as his letter disclosed, he was on the point of peggingout with a complication of disorders that even whiskey had failed tocheck. All that his thirty years of prospecting had netted him was onedaughter, nineteen years old, as per invoice, whom he was shipping East, charges prepaid, for Jerome to clothe, feed, educate, comfort, andcherish for the rest of her natural life or until matrimony should thempart. 

Old Jerome was a board-walk. Everybody knows that the world is supportedby the shoulders of Atlas; and that Atlas stands on a rail-fence; andthat the rail-fence is built on a turtle's back. Now, the turtle hasto stand on something; and that is a board-walk made of men like oldJerome. 

I do not know whether immortality shall accrue to man; but if not so, I would like to know when men like old Jerome get what is due them?

They met Nevada Warren at the station. She was a little girl, deeplysunburned and wholesomely good-looking, with a manner that was franklyunsophisticated, yet one that not even a cigar-drummer would intrudeupon without thinking twice. Looking at her, somehow you would expectto see her in a short skirt and leather leggings, shooting glass ballsor taming mustangs. But in her plain white waist and black skirt shesent you guessing again. With an easy exhibition of strength she swungalong a heavy valise, which the uniformed porters tried in vain to wrestfrom her. 

"I am sure we shall be the best of friends, " said Barbara, pecking atthe firm, sunburned cheek. 

"I hope so, " said Nevada. 

"Dear little niece, " said old Jerome, "you are as welcome to my home asif it were your father's own. "

"Thanks, " said Nevada. 

"And I am going to call you 'cousin, '" said Gilbert, with his charmingsmile. 

"Take the valise, please, " said Nevada. "It weighs a million pounds. It's got samples from six of dad's old mines in it, " she explained toBarbara. "I calculate they'd assay about nine cents to the thousandtons, but I promised him to bring them along. "

II

It is a common custom to refer to the usual complication between oneman and two ladies, or one lady and two men, or a lady and a man anda nobleman, or--well, any of those problems--as the triangle. Butthey are never unqualified triangles. They are always isosceles--neverequilateral. So, upon the coming of Nevada Warren, she and Gilbert andBarbara Ross lined up into such a figurative triangle; and of thattriangle Barbara formed the hypotenuse. 

One morning old Jerome was lingering long after breakfast over thedullest morning paper in the city before setting forth to his down-townfly-trap. He had become quite fond of Nevada, finding in her much ofhis dead brother's quiet independence and unsuspicious frankness. 

A maid brought in a note for Miss Nevada Warren. 

"A messenger-boy delivered it at the door, please, " she said. "He'swaiting for an answer. "

Nevada, who was whistling a Spanish waltz between her teeth, andwatching the carriages and autos roll by in the street, took theenvelope. She knew it was from Gilbert, before she opened it, by thelittle gold palette in the upper left-hand corner. 

After tearing it open she pored over the contents for a while, absorbedly. Then, with a serious face, she went and stood at her uncle'selbow. 

"Uncle Jerome, Gilbert is a nice boy, isn't he?"

"Why, bless the child!" said old Jerome, crackling his paper loudly; "ofcourse he is. I raised him myself. "

"He wouldn't write anything to anybody that wasn't exactly--I mean thateverybody couldn't know and read, would he?"

"I'd just like to see him try it, " said uncle, tearing a handful fromhis newspaper. "Why, what--"

"Read this note he just sent me, uncle, and see if you think it's allright and proper. You see, I don't know much about city people and theirways. "

Old Jerome threw his paper down and set both his feet upon it. He tookGilbert's note and fiercely perused it twice, and then a third time. 

"Why, child, " said he, "you had me almost excited, although I was sureof that boy. He's a duplicate of his father, and he was a gilt-edgeddiamond. He only asks if you and Barbara will be ready at four o'clockthis afternoon for an automobile drive over to Long Island. I don't seeanything to criticise in it except the stationery. I always did hatethat shade of blue. "

"Would it be all right to go?" asked Nevada, eagerly. 

"Yes, yes, yes, child; of course. Why not? Still, it pleases me to seeyou so careful and candid. Go, by all means. "

"I didn't know, " said Nevada, demurely. "I thought I'd ask you. Couldn'tyou go with us, uncle?"

"I? No, no, no, no! I've ridden once in a car that boy was driving. Never again! But it's entirely proper for you and Barbara to go. Yes, yes. But I will not. No, no, no, no!"

Nevada flew to the door, and said to the maid:

"You bet we'll go. I'll answer for Miss Barbara. Tell the boy to sayto Mr. Warren, 'You bet we'll go. '"

"Nevada, " called old Jerome, "pardon me, my dear, but wouldn't it beas well to send him a note in reply? Just a line would do. "

"No, I won't bother about that, " said Nevada, gayly. "Gilbert willunderstand--he always does. I never rode in an automobile in my life;but I've paddled a canoe down Little Devil River through the Lost HorseCañon, and if it's any livelier than that I'd like to know!"

III

Two months are supposed to have elapsed. 

Barbara sat in the study of the hundred-thousand-dollar house. It was agood place for her. Many places are provided in the world where men andwomen may repair for the purpose of extricating themselves from diversdifficulties. There are cloisters, wailing-places, watering-places, confessionals, hermitages, lawyer's offices, beauty parlors, air-ships, and studies; and the greatest of these are studies. 

It usually takes a hypotenuse a long time to discover that it is thelongest side of a triangle. But it's a long line that has no turning. 

Barbara was alone. Uncle Jerome and Nevada had gone to the theatre. Barbara had not cared to go. She wanted to stay at home and study inthe study. If you, miss, were a stunning New York girl, and saw everyday that a brown, ingenuous Western witch was getting hobbles and alasso on the young man you wanted for yourself, you, too, would losetaste for the oxidized-silver setting of a musical comedy. 

Barbara sat by the quartered-oak library table. Her right arm restedupon the table, and her dextral fingers nervously manipulated a sealedletter. The letter was addressed to Nevada Warren; and in the upperleft-hand corner of the envelope was Gilbert's little gold palette. It had been delivered at nine o'clock, after Nevada had left. 

Barbara would have given her pearl necklace to know what the lettercontained; but she could not open and read it by the aid of steam, ora pen-handle, or a hair-pin, or any of the generally approved methods, because her position in society forbade such an act. She had tried toread some of the lines of the letter by holding the envelope up to astrong light and pressing it hard against the paper, but Gilbert hadtoo good a taste in stationery to make that possible. 

At eleven-thirty the theatre-goers returned. It was a delicious winternight. Even so far as from the cab to the door they were powderedthickly with the big flakes downpouring diagonally from the east. OldJerome growled good-naturedly about villainous cab service and blockadedstreets. Nevada, colored like a rose, with sapphire eyes, babbled ofthe stormy nights in the mountains around dad's cabin. During allthese wintry apostrophes, Barbara, cold at heart, sawed wood--the onlyappropriate thing she could think of to do. 

Old Jerome went immediately up-stairs to hot-water-bottles and quinine. Nevada fluttered into the study, the only cheerfully lighted room, subsided into an arm-chair, and, while at the interminable task ofunbuttoning her elbow gloves, gave oral testimony as to the demeritsof the "show. "

"Yes, I think Mr. Fields is really amusing--sometimes, " said Barbara. "Here is a letter for you, dear, that came by special delivery justafter you had gone. "

"Who is it from?" asked Nevada, tugging at a button. 

"Well, really, " said Barbara, with a smile, "I can only guess. Theenvelope has that queer little thing in one corner that Gilbertcalls a palette, but which looks to me rather like a gilt heart on aschool-girl's valentine. "

"I wonder what he's writing to me about" remarked Nevada, listlessly. 

"We're all alike, " said Barbara; "all women. We try to find out what isin a letter by studying the postmark. As a last resort we use scissors, and read it from the bottom upward. Here it is. "

She made a motion as if to toss the letter across the table to Nevada. 

"Great catamounts!" exclaimed Nevada. "These centre-fire buttons are anuisance. I'd rather wear buckskins. Oh, Barbara, please shuck the hideoff that letter and read it. It'll be midnight before I get these glovesoff!"

"Why, dear, you don't want me to open Gilbert's letter to you? It's foryou, and you wouldn't wish any one else to read it, of course!"

Nevada raised her steady, calm, sapphire eyes from her gloves. 

"Nobody writes me anything that everybody mightn't read, " she said. "Go on, Barbara. Maybe Gilbert wants us to go out in his car againto-morrow. "

Curiosity can do more things than kill a cat; and if emotions, wellrecognized as feminine, are inimical to feline life, then jealousy wouldsoon leave the whole world catless. Barbara opened the letter, with anindulgent, slightly bored air. 

"Well, dear, " said she, "I'll read it if you want me to. "

She slit the envelope, and read the missive with swift-travelling eyes;read it again, and cast a quick, shrewd glance at Nevada, who, forthe time, seemed to consider gloves as the world of her interest, andletters from rising artists as no more than messages from Mars. 

For a quarter of a minute Barbara looked at Nevada with a strangesteadfastness; and then a smile so small that it widened her mouth onlythe sixteenth part of an inch, and narrowed her eyes no more than atwentieth, flashed like an inspired thought across her face. 

Since the beginning no woman has been a mystery to another woman. Swiftas light travels, each penetrates the heart and mind of another, siftsher sister's words of their cunningest disguises, reads her most hiddendesires, and plucks the sophistry from her wiliest talk like hairs froma comb, twiddling them sardonically between her thumb and fingers beforeletting them float away on the breezes of fundamental doubt. Long agoEve's son rang the door-bell of the family residence in Paradise Park, bearing a strange lady on his arm, whom he introduced. Eve took herdaughter-in-law aside and lifted a classic eyebrow. 

"The Land of Nod, " said the bride, languidly flirting the leaf of apalm. "I suppose you've been there, of course?"

"Not lately, " said Eve, absolutely unstaggered. "Don't you think theapple-sauce they serve over there is execrable? I rather like thatmulberry-leaf tunic effect, dear; but, of course, the real fig goodsare not to be had over there. Come over behind this lilac-bush whilethe gentlemen split a celery tonic. I think the caterpillar-holes havemade your dress open a little in the back. "

So, then and there--according to the records--was the alliance formedby the only two who's-who ladies in the world. Then it was agreed thatwoman should forever remain as clear as a pane of glass--though glasswas yet to be discovered--to other women, and that she should palmherself off on man as a mystery. 

Barbara seemed to hesitate. 

"Really, Nevada, " she said, with a little show of embarrassment, "youshouldn't have insisted on my opening this. I--I'm sure it wasn't meantfor any one else to know. "

Nevada forgot her gloves for a moment. 

"Then read it aloud, " she said. "Since you've already read it, what'sthe difference? If Mr. Warren has written to me something that any oneelse oughtn't to know, that is all the more reason why everybody shouldknow it. "

"Well, " said Barbara, "this is what it says: 'Dearest Nevada--Come tomy studio at twelve o'clock to-night. Do not fail. '" Barbara rose anddropped the note in Nevada's lap. "I'm awfully sorry, " she said, "thatI knew. It isn't like Gilbert. There must be some mistake. Just considerthat I am ignorant of it, will you, dear? I must go up-stairs now, Ihave such a headache. I'm sure I don't understand the note. PerhapsGilbert has been dining too well, and will explain. Good night!"

IV

Nevada tiptoed to the hall, and heard Barbara's door close upstairs. The bronze clock in the study told the hour of twelve was fifteenminutes away. She ran swiftly to the front door, and let herself outinto the snow-storm. Gilbert Warren's studio was six squares away. 

By aerial ferry the white, silent forces of the storm attacked the cityfrom beyond the sullen East River. Already the snow lay a foot deepon the pavements, the drifts heaping themselves like scaling-laddersagainst the walls of the besieged town. The Avenue was as quiet as astreet in Pompeii. Cabs now and then skimmed past like white-wingedgulls over a moonlit ocean; and less frequent motor-cars--sustaining thecomparison--hissed through the foaming waves like submarine boats ontheir jocund, perilous journeys. 

Nevada plunged like a wind-driven storm-petrel on her way. She lookedup at the ragged sierras of cloud-capped buildings that rose above thestreets, shaded by the night lights and the congealed vapors to gray, drab, ashen, lavender, dun, and cerulean tints. They were so like thewintry mountains of her Western home that she felt a satisfaction suchas the hundred-thousand-dollar house had seldom brought her. 

A policeman caused her to waver on a corner, just by his eye and weight. 

"Hello, Mabel!" said he. "Kind of late for you to be out, ain't it?"

"I--I am just going to the drug store, " said Nevada, hurrying past him. 

The excuse serves as a passport for the most sophisticated. Does itprove that woman never progresses, or that she sprang from Adam's rib, full-fledged in intellect and wiles?

Turning eastward, the direct blast cut down Nevada's speed one-half. Shemade zigzag tracks in the snow; but she was as tough as a piñon sapling, and bowed to it as gracefully. Suddenly the studio-building loomedbefore her, a familiar landmark, like a cliff above some well-rememberedcañon. The haunt of business and its hostile neighbor, art, was darkenedand silent. The elevator stopped at ten. 

Up eight flights of Stygian stairs Nevada climbed, and rapped firmlyat the door numbered "89. " She had been there many times before, withBarbara and Uncle Jerome. 

Gilbert opened the door. He had a crayon pencil in one hand, a greenshade over his eyes, and a pipe in his mouth. The pipe dropped to thefloor. 

"Am I late?" asked Nevada. "I came as quick as I could. Uncle and mewere at the theatre this evening. Here I am, Gilbert!"

Gilbert did a Pygmalion-and-Galatea act. He changed from a statue ofstupefaction to a young man with a problem to tackle. He admittedNevada, got a whisk-broom, and began to brush the snow from her clothes. A great lamp, with a green shade, hung over an easel, where the artisthad been sketching in crayon. 

"You wanted me, " said Nevada simply, "and I came. You said so in yourletter. What did you send for me for?"

"You read my letter?" inquired Gilbert, sparring for wind. 

"Barbara read it to me. I saw it afterward. It said: 'Come to my studioat twelve to-night, and do not fail. ' I thought you were sick, ofcourse, but you don't seem to be. "

"Aha!" said Gilbert irrelevantly. "I'll tell you why I asked you tocome, Nevada. I want you to marry me immediately--to-night. What's alittle snow-storm? Will you do it?"

"You might have noticed that I would, long ago, " said Nevada. "And I'mrather stuck on the snow-storm idea, myself. I surely would hate one ofthese flowery church noon-weddings. Gilbert, I didn't know you had gritenough to propose it this way. Let's shock 'em--it's our funeral, ain'tit?"

"You bet!" said Gilbert. "Where did I hear that expression?" he addedto himself. "Wait a minute, Nevada; I want to do a little 'phoning. "

He shut himself in a little dressing-room, and called upon thelightnings of the heavens--condensed into unromantic numbers anddistricts. 

"That you, Jack? You confounded sleepyhead! Yes, wake up; this is me--orI--oh, bother the difference in grammar! I'm going to be married rightaway. Yes! Wake up your sister--don't answer me back; bring her along, too--you _must_! Remind Agnes of the time I saved her from drowning inLake Ronkonkoma--I know it's caddish to refer to it, but she must comewith you. Yes. Nevada is here, waiting. We've been engaged quite awhile. Some opposition among the relatives, you know, and we have topull it off this way. We're waiting here for you. Don't let Agnesout-talk you--bring her! You will? Good old boy! I'll order a carriageto call for you, double-quick time. Confound you, Jack, you're allright!"

Gilbert returned to the room where Nevada waited. 

"My old friend, Jack Peyton, and his sister were to have been here ata quarter to twelve, " he explained; "but Jack is so confoundedly slow. I've just 'phoned them to hurry. They'll be here in a few minutes. I'mthe happiest man in the world, Nevada! What did you do with the letterI sent you to-day?"

"I've got it cinched here, " said Nevada, pulling it out from beneathher opera-cloak. 

Gilbert drew the letter from the envelope and looked it over carefully. Then he looked at Nevada thoughtfully. 

"Didn't you think it rather queer that I should ask you to come to mystudio at midnight?" he asked. 

"Why, no, " said Nevada, rounding her eyes. "Not if you needed me. Out West, when a pal sends you a hurry call--ain't that what you sayhere?--we get there first and talk about it after the row is over. Andit's usually snowing there, too, when things happen. So I didn't mind. "

Gilbert rushed into another room, and came back burdened with overcoatswarranted to turn wind, rain, or snow. 

"Put this raincoat on, " he said, holding it for her. "We have a quarterof a mile to go. Old Jack and his sister will be here in a few minutes. "He began to struggle into a heavy coat. "Oh, Nevada, " he said, "justlook at the headlines on the front page of that evening paper on thetable, will you? It's about your section of the West, and I know it willinterest you. "

He waited a full minute, pretending to find trouble in the getting on ofhis overcoat, and then turned. Nevada had not moved. She was looking athim with strange and pensive directness. Her cheeks had a flush on thembeyond the color that had been contributed by the wind and snow; but hereyes were steady. 

"I was going to tell you, " she said, "anyhow, before you--beforewe--before--well, before anything. Dad never gave me a day of schooling. I never learned to read or write a darned word. Now if--"

Pounding their uncertain way up-stairs, the feet of Jack, the somnolent, and Agnes, the grateful, were heard. 

V

When Mr. And Mrs. Gilbert Warren were spinning softly homeward in aclosed carriage, after the ceremony, Gilbert said:

"Nevada, would you really like to know what I wrote you in the letterthat you received to-night?"

"Fire away!" said his bride. 

"Word for word, " said Gilbert, "it was this: 'My dear Miss Warren--Youwere right about the flower. It was a hydrangea, and not a lilac. '"

"All right, " said Nevada. "But let's forget it. The joke's on Barbara, anyway!"

THIMBLE, THIMBLE

These are the directions for finding the office of Carteret & Carteret, Mill Supplies and Leather Belting:

You follow the Broadway trail down until you pass the Crosstown Line, the Bread Line, and the Dead Line, and come to the Big Cañons of theMoneygrubber Tribe. Then you turn to the left, to the right, dodge apush-cart and the tongue of a two-ton four-horse dray and hop, skip, and jump to a granite ledge on the side of a twenty-one-story syntheticmountain of stone and iron. In the twelfth story is the office ofCarteret & Carteret. The factory where they make the mill supplies andleather belting is in Brooklyn. Those commodities--to say nothing ofBrooklyn--not being of interest to you, let us hold the incidents withinthe confines of a one-act, one-scene play, thereby lessening the toilof the reader and the expenditure of the publisher. So, if you have thecourage to face four pages of type and Carteret & Carteret's office boy, Percival, you shall sit on a varnished chair in the inner office andpeep at the little comedy of the Old Nigger Man, the Hunting-Case Watch, and the Open-Faced Question--mostly borrowed from the late Mr. FrankStockton, as you will conclude. 

First, biography (but pared to the quick) must intervene. I am for theinverted sugar-coated quinine pill--the bitter on the outside. 

The Carterets were, or was (Columbia College professors please rule), anold Virginia family. Long time ago the gentlemen of the family had wornlace ruffles and carried tinless foils and owned plantations and hadslaves to burn. But the war had greatly reduced their holdings. (Ofcourse you can perceive at once that this flavor has been shopliftedfrom Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith, in spite of the "et" after "Carter. ") Well, anyhow:

In digging up the Carteret history I shall not take you farther backthan the year 1620. The two original American Carterets came over inthat year, but by different means of transportation. One brother, namedJohn, came in the _Mayflower_ and became a Pilgrim Father. You've seen hispicture on the covers of the Thanksgiving magazines, hunting turkeys inthe deep snow with a blunderbuss. Blandford Carteret, the other brother, crossed the pond in his own brigantine, landed on the Virginia coast, and became an F. F. V. John became distinguished for piety and shrewdnessin business; Blandford for his pride, juleps; marksmanship, and vastslave-cultivated plantations. 

Then came the Civil War. (I must condense this historicalinterpolation. ) Stonewall Jackson was shot; Lee surrendered; Granttoured the world; cotton went to nine cents; Old Crow whiskey and JimCrow cars were invented; the Seventy-ninth Massachusetts Volunteersreturned to the Ninety-seventh Alabama Zouaves the battle flag ofLundy's Lane which they bought at a second-hand store in Chelsea, keptby a man named Skzchnzski; Georgia sent the President a sixty-poundwatermelon--and that brings us up to the time when the story begins. My! but that was sparring for an opening! I really must brush op on myAristotle. 

The Yankee Carterets went into business in New York long before the war. Their house, as far as Leather Belting and Mill Supplies was concerned, was as musty and arrogant and solid as one of those old East Indiatea-importing concerns that you read about in Dickens. There were somerumors of a war behind its counters, but not enough to affect thebusiness. 

During and after the war, Blandford Carteret, F. F. V. , lost hisplantations, juleps, marksmanship, and life. He bequeathed littlemore than his pride to his surviving family. So it came to pass thatBlandford Carteret, the Fifth, aged fifteen, was invited by theleather-and-mill-supplies branch of that name to come North and learnbusiness instead of hunting foxes and boasting of the glory of hisfathers on the reduced acres of his impoverished family. The boy jumpedat the chance; and, at the age of twenty-five, sat in the office of thefirm equal partner with John, the Fifth, of the blunderbuss-and-turkeybranch. Here the story begins again. 

The young men were about the same age, smooth of face, alert, easy ofmanner, and with an air that promised mental and physical quickness. They were razored, blue-serged, straw-hatted, and pearl stick-pinnedlike other young New Yorkers who might be millionaires or bill clerks. 

One afternoon at four o'clock, in the private office of the firm, Blandford Carteret opened a letter that a clerk had just brought to hisdesk. After reading it, he chuckled audibly for nearly a minute. Johnlooked around from his desk inquiringly. 

"It's from mother, " said Blandford. "I'll read you the funny part ofit. She tells me all the neighborhood news first, of course, and thencautions me against getting my feet wet and musical comedies. After thatcome vital statistics about calves and pigs and an estimate of the wheatcrop. And now I'll quote some:

"'And what do you think! Old Uncle Jake, who was seventy-six lastWednesday, must go travelling. Nothing would do but he must go to NewYork and see his "young Marster Blandford. " Old as he is, he has a dealof common sense, so I've let him go. I couldn't refuse him--he seemed tohave concentrated all his hopes and desires into this one adventure intothe wide world. You know he was born on the plantation, and has neverbeen ten miles away from it in his life. And he was your father's bodyservant during the war, and has been always a faithful vassal andservant of the family. He has often seen the gold watch--the watch thatwas your father's and your father's father's. I told him it was to beyours, And he begged me to allow him to take it to you and to put itinto your hands himself. 

"'So he has it, carefully enclosed in a buck-skin case, and is bringingit to you with all the pride and importance of a king's messenger. Igave him money for the round trip and for a two weeks' stay in the city. I wish you would see to it that he gets comfortable quarters--Jakewon't need much looking after--he's able to take care of himself. ButI have read in the papers that African bishops and colored potentatesgenerally have much trouble in obtaining food and lodging in the Yankeemetropolis. That may be all right; but I don't see why the best hotelthere shouldn't take Jake in. Still, I suppose it's a rule. 

"'I gave him full directions about finding you, and packed his valisemyself. You won't have to bother with him; but I do hope you'll see thathe is made comfortable. Take the watch that he brings you--it's almost adecoration. It has been worn by true Carterets, and there isn't a stainupon it nor a false movement of the wheels. Bringing it to you is thecrowning joy of old Jake's life. I wanted him to have that little outingand that happiness before it is too late. You have often heard us talkabout how Jake, pretty badly wounded himself, crawled through thereddened grass at Chancellorsville to where your father lay with thebullet in his dear heart, and took the watch from his pocket to keep itfrom the "Yanks. "

"'So, my son, when the old man comes consider him as a frail but worthymessenger from the old-time life and home. 

"'You have been so long away from home and so long among the peoplethat we have always regarded as aliens that I'm not sure that Jake willknow you when he sees you. But Jake has a keen perception, and I ratherbelieve that he will know a Virginia Carteret at sight. I can't conceivethat even ten years in Yankee-land could change a boy of mine. Anyhow, I'm sure you will know Jake. I put eighteen collars in his valise. Ifhe should have to buy others, he wears a number 15½. Please see that hegets the right ones. He will be no trouble to you at all. 

"'If you are not too busy, I'd like for you to find him a place to boardwhere they have white-meal corn-bread, and try to keep him from takinghis shoes off in your office or on the street. His right foot swells alittle, and he likes to be comfortable. 

"'If you can spare the time, count his handkerchiefs when they come backfrom the wash. I bought him a dozen new ones before he left. He shouldbe there about the time this letter reaches you. I told him to gostraight to your office when he arrives. '"

As soon as Blandford had finished the reading of this, somethinghappened (as there should happen in stories and must happen on thestage). 

Percival, the office boy, with his air of despising the world's outputof mill supplies and leather belting, came in to announce that a coloredgentleman was outside to see Mr. Blandford Carteret. 

"Bring him in, " said Blandford, rising. 

John Carteret swung around in his chair and said to Percival: "Ask himto wait a few minutes outside. We'll let you know when to bring him in. "

Then he turned to his cousin with one of those broad, slow smiles thatwas an inheritance of all the Carterets, and said:

"Bland, I've always had a consuming curiosity to understand thedifferences that you haughty Southerners believe to exist between 'youall' and the people of the North. Of course, I know that you consideryourselves made out of finer clay and look upon Adam as only acollateral branch of your ancestry; but I don't know why. I never couldunderstand the differences between us. "

"Well, John, " said Blandford, laughing, "what you don't understand aboutit is just the difference, of course. I suppose it was the feudal wayin which we lived that gave us our lordly baronial airs and feeling ofsuperiority. "

"But you are not feudal, now, " went on John. "Since we licked youand stole your cotton and mules you've had to go to work just as we'damyankees, ' as you call us, have always been doing. And you're just asproud and exclusive and upper-classy as you were before the war. So itwasn't your money that caused it. "

"Maybe it was the climate, " said Blandford, lightly, "or maybe ournegroes spoiled us. I'll call old Jake in, now. I'll be glad to see theold villain again. "

"Wait just a moment, " said John. "I've got a little theory I want totest. You and I are pretty much alike in our general appearance. OldJake hasn't seen you since you were fifteen. Let's have him in and playfair and see which of us gets the watch. The old darky surely ought tobe able to pick out his 'young marster' without any trouble. The allegedaristocratic superiority of a 'reb' ought to be visible to him at once. He couldn't make the mistake of handing over the timepiece to a Yankee, of course. The loser buys the dinner this evening and two dozen 15½collars for Jake. Is it a go?"

Blandford agreed heartily. Percival was summoned, and told to usher the"colored gentleman" in. 

Uncle Jake stepped inside the private office cautiously. He was a littleold man, as black as soot, wrinkled and bald except for a fringe ofwhite wool, cut decorously short, that ran over his ears and around hishead. There was nothing of the stage "uncle" about him: his black suitnearly fitted him; his shoes shone, and his straw hat was banded with agaudy ribbon. In his right hand he carried something carefully concealedby his closed fingers. 

Uncle Jake stopped a few steps from the door. Two young men sat in theirrevolving desk-chairs ten feet apart and looked at him in friendlysilence. His gaze slowly shifted many times from one to the other. Hefelt sure that he was in the presence of one, at least, of the reveredfamily among whose fortunes his life had begun and was to end. 

One had the pleasing but haughty Carteret air; the other had theunmistakable straight, long family nose. Both had the keen black eyes, horizontal brows, and thin, smiling lips that had distinguished boththe Carteret of the _Mayflower_ and him of the brigantine. Old Jake hadthought that he could have picked out his young master instantly from athousand Northerners; but he found himself in difficulties. The best hecould do was to use strategy. 

"Howdy, Marse Blandford--howdy, suh?" he said, looking midway betweenthe two young men. 

"Howdy, Uncle Jake?" they both answered pleasantly and in unison. "Sitdown. Have you brought the watch?"

Uncle Jake chose a hard-bottom chair at a respectful distance, sat onthe edge of it, and laid his hat carefully on the floor. The watch inits buckskin case he gripped tightly. He had not risked his life on thebattle-field to rescue that watch from his "old marster's" foes to handit over again to the enemy without a struggle. 

"Yes, suh; I got it in my hand, suh. I'm gwine give it to you rightaway in jus' a minute. Old Missus told me to put it in young MarseBlandford's hand and tell him to wear it for the family pride andhonor. It was a mighty longsome trip for an old nigger man to make--tenthousand miles, it must be, back to old Vi'ginia, suh. You've growedmightily, young marster. I wouldn't have reconnized you but for yo'powerful resemblance to old marster. "

With admirable diplomacy the old man kept his eyes roaming in the spacebetween the two men. His words might have been addressed to either. Though neither wicked nor perverse, he was seeking for a sign. 

Blandford and John exchanged winks. 

"I reckon you done got you ma's letter, " went on Uncle Jake. "She saidshe was gwine to write to you 'bout my comin' along up this er-way. 

"Yes, yes, Uncle Jake, " said John briskly. "My cousin and I have justbeen notified to expect you. We are both Carterets, you know. "

"Although one of us, " said Blandford, "was born and raised in theNorth. "

"So if you will hand over the watch--" said John. 

"My cousin and I--" said Blandford. 

"Will then see to it--" said John. 

"That comfortable quarters are found for you, " said Blandford. 

With creditable ingenuity, old Jake set up a cackling, high-pitched, protracted laugh. He beat his knee, picked up his hat and bent the brimin an apparent paroxysm of humorous appreciation. The seizure affordedhim a mask behind which he could roll his eyes impartially between, above, and beyond his two tormentors. 

"I sees what!" he chuckled, after a while. "You gen'lemen is tryin' tohave fun with the po' old nigger. But you can't fool old Jake. I knowedyou, Marse Blandford, the minute I sot eyes on you. You was a po' skimpylittle boy no mo' than about fo'teen when you lef' home to come No'th;but I knowed you the minute I sot eyes on you. You is the mawtal imageof old marster. The other gen'leman resembles you mightily, suh; but youcan't fool old Jake on a member of the old Vi'ginia family. No suh. "

At exactly the same time both Carterets smiled and extended a hand forthe watch. 

