Evening Star Newspaper, September 25, 1921, Page 65

HE SUNDAY STA ® T R, WASHINGTON, D. C. SEPTEMBER 25, 1921_PART %. : A Tale of Mystery Cencerning a Jilted Suitor, a Dozen Photegraphs and a Charming Girl ELL'S first idea had been flight—to get away from 1 these statcly mansions by | the Hudson and lose himself in the great city below. “To look at me,” he thought, with a groan, as he turned into the upper reaches of Broadway, “ome Would mever think that I had been wounded | 0 And indeed he was right. Ex- cept for his expression, which had something pathetic in it, you would never have suspected that he had just been dealt a mortal thrust. “Marry you after this?” Margaret had said to him. “Not if you were the last man on earth!” Which * wasn't exactly original. when all is sald and done. “We have absolutely nothing in common,” she had con- ‘ tinued, watching him closely for vou can't talk: you can’t n’'t understand: you can't 1ake a joki u can't dance- He winced then. don’t believe that a <lumsier man ever stepped out on & floor. ‘Old Bumblefoot,” they call you—"" “It's a lie! he had growled. The mext moment she had given him back his ring and Mell had left her with the face of & man who is hur- rying out to self-desruction. “Don’t do anything rash!” she had | »d_after him mockingly. T'd like to see myself!" he scoffed, as he swung down Madison avenue. Tn his resentment, Mell dida't no- tice that his speedometer was trem- bling around “40,” nor did he see the three enormous trucks that were coming out of the side strcet, one closely following the other, like three friendly mastodons going down to_the river to drink. “Good night? said Meil, stepped upon his brake. Tt was too late. Ahead of three leviathans completely the street. To the right lamp post and a photographer’ Mell looked at the trucks and Jooked at the post. As the lesser of two evils he chose the post. AS Meil's perceptions grew clearer he became aware that his resting place was a photegravher's dv room, and that, bending over was a doctor and busines young woman, who was evidently in charge of the shop. “A narrow tor. 1t seemed Mell that the physician spoke almost with regre though this no doubt was imagina tion, for he was still light-headed. “How's the Z small, faint voice. wreck,” said the doctor. Would you like us to take a pho- tograph of it” eagerly inquired the young woman. Mell weakly nodded—in a way it was a sort of repayment for her hos- pitality—and she and the doctor went out. 3 “Seems like a nightmare” said Mell, who was feeling as though he: ould float if he tried to walk, “and I guess it will be a nightmare, too, | when Aunt Agnes hears about the: car.” His mind returning then to| firs causes, he added: “Lucky I wasn't Kkilled, or Margaret would always hav 1hought that I had done it because she | Jilted me.” Ho drew a deep breath and looked up at the framed photographs that | hung around him on the walls. “P'll bet it took most of them half an hour to get those careless-look- ing poses” he thought, with the trace of a grin. “But say—here's he as the blocked ! a E s * ok ok ok « said the a peach—" I The photograph over the couch at| which he was staring showed a quiet, serfous-eyed girl who was standing by a table on which a pug-! nosed Pomeranian _was _ perched, Jooking up at the girl with adoring eves. It couldn't have been her| dress that attracted Mell, for it was /| ovidently a dark suit of the sim-! plest possible design—and it couldn’t ! have been her hat, which was noth- ing but a dark straw with a narrow band of ribbon around it. And it couldn’t have been her studied pose, for she had none. i He was still looking at the pic- {fure, decp calling to deep, although he didn’t know it—when the brisk ! voung manageress entered. “We've laken the car.” she said. “How many prints would you like? “Oh, 1 don’t know,” said Mell care- lessly. “But tell me” he added, looking up aut the picture which had interested him so, “Who's this? Does she live around here? “f only wish I knew!” The young woman frowned. “She came in here about three months ago and fool- ishly enough 1 didn't take a de- posit. We made up a dozen and have them yet. We tried to deliver| them at the address which she! wrote down for us, but .she had moved away and left no other ad- dress. . . . Still it learned me a Jesson. If the Prince of Wales him- self came into this shop for a sitting tomorrow, he would have to pay a deposit.” When Mell left the photographer’s shop ten minutes later, he had the twelve pictures underneath his arm, and the raised flap on the cash reg- ister said “$20.” And not only did he have the pictures, but he had the gard en which the girl with the dog had written her name and address. Miss Molly Ingestre, 351 West 72d Street, New York City. Tt was a dashing, unmistakable handwriting. The capital " in “York” looked like Neptune's trident; the capital * in “Molly” resembled a three-legged stool on which the god | of the sea might rest himself. * % * % F course, it was reprehensible in Afell to have bought the pictures, although it might be sald that he had acquired them in much the same spirit as he would have purchased a painting by Asti, or one of Benda's beautiful heads of Miss America. But when he finally reached his room and had looked at the pictures longer than was good for him he did an ut- terly