Title: Harper's Round Table, April 14, 1896
Author: Various
Language: English
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[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1896. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVII.--NO. 859. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

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[Illustration]

MOTHER-IN-LAW TO THE CREW.

ONE OF THE OLD SAILOR'S YARNS.

BY W. J. HENDERSON.


It was a beautiful summer morning. There was a light wind from the
southwest, which just tempered to a degree of endurance the blazing heat
of the full-orbed sun. A few wisps of feathery white lay slantwise
across the broad field of deep-toned blue sky, promising a change of
weather within a day's time. The sea was a vast undulating mirror of
blue, as if all the sapphires in the world and in all the other worlds
had been melted and poured into earth's majestic basin. From the rounded
slopes of the broad low swells the rays of the sun danced in a million
flashes of dazzling silver. The swells themselves ran in slow, sinuous
folds to the inner bar, where they reared themselves in curving walls of
translucent green shot with bars of snow, and then with the burst of
far-off thunder fell forward into spurting, writhing acres of yeasty
foam. Softness, warmth, and languorous sparkle lay over the sea.

Far away upon the uncertain horizon loomed the black hull of an ocean
liner, cleaving her way across the polished path at twenty knots an
hour, to make a new record, homeward bound. The tense cordage of her
rigging, the strained squareness of her tapering yards, the horizontal
backward rush of the torrents of smoke from her yawning funnels gave her
the appearance of a true greyhound, with every nerve and muscle strained
in the effort at speed. Nearer the land three schooners, two loaded to
their scuppers, and one flying light, so that she seemed to sail on her
keel, were making a long leg to the southward, close-hauled on the
starboard tack. Further in yet a score of tiny sea skiffs rose and fell
on the bosom of the deep, and now and then the glitter of sunlight on
the scales of a captured fish could be seen.

Henry Hovey and his little brother George--who was not so little as he
used to be--were walking along the ocean road. Often and often they had
gone down to the old wooden pier, and sighed much because it no longer
held their interesting friend, the Old Sailor. They had met other
sailors, but none of them could tell tales of the sea; and, worse than
that, none of them knew anything about the wonderful places the Old
Sailor had seen. So Henry and George contented themselves with telling
the old tales over, and speculating on the causes of the remarkable
events related therein. On this beautiful summer day they unconsciously
wandered down to the pier, and to their surprise there was a man sitting
on the end of it. He looked so much like their old friend that they both
stopped short and gasped. Then they shook their heads sadly and walked
slowly out on the pier. As they drew near the man they saw that his
shoulders were shaking with laughter. George gripped Henry's arm and
said, "Is it a dream?"

"I don't know," answered Henry, in a whisper. "I'm afraid--"

"W'ich the same it are not!" cried a voice they well knew; and the next
instant there was the Old Sailor himself, half laughing and half crying,
dancing on one foot and holding each of the breathless boys by a hand.
"It are not no dream," continued the Old Sailor; "'cos w'y, dreams goes
by contraries, an' this are the werry identical sailor wot it used to
be, an' not no contrary wotsomever."

"Oh! when did you come?" cried George.

"Jes now."

"What?"

"Jes now. I jes come ashore. I were a-sittin' on this 'ere werry
identical pier a-lookin' fur my trunk."

The two boys gazed at their old friend in silent wonder, for they were
sure that behind that trunk there lay some mystery.

"Where is it?" asked Henry at length.

"Down there," answered the Old Sailor, pointing at the water. "Under
hatches, stove in an' sunk. I wouldn't 'a' parted with that trunk fur a
good hogshead o' baccy. 'Cos w'y; I got that there trunk in Noo Yawk the
day I shipped, an' I had her loaded right to her hatches with things to
bring home to ye. Howsumever, it were drownin' or losin' 'em, an' so me
an' the trunk got ashore--leastways I did; an' that's wot."

With these words the Old Sailor once more sat down on the end of the
pier, and the boys sat beside him. He sent one of his long searching
glances around the horizon, indulged in one of his peculiar silent
laughs, and then suddenly said,

"S'pose I was to go fur to ask ye wot kind o' wessel are that out
yonder?"

"It's an ocean liner," answered Henry.

"An' s'posin' I was to say wot are them three yonder?"

"Schooners," said George, "under all plain sail, close-hauled on the
starboard tack."

"My son," said the Old Sailor, solemnly, "you are growin' werry salt.
An' s'posin' I were to ask ye wot are that high-sided one loaded with?"

"Nothin'," said Henry. "She's flying light."

"Werry good too. An' may I be run down an' sunk by a bar'l o' your
mother's hot biscuit ef this here warn't the werry identical way wot it
happened. I shipped in St. Thomas as second mate onto the four-masted
schooner _Raw Tomatters_. She were bound fur Noo Yawk with an assorted
cargo o' cigarettes, pickled pigs' feet, mares' nests, and ice-cream."

"Mares' nests!" exclaimed Henry.

"Ice-cream!" cried George.

"Them's it! The mares' nests is built in the mountains by the wild
mares, an' is imported to this country for political purposes. The
ice-cream made in St. Thomas are werry bad, werry bad indeed; but it
won't melt in this here climate 'cos it are so hot where it are made,
an' so it are imported here in bricks an' sold as ice-cream candy, w'ich
the same you may have eat, but don't do so no more. Howsumever that
'ain't got nothin' to do with this 'ere yarn wot I'm a-tellin' ye. The
_Raw Tomatters_ are a werry big schooner, an' she got under way with a
crew o' twenty men, all told, includin' me, wot were the second mate,
an' the Cap'n's mother, w'ich the same she were the cause o' the whole
bilin'. The Cap'n's name were Janders Blue, an' he were a smallish man
with a turned-up nose, one glass eye, an' a wooden arm, w'ich the same
he got in the whalin' trade. His mother's name were Mehitabel Blue, an'
she stood six feet three, an' could lift a barrel o' salt horse. So
bein', it putty soon come to be knowed that she were not only the
Cap'n's mother, but a mother-in-law to the hull crew. The trouble with
her were that she weren't brought up among seafarin' pussons, but in a
werry respectable country town where there were more churches than
stores. She'd went down to St. Thomas on a steamer fur her health, she
said, an' were now goin' fur to make the v'yidge back with her good son.
I didn't see wot she wanted o' any more health than she had; but I
didn't say nothin', her bein' the Cap'n's mother an' me the second mate,
w'ich the same 'ain't got much to say.

"Waal, the squalls commenced fur to make up jes as soon as ever we
started to git the anchor. The old lady, wearin' a wide-brimmed straw
hat with a long red feather into 't, an' holdin' a white umbreller over
her head, stood aft alongside o' her son. Sez he, 'H'ist the outer jib.'
Sez I, 'Lively there, you swabs.' With that the old woman she shet the
umbreller down with a snap, jumped forrad in about four hops, an' sez
she ter me, sez she,

"'Wot kind o' langwidge are that ter use in the presence of a lady?'

"'Beggin' yer pardon, ma'am,' sez I to she, sez I, 'I weren't aware as
how it were onperlite,' sez I, jes like that.

"'Don't you dast to call no man no sich names ag'in w'ile I'm on this
'ere boat,' sez she; 'ef ye do, I'll git my son ter discharge ye right
off.'

"Then she h'isted the umbreller ag'in an' went aft. The men looked at me
an' I looked at them, an' we didn't none on us say nothin'; 'cos why,
there weren't nothin' to say. But blow me fur pickles ef 'twere more'n
five minutes afore she bruk out in a noo place. Bill Doosenbury, the
fust mate, he sings out fur some un to set the torps'ls.

"'Lay aloft an' loose torps'ls,' sez he. 'Lively now, you sea-cooks!'

"May I never cross the blessed hequator ag'in ef the old woman didn't
dance right up to Bill, an' fetch him a swat over the head with the
umbreller.

"'I'll not stand it,' sez she to he, sez she. 'I'll not listen to no
sich talk.'

"With that the Cap'n comes a-runnin' up to her, an' sez he, 'Mother,
wot's wrong?'

"'Wot d'ye mean, Janders Blue,' sez she to he, sez she, 'by allowin' o'
sich permiskis langwidge on your boat?'

"'W'y, mother,' sez he, 'that are reg'lar sea langwidge.'

"'Then it are got to be changed,' sez she to he, sez she, jes like that,
him bein' Cap'n of the schooner, an' she bein' his mother with a white
umbreller. She turned around to go aft ag'in, an' stopped like she were
hit herself. 'Janders Blue,' sez she, 'look at this here rope!'

"'Wot's the matter with 't, mother?'

"'It are all covered with tar!'

"'That's allers the way with 'em on ships,' sez he.

"'Nonsense!' sez she. 'I ain't a-goin' to stand it. You're all in a plot
to make this 'ere v'yidge o' mine a failure. I won't have it! Janders
Blue, you set them lazy sailors to work right off with hot water 'n'
soap a-scrubbin' that stuff off. Ugh! Tar! Ugh!'

"I hope I may turn into a bloomin' Sally Growler ef the Cap'n didn't do
jes wot she told him. Ye never in the hull course o' your life see sich
a ridikalous sight as sailor-men a-scrubbin' the tar off their own
riggin'. An' that weren't the wust o' 't. Byme-by, o' course, it come on
night, and the side-lights were set. Now it so happened that we had a
strong breeze on the starboard beam that night, an' we was putty well
hove over. Mrs. Blue she come on deck jes after the lights was sot, an'
she vowed as how she were tired o' the starn part o' the wessel, an'
were a-goin' to walk up an' down forrad. She came along to the fok's'le
deck an' got down on the lee side to walk up an' down. Jes as soon as
she done that she seed the red light in the port riggin'. She let out a
yawp as almost killed the wind, and called fur Bill Doosenbury. He come
a-runnin' half scart to death, fur fear she'd got hurt. But she sez to
him, sez she:

"'Take that nasty red light down. It hurts my eyes.'

"'But, ma'am,' sez Bill, 'that's our side light.'

"'Waal,' sez she, 'put it on t'other side, and put the green one over
here. I don't mind green.'

"'Couldn't you walk on t'other side?' sez Bill.

"'No, I couldn't,' sez she; 'you know it's too windy up there. You
change them lights!'

"Bill tried to tell her why it couldn't be did, but she wouldn't listen
to him. She hollered fur the Cap'n, an' he come forrad, an' findin' out
wot were the matter, offered to put out both lights, blow me fur a
herrin' ef he didn't.

"'Wot!' sez she, 'an' leave me in the dark to fall down an' break my
neck?'

"An' with that she set up a weepin' an' wailin' that her son didn't love
her, till I'm blowed ef the old man didn't go an' shift the lights to
suit her. An' then we had to put on double lookouts fur fear we'd run
into somethin'. O' course soon's she went below we shifted 'em back. In
the mid-watch 't come on to blow putty fresh, and I, bein' on watch,
sung out a few orders about reefin', an' the watch jumped to work. Up
come the old woman in a long night-gown an' a red flannel night-cap, two
steps at a time.

"'Wot d'ye mean,' she yells, 'a-raisin' such a racket up here at this
time o' night? It's time all decent people was in bed. Shame on ye!
Shame on ye! Roisterin' an' carousin' out here this way! Go to bed, ye
miserable sinners, go to bed!'

"I tried to explain to her as how the schooner'd got to be worked
through the night.

"'Nonsense!' sez she to me, sez she; 'my son Janders'd never make no man
work all night. He'd stop the ship an' have a night watchman to mind her
till mornin'. This are some o' your doin'. You're the wust o' the hull
lot. Th' idee of your bein' out this time o' night. You're old nuff to
know better!'

"By that time the Cap'n were on deck, an' somehow he coaxed her to go
below an' stay there. But the werry next mornin' she were at 't ag'in.
We started in to wash down decks, an' up she come without her hat on an'
her hair all up in yaller curl-papers. She tuk one look along the deck,
an' then she bruk out:

"'Waal, of all the oncivilized ways o' cleanin' a floor I must say I
'ain't never seed nothin like that. Squirtin' onto 't with a hose!
Janders! Janders! Come out here!'

"The Cap'n come on deck lookin' putty tired, an' she sez to he, sez she:

"'I won't stand it--I won't! Make them lazy men git soap an' water an'
scrubbin'-brushes, an' git right down on their knees an' scrub the floor
honest. Th' idee o' squirtin' onto 't!'

"An' by the great hook block we had to do 't. Right down onto our knees,
es ef we wus so many old women hired out fur to do cookin', washin', an'
ironin! Waal, ye may keel-haul me an' copper-bottom me on top o' my head
with yaller paper ef I didn't begin fur to git putty mad. I made up my
mind that the next thing o' that sort wot the old girl called out fur us
to do were not a-goin' fur to be did. Waal, it weren't so werry long
afore the trouble bruk loose. We had a little more wind than we wanted
day afore yistiddy, an' afore we could git the torps'ls clewed down
there were a hit of a split in one ov 'em. Yistiddy I got my sail needle
an' palm an' were a-startin' to go up to mend the sail. The old woman
stopped me an' asked me wot I were a-goin' to do. She looked at me an'
at the sail needle an' the palm, an' then she let go:

"'I 'ain't never seed sich an old heathen in the hull course o' my
life,' sez she. 'The idee o' climbin' up there an' riskin' your life
w'en you could have the sail brung down! An' then to try to sew it with
sich things as them! I won't stand it, that are all I got to say.'

"I told her that were the way them things was allers did at sea, an' she
vowed it were time sich nonsense were changed. Then she called fur her
son, an' sez she to he:

"This 'ere old sailor are a-doin' his best to make me mis'able aboard
this 'ere ship. I won't stand it! You make him bring that sail down here
and sew it up proper.'

"An' the Cap'n he sez to me, sez he, that I'd better do it her way, jes
like that, him bein' Cap'n an' me second mate. I got mad an' slammed the
palm down on deck, an' said I'd be swabbed afore I'd do 't.

"'Oh--h!' screeched the old woman, 'to think as how I'd be talked to
like that in my son's own boat! I won't stand it! Janders Blue, you put
that old man off this vessel at oncet, or I'll jump off myself an' wade
ashore!'

"'But it are too deep fur wadin',' sez the Cap'n.

"'Then give him a boat.'

"'I can't spare my men.'

"'Let him row it hisself.'

"'He can't do that all alone.'

"'Oh, to think that my own son'd turn ag'in me, an' all fur a measly,
chicken-faced, turkey-footed old sinner that wants to sew with a
skewer!'

"An' she beginned fur to squeal so that the Cap'n, sez he to me, sez he,
'You git ashore somehow, quick.' Waal, my sons, we wuz about eight miles
off yonder, an' I couldn't swim so far. But down in the fok's'le I had
my trunk wot I'd carried off to bring home things in. So I went below
an' emptied all the things out 'ceptin' a Chinese umbreller an' a Indian
shawl. I brung the trunk on deck, an' sez I to the Cap'n, 'You rig a
tackle an' lower me an' my trunk into the sea,' sez I, 'an' I'll git
ashore right here. I've got friends on that there coast.' So he lowered
us--me an' the trunk--an' the wind bein' fair, I set sail with the
Chinese umbrella fur a sail. The old woman she stood on deck a-shakin'
her umbreller at me, an' yellin' loud,

"'Don't ye dast to come back to this 'ere boat, ye old reprobate!'

"'Not as long as there are any land to stay on,' sez I to she, sez I.

"'I won't stand it!' sez she.

"'Then go to bed!' sez I.

"An' by that time the schooner were so fur away I couldn't tell wot she
sez. It tuk me all night to git in half a mile o' the beach, an' then
the wind changed an' I had to paddle. The surf smashed my trunk ag'in
the pier; I lost my umbreller an' my shawl; but here I are, an' here I
stays. An' the previous part o' my percedins I'll tell ye some other
day, but jes now I'd like to see your mother an' ask her ef she's forgot
how I like her coffee."