Uncle Jake's wrinkled, black face lost the expression of amusement towhich he had vainly twisted it. He knew that he was being teased, andthat it made little real difference, as far as its safety went, intowhich of those outstretched hands he placed the family treasure. But itseemed to him that not only his own pride and loyalty but much of theVirginia Carterets' was at stake. He had heard down South during the warabout that other branch of the family that lived in the North and foughton "the yuther side, " and it had always grieved him. He had followedhis "old marster's" fortunes from stately luxury through war to almostpoverty. And now, with the last relic and reminder of him, blessed by"old missus, " and intrusted implicitly to his care, he had come tenthousand miles (as it seemed) to deliver it into the hands of the onewho was to wear it and wind it and cherish it and listen to it tick offthe unsullied hours that marked the lives of the Carterets--of Virginia. 

His experience and conception of the Yankees had been an impression oftyrants--"low-down, common trash"--in blue, laying waste with fire andsword. He had seen the smoke of many burning homesteads almost as grandas Carteret Hall ascending to the drowsy Southern skies. And now he wasface to face with one of them--and he could not distinguish him from his"young marster" whom he had come to find and bestow upon him the emblemof his kingship--even as the arm "clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful" laid Excalibur in the right hand of Arthur. He saw before himtwo young men, easy, kind, courteous, welcoming, either of whom mighthave been the one he sought. Troubled, bewildered, sorely grieved athis weakness of judgment, old Jake abandoned his loyal subterfuges. His right hand sweated against the buckskin cover of the watch. Hewas deeply humiliated and chastened. Seriously, now, his prominent, yellow-white eyes closely scanned the two young men. At the end of hisscrutiny he was conscious of but one difference between them. One wore anarrow black tie with a white pearl stickpin. The other's "four-in-hand"was a narrow blue one pinned with a black pearl. 

And then, to old Jake's relief, there came a sudden distraction. Dramaknocked at the door with imperious knuckles, and forced Comedy to thewings, and Drama peeped with a smiling but set face over the footlights. 

Percival, the hater of mill supplies, brought in a card, which hehanded, with the manner of one bearing a cartel, to Blue-Tie. 

"Olivia De Ormond, " read Blue-Tie from the card. He looked inquiringlyat his cousin. 

"Why not have her in, " said Black-Tie, "and bring matters to aconclusion?"

"Uncle Jake, " said one of the young men, "would you mind taking thatchair over there in the corner for a while? A lady is coming in--on somebusiness. We'll take up your case afterward. "

The lady whom Percival ushered in was young and petulantly, decidedly, freshly, consciously, and intentionally pretty. She was dressed withsuch expensive plainness that she made you consider lace and ruffles asmere tatters and rags. But one great ostrich plume that she wore wouldhave marked her anywhere in the army of beauty as the wearer of themerry helmet of Navarre. 

Miss De Ormond accepted the swivel chair at Blue-Tie's desk. Then thegentlemen drew leather-upholstered seats conveniently near, and spokeof the weather. 

"Yes, " said she, "I noticed it was warmer. But I mustn't take up toomuch of your time during business hours. That is, " she continued, "unless we talk business. "

She addressed her words to Blue-Tie, with a charming smile. 

"Very well, " said he. "You don't mind my cousin being present, do you?We are generally rather confidential with each other--especially inbusiness matters. "

"Oh no, " caroled Miss De Ormond. "I'd rather he did hear. He knows allabout it, anyhow. In fact, he's quite a material witness because he waspresent when you--when it happened. I thought you might want to talkthings over before--well, before any action is taken, as I believe thelawyers say. "

"Have you anything in the way of a proposition to make?" askedBlack-Tie. 

Miss De Ormond looked reflectively at the neat toe of one of her dullkid-pumps. 

"I had a proposal made to me, " she said. "If the proposal sticks it cutsout the proposition. Let's have that settled first. "

"Well, as far as--" began Blue-Tie. 

"Excuse me, cousin, " interrupted Black-Tie, "if you don't mind mycutting in. " And then he turned, with a good-natured air, toward thelady. 

"Now, let's recapitulate a bit, " he said cheerfully. "All three of us, besides other mutual acquaintances, have been out on a good many larkstogether. "

"I'm afraid I'll have to call the birds by another name, " said Miss DeOrmond. 

"All right, " responded Black-Tie, with unimpaired cheerfulness; "supposewe say 'squabs' when we talk about the 'proposal' and 'larks' when wediscuss the 'proposition. ' You have a quick mind, Miss De Ormond. Twomonths ago some half-dozen of us went in a motor-car for a day's runinto the country. We stopped at a road-house for dinner. My cousinproposed marriage to you then and there. He was influenced to do so, ofcourse, by the beauty and charm which no one can deny that you possess. "

"I wish I had you for a press agent, Mr. Carteret, " said the beauty, with a dazzling smile. 

"You are on the stage, Miss De Ormond, " went on Black-Tie. "You havehad, doubtless, many admirers, and perhaps other proposals. You mustremember, too, that we were a party of merrymakers on that occasion. There were a good many corks pulled. That the proposal of marriagewas made to you by my cousin we cannot deny. But hasn't it been yourexperience that, by common consent, such things lose their seriousnesswhen viewed in the next day's sunlight? Isn't there something of a'code' among good 'sports'--I use the word in its best sense--thatwipes out each day the follies of the evening previous?"

"Oh yes, " said Miss De Ormond. "I know that very well. And I've alwaysplayed up to it. But as you seem to be conducting the case--with thesilent consent of the defendant--I'll tell you something more. I've gotletters from him repeating the proposal. And they're signed, too. "

"I understand, " said Black-Tie gravely. "What's your price for theletters?"

"I'm not a cheap one, " said Miss De Ormond. "But I had decided to makeyou a rate. You both belong to a swell family. Well, if I _am_ on thestage nobody can say a word against me truthfully. And the money is onlya secondary consideration. It isn't the money I was after. I--I believedhim--and--and I liked him. "

She cast a soft, entrancing glance at Blue-Tie from under her longeyelashes. 

"And the price?" went on Black-Tie, inexorably. 

"Ten thousand dollars, " said the lady, sweetly. 

"Or--"

"Or the fulfillment of the engagement to marry. "

"I think it is time, " interrupted Blue-Tie, "for me to be allowed to saya word or two. You and I, cousin, belong to a family that has held itshead pretty high. You have been brought up in a section of the countryvery different from the one where our branch of the family lived. Yetboth of us are Carterets, even if some of our ways and theories differ. You remember, it is a tradition of the family, that no Carteret everfailed in chivalry to a lady or failed to keep his word when it wasgiven. "

Then Blue-Tie, with frank decision showing on his countenance, turnedto Miss De Ormond. 

"Olivia, " said he, "on what date will you marry me?"

Before she could answer, Black-Tie again interposed. 

"It is a long journey, " said he, "from Plymouth rock to Norfolk Bay. Between the two points we find the changes that nearly three centurieshave brought. In that time the old order has changed. We no longer burnwitches or torture slaves. And to-day we neither spread our cloaks onthe mud for ladies to walk over nor treat them to the ducking-stool. It is the age of common sense, adjustment, and proportion. All ofus--ladies, gentlemen, women, men, Northerners, Southerners, lords, caitiffs, actors, hardware-drummers, senators, hod-carriers, andpoliticians--are coming to a better understanding. Chivalry is one ofour words that changes its meaning every day. Family pride is a thingof many constructions--it may show itself by maintaining a moth-eatenarrogance in a cobwebbed Colonial mansion or by the prompt paying ofone's debts. 

"Now, I suppose you've had enough of my monologue. I've learnedsomething of business and a little of life; and I somehow believe, cousin, that our great-great-grandfathers, the original Carterets, would indorse my view of this matter. "

Black-Tie wheeled around to his desk, wrote in a check-book and tore outthe check, the sharp rasp of the perforated leaf making the only soundin the room. He laid the check within easy reach of Miss De Ormond'shand. 

"Business is business, " said he. "We live in a business age. There is mypersonal check for $10, 000. What do you say, Miss De Ormond--will it heorange blossoms or cash?"

Miss De Ormond picked up the cheek carelessly, folded it indifferently, and stuffed it into her glove. 

"Oh, this'll do, " she said, calmly. "I just thought I'd call and put itup to you. I guess you people are all right. But a girl has feelings, you know. I've heard one of you was a Southerner--I wonder which one ofyou it is?"

She arose, smiled sweetly, and walked to the door. There, with a flashof white teeth and a dip of the heavy plume, she disappeared. 

Both of the cousins had forgotten Uncle Jake for the time. But now theyheard the shuffling of his shoes as he came across the rug toward themfrom his seat in the corner. 

"Young marster, " he said, "take yo' watch. "

And without hesitation he laid the ancient timepiece in the hand of itsrightful owner. 

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Finch keeps a hats-cleaned-by-electricity-while-you-wait establishment, nine feet by twelve, in Third Avenue. Once a customer, you are alwayshis. I do not know his secret process, but every four days your hatneeds to be cleaned again. 

Finch is a leathern, sallow, slow-footed man, between twenty and forty. You would say he had been brought up a bushelman in Essex Street. Whenbusiness is slack he likes to talk, so I had my hat cleaned even oftenerthan it deserved, hoping Finch might let me into some of the secrets ofthe sweatshops. 

One afternoon I dropped in and found Finch alone. He began to anoint myheadpiece de Panama with his mysterious fluid that attracted dust anddirt like a magnet. 

"They say the Indians weave 'em under water, " said I, for a leader. 

"Don't you believe it, " said Finch. "No Indian or white man could stayunder water that long. Say, do you pay much attention to politics? I seein the paper something about a law they've passed called 'the law ofsupply and demand. '"

I explained to him as well as I could that the reference was to apolitico-economical law, and not to a legal statute. 

"I didn't know, " said Finch. "I heard a good deal about it a year or soago, but in a one-sided way. "

"Yes, " said I, "political orators use it a great deal. In fact, theynever give it a rest. I suppose you heard some of those cart-tailfellows spouting on the subject over here on the east side. "

"I heard it from a king, " said Finch--"the white king of a tribe ofIndians in South America. "

I was interested but not surprised. The big city is like a mother's kneeto many who have strayed far and found the roads rough beneath theiruncertain feet. At dusk they come home and sit upon the door-step. I know a piano player in a cheap café who has shot lions in Africa, a bell-boy who fought in the British army against the Zulus, anexpress-driver whose left arm had been cracked like a lobster's claw fora stew-pot of Patagonian cannibals when the boat of his rescuers hove insight. So a hat-cleaner who had been a friend of a king did not oppressme. 

"A new band?" asked Finch, with his dry, barren smile. 

"Yes, " said I, "and half an inch wider. " I had had a new band five daysbefore. 

"I meets a man one night, " said Finch, beginning his story--"a manbrown as snuff, with money in every pocket, eating schweinerknuckel inSchlagel's. That was two years ago, when I was a hose-cart driver forNo. 98. His discourse runs to the subject of gold. He says that certainmountains in a country down South that he calls Gaudymala is full of it. He says the Indians wash it out of the streams in plural quantities. 

"'Oh, Geronimo!' says I. 'Indians! There's no Indians in the South, ' Itell him, 'except Elks, Maccabees, and the buyers for the fall dry-goodstrade. The Indians are all on the reservations, ' says I. 

"'I'm telling you this with reservations, ' says he. 'They ain't BuffaloBill Indians; they're squattier and more pedigreed. They call 'em Inkersand Aspics, and they was old inhabitants when Mazuma was King of Mexico. They wash the gold out of the mountain streams, ' says the brown man, 'and fill quills with it; and then they empty 'em into red jars tillthey are full; and then they pack it in buckskin sacks of one arrobaeach--an arroba is twenty-five pounds--and store it in a stone house, with an engraving of a idol with marcelled hair, playing a flute, overthe door. '

"'How do they work off this unearth increment?' I asks. 

"'They don't, ' says the man. 'It's a case of "Ill fares the land withthe great deal of velocity where wealth accumulates and there ain't anyreciprocity. "'

"After this man and me got through our conversation, which left himdry of information, I shook hands with him and told him I was sorry Icouldn't believe him. And a month afterward I landed on the coast ofthis Gaudymala with $1, 300 that I had been saving up for five years. Ithought I knew what Indians liked, and I fixed myself accordingly. Iloaded down four pack-mules with red woollen blankets, wrought-ironpails, jewelled side-combs for the ladies, glass necklaces, andsafety-razors. I hired a black mozo, who was supposed to be amule-driver and an interpreter too. It turned out that he couldinterpret mules all right, but he drove the English language much toohard. His name sounded like a Yale key when you push it in wrong sideup, but I called him McClintock, which was close to the noise. 

"Well, this gold village was forty miles up in the mountains, and ittook us nine days to find it. But one afternoon McClintock led the othermules and myself over a rawhide bridge stretched across a precipice fivethousand feet deep, it seemed to me. The hoofs of the beasts drummedon it just like before George M. Cohan makes his first entrance on thestage. 

"This village was built of mud and stone, and had no streets. Some fewyellow-and-brown persons popped their heads out-of-doors, looking aboutlike Welsh rabbits with Worcester sauce on em. Out of the biggest house, that had a kind of a porch around it, steps a big white man, red as abeet in color, dressed in fine tanned deerskin clothes, with a goldchain around his neck, smoking a cigar. I've seen United States Senatorsof his style of features and build, also head-waiters and cops. 

"He walks up and takes a look at us, while McClintock disembarks andbegins to interpret to the lead mule while he smokes a cigarette. 

"'Hello, Buttinsky, ' says the fine man to me. 'How did you get in thegame? I didn't see you buy any chips. Who gave you the keys of thecity?'

"'I'm a poor traveller, ' says I. 'Especially mule-back. You'll excuseme. Do you run a hack line or only a bluff?'

"'Segregate yourself from your pseudo-equine quadruped, ' says he, 'andcome inside. '

"He raises a finger, and a villager runs up. 

"'This man will take care of your outfit, ' says he, 'and I'll take careof you. '

"He leads me into the biggest house, and sets out the chairs and a kindof a drink the color of milk. It was the finest room I ever saw. Thestone walls was hung all over with silk shawls, and there was red andyellow rugs on the floor, and jars of red pottery and Angora goat skins, and enough bamboo furniture to misfurnish half a dozen seaside cottages. 

"'In the first place, ' says the man, 'you want to know who I am. I'msole lessee and proprietor of this tribe of Indians. They call me theGrand Yacuma, which is to say King or Main Finger of the bunch. I'vegot more power here than a chargé d'affaires, a charge of dynamite, anda charge account at Tiffany's combined. In fact, I'm the Big Stick, with as many extra knots on it as there is on the record run of theLusitania. Oh, I read the papers now and then, ' says he. 'Now, let'shear your entitlements, ' he goes on, 'and the meeting will be open. '

"'Well, ' says I, 'I am known as one W. D. Finch. Occupation, capitalist. Address, 541 East Thirty-second--'

"'New York, ' chips in the Noble Grand. 'I know, ' says he, grinning. 'Itain't the first time you've seen it go down on the blotter. I can tellby the way you hand it out. Well, explain "capitalist. "'

"I tells this boss plain what I come for and how I come to came. 

"'Gold-dust?' says he, looking as puzzled as a baby that's got a featherstuck on its molasses finger. 'That's funny. This ain't a gold-miningcountry. And you invested all your capital on a stranger's story?Well, well! These Indians of mine--they are the last of the tribe ofPeches--are simple as children. They know nothing of the purchasingpower of gold. I'm afraid you've been imposed on, ' says he. 

"'Maybe so, ' says I, 'but it sounded pretty straight to me. '

"'W. D. , ' says the King, all of a sudden, 'I'll give you a square deal. It ain't often I get to talk to a white man, and I'll give you a showfor your money. It may be these constituents of mine have a few grainsof gold-dust hid away in their clothes. To-morrow you may get out thesegoods you've brought up and see if you can make any sales. Now, I'mgoing to introduce myself unofficially. My name is Shane--Patrick Shane. I own this tribe of Peche Indians by right of conquest--single handedand unafraid. I drifted up here four years ago, and won 'em by my sizeand complexion and nerve. I learned their language in six weeks--it'seasy: you simply emit a string of consonants as long as your breathholds out and then point at what you're asking for. 

"'I conquered 'em, spectacularly, ' goes on King Shane, 'and then I wentat 'em with economical politics, law, sleight-of-hand, and a kind of NewEngland ethics and parsimony. Every Sunday, or as near as I can guess atit, I preach to 'em in the council-house (I'm the council) on the law ofsupply and demand. I praise supply and knock demand. I use the same textevery time. You wouldn't think, W. D. , ' says Shane, 'that I had poetryin me, would you?'

"'Well, ' says I, 'I wouldn't know whether to call it poetry or not. '

"'Tennyson, ' says Shane, 'furnishes the poetic gospel I preach. I alwaysconsidered him the boss poet. Here's the way the text goes:

 "'"For, not to admire, if a man could learn it, were more Than to walk all day like a Sultan of old in a garden of spice. "

"'You see, I teach 'em to cut out demand--that supply is the mainthing. I teach 'em not to desire anything beyond their simplest needs. A little mutton, a little cocoa, and a little fruit brought up fromthe coast--that's all they want to make 'em happy. I've got 'em welltrained. They make their own clothes and hats out of a vegetable fibreand straw, and they're a contented lot. It's a great thing, ' winds upShane, 'to have made a people happy by the incultivation of such simpleinstitutions. '

"Well, the next day, with the King's permission, I has the McClintockopen up a couple of sacks of my goods in the little plaza of thevillage. The Indians swarmed around by the hundred and looked thebargain-counter over. I shook red blankets at 'em, flashed finger-ringsand ear-bobs, tried pearl necklaces and side-combs on the women, and aline of red hosiery on the men. 'Twas no use. They looked on like hungrygraven images, but I never made a sale. I asked McClintock what was thetrouble. Mac yawned three or four times, rolled a cigarette, made one ortwo confidential side remarks to a mule, and then condescended to informme that the people had no money. 

"Just then up strolls King Patrick, big and red 'and royal as usual, with the gold chain over his chest and his cigar in front of him. 

"'How's business, W. D. ?' he asks. 

"'Fine, ' says I. 'It's a bargain-day rush. I've got one more line ofgoods to offer before I shut up shop. I'll try 'em with safety-razors. I've got two gross that I bought at a fire sale. '

"Shane laughs till some kind of mameluke or private secretary he carrieswith him has to hold him up. 

"'O my sainted Aunt Jerusha!' says he, 'ain't you one of the Babes inthe Goods, W. D. ? Don't you know that no Indians ever shave? They pullout their whiskers instead. '

"'Well, ' says I, 'that's just what these razors would do for 'em--theywouldn't have any kick coming if they used 'em once. '

"Shane went away, and I could hear him laughing a block, if there hadbeen any block. 

"'Tell 'em, ' says I to McClintock, 'it ain't money I want--tell 'em I'lltake gold-dust. Tell 'em I'll allow 'em sixteen dollars an ounce for itin trade. That's what I'm out for--the dust. '

"Mac interprets, and you'd have thought a squadron of cops had chargedthe crowd to disperse it. Every uncle's nephew and aunt's niece of 'emfaded away inside of two minutes. 

"At the royal palace that night me and the King talked it over. 

"'They've got the dust hid out somewhere, ' says I, 'or they wouldn'thave been so sensitive about it. '

"'They haven't, ' says Shane. 'What's this gag you've got about gold?You been reading Edward Allen Poe? They ain't got any gold. '

"'They put it in quills, ' says I, 'and then they empty it in jars, andthen into sacks of twenty-five pounds each. I got it straight. '

"'W. D. , ' says Shane, laughing and chewing his cigar, 'I don't often seea white man, and I feel like putting you on. I don't think you'll getaway from here alive, anyhow, so I'm going to tell you. Come over here. '

"He draws aside a silk fibre curtain in a corner of the room and showsme a pile of buckskin sacks. 

"'Forty of 'em, ' says Shane. 'One arroba in each one. In round numbers, $220, 000 worth of gold-dust you see there. It's all mine. It belongsto the Grand Yacuma. They bring it all to me. Two hundred and twentythousand dollars--think of that, you glass-bead peddler, ' saysShane--'and all mine. '

"'Little good it does you, ' says I, contemptuously and hatefully. 'And so you are the government depository of this gang of moneylessmoney-makers? Don't you pay enough interest on it to enable one of yourdepositors to buy an Augusta (Maine) Pullman carbon diamond worth $200for $4. 85?'

"'Listen, ' says Patrick Shane, with the sweat coming out on his brow. 'I'm confidant with you, as you have, somehow, enlisted my regards. Didyou ever, ' he says, 'feel the avoirdupois power of gold--not the troyweight of it, but the sixteen-ounces-to-the-pound force of it?'

"'Never, ' says I. 'I never take in any bad money. '

"Shane drops down on the floor and throws his arms over the sacks ofgold-dust. 

"'I love it, ' says he. 'I want to feel the touch of it day and night. It's my pleasure in life. I come in this room, and I'm a king and a richman. I'll be a millionaire in another year. The pile's getting biggerevery month. I've got the whole tribe washing out the sands in thecreeks. I'm the happiest man in the world, W. D. I just want to be nearthis gold, and know it's mine and it's increasing every day. Now, youknow, ' says he, 'why my Indians wouldn't buy your goods. They can't. They bring all the dust to me. I'm their king. I've taught 'em not todesire or admire. You might as well shut up shop. '

"'I'll tell you what you are, ' says I. 'You're a plain, contemptiblemiser. You preach supply and you forget demand. Now, supply, ' I goeson, 'is never anything but supply. On the contrary, ' says I, 'demand isa much broader syllogism and assertion. Demand includes the rights ofour women and children, and charity and friendship, and even a littlebegging on the street corners. They've both got to harmonize equally. And I've got a few things up my commercial sleeve yet, ' says I, 'thatmay jostle your preconceived ideas of politics and economy. 

"The next morning I had McClintock bring up another mule-load of goodsto the plaza and open it up. The people gathered around the same asbefore. 

"I got out the finest line of necklaces, bracelets, hair-combs, andearrings that I carried, and had the women put 'em on. And then I playedtrumps. 

"Out of my last pack I opened up a half gross of hand-mirrors, withsolid tinfoil backs, and passed 'em around among the ladies. That wasthe first introduction of looking-glasses among the Peche Indians. 

"Shane walks by with his big laugh. 

"'Business looking up any?' he asks. 

"'It's looking at itself right now, ' says I. 

"By-and-by a kind of a murmur goes through the crowd. The women hadlooked into the magic crystal and seen that they were beautiful, and wasconfiding the secret to the men. The men seemed to be urging the lackof money and the hard times just before the election, but their excusesdidn't go. 

"Then was my time. 

"I called McClintock away from an animated conversation with his mulesand told him to do some interpreting. 

"'Tell 'em, ' says I, 'that gold-dust will buy for them these befittingornaments for kings and queens of the earth. Tell 'em the yellow sandthey wash out of the waters for the High Sanctified Yacomay and ChopSuey of the tribe will buy the precious jewels and charms that will makethem beautiful and preserve and pickle them from evil spirits. Tell 'emthe Pittsburgh banks are paying four per cent. Interest on depositsby mail, while this get-rich-frequently custodian of the public fundsain't even paying attention. Keep telling 'em, Mac, ' says I, 'to let thegold-dust family do their work. Talk to 'em like a born anti-Bryanite, 'says I. 'Remind 'em that Tom Watson's gone back to Georgia, ' says I. 

"McClintock waves his hand affectionately at one of his mules, and thenhurls a few stickfuls of minion type at the mob of shoppers. 

"A gutta-percha Indian man, with a lady hanging on his arm, with threestrings of my fish-scale jewelry and imitation marble beads around herneck, stands up on a block of stone and makes a talk that sounds likea man shaking dice in a box to fill aces and sixes. 

"'He says, ' says McClintock, 'that the people not know that gold-dustwill buy their things. The women very mad. The Grand Yacuma tell themit no good but for keep to make bad spirits keep away. '

"'You can't keep bad spirits away from money, ' says I. 

"'They say, ' goes on McClintock, 'the Yacuma fool them. They raiseplenty row. '

"'Going! Going!' says I. 'Gold-dust or cash takes the entire stock. Thedust weighed before you, and taken at sixteen dollars the ounce--thehighest price on the Gaudymala coast. '

"Then the crowd disperses all of a sudden, and I don't know what's up. Mac and me packs away the hand-mirrors and jewelry they had handed backto us, and we had the mules back to the corral they had set apart forour garage. 

"While we was there we hear great noises of shouting, and down acrossthe plaza runs Patrick Shane, hotfoot, with his clothes ripped half off, and scratches on his face like a cat had fought him hard for every oneof its lives. 

"'They're looting the treasury, W. D. , ' he sings out. 'They're going tokill me and you, too. Unlimber a couple of mules at once. We'll have tomake a get-away in a couple of minutes. '

"'They've found out, ' says I, ' the truth about the law of supply anddemand. '

"'It's the women, mostly, ' says the King. 'And they used to admire meso!'

"'They hadn't seen looking-glasses then, ' says I. 

"'They've got knives and hatchets, ' says Shane; 'hurry!'

"'Take that roan mule, ' says I. 'You and your law of supply! I'll ridethe dun, for he's two knots per hour the faster. The roan has a stiffknee, but he may make it, ' says I. 'If you'd included reciprocity inyour political platform I might have given you the dun, ' says I. 

"Shane and McClintock and me mounted our mules and rode across therawhide bridge just as the Peches reached the other side and beganfiring stones and long knives at us. We cut the thongs that held upour end of the bridge and headed for the coast. "

A tall, bulky policeman came into Finch's shop at that moment and leanedan elbow on the showcase. Finch nodded at him friendly. 

"I heard down at Casey's, " said the cop, in rumbling, husky tones, "thatthere was going to be a picnic of the Hat-Cleaners' Union over at BergenBeach, Sunday. Is that right?"

"Sure, " said Finch. "There'll be a dandy time. "

"Gimme five tickets, " said the cop, throwing a five-dollar bill on theshowcase. 

"Why, " said Finch, "ain't you going it a little too--"

"Go to h----!" said the cop. "You got 'em to sell, ain't you? Somebody'sgot to buy 'em. Wish I could go along. "

I was glad to See Finch so well thought of in his neighborhood. 

And then in came a wee girl of seven, with dirty face and pure blue eyesand a smutched and insufficient dress. 

"Mamma says, " she recited shrilly, "that you must give me eighty centsfor the grocer and nineteen for the milkman and five cents for me to buyhokey-pokey with--but she didn't say that, " the elf concluded, with ahopeful but honest grin. 

Finch shelled out the money, counting it twice, but I noticed that thetotal sum that the small girl received was one dollar and four cents. 

"That's the right kind of a law, " remarked Finch, as he carefully brokesome of the stitches of my hatband so that it would assuredly come offwithin a few days--"the law of supply and demand. But they've both gotto work together. I'll bet, " he went on, with his dry smile, "she'll getjelly beans with that nickel--she likes 'em. What's supply if there's nodemand for it?"

"What ever became of the King?" I asked, curiously. 

"Oh, I might have told you, " said Finch. "That was Shane came in andbought the tickets. He came back with me, and he's on the force now. "

BURIED TREASURE

There are many kinds of fools. Now, will everybody please sit stilluntil they are called upon specifically to rise?

I had been every kind of fool except one. I had expended mypatrimony, pretended my matrimony, played poker, lawn-tennis, andbucket-shops--parted soon with my money in many ways. But there remainedone rule of the wearer of cap and bells that I had not played. That wasthe Seeker after Buried Treasure. To few does the delectable furor come. But of all the would-be followers in the hoof-prints of King Midas nonehas found a pursuit so rich in pleasurable promise. 

But, going back from my theme a while--as lame pens must do--I was afool of the sentimental sort. I saw May Martha Mangum, and was hers. She was eighteen, the color of the white ivory keys of a new piano, beautiful, and possessed by the exquisite solemnity and patheticwitchery of an unsophisticated angel doomed to live in a small, dull, Texas prairie-town. She had a spirit and charm that could have enabledher to pluck rubies like raspberries from the crown of Belgium or anyother sporty kingdom, but she did not know it, and I did not paint thepicture for her. 

You see, I wanted May Martha Mangum for to have and to hold. I wantedher to abide with me, and put my slippers and pipe away every day inplaces where they cannot be found of evenings. 

May Martha's father was a man hidden behind whiskers and spectacles. Helived for bugs and butterflies and all insects that fly or crawl or buzzor get down your back or in the butter. He was an etymologist, or wordsto that effect. He spent his life seining the air for flying fish ofthe June-bug order, and then sticking pins through 'em and calling 'emnames. 

He and May Martha were the whole family. He prized her highly as afine specimen of the _racibus humanus_ because she saw that he hadfood at times, and put his clothes on right side before, and kepthis alcohol-bottles filled. Scientists, they say, are apt to beabsent-minded. 

There was another besides myself who thought May Martha Mangum one to bedesired. That was Goodloe Banks, a young man just home from college. Hehad all the attainments to be found in books--Latin, Greek, philosophy, and especially the higher branches of mathematics and logic. 

If it hadn't been for his habit of pouring out this information andlearning on every one that he addressed, I'd have liked him pretty well. But, even as it was, he and I were, you would have thought, great pals. 

We got together every time we could because each of us wanted to pumpthe other for whatever straws we could to find which way the wind blewfrom the heart of May Martha Mangum--rather a mixed metaphor; GoodloeBanks would never have been guilty of that. That is the way of rivals. 

You might say that Goodloe ran to books, manners, culture, rowing, intellect, and clothes. I would have put you in mind more of baseballand Friday-night debating societies--by way of culture--and maybe of agood horseback rider. 

But in our talks together, and in our visits and conversation with MayMartha, neither Goodloe Banks nor I could find out which one of us shepreferred. May Martha was a natural-born non-committal, and knew in hercradle how to keep people guessing. 

As I said, old man Mangum was absent-minded. After a long time he foundout one day--a little butterfly must have told him--that two youngmen were trying to throw a net over the head of the young person, a daughter, or some such technical appendage, who looked after hiscomforts. 

I never knew scientists could rise to such occasions. Old Mangum orallylabelled and classified Goodloe and myself easily among the lowestorders of the vertebrates; and in English, too, without going anyfurther into Latin than the simple references to _Orgetorix, RexHelvetii_--which is as far as I ever went, myself. And he told us thatif he ever caught us around his house again he would add us to hiscollection. 