indefensible thing, for which it ~an cnly be pleaded that he must have been still unbalanced from the shock of his accident—to say nothing of the sting he felt for having been jilted that morning. “I know what I'll do!” he suddenly told himself. “I'll send one of these pictures to Margaret and make her think that I've had another girl all the time——" To which thought he added the distinctly inelegant reflec- tion: “I'll make her think she's not the only pebble on the beach!” Disguising his hand as well as he| could, he wrote across the bottom on one of the photographs, Yours ever— Molly to Mell. And in his own handwriting he com- wosed the following note to the lady who had so recantly worn his ring: “Dear Margaret: Do you think it likely that I shall do ‘anything rash’ with such consolation near at hand? With best wishes for your future happiness, T am- He thought for a minute how best close it, and live. and partly in answer to the five- fpost,” he mused, THE FINGER OF FATE BY GEORGE WESTON ILLUSTAATED BY ARTHUR WILLIAM BROWN way, she had always made a pet of Master Mell. This may sound nice, but it very often wasn't, for Aunt Agnes was one of those thorough old ladles who love and hate with equal_intensity—and everything she didn't love, she ha,t.od.| and did it well, too. She had a com- manding voice when excited, and such a.manner that even the servants | referred to her with unconscious awe | as “the macam.” | “I wonder what she'll say,” thought | Mell, “when she hears about the car!” | He had decided to stuy in the city | until the storm had a chance to blow | over. and had written his aunt an ac- | count of his adventure with the jamp- Mrs. Ransellaer was stay- t summer at the old family manor the Hudson, her’ town house on on Park avenue being closed until her return in October. So Mell had gonc to his club and there he waited for Aunt Agnes’ lightning to strike him. He didn’t have long to wait. “Dear Melville,” she wrote back. T'm glad you're not hurt. I happened to be in the room when Margaret received your photograph. What a beautiful girl! “I shall come to New York next Mon- D YOU day afternoon on the & o'clock train, | and shall stay a day or two. Please £0 to the house and have the second floor well aired. When I come I should like to meet this ‘Molly' of yours. I, take it, of course, that her family is a good one. “Margaret had aready told me that you had decided to disagree. At first! 1 was furious,” but when I saw the photograph you sent her. I began to forgive you—" Mell read the letter three times and | then he slowly turned to one of the| remaining eleven photographs. | “Young lady.” said he, “within the | last few days I've lost a fiancee and ! a perfectly good car. And now some- | thing tells me that uniess I find you within the next few days, I'm going to lose a legacy and a perfeetly good | aunt!” 1 The more Mell thought it over, the | less he liked it. “If there's one thing that Aunt Ag- nes 't stand,” he groaned to him- self, “it's lies or deception in any way, shape or form. And now if 1 have to tell her the truth about Molly, she'd never believe me again as long as 1 T've got to find that girl, and I've got to find her very, very soon!” The address which Molly had writ- ten upon the card was one of those ex- clusive boarding houses which have | the outward and inward appearance of | private dwellings. A colored girl in| » white cap and apron answered Mell's| ring. 3 i fiies Molly Ingestre? Yessuh!” she | said, partly in answer to his question, dollar bill which he ostentatiously held be- tween his fingers. “Her paw lived here for quite a spell—a fine old gem- ‘Ah_don't_eare what dey says. s Molly, at first, she was away at bo-ding scheel, but fin'ly she came home to her paw. Just what the trouble is AR don’t know, but all atl once they left here very sudden and | didn’t leave no address behind ’em. There's been quite a few inquiring after 'em since they went—pelice . detectives, I think some of them was. “Last Thursday, on_mah_afternoon out, Ah was over on East 55th street near Park avenue and Ah saw Miss Molly walking along on the other side of the street as though she lived around there somewherés and was doing the shopping.” 'Was she alone?” Well, suh, there was nobody walk- ing side by sitde. And maybe Ah imagined it, but it seemed to me that not far behind her was one of those same police detectives who had been around here a time or two inquiring for her paw!” * k ok X I'l' occurred to Mell later that never before had he bought anything for five dollars which had given him such a rich range of emotions. but after he had returned to his room and had looked long and earnestly at the pie- ture on his dresser, one thought in his mind gradually grew head and shoulders above all the others—one of those fine commanding thoughts that have dominated the maseuline mind since first this ancient world began to spin. “What? That girl do_anything wrong?’ he asked him- self. “She couldn’t if she tried!” 