The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 23, 1904, Page 14

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALE. 2 Copyright, 17 by Charles Dryden. T the age of five years, quite a while before the hobo instinct steered me into serious trouble, I first enjoyed the delights of travel—of gelng somewhere and seeing things. The preliminary dash was made in a family bobsled over a twelve-mile straightaway course in the middle of ter. Time, the late 60's, which date is close enough for the purpose of this confession. It was not the scenery en route that red my nomadic bloed, for I failed » tc observe any. The tribe to which I belonged was migrating out of season— in other words, moving from the farm where I occurred to a little mud- streaked village in Western Illinois, As for the town, it was there on the map, and it submits that fact as an excuse for being there still. There is no ac- counting for the tact of some towns. ‘What landscape, if any, invited in- spection along that frozen twelve-mile route is lost to me forever. Family complications bungled the trip, in my case, at least. Exclusive of parents, there were eight little sunbeams—six 22 ful, before the couch on which he lay nureing a bandaged burn on his cheek. 'On which occasion, it is said, he wears a plug hat and a fur boa.” @ T g L2 2 REWA & ByChanningPollock (Copyright, 1904, by Channing Pol- This bur lock.) ALLIE MARSHALL went Red Bark for her vacation al- most entirely because Frank Ewing was there. To her friends in the eoffices of the American Opera Ch Company she d that she felt the quiet of the place to be what she In point of fact, how- most needed-was the bookkeeper, who his pen a week before with avowed intention of rusti- ng at Red Bank. The ordinary, sensible woman of 3. which was the exact age of Miss Mar- obably would not have sym- to most ever, love needed. what sh yo! pa d with her much concerning this requirement. Ewing was just 28 and his “gray matter” was not gray of maturity or overexertion. s exceedingly good looking, ex- ceedingly tall and broad and debonair, and the virtues appealed at once to little ‘Miss Marshall, whose eyes were accustomed to grayness of mind and of other things. Ewing liked Miss Marshall, too, in a patronizing sort of fashion, his regard having been deepened considerably by the discovery that she was mistress of “double entry” and not at all averse to double labor. His affection never melted into words, and it was suf- ficiently adjustable to permit of being put quite out of the way when its possessor met so fluffy and alluring a person as Nellie Carruth. “Frank Ewing’s gone with your girl again,” Miss Marshall heard an idler remark banteringly to another as she climbed the steps of the Globe Hotel. She stopped to fumble a handker- chief out of her bag. ‘Who? Nellie Carruth?” inquired the youth addressed. “Looks as if I was cut out, doesn’t it?” That he was not the only individual “cut out” Miss Marshall learned im- mediately upon the return of the pair. Fluttering about the piazza she dis- cerned them at the end of the street, the bookkeeper hanging on the words of his companion as no amount of mere appreciation of wisdom ever made man hang on the words of woman. Ewing was greatly embarrassed, too, when he saw Miss Marshall, although she tried to seem uninterested alike in his presence and in his attention to the blue-frocked girl to whom he presented her. Nevertheless, while presenting-an im- perturbable front to that part of the world at Red Bank, she suffered keenly the next few days. Miss Carruth and her widowed mother occupied a cot- tage near the river, and between walk- ing, riding and booating she and her new admirer were together almost con- stantly. This was the state of affairs when a fire at the Carruth cottage upset Ited Bank and permitted to the book- keeper a display of courage which seemed to write “finid” to his ro- mance. The blaze broke out at dead of night and gained such headway in the front part of the d@welling that there appeared scant probability that the two inmates could be rescued. Red Bank’s volunteer fire brigade propped its ladders against the veranda be- fore the bedroom windows, but very wisely refused to mount them through the blast furnace of the blazing porch. Ewing went up one of them like a toy monkey on a stick and car- ried both women to places of safety. Miss Marshall, who thought , the result of contact with a falling brand, kept the bookkeeper wrapped in darkness and oil-silk for a fortnight. « His right eye had been endangered and had to be treated carefully. Miss Marshall forfeited a considerable amount of salary and re- mained at Red Bank. She really