Goodloe Banks and I remained away five days, expecting the storm tosubside. When we dared to call at the house again May Martha Mangum andher father were gone. Gone! The house they had rented was closed. Theirlittle store of goods and chattels was gone also. 

And not a word of farewell to either of us from May Martha--not a white, fluttering note pinned to the hawthorn-bush; not a chalk-mark on thegate-post nor a post-card in the post-office to give us a clew. 

For two months Goodloe Banks and I--separately--tried every schemewe could think of to track the runaways. We used our friendship andinfluence with the ticket-agent, with livery-stable men, railroadconductors, and our one lone, lorn constable, but without results. 

Then we became better friends and worse enemies than ever. Weforgathered in the back room of Snyder's saloon every afternoon afterwork, and played dominoes, and laid conversational traps to find outfrom each other if anything had been discovered. That is the way ofrivals. 

Now, Goodloe Banks had a sarcastic way of displaying his own learningand putting me in the class that was reading "Poor Jane Ray, her birdis dead, she cannot play. " Well, I rather liked Goodloe, and I hada contempt for his college learning, and I was always regarded asgood-natured, so I kept my temper. And I was trying to find out if heknew anything about May Martha, so I endured his society. 

In talking things over one afternoon he said to me:

"Suppose you do find her, Ed, whereby would you profit? Miss Mangum hasa mind. Perhaps it is yet uncultured, but she is destined for higherthings than you could give her. I have talked with no one who seemed toappreciate more the enchantment of the ancient poets and writers andthe modern cults that have assimilated and expended their philosophy oflife. Don't you think you are wasting your time looking for her?"

"My idea, " said I, "of a happy home is an eight-room house in a grove oflive-oaks by the side of a _charco_ on a Texas prairie. A piano, " I wenton, "with an automatic player in the sitting-room, three thousand headof cattle under fence for a starter, a buckboard and ponies alwayshitched at a post for 'the missus'--and May Martha Mangum to spend theprofits of the ranch as she pleases, and to abide with me, and put myslippers and pipe away every day in places where they cannot be found ofevenings. That, " said I, "is what is to be; and a fig--a dried, Smyrna, dago-stand fig--for your curriculums, cults, and philosophy. "

"She is meant for higher things, " repeated Goodloe Banks. 

"Whatever she is meant for, " I answered, just now she is out of pocket. And I shall find her as soon as I can without aid of the colleges. "

"The game is blocked, " said Goodloe, putting down a domino; and we hadthe beer. 

Shortly after that a young farmer whom I knew came into town and broughtme a folded blue paper. He said his grandfather had just died. Iconcealed a tear, and he went on to say that the old man had jealouslyguarded this paper for twenty years. He left it to his family as part ofhis estate, the rest of which consisted of two mules and a hypotenuse ofnon-arable land. 

The sheet of paper was of the old, blue kind used during the rebellionof the abolitionists against the secessionists. It was dated June14, 1863, and it described the hiding-place of ten burro-loads ofgold and silver coin valued at three hundred thousand dollars. OldRundle--grandfather of his grandson, Sam--was given the information bya Spanish priest who was in on the treasure-burying, and who died manyyears before--no, afterward--in old Rundle's house. Old Rundle wrote itdown from dictation. 

"Why didn't your father look this up?" I asked young Rundle. 

"He went blind before he could do so, " he replied. 

"Why didn't you hunt for it yourself?" I asked. 

"Well, " said he, "I've only known about the paper for ten years. Firstthere was the spring ploughin' to do, and then choppin' the weeds out ofthe corn; and then come takin' fodder; and mighty soon winter was on us. It seemed to run along that way year after year. "

That sounded perfectly reasonable to me, so I took it up with young LeeRundle at once. 

The directions on the paper were simple. The whole burro cavalcade ladenwith the treasure started from an old Spanish mission in Dolores County. They travelled due south by the compass until they reached the AlamitoRiver. They forded this, and buried the treasure on the top of a littlemountain shaped like a pack-saddle standing in a row between two higherones. A heap of stones marked the place of the buried treasure. All theparty except the Spanish priest were killed by Indians a few days later. The secret was a monopoly. It looked good to me. 

Lee Rundle suggested that we rig out a camping outfit, hire a surveyorto run out the line from the Spanish mission, and then spend the threehundred thousand dollars seeing the sights in Fort Worth. But, withoutbeing highly educated, I knew a way to save time and expense. 

We went to the State land-office and had a practical, what they call a"working, " sketch made of all the surveys of land from the old missionto the Alamito River. On this map I drew a line due southward to theriver. The length of lines of each survey and section of land wasaccurately given on the sketch. By these we found the point on the riverand had a "connection" made with it and an important, well-identifiedcorner of the Los Animos five-league survey--a grant made by King Philipof Spain. 

By doing this we did not need to have the line run out by a surveyor. Itwas a great saving of expense and time. 

So, Lee Rundle and I fitted out a two-horse wagon team with all theaccessories, and drove a hundred and forty-nine miles to Chico, thenearest town to the point we wished to reach. There we picked up adeputy county surveyor. He found the corner of the Los Animos survey forus, ran out the five thousand seven hundred and twenty varas west thatour sketch called for, laid a stone on the spot, had coffee and bacon, and caught the mail-stage back to Chico. 

I was pretty sure we would get that three hundred thousand dollars. Lee Rundle's was to be only one-third, because I was paying all theexpenses. With that two hundred thousand dollars I knew I could findMay Martha Mangum if she was on earth. And with it I could flutter thebutterflies in old man Mangum's dovecot, too. If I could find thattreasure!

But Lee and I established camp. Across the river were a dozen littlemountains densely covered by cedar-brakes, but not one shaped likea pack-saddle. That did not deter us. Appearances are deceptive. Apack-saddle, like beauty, may exist only in the eye of the beholder. 

I and the grandson of the treasure examined those cedar-covered hillswith the care of a lady hunting for the wicked flea. We explored everyside, top, circumference, mean elevation, angle, slope, and concavity ofevery one for two miles up and down the river. We spent four days doingso. Then we hitched up the roan and the dun, and hauled the remainsof the coffee and bacon the one hundred and forty-nine miles back toConcho City. 

Lee Rundle chewed much tobacco on the return trip. I was busy driving, because I was in a hurry. 

As shortly as could be after our empty return Goodloe Banks and Iforgathered in the back room of Snyder's saloon to play dominoes andfish for information. I told Goodloe about my expedition after theburied treasure. 

"If I could have found that three hundred thousand dollars, " I said tohim, "I could have scoured and sifted the surface of the earth to findMay Martha Mangum. "

"She is meant for higher things, " said Goodloe. "I shall find hermyself. But, tell me how you went about discovering the spot where thisunearthed increment was imprudently buried. "

I told him in the smallest detail. I showed him the draughtsman's sketchwith the distances marked plainly upon it. 

After glancing over it in a masterly way, he leaned back in his chairand bestowed upon me an explosion of sardonic, superior, collegiatelaughter. 

"Well, you _are_ a fool, Jim, " he said, when he could speak. 

"It's your play, " said I, patiently, fingering my double-six. 

"Twenty, " said Goodloe, making two crosses on the table with his chalk. 

"Why am I a fool?" I asked. "Buried treasure has been found before inmany places. "

"Because, " said he, "in calculating the point on the river whereyour line would strike you neglected to allow for the variation. Thevariation there would be nine degrees west. Let me have your pencil. "

Goodloe Banks figured rapidly on the back of an envelope. 

"The distance, from north to south, of the line run from the Spanishmission, " said he, "is exactly twenty-two miles. It was run by apocket-compass, according to your story. Allowing for the variation, the point on the Alamito River where you should have searched for yourtreasure is exactly six miles and nine hundred and forty-five varasfarther west than the place you hit upon. Oh, what a fool you are, Jim!"

"What is this variation that you speak of?" I asked. "I thought figuresnever lied. "

"The variation of the magnetic compass, " said Goodloe, "from the truemeridian. "

He smiled in his superior way; and then I saw come out in his face thesingular, eager, consuming cupidity of the seeker after buried treasure. 

"Sometimes, " he said with the air of the oracle, "these old traditionsof hidden money are not without foundation. Suppose you let me look overthat paper describing the location. Perhaps together we might--"

The result was that Goodloe Banks and I, rivals in love, becamecompanions in adventure. We went to Chico by stage from Huntersburg, the nearest railroad town. In Chico we hired a team drawing a coveredspring-wagon and camping paraphernalia. We had the same surveyor runout our distance, as revised by Goodloe and his variations, and thendismissed him and sent him on his homeward road. 

It was night when we arrived. I fed the horses and made a fire near thebank of the river and cooked supper. Goodloe would have helped, but hiseducation had not fitted him for practical things. 

But while I worked he cheered me with the expression of great thoughtshanded down from the dead ones of old. He quoted some translations fromthe Greek at much length. 

"Anacreon, " he explained. "That was a favorite passage with MissMangum--as I recited it. "

"She is meant for higher things, " said I, repeating his phrase. 

"Can there be anything higher, " asked Goodloe, "than to dwell in thesociety of the classics, to live in the atmosphere of learning andculture? You have often decried education. What of your wasted effortsthrough your ignorance of simple mathematics? How soon would you havefound your treasure if my knowledge had not shown you your error?"

"We'll take a look at those hills across the river first, " said I, "and see what we find. I am still doubtful about variations. I havebeen brought up to believe that the needle is true to the pole. "

The next morning was a bright June one. We were up early and hadbreakfast. Goodloe was charmed. He recited--Keats, I think it was, andKelly or Shelley--while I broiled the bacon. We were getting ready tocross the river, which was little more than a shallow creek there, andexplore the many sharp-peaked cedar-covered hills on the other side. 

"My good Ulysses, " said Goodloe, slapping me on the shoulder while I waswashing the tin breakfast-plates, "let me see the enchanted documentonce more. I believe it gives directions for climbing the hill shapedlike a pack-saddle. I never saw a pack-saddle. What is it like, Jim?"

"Score one against culture, " said I. "I'll know it when I see it. "

Goodloe was looking at old Rundle's document when he ripped out a mostuncollegiate swear-word. 

"Come here, " he said, holding the paper up against the sunlight. "Lookat that, " he said, laying his finger against it. 

On the blue paper--a thing I had never noticed before--I saw stand outin white letters the word and figures: "Malvern, 1898. "

"What about it?" I asked. 

"It's the water-mark, " said Goodloe. "The paper was manufactured in1898. The writing on the paper is dated 1863. This is a palpable fraud. "

"Oh, I don't know, " said I. "The Rundles are pretty reliable, plain, uneducated country people. Maybe the paper manufacturers tried toperpetrate a swindle. "

And then Goodloe Banks went as wild as his education permitted. Hedropped the glasses off his nose and glared at me. 

"I've often told you you were a fool, " he said. "You have let yourselfbe imposed upon by a clodhopper. And you have imposed upon me. "

"How, " I asked, "have I imposed upon you?"

"By your ignorance, " said he. "Twice I have discovered serious flaws inyour plans that a common-school education should have enabled you toavoid. And, " he continued, "I have been put to expense that I could illafford in pursuing this swindling quest. I am done with it. "

I rose and pointed a large pewter spoon at him, fresh from thedish-water. 

"Goodloe Banks, " I said, "I care not one parboiled navy bean for youreducation. I always barely tolerated it in any one, and I despised it inyou. What has your learning done for you? It is a curse to yourself anda bore to your friends. Away, " I said--"away with your water-marks andvariations! They are nothing to me. They shall not deflect me from thequest. "

I pointed with my spoon across the river to a small mountain shaped likea pack-saddle. 

"I am going to search that mountain, " I went on, "for the treasure. Decide now whether you are in it or not. If you wish to let awater-mark or a variation shake your soul, you are no true adventurer. Decide. "

A white cloud of dust began to rise far down the river road. It was themail-wagon from Hesperus to Chico. Goodloe flagged it. 

"I am done with the swindle, " said he, sourly. "No one but a fool wouldpay any attention to that paper now. Well, you always were a fool, Jim. I leave you to your fate. "

He gathered his personal traps, climbed into the mail-wagon, adjustedhis glasses nervously, and flew away in a cloud of dust. 

After I had washed the dishes and staked the horses on new grass, I crossed the shallow river and made my way slowly through thecedar-brakes up to the top of the hill shaped like a pack-saddle. 

It was a wonderful June day. Never in my life had I seen so many birds, so many butter-flies, dragon-flies, grasshoppers, and such winged andstinged beasts of the air and fields. 

I investigated the hill shaped like a pack-saddle from base to summit. I found an absolute absence of signs relating to buried treasure. Therewas no pile of stones, no ancient blazes on the trees, none of theevidences of the three hundred thousand dollars, as set forth in thedocument of old man Rundle. 

I came down the hill in the cool of the afternoon. Suddenly, out of thecedar-brake I stepped into a beautiful green valley where a tributarysmall stream ran into the Alamito River. 

And there I was startled to see what I took to be a wild man, withunkempt beard and ragged hair, pursuing a giant butterfly with brilliantwings. 

"Perhaps he is an escaped madman, " I thought; and wondered how he hadstrayed so far from seats of education and learning. 

And then I took a few more steps and saw a vine-covered cottage nearthe small stream. And in a little grassy glade I saw May Martha Mangumplucking wild flowers. 

She straightened up and looked at me. For the first time since I knewher I saw her face--which was the color of the white keys of a newpiano--turn pink. I walked toward her without a word. She let thegathered flowers trickle slowly from her hand to the grass. 

"I knew you would come, Jim, " she said clearly. "Father wouldn't let mewrite, but I knew you would come. "

What followed you may guess--there was my wagon and team just across theriver. 

I've often wondered what good too much education is to a man if he can'tuse it for himself. If all the benefits of it are to go to others, wheredoes it come in?

For May Martha Mangum abides with me. There is an eight-room house in alive-oak grove, and a piano with an automatic player, and a good starttoward the three thousand head of cattle is under fence. 

And when I ride home at night my pipe and slippers are put away inplaces where they cannot be found. 

But who cares for that? Who cares--who cares?

TO HIM WHO WAITS

The Hermit of the Hudson was hustling about his cave with unusualanimation. 

The cave was on or in the top of a little spur of the Catskills that hadstrayed down to the river's edge, and, not having a ferry ticket, had tostop there. The bijou mountains were densely wooded and were infestedby ferocious squirrels and woodpeckers that forever menaced the summertransients. Like a badly sewn strip of white braid, a macadamized roadran between the green skirt of the hills and the foamy lace of theriver's edge. A dim path wound from the comfortable road up a rockyheight to the hermit's cave. One mile upstream was the Viewpoint Inn, to which summer folk from the city came; leaving cool, electric-fannedapartments that they might be driven about in burning sunshine, shrieking, in gasoline launches, by spindle-legged Modreds bearing theblankest of shields. 

Train your lorgnette upon the hermit and let your eye receive thepersonal touch that shall endear you to the hero. 

A man of forty, judging him fairly, with long hair curling at the ends, dramatic eyes, and a forked brown beard like those that were imposedupon the West some years ago by self-appointed "divine healers" whosucceeded the grasshopper crop. His outward vesture appeared to be kindof gunny-sacking, cut and made into a garment that would have made thefortune of a London tailor. His long, well-shaped fingers, delicatenose, and poise of manner raised him high above the class of hermitswho fear water and bury money in oyster-cans in their caves in spotsindicated by rude crosses chipped in the stone wall above. 

The hermit's home was not altogether a cave. The cave was an additionto the hermitage, which was a rude hut made of poles daubed with clayand covered with the best quality of rust-proof zinc roofing. 

In the house proper there were stone slabs for seats, a rustic bookcasemade of unplaned poplar planks, and a table formed of a wooden slab laidacross two upright pieces of granite--something between the furniture ofa Druid temple and that of a Broadway beefsteak dungeon. Hung againstthe walls were skins of wild animals purchased in the vicinity of EighthStreet and University Place, New York. 

The rear of the cabin merged into the cave. There the hermit cooked hismeals on a rude stone hearth. With infinite patience and an old axe hehad chopped natural shelves in the rocky walls. On them stood his storesof flour, bacon, lard, talcum-powder, kerosene, baking-powder, soda-minttablets, pepper, salt, and Olivo-Cremo Emulsion for chaps and roughnessof the hands and face. 

The hermit had hermited there for ten years. He was an asset of theViewpoint Inn. To its guests he was second in interest only to theMysterious Echo in the Haunted Glen. And the Lover's Leap beat him onlya few inches, flat-footed. He was known far (but not very wide, onaccount of the topography) as a scholar of brilliant intellect who hadforsworn the world because he had been jilted in a love affair. EverySaturday night the Viewpoint Inn sent to him surreptitiously a basketof provisions. He never left the immediate outskirts of his hermitage. Guests of the inn who visited him said his store of knowledge, wit, andscintillating philosophy were simply wonderful, you know. 

That summer the Viewpoint Inn was crowded with guests. So, on Saturdaynights, there were extra cans of tomatoes, and sirloin steak, insteadof "rounds, " in the hermit's basket. 

Now you have the material allegations in the case. So, make way forRomance. 

Evidently the hermit expected a visitor. He carefully combed hislong hair and parted his apostolic beard. When the ninety-eight-centalarm-clock on a stone shelf announced the hour of five he picked up hisgunny-sacking skirts, brushed them carefully, gathered an oaken staff, and strolled slowly into the thick woods that surrounded the hermitage. 

He had not long to wait. Up the faint pathway, slippery with its carpetof pine-needles, toiled Beatrix, youngest and fairest of the famousTrenholme sisters. She was all in blue from hat to canvas pumps, varyingin tint from the shade of the tinkle of a bluebell at daybreak on aspring Saturday to the deep hue of a Monday morning at nine when thewasherwoman has failed to show up. 

Beatrix dug her cerulean parasol deep into the pine-needles and sighed. The hermit, on the _q. T. _, removed a grass burr from the ankle ofone sandalled foot with the big toe of his other one. She blued--andalmost starched and ironed him--with her cobalt eyes. 

"It must be so nice, " she said in little, tremulous gasps, "to be ahermit, and have ladies climb mountains to talk to you. "

The hermit folded his arms and leaned against a tree. Beatrix, with asigh, settled down upon the mat of pine-needles like a bluebird upon hernest. The hermit followed suit; drawing his feet rather awkwardly underhis gunny-sacking. 

"It must be nice to be a mountain, " said he, with ponderous lightness, "and have angels in blue climb up you instead of flying over you. "

"Mamma had neuralgia, " said Beatrix, "and went to bed, or I couldn'thave come. It's dreadfully hot at that horrid old inn. But we hadn'tthe money to go anywhere else this summer. "

"Last night, " said the hermit, "I climbed to the top of that big rockabove us. I could see the lights of the inn and hear a strain or two ofthe music when the wind was right. I imagined you moving gracefully inthe arms of others to the dreamy music of the waltz amid the fragranceof flowers. Think how lonely I must have been!"

The youngest, handsomest, and poorest of the famous Trenholme sisterssighed. 

"You haven't quite hit it, " she said, plaintively. "I was movinggracefully _at_ the arms of another. Mamma had one of her periodicalattacks of rheumatism in both elbows and shoulders, and I had to rubthem for an hour with that horrid old liniment. I hope you didn't think_that_ smelled like flowers. You know, there were some West Point boysand a yacht load of young men from the city at last evening's weeklydance. I've known mamma to sit by an open window for three hours withone-half of her registering 85 degrees and the other half frostbitten, and never sneeze once. But just let a bunch of ineligibles come aroundwhere I am, and she'll begin to swell at the knuckles and shriek withpain. And I have to take her to her room and rub her arms. To see mammadressed you'd be surprised to know the number of square inches of surfacethere are to her arms. I think it must be delightful to be a hermit. That--cassock--or gabardine, isn't it?--that you wear is so becoming. Do you make it--or them--of course you must have changes--yourself? Andwhat a blessed relief it must be to wear sandals instead of shoes! Thinkhow we must suffer--no matter how small I buy my shoes they always pinchmy toes. Oh, why can't there be lady hermits, too!"

The beautifulest and most adolescent Trenholme sister extendedtwo slender blue ankles that ended in two enormous blue-silkbows that almost concealed two fairy Oxfords, also of one of theforty-seven shades of blue. The hermit, as if impelled by a kind ofreflex-telepathic action, drew his bare toes farther beneath hisgunny-sacking. 

"I have heard about the romance of your life, " said Miss Trenholme, softly. "They have it printed on the back of the menu card at the inn. Was she very beautiful and charming?"

"On the bills of fare!" muttered the hermit; "but what do I care for theworld's babble? Yes, she was of the highest and grandest type. Then, "he continued, "_then_ I thought the world could never contain anotherequal to her. So I forsook it and repaired to this mountain fastnessto spend the remainder of my life alone--to devote and dedicate myremaining years to her memory. "

"It's grand, " said Miss Trenholme, "absolutely grand. I think a hermit'slife is the ideal one. No bill-collectors calling, no dressing fordinner--how I'd like to be one! But there's no such luck for me. If Idon't marry this season I honestly believe mamma will force me intosettlement work or trimming hats. It isn't because I'm getting old orugly; but we haven't enough money left to butt in at any of the swellplaces any more. And I don't want to marry--unless it's somebody I like. That's why I'd like to be a hermit. Hermits don't ever marry, do they?"

"Hundreds of 'em, " said the hermit, "when they've found the right one. "

"But they're hermits, " said the youngest and beautifulest, "becausethey've lost the right one, aren't they?"

"Because they think they have, " answered the recluse, fatuously. "Wisdom comes to one in a mountain cave as well as to one in the worldof 'swells, ' as I believe they are called in the argot. "

"When one of the 'swells' brings it to them, " said Miss Trenholme. "Andmy folks are swells. That's the trouble. But there are so many swellsat the seashore in the summer-time that we hardly amount to more thanripples. So we've had to put all our money into river and harborappropriations. We were all girls, you know. There were four of us. I'mthe only surviving one. The others have been married off. All to money. Mamma is so proud of my sisters. They send her the loveliest pen-wipersand art calendars every Christmas. I'm the only one on the market now. I'm forbidden to look at any one who hasn't money. "

"But--" began the hermit. 

"But, oh, " said the beautifulest, "of course hermits have great pots ofgold and doubloons buried somewhere near three great oak-trees. They allhave. "

"I have not, " said the hermit, regretfully. 

"I'm so sorry, " said Miss Trenholme. "I always thought they had. I thinkI must go now. "

Oh, beyond question, she was the beautifulest. 

"Fair lady--" began the hermit. 

"I am Beatrix Trenholme--some call me Trix, " she said. "You must cometo the inn to see me. "

"I haven't been a stone's-throw from my cave in ten years, " said thehermit. 

"You must come to see me there, " she repeated. "Any evening exceptThursday. "

The hermit smiled weakly. 

"Good-bye, " she said, gathering the folds of her pale-blue skirt. "Ishall expect you. But not on Thursday evening, remember. "

What an interest it would give to the future menu cards of the ViewpointInn to have these printed lines added to them: "Only once during themore than ten years of his lonely existence did the mountain hermitleave his famous cave. That was when he was irresistibly drawn to theinn by the fascinations of Miss Beatrix Trenholme, youngest and mostbeautiful of the celebrated Trenholme sisters, whose brilliant marriageto--"

Aye, to whom?

The hermit walked back to the hermitage. At the door stood Bob Binkley, his old friend and companion of the days before he had renounced theworld--Bob, himself, arrayed like the orchids of the greenhouse in thesummer man's polychromatic garb--Bob, the millionaire, with his fat, firm, smooth, shrewd face, his diamond rings, sparkling fob-chain, andpleated bosom. He was two years older than the hermit, and looked fiveyears younger. 

"You're Hamp Ellison, in spite of those whiskers and that going-awaybathrobe, " he shouted. "I read about you on the bill of fare at the inn. They've run your biography in between the cheese and 'Not Responsiblefor Coats and Umbrellas. ' What 'd you do it for, Hamp? And ten years, too--gee whilikins!"

"You're just the same, " said the hermit. "Come in and sit down. Sit onthat limestone rock over there; it's softer than the granite. "

"I can't understand it, old man, " said Binkley. "I can see how you couldgive up a woman for ten years, but not ten years for a woman. Of courseI know why you did it. Everybody does. Edith Carr. She jilted four orfive besides you. But you were the only one who took to a hole in theground. The others had recourse to whiskey, the Klondike, politics, andthat _similia similibus_ cure. But, say--Hamp, Edith Carr was just aboutthe finest woman in the world--high-toned and proud and noble, andplaying her ideals to win at all kinds of odds. She certainly was acrackerjack. "

"After I renounced the world, " said the hermit, "I never heard of heragain. "

"She married me, " said Binkley. 

The hermit leaned against the wooden walls of his ante-cave and wriggledhis toes. 

"I know how you feel about it, " said Binkley. "What else could shedo? There were her four sisters and her mother and old man Carr--youremember how he put all the money he had into dirigible balloons? Well, everything was coming down and nothing going up with 'em, as you mightsay. Well, I know Edith as well as you do--although I married her. I wasworth a million then, but I've run it up since to between five and six. It wasn't me she wanted as much as--well, it was about like this. Shehad that bunch on her hands, and they had to be taken care of. Edithmarried me two months after you did the ground-squirrel act. I thoughtshe liked me, too, at the time. "

"And now?" inquired the recluse. 

"We're better friends than ever now. She got a divorce from me two yearsago. Just incompatibility. I didn't put in any defence. Well, well, well, Hamp, this is certainly a funny dugout you've built here. But youalways were a hero of fiction. Seems like you'd have been the very oneto strike Edith's fancy. Maybe you did--but it's the bank-roll thatcatches 'em, my boy--your caves and whiskers won't do it. Honestly, Hamp, don't you think you've been a darned fool?"

The hermit smiled behind his tangled beard. He was and always had beenso superior to the crude and mercenary Binkley that even his vulgaritiescould not anger him. Moreover, his studies and meditations in hisretreat had raised him far above the little vanities of the world. Hislittle mountain-side had been almost an Olympus, over the edge of whichhe saw, smiling, the bolts hurled in the valleys of man below. Had histen years of renunciation, of thought, of devotion to an ideal, ofliving scorn of a sordid world, been in vain? Up from the world hadcome to him the youngest and beautifulest--fairer than Edith--one andthree-seventh times lovelier than the seven-years-served Rachel. So thehermit smiled in his beard. 

When Binkley had relieved the hermitage from the blot of his presenceand the first faint star showed above the pines, the hermit got the canof baking-powder from his cupboard. He still smiled behind his beard. 

There was a slight rustle in the doorway. There stood Edith Carr, withall the added beauty and stateliness and noble bearing that ten yearshad brought her. 

She was never one to chatter. She looked at the hermit with her large, _thinking_, dark eyes. The hermit stood still, surprised into a pose asmotionless as her own. Only his subconscious sense of the fitness ofthings caused him to turn the baking-powder can slowly in his handsuntil its red label was hidden against his bosom. 

"I am stopping at the inn, " said Edith, in low but clear tones. "I heardof you there. I told myself that I _must_ see you. I want to ask yourforgiveness. I sold my happiness for money. There were others to beprovided for--but that does not excuse me. I just wanted to see youand ask your forgiveness. You have lived here ten years, they tell me, cherishing my memory! I was blind, Hampton. I could not see then thatall the money in the world cannot weigh in the scales against a faithfulheart. If--but it is too late now, of course. "

Her assertion was a question clothed as best it could be in a lovingwoman's pride. But through the thin disguise the hermit saw easilythat his lady had come back to him--if he chose. He had won a goldencrown--if it pleased him to take it. The reward of his decade offaithfulness was ready for his hand--if he desired to stretch it forth. 

For the space of one minute the old enchantment shone upon him witha reflected radiance. And then by turns he felt the manly sensationsof indignation at having been discarded, and of repugnance at havingbeen--as it were--sought again. And last of all--how strange that itshould have come at last!--the pale-blue vision of the beautifulest ofthe Trenholme sisters illuminated his mind's eye and left him withouta waver. 

"It is too late, " he said, in deep tones, pressing the baking-powdercan against his heart. 

Once she turned after she had gone slowly twenty yards down the path. The hermit had begun to twist the lid off his can, but he hid it againunder his sacking robe. He could see her great eyes shining sadlythrough the twilight; but he stood inflexible in the doorway of hisshack and made no sign. 

Just as the moon rose on Thursday evening the hermit was seized by theworld-madness. 

Up from the inn, fainter than the horns of elf-land, came now and thena few bars of music played by the casino band. The Hudson was broadenedby the night into an illimitable sea--those lights, dimly seen on itsopposite shore, were not beacons for prosaic trolley-lines, but low-setstars millions of miles away. The waters in front of the inn were gaywith fireflies--or were they motor-boats, smelling of gasoline and oil?Once the hermit had known these things and had sported with Amaryllisin the shade of the red-and-white-striped awnings. But for ten yearshe had turned a heedless ear to these far-off echoes of a frivolousworld. But to-night there was something wrong. 

The casino band was playing a waltz--a waltz. What a fool he hadbeen to tear deliberately ten years of his life from the calendarof existence for one who had given him up for the false joys thatwealth--"_tum_ ti _tum_ ti _tum_ ti"--how did that waltz go? Butthoseyears had not been sacrificed--had they not brought him the star andpearl of all the world, the youngest and beautifulest of--

"But do _not_ come on Thursday evening, " she had insisted. Perhaps bynow she would be moving slowly and gracefully to the strains of thatwaltz, held closely by West-Pointers or city commuters, while he, whohad read in her eyes things that had recompensed him for ten lostyears of life, moped like some wild animal in its mountain den. Whyshould--"

"Damn it, " said the hermit, suddenly, "I'll do it!"

He threw down his Marcus Aurelius and threw off his gunny-sack toga. He dragged a dust-covered trunk from a corner of the cave, and withdifficulty wrenched open its lid. 

Candles he had in plenty, and the cave was soon aglow. Clothes--tenyears old in cut--scissors, razors, hats, shoes, all his discardedattire and belongings, were dragged ruthlessly from their renunciatoryrest and strewn about in painful disorder. 

A pair of scissors soon reduced his beard sufficiently for the dulledrazors to perform approximately their office. Cutting his own hairwas beyond the hermit's skill. So he only combed and brushed itbackward as smoothly as he could. Charity forbids us to consider theheartburnings and exertions of one so long removed from haberdasheryand society. 

