The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X)

by Unknown

ANONYMOUS

Put to the door—the school's begun—
Stand in your places every one,—
Attend,——

---

Read in the Bible,—tell the place,—
Job twentieth and the seventeenth varse—
Caleb, begin. And—he—shall—suck—
Sir,—Moses got a pin and stuck—
Silence,—stop Caleb—Moses! here!
What's this complaint? I didn't, Sir,—
Hold up your hand,—What, is't a pin?
O dear, I won't do so again.
Read on. The increase of his h-h-horse—
Hold: H,O,U,S,E, spells house.
Sir, what's this word? for I can't tell it.
Can't you indeed! Why, spell it. Spell it.
Begin yourself, I say. Who, I?
Yes, try. Sure you can spell it. Try.
Go, take your seats and primers, go,
You sha'n't abuse the Bible so.
Will pray Sir Master mend my pen?
Say, Master, that's enough.—Here Ben,
Is this your copy? Can't you tell?
Set all your letters parallel.
I've done my sum—'tis just a groat—
Let's see it.—Master, m' I g' out?
Yes, bring some wood in—What's that noise?
It isn't I, Sir, it's them boys.—
Come, Billy, read—What's that? That's A—
Sir, Jim has snatch'd my rule away—
Return it, James.—Here rule with this—
Billy, read on,—That's crooked S.
Read in the spelling-book—Begin—
The boys are out—Then call them in—
My nose bleeds, mayn't I get some ice,
And hold it in my breeches?—Yes.
John, keep your seat. My sum is more—
Then do't again—Divide by four,
By twelve, and twenty—Mind the rule.
Now speak, Manasseh, and spell tool.
I can't—Well try—T,W,L.
Not wash'd your hands yet, booby, ha?
You had your orders yesterday.
Give me the ferule, hold your hand.
Oh! Oh! There,—mind my next command.
The grammar read. Tell where the place is.
C sounds like K in cat and cases.
My book is torn. The next—Here not—
E final makes it long—say note.
What are the stops and marks, Susannah?
Small points, Sir.—And how many, Hannah?
Four, Sir. How many, George? You look:
Here's more than fifty in my book.
How's this? Just come, Sam? Why, I've been—
Who knocks? I don't know, Sir. Come in.
"Your most obedient, Sir?" and yours.
Sit down, Sir. Sam, put to the doors.
What do you bring to tell that's new!
"Nothing that's either strange or true.
What a prodigious school! I'm sure
You've got a hundred here, or more.
A word, Sir, if you please." I will—
You girls, till I come in be still.
"Come, we can dance to-night—so you
Dismiss your brain-distracting crew,
And come—for all the girls are there,
We'll have a fiddle and a player."
Well, mind and have the sleigh-bells sent,
I'll soon dismiss my regiment.
Silence! The second class must read.
As quick as possible—proceed.
Not found your book yet? Stand—be fix'd—
The next read, stop—the next—the next.
You need not read again, 'tis well.
Come, Tom and Dick, choose sides to spell.
Will this word do? Yes, Tom spell dunce.
Sit still there all you little ones.
"I've got a word,—Well, name it. Gizzard.
You spell it, Sampson—G,I,Z.
Spell conscience, Jack. K,O,N,
S,H,U,N,T,S.—Well done!
Put out the next—Mine is folks.
Tim, spell it—P,H,O,U,X.
O shocking. Have you all tried? No.
Say Master, but no matter, go—
Lay by your books—and you, Josiah,
Help Jed to make the morning fire.

---

EVAN ANDERSON'S POKER PARTY

BY BENJAMIN STEVENSON

"Evan Anderson called you up this afternoon," said Mrs. Tom Porter, laying down the evening paper. "Is his wife still away?"

"Yes, I think she is. What did he want?"

"He did not say, but he said for you to call him as soon as you came home. I forgot to tell you." Mrs. Porter paused and fingered her paper with embarrassment. "Tom," she began again, "if it is another of those men parties he has been having since his wife has been away, I wish you wouldn't go."

"Why not, dear?"

"I don't think they are very nice. Don't they drink a good deal?"

"Some men will drink a good deal any way—any time, but those that don't want to do not."

"Tom, do they"—Mrs. Porter's eyes were on the paper in her lap—"do they play—play poker?"

"Why what made you ask me that question?" Tom answered with some embarrassment.

"Mrs. Bob Miller said her husband told her they did."

"Nobody but Mrs. Miller would believe all that Bob says."

"But you know it is wicked to gamble?"

"Of course it is, to gamble for any amount, but just a little game for amusement, that's not bad."

"How much does any one win or lose?"

"Oh, just a few dollars."

"That would buy a dinner for several poor families that need it; but the worst of it is the principle; it is gambling, no matter how little is lost or won."

"But, dear, you brought home a ten-dollar plate from a card party the other afternoon."

"That is different. One is euchre, the other is poker."

"I see there is a difference; but wouldn't the plate have bought a few dinners?"

"Yes, but if I had not won it some one else would. And it was too late to spend it for charity. I don't believe it cost ten dollars anyway."

"You said then it would."

"But I have looked it over since and do not believe it is genuine. I should think any one would be ashamed to give an imitation," she added with something like a flash in her blue eyes.

"It was a shame," Tom admitted, "a ten-dollar strain for a two-dollar plate."

But Mrs. Porter merely raised her eyebrows at this rather mean remark.

"The Tad-Wallington dance is to-night, isn't it? Do you want to go to that?" Tom asked.

"No, I'm not going."

"If you do," Tom went on, "I will take you and cut out whatever Evan wants."

