"Of course it is not really my affair," said Mr. Franklin, "except that I am your sister's husband, and have a right to advise her. The money is hers, to do with it what she likes, and she can spend it all on you if she wishes. But I think fifty dollars is a good deal for a school-boy, with the allowance that you have, to owe. If you were my boy I should look into the matter pretty carefully, you may be sure. However, I am neither your father nor your guardian. But it is a bad precedent. If you spend money in this way at school, what will you do in college?"
Hester expostulated with her brother, but wrote a check and gave it to him. Neal was almost sorry then that he had not placed the sum at one hundred.
He sent the check to Bronson, assuring him that he would pay him the balance before long. This done, Neal became as gay and debonair as ever. Cynthia, knowing the facts, wondered that he could so completely forget the burden of debt that was still resting upon him. She thought that he must have discovered some other way of settling the matter.
[to be continued.]
THE UNITED STATES NAVY AT THE BALTIC CANAL.
BY A JUNIOR OFFICER.
"General Signal 6421 from flag-ship!" cried the signal boy to signal officer of the U.S.S. San Francisco, as our fleet approached the entrance to Kiel Fiord.
"Report to the Captain that we are ordered by the flag-ship to take position at head of column," replied the signal officer, referring to signal-book.
Simultaneously the U.S. flag-ship New York stopped her engines, allowing the U.S.S. San Francisco and U.S.S. Columbia to steam ahead, leading the column into the harbor of Kiel, Germany, in order that they might be in proper sequence for picking up the buoys assigned them during the festivities attending the opening of the large and important canal connecting the Baltic with the North Sea. Ahead, beyond the light guarding the entrance to Kiel Fiord, which is nothing more than a long land-locked harbor five miles long by one and a half broad, we could see ships and boats by the score.