Chapter XVI: Conclusion

Captain Nemo, Jr., made an astonishing rally during the night the _Grampus_ was creeping slowly up the shore of British Honduras. He awoke from a refreshing slumber, sound of mind and with an optimistic outlook on life which boded good things for Speake, Gaines and Clackett.

The doctor, when he called, shook his hand in congratulation.

"You are doing better than I dared to hope, captain," said he.

"Can I talk business, doctor?" asked the captain.

"As much as you like. Keep on with the same medicine, Cassidy," the doctor added to the mate; "I don't think we can improve on that."

As soon as the doctor had gone, Cassidy made a confession which he had been keeping stored away in his mind for several days. It was a confession of his treachery toward Motor Matt and the rest of his mates aboard the _Grampus_ during the other cruise south to rescue the American consul.

Cassidy did not spare himself, but told the astonishing facts fully and in detail.

Captain Nemo, Jr., listened in pained surprise. For several minutes after Cassidy finished he did not speak.

"If you're going to begin drinking again, Cassidy," said the captain, "I suppose we ought to part company."

"I've taken my last drink," declared Cassidy.

"Do you mean it?"

"I do."

"And Motor Matt, on his way back from the River Izaral, put you back in the ship as mate?"

"Yes."

"Well, whatever Motor Matt does is good enough for me. If you were put there as mate, then you stay there."

"Thank you, sir," said Cassidy, shaking his captain's hand.

At that moment a rap fell on the door. Cassidy opened it, and Gaines, Speake, Clackett and Motor Matt walked into the room.

"Well, well, Matt!" cried Captain Nemo, Jr., his face brightening wonderfully at sight of the young motorist, "this is a pleasure, I must say! You've brought the entire crew of the _Grampus_ with you, eh?"

"Not quite all of them," laughed Matt. "Cassidy was here, taking care of you, and we left Dick and Carl aboard for an anchor watch."

"You fellows act as though you had something on your minds," observed the captain, giving the three members of the crew a curious look.

"That's what we have, sir," answered Gaines. "We have a confession to make."

"Confession!" muttered the captain. "This seems to be my morning for hearing confessions. Well, go ahead."

Thereupon Speake, Gaines and Clackett, on their part, told the captain exactly what had taken place during this second trip to the River Izaral. Captain Nemo, Jr., was dumfounded. Pursing his thin lips, he leaned back in his chair and watched and listened with the utmost attention.

"So," said he cuttingly, when the recital was done, "Motor Matt refused to take my boat south, in response to the request of this scoundrelly don, and you locked Matt and Dick in the storage room of the submarine and went off whether they would or no! And you called Matt out of the room to fix the motor and keep the boat from going on the reefs; and you picked up a supposedly shipwrecked crew out of a boat, and the crew turned on you and captured the _Grampus_; and, with the aid of Miss Sixty, Motor Matt and his friends recovered the boat, captured Fingal, Pitou and some others, and turned them over to the cruiser _Seminole_--all of which would not have happened had not you, Speake, Gaines and Clackett acted in an insubordinate and mutinous manner. What had I ought to do with them, Matt?"

"They behaved finely during the fighting and while we were running down the river, past the fort," replied Matt, "so I don't think they should be dealt with very severely, captain."

"You're too easy with them, Matt! Look at the trouble they caused you!"

"But see what good luck came out of it, captain. We captured Pitou and Fingal."

"That isn't the best thing that has come out of it, Matt," remarked the captain. "The best thing for me is the fact that this mutinous conduct of Speake, Clackett and Gaines proves, more than ever, that you are always to be depended on. You refused to sail away on a wild-goose chase after listening to a plausible story told by this rascally don, and----"

"I took a good deal of stock in the story at the time it was told, captain," said Matt.

"That may be; but you didn't let your own desires override what you conceived to be your duty. There would have been no merit in your act, for you, if you had not wanted to go with the don, but yet allowed your idea of duty to me hold you back. I am much obliged to you, Speake, Gaines and Clackett, for affording me this added proof that my confidence in Motor Matt is not misplaced. But, if I ever hear of any further mutiny on the _Grampus_, there will be something happen which none of you will ever forget.