At the last the hermit went to an inner corner of his cave and beganto dig in the soft earth with a long iron spoon. Out of the cavity hethus made he drew a tin can, and out of the can three thousand dollarsin bills, tightly rolled and wrapped in oiled silk. He was a realhermit, as this may assure you. 

You may take a brief look at him as he hastens down the littlemountain-side. A long, wrinkled black frock-coat reached to hiscalves. White duck trousers, unacquainted with the tailor's goose, apink shirt, white standing collar with brilliant blue butterfly tie, and buttoned congress gaiters. But think, sir and madam--ten years!From beneath a narrow-brimmed straw hat with a striped band flowed hishair. Seeing him, with all your shrewdness you could not have guessedhim. You would have said that he played Hamlet--or the tuba--orpinochle--you would never have laid your hand on your heart and said:"He is a hermit who lived ten years in a cave for love of one lady--towin another. "

The dancing pavilion extended above the waters of the river. Gaylanterns and frosted electric globes shed a soft glamour within it. Ahundred ladies and gentlemen from the inn and summer cottages flittedin and about it. To the left of the dusty roadway down which thehermit had tramped were the inn and grill-room. Something seemed tobe on there, too. The windows were brilliantly lighted, and music wasplaying--music different from the two-steps and waltzes of the casinoband. 

A negro man wearing a white jacket came through the iron gate, withits immense granite posts and wrought-iron lamp-holders. 

"What is going on here to-night?" asked the hermit. 

"Well, sah, " said the servitor, "dey is having de reg'larThursday-evenin' dance in de casino. And in de grill-room dere's abeefsteak dinner, sah. "

The hermit glanced up at the inn on the hillside whence burst suddenlya triumphant strain of splendid harmony. 

"And up there, " said he, "they are playing Mendelssohn--what is goingon up there?"

"Up in de inn, " said the dusky one, "dey is a weddin' goin' on. Mr. Binkley, a mighty rich man, am marryin' Miss Trenholme, sah--de younglady who am quite de belle of de place, sah. "

HE ALSO SERVES

If I could have a thousand years--just one little thousand years--moreof life, I might, in that time, draw near enough to true Romance totouch the hem of her robe. 

Up from ships men come, and from waste places and forest and road andgarret and cellar to maunder to me in strangely distributed wordsof the things they have seen and considered. The recording of theirtales is no more than a matter of ears and fingers. There are onlytwo fates I dread--deafness and writer's cramp. The hand is yetsteady; let the ear bear the blame if these printed words be not inthe order they were delivered to me by Hunky Magee, true camp-followerof fortune. 

Biography shall claim you but an instant--I first knew Hunky when hewas head-waiter at Chubb's little beefsteak restaurant and café onThird Avenue. There was only one waiter besides. 

Then, successively, I caromed against him in the little streets ofthe Big City after his trip to Alaska, his voyage as cook with atreasure-seeking expedition to the Caribbean, and his failure as apearl-fisher in the Arkansas River. Between these dashes into the landof adventure he usually came back to Chubb's for a while. Chubb's wasa port for him when gales blew too high; but when you dined there andHunky went for your steak you never knew whether he would come toanchor in the kitchen or in the Malayan Archipelago. You wouldn'tcare for his description--he was soft of voice and hard of face, and rarely had to use more than one eye to quell any approach to adisturbance among Chubb's customers. 

One night I found Hunky standing at a corner of Twenty-third Streetand Third Avenue after an absence of several months. In ten minuteswe had a little round table between us in a quiet corner, and myears began to get busy. I leave out my sly ruses and feints to drawHunky's word-of-mouth blows--it all came to something like this:

"Speaking of the next election, " said Hunky, "did you ever know muchabout Indians? No? I don't mean the Cooper, Beadle, cigar-store, orLaughing Water kind--I mean the modern Indian--the kind that takesGreek prizes in colleges and scalps the half-back on the other sidein football games. The kind that eats macaroons and tea in theafternoons with the daughter of the professor of biology, and fillsup on grasshoppers and fried rattlesnake when they get back to theancestral wickiup. 

"Well, they ain't so bad. I like 'em better than most foreigners thathave come over in the last few hundred years. One thing about theIndian is this: when he mixes with the white race he swaps all his ownvices for them of the pale-faces--and he retains all his own virtues. Well, his virtues are enough to call out the reserves whenever he lets'em loose. But the imported foreigners adopt our virtues and keeptheir own vices--and it's going to take our whole standing army someday to police that gang. 

"But let me tell you about the trip I took to Mexico with High JackSnakefeeder, a Cherokee twice removed, a graduate of a Pennsylvaniacollege and the latest thing in pointed-toed, rubber-heeled, patentkid moccasins and Madras hunting-shirt with turned-back cuffs. He wasa friend of mine. I met him in Tahlequah when I was out there duringthe land boom, and we got thick. He had got all there was out ofcolleges and had come back to lead his people out of Egypt. He was aman of first-class style and wrote essays, and had been invited tovisit rich guys' houses in Boston and such places. 

"There was a Cherokee girl in Muscogee that High Jack was foolishabout. He took me to see her a few times. Her name was Florence BlueFeather--but you want to clear your mind of all ideas of squaws withnose-rings and army blankets. This young lady was whiter than youare, and better educated than I ever was. You couldn't have told herfrom any of the girls shopping in the swell Third Avenue stores. Iliked her so well that I got to calling on her now and then when HighJack wasn't along, which is the way of friends in such matters. Shewas educated at the Muscogee College, and was making a specialtyof--let's see--eth--yes, ethnology. That's the art that goes backand traces the descent of different races of people, leading up fromjelly-fish through monkeys and to the O'Briens. High Jack had tookup that line too, and had read papers about it before all kinds ofriotous assemblies--Chautauquas and Choctaws and chowder-parties, andsuch. Having a mutual taste for musty information like that was whatmade 'em like each other, I suppose. But I don't know! What theycall congeniality of tastes ain't always it. Now, when Miss BlueFeather and me was talking together, I listened to her affidavitsabout the first families of the Land of Nod being cousins german(well, if the Germans don't nod, who does?) to the mound-builders ofOhio with incomprehension and respect. And when I'd tell her aboutthe Bowery and Coney Island, and sing her a few songs that I'd heardthe Jamaica niggers sing at their church lawn-parties, she didn't lookmuch less interested than she did when High Jack would tell her thathe had a pipe that the first inhabitants of America originally arrivedhere on stilts after a freshet at Tenafly, New Jersey. 

"But I was going to tell you more about High Jack. 

"About six months ago I get a letter from him, saying he'd beencommissioned by the Minority Report Bureau of Ethnology at Washingtonto go down to Mexico and translate some excavations or dig up themeaning of some shorthand notes on some ruins--or something of thatsort. And if I'd go along he could squeeze the price into the expenseaccount. 

"Well, I'd been holding a napkin over my arm at Chubb's about longenough then, so I wired High Jack 'Yes'; and he sent me a ticket, andI met him in Washington, and he had a lot of news to tell me. Firstof all, was that Florence Blue Feather had suddenly disappeared fromher home and environments. 

"'Run away?' I asked. 

"'Vanished, ' says High Jack. 'Disappeared like your shadow whenthe sun goes under a cloud. She was seen on the street, and thenshe turned a corner and nobody ever seen her afterward. The wholecommunity turned out to look for her, but we never found a clew. '

"'That's bad--that's bad, ' says I. 'She was a mighty nice girl, andas smart as you find em. '

"High Jack seemed to take it hard. I guess he must have esteemed MissBlue Feather quite highly. I could see that he'd referred the matterto the whiskey-jug. That was his weak point--and many another man's. I've noticed that when a man loses a girl he generally takes to drinkeither just before or just after it happens. 

"From Washington we railroaded it to New Orleans, and there took atramp steamer bound for Belize. And a gale pounded us all down theCaribbean, and nearly wrecked us on the Yucatan coast opposite alittle town without a harbor called Boca de Coacoyula. Suppose theship had run against that name in the dark!

"'Better fifty years of Europe than a cyclone in the bay, ' says HighJack Snakefeeder. So we get the captain to send us ashore in a dorywhen the squall seemed to cease from squalling. 

"'We will find ruins here or make 'em, ' says High. 'The Governmentdoesn't care which we do. An appropriation is an appropriation. '

"Boca de Coacoyula was a dead town. Them biblical towns we readabout--Tired and Siphon--after they was destroyed, they must havelooked like Forty-second Street and Broadway compared to this Bocaplace. It still claimed 1300 inhabitants as estimated and engravedon the stone court-house by the census-taker in 1597. The citizenswere a mixture of Indians and other Indians; but some of 'em waslight-colored, which I was surprised to see. The town was huddled upon the shore, with woods so thick around it that a subpoena-servercouldn't have reached a monkey ten yards away with the papers. Wewondered what kept it from being annexed to Kansas; but we soon foundout that it was Major Bing. 

"Major Bing was the ointment around the fly. He had the cochineal, sarsaparilla, log-wood, annatto, hemp, and all other dye-woods andpure food adulteration concessions cornered. He had five-sixths ofthe Boca de Thingama-jiggers working for him on shares. It was abeautiful graft. We used to brag about Morgan and E. H. And othersof our wisest when I was in the provinces--but now no more. Thatpeninsula has got our little country turned into a submarine withouteven the observation tower showing. 

"Major Bing's idea was this. He had the population go forth into theforest and gather these products. When they brought 'em in he gave'em one-fifth for their trouble. Sometimes they'd strike and demand asixth. The Major always gave in to 'em. 

"The Major had a bungalow so close on the sea that the nine-inchtide seeped through the cracks in the kitchen floor. Me and him andHigh Jack Snakefeeder sat on the porch and drank rum from noon tillmidnight. He said he had piled up $300, 000 in New Orleans banks, andHigh and me could stay with him forever if we would. But High Jackhappened to think of the United States, and began to talk ethnology. 

"'Ruins!' says Major Bing. 'The woods are full of 'em. I don't knowhow far they date back, but they was here before I came. '

"High Jack asks what form of worship the citizens of that locality areaddicted to. 

"'Why, ' says the Major, rubbing his nose, 'I can't hardly say. Iimagine it's infidel or Aztec or Nonconformist or something likethat. There's a church here--a Methodist or some other kind--witha parson named Skidder. He claims to have converted the people toChristianity. He and me don't assimilate except on state occasions. I imagine they worship some kind of gods or idols yet. But Skiddersays he has 'em in the fold. '

"A few days later High Jack and me, prowling around, strikes a plainpath into the forest, and follows it a good four miles. Then a branchturns to the left. We go a mile, maybe, down that, and run up againstthe finest ruin you ever saw--solid stone with trees and vines andunder-brush all growing up against it and in it and through it. Allover it was chiselled carvings of funny beasts and people that wouldhave been arrested if they'd ever come out in vaudeville that way. Weapproached it from the rear. 

"High Jack had been drinking too much rum ever since we landed inBoca. You know how an Indian is--the palefaces fixed his clock whenthey introduced him to firewater. He'd brought a quart along withhim. 

"'Hunky, ' says he, 'we'll explore the ancient temple. It may be thatthe storm that landed us here was propitious. The Minority ReportBureau of Ethnology, ' says he, 'may yet profit by the vagaries of windand tide. '

"We went in the rear door of the bum edifice. We struck a kind ofalcove without bath. There was a granite davenport, and a stonewash-stand without any soap or exit for the water, and some hardwoodpegs drove into holes in the wall, and that was all. To go out of thatfurnished apartment into a Harlem hall bedroom would make you feellike getting back home from an amateur violoncello solo at an EastSide Settlement house. 

"While High was examining some hieroglyphics on the wall that thestone-masons must have made when their tools slipped, I stepped intothe front room. That was at least thirty by fifty feet, stone floor, six little windows like square port-holes that didn't let much lightin. 

"I looked back over my shoulder, and sees High Jack's face three feetaway. 

"'High, ' says I, 'of all the--'

"And then I noticed he looked funny, and I turned around. 

"He'd taken off his clothes to the waist, and he didn't seem to hearme. I touched him, and came near beating it. High Jack had turned tostone. I had been drinking some rum myself. 

"'Ossified!' I says to him, loudly. 'I knew what would happen if youkept it up. '

"And then High Jack comes in from the alcove when he hears meconversing with nobody, and we have a look at Mr. Snakefeeder No. 2. It's a stone idol, or god, or revised statute or something, and itlooks as much like High Jack as one green pea looks like itself. It'sgot exactly his face and size and color, but it's steadier on itspins. It stands on a kind of rostrum or pedestal, and you can seeit's been there ten million years. 

"'He's a cousin of mine, ' sings High, and then he turns solemn. 

"'Hunky, ' he says, putting one hand on my shoulder and one on thestatue's, 'I'm in the holy temple of my ancestors. '

"'Well, if looks goes for anything, ' says I, 'you've struck a twin. Stand side by side with buddy, and let's see if there's anydifference. '

"There wasn't. You know an Indian can keep his face as still as aniron dog's when he wants to, so when High Jack froze his features youcouldn't have told him from the other one. 

"'There's some letters, ' says I, 'on his nob's pedestal, but I can'tmake 'em out. The alphabet of this country seems to be composed ofsometimes _a_, _e_, _i_, _o_, and _u_, but generally _z's_, _l's_, and _t's_. '

"High Jack's ethnology gets the upper hand of his rum for a minute, and he investigates the inscription. 

"'Hunky, ' says he, 'this is a statue of Tlotopaxl, one of the mostpowerful gods of the ancient Aztecs. '

"'Glad to know him, ' says I, 'but in his present condition he remindsme of the joke Shakespeare got off on Julius Cæsar. We might sayabout your friend:

 "'Imperious What's-his-name, dead and turned to stone-- No use to write or call him on the 'phone. '

"'Hunky, ' says High Jack Snakefeeder, looking at me funny, 'do youbelieve in reincarnation?'

"'It sounds to me, ' says I, 'like either a clean-up of theslaughter-houses or a new kind of Boston pink. I don't know. '

"'I believe, ' says he, 'that I am the reincarnation of Tlotopaxl. My researches have convinced me that the Cherokees, of all the NorthAmerican tribes, can boast of the straightest descent from theproud Aztec race. That, ' says he, 'was a favorite theory of mine andFlorence Blue Feather's. And she--what if she--'

"High Jack grabs my arm and walls his eyes at me. Just then he lookedmore like his eminent co-Indian murderer, Crazy Horse. 

"'Well, ' says I, 'what if she, what if she, what if she? You'redrunk, ' says I. 'Impersonating idols and believing in--what wasit?--recarnalization? Let's have a drink, ' says I. 'It's as spooky hereas a Brooklyn artificial-limb factory at midnight with the gas turneddown. '

"Just then I heard somebody coming, and I dragged High Jack into thebedless bedchamber. There was peep-holes bored through the wall, sowe could see the whole front part of the temple. Major Bing told meafterward that the ancient priests in charge used to rubber throughthem at the congregation. 

"In a few minutes an old Indian woman came in with a big oval earthendish full of grub. She set it on a square block of stone in front ofthe graven image, and laid down and walloped her face on the floor afew times, and then took a walk for herself. 

"High Jack and me was hungry, so we came out and looked it over. There was goat steaks and fried rice-cakes, and plantains and cassava, and broiled land-crabs and mangoes--nothing like what you get atChubb's. 

"We ate hearty--and had another round of rum. 

"'It must be old Tecumseh's--or whatever you call him--birthday, ' saysI. 'Or do they feed him every day? I thought gods only drank vanillaon Mount Catawampus. '

"Then some more native parties in short kimonos that showed theiraboriginees punctured the near-horizon, and me and High had to skipback into Father Axletree's private boudoir. They came by ones, twos, and threes, and left all sorts of offerings--there was enough grubfor Bingham's nine gods of war, with plenty left over for the PeaceConference at The Hague. They brought jars of honey, and bunches ofbananas, and bottles of wine, and stacks of tortillas, and beautifulshawls worth one hundred dollars apiece that the Indian women weave ofa kind of vegetable fibre like silk. All of 'em got down and wriggledon the floor in front of that hard-finish god, and then sneaked offthrough the woods again. 

"'I wonder who gets this rake-off?' remarks High Jack. 

"'Oh, ' says I, 'there's priests or deputy idols or a committee ofdisarrangements somewhere in the woods on the job. Wherever youfind a god you'll find somebody waiting to take charge of the burntofferings. '

"And then we took another swig of rum and walked out to the parlorfront door to cool off, for it was as hot inside as a summer camp onthe Palisades. 

"And while we stood there in the breeze we looks down the path andsees a young lady approaching the blasted ruin. She was bare-footedand had on a white robe, and carried a wreath of white flowers in herhand. When she got nearer we saw she had a long blue feather stuckthrough her black hair. And when she got nearer still me and HighJack Snakefeeder grabbed each other to keep from tumbling down on thefloor; for the girl's face was as much like Florence Blue Feather'sas his was like old King Toxicology's. 

"And then was when High Jack's booze drowned his system of ethnology. He dragged me inside back of the statue, and says:

"'Lay hold of it, Hunky. We'll pack it into the other room. I feltit all the time, ' says he. 'I'm the reconsideration of the godLocomotorataxia, and Florence Blue Feather was my bride a thousandyears ago. She has come to seek me in the temple where I used toreign. '

"'All right, ' says I. 'There's no use arguing against the rumquestion. You take his feet. '

"We lifted the three-hundred-pound stone god, and carried him intothe back room of the café--the temple, I mean--and leaned him againstthe wall. It was more work than bouncing three live ones from anall-night Broadway joint on New-Year's Eve. 

"Then High Jack ran out and brought in a couple of them Indian silkshawls and began to undress himself. 

"'Oh, figs!' says I. 'Is it thus? Strong drink is an adder andsubtractor, too. Is it the heat or the call of the wild that's gotyou?'

"But High Jack is too full of exaltation and cane-juice to reply. Hestops the disrobing business just short of the Manhattan Beach rules, and then winds them red-and-white shawls around him, and goes out and. Stands on the pedestal as steady as any platinum deity you ever saw. And I looks through a peek-hole to see what he is up to. 

"In a few minutes in comes the girl with the flower wreath. Dangedif I wasn't knocked a little silly when she got close, she lookedso exactly much like Florence Blue Feather. 'I wonder, ' says I tomyself, 'if she has been reincarcerated, too? If I could see, ' says Ito myself, 'whether she has a mole on her left--' But the next minuteI thought she looked one-eighth of a shade darker than Florence; butshe looked good at that. And High Jack hadn't drunk all the rum thathad been drank. 

"The girl went up within ten feet of the bum idol, and got down andmassaged her nose with the floor, like the rest did. Then she wentnearer and laid the flower wreath on the block of stone at High Jack'sfeet. Rummy as I was, I thought it was kind of nice of her to thinkof offering flowers instead of household and kitchen provisions. Evena stone god ought to appreciate a little sentiment like that on top ofthe fancy groceries they had piled up in front of him. 

"And then High Jack steps down from his pedestal, quiet, and mentionsa few words that sounded just like the hieroglyphics carved on thewalls of the ruin. The girl gives a little jump backward, and hereyes fly open as big as doughnuts; but she don't beat it. 

"Why didn't she? I'll tell you why I think why. It don't seem to agirl so supernatural, unlikely, strange, and startling that a stonegod should come to life for _her_. If he was to do it for one of themsnub-nosed brown girls on the other side of the woods, now, it wouldbe different--but _her_! I'll bet she said to herself: 'Well, goodnessme! you've been a long time getting on your job. I've half a mind notto speak to you. '

"But she and High Jack holds hands and walks away out of the templetogether. By the time I'd had time to take another drink and enterupon the scene they was twenty yards away, going up the path in thewoods that the girl had come down. With the natural scenery alreadyin place, it was just like a play to watch 'em--she looking up athim, and him giving her back the best that an Indian can hand, out in the way of a goo-goo eye. But there wasn't anything in thatrecarnification and revulsion to tintype for me. 

"'Hey! Injun!' I yells out to High Jack. 'We've got a board-bill duein town, and you're leaving me without a cent. Brace up and cut outthe Neapolitan fisher-maiden, and let's go back home. '

"But on the two goes; without looking once back until, as you mightsay, the forest swallowed 'em up. And I never saw or heard of HighJack Snakefeeder from that day to this. I don't know if the Cherokeescame from the Aspics; but if they did, one of 'em went back. 

"All I could do was to hustle back to that Boca place and panhandleMajor Bing. He detached himself from enough of his winnings to buy mea ticket home. And I'm back again on the job at Chubb's, sir, and I'mgoing to hold it steady. Come round, and you'll find the steaks asgood as ever. "

I wondered what Hunky Magee thought about his own story; so I askedhim if he had any theories about reincarnation and transmogrificationand such mysteries as he had touched upon. 

"Nothing like that, " said Hunky, positively. "What ailed High Jackwas too much booze and education. They'll do an Indian up everytime. "

"But what about Miss Blue Feather?" I persisted. 

"Say, " said Hunky, with a grin, "that little lady that stole High Jackcertainly did give me a jar when I first took a look at her, but itwas only for a minute. You remember I told you High Jack said thatMiss Florence Blue Feather disappeared from home about a year ago?Well, where she landed four days later was in as neat a five-room flaton East Twenty-third Street as you ever walked sideways through--andshe's been Mrs. Magee ever since. "

THE MOMENT OF VICTORY

Ben Granger is a war veteran aged twenty-nine--which should enableyou to guess the war. He is also principal merchant and postmaster ofCadiz, a little town over which the breezes from the Gulf of Mexicoperpetually blow. 

Ben helped to hurl the Don from his stronghold in the GreaterAntilles; and then, hiking across half the world, he marched as acorporal-usher up and down the blazing tropic aisles of the open-aircollege in which the Filipino was schooled. Now, with his bayonetbeaten into a cheese-slicer, he rallies his corporal's guard ofcronies in the shade of his well-whittled porch, instead of in thematted jungles of Mindanao. Always have his interest and choice beenfor deeds rather than for words; but the consideration and digestionof motives is not beyond him, as this story, which is his, willattest. 

"What is it, " he asked me one moonlit eve, as we sat among his boxesand barrels, "that generally makes men go through dangers, and fire, and trouble, and starvation, and battle, and such recourses? Whatdoes a man do it for? Why does he try to outdo his fellow-humans, andbe braver and stronger and more daring and showy than even his bestfriends are? What's his game? What does he expect to get out of it?He don't do it just for the fresh air and exercise. What would yousay, now, Bill, that an ordinary man expects, generally speaking, forhis efforts along the line of ambition and extraordinary hustling inthe marketplaces, forums, shooting-galleries, lyceums, battle-fields, links, cinder-paths, and arenas of the civilized and _vice versa_places of the world?"

"Well, Ben, " said I, with judicial seriousness, "I think we mightsafely limit the number of motives of a man who seeks fame to three--toambition, which is a desire for popular applause; to avarice, whichlooks to the material side of success; and to love of some woman whomhe either possesses or desires to possess. "

Ben pondered over my words while a mocking-bird on the top of amesquite by the porch trilled a dozen bars. 

"I reckon, " said he, "that your diagnosis about covers the caseaccording to the rules laid down in the copy-books and historicalreaders. But what I had in my mind was the case of Willie Robbins, aperson I used to know. I'll tell you about him before I close up thestore, if you don't mind listening. 

"Willie was one of our social set up in San Augustine. I was clerkingthere then for Brady & Murchison, wholesale dry-goods and ranchsupplies. Willie and I belonged to the same german club and athleticassociation and military company. He played the triangle in ourserenading and quartet crowd that used to ring the welkin three nightsa week somewhere in town. 

"Willie jibed with his name considerable. He weighed about as muchas a hundred pounds of veal in his summer suitings, and he had a'Where-is-Mary?' expression on his features so plain that you couldalmost see the wool growing on him. 

"And yet you couldn't fence him away from the girls with barbed wire. You know that kind of young fellows--a kind of a mixture of fools andangels--they rush in and fear to tread at the same time; but they neverfail to tread when they get the chance. He was always on hand when 'ajoyful occasion was had, ' as the morning paper would say, looking ashappy as a king full, and at the same time as uncomfortable as a rawoyster served with sweet pickles. He danced like he had hind hobbleson; and he had a vocabulary of about three hundred and fifty wordsthat he made stretch over four germans a week, and plagiarized fromto get him through two ice-cream suppers and a Sunday-night call. Heseemed to me to be a sort of a mixture of Maltese kitten, sensitiveplant, and a member of a stranded 'Two Orphans' company. 

"I'll give you an estimate of his physiological and pictorial make-up, and then I'll stick spurs into the sides of my narrative. 

"Willie inclined to the Caucasian in his coloring and manner of style. His hair was opalescent and his conversation fragmentary. His eyeswere the same blue shade as the china dog's on the right-hand cornerof your Aunt Ellen's mantelpiece. He took things as they came, and Inever felt any hostility against him. I let him live, and so didothers. 

"But what does this Willie do but coax his heart out of his boots andlose it to Myra Allison, the liveliest, brightest, keenest, smartest, and prettiest girl in San Augustine. I tell you, she had the blackesteyes, the shiniest curls, and the most tantalizing--Oh, no, you'reoff--I wasn't a victim. I might have been, but I knew better. I keptout. Joe Granberry was It from the start. He had everybody elsebeat a couple of leagues and thence east to a stake and mound. But, anyhow, Myra was a nine-pound, full-merino, fall-clip fleece, sackedand loaded on a four-horse team for San Antone. 

"One night there was an ice-cream sociable at Mrs. ColonelSpraggins', in San Augustine. We fellows had a big room up-stairsopened up for us to put our hats and things in, and to comb our hairand put on the clean collars we brought along inside the sweat-bandsof our hats--in short, a room to fix up in just like they haveeverywhere at high-toned doings. A little farther down the hallwas the girls' room, which they used to powder up in, and so forth. Downstairs we--that is, the San Augustine Social Cotillion andMerrymakers' Club--had a stretcher put down in the parlor where ourdance was going on. 

"Willie Robbins and me happened to be up in our--cloak-room, I believewe called it--when Myra Allison skipped through the hall on her waydown-stairs from the girls' room. Willie was standing before themirror, deeply interested in smoothing down the blond grass-plot onhis head, which seemed to give him lots of trouble. Myra was alwaysfull of life and devilment. She stopped and stuck her head in ourdoor. She certainly was good-looking. But I knew how Joe Granberrystood with her. So did Willie; but he kept on ba-a-a-ing after herand following her around. He had a system of persistence that didn'tcoincide with pale hair and light eyes. 

"'Hello, Willie!' says Myra. 'What are you doing to yourself in theglass?'

"'I'm trying to look fly, ' says Willie. 

"'Well, you never could _be_ fly, ' says Myra, with her special laugh, which was the provokingest sound I ever heard except the rattle of anempty canteen against my saddle-horn. 

"I looked around at Willie after Myra had gone. He had a kind of alily-white look on him which seemed to show that her remark had, asyou might say, disrupted his soul. I never noticed anything in whatshe said that sounded particularly destructive to a man's ideasof self-consciousness; but he was set back to an extent you couldscarcely imagine. 

"After we went down-stairs with our clean collars on, Willie neverwent near Myra again that night. After all, he seemed to be a dilutedkind of a skim-milk sort of a chap, and I never wondered that JoeGranberry beat him out. 

"The next day the battleship _Maine_ was blown up, and then pretty soonsomebody--I reckon it was Joe Bailey, or Ben Tillman, or maybe theGovernment--declared war against Spain. 

"Well, everybody south of Mason & Hamlin's line knew that the Northby itself couldn't whip a whole country the size of Spain. So theYankees commenced to holler for help, and the Johnny Rebs answered thecall. 'We're coming, Father William, a hundred thousand strong--andthen some, ' was the way they sang it. And the old party lines drawnby Sherman's march and the Kuklux and nine-cent cotton and the JimCrow street-car ordinances faded away. We became one undivided. Country, with no North, very little East, a good-sized chunk of West, and a South that loomed up as big as the first foreign label on a neweight-dollar suit-case. 

"Of course the dogs of war weren't a complete pack without a yelp fromthe San Augustine Rifles, Company D, of the Fourteenth Texas Regiment. Our company was among the first to land in Cuba and strike terrorinto the hearts of the foe. I'm not going to give you a history ofthe war, I'm just dragging it in to fill out my story about WillieRobbins, just as the Republican party dragged it in to help out theelection in 1898. 

"If anybody ever had heroitis, it was that Willie Robbins. From theminute he set foot on the soil of the tyrants of Castile he seemed toengulf danger as a cat laps up cream. He certainly astonished everyman in our company, from the captain up. You'd have expected himto gravitate naturally to the job of an orderly to the colonel, ortypewriter in the commissary--but not any. He created the part ofthe flaxen-haired boy hero who lives and gets back home with thegoods, instead of dying with an important despatch in his hands athis colonel's feet. 

"Our company got into a section of Cuban scenery where one of themessiest and most unsung portions of the campaign occurred. We wereout every day capering around in the bushes, and having littleskirmishes with the Spanish troops that looked more like kind oftired-out feuds than anything else. The war was a joke to us, andof no interest to them. We never could see it any other way than asa howling farce-comedy that the San Augustine Rifles were actuallyfighting to uphold the Stars and Stripes. And the blamed littleseñors didn't get enough pay to make them care whether they werepatriots or traitors. Now and then somebody would get killed. Itseemed like a waste of life to me. I was at Coney Island when I wentto New York once, and one of them down-hill skidding apparatuses theycall 'roller-coasters' flew the track and killed a man in a brownsack-suit. Whenever the Spaniards shot one of our men, it struck meas just about as unnecessary and regrettable as that was. 

"But I'm dropping Willie Robbins out of the conversation. 

"He was out for bloodshed, laurels, ambition, medals, recommendations, and all other forms of military glory. And he didn't seem to beafraid of any of the recognized forms of military danger, such asSpaniards, cannon-balls, canned beef, gunpowder, or nepotism. He wentforth with his pallid hair and china-blue eyes and ate up Spaniardslike you would sardines _à la canopy_. Wars and rumbles of wars neverflustered him. He would stand guard-duty, mosquitoes, hardtack, treat, and fire with equally perfect unanimity. No blondes in historyever come in comparison distance of him except the Jack of Diamondsand Queen Catherine of Russia. 

