The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 21, 1897, Page 29

FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1897. PICKANINNIES DANCE SEEN FROM BOTH SIDES OF THE CURTAIN (’;’4} 2, N 0, Joshua,”” said the fat ] won’t do it, and they ca So there!"’ Joshua, who weighed seve the fractious femicine who tow, glanced with nervous companion’s triple-chinned ‘If I was scene about it. laugh at you. to take it off But Martha was in Shutting her lips wi a gopher-trap just s down upon ti ship. I, being the way, but the crowd su I wouldn’t e whole o idience to gracious you'd promise will no mood doork 1o get out of to the Co bia’s entrance prevente escape. Pusl past me Mariha made a convenient and I say comfortable detour over my toes ed me against the wall until I flatte like a p e stamp upon an envelope. he hatin who-e shadow I was thus painfully imprisoned for the brief but terrible moment that Martha and I were in transit was a marvel A forest of feathers com- in its wa himsel s embar- at the aitention he saw they were at- pleted Josl russme racting. lere and there throughout the audience, as pldly filled up the seats, I descried a biz popving into view like a toadstool after a n. I sat bareheaded and chuckled compla- cently at the prospect of entertainment not down on the bills, when management and trans- gressors of city ordinances should come into con- flict. Hovering near the aisle coor was Mr. Litt, r ot “In Old Kentuexy. Mr. Morgan, business manager, had dizap- peared ind the scenes through a stage door back of the box curtains, a porial toa supposedly enchanted and altoeether mysterious realm. A door and a drop curtain divided the two worlds —that of the entertainers ard the entertained. The galle ood-natured and promiscuous, was already seated and not a space to spare for late comer 3ut, now that I think of it, the gallery, wt counts its pennies where the lower house counts its dollars, and of which nothing in the way of correct breeding is expected—the gallery, 1 say, is never late. It dees not arrive 1 the miidle of a scene. It has never yet offended its fellow-creatures by whis- vering and chattering. It scorns to spoil a cli- max by a burst of idiotic giggling. e The curtain curled 1tself beyond the ken of speciators, revealing a pretty perspective of Kentucky landscape, with mountains, trees and sky in the distance, a bandbox cottage adhering toahill at the right, a bridge suspended ot an angle of foriy-five degreesin the center overa presumably dizzy chasm, a tlight of stens lead- There was no sign, “Keep off this grass,” but the invisible warning was heeded to the letter and a closer inspeciion showed me winy. The verdant slopes had been planted by stage genii i littie patcnes here and there or overlapping each other, somewhat s Susan sets the doilies on the ch table. Thut grass answercd all purposes sati~factorily and was a pleasing counte but quite uns to lean against too lovingly or sit upon too hard. the curtain the lights had orchestra haa The hou With the rising of the ments. been lowered and cle Neb's fright when he fa e wus - fatally embraced vy a t but I did r what the stuge folk were saying just tention w lessly from a tow sie to aisle and back d there, and as it 1d comprenended ader a-zunning came. foyer, a half hour on for the Columbia's sther Friedlander > object—a hat behind it and the mission. in the twilight for Friedlander the with a welcoming sal vatro o. This with high-hat of h was an both eyes focused on worn between the sufferers stage which they could not see. Upon bis face was the grim look of one who had a ste d disarresable duty to perform, and I watched bim execute it m Locating s healigear ascame within the vale of tne law, he telegraphed by a code of Is, utterly unintelligible to me, but plain to the usher, a message, and forthwith the uster, sliding silently to the chair indicated by his em- ployer, whispered something in its occupant's ear. I w not the words in which the mes- sages were couched, but they had magic effect. Immediately those bats disappeared from the horizon. As the usher approached my juggernaut of the doorway, I craned my neck to get a better view of the battle. To my surprise she instantly transferred the ostrich farm from bher head to Joshua nees. e et rvelously Li—by p There may be two or iour people in town who have thus far eked out an existence without see- n Old Kentucky.”” As to the play see regular dramatic column, but find me a better darky servant that Charles K. French as Neb and 1 will pay a fine of fifteen cents without flinching. Get me a bunch of pickanninnies that can make more noise and fun in a given time, a horse more lovable that Queen Bess, a more refined Madge jhan Affie W more consistent Colonel than the Doolittle of H. B. Bradley—gzo ou: among the shows of the earth and 1 them and you'ul have material for an unrival-d attraction. 