"A pan-Slavonic movement!" I ejaculated. "Do you really think it possible? No, I couldn't."

"You must remember," Ellesworth went on, "Russia means to reach out and take all she can get;" and he added, "how about fifteen till Friday?"

"She may reach for it," I said, "but I doubt if she'll get anything. I'm sorry. I haven't got it."

"You're forgetting the Bulgarian element," he continued, his animation just as eager as before. "The Slavs never forget what they owe to one another."

Here Ellesworth drank a sip of tea and then said quietly, "Could you make it ten till Saturday at twelve?"

I looked at him more closely. I noticed now his frayed cuffs and the dinginess of his over-brushed clothes. Not even the magnetism of his spectacles could conceal it. Perhaps I had been forgetting something, whether the Bulgarian element or not.

I compromised at ten dollars till Saturday.

"The Slav," said Ellesworth, as he pocketed the money, "is peculiar. He never forgets."

"What are you doing now?" I asked him. "Are you still in insurance?" I had a vague recollection of him as employed in that business.

"No," he answered. "I gave it up. I didn't like the outlook. It was too narrow. The atmosphere cramped me. I want," he said, "a bigger horizon."

"Quite so," I answered quietly. I had known men before who had lost their jobs. It is generally the cramping of the atmosphere that does it. Some of them can use up a tremendous lot of horizon.

"At present," Ellesworth went on, "I am in finance. I'm promoting companies."

"Oh, yes," I said. I had seen companies promoted before.

"Just now," continued Ellesworth, "I'm working on a thing that I think will be rather a big thing. I shouldn't want it talked about outside, but it's a matter of taking hold of the cod fisheries of the Grand Banks,—practically amalgamating them—and perhaps combining with them the entire herring output, and the whole of the sardine catch of the Mediterranean. If it goes through," he added, "I shall be in a position to let you in on the ground floor."

I knew the ground floor of old. I have already many friends sitting on it; and others who have fallen through it into the basement.

I said, "thank you," and he left me.

"That was Ellesworth, wasn't it?" said a friend of mine who was near me. "Poor devil. I knew him slightly,—always full of some new and wild idea of making money. He was talking to me the other day of the possibility of cornering all the huckleberry crop and making refined sugar. Isn't it amazing what fool ideas fellows like him are always putting up to business men?"

We both laughed.

After that I didn't see Ellesworth for some weeks.

Then I met him in the club again. How he paid his fees there I do not know.

This time he was seated among a litter of foreign newspapers with a cup of tea and a ten-cent package of cigarettes beside him.

"Have one of these cigarettes," he said. "I get them specially. They are milder than what we have in the club here."

They certainly were.

"Note what I say," Ellesworth went on. "The French Republic is going to gain from now on a stability that it never had." He seemed greatly excited about it. But his voice changed to a quiet tone as he added, "Could you, without inconvenience, let me have five dollars?"

So I knew that the cod-fish and the sardines were still unamalgamated.

"What about the fisheries thing?" I asked. "Did it go through?"

"The fisheries? No, I gave it up. I refused to go forward with it. The New York people concerned were too shy, too timid to tackle it. I finally had to put it to them very straight that they must either stop shilly-shallying and declare themselves, or the whole business was off."

"Did they declare themselves?" I questioned.

"They did," said Ellesworth, "but I don't regret it. I'm working now on a much bigger thing,—something with greater possibilities in it. When the right moment comes I'll let you in on the ground floor."

I thanked him and we parted.

The next time I saw Ellesworth he told me at once that he regarded Albania as unable to stand by itself. So I gave him five dollars on the spot and left him.

A few days after that he called me up on the telephone to tell me that the whole of Asia Minor would have to be redistributed. The redistribution cost me five dollars more.

Then I met him on the street, and he said that Persia was disintegrating, and took from me a dollar and a half.

When I passed him next in the street he was very busy amalgamating Chinese tramways. It appeared that there was a ground floor in China, but I kept off it.

Each time I saw Ellesworth he looked a little shabbier than the last. Then one day he called me up on the telephone, and made an appointment.

His manner when I joined him was full of importance.

"I want you at once," he said in a commanding tone, "to write me your cheque for a hundred dollars."

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I am now able," said Ellesworth, "to put you in on the ground floor of one of the biggest things in years."

"Thanks," I said, "the ground floor is no place for me."

"Don't misunderstand me," said Ellesworth. "This is a big thing. It's an idea I've been working on for some time,—making refined sugar from the huckleberry crop. It's a certainty. I can get you shares now at five dollars. They'll go to five hundred when we put them on the market,—and I can run you in for a block of stock for promotion services as well. All you have to do is to give me right now a hundred dollars,—cash or your cheque,—and I can arrange the whole thing for you."

I smiled.

"My dear Ellesworth," I said, "I hope you won't mind if I give you a little bit of good advice. Why not drop all this idea of quick money? There's nothing in it. The business world has grown too shrewd for it. Take an ordinary decent job and stick to it. Let me use my influence," I added, "to try and get you into something with a steady salary, and with your brains you're bound to get on in time."

Ellesworth looked pained. A "steady job" sounded to him like a "ground floor" to me.

After that I saw nothing of him for weeks. But I didn't forget him. I looked about and secured for him a job as a canvassing agent for a book firm at a salary of five dollars a week, and a commission of one-tenth of one per cent.

I was waiting to tell him of his good luck, when I chanced to see him at the club again.

But he looked transformed.

He had on a long frock coat that reached nearly to his knees. He was leading a little procession of very heavy men in morning coats, upstairs towards the private luncheon rooms. They moved like a funeral, puffing as they went. I had seen company directors before and I knew what they were at sight.

"It's a small club and rather inconvenient," Ellesworth was saying, "and the horizon of some of its members rather narrow," here he nodded to me as he passed,—"but I can give you a fairly decent lunch."

I watched them as they disappeared upstairs.

"That's Ellesworth, isn't it?" said a man near me. It was the same man who had asked about him before.

"Yes," I answered.

"Giving a lunch to his directors, I suppose," said my friend; "lucky dog."

"His directors?" I asked.

"Yes, hadn't you heard? He's just cleaned up half a million or more,—some new scheme for making refined sugar out of huckleberries. Isn't it amazing what shrewd ideas these big business men get hold of? They say they're unloading the stock at five hundred dollars. It only cost them about five to organize. If only one could get on to one of these things early enough, eh?"

I assented sadly.

And the next time I am offered a chance on the ground floor I am going to take it, even if it's only the barley floor of a brewery.

It appears that there is such a place after all.



9.—The Hallucination of Mr. Butt

It is the hallucination of Mr. Butt's life that he lives to do good. At whatever cost of time or trouble to himself, he does it. Whether people appear to desire it or not, he insists on helping them along.

His time, his company and his advice are at the service not only of those who seek them but of those who, in the mere appearances of things, are not asking for them.

You may see the beaming face of Mr. Butt appear at the door of all those of his friends who are stricken with the minor troubles of life. Whenever Mr. Butt learns that any of his friends are moving house, buying furniture, selling furniture, looking for a maid, dismissing a maid, seeking a chauffeur, suing a plumber or buying a piano,—he is at their side in a moment.

So when I met him one night in the cloak room of the club putting on his raincoat and his galoshes with a peculiar beaming look on his face, I knew that he was up to some sort of benevolence.

"Come upstairs," I said, "and play billiards." I saw from his general appearance that it was a perfectly safe offer.

"My dear fellow," said Mr. Butt, "I only wish I could. I wish I had the time. I am sure it would cheer you up immensely if I could. But I'm just going out."

"Where are you off to?" I asked, for I knew he wanted me to say it.

"I'm going out to see the Everleigh-Joneses,—you know them? no?—just come to the city, you know, moving into their new house, out on Seldom Avenue."

"But," I said, "that's away out in the suburbs, is it not, a mile or so beyond the car tracks?"

"Something like that," answered Mr. Butt.

"And it's going on for ten o'clock and it's starting to rain—"

"Pooh, pooh," said Mr. Butt, cheerfully, adjusting his galoshes. "I never mind the rain,—does one good. As to their house. I've not been there yet but I can easily find it. I've a very simple system for finding a house at night by merely knocking at the doors in the neighborhood till I get it."

"Isn't it rather late to go there?" I protested.

"My dear fellow," said Mr. Butt warmly, "I don't mind that a bit. The way I look at it is, here are these two young people, only married a few weeks, just moving into their new house, everything probably upside down, no one there but themselves, no one to cheer them up,"—he was wriggling into his raincoat as he spoke and working himself into a frenzy of benevolence,—"good gracious, I only learned at dinner time that they had come to town, or I'd have been out there days ago,—days ago—"

And with that Mr. Butt went bursting forth into the rain, his face shining with good will under the street lamps.

The next day I saw him again at the club at lunch time.

"Well," I asked, "did you find the Joneses?"

"I did," said Mr. Butt, "and by George I was glad that I'd gone—quite a lot of trouble to find the house (though I didn't mind that; I expected it)—had to knock at twenty houses at least to get it,—very dark and wet out there, —no street lights yet,—however I simply pounded at the doors until some one showed a light—at every house I called out the same things, 'Do you know where the Everleigh Joneses live?' They didn't. 'All right,' I said, 'go back to bed. Don't bother to come down.'

"But I got to the right spot at last. I found the house all dark. Jones put his head out of an upper window. 'Hullo,' I called out; 'it's Butt.' 'I'm awfully sorry,' he said, 'we've gone to bed.' 'My dear boy,' I called back, 'don't apologize at all. Throw me down the key and I'll wait while you dress. I don't mind a bit.'

"Just think of it," continued Mr. Butt, "those two poor souls going to bed at half past ten, through sheer dullness! By George, I was glad I'd come. 'Now then,' I said to myself, 'let's cheer them up a little, let's make things a little brighter here.'

