Evening Star Newspaper, January 6, 1924, Page 66

R D ARING frowned absently t his watch, took a turn across his office and finally met the eye of his secre- v, who sat, with expectant pencil, words his ta waiting to seize the next boss should utter. “I've forgotten something. ‘Waring. “Can’t think what it i Vickers waited. “Don’t yoy know?’ Waring asked. V. r,"said the secretary. “Your sheet is clear.” “Got it,” sald Waring after another ten seconds of abstraction. “Letter to my wife.” He looked at his watch, caught up his hat and moved toward the door. “You write it,” he said “Going to Pittsburgh. Back Sunday morning.” “Yes, sir,” said Mr. Viekers. Waring had been chosen by a com- * mittee of chastened creditors as the one man, perhaps, in the United States who could take the maniacally complicated affairs of the Ralston Company in hand and bring it back to & condition of solvency. The ton plant occupied the area of a good-sized farm In the small city of Greut Bend, where Waring lived in an imitation onyx hotel and in the somewhat fictitious hope that uld begin going home over As @ matter of faet, on Sun- and Mr. Vickers generally abou twelve uninterrupted hours at the eoffice, cleaning up what couldn’t be done on work days. This particular Sunday, when he came b from Pittsburgh, was no exception. From 9 o'clock to half- past Vickers took down a con- fidential report and a series of recom- mendations to the exccutive commit- toe. As he informed them, in con- clugion, that he was theirs very truly Waring picked up a rather feminine looking note, ripped it open and be- gan.to try to read it. “From wife,” he explained to Vicke: And, after finally getting a clue at the top of the third page he added: “Wish she'd take to picture writing. I might read that.” But presently he whistled. in Dbla did EX to her asked Vieke Where you going stopped on his way to the *t the carbon from your said da he my “What he are “Here! said Blake, “Kept a car-| 17 Al right, the innocent which V with sort Tmp! Bon. did ¢ He read bon sheet fore him gloom. “You sadly wri looking car- a of fell gloomily myselr folds ove Ie picked up a pen and loc it dubicusl | The & n was 1 | the sound le coming in to the| outer ofiice. i | . a sheet of paper that | oken on' in | inquiry. guess the committee accounting,” Viekers to Waring'® look of totd to come i Waring lald down the pen ag turned a pleading look upon the retar | Part of Vickers' job was to under- ! stand without heing spoken to : “Want me to try he | asked. “I can do bette that. Didn't quite get the idea.” i Waring was already on his way to the door of the directors’ room. ! “Put your back into it,” he said be- | fore he vanished. i PHE vouns man who remaised in | office after the door was shut was ! no longer the hundred per cent effl cient se tary—no longer A. B. War; ing per S. V., but a distinctly engag- ing voung chap by the name of Stan- ley Vickers, He hesitated a little over picking | up the note that Waring had left on| the desk, but the spirit of his instruc- tions clearly involved his reading it, 50 he did so. He meant to do a good job this time, and it was not without with Stanley Vickers was ‘He had never met Mrs. Waring, never seen a photograph of her. And the illeglble scrawl her letter was signed with falled to make it apparent whether her first name was Amie, or Anne, or Alice & In her answer satirically on the with which he had begun his other letter, so he clicked out firmly “My Dear,” and then he stopped and thought for a while longer. This wasn't secretarial work. This was literature! The way to get the right atmosphere would be to have some sort of picture in his mind of the lady he was writing to. An at- tractive lady? Undoubtedly Waring had found her attractive once, and it was a cinch she wanted to think he thought her so still. Brown hair, rather wavy, blue eyes, cheeks without too much color in them, but bright red lips. Oh, bosh! What was he think- | iug of? Waring was easily fifty-five| and his wite— Well, weren't men's | vives sometimes a lot younger than| {hey were? His vision must be the! sort of vision that Mrs. Waring would | lfke to think she presented to her hus. band. Cinch! Now to begin. Nothing | fancy. Honest, plain-spoken—affec- tionate. “My Dear: “T own up. As vou suppose, I didn't even dictate that last letter to you. 1 had young Vickers, my secretary, write it for me, and you are perfectly right to feel hurt about it. I am dictating this letter to him now, and 1 am afraid you will think this makes my offense all the worse. Well, that 48 what I want to talk about, and I want you to listen patiently until I xet through. 