Evening Star Newspaper, July 8, 1923, Page 68

Sam Wanted to Feel as if Were a Little Something to Do Himself About the YRTLE COREY married the Briggs boy and things began to go to wrack and ruin in our office. Old Preston Gibbs was %00 slow to handle all the thousand little details connected with the business of publishing a small-town daily newspaper. Old Pres' knew he was “failing down on the job,” and the knowledge made him more nervous and slip- shod than ever. Besides, he needed the sixteen dollars which he drew every Saturday afternoon, because his wife was in poor health and he had a butterfly daughter, Ruth, born late in his married life, who was graduating from high school and un- reasonable at times in her demands on her fathers thin purse. His at- tempts to maintain the pace were pathetic. He was a bookkeeper of the old school, and his years sat heavily upon him. The sun of his commercial worth had set, and he knew it. One day George Kenyon, our make- uUp man, couldn’t get his ad proofs corrected promptly in the front office, @nd as that delayed the make-up, he finally came in and talked curtly to ©ld Pres'. The 0ld man broke down and shed tears, for which George tmme- diately ashamed and sorry. George said that since Myrtle had gone the front office was a gob of gloom any- how, and ought to have somebody like Happy Sally Brown in it to cheer things up. That gave us the fdea. We reached her by phone and explained what we wanted. It W ubout 2 ock of a Friday after- noon when she responded in person. Her real name was Evelyn Brown, but she was Happy Sally to all and o'c L matden lady who would never see thirty-five again, with eves 2nd halr as black as the wing of a raven and a figure that reminded Tncle Joe *of the Great Fastern in & fog.” At times in the spring she walked with a slight limp, a chronic tlar affliction. X ared cheerfully, as she limped in, “I'm here! Can I get the job?" “You can if you fill the bill." Sam Hod answered. “When could you start? “Now," said Tow much w “Fifteen dollars, promptly. We teen, “You're hired,” declared Sam. “Any- thing is better than thi And he made a despairing gesture that in- cluded the heaps of proofs, corre- spondence and general clutter spread over the office furniture and floor. Old man Gibbs looked up at the girl plaintively. Sam’'s declaration was a slam at his inefficlency. But Happy Sally only gave him a wink. The telephone bell rang. The edi- tor reached for it. “I'll_answer it!” sald Sally. She tossed her coat and hat at a hook and by some miracle they struck it and clung. She took the phone re- celver in one hand, scraped around among the papers with the other and Jound a pencil, kicked her rubbers ©ff under Myrtle's flat-top desk, called a cheery “Hello!” into the transmitter &nd bit off a chunk of the pencil in her fine hard teeth to get at the lead ®0 she could write, She got the item from the phone, meanwhile spreading the papers 1y. 1 you work for?" she responded had paid Mrytle eigh- for Him There ¥ Office < “No,” sald Sally. “I dropped in and got the mail on my way over. “Where is it?" ‘Oh, Jim Gilman needed copy for the linotype and I sorted out the country correspondence and. gave it to him. Mr. Gibbs wasn't very busy witi 2he’ books, so I gave him the checks and bills to work on.” “But where's the exchanges?' “Most of them I've clipped—the other machines went short of copy, too, 50 I ran through the papers and got out the state items of impor- tance. What's left of the coples yowll find on top the safe—and please pile them back in the same order or else throw them in the wastebasket.” ny proofs for me to read? Jim ought to have set a pretty good string last evening.” “I didn't have anything else to do, s0 T read them,” Sally informed him carelessly. Sam entered his little private of- fice. calling back: “Miller of the Metropolitan Drug Store is coming over this morning to see me about a page ad for his One-cent ‘sale. When he comes, let me know. “Mr. Miller’s been over; I fixed him up,” Sally informed him. “Daddy Joe was short of copy on the ad hook, so I sent the drug ad out to him. He's been working on it for half an hour.” “What do I do around here, any- how m asked weakly. But Sally didn't hear that. She was busy with the minister's wife, fixing up a little ad for the Friday food sale, signing for the first pony report of the Associated Press and showing an expressman where to de- posit the latest shipment of boiler- plate. lT a Tuesday morning in early April. Sally had been working for us about ten months. She had “dropped in" at the Bon Ton Mil- linery to interview little Miss Mor- gan about an ad for her new spring line of Easter hats. She looked a bit shabby, but she was smiling—she was always smiling. Julle Hathaway, Miss Morgan's only clerk, was selling a hat to Ruth Gibbs, the daughter of old Preston. Sally saw the price tag, it was $19. That is pretty high