1t is not with sensations o! altogether sympa- thetic rejoicing that I see the curtain descend upon Mrndge, the mountain flower, transplanted ner’s, a atmosphera exchanged for the ht breath of the world and its contaminating bypocrisy that withers whatsoeverit touches, either wish blight cr sorrowful sarprise, and I would not have had her marry the moonshiner and raise a kin- dergarten of little moonshiners in the wilder- ne s, wear ridiculous gowns and hideous white siockings and never read Tue Sunpay CaL cou'd love Madge quite as dearly i she never acquired the interesting idiosyncrasies of ner sex. I would like to think of he: as a woman to whom. chewl um were an unknown come modity, who never wedged herself into a corset, went without a pocket because her modiste refused to jeopardize the set of a skirt by insert- ine it, or yielded to uny other senseless demand of city life. Lovers of the Lorey type are of course entitled to sympathy, but it 1s high time that the rustic swaln were preached the saving gospel of soap and water and cleanly raiment. No eirl of re- fined nature—the rest don't matter—can be reasonably expected to love a man who needsa bath and the services of a barber, and whose clothing, in the cause of sanitation if not ot ap- pearances, ought to be bunaled off without de- lay to the dyer’s and cleanar’s, 43 i The air is filled b ragtime melody and ebony faces. Black lees are capering to the tune, white teeth are gleaming from every cor- ner. There is more darky to the square inch than the Columbia stage bas ever he!d before. For the moment the whole world seems a tangle of tattered ‘‘coons.” Fast and furious the chorus rushes in upon your tympanum. You close your eyes for a few seconds on Dark- town gone mal. Then vou hear a singuar sound, asof an asthmatic locomotive coming arcund a curve, and open them to se: a black- faced figure in soiled wkite canton flannel pa- overalls It is Williams snd his soft-shoe alty. A rooster that must h sone upon the stage too young, judging from its bow legs, and who-e feathers are worn off irom o’ermuch serv vehind the footlights, escapes from its darky captor as though i1, too, would fain do the spectacular and essay a clog dance or a waltz The pickaninny band breass loose and plays until it wakes up the people in Oakland. There never was so much color merit for the mon: ue gallery is wild with glee, the dress circle applauds, the boxes smile, the orchestra grius broad!y. The pickaninnies have caught the town. B I trust that I am without vulgar curiosity, but 1 should like it if the colonel would diop a note at this officz informing me what it is that hs arinks so long and deeply of in his pocket flask. It cannot be the genuine article, else the colonel would bv tnis time have drunk nimselt to death. Yet a Kentucky play without whisky wouid be like a picture ol Venice built on dry land. e Mis: Maria Johnson, she will marry me— (lissical music satisfies the artistic sense, uyplits the soul. It isasking too much that it reach the public heart as well. BEHIND THE CURTAIN. Oh-h-h! Dixie's land am de land ob cotton, Cinnamon seeds and a sandy bottom— Look #way, |00k away, 100k . The singing was suddenly drowned by a great uproar behind the motionless curtain—the sounds of pushing and shoving and pounding. The few people who had ventured in through the theater door at the early bour of half-pa t 7 did not seem to mind it in the least. They cat as close to one another as armrests would allow and cooed to each other in lover-like tones. “I guess 1t's goin' to begin,” a feminine voice said very distinctly to the young men at her side, and she removed the obscure littie black hat from its elevated position and placed it on the floor and moved closer to her sleek- haired companion, *'I guess you're right,” he giggled, moving his oily pate nearer to her fluffy one. And they looked at each other biissfully—perfectiy hapyy. “Those are the people I like,” said the tall and imposingly silk-hatted gentleman who manages *In Old Kentucky'’ and was born in old Kentucky, as he held aside the curtain for me to pass to the back of the stage. “They are neither impatient nor eritical,” said he, holding up the flooring which keeps the nursery from falling downstairs wher in the region of wings and flies. *‘They buy their seats ard come earlv, and stay until the curtain goes clear down to the floor, and then they wander out with the traces of teers and smiles on their faces and hats a bit awry. Sometimes they do not get back to earth entirely, and uncon- eciously they pass through the crowd hand in hana and bappy. A man feeis as though he had aright to be happy, too, then. Most people make you feel like a highwayman with their lofty uncuncern and their silks and feathers and late coming and early going. “These ere the rocks and the mountains,” Mr. Morgan said, pointing through the dim light to the rows of dark-looking screens that lined the sides of the walls. “If you stand in front of the curiain you can see them set the first scene.” So I took my position on a pile of grass mats, made green by the grace of ayes, and watched the mountains grow. First, from the