"The U. S. cruiser _Seminole_ is in the harbor, and I am positive that her captain bears some news for me of a very important nature. This may make it necessary for a call to be made upon the officers and crew of the _Grampus_ for some further work. I cannot tell yet as to that. If so it turns out, then your commanding officer will be Motor Matt. Now leave me, all of you, for I have both listened and talked too much, and I am beginning to feel tired. Have the periscope ball and mast repaired, Matt, as soon as possible, and call and see me to-night."

As Matt left the house and made his way along the street, he came suddenly upon Ysabel Sixty, again clad in her feminine clothes and looking like the Ysabel he used to know of old.

"You did not stay long at home, Ysabel," smiled Matt.

"I couldn't," she answered. "I wanted to find out what your plans were, and how long you expect to remain in Belize."

"That's all in doubt, as yet. I am to call on Captain Nemo, Jr., to-night, and perhaps he will be able to tell me something about future plans."

"I hope," and there was a tremulous earnestness in the girl's words, "that you are not going to leave Belize very soon."

"I should like to stay here a little while, Ysabel, myself," said Matt.

Her face brightened.

"And if you are here for a while, you will come often and see me?"

"You may depend upon it, little girl," said Matt, taking her hand cordially. "I shall never forget this last experience of yours, and how you undertook an exceedingly risky venture solely to be of aid to me."

There was a gentleman waiting for a word with Matt, and Ysabel, with a glad smile, turned away in the direction of home.

"Señor Motor Matt?" asked the gentleman, who had been waiting for Ysabel to finish her talk with Matt.

"The same, sir," replied Matt.

"I, my boy, am Don Ramon Ortega, the Spanish consul in Belize. I wish to beg your pardon for the serious misadventures into which you were plunged through the unwarranted use of my name by that unmitigated scoundrel, Don Carlos Valdez."

"You were not to blame for that, don."

"Perhaps not, but I feel keenly the trouble which my name--always an honorable one--has caused you. Some time, when my family return from Mexico, I shall hope to see you at my home as an honored guest. Will you come?"

"Certainly, sir, if I am in Belize."

"I thank you, señor," said the don; and then, with a courtly bow, he passed on.

The king of the motor boys hardly knew whether to laugh or look sober; but when he reflected on how the rascally Don Carlos had juggled with the Spanish consul's name, and used it for base purposes, he felt that perhaps the consul was right in taking the matter so much to heart.

That evening, Pedro was taken ashore and lodged in the house of Ysabel's relatives. The next day he took passage to Cuba, and forever cut himself adrift from revolutions and the filibusters who foster them.

THE END.

THE NEXT NUMBER (18) WILL CONTAIN

Motor Matt in Brazil;

OR,

UNDER THE AMAZON.

The Cachalot--John Henry Glennie, U. S. N.--The Meeting in the
Harbor--Ah Sin's Clue--Off for the Amazon--Villainous Work--Rubbing
Elbows with Death--A Dive for Safety--Putting Two-and-two
Together--Under the Amazon--Hand-to-hand--Boarded--A Prisoner, and a
Surprise--The Old Slouch Hat--Para--A Desperate Risk.

MOTOR STORIES

THRILLING ADVENTURE MOTOR FICTION

NEW YORK, June 19, 1909.

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PHILIP'S WAY.

By HORATIO ALGER, Jr.

"I mean to have a jolly time to-morrow, Phil," said Tom Chester. "I expect it will cost me a cool fifty dollars."

"What are your plans, that require so much expense?" asked Philip Marden.

"Being New Year's Day, I must make calls on my friends, you know. I've got about fifty places chalked down for visits. I mean to go in style, and so, have engaged a carriage all to myself for the day. That'll cost ten dollars, and perhaps more. Then in the evening I'm going to give a little supper to half a dozen friends. Will you be one of the number?"

"Thank you, I have promised to spend the evening with my aunt and cousin."

"Oh, they'll let you off."