money for wom- en’s headgear in our little Vermont town of Parl “I'll take it,” said Ruth, “and you may charge it to father.” For the moment Sally's smile faded. After Miss Hathaway had noted the alterations to be made in the trimming and retired to the rear workroom, Sally left Miss Morgan and moved up front, where Ruth was idly viewing herself in various other “creations” Sally pretended to ad- mire the hat which the other girl had purchased. “But it comes awful high, Ruth,” she remonstrated. “Do you think you can really afford it? “Well, of all the nerv exclaimed Ruth. “What business is it of yours how much pay for a hat?” “I sort of rub elbows with your pa'in the course of the day's work. you know,” Sally explained quietly. “Sometimes he tells me his troubles. Most of them seem to bo financial. With your ma sick and all it's quite a load for him to carry. “He should have spine enough to get a better job,” was the tart reply. “It serves him right for working in that newspaper hole for all he gets, * ok % ok about the desk Into orderly piles, and never missing a syllable. “You don't mean Henry Wright; you mean George Wright,” she cor- rected. “Hen' Wright's dead!” She had lived in the place all her life, and knew every man, woman, child and dog by their first names, and who thelr forebears were, and how they were connected, and where every man worked, and how much money he drew, and how he got along with his wife and his wife's relations. She was more the wonder because she did it all without conscious effort. No one ever saw Happy Sally in a hurry. * % K ok T had been 2 o'clock when she came in, with proofs to read and a na- ver to go to press. Everybody was fussed up with the heavy week end load of Friduy advertising. By 3 o'clock every proof had been read and ) was out on George's stone. She had answered the phone twenty-one times and gathered every loose paper in the office Into one big pile which by 4 o'clock was sorted. Letters, many a week old, were put aside to be an-| swered as required. Worthless stuff | was jammed into a wastebasket. At 5 o'clock Sam came in from the back room with some moist copies of the paper; the duplex was grinding away merrily. ‘What's happened to my desk?” he demanded. “I cleaned it off,” thought it needed it." Sam's eyes shot to her own desk and he noted that for the first time in months he was beholding on Myr- tle's desk nothing but a spotless new Dlotter, an inkwell, a telephone and a tray of clips. “Great Caesar! Where's the stuff gone?’ he demanded. “I filed it," replied Sally, “But the letters! “I answered most of them. The rest gre in that little wicker basket awalting your attention.” Sam sat down weakly. said Sally. * The thing was cpochal. “You ought to get a woman in here | to clean this place,” suggested Sally. “Nobody can keep their work up in a grubby office.” - “I don’t know where to fiid a good wcrub-woman.” “I'll find one for you,” she volun- teered. By 8 o'clock next morning Fred Hasting’s widow was in there making * the suds fly. “Where'd you find her?” Sam want- ®d to know. “On, I just dropped in and spoke to her on my way home last night,” Sally responded. That was like Sally, too, that “dropping in. She “dropped in” at the Main street _ stores and got ads; she “dropped in” j with proofs for fussy advertisers to | 0. K.; she “dropped in” at lawyers' | ofoes and straightened out tangles, wnd into dootors houses and min- isters’ studies and got items. at his age in life.” “But he lsn’t as young as he was once, Ruth. Besides, your schooling is costing him a heap. You ought to be as economical as you can.” “Economical fiddlesticks!” the girl exclaimed. “I'm only young once, and I've got a right to happiness. If father can’t support me. I intend to find somebody who can. When I get as old as you are, Sally Brown, I don't intend to be pointed out as the ravel- ed end of a has-been romance—"" For a moment Happy Sally stood there with a face white as a sheet of paper. “Well,” she said in a strained voice when she had recovered her self-con- trol, “have it your own way. I sup- pose it serves me right for poking my mnose into other people’s affairs. But you ought not to do it, Ruth. Some day you may be sorr; “I'll take my chances,” the other assured her pertly with a toss of her head. When Sally came back to the office she studled old Preston Gibbs. Once he had been a good-looking man; traces of it still remained. She knew what others of ys did not until later— that there had been a sad romance be- tween this old bookkeeper and her own mother. But the two had quar- reled, and in a fit of pique Sally’s mother Kad married Asa Brown. Preston Gibbs had married one of the Harding girls and lived to rue it many times. Perhaps when Ruth married things might be easier for him, Sally reflected. But it certainly was & mystery how he managed to feed and clothe—especially clothe— his womenfolk on the