1t was thus perhaps that the sailors spoke when first they saw the siren— or Rhenish boatmen when they gazed at_the golden Lorelel. ‘When Mell went out the next morn- ing he told himself that he was merely going for a stroll, but it wasn't long before his feet had taken him to the cornre of Park avenue and 55th street. Less than a block away was his aunt's house, boarded up for the summer. “Imagine her being as close as this,” he thought, and for a moment his sense of adventure gave way to that feeling of awe which comes upon us all at times when we marvel at the fates. “If 1 hadn’t hit the lamp- wouldn't _have seen her picture. And if I hadn't i | i | then, “yours cordially,” he wrote, with a bitter little flourish of his pen, “Old Bumblefoot.” Heretofore you have heard him briefly styled ‘as Mell, but his full name was Melville Van Ransellaer Scrymser, and although you might not think it of one with a name like that, he had been born as poor as any Tom, Dick or Harry. But although he was poor himself, Mell's Aunt Agnes was the Mrs. Van Ransellaer, and in her autocratic, overbearing -t seen her picture I might have lved | here all this winter and never hlvai known that she was even living—" But she was living and, what was| more to the point, Mell had simply got %o find her, ' There was not the least | doubt about that. Yet all that morn- ing and all that afternoon he strolled and looked in vain; and although hé had his lunch and dinner at the win- dow table of an upstairs restaurant, and kept his eyes on the street, he might just as well have watched the “AT LEAST YOU'LL LET ME SEE YOU ! difficult_as the first one, { went on hurriedly, “but in the mean- : everybody AS FAR AS YOUR DOOR/, N*T FOLLOW ME—OR I SHAL MUST. | salt and pepper, for all the good it did_him. The dinner was an unusually good| one, but Mell didn't-seem to enjoy his hopes of the morning growing weaker with every passing course. It was_dusk when he left the res- taurant, and he was just on the point of giving up the search for the day, | when his eyes fell upon a very proud- looking Pomeranian that was taking the air on the end of a leash. Mell glanced at the dog and then with a start he looked at the girl who was with i S Yes—it was certainly Molly. If anything, she looked a little more wistful than her photograph—a istfulness that had more sadness in it than Mell liked to see, and tha filled him more powerfully than cve with that strange desire to comfort her, which he had felt when he first aw her picture. But now that he ad found her, it suddenly came to him that another problem. quite as had simul- taneously presented itself for solu- tion. It is one thing to find a nic girl whom vou have never seen b fore, but it's quite another thing to make her acquaintance on the streets of a large cit Upon reflection he decided to try strategy. The Pom was lagging be- hind, and its leash was a good two yards long. “Ill trip’ over the string.” thought, mopping his forehead. He did it better than he had expect- ed, and after he had picked himself up, it was only natural that he should heip to recapture the frightened dog. “I hope you didn't hurt yourself,” said the girl, with a glance in which | gratefulness and formality were | agreecably blended. ! “Not—not a great deal.” said Mell She made a precise little bow with her head—a bow which spelled “dis missal” in unmistakable letters—but, blushing to his eyebrows, Mell settled himself to the task before him and walked along by her side. “I hope you won't think I'm a bounder—or anything of that sort,” he began, “but I—I have a reason. Of course I know that it absolutely isn’t done, but I wish you'd let me introduce ‘myself—until we can find | some mutual friend. My name isi Melvills Serymser—my aunt is Mrs. Van Ransellaer—she lives on_Park | avenue just around the corner here— and she likes your picture very much—"" Molly, her cheeks as red as Mell's, had been walking along with a sort of icy disdain, but this last stam- mered remark surprised her in spite of herself and she gave him a glance that had quite as much curiosity as dignity in it. “I'll"tell you about that later,” he I generally go | { | now the more the sense of adventure he i | I time please don't think that I'm any- thing that I shouldn’t be. Nearly around Here knows me. This florist, for Instance—my aunt trades here—and this property on the corner—she owns it nearly down to the next block—" They had come to a baker's shop and _the girl stopped at the doorway. “Can come in with you?' he pleaded. They looked at each other, then with that silent fntentness with which most of the important things of life are decided, and what they saw in each otHer's eves no omne could tell you but their own two selves; but when the glance was fin-| ished it might be said that they both seemed unconsciously satisfied: * K kX ‘HE baker knew that Mell, and the respect with which he spoke to his landlady’s nephew might have helped a lttle; and when they left the bake- shop Mell was carrying the cake which Molly had bought. At all events, it wasn’'t long before they were sauntering along and chatting as young people have sauntered and chatted since time immemorial, and every time she spoke, and especially every time she smiled in her wistful way, Mell felt his admiration for her growing deeper and deeper, as a swimmer walking out from shore gradually approaches the place where the depth of the water will carry him off his feet. “Nine o’clock!” she gasped at last, when a neighboring church clock chimed thé hour. “L must run home e At Jeast you'll: let me see you =% far as your door,” said Mell “No, no; you mustn’t!” she object- SAID WELL. ! ing house recurred to him. | because