The Project Gutenberg eBook of Harper's Round Table, March 3, 1896, by Various.

Can you not see the boy of 1775 now—his sturdy legs encased in stout black stockings, german-silver buckles to his knee-breeches, his hair plaited and tied with a smart black ribbon, and all this magnificence topped by three real silver buttons with which his hat is rakishly cocked? But the boy himself is better worth looking at than all his finery—so thought Captain Moore, of his Majesty's ship Margaretta, lying at anchor in the harbor of Machias. Jack Leverett was the boy's name—a handsome stripling of sixteen, with a quiet manner but a fearless eye.

The two were sitting opposite each other at the cabin table, and through the open port they could see the village and the harbor, bathed in the bright white light of a day in May. The Captain was conscious that this young guest was decidedly in a hurry to leave. A whole hour had they sat at the dinner table, Captain Moore, with the utmost art, trying to find out Jack's errand to Machias—for those were the stirring days when every American had to take his stand for or against King George—and Captain Moore particularly desired to know how Squire Leverett, Jack's father, stood toward the King. But Jack, with native mother-wit, had managed to baffle the Captain. He had readily admitted that he was the bearer of a letter[Pg 470] from his father to Jerry O'Brien, master of Squire Leverett's sloop Priscilla, in regard to heaving down the sloop. But the Captain, with a seaman's eye, had noted that the Priscilla was in perfect order and did not need to be hove down, and he more than suspected that Jack was the bearer of other and more important news. Through the cabin windows they could see the sloop, a beautiful craft, being warped into her dock, while across the blue water was wafted sweetly the voices of the men, led by the shanty man,[1] singing the old shanty song:

"Haul the bowline, our jolly ship's a-rolling,
Haul the bowline, the bowline haul!
Haul the bowline, our jolly mate's a-growling,
Haul the bowline, the bowline haul!"

As soon as Jack decently could, he started to rise from the table. Captain Moore had observed that the glass of wine at Jack's plate remained untasted, and it suggested a means of finding out whether the Leveretts meant to go with the King or not.

"Do not go," he said, "until you have joined me in drinking the health of his Majesty King George."

Jack had no notion whatever of drinking the King's health, but he was at his wits' end how to avoid it. Just then, though, the Captain turned to speak to his orderly, and Jack took the opportunity of gulping down his wine with more haste than elegance. Captain Moore, seeing it, was surprised and disgusted at the boy's apparent greediness for wine, but raising his glass, said, "To the King."

"Excuse me, sir," answered Jack, coolly, "but my father never allows me to drink but one glass of wine, and that I have already had."

"Then I will drink the toast alone," said Captain Moore, with a stern look at the boy. "Here is to his Majesty King George. Health and long life to him! God save the King!"

As Captain Moore uttered this sentiment Jack rose and promptly put on his hat. The Captain was quite sure that the boy's action, like his gulping down the wine, meant a distaste for the King, and not a want of breeding. But he thought it best not to notice the incident, and said, civilly, to his young guest:

"Present my compliments to your honored father, and tell him that his Majesty's officers have the kindest feelings toward these misguided people; and while if attacked we will certainly defend ourselves, we have strict orders to avoid a conflict if possible, and not to fire until fired upon."

"I will remember your message, sir," was Jack's answer; and the Captain, having no further excuse for detaining his young guest, allowed him to depart.

He was soon alongside of the Priscilla, and there, standing at the gangway, was the sloop's master, Jerry O'Brien. Jerry, by an accident of fate, had inherited an Irish name, but he was as arrant a Yankee as ever stepped. He was a handsome fellow withal, and in his natty blue suit much more resembled the Captain of an armed cruiser than the master of a smart merchant vessel. The Priscilla, too, was a wonderful contrast to the slovenly merchantmen around her. She was as clean as hands could make her, and her beautiful lines were brought out by the shining coat of black paint upon her hull. Her men were smart and seamanlike. Jerry O'Brien was the most exacting ship-master on that coast, but he never had any trouble in shipping men, for, while making them do their work with the quickness and steadiness of man-o'-war's men, he used neither blows nor curses. A natural leader of men, he made himself respected first, and after that it is always easy to command obedience.

As soon as Jack Leverett came over the side Jerry took him to the cabin. Jack produced a letter, and by the heat from a ship's lantern some writing in lemon juice was deciphered. It contained a full account of the affairs at Lexington and Concord, of which only vague rumors had reached Machias. At every sentence descriptive of American valor Jerry would give a half-suppressed whoop, and at the end he could not forbear letting out a huzza that made the little cabin ring.

"Suppose," said Jack, who had hard work to keep from hurrahing wildly, "instead of making a noise, we should invent a scheme to capture the Margaretta. If the farmers around Boston could, with hay-forks and blunderbusses, beat off the British regulars, the sailors and fishermen about here ought to be able to get alongside the Margaretta and take her."

Jerry's mouth was large, and it came open like a rat-trap at this bold proposition. After a pause he spoke. "Boy," said he, "the enterprise shall be tried; and if we succeed, you shall be prize-master of the Margaretta."

Jack's heart leaped at these words. He was an admirable sailor, like most of the hardy youngsters on the coast, and had more than once taken the Priscilla on short trips. But his mother and the Squire meant him to be something else than a merchant Captain, and kept him under a tutor when he would much rather have been sailing blue water. For hours Jack and Jerry sat in the cabin talking over their scheme. Jerry knew that the people of Machias were heart and soul with the cause of freedom, and could be depended upon in any desperate adventure. The Margaretta carried four brass guns and a number of swivels; but, as Jerry shrewdly said, if once the Priscilla could grapple with her, it would be a battle of men and musketry, not of guns. At nightfall Jack and Jerry went ashore. A great vivid moon hung in the sky, and they could see the Margaretta almost as well as in daylight. She was a handsome vessel, schooner rigged, and in a state of preparation that showed Captain Moore did not mean to be caught napping. All her boats were hoisted in, her anchors had springs on them, and her sails were merely clewed up, instead of being furled.

"There you are, my beauty," said Jerry. "It's a shame, so it is, that King George's ensign should fly from your peak. You deserve an American flag, and we'll try and give it you."

All that night they spent going from house to house of the men who had the patriotism to enlist with them, and by daylight they had the promise of twenty-five resolute men who, at a signal of three cheers given from the Priscilla, would at once board her and put themselves under Jerry O'Brien's command.

All this commotion on shore had not escaped Captain Moore's lookouts during the night, and although the Captain would much have preferred staying and fighting it out, his orders compelled him to cut and run if signs of an outbreak were visible. The British government then earnestly wished to conciliate the colonists, and by no means to come to blows.

The next morning was Sunday, and as beautifully clear and bright as the day before. In order to avoid the appearance of fear, Captain Moore determined, with his officers, to go to church as usual. As the Captain's gig landed the officers, Jerry O'Brien and Jack Leverett, with the six men who composed the Priscilla's crew, were all on deck, keeping a sharp eye on the Margaretta and her boat.

"What say you, men," suddenly asked Jerry, "to bagging those officers in church?"

"We say yes," answered every man at once. In a few minutes, with Jerry and Jack in the lead, and all well armed, they took the road toward the church. As they neared it they heard the faint sweet echo of a hymn that floated out on the spring air—the only sound that broke the heavenly stillness.

Jerry silently posted his men at the entrance, and then opening the door softly, raised his horse-pistol and levelled it straight at Captain Moore, who sat in the last pew.

The British Captain happened to turn his head at that instant. The congregation was too absorbed in the singing to notice what was going on. Jerry nodded at the Captain, as much as to say, "You are my prisoner." The[Pg 471] Captain coolly shook his head, as if to answer, "Not quite, my fine fellow," and the next moment he made a sudden dash for the open window, followed by all of his officers, and before Jerry could realize that the birds had flown, they had run half-way to the shore. In vain Jerry and Jack and their followers pursued. The officers had too long a lead, and by the time the Americans reached the shore the Captain's gig was being pulled rapidly to the ship. As soon as the boat reached it the anchors were picked up, every sail that would draw was shaken out, and the cruiser made for the offing. As soon as she was well under way she sent a shot of defiance screaming over the town, and was answered by three thundering American cheers from the Priscilla. As if by magic the sloop's deck was alive with armed men, and with a quickness equal to the cruiser's, her mainsail was up, and she was winging her way in pursuit of her enemy.

Well had the Priscilla been called the fastest sloop in all that region. The wind was dead ahead, and both vessels had to get out of the river on "a long leg and a short one." The Margaretta was handled in a seamanlike manner, but on every tack the Priscilla gained, and showed that she was a better sailer both on and off the wind. In an hour they were within hailing distance, and the men on the Margaretta were called to quarters by the tap of the drum. Her guns were run out, their tompions withdrawn, and the cruiser showed herself to be an ugly customer to tackle. But this did not intimidate the Americans, who were closing on her fast.

"To learn how to tack ship!" responded Jerry O'Brien, who had taken the wheel himself. This reply caused a roar of laughter from the Americans, as the Priscilla could come about in half the time of the Margaretta.

"Fire away, gentlemen," bawled Jerry, "and light your matches with your orders not to fire first!"

At this the gallant British tars groaned loudly, and Captain Moore, drawing his sword and shaking it at the rapidly advancing sloop, shouted:

"Orders or no orders, I will fire one round if I lose my commission for it. Blow your matches, boys!"

The guns were already manned, and at the word there was a flash of light, a puff of smoke, and a round shot came hissing and shrieking across the water and struck the Priscilla's mainmast fairly in the middle, splintering it. The sloop staggered under the blow, and in a minute or two the mast went by the board with a crash.

"Never mind," cried Jerry. "This is not the first mast that was ever carried away, and we have spare spars and carpenters too. Wait for us in Holmes Bay, and we will fight it out yard-arm to yard-arm before sundown."

The Margaretta, with her men cheering and jeering, sailed away toward the open sea. The Priscilla being the best-found sloop in New England, in a little while the stump of the mast was cleared away, a lighter spar, but still good enough, was fitted, and she made sail on it.

As she neared the ocean the wind freshened every moment, and although the sun shone brilliantly, a heavy sea was kicked up. Soon they sighted the Margaretta, with her topsail backed, and gallantly waiting for her enemy.

In all this time Jack Leverett showed a steadiness and coolness beyond his years. Once Jerry O'Brien said to him,

"All right," answered Jack; "and if I don't flinch I want my mother to know it."

The two vessels now neared each other on opposite tacks. Captain Moore manœuvred to get into a raking position before delivering his fire, but the Priscilla, by skilful yawing and by the roughness of the sea, proved to be as difficult to hit as if she had been a cork bobbing up and down. In vain they played their two starboard guns and all their swivels on her; their shot rarely struck, and when it struck, did small damage.

Not so with the Americans. Without a single cannon, they poured forth a musketry fire at close quarters that did fearful work and made hot the Margaretta's decks. The brave British sailors stood manfully to their guns, but the Americans were gradually edging up, and their fire grew more deadly every moment. The Margaretta tried to sheer off, but the Priscilla, closing up, got her jibboom entangled in her adversary's main rigging, and a dozen Americans sprang forward to make the two ships fast.

As the vessels came grinding together Jerry O'Brien, leaping on the taffrail, shouted, "I will be the first man to board—and follow me!"

But Jerry was mistaken. He was suddenly seized by the coat tails, jerked backwards, and fell sprawling upon the deck, and the next instant Jack Leverett sprang over him, and was first upon the Margaretta's deck.

"Drat the boy!" was Jerry's involuntary exclamation as he scrambled to his feet.

The Americans poured over the side, and met with a warm reception. Captain Moore, surrounded by his officers, retreated to the fo'c's'le, fighting every step of the way. At last Jerry O'Brien came face to face with him. The Captain defended himself with his sword, but it was knocked out of his hand by Jerry with a pistol butt. They clinched and fell to the deck fighting. The struggle was sharp but short, and in fifteen minutes from the time the Americans had lashed the ships together the Captain was overpowered, nearly every officer had been cut down, and the cruiser was in the hands of the Americans. There had been much cheering on the Priscilla that day, but when the British ensign was hauled down, and Jerry, in default of a national flag, hoisted his own jacket at the mast-head, there were three cheers given that could almost be heard at Machias.

The prisoners were quickly transferred to the Priscilla, and as Jerry O'Brien required all of his best men on board, he could only spare a few landsmen for a prize crew on the Margaretta.

"But I will give her a prize master who, although not very old, can sail a schooner or any other craft—John Leverett, there," said Jerry. "And he will take her in, you may be sure."

Soon they were heading up the river, and when, under a fair wind, they made a quick run to Machias, the May moon made the heavens glorious. Jack Leverett thought the happiest moment of his life had come when they cast anchor amid the thunder of cheers from the people assembled along the shores.