wages he re- celved at the Dalily Telegraph office. * Kk x ¥ [ the following morning when Sally came and sat down behind her flat-topped desk her smile was gone again. Old Pres’ Gibbs had shuf- fled off to the post office for stamps. “Ruth Gibbs has been down to the Ready-to-Wear Shop and bought a dress costing $37 for the Elks dance,” she announced to Sam. “Well,” demanded Sam, “what of t! “She had it charged to her father.” Sam shrugged his shoulders, “It's up to Gibbs to take care of his own daughter,” he commented. “His money troubles are getting on his nerves. He's snarling up the bookkeeping badly,” Sally told him. “I wanted some statements of ac- counts yesterday to collect some bills. He was 21l the morning making them out, and there were 5o many mistakes in 'em I had to take his ledger during the noon-hour and scratch off what I wanted for myself. If this office doesn’t want to lose money it should have & more modern bookkeeping system, “I can’t fire the old chap,” sald Sam hopelessly. “He's been with us too long—" “You needn’t fire him, Mr. Hod. But Sam would come down to the of-1he ought to have & little tactful as- fice in the morning and say: “Funny, there wasn't a single plece 4 of mail in the post office’ box ghis ‘qmaznlng# sistance,” Sally suggested. “I can’t afford—" 4 “You don't need to afford anything. THE SUN]jAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JULY 8, 1923—PART 5. think I'm trying to work him out of a job I'll help him.” “You! For heaven's sake, haven't you enough to do around here now?” Sally's smile came back, at that. “There isn't enough work around here to keep more than one person busy more than half the time, any- how,” she declared. “If anybody's told you different, they've been stringing yo! That put it right up to Sam. To take over Pres’ Gibbs' bookkeeping was a mere trifle—or so she made it The announcement of this to the old man made him sick for a time. His weak eyes grew paler and more desperate. The night Ruth went to the EIk' ball in that new dress, Sally found him in the office alone, bowed over his desk, in his Dblue-velned hands a little faded photograph. It was a picture of the old Paris base ball nine of a generation ago— a famous nine. This red-tinted old | Our Sally had read that fairy-tale when a little girl and cried many tears over it. Was there a Prince Charming who might come and speak kindly to her, and let her disclose herself to him as the girl she still remained in her heart? Were there falries any longer? Resolutely, however, she finally put the day-dreams from her mind. Back she went to the tiresome snarl of old been taken one 4th the photograph had of July over -in Foxboro when boys had their g along. Lifting his aching eyes, the old man saw Sally and held out the photo- graph. And she saw, among those faces come to life again—her own mother's. She had been Pres' Gibbs' on that far off Independence when this old bald-headed man had been lithe and nimble enough to play “center outfield” and they had “wal- loped the Foxboro Academy Cata- mounts.” > Presently Sally realized Pres Gibbs' was talking. “I was happy in those days,” he ran on. “I was going to finish at the Seminary and go to law school and be a great attorney. Years ago that was—years and years ago “You did go to law school, didn't you?' Sally asked. A year. I used to think lots of your ma, Evelyn. You know that. She's there beside me in the pigture. When we had a difference, T sort of lost heart. I marrled Gracia Hard- ing, and her dad gave me a job in the sawmill. After that, with a wife to support, T had to glve up my studies. I was always going back next ‘year. Then pretty soon I was too old. Tom came and we buried him. Then Lilllan—then Ruthie. Lilllan was killed in the Flyer wreck—you re- member? She'd been up to Bur- lington to visit her grandma. Gracla took on terrible; maybe she ain’t en- tirely to blame for her shortness of temper. That left us with only Ruthie. And I've tried to do right by Ruthie—I've tried and tried, but somehow I never could seem to get ahead. How the years have gene! I'm old—old! TI've missed my alm and my target, both, I guess. Oh, to go back! To go back to the years when this plcture was taken!" He broke down then, and wept— wept out the sorrow of a lifetime. Tk ok ok ox “girl” that old ALLY tried to comfort him, but he would not be comforted. “Oh, if it had only been your ma, Evelyn!” he pleaded. “I can smell the wet lilacs yet, out behind her house’in the little sort of arbor where I used to meet her. I can hear the plano agaln in the evening and al- most see the blue mist of the spring sunsets as your ma and I walked out into the country and picked wild Sally told him then, “why she kept that little sprig of dried cherry blossoms in our family bible.” 