sides they moved the front ends of the forests of trees into their proper po- sitions and braced them carefully. Then they brought structures of wocd—not solid, but boited and sawed in squares—and set them to be used for the foundaticn of the mountains. From above branches of vine-covere | trees and tender network of leaves and twigs were slowly Jowered into their proper positions. Tue -tage carpenter paused in the act of mov- ing the highest part of the hills and the house ‘o its rightful place and raised his hat. *Youd petter s:t down,” he said, and pointed to a rock near by where I was standing. *Ull be down as soon as I can get the bridge fixed and the tree ap here."” butsomewhat breathlessvoice from the underside of the large brown trunk of a gnarled oak tree that the owner was carrying through the chasm. They hoisted it into its place, with itsroots carefully brgced in a wooden platform alongside of the bridge. The bridge led across the chasm, and a man at the other side hewed cu: the rocky steps fve at a time with no apparent exertion. “‘Probably ambitious for histrionic honors,” I thought to myself, contemylating the refined features of the man. “I wonder——" “Wy—don’—che do somethin?” e turned as he started te place the steps that completed ihe descent, and stared at tbe man who stocd contemplating the wrong side of a portion of blne grass. “Go-to,” he answered sailenly, sleepily and incompletely, picking up an arm- ful of the grass mats and clambering slowly up the rocky steps. *“Wonldn’t it be easier to set the grassifit were all in one piece?” I asked. The nightly creator of all this scenic beauty smiled. “Couldn’t do it,” he said, as he watched an- other assistant gather up an armful znd preeeed to “grow 1t’’ in the right places. *“We couldn’t carry it that way and it wouldn’( fix.” And with a superior air he hurried across the stage to correct the position of a bowlder or two and to mention that the side of the mountain ougnt to have a few more screws. e T g We went in search of Mr. French. Mr. French is sta e manager, and Uncle Neb. He was in his dressine-room. He nodded at my image in the glass aporevingly and remarked unexpectedly that I was afraid to go on. “I'm not,”” I said stoutly, safe. “Very well; go and get dressed and I'll come and make you up, unless you're afraid,” he said, wickedly pausing, with his bands half way to his face to survey me. “There'sroom for you in the second act. Youwll make a good Topsy.” Topsy! Undignified and inartistic Topsy ! But I went—what else wasthere to do? And I trembled, too, and thought of the sea of faces and devoutly prayed that none might know me. And T am positive that, as I stood in Miss Warner's dressinz-room and slipped my feet into the great Jong shoes and donned the little red and pink gown that the dainty Affie gener- ously loaned me and braided the hair rigicu- lously and made cenerally ready for Mr. French and bis cork ministrations, I felt more weizhed upon by resnonsibility and more nervous than the Czar of Russia on his coronation. ‘*Are you always nervou: on vour first night?" questioned the now fuily (quipped Uncle Neb, as hie motioned me to a seat and, instruments in hand, assured me that the operation would be painiess. Phys'cally it was, but eyes for once ceased to be a blessing. Istocd in the wings during the first act en- feeling perfectly guns and the workings of the consciences of the villains. “Watch him shoot at the bridge,” said Uncle Neb. “Does he ever miss?” Never has vet,” he answered, as Joe Lorey raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired, hitting the rope squarely in the place he desired. “Good shot, isn’t he?” said he, as the bridge fell. “'Suppose he should get nervous and miss ?" “He get nervous!” Uncle Neb laughed very whitely. *‘He doesn’t know what nervousness is! He created this part and feels perfectly at home in it. Look out for the bomb,” he ex- claimed, as the thing went off and seven or eight padded rocks flew into tha air. 1 felt very much as though even faith haa de- serted me and left me to followa path that [ knew nothing of and which was iniricate and devious. I don’t know how I lookeda to the crowd of human faces that seemed to reach into infinity like a black and white sea, but I know that the chocoiate-colored pickaninny with one trousers-leg longer than it really oucht to be and the other one shorter, announced, loud enouch for the audience to hear: “She’s mighty killin’.”” Translate that as you will, I felt that and evorything else. The footlichts were blinding, the laughter seemed like a perfect roar and the applause was a peal of thunder. A wild reck- lessness seized me and a desire to reach the chickens that made strange noises in the stalled coop, but I aidn’t dare tryit. I sat down on the floor and stared at the litule negroes and grinned and— Well, they said it was very well done; that the floor was the place to sit, and it was not necessary to acknowledge that, in reality, my knees had given out and I couldn’t move a step