"Well, down they came and we sat there on furniture cases and things and had a chat. Mrs. Jones wanted to make me some coffee. 'My dear girl,' I said (I knew them both when they were children) 'I absolutely refuse. Let ME make it.' They protested. I insisted. I went at it,—kitchen all upset—had to open at least twenty tins to get the coffee. However, I made it at last. 'Now,' I said, 'drink it.' They said they had some an hour or so ago. 'Nonsense,' I said, 'drink it.' Well, we sat and chatted away till midnight. They were dull at first and I had to do all the talking. But I set myself to it. I can talk, you know, when I try. Presently about midnight they seemed to brighten up a little. Jones looked at his watch. 'By Jove,' he said, in an animated way, 'it's after midnight.' I think he was pleased at the way the evening was going; after that we chatted away more comfortably. Every little while Jones would say, 'By Jove, it's half past twelve,' or 'it's one o'clock,' and so on.

"I took care, of course, not to stay too late. But when I left them I promised that I'd come back to-day to help straighten things up. They protested, but I insisted."

That same day Mr. Butt went out to the suburbs and put the Joneses' furniture to rights.

"I worked all afternoon," he told me afterwards,—"hard at it with my coat off—got the pictures up first—they'd been trying to put them up by themselves in the morning. I had to take down every one of them—not a single one right,—'Down they come,' I said, and went at it with a will."

A few days later Mr. Butt gave me a further report. "Yes," he said, "the furniture is all unpacked and straightened out but I don't like it. There's a lot of it I don't quite like. I half feel like advising Jones to sell it and get some more. But I don't want to do that till I'm quite certain about it."

After that Mr. Butt seemed much occupied and I didn't see him at the club for some time.

"How about the Everleigh-Joneses?" I asked. "Are they comfortable in their new house?"

Mr. Butt shook his head. "It won't do," he said. "I was afraid of it from the first. I'm moving Jones in nearer to town. I've been out all morning looking for an apartment; when I get the right one I shall move him. I like an apartment far better than a house."

So the Joneses in due course of time were moved. After that Mr. Butt was very busy selecting a piano, and advising them on wall paper and woodwork.

They were hardly settled in their new home when fresh trouble came to them.

"Have you heard about Everleigh-Jones?" said Mr. Butt one day with an anxious face.

"No," I answered.

"He's ill—some sort of fever—poor chap—been ill three days, and they never told me or sent for me—just like their grit—meant to fight it out alone. I'm going out there at once."

From day to day I had reports from Mr. Butt of the progress of Jones's illness.

"I sit with him every day," he said. "Poor chap,—he was very bad yesterday for a while,—mind wandered—quite delirious—I could hear him from the next room—seemed to think some one was hunting him—'Is that damn old fool gone,' I heard him say.

"I went in and soothed him. 'There is no one here, my dear boy,' I said, 'no one, only Butt.' He turned over and groaned. Mrs. Jones begged me to leave him. 'You look quite used up,' she said. 'Go out into the open air.' 'My dear Mrs. Jones,' I said, 'what DOES it matter about me?'"

Eventually, thanks no doubt to Mr. Butt's assiduous care, Everleigh-Jones got well.

"Yes," said Mr. Butt to me a few weeks later, "Jones is all right again now, but his illness has been a long hard pull. I haven't had an evening to myself since it began. But I'm paid, sir, now, more than paid for anything I've done,—the gratitude of those two people—it's unbelievable —you ought to see it. Why do you know that dear little woman is so worried for fear that my strength has been overtaxed that she wants me to take a complete rest and go on a long trip somewhere—suggested first that I should go south. 'My dear Mrs. Jones,' I said laughing, 'that's the ONE place I will not go. Heat is the one thing I CAN'T stand.' She wasn't nonplussed for a moment. 'Then go north,' she said. 'Go up to Canada, or better still go to Labrador,'—and in a minute that kind little woman was hunting up railway maps to see how far north I could get by rail. 'After that,' she said, 'you can go on snowshoes.' She's found that there's a steamer to Ungava every spring and she wants me to run up there on one steamer and come back on the next."

"It must be very gratifying," I said.

"Oh, it is, it is," said Mr. Butt warmly. "It's well worth anything I do. It more than repays me. I'm alone in the world and my friends are all I have. I can't tell you how it goes to my heart when I think of all my friends, here in the club and in the town, always glad to see me, always protesting against my little kindnesses and yet never quite satisfied about anything unless they can get my advice and hear what I have to say.

"Take Jones for instance," he continued—"do you know, really now as a fact,—the hall porter assures me of it,—every time Everleigh-Jones enters the club here the first thing he does is to sing out, 'Is Mr. Butt in the club?' It warms me to think of it." Mr. Butt paused, one would have said there were tears in his eyes. But if so the kindly beam of his spectacles shone through them like the sun through April rain. He left me and passed into the cloak room.

He had just left the hall when a stranger entered, a narrow, meek man with a hunted face. He came in with a furtive step and looked about him apprehensively.

"Is Mr. Butt in the club?" he whispered to the hall porter.

"Yes, sir, he's just gone into the cloak room, sir, shall I—"

But the man had turned and made a dive for the front door and had vanished.

"Who is that?" I asked.

"That's a new member, sir, Mr. Everleigh-Jones," said the hall porter.



IV-Ram Spudd The New World Singer. Is He Divinely Inspired? Or Is He Not? At Any Rate We Discovered Him.

[Footnote: Mr. Spudd was discovered by the author for the New York Life. He is already recognized as superior to Tennyson and second only, as a writer of imagination, to the Sultan of Turkey.]

The discovery of a new poet is always a joy to the cultivated world. It is therefore with the greatest pleasure that we are able to announce that we ourselves, acting quite independently and without aid from any of the English reviews of the day, have discovered one. In the person of Mr. Ram Spudd, of whose work we give specimens below, we feel that we reveal to our readers a genius of the first order. Unlike one of the most recently discovered English poets who is a Bengalee, and another who is a full-blooded Yak, Mr. Spudd is, we believe, a Navajo Indian. We believe this from the character of his verse. Mr. Spudd himself we have not seen. But when he forwarded his poems to our office and offered with characteristic modesty to sell us his entire works for seventy-five cents, we felt in closing with his offer that we were dealing not only with a poet, but with one of nature's gentlemen.

Mr. Spudd, we understand, has had no education. Other newly discovered poets have had, apparently, some. Mr. Spudd has had, evidently, none. We lay stress on this point. Without it we claim it is impossible to understand his work.

What we particularly like about Ram Spudd, and we do not say this because we discovered him but because we believe it and must say it, is that he belongs not to one school but to all of them. As a nature poet we doubt very much if he has his equal; as a psychologist, we are sure he has not. As a clear lucid thinker he is undoubtedly in the first rank; while as a mystic he is a long way in front of it. The specimens of Mr. Spudd's verse which we append herewith were selected, we are happy to assure our readers, purely at random from his work. We first blindfolded ourselves and then, standing with our feet in warm water and having one hand tied behind our back, we groped among the papers on our desk before us and selected for our purpose whatever specimens first came to hand.

As we have said, or did we say it, it is perhaps as a nature poet that Ram Spudd excels. Others of our modern school have carried the observation of natural objects to a high degree of very nice precision, but with Mr. Spudd the observation of nature becomes an almost scientific process. Nothing escapes him. The green of the grass he detects as in an instant. The sky is no sooner blue than he remarks it with unerring certainty. Every bird note, every bee call, is familiar to his trained ear. Perhaps we cannot do better than quote the opening lines of a singularly beautiful sample of Ram Spudd's genius which seems to us the last word in nature poetry. It is called, with characteristic daintiness—

SPRING THAW IN THE AHUNTSIC WOODS, NEAR PASPEBIAC, PASSAMOQUODDY COUNTY

(We would like to say that, to our ears at least, there is a music in this title like the sound of falling water, or of chopped ice. But we must not interrupt ourselves. We now begin. Listen.)

The thermometer is standing this morning at thirty- three decimal one. As a consequence it is freezing in the shade, but it is thawing in the sun. There is a certain amount of snow on the ground, but of course not too much. The air is what you would call humid, but not disagreeable to the touch. Where I am standing I find myself practically surrounded by trees, It is simply astonishing the number of the different varieties one sees. I've grown so wise I can tell each different tree by seeing it glisten, But if that test fails I simply put my ear to the tree and listen, And, well, I suppose it is only a silly fancy of mine perhaps, But do you know I'm getting to tell different trees by the sound of their saps. After I have noticed all the trees, and named those I know in words, I stand quite still and look all round to see if there are any birds, And yesterday, close where I was standing, sitting in some brush on the snow, I saw what I was practically absolutely certain was an early crow. I sneaked up ever so close and was nearly beside it, when say! It turned and took one look at me, and flew away.

But we should not wish our readers to think that Ram Spudd is always and only the contemplative poet of the softer aspects of nature. Oh, by no means. There are times when waves of passion sweep over him in such prodigious volume as to roll him to and fro like a pebble in the surf. Gusts of emotion blow over him with such violence as to hurl him pro and con with inconceivable fury. In such moods, if it were not for the relief offered by writing verse we really do not know what would happen to him. His verse written under the impulse of such emotions marks him as one of the greatest masters of passion, wild and yet restrained, objectionable and yet printable, that have appeared on this side of the Atlantic. We append herewith a portion, or half portion, of his little gem entitled

YOU

You! With your warm, full, rich, red, ripe lips, And your beautifully manicured finger-tips! You! With your heaving, panting, rapidly expanding and contracting chest, Lying against my perfectly ordinary shirt-front and dinner-jacket vest. It is too much Your touch As such. It and Your hand, Can you not understand? Last night an ostrich feather from your fragrant hair Unnoticed fell. I guard it Well. Yestere'en From your tiara I have slid, Unseen, A single diamond, And I keep it Hid. Last night you left inside the vestibule upon the sill A quarter dollar, And I have it Still.

But even those who know Ram Spudd as the poet of nature or of passion still only know a part of his genius. Some of his highest flights rise from an entirely different inspiration, and deal with the public affairs of the nation. They are in every sense comparable to the best work of the poets laureate of England dealing with similar themes. As soon as we had seen Ram Spudd's work of this kind, we cried, that is we said to our stenographer, "What a pity that in this republic we have no laureateship. Here is a man who might truly fill it." Of the poem of this kind we should wish to quote, if our limits of space did not prevent it, Mr. Spudd's exquisite

ODE ON THE REDUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES TARIFF

It is a matter of the very gravest concern to at least nine-tenths of the business interests in the United States, Whether an all-round reduction of the present tariff either on an ad valorem or a specific basis Could be effected without a serious disturbance of the general industrial situation of the country.