RÖNTGEN RAYS.

BY WILLIAM A. ANTHONY.


It is now some two months since the public was startled by the
announcement that Röntgen of Bavaria had discovered that electric
discharges in certain vacuum tubes, that is, tubes from which the air
has been exhausted, gave out rays that would pass through wood,
card-board, flesh, and numerous other substances opaque to light--that
is, through which light would not pass, and would then affect the
sensitive plates used in photographing, making it possible to show upon
the plates the outlines of objects entirely hidden from the eye.

Probably what most aroused the interest of the public was the fact that
when a structure, like the hand, was interposed in the path of these
rays, the bones would cast a deep shadow, while the shadow cast by the
flesh was very faint. It was thus possible to photograph the bones of
the living body, and, of course, to show the presence of foreign
substances or abnormal growths.

What has excited most surprise, perhaps, is the fact that these rays
pass through bodies that are generally considered opaque, for it seems
to those not familiar with the facts and demonstrations of science a
most surprising thing that any rays should go through wood planks or
sheets of metal or living flesh or brick walls. But is it really any
more wonderful than that rays of light should go through glass or quartz
or diamond or water? We are familiar with this last fact, because we can
"see through" these substances. We know that glass does not shut out
light, because we can see the space beyond it illuminated. But we have
no sense that tells us of the presence of the Röntgen rays. We must
resort to the photographic plate or the fluorescent screen (to be
described further on), to show their presence, and for all information
as to their behavior. The photographic plate is affected, while our eyes
are not, and we are obliged to let such plates take the place of our
eyes, and receive impressions which we can afterwards interpret.

But what are "rays"? When we stand in front of a fire of glowing coals
we _feel_ the warmth, and our eyes tell us of the light. Light and heat
are said to _radiate_ from the glowing coals, and both light and heat
proceed in straight lines. These straight paths followed by radiations
we have called rays. These rays are quivering motions in a medium which
we call the ether, and which we believe extends through all space and
pervades all bodies. They are waves, having the character of waves on
the water, which we can see, and sound waves in air, which we know
exist.

These ether waves, those that affect the eye and those which do not,
differ from each other, as all wave motions differ, in the distance from
wave to wave, or what is the same, in the frequency of the vibratory
motions. As an example, compare the long ocean swell that comes
thundering upon the beach at intervals of several seconds with the
frequent swash, swash, swash of the little ripples on the shore of a
fish-pond, or the vibrations that can be felt as a tremor of the whole
church when the deep bass pipes of the great organ are sounded with the
sharp shrill tones of the high treble pipe.

There are means of measuring the distances from wave to wave of the
different rays in the ether, and the result is astounding. The frequency
is something of which it is impossible to form any conception. About 20
millions of millions per second is the lowest, and about 1000 millions
of millions the highest frequency. Of these, those only which lie
between 400 and 760 millions of millions per second excite vision. In
other words, the ether waves breaking upon the optic nerve must come at
the rate of at least 400 millions of millions per second before that
nerve will carry any impression to the brain--before we can "see" them.
Why rays of these frequencies only should affect the eye we do not know.
We only know that the structure of the eye is such that the other rays
are powerless to produce vision. Neither do we know why the
low-frequency rays will go through hard rubber and will not go through
glass. We only know it is a fact.

All these ether rays may produce heat. The high-frequency rays affect
the photographic sensitive plate, and also produce another effect that
is of especial interest in connection with the study of the Röntgen
rays. They have the power of exciting a peculiar luminosity, or light,
in certain substances, which are for that reason called fluorescent.

Electrical discharges in vacuum tubes have long been known as sources of
radiations which produce heat and affect the eye. Every student of
physics knows the experiment with the aurora tube, which, when exhausted
by a good air-pump and connected to a Holtz machine or induction coil,
is seen filled with a pale light having something the appearance of the
streamers of the Aurora Borealis.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE APPARATUS USED IN MAKING RÖNTGEN
RADIOGRAPHS.]

Professor Crookes, by obtaining a vastly better vacuum, obtained in
these tubes some new and very interesting phenomena. As the vacuum
became better and better, the light within the tubes finally
disappeared, and only the inside of the glass was illuminated. This
Professor Crookes explained upon the supposition that the air particles
remaining in the tubes are repelled from the negative terminal or
"cathode" within the tube, and shoot off from it, proceeding in straight
lines, until they come into collision with other particles or with the
walls of the tubes, producing light wherever the collision occurs. When
the exhaustion is sufficient these particles shooting out from the
cathode meet with no obstructions until they reach the walls of the
tube, which are bombarded by the flying particles until they shine with
a sort of phosphorescent light, while the whole interior of the tube
remains dark.

These experiments have been repeated again and again for the last
eighteen years in scientific laboratories and lecture-rooms, always
exciting the greatest interest in the wonderful phenomena disclosed. But
not until recently has it been known or suspected that all the time
there were proceeding from the bombarded surface other rays, incapable
of exciting vision, but possessing properties, and capable of producing
effects even more wonderful than any that the Crookes tube had before
shown. That certain invisible rays existed in the Crookes tube
radiations was known about four years ago, but it remained for Professor
Röntgen to demonstrate the remarkable properties which they possess. He
found that a piece of card-board painted on one side with barium platino
cyanide was illuminated when held near the excited Crookes tube, and
that the painted surface was equally well illuminated, whether it or the
reverse side of the card-board was presented to the tube. He further
found that when the whole tube was covered with black paper, so that no
rays affecting the eye could emerge, the painted screen was still
illuminated, and further yet, that the illumination remained visible
when a board an inch thick, a book of a thousand pages, or a plate of
hard rubber was interposed between the tube and screen.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--A RADIOGRAPH OF A MAN'S HAND.]

On the contrary, he found that glass, thin pieces of metal, the bones of
the hand, more or less stopped the rays, and so cast shadows. It must
have been a startling image that met Professor Röntgen's eye when first
he placed his hand in the path of the rays, and saw upon the screen a
bony skeleton hand with only a faint outline of flesh and cartilage. It
was a startling experiment to me, after I had read all the accounts of
Professor Röntgen's work, and knew what to expect, when I first saw the
shadow of my own hand upon the fluorescent screen. Fig. 2 shows the
appearance of such a shadow. After demonstrating in this way the
transmission powers of various substances, Professor Röntgen tried the
effect of the rays upon the photographic plate, and found it possible to
fix there the images that he had seen upon the fluorescent screen.

Fig. 1 will show how the results are obtained. A is a galvanic battery,
B is a Ruhmkorff induction coil, C is a Crookes tube, and D is the
plate-holder containing the sensitive plate.

The battery produces a low-tension harmless current that is rapidly
closed and broken at the induction coil, which transforms it into a
high-tension current capable of producing electric sparks, and giving
exceedingly painful if not fatal electric shocks. Wires convey this
high-tension current from the coil to the terminals of the Crookes tube,
where the Röntgen rays are produced whenever the current is turned on.
In the figure the plate-holder is shown only a few inches from the tube,
where the effect of the rays is strong.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--A GOLDFISH WITH THE SPINE AND SOME OF THE
INTERNAL ORGANS VISIBLE.]

Fig. 3 shows a goldfish, with all his scales and flesh on. The line of
his spine is clearly visible, and many of the inner organs of his body
can be clearly seen, and the skeleton comes out very clearly, because
the bones are more opaque to these rays than is any other part of the
body.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--WING OF A PIGEON, SHOWING THE SHADING EFFECT IN
BONES.]

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--HEAD AND LEG OF PIGEON.]

Fig. 4 shows the wing of a pigeon, which is interesting, because while
the outline of the flesh is distinctly marked the feathers have
practically disappeared. The bones are not only clear, however, but the
thinner parts are lighter than the thicker. Fig. 5 shows the leg and
head of the pigeon. Around the head it is just possible to make out the
outline of the feathers, the flesh is clearly marked, and all the bones
of the neck are visible. In like manner the leg is interesting.

The transparency of the flesh makes it possible to show the presence and
location in the body of foreign substances. Bullets, needles, and bits
of glass have already been located by means of Röntgen ray photographs,
and afterwards removed by a surgical operation.

It is curious that the part of the eye which is transparent to the
light, and through which light passes to reach and affect the optic
nerve, is nearly opaque to the Röntgen rays. Vision by means of these
rays would therefore be impossible, even if the optic nerve were
sensitive to them.

But suppose these rays could excite vision. What should we see? Holding
a purse between the eye and a Röntgen ray source, we should see the
coins within it. If a person stepped in the path of the ray we should
see his bony skeleton. We might see something of his internal organs;
perhaps we could see his heart beat. A broken bone could be seen, and
the operation of setting it could be watched. Diseased bones or enlarged
joints could be examined. Tubercles in the lungs would be visible. But
these things would be visible only when they came between the eye and
the source of the rays, much as on a dark night objects might be visible
between you and a camp fire.

In daylight objects become visible by means of the light which falls
upon them and is reflected to the eye. This brings out the detail of the
visible surface. But the Röntgen rays are scarcely at all reflected, and
even if they produced vision, objects would become visible only as they
intercepted the rays. They would not be illuminated as they are
illuminated by rays of light, and only outlines, therefore, would be
seen. Even fluorescent bodies which appear light under the action of the
Röntgen rays are not really illuminated, but are rendered luminous--that
is, are made to shine by their own light. When bodies opaque to the rays
are placed before the fluorescent screen, merely a shadow is seen on it.
So the photographs or "radiographs" obtained are only shadows, but they
are not the flat featureless shadows of the "shadow pictures" often
introduced as an entertainment at social gatherings, when the identity
of the person casting the shadow is often impossible to make out. Few
substances are entirely opaque to the Röntgen rays, hence the shadows
of thicker portions of an object will be deeper than of the thinner
portions, and the shadow becomes a shaded picture that may give details
of the surfaces of the object. A Röntgen ray shadow of an aluminum medal
may show the design stamped upon the surface. The shading effect is well
shown in the bones of the pigeon.

But if there are few substances entirely opaque to the newly discovered
rays, there appear to be none that are entirely transparent. Even in air
the rays appear to be rapidly absorbed, so that an extremely powerful
apparatus is required for producing effects at any distance. Air seems
to behave toward the Röntgen rays much as fog behaves to light, and it
seems unlikely that effects can be procured at any great distance,
perhaps not more than one hundred feet from the source.

It would be rash to attempt to predict the future of the Röntgen ray.
The uses to which it may be applied in surgery have already been hinted
at in this article. The transparency of wood makes it possible to
inspect the work of a carpenter, and determine whether the work hidden
under the exterior finish has been honestly done. Hidden compartments in
a desk or cabinet might be revealed. The contents of a packing-box might
be ascertained without opening it. But to scientific men these rays have
a very great interest. What are they? Are they vibrating movements
transmitted in waves, like light? Are they particles shot off from the
Crookes tube and flying with enormous velocity? These are questions to
be answered.

When you stand in front of a Crookes tube in action these flying
particles are streaming through your body, stopping not at all at your
clothing, and hardly at all checked by the flesh, nor wholly stopped
even by the bones. A hard-wood board held between you and the tube is no
protection. The streams pass through it unchecked. Sheets of metal even
do not wholly stop them. The wonder of it all is that for nearly twenty
years experimenters with the Crookes tube have been pierced through and
through by these subtle streams and have never known it. Do they produce
any effect as they pass through the body? Can they cause or cure
disease?

It has been proved that they pass quite freely through the lungs, but if
tubercules are present they stop the rays. Might not the touch of the
flowing streams dissipate the tuberculosis growth and restore health?
Questions like these are coming up for solution, and experimenters are
seeking the answers. The study of the Röntgen ray has just begun. What
may not the next few months bring forth?



AN "OLD-FIELD" SCHOOL-GIRL.[1]

[Footnote 1: Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 857.]
HARLAND.

CHAPTER IV.


The Foggs lived on a funny little piece of land wedged in between two of
the Greenfield farms. The house was a cabin of two rooms, with a stone
chimney built on the outside, but the Foggs boasted that fifty-three
children had been born and brought up in it. How they lived was a
partial mystery to the neighborhood. They raised corn and potatoes and
little else in the ground enclosed by a "worm-fence," built, it was more
than suspected, of rails stolen, a few at a time, from the Greenfield
fences. An acre of woodland behind the house was supposed to furnish
them with fuel, and there were always pigs and chickens running wild,
with a dozen or so children, in the road and fields.

They were "poor white folks" in a county where nearly everybody was
respectable and well-to-do. No member of the family was ever convicted
of an offence that took him into the courts. They might be suspected of
stealing chickens, pigs, and wood, and even of robbing a smoke-house
once in a while, but nothing was ever proved against them. Not one of
them, so far as was known, had ever been in prison, and not one had ever
grown rich or really respectable.

As the Grigsby children, neat and trim, lunch bags and books in hand,
passed the Fogg cabin on the Monday morning the school opened, two men
and four children were in and about the yard. Mrs. Fogg, the mistress of
the house, stood on the porch, her married daughter, with two dirty
babies holding to her skirt, leaned against a corner of the chimney; a
barefoot boy was chopping sticks upon a log, a smaller boy trying to
grind his knife upon a grind-stone. All stopped what they were doing to
stare at the sisters and brother, and the elder matron hailed them in a
coarse voice more like a man's than a woman's.

"Goin' t' school, ain't you?"

Dee nodded without halting; Bea walked straight onward, her chin level,
her white sun-bonnet hiding her face. To her horror and displeasure Flea
stopped, and replied politely over the tumble-down fence:

"Good-morning, Mrs. Fogg! I hope you are all well to-day."

"Tolerable, thank God!" said the old woman, changing her tone into a
snuffling whine. "Ain't you too soon fo' school? The teacher 'ain' gone
by yet."

"We like to be in good time," rejoined Flea, affably. "Aren't your boys
going?"

"No, bless you, honey. Major Duncomb won't let them go in on the county,
an' pore folks ain't got no money to pay teachers with. Ah well! Th'
Almighty, He knows! The new teacher's real spry, ain' he?"

"Flea Grigsby!" called Bea, over her shoulder. "Come right along, or
I'll tell ma when I go home."

Flea noticed her as little as she noticed Mrs. Fogg's remark on the new
teacher's spryness. She had an idea, and was in a hurry to air it.
"Major Duncombe!" she repeated. "Could he let the children in free if he
liked?"

"Cert'nly, honey! He has the fus' word in all the county. Nobody dar'
say his soul's his own 'less he lets 'em. 'Lord! how long? how long?'"

"I am _very_ well acquainted with Major Duncombe," rushed on Flea, with
an important air. "And you may be sure, Mrs. Fogg, that I'll speak to
him about your grandchildren. Good-morning!"

She was out of breath when she overtook her sister. Bea had walked fast
purposely to make the others run, loyal Dee having loitered behind with
Flea.

"I should think you'd be 'shamed of yourself, stoppin' to talk with poor
white folks 'long the road," commented the elder sister.

Flea smiled mysteriously. "I had business with Mrs. Fogg."

"Business! Well, I never! The less you have to do with that kind, the
better."

"Mrs. Fogg is not a bad woman, Bea," said Flea, seriously. "When you ask
how she is, she always says, 'Pretty well, thank God,' just like Mrs.
Elton in _Anna Ross_. I think she is a very pious person, and it is not
her fault that she is poor. I stopped in the porch once when it was
raining, and she talked a great deal about the trouble she had had, and
how much she prayed, and so on. If I could, I'd be a benefactor to
people like that."

"I think sometimes you 'ain't got the sense you were born with, Flea
Grigsby. The idea o' you _benefacting_ anything or anybody!"

Flea's smile was yet more mysterious. In her glee over her new scheme
she squeezed Dee's arm.