e g o “NO, NO; YOU MUSTNT! NEVER SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN.” ed before the words were hardly out of his mouth. “You—you mustn't come—and you mustn’t follow me or I shall never speak to you again “But when shall I see you?" pro- tested Mell in hi% tnrni She considered, giving him that glance Which is mentioned above. “I to the baker's—at the same time every evening,’ she said: And the next moment she was gone. The more Mell thought it over filled and thrilled him. “A queen—oh, a queen himself, “but didn’t want me to know where she lived. * The servant's gossip at the board- “A lot of rot!” he scoffed. “As if a girl like that could be mixed up in anything wrong * * * All the sam he thought with a slight frown, “I wish there wasn’'t any mystery about it— Aunt Agnes will want to know all about her.” That noon he lunched again at the upstairs restaurant. and there he aw Nicky Manning, ome of their Park avenue neighbors. Nicky was evidently in a state of considerable tement. ‘Our_house was robbed last night!"” he said, breathlessly. “Yes! Somebody siraply unlocked the door and walked ip—and nearly every locked door in the house was wide open this morn- ing. Opened mother's jewel-safe, to but she has everything with her ap at he told iRar Harbor except an old ginger- bready diamond ring, and they took fhat. Didn’t take anything else. Wait, T'IF show it to you. “But how can you show fit to me?’ asked Mell, “if they took it.” “That's the funny part of it,” ex- | claime@ Nicky—“the ring came back by mail this morning wWith a label fastened to it. Here! What do you think of this?” He drew from his pocket a smail cardboard box. The ring was evi- dently an old engagement token, and fastened to it was a tag bearing the following remarkable caution: *You ought to have better locks” Mell's eyes chanced to fall upon the address written on the cardboard box in which the ring had been returned, and instantly his indifference fled. ¥ It was unmistakable. “Good Lord!" he thought, with a sinking heart— “it’s Molly's writing!” Mell met her again that night—snd the next—and the next—and although a number of times he was seriously close to asking her about Nicky's ring, he could never quite get it out. “And anyhow,” he tried 'to tell him- self, “it may not be her writing after all, and she’d never forgive me if she knew that I had ever associated her in my mind with a bunch of crooks. s * » Jt's a crazy notlon, anyhow. he added, with a glance at thé wist- ful-eyed girl by his side. “It must be somebody who writes a lot like her; that's all” Besides, there was so much else to talk about, and the more they talked the deeper Mell found himself in that swift current which catcheés every man at some stage of his life's jour- ney. World-old dreams surrounded him like flecey clouds a a moon. World-old wonders filled him with fears and doubts. * *x ¥ ¥ OW was it that no one had ever snapped her up before? That seemed incredible to Mell—x pusale for the ages. “I wonder if she could ever get to love a dub fike me!” THis bothered him more than you mifght| imagine. X He was on his way to his aunt’s house—* to air the second floor"— this being the afternoon of her arrival in town on the 4 o’clock train. “Qf course, it's too soon to ask Molly to meet her yet.” he fold him- self as he hurried along Park ave- nue, “but I hope it won’t be long. And if there’s anything about Molly’s family that Aunt Agnes doesn't like —well, I shall marry her, anyhow— if she’ll have me. There must be some way in this big town that I can earn a living. As he approached the house, boarded and closed for the summer, he met Molly strolling with the Pom, but for gsome reason Molly seemed embar- rassed when she saw Mell. “Don't—stop -and talk to me now,” ahe pleaded. ‘Please go on* Ot if you don’t want me—" safd Mell, and with a mere glance at Molly he turned into the area-way of T wonder why she! his aunt’s house. Perhaps you can imagine his astonishment when Molly suddenly joined him there, her hand upon his arm and a look of terror in the depths of her eves. * “What are you going to do?’ she gasped, and he noticed ‘that her breath came quickly. “I'm going in, of course” he re- plied. “This is my aunt's house— she’s coming into town this after- noon.” “Oh, I didn't know 3ue! But please don’t go in now,” she added. “Let's—go for a walk. I want to show you something—over on 5th svenue. Let's go for a nice, long walk; shall we?" It might have been dimly, but Mell began to see that something was wrong, and all the old suspicions re turned. With a sudden air of reso- lution he turned to the grilled doer that led to the basement, thz key already in his hand. “What are you going to do?" begzed Hol'ly, at his side in an instant. “I'm going In,” he sternly replied. One of her hands closed around his wrist and the other raised to her lips a silver whistle that hung on the ¢nd of the Pom's leash. But before che coulé blow it Mell ran his free arm around her elbows and pinned them helpless against her quivering body. “Look here,” he said, as sternly ae Lefore, “who's in this house”" “It—Iit's Dad,” she told him with a broken little cry. When Aunt Agnes had written that she would arrive on the four o'clock train that day, Mell had overlooked the fact that owing to local daylight- saving ordinances clocks and trains