0ld Pres' Gibbs gave an inarticu- late cry and got up and passed out into the night. You see that was more than he could stand. Happy Sally sank upon the chalr that he had vacated. ‘When forty years had passed, she wondered, would some life-weary soul weep for departed days and memories because of her? There is an old fairy-tale—you recollect i{t?—of a hag who hobbled about the earth on a crooked cane and bent beneath the load of fagots on her back. And then one day came a fair youth who protected th old hag from the missiles thrown by the boys, and spoke kindly to her. ‘When lo, the fagots fell from off her back; she straightened; her face and flgure changed; her rags dis- solved into garments of softne and by the magic touch of an invis- ible fairy's wand she stood before the young man the most beautiful Mh - Preston Gibbs' books. “WELL,” SHE DECLARED, CHEERFULLY, “I' IF YOU FILL THE BILI THE JOB?” “YOU CAN ANSWERED. night it was a badly disturbed S who sat staring into tanc ola accounts about §$4,500! It was characteristic of Sally that she should keep the sickening truth to herself and meditate whether to take it up first with old Pres' or recognize her prior responsibility to her employer. It was characteristic of her, too, that she should decide to | dow see old man Gibbs first. * % ¥ X T was 4 o'clock of a week-day afternoon. Old Pres' had failed to appear at his desk; h down toward noon t feeling well. thinking about his non-appearduce. She decided she could not wait any longer. She would g0 up to his house. Ruth Gibbs answered the bell. “I'd ltke to see your father,” he wasn't an- nounced Happy Sally pleasantly but ! fTiEht. insistently. “You can't! Pa's sick. And you've made him—you with your nosing around. As if you didn't have enous! to do there in the office, but had to go after father's job, too—and mak- ing him a nervous wreck for fear he was going to lose it.” “Your father isn't a nervous wreck for fear of losing his job,” Sally told her. “He is a nervous wreck for And at mld- | clouds was rolling up, lly | save where unseeing dis- | edges showed a vivid, luminous white. | | “You lie!” she shot out. “And if you don't lle, it serves Mr. Hod right for not paying father more than six- teen dollars a week.” “Take me to your father, Sally. “We'll see if T lfe. A hot breeze had been blowing all that afternoon. As Sally had started for the Gibbs house she had been conscious of low rumbles of thunder. Now in the northwest a mass of ordered HERE! CAN I GET ,” SAM HOD dead black, the fringed and curled As Sally entered the Gibbs house Pres’ Gibbs was short in his|at last, the trees began to sway fit- fully. Suddenly the daylight seemed to vanish as if blown out by some mightly breath. crash of thunder and a blinding glare of lightning accomplished the fast, big drops of rain. Old Pres' was sitting near a win- in his shirt-sleeves, his thin hands slowly swaying a palm-leaf fan. too respectfully, declared his daughter none “here's this Brown wife 'phoned | BIFl With a lot of slander about you stealing money from the Telegraph Sally was at her desk |©ofMice.” 0ld Pres’ gave a start and uttered a hoarse cry. t down, Mr. in her soft voice. Gibbs,” sald Sally “And send Ruth | out; I want to talk to you alone.” Ol Pres’ Gibbs gave a cry of Then In his shirt-sleeves, bareheaded, he sprang for the op- posite door. Down the back stairs he plunged and started blindly out 1 | into the rain. “I hope you see what you've done!" snarled his daughter. “He's—gone— crazy! * ok K K ITH sinking heart, Sally stood staring dully at the doorway through which Pres' had fled. Suppose old Pres' should head for fear of being found out,” Sally sald.'Green river and drown himself— INTO SALLY’S LIFE HAD COME THE PRINCE. “And he’s been found out, and I'm here to talk with him about it. T shouldn’t wonder, when the truth is known, but what you were sent to Jail Ruth stood rigid for a moment, her mouth a small round O. “Jail!" she gasped. “What do you mean? ‘What have I done?” “They’'ll probably get you as a re- celver of stolen goods.” Sally was not sure of her legal facts, but somehow it did not seem unreasonable to suppose that a daughter whose whims drove a father into embezzlement might fall into the class of “fences" and con- federates. “Has—my—father—" “Yes, he has! He's been systemat- fcally taking money from Mr. Hod which came through the mail for subscriptions. He changed the dates on the maliling lists all right, but he never entered the currency in the ledger. He's been putting it into his pocket to buy things for you!” For an instant Ruth was & very or take his life in some other way. “I'll go after him and bring him back!" she faltered. “I only wanted to help! She stumbled down the way the old man had taken and set off after kim through the blinding rain. The thunder barked and rattled and growled and crashed with growing force in a world that was half night. Branches of trees were breaking. Vivid whips of lightning lashed the valley. The rain was so dense that from one side of