"You wait and see! _We_ know--don't we, Dee?"

"Yes, _sir-r-r_!" said Dee, stoutly.

The prospective benefactress was still swelling with her secret when
they arrived at the school-house. The boys sat on one side of the room,
the girls on the other, a narrow aisle separating them. Dee dropped into
a seat near the door; the girls walked well forward and took places
close to the aisle. Three minutes afterward the teacher appeared in the
doorway, and Major Duncombe with him. Whispers and shuffling ceased
instantly; all eyes were fixed upon the two gentlemen as they went up to
the top of the room, turning there to face the school. It was all quite
proper and dignified, until the Major, having motioned to Mr. Tayloe to
take the chair ready for him, hung himself, as it were, across the
corner of the desk, as Flea had seen him do last Saturday.

"For all the world like a pair of saddle-bags," Bea told her mother
afterward.

Sitting thus, he watched the assembling of the motley crowd with kindly
interest. Now and then he smiled and bowed, and it was always a girl
whom he noticed in this way. Flea flushed delightedly at seeing that his
smile and salutation to her were especially friendly. His eyes said that
he was glad she was here and no worse for her adventure. Many
recollected, in after-days, how sombre was the aspect of the new teacher
by contrast with the Major's sunny face. One recalled that he had looked
at her and frowned when she returned Major Duncombe's bow and smile.

At the time the frown gave her no concern. Her patron had distinguished
her from the common herd by special courtesy. It was a promise of the
eminence that would be hers from this time onward. She was already set
apart and above her schoolmates.

The Major made a little speech by way of opening the session of the
school. It was like himself, informal and pleasant.

"Young ladies and boys," he said, not rising from the desk, and even
switching his boot lightly with his riding-whip while he talked, "I have
gone security for your good behavior to the gentleman who takes charge
of you for the year to come. I know you won't disappoint him or me. I
have proved my faith in him as a gentleman and a scholar by putting my
two boys under his care. I have told him to be strict with them. The
teacher who does his duty is bound to be strict. A school is like an
army. Orders must be carried out and no questions asked, and no tales
told out of school. That was the law in my school-days, and it is a good
law. From the very start you must believe that your teacher is your
friend, and that he is doing _his_ best. Take my word for that until you
find it out for yourselves. I go his security too. I know all about him.
I knew his grandfather and his father. They were true Virginia gentlemen
from crown to toe. And a Virginia gentleman of the right sort is the
best specimen of a man ever made. Never forget that, boys. I knew Mr.
Tayloe's mother also, young ladies." In addressing them he arose to his
feet, and his voice was gentler: "She was a lady such as a man takes his
hat off to when he so much as thinks of her. For her sake I know that
her son will treat you kindly and respectfully. For my sake I hope that
you will prove yourselves, as young ladies always do, the most obedient
and diligent students in the school. Upon my word"--abandoning the
attempt at formal gallantry, and relapsing into his every-day
manner--"when I look into these bright eyes and rosy faces, I envy Mr.
Tayloe the privilege of leading you along the flowery paths of learning.

"This is all I have to say to you at present. All I ought to say, I
mean, for I could talk for hours, it is so delightful to see you, and to
live over for the time my own school-days in this very place. And so,
good-day, and God bless every one of you!"

In passing down the aisle he laid his hand lightly upon what her father
called Flea's "Shetland-pony mane," and sent a merry flash of his gray
eyes into hers uplifted in enchanted surprise.

Mr. Tayloe rapped smartly upon his desk with the ruler, and flourished
it at the beginning and the end of his short speech.

"Children, I am here to teach. You are here to be taught. I mean to do
my duty. I shall make it my business to see that you do yours. I shall
treat you, one and all, boys and girls, exactly alike. I shall have no
favorites, and show no partiality to anybody. If you are lazy and
disobedient and saucy, you will be punished without fear or favor. If
you study well and behave well, you will not be punished.

"The school will be opened every morning by reading the Scriptures and
with prayer. Open your Bibles at the first chapter of Genesis."

Every scholar had a Bible. Some had brought no other book with them. The
rustling of leaves caused by the command subsided, and the teacher read
distinctly, in a metallic tone, the first verse:

"'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.' What is your
name?" addressing in precisely the same voice a boy who sat at the
extreme left of the front row of benches.

"Thomas Carter, sir!" faltered the startled lad.

"Thomas Carter will read the second verse, the boy next to him the
third, and so on, right across the room to the end of the front bench
where those girls are sitting. Then the girl next to the wall on the
second bench will take her turn, and so on, clear across the room back
to the other wall. Go on, Thomas Carter."

Some of the scholars read badly, some tolerably well. With one
exception, none of them did themselves justice. They were diffident
under the gaze of the pale blue eyes, or flustered by the sound of their
own voices in the deep stillness that had fallen upon the school-room.
Flea Grigsby alone kept a steady head and a steady voice. She read
uncommonly well for a girl of her age, and she knew it. The boy across
the aisle from her had fallen over the word "firmament," and the teacher
had helped him to pass it by obliging him to spell the word twice, then
to re-read the verse. Flea was the first girl who was called upon to
read.

In her zeal she spoke more loudly than she was conscious of doing,
emphasized certain words in a marked way, and did not forget to count
"one" to herself at the comma, and "one, two, three," at the colon.

"And God made the _firmament_, and divided the waters which were _under_
the firmament from the waters which were _above_ the firmament: and it
was _so_."

Bea's pretty lips were parting to begin the next verse when the
teacher's gesture arrested her. An unpleasant smile drew up the corners
of his mouth; his eyes were fixed upon Flea's face. To the amazement of
the school he proceeded to read aloud the verse she had just finished,
mimicking her girlish pipe, and exaggerating into absurdity the emphasis
she had meant to make effective.

Some of the boys snickered; a few girls giggled. The rest looked scared
and puzzled.

[Illustration: "THAT IS NOT READING; THAT IS MOUTHING."]

"That is not reading; that is mouthing," Mr. Tayloe ended the imitation
by saying. "The sooner you get rid of that sort of affectation, Felicia
Grigsby, the better for yourself. It may do for your private Shakespeare
studies. It will not do for the Bible and this school. You think it very
fine; it is really ridiculous. Next girl, read the eighth verse!"

The blow was brutal. It cut, as he had meant it should, down to the
quick of the child's sensibilities. True, her self-conceit and her
mannerisms had drawn it upon her. When children are thus "taken down" by
their superiors in age and position we say, "It _hurts_, but it is good
for them. But for such rubs they would be prigs; but for such pricks to
vanity they would grow up cads. We all had to go through the small mill.
In after-years we are the wiser for it."

Had Felicia Grigsby dropped from the bench in a dead swoon it would have
been a merciful relief from what she endured, as, with eyes bent upon
the page she could not see for the hot haze that swam between her and
it, she sat perfectly still and let teacher and pupils think what they
might of her.

At last she was dully awake to the fact that the boys on the front bench
were upon their second round. Her turn would be upon her again before
she could stop breathing fast or swallow the burning ball in her throat.
She could not speak! She would not try. Nearer and nearer came the
husky, reedy voices of the big boys. There were five on the front bench.
The smallest of the five sat next to the aisle. His name was Senalius
Snead. They called him "Snail" for short. He had a high, squeaking
voice, like a pig's squeal. She had not turned a leaf. She could not
have read a line if she had, but her ears, grown all at once acute, lost
not one of the stammered words. Senalius Snead read horribly. She had
pitied him when he read awhile ago. She could wish now that he would go
on forever.

"And-the-evening-and-the-morning-were-the--"

"Spell it!" ordered the teacher, as the boy brought up short.

Without looking at him, Flea knew that he used a stubby forefinger with
a dirty nail as a "pointer."

"S-i-x-t-h!" he squeaked. "_Sixtieth_ day!"

"It would have been the sixtieth if you had had a hand in the job," said
the master, smiling his unpleasant smile. "As it is, 's-i-x-t-h,' spells
'sixth.' Let us pray! The scholars will kneel."

The chapter was ended then! Flea grew sick all over. Her head felt
queer, and the sweat started out in icy drops upon her forehead and
upper lip. She never knew how she got upon her knees, but she was there,
her face in her hands, her elbows upon the bench. Mr. Tayloe stood up
and read a short prayer from a book. It asked, among other things, that
"our hands may be kept from picking and stealing." There was nothing
about breaking the hearts and casting down the dreams of others, or
trampling under foot the small, sweet courtesies that make working-day
lives tolerable. If there had been, Mr. James Tayloe would have read it
all in the one tone--a tone as void of feeling and sympathy as the
"rat-a-tat-tat" of a spoon upon a dish-pan.

The morning was given up to examination and arrangement of the scholars
into classes. There was good stuff in Felicia, for by the time she was
called forward, with six other girls about the same age and size with
herself, to show what she knew, she had plucked up spirit to answer
clearly every question put to her. Except that her eyes were dull, and
the lip-lines sagged somewhat, she looked like her usual self. The
questions that fell to her were many, and the questioner pressed them
closely, taking nothing for granted. He even laid traps for her by
varying the forms of the queries.

"You said that General Washington fought the battle of the Cowpens, I
believe?" he said once.

"No, sir; _Colonel_ Washington."

And again, "You don't pretend to tell me that Cornwallis did not give
his sword to Washington's representative after the battle of Trenton?"

"No, sir. That was at Yorktown."

By-and-by--"The sun is nearer to the earth than the moon is, or it would
not be so much hotter. That is so--isn't it?"

Flea's dull eyes did not light up, but a slight smile contracted her
mouth. "The sun is 95,000,000 miles from the earth. The moon is 240,000
miles."

It was small game for a grown man, but the exchange of question and
reply became presently a sort of wordy duel. The girl was on her
mettle--Scotch mettle--and showed no sign of confusion when sure of her
ground. Hers was an excellent mind, retentive as well as quick. What she
had learned she kept, and understood how to use it.

Her father would have been proud of his lassie's proficiency in
geography, grammar, and history, of her reading, her spelling, and her
writing, had he been there. His heart would have been sore for her when
the inquisitor at length probed her weak spot. She disliked arithmetic,
and was hardly further advanced in it than the little girls beside her,
who had heard with hanging jaws and round eyes what was to them a
miraculous show of learning.

Mr. James Tayloe's faint blue eyes shone and twinkled at the first
blunder. At the fifth he laughed out the short harsh snarl his pupils
were to learn to dread.

"Aha!" He actually snapped his fingers with glee. "You _don't_ know
everything then, if you _are_ to be a 'comfort and a pride' to your
teacher--his one 'industrious and intelligent pupil!' When I meet with a
boy--and especially with a girl--who thinks she can tell me more than I
ever thought of learning, I like to take her down a peg or two!"

He need not have said it. The whole school looking on, partly in alarm,
partly, I am sorry to say, in amusement that was the livelier for a dash
of envy, understood already that for some reason he would enjoy lowering
the girl in her own eyes and in the sight of others.

He was a man of strong prejudices and overbearing temper. He had been
brought up as a rich man's son, and his father had died poor just as his
son had left the university. In order to get the means for studying law,
he must teach school for a couple of years, and Major Duncombe, who knew
his story, offered him the neighborhood school, doubling the salary out
of his own pocket without letting this be known to the young teacher.

He had taken a positive dislike to our poor Flea on Saturday, upon what
seemed to him good grounds. Her forced composure under the severe
examination to which he had subjected her was, in his opinion, sheer
effrontery. She thought too much of herself, and should be taught her
proper place. If she had trembled and cried, as several of the other
girls had, he would have let her off more easily. She was as vain as a
peacock and as stubborn as a mule, in his opinion. Such behavior was
rank rebellion, and he meant to put it down with a strong hand.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]



RICK DALE.

BY KIRK MUNROE.

CHAPTER XV.

CAPTURED BY A REVENUE-CUTTER.


The sight of that armed boat making fast to the sloop, and its agile
occupants springing on board, was so startling to the two lads taking in
its every detail from their point of vantage on shore, that if
excitement could have affected Alaric Todd's heart it would certainly
have done so at that moment. As it was, he did not even realize that his
heart was beating unusually fast. His mind was too full of other
thoughts just then for him to remember that he had a heart. He only
realized that the vessel of which he had formed the crew had fallen into
the clutches of outraged law, and that for the present at least her
career as a smuggler was at an end. Now that she was really captured, he
was conscious of a regret that after successfully eluding her enemies so
long she should after all fall into their hands. He even felt sorry for
Captain Duff, surly old bear that he was.

At the same time he was thankful not to be on board the captured craft,
and rejoiced in the thought that this sudden change of affairs would
sweep away all Bonny's scruples, and leave him free to seek some
occupation other than that of being a smuggler.

As for that young sailor himself, his feelings were equally
contradictory with those of his companion, though his sympathies leaned
more decidedly toward the side of the law-breaker.

"Poor Cap'n Duff!" he exclaimed in a low tone. "This is tough luck for
him; and I must say, Rick Dale, that the whole thing is pretty much your
fault, too. If you'd kept a half-way decent lookout you'd have seen that
yawl when she was two miles off. Then we could have got under way, and
given her the slip as easy as you please. Now you and I have lost our
job, while Cap'n Duff will lose his and his boat besides. I'll never see
my wages, either; and, worst of all, in spite of my invention working so
smooth these revenue fellows have got the laugh on us. I say it's too
bad, though to be sure it does let us out of the smuggling business. I
expect it will be a long time, though, before I get another job as first
mate, or any other kind of a job that will be worth having."

"But, Bonny," interposed Alaric, anxious to defend his own reputation,
"I wasn't told to look out for boats, but only to watch the cutter, and
I hardly took my eyes off of her until you came."

"That's all right; only by the time you've knocked round the world as
much as I have you'll find out that any fellow who expects to get
promoted has got to do a heap of things besides those he's told to do.
What he is told to do is generally only a hint of what he is expected to
do. But just listen to the old man. Isn't he laying down the law to
those chaps, though?"

The voices of those on the sloop came plainly to the ears of the hidden
lads, and above them all roared and bellowed that of Captain Duff, as
though he expected to overwhelm his enemies by sheer force of bluster.

"Chinamen!" he shouted--"Chinamen! No, sir, ye won't find no Chinamen
aboard this craft, nor nothing else onlawful."

"Smell 'em, do ye? Smell 'em! So do I now, and hev ever sence you
revenooers come aboard. Seems like ye can't get the parfume out of your
clothing."

"Going to seize the sloop anyway, be ye? Waal, ye kin do it, seeing as
I'm all alone and a cripple. There'll come a day of reckoning, though--a
day of reckoning, d'ye hear? I'm a free-born American citizen, and I'll
protest agin this outrage till they hear me clear to Washington."

"He's heard over a good part of Washington this minute," whispered
Bonny. "But what are they talking about now?"

"Phil Ryder!" the Captain was shouting. "Philip Ryder! No, sir, there
ain't no one of that name aboard this craft, nor hain't ever been as I
know of. I did know a Phil Ryder once, but-- What's that ye say? That'll
do? Waal, it won't do, ye gold-mounted swab, not so long as I choose to
keep on talking. Lookout there, or I'll brain ye sure as guns! Lookout,
I--"

This last exclamation was directed to a couple of sturdy bluejackets,
who, obeying a significant nod from their officer, seized the irate
Captain by either arm, hustled him down into his own cabin, and drew the
slide. Then leaving these two aboard the _Fancy_, the others re-entered
their boat and began to pull toward shore, with the evident intention of
making a search for the missing members of the sloop's crew as well as
for her recent passengers.

"Hello!" cried Bonny, softly, "this thing is beginning to get rather too
interesting for us, and the sooner we light out the better."