"No, I don't care to," she repeated. "You can go to the other if you want to. I am not going to say any more on the subject. I do not ask you to humor my little whims, but I wanted to say what I did before you telephoned."

Mrs. Porter looked at her husband with such a wistful, pathetic little smile that Tom came over and kissed her on the cheek.

"I'll not go," he exclaimed, "if that is what he wants. I'll stay at home with you."

"You are too good, Tom. I suspect I am silly, but it seems so wicked. Now you had better call him up."

When Tom got upstairs, he placed the receiver to his ear.

Telephone: ("Number?")

Tom: "Give me seven-eleven, please."

("Seven-double-one?")

"Yes, please." Tom whistled while he waited.

Telephone: ("Hello.")

"Is that you, Evan?"

("Yes. Hello, Tom. Say, Tom, I am going to have a little bunch around here after a bit to see if we can't make our books balance, and I want you to come. And say, bring around that forty-five you took away with you last time. We want it. We are after you. We are going to strip you. Perhaps you had better bring an extra suit in a case.")

"I am sorry, old man, but I can't come."

("Can't what?")

"Can't come."

("'Y, you tight wad. You'd better come.")

"Can't do it, Andy. I'm sorry."

("Are you going to the Tad-Wallington dance?")

"No, not that. Mis'es doesn't want to go, but I simply can't come."

Sarcastically. ("I guess the Mis'es shut down on this, too.")

"No, I'm tired."

("Well, maybe we're not tired—of you taking money away from us. And now when we've all got a hunch that you are going to lose you get cold feet.")

"No, I'd like to, but I just can't."

("Well, admit, like a man, it's the Mis'es said no and I'll let you off.")

"Are you a mind-reader?"

("No, but I'm married.")

"You win."

("Well, I'm sorry you can't be with us. Christmas will be coming along bye and bye, and you will need the money.")

"I expect."

("Mis'es will want a present, and she ought to let you get a little more ahead.")

"That's true."

("Well, so long. Toast your feet before you go to bed. And you'd better put a cloth around your neck.")

"Here, don't rub it in. It hurts me worse than you."

("All right. I know you are as sorry as we are. I know how it is. My Mis'es will be at home next week and this will be the last one, so I wanted you to come. Good-by.")

"Good-by. Oh, say! Wait a minute. I've got an idea."

("Good; use it.")

"Wait now. Wait now, I am thinking." Tom was trying to recall if he had closed the parlor door when he came upstairs. "Yes, I think I did."

("Think you did what?")

"Nothing. I wasn't talking to you. I was thinking. Say, put your ear close to the telephone. I've got to talk low."

("Why, I have got the thing right against my ear anyway. What are you talking about?")

"Listen. This is the scheme. I'll come if I can," he whispered into the receiver. "I don't think the Mis'es wants to go to the Tad-Wallington dance, and I'll work it so that I shall go alone. If I succeed I'll be with you."

("What? What's that?")

"I say," he repeated more distinctly, "if Mrs. P. doesn't want to go to the dance I'll try to go by myself and shall be with you."

("You say that you and Mrs. P. are going to the dance.")

"Oh, you deaf fool! No! I say that if she doesn't go to the dance maybe I shall—be—with—you."

("Oh, I understand you. Good. If you are as clever as you are at getting every one in against a pat full-house you will succeed. Come early. Luck to you. Good-by.")

If Tom were right in thinking he had closed the parlor door he was considerably surprised and flustered to find it ajar when he came down stairs. But Mrs. Porter was still reading the evening paper and did not look as if she had been disturbed by the telephoning. There was a slight flush on her cheeks, however, that he had not noticed before, but that may have been caused by the noble sacrifice of his own wishes for hers.

"I am glad, Tom, you told him you could not come," Mrs. Porter said, looking at him affectionately. "It is so good of you to give up to my little whims."

Tom said mentally: "I guess she did not hear it all, at least."

"I know," she went on, "that I was brought up on a narrow plane, and any sort of gambling seems wicked."

"But at first you would not play cards at all, and then you learned euchre. All games of cards look alike to me."

"I suppose they do, but euchre is a simple, interesting pastime; whist is a scientific—a—a—mental—exercise, developing the mind, and so forth, while poker cheats people out of their money,—at least, they lose money they ought to use other ways,—or else they win some and then have ill-gotten gains, which is worse."

"But poker is a great nerve developer," Tom protested feebly.

"But it's gambling."

"Well, how about playing euchre for a prize?"

"Oh we settled that a while ago," Mrs. Porter exclaimed. "I showed you the difference between the two, didn't I?"

"I believe you did. But don't you want to go to the Tad-Wallington dance?"

"No." Mrs. Porter said shortly.

"Did you send cards?"

"No."

"You should have done so, shouldn't you?"

"I suppose so, but I don't care."

"Why don't you want to go?"

"I don't like Mrs. Tad-Wallington. She wears her dresses too low."

"Maybe she does, but I think we should be polite to her."

"I don't care very much whether we are or not."

"I think we ought to go. Or else," he added in an afterthought with the expression of a martyr, "or else I ought to go and take your regrets."

"Well, why don't you do that?" Mrs. Porter exclaimed brightly.

"All right, I will!" he almost shouted. "I'll do it. I think it's the decent thing to do. I'll get ready right away."

"Right now? Why, it's entirely too early. It's only half-past seven. You can stay here until ten, then go for a few minutes and be back by eleven."

"No, no, that would not be nice. That's not the way to treat people who have gone to the expense of giving a dance. Everybody should go early and stay late."

"Oh, absurd."

"No, it's decent. I think I had better go early anyway, and then I can get back earlier. I don't want to stay up too late."