But there was a happier moment yet in store for him. A week afterward Jack and Jerry O'Brien entered Squire Leverett's study, where sat the Squire and Madam Leverett. The mother uttered a cry of joy and clasped her boy in her arms. Then Jerry O'Brien, taking him by the hand, led him to the Squire.

"Sir," he said, "here is your brave boy. You have reason to be proud of him. I have been promised two things when the navy of the Colonies is formed. One is a Captain's commission for myself, and the other is a midshipman's commission for this lad. He is born for the sea, and to make a landsman of him would be like putting a mackerel in a barnyard to scratch for his living."

The Squire, too moved to speak, silently took one of Jack's hands in both of his, and Madam Leverett, falling on her boy's neck, cried, "How happy am I to have such a boy to give to my country!"

GRANT'S TROUBLESOME SOLDIER.

General Grant used to tell a story of a soldier in a certain regiment during the war who was continually bothering him by asking favors. Grant one day said to him, "Look here; I believe you are the most troublesome man in the Union army."

BY GASTON V. DRAKE.

VII.—FROM BOB TO JACK.

DEAR JACK,—When I left off my letter to you last night it was nearly ten o'clock, but almost broad daylight. What do you think of that? It's the queerest thing you ever saw. The clock and the sun don't seem to gee over here at all. You can read after nine o'clock without any gas-light at all. Pop says it's a special British arrangement, because London is such an interesting place and so many people can only stay a few days that they like to keep it lit up as long as they can. I'd heard before that the sun never sat on the British Empire but I never knew it was so long about setting in England. The hall-porter on our floor says it makes up for it in winter though by rising about midday and setting ten minutes later. If that's so how it must whiz across the sky. I'd rather like to see it then. He says too that last winter they had a fog so thick that people had to dig their way through it with spades, and he told another boy that it was a regular business in winter for boys and men who couldn't get other work to do to go about the city and shovel the fog off the front door steps and walks just as snow-shovellers do in New York. It must be fun living here then.

We didn't get into London until about seven o'clock Wednesday night, but it was fine travelling coming up from Southampton. You'd have thought the cars had rubber bicycle tyres on their wheels—see that word tyres?—that's English for tires—I saw it on a sign. They rode along just as smoothly as a bicycle would on a tar pavement, and go—Jerusalem how they did go! That little toy engine I told you about once she got started just leaped over the ground. You'd almost think you were travelling on a streak of lightning and in a packing box. That's all the cars are, just little packing boxes petitioned off into stalls running from side to side. You get into one of these stalls and the guard—they call brakemen guards over here—the guard locks you in and off you go. It isn't a bit like travelling in America, and I don't know as I like it quite as much as the American cars with Isles down the middle of 'em because the broken mixed candy and banana boys can't walk through and sell you things! haven't seen a broken mixed candy and banana boy over here and it's all because their cars haven't any Isles. There aren't any comic paper boys either but I guess that's a good thing. Pop bought a copy of one of the English comic papers and he nearly ruined his eyes trying to see the jokes, their points were so awful fine.

It took us about four hours to get here and two to find our baggage after we got here because the porters had put some of it with the B baggage and Aunt Sarah's trunk had wandered off among the C's. The station was crowded with hacks and omnibuses and people and almost every hack was engaged. Finally Pop managed to get a cab they called a four-wheeler. It looked scarcely big enough for two but as we got into it it sort of stretched and by the time the driver had us packed in we had seven people in it, Pop, Mamma, Aunt Sarah, the two children, the nurse and me. How we ever managed it I don't know, but we did, and then instead of sending the baggage to the hotel by an express-wagon the cabman put it all on top of the cab, two Saratoga trunks, three steamer trunks, a bath-tub, four bundles of rugs, two hat-boxes, three dress-suit cases and the hamper—and all for one horse! I didn't believe the horse could move us, but the minute the driver chirruped to him off he started like a regular race-horse and I tell you it was exciting. There we seven people were, cooped up inside with all those trunks piled up on the little bit of a roof right over our heads being galloped around corners as if we were playing snap-the-whip, darting in and out between policemen, lamp-posts and omnibuses. Mamma and Aunt Sarah were scared to death. They weren't afraid we'd tip over but they had half a notion that the roof might cave in and let all that baggage down on us; and I think Pop felt uneasy too because he tried several times to tell the driver to go slow, but he couldn't because he was wedged in so tight.

It wasn't possible to see much, we went so fast, but we did catch a glimpse of a fearfully dirty river as we crossed it and Pop said he guessed it was the Thames and it turned out to be so later on, and the bridge we were on led right up to the houses of Pollyment, I think they're called and I tell you they're beautiful. They look good enough to put on a mantel piece. Two minutes later we got here and Pop managed to pull us out of the carriage and get the baggage taken into a hotel by a man who was dressed up as gorgissly as a drum major, and all that cab cost was three dollars! Pop says he couldn't have got off for less than ten in New York and the driver cheated him into the bargain!

When he paid the cabby Pop told him he'd driven too fast and the man said he hadn't at all. "Aren't you afraid you'll run into somebody?" asked Pop. "No," said the man, "I'm afraid somebody'll run into me." Which is why he tore so to keep out of the way of the cabs behind him.

I can't say I think much of the hotels here. They're very handsome to look at, but its hard work getting anything at 'em. The people here behaved so that Pop thought we'd been landed at Buckingham Palace by mistake, and asked if he might see the Queen and apologize for intruding, but the man never laughed a bit; just turned away tired. We got our rooms finally though and there isn't a bed in one of 'em without a canopy over it and all the wash-stands have bottles of patent tooth-powders on 'em with signs saying if you open this bottle it'll cost you a shilling. I opened two of 'em before I saw the sign and Pop says I'm out fifty cents for my curiosity, but I don't mind. It'll go on the bill and he'll pay it.

We're off now to see the Tower of London. The next time I write I'll tell you all about it. I wish Sandboys was here. It would do these English hall-boys good to see how Sandboys does his work. It would take one of them English boys a year to carry up as much ice-water as Sandboys does in a night, but then they've got as much work as they can do looking after their buttons. I should think it would be a day's work buttoning up a hall-boy's coat over here. Ours has sixty between his chin and his waist.

THE VOYAGE OF HIRAM AND DAVE.

BY A. J. ENSIGN.

George Whittingham was staring at a Billingsgate fish-woman. She was glaring at George, and treating him to some of that wonderfully abusive language known to all Englishmen as "Billingsgate." George was just about to repeat the expedient of a noted English wit, and call her a "miserable isosceles triangle, a beastly rectangular parallelopipedon," when some one pulled his coat sleeve and said,

George whirled around at the sound of a familiar voice, and exclaimed: "Hiram Wardell! Well, what on earth are you doing in London?"

"Tryin' to find out how to get home, Mr. George. Me and Dave Hulick here ain't in London on a tour, I can tell you, and we don't want to stay here either."

"Then it's lucky for you that my father is in the consular service here. I guess he can help you two boys. But, say, this is a funny case, isn't it? Only a year ago you fellows were taking me out fishing off Joppa, and now—How did you get here, anyhow?"

"Well, Mr. George, this ain't a very good place for story-telling. Can't we go where it's quiet?"

"You two boys come to my father's office with me," said George, "and then you can tell him and me the story at the same time. I think that will be the best way to manage it."

So the well-dressed young gentleman, accompanied by the two rude-looking New Jersey "beach-combers," set off through the jostling, bustling London crowds toward Mr. Whittingham's office in Cheapside. George's father was at his desk, and expressed his readiness to listen to the story of the two boys, whom he was surprised to see in London. Hiram Wardell, when bidden to go on with his narrative, hung his head and twisted his cap nervously in his long red fingers.

"Go on, Hi," said his companion; "ye got to tell it, an' ye might as well start an' git through."

Hiram straightened himself up with a jerk, ran the red fingers through his shock of dust-brown hair, and began: "Well, sir, I s'pose we two boys is a pair o' fools, an' that's the truth. But we'll know better nex' time. You see, it ain't very much of a country down there on the Jersey coast, except in the summer, when the city people is there, an' then what is it? Only drivin' a hack, or takin' a gentleman out fishin', or somethin' o' that sort. So Dave an' I this spring got mighty tired o' the whole business, an' we made up our minds that we'd got to git out. So one day we was a-settin' on the beach talkin' about it, an' Dave he says to me to look at a schooner wot was goin' down to the south'ard. An' he says to me, wot was the matter with goin' to New York an' shippin' on one o' them schooners an' goin' to the West Injies, or Savannah, or Halifax, or some sich place? Right off it seemed to me that was about the finest scheme I'd ever heard of. But we didn't have much money betwixt—only sixty-four cents—an' the question were how to git to New York. First off, Dave thought it would be the best way for him to take the money an' go to York, an' when he'd earned enough to send for me. But I was mistrustful o' bein' left behind an' seein' Dave wave his hat at me some day from the deck o' one o' them schooners goin' South."

Mr. Whittingham lay back in his chair and shook with laughter, while Dave Hulick looked at Hiram with a countenance full of solemn reproach.

"Well, you know you'd 'a' done it, Dave," said Hiram, as he continued with his story. "After talkin' the thing over for a good while, I proposed that we pervision Dave's father's smallest fishin' skiff with them sixty-four cents an' sail for York. Dave he said it weren't fair for him to furnish twenty-eight cents an' the boat, an' me only thirty-six cents. But I told him the boat didn't cost him nothin', an' he had to allow that I was tellin' the truth; so he agreed to my plan. I ain't a-goin' to stop to tell you all the botheration we had a-gettin' them pervisions an' gettin' 'em stored ready for shippin'. Land sakes! Folks was so mighty curious that I 'most lost my wits inventin' answers for all their questions."

"All about sixty-four cents' worth of provisions?" inquired Mr. Whittingham, who could not conceal his amusement.

"Jest that, sir, an' nothin' else," replied Hiram, gravely. "Well, at last everything was all ready, an' bright an' 'arly one fine mornin' we slipped out an' down to the beach. Of course it wasn't no great shakes of a matter for us two boys to launch the boat an' get out through the surf. Mr. George he knows that, 'cause he's often gone out with us. Well, when we got out there wasn't enough wind to sail, the ocean bein' as smooth as one o' the plate-glass winders in Bill Smock's drug-store. So we had to get to work an' row. There was other boats goin' out, an' my sakes alive! what a lot of questions we had to answer! Seems to me there wasn't any reason for 'em, either, 'cause we boys often went out fishin'. But anyhow we pulled along till we got well to the north'ard o' Joppa an' out o' reach o' questions, an' then Dave he struck work. 'Blowed if I'm goin' to row all the way to York,' says he. Didn't you, Dave?"

"We set the mast an' sail, an' let her drift. It was a putty middlin' hot day, an' along in the early afternoon, when we hadn't got more'n five or six miles to the north'ard, I reckon both of us fell asleep. I don't know how long we was asleep, but I know what woke us up. The blamed boat turned turtle."

"Yes, sir, upset. You see, there was a kind of a squall, an' we, bein' asleep, didn't get no notice of't till we was in the water. Well, I climbed up on to the bottom o' the boat, an' Dave he hung on to me an' grumbled. 'Nice sort o' doin's,' says Dave; 'there's that sixty-four cents' worth o' good grub gone to feed the fish.' An' then I says to Dave to shut up his all-fired nonsense, and be glad that we wasn't gone along with the grub. Then I got out my big red handkercher an' waved it. There was a small coastin' schooner ratchin' along not more'n a mile away. The squall had died down to a good breeze, an' she was a hustlin'. She didn't see us, though. Well, sir, we hung on to the bottom o' that there boat till putty nigh sundown, an' all the time we was a-driftin' further an' further out to sea. About then this here Dave he woke up an' says, 'Here comes a big wessel right at us.' Sure enough, there was a full-rigged ship what had just cast off her tug an' was a-makin' sail. She was a-headin' so's to come within a hundred yards of us. So I got the handkercher out again an' waved it, and when she got putty near we both yelled. The ship hove to an' lowered a boat, an' in a few minutes we was aboard o' her. We told the skipper our story an' he laffed. He wasn't putty when he laffed, either, because his teeth was all out in front an' his nose was broke. 'So you was bound to New York, was you?' says he. 'Well, now you're bound to London.' I didn't want to go to London, but this here Dave—he don't know much, sir—he said he'd jest as leave go to London on a ship as the West Injies on a schooner. So to make the story short, sir, we two lunatics—'cause that's ezackly what we was—shipped on to that there wessel as green hands."