But, no, we must not quote any more. No we really mustn't. Yet we cannot refrain from inserting a reference to the latest of these laureate poems of Ram Spudd. It appears to us to be a matchless specimen of its class, and to settle once and for all the vexed question (though we ourselves never vexed it) of whether true poetry can deal with national occasions as they arise. It is entitled:

THE BANKER'S EUTHANASIA: OR, THE FEDERAL RESERVE CURRENCY ACT OF 1914,

and, though we do not propose to reproduce it here, our distinct feeling is that it will take its rank beside Mr. Spudd's Elegy on the Interstate Commerce Act, and his Thoughts on the Proposal of a Uniform Pure Food Law.

But our space does not allow us to present Ram Spudd in what is after all his greatest aspect, that of a profound psychologist, a questioner of the very meaning of life itself. His poem Death and Gloom, from which we must refrain from quoting at large, contains such striking passages as the following:

Why do I breathe, or do I? What am I for, and whither do I go? What skills it if I live, and if I die, What boots it?

Any one knowing Ram Spudd as we do will realize that these questions, especially the last, are practically unanswerable.



V.—Aristocratic Anecdotes or Little Stories of Great People

I have been much struck lately by the many excellent little anecdotes of celebrated people that have appeared in recent memoirs and found their way thence into the columns of the daily press. There is something about them so deliciously pointed, their humour is so exquisite, that I think we ought to have more of them. To this end I am trying to circulate on my own account a few anecdotes which seem somehow to have been overlooked.

Here, for example, is an excellent thing which comes, if I remember rightly, from the vivacious Memoir of Lady Ranelagh de Chit Chat.

ANECDOTE OF THE DUKE OF STRATHYTHAN

Lady Ranelagh writes:

"The Duke of Strathythan (I am writing of course of the seventeenth Duke, not of his present Grace) was, as everybody knows, famous for his hospitality. It was not perhaps generally known that the Duke was as witty as he was hospitable. I recall a most amusing incident that happened the last time but two that I was staying at Strathythan Towers. As we sat down to lunch (we were a very small and intimate party, there being only forty-three of us) the Duke, who was at the head of the table, looked up from the roast of beef that he was carving, and running his eye about the guests was heard to murmur, 'I'm afraid there isn't enough beef to go round.'

"There was nothing to do, of course, but to roar with laughter and the incident passed off with perfect savoir faire."

Here is another story which I think has not had all the publicity that it ought to. I found it in the book "Shot, Shell and Shrapnell or Sixty Years as a War Correspondent," recently written by Mr. Maxim Catling whose exploits are familiar to all readers.

ANECDOTE OF LORD KITCHENER

"I was standing," writes Mr. Maxim, "immediately between Lord Kitchener and Lord Wolsley (with Lord Roberts a little to the rear of us), and we were laughing and chatting as we always did when the enemy were about to open fire on us. Suddenly we found ourselves the object of the most terrific hail of bullets. For a few moments the air was black with them. As they went past I could not refrain from exchanging a quiet smile with Lord Kitchener, and another with Lord Wolsley. Indeed I have never, except perhaps on twenty or thirty occasions, found myself exposed to such an awful fusillade.

"Kitchener, who habitually uses an eye-glass (among his friends), watched the bullets go singing by, and then, with that inimitable sangfroid which he reserves for his intimates, said,

"'I'm afraid if we stay here we may get hit.'

"We all moved away laughing heartily.

"To add to the joke, Lord Roberts' aide-de-camp was shot in the pit of the stomach as we went."

The next anecdote which I reproduce may be already too well known to my readers. The career of Baron Snorch filled so large a page in the history of European diplomacy that the publication of his recent memoirs was awaited with profound interest by half the chancelleries of Europe. (Even the other half were half excited over them.) The tangled skein in which the politics of Europe are enveloped was perhaps never better illustrated than in this fascinating volume. Even at the risk of repeating what is already familiar, I offer the following for what it is worth—or even less.

NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF CAVOUR

"I have always regarded Count Cavour," writes the Baron, "as one of the most impenetrable diplomatists whom it has been my lot to meet. I distinctly recall an incident in connection with the famous Congress of Paris of 1856 which rises before my mind as vividly as if it were yesterday. I was seated in one of the large salons of the Elysee Palace (I often used to sit there) playing vingt-et-un together with Count Cavour, the Duc de Magenta, the Marquese di Casa Mombasa, the Conte di Piccolo Pochito and others whose names I do not recollect. The stakes had been, as usual, very high, and there was a large pile of gold on the table. No one of us, however, paid any attention to it, so absorbed were we all in the thought of the momentous crises that were impending. At intervals the Emperor Napoleon III passed in and out of the room, and paused to say a word or two, with well-feigned eloignement, to the players, who replied with such degagement as they could.

"While the play was at its height a servant appeared with a telegram on a silver tray. He handed it to Count Cavour. The Count paused in his play, opened the telegram, read it and then with the most inconceivable nonchalance, put it in his pocket. We stared at him in amazement for a moment, and then the Duc, with the infinite ease of a trained diplomat, quietly resumed his play.

"Two days afterward, meeting Count Cavour at a reception of the Empress Eugenie, I was able, unobserved, to whisper in his ear, 'What was in the telegram?' 'Nothing of any consequence,' he answered. From that day to this I have never known what it contained. My readers," concludes Baron Snorch, "may believe this or not as they like, but I give them my word that it is true.

"Probably they will not believe it."

I cannot resist appending to these anecdotes a charming little story from that well-known book, "Sorrows of a Queen". The writer, Lady de Weary, was an English gentlewoman who was for many years Mistress of the Robes at one of the best known German courts. Her affection for her royal mistress is evident on every page of her memoirs.

TENDERNESS OF A QUEEN

Lady de W. writes:

"My dear mistress, the late Queen of Saxe-Covia-Slitz- in-Mein, was of a most tender and sympathetic disposition. The goodness of her heart broke forth on all occasions. I well remember how one day, on seeing a cabman in the Poodel Platz kicking his horse in the stomach, she stopped in her walk and said, 'Oh, poor horse! if he goes on kicking it like that he'll hurt it.'"

I may say in conclusion that I think if people would only take a little more pains to resuscitate anecdotes of this sort, there might be a lot more of them found.



VI.—Education Made Agreeable or the Diversions of a Professor

A few days ago during a pause in one of my college lectures (my class being asleep) I sat reading Draper's "Intellectual Development of Europe". Quite suddenly I came upon the following sentence:

"Eratosthenes cast everything he wished to teach into poetry. By this means he made it attractive, and he was able to spread his system all over Asia Minor."

This came to me with a shock of an intellectual discovery. I saw at once how I could spread my system, or parts of it, all over the United States and Canada. To make education attractive! There it is! To call in the help of poetry, of music, of grand opera, if need be, to aid in the teaching of the dry subjects of the college class room.

I set to work at once on the project and already I have enough results to revolutionize education.

In the first place I have compounded a blend of modern poetry and mathematics, which retains all the romance of the latter and loses none of the dry accuracy of the former. Here is an example:

The poem of LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER expressed as A PROBLEM IN TRIGONOMETRY

INTRODUCTION. A party of three persons, a Scotch nobleman, a young lady and an elderly boatman stand on the banks of a river (R), which, for private reasons, they desire to cross. Their only means of transport is a boat, of which the boatman, if squared, is able to row at a rate proportional to the square of the distance. The boat, however, has a leak (S), through which a quantity of water passes sufficient to sink it after traversing an indeterminate distance (D). Given the square of the boatman and the mean situation of all concerned, to find whether the boat will pass the river safely or sink.

A chieftain to the Highlands bound Cried "Boatman do not tarry! And I'll give you a silver pound To row me o'er the ferry." Before them raged the angry tide X**2 + Y from side to side.

Outspake the hardy Highland wight, "I'll go, my chief, I'm ready; It is not for your silver bright, But for your winsome lady." And yet he seemed to manifest A certain hesitation; His head was sunk upon his breast In puzzled calculation.

"Suppose the river X + Y And call the distance Q Then dare we thus the gods defy I think we dare, don't you? Our floating power expressed in words Is X + 47/3"

"Oh, haste thee, haste," the lady cries, "Though tempests round us gather I'll face the raging of the skies But please cut out the Algebra."

The boat has left the stormy shore (S) A stormy C before her C1 C2 C3 C4 The tempest gathers o'er her The thunder rolls, the lightning smites 'em And the rain falls ad infinitum.

In vain the aged boatman strains, His heaving sides reveal his pains; The angry water gains apace Both of his sides and half his base, Till, as he sits, he seems to lose The square of his hypotenuse.

The boat advanced to X + 2, Lord Ullin reached the fixed point Q,— Then the boat sank from human eye, OY, OY**2, OGY.

But this is only a sample of what can be done. I have realised that all our technical books are written and presented in too dry a fashion. They don't make the most of themselves. Very often the situation implied is intensely sensational, and if set out after the fashion of an up-to-date newspaper, would be wonderfully effective.

Here, for example, you have Euclid writing in a perfectly prosaic way all in small type such an item as the following:

"A perpendicular is let fall on a line BC so as to bisect it at the point C etc., etc.," just as if it were the most ordinary occurrence in the world. Every newspaper man will see at once that it ought to be set up thus:

AWFUL CATASTROPHE PERPENDICULAR FALLS HEADLONG ON A GIVEN POINT

The Line at C said to be completely bisected President of the Line makes Statement etc., etc., etc.

But I am not contenting myself with merely describing my system. I am putting it to the test. I am preparing a new and very special edition of my friend Professor Daniel Murray's work on the Calculus. This is a book little known to the general public. I suppose one may say without exaggeration that outside of the class room it is hardly read at all.

Yet I venture to say that when my new edition is out it will be found on the tables of every cultivated home, and will be among the best sellers of the year. All that is needed is to give to this really monumental book the same chance that is given to every other work of fiction in the modern market.