furtber. And, once seated, how the music entered into my soul and boay. It was only the litile banjo, and they have declared there is no feeling in it, but ITknow that the faces of the gracious little band grew a-gleam with happy light and the eyes shone and the lips twitched with smiles, and it was as impossible for them to keep quiet under tbe music’s influence as it is for the leaves to cease swaying when the wind blows. But they were black, you say? Well, so was I, and I couldn’t keep still, either; ana they were black by the grace of God and by the couriesy of Mr. French, and there was not a taiented lit- tle black fellow on that stage with a more in- tense desire to dance eating at his heart's strings than that which possessed me. I fancy trat the fleet-footed Williams would have had company in his quick-stepping act had my knees regained their former usefulness; but, as things were, I kept my head a-going, it not being unmanggeable. . e And after it was over I wert back to wait for some one to make me white, and while I waited gazed lovingly at a bunch of yellow chrys- anthemums—the first I had ever received for ing thereto and Kentucky blue grass fl .urishing to civilization's conservatory, the pure mountain Lirrrany FERGUSON. ““Cin-na-mon-seed: -san’-san-dy’’ sang the cheery during with all possible fortitude the firing of treading the boards, or, mor. properly, sitting upon them. MURIEL BArLEY. v ’ BY ‘], F. ROSE-SOLEY, L It was a busy morning with the old trader. A Malanga pariy had just pulled across from ihe villaze on the oppusite side of the bay and bad brought with em whole boatlosd of copra, which were converting into gayly patterned ls lavas, kezs o! soup, round, hard b.s- cuits from the factory ir. San Francisco, and tins of pisupo from Au-tralia. To the Samoan all t nned meat is pisupo, un- less, indeed, it be salmon, when it is dig- iified by the special title of samani. 1 have never seen pea soup putupin tins, but I suppose it must have been a com- a mon article of diet in the early days of | white settlement in t1.e South Seas other- wise the name could not have taken a per- manent place in the native vocabulary. To settle all this business, to say noth- ng of the minor wants of the iadies of the party, who needed bairpins and cotion and combs and a kost of feminine oads find ends, took a great deal of hard bar- ning. Ilounged on the veranda, and, ugh the open windcw of the store, ed my friend inside, perspiring in vajamas, trying to convince a mob of heavily scented natives that the four-fatbom yprint he was offering them was the finest ana cheapest to be had ‘n the whole land of Samou. The natives insultingly asserted that they could get six fathoms of the same stuff for a dollar in Apia, but then, as the trader confided to me afterward, we were not in Apia, but in an out-oi-the-: with many miles of deep sea between us and the clief port of the group. Atlast I gou tired watching these inter- y minable bartering operations and turned my attention to the pret:y Silei, who wa- | squatted cross-lezgea on the veranda floor. Silei was preoccupied and did not vouchsafe me so much as a glance. The many-legged kava-bow! stood on the floor | be~ide her and her slender though wiry wrists were wringing with ail their strength the strainer of fau fiber, by means of which the juice is expresscd from the pounded kava root. The result is the national drink ot the country, an u;ly-looking yeilow liquia, tasting on the first trial remarkably like soapsuds. 8till, one soon grows fond of it, and white men—the oid hands who have hved long in the country—drink it in far greater | quantities than the natives. Waving the suainer gracefully over her shoulder Silei shook out the remains of the root, now squeezed into a fine dry puwder, and, filing a cocoanut shell, offered it me with a courteous downward sweep of her arm. Silei's task—the peculiar priv.lege of Samoan maidens—done, her regular feat- ures relaxed. ‘‘Uma,” she cried, laugh- ing gayly, as she wiped her bands on her | lava-lava, a broad sheet of gayly patterned [ Manchester print, wound round and round her waisi. Yes, Silei was undoubtediy | pretty, as she squatted there, puffing away at her sului. Her jet black hair, carefully combed and oiled, was lit up with a single biossom of the red hiviscus, and a sirip of blue cloth, a hole cat in the center for the head to pass through, outlined, with rav corner of Bavaii, | out concealing, her shapely bust. After the manner of madens in ail paris, whether their skins be brown or white, Silei fully appreciated her own 1 zood looks. In barbarous civil:zed coun- the lad had veen apprenticed to a boat- | trfes she would have been cal.ed a general | builder who !ived half a dozen milesdown | | scended, in | lava-lava, 0 looi after a trader’s bachelor | estavlisiment, she came and went as she | servant, but lere, in this genial larnd, | where innate courtesy has not been | | crushea by civilization, she was a privi- ieged party, a chiei’s beile of the