"I remember, one time, a little _caballard_ of Spanish men saunteredout from behind a patch of sugar-cane and shot Bob Turner, the firstsergeant of our company, while we were eating dinner. As requiredby the army regulations, we fellows went through the usual tacticsof falling into line, saluting the enemy, and loading and firing, kneeling. 

"That wasn't the Texas way of scrapping; but, being a very importantaddendum and annex to the regular army, the San Augustine Rifles hadto conform to the red-tape system of getting even. 

"By the time we had got out our 'Upton's Tactics, ' turned to pagefifty-seven, said 'one--two--three--one--two--three' a couple oftimes, and got blank cartridges into our Springfields, the Spanishoutfit had smiled repeatedly, rolled and lit cigarettes by squads, andwalked away contemptuously. 

"I went straight to Captain Floyd, and says to him: 'Sam, I don'tthink this war is a straight game. You know as well as I do that BobTurner was one of the whitest fellows that ever threw a leg over asaddle, and now these wirepullers in Washington have fixed his clock. He's politically and ostensibly dead. It ain't fair. Why should theykeep this thing up? If they want Spain licked, why don't they turnthe San Augustine Rifles and Joe Seely's ranger company and a car-loadof West Texas deputy-sheriffs onto these Spaniards, and let usexonerate them from the face of the earth? I never did, ' says I, 'care much about fighting by the Lord Chesterfield ring rules. I'mgoing to hand in my resignation and go home if anybody else I ampersonally acquainted with gets hurt in this war. If you can getsomebody in my place, Sam, ' says I, 'I'll quit the first of next week. I don't want to work in an army that don't give its help a chance. Never mind my wages, ' says I; 'let the Secretary of the Treasury keep'em. '

"'Well, Ben, ' says the captain to me, 'your allegations and estimationsof the tactics of war, government, patriotism, guard-mounting, and democracy are all right. But I've looked into the system ofinternational arbitration and the ethics of justifiable slaughtera little closer, maybe, than you have. Now, you can hand in yourresignation the first of next week if you are so minded. But if youdo, ' says Sam, 'I'll order a corporal's guard to take you over bythat limestone bluff on the creek and shoot enough lead into you toballast a submarine air-ship. I'm captain of this company, and I'veswore allegiance to the Amalgamated States regardless of sectional, secessional, and Congressional differences. Have you got anysmoking-tobacco?' winds up Sam. 'Mine got wet when I swum the creekthis morning. '

"The reason I drag all this _non ex parte_ evidence in is because WillieRobbins was standing there listening to us. I was a second sergeantand he was a private then, but among us Texans and Westerners therenever was as much tactics and subordination as there was in theregular army. We never called our captain anything but 'Sam' exceptwhen there was a lot of major-generals and admirals around, so as topreserve the discipline. 

"And says Willie Robbins to me, in a sharp construction of voice muchunbecoming to his light hair and previous record:

"'You ought to be shot, Ben, for emitting any such sentiments. A manthat won't fight for his country is worse than a horse-thief. If Iwas the cap, I'd put you in the guard-house for thirty days on roundsteak and tamales. War, ' says Willie, 'is great and glorious. Ididn't know you were a coward. '

"'I'm not, ' says I. 'If I was, I'd knock some of the pallidness offof your marble brow. I'm lenient with you, ' I says, 'just as I amwith the Spaniards, because you have always reminded me of somethingwith mushrooms on the side. Why, you little Lady of Shalott, ' says I, 'you underdone leader of cotillions, you glassy fashion and mouldedform, you white-pine soldier made in the Cisalpine Alps in Germanyfor the late New-Year trade, do you know of whom you are talkingto? We've been in the same social circle, ' says I, 'and I've putup with you because you seemed so meek and self-un-satisfying. Idon't understand why you have so sudden taken a personal interestin chivalrousness and murder. Your nature's undergone a completerevelation. Now, how is it?'

"'Well, you wouldn't understand, Ben, ' says Willie, giving one of hisrefined smiles and turning away. 

"'Come back here!' says I, catching him by the tail of his khaki coat. 'You've made me kind of mad, in spite of the aloofness in which I haveheretofore held you. You are out for making a success in this herobusiness, and I believe I know what for. You are doing it eitherbecause you are crazy or because you expect to catch some girl by it. Now, if it's a girl, I've got something here to show you. '

"I wouldn't have done it, but I was plumb mad. I pulled a SanAugustine paper out of my hip-pocket, and showed him an item. It wasa half a column about the marriage of Myra Allison and Joe Granberry. 

"Willie laughed, and I saw I hadn't touched him. 

"'Oh, ' says he, 'everybody knew that was going to happen. I heardabout that a week ago. ' And then he gave me the laugh again. 

"'All right, ' says I. 'Then why do you so recklessly chase the brightrainbow of fame? Do you expect to be elected President, or do youbelong to a suicide club?'

"And then Captain Sam interferes. 

"'You gentlemen quit jawing and go back to your quarters, ' says he, 'or I'll have you escorted to the guard-house. Now, scat, both ofyou! Before you go, which one of you has got any chewing-tobacco?'

"'We're off, Sam, ' says I. 'It's supper-time, anyhow. But what doyou think of what we was talking about? I've noticed you throwing outa good many grappling-hooks for this here balloon called fame--What'sambition, anyhow? What does a man risk his life day after day for?Do you know of anything he gets in the end that can pay him for thetrouble? I want to go back home, ' says I. 'I don't care whether Cubasinks or swims, and I don't give a pipeful of rabbit tobacco whetherQueen Sophia Christina or Charlie Culberson rules these fairy isles;and I don't want my name on any list except the list of survivors. But I've noticed you, Sam, ' says I, 'seeking the bubble notoriety inthe cannon's larynx a number of times. Now, what do you do it for? Isit ambition, business, or some freckle-faced Phoebe at home that youare heroing for?'

"'Well, Ben, ' says Sam, kind of hefting his sword out from betweenhis knees, 'as your superior officer I could court-martial you forattempted cowardice and desertion. But I won't. And I'll tell youwhy I'm trying for promotion and the usual honors of war and conquest. A major gets more pay than a captain, and I need the money. '

"'Correct for you!' says I. 'I can understand that. Your system offame-seeking is rooted in the deepest soil of patriotism. But I can'tcomprehend, ' says I, 'why Willie Robbins, whose folks at home are welloff, and who used to be as meek and undesirous of notice as a cat withcream on his whiskers, should all at once develop into a warrior boldwith the most fire-eating kind of proclivities. And the girl in hiscase seems to have been eliminated by marriage to another fellow. Ireckon, ' says I, 'it's a plain case of just common ambition. He wantshis name, maybe, to go thundering down the coroners of time. It mustbe that. '

"Well, without itemizing his deeds, Willie sure made good as a hero. He simply spent most of his time on his knees begging our captain tosend him on forlorn hopes and dangerous scouting expeditions. Inevery fight he was the first man to mix it at close quarters with theDon Alfonsos. He got three or four bullets planted in various partsof his autonomy. Once he went off with a detail of eight men andcaptured a whole company of Spanish. He kept Captain Floyd busywriting out recommendations of his bravery to send in to headquarters;and he began to accumulate medals for all kinds of things--heroismand target-shooting and valor and tactics and uninsubordination, andall the little accomplishments that look good to the third assistantsecretaries of the War Department. 

"Finally, Cap Floyd got promoted to be a major-general, or a knightcommander of the main herd, or something like that. He pounded aroundon a white horse, all desecrated up with gold-leaf and hen-feathersand a Good Templar's hat, and wasn't allowed by the regulations tospeak to us. And Willie Robbins was made captain of our company. 

"And maybe he didn't go after the wreath of fame then! As far asI could see it was him that ended the war. He got eighteen of usboys--friends of his, too--killed in battles that he stirred uphimself, and that didn't seem to me necessary at all. One night he tooktwelve of us and waded through a little rill about a hundred and ninetyyards wide, and climbed a couple of mountains, and sneaked through amile of neglected shrubbery and a couple of rock-quarries and into arye-straw village, and captured a Spanish general named, as they said, Benny Veedus. Benny seemed to me hardly worth the trouble, being ablackish man without shoes or cuffs, and anxious to surrender and throwhimself on the commissary of his foe. 

"But that job gave Willie the big boost he wanted. The San Augustine_News_ and the Galveston, St. Louis, New York, and Kansas City papersprinted his picture and columns of stuff about him. Old San Augustinesimply went crazy over its 'gallant son. ' The _News_ had an editorialtearfully begging the Government to call off the regular army andthe national guard, and let Willie carry on the rest of the warsingle-handed. It said that a refusal to do so would be regarded as aproof that the Northern jealousy of the South was still as rampant asever. 

"If the war hadn't ended pretty soon, I don't know to what heights ofgold braid and encomiums Willie would have climbed; but it did. Therewas a secession of hostilities just three days after he was appointeda colonel, and got in three more medals by registered mail, and shottwo Spaniards while they were drinking lemonade in an ambuscade. 

"Our company went back to San Augustine when the war was over. Therewasn't anywhere else for it to go. And what do you think? The oldtown notified us in print, by wire cable, special delivery, and anigger named Saul sent on a gray mule to San Antone, that they wasgoing to give us the biggest blow-out, complimentary, alimentary, andelementary, that ever disturbed the kildees on the sand-flats outsideof the immediate contiguity of the city. 

"I say 'we, ' but it was all meant for ex-Private, Captain _de facto_, and Colonel-elect Willie Robbins. The town was crazy about him. Theynotified us that the reception they were going to put up would makethe Mardi Gras in New Orleans look like an afternoon tea in Bury St. Edmunds with a curate's aunt. 

"Well, the San Augustine Rifles got back home on schedule time. Everybody was at the depot giving forth Roosevelt-Democrat--theyused to be called Rebel--yells. There was two brass-bands, and themayor, and schoolgirls in white frightening the street-car horses bythrowing Cherokee roses in the streets, and--well, maybe you've seena celebration by a town that was inland and out of water. 

"They wanted Brevet-Colonel Willie to get into a carriage and be drawnby prominent citizens and some of the city aldermen to the armory, buthe stuck to his company and marched at the head of it up Sam HoustonAvenue. The buildings on both sides was covered with flags andaudiences, and everybody hollered 'Robbins!' or 'Hello, Willie!' aswe marched up in files of fours. I never saw a illustriouser-lookinghuman in my life than Willie was. He had at least seven or eightmedals and diplomas and decorations on the breast of his khaki coat;he was sunburnt the color of a saddle, and he certainly done himselfproud. 

"They told us at the depot that the courthouse was to be illuminatedat half-past seven, and there would be speeches and chili-con-carne atthe Palace Hotel. Miss Delphine Thompson was to read an original poemby James Whitcomb Ryan, and Constable Hooker had promised us a saluteof nine guns from Chicago that he had arrested that day. 

"After we had disbanded in the armory, Willie says to me:

"'Want to walk out a piece with me?'

"'Why, yes, ' says I, 'if it ain't so far that we can't hear the tumultand the shouting die away. I'm hungry myself, ' says I, 'and I'mpining for some home grub, but I'll go with you. '

"Willie steered me down some side streets till we came to a littlewhite cottage in a new lot with a twenty-by-thirty-foot lawn decoratedwith brickbats and old barrel-staves. 

"'Halt and give the countersign, ' says I to Willie. 'Don't you knowthis dugout? It's the bird's-nest that Joe Granberry built before hemarried Myra Allison. What you going there for?'

"But Willie already had the gate open. He walked up the brick walk tothe steps, and I went with him. Myra was sitting in a rocking-chairon the porch, sewing. Her hair was smoothed back kind of hasty andtied in a knot. I never noticed till then that she had freckles. Joewas at one side of the porch, in his shirt-sleeves, with no collaron, and no signs of a shave, trying to scrape out a hole among thebrickbats and tin cans to plant a little fruit-tree in. He looked upbut never said a word, and neither did Myra. 

"Willie was sure dandy-looking in his uniform, with medals strung onhis breast and his new gold-handled sword. You'd never have taken himfor the little white-headed snipe that the girls used to order aboutand make fun of. He just stood there for a minute, looking at Myrawith a peculiar little smile on his face; and then he says to her, slow, and kind of holding on to his words with his teeth:

"'_Oh, I don't know! Maybe I could if I tried!_'

"That was all that was said. Willie raised his hat, and we walkedaway. 

"And, somehow, when he said that, I remembered, all of a sudden, the night of that dance and Willie brushing his hair before thelooking-glass, and Myra sticking her head in the door to guy him. 

"When we got back to Sam Houston Avenue, Willie says:

"'Well, so long, Ben. I'm going down home and get off my shoes andtake a rest. '

"'You?' says I. 'What's the matter with you? Ain't the court-housejammed with everybody in town waiting to honor the hero? And twobrass-bands, and recitations and flags and jags and grub to followwaiting for you?'

"Willie sighs. 

"'All right, Ben, ' says he. 'Darned if I didn't forget all aboutthat. '

"And that's why I say, " concluded Ben Granger, "that you can't tellwhere ambition begins any more than you can where it is going to windup. "

THE HEAD-HUNTER

When the war between Spain and George Dewey was over, I went to thePhilippine Islands. There I remained as bush-whacker correspondentfor my paper until its managing editor notified me that aneight-hundred-word cablegram describing the grief of a pet carabaoover the death of an infant Moro was not considered by the office tobe war news. So I resigned, and came home. 

On board the trading-vessel that brought me back I pondered muchupon the strange things I had sensed in the weird archipelago of theyellow-brown people. The manoeuvres and skirmishings of the petty warinterested me not: I was spellbound by the outlandish and unreadablecountenance of that race that had turned its expressionless gaze uponus out of an unguessable past. 

Particularly during my stay in Mindanao had I been fascinated andattracted by that delightfully original tribe of heathen known asthe head-hunters. Those grim, flinty, relentless little men, neverseen, but chilling the warmest noonday by the subtle terror of theirconcealed presence, paralleling the trail of their prey throughunmapped forests, across perilous mountain-tops, adown bottomlesschasms, into uninhabitable jungles, always near with the invisiblehand of death uplifted, betraying their pursuit only by such signs asa beast or a bird or a gliding serpent might make--a twig cracklingin the awful, sweat-soaked night, a drench of dew showering from thescreening foliage of a giant tree, a whisper at even from the rushesof a water-level--a hint of death for every mile and every hour--theyamused me greatly, those little fellows of one idea. 

When you think of it, their method is beautifully and almosthilariously effective and simple. 

You have your hut in which you live and carry out the destiny thatwas decreed for you. Spiked to the jamb of your bamboo doorway is abasket made of green withes, plaited. From time to time, as vanity orennui or love or jealousy or ambition may move you, you creep forthwith your snickersnee and take up the silent trail. Back from it youcome, triumphant, bearing the severed, gory head of your victim, whichyou deposit with pardonable pride in the basket at the side of yourdoor. It may be the head of your enemy, your friend, or a stranger, according as competition, jealousy, or simple sportiveness has beenyour incentive to labor. 

In any case, your reward is certain. The village men, in passing, stop to congratulate you, as your neighbor on weaker planes of lifestops to admire and praise the begonias in your front yard. Yourparticular brown maid lingers, with fluttering bosom, casting softtiger's eyes at the evidence of your love for her. You chew betel-nutand listen, content, to the intermittent soft drip from the ends ofthe severed neck arteries. And you show your teeth and grunt like awater-buffalo--which is as near as you can come to laughing--at thethought that the cold, acephalous body of your door ornament is beingspotted by wheeling vultures in the Mindanaoan wilds. 

Truly, the life of the merry head-hunter captivated me. He hadreduced art and philosophy to a simple code. To take your adversary'shead, to basket it at the portal of your castle, to see it lyingthere, a dead thing, with its cunning and stratagems and power gone--Is there a better way to foil his plots, to refute his arguments, toestablish your superiority over his skill and wisdom?

The ship that brought me home was captained by an erratic Swede, whochanged his course and deposited me, with genuine compassion, ina small town on the Pacific coast of one of the Central Americanrepublics, a few hundred miles south of the port to which he hadengaged to convey me. But I was wearied of movement and exoticfancies; so I leaped contentedly upon the firm sands of the village ofMojada, telling myself I should be sure to find there the rest that Icraved. After all, far better to linger there (I thought), lulled bythe sedative plash of the waves and the rustling of palm-fronds, thanto sit upon the horsehair sofa of my parental home in the East, andthere, cast down by currant wine and cake, and scourged by fatuousrelatives, drivel into the ears of gaping neighbors sad stories of thedeath of colonial governors. 

When I first saw Chloe Greene she was standing, all in white, in thedoorway of her father's tile-roofed 'dobe house. She was polishinga silver cup with a cloth, and she looked like a pearl laid againstblack velvet. She turned on me a flatteringly protracted but awiltingly disapproving gaze, and then went inside, humming a lightsong to indicate the value she placed upon my existence. 

Small wonder: for Dr. Stamford (the most disreputable professionalman between Juneau and Valparaiso) and I were zigzagging along theturfy street, tunelessly singing the words of "Auld Lang Syne" to theair of "Muzzer's Little Coal-Black Coon. " We had come from the icefactory, which was Mojada's palace of wickedness, where we had beenplaying billiards and opening black bottles, white with frost, thatwe dragged with strings out of old Sandoval's ice-cold vats. 

I turned in sudden rage to Dr. Stamford, as sober as the verger of acathedral. In a moment I had become aware that we were swine castbefore a pearl. 

"You beast, " I said, "this is half your doing. And the other halfis the fault of this cursed country. I'd better have gone back toSleepy-town and died in a wild orgy of currant wine and buns than tohave had this happen. "

Stamford filled the empty street with his roaring laughter. 

"You too!" he cried. "And all as quick as the popping of a cork. Well, she does seem to strike agreeably upon the retina. But don'tburn your fingers. All Mojada will tell you that Louis Devoe is theman. 

"We will see about that, " said I. "And, perhaps, whether he is _a_man as well as _the_ man. "

I lost no time in meeting Louis Devoe. That was easily accomplished, for the foreign colony in Mojada numbered scarce a dozen; and theygathered daily at a half-decent hotel kept by a Turk, where theymanaged to patch together the fluttering rags of country andcivilization that were left them. I sought Devoe before I did mypearl of the doorway, because I had learned a little of the game ofwar, and knew better than to strike for a prize before testing thestrength of the enemy. 

A sort of cold dismay--something akin to fear--filled me when I hadestimated him. I found a man so perfectly poised, so charming, sodeeply learned in the world's rituals, so full of tact, courtesy, andhospitality, so endowed with grace and ease and a kind of careless, haughty power that I almost overstepped the bounds in probing him, inturning him on the spit to find the weak point that I so craved forhim to have. But I left him whole--I had to make bitter acknowledgmentto myself that Louis Devoe was a gentleman worthy of my best blows;and I swore to give him them. He was a great merchant of the country, a wealthy importer and exporter. All day he sat in a fastidiouslyappointed office, surrounded by works of art and evidences of his highculture, directing through glass doors and windows the affairs of hishouse. 

In person he was slender and hardly tall. His small, well-shaped headwas covered with thick, brown hair, trimmed short, and he wore athick, brown beard also cut close and to a fine point. His mannerswere a pattern. 

Before long I had become a regular and a welcome visitor at theGreene home. I shook my wild habits from me like a worn-out cloak. I trained for the conflict with the care of a prize-fighter and theself-denial of a Brahmin. 

As for Chloe Greene, I shall weary you with no sonnets to her eyebrow. She was a splendidly feminine girl, as wholesome as a November pippin, and no more mysterious than a window-pane. She had whimsical littletheories that she had deduced from life, and that fitted the maximsof Epictetus like princess gowns. I wonder, after all, if that oldduffer wasn't rather wise!

Chloe had a father, the Reverend Homer Greene, and an intermittentmother, who sometimes palely presided over a twilight teapot. TheReverend Homer was a burr-like man with a life-work. He was writinga concordance to the Scriptures, and had arrived as far as Kings. Being, presumably, a suitor for his daughter's hand, I was timber forhis literary outpourings. I had the family tree of Israel drilledinto my head until I used to cry aloud in my sleep: "And Aminadabbegat Jay Eye See, " and so forth, until he had tackled another book. I once made a calculation that the Reverend Homer's concordance wouldbe worked up as far as the Seven Vials mentioned in Revelations aboutthe third day after they were opened. 

Louis Devoe, as well as I, was a visitor and an intimate friend of theGreenes. It was there I met him the oftenest, and a more agreeableman or a more accomplished I have never hated in my life. 

Luckily or unfortunately, I came to be accepted as a Boy. Myappearance was youthful, and I suppose I had that pleading andhomeless air that always draws the motherliness that is in women andthe cursed theories and hobbies of paterfamilias. 

Chloe called me "Tommy, " and made sisterly fun of my attempts towoo her. With Devoe she was vastly more reserved. He was the man ofromance, one to stir her imagination and deepest feelings had herfancy leaned toward him. I was closer to her, but standing in noglamour; I had the task before me of winning her in what seems to methe American way of fighting--with cleanness and pluck and everydaydevotion to break away the barriers of friendship that divided us, andto take her, if I could, between sunrise and dark, abetted by neithermoonlight nor music nor foreign wiles. 

Chloe gave no sign of bestowing her blithe affections upon either ofus. But one day she let out to me an inkling of what she preferredin a man. It was tremendously interesting to me, but not illuminatingas to its application. I had been tormenting her for the dozenth timewith the statement and catalogue of my sentiments toward her. 

"Tommy, " said she, "I don't want a man to show his love for me byleading an army against another country and blowing people off theearth with cannons. "

"If you mean that the opposite way, " I answered, "as they say womendo, I'll see what I can do. The papers are full of this diplomaticrow in Russia. My people know some big people in Washington who areright next to the army people, and I could get an artillery commissionand--"

"I'm not that way, " interrupted Chloe. "I mean what I say. It isn'tthe big things that are done in the world, Tommy, that count with awoman. When the knights were riding abroad in their armor to slaydragons, many a stay-at-home page won a lonesome lady's hand by beingon the spot to pick up her glove and be quick with her cloak when thewind blew. The man I am to like best, whoever he shall be, must showhis love in little ways. He must never forget, after hearing it once, that I do not like to have any one walk at my left side; that I detestbright-colored neckties; that I prefer to sit with my back to a light;that I like candied violets; that I must not be talked to when I amlooking at the moonlight shining on water, and that I very, very oftenlong for dates stuffed with English walnuts. "

"Frivolity, " I said, with a frown. "Any well-trained servant would beequal to such details. "

"And he must remember, " went on Chloe, to remind me of what I wantwhen I do not know, myself, what I want. "

"You're rising in the scale, " I said. "What you seem to need is afirst-class clairvoyant. "

"And if I say that I am dying to hear a Beethoven sonata, and stamp myfoot when I say it, he must know by that that what my soul craves issalted almonds; and he will have them ready in his pocket. "

"Now, " said I, "I am at a loss. I do not know whether your soul'saffinity is to be an impresario or a fancy grocer. "

Chloe turned her pearly smile upon me. 

"Take less than half of what I said as a jest, " she went on. "Anddon't think too lightly of the little things, Boy. Be a paladin ifyou must, but don't let it show on you. Most women are only very bigchildren, and most men are only very little ones. Please us; don'ttry to overpower us. When we want a hero we can make one out of evena plain grocer the third time he catches our handkerchief before itfalls to the ground. "

That evening I was taken down with pernicious fever. That is a kindof coast fever with improvements and high-geared attachments. Yourtemperature goes up among the threes and fours and remains there, laughing scornfully and feverishly at the cinchona trees and thecoal-tar derivatives. Pernicious fever is a case for a simplemathematician instead of a doctor. It is merely this formula:Vitality + the desire to live - the duration of the fever = theresult. 

I took to my bed in the two-roomed thatched hut where I had beencomfortably established, and sent for a gallon of rum. That was notfor myself. Drunk, Stamford was the best doctor between the Andesand the Pacific. He came, sat at my bedside, and drank himself intocondition. 

"My boy, " said he, "my lily-white and reformed Romeo, medicine will doyou no good. But I will give you quinine, which, being bitter, willarouse in you hatred and anger--two stimulants that will add ten percent. To your chances. You are as strong as a caribou calf, and youwill get well if the fever doesn't get in a knockout blow when you'reoff your guard. "

For two weeks I lay on my back feeling like a Hindoo widow on aburning ghat. Old Atasca, an untrained Indian nurse, sat near thedoor like a petrified statue of What's-the-Use, attending to herduties, which were, mainly, to see that time went by without slippinga cog. Sometimes I would fancy myself back in the Philippines, or, atworse times, sliding off the horsehair sofa in Sleepytown. 

One afternoon I ordered Atasca to vamose, and got up and dressedcarefully. I took my temperature, which I was pleased to find 104. I paid almost dainty attention to my dress, choosing solicitouslya necktie of a dull and subdued hue. The mirror showed that I waslooking little the worse from my illness. The fever gave brightnessto my eyes and color to my face. And while I looked at my reflectionmy color went and came again as I thought of Chloe Greene and themillions of eons that had passed since I'd seen her, and of LouisDevoe and the time he had gained on me. 

I went straight to her house. I seemed to float rather than walk; Ihardly felt the ground under my feet; I thought pernicious fever mustbe a great boon to make one feel so strong. 

I found Chloe and Louis Devoe sitting under the awning in front of thehouse. She jumped up and met me with a double handshake. 

"I'm glad, glad, glad to see you out again!" she cried, every word apearl strung on the string of her sentence. "You are well, Tommy--orbetter, of course. I wanted to come to see you, but they wouldn't letme. "

"Oh yes, " said I, carelessly, "it was nothing. Merely a little fever. I am out again, as you see. "

We three sat there and talked for half an hour or so. Then Chloelooked out yearningly and almost piteously across the ocean. I couldsee in her sea-blue eyes some deep and intense desire. Devoe, cursehim! saw it too. 

"What is it?" we asked, in unison. 

"Cocoanut-pudding, " said Chloe, pathetically. "I've wanted some--oh, so badly, for two days. It's got beyond a wish; it's an obsession. "

"The cocoanut season is over, " said Devoe, in that voice of his thatgave thrilling interest to his most commonplace words. "I hardlythink one could be found in Mojada. The natives never use them exceptwhen they are green and the milk is fresh. They sell all the ripeones to the fruiterers. "

"Wouldn't a broiled lobster or a Welsh rabbit do as well?" I remarked, with the engaging idiocy of a pernicious-fever convalescent. 

Chloe came as near to pouting as a sweet disposition and a perfectprofile would allow her to come. 

The Reverend Homer poked his ermine-lined face through the doorway andadded a concordance to the conversation. 

"Sometimes, " said he, "old Campos keeps the dried nuts in his littlestore on the hill. But it would be far better, my daughter, torestrain unusual desires, and partake thankfully of the daily dishesthat the Lord has set before us. "

"Stuff!" said I. 

"How was that?" asked the Reverend Homer, sharply. 

"I say it's tough, " said I, "to drop into the vernacular, that MissGreene should be deprived of the food she desires--a simple thing likekalsomine-pudding. Perhaps, " I continued, solicitously, "some pickledwalnuts or a fricassee of Hungarian butternuts would do as well. "

Every one looked at me with a slight exhibition of curiosity. 

Louis Devoe arose and made his adieus. I watched him until he hadsauntered slowly and grandiosely to the corner, around which he turnedto reach his great warehouse and store. Chloe made her excuses, andwent inside for a few minutes to attend to some detail affecting theseven-o'clock dinner. She was a passed mistress in housekeeping. Ihad tasted her puddings and bread with beatitude. 

When all had gone, I turned casually and saw a basket made ofplaited green withes hanging by a nail outside the door-jamb. Witha rush that made my hot temples throb there came vividly to my mindrecollections of the head-hunters--_those grim, flinty, relentlesslittle men, never seen, but chilling the warmest noonday by thesubtle terror of their concealed presence . . . From time to time, as vanity or ennui or love or jealousy or ambition may move him, one creeps forth with his snickersnee and takes up the silenttrail . . . Back he comes, triumphant, bearing the severed, gory headof his victim . . . His particular brown or white maid lingers, withfluttering bosom, casting soft tiger's eyes at the evidence of hislove for her_. 

I stole softly from the house and returned to my hut. From itssupporting nails in the wall I took a machete as heavy as a butcher'scleaver and sharper than a safety-razor. And then I chuckled softlyto myself, and set out to the fastidiously appointed private office ofMonsieur Louis Devoe, usurper to the hand of the Pearl of the Pacific. 

He was never slow at thinking; he gave one look at my face and anotherat the weapon in my hand as I entered his door, and then he seemedto fade from my sight. I ran to the back door, kicked it open, andsaw him running like a deer up the road toward the wood that begantwo hundred yards away. I was after him, with a shout. I rememberhearing children and women screaming, and seeing them flying from theroad. 

He was fleet, but I was stronger. A mile, and I had almost come upwith him. He doubled cunningly and dashed into a brake that extendedinto a small cañon. I crashed through this after him, and in fiveminutes had him cornered in an angle of insurmountable cliffs. Therehis instinct of self-preservation steadied him, as it will steady evenanimals at bay. He turned to me, quite calm, with a ghastly smile. 

"Oh, Rayburn!" he said, with such an awful effort at ease that I wasimpolite enough to laugh rudely in his face. "Oh, Rayburn!" said he, "come, let's have done with this nonsense. Of course, I know it's thefever and you're not yourself; but collect yourself, man--give me thatridiculous weapon, now, and let's go back and talk it over. "

"I will go back, " said I, "carrying your head with me. We will seehow charmingly it can discourse when it lies in the basket at herdoor. "

"Come, " said he, persuasively, "I think better of you than to supposethat you try this sort of thing as a joke. But even the vagaries ofa fever-crazed lunatic come some time to a limit. What is this talkabout heads and baskets? Get yourself together and throw away thatabsurd cane-chopper. What would Miss Greene think of you?" he ended, with the silky cajolery that one would use toward a fretful child. 

"Listen, " said I. "At last you have struck upon the right note. Whatwould she think of me? Listen, " I repeated. 

"There are women, " I said, "who look upon horsehair sofas and currantwine as dross. To them even the calculated modulation of yourwell-trimmed talk sounds like the dropping of rotten plums from a treein the night. They are the maidens who walk back and forth in thevillages, scorning the emptiness of the baskets at the doors of theyoung men who would win them. 