"I hope, sir," he continued, gravely, "that you was never a green hand on a ship. A green hand don't know how to do nothin', an' one o' the mates tells him to do it, an' then yells, 'I'll l'arn ye, ye slob!' An' he allus teaches him with his fist or his foot or a belayin'-pin. I bin punched, kicked, an' knocked down all the way from off Long Beach to the North Foreland. I was taught to furl a royal off Davis South Shoal with a kick in the ribs. I had a long splice, a short splice, an eye splice, an' a black eye punched into me off George's Bank. I got the science o' heavin' to in a gale o' wind kicked clean through me off Cape Race. I learned how to heave the log off Sable Island by bein' hove down the forehatch head fust,'cause I didn't know how to do 't. I got a fust-class chart o' the North Atlantic Ocean hammered on to my body in black an' blue, an' ef ever I git lost out there again, it'll be because the Jersey coast has lost its anchor an' gone adrift. An' now, sir, here's Dave an' me; we don't want to go South on to a schooner no more. All we wants to do is to git back to Joppa, let our fathers lick us, an' then settle down to cod-fishin' an' peace an' quiet for the rest of our lives."

Mr. Whittingham laughed heartily over this account of the two boys, but said their final decision was a very wise one, and that he thought they had paid in full all they owed for having run away from home. He sent them home in the steerage of a swift ocean liner that landed them in Joppa a week later.

THE SCIENTIST AND THE FARMER.

A distinguished scientific writer was once on a shooting excursion in an English shire. Coming across a bluff, hale farmer, he entered into conversation with him. As they walked along, they reached a heap of stones. Pointing to them, the scientific man asked the farmer if he knew how they were made. The farmer grinned and replied, "Why, they bean't made, sir; they grows."

"Dear me! Why, those stones can never grow!" said the scientific man. "They have been that way for years and years, and if you were to look at them years hence, they would be just the same size."

At this the farmer actually laughed, and looked at the man of science as though he pitied his ignorance as he exclaimed, "Why, in course they'd be, 'cause they've been taken out o' the earth, and they stops growin' then same as 'taters would."

FOR KING OR COUNTRY.

BY JAMES BARNES.

A Story of the Revolution.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A LOYAL TRAITOR.

"How many men have you?" inquired William, as he accompanied the black-bearded man down the road.

"About one hundred," he said; "but there are about twice as many good lads gathering to the southward who will be up in time to assist us. The English have taken possession of a brick house with a stone wall, and are afraid to leave it. They are waiting for re-enforcements."

To his astonishment, William saw that the company was composed, with the exception of the men who had met him in the road, of few whom he would consider fit to fight in the ranks—boys of fourteen and old gray-headed men that had been left at home, for the flower of New Jersey manhood was in the army.

Ralston had called a score or so about him. "Friends," he said, "this is an old comrade, now a Lieutenant in the army. Let us hold counsel. It is right that he should take command. We are quite well drilled but not equipped, sir," he said, turning to William.

The latter looked about. Some of the farmers were armed only with pitch-forks or rough pikes made from scythes. The Quaker with the pig had been greeted with the cry of "Fresh pork! Fresh pork!" and a rail fence was soon converted into fuel.

"I am on special duty," William said, after a thought. "I should not tarry long."

If he refused to accede to their wishes he would place himself in a dangerous position, and not only that, but would probably hurt most seriously the brother whom he was supposed to be. What would he not give for some news about George's condition? He had only gathered, from what Cato had told him, that his younger brother was not seriously wounded.

All followed him, and seated themselves on the edge of a large bin. With ears of corn Ralston marked out the position that the English and Hessians held in the valley below. To save himself, William could not help but be interested.

"Keep them talking," he thought. "That's it; but propose great caution. It may give the others time to get away."

A freckle-faced red-eyed boy with a narrow-stocked rifle much taller than himself looked into the door.

"What is it, Tommy?" said one of the men, as the boy pulled off his coon-skin cap.

"Did you mark the lad, Mr. Frothingham?" said Ralston, glancing up from his plan. "The Hessians two days ago killed his old grandfather and burnt his sick mother's house down about her head."

This recital started another of the group, and William listened in horror and amazement. In common with many other officers in the English service, he had deprecated the use of the German hirelings. His anger at their outrages overcame every other feeling in his breast.

"You say the Hessians are here," he said, pointing with his finger at a bunch of corn-cobs, "and that the hill is off here to the right?"

Before he knew it, William found himself offering a plan of attack. The others listened with great attention.

"A true military eye," observed one old man, leaning over his neighbor's shoulder. "It is a young David come to lead us against the Philistines."

Suddenly William caught his breath. What was he doing? This was nice work for an officer in the service of the King. "How far off is this brick house you speak of?" he asked, hoping that even now he might escape the consequences of his impetuosity.

"Had we better not divide our forces, as you suggest, and prepare for an attack?" said Ralston.

"Yes, I have a thirsty sword." The man tapped an old Scotch claymore that hung by his side.

"Well said, McPherson," put in another, and William followed them as they went out through the barn door.

"Draw up in line, comrades, the older men to the top of the hill, and the younger take position at the edge of the swamp," Ralston spoke again.

It seemed impossible that such a mob could do anything against an organized resistance, but a surge of mingled admiration and pride swept over William. A great lump came into his throat. He glanced at the eager boys and the bent forms of the old men. Ye gods! These were his countrymen! Some one, he did not know who, shouted, "Forward!" and he found himself at the head of a shuffling, swaying company that straggled out across the road. He was leading as they silently went through the meadow and came to the crest of a hill where the stubble of the corn-stalks just showed above the snow. Below him he saw a large brick house, and about it a strong stone wall. Even from this distance he could make out the green uniforms of the Hessians and a few red coats dotted amongst them. William halted an instant.

The weak point of the defence he observed at once. From behind the rocks on the hill-side the interior of the yard could be commanded. There were few windows in the house facing the westward, and a large hay-cock stretched up almost to the second story. He could not help it! The tales he had heard made him hate the mercenary green coats that had brought disgrace upon warfare, if such could be. He was in command. He could not back out, but hesitated to give the word. Another mind, however, had seen the same opportunity that had struck William so forcibly. As the men stopped on the hill-side there was a rattling volley below them. A body of ragged men in homespun much like those grouped about him appeared on the edge of the alders in the swamp. Others swarmed out from the woods. The party from the southward had decided to wait no longer for assistance from the forces under Ralston. Captain Littel, of New Jersey, was in command of this attack. So well feared and hated had he been that there was a reward upon his head. William was surprised at the intrepid charge that these farmer soldiers made upon the wall. A handful ran out across the meadow, and despite the fact that three fell before they had gone one hundred yards, they reached the side of the house. One of the men was carrying a flaming torch. In an instant the hay-cock roared up in flames, and now the men about him could stand it no longer, but with a shout they dashed down the hill-side with no more order than a herd of charging cattle. Spurts of smoke sprang from the windows of the farm-house. The Waldeckers and the British were driven from behind the wall, but the house had now caught fire from the burning hay. The Americans swarmed about it. A man with an axe burst the door. There were some more shots, but soon the white flag was extended from one of the windows. This recalled William to his senses, and then he noticed that he was not alone. Ralston stood beside him.

"Hasten!" he said. "They have surrendered; but so great is their rage that I am afraid if we do not interfere our people will take no prisoners. Their blood is hot, they seek revenge!"

Holding his lame arm closely to his side, William ran down the hill, and was soon at the house. Captain Littel, who had led the first attack, had been wounded.

Looking up, a British officer was seen standing there. One of the countrymen levelled a rifle at him, taking aim.

William knocked the piece aside. "Teach them a lesson. Behave like men. You are not murdering Indians!"

"But those green-coated devils are," said the man, "which is just as bad." Again he rested his rifle.

"Hold! You are right," said the latter; "but if you had seen what I have—" He stopped.

In a minute William found himself haranguing the angry crowd about him. The fearless ring of his voice and his soldierly bearing had its effect.

The men grew calmer. The fire had now eaten its way into the interior of the house, and the roof was blazing.

"We surrender," said the officer at the window. "Is there any one here to whom I can give my sword? For God's sake, don't burn us all to death!"

Ralston, standing at William's side, shouted back, "Come down, then, all of you."

He pushed the men hither and thither with his strong arms, and formed a lane for them to pass through. Again he needed strong efforts to restrain the feelings of the victors as the frightened Hessians and a few English hurried out of the burning house. The officer was carrying his sword by the blade. He approached and extended it toward Ralston, but the latter waved him to where William was standing, pale and torn with conflicting emotions. As the man in the red coat approached he started, and almost dropped his sword. It was Captain Markham, who only a few days ago William had left in the coffee-room at the tavern in New York.

"I will not," said the officer, and he dashed it to the ground at the latter's feet. "So you are in your true colors at last," he said; "but let me tell you, sir, it was lucky that you left just when you did. You were seen talking in a doorway with a man who is now known to be a spy, and, worse luck, he escaped us also. You know whom I mean?"

"Your name is stricken from your regiment, and you are posted for what you are, you rebel!"

William had no reply to this long speech, and his attention was now called to a different direction. One of the attacking party had recognized a low-visaged German who had been prominent in the outrages at the village. They were for hanging him at once. The band of English were outnumbered now three to one. They had piled their arms in a heap as they left the doorway of the house, and were huddled together in an angle of the wall. Once more William's calm words and appearance had their effect, and there was a lull. Quickly he told off the most prominent leaders of the guerilla forces and divided the prisoners into squads. Once started on the march, it would be easier to keep order. When this was accomplished he spoke to Captain Markham.

"I cannot reply at length to what you say. All I can do is to save your lives. Maybe fortune has granted me that power. I am not a traitor by intent."

The company moved out across the fields, taking up their wounded, and leaving the dead Hessians where they were.

Captain Markham marched silently along, paying no attention to the looks that were thrown at him by the angry victors. He admired William's bearing, despite the standpoint from which he looked upon him. "I understand now," he said, "why it was you never took the oath of allegiance to the King."

It was William's turn to start. It was a fact. The ceremony, owing to the haste in the purchasing of his command and of the departure of Colonel Forsyth from England, had been omitted.

"What are you going to do with us?" asked the Captain. "How did you come to be in command?"

"Through fate, perhaps," responded William; "it has decided many things. I am going to take you to Morristown, if I can; and as for myself, I shall turn myself in as a prisoner of war with the rest of you. I cannot explain. Some day you will understand."

It was necessary to hasten the march now, for a messenger had arrived, stating that re-enforcements of the British were approaching from Elizabethtown. They marched ahead at a faster pace.

It was a strange tale that William Frothingham related when he brought his command to the American lines. The idea of an English officer leading an American attack, and after victory convoying his prisoners to his enemy's lines, and there insisting upon giving himself up also as a prisoner of war—this was something new in the annals of history. He found himself in the most remarkable position that probably a man had ever been placed in before.

After hearing his tale and recovering from the astonishment of finding that it was not the Lieutenant Frothingham they knew, the Americans would not accept him as a prisoner. The Commander-in-Chief expressed the sentiment of the meeting in these words:

"You are free to return, sir, without exchange; but it is my advice that you do not do so. What you can explain to us you could never explain to the gentlemen who are temporarily in New York city."

Colonel Roberts, of Washington's staff, here whispered a suggestion. It was taken up at once, and the sentence of the court to which William had presented his remarkable petition was as follows:

"Lieutenant William Frothingham, late of his Majesty King George's service, is hereby ordered to free confinement at the Manor House of Stanham Mills, to be paroled there on honor not to escape or desert a country that has profited by his free service."

"Yes, I knowed it all de time," said old Cato to the group in the kitchen. The old man was breathless from reiterating this statement.

In the big hall a strange meeting was taking place. So many explanations had to be made; so many questions asked and answered; so many stops and pauses for Aunt Clarissa to overcome her tears and bursts of self-deprecation, that it was a long time before quiet and calm could be restored; but when this had happened, the impossible seemed to have been accomplished, for there sat the twins as they had years and years before, hand in hand, and grouped around them were Aunt Clarissa, Colonel Hewes, Grace, and Carter, for the young Captain had considerately been given charge of the remarkable prisoner, and many a long chat and silent hand-grasp had they indulged in between Morristown and Stanham. William's depression was rolling off him. Somehow it seemed very natural to be here with his own people again, so much happier than being with the roistering, swaggering officers that he had so long been thrown in with.

At last good-nights were said, and Aunt Clarissa, with a final burst of weeping, had gone up stairs on the arm of her tall young niece. George and William stepped to the door as they watched Carter and his father mount their horses, for the latter was now living in a small house with the troops at the foundry.

A figure was standing leaning against one of the pillars. It advanced as the twins came out upon the piazza.

"How, Adam!" William responded, taking the old Indian's extended hand. Again the latter repeated this exclamation, and turning, shuffled off. In his belt shone a great horse-pistol. It had once belonged to Cloud, the Renegade.

"Brother mine," said George, placing his arm across William's shoulder, "it has been the finger of the Lord."