Main street it o= At the same 'time a | There Still Are Fairies’ Happy Sally Brown “took after” old | Pres’ Gibbs, feeling instinctively that {he would head for the river. Then, almost as suddenly as it had begun, the storm cea The sun burst out over a radiant, dripping world. People ventured from door- | ways and dwellings to appralse the extent of the damage. | Happy sally came back from the river after a time, satisfled old Pres’ had not gone there. Passing the rance to Riverview cemetery, | chanced to look in. And there among the graves she | caught sight of the man she was |after. He had leen frightened out of his frenzy b the violence of the storm. The world wis bathed in molten gold as Sally confronted him. The old man moved over to the steps of the Preston mausoleum and sat down. Sally shook out her skirts, twisted up her hair and sat down' beside him. “I know all about it, Mr. Gibbs, she said quietly. “But why did vou do it? Was ft—was it—Ruth?" “Ruthle—and her mother—yes,” he answered. “Things were so hard at home, and money was so scarce.” And he went back and told her what his life had been for years. Happy Sally listened, only inter- rupting with an occasional word of sympathy. And when the old man's story was finished Sally sat for a long time silent. Finally— “Mr. Gibbs,” she said, “that money’s got to be put back. It's Mr. Hod's. He's having a hard enough time to run his newspaper. Yes—it's got to be made up to him. “I can't give it back; I've spent it, spent it for Ruthie and her mother just to get some peace at home,” the old man answered. Happy Sally Brown hard. “I've got some money, Mr. Gibbs," she declared in a husky whisper, “It's what mother left me. I'll loan it to you. And If you can't ever pay it back—well—it won't matter much.” Old Pres’ turned away. T can't take it,” he muttered. Tl make you take it. It's the price of my silence,” Happy Sally Brown declared. “I didn't nose into your books expecting to discover a shortage. It just—happened. But I haven't told anybody yet—and I won't, providing you take the money mother left and make it up to Mr. Hod." “But Hod'll know,” Pres' pleaded. “Put it back a few dollars a day At a time—just as you took it Sally answered. “Think of Ruth—and your wife. What chance will Ruth have to marry the man she hopes to marry if it all becomes public property”? “I won't take your money!" he de- clared with what vehemence was left him. - “After all, Mr. Gibbs, it isn't my money; it's mother's, the girl you told me about,” Sally went on. “She loved you when you were both youns, loved you more than you ever dreamed. I think if she knew you were in this trouble now she’d want you to have it. After all, she's to blame in a way. If she hadn’t married my dad as she did you and she would have belonged to each other and been happy, and this—this wouldn't have Yes, Mr. Gibbs, I think mother would want you should have it.” And so Sally at last made old Pres’ agree to accept her money. * x Xk X T has been a year almost to a day since ‘the afternoon of “the blg thunderstorm.’ About two months ago Sam Hod leaned back in his swivel chair one Saturday afternoon and frowned. “Where in Sam Scratch is all this money coming from?” he demanded. “I'm getting more money'n I ever made in the newspaper business in my life. There's a reason for it. There must be”! . 0ld Pres’ Gibbs looked up from his books, and his shallow face went white. But Happy Sally only laughed. = “It's a good year in the newspaper business everywhere,” she declared. ‘All the publishers say so.” “Well” answered Sam, “it's so darned goed that I feel able to afford a certified public accounant to audit our books, Something’s happened somewhere and I'm going to find out where. I nosiced too, Sally, that it's Sapesr en- she swallowed Jmulish. happened. { ;o001 that they must be kneaded with ofjir 1t cool or. things. .1f you've stopped leaks, I'm going to know what they've been, o the good work can continue i some- body should come along suddenly one of these days and marry you." “Don't worry,” laughed Sally. “And T wouldn’t go to such an ex- pense as that it I were you, Mr. Hod. If you're making money, just be sat- tsfled with having it in your bank balance and say nothing. Sam was good-naturédly “No sir! I've had a real adult of the books since I've been in busi- ness. And this year I'm going to see Wwhere we stand.” A week later an auditing company down in Springfield sent up a man whose remuneration was to be the stupendous sum of twenty dollars per day. Auditor Barriwell was a tall, slen- der, bookish-appearing man of thirty- eight or forty, with clothes slightly behind the prevailing fashions and a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles astride a straight nose. He was very quiet and precise in all his move- ments, and went about reducing the Telegraph’s finances to fundamentals in & manner that made the sum paid him seem