CHAPTER XIII. THE JUDGE TAKES A HAND.

Clancy did not return to the Red Star Garage that night. He went to

a hotel with Jimmie Fortune, and the two of them slept late the next

morning, had breakfast at a restaurant at nine o’clock, and, when ten

strokes boomed from the courthouse clock, made their way to the garage.

The judge and Rockwell were alone in the office when the two youths

entered the place.

“Get out of here, both of you!” shouted Rockwell. “I know that young

scalawag, Fortune, and I don’t want him around, on general principles.

As for you, Clancy, I have no use for a fellow who can’t be trusted.

You didn’t stay in the back room last night, and you didn’t show up

here in time for work this morning. That’s what lets you out.”

“Just a minute,” interposed the judge, taking a long wallet from his

pocket. “Before Clancy leaves this place, Rockwell, you’d better settle

your account with him.” He took the note from the wallet and laid it

down on the desk in front of the garage owner. “Give him a check for a

thousand dollars,” finished the judge, “and no words about it.”

Rockwell appeared astounded. His startled eyes traveled to the judge

and then returned to the note.

“I--I told Clancy I’d take this up in a week or two,” he muttered

shiftily.

“You’re going to take it up now,” said Judge Pembroke. “I know you have

the money in the bank, and that note is long past due. Be sure and add

the interest when you make out the check.”

“You don’t know about this note, judge,” continued Rockwell. “I don’t

reckon I owe the money or----”

“Why did you just say you had told Clancy you’d pay it in a week or

two, if you questioned the validity of the note?”

“Well, I--I----”

“Don’t hem and haw and side-step with me,” said the judge sternly. “You

have been trying to beat young Clancy out of the money. Do you want me

to tell your customers how you hired Hibbard to steal that note from

Clancy so you could get out of paying it? Would that sound well?”

Rockwell fell back in his chair, limp and dumfounded. His lips moved,

but no sound came from them.

“You see,” pursued the judge relentlessly, “that I know what I am

talking about. I’ll publish your contemptible methods far and wide if

you don’t instantly settle this debt. I’m not here to waste words on

you. Write that check!”

With his face ashen and his hands trembling, Rockwell, thoroughly

cowed, bent over his desk. Fishing a check book out of a pigeonhole,

he opened it, picked up a pen, and did a little figuring on a scratch

block. When he wrote the check, it was for one thousand one hundred and

twenty dollars.

“There, Clancy,” said the judge, handing the check to Owen. “Now you

are square with Rockwell, and need have nothing more to do with him.

There is a young fellow in this town who has recently opened a garage.

He is square as a die, and I happen to know that you can buy a half

interest in his place for that money. Of course,” and the judge smiled,

“it isn’t a big place like this, but the business is growing. I’d

advise you to buy in with Lafe Wynn.”

“Wynn?” murmured Rockwell. “He’s one of my competitors. I didn’t think,

judge, that you’d do anything to help Lafe Wynn.”

“I’ll do everything to help Lafe Wynn,” said Judge Pembroke, getting up

from his chair. “Clancy will buy a half interest, give a job to his

friend, Jimmie Fortune, and it won’t be many months, Rockwell, until

Clancy & Wynn run you out of business. They’ll treat their patrons on

the square--and that’s a principle that will help them to grow. Don’t

think for a minute,” he added, “that I don’t know how I have been

robbed here. I’ve suspected what was going on, and now I’m no longer

in doubt. My two cars are going over to the Square-deal Garage--and I

guess I know a few more cars that will follow them.”

“You might be easy with me,” whimpered Rockwell, “now that I’ve given

Clancy that money.”

“Easy with you for paying an honest debt?” returned the judge

contemptuously. “Why, man, if you had your deserts you would be in

jail.” He moved toward the door. “Come on, Clancy,” said he, “you and

Fortune. We’re through here.”

The judge left the place, Clancy and Fortune trailing along behind him.

The two pards were smiling happily, and Fortune was hanging to Clancy’s

hand and working his arm up and down like a pump handle.

Rockwell watched them through the dingy window of his office.

“We’ll see about this,” he muttered, between his teeth, shaking his

fist. “I’ll break that new firm of Clancy & Wynn. You’re a keen one,

Pembroke, but you’ll find that I can go you one better. I--I reckon I

shouldn’t have trusted that fellow, Hibbard, after all,” he added, as

he turned heavily away from the window.

THE END.

* * * * *

Continuing to follow the fortunes of Owen Clancy, Burt L. Standish has

written a cracking good story, which you will find in the next issue of

this weekly. It is entitled “Owen Clancy’s Square Deal; or, The Motor

Wizard and the Black Thunderbolt.” Owen buys a half interest in Lafe

Wynn’s garage and settles down to make good. The _Black Thunderbolt_

is an automobile, and it is “some car.” There are some mighty exciting

doings in it, too. The issue in which this story will be found will be

out next week, on January 24th. It is No. 78.

HALL OF SHELLS.

An English traveler who has recently returned from Berlin gives an

interesting account in one of the local papers of his visit to the new

palace of the kaiser, at Potsdam.

There are many things which make the palace interesting to the

privileged visitor, not the least among which is the kitchen, which

stands in a separate building. Frederick the Great hated the smells of

the kitchen and he had that most necessary adjunct to every house moved

away from the palace. The eatables were conveyed to the royal dining

hall by an underground passage. Emperor William still keeps up the

custom of his predecessor.

The dining hall of the palace is small, as palace dining rooms go, and

contains some very valuable paintings, but for formal events and even

for family affairs, now that the kaiser’s family is getting to be so

large, the great marble hall upstairs is used. Three hundred can dine

at one time in this hall. Here have gathered nearly all the sovereigns

of Europe, and on those occasions huge candles are used for lighting

instead of the more modern electric light.

Other rooms of interest are the kaiser’s smoking room, to which some

wonderful vases have recently been added, the gift of a visiting

Chinese prince. The private palace of the theater holds about 350

persons and the stage is arranged to produce all the latest scenic

effects. The kaiser prefers light comedy, and this is the kind of

entertainment he gives his guests.

The most interesting apartment in the entire palace, however, is

undoubtedly the hall of shells. The room is most beautiful, its walls

adorned with thousands of shells of all kinds. They have been arranged

deftly in charming patterns, while other shells in grottoes give a

wonderful effect when lighted by electricity. It was in this room that

Colonel Roosevelt, when ex-president, was entertained by the kaiser.

The famous Imperial Christmas tree is set up in this room.

The kaiser has his own railway station at Wildpark, which is only a

short distance from the palace.

The Wonderful Adventures of Cap’n Wiley.

Written by Himself. Edited by Burt L. Standish.

INTRODUCTORY.

I was sitting in my den desperately seeking the germ thought for a

story when Cap’n Wiley blew in and appropriated the easy-chair.

“Ah, there, old top,” said he. “So I’ve caught you red-handed in your

little sanctum sanctotum. What meaneth the distraught look which

corregateth thy dome of thought?”

“Cap’n,” said I, “you jar me. I’m thinking.”

“Don’t do it,” he entreated. “You’re taking a frightful chance when you

put such a strain on your impoverished gray matter. You don’t have to

think to write the sort of souperific stuff you slosh out.”

“Don’t I!” I cried, exasperated. “Well, now, perhaps you think you

could write it yourself?”

“No,” he answered cheerfully, “nothing quite as distressing. Now, if

I was going to write, I’d hand the yearning public some real littery

litterchewer, just for a change. I say, Burt, old sport, I think I’ll

try one of your Havana imperfectos, if you have one inconvenient at

hand.”

I brought out a box of cigars, and he helped himself to a handful.

Then he “borrowed” a match, fired up, and settled back, with a sigh of

satisfaction, on the easy-chair.

“Yes,” he murmured, “I think I could do it. I come from an immoderately

cultured family. Why, my sister was educated in a female cemetery.”

“You mean a female seminary?”

“No, I don’t; I mean a female cemetery. Why, where else would a young

lady learn the dead languages?”

I had no reply to make.

“But,” pursued the marine marvel, “it really wouldn’t be necessary

for me to consort to fiction; if I were to write a truthful verbatem

history of my own career from the cradle to the Hall of Fame, it would

prove so fascinating that the reading public would gobble it up with

humidity.”

I slipped him the skeptical smile, which seemed to arouse him to a

point of high resentment.

“Say, you give me a cramp!” he exclaimed resentfully. “You think I

can’t deliver the goods, hey? Well, I’ll show you, some. You’ve been

grafting off me for some time by plaguerizing such little mementos

of my chilling adventures as I have chanced to let drop in casual

conversation with you, and I’m highly distended over it.

“Now, take it from me, Burt, from this mementous hour you cease to

yearn your bread and butter by parisiting on little Walter. I’m going

to write my own naughty biography, and I’ll do a job at it that

will put your style of bunkoing the reading public strictly on the

blink. I have only one fear: what if, on publication of my personal

reminoosances, some one should be unfeeling and thoughtless enough to

doubt my absolute voracity? That would break my tender heart.