villace. exchange daughter and the Though she conde- for an OCC!SEOX!M}‘ | pleased between her own big thatched house on the other sile of the green and | the little weatbervoarded store. What if | the latter did ook dirty and untidy, if the stuffy sitting-room was littered with | old books and mugazines and the floor,| bore he accumu!ated duast of many days? These things are but natural in Samoa, and Silei at least was always charming. | Still, in spite of her good looks, Silei's range of conversation was limited to po- i lite inquiries about my health and ihe! | state of the we:ther. The Samoan girl | dces not conv:rse readily with a white man, unless, indeed, it be a question of | Jovemaking, when the universal wor.d-old langusge supplies all deficiencies, But ove, I reed hardly say, had nothingto | do with my case. I began to wish for a diversion. It came at last in the shape of a light-skinned boy, light I mean, when compared with the bronzed native tint. He walked confi- dently up to the wire fence of the veran- da, and asked for Williamo, the Samoan ver-ion of Williams, as the trager was| called. “Ivs old Mildmay’s Loy,” said the trader, looking out from his busy store; “tell him to waita minute till I've done with these wretches.” Mildmay’s boy, with whom I presently entered into conversation, : poke very fair En liss, much befter than the majority of hali-castes. His skin was no darker than that o: many a sunburn: farmer’s boy, and barefooted, clad only in ragged trousers and shirt, with a much battered straw hat he looked the picture of health and activity. He toid me, with a simple, innocent air, that he had been brought up in Apia by a white woman—he wasn’t clear whether she was bis mother, but he thought not. His father bad been a white man, of that he was certain, for he had only died a couple of years ago and then the coast. He thought nothing of walking the twelve miles to the store and back 1n the morning over a rough bush track, half smothered in & wild undergrowth of weeds, the blazing tropical sun converting this dense scrub into a sort of vapor ba h. When e got home, Le told me, he wo:ld have his dinner, and then spend the a ter- 10on sawing out the crooked roots of the ifi tree 1nto knees for the boat bis master was boilding. He was very shy in the presence of a white stranger; he saw so few in the isolated spot where he lived, bu: e laughed and joked familiarly enough with the natives, who seemed to know bhim well. He was equally at ease wiih the old trader, who presently, having got r.d of his troublesome native customers, came out and attended to the boy and upplied him with the nails wanted by his master. Tuen, when the lad had drunk a green cocoanut and gone his way down the sun- light village street, the trader subsided into his easy chair and, mopping his head vigorously, called upon Bilei to do her duty with the kava bowl. *Quite a lot of these castes and three- quar.er castes growing up now about the islands,” he said presently, when copious draughts of kava had tomawhat restored his equanimity. ““And what's tc become of them when they grow up?” I asked. +Idon't know, I'm sure; that's the diffi- culty. Yousee the istands won't support a large white population; there’s not work enough; there's no produce they can raise except copia, and they've got to exist like natives to make a living out of thai. Some of these half-castes, i’s true,” he added reflectively,” *‘aren’t any better than natives. Wuen the fathers have been only old beechcombers and the native motbers have had to do all the bringing up, why of course they go back. They never learn to speak Euglish, and they grow up Samoan inali their ways. ‘Why, there's half-castes round here you couldn’t teli from natives. I'hey’re worse, too, because they're clever and have got more cunning and trickery in them.” “But this boy,” I remarked, thinking of-the youth who bad called, “seems su- y perior.” *'Ob, he’s all right. He's only a three- | quarter caste and has got good white | blood in him. And ihen he was breught up by a clever white woman, and that makes all the difference.” “But he couldn’t have had a white mother?” I queried, getiing rather puz- zled. *‘No, no; that’s just where the peculiar part of the whoie story comes in; his mother was a balf-caste and his father old Captain Trenton, a well-known iden- tity in Apia. He is dead now, so I suj- pose I mav tell you the yarn without be- traying any confidences. “The captain, in the old days, was in command of one of MacAllister's trading schooners, and had been in the habit o coming to Avia for along time, until at last, tifteen, or it may be sixteen, year: ago, he made un his mind to settle in the place. He bowght a store along Matafcle way—npart of Apia—and did & good bu-i- ness. We always thought the captain was a single man, and so we were nota bit sorprised when he married rather a pretty little nalf-caste, and settled down com- fortably. “Domestic matters went on all right; the captain and his w.fe seemed hasppy enough in their