well expended. Old Preston Gibbs went away on a vacation during the audit. Happy Sally knew all there was to Kknow about the accounts and she stayed with Barriwell hour after hour and evening after evening, sifting things down and building up a new set of books ftem by item Suddenly we began to take note that something was happening to Happy Sally. £he had pretty hair— when it was dressed properly. Hith- erto it had been—well, just hair. She gathered it up now, all the stray strands and “scolding locks,” and did it high on her head. It came to us s a shock that Happy Sally after all was a really pretty woman. As Barriwell continued his work in our office day after day we began to realize other things: Happy Sally was dressing differtntly. She blos- somed out in dainty organdies and | poplins—even for the office. Into our office one morning burst | little Jimmy Ostrander. “He; he announced. ally | Brown's got o beau. Watcher know! I seen 'em walkin' off toward Cobb Hill last night. Her and that Spring- | fleld bookkeeper.” It was true. Into Sally's life had come the Prince. * ¥ x THEN the audit was at last com- \‘ pleted it was a grave auditor who confronted Sam Hod a strange condition on vour | “During the | WILLIAM DUDLEY PELLEY past two years your subscription receipts fell steadily behind, as though whoever had them in charge had deliberately pilfered from you about forty-five hundred dollars. Then suddenly it appears that the money began to come back. Day after day there are entries in the cash from sundries. and ‘miscellaneous receipts’ which have na evident origin. About nineteen hundred dollars has-been so returned in the past twelve months. Perhaps you can explain it. Anyhow, there is still a shortage of almost twenty-six hundred dollars The jig was up. Sally had done the best she could, but old Preston Gibbs would have to face the mus Barriwell turned to her. “Do you know anything about ft— Evelyn?" he asked. Sally looked at the man she loved, then dropped her eves. She could not decetve him! “Mr. Gibbs dfd it she choked. “I found it out when I began helping him with his books. I tried to cover it up because he once—he—and—my mother—" Her eyes welled with tears and the next moment she had flut- tered down with her head in her arms, and Barriwell was bending over her saying things not at all con- sistent with the conduct of @ busi- ness office. Sam did not press the charge against poor Gibbs. The old man went out to Wyoming the following month, and all the village wondered. It was reported in our own papcr that he had secured a better position out there keeping books for a brother in the sheep business. Something else was reported in our paper shortly afterward. It ran to two columns and was “covered’ by Mrs. Blakesley, our “society porter. And that night when it was all over and the office was deserted, save for Sam and the moth-eaten scribe who records this chronicle, the old editor drew a sigh and lighted b pipa “It means we got to look around for another girl, BIIL” he declared “Better run an ad in the classified tomorrow, I guess. But for heaven's sake, let's be caretul in picking our next one.” The person addressed ralsed eyebrows in surprise. “Why, there wasn't anything t matter with Sally,” he protested. “You talk as if she was to blame for something." Yes, there was! Too much effi- clency,” snapped Sam. “I like feel as if there was a little some- his i | thing left for me to do around the office, seeing as I'm the proprietor:” «Copyright, 1923. Color Paints Manufactured From Many Odd Materials [ is not generally understood that | an artist needs to know a good eal about the paints he uses if| nis work is to live, for some paints are translent (often called fugitive), fading with time and finally disappearing altogether. An example of this is what are called the “lakes” (for instance, carmine), which are alluringly rich in color, and would be used more frequently it they were not so undependable. Made from the cochineal bug—the dried, wingless female fed upon expressly cultivated cactus—the “lakes” are supposed to have been used as dyes away back in the time of Moses. Then, again, other paints are permanent, lasting. Minerals, from their very nature, are usually in this class. Terre verte is an In- stance of permanent pigments, the best example of which is an olive green. It occurs in Roman wall painting and in the ruins of Pompeil and was largely employed by the early Italians. It neither acts upon nor is affected destructively by other pigments. * X X X PAL\'TS are also either transparent or opaque. Transparent paints can be used over other paints—the artist making sure the first is dry— achieving the effect of transparency similar to one colored glass placed on top of another. Exquisite beauty and depth have been secured in this way. Opaque paints are used as the underlying colors. Not only are paints either fugitive or