“Nevertheless, I’ll take a chance, remembering, as the poet puts it,

that truth must rise triumphant, even though it may seem to be getting

walloped groggy. Farewell, Burt. Bide a wee. You’ll gaze on my beaming

counterpane no more until I have completed the colossal task I have

vowed to undertake. I observe by the beautiful hand-painted culendar

above your rosewood desk that it is now the conclusive day of the month

of March. I shall begin my labors upon the morrow.”

He was at the door when I laughingly called:

“Don’t forget that to-morrow is the first day of April, cap’n.”

He seared me with a look of scorn, and vanished.

I did not set eyes upon him again for more than two months, but, as

he frequently absented himself for more or less protracted periods, I

thought nothing of it. When he did turn up again I had quite forgotten

about his threat to write his autobiography, and I don’t think I

ever mentioned it to him. Some months later he met with that sad and

terrible accident which brought his really adventurous life to a tragic

termination.

Recently, in looking through a trunk in which were stowed some of the

cap’n’s effects, a relative discovered a huge bundle of foolscap paper

carefully tied up with ribbons made of cigar bands taken from my own

cigars on various visits of Walter to my den. The paper was covered

with writing, almost undecipherable in its hasty scrawl, which told

that the penman had dashed off every line at fever heat. It proved to

be the autobiography, and was given into my hands.

I have edited it with some pains, being at times compelled to use

the blue pencil freely, and to tone down in many places the cap’n’s

flamboyant style.

BURT L. STANDISH.

CHAPTER I. ITCHING FOR ADVENTURE.

I was a beautiful baby, even though, like most babies, I was born

without any hair or teeth to speak of; and if I had had them I probably

wouldn’t have spoken of them at the time, which I offer as absolute

proof of my natural modesty. I was also a most precocious baby,

absolutely remarkable, in evidence of which I will state that at the

age of six months I was distinctly heard to say “boo” and “oog.”

On hearing these pearls of intelligence and wisdom fall from my rosebud

lips my mother became quite convinced that I was doomed to a wonderful

career as a statesman, a diplomap, or a street-car conductor.

Chauffeurs were not in vogue at the time.

It may be well to skim over the days of my childhood and early youth,

and plunge at once into the seething vortext of adventures which

befell me when, at the tender age of sweet sixteen, I fared forth with

an eager heart, and a father’s good riddance, to face the world and

grapple with fortune. Perhaps it is not strictly accurate to say that I

fared forth, as, not having the necessary wampum with which to pay my

fare by rail, I locomoted per Shank’s mare.

It was at the witching hour of midnight that I bade the ancestral

rooftree so long, sincerely hoping that it would be so long before I

beheld it again that I might forget to remember what it looked like.

The discerning reader will divine by this naïve confession of my

feelings at the time, that my life up to that date had not exactly been

one grand, sweet song.

When I crept down the back stairs and let myself out of the Wiley tepee

by the kitchen door, I took with me a more or less elaborate cuisine

of extra clothing tied up in a bandanna handkerchief. I was followed

by little Fido, my faithful dog. Little Fido was a cross between a

Skioodle and an Angostora goat, and he weighed about three pounds and

seven ounces, when trained down to fighting condition. I’ve seen him

chaw up a forty-pound bulldog quicker than a woodchuck could whip a

bear.

Between little Fido and myself there existed an affection that was deep

and tender and touching. He was an animal of high intelligence, and

I was perfectly convinced by the stealthy and syruptitious manner in

which he slunk from the house at my heels that he was fully aware of

the fact that I was running away, and he was determined to flee with me.

You understand, it is not difficult for a dog to flea with any one,

and we had slept together many a night. Is it any wonder that I had an

itching for adventure? When the time came to set forth in quest of that

for which I itched I certainly came up to the scratch.

And so, behold me, gentle reader, on that dark and gloomy midnight,

making my get-away with faithful little Fido gamboling at my heels.

Dark it was, indeed--so dark that a load of coal that had been dumped

outside the back door of the Wiley domicile looked like a snowdrift.

Nevertheless, also, and likewise, I knew the lay of the land, and the

points of the compass, and, having reached the highway, I hastened to

hie away.

It must not be thought for a single fleeting zodiac of time that I was

taking this nocturnal departure from home without feeling as much as a

transient emotion of regret, for I have a naturally tender and touching

nature, in proof of which I might call upon hundreds of persons whom I

have touched on various occasions.

I shed tears at the thought of all I was leaving behind me--tears of

sincere regret; for there were about ten or a dozen persons in that

town whom I had sworn to thrash within an inch of their lives, and I

was saddened by the thought that I was leaving the work unaccomplished.

Blinded by these tears, as well as the intense darkness, I came near

meeting with a frightful disaster while taking a short cut across a

back yard; for I fell about twenty-five feet into an old well, and

landed in water that was at least umsteen feet deep. Perhaps it is not

precisely accurate to say that I _landed_ in that water; suffice it to

say that I dropped into it casually up to my pompadore, and found it

extremely wet.

“Ah-ha!” I exclaimed, coughing up about a gallon of _aqua pura_ which I

had thoughtlessly swallowed. “I’m in a hole now.”

I began to feel of the wet and slippery rocks around me, and I must

assert that, in spite of my unpleasant predicament, I was feeling

well. In vain I tried to fasten my flippers on those slippery rocks;

they were smoother than a con man. I couldn’t obtain a sustaining hold

anywhere, and I was compelled to tread water to keep my head above the

surface.

Now, treading water in a well about twenty-five feet below the level of

_terra firma_ is an occupation that becomes monotonous in the course

of time. If you don’t believe me, just try it once. It will make you

tired. It did me. I sought to brace my hands and feet against opposite

sides of the well, and to crawl upward in that manner, but every time I

attempted it I slipped down. If I could only have slipped up I should

have been very happy indeed.

I could hear little Fido howling dolefully and despairingly above

me. The intelligent beast knew, beyond doubt, the full extent of my

frightful peril.

Gradually I was growing benumbed by the icy chill of the water and

exhausted by my efforts, and I realized that unless I could soon find

some method of extricating myself from that well my bath was going to

disagree with me very extensively. So, while still treading water, I

put my colossal intellect at work upon the problem.

It seemed a terrible thing to have the career of adventure upon which

I had set forth cut short at such an early date. The prospect was far

from pleasing.

“Water death to die!” I groaned, in anguish.

Luckily for me, no one heard the remark, for if any one had he might

have been tempted to drop a brick upon my head.

No one heard me except little Fido, and he howled worse than ever.

At last I was struck by a bright idea--an idea that made me chortle

with glee and wonder why it had not occurred to me before. It was so

simple!

I will explain for the edification of the unsuspecting reader that

I have always been a great athlete, and the possessor of scandalous

strength. I once lifted a horse and buggy. I had quite a time over it,

I acknowledge; the judge gave me three months.

When the happy thought came over me I was almost overcome. As soon as

I could find my breath I proceeded to put it into execution. More than

one person has lost his breath by putting it into execution, but what’s

the use of being hanged if you can help it? While treading water I

reached down with both hands, secured a good, firm grip on the later

portion of my trowserloons, took a long breath, and lifted with all my

enormous strength.

The result justified my agreeable expectations. I felt myself rising!

I kept on rising faster and faster, straining every nerve in the

tremendous effort. In this manner I lifted myself clean out of that

twenty-five-foot well, and fell, panting and exhausted, upon the solid

earth, my strength failing me just as I was fully and fairly above

ground.

If the skeptical reader doesn’t believe this I can show him the well.

CHAPTER II. FIDO TO THE RESCUE.

Despite my narrow escape from a watery grave, my larder for adventure

was not dampened in the least, and so, with my little dog percolating

at my heels, I tramped onward throughout the remainder of that night,

with my face set toward Boston.

Morning came at last. I was far from home when dawn broke across the

wold. (I use the word “wold” instead of world because it sounds more

poetic, and I am naturally of a highly poetic extinction.) Little birds

began to carol in the wayside thickets, crickets cricked in the grass,

in a near-by marsh frogs were celebrating morning mass in a masterly

manner, and eventually the sun rose into a sky as blue as a poker

player who has bet his last blooming chip on four kings and found that

some other crook at the table holds four aces.

It was a beautiful morning, but, having been born with a decided

_penchant_ for food, without which I have unfortunately, up to the

present date, found it quite difficult to subsist, I had no eye for the

beauties of the universe scattered around me. My stomach was hollow.

I knew that little Fido must also be hungry, although he had bravely

refrained from saying so.

I knocked at the door of a house, and a kind lady came out and asked me

what I wanted. I told her I was that flemished that I knew I could find

nutriment even in the hole of a doughnut, which I would demonstrate to

her satisfaction if she had a few doughnut holes to spare.

At first the lady was somewhat suspicious. She asked me for my

name and pedigree. I told her my name was Johnny Jones, but that I

had carelessly mislaid my pedigree, and lost the blame thing. In

order to allay her suspicions, I related a pathetic tale about a

great-grandmother who was dying in Boston, and whose bedside I hoped to

reach before the doctors could finish her.