So the lads started on a run, and had gone but a few rods, when Alaric,
catching his toe on a projecting root, was tripped up and fell heavily.
With such force was he flung to the ground that for several minutes he
was too sick and dizzy to rise. When he finally regained his feet, and
expressed a belief that he could again run, it was too late. The boat's
crew were already scattering through the woods, and one man, detailed to
search the point, was coming directly toward the place where the boys
were concealed.

It seemed inevitable that they should be discovered, and Alaric, already
giving himself up for lost, was beginning to see visions of the
government prison on McNeil's Island, when Bonny spied one avenue of
escape that was still open to them.

"Scrooch low!" he whispered, "and follow me as softly as you can."

Alaric obeyed, and the young sailor began to move as rapidly as possible
toward the beach. With inexcusable carelessness the Lieutenant had left
his boat hauled up on the shore without a man to guard her. Bonny
noticed this, and also that the sloop's dinghy still lay where he had
left it. If they could only reach the dinghy unobserved they would stand
a much better chance of making an escape by water than by land.

So the boys crept cautiously through the undergrowth without attracting
the attention of their only near-by pursuer, until they reached the
beach, where a cleared space of about one hundred feet intervened
between them and their coveted goal, and this they must cross, exposed
to the full view of any who might be looking that way. They paused for
an instant, drew long breaths, and then made a dash into the open.

Almost with the first sound of rattling pebbles beneath their feet came
a yell from behind. The bluejacket had discovered them, and was leaping
down the steep slope in hot pursuit.

[Illustration: "RUN, RICK! YOU'VE GOT TO RUN!" PANTED BONNY.]

"Run, Rick! You've got to run!" panted Bonny. "Give me the bag."
Snatching the canvas bag from Alaric's hands as he spoke, the active
young fellow darted ahead and flung it into the dinghy. "Now shove!" he
cried. "Shove with all your might!"

It was all they could do to move the boat, for the tide had fallen
sufficiently to leave it hard aground, and with their first straining
shove they only gained a couple of feet; the next put half her length in
the water, and with a third effort she floated free.

"Tumble in!" shouted Bonny, and Alaric obeyed literally, pitching head
foremost across the thwarts with such violence, that but for his
comrade's hold on the opposite side the boat would surely have been
capsized.

With the water above his knees, Bonny gave a final shove that sent the
boat a full rod from shore, and in turn tumbled aboard.

He was none too soon; for at that moment the sailor reached the spot
they had just left, and rushing into the water, began to swim after them
with splendid overhand strokes. Bonny snatched up the dinghy's single
oar, and seeing that they would be overtaken before he could get the
boat under way, brandished it like a club, threatening to bring it down
on the man's head if he came within reach.

A single glance at the lad's resolute face convinced the swimmer that he
was in dead earnest, and realizing his own helplessness, he wisely
turned back. Then with a shout of derision Bonny began to scull the
dinghy toward open water, while the sailor strove with unavailing
efforts to launch the heavy yawl.

Without troubling themselves any further about him, the lads turned
their attention to the sloop, which they were now approaching. The two
men left in charge had watched with great interest the scene just
enacted so close to them, but in which, having no boat at their
disposal, they were unable to participate. Now one of them shouted:
"Come aboard here, you young villains! What do you mean by running off
with government property?"

"What do you mean by eating my breakfast?" replied Alaric, hungrily, as
he noticed the men making a hearty meal off the food they had discovered
in the sloop's galley.

"Your breakfast is it, son? So you belong to this craft, do you? Come
aboard and get it, then."

"Don't you wish we would?" retorted Bonny, jeeringly, as he stopped
sculling and allowed the dinghy to drift just beyond reach from the
sloop. "I say, though, you might toss us a couple of hardtack."

"What? Feed you young pirates with rations that's just been seized by
the government? Not much. I'm in the service, I am."

Just then a bright object flashed from one of the little round cabin
windows and fell in the dinghy. It was a box of sardines. Tins of potted
meat, mushrooms, and other delicacies followed in quick succession. One
or two fell in the water and were lost; but most of them reached their
destination, and were deftly caught by Alaric, whose baseball experience
was thus put to practical use. So before the bewildered guards fully
realized what was taking place the dinghy was fairly well provisioned.
At length one of them seemed to comprehend the situation, and sprang in
front of the open port just in time to stop with his legs a flying
tumbler of raspberry jam. As it broke and streamed down over his white
duck trousers the boys in the dinghy shouted with laughter, and nearly
rolled overboard in their irrepressible mirth.

All at once there came a hoarse shout from the same cabin port. "Look
astarn, ye lubbers! Look astarn!"

So occupied had the lads been with the sloop that they had given no
thought to what might be taking place on shore, but at this warning a
startled glance in that direction filled them with dismay.

Another sailor, attracted by the shouts on the beach, had returned to
the assistance of his mate, and together they had succeeded in launching
the yawl. Then, pulling very softly, they had slipped up on the unwary
lads, until they were so close that one of them had quit rowing, and
crept forward to the bow, when he crouched with an outstretched
boat-hook, that in another second would be caught over the dinghy's
sternboard.


CHAPTER XVI.

ESCAPE OF THE FIRST MATE AND CREW.

The situation certainly looked hopeless for our lads, and the men on the
sloop were already shouting derisively at them. Alaric caught another
mental glimpse of the government prison, and even Bonny's stout heart
experienced an instant of despair. He was still standing in the stern of
the dinghy and holding the oar that he had used in sculling. Moved by a
sudden impulse, and just as the extended boat-hook was dropping over the
stern of the dinghy, he struck it a smart blow with his oar, and had the
good fortune to send it whirling from the sailor's grasp. With a second
quick motion the lad set his oar against the stern of the yawl, that was
now within four feet of him, and gave a vigorous shove. The slight
headway of the heavy craft was checked, and the lighter dinghy forged
ahead.

"Oh, you will, will you, you young rascal?" cried the sailor, angrily,
as he leaped back to his thwart, and bent to his oar with furious
energy. His companion followed his example, and under the impetus of
their powerful strokes the yawl sprang forward. At the same time Bonny,
facing backward, and working his oar with both hands, was sculling so
sturdily that the dinghy rocked from side to side until it seemed to
Alaric that she must certainly capsize. She was making such splendid
headway, though, that the much heavier yawl could not gain an inch. Its
crew, unable to see the fugitive dinghy without turning their heads, and
having no one to steer for them, were placed at a disadvantage that
Bonny was quick to detect.

Watching his opportunity, he caused his craft to swerve sharply to one
side, and the yawl holding her original course for some seconds before
his manoeuvre was discovered, his lead was thus materially increased.

Just as Bonny was ready to drop his oar from exhaustion a shrill,
long-drawn whistle sounded from the now distant beach. Its effect on the
crew of the yawl was magical. They stopped rowing, looked at each other,
and consulted. Then they gazed at the retreating dinghy and hesitated.
They felt it to be their duty to continue the pursuit, but they also
knew the penalty for disobeying an order from a superior, and that
whistle was an unmistakable order for them to go back.

The cutter's third Lieutenant had returned from his expedition into the
woods with three wretched Chinamen, whom, despite their eagerly produced
certificates, he had seen fit to make prisoners. He was amazed to find
the yawl gone from where he had left it, and the details of the chase in
which it was engaged being hidden from him by the intervening sloop, he
gave the whistle signal for its immediate return.

As the crew of the yawl hesitated between duty and obedience the
peremptory whistle order was repeated louder and shriller than before.
This decided the wavering sailors, and they reluctantly turned their
boat.

As for the fugitives, they could hardly believe the evidence of their
senses. Was the chase indeed given over, and were they free to go where
they pleased? It seemed incredible. Just as they were on the point of
being captured, too, for Bonny now confided to Alaric that he couldn't
have held out at that pace one minute longer. As he said this the tired
lad sat down for a short rest.

Almost immediately he again sprang to this feet, and thrusting his oar
overboard, began to scull with one hand. "It won't do for us to be
loafing here," he explained, "for I expect those fellows have been
called back so that the whole crowd can chase us in the sloop."

"Oh, I hope not," said Alaric; "I'm tired of running away."

"So am I," laughed Bonny--"tired in more ways than one; but if fellows
bigger than we are will insist on chasing us, I don't see that there is
anything for us to do but run. There! thank goodness we've rounded the
point at last, and got out of sight of them for a while at any rate."

"Where are you going now, and what do you propose to do next?" asked
Alaric, who, fully realizing his own helplessness in this situation, was
willing to leave the whole scheme of escape to his more experienced
companion.

"That's what I'm wondering. Of course it won't do to stay out here very
long, for in less than fifteen minutes the sloop will be shoving her
nose around that point. Nor it wouldn't be any use to try and get to
Tacoma--at least not yet a while--for that's where they'll be most
likely to hunt for us. So I think we'd better cross the channel, turn
our boat adrift, and make our way overland to Skookum John's camp. It
isn't very sweet-smelling, and they don't feed you any too well--that
is, not according to our ideas--but just because it is such a mean kind
of a place no one will ever think of looking for us there. Besides,
Skookum's a very decent sort of a chap, and he'll keep us posted on all
that happens in the bay. So if you don't mind roughing it a bit--"

"No, indeed," interrupted Alaric, eagerly. "I don't mind it at all. In
fact, that is just what I want to do most of anything, and I've always
wished I could live in a real Indian camp. The only Indians I ever saw
were in the Wild West Show in Paris."

"Have you been to Paris?" asked Bonny, wonderingly.

"Yes, of course, I was there for-- I mean yes, I've been there. But,
Bonny, what makes you think of turning this boat adrift? Wouldn't we
find her useful?"

"I suppose we might; but she isn't our boat, you know, and you wouldn't
keep a boat that didn't belong to you just because it might prove
useful, would you?"

"No, certainly not," replied Alaric, rather surprised to have his
companion take this view of the question. "I would try and hand her over
to the rightful owner."

"So would I," agreed Bonny, "if I knew who he was; but after what has
just happened I don't know, and so I am going to turn her adrift in the
hope that he will find her. Besides, it wouldn't be safe to leave her on
shore, because she would show anybody who happened to be looking for us
just where we had landed."

"That's a much better reason than the other," said Alaric.

During this conversation the dinghy had been urged steadily across the
channel, and was now run up to a bold bank, where the boys disembarked.
After removing Alaric's bag and the several cans of provisions so
thoughtfully furnished them by Captain Duff, Bonny gave the boat a push
out into the channel, down which the ebbing tide bore her, with many a
twist and turn, toward the more open waters of the sound.

"To be left in this way in an unknown wilderness makes me feel as Cortez
must have felt when he burned his ships," reflected Alaric, as he
watched the receding craft.

"I don't think I ever heard about that," said Bonny, simply. "Did he do
it for the insurance?"

"Not exactly," laughed Alaric; "and yet in a certain way he did too.
I'll tell you all about it some time. Now, what are you going to do
next?"

"Climb that bluff, lie down under those trees while you eat something,
and watch for the sloop," answered Bonny, as though his programme had
all been arranged beforehand.

They did this, and Alaric was so hungry that he made away with a whole
box of sardines and a tin of deviled ham. He wondered a little if they
would not make him ill, but did not worry much, for he was rapidly
learning that while leading an out-of-door life one may eat with
impunity many things that would kill one under more ordinary conditions.
He had just finished his ham, and was casting thoughtful glances toward
a bottle of olives, when Bonny exclaimed. "There she is!"

Sure enough, the sloop, with the cutter's yawl in tow, was slowly
beating out past the point on the opposite side of the channel. She
stood well over toward the western shore, and the tide so carried her
down that when she tacked she was close under the bluff on which the
boys, stretched at full length and peering through a fringe of tall
grasses, watched her. She came so near that Alaric grew nervous, and was
certain her crew were about to make a landing at that very spot. With a
vision of McNeil's Island always before him, he wanted to run from so
dangerous a vicinity and hide in the forest depths; but Bonny assured
him that the sloop would go about, and in another moment she did so,
greatly to Alaric's relief.

They could see that Captain Duff was still confined below, and they even
heard one of the men sing out to the officer in command: "There it is
now, sir, about two miles down the channel. I can see it plain."

"Very good," answered the Lieutenant; "keep your eye on it, and note if
they make a landing. If they don't, we'll have them inside of half an
hour."

"Yes, you will," said Bonny, with a grin.

As the sloop passed out of hearing the lads crept back from the edge of
the bluff, gathered up their scanty belongings, and started through the
forest toward the place where Bonny believed Skookum John's camp to be
located.

After an hour of hard travel, they came suddenly on the camp, and were
terrified at sight of the cutter's yawl lying in the mouth of the creek,
and the revenue officer standing on shore engaged in earnest
conversation with Skookum John himself. Soon he shook hands with the
Indian and stepped into his boat. Just as it was about to shove off, a
villanous cur, scenting the new-comers, darted toward their
hiding-place, barking furiously.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]



[Illustration: MAP OF THE CONGO BASIN.]

STORIES OF CONGO DISCOVERY.

THE SECOND LARGEST RIVER IN THE WORLD.

BY CYRUS C. ADAMS.


[Illustration: A NATIVE RIVER BRIDGE.]

About a hundred years ago the school children of our country were
reading in their Morse's Geography that there were no great mountains in
North America, and that our largest mountains were the Alleghanies,
which were supposed to be a continuation of the Andes, interrupted by
the Gulf of Mexico. Teachers in those days edified boys and girls with
more or less amusing misinformation such as this about the land they
lived in. It was three hundred years after Columbus had discovered
America, and such blunders in the text-books show how very slowly
geographical knowledge had grown in those centuries.

But there has been a revolution. For over fifty years men and women have
been eagerly studying this great house where we abide, with its five big
rooms and its thousands of little ones. No one ever saw before such zeal
for geographical discovery. Africa heads the list, for that continent, a
fourth larger than our own, which was scarcely known a century ago,
except in its outlines and along some of its rivers, has been thrown
open to our gaze in nearly every corner; and the part of Africa where
the greatest amount of work, the largest interest, and the most
surprising discoveries have centred is the basin of the Congo, the
second largest of the world's river systems.

Europe knew of this mighty river before she ever heard of Columbus. For
four centuries sailors of various lands saw the Atlantic tinted for
forty miles from the shore by the yellow Congo tide; but no one knew
till Stanley told, eighteen years ago, where this mighty flood came
from. Livingstone lived and travelled for many months along the far
upper Congo, but the great old man died in the belief that he had traced
one of the sources of the Nile. It was the Niger problem reversed.
Nobody knew for centuries where the Niger River reached the sea. Nobody
knew where the Congo gathered its great floods. One river needed a
mouth, and the other a fountainhead, and so some wise geographers united
the two, making the Niger the upper part of the Congo. Mungo Park, who
traced the upper Niger for a thousand miles, believed it was a Congo
tributary, if not the Congo itself; and the Tuckey expedition perished
of fever among the lower Congo cataracts in 1816, while bravely trying
to fulfil their mission to ascend the Congo to the Niger, if the two
rivers were really one.

Eighteen years ago Stanley traced the Congo from central Africa over
1500 miles to the ocean. His great discovery made him famous, but other
men who followed him, some of whose names are hardly known, except to
geographers, have travelled far more widely in the Congo basin than
Stanley was able to do. He led the way, and forty or fifty followers,
scattering all over the Congo basin, which is half as large as the
United States, have been revealing this land to us; and students of the
ocean have been studying the sea-bed off its mouth. Let us glance at a
few facts that have been learned about this mighty river system.

It is found that more water pours into the ocean through the Congo's
mouth, which is six miles wide, than from all the other rivers in Africa
put together. The soft, dark-colored mud brought down by the river has
been distinctly traced on the ocean bottom for six hundred miles from
the land. In no other part of any ocean do the influences of the land
waters make themselves felt so far out to sea.