First of all I wrap it in what is called technically a jacket. This is of white enamelled paper, and on it is a picture of a girl, a very pretty girl, in a summer dress and sunbonnet sitting swinging on a bough of a cherry tree. Across the cover in big black letters are the words:

THE CALCULUS

and beneath them the legend "the most daring book of the day." This, you will observe, is perfectly true. The reviewers of the mathematical journals when this book first came out agreed that "Professor Murray's views on the Calculus were the most daring yet published." They said, too, that they hoped that the professor's unsound theories of infinitesimal rectitude would not remain unchallenged. Yet the public somehow missed it all, and one of the most profitable scandals in the publishing trade was missed for the lack of a little business enterprise.

My new edition will give this book its first real chance.

I admit that the inside has to be altered,—but not very much. The real basis of interest is there. The theories in the book are just as interesting as those raised in the modern novel. All that is needed is to adopt the device, familiar in novels, of clothing the theories in personal form and putting the propositions advanced into the mouths of the characters, instead of leaving them as unsupported statements of the author. Take for example Dr. Murray's beginning. It is very good,—any one will admit it,—fascinatingly clever, but it lacks heart.

It runs:

If two magnitudes, one of which is determined by a straight line and the other by a parabola approach one another, the rectangle included by the revolution of each will be equal to the sum of a series of indeterminate rectangles.

Now this is,—quite frankly,—dull. The situation is there; the idea is good, and, whether one agrees or not, is at least as brilliantly original as even the best of our recent novels. But I find it necessary to alter the presentation of the plot a little bit. As I re-edit it the opening of the Calculus runs thus:

On a bright morning in June along a path gay with the opening efflorescence of the hibiscus and entangled here and there with the wild blossoms of the convolvulus,—two magnitudes might have been seen approaching one another. The one magnitude who held a tennis-racket in his hand, carried himself with a beautiful erectness and moved with a firmness such as would have led Professor Murray to exclaim in despair—Let it be granted that A. B. (for such was our hero's name) is a straight line. The other magnitude, which drew near with a step at once elusive and fascinating, revealed as she walked a figure so exquisite in its every curve as to call from her geometrical acquaintances the ecstatic exclamation, "Let it be granted that M is a parabola."

The beautiful magnitude of whom we have last spoken, bore on her arm as she walked, a tiny dog over which her fair head was bent in endearing caresses; indeed such was her attention to the dog Vi (his full name was Velocity but he was called Vi for short) that her wayward footsteps carried her not in a straight line but in a direction so constantly changing as to lead that acute observer, Professor Murray, to the conclusion that her path could only be described by the amount of attraction ascribable to Vi.

Guided thus along their respective paths, the two magnitudes presently met with such suddenness that they almost intersected.

"I beg your pardon," said the first magnitude very rigidly.

"You ought to indeed," said the second rather sulkily, "you've knocked Vi right out of my arms."

She looked round despairingly for the little dog which seemed to have disappeared in the long grass.

"Won't you please pick him up?" she pleaded.

"Not exactly in my line, you know," answered the other magnitude, "but I tell you what I'll do, if you'll stand still, perfectly still where you are, and let me take hold of your hand, I'll describe a circle!"

"Oh, aren't you clever!" cried the girl, clapping her hands. "What a lovely idea! You describe a circle all around me, and then we'll look at every weeny bit of it and we'll be sure to find Vi—"

She reached out her hand to the other magnitude who clasped it with an assumed intensity sufficient to retain it.

At this moment a third magnitude broke on the scene:—a huge oblong, angular figure, very difficult to describe, came revolving towards them.

"M," it shouted, "Emily, what are you doing?"

"My goodness," said the second magnitude in alarm, "it's MAMA."

I may say that the second instalment of Dr. Murray's fascinating romance will appear in the next number of the "Illuminated Bookworm", the great adult-juvenile vehicle of the newer thought in which these theories of education are expounded further.



VII.—An Every-Day Experience

He came across to me in the semi-silence room of the club.

"I had a rather queer hand at bridge last night," he said.

"Had you?" I answered, and picked up a newspaper.

"Yes. It would have interested you, I think," he went on.

"Would it?" I said, and moved to another chair.

"It was like this," he continued, following me: "I held the king of hearts—"

"Half a minute," I said; "I want to go and see what time it is." I went out and looked at the clock in the hall. I came back.

"And the queen and the ten—" he was saying.

"Excuse me just a second; I want to ring for a messenger."

I did so. The waiter came and went.

"And the nine and two small ones," he went on.

"Two small what?" I asked.

"Two small hearts," he said. "I don't remember which. Anyway, I remember very well indeed that I had the king and the queen and the jack, the nine, and two little ones."

"Half a second," I said, "I want to mail a letter."

When I came back to him, he was still murmuring:

"My partner held the ace of clubs and the queen. The jack was out, but I didn't know where the king was—"

"You didn't?" I said in contempt.

"No," he repeated in surprise, and went on murmuring:

"Diamonds had gone round once, and spades twice, and so I suspected that my partner was leading from weakness—"

"I can well believe it," I said—"sheer weakness."

"Well," he said, "on the sixth round the lead came to me. Now, what should I have done? Finessed for the ace, or led straight into my opponent—"

"You want my advice," I said, "and you shall have it, openly and fairly. In such a case as you describe, where a man has led out at me repeatedly and with provocation, as I gather from what you say, though I myself do not play bridge, I should lead my whole hand at him. I repeat, I do not play bridge. But in the circumstances, I should think it the only thing to do."



VIII—Truthful Oratory, or What Our Speakers Ought to Say

I

TRUTHFUL SPEECH GIVING THE REAL THOUGHTS OF A DISTINGUISHED GUEST AT THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY BANQUET OF A SOCIETY

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: If there is one thing I abominate more than another, it is turning out on a cold night like this to eat a huge dinner of twelve courses and know that I have to make a speech on top of it. Gentlemen, I just feel stuffed. That's the plain truth of it. By the time we had finished that fish, I could have gone home satisfied. Honestly I could. That's as much as I usually eat. And by the time I had finished the rest of the food, I felt simply waterlogged, and I do still. More than that. The knowledge that I had to make a speech congratulating this society of yours on its fiftieth anniversary haunted and racked me all through the meal. I am not, in plain truth, the ready and brilliant speaker you take me for. That is a pure myth. If you could see the desperate home scene that goes on in my family when I am working up a speech, your minds would be at rest on that point.

I'll go further and be very frank with you. How this society has lived for fifty years, I don't know. If all your dinners are like this, Heaven help you. I've only the vaguest idea of what this society is, anyway, and what it does. I tried to get a constitution this afternoon but failed. I am sure from some of the faces that I recognise around this table that there must be good business reasons of some sort for belonging to this society. There's money in it,—mark my words,—for some of you or you wouldn't be here. Of course I quite understand that the President and the officials seated here beside me come merely for the self-importance of it. That, gentlemen, is about their size. I realized that from their talk during the banquet. I don't want to speak bitterly, but the truth is they are SMALL men and it flatters them to sit here with two or three blue ribbons pinned on their coats. But as for me, I'm done with it. It will be fifty years, please heaven, before this event comes round again. I hope, I earnestly hope, that I shall be safely under the ground.

II

THE SPEECH THAT OUGHT TO BE MADE BY A STATE GOVERNOR AFTER VISITING THE FALL EXPOSITION OF AN AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY

Well, gentlemen, this Annual Fall Fair of the Skedink County Agricultural Association has come round again. I don't mind telling you straight out that of all the disagreeable jobs that fall to me as Governor of this State, my visit to your Fall Fair is about the toughest.

I want to tell you, gentlemen, right here and now, that I don't know anything about agriculture and I don't want to. My parents were rich enough to bring me up in the city in a rational way. I didn't have to do chores in order to go to the high school as some of those present have boasted that they did. My only wonder is that they ever got there at all. They show no traces of it.

This afternoon, gentlemen, you took me all round your live-stock exhibit. I walked past, and through, nearly a quarter of a mile of hogs. What was it that they were called—Tamworths—Berkshires? I don't remember. But all I can say, gentlemen, is,—phew! Just that. Some of you will understand readily enough. That word sums up my whole idea of your agricultural show and I'm done with it.

No, let me correct myself. There was just one feature of your agricultural exposition that met my warm approval. You were good enough to take me through the section of your exposition called your Midway Pleasance. Let me tell you, sirs, that there was more real merit in that than all the rest of the show put together. You apologized, if I remember rightly, for taking me into the large tent of the Syrian Dancing Girls. Oh, believe me, gentlemen, you needn't have. Syria is a country which commands my profoundest admiration. Some day I mean to spend a vacation there. And, believe me, gentlemen, when I do go,—and I say this with all the emphasis of which I am capable,—I should not wish to be accompanied by such a set of flatheads as the officials of your Agricultural Society.

And now, gentlemen, as I have just received a fake telegram, by arrangement, calling me back to the capital of the State, I must leave this banquet at once. One word in conclusion: if I had known as fully as I do now how it feels to drink half a bucket of sweet cider, I should certainly never have come.

III

TRUTHFUL SPEECH OF A DISTRICT POLITICIAN TO A LADIES' SUFFRAGE SOCIETY

Ladies: My own earnest, heartfelt conviction is that you are a pack of cats. I use the word "cats" advisedly, and I mean every letter of it. I want to go on record before this gathering as being strongly and unalterably opposed to Woman Suffrage until you get it. After that I favour it. My reasons for opposing the suffrage are of a kind that you couldn't understand. But all men,—except the few that I see at this meeting,—understand them by instinct.

As you may, however, succeed as a result of the fuss that you are making,—in getting votes, I have thought it best to come. Also,—I am free to confess,—I wanted to see what you looked like.

On this last head I am disappointed. Personally I like women a good deal fatter than most of you are, and better looking. As I look around this gathering I see one or two of you that are not so bad, but on the whole not many. But my own strong personal predilection is and remains in favour of a woman who can cook, mend clothes, talk when I want her to, and give me the kind of admiration to which I am accustomed.

Let me, however, say in conclusion that I am altogether in sympathy with your movement to this extent. If you ever DO get votes,—and the indications are that you will (blast you),—I want your votes, and I want all of them.