3 “Why do you suppose I forgot—" Vickers exed ‘the “forgot.” He'd have to make a copy, anyway. This wWas just a draft. ®s * * put off writing, last week, =0 long that at last there was no time to do it myself. I was walting to get business out of the way, and turn young Vickers out of the room, and eit down for a visit with you all by myself. And the time never came. she had commented “My Dear Wife” Waring, the Busy Man, and Vickers, His Secretary, Study the Subject Of Dictated Family Correspondence | instead. {and got up. ! have to read that letter, you know. | the Chicago directors | contained. That's all. 1t never does. And if it did I shouldn't know what to' do with it. I've forgotten how to write with a pen, except my sigfiature. Now look here ® ¢ " Vickers, with the third finger of his Jeft hand on th: “d,” hesitated between 1) darling and dearest/ Then he got an inspiration and grinned. “* * % look here, old lady! Why can’t you be a good fellow and just let me have a chin with you like this whenever I get the chance? If you'd do that and then get a type- writer yourself and learn to work it, &0 that I could read the letters you wrote me, why, that would be almost equal to coming home ovef Sunday. 1 know what it is that bothers you, You don't Iike the idea of my young cub of a secretary sitting here and taking down all I say to you and writing it out on the typewriter. Well, now, T'll tell you! He doesn't hear a word. Tt just goes into his ears and out of his pencll, and that's all there is to iL” Vickers wrote & wholo page of viva- cious details about Waring's Pittsburgh trip, and then swung into the stretch. “You've no idea how excited I am, walting to see what you'll say to all this. So write me a good long letter and tell me you aren't cross any more and that you have fully forgiven your® affectionate, but buey husband, who wishes he weren't 50 busy, so that he could have more chance to show how affectionate he | really “Always,"” * * WHEN Waring came back from. the directors’ room, the letter, immacu- lately copied, lay on the desk, slde by side with the report to the executive committes, both awalting his signature, He signed A. B. Warlng at the bottom of the report and was about to repeat the signature beneath Vickers' master- Dlece, when the secretary stopped him. “Better read that first, hadn't you?" he suggested. “See if i's all right?" “I'll lock it over afterward” said the boss, and he twisted his mouth over to one side of his face—the regular pre- liminary to his regular signature. You don't want to sign it WY do you?" Vickers protested. B. Warlng.” sounds kind 1 should think. s agreed and signed it Bert, Then he thrust back his chair Vi “You'll 1 it that'll ¥. And “Look here!” said ers ve put something in give the whole thing dead aw then you'll have to go home. “That's so,” said the boss. But the telephone rang just then and the per- son on the wire proved to be one of who had stopped | off the train at Great Bend and thought he and Waring might spend the ling together, talking things over. Waring caid he would come right ie company automoblie, pick | the station, and bim up take him golf club. Then he | out to the hung | ap the receiver and made for the door. headed him o i n't read that yet,” he said | “You b implacabl “It's all it over it's all right.” 1 aid| Sure | nd signing it off. it right when Beginning about Wednesday morn- ing. Stanley Viekers began to be con-, ous, as he ran through the matl, that he was looking for a feminine envelope addressed in an illegible hand. HMis feeling about it was .-u,-e-l kin to that of a literary aspirant who is waiting to hear from an edlwr.l It was more than a week laterthat | be siit open a rather messy looking, | typewritten, stamped envelope, and with an expression of distaste began | to read the single sheet of paper it| He hated sloppy type-i writing and this communication went | the limit. It wasn't margined nor| dated. It was unequally spaced, and ! it began “Dear Old Man. | Obviously a touch from some seedy | down-and-out, who had known the boss in boyhood days. But he was a vonsclentious secretary, and he wnu!d. read it through 1 “Dear O1d Man “It's very exciteing—I've found I don't know how to spell at all when I have to write real letters that show—But ive been practise- ing all the week and I can find the right kevs without hunting for them hardly at all—I wish you had told me what sort of type- writer—I know