"Well, if you insist, go on."

Tom went upstairs and began dressing hurriedly. He knew he would not feel safe until he was a square away from the house. If this was to be the last of these bully, bachelor, poker parties he did not want to miss it. His wife was the sweetest little woman on earth, and he delighted in being with her, and humoring her, but then a woman's view of life and things is often so different that there is a joyous relaxation in a man party. If he could dress and get away before his wife changed her mind all would be well. He put his clothes on feverishly, but before he had half finished he heard her running up the stairs, and his heart sank. She came with the step that indicated something important on her mind. He knew as well how she looked as if he could see her coming. She was humped over slightly, her head was down, both hands grasping her skirts in front, and her feet fairly glimmering at the speed she was coming.

She burst into the room. "Tom, I think I will go with you. It is mean of me to make you go alone."

"You think what? You can't, it's a men's party. Oh, you—'Y, no, it's not mean. I don't mind it a bit. I like to go alone—that is, I don't mind it, and I won't hear to your putting yourself out on my account. And then you know, Mrs. Tad-Wallington wears her dresses so disgustingly low."

"That's it, Tom. That's why I think I ought to go."

"Oh, pshaw. You know I despise her. I never dance with her. No, I can't think of letting you go on my account. And I don't want my wife even to be seen at the party of a woman who wears such dresses as she does. No! positively, I can't permit it."

"Well, it's as bad for you to go."

"But one of us has to go to be decent. It would be rude not to, and we can not afford to be rude even to the commonest people."

"I don't want you to go unless I go with you," she said pettishly.

"But I never dance with her."

"It is not that so much. I do not want us to recognize her at all."

"I am not going to even speak to her. I will snub her. I will walk by her and not see her. I will let her know that my little wife doesn't belong to her class. I'll show her."

"But, Tom, wouldn't that be ruder than not going at all?"

"Oh, no. I don't think so. By going and snubbing her, it shows that you are conforming to all the laws of politeness without conceding anything to wanton impropriety. Don't you see?"

"Hardly."

"Well, it does. And I have to go for business reasons. I have her husband's law business, and can't afford to lose it by not going."

"Wouldn't it make her husband angry for you to snub her?"

"Oh, no, it would rather please him. He is inclined to be jealous, and likes the men better who don't have anything to do with her. It would strengthen our business relations immensely."

"Maybe you are right," she added with resignation. "You lawyers have such peculiar arguments that I can't understand them."

"Yes, I know. Law is the science of reasoning—of getting at the fine, subtile points which other people can not see."

"Well, go, if you really think it's best," she said at last.

Tom tied a black bow around his collar and put on his tuxedo.

"Oh, Tom, what do you mean? You surely do not intend to wear your tuxedo and a black tie. I heard you say it was the worst of form at anything but a men's party."

"Oh, ah, did I? Well, maybe I did. I had forgotten. I became a little confused by our long argument. I am always confused after an argument. Would you believe it, the other day after an argument in court I put on the judge's overcoat when I came away and did not notice it until I got to the office? You think I had better wear a long coat and white tie?"

"Of course. I want you to be the best-dressed man there. I don't want you to look as if you were at a smoker."

Tom wheeled toward his wife, but she was digging in a drawer for his white tie and may not have meant anything.

"Now don't tell me you have none. Here is one fresh and crisp. You would not disgrace us by going to a dance dressed that way?" she pleaded.

"I will do whatever you say, dear," Tom answered, with a trace of suspicion still in his eye.

He put on his long coat and the tie, and when he kissed his wife adieu she patted him affectionately on the cheek.

"It is good of you to go to this old dance and let me stay at home," she said, smiling sweetly at him. "Have as good a time as you can and be sure to see what Mrs. Harris wears."

When Tom got into the street he drew a long breath of fresh air, and then lighted a cigarette to quiet his nerves.

"I've got to go to that party for a few minutes," he said to himself, "or I may get caught when I come to take my examination to-morrow morning. I can't possibly make up a whole lot about dresses. And then some woman may tell Ruth that I was not there. Let's see," he looked at his watch, "it's nearly nine. Some people will be there. I can look them over and then take a few notes about the dressing-room as I come away."

Tom paused but a moment in the dressing-room, where a few oldish men waited for their fat, rejuvenated wives, and some young stags smoked cigarettes until the buds could get up to the hall.

The young Mrs. Tad-Wallington received him with a gracious smile and inquired for Mrs. Porter.

"A blinding headache," said Tom. "She was determined to come until the last minute, but then had to give it up."

The old Mr. Tad-Wallington took one hand from behind his back to give it to Tom, and for a moment almost lost that tired, married-to-a-young-woman look.

"How a' you, Tom?" he said. "Did you find out anything about that Barnesville business? Can you levy on Harmon's property?"

"I haven't looked any further, but I still think you can."

"Call me up as soon as you find out."

Tom was pushed away by a large wife with a little husband whom the hostess was presenting to Mr. Tad-Wallington, and this couple was followed by an extremely tall man who had apparently become stoop-shouldered talking to his very small wife. Tom sidled around where he could see the people as they came, and began making mental notes.

"Mrs. Tad-Wallington, dressed in a kind of silverish flowered—brocaded, I guess—stuff, with a bunch of white carnations—no, little roses. Blond hair done up with a kind of a roach that lops over at one side of her forehead." "There are our namesakes, the John Porters. Mrs. John has a banana colored dress with a sort of mosquito netting all over it. She's got one red rose pinned on in front." "There are the three Long sisters, one pink, one white, and one blue. Pink and white are fluffy goods. But Ruth'll not care how girls are dressed. It's the women." "Here's a queen in black. Who is it? Oh, Lord! I am sorry I saw her face. It's Mrs. May ——, the Irish washerwoman, as Ruth calls her. And who's the Cleopatra with the silver snake around her arm, and the silver do-funnies around her waist? Oh, Bess Smith! I am getting so many details I'll have 'em all mixed up the first thing I know. Let me see, who had on the red dress? Ding, I've forgotten. I'd better write them down."

