"I don't doubt it," was Isobel's reply. "People are so ready to be gold-bricked—especially by mail. But it's twelve o'clock! Shall I light the stove for luncheon?—or can we stand Giuseppe's?"

Jimaboy consulted the purse.

"I guess we can afford stuffed macaroni, this one time more," he rejoined. "Let's go now, while we can get one of the side tables and be exclusive."

They had barely turned the corner in the corridor when Lantermann's door opened and the cartoonist sallied out, also luncheon-stirred. He was a big German, with fierce military mustaches and a droop in his left eye that had earned him the nickname of "Bismarck" on the Times force. He tapped at the Jimaboy door in passing, growling to himself in broken English.

"I like not dis light housegeeping for dese babies mit der wood. Dey starf von day und eat nottings der next. I choost take dem oud once und gif dem sauerkraut und wiener."

When there was no answer to his rap he pushed the door open and entered, being altogether on a brotherly footing with his fellow-lodgers. The pen-drawings with their pendant squibs were lying on Jimaboy's desk; and when Lantermann comprehended he sat down in Jimaboy's chair and dwelt upon them.

"Himmel!" he gurgled; "dot's some of de liddle voman's fooling. Goot, sehr goot! I mus' show dot to Hasbrouck." And when he went out, the copy for the two advertisements was in his pocket.

Jimaboy got a check from the Storylovers that afternoon, and in the hilarity consequent upon such sudden and unexpected prosperity the Post-Graduate School of W. B. was forgotten. But not permanently. Late in the evening, when Jimaboy was filing and scraping laboriously on another story,—he always worked hardest on the heels of a check,—Isobel thought of the pen-drawings and looked in vain for them.

"What did you do with the W. B. jokes, Jimmy?" she asked.

"I didn't do anything with them. Don't tell me they're lost!"—in mock concern.

"They seem to be; I can't find them anywhere."

"Oh, they'll turn up again all right," said Jimaboy; and he went on with his polishing.

They did turn up, most surprisingly. Three days later, Isobel was glancing through the thirty-odd pages of the swollen Sunday Times, and she gave a little shriek.

"Horrors!" she cried; "the Times has printed those ridiculous jokes of ours, and run them as advertisements!"

"What!" shouted Jimaboy.

"It's so; see here!"

It was so, indeed. On the "Wit and Humor" page, which was half reading matter and half advertising, the Post-Graduate School of W. B. figured as large as life, with very fair reproductions of Isobel's drawings heading the displays.

"Heavens!" ejaculated Jimaboy; and then his first thought was the jealous author's. "Isn't it the luckiest thing ever that the spirit didn't move me to sign those things?"

"You might as well have signed them," said Isobel. "You've given our street and number."

"My kingdom!" groaned Jimaboy. "Here—you lock the door behind me, while I go hunt Hasbrouck. It's a duel with siege guns at ten paces, or a suit for damages with him."

He was back again in something under the hour, and his face was haggard.

"We are lost!" he announced tragically. "There is nothing for it now but to run."

"How ever did it happen?" queried Isobel.

"Oh, just as simply and easily as rolling off a log—as such things always happen. Lantermann saw the things on the desk, and your sketches caught him. He took 'em down to show to Hasbrouck, and Hasbrouck, meaning to do us a good turn, marked the skits up for the 'Wit and Humor' page. The intelligent make-up foreman did the rest: says of course he took 'em for ads. and run 'em as ads."

"But what does Mr. Hasbrouck say?"

"He gave me the horse laugh; said he would see to it that the advertising department didn't send me a bill. When I began to pull off my coat he took it all back and said he was all kinds of sorry and would have the mistake explained in to-morrow's paper. But you know how that goes. Out of the hundred and fifty thousand people who will read those miserable squibs to-day, not five thousand will see the explanation to-morrow. Oh, we've got to run, I tell you; skip, fly, vanish into thin air!"

But sober second thought came after a while to relieve the panic pressure. 506 Hayward Avenue was a small apartment-house, with a dozen or more tenants, lodgers, or light housekeepers, like the Jimaboys. All they would have to do would be to breathe softly and make no mention of the Post-Graduate School of W. B. Then the other tenants would never know, and the postman would never know. Of course, the non-delivery of the mail might bring troublesome inquiry upon the Times advertising department, but, as Jimaboy remarked maliciously, that was none of their funeral.