was needed after Miss Carruth, to whom the fire soon became only an imper- sonal occurrence which made good material for storytelling, found =a rowboat shared with her earlier ad- mirer rather preferrable to a stuffy room shared with her later suitor and the odor of iodoform. The injured man missed her greatly and inquired of Miss Marshall con- cerning her. Miss Marshall, with bravery in the feminine gender of that which he exhibited at the fire, replied that she suppesed Miss Car- ruth much occupied with getting furniture for her new cottage. “Her new cottage?” exclaimed Ew- RDED & » ‘and Off the Bread Wagson g Hard LuckTales and Doz - By Charles Dryden of us in the original package and a job lot of two—father having married a second time. And don’t forget the furniture. Children. parents and chat- tels were massed in one stupendous ag- gregation in the bobsled. This over- worked vehicle was an ordinary farm wagon box, with supplementary side boards, set on snow runners and pro- pelled by a pair of low-pressure mules. Of <¢Course we were somewhat crowded in the cabin—not a soul had room to speak, in the words of that old McGuffey School Reader poem. It wouldn’t do to lose any children, and furniture was even more expensive at that period. So we all stuck together, some stowed right side up, and some wrong. I held a position near the bot- tom of the load, with my neck resting on the ruffled bosom of a zinc wash- board. For years afterward I wondered what had made me so cold and dismal, not to say clammy. Thg wisdom that comes from rubbering eventually set my mind at ease, but not until I had observed the metal lining they put in ice boxes. It's a wonder I did not be- come an Arctic explorer. No Fashion Plate for Him. However, since that day I've got it in the epiglottis many a time and oft while tourjing. Had I known then what is up to me now the zinc washboard would have proved futile as a deter- rent. What is born in the blood must come ont in the boxcar. On reaching the village father handed the mules a couple of swift kicks in the slats, by way of appearing at ease in the presence of total strangers, and proceeded to discharge cargo. - Being an impartial and busy stevedore, he unloaded his assets as they came to hand — first a joint of stovepipe, then a child, followed by a bundle of bed slats and an infant daughter, until his’ earthly possessions reposed in a picturesque pile on thg. sidewalk. When father separated me from the washboard among the sedi- ment at the bottom of the load, one side of my neck resembled the blue concertina much esteemed by Swedes. We all were somewhat cramped and frost-bitten, but glad to be city people, Just the same. I'm willing to admit that breaking into the Four Hundred has' its drawbacks. The farm so cruelly deserted, twelve miles away, was situated on the county line. This I knew from hearing father speak of it and, as county line sounded good to me, I featured it in my lan- guage, using appropriate gestures on the side. The frequency with which county line butted into informal chats with the village boys conferred upon me a pleasing foreign air, extremely rare in those parts. What a t;nveler 1 was in those days—a regular cuss on runners! The hug that fnade me a hobo was working in my system. Another rough and ready trait of the tourist early developed was my utter refusal to pose as a fashion plate at Mudville, Ill., for garb cut no ice with me. When I was 10 years old, father ordered built for each of his two sons a beautiful cozy cloth cape. Those duds were dreams until we tried to wear them' in the presence of other boys, when said garments became night- mares that shriveled our wretched little souls. The nightmares had pock- ets inside and were lined with red flan- nel, crimped around the bottom like the edge of a pie. It baffles a boy to stow his fists in~unseen pockets. Let the more subtle female intellect cope with the puzzle-page pocket. She has more time. The Boy and His Togs. Every Sunda§ father martyred us in the capes, after fastening paper collars to horn buttons, sewn on the neck- bands of our shirts, of which we each h¥d one. Then he led us to the gate and pointed In the direction of Sunday school and it meant a loss of cuticle if we fafled to come back with the text. Around the first corner, in front of the home of a very wealthy man, stood a cord of wood. There brother and I paused and peeled, bundled the capes into small wads and stuffed them into the woodpile. The cloth was the color of oak with the bark on and no one ever spotted our sissy regalia. Many a day when mercury flirted with zero me and Bill made a grand triumphal entry at Sunday-school, ar- rayed in the