"No doubt, but they would be disappointed, and I would rather not disappoint them. So, with many thanks, I must decline your kind invitation."

"I am sorry," said Tom, but he didn't care much really. The truth was that Philip was a little too sober and sedate to suit his taste, and the supper was likely to be a convivial one.

"So Tom is going to spend fifty dollars in pleasure," thought Philip. "Well, he can afford it for once, so far as money goes, and so can I. I will do it, too, only it may be that our ideas of pleasure will differ somewhat. I shall have a few calls to make also."

The next morning Tom set out on his tour of calls. He had a "jolly" time, as he expected, and drank wine at so many different places that his head got a little confused by the middle of the afternoon.

About ten o'clock Philip set out also, but in a less stylish manner. He paid five cents for a ride in the horse cars, getting out in a locality very far from fashionable. He stopped before a shabby, three-story house, and ringing the bell, inquired for Mrs. Lucas.

"Third floor, front, right-hand side," was the direction.

The staircase was as shabby as the exterior of the house. Philip soon stood on the third landing, and after a little pause, knocked at the door. It was opened by a pale, sickly-looking woman, who looked at him inquiringly.

"Is this Mrs. Lucas?" asked the young man.

"Yes, sir," said she inquiringly.

"My name is Marden. You made me some shirts lately."

"Yes, sir. I hope they fitted."

"Excellently."

"I am glad of it. Perhaps he has some more work for me!" thought the poor woman.

"I am afraid you find it hard work to get along in these days of high prices," said Philip, surveying the scantily furnished apartment.

"I do, indeed, sir," said Mrs. Lucas, sighing. "Rent and provisions are very high, and I can't always get work. I have a little girl of ten--she is out just now--but she cannot do much. I try to keep her at school, but I find it hard to keep her in decent clothing. It was a great help to me, the money I received for making your shirts."

"I shall have some more work soon," said Philip kindly. "Meanwhile will you accept this note? I hope it will be of service."

"Ten dollars!" exclaimed Mrs. Lucas in surprise. "You have made a mistake, sir. Have you not?"

"Not at all."

"Ah, sir, you don't know how much good it will do me," said the poor woman, her face lighted up with pleasure. "Thank you many times for your great kindness."

"You are quite welcome, Mrs. Lucas. It is New Year's Day, you know--I wish you a Happy New Year."

"Indeed, sir, you have done much to make it so."

There was a warm glow at Philip's heart as he went out into the street. His call had been a pleasant one.

Two or three blocks brought him to another tenement house, more shabby and dilapidated than the one he had left.

"I think it is No. 17, rear house," he said.

He passed through a narrow passage, and emerged into a dark court about fifteen feet square, swarming with little children, and inquired of the first one that attracted his attention, "Does Mrs. Flaherty live here?"

"Yes, sir," said the little girl addressed, "she's my mother."

"Will you show me her room?"

Little Bridget Flaherty led the way upstairs, a little surprised at the appearance of her mother's visitor, and opened the door of a dirty room without a carpet.

Mrs. Flaherty rose in surprise, recognizing her visitor.

"It's Mr. Marden, shure," she said. "And how did you find the way, sir?"

"I happened to remember the street and number, Mrs. Flaherty."

"I hope there's nothing wrong about the clothes, sir?"

"Not at all; but I'm out making my New Year's calls."

"And it's an honor, indade, that you should call on me. Sit down, sir, if you please."

And she cleared off a chair, wiping it with her apron to insure cleanliness.

Philip chatted with her five minutes, inquiring about her family and circumstances. As he rose to go he took out ten dollars and handed it to her.

"Is it for me?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes, Mrs. Flaherty, a New Year's gift."

I should hardly venture to reproduce the grateful thanks which were showered upon Philip by the enthusiastic recipient of his gift, and how she invoked all the saints in the calendar to shield him from harm and fill his path with blessings.