But it is not the deep lower Congo, which large steamers from Europe
ascend to the foot of the rapids, nor the roaring torrents along the 235
miles of the cataract region, that have attracted most attention. It is
the placid upper Congo, with its few reaches of rapids, and its many
tributaries, stretching away to far-distant parts of inner Africa, that
has kept the map-makers busy. This is the part of the continent where
explorers have been most active and the results most remarkable. No
part of the world of the same extent ever yielded so many geographical
surprises as did this region from 1885 to 1890. It was simply impossible
for the cartographers to keep their maps abreast of the news as it came
from the upper Congo.

[Illustration: BOMA, THE CAPITAL OF THE CONGO STATE. STANLEY'S BOAT IN
THE FOREGROUND.]

In January, 1885, the missionary George Grenfell started from Stanley
Pool on his little steamboat in quest of villages of friendly natives
where mission stations might be planted with good prospects of success.
He had previously been far up the river, and thought he knew it very
well; but on this trip he accidentally got out of the Congo, and did not
discover his mistake until he had steamed along a whole day, and found
that his little craft was pushing into a region where no white man had
ever been before. Grenfell had stumbled into the mouth of the
Mobangi-Makua River. For more than two years Stanley and his followers
had been travelling up and down the Congo, but they never saw--or at
least they never recognized--this great affluent, which is larger than
any European river except the Volga and the Danube. Grenfell forgot his
missions for the time, became the zealous explorer, and kept on his
course up the wide river until he was stopped by rapids, having left the
Congo about 400 miles behind; and while he was threading the virgin
stream Stanley was in England making his large map of the Congo, on
which not a trace of its greatest tributary appeared. The distinguished
explorer was the first victim of the swarm of discoveries which from
that day for years made every new map of the Congo behind the times as
soon as the next mails arrived from the river.

Perhaps some of the other white men had seen the mouth of the
Mobangi-Makua, and thought it merely an arm of the Congo enclosing an
island; for this is the region of the sealike expansion of the river,
where only a water horizon could be seen from either shore if it were
not for the myriad islands that cut the river into scores of tortuous
channels. There were white men on these Congo banks who neither saw nor
heard of the fleet of vessels that passed them a few miles away,
carrying the hundreds of men of the Emin relief expedition. Before
Stanley came whole tribes on one shore had never seen the people who
lived across the river.

A little later in 1885 a steamboat was sent up the Congo to the mouth of
the big river that enters it at Equatorville. No vessel could have a
more pleasant mission, for this steamer was the bearer of loving letters
from home and fresh supplies of European food for Wissman's party of
explorers, who had been in the African wilderness for many months, and
might be in sore need of succor. It was thought the party was quite
certain to emerge from the great unknown region south of the Congo at
Equatorville, and the reason for this belief is interesting.

[Illustration: NATIVE VILLAGE WHERE WISSMAN STARTED DOWN THE KASSAI.]

Many years before, Livingstone had crossed the upper waters of a river,
the Kassai, now known as the second largest Congo tributary. Stanley
believed the Kassai emptied into the Congo at Equatorville, and all the
map-makers adopted his hypothesis. Captain Wissman and his comrades were
sent from Germany to march inland from the Atlantic to the upper waters
of the Kassai, and then to follow it to its mouth; and as this point was
supposed to be at Equatorville, the mails and supplies for Wissman were
sent there, and the officers of the steamer expected any day to see his
expedition float into view.

Wissman reached the upper Kassai, and discovered there a remarkable
tribe, the Baluba, whose chief had cut down all the palm-trees in his
country to keep his people from getting drunk on palm wine. This chief
helped Wissman to hollow big canoes out of tree-trunks, and then he and
many of his subjects, who engaged with the explorer as paddlers, set out
with the white men down the unknown stream.

Wissman expected that the river would carry him far to the north, but in
a few days he was much surprised to find that he was travelling much
further west than north. Day after day he floated further and further to
the west, and after many weeks, and some curious adventures that cannot
be told in this chapter, he reached the Congo. A few days later another
stern-wheeler ascended the Congo, and at Equatorville pulled up to the
shore alongside the waiting vessel.

"What are you doing here?" asked the Captain.

"Oh, we're waiting for Wissman, and it's high time he came."

"Let's see; how long have you been waiting for Wissman?"

"Well, we've been here a little over two months. We're running short of
supplies ourselves, and if the party doesn't turn up here within the
next week, we shall leave Wissman's mails and boxes, and go back to
Stanley Pool."

"Well, Wissman has the start of you. He's at Stanley Pool now."

"You don't mean it! Reached the Congo? How long ago?"

"Just a week."

"Why didn't he follow the Kassai to its mouth, as he was ordered to do?"

"He did. You see, this river here isn't the Kassai. The Kwa River is the
Kassai. Wissman reached the Congo at Kwamouth over 200 miles south of
here."

More work for the map-makers. This story illustrates the surprises that
came to Europe month after month from the Congo basin. The geographers
had to pull to pieces most of their preconceptions about the lay of the
land and the extent and direction of the rivers. The waters of the
Sankuru, for instance, which Livingstone and Stanley had crossed in
their upper part, were found to reach the Congo about 700 miles from the
supposed point of confluence. Lakes that had appeared on the maps, on
native or Arab authority, were wiped out. A part of the Lualaba, or
western head stream of the Congo, was found to have no counterpart in
Africa. The narrow gorge, forty-three miles long, through which it
flows, walled in by perpendicular rock masses rising a quarter of a mile
above the stream, resembles our great Western cañons. In these few years
nearly all of our notions of Congo hydrography away from the main stream
were completely changed.

This was not all. While threading these numerous rivers in their little
steamboats, the explorers found many new peoples who had been buried
from the world's view in the dark Congo forests or on the vast inland
plains. You have read of the ancient troglodytes and of the prehistoric
lake-dwellers of Europe. Proofs of their existence are found among the
earliest evidences of human life; but the Congo basin to-day has two
large centres of lake-dwellers. Many thousands of people live in huts
reared high on piles out of reach of floods; and a few lakes are dotted
with these habitations, thus placed beyond the easy reach of enemies.

The explorers discovered the widespread haunts of the Batwa dwarfs--the
keen little hunters who had been seen when Stanley wrote his book, _The
Congo_. Their researches proved that the Congo basin is the greatest
hotbed of cannibalism the world ever saw. These and many other
discoveries kept geographers on the alert. Thus the Congo basin has
contributed a chapter to geographical and anthropological discovery that
has scarcely been surpassed in importance or romantic interest.



THE BROKEN CHARGE.

BY JAMES BUCKHAM.


  Would you hear of the bravest, coolest deed
  Ever inspired by a nation's need?

  Thomas McBurney--a Kansas-bred Scot--
  Lay in his rifle-pit, waiting a shot.

  Over him whistled the enemy's balls;
  _Ping!_ and they struck in the rampart walls.

  Suddenly out of the woods there broke
  A line of cavalry gray as smoke.

  A troop--a regiment--a brigade.
  Oh! what a rush and a roar they made!

  A wild, swift charge on the frail redoubt,
  Carbines ready and sabres out.

  Hither and thither, like frightened hares,
  Fled the sharpshooters out of their lairs.

  All save Thomas McBurney; he
  Thought not first what _his_ fate might be.

  Uppermost thought in his hero soul,
  To save the fort, and the field control.

  On they thundered, the cavalcade.
  McBurney waited; his plan was made.

  Fifty yards from his cairn of rocks--
  Up he popped, like a Jack-in-the-box!

  _Bang!_ and the leader's horse went down,
  Neck outstretched in the wire-grass brown.

  Over him tumbled a dozen more,
  And the Colonel--his heart and his head were sore.

  "Halt!" he cried, and the broken line
  Stopped, strung out like a trailing vine.

  Lo! in the valley's dim expanse
  Tossing flags and bayonets' glance.

  Re-enforcements! At double-quick
  They cross the meadows and ford the creek--

  Boys in blue, with their banners bright,
  Just in season to turn the fight.

  Thomas McBurney, as cool as you please,
  Settled down on his dust-grimed knees.

  To pray? Yes, thankfully--and to run
  A well-greased cartridge into his gun!



THE VANISHED ISLAND.


"Let her go off a little, Ralph; you'll come out better in the end if
you don't jam your boat too close to the wind. Keep your sail full, even
if you don't point quite so high, and you'll go faster through the
water, and get quicker to the place you're bound to."

So spoke Grandfather Sterling one summer afternoon to his grandson as
the old Captain's cat-boat _Mabel_ was being tacked across the bay,
after a day spent in picnicking on one of a number of the little islands
that were to be found within a few miles of the Captain's down-east
home.

"Grandfather," said Ralph, after letting the boat run up in the wind to
ease her of a strong and sudden puff, "while we were fishing to-day you
made the remark that the last time you had fished off an uninhabited
island you were a good many thousands of miles from this part of the
world. Is there a good story connected with it?"

The old mariner nodded his head in the affirmative.

"Yes, my lad, as usual I have an exciting yarn to spin you, even if the
subject is nothing more than that of an uninhabited island, and
to-night, after dinner has been tucked away, you may expect to hear it.
But here's the dock, so mind your eye, and let me see you bring the
_Mabel_ to it in ship-shape style."

Ralph steered so as to go to leeward of the pier, calculating the
distance his boat would reach after she had been thrown up in the wind,
and a moment later he put the tiller down and gathered in his sheet. The
_Mabel_ shot ahead with considerable speed for a moment, then her way
became slower and slower, and when her snub nose touched the dock there
was not enough force in the contact to send a tremor through the boat.

"That's Boston fashion, my boy," said Captain Sterling, regarding his
grandson proudly.

That evening Ralph's grandfather related to the lad a story, which he
named, "The Yarn of the Vanished Island."

"It is so many years ago now that I dislike to tell you the number, for
fear that you will think that I am growing old; so I will simply say
that when I was a hearty young seaman I found myself out in San
Francisco 'on the beach,' as sailors put it when they have neither money
nor employment. I could have had both by remaining on the _Dove_, the
vessel in which I had sailed around Cape Horn, but the treatment
received on board had been so bad that all hands deserted as soon as she
reached California. I made myself scarce until the ship sailed, then
found a berth on a top-sail schooner called the _Queen_, that traded
around the Sandwich Islands, bartering all kinds of trinkets with the
natives for sandal-wood and the plumage of beautiful birds, which in the
days I refer to were common on all the islands. The sandal-wood and
feathers were carried to China and traded for tea, and this was taken to
California and sold in different ports along the coast.

"We were a happy family on board the _Queen_, for we all lived in a big
cabin aft, and Captain Josiah Crabtree, the master of the schooner, who
was a very eccentric and pious old fellow from Massachusetts, and who
had made a considerable fortune in the trade, kept strict order among
us, and seemed to consider himself responsible for our spiritual as well
as earthly welfare, for he held church service regularly every Sunday
morning on deck, and obliged all hands to be present. He quoted
Scripture on all occasions, and always had an appropriate verse handy
for anything and everything, whether it was a call to meals or an order
to tar down the rigging. In spite of his peculiar ways we respected him
so much that during the time I served on the schooner I never heard a
profane word used--in fact, it would have been unhealthy to do so, for
Captain Crabtree was over six feet in height, and was what is called a
'muscular Christian.'

"On the voyage I sailed with him, the master of the _Queen_ was to try a
new plan. The supply of feathers had been falling off for the last two
or three voyages, so he determined to go hunting on his own account. He
explained to us that there were a number of small islands to the
northward and westward of Hawaii that were uninhabited, and that he
proposed to visit several of them, leaving a man on each, supplied with
provisions, a shot-gun, and plenty of ammunition, and that during the
short time we were to play Robinson Crusoe he expected us to shoot as
many birds as possible, and to carefully save their feathers until he
should come back and pick us up. This plan suited us first rate, for we
looked upon it as promising a great lark, and were anxious for the
_Queen_ to cover the twenty-five hundred miles of water that separated
us from the little islands with their delightful climate on which we
were to picnic.

"After a long passage, for the schooner was a slow sailer, we sighted
the first of the group, and one of the men was set on shore. I was left
on the second one, and found it a paradise, with its snow-white beach,
its beautiful, luxuriant vegetation and woods, and its balmy air laden
with the odor of flowers. The Captain told me to look out for his return
about a fortnight later.

"As there was a rivalry among the sportsmen on account of a money prize
offered for the one who secured the largest amount of gay-colored
feathers, I soon got my little camp in shape, and settled down to
business. So numerous were the birds, and so proficient did I become in
the use of my fowling-piece, that by the time the two weeks had passed
my store of treasure almost filled the large sack that I had brought
from the schooner.

"It was the night of the fifteenth day that I had been on the island.
Ever since early morning the atmosphere had been so stifling that I had
lain under the trees almost suffocated. The earth itself seemed to burn.
It was not only the fearful heat and the absence of anything like a
breeze, but there was a sulphurous smell in the air, and the water from
the spring had tasted so hot and bitter when I tried to drink it that I
was not able to swallow it.

"At length I fell asleep, but only to be awakened by a fearful rumbling,
followed a moment later by a crash that threatened to rend the island in
twain. At the instant I took it to be thunder, but the starry splendor
of the sky told me to look elsewhere for the cause. Almost before I
could reason, the island commenced to rock and heave as though it was a
ship at sea, and such an overpowering smell of sulphur was sent forth
that I fell to the ground overcome with terror and faintness. During the
remainder of the night the rumbling went on at times deep down in the
heart of the island, but there were no more of the awful shocks and
crashes that had stunned me in the beginning. Slowly the daylight came,
bringing with it a gentle breeze that cleared away the sickening
atmosphere, and then as the day broadened I made out, to my joy, the
_Queen_ standing toward the land.

"An hour later, when the schooner's boat touched the beach, I threw my
bag of feathers into her and followed them. Then on our way to the
vessel, which was hove to about a mile off-shore, I gave my companions
an account of my last night on the island. When we reached the _Queen_ I
rehearsed my story to the Captain. He was deeply interested in its
details, and was in the middle of a scriptural quotation when he stopped
suddenly, gave a cry, and pointed to the island.

"We were not more than two miles from it at the time, so that it lay in
full view from our deck in the brilliant sunshine. The dazzling white
beach had disappeared, and the sea looked to be creeping up toward the
trees that grew on the higher ground inland. As we all gazed, fascinated
at the scene, the trees were sucked down slowly into the deep. Soon
nothing but the tops of the tallest ones were left, and a moment later
even these had entirely disappeared, and the ocean swept clear to all
points of the horizon. The beautiful island on which I had lived for two
weeks, and through whose woods and vales I had roamed, was swallowed up,
to be seen no more forever, and amid the foliage in which I had lain two
hours before the fishes were then sporting at the bottom of the
Pacific."



A WIDE-AWAKE COLLECTOR.


One of the most enterprising stamp-collectors that has ever come to our
notice was a small Swiss boy, who, during the late war between Japan and
China, wrote the following note to Marshal Yamagata, in command of the
Japanese forces:

     HONORED MARSHAL,--I am only a school-boy ten years old. I live at
     Berne. Upon the map, Switzerland is smaller than Japan. I was very
     pleased to hear that you have been serving the Chinese as my
     ancestors served their enemies. I hope that you will conquer all
     China, and throw down the famous wall which prevents people from
     going there. No doubt it is because of that wall that I have not
     got any Chinese stamps in my album. You must have captured a lot
     where you are, and I should be pleased if you would send me some.

Unfortunately for this record of his enterprise, the boy's name is
unknown to us, but it is stated that the Marshal, having received the
letter, was so much amused by it that he took the trouble to secure a
large number of Chinese stamps and to send them to his lively little
correspondent.



[Illustration: From Chum to Chum.]

BY GASTON V. DRAKE.

XI.--FROM BOB TO JACK.


  LONDON, _July_ --, 189-.

