"But I know it is true."
"What, you know that you are goin' ter die ter-day?"
"Yes, sir."
"How do you know it?"
"By this fack," Hendricks replied. He drew a revolver, placed it against his head, and fired. He fell from the chair, dead. The men looked in horror upon the scene. A breeze through the open doorway stirred Hendricks' hair into beautiful curls.
[WEARING OUT THE CARPET.]
Among the guests at a small summer hotel were a little boy and his mother. The boy's fullness of life and richness of prankish resource kept the timid, shrinking mother in a constant state of alarm; and the servants, noticing that she was afraid that her son might give offense, took pains to increase her anxiety by telling the child, in those soft but forced tones of kindness which burn worse than harshness, not to make so much noise and not to scatter bread crumbs on the steps. The proprietor's wife, an old woman whom everyone said was motherly, unconsciously took a cue from the servants, and, forgetting that her own sons and daughters were once noisy children, began to oppress the boy.