IX.-Our Literary Bureau

[Footnote: This literary bureau was started by the author in the New York Century. It leaped into such immediate prominence that it had to be closed at once.]

NOVELS READ TO ORDER FIRST AID FOR THE BUSY MILLIONAIRE

NO BRAINS NEEDED NO TASTE REQUIRED NOTHING BUT MONEY SEND IT TO US

We have lately been struck,—of course not dangerously,—by a new idea. A recent number of a well-known magazine contains an account of an American multimillionaire who, on account of the pressure of his brain power and the rush of his business, found it impossible to read the fiction of the day for himself. He therefore caused his secretaries to look through any new and likely novel and make a rapid report on its contents, indicating for his personal perusal the specially interesting parts.

Realizing the possibilities coiled up in this plan, we have opened a special agency or bureau for doing work of this sort. Any over-busy multimillionaire, or superman, who becomes our client may send us novels, essays, or books of any kind, and will receive a report explaining the plot and pointing out such parts as he may with propriety read. If he can once find time to send us a postcard, or a postal cablegram, night or day, we undertake to assume all the further effort of reading. Our terms for ordinary fiction are one dollar per chapter; for works of travel, 10 cents per mile; and for political or other essays, two cents per page, or ten dollars per idea, and for theological and controversial work, seven dollars and fifty cents per cubic yard extracted. Our clients are assured of prompt and immediate attention.

Through the kindness of the Editor of the Century we are enabled to insert here a sample of our work. It was done to the order of a gentleman of means engaged in silver mining in Colorado, who wrote us that he was anxious to get "a holt" on modern fiction, but that he had no time actually to read it. On our assuring him that this was now unnecessary, he caused to be sent to us the monthly parts of a serial story, on which we duly reported as follows:

JANUARY INSTALMENT

Theodolite Gulch, The Dip, Canon County, Colorado.

Dear Sir:

We beg to inform you that the scene of the opening chapter of the Fortunes of Barbara Plynlimmon is laid in Wales. The scene is laid, however, very carelessly and hurriedly and we expect that it will shortly be removed. We cannot, therefore, recommend it to your perusal. As there is a very fine passage describing the Cambrian Hills by moonlight, we enclose herewith a condensed table showing the mean altitude of the moon for the month of December in the latitude of Wales. The character of Miss Plynlimmon we find to be developed in conversation with her grandmother, which we think you had better not read. Nor are we prepared to endorse your reading the speeches of the Welsh peasantry which we find in this chapter, but we forward herewith in place of them a short glossary of Welsh synonyms which may aid you in this connection.

FEBRUARY INSTALMENT

Dear Sir:

We regret to state that we find nothing in the second chapter of the Fortunes of Barbara Plynlimmon which need be reported to you at length. We think it well, however, to apprise you of the arrival of a young Oxford student in the neighbourhood of Miss Plynlimmon's cottage, who is apparently a young man of means and refinement. We enclose a list of the principal Oxford Colleges.

We may state that from the conversation and manner of this young gentleman there is no ground for any apprehension on your part. But if need arises we will report by cable to you instantly.

The young gentleman in question meets Miss Plynlimmon at sunrise on the slopes of Snowdon. As the description of the meeting is very fine we send you a recent photograph of the sun.

MARCH INSTALMENT

Dear Sir:

Our surmise was right. The scene of the story that we are digesting for you is changed. Miss Plynlimmon has gone to London. You will be gratified to learn that she has fallen heir to a fortune of 100,000 pounds, which we are happy to compute for you at $486,666 and 66 cents less exchange. On Miss Plynlimmon's arrival at Charing Cross Station, she is overwhelmed with that strange feeling of isolation felt in the surging crowds of a modern city. We therefore enclose a timetable showing the arrival and departure of all trains at Charing Cross.

APRIL INSTALMENT

Dear Sir:

We beg to bring to your notice the fact that Miss Barbara Plynlimmon has by an arrangement made through her trustees become the inmate, on a pecuniary footing, in the household of a family of title. We are happy to inform you that her first appearance at dinner in evening dress was most gratifying: we can safely recommend you to read in this connection lines 4 and 5 and the first half of line 6 on page 1OO of the book as enclosed. We regret to say that the Marquis of Slush and his eldest son Viscount Fitzbuse (courtesy title) are both addicted to drink. They have been drinking throughout the chapter. We are pleased to state that apparently the second son, Lord Radnor of Slush, who is away from home is not so addicted. We send you under separate cover a bottle of Radnor water.

MAY INSTALMENT

Dear Sir:

We regret to state that the affairs of Miss Barbara Plynlimmon are in a very unsatisfactory position. We enclose three pages of the novel with the urgent request that you will read them at once. The old Marquis of Slush has made approaches towards Miss Plynlimmon of such a scandalous nature that we think it best to ask you to read them in full. You will note also that young Viscount Slush who is tipsy through whole of pages 121-125, 128-133, and part of page 140, has designs upon her fortune. We are sorry to see also that the Marchioness of Buse under the guise of friendship has insured Miss Plynlimmon's life and means to do away with her. The sister of the Marchioness, the Lady Dowager, also wishes to do away with her. The second housemaid who is tempted by her jewellery is also planning to do away with her. We feel that if this goes on she will be done away with.

JUNE INSTALMENT

Dear Sir:

We beg to advise you that Viscount Fitz-buse, inflamed by the beauty and innocence of Miss Plynlimmon, has gone so far as to lay his finger on her (read page 170, lines 6-7). She resisted his approaches. At the height of the struggle a young man, attired in the costume of a Welsh tourist, but wearing the stamp of an Oxford student, and yet carrying himself with the unmistakable hauteur (we knew it at once) of an aristocrat, burst, or bust, into the room. With one blow he felled Fitz-buse to the floor; with another he clasped the girl to his heart.

"Barbara!" he exclaimed.

"Radnor," she murmured.

You will be pleased to learn that this is the second son of the Marquis, Viscount Radnor, just returned from a reading tour in Wales.

P. S. We do not know what he read, so we enclose a file of Welsh newspapers to date.

JULY INSTALMENT

We regret to inform you that the Marquis of Slush has disinherited his son. We grieve to state that Viscount Radnor has sworn that he will never ask for Miss Plynlimmon's hand till he has a fortune equal to her own. Meantime, we are sorry to say, he proposes to work.

AUGUST INSTALMENT

The Viscount is seeking employment.

SEPTEMBER INSTALMENT

The Viscount is looking for work.

OCTOBER INSTALMENT

The Viscount is hunting for a job.

NOVEMBER INSTALMENT

We are most happy to inform you that Miss Plynlimmon has saved the situation. Determined to be worthy of the generous love of Viscount Radnor, she has arranged to convey her entire fortune to the old family lawyer who acts as her trustee. She will thus become as poor as the Viscount and they can marry. The scene with the old lawyer who breaks into tears on receiving the fortune, swearing to hold and cherish it as his own is very touching. Meantime, as the Viscount is hunting for a job, we enclose a list of advertisements under the heading Help Wanted—Males.

DECEMBER INSTALMENT

You will be very gratified to learn that the fortunes of Miss Barbara Plynlimmon have come to a most pleasing termination. Her marriage with the Viscount Radnor was celebrated very quietly on page 231. (We enclose a list of the principal churches in London.) No one was present except the old family lawyer, who was moved to tears at the sight of the bright, trusting bride, and the clergyman who wept at the sight of the cheque given him by the Viscount. After the ceremony the old trustee took Lord and Lady Radnor to a small wedding breakfast at an hotel (we enclose a list). During the breakfast a sudden faintness (for which we had been watching for ten pages) overcame him. He sank back in his chair, gasping. Lord and Lady Radnor rushed to him and sought in vain to tighten his necktie. He expired under their care, having just time to indicate in his pocket a will leaving them his entire wealth.

This had hardly happened when a messenger brought news to the Viscount that his brother, Lord Fitz-buse had been killed in the hunting field, and that he (meaning him, himself) had now succeeded to the title. Lord and Lady Fitz-buse had hardly time to reach the town house of the family when they learned that owing to the sudden death of the old Marquis (also, we believe, in the hunting field), they had become the Marquis and the Marchioness of Slush.

The Marquis and the Marchioness of Slush are still living in their ancestral home in London. Their lives are an example to all their tenantry in Piccadilly, the Strand and elsewhere.

CONCLUDING NOTE

Dear Mr. Gulch:

We beg to acknowledge with many thanks your cheque for one thousand dollars.

We regret to learn that you have not been able to find time to read our digest of the serial story placed with us at your order. But we note with pleasure that you propose to have the "essential points" of our digest "boiled down" by one of the business experts of your office.

Awaiting your commands,

We remain, etc., etc.



X.—Speeding Up Business

We were sitting at our editorial desk in our inner room, quietly writing up our week's poetry, when a stranger looked in upon us.

He came in with a burst,—like the entry of the hero of western drama coming in out of a snowstorm. His manner was all excitement. "Sit down," we said, in our grave, courteous way. "Sit down!" he exclaimed, "certainly not! Are you aware of the amount of time and energy that are being wasted in American business by the practice of perpetually sitting down and standing up again? Do you realize that every time you sit down and stand up you make a dead lift of"—he looked at us,—"two hundred and fifty pounds? Did you ever reflect that every time you sit down you have to get up again?" "Never," we said quietly, "we never thought of it." "You didn't!" he sneered. "No, you'd rather go on lifting 250 pounds through two feet,—an average of 500 foot-pounds, practically 62 kilowatts of wasted power. Do you know that by merely hitching a pulley to the back of your neck you could generate enough power to light your whole office?"

We hung our heads. Simple as the thing was, we had never thought of it. "Very good," said the Stranger. "Now, all American business men are like you. They don't think,—do you understand me? They don't think."

We realized the truth of it at once. We had never thought. Perhaps we didn't even know how.

"Now, I tell you," continued our visitor, speaking rapidly and with a light of wild enthusiasm in his face, "I'm out for a new campaign,—efficiency in business—speeding things up—better organization."