     Dear Jack,--We're still in London, and I guess if we stay here
     until we've seen it all we'll never get to Hoboken. Talk about your
     three-ringed circuses! London beats 'em all for side-shows and go.
     When you think you've seen all there is to see you come across an
     entirely new lot of museums, and parks, and hysterical spots to be
     visited, and I'm just dizzy trying to remember what Pop told me not
     to forget. What with St. James's Palace and Madame Tussaud's
     wax-works, the Zoo and the National Gallery, I hardly know what I
     saw where, except that of course I didn't see any wax-works at the
     Zoo.

     I think altogether the Zoo and the wax-works are the things I've
     liked best of all about here. The National Gallery is pretty good,
     but after you've seen about forty-two miles of pictures, some of
     'em as big as a farm your eyes get tired and the back of your neck
     sort of hurts. Still, I went through it because Pop said I ought
     to, and whenever I have a nightmare nowadays instead of seeing
     boojums and snarks I see old masters. You never saw an old master
     did you? Well you needn't be in any hurry to. They aren't the sort
     of things boys like very much. They're generally cracked so's to
     look like a go-bang board and keep you guessing about what they're
     pictures of, but Aunt Sarah who studied art last winter in Yonkers
     says they're very educating, and I guess she knows. She says she
     does anyhow and I don't think she'd say a thing that wasn't so. I
     can't say that I've learned much from 'em except perhaps that the
     pictures you and I draw in the backs of our spelling books aren't
     so bad after all.

     [Illustration]

     Pop says he's learned one thing from 'em too. There used to be a
     fellow named Gainsborough that painted acres of pictures every
     year, and Pop says his things are fine and prove that theatre hats
     aren't modern inventions and he's right about it. He's got several
     pictures in this gallery that would drive me crazy if I had to sit
     behind 'em at a matinee. There were some pictures there though that
     I'd give house-room to if they asked me, by Sir Edwin Landseer.
     Pictures of dogs. I tell you he could paint dogs that bark. It was
     as much as I could do to keep from whistling to 'em and patting 'em
     on the head, and one little spaniel was painted so well that it
     seemed to me I could see his tail wag. Pop says that that was all
     imagination, but Aunt Sarah said no it was art, and I let 'em argue
     it out between 'em. Whatever it was though that painted dog's tail
     wagged and it was worth travelling miles to see.

     I was kind of disappointed with St. James's Palace. I expected to
     see something like a transformation scene at Humpty Dumpty, gold
     doors, and fountains, and bands playing and all that. You'd think a
     Palace would be different from a factory anyhow, but it wasn't,
     very. It didn't look any livelier than a jail would, and as far as
     the outside of it was concerned I couldn't see that it was any
     handsomer than the Grand Central Depot in New York, and not half as
     big. They wouldn't let us inside. I thought perhaps the Queen was
     asleep and they were afraid I'd whistle, but Pop said she didn't
     live there any more, and I didn't blame her. I wouldn't either if I
     could help it. I dare say it's very fine inside, with onyx
     stairways and solid gold banisters for the children to slide down,
     but outside I wouldn't give a cent for it. If it wasn't for the
     soldiers with their big bear-skin hats and robin-red-breast coats
     on I wouldn't have cared if we never saw it. The soldiers were
     worth looking at, though most of 'em have such great big bulgy
     chests you'd take 'em for pouter pigeons.

     Right alongside of the Palace is where the Prince of Whales lives
     and while we were looking at it he came out in a cab. He was
     another disappointment. He wore a beaver hat just like Pop's, and
     instead of having a scepter in his hands he carried an umbrella and
     a cigar; just the sort of man you'd expect to meet on Broadway any
     day of the year. Somehow it's hard to get used to the idea of a
     real live Prince wearing a beaver hat and carrying an umbrella, and
     it almost makes me sorry I came. I suppose if I could really find
     out how to go to Fairyland and should go there I'd find all the
     fairies dressed up in pea-jackets and sailor hats like most of the
     boys we see nowadays, and probably they'd be playing ball or riding
     bicycles instead of flying about on gossamer wings and swinging on
     cobwebs.

     [Illustration]

     I spoke to Pop about it, and he said it was because the Prince
     loved the people that he didn't dress up like Solomon. All the men
     feel that they've got to dress like the Prince of Whales and if he
     came out in a bathing suit and a blue plush smoking-cap on his
     head, every man in England and New York that wanted to be
     fashionable would do the same thing, and if he dressed as
     magnificently as he knew how, in a diamond-studded dress-suit and
     gold trousers, it would ruin everybody to go and do likewise. So he
     wears clothes that are within the reach of all, which I think is
     very nice of him, though I wish I could see him on Sunday when he
     puts on his best. Pop says the way the men imitate him is very
     funny. He says there was an actor once disguised himself as the
     Prince who went riding through the Park on a donkey with bells on
     its hoofs, and next day sixty-three of the most fashionable young
     men of London appeared the same way, and when they found out that
     they had been fooled they were so angry that they wouldn't go to
     that actor's theatre again, but everybody else thought it was such
     a good joke that they went and the actor made a fortune.

     [Illustration]

     I was going to tell you about the wax-works at Madame Tussaud's and
     the Zoo in this letter, but Pop says it's time for me to go to bed,
     because we are going to have a hard day to-morrow. We're going to
     take a coach and drive out to Hampton Court and back, so I'll have
     to close here. I wish you'd ask that Chicago boy if he's a
     grand-nephew of Baron Munchausen. I told Pop about that
     prairie-yacht and how Billie's seal-skin cap saved him from being
     scalped, and Pop was very much interested and said he thought he
     knew now who Billie was, and when I asked him who, he said the
     grand-nephew of Baron Munchausen, a man who never told the truth
     unless it was absolutely necessary.

  Yours ever,
  BOB.

     P. S.--I've just got out of bed for a minute to tell you that you
     never saw such monkies as they have at the Zoo. They look almost as
     human as some of our Aldermen in New York, Pop says.



[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORTS]


[Illustration: E. W. MILLS.]

The success of the New Manhattan Athletic Club in managing the recent
in-door interscholastic games has suggested the possibility of having
the club manage the National meet in June. This would be a very good
scheme, if practicable, because experience has shown that hitherto the
chief obstacle in the way of success for scholastic meetings has been
poor business management.

It is not always possible for young men who have nearly all they can
attend to at school to devote enough time to the business management of
an athletic meeting to make it a thorough success; and it is therefore
well, when possible, that this kind of work should be turned over to
those who have more time and greater experience for the amount and kind
of work required. The N.M.A.C. handled the recent games in a
satisfactory way, and there is no reason to think that it would not
carry out the plans for the National meet fully as well.

At the in-door games the club assumed the entire financial
responsibility, and offered prizes besides; but the managers would
naturally feel some hesitancy about doing the same thing for an
out-of-door meeting, where the weather must have so much to do with the
attendance. The constitution of the National Interscholastic Association
stipulates, I believe, that the prizes in each event shall amount in
value to $25. The N.M.A.C. would not care to saddle itself with the
responsibility of offering thirteen or fourteen sets of $25 medals,
besides paying the rental of the grounds and other incidental expenses;
but I am informed on good authority that the club would be perfectly
willing to assume the responsibility of securing grounds and of making
all arrangements for advertising and management, as they did for the
in-door games, at their own risk. Should there be any surplus after
these expenses have been defrayed, this would go toward paying for the
prizes--no set of medals to cost more than $25; and should there still
be a surplus after that, the money would be turned over to the National
Association's treasury. The club, I am sure, does not wish to make any
profit out of the enterprise.

By such an arrangement, of course, there would be no shining medals on a
table in the middle of the Berkeley Oval for the contestants to admire
before they had been defeated in their events, and that would doubtless
detract much from the interest in these games of our friends the
medal-hunters; but on the other hand it would be a good thing if it
could be announced that there would not be any medals on show that day,
as this might keep these same medal-hunters off the grounds--which would
be an advantage.

The prizes, as I have frequently said, are purely a secondary
consideration; and even if there was not enough money left over, after
all the expenses had been paid, to get anything better than ribbons, the
success of the National Association would not suffer, for the games are
not held for the purpose of distributing gold and silver disks, but for
the purpose of encouraging amateur sport and to bring about meetings
between the strongest athletes in the schools of the country. At the
Olympic games which have just closed in Athens the victors received mere
olive wreaths, but these wreaths are as precious to them as if they were
of gold or precious stones. It is not the value of the wreath itself, it
is what the faded leaves represent that the true sportsman cherishes.

[Illustration: H. J. Brown. O. Lorraine.

D. P. White. O. E. Robinson. C. M. Hall.

B. Kinney. E. L. Johnson. A. Robinson. S. L. M. Starr.

W. L. Van Wagenen. H. W. Goldsborough.

ST. PAUL'S TRACK-ATHLETIC TEAM,

Winners of First Place at the N.M.A.C. Interscholastic Games, March 28,
1896.]

It would not be fair to ask the N.M.A.C. or any club to assume the
responsibility for the rent of the grounds and other necessary expenses,
and for the medals too. It is a sufficient risk for them to undertake
to pay for the former, without going into jewelry. I hope the National
Association's Executive Committee will see the advantage of having the
games--their first venture--managed by a club or an association of older
and more experienced men, and come to an understanding on some such
lines as the N.M.A.C. may propose.

A number of letters have come to this Department recently asking for
suggestions about the construction of hard tennis courts. There are
several kinds of these, the gravel court being by far the best of all. A
gravel court is laid out by first digging about fifteen or eighteen
inches down and filling this hole with broken brick, stone, and other
coarse rubbish to within six inches of the top. Then coarse gravel of
any kind should be put on and well packed down with a hose. This layer
should come up to within two inches of the top. The last two inches
should be filled in with fine screened gravel, and if this will not
bind, add a little clay. On top of all this put from one-eighth to
one-quarter of an inch of the finest red gravel--just enough to give
color to the court. If too much of this red gravel is put on it will not
bind well. It soon wears off, and then more should be laid on, and after
this has been done a few times a court will keep its color all summer.

The advantage of such a court is that it needs but little care. All you
have to do is to sweep the gravel off occasionally, and water and roll
it. A light roller is sufficient for this purpose, as it is expected to
affect the top layer of the gravel only. The best way to mark out a
gravel court is with an inch tape nailed down with tacks. Whitewash will
not do, as it spreads. The least satisfactory kind of hard court is made
of cinders. These pack fairly well; but a cinder court requires a great
deal of care to keep in order, and is always a dirty place to play on,
the balls becoming black after a few sets, and consequently useless.

In nearly every city of the Middle West high-school associations have
been organized during the past year or so, and these associations have
done much toward encouraging school sport, and toward making the
contests among their members more systematic than they have been
heretofore. In Wisconsin interscholastic football and baseball games
have until recently been carried on in a haphazard fashion, without any
special attempt toward the formation of a union that might properly
recognize the claims to supremacy of the successful team.

Last fall, however, the initial steps toward placing all branches of
sport on a sound and permanent basis were taken. The season of 1895
clearly showed the need of an organization, and in December
representatives from the schools of all the principal cities of southern
Wisconsin met in Milwaukee and formed the Southern Wisconsin
Inter-High-school League. The purposes of the organization are to
develop all kinds of athletic sports in the schools, and to encourage a
friendly rivalry in the various contests among its members. It also aims
to correct some abuses which have crept into interscholastic
sport--abuses which always will creep into any kind of sport where there
is no restriction of government or organization. The league is divided
into four circuits, each embracing the cities located in a certain
territory, and the team which carries off the honors in its own circuit
contests for the State Championship with the leaders in the other
circuits.

The constitution of the Wisconsin League, while placing many wise
restrictions upon its members, leaves them free to arrange their own
schedules of games and to manage their own affairs as may seem best and
wisest to them. The league will open the season of 1896 with baseball
and track athletics--the field day for the latter to be held in Madison
on June 9th. The first interscholastic field day of the Wisconsin
schools was held June 8th of last year, under the auspices of the
Wisconsin University Athletic Association. Twelve high-schools were
represented, and many good records were made, a brief account of which
was given in this Department in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE for July 2, 1895.
Much interest is being displayed now in the coming meeting, and
doubtless even a better showing will be made than that of last season.

It is in football, however, that the various schools of the league
expect to see developed the hardest struggle for the championship. Last
fall, although no organization had been effected, the contest for first
place was a hard one, and the interest aroused in the schools was
intense. Madison High-school justly deserves to rank at the head of the
scholastic teams of that section. Her eleven won every game played. In
fact, M. H.-S. has only been defeated once in football since it put an
eleven into the field, three years ago. Of the eighteen contests in
which it has engaged only one was lost, and that to the strong team of
the St. John's Military Academy, which ought not to be classed as a
school team, or played against by school teams, so long as the academy
authorities sanction the methods at present in vogue at Delafield. The
reason for M.H.-S.'s good record rests, doubtless, in the fact that
Madison is an enthusiastic football town, and the school team gets much
valuable experience and benefit from playing against the university
eleven.

The formation of the Twin-City Dual Interscholastic League, which was
mentioned in this Department last week, was brought about by
complications which arose in the league formerly composed of the St.
Paul High, the Minneapolis High, and the Duluth High schools. The old
league fell to pieces, and the new one was constructed on different
lines, which promise to make the venture a success. I am glad to say
that I was misinformed concerning the presence of the standing jumps on
the card. Mr. George Cole is the President, Stewart J. Fuller, the
Vice-President, George Angst, Secretary, and Chester H. Griggs,
Treasurer. These young men have all been prominent for some time in
interscholastic sport, and if they can control the policy of the league,
it will doubtless earn a high standing among similar associations.

The organization does not aim to control track athletics only, but will
also look after the football and baseball interests of the St. Paul and
Minneapolis schools. Track athletics have only been taken up
systematically for the past five years in these two cities, and yet the
schools have made rapid strides in this short time, and have sent a
number of clever men to Eastern colleges. The St. Paul High-School has
perhaps done better than most of the schools in that section in sending
good men East. Winters, the well-known Yale tackle, Cochran, the
end-rusher, and Langford, the stroke of the present Yale crew, are all
graduates of that institution.

The Inter-collegiate Association has stricken the bicycle race from the
regular schedule of the spring games. It would be a very good thing if
the New York and Brooklyn I.S.A.A.'s, and, in fact, if all
interscholastic associations would follow their example. The New York
and Brooklyn associations could combine and have a bicycle field day in
the same week of the annual interscholastic meetings, or at any other
time that might seem more convenient, and do away with the unpleasant
bicycle event at the track-athletic meeting altogether.

I suggest that the New York and Brooklyn associations combine, because
it seems to me that it would be more profitable, on account of the
larger number of entries, the greater interest, and the greater
attendance such a union would command. Should the bicycle event be
stricken from the interscholastic card, an excellent substitute would be
a relay race. Relay races, as I have frequently said within the past few
weeks, are becoming more and more popular all over the country, and
sooner or later the relay race will become a standard event on every
track-athletic card. Therefore, the sooner the interscholastic managers
recognize this fact and put the race on their schedules, the better. If
the entries for the relay races are so numerous in an association as
large as the New York or Boston I.S.A.A. it would be possible to have
the preliminary heats run in the morning, and have only finals at the
games in the afternoon. This is a matter well worthy of consideration.

  THE GRADUATE.



[Illustration: STAMPS]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin
     collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question
     on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address
     Editor Stamp Department.


Portugal announces a new set of commemorative stamps to be issued
shortly. The designs have been accepted, but the colors and values of
the stamps have not yet been decided upon. Nicaragua has issued a set of
postage-stamps--1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 centavos, 1, 2, 5 pesos. Also
the same stamps surcharged "official." In addition, a new set of
postage-due stamps--1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, and 50 centavos, all in orange
color--and an "Officially Sealed" stamp in blue. Porto Rico has changed
the colors on the current set of adhesives, thirteen stamps in all.
Honduras has also just issued a new set. The Cuban Republic stamps, 2,
5,10, and 25 centavos, are sold by some of the smaller dealers.