paper collars and a purple smile. As the senior of Bill and the originator of this dress-reform move- ment, all I lacked was a tin can like ‘"Happy Hooligan's to put me in right. The large, warm, old ladies who taught the classes looked at us and wept. They said it was a crime to send a field of selling-platers away from the post to such a start. However, these remarks never touched me and Bill. for our souls wefe serene in cold storage. On the way back me and Bill made another lightning change at the woodpile. and took chances with the gang on the home stretch of one short block. It is the dearest wish of my life that parents who haberdash male offspring contrary to the boyish idea of the eter- nal fitness of things and clothes will read this wail and take a much-needed tumble. Don’t tog your son like a freak, which freak, to his mind, is the girl. If you cannot dress Harold as he sees other boys dressed let him wear an Apache G string and be happy while he may. The Lord never in- tended him for parental torture. He will get what's coming to him, all in good ‘time, and plenty of it. Another pale, studious lad in that town wore a plaid shawl skewered be- neath his chin with an iron bolt which had a large moss agate knob at the vend. Also he wore a pair of high-heeled, thin Morocco shoes, supposed to be his mother’s, laced all the way to the top. That boy has since won international renown as a skirt dancer, and is now a sedate man of family and a creator of millinery at my old home. Yet the plaudits of the ten, twenty and thirty sbrought him no lasting joy: for the great white light of fame still beats upon the name of Sis. He never will be able to smother it. Loie Fuller. the boss serpentinist of all ages. likewise came from Mudville, Tll., and vet I do not recall Loie as a maiden tripping blithely to school in overalls and one suspender. which attire her smolder- ing genius should have demanded, Sis Was the Centerpiece. But a short time ago I visited Mud- ville and noted among other improve- ments the rehabilitation of a late har- ness shop. The end had been blasted out to make room for an entire plate glass front inscribed \in tall letters of gol “Dunkerr, Parislan Importa-* tions.” Though that magic name rated one more ‘r” than he could afford when a boy I felt in my bones it was Sis, who had reached that pinnacle of earthly greatness which' permits a man to monkey with the spelling of his T % Miss Marshall did. She concluded that Miss Carruth was something better than pretty when she witnessed her first meeting with Ewing after the bandages had been taken from his face. The brand had penciled an indelible mark of seared scarlet from his forehead to his throat. Miss Carruth gave vent to an abbreviated scream when she saw it and then, mastering herself, grasped the victim’s hand firmly. “I didn’t re- alize,” she said, “how much you had done for me.” Manifestly, Miss Marshall had been unjust ih considering her a mere doll. One evening soon after, however, when she was sitting at her window looking into the mist of her life, she was given reascn to resurrect her first opinion. Ewing and Miss Carruth were seated below and Ewing was proposing marriage. The woman up- stairs knew that she ought not to ls- ten, but her breath was quivering in her throat and she could not move ing. “I may be Interested in that my- ¢2"4Y 10 save her soul. self some day!” Miss Marshall tried to change the subject. “She’s a brick!” the convalescent went on. “Pretty as a picture, too. Don’t you think she's pretty, Marshail Miss the Foolish HE one gr« thing that every man knows everything about, until he tries it for himself, is bringing up children. The vi- carious method of child training of the simplest things known to man; women aren’t so sure of them- selves. All that is r-cessary is to as- sume at the outset that your brother or your cousin or your neighbor or your friend in Chicago is doing every- thing with his unfortunate offspring that he should not do and that the is one “Don’t!” Miss Carruth was urging when her voice first became audible. “Don't, Frank! Please don’t!” “But why?” he persisted. “I love you. Until this moment I was sure that you loved me.” “I did!" cried the girl. “Oh, I did, an easy course without a pilot he was turned into the street to learn wisdom and other things by contact with the actual affairs of life. Mrs. Krowit attempted to make a protest at this stage of the game and pointed out the amount of undesirable knewl- edge that the youngster would prob- ably acquire, but she might as well have whispered her inmost tloughts into the ea# of an Iowa cyclone in the busy season. Her husband was so sure that he knew just