He got a card from his pocket and began writing abbreviated descriptions on it. "Mrs. R. strp. slk." "Mrs. J. J. white; h. of a long train." "Sm. Small brt. Mrs. Jones, wid." He filled up two cards and then slipped to the dressing-room and away.

"Solomon could not beat that trick. I can tell Sweetheart more than she could have found out herself if she had come. Now for something that's a little more fun." He chuckled at his cleverness as he stepped on a car to go the faster to his more fascinating party.

And he chuckled the following morning as he dressed.

"They were going to strip me, were they," he said to himself, as he pulled a small roll of bills from the vest pocket of his dress suit. "Well, not quite. Let me see. I had nineteen dollars with me. Now I have five, ten, and ten are twenty, and five are twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and two are thirty, thirty-one. And some change. That's not stripping, anyway."

He laughed again as he pulled two cards from his pocket and saw his memoranda of dresses.

"Good thought. I'd better read them over, for the morning paper may contain some description, and I'd like to make good. 'Mrs. Paton, wht. slk.' white silk. 'Mrs. Mull, d. t.' d. t.? What does d. t. stand for? d. t.? I can't think of anything but delirium tremens, but that's not it. D. t. Dark—dark what? Dark trous—No. Dark tresses? Not that, either. Dark—trousseau? Hardly that. She's just married, but she didn't have her whole trousseau on. Dark—? Search me, I don't know. 'Mrs. B.' Mrs. Brown, 'l. d.' Long dress? Lawn dress? No, lavender dress, I remember. This cipher is worse than the one in the 'Gold Bug.' I wish I had written it out."

Some of the things he could interpret and some he could not, but he could remember none when he took his eyes away from the card.

He found his wife waiting for him in the breakfast room, dressed in a blue tea-gown, and she looked so charming that he could not refrain from taking two kisses from her red lips. She put her arms around his neck and took one of them back again.

"How are you this morning? Did you have a good time at the dance?"

"Oh, so-so," Tom answered. "I've had better."

"Breakfast is ready. Now tell me all about it while we eat."

"Well, it was just like all others. Same people there, dressed about the same. I was in hopes you would read about it in the morning paper and let me off. That would give you a better account of it than I can."

"But I want to hear about it from your point of view. Did anything of any special importance happen? Whom did you dance with?"

There was a sharp questioning look in Mrs. Porter's eyes, that Tom, if he noticed it at all, took in a masculine way to indicate a touch of jealousy.

"No, nothing of any note. I danced with about the same people I do usually. Mrs. DeBruler, I think."

"You think? That's complimentary to her. How was she dressed?"

"Oh, ah; (mentally) 'bl. slk.' Blue silk or black silk, which was it? (Aloud) Blue silk, I think."

"Blue silk! My, she oughtn't to wear blue. What's that card you have in your hand, your program?"

"Yes, I wanted to see whom else I danced with."

"Oh, let me see," Mrs. Porter exclaimed.

"Well, it is—that is, I was just looking for my program. I can't find it. I must have lost it."

"Oh, that is too bad. I wanted to see it. Did you dance many dances?"

"No, not many. Just a few people we are under obligations to."

"How late did you stay?" Mrs. Porter asked, as she passed him his second cup of coffee.

"About midnight, I think."

"Oh, where were you after that? You didn't get home until after one."

"M'm, my, this coffee's hot! One? Did you say one? The clock must have been striking half-past eleven."

"No, I am sure it was after one, because I laid awake for a while and heard it strike two."

"May be you are right. I did not look. But lots of people were still there when I left. Do you like the two-step better than the waltz?"

"Yes, I do. But that was on Sunday—after twelve o'clock. Weren't you ashamed to dance on Sunday?"

"I think I like the waltz better. The waltz is to the two-step what the minuet is to the jig. Don't you think so now? Young Mrs. Black is a splendid waltzer. Next to you, she is about the best."

"Well, I do not care to be compared with her. And I hope you didn't dance with her. She, divorced and married again, and not twenty-four yet!"

"I don't see as much harm in a young woman being divorced as an old one."

"I do. They ought to live together long enough to know if their troubles are real."

"Hers were."

"I always thought Mr. Hughes was real nice. Did you find your program?"

"No, I must have lost it."

They rose from the breakfast table and went, arm in arm, to the sitting-room. They divided the morning paper and sat in silence for a while. Tom went over the first page, read the prospects for war between Russia and Japan, then the European despatches, and then came to the page with the city news. He glanced carelessly over it, seeing little to attract him. By and by his eyes returned to a column that he had passed because calamities did not interest him, something about an explosion. When he came to it the second time his eyes fell on one of the subheadings and it made him catch his breath. He read the headlines from the top.

"Great Heavens!" he said to himself, and shot a glance at his wife from the corners of his eyes. "Lord, I am in for it."

The heading that he saw was:

Terrific Explosion at a Ball.
Panic Barely Averted.
Mrs. Tad-Wallington's Dance Interrupted.
Fire Ensued, but no Great Damage Done.
Many of the Women Fainted.

He then read the article through to see if there was any loop-hole, but found that the explosion had occurred, perhaps, before he was five squares away—about a quarter of ten, in fact. And he had admitted to his wife that he had stayed there until late at night!