that's spelled wrong—to buy, but Im sure this one Is all right—Its perfectly huge and can add and subtract and everything—and you can hear it all over the house.” You knew why I didnt answer sooner—didn't you—That I couldnt buy a type- writer and learn to make it writeall in a minute—and didnt think it was because I was cross and unforgiving—How could I be about such a ‘lovely—dear old letter—Youve never sent me such a letter since—oh well—never mind about that—But if thats the ! | enly i letter. | whatever i THE SUNDAY way you dictate why dictate all the time—I dont mind haveing Mr. Vickers write them—eo long as he doesnt have to read the ones I write you * * o The badly written sheet dropped from the consclentious secretary's hands as If it had burnt them. He had just read on automatically. Amd, quite as autdmatically, his eye picked up the signature, which was type- written like the rest, only in caps. She had a rather nice name—Audrey. He saved the letter out from the rest of Waring's correspondence and when the boss came in, he handed it to him separately. “I—I opened this by mistake,” he sald apologetically. “I think per- haps—that is, it's from your wife." “From my wife!” said Waring, star- ing at it. “What in blazes—" And then, “What sort of joke is this?" Vickers told him it wasn't a joke. “If youw'll only read it he protested. But Waring only went on turning it around in his hands, so Vickers ex- plained a little further. “It's the ‘answer to the letter you had me write. I sald in it—that is, you said, that vou couldn't write let- ters by haml and that You wers dic- tating that one to me, and that you wished she'd get a typewriter and write her letters to you on it, 80 that you could read them. Just stuck it in for atmosphere, you know." Waring had begun reading the let- | ter. “Atmosphere!” he ohuerved.| That'll cost me a hundred and forty dollars. Add and subtract!” This was an aspect of the matter that hadn’t ocourred to Vickers, and he couldn't help feeling rather pleas- ed about it. It seemed like poetic justice, somehow. But the boss grin- ned as he handed the sheet back to Vickers. “She seems ‘to like vour line of goods, sonny.” he observed. The secretary held it between thumb and finger, rather helplessly. What—what shall 1 do with {t?" he asked. » “Do with it!" echoed Waring. “An- swer it. What would you do with it? Have it framed?” * & NJICKE! three day S waited a discreet before writing his next He found, when he sat down to it, that the job was a great deal easier. There was no difficulty now ‘about visualizing an | image of the lady he was writing to. | It wasn't the same image, either. The effect of her reply had been to make her at least ten years younger and | potentially—well, rather jolly. It! was rather a shame that any one as| nice as that should be neglected. 1 The neglect wasn't Waring's fault. | The man was driven almost to death. Still, one would think that with a| wife like that | Vickers found himself getting quite sentimental about it. The emotion was vicarious, of course—strictly vi carfous. As he wrote “Dear Audr at the top of the letter, he was aware | of an impulse to transpose those two | words. “Audrey dear"—that would | be rather more like it. But he would | not do It—yet. The letter finished, Vickers stamped the carbon copy with a special file | number and laid the original on War- ing’s desk. He wrote on a pink mem- orandum slip, ““Sign this Bert," and tastened it to the letter with a paper | clip. Would the boss read it? Vickers waited to see, and sternly frowned down the feeling of satisfaction that came when he didn’t. 1t was about two months later, the fag end of an August day, when War- ing, writhing into his alpaca coat, was stopped on his way to the door by the implacable Vickers. “What is it?" asked the boss don't care what I've forgotten. I'm not going to do anything more before dinner.” “It won't take but a minute,” Vick- ers persisted. “A letter came in to- day. from—from Mrs. Waring. “Oh, yes—yes,” said Waring vaguely. es, T saw it He was halfway out of the door. “She's coming,” Vickers sald. The boss whirled around. “Com- ing!” be cried. “Where? Who's com- ing?" Your wife,” sald Vickers clearly. “In the letter that came in this morn- ing she said she was coming on at once, in a day or two."” “What for?” asked the boss. ing the matter. is there? said the secretary. ‘She just said she wanted a visit with you.” “Visit!" cried Waring with a gesture of despair. “I can’t visit with anybody! Have I had & free evening for the last two