George laughed. "You are a patriot, then," he said. "You could not help what grew up in your heart. It is for King or country."

[the end.]

RICK DALE.

BY KIRK MUNROE.

CHAPTER VII.

CAPTAIN DUFF OF THE SLOOP "FANCY."

As the newly engaged crew of the sloop Fancy slowly and awkwardly descended the slippery ladder leading down to his ship, he experienced his first regrets at the decisive step he had taken, and doubts as to its wisdom. The real character of the sloop as shown by a single glance was so vastly different from his ideal, that for a moment it did not seem as though he could accept the disreputable old craft as even a temporary home. Never before had he realized how he loathed dirt and disorder, and all things that offended his delicately trained senses. Never before had he appreciated the cleanly and orderly forms of living to which he had always been accustomed. He could not imagine it possible to eat, sleep, or even exist on board such a craft as lay just beneath him, and his impulse was to fly to some remote place where he should never see or hear of the Fancy again. But even as he was about to do this the sound of Bonny's reassuring voice completely changed the current of his thoughts.

Was not the lad who had brought him to this place a very picture of cheerful health, and just such a strong, active, self-reliant boy as he longed to become? Surely what Bonny could endure he could! Perhaps disagreeable things were necessary to the proper development of a boy. That thought had never come to him before, but now he remembered how much his hands had suffered before they were trained to catch a regulation ball.

Besides all this, had not Bonny hesitated before consenting to give him a trial, and had he not insisted on coming? Had he not also confidently asserted that all he wanted was a chance to show what he was good for, and that nothing save a dismissal should cause him to relinquish whatever position was given to him? After all, no matter how bad things might prove on the sloop, there would always be plenty of fresh air and sunshine, besides an unlimited supply of clean water. He could remember catching glimpses, in foreign cities, of innumerable pestilential places in which human beings were compelled to spend whole lifetimes, where none of these things were to be had.

Yes, he would keep on and make the best of whatever presented itself, for perhaps things would not prove to be as bad as they seemed; and, after all, he was willing to endure a great deal for the sake of continuing the friendship just begun between himself and Bonny Brooks. He remembered now having once heard his father say that a friendship worth having was worth fighting for. If that were the case, what a coward he would be to even think of relinquishing his first real friendship without making an effort to retain it!

By the time all these thoughts had flashed through the boy's mind he had gained the sloop's deck, where he was startled by an angry voice that sounded like the bellow of an enraged bull. Turning quickly, he saw his friend Bonny confronted by a big man with a red face and bristling beard. This individual, supported by a pair of rudely made crutches, was standing beside the after-companionway and glaring at the bag containing his own effects that had been tossed down from the wharf.

"Ye've got a hand, have ye?" roared this man, whom Alaric instinctively knew to be the Captain. "Is this his dunnage?"

"Never mind what you think," interrupted the Captain, fiercely. "Send him about his business, and pitch his dunnage back on the wharf or pitch it overboard, I don't care which. Pitch it! d'ye hear?"

"Who asked ye to think? I do the thinking on board this craft. Don't ye suppose I know what I'm talking about? I tell ye I had this Phil Ryder with me on one cruise, and I'll never have him on another! An impudent young puppy as ever lived, and a desarter to boot. Took[Pg 478] off two of my best men with him, too. Oh, I know him, and I'd Phil him full of his own rifle-bullets ef I had the chance! I'd like to Ryder him on a rail, too."

"Who, I? You dare say I'm mistaken, you tarry young swab you?" roared the man, his face turning purple with rage. "Oh, ef I had the proper use of my feet for one minute I'd show ye! Put him ashore, I tell ye, and do it in a hurry too, or you'll go with him without one cent of wages—not one cent, d'ye hear? I'll have no mutiny where I'm Cap'n."

Poor Alaric listened to this fierce outbreak with mingled fear and dismay. Now that the situation he had deemed so surely his either to accept or reject was denied him, it again seemed very desirable. He was about to speak up in his own behalf when the angry man's last threat caused him to change his mind. He could not permit Bonny to suffer on his account, and lose the position he had so recently attained. No, the very first law of friendship forbade that; and so, stepping forward to claim his bag, he said, in a low tone, "Never mind me, Bonny; I'll go."

"No, you won't!" retorted the young mate, stoutly, "or, if you do, I'll go with you; and I'll have my wages too, Captain Duff, or know the reason why."

Without paying the slightest attention to this remark, the man was staring at Alaric, whom he had not noticed until this moment. "Who is that landlubber togged out like a sporty salt?" he demanded.

"All right. I wouldn't have him aboard if he could. Why don't he take his thundering dunnage and go for'ard, where he belongs, and cook me some grub when he knows I haven't had anything to eat sence sunup? Why don't he, I say?"

With this Captain Duff turned and clumped heavily to the other side of the deck; while Bonny, hastily picking up the bag that had been the innocent cause of all this uproar, said, in a low voice,

As they went forward together he dropped the bag down a tiny forecastle hatch. Then, after asking Alaric to cut some kindlings and start a fire in the galley stove, which was housed on deck, he dove into the cabin to see what he could find that could be cooked for dinner.

When he reappeared a minute later, he found his crew struggling with an axe and a chunk of hard wood, from which he was vainly attempting to detach some slivers. He had already cut two deep gashes in the deck, and in another moment would probably have needed crutches as badly as the Captain himself.

"Hold on, Rick!" cried the young mate, catching the axe-helve just as the weapon was making another erratic descent. "I find those grocery chaps haven't sent down any stores. So do you just run up there. It's two doors this side of Uncle Isaac's, you know, and hurry them along. I'll 'tend to the fire while you are gone."

Gladly exchanging his unaccustomed, and what he considered to be very dangerous, task of wood-chopping for a task that he felt sure he could accomplish creditably, Alaric hastened away. He found the grocer's easily enough, and demanded of the first clerk he met why the stores for the sloop Fancy had not been sent down.

"Must have been the other clark, sir, and I suppose he forgot all about 'em; but I'll attend to the order at once, sir," replied the man, who took in at a glance Alaric's gentlemanly bearing and the newness of his nautical garb. "Have 'em right down, sir. Hard bread, salt junk, rice, and coffee, I believe. Anything else, sir?"

"Then of course you'll want some soft bread, a few tins of milk, half a dozen jars of marmalade, and a dozen or so of potted meats?"

"Step this way, sir, and let me show you some of our fine goods," suggested the clerk, insinuatingly.

In another part of the building he prattled glibly of pâté-de-foie-gras and Neufchatel cheese, truffles, canned mushrooms, Albert biscuit, anchovy paste, stuffed olives, Weisbaden prunes, and a variety of things—all of which were so familiar to the millionaire's son, and had appeared so naturally on all the tables at which he had ever sat, that he never for a moment doubted but what they must be necessities on the Fancy as well. Of ten million boys he was perhaps the only one absolutely ignorant that these luxuries were not daily articles of food with all persons above the grade of paupers; and as he was equally without a knowledge of their cost, he allowed the clerk to add a dozen jars of this, and as many pots of that, to his list, until even that wily individual could think of nothing else with which to tempt this easy-going customer. So, promising that the supplies just ordered should be sent down directly, he bowed Alaric out of the door, at the same time trusting that they should be honored with his future patronage.

Bethinking himself that he must have a tooth-brush, and that it would also be just as well to have his own comb, in spite of Bonny's assurance that the ship's comb would be at his service, the lad went in search of these articles. When he found them he was also tempted to invest in what he regarded as two other indispensables, namely, a cake of fine soap and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne.

He had gone quite a distance for these things, and occupied a full half-hour in getting them. As he retraced his steps toward the wharves he passed the slop-shop in which his first purchases of the day had been made, and was greeted by the proprietor with an inquiry as to whether old Duff had taken aboard his cargo of "chinks and dope" yet. Not understanding the question Alaric did not answer it; but as he passed on he wondered what sort of a cargo that would be.

By the time he regained the wharf to which the Fancy was moored the flooding tide had raised her to a level with it, and on her deck Alaric beheld a scene that filled him with amazement. The stores that he had ordered had arrived. The wagon in which they had come stood at one side, and they had all been taken aboard. One of the two men who had brought them was exchanging high words and even a shaking of fists with the young first mate of the sloop, while the other was presenting a bill to the Captain and insisting upon its payment.

Captain Duff, foaming at the mouth and purple in the face, was speechless with rage, and could only make futile passes with one of his crutches at the man with the bill, who dodged each blow with great agility. As Alaric appeared this individual cried out,

"Certainly," said Alaric, advancing to the sloop's side. "I was told to order some stores, and I did so."

"Oh, you did, did ye! you thundering young blunderbuss?" roared Captain Duff, finding his voice at last. "Then suppose you pay for 'em."

"Very well," replied the lad, quietly, thinking this an official command that must be obeyed.

A minute later peace was restored, Captain Duff was gasping, and his first mate was staring with amazement. The bill had been paid, the wagon driven away, and Alaric was again without a single cent in his pockets.

CHAPTER VIII.

AN UNLUCKY SMASH.

Captain Duff's first order after peace was thus restored and he had recovered the use of his voice, temporarily lost through amazement at the spectacle of a sailor before the mast paying out of his own pocket for a ship's stores, and stores of such an extraordinary character as well, was that the goods thus acquired should be immediately transferred[Pg 479] to his own cabin. So Bonny, with Alaric to assist, began to carry the things below.

The cabin was very small, dirty, and stuffy. The air of the place was so pervaded with a combination odor of stale tobacco smoke, mouldy leather, damp clothing, bilge water, kerosene, onions, and other things of an equally obtrusive nature, that poor Alaric gasped for breath on first descending the steep flight of steps leading to it.

On his next trip below the lad drew in a long breath of fresh air just before entering the evil-smelling cabin, and determined not to take another until he should emerge from it. In his haste to execute this plan he dropped his armful of cans, and without waiting to stow them, had gained the steps before realizing that the Captain was ordering him to come back.

Furious at having his command thus disregarded, the man reached out with one of his crutches, caught it around the boy's neck, and gave him a violent jerk backward.

The startled lad, losing his foothold, came to the floor with a crash and a loud escaping "Ah!" of pent-up breath. At the same moment the cabin began to be pervaded with a new and unaccustomed odor so strong that all the others temporarily withdrew in its favor.

"Oh, murder! Let me out!" gasped Captain Duff, as he scrambled for the companionway and a breath of outer air. "Of all the smells I ever smelled that's the worst!"

"What have you broken, Rick?" asked Bonny, anxiously, thrusting his head down the companionway. He had been curiously reading the unfamiliar labels on the various jars, pots, and bottles, and now fancied that his crew had slipped down the steep steps with some of these in his arms.

"Whew! but it's strong!" he continued, as the penetrating fumes greeted his nostrils. "Is it the truffles or the pate grass or the cheese?"

"I'm afraid," replied Alaric, sadly, as he slowly rose from the cabin floor and thrust a cautious hand into one of his hip pockets, "that it is a bottle of eau-de-Cologne."

"Cologne!" cried Bonny, incredulously, as he caught the word. "If these foreign kinds of grub are put up in Cologne, it's no wonder that I never heard of them before. Why, it's poison, that's what it is, and nothing less. Shall I heave the rest of the truck overboard, sir?"

"Hold on!" cried Alaric, emerging with rueful face from the cabin in time to catch this suggestion. "It isn't in them. It was in my pocket all by itself."

"I wish it had staid there, and you'd gone to Halifax with it afore ever ye brought the stuff aboard this ship!" thundered the Captain. "Avast, ye lubber! Don't come anigh me. Go out on the dock and air yourself."

So the unhappy lad, his clothing saturated with cologne, betook himself to the wharf, where, as he slowly walked up and down, filling the air with perfume, he carefully removed bits of broken glass from his moist pocket, and disgustedly flung them overboard.

While he was thus engaged, the first mate, under the Captain's personal supervision, was fumigating the cabin by burning in it a bunch of oakum over which was scattered a small quantity of tobacco. When the atmosphere of the place was thus so nearly restored to its normal condition that Captain Duff could again endure it, Bonny finished stowing the supplies, and then turned his attention to preparing supper.

Meanwhile Alaric had been joined in his lonely promenade by a stranger, who, with a curious expression on his face as he drew near the lad, changed his position so as to get on the windward side, and then began a conversation.

"Chinks and dope," returned Alaric, glancing up with the expectation of seeing a look of bewilderment on his questioner's face. But the latter only said:

"No, I suppose not; and it must pay big since it enables even the cabin-boy to drench himself with perfumery."

Ere Alaric could reply the stranger was walking rapidly away, and Bonny was calling him to supper.

The first mate apologized for serving this meal on deck, but that Captain Duff objected to the crew's presence at his table on this occasion. "So," said Bonny, "I told him he might eat alone, then, for I should come out here and eat with you."