don’t always run together. Accord- ing to the watch in his pocket it was only ten minutes past three when he suddenly discovered that there was a burglar in his aunt’s house; but as a rather disturbing matter of fact, Aunt Agnes had caught an ecarlier train than she had expected and at that very moment she was in a taxi spceding along to her Park avenue home. At first, when Molly had told him who was in the house, Mell thought 8he had fainted, the life seemed to confined within his circling arm. He hastily unlocked the door and half led, half carried her inside. ‘Now. you sit here,” he said, gulding her to a chair near the window, “and by the time I've found out what's going on upstairs, perhaps you'll feel better, and we'll be able to talk this thing over.” He went up to the floor above, but caught no sight of an intruder. Onoce he thought he heard a noise in the basement. “Molly, I guess.” Think- ing that she was making her escape, he drew a bitter sigh and started for the floor above. “Old Bumblefoot, first; to himself, “and then Molly, the Yeggman's beautiful daughter—I'm not very lucky in love—"" * kK * T ‘HE second floor, too, secemed empty, and’ after a cautious search Mell started up another flight. He was nearly at the top of the stairs when 2 movement in the main hall below caught his eye, over the banisters Two floors below Molly had hold of the arm of a silk-hatted old gentle- man and was urging him tward the front door. “I'm going to get a look at that old boy.” muttered Mell, as he skim- med down the stairs. The carpet was thick and apparently neither Molly nor her father heard him coming. As Mell approached them from behind, the old gentlemzn was busy with the lock of the front door, and was evi- dently having trouble with it. “I wonder why they don't go down through the basement,” thought Mell From outside came the noise of a taxi briskly moving away. and firm, as- he mourned cending footsteps were heard on the| basement stai “For Hezven's gake!” muttered Mell as the basement door swung open— “it’s Aunt Agnes!” By that time he had reached Molly's side and gave a quick glance at her father who had spun around at the sound of the.opening door. Mell caught a glimpse of a mahogany cane with a gold handle, dove-colored g0 out of the body which was still LORD FISHER. Baron Fisher. admiral of the fleet (Johm Arbuthnot_Fisher), born, 1841: entered navy. 1864: took part in 1860 i the capture of Cantop and -the Peiho forts: Crimenn war. 1855: China war, 1866-60 bardment of ‘A the _admiraity. im-chief 180799 MediterraneAn station. 02: commander-iw-chief. 1908-08; first sea lord, 1004-10; 191415, Died. 1920. Egyy lexandria. | O man T have ever met ever gave me 5o authentic a feel- ing of originality as this dare-devil of genlus, this pirate of public life, who more than any other Englishman saved British democracy from a Prussian domina tion. It is possible to regard him as a very simple soul mastered by one tre- mendous purpose, and by that purpose exalted to a most vald greatness. If this purpose be kept steadily in mind, one may indeed see In Lord Fisher something quite childlike. At any rate it is only when the overmastering purpose is forgotten that he can be scen with the eyes of his enemies; that is to say, as a monster, & scoun- drel and an imbeclle. He was asked on one occasfon if he had been a little ulscrupulous in get- ting hfs way at the admiralty. He re- plied that if his own brother had got in front of him when he was trying to do something for England, he would have knocked that brother down and walked over his body. Here is a man, let us be quite cer- tain, of a most unusual force, a man conscious in himself of powers greater than the kindest could discern in his cotemporarfes, a man possessed by a demon of inspiration. Fortunately for England this demon drove him in one | single direction; he =ought the safety, jhonor ana glory of Great Britain. If i his cotemporaries had been traveling whole-heartedly in the same direction I have no doubt that he might have | figured in the annals of the admiralty as something of a saint. But, unhap- pily, many of Mis associates were not so furiously driven in his direction, and finding his urgings inconvenient and vexatious, they resisted him to the point of exasperation; then came the struggle, and, the strong man win- ning, the weaker went off to abuse him, and not only to abuse him, but to vilify him and to plot against him, and lay many snares for his feet. He will never now be numbered smong the saints, but, happily for England, he was not destined to be found among the martyrs. | * k% % E has said that in the darkest hour of his struggle he had no one to support him save King Edward. So- clety was against him; half the ad- { miralty was crying for his blood; the politicians wavered from one side to the other; only the king stood fast and bade him go on with a good heart ‘When he emerged from this tremen- dous struggle his hands may not have been as clean as the angels could have wished, but the British navy was mo Artificial G ARTIFICIAL precious stones, or stones made in imitation of those that are precious, have come into favor with women who, a few years ago, would have scorned to deck themselves with what we used to call “snide” or “phony” jewelry. And | there are reasons. The synthetic stone {has arrived. The