"One such as they, " I said, "is waiting. Only a fool would try to wina woman by drooling like a braggart in her doorway or by waiting uponher whims like a footman. They are all daughters of Herodias, and togain their hearts one must lay the heads of his enemies before themwith his own hands. Now, bend your neck, Louis Devoe. Do not be acoward as well as a chatterer at a lady's tea-table. "

"There, there!" said Devoe, falteringly. "You know me, don't you, Rayburn?"

"Oh yes, " I said, "I know you. I know you. I know you. But thebasket is empty. The old men of the village and the young men, andboth the dark maidens and the ones who are as fair as pearls walk backand forth and see its emptiness. Will you kneel now, or must we havea scuffle? It is not like you to make things go roughly and with badform. But the basket is waiting for your head. "

With that he went to pieces. I had to catch him as he tried toscamper past me like a scared rabbit. I stretched him out and got afoot on his chest, but he squirmed like a worm, although I appealedrepeatedly to his sense of propriety and the duty he owed to himselfas a gentleman not to make a row. 

But at last he gave me the chance, and I swung the machete. 

It was not hard work. He flopped like a chicken during the six orseven blows that it took to sever his head; but finally he lay still, and I tied his head in my handkerchief. The eyes opened and shutthrice while I walked a hundred yards. I was red to my feet with thedrip, but what did that matter? With delight I felt under my handsthe crisp touch of his short, thick, brown hair and close-trimmedbeard. 

I reached the house of the Greenes and dumped the head of Louis Devoeinto the basket that still hung by the nail in the door-jamb. I satin a chair under the awning and waited. The sun was within two hoursof setting. Chloe came out and looked surprised. 

"Where have you been, Tommy?" she asked. "You were gone when I cameout. "

"Look in the basket, " I said, rising to my feet. She looked, and gavea little scream--of delight, I was pleased to note. 

"Oh, Tommy!" she said. "It was just what I wanted you to do. It'sleaking a little, but that doesn't matter. Wasn't I telling you?It's the little things that count. And you remembered. "

Little things! She held the ensanguined head of Louis Devoe in herwhite apron. Tiny streams of red widened on her apron and drippedupon the floor. Her face was bright and tender. 

"Little things, indeed!" I thought again. "The head-hunters areright. These are the things that women like you to do for them. "

Chloe came close to me. There was no one in sight. She looked tip atme with sea-blue eyes that said things they had never said before. 

"You think of me, " she said. "You are the man I was describing. Youthink of the little things, and they are what make the world worthliving in. The man for me must consider my little wishes, and make mehappy in small ways. He must bring me little red peaches in Decemberif I wish for them, and then I will love him till June. I will haveno knight in armor slaying his rival or killing dragons for me. Youplease me very well, Tommy. "

I stooped and kissed her. Then a moisture broke out on my forehead, and I began to feel weak. I saw the red stains vanish from Chloe'sapron, and the head of Louis Devoe turn to a brown, dried cocoanut. 

"There will be cocoanut-pudding for dinner, Tommy, boy, " said Chloe, gayly, "and you must come. I must go in for a little while. "

She vanished in a delightful flutter. 

Dr. Stamford tramped up hurriedly. He seized my pulse as though itwere his own property that I had escaped with. 

"You are the biggest fool outside of any asylum!" he said, angrily. "Why did you leave your bed? And the idiotic things you've beendoing!--and no wonder, with your pulse going like a sledge-hammer. "

"Name some of them, " said I. 

"Devoe sent for me, " said Stamford. "He saw you from his window go toold Campos' store, chase him up the hill with his own yardstick, andthen come back and make off with his biggest cocoanut. "

"It's the little things that count, after all, " said I. 

"It's your little bed that counts with you just now, " said the doctor. "You come with me at once, or I'll throw up the case. 'You're asloony as a loon. "

So I got no cocoanut-pudding that evening, but I conceived a distrustas to the value of the method of the head-hunters. Perhaps for manycenturies the maidens of the villages may have been looking wistfullyat the heads in the baskets at the doorways, longing for other andlesser trophies. 

NO STORY

To avoid having this book hurled into corner of the room by thesuspicious reader, I will assert in time that this is not a newspaperstory. You will encounter no shirt-sleeved, omniscient city editor, no prodigy "cub" reporter just off the farm, no scoop, no story--noanything. 

But if you will concede me the setting of the first scene in thereporters' room of the _Morning Beacon_, I will repay the favor bykeeping strictly my promises set forth above. 

I was doing space-work on the _Beacon_, hoping to be put on a salary. Some one had cleared with a rake or a shovel a small space for me atthe end of a long table piled high with exchanges, _CongressionalRecords_, and old files. There I did my work. I wrote whatever thecity whispered or roared or chuckled to me on my diligent wanderingsabout its streets. My income was not regular. 

One day Tripp came in and leaned on my table. Tripp was something inthe mechanical department--I think he had something to do with thepictures, for he smelled of photographers' supplies, and his handswere always stained and cut up with acids. He was about twenty-fiveand looked forty. Half of his face was covered with short, curly redwhiskers that looked like a door-mat with the "welcome" left off. Hewas pale and unhealthy and miserable and fawning, and an assiduousborrower of sums ranging from twenty-five cents to a dollar. Onedollar was his limit. He knew the extent of his credit as well as theChemical National Bank knows the amount of H2O that collateral willshow on analysis. When he sat on my table he held one hand with theother to keep both from shaking. Whiskey. He had a spurious air oflightness and bravado about him that deceived no one, but was usefulin his borrowing because it was so pitifully and perceptibly assumed. 

This day I had coaxed from the cashier five shining silver dollars asa grumbling advance on a story that the Sunday editor had reluctantlyaccepted. So if I was not feeling at peace with the world, at leastan armistice had been declared; and I was beginning with ardor towrite a description of the Brooklyn Bridge by moonlight. 

"Well, Tripp, " said I, looking up at him rather impatiently, "how goesit?" He was looking to-day more miserable, more cringing and haggardand downtrodden than I had ever seen him. He was at that stage ofmisery where he drew your pity so fully that you longed to kick him. 

"Have you got a dollar?" asked Tripp, with his most fawning lookand his dog-like eyes that blinked in the narrow space between hishigh-growing matted beard and his low-growing matted hair. 

"I have, " said I; and again I said, "I have, " more loudly andinhospitably, "and four besides. And I had hard work corkscrewingthem out of old Atkinson, I can tell you. And I drew them, " Icontinued, "to meet a want--a hiatus--a demand--a need--an exigency--arequirement of exactly five dollars. "

I was driven to emphasis by the premonition that I was to lose one ofthe dollars on the spot. 

"I don't want to borrow any, " said Tripp, and I breathed again. "Ithought you'd like to get put onto a good story, " he went on. "I'vegot a rattling fine one for you. You ought to make it run a columnat least. It'll make a dandy if you work it up right. It'll probablycost you a dollar or two to get the stuff. I don't want anything outof it myself. "

I became placated. The proposition showed that Tripp appreciated pastfavors, although he did not return them. If he had been wise enoughto strike me for a quarter then he would have got it. 

"What is the story?" I asked, poising my pencil with a finelycalculated editorial air. 

"I'll tell you, " said Tripp. "It's a girl. A beauty. One of thehowlingest Amsden's Junes you ever saw. Rosebuds covered with dew--violets in their mossy bed--and truck like that. She's lived on LongIsland twenty years and never saw New York City before. I ran againsther on Thirty-fourth Street. She'd just got in on the East Riverferry. I tell you, she's a beauty that would take the hydrogen outof all the peroxides in the world. She stopped me on the street andasked me where she could find George Brown. Asked me where she couldfind _George Brown in New York City!_ What do you think of that?

"I talked to her, and found that she was going to marry a youngfarmer named Dodd--Hiram Dodd--next week. But it seems that GeorgeBrown still holds the championship in her youthful fancy. George hadgreased his cowhide boots some years ago, and came to the city to makehis fortune. But he forgot to remember to show up again at Greenburg, and Hiram got in as second-best choice. But when it comes to thescratch Ada--her name's Ada Lowery--saddles a nag and rides eightmiles to the railroad station and catches the 6. 45 A. M. Train forthe city. Looking for George, you know--you understand about women--George wasn't there, so she wanted him. 

"Well, you know, I couldn't leave her loose in Wolftown-on-the-Hudson. I suppose she thought the first person she inquired of would say:'George Brown?--why, yes--lemme see--he's a short man with light-blueeyes, ain't he? Oh yes--you'll find George on One Hundred andTwenty-fifth Street, right next to the grocery. He's bill-clerk ina saddle-and-harness store. ' That's about how innocent and beautifulshe is. You know those little Long Island water-front villages likeGreenburg--a couple of duck-farms for sport, and clams and about ninesummer visitors for industries. That's the kind of a place she comesfrom. But, say--you ought to see her!

"What could I do? I don't know what money looks like in the morning. And she'd paid her last cent of pocket-money for her railroad ticketexcept a quarter, which she had squandered on gum-drops. She waseating them out of a paper bag. I took her to a boarding-house onThirty-second Street where I used to live, and hocked her. She's insoak for a dollar. That's old Mother McGinnis' price per day. I'llshow you the house. "

"What words are these, Tripp?" said I. "I thought you said you had astory. Every ferryboat that crosses the East River brings or takesaway girls from Long Island. "

The premature lines on Tripp's face grew deeper. He frowned seriouslyfrom his tangle of hair. He separated his hands and emphasized hisanswer with one shaking forefinger. 

"Can't you see, " he said, "what a rattling fine story it would make?You could do it fine. All about the romance, you know, and describethe girl, and put a lot of stuff in it about true love, and slingin a few stickfuls of funny business--joshing the Long Islandersabout being green, and, well--you know how to do it. You ought toget fifteen dollars out of it, anyhow. And it'll cost you only aboutfour dollars. You'll make a clear profit of eleven. "

"How will it cost me four dollars?" I asked, suspiciously. 

"One dollar to Mrs. McGinnis, " Tripp answered, promptly, "and twodollars to pay the girl's fare back home. "

"And the fourth dimension?" I inquired, making a rapid mentalcalculation. 

"One dollar to me, " said Tripp. "For whiskey. Are you on?"

I smiled enigmatically and spread my elbows as if to begin writingagain. But this grim, abject, specious, subservient, burr-like wreckof a man would not be shaken off. His forehead suddenly becameshiningly moist. 

"Don't you see, " he said, with a sort of desperate calmness, "thatthis girl has got to be sent home to-day--not to-night nor to-morrow, but to-day? I can't do anything for her. You know, I'm the janitorand corresponding secretary of the Down-and-Out Club. I thought youcould make a newspaper story out of it and win out a piece of moneyon general results. But, anyhow, don't you see that she's got to getback home before night?"

And then I began to feel that dull, leaden, soul-depressing sensationknown as the sense of duty. Why should that sense fall upon one as aweight and a burden? I knew that I was doomed that day to give up thebulk of my store of hard-wrung coin to the relief of this Ada Lowery. But I swore to myself that Tripp's whiskey dollar would not beforthcoming. He might play knight-errant at my expense, but he wouldindulge in no wassail afterward, commemorating my weakness andgullibility. In a kind of chilly anger I put on my coat and hat. 

Tripp, submissive, cringing, vainly endeavoring to please, conductedme via the street-cars to the human pawn-shop of Mother McGinnis. Ipaid the fares. It seemed that the collodion-scented Don Quixote andthe smallest minted coin were strangers. 

Tripp pulled the bell at the door of the mouldy red-brickboarding-house. At its faint tinkle he paled, and crouched as arabbit makes ready to spring away at the sound of a hunting-dog. I guessed what a life he had led, terror-haunted by the comingfootsteps of landladies. 

"Give me one of the dollars--quick!" he said. 

The door opened six inches. Mother McGinnis stood there with whiteeyes--they were white, I say--and a yellow face, holding together ather throat with one hand a dingy pink flannel dressing-sack. Trippthrust the dollar through the space without a word, and it bought usentry. 

"She's in the parlor, " said the McGinnis, turning the back of her sackupon us. 

In the dim parlor a girl sat at the cracked marble centre-tableweeping comfortably and eating gum-drops. She was a flawless beauty. Crying had only made her brilliant eyes brighter. When she cruncheda gum-drop you thought only of the poetry of motion and envied thesenseless confection. Eve at the age of five minutes must have beena ringer for Miss Ada Lowery at nineteen or twenty. I was introduced, and a gum-drop suffered neglect while she conveyed to me a naïveinterest, such as a puppy dog (a prize winner) might bestow upon acrawling beetle or a frog. 

Tripp took his stand by the table, with the fingers of one hand spreadupon it, as an attorney or a master of ceremonies might have stood. But he looked the master of nothing. His faded coat was buttonedhigh, as if it sought to be charitable to deficiencies of tie andlinen. 

I thought of a Scotch terrier at the sight of his shifty eyes in theglade between his tangled hair and beard. For one ignoble moment Ifelt ashamed of having been introduced as his friend in the presenceof so much beauty in distress. But evidently Tripp meant to conductthe ceremonies, whatever they might be. I thought I detected in hisactions and pose an intention of foisting the situation upon me asmaterial for a newspaper story, in a lingering hope of extracting fromme his whiskey dollar. 

"My friend" (I shuddered), "Mr. Chalmers, " said Tripp, "will tellyou, Miss Lowery, the same that I did. He's a reporter, and he canhand out the talk better than I can. That's why I brought him withme. " (O Tripp, wasn't it the _silver_-tongued orator you wanted?)"He's wise to a lot of things, and he'll tell you now what's bestto do. "

I stood on one foot, as it were, as I sat in my rickety chair. 

"Why--er--Miss Lowery, " I began, secretly enraged at Tripp's awkwardopening, "I am at your service, of course, but--er--as I haven't beenapprized of the circumstances of the case, I--er--"

"Oh, " said Miss Lowery, beaming for a moment, "it ain't as bad asthat--there ain't any circumstances. It's the first time I've everbeen in New York except once when I was five years old, and I had noidea it was such a big town. And I met Mr. --Mr. Snip on the streetand asked him about a friend of mine, and he brought me here and askedme to wait. "

"I advise you, Miss Lowery, " said Tripp, "to tell Mr. Chalmers all. He's a friend of mine" (I was getting used to it by this time), "andhe'll give you the right tip. "

"Why, certainly, " said Miss Ada, chewing a gum-drop toward me. "Thereain't anything to tell except that--well, everything's fixed for me tomarry Hiram Dodd next Thursday evening. Hi has got two hundred acresof land with a lot of shore-front, and one of the best truck-farms onthe Island. But this morning I had my horse saddled up--he's a whitehorse named Dancer--and I rode over to the station. I told 'em athome I was going to spend the day with Susie Adams. It was a story, I guess, but I don't care. And I came to New York on the train, andI met Mr. --Mr. Flip on the street and asked him if he knew where Icould find G--G--"

"Now, Miss Lowery, " broke in Tripp, loudly, and with much bad taste, I thought, as she hesitated with her word, "you like this young man, Hiram Dodd, don't you? He's all right, and good to you, ain't he?"

"Of course I like him, " said Miss Lowery emphatically. "Hi's allright. And of course he's good to me. So is everybody. "

I could have sworn it myself. Throughout Miss Ada Lowery's life allmen would be to good to her. They would strive, contrive, struggle, and compete to hold umbrellas over her hat, check her trunk, pick upher handkerchief, and buy for her soda at the fountain. 

"But, " went on Miss Lowery, "last night I got to thinking aboutG--George, and I--"

Down went the bright gold head upon dimpled, clasped hands on thetable. Such a beautiful April storm! Unrestrainedly she sobbed. Iwished I could have comforted her. But I was not George. And I wasglad I was not Hiram--and yet I was sorry, too. 

By-and-by the shower passed. She straightened up, brave and half-waysmiling. She would have made a splendid wife, for crying only madeher eyes more bright and tender. She took a gum-drop and began herstory. 

"I guess I'm a terrible hayseed, " she said between her little gulpsand sighs, "but I can't help it. G--George Brown and I were sweetheartssince he was eight and I was five. When he was nineteen--that wasfour years ago--he left Greenburg and went to the city. He said he wasgoing to be a policeman or a railroad president or something. And thenhe was coming back for me. But I never heard from him any more. AndI--I--liked him. "

Another flow of tears seemed imminent, but Tripp hurled himself intothe crevasse and dammed it. Confound him, I could see his game. Hewas trying to make a story of it for his sordid ends and profit. 

"Go on, Mr. Chalmers, " said he, "and tell the lady what's the propercaper. That's what I told her--you'd hand it to her straight. Spielup. "

I coughed, and tried to feel less wrathful toward Tripp. I saw myduty. Cunningly I had been inveigled, but I was securely trapped. Tripp's first dictum to me had been just and correct. The young ladymust be sent back to Greenburg that day. She must be argued with, convinced, assured, instructed, ticketed, and returned without delay. I hated Hiram and despised George; but duty must be done. _Noblesseoblige_ and only five silver dollars are not strictly romanticcompatibles, but sometimes they can be made to jibe. It was mine tobe Sir Oracle, and then pay the freight. So I assumed an air thatmingled Solomon's with that of the general passenger agent of theLong Island Railroad. 

"Miss Lowery, " said I, as impressively as I could, "life is rather aqueer proposition, after all. " There was a familiar sound to thesewords after I had spoken them, and I hoped Miss Lowery had neverheard Mr. Cohan's song. "Those whom we first love we seldom wed. Ourearlier romances, tinged with the magic radiance of youth, often failto materialize. " The last three words sounded somewhat trite whenthey struck the air. "But those fondly cherished dreams, " I wenton, "may cast a pleasant afterglow on our future lives, howeverimpracticable and vague they may have been. But life is full ofrealities as well as visions and dreams. One cannot live on memories. May I ask, Miss Lowery, if you think you could pass a happy--that is, a contented and harmonious life with Mr. --er--Dodd--if in other waysthan romantic recollections he seems to--er--fill the bill, as I mightsay?"

"Oh, Hi's all right, " answered Miss Lowery. "Yes, I could get alongwith him fine. He's promised me an automobile and a motor-boat. Butsomehow, when it got so close to the time I was to marry him, Icouldn't help wishing--well, just thinking about George. Somethingmust have happened to him or he'd have written. On the day he left, he and me got a hammer and a chisel and cut a dime into two pieces. Itook one piece and he took the other, and we promised to be true toeach other and always keep the pieces till we saw each other again. I've got mine at home now in a ring-box in the top drawer of mydresser. I guess I was silly to come up here looking for him. Inever realized what a big place it is. "

And then Tripp joined in with a little grating laugh that he had, still trying to drag in a little story or drama to earn the miserabledollar that he craved. 

"Oh, the boys from the country forget a lot when they come to the cityand learn something. I guess George, maybe, is on the bum, or gotroped in by some other girl, or maybe gone to the dogs on account ofwhiskey or the races. You listen to Mr. Chalmers and go back home, and you'll be all right. "

But now the time was come for action, for the hands of the clockwere moving close to noon. Frowning upon Tripp, I argued gently andphilosophically with Miss Lowery, delicately convincing her of theimportance of returning home at once. And I impressed upon herthe truth that it would not be absolutely necessary to her futurehappiness that she mention to Hi the wonders or the fact of her visitto the city that had swallowed up the unlucky George. 

She said she had left her horse (unfortunate Rosinante) tied to a treenear the railroad station. Tripp and I gave her instructions to mountthe patient steed as soon as she arrived and ride home as fast aspossible. There she was to recount the exciting adventure of a dayspent with Susie Adams. She could "fix" Susie--I was sure of that--and all would be well. 

And then, being susceptible to the barbed arrows of beauty, I warmedto the adventure. The three of us hurried to the ferry, and there Ifound the price of a ticket to Greenburg to be but a dollar and eightycents. I bought one, and a red, red rose with the twenty cents forMiss Lowery. We saw her aboard her ferryboat, and stood watching herwave her handkerchief at us until it was the tiniest white patchimaginable. And then Tripp and I faced each other, brought back toearth, left dry and desolate in the shade of the sombre verities oflife. 

The spell wrought by beauty and romance was dwindling. I looked atTripp and almost sneered. He looked more careworn, contemptible, anddisreputable than ever. I fingered the two silver dollars remainingin my pocket and looked at him with the half-closed eyelids ofcontempt. He mustered up an imitation of resistance. 

"Can't you get a story out of it?" he asked, huskily. "Some sort ofa story, even if you have to fake part of it?"

"Not a line, " said I. "I can fancy the look on Grimes' face if Ishould try to put over any slush like this. But we've helped thelittle lady out, and that'll have to be our only reward. "

"I'm sorry, " said Tripp, almost inaudibly. "I'm sorry you're out yourmoney. Now, it seemed to me like a find of a big story, you know--that is, a sort of thing that would write up pretty well. "

"Let's try to forget it, " said I, with a praiseworthy attempt atgayety, "and take the next car 'cross town. "

I steeled myself against his unexpressed but palpable desire. Heshould not coax, cajole, or wring from me the dollar he craved. I hadhad enough of that wild-goose chase. 

Tripp feebly unbuttoned his coat of the faded pattern and glossy seamsto reach for something that had once been a handkerchief deep down insome obscure and cavernous pocket. As he did so I caught the shineof a cheap silver-plated watch-chain across his vest, and somethingdangling from it caused me to stretch forth my hand and seize itcuriously. It was the half of a silver dime that had been cut inhalves with a chisel. 

"What!" I said, looking at him keenly. 

"Oh yes, " he responded, dully. "George Brown, alias Tripp. What'sthe use?"

Barring the W. C. T. U. , I'd like to know if anybody disapproves ofmy having produced promptly from my pocket Tripp's whiskey dollar andunhesitatingly laying it in his hand. 

THE HIGHER PRAGMATISM

I

Where to go for wisdom has become a question of serious import. The ancients are discredited; Plato is boiler-plate; Aristotle istottering; Marcus Aurelius is reeling; Æsop has been copyrighted byIndiana; Solomon is too solemn; you couldn't get anything out ofEpictetus with a pick. 

The ant, which for many years served as a model of intelligence andindustry in the school-readers, has been proven to be a dodderingidiot and a waster of time and effort. The owl to-day is hooted at. Chautauqua conventions have abandoned culture and adopted diabolo. Graybeards give glowing testimonials to the venders of patenthair-restorers. There are typographical errors in the almanacspublished by the daily newspapers. College professors have become--

But there shall be no personalities. 

To sit in classes, to delve into the encyclopedia or thepast-performances page, will not make us wise. As the poet says, "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. " Wisdom is dew, which, whilewe know it not, soaks into us, refreshes us, and makes us grow. Knowledge is a strong stream of water turned on us through a hose. It disturbs our roots. 

Then, let us rather gather wisdom. But how to do so requiresknowledge. If we know a thing, we know it; but very often we are notwise to it that we are wise, and--

But let's go on with the story. 

II

Once upon a time I found a ten-cent magazine lying on a bench in alittle city park. Anyhow, that was the amount he asked me for whenI sat on the bench next to him. He was a musty, dingy, and tatteredmagazine, with some queer stories bound in him, I was sure. He turnedout to be a scrap-book. 

"I am a newspaper reporter, " I said to him, to try him. "I have beendetailed to write up some of the experiences of the unfortunate oneswho spend their evenings in this park. May I ask you to what youattribute your downfall in--"

I was interrupted by a laugh from my purchase--a laugh so rusty andunpractised that I was sure it had been his first for many a day. 

"Oh, no, no, " said he. "You ain't a reporter. Reporters don't talkthat way. They pretend to be one of us, and say they've just got inon the blind baggage from St. Louis. I can tell a reporter on sight. Us park bums get to be fine judges of human nature. We sit here allday and watch the people go by. I can size up anybody who walks pastmy bench in a way that would surprise you. "

"Well, " I said, "go on and tell me. How do you size me up?"

"I should say, " said the student of human nature with unpardonablehesitation, "that you was, say, in the contracting business--or maybeworked in a store--or was a sign-painter. You stopped in the park tofinish your cigar, and thought you'd get a little free monologue outof me. Still, you might be a plasterer or a lawyer--it's getting kindof dark, you see. And your wife won't let you smoke at home. "

I frowned gloomily. 

"But, judging again, " went on the reader of men, "I'd say you ain'tgot a wife. "

"No, " said I, rising restlessly. "No, no, no, I ain't. But I _will_have, by the arrows of Cupid! That is, if--"

My voice must have trailed away and muffled itself in uncertainty anddespair. 

"I see you have a story yourself, " said the dusty vagrant--impudently, it seemed to me. "Suppose you take your dime back and spin your yarnfor me. I'm interested myself in the ups and downs of unfortunateones who spend their evenings in the park. "

Somehow, that amused me. I looked at the frowsy derelict with moreinterest. I did have a story. Why not tell it to him? I had toldnone of my friends. I had always been a reserved and bottled-up man. It was psychical timidity or sensitiveness--perhaps both. And I smiledto myself in wonder when I felt an impulse to confide in this strangerand vagabond. 

"Jack, " said I. 

"Mack, " said he. 

"Mack, " said I, "I'll tell you. "

"Do you want the dime back in advance?" said he. 

I handed him a dollar. 

"The dime, " said I, "was the price of listening to _your_ story. "

"Right on the point of the jaw, " said he. "Go on. "

And then, incredible as it may seem to the lovers in the world whoconfide their sorrows only to the night wind and the gibbous moon, Ilaid bare my secret to that wreck of all things that you would havesupposed to be in sympathy with love. 

I told him of the days and weeks and months that I had spent inadoring Mildred Telfair. I spoke of my despair, my grievous daysand wakeful nights, my dwindling hopes and distress of mind. I evenpictured to this night-prowler her beauty and dignity, the great swayshe had in society, and the magnificence of her life as the elderdaughter of an ancient race whose pride overbalanced the dollars ofthe city's millionaires. 

"Why don't you cop the lady out?" asked Mack, bringing me down toearth and dialect again. 

I explained to him that my worth was so small, my income so minute, and my fears so large that I hadn't the courage to speak to her ofmy worship. I told him that in her presence I could only blush andstammer, and that she looked upon me with a wonderful, maddening smileof amusement. 

"She kind of moves in the professional class, don't she?" asked Mack. 

"The Telfair family--" I began, haughtily. 

"I mean professional beauty, " said my hearer. 

"She is greatly and widely admired, " I answered, cautiously. 

"Any sisters?"

"One. "

"You know any more girls?"

"Why, several, " I answered. "And a few others. "

"Say, " said Mack, "tell me one thing--can you hand out the dopeto other girls? Can you chin 'em and make matinée eyes at 'em andsqueeze 'em? You know what I mean. You're just shy when it comes tothis particular dame--the professional beauty--ain't that right?"

"In a way you have outlined the situation with approximate truth, " Iadmitted. 

"I thought so, " said Mack, grimly. "Now, that reminds me of my owncase. I'll tell you about it. "

I was indignant, but concealed it. What was this loafer's case oranybody's case compared with mine? Besides, I had given him a dollarand ten cents. 

"Feel my muscle, " said my companion, suddenly, flexing his biceps. Idid so mechanically. The fellows in gyms are always asking you to dothat. His arm was as hard as cast-iron. 

"Four years ago, " said Mack, "I could lick any man in New York outsideof the professional ring. Your case and mine is just the same. I comefrom the West Side--between Thirtieth and Fourteenth--I won't give thenumber on the door. I was a scrapper when I was ten, and when I wastwenty no amateur in the city could stand up four rounds with me. 'Sa fact. You know Bill McCarty? No? He managed the smokers for someof them swell clubs. Well, I knocked out everything Bill brought upbefore me. I was a middle-weight, but could train down to a welterwhen necessary. I boxed all over the West Side at bouts and benefitsand private entertainments, and was never put out once. 

"But, say, the first time I put my foot in the ring with a professionalI was no more than a canned lobster. I dunno how it was--I seemed tolose heart. I guess I got too much imagination. There was a formalityand publicness about it that kind of weakened my nerve. I never won afight in the ring. Light-weights and all kinds of scrubs used to signup with my manager and then walk up and tap me on the wrist and see mefall. The minute I seen the crowd and a lot of gents in evening clothesdown in front, and seen a professional come inside the ropes, I got asweak as ginger-ale. 

"Of course, it wasn't long till I couldn't get no backers, and I didn'thave any more chances to fight a professional--or many amateurs, either. But lemme tell you--I was as good as most men inside the ringor out. It was just that dumb, dead feeling I had when I was up againsta regular that always done me up. 

"Well, sir, after I had got out of the business, I got a mighty grouchon. I used to go round town licking private citizens and all kinds ofunprofessionals just to please myself. I'd lick cops in dark streetsand car-conductors and cab-drivers and draymen whenever I could starta row with 'em. It didn't make any difference how big they were, orhow much science they had, I got away with 'em. If I'd only just havehad the confidence in the ring that I had beating up the best menoutside of it, I'd be wearing black pearls and heliotrope silk socksto-day. 

"One evening I was walking along near the Bowery, thinking aboutthings, when along comes a slumming-party. About six or seven theywas, all in swallowtails, and these silk hats that don't shine. Oneof the gang kind of shoves me off the sidewalk. I hadn't had a scrapin three days, and I just says, 'De-light-ed!' and hits him back ofthe ear. 

"Well, we had it. That Johnnie put up as decent a little fight asyou'd want to see in the moving pictures. It was on a side street, and no cops around. The other guy had a lot of science, but it onlytook me about six minutes to lay him out. 

"Some of the swallowtails dragged him up against some steps and beganto fan him. Another one of 'em comes over to me and says:

"'Young man, do you know what you've done?'

"'Oh, beat it, ' says I. 'I've done nothing but a little punching-bagwork. Take Freddy back to Yale and tell him to quit studyingsociology on the wrong side of the sidewalk. '

"'My good fellow, ' says he, 'I don't know who you are, but I'd liketo. You've knocked out Reddy Burns, the champion middle-weight of theworld! He came to New York yesterday, to try to get a match on withJim Jeffries. If you--'

"But when I come out of my faint I was laying on the floor in adrug-store saturated with aromatic spirits of ammonia. If I'd knownthat was Reddy Burns, I'd have got down in the gutter and crawled pasthim instead of handing him one like I did. Why, if I'd ever been in aring and seen him climbing over the ropes, I'd have been all to thesal-volatile. 