She was touched. She told me she was a widow, and I congratulated her

on the spur of the moment. She promised refreshments for me and my dog

if I would perform some slight manual labor by sawing a cord of wood or

so for her. The wood was in the woodshed. I inspected it with a sad and

regretful eye. It never did agree with me to saw wood, and I offered to

shovel the sunshine off the widow’s front walk.

But she was impervious to my argument, and so, peeling off my coat, I

seized the bucksaw and went at it. The saw needed honing, and I must

admit that I was greatly discouraged by the time I had amputated the

first stick or two. I knew I’d never last to finish the job on an empty

stomach, and this led me to set my colossal intellect at work on the

problem.

The widow had gone into the house to get breakfast. I paused and

pondered. A scheme came to me. I made an effort and found that by

zizzing my breath through my teeth and lips I could produce an

excellent imitation of a dull bucksaw cutting through a stick of wood.

For the next half hour or more I sat on the chopping block zizzing with

consummate industry, lifting and dropping a stick of wood at regular

intervals, so that it would fall with a thud loud enough to be heard in

the kitchen.

As soon as I dared, I put on my coat and strolled into the kitchen,

pretending to wipe beads of perspiration from my alabaster brow, and

betraying every skymptom of excessive exhaustion.

“Goodness!” exclaimed the widow, in surprise. “Did you saw the whole of

that wood as soon as this?”

“Yes, madam,” I answered, “I saw the whole of that wood.”

Then she regaled me with a sumptuous breakfast of ham and beans and

corn bread and coffee, and by the time little Fido and I were eternally

satiated the table looked as if it had been keeping a date with a

Kansas cyclone.

“You were indeed hungry,” said the kind widow. “You are very young

to be walking all the way to Boston to reach the bedside of a dying

great-grandmother. Now, your parents----”

“Are both dead,” I sighed.

“Oh,” said she, “you’re an orphan. Have you been so----”

“Not often,” I answered. “I believe I may truthfully say this is my

first offense.”

“Your great-grandmother--is she very old?”

“That is the sad part of it,” I moaned, bursting into tears. “It is

terrible for one to die so young. She is only thirty-five.”

The widow seemed surprised.

“Only thirty-five!” she exclaimed; “and your great-grandmother? You

are at least sixteen or seventeen. It is impossible for you to have a

great-grandmother who is only thirty-five!”

I perceived the necessity of side-stepping at once.

“Pardon me, madam,” I said. “The lady is my grandmother, but she weighs

at least two hundred and ninety pounds, so I call her my _great_

grandmother.”

And I got away with it. She was so relieved to find me strictly

truthful that she did not question the possibility of my having a

grandmother of that age. Had she done so, I should have explained

that doubtless in my haste I got the figures reversed, and that

my grandmother was fifty-three instead of thirty-five. Not being

particularly strong in mathematics, I sometimes make these little _fox

paws_ with figures.

“Your poor father and mother,” murmured the widow; “were they people of

a spiritual turn?”

“My father was,” I replied; “decidedly so. I have known him to go out

with the parson for spiritual stimulation. They would go into a back

room somewhere and sit down at an ordinary round table, and it would

not be long before spirits appeared before them. When those spirits

departed my father used to rap on the table, and more spirits would

come. After a prolonged séance of this kind my father usually saw

things.”

“Dear me!” said the widow. “How unfortunate to lose such a father. How

old was he when he passed away?”

“He was only fifty-nine,” I answered, with criminal carelessness.

Immediately, if not sooner than that, I perceived that it was time for

me to be wending my way onward, and I proceeded to wend, overloading

her with such a burden of gratitude that she didn’t have time to get

her breath before I was half a mile down the road.

Near noon I approached the hoop skirts of a large city. As I

approached, I perceived posted on fences and the sides of old barns

many carnivorous posters advertising a circus which was to appear in

that town on that very date.

Entering the town, I lemonaded slowly down the principal street. Ere

long my ears were saluted by a sound resembling a base libel on music,

and soon the circus band at the head of a long procession made its

appearance.

Both sides of the street were lined with gaping multitudes. It seemed

that everybody in town and for miles around had assembled to witness

that parade. Lawyers, doctors, storekeepers, clerks, stenographers,

street laborers, everybody, in fact, had gathered upon the sidewalks to

see the procession pass, and for the time being business in that town

was placed _horse de tomcat_.

The music assassinators of the band were dressed in bright-red suits,

and rode in a gilded chariot. Next in line, a short distance behind the

band chariot, came the biggest elephant I have ever seen; certainly the

creature must have weighed twelve or fourteen tons, more or less.

In the center of the city there was a wooden bridge spanning a deep,

dark river. Unfortunately, this bridge was not of sufficient strength

to sustain the weight of that huge elephant. Just as the monster

reached the middle span of the structure there was a sudden cracking of

timbers, and the bridge gave way, precipitating the immense creature

into the water.

The excitement immediately became intense. Women shrieked, men shouted,

and, to the relief of everybody, the circus band stopped firing. The

splash of the elephant striking the surface of the river resembled

a clap of thunder, and water was flung over the top of a five-story

building near at hand.

Crowding to the nearest bank of the river, I perceived the poor

beast floundering distressingly in the middle of the stream. Almost

immediately I became aware that the creature could not swim, and was,

therefore, doomed to be drowned unless some one could devise a means

of its rescue. Right before the eyes of those helpless and horrified

spectators the beast sank and rose and sank again.

The manager of the circus, who was likewise the owner, came tearing

through the crowd, frothing at the mouth, and shrieking that he would

pay a reward of five hundred dollars to any one who would rescue the

elephant.

I saw my opportunity, and grappled with it.

“Clam yourself, sir,” said I. “I will relieve you of that five hundred.

Your priceless treasure shall not perish.”

Then I called my faithful dog.

“Fido,” I cried, pointing toward the drowning mammal, “it’s up to you

to get busy. We need the mazuma. Go fetch, Fido.”

Instantly my noble dog plunged into the river and swam swiftly toward

the elephant. Just as the great beast was sinking for the third time,

Fido seized it by one ear, and, holding the elephant’s head above the

surface, turned and struck out for the nearest shore.

It was a fearful struggle. For a time the issue hung in the balance,

or words to that effect. Once Fido, elephant, and all disappeared from

view, and the crowd shouted in a high key. That is, most of the crowd;

but, judging by the smell of the man’s breath next to me, the key

he shouted in was whisky. I touched him gently on the shoulder, and

admonished him to keep up his spirits. Hiccuping slightly, he assured

me that it was frequently far more difficult for him to keep them down.

With folded arms, I serenely waited until little Fido reached the bank

and dragged the elephant, limp and nearly drowned, but still alive, out

upon dry ground.

The spectators cheered wildly, and the proprietor of the circus made a

dastardly attempt to fall on my neck and kiss me, but I held him off.

“My dear boy,” he cried, “I owe you a thousand thanks.”

“No,” I answered; “you owe me five hundred dollars, and I’ll take it in

frigid cash. Even a certified check will be scrutinized with suspicion.”

CHAPTER III. THE CAPTAIN MEETS A RASCAL.

The proprietor of the circus was most profuse in his gratitude. He

was a gent who, without exaggeration, could be called effulgent. He

certainly had a rush of words to the mouth, but I declined to let the

flow of gas overcome me, rigidly insisting on my rights, and demanding

that he should make good and cough up. Seeing that I could not be

bluffed, he finally extended an invitation for me to accompany him to

his headquarters at the circus grounds, where he could renumerate me

according to his promise.

“I want you to understand,” he said, “that I am a man of my word. I am

Samuel P. Slick, proprietor and owner of Slick’s Mammoth Circus and

Colossal Aggregation of Wild Beasts.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Slick,” said I. “I am highly flavored. Lead on,

and I will stick to you closer than a porous plaster to a rheumatic

shoulder blade.”

Visions of that five hundred percolated through my cerebellum. In fancy

I was already fingering various long, green certificates with pictures

of presidents upon them. Why, I had that money spent before we even

hove in sight of the circus grounds.

Mr. Slick led me to a small tent abaft the main tent. Little Fido

followed us cheerfully. As soon as we were inside the small tent, and

thus shielded from prying eyes, Mr. Slick sunk his grappling hooks into

his trowsers pocket and dragged up a solitary greasy five-dollar bill,

which he beamingly offered me.

“Take it, son--take it!” he urged magnanimously. “You deserve it, for

that dog of yours is really a wonder.”

“I beg your hasty pudding,” said I, refraining from cleaving unto the

fiver; “but haven’t you made a slight mistake?”

“Eh?” said he quickly. “Why, I thought I said five. Is it possible that

I said one? Oh, well, never mind; we’ll call it five, just the same,

for it certainly was worth it. It’s yours!”

“What under the canister of heaven do you take me for?” I cried warmly.