weeks? It will be the same way for two weeks more— maybe a month. Then we'll have broken the back of it and I can begin going home over Sunday.” “Yes, I know,” sald ‘the secretary. “I told her that a month ago. Imean you did. Two weeks ago she wrote again that the two weeks were up and if_you weren't-coming home she wag coming down here. I wrote an- other letter thenm, in which you said) that you were busier than ever just now, but were sure that in ten days or two wéeks you'd be able to come. Now she says she's coming.” “Well, she can't come here if all this weather holds, anyway,” said the boss. “Wire her. Tell her anything you like." 4 “I did,” said Vickers. “I put a copy of the telegram on.your desk and asked you to read it.” “Oh, yes—yes. Certainly,” ‘said Waring/ “You were quite right to wire her.” s “Yes,” said Vickers. “But she wired back. It's just’ come in. Tt says: “Noth- | that he made Waring blink. STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 6, 1924—PART 5. BN NN NS, ViCaI' iOllS | gncf,‘;u 18 VICKERS MOPPED HIS BROW. “LOOK HERE!™ HE SAID, SO VEHEMENTLY ‘Coming All the Audres “What anyway does mean—all more?’ Waring wanted to know. I suppose” said Vickers, means that the r why the e shouldn’t come make her all the more anxious tc “Pretty never grams. mealt. Be sort of nice to have her around. Only—you'll have to after her for me, son. time.” Vickers mopped his brow. “Look here!” he said, so vehement. “There’ You've good,” said Waring. could understand her tele- something I want you to do. simply got to do it, that's all—before | ., she comes.” “Before she—— Do you mean my wife? What the dickens has she got to do with it? Here! Where are you going?” Vickers walked to the private file, opened it and came back with an enormous manila envelope. This he held out to Waring. “I want you to read this,” he said. ‘WARING BLI | more. [ers got up, took a steadying breath or two, opened the door and went in. “Oh—yes!” Waring said. “Er—this is Vickers, my dear. He'll look after “she | you—keep vou amused somehow, till ons 1 gave her after dinner. And I shan’t be work- ing late tonight. Not after ten.” She was coming toward Vickers to shake hands. Somehow he managed to get his feet in motion and meet Well, T suppose she won't|her halfway. The brightness was still in her faoe. 100K | There was a sort of adventurous gay- I shan’t have |aty about it She hadn't found out vet! “T'il do my best.” but I'm afraid Tl substitute.” ‘I don’t know,” she said cheerful 1 suspect you're a pretty good cne.’ “Well, run along now, said War- ing. “I'm busy. In a daze, Vickers walked beside he stammered, be pretty poor her, out of the office, across a brick- | paved court—where an idle automo- THAT HE MADE O they went out to the golf club. { They got a little tnble on the | shady side of the veranda, which they |bad to themselves, and presently, to | Vickers' consternation, he found him- self having a wonderfully good time. They finished the last pretense ot lunch by 2 o'clock, but there still was plenty to talk about, o she had him light his pipe and they moved over to another corner iwhere there was a little more breeze. At 4 o'clock, the arrival in force of a bridge-tea party drove them from the clubhouse and down to the river, where, in the shade of a thicket of willows, they found a rickety lttle flat-bottomed Skiff. Means of propul- sion wera totally lacking. but it was ry inside and the thwarts were just a comfortable conversational distance apart. So they climbed in and went {on talking. Two of three times, earlier in the he had given himeelf a | atternoon bile might have suggested an idea 08 orriple fright by saying something him, but didn't—down the shabbdy,| weed-grown street street car line. Here he stopped au- “It's the letters she's been writing— | tomatically. you for the last two months, and— | and the carbons of the letters you have written to her—that is, that I have.” Automatically Waring took the en- velope. “Yes, sure I'll read it if you want me to,” said Waring. “Can't do it now, though. P'm going up to the hotel for dinner. Coming back this evening. Tl be through with those auditors by 10 o'clock. Read it then." R 0 all Vickers could do was to prop up the big envelope against War- ing’s inkstand, and hope for {he best. But when he came in. next morning, Waring’s deprecatory guilty air con- victed him. “Worked with those fellows until after one,” ho said. “Didn’t get those letters read. I'll squeeze them in this morning, some time, sure.” i | i She was laughing. “We're waiting for a car, aren't we?"” she asked. “But when it comes, where are we going on {t?” “I—1 don't know,” he said, and then blurted out, “Oh, you must think me a perfectly dreadful fool, but—well, T've had something on my mind that- . She gave him an understanding nod. “Part of the worry of this dreadful business that's driving my—my hus- band so. It was frightfully uncere- monious of him to bundle me up and hand me over to you this way. 1 hope you didn’t mind. “N-no,” said Vickers, “I was rath- er glad—That is to say, of course not!