"She mustn't see this page," he said to himself. "I must get it out of here and burn it."

He glanced at his wife again. She was reading her sheet interestedly. He separated the part that contained the city news and was preparing to smuggle it from the room under his coat.

"Here is the account of the dance," she exclaimed, looking up, "and you need not tell me any more—"

"The what!"

"The dance, and I can read all—"

"Did we get two papers this morning?" Tom stammered, feeling cold about the heart.

"No, I have the society sheet, and it tells what everybody wore—Why, what is the matter with you, Tom? You look sick. You are not sick, are you, Tom?" she asked, rising and coming over to him.

"No, no, I am not sick. I am all right. Go on and read the description of the dresses; that will relieve me more than anything else. I'll not have to think it all up."

"Oh, but you look sick."

"I am not; I am—I never was so well. See how strong I am. I can crush that piece of paper up into a very small ball with my bare hands. I am awfully strong."

"Oh, don't do that. There may be something in it that I want to read."

"No, there isn't. There's nothing in it. I read it through. I have an idea. I'll tell you what let's do. Let's burn the paper and I'll tell you what the women wore. These society notes are written beforehand and are not authentic. The only way is to have it from an eye-witness. Let's do it, will you?"

"No, I would rather read it. Aren't you sick, Tom? What makes your brow so damp?"

"It's so hot, it's infernally hot in here."

"I thought it was rather cold. I saw you shiver a moment ago. Tom, you are sick. You must have eaten too much salad last night. You know you can't eat salad."

"I didn't touch any salad. I only ate a frankfurter and drank a high-ball—"

"A frankfurter and a high-ball! Why, what sort of refreshments did they have?"

"I didn't mean that. I meant a canary-bird sandwich and a glass of water."

"I know what it is then, Tom. You inhaled a lot of the smoke."

Tom took a long hard look at his wife. "What!" he almost screamed at last.

"I say you have inhaled too much smoke. You have been smoking too much."

"Oh, that. Yes, I expect I have."

She looked at him with a twinkle in her eye as she sat on the arm of his chair, holding to the back with her hands.

"Tom, I'll bet you are a great hero."

"I'll bet I'm not."

"I'll bet you are, and are too modest to admit it."

"Too modest to admit what?"

"Too modest to admit the heroic things you have done."

"I never did any."

"Yes, you did. I know you saved two or three people's lives at the risk of your own."

"I haven't any medals."

"But you must have done something brave, and that's why you didn't tell me about the explosion."

Tom did not answer. The machinery of his voice would not turn. The power ran through his throat like cogwheels out of gear.

"My dear, sweet, brave, modest husband."

"I—I'm not all of that."

"Yes you are. You were the bravest man there. How many fainting women did you rescue?"

"Oh, not many. I think only five or six."

"Did you inhale much of the flame and smoke?"

"Yes, I think I must have inhaled some, but I did not notice it until now."

"Was the smoke very thick?"

"Awfully thick in places."

"And you walked right into it?"

"I had to. There wasn't any way to ride."

"Ride?"

"I mean I walked into the smoke. I don't know what I am saying. You must be right. I am sick."

"How brave my husband is. How proud I am of him. And not only brave but skilful. How did you manage to go through the smoke and flame and get no odor of smoke on your clothes, nor smut the front of your shirt?"

"I don't know, dear. I did not have time to notice. I was too busy."

"Ah, my hero! I am proud of you. Did you win or lose?"

"Did I what?"

"Did you win or lose?"

Tom took another look into her innocent blue eyes.

"Which?" she repeated.

"Ruth, what have you been doing to me?"

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Don't I look it?"

---

A THRENODY

BY GEORGE THOMAS LANIGAN

What, what, what,
What's the news from Swat?
Sad news,
Bad news,
Comes by the cable led
Through the Indian Ocean's bed,
Through the Persian Gulf, the Red
Sea and the Med-
Iterranean—he's dead;
The Ahkoond is dead!
For the Ahkoond I mourn,
Who wouldn't?
He strove to disregard the message stern,
But he Ahkoodn't.
Dead, dead, dead;
(Sorrow Swats!)
Swats wha hae wi' Ahkoond bled,
Swats whom he hath often led
Onward to a gory bed,
Or to victory,
As the case might be,
Sorrow Swats!
Tears shed,
Shed tears like water,
Your great Ahkoond is dead!
That Swats the matter!
Mourn, city of Swat!
Your great Ahkoond is not,
But lain 'mid worms to rot.
His mortal part alone, his soul was caught
(Because he was a good Ahkoond)
Up to the bosom of Mahound.
Though earthy walls his frame surround
(Forever hallowed be the ground!)
And skeptics mock the lowly mound
And say, "He's now of no Ahkoond!"
His soul is in the skies,—
The azure skies that bend above his loved
Metropolis of Swat.
He sees with larger, other eyes,
Athwart all earthly mysteries—
He knows what's Swat.
Let Swat bury the great Ahkoond
With a noise of mourning and of lamentation!
Let Swat bury the great Ahkoond
With the noise of the mourning of the
Swattish nation!
Fallen is at length
Its tower of strength,
Its sun is dimmed ere it had nooned;
Dead lies the great Ahkoond,
The great Ahkoond of Swat
Is not!

---

THE CONSCIENTIOUS CURATE AND THE BEAUTEOUS BALLET GIRL

BY WILLIAM RUSSELL ROSE

Young William was a curate good,
Who to himself did say:
"I cawn't denounce the stage as vile
Until I've seen a play."
He was so con-sci-en-ti-ous
That, when the play he sought,
To grasp its entire wickedness
A front row seat he bought.