“You said five hundred. Get busy, Mr. Slick, and add about ninety-nine

duplicates to that lonesome William.”

Immediately Mr. Slick blew up. He turned purple in the face, and looked

like a toad with the colic.

“Why, you young scoundrel,” he roared, “are you trying to bluff me out

of a lot of real money? I said I’d give any one five dollars to save my

elephant, and I meant it. Under the circumstances, I’m not obliged to

pay you a cent, for you didn’t pull the elephant out; it was that there

dog that did it. But I can’t give money to a dog, and so----”

He started to put the bill back into his pocket.

I reached right out and secured it.

“I can take money from one,” I remarked, “and that’s just about what

you are--and then a few. Unfortunately the United States slanguage does

not furnish adjectives suitable to fit your particular case, and, as it

happens that I can’t speak French a great deal better than I can speak

it, I’ll refrain from attempting the impossible task of telling you

just what I think of you. It chances that I’m busted; otherwise I would

spurn your filthy lucifer with ignominy.”

I left him in high dudgeon, and went right away from there. I’ll admit

that I was extensively sore; but five bones would purchase a beefsteak

and trimmings, and I was again languishing with hunger.

We dined, Fido and I, and we went the limit, from _beef a la mud_ to

_demi tassles_. When I had tipped the waiter munificently I found that

only twenty cents of the late-lamented fiver remained in the exchequer.

With that I purchased a flagrant Havana cigar, and again set forth upon

my weary tramp toward my predestination.

I think I had left the city about a mile astern, and was slowly oozing

along, buried in deep thought, when the sudden consummate blast of an

automobubble horn gave me such a start that I jumped about ten feet

straight up into the ambient atmosphere.

Now, it happened that the gasoline jaunting car was approaching from

behind with considerable acceleration. I am sure the buzz wagon could

not have been more than ten rods behind me when the cheffonier blew

that blast on his horn, and the blasted thing made me jump.

And the machine was moving with such expedience that when I came down I

alighted fairly on the cushioned seat in the tonneau.

By the time I got my breath and quieted the spasmatic beatings of my

heart, I realized that I was comfortably languishing in a strictly

first-class, up-to-date naughty-mobile that was taking me toward Boston

a great deal faster than I could walk.

Besides yours truly, the only other person in the car was the driver,

who was so preoccupied with his job of taking the road turns at about

seventy miles an hour, that he had not even seemed casually to notice

the unceremonious manner in which I had dropped in on him.

The old gocart was a good one. On looking it over with the eye of a

cricket, I perceived at once that in the way of such machines it might

be called the _ne plus ulster_.

I congratulated myself with impunity. What could be more satisfactory

than to make a portion of my journey in this manner? With a sigh of

contentment, I settled back, murmuring in dulcet tones:

“Let her rip, old boy! As long as you don’t try to hurdle a stone wall

or climb a tree, you can’t feaze little Walter.”

Then came a sudden horrifying thought: My dog--my poor little dog Fido!

What had become of him?

I turned to cast my eyes backward, but, fearing I might not recover

them if I did so, I refrained, and simply looked.

That is, I tried to look, but the course astern was simply blotted out

by a cloud of dust. There was so much dust in the air that it seemed to

crowd itself for room. I felt sure we were tearing up the solid earth

at such a rate that where the road had been there would remain nothing

but a long, deep ditch after we had passed over it.

Poor little Fido! Would I ever again behold my faithful little quinine

companion? I feared not.

In a short time, however, we struck a long strip of macadamized

bullyvard, and, again looking round, I pereevered that we were no

longer distributing the highway over the adjacent country.

Imagine my unbounded amazement and joy on discovering my little dog a

few rods abeam, coming like the wind, his eyes protruding like glass

doorknobs, and something like a yard and a half of his tongue hanging

from his mouth. He was simply making tremendous endeavors to keep up

with that car, which now seemed to be only occasionally connecting

slightly with the extremely remote elevations--and he was practically

doing it.

But I realized that this could not last long. Speedy as he surely was,

Fido could not continue to hit it up at something better than a mile a

minute for more than forty or fifty miles without eventually becoming

weary and discouraged.

On the spur of the momentum I decided that something must be done.

Then I called to little Fido, making at the same time an encouraging

genuflexion with my lily-white hand. He responded at once with a

tremendous burst of speed and a flying leap that brought him sailing

over the back of the machine into the tonneau beside me.

TO BE CONTINUED.

A DIVER’S GREATEST DANGER.

The greatest enemy of the diver is paralysis, and this, strangely

enough, is not caused by sending him into the sea, but in carelessly

taking him out of it. In bringing a diver to the surface from any great

depth, as much as half an hour is spent in what is known as “staging”

him. He is brought up to a certain depth from the surface and there

held, while he fights vigorously with arms and legs to quicken the

circulation temporarily, and so to assist in sweeping the excess of

nitrogen out of the tissues of the body. This excess of nitrogen,

forced into the blood under pressure of air and water, is the cause of

diver’s paralysis. At various depths before reaching the surface, the

good diver, who understands what causes paralysis, will “stage” and

prepare himself to leave the water. Once on the deck of the lugger, he

will rest and recover himself for another descent, and so throughout

the day.

PRESENCE OF MIND.

A passenger on a transatlantic liner had been sick for five days in

succession. One evening he felt somewhat better, and promenaded the

saloon for some time. About ten o’clock he thought of retiring to his

stateroom, which was on the upper deck. Before leaving the saloon he

sought the steward and said:

“I want you to send me some hot water for shaving at half past six in

the morning. Will you remember it?”

The steward promised, and the passenger started up the saloon

companionway. The steps were brass-covered and very slippery. He

reached the first landing all right, but slipped on the first step of

the second and came rattling all the way down again. He was picked up

rather battered, but not a bit disconcerted.

“Steward,” he said gravely, “I just came back to tell you not to forget

that hot water at half past six in the morning.”

NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Declares He Fasted for Fifty-one Days.

Charles B. Champion, grain man, of Fort Worth, Texas, is boasting about

a fasting feat which he believes surpasses all long-distance records in

the abstinence line. But he did not go out to win any “noneats” record

primarily.

His health was poor. He had read that the stomach was frequently abused

by the callous and indifferent manner in which it is burdened with more

or less indigestible substances, and decided to give it a rest.

He concluded a little trip “back to nature” would produce desirable

results. He took his family with him to the mountains of Pennsylvania

and there emulated the mendicant who has “had nothing to eat for three

days.” But he went the average street-corner solicitor of alms one

better. Also, he vied with a certain brand of medical wizards who had

gone without food longer than the ordinary man cares to.

For fifty-one days he took no food, and drank only water. At the end

of his fasting period, although he had lost thirty-nine pounds in

weight, he was declared physically sound by physicians. During his fast

he experienced no discomfort, and spent enjoyable days whipping the

streams near his camp for trout, and in long tramps over the country.

Governor Doused When Gun Kicks.

While on a shooting expedition along the St. Francis River, in

Missouri, with Governor Hays, of Arkansas, Governor Major, of Missouri,

got a cold bath. The two governors were crossing a bayou in a canoe.

Governor Hays fired at a duck and missed. Governor Major dropped his

paddle, and, standing half erect, blazed away. The kick of the gun

knocked him into the water. The Arkansas governor managed to reach him

and draw him back in the canoe. Each killed a deer before leaving the

canebrakes.

Beachey Loops the Loop.

Lincoln Beachey, the aviator, looped the loop twice in the air above

North Island, California, recently. Starting at a height of 2,500 feet,

he dropped straight downward into the first loop and immediately turned

over again into the second, landing afterward. At no time, seemingly,

was there any loss of control. Beachey said he would repeat the

performance.

Beachey’s feat of looping the loop with a biplane fitted with an

upright motor upset the theory of experts, who had asserted that

nothing but a revolving motor, such as the Frenchman Pegoud used, could

carry an aëroplane over the top of the loop. Beachey said the loop was

much easier of achievement than flying upside down. He made several

upside-down flights at North Island.

Little Pig by Parcel Post.

Under the protecting wing of Uncle Sam and in care of the employees

of the mail department, a little white Chester pig, four weeks old,

celebrated his birthday recently by visiting Montpelier, Vt., for

the first time, arriving on the afternoon mail train by parcel post,

in what was probably one of the “softest” journeys ever taken by a

“piggie,” at least in that part of the country, at any rate it was

the first of the “pig nationality” to ever arrive in that city in this

manner.

A very much surprised man was Frank Muzzy, janitor at the C. V.

station, who carries the mail to the post office, when a small crate

was passed out of the car, containing a little white “grunter,” and as

long as a precedent has been established on animals, Frank is wondering

whether or not he may get a box of snakes by the same route some day.

Passengers and people waiting at the station flocked around the crate,

which was piled high upon the mail bags, showing great interest in the

strange parcel, which was at once taken to the post office, and within

an hour or so, a government employee had delivered the strange shipment

to William I. Brown. The little animal was shipped from Robinson, Vt.,

by Joseph King.