™ “I'haven’t had any lunch vet,” she suggested. “Have you?” “I'd forgotten there was such a But at half past twelve Vickers was | inifig” he told her, more nearly at sitting alone in the office and the big envelope was still propped against the inkstand, when some one opened the door behind him. A woman’s voice, with a little ac- cent of surprise, sdid: “Oh!” and as he rose and turned and faced her, went on, “Isn't Mr. Waring here? You're Mr. Vickers, aren’t you?" He managed to say “Yes. Mr. Waring was in the next room. “T'll get him for you,” he added. “Oh, no,” she sald. “I'll go right in. Thank's just as much.” She crossed to the door his glance had indicated befors he could get around from behind the desk to open it for her. In less than a quarter of a minute he was alone again, And she. was in there with the man she thought she'd been writing those wonderful letters of hers to—the man she thought had been writing the let- ters she had been so pathetically pleased with and eager about, to her. Well, she wasn't old at all. Just a girl, and with a brightness about her that wasn't wholly in her eyes, that seemed to shine, somehow, through her face. ‘When the buzzer went off at his el- bow, from -the director's room, Vick- THE BRIGHTNESS WAS STILL - IN HER FACE—SHE HADNT FOUND OUT YET. , | » and that | can get lunch out at the club. | ease than he had been vet. “We gen- erally send out for a couple of sand wiches. Lunch is a good ideal” “And will that car take us to it?” she asked, nodding to one that was coming slong. It said “Golf Club” on it. “0t course “We T've never been out there, though T be. long. But T've heard it's pretty goo. he exclaimed. to the nearest| | to her that he had already written in one of Waring’s letters, but she had eemed oddly unaware of these slips, guard at all—said anything that oc- curred-to him. And then this happened. | She was saying something about | not liking ‘presents on occount of an element of barter, when she inter- rupted herself to say: “Oh, but of course you know all about that. I wrote it to you ever so long ago.” And Vickers, with a nod, said “Yes. I remember.” And then there were two stmul- |taneous gasps, and two red flags of blushes, that burned brighter and brighter in two frightened faces. And tér the whole of a very long minute they looked at each other, and he | pondered her “I wrote it to you,” and she his, “Yes, I remembe; did_you know? She laghed uneasily. the very first, of course. The letter bout buying a typewriter. Any one could see that he had never written | L ‘There was another silence. he asked another .question. “You knew I was writing to you. But how could you know that you were writing to me-—not to him? Be- you were writing me, weren't At last | and by now he no longer kept any | She hesitated a little. “Why, I put things in, at first, to see. So that if he read them, he'd be sure to know.” This was pugzling. “Know what? Vickers asked. She hesitated again, “That they weren't written to him,"” she said at last. He drew in a long breath and let it out with a rusl It expressed the contents of a fairly long paragraph, which, it seemed from her smile, she perfectly understood. “You poor boy,” she sald. “You've worried dreadfully, haven't you?" “You've known, all day, what It was I was worrying about,” he sald at last. She blushed again, at that. “So I know,” he went on, must have forgiven me the rottenest thing I've ever done in my life. And that must be because you've known all along—been able to feel somehow —that the letters were real. That I meant every word of them—for my- selt.” There was nothing you could call vicarious about that. She got up rather suddenly, and stepped out of the boat. “We must go back,” she said. It was at this point that the ¥oung secretary’s conscience woke up with a bang. In view of the contents of those letters, no declaration of love could have been more explicit than that last statement of his. And he had made it to another man's-wife! His employer's wite, too. J“Yes” he