Philip next went to a bookstore, and purchased a series of juveniles illustrated with bright, attractive pictures, and taking the horse cars again was landed near a quiet little street of no pretensions as regards fashion. He ascended the steps of a plain, wooden house of two stories, and rang the bell. It was the house of a widow, who made a scanty living by keeping boarders of an humble class. She had one boy of twelve, bright and athirst for knowledge, but an invalid, and not strong enough to go to school. There was nothing the lad loved like reading, but his mother could not afford to buy him books, and her friends were not many of them book owners. So he used to lie day after day on the old lounge, finding the hours weary and monotonous.

It was his mother who opened the door.

"Jimmy will be so glad to see you, Mr. Marden," she said. "You'll find him on the sofa, as usual."

"Does he get no better?"

"Not that I can see. Poor boy, he finds the time pass very heavily."

"I've brought him some books that will while away the hours."

"How kind you are! He will be beside himself with joy."

She led the way into a small room, with a faded carpet on the floor. A young boy with a merry look on his pale face lay on a lounge. He lifted his eyes, and they brightened as they met the gaze of the visitor.

"Oh, Mr. Marden, I'm so glad to see you!" he exclaimed.

"And I am glad to see you, Jimmy--a Happy New Year to you!"

"And you also, Mr. Marden."

"Thank you, Jimmy. Now, what do you think I have got in this big bundle?"

"Is it books?" asked the boy eagerly.

"Yes, Jimmy, you have guessed right. Six new books, and all for you."

"All for me. Oh, how kind you are! Do open them quick."

Smiling at the boy's impatience, Philip cut the string with his penknife, and displayed six handsomely bound volumes, over which Jimmy was soon poring with delight.

"Then you like them, Jimmy?"

"Oh, so much. There was nothing which I should have liked as well. What a good man you are, Mr. Marden. I don't deserve it."

"I like to make people happy, Jimmy, that is all."

"And you have made me very happy, sir," said the boy, his face lighting up with gratitude. "My life has been so dull sometimes."

"Let us hope it will be brighter in future."

"I think it will, Mr. Marden, thanks to you."

Philip called at three other places, where he dispensed timely and welcome gifts. We need not follow him. It is enough to say that each visit carried sunshine with it and left happiness behind it. When the last call had been made he found that he had expended just fifty dollars, but he felt richer without it.

The next morning the two young men met at their place of business, for both were employed in the same mercantile establishment. Tom Chester was heavy-eyed, and looked as if he had been up all night. Philip's eye was bright, and his nerves were as steady as usual.

"Did you have a good time, Tom?" asked Philip.

"Capital! I made all my calls, and had a jolly supper--to top off with. Didn't get into bed till four this morning. I feel rather seedy to-day, that's a fact. But New Year's Day only comes once a year."

"True; how much did it cost you?"

"Fifty dollars. I suppose you, like a prudent boy, saved your money?"

"There you are mistaken. I spent fifty dollars, also."

"You did!" exclaimed his friend in astonishment. "How was that?"

"In making people happy."

"I don't understand you."

Philip gave a brief outline of what he had done.

"You're a strange fellow," said Tom Chester. "Who'd ever have thought of spending New Year's Day in that way?"

"A great many, I hope. Depend upon it. Tom, the best way to secure happiness yourself is to promote the happiness of others. I wouldn't exchange my investment for yours."

Dear reader, I have sketched two ways of spending the day that ushers in the New Year. Tom Chester spent his time and money in selfish gratification. Philip devoted his to nobler uses. Which do you prefer?

PERILOUS OCCUPATIONS.

Sealskins are a costly commodity, in more ways than one. More perilous than almost any other mentionable pursuit, seal-hunting is yearly exacting a greater penalty in human lives than it ever did before. Hunted for generations, the seals have become more wary, and year by year they retire farther and farther into the well-nigh inaccessible ice of the highest northern latitudes.

It is not sport, this hunting the seal from the icy, storm-swept coast of Newfoundland; it is toil, whereby in part the hardy Newfoundlander wins his scanty measure of bread, and the chase is beset with multitudinous and unforeseen perils.