The postage on the little traveler amounted to 43 cents.

Polonium as Medicine.

Sir William Ramsay, of England, discussing the properties of radium at

a meeting of the British Radium Corporation recently, said there were

other substances in the radium ores which had not so far been exploited

from a therapeutic point of view. He hoped that polonium, which was

perhaps the most easily produced, might prove to possess therapeutic

qualities for the treatment of diseases which had hitherto not been

treated.

Polonium, said Sir William, was somewhat analogous to selenium and

tellurium, and also to bismuth, the therapeutic qualities of which

had been tested. Those three elements remained in the system for

some length of time, and then were excreted, but had practically no

therapeutical qualities. Polonium differed from them entirely in that

it gave off alpha rays, just the same as radium did, and he could not

help believing that the potency of radium for therapeutic purposes

depended upon the alpha rays.

Radium could not be administered as medicine to human beings, as it was

too expensive, and probably too dangerous, but the three substances he

had mentioned were eliminated in about three months, and his impression

was that polonium might produce its effects for about that time and

then be eliminated.

Bill Dahlen Out.

Bill Dahlen, manager of the Brooklyn National Baseball Club, has been

given his unconditional release. Dahlen had held the place for four

years. He was famous as a shortstop.

Lost Hand in Experiment.

With a book on “Experimental Science” at his call, Godfrey Meier,

junior, fifteen years old, tried an experiment in the back yard of

his home in New York, after school one day recently. Just what his

experiment consisted of the police could not learn, but the result was

an explosion, which blew off the fingers of the boy’s right hand and so

lacerated the hand that it was amputated in Flower Hospital.

When his mother asked him what caused the accident he said he was

playing with a magneto. The police think, however, that he had got

hold of a fulminating cap or something of the kind. At the time of the

accident a four-year-old nephew of Godfrey was standing only a few feet

away. The child was knocked down, but was not injured.

Wireless News to Train.

For the first time on record, news bulletins taken by wireless were

displayed on a moving train recently. Passengers on No. 3 on the

Lackawanna Railroad were astonished to see the latest foreign and home

dispatches spread before their eyes as they were being whirled along at

sixty miles an hour between Scranton and Binghamton, Pa.

The Scranton _Times_ sent 250 words from the Lackawanna wireless

station to the moving train. One was on the battle in Mexico, another

regarding the strike in Schenectady, another relating to the dilemma in

Washington with respect to landing marines in Mexico.

When the train left Hoboken the wireless apparatus was somewhat

disabled, as a generator had burned out. The operator, however, was

able to take dispatches and give the passengers a news service unique

in history.

“To think we didn’t have it for the world’s series!” mourned an excited

Chicago man.

He Prefers the Family Nag.

Wabash County, Indiana, has at least one resident who has never ridden

on a railroad train, street car, or automobile, and whose fastest rate

of travel is limited to the speed of his horse. This man is Jonathan

Beal, who has lived in New Holland, a village in the eastern part of

the county, for the last sixty years, having moved there with his

parents when about fifteen years old. Mr. Beal is of the opinion that

his family nag can go fast enough for all practical purposes.

Mr. Beal travels little, and his journeys during the last threescore

years have been confined almost wholly to trips to Wabash, the county

seat, eleven miles from his home. In making the trip he always uses his

horse, and has refused many invitations to ride in a machine.

Though motor cars hourly pass his home, he never sees a train, only

when in Wabash, as no railroad touches New Holland.

Operate on Human Heart.

Probably the most daring chapter in modern surgery is that which treats

of operations on the heart, says the _World’s Work_. “The road to the

heart is only two or three inches long, but it has taken surgery nearly

2,600 years to traverse it,” is one writer’s striking remark. How

recent this work is, is made plain from the fact that a book published

by Stephen Paget, in 1895, contained a chapter on “Surgery of the

Heart,” the words being contemptuously inclosed in quotation marks.

The scientist, as well as the layman, looked upon the heart with an

almost superstitious awe. Any injury necessarily implied death; any

interference with such an injury could only hasten the end. Yet many

shrewd observers in the course of the ages had noted that all heart

wounds did not result in instantaneous death.

It was not until ten or fifteen years ago that surgeons began to

act upon this knowledge. In exceptional cases death did not result

immediately from a heart wound; there were intervals of a few days or

a few weeks. Why not utilize the interval in an attempt to sew up the

wound? Medical history now reports many successful operations of this

kind.

An especially noteworthy one, performed upon an Alabama negro boy in

1902, illustrates the resources of modern heart surgery. This boy

had been the victim of an especially nasty stab wound. The knife had

penetrated the apex of the heart and passed into the left ventricle,

making a wound nearly half an inch long. When the boy was placed upon

the operating table, in the little negro cabin, the signs of death had

already appeared. His feet were cold and his face showed signs of the

utmost distress. The surgeon made a little, windowlike opening just

above the heart. Through this they could readily see the injured organ,

the blood spurting from the wound at each pulsation. One surgeon put in

his hand, pulled the heart upward, and held it while another sewed the

wound with catgut.

The operation--performed without an anæsthetic--lasted fifty-five

minutes; on the sixteenth day the boy was sitting up; in a short time

his heart was as good as ever.

Fear Rube Waddell is Dying.

In spite of his belief that he was suffering only from a slight attack

of bronchitis, “Rube” Waddell, once a great baseball pitcher, has left

Minneapolis to begin a battle with tuberculosis, at his sister’s home

in San Antonio, Texas.

A short time ago a story was current that he had fallen a victim to the

white plague, but he scoffed at the idea, and said he was suffering

from a severe cold.

Since then he has been growing steadily weaker, and has been in bed for

several days. His physicians fear that Waddell’s chances for recovery

are slight.

Ruse of Girl Who Desired to Marry.

When Martha J. Mayers, sixteen, applied for a marriage license at Fort

Collins, Colo., she told the clerk that she was over eighteen. She

insisted in court the next day that she was telling the truth.

She explained to County Judge Fred W. Stover that before going for

the license she had placed a piece of paper with the figures eighteen

written on it in her shoe so that she could truthfully say she was over

eighteen.

The girl declared that her grandmother had told her of the scheme.

Bert B. Cain, who was arrested for perjury following the marriage to

the sixteen-year-old girl, was held under bond.

Man Wanders Fifty Hours.

Fifty hours without food or sleep, Harry L. Sommerville, manager of the

Savoy Hotel, at North Yakima, Wash., wandered into the store in the

Nile, in the headwaters of the Tieton basin, and later arrived in North

Yakima. With W. W. Stratton, Roy Gilbert, and a man named Mulligan,

Sommerville went hunting near Bumping Lake. He started from the camp to

meet another of the party. He crossed a ridge and missed the other man.

When the hour of the appointment passed Sommerville found that his worn

tennis shoes with rubber soles were so slippery that he could not mount

the side of the ridge again over the wet logs and pine needles.

“I had no feeling of fear at any time. I did not dare to go to sleep

at night because of the cold in the mountains, but kept pushing on

slowly. It seemed to me that I traveled a thousand miles, but it

appears on the map to be only about thirty.”

Indian Wins Cotton Prize.

Jack Postoak, a full-blooded Mississippi Choctaw Indian, living

in Carter County, Okla., won the sweepstake prize for cotton over

competition of all the world at the International Dry Farming Congress,

at Tulsa. He also won over all competitors at the New State Fair, at

Muskogee. The contest required a showing in six different stages of

cotton growing--seed, seed cotton, hulls, stalks, bolls, and lint

cotton.

Three years ago Postoak had sold or leased the four allotments in his

family, and was preparing to go back to Mississippi because he could

not make a living on 1,400 acres of land in Oklahoma. A government

agricultural agent induced Postoak to try once more under government

supervision. He did, on a little fifty-acre tract of land near Ardmore.

In three years Postoak developed from the starving Indian class to a

great cotton grower.

Gives Rules for Good Health.

Walk six miles a day.

Live in the fresh air.

Get out in the open in the winter.

Eat proper food.

Keep your body clean.

Sleep well.

If a person follows these rules he will always be healthy, according

to Governor W. N. Ferris, who addressed the delegates attending the

annual convention of the Michigan Association for the Prevention of

Tuberculosis.

Bees Acquire Opium Habit.

The honey bees near Fostoria, Ohio, have contracted the opium habit.

Like the Chinese, they get theirs from the poppy. Many residents of

Fostoria grow Oriental poppies. The bees have found this out, and of

late they are leaving acres of clover blossoms to hunt out the poppy

beds.

They work vigorously for an hour or so, and then fall to the ground,

apparently as stupefied as are Chinese opium smokers after “hitting the

pipe.”

It is said if the bees could only be kept sober, there would doubtless

be a great demand for the honey.

The Kaiser Held Up?

A report in circulation at Berlin, Germany, apparently originating

in Vienna, is to the effect that the kaiser is about to sell the old

Monbijou Palace, now the Hohenzollern Museum. It is asserted that the

sale is due to the fact that the recent increase of the emperor’s civil

list is insufficient.