"But surely," we said, musingly, "we have seen something about this lately in the papers?" "Seen it, sir," he exclaimed, "I should say so. It's everywhere. It's a new movement. It's in the air. Has it never struck you how a thing like this can be seen in the air?"

Here again we were at fault. In all our lives we had never seen anything in the air. We had never even looked there. "Now," continued the Stranger, "I want your paper to help. I want you to join in. I want you to give publicity."

"Assuredly," we said, with our old-fashioned politeness. "Anything which concerns the welfare, the progress, if one may so phrase it—" "Stop," said the visitor. "You talk too much. You're prosy. Don't talk. Listen to me. Try and fix your mind on what I am about to say."

We fixed it. The Stranger's manner became somewhat calmer. "I am heading," he said, "the new American efficiency movement. I have sent our circulars to fifty thousand representative firms, explaining my methods. I am receiving ten thousand answers a day"—here he dragged a bundle of letters out of his pocket—"from Maine, from New Hampshire, from Vermont,"—"Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut," we murmured.

"Exactly," he said; "from every State in the Union—from the Philippines, from Porto Rico, and last week I had one from Canada." "Marvellous," we said; "and may one ask what your new methods are?"

"You may," he answered. "It's a proper question. It's a typical business question, fair, plain, clean, and even admitting of an answer. The great art of answering questions," he continued, "is to answer at once without loss of time, friction or delay in moving from place to place. I'll answer it."

"Do," we said.

"I will," said the Stranger. "My method is first: to stimulate business to the highest point by infusing into it everywhere the spirit of generous rivalry, of wholesome competition; by inviting each and every worker to outdo each and every other."

"And can they do it?" we asked, puzzled and yet fascinated. "Can they all do it?"

"They do, and they can," said the Stranger. "The proof of it is that they are doing it. Listen. Here is an answer to my circular No. 6, Efficiency and Recompense, that came in this morning. It is from a steel firm. Listen." The Stranger picked out a letter and read it.

Dear Sir:

Our firm is a Steel Corporation. We roll rails. As soon as we read your circular on the Stimulus of Competition we saw that there were big things in it. At once we sent one of our chief managers to the rolling, mill. He carried a paper bag in his hand. "Now boys," he said, "every man who rolls a rail gets a gum-drop." The effect was magical. The good fellows felt a new stimulus. They now roll out rails like dough. Work is a joy to them. Every Saturday night the man who has rolled most gets a blue ribbon; the man who has rolled the next most, a green ribbon; the next most a yellow ribbon, and so on through the spectroscope. The man who rolls least gets only a red ribbon. It is a real pleasure to see the brave fellows clamouring for their ribbons. Our output, after defraying the entire cost of the ribbons and the gum-drops, has increased forty per cent. We intend to carry the scheme further by allowing all the men who get a hundred blue ribbons first, to exchange them for the Grand Efficiency Prize of the firm,—a pink ribbon. This the winner will be entitled to wear whenever and wherever he sees fit to wear it.

The stranger paused for breath.

"Marvellous," we said. "There is no doubt the stimulus of keen competition—"

"Shut up," he said impatiently. "Let me explain it further. Competition is only part of it. An item just as big that makes for efficiency is to take account of the little things. It's the little things that are never thought of."

Here was another wonder! We realized that we had never thought of them. "Take an example," the Stranger continued. "I went into a hotel the other day. What did I see? Bell-boys being summoned upstairs every minute, and flying up in the elevators. Yes,—and every time they went up they had to come down again. I went up to the manager. I said, 'I can understand that when your guests ring for the bell-boys they have to go up. But why should they come down? Why not have them go up and never come down?' He caught the idea at once. That hotel is transformed. I have a letter from the manager stating that they find it fifty per cent. cheaper to hire new bell-boys instead of waiting for the old ones to come down."

"These results," we said, "are certainly marvellous. "You are most assuredly to be congratulated on—"

"You talk too much," said the Stranger. "Don't do it. Learn to listen. If a young man comes to me for advice in business,—and they do in hundreds, lots of them,—almost in tears over their inefficiency,—I'd say, 'Young man, never talk, listen; answer, but don't speak.' But even all this is only part of the method. Another side of it is technique."

"Technique?" we said, pleased but puzzled.

"Yes, the proper use of machine devices. Take the building trade. I've revolutionized it. Till now all the bricks even for a high building were carried up to the mason in hods. Madness! Think of the waste of it. By my method instead of carrying the bricks to the mason we take the mason to the brick,—lower him on a wire rope, give him a brick, and up he goes again. As soon as he wants another brick he calls down, 'I want a brick,' and down he comes like lightning."

"This," we said, "is little short of—"

"Cut it out. Even that is not all. Another thing bigger than any is organization. Half the business in this country is not organized. As soon as I sent out my circular, No. 4, HAVE YOU ORGANIZED YOUR BUSINESS! I got answers in thousands! Heart-broken, many of them. They had never thought of it! Here, for example, is a letter written by a plain man, a gardener, just an ordinary man, a plain man—"

"Yes," we said, "quite so."

"Well, here is what he writes:

Dear Sir:

As soon as I got your circular I read it all through from end to end, and I saw that all my failure in the past had come from my not being organized. I sat and thought a long while and I decided that I would organize myself. I went right in to the house and I said to my wife, "Jane, I'm going to organize myself." She said, "Oh, John!"—and not another word, but you should have seen the look on her face. So the next morning I got up early and began to organize myself. It was hard at first but I stuck to it. There were times when I felt as if I couldn't do it. It seemed too hard. But bit by bit I did it and now, thank God, I am organized. I wish all men like me could know the pleasure I feel in being organized."

"Touching, isn't it?" said the Stranger. "But I get lots of letters like that. Here's another, also from a man, a plain man, working on his own farm. Hear what he says:

Dear Sir:

As soon as I saw your circular on HOW TO SPEED UP THE EMPLOYEE I felt that it was a big thing. I don't have any hired help here to work with me, but only father. He cuts the wood and does odd chores about the place. So I realized that the best I could do was to try to speed up father. I started in to speed him up last Tuesday, and I wish you could see him. Before this he couldn't split a cord of wood without cutting a slice off his boots. Now he does it in half the time."

"But there," the Stranger said, getting impatient even with his own reading, "I needn't read it all. It is the same thing all along the line. I've got the Method introduced into the Department Stores. Before this every customer who came in wasted time trying to find the counters. Now we install a patent springboard, with a mechanism like a catapault. As soon as a customer comes in an attendant puts him on the board, blindfolds him, and says, 'Where do you want to go?' 'Glove counter.' 'Oh, all right.' He's fired at it through the air. No time lost. Same with the railways. They're installing the Method, too. Every engineer who breaks the record from New York to Buffalo gets a glass of milk. When he gets a hundred glasses he can exchange them for a glass of beer. So with the doctors. On the new method, instead of giving a patient one pill a day for fourteen days they give him fourteen pills in one day. Doctors, lawyers, everybody,—in time, sir," said the Stranger, in tones of rising excitement, "you'll see even the plumbers—"

But just at this moment the door opened. A sturdy-looking man in blue entered. The Stranger's voice was hushed at once. The excitement died out of his face. His manner all of a sudden was meekness itself.

"I was just coming," he said.

"That's right, sir," said the man; "better come along and not take up the gentleman's time."

"Good-bye, then," said the Stranger, with meek affability, and he went out.

The man in blue lingered behind for a moment.

"A sad case, sir," he said, and he tapped his forehead.

"You mean—" I asked.

"Exactly. Cracked, sir. Quite cracked; but harmless. I'm engaged to look after him, but he gave me the slip downstairs."

"He is under delusions?" we inquired.

"Yes, sir. He's got it into his head that business in this country has all gone to pieces,—thinks it must be reorganized. He writes letters about it all day and sends them to the papers with imaginary names. You may have seen some of them. Good day, sir."

We looked at our watch. We had lost just half an hour over the new efficiency. We turned back with a sigh to our old-fashioned task.



XI.—Who Is Also Who. A Companion Volume to Who's Who

Note by the editor: I do not quarrel with the contents of such valuable compendiums as "Who's Who," "Men and Women of the Time," etc., etc. But they leave out the really Representative People. The names that they include are so well known as to need no commentary, while those that they exclude are the very people one most wishes to read about. My new book is not arranged alphabetically, that order having given great offence in certain social circles.

Smith, J. Everyman: born Kenoka Springs; educ. Kenoka Springs; present residence, The Springs, Kenoka; address, Kenoka Springs Post-Office; after leaving school threw himself (Oct. 1881) into college study; thrown out of it (April 1882); decided to follow the law; followed it (1882); was left behind (1883); decided (1884) to abandon it; abandoned it; resolved (1885) to turn his energies to finance; turned them (1886); kept them turned (1887); unturned them (1888); was offered position (1889) as sole custodian of Mechanics' Institute, Kenoka Springs; decided (same date) to accept it; accepted it; is there now; will be till he dies.

Flintlock, J. Percussion: aged 87; war veteran and pensioner; born, blank; educated, blank; at outbreak of Civil War sprang to arms; both sides; sprang Union first; entered beef contract department of army of U. S.; fought at Chicago, Omaha, and leading (beef) centres of operation during the thickest of the (beef) conflict; was under Hancock, Burnside, Meade, and Grant; fought with all of them; mentioned (very strongly) by all of them; entered Confederate Service (1864); attached (very much) to rum department of quarter-master's staff; mentioned in this connection (very warmly) in despatches of General Lee; mustered out, away out, of army; lost from sight, 1865-1895; placed on pension list with rank of general, 1895; has stayed on, 1895-1915; obtained (on 6th Avenue) war medals and service clasps; publications—"My Campaigns under Grant," "Battles I have Saved," "Feeding an Army," "Stuffing the Public," etc., etc.; recreations, telling war stories; favorite amusement, showing war medals.

Crook, W. Underhand: born, dash; parents, double dash; educated at technical school; on graduation turned his attention to the problem of mechanical timelocks and patent safes; entered Sing-Sing, 1890; resident there, 1890-1893; Auburn, 1894, three months; various state institutions, 1895-1898; worked at profession, 1898-1899; Sing-Sing, 1900; professional work, 1901; Sing-Sing, 1902; profession, 1903, Sing-Sing; profession, Sing-Sing, etc., etc.; life appointment, 1908; general favorite, musical, has never killed anybody.