The wind gathers the ice into floes, and jams it against the coast, an immeasurable, jagged expanse of it, interspersed with plains; then the Newfoundlander takes his gaff and his food and his goggles, and sets out from his little harbor, starting at midnight that he may come up with the pack at dawn. But the wind which sweeps in the ice inevitably sweeps it out again, without warning, in an hour, or a day, or a week; nor does it pause to consider the situation of the men who are twenty miles offshore. It veers and freshens, and drives the whole mass, grinding and heaving, far out to sea, where it disperses it into its separate fragments.

The lives of the hunters depend upon the watchfulness of the attenuated line of lookouts, from the women on the headland to the first sentinel within signaling distance. But tragedies occur notwithstanding. Some years ago of five sealing-schooners that penetrated the drift ice then blocking the northernmost extremity of Baffin's Bay one only returned. Two or three years previously, at Kedy, near Cape Voronoff, Siberia, three hundred Russian sealers, at work upon an ice-floe, were driven northward into the frozen ocean, owing to the sudden springing up of a southerly gale, and were never heard of again.

At St. Paul's Island, one of the Pribyloff group, off the coast of Alaska, are the graves of seventy odd sealers, found frozen stiff and stark on an ice-floe that drifted ashore one night.

As with sealskins, so with pearls. The pearl-diver's occupation is among the most dangerous known. Generally either an Arab or a full-blooded negro, he is invariably a man of splendid physique and indomitable courage. Long practise has enabled him to remain under water for two minutes at a time without apparent inconvenience. Nevertheless, the life of a professional pearl-diver is not considered by experts to be worth more than six or seven years' purchase.

Many succumb every season to a strange and deadly form of paralysis. Many more are eaten by sharks, drowned through getting their feet entangled in weeds, caught in crevices in the rocks while exploring the depths of the sea, or seized and devoured quickly by shoals of gigantic octopi--those ghouls of the ocean--which invariably infest the fishing-grounds.

It is estimated that of the hundreds of egret-hunters who each year set out for the heronries of Yucatan, a full ten per cent. never return. Deep in the deadly, fever-laden recesses of the forest swamps of the hinterland these beautiful birds breed. The hunter pursues them remorselessly, his life in his hand, for the snow-white tail-feathers are worth from five to eight guineas.

The climate is deadly. The atmosphere is saturated with miasma and infected with myriads of poisonous insects. Alligators lurk, too, in the black slime of the tortuous bayous, which constitute the only means of inter-communication. An egret-hunter who runs short of ammunition or quinin simply lies down in the bottom of his canoe and waits for death. Usually he has not long to wait. On the average, for every half-dozen aigrettes--one may see hundreds being worn any afternoon in Bond Street--a man's life has been sacrificed.

Hardly less perilous, if any, is the orchid-hunter's profession. Orchids love warmth and moisture, and warmth and moisture in tropical countries are synonymous with miasma and fever. Wild animals also and poisonous serpents abound in the umbrageous depths wherein the rarer varieties lie hidden. Not infrequently, too, the collector has to seek his specimens among savages or semicivilized peoples, who strongly resent his intrusion into their midst.

One firm of orchid-importers reported a year or two ago that they had had five collectors killed in as many months by the wild tribesmen of the Western Himalayan slopes; while other three, even more unfortunate, were made prisoners and carried off to undergo the nameless horrors which have from time immemorial been characteristic of Central Asian slavery.

Rubber is purchased at a terrible price. The mortality in the State of Amazonias, in Brazil, corresponds with almost diabolical exactness to the number of tons of rubber produced. In fact, it is said each ton costs a human life, and although there are no such horribly fiendish atrocities in Brazil as has been charged against the Congo, it is nevertheless true that the laborers who are brought into the rubber-fields do not average more than three years of life; and are, if not in law, at least in fact, subjected to hardships never known or endured by the slaves in the United States, or even by the slaves in the coffee countries of Brazil.

Of nearly seven million pounds of camphor obtained annually, Formosa produces all but about six hundred thousand pounds, but very few people have the faintest conception of the dangers to which Japanese camphor collectors are exposed in the Formosa hills when gathering this product. Up to the present, in fact, the Japanese have found it impossible to control the head-hunting savages of the hills, and the development of this valuable industry depends equally upon the success of their measures for encountering and suppressing these determined and as yet unconquered tribes.