There was a similar report some weeks ago regarding the alleged

projected sale of a castle in the Rhineland.

Confirmation of the report is not obtainable.

A Family of White Squirrels.

A family of white squirrels, pure white from tip to tip, is making its

home in a locust tree near the gate of Captain Wyman X. Folsom’s place,

opposite Interstate Park, Taylor’s Falls, Minn.

How they came to be white, Nature, wise old friend of the woodland

folk, only knows. But probably they are albino members of the red

squirrel race. The freaks were discovered six weeks ago, and now are

so tame it is possible to approach within three or four feet of them

before there’s a gleam of white dashing up the nearest tree.

George Hazzard, park commissioner, and members of the Folsom household,

have been taking particularly good care that nothing happens to them,

and perhaps Interstate Park eventually will have a whole race of white

squirrels. Anyway, that’s the idea behind the careful care which

surrounds the curiosities.

Already, however, unkind fate in the form of a mean old cat has evaded

the guardians, and one young squirrel’s life has been forfeited.

“He was one of the nicest of the five,” declared Martin Tangen,

druggist and friend of Nature’s children. Now the two old squirrels are

doing their best to keep their two remaining children from other harm.

Houses have been built for the white denizens, and they are to have an

easy time this winter, according to the plans of Commissioner Hazzard,

for proper food will be available, no matter how hard the earth freezes

at the base of their locust tree.

Back-pension Pay Good as Fortune.

Frank Ferris, seventy-nine, of Atchison, Kan., who served during the

Civil War in the Third Regiment of Missouri Infantry, applied for a

pension in 1890, but because he could not produce his discharge he was

denied one. He kept on in his efforts to prove that he was a soldier,

and some time ago secured the help of United States Senator Thompson.

Recently the adjutant general of Missouri, in going through the records

that were kept in that office during the war days, discovered the dates

of both the mustering in and discharge of Ferris, and on the strength

of this the pension will be allowed.

He will receive $30 a month and back pay for twenty-three years at the

rate of $12 a month, or more than $3,000 in all.

Ferris is a carpenter, and a poor man. His wife is nearly eighty years

old. There is general rejoicing.

Reception Room for Warship Crew.

Secretary Daniels, of the navy, approved plans for a reception and

reading room for enlisted men on the new battleship _New York_.

Mr. Daniels said the provision was a new departure, and has been

inaugurated to increase the comfort of the crew and add to the

attractiveness of the ship for enlisted men and their visitors when in

port. Similar changes probably will be inaugurated on other vessels.

Calf Has no Tail.

A valuable Holstein cow, belonging to F. L. Sweet, of North Adams,

Mass., has given birth to a handsome calf which, strange to say, has no

tail. Sweet prizes the calf very highly, and jokingly remarked that he

might have it “retailed.”

Fewer Free Seeds? Statesmen Angry.

Secretary Houston, of the department of agriculture, is “in bad” with

numerous members of Congress because he has recommended that the

distribution of ordinary vegetable and flower seeds be discontinued.

Carloads and carloads of these seeds have been distributed free

under postal franks of congressmen and senators, the cost being about

$300,000 a year. Secretary Houston wants to devote part of the money

to the distribution of new and valuable seeds and plants, on a smaller

scale.

Walking Hencoop Arrested.

A policeman in the outskirts of St. Louis, Mo., saw a man whose form

was anything but a perfect thirty-six. His coat looked as if some

tailor had settled an old grudge in the general fit, and he fidgeted

along like a person who is harboring a bee.

Suspicious, the officer pursued the man and lifted his coat. Three

fowls cackled gratefully to the ground. The officer asked for an

explanation, and the portable hencoop informed him that the chickens

flew into his coat to get warm.

The police regulations prohibit the belief of anything as rough as

that, and the man was arrested.

Shot Found in Her Appendix.

Surgeons of the Harrisburg, Pa., Hospital removed from the appendix of

Mrs. Reuben Ulrich, of Seline Grove, Pa., two grains of the shot with

which her husband killed a rabbit last week. Mrs. Ulrich ate a part of

the rabbit.

Passes Dog Off as Baby to Take it on a Train.

Because it would cost $1 fare for her dog, while babies could ride

free, a Mrs. Welchel, of near Lead Hill, Ark., recently “put one over

on the railroad company” by dressing her pet dog in baby clothes.

When Mrs. Welchel, with the “baby,” climbed aboard the hack to Lead

Hill, Fido let loose a series of barks. “Her hand exposed,” Mrs.

Welchel turned back a veil, and from the bundle of supposed humanity

there appeared the head of a fice.

Conductor Clyde Miller, when told of the success of the ruse, merely

remarked: “It takes a woman to beat the road.”

Leg Buried With His Body.

Valentine Weisenberger’s right leg, which was amputated twelve years

ago, was brought from the undertaker’s dead room and placed in

Weisenberger’s coffin to be buried with the rest of the body at Fort

Wayne, Ind., recently.

When Weisenberger’s leg was amputated he ordered it delivered to an

undertaker with instructions for the latter to embalm it and keep it

for the complete burial. His orders were followed.

Smallest High-school Boy.

George Fielding, a freshman in the Brazil, Ind., High School, is the

smallest pupil who ever entered the school. He is 2 feet 10 inches

high. He stands well in his studies. His home is at Carbon.

“Some Punkins.”

There are 500 pumpkins on one vine which covers an eighth of an acre on

Doctor R. G. Sloan’s farm, at Little River, S. C. One of the pumpkins

weighs 100 pounds.

No Reason for Egg Famine.

Although the country faces something like an egg famine to-day, the

number of eggs produced in this country has increased more rapidly than

the population, according to the census bureau. Between 1899 and 1909

the population increased 11 per cent, but the egg production grew 23

per cent.

This estimate does not include the large number of eggs produced by

amateur poultrymen in the suburbs of cities. It shows merely the farm

product.

The price of eggs paid to the farmers in that period advanced an

average of about 11 cents to an average of 19 cents.

Illinois enjoyed the cheapest egg supply. The price there in 1912

varied from 22 to 28 cents a dozen. In New York it was 29 cents to 41

cents.

The estimated production of eggs for 1913 is 1,734,529,000 dozen, an

average of 17.7 dozen per capita. In 1909 the production was only

1,591,311,000 dozen.

Curley, the Crow, Still Living.

“Curley, the Crow,” the only survivor of the Custer massacre, a

half-blood Sioux scout, is in his seventy-second year. He declares that

the famous painting, “Custer’s Last Stand,” does not truly represent

the scene, since it shows scalped and mutilated American soldiers on

the field of battle at Little Horn, where, on June 24, 1876, Custer and

practically all of his command perished. “There was no scalping and no

mutilation,” says Curley. “Four hundred and seventy-three soldiers were

killed, and not a mark was found on them that was not made by bullets.

I was General Custer’s scout, and he had sent me for re-enforcements

the night before the battle. I was returning with Captain Bentline and

his command. While I was still a long way off my horse was shot from

under me, and I got down and ran until I came into the thick of the

fighting. As I got there, I saw the soldiers were lying dead right and

left. Those four hundred and seventy-three had been surrounded by six

thousand Sioux. I saw Custer fighting with his saber, and I thought

he was the last man alive there, but I soon saw that his brother,

Lieutenant Tom Custer, was fighting beside him. He fell, and General

Custer then stood alone. The Indians could easily have killed him

before that, but the purpose was to take him alive. Fourteen Indians

whom he had slashed and gashed with his saber lay near him, most of

them dead or dying. I called to General Custer, meaning to tell him of

General Reno’s refusal to come, and he said, ‘You here, Curley? We’ll

fight to the end.’ Those were his last words. A big Sioux seized his

arm, and Custer turned on him and dealt a terrible saber stroke that

half cut his head off. As he did this, the son of the Sioux fired

his rifle at Custer, and the bullet went through his heart. I pushed

through toward Custer as he fell. I held his head as he sank back dead.”

Changes in Water-polo and Swimming-race Rules.

Radical changes in the rules that came up for consideration were passed

upon favorably at the annual meeting of the Intercollegiate Swimming

Association held at the New York Athletic Club a few days ago. Most

of them affected water polo, and all were proposed by the graduate

advisory board, a committee created last winter, when the managers and

captains of the various college teams, after encountering all sorts of

trouble with the rules in vogue, decided the matter ought to be placed

in the hands of competent and experienced veterans of the sport.

The work of this committee, judging from the report, was thorough.

Water polo came in for most of their attention, they asserted, because

it was that division that had created most dissatisfaction. With an eye

toward making the contests less one-sided than heretofore, the board

ruled that in future the ball be given to the team scored against after

each goal.

A second change was the substitution of three periods for two in every

game, to alleviate the tax on the strength and stamina of the players,

and another was an amendment permitting a player to return to the game

after he had once been withdrawn. The object of the latter ruling is

to decrease the size of the visiting squad and thereby reduce their

traveling expenses. The value of this change cannot be overestimated,

for the matter of expenses has been the bugbear that has retarded the

development of the sport among the colleges.