Accordingly, they breathed softly for a continuous week, and carefully avoided personal collisions with the postman. But temporary barricades are poor defenses at the best. One day as they were stealthily scurrying out to luncheon—they had acquired the stealthy habit to perfection by this time—they ran plump into the laden mail carrier in the lower hall.

"Hello!" said he; "you are just the people I've been looking for. I have a lot of letters and postal cards for The Post-Graduate School of something or other, 506 Hayward. Do you know anything about it?"

They exchanged glances. Isobel's said, "Are you going to make me tell the fib?" and Jimaboy's said, "Help!"

"I—er—I guess maybe they belong to us"—it was the man who weakened. "At least, it was our advertisement that brought them. Much obliged, I'm sure." And a breathless minute later they were back in their rooms with the fateful and fearfully bulky packet on the desk between them and such purely physical and routine things as luncheon quite forgotten.

"James Augustus Jimaboy! What have you done?" demanded the accusing angel.

"Well, somebody had to say something, and you wouldn't say it," retorted Jimaboy.

"Jimmy, did you want me to lie?"

"That's what you wanted me to do, wasn't it? But perhaps you think that one lie, more or less, wouldn't cut any figure in my case."

"Jimmy, dear, don't be horrid. You know perfectly well that your curiosity to see what is in those letters was too much for you."

Jimaboy walked to the window and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. It was their first quarrel, and being unfamiliar with the weapons of that warfare, he did not know which one to draw next. And the one he did draw was a tin dagger, crumpling under the blow.

"It has been my impression all along that curiosity was a feminine weakness," he observed to the windowpanes.

"James Jimaboy! You know better than that! You've Said a dozen times in your stories that it was just the other way about—you know you have. And, besides, I didn't let the cat out of the bag."

Here was where Jimaboy's sense of humor came in. He turned on her quickly. She was the picture of righteous indignation trembling to tears. Whereupon he took her in his arms, laughing over her as she might have wept over him.

"Isn't this rich!" he gasped. "We—we built this thing on our specialty, and here we are qualifying like cats and dogs for our great mission to a quarrelsome world. Listen, Bella, dear, and I'll tell you why I weakened. It wasn't curiosity, or just plain, every-day scare. There is sure to be money in some of these letters, and it must be returned. Also, the other people must be told that it was only a joke."

"B-but we've broken our record and qu-quarreled!" she sobbed.

"Never mind," he comforted; "maybe that was necessary, too. Now we can add another course to the curriculum and call it the Exquisite Art of Making Up. Let's get to work on these things and see what we are in for."

They settled down to it in grim determination, cutting out the down-town luncheon and munching crackers and cheese while they opened and read and wrote and returned money and explained and re-explained in deadly and wearisome repetition.

"My land!" said Jimaboy, stretching his arms over his head, when Isobel got up to light the lamps, "isn't the credulity of the race a beautiful thing to contemplate? Let's hope this furore will die down as suddenly as it jumped up. If it doesn't, I'm going to make Hasbrouck furnish us a stenographer and pay the postage."

But it did not die down. For a solid fortnight they did little else than write letters and postal cards to anxious applicants, and by the end of the two weeks Jimaboy was starting up in his bed of nights to rave out the threadbare formula of explanation: "Dear Madam: The ad. you saw in the Sunday Times was not an ad.; it was a joke. There is no Post-Graduate School of W. B. in all the world. Please don't waste your time and ours by writing any more letters."

The first rift in the cloud was due to the good offices of Hasbrouck. He saw matter of public interest in the swollen jest and threw the columns of the Sunday Times open to Jimaboy. Under the racking pressure, the sentimentalist fired volley upon volley of scathing ridicule into the massed ranks of anxious inquirers, and finally came to answering some of the choicest of the letters in print.

"Good!" said Hasbrouck, when the "Jimaboy Column" in the Sunday paper began to be commented on and quoted; and he made Jimaboy an offer that seemed like sudden affluence.

But the crowning triumph came still later, in a letter from the editor of one of the great magazines. Jimaboy got it at the Times office, and some premonition of its contents made him keep it until Isobel could share it.