Formosa, which is shaped somewhat like a huge sole, has a rugged, mountainous back-bone, in which Mount Morrison towers into the clouds to a height of twelve thousand feet. Throughout the wild penetralia of these mountains lurk a number of warlike tribes of varying strength, whose lives are devoted to hunting, fishing, and fighting with one another, their one community of interest being a passionate ardor in the collection of human heads, whether of their tribal enemies or of the Chinese coolies who live on the verge of the hills or are engaged in the camphor industry.

The tree from which camphor is obtained is a species of laurel indigenous to Formosa, and it is on the mountains overrun by these terrible hordes of head-hunters that the extensive forests from which practically the world draws its supply of camphor are found.

POI THEIR STAFF OF LIFE.

What bread is to the American or European poi is to the native Hawaiian. No meal is complete without it, and for the great majority of the natives it forms the principal article of diet.

Poi is made from a tuberous root about the size of a large sweet potato. It is first baked and afterward pounded up with water until a smooth paste is obtained, much resembling a wheat flour paste, except that the color is a pale pink or purple.

This paste is allowed to ferment slightly and is then ready for use. Formerly each family prepared its own poi, the work being done by the men, as in fact were most other cooking operations. Poi factories, in which machinery grinds and mixes the material, have largely supplanted the old method.

Many of the white residents of the islands eat poi to almost the extent of the natives, but the taste is largely acquired and strangers seldom care for it. Poi has a high food value, and since it formed the principal food of the old Hawaiians some persons credit it with the splendid physical development of the race.

Poi was always eaten from wooden bowls or calabashes and was conveyed to the mouth by the fingers, one, two or three being employed according to the consistency of the food, which fact establishes a designation of one, two or three finger poi. White poi eaters now usually employ a fork or spoon in lieu of fingers, although it is still common even in the highest families to give native dinners or "luaus" at which knives and forks are taboo and fingers only used.

There is as much etiquette among the Hawaiians in eating with the fingers as with modern table implements, and the graceful motion by which a portion of poi is twisted up on the fingers and transferred to the mouth would not shock the sensibilities of the most refined. An invitation to a real luau at which poi, baked pig, fish baked in leaves and cocoanut in various forms were the chief features of the menu is an experience which every visitor to Hawaii sincerely covets.

A CITY BEGUN ON A RAFT.

The story of the founding of the City of Mexico is one of the most extraordinary tales in history. It happened in 1325, at least, it began a long time before that, but was an accomplished fact about 600 years ago.

In the first place, imagine an almost inaccessible mountain, crowned with a valley at the height of 8,000 feet above the level of the sea. In the centre of this valley was an immense lake. When the Aztecs arrived, led by the priests of the God of War, they found it in the possession of hostile tribes.

For that reason, and because the priests declared that in a certain part of the lake where there stood an elevation of stones an eagle had been seen devouring a serpent, they began the construction of the city on this spot, immediately over the deepest waters of the lake. There had long existed a prophecy among the Aztecs that their wanderings would end when they should have reached a place where the priests would behold an eagle resting on a cactus plant, devouring a serpent.

Confident that they had found the spot ordained to be their abiding home, they began to construct rafts of the trunks of trees, covering them with thick layers of earth, upon which they built rude huts of more or less solidity. Groups of dwellings soon began to form themselves in regular order, thus determining the primitive streets of the new city.

They also constructed boats and oars of different sizes useful in peace and war, and while certain of their number occupied themselves in defending their homes and brethren from the onslaughts of hostile tribes, others continued to improve and enlarge the new city. Gradually the lake was filled up, and terraces arose, one after another, in the place once occupied by the deep waters.

This was in itself a herculean labor, unsurpassed in ingenuity and durability by any similar work of ancient or modern times. Upon the first of these terraces was constructed the Teocalli, or sacrificial temple. It was begun in 1216 and not completed until 1325, a period of 109 years, from which time may be dated the official foundation of Tenochtitlan, to-day the modern City of Mexico.