'Twas in the burlesque, you know, the burlesque of "Prince Prettypate, or the Fairy Muffin Ring," and when the ballet came on, that good young curate met his fate. She, too, was in the front row, and—

She danced like this, she danced like that,
Her feet seemed everywhere;
They scarcely touched the floor at all
But twinkled in the air.
She entrechat, her fairy pas
Filled William with delight;
She whirled around, his heart did bound—
'Twas true love at first sight.
He sought her out and married her;
Of course, she left the stage,
And in his daily parish work
With William did engage.
She helped him in his parish school,
Where ragged urchins go,
And all the places on the map
She'd point out with her toe.

And when William gently remonstrated with her, she only said: "William, when I married you I gave you my hand—my feet are still my own."

She'd point like this, she'd point like that,
The scholars she'd entrance—
"This, children, is America;
And this, you see, is France.
"A highland here, an island there,
'Round which the waters roll;
And this is Pa-ta-go-ni-ah,
And this is the frozen Pole."
Young William's bishop called one day,
But found the curate out,
And so he told the curate's wife
What he had come about
"Your merit William oft to me
Most highly doth extol;
I trust, my dear, you always try
To elevate the soul."

Then William's wife made the bishop a neat little curtsey, and gently said: "Oh, yes, your Grace, I always do—in my own peculiar way."

She danced like this, she danced like that,
The bishop looked aghast;
He could not see her mazy skirts,
They switched around so fast.
She tripped it here, she skipped it there,
The bishop's eyes did roll—
"God bless me! 'tis a pleasant way
To elevate the sole!"

---

THE HOSS

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

The hoss he is a splendud beast;
He is man's friend, as heaven desined,
And, search the world from west to east,
No honester you'll ever find!
Some calls the hoss "a pore dumb brute,"
And yit, like Him who died fer you,
I say, as I theyr charge refute,
"'Fergive; they know not what they do!'"
No wiser animal makes tracks
Upon these earthly shores, and hence
Arose the axium, true as facts,
Extoled by all, as "Good hoss-sense!"
The hoss is strong, and knows his stren'th,—
You hitch him up a time er two
And lash him, and he'll go his len'th
And kick the dashboard out fer you!
But, treat him allus good and kind,
And never strike him with a stick,
Ner aggervate him, and you'll find
He'll never do a hostile trick.
A hoss whose master tends him right
And worters him with daily care,
Will do your biddin' with delight,
And act as docile as you air.
He'll paw and prance to hear your praise,
Because he's learn't to love you well;
And, though you can't tell what he says,
He'll nicker all he wants to tell.
He knows you when you slam the gate
At early dawn, upon your way
Unto the barn, and snorts elate,
To git his corn, er oats, er hay.
He knows you, as the orphant knows
The folks that loves her like theyr own,
And raises her and "finds" her clothes,
And "schools" her tel a womern-grown!
I claim no hoss will harm a man,
Ner kick, ner run away, cavort,
Stump-suck, er balk, er "catamaran,"
Ef you'll jest treat him as you ort.
But when I see the beast abused,
And clubbed around as I've saw some,
I want to see his owner noosed,
And jest yanked up like Absolum!
Of course they's differunce in stock,—
A hoss that has a little yeer,
And slender build, and shaller hock,
Can beat his shadder, mighty near!
Whilse one that's thick in neck and chist
And big in leg and full in flank,
That tries to race, I still insist
He'll have to take the second rank.
And I have jest laid back and laughed,
And rolled and wallered in the grass
At fairs, to see some heavy-draft
Lead out at first, yit come in last!
Each hoss has his appinted place,—
The heavy hoss should plow the soil;—
The blooded racer, he must race,
And win big wages fer his toil.
I never bet—ner never wrought
Upon my feller-man to bet—
And yit, at times, I've often thought
Of my convictions with regret.
I bless the hoss from hoof to head—
From head to hoof, and tale to mane!—
I bless the hoss, as I have said,
From head to hoof, and back again!
I love my God the first of all,
Then Him that perished on the cross,
And next, my wife,—and then I fall
Down on my knees and love the hoss.

---

WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE

BY S. E. KISER

He looked at my tongue and he shook his head—
This was Doctor Smart—
He thumped on my chest, and then he said:
"Ah, there it is! Your heart!
You mustn't run—you mustn't hurry!
You mustn't work—you mustn't worry!
Just sit down and take it cool;
You may live for years, I can not say;
But, in the meantime, make it a rule
To take this medicine twice a day!"
He looked at my tongue, and he shook his head—
This was Doctor Wise—
"Your liver's a total wreck," he said,
"You must take more exercise!
You mustn't eat sweets.
You mustn't eat meats,
You must walk and leap, you must also run;
You mustn't sit down in the dull old way;
Get out with the boys and have some fun—
And take three doses of this a day!"
He looked at my tongue, and he shook his head—
This was Doctor Bright—
"I'm afraid your lungs are gone," he said,
"And your kidney isn't right.
A change of scene is what you need,
Your case is desperate, indeed,
And bread is a thing you mustn't eat—
Too much starch—but, by the way,
You must henceforth live on only meat—
And take six doses of this a day!"
Perhaps they were right, and perhaps they knew,
It isn't for me to say;
Mayhap I erred when I madly threw
Their bitter stuff away;
But I'm living yet and I'm on my feet,
And grass isn't all I dare to eat,
And I walk and I run and I worry, too,
But, to save my life, I can not see
What some of the able doctors would do
If there were no fools like you and me.