permanent, transparent or opaque, but some pigments quarrel when blended, while others, mingle quite amlicably. The cadmiums, or yellows, are destroyed by iron. They cannot be mixed with any paint containing iron. The artist cannot even put his palette knife on them without in- jury. On the other hand, substantial paints, like yellow ochre and brown ochre, umbre and burnt umbre, raw sienna and burnt sienna, genially mix with everything. Pots of yellow ochre were dug out of Pompeli and have stood the test of centuries. Some pigments are deadly poison and react disagreeably upon other colors—for example, emerald green, a compound of paris green and King's yellow (often called arsenic vellow), which must be used 8o care- fully, especially by any artist who habitually puts his brush dn his mouth. Certain paints (among them Naples yellow) are so sensitive to a bone spatula Instead of the metal palette knife. Many paints have curious and in- teresting sources. Sepia, that beau- tiful dark reddish brown, is made from the ink of the cuttlefish; ultra- marine, closely - approximating the blue of the spectrum, from the pow- dered lapis lazull, a semi-precious gem. The word “cobalt” (name for a beautiful blue paint which is per- manent, useful and a sociable mixer with all paints) is a derivative of “kobald,” Norse for wood gnomes or goblins. The name is attributed to an old tradition to the effect that Norwegian miners dlsgustedly dis- carded from thelr mines a certain element which they belleved was mis- chievously placed there by goblins at night. * kK k AMQND many fascinating old books on the chemistry of paints is one by George Field called “Chroma- tography.” In this engaging volume the following advice is given artists who would paint for posterit fire deepen y color, 8o ‘'will tim it, so will time; if | dozen ! electric flash itself, it vary it to other hues, so will time; and if it consume or destroy a color altogether, so also will time ulti- mately. The author, however, tempers his statement by saying that it is a pe- culiar fact that “the color of ultra- marine, which, under the ordinary circumstances, will endure a hundred centuries and pass through naked fire uninjured, is presently destroved by the julce of a lemon or other acld. So, again, the carmine of cochineal, which is very fugitive and changeable, will, when secluded from light, air and oxygen, continue half a century or more, while the fire or time which deepens the first color will dissipate the latter altogether. Again, there have been works of art in which the white of lead has re- tained its freshness for ages In a pure atmosphere, and yet it has been changed to blackness after a few days' or even hours’ exposure to a foul air.” The Horograph. THE need of a device that will reg- ister very small fractions of a second is apparent when it is con- sidered that in races airplanes or automobiles are started separately and that frequently the elapsed time between the start and the finish of two machines is extremely close, making the ordinary stop-watch methods of timing entirely Inade- quate. It has been found that when a half- experfenced and consclentious observers hold stop watches each in- variably will give a different report on the time made by the airplane or automobile. A solution of this problem has been found in the horograph. This instru- ment is operated by electricity in connection with electro magnets and is almost as rapid in action as the It indicates th elapsed time of an airplane or auto mobile to the hundredth part of a second and prints a permanent recor® of this time in figures on a paper ribbon. A statement of an actual accom- plishment will perhaps give a better idea of the almost incredible rapidity with which the horograph works. A car traveling at the speed of 80 miles an hour covered 117 feet every sec- ond, which means the depth of u city block at every tick of & pendu- lum clock. The horograph has given a printed record of the time of each of two cars traveling at a speed of 80 miles an hour when the front wheels of one car were overlapping the rear wheels of the car in front. Submarine Thawing. 7THE use of electricity for thawing frozen water pipes of city houses is no longer uncommon. An unusual undertaking, however, was the suc- cessful application of the process to a six-inch submarine main, 1,700 feet long, that, resting on the bed of the East river, connects North Brother Island with New York city. When an ordinary waterpipe is to ‘be thawed both ends are cut, and the passage of a comparatively small electric current through the resistant pipe metal generates enough heat to melt the ice in the pipe. Although the same general plan was followed with the frozen submarine main, all the conditions were so difficult that it took five days of applying powerful electric currents and of constant pumping with a pressure of eighty , pounds to de the work. -