what was right and why that he kept right on as fate of the poor child will be an early— grave or th: penitentiary. If you do this you can be sure that you have observed the first and only rule in long range paidology. After you have acquired one or two little olive branches of your own the subject will assume certain complicated aspects that had not presented themselves to Yyou before, That was the experience of Mr. Knowit and his good wife, although Mrs. Knowit should be relieved of any direct responsibility in the matter. Mr. Knowit's first theory, before he had had an opportunity to put it in prac- tice, was that tne average American parent was too gentle with his children. A little dash of the good old Spartan was what the kids needed, according to this expert authority. He would have had all children brought up gec- cording to a uniform system, fn h mere mothers should play a small part, When the first installment of his fam- ily appeared on the scene he announced that the newcomer should be brought up according to the most approved principles of the strenuous school. There was to be no coddling or other- wise unnecessarily gentle treatment, but the boy was to be taught all the things that any well regulated biack- smith or member of a life-saving corps. should know. To the end that his mus- and his powers of self-preservation thoroughly developed he was to be al- lowed to yell as much as his infantile desires dictated, at any hour of the day or night. The nightly and the frequent application of the sooth- were - strictly # T was worse than a crime, it was & blunder.”” Thus a sagacious yet kindly old gentleman was ‘wont to speak concerning his own and other people’s mistakes, and thus at times we all feel when disgust- ed and mortified because of our failure to do the proper thing at the right mo- ment or because of some painful error in judgment, some unwise move, some stupid action. The consequences of these mistakes are likely to follow swiftly, and usually cause us uneasy moments, not to say sleepless nights. Somehow we feel a little different about (¢ them than we do regarding our actual transgressions. The latter may be charged up against some seductive temptation, or we may get them for- given. But when we have done not a bad but a foolish thing it brings a- peculiarly irritating sense of failure and weakness, of which it is hard to rid ourselves. ‘ And how much we may learn from our mistakes! There is a gréat deal of good sense in the clever saying, “Ex- though he were the cyclone in ques- tion. When the boy was caught around the corner of the house one day in suspicious proximity to a cigar- ette butt the old man winced a trifle but concluded that the deadly effects of the aforesald coffin nail could be discovered only by actual experience and forthwith bought a whole pack- age for the boy to experiment on. His theory was that every man should Dutting wp.ageisat It in pevson. “They utting up person. he would know all about it, although until—. You mustn’t ever ask me to marry you!” » “Why?” repeated Ewing. The repeti- tion was determined. “I think I have earned the right to a reason.” “That is the reason.” “What?" The word was spoken sharp- ly, like a military command. Miss Car- ruth quafled. - ““What—what happened when you earned the right? Oh, I know I'm hor- rid! I know I'll be ashamed all the rest of my life. But—your cheek! I couldn’t bear to look at that scar.” “Oh!" said % VI, £ ¢ “If it hadn’{ béen for me you wouldn’t have lWeen burned,” Miss Car- ruth went on, sobbing almost hysteric- ally. “I realize that. I'm sory; indeed, I'm sorry! Won't you say you forgive me?” . “Yes,” said Ewing. “It's not your fault. I've just been a fool. I see it now. I'm going away to-morrow.” “And you won't think too harshly of me?” Ewing rose and Miss Marshall heard him push back his chair. “I'll try not to think of you at all,” he answered. “T'll try to remember a little woman who has never forgotten me. Her love was too fine for me to comprehend at first, but somehow I seem to understand it now."” Then two sounds broke the stillness of the night. Frank Ewing had gone into the hotel. slamming the door after him, and Sallie Marshall, fainting for the first time in her life, had fallen to the floor. %, e it wpuld probably be too late to do him any good by that time. It is useless to follow the whole course of Mr. Knowit's convolutions in the' training of his first born. Being a man, he, of course, never suspected that there was anything wrong with his. system until it was too late to change it, thereby giving a very black eye to his theory of education by expe- rience. If he had been trying to manu- facture a first-class