---

THE BOAT THAT AIN'T[4]

BY WALLACE IRWIN

A stout, fat boat for gailin'
And a long, slim boat for squall;
But there isn't no fun in sailin'
When you haven't no boat at all.
For what is the use o' calkin'
A tub with a mustard pot—
And what is the use o' talkin'
Of a boat that you haven't got?

---

HOW JIMABOY FOUND HIMSELF

BY FRANCIS LYNDE

When Jimaboy began to live by his wits—otherwise, when he set up author and proposed to write for bread and meat—it was a time when the public appetite demanded names and naïveté. And since Jimaboy was fresh enough to satisfy both of these requirements, the editors looked with favor upon him, and his income, for a little while, exceeded the modest figure of the railroad clerkship upon which he had ventured to ask Isobel to marry him.

But afterward there came a time of dearth; a period in which the new name was no longer a thing to conjure with, and artlessness was a drug on the market. Cleverness was the name of the new requirement, and Jimaboy's gift was glaringly sentimental. When you open your magazine at "The Contusions of Peggy, by James Augustus Jimaboy," you are justly indignant when you find melodrama and predetermined pathos instead of the clever clowneries which the sheer absurdity of the author's signature predicts.

"Item," said Jimaboy, jotting it down in his notebook while Isobel hung over the back of his chair: "It's a perilous thing to make people cry when they are out for amusement. Did the postman remember us this morning?"

Isobel nodded mournfully.

"And the crop?" said Jimaboy.

"Three manuscripts; two from New York and one from Boston."

"'So flee the works of men
Back to the earth again,'"

quoted the sentimentalist, smiling from the teeth outward. "Is that all?"

"All you would care about. There were some fussy old bills."

"Whose, for instance?"

"Oh, the grocer's and the coal man's and the butcher's and the water company's, and some other little ones."

"'Some other little ones'," mused Jimaboy. "There's pathos for you. If I could ever get that into a story, with your intonation, it would be cheap at fifteen cents the word. We're up against it, Bella, dear."

"Well?" she said, with an arm around his neck.

"It isn't well; it's confoundedly ill. It begins to look as if it were 'back to the farm' for us."

She came around to sit on the arm of the chair.

"To the railroad office? Never! Jimmy, love. You are too good for that."

"Am I? That remains to be proved. And just at present the evidence is accumulating by the ream on the other side—reams of rejected MS."

"You haven't found yourself yet; that is all."

He forced a smile. "Let's offer a reward. 'Lost: the key to James and Isobel Jimaboy's success in life. Finder will be suitably recompensed on returning same to 506 Hayward Avenue, Cleland, Ohio.'"

She leaned over and planted a soft little kiss on the exact spot on his forehead where it would do the most good.

"I could take the city examination and teach, if you'd let me, Jimmy."

He shook his head definitely. That was ground which had been gone over before.

"Teach little babies their a b c's? I'm afraid that isn't your specialty, heart of mine. Now if you could teach other women the art of making a man believe that he has cornered the entire visible supply of ecstatic thrills in marrying the woman of his choice—by Jove, now! there's an idea!"

Now Jimaboy had no idea in particular; he never had an idea that he did not immediately coin it into words and try to sell it. But Isobel's eyes were suspiciously bright, and the situation had to be saved.

"I was just thinking: the thing to do successfully is the—er—the thing you do best, isn't it?"

She laughed, in spite of the unpaid bills.

"Why can't you put clever things like that into your stories, Jimmy, dear?"

"As if I didn't!" he retorted. "But don't step on my idea and squash it while it's in the soft-shell-crab stage. As I said, I was thinking: there is just one thing we can give the world odds on and beat it out of sight. And that thing is our long suit—our specialty."

"But you said you had an idea," said Isobel, whose private specialty was singleness of purpose.

"Oh—yes," said Jimaboy. Then he smote hard upon the anvil and forged one on the spur of the moment. "Suppose we call it The Post-Graduate School of W. B., Professor James Augustus Jimaboy, principal; Mrs. Isobel Jimaboy, assistant principal. How would that sound?"

"It would sound like the steam siren on the planing mill. But what is the 'W. B.'?"

"'Wedded Bliss,' of course. Here is the way it figures out. We've been married three years, and—"

"Three years, five months and fourteen days," she corrected.

"Excellent! That accuracy of yours would be worth a fortune on the faculty. But let me finish—during these three years, five months and fourteen days we have fought, bled and died on the literary battle-field; dined on bath-mitts and café hydraulique, walked past the opera-house entrance when our favorite play was on, and all that. But tell me, throb of my heart, have we ever gone shy on bliss?"

She met him half-way. It was the spirit in which they had faced the bill collector since the beginning of the period of leanness.

"Never, Jimmy, dear; not even hardly ever."

"There you are, then. Remains only for us to tell others how to do it; to found the Post-Graduate School of W. B. It's the one thing needful in a world of educational advantage; a world in which everything but the gentle art of being happy, though married, is taught by the postman. We have solved all the other problems, but there has been no renaissance in the art of matrimony. Think of the ten thousand divorces granted in a single state last year! My dear Isobel, we mustn't lose a day—an hour—a minute!"

She pretended to take him seriously.

"I don't know why we shouldn't do it, I'm sure," she mused. "They teach everything by mail nowadays. But who is going to die and leave us the endowment to start with?"

"That's the artistic beauty of the mail scheme," said Jimaboy, enthusiastically. "It doesn't require capitalizing; no buildings, no campus, no football team, no expensive university plant; nothing but an inspiration, a serviceable typewriter, and a little old postman to blow his whistle at the door."

"And the specialty," added Isobel, "though some of them don't seem to trouble themselves much about that. Oh, yes; and the advertising; that is where the endowment comes in, isn't it?"