"I hope he will always feel the same way," retorted Alaric, "for it doesn't seem as though I could possibly stay in that cabin long enough to eat a meal."

"Oh, I guess you could," laughed Bonny. "Anyway, it will be all right by breakfast-time, for the smell is nearly gone now. But I say, Rick Dale, what an awfully funny fellow you are anyway! What made you pay for all that truck? It must have taken every cent you had."

"So it did," replied Alaric. "But what of that? It was the easiest way to smooth things over that I knew of."

"It wouldn't have been for me, then," rejoined Bonny, "for I haven't handled a dollar in so long that it would scare me to find one in my pocket. But why didn't you let them take back the things we didn't need?"

"Because, having ordered them, we were bound to accept them, and I thought we needed them all. I'm awfully tired of such things myself, but I didn't know you were."

"What, olives and mushrooms and truffles, and the rest of the things with queer names? I never tasted one of them in my life, and don't believe the Captain did, either."

"Doesn't it?" responded Bonny, quizzically. "And that cologne, too. What ever made you buy it?"

"I don't know exactly. Because I happened to see it, I suppose, and thought it would be a useful thing to have along. A little of it is nice in your bath, you know, or to put on your handkerchief when you have a headache."

"My stars!" exclaimed Bonny. "Listen to that, will you? Why, Rick, to hear you talk, one would think you were a prince in disguise, or a bloated aristocrat!"

"Well, I'm not," answered Alaric, shortly. "I'm only a sailor on board the sloop Fancy, who has just eaten a fine supper and enjoyed it."

"Have you, really?" asked the other, dubiously. "It didn't seem to me that just coffee without any milk, hard bread, and fried salt pork were very fine, and I was afraid that perhaps you wouldn't like 'em."

"I do, though," insisted Alaric. "You see, I never tasted any of those things before, and they are first class."

"Well," said Bonny, "I don't think much of such grub, and I've had it for more than a year, too; but then every one to his liking. Now I've got to notify our passengers, for we sail to-night. You may come with me and learn the ropes if you want to."

Alaric wondered what sort of a cargo could be taken aboard in a few minutes, but concluded to wait and see.

Soon both lads went ashore and walked up into the town. Although it was now evening, Bonny did not seek the well-lighted business streets, but made his way to what struck Alaric as a peculiarly disreputable neighborhood. The houses were small and dingy, and their windows were so closely shuttered that no ray of light issued from them.

At length they paused before a low door, on which Bonny rapped in a peculiar manner. It was cautiously opened by a man who held a dim lamp over his head, and who evidently regarded them with suspicion. He was reassured by a few words from the young mate; the door was closed behind them, and, with the stranger leading the way, while Alaric, filled with curiosity, brought up the rear, all three entered a narrow and very dark passage, the air of which was close and stifling.

[to be continued.]

BUILDING A BOULEVARD.

BY J. PARMLY PARET.

A few years ago the people of New York decided that they must have a new boulevard, where fast horses could be driven without running over people or upsetting the carriages of those who didn't want to drive so fast. They puzzled their heads for some time to find a suitable spot for their new driveway, and it was many months before they finally agreed upon the bank of the Harlem River which runs along the east side of the city. The shore here is straight for several miles, and is lined with such steep, wooded bluffs that all the bridges cross the river high up in the air. Here there is no danger of interruption, and as the roadway can be both straight and level, it was chosen as an ideal spot, and the Harlem River Speedway is now being built there.

The building of this great boulevard has already been going on for two years, and it will probably take fully two more to complete it. The steep banks sloped down to the very edge of the river, so it was necessary to build the road out in the water for most of its length, and the workmen had to make land to build it on. In one or two places great masses of rocks were in the way, and here they cut the driveway right through the solid rock. At one point there was a big gap in the cliffs, and the road was built up on top of a high stone wall for over a quarter of a mile, while in another place they had to blast out thousands of tons of rocks from under the water to make room for the new drive.

Long before they could begin the actual work of building such a big road as this the civil engineers spent many months preparing their "plans and specifications." They estimate so many hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of mud to be dredged out of the river bed; so many thousands of feet of crib-work to be built; so many hundreds of yards of stone wall to be built; so many cubic yards of filling and grading, and so many—well, so many other things to be done that it took a big printed pamphlet to mention them all. Then the contractors who wanted to build the driveway made their offers to do the work, and the contract was given to the lowest bidder. This is the way with all public improvements.

Three months after the boulevard was started the river front for two miles fairly swarmed with workmen. At times there were nearly two thousand men at work there, and from the top of the big stone bridge, under whose high arches the road was to pass, a busy scene was presented. Far down below the hordes of men looked like little black ants crawling about at their work. All day long the little steam-drills that bored holes to blast away the rocks puffed out their little clouds of white smoke; the big pile-drivers thumped on regularly upon the tops of great piles as they sunk deeper and deeper into the soft mud, and clumsy steam-derricks and mud-dredges groaned under their work, while the scores of little carts, with their tiny horses and tiny workmen looked like swarms of bugs and ants quarreling together. The boats were covered with workmen, the shore was black with workmen, the rocky heights were sprinkled with workmen—everywhere it was alive with them. High Bridge was often lined with people looking down at the busy scene below.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the work was making the new land to build the roadway on. If they had simply dumped earth into the river, it would soon have washed away with the tides, so they had to begin from the outside and build in toward the shore.

First, a swarm of bristling, beetlelike mud-dredges anchored along in line just off the shore, and for many weeks their big scoops chunked up and down in the shallow water, each time bringing up with them great masses of black slimy mud. Scows were loaded down to the water's edge by the dredges, and sent off to dump the mud somewhere else where filling was wanted. When they came back, too, they generally towed behind them rafts of loose logs. For months these logs were coming up the river almost every day, and were anchored off the scene of[Pg 481] the work. Hundreds of thousands of loose logs were towed up for this work at different times, and just before the crib-work was begun that part of the river looked like a logging camp.

When the dredges had dug a long deep trench in the mud where the outer edge of the roadway was to be, the work of sinking the cribs began. These cribs are made of logs laid crosswise, like old-fashioned log cabins, and fastened together. They were built at a ship-yard, in sections several hundred feet long, and towed up the river to be sunk in the trench. No sooner had they been fastened in place, by a row of piles, than the hordes of workmen began to swarm all over them. The loose logs were hauled up out of the water and laid on the cribs crosswise, and fastened in place with great spikes.

But though the workmen kept on building up the cribs, they did not seem to grow any higher. As fast as the new logs were added the weight carried them down deeper into the water. Finally they were sunk into the mud at the bottom of the trenches by filling them with tons upon tons of broken rocks, and when they were firmly imbedded they were built up to the proper height with more logs.

In some places these cribs are higher than an ordinary city house, and considerably wider at the bottom. Imagine a log cabin bigger than a house, and you have a good idea of what these cribs would look like if entirely out of water. When finally settled in place the outside edges were trimmed with smooth-cut timbers, and the work of filling in began. A little railroad was built along the tops of the sunken cribs and up the side of the hill, where a lot of blasting and digging was going on. Dummy-cars pulled by mules were loaded with rocks and earth, and dumped into the great gap between the cribs and the shore. Many thousands of tons of dirt and rocks were thrown in here before the big opening was filled up.

But the engineers had made a serious mistake in planning this part of the boulevard, and the weight of the filling behind them pushed some of the cribs out into the water. Far down under the soft muddy bottom there is hard rock, and this shelves out rapidly toward the middle of the river; so when the great weight was filled in behind the sunken cribs, the mud, cribs and all, slid out in places away from the shore. Some parts have moved as much as eight feet at the top, and apparently much more at the bottom, and before the great speedway can be finished, this work will have to be repaired, and the outer edge moved back out of the channel of the river.

Just below the bridge a great rocky promontory jutted out into the way like a cape, and nearly a hundred thousand cubic yards of rock were blasted away to make room for the boulevard. When the workmen got down to the level of the water, submarine drills had to be used for the blasting. This work, too, was very interesting. Divers in rubber suits with glass eyes were sent down under the water to fix the drills in position, and then the holes were bored from the floats above. When they had been sunk deep enough, the divers went down again and fixed the charges of powder that blasted out the rocks. It was like a small earthquake and water-spout combined when one of these blasts went off.

Down at the lower end of the road the approach winds down the side of the rocky heights. Here it is supported for nearly half a mile on a great stone wall, which gradually grows smaller and smaller as the approach nears the level of the river. At one point another great mass of rock got in the way of the workmen, and they blasted their way right through its centre. The carriages will disappear in[Pg 482] this cut as though they had been swallowed up by the rocks, and come out again on the other side as they wind their way down toward the straight part of the road along the river-bank. Over forty thousand cubic yards of rock were cut out of this place alone, and the workmen used all this and much more to fill in the cribs when they sunk them in the river below.

The big wall that supports the approach was another difficult part of the work. In one place this is over forty feet high, and more than half as thick at the bottom. Just think of a solid stone wall as high as a house and more than half as thick at its base! It narrows down to two or three feet in thickness at its top, like a pyramid of masonry, and above this will be a railing to prevent people from falling off, for there is to be a sidewalk along the outer edge of the driveway here. It took many, many months to build that wall alone.

There will be two sidewalks in most parts of the new boulevard, but people will be allowed to cross from one to the other only at certain points, and then under the roadway. It would be dangerous to cross where fast horses are constantly passing, so there will be two or three tunnels, or transverse culverts, as the engineers call them, at different parts of the driveway. These tunnels will pass under the road-bed, connecting both sidewalks with stone steps at either side. Sewer culverts, too, have been built at a number of points along the driveway, for the amount of rain that drains off the slopes at the side of the boulevard after a storm would almost undermine it if there were not proper outlets for the water.

Another engineering difficulty was found when the workmen reached the lower end of the approach, for the rocky bluffs end suddenly there before the approach has reached the level of the crib-work. Here they had to dig down forty feet in the mud to get a hard bottom for the rest of the support. A wooden wall was built around the spot to keep the water out, and inside of this "coffer-dam," as the engineers call it, the masons laid the foundations for the last end of the stone wall. It was almost impossible to keep the wooden sides from leaking too, and they had to keep pumps at work almost all the time to prevent the inside from filling with water.

The work was stopped for the winter, but as soon as the mild weather comes again the river front will once more swarm with an army of workmen, and the busy little ants will tear down a lot of the work that has been done and do it all over again. The mistake of the engineers will make the new boulevard cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more than it was expected, and New York will have to pay over two million dollars for her new speedway before it is finished.

MOLLY PITCHER.

In all our school histories—that is, histories of the United States—honorable mention is made of Molly Pitcher, who did good service as a soldier in the Revolutionary war. None of these text-books gives us any clew to Molly's origin, but nearly all of them tell us that the brave woman lies in an unmarked grave, after having passed away without the recognition of her ungrateful country. Sometimes she is buried on the banks of the Hudson, but as a general thing the historians leave us to infer that the location of her grave is entirely unknown. This is all wrong, and I hope that the compiler of the next school history of our country will read what is here told of the heroine, and after verifying the facts, give in his book such attention to the true story of her life as her services entitle her to.

Mary Ludwig was the daughter of Pennsylvania Dutch parents, industrious people with a large family to support. In 1768, when about twenty years old, Mary "hired out" as maid of all work in the family of William Irvine of Carlisle, and on July 24th of the following year became the wife of John Casper Hayes, the town barber. Seven years later, when the war broke out, Hayes enlisted as a private in the First Pennsylvania Artillery, but was afterward transferred to the Seventh Pennsylvania Infantry, commanded by Colonel William Irvine, his wife's former employer. When the artillery regiment was ordered to go to the front Molly marched with it, having obtained the authority of the Colonel (Thomas Proctor) to serve in her husband's battery as cook and laundress. At the battle of Monmouth (Freehold), New Jersey, Hayes was wounded while serving his gun; but his place was soon filled by his wife, who rushed to the front when she heard of his fall, picked up the rammer he had dropped, and till the battle ended did as good service in loading the piece as could have been done by the best-drilled man in the battery. When the fight was over, Molly busied herself in carrying water for the wounded, and it was from this service she came by the pet name "Molly Pitcher."

Molly's husband did not die on the field, but when he recovered from his wound he entered the infantry regiment mentioned above, and remained with it till peace was declared. A few months after reaching Carlisle, Molly was left a widow, but a year later she married John McCauley, who seems to have led her an unhappy life. On Washington's birthday, 1822, when Molly was nearly seventy-five years old, the Legislature of Pennsylvania voted her a gift of forty dollars and pension of forty dollars a year for her noteworthy services during the Revolutionary war.