way, and in the course of a year or so a fine boy was born to them. The captain was particulariy fond of tue child, and many a time have I come across him in the little back parlor be- hind the store filling up the intervals of business by fondling the baby, daucing it on his knee and cooingz to it after the fashion of aevoted parents. Idid a good deal of trading with the captain just then and was a regular friend of the fam- ily, privileged to drop in whenever I liked and take my share of whatever was going. And generally there was some- thing good either to eat or drink, for the captain lived well and kept open house in the good oid-fashioned i-land style—a style that's quite gone ou:s of date,’” he added, with a sich of regret. “Weil, one day I was sitting in the back parlor with the cap'ain, over a bottle of gin, We were talking about a sieamer from Auckland, which bad just been sighted off the port, and would be within the harbor in arother half hour. It was nasty wet weather with heavy squalls, and a biz searunningintc the open mouth of Apia Bay, making the harbor anything but a safe place for a small boat. Tue captain said, in spite of the weather, that he thought he would go off, after the usual fashion of Apia people, to meet the steamer and have a gossip with the pas- sengers when she came in. * ‘Wha ’s the use,’ I replied, lookinyz at the gin botle, which was not more than half empty. You'lionly get wet through, | and perhaps bave your boat swamped in the bargain. Much better sit here and be comfortable, and wait uati] we hear who's aboard of her,” fter a bit of talk the captain agreed, and though I didn’t know it at the time Isaved bim from getting himself into a very awkward scrape. Many a t.me si then has he thanked me for the service I unconsciously rendered him. “So we sat there snugly, passing the bottle of gin between us, and looking out through the open doorway atthe wind- swepe harbor, with great green breakers rolling through the bottle-necked en- trance and breaking with & roar like thun- der into clouds of white spray at our very feet. The store, you see, was only just across the road from the beach, and we had a good view all round the bay. “When the rain let up a little we saw the mnil steamer pitching and tossing in the passage between the cruel coral reefs whick guard the entrance to the harbor. But a cable’s length away from her was certain destruction, for the great breakers which curl on the reefs would tear the finest steamer to pieces in five minutes should she once come within their grasp. “However, the boat was a good one, and the skipper knew the port so well that in a few minutes she was safely anchored in the center of the narbor. Despite the weather, one or two of the watermen’s skiffs went out to her, but we sat and waited. “A boat soon put off frowm the steamer witn a single passenger, ana before the sweeping seas drove rapidly toward the littie wharf opposite the captain’s store. “Looking through the telescope he ex- ciaimed: ‘Why, if it isn’t Benham, the purser; a fine young chap; sailed with ce | me a couple of voyages as supercargo in the Mary Ann; knows my peopls in Auckland, too. I'll be glad to see him, Mary, my girl,’ he cried to his wife, ‘get another bottle of scbhnapps, and see that the kettle’s boiling, for I'm sure Benham will waunt a glass of hot grog when he steps ashore.’ *Five minutes later Benham, his oil- skin coat dripping with salt water, rushed into the room. The captain greeted him warmly. ‘How do, Benham ?’ he shouted; ‘glad to see voa here, though it is such wretched weather. Take that wet thing off and sit down and have a glass of grog to warm vour innards.’ “But Benham, an active, sharp-faced young man, seemed strangely flurried. ‘Thanks,’ he replied hurriedly, ‘but there's no time now; I've got to tell you something important,’ and he glanced in- quiringly at me. *I took the hint and rose to go, but the ndly old cantain stopped me with a wave of his hand. ** *No, no, Wiiliams,’ be said; ‘just vou stop here and give me your adyvice. You may speak belore this gentleman, Ben- bham.’ All right,’ replied the purser. ‘Weli, it's ju-t this: Your wife anl kids are voard the steamer; they’ll be here soon. They wanied 10 come ashore at once, but Itold them to await an hour or so, until the sea got alittle smoother; then Irushed off to tell you.’ “The captain sank like a man who bas had a stroke. The unfinished glass of gin dropped from his hand. But he spoke never a word. “I was quite taken aback, not to say shocked, but I waited to see what was coming.” (70 be continued.) Florence—I wonder why Jack dislikes billiards so? Mabel—I suppose the thre= balls remind him too forcibly of the pawnbrokers. ————— “All things come to him who will but wait,” murmured the waiter when in- formed that be had inherited a fortune. — Because genius is said 10 be akin to in- sanity there is noreason for thinking in- sanity akin to genius — The poet takes in the in<pirations of na- ture while bis wife takes in washing.