prize fighter or a fit subject for the solitary cell his ex- periment would have been a gilt- By Epes Winthrop (Copyright, 1904, by T. C. McClure.) ANNY deliberately chewed up his ticket. When he had masticated it to a pulpy condition he waited for the conductor, He was rather sorry he was not better ac- quainted,with that official’'s movements, for a cl*wed railroad ticket is not a tasty morsel. At last, after Wwhat seemed to be hours of waiting, he caught sight of a blue coat and brass buttons in the far end of the car, and a moment later he began to choke. The traveling man across the aisle pounded him upon the back and presently his gasps subsided. “What's the matter?” demanded the conductor, coming up, whereon Dan let out a wail that would have shamed the Wwhistle of the powerful engine. “I swallowed most of me ticket,” he sobbed, “an’ now I gotter walk all the way to Pittsburg.” Sundry bits of pasteboard on the fioor furnished corroborative evidence, but the conductor was adamant. “The gateman told me you had a ticket to Newark,” he declared firmly. “You get off there.” “He's a llar,” protested Dan, “and so're you.” A FAILURE EITHER WAY count after a summer vacation, but the amount of valuable knowledge that he had concealed about his person could have been taken up in an ordi- nary teaspoon without crowding. His ultimate destiny was clearly the post of bouncer in ordinary to a Bowery saloon and the only- consolation that his parents could extract from his ex- istence was in the contemplation of the blessed fact that there was only one of him. If he had been twins there would have been an appealing dearth of balm in Gilead. perience is the term which a man em- ploys to cover up his mistakes.” Cer- tainly the school of experiénce is a splendid one, even if one is constantly getting hard knocks in it. Thereby the child learns that the fire is hot, the young man that he will pay for to-day's excesses with a headache to- morrow, the business man that there [ A e O) A Man and His MistaKes By the Parson are only 100 cents in a dollar. If we will only face our mistakes fairly, trace the.chain.of circumstances that led up to them, put our finger on the precise point at which we went astray, ‘We are so much better able to walk circumspectly afterward, to let the hot stove alone, to wear sufficient clothing when we are exposed to the cold, to edged, morocco-bound success, but as ‘he wasn’t aiming directly at either of results his work was open to At the age of twen:‘y' th? large quantity of but most of discharge our routine duties more suc- cessfully. Improvement of manners and mor- als, of tastes and habits may thus re- sult from a closer scrutiny of our mis- takes. If the spirit of ambition still remains with us we shall refuse to be downed by any past blunder, how- ever stupid. We ghall become more vigilant and discipline ourselves more severely. As we trace many of our mistakes to want of prudence and forethought, to carelessness and for- getfulness, to indifference to our per- sonal appearance, to being over-busy with comparatively trivial matters, we shall make all the more vigorous an onslaught upon these old besetting foes of ours which have tripped us into making these mistakes. So out of them will come a purified and en- nobled character. After this the only other thing we have to do with our mistakes is to forget them. Having faced them manfully, gotten the lesson ‘out of them, resolved to clean up our lives at certain points, the mistakes of the past should be to us as if they had never been. They and we have parted company forever. Why need they dog our footsteps and depress our spirits any longer? It was about this time that the Knowits were favored with another olive branch, although they were ready by this time to suspect that it was only -scrub oak. Having at last learned the error of his ways, although he couldn’t get rid of the error, Mr. Knowit de- cided that he would try a different method with the second entry in the Knowit handicap. This one should have name- Pausing outside the lid works, urder pretense of admiring the crea- tions in window display, I peeked in- side. The centerpiece in a bewildering symposium of Oriental grandeur was Sis, lolling in a low rocker planted on a Turkish rug. His brown hair brushed well back, revealed a placid brow, care free and unwrinkled by thought, time or trouble. The years had wrestled gently with Sis. Diamonds blazed on the fingers that once did duty as hand- Kerchiefs, and his silklike person was arrayed in summer toilet—negligee shirt waist of white silk—row of diamond studs and Byronic collar; and as he rccked and hummed a little tune his nimble needle created