Molly lived to be nearly ninety. She died on the 22d of January, 1833, and was buried as a soldier, "with the honors of war," in the old Carlisle cemetery. More than forty years afterward—that is, on the Fourth of July, 1876—the citizens of Carlisle erected a handsome monument, over the heroine's grave. It bears this inscription:

MOLLY McCAULEY,

Renowned in History as "Molly Pitcher,"

the heroine of monmouth.

Died January, 1833.

Erected by the Citizens of Cumberland County, July 4, 1876.

THE WEATHER BUREAU.

BY W. J. HENDERSON.

What is the Weather Bureau? It is a branch of the national government service whose duty it is to make forecasts of the weather, to estimate and publish the probabilities twice in every twenty-four hours. Its headquarters are at Washington, and it is attached to the Agricultural Department. It was originally a part of the army, for on June 1, 1860, Congress passed an act establishing the Signal Service, and detailing a major and several signal officers to conduct it. In 1863 the Signal Corps was organized. It served through the war, and was then permitted to disband. It was reorganized in 1866, and the weather predictions were a part of its duties until recently. Now the weather service, or, to be more accurate, the Meteorological Bureau, is a separate service.

Its business is to predict the weather as nearly as it can. Most persons are of the opinion that it can do this accurately. At any rate, they blame the observers very severely when, owing to local causes, their predictions, intended to cover a large territory, are not fulfilled to the letter. If they predict showers followed by clearing weather in eastern New York, and it does not clear up in New York city till nine o'clock in the evening, inhabitants of the metropolis are very likely to say unkind things about the observers. They forget that the chief objects of this service are to furnish valuable information to mariners, to the great rice and cotton growers of the South, to the farmers, and to all other persons upon whose prosperity the weather has a potent influence. The fact that John Smith is caught in an unexpected rain and gets his new hat spoiled is not so important as the sailing of a ship, laden with valuable freight, into the teeth of a howling hurricane, of which she[Pg 483] might have been warned. The government spends a good deal of money on this service. It costs $5000 to fit out a station, and the yearly allowance for incidentals alone is $500. This is exclusive of the pay of observers and the cost of telegraphing. And there are 182 of these stations at work now.

Twice a day, at 8 a.m. and at 8 p.m., the observations of the weather conditions are taken; and they are immediately telegraphed, in a cipher devised for the purpose, to Washington, at the headquarters. There the facts contained in the reports from the different parts of the country are collated, and the probabilities deduced from them. The bulletins which are printed in the newspapers are sent out, and also weather maps. On these maps are printed lines showing the areas over which certain variations of the barometer exist, and other lines showing the changes in temperature. If you understand the manner in which American weather operates, you can take these maps every day and make pretty good predictions yourself.

As I have said, it is from the local observations that the general predictions are made. In the city of New York the weather is studied away up on top of the tall building of the Manhattan Life-insurance Company. The Local Forecast Observer—that's his official title—is E.. B. Dunn, who, when this was an army service, was Sergeant Dunn. Now the irreverent newspapers call him "Farmer" Dunn. What he does in his office is what all the other observers throughout the country do in theirs. I am going to describe his methods as he described them to me, and then you'll know all about it.

The instruments used in observing the weather are the aneroid and cistern barometers, wet and dry bulb thermometers, wind vane and compass, anemometer and anemograph, and the rainfall. Of all these the barometer is probably the most important. The standard form of the instrument is a tube thirty-four inches long, closed at the top, exhausted of air, and immersed at the bottom in a cup of mercury. The purpose of the barometer is to measure the pressure of the atmosphere. In general, the mercury will stand high in the tube when the weather is fair, and low when it is foul. By noting the minute changes, measured on a graduated scale beside the tube, the observer reads the indications of the barometer. The words "fair," "change," etc., engraved on the front of the instrument are disregarded. They have no significance whatever. The rising or falling of the mercury in the tube is caused by the beginning of those atmospheric changes which precede a storm but are not discernible by our senses. The barometer discerns them for us, and gives warning of weather changes. Of course there are many different conditions which affect the instrument, and the weather observers are instructed in these matters. The aneroid barometer is round, like one of the cheap nickel-plated clocks that are so numerous, and the changes are indicated by a hand moving across a scale on the dial. The weight of the atmosphere is measured not by a column of mercury in a tube, but by the expansion and compression of a small metal box from which the air has been exhausted.

The thermometer, as the reader knows, measures the temperature of the air; and in all readings of the barometer the changes in temperature have to be taken into account. The weather observers use two kinds of thermometers, the dry and the wet bulb. The dry bulb is the ordinary form, which every one knows, and is used to measure heat and cold. The wet has the bulb wrapped in some absorbent material, which is kept soaked with water. Now you know, without my telling you, that the water will cool the bulb, and hence the wet-bulb thermometer will stand lower than the dry. That cold is caused by evaporation, and the evaporating power of the atmosphere depends upon the amount of moisture there is in the air. So you at once see that the difference between the readings of the wet and dry bulb thermometers indicates the amount of moisture in the air. This amount the observers express in percentages of 100; and thus we read of "humidity, 60 per cent." Under ordinary circumstances, when the humidity gets close to 100, the point at which the air is soaked with moisture, it is going to rain. The temperature, however, and also the wind, have a good deal to do with this. The form in which the weather observers use these two thermometers is called the whirling psychrometer. The two instruments are put on the end of an arm, which is fixed on an axle turned by a crank. The observer whirls this around a few times before reading the instrument, for the purpose of making the air act freely on the two bulbs.

The direction of the wind, as every one knows, is shown by a weather vane. Those which are used by the observing stations, however, have an attachment which automatically records on a sheet of paper every variation of the vane, so that the office has an account of the smallest changes of the wind during the twenty-four hours. The speed of the wind is measured by the anemometer. This consists of four half-spheres at the end of four horizontal arms, which centre on an upright axle. The force of the wind causes the arms to revolve, and it has been found that 500 revolutions equal one mile. If the arms revolve 3000 times in an hour, the wind is blowing six miles an hour. The revolving of the upright axle operates a contrivance by which the speed of the wind for every minute in the day is recorded.

The amount of rain which falls is measured in a way which shows what the depth of water would be on a level surface if it did not, in the natural order of things, run off. The rain is caught in a funnel 8½ inches in diameter, so placed as to be protected from all gusts of wind. The record is made in five-hundredths of an inch.

In addition to all these instruments the observers watch the well-known weather signs in the sky. Sunset and sunrise and the various changes in the appearance of the clouds are carefully studied. When a man has spent a year or two of his life in watching all these things, he can make a pretty safe prediction as to the weather for the next twenty-four hours. The Weather Bureau does not profess to foretell the conditions, except in special instances, for more than forty-eight hours.

Now I have told you what the local observers at each station watch and record and note in their reports sent to Washington. What you naturally desire now to know is how do the officials at the central office make their deductions as to the probable weather throughout the country. How do they know that a cold wave is advancing eastward, or that a severe storm is travelling up the coast, and that cautionary signals are to be set between Cape Henry and Passamaquoddy, or some other points? One of the principal ways in which the observers can tell the path of a storm is by watching the rainfall ahead of it. They have found that there is a sort of advance guard of rain, behind which is the lowest barometric area; and they regard that part of the country where the barometer is lowest as the centre of the storm. The reports from various stations show the path of the advancing rain, and the weather observers know that a low barometer is likely to follow it. They cannot tell exactly how fast it will advance, for areas[Pg 484] of clear weather stand in the way of the storm, and local causes sometimes prevent them from yielding quickly.

The chief reliance of the observers, however, is on a general acquaintance with the laws of storms. Years of observation and recording have proved that storms have ways of their own, and when you know where a storm has come from you can come very close to telling just where it is going. At any rate, it cannot get lost so long as it is in the United States, for the weather men are always on its track. The greatest originating place for storms is the equator, and, in our hemisphere, that part of it which is near the West Indies. Most of our cyclones, or revolving storms, originate there. These storms have two kinds of motions. In the first place, the storm-wind blows in a circle, like a gigantic whirlwind; and in the second place this whole thing advances over the land and sea, very much as a top, while spinning on its own centre, will move slowly along the floor. A cyclone starting down near the equator will begin by moving westward; then it curves around and goes northward, its diameter increasing and the velocity of its rotation decreasing, and finally it edges off over the New England States, and goes out to sea. (See diagram.) In the southern hemisphere these storms follow a similar track to the southward. In both hemispheres the storms advance at from two to forty miles per hour, and it is this movement which is uncertain and which requires close watching.

The storms which come from the far West are less understood. One theory is that they go around the world; and some of them have been traced all the way around, except in Asia, where there are no observers. These storms cross the United States in three ways. Sometimes they come in by way of Alaska, sometimes further down the Pacific coast, and again by Lower California. They usually lose some of their force when they reach the middle of the continent. From that point they are very likely to move to the Lake region, where they acquire a fresh supply of vapor and energy, and finally go off to the Atlantic by way of the St. Lawrence River. The observers keep posted as to their path by watching the premonitory rainfall and the succeeding low barometer.

Cold waves also have ways of their own, and the observers have learned them. The waves come in from three different points—northwest, west, and southwest. Those from the northwest often move directly east, and in that case the cold weather is not likely to extend south of the Ohio River. Sometimes, however, they move in a southeasterly direction, and then the whole country east of the Mississippi is affected. Those which come in from the southwest usually extend in a north-easterly direction. In these cases there are large decreases in temperature at Shreveport, St. Louis, and such places, before Chicago is affected.

Thus I have given you the outlines of the data from which the Weather Bureau predicts what kind of a day it will be to-morrow. The observers could tell more than they do now if they could only keep track of the storms when they are out on the ocean. But unfortunately there is no method by which stations can be maintained on the face of the great deep. The weather students are compelled to do the best they can with such information as they can obtain from ship captains, and this is not constant or systematic, and is therefore far from satisfactory. The value of the information which the service furnishes to the sailors is, on the other hand, very great. The steamers of the regular lines, of course, sail as they are advertised to do, without considering the weather; but they know what to expect, and can be prepared for it. Sailing-vessels, however, often avoid heavy weather and even danger at sea by heeding the warnings of the observers. You and I just take our umbrellas with us when the probabilities are rain, but the sailor stays in his harbor and lets the cyclone get well out to sea ahead of him before he sets sail.

The mile run is about the only long-distance event practised by American school and college athletes. In England the three-mile race is popular, and is one of the standard events of the inter-university field meetings, but it has not as yet been adopted in this country. At the International games last fall it was on the card, and Conneff won for the New York Athletic Club. Since then there has been some talk of placing the event on the Inter-collegiate schedule, but the proposition was defeated at a recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the I.C.A.A.A.A.

Training for the mile run may be begun at almost any time of the year, but it is presumed in all these short sketches that training will be started in the winter-time and developed in the spring. Preliminary work in long-distance running is of the simplest kind, consisting merely of walking and running at a slow jog four or five miles every day until the spring season has fairly set in. For this kind of work the best costume to wear are knickerbockers, heavy shoes and stockings, a flannel shirt, and a sweater. This walking and running across country will harden the muscles and gradually develop staying powers, which can be acquired in no other way.

When the weather has become warm enough to go on the track in light running costume, the following scheme will be found a good one for steady training: On the first day do a mile and a half at an easy jog; on the second day, run a half-mile at a good pace, trying to do it in 2 min. 45 sec. (as the weeks pass by the athlete should try to reduce this time for the half-mile down to 2 min. 30 sec. or below); on the third day run a quarter of a mile at speed; on the fourth day cover three-quarters of a mile at an easy jog; on the fifth day do a mile and a half again very leisurely; on the sixth day another quarter at speed. Always lay off on Sunday, for one day's rest a week is necessary when training for any event.

After this method has been practised for several weeks, it will be well to take a trial mile on time. But thereafter do not run trials more frequently than once in ten days, and never make a trial within ten days of the date for the race. Before a competition it is well to lay off for two or three days, and before trying a mile on time during the practice season it is always best to lay off the day before. In other words, do your trial mile on Monday, Sunday being the regular lay-off day.

There is little to be said about the strategy of mile-running. The mile-runner must know just how fast he can run, and when he goes into a race he should cover his distances regardless of what his rivals are doing. This is sometimes very difficult, especially for younger runners who are not judges of pace, and who allow themselves to be run off their feet in the first half-mile. It is true that the first half-mile is always run at a greater speed than the second; but a well-trained athlete, who knows exactly how fast he can do his event, should not allow any opponent to make him go faster than he is in training for. A number of athletes, knowing the average weakness of mile-runners, train themselves to go a very fast half-mile at first, in the hope that they may run their opponents, who have trained in a different way, off their feet. Those, however, who are confident of their ability, and are judges of pace, will frequently allow these fast fellows to get a quarter of a lap ahead of them, knowing very well that in the second half-mile they will be able to close up and finish strongly.