"So that's what imagination does, " concluded Mack. "And, as I said, your case and mine is simultaneous. You'll never win out. You can'tgo up against the professionals. I tell you, it's a park bench foryours in this romance business. "

Mack, the pessimist, laughed harshly. 

"I'm afraid I don't see the parallel, " I said, coldly. "I have only avery slight acquaintance with the prize-ring. "

The derelict touched my sleeve with his forefinger, for emphasis, ashe explained his parable. 

"Every man, " said he, with some dignity, "has got his lamps onsomething that looks good to him. With you, it's this dame thatyou're afraid to say your say to. With me, it was to win out in thering. Well, you'll lose just like I did. "

"Why do you think I shall lose?" I asked warmly. 

"'Cause, " said he, "you're afraid to go in the ring. You dassen'tstand up before a professional. Your case and mine is just the same. You're a amateur; and that means that you'd better keep outside of theropes. "

"Well, I must be going, " I said, rising and looking with elaboratecare at my watch. 

When I was twenty feet away the park-bencher called to me. 

"Much obliged for the dollar, " he said. "And for the dime. Butyou'll never get 'er. You're in the amateur class. "

"Serves you right, " I said to myself, "for hobnobbing with a tramp. His impudence!"

But, as I walked, his words seemed to repeat themselves over and overagain in my brain. I think I even grew angry at the man. 

"I'll show him!" I finally said, aloud. "I'll show him that I canfight Reddy Burns, too--even knowing who he is. "

I hurried to a telephone-booth and rang up the Telfair residence. 

A soft, sweet voice answered. Didn't I know that voice? My handholding the receiver shook. 

"Is that _you_?" said I, employing the foolish words that form thevocabulary of every talker through the telephone. 

"Yes, this is I, " came back the answer in the low, clear-cut tonesthat are an inheritance of the Telfairs. "Who is it, please?"

"It's me, " said I, less ungrammatically than egotistically. "It's me, and I've got a few things that I want to say to you right now andimmediately and straight to the point. "

"_Dear_ me, " said the voice. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Arden!"

I wondered if any accent on the first word was intended; Mildred wasfine at saying things that you had to study out afterward. 

"Yes, " said I. "I hope so. And now to come down to brass tacks. " Ithought that rather a vernacularism, if there is such a word, assoon as I had said it; but I didn't stop to apologize. "You know, ofcourse, that I love you, and that I have been in that idiotic statefor a long time. I don't want any more foolishness about it--that is, I mean I want an answer from you right now. Will you marry me or not?Hold the wire, please. Keep out, Central. Hello, hello! Will you, orwill you _not_?"

That was just the uppercut for Reddy Burns' chin. The answer cameback:

"Why, Phil, dear, of course I will! I didn't know that you--that is, you never said--oh, come up to the house, please--I can't say what Iwant to over the 'phone. You are so importunate. But please come upto the house, won't you?"

Would I?

I rang the bell of the Telfair house violently. Some sort of a humancame to the door and shooed me into the drawing-room. 

"Oh, well, " said I to myself, looking at the ceiling, "any one canlearn from any one. That was a pretty good philosophy of Mack's, anyhow. He didn't take advantage of his experience, but I get thebenefit of it. If you want to get into the professional class, you'vegot to--"

I stopped thinking then. Some one was coming down the stairs. Myknees began to shake. I knew then how Mack had felt when aprofessional began to climb over the ropes. 

I looked around foolishly for a door or a window by which I mightescape. If it had been any other girl approaching, I mightn't have--

But just then the door opened, and Bess, Mildred's younger sister, came in. I'd never seen her look so much like a glorified angel. Shewalked straight tip to me, and--and--

I'd never noticed before what perfectly wonderful eyes and hairElizabeth Telfair had. 

"Phil, " she said, in the Telfair, sweet, thrilling tones, "why didn'tyou tell me about it before? I thought it was sister you wanted allthe time, until you telephoned to me a few minutes ago!"

I suppose Mack and I always will be hopeless amateurs. But, as thething has turned out in my case, I'm mighty glad of it. 

BEST-SELLER

I

One day last summer I went to Pittsburgh--well, I had to go there onbusiness. 

My chair-car was profitably well filled with people of the kind oneusually sees on chair-cars. Most of them were ladies in brown-silkdresses cut with square yokes, with lace insertion, and dotted veils, who refused to have the windows raised. Then there was the usualnumber of men who looked as if they might be in almost any businessand going almost anywhere. Some students of human nature can look ata man in a Pullman and tell you where he is from, his occupation andhis stations in life, both flag and social; but I never could. Theonly way I can correctly judge a fellow-traveller is when the train isheld up by robbers, or when he reaches at the same time I do for thelast towel in the dressing-room of the sleeper. 

The porter came and brushed the collection of soot on the window-silloff to the left knee of my trousers. I removed it with an air ofapology. The temperature was eighty-eight. One of the dotted-veiledladies demanded the closing of two more ventilators, and spoke loudlyof Interlaken. I leaned back idly in chair No. 7, and looked withthe tepidest curiosity at the small, black, bald-spotted head justvisible above the back of No. 9. 

Suddenly No. 9 hurled a book to the floor between his chair and thewindow, and, looking, I saw that it was "The Rose-Lady and Trevelyan, "one of the best-selling novels of the present day. And then thecritic or Philistine, whichever he was, veered his chair toward thewindow, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud, of Pittsburgh, travelling salesman for a plate-glass company--an old acquaintancewhom I had not seen in two years. 

In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished withsuch topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination. Politics might have followed next; but I was not so ill-fated. 

I wish you might know John A. Pescud. He is of the stuff that heroesare not often lucky enough to be made of. He is a small man with awide smile, and an eye that seems to be fixed upon that little redspot on the end of your nose. I never saw him wear but one kind ofnecktie, and he believes in cuff-holders and button-shoes. He is ashard and true as anything ever turned out by the Cambria Steel Works;and he believes that as soon as Pittsburgh makes smoke-consumerscompulsory, St. Peter will come down and sit at the foot ofSmithfield Street, and let somebody else attend to the gate up inthe branch heaven. He believes that "our" plate-glass is the mostimportant commodity in the world, and that when a man is in his hometown he ought to be decent and law-abiding. 

During my acquaintance with him in the City of Diurnal Night I hadnever known his views on life, romance, literature, and ethics. Wehad browsed, during our meetings, on local topics, and then parted, after Chateau Margaux, Irish stew, flannel-cakes, cottage-pudding, and coffee (hey, there!--with milk separate). Now I was to get moreof his ideas. By way of facts, he told me that business had pickedup since the party conventions, and that he was going to get off atCoketown. 

II

"Say, " said Pescud, stirring his discarded book with the toe of hisright shoe, "did you ever read one of these best-sellers? I meanthe kind where the hero is an American swell--sometimes even fromChicago--who falls in love with a royal princess from Europe who istravelling under an alias, and follows her to her father's kingdomor principality? I guess you have. They're all alike. Sometimesthis going-away masher is a Washington newspaper correspondent, and sometimes he is a Van Something from New York, or a Chicagowheat-broker worthy fifty millions. But he's always ready to breakinto the king row of any foreign country that sends over their queensand princesses to try the new plush seats on the Big Four or the B. And O. There doesn't seem to be any other reason in the book for theirbeing here. 

"Well, this fellow chases the royal chair-warmer home, as I said, andfinds out who she is. He meets her on the _corso_ or the _strasse_ oneevening and gives us ten pages of conversation. She reminds him ofthe difference in their stations, and that gives him a chance to ringin three solid pages about America's uncrowned sovereigns. If you'dtake his remarks and set 'em to music, and then take the music awayfrom 'em, they'd sound exactly like one of George Cohan's songs. 

"Well, you know how it runs on, if you've read any of 'em--he slapsthe king's Swiss body-guards around like everything whenever theyget in his way. He's a great fencer, too. Now, I've known of someChicago men who were pretty notorious fences, but I never heard ofany fencers coming from there. He stands on the first landing of theroyal staircase in Castle Schutzenfestenstein with a gleaming rapierin his hand, and makes a Baltimore broil of six platoons of traitorswho come to massacre the said king. And then he has to fight duelswith a couple of chancellors, and foil a plot by four Austrianarchdukes to seize the kingdom for a gasoline-station. 

"But the great scene is when his rival for the princess' hand, CountFeodor, attacks him between the portcullis and the ruined chapel, armed with a mitrailleuse, a yataghan, and a couple of Siberianbloodhounds. This scene is what runs the best-seller into thetwenty-ninth edition before the publisher has had time to draw acheck for the advance royalties. 

"The American hero shucks his coat and throws it over the heads of thebloodhounds, gives the mitrailleuse a slap with his mitt, says 'Yah!'to the yataghan, and lands in Kid McCoy's best style on the count'sleft eye. Of course, we have a neat little prize-fight right thenand there. The count--in order to make the go possible--seems to bean expert at the art of self-defence, himself; and here we have theCorbett-Sullivan fight done over into literature. The book ends withthe broker and the princess doing a John Cecil Clay cover under thelinden-trees on the Gorgonzola Walk. That winds up the love-storyplenty good enough. But I notice that the book dodges the finalissue. Even a best-seller has sense enough to shy at either leaving aChicago grain broker on the throne of Lobsterpotsdam or bringing overa real princess to eat fish and potato salad in an Italian chalet onMichigan Avenue. What do you think about 'em?"

"Why, " said I, "I hardly know, John. There's a saying: 'Love levelsall ranks, ' you know. "

"Yes, " said Pescud, "but these kind of love-stories are rank--on thelevel. I know something about literature, even if I am in plate-glass. These kind of books are wrong, and yet I never go into a train butwhat they pile 'em up on me. No good can come out of an internationalclinch between the Old-World aristocracy and one of us freshAmericans. When people in real life marry, they generally hunt upsomebody in their own station. A fellow usually picks out a girl thatwent to the same high-school and belonged to the same singing-societythat he did. When young millionaires fall in love, they always selectthe chorus-girl that likes the same kind of sauce on the lobster thathe does. Washington newspaper correspondents always many widow ladiesten years older than themselves who keep boarding-houses. No, sir, you can't make a novel sound right to me when it makes one of C. D. Gibson's bright young men go abroad and turn kingdoms upside downjust because he's a Taft American and took a course at a gymnasium. And listen how they talk, too!"

Pescud picked up the best-seller and hunted his page. 

"Listen at this, " said he. "Trevelyan is chinning with the PrincessAlwyna at the back end of the tulip-garden. This is how it goes:

 "'Say not so, dearest and sweetest of earth's fairest flowers. Would I aspire? You are a star set high above me in a royal heaven; I am only--myself. Yet I am a man, and I have a heart to do and dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned sovereign; but I have an arm and a sword that yet might free Schutzenfestenstein from the plots of traitors. '

"Think of a Chicago man packing a sword, and talking about freeinganything that sounded as much like canned pork as that! He'd be muchmore likely to fight to have an import duty put on it. "

"I think I understand you, John, " said I. "You want fiction-writersto be consistent with their scenes and characters. They shouldn'tmix Turkish pashas with Vermont farmers, or English dukes with LongIsland clam-diggers, or Italian countesses with Montana cowboys, orCincinnati brewery agents with the rajahs of India. "

"Or plain business men with aristocracy high above 'em, " added Pescud. "It don't jibe. People are divided into classes, whether we admit itor not, and it's everybody's impulse to stick to their own class. They do it, too. I don't see why people go to work and buy hundredsof thousands of books like that. You don't see or hear of any suchdidoes and capers in real life. "

III

"Well, John, " said I, "I haven't read a best-seller in a long time. Maybe I've had notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell memore about yourself. Getting along all right with the company?"

"Bully, " said Pescud, brightening at once. "I've had my salary raisedtwice since I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I've bought aneat slice of real estate out in the East End, and have run up ahouse on it. Next year the firm is going to sell me some shares ofstock. Oh, I'm in on the line of General Prosperity, no matter who'selected!"

"Met your affinity yet, John?" I asked. 

"Oh, I didn't tell you about that, did I?" said Pescud with a broadergrin. 

"O-ho!" I said. "So you've taken time enough off from your plate-glassto have a romance?"

"No, no, " said John. "No romance--nothing like that! But I'll tellyou about it. 

"I was on the south-bound, going to Cincinnati, about eighteen monthsago, when I saw, across the aisle, the finest-looking girl I'd everlaid eyes on. Nothing spectacular, you know, but just the sort youwant for keeps. Well, I never was up to the flirtation business, either handkerchief, automobile, postage-stamp, or door-step, and shewasn't the kind to start anything. She read a book and minded herbusiness, which was to make the world prettier and better just byresiding on it. I kept on looking out of the side doors of my eyes, and finally the proposition got out of the Pullman class into a caseof a cottage with a lawn and vines running over the porch. I neverthought of speaking to her, but I let the plate-glass business go tosmash for a while. 

"She changed cars at Cincinnati, and took a sleeper to Louisville overthe L. And N. There she bought another ticket, and went on throughShelbyville, Frankfort, and Lexington. Along there I began to havea hard time keeping up with her. The trains came along when theypleased, and didn't seem to be going anywhere in particular, except tokeep on the track and the right of way as much as possible. Then theybegan to stop at junctions instead of towns, and at last they stoppedaltogether. I'll bet Pinkerton would outbid the plate-glass peoplefor my services any time if they knew how I managed to shadow thatyoung lady. I contrived to keep out of her sight as much as I could, but I never lost track of her. 

"The last station she got off at was away down in Virginia, aboutsix in the afternoon. There were about fifty houses and four hundredniggers in sight. The rest was red mud, mules, and speckled hounds. 

"A tall old man, with a smooth face and white hair, looking as proudas Julius Cæsar and Roscoe Conkling on the same post-card, was thereto meet her. His clothes were frazzled, but I didn't notice thattill later. He took her little satchel, and they started over theplank-walks and went up a road along the hill. I kept along a piecebehind 'em, trying to look like I was hunting a garnet ring in thesand that my sister had lost at a picnic the previous Saturday. 

"They went in a gate on top of the hill. It nearly took my breathaway when I looked up. Up there in the biggest grove I ever saw was atremendous house with round white pillars about a thousand feet high, and the yard was so full of rose-bushes and box-bushes and lilacsthat you couldn't have seen the house if it hadn't been as big as theCapitol at Washington. 

"'Here's where I have to trail, ' says I to myself. I thought beforethat she seemed to be in moderate circumstances, at least. Thismust be the Governor's mansion, or the Agricultural Building of anew World's Fair, anyhow. I'd better go back to the village and getposted by the postmaster, or drug the druggist for some information. 

"In the village I found a pine hotel called the Bay View House. Theonly excuse for the name was a bay horse grazing in the front yard. Iset my sample-case down, and tried to be ostensible. I told thelandlord I was taking orders for plate-glass. 

"'I don't want no plates, ' says he, 'but I do need another glassmolasses-pitcher. '

"By-and-by I got him down to local gossip and answering questions. 

"'Why, ' says he, 'I thought everybody knowed who lived in the bigwhite house on the hill. It's Colonel Allyn, the biggest man and thefinest quality in Virginia, or anywhere else. They're the oldestfamily in the State. That was his daughter that got off the train. She's been up to Illinois to see her aunt, who is sick. '

"I registered at the hotel, and on the third day I caught the younglady walking in the front yard, down next to the paling fence. Istopped and raised my hat--there wasn't any other way. 

"'Excuse me, ' says I, 'can you tell me where Mr. Hinkle lives?'

"She looks at me as cool as if I was the man come to see about theweeding of the garden, but I thought I saw just a slight twinkle offun in her eyes. 

"'No one of that name lives in Birchton, ' says she. 'That is, ' shegoes on, 'as far as I know. Is the gentleman you are seeking white?'

"Well, that tickled me. 'No kidding, ' says I. 'I'm not looking forsmoke, even if I do come from Pittsburgh. '

"'You are quite a distance from home, ' says she. 

"'I'd have gone a thousand miles farther, ' says I. 

"'Not if you hadn't waked up when the train started in Shelbyville, 'says she; and then she turned almost as red as one of the roses onthe bushes in the yard. I remembered I had dropped off to sleep on abench in the Shelbyville station, waiting to see which train she took, and only just managed to wake up in time. 

"And then I told her why I had come, as respectful and earnest as Icould. And I told her everything about myself, and what I was making, and how that all I asked was just to get acquainted with her and tryto get her to like me. 

"She smiles a little, and blushes some, but her eyes never get mixedup. They look straight at whatever she's talking to. 

"'I never had any one talk like this to me before, Mr. Pescud, ' saysshe. 'What did you say your name is--John?'

"'John A. , ' says I. 

"'And you came mighty near missing the train at Powhatan Junction, too, ' says she, with a laugh that sounded as good as a mileage-book tome. 

"'How did you know?' I asked. 

"'Men are very clumsy, ' said she. 'I knew you were on every train. Ithought you were going to speak to me, and I'm glad you didn't. '

"Then we had more talk; and at last a kind of proud, serious look cameon her face, and she turned and pointed a finger at the big house. 

"'The Allyns, ' says she, 'have lived in Elmcroft for a hundred years. We are a proud family. Look at that mansion. It has fifty rooms. See the pillars and porches and balconies. The ceilings in thereception-rooms and the ball-room are twenty-eight feet high. Myfather is a lineal descendant of belted earls. '

"'I belted one of 'em once in the Duquesne Hotel, in Pittsburgh, 'says I, 'and he didn't offer to resent it. He was there dividing hisattentions between Monongahela whiskey and heiresses, and he gotfresh. '

"'Of course, ' she goes on, 'my father wouldn't allow a drummer to sethis foot in Elmcroft. If he knew that I was talking to one over thefence he would lock me in my room. '

"'Would _you_ let me come there?' says I. 'Would _you_ talk to meif I was to call? For, ' I goes on, 'if you said I might come andsee you, the earls might be belted or suspendered, or pinned up withsafety-pins, as far as I am concerned. '

"'I must not talk to you, ' she says, 'because we have not beenintroduced. It is not exactly proper. So I will say good-bye, Mr. --'

"'Say the name, ' says I. 'You haven't forgotten it. '

"'Pescud, ' says she, a little mad. 

"'The rest of the name!' I demands, cool as could be. 

"'John, ' says she. 

"'John--what?' I says. 

"'John A. , ' says she, with her head high. 'Are you through, now?'

"'I'm coming to see the belted earl to-morrow, ' I says. 

"'He'll feed you to his fox-hounds, ' says she, laughing. 

"'If he does, it'll improve their running, ' says I. 'I'm something ofa hunter myself. '

"'I must be going in now, ' says she. 'I oughtn't to have spoken to youat all. I hope you'll have a pleasant trip back to Minneapolis--orPittsburgh, was it? Good-bye!'

"'Good-night, ' says I, 'and it wasn't Minneapolis. What's your name, first, please?'

"She hesitated. Then she pulled a leaf off a bush, and said:

"'My name is Jessie, ' says she. 

"'Good-night, Miss Allyn, ' says I. 

"The next morning at eleven, sharp, I rang the door-bell of thatWorld's Fair main building. After about three-quarters of an hour anold nigger man about eighty showed up and asked what I wanted. I gavehim my business card, and said I wanted to see the colonel. He showedme in. 

"Say, did you ever crack open a wormy English walnut? That's whatthat house was like. There wasn't enough furniture in it to fill aneight-dollar flat. Some old horsehair lounges and three-legged chairsand some framed ancestors on the walls were all that met the eye. Butwhen Colonel Allyn comes in, the place seemed to light up. You couldalmost hear a band playing, and see a bunch of old-timers in wigsand white stockings dancing a quadrille. It was the style of him, although he had on the same shabby clothes I saw him wear at thestation. 

"For about nine seconds he had me rattled, and I came mighty neargetting cold feet and trying to sell him some plate-glass. But I gotmy nerve back pretty quick. He asked me to sit down, and I told himeverything. I told him how I followed his daughter from Cincinnati, and what I did it for, and all about my salary and prospects, andexplained to him my little code of living--to be always decent andright in your home town; and when you're on the road, never take morethan four glasses of beer a day or play higher than a twenty-five-centlimit. At first I thought he was going to throw me out of the window, but I kept on talking. Pretty soon I got a chance to tell him thatstory about the Western Congressman who had lost his pocket-bookand the grass widow--you remember that story. Well, that got him tolaughing, and I'll bet that was the first laugh those ancestors andhorsehair sofas had heard in many a day. 

"We talked two hours. I told him everything I knew; and then he beganto ask questions, and I told him the rest. All I asked of him was togive me a chance. If I couldn't make a hit with the little lady, I'dclear out, and not bother any more. At last he says:

"'There was a Sir Courtenay Pescud in the time of Charles I, if Iremember rightly. '

"'If there was, ' says I, 'he can't claim kin with our bunch. We'vealways lived in and around Pittsburgh. I've got an uncle in thereal-estate business, and one in trouble somewhere out in Kansas. You can inquire about any of the rest of us from anybody in oldSmoky Town, and get satisfactory replies. Did you ever run acrossthat story about the captain of the whaler who tried to make asailor say his prayers?' says I. 

"'It occurs to me that I have never been so fortunate, ' says thecolonel. 

"So I told it to him. Laugh! I was wishing to myself that he was acustomer. What a bill of glass I'd sell him! And then he says:

"'The relating of anecdotes and humorous occurrences has always seemedto me, Mr. Pescud, to be a particularly agreeable way of promotingand perpetuating amenities between friends. With your permission, Iwill relate to you a fox-hunting story with which I was personallyconnected, and which may furnish you some amusement. '

"So he tells it. It takes forty minutes by the watch. Did I laugh?Well, say! When I got my face straight he calls in old Pete, thesuperannuated darky, and sends him down to the hotel to bring up myvalise. It was Elmcroft for me while I was in the town. 

"Two evenings later I got a chance to speak a word with Miss Jessiealone on the porch while the colonel was thinking up another story. 

"'It's going to be a fine evening, ' says I. 

"'He's coming, ' says she. 'He's going to tell you, this time, thestory about the old negro and the green watermelons. It always comesafter the one about the Yankees and the game rooster. There wasanother time, ' she goes on, 'that you nearly got left--it was atPulaski City. '

"'Yes, ' says I, 'I remember. My foot slipped as I was jumping on thestep, and I nearly tumbled off. '

"'I know, ' says she. 'And--and I--_I was afraid you had, John A. Iwas afraid you had. _'

"And then she skips into the house through one of the big windows. "

IV

"Coketown!" droned the porter, making his way through the slowing car. 

Pescud gathered his hat and baggage with the leisurely promptness ofan old traveller. 

"I married her a year ago, " said John. "I told you I built a house inthe East End. The belted--I mean the colonel--is there, too. I findhim waiting at the gate whenever I get back from a trip to hear anynew story I might have picked up on the road. "

I glanced out of the window. Coketown was nothing more than a raggedhillside dotted with a score of black dismal huts propped up againstdreary mounds of slag and clinkers. It rained in slanting torrents, too, and the rills foamed and splashed down through the black mud tothe railroad-tracks. 

"You won't sell much plate-glass here, John, " said I. "Why do you getoff at this end-o'-the-world?"

"Why, " said Pescud, "the other day I took Jessie for a little trip toPhiladelphia, and coming back she thought she saw some petunias ina pot in one of those windows over there just like some she used toraise down in the old Virginia home. So I thought I'd drop off herefor the night, and see if I could dig up some of the cuttings orblossoms for her. Here we are. Good-night, old man. I gave you theaddress. Come out and see us when you have time. "

The train moved forward. One of the dotted brown ladies insistedon having windows raised, now that the rain beat against them. Theporter came along with his mysterious wand and began to light the car. 

I glanced downward and saw the best-seller. I picked it up and set itcarefully farther along on the floor of the car, where the rain-dropswould not fall upon it. And then, suddenly, I smiled, and seemed tosee that life has no geographical metes and bounds. 

"Good-luck to you, Trevelyan, " I said. "And may you get the petuniasfor your princess!"

RUS IN URBE

Considering men in relation to money, there are three kinds whom Idislike: men who have more money than they can spend; men who havemore money than they do spend; and men who spend more money than theyhave. Of the three varieties, I believe I have the least liking forthe first. But, as a man, I liked Spencer Grenville North prettywell, although he had something like two or ten or thirty millions--I've forgotten exactly how many. 

I did not leave town that summer. I usually went down to a villageon the south shore of Long Island. The place was surrounded byduck-farms, and the ducks and dogs and whippoorwills and rustywindmills made so much noise that I could sleep as peacefully as ifI were in my own flat six doors from the elevated railroad in NewYork. But that summer I did not go. Remember that. One of my friendsasked me why I did not. I replied:

"Because, old man, New York is the finest summer resort in the world. "You have heard that phrase before. But that is what I told him. 

I was press-agent that year for Binkly & Bing, the theatrical managersand producers. Of course you know what a press-agent is. Well, he isnot. That is the secret of being one. 

Binkly was touring France in his new C. & N. Williamson car, and Binghad gone to Scotland to learn curling, which he seemed to associate inhis mind with hot tongs rather than with ice. Before they left theygave me June and July, on salary, for my vacation, which act was inaccord with their large spirit of liberality. But I remained in NewYork, which I had decided was the finest summer resort in--

But I said that before. 

On July the 10th, North came to town from his camp in the Adirondacks. Try to imagine a camp with sixteen rooms, plumbing, eiderdown quilts, a butler, a garage, solid silver plate, and a long-distance telephone. Of course it was in the woods--if Mr. Pinchot wants to preserve theforests let him give every citizen two or ten or thirty milliondollars, and the trees will all gather around the summer camps, as theBirnam woods came to Dunsinane, and be preserved. 

North came to see me in my three rooms and bath, extra charge forlight when used extravagantly or all night. He slapped me on the back(I would rather have my shins kicked any day), and greeted me without-door obstreperousness and revolting good spirits. He wasinsolently brown and healthy-looking, and offensively well dressed. 

"Just ran down for a few days, " said he, "to sign some papers andstuff like that. My lawyer wired me to come. Well, you indolentcockney, what are you doing in town? I took a chance and telephoned, and they said you were here. What's the matter with that Utopia onLong Island where you used to take your typewriter and your villainoustemper every summer? Anything wrong with the--er--swans, weren'tthey, that used to sing on the farms at night?"

"Ducks, " said I. "The songs of swans are for luckier ears. They swimand curve their necks in artificial lakes on the estates of thewealthy to delight the eyes of the favorites of Fortune. "

"Also in Central Park, " said North, "to delight the eyes of immigrantsand bummers. I've seen em there lots of times. But why are you inthe city so late in the summer?"

"New York City, " I began to recite, "is the finest sum--"

"No, you don't, " said North, emphatically. "You don't spring that oldone on me. I know you know better. Man, you ought to have gone upwith us this summer. The Prestons are there, and Tom Volney and theMonroes and Lulu Stanford and the Miss Kennedy and her aunt that youliked so well. "

"I never liked Miss Kennedy's aunt, " I said. 

"I didn't say you did, " said North. "We are having the greatest timewe've ever had. The pickerel and trout are so ravenous that I believethey would swallow your hook with a Montana copper-mine prospectusfastened on it. And we've a couple of electric launches; and I'lltell you what we do every night or two--we tow a rowboat behind eachone with a big phonograph and a boy to change the discs in 'em. Onthe water, and twenty yards behind you, they are not so bad. Andthere are passably good roads through the woods where we go motoring. I shipped two cars up there. And the Pinecliff Inn is only threemiles away. You know the Pinecliff. Some good people are there thisseason, and we run over to the dances twice a week. Can't you go backwith me for a week, old man?"

I laughed. "Northy, " said I--"if I may be so familiar with amillionaire, because I hate both the names Spencer and Grenville--yourinvitation is meant kindly, but--the city in the summer-time for me. Here, while the _bourgeoisie_ is away, I can live as Nero lived--barring, thank heaven, the fiddling--while the city burns at ninetyin the shade. The tropics and the zones wait upon me like handmaidens. I sit under Florida palms and eat pomegranates while Boreas himself, electrically conjured up, blows upon me his Arctic breath. As fortrout, you know, yourself, that Jean, at Maurice's, cooks them betterthan any one else in the world. "

"Be advised, " said North. "My chef has pinched the blue ribbon fromthe lot. He lays some slices of bacon inside the trout, wraps it allin corn-husks--the husks of green corn, you know--buries them in hotashes and covers them with live coals. We build fires on the bank ofthe lake and have fish suppers. "

"I know, " said I. "And the servants bring down tables and chairs anddamask cloths, and you eat with silver forks. I know the kind ofcamps that you millionaires have. And there are champagne pails setabout, disgracing the wild flowers, and, no doubt, Madame Tetrazzinito sing in the boat pavilion after the trout. "

"Oh no, " said North, concernedly, "we were never as bad as that. Wedid have a variety troupe up from the city three or four nights, butthey weren't stars by as far as light can travel in the same lengthof time. I always like a few home comforts even when I'm roughing it. But don't tell me you prefer to stay in the city during summer. Idon't believe it. If you do, why did you spend your summers there forthe last four years, even sneaking away from town on a night train, and refusing to tell your friends where this Arcadian village was?"

"Because, " said I, "they might have followed me and discovered it. But since then I have learned that Amaryllis has come to town. Thecoolest things, the freshest, the brightest, the choicest, are to befound in the city. If you've nothing on hand this evening I will showyou. "

"I'm free, " said North, "and I have my light car outside. I suppose, since you've been converted to the town, that your idea of rural sportis to have a little whirl between bicycle cops in Central Park andthen a mug of sticky ale in some stuffy rathskeller under a fan thatcan't stir up as many revolutions in a week as Nicaragua can in aday. "

"We'll begin with the spin through the Park, anyhow, " I said. I waschoking with the hot, stale air of my little apartment, and I wantedthat breath of the cool to brace me for the task of proving to myfriend that New York was the greatest--and so forth. 

"Where can you find air any fresher or purer than this?" I asked, aswe sped into Central's boskiest dell. 

"Air!" said North, contemptuously. "Do you call this air?--this muggyvapor, smelling of garbage and gasoline smoke. Man, I wish you couldget one sniff of the real Adirondack article in the pine woods atdaylight. "

"I have heard of it, " said I. "But for fragrance and tang and a joyin the nostrils I would not give one puff of sea breeze across thebay, down on my little boat dock on Long Island, for ten of yourturpentine-scented tornadoes. "

"Then why, " asked North, a little curiously, "don't you go thereinstead of staying cooped up in this Greater Bakery?"