a delicate bit of tatting work. When He Goes Abroad. Ranged in hanging balconies near the ceiling half a dozen femai aves toiled and fretted, building Parisian importa- tions so that Sis might strut in jewels and fine raiment. It was too much. The boy who wore the shawl had other people working for him, while I, who hid my cape in the woodpile, lurked outside the palace an aged, baldheaded, baggy-kneed galoot who had burned up the better part of his life chasing freight trains and foundry jobs. *“Children, parents and chattels * * ¢ £ & DAN'S DEBT 2 = The conductor made a grab at his col- lar, but the drummer interfered. “Don’t get gay with the kid,” said. “You know very well you are not telling the truth when you say that you know where his ticket is for.” The conductor sized up the traveling man and became diplomatic. “I can't let him ride,” he declared apologeti- cally. “He's got to have a ticket or he can’t stay on the train.” “Two to Pittsburg,” said the drum- mer, producing his mileage book. The conductor punched two slips and passed on. If a passenger wanted to be taken in it wak none of his business, especially when the passenger was al- most six feet. The drummer turned to Dan. “Your fare is paid,” he said. “On the level, where was your ticket for?" “Newark,” admitted Danny, “but dat big stiff didn’'t know." Jack Somers laughed lightly. “‘Going to sit up all night?” asked Somers, as he saw the Pullman con- ductor at the other end of the car. said Dan, contemptuously. “Well,” the other returned, “I guess I can get a place in the sleeper, but I'll come and take you in the diner Wwhen it's time,” and with that he fol- lowed the conductor down the aisle and on to the car where a berth had been found after the reservations had been checked up. He was as-good as his word about the dinner. The idea of a whole dollar By Nicholas Nemo tactical error, but not necessarily a fatal one. Men have beem known to recover from worse blows than this, al- though not often. For the first ten Years of Clarence’s life they took turns sitting up with him to see that he didn’t forget to breathe at the proper intervals. He was never allowed to g0 outside the house without one or the other of his parents acting as a convoy, and even then they insisted on pro- tecting him from evil influences with long blonde curls and a Lord Faunt- leroy top hamper. A boy who would in- sist on being bad in spite of the pro- tection thus afforded would be a start- ling proof of the existence of infant de- pravity. His education was applied at an in- stitution for the suppression of natural instinets kept by a man who would have been a missionary if he hadn’t feared that his tender susceptibilities would be too much shocked by the style of dress, or undress, in vogue among savage tribes. He was so gentle and modest that even the mention of the naked truth in his presence was likely to cause moral convulsions of an alarm- ing type. The second edition of the Knowit family library was intrusted to the fostering care of this elderly female in disguise, who was expected to manicure the boy's intellect and promptly suppress any symptoms of masculinity. It was expected that four of an AmateurHobo After a while T went in and met Sis. He was so glad I called he told me the story of his life while the ensiaved milliners on the giddy perches above looked down and giggled softly. I re- lated a few chapters myself, but didn't allude to the cape epoch in my career. Somehow I feit I had lost out. As a skirt dancer Sis starred in London, Paris, Berlin and at the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg. On the London cir- cuit he had skirted, so to speak, as many as four music halls in one night, dashing about in diaphanous silk folds and a cab from place to place. With the wealth thus acquired he settled down at Mudville to a congenial life of easy quiet and independence. Twice per year, spring and fall, Sis visits the whelesale millinery plants at Chicago, on which occasion, it is said, he wea plug hat and feather boa. I was too sick at heart to hang around and see him start and besides it's a cinch I wouldn't have laughed. To a matured vision many good things lose their wonted zest. After singing one or two more low, sweet stanzas of my youthful yester- days I'll pass on to the sad to-morrows that never came. Next week I'll expose the great Mudville Cow Mystery, which baffled that village more than thirty years. Wait for it. In one stupendous agg gation on the bobsled.” 