The accompanying pictures show the stride of Conneff—the American and International champion—and Lutyens, the English Inter-University champion, who was defeated by Conneff in the International games last fall. It[Pg 486] is plain to see that the Englishman's stride is much longer than Conneff's; but stride does not seem to be such an important factor in long-distance running as it is in the shorter distances. In fact, it will be noticed that most mile-runners are short, stocky men, although, as a rule, their legs are much longer in proportion to their bodies than is the case with other men. Conneff runs with his mouth open the whole distance, and, as I have already said, this is undoubtedly the best method for runners to adopt, in spite of the old adage about breathing through the nose. Conneff also runs with his arms hanging down, which is by far the best way, as it relieves the chest and shoulders of the weight of the arms (which counts in a long race), and the swinging of the hands low down seems to give a forward impetus similar to that which a jumper gets when he uses dumb-bells. The costume and footwear for long-distance running are the same as for other distances, except, perhaps, that the shoes may be made a trifle heavier if the athlete prefers.

Training for the low hurdles is, in general, the same as that for the high hurdles, which was described in this Department last week. The jump over the obstacle itself, however, is radically different, and it is for this reason that many hurdlers who are invincible over the shorter distance are frequently defeated in the longer. It is hardly necessary to repeat here that the low hurdles are placed twenty yards apart, and are only 2 feet 6 inches high. The fact, however, that they are 2 feet 6 inches high only is what makes the difference in the style necessary.

In clearing the low hurdles the athlete should endeavor not to jump. He must put as little spring as possible into his effort, but should clear the obstacle by a dexterous management of the legs. Here is where the advantage of the double-jump exercise comes in. In the 220 race the body of the hurdler should be kept on as constant a level as possible. In other words, his shoulders should move along an imaginary straight line from start to finish.

The diagram at the top of the page shows this more clearly perhaps than any description could. The line A is the one that the shoulders should follow; the line B shows the motion that should be avoided. With practice this form can be readily acquired, and it adds greatly to the speed of the hurdler. The secret of the motion is to lunge slightly forward at the hurdle and to spread the legs to the widest angle as you clear it. The movement is somewhat similar to that which a man would make if he were suspended from the ceiling, his toes just touching the floor, and a series of hurdles on a treadmill were passing under him. To avoid being struck he would merely lift his legs, as he has learned to do in the double jump.

In running the high hurdles the athlete may use either foot he chooses at the take-off, although it is better to become accustomed to jump from the right foot. It is better, because in the low hurdles the successful man must jump from the right foot. This is made necessary by curved tracks. There are few 220 straightaway courses; most low hurdle contests being conducted on a curved track, and it is practically impossible to make any speed at all on such a path when jumping from the left foot. Jim Lee used to jump from the left foot, and for that reason he almost never entered a contest on a curved track. He knew he could not win.

The low hurdles being placed twenty yards apart, it is of course necessary to take a greater number of steps between obstacles. Seven strides is the number to be aimed at, although a runner with a short stride has to be content with nine. This sometimes necessitates slowing up before each hurdle, which is bad; and consequently it is more advisable to train for eight strides, in that case jumping from alternate feet. This makes the race more complicated, and is a form that should be avoided, although there are many men who are compelled to adopt it.

In practice the athlete should never go over more than seven hurdles in succession, except, perhaps, once a month for a trial on time, for the event is too exhausting. The footwear adopted by hurdlers is similar to the high-jumper's shoes. They are made of kangaroo-skin, and should be slightly heavier than sprinters' shoes. The heel should be constructed of quarter-inch leather with two spikes placed at the extremities of diagonals drawn through the centre of the heel. This precludes the possibility of bruising from the constant pounding on the jumping foot. In the toes there should be the usual six spikes.

Berkeley turned the tables on Barnard by scoring thirty-four points to the latter's fifteen at the Berkeley in-door games a week ago Saturday. At the Barnard games a fortnight previous the Harlemites took thirty-six points to Berkeley's thirteen. Each institution has thus presented the other with a trophy, and both are now preparing to shake out of their respective sleeves what they count on to win with at the Interscholastics in May. It will be interesting, too, to see how close they will come to one another in points at the New Manhattan Athletic Club games on the 28th.

Irwin-Martin showed himself to be in excellent form, and broke two in-door scholastic records—the quarter-mile and the 220-yard run. In the quarter he took the lead from the start, and did not bother about any of his rivals until he had finished, although Evans of Oxford School kept pretty close to him all the way around. The half-mile run went to Hipple of Barnard, as might have been expected, for Hipple is undoubtedly the strongest man for this distance that has run in interscholastic contests for a number of years.

Another Berkeley athlete who showed himself to be in excellent form was Walker, the well-named. There is no doubt about his being the best walker of the schools in this vicinity. He made a brave attempt for first honors at the Interscholastics last spring, and finished an exceedingly close second, showing that he had plenty of grit and undoubted ability. He has vastly improved in the past nine months, and I doubt if there is any one who can touch him in his class. He is a little fellow, too, and must have worked very hard and conscientiously to develop such a great amount of strength and speed, maintaining at the same time such excellent form. At these games there were about a dozen starters besides Walker, but at the crack of the pistol he strode to the front, and literally walked away from the laboring bunch behind him. He kept increasing his distance so steadily that the contest really narrowed down to a battle for second place. This struggle was very hot between Myers and Adams, the former barely reaching the tape ahead of the others. Walker's time was 8 min. 13-1/5 Sec.

In the mile run Bedford took good care not to give Manvel of Pingry's a chance, and set a 2 min. 14-1/5 sec. pace for the first half-mile, which practically ran all the other contestants off their feet. But this pace was hot enough even to tire Bedford, for he had to slow up considerably in the last half, although he covered the whole distance in the excellent time of 4 min. 54-1/5 sec.

The dashes developed several speedy runners, three of the heat winners getting close to record time. In the[Pg 487] final, Moore of Barnard and Doudge of Berkeley ran a dead heat in 7-3/5 sec., but in the run-off Moore proved himself to have the greatest staying powers, and took the event. The hurdle-racing was also good, the winners of each of the preliminary heats making the same time. Bien showed himself in excellent form in the trials, but in the final heat he did not do so well, and let Herrick pass him.

The field events were not particularly interesting. Pell tied Duval at 5 ft. 5 in. in the high jump; Young tied Irwin-Martin at 37 ft. 2 in. in the shot; and Eddy tied Katzenbach for third place in the pole vault at 8 ft. 10¾ in. In each one of these instances athletics were superseded by the less exhausting expedient of gambling, and coins tossed into the air decided which man should take the medal.

St. Paul's School again made a good record on this occasion, as her athletes did at the recent games of the Long Island Inter-scholastic League in Brooklyn. These St. Paul athletes seem to be developing at a rapid rate, and may be counted upon to make an excellent showing at the New Manhattan Athletic Club games, and they will probably take a strong membership in the team which is to represent the Long Island League in the National Meet this spring.

MARKING NEGATIVES.

It is sometimes desirable to have the name of a picture marked on the negative so that it may appear in the finished print. This may be done in several ways. One of the simplest is to write the name backwards in India ink on the film side of the negative. This should be done with a fine drawing-pen, and the lettering made in one of the lower corners. As the title appears white in the finished print the writing should be done where the glass is clear or in the deepest shadows.

To have the name appear in black on the print, take a fine steel needle, and having first marked the letters lightly with a pencil, scratch the letters through the film to the clear glass. Make the edges smooth, and see that the lines of the letters are perfect, as every imperfection in the lettering appears in the print.

One should always put his initials on a good negative. They can be put on either in India ink or scratched through the film.

If one does not wish to write the name on the negative it can be written on the sensitive paper before the print is made. India ink is to be preferred, but good black ink will do. The ink will wash off in the toning solution, leaving the name clear and distinct on the print.

An ink for writing on photographic prints may be made by taking 2 ounces potassium iodide, 6 ounces distilled water, half an ounce gum-arabic, 1½ drams iodide. This is used for writing on the dark part of photographic prints.

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Many receipts are given in cook-books and newspapers for making biscuit, cake, muffins, crusts, etc., in the old-fashioned way with sour milk and soda, or cream of tartar and soda. In every such receipt much better results will be obtained by substituting the Royal Baking Powder for the sour milk or cream of tartar and soda. Exactly the same gas—carbonic—is produced, but with the Royal Baking Powder there is avoided all alkalinity or acidity in the food, one of which always results from the old-fashioned methods because of the impossibility of mixing the cream of tartar and the soda or sour milk in the proper proportions. Besides, the cream of tartar bought from the shops by the housekeeper is always impure, frequently containing alum, lime, and sulphuric acid, while the cream of tartar employed in the manufacture of the Royal Baking Powder is specially refined and chemically pure. With the use of the Royal, therefore, the food is rendered not only more perfect in appearance and taste, but more wholesome.—Household Journal.

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The maps which will be given for the next few weeks will have as their principal object the usual trip from Albany to Buffalo. At the same time they have been prepared in such a way, by giving the dotted routes, as to show all the roads in the vicinity of this general route which are in the best condition for bicyclists, so that, while we give only the details of the direct route, any one desiring to turn off at any point to reach some special town or city will be able to find for himself the most suitable route.

The bicyclist will therefore notice on the present map that the best route along the Hudson north of Albany, through Waterford, etc., is given; that it is possible to run out towards Schenectady, through Guilderland, and though the road becomes poorer beyond there, it is nevertheless in reasonable condition most of the way; that while the best route from Schenectady on towards Fonda and Utica runs on the southern bank of the river and crosses at Hoffman's Ferry to the north bank, there is nevertheless a moderately good road following the other side of the river and keeping along the canal and the railroad. In other words, while it is our purpose to describe a general route, there is also the secondary purpose of giving maps containing all good roads in the vicinity of these longer trips.

Leaving the Kenmore Hotel in Albany, proceed by the shortest way to Broadway, and on this till the Londonville Plank Road is reached; turning left into this, proceed through Londonville and Newtonville to Lathams. This is a little more than seven miles from the hotel, and at this point a shairp turn to the left should be made and the road followed to Watervliet Centre. From Watervliet, through Niskayuna, to Schenectady, is straight level road, none too well suited to the bicyclist, as it occasionally has somewhat difficult sandy spots, though the bulk of the road is, in good weather, firm clay and gravel. Schenectady is twenty miles from the Kenmore Hotel at Albany, and a stop can be made here, if desired, at the Barhydt Hotel, where, if you are a member of the L. A. W., you can procure somewhat less rates than the ordinary traveller. If you wish to reach Fonda in one day from Albany, it is well to refrain from stopping at Schenectady.

Leaving the city still on the south side of the river, follow along near the canal to Pattersonville, ten miles to the west. The road becomes somewhat more hilly, but it is in fair condition. At Pattersonville turn down to Hoffman's Ferry and cross to the north bank of the river; thence, turning to the left, follow the road running along by the New York Central Railroad tracks to Cranesville, and thence, over some hilly country, continue to Amsterdam, always keeping parallel with the railroad. This stretch between Hoffman's Ferry and Amsterdam is a somewhat poorer road, there being some sand and less clay and gravel than heretofore, and in some places some very considerable hills. Amsterdam is thirty-three miles from Albany, and here a stop may be made, the Hotel Warner being the best place for a wheelman to stop at. The run from Amsterdam through Tribes Hill, always in the vicinity of the river and the railroad, to Fonda is fifteen miles further. The road continues in parts somewhat sandy, and there are some hills, especially beyond Tribes Hill; but taken together, the run from Albany is not a bad one. If the wheelman is in no great hurry, a very interesting run may be made by leaving the route towards Buffalo at Fonda, and riding twenty-three miles out through Johnstown, Gloversville, Mayfield, Cranberry Creek, Gifford, to Sacandaga Park, which is a famous fishing place.

How can I make my room pretty without spending money on it, I haven't much of that, writes one of my correspondents.

I have seen very ugly rooms on which people had spent heaps of money, and there are lovely ones which have cost their owners very little beyond good taste and the exercise of common-sense and care. In the first place, cleanliness in a room is in itself a great beauty. Make war on every bit of dust, every cobweb, every speck and stain. A perfectly clean room, although quite bare of ornament, is inviting, and when its owner puts in her little individual touches, her books on a hanging shelf, which her brother can make for her, or which she can buy for forty or fifty cents, her favorite engravings, cut from illustrated papers if she chooses and simply tacked on the wall, her pot of primroses on the window-sill, her toilet table draped with white net over pink silesia, her plain scrim curtains at the window tied back with bits of ribbon, the room will be dainty and pretty enough to please the most fastidious. If you have not much to do with, manage with what you have, is a good rule for girls to follow.