"We have been watching your career with interest," wrote the great man, "and we are now casting about for some one to take charge of a humorous department to be called 'Bathos and Pathos,' which we shall, in the near future, add to the magazine. May we see more of your work, as well as some of Mrs. Jimaboy's sketches?

"O Jimmy, dear, you found yourself at last!"

But his smile was a grin. "No," said he; "we've just got our diplomas from the Post-Graduate School of W. B.—that's all."



A RULE OF THREE

BY WALLACE RICE

There is a rule to drink, I think, A rule of three That you'll agree With me Can not be beat And tends our lives to sweeten: Drink ere you eat, And while you eat, And after you have eaten!



HOW THE MONEY GOES

BY JOHN G. SAXE

How goes the Money?—Well, I'm sure it isn't hard to tell; It goes for rent, and water-rates, For bread and butter, coal and grates, Hats, caps, and carpets, hoops and hose,— And that's the way the Money goes!

How goes the Money?—Nay, Don't everybody know the way? It goes for bonnets, coats and capes, Silks, satins, muslins, velvets, crapes, Shawls, ribbons, furs, and furbelows,— And that's the way the Money goes!

How goes the Money?—Sure, I wish the ways were something fewer; It goes for wages, taxes, debts; It goes for presents, goes for bets, For paint, pommade, and eau de rose,— And that's the way the Money goes!

How goes the Money?—Now, I've scarce begun to mention how; It goes for laces, feathers, rings, Toys, dolls—and other baby-things, Whips, whistles, candies, bells and bows,— And that's the way the Money goes!

How goes the Money?—Come, I know it doesn't go for rum; It goes for schools and sabbath chimes, It goes for charity—sometimes; For missions, and such things as those,— And that's the way the Money goes!

How goes the Money?—There! I'm out of patience, I declare; It goes for plays, and diamond pins, For public alms, and private sins, For hollow shams, and silly shows,— And that's the way the Money goes!



A CAVALIER'S VALENTINE

(1644)

BY CLINTON SCOLLARD

The sky was like a mountain mere, The lilac buds were brown, What time a war-worn cavalier Rode into Taunton-town. He sighed and shook his head forlorn; "A sorry lot is mine," He said, "who have this merry morn Pale Want for Valentine."

His eyes, like heather-bells at dawn, Were blue and brave and bold; Against his cheeks, now wan and drawn, His love-locks tossed their gold. And as he rode, beyond a wall With ivy overrun, His glance upon a maid did fall, A-sewing in the sun.

As sweet was she as wilding thyme, A boon, a bliss, a grace: It made the heart blood beat in rhyme To look upon her face. He bowed him low in courtesy, To her deep marvelling; "Fair Mistress Puritan," said he, "It is forward spring."

As when the sea-shell flush of morn Throws night in rose eclipse, So sunshine smiles, that instant born, Brought brightness to her lips; Her voice was modest, yet, forsooth, It had a roguish ring; "You, sir, of all should know that truth— It is a forward spring!"



A GREAT CELEBRATOR

BY BILL NYE

Being at large in Virginia, along in the latter part of last season, I visited Monticello, the former home of Thomas Jefferson, also his grave. Monticello is about an hour's ride from Charlottesville, by diligence. One rides over a road constructed of rip-raps and broken stone. It is called a macadamized road, and twenty miles of it will make the pelvis of a long-waisted man chafe against his ears. I have decided that the site for my grave shall be at the end of a trunk line somewhere, and I will endow a droska to carry passengers to and from said grave.

Whatever my life may have been, and however short I may have fallen in my great struggle for a generous recognition by the American people, I propose to place my grave within reach of all.

Monticello is reached by a circuitous route to the top of a beautiful hill, on the crest of which rests the brick house where Mr. Jefferson lived. You enter a lodge gate in charge of a venerable negro, to whom you pay two bits apiece for admission. This sum goes toward repairing the roads, according to the ticket which you get. It just goes toward it, however; it don't quite get there, I judge, for the roads are still appealing for aid. Perhaps the negro can tell how far it gets. Up through a neglected thicket of Virginia shrubs and ill-kempt trees you drive to the house. It is a house that would readily command $750, with queer porches to it, and large, airy windows. The top of the whole hill was graded level, or terraced, and an enormous quantity of work must have been required to do it, but Jefferson did not care. He did not care for fatigue. With two hundred slaves of his own, and a dowry of three hundred more which was poured into his coffers by his marriage, Jeff did not care how much toil it took to polish off the top of a bluff or how much the sweat stood out on the brow of a hill.