sald gravely g0 back. “We must L I 'HEY walked across tne Iinks to the clubhou with hardly a word all the way. But for a person whose world had fallen altogether about her ears, she seemed singu- larly at ease with herself. The one thing she sald—out of no- where—was, “Tou're a nice boy But the factotum at the club had a telephone message for them that suddenly reversed thelr positions. Waring had telephoned, it seemed, ascertained the: ‘were ther, and left word they were to walt. He would come out to the club for a 7 o'clock dinner. Vickérs heard this message with a great deal of honest =satisfaction. They were in for a ghastly time, of course, but they could coms to Bnmel sort of understanding. That would | be better than this horrible confu- | sion. He turned to her as the man walked away. i But she, with a look of downright | panic in her face, was gazing out| blanklr across the low hills. i “Look at your watch,” she com- manded. “What time is 1t?" { “Six twenty-five,” he told her. ‘And what time does the next tral g0 she asked. It was natural enough that he ehould ask, “Where to?” “Anywhere!” she cried. Chicago, of course.i’ It went at 7 “Can I make i she asked, and when he told her that she could if they caught the car down there at| the foot of the hill, where the con- ductor was at that moment turning the trolley pole, she was off like a flash. | Vickers did manage to stammer out that he thought it would be much better to wait for Waring, tell him evervthing and have it over. But she had her foot on the bottom step of the street car before he finished, and though she treated the suggestion as one that did him credit, its consid- eration did not detain her the small- est fraction of a minute. He didn't | understand, that was all. | S0 he got Into the car with her and rode back to town. There seemed to be nothing that he could say; and the misery of the silence, for him, was deepened by the perception that, on her part, it wasn't miserable at all. Bhe seemed to have fallen back into that mood of contentment that had characterized her walk back across the linke. There was a bit of a scramble, just at last, but ther got to the station In time for him to buy her ticket and get into the train with her. They heard the cry of “All aboard” just as they were going through the little passage around the smoke room, and here she turned and faced him. “Don’t try to find my seat” she said. “You musn't be carried off, vou Know. Good-bye.” She held out her hand to him. held it while he said: “Shall I ever ses you again?” She smiled. “Some time,” she said. “Only- Good-bye.” n { “Oh, to] He They were alone in that narrow lttle passage. Whether it was that her hand tightened just a little on his, or that she moved just perceptibly nearer, or whether it was something he saw in her face—what it was thet made the conscientlous Vickers go crazy just then he couldn’t afterwards make out. But he did go crazy—and klesed her! Then he turned blindly away and lesped from the train. She could| never forgive him now. | only- Wasn't that flick of white | behind the glass door of the moving vestibule the flutter of a waving | handkerchief? \* * ¥ * T was a thoroughly dazed Young man who caught the next car out | to the golf club. She had forgiven! him everything, even that kiss. The flutter of her handkerchief could! mean nothing less. But there was| Waring out at the club, waiting for them. And Waring had got to be| told. 2 Only Waring wasn't at the club, and; what was more, he hadn't been | there. Perhaps he had read the let-| ters after all. Perhaps even now he was reading them, down at the office. | That was the next place to look, | anyway. And it was there that Vick- ers found him, “Oh—yes,” Waring said. “Yes. Hello. Sorry I couldn’t get out to the club. ‘What you done with Audrey = “She—she went back to Chicago on i ary Her mother's been b, her coming here at Vickers stared, walked rather un steadily to a chair and sat dow: “Her mother,” he echoed, vacuousls Waring lounged back from his des and lghted a cigar. Somewhere the day he was entitled to five utes' fun. “You two kids havs been getti . Dretty gay with the old folks, it scem to me,” he said But Vickers didn’t look gay in ¢ 1east, and the boss had merc “It meems,” he went on, “that whe your mecond letter came in, suggast Ing that she buy a typewriter, n wife spotted it as something too liter for me. She showed It to our daughter, Audrey, who's Just out « college with nothing to do, so Audr. took over the correspondence.’ His eye rested on the big envelope and he allowed himself time for grin. “Tve been hearing from my wite now and then lately,” he went or “and she's kept me posted. She aldn think it necessary to tell Audre about it, and 1 guess Audrey ca down here with the idea that could have a little fun with bot us and get away without getti found out. Did she?” But the boss' grin showsd tha didn’t need an answer, so, instead trying to make one, Vickers w over to his desk and began rumma s Ing in one of the drawers “Pretty late to start work aza 't i7" Waring suggested. “I'm not golng to work™ sal Vickers. “T'm looking for some pap: that folds over.” “Better stick to the machine” sai the boss. “She’s used to that. And the secretary took his advic: He didn't get an answer anythins that you could really call an answe anyway. But on Friday morning the boss brought him a telegram and ask ed him if he had any idea what meant. It said: “If you'll both come home for ove Sunday- That was all. But Vickers thousi he understood it. “I reckon you can way,” sald Waring. “No,” sald his oth or none.” “Oh, all right,” said the boss it so." on hir make it ar secretary firm M (Copyright, 1923.) History on a String. \IOST‘ persons ure v > representatives of th h glyphics of the ancient Egyptians. | means of the engraved marks foun on the monuments and other recorc the old Egyptians could represent ol familiar {dect tdeas suggested by objects, even sounds. This signi sounds by means of symbols forme nearly a true alphabet. In Mexico the Aztecs had a crud system of picture wrfting by whic! sensible objects could be accurate deplcted, but beyond that it could nc g0, for it was incompetent to conve abstract ideas. Possibly the crudest invention this sort was the mysterjous sclence of the quipus, which was taught tI Peruvian princes by their amaut: or “wise men.” While both syste before mentioned seemed prim this one is even more so, and yet sorved a purpose, and a very go one, too. This quipus was a string of rop usually about two feet in 1 composed of many colored twisted together. To thiy main were fastened numbers of stri different colors tied into knots, thi forming a fringe. These knots ga the device its name, the wor quipus signifies a “knot.” The color represented sensible objects. For e ample, white might stand for silve and yellow for gold. Occasionall they suggested ideas abstructly white signified peace and red wa: The chief use of the quipus wa for arithmetical purposes. The knot took the place of ciphers and coulc be combined to represent number: to any amount desired. The colors of the strings explained the sub Jects to which the numbers referred and in this way the Peruvians d. vised a complete system of enumer ation. The Spaniards testified to t! rapldity with which the P caleulations were made. It is easy to see how, with a corp of trained officlals, such a syste: might be made to work effectualls but it is difficult to understand hov historical events could be recorded and traditlons preserved. For th purpose were employed interprater of the quipus, who with knowled acquired from other sources, coulil use these strings as reminders o suggestors by which events could b kept in memory. These interpreter bore the titls of quipucamayus, “keepers of the quipus,” and it their business to collect the rec of the various departments of government. One was 11 of what corresponds to reau, keeping the details in ref ence to the population of the la and the list of those qualificd to bes arms; another had charge of the re enues, and still another of the treas ury. Thus the government k stored away myriads of many-col ored strings, which comprised wha! might be called the national chives. —_— By Compressed Air. N OWADAYS, in sinking caissons for bridges over certain rivers it is possible to make compressed air dc the work of shovels In removing the sand, " through a thick stratum of which, in some cases, the caisson is forced down towsrd the bedrock deen beneath, - The sand is sometimes s pure and loose that the force of the compressed air supplied for the work men in the caisson suffices to drive it up through blowpipes inserted iy the caisson for the purpose. Jets of water are directed against the sand around the bottom of the blowpipes and when thus dislodged the sand readily passes up through the pipes the 7 o'clock express” sald Vickers, out of a very dry throat. Waring didn't seem surprised. “Hmph!" he grunted. “Good (hing. with the strong air currents that ar continually pouring into them from the compressed atmosphere of the caisson.