| I.—Outside the Law. | II.—Within the Law. |
MR. PUNCH'S HOLIDAY STORIES.
(Constructed after the best models.)
I.—An Alpine Adventure.
Inside the Fahrjoch Hut a merry clatter of tin mugs proclaimed that a climbing party was supping. Ralph Wonderson paused for a moment, thoughtfully stroking his crampons, before he threw open the door and entered.
Two stalwart and sunburnt young Englishmen, a beautiful fair-haired English girl, and three hirsute and jovial Swiss guides were feasting on the sardines and dried plums which experience has shown to be the best diet for mountaineers. They looked up cheerily as he entered, and greeted him with the easy camaraderie of the mountains.
Gratefully relieving himself of his rope, ice-axe, Baedeker, goggles, corkscrew, crampons and other impedimenta of the expert Alpinist, Ralph seated himself beside the girl.
"You look tired," she said sympathetically.
"Yes," he replied, picking up a sardine by its tail and dropping it into his mouth with the ease of one long accustomed to mountain huts. "Yes, I've just satisfied a long-cherished ambition by doing the Matterhorn and the Jungfrau in the same day without guides."