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. He sent it to one of the magazines, but it was returned as not available, so he used it in Congress and afterward got it printed in the Record.

I saw the chair he wrote it in. It is a plain, old-fashioned wooden chair, with a kind of bosom-board on the right arm, upon which Jefferson used to rest his Declaration of Independence whenever he wanted to write it.

There is also an old gig stored in the house. In this gig Jefferson used to ride from Monticello to Washington in a day. This is untrue, but it goes with the place. It takes from 8:30 A. M. until noon to ride this distance on a fast train, and in a much more direct line than the old wagon road ran.

Mr. Jefferson was the father of the University of Virginia, one of the most historic piles I have ever clapped eyes on. It is now under the management of a classical janitor, who has a tinge of negro blood in his veins, mixed with the rich Castilian blood of somebody else.

He has been at the head of the University of Virginia for over forty years, bringing in the coals and exercising a general oversight over the curriculum and other furniture. He is a modest man, with a tendency toward the classical in his researches. He took us up on the roof, showed us the outlying country, and jarred our ear-drums with the big bell. Mr. Estes, who has general charge of Monticello—called Montechello—said that Mr. Jefferson used to sit on his front porch with a powerful glass, and watch the progress of the work on the University, and if the workmen undertook to smuggle in a soft brick, Mr. Jefferson, five or six miles away, detected it, and bounding lightly into his saddle, he rode down there to Charlottesville, and clubbed the bricklayers until they were glad to pull down the wall to that brick and take it out again.

This story is what made me speak of that section a few minutes ago as an outlying country.

The other day Charles L. Seigel told us the Confederate version of an attack on Fort Moultrie during the early days of the war, which has never been printed. Mr. Seigel was a German Confederate, and early in the fight was quartered, in company with others, at the Moultrie House, a seaside hotel, the guests having deserted the building.

Although large soft beds with curled hair mattresses were in each room, the department issued ticks or sacks to be filled with straw for the use of the soldiers, so that they would not forget that war was a serious matter. Nobody used them, but they were there all the same.

Attached to the Moultrie House, and wandering about the back-yard, there was a small orphan jackass, a sorrowful little light-blue mammal, with a tinge of bitter melancholy in his voice. He used to dwell on the past a good deal, and at night he would refer to it in tones that were choked with emotion.

The boys caught him one evening as the gloaming began to arrange itself, and threw him down on the green grass. They next pulled a straw bed over his head, and inserted him in it completely, cutting holes for his legs. Then they tied a string of sleigh-bells to his tail, and hit him a smart, stinging blow with a black snake.

Probably that was what suggested to him the idea of strolling down the beach, past the sentry, and on toward the fort. The darkness of the night, the rattle of hoofs, the clash of the bells, the quick challenge of the guard, the failure to give the countersign, the sharp volley of the sentinels, and the wild cry, "to arms," followed in rapid succession. The tocsin sounded, also the slogan. The culverin, ukase, and door-tender were all fired. Huge beacons of fat pine were lighted along the beach. The whole slumbering host sprang to arms, and the crack of the musket was heard through the intense darkness.

In the morning the enemy was found intrenched in a mud-hole, south of the fort, with his clean new straw tick spattered with clay, and a wildly disheveled tail.

On board the Richmond train not long ago a man lost his hat as we pulled out of Petersburg, and it fell by the side of the track. The train was just moving slowly away from the station, so he had a chance to jump off and run back after it. He got the hat, but not till we had placed seven or eight miles between us and him. We could not help feeling sorry for him, because very likely his hat had an embroidered hat band in it, presented by one dearer to him than life itself, and so we worked up quite a feeling for him, though of course he was very foolish to lose his train just for a hat, even if it did have the needle-work of his heart's idol in it.