Gloomie, Dreary O'Leary: Scotch dialect comedian and humorist; well known in Scotland; has standing offer from Duke of Sutherland to put foot on estate.

Muck, O. Absolute: novelist; of low German extraction; born Rotterdam; educated Muckendorf; escaped to America; long unrecognized; leaped into prominence by writing "The Social Gas-Pipe," a powerful indictment of modern society, written in revenge for not being invited to dinner; other works—"The Sewerage of the Sea-Side," an arraignment of Newport society, reflecting on some of his best friends; "Vice and Super-Vice," a telling denunciation of the New York police, written after they had arrested him; "White Ravens," an indictment of the clergy; "Black Crooks," an indictment of the publishers, etc., etc.; has arraigned and indicted nearly everybody.

Whyner, Egbert Ethelwind: poet, at age of sixteen wrote a quatrain, "The Banquet of Nebuchadnezzar," and at once left school; followed it up in less than two years by a poem in six lines "America"; rested a year and then produced "Babylon, A Vision of Civilization," three lines; has written also "Herod, a Tragedy," four lines; "Revolt of Woman, "two lines, and "The Day of Judgement," one line. Recreation, writing poetry.

Adult, Hon. Underdone: address The Shrubbery, Hopton- under-Hyde, Rotherham-near-Pottersby, Potts, Hants, Hops, England (or words to that effect); organizer of the Boys' League of Pathfinders, Chief Commissioner of the Infant Crusaders, Grand Master of the Young Imbeciles; Major-General of the Girl Rangers, Chief of Staff of the Matron Mountain Climbers, etc.

Zfwinski, X. Z.: Polish pianist; plays all night; address 4,570 West 457 Street, Westside, Chicago West.



XII.—Passionate Paragraphs

(An extract from a recent (very recent) novel, illustrating the new beauties of language and ideas that are being rapidly developed by the twentieth century press.)

His voice as he turned towards her was taut as a tie-line.

"You don't love me!" he hoarsed, thick with agony. She had angled into a seat and sat sensing-rather-than-seeing him.

For a time she silenced. Then presently as he still stood and enveloped her,—

"Don't!" she thinned, her voice fining to a thread.

"Answer me," he gloomed, still gazing into-and-through her.

She half-heard half-didn't-hear him.

Night was falling about them as they sat thus beside the river. A molten afterglow of iridescent saffron shot with incandescent carmine lit up the waters of the Hudson till they glowed like electrified uranium.

For a while they both sat silent,—looming.

"It had to be," she glumped.

"Why, why?" he barked. "Why should it have had to have been or (more hopefully) even be to be? Surely you don't mean because of MONEY?"

She shuddered into herself.

The thing seemed to sting her (it hadn't really).

"Money!" she almost-but-not-quite-moaned. "You might have spared me that!"

He sank down and grassed.

And after they had sat thus for another half-hour grassing and growling and angling and sensing one another, it turned out that all that he was trying to say was to ask if she would marry him.

And of course she said yes.



XIII.—Weejee the Pet Dog. An Idyll of the Summer

We were sitting on the verandah of the Sopley's summer cottage.

"How lovely it is here," I said to my host and hostess, "and how still."

It was at this moment that Weejee, the pet dog, took a sharp nip at the end of my tennis trousers.

"Weejee!!" exclaimed his mistress with great emphasis, "BAD dog! how dare you, sir! BAD dog!"

"I hope he hasn't hurt you," said my host.

"Oh, it's nothing," I answered cheerfully. "He hardly scratched me."

"You know I don't think he means anything by it," said Mrs. Sopley.

"Oh, I'm SURE he doesn't," I answered.

Weejee was coming nearer to me again as I spoke.

"WEEJEE!!" cried my hostess, "naughty dog, bad!"

"Funny thing about that dog," said Sopley, "the way he KNOWS people. It's a sort of instinct. He knew right away that you were a stranger,—now, yesterday, when the butcher came, there was a new driver on the cart and Weejee knew it right away,—grabbed the man by the leg at once,—wouldn't let go. I called out to the man that it was all right or he might have done Weejee some harm."

At this moment Weejee took the second nip at my other trouser leg. There was a short GUR-R-R and a slight mix-up.

"Weejee! Weejee!" called Mrs. Sopley. "How DARE you, sir! You're just a BAD dog!! Go and lie down, sir. I'm so sorry. I think, you know, it's your white trousers. For some reason Weejee simply HATES white trousers. I do hope he hasn't torn them."

"Oh, no," I said; "it's nothing only a slight tear."

"Here, Weege, Weege," said Sopley, anxious to make a diversion and picking up a little chip of wood,—"chase it, fetch it out!" and he made the motions of throwing it into the lake.

"Don't throw it too far, Charles," said his wife. "He doesn't swim awfully well," she continued, turning to me, "and I'm always afraid he might get out of his depth. Last week he was ever so nearly drowned. Mr. Van Toy was in swimming, and he had on a dark blue suit (dark blue seems simply to infuriate Weejee) and Weejee just dashed in after him. He don't MEAN anything, you know, it was only the SUIT made him angry,—he really likes Mr. Van Toy,—but just for a minute we were quite alarmed. If Mr. Van Toy hadn't carried Weejee in I think he might have been drowned.

"By jove!" I said in a tone to indicate how appalled I was.

"Let me throw the stick, Charles," continued Mrs. Sopley. "Now, Weejee, look Weejee—here, good dog—look! look now (sometimes Weejee simply won't do what one wants), here, Weejee; now, good dog!"

Weejee had his tail sideways between his legs and was moving towards me again.

"Hold on," said Sopley in a stern tone, "let me throw him in."

"Do be careful, Charles," said his wife.

Sopley picked Weejee up by the collar and carried him to the edge of the water—it was about six inches deep,—and threw him in,—with much the same force as, let us say, a pen is thrown into ink or a brush dipped into a pot of varnish.

"That's enough; that's quite enough, Charles," exclaimed Mrs. Sopley. "I think he'd better not swim. The water in the evening is always a little cold. Good dog, good doggie, good Weejee!"

Meantime "good Weejee" had come out of the water and was moving again towards me.

"He goes straight to you," said my hostess. "I think he must have taken a fancy to you."

He had.

To prove it, Weejee gave himself a rotary whirl like a twirled mop.

"Oh, I'm SO sorry," said Mrs. Sopley. "I am. He's wetted you. Weejee, lie down, down, sir, good dog, bad dog, lie down!"

"It's all right," I said. "I've another white suit in my valise."

"But you must be wet through," said Mrs. Sopley. "Perhaps we'd better go in. It's getting late, anyway, isn't it?" And then she added to her husband, "I don't think Weejee ought to sit out here now that he's wet."

So we went in.

"I think you'll find everything you need," said Sopley, as he showed me to my room, "and, by the way, don't mind if Weejee comes into your room at night. We like to let him run all over the house and he often sleeps on this bed."

"All right," I said cheerfully, "I'll look after him."

That night Weejee came.

And when it was far on in the dead of night—so that even the lake and the trees were hushed in sleep, I took Weejee out and—but there is no need to give the details of it.

And the Sopleys are still wondering where Weejee has gone to, and waiting for him to come back, because he is so clever at finding his way.

But from where Weejee is, no one finds his way back.



XIV.—Sidelights on the Supermen. An Interview with General Bernhardi.

He came into my room in that modest, Prussian way that he has, clicking his heels together, his head very erect, his neck tightly gripped in his forty-two centimeter collar. He had on a Pickelhaube, or Prussian helmet, which he removed with a sweeping gesture and laid on the sofa.

So I knew at once that it was General Bernhardi.

In spite of his age he looked—I am bound to admit it—a fine figure of a man. There was a splendid fullness about his chest and shoulders, and a suggestion of rugged power all over him. I had not heard him on the stairs. He seemed to appear suddenly beside me.

"How did you get past the janitor?" I asked. For it was late at night, and my room at college is three flights up the stairs.

"The janitor," he answered carelessly, "I killed him."

I gave a gasp.

"His resistance," the general went on, "was very slight. Apparently in this country your janitors are unarmed."

"You killed him?" I asked.

"We Prussians," said Bernhardi, "when we wish an immediate access anywhere, always kill the janitor. It is quicker: and it makes for efficiency. It impresses them with a sense of our Furchtbarkeit. You have no word for that in English, I believe?"

"Not outside of a livery stable," I answered.

There was a pause. I was thinking of the janitor. It seemed in a sort of way—I admit that I have a sentimental streak in me—a deplorable thing.

"Sit down," I said presently.

"Thank you," answered the General, but remained standing.

"All right," I said, "do it."

"Thank you," he repeated, without moving.

"I forgot," I said. "Perhaps you CAN'T sit down."

"Not very well," he answered; "in fact, we Prussian officers"—here he drew himself up higher still—"never sit down. Our uniforms do not permit of it. This inspires us with a kind of Rastlosigkeit." Here his eyes glittered.

"It must," I said.

"In fact, with an Unsittlichkeit—an Unverschamtheit—with an Ein-fur-alle-mal-un-dur-chaus—"

"Exactly," I said, for I saw that he was getting excited, "but pray tell me, General, to what do I owe the honour of this visit?"

The General's manner changed at once.

"Highly learned, and high-well-born-professor," he said, "I come to you as to a fellow author, known and honoured not merely in England, for that is nothing, but in Germany herself, and in Turkey, the very home of Culture."

I knew that it was mere flattery. I knew that in this same way Lord Haldane had been so captivated as to come out of the Emperor's presence unable to say anything but "Sittlichkeit" for weeks; that good old John Burns had been betrayed by a single dinner at Potsdam, and that the Sultan of Turkey had been told that his Answers to Ultimatums were the wittiest things written since Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Yet I was pleased in spite of myself.

"What!" I exclaimed, "they know my works of humour in Germany?"

"Do they know them?" said the General. "Ach! Himmel! How they laugh. That work of yours (I think I see it on the shelf behind you), The Elements of Political Science, how the Kaiser has laughed over it! And the Crown Prince! It nearly killed him!"