A carpet is by no means a necessity in any sleeping-room. In fact, many people prefer a stained or painted floor, with a rug which may be easily lifted and shaken. A small wooden rocking-chair, a table or stand for a candlestick, a two-leaved screen, which you can make yourself, and a little rack over your washstand for your towels, and then, with a nicely made bed, the room will be complete.

One's own room is so dear to every girl that I do not wonder she prizes it. One must have hours when it is a pleasure to be alone. One likes to be by herself at times, to think and read and plan. After a little space of solitude we go back to others rested and cheered. Where sisters share the same apartment, each should have her corner, divided from the other part of the room either by curtains or by screens, so that when they prefer to be alone they may be so. In some schools which I have known there are twenty-minute or half-hour intervals during the day, when every pupil is required to be by herself, and in home life girls who can should try to adopt a similar rule.

And cannot you contrive, girlies, to give your dear mothers the same chance to take a rest all by their precious selves every day.

When mamma goes to her chamber and shuts the door, you, I am sure, can take care that the little ones do not disturb her privacy; you can entertain the caller or dispose of the person who comes on a business errand. The mater will gain new life if her daughters secure for her this little daily space, and I am sure they will at least make the effort.

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Postage Stamps, &c.

STAMPS!

300 fine mixed Victoria, Cape of G. H., India, Japan, etc., with fine Stamp Album, only 10c. New 80-p. Price-list free. Agents wanted at 50% commission. STANDARD STAMP CO., 4 Nicholson Place, St. Louis, Mo. Old U. S. and Confederate Stamps bought.

WILL exchange for old North and South American and old European stamps, recent issues of Singapore, Johore, Perak, Selangor, and other stamps.

Address W. T. KENSETT, M. D.,

Singapore, Straits Settlements, Foreign Postage.

$117.50 WORTH OF STAMPS FREE

to agents selling stamps from my 50% approval sheets. Send at once for circular and price-list giving full information.

C. W. Grevning, Morristown, N. J.

100 all dif. Venezuela, Bolivia, etc., only 10c.; 200 all dif. Hayti, Hawaii, etc., only 50c. Ag'ts w't'd at 50% com. List FREE! €C. A. Stegmann, 5941 Cote Brilliante Ave., St. Louis, Mo

FREE.—A good Hawaiian stamp given to all sending for my fine approval sheets. Liberal com. Sets a specialty. 100 stamps, 15c. MILLARD H. CUTTER, 266 E. Huron St., Chicago, Ill.

FOREIGN STAMPS ON APPROVAL.

CHAS. B. RAUD, New London, Conn.

FREE 10 VARIETIES; to all sending for approval sheets 50% commission. References required.

FRANK W. ALDEN, Waterville, Maine.

125 dif. Gold Coast, Costa Rica, etc., 25c.; 40 U. S., 25c. Liberal com. to agents. Large bargain list free.

F. W. Miller, 904 Olive St., St. Louis, Mo.

STAMPS! 100 all dif. Barbados, etc. Only 10c. Ag'ts w't'd at 50% com. List free. L. DOVER & CO., 1469 Hodiamont, St. Louis, Mo.

On the 2d of March, at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, hardly more than a fortnight after his golden-wedding anniversary, Mr. Charles Carleton Coffin passed away. He died suddenly, and so escaped the pain and weariness of lingering illness. Some readers of the Round Table who were in the great throng of young people in the New York Building at the World's Fair, when we kept our first reunion in the beautiful White City, no doubt remember Mr. Coffin as one of the speakers on that happy occasion. With Kirk Munroe, Charles Dudley Warner, and others, Mr. Coffin was present then, and he said several things which made a deep impression on my mind as I looked over the sea of bright young faces gathered under our starry flag. He told the boys that they owed something to their country, that they must grow up prepared to be her lovers and defenders, to stand up for her through all things, and to be good true citizens, and Americans who cared for America wherever they might go.

What Mr. Coffin said that day with his voice so eloquently he had been saying in print for many years. He wrote nineteen books, all of them the gift of a fine mind and true heart, to the boys and girls of America. The names of these books are familiar to you, and the very titles are attractive, as, for example, My Days and Nights on the Battle-field, Following the Flag, Winning his Way, The Boys of '76, Our New Way 'Round the World, and similar stirring and suggestive names. Among Mr. Coffin's delightfully exciting volumes, I am very fond of The Story of Liberty, a book which carries us back to old England, and shows us the cradle of our American freedom in the mother-land. Mr. Coffin had the rare art of standing outside his story and letting it tell itself. He marshalled its incidents and events with historic accuracy, and so made his narrative always useful and acceptable as supplementary reading to the boy or girl who was studying a period at school, but he also allowed his people to speak and act in a natural way. His books unroll like the panorama at the show, and a very satisfactory panorama they are, ideally painted for the library of young America.

Personally Mr. Coffin was full of enthusiasm and enjoyment in his work, and he cared a great deal for his youthful audience. He did not under-rate their intelligence and write down to them. He took it for granted that our young people are intelligent and interested in both work and play, and his books paid them the compliment of dealing with serious themes, though always in a sprightly manner. All his books are so beautifully illustrated that they are really fine picture galleries, in which one sees how people dressed, how buildings and streets looked, and how houses were furnished in the times of which Mr. Coffin wrote.

A man who spent his life in such a beautiful way, writing books so worthy, and never writing a sentence one would wish omitted, bestowed a great gift on his period. His books will live and continue to give pleasure to hosts of young people, to whom Mr. Coffin will be a guide and friend in years to come, for the author of a good book never dies.

Winter News from Jamaica.

How Shingles are Made.

Questions and Answers.

C. Arnold Kruckman, 1235 North Thirteenth Street, St. Louis, is a bright "Shut-in," and wants to join a literary club as a corresponding member, and to contribute to amateur papers. The N.A.P.A., dear Sir Arnold, is a national association of young persons who publish or contribute to amateur papers. It has a full set of officers, elected annually. Besides, there are, in close affiliation with the National Association, local or district associations, as the Pacific, the Maryland, the New England, etc., each having its own officers. Indeed, so many officers are there that one has to get pretty well into the "dom" in order to tell off-hand who is who, and where all belong. If you fail to hear from President Hancock of the National Association, write to Edgar R. Bauer, 3328 South Ninth Street, your city, to Fred W. Arnold, 3221 State Street, Chicago, or to Charles R. Burger, Colorado Springs, Col.

H. Barker asks how to make a strong but cheap battery to operate an electric bell. It is better to buy than to make a battery, because cheaper. You can get from Bonnell & Co., New York, a good cell for seventy-five cents that will last a long time, and it is what is called a "dry" battery, hence it does not overflow. If you must make one, you will find the "dry" kind expensive, so make a gravity one. Take a glass candy jar and put into the bottom some old copper, any shape. To it attach covered wire, leading out of the jar. Suspend about the middle a piece of zinc, and fasten to it a second wire. Pour lukewarm water in until the zinc is well covered, and drop into it a dozen bits of blue vitriol (sulphate of copper). Let stand for two or three days, cleaning the zinc with a brush daily. Lester L. Riley, 929 East Fifth Street, Dayton, O., wants to send to publishers of amateur papers some stories, poems, etc. Who wants them? W. Randall Sperlock, 3108 Imogene Avenue, Mt. Auburn, Cincinnati, O., is desirous of procuring a copy of Harper's Young People, No. 640, dated February 2, 1892. Who can sell it to him?

Edward D. Cassin: Tuition in the large colleges varies from $40 to $150 a year. Select your college and apply to the Dean for rates. Military academies are located at many points—Manlius, N. Y., Chester, Pa., Cornwall, N. Y., etc. See list of them in the advertising pages of Harper's Magazine. Subjects embraced in the New York Regents' examination are some twenty in number. For full information, which would require this entire page to give you here, apply to Melvil Dewey, Secretary of the State Board of Regents, Albany. The price of the papers, with full explanations, is twenty-five cents. The principal of your school is likely to possess a copy.

The new Cuban Republic, it is understood, has made arrangements with parties in New York city for the printing of bonds and postage-stamps. As yet no designs for stamps have been seen.

In the past few months I have had occasion to examine a large number of stamps, and several collections belonging to members of the "Round Table." I am sorry to say that a great many of the stamps show that they have not been handled with the care they should have had, especially in the matter of hinges, or "stickers." These are seemingly very insignificant things, and any dealer will supply hinges for 10c. per 1000, while for 15c. a very superior quality can be obtained. Home-made hinges frequently injure the stamps through chemicals in the gum or paste making a change in the color of the stamp. Of course the majority of stamps I have seen have been very common stamps, but every collector should take as great pains in the mounting of common stamps as of the most valuable specimens. I advise you to use the best hinges that can be obtained. Their cost is insignificant, and they will save you many damaged stamps.

I have sometimes been asked to recommend Philatelic publications. This has led me to investigate as to the number of Philatelic publications that have been issued up to date. I find that their number is at least 16,000, and probably 20,000 in all. Of these about one-half are in the English language, and most of these have been issued in America. Nearly one-third are in the German language. The balance is distributed among the French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, etc. Most Philatelic journals have ended their career before the end of the first volume, and very few survive a second year.

A bath as cleansing, sweet and mild
As Ivory makes it, always seems
To bring such comfort, that the child
Drops fast asleep with happy dreams.

PRINTING OUTFIT 10c.

For printing cards, marking linen, books, etc. Contains everything shown in cut. Type, Tweezers, Holder, Indelible Ink, Ink Pad, etc. Thoroughly practical for business or household use and a most instructive amusement. Sent with catalogue illustrating over 1000 Tricks and Novelties, for 10c. in stamps to pay postage and packing on outfit and catalogue. Same outfit with figures 15c. Large outfit for printing two lines 25c.

Brownie Rubber Stamps—A set of 6 grotesque little people with ink pad; price, postpaid, 10c.

G. A. R. series Rubber Stamps, 12 characters. Makes all kinds of Battles, Encampments and other military pictures, 25c. postpaid. Address

ROBERT H. INGERSOLL & BRO,

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Tommy Toddles

The wonderful adventures of a small boy who wanders through a fantastic country in search of the wooden animals that have come to life and strayed away from a Noah's Ark are described in a humorous and imaginative style that will amuse older heads, while the peculiar incidents of the narrative cannot fail to bring delight to every youngster. There is a good leaven of light verse to the tale, which, with the illustrations in Mr. Newell's happiest vein, make the book a welcome addition to juvenile literature.

HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York.

AN AFRICAN STRATAGEM.

AT THE CIRCUS.

Kangaroo. "You had great luck last year getting your trunk through the custom-house without paying a duty."

Bobby. "I'm going to eat it, so's I'll be sure to hear you call to-morrow morning."

WILLIE I-WONT-PLAY.

Wilful Willie I-Wont-Play
Always wants to have his way;
With him it is I or me,
Whatsoe'er the sport may be—
Prisoner's Goal or Pull-away,—
Wilful Willie I-Wont-Play.

If another faster run,
Though the game be just begun,
Then he'll pout and sulk and scowl,
Gloomy as a day-caught owl,
Spoil the whole glad holiday,—
Wilful Willie I-Wont-Play.

Where's the boy would be like him,
Stout of arm and strong of limb,
Hearty as a sailor, yet
Ever in a selfish pet?
Shame upon his head, I say,
Wilful Willie I-Wont-Play!

Clinton Scollard.

Mamma. "My dear, you've been out to luncheon every day this week; can't you stay at home just for once?"

Tommy. "That is just where he's in luck; he doesn't have to be an example to them all the time."

At a temperance gathering during the recent campaign an orator exclaimed: "The glorious work will never be accomplished until the good ship Temperance shall sail from one end of the land to the other, and with a cry of 'Victory!' at each step she takes, shall plant her banner in every city, town, and village of the United States." Another speaker said that "All along the untrodden paths of the future we can see the hidden footprints of an unseen hand."

BETTER OUT THAN IN.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Shanty man"—from "Chantez"—a man who could lead the singing while the men worked. A good shanty man was considered to be a valuable acquisition to a vessel.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, MARCH 3, 1896 ***

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published weekly.	NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 1896.	five cents a copy.
vol. xvii.—no. 855.		two dollars a year.

School.	First.	Second.	Third.	Total
Berkeley	4½	3½	1	34
Barnard	3	0	0	15
St. Paul's	1	2	2	13
Adelphi Academy	1	1	0	8
Brooklyn High	1	1	0	8
Pingry's	0	2	0	6
Newark Academy	0	1	2	5
Brooklyn Latin	½	½	0	4
Ailing Art	0	0	1	1
Columbia Grammar	0	0	1	1
Cutler	0	0	1	1
Oxford	0	0	1	1
Pratt Institute	0	0	1	1
Poly. Prep	0	0	1	1