Later I was surprised to see the same man in Columbia, South Carolina, and he then told me this sad story:

"I started out a month ago to take a little trip of a few weeks, and the first day was very, very happily spent in scrutinizing nature and scanning the faces of those I saw. On the second day out, I ran across a young man whom I had known slightly before, and who is engaged in the business of being a companionable fellow and the life of the party. That is about all the business he has. He knows a great many people, and his circle of acquaintances is getting larger all the time. He is proud of the enormous quantity of friendship he has acquired. He says he can't get on a train or visit any town in the Union that he doesn't find a friend.

"He is full of stories and witticisms, and explains the plays to theater parties. He has seen a great deal of life and is a keen critic. He would have enjoyed criticizing the Apostle Paul and his elocutionary style if he had been one of the Ephesians. He would have criticized Paul's gestures, and said, 'Paul, I like your Epistles a heap better than I do your appearance on the platform. You express yourself well enough with your pen, but when you spoke for the Ephesian Y. M. C. A., we were disappointed in you and we lost money on you.'

"Well, he joined me, and finding out where I was going, he decided to go also. He went along to explain things to me, and talk to me when I wanted to sleep or read the newspaper. He introduced me to large numbers of people whom I did not want to meet, took me to see things I didn't want to see, read things to me that I didn't want to hear, and introduced to me people who didn't want to meet me. He multiplied misery by throwing uncongenial people together and then said: 'Wasn't it lucky that I could go along with you and make it pleasant for you?'

"Everywhere he met more new people with whom he had an acquaintance. He shook hands with them, and called them by their first names, and felt in their pockets for cigars. He was just bubbling over with mirth, and laughed all the time, being so offensively joyous, in fact, that when he went into a car, he attracted general attention, which suited him first-rate. He regarded himself as a universal favorite and all-around sunbeam.

"When we got to Washington, he took me up to see the President. He knew the President well—claimed to know lots of things about the President that made him more or less feared by the administration. He was acquainted with a thousand little vices of all our public men, which virtually placed them in his power. He knew how the President conducted himself at home, and was 'on to everything' in public life.

"Well, he shook hands with the President, and introduced me. I could see that the President was thinking about something else, though, and so I came away without really feeling that I knew him very well.

"Then we visited the departments, and I can see now that I hurt myself by being towed around by this man. He was so free, and so joyous, and so bubbling, that wherever we went I could hear the key grate in the lock after we passed out of the door.

"He started south with me. He was going to show me all the battle-fields, and introduce me into society. I bought some strychnine in Washington, and put it in his buckwheat cakes; but they got cold, and he sent them back. I did not know what to do, and was almost wild, for I was traveling entirely for pleasure, and not especially for his pleasure either.

"At Petersburg I was told that the train going the other way would meet us. As we started out, I dropped my hat from the window while looking at something. It was a desperate move, but I did it. Then I jumped off the train, and went back after it. As soon as I got around the curve I ran for Petersburg, where I took the other train. I presume you all felt sorry for me, but if you'd seen me fold myself in a long, passionate embrace after I had climbed on the other train, you would have changed your minds."

He then passed gently from my sight.



THE OLD-FASHIONED CHOIR

BY BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR

I have fancied, sometimes, the Bethel-bent beam That trembled to earth in the patriarch's dream, Was a ladder of song in that wilderness rest, From the pillow of stone to the blue of the Blest, And the angels descended to dwell with us here, "Old Hundred," and "Corinth," and "China," and "Mear." All the hearts are not dead, not under the sod, That those breaths can blow open to Heaven and God! Ah! "Silver Street" leads by a bright, golden road— O! not to the hymns that in harmony flowed— But to those sweet human psalms in the old-fashioned choir, To the girls that sang alto, the girls that sang air!

"Let us sing to God's praise," the minister said, All the psalm-books at once fluttered open at "York," Sunned their long dotted wings in the words that he read, While the leader leaped into the tune just ahead, And politely picked out the key note with a fork, And the vicious old viol went growling along At the heels of the girls in the rear of the song.

I need not a wing—bid no genii come, With a wonderful web from Arabian loom, To bear me again up the River of Time, When the world was in rhythm, and life was its rhyme; Where the streams of the year flowed so noiseless and narrow, That across them there floated the song of a sparrow; For a sprig of green caraway carries me there, To the old village church and the old village choir, When clear of the floor my feet slowly swung, And timed the sweet praise of the songs as they sung, Till the glory aslant of the afternoon sun Seemed the rafters of gold in God's temple begun!