All the above would probably come under the ban of the S.S.S.S. as
unnecessary, and issued for revenue only. The work of eliminating or
diminishing "speculative" stamps is very slow; but progress is steadily
made, and the number of new issues during the past six months is less
than the average.

     J. L. HUNTER.--The coin is a French 5 centimes of 1856. No premium.

     H. VAUGHN.--The probabilities are that the Cuban Republic stamps
     will be accepted by the great majority of collectors; but as yet
     the advanced philatelists will not admit them in their albums. They
     seem to me purely speculative, hence uncollectable. The $20 U.S.
     revenue is worth $1.50; the 24c. and 30c. War Departments are worth
     50c. and 30c. respectively.

     F. B. KINGSBURY.--Your coin is worth 6c.

     J. SCHMIDT.--The 24c. 1869 U.S., with reversed centre, is worth
     $100 if in good condition.

     G. B. SNIDER.--The only way the number of the sheet can be known is
     by the printed margin of the sheet. All the stamps on a sheet are
     identical.

     R. S. CHASE, 30 Alumni Avenue, Providence, R. I., wishes to
     exchange stamps.

     R. F. T.--Stamps printed "Marca di Bolo" are Italian Revenues. The
     25c. Venezuela 1892 are common; millions were printed and used.

     F. H. HORTING, F. J. WATTSON, D. W. HARDIN.--The coins are common.
     No dealer would pay a premium on them, as he picks them up in the
     regular course of business at face value. When dealers sell they of
     course ask an advance on face. They have to pay rent, clerk hire,
     advertising, and their own living expenses.

     E. L. H.--The 8d. yellow New South Wales, 1860 issue, is worth 25c.
     The Canada 12-1/2c., 1868, is worth 18c.

     D. W. H.--The millennial stamps have not been accepted as
     collectable by the majority of philatelists; but, of course, that
     is a matter to be settled by each collector for himself.

  PHILATUS.



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[Illustration: Hartford Rubber Works Co.]



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[Illustration]

[Illustration]

By the makers of the famous DELONG Hook and Eye.

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[Illustration: Royal Baking Powder]

A cream-of-tartar baking powder. Highest of all in leavening
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ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO., NEW YORK.



[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

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LOOK HERE, YOUNG PEOPLE!

Until May 25th, we will accept =10 Cents= in payment of one year's
subscription to =THE MONTHLY JOURNAL=, a literary magazine, published and
edited by young people for young people. Address

The Monthly Journal, New Brunswick, N. J.



[Illustration]

The Eight Numbers of the Franklin

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1600

of the Choicest Old and New Songs

and Hymns in the Wide World.

Fifty Cents per Number in paper; Sixty Cents in substantial Board
binding; One Dollar in Cloth. The Eight Numbers also bound in two
volumes at $3.00 each. Address Harper & Brothers, New York.



[Illustration: THOMPSON'S EYE WATER]



[Illustration: BICYCLING]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the
     Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject. Our
     maps and tours contain much valuable data kindly supplied from the
     official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen.
     Recognizing the value of the work being done by the L. A. W., the
     Editor will be pleased to furnish subscribers with membership
     blanks and information so far as possible.


[Illustration: Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers.]

Continuing the journey from where it was left last week, proceed from
Lyons westward up hill, turn left at the top, and proceed downward, over
the canal, and thence, keeping to the right, cross the canal again, turn
sharp left up a hill, and cross the bridge into Newark. This is eight
miles from Lyons. The road, except at the hills, is in very good
condition. Leaving Newark, take the second turn to the right and cross
the canal, but instead of proceeding straight ahead towards East
Palmyra, turn sharp to the left, and crossing the canal again, proceed
to Fort Gibson, three miles further on. It is better to take this road
and to proceed direct to Palmyra over the turnpike, which is reached at
Fort Gibson by turning sharp to the right, than to pass through East
Palmyra itself, though it is possible to take the direct road, which is
somewhat shorter, and proceed through East Palmyra. From Palmyra run out
over Main Street, using the side-paths and side-walks where available,
until the yellow mills are reached, thence cross the canal, turning to
the right, and keeping to the left, follow the turnpike to Macedon.
Macedon is twenty-one miles from Lyons, and from this point the route to
Rochester is easily followed. The road is in good condition, and the
rider will find no difficulty in keeping to the road from Macedon to
Pittsford, and thence to Rochester itself.

Entering Rochester, ride in through Monroe Avenue to Clinton Street,
thence to East Main Street, where the Powers House will be easily found.
Rochester is another place where there is great interest taken in
bicycling. There are several good routes in the vicinity of the city.
One of these is to Elmira, the route being to return, as already
described, to Pittsford; thence proceed to Canandaigua, to Reed's
Corners, Gorham, Ferguson's Corners, Penn Yan, Milo, Dundee, Rock
Stream, Reading Centre, Watkins, Montour Falls, Mill Port, Pine Valley,
Horseheads, into Elmira. This is a run of one hundred miles. Another run
is to leave Rochester and run out to Sodus Bay, passing through West
Webster, Webster, Union Hill, Ontario Centre, Ontario, Williamson,
Sodus, and Alton, to Sodus Bay, a distance of thirty-nine miles. Another
interesting but much shorter run is to proceed from Rochester out
through Genesee Street to the end of the street, thence following the
road along the banks of the Genesee River, through Buttermilk Hill, to
Scottsville. Thence proceeding to Spring Creek Hotel, which is
twenty-one miles from Rochester, you will get a good dinner for fifty
cents. After dinner it will be interesting to go over the State
Fish-hatcheries. There are several different routes of greater or less
distance by which you may return to Rochester.

     EDWARD J. BROWN.--There are several kinds of chain-cleaners, but
     none of them are of very much use. An ordinary rag that is clean,
     used with some care, is quite as effective as anything else.

     NOTE.--Map of New York city asphalted streets in No. 809. Map of
     route from New York to Tarrytown in No. 810. New York to Stamford,
     Connecticut in No. 811. New York to Staten Island in No. 812. New
     Jersey from Hoboken to Pine Brook in No. 813. Brooklyn in No. 814.
     Brooklyn to Babylon in No. 815. Brooklyn to Northport in No. 816.
     Tarrytown to Poughkeepsie in No. 817. Poughkeepsie to Hudson in No.
     818. Hudson to Albany in No. 819. Tottenville to Trenton in No.
     820. Trenton to Philadelphia in No. 821. Philadelphia in No. 822.
     Philadelphia-Wissahickon Route in No. 823. Philadelphia to West
     Chester in No. 824. Philadelphia to Atlantic City--First Stage in
     No. 825; Second Stage in No. 826. Philadelphia to Vineland--First
     Stage in No. 827; Second Stage in No. 828. New York to
     Boston--Second Stage in No. 829; Third Stage in No. 830; Fourth
     Stage in No. 831; Fifth Stage in No. 832; Sixth Stage in No. 833.
     Boston to Concord in No. 834. Boston in No. 835. Boston to
     Gloucester in No. 836. Boston to Newburyport in No. 837. Boston to
     New Bedford in No. 838. Boston to South Framingham in No. 839.
     Boston to Nahant in No. 840. Boston to Lowell in No. 841. Boston to
     Nantasket Beach in No. 842. Boston Circuit Ride in No. 843.
     Philadelphia to Washington--First Stage in No. 844; Second Stage in
     No. 845; Third Stage in No. 846; Fourth Stage in No. 847; Fifth
     Stage in No. 848. City of Washington in No. 849. City of Albany in
     No. 854; Albany to Fonda in No. 855; Fonda to Utica in No. 856;
     Utica to Lyons in No. 857.



[Illustration: THE CAMERA CLUB]

     Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly
     answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to
     hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.


TIME-SAVING HINTS FOR THE AMATEUR.

When one has a quantity of aristo prints to mount which he does not
intend to have burnished, he must be careful not to wet the face of the
print, as it destroys the gloss imparted by the ferrotype plate. The
usual method is to lay the print face down on a sheet of glass and paste
it, cleaning the glass after each print has been mounted. A much simpler
way is to take pieces of newspaper several sizes larger than the prints
to be mounted, lay them in a pile on the table at the left hand, lay a
print face down on the top piece of paper, paste it, and drop the piece
of newspaper in the scrap-basket. Continue thus, using a fresh piece of
paper for each print, till all the prints are mounted. The newspaper
makes a good surface to paste on, as the print does not slip, as it does
sometimes on the glass if not held very firmly. This way of pasting
prints saves a great deal of time and trouble.

Before beginning to mount pictures trim each one and lay it on the card
on which it is to be mounted. Some amateurs when mounting pictures
always mark where the picture is to be placed on the card. This is not
necessary, for the eye can be readily trained to see when a picture is
straight if the picture itself is properly trimmed.

A simple arrangement for drying negatives is made by taking a stout
wire, bending it in the middle at a right angle, and then bending the
ends over to make short hooks, which clasp the edges of a plate. The
wire should be bent close enough so that it is necessary to spring it a
little to fit it to the plate. Put the wet side of the plate toward the
wire, and set the plate on a shelf with the edge resting on the shelf,
the wire supporting it somewhat after the fashion of an easel.

In filtering solutions, unless one has a fluted glass funnel, the
filtering paper adheres to the glass and allows the liquid to pass
through very slowly. A simple way to hurry the process is to fold the
circle of filtering paper together, and then fold it from the centre
back and forth like a fan. Crease the folds so that they will remain,
and when put in the funnel there will be spaces between the glass and
the paper through which the solution will run very quickly.

Films are quite inclined to curl both in the developing solution and in
the fixing solution. This necessitates pushing them down into the fixing
bath, and often causes much annoyance to the operator. If the hypo is
put into a large glass tumbler the film may be curled round a bottle,
and the bottle set in the tumbler of hypo, which will do away with any
trouble of keeping the film down into the hypo. The bottle should be
clean, and filled with water so that it will set flat in the tumbler.

     SIR KNIGHT FRANK EVANS, JUN., 1116 Brown Street, Philadelphia, Pa.,
     wishes to correspond with some of the Camera Club members. Sir
     Knight Frank says he has some good formulas which he would be
     pleased to send to the Camera Club. We shall be glad to have them
     and to publish them. Send full directions for use, please, and
     write on one side of the paper only.

     SIR KNIGHT RAGEAN TUTTLE, Auburn, Col., asks where to get the
     photographic supplies mentioned in the ROUND TABLE. They may be
     bought of any reliable dealer in photographic goods.

     LADY MANA M. MONAHAN, of Michigan, asks the address of a good
     school of photography. At Effingham, Ill., is a school of
     photography called Illinois College of Photography, where all the
     branches of photography are taught.

     SIR KNIGHT HERSCHEL F. DAVIS wants to know the right exposure for a
     moonlight view, with largest stop, and if it will blur the plate to
     include the moon in the picture. From a half-hour to an hour is the
     usual time given for a moonlight view, according to the brightness
     of the light. The moon may be included in the picture, and will not
     have a halo; but the moon, instead of being round, will make a
     longer or shorter streak on the plate, according to the length of
     time it is exposed, as, of course, with the motion of the earth and
     moon, it will have traversed quite a space in the course of an
     hour.

       *       *       *       *       *

A CHANCE FOR AN EXPERIMENT.

Have plants intelligence? Do they ever think? These are interesting
questions that would have to be answered by the statement of an observer
of the ways of pumpkins and melons. Says he: "Plants often exhibit
something very much like intelligence. If a bucket of water, during a
dry season, be placed a few inches from a growing pumpkin or melon vine,
the latter will turn from its course, and in a day or two will get one
of its leaves in the water."

We do not vouch for the truth of this, but if there be any young
gardeners among the readers of the ROUND TABLE it might make an
interesting experiment for them next summer when they are pursuing their
avocation.



ADVERTISEMENTS



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[Illustration]

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as the

[Illustration: Columbia Bicycle]

STANDARD OF THE WORLD

[Illustration]

Columbia saddles are the standard of comfort, and the Columbia
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Columbias in construction and quality are in a class by themselves.

$100 to all alike

POPE MANUFACTURING CO., Hartford, Conn.

Many of the Columbia merits are described in the superb Columbia
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stamps to us for postage.



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Established Dorchester, Mass., 1780.

Breakfast Cocoa

[Illustration]

Always ask for Walter Baker & Co.'s

Breakfast Cocoa

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It bears their Trade Mark

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Beware of Imitations.



[Illustration]

LAUGHING CAMERA, 10c.

The latest invention in Cameras. You look through the lens and your
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novelties and sample camera 10c., 3 for 25c., mailed postpaid. Agents
wanted.

Robert H. Ingersoll & Bro.,

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Postage Stamps, &c.



[Illustration]

STAMPS! =800= 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.



$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.



JAPANESE POSTAGE STAMPS!

Every one who sends me 20 unused stamps of his land will receive 20
unused stamps, in good varieties, from Japan.

Sekigyokuken, Mitsunosho, Bingo, Japan.



=STAMPS.= Confederate free if you send for our Approval Sheets at 50 per
cent. commission. Enclose 2c. stamp, and give reference.

=DIAMOND STAMP CO.=, Germantown, Pa.



=1000= Mixed Foreign Stamps, San Marino, etc., 25; 101 all dif., China,
etc., 10c.; 10 U.S. Revenues, 10c.; 20 U. S. Revenues, 25c. Ag'ts w'td
at 50% com. _Monthly Bulletin_ free. Shaw Stamp & Coin Co., Jackson,
Mich.



=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.



U.S. Stamps and Coins. 8 dif. large cents, 50c.

R.M.P. Langzettel, Box 1125, New Haven, Conn.



CARDS

The FINEST SAMPLE BOOK of Gold Beveled Edge, Hidden Name, Silk Fringe,
Envelope and Calling Cards ever offered for a 2 cent stamp. These are
GENUINE CARDS, NOT TRASH. UNION CARD CO., COLUMBUS, OHIO.



[Illustration: THOMPSON'S EYE WATER]

       *       *       *       *       *

A Swiss Wedding.

     We have lived in Switzerland for five years, and have, of course,
     seen a great many weddings among the people, but never one of those
     grand affairs which are the talk of a small town for weeks. Last
     autumn, while we were in Winterthur, we learned that a wedding was
     to take place in the "Stadtkirche," bride and bridegroom coming
     from two of the best old families. As both were millionaires (in
     francs, not dollars), people expected something magnificent, so we
     decided to go to the church to see what it would be like.

     There are no private church weddings in Switzerland. Every one who
     chooses may go to witness the ceremony, and the day we went the
     church was full of people of every description--ladies and
     gentlemen, as well as bareheaded peasants and children. It seems to
     me that one must have an enormous amount of courage to get married
     in Europe. The bride we saw had to submit to be stared at for a
     good hour in church, and even then she was not allowed to go off
     and rest.

     When we had waited patiently for about half an hour the clock
     struck one, the church doors were thrown open, the organ pealed
     forth a wedding march, and in came the bride on the bridegroom's
     arm. They walked up to the beautifully decorated altar, in front of
     which were the seats reserved for the wedding guests, and here they
     separated, the bride going to the places on the left of the aisle,
     the groom to those on the right.

     Then followed couple after couple, the ladies all in full evening
     dress, and each separated at the altar also. When they were all
     seated the minister preached a short sermon. Then the organ
     accompanied a song sung by the bride's sister. This was very
     beautiful, for there was also a violin obligato. Then the bridal
     couple stood up and were married, after which they again parted,
     going back to their seats. Some little children sang with the
     organ, and then the ceremony was over, but not the wedding.