The elimination of the one and a half Flying Dutchman from the list of

legal dives was another important amendment. The dive was considered

too dangerous for collegians, several serious accidents having resulted

at dual meets within the last few years.

There was one subject, however, over which the advisory board and the

college representatives failed to agree, and that was the question of

eliminating the plunge from the list of events to make room for the

back stroke. The board favored the change on the ground that the plunge

was not an interesting event from a spectator’s standpoint, that it

did not develop swimmers, and that it had been stricken off national

and Olympic programs. The back stroke was one style of swimming at

which Americans had been beaten easily at the last Olympic meet. The

delegates, however, voted to refuse the change principally because most

of the colleges had first-class plungers on their squads--men capable

of winning points.

No other colleges having requested admission into the association,

the championship tournament will again be limited to Yale, Princeton,

Pennsylvania, Columbia, and the College of the City of New York. To

interest other universities in the sport it was agreed to add a special

fifty-yard event for all colleges outside of the association in the

championship meet.

From Force of Habit.

T. R. Staley, of Brighton, Mich., has a horse of a religious turn of

mind. Mr. Staley has many horses, in fact, but each one is assigned

to a different duty. The one in question has always been used to

convey the family to church, and when not busy on Wednesday or Sunday

evenings, is turned into pasture. Saturday, however, Mr. Staley smashed

a precedent by hitching the animal up for a drive to the Farmers’ Club.

The farm helper drove the animal to the front door and there allowed it

to stand, untied. An unusual delay within the Staley abode kept Dobbin

standing past the appointed time for departure, and after a few anxious

glances, he ambled off in the direction of the Presbyterian Church,

where members of the family found him waiting at the regular hour to

take them home.

Weakling Dies at 102.

Believed to have such a slender hold on life that he was christened

when two days old, Philip Carlyon lived to be the oldest clergyman in

the kingdom. He died at Pennance House, Falmouth, England, within six

weeks of his 102d birthday. He was ordained in 1836 and retired at the

age of 70.

Mr. Carlyon possessed remarkable vitality until within a short period

of his death, taking long walks and attending church regularly. He

remembered his father lighting a bonfire on receipt of the news of

the battle of Waterloo, and was terribly frightened when an effigy of

Bonaparte was thrown into the flames, thinking it was a real man.

Mr. Carylon’s youngest brother died at the age of 92.

Cow in Chinese Restaurant.

Consternation was created among patrons of a Chinese restaurant, at

Ogden, Utah, when a cow which had been nibbling the grass growing

between the cobblestones of the street-car tracks, spied in the window

of the restaurant a quantity of green vegetables, and started in after

them. Frantic efforts to frighten away the cow proved futile, and Wong

Ching, the proprietor, telephoned the police. Patrolman John Russell

arrived later and drove the cow to the city pound.

Pays for Stolen Tobacco.

A. A. Bouch, who, twenty-four years ago, conducted a grocery store in

Manorville, Ford City, Pa., received the following letter from Edward

Cunningham, whose boyhood was passed in Manorville, and who now resides

in Pittsburgh:

“All is well with my soul. I have found salvation, and am born again.

When I found Jesus He told me to do His will, and to do right by any

man I have wronged. I asked Him to forgive me for stealing tobacco. I

inclose ten cents for two packages of tobacco which I took from your

store twenty-five years ago.”

Facts You May Not Know.

The great mass of steel in the buildings of lower New York is said to

affect the compasses of the ships approaching the city.

There are sixteen cables across the north Atlantic Ocean.

It is probable that the Nile contains a greater variety of fish than

any other river in the world. An expedition sent by the British Museum

brought back 8,000 specimens.

The target on the ground to test the accuracy of aëroplane bomb

throwers is sixty feet in diameter. The fifteen-pound bombs are dropped

at an elevation of 656 feet.

There are 20,000 kinds of butterflies in the world.

The custom of throwing rice at weddings originated in China.

A patient Englishman has carved the king’s monogram and similar devices

on an eggshell.

By the end of 1916 the Chinese army expects to have 1,000 aëroplanes,

this year’s budget calling for the purchase of 250.

Boys in a fresh-air school in Buffalo, N. Y., prune the orchard trees

on the school grounds, grow catalpa trees for future transplanting,

study bird whistles and notes as they hear them in the orchard, and

incidentally acquire a valuable insight into the main principles of

forestry.

A Clever Football Play.

“I would have given one thousand dollars if that play had gone for a

touchdown!” exclaimed Coach F. H. (“Hurry-Up”) Yost, after Quarter Back

Tommy Hughitt crossed the Penn’s goal on a fake-kick formation.

Hughitt was called back by Referee Eckersall, and Michigan was

penalized for holding in the line--a Michigan man slipped in the mud

and grabbed a Penn forward to save himself, and the referee called it

holding.

The play was Yost’s masterpiece--the crowning achievement of a career

unequaled in football. Never has the Wolverine Wizard conceived a

cleverer coup, and never had he taught his men to execute one with more

deadly precision.

Football men at the game united in declaring that the fake was the

cleverest thing they ever saw on a gridiron. It takes a higher place

than Yost’s marvelous triple forward pass, which dazed Penn a year ago.

The play came in the third quarter of the Michigan-Pennsylvania game

November 15. Michigan worked the ball to Penn’s thirty-yard line and

Captain Paterson was called back for a place kick.

In the Cornell game, a week previous, Paterson kicked goal under

identical conditions, and the Penn scouts had reported it.

Quarter Back Hughitt dropped upon one knee, with hands outstretched to

receive the ball and place it for Paterson’s educated toe.

Hughitt called the signal and the oval sailed through the air. But

the hearts of twenty thousand fluttered when it was seen that Hughitt

couldn’t place the ball properly. Paterson stepped forward to kick.

The Pennsylvania forwards were oozing through the line; the secondary

defense was closing in; there wasn’t a second to lose as Paterson’s

foot swung forward, missing the ball!

But as he missed Hughitt hugged the oval to his jersey, and, jumping

to his feet, swept around the Quaker line like a jack rabbit, to plant

the ball between the Quaker goal posts, while the Pennsylvania forwards

fought desperately to get back through the line they had been purposely

permitted to penetrate.

Such was the perfection of plan and execution that thousands did not

realize until the next day that it was a Yost coup, and not an accident.

Knife Gives Girl Sight.

Vera Critchfield, five years old, of Barberton, Ohio, blind from

birth, to-day is able to see. Her case is only one example of what

the State blind commission is doing for the blind children of Ohio.

The commission has proved that all children blind from birth are not

helplessly blind. One surgical operation removed the film from Vera’s

eyes. One or two others will fully restore her sight.

Dream Saves Her Farm.

A dream in which Miss Helen Lochlin, of Bennett, Ill., had a vision of

her dead brother directing her where to find a will he executed in 1897

saved her home to her when she was preparing to leave it because of an

administrator’s sale.

The will was found by Miss Lochlin, who is more than fifty years old,

where the vision told her it was hidden.

Miss Lochlin and her brother Frank lived on the small farm for many

years. Frank died in the spring of 1910, and shortly after a partition

suit was instituted by another sister, who lives in Denver. With no

funds to buy in the share of the estate awarded to the sister by the

court, Miss Lochlin was preparing to leave the home.

This will was proved authentic by the witnesses, and, as Miss Lochlin

was named executrix by her brother, the estate will not go under the

hammer, and she will remain on the farm.

Man Lives Long in Kitchen.

When C. B. Wright, an old soldier and bachelor, sold his home at

Argyle, Wis., the other day, to move to Florida, it was discovered that

since the death of his mother, fifteen years ago, he had spent his

life in the little kitchen of the cottage. Wright said that, in memory

of his mother, he had avoided disturbing the other part of the house,

not even a pin having been moved. Everything in the rooms had been

preserved just as she left it.

* * * * *

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* * * * *

SOME OF THE BACK NUMBERS OF =NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY= THAT CAN BE SUPPLIED

700--Frank Merriwell’s Lively Lads.

701--Frank Merriwell as Instructor.

702--Dick Merriwell’s Cayuse.

703--Dick Merriwell’s Quirt.

704--Dick Merriwell’s Freshman Friend.

705--Dick Merriwell’s Best Form.

706--Dick Merriwell’s Prank.

707--Dick Merriwell’s Gambol.

708--Dick Merriwell’s Gun.

709--Dick Merriwell at His Best.

710--Dick Merriwell’s Master Mind.

711--Dick Merriwell’s Dander.

712--Dick Merriwell’s Hope.

713--Dick Merriwell’s Standard.

714--Dick Merriwell’s Sympathy.

715--Dick Merriwell in Lumber Land.

716--Frank Merriwell’s Fairness.

717--Frank Merriwell’s Pledge.

718--Frank Merriwell, the Man of Grit.

719--Frank Merriwell’s Return Blow.

720--Frank Merriwell’s Quest.

721--Frank Merriwell’s Ingots.