You may smile at the nasals of old Deacon Brown, Who followed by scent till he ran the tune down; And the dear sister Green, with more goodness than grace, Rose and fell on the tunes as she stood in her place, And where "Coronation" exultingly flows, Tried to reach the high notes on the tips of her toes! To the land of the leal they went with their song, Where the choir and the chorus together belong; O, be lifted, ye gates! Let me hear them again— Blessed song, blessed Sabbath, forever, amen!



WHEN THE LITTLE BOY RAN AWAY

BY FRANK L. STANTON

When the little boy ran away from home The birds in the treetops knew, And they all sang "Stay!" But he wandered away Under the skies of blue. And the Wind came whispering from the tree: "Follow me—follow me!" And it sang him a song that was soft and sweet, And scattered the roses before his feet That day—that day When the little boy ran away.

The Violets whispered: "Your eyes are blue And lovely and bright to see; And so are mine, and I'm kin to you, So dwell in the light with me!" But the little boy laughed, while the Wind in glee Said: "Follow me—follow me!" And the Wind called the clouds from their home in the skies And said to the Violet: "Shut your eyes!" That day—that day When the little boy ran away.

Then the Wind played leap-frog over the hills And twisted each leaf and limb; And all the rivers and all the rills Were foaming mad with him! And 'twas dark as the darkest night could be, But still came the Wind's voice: "Follow me!" And over the mountain, and up from the hollow Came echoing voices, with: "Follow him—follow!" That awful day When the little boy ran away!

Then the little boy cried: "Let me go—let me go!" For a scared—scared boy was he! But the Thunder growled from a black cloud: "No!" And the Wind roared: "Follow me!" And an old gray Owl from a treetop flew, Saying: "Who are you-oo? Who are you-oo?" And the little boy sobbed: "I'm lost away, And I want to go home where my parents stay!" Oh, the awful day When the little boy ran away!

Then the Moon looked out from a cloud and said: "Are you sorry you ran away? If I light you home to your trundle bed, Will you stay, little boy, will you stay?" And the little boy promised—and cried and cried— He would never leave his mother's side; And the Moonlight led him over the plain And his mother welcomed him home again. But oh, what a day When the little boy ran away!



HE WANTED TO KNOW

BY SAM WALTER FOSS

He wanted to know how God made the worl' Out er nothin' at all, W'y it wasn't made square, like a block or a brick, Stid er roun', like a ball, How it managed to stay held up in the air, An' w'y it don't fall; All such kin' er things, above an' below, He wanted to know.

He wanted to know who Cain had for a wife, An' if the two fit; Who hit Billy Patterson over the head, If he ever got hit; An' where Moses wuz w'en the candle went out, An' if others were lit; If he couldn' fin' these out, w'y his cake wuz all dough, An' he wanted to know.

An' he wanted to know 'bout original sin; An' about Adam's fall; If the snake hopped aroun' on the end of his tail Before doomed to crawl, An' w'at would hev happened if Adam hedn' et The ol' apple at all; These ere kind er things seemed ter fill him 'ith woe, An' he wanted to know.

An' he wanted to know w'y some folks wuz good, An' some folks wuz mean, W'y some folks wuz middlin' an' some folks wuz fat, An' some folks wuz lean, An' some folks were very learned an' wise, An' some folks dern green; All these kin' er things they troubled him so That he wanted to know.

An' so' he fired conundrums aroun', For he wanted to know; An' his nice crop er taters 'ud rot in the groun', An' his stuff wouldn't grow; For it took so much time to ask questions like these, He'd no time to hoe; He wanted to know if these things were so, Course he wanted know.

An' his cattle they died, an' his horses grew sick, 'Cause they didn't hev no hay; An' his creditors pressed him to pay up his bills, But he'd no time to pay, For he had to go roun' askin' questions, you know, By night an' by day; He'd no time to work, for they troubled him so, An' he wanted to know.

An' now in the poorhouse he travels aroun' In just the same way, An' asks the same questions right over ag'in, By night an' by day; But he haint foun' no feller can answer 'em yit, An' he's ol' an' he's gray, But these same ol' conundrums they trouble him so, That he still wants to know.



SOLDIER, REST!

BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE

A Russian sailed over the blue Black Sea, Just when the war was growing hot, And he shouted, "I'm Tjalikavakeree- Karindabrolikanavandorot- Schipkadirova- Ivandiszstova- Sanilik- Danilik- Varagobhot!"

A Turk was standing upon the shore Right where the terrible Russian crossed; And he cried, "Bismillah! I'm Abd el Kor- Bazaroukilgonautoskobrosk- Getzinpravadi- Kilgekosladji- Grivido- Blivido- Jenikodosk!"

So they stood like brave men, long and well, And they called each other their proper names, Till the lock-jaw seized them, and where they fell They buried them both by the Irdosholames- Kalatalustchuk- Mischaribustchup- Bulgari- Dulgari- Sagharimainz.



THE EXPERIENCES OF GENTLE JANE

BY CAROLYN WELLS

THE CARNIVOROUS BEAR

Gentle Jane went walking, where She espied a Grizzly Bear; Flustered by the quadruped Gentle Jane just lost her head.

THE RUDE TRAIN

Last week, Tuesday, gentle Jane Met a passing railroad train; "Ah, good afternoon," she said; But the train just cut her dead.

THE CARELESS NIECE

Once her brother's child, for fun, Pointed at her aunt a gun. At this conduct of her niece's Gentle Jane went all to pieces.

THE NAUGHTY AUTOMOBILE

Gentle Jane went for a ride, But the automobile shied; Threw the party all about— Somehow, Jane felt quite put out.

THE COLD, HARD LAKE

Gentle Jane went out to skate; She fell through at half-past eight. Then the lake, with icy glare, Said, "Such girls I can not bear."

THE CALM STEAM-ROLLER

In the big steam-roller's path Gentle Jane expressed her wrath. It passed over. After that Gentle Jane looked rather flat.

A NEW EXPERIENCE

Much surprised was gentle Jane When a bullet pierced her brain; "Such a thing as that," she said, "Never came into my head!"

THE BATTERING-RAM

"Ah!" said gentle Jane, "I am Proud to meet a battering-ram." Then, with shyness overcome, Gentle Jane was just struck dumb.



A FEW REFLECTIONS

BY BILL ARP

I rekon I've lived as much as most foaks accordin' to age, and I ain't tired of livin' yit. I like it. I've seen good times, and bad times, and hard times, and times that tired men's soles, but I never seed a time that I coulden't extrakt sum cumfort out of trubble. When I was a boy I was a lively little devil, and lost my edycashun bekaus I couldn't see enuf fun in the spellin' book to get thru it. I'm sorry for it now, for a blind man can see what a fool I am. The last skhoolin' I got was the day I run from John Norton, and there was so much fun in that my daddy sed he rekoned I'd got larnin' enuf. I had a bile on my back as big as a ginney egg, and it was mighty nigh ready to bust. We boys had got in a way of ringin' the bell before old Norton got there, and he sed that the first boy he kotched at it would ketch hail Kolumby. Shore enuf he slipped upon us one mornin', and before I knowed it he had me by the collar, and was layin' it on like killin' snakes. I hollered, "My bile, my bile, don't hit me on my bile," and just then he popped a center shot, and I jumped three feet in the atmosphere, and with a hoop and a beller I took to my heels. I run and hollered like the devil was after me, and shore enuf he was. His long legs gained on me at every jump, but just as he was about to grab me I made a double on him, and got a fresh start. I was aktiv as a cat, and so we had it over fences, thru the woods, and round the meetin' house, and all the boys was standin' on skool house hill a hollerin', "Go it, my Bill—go it, my Bill." As good luck would have it there was a grape vine a swingin' away ahead of me, and I ducked my head under it just as old Norton was about two jumps behind. He hadn't seen it, and it took him about the middle and throwed him the hardest summerset I ever seed a man git. He was tired, and I knowd it, and I stopped about three rods off and laffd at him as loud as I could ball. I forgot all about my bile. He never follered me another step, for he was plum giv out, but he set there bareheaded and shook his hickory at me, lookin' as mad and as miserable as possible. That lick on my bile was about the keenest pain I ever felt in my life, and like to have killed me. It busted as wide open as a soap trof, and let every drop of the juice out, but I've had a power of fun thinkin' about it for the last forty years.

But I didn't start to tell you about that.

THE END