But Jimaboy would not admit the obstacle.

"That is one of the things that grow by what they are fed upon: your ad. brings in the money, and then the money buys more ad. Now, there's Blicker, of the Woman's Uplift; he still owes us for that last story—we take it out in advertising space. Also Dormus, of the Home World, and Amory, of the Storylovers—same boat—more advertising space. Then the Times hasn't paid for that string of space-fillers on 'The Lovers of All Nations.' The Times has a job office, and we could take that out in prospectuses and application blanks."

By this time the situation was entirely saved and Isobel's eyes were dancing.

"Wouldn't it be glorious?" she murmured. "Think of the precious, precious letters we'd get; real letters like some of those pretended ones in Mr. Blicker's correspondence column. And we wouldn't tell them what the 'W. B.' meant until after they'd finished the course, and then we'd send them the degree of 'Master of Wedded Bliss,' and write it out in the diploma."

Jimaboy sat back in his chair and laughed uproariously. The most confirmed sentimentalist may have a saving sense of humor. Indeed, it is likely to go hard with him in the experimental years, if he has it not.

"It's perfectly feasible—perfectly," he chuckled. "It would be merely pounding sand into the traditional rat-hole with all the implements furnished—teaching our specialty to a world yearning to know how. You could get up the lectures and question schedules for the men, and I could make some sort of a shift with the women."

"Yes; but the text-books. Don't these 'Fit-yourself-at-Home' schools have text-books?"

"Um, y-yes; I suppose they do. That would be a little difficult for us—just at the go-off. But we could get around that. For example, 'Dear Mrs. Blank: Replying to your application for membership in the Post-Graduate School of W. B., would say that your case is so peculiar'—that would flatter her immensely—'your case is so peculiar that the ordinary text-books cover it very inadequately. Therefore, with your approval, and for a small additional tuition fee of $2 the term, we shall place you in a special class to be instructed by electrographed lectures dictated personally by the principal.'"

Isobel clapped her hands. "Jimmy, love, you are simply great, when you are not trying to be. And, after a while, we could print the lectures and have our own text-books copyrighted. But don't you think we ought to take in the young people, as well?—have a—a collegiate department for beginners?"

"'Sh!" said Jimaboy, and he got up and closed the door with ostentatious caution. "Suppose somebody—Lantermann, for instance—should hear you say such things as that: 'take in the young people'! Shades of the Rosicrucians! we wouldn't 'take in' anybody. The very life of these mail things is the unshaken confidence of the people. But, as you suggest, we really ought to include the frying size."

It was delicious fooling, and Isobel found a sketch-block and dipped her pen.

"You do the letter-press for the 'collegiate' ad., and I'll make a picture for it," she said. "Hurry, or I'll beat you."

Jimaboy laughed and squared himself at the desk, and the race began. Isobel had a small gift and a large ambition: the gift was a cartoonist's facility in line drawing, and the ambition was to be able, in the dim and distant future, to illustrate Jimaboy's stories. Lantermann, the Times artist, whose rooms were just across the hall, had given her a few lessons in caricature and some little gruff, Teutonic encouragement.

"Time!" she called, tossing the sketch-block over to Jimaboy. It was a happy thought. On a modern davenport sat two young people, far apart; the youth twiddling his thumbs in an ecstasy of embarrassment; the maiden making rabbit's ears with her handkerchief. Jimaboy's note of appreciation was a guffaw.

"I couldn't rise to the expression on those faces in a hundred years!" he lamented. "Hear me creak:"

DON'T MARRY

until you have taken the Preparatory Course in the Post-Graduate School of W. B. Home-Study in the Science of Successful Heart-Throbs. Why earn only ten kisses a week when one hour a day will qualify you for the highest positions? Our Collegiate Department confers degree of B. B.; Post-Graduate Department that of M. W. B. Members of Faculty all certificated Post-Graduates.

A postal card brings Prospectus and application blank.

Address: The Post-Graduate School of W. B., 506 Hayward Avenue, Cleland, Ohio.

Isobel applauded loyally. "Why, that doesn't creak a little bit! Try it again; for the unhappy T. M.'s, this time. Ready? Play!"

Her picture was done while Jimaboy was still nibbling his pen and scowling over the scratch-pad. It was a drawing-room interior, with the wife in tears and the husband struggling into his overcoat. To them, running, an animated United States mail-bag, extending a huge envelope marked: "From the Post-Graduate School of W. B."

Jimaboy scratched out and rewrote, with the pen-drawing for an inspiration:

HEARTS DIVIDED
BECOME
HEARTS UNITED

when you have taken a Correspondence Course in Wedded Bliss. A Scholarship in the Post-Graduate School of W. B. is the most acceptable wedding gift or Christmas present for your friends. Curriculum includes Matrimony as a Fine Art, Post-Marriage Courtship, Elementary and Advanced Studies in Conjugal Harmony, Easy Lessons in the Gentle Craft of Eating Her Experimental Bread, Practical Analysis of the Club-Habit, with special course for wives in the Abstract Science of Honeyfugling Parsimonious Husbands. Diploma qualifies for highest positions. Our Gold Medalists are never idle.

The Post-Graduate School of W. B., 506 Hayward Avenue, Cleland, Ohio.

N. B.—Graphophone, with Model Conversations for Married Lovers, furnished free with lectures on Post-Marriage Courtship.

They pinned the pictures each to its "copy" and had their laugh over the conceit.

"Blest if I don't believe we could actually fake the thing through if we should try," said Jimaboy. "There are plenty of people in this world who would take it seriously."

"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.nbsp;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.