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650--The Hollingsworth Puzzle; or, Nick Carter Three Times Baffled.

651--The Affair of the Missing Bonds; or, Nick Carter in the Harness.

_For sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address on receipt of price, 5 cents per copy, in money or postage stamps, by_

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

=IF YOU WANT ANY BACK NUMBERS= of our Weeklies and cannot procure them from your newsdealer, they can be obtained from this office direct. Fill out the following Order Blank and send it to us with the price of the Weeklies you want and we will send them to you by return mail. =POSTAGE STAMPS TAKEN THE SAME AS MONEY.=

________________________ _190_

_STREET & SMITH, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City._

_Dear Sirs: Enclosed please find_ ___________________________
_cents for which send me_:

TIP TOP WEEKLY, Nos. ________________________________

NICK CARTER WEEKLY, " ________________________________

DIAMOND DICK WEEKLY, " ________________________________

BUFFALO BILL STORIES, " ________________________________

BRAVE AND BOLD WEEKLY, " ________________________________

MOTOR STORIES, " ________________________________

_Name_ ________________ _Street_ ________________

_City_ ________________ _State_ ________________

A GREAT SUCCESS!!

MOTOR STORIES

Every boy who reads one of the splendid adventures of Motor Matt, which are making their appearance in this weekly, is at once surprised and delighted. Surprised at the generous quantity of reading matter that we are giving for five cents; delighted with the fascinating interest of the stories, second only to those published in the Tip Top Weekly.

Matt has positive mechanical genius, and while his adventures are unusual, they are, however, drawn so true to life that the reader can clearly see how it is possible for the ordinary boy to experience them.

_HERE ARE THE TITLES NOW READY AND THOSE TO BE PUBLISHED_:

1--Motor Matt; or, The King of the Wheel.

2--Motor Matt's Daring; or, True to His Friends.

3--Motor Matt's Century Run; or, The Governor's Courier.

4--Motor Matt's Race; or, The Last Flight of the "Comet."

5--Motor Matt's Mystery; or, Foiling a Secret Plot.

6--Motor Matt's Red Flier; or, On the High Gear.

7--Motor Matt's Clue; or, The Phantom Auto.

8--Motor Matt's Triumph; or, Three Speeds Forward.

9--Motor Matt's Air Ship; or, The Rival Inventors.

10--Motor Matt's Hard Luck; or, The Balloon House Plot.

11--Motor Matt's Daring Rescue; or, The Strange Case of Helen Brady.

12--Motor Matt's Peril; or, Cast Away in the Bahamas.

13--Motor Matt's Queer Find; or, The Secret of the Iron Chest.

14--Motor Matt's Promise; or, The Wreck of the "Hawk."

15--Motor Matt's Submarine; or, The Strange Cruise of the "Grampus."

16--Motor Matt's Quest; or, Three Chums in Strange Waters.

To be Published on June 14th.

17--Motor Matt's Close Call; or, The Snare of Don Carlos.

To be Published on June 21st.

18--Motor Matt in Brazil; or, Under the Amazon.

To be Published on June 28th.

19--Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn.

To be Published on July 5th.

20--Motor Matt Makes Good; or, Another Victory for the Motor Boys.

PRICE, FIVE CENTS

At all newsdealers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers upon receipt of the price.

STREET & SMITH, _Publishers_, NEW YORK

Transcriber's Notes:

Italics are represented with _underscores_, bold with =equal signs=.

Added table of contents.

Some inconsistent hyphenation (i.e. "war-like" vs. "warlike") retained from the original.

Page 14, changed "Ortera" to "Ortega" ("can't understand this Don Ramon Ortega").

Page 16, corrected "action" to "actions" in "The boy's actions were peculiar."

Page 26, changed "Ysabelle" to "Ysabel" ("Ysabel vanished into the tower").

End of Project Gutenberg's Motor Matt's Close Call, by Stanley R. Matthews