Chapter III (2)

"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?

FOOTNOTES:

[4] From "Nautical Lays of a Landsman," by Wallace Irwin. Copyright, 1904, by Dodd, Mead & Co.

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. 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.