"I will send him the new edition," I said. "But tell me, General, what is it that you want of me?"

"It is about my own book," he answered. "You have read it?"

I pointed to a copy of Germany and the Next War, in its glaring yellow cover—the very hue of Furchtbarkeit—lying on the table.

"You have read it? You have really read it?" asked the General with great animation.

"No," I said, "I won't go so far as to say that. But I have TRIED to read it. And I talk about it as if I had read it."

The General's face fell.

"You are as the others," he said, "They buy the book, they lay it on the table, they talk of it at dinner,—they say 'Bernhardi has prophesied this, Bernhardi foresaw that,' but read it,—nevermore."

"Still," I said, "you get the royalties."

"They are cut off. The perfidious British Government will not allow the treacherous publisher to pay them. But that is not my complaint."

"What is the matter, then?" I asked.

"My book is misunderstood. You English readers have failed to grasp its intention. It is not meant as a book of strategy. It is what you call a work of humour. The book is to laugh. It is one big joke."

"You don't say so!" I said in astonishment.

"Assuredly," answered the General. "Here"—and with this he laid hold of the copy of the book before me and began rapidly turning over the leaves—"let me set it out asunder for you, the humour of it. Listen, though, to this, where I speak of Germany's historical mission on page 73,—'No nation on the face of the globe is so able to grasp and appropriate all the elements of culture as Germany is?' What do you say to that? Is it not a joke? Ach, Himmel, how our officers have laughed over that in Belgium! With their booted feet on the mantelpiece as they read and with bottles of appropriated champagne beside them as they laugh."

"You are right, General," I said, "you will forgive my not laughing out loud, but you are a great humorist."

"Am I not? And listen further still, how I deal with the theme of the German character,—'Moral obligations such as no nation had ever yet made the standard of conduct, are laid down by the German philosophers.'"

"Good," I said, "gloriously funny; read me some more."

"This, then, you will like,—here I deal with the permissible rules of war. It is on page 236 that I am reading it. I wrote this chiefly to make laugh our naval men and our Zeppelin crews,—'A surprise attack, in order to be justified, must be made only on the armed forces of the state and not on its peaceful inhabitants. Otherwise the attack becomes a treacherous crime.' Eh, what?"

Here the General broke into roars of laughter.

"Wonderful," I said. "Your book ought to sell well in Scarborough and in Yarmouth. Read some more."

"I should like to read you what I say about neutrality, and how England is certain to violate our strategical right by an attack on Belgium and about the sharp measures that ought to be taken against neutral ships laden with contraband,—the passages are in Chapters VII and VIII, but for the moment I fail to lay the thumb on them."

"Give me the book, General," I said. "Now that I understand what you meant by it, I think I can show you also some very funny passages in it. These things, for example, that you say about Canada and the colonies,—yes, here it is, page 148,—'In the event of war the loosely-joined British Empire will break into pieces, and the colonies will consult their own interests,'—excellently funny,—and this again,—'Canada will not permanently retain any trace of the English spirit,'—and this too,—'the Colonies can be completely ignored so far as the European theatre of war is concerned,'—and here again,—'Egypt and South Africa will at once revolt and break away from the empire,' —really, General, your ideas of the British Colonies are superbly funny. Mark Twain wasn't a circumstance on you."

"Not at all," said Bernhardi, and his voice reverted to his habitual Prussian severity, "these are not jokes. They are facts. It is only through the folly of the Canadians in not reading my book that they are not more widely known. Even as it is they are exactly the views of your great leader Heinrich Bauratze—"

"Who?" I said.

"Heinrich Bauratze, your great Canadian leader—"

"Leader of what?"

"That I do not know," said Bernhardi. "Our intelligence office has not yet heard what he leads. But as soon as he leads anything we shall know it. Meantime we can see from his speeches that he has read my book. Ach! if only your other leaders in Canada,—Sir Robert Laurier, Sir Osler Sifton, Sir Williams Borden,—you smile, you do not realize that in Germany we have exact information of everything: all that happens, we know it."

Meantime I had been looking over the leaves of the book.

"Here at least," I said, "is some splendidly humorous stuff,—this about the navy. 'The completion of the Kiel Canal,' you write in Chapter XII, 'is of great importance as it will enable our largest battleships to appear unexpectedly in the Baltic and in the North Sea!' Appear unexpectedly! If they only would! How exquisitely absurd—"

"Sir!" said the General. "That is not to laugh. You err yourself. That is Furchtbarkeit. I did not say the book is all humour. That would be false art. Part of it is humour and part is Furchbarkeit. That passage is specially designed to frighten Admiral Jellicoe. And he won't read it! Potztausand, he won't read it!"—repeated the general, his eyes flashing and his clenched fist striking in the air—"What sort of combatants are these of the British Navy who refuse to read our war-books? The Kaiser's Heligoland speech! They never read a word of it. The Furchtbarkeit-Proklamation of August,—they never looked at it. The Reichstags-Rede with the printed picture of the Kaiser shaking hands with everybody,—they used it to wrap up sandwiches! What are they, then, Jellicoe and his men? They sit there in their ships and they read nothing! How can we get at them if they refuse to read? How can we frighten them away if they haven't culture enough to get frightened. Beim Himmel," shouted the General in great excitement—

But what more he said can never be known. For at this second a sudden catastrophe happened.

In his frenzy of excitement the General struck with his fist at the table, missed it, lost his balance and fell over sideways right on the point of his Pickelhaube which he had laid on the sofa. There was a sudden sound as of the ripping of cloth and the bursting of pneumatic cushions and to my amazement the General collapsed on the sofa, his uniform suddenly punctured in a dozen places.

"Schnapps," he cried, "fetch brandy."

"Great Heavens! General," I said, "what has happened?"

"My uniform!" he moaned, "it has burst! Give me Schnapps!"

He seemed to shrink visibly in size. His magnificent chest was gone. He was shrivelling into a tattered heap. He appeared as he lay there, a very allegory and illustration of Prussian Furchtbarkeit with the wind going out of it.

"Fetch Schnapps,"—he moaned.

"There are no Schnapps here," I said, "this is McGill University."

"Then call the janitor," he said.

"You killed him," I said.

"I didn't. I was lying. I gave him a look that should have killed him, but I don't think it did. Rouse yourself from your chair, and call him—"

"I will," I said, and started up from my seat.

But as I did so, the form of General Bernhardi, which I could have sworn had been lying in a tattered heap on the sofa on the other side of the room, seemed suddenly to vanish from my eyes.

There was nothing before me but the empty room with the fire burned low in the grate, and in front of me an open copy of Bernhardi's book.

I must,—like many another reader,—have fallen asleep over it.



XV.—The Survival of the Fittest

A bell tinkled over the door of the little drug store as I entered it; which seemed strange in a lighted street of a great city.

But the little store itself, dim even in the centre and dark in the corners was gloomy enough for a country crossroads.

"I have to have the bell," said the man behind the counter, reading my thought, "I'm alone here just now."

"A toothbrush?" he said in answer to my question. "Yes, I guess I've got some somewhere round here." He was stooping under and behind his counter and his voice came up from below. "I've got some somewhere—" And then as if talking to himself he murmured from behind a pile of cardboard boxes, "I saw some Tuesday."

Had I gone across the street to the brilliant premises of the Cut Rate Pharmaceutical where they burn electric light by the meterfull I should no sooner have said "tooth brush," than one of the ten clerks in white hospital jackets would have poured a glittering assortment over the counter—prophylactic, lactic and every other sort.

But I had turned in, I don't know why, to the little store across the way.

"Here, I guess these must be tooth brushes," he said, reappearing at the level of the counter with a flat box in his hand. They must have been presumably, or have once been,—at some time long ago.

"They're tooth brushes all right," he said, and started looking over them with an owner's interest.

"What is the price of them?" I asked.

"Well," the man said musingly, "I don't—jest—know. I guess it's written on them likely," and he began to look at the handles.

Over at the Pharmaceutical across the way the words "what price?" would have precipitated a ready avalanche of figures.

"This one seems to be seventy-five cents," he said and handed me one.

"Is it a good tooth brush?" I asked.

"It ought to be," he said, "you'd think, at that price."

He had no shop talk, no patter whatever.

Then he looked at the brush again, more closely.

"I don't believe it IS seventy-five," he muttered, "I think it must be fifteen, don't you?"

I took it from his hand and looked and said,—for it is well to take an occasional step towards the Kingdom of Heaven,—that I was certain it was seventy-five.

"Well," said the man, "perhaps it is, my sight is not so good now. I've had too much to do here and the work's been using me up some."

I noticed now as he said this how frail he looked as he bent over his counter wrapping up the tooth brush.

"I've no sealing wax," he said, "or not handy."

"That doesn't matter," I answered, "just put it in the paper."

Over the way of course the tooth brush would have been done up almost instantaneously, in white enamel paper, sealed at the end and stamped with a label, as fast as the money paid for it went rattling along an automatic carrier to a cashier.

"You've been very busy, eh?" I asked.

"Well, not so much with customers," he said, "but with fixing up the place,"—here he glanced about him. Heaven only knows what he had fixed. There were no visible signs of it.

"You see I've only been in here a couple of months. It was a pretty tough looking place when I came to it. But I've been getting things fixed. First thing I did I put those two carboys in the window with the lights behind them. They show up fine, don't they?"

"Fine!" I repeated; so fine indeed that the dim yellow light in them reached three or four feet from the jar. But for the streaming light from the great store across the street, the windows of the little shop would have been invisible.

"It's a good location here," he said. Any one could have told him that it was the worst location within two miles.

"I'll get it going presently," he went on. "Of course it's uphill just at first. Being such a good location the rent is high. The first two weeks I was here I was losing five dollars a day. But I got those lights in the window and got the stock overhauled a little to make it attractive and last month I reckon I was only losing three dollars a day."

"That's better," I said.

"Oh, yes," he went on, and there was a clear glint of purpose in his eye that contrasted with his sunken cheeks. "I'll get it going. This last two weeks I'm not losing more than say two and a half a day or something like that? The custom is bound to come. You get a place fixed up and made attractive like this and people are sure to come sooner or later."