3 3 § 3 P2y P e for just ome dinner appalled Dan, but there was no outward play of the he awe he felt. He might have been used . to the best, for all the wonderment he ghowed. Six mw onths later Dan was a passen car going to a summer park, directly behind Somers and a young woman, whom he immediately ciassified as “Somers’ stead; It was evident that things were not as they would have them, for the talk that tloated back to Dan’s keen ears told him that her father objected to Somers, and that this was a clandes- tine meeting. “Don’t butt in was one of Dan's rules and he was t in the crowd at the trolley terminal before Somers had had a chance to recognize his one-time protege. The band was good and the green grass was a most pleas- ant carpet, but the talk on the trolley rang in Dan's ears. The girl was old Henry Greyson's daughter—he found that out—and Greyson objected to Somers becs he thought him fast—the old type drummer. It was evident that Somers took the matter as much to heart as did the girl and Dan was quite dis- gusted over the state of affairs. Henry Greyson was known every- where in Pittsburg. The Greyson building was one of the most modern structures, and Greyson's interests were as varied as they weré enor- mous. It was an easy matter to find his office, but a lot more difficult to get at the man. Dan waited from 11 in the morning to 3 in the after- noon and then, from a side door around the corner of the hall from the main office the spare, alert figure of the millionaire stepped out. Dan po’ d upon him. ay, Mr. Greyson,” he demanded, plunging into the midst of the busi- ness, “I come to ask ye a favor.” Greyson’s hand went to his trous- ers pocket and Dan’s lips curled. “Nixey he said decidedly. ‘“When I want cash I earns it. I want your daughter.” “My daughter!” repeated the aston- ished Greyson, looking about to see what help might be at hand. “Fer a friend of mine,” completed Dan. “Y'see, Paul Somers was on de car yesterday and yer gal was wid him. I hearn him tell "er you kicked because he was no good. Say! Dat's dead wrong.” “Do you mean to say that my daughter was with young Somers yes- terday?” demanded Greyson, forget- ting for the moment to whom he was talking. “T was right behind 'em,” declared Dan. Greyson produced a $10 bill. “Here's something for your trouble,” he said, “if you see them together again let me know and you may have another.” “G'wan, yer old geezer,” retorted Dan; “did yer s’pose I'd break a fren’ like that? I wanter tell yem, you're nutty about Mr. Somers; he’s an all- righter. Didn’t I see a dame try ter win him out in N'York, and didn’t he tell her to chase herself? Gwan. Get wise! He's watcher want for de girl; dere ain’t none better.” With a slight draft on his imagina- tion, he told the old man of how Som- ers had heljed him to Pittsburg, and how, when he was selling papers in or five years of this sort of thing would . N¢W York, he had scen Somers often, put the youngster in a proper frame of mind to enter active life without se- riously deranging the court calendars or overcrowding the county jail. How well the new system worked may be judged from the simple state- ment that Clarence at the age of 20 was all that his name entitled him to be. He wore high collars and spec- tacles and a white tie and never ran, for fear that he would bag his trous- ers at the knee. The only subject on which he was al'e to converse was the relative merits of square and round cut coats and his staple literature was the ‘“Hints for Girls” column in the Shady Home Journal. At last accounts he was selling ribbons and teaching the in- fant class in Sunday school. ‘We have told this harrowing tale of domestic tragedy and misfortune as a warning to all loving parents that the first essential in the manufacture of silk purses is the selection of the right material. Having seen to that, almost any old method will produce some of a result. (Copyright, 1904, by Albert Britt.) and how the man had done none of the things with which he had been charged by other interested parties. There was the ring of truth in his tones, and the old man relented. He ‘was accustomed to forming his owr 1:"'";::“ nn!d ;ne would accept ever. e statement of a ragged new: it seemed to him right. e “ItNl be all right, boy,” he said as the tale was done. “He can have her.” With a whoop Dan was down the hall. Greyson called him back. “Ain’t going ter ‘nig,’ are yer,” de.. manded Dan sudpiciously as he came up. “No,” smiled the magnate, ing at the meaning of “nig.” wanted to say I have a place in my office for yous Come around in the morning and I'll put you to work.™ “Dat’s all righi said Dan. “You come down to th’ cormer to-morrer, an’ T'll lend yer enough papers to start wid. T'm in business fur meself, I don't wanter work for no dude elerk.” and this time the boy kept on. His debt had been paid Suess. “I fust