722--Frank Merriwell’s Assistance.

723--Frank Merriwell at the Throttle.

724--Frank Merriwell, the Always Ready.

725--Frank Merriwell in Diamond Land.

726--Frank Merriwell’s Desperate Chance.

727--Frank Merriwell’s Black Terror.

728--Frank Merriwell Again on the Slab.

729--Frank Merriwell’s Hard Game.

730--Frank Merriwell’s Six-in-hand.

731--Frank Merriwell’s Duplicate.

732--Frank Merriwell on Rattlesnake Ranch.

733--Frank Merriwell’s Sure Hand.

734--Frank Merriwell’s Treasure Map.

735--Frank Merriwell, Prince of the Rope.

736--Dick Merriwell, Captain of the Varsity.

737--Dick Merriwell’s Control.

738--Dick Merriwell’s Back Stop.

739--Dick Merriwell’s Masked Enemy.

740--Dick Merriwell’s Motor Car.

741--Dick Merriwell’s Hot Pursuit.

742--Dick Merriwell at Forest Lake.

743--Dick Merriwell in Court.

744--Dick Merriwell’s Silence.

745--Dick Merriwell’s Dog.

746--Dick Merriwell’s Subterfuge.

747--Dick Merriwell’s Enigma.

748--Dick Merriwell Defeated.

749--Dick Merriwell’s “Wing.”

750--Dick Merriwell’s Sky Chase.

751--Dick Merriwell’s Pick-ups.

752--Dick Merriwell on the Rocking R.

753--Dick Merriwell’s Penetration.

754--Dick Merriwell’s Intuition.

755--Dick Merriwell’s Vantage.

756--Dick Merriwell’s Advice.

757--Dick Merriwell’s Rescue.

758--Dick Merriwell, American.

759--Dick Merriwell’s Understanding.

760--Dick Merriwell, Tutor.

761--Dick Merriwell’s Quandary.

762--Dick Merriwell on the Boards.

763--Dick Merriwell, Peacemaker.

764--Frank Merriwell’s Sway.

765--Frank Merriwell’s Comprehension.

766--Frank Merriwell’s Young Acrobat.

767--Frank Merriwell’s Tact.

768--Frank Merriwell’s Unknown.

769--Frank Merriwell’s Acuteness.

770--Frank Merriwell’s Young Canadian.

771--Frank Merriwell’s Coward.

772--Frank Merriwell’s Perplexity.

773--Frank Merriwell’s Intervention.

774--Frank Merriwell’s Daring Deed.

775--Frank Merriwell’s Succor.

776--Frank Merriwell’s Wit.

777--Frank Merriwell’s Loyalty.

778--Frank Merriwell’s Bold Play.

779--Frank Merriwell’s Insight.

780--Frank Merriwell’s Guile.

781--Frank Merriwell’s Campaign.

782--Frank Merriwell in the National Forest.

783--Frank Merriwell’s Tenacity.

784--Dick Merriwell’s Self-sacrifice.

785--Dick Merriwell’s Close Shave.

786--Dick Merriwell’s Perception.

787--Dick Merriwell’s Mysterious Disappearance.

788--Dick Merriwell’s Detective Work.

789--Dick Merriwell’s Proof.

790--Dick Merriwell’s Brain Work.

791--Dick Merriwell’s Queer Case.

792--Dick Merriwell, Navigator.

793--Dick Merriwell’s Good Fellowship.

794--Dick Merriwell’s Fun.

795--Dick Merriwell’s Commencement.

796--Dick Merriwell at Montauk Point.

797--Dick Merriwell, Mediator.

798--Dick Merriwell’s Decision.

799--Dick Merriwell on the Great Lakes.

800--Dick Merriwell Caught Napping.

801--Dick Merriwell in the Copper Country.

802--Dick Merriwell Strapped.

803--Dick Merriwell’s Coolness.

804--Dick Merriwell’s Reliance.

805--Dick Merriwell’s College Mate.

806--Dick Merriwell’s Young Pitcher.

807--Dick Merriwell’s Prodding.

808--Frank Merriwell’s Boy.

809--Frank Merriwell’s Interference.

810--Frank Merriwell’s Young Warriors.

811--Frank Merriwell’s Appraisal.

812--Frank Merriwell’s Forgiveness.

813--Frank Merriwell’s Lads.

814--Frank Merriwell’s Young Aviators.

815--Frank Merriwell’s Hot-head.

816--Dick Merriwell, Diplomat.

817--Dick Merriwell in Panama.

818--Dick Merriwell’s Perseverance.

819--Dick Merriwell Triumphant.

820--Dick Merriwell’s Betrayal.

821--Dick Merriwell, Revolutionist.

822--Dick Merriwell’s Fortitude.

823--Dick Merriwell’s Undoing.

824--Dick Merriwell, Universal Coach.

825--Dick Merriwell’s Snare.

826--Dick Merriwell’s Star Pupil.

827--Dick Merriwell’s Astuteness.

828--Dick Merriwell’s Responsibility.

829--Dick Merriwell’s Plan.

830--Dick Merriwell’s Warning.

831--Dick Merriwell’s Counsel.

832--Dick Merriwell’s Champions.

833--Dick Merriwell’s Marksmen.

834--Dick Merriwell’s Enthusiasm.

835--Dick Merriwell’s Solution.

836--Dick Merriwell’s Foreign Foe.

837--Dick Merriwell and the Carlisle Warriors.

838--Dick Merriwell’s Battle for the Blue.

839--Dick Merriwell’s Evidence.

840--Dick Merriwell’s Device.

841--Dick Merriwell’s Princeton Opponents.

842--Dick Merriwell’s Sixth Sense.

843--Dick Merriwell’s Strange Clew.

844--Dick Merriwell Comes Back.

845--Dick Merriwell’s Heroic Crew.

846--Dick Merriwell Looks Ahead.

847--Dick Merriwell at the Olympics.

848--Dick Merriwell in Stockholm.

849--Dick Merriwell in the Swedish Stadium.

850--Dick Merriwell’s Marathon.

NEW SERIES.

New Tip Top Weekly

1--Frank Merriwell, Jr.

2--Frank Merriwell, Jr., in the Box.

3--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Struggle.

4--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Skill.

5--Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Idaho.

6--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Close Shave.

7--Frank Merriwell, Jr., on Waiting Orders.

8--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Danger.

9--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Relay Marathon.

10--Frank Merriwell, Jr., at the Bar Z Ranch.

11--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Golden Trail.

12--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Competitor.

13--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Guidance.

14--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Scrimmage.

15--Frank Merriwell, Jr., Misjudged.

16--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Star Play.

17--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Blind Chase.

18--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Discretion.

19--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Substitute.

20--Frank Merriwell, Jr., Justified.

21--Frank Merriwell, Jr., Incog.

22--Frank Merriwell, Jr., Meets the Issue.

23--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Xmas Eve.

24--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Fearless Risk.

25--Frank Merriwell, Jr., on Skis.

26--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ice-boat Chase.

27--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ambushed Foes.

28--Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the Totem.

29--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Hockey Game.

30--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Clew.

31--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Adversary.

32--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Timely Aid.

33--Frank Merriwell, Jr., in the Desert.

34--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Grueling Test.

35--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Special Mission.

36--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Red Bowman.

37--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Task.

38--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Cross-Country Race.

39--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Four Miles.

40--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Umpire.

41--Frank Merriwell, Jr., Sidetracked.

42--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Teamwork.

43--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Step-Over.

44--Frank Merriwell, Jr., in Monterey.

45--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Athletes.

46--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Outfielder.

47--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, “Hundred.”

48--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Hobo Twirler.

49--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Canceled Game.

50--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Weird Adventure.

51--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Double Header.

52--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Peck of Trouble.

53--Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the Spook Doctor.

54--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Sportsmanship.

55--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ten-Innings.

56--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Ordeal.

57--Frank Merriwell, Jr., on the Wing.

58--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Cross-Fire.

59--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Lost Team-mate.

60--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Daring Flight.

61--Frank Merriwell, Jr., at Fardale.

62--Frank Merriwell, Jr., Plebe.

63--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Quarter-Back.

64--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Touchdown.

65--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Night Off.

66--Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the Little Black Box.

67--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Classmates.

68--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Repentant Enemy.

69--Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the “Spell.”

70--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Gridiron Honors.

71--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Winning Run.

72--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Jujutsu.

Dated December 20th.

73--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Christmas Vacation.

Dated December 27th.

74--Frank Merriwell, Jr., and the Nine Wolves.

Dated January 3d 1914.

75--Frank Merriwell, Jr., on the Border.

Dated January 10th, 1914.

76--Frank Merriwell, Jr.’s, Desert Race.

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Street & Smith, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., New York City

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are

mentioned.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in

the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have

been corrected.

The following changes were made:

p. 9: “My added (”My advice to)

p. 19: Hibbard changed to Pembroke (said Pembroke to)

End of Project Gutenberg's Owen Clancy's Run of Luck, by Burt L. Standish