     There was a grand dinner which lasted hours and hours, for between
     each course there was acting, or tableaux, or dancing, and it was
     not until late in the evening that the bride could depart on her
     wedding journey, and very tired she must have been. Some people go
     for long drives in the afternoon, if the day is beautiful. In this
     case they all go bareheaded and in open carriages. The peasants
     cannot always afford to drive, so simply take long walks, some to
     the country, but the general preference is for the town. Here they
     walk, two by two, through all the principal streets, going in at
     some confectioner's for something to eat, and enjoying themselves
     greatly. These brides generally dress in black with white veils (or
     none at all), and artificial flowers in their hair. The girls are
     always confirmed in black dresses in German Switzerland, and the
     poor people wear the same dresses for their weddings. A very
     thrifty custom, is it not? Swiss weddings may be very nice to Swiss
     people, but I, for my part, prefer American ones, and if I ever
     marry, I hope it will be in my own dear country.

  MARIAN GREENE, R.T.F.

       *       *       *       *       *

Cryptography.

     From very ancient times secret writing, known as cipher (from the
     Arabic _sifr_, "void"), or cryptography (from the Greek "hidden
     writing"), has been an important means of communication. In great
     national crises, where absolutely secret communication was
     necessary, it has saved much time and trouble. Charles I. wrote his
     famous letter to the Earl of Glamorgan in cipher, consisting of
     variously shaded and lengthened strokes of the pen. This letter was
     afterwards deciphered, and proved to be a concession to the Roman
     Catholics of Ireland, which, if generally known at the time, would
     have caused serious trouble. Lord Bacon also made frequent use of
     the cipher but even his ingenious methods have since been
     discovered.

     There are many methods. Perhaps the most common is the variety
     found in one of the _Sherlock Holmes_ tales, where, in a seemingly
     plain, every-day sentence, words set at intervals give the hidden
     meaning. Poe's fascinating "Gold-Bug" is founded on the solution of
     one of Captain Kidd's cryptograms. One can readily construct a
     cipher requiring considerable effort to read. One of the best known
     for common purposes is the "Dial Cryptogram."

     [Illustration: A DIAL CRYPTOGRAM.]

     On a six-inch square of card-board draw a circle containing
     twenty-seven parts. In each write one of the capital letters of the
     alphabet, including &. Also cut out a circle of card-board which
     exactly fits the circle on the square. It should be edged by
     twenty-seven spaces containing the small letters of the alphabet,
     including &. Place this disk on the square and drive a pin through
     the centre. Your correspondent having a similar dial, you are ready
     to write. Suppose your message is the following:

     _The box containing the famous Marston-Endive ciphers has at last
     been found in a secret drawer of the billiard-room wainscoting.
     Yours, Kelpee._

     At the beginning you write the capital, and at the end the small
     letters which are opposite each other when you have arranged your
     dial. The inner circle is so placed, say, that _T_ and _m_ are
     opposite each other. Beginning your message with _T_, and closing
     with _m_ you would have:

     _T. may vhq whgmubgbg& may zufhnl fuklmhg-ygxboy wbiaykl aul um
     eulm vyyg zhngx bg u lywkym xkupyp hz may vbeebukx-khhf
     pubglwhmbg&. rhnkl dyeiyy. m._

     The stencil cryptogram is also a very good one, and is easily
     managed. Take two squares of paste-board, and at irregular
     intervals cut out narrow openings. Your correspondent being
     provided with one of the stencils, you place your own on a sheet of
     paper, and in the openings write your message. You then fill the
     intermediate spaces with any words that will connect the whole and
     make sense. Your correspondent places his stencil on the
     message--and the meaning is clear.

  VINCENT V. M. BEEDE.

       *       *       *       *       *

That Clever Kink.

Did you find out how much that nobleman was worth? The answer is:

£21,459. It is found by taking all of the letters in the passage quoted
that are employed in the Roman notation--I, V, X, L, C, D, M--setting
down their value in the Arabic notation, and adding all together.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Music Rack.

Good Stories about Chopin.

     Frédéric François Chopin, born 1809, died 1849, very early showed
     his sensitiveness to music, when only a baby prevailing upon his
     parents to allow him to share the lessons given to his eldest
     sister. Many tales are told of his performances as a child, but
     perhaps the best is the one related by Karasowski, his biographer,
     of his appearance at a public concert for the benefit of the poor
     when he was not quite nine years old. He was announced to play
     Gyrowetz's piano-forte concerto, and a few hours before he was put
     on a chair, and there dressed with more than ordinary care, being
     arrayed in a new jacket with an ornamented collar specially ordered
     for the occasion. When the concert was over Frédéric returned to
     his mother, who had not been present; she asked him what the public
     liked best. "Oh, mamma, everybody looked only at my collar!" Little
     Frédéric could do almost anything he wished with the piano, and all
     his life, when in happy moods, he was fond of weaving fanciful
     fairy tales and romances in music so beautiful and real that the
     listeners were able to follow and understand by the mere tones
     alone.

     One evening his father was away, and there arose a tremendous
     hubbub among the pupils which the assistant master was quite
     powerless to quell. Frédéric came in, saw how things were, and
     good-naturedly sat down to the piano. Calling the other boys around
     him, he promised, if they kept quite still, to tell them a new and
     most thrilling story on the piano. This at once quieted them.
     Frédéric extinguished all the lights (for he was all his life fond
     of playing in the dark). Then he sat down to the piano and began
     his story.

     He described robbers coming to a house, putting ladders to the
     windows, and then, frightened by a noise, rushing away into the
     woods. They go on and on, deeper and deeper into the wild recesses
     of the forest, and then they lie down under the trees and soon fall
     asleep. He went on, playing more and more softly, until he found
     that the sleep was not only in his story, but had overcome his
     listeners. On this he crept out noiselessly to tell his mother and
     sisters what had happened, and then went back with them to the room
     with a light. Every one of the boys was fast asleep. Frédéric
     returned to the piano, struck some noisy chords, the enchantment
     was over, and all the sleepers were rubbing their eyes and
     wondering what was the matter.

  MEREDYTH JONES, R.T.K.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kinks

NO. 1.--A STORY.

It was a rainy day. George, spoiling for something to do, said: "Say,
Fred, here's a question you can't answer within five minutes, or ten
either. Wan' to try?"

"Yep."

"A lad, carrying a page of that circular to the printer who printed it,
stubbed his toe. It hurt him so that he went to the same place the
'three wise men of Gotham' did, and almost lost his life, because that
which ruins many a field of wheat was in his drinking water, and he
couldn't drink it. But he put all three together, ate it, and saved his
life. What did he eat?"

       *       *       *       *       *

NO. 2.--QUINARY.

  "With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver!
  And folks who put me in a passion
  May find me ---- to another fashion."

In the above lines of a famous poem the word which fills the blank is
the last syllable of the five words described below.

  1. By bonnie braes in Scotland old,
     My notes are heard with love untold.

  2. Tars in hours of well-earned leisure
     With twinkling feet would tread my measure.

  3. A man in love with rocks and ore
     Can by my aid know Nature's lore.

  4. I'm hollow, and of sable hue,
     And cousin to the chimney flue.

  5. When sadly off the proper key,
     A friend in need you'll e'er find me.

       *       *       *       *       *

NO. 3.--HEADS AND TAILS.

Behead to censure, and leave to cripple; to gather, and leave to heat.
Curtail to grieve for, and leave to fasten; a beverage, leave to beat; a
damsel, and leave to succor; a color, and leave an edge. Behead the
latter, and leave a quarrel. Curtail sly artifice, and leave a sledge;
confusion, and leave an infant. Behead derision, and leave a grain; a
flower, and leave a fluid; to study, and leave to gain.

  RITA E. BOARDMAN.



THE PUDDING STICK.

     This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young
     Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the
     subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor.


Arabella's home is in a pretty little town twenty-five miles from New
York. It is a place much liked by people who have children to bring up,
for the schools are good, and the air is a tonic to breathe. Arabella
told me last September that she must earn some money this year, and
relieve her father, who had quite enough to do in paying her tuition
bills. "If I can only make enough to buy my shoes and gloves and pay for
my postage stamps and my car fares, I will be satisfied," the dear girl
said. As this is her last year at Miss ----'s school, and the work is
very exacting, I am afraid she cannot accomplish her end; but Arabella
has perseverance in large measure, and she is a plucky girl, besides
being graceful and charming.

It happens that Arabella dances very well, and some of the mothers in
her neighborhood wished their small tots to learn the steps. There was
no teacher to be had for such babies, and so when my favorite girlie
said they might come to her on Saturday afternoons and she would show
them how to use their little feet in moving to measure, the mothers were
delighted. Arabella's brother Will was obliging enough to bring his
violin and furnish the music, and the class has been a great success,
with the result that Arabella's pocket-book is very nicely filled.

Another and perhaps a more agreeable field for money-making is one which
Lilian G---- has found, or rather into which Lilian walked one summer
morning. On her way to school she had to pass the house of two very dear
old ladies, who lived by themselves, and pottered about in a pretty
old-fashioned garden. Miss Betsey and Miss Annie were fond of the bright
girls who two or three times a day walked past their door on the way to
and from their classrooms, and they had their favorites among them,
often stopping Lily, for instance, and giving her a flower or two to
fasten into her buttonhole.

One morning Lilian observed that Miss Betsey groped a little and felt
about with her stick, instead of stepping briskly around the garden as
she used to do.

"My sister," Miss Annie confided to her, "is growing blind. We went to
Dr. N---- yesterday, and he confirmed our fears. It is a cataract, and it
cannot be operated on for a long time. What poor Betsey will do I don't
know, for reading has been her great occupation and her one pleasure. I
cannot read to her, for it hurts my throat to read aloud."

"Let me come every afternoon, dear Miss Annie," said Lilian. "I'll read
to Miss Betsey from four to five every day, and on Saturdays I'll come
twice--an hour in the morning and another in the afternoon. I can do it
just as _easily_!"

Miss Annie's face lightened. "You sweet child!" she said. "If you will
come, and your mother will let you come, Betsey and I will pay you two
dollars a week for reading to us both."

The rest of this chapter must go over until next week.

  MARGARET E. SANGSTER.



[Illustration: Ivory Soap]

    The beauty of a bride's trousseau
  Is something that it need not lose,
    If only maid and laundress know,
  That Ivory is the soap to use.

Copyrighted, 1896, by The Procter & Gamble Co., Cin'ti.



HOOPING

COUGH

CROUP

_Can be cured_

by using

ROCHE'S HERBAL

EMBROCATION

The celebrated and effectual English cure, without internal medicine. W.
EDWARD & SON, Props., London, Eng. Wholesale, E. FOUGERA & CO., New York



[Illustration]

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[Illustration: THOMPSON'S EYE WATER]



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By THOMAS W. KNOX

The "Boy Travellers" Series

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  THE YOUNG NIMRODS IN NORTH AMERICA.
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       *       *       *       *       *

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_BY THE SAME AUTHOR:_

=THE FUR-SEAL'S TOOTH.--RAFTMATES.--CANOEMATES.--CAMPMATES.--DORYMATES.=
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=WAKULLA.--THE FLAMINGO FEATHER.--DERRICK STERLING.--CHRYSTAL, JACK & CO.=
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       *       *       *       *       *

HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York



[Illustration: MAKING A BRONCHO OF IT.]

  OH, TOMMY HAD A HOBBY-HORSE, ITS GAIT WAS SMOOTH AND FAIR,
  TILL UNDER IT HE PLACED SOME STICKS, AND MADE IT BUCK AND RAIR!

       *       *       *       *       *

THE STRANGE STORY OF A RING.

It is stated upon what appears to be good authority that in one of the
parks in the Spanish capital city of Madrid a magnificent ring hangs by
a silken cord about the neck of the statue of the Maid of Almodma, the
patron saint of Madrid. This ring, though set with diamonds and pearls,
is nevertheless entirely unguarded. The police pay no attention to it,
nor is there any provision made for watching it by special officers,
because it is not believed that any thief, however daring, would venture
to appropriate it to his own use; and when the history of the ring is
considered, it is hardly to be wondered at that a superstitious people
prefer to give it a wide berth. According to the story that is told of
it, the ring was made for King Alfonso XII., the father of the present
boy King of Spain. Alfonso presented it to his cousin Mercedes on the
day of their betrothal. How short her married life was all know; and on
her death the King presented the ring to his grandmother, Queen
Christina. Shortly afterwards Queen Christina died, and the King gave
the ring to his sister, the Infanta del Pilar, who died within the month
following. The ring was then given to the youngest daughter of the Duc
de Montpensier. In less than three months she died, and Alfonso, by this
time fearing that there was some unlucky omen connected with the bauble,
put it away in his own treasure-box. In less than a year the King
himself died, and it was deemed best to put the ring away from all the
living. Hence it was hung about the neck of the bronze effigy of the
Maid of Almodma, where it appears to be as safe as though surrounded by
a cordon of police.

       *       *       *       *       *

A CURIOUS REQUEST.

In a Scottish church in Argyleshire the minister one Sunday morning
astonished some strangers in the congregation by requesting the young
men in the rear pews to smoke, "because the midges were so thick the
services could not go on unless they were smoked out." The young men
acceded to the request, and soon the obnoxious insects were driven away.
It is said that this same clergyman once gave out a notice that upon a
certain evening service would be held in the church, "weather and midges
permitting."

       *       *       *       *       *

YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD.

  Last year my fam'ly went abroad an' travelled all aroun',
  An' saw 'most all ther' wuz to see in ev'ry for'n town.
  They didn' stop much more'n a day or two in any place,
  But jus' rushed on as if they'd been a-runnin' in a race.
  They took me 'long, and must ha' made me walk a thousand miles
  Through gal'ries and palaces of a hundred diff'rent styles.
  They wouldn' stop at toy-stores, or take me out to see
  The soldiers drillin' in the park, or th' wild m'nageriee.
  Ther' wuzn't any fun fer me in all that sort o' thing--
  'Cause, what'd I care 'bout lookin' at th' pictures o' the king?
  There _was_ one place in Switz'rland where I _did_ have some fun
  (If 't hadn't ben fer ol' Loocern I dunno what I'd done!).
  The fam'ly'd all gone off ter climb a mountain in a train,
  An' left me with the hotel man 'til they got back again.
  I went out in the garden, in the afternoon, to play,
  An' found another boy out there--been lef' behind, same way.
  He said he wuz an English boy--an' I said mighty quick,
  "_I'm an American boy, young kid, no English boy can lick!_"
  So then he got to boastin' 'bout the things th't he could do,
  An' said his school wuz bigger'n mine, which I said wuzn't true.
  He said he had an uncle was a nobleman--a Duke;
  I tol' him 's how them fam'ly things was jus' a kind o' fluke.
  "_Well, England's got more soldiers than th' Americans ever had!_"
  "_But we can lick 'em ev'ry time!_" That made him awful mad.
  "_An' England's got a lot of ships, an' guns, an' cannon-balls...._"
  "_But you 'ain't got nothin' half so good as our Niag'ra Falls!_"
  "_You don't have 's many holidays_," went on the little fool;
  "_On Guy Fawks day American boys all have to go to school._"
  So I ran up an' said, "_You red-coat British kid_," says I,
  "_There's one day you don't celebrate, an' that's the Fourth of July!_"
  An' by that time I'd got so mad with all his monkey-trickin',
  I jus' sailed in an' guv that English boy a good sound lickin'.

  ALBERT LEE.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: ANIMAL AMENITIES.]

  A BLACK BEAR MET A GRAY FOX, AND TO HIM REMARKED, "GOOD-DAY,
  IT SEEMS TO ME YOU'RE RATHER YOUNG TO BE SO VERY GRAY."





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Harper's Round Table, April 14, 1896" ***

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