"Because, " said I, doggedly, "I have discovered that New York is thegreatest summer--"

"Don't say that again, " interrupted North, "unless you've actually gota job as General Passenger Agent of the Subway. You can't reallybelieve it. "

I went to some trouble to try to prove my theory to my friend. TheWeather Bureau and the season had conspired to make the argumentworthy of an able advocate. 

The city seemed stretched on a broiler directly above the furnacesof Avernus. There was a kind of tepid gayety afoot and awheel in theboulevards, mainly evinced by languid men strolling about in strawhats and evening clothes, and rows of idle taxicabs with their flagsup, looking like a blockaded Fourth of July procession. The hotelskept up a specious brilliancy and hospitable outlook, but inside onesaw vast empty caverns, and the footrails at the bars gleamed brightlyfrom long disacquaintance with the sole-leather of customers. Inthe cross-town streets the steps of the old brownstone houses wereswarming with "stoopers, " that motley race hailing from sky-light roomand basement, bringing out their straw door-step mats to sit and fillthe air with strange noises and opinions. 

North and I dined on the top of a hotel; and here, for a few minutes, I thought I had made a score. An east wind, almost cool, blew acrossthe roofless roof. A capable orchestra concealed in a bower ofwistaria played with sufficient judgment to make the art of musicprobable and the art of conversation possible. 

Some ladies in reproachless summer gowns at other tables gaveanimation and color to the scene. And an excellent dinner, mainlyfrom the refrigerator, seemed to successfully back my judgment as tosummer resorts. But North grumbled all during the meal, and cursedhis lawyers and prated so of his confounded camp in the woods that Ibegan to wish he would go back there and leave me in my peaceful cityretreat. 

After dining we went to a roof-garden vaudeville that was beingmuch praised. There we found a good bill, an artificially cooledatmosphere, cold drinks, prompt service, and a gay, well-dressedaudience. North was bored. 

"If this isn't comfortable enough for you on the hottest August nightfor five years, " I said, a little sarcastically, "you might thinkabout the kids down in Delancey and Hester streets lying out on thefire-escapes with their tongues hanging out, trying to get a breath ofair that hasn't been fried on both sides. The contrast might increaseyour enjoyment. "

"Don't talk Socialism, " said North. "I gave five hundred dollars tothe free ice fund on the first of May. I'm contrasting these stale, artificial, hollow, wearisome 'amusements' with the enjoyment aman can get in the woods. You should see the firs and pines doskirt-dances during a storm; and lie down flat and drink out of amountain branch at the end of a day's tramp after the deer. That'sthe only way to spend a summer. Get out and live with nature. "

"I agree with you absolutely, " said I, with emphasis. 

For one moment I had relaxed my vigilance, and had spoken my truesentiments. North looked at me long and curiously. 

"Then why, in the name of Pan and Apollo, " he asked, "have you beensinging this deceitful pæan to summer in town?"

I suppose I looked my guilt. 

"Ha, " said North, "I see. May I ask her name?"

"Annie Ashton, " said I, simply. "She played Nannette in Binkley &Bing's production of 'The Silver Cord. ' She is to have a better partnext season. "

"Take me to see her, " said North. 

Miss Ashton lived with her mother in a small hotel. They were outof the West, and had a little money that bridged the seasons. Aspress-agent of Binkley & Bing I had tried to keep her before thepublic. As Robert James Vandiver I had hoped to withdraw her; for ifever one was made to keep company with said Vandiver and smell thesalt breeze on the south shore of Long Island and listen to the ducksquack in the watches of the night, it was the Ashton set forth above. 

But she had a soul above ducks--above nightingales; aye, even abovebirds of paradise. She was very beautiful, with quiet ways, andseemed genuine. She had both taste and talent for the stage, and sheliked to stay at home and read and make caps for her mother. She wasunvaryingly kind and friendly with Binkley & Bing's press-agent. Since the theatre had closed she had allowed Mr. Vandiver to call inan unofficial rôle. I had often spoken to her of my friend, SpencerGrenville North; and so, as it was early, the first turn of thevaudeville being not yet over, we left to find a telephone. 

Miss Ashton would be very glad to see Mr. Vandiver and Mr. North. 

We found her fitting a new cap on her mother. I never saw her lookmore charming. 

North made himself disagreeably entertaining. He was a good talker, and had a way with him. Besides, he had two, ten, or thirty millions, I've forgotten which. I incautiously admired the mother's cap, whereupon she brought out her store of a dozen or two, and I took acourse in edgings and frills. Even though Annie's fingers had pinked, or ruched, or hemmed, or whatever you do to 'em, they palled upon me. And I could hear North drivelling to Annie about his odious Adirondackcamp. 

Two days after that I saw North in his motor-car with Miss Ashton andher mother. On the next afternoon he dropped in on me. 

"Bobby, " said he, "this old burg isn't such a bad proposition in thesummer-time, after all. Since I've keen knocking around it looksbetter to me. There are some first-rate musical comedies and lightoperas on the roofs and in the outdoor gardens. And if you hunt upthe right places and stick to soft drinks, you can keep about as coolhere as you can in the country. Hang it! when you come to think ofit, there's nothing much to the country, anyhow. You get tired andsunburned and lonesome, and you have to eat any old thing that thecook dishes up to you. "

"It makes a difference, doesn't it?" said I. 

"It certainly does. Now, I found some whitebait yesterday, atMaurice's, with a new sauce that beats anything in the trout line Iever tasted. "

"It makes a difference, doesn't it?" I said. 

"Immense. The sauce is the main thing with whitebait. "

"It makes a difference, doesn't it?" I asked, looking him straight inthe eye. He understood. 

"Look here, Bob, " he said, "I was going to tell you. I couldn't helpit. I'll play fair with you, but I'm going in to win. She is the'one particular' for me. "

"All right, " said I. "It's a fair field. There are no rights for youto encroach upon. "

On Thursday afternoon Miss Ashton invited North and myself to havetea in her apartment. He was devoted, and she was more charmingthan usual. By avoiding the subject of caps I managed to get aword or two into and out of the talk. Miss Ashton asked me in amake-conversational tone something about the next season's tour. 

"Oh, " said I, "I don't know about that. I'm not going to be withBinkley & Bing next season. "

"Why, I thought, " said she, "that they were going to put the NumberOne road company under your charge. I thought you told me so. "

"They were, " said I, "but they won't. . I'll tell you what I'm goingto do. I'm going to the south shore of Long Island and buy a smallcottage I know there on the edge of the bay. And I'll buy a catboatand a rowboat and a shotgun and a yellow dog. I've got money enoughto do it. And I'll smell the salt wind all day when it blows from thesea and the pine odor when it blows from the land. And, of course, I'll write plays until I have a trunk full of 'em on hand. 

"And the next thing and the biggest thing I'll do will be to buy thatduck-farm next door. Few people understand ducks. I can watch 'emfor hours. They can march better than any company in the NationalGuard, and they can play 'follow my leader' better than the entireDemocratic party. Their voices don't amount to much, but I like tohear 'em. They wake you up a dozen times a night, but there's ahomely sound about their quacking that is more musical to me than thecry of 'Fresh strawber-rees!' under your window in the morning whenyou want to sleep. 

"And, " I went on, enthusiastically, "do you know the value of ducksbesides their beauty and intelligence and order and sweetness ofvoice? Picking their feathers gives you an unfailing and never-ceasingincome. On a farm that I know the feathers were sold for $400 in oneyear. Think of that! And the ones shipped to the market will bringin more money than that. Yes, I am for the ducks and the salt breezecoming over the bay. I think I shall get a Chinaman cook, and with himand the dog and the sunsets for company I shall do well. No more ofthis dull, baking, senseless, roaring city for me. "

Miss Ashton looked surprised. North laughed. 

"I am going to begin one of my plays tonight, " I said, "so I must begoing. " And with that I took my departure. 

A few days later Miss Ashton telephoned to me, asking me to call atfour in the afternoon. 

I did. 

"You have been very good to me, " she said, hesitatingly, "and Ithought I would tell you. I am going to leave the stage. "

"Yes, " said I, "I suppose you will. They usually do when there's somuch money. "

"There is no money, " she said, "or very little. Our money is almostgone. "

"But I am told, " said I, "that he has something like two or ten orthirty millions--I have forgotten which. "

"I know what you mean, " she said. "I will not pretend that I do not. I am not going to marry Mr. North. "

"Then why are you leaving the stage?" I asked, severely. "What elsecan you do to earn a living?"

She came closer to me, and I can see the look in her eyes yet as shespoke. 

"I can pick ducks, " she said. 

We sold the first year's feathers for $350. 

A POOR RULE

I have always maintained, and asserted time to time, that woman isno mystery; that man can foretell, construe, subdue, comprehend, andinterpret her. That she is a mystery has been foisted by herselfupon credulous mankind. Whether I am right or wrong we shall see. As"Harper's Drawer" used to say in bygone years: "The following goodstory is told of Miss ----, Mr. ----, Mr. ----, and Mr. ----. "

We shall have to omit "Bishop X" and "the Rev. ----, " for they do notbelong. 

In those days Paloma was a new town on the line of the SouthernPacific. A reporter would have called it a "mushroom" town; but itwas not. Paloma was, first and last, of the toadstool variety. 

The train stopped there at noon for the engine to drink and for thepassengers both to drink and to dine. There was a new yellow-pinehotel, also a wool warehouse, and perhaps three dozen box residences. The rest was composed of tents, cow ponies, "black-waxy" mud, and mesquite-trees, all bound round by a horizon. Paloma was anabout-to-be city. The houses represented faith; the tents hope; thetwice-a-day train, by which you might leave, creditably sustainedthe rôle of charity. 

The Parisian Restaurant occupied the muddiest spot in the town whileit rained, and the warmest when it shone. It was operated, owned, andperpetrated by a citizen known as Old Man Hinkle, who had come outof Indiana to make his fortune in this land of condensed milk andsorghum. 

There was a four-room, unpainted, weather-boarded box house in whichthe family lived. From the kitchen extended a "shelter" made of polescovered with chaparral brush. Under this was a table and two benches, each twenty feet long, the product of Paloma home carpentry. Herewas set forth the roast mutton, the stewed apples, boiled beans, soda-biscuits, puddinorpie, and hot coffee of the Parisian menu. 

Ma Hinkle and a subordinate known to the ears as "Betty, " but deniedto the eyesight, presided at the range. Pa Hinkle himself, withsalamandrous thumbs, served the scalding viands. During rush hours aMexican youth, who rolled and smoked cigarettes between courses, aidedhim in waiting on the guests. As is customary at Parisian banquets, Iplace the sweets at the end of my wordy menu. 

Ileen Hinkle!

The spelling is correct, for I have seen her write it. No doubt shehad been named by ear; but she so splendidly bore the orthographythat Tom Moore himself (had he seen her) would have endorsed thephonography. 

Ileen was the daughter of the house, and the first Lady Cashier toinvade the territory south of an east-and-west line drawn throughGalveston and Del Rio. She sat on a high stool in a rough pinegrand-stand--or was it a temple?--under the shelter at the door ofthe kitchen. There was a barbed-wire protection in front of her, witha little arch under which you passed your money. Heaven knows why thebarbed wire; for every man who dined Parisianly there would have diedin her service. Her duties were light; each meal was a dollar; youput it under the arch, and she took it. 

I set out with the intent to describe Ileen Hinkle to you. Instead, Imust refer you to the volume by Edmund Burke entitled: _A PhilosophicalInquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful_. It is an exhaustive treatise, dealing first with the primitiveconceptions of beauty--roundness and smoothness, I think they are, according to Burke. It is well said. Rotundity is a patent charm; asfor smoothness--the more new wrinkles a woman acquires, the smoothershe becomes. 

Ileen was a strictly vegetable compound, guaranteed under the PureAmbrosia and Balm-of-Gilead Act of the year of the fall of Adam. Shewas a fruit-stand blonde--strawberries, peaches, cherries, etc. Hereyes were wide apart, and she possessed the calm that precedes a stormthat never comes. But it seems to me that words (at any rate per) arewasted in an effort to describe the beautiful. Like fancy, "It isengendered in the eyes. " There are three kinds of beauties--I wasforeordained to be homiletic; I can never stick to a story. 

The first is the freckle-faced, snub-nosed girl whom you like. Thesecond is Maud Adams. The third is, or are, the ladies in Bouguereau'spaintings. Ileen Hinkle was the fourth. She was the mayoress ofSpotless Town. There were a thousand golden apples coming to her asHelen of the Troy laundries. 

The Parisian Restaurant was within a radius. Even from beyond itscircumference men rode in to Paloma to win her smiles. They got them. One meal--one smile--one dollar. But, with all her impartiality, Ileen seemed to favor three of her admirers above the rest. Accordingto the rules of politeness, I will mention myself last. 

The first was an artificial product known as Bryan Jacks--a namethat had obviously met with reverses. Jacks was the outcome of pavedcities. He was a small man made of some material resembling flexiblesandstone. His hair was the color of a brick Quaker meeting-house;his eyes were twin cranberries; his mouth was like the aperture undera drop-letters-here sign. 

He knew every city from Bangor to San Francisco, thence north toPortland, thence S. 45 E. To a given point in Florida. He had masteredevery art, trade, game, business, profession, and sport in the world, had been present at, or hurrying on his way to, every headline eventthat had ever occurred between oceans since he was five years old. Youmight open the atlas, place your finger at random upon the name ofa town, and Jacks would tell you the front names of three prominentcitizens before you could close it again. He spoke patronizingly andeven disrespectfully of Broadway, Beacon Hill, Michigan, Euclid, andFifth avenues, and the St. Louis Four Courts. Compared with him as acosmopolite, the Wandering Jew would have seemed a mere hermit. He hadlearned everything the world could teach him, and he would tell youabout it. 

I hate to be reminded of Pollok's "Course of Time, " and so do you;but every time I saw Jacks I would think of the poet's descriptionof another poet by the name of G. G. Byron who "Drank early; deeplydrank--drank draughts that common millions might have quenched; thendied of thirst because there was no more to drink. "

That fitted Jacks, except that, instead of dying, he came to Paloma, which was about the same thing. He was a telegrapher and station-andexpress-agent at seventy-five dollars a month. Why a young man whoknew everything and could do everything was content to serve in suchan obscure capacity I never could understand, although he let outa hint once that it was as a personal favor to the president andstockholders of the S. P. Ry. Co. 

One more line of description, and I turn Jacks over to you. He worebright blue clothes, yellow shoes, and a bow tie made of the samecloth as his shirt. 

My rival No. 2 was Bud Cunningham, whose services had been engaged bya ranch near Paloma to assist in compelling refractory cattle to keepwithin the bounds of decorum and order. Bud was the only cowboy offthe stage that I ever saw who looked like one on it. He wore thesombrero, the chaps, and the handkerchief tied at the back of hisneck. 

Twice a week Bud rode in from the Val Verde Ranch to sup at theParisian Restaurant. He rode a many-high-handed Kentucky horse at atremendously fast lope, which animal he would rein up so suddenlyunder the big mesquite at the corner of the brush shelter that hishoofs would plough canals yards long in the loam. 

Jacks and I were regular boarders at the restaurant, of course. 

The front room of the Hinkle House was as neat a little parlor asthere was in the black-waxy country. It was all willow rocking-chairs, and home-knit tidies, and albums, and conch shells in a row. And alittle upright piano in one corner. 

Here Jacks and Bud and I--or sometimes one or two of us, accordingto our good-luck--used to sit of evenings when the tide of trade wasover, and "visit" Miss Hinkle. 

Ileen was a girl of ideas. She was destined for higher things (ifthere can be anything higher) than taking in dollars all day through abarbed-wire wicket. She had read and listened and thought. Her lookswould have formed a career for a less ambitious girl; but, risingsuperior to mere beauty, she must establish something in the nature ofa _salon_--the only one in Paloma. 

"Don't you think that Shakespeare was a great writer?" she would ask, with such a pretty little knit of her arched brows that the lateIgnatius Donnelly, himself, had he seen it, could scarcely have savedhis Bacon. 

Ileen was of the opinion, also, that Boston is more cultured thanChicago; that Rosa Bonheur was one of the greatest of women painters;that Westerners are more spontaneous and open-hearted than Easterners;that London must be a very foggy city, and that California must bequite lovely in the springtime. And of many other opinions indicatinga keeping up with the world's best thought. 

These, however, were but gleaned from hearsay and evidence: Ileenhad theories of her own. One, in particular, she disseminated to usuntiringly. Flattery she detested. Frankness and honesty of speechand action, she declared, were the chief mental ornaments of manand woman. If ever she could like any one, it would be for thosequalities. 

"I'm awfully weary, " she said, one evening, when we three musketeersof the mesquite were in the little parlor, "of having compliments onmy looks paid to me. I know I'm not beautiful. "

(Bud Cunningham told me afterward that it was all he could do to keepfrom calling her a liar when she said that. )

"I'm only a little Middle-Western girl, " went on Ileen, "who justwants to be simple and neat, and tries to help her father make ahumble living. "

(Old Man Hinkle was shipping a thousand silver dollars a month, clearprofit, to a bank in San Antonio. )

Bud twisted around in his chair and bent the rim of his hat, fromwhich he could never be persuaded to separate. He did not knowwhether she wanted what she said she wanted or what she knew shedeserved. Many a wiser man has hesitated at deciding. Bud decided. 

"Why--ah, Miss Ileen, beauty, as you might say, ain't everything. Notsayin' that you haven't your share of good looks, I always admiredmore than anything else about you the nice, kind way you treat yourma and pa. Any one what's good to their parents and is a kind ofhome-body don't specially need to be too pretty. "

Ileen gave him one of her sweetest smiles. "Thank you, Mr. Cunningham, " she said. "I consider that one of the finest complimentsI've had in a long time. I'd so much rather hear you say that than tohear you talk about my eyes and hair. I'm glad you believe me when Isay I don't like flattery. "

Our cue was there for us. Bud had made a good guess. You couldn'tlose Jacks. He chimed in next. 

"Sure thing, Miss Ileen, " he said; "the good-lookers don't always winout. Now, you ain't bad looking, of course--but that's nix-cum-rous. I knew a girl once in Dubuque with a face like a cocoanut, who couldskin the cat twice on a horizontal bar without changing hands. Now, agirl might have the California peach crop mashed to a marmalade andnot be able to do that. I've seen--er--worse lookers than _you_, MissIleen; but what I like about you is the business way you've got ofdoing things. Cool and wise--that's the winning way for a girl. Mr. Hinkle told me the other day you'd never taken in a lead silver dollaror a plugged one since you've been on the job. Now, that's the stufffor a girl--that's what catches me. "

Jacks got his smile, too. 

"Thank you, Mr. Jacks, " said Ileen. "If you only knew how Iappreciate any one's being candid and not a flatterer! I get so tiredof people telling me I'm pretty. I think it is the loveliest thing tohave friends who tell you the truth. "

Then I thought I saw an expectant look on Ileen's face as she glancedtoward me. I had a wild, sudden impulse to dare fate, and tell her ofall the beautiful handiwork of the Great Artificer she was the mostexquisite--that she was a flawless pearl gleaming pure and serene in asetting of black mud and emerald prairies--that she was--a--a corker;and as for mine, I cared not if she were as cruel as a serpent'stooth to her fond parents, or if she couldn't tell a plugged dollarfrom a bridle buckle, if I might sing, chant, praise, glorify, andworship her peerless and wonderful beauty. 

But I refrained. I feared the fate of a flatterer. I had witnessedher delight at the crafty and discreet words of Bud and Jacks. No!Miss Hinkle was not one to be beguiled by the plated-silver tongue ofa flatterer. So I joined the ranks of the candid and honest. At onceI became mendacious and didactic. 

"In all ages, Miss Hinkle, " said I, "in spite of the poetry andromance of each, intellect in woman has been admired more than beauty. Even in Cleopatra, herself, men found more charm in her queenly mindthan in her looks. "

"Well, I should think so!" said Ileen. "I've seen pictures of herthat weren't so much. She had an awfully long nose. "

"If I may say so, " I went on, "you remind me of Cleopatra, MissIleen. "

"Why, my nose isn't so long!" said she, opening her eyes wide andtouching that comely feature with a dimpled forefinger. 

"Why--er--I mean, " said I--"I mean as to mental endowments. "

"Oh!" said she; and then I got my smile just as Bud and Jacks had gottheirs. 

"Thank every one of you, " she said, very, very sweetly, "for beingso frank and honest with me. That's the way I want you to be always. Just tell me plainly and truthfully what you think, and we'll all bethe best friends in the world. And now, because you've been so goodto me, and understand so well how I dislike people who do nothing butpay me exaggerated compliments, I'll sing and play a little for you. "

Of course, we expressed our thanks and joy; but we would have beenbetter pleased if Ileen had remained in her low rocking-chair face toface with us and let us gaze upon her. For she was no Adelina Patti--not even on the farewellest of the diva's farewell tours. She had acooing little voice like that of a turtle-dove that could almost fillthe parlor when the windows and doors were closed, and Betty was notrattling the lids of the stove in the kitchen. She had a gamut that Iestimate at about eight inches on the piano; and her runs and trillssounded like the clothes bubbling in your grandmother's iron wash-pot. Believe that she must have been beautiful when I tell you that itsounded like music to us. 

Ileen's musical taste was catholic. She would sing through a pile ofsheet music on the left-hand top of the piano, laying each slaughteredcomposition on the right-hand top. The next evening she would singfrom right to left. Her favorites were Mendelssohn, and Moody andSankey. By request she always wound up with "Sweet Violets" and "Whenthe Leaves Begin to Turn. "

When we left at ten o'clock the three of us would go down to Jacks'little wooden station and sit on the platform, swinging our feet andtrying to pump one another for clews as to which way Miss Ileen'sinclinations seemed to lean. That is the way of rivals--they donot avoid and glower at one another; they convene and converse andconstrue--striving by the art politic to estimate the strength of theenemy. 

One day there came a dark horse to Paloma, a young lawyer who at onceflaunted his shingle and himself spectacularly upon the town. Hisname was C. Vincent Vesey. You could see at a glance that he was arecent graduate of a southwestern law school. His Prince Albert coat, light striped trousers, broad-brimmed soft black hat, and narrow whitemuslin bow tie proclaimed that more loudly than any diploma could. Vesey was a compound of Daniel Webster, Lord Chesterfield, BeauBrummell, and Little Jack Horner. His coming boomed Paloma. The nextday after he arrived an addition to the town was surveyed and laid offin lots. 

Of course, Vesey, to further his professional fortunes, must minglewith the citizenry and outliers of Paloma. And, as well as with thesoldier men, he was bound to seek popularity with the gay dogs of theplace. So Jacks and Bud Cunningham and I came to be honored by hisacquaintance. 

The doctrine of predestination would have been discredited hadnot Vesey seen Ileen Hinkle and become fourth in the tourney. Magnificently, he boarded at the yellow pine hotel instead of at theParisian Restaurant; but he came to be a formidable visitor in theHinkle parlor. His competition reduced Bud to an inspired increaseof profanity, drove Jacks to an outburst of slang so weird that itsounded more horrible than the most trenchant of Bud's imprecations, and made me dumb with gloom. 

For Vesey had the rhetoric. Words flowed from him like oil froma gusher. Hyperbole, compliment, praise, appreciation, honeyedgallantry, golden opinions, eulogy, and unveiled panegyric vied withone another for pre-eminence in his speech. We had small hopes thatIleen could resist his oratory and Prince Albert. 

But a day came that gave us courage. 

About dusk one evening I was sitting on the little gallery in frontof the Hinkle parlor, waiting for Ileen to come, when I heard voicesinside. She had come into the room with her father, and Old ManHinkle began to talk to her. I had observed before that he was ashrewd man, and not unphilosophic. 

"Ily, " said he, "I notice there's three or four young fellers thathave been callin' to see you regular for quite a while. Is there anyone of 'em you like better than another?"

"Why, pa, " she answered, "I like all of 'em very well. I think Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Jacks and Mr. Harris are very nice young men. Theyare so frank and honest in everything they say to me. I haven't knownMr. Vesey very long, but I think he's a very nice young man, he's sofrank and honest in everything he says to me. "

"Now, that's what I'm gittin' at, " says old Hinkle. "You've alwaysbeen sayin' you like people what tell the truth and don't gohumbuggin' you with compliments and bogus talk. Now, suppose youmake a test of these fellers, and see which one of 'em will talk thestraightest to you. "

"But how'll I do it, pa?"

"I'll tell you how. You know you sing a little bit, Ily; you tookmusic-lessons nearly two years in Logansport. It wasn't long, but itwas all we could afford then. And your teacher said you didn't haveany voice, and it was a waste of money to keep on. Now, suppose youask the fellers what they think of your singin', and see what eachone of 'em tells you. The man that'll tell you the truth about it'llhave a mighty lot of nerve, and 'll do to tie to. What do you thinkof the plan?"

"All right, pa, " said Ileen. "I think it's a good idea. I'll tryit. "

Ileen and Mr. Hinkle went out of the room through the inside doors. Unobserved, I hurried down to the station. Jacks was at his telegraphtable waiting for eight o'clock to come. It was Bud's night in town, and when he rode in I repeated the conversation to them both. I wasloyal to my rivals, as all true admirers of all Ileens should be. 

Simultaneously the three of us were smitten by an uplifting thought. Surely this test would eliminate Vesey from the contest. He, with hisunctuous flattery, would be driven from the lists. Well we rememberedIleen's love of frankness and honesty--how she treasured truth andcandor above vain compliment and blandishment. 

Linking arms, we did a grotesque dance of joy up and down theplatform, singing "Muldoon Was a Solid Man" at the top of our voices. 

That evening four of the willow rocking-chairs were filled besides thelucky one that sustained the trim figure of Miss Hinkle. Three of usawaited with suppressed excitement the application of the test. Itwas tried on Bud first. 

"Mr. Cunningham, " said Ileen, with her dazzling smile, after she hadsung "When the Leaves Begin to Turn, " "what do you really think of myvoice? Frankly and honestly, now, as you know I want you to always betoward me. "

Bud squirmed in his chair at his chance to show the sincerity that heknew was required of him. 

"Tell you the truth, Miss Ileen, " he said, earnestly, "you ain't gotmuch more voice than a weasel--just a little squeak, you know. Ofcourse, we all like to hear you sing, for it's kind of sweet andsoothin' after all, and you look most as mighty well sittin' on thepiano-stool as you do faced around. But as for real singin'--I reckonyou couldn't call it that. "

I looked closely at Ileen to see if Bud had overdone his frankness, but her pleased smile and sweetly spoken thanks assured me that wewere on the right track. 

"And what do you think, Mr. Jacks?" she asked next. 

"Take it from me, " said Jacks, "you ain't in the prima donna class. I've heard 'em warble in every city in the United States; and I tellyou your vocal output don't go. Otherwise, you've got the grandopera bunch sent to the soap factory--in looks, I mean; for the highscreechers generally look like Mary Ann on her Thursday out. But nixfor the gargle work. Your epiglottis ain't a real side-stepper--itsfootwork ain't good. "

With a merry laugh at Jacks' criticism, Ileen looked inquiringly atme. 

I admit that I faltered a little. Was there not such a thing as beingtoo frank? Perhaps I even hedged a little in my verdict; but I stayedwith the critics. 

"I am not skilled in scientific music, Miss Ileen, " I said, "but, frankly, I cannot praise very highly the singing-voice that Nature hasgiven you. It has long been a favorite comparison that a great singersings like a bird. Well, there are birds and birds. I would say thatyour voice reminds me of the thrush's--throaty and not strong, nor ofmuch compass or variety--but still--er--sweet--in--er--its--way, and--er--"

"Thank you, Mr. Harris, " interrupted Miss Hinkle. "I knew I coulddepend upon your frankness and honesty. "

And then C. Vincent Vesey drew back one sleeve from his snowy cuff, and the water came down at Lodore. 

My memory cannot do justice to his masterly tribute to that priceless, God-given treasure--Miss Hinkle's voice. He raved over it in termsthat, if they had been addressed to the morning stars when they sangtogether, would have made that stellar choir explode in a meteoricshower of flaming self-satisfaction. 

He marshalled on his white finger-tips the grand opera stars of allthe continents, from Jenny Lind to Emma Abbott, only to depreciatetheir endowments. He spoke of larynxes, of chest notes, of phrasing, arpeggios, and other strange paraphernalia of the throaty art. Headmitted, as though driven to a corner, that Jenny Lind had a note ortwo in the high register that Miss Hinkle had not yet acquired--but--"!!!"--that was a mere matter of practice and training. 

And, as a peroration, he predicted--solemnly predicted--a career invocal art for the "coming star of the Southwest--and one of whichgrand old Texas may well be proud, " hitherto unsurpassed in the annalsof musical history. 

When we left at ten, Ileen gave each of us her usual warm, cordialhandshake, entrancing smile, and invitation to call again. I couldnot see that one was favored above or below another--but three of usknew--we knew. 

We knew that frankness and honesty had won, and that the rivals nownumbered three instead of four. 

Down at the station Jacks brought out a pint bottle of the properstuff, and we celebrated the downfall of a blatant interloper. 

Four days went by without anything happening worthy of recount. 

On the fifth, Jacks and I, entering the brush arbor for our supper, saw the Mexican youth, instead of a divinity in a spotless waist and anavy-blue skirt, taking in the dollars through the barbed-wire wicket. 

We rushed into the kitchen, meeting Pa Hinkle coming out with two cupsof hot coffee in his hands. 

"Where's Ileen?" we asked, in recitative. 

Pa Hinkle was a kindly man. "Well, gents, " said he, "it was a suddennotion she took; but I've got the money, and I let her have her way. She's gone to a corn--a conservatory in Boston for four years for tohave her voice cultivated. Now, excuse me to pass, gents, for thiscoffee's hot, and my thumbs is tender. "

That night there were four instead of three of us sitting on thestation platform and swinging our feet. C. Vincent Vesey was one ofus. We discussed things while dogs barked at the moon that rose, asbig as a five-cent piece or a flour barrel, over the chaparral. 

And what we discussed was whether it is better to lie to a woman orto tell her the truth. 

And as all of us were young then, we did not come to a decision.