synthetic processes, or the processes of finding out the lchemlcu elements of & stone and then putting these elements together in their proper proportion to duplicate: or closely simulate the stone as na- ture made it, have progressed so far) that the natural-and artificial stones of certain classes can be distinguished one from the other only by microscopic ' examination and certain other tests; with which only lapidaries are ac- quainted. i It is belleved that this it not true of diamonds. Here science and art have not nearly approached nature and the amateur who knows some- thing about diamonds is supposed to be ablé to distinguish between the true and the false at & glance. But in the case of rubies, emeralds and sap- phires it is different. They mzke these stones o well that it is believed by many persons of good taste that they are as be l as the preclous stones and that, their genuineness or falseneps can be determined only by critical examination of the form of their crystallization and by the char- acter of the “flaws” or imperfections in_them. In the matter of pearls, there is much dispute. iful pearls are made by man, but many lovers of pearls say that the artificial does not. compare with flie natursl. The fact is that & great number of women have overcome part of the aversion to wearing imitation precious stoses which they entertained & few years 2g0. : next moment his aunt’s words claimed all_his attention. “So this is Molly!" said Aunt Agunes. Molly gave = atartied look, her eyes wet with tears. . A"D')fl'r be frighiened, child,” said | unt hands and, drawing the astonished giri_to her, she kissed her. “There, there, ting her shoulder, ‘wouldn't ery—"" Then, she turned to the gray-beard- ed old gentleman near the door. “This is Molly’s father,” said Mell, hurriedly. “Mr. Ingestre, this is my aunt, Mrs. Van Ransalleer.” “Mr. Ingestre,” repeated Aunt Agnes, with a gaze of one who Is searching faf back iIn the memory— “It isn't a common name, but surely you aren’'t any relation to old Stuy- vesant Ingestre who insisted that each of his three sons should learn a trade.” “Stuyvesant Ingestre was my fath- er,” repiied the old gentleman. “Then which are you—the black- smith? Or the taflor? Or—let me see hat was the ather one? 'he other ome was u locksmith,” smiled Molly's father with an utter disregard for grammar, “and that one's me!” “You must be awfully mystified; about dad,” said Molly to Mell the next | evening, “and yet it's simple enough | to explain.” H Molly and her father were visiting “Twin Gables” s the guests of Aunt Agnes, and after dinner Molly and Mell had set out for a stroll. “From the things I have heard,” she continued, “grandfather must have been an eccentric old gentleman—and dad’s a little bit that way, too. When he had learned his trade he made up his mind that he was going to invent a Jock that simply couldn’t be opened without the proper key. | e spent a frightful lot of money | in experimenting with different kinds of locks—and finally he thought he had it. He called his new lock the Penguin and a big factory was built | to make them. { “He had to borrow money to start | his factory, but the lock was a tre- spats and a neat gray beard, but the mendous success. About a year ago, SOME POLITICAL REFLECTIONS By “A Gentleman With a Duster.” 2 way to pick the Penguin. little bunch of adjustable master keys nes kindly. She held out both |that would open any Penguin lock that had ever been made and—- | you first- though, a group of his partners forced him out of the company, and it nearly broke his heart. “They aidn’t know that he had found He had a “Of course, he couldn’t trust his ad- justable keys to anybody eise, %o he® simply began undoing Penguin locks, wherever he saw them. had Even if he bsen arrested, I dont think he would have cared much, because it would have given publicity to the fact that he wanted everybody to know. Anyhow, owners began to complain that the lock wasn't any good as & protection, and it wasn't long before the news spread and sales fell off enormously. “Dad still had a few warm friends Ia the company_and yesterday, just he- fore we left New York. he had a vism from two of them. The other part- ners are willing to sell out now for anything they can get, and his friends want dad to go back and take control, and reorganize the company " “He certainly is a wonder,” saia Mell, laughing, “but then I might have known that he was—" “Why?" she asked innocently enough. “Because he has such a wonderful daughter.” They walked along then for a time !in silence, and somehow their hands met—and somehow, 100, they failed to part again. Presently 1 came to a bench that overlooked the river, and they sat down. “There’s one thing, though, that T can’t understand,” said Molly at last. “How did your aunt happen to recog- nize me when she caught us in her house yesterday afternoon?” “It's a long story.” he said, “and—T have another story that I want to tell Perhaps she caught the meaning in his voice. At any rate xhe looked at him with such a glance of tender in- quiry, that partly in silence and partly in tremulous speech, he told her the other story—that old, sweet story which can never dle. (Copyright, 1921. Al rights reserved.) THE MIRRORS OF DOWNING STREET » longer scattered over the pleasant waters of the earth, was no longer thinking chiefly of its paint and brass, was no longer a pretty sight from Mediterranean or _Pacific shores—it was almost the dirtiest thing to be seen in the North sea, and quite the deadliest thing in the whoie world as regards gunnery. This was Lord Fisher's superb serv- ice. He foresaw and he prepared. Not merely the form of the fleet was revolutionized under his hand, but its spirit. The British navy was bap- tized into a_new birth with the pea- soup of the North sea. When this great work was accom- plished he ordered a ship to be built which should put the Kiel canal out of business for many years. That done, and while the Germans were spending the marks which otherwise | would have built warships in widen- ing and deepening this channel to the north sea, Lord Fisher wrote it down North sea, Lord Fisher wrote it down in 1914, and that Capt. Jellicoe would be England’s Nelson. From that moment he lost some- thing of the hard and almost brutal expression which had given so for- midable a character to his face. He gave rein to his natural humor. He let himself go, quoted more freely from the Bible, asserted more posi- tively that the English people are the lost tribes of lsrael, and waited for Armageddon with a_humorous eve on the perturbed face of Admiral Tirpits. In July, 1914, he was out of oflice. A telegram came to him from Winston Churchill, first lord of the admiralty, i requesting to see him urgently. Lord | Fisher refused to see him, believing that Churchill had jockeyed Reginald McKenna out of the admiralty—Mr. McKenna who had most bravely, nay heroically, stood by the naval esti- {mates in face of strong cabinet oppo~ isition. On this ground he refused to meet Mr. Churchill. But a telegram from McKenna followed, urging him {to grant this interview, and the meet- ing took place—a te meeting |away from London. Churchill informed Lord Fisher of the facts of the European situation, and asked him for advice. The facts !were sufficient. to convince Lord Fisher that the tug-o'-war between Germany and England had begun. He | told Churchill that he must do three | things and do them all by telegram before he left that room—he must mobilize the fleet, he must buy the ! dreadnaughts building for Turkey iand he must appoint Admiral Jel- licoe commander-in-chief of the grand fleet. To do efther of the first two was a_serious breach of cabinet disci- pline; to do the last was to offend a string of admirals senior to Ad- { miral Jellicoe. Churchill hesitated. Lord ‘Fisher insisted. “What does it matter,” he said, “whom you offend? The fate of Engiand depends on you. Does it matter if they shoot you, or hang you, or send you to the Tower. 50 long as England is saved?’ And /Churehill did as hg was bidden—the ‘greatest act in his life and perhal one of the most courageous acts the history of statesmanship. Lord Fisher said afterward, “You may mot | { LORD FISHER. like Winston, but he has got the heart of a lion.” *x % THUS was Englend saved and Ger- many doomed. Before war was declared the British fleet held the seas, and in command of the fleet was the quickest working brain in the navy. On one occasion, during the dark days of the war, I was lunching at the admiralty with Lord Fisher, who had then been recalled to office. He appeared rather dismal, and to divert him I said, “I've’ got some good news for you—we are perfectly safe and Germany is beaten.” He looked up from his plate and regarded me with {lugubrious eves. I then told him that! Lord Kitchener had been down at! Knole with the Sackvilles and had spent a whole day in taking blotting paper impressions of the beautiful moldings of the doors for his house at Broome. “Does that make you feel safe?” he demanded; and then, pointing to the maid servant at the sideboard, he added, “See that parlormaid? Well,| she’s leaving; vesterday I spent two, hours at Mrs. Hunt’s registry office interviewing parlormaids. Now, do! You feel safe?” _His return to, the admiralty brought him no happiness—save when he sent Admiral Sturdee to sea to avenge the death of Admiral Cradock. He was perhaps too insistent om victory, a; crushing_and overwhelming victory, for a fleet on which hung _the whole safety of the allies and a fleet which had experienced the deadly power of the submarine. He was certainly not too old for work. .To the last, looking as if he was bowed down to the point of' exhaustion by his labors, he outworked all his sub- ordinates. As for energy, he would have hanged I know not how many admirals if he had been in power during the last stages of the war. His experience of Downing street filled him up to the brim with con- tempt for politicians. It was not so ' snuch their want of brains that froubled him, but their total lack of vharacter. Omly here and there did' he come across a man who had the properties of leadership in even a winor degree; for the most part they eye for the horizon or for the hills Wwhence cometh man's sal- t ation; were all ears; and those fars wi leaned te the ground to <atch thej rumbles of political emer- | wencle. To find men at the head of so great a nation with no courage in the heart, with no exaltation of cap- taincy in the soul. without even the decency to make sacrifices for princi- ple, made him bitterly contem; us At first he could scarcely bridle his rage, but as years went on he used to say that the politiclans had deep- ened his falth in Providence. God A ot nive periihed yeRvE ag0ne. In his old ag~ he ceaselessly quoted® the lines of William Watson: . Titne, and the ocean, and some fostering stap Ia high cabal have made us what we ure. and damned the politician with ail the vigor of the Old Testament ver- nacular. I have often listened to a minis-§ ter's confidential gossip about Lord Fisher; nothing in these interesting confidences struck me so much as the seif-satisfaction of the little miniss® ter treating the man of destiny as an amusing lunatic. (Copyrighted by G. P. Putuam's Soms. Alf" Tights reserved.) The First American. THE American Indian may not only be descended from the first Amer can, but he may also be descended from the first family of the world. That is a theory held by some men. It is disputed, but so, too, are nearly all theories which cannot be demons strated. Some scientists contend that the forebears of our Indians did not cross to America from Asia, Africa or Europe, but that the first Indian was the original man. They believe that the American continent is the oldest land in the world, and that the first part of this contineat which emerged from the seas that wrapped the carth: were the Laurentian Hills, north of Lake Superior. They believe that th first man of the carth appeared in that region and that the American In- dians are descended from that man. ‘There are a multitude of theories as (to the kind of climate America had a: that time, and in the matter of the time they also disagree. The begin- ning of America is estimated at a hundred millions of years. Nobody knows. The thing cannot be proved. The age of the rocks and the relation of one set of rocks to another are dif- ferently interpreted by different men. One theory is that the Indian is de- scended from the Egyptian or Car: thaginian peoples or from one of the races which dwelt in the regions in- habited by the Egyptians, Assyrians. Babylonians, Phoenicians or Cartha- ginians, and that they came to Amer- ijca when there was a continent called Atlantis, which lay in the At- lantic between Europe and Africa on the east and America on the west. Some men of science say that the Indians did not come from Africa. but from Europe. and that the bronze- skinned men found here by the first explorers of record were related to the barbarian tribes which once dwelt in the lands we call England, Ireland and Wales. The most popular theory put forth to account for the presence of the Indians on this continent is that they were Mongolians who came from Asia by way of the Aleutian islands and Bering strait and whose descendants spread over the land to the south and east. In spite of the fact that anthropolo- gists and ethnologists have made long and earnest study of the American In- dian, there has never been any agree- ment among them whetler the In- ‘ dians were the first race to inhabit. Americg. wiere thev came from and how leng they had been here at the |time of the coming of the first whites. i Wonderful Sun Clouds. HEORIES as to what the sun is and how it manages to supply such a marvelous quantity of light and heat, a very small fraction of which suffices to keep the earth a liviag planet, must always command great interest when they come from men of high standing in science. If such theories do not cover the whole truth, at least, they teach something that we did not know or had not thought of before. Not long ago an eminent scientist restated some ideas of his about the sun which were originally put forth more than thirty-five years ago. He thinks that late discoveries have tended to confirm his theory. In his view the photosphere, which is the shining shell of the sun that we see, and from which most of its radiations proceed, consists of sooty clouds raised to a temperature of in- candescence. These blazing clouds are on an average two or three hundred miles broad and several hundred long. Between them is seen a less luminous background producing the appear- ance of pores, familiar to all who have looked at the sun with a power- ful telescope. This darker background, according to the scientist mentioned, may be a second layer of heated cloud com- posed of transparent material, which is capable of scattering the light that falls upon it, while itself radiating less abundantly than the sooty clouds above, 80 that it appears darker by comparison. Or the dark back- | ground may mark a level in the sun where a sudden increase of density and an abrupt change from the trans- parent atmosphere above to a condi- tion of opacity beneath take place. This would present the appearance of the refiecting of a molten ocedn Such an ocean would also radiate less abundantly than the clouds above, thus appearing darker. Tae dark centers of sun Spots are, ac- cording to the theory, parts of the same underlying ocean Of emfew= ceivably hot vapor, or liquid, which yet does not shine as brilliantly as the upper clouds. ‘THis idea that the centers of sun spots; which sometimes appear ac- tually dark, are in fact only dark by comparison, is not, of course, & new one. We know, indeed. by experi. mesit that the darkest part of a sun is reallly brighter than a cal- = cium light. Think, then, of the blaz- ing splendor of